My 1001 Albums Journey

Album	You	Global	Diff
Trout Mask Replica Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band	5	2.29	+2.71
Dub Housing Pere Ubu	5	2.35	+2.65
Metal Box Public Image Ltd.	5	2.41	+2.59
We're Only In It For The Money The Mothers Of Invention	5	2.47	+2.53
The Modern Dance Pere Ubu	5	2.48	+2.52
New Forms Roni Size	5	2.53	+2.47
Boy In Da Corner Dizzee Rascal	5	2.57	+2.43
Dr. Octagonecologyst Dr. Octagon	5	2.7	+2.3
The Infotainment Scan The Fall	5	2.72	+2.28
m b v My Bloody Valentine	5	2.72	+2.28

Album	You	Global	Diff
Boston Boston	1	3.71	-2.71
Bad Company Bad Company	1	3.26	-2.26
The Visitors ABBA	1	3.2	-2.2
Close To The Edge Yes	1	3.19	-2.19
Sunshine Superman Donovan	1	3.09	-2.09
Crazysexycool TLC	1	3.07	-2.07
Highly Evolved The Vines	1	3.03	-2.03
Rhythm Nation 1814 Janet Jackson	1	2.99	-1.99
Steve McQueen Prefab Sprout	1	2.98	-1.98
Pelican West Haircut 100	1	2.96	-1.96

Artist	Albums	Average
David Bowie	9	5
Radiohead	6	5
Beatles	7	4.71
Miles Davis	4	5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds	5	4.8
The Rolling Stones	6	4.67
Bob Dylan	7	4.43
Leonard Cohen	5	4.6
Brian Eno	5	4.6
Bruce Springsteen	5	4.6
Steely Dan	4	4.75
Neil Young	4	4.75
Talking Heads	4	4.75
Stevie Wonder	4	4.75
Michael Jackson	3	5
Nick Drake	3	5
Prince	3	5
Bob Marley & The Wailers	3	5
Pixies	3	5
The Velvet Underground	3	5
The Stooges	3	5
Tom Waits	5	4.4
Sonic Youth	5	4.4
Led Zeppelin	5	4.4
Pink Floyd	4	4.5
The Fall	3	4.67
Neil Young & Crazy Horse	3	4.67
Public Enemy	3	4.67
Johnny Cash	3	4.67
Kanye West	3	4.67
The White Stripes	3	4.67
My Bloody Valentine	3	4.67
The Clash	2	5
Ryan Adams	2	5
Joy Division	2	5
The Smashing Pumpkins	2	5
The Jam	2	5
Lou Reed	2	5
Kendrick Lamar	2	5
Iggy Pop	2	5
Aretha Franklin	2	5
Red Hot Chili Peppers	2	5
Can	2	5
Wilco	2	5
OutKast	2	5
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band	2	5
Pere Ubu	2	5
The Mothers Of Invention	2	5
The Kinks	4	4.25
R.E.M.	4	4.25
Elvis Costello & The Attractions	4	4.25
Marvin Gaye	3	4.33
Black Sabbath	3	4.33
Jimi Hendrix	3	4.33
Beastie Boys	3	4.33
Creedence Clearwater Revival	3	4.33
The Cure	3	4.33
The Beach Boys	3	4.33
Nirvana	3	4.33
The Doors	3	4.33
Arcade Fire	3	4.33
Peter Gabriel	3	4.33
The Who	5	4

Artist	Albums	Average
Bee Gees	2	1.5
Yes	3	2

Artist	Ratings
ABBA	1, 4
Metallica	2, 4, 5, 5

Yes

2/5

I like prog rock like King Crimson, Genesis and Pink Floyd, but Yes is much too pretentious and boring. It’s all thought out and missing any form of spontaneity or emotion.

Mama Said Knock You Out

LL Cool J

4/5

Great old school hiphop

Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite

Maxwell

5/5

A masterpiece by Maxwell and yes, the boy can sing.

Music For The Jilted Generation

The Prodigy

5/5

A fantastic dance album with a lot of distorted sounds that make it also appealing to a rock orientated audience.

Iron Maiden

4/5

I always thought I didn’t like Iron Maiden apart from some songs. This album with Paul Di'Anno on vocals took me by surprise. Later on I realised Bruce Dickinson needed some getting used to, but he’s also great.

A Walk Across The Rooftops

The Blue Nile

2/5

Song number 1and 4 are ok, the rest is mediocre, boring, slick and emotionless.

Here Are the Sonics

The Sonics

3/5

Nice old school garagerock, but a lack of original material.

Vulgar Display Of Power

Pantera

5/5

One of the best metal albums. Certainly Fucking Hostile and Walk are incredible.

Live Through This

Hole

3/5

At the time I was really impressed, but nowadays the weak vocals tend to annoy me a bit.

London Calling

The Clash

5/5

One of the best albums ever made. Covers nearly every style and genre and excels in it. Also one of the few double albums that would not improve by turning it into a single one.

Can't Buy A Thrill

Steely Dan

5/5

Fagen and Becker named the band after a "revolutionary" steam-powered dildo mentioned in the William S. Burroughs novel Naked Lunch. ROFL. One of the bands i never listened to before this challenge, what a mistake…

Dance Mania

Tito Puente

3/5

The only mambo album on the list is a quite mediocre one.

Tuesday Night Music Club

Sheryl Crow

4/5

Good album, but hardly a real classic. Still 4 stars for being comfort food for my ears.

A Love Supreme

John Coltrane

5/5

An all-time jazz classic by saxophonist John Coltrane.

1977

Ash

4/5

This album consists of great songs (Goldfinger, Girl From Mars, Kung Fu) played with lots of energy and joy.

Close To The Edge

Yes

1/5

A big fat No to Yes certainly to this boring example.

Timeless

Goldie

4/5

Important album for drum and bass music. Timeless: Inner City Life/Pressure/Jah and Angel are great songs. I attend a concert of his at the time as support act for Björk.

Second Toughest In The Infants

Underworld

5/5

One of my favorite electronic music albums, reissuid with Born Slippy on it. Taking concepts of Techno and Jungle and slowing it down to an intelligent, but not soulless sound.

Franz Ferdinand

4/5

Outstanding debut album with the outstanding Take Me Out song (I like the Scissor Sisters cover version even more). Matinée and Michael are also splendid.

Gold

Ryan Adams

5/5

Ryan Adams is not a pleasant guy. I saw him live this year and it was a bummer to see a guy on stage that was mainly complaining about the audience and making very depressing cynical jokes. Still Heartbreaker and Gold are terrific albums with great songs.

Elephant Mountain

The Youngbloods

3/5

One of the many 1960s albums on the list that does not leave a strong impression on me. It's fine, not good or great.

You Want It Darker

Leonard Cohen

5/5

The last album of Leonard Cohen is about saying goodbye and leaving it all behind. Very impressive with moving lyrics and a voice so low and broken it is almost not human anymore.

Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1

George Michael

2/5

I tried Listen Without Prejudice and it was quite boring with mediocre songs (unlike the Faith album)

Triangle

The Beau Brummels

1/5

An unpleasant and boring 1960s pop album.

En-Tact

The Shamen

2/5

The album starts and ends and in between there is some electronic music that sounds indistinctive and generic.

Appetite For Destruction

Guns N' Roses

4/5

Great debut album with the hits "Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City", and "Sweet Child o' Mine". Fantastic guitar work by Slash.

Live At The Regal

B.B. King

3/5

Live albums should not be on this list, but this is a nice one.

Rhythm Nation 1814

Janet Jackson

1/5

I don't like this kind of bland and MOR pop. Also it sounds really outdated and the songs are of poor quality.

Central Reservation

Beth Orton

3/5

An ok album of singer-songwriter Beth Orton. A bit bland and nothing sticks.

Fire Of Love

The Gun Club

3/5

Fire Of Love is a fine rock album of The Gun Club. I prefer The Las Vegas Story album which has a wider range of styles and better songs.

Slippery When Wet

Bon Jovi

2/5

Before listening to it again after a long time I thought Slippery When Wet would be more fun and enjoyable. I guess it did not age well.

More Specials

The Specials

3/5

This is another ska album of The Specials with fine songs, but the quality and energy compared to their debut album makes it a bit disappointing.

Rapture

Anita Baker

1/5

Awful smooth and overproduced 1980s soul that aged terribly.

On The Beach

Neil Young

4/5

Good classic Neil Young rock album. Not the one I most prefer compared to the other albums he produced in the 1970s.

Picture Book

Simply Red

2/5

Apart from the hit singles "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" and "Holding Back the Years" the album lacks good songs. The production and overall sound has aged better than expected and the vocals are still fantastic.

In A Silent Way

Miles Davis

5/5

One of the best albums in this list. Great performance, fantastic songs and an important shift in music for Miles Davis and Jazz Music as a whole.

Solid Air

John Martyn

5/5

Avantgarde folky pop album by weirdo John Martyn. It takes some getting used to, but rewards you in a great way for your efforts. I like the album cover too.

Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde

The Pharcyde

4/5

Classic West Coast hip hop album by The Pharcyde. Playful and comical eccentric lyrics and incredible rapping skills.

Two Dancers

Wild Beasts

4/5

Good indie rock album. They have a distinctive own style of music and fine songs.

Dry

PJ Harvey

4/5

Debut studio album by PJ Harvey with great personal songs. I back this quote of a critic: "a volcano and the scorched earth surrounding it, ripped with landsliding guitars, cowpunk mania, twisted blues, profound extremes, and power chords that hit like boulders dropped from on high."

Happy Sad

Tim Buckley

2/5

While I like Jeff Buckley a lot, the music of his father does not strike me as interesting. I find his mediocre folk/pop songwriting and performance rather boring.

Truth And Soul

Fishbone

3/5

Of course "Freddie's Dead" is a great cover. This rest over this album is fine, but I like The Reality of My Surroundings a whole lot better. Wrong album pick.

Third/Sister Lovers

Big Star

4/5

Great third album with power pop songs by Big Star. Their previous two albums have more highlights, but this one has a more constant quality.

This Nation’s Saving Grace

The Fall

5/5

My favorite The Fall album with several post-punk classics on it. Mark E. Smith is screaming and talking about all of his frustrations as usually. And frustrated he is...

Ágætis Byrjun

Sigur Rós

4/5

Great slow mystical debut album post-rock album by Sigur Rós. The lyrics are in Icelandic, but also in their own gibberish language. Not that a would notice which is in which language. The cello-bowed guitar work gives the album a very specific sound.

Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

Spiritualized

4/5

The album title describes the state the album exists in with a mix of space rock and brit pop/rock. It's a lot of fun, but maybe a bit long.

Moondance

Van Morrison

5/5

I enjoyed this album by Van Morrison. The songs are great and of consistent quality. His vocal performance is amazing.

Van Halen

3/5

Some good songs, al lot of mediocre ones, 3 stars for the fabulous guitarplay

The Pleasure Principle

Gary Numan

2/5

Very important album for electronic music, but also very outdated and a drag to listen to

At Mister Kelly's

Sarah Vaughan

3/5

Live albums should not be on this list. It's an rather generic jazz album by singer Sarah Vaughan. Nothing wrong, nothing remarkable about it (Why is it on this list).

Let's Get It On

Marvin Gaye

4/5

It's a good soul album by Marvin Gaye, but it lacks the real blockbuster songs that are on What's Going On.

The Real Thing

Faith No More

4/5

Great metal album by Faith No More with classics like "From Out of Nowhere", "Epic" and "Falling to Pieces". As always great guitar riffs and the vocals are excellent.

Emperor Tomato Ketchup

Stereolab

3/5

"Cybele's Reverie is an excellent song with French lyrics. The other experimental pop is not that bad either.

Ready To Die

The Notorious B.I.G.

4/5

This East Coast hip hop album consists of legendary classics. Sadly the only real album by The Notorious B.I.G.

Sweet Baby James

James Taylor

3/5

The "Sweet Baby James" song is a classic. The other songs are so so on this folk rock album by James Taylor.

Like A Prayer

Madonna

2/5

I have no idea why this album is on the list and the earlier Madonna albums, f.e. Like a Virgin, are not. I also do not like the song Like a Prayer that much. Cherish and Express Yourself are catchy tunes though.

Crazysexycool

TLC

1/5

Waterfalls is a catchy tune, but not a good one. The other songs on this TLC album are forgettable.

Queen II

Queen

2/5

On their second album you can already get an impression of the things that will make Queen of of the greatest rock bands later on. This album is not nearly on the level they will achieve years later.

Tical

Method Man

4/5

This debut solo album of Method Man is a good album. Not as great as Wu-Tang Clan, but great anyway. Nice east coast hip hop of a rap arist with a perfect rhythm and flow. Dark music support the distorted lyrics.

Live And Dangerous

Thin Lizzy

4/5

Live albums should not be on the list as these are more or less greatest hits. But if you put one on it, this is a good candidate. Good banging hard rock by a band with a lot of drive in their performance.

Smash

The Offspring

3/5

I remember this as a better album than it is nowadays. It's a nice collection of proper punk rock songs. The problem is that there are so many such albums. It does not really stand out.

The Number Of The Beast

Iron Maiden

4/5

This is probably the best Iron Maiden album. Great Heavy Metal songs with a band in peak form. Run to the Hills and The Number of the Beast are all-time metal classics.

Swordfishtrombones

Tom Waits

5/5

A true classic album with amazing songs. The performance of the band is excellent. It sounds like everyone has had a long night and lots of booze while every note is played spot on.

Heartattack And Vine

Tom Waits

3/5

Ballads and blues from the gutter. Nobody can visualize the moment that you are in a pub at closing time drunk enough to kiss someone you would try to avoid at daytime like Tom Waits can.

A Girl Called Dusty

Dusty Springfield

2/5

An album with covers of songs that were for the most part performed by black artists earlier. That is not a problem or a crime, but the versions on album do not add anything.

E.V.O.L.

Sonic Youth

4/5

EVOL is the start of the top years of Sonic Youth. Great post-punk and noise, soundscapes with distorted and detuned, screeching guitar noises. A bit darker atmosphere than on their later albums.

A Northern Soul

The Verve

3/5

Nice album by The Verve. I only knew Urban Hymns. Good brit pop songs, nothing really stands out though.

Rocks

Aerosmith

2/5

Uninteresting generic 1970s guitar rock. I like their later work much better, this is a bad Rolling Stones rip-off.

Debut

Björk

4/5

The debut album of Björk with eclectic pop songs like she already made with the Sugar Cubes. The material and performance matured and Nellee Hooper also added some dance elements. Very impressive record!

Wild Gift

X

3/5

Nice garage rock album. I like the raw production and the combined vocals of the female and male singer.

