Around 1990-91, I was a volunteer at 2SER student radio. Mostly, I did technical work helping my mate, Tim. Panelling, editing, that kind of thing. In 1991, Einsturzende Neubauten were touring Australia and there was an offer to do a radio interview with 2SER. I could actually pronounce “Einsturzende Neubauten” and knew a little bit about the band, so it was decided that I would do the interview. Which was not really my thing. But it came with perks; tickets to their show at the Phoenician Club and a copy of the Strategies Against Architecture LP, so I said OK. I knew the legendary Blixa Bargeld has a reputation for not suffering fools, so I tried to prep questions that were interesting. So, on the day of the show the plan was to go down to the club after soundcheck and interview Blixa. It was a bit intimidating. I mean, EN were one of the world’s most dangerous bands, and Blixa also played in the Bad Seeds, which made him an underground legend. Tim and I were in the equipment room gathering up a portapack and mics and whatever else we needed, when someone comes running in the room whispering “There’s a vampire in the lobby, and he’s looking for you!” And sure enough, there in the lobby, stands Blixa, in full stage outfit, pale as death, six foot six in cuban heels and his hair teased up, and 100lbs wringing wet. He has a bottle of schnapps and a filthy look in his eye. He’s staring death at everyone. And then I hear my name called. Standing next to this imperious vision in black is a smiling Japanese man in bright green overalls with a flower appliqued on the front. His voice is oddly familiar; it is Rick Tanaka, former presenter of the Nippy Rock Shop, a collage-like radio show from Triple J in the 80s. I was a fan. Turns out, he is the road manager for this EN tour, and he is asking for me. He hands me his business card: Rick Tanaka, Private Guy. We hurriedly shuffle Rick and Blixa into a meeting room and turn on the recorder, and I attempt an interview. It did not go well. Blixa did not want to be there, was much smarter than me, and was not very patient with my attempts at questions that were more engaging than the usual stereotypical “who gets to go to the junk yard for your stage show?”. Eventually, he just started ignoring me and chatted to Rick. Tim and I kept the tape rolling for their conversation, and afterwards edited it up into something resembling proper radio. And then they left. Tim and I packed up, and then walked down the road to the Phoenician Club. (En route, we bumped into the Beasts of Bourbon, who were playing support. They were intensely focussed. They clearly knew what was coming, and determined to put on a good show. They were the best I ever saw them play that night; tight, ferocious and angry, showcasing material from their Low Road album, that was not yet released). And then on came Einsturzende Neubauten. It was possibly the most intense, frightening show I ever seen. I confess I was a little freaked out by my encounter with Blixa, and not really prepared for the experience of an EN show. By the end, I was pressed up against a wall with my fists clenched and my eyes shut. The sound from the stage was so brutal and overwhelming. I can’t recall much of what went on, except for a bit with shopping carts with contact mikes crashing into each other repeatedly. It was really loud. I know I left the venue about 11.30pm. At 2am, I turned up at my girlfriend’s house, tapping on her window. I assume I spent the intervening hours walking the streets in a daze, but not really sure of what I did in that time. Before you ask, no, there were no drugs involved. She yelled at my for waking her up for a good 15 minutes, but I was unable to put a sentence together, let alone explain what had just happened to me. It was a heavy, really heavy, performance. Ok, so given that background of my relationship with EN, what do I think about this album? I have listened to it once or twice before. EN is really influential on me. I love noisy things, really noisy things. I played in industrial bands through most of the 1990s. And this is like the ur-text for much of what industrial music became. It still sounds frightening and surprising now. That said, this is a massively difficult listening experience. I am reminded of Brian Eno talking about Steve Reich (I think), and how hearing one of his early tape pieces was massively influential, but he never listened to it again. Early EN (and this album in particular) is like that for me. It opened up a world of possibilities to explore, but I don’t need (or probably even want) to listen to it much. I certainly was much more enamoured of their early 1990s material, which contains actual songs, rather than just this scary barrage of crashing rhythms and screaming. Kollaps is an important record for me, but I would not recommend it.

Here's a record that I feel like I should have listened to a long time ago. This is right up my alley; heavy, weird, funny, trippy. I love how it leans into how badly recorded it is, and goes heavy into the weirdness. Lots of effects and strange production techniques on what is a pretty punk album, which makes it sound like nothing else. I love the fired take on Black Sabbath ('Sweet Loaf'), plus the backwards tape, effects, sound effects and found tape. It is pretty unsettling, but there are songs o n here that rock pretty hard, and few memorable riffs (if no tunes to speak of). I've listened to this three times through today, and really dig it. (I do like that it doesn't outstay its welcome. 30 minutes is about perfect timing for it to barge in, mess your head up, and then ride off into the sunset.). I really would liek to give this 3.5 stars, but I can't, so I'm going to lean towards 4, because this was a lot of fun, and I will buy a copy next time I see one at a reasonable price.

Thai album is so boring. The energy level is consistent and just palls. It is recorded and mixed in such a way that an individual track would pop when played on the radio as the best thing you heard that hour, but listening to the whole album is exhausting. I hate his whiny voice, which just seems like posturing. I hate the arrangements. there is no point. It generically 'rocks', but there is no real grit to it. I'm sure they put on a decent live show (and it seems like they do a lot of live gimmicks), but these songs bore and tire me. I give it a second star because it is energetic and decently recorded. Actually, I think Come See, Come Saw is just a a re-write of Know Your Product by the Saints. One star off for plagiarism of a far better song.

I love this album. So smart, so melodic, such great production. The songs are varied, each with its own identity, great playing, whip-smart lyrics, great melodies, inventive and tight playing. Beatle-esque in places, this album was great leap forward, and showed much more of the breadth of what E.C. could achieve. I could listen to this album over and over without getting bored. The singles are classics.

Here's an absolutely and absolutely unique masterpiece. Raw and immediate, with unsophisticated recording style and (almost) no embellishment, this is probably the best expression of teenage frustration and anxiety ever recorded. it feels so real. The bare arrangements mean that the songs seem completely unfiltered. This album is so honest that it feels like a secret every time you listen to it; I can't believe they are saying what they are saying! And yet, this obviously hit a nerve with many, many people; sales estimates to date are around 3 million copies sold (and, one has to think, a handful of furtively taped copies for each disc sold). Nearly everyone of my generation (at least in the more alternative circles I moved in) can sing Add it Up, Blister on the Sun, or Gone Daddy Gone from memory at the drop of a hat. The basic recording means this never sounds old, and, interestingly, my 16 year old son has this album on his want list, so it clearly still speaks to young people. When I was an uni in 1990, my friend Kate and I skipped lectures one afternoon to go see the Femmes busking at Circular Key (filmed for the Noise on SBS). That sunny afternoon, singing along to the band, is one of my favourite live show memories. You see snippets of that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2J6d0EVEJE

minimal, clean synth sounds, cool production but still warm to hear. Surprisingly good tunes beyond just the singles, especially 'The things that dreams are made of' and 'The Sound of the crowd' and 'Get Carter/I am the law'.

Tight, crunching riffs. Great 90s guitar production fork Terry Date. Could be the great lost metallica album (if they hadn't gone down the Black Album accessible route). Tends towards "all loud, all the time", with some exceptions with greater dynamic range, such as "this love". The Rollins-like yelling gets a bit wearing after a while.

operatic goth rock. great drum programming, huge production stage.

Absolute classic. Proper songs, but with a fresh approach to sound that makes them pop through as something both familiar and different. Some tracks are surprisingly funky (\"No One Receiving\", \"Kurt's Rejoinder\"), and often catchy (\"Backwater\", \"King's Lead Hat\"). When I was about 14, I borrowed from the library a compilation of Eno's 73-77 song-oriented albums. I did not get it at the time, but since have learned to love the tangential approach to song-writing. I still love this album every time I listen to it.

Minimal krautrock songs, with massive (and noisy) orchestral arrangements. The thing that elevates this particular album is the raw emotion of the lyrics. then hurt of lost love, compounded by an unhealthy relationship with drugs, leaves the narrator of this extended suite completely laid and vulnerable. The emotion is exhausted, sung in a deadpan delivery as an exhausted calm after the (musical storm). A masterpiece.

Funny, energetic recording of Prima's legendary live show. It's loose and irreverent, uptempo and hilarious. Prima takes liberties with his own material and jazz standards to create a raucous big band experience that leans towards the coming RnB.

\"Can we have everything louder than everything else?\" Deep Purple at the height of their live powers. Tight, dramatic, possibly even histrionic (\"child in time)\". Cracking tunes (\"smoke on the water\"), powerhouse rhythm section (\"black night\"), loud as hell (speed king), with a genuine fire. Does feature some unfortunate solos (drum solo on \"the mule\", or organ intro to \"lazy\", best skipped), some questionable (call and response on \"strange kind of woman\", leading eventually to Gillan's mighty acapella wail), much is inspired as this band stretches out its considerable powers (\"space truckin'\" or \"black night\", for example).

Overly theatrical voice, schmaltzy arrangements. At best, tracks are like mediocre Bond theme songs ('best of both worlds'). Unconvincing country pastiche ('black sheep boy'). While the music is cheesy and cliched, the ;lyrics are often strange and unfiltered ('next'). Weirdly honest, yet highly artificial. I did not enjoy this album.

Like a fun, poppier version of the Velvet Underground (a clear and direct influence on Richman). The classic songs are deadset classics (roadrunner, pablo picasso, she cracked). Obviously influential on many, many subsequent bands. One of the key proto-punk albums. Loose and energetic recording.

More restrained versions of some his classic songs. I'm sure there are more raucous recordings from a similar vintage. That said, Little Richard is the duck's nuts.

I like this better than Metallica. It's tight as tight, but with a bit more noise to it. Funnier, in a deadpan, angst-ridden way. Lightning fast guitar shredding, but without descending into mere typing exercises. Punk attitude and not-dumb lyrics make this tolerable. just melodic enough to make re-listenable.

ugh. Not to my taste. Too 80s schmick. Almost funky. Almost soulful. Almost sophisticated. Trying too hard to be polished. Just not there for me.

The beginning of the Stones really sounding like the Stones. Recording is still a little rough, although Brian Jones' use of whatever instruments were around lifts the sound into something fresher than most of their contemporaries. Going home is waaaaay too long, just a noodly blues jam. It shows the beginning of their dynamic playing style and playing off each other, but I'm not sure we needed 11 minutes of a under baked idea. I think I prefer either their earlier less polished and more bluesy records, or their later material where they are more confident in their own thing. And the misogyny is staggering. Women are either berated and belittled, subjugated, or raised onto pedestals (setting them up for failure?) I'm really not sure I could listen to this frequently.

Dubbed out skeletons of songs, mixed upside down and sideways. I love it, but this is deeply weird for a band of this profile. Taking the remixed template of screamadelica, but with a more industrial and dubbed out version. Noisy, spacey, groovy. I love it. Some 'real' songs (eg 'Medication', 'motorhead' cover), with some instrumentals (eg 'trainspotting')

It is certainty way better than any of there (more successful) albums that followed. But I find the horror of the albums that followed (and much of the garbage that precedes this) can taint the memory of perfectly listenable funk-rock album. "mellowship Slinky in B Major" or "suck my kiss" are probably the best examples of the agreeable funky nonsense on offer.

Interesting... I am not familiar with Traffic's oeuvre, and have been recently considering spending some time with their back catalog, based on the occasional track that pops up in my listening (eg, covers by Tigers at the Edge of Time). OK, I have listened to some of their previous records, and then this one all the way through... and I'm not thrilled. It meanders, more folk-jazz and less rockin' r'n'b than previous records. Unfocused, not well structured, a bit too laid back for my taste. The guitar leads are (at times,) pretty awful. Interestingly, the live tracks on disc 2 of the deluxe version are far superior. A bit rougher, better playing, and more focused even when stretching out.

This album is really on the cusp; the first of the massive 80s block-busters, it showed how big an album could be int eh video-enabled new music world. But it sounds still quiet disco. The sound is super-polished, but not as ground-breaking as the presentation. All the single,s all the videos, and MJ's massive charisma. Is it all a bit safe (perhaps)? Well, that's how you sell a bazillion albums. Some songs (Baby Be Mine, The Lady In My life, the Girl is Mine) are middle-of-the-road, inoffensive pablum. But the stronger singles (Billie Jean, beat and Thriller) have a slight edge that makes them stick above the most. Quincy Jones' production is slick, funky, and has aged really well. The Girl is Mine (duet with Paul McCartney) is, frankly, horrible. The spoken word in the middle 8 is... just not credible. This album and MJ himself set a precedent for how big a star could be. Not to anyone's benefit; record companies chasing bigger and bigger (and more irrelevant) mega-hits, and had MJ chasing a dragon of success that led him to some VERY unfortunate places. This is the last time that I find MJ to be a relatable human, and his descent into celebrity freak begins in earnest. In retrospect, PYT is a bit creepy. Clearly, a deeply damaged person, the evidence of this damage starts to become unavoidable, and reflects in his song-writing, which becomes less and less relatable. And the joy seems to disappear from his work. Do I actually ever listen to this album? No, I don't, but think it is required listening in the history of music.

I don't listen to this album very often, but every song is a classic. Is it because they are that good, or because Dylan is the patient zero of smart rock and roll? This album in particular, where he has moved past folk and truly into rock and roll (this is his first all-rock record), really is a template for soooo much that comes afterwards. It is no surprise that Hendrix was obsessed with this record, and plays Like a rolling stone at Monterey to (re-)introduce himself to America. I love the immediacy of the playing, that really becomes a blueprint for so much rock to come. Recorded quickly, it has genuinely rocks, and the lyrics are still fresh all these years later. Fave tracks: tombstone blues, highway 61 revisited.

oh, this is not for me. Snooze. Love and Affection is a good song, but the rest of this record just makes no impression on me.

God, I totally don't know what to do with the Doors... Morrison is a total pretentious prat and not nearly as deep as he pretends, the band are a glorified lounge act... and yet, and yet, THIS record is surprisingly listenable. Most songs are 3 minutes or under, not enough time to outstay their welcome, and the tunes are catchy, the band can swing a little bit and their dynamic interplay is not too bad. The lyrics are not TOO dumb (for the most part). Light my fire and The End have a tendency to drag on a bit. I really want to hate the doors, but this album is kinda fun. I can forgive the band for this record. (Footnote: Alfie did point out that the opening of Soul Kitchen sounds a lot like Walking on the Sun by Smashmouth. Just sayin')

This album is perfectly fine. A bit rock and roll, decent tunes, but an all time must hear classic? i don't think so. It reminds me of a slightly less rockin' You Am I. it was OK while I was listening to it, but I can't remember a single tune. And it really long. Much longer than it needs to be.

Oh really? this sounds like a willfully obscure post-hardcore band much like any other. Alan Moulder mix helps it sound a little better than many. But, I mean, really, this album was barely released, and is not even on spotify at present. How is this a "must hear" album? I mean, they rock. And I'm sure they are heap of sweaty fun live... but this is really a stretch. All attitude and no songs (exception: Kiss Like Lizards)..

So, this wasn't what I expected. I had read about this great \"divorce settlement\" album, that was supposedly a lost masterpiece. Often, I find that wreaks of hipster-obscurantism (cf. the Beach Boys's Vegetables), where \"unrecognised masterpiece\" often equates to self-indulgent, un-edited piffle from a flailing artiste. So, my expectations for Marvin Gaye's double album commercial and (contemporaneously) critical flop, meditating on his divorce would be... flabby, self-indulgent and painful. But, surprisingly, while it has aspects of all those attributes, it does stand up. It is a largely mid-tempo funk/soul album, with touches of disco (unsurprisingly for the era). It is unhurried, with extended soloing (including some, ahem, marginally competent keyboard solos from Mr Gaye himself), but well recorded, with some great playing from his backing band (uncredited. Who ARE they? LA based Motown regulars?). It is certainly not a phoned-in contractual obligation album (Van Morrison could learn a lesson from this). I could see myself listening to this again. It's not \"What's going on?\", but a pretty solid album from a great artist. For once, the hipster revisionism has, actually, winnowed some grain from the chaff. (The one song that is really out of place was the single, \"A Funky Space Reincarnation\",, which is delightfully bonkers.)

I can listen to this. Didn't set my world aflame.

So, I loved this band when they first came out. I generally preferred Time's Up, which I thought had stringer songs across the board. But, listening again, it does have Cult of Personality, Glamour Boys, and Middle Man, all of which are very strong. Some dated production choices aside, it still sounds great. Everyone's playing at their peak. Contemporaneous live records tend to cut loose a bit more, which si wild. It has the advantage of a metal album that incorporates other influences (most notably funk, which was pretty fresh at the time, if later to become cliched) and not-dumb lyrics (occasionally a little heavy handed, but forgivably so). Politically aware, energetic, heavy. Still a great listen

Thank you, 1001 albums, for making me listening to another record that I had meant to get around to for ages, but never listened too. And it's 1967/8 at Abbey Rd Studios. Norman Smith (producer/engineer) really had a sound going at the time, and this is strongly reminiscent of contemporaneous albums by the Beatles and Pink Floyd, also with strong involvement from Smith at Abbey Rd. Experimental for the time, but still tuneful and often surprisingly heavy (old Man Going). A lost treasure. Favourite track: Baron Saturday.

This takes me back. My mate Tim loved this record when it came out, and we listened to it a lot. We both liked thrash, but were much more attracted to the skateboard friendly end of the genre (Anthrax, plus local faves like the Hard-Ons, Massappeal, the Hellmenn) ratehr than the metal-dude end (Metaliica, Megadeth, Slayer). I didn't skate, but Tim did. And they were a bit funnier and relatable. This album really took me back, and I enjoyed the clean, unpretentious production (by Eddie Kramer, which surprised me to read). This is a really minor note, but I find the use of double kick on this album tasteful. many bands just run the double kick the whole way through songs, and I find it exhausting and, ironically, reduces the impact of the speed.

I was really expecting this to be homework, but I found it really easy to listen to. A few too many bass and drum solos, perhaps, but it is largely fairly succinct and coherent, even for someone not as sophisticated in their jazz appreciation as I am am. (Hal understands this better. It is seems fairly straightforward to him, I suspect). I can understand the stretches. It's a bit more challenging than wallpaper jazz, but not so free as to be incomprehensible. Would listen gain.

I understand how this is an important album in the history of post-punk, but generally forgettable. Caligari's Mirror and Blow Daddy-O have moments of being a recognisable song, but I find this album mostly not memorable or compelling.

It's the emperor's new album. The sound of a a band indulgently reveling in past glories, with a halo effect of too many nights in Ibizan dance clubs giving it an accidental glow of summery dance-ability, polished off with some expensive production at Real World studios. There are only really two songs on this record (out of three singles), and they aren't that memorable. Ho hum.

I really enjoyed this. I was more familiar with Roxy's musics first two albums (with their wild Eno-isms and sideways approach to art-rock), and the later Ferry-led super-slick radio hits. This album, I really enjoyed. Great recording, still rockin', a bit of weird edge, great tunes. Track highlights; Thrill OF It All, Casanova

I have loved this record since it came out. The songs are, perhaps, not that strong, but the production and mood lifts this into the all time classic range. Its a night in the clubs, with the chill-out come-down at the end. The spaced-out, dubbed-out, extended dance mix production turn this into an album that I can listen to over and over again. Loaded is a staple of my DJ sets, but in context, event he weaker songs on this album work because of the way they contribute to the mood and journey of the record. love it.

This is an actual classic album. Stevie Wonder in his imperial period. It is hard to over-praise this record.

Is this one of those ones where you had to be there? I like the more punk tracks, like'I Against I', but the more metallic songs are technically accomplished, but I find less compelling. Do I need it a bit rougher edged? Do I want some more intense attitude? Is it just paler in comparison to what I was expecting? I was expecting something wilder.

Tasteful, gentle, soporific. I was expecting proto-indie-filler, with completely forgettable tunes, and it was marginally better than that. But I never need to hear this album again in my life. The production is a little bit edgier and interesting than I expected (thanks, Nigel Goodrich), but at best, at its most hard-rockin', this comes across as OK Computer Lite. Actually, I'm just listening to the coda of As You Are, and this is the worst case of Thom Yorke wannabe-ism I have ever heard. I don't hate this, as it is custom made to be un-hatable, but it has no grit at all.

Now this is more like it! rock and roll! woo-hoo! I so enjoyed this record. it's raw, and dangerous, and rock and roll, and funny, and offensive, and everything I want from a rock and roll record. It has dead-set classic songs (Personality Crisis, Trash, Looking for a Kiss), some songs I already loved (Subway Train), and few that I am now just learning to love (bad Girl, Frankenstein). Loved this record. play it real loud!

I am a fan of the Depeche Mode albums that follow this (Violater and Songs of Faith and Devotion), which are a bit darker, rockier, and noisy than their early records. The greater inclusion of guitar, the more industrial sound design (more noise and distorition), and greater reliance on pentatonic harmonies (ironically, simpler harmonically than their earlier material) is more to my taste. While familiar with their singles, I had not given earlier albums much attention. It was a real pleasure to spend some time with this album in full. David Bascombe, fresh off producing Tears for Fears and working with DM for the first time, brings a big sound and a penchant for experimenting than is enjoyable. Watching the doco on this album, he was clearly influenced by minimalist composers lie Glass and Reich, which is a bit of a niche sensibility that appeals to me greatly. I really enjoyed this, although not to the same degree as the albums mentioned above. Would buy (albeit for cheap).

I love Simon Reynold's book on post-punk, titled after this album/song. I get why this album was a breath of fresh air at the time, but I find the "funk" unconvincing. Tooo, too white boy, really. the African influences, courtesy of the drummer/songwriter Zeke Manyika are much more interesting to me (eg A Million Pleaading Faces, or the percussion breaks on breakfast Time), and I wish there was a lot more of that. I find Edwyn Collin's voice just a little bit too ironic crooner for my taste. If it was a little bit faster, a bit more layered percussion, this could have been more like Remain in Light. It has those moments (again, guitar solo on Breakfast Time, which is like Adrian Belew or Robert Fripp) which I really like. But then he starts singing again, or they start playing terrible white boy funk.

A record that I own, but don't spin nearly as much as I should. Smooth, funky, and beautifully orchestrated. Caron Wheeler's vocals (unsurprisingly on the big singles) are a real stand out. String arrangements are lush and sophisticated. This really is a precursor of Massive Attack a few years later, although perhaps with a little less grit and less depressive/gloomy. I really enjoyed listening to this. If this had been made even two years later, it would have been based on grainy loops rather than drum machines, but this really is an album a few years ahead of its time.

Stompin' band at the height of their powers, and a charismatic front man. Sometimes the lyrics are little overly clever (Dury never saw an easy rhyme he didn't like; Billericay Dickie is an example there), and the line between sexy and sexist is often crossed, and has dated especially poorly. Still, Dury is trying to shock and provoke a sense of fun. It's hard to be too outraged when you're dancing, after all. Dodgy sexual politics aside, this is a fun listen. Would buy.

Bang, out of the gate comes Van Halen with this cocksure and confident album that changed the sound of hard rock/heavy metal forever. Pyrotechnic, rockin', and above all fun, this album does not take itself too seriously, which is a major blessing compared to most heavy rock bands, who are generally po-faced in the extreme. Eddie's guitar style completely rewrote the book of heavy guitar playing, using the technological innovations of guitar and amplification to reinvent what technique could be. The sound of his guitar was so influential, we really didn't over it until grunge started knocking the edge off mainstream playing over a decade later. Some fo the songs are relatively weaker, especially in the back half of the album, byut a record with Runnin' with the Devil, Eruption, and Ain't Talking about Love (not to mention their cover of You really Got Me) as the first four tracks is always going to seem soft int he home straight. David Lee Roth is not the world's best singer, but his confidence, chutzpah and sense of fun leads the band in its party-hard strut. You just know you're going to have a great time with this band. A dead-set classic.

This was a hard one, and I listened to it a few times. This album has quite a reputation, partially as a result of its history (which I only know vaguely). I love the sound design. It is weirdly recorded and played, with lots of noise, distortion, collage and extraneous sound, which I find enormously appealing, but I can see how it is not mainstream. It is unusual to find this is an a gentle/semi-acoustic album (as that approach is often more common in industrial records, that are more into sound design). It reminds me of Grandaddy, which I also love. The songs are clearly growers. They didn't grab me at first listen, but I can tell that they could grow a lot. I intend to come back to this album and give it the time and attention that I think it needs. This could end up being a real favourite (but needs time).

This is a really terrific album. The production is ahead of its time (although still steeped in New Jack Swing). Singing is great, fantastic songs (esp Creep, Waterfalls). I love the cover of "If I was Your Girlfriend" - hard to cover Prince, esp at the height of his powers. I love the confidence of the group, although I really don't think we needed the interludes, which dilute the power of the powerful female presence on this record. Other than that, perfect.

Really never sure what to make of MIA. I think she is the real deal. I find her work exciting and energising, with a fascinating melange of sounds from around the world, especially South Asia. I really lik this record, but (like I said), I'm not sure if it is genius or trash. It could be both! It reminds me of the first time I heard Neneh Cherry; I didn't understand it and thought it was rubbish. it took me a while to understand what she was doing and realise its true greatness. And I think MIA is the same. She obviously rubs a lot of people the wrong way, and gets a lot of criticism because she doesn't play by the accepted rules. maybe she's too female, too non-Western, not deferential enough for those critics' taste. I love the way she incorporates a wide variety of cultural baggage (Pixies, Jonathon Richmond, lost of world influences that I can't name) into a focused and exciting piece of work. Interestingly, the one song I don't really rate, Jimmy, is largely a cover, and I don't think it plays to her strengths, which are simplicity, directness, colour, pride and openess.

Love this. Funky first half, ballad side B. Beautiful arrangements and playing, terrific vocals.

Wow, this si areal blast. Short, shrap, fast and loud (with a moment of respie for Your Chatin' Heart). It's a greatest hits of early rock and roll blasted out at high power before a live audience. No fat, no time-wasting. The drummer is a wildman, and Jerry Lee is pumping that piano hard, and vocally wailing. Not as much screaming as Little Richard (the obvious comparison), but strong and hard.

Last Stones album with Brian Jones (who had become almost useless by this stage), and the beginning of their imperial period. The mix of blues, country and rock was really what made the Stones of this period what they were at their best. Some great songs (and, of course, Sympathy for the Devil). generally, the recording has enough grit in it to catch my attention, the arrangements are becoming more ambitious (choir on Salt of the Earth, exotic percussion all around), without sounding too much like they are just trying hard to be the Beatles. there was better yet to come, but this really is a classic album, and the first of the Stones records I really love.

Well, it has a few drop dead classics on it (title track, The Boxer, Cecilia), but is it generally just well-produced filler? Not so deep as it seems? It's not a surprise that it sold 25 bazillion copies, 'cause there's not much here to offend. great melodies, terrific harmonies, fantastically produced album. Glad I listened, but I feel no need to own.

I love this album. So smart, so melodic, such great production. The songs are varied, each with its own identity, great playing, whip-smart lyrics, great melodies, inventive and tight playing. Beatle-esque in places, this album was great leap forward, and showed much more of the breadth of what E.C. could achieve. I could listen to this album over and over without getting bored. The singles are classics.

Spacious, hurt, cynical, and haunted by absence. beautifully played. A classic.

Early 90s gangsta rap. One of the best examples of the genre, but this type of hip hop left me cold at the time. I don't mind the politics, but the misogyny and violence leaves me uncomfortable. I really don't want to listen to this again.

2000s prog. better than much (a bit less clever clogs, and a certain willingness to rock). Lots of echoes of Fripp. The inclusion of latin percussion does not make it Santana-like. I like the noisy sound design, which give it a rough and atmospheric edge than I find lacking in much prog (which tends towards clean production to show off the chops). Good vocals, but don't get me started on the meaningless lyrics. I enjoyed it well enough while listening, but don't feel the need to listen again. Hal might like it, though. I like the Fripp-like guitar work, but, honestly, aren't there plenty of King Crimson albums that I would prefer to listen to? Yes. Yes, there are.

This records gets me really fired up. It gives me as much of an adrenaline thrill as it did when it first came out. I love the industrial repetitiveness, the crunchy guitars, metronomic beats, angry yelling, all undercut with sarcasm and humour (most notably on Jesus Built My Hotrod). It takes me back to the early 90s, when this was on constant rotation in my share house, and was a key inspiration for my own industrial band. I love this record. It's the best industrial metal album of all time (with the possible exception of the live Ministry album that came out around the same time). Does everyone need to hear and love this album? No, they don't. it doesn't contain much to say about the human condition (except for the thrilling power of anger). But I love it. It gets me fired up.

The most rock of Morrissey's output. Glam and rockabilly echoes, with great band and production by Mick Ronson. But the songs are still Morrisey songs: three note, whinge-fests. I also find his current public persona so xenophobic and unpleasant that I really can't give him any time. Will not listen again.

oof, this was a tough listen. I like ICE-T. He is smart and charismatic, and I saw him live at the Enmore Theatre in 1989, and he was terrific live. I liked the Power album, and some of the Iceberg. But this is not good. It sounds like an early blueprint for gangsta-rap, even though it comes well after Straight Outta Compton and some of the other ur-texts of the genre. It should sound a lot better than this. He mentions Six in the Morning 3 or 4 times, which sounds like trying too hard to establish his cred. The misogyny is appalling. And there is so much flab on this album. MVP and Ya Should Killed Me Last year (and most of the skits) are just Ice rambling off the top of his head (not even free styling). And so long! At 72 minutes, this could have been significantly edited down, and made a much stronger album. I really wanted to like this, but it's flabby and lazy and irrelevant and unpleasant. And Ice-T can be so much more than that. Not his best.

