Maybe a little too whimsical in places, but I enjoyed this overall.
Good to start with, but ultimately became a bit numbing and boring.
Actually pretty good, the songs sounded a bit samey though.
I'd never heard of this guy, but it's a good album. Interesting and inventive.
Actually already listened to this! And loved it :)
God I hate this warbling, indulgent, "soulful" stuff that is about as meaningful and pleasant as a dribble of dog piss down a lamppost. Sorry.
I think the first user-recommended album that definitely deserves a place in the book. All the weirdness of prog but with a distinctly Canadian-French twist.
My top-rated review on here is a one-star write-up of Sufjan Stevens' "Illinois," which made me wish I was deaf.
But this is better! At least there's some variety and the other guy adds some-much needed depth.
Genuinely surprised how much I enjoyed this. It just flows so nicely as an album and does that gapless thing which is so cool.
Really liked this. I'm sure I've heard "Mary Jane" on vinyl at some obscure club night in Bristol, but the rest is great, good-humoured and groovy.
I found this totally grating to start with, but the humour grew on me. Not great music to work to though.
In 1999, I almost crashed my car when the loud bit of "Like Herod" kicked in. Such a major omission from the original list and still so startlingly brilliant.
Surprised at how well this works. Hi-fi folk.
I honestly thought I was going to hate this.
And I did.
Garbage were such a weird little band. Here in the UK they were lumped in with grrl-power Britpop bands like Elastica and Lush, but in the US they were part of the post-grunge rock scene.
Version 2.0 suffers from this weird lack of identity, and it feels constrained and more on the pop side of pop-rock. But "Push It" is fucking amazing.
This whole thing sounds like "The Fairytale of New York" if it was produced by Hans Zimmer.
Does what it says on the cover, but I really enjoyed the chunky stoner-rock riffs.
Absolutely perfect timing because I saw 28 Years Later after listening to this album. Not sure why I didn't listen to this sooner, but it's a unique take on post-rock, bringing in jazz and classical influences.
I always have time for rapping/singing in languages that I don't understand. I found the arrangements here just a little too pop for my liking, but it was diverting enough anyway.
Annoyed with myself for not listening to this sooner! Reminds me a lot of Kanye, but more soulful and less rueful.
This should have been the Bjork album included here. Like Radiohead, it's when she was on the cusp between really good and borderline unlistenable. "Bachelorette" is the theme song to the best Bond film that never existed, and "All is Full of Love" still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Reminds me a lot of Pulp's "This is Hardcore:" sleazy lounge music delivered with a northern twang. Not sure it quite reaches the lofty heights of Pulp's dirtiest album, but it's still interesting and diverting.
The vocals remind me of TV on the Radio, but there's something just a little bit too lackadaisical about this whole thing, which may be the point, but it's just not for me.
Reminds me of an album from 30 years ago in the most pleasing way possible.
Definitely not what I was expecting given the album artwork. This is definitely on the softer side of hard rock, sort of a malleable clay, but that's not a bad thing at all, and it reminds of The Cult's goth adventures, but it also goes off on some esoteric tangents and even predicates the more harmonious nature of nu-metal.
Like the best scary rockers, Peter Steele also seems like he was a genuinely nice bloke and it sucks that he died so young.
90s psych really was quite something. The alternative tunings here feel very Sonic Youthy, but maybe with a harder punk edge. Angular and arachnoid and arch and other pretentious words that start with A.
Also nice to remember that there were American 90s bands who weren't bloody Nirvana.
Great music for bumming around on my bike on a sunny day
Lizard, and Mary Chain, Jones, Christ; I always get confused by all these. But I think these are the American ones everyone loves, and I can hear why. Somewhere between grunge and post-rock.
I wanted to like this more, but couldn't find anything to latch onto.
Not a fan to start with, and I thought the highlight was the Kate Bush cover. But it gets a lot better and more interesting as it goes along, getting into fascinating almost shoegazey instrumentals. The soundtrack to the greatest 80s horror-fantasy movie that never existed.