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

Brian Eno

5/5

Eclectic sample album of David Byrne and Brian Eno. All kinds of musical styles from all over the world combined to danceable songs with spoken word vocals samples from all kinds of sources. Intelligent, but also very funny.

Kenza

Khaled

3/5

Though I like rai, I never really got Khaleb. His music is too generic and slick compared to other musicians in this genre (like Cheb Mami). This album is not bad.

Everything Must Go

Manic Street Preachers

4/5

Great rock album by Manic Street Preachers with the sublime songs A Design for Life and Everything Must Go.

Third

Portishead

4/5

The third album by Portishead was release 13 years after their debut album Dummy. The albums shows various musical genres (not only trip hop anymore). The music is laid back, slowly progressing and full of grandeur.

Strange Cargo III

William Orbit

3/5

I never heard of William Orbit of this Strange Cargo III album. I don't think it's something you must listen to before you die, but it was a nice break between all the pop and rock albums filling up this list.

Chicago Transit Authority

Chicago

2/5

The debut album of Chicago was a disappointment to me. Most of the songs are dragging on in an uninspired jazz rock format.

Shadowland

k.d. lang

2/5

I expected to like this album more than I did in the end. The vocals are great, but the songs are all covers and the k.d. lang versions don't really stand out. The instrumentation and production are somewhere between bland and boring.

Odelay

Beck

4/5

This fith album of Beck is a blast. Great alternative rock songs (Devils Haircut, Where It's At) on an album that's catchy as hell.

Chirping Crickets

Buddy Holly & The Crickets

4/5

Very impressive rock 'n roll album by Buddy Holly considering he was only 20 years old at the time. Several songs are rock standards now (That'll Be the Day, Not Fade Away). What would have become of him if...

Car Wheels On A Gravel Road

Lucinda Williams

4/5

Lucinda Williams has made a great country album from a singer songwriter point. The songs are solid and the production is spot on.

Don't Come Home A Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)

Loretta Lynn

2/5

This country album aged very poorly. Maybe in 1967 these lyrics were interesting, but in 2024 they are boring as hell.

The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

Pink Floyd

4/5

This debut album of Pink Floyd contains psychedelic mostly written by Syd Barrett. It is a good album, but sounds a bit dated now. Also the legend of Syd Barrett (due to the very sad life story) has grown bigger than his contribution to music history.

Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo

MC Solaar

4/5

Gooddebut album by French rapper MC Solaar. Also great lyrics (which most of you will miss out on, please use google translate).

Ritual De Lo Habitual

Jane's Addiction

3/5

I like Jane's Addiction as a band and Nothing's Shocking and various individual songs, but this album is merely ok to me. The songs are not that outstanding and the production is a bit messy.

Let England Shake

PJ Harvey

4/5

This is an album about war by by PJ Harvey and it is great with dark and very England themed lyrics about The Great War and other horror.

Bat Out Of Hell

Meat Loaf

2/5

One Meatloaf song at the time like Paradise by the Dashboard Light is ok, an album full of wagnerian rock is a crime. Over the top is an understatement. If Phil Spector makes Wall of Sound productions, what should we call what Steinman does?

Broken English

Marianne Faithfull

3/5

Broken English is considered the best album of Marianne Faithfull. If the songs are not written by the artist itself most of the time the artist has great qualities in performance (vocals, instrumentation, deliverance). I cannot find these on this record. It's ok and the songs don't stand out either.

Private Dancer

Tina Turner

2/5

Tina Turner is a fantastic singer and performer, but she depends on songs of others. Private Dancer and What's Love Got to Do with It are good songs written for this album. The cover of I Can't Stand the Rain (Ann Peebles) is ok. The covers of 1984 (David Bowie) and Let's Stay Together (Al Green) are poor. Other songs are filler.

Bad

Michael Jackson

5/5

Fantastic album by the king of pop. Almost every song was a hit single as they all are great catchy tunes. Top production by Quincy Jones.

Imagine

John Lennon

4/5

The best solo album of an ex-Beatle. Several great rock and pop songs (Jealous Guy, Imagine, I Don't Want to be Aa Soldier, Gimme Some Truth) and a consistent production.

Abbey Road

Beatles

5/5

The last classic album by the Beatles. On this one the contribution of George Harrison is larger (Because, Here Comes The Sun, Something). Every song is sublime.

xx

The xx

4/5

The debut album of The XX combines indie pop, dream pop and electronica. The whole package sounds great. Islands is a highlight.

Technique

New Order

4/5

As bassist Peter Hook said: "Technique [is] not an Ibizan dance record". It perfectly shows how to incorporate rock in synthpop and visa versa. A true classic.

Time Out

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

4/5

It's the classic cool jazz album that actually sounds cool and not over complex. And it contains the famous Take Five song. What's not to like?

New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)

Simple Minds

4/5

A lot of people get confused by the name of this album and assume it's a compilation. This is understandable as it has so many great classic pop songs.

Real Life

Magazine

4/5

This debut album of Magazine is full of post punk songs that capture the energy of the David Bowie and Iggy Pop rock it's inspired by. It sounds as offbeat as it's album cover, but in the end it works.

Junkyard

The Birthday Party

4/5

A lot of people hate this album. I agree that it sounds as a dirty mess. Why do you expect something else with this album name? It's a perfect album to listen to after an awful day at work or a fight with a friend or your partner. It's raw, foul and is always on your side. Even if you are unreasonable.

Station To Station

David Bowie

5/5

Station to Station is a funky David Bowie rock album containing various classics like the title song, Golden Years, TVC 15 and Stay. The sound of the album is certainly not warm and appealing, but that fits the lyrics and the alien impression of The Man who fell to Earth very well. Wild is the Wind is a beautiful cover and Word on a Wing is a good ballad too.

Run-D.M.C.

4/5

The debut album of Run DMC is a hip hop classic. The music is basic and direct and the raps are to the point. This album has not aged a bit.

Lazer Guided Melodies

Spiritualized

4/5

I did not know that the debut album of Spiritualized was this good. I only focused on Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, while Lazer Guided Melodies is also a blast. The space rock and shoe gaze songs are a bit more structured and compact than on the later album.

If I Should Fall From Grace With God

The Pogues

5/5

If I Should Fall From Grace With God is the magnus opum of Shane MacGowan. It a collection of classic songs touching all styles within the Celtic folk rock punk genre. Fairytale of New York and Fiesta sound exactly as the titles predict and show the diversity of this album full of high quality material.

Vol. 4

Black Sabbath

4/5

Black Sabbath had already made 3 classic albums, but still had one left in them. This album contains two of their best songs with Supernaut and the ballad Changes.

Darkness on the Edge of Town

Bruce Springsteen

4/5

Darkness on the Edge of Town never has been of of my favorite Springsteen albums. I don't know why. If I look at the track listing and I see Badlands, Adam Raised a Cain, Racing in the Street, The Promised Land and Darkness on the Edge of Town, I must admit it's my mistake.

Tonight's The Night

Neil Young

5/5

Tonight's The Night is a classic Neil Young rock album. It was created while grieving over the loss of Danny Whitten (guitarist) Bruce Berry (friend & roadie) who both died of drug overdoses. "The whole thing is about life, dope and death" and you will notice it. That is one of the reasons I don't listen to it that often. The sheer quality of this album cannot be denied though.

A Hard Day's Night

Beatles

4/5

Third Beatles album and the one that changed music history by using complex compositions and complicated chords in pop/rock songs (like the famous opening chord of A Hard Day's Night). Also the first Beatles album with only original material and no covers.

The Joshua Tree

U2

4/5

The Joshua Tree is the fifth album of U2. It contains the classics : "Where the Streets Have No Name", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "With or Without You". The sound of the band evolved in a sort of alternative stadium rock. Something that is not necessary bad and too great commercial success, but I lost my interest.

Pink Moon

Nick Drake

5/5

Pink Moon is the third and final studio album by Nick Drake before he took his own life. The folky songs are performed without backing band (only vocals, guitar and piano by Drake). This makes it a very personal and a bit sad with all the unfilled space and silence in production. It results in fabulous songs.

461 Ocean Boulevard

Eric Clapton

4/5

My father had two Eric Clapton albums when I was a kid: 461 Ocean Boulevard and Behind the Sun. At the time I liked the latter one. Nowadays I appreciate the laid back vibe of this one more. Songs like "Let It Grow" and "I Shot the Sheriff" are like a big tank of oxygen in a busy life. Of course the Bob Marley original is better, but this one is magnificent too.

Rage Against The Machine

5/5

Some bands have a debut album that can't be topped. Rage Against The Machine is one of them. It's full of passion, aggression, relevance and activism. Everything screams of urgence from the album cover to the music, vocal and lyrics.

Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman

John Zorn

4/5

One of the most despised albums on this list. I understand the fact that it's strange that an interpretation of an artist (Ornette Coleman) is on it, but the original is missing. Maybe we could swap out an Costello album for him. And personally I would have entered an original album of John Zorn or one of his projects like Naked City (with songs like "Igneous Ejaculation" 0:20). Apart from these considerations this is still a great avantgarde jazz album. Not for the faint of hearted, I guess.

You're Living All Over Me

Dinosaur Jr.

4/5

You're Living All Over Me is a good indie rock album of Dinosaur Jr. I especially like Sludgefeast and Little Fury Things (with Lee Ranaldo).

Steve McQueen

Prefab Sprout

1/5

I have no idea why this album of Prefab Sprout is on the list. Uninteresting jazz pop from the 1980s and very very boring.

Rum Sodomy & The Lash

The Pogues

4/5

Rum Sodomy & the Lash is the best album of The Pogues containing a great selection of their folk punk songs. "Dirty Old Town" and "A Pair of Brown Eyes" are absolute classics in music history.

Are You Experienced

Jimi Hendrix

5/5

This debut album of the guitar god is an unbelievable treasure. It is full of classic rock songs ("Foxy Lady", "Manic Depression", "Red House", "I Don't Live Today", "May This Be Love", "Fire", "3rd Stone from the Sun", "Are You Experienced") and CD / USA reissues also contain the hit singles "Hey Joe" and "Purple Haze".

Sea Change

Beck

3/5

Sea Change is not of of my preferred Beck albums. After listening to it once again for this list, I must admit it is still a solid piece of music. It's sort of a back to the basics idea with simpler lyrics and real instruments and less electronics/sampling. It is lacking a real classic song though.

Country Life

Roxy Music

4/5

Another Roxy Music album is another great cover. A cover is great way to get some free publicity and the guys knew that. "The Thrill of It All" and "All I Want Is You" are the best songs on a solid rock album.

Odessa

Bee Gees

1/5

The disco Bee Gees are a guilty pleasure of mine. The pre-disco band is not. All songs are mediocre, down tempo ballads and it goes on and on and on… 😱

Revolver

Beatles

5/5

Another album by the Liverpool band The Beatles. Maybe you heard of them before. Many great songs. Some consider this their best (not me). "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "Eleanor Rigby" are two of their classics. "Yellow Submarine" is not one of my favorites, but reminds me of the version of the german artist Klaus Beyer ("Gelben Unterwasserboot") and makes me very happy anyway.

Fleet Foxes

5/5

This folk rock album is not something that stands out in any way as being original or groundbreaking. This reason it is on the list is the unbelievable quality of the songs, great instrumentation and fantastic vocals. "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" is one of my all-time favorite songs. The album cover by Pieter Bruegel is so fitting and the story about getting permission to use it by the museum is heartwarming. It's filling a hole that I was not aware it did exist.

S&M

Metallica

2/5

Metallica has made great music, but this combination with an orchestra transforms their trash metal music into MOR daddy rock.

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

A Tribe Called Quest

4/5

this is the debut album of A Tribe Called Quest and it made great impact. This record is full of jazzy and laidback hip hop. "I Left My Wallet in El Segundo" and "Can I Kick It?" are classics.

Closer

Joy Division

5/5

One of the two albums of post-punk band Joy Division on this list. You can feel the tragedy and desolation of Ian Curtis and it hits so hard.

Tea for the Tillerman

Cat Stevens

3/5

This is the best album of Cat Stevens. Despite the very ugly album cover it contains some pretty songs like the classics "Father and Son" and "Wild World". Also nice is "Where Do the Children Play?". The rest of the tracks are rather unremarkable.

The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

Charles Mingus

5/5

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is a fantastic avantgarde jazz album. I understand that it is not for everybody, certainly not listening to it for the first time. So just give it a try and after a few spins you will understand that it has a lot of quality.

Psychocandy

The Jesus And Mary Chain

4/5

On Psychocandy beautiful songs and great lyrics are hidden in a structure of noise and distortion. You could even say that a lot of the songs are rather tender and emotional.

Rid Of Me

PJ Harvey

4/5

Rid of Me is a back to the basics album of PJ Harvey. Unlike her later music it contains raw rock tracks that are based on simple bluesy structures. Her later records also have beautiful ballads and great vocals. The ballads are not on this one and the singing is angry and to the point screaming about personal experiences often resulting in anger and disappointment.

White Ladder

David Gray

3/5

White Ladder is a fine electronic music album. Too bad it did not age that well and sounds a bit dated. Combined with several songs of mediocre quality and no classics, I cannot consider this a must listen album for anyone.

Jagged Little Pill

Alanis Morissette

4/5

Jagged Little Pill is a great indie rock album. At the time I was really impressed by its quality. Listening to it now the songs remain great only the lose vocals of Alanis annoy me from time to time. Some of the slower songs have vocals that are too often off-key in a not a nice way. That's too bad as she is a great singer.

The Fat Of The Land

The Prodigy

4/5

The Fat of the Land is a good album, but the start of the demise of The Prodigy. The singles ("Firestarter", "Breathe" and "Smack My Bitch Up") are great songs, but the record also contains a lot of filler material.

Daydream Nation

Sonic Youth

5/5

Daydream Nation is the best album of noise rock legends Sonic Youth, though it's not my favorite (Sister). "Schizophrenia" and "(I Got A) Catholic Block" are classic rock songs and the other tracks are great too.

Calenture

The Triffids

1/5

"The title refers to a fever suffered by sailors during long hot voyages". Seems to me the album has the same effect on me. Is an album of the 1001 you SHOULD NOT hear added to the MUST hear list? We will never know, but this is a 1980s rock album and production you can certainly live and die without.

New Forms

Roni Size

5/5

For me New Forms by Roni Size is one of the best dance albums ever. I personally am a great fan of Drum and Bass and if you want to listen to one album of that genre, this is it.

Who's Next

The Who

5/5

Who's Next is the best album of (hard) rock legends The Who. They have never really been my cup of tea, but an album containing "Baba O'Riley", "Behind Blue Eyes", "Won't Get Fooled Again" and several other good songs is a must listen indeed.