Bombastic, big, angst-ridden and angry. Overblown and humourless? Pretentious? Yes, all of that, but a great rock opera for teenagers. I think this is the most intelligent expression of the perils of rock stardom. it makes me wonder why Roger Waters ever got into the rock and roll game; he seems to hate everything about it. I loved this when I was 16, but now I find it a little ham-fisted (if not excellently executed). Props to David Gilmour for one of the greatest guitar solos of all time (Comfortably Numb). This really is one of the most important texts of rock and roll, being both a great rock record (with some crackin' tunes) and reflecting back on the nature of rock and roll.

I like the Happy Monday's weird, psychedelic, surreal, funky and weird approach. it is surprising and funny and fun. This was the album where (apparently) they discovered ecstasy. It think the musical approach really shines through in the remixes (WFL especially) that came out of this album, rather than beign seen ont he album itself. And their subsequent records REALLY show this, and are much more dance-y than this. It's that trance-like dance-like, almost krautrock Madchester thing that I really like, so this album is the first flash of that (but not quiet there)> interestingly, on listening to the deluxe version, I most liked the second disc with all the 12" versions and remixes attracted; they really bring out what I love about the Mondays. The band is loose to the point of (almost) falling apart, which is their real charm.

The Monkees finally were finally allowed to write and perform on their own records. And it is not a a disaster. Pleasant folk/country inspired pop rock, with some hints of psychedelia. But I can't really remember a single song on it, except Zilch (and experimental thing that I quite like)

I found this to be a really listenable Dylan album. The Lanois production is clearly divisive amongst critics, but I like it. I luiek the weird spaciousness. it is heavily processed (he never met a reverb he didn't like), and yet keeps an analog feel. I like the grit in Dylan's voice. Some critics find some of the lyrics/songwriting a bit simplistic, although most of their ire seems directed at To Make You Feel My Love, which is well on the way to becoming a modern standard. Heaven forbid that a Dylan song should be accessible that anyone might like it! There is a reason this is Dylan's highest selling album ever. And coming nearly 40 years into his career, good on him.

I sort of wanted to hate this, preferring the earlier, more spontaneous (and harder rockin') Van Halen albums. But it is really hard to dislike this record. the songs are really catchy, and the playing is incendiary, almost overworked in the production, but not quite. I like the variety of bringing in the synth (a suitably crunchy oberheim). The four singles are stellar, and even the album tracks are pretty song. Top Jimmy and Drop Dead legs are possibly just filler, but they don't suck. a really good, solid (heavy) pop album, with a lot of fun.

I know this resonates for a lot of people, but doesn't for me. I understand that it is meaningful and moving etc, but it leaves me a little cold. I think it is, for me, a bit overworked. Too successful in its emulation of Phil Spector, but it can hear how hard they worked at it (and they did work hard),. I need a bit more. I listened through, but, honestly, it washes over me every time and I am unmoved.

Best in class Southern boogie rock. Comparing the demos to the album cuts, you can hear how well prepared the band was to record (with arrangements detailed and honed), but also how well Al Kooper recorded the band, getting a great sound out of them without polishing off the things that make the band great. But it doesn't really speak to me that much. I don't understand the appeal of Freebird (except for the blistering solos at the end, which are, rightly iconic)

Mostly pretty inoffensive light 70s jazz. Not as funky and edgy as I would like; kind of Miles Davis lite. Very lite. Inner Crisis is the best of the bulk of the album. The real highlight in Ingoo pow-Pow (children's Song), which is much more like African music with a jazz inflection. If only the album was more liek that.

I miss guitars. And tunes. Some actual song son here, but needlessly obtuse. If I listened to this 20 times, I'm sure I would find things to like, but I just wish it rocked a bit more.

I respect Billy Joel's songwriting chops. These are incredibly successful songs and have been played on radio a bazillion times, and I know most of this album backwards just from the ubiquitous nature of the thing. But it bores me to tears. Billy Joel is not rock and roll (despite Billy's later protestations); it's much more popular song based in the Broadway tradition. And it is very successful in that mold. But I don't really need it in my life. Sorry.

So, this album was on regular rotation in my share house c. 1991. it was funky and fun, with a 60s throwback vibe and production that was uncommon at the time, and makes it a fun listen. The lyrics are twee and often cliched, and while Lenny's singing is good at hitting a dramatic peak, the music often does not get there. I always felt his songs needed to hit a dramatic highpoint. Sometimes he achieved this with collaborators (such as Slash's solo in Always On The Run) or kitchen sink production, or by avoiding the issue (70s funk emphasizes the groove, and so big dramatic moments are less required). All that said, I enjoyed revisiting this record, and really like his vocal style. It's a fun pastiche.

Not my favorite VU album, but I still love this record. More laid back than their prior two albums, and a lot more song oriented and less noise/experiment oriented. the noise thing really does a it for me, but I really rate the song-writing too. This album contains some deadest classics (Pale Blue Eyes, What Goes On, Candy Says, I'm Set Free), but I also love Some Kinda Love, which has a proto-kraut rock thing going on. For almost any other band, this would be the album of their career, but the Velvets, I rank second or third. A great record for people who find their more challenging material off-putting.

Beyonce, she is awesome. I think lemonade is her #1 classic album, but I can see how this album leads up to it. Collaged from bits of her own history and a patchwork of collaborators, it has her distinct vision all through it.

I had assumed that this album would be as annoying as the many (MANY) copycat albums that came like a flurry of pale carbon copies its wake, but I can actually see why this record is as beloved and influential as it is. Some really classic tunes (heart of gold, old man, needle and damage done, harvest), great playing and singing (big ups to the backing vocalists, including Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, CSNY) tasteful orchestration and some surprisingly muscular playing (including electric guitar)_ when required. I get it now.

I am not fan of prog. It is often just too clever-clogs for my taste. And this album tends that way. great moments, never repeated, so it assiduously avoids groove or rock (although it could). You could sample almost any bar of this (especially side 1) and turn that into a whole song, but ELP just want to play every idea they ever had. And the lyrics are nonsensical tripe... and yet, I didn't hate this. i could listen to this again. I would buy this from a $2 bin.

This album is fantastic. The band have built their sound and confidence in song-writing. I love McGeoch's guitar playing and Siouxsie's singing. Absolute height of British post-punk. Moody, dramatic, startling, and still fresh.

Oh Ella, my favourite jazz singer of all time. i would listen to her sing the phone book. But this is not the phone book, but a major volume of the great American songbook. A massive project to record a huge number of the Gershwin's greatest output, with beautiful orchestrations, that create a lush bed for Ella's incomparable voice. Truth be told, I prefer her 1950 Gershwin album; her voice is a little brighter and the orchestrations a little less cheesy. But this really is a major work of popular song of the 20th century.

Cheesy ersatz soundtrack music. Cool at its best (set the control, something wicked this way comes), aimless in middle (dirty barry), just pointless jazz-lite noodling at worst (Miles). Nick Cave's cameo stands out as an actual song with charisma and presence.

According to wikipedia, Teenage Head was released the same year as the Rolling Stones' album Sticky Fingers, and Mick Jagger reportedly noticed the similarities between the albums and thought the Flamin' Groovies did the better take on the theme of classic blues and rock 'n roll revisited in a modern context. I tend to agree. it is like a rougher version of Sticky Finger s(one of my favourite Stones albums), so this is a revelation. Loved the slide playing, the rough boogie, and the grunt. Fabbo, and definitively going on my want list.

Some all time great songs on this. But, off, that 80s production. The synths, the saxophone solos, the stacked backing vocals. His singing is not bad, probably amongst the best he has ever sounded. But is it a coincidence that I love many of these songs in cover versions? The production really distracts me. Five stars for the songs, one off for the sound.

Sparks seem to be everywhere at the moment; the Annette soundtrack, the Sparks documentary (which I am halfway through watching), they seem to be having a real moment. This is one of those bands that has a real cult following, and I never really got. it has been a LONG time since I tried to listen to any of their records. Based on the documentary, I find the Mael brothers quite charming and funny, and I like their approach, but this just doesn't connect for me. This sounds like a weird prog/glam fusion. All the clever-clogs musical arrangement of prog (although not as jazz/classical inflected), which undercuts the tunes. It just doesn't grab me. Nothing connects. I really want to like it, but just don't. Maybe if I listened to it a dozen times, it would start to work for me, but I just don't have the time or inclination.

This album is incredibly pleasant. Norah Jones has a very pleasant voice (soft, intimate, smooth, and sultry, if not a little unsexy), and a pleasant band. They play pleasant arrangements; a little bit jazz, a little bit folk, and little bit country. But nothing offensive, nothing that leaps out. Nothing is too loud, or too fast (or even too slow). It's very pleasant wallpaper. I'm not surprised it sold a bazillion copies in physical media (at a time the industry was starting to collapse), because it is a hard to hate. I will say, that she edits her arrangements really well. Nothing outstays its welcome. No songs much over 4 minutes, and many under 3. She has the great sense not to use every minute of available capacity on a CD, and keeps the whole album to a classic 45 minutes. She interprets the works of many songwriters to give all the material a consistent voice, and I she knows exactly how long to play for. But I would never choose to play this record again.

Over polished, derivative, boring. Work-shopped and honed within an inch of its life. Cliche ridden. I've seen this described as one of the high points of 80s hair metal. And that is damning with very faint praise. I never want o hear this corporate rock drivel again as long as I live.

I love Tina Turner. Love her. I own many Tina Turner records. But it's the r'n'b and funk output of the 60s and 70s that really do it for me. I do not in any way begrudge her the massive success she found in the 80s as a solo artist. She wanted to make it as big as Bowie and the Stones, and she did. Because she is awesome. She really wrote the book on female rock performance, and is is one of the rock and roll greats of any gender. Full stop. And this is the album that really did it for her, pushing her into success in a way she never had before. But... what is required for mainstream success buffs off many of the edges that made her a really compelling force of nature. Many reviews refer to the slick production (Which it sure is, and terribly 80s, and not all of it has dated well) and her raspy voice. But I am familiar with her earlier material, and the rasp is downplayed quite a lot. She never really tears it up (although she gets closer on some of the b-sides). Seven hit singles from one album is a pretty amazing strike-rate, and she makes some otherwise middle-of-the-road material compelling. I love you, Tina, and I play your records all the time. Just not this one. (As a side note, I am getting a bit tired of 1001 albums throwing out albums because they are the commercial breakthrough, or big selling (particularly in the UK), but not necessarily the albums that was influential, ground-breaking or representative of what that artist really had to offer. This is a good case in point.)

An absolute masterpiece, probably Prince's greatest record. A solo collection from the his most fertile period at the height of his powers. Funky, fresh, profane, reflective, funny, sad, profound, silly. Not really a dud track on this, probably the last of the great, true double albums. Cannot recommend too highly.

B&S are a gap in my knowledge. They came along during the period that I did not listen to new music, and I think I generally agreed (based on my ignorance of their work) with Jack Black's opinion in High Fidelity that they were \"old sad bastard music\". Maybe because I, too, am now an old sad bastard, I understand the appeal of this record now. I like to quick and dirty recording style, with a production style with ambitions towards a lush aesthetic (on a budget). It is clearly in the tradition that grows from the more whimsical end of the Velvet Underground's oeuvre, which appeals to me. It starts to wash over me a bit after a whole album, but enjoyed it more than I expected.

I love this record, and am shocked that I don't own it already. (It's going on my want list). I actually really love the horns, although I know they were divisive at the time. I think they give the album extra punch, without seeming out of place in a punk album. Maybe we are more comfortable with genre cross-pollination these days. I think it also has become clear the extent to which punk was not musical ground zero, but rather a return to the essence of rock and roll, re-imagined in a new way. (Thanks to Simon Reynolds, for that insight). In the same way that the Pistols called back to the Eddie Cochran, Carl Perkins rock and roll, the Saints have a bit more Ike Turner in them. International Robots and the (bonus track) of River Deep Mountain High show the rock and roll roots of the Saints. Know Your Product and This Perfect Day are dead set classics, performed (as all of this album) with gusto and infectious energy.

Final studio album by the Police. Can you detect the fact they almost were not speaking? Is the increased use of sequencers to give a backbone to songs that prevent them having the play together? A great record of a band falling apart? They are clearly tight enough as a unit to sound like they are playing the same thing even when not speaking. I think this is about the only Police album that I don't own, so there was some fresh material here, especially on side 1. (Interesting that all the singles are back loaded on the album, which is a weird way of tracklisting, especially such a commercially ambitious band). The singles are really strong, which makes side 2 a very compelling listen. Side 1 feels a bit like experiments and filler. The production is a bit cleaner and focused than their previous studio album, and when they are rocking, has a lot of punch. Highlights for me are Synchronicity II, which is a good example of their power and purpose.

This did not attract my attention. I remember Badly Drawn Boy getting a lot of positive press in the UK around the time; best new songwriting hope, etc. Mercury Prize winning, beloved by NME, Q, etc. But it didn't grab me at the time, and it doesn't now. Dull, and over-long. Never need to hear this again.

Pleasant, Latin-flavoured jazz-lite. I like her voice, but this is hardly the most inspired thing she ever did. Why did they choose THIS album? It doesn't really have anything to particularly recommend it. Soporific. Duet with child (You Didn't Have to Be So Nice) was cute, but I'm not sure I would want to listen to it too many times. I feel like only the final track, Nao Bate O Corocao, worked up a bit of energy. Did not hate, but seems like a pointless inclusion on this list.

Post rock. needs more rock and less post, perhaps? I cannot remember a damn thing that happened on this record. Not as clever-clogs as prog, some nice playing and I like the approach to sound, but found it aimless wallpaper. (Full disclosure: I am in a foul mood today, and not prepared to enjoy anything.)

Generic, better than competent, early 1970s hard rock. It's got a bit of boogie, it's got a bit of rock. Singles are fun enough. But all I can think about is Stillwater from Almost Famous. A competent band, struggling to make it in the big time (and I know Bad Company sold a metric shit-ton of records, and filled stadiums for most of the decade). But, really, is this really groundbreaking or historically noteworthy in any way?

a super funk classic. Lush arrangements, super funky rhythms, Curtis' beautiful vocals. A far better album than the film probably deserved.

This is the most annoyingly mediocre piece of forgettable try-hard rubbish I have heard in a long time. Other than having their first US #1 single (How can you mend a broken heart?) for a group that LATER became massive and influential (with a wildly different sound), this does NOTHING to justify its inclusion on a list of must-hear albums. This just makes me question the clear thinking of the list compiler. 47 minutes of my lie that I will never get back. (At least it wasn't the 53 minute version. Thank the lord for small mercies). I am really struggling to get through this. It sounds like everyone involved in the recording was loaded to the gills on valium, mandrax, qualudes or similar. I think it would be a better listening experience if I was similarly sedated.

The missing link between glam and New Romantics. Clearly heavily influenced by Lou Red, VU, New York Dolls, and Berlin-era Bowie, but leaning into a softer, more spacious sound that they became known for in the early 80s. Funny to hear how much Sylvian changed his vocal style from the first two albums. Love Mick Karn's bass playing; it is weird and distinctive and strangely funky, and always adds a fresh surprise.

Production is spare but still pretty. (Personally, I would like a little bit more grit in it, but you can't have everything). mostly simple acoustic guitar and bass arrangements, augmented with occasional strings, distant organ, even a little bit of fuzz guitar. And Jew's harp, for that extra bit of spice. Leonard's voice is not great, but he can (usually) sell the damn song. I think the weakest vocal performance is Bird on a Wire. I think he was intimidated by the song (and a really world-class standard song it is), and it took him another 10 or more years to settle into it. The songs are so great. They are so evocative. I realize that he almost never talks in generalities or abstract concepts. He tells the story through vivid and concrete images. I love that approach to lyric writing.

OMG, I am so excited! I question the must-hear nature of some album choices, but this is a dead set classic that kicked off a whole genre. Still with reminders that they were, at heart, a heavy blues band, they have descended down a path to a new place. I listen to contemporary stoner metal and doom, and I can hear the direct influence of this seminal work being played today.

ugh. Prog. Why do lists like this rate prog so highly? prog often forgets to just rock, you know? Too much talk, not enough trousers. Some terrific moments, but just too clever clogs for me. (Interestingly, the deluxe version I listened to had the studio run-through guide track for Siberian at the end. I MUCH preferred the more straightforward playing approach)

This has been played so many times, it is embedded in the basic DNA of the culture. A classic easy listening album. I don't want to blame Tapestry for the thousands of pale imitators that followed. this is up there with 'Blue' as one of the greatest singer-songwriter albums of all time. (I still think Smackwater Jack is out of place on the record, but other that, it is difficult to fault).

I really wanted to like this. I always wanted to like Pavement. But I just don't hear the tunes. I liked Cut Your Hair, but everything else leaves me kinda 'meh'. I know many fans and critics really dug them, like they were the second coming of whatever, but I never heard it. They sounded like a 1000 shitty bands (and I mean that in a good way. I like a shitty band) that played at the Sandringham Hotel in the late 80s/early 90s. I just didn't get excited by them. Maybe you needed to see them live? I am grateful for the impetus to listen to this album all the way through (and I listened to it twice), but I cannot for the life of me remember a single thing I heard.

Ooh, I am diggin' the drones. Noisy, repetitive, driving. This is exactly my thing. Hints of 60s punk (MC5 and Stooges), 70s krautrock, and 80s no wave, this really hangs together. It's a collage of musical references built into a whole new thing. The NY Times obituary for Lou Reed referred to him as the godfather o f"high IQ, low technique" rock and roll. and that's exactly what this is. I could listen to this all day. I never knew where to start with Spacemen 3 (although I am long time Spiritualized fan), but I think I need to rush out and buy this record. I have been listening to this all day. It's magical noise.

Missy, you are indeed supa dupa fly, Hip hop albums don't always age well, but this one is still damn fine after all these years. If I was going to edit, I would cut the skits and guest spots (I mean, why did we need Busta Rhymes to introduce the album? No offense to Mr Rhymes). Missy's flow is on point, and pairs wonderfully with the consistently funky fresh production from Timbaland. Great choice to keep a consistent vision across the whole album, although tracks maintain their individual identity. Love the singles (obviously), but this one is a great listen throughout.

Some call this a masterpiece. Some call it the most pretentious album of all time. I don't think it is either. It's like a record of Bowie at his most bombastic, full of melodrama and overblown, over-arranged songs. Surprisingly coherent, given the band broke up while recording it, taking their musical force out of the band. This is a fair album, a brave swing for the outfield that doesn't quite get there. I admire the ambition, even if it does veer into self-importance (think Us at their worst). I really could have done without so much reverb slathered over EVERYTHING, which tends to turn this into a muddy mess to listen to.

This is special to me because of when and ho wit was released, two days before his death, like a gift for us all. Maybe not his most immediately memorable tunes, but the jazz guys playing rock, lush production and the lyrics imbued with depth and sense of mortality make this very special. A last loving note to us, his fans.

I have a real nostalgic fondness for this record. In 1991, I moved out of home and into the inner city of Sydney, hanging around Glebe and Newtown and seeing gigs at the Annandale Hotel, working in a grungy record store. As it so happens, Evan Dando was also hanging around Glebe and Newtown and the Annandale Hotel (I would see him there pretty regularly around that time) and hanging out with local musos and people who worked in record stores. and he wrote this album about that. The sound, the songs, the people in it, the videos, all reflect that time. the tunes are great, all the songs are really short and leave you wanting more. Celebrity never did Evan any favours, and he never hit this peak again. I love this record, because it is a cracking listen and because it reminds me of a special time in my youth. (I also had a crush on Alison, from the song Alison's starting to happen. She worked at another record store and played drums in a band. She was really cool, and really starting to happen).

Steely Dan. Just a bit too smooth, a bit too clever clogs for me. I just need a little bit more of an edge to really appeal to me. There are a few slightly rockier numbers on this album that work a bit better for me (Night by Night, for example). I don't mind smart rock and roll, but I just need a bit more rock. I own this record, but almost never play it, and have considered giving it to my son (who likes prog and jazz. he was a very excited to find a copy of Countdown to Ecstasy in. record store bargain bin recently). Actually, I'm listening to Night by Night again, and it's pretty good... I'll bump my rating up a bit I think...

I've always thought that I _should_ like Stereolab, and I have checked in on some of their records in the past, but hadn't found the album that really grabbed me. And then i heard this. This is the shit. A mixture of krautrock, 60s French girl pop (having a French girl singer helps heighten that impression, but it is not a lazy comparison; they really sound like that), which inflections of jazz, easy listening, funk and the Velvet Underground. This is the record I have been always been wanting from Stereolab. And I finally found it! yes, yes, yes. I knew this project would be worthwhile.

Once upon a time, I would have hated this. Ugh; country music! But Gram Parsons was my entry point to understanding country, and I fell in love with his solo albums. I have never gone back to listen to this album, even though it is highly critically rated. And now I'm wondering why I denied my self the pleasure of this absolute classic? I love the songs, I love the performances. I don't even mind the songs that McGuinn re-recorded the lead vocals on (I actually think their voices are pretty similar). The chutzpah of Parsons to come in as a 22 year old piano player (that didn't last long) and essentially take over an established and highly successful band, change their musical direction, help write and record a genre-establishing classic, and then light out to do his own thing. Amazing! Quite a talent, if an unreliable human being.

When I was about 13, my mate Peter played me the Prophet's Song on his walkman during a school excursion to the Sydney Opera House (we were there for an afternoon at the opera. Matinee performance of Manon Lescaut.) I didn't think much of the opera, but I loved Queen. He subsequently made me a cassette of Night at the Opera backed with Queen's Greatest Hits. I had been familiar with Bohemian Rhapsody and many of their singles prior to that, but Night at the Opera was the first Queen studio album that I really delved into and played obsessively. I find it hard to approach this record objectively, because of my nostalgic love of the record. Does it have a lot of songs that delve into pastiche and novelty? Yes. Is it almost bombastically over-produced? Well, yes. Is it full of cracking tunes and rocking rock? well, hell yeah! Let's play it again, and louder!

Nice songs, really nicely recorded. I'm not quite sure why Elliott Smith has two albums on the must hear list. It's OK... just OK.

(sigh) This is a great example about what gives me the screaming shits about this 1001 albums project. This was John lee Hooker's biggest album by far, won him a Grammy, and paid for him to live the rest of his life in comfort. It is really well recorded versions of some of classic material (even if a little heavy on the 80s digital synths, recorded to a click track, soooo much reverb, and somewhat over polished by Roy Rogers) and with very impressive guests stars (Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Roy Rogers, Robert Cray, Canned Heat, George Thorogood, Charlie Musselwhite, Los Lobos). But is this REALLY a John lee Hooker album? Have you really heard and understood John lee Hooker if this is the only album of his you have heard? Most tracks sound more like the guest stars than John Lee Hooker. Most of the guests do a pretty good version of the blues, but it is a little strange to me that nearly all of the collaborators on this album are white. And I'm sure they even have Hooker playing guitar on all tracks.It feels a little bit like wheeling Hooker out to provide a veneer of authenticity to a major label album of blues for a mainstream (read as "white") audience, but he really is just window dressing. I don't begrudge Hooker his belated recognition or long-delayed pay-day, but this is not the album you should hear from one of the titans of electric blues. This is blues for people who don't really know anything about blues. This is the blues for middle-aged financial advisers. This is blues for dentists who have a Harley Davidson in their garage to occasionally pretend they are a bad-ass. It's blues for soccer moms to dance to. This a blues for white people. Listening to this again reminds me of why I sold my copy of this album. I know John Lee Hooker had a patchy history with record labels, but surely there is a better choice to represent this giant of the blues?

"A bombshell: as good as it undoubtedly is, this record isn't going to change your life. Nor will it be considered an OK Computer or a Velvet Underground & Nico in ten years' time. Did it ever promise to be? Some people seemed to think so, and many still might." - Rob Webb, Drowned in Sound. It's ten years on, and I think his prediction has become true. This was the flavour the year, 2008, but do we really still need to listen to this record? It sounds great, it's smart and approachable, even if little short on real hooks and energy. 1001 Albums; I suspect this was a relatively fresh album when putting together whatever edition this went into, but I'm willing to bet it will be cut from the next edition. Just my little prediction there.

I love the krautrock, and krautrock doesn't get much better than this. I still prefer Tago Mago (which I find a little more focused), but this album is full of goodness.

I understand why this album is on the list; it is a great artifact of the Beatles going into Beatlemania. Recorded with a little more time and polish than Please Please Me, but retains a strong connection to the Hamburg Beatles (especially int he covers and Astrid Kirschner influenced cover). This was the UK's second ever million selling LP (after the South Pacific soundtrack). Massively popular and influential. But is it really that great to listen to now? I own this record, but I don't think I ever pulled it off the shelf in preference to other Beatles records. This deserves to be on the 1001 list, but not even nearly my favorite Beatles album. But it's the Beatles, you know?

I enjoyed this. Really smooth and well crafted r'n'b. More interesting than the mainstream, with real (gasp!) personal viewpoints. Enjoyable. Sounds like this was a crushing, angst-filled experience to produce, and who knows if she will ever manage to follow it up, but here's hoping she does. Standout track for me: The Weekend.

Hip-hop over alive band. The band is pretty funky, but this hardly ground breaking. The Beastie Boys, Urban Dance Squad and Soul Coughing, and possibly others, had already done it (and, arguably, better). The singles are almost novelty songs, and I found the the obsession with criminality increasingly off-putting. King of New York, praising John Gotti, I just found as repugnant as any other gangsta rap. The cover of "we have all the time in the world" seemed strange and pointless. The final ballad, Methodonia, was musically pleasant, but criticizing methadone addicts (in favour of... what? crack? weed? valium?) seems weirdly mean spirited, given their praise of other drugs in much of the rest of this album. I enjoyed the groove of this album, but found it left a bad taste in my mouth by the end of the album.

I love desert blues. I love it when it is relatively unpolished, and they are just settling into the groove and bashing ti out. After this played, some more produced later material and remixes appeared, and they did not do it for me. But I can totally lock into the groove of what they are playing here. Dig it!

This is my favourite U2 album. I (generally) find them a bit bombastic and earnest, a bit too polished and devoid of swing. But this is the record where they discovered noise, irony and even a modicum of funk. I love industrial music, so the noisy, industrial production style really appeals to me. And, despite the deliberately trashy presentation, there are some really strong songs here, including One, which I would argue is the greatest song they ever wrote. I saw U2 once in the early 2000s, and I was surprised at how closely Bono stuck to the vocal arrangements from the records, occasionally throwing in snippets of other song s(with mixed results) to try and keep things fresh, but I really got the impression that (despite his great pipes), he doesn't think on his feet particularly quickly in a musical sense. I suspect in the studio he works really hard until he finds the best performance, and that is generally locked in forever. But when he sang One, I felt that this was a song he deeply understood, musically, and it was not just a replaying of the record. His performance was much ore fluid and in the moment. While not as hard-edged as a lot of the records I was listening to when this came out (Einsturzende Neubauten, Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, etc etc), this had the advantage of having really great songs at the core (which you would certainly not accuse Skinny Puppy of. The only late 80s, early 90s industrial band with really great songs was Nine Inch Nails). I listened to this record a lot, and each track still stands up. The songs are less global, worthy and important, and much more human and morally ambiguous. There is a quite a bit informed by the Edge's divorce, but also reflected int eh band's own near-divorce. It was a bold swing at a real change, and one that paid off for them, extending their career that had perhaps run otu of obvious places to go. Interestingly, having heard some of the demos, I suspect a LOT of the greatness of this album comes down tot he production and mixing team, of Eno, Daniel Lanois, Flood and Steve Lillywhite, who took some pretty half backed ideas and edited and mixed them into an amazing record. Lanois can record, Eno can edit, Lillywhite can mix, but for my money, the real secret sauce is Flood. This is him starting to move into the big time, from the alternative bands he had worked with previously. The band threw everything and the kitchen sink on tape, but it is the editing a mixing that really lifts this (and I think Flood can be clearly heard here).

Wow, darker it is. This is the sound of a man close to the end of his life, and he knows it. Clearly, he was in a lot of pain, but there is joy and quiet celebration here to. The production is understated and sympathetic (not universal amongst Cohen's albums). I hear a lot of metaphors about war and conflict in here, but often with a quiet resolutions through diplomacy, treaties, spycraft and quiet agency. It is impossible to separate this from the circumstances of its recording and release, 17 days before his death, putting it in with Warren Zevon's final album, and Bowie's Black Star in a small group of albums that face the imminent mortality.

A bit smooth for my taste. I have a live Crusaders album, which has a little bit more bite, but I find their jazz funk a little too polished. the title track is terrific, but the album just washes over me, making little impact.

This is probably the grunge masterpiece; the heavy metal White Album of the 90s. The song-writing is sophisticated, tuneful, heavy, and insightful. I know some critics (Christgau, for example) finds their lyrics asinine, but, by the measure of heavy metal lyrics, they are not stupid. Cornell's voice was rarely better, Thayill's playing inventive but less reliant on pure noise than on previous records, and Matt Cameron's drumming is best in class. His ability to make even a weird time signature sound like a straight four (until you listen closely) is masterful. Dynamic, tuneful, with classic rock influences that are not mere pastiche, I really think this is Soundgarden's masterwork (even if I have nostalgic preference for some o their other records). The best metal album of the decade, and certainly top 3 for the entire grunge oeuvre.