Liked this a lot. Musically intricate and great songwriting. The Alanis Morrisette it's OK to like.
I love the way that as soon as this begins to get a bit stale, Louis starts singing and it's like sunlight pouring into your soul.
Increasingly convinced that "Music Has The Right to Children" was a one-off, a lightning-in-the-bottle moment that could never be repeated*. "Geogaddi" is OK, but it can't quite match the unconscious weirdness of "Music," and occasionally and unfortunately resembles a Moby record or that kind of hideous "chill" that BoC inspired. It's far too long as well.
*I've actually realised this is a lie because their Peel Session is stupendous.
Why isn't this on the original list? It seems like such a major omission, and it just feels like because The Breeders weren't angry like Hole or Garbage they got a bit buried beneath an increasingly tedious pile of grunge and alt-rock.
Which totally fucking sucks. Kim Deal's voice is heartbreaking, at once girlish and innocent but able to crank it up when required. She takes the Pixies' oblique but entertaining lyrics and earworm riffs into more mysterious, feminine territory.
Also, caught them live last summer (my son's first ever proper gig!) and they were so ridiculously happy and entertaining.
Irritating as hell, but such a time capsule of that 8-bit electroclash sound, which it feels has been diluted into everything from dubstep to K-pop.
Occasional sparks of brilliance are let down by a rich vein of horrific 90s humour throughout, totally exemplified by the oh-so-edgy cover. Irritating and cloying.
Really good live, just a happy guy enjoying the moment. Not sure if it quite translates to an album though: it does get stuck in a rut.
I'm not a huge Blade Runner fan - it's a bad film with a good ending - but there's no denying that the soundtrack and visuals combine to create a coherent sense of where and when this film is set.
This expanded version of the OST includes tracks that I don't remember from the film. It's occasionally a bit too cheesy and atonal, but I love those soaring, squelchy synths.
It's like they took Limp Bizkit's "Mission Impossible 2" theme song and made it into a whole album.
Good, but not exceptional.
If Noam Chomsky became a pirate and joined a metal band this is what it would sound like.
Like being kicked in the balls (complimentary).
I did not know I needed to start my Friday with a five-and-half-hour, loud psych freak-out, but it turns out I did.
I also listened to this record.
They should change their name to "Can't Listen To This No More."
Such a sweet soundtrack for a sunny Sunday morning. Love the way that all the tracks have relatively normal titles apart from "Love Potion No. 9," which is clearly cursed.
Scandinavian music of this time was never less than interesting. This is quite post-Radiohead, pre-Coldplay, with complex melodies making up for the occasionally weak lyrics.
Super enjoyable. Lo-fi, playful and funny, but also mature and hard-hitting when it needs to be.
Great title and cover, but, like Tom Waits, I can't understand why this grating, wonky racket is so popular.
This should have replaced one of the numerous Elvis Costello albums on the original list.
If there was a prize for most American-sounding British band these guys would win it hands-down.
Equally funny and grating.
Nik Kershaw is still way cooler than you or I will ever be.
Not hugely keen on this genre of indie pop, but I liked how this flowed as an album, building to a descent crescendo.
This would have been five stars when it came out, and it definitely should have been in the book. It's a great album that pushed things forwards, but its blemishes are more obvious now, those slower, less excitable tracks that sound like "Moon Safari" outtakes.
Etienne de Crecy's "Super Discount 2" is the better album here; it's the same genre but it never lets up.
I've been listening to a bunch of Led Zep lately, but I'm wondering if Pink Floyd are actually the better band. I really enjoyed this.
Feels like such a voyage.
Just the epitome of the 90s: the CD-player production, the smooth jazz compositions, the cover, the utter vapidity of the whole damn thing, like every track is the theme song to some horrible unfunny sitcom, delivered without any cynicism or wit, just get your words out of my ears, Bruce.
Halfway between Slipknot and At The Drive-In. The screaming man got a bit tiring after a while, it's like having a toddler on your record.
