1001 Albums Summary

Really diverse sound for just seven tracks (with two of them taking up almost a third of the runtime), and the one I don't really care for is the shortest. Key tracks: Maggot Brain, Super Stupid, Can You Get to That

I was already predisposed to enjoying the tough guy streetwalker tracks that still get radio play, and the slower more romantic songs are well done even if they're not my preference, but the more intense songs about historical violence that Iron Maiden basically took wholesale blew me away (and sure enough, as I write this I discover that Maiden actually did in fact record a cover of Massacre). They're lucky this album kicks as much ass as it does, or I would've been more upset about the blatant overdubbing. Key Tracks: Emerald, Massacre, Cowboy Song

Lenny Kravitz wants you to know three things: Love is good, Hate is bad, and he listened to a lot of his parent's records while he was going to Beverly Hills High School. Let Love Rule's musical offerings of peace and love are so insipid and empty that it's hard to imagine him having anything but a cushy upbringing—take how Klan lynchings are mentioned in passing on one track, but don't weigh quite as heavily on Kravitz's mind as the racial injustice the entire next song is dedicated to: him being unable to catch a cab. With a complete lack of nuance, it just sounds like a studio version of a dude with an acoustic guitar sitting below a tree on a college campus trying to get laid, which is maybe not the best idea when you're already married to Lisa Bonet. Key Tracks: Blues for Sister Someone

Boy, the chorus for "This is the Day" sure hits different when it's not being taken out of context to sell you a car or whatever the commercial I recognize it from was shilling. Tears for Fears already made me a sucker for downer lyrics over upbeat music, and this miserable motherfucker is just full of energy. Perfectly paced, too; day lyrically turns to night to mark the end of the first side and continues in the following song, priming you for the title track's sparse, lethargic sound. I liked the album enough to opt into the bonus track included on the CD version (tacked on unbeknownst to frontman Matt Johnson), which turned out to be a mistake, as one more introspective song is the exact amount needed to go from "cohesive album about isolation and stagnation" to "get over yourself." Frontman Matt Johnson insisted on its removal in future releases. Good call. Key Tracks: I've Been Waitin' for Tomorrow (All of My Life), Soul Mining, Giant

Probably better off in 1001 Singles You Must Hear Before You Die. Hunting High and Low sounds pretty much exactly like the made-for-radio synth pop I expected it to be, with some tracks (And You Tell Me especially) coming off as borderline parody. It's all fine and listenable—aforementioned track notwithstanding—but feels hollow for the most part. There's glimpses where it seems like the band may be aware of that, but I doubt they were thinking about more than the charts. Key Tracks: Take On Me, The Blue Sky, The Sun Always Shines On T.V.

I enjoyed this more as a history lesson than an album. It really feels like the moment in time where cavemen discover fire, but instead it's realizing that conventional love songs with the same old guitars and backing vocals are starting to get played out so we should get weird with it a little—and also get tonsures and seemingly-ironic stage names. There's a couple of fun songs, and I'm into Gary Burger's strange "Don Rickles x Bobcat Goldthwait" energy, but its value to me is more as an artifact. Key Songs: Monk Time, Blast Off!, That's My Girl

I had my RHCP epiphany while I listened to Californication: when you sandwich the "linger on your block and give the finger to a cop" goofball funk rock sex rhymes between your softer songs about the Hollywood lifestyle and addiction and all that, it just makes one sound about as earnest as the other. It's like, come on, LL Cool J, are you Bad or do you Need Love? I'm certainly not buying both. The starting track says it all for the album (and the band): the verses and the chorus try to have their two admittedly well-crafted sounds co-exist, but one inevitably comes at the expense of the other. In this case, they're both disposable fluff, but at least one tries to have a little fun—even if said fun was better earlier in their careers. Key Tracks: Around the World, Get On Top

Jesus, imagine the amount of self-awareness you have to lack to write the non-conformist "Dial-a-Cliché" and then be so stereotypically British that you have one song about wanting Thatcher dead and another about how you don't want foreigners in your country. There's a lot of sad, horny British (in that order) wailing on this record, but it lacks Soul Mining's compelling sound or the bombastic energy that kept a handful of a-ha songs on my phone. Key Tracks: Alsatian Cousin, Little Man, What Now?, Break Up the Family

What I Did on My Summer Vacation After My Divorce, by Paul Simon: "Visited Africa; took their music. Bought several accordions, too many accordions. Made even more money." I kind of feel bad for favoring the singles I've already heard on a lot of these albums so far, but You Can Call Me Al is not only a guilty pleasure bop, but also likely the best collection of Simon's thoughts on getting old as well as his deluxe cultural appropriation getaway in Apartheid-era South Africa. There are other moments where his ruminations feel inspired, but they're outnumbered by the hokey and upstaged by Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Key Tracks: You Can Call Me Al, Homeless, Crazy Love, Vol. II