Nebraska

Bruce Springsteen

5/5

Beautiful small rock and folk album by Bruce Springsteen following the big stadium rock of Born in the USA. None of the songs really stands out, but the consistency of the quality makes it great nonetheless.

A Night At The Opera

Queen

4/5

I have never been the biggest fan of the song "Bohemian Rhapsody". To me it's just a messy mix of styles are are glued together poorly, though I won't deny it's quality. The rest of the album is overshadowed by this song and that is too bad as other songs ("Love of My Life") are also great. It's a nice mixture of ballads and power rock songs and a unicorn.

Hearts And Bones

Paul Simon

3/5

An ok Paul Simon album, but no idea why it is on this list. Mostly harmless and not bad.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

The Smashing Pumpkins

5/5

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is probably the best album of The Smashing Pumpkins, I just like Siamese Dream better. But my opinion is rather irrelevant as both albums are a fantastic and five star choice. This very lengthy albums is one of the exceptions that confirm the rule that albums should not be too long. This one is long, but not too long. The large number of songs make it possible to explore various styles and genres (while still maintaining a high quality). Highlights are of course "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", "Tonight, Tonight" and "1979", though the greatness of this album is the fact that all of the songs are interesting at least and good most of the time. I know the voice of Billy Corgan is an acquired taste, but just learn to love it. It is worth the effort.

Countdown To Ecstasy

Steely Dan

4/5

Yet another timeless classic of Steely Dan. Great Jazz rock with intriguing lyrics. Highlights are "Bodhisattva", "The Boston Rag" and "My Old School".

Bad Company

1/5

An album full of uninspired daddy rock. Boring and commercial. I despise everything it stands for.

Treasure

Cocteau Twins

4/5

Treasure is a great dream pop album by the people that personally invented the genre. To be honest often too sweet and slow for me (I prefer shoegaze), but you must give credits to the legends. Compositions and arrangements are impressive.

Goodbye And Hello

Tim Buckley

3/5

Goodbye and Hello is a decent album by Tim Buckley, but I don't know what the fuzz is about. I find the music of his son Jeff Buckley far more impressive. This is just average singer songwriter stuff and I can't find anything that really stands out in music, lyrics or performance.

Machine Gun Etiquette

The Damned

5/5

Despite the album title, Machine Gun Etiquette is the first album of The Damned that is not just straight early punk rock, but also provides variation and depth. The lyrics are also interesting and witty. It's for me one of the top 10 punk rock albums.

The Atomic Mr Basie

Count Basie & His Orchestra

4/5

The Atomic Mr. Basie is a jazz album in a style I normally do not like: big band. The fact that it's still a four star experience to me, says it all. The songs are great and the production is flawless. The album cover misleads you in to thinking that it's something avantgarde or aggressive. That is not the case, still it is a wonderful classic.

1984

Van Halen

3/5

The problem with 1984 is that it sounds like 1984: stupid masculine hard rock from the 1980s. It aged like milk. "Jump" and "Hot for Teacher" are great songs, the guitar playing of Eddie is fabulous and David sounds like an on stage must see. Too bad the rest of the songs are subpar and uninteresting.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

5/5

Maybe Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, but if this is nowhere, that is where I want to be. It is the best album of Neil Young. As Neil has made so many classic albums, this one is really special. Of the seven songs of this album only "Round & Round (It Won't Be Long)" is a good song. The other six songs are even far better and all classics. Also the performance of Neil and his band is of the highest level. His vocals on "The Losing End (When You're On)" are his most fragile ever and the guitar work on "Cinnamon Girl", "Down by the River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand" is legendary.

Purple Rain

Prince

5/5

Purple Rain is one of the best Prince albums and the soundtrack of the film with the same name. The film is forgettable, the album is not. It contains of course the magnificent ballad "Purple Rain", but also classics like "Let's Go Crazy", "Darling Nikki", "I Would Die 4 U" and "Computer Blue". A perfect example of all the things that make Prince a legendary artist.

Paul's Boutique

Beastie Boys

5/5

Paul's Boutique is the second (and best) album of Beastie Boys. It is impressive what a step the guys made from Licensed to Ill to this album. The songwriting is still catchy, but the songs are so much more refined. No one dimensional hip hop rock tracks inspired by hip hop legends, but mature songwriters becoming legends themselves.

KIWANUKA

Michael Kiwanuka

5/5

Kiwanuka is a modern classic with a modern version of soul that is a natural successor of the music created by sous legends like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. The arrangements are fabulous and the production is great.

Cosmo's Factory

Creedence Clearwater Revival

5/5

Cosmo's Factory is the fifth album of Creedence Clearwater Revival. The only bad part of the album is the album cover photo. I've read the background story and still not get the joke. The music itself is fantastic with great soulful rock. Classics like "Who'll Stop the Rain", "Up Around the Bend", "Long as I Can See the Light" and of course a sublime cover of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine".

The Köln Concert

Keith Jarrett

5/5

The Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett is THE ultimate jazz piano album. To quote Wikipedia: "It is the best-selling solo album in jazz history and the best-selling piano album". So yes, it is a five star classic and you should enjoy it. If not, please reconsider your openness to something that is apparently a bit out of your normal music scope and give it a second, third, fourth, fifth... listen. You will thank me later.

Something Else By The Kinks

The Kinks

5/5

Something Else by the Kinks does not fit the music on the album. And I'm glad it doesn't. It's just another album full of classic British pop/rock songs by Ray Davies. On this album highlights are "Death of a Clown" and "Waterloo Sunset" (probably his best composition). Pure gold!

Exit Planet Dust

The Chemical Brothers

4/5

1999

Prince

5/5

Hunky Dory

David Bowie

5/5

One of my favorite albums ever. The songwriting is so impressive and also the vocal delivery is fantastic. Rick Wakeman also provides impressive piano play making the songs (Changes, Oh You Pretty Things and Live On Mars) some of the best Bowie has created.

Melodrama

Lorde

4/5

The Sensual World

Kate Bush

3/5

I never got the buzz about this album. I adore The Kick Inside (1978), The Dreaming (1982) and Hounds of Love (1985), but this is just a bit mediocre to me. Kate Bush standards of course. The songs are ok to good, but the performance and production is uninteresting. "This Woman's Work" is nothing on this album while the Maxwell cover of this song is one of the best song covers ever.

Remain In Light

Talking Heads

5/5

Highway to Hell

AC/DC

2/5

Back in black is a great album. This one only has "Highway to Hell" and the rest of the songs are mediocre.

The Visitors

ABBA

1/5

ABBA are a miss and hit band to me. This is a miss. No outstanding songs or hits and the production is much to smooth.

Faith

George Michael

3/5

We Are Family

Sister Sledge

2/5

Graceland

Paul Simon

5/5

James Brown Live At The Apollo

James Brown

5/5

Sunday At The Village Vanguard

Bill Evans Trio

3/5

Beautiful Freak

Eels

4/5

Deloused in the Comatorium

The Mars Volta

5/5

Document

R.E.M.

4/5

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Various Artists

5/5

Phil Spector was not a nice guy. If we can't separate the music I allowed to create from his person we are denying a lot of the involved artists from their credits. This is just a smasher of an album and one everybody should listen to during the holidays instead of Wham and Mariah Carey.

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

4/5

If You're Feeling Sinister

Belle & Sebastian

3/5

A Grand Don't Come For Free

The Streets

4/5

Virgin Suicides

Air

3/5

Nice electronic album supporting the film like a soundtrack should do. It does not contain any remarkable songs apart from Playground Love.

Music From Big Pink

The Band

4/5

Disintegration

The Cure

4/5

Fever To Tell

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

3/5

Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys

5/5

If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears

The Mamas & The Papas

2/5

I like the album cover and I thought this would have some "classic" value. In the end I was disappointed that only "California Dreamin'" is a great song on this album and the other songs are mediocre at most.

Actually

Pet Shop Boys

3/5

"What Have I Done to Deserve This?" is the question that i asked myself when i started listening. In the end it's not that bad. Three good songs ("What Have I Done to Deserve This?", "Rent" and "It's a Sin") and some filler.

Brilliant Corners

Thelonious Monk

4/5

Crocodiles

Echo And The Bunnymen

4/5

The Colour Of Spring

Talk Talk

3/5

Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

Ray Charles

4/5

It's disappointing that this list contains two albums of the genius that Ray Charles is. The Genius Of Ray Charles: an album with big band and singing pop arrangements and the other: Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music with country and folk songs. That is not who Ray Charles is. He is the man that almost singlehandedly invented soul as a music genre combining gospel and blues in songs like "I Got a Woman". Why is a fantastic album like Ray Charles - Ray Charles (1957) not on this list containing the genre he defined. It is a Shame, Shame, Shame (I know that is not a Ray Charles song, but it is more Ray Charles than the two albums on this list). Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music is still a good album, but it's not one of his best.

The Stranger

Billy Joel

4/5

Modern Life Is Rubbish

Blur

3/5

Surf's Up

The Beach Boys

4/5

Whatever

Aimee Mann

4/5

Heavy Weather

Weather Report

4/5

Frank

Amy Winehouse

4/5

The Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks

4/5

evermore

Taylor Swift

4/5

All Directions

The Temptations

4/5

Superfly

Curtis Mayfield

5/5

Home Is Where The Music Is

Hugh Masekela

4/5

Live At The Star Club, Hamburg

Jerry Lee Lewis

4/5

Leftism

Leftfield

5/5

Time Out Of Mind

Bob Dylan

5/5

Moby Grape

3/5

The Seldom Seen Kid

Elbow

4/5

Fear Of A Black Planet

Public Enemy

5/5

São Paulo Confessions

Suba

4/5

School's Out

Alice Cooper

4/5

Bubble And Scrape

Sebadoh

4/5

Tommy

The Who

4/5

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

4/5

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

Soft Cell

3/5

Sound Affects

The Jam

5/5

The Infotainment Scan

The Fall

5/5

Aftermath

The Rolling Stones

5/5

Step In The Arena

Gang Starr

4/5

Water From An Ancient Well

Abdullah Ibrahim

3/5

Olympia 64

Jacques Brel

4/5

It's a strange decision to include a live album of Jacques Brel on this list. I would rather put "Jacques Brel 5" on it as his best studio album. That one does not contain that many famous songs, but this live album also has only two ("Amsterdam" and "Mathilde").

Catch A Fire

Bob Marley & The Wailers

5/5

Under Construction

Missy Elliott

3/5

Truth

Jeff Beck

4/5

Born To Run

Bruce Springsteen

5/5

Caetano Veloso

3/5

In Utero

Nirvana

4/5

The Beach Boys Today!

The Beach Boys

4/5

Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

Frank Sinatra

3/5

Surfer Rosa

Pixies

5/5

Damaged

Black Flag

4/5

Lost In The Dream

The War On Drugs

4/5

Blonde On Blonde

Bob Dylan

5/5

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols

5/5

A Wizard, A True Star

Todd Rundgren

4/5

Ocean Rain

Echo And The Bunnymen

3/5

Rejoicing In The Hands

Devendra Banhart

3/5

Pump

Aerosmith

3/5

It's A Shame About Ray

The Lemonheads

2/5

It's a shame Evan Dando cannot sing properly. A few of the better songs can withstand his bland performance, but half of the songs are not that good and the limitations of singer and band start to annoy.

Let's Get Killed

David Holmes

3/5

Winter In America

Gil Scott-Heron

4/5

Hounds Of Love

Kate Bush

4/5

Modern Kosmology

Jane Weaver

5/5

Made In Japan

Deep Purple

4/5

For Your Pleasure

Roxy Music

4/5

The Healer

John Lee Hooker

4/5

Zombie

Fela Kuti

5/5

Physical Graffiti

Led Zeppelin

5/5

Come Away With Me

Norah Jones

4/5

Brothers

The Black Keys

4/5

Your Arsenal

Morrissey

4/5

Superfuzz Bigmuff

Mudhoney

4/5

Jazz Samba

Stan Getz

4/5

The Last Of The True Believers

Nanci Griffith

3/5

Pyromania

Def Leppard

2/5

High Violet

The National

5/5

Ctrl

SZA

4/5

Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs

Marty Robbins

4/5

Hysteria

Def Leppard

2/5

Diamond Life

Sade

2/5

The ArchAndroid

Janelle Monáe

5/5

I Am a Bird Now

Antony and the Johnsons

4/5

At San Quentin

Johnny Cash

5/5

The definitive country live album. I know live albums should not be on the list, but this is not a greatest hits collectio. It is a concept album about criminal intent and as such the location location location of the concert was outstanding. Johnny Cash and the band are in top form. I like Folsom Prison a bit better, but I always considered these as a combined live album experience.

Pearl

Janis Joplin

4/5

Le Tigre

4/5

Felt Mountain

Goldfrapp

4/5

Coles Corner

Richard Hawley

3/5

At Fillmore East

The Allman Brothers Band

4/5

The Yes Album

Yes

3/5

Dirt

Alice In Chains

4/5

Nowhere

Ride

5/5

Blood And Chocolate

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

3/5

I agree (as a fan) that there are too many Elvis Costello albums on this list. I would rate this one 6.5/10. There are are couple of good pop songs on it, but nothing stands out or is remarkable.

Pornography

The Cure

5/5

When I was young in the 1980s, I always disliked The Cure due to the pathetic looks of Smith and most of all because my elder sister was a fan. Boy, I was wrong. What great music this is! (and maybe wrong about his looks at the time too)

Live At The Harlem Square Club

Sam Cooke

4/5

The Only Ones

3/5

Dear Science

TV On The Radio

4/5

Cloud Nine

The Temptations

4/5

Groovin'

The Young Rascals

2/5

Face to Face

The Kinks

4/5

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West

5/5

KE*A*H** (Psalm 69)

Ministry

4/5

Rising Above Bedlam

Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart

2/5

Jah Wobble is a great guy and musician with lots of good ideas. This album is a bit meh. If I would put one album of his on this list (not necessary), it should be "The Legend Lives On... Jah Wobble in Betrayal". That one has some reasonably ok songs and classics with "Betrayal" and "Blueberry Hill" (one of the best cover songs ever).

(What's The Story) Morning Glory

Oasis

5/5

Songs For Swingin' Lovers!

Frank Sinatra

4/5

Reign In Blood

Slayer

5/5

Ragged Glory

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

4/5

Crosby, Stills & Nash

4/5

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Beatles

5/5

The Poet

Bobby Womack

4/5

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Mudhoney

3/5

Rock 'N Soul

Solomon Burke

4/5

1989

Taylor Swift

4/5

American Beauty

Grateful Dead

3/5

My Generation

The Who

4/5

Viva Hate

Morrissey

3/5

Pink Flag

Wire

5/5

Call of the Valley

Shivkumar Sharma

1/5

Call of the Valley was made to create an album of classical indian music shaped in a form to appeal to a western audience. It was a commercial, not an artistic success. While far better classical indian music exists, it was chosen because of the easier listening experience, making it an awful choice.