This was so much fun! James Brown for the 21st century.
Actually already listened to this as part of The Quietus' top 100 albums of 2024. But I listened again and I liked it again.
I can see why this didn't take off outside of Scandinavia.
Kind of weird in an enjoyable way.
Missed out on this, but it really feels like it was so important. Reminds me of the Avalanches in its use of samples, or Todd Rundgren in its ADHD-like refusal to sit still and settle on anything for too long, or maybe more experimental EDM like Boards of Canada or Oneohtrixpointnever. But the lyricism here is what really holds it together and elevates it; sort of like Kanye’s evil twin (debatable). "AllCaps" is so good.
Newest album I've heard on here! And fucking great. Becomes a little numbing in places, but this combo of angelic vocals and extreme metal is like nothing else on earth.
Caught Bob in Bristol a few years ago, there's something really moving and heartfelt about him. Loved this album.
I'm not sure if these guys have been featured on "The Bear" soundtrack, but this is the most "The Bear" music ever. Like that series, it's all very raw and emotional but also totally by-the-numbers and superficial and ultimately doesn't say or do anything that hasn't been said or done a million times before.
A blueprint for lo-fi and experimental music, really unfair how maligned Yoko has been. Yes, some of this goes a bit too far into the experimental realm ("Fly" especially), but the more fun tracks more than make up for it.
This sounded A LOT like REM, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It hasn't dated as badly as other music of this era.
RIP Gord.
Ahead of the curve, just not always that listenable.
fuck me this is unlistenable
Smelly music made by a smelly man for smelly people.
Never start a sentence with "I."
Funky and jazzy and oh god I just can't.
Avril Lavigne's moody older sister (and she was already a moody older sister).
Did we just forget how to pace albums? This starts great, with a kind of sly wit and intelligence that only seems to have emerged over the past decade, but it gradually loses its way. I think that this kind of acerbic songwriting outstays its welcome pretty quickly — Pulp, who are the progenitors of this genre, made it work by including more variables on "This is Hardcore." "Deep Down Happy" isn't bad, but it either needs to be shorter or have more variety.
Echo and the Bunnymen but without being extremely fucking annoying in places.
The kind of thing I would have loved at the time.
Probably their best? Just so layered and textured.
Five stars for the mere fact that this is on here. It's still so polished and slick, and the electroclash production and her silky smooth voals shine even when the songwriting doesn't. "Some Girls" is the best song Girls Aloud never recorded.
I just want to listen to albums that don't give me a migraine on the first track is that so much to ask
I don’t know what I expected; I was deep into my German techno/Scandi-stoner-rock odyssey when this came out and I’d heard of them but never heard them.
But I quite like it. It’s short (as albums like this should be) and it has that kind of distant, echoey production that makes it feel slightly disconnected and detached, in that bleak and wintry way that all Christmas songs should sound.
Nice to find gentle, tender Beyoncé among the shouty, angry Beyoncé.
I'm usually a sucker for this kind of stuff, but this just felt so empty and meaningless and weightless.
Also, I thought user albums had to have a Wikipedia page attached to them? There are so many albums I love and would have submitted without Wikis.
Reminded me of XTC in that they're very good but somehow not essential.
Thought this might be too derivative, and it sounds like it might be to start with, but it actually goes to some interesting places within its very 70s template.
Radiohead for people who found Kid A too weird.
I really do think "Drinking in LA" is one of the best pop songs of the late-90s, but I always suspected Bran Van 3000 were one-hit wonders and this dreadful album just confirmed it.
Who gave Bruce Springsteen all the heroin.
I like what they do, I just don't like how they do it. Very much following Green Day's "American Idiot" template, and in some ways sharper, but I'm not sure it all works all that well and it's cloying and cheesy in places. I guess at least they gave a voice to a lot of disenfranchised kids.