What if the Spiders from Mars actually sounded like they were from Mars? After the barrage of British new-wave the generator was spitting out, the more experimental (and at times, playful) sounds of Roxy Music were like an oasis. The opener "Re-Make/Re-Model" gives you no real idea as to what the song is about with its title, but it may as well be a mission statement for the entire album, as nearly every song reinvents itself over the course of their runtimes, with Bryan Ferry's erratic, sometimes borderline unhinged singing often the only anchor. Even the shorter songs manage to flip switches on you: Chance Meeting gives you about 30 seconds before the music gives the lyrics a completely different complexion. The second half isn't as captivating as the really strong first side, but at its dullest, it still managed to keep my interest. Key Tracks: Re-Make/Remodel, Ladytron, If There Is Something

A perfectly fine album to hang out and shoot up to, but despite being only 34 minutes long—and that's including a 10 minute track that seems to exist just to make this more than an EP—a lot of the songs blur together. Maybe it's by design (the opening track's complaints of "nothing to do" come to mind), but it'd be nice if there were more tracks than I Wanna Be Your Dog that stood out musically. I guess that's what you call a cohesive sound? Key Tracks: 1969, I Wanna Be Your Dog, No Fun

My immediate reaction was to file this under the most 80s pop ass 80s pop ever, but despite its pervasive radio-friendliness, it really belongs in its own niche nestled somewhere between Salt-N-Pepa and Massive Attack. There are moments where the lyricism feels as of its time as the delightfully dated synths, but Cherry comes across emphatically on the microphone be it rapping or singing, exuding a confidence that most MCs would kill to have. My only real knock against it is the thematic redundancy that stands out listening to these songs back-to-back: there's a three-track stretch after the opening singles that all tread in the same youth/parenthood waters, and it probably would have been better off spread out a bit more. Key Tracks: Buffalo Stance, Manchild, Outré Risqué Locomotive

Joni Mitchell has a real flowery, pleasant voice, but the flowery language that accompanies it kind of grates at times. It's almost like she's challenging herself to say the simplest shit with as much effort as possible, shoehorning in syllables wherever she can. This would probably be a 3 if the music Mitchell was singing over was a bit more interesting, but then again, the final track's detour—featuring a bizarre cameo by Cheech & Chong of all people—left a pretty sour taste in my mouth. Key Tracks: Down to You, Just Like This Train

Well God damn, this was just a bunch of supremely talented musicians going the fuck off for the better part of an hour. The drum solo bonus track is a bit much (as I'm finding bonus tracks to be so far), but the rest just washed over me almost instantaneously. Kuti is an awesome frontman and Paul Simon should've taken some vacation tips from Ginger Baker. Key Tracks: Black Man's Cry, Ye Ye De Smell

Fred Neil should be thankful we got Lenny Kravitz so early, otherwise this would be the least interesting album we've listened to so far. The Dolphins straight up sounds like a song they'd have Mr. Van Driessen sing on Beavis & Butt-Head, and the following track wasn't much better. I almost tapped out then and there, but thankfully, things pick up a little bit after that. I'm not exactly sure what this book wants me to hear from this album, though, because outside of being the origin story of a better version of Everybody's Talkin'—your song got *someone else* a Grammy, congrats—this is some real white bread shit. Key Tracks: That's the Bag I'm In, Everybody's Talkin'

Diamond Life's music is silky smooth and enjoyable to the point that I was pretty frequently bummed when the songs faded out in the middle of the group's musicians picking up business. Sade's a talented vocalist, but on top of the lyrics being pretty generic love song fodder (though a few thematic diversions keep it from being as exhausting as Let Love Rule), I'm just not that into her voice on a lot of these tracks. If you threw someone like Chrissy Hynde on here, though, it'd be the sexiest shit on Earth. Key Tracks: Smooth Operator, Hang On to Your Love, When Am I Going to Make a Living

Lyrically dense, loosely cinematic, and a showcase for almost every single member of the Clan, Cuban Linx is possibly the definitive Wu-Tang album. Rae and Ghost (plus RZA's production) are undoubtedly the stars here, but the features are the record's crown jewel: Inspectah Deck comes through with one of his all-time verses (second only to Triumph), Nas delivers what feels like a refined sequel to his legendary intro from Live at the Barbeque, and even Blue Raspberry's vocals provide a welcome contrast to the rugged coke rhymes that permeate the album. Repeated listens over the years trained me to skip over the skits, but on this revisiting I came to appreciate how they set the stage for the tracks they precede—the intro is a primer for both the album as a whole as well as the heist Ghost describes so vividly in Knuckleheadz, and the scuffle at the start of Can It Be's remix feels like an appropriate companion to his following verse ("Opened flesh, burgundy blood colored my Guess"). You could easily drop the whinging about the Ready to Die album cover, though. Key Tracks: Guillotine (Swordz), Verbal Intercourse, Wu-Gambinos