Thai album is so boring. The energy level is consistent and just palls. It is recorded and mixed in such a way that an individual track would pop when played on the radio as the best thing you heard that hour, but listening to the whole album is exhausting. I hate his whiny voice, which just seems like posturing. I hate the arrangements. there is no point. It generically 'rocks', but there is no real grit to it. I'm sure they put on a decent live show (and it seems like they do a lot of live gimmicks), but these songs bore and tire me. I give it a second star because it is energetic and decently recorded. Actually, I think Come See, Come Saw is just a a re-write of Know Your Product by the Saints. One star off for plagiarism of a far better song.

Iggy at his most focused and flat-out rockin' post-Stooges. Rock and roll!

"ooh, we really need some recent releases on the must hear list. This one is recent, and won any award. Better stick it on the list." I don't think many people will remember this record in 10 years time. It's ok, but is it a must listen? I mean, he's got a great voice, and can write a song, and play guitar well enough. the Danger Mouse production leaves me a little non-plussed. It just sounds like... a Danger Mouse production. This is an OK album that really doesn't belong on this list.

I find Julian Cope a lot more interesting than many of his records actually play out. Given his interest in krautrock (he literally wrote the book), this si much less krautrock-y than I would expect. Not very motorik,. Not very interesting, or psychedelic. This album made very little impression on me.

Lush, smooth, sophisticated, wallpaper.

Just too clever clogs for me. I know it is not peak jazz-bo Steely Dan, but it is pretty clever clogs, and very smooth and polished and just not a thing for me. I don;t really get the obsession with Steely Dan, and understand the inclusion of this solo album on the 1001 list even less. This seems like completely inessential listening. More power to ya, if this floats your boat, but I don't know why _I_ have to listen to it.

The first really Bowie-like Bowie album. Contains a few deadset classics (Life on Mars?, Oh You Pretty Things, Changes), plus a few second-string Bowie numbers (Queen Bitch, Andy Warhol). The Spiders from Mars band coming together (augmented by Rick Wakeman), with only occasional flexings of the rock monster that band would become. Thi sis the first real flexing of Bowie's full powers, and the beginning of his awesome run of albums through the 1970s. While this album may have moments of weakness, it is hard to separate this from the whole run of Bowie's output, as the real kick-off point, laying down many of the themes he would return to throughout his career (changes, chameleons, the apocalypse, identity).

Sooooooooo 1980s. This album is totally of its time, but still sounds really great. The production and recording quality is second to none, and really serves the excellent songs. I know they feel Everybody Wants To Rule the World was a throw-away, quick and dirty (minimal) effort, they were at the height of their powers. Everybody..., along with Shout and Head Over Heels provide hooky anchors to this lean yet expansive, experimental yet commercial, personal yet cinematic. A pop highwater mark of the decade

I haven't listened to this album in many years. I bought it in my late teens, during a psychedelic phase. I preferred (then) side 2, with its interstitial tale of Happiness Stan and more whimsical songs. Listening to it now, I prefer the tougher side 1, which is (I think) a more transitional piece between the Small Faces and the bands to follow (Faces, and Humble Pie). This will definitely be getting more play from me.

Minor Threat are massively influential on punk/hardcore. This was their only album and so I see why it was on this list, and the critical consensus is that they were becoming more adventurous with their musical structures and reflecting on their own thematic concerns on contributions. But, really, it is their early singles that wrote the playbook for hardcore (esp. straight edge) and should be the required listening. I am glad I listened to this, but don't feel the need to ever listen again. (I find hardcore fun live, but find recorded hardcore inessential).

Possibly the greatest hard rock album of all time. Lean, punchy, dumb, sexist and aggressive, but also funny and catchy. The production is stripped of ornamentation to an almost punk-like degree, the band is moving away from blues rock and into a harder, leaner thing. It's a dumb formula, but, my god, what a formula.

this album is clearly one of the masterpieces of hip hop. But, OMG, there is so much of it! Nearly 2.5 hours! Some (much, most) of this is really excellent, but there was opportunity for editing. One star off for exhaustion.

This is a massive survey of Janelle Monae and her (man) ideas and (plethora of) influences. It's like every idea she ever had, all polished int their baroque finery. There are some cracking tunes on here (Cold War and Tightrope in particular), but I found the overwhelming quantity of stuff in this massive treasure chest too rich for my blood. And it is all so much! Instead of being a jewel box, it is a massive treasure chest. Trying to consume this whole album is like eating a 5kg box of chocolates in a single sitting. I needed to consume this is small portions.

One of my all-time favourite albums. probably the greatest blue-eyed soul record ever. Son of a preacher Man is the big single, but it is the sofetr, sexier tracks that I really dig (Breakfast in Bed, Alittle Loving, I Don't Want to Hear it). Dusty doesn't try to compete with Aretha, but leans into her more tender, more intimate style. This is a wonderful blend of Bacharach and the funky Memphis sound. She was almost too intimidated to record these songs, but thank god she did. I love this album.

I really like thee Black Keys first couple of records. Raw, bluesy, rockin', with a real edge. However, they eventually decided they wanted to sell a whole lotta records, and get played on the radio, so they started making albums like this. It's still a lot more rock and roll than 99% of what you hear on the radio (which si great), and the tracks are engineered to really sound great played on the radio. This album is front loaded with songs that will be the best single you have heard all day when they pop up (and stand out) on the radio. Compressed, polished, punchy rock and roll. Which si great. But a whole album can start to sound a little tired. The influence of Danger Mouse is not as overwhelming as on the following album, but you can hear where they were heading. And congrats to them on getting there. (But I like it when they are a bit more raw).

Again, an album on the list because the artist didn't release many records int he form we would consider the album format as currently understood. Billie Holiday's best years were well past by the time she recorded this, the year before she died. Alcoholic, drug addicted, and broke, she did convince Columbia to sign her, give her an unlimited recording budget, and access to her arranger of choice and great material from the American songbook (although sings she had not recorded before. With a lush, rich, middle-of-the-road orchestral backing, her voice is cracked and creaking, but still with her timing, emotion and intimacy intact. That amount of vocal fry was, at the time, unheard of, but has become almost normal now. Even when barely singing, she still casts a long shadow today in her phrasing, the way she moves around a melody, and in the dry, croaking tone that is now common. She certainly lives in the songs, and the emotional truth is extraordinary.

Oof, gangsta rap. This album sounds great. The vibes are funky, the bass is bouncy and the fluid synth lines are excellent. I always liked the way Dre updated the P-funk feel. But I just can't get past the lyrics. It's so violent, so misogynistic, so homophobic, it just makes me feel ill to play it. I just can't.

It's Motorhead! One of the greatest rock and roll records of all time. Slightly less shout-y than their previous records and marginally better recorded, but still with an immediacy and energy that cuts through almost anything. I've heard that they would spend a week in the studio getting the guitar tone, but it still sounds like they loaded in, turned on (loud!), and blitzkrieged their way through a set before storming off the invade another neighbouring country. It's sexist as hell (which hasn't dated well). I know Lemmy found Ace of Spades limiting, but what a song!

I love Elvis when he is just rockin' out. The band were barely talking to each other, but were a well honed live unit. They got into the studio and recorded quickly, loudly, and with verve. The album is concerned with sexual obsession and betrayal, which reflects the band's vibe. The reality comes across. Muscular, immediate, honest and loud. Love it.

I do not understand why this album is on the list. The Kinks (especially in the 60s) were a great singles band, but those best songs were usually not included on albums. And this album is a prime example of not containing singles; Sunny Afternoon is a bit of a classic, and A House in the Country got a bit of love during Britpop, but otherwise, these are not A-list songs from the Kinks. I have been reading pop music history for 40 years, and I don't think I have ever heard mention of this album. I rate the Kinks singles, but this album? Why the hell is this on the must-hear list? Someone has a fondness for 60s Kinks, and felt the need to include something, so they put this down. I honestly feel like it was a waste of time listening to this album. Not much to recommend. Get a Kinks singles compilation instead.

This si sweet relief after a bunch of gangsta rap albums. Gangsta lost me, and the soulquarian, conscious hip hop is a blessed relief. I love the Dilla/Questlove production. Common isn't the world's greatest rapper, but this record is a breath of fresh air after the violence and misogyny of much of 90s hip hop. The production is A1, which makes this a really wonderful album to listen to.

This is so of its time. Written in the studio, this is a triumph of digital editing and slick production. Nick Launay brings his excellent taste and great ears to create a slick and (vaguely) dance-able aesthetic, much more sophisticated than the 3-piece punk vibe that the band brings. The album is front-loaded with the singles, although I like some of the rockier tracks that follow, eg Dull Life (which is reminiscent of Siouxsie and the Banshees) or Shame and Fortune. After all is said and done, I don’t really remember any of the tracks once they finish playing. I prefer it when they don’t veer too far from their punk roots. I really like her voice, though.

So, there are a few "sophisticated" psychedelic albums on the 1001 list, but I feel that this is the only one that really, truly lives up to the sobriquet. Beautifully arranged and recorded (with occasionally support from Wrecking Crew session musicians), the song-writing is a little more folky than Love's previous efforts. This is definitely a 1967 album, but with a eye towards the inevitable come-down that was lurking around the corner. My favorite section, and probably most emblematic of the album's tone, is the coda of The Red Telephone, with the creep chanting of "they're locking them up today, the're throwing away the key, I wonder who it will be tomorrow, you or me?" The paranoia of the late 60s is perfectly encapsulated right there.

Here's an absolutely and absolutely unique masterpiece. Raw and immediate, with unsophisticated recording style and (almost) no embellishment, this is probably the best expression of teenage frustration and anxiety ever recorded. it feels so real. The bare arrangements mean that the songs seem completely unfiltered. This album is so honest that it feels like a secret every time you listen to it; I can't believe they are saying what they are saying! And yet, this obviously hit a nerve with many, many people; sales estimates to date are around 3 million copies sold (and, one has to think, a handful of furtively taped copies for each disc sold). Nearly everyone of my generation (at least in the more alternative circles I moved in) can sing Add it Up, Blister on the Sun, or Gone Daddy Gone from memory at the drop of a hat. The basic recording means this never sounds old, and, interestingly, my 16 year old son has this album on his want list, so it clearly still speaks to young people. When I was an uni in 1990, my friend Kate and I skipped lectures one afternoon to go see the Femmes busking at Circular Key (filmed for the Noise on SBS). That sunny afternoon, singing along to the band, is one of my favourite live show memories. You see snippets of that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2J6d0EVEJE

Courtney Love is a genuine rock star. Intense, angry, articulate, unpredictable, controversial, ambitious, unfiltered, strong, damaged, impulsive, charismatic. She has copped a lot of flack over the years, some self-inflicted damage, but a lot of grief for being crime of being a woman. This album is Hole (and Courtney) at the height of their/her powers. The songs are really strong, partially written int eh studio, but also having been partially worked on over the previous two years. There is some understandable Nirvana influence, but these are definitely Courtney's songs. It has the loud/soft thing (which was a step forward in musical development for Hole), a lot of punk rock screaming (and what a scream it is!), but the sheen of being well recorded and edited. I think there was a some selective editing on the vocals, the guitars and drums sound huge, and a some subtle keyboard sweetening in the background. Interestingly, the producers said they didn't double her vocals much to not cut the immediacy. I suspect she never sings a song the same way twice, so doubling is not really a viable option, but she certainly gives each vocal take her all. I'm glad they left in a lot of "mistakes" (vocal cracking, dubious intonation and wayward pitching are common), because the performances are raw and real. Just the right amount of polish, I think. Nobody would ever give this kind of budget to an honestly dangerous punk band anymore, so we may never hear an album like this again. It stands up as a powerful album, even 30 years later.

This was not what I was expecting. I had in my mind that Mercury Rev were the kind of boring, semi-corporate quasi-indie band that proliferated int he late 90s and early 2000s, and with which I was (and continue to be) bored by. But, when I started playing this record, I recognized the songs Holes, which si a a woozier, more interesting song than I was expecting. The connections to te Flaming Lips are significant, and this album (jin many ways) was the first of that late 90s softly psychedelic, quirky rock (possibly twee?) that followed,d especially centred around the production of Dave Friedman (flamings Lips, Tame Impala, Pond, etc). I liked some of the records that followed more than this, but I can see how this was instrumental in breaking the way through and showing that music like this could be commercially viable. I admire that they made it for themselves, as this was highly unfashionable at the time, personal, and quirky. It certainly did not resemble much on the charts at the time Some critics have accused this of having some strong songs (Holes, Opus 40, Goddess on the Hiway), and some filler. I don't mind the "filler". It's different and weirdly produced, even if somewhat unmemorable. I really am on the line of 3 or 4 starts, but, in my heart of hearts, I wished this rocked just a little more, and his voice gets on my tit after a while, , so I am putting it in as a three, on the understanding that this is clear 3.5.

well, Nightmares on Wax don't like to be tarred with the "trip hop" brush. And I agree with them. This is chilled instrumental hip hop, which si all well and good, but does tend a little towards wallpaper. I am also surprised that this is not nearly as crunchy and lofi as the leading luminaries of trip hop preferred in their sound design (qv. Massive Attach, Tricky, Portishead). I can also hear the seismic influences of DJ Shadow and especially J.Dilla on the world of instrumental hip hop. it's hard to believe that instrumental hip was ever this clean and almost to the grid. The whole sense of sound and timing has changed so much since the late 90s, that this sounds almost quaint. Influential in its time, but not really relevant anymore. It's just kind of easy listening jazz-lite with hip hop-ish beats. Cursed by its own ubiquity.

What a great story; the unheard album that becomes a cult classic and effectively establishes a genre. Loving this album becomes a shibboleth of "you wouldn't have heard of them" coolness. I worked in an independent record store in Australia during 91/92 and was totally and completely unaware of this record. And it was my job to be across stuff like this. No reviews, no advertising, certainly no touring. I did not hear of this album until the early 2000s. I had dipped my toe into post-rock, but generally, I like a steady driving rock and roll beat (that I can bug out too), so the stop-start nature of post-rock gives me the irrits. I think that was always my problem with this record; the first song, Breadcrumb Trail, is particularly stop-start, changing time signature, far too clever-clogs for my taste. But listening to the rest of the album, I found much more tolerable as that aspect was much reduced. And by the time you get to the closer, Good Morning Captain, we are into driving two chord rock. The whispered, occasional screamed, lyrics are almost inaudible and completely devoid of tune, which makes hem seem a little superfluous. I think that, if I listened to this about 25 times, I would learn to love it (it sounds great; really immediate and un-fussy). But does it fill me with the desire to run out and form a band, or even just buy a copy of this album? Sadly, no. I am generally too old and settled to buy records just because they make me look cool and knowledgeable, and so, Slint, I will, with regret, walk past your record and purchase something else. PS- I do appreciate that CD copies of this album have "this recording is meant to be listened to on vinyl" printed on the back. Especially at a time when vinyl was basically wheezing its dying breath, this is a cool gesture.

This was a surprise. I don't care for folk (or even folk rock, generally). I was aware of the reputation of this album (and, even more so, Shoot Out The Lights). I thought it would be a case of an album I could appreciate but not love. But I listened to this through three times in a row, and then picked out my faves (The Great Valerio, title track, When I get To The Border, Calvary Cross, Down Where The Drunkards Roll). I very quickly became familiar and loved this record. While steeped in folk, Richard Thompson's use of electric guitar (and occasionally electric piano) really lift this. Linda's voice is so terrific, and she clearly deeply understands these songs. I really came around to loving this record. I'm putting it on my wantlist.

Elvis' first album after the army. You can hear the work he had been putting into his singing during his time away, with a more mature tone and increased range. This was recorded in a top Nashville studio with top players and was his first stereo album.... but all the things that went wrong with Elvis' career in the 60s start here. Designed to be an (inoffensive), 4-quarters crowd-pleaser, appealing to nearly everyone, there is a not a lot of edge here. A couple of ballads, a couple of gospel songs, some inoffensive blues filler, and not a lot of rockin'. Not yet fully leaning into the glory of his maturity (that didn't come until the comeback special and the pompous glory of the 70s), but without the rough immediacy of his Sun years, this is an album designed to be as shiny and mass-market blockbuster as you could possibly get. And, like most early 60s albums, nearly all the good tracks were released as singles and not on the album. This actually plagued him most of his career; poor song choice leading to albums full of filler. The only albums really worth listening to are ones with a particular viewpoint (such as the Memphis album, Christmas albums or gospel albums). This is a completely inessential release from one of the great giants of 20th century popular music. Listen to a best of compilation instead.

Five important Lennon solo song ; Jealous Guy, Gimme Some Truth, How Do You Solo, How, and his signature song, Imagine. A mixture of protest songs, primal scream truth-telling, and pop fancies. Straightforward production with a crack band, tastefully under-playing, and really lovely string arrangements. Thanks god Lennon vetoed the record company's desire to release Oh Yoko! as a single. Nothing against Yoko, but this song is noticeably more pop than the rest of the record, and a little out of place. The thing I really noticed about this record is how honest Lennon often is. listening to Jealous Guy, he is saying things in a a blunt, unvarnished way that I find hard to believe that the biggest pop star in the world would put on a record for all to hear. he is really laying himself open on this record. That said, is Imagine a slightly tone-deaf plea of a multi-millionaire eschewing material possessions? easy to say, if you're rolling in it, mate.

One of the albums that changed music. Miles' incorporation of electric guitar and electric piano into his band essentially creates fusion and does the previously unthinkable. I personally believe that the influence of Betty Mawbry on Miles at this point is massive. She introduces him to rock musicians, changes his wardrobe and expands his thinking about what music can be. Surprisingly, Miles first foray into fusion is meditative and exploratory. The loud funky explosions of Bitches Brew and On The Corner are yet to come, but this first album changes everything. Teo Macero's editing is (as with those later albums) pretty astonishing in itself.

I was a teenager staying up late one Saturday night watching rage when the Cramps came on, performing Can Your Pussy Do The Dog? on the Tube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfvCDyVlVIw) It was one of those moments that changes everything; it was the first time I had heard or seen the Cramps, and it totally blew my mind. Lux Interior writhing around on the floor barking like a dog and almost fellating the microphone was one of the most rock and roll things I had ever seen. The sound was tough, and more than a little rough around the edges. Poison Ivy Rorschach's guitar technique wasn't as polished or flashy as (say) Joe Satriani, but it rocked like hell. The Cramps are one of the bands that showed me that I really love loose, gritty, tough rock and roll. I don't care if it is badly recorded, sloppily performed (even better, sometimes), or almost stupidly simple, but it needs to rock. The Cramps are dangerous and sexy and they rock. And this album is where it all started. I love that Alex Hilton knew not to polish the edges off them. One of my great regrets is that I never saw them live, although that performance on the Tube is burned in my psyche, and has informed everything I look for in rock and roll ever since. God bless you, the Cramps, you changed me forever.

Pleasant jazz trio. These days, this sound has been sooooo overplayed, it is just background music now. Is it Bill Evans' fault that the standard he perfected became the template for a thousand mediocre jazz trios, playing ever fading carbon copies of this same style for the next 60 years? This album has to be considered best in class for its type. Clearly, warmly and intimately recorded, with quiet audience atmospherics, the interplay between three player sat the peak of their powers is tight and relatively focused. The tragic death of bass player Scott LaFaro in a car accident less than two weeks after this recording adds a melancholy note to this album. I respect Evans' decision to make this album a tribute to LaFaro, by giving him a featuring credit and including two of LaFaro's compositions and choosing tracks with significant bass solos. A touching tribute.

Jayson Greene (Pitchfork) said of this album "If you are inclined to sniff suspiciously around grandiose music, examining it for kitsch, you probably reeled away staggering from Sigur Rós, who proudly stink of it. This was another part of their appeal and their strength: The music is texturally complex, for sure, but the emotional framework is deliberately simple and clear." Hard to state clearer; The sound if cinematic and huge with large emotions, even if somewhat cryptic through use of Icelandic and (made up) Hopelandic lyrics. Does this make them an ideal screen on which the listener can project their own emotions? Maybe. It doesn't connect for me, though I can hear the massive influence of the scope and sound, which you hear everywhere in TV, films and advertising. I can listen to this, but I don't trust it enough to be moved by it.

I was rally bored with this album. Very pleasant pop songs, in a soft rock style. Was this about the first album where the artist played all the instruments? Possibly so, which makes it a bit of a landmark with regards to what a single person could accomplish with a multitrack, and set a precedent for artists like Prince. Mind you, others were coming to the same discovery independently (Mike Oldfield must have been recording Tubular Bells almost simultaneously). But the song sand performances frankly bore me, and I suspect they did for Rundgren too, who started being much more experimental following this album. Even the heavier rock songs on this album are kind of bloodless. It reminds me of how Danny Sugarman in 'Wonderland Ave' complains about how the rock (largely) seemed to water down in the early 70s. This album is a case in point.

Oh, this band is so funky... I did some searching to see what other reviews were out there, and some that I came across (sound collective, I'm looking at you) found the consistent rhythm, the pidgen lyrics, and rough recording style difficult. I love all those aspects. The mixture of African polyrhythm, jazz and funk is infectious and compelling. The political content of this album is powerful (so much so that it prompted violent retribution from the Nigerian armed forces). Fela is the real deal, no compromises, and funky as hell while he is doing it.

I bought all of the first four PE albums as they were released, and listened to them incessantly. This album is the bookend of their imperial period, when they were unarguably one of the most important bands in the world. Maybe not the masterpiece level of It Takes a Nation of Millions or Fear of a Black Planet, I have a massive love for this record. Reading about it now, they had lost all their data for what was supposed to be this album. This explains the slightly more straightforward production of this record, which is not quite as overwhelming a barrage of sound collage as the previous two records. But necessity is the mother of invention, and we have instead a more direct, though no less powerful, production. It is pretty abrasive, noisy and assertive, enhanced by the aggressive scratching of Terminator X. It draws heavily on funk and other black forms, and even their own previous records. It is a new thing, and yet stands on the shoulders of giants. It plants itself firmly in the history of black music. Chuck D has never sounded more authoritative, leavened by Flavor Flav, humorous but not a clown. Flav is angry on this record, and in a way, his number s(especially I Don't Wanna Be Called Yo N.) is the angriest song on the record (disguised with humour). The political message of this record is mature, thought out, and undeniable in its logic and emotional intensity. It is hard to think of a political band of the past 40 years that is both this eloquent and musically powerful. I was going to rate this 4 (for maybe not being on the level of Black Planet and Nation of Millions) but the more I write about it, the more I realise how much I love this powerful, focused, and forceful record. (Favourite song: By the Time I get to Arizona; the funky power of this song is really unique).

Better than average art-rock from the early 2000s. Heavily disco-influenced drumming makes this more dance-able than most. Arrangements are bit more inventive than most (Take Me Out is a particularly good example of this). But was a lot of the praise a result of the last of the huge major label promotion budgets? I don't hear this band talked about much any more. I hope they invested their money wisely, and are comfortably resting on their laurels.

I don’t even know where to start with Abbey Road. I can criticise aspects of this album, but the Beatles are still the Beatles. Things they did on albums, especially from their studio-based period, which were accidents have become so influential they seem like deliberate strategies, and people have built whole careers based on them. Some of the marked features of this album have become integral parts of the rock lexicon; the hidden track, the medley, the tom-heavy drumming, the use of effects like the leslie speaker, etc that emerged out of (arbitrary) opportunity of necessity. Most noted is the side 2 medley; born of necessity to utilise partially written song fragments, it became permission for extended side-long suites with disparate fragments (hello prog rock). The fact that it worked on Abbey Road excused the confusion of wilful collage with ‘clever’ song writing (and McCartney is one of the worst offenders at this, qv. ‘Band on the Run’. A ghastly incoherent mess). On this album, it helped present material that benefited from the succinct presentation. I mean, would ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ been better if edited down to a similar length as Polythene Pam? Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is, frankly, atrocious and feels like a track that might have made it’s way onto the White album, but does not belong here. And I agree with John and George that it was not worth the effort to record and include. But other than that, the songs are outstanding. (I was recently doping a deep dive on Let It Be, and the song writing here is SOOOO much better. Come Together, Something, Here Comes the Sun, and the side 2 medley are far and away highlights of the Beatles catalogue. (Here Comes the Sun is the most streamed Beatles song Spotify. It has always been a favourite of mine). Despite the clear tensions in the band around this time, they seem, to have put aside the worst of their bickering to lean into what a tight band they were. Augmented by Billy Preston and really great orchestral arrangement and production from George Martin, this last recorded output from t eh Beatles is confident and leaning into the future. The crisper sound from 8-track recording and a solid-state desk, tasteful use of synthesizer (white noise in I Want You aside) show that this was not just recycling their clichés, but committed to making a really great sounding record I rate my favourite albums according to those I most frequently play, and this is definitely in my top three (along with Revolver and Hard Day’s Night).

This is so fsking precious I can't even. No more, please.

Pounding (yet distant) drums, chorused bass, slathered in reverb, this album is the blueprint for proper 80s goth. The last in the Cure’s trilogy of gloom-rock, this is the album where Robert Smith leans most heavily into his depression, to create what is probably the ur-text of miserabilism. Ironically, having got it out of his system, he starts producing more pop-like and up-tempo material, albeit with a dark edge and morbid sense of humour, leaving a flock of pale imitators in his wake. Not a lot of humour on this one though, it is bleak, bleak, bleak. Which can make is a dreary listen if you ain’t in the mood, but relatable if you are. This is, to my mind, the album that comes close to the true sound of depression. It never builds up too much energy, although it starts as foreboding and builds into overwhelming angst. Noisy, insistent, and anxious, it a smoothed out with a sheen of synth washes and digital reverb to be both spacious and claustrophobic. I used to listen to this a lot when I was 20, but haven’t spun it in a long long time, probably because I choose not to wallow in depression if I can help it, and this album invokes those feelings all too effectively.

Gram Parson's solo albums were my entry into the world of country rock. I enjoyed this record, which is of the same cut (although no Emmy-Lou Harris, missed here). Hippie Boy finishes the album on an unfortunate and dated joke, but the rest of the album fuses the influences of rock, country and r'n'b in a away not really done before. Parsons is really stretching out what (cosmic) American music can be. The playing of the band and guests should not be underrated either, with weird and wonderful variations on traditional country playing throughout. GP and Grievous Angel are 5 star albums, but this is well on the way.

Ugh, prog. Too clever clogs, no goods tunes, and heaven forbid you should rock out for more than 8 bars at a time. Phil Collins, bless him, manages to keep his drumming tastefully restrained and maintain some sense of momentum, which is rare in 70s UK prog,

A concept album of sorts about the toxic breakdown of a relationship. Self-lacerating, lashing out, and brutally frank, the influence of soul ballads (eg Dark End of the Street, as covered on the preceding Uptown Avondale) is apparent, although presented in a much noisier fashion. This is a lot more sophisticated than much of the contemporaneous grunge rock, but no less dark. Possibly more so. I listened to this a bit when it first came out, but stopped because the dark emotional weight made it hard to listen to. This is still one of the most harrowing albums about a romantic break-up and toxic masculinity ever recorded. It still packs a punch today. The album is well summed up by the line “It's in our heart, in our heads, in our love, and in our beds.”

Better than most post-rock, which I find is a bit too prog-like, clever clogs for me. This was released with much hype in 2009 (a bi of a low-point in 'alternative" music, IMHO). Lots of publications had this as their album of the year, which surprises me. Has this aged as a classic, where people sing along to the songs when heard? I think not. But this is more enjoyable than I had expected. Unlike much post-rock, which tends to be dour and tuneless (thanks for that, all you angst filled middle class white boys), this album trades in joy and Beach Boys-like tunes. Not great tunes, but pleasant enough. I think the drowned in sounds review (http://drownedinsound.com/releases/13913/reviews/4136043) captures it best when stating that this reflects their live sound at the time. This is electronic-based music designed to be played at summer festivals, and get the audience dancing along. I like the analogue feel of the recording. By that, I mean the way that the samples (which make up most of the tracks)_ have been degraded into a warm, fuzzy wash of eccentric loops and weird rhythms. I'm sure this album was blast live, and is Ok on record. better than I was expecting, and I pleasantly enjoyed listening to it 3 or 4 times through, although no songs really stuck in my mind. (I think the fact that Pitchfork listed My Girls as their #1 song of the year tells you much about 1- the standard of what was released that year, and 2- the pretensions of Pitchfork).

Crowd pleasing arena rock. A return to a more classic U2, and purpose engineered to play in front of 30,000 people a night. Front loaded like crazy (the first four songs are the four singles), it starts to drag in the back half. It's a very U2-y album, but feels a bit shallow and superficial compared to Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby, which an inevitable side-effect of being designed to play big live.