Not sure why this wasn't on the original list, it's not amazing and those artificial synth sounds have dated horribly but Hutchence's presence and the innovative pop orchestration elevates it. It feels a lot like what New Order were trying to do in combining rock and electro, but it's more commercial and less clever.
I don't understand how this is so boring and predictable.
Liked the more prog elements of this. Didn't like the spoken word stuff.
This was spangly and interesting and kind of amazing. Not sure how they passed me by at the time, but I have a vague recollection of them. At times it feels like a double-album isn't enough to contain them.
I initially gave this one star and a pithy review ("clearly not"), but the more I listened the more I loved it. Reminds me of a lot of psych/trance of this time, but it just totally goes on a trip towards the end. The album art is classic too.
I could definitely get behind this. Folk without whimsy, interesting and intricate.
Liked this, despite the immature misogyny in places.
The kind of music that plays on a gramophone in a horror video game. I usually like this kind of stuff (I'm a huge Pye Corner Audio/The House in the Woods fan), but I was just waiting for it to do something, anything, and that moment never came.
Rough as hell, but just as nature intended. Gets extra points for "this is a song I wrote with my mother..." and Iggy getting eggy.
He's a very clever and talented singer-songwriter, but this soon got so fucking tiring and boring and I had to turn it off.
Interesting title given that this came out just before COVID hit. Interesting album too, found myself drifting off in places though.
Just right; folk that's not too distracting.
So cheesy I had it with crackers and grapes.
Loved the weirder and darker spoken-word elements of this, the punk songs were pretty good too.
Love these guys so much. 80s (90s) rock it's OK to like.
I really do love this guy.
Turns out Aquaman is a pretty good musician.
Not sure if this is here as a joke, but this was so predictable and boring.
I just don't get them. Maybe I would have if I listened to them when I was high in my early 20s, but now they're just so soporific and numb that I can't get on board with them.
TIL that bald actor fella from "Men" and the guy from Future Islands are different people.
Interesting but not entirely sure this works. I guess it does for some people.
This was just kinda nice. Bit of a shame I've turned to stone after looking at the album cover though.
This is great. Those bass riffs. It's a bit too long and a little irritating in places, but it's what the Red Hot Chili Peppers could never do.
I've never really got ska. It's like they're trying to fit too much music and lyrics into too little time.
Not sure why every track seems to have someone trying to do an impression of a duck on it.
I think that, like their homophonic mates MBV, their sound becomes overwhelming and numbing, and when the album is 75 minutes long it just becomes kind of boring. I know that's the point, but it lacks the ebb and flow of, say, Pink Floyd. But the songs work well on their own.
These guys are from my city! I know people who know them. They're good fun and raucous, but also not afraid of having conversations about male mental health issues.
This was really good. But bloody AI artwork
Thought they were a bit more emo. Surprisingly sweet, but didn't do a huge amount for me.
Not bad, but not brilliant either. It felt musically weak in places, even though I'm sure he's classically trained and completely brilliant.
Really liked this. She has such a sweet Londony voice that contrasts nicely with the pop-rock arrangements. Definitely a precursor to Saint Etienne.
"Andy Warhol is Dead" sucks though!
Mostly good. A little annoying in places, but it rocked harder than I thought it might and reminded me of Led Zeppelin a little bit.
Good but a little too slight and nice.
This was ... nice. Not groundbreaking but I enjoyed it.
Great title. He was such a legend; I don't think his lyrics ever got above O-level poetry, but he had so much charm and humour and it really shows here.
I get that this won't be for everyone, but it's definitely for me.
Massively underrated and overlooked, I think one of the first dark ambient albums, that takes in weird loops and echoey sounds and semblances of melody to create something unholy and ethereal and timeless. Absolutely adore some of the bands this inspired: AUN, The House in the Woods, Pye Corner Audio, even The Field to an extent.
Great fun! I think 53 Miles West of Venus is my favourite B-52's song.
They remind me so much of Mansun, particularly "Six," just the way that they're constantly changing and screwing with their sound, and that carnival-like atmosphere. Almost switched this off at the start, but I'm glad I didn't.