Bone Machine's sound is certainly well-crafted, but I just don't like it very much. There are times where I didn't mind the gravelly near-mumble of Waits—it certainly beats his country blues impression on Jesus Gonna Be Here, a title I'm surprised wasn't accompanied by "(feat. Dusty Rhodes)"—but those fleeting moments came when the album got out of its own way and shifted from its morbid focus. Goin' Out West's takedown of Hollywood and macho bullshit features the best music to be found here, and for as dark as the writing can be, the palpable bitterness of Who Are You hits the heaviest ("are you pretending to love / well, I hear it pays well"). Everything else runs too long and treads waters too similar (oh boy, more songs about death where the drums are recorded from the next room over), ending up sounding like the long-lost soundtrack to some animated film that'd sell a lot of shirts at your local mall's Hot Topic. Key Tracks: Who Are You, Goin' Out West

You see "Beach Boys," you see "Surf's Up," and you think you know what you're getting into, only for Brian Wilson to treat the title drop at the tail end of the record like some sort of cruel punchline playing on your expectations. On one hand, it feels like they're punching above their weight class with the heavier subject matter—a lot of the songs have a message, but lack nuance ("I know we're all fed up with useless wars and racial strife / but next time there's a riot, well, you best stay out of sight"). On the other, I kind of appreciate the effort, since it's a bit more interesting than the album I pictured in my head, and the sounds are often pleasant, even borderline beautiful on side two. I can definitely see why the Beach Boys have the reputation they do amongst music critics, but I had to push past cheesy environmentalism and songs about washing your feet to get there. Key Tracks: Disney Girls (1957), Feel Flows, 'Til I Die

Now that's what I call background music. I've been listening to these albums mostly as I do my daily walks, and while this wasn't the best album I've heard so far, it was probably the most enjoyable walk I've had. Energetic but serene, with killer horns, drums and bass, this is exactly what I want to hear out of jazz musicians. You could probably cut a track or two, but at the very least, the ones that feel more like filler make me appreciate the standout deviations more. Key Tracks: Minawa, Maseru, Maesha

My preference for "prog rock that sounds like an elf wrote AND sings it" lies with Rush, but I can't deny that this album is good stuff. The practically nonsense lyricism isn't really my thing—when combined with the synths, shit gets real cheesy—but it takes a pretty clear backseat to the music anyway, and the music is spectacular. The more folk-y middle track lulls at times compared to the other two, but those tracks are strong enough to make up for it, the closing banger especially. Key Tracks: Close to the Edge, Siberian Khatru

Music for people that can almost land a kickflip to listen to while they think about their crush on the cute cashier at the Zumiez by the mall. Not outright offensive, so it's spared the single star.

I would like to thank whoever lent Beyoncé Knowles-Carter a copy of Yeezus, and I would also like to thank Jay-Z for pretty clearly having outright psychopathic dick game. BEYONCÉ is an erotic, playful, and personal—well, as personal as something with like 30 writers can be—record with a sound that gleefully defies expectations. There's some pretty sexy shit on here, but what grabbed me most was how much fun she seems to be having on the microphone, confidently busting out Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz references, I-run-this-shit chest beating and barely-disguised, Prince-esque sex rhymes in-between examining her self-image and serenading her newborn daughter. The second half can't keep up with the runaway momentum of the first (barring ***Flawless, it sounds more like what I expected going into the album, bland Drake feature and all), but this was a damn fine surprise overall. Key Tracks: Haunted, Blow, Partition

It's not exactly the same thing, but listening to Liege & Lief had me thinking about the Stray Cats and their anachronistic, throwback sound. On this record, Fairport Convention feels like a late 60s rock band that got lost on the way to a show, ended up at the local Renaissance fair, and liked it so much that they just started living there. The opening track manages to channel your typical are-you-ready-to-rock album openers and a bard's song at a medieval pub simultaneously, and that's pretty impressive. It's far from my wheelhouse, but I have to admit that it's a pretty interesting record, and Sandy Denny's voice is stunning. Key Tracks: Come All Ye, Matty Groves, The Deserter

This record felt about twice as long as it actually was, and I didn't even listen any to bonus tracks that weren't Suspicious Minds. The Memphis Boys have a nice sound that Elvis' voice complements well, but after three or four love songs in a row, it gets a little exhausting staying at the Heartbreak Hotel. None of it's outright bad, but as an album, it's a bit of a rough listen. Key Tracks: In the Ghetto