So many reasons that this album is important; it's the first album that the Beatles made as an album. Although the recording period is ridiculously short (113 hours to record, plus extra days for mixing), it was a generous period of not begin (too) distracted by other commitments. Although embellished with some exotic overdubbing and studio technique, the core performances are still tight band performances as per their early output. Heavily influenced by American rock (soul, Motown/Stax, country rock, folk, Dylan, Byrds) and their first psychedelic drug experiences, the songs have started be more lyrically and emotionally sophisticated. And, because it is the Beatles, it is massively influential and changes the way that rock and pop musicians thought about the album format. Prior to this, even BEatles albums were often really filler, kind of an alternative product secondary to the all-important singles. While not quite at the point where singles are included on UK releases routinely, this is an album that was intended to be of high quality and listened to all the way through. There are no covers or throw-aways. The content is more challenging, philosophical and introspective, and it's got crackin' tunes. Personally, I could do without 'Michelle' (one of Paul's 'granny tunes'), but it's popularity paid the bills. This is one of the albums that changed everything in popular music, and totally deserves to be on this list.

This is possibly the most laid-back album I have ever heard. Smooth, jazzy, mellow without being mere wallpaper. The mixture of jazz, folk, blues and a little bit of rock is wonderful. I knew the title track already, but was surprised at how much each song has its own identity. I listened to this three times through in a trot. This goes onto my want list. Was it massively influential? Possibly not, but a great, great record.

Pleasantly funky and reasonably positive dance/hip-hop/indie crossover thing. Lyrics are nothing to write home about, but has a positive (if slightly superficial) vibe. Tends to blend into a funky wash. I'm sure they were fun live. Sample choice is exquisite, and they are tastefully deployed (which is certainly much better than most early 90s equivalents), which make this album sound less dated than many of its contemporaries. I like Connected, which is a great single, but the album is more of the (pretty good) same.

When Radiohead stopped making proper guitar albums after OK Computer, other bands moved into the space that had been abandoned. Coldplay took the softer end, and built a stadium sized career out of it, and Muse ditto with the louder end. It is no surprise that the bombastic end of Radiohead crossed with a healthy dose of Queen also turned out to be a stadium-filling beast. With magpie like references to other moments of bombastic excess (Soundgarden, Ennio Morricone, ELO), this is cleverly composed, schmickly produced, and expertly played, but really, at the end of the day, this is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I feel like I have reviewed a bunch of albums like this; perfectly produced, highly skilled, over long... it doesn't have the slight edge that captures my attention. Another Ok album I don't think I ever need to hear again. And did it really need to be 73 minutes long? Interestingly, once spotify had finished playing this album, it started on his first album, which grabbed my ears much more immediately

Fun, funny and funky. I've had a few gangsta rap albums recently, which I find totally toxic. This was a breath of fresh air by way of comparison. Enjoyable, if not super memorable. I wish the skits were gone. Passin' Me By is a highlight.

Fleetwood Mac are my favourite radio band. If one of their songs comes on the radio, I will always turn it up and sing along. Love it. But I never choose to put their records on the turntable, with the exception of the Tusk 7”, which I love for its weirdness and the nostalgic memory of the ABC playing the video in the 5 minute break between the Goodies and the 7pm news on a pretty regular basis. I know the reputation of this album; wilfully weird, overblown, expensive and coked out. This was Lindsay Buckingham’s reaction to the incredible success of Rumours and the rise of post-punk. He wanted to forge his own thing, and this was it. It amazes me that he spent a million bucks recording an album that sounds this badly recorded. Never before, and likely never again. Is this Fleetwood Mac’s White Album? There are some superficial similarities (double album, studio weirdness, clearly identifiable songs from different songwriters, arguably better as a single LP, but no one will agree on what tracks would be on it). There is probably a pretty good follow-up to Rumours if you compiled the Stevie Nicks and Christine MacVie songs, with the fresher production take preventing it from being just Rumours 2.0. And the production on these songs is not that weird. This would a total radio favourite and solid 3 star album. And then an album of Lindsay Buckingham songs, especially The Ledge, Walk a Thin line and Tusk. They are idiosyncratically recorded (although now quite contemporary sounding). They are strong songs, but with quite an unusual approach for the time, which has been quite influential in the 2000s. I can see why the hipsters picked up on this record. I am considering playlisiting just his songs for an Abbreviated Tusk, which would be an interesting listen for me, and something I would play regularly. More to my taste, and 4 stars. But, as it stands, this is a three star album. Like it, a few standout tracks, but needs a big edit and would never choose to put it on the turntable.

This album was really influential for me. IO started listening to Triple J about the time this came out, and so thought this was kind of normal. Later, I discovered it was not. The J&MC really picked up on the noise factor from the Velvet Underground (along with other influences, like the Beach Boys, girls groups, Suicide, Einsturzende Neubauten, and Phil Spector) to create a "high IQ, low technqiue" (to quote Lour Reed's NYT obit) pop musique. Not easy listening, but I like that. I like that a lot.

Smooth, funky, sophisticated in both flow and production. Exquisite sample choice. This has dated really well (although I suspect the French rapping covers any lyrical deficiencies). Pleasant and laid back without being wallpaper. I regularly play the 12" of the title track in my DJ sets, and the album stands up similarly well, with the exception of Ragga Jam, which is the fly in the ointment of this album.

As pitchfork says, Blue Cheer are "musicians who... live not to perfect their technique, but to simply rock.". Well, that sounds GREAT to me. The playing is rough as guts and pretty over the top, especially the lead playing. Lots of bends and trills, feedback, barely in tune. The slow, heavy, vaguely blues based playing is a prototype for metal in general and stoner rock in particular. This is the shit. This sounds like they set up in a room, chucked a few mics in randomly and just started jamming it out. It's loud, noisy and obnoxious. And that's what I like!

I immediately feel in love with the music of PJ Harvey when she first appeared, and her first three albums were all played repeatedly and religiously at my house. I found her powerful, emotional, honest and with the ability to rock. I really liked the raw production of her first two records (Steve Albini seemed a really good pick for her), and the change to \"To Bring You My Love\" was welcome. The brooding, seething restraint of To Bring You My love is a masterpiece that I am, frankly, surprised to see is not on this list. But, as I listened to less new music in the late 90s and early 2000s, I lost track of her new release. I certainly continued to read about PJ Harvey, and saw her live at the Enmore Theatre in the 2000s. Which brings me to this album, that I do not care for. Maybe it's because I don't care about England and its travails. It seems overly cerebral and emotionally distant (compared to her earlier work). I understand she changed her vocal style to make the songs work, but I don't like it. Her power and immediacy seems diminished to me. The arrangements don't hang together for me. It doesn't move me. Again, I suspect, because I don't really care about the thematic material. I am disappointed, because I really was hoping that this would be a really great album that I just hadn't heard yet.

This is one of my favorite punk albums ever. it's got cracking tunes that barrel along at a breakneck pace, without becoming repetitive. The songs are smart and funny, and Jello Biafra presents them with force and charisma. It is serious, but never self-serious. Following Holiday in Cambodia (an all-time classic) with a cover of Viva Las Vegas is the perfect encapsulation of what is great about this record. There's always room for Jello.

Rarely has a band emerged with its first album with such a clear vision statement. The look, the sound, the politics and the voice of this band is clear and strong on this record. The Specials were an integrated band, with equal influences from black (ska, reggae, soul, r'n'b) and white (punk, rock) forms. Politically engaged in the new Thatcherite England, they were both protesting and ready to party. Elvis Costello did a great job of capturing the live feel of their performances (although some contemporaneous reviews bemoan how much slower the record is than their live shows). Smart, political, and above all fun, this is such a great record. It makes me wanna take to the streets in protest _and_ dance.

This is probably the most perfect pop-rock album ever made. And that is not a good thing. polished within an inch of its life, this is just bloodless and over-long to me. Steve Albini was right when he said if you assemble perfect parts together, it doesn't make a sexy rock record. So, so polished, and over long. "Perfection" really doesn't do it for me. I know it sold a gazillion copies, and I am glad it exists, if only to prove why this approach doesn't work. It is charming enough not to be loathsome, but I really don't need to listen this again. although sitting through an hour of this is boring, and like eating an entire cheesecake. (A single piece is a tasty treat, two is too much, and a whole cheesecake will make you want to vomit and never eat cheesecake again). I can't believe that there is a ANOTHER Def Leppard album on this list. Why two, for god's sake? What else do they have to offer?

So, usually, I don't lie things that are too smooth and polished. I like a little bit of grit. But this album is an exception. I really love it. I love her voice; smooth and airy, no over-singing, just a little bit of breathiness. The lyrical content, I think, adds just that little bit of frisson. The romantic situations described a bit seedy, a bit gritty. I was interested to read that, because they were working at a relatively inexpensive studio without automation, they recorded live and with six people working the faders to mix, so I think there is a touch more human feel than something recorded to the grid, with samples and lots of synths and super smooth mixing. This sits right on the line between smooth jazz that becomes wallpaper lite and a laid back, mellow reverie. A quiet storm. I think this is on the right side of that line, and set a path for a whole range of British jazz-inflected music to come (Soul II Soul, trip hop, etc). Really, though, the reason I love this album is because my first girlfriend really liked it, and we listened to it a lot together. So, some fond memories there.

ZZ Top's first album recorded in a real studio, and the quality shows. They had clearly been gigging like crazy over the previous few years, and so this unfussy recording of them as a tight live unit really shines. And they had material that really shows off their southern swamp boogies meets Texas blues at its best. Is it groundbreaking? Not really, but it is a kind of best-in-class for this type of thing. Short, sharp and to the point, with no wasted time or filler, this is a catchy and highly listenable album. La Grange still gives me a pavlovian need to play the Getaway pinball.

This is another example of early 2000s indie-style that passed me by. It's not as bad as indie filler, but still doesn't really set my world aflame. A few good tunes (Grounds of Divorce, One Day Like This) that catch my ear. It's OK, I guess.

Big, cartoonish Bob Ezrin production. Fun, technicolor, dramatic. This is good example of the 70s tendency towards big stage shows (the live recordings on the deluxe version show how well they transitioned this to the stage). Fun and funny, but not an album I NEED to own.

Fishbone are one of the best live bands I have ever seen; they play a wide ranging and eclectic range of styles (metal, punk, funk, ska, etc) with versatility and high energy. With a solid rock core, augmented with multiple singers, keys and brass, they blew the audience away in the early 90s. This album is where they first starting bringing the metal elements into their sound, and really becoming what Fishbone are. They are also starting to turn their minds to more political material, with more lyrical concern particularly on race issues (although there are still plenty of party tunes on here). That said, the common wisdom on Fishbone is that their records never really captured the incredible live band they were, and this album (which I really enjoy) shows that partially to be true. They are a bit stilted in the studio, and the recording is not all it could be. Interestingly, I had just been listening to Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies immediately before switching to playing this, and this sounds tinny and thin by way of comparison with Bob Ezrin's 70s production. It could be an artifact of the period in which it was recorded, and/or modest recording budget. Their next record, Reality of my Surroundings, has a much fuller sound, and they are the better for it. But this belongs on the list as an example f a truly eclectic band that could bring the goods in any style they brought their mind to.

Cute left-of-centre dance-y, pop album. Fun but slight.

I can see why this is a classic. Amazing harmonies, some stellar (if sometimes dated - I'm looking at you, Marrakesh Express) songwriting, and really tasteful production from Stills that never overpowers the vocals. If you were a singer-songwriter, this would be the bible.

... and so is this album. I'm sorry, that is a bit harsh, but these headlines just write themselves. I never really understood the cult of Blur. Some great singles, but over-rated albums. It's a British thing, isn't it? But it really is just an updated Kinks, Maybe you had to be doing coke in Camden in the 90s with the Britpop crew to really _get_ it.. And in fairness, I'm not British, and so the specific concerns of such and Anglocentric album don't really speak to me. (I do like the cover art, though. That's a cool train.)

Jeff Beck plays up a storm, but this album is a cross-over between the blues purism of Clapton-era Yardbirds and psychedelia. And doesn't really do either particularly well. Keith Relf's voice doesn't inspire, the production is often thin, and the songs are underwritten. An album I can live without.

I hated this overblown, [pretentious piece of over-long wannabe concept album garbage. I could enumerate the ways, but I just want the bitter taste of this record out of my mouth.

I am a huge Kyuss fan, and really liked the more rockin' QOTSA albums. I am surprised that this is the only QOTSA album on the list, and especially given that it has been so hard to find, and made (frankly) little impression. But it is a bit of a transitional piece, with some recognizable Kyuss qualities (yay!) and a clear indication of where QOTSA was heading. Josh Homme's guitar and vocals are distinctive, and his penchant for a nice vocal melody make his work int he field of heavy rock stand out. I am really surprised that they chose this record over Rated R or Songs for the Deaf (which are in this mold, but also sold a gazillion copies, at a time when rock was not fashionable). 4/5 would recommend, would listen again, would buy.

The first PE album certainly felt like something fresh and different when it came out, but this second record is where PE really flexed into the iconic outfit that they became. faster, harsher sounding, more political than anyone had been before, this is the Public Enemy that really blew the doors off.

It is unusual that I have never heard of the artist or album for a must-hear record. Better than average early 90s NY rap. It does not fall into most of the usual traps of gansta rap (which I cannot abide). I enjoyed the singles, and the production is crunchy and discordant in a way that really appeals to me. "Da bichez", however, I could live without.

I am not normally a fan of the willfully obtuse lo-fi of the 90s. It often fails to rock. But this record I enjoyed (much more than, say, Pavement, who I tend to think of as the emperor's new music). It fairly often rocks, the tunes are memorable, and the album overall is muscular and thought out. Sometimes it embraces 'weirdness' in a way that reminds me a little of Primus. I am OK with the use of dissonance and/or a failure to tune the guitars. That's OK, that can rock. A pleasant surprise. Would listen again.

Super smooth. Sarah Vaughan is up there in my favourite jazz vocalists, and I think this is the album of hers that I have most enjoyed. Stripped of her usual highly orchestrated, string-heavy arrangements to a bare trio backing, intimately recorded, you get to hear her beautiful tone and phrasing without distraction. There is a touch more breathiness and slight husk in the quieter moments that sounds close and real. Her ability to deliver a real emotional content is wonderful. Probably my favourite Sarah Vaughan record, and I will probably pick a copy up when I see one around. Love the versions of Just a Gigolo and How High the Moon that close out this album.

Bitches Brew. This is classic album that changed the face of music. Miles took the rock and funk influences (courtesy of Betty Davis) and turned it into a new thing that nobody else could have imagined. I find this album hypnotic, but hard to love. It's a pretty challenging listen, but easy to respect. It's a borderline for five stars, but, given that I prefer On The Corner, this is nearly, but not quite, perfect. Call it 4.8, maybe.

Ooff, are Echo and the Bunnymen possibly the most overrated band of all time? Certainly if you listen to how they describe themselves ('the greatest album of all time!"), they could never possibly live up to the hype. Obviously, 1001 albums love them, as there are three (THREE!) of their albums on this list, of which this is probably the best. Orchestral arrangements that walk the tightrope, staying just on the right side of bombastic. The lyrics are not nearly as clever as Ian McCullough thinks they are, which makes them the Doors on the 1980s. And they have dated about as well (ie, they have a shrinking fanbase that agree that they are all that, but the rest of the world shrugs). That said, Killing Moon is a real cracker of a song, distinctive, spooky, soaring, and side two of the original vinyl is generally pretty damn good. But not as good as they think they are.

This is tough one. I find Zappa undercuts his ability to rock with being willfully clever. And it was apparent from this first album. I like that the band is a pretty good 60s garage band, and the garage rock (Motherly Love) or doo-wop (Go Cry On Someone Else's Shoulder) influences are fun. The satirical content is high, although the creeping misogyny sits poorly. The whole thing could use a tighter edit (even Zappa agreed that The Return of The Son of Monster Magnet is unfinished). I guess it was pretty innovative at the time to include cut-ups and musique concrete, and even satire in rock was new, but I still find it hard to sit through sometimes. It's hard to dance to, you know? Too much talk, not enough trousers.

I loved being introduced to this. This is an ur-text for much of my favorite music, esoterically the industrial stuff I love. A mixture of metal, dub, krautrock and post-punk, the claustrophobic, apocalyptic sound is muscular and riving. I enjoyed this so much, and it goes onto my must-get list.

I want to like Rush, and this is the album I _would_ like if I liked Rush. But I just don't.

Sometimes criticized for not being as much of a reinvention as their previous few albums, this is a bit of a return to a more standard style (more guitar, keyboards, more usual song structures, recorded quickly and in a more live format), although this could hardly be accused of being a ordinary or pedestrian album. I find it a bit of a relief to return to something more approaching a band-like format rather than the deliberate experimentation of the previous few albums. it is hardly OK Computer, though. I found this pleasantly listenable, in not particularly memorable or enervating. It is nice to hear the occasional guitar that sounds like, you know, a _guitar_.

Jazz and soul inflected, with soem strong songs, the album is laid back and meanders a bit, but this reflect the way it was made. The album is long and unfocussed for a reason; it's the vibe. Possibly one of the strongest of the soulquarian/neo-soul albums of this period, Badu's voice is at its peak. Questlove and (especially) Dilla bring their woozy rhythms to play.

I am not a fan of prog, not a fan. Did not hat e this as much as I expected; The B3 keyboards of Tony Kaye is far less pretentious and widdly-widdly than the subsequent synthesizer overkill of Rick Wakeman. New boy Steve Howe hasn't gone full prog yet, either. This still sounds like a rock band, as opposed the the over-arranged clever-clogs, full blown progressive of the 70s that was right around the corner. As with all prog albums, moments of rock and roll appear, only to be lost in a swamp of tedium. All talk and no bloody trousers. Even Classic Rock magazine thinks this album is not up to par (but could have been., and they _like_ this stuff. According to wikipedia, they were on the verge of being dropped by their label, but avoided this by using an opportunity to manipulate the charts to goose the release until it got its own sales legs. prog: it's the emperors new music.

Pretty good pop from the mid 60s. A bit garage (although a bit polished for my taste), and a bit psychedelic (although , again, not as much as I would prefer). 8 of 11 songs were released a single,s which speaks to the strength of the album. But the Beatles, it ain't. "How can I be sure" is a great song, although I prefer the Dusty Springfield version. "You Better Run" is a the most rock track on the album, which has almost enough grit for my taste. I will never listen tot his record again, I'm sure.

I was a big fan of this record when it first came out in 1986; bought the album and a couple of the singles. I really liked the sound of the record, which sounded contemporary without being plastic, and I liked the songs, which were a strong mix of the political and personal. Political without being straight polemic (of which there was quite a bit at the time. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan had a bit of blame, there), and personal in a way that was angsty and self-lacerating, which fit with my world outlook at the time. Listening to it now, the lyrics are maybe not as mature and sophisticated as I thought they were when I was 16, but that is to be expected. The album has some cracking tunes and catchy rhythms (it's got a good beat, and I can bug out it), and the mix of electronic and acoustic instrumentation means that it still holds up now. It sounds of its time, but not really dated. The presence of Neneh Cherry (and few other noted backing vocalists) certainly injects a spark, and stops it from being too blokey. I enjoyed re-visiting this old favourite, and I feel that I should play it more often.

What I like about classic hip-hop albums: they are fun and funky, and full of ideas. What I don't like: they can be sooooo long, and skits. I mean, I love 3 feet high and rising, but why did people take away that the skits were the best bit of the record? This is, to my mind, the best Outkast album. It is less schizophrenic than Speakerboxx/Love Below and comes across as an integrated whole. The sue of live musicians gives the album a harder rock/funk edge which channels the influence of P.Funk, Prince, Hendrix etc without ever being a mere copy. The higher tempos give this album a lot of energy. The singles are outstanding, and most of the rest of the album is on point, not too much filler (although, I would prefer a shorter album overall). Also, they have toned down the misogyny and violence that is often overwhelming in hip hop, which is sweet blessed relief. Overall, a classic.

I blame Pet Sounds. Weird does not equal genius. It didn't for Brian Wilson ('Vegetables', anyone?) and it certainly doesn't for second-tier English indie bands. There are so many albums like this on the list, and they are really starting to bore me. Just because a band was an NME darling for a year or two does not make them essential listening. (Fun fact: NME described this as their \"worst album\". Inevitable backlash, much?)) This album is some (very) average songs wrapped in fancy 'experimental' production. I'm reading wikipedia about the album, and heard that they had Paul McCartney recreating his celery eating on the track Receptacle for the Respectable. Case in point about this band taking exactly the WRONG LESSON from Pet Sounds. Too much time and money, not enough song.

Again, another album I loved as a teenager. Hard rock/metal that isn't mind-numbingly dumb (although the lyrics are not the most sophisticated ever. They tend towards basic agitprop, but they aren't stoopid). They leaned into being a Black metal band, bringing their politics and musical influences with them (particularly elements of funk). Great, but unsurprising in retrospect to see Chuck D and Flavor Flav guesting. Good on Mick Jagger for recognising their talents and producing a few tracks (although they are not my favourite tracks on the album). I tend to play Times Up more often as my real favourite Living Colour album, but this stood up really well. I think my own nostalgic fondness really helps boost this record for me. Probably a 3 star for most people, but I love it enough for 4.

While know and love the title track well, I had never sat down and listened to this album all the way through. The joy of hearing this all the way through for the first time has been wonderful. I love the laid back, funky, generally simple arrangements that provide a perfect backing for the Rev Green's vocal stylings. His effortless transition into falsetto sounds so easy. But it has an authentic groove that sits deep in the music. Love this record. I need to rush out and get me a copy.

I tried to like the Manic Street Preachers, I remember standing in the record store I used to work in when their first album came out, reading the hype in the NME and listening to the album multiple times trying to get into it. But I never did. I could hear the hair metal influences (which they couldn't do properly), and there were elements of wanting to be the Clash (uniforms, political posturing, last gang in town vibe). But it just never gelled into anything that moved me. And there was certainly plenty of hype around "The holy Bible" when it came out; the last will and testament of Richey Edwards. Now, Richey was clearly a very unhappy lad, as evidenced from the lyrics of this pretty bleak album, and hammered home but his subsequent disappearance. That doesn't make it a very fun record, and the tunes don't lift it much. The production is not great, and everything sounds bit flat. Interestingly, their US record company (who they hated) remixed the album remixed the album for the US market. I (and, I gather , the band) prefer the US mixes now. I listened to this through three times, and it just won't stick. I don't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it. Edward's disappearance will always give this record some notoriety, but I find it a bit pretentious, lyrically bleak while musically uninspired (unlike, say, early Cure albums that manage to sound bleak and anxious to match the lyrical content), and without sufficient energy to grab me.

Schmick but a little soul-less. The singles are classics, the filler is Ok (with the 'more experimental' side 1, which is, really just filler). Too much coke, too much ego, recorded in separate rooms for "social reasons", everyone was at the height of their powers and the band was musically tight, but not integrated. The increased use of synthesizers means the rhythms are little less fluid than their earlier work, and the tensions have sapped a lot of the fun out of it. This is the Police album I am least likely to play.

Pretty good singles (Time to Pretend, Electric Feel and Kids) that still sound quite fresh. Side 2, however, drags into aimless spaced-out rock. The Dave Fridmann production sound is all over this (cf Tame Impala and the Flaming Lips). I find it wears by the end of the album (especially that processing on the vocals, that is, ultimately a bit alienating). But those singles are pretty damn good.

Described as anthemic, grandiose, dramatic, sweeping, cathartic, emotional, oh, how the critics swooned. I am so bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, boringly bored, bored, bored. Wake Up is a pretty great tune, and is head and shoulders above the rest of the album. It started playing, and my ears immediately pricked up.

By teenagers, for teenagers. Some pretty catchy tunes (Kung Fu, Goldfinger, Girl Form Mars), with pretty high energy, that got a lot of airplay on Triple J at the time. It is not that different (in some ways) to the Hard-ons or Ratcat; catchy, if somewhat puerile, songs played with noisy guitars at reasonably high velocity (although the Hard-Ons pushed this concept a bit harder). And I loved that type of music when I was 16. I think this album would be terrific if you were 16 or 17 when released, and you could see the band at an all-ages show. Fun, but inessential. "I'd Give You Anything" stood out for me, because it sounds like the Stooges.

Here's a record that I feel like I should have listened to a long time ago. This is right up my alley; heavy, weird, funny, trippy. I love how it leans into how badly recorded it is, and goes heavy into the weirdness. Lots of effects and strange production techniques on what is a pretty punk album, which makes it sound like nothing else. I love the fired take on Black Sabbath ('Sweet Loaf'), plus the backwards tape, effects, sound effects and found tape. It is pretty unsettling, but there are songs o n here that rock pretty hard, and few memorable riffs (if no tunes to speak of). I've listened to this three times through today, and really dig it. (I do like that it doesn't outstay its welcome. 30 minutes is about perfect timing for it to barge in, mess your head up, and then ride off into the sunset.). I really would liek to give this 3.5 stars, but I can't, so I'm going to lean towards 4, because this was a lot of fun, and I will buy a copy next time I see one at a reasonable price.

Minor Threat are massively influential on punk/hardcore. This was their only album and so I see why it was on this list, and the critical consensus is that they were becoming more adventurous with their musical structures and reflecting on their own thematic concerns on contributions. But, really, it is their early singles that wrote the playbook for hardcore (esp. straight edge) and should be the required listening. I am glad I listened to this, but don't feel the need to ever listen again. (I find hardcore fun live, but find recorded hardcore inessential and repetitive).

Apparently, even the band though this album should be called \"The Cars' Greatest Hits\". Front-loaded with three all-time great singles, many of the remaining tracks are staples of American AOR radio (although less so here). And they are really catchy singles, that still sound fresh, and helped create the formula for American New Wave. Are the watered down Cars- wannabees to blame for the relatively anodyne nature of American New Wave, especially when compared to English post-punk? Can we entirely blame the Cars for their pale imitators? This was so heavily imitated over the following decade. Clearly, this was super-influential on 80s pop, especially in America, for better or worse. Really, this is fairly typical pop-rock, dressed up in clean, fresh sounding production (courtesy of Roy Thomas Baker). The keyboards are the real stand-out feature on this record, and the thing that lifts it above its U.S. peers. The Cars are a 'radio band' for me; I enjoy their songs when they come on the radio, but I don't think I would ever choose to put one of their records on the turntable. I might buy a copy if I found one for <$10, but I would only ever play side 1 (and probably lift the needle after \"Just What I Needed\").

This is my favourite Beatles album, which I measure by the album I am most likely to put on the turntable. I don't even really know where to start; this is, I think, pound for pound, the best album by the best band ever.

I really love the Berlin-era Bowie albums, with their mix of krautrock, ambiance, new wave. Aspects of these records have inspired whole genres of subsequent music. I love the 'proper' songs on the first side (plus Secret Life of Arabia), all of which have Bowie in great voice. An old friend, Dave Chisholm, was a big fan of this ear of Bowie, and used to play this record obsessively. Joe the Lion was a particular favourite in that house. Is it sacrilegious to say that the instrumental tracks on side two are... a little weak? They feel like filler on a very quickly recorded album during a prolific period? While undoubtedly ground-breaking at the time, others have much more successfully followed the ambient/post-rock genre into much more itneresting places. These are ur-texts, but sktech-luike compared to what follows. Bowie has (successfully) distanced himself from his LA-based cocaine habit by re-locating the Europe, and in 1978 alone the had released 'Low', produced an album for Iggy ('The Idiot', also a classic), toured that record, recorded and released 'Heroes', then went back on tour again. Eno's influence is strongly seen on those instrumentals, plus the more experimental production choices, often as a result of using his Oblique Strategies cards. Robert Fripp, guitarist extraordinaire (who turned up for duty, claiming that he hadn't played in three years) played all his parts in three days, on songs he had never heard before. His distinctive playing is especially notable on the title track. I think he is the secret weapon that really lifts this album into something special. I am big fan of his work on 'Scary Monsters', which also shows how well his style suits Bowie's vocals and song-writing. I love and regularly play this album, although I confess I usually only play side 1.

An OK, mostly instrumental album. Inflected with acid jazz, trip hop, hip hop etc, this is a pretty funky (if slightly mechanical) album of instrumentals. Not earth shattering. Really not sure why this is on the list.

Wonky, woozy, atmospheric, The beats are all out of time and tune, symphonic in scale, that gives this a cinematic feel. I haven't delved much into the whole Wu-Tang genre, but I find this enjoyable. Less violent and misogynistic than much contemporaneous gangsta rap, although still somewhat preoccupied with violence. I find the lo-fi, wonky production charming (and a precursor to the rhythmic innovations of J. Dilla). I have listened to this through a few times, and enjoy the flow and the weirdly funky backing tracks. Skits on rap albums are a pet peeve of mine. The use of scratchy (and lengthy) samples from old martial arts films is a slightly better version of a skit, but still a bit annoying.

Oh this album does it for me. Quickly recorded (one day recording, one day mixing, almost no overdubs, except for some sound effects and the occasional double tracked solo), this band accidentally turned their limitations into a whole new genre. Guitar and bass playing unison riffs, sludgy rhythms, wildly bent notes, horror movie lyrics, heavy distortion all feature here as marks of a road-tight but not particularly competent band recording exactly as they played live. I listen to a lot of doom metal and stoner rock, and accident features of this record have been copied and codifed into key elements of the genre (eg, the wah bass solo at the opening of NIB, the slow, simple riffs in the title track, the double tracked solos, the tri-tone, unison riffing). There is still a vestigial tail of Sabbath wanting to be a heavy blues band in the English fashion, but they clearly aren't Led Zeppelin, and you can see them discovering the things that made them Black Sabbath here (the name, the Hammer horror lyrics, the riffs!) which will reach its peak on the next few albums. The next few albums (Paranoid, Masters of Reality, Vol. 4) are the real classics, but I love the freshness and immediacy of this album. It was hated by critics at the time, but I love it.