I found this a bit annoying to start with, and it felt wholly predictable, and then I didn't pay attention to the rest at all, but not in a bad way.
This is great, like Taylor Swift but with a vital shot in the arm, some kind of life that isn't robotic and packaged, even if this is probably robotic and packaged and designed to sound like it isn't. But anyway, I feel like modern pop owes as much to "Frozen" as it does to anything; sweeping, operatic vocals.
Just so damn charming and nice, what a superstar.
Like bands with "Jesus" in their names, I always get bands with "Mouse" in their names confused too: Modest, Dead, ... on Mars, Danger.
These guys were good though! They felt like a precursor to The Strokes, that scratchy and very New Yorky sound (I actually have no idea where they're from, it's probably Dubrovnik or something), but also mixed with something heavier and more interesting.
I literally thought this was an album by Burt Lancaster and I was surprised that he had a side gig as a Mexican (I think!) pop band. Quite disappointed to learn the truth.
"Go With The Flow" is one of my favourite songs of all time; it's just so dynamic and visceral, and I do like "No One Knows" a lot. But this album has not stood the test of time: the wacky GTA-radio like interstitials, the weaker songs: "Six Shooter," "Another Love Song;" they drifted away from Kyuss-like stoner rock and tried and failed to do different things. It's at once their highest point and the beginning of their end.
Found this on Bandcamp, like it to start with but it's a bit too long.
I definitely have a love/hate relationship with Slowdive. I used to really like this album, but I saw them live a few years ago and found them a bit too bland and watery, and I didn't like their recent output. I think I just don't like the way the guy sings.
But revisiting this has reminded me how good they can be. It doesn't rock out as much as fellow shoegazers Ride, but it's more melancholic and swirling, lost among dreams and reverb pedals.
A Squier is a cheaper model of a Fender guitar that's still pretty good. Billy Squier is a cheaper version of Led Zeppelin that's still pretty good.
Slipknot for slightly smarter people.
Really hit the spot. Short, catchy songs with so much energy.
I cannot thank whoever put this on here enough. I heard "Werewolves of London" on the radio last week and it got stuck in my head, and I've been trying to get a track ID ever since. I thought it was a Roxy Music song because there is one that is remarkably similar. I sort of gave up looking for it, but here it is! And it's a wolf moon here in the UK at the moment.
OK: so update. I wrote this yesterday while I was listening to the album, and then watched Pat Finnerty's video on the Kid Rock song that samples "Werewolves of London." Which I thought was even more weird, but then I realised that he plays the Kid Rock song on other episodes that I'd previously watched, which might explain why the song was so stuck in my head.
If you like Daft Punk songs with muddier bass and shittier drums and screaming this is the album for you!
Yeah, pretty good. I've heard of these guys for some reason?
At first I thought the cover was terrible AI! But obviously it's not.
This is stupid, gleeful fun though, just what you want from this kind of metal: not taking itself too seriously, but absolutely ridiculously technically proficient.
I enjoyed this, I think I prefer post-rock to noise-rock, but it's still good.
Stuff from 10ish years ago is the most dated stuff ever. This is hipster cringe.
I'm beginning to wonder if I have a great taste in music, or if I'm just a bit of a dick who thinks music should sound like music I like. I really wanted to hate this, but it moved in some really interesting directions, and I started to wonder if I really should hate music of this genre/era.
I knew "Sugar Man" from a David Holmes compilation I had in the early 00s. The rest of this is great though, very post-Dylan, but it has a bigger, rockier sound.
Great musically, but I hate the way he sings. Like a primary school teacher.
This was fun! I don't really know what any of it means.
Actually enjoyed this, musically varied and rolling RRRs all over the place.
Reminded me of The Dandy Warhols in the way it takes a British sound and Americanises it, makes it bigger and more aggressive. Really liked it. Also reminded me of the Foo Fighters in places.
There's a song here called "Mayonnaise a gogo" and I think that's all you need to know.