Truth be told, I wasn't really feeling Slint's vocalist at first; he came off like if the dude from Cake needed someone to talk to. He eventually won me over big time, though, because as the album went on I found his intense, expository drone to be a fitting companion to the music and a crucial piece of the simmering tension that builds up through the entirety of the album. There's a thick layer of unease found all throughout Spiderland, and it pays off in spades, as the most cathartic moment in any of the music this website's thrown my way so far is easily the incredible closing minute of Good Morning, Captain, where everything finally boils over. There are tracks on here that I wouldn't really listen to on their own, but I see myself listening to Spiderland start-to-finish plenty more times in the future. Key Tracks: Breadcrumb Trail, Don, Aman, Good Morning, Captain

I don't really have much to say about Darklands; it was mostly just background noise for me. Nothing really jumped out as I listened to it, and the lyrics were like a less grating, slightly-more-punk version of Morrissey. If I were feeling a little more generous, it'd probably be three stars.

I cannot fucking believe that every single song on this record has a Wikipedia article. Key Tracks: Dancing Queen, Tiger

It's hard to beat when both a rapper and a producer are at the top of their game. If I was Guru in 1994, I'd be lowkey pissed, because DJ Premier provides an insane set of beats for this album, and the Damaja more than lives up to his end of the deal. It's dated in the ways most of the era's best boom bap is—the requisite homophobia pops up in Come Clean and "dealin' with bitches is the same old song" in more ways than Jeru likely intends—but otherwise it performs an excellent lyrical balancing act: rugged yet conscious (without feeling overly preachy), delivered in a cadence that would hold you at gunpoint if it wasn't so tired with the gangster act. It even manages to have a bit of fun, with Jeru's spin on Redman-esque superhero storytelling being too corny to take seriously yet too entertaining to dismiss. It's not too shocking that an album like this would land under the radar compared to the Ready to Die and Illmatic crime rhymes that it rebukes, but it stands alongside them as a prime example of NYC hip-hop at its finest. Key Tracks: Mental Stamina, You Can't Stop the Prophet, My Mind Spray

With its frenzied musicians and vital Latin influence, Deloused in the Comatorium's turn-of-the-century prog rock rips pretty thoroughly, but the lyricism is so indulgent—even for the genre—that it often distracts. There's a fine line between "you just don't get it" and "I just don't care," and the penmanship here is firmly in the latter. You made a concept album, and the concept is "drugs are neat," you don't have to try so damn hard to get the job done. That said, once you push past the Aesop Rock of it all, the more aggressive tracks hit quite hard, and the talent the group has is undeniable. I just wish the songwriters were the only ones that calmed down over the course of its excessive runtime. Key Tracks: Inertiatic ESP, Drunkship of Lanterns, Cicatriz ESP

How to Be a Hitmaker in 5 Easy Steps, by Moby: 1: Sample black vocalist. The older, the better. 2: Add rave piano. Guitars if feeling adventurous. 3: Add sweeping synths. 4: Repeat. 5: Patent technique before Fatboy Slim can. Don't get me wrong, the process produces some good music on occasion, but Moby spends practically half the album doing so, to the point that it ends up sounding like a cynical, AI-synthesized version of Endtroducing... that was created by a car company's ad department. And the less said about the album's other half, the better. Key Tracks: Bodyrock, Natural Blues

My heart sank the second I hit play since I'm already sick and tired of folk music less than 40 albums in, but Woody Guthrie's lyrics went a long way towards making this a more-than-tolerable 50 minutes. There are moments on this record where it sounds like pretty standard stuff, but elsewhere, Wilco and Bragg's sound meshes with Guthrie's playful and progressive wordplay to create an intriguing musical time paradox that feels impossible to date one way or the other. I can't even be too mad about the tracks I didn't like, because a ditty about wanting Ingrid Bergman to touch your junk is even funnier following the maudlin "At My Window Sad and Lonely" (and Bergman doesn't even contain the best dick joke on this record; the opener sees Guthrie building up to an even better knockout blow). My weariness for folk is probably still informing my score here, but I can see how someone could read these lyrics and think that it just has to be turned into music, and for the most part, they do it justice. Key Tracks: Walt Whitman's Niece, Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key, The Unwelcome Guest

Hypnotised is dumb pop-punk fun from a band that seems smart enough to see the value in such a thing. The melodies and riffs are catchy, and while it's far from a unique sound (even the vocalist's almost-bleating style reminded me of Roxy Music on occasion), I figured it was from further on in the 80s than it was. I feel like I'm getting an incomplete picture going into it blind given that there appears to be a theme of avoiding a sophomore slump for this second album, but the band feels genuine in their insecurities, making the irony of a track like "More Songs About Chocolate and Girls" come off less smug than it may be coming from another group. Cutting a track or two would probably make for a more enjoyable complete listen, but if I was thumbing through the soundtrack menu of a late-era Tony Hawk game, where this music sounds like it belongs, I wouldn't toggle any of them off. Key Tracks: Here Comes Norman, Under the Boardwalk, Hard Luck