Played incessantly on Triple J at the time, I had no great love for Arrested Development then and no greater affection for them now. I remember a younger friend (probably 15 at the time) loving this, and blowing his mind when I played Sly and the Family Stone. Who are, essentially, a much better version of this. This album is much more positive in tone than most hip hop of its era (mostly the incredibly violent and misogynistic gangsta rap), which is something of a relief, but it feels like a pale imitation of Sly and the Family Stone (sampled and interpolated across the album). It doesn't have the same freshness, surprises or sophistication as other 'conscious rap' of the time; the politics seems asinine compared to PE, less surprising than De La Soul, and less funky than Tribe. It feels like basic sloganeering when compared to the more nuanced lyrical approach of those other groups. It's pleasant enough to listen to, although I would like a bit more grit in the production to give a more authentically funky feel. The constant scratching is occasionally annoying. Some catchy songs (People Everyday, Give a Man A Fish, Tennessee), but I heard them enough on the radio back in the day to last me a lifetime.

I have been listening to this record today while I work, and it has been a perfect album for that. It's smooth and funky, unobtrusive, and happily chugs along. I enjoyed. So many imitators have reduced this genre to a cliche, but this is the real deal. I like this story from the BBC review: "The recently-departed Jimmy Smith, originator of the 'soul jazz' Hammond Organ genre, was such a spectacular success for Blue Note at the time of these recordings that label founder Alfred Lion admitted years later that the profits from Smith’s hits kept the company afloat for an extended period. Lion also once jokingly told his wife that he often considered selling off Blue Note around this time - just so he could become Smith’s tour manager; ‘that way,’ he explained, ‘I could get to watch him play every day’." Amen, brother.

I immediately feel in love with the music of PJ Harvey when she first appeared, and her first three albums were all played repeatedly and religiously at my house. I found her powerful, emotional, honest and with the ability to rock. I really liked the raw production of her first two records (Steve Albini seemed a really good pick for her), and the change to \"To Bring You My Love\" was welcome. The brooding, seething restraint of To Bring You My love is a masterpiece that I am, frankly, surprised to see is not on this list. But, as I listened to less new music in the late 90s and early 2000s, I lost track of her new release. I certainly continued to read about PJ Harvey, and saw her live at the Enmore Theatre in the 2000s. Which brings me to this album, that I do not care for. Maybe it's because I don't care about England and its travails. It seems overly cerebral and emotionally distant (compared to her earlier work). I understand she changed her vocal style to make the songs work, but I don't like it. Her power and immediacy seems diminished to me. The arrangements don't hang together for me. It doesn't move me. Again, I suspect, because I don't really care about the thematic material. I am disappointed, because I really was hoping that this would be a really great album that I just hadn't heard yet.

I understand why this album is beloved by audiophiles; it is beautifully recorded (in that 1980s digital way), with a pleasing reliance on real instruments instead of just synths as was the fashion. But it doesn't move me.

For a moment when this popped up, I though this was going to be Rufus featuring Chaka Khan. I confess to a second of disappointment when I realised it wasn't.. I approached this album with caution. I have heard the occasional Rufus Wainwright track, and I like his voice, but I have not listened to a whole album of his all the way through. given the size of his catalogue, it is helpful to have somewhere to start. I have some trepidation based on a number of interviews I have read with him over the years, where he often appears (highly) pretentious and quiet unlikable. But what a revelation this record is. Listening to it, I was constantly reminded of Jeff Buckley, who was clearly an influential contemporary (rival?) of Rufus, directly stated in Memphis Skyline. But the similar influences (Judy Garland, chanteuse, folk, rock), sensitive lyrics and vocal phrasing (including use of falsetto), beautiful orchestration. In the same way that Buckley took a wide range of source material and constructed his own world, Wainwright does similarly. But this is no mere Buckley-copy. He uses his (non-rock) popular music influences to create a distinct and beautiful musical world. This is an album that I am sure I will come back to.

Nathan Rabin once said (https://www.avclub.com/volume-7-july-2001-1798220509) : The theme of most of Beyoncé Knowles’ hits, as both a solo artist and the lead singer of Destiny’s Child (otherwise known as “Beyoncé and two random women in the background”), can be reduced to “I’m awesome. Fuck you.” It's hard to argue too much. Beyonce, she is awesome. I think Lemonade is her masterpiece album, but I can see how this album was an important step leading up to it. Collaged from bits of her own history and a patchwork of collaborators, it has her distinct vision all through it. There is a change in this album, as the thematic material becomes a bit more personal and the vision more sophisticated than just crushingly great pop music. This really preached a peak on Lemonade, which si an amazing record. I think this record has some really great singles, but the album tracks are where some of the really interesting meat is.

Pounding (yet distant) drums, chorused bass, slathered in reverb, this album is the blueprint for proper 80s goth. The last in the Cure’s trilogy of gloom-rock, this is the album where Robert Smith leans most heavily into his depression, to create what is probably the ur-text of miserabilism. Ironically, having got it out of his system, he starts producing more pop-like and up-tempo material, albeit with a dark edge and morbid sense of humour, leaving a flock of pale imitators in his wake. Not a lot of humour on this one though, it is bleak, bleak, bleak. Which can make is a dreary listen if you ain’t in the mood, but relatable if you are. This is, to my mind, the album that comes close to the true sound of depression. It never builds up too much energy, although it starts as foreboding and builds into overwhelming angst. Noisy, insistent, and anxious, it a smoothed out with a sheen of synth washes and digital reverb to be both spacious and claustrophobic. I used to listen to this a lot when I was 20, but haven’t spun it in a long long time, probably because I choose not to wallow in depression if I can help it, and this album invokes those feelings all too effectively.

This one really demanded a close listen, like it really wanted your attention. I understand why fans are obsessed with this. The mixture of slightly obtuse lyrics with some pretty painful openness (esp. Me and a Gun) make this a challenging listen. her playing and singing remains fresh and immediate, thanks to some pretty tasteful and timeless production choices. There was a small movement of more honest female singer-songwriters at the time (Tracy Chapman, Melissa Etheridge, Suzanne Vega), but I think this record was still pretty influential on female singers in the 90s and Aughts; the way they presented and the topics they felt they could sing about. Each time I listened to this record, I got more out of it. A sometimes uncomfortable listen, but rewarding.

oof, do not like. Reasonably adequate country-backed songs, some clever lyrics, but the voice... I understand that the Silver Jews were originally intended to be deliberately bad, but I can't tell whether this singing is ironically bad or just plain bad. It is passionless, lifeless, tuneless and without flavour. Did not enjoy.

My feelings on Steely Dan are reasonably well known. The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) describes this album as "cold-blooded L.A. studio rock tricked out with jazz piano and tough guitar." I find Steely Dan' s studio-slickness a little _too_ cold-blooded and there is a bit much jazz trickery for my taste, but I do like the tough guitar. I like it when they hit a groove (Your Gold Teeth) or let Skunk Baxter cut loose (his solo on The Boston Rag). I like Rick Derringer's slide playing on Show Biz Kids. But overall-it's still just a generally too clever-clogs for me. (although, I must say, of all the Steely Dan albums I have ever listened to, this is my favourite). A story, though: I am raising a son who digs jazz. I don't know whether there is an element of youthful rebellion aimed at his father, or if Hal is just cleverer than me. He genuinely understands jazz in a way that I don't. He buys some pretty full-on jazz records (especially featuring drummers that he likes), but also is into 70s jazz-rock fusion. This album (along with a bunch of other out-of-print fusion albums) was on his Christmas list last year. I looked around, but couldn't find a copy. Early this year, I took him to some of my favourite second hand record stores to do some hunting, and he found a copy in the 5 LPs for $20 box. It was the bargain find of the day, and I could not be more proud. We buy cheap records, because they are cheaper to buy!

Production is spare but still pretty. (Personally, I would like a little bit more grit in it, but you can't have everything). mostly simple acoustic guitar and bass arrangements, augmented with occasional strings, distant organ, even a little bit of fuzz guitar. And Jew's harp, for that extra bit of spice. Leonard's voice is not great, but he can (usually) sell the damn song. I think the weakest vocal performance is Bird on a Wire. I think he was intimidated by the song (and a really world-class standard song it is), and it took him another 10 or more years to settle into it. The songs are so great. They are so evocative. I realize that he almost never talks in generalities or abstract concepts. He tells the story through vivid and concrete images. I love that approach to lyric writing.

A deliberate choice by he 1001 albums project to send out this album today, 9 Sept 2022, on the news of Liz's departure? Maybe. This is tough. While not a massive fan of the Smiths in the 1980s, I have come to appreciate Johnny Marr's playing (especially) and the dry wit of the lyrics, which stop the songs from being _too_ maudlin. The clever humour throughout, and especially when paired with the surprisingly muscular musicianship, makes this a classic album. I think the title track, Bigmouth Strikes Again and There is a Light That Never Goes Out are all classic songs, and the rest of the album is very strong. But. And this is a big 'but'... Morrissey's increasing and unapologetic racism and right-wing politics make this unpalatable for me. I just can't get the bad taste out of my mouth when I hear Morrissey. His words and actions after the Smiths have sullied and tarnished the Smiths' legacy. (Although there are occasional To quote Billy Bragg “whenever a Smiths track comes up I flip on … I just can’t … I love Johnny Marr, he’s the nicest man I ever met in pop music. So I really feel for him that the great work that he’s done should be tainted in this way.” (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/30/bigmouth-strikes-again-morrissey-songs-loneliness-shyness-misfits-far-right-party-tonight-show-jimmy-fallon). So, I recognise how great this record is, but it just leaves me feeling uncomfortable and slightly dirty listening to it. Sorry Moz, you stuffed it up for me. 5 stars for Johnny Marr, minus a bunch for Morrissey.

Elton John doesn't do it for me. I know a lot of his material from its incessant play on commercial radio, and I enjoyed the biopic, but I would never choose to put any of his records on the turntable. I would not buy one from a $1 bin. I don't change the radio station when one of his songs comes on (as compared to Billy Joel, whose music I actively despise), but neither do I respond with familiar enjoyment (as opposed to Fleetwood Mac, who I always enjoy when they come on the radio). I can no longer tell if his classic songs (and there are at least four of those on this album) are actually good songs, or just played so much that they are familiar. Like, just played so much that we confuse ubiquity for enjoyment. Those 'classics' (Candle in the Wind, Benny and the Jets, Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting, title track) aside, there is sooo much filler on this record. And some of it is bad, like "Jamaica jerk-off'? really? That's just embarrassing. This overblown double album desperately needed trimming down by half. I found this a real struggle to get through. I award Most Valuable Player to Davey Johnstone. His guitar playing is wonderful, when permitted to approach the front of stage.

I always enjoyed Q-Tip's distinctive and understated flow. I really like the neo-soul influences on this album (real drums and instruments, old soul samples, collaborations with Dilla, D'Angelo, Raphael Saadiq, Norah Jones). It's got a gentle, sophisticated, easily funky sound. Really 'musical' for a hip hop album; these sound like proper songs, rather than tracks that occasionally feature a vocalist. This album was completely new to me, enjoyed it. Fresh. Favoruite tracks: Good Thang, ManWomanBoogie.

Obviously, this album is aimed at having fun. I particularly enjoyed Humpty Dance (a classic party jam) and the way we swing (heavily built around a Jimi Hendrix sample. I love the way they scratch the original guitar solo into the song). Funky and fun, I found the adolescent sexual humour a little wearing after a while. Great singles, but hard to sustain for 70+ minutes. This could have been a really tight 40 minutes record. At least there are no skits.

My Bloody Valentine are one of the loudest bands I have ever seen live, int eh Sydney Refectory circa 1992 (on the loveless tour). Part of the aesthetic is the ear-bleeding volume that these songs were designed to be played at. A friend snuck a portable cassette recorder in the venue to bootleg the gig. The volume blew out the limiters on the recorder, and, when we listened back afterwards, the tape was basically a 90 minute wash of white noise. So I love the noisiness, the wrongness of MBV. There are nice songs in there, but slathered in noise, mixed all upside down and drenched in reverb until the song almost disappears in to the background. Their next album, Loveless, is even more extreme and is their real masterpiece. This record is an important and revolutionary step from being a relatively "normal" 80s indie band towards the monumental epic that is loveless, but not fully given over to the weirdness of that record. I enjoy listening to this (although I suspect many/most wouldn't) but, at the end of the day, loveless is the masterpiece,. This was a breakthrough, and inspiration and blueprint for the whole shoegaze genre, but MBV had further to go, out to an extreme where no-one has ever really managed to follow (not even the band themselves).

A pretty good, more mature and certainly more restrained album than Psychocandy. But, for me, it doesn't have the visceral thrill of their amazing debut album.

Not the Pink Floyd album I have listened to most in my life (Wish you were here or The Wall), but probably the album of theirs that I like most now. This record sounds really great; it is warm and organic and approachable, even with the fairly experimental bits on it (the loops, the speech snippets, the synths) It's like a blanket. I stuggle sometime with =knowing whether songs are really great or just really familiar; these songs are really familiar AND really great. The lyrics aren't quite as deep as Roger Waters might think they are, but they aren't embarrassing or dumb. The more direct approach makes the emotionality easier to comprehend and relate to. In many ways, this is Floyd's most human record, and the tunes match that humanity. Money, Time, Us and Them, and the Great Gig are all cracking tunes. Each song is pretty distinct, but unified by the warm tone and moderate tempo. (Nick Mason attributes the pacing to his then additional to prescription sedatives -- this was as fast as he could play at the time). I find this a _really_ comfortable, familiar listen, like wrapping yourself in a blanket. It sounds of its time without sounding bad or irrelevant. It's not an embarrassing relic of its time. An absolute classic in my book. Five stars.

Sometimes criticized for not being as much of a reinvention as their previous few albums, this is a bit of a return to a more standard style (more guitar, keyboards, more recognizable song structures, recorded quickly and in a more live format), although this could hardly be accused of being a ordinary or by-the-book album. I find it a bit of a relief to return to something more approaching a band-like format rather than the deliberate and extreme experimentation of the previous few albums. It is hardly OK Computer, though. I found this pleasantly listenable, if not particularly memorable or enervating. It is nice to hear the occasional guitar that sounds like, you know, a _guitar_.

Scattered in New Order's lengthy career are a handful of banging singles; Bizarre Love Triangle, Blue Monday, True Faith. But none of those songs appear on this album. I always felt that New Order were the emperor's new clothes.There's really not much there, covered over with a veneer of shiny dance production. The playing's not great, the songs are forgettable, the singing is average at best, the lyrics are banal... there is an occasional flash of energy (Sunrise or Face Up) or faux moodiness (Elegia), but not enough to lift this above a 'meh' rating for me. Bernard Sumner's guitar playing, in particularly, is irritating. Both singles from the album were remixed and edited for single release, and in the case of Sub-Culture, heavily over-dubbed. These re-worked versions are much imp[roved (esp Sub-culture, which is almost a different song) more listenable, making the album version seem like a rough demo by way of comparison. This album is completely inessential in my opinion.

I really dig this record. Frank Sinatra at the height of his powers, with some really great arrangements from Nelson Riddle. Classic uptempo numbers from the great American songbook, sung with such confidence. This is such a great, breezy listen of classic songs sung by one the greatest interpreters over one of the great bands. These are the reference versions of these standards. I initially wanted to give this four stars, but I think I just talked myself into five stars. And, truth be told, if I put on a Sinatra album, it is always this or In the Wee Small Hours (if I want ballads). "How About You?" is playing as I write this review, and it genuinely provokes a smile. Can't ask for better than that.

I think everyone is familiar with the the Theme from Shaft, It's iconic. I had never listened tot he soundtrack all the way through. I can see how influential the mix of funk, jazz and soul was on soundtracks over the following decades. Out of context as a soundtrack, I found much of this double album a bit wallpaper. The Bar-Kays are at the height of their powers, and the orchestral overdubs are really great. The title track really stands out, as does Soulsville (with its riff lifted from Aretha's Never Loved a Man). The track that really did it for me was Do Your Thing. It's the kind of psychedelic funk that I really go for. This is for sure going on my playlist. I am thinking that, when DJing, you could put this on, go for a wizz, get a drink, pop next door to order a pizza, have a chat with friends, maybe get another drink, and still get back to the decks in time to select the next platter. Awesome.

I won't listen to this. I struggled with the Smiths, but this is where Morrissey started going off the rails for me; the (ambiguously) anti-immigrant content of Bengali in platforms, appearing on stage draped in the Union, seemingly playing to the skinhead crowds at Madstock. he was challenged on it at the time, and never satisfactorily apologized or clarified that he was anti-racist; he just muddied the waters. His statements and actions since then really cemented his anti-immigrant, intolerant views. I struggle with the issue of when an artist's behaviour crosses the line and I need to cancel my consumption of their work. I don't have a hard and fast rule. Often it is when their problematic views and behaviour start creeping into their work (like when Michael Jackson starts singing about saving the children) But, really, when it comes down to it, the line is when the ick-factor overwhelms my ability to enjoy the music. That's a pretty subjective line, but no more Morrissey for me. Too icky.

I always thought that the Strokes were over-hyped. Saviours of rock and roll or last of faux rock attitude by a bunch of over-privileged white guys squandering their talents on drugs and shagging models? The band has some rock chops, and they look great in skinny jeans. They are very stylish, but I find the vocals distant and aloof (not helped by the compressed and slightly distorted effect , apparently from singing through a peavy practice amp). This just seems like pretentious guys. And is their rock and roll attitude just a marketing ploy to make them seem edgy, when they really were just careerist musicians? They removed the song "New York City Cops" (one of the few tracks on this album that I really like) after 9/11 out of a supposedly new-found respect for said NYC cops. They changed the cover art of the album because it was too racy for Walmart. It just seems a bit fake to me. When it comes down to it, I feel like I have heard it before and better. I get that every generation needs its own rock gods, and the Strokes were it for a certain generation. But the songs don't live up to the incessant hype. This is probably really a three star album, but the hype has always annoyed me, and I feel like they never really lived up to it. So, one star off for that.

I am not fan of prog. It is often just too clever-clogs for my taste. And this album tends that way. great moments, never repeated, so it assiduously avoids groove or rock (although it could). You could sample almost any bar of this (especially side 1) and turn that into a whole song, but ELP just want to play every idea they ever had. (There is a four bar section at 2:50 the title suite that I really dig). And the lyrics are nonsensical tripe... and yet, I didn't hate this. i could listen to this again. I would buy this from a $2 bin. Maybe even from the \"5LPs for $20\" bin. Faint praise indeed.

So I read about how influential this album is; Nirvana, Guns 'n Roses, Metallica, et al. all cite this as a key text. And yet, it seems really flat to me. Often described as 'heavy', 'funky', 'rocking', I find it only kinda heavy, kinda funky and kinda rocking. I listened to this four times through. Back int he Saddle starts the album off with some promise, and then the rest of the record just fades into interminable boogie. Is it that the rhythms are too controlled? Is there too little dynamics? Is it slightly too polished? Not as funky as funky, not as heavy as metal, not as rock as anything? The guitar interplay is certainly not to Stones standard, the boogie not to a ZZ Top standard (Waiting on the Bus came onto to my spotify playlist immediately after this record,m and it popped out immediate;y as a much better example of how to do this), not Zep standard anything. I was just a little bored. I wanted a bit more rock, a bit more growl, and bit more funk,. and bit more edge.

Nice songs, really nicely recorded. I'm not quite sure why Elliott Smith has two albums on the must hear list. It's OK... just OK. Strong Beatles influences (which is a good thing) and more than a pinch of Nick Drake. Some good tunes, but a bit same-y. I like the production (acoustic and electric guitars, surprisingly muscular bass, very tasteful organ washes, intimately recorded vocals) and tunes better than the other Elliot Smith album I reviewed.

I have wanted to like Sleater-Kinney for soooo long, and I think (finally) the penny is dropping for me. Listening to this through three times in a row, and the songs are really starting to click for me. I always thought SK should be right up my alley (punky, impassioned, smart, fiery and fresh), and was disappointed that I didn't get it... but I think it has finally happened. I am listening to it right now, and every song seems awesome and distinct to me, which it didn't earlier today. I love the way they weave their guitars in a way that is quite unique. It is reminiscent of the "guitar weaving' that Keith and Ronnie do int he Stones, but is also not like that at all. I love the punk rock energy of this record, and the short songs. Not a lot of soloing. They really mean what they are presenting. I love that honesty and force. Working in Scratches taught m,e to look out for women who had something to say. When I'm sick oif hearing the same thing over and over (and let's face it, not a lot of blokes have anything fresh and interesting to say in the field of rock and roll), it's worth looking for women, who likely DO have something new and important to say (And a new way to say it). This album is a really good example of that. It took me a little work to understand it, but I'm really glad that I do. Thank you, 1001 albums generator, for forcing me to give this record the attention it deserves, and it finally made sense to me today. Only 20-odd years too late, but better late than never.

Pleasant pop music. The overwhelming twee-ness is wearing after about three songs. There are a number of songs I could tolerate on a mix-tape, but a whole album is too much. I have no idea what this album did to warrant a place on this list (apart from teh ubiquity of "Lovefool" - but I'm not sure it has aged well).

I found this bland. When the first track came on, I assumed that it was from c. 1960, and was surprised that it was from 25 years later. The ensemble playing was nice, and I liked the bass solo in the tittle track. The tunes are pleasant enough, but nothing really grabbed me. I had never heard of this artist before, and have no idea why this is on the list. They are not an important artist, this album is far from ground-breaking or innovative. Surely there are far better and more notable jazz albums that deserved a place on the list above this. (I am clearly feeling pretty cranky this week. I haven't really liked anything.)

I love this first phase of Roxy Music (with and without Eno). Art rock that actually rocks. I was not familiar with this particular record, but I really enjoyed it. This is going on my "to buy" list.

'Brothers in Arms' was played so much that I know the album by heart, even though I never owned a copy. I never need to hear that album again in my life, thank you very much. I was expecting to feel similarly about this record. It is clearly a Dire Straits album (the mumbled vocals and distinctive clear guitar playing is all there from the outset). But I found this much more approachable and enjoyable than I was expecting. The band is tight and focused, with a clear, warm sound. The songs are likable, but lean really heavily on the Dire Straits sound to carry the weight. The last couple of tracks on side 2 are pretty weak, and I was a bit over it by then. "Sultans of Swing" is still, to my mind, one of the best songs ever about playing in an unsuccessful band (neck-and-neck for first place with "Joe's Garage")

So, my mate Dave and I have this game we play called \"World's Worst Dinner Party\", where you have to nominate the six absolute worst guests you can think of (living or dead), who would be the most unpleasant people to spend time with. The only rule of \"Worst Dinner Party\" is the Lou Reed Perpetual Chair. It is presumed that any list of worst possible dinner party guests would always include Lou Reed. Arrogant, angry, impatient, bleak and humourless. I am massive fan of the Velvet Underground and (some of) his solo material. His \"high IQ, low technique rock and roll\" (to quote his NY Times obit) is the template for much of the music I love. Great musician, but awful human being (may he rest in peace). I know of the cult of this album. It has a dedicated fanbase who have long championed this album, despite its poor initial reviews. I have tried a couple of times over the past 30 years to get into this album, but this is just way too bleak. Apparently, producer Bob Ezrin told Lou that he thought his songs always had great story beginnings, but the stories never had endings. So Lou took his previously recorded song 'Berlin' and extended it out to a sort-of rock opera that tells the story of Jim and Caroline, drug addicts who descend into violence and destitution until their children are taken away and Caroline commits suicide. Well. hell, that is probably the predictable and inevitable endpoint of a Lou Reed story, but it is hard to listen to. Ezrin's operatic production style (honed on Alice Cooper records, and eventually reaching its peak in The Wall) amps up the drama to frankly unbearable levels. The crying children at the end of \"The Kids\" is pretty much too much to take for me (not helped by the possibly apocryphal story of how it was achieved: https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/09/unusual_recordi.html ). I appreciate the art of this album, but I never want to listen to it again.

I never got Bruce. His records just don't grab me (exception: Nebraska). I know this resonates for a lot of people, but doesn't for me. I understand that it is meaningful and moving etc, but it leaves me a little cold. I think it is, for me, a bit overworked. I listened through, but, honestly, it washes over me every time and I am unmoved. This record strikes me as faux-working-class mumbling over bombastic production, punctuated with unnecessary saxophone solos.

Oof, this one was hard work, and let me tell you a round-about story as to why this is the album where the Pumpkins lost me... In 1991, I was working at Scratches Records, and I did the import ordering. One day, I was on the phone to Dogmeat Dave at Shock Distribution, and he said “Mate, I’ve a got a record that I think you would really dig”. I agreed to take a copy, and the Pumpkins first album “Gish” turned up. And I put it out for sale, and never listened to it. And it sat there for (at least) three months without anyone even looking at it. So I thought “well, I should at least listen to this thing”, and chucked it on the turntable. By the end of the first song I was hooked. It was heavy and fuzzy and trippy and I really dug it. So I bought that copy and took it home. And for the next six months I played it to everyone I could, and evangelised for the album. I played it a lot. But nobody could get a copy, because it wasn’t locally released yet, and the record company cracked down on imports because they were going to get around to releasing it locally, one day, perhaps. So, for a while, it was like a hidden treasure that I could share. Eventually in June 1992, over a year after its initial international release, it was finally released locally and it took off like a rocket. Siamese Dream was even bigger. I liked the Siamese Dream album too, although the rawness of Gish was always my fave. (Thanks to Andy Winter, who bought me the coloured vinyl LP of Siamese Dream for my birthday). The Pumpkins were huge. I eventually saw them at the Big Day Out and Selina’s in January 1994, by which time they were mostly playing the Siamese Dream album, but they rocked pretty hard live. So, then in 1996 they released this record. Now, I loved this band. I was all primed to love this record. I had some misgivings when I read this article in Rolling Stone prior to release (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/smashing-pumpkins-disillusionment-obsession-confusion-satisfaction-88432/). It starts with Billy Corgan comping vocal tracks out of multiple takes and spending days mixing tracks. And, after all that, the vocals still came out as whining. He always had a tendency towards nasal whining, but when I read that this was _deliberately_ edited best of from multiple takes, I was a bit stunned. And it is such melodramatic self-indulgence. I mean, this thing runs two hours (except in the deluxe CD set, which runs six hours! Six. Whole. Hours.). It was too much. I couldn’t take it. Corgan’s voice wears, particularly on the more ‘sensitive’ numbers where a better singer could have really made a difference. It’s not as psychedelic as previous records. I know lots of people say it is their masterpiece, and not as uniform as previous records, but it is sooooo looooong. And I get really bored. Does the processing and editing reduce the energy of the band (especially Chamberlain’s drumming)? I don’t feel like the guitar solos have the same fire that they did on earlier records (an artefact of Corgan sharing the duties with James Iha?) Is there a really great 40 minute album in there? Undoubtedly. Personally, I would probably pull out the heaviest songs (Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Jelly Belly, Zero, Where Boys Fear to Tread, Scorched Earth, etc) for a full-on metal record. But, if you liked the ballads, there is probably a pretty good album there (although they are not so much to my taste). But I cannot get over the pompous humourlessness of this record, which was confirmed by the interview in that Rolling Stone article. I bought this when it came out, and listened to it all the way through maybe twice. I never wanted to listen to any new music by the Pumpkins ever again after that. And I listened to it again today. And my feeling hasn’t changed; this record is a massive slog to get through, leavened with occasional highlights like “1979”.

\"Our House\" is one of the greatest pop songs of all time. Love it. Nothing else on the album rose to nearly the same level for me. The production was a little stilted, and meant most of the record doesn't quite have the rambunctious energy of the earlier Madness albums, which I missed. Really, Madness were always a stellar singles band. Any one of their many singles compilations is a fantastic listen, and their albums are a little patchy, in my opinion.

Oh, yeah, this hits the spot. I saw the Buzzcocks at Selina's in early 1990. I though they were soooooo old (Pete Shelley was 34 at the time), but they really tore it up. They blasted out a blistering set of melodic punk with an energy level that 19 year old me found hard to keep up with. If I am going to listen to the Buzzcocks, I usually listen to the compilation Singles Going Steady, because the Buzzcocks had a great way with singles, so I am not familiar with this, their first full album (except Fast Cars and I Don't Mind). But, wow, all killer, no filler on this album. I love the energy, and there are some cracking tunes. This goes on my \"must buy\" list. The reissue version that I listened to had Orgasm Addict and What Do I Get as bonus tracks, which really pushed this in 5 star territory for me.