Your New Favourite Band

The Hives

4/5

Rock Bottom

Robert Wyatt

4/5

Here's Little Richard

Little Richard

4/5

LP1

FKA twigs

4/5

Songs In The Key Of Life

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Halcyon Digest

Deerhunter

5/5

Pretzel Logic

Steely Dan

5/5

Is This It

The Strokes

5/5

Joan Armatrading

4/5

Ill Communication

Beastie Boys

4/5

Seventh Tree

Goldfrapp

3/5

Mothership Connection

Parliament

4/5

American Idiot

Green Day

4/5

Protection

Massive Attack

4/5

Transformer

Lou Reed

5/5

Chelsea Girl

Nico

3/5

Clube Da Esquina

Milton Nascimento

3/5

Different Class

Pulp

3/5

To Pimp A Butterfly

Kendrick Lamar

5/5

I'm Your Man

Leonard Cohen

5/5

Dire Straits

3/5

Ghosteen

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

5/5

Black Monk Time

The Monks

5/5

What a pleasant surprise this is! Early garage rock and/or proto-punk. A band with an image: the monk haircut. Consisting of American soldiers based in Germany. The songs are great, the lyrics funny and lots of energy!

Dummy

Portishead

5/5

Dr. Octagonecologyst

Dr. Octagon

5/5

Led Zeppelin II

Led Zeppelin

3/5

Rumours

Fleetwood Mac

5/5

I Against I

Bad Brains

4/5

The Dark Side Of The Moon

Pink Floyd

5/5

The College Dropout

Kanye West

4/5

The Idiot

Iggy Pop

5/5

L'Eau Rouge

The Young Gods

4/5

The Holy Bible

Manic Street Preachers

4/5

Cheap Thrills

Big Brother & The Holding Company

2/5

It's Blitz!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

4/5

The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Velvet Underground

5/5

Live!

Fela Kuti

4/5

Younger Than Yesterday

The Byrds

3/5

Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

Dexys Midnight Runners

4/5

The Sounds Of India

Ravi Shankar

3/5

Fear Of Music

Talking Heads

5/5

Boston

1/5

This is a collection of MOR daddy rock power rock songs. I would not even play this in an elevator.

Africa Brasil

Jorge Ben Jor

4/5

All Hope Is Gone

Slipknot

2/5

Siembra

Willie Colón & Rubén Blades

4/5

Sex Packets

Digital Underground

1/5

The music is uninteresting and the production aged poorly. The misogynic lyrics are appealing. I really like hip hop and really dislike this album.

Lady Soul

Aretha Franklin

5/5

Pretenders

5/5

GI

Germs

4/5

Aja

Steely Dan

5/5

Synchronicity

The Police

3/5

Suede

4/5

Os Mutantes

4/5

Oracular Spectacular

MGMT

4/5

Queen Of Denmark

John Grant

3/5

Antichrist Superstar

Marilyn Manson

4/5

Tidal

Fiona Apple

3/5

The Queen Is Dead

The Smiths

4/5

The La's

4/5

Untitled (Black Is)

SAULT

5/5

Rings Around The World

Super Furry Animals

4/5

Metallica

4/5

Planet Rock: The Album

Afrika Bambaataa

3/5

Licensed To Ill

Beastie Boys

4/5

Hms Fable

Shack

1/5

It seems H.M.S. Fable is only on the list because it is Brit-pop from the UK. It is boring as hell and the compositions are awful. So much great music is made in the 1990s. Why is this here?

Electric Warrior

T. Rex

5/5

All That You Can't Leave Behind

U2

3/5

All That You Can't Leave Behind is not a bad album, but in the discography of U2 it is a sidenote. They produced several albums more deserving to be on this list. "Beautiful Day", "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of", "Elevation" and "Walk On" are nice songs, nothing more.

The United States Of America

4/5

Trio

Dolly Parton

4/5

The Genius Of Ray Charles

Ray Charles

3/5

It's disappointing that this list contains two albums of the genius that Ray Charles is. The Genius Of Ray Charles: an album with big band and singing pop arrangements and the other: Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music with country and folk songs. That is not who Ray Charles is. He is the man that almost singlehandedly invented soul as a music genre combining gospel and blues in songs like "I Got a Woman". Why is a fantastic album like Ray Charles - Ray Charles (1957) not on this list containing the genre he defined. It is a Shame, Shame, Shame (I know that is not a Ray Charles song, but it is more Ray Charles than the two albums on this list). The Genius Of Ray Charles is a mediocre album and certainly not one of his best.

Roxy Music

4/5

No Other

Gene Clark

5/5

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Elton John

4/5

Supa Dupa Fly

Missy Elliott

4/5

Frampton Comes Alive

Peter Frampton

3/5

One good song (Show Me The Way) does not make a good album. Frampton is a great guitar player and the talk box effect is fun (for a while). The rest of the songs are mediocre and MOR rock.

Thriller

Michael Jackson

5/5

System Of A Down

4/5

Bongo Rock

Incredible Bongo Band

2/5

I understand a lot of samples are taken from this album and Bongo Rock is a great song and Apache a good cover. The rest is forgettable

Disraeli Gears

Cream

3/5

Bringing It All Back Home

Bob Dylan

5/5

Low-Life

New Order

4/5

Hard Again

Muddy Waters

4/5

Tigermilk

Belle & Sebastian

4/5

Another Music In A Different Kitchen

Buzzcocks

3/5

The Soft Bulletin

The Flaming Lips

4/5

Tellin’ Stories

The Charlatans

3/5

The Wildest!

Louis Prima

3/5

Get Rich Or Die Tryin'

50 Cent

3/5

American IV: The Man Comes Around

Johnny Cash

4/5

Violator

Depeche Mode

4/5

Heartbreaker

Ryan Adams

5/5

Ryan Adams is not a pleasant guy. I saw him live this year and it was a bummer to see a guy on stage that was mainly complaining about the audience and making very depressing cynical jokes. Still Heartbreaker and Gold are terrific albums with great songs.

Butterfly

Mariah Carey

1/5

This bunch of very long overproduced vocal stretches without any melodic or lyrical content was a real waste of my time.

3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days In The Life Of...

Arrested Development

4/5

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Arctic Monkeys

5/5

The Madcap Laughs

Syd Barrett

2/5

I would like to like this, because of the sadness of the story and the lost genius turning mad is an interesting concept. The album consists of half finished songs with some good ideas and mediocre performance. Only "Golden Hair" (not on the original release) is a great song.

Exile In Guyville

Liz Phair

4/5

The Bends

Radiohead

5/5

2112

Rush

4/5

Penance Soiree

The Icarus Line

4/5

Strangeways, Here We Come

The Smiths

4/5

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Red Hot Chili Peppers

5/5

Foxbase Alpha

Saint Etienne

4/5

Pelican West

Haircut 100

1/5

Another 1980s new wave band that sounds very unnecessary. I don't need to hear it, be reminded of it or see it on any list. It's so boring, middle of the road, without urgence, overly smoothed. This is the kind of music you put on in a situation that your main purpose is not to offend anyone in anyway. Music for people that do not like music (and want only some sound to fill the void)

The Next Day

David Bowie

5/5

Basket of Light

Pentangle

1/5

I did not like this album. Outdated, boring and very pretentious. Like a folk group started by middle aged kindergarten teachers with sandals and poor hygiene. It reminded me of the album on the list by Bert Jansch. That was no coincidence. It's the same perpetrator. Does the torture ever stop?

Hot Rats

Frank Zappa

5/5

Sheet Music

10cc

2/5

Exile On Main Street

The Rolling Stones

5/5

The Last Broadcast

Doves

4/5

L.A. Woman

The Doors

4/5

Armed Forces

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

4/5

Hot Fuss

The Killers

4/5

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Eurythmics

3/5

Bryter Layter

Nick Drake

5/5

Songs From The Big Chair

Tears For Fears

4/5

Led Zeppelin

4/5

Raw Power

The Stooges

5/5

This is the ultimate protopunk album. Iggy shouted the lyrics to a mic hanging close the the ceiling. The production is a great mess with all instruments affecting the recordings of the other instruments. Iggy thought Bowie f**cked up, but from the original tapes nothing better can be recovered and it should not. This is the ultimate pre-punk statement in music, lyrics and production: mess, agression, dispair. Just the way we like it and it should be!

Fun House

The Stooges

5/5

Songs Of Love And Hate

Leonard Cohen

4/5

Fuzzy

Grant Lee Buffalo

3/5

Parallel Lines

Blondie

5/5

Lady In Satin

Billie Holiday

4/5

Scott 2

Scott Walker

4/5

GREY Area

Little Simz

5/5

This Year's Model

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

5/5

Although there are a lot (maybe too many) Costello albums on the list, this one should certainly on it with Chelsea and Pump it up

The Message

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

2/5

Grandmaster Flash is one of hiphop greatest and has made fantastic singles. But this is a full album consisting of two of those songs and the rest is filler.

Let Love Rule

Lenny Kravitz

4/5

Let Love Rule was a pleasant surprise in 1989 and has aged well. Nothing innovating about the music or lyrics, but it just makes you happy.

Southern Rock Opera

Drive-By Truckers

4/5

What's not to like about this southern rock opera? Maybe it's length. Great songs, great musicians and great lyrics.

Street Life

The Crusaders

2/5

One great song, but the rest of the album is uninteresting.

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

The Incredible String Band

1/5

I think this is the most awful album I’ve ever heard. The singing and music is often off-tone. Songs are uninspiring and bland. I can’t understand why it is on this list. Maybe because it’s from the 60’s and everything from that area is supposed to be worth listening to? 🤢

Floodland

Sisters Of Mercy

3/5

This album has not aged very well. Specifically the keyboard sounds are outdated. The songs are ok though.

The Man Who

Travis

3/5

Yet another Britpop album. It is ok. I really like Why Does It Always Rain on Me? and Turn.

Remedy

Basement Jaxx

3/5

The album has one truly great song in Red Alert. The rest is mediocre. The album cover always reminds me of a jar of hotdog sausages.

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You

Aretha Franklin

5/5

A beautiful album by the Queen of Soul. Several classics like Respect, A Change Is Gonna Come, Do Right Woman, Do Right Man.

Alien Lanes

Guided By Voices

5/5

The best lo-fi album ever made. Great songs that are often too short and merely sketches of something even greater.

In The Wee Small Hours

Frank Sinatra

2/5

Kenya

Machito

4/5

White Blood Cells

The White Stripes

5/5

The Predator

Ice Cube

4/5

BEYONCÉ

Beyoncé

4/5

Parklife

Blur

4/5

Elvis Is Back

Elvis Presley

3/5

A decent album by a great singer that does not write his own material. It contains only a few bangers (Fever, Such a Night, Reconsider Baby)

Nilsson Schmilsson

Harry Nilsson

4/5

Da Capo

Love

4/5

Garbage

4/5

Let It Be

The Replacements

5/5

Liquid Swords

GZA

4/5

The Suburbs

Arcade Fire

5/5

Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

The Kinks

4/5

At Budokan

Cheap Trick

2/5

World Clique

Deee-Lite

2/5

Groove Is in the Heart is a great song, but the rest of the album is filler material.

Blue Lines

Massive Attack

5/5

The best album of one of my favorite bands. Massive Attack created an album full of ideas, great sounds and innovation.

Every Picture Tells A Story

Rod Stewart

2/5

Maggie May is great, Rod Stewart has a incredible voice, but the rest of the album consists of mediocre songs and covers.

Vauxhall And I

Morrissey

2/5

I do not like Morrissey as a person, though most of his music is good. Vauxhall And I is an exception. I do not understand why you would listen to this instead of his other material.

Talking Heads 77

Talking Heads

5/5

Not only Psycho Killer, but also the rest of the album show a band on the break of becoming one of the best (and is nearly there).

Dig Your Own Hole

The Chemical Brothers

4/5

John Prine

3/5

Marcus Garvey

Burning Spear

5/5

Electric Prunes

The Electric Prunes

2/5

Elephant

The White Stripes

5/5

Vivid

Living Colour

4/5

Bright Flight

Silver Jews

4/5

Done By The Forces Of Nature

Jungle Brothers

4/5

American Pie

Don McLean

2/5

Teenage Head

Flamin' Groovies

3/5

Doolittle

Pixies

5/5

Wild Wood

Paul Weller

4/5

Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division

5/5

Marquee Moon

Television

5/5

Tago Mago

Can

5/5

There's A Riot Goin' On

Sly & The Family Stone

5/5

The Nightfly

Donald Fagen

4/5

Clandestino

Manu Chao

3/5

Dookie

Green Day

4/5

The New Tango

Astor Piazzolla

4/5

Dirty

Sonic Youth

4/5

Slipknot

4/5

Court And Spark

Joni Mitchell

4/5

Madman Across The Water

Elton John

5/5

Foo Fighters

4/5

The Marshall Mathers LP

Eminem

4/5

Copper Blue

Sugar

4/5

3 + 3

The Isley Brothers

3/5

Back At The Chicken Shack

Jimmy Smith

3/5

Tapestry

Carole King

5/5

The Downward Spiral

Nine Inch Nails

4/5

Nothing's Shocking

Jane's Addiction

4/5

Maxinquaye

Tricky

5/5

Golden Hour

Kacey Musgraves

4/5

I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Sinead O'Connor

2/5

Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine

Cee Lo Green

3/5

Veckatimest

Grizzly Bear

4/5

With The Beatles

Beatles

4/5

Wish You Were Here

Pink Floyd

5/5

There's No Place Like America Today

Curtis Mayfield

4/5

Deserter's Songs

Mercury Rev

5/5

Tanto Tempo

Bebel Gilberto

4/5

Goo

Sonic Youth

4/5

The Modern Lovers

4/5

The Blueprint

JAY Z

4/5

Sunshine Superman

Donovan

1/5

Being There

Wilco

5/5

O.G. Original Gangster

Ice T

3/5

Bert Jansch

2/5

Boring and very pretentious. It smells of sandals and poor hygiene. Why is this on this list and why to people like it. There are so many good singer songwriters with folk songs on this list, why is room created for something that lacks creativity, urgence and a heart?

A Rush Of Blood To The Head

Coldplay

3/5

Eliminator

ZZ Top

3/5

Exodus

Bob Marley & The Wailers

5/5

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective

4/5

This Is Hardcore

Pulp

3/5

Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

Raekwon

4/5

Fetch The Bolt Cutters

Fiona Apple

5/5

Pills 'n' Thrills And Bellyaches

Happy Mondays

3/5

Tubular Bells

Mike Oldfield

3/5

Buffalo Springfield Again

Buffalo Springfield

4/5

Teen Dream

Beach House

4/5

In Rainbows

Radiohead

5/5

Good Old Boys

Randy Newman

4/5

Mott

Mott The Hoople

2/5

Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Pavement

4/5

The Doors

5/5

Fifth Dimension

The Byrds

3/5

Songs From A Room

Leonard Cohen

4/5

The Slider

T. Rex

4/5

More Songs About Buildings And Food

Talking Heads

4/5

Back to Mystery City

Hanoi Rocks

2/5

Dare!