Maybe it's because the site happened to give it to me on a perfect day for it (clear mid-70s skies following a storm that caused a shitload of flooding), but I really enjoyed Out of the Blue's spacey, grandiose sound. The impeccable instrumentation works beautifully off of Jeff Lynne's voice, producing euphoric highs that resemble a top-tier prog rock band with more strings and less noodling. It's a double album, so it inevitably runs into a handful of tracks that feel more like filler, but it's still tighter than you would expect a 70-minute double LP to be. Hell, I went into this knowing I wasn't the biggest fan of Mr. Blue Sky, but it works really well as the finale of side 3's weird little weather-themed suite. Great stuff all around. Key Tracks: Turn to Stone, Night in the City, Big Wheels

Saccharine for most of its runtime and still resoundingly corny when it isn't, Skylarking is just too lame for me to get into. I'll give them credit for experimenting with different genres in the back half, but Andy Partridge's vocals keep me from really enjoying the more ambitious sound. The most interested I was at any point in this album was when they flirt with more outright pop stuff, so maybe I should give Todd Rundgren a shot. Key Tracks: That's Really Super, Supergirl

Scientists are still working on determining the precise point Yeezy went from a genius disguised as an idiot to an idiot disguised as a genius, but Yeezus could very well be Kanye West at his most audacious—well, at least when it comes to his music and not being a general shithead. Between the aggressive electronic "oh shit, Death Grips is pretty good" sound and the conviction with which he delivers his rhymes (going all in whether it's frustration over bigotry or borderline moronic wordplay), it's hard not to be a captive audience to this record. He goes out swinging on more than one occasion (I'm In It is basically all of the album's lesser qualities congealed into a single track), but the rest is a reminder of how someone like Kanye could end up in his fucked-up position in the first place. Key Tracks: Hold My Liquor, Blood on the Leaves, Send It Up

I think a lot about how Philly hasn't produced as many microphone juggernauts as a lot of other cities, and the Roots have me convinced it's because Black Thought took all the talent and left nothing for anybody else—all respect due to Dice Raw and Malik B. I was only really familiar with their first three albums before this, so I expected there to be a musical jump towards more instrumental experimentation and diversity—and sure enough, this album's all over the god damn place—but the lyricism feels a little stuck in the 90s for better and for worse. In Rolling with Heat's case, afro-centrism is closing out a verse with "pro-black" before going on to proclaim that "dick smokers get no respect" in the next, and Pussy Galore almost feels hypocritical coming after Break You Off's infidelity—maybe that's the intent? Regardless, Thought is razor sharp elsewhere, to the point that you come to kind of resent the lengthy musical interludes that make up a portion of the record's 70 minutes. Solid stuff, but it makes me wonder why this was the sole Roots album to make the book's cut, and this is coming from someone who hasn't even gotten to Things Fall Apart yet. Key Tracks: Thought @ Work, Water, Quills

Rod Stewart was in his mid-20s during the recording of this album and that blows my fucking mind, because his perennially-weathered voice has made him sound like he's 60 for as long as he's lived. And good for him, because his voice really makes a lot of the music here (not to downplay the quality of the compositions or the interplay between the acoustics), turning what feels like the 80th folk-influenced record our group's had into a much easier listen than any of that Fred Neil bullshit. The fantastic title track was my favorite song of his going into this, and that hasn't changed, but the Temptations cover was a nice surprise, containing a bigger sound and glimpses of swagger that make you understand how Stewart would go on to think that "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" was somehow a good idea. Pretty enjoyable stuff overall, though most of the songs go on for a minute or two too long; Rod needlessly doubles the length of Elvis' "That's All Right," and that's not even counting the rendition Amazing Grace they sneak in at the end. Key Tracks: Every Picture Tells a Story, Maggie May, (I Know) I'm Losing You

If you ask them, the Beasties will tell you that Hello Nasty is their best album, which makes sense being that it's their most mature, most diverse showcase of their musical talents. Ask nearly anybody else, though, and they'll direct you here, because it's, you know, their best album. The B Boys are cultural sponges, and both records do a great job of showing that in their own ways, but Mike D, Ad-Rock, and MCA are at their absolute best when they're bouncing off of each other multiple times within a single bar and rattling off left-field references like a musical Family Guy cutaway, and I cannot imagine a better fit for that than what the Dust Brothers pull off in their production work on Paul's Boutique. There's a lot of ground being covered here: Lookin' Down the Barrel of a Gun has a refined (read: less embarrassing) take on Licensed to Ill's metal influence, more than a few tracks are downright funky, and Johnny Ryall even throws in some bluegrass. What all these beats have in common (beyond being dope as shit), however, is the rampant sampling, which builds a scrapbook of sounds that plays perfectly off of the irreverent, reference-laden lyricism. Paul's Boutique embodies the record store scrounging, anything goes spirit of hip-hop, and that it sounds as good as it does is almost a bonus. Key Tracks (B-Boy Bouillabaisse is cheating): High Plains Drifter, 3-Minute Rule, Car Thief