Interestingly, it is only three days since the generator had me listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Pretension, which I kinda hated (or, at least, found very difficult to listen to all the way through). I loved Gish, so I will repeat the story… In 1991, I was working at Scratches Records, and I did the import ordering. One day, I was on the phone to Dogmeat Dave at Shock Distribution, and he said “Mate, I’ve a got a record that I think you would really dig”. I agreed to take a copy, and the Pumpkins first album “Gish” turned up. And I put it out for sale, and never listened to it. And it sat there for (at least) three months without anyone even looking at it. So I thought “well, I should at least listen to this thing”, and chucked it on the turntable. By the end of the first song I was hooked. It was heavy and fuzzy and trippy and I really dug it. So I bought that copy and took it home. And for the next six months I played it to everyone I could, and evangelised for the album. I played it a lot. My then flatmate and friend, Andy Winter, managed to track down a first U.S. issue coloured vinyl copy of Siamese Dream when it was first released for my birthday. Thanks Andy! I remember at the time I wasn’t _quite_ as enamoured of this record as I was with Gish. It felt a little more bloated, with a tendency towards ballads (Today, Disarm), and it certainly revelled in its misanthropy and angst (even more than Gish, which was a little bit trippier). These were forewarnings of what was yet to come in the interminable bloat-fest that is Mellon Collie. But it was still a pretty rockin’ album. I saw them play this live at the Big Day Out and Selina’s in 1994. They mostly played this album, and they really tore it up. Corgan’s ability to rip out a screaming lead line was a sight to behold. Listening to this record now, I probably like it better than I did then. The sound is HUGE, with massively overdubbed guitars, but with that fuzzy, all-tube tone. Corgan’s voice is still pretty whiny, but I feel like the harder rock material (Cherub Rock, Silverfuck, Geek USA, Quiet, etc) is a bit more suitable for a nasal vocal cutting through than his later penchant for ballads. Some reviews at the time criticised it for being too angsty and over-produced compared to Nirvana, who were “more authentic”. Corgan’s ambitions to produce a monumental album were seen as too careerist. But, frankly, Nirvana sold a ton of records, and also are largely driven by angst. I’m not too sure what the qualitative difference is. And, of course, this record and Nevermind were both produced by Butch Vig. (Note that the Pumpkins used him first, for Gish, which was recorded and released before Nevermind) Special note: this album was mixed by Alan Moulder. Part of what I have noticed as part of this project is how often his name pops up as an important contributor (engineering, producing, mixing) of many of the most important (and great sounding) records of the 1990s and beyond. Great work, Alan! Anyway, I really enjoyed listening to this heavy, fuzzy, angsty piece of hard rock again. This goes back on the rotation list.

This does nothing for me. Gentle, almost soporific. I don't find the tunes particularly memorable. Playing is tasteful. The drum machines give me the irrits; this needed either a good drummer or use of sampled loops (as they did on subsequent albums) to give it a bit more swing. I do own a copy of this record, but I note that I have put on consignment for sale at Scratches Records, Newtown (head on down! say hi to Lorenz for me!). I know that I listened to it before I sent it out for sale, but cannot remember a thing about it. Listening to it today re-affirms my decision. Inessential for me.

Pretty adequate Bowie/Smiths knock-off. I remember the hype int he NME when Suede first appeared. their early singles featured on this album are pretty strong, and I bough t a copy of this album around the time it came out. Have not played it in quite a while... Is it on the list as the most dramatic example of an over-hyped English band (on the cover of the NME before they even had a record out)? They delivered a pretty good record, but an all-time classic? Perhaps not. Bernard Butler does a lot of the heavy lifting with some pretty flash guitar work, that evokes Mick Ronson-era Bowie. Brett Anderson's tendency to yelp gets a little wearing after a whole album, and the lyrics (with their "Shocking" androgyny and hints at bisexuality) are a bit embarrassing now, but they could crank out a tune. The singles (Metal Mickey, So Young, The Drowners, Animal Nitrate) are pretty strong. I like that the production still is a bit of rough-around-the-edges, which is to my taste. I might try to spin this a little more, but I do think you could live a long and happy life without this record.

I only know the Fatboy Slim remix of \"Brimful of Asha\", which is an absolute banger and one of the top singles of the 90s. I had tried listening to the album version before, and found it uninspiring compared to the more upbeat and energetic remix. So I was not expecting to enjoy this album much. And yet, I find it charming. I like the laid back funkiness of it all, the mixture of English and Punjabi singing, and the way that diverse elements are incorporated into a whole that feels consistent and integrated. I quite like the instrumentals (like Butter the Soul, It's Indian Tobacco My Friend, or State Troopers). Good to Be On the Road Back Home and We're in Your Corner are highlights for me. Could they have trimmed 10-12 minutes off this to make it a really tight 40-odd minutes? That would have suited me, but this is an album that isn't in a hurry so stretching out a little is OK. It doesn't outstay its welcome. Surprisingly enjoyable.

It's nice to see evidence that Wynton Marsalis did not, despite his considerable efforts, manage to kill jazz stone dead as a musically innovative genre. This album swings between funny and profound, socially-aware and absurd,light and dark in content, although musically consistent. Despite the 23 mostly short tracks, this is so consistent in overall tone and feel, that I found that, if I didn't really concentrate on what was being played and sung, it tended to all wash over me as a bit background. pretty, a bit funky, a bit of mid-tempo, funk-inflected afro-futurism. OK fun.

Around 1990-91, I was a volunteer at 2SER student radio. Mostly, I did technical work helping my mate, Tim. Panelling, editing, that kind of thing. In 1991, Einsturzende Neubauten were touring Australia and there was an offer to do a radio interview with 2SER. I could actually pronounce “Einsturzende Neubauten” and knew a little bit about the band, so it was decided that I would do the interview. Which was not really my thing. But it came with perks; tickets to their show at the Phoenician Club and a copy of the Strategies Against Architecture LP, so I said OK. I knew the legendary Blixa Bargeld has a reputation for not suffering fools, so I tried to prep questions that were interesting. So, on the day of the show the plan was to go down to the club after soundcheck and interview Blixa. It was a bit intimidating. I mean, EN were one of the world’s most dangerous bands, and Blixa also played in the Bad Seeds, which made him an underground legend. Tim and I were in the equipment room gathering up a portapack and mics and whatever else we needed, when someone comes running in the room whispering “There’s a vampire in the lobby, and he’s looking for you!” And sure enough, there in the lobby, stands Blixa, in full stage outfit, pale as death, six foot six in cuban heels and his hair teased up, and 100lbs wringing wet. He has a bottle of schnapps and a filthy look in his eye. He’s staring death at everyone. And then I hear my name called. Standing next to this imperious vision in black is a smiling Japanese man in bright green overalls with a flower appliqued on the front. His voice is oddly familiar; it is Rick Tanaka, former presenter of the Nippy Rock Shop, a collage-like radio show from Triple J in the 80s. I was a fan. Turns out, he is the road manager for this EN tour, and he is asking for me. He hands me his business card: Rick Tanaka, Private Guy. We hurriedly shuffle Rick and Blixa into a meeting room and turn on the recorder, and I attempt an interview. It did not go well. Blixa did not want to be there, was much smarter than me, and was not very patient with my attempts at questions that were more engaging than the usual stereotypical “who gets to go to the junk yard for your stage show?”. Eventually, he just started ignoring me and chatted to Rick. Tim and I kept the tape rolling for their conversation, and afterwards edited it up into something resembling proper radio. And then they left. Tim and I packed up, and then walked down the road to the Phoenician Club. (En route, we bumped into the Beasts of Bourbon, who were playing support. They were intensely focussed. They clearly knew what was coming, and determined to put on a good show. They were the best I ever saw them play that night; tight, ferocious and angry, showcasing material from their Low Road album, that was not yet released). And then on came Einsturzende Neubauten. It was possibly the most intense, frightening show I ever seen. I confess I was a little freaked out by my encounter with Blixa, and not really prepared for the experience of an EN show. By the end, I was pressed up against a wall with my fists clenched and my eyes shut. The sound from the stage was so brutal and overwhelming. I can’t recall much of what went on, except for a bit with shopping carts with contact mikes crashing into each other repeatedly. It was really loud. I know I left the venue about 11.30pm. At 2am, I turned up at my girlfriend’s house, tapping on her window. I assume I spent the intervening hours walking the streets in a daze, but not really sure of what I did in that time. Before you ask, no, there were no drugs involved. She yelled at my for waking her up for a good 15 minutes, but I was unable to put a sentence together, let alone explain what had just happened to me. It was a heavy, really heavy, performance. Ok, so given that background of my relationship with EN, what do I think about this album? I have listened to it once or twice before. EN is really influential on me. I love noisy things, really noisy things. I played in industrial bands through most of the 1990s. And this is like the ur-text for much of what industrial music became. It still sounds frightening and surprising now. That said, this is a massively difficult listening experience. I am reminded of Brian Eno talking about Steve Reich (I think), and how hearing one of his early tape pieces was massively influential, but he never listened to it again. Early EN (and this album in particular) is like that for me. It opened up a world of possibilities to explore, but I don’t need (or probably even want) to listen to it much. I certainly was much more enamoured of their early 1990s material, which contains actual songs, rather than just this scary barrage of crashing rhythms and screaming. Kollaps is an important record for me, but I would not recommend it.

This is one of the biggest albums of the 1990s, and one that got quite a bit of play in our house. It burst onto the (mainstream) stage like something fresh and new; an honest, angry young woman with an individual and distinct voice (both sonically and lyrically). And it went gangbusters; over 33 million copies sold. Having worked for years at Scratches, I had already had my ears opened to honest, angry young woman with distinct voices, so this did not feel particularly revolutionary to me. I found it highly reminiscent of Sinead O'Connor or even Tori Amos, but there are a bunch of other women who also paved the way for this. It's OK. I liked that it had a higher rock component than most female-fronted pop of the time, and the singles are pretty catchy (especially You Outta Know, which was pretty attention grabbing at t he time for a mainstream single, although not particularly shocking when compared to, say, Karen Findlay or the Yeastie Girls). The canned beats, woeful harmonica playing, and sometimes clumsy lyrics aside, I enjoy her idiosyncratic vocal delivery. It underlines the honesty of the emotions, which gives the album its frisson. Clearly, the massive success opened the doors for a more forthright female singer-songwriter style in the late 90s. This isn't the first album in this mold, but certainly the most successful. I think the mistreatment and hurt that she documents in this record was magnified by the impact of massive success, which was clearly pretty traumatic, as shown in the Jagged documentary (which she has disowned, but still makes a pretty fascinating watch). I admire Alanis for doing her own thing and speaking her truth, and making a massive success of it. There was clearly a cultural appetite at the time that this album really connected with directly. This is an album I can happily listen to, but, given my tastes run a little edgier, this is a 'like it' album rather than a 'love it' album for me.

I reviewed John Martyn's Solid Air earlier in this project, and enjoyed it more than I was expecting. Based on that, I thought I knew what to expect with this record. And was pleasantly surprised again. Much of side 2 seems like a fairly natural progression from Solid Air. Similar smooth jazz/soul/funk/folk blend, now with a touch of latin rhythms on Certain Surprise, with Martyn's foggy voice woven beautifully through the arrangements. I love his voice, which he uses like an instrument, although sometimes his slurred diction slides almost into self-parody.Take it easy, John. But side 1 is a revelation. The heavy use of effects, especially delay, and dub production techniques (without being pastiche - this is definitely not reggae) is something quite fresh. Big Muff is co-written by Lee Scratch Perry! I can see the influence, without it sounding like a Lee Scratch Perry record per se. I really loved the songs on side 1. Discretely funky, weird sounding without being abrasive, without any histrionics. I can see how these tracks (especially Big Muff and Small Hours) are cited as influences on trip hop, especially Massive Attack. This album caught me by surprise, and I really enjoyed it. Haven't heard much quite like it, and it really grabbed me (especially side 1)

Maybe because this came pout when I was 13, but this is one of the all time great pop albums. Six singles, all great, front loaded as the fist six tracks, and even the following filler is listenable. "He's so unusual", a novelty joke, doesn't out-stay its welcome. Clearly of its time, but without suffering from it, this energetic and distinctive album is upbeat, funny, energetic and ear-catching. The production is definitely 80s, and heavy of the synths, but manages to maintain an organic energy by becoming too reliant on the technology. It's still, at heart, a kind of new wave pop/rock record. Most of the songs are technically 'covers', although obscure picks. "When you were mine" was an album cut and b-side, which Lauper makes her own. Prince's refusal to let her change the lyrics at all leads to her frankly tortured enunciation of the word "guy" to try and make it sound like "girl", if you sort of squint. But not changing it makes the song more interesting in terms of gender roles. If the object of her affection is going with another guy, then they are clearly bisexual (gender unspecified). I can't think of another good example of this until Me'Shell NdegéOcello's cover of "Who is he and what is he to you", ten years after this. The big singles ("girls just want to have fun", "she-bop", "time after time") are all impeccable pop classics. I really like Lauper's singing. It is a strange voice, but powerful and distinctive. You know who it is as soon as she starts singing. She has a wider range and variety of tone than she often gets credit for, and I think she really sells the songs. I really enjoy this record (which I occasionally spin to this day), and regard it is one of the all time classics of unashamed pop. Five stars.

I bought a copy of this from a $2 box about a year ago, but I don't think I ever sat down to listen to it all the way through. Quite enjoyed the rough and ready recording, and Rod's vocals at the height of his powers. The band (largely the Faces) are that great mixture of tight and loose, and really digging in. I like the rockier tracks particularly, and the cover of the Temptations (I Know) I'm Losing You is outstanding. Feeling like I scored a real bargain.

I love the Velvet Underground. When I was in first year uni, a girl I had a crush on (unrequited, sadly) introduced me to the first VU (banana) album. What a revelation that was! As noted in Lou Reed's obituary in the NY Times, the Velvet Underground "wrought gradual but profound impact on the high-I.Q., low-virtuosity stratum of punk, alternative and underground rock around the world.". The Velvet Underground, especially that first record, were the ur-text for lots of the music that I loved. As a young man, the first two VU albums were the ones I played constantly the noise,. the power, the abrasiveness, the lyrics that explored the edges of society. With time, through, I have come to appreciate the gentler side of Lou Reed's songwriting, never better captured than this record. Compared to the previous two albums, this is a sensitive and gentle folk rock album. The concerns are much less the junkies, sado-masochists and speed freaks of the previous records. The lyrical concern are much easier to relate to (love, adultery, yearning), and not nearly as bleak as Lou Reed sometimes indulges in. Side 1 is full of absolutely classic songs, with more filler on side 2 (although Beginning to See the Light and I'm Set Free are still fantastic songs. I could live without That's The Story of My Life, Murder Mystery and After Hours, truth be told). I'm sure many are put off by the standard of the singing and playing, but I really dig the aesthetic (as noted by the NYT). And the songs are really great. My feelings on Lou Reed as a human being are previously documented (See my review of Berlin), but this is the album where I almost feel like he had a human heart.

I'm a bit late putting my review in today, so I did something I don't normally do, and had a squizz at what other members of my group had already said. I confess, I had expected Shawn would be thinking "what is it this week with all of these noisy records? Does nobody know how to play their instruments properly any more? This is not to my taste". How wrong I was! He dug it, and I feel chastised for my lack of faith. I love the Stooges. "I wanna be your dog" was probably the cover my old band played more than any other. Our attitude and stagecraft had a fair amount of Stooges in it (not to the point of cutting ourselves with broken glass and smearing our chests with peanut butter, but there were quite a few on-stage fist fights, and lost of getting into altercations with the audience). This album is classic, classic Stooges, and, probably has some of the best written songs in their oeuvre. The attitude is fast and loose, and they are rocking out fiercely, but there are proper songs in there under the sneer and fuzz. Search and Destroy, Gimme Danger, and Shake Appeal are probably my favourite tracks. Love this record. Man, I should go play it again, really loud, right now!

I was rally bored with this album. Very pleasant pop songs, in a soft rock style. Was this about the first album where the artist played all the instruments? Possibly so, which makes it a bit of a landmark with regards to what a single person could accomplish with a multitrack, and set a precedent for artists like Prince. Mind you, others were coming to the same discovery independently (Mike Oldfield must have been recording Tubular Bells almost simultaneously). But the songs and performances frankly bore me, and I suspect they did for Rundgren too, who started being much more experimental following this album. Even the heavier rock songs on this album are kind of bloodless. It reminds me of how Danny Sugarman in 'Wonderland Ave' complains about how the rock (largely) seemed to water down in the early 70s. This album is a case in point.

Wow, this is a real blast. Short, sharp, fast and loud (with a moment of respite for Your Cheatin' Heart). It's a greatest hits of early rock and roll blasted out at high power before a live audience. No fat, no time-wasting. The drummer is a wildman, and Jerry Lee is pumping that piano hard, and vocally wailing. Not as much screaming as Little Richard (the obvious comparison), but strong and hard. I used to think I didn't like live albums, but then I started counting really great live albums, and I think I would have to put this on that list. There is something about the live intensity and interaction with the audience that transcends the studio work (sometimes). And you know how much I like a short album, and this certainly fits that bill, at a crisp 22 minutes. Not a lot of fat on it. RIP, Killer. You were a deplorable human being, but you sure could rock and roll.

I dig this record. I find a lot of soft jazz just wallpaper, but this really grabbed me. It is soft and gentle, but the samba rhythms and wonderful soloing from Getz and Byrd really lift this into something special. I listened to it three times through at a trot. Desafinado and Samba de Uma Nota So are, rightly, classics, and stand out tracks on a really fine record. Not an album to outstay its welcome, and very welcome back on my turntable any time.

I lived in a share house on Abercrombie St in the early 90s. A regular visitor to the house was Leon the Goth. Leon loved this record, so he used to throw it on the turntable regularly when he came over, but I haven't listened to it since. I had forgotten what a bleak record it is. It is certainly one of the foundational texts of goth in its sound and lyrical concerns. But, apart from A Forest (which is a great song), this album is incredibly forgettable. I don't understand why this album _and_ Pornography (also a super-bleak proto-goth album with almost no memorable songs on it), _and_ Disintegration (not much better) are all on the 1001 list, but albums with actual good songs (and hits, none the less) are not.

Oh my god, I am dying of boredom. Even attempting to describe the boredom is deadly dull. I did actually listen to this all the way through, but I cannot express how much I hated this pre-masticated pablum. Deathly, deathly, boring. His name is boring. The album cover is boring. His voice could bore for England. Apparently, Mr Gray believes (and I have no reason to doubt him) that the success (175 weeks on the UK charts!) paved the way for "soul-baring" artist such as James Blunt, Ed Sheeran and others. As if I need any more reason to despise this record, and yet here it is. It is neither hot nor cold, and I shall spit it out of my mouth.

This is a really great record, and one of the great examples of an alternative band (from when alternative bands were really part of an alternative music industry) breaking huge into the mainstream. R.E.M. had been underground darlings for most fo the 80s, and signed to a major and gone big with their Green album, which I personally find a bit patchy. And then this; an ambitious masterpiece which was true to what they had always been, but with a major label size and sheen. Which is a bit weird, given how dark this album is. It is truly wonderfully recorded by Scott Litt, with clear and spaciously recorded basic tracks brought into a cinematic scale by the strong arrangement of John Paul Jones. I am hard pressed to think of a rock record with better arrangements than this record; they are so sympathetic to the song, they know when to hold back, and when to add to the song. The strings really are amazing, notably on Drive. Michael Stipe’s vocals are mixed further to the front than on their earlier records, and you can hear the lyrics. Is that a good or a bad thing? I’m pretty sure it was Dave Lewis who said he thought Michael Stipe was a great lyricist until he could actually understand what he was saying. The lyrics are enigmatic and opaque. I suspect that this actually broadens the appeal of this record; the lyrics are clearly highly emotional, often sad, but the blurred meaning and ambiguity means that the listener can project onto them their own sensibility. The lack of specific and clear meaning makes them more universal. An exception to that rule: Everybody Hurts, which is almost clumsily blunt. I blame this song for “Party of Five” acting. This was an acting style prevalent in the 1990s (but you still see today), where an actor, usually young, would stare silently, often though a rain-streaked window at night, while Everybody Hurts plays, in order to indicate a profound melancholia. I checked, and this indeed was used in the pilot episode of Party of Five (starting at 25.40, for those playing at home), although without the rainy window. It was a cheap way of conveying deep sadness if your actor wasn’t actually up to it. It became a cliché. There are some great tunes on this album, and it is clearly widely loved. REM never made an album half as good afterwards. I find the record a touch enigmatic, which means it doesn’t have quite the emotional traction for me to give it 5 stars, but I certainly think it is worth 4.

ugh. Not to my taste. Too 80s schmick. Almost funky. Almost soulful. Almost sophisticated. Trying too hard to be polished. Just not there for me.

At first, I didn’t get Prince. I was aware of the singles from this album when they were released, but I didn’t have the album, and I didn’t really understand what the fuss was. A schoolmate, Bassel, was a fan and constantly tried to convince me of Prince’s genius, but it took a while. Sorry Bassel, I got there eventually. Then, in about 1988, the penny finally dropped and I got it. Over the next couple of years, I obsessively hunted down the whole Prince back catalogue. I played his music constantly, and I still do. I saw him at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 1992, and he tore it up live. And, except for the album he had just released at the time, this was the only album from which he played more than one song; Baby I’m A Star, Let’s Go Crazy and Purple Rain. Prince’s imperial phase of the 1980s is far and away my favourite, and this album is a monumental achievement from this period. Prince is one of only three artists to have the number one single, album and movie simultaneously. Even the movie is pretty rubbish, Prince conquered the world with this album. It’s rock, it’s funk, it’s psychedelic, it’s pop, it’s experimental, it’s a party jam, it’s heavily emotional. It’s everything about the 80s, and also classic beyond time. It’s the first album where the Revolution really brought their influences and played (about half the album) as a band, instead of Prince doing everything himself in the studio (although there are still a few tracks like that). And the band certainly was cooking. I want to shout out the particular contributions of Wendy and Lisa to this record. Their playing, singing and arrangements really lift a lot of this material into something special. You can hear the way their arrangements push Prince’s harmony into some new spaces, which can particularly heard in the string. Big fan of their work. I think you can hear how quickly this album was recorded, and it is a bit rough around the edges, which adds to the appeal. The songs are so iconic now that weird choices (no bassline in When Doves Cry is the classic example) are now like articles of faith. This reminds me of many of the later Beatles records, where off-the-cuff choices have now become entrenched lore, and people have built whole careers on their mistakes and arbitrary additions. I am listening to the deluxe version, which has a lot of super extended versions and other songs recorded contemporaneously. Many of those previously unreleased versions would have been lead singles for other artists (and in some cases were, I’m looking at you Andre Cymone). It is hard to credit how prolific he wa during this period. Is this my favourite Prince album? No, not quite. But is it a towering achievement of popular music? Absolutely. Five stars.

I always though that firehose were, at least on paper, the sort of band that I should like. But I've listened to this three times through, and it doesn't do much for me. Well played, but the songwriting just doesn't grab me. Interestingly, after this album finishes, spotify plays wire, the wipers, and gang of four. They are all aesthetically similar to firehose, but all get my blood pumping in a way that this doesn't. I don't hate this, but I don't think I'll ever listen to it again.

Stevie Wonder at the height of his imperial period. a double album, plus bonus EP, will always raise the question of whether some judicious editing might have strengthened the overall album experience somewhat, but it is really hard to fault this record. Stevie won his 3rd best album Grammy in 4 years with this, and it is probably the peak of his career. there's a some good material on Hotter Than July, but it is hard to think that any of his other albums after this are really worth a listen. (To quote Barry in High Fidelity "Rob, top five musical crimes perpetuated by Stevie Wonder in the '80s and '90s. Go. Sub-question: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?") But those are quibbles for another day. I prefer the funkier, more upbeat material on this record to the ballads, which tend towards to overly sentimental. But the playing and production are exquisite, and I would listen to Stevie Wonder sign the phone book. Stevie Wonder is one of the all time great singer/songwriter/musicians/producers/harmonica players, and this is his master work. Did he really know where to go from here? Do any of us?

This might provoke some outrage or disbelief from the hard-core EC fans (hi Peter, hi Glenn), but this is not a really standout Elvis album for me. Thinking about it, I tend to prefer his quick-and-dirty albums, a bit more rock and roll, a bit less polished. I can see what he was heading for, but I find that Elvis is less effective when he tries to get fancy. So, some good songs (the singles, plus Shabby Doll and Beyond Belief are stand-outs for me), but not a great Elvis album for me. (Mind you, that's still on the "would listen again" list)

So this album is vastly over-rated. It has a certain hipster cachet because it is willfully obscure. Shuggie Otis was a pretty fine guitar player, playing in his father's (Johnny Otis) band from a very young age, He played on Zappa's Hot Rats. He was invited to join the Stones and Bowie's band. This was his magnum opus, the result of three years' work in his home studio. And it shows. It is a slightly over-worked, psychedelic funk record, similar to There's a Riot Going On or some of Stevie Wonder's contemporaneous work. But not to Sly or Stevie's standard. OK, but nothign to write home about. But, because of it's commercial failure and Shuggie's subsequent reclusive nature, it built a reputation as a hidden gem.Hipsters have, I think, over-praised this record (see this Pitchfork review as a case in point: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17909-shuggie-otis-inspiration-information-wings-of-love/). I really disliked the meandering keyboard pieces on side 2; they didn't offer much. Interetsingly, after Strawberry Letter #23 *best known for the hit cover version by the Brothers Johnson a few years later), I thought "this album is really picking up." Interestingly, the review above pointed out that these tracks at the end are, in fact, bonus tracks on CD reissue that were drawn from other albums. This record is perfectly OK, but would be pretty weak without Strawberry Letter #23 and the other bonus tracks. Without them, this is a two star record, but I'll give it three with the bonus tracks.

The Roots are like the house band of hip hip (or the alternative end of hip hop). Their work on the various Soulquarians records Mos Def, (D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Common, Jill Scott, Bilal, etc etc) is exemplary. They were terrific as the house band on Dave Chappelle’s Block Part (there is a DVD worth hunting down). They are far and away the best of the late night bands on their residency on Jimmy Fallon. This album is a pretty listenable for a hip hop album, but it just doesn’t have the songs. Questlove is a terrific drummer and band leader, but the Roots albums really just don’t have songs. They need to work with people bringing better material.

I never got Bruce. His records just don't grab me (exception: Nebraska). I know his songs resonates for a lot of people, but they don’t for me. I think most of his material is, for me, a bit overworked. I listened through, but, honestly, it washes over me every time and I am unmoved. While Born to Run is a bit more focussed than some of his previous Wall of Sound-esque production, the songs are perfectly engineered to go over gangbusters in a stadium show. A lot of credit for the sound should probably go to Bob Clearmoutain’s mixing, which is designed to make the records pop on the radio. Bruce really owns that kind of stadium show (from what I hear), but it's not my cup of tea. This record is bar-band rock and roll, dumbed down and polished up suitable for radio play and stadium sing-alongs. This is not subtle. The lyrics are often clichéd and bombastic, the riffs simple and repetitive. The sparkling sheen of synthesizers and overly-processed drums updates the essentially 60s rock and arrangement, down to the cheesy sax solos. The drum sound offends me so much: the leaden, synthetic beat of this album is heavy on the rock, but squeezes all of the roll out of these songs. I struggle with the lyrical content; Richard Williams in Q magazine described the title track as trying “to bury the anti-war message of Born In The USA beneath an impenetrable layer of clenched-fist bombast". This was, in his view, "downright irresponsible." I find it hard to reconcile his ostensible criticism of Reagan-era America and its treatment of the faux-working class character he portrays (a character based on his fathers and others around him, but not himself, as he freely admits in his Broadway show), with the triumphant presentation (which is easily and often confused with jingoism). Many of the songs have the most ridiculously stooped, lowest common denominator lyrics. “I’m on Fire” is probably the most interestingly arranged song on the record, but a bit creepy. This record strikes me as faux-working-class bellowing over bombastic production, punctuated with unnecessary saxophone solos. At least he has cut down on the mumbling that mars his earlier records.

I find this a strangely pretty album. Her voice is an acquired taste, and was easier to accept on the Banana album because it is only used sparingly. A-grade songwriting on this record, with Jackson Brown, Tim Hardin, Dylan and the Velvets. The only song that she co-wrote ("It was a pleasure then") foretells the harrowing dirges that filled her subsequent records. Compare this with The Marble Index from the following year, and this is sunshine and puppies gamboling in a field of daisies. I love this quote from Nico: "I still cannot listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! ... They added strings and – I didn't like them, but I could live with them. But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute.". I quite like the guitar and string arrangements, but kind of agree about the flutes. But let's all thank the deities that she hadn't discovered the harmonium yet. I find this an oddly charming record, but inessential. It doesn't surprise me that two tracks (These days and The Fairest of days) appeared in The Royal Tennenbaums. This is a quintessential Wes Anderson choice; 1960s, sort of obscure, charming, but also kind of cold and off-putting.

This album proves that the decision to stop touring on devote yourself to studio work did not produce only gems. The two covers (Merle Travis's Nine Pound Hammer and Randy Newman's Old Kentucky Home) stand out. the only other tolerably interesting song is The Wolf of Velvet Fortune, which has a pleasantly minor key psychedelic feel. Other than that, I find the songwriting bland, I don't like the singer's voice, and the arrangements and playing just don't have any edge. Blandly inoffensive, slightly psychedelic, slightly country-influenced (but only slightly, when compared to,l say, Sweethearts of the Rodeo). Forgettable.