The Human League

4/5

The Specials

5/5

The debut album of The Specials is a blast. Energetic pointy British ska songs.

Scott 4

Scott Walker

4/5

One Nation Under A Groove

Funkadelic

4/5

The Hour Of Bewilderbeast

Badly Drawn Boy

4/5

Sticky Fingers

The Rolling Stones

5/5

Inspiration Information

Shuggie Otis

3/5

...Baby One More Time

Britney Spears

1/5

Please not one more time! One time is more than enough. Some silly on ear in one ear out commercial pop songs with some hits and a lot of filler material.

Illmatic

Nas

5/5

Shake Your Money Maker

The Black Crowes

3/5

Rattlesnakes

Lloyd Cole And The Commotions

2/5

Horses

Patti Smith

3/5

Vento De Maio

Elis Regina

3/5

Peggy Suicide

Julian Cope

4/5

Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black

Public Enemy

4/5

Rust Never Sleeps

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

5/5

Back in the day we girls always went to a bar to dance. Most of the nights just when the evening started to be great this nerdy guy put coins in the jukebox to play at least 5 Neil Young songs in a row. After he spoilt the mood he even tried to hit on us with tricks as "he was a magician". We considered him "Helpless". The only reason we kept returning to this bar was the fact the barman also disliked the guy and told us the drinks were free as long as we kept on rebuffing the guy. Ever since I get thirsty when I listen to a Neil Young song.

Miriam Makeba

3/5

Midnight Ride

Paul Revere & The Raiders

3/5

C'est Chic

CHIC

4/5

The Stooges

5/5

This debut studio album of The Stooges is their best and the start of punk rock. Majestic songs like "1969", "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "No Fun" make it an absolute masterpiece.

Black Holes and Revelations

Muse

4/5

Destroy Rock & Roll

Mylo

2/5

Band On The Run

Paul McCartney and Wings

3/5

Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D'Arby

Terence Trent D'Arby

5/5

Be

Common

4/5

Off The Wall

Michael Jackson

5/5

Tres Hombres

ZZ Top

3/5

Nice blues rock album by ZZ Top. It's got great guitar licks, but is missing the earworm songs like "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man", "Legs" or "Tush".

Kid A

Radiohead

5/5

Manassas

Stephen Stills

4/5

Figure 8

Elliott Smith

4/5

25

Adele

3/5

Punishing Kiss

Ute Lemper

2/5

Why this album is selected is a mystery to me. Of every cover song the original (or alternative) interpretation is better and less over the top. Divine Comedy as a band has created great original material on other records.

Murder Ballads

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

4/5

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

Public Enemy

5/5

Paul Simon

4/5

Out Of The Blue

Electric Light Orchestra

3/5

Selling England By The Pound

Genesis

4/5

B-52's

The B-52's

4/5

Morrison Hotel

The Doors

4/5

Double Nickels On The Dime

Minutemen

4/5

Cross

Justice

3/5

Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul

Otis Redding

5/5

Happy Trails

Quicksilver Messenger Service

2/5

Stankonia

OutKast

5/5

Life Thru A Lens

Robbie Williams

3/5

Ingenue

k.d. lang

4/5

MTV Unplugged In New York

Nirvana

4/5

Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury

The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy

4/5

Blood, Sweat & Tears

3/5

Machine Head

Deep Purple

3/5

Let It Bleed

The Rolling Stones

5/5

Deja Vu

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

5/5

Tragic Songs of Life

The Louvin Brothers

3/5

Moon Safari

Air

4/5

Reading the album title I was pleasantly surpised and expecting lyrics about big game hunting on the moon. I was imagining large prey running through moon dust and jumping across large craters trying to escape an Apollo rocket containing the two artists holding a net for catching butterflies. After finishing the album I’m a bit disappointed. The lyrical content is not what I expected. The album only contains a few songs about astronomy. Though I like the lyrics of Sexy Boy and wouldn’t be surpised if these are written with my humble person in mind. The music on the record is mellow, but entertaining electronica. All in all it’s one small pleasure for this man, but a great addition to the 1001 list.

Rubber Soul

Beatles

5/5

OK Computer

Radiohead

5/5

Neon Bible

Arcade Fire

4/5

Soul Mining

The The

4/5

Bitches Brew

Miles Davis

5/5

Definitely Maybe

Oasis

4/5

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

David Bowie

5/5

This is the best album of my favorite artist. David Bowie has made great albums in various styles, but in the end this is the superior one. Everything in the album is the right choice. It is a concept album about an alien on earth corresponding exactly in the correct time for it (just after the moon landing), fitting the glam rock outfits and shows. It starts with a song (Five Years) gathering the audience together filled with a prophecy of future doom. And finishes with a hopeful song that is one of the ultimate closers of all time at live performances (Rock n Roll Suicide): "Give me your hands, cause you're wonderful". The lyrics are so smart. For example Lady Stardust cycles between male and female gender, making it offense at the time and causing a lot of publicity. The tempo changes from rock with great guitar licks to beautiful ballads. Even the cover is a rather mediocre song highly elevated by the arrangement and performance on the record. What is not to love?

Kollaps

Einstürzende Neubauten

4/5

Dig Me Out

Sleater-Kinney

5/5

Suicide

4/5

Beggars Banquet

The Rolling Stones

5/5

The Cars

3/5

Meat Puppets II

Meat Puppets

4/5

The Man Machine

Kraftwerk

4/5

Rattus Norvegicus

The Stranglers

4/5

Guitar Town

Steve Earle

3/5

Connected

Stereo MC's

3/5

3 Feet High and Rising

De La Soul

4/5

Trans Europe Express

Kraftwerk

4/5

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill

4/5

Superunknown

Soundgarden

4/5

Seventeen Seconds

The Cure

4/5

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

Genesis

4/5

My Aim Is True

Elvis Costello

4/5

Juju

Siouxsie And The Banshees

4/5

Out of Step

Minor Threat

4/5

Joan Baez

2/5

D

White Denim

2/5

Kings Of The Wild Frontier

Adam & The Ants

3/5

Reggatta De Blanc

The Police

4/5

Funeral

Arcade Fire

4/5

British Steel

Judas Priest

3/5

Now I Got Worry

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

4/5

Illinois

Sufjan Stevens

5/5

Power In Numbers

Jurassic 5

3/5

Djam Leelii

Baaba Maal

3/5

Vespertine

Björk

3/5

Throwing Muses

4/5

The Trinity Session

Cowboy Junkies

3/5

White Light / White Heat

The Velvet Underground

5/5

The World is a Ghetto

War

4/5

Permission to Land

The Darkness

3/5

Toys In The Attic

Aerosmith

3/5

Oxygène

Jean-Michel Jarre

3/5

Kind Of Blue

Miles Davis

5/5

Kind of Blue is a jazz classic. It is an early album by Miles Davis and not as free spirited as his later work. He left us a catalogue with something to everyone's liking.

Green River

Creedence Clearwater Revival

4/5

Honky Tonk Masquerade

Joe Ely

1/5

Honky Tonk Masquerade is an uninteresting middle of the road classical country album. Nothing stands out: the production is mediocre, songs are weak and the performance sounds as a gig for the money.

Talking Book

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Talking Book is one of the best soul albums ever made. It has no weak songs and the variation in songs is fantastic. It leads from ballads to up-tempo funky stuff.

In Our Heads

Hot Chip

3/5

Crime Of The Century

Supertramp

3/5

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco

5/5

This album is a true highlight in the history of songwriting. It does not provide that much innovation, but the sheer craftmanship cannot be denied. Songs like "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart", "War on War", "Jesus, Etc.", "Ashes of American Flags", "Heavy Metal Drummer", "I'm the Man Who Loves You", "Pot Kettle Black" and "Reservations" are amazing. Yes, that is almost all of the songs. The other ones are "just" great and live all these songs are even better. One of the true classic albums!

So

Peter Gabriel

4/5

Roger the Engineer

The Yardbirds

2/5

Kick Out The Jams (Live)

MC5

4/5

One of the first protopunk albums. This one is more blues and garagerock. I consider (also because of the lyrics) The Stooges to be the true origin of punk. That opinion does not change my love for the album. It f***ing rocks as hell!

m b v

My Bloody Valentine

5/5

Maverick A Strike

Finley Quaye

1/5

So many many many great reggae albums have been created and are not on this list. Why this mediocre one is, God only knows…🤔

Something/Anything?

Todd Rundgren

2/5

Paranoid

Black Sabbath

5/5

This is what you could call the definitive metal album. Certainly the first side of the records is an abundance of classics with a lot of variation in the songs.

The Bones Of What You Believe

CHVRCHES

3/5

Smile

Brian Wilson

4/5

Smile is the album The Beach Boys never completed because Brian Wilson lost his way. It admire the fact he tried to complete it years later. A lot of songs were published earlier on other (Beach Boys) albums. In the end the question remains if something that was not finished really was the masterpiece or it was never there. I am convinced it was the latter. This is a good album, but I doubt if it would ever been better than Pet Sounds (or the Beatles albums it tried to compete with).

NEU! 75

Neu!

4/5

Go Girl Crazy

The Dictators

3/5

The Rise & Fall

Madness

3/5

69 Love Songs

The Magnetic Fields

5/5

I knew and adored this album before entering this list. It sounds like a torture purely due to it's length, but it is not. The songs are quite varied. Several musical styles, tempos and moods. And the lyrics are so funny and witty. Songs about loving a city (in the end because her boyfriend lives there), being a girl magnet (because you have a car), warn a girl (because you are crazy and your friends will blame her and not you). First half is slightly better than the second half. Then again, I just experienced the second half in a live gig last year and it was one of the funniest and fulfilling music concerts I have been to. Everyone downvoting this album due to it's length is "Absolutely Cuckoo". If there is an album that proves that albums over 50 minutes are worth your time, this is it.

Music From The Penguin Cafe

Penguin Cafe Orchestra

4/5

Emergency On Planet Earth

Jamiroquai

3/5

Chris

Christine and the Queens

4/5

From Elvis In Memphis

Elvis Presley

3/5

All Things Must Pass

George Harrison

4/5

Rust In Peace

Megadeth

4/5

Shalimar

Rahul Dev Burman

2/5

Very disappointing to get some bilingual version of a bollywood soundtrack with mediocre songs. This list assumes we cannot deal with the real non-western (uk/usa) version of indian music. So it should be bilingual or made with western musicians. It makes me sad.

Grievous Angel

Gram Parsons

5/5

Raising Hell

Run-D.M.C.

4/5

Smokers Delight

Nightmares On Wax

2/5

The Band

4/5

Astral Weeks

Van Morrison

3/5

Medúlla

Björk

4/5

Tarkus

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

2/5

Doggystyle

Snoop Dogg

4/5

A Short Album About Love

The Divine Comedy

3/5

Shaft

Isaac Hayes

4/5

Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs

Derek & The Dominos

5/5

Devotional Songs

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

3/5

She's So Unusual

Cyndi Lauper

2/5

Blue

Joni Mitchell

4/5

Eagles

3/5

Yank Crime

Drive Like Jehu

4/5

Endtroducing.....

DJ Shadow

4/5

Penthouse And Pavement

Heaven 17

2/5

Master Of Puppets

Metallica

5/5

I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight

Richard Thompson

5/5

Stand!

Sly & The Family Stone

4/5

Shaka Zulu

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

3/5

Peace Sells...But Who's Buying

Megadeth

4/5

Songs Of Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

5/5

Bandwagonesque

Teenage Fanclub

4/5

Will The Circle Be Unbroken

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

3/5

Live At Leeds

The Who

3/5

Hypnotised

The Undertones

4/5

Femi Kuti

3/5

Blood On The Tracks

Bob Dylan

4/5

Repeater

Fugazi

5/5

Before And After Science

Brian Eno

4/5

Peter Gabriel 3

Peter Gabriel

5/5

What's Going On

Marvin Gaye

5/5

What's going on? You are listening to one of the top ten albums of all time. That's what's going on. A collection of marvelous songs. of a legend in his peak and with an astonishing production. All songs go on in one flow talking about love for people and more important the world we live in. An album stating concerns about our behavior towards nature in 1971. What a visionary and too bad how we failed him!

Stephen Stills

3/5

Movies

Holger Czukay

2/5

This solo album of Holger Czukay from Can is a sort of experiment with electronica and tape loops. Sometimes experiments work out great, this one does not. It sounds outdated and is rather boring.

Cut

The Slits

4/5

One World

John Martyn

4/5

Coat Of Many Colors

Dolly Parton

4/5

Great country album by the queen of country herself. "Coat of Many Colors" is a fantastic song with beautiful lyrics and the other songs are good too.

Let's Stay Together

Al Green

4/5

The Lexicon Of Love

ABC

2/5

Low

David Bowie

5/5

One of the great Berlin period albums of David Bowie and Brian Eno. The first half consists of eclectic rock songs and the other half is electronica. When comparing it with the Heroes album, the rock songs are more accessible and the electronic songs are fantastic as a whole, but have some weaker parts. The ultimate achievement is having all time classics like "Breaking Glass", "What in the World", "Sound and Vision", "Always Crashing in the Same Car" and "Be My Wife" on one album side. Astonishing!

Orbital 2

Orbital

4/5

Another Green World

Brian Eno

5/5

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme

Simon & Garfunkel

3/5

Our Aim Is To Satisfy

Red Snapper

2/5

Feast of Wire

Calexico

4/5

Music in Exile

Songhoy Blues

4/5

Nighthawks At The Diner

Tom Waits

4/5

In The Court Of The Crimson King

King Crimson

5/5

Lam Toro

Baaba Maal

2/5

La Revancha Del Tango

Gotan Project

4/5

Aladdin Sane

David Bowie

5/5

Trafalgar

Bee Gees

2/5

Another pre-disco Bee Gees album full of candy cane sweet songs that bore the hell out of me. Maybe a bit less annoying than Odessa.

Peter Gabriel

4/5

Wild Is The Wind

Nina Simone

4/5

Dog Man Star

Suede

4/5

Autobahn

Kraftwerk

4/5

Kimono My House

Sparks

4/5

Music for the Masses

Depeche Mode

4/5

Risque

CHIC

2/5

Headquarters

The Monkees

2/5

The Wall

Pink Floyd

4/5

Mermaid Avenue

Billy Bragg

4/5

Brothers In Arms

Dire Straits

3/5

When I Was Born For The 7th Time

Cornershop

2/5

I don't know why this album is on the list. It is more or less ok. It contains "Brimful of Asha" which is a really great song in the big beat remix by Norman Cook, not so much in the original version. Other songs are not special (or also need a special remix).