Once you get past the far too blatant influences—there's an unfathomable amount of irony knowing their lead singer accused the Who of ripping off their record when they LITERALLY recorded "Baron Saturday" at Abbey Road—S.F. Sorrow has his moments. It wasn't gripping enough for me to really follow the overarching narrative beyond the inevitable "he's sad about a girl," and the stereo mix of the album is so distractingly terrible with its excessive panning and artifacts that the band themselves prefer the mono mix (there are parts in "I See You" that made me think my headphones were being jostled loose), but there were a handful of energetic tracks that made me take notice. Another one for the "more historically relevant than entertaining" file, but at least the Key Tracks are especially key this time. Just make sure you go out of your way and find the mono version. Key Tracks: Bracelets of Fingers, Balloon Burning, Old Man Going

Look: even if the music wasn't great (which it is), the man sang about taking cocaine and shooting a bad bitch down to a group of cheering convicts, so this may as well get five mics on principle. The concept alone is novel and raw as hell, but once you throw in Cash's devil-may-care stage presence, the atmosphere set by the wardens' announcements over the PA and the more-than-receptive crowd (I'll spare you a line about a "captive audience" because I'm sure plenty of rock critics thought they were the first to come up with that gem), plus the impeccable choice in songs, you end up with one of the most entertaining records I've ever heard. Key Tracks: Cocaine Blues, Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart, Greystone Chapel

I only really have Sultans of Swing to go off of prior to hearing this album, but Brothers in Arms feels like a Graceland-esque mid-life crisis moment for the band, with then-modern, pop-adjacent instrumentation cognizant of a world constantly in flux accompanying lyrics about a world that never changes. Working class "tribute" Money for Nothing is the obvious standout here, but Your Latest Trick was a pleasant, jazzy surprise (if only the other musical divergences were anywhere near as good). The rest of the album is a little too cloying for my tastes—Why Worry is the overlong nadir of the album, and if I had to point to just one song as being made solely for old white dudes, Walk of Life is the one—but it's thematically sound and an easy enough listen for the most part. Key Tracks: Money for Nothing, Your Latest Trick, One World

This book of albums sure places British mediocrity on a pedestal.

Say what you will about the Vietnam conflict, but at least it made all these 50s/60s rock acts shut the fuck up about girls for a moment.

I was already thinking I should get into QotSA before this, so it was nice to see the generator spit out something I can cross off my backlog, and even nicer that I enjoyed it. I really like the heavy yet borderline radio-friendly sound the band has (and even the hazy, jaded-about-everything-and-nothing-in-particular lyricism fits the bill well), but Josh Homme's vocals are as vital an instrument as anything else, so it's hard to treat the instrumental wankery included between many of the vocal tracks as anything more than an obstruction. Even so, the majority of that is added through the bonus tracks, and it's worth putting up with considering said tracks include "The Bronze," a highlight of the 2011 reissue that I listened to. I'm definitely digging deeper into the band after this, and maybe even checking Kyuss out. Key Tracks: Walkin' on the Sidewalks, How to Handle a Rope, You Can't Quit Me Baby

You'd think a record that's almost assuredly hugely influential and even pioneering would be a little more interesting. You can practically hear new wave being birthed in a lot of tracks, and the Smiths' sound may as well have originated from Lip Service, but the album overall is just kind of, I don't know, milquetoast. I don't really care for Costello's voice, but it doesn't outright grate, and the music is performed well enough (especially by the drummer), but I felt like I was waiting nearly the entire length of the album for things to pick up. It does so by the time Lipstick Vogue starts, but it feels like too little too late. True to its title, This Year's Model was a big deal at the time, but not quite a necessity 40 years later. Key Tracks: Pump It Up, Lipstick Vogue

Experimental while still being catchy and globally minded in its sound and message without feeling like a scold, Kala storms out the gate at 100 miles an hour with the radio on and doesn't let up until it gives an entirely out-of-place Timbaland a chance to embarrass himself in a single rhyme. This album turned my walk into a jog, and even when I was worn out, I felt the urge to nod my head. Killer record. Key tracks: Bamboo Banga, World Town, Paper Planes

Choose Your Own Adventure! Just slot in "You Must Hear Before You Die" where applicable: 1001 Drum Presets 1001 Unlabeled Extended Dance Mixes 1001 Cut Big Fish Theory Beats 1001 Dreamcast Era Racing Game Menu Themes 1001 Guest Vocalists Maybe Too Willing to Lend a Hand 1001 Sped-Up Massive Attack Songs 1001 Miami Bass Tracks for Timid Whites 1001 British Albums That Charted Somewhere 1001 Alternate Takes from That One Röyksopp GEICO Caveman Commercial 1001 is a Way Bigger Number Than We Thought Key Tracks: I dunno, listen to one of the ones with the dude singing, one of the ones with the lady singing, and one of the ones with the patois guy and you'll have heard the whole album.