I first heard Soundgarden watching rage at about 2am in late 89 or early 90. They immediately caught my attention. When Badmotorfinger was released in the first blast of mainstream grunge in Aug/Sept of 91, I was hooked. I played that record grey, and collected all of their back catalogue. The heaviness and innovation of the riffage, along with an embrace of guitar noise instead of the typical shredding that was all over 80s metal, was thrilling. But it was Chris Cornell’s voice that really grabbed me. It’s hard to think of another vocalist of the age that could match his range and intensity. I saw them at Selina’s in early 1994 (when Superunknown was in the can but not yet released). I was sceptical to see whether he match the intensity of the records live. And he sure could. I walked out amazed. There are certainly live recordings from later in his life when you could hear the damage of thirty years of hard use in his voice, but in 1994 he was at the height of his powers. And he sure could write a song. Critical response to Soundgarden differs wildly. Some condemn them as dumbed-down metal, full of clichés and nonsense. Personally, I think they often try to subvert the tropes of metal (cf ‘Big Dumb Sex’ from Louder Than Love, which I’m pretty sure is parody. I used to play that song at Scratches at very high volume when tire kickers wouldn’t leave the store well after closing time). Bootleg recordings suggest that they were aware how ridiculous the genre they worked in could be, and maintained a sense of humour about that, but were simultaneously aware of the power of the form. Soundgarden are generally a metal band I can listen to without feeling stupid. The art-metal of their early records has evolved to a much more melodic form. There are proper tunes here, and some stomping playing. It is produced to a high shine. This is an intentional masterwork, a sprawling and ambitious double-album. This inevitably suggests that maybe a few songs could be trimmed, but the high points are monumental. It is difficult album in some ways, pretty dark in tone and largely humourless, and driven by depression and anxiety. But the singles are all amazing, and many of the album cuts are also highly listenable, if you like this kind of thing. I have to give special mention to Matt Cameron. The drumming on this album is phenomenal. Given their tendency to play in weird and/or changing time signatures, his ability to keep songs driving forward with a constancy that can make a 9/8 almost sound like a 4/4 is genius! While possibly not the most important album in grunge (surely that must be Nevermind), I think this is the artistic highpoint of both Soundgarden and the genre. And one of the greatest metal albums of all time. Five stars for me.

Did not enjoy. Eminem's flow and wordplay is impressive, but his voice is nasal, the beats are underwhelming, and the subject matter tends towards adolescent trolling. I can see why this album was a massive hit with disaffected white male youth, but when even Marilyn Manson declines to guest on your record because it is too misogynistic, you've got a real problem. Interestingly, Eminem won't use the n-word (out of respect for black people?) but is happy to malign women in disturbing detail. And not musically compelling. This borders on a novelty record (exception: My Name Is) Did not enjoy, will not listen again.

Supposedly, Noel Gallagher once said that he got all the songwriting royalties I n Oasis because “ nobody ever hums the bassline of song”. Some wag is said to have responded that he had clearly never heard Lust for Life. Critical reaction to Iggy’s previous album, The Idiot, was that he had lost his ability to rock, and that Bowie had taken over too much. In retrospect, we can see that album as part of Bowie’s Berlin period and the hugely influential shift in rock music that was. But another Stooges record it sure ain’t. So, after a few months touring The Idiot, Iggy went back to the studio, he wanted to be a bit more in control over the songs, the arrangements and the sound. It’s a lot more straightforward rock and roll (although not enough to satisfy Lester Bangs). There is still quite a bit of Bowie here. Lust for Life and the Passenger are two absolute classics. I am also quite partial to Success. I find the rest of the album pretty great rock ‘n roll fun, and would happily listen to it almost any time. It’s probably the most focused and rockin’ that Iggy ever was post-Stooges.

Now, here is a real classic. I love this record a lot, and their cover of "I heard it through the grapevine" is a regular feature of my DJ sets. This record genuinely sounds like nothing else. heavily influences by punk (although really presages post-punk) and reggae, it isn't really either of those things. It is its own unique and wonderful thing, with its own logic. It's angry and weird and fun. In Viv Albertine's fantastic autobiography "Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys" (highly recommend, worth a read) she describes the way she approached guitar, which was largely self-taught and completely fresh. She talks about how she was attracted to the treble tones of the guitar, and you can really hear it in the way that she plays. There is a an unapologetic "this is the way we choose to play" sense of what they do. Although I think there was some backlash for doing so. And this record is a wonderful and unique thing. the songs are.... different, but they always sound fresh and surprisingly and strong and relevant and beautiful within their own aesthetic framework. Punk always claimed that it was people who "couldn't play", but many bands (Pistols, Clash, etc) were in fact working within a pretty well-trodden back-to-basic rock and roll style and technique. The Slits were really something new and revolutionary. It doesn't surprise me that it took women to really break out and do something this different and extraordinary. Five stars.

OK, so gangsta rap is where hip hop took a turn that I couldn't follow. I could see where it was coming from, but the violence, misogyny and homophobia just gets really unpleasant. I never really listened to Biggie, beyond the big singles. This album certainly contains a lot of what I dislike about gangsta rap (see above), along with being overly long and sprinkled with obnoxious skits/interludes. But that being said, I found this more listenable than other examples of the genre. Biggie's flow is exceptional and the slightly old-skool production is pretty tasty. I foudn myself wondering why I foudn this better than other equally violent records. There si a certain verite to his description of his criminal persona (based on his dealing past, and sadly played out in his sudden and violent death) and a modicum of introspection (eg Suicidal Thoughts). This give the album a bit more artistic weight than some of the empty posturing that followed in the genre (Eminem, I'm looking at you). But not an album I really need to listen to again.

It's a cooking band and an energetic performance, probably the best live recording of early 60s RnB. That makes it a legendary and iconic performance, but why is this the only James Brown on the 1001 list? He was a pretty good RnB performer, and this album really made his reputation, but not the music that changed everything. It has some great, even iconic moments ("Ladies and gentlemen, it is star time, are you ready for star time?", "the hardest workin' man in show business", an uptempo version of Think, the audience screams during Please Please Please, a proto-funk Night Train), and shows off his impeccable skills as a band leader. I would have LOVED to see this show. However, Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (and the invention of funk) was still a few years off. And, if we are talking about James Brown, how can you have him on the list with an album that pre-dates his greatest contribution to popular music, the invention of an entire genre? James Brown is one of the truly great singles performers. he released literally hundreds of singles, and many of them have been amazingly influential on music as a whole. But he is not so well known for albums that make the grade, and so they have picked this one. Good album, but not what is truly great about James Brown. The listmakers desperately want to have James Brown on the list (because of course!), but the constraint of albums but no compilations make it impossible to showcase his most amazing work. Missed opportunity.

So, in my youth, I was a strictly Sun years Elvis fan. The fat. bloated, besequinned jumpsuit Elvis karate chopping his way across the stage, sweating out 'ludes and benzedrine did not do it for me. And then I met my wife, who was quite insistent that Vegas Elvis was the most glorious incarnation of Elvis. And she won me over. I mean, he is still fat and bloated, the jumpsuits are covered in sequins, and the karate moves are ridiculous, and he is still befuddled with the drugs... but it is also glorious in its overblown . He finds the real power in his voice. he is sentimental as all hell, and he wrings every drop of melodrama out of every note. And he kept doing some truly dreadful material right up until the end. But there are moments of real magnificence, such as his gospel material... and this. How he ended up recording some decent material with a decent band in a decent material seems like a glorious accident that his manager and minders (and his own terrible instincts) didn't manage to stuff up, for once. The cornerstone of the really great material from the last decade of his life basically these sessions. It's super cheesy, and somewhat overdone (which prevents it from being quite a funky as it might be), but this is, to my mind, probably the greatest individual Elvis album, especially when the bonus tracks are included. I used to hate it, then I liked it ironically, and now I just love it.

There are five (five!) Byrds albums on this list, which feels like a lot. This is a transitional album between their folk phase, and leading into psychedelia. Eight Miles High is a classic, and I like the run of side 2, which is a little bit more muscular, but the original songs are bit ho-hum (Eight Miles High excepted). The cover of Hey Joe is Ok (although not a patch on Hendrix), and the instrumental "Captain Soul" was vaguely funky, although now that I know it is a stab at covering "Get Out My Life Woman" by lee Dorsey, I'm a little less impressed. I understand the influence this album had, but it doesn't really stand up for me as a album worth listening to (Eight Miles High excepted). Side 1 is a 2 for me, and side 2 is a 3. I'll round up.

I was going to say that I have mixed feelings about this album, but really the problem is that I don't have many feelings at all. Her voice is pleasant enough, with enough character that it isn't just bland. The songwriting is pretty highly skilled, without being overly flashy. Similarly, the band are really great players, and really well recorded. The sounds are more organic (real drums, prominent guitars, organ, piano, minimal synths and samples and no obvious protools edits) than much material recorded in the early 90s,. This means it hasn't dated quiet as much as, say, Alanis Morrisset or other contemporaneous pop music You can tell the songs and arrangements were work-shopped for a long time. the band is really comfortable with the material. It's laid back, but without losing focus. The collective writing and playing make this a pretty strong album, and it has a point of view (at least by way of contrast with most pop albums), But does it really have much to say? Success has many fathers, as they say, and there were public recriminations over who got appropriate credit when this came out. I suspect that few of the collaborators expected the album to do much, and were pretty pissed off when a woman got "all the credit" when it sold a bajillion copies. Ms Crow's ongoing success proves, I think, that she was not a mere puppet of this group. But this album is OK, but doesn't move me particularly. Certainly, there is nothing about it that I hate, but it inspires nothing stronger than a mild "like". Excerpt "All I wanna do"; that still feels liek a breathe of fresh air. I really like her conversational lyrics and flow, which feels a bit new. I have a jukebox 7" of "All I Wanna Do" b/w "If it makes you happy" which is probably the sum total of all the Sheryl Crow I will ever want or need. I really feel like this is a solid 2.5 stars, but I am going to tip over to 3 stars, based on the shit she copped from her collaborators, probably undeserved.

A double album, recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami in the 1970s. Many multiple takes of every song, recording sessions lasting over four days without a break, obsessive work and re-work from one of rock's most arrogant men. Stills claimed that critics hated him (possibly true), that he was passed over for the cover the Rolling Stone in favour of David Cassidy (probably true), and that Ahmet Ertegun pulled the album from stores as soon as it went gold to force him back to CSN (paranoid much?). Do I detect the influence of ... cocaine? In a June 1972 review for The San Diego Door, Cameron Crowe said "Manassas always remains admirable if not exciting. The musicianship is generally excellent with the only pitfall being that the droning Stills' vocal pervades all but one of the LP's sixteen cuts". He also stated the "lyrics represent a low-point in Stills' lyricist career". I tend to agree.

I miss loud guitars. And tunes. There some actual songs on here, but most are needlessly obtuse. If I listened to this 20 times, I'm sure I would find things to like, but I just wish it rocked a bit more like 'Bodysnatchers', a brief highlight for me on this otherwise lethargic album. Yeah, a whole album more like Bodysnatchers is what I want. I'm sure that if I listened to this a lot, I could learn to love this, but I'm just not bothered. I really liked The Bends and OK Computer, but I feel like Radiohead are stuck in a willfully obtuse rut. They can't work up any real energy, and it has just devolved into abstract droning. And not droning in a good way. If you read the ecstatic reviews that came out on the day of release (eg BBC or Pitchfork) it really feels like the emperor's new clothes. But I just don't see anyone that excited about this album now. It's hard to imagine myself ever getting enthused or passionate about this album. If I had to conduct Berry Gordy's sandwich test (https://www.christinebedenis.co/2015/10/09/motown-museum/) for this album, I'd be eating a sandwich.

It is hard to rate the Beatles, because, you know, they're the _Beatles_ and their records have become part of the DNA of popular music. It's been years since I saw down and listened to Rubber Soul all the way through. It is such a transitional album between their early material (songs are still really short, and with heaps of hooks), but the lyrical concerns and style are becoming more sophisticated, along with the more studio-oriented arrangements and production. I love the punchy, all-killer-no-filler approach. Only one song is over three minutes, and there is not a wasted second on this record. I can hear the influences they have picked up in America (Motown, the Byrds, Dylan). I just rated a Byrds album recently, and their super-bright guitar sound is all over this record, but with much better songs. The beginnings of their drug experiments are starting to be reflected as well in a bit broader scope (although there are still plenty of straight love songs here). Dodgy lyrics of Run For Your Life aside, this is a wonderful record. Short, confident, beautifully played and arranged, great vocals. And an important sign that they were changing direction in a way that nobody quite realised yet.

Exile is one of the sacred texts of rock and roll. The story of the recording sessions are the stuff of legend, but I think it is really Mick's work trying to wrangle and edit the mess into a coherent album that is the heroic achievement of this album. Oh, and Charlie keeping everything moving along. Like most doubles, this is over-long. Trimmed back, this would potentially be as focussed as the previous three albums. But the Stones never really managed that level of focus again; too much drugs, booze, money and fame. That they made this record at all is a miracle. It is a classic, and there is a lot to learn about how to play rock and roll here, but not their best. The Stones are at he height of their powers, but the rot has set in.

Lou was actually capable of writing the occasional album of accessible and enjoyable songs, post Velvets, and this his most consistent and best solo album. Bowie's production really lifts the songs. Mark Ronson and Herbie Flowers need to be highlighted as best on field for their playing contributions. Some absolute classic songs (Wild Side, Satellite, Vicious).

My mate, Peter, said he couldn't understand why Tom Waits stopped doing actual songs, and just devolved into "crashing rubbish bins around while screaming", not entirely unfair assessment. Swordfishtrombones was the beginning of that 'devolution', which continues, on Rain Dogs, which is my favourite Tom Waits record. It hits a kind of mid-point between the bar-room balladry of his early albums, with elements of the creepy circus, rubbish-bin-crashing production of his 90s albums. There are some absolute crackers songs on this record (Time, Downtown Train, Hang Down Your Head) that deserve their status as modern standards, along with more atmospheric grooves (Jockey Full of Bourbon, Tango Til Their' Sore), and occasional rocker (Big Black Mariah). It doesn't surprise time that Jockey and Tango ended up on the soundtrack of Down By Law; they fit the dissolute atmosphere of that film (also starring our hero, Mr Waits, as a dissolute loser).. I love Waits quote about production style "If I want a sound, I usually feel better if I've chased it and killed it, skinned it and cooked it." The wrongness of the sounds, the deliberately bad recording quality is, to my ears, charming, but I know not everyone thinks so. MVP on the album is Marc Robot, who is a guitar player who very distinctly plays 'wrong' a lot, but in a way that always catches my ear. In my youth, when friends had a particularly bad break up or some other life set-back, we would buy a bottle of Jamesons, and sit up to 4am commiserating. And this is the record I would play.

This is probably one of the best examples of mid-80s thrash metal recorded (especially given that Metallica's 80s albums often suffered from pretty shitty production and mixing). It is hard to think how they could have improved this within the confines of the genre; the playing is super tight, the lead lines are lightening fast, Mustaine's lyrics are suitably nasty and sung with the appropriate sneer. It really is perfectly done for what it is. The band is clearly incredibly well rehearsed and super-tight (despite the ongoing heroin issues for half the band). The album even benefits from being recorded cheaply and a bit roughly (on an independent budget), but with a major label coming in with some better money for a really good mix and mastering. The tracks have enough roughness to make them compelling, and a sense of immediacy and danger (with minimal overdubbing, editing or click-tracking), but enough work to make sure the album doesn't sound like it was recorded with tin cans and string (as with many 80s metal records). Comparing the original Randy Burns mixes on the deluxe edition shows the improvement this mix and mastering made). Mustaine clearly set out to produce the ultimate metal album (for the time); faster, tighter, heavier, meaner and better sounding than any of his contemporaries (especially Metallica), and I think he succeeded at that. But, apart from the title track (which I would happily put on a metal playlist any time), the rest of it is a bit mechanical. The guitar solos are particular problem for me; they are lightening fast and technically proficient, but it just seems like typing to me. And Mustaine's sneering vocals wear on me after a while. My mate Tim and I listened to quite a bit of thrash around this period (mostly local Sydney bands, like the Hard-Ons), and so this wasn't completely out of my wheelhouse when I was 17 (which would be the perfect age for this), and I am pretty sure I was aware of this record, but it didn't connect with me then and it doesn't connect with me now. I can appreciate it, but I just doesn't move me.

A transitional album for Joni, from more straightforwardly confessional songs into more character-driven songs. Also, she is starting to lean into her interest in jazz by employing the L.A Express band to back her, lead there by her frustrations with the limitations of rock players. and it becomes her most critical and commercially successful album. The songwriting is confident; intricate and sophisticated, and wonderfully played, ably supported by the jazzbos backing her. This is still clearly a pop album, but an intelligent and grown-up pop album. She hasn't moved into the more challenging jazz of her subsequent albums. Free Man in Paris is my favourite track here, but the album is perhaps a little too polished for my taste (I like a little more grit), but there is much richness here that rewards multiple listens. John Oates (of Hall + Oates), discussing 'Blue" on the My Favourite Album podcast (https://myfavoritealbum.libsyn.com/165-john-oates-on-joni-mitchell-blue-1971 , from 18:30 onwards) compares Mitchell's openness about her personal life in her songwriting and the way her love life was played out in the media to Taylor Swift. Interestingly, in the five years since that podcast, Taylor has also moved into a more 'adult' musical mode, and I suspect that it will become more common to talk about Joni and Taylor in the same conversations, and comparing their legacies. I think you can see it in this album particularly; it is personal, artistically ambitious, unashamedly commercial pop, but not dumbed down for it. I think we forget that Joni was a powerful and uncompromising pop artist.

I was a teenager, sitting up late one night watching Rage on the TV. I got a lot of my musical education sitting up into the wee small hours watching music videos, which often delved into the esoteric and alternative as the night wore on. And it was probably about 2am when I saw this live footage of the Cramps performing 'Can your pussy do the dog?' (https://youtu.be/Bta9s0hONRo?t=413), and I immediately sat up and recognized this as the real deal. It was cool and sexy and dangerous and raw. The Cramps always had that. Over their career, you can see the way they refined their aesthetic (and Poison Ivy's guitar playing had certainly improved by 1986), but this debut album is such a great example of what rock and roll is. To loosely paraphrase Charles Shaar Murray, if rock and roll was about technique, then Emerson lake and Palmer would be the greatest rock band of all time (hock, spit). But it isn't. This album sounds like it was recorded in a tin shed with one microphone (Phillips Recording, in Memphis), and I'll est my hat if this took more than a day to record. No overdubs and not a lot of re-takes, this is a warts and all blast of rock and roll, taking the blueprint of rockabilly, and hyping it up into something even bigger. It's fast and loud and dangerous and sexy and cool and wild and raw, and all the things that make rock and roll really great. to try and confine this to a pigeonhole of 'psychobilly' protects us from the frightening implication that _this_ is what true rock sounds like, and not something new and niche. The originals fit in seamlessly with the covers, showing that this is not an aberration, but part of the continuum of rock. I have been listening to this record obsessively for the past few days. It is, in many ways, a terrible record -- poorly recorded, badly played, juvenile in spirit, obnoxious and wild -- and for all those things, I love it. It is a tonic to my soul after enduring so many pretentious, overproduced, too refined albums (Stephen Stills, I';m looking at you). It is a great regret in my life that I never saw the Cramps live. Mea maxima culpa.

I love me a bit of noisy krautrock, and this does exactly what it says on the tin. Opening track 'Krautrock' (that's a hint, perhaps) is 12 minutes of motorik, one-chord drone-rock (in a good way). The rums don't even come in until 7 minutes in. The shorter songs are indeed more song-like, and stand up as great songs, which can be a surprise for some krautrock bands, who can stretch out of groove, but not really write a song. Really enjoyed this, and putting it on my want list to purchase. Going four stars instead of five, as this is a really great example of this genre, but not necessarily for everyone.

Not really rock enough for me. I like her voice. Stranded in time is a pretty good song, with an excellent string arrangement. but the collages and synth wibbles all over everything are just really annoying. I can see what they were maybe aiming at, but the technology just wasn't there yet to do anything other than sci-fi movie soundtrack noises. The free-association lyrics and willfully 'quirky' arrangements with incongruous jump-cuts are also distracting - 'The American Way of Love' is a really extreme example of this.

I was a bit excited when we kicked off with The New Stone Age. "Ooh," I thought, "this is a bit more rockin' than I was expecting. I thought it would be all bleak, tuneless landscapes and dirge interspersed with moments of fey synthpop". But, alas, my expectations were not incorrect. This is a tedious album, an "onslaught of emptiness, ... a new brand of meaninglessness" (Lynden Barber in Melody Maker) , an album that "gives off the dry stench of self-importance" (M. Howell in the Boston Phoenix). I feel like I could have been more into this in the 80s when I listen to a lot of quasi-experimental synth-based music. But now, I yawn, and move on to the next album.

And we're back to the question of how we measure the actions of the artist against the art... Phil Spector, was a misogynist, bully, and convicted murderer. And this album is clearly his brain child, and in many ways, the pinnacle of his producing career. As he mostly concentrated on singles, this is certainly the most greatest _album_ he ever produced. I own a couple of different pressings of this album, because you always need one on hand in December. And it sounds great. The full wall of sound, the best of his stable of talent (Darlene Love and Ronnie Spector are MVPs here), and the amazing orchestra. We listen to this album obsessively every Christmas season. It is the greatest Christmas album of all time, and a pivotal text of rock and roll. People still try to emulate that sound. But I never listen to the Christmas message from Phil. It's just too creepy. While I do not want to hear a message of goodwill from a misogynist, bully and convicted murderer, I won't let Phil's sins deprive me of the glory that is Darlene Love, Ronnie Spector, and the wonderful group of singers who really lift this album. Without them, this album would not be the wonder that it is. My favourite moment is Ronnie Spector's broad New York accent when she sings the word "Frosty" in Frosty The Snowman. I love it every time I hear it.

I never really liked Damon Albarn much, a few notable singles excepted. I find this piece of high concept nonsense not nearly as interesting as it reckons it is. Dan the Automator's production lends this album some interest. and Del the Funkee Homosapien is worth a listen when he appears, but this is primarily the Damon Albarn show. His unfocussed warbling just never really builds enough energy to light me up, and usually sounds out of place with the backing tracks. It just strikes me as over-hyped demos. I don't even like 'Clint Eastwood' that much. 19-2000 is OK (and the Soulchild remix even better), and I liked Double Bass (perhaps not surprisingly, an instrumental). My kids all seem to like Gorrillaz, though. I suspect that they encountered songs on video game soundtracks when they were kids, which is probably the appropriate age and context in which to experience Gorillaz.

This album is the epitome of San Francisco 1967 psychedelia, but without any features that raise it above the level of a caricature of SF psychedelia. Not a single song sticks in my memory; all I can hear is that dreadful farfisa organ.

Best in class Southern boogie rock. Comparing the demos to the album cuts, you can hear how well prepared the band was to record (with arrangements detailed and honed), but also how well Al Kooper recorded the band, getting a great sound out of them without polishing off the things that make the band great. But it doesn't really speak to me that much. I don't understand the appeal of Freebird (except for the blistering solos at the end, which are, rightly iconic)

Captain Beefheart is an artist that has been on my list for trying to get into. I've tried to listen to Troutmask Replica a few times, with little success. It is the musical equivalent of Joyce's Ulysses; lauded by some, but impenetrable and difficult. Maybe starting with Troutmask is jumping into the deep end too soon, so I was glad to see this come up on the list. I wanted to give the Captain a real chance with a more approachable record. So, sitting down to really listen (and I listened through three times), this album I really liked. It sounds like some of the edgier rock of 1967 (Zappa, Velvets), but more firmly rooted in the blues. The Captain's vocals are surreal and gruff (obviously influence on later Tom Waits), but not so far out into left field as to be incomprehensible. MVP is Ry Cooder, whose playing is superb, and you can tell the songs that he did the arrangements for. Standout tracks: Sure Nuff 'n Yes I Do, Dropout Boogie, Electricity, Plastic Factory and the cover of Grown So Ugly. Enjoyed, would listen again, and feeling better prepared for Troutmask when it turns up on the list.

Ah, Napalm Death... I appreciate that they exist, and I am sure they were heaps of fun live, but do I really want to sit down and listen to this album? It is hilariously badly recorded; guitars awash with chorus (side a), bass like a fart, cookie monster vocals and cymbals, cymbals everywhere. So many cymbals... Confession time; my band in the 90s did a Napalm Death inspired song, that ran to 15 seconds. At one memorable gig at Macquarie University, we played it nearly a dozen times in row, which we thought was hilarious. The audience was less impressed. I admire the pace and energy, and I love the commitment to brevity. "You Suffer" is a landmark in that respect. Much is stated of their 'socially aware' lyrics, but I mean, really, how can you tell? And it all starts sounding pretty similar after 10 or 15 songs, especially the less developed material on side b. In truth, you only ever need to listen to one Napalm Death song, and that is their cover of "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdkdR92a7dU

This has been on my want-to-buy list for a while, and an album I occasionally spin on streaming. Creepy concept aside, I really enjoy this album, with it's laid-back funky feel, terrific string arrangements and crack session band (including Vic Flick, Big Jim Sullivan, Herbie Flowers), with Gainsbourg's gallic cool vocals over the top. It is atmospheric and sexy. This was clearly a massive influence on trip-hop, hip-hop and certain branches of 90s indie (Belle and Sebastian, Stereolab, etc), and was widely sampled or imitated in the 1990s. There is a singular vision to this album, and it almost plays like a suite, book-ended by Melody and Cargo Culte, which are the outstanding tracks. This is an album that takes its time, but doesn't waste your time. Unique and influential, hard to describe. Listening again, this has worked its way up my vinyl want-list priorities.

Mark Deming of AllMusic reviewed the album, stating, "As such things go, it's tight, reasonably well played, the songs kinda sorta have hooks, and Keith Morris is a pretty good frontman, but if you're looking for nuance, you're pretty much out of luck. Then again, if you were looking for nuance in a Circle Jerks album, you've obviously been misinformed as to how this punk rock stuff works" I sometimes enjoy seeing hardcore live, but do not really need to listen to the records. OK. At least it's short.

Another Wu-Tang album. OK, I like the woozy and gritty lo-fi funk feelof the backing tracks of this album; the opening salvo of Shakey Dog, Kilo and The Champ is a fantastic opening. There are a zillion producers across this album, but there is a consistent feel across the album. I suspect that is the influence of Dilla. even though he only produced two tracks, the fingerprints of his time technique is all through this record. And it has the trademark Wu-Tang grittiness and cinematic scale; check out the horn stabs and soulful wailing on Shakey Dog. That said, this has the weakness of most hip-hop albums of its vintage; too long, too many skits, casual misogyny, and I am bored to death with lyrics about drug dealing. There are a few weak tracks in the back end of this record that could easily be edited out, along with all the skits. What is the obsession with skits on hip-hop records? They are NEVER good. Not even the skits on "3ft high and rising" But I will give this three stars for that opening run of songs, which I really dig.

I bought all of the first four PE albums as they were released, and listened to them incessantly. This album is the bookend of their imperial period, when they were unarguably one of the most important bands in the world. Maybe not the masterpiece level of It Takes a Nation of Millions or Fear of a Black Planet, I have a massive love for this record. Reading about it now, they had lost all their programming data for what was supposed to be this album. This explains the more straightforward production of this record, which is not quite the overwhelming a barrage of sound collage as the previous two records. But necessity is the mother of invention, and we have instead a more direct, though no less powerful, production. It is pretty abrasive, noisy and assertive, enhanced by the aggressive scratching of Terminator X. It draws heavily on funk and other black forms, and even their own previous records. It is a new thing, and yet stands on the shoulders of giants. It plants itself firmly in the history of black music. Chuck D has never sounded more authoritative, leavened by Flavor Flav, humorous but not a clown. Flav is angry on this record, and in a way, his numbers (especially I Don't Wanna Be Called Yo N.) are the angriest songs on the record (disguised with a bitter humour). The political message of this record is mature, thought out, and undeniable in its logic and emotional intensity. It is hard to think of a political band of the past 40 years that is both this eloquent and musically powerful. I was going to rate this 4 (for maybe not being on the level of Black Planet and Nation of Millions) but the more I write about it, the more I realise how much I love this powerful, focused, and forceful record. (Favourite song: By the Time I get to Arizona; the funky power of this song is really unique, and shows the way for subsequent productions by Wu-Tang Clan, Dilla, MF Doom etc).

Drive Like Jehu were a band I missed the first time around, although they were theoretically right in my wheelhouse (noisy, heavy, angsty alt-rock). I think it was because this was their first Australian release, and it came out shortly after the record store I worked at, Scratches Records, had closed, and so my need, ability and desire to keep up on new releases had evaporated. And I have subsequently heard the name, but never heard any of their songs until now. Reading about this filled me with foreboding. Terms like "proto-emo" and "math rock" inspired some dread. I don't really like either of those things. Too much empty posturing and calculation for my taste, which (despite loud guitars) can get in the way of the Rock. I like the Rock. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I started playing this. It felt noisy and spontaneous, and while it has some of the characteristics of math-rock (changes in time signatures and tempo, some intricate guitar arrangements), this was a loud and energetic burst of adrenaline and squalling noise, that felt like they were playing by the seat of their pants. I like that, Noisily and viscerally recorded, when the record stated playing, I was was sure that it must have been a Steve Albini recording. I am still shocked that it isn't. It has his trademark sound of an unadorned and unfussy production that doesn't get in the way of the band sounding like a band. It reminds me of some slightly earlier records like God Machine's "Songs from the Second Storey" or the Murder Inc. S/T album, which got a lot of play in my house in 1992. In fact, I can imagine that if this record had come out in 1992, I would have been a fan. But I'm not 22 any more. I am an old man with tired ears, and I find this album exhausting. I quite like the track Luau (which has a bit more light and shade than most of the record), By the end of the record, it all is sounding like a big noisy shouting match, and I am done. I'm giving this 2.5, rounding up to 3 because I imagine that my younger self might have quite liked this.