Born In The U.S.A.

Bruce Springsteen

5/5

Green

R.E.M.

4/5

Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

5/5

Isn't Anything

My Bloody Valentine

4/5

...And Justice For All

Metallica

5/5

Young Americans

David Bowie

5/5

I'm a Bowie fan and not the most objective critic of his music. Maybe this album should not be on this list (while Lodger and Scare Monsters do deserve it). Maybe the two songs "Young Americans" and "Fame" are just that great they alone justify the album to be essential. "Across the Universe" is mediocre, but the remaining songs are all at least good (though maybe not great). In the end this is enough for me to give it five stars. As I wrote before, I'm not the best Bowie critic.

Safe As Milk

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

5/5

Ananda Shankar

1/5

This is yet another example of the western take on this list: a mediocre Indian album with two covers of western songs. Probably that is the best way to become essential: western artists, covers or collaboration. Too bad. This is a subpar album while there are so many Indian albums deserving recognition.

Ten

Pearl Jam

5/5

This is one of the classics grunge albums and also one of the best records of the 1990s. First I gave it four stars, but I must admit it's way better. Thanks to the "edit ratings" option, this is corrected. Great vocals, lyrics and songs. Hard to imagine the songs were already completed before the vocals were recorded and lyrics written. It just fits so well.

Phaedra

Tangerine Dream

4/5

Opus Dei

Laibach

2/5

I like some of the Laibach albums. This is not one of these. The songs on this record are too stupid and narrow minded for me, lacking the (not too obvious) intelligence and musical complexity the other albums have. For example "Krst Pod Triglavom - Baptism (1987)" is fantastic (even knowing it contains Nazi speeches) and "Slovenska Akropola (1987)" is great too. This album is a collection of cheap thrills and only the songs at the end (from "Krst...Baptism") show some quality.

The Notorious Byrd Brothers

The Byrds

3/5

16 Lovers Lane

The Go-Betweens

2/5

Idlewild

Everything But The Girl

2/5

Sunshine Hit Me

The Bees

3/5

Highly Evolved

The Vines

1/5

Hey album, what are you doing on this list? No one, certainly not the critics (4.1 by Pitchfork), finds you remarkable. No problem you exist and that some persons like you, but to me you're just another 1.5 hours (two spins) waisted by very mediocre rock. Now I feel like a bully, but I'm just being honest.

Time (The Revelator)

Gillian Welch

4/5

Raw Like Sushi

Neneh Cherry

3/5

When I was 15 years old, this was the bomb. And it is still ok, but has not aged all that well. The late 1980s production (very loud drums in the mix) is annoying and apart from the well known bangers, it also contains a lot of filler material.

Pieces Of The Sky

Emmylou Harris

3/5

The Undertones

5/5

This is a fantastic (and classic) debut album. Great punk- and garage rock with melodic vocals and dazzling hooks. Too bad several of the early singles (like Teenage Kicks) are not on it. So this is an exception to the rule that bonus tracks are a bummer. Listen to the even better experience of a re-release/extended version of the album and get the six star treatment.

White Light

Gene Clark

3/5

The White Room

The KLF

3/5

Scum

Napalm Death

3/5

Unhalfbricking

Fairport Convention

4/5

90

808 State

3/5

Moss Side Story

Barry Adamson

4/5

Tusk

Fleetwood Mac

4/5

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns

Joni Mitchell

4/5

Sail Away

Randy Newman

4/5

The Sun Rises In The East

Jeru The Damaja

4/5

Fulfillingness' First Finale

Stevie Wonder

4/5

Devil Without A Cause

Kid Rock

1/5

The Horror! The Horror!

Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus

Spirit

3/5

Bookends

Simon & Garfunkel

4/5

Palo Congo

Sabu

4/5

Sign 'O' The Times

Prince

5/5

Best Prince album. All songs are fantastic, sound funky as hell with awsome guitar playing.

Vanishing Point

Primal Scream

4/5

Liege And Lief

Fairport Convention

4/5

Scream, Dracula, Scream

Rocket From The Crypt

3/5

So Much For The City

The Thrills

2/5

Moving Pictures

Rush

3/5

The Who Sell Out

The Who

4/5

D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle

Throbbing Gristle

4/5

Suzanne Vega

4/5

Led Zeppelin IV

Led Zeppelin

5/5

The Contino Sessions

Death In Vegas

2/5

Five Leaves Left

Nick Drake

5/5

The Boatman's Call

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

5/5

Mama's Gun

Erykah Badu

3/5

Ys

Joanna Newsom

4/5

No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (Live)

Motörhead

3/5

Straight Outta Compton

N.W.A.

4/5

If I Could Only Remember My Name

David Crosby

3/5

Amnesiac

Radiohead

5/5

Scissor Sisters

3/5

Myths Of The Near Future

Klaxons

2/5

Sulk

The Associates

2/5

Rip It Up

Orange Juice

1/5

This is an excellent album. At least if you want to demonstrate what is wrong with polished, inoffensive and boring New Wave from the 1980s. What's not to dislike on this album? It's not very long, I guess. I have no idea how it got to be on this list as even the critics (at the time and in retrospect) consider it mediocre.

The Modern Dance

Pere Ubu

5/5

The Age Of The Understatement

The Last Shadow Puppets

4/5

The Stone Roses

5/5

This is one of the greatest debut albums of all time. Full of groovy, psychedelic rock. I often think "Fools Gold" is on this one, but that's not the case. Starting an album with "I Wanna Be Adored" and ending it with "I Am the Resurrection" is not too bad either. I guess modesty is not their virtue.

Screamadelica

Primal Scream

4/5

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo

Devo

5/5

Gris Gris

Dr. John

5/5

Beyond Skin

Nitin Sawhney

3/5

Back In Black

AC/DC

4/5

S.F. Sorrow

The Pretty Things

4/5

Eli And The Thirteenth Confession

Laura Nyro

3/5

A Little Deeper

Ms. Dynamite

3/5

Back to Basics

Christina Aguilera

2/5

Annoying record with middle of the road RnB music of a singer that prefers vocal acrobatics to decent singing. And it goes on an on and on...

Histoire De Melody Nelson

Serge Gainsbourg

5/5

McCartney

Paul McCartney

2/5

Forgetable debut solo album of Paul. The songs do sould like demo's and are not of high quality.

The Rising

Bruce Springsteen

4/5

Ambient 1/Music For Airports

Brian Eno

5/5

This album marks the start of the ambient music genre. In retrospect the album title is perfect.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Simon & Garfunkel

5/5

I often Find Simon & Garfunkel a bit too soft and easy on the ears. Often resulting in finding out an album is finished long after the fact. The Garfunkel moustache album is an exception. It has a lot of great songs and also great lyrics. It "Keeps the Customer Satisfied" (too bad that is the weakest track). And I can stare at the album cover for hours.

Bayou Country

Creedence Clearwater Revival

4/5

G. Love And Special Sauce

G. Love & Special Sauce

4/5

Seeing G. Love & Special Sauce at Metropolis Festival in 1994 was such a treat. That is why I always get in a state of absolute happiness when listening to this album. Great laidback groovy blues with rap that sound to be born to be combined.

Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

TV On The Radio

4/5

Apocalypse Dudes

Turbonegro

4/5

You've Come a Long Way Baby

Fatboy Slim

4/5

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

John Lennon

3/5

Most of the solo efforts of the Beatles are not of consistent quality and not as good as the lads together. As this one shows with Mother and Working Class Hero as highlights.

Hot Shots II

The Beta Band

4/5

John Barleycorn Must Die

Traffic

3/5

Odessey And Oracle

The Zombies

4/5

Black Metal

Venom

4/5

Fisherman's Blues

The Waterboys

4/5

Killing Joke

3/5

Fine album of Killing Joke. I always thought their same was from the Monty Python sketch about the joke in German that killed all the Krauts. Well I has something to do with Monty Python, so 5 points out of 10 for me and 3 stars for the album.

Traffic

3/5

Apple Venus Volume 1

XTC

3/5

Giant Steps

The Boo Radleys

3/5

Fear and Whiskey

Mekons

2/5

Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

Bill Callahan

4/5

Street Signs

Ozomatli

1/5

This is a very disappointing album. It is nowhere to be found on music streaming services. After a lot of effort to get it anyway, the album is mediocre with uninteresting rock songs with a bit of latin flavor. It sounds commercial, but it's too bad to have a change to impress any audience.

The Slim Shady LP

Eminem

4/5

I See You

The xx

4/5

Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor

Lupe Fiasco

4/5

Electric Ladyland

Jimi Hendrix

5/5

Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts

The Adverts

4/5

Yeezus

Kanye West

5/5

The Chronic

Dr. Dre

5/5

The Libertines

4/5

Elastica

4/5

Microshift

Hookworms

4/5

Nixon

Lambchop

4/5

Queens of the Stone Age

4/5

Rain Dogs

Tom Waits

5/5

Together with Swordfishtrombones this album is the magnus opum of Tom Waits. Blues, folk and jazz rock songs with strange guitar melodies and a raw voice that can crack your head open while being so comforting.

Sheer Heart Attack

Queen

4/5

Savane

Ali Farka Touré

4/5

OK

Talvin Singh

4/5

Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan

5/5

21

Adele

3/5

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

Small Faces

3/5

Life's Too Good

The Sugarcubes

4/5

Wonderful Rainbow

Lightning Bolt

4/5

Very

Pet Shop Boys

2/5

Gentlemen

The Afghan Whigs

5/5

Porcupine

Echo And The Bunnymen

3/5

Abraxas

Santana

4/5

Arc Of A Diver

Steve Winwood

3/5

The Rolling Stones

3/5

Siamese Dream

The Smashing Pumpkins

5/5

For me this is the best Smashing Pumpkins album. Great noisy guitar sound combined with beautiful melodies. Fantastic songs and a lot of variation in speed and style. From agressive to introvert.

Germfree Adolescents

X-Ray Spex

4/5

Quiet Life

Japan

2/5

Black Sabbath

4/5

Eternally Yours

The Saints

4/5

What's That Noise?

Coldcut

2/5

Very mediocre pop/dance album. The songs are not impressive and the performance is neither. Forgetable that's what you are!

Youth And Young Manhood

Kings of Leon

3/5

Automatic For The People

R.E.M.

5/5

This is the best album of R.E.M. Of course the more obscure collega rock of the earlier albums has a special place in my heart, but this album contains the best of their songwriting. Every song is good, several are very good and some are true modern pop/rock classics.

Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room

Dwight Yoakam

1/5

All Hail the Queen

Queen Latifah

2/5

Little Earthquakes

Tori Amos

4/5

Entertainment

Gang Of Four

5/5

Bossanova

Pixies

5/5

The Clash

5/5

The debut album of The Clash is not as diverse as their later albums and consists of more than ten punkrock classics and a sublime reggae cover of Police & Thieves.

Want Two

Rufus Wainwright

4/5

Like Water For Chocolate

Common

4/5

Warehouse: Songs And Stories

Hüsker Dü

4/5

The Coral

4/5

Tom Tom Club

4/5

Talk Talk Talk

The Psychedelic Furs

4/5

Freak Out!

The Mothers Of Invention

5/5

Fever Ray

4/5

Mask

Bauhaus

4/5

Grace

Jeff Buckley

5/5

Electric Music For The Mind And Body

Country Joe & The Fish

3/5

Ray Of Light

Madonna

4/5

Heaven Or Las Vegas

Cocteau Twins

3/5

The Renaissance

Q-Tip

4/5

Stardust

Willie Nelson

4/5

They Were Wrong, So We Drowned

Liars

4/5

I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail

Buck Owens

2/5

Deep Purple In Rock

Deep Purple

4/5

Konnichiwa

Skepta

4/5

Lost Souls

Doves

4/5

Bitte Orca

Dirty Projectors

4/5

Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water

Limp Bizkit

1/5

The Horror! The Horror!

Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables

Dead Kennedys

4/5

I’m a Lonesome Fugitive

Merle Haggard

2/5

Birth Of The Cool

Miles Davis

5/5

Achtung Baby

U2

4/5

american dream

LCD Soundsystem

4/5

Heroes to Zeros

The Beta Band

3/5

A Seat at the Table

Solange

4/5

Tracy Chapman

5/5

In It For The Money

Supergrass

4/5

Supergrass may state they do it for the money (like Zappa), but of course that is not the case. This album shows a band that is having a lot of fun with nice indie rock songs. Their debut album (I Should Coco) has more classic songs, but this is a great album too.

War

U2

4/5

Vulnicura

Björk

3/5

Arrival

ABBA

4/5

Tank Battles

Dagmar Krause

2/5

This is one of the lowest rated albums on the list and that is no mistake. I like the music of Hanns Eisler and Bertolt Brecht, but that was never meant to be performed in such a horrific pretentious way. The vocal and instrumental delivery takes all the soul and emotion out of the song and replaces it with false sentiment. Awful!

Blackstar

David Bowie

5/5

Blackstar is the final album of David Bowie. It can be considered as a farewell statement. It's quite strange most of the critics did not inmediately got the message as the looks of Bowie in the video of Lazarus really gave me the creeps. I felt a disturbance and sadness that was confirmed a few days later. Apart from the lyrical content of the album the songs are also very impressive combining rock and experimental jazzy elements. I did not know he still had such a great album in him.

Paris 1919

John Cale

5/5

I Should Coco

Supergrass

4/5

...The Dandy Warhols Come Down

The Dandy Warhols

3/5

Honky Tonk Heroes

Waylon Jennings

2/5

(Pronounced 'Leh-'Nérd 'Skin-'Nérd)

Lynyrd Skynyrd

4/5

Cypress Hill

4/5

Among The Living

Anthrax

4/5

Arise

Sepultura

4/5

Imperial Bedroom

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

5/5

I understand why people complain about the number of Elvis Costello albums on this list. I agree as few could be dropped, but not this one. Nearly every of the 15 songs is a modern pop classic with great and witty lyrics. The Attractions are also performing on top level.

Immigrés

Youssou N'Dour

4/5

Here, My Dear

Marvin Gaye

4/5

Bummed

Happy Mondays

1/5

I like laidback groovy music, but Shaun Ryder makes the Happy Mondays hell on earth. There is nothing wrong with singing a bit off-key and off-rhythm, but this is a mess. The instrumentation is also messy. This record sounds like the recording of some drunk guys from a local pub rehearsing.