Finley Quaye asks the listener if they would like a little more straight reggae to go with their trip-hop, and I think I can live without it. He's got a pretty good voice for the music, and the album has its moments when it moves its needle closer to the dub end of the spectrum, but the lyrics are a little too repetitive (drink every time you hear "ultra," "satellite," "sonic," etc.) and there's a lot of simply unremarkable music to be found here. My best guess as to how this record could've possibly ended up on this list (beyond a bias towards UK artists) is that its radio-friendliness serves as an example of trip-hop breaking into the mainstream, but it's not like this album really charted outside the UK. Just listen to his (disputed) cousin Tricky's debut from two years prior. It's much more interesting than this. Key Tracks: Supreme I Preme

If I wanted to be Gene Shalit, I'd tell you that I liked it, but didn't Love it. You don't exactly have to do any research to know that this album came from the Vietnam era—just listen to the lyrics or look at the cover—but I was hoping for something a little spicier out of my late 60s psychedelia. The album's perspective is probably the most interesting thing about it: weary of war and of hippies, it paints a refreshingly grounded (if a little morbid) picture, but while there's some primo usage of horns and strings throughout, it feels like it's missing a "Tomorrow Never Knows" standout where they dive headlong into the sound and see where it takes them. It felt like the Red Telephone was supposed to mark a turning point for the album, but the back half didn't fully deliver on that despite being superior to the preceding tracks. Still, even if I was left a little wanting, I enjoyed it more than most other records I've given this score, and hell, I might revisit this down the road because it feels like one that might grow on me. Key Tracks: The Red Telephone, Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale, You Set the Scene

This feels like Beatles-adjacent music for people that thought the band got a little too "out there" by the end, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Band on the Run starts the show with a one-two punch of show-stoppers that brute force this 3-star album into drawing 4, though that isn't to say it doesn't have its moments beyond the singles. The final two tracks (which contain reprisals of the singles, ironically) are pretty strong, too, and even some of the middle tracks are enjoyable when they aren't bringing in too much of the schmaltz—Bluebird and Mamunia are the low points of the record and only serve to tell me that McCartney has no idea what the weather is like in LA. Not quite the best thing a Beatle was involved with after the 60s, but in Paul's defense, it's pretty hard to top the Simpsons in its golden age.

When the first track kicked in and was pretty smooth, I was wondering what the hell Robert Christgau was smoking—or perhaps more appropriately, what he wasn't—that made him give this one of his "dud" grades, and then the first vocal track started. Maxwell has a fine voice, but not a *fine* voice; I thought Sade's Diamond Life was sexier than this, and certainly better paced. This would make for a pretty good instrumental album to vibe and/or bang to, but almost every track has about 3 minutes of material for its 5 or 6-minute runtime, to the point that there are multiple tracks that sound like they're ending, only to ramp back up for another fruitless minute. I mean, seven whole minutes of Til the Cops Come Knockin', plus a 90-second reprisal at the end of the record? No wonder Public Enemy said 911 was a joke. Key Tracks: The Urban Theme, Suitelady (The Proposal Jam), The Suite Theme

My theory is that all of Australia mistakenly believed that the Cult was banned from the country and that all of the critics responsible for this list mistakenly believed that the Triffids were British, meeting the book's criteria by default. There are times where the lyricism pulls the band from the brink of generic, largely thanks to the album's loose themes of illusion and isolation giving a slightly different complexion to the same old rote love songs, but I still can't shake the feeling that I've heard this all plenty of times before. I'm thinking I might be a little too harsh on this one, but cut me a break: a fucking bug flew into my mouth during the first track and probably colored some of my score here. Key Tracks: Trick of the Light, Vagabond Holes, Jerdacuttup Man

The less cynical yet equally disillusioned counterpart to Nevermind, Ten is an undisputed pillar of grunge. At the end of the day, Eddie Vedder just wants to be Neil Young, but the times called for something with more of an edge, and on this record, Pearl Jam makes a hell of case for the music requiring it too, adding darker subject matter (it's pretty crazy to consider there were songs inspired by school shootings as early as '91) and breakneck performances to the kind of storytelling that's more commonly reserved for acoustic guitars and folk rock. The heavier stuff is what resonates with me most—the solo at the end of Alive easily trounces anything prior in the song—but even the record's slower, softer moments shine in large part due to Vedder's unique voice. There's not a lot of weak points here, with even the instrumentals serving well as bookends that don't feel particularly indulgent. It's simply a phenomenal record from top to bottom—okay, I don't like Oceans that much, but that one's not even three minutes long. Key Tracks: Once, Why Go, Deep