Fred Neil

2/5

"Everybody's Talkin'" is a fantastic song and "The Dolphins" is not too bad either. That does not make the a good or ok album. Fred Neil may be a good songwriter, but that does not make him a good performer. This album is forgettable and boring as hell.

The Scream

Siouxsie And The Banshees

4/5

Architecture And Morality

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

2/5

Aha Shake Heartbreak

Kings of Leon

3/5

Aha Shake Heartbreak is an early album of Kings of Leon. The album is less polished than later work. This album has a drive and some urgence, making it less boring than the recent albums of Lings of Leon.

Since I Left You

The Avalanches

5/5

Heroes

David Bowie

5/5

My favorite Bowie album from the Berlin period. The instrumentals are not as great as on Low (but still good) . The songs with vocals combined with the incredible "windenhurst" guitar play of Robert Fripp make this album stand out. The strange and distorted sounds and melodies of Black Out, Beauty and the Beast and Joe the Lion are thrilling. The song Heroes is pure magic.

Forever Changes

Love

4/5

Teenager Of The Year

Frank Black

3/5

Teenager of the Year is a nice solo album of Frank Black. The songs are ok, but not that special and he never reaches the quality of his Pixies days.

Henry's Dream

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

5/5

Nevermind

Nirvana

5/5

Rio

Duran Duran

3/5

A nice collection of pop and new wave songs. Rio is a great song with nearly impossible bass guitar playing. Hungry Like The Wolf, Save a Prayer and The Chauffeur are good too. The rest is filler, making this album more a seven than an eight on a scale of ten.

Mr. Tambourine Man

The Byrds

4/5

Meat Is Murder

The Smiths

4/5

Kilimanjaro

The Teardrop Explodes

4/5

Hail To the Thief

Radiohead

5/5

Colour By Numbers

Culture Club

2/5

What a disappointment this is. Karma Chameleon is a fun song. The other songs are weak and the performance is mediocre and missing any drive.

Violent Femmes

4/5

Maggot Brain

Funkadelic

5/5

Head Hunters

Herbie Hancock

5/5

Fly Or Die

N.E.R.D

2/5

Sweetheart Of The Rodeo

The Byrds

5/5

The music of the The Byrds gets a big boost from the addition of Gram Parsons to the band. Great country rock!

Legalize It

Peter Tosh

5/5

The debut solo album of Peter Tosh. I do not particularly like the title song Legalize It. A lot of rest of the songs are reggae classics though (Burial, What'cha Gonna Do?, No Sympathy, Why Must I Cry, Till Your Well Runs Dry, Brand New Second Hand). Robbie Shakespeare on bass guitar and the rest of the Wailers backing band. You cannot wish for more.

Dusty In Memphis

Dusty Springfield

3/5

Axis: Bold As Love

Jimi Hendrix

3/5

Cupid & Psyche 85

Scritti Politti

1/5

Cupid & Psyche 85 is another 1980s pop album. This one starts a bit generic and ends quite annoying. Apart from the lack of decent songwriting it stands out with pseudo intellectual lyrics that only put more attention on the fact this is something very pretentious and a hollow shell.

Red Headed Stranger

Willie Nelson

4/5

Great outlaw country album by Willie Nelson. Nice story on the wiki page about the fact the lbel thought it was underproduced and too raw. That is just the fact that makes it so great compared to all shiny and overproduced country albums that get released.

Hejira

Joni Mitchell

4/5

Bluesbreakers

John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers

4/5

This album is considered a bluesrock standard and who am i to question it. Eric Clapton is in peak form as guitarist and the rest of the band do not disappoint.

Welcome To The Pleasuredome

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

3/5

Led Zeppelin III

Led Zeppelin

5/5

I do not like every Led Zeppelin album that much, but this is a great piece of music. No weak songs, a few covers and great original material. This sets a standard for 1970s (hard)rock.

Kala

M.I.A.

4/5

Come Find Yourself

Fun Lovin' Criminals

4/5

This debut album of Fun Lovin' Criminals is a lot of fun. Some rap and very varied musical styles from jazz to blues, rock and hip hop to accompany it.

The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators

The 13th Floor Elevators

4/5

Music

Madonna

3/5

Not the best pick of Madonna albums. Why this is on the list and the earlier work not (f.e. Like a Virgin), beats me.

Billion Dollar Babies

Alice Cooper

4/5

Hybrid Theory

Linkin Park

2/5

First Band On The Moon

The Cardigans

4/5

Roots

Sepultura

4/5

Dust

Screaming Trees

4/5

Better Living Through Chemistry

Fatboy Slim

4/5

Phrenology

The Roots

5/5

That's The Way Of The World

Earth, Wind & Fire

4/5

Sincere

Mj Cole

3/5

Here Come The Warm Jets

Brian Eno

4/5

Channel Orange

Frank Ocean

5/5

Getz/Gilberto

Stan Getz

4/5

Stripped

Christina Aguilera

2/5

It would have been more fun if the album was indeed somewhat stripped. At 77 minutes it is a lot of material and a lot of it is not that good. Generic pop album.

Underwater Moonlight

The Soft Boys

4/5

Drunk

Thundercat

4/5

Who Killed...... The Zutons?

The Zutons

3/5

The question is if anyone cares who did. This is a rather generic indie rock album with a start and an end and some ok songs. I would not listen to it a third time, there is so much better music around.

The Dreaming

Kate Bush

3/5

Red Dirt Girl

Emmylou Harris

4/5

Follow The Leader

Korn

2/5

Disappointing metal album by Korn. It has not aged that well.

Club Classics Vol. One

Soul II Soul

3/5

Bone Machine

Tom Waits

5/5

AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted

Ice Cube

4/5

Good rap album by Ice Cube. Some of the lyrics did not age that well (a bit misogenic), other lyrics provide a socio-political conscious and gangsta rap statement about the situation in The Projects L.A.

At Folsom Prison

Johnny Cash

5/5

Talking Timbuktu

Ali Farka Touré

4/5

Surrealistic Pillow

Jefferson Airplane

5/5

American Gothic

David Ackles

2/5

According to various critics this is a hidden gem. Some treasure everybody forgot about. I played the album four times just to be sure, but I cannot find what is so special about it. In every way it is mediocre and boring to me.

Ramones

5/5

Lots and lots of energy in stupid fun proto punkrock songs.

Murmur

R.E.M.

4/5

A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse

Faces

3/5

Hunting High And Low

a-ha

2/5

The famous debut studio album of synth-pop band a-ha. It contains the hit singles (Take On Me, Hunting High And Low, The Sun Always Shines On TV). The rest is filler. It's nice to have a Norwegian entry on the list, but I prefer Madrugada by far.

Beauty And The Beat

The Go-Go's

4/5

Fromohio

fIREHOSE

4/5

Signing Off

UB40

4/5

The first and only good album of UB40. Listening to the inspired music and great lyrics. It's hard to image how this could end in the boring and heartless music they started to make just a few years later.

Blur

4/5

Night Life

Ray Price

3/5

The Low End Theory

A Tribe Called Quest

5/5

A Date With The Everly Brothers

The Everly Brothers

3/5

Justified

Justin Timberlake

3/5

In my memory this R&B abum was much better than when I listen to it now. It contains some good songs (Cry Me A River, Rock Your Body), but also a lot of filler. If it was stripped down to 45 minutes it ould have been a 3.5 star album, but the current collection of songs is hardly worth a 3 star rating.

Future Days

Can

5/5

#1 Record

Big Star

5/5

Beautiful powerpop record of Big Star containing one of of my favorite songs of all time (Thirteen). It's hard to understand (apart from luck and label issues) that most of the world missed this release at the time.

Only By The Night

Kings of Leon

2/5

I like the first Kings of Leon album on the list. On this fourth album the transformation to boring MOR, daddy rock is completed. The songs are fine, but the performance is uninspired and the album does not add anything interesting to music history. Like a MacDonalds burger.

Space Ritual

Hawkwind

2/5

A live double album of space rock is not something that makes me very happy. I think the legend of the album and music is a lot bigger than its actual quality and impact. Only funny and interesting fact is Lemmy playing bass guitar on it, but that's it.

Brutal Youth

Elvis Costello

3/5

A lot of listeners of the list complain about the number of Elvis Costello albums on it. I consider a lot of those albums too be fitting on such a list, but this one is not. Brutal Youth is an ok, so so album. It is certainly not bad, but even Elvis Costello has made several greater ones (f.e. Spike). This is a three stars max.

Guero

Beck

4/5

Duck Stab/Buster & Glen

The Residents

4/5

Logical Progression

LTJ Bukem

3/5

Want One

Rufus Wainwright

3/5

Vincebus Eruptum

Blue Cheer

3/5

Metal Box

Public Image Ltd.

5/5

Woodface

Crowded House

4/5

Woodface is a fantastic collection of beautiful pop songs. All instrumentation, vocals, lyrics and arrangements fit. That is also my complaint. It's gets a bit dull after a while. I am missing some contrast, some tempo or style change. Then again, an album with Chocolate Cake, It's Only Natural, Weather with You and Four Seasons in One Day is a gift to humankind.

Take Me Apart

Kelela

4/5

Either Or

Elliott Smith

5/5

Amazing album with fragile singer-songwriter songs with beautiful melodies and somewhat depressing lyrics,

Darklands

The Jesus And Mary Chain

4/5

Chore of Enchantment

Giant Sand

2/5

The Gilded Palace Of Sin

The Flying Burrito Brothers

5/5

Early country rock album by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman. They also worked together at The Byrds (Sweetheart of the Rodeo). Most of the songs are classics. Nice pedal-steel guitar by "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow.

Songs The Lord Taught Us

The Cramps

4/5

Some over the top rockabilly by a deranged sexually disordered bunch of freaks. It's a delight!

Group Sex

Circle Jerks

4/5

Group Sex with Circle Jerks sounds like a bad idea. It is not. It is fun, energetic and you are finished quickly. Good punk rock album!

Haut de gamme / Koweït, rive gauche

Koffi Olomide

2/5

Live At The Witch Trials

The Fall

4/5

I don’t know if Mark E Smith was Live At The Witch Trials, but it sounds like he was. Commenting everything happening with his satirical tone. Honest and primal post-punk.

Snivilisation

Orbital

4/5

Walking Wounded

Everything But The Girl

4/5

Hot Buttered Soul

Isaac Hayes

5/5

Ace of Spades

Motörhead

4/5

Spiderland

Slint

5/5

Locust Abortion Technician

Butthole Surfers

4/5

I understand the general dislike of this album. It is noisy, abusive, unpolite and messy. But it is also very funny, inventive, original and the songs are great. If you like to draw within the line, do not like off keys, like classic paintings and dislike modern art then this is not for you. If that is so: please go back to your suburban neighborhood, in real life we need this kind of music. Not all is fine, so our music should not be either.

Casanova

The Divine Comedy

4/5

Duck Rock

Malcolm McLaren

4/5

Larks' Tongues In Aspic

King Crimson

4/5

Beautiful prog rock album by King Crimson. Instrumentation is more violin and "stranger" percussion than in earlier King Crimson. The slower songs are jazzy, but the up-tempo ones tend to metal.

Third

Soft Machine

4/5

Parachutes

Coldplay

4/5

It's almost hard to imagine after all those not so interesting albums that the debut Coldplay album is a good one. Songs with great melodies sounding a bit like early Radiohead ("The Bends"). Too bad they never reached this level again.

Brown Sugar

D'Angelo

5/5

Typing this review a few days after the death of D'Angelo, I must admit before listening this album in May 2024, I almost forgot about the artist. This list was a great reminder of the excellence of the RnB he produced on Brown Sugar. Great sexual, sweaty soul with a heart.

Boy In Da Corner

Dizzee Rascal

5/5

With Boy In Da Corner Dizzee Rascal defined a whole new music genre: Grime. Great songs with deep bass instrumentation, all lot of variation. Amazing!

The Velvet Underground

5/5

The Velvet Underground is the only album of this band that could have had any appeal to a larger audience. The rock songs and ballads are not as strange in instrumentation, arrangement and lyrics as on the other three albums. Songs like Candy Says, What Goes On, Pale Blue Eyes or Afterhours are all time classics.

Darkdancer

Les Rythmes Digitales

3/5

I remember when this album came out I was fully hyped up and I wasn't the only one. Les Rythmes Digitales would have an event at Ekko Utrecht, but was cancelled (missed a Theo Maassen show for it, I already had a ticket). Revisiting the album after all those years, I can't say I missed that much. Darkdancer is full of electronic music that was "ahead of its time" then, but now sounds a bit dated.

Slayed?

Slade

3/5

Slade is the kind of Glam Rock that has aged bad. Certainly compared to David Bowie, T Rex and even Mott The Hoople. The music is just 1970s rock with a bit of humor. It's a bit genetic now without the visuals of a live show.

Beach Samba

Astrud Gilberto

3/5

This is another fine example of the fact that the writers of the 1001 Books also choose non-english albums, but very often these are "mixed English albums". Regularly these albums contain contributions of English or American musicians. In this case half of the album consists of English pop songs. It is not a bad album, but certainly not of of the best of Astrud Gilberto.

Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby

Girls Against Boys

4/5

Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby is a good post/indie rock album. It stands out as differing from the other 1990s indie rock bands having a darker sound and more aggression. It's the event in the shady bar in the wrong part of town.

Talking With the Taxman About Poetry

Billy Bragg

4/5

Billy Bragg is forever a musical hero to me because of the "A New England" song. So I do prefer his debut album "Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy". Overall this album is maybe a bit stronger. Great punk folk songs in the tradition of Woody Guthrie. An album full of determination and with a mission.

Urban Hymns

The Verve

5/5

Magnificent britpop album by The Verve. Various songs are absolute bangers ("Bitter Sweet Symphony", "The Drugs Don't Work", "Lucky Man" and "Sonnet").

At Newport 1960

Muddy Waters

4/5

Great and classic blues album. I understand the selection as his studio albums do not capture his drive and rage during live performances.

Loveless

My Bloody Valentine

5/5

One of my all time favorite albums. Great soundscapes created by drone guitar chord repetition. It is the defining album for the shoegaze genre. It is intense and disorientating.

The Good, The Bad & The Queen

4/5

Nice side project of Damon Albarn, Paul Simonon, Simon Tong and Tony Allen, produced by Danger Mouse. The album does not provide the sum of all parts in peak form, but it's a fine rock album nonetheless.

We're Only In It For The Money

The Mothers Of Invention

5/5

Fantastic early Frank Zappa album. It's making fun of everything that was going on at the time. Great songs with ironic lyrics commenting on the social and political situation at the time. I really like the album cover (with Jimi Hendrix)

Sister

Sonic Youth

5/5

Sister is my favorite Sonic Youth album. The detuned and distorted guitar sounds are there, but also fantastic rock songs (Schizophrenia, (I Got A) Catholic Block). Daydream Nation is also a banger, but is missing the urgence of this one.