Look, this is less a "this album stinks" grade and more of a "this really isn't my type of thing." I'm on the record as being into downer music, but the malaise on display here doesn't feel particularly profound. It's competently made and Everybody Hurts is pretty iconic, all things considered, but R.E.M. just curls up into a ball and dies over the course of this record, and I at least want a little thrashing about here and there. Frankly, they sound a little disinterested for the most part, and perhaps that rubbed off on me. Maybe they'll fare better when the generator comes around to Green; Orange Crush is pretty good.

I refreshed the page and it ate my review, so you get bullet points this time: • I just yesterday said I want my downer albums to at least thrash about a bit before collapsing under the weight of the world, so I appreciate that Sea Change has a little bit of that going on. • "Break up with Beck" produces solid results for a sad sack LP, although not as good as "introduce Trent Reznor to heroin." • This thing is way too long. Beck adheres to a "mope around with an acoustic guitar > introduce strings, maybe some synth > get all spacey in the closing seconds" flowchart far too closely here. • By the time he's singing "It's nothing that I haven't seen before" around the halfway point, I feel like I'm being pranked, except the only funny gag Sea Change has to offer is on Sunday Sun, where the little scamp seems to have recorded his verses with an Ed, Edd, n Eddy-sized Jawbreaker in his mouth. It's fine. I would've preferred Odelay, but of course I would. Key Tracks: The Golden Age

Don't be fooled by the title, there's only vanilla to be found here. Look, it's very obvious that Paul Simon is a talented songwriter (groan-worthy Silent Night juxtaposition aside), but this is like when someone says the original Super Mario Bros. is the best game of all time: give it to someone born well after its release and they may ask why anyone would want to play it, and you either curse them for not appreciating the thing you grew up with, or begrudgingly accept how it might not blow somebody's hair back when what it's putting down has been picked up and run with for so long by so many others. Maybe it holds up better than many of its contemporaries, and a lot of what's there still has meaning today, but it feels like you just trip over lyrics you could draw modern parallels to with any of these Vietnam era rock albums, many of which present their ideas in a more compelling fashion than this. I'll give them credit for one thing, though: their Bob Dylan parody(?) is legitimately funny. Folk rock. Key Tracks: The Dangling Conversation, A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)

Men on this list when they're broken up with: "The clouds in my heart shed cumulus tears / the pain won't mend for a matter of years" Women on this list when they're broken up with: "Does your new bitch even let you bust in her mouth?" Fuckin' A, Alanis. It's definitely one of the more dated sounding records the generator's handed out so far, but that didn't stop me from digging Neneh Cherry, and it doesn't stop me here. Nix some of the softer filler tracks and you have a real banger on your hands. Key tracks: All I Really Want, You Oughta Know, Right Through You

Mask is "experimental" in that inconsistent way where half of these tracks kind of kick ass, and the other half makes them sound like a goth rock take on the B-52s—which is something I wish I could say as a compliment. That being said, the album is propelled by the MVP work of Kevin Haskins and David J to the point that even the misfires usually have a sick bass line or drum pattern to latch onto while everybody else is doing whatever weird bullshit they wanted to fit into the record. It's solid, just maybe steer clear of those reggae-infused bonus tracks.

When I tell you that this hit me at the perfect time, I mean that it was so perfect that I had to hit pause and make sure that the (multiple) Sonic the Hedgehog samples were coming from the music and not the SEGA picross game I was playing at the time, so I might be overrating this one a little. Regardless, Drunk is a real great time, loaded with smooth grooves, outstanding musicianship, and moments of introspection that feel as genuine as the dorky anime/video game shout-outs—which are so prevalent that they feel tied to the record's central theme of killing pain. Hell, throwaway punchlines like "Goku fucking ruined me" almost come across as Thundercat viewing even his non-alcoholic hobbies as potentially destructive; a bit of self-loathing no proper anime fan lives without. The worst thing I can say about this record is that the Pharrell feature is corny as fuck, but what are you gonna do? Pharrell is always corny as fuck. Key tracks: Show You the Way, Them Changes, Drink Dat

On one hand, it's kind of novel to hear Pink Floyd's roots, but on the other, I didn't exactly come away from the album feeling like I needed to. Without their later, more distinctive sound, this resembles countless other 60s rock acts, some of which were already doled out by this generator. Picture S.F. Sorrow, right down to the questionable stereo mixing, though maybe with less overt Beatles influence, and you have a lot of what this has to offer. Key Tracks: Lucifer Sam