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

PJ Harvey

4/5

One of the magnificent indie rock albums of PJ Harvey that is also accessible and a commercial success. The production is somewhat smoother making the music sound less lo-fi and intimidating.

Live 1966 (The Royal Albert Hall Concert)

Bob Dylan

3/5

I do not understand the need to include a live album of Bob Dylan. The quality of his live performances is not that consistent (drunk, high, forgetting lyrics) to act as if this is his standard.

Trout Mask Replica

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

5/5

I understand why people don’t get this album. It sounds strange and a lot of normal structures seem to be absent. If you take the time and have an open mind, you will find out it is just a simple blues album. One with a lot of pseudo avantgarde blues guitar licks that appear more difficult than they are. It is like listening to a verse and chorus only once. Just run each song on repeat a few times and it becomes clear. Great guitar play and fantastic vocals. The lyrics are gibberish poems of tonal association.

Faust IV

Faust

5/5

Another fantastic kraut rock album by Faust and it even has the song Krautrock on it. The first songs are more drone rhythm founded and the second half of the album consists of more traditional rock songs.

Natty Dread

Bob Marley & The Wailers

5/5

The best solo Bob Marley album (after Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh left). Most of the songs are protest songs about politics and the rastafari believe. And of course it contains the love song No Woman No Cry.

It's Too Late to Stop Now

Van Morrison

4/5

It’s too late to stop now… is it? I wondered. As much as I wanted to hate the length of this record and the routine reaction of Van to the audience (the “thank you” after just some lines in the beginning of a song is a bummer). I must admit it is a great album and performance. I do not like live albums on this list etc. In the end only the quality of an album remains.

Django Django

3/5

It's an ok Art rock album. Some songs are good, but as a whole it's not very special.

Elvis Presley

4/5

Nothing wrong with Elvis Presley being Elvis Presley. He hardly wrote any songs himself, stole his image and style from black artists. Then again: nothing wrong with this rock 'n roll album.

Skylarking

XTC

5/5

Homework

Daft Punk

5/5

One of the best electronic albums ever. The repetition of Around the World is a statement on its own and the repetition itself is the thing that makes it such a marvelous song. Also Da Funk is incredible and Teachers as a tribute to all the inspirators… I don’t know where to begin or end my appraise… just enjoy!

Get Behind Me Satan

The White Stripes

4/5

Fantastic garage rock album by White Stripes. It does not contain their best songs, but the overall kevel of quality is stunning. Compared to Elephant it is more varied, raw and daring.

Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Wu-Tang Clan

5/5

This is a very impressive hip hop classic. It is from 1993, but sounds like it could have been released today. All great Wu-Tang Clan members are there in peak form. Great production, great songs, great raps!

Celebrity Skin

Hole

3/5

Good rock album by Hole. At the time it was all about Courtney's relation to Cobain. Also Billy Corgan contributed to the album. The songs and most of the performance is great, but the voice of Love gets annoying and withholds me from giving four stars.

Back To Black

Amy Winehouse

4/5

Back to Black is a great soul and RnB album. The voice of Amy is just fantastic. In retrospect the lyrics in a lot of the songs are really sad.

Born To Be With You

Dion

2/5

I’m sorry to write this is a clear example of mediocrity. The songs are boring and uninteresting and even the production by Phil Spector is forgettable.

Melody A.M.

Röyksopp

4/5

After The Gold Rush

Neil Young

5/5

The Gershwin Songbook

Ella Fitzgerald

5/5

The album (in every release) is much and much too long. Then again Ella Fitzgerald is much too great a singer give anything else than five stars.

Dub Housing

Pere Ubu

5/5

One of the most hated albums on this list. Why I can understand. The music is somewhat avant garde rock and the singer sounds like a dying pig. It is an acquired taste, but also an adventurous album with lots of ideas and great guitar riffs. We are in the 21 century now and I would like to think people would not find an album from 1978 still that shocking.

Me Against The World

2Pac

4/5

Gorillaz

4/5

The Grand Tour

George Jones

3/5

Post Orgasmic Chill

Skunk Anansie

3/5

I must admit I remembered these Skunk Anansie albums being a whole lot better than they are appear to be right now. Of the first three I always considered this the weaker one and the one with Weak on it the best. It has some nice agressive tunes, but not every song is as strong as the opener.

Gasoline Alley

Rod Stewart

2/5

Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

OutKast

5/5

New Boots And Panties

Ian Dury

4/5

I think Ian Dury is a better individual song than album artist, but this is still a fine album anyways. A lot of different styles sound coherent because of Dury’s energetic and distinctive performance. Nice detail of Baxter Dury on the cover who has become a great performer as well.

Close To You

Carpenters

3/5

Bug

Dinosaur Jr.

4/5

Survivor

Destiny's Child

2/5

Aqualung

Jethro Tull

4/5

Californication

Red Hot Chili Peppers

5/5

Destroyer

KISS

3/5

Oar

Alexander 'Skip' Spence

2/5

Berlin

Lou Reed

5/5

Legendary concept album about a relationship that after a good start (Berlin) starts to fall apart in awful ways (Caroline Says II, The Kids, The Bed). Not the happiest lyrics, but an emotional rollercoaster.

Hotel California

Eagles

4/5

It did not age that well and sounds like a rock album for boomers nowadays. But the classics (New Kid, Fast Lane, Hotel) are there and the other songs are not that bad either. Like the dad joke that makes you laugh anyway. Like the simple pasta dish that outranks the complicated five star dinner. You like it, you just don’t want to admit it.

Pacific Ocean Blue

Dennis Wilson

3/5

I do not know what this album adds to this list. The music is ok, though Dennis is clearly not the best songwriter.

Electric

The Cult

4/5

A great hard rock album by The Cult. Not very original as the album sounds like a 1987 mix of The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and Aerosmith. The album contains some strong guitar licks and hooks though.

Slanted And Enchanted

Pavement

5/5

Slanted and Enchanted is the fabulous debut album of Pavement. This strong collection of songs in an indie rock and lo-fi format are full of melody, noise, distortion and subtlety.

Fishscale

Ghostface Killah

5/5

This is the best album of former Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah. Great rap album with lots of contributions of famous (Wu-Tang Clan) rappers (Raekwon, Trife, Cappadonna, RZA, GZA, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Ol' Dirty Bastard, The Notorious B.I.G.). Some rappers improve with age.

good kid, m.A.A.d city

Kendrick Lamar

5/5

Fantastic rap album by Kendrick Lemar. His second and breakthrough album that made him one of hip hop greatest.

Don't Stand Me Down

Dexys Midnight Runners

3/5

I don’t like this album of Dexys. The production is too smooth and every Dexys quality (being an organized mess with a lot of instruments and energy) has been cut down. It’s ok, nothing more.

Heaux Tales

Jazmine Sullivan

4/5

Heaux Tales is a nice R&B surprise. It is quite short, containing 14 tracks of which 6 are spoken word interludes.

Oedipus Schmoedipus

Barry Adamson

4/5

Oedipus Schmoedipus is an album by former Bad Seeds and Magazine member Barry Adamson. The music is a mixture of lounge, jazz and post-rock. It's like a soundtrack for a film noir.

Infected

The The

5/5

Great pop album with diverse musical styles. Not the happiest lyrics. Excellent contribution of Neneh Cherry on Slow Train to Dawn

3/5

I must admit this is a very enjoyable glamrock album. "Faith Healer“ and “Swampsnake” are great songs. The rest of the album is not sensational.

Buena Vista Social Club

5/5

We must be grateful to Ry Cooder for putting this ensemble of Cuban legends together. Chan Chan is by far the best song on an album that would also be a classic if it was not on it.

Innervisions

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Compared to Talking Book and Songs in the Key of Life it is maybe the weakest link. Compared to the rest of music history it is a classic funk, jazz and soul album and one of the greatest ever. Ask Mr Know-It-All, he knows this much is true.

Public Image: First Issue

Public Image Ltd.

4/5

Public Image: First Issue is the debut album of Public Image Ltd. It contains the same off key and annoying vocals John Lydon delivered at The Sex Pistols. The music is quite messy and is sort of post-punk mixed with echo, dub and strange sounds. This should not, but does work and makes it a banger.

Atomizer

Big Black

5/5

One of the many Steve Albini contributions to this list. I will surely miss the guy. The album is one big explosion of sound and energy.

Welcome to the Afterfuture

Mike Ladd

4/5

Nice hip hop album with lots of samples and styles. It is a bit messy at first, but when all falls into place, it's a great listen.

Make Yourself

Incubus

3/5

This is an ok rock and metal album with some hip hop and electronic elements. Nothing too fancy, but enjoyable.

Shleep

Robert Wyatt

4/5

Shleep is another good album by Robert Wyatt. Eclectic prog-rock and terrific songs. Also an unbelievable backing band with Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera and Paul Weller.

Pictures At An Exhibition

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

3/5

I like the idea of making an adaptation (of Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky), but in the end it does not show any emotion or urgence. It is just a very clever prove of concept.

Play

Moby

4/5

A lot of catchy hits that make me very happy. Great party album.

This Is Fats Domino

Fats Domino

4/5

This is a good Fats Domino rock and roll album containing the classic "Blueberry Hill". Some other songs ("Poor Poor Me") are also great, but it also contains some weaker ones. To really enjoy Fats Domino you can better listen to a best of album.

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

The Flaming Lips

5/5

A sort of concept album by The Flaming Lips. The album as a whole has a very orchestral and bombastic production that suit the strange (space)rock and neo-psychedelia of the band nicely. "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" is my favorite song, but also the rest of the songs is of high quality.

Green Onions

Booker T. & The MG's

4/5

A great rhythm and blues and soul album by Booker T. The eponymous song is a true classic. The rest of the songs (a lot of covers) are also good and the performance of the band is excellent.

Blunderbuss

Jack White

4/5

Blunderbuss is the debut solo album of Jack White of The White Stripes. Compared to The White Stripes this album contains more traditional blues (rock). As one critic wrote: "an entertaining rollercoaster of a listen".

Sound of Silver

LCD Soundsystem

5/5

Fantastic album on the borderline between rock and dance. "North American Scum" and "All My Friends" are great songs and the highlight is "Someone Great". All songs deliver a lot of energy and positivity.

Arular

M.I.A.

4/5

Hardly any album exists that is as annoying and f****d up like Arular. A relentless waterfall of beats and words bang on your ears. Great music!

Cafe Bleu

The Style Council

3/5

Paul Weller has created good music with the jam and solo. This is rather forgettable.

New York Dolls

3/5

I never understood the appeal of the New York Dolls. They are called proto-punk, but contemporaries like Stooges and MC5 make superior music.

Millions Now Living Will Never Die

Tortoise

4/5

Great instrumental post-rock album with jazz elements. The music is quite diverse from soundscapes to rhythmic tracks. If you like this one, TNT is also a nice album of Tortoise.

Behaviour

Pet Shop Boys

4/5

I don't really like the 1980s sound of the Pet Shop Boys, but I'll make an exception for Behaviour. It does not contain that many hit singles, but overall the quality of the songs is quite good and I like the minimal production.

Greetings From L.A.

Tim Buckley

3/5

I like the fact this album is not as serious (and annoying) like his other albums (Happy Sad, Hello and Goodbye). The introvert singer-songwriter is replaced by a half drunk crooner singing about getting laid. I guess it has not aged that well, but it must have been a real shock to his early fans.

Music Has The Right To Children

Boards of Canada

5/5

Music Has the Right to Children is a modern classic in the electronic genre. The soundscapes created by using old and detuned synthesizers. If you think EDM is cold, listen to this and experience a warm blanket.

Jack Takes the Floor

Ramblin' Jack Elliott

3/5

He takes the floor with a lot of energy in his folk songs and performance. Nice one!

Ellington at Newport

Duke Ellington

4/5

Most of the time I find big band jazz boring, but I must admit this is a great album with excellent musicians in their peak form.

Haunted Dancehall

The Sabres Of Paradise

3/5

Haunted Dancehall is a fine electronic album, but the songs do not really stand out. It's missing any urgence and just bleeps along.

California

American Music Club

3/5

A nice indie rock and americana album. Nothing too special. I never really understood the hype about Mark Eitzel. His work is fine, but none of his songs are all that great.

Lust For Life

Iggy Pop

5/5

One of the excellent albums of Bowie (and Iggy) from the Berlin period. I always thought Brian Eno was also involved, but that's not the case. The best song of the record (Passenger) is the one that was not (co)written by Bowie.

Live / Dead

Grateful Dead

3/5

According to the fans Grateful Dead is the greatest live band. This should be one of their greatest live albums. I'm a bit disappointed as it is ok, but not as special as i expected it to be.

Too Rye Ay

Dexys Midnight Runners

4/5

After Searching for the Young Soul Rebels this is a less spectacular album. It contains the hit song and the rest of the material is also great rock and new wave.

Playing With Fire

Spacemen 3

4/5

I never heard of it before, but this is a great psychedelic, space rock, shoegaze album. A trance synthesizer like experience is created by heavy distorted guitars and slow chord progressions.

Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Aphex Twin

5/5

Amazing electronic music that sounds so fresh. It has not aged a bit and is spot on all of the time.

The Score

Fugees

4/5

The most important album of 1996 with an elegant mix of hip hop, soul, pop and rock.

I See A Darkness

Bonnie "Prince" Billy

5/5

Beautiful and fragile album of Will Oldham. Great emotional songs with somewhat dark lyrics.

Chemtrails Over The Country Club

Lana Del Rey

4/5

Though this album also deserves to be on the list, I do not understand Norman Fucking Rockwell not being on it as it is a bit better. Both are full of good songwriting and Lana has a mesmerising voice.

All Mod Cons

The Jam

5/5

I love this record. Great power/punk pop with drive and urgence and clever lyrics.

Harvest

Neil Young

5/5

A classic Neil Young album with fantastic songs which is a bit overproduced.

Fuzzy Logic

Super Furry Animals

4/5

Albums of Super Furry Animals are always eclectic. This one has some terrific songs.

The White Album

Beatles

5/5

Of course the White Album is great. It could have been even greater if some songs of Paul were dropped (Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Wild Honey Pie)

Nick Of Time

Bonnie Raitt

4/5

I liked it more than expected, sometimes a bit middle of the road. Great songs and performance though

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Iron Butterfly

2/5

To me this is just boring and uninspired rock that goes on and on.

New Wave

The Auteurs

3/5

Another Britpop band. It's not bad, not great either.

You Are The Quarry

Morrissey

4/5

A very nice album by the (not so nice) Morrissey. I really like Irish Blood, English Heart (music & lyrics).

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