I've struggled with what to say about Thin Lizzy. I came across a review of the Jailbreak album by Marty Sartini Garner (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/thin-lizzy-jailbreak/) which helped me bring my feelings into focus, and really applicable to Live and Dangerous. I shall now quote liberally: "Like many songs of its era, “The Boys Are Back in Town” evangelizes the poseur myth of rock’n’roll: It wants you to believe that the music can whisk you away from who you actually are. … Thin Lizzy’s unwavering belief in their power as a band and the simple joy they get from playing together is so strong, it nearly makes the legend feel like it’s worth believing in, no matter if you know how all of these stories pan out. Who wouldn’t want to feel this free, even if the freedom dies the moment the record’s over? …. The band is simply too happy, too taken by how much they enjoy what they’re doing—both the music they were making and the way it allowed them to see themselves—for the power and aggression of these songs to come across as truly dangerous or liberating. … In effect, it turned the band into something like professional wrestlers working the circuit—the muscles they flex are real, the fights themselves aren’t, and they can still feel the humming in their bodies for days afterward. They knew how to use this to their artistic advantage. On its surface, [“Jailbreak”] serves as a warning shot, the cry before the battle: “Tonight there’s gonna be trouble,” Lynott promises. It’s tough-guy shit, but it’s impossible to believe. All four of them are strutting, making a show of how easily they can control their power. This swagger—the knowingness of it, how plainly they telegraph their pleasure—is absurd; escaping prison has never sounded less risky. The original Thin Lizzy played with David Bowie and Slade, and Lynott’s experience observing expert showmen up close, as well as the band’s own connection with their audience, let them embrace the absurdity of living one’s life as a rock star. It’s a trait they shared with ZZ Top, and it’s what makes Lynott as irresistible on “Jailbreak” as Billy Gibbons is on “La Grange.” He’s clearly having a ball, savoring the posture of the chorus as he leans deep into the words “Don’t you be around,” practically cooing for the listener in a way that is anything but threatening. He obviously wants you to be around. … Lynott enjoyed a reputation as a poetic lyricist, and his rakishness has an air about it that is popularly associated with poetry, or maybe just with poets: He implies a self-contained sensuality, a somewhat tragic devotion to love, a presumed dedication to deeper things. Put another way: He was a little pretentious. It’s certainly a way of saying that his lyrics were usually decent at best, but that pretension makes him a compelling figure; it gives these songs a charge they would lack in hands that weren’t so silky." This really put a finger on what I liked (and also disliked about this album); they have rock and roll swagger to burn. They are tight and heavy, and can swing, and they are having a ball. They play the rock and roll outlaw bad-boy image for all it is worth, although (and this is the key point of the review that spoke to me), _nobody_ really believes it. But they are having a blast, and they are inviting the audience to have a blast with them. I listened through to this, and then checked out the footage of their 1978 gig at the Sydney Opera House (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aif_E102wU&t=2174s), and man, they could tear it up. And the audience seems to be having a pretty great time. How live is this album? While there is certainly some post-production overdubbing and polishing (a lot less than on Kiss Alive, I suspect), this is a great sounding record, and the excitement comes through. I was reading up, and apparently the track Southbound was a soundcheck recording, and you can really hear the difference in energy level. The band is really feeding off the audience, and the energy level is really high. The twin guitar attack is tight and exciting (I enjoyed Robertson and Gorham trading fours on Emerald), and helps establish the blueprint that clearly influential on New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the bands that develop after that. Producer Tony Visconti has given the whole album a terrific sheen without compromising on the visceral excitement. Thin Lizzy had toured with Slade and Bowie prior to this, and learned a lot about stagecraft. Apparently Chas Chandler (then Slade's manager) threatened to throw Thin Lizzy off the tour because of Phil Lynott's poor stage presence and lack of interaction with the audience. How far he came in just a few years! You can hear on this record (and see on the Opera House footage) how he could work a crowd. Clearly, they were a terrific live band and a really great night out, I'm sure. It's a pity the songs are a bit weak. Well played, but a bit rote, and clearly just posturing at being dangerous. This also suffers from the problem of most double albums; too long, too much filler. Given their tendency to rely on their arrangements, this could have easily been trimmed to a tight and terrific single album, where the lack of variety would not have been quite as evident. Still, highlights for me include Jailbreak, Emerald, Massacre, Still in Love with you (cheesy though it might be), Suicide, and, of course, The Boys are Back in Town. Surprising cameo from Huey Lewis on harmonic on Baby Drives Me Crazy, a purely filler audience participation song that I would cut in a heartbeat. So, I found this album energetic and fun while listening to it, but it dissolves like fairy floss as soon as it is over. Three stars.

This records gets me really fired up. It gives me as much of an adrenaline thrill as it did when it first came out. I love the industrial repetitiveness, the crunchy guitars, metronomic beats, angry yelling, all undercut with sarcasm and humour (most notably on Jesus Built My Hotrod). It takes me back to the early 90s, when this was on constant rotation in my share house, and was a key inspiration for my own industrial band. I love this record. It's the best industrial metal album of all time (with the possible exception of the 1990 live Ministry album). There's not really any _songs_ on this album; it is just one monstrous beat with slight variations on the same one-chord speed metal riff played across the whole album sprinkled with distorted yelling and the occasional sample. By the end of the album, they have even run out of yelling. It is a simple and repetitive idea, but it sure gets the blood pumping. I saw them touring this album at Selinas in January 1995, and they were tight and heavy and just what you'd expect them to be like. Awesome! Does everyone need to hear and love this album? No, they don't. It doesn't contain much to say about the human condition (except for the thrilling power of anger). The years have not been kind to Al Jourgensen and his crew of industrial outlaws; the hard living (especially hard drug use) has killed or enfeebled most of them. Uncle Al himself is a bit of a joke these days, and time has rendered the rebellious posturing of Ministry to be a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. I'm not sure it has all dated well At least this album isn't as bad, mostly, as the unfortunately titled "Land of Rape and Honey" album from 1988. But I love it. It gets me fired up.

Jeez, whose dick did Mike Ladd suck to get on this list? The terrible rapping over amateurish home recordings has very little to recommend it. Oh, and the appalling falsetto warbling at the end of Planet 10 is just flat out bad. The occasional guest appearance of a real rapper with flow, skills and charisma highlights the shortcomings of Mr Ladd. I am angry that this time-wasting compilation of half-arsed demos was included in the list. It does, however, feature prominently in my forthcoming book "A Million Albums You Can Happily Ignore For The Rest Of Your Life". (A note to Mr Ladd, on the off-chance you have googled himself and come across this review: your record is not hateful. But, if you search your heart of hearts, you know. You_know_ this is not one of 1001 albums that you should hear before you die. )

OK, nice enough. Pleasant, if slightly forgettable tunes, and cheerful 60s production. My Portuguese is sadly lacking, so I can't really get the impact of lyrics. The music is light and frothy and upbeat and cheesy, with a Latin swing that is fun. Pleasant enough, but doesn't really grab me.

This is probably the most perfect pop-metal album ever made. And that is not a good thing. Polished within an inch of its life, this is just bloodless and over-long to me. Steve Albini was right when he said if you assemble perfect parts together, it doesn't make a sexy rock record. \"Perfection\" really doesn't do it for me. I know it sold a gazillion copies, and I am glad it exists, if only to prove why this approach doesn't work. It is charming enough not to be loathsome, but I really don't need to listen this again. although sitting through 45 minutes of this is boring and like eating an entire cheesecake. A single piece is a tasty treat, two is too much, and a whole cheesecake will make you want to vomit and never eat cheesecake again). I can't believe that there is a ANOTHER Def Leppard album on this list. Why two, for god's sake? What else do they have to offer? (Note: this is the same review that I gave to Def Leppard's Hysteria album. They are, for the purposes of this list, interchangeable records.)

Everyone in my family sings along in the car with "It's the End of The World As We Know It" when it comes on the radio. The singles from this album (End of the World, The One I Love, and Finest Worksong) are probably three of the best rock songs that REM ever released. The rest of the album is pretty good, with fair tunes, although the lyrics teeter on the border between opaque and nonsensical. At least they are not bone-headedly dumb (like the Def Leppard record that I reviewed yesterday). This was the first of REM's string of albums with producer Scott Litt that were their most commercially and critically successful. He took their previously muddy production aesthetic and cleaned it up. Nothing revolutionary; clear production, muscular guitars and drums, and mixing the vocals further towards the front. The more focused approach made it evidently clear that REM were a pretty tight and accessible rock band, capable of mainstream success and radio play. It's no surprise that Nirvana's record company later asked Litt to mix some tracks from In Utero to make them more appealing for radio play. REM have enough depth that you didn't feel like an idiot listening to them even though their lyrics are more impressionistic than literal. Maybe that allows the listener more scope to project their own meaning onto the canvas?. It does leave them open to misinterpretation (The One I Love is a stalker anthem commonly mistaken for a love song), or just puzzled listeners (I mean, what they hell do the words of Lightnin' Hopkins mean?). A better-than-average album, with three or four standout tracks.

oh, hell yes! Here's a record that got a LOT of play in the first share house I lived in; this and Greatest Hits (1970), which has about a 50% overlap with Stand! This mix of funk, soul, R'n'B and rock is infectious and exhilarating, even more than 50 years since its first release. I won't deny that Sex Machine is 13 minutes of filler on an otherwise tight and catchy 41 minute album. And the songs are _so_catchy. Stand!, Sing a Simple Song, I Want To Take You Higher, Everyday People and You Can Make It If You Try are all classics. Many have become standards. Within a year of the release of this album, songs have been covered or referenced by Jimi Hendrix, Ike and Tina Turner, Miles Davis, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Jackson 5, the Meters, Booker T. and the MGs. The songs on this album have been sampled hundreds or possibly even thousands of times, which makes their influence continuous to today. Prince was clearly influenced by the multi-racial, diverse gendered, and multi-genre approach of the Family Stone. The influence of this record was both instant and long lasting, and permeates much of what we do. Even down to the way that Larry Graham is laying the foundations for what funk bass playing should be. He is just starting to develop slap bass, brought to its early peak on Thankyoufalletinme (Me Mice Elf Again) the following year. You can see how important Sly & The Family Stone were at the time. Their appearance at the Summer of Soul Festival is clearly the high point of the festival for the audience, and you can see where they are pushing black music and musicians. If you watch the Summer of Soul documentary (highly, highly, highly recommended), you can see that many bands are still wearing matching suits and playing in an R'n'B style, although the beginnings of funk are starting to appear. And then out come the family Stone in their funky freak clothes, and tearing it up with their mix of rock and soul and funk. Some audience members talk about how they threw away their wardrobes and bought new clothes after seeing Sly & the Family Stone. You can see the influence they have on Hendrix and Stevie Wonder and P.Funk and the Motown bands and everyone. Their music, their fashion, their attitude, their arrangements, their inclusiveness. And the songs, those amazing songs. In 2012, I was in New York for a few weeks, when I saw that Larry Graham was playing a free lunchtime gig in a park in Brooklyn. I dragged the family down there, and he tore it up! At the end of the set he played a bunch of Sly songs, and those songs still have the power to raise the roof (even in an outdoor venue). Look at the sober, lunchtime crowd reacts to I Wanna Take You Higher. Still one of the greatest shows I have even seen. You can see some highlights at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuWUfI0z51U Here's another video, where at 1:35 you can see Ed and Alfie (briefly) onstage dancing with the band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_b-yv9h7Q Good times!

This is a massive survey of Janelle Monae and her (many, many) ideas and (plethora of) influences. It's like every idea she ever had, all highly polished in their baroque finery and glossy perfection. There are some cracking tunes on here (Cold War and Tightrope in particular), but I found the overwhelming quantity of stuff in this feast too rich for my blood. And it is all so much! Overtures! Psychedelic interstitials! Cabaret! Madrigals! Jazz! String quartets! Choirs! Orchestras! Pyrotechnic rock guitar solos! Some is good, but more is better! I love her voice; and when the songs are a little more stripped back (eg Say You'll Go), you can really hear the quality of it. I wish she would just simplify a bit. Less high concept, fewer embellishments in the arrangements, just a bit more straightforward. A little bit more... human. I guess that runs against the 'artistic vision'... Instead of being a jewel box, it is a massive treasure chest. Trying to consume this whole album is like eating a 5kg box of chocolates in a single sitting. I needed to consume this is small portions.

Having recently listened to Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous, Iron Maiden's self titled album does not seem like quite much of a revolution. It's an evolution of 70s hard rock; raspy hard rock vocals, twin lead guitar attack, speed and punk-like energy. It doesn't swing quite as much as Thin Lizzy. I always thought that Iron Maiden were the most British-sounding band; the rhythms are much more marching band than rock and roll swing, which undercuts the swagger a bit. And this record sounds like it was recorded through a cardboard tube. Paul Di'Anno's vocal limitations show up on occasion, along with the odd fluffed guitar solo. The one song that stands out to me is Phantom of the Opera, which has a complex, prog-like arrangement, without losing its rock and roll energy. This points to where New Wave of British Heavy Metal and its American offshoots (thrash and speed metal, in particular) will head, but is a bit of an outlier on this record which tends towards hard rock cliche. At least it isn't as bad as Def Leppard, who embraces the cliches and ride them all the way to the bank. This album burst onto the mainstream in 1980, which just shows how this kind of metal had been bubbling under the surface for a few years, and this was the first time the public really noticed. There are better examples of this genre (even just suggesting Maiden's Number of The Best, which is also on this list). Side note: I keep reading about the 'punk' influences in NWOBHM. I don't really get it. It is certainly less cerebral than a lot of early-mid 70s rock, especially prog rock, and embraces a loud and unvarnished sound, although it does not reject musical technique int eh same way punk declared. I think it shares an energy, DIY ethos and relative lack of pretension with punk (probably driven by similar rejection of the mainstream), but I don't get that they are the same. And Steve Harris from Iron Maiden seems to agree with me. He claims he always hated punk. Two stars for the album, and an extra half for Phantom of the Opera. Rounded down. Sorry, dudes.

Is this one of those ones where you had to be there? I like the more punk tracks, like'I Against I', but the more metallic songs are technically accomplished, but I find less compelling. Do I need it a bit rougher edged? Do I want some more intense attitude? Is it just paler in comparison to what I was expecting? I was expecting something wilder. I can hear that this predates Living Colour by a year or two. Hired Gun could totally be a Living Colour song. But not quite as catchy.

I have loved this record since it came out. The songs are, perhaps, not that strong, but the production and mood lifts this into the all time classic range. Its a night in the clubs, with the chill-out come-down at the end. The spaced-out, dubbed-out, extended dance mix production turn this into an album that I can listen to over and over again. Loaded is a staple of my DJ sets, but in context, event he weaker songs on this album work because of the way they contribute to the mood and journey of the record. love it.

Hard to know what to make of this record: it is just a bit too over-worked for my taste. Massively influential, in its way. The mix of samplers and synthesizers with acoustic instruments sounds great, but the songs are so complex and over-worked that I struggle with this in the same way I struggle with prog. The fretless bass dates the production somewhat. A bit too clever-clogs, humourless and emotionally distant. It doesn't really move me. I was thinking 2.5 stars, but the title track makes me feel icky. Her take on Aboriginal issues is perhaps well meaning, but ultimately embarrassing and insensitively executed (this song was originally titled "the Abo Song". Some promo copies of the single are so titled). Didgeridoo playing from well known pervert (and absolutely not-Aboriginal) Rolf Harris. So, we're rounding down.

Jesus, this album is just exhausting. And it sounds _bad_. Apparently, Lars and James now claim that the dry, clicky drums and complete lack of bass were deliberate choices. Or maybe they were an accident, having trashed their hearing touring. Or maybe it was out of spite to make newly recruited bass player Jason Newstead inaudible. Does it matter why? It was a bad choice and all of the potential reasons are bad. It has always amazed me that James Hetfield has managed to drag three mediocre musicians into superstardom, against all the odds. I really struggled to get through this album. I know that my mate Tim and I used to listen to it when it first came out, but, apart from 'One', I had no memories of this record. Not one memorable song. And, having just listened to it afresh, I still can't remember any of the songs, apart from 'One'. I am so tired.... No more 80s metal, please...

I was more familiar with Guru's solo Jazzmatazz albums (which I am pretty sure we sold at Scratches back int he day), although I remember some of the singles from this. I like Guru's laid back style and the jazzy, funky and inventive. It is nice to get away from the very aggressive and shout-y tenor of most 90s hip hop, and this is less violent and misogynistic than most. Guru's flow is sometimes a bit awkward, but he is so charismatic that he can sell even his clunkiest bars. I enjoyed listening to this, although not much stuck in my memory. If I wanted to play this vibe, I would be much more likely to spin Guru's solo work.

This is where the Eurythmics realize that they can write an all-time classic song (Sweet Dreams), and a pretty great single (Love is a Stranger). Most of the album, though, is pretty stripped back, showing that most of the album is in fact a home recording on 8-track tape. That stripped back 80s synth pop sound can be pretty, althpough (as Robert Christgau points out) it can be a bit pretentious. I disagree that it is overwhelmingly pretentious, certainyl compared to a lot of the stuff comign otu from similar bands (see the contemporous parody from Not the Nine O'Clock News; Lufthansa Terminal 'Nice Video (Shame About the Song)': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FhYOcf2_5Q). It really isn't that bad. And besides, it is nice to have a pop song that doesn't make you feel slightly lobotomized just for listening to it. I like the stripped back production. J'Jennifer' really reminds me of the Kills, a band I really like, and they must be influenced by the earlier Eurythmics. That said, I could live without the weird cover of Wrap It Up. This sounds like it was intended to be a single, but fortunately never was released as such. Annie Lennox's voice, which is one of the great pop voices of the 80s. Her range of tone and ability to convey the drama of a song lift the Eurythmics well above the standard of similar bands of their vintage. You can hear how close they came to not making it. If it wasn't for Sweet Dreams (the 4th single from the album!), I suspect they would have disappeared into relative obscurity. I find this album pretty listenable, although Sweet Dreams and Love is a Stranger are clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the record. It was very pleasing that they took the lessons of those tracks and produced a string of incredibly strong singles over the next decade or so. I was talking to Shawn just yesterday about how the 1001 list leans heavily towards classic rock and is criminally short of female artists. This piece of fresh, smart, female-fronted pop arrived just in time to save me from the hell of Stephen Stills and everything he stands for. It's a 3.5 stars album for me, rounded up because it turned up on the list in the nick of time. Thanks, Annie, much appreciated.

So many hardcore albums on this list! Really, hardcore is a bit of a niche genre, so we really don't need quite so many records. But, if you are going to listen to one hardcore album, this really is the one. Focused, aggressive, and pretty well recorded (for the time and budget, and certainly within the genre). Greg Ginn leads the band with (relatively) inventive playing, and a pleasing amount of noise. This is Henry Rollins' first album with Black Flag, and he is a charismatic and powerful vocalist, and can project both focused anger and sarcastic humour. Why anyone (including Black Flag) ever bothered recording another hardcore album, I just don't know. But, while I really would have loved to see Black Flag live in 1981, I do not need to listen to this, or any other hardcore albums, ever again.

Queen. I love Queen they are awesome. Way, way, way over the top, because nothing exceeds like excess. This is my mate David Lewis' favourite Queen album, and that is saying a lot. See his Queen summary here: https://www.toppermost.co.uk/queen/ This record is where they worked out how to use the studio to get their trademark sounds; layers of harmony vocals, orchestras of overdubbed guitars, weird sounds and tape effects, all more more more. They really perfected the techniques that built the sound they used to conquer the world through the 70s on this record. But, the songs just aren't really there. Sorry, Dave. I have listened to this through about four times in a row today (ad I know I have listened to it several times before. I own a copy). But I just can't remember any of the songs. There are a few good riffs that come and go quickly, but everything is so overdone, and overblown, I'm just overpowered. I much prefer the (slightly) more stripped down hard-rockin' Sheer Heart Attach, or, conversely, the even more over the top A Night At The Opera, which has far far better songs, and a bit more light and shade. Fun fact: the working title of Queen II was "Over The Top". I love this review from Pitchfork (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15221-reissues/), which encapsulates my feelings about the band: "Fucking Queen. For all their reported bombast, pomp, and tendency to overshoot and double-slaughter any semblances of good taste, everything you've heard about them is still true. They're one of the few phenomena who deliver on the hype, regardless of how you approach them. Hate or love proggy album suites? Doesn't matter, Queen will make you feel good about your choice. Can't stand operatic drama, or can't get enough unitard-clad frontmen? Love to hate prime 1970s hard rock with arena sheen? Welcome to the greatest/most horrible band of the 20th century. They did and wanted it all. Yet, so much of Queen's music is still under-recognized even by people who know and love the hits." Robert Christgau (http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=queen) was a bit more succinct: "Queen II [Elektra, 1974] Wimpoid royaloid heavoid android void. C-" On this record, they are working it out, how to do The Sound. It took a while to learn how to simplify their songwriting (mostly) and how to apply The Sound to best effect. Great moments, but tedious hours.

Pleasantly funky and reasonably positive dance/hip-hop/indie crossover thing. Lyrics are nothing to write home about, but has a positive (if slightly superficial) vibe. Tends to blend into a funky wash. I'm sure they were fun live. Sample choice is exquisite, and they are tastefully deployed (which is certainly much better than most early 90s equivalents), which make this album sound less dated than many of its contemporaries. I like Connected, which is a great single, but the album is more of the (pretty good) same.

Sooooooooo 1980s. This album is totally of its time, but still sounds really damn great. The production and recording quality is second to none, and really serves the excellent songs. I know they feel Everybody Wants To Rule the World was a throw-away, quick and dirty (minimal) effort, but they were at the height of their powers and it kicks arse. (Fun fact: this was the first 7" that Sascha ever bought). Everybody..., along with Shout and Head Over Heels provide hooky anchors to this lean yet expansive, experimental yet commercial, personal yet cinematic album. A pop highwater mark of the decade My favourite bit: right at the end of Head Over Heels (just on 4.00) where he sings "Funny how..." and then all the instruments drop out and he continues "time flies...." acapella, his voice slathered in reverb and a big wide phaser. It's best on the single, which just ends like that. Magic.

I was really bored by this tango nuevo album. Too much nuevo, not enough tango. This is overly intellectual jazz for me. The constantly swooping violin was annoying. And I am unconvinced that marimba really helps. So, after a while listening, I thought, this really reminds me of the theme to the Terry Gilliam film "12 Monkeys" (1995), that I always enjoyed. And sure enough Suite Punta Del Este by Astor Piazolla. But that piece is not performed on this album. Plus, he wrote the classic Libertango, adapted with lyrics by Grace Jones as"I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)", a really fantastic song. But also, not on this album. And apparently he wrote an amazing piece in memory of his father, "Adios Nonino", that is a classic of the tango genre. Not on this album. So, this album seems like a weird choice on the list. It's an atypical performance by a classic composer and innovator within his genre that doesn't contain many of his most famous and genre-defining compositions. But check out the wild life on Astor Piazolla. his wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Piazzolla) is a fascinating read. Some highlights: - "Gardel invited the young bandoneon player [Piazolla] to join him on his tour. Much to Piazzolla's dismay, his father decided that he was not old enough [he was only 14] to go along. The disappointment of being forbidden to join the tour proved to be fortunate, as it was on this tour in 1935 that Gardel and his entire orchestra perished in a plane crash" - "Having disbanded his first orchestra in 1950 he almost abandoned tango altogether as he continued to study Bartok and Stravinsky and orchestra direction" - "[After a classical concert in 1953] At the end of the concert, a fight broke out among members of the audience who were offended by the inclusion of two bandoneons in a traditional symphony orchestra." - "Piazzolla's new approach to the tango, nuevo tango, made him a controversial figure in his native land both musically and politically." A politically controversial tango composer! - He collapsed in 1990, and spent the last two years of his life in a coma. - There is an airport in Argentina named after him. I would totally watch a movie about the life of Astor Piazolla. And I was pleasantly surprised to find out I was familiar with a few pieces of his work. But this album was not enjoyable for me, and I never intend to listen to it again. A missed opportunity by 1001 albums to select a properly representative work.

So, usually, I don't like things that are too smooth and polished. I like a little bit of grit. But this album is an exception. I really love it. I love her voice; smooth and airy, no over-singing, just a little bit of breathiness. The lyrical content, I think, adds just that little bit of frisson. The romantic situations described a bit seedy, a bit gritty. I was interested to read that, because they were working at a relatively inexpensive studio without automation, they recorded live and with six people working the faders to mix, so I think there is a touch more human feel than something recorded to the grid, with samples and lots of synths and super smooth mixing. This sits right on the line between smooth jazz that becomes wallpaper lite and a laid back, mellow reverie. A quiet storm. I think this is on the right side of that line, and set a path for a whole range of British jazz-inflected music to come (Soul II Soul, trip hop, etc). Really, though, the reason I love this album is because my first girlfriend really liked it, and we listened to it a lot together. So, some fond memories there.

I love this album. It is the ultimate P-Funk album. It is surprisingly laid, with heaps of space to let the music breathe. Everyone is stretching out a bit, and it is the band at the height of their powers; Bernie Worrell on keys, Bootsy on bass and recent escapees from the JBs Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker on horns. everyone's singing, and they give each other enough space. It's fun and funny, and profound and aware, and funky and playful and laid-back. The soloing is surprisingly challenging, which means there is always something new to listen to. I love this record, and have played it hundreds of times in my life, and probably will hundreds of times more. I find the songs are almost more chants or rhymes or monologues than songs-proper, but I love the way this holds together as an album. Rolling Stone reviewed it at the time as a \"parody of funk\", but I think that shows much Rolling Stone didn't get it then, although they have since acknowledged it on their list of Top 500 albums ever. I wish I had seen this band playing at this point in time, with their Mothership stage prop descending to the stage. The Mothership now resides on permanent display at the Smithsonian. As it should be. And the album is the funkiest slab of wax in the Library of Congress. As it should be. It is almost too much fun to be a classic.

When I signed up for this project, I was expecting more albums of this kind of stature and reputation. Despite constant prodding from my mate Dave Lewis to give the Band some attention, they have largely sat on my back-burner. I mean, I've seen the Last Waltz, I know the hits, I even have a favourite deep cut ("Don't Do It", probably the funkiest thing they ever recorded). And I've certainly read a thousand hagiographic magazine articles about Music from Big Pink. I know the legends, and this is a legendary album from a legendary band. _The_ Band. So what is it like to sit down and properly listen to Music from Big Pink? Well, I can certainly hear how this was massively influential in both song-writing and production approach. And like many super-influential albums, they were followed by a few people who did it better, and a whole lot of crappy imitators playing terrible and increasingly pale carbon copies o this records. Can't deny the song-writing (for the most part); The Weight, three previously unheard (except on bootleg) Dylan classics from the Basement Tapes, Chest Fever, and a cover of Lefty Frizzell's Long Black Veil. Chest Fever is my favourite performance on the album. But the recordings border on demos in some cases, although is that part of the charm of it? Despite the legends of being developed int eh basement of Big Pink (the house in upstate NEw York), I gather from wikipedia that this was actually mostly recorded in some of the most prestigious studios in America at the time (A&R in New York, and Capitol and Gold Star in LA). And here comes my blasphemous opinions; a lot of the singing is pretty weak (especially Richard Manuel), and I have never really rated Robbie Robertson's playing. This album is, possibly, a bit over-rated. And the cover art is _rubbish_. There, I said it. But it really is hard to judge an iconic album like this; so much of what has come since has been shaped by it; "authentic" production, band dynamics, the embrace of American roots styles, country-soul... And I do love that it isn't polished to the point that there is no life left in it, unlike so many albums. I can respect it, but I don't know that I really love it. I'm glad I have given it some proper attention. See Dave, I told you I would, eventually.

Pleasantly old school and not homophobic, misogynistic or hyper-violent. MCs have great flow, production is funky. Enjoyed even more after multiple spins. My favourite bit is the last 10 seconds of "After School Special", when the kid from the introduction comes in and spits a few bars. I would totally listen to a whole track of that kid.

Talking Heads is a band that changed everything for me after hearing Remain in Light. This is the beginning of their amazing four album run with Brian Eno, although the thing that really elevates this from their first album is the way that Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz embrace dance music, moving the whole sound to a funkier place. This is not my favourite Talking Heads album. It might not even scrape into my top five (depending on whether you count bootlegs or not). But a bloody great record it is, and it is great to hear a band with a really fresh outlook finding its feet, and looking out to the future. And you can dance to it!

I've always thought that I _should_ like Stereolab, and I have checked in on some of their records in the past, but hadn't found the album that really grabbed me. And then I heard this. This is the shit. A mixture of krautrock, 60s French girl pop (having a French girl singer helps heighten that impression, but it is not a lazy comparison; they really sound like that), with inflections of jazz, easy listening, funk and the Velvet Underground. T his is the record I have been always been wanting from Stereolab. And I finally found it! yes, yes, yes. I knew this project would be worthwhile.

Faith No More grabbed my attention when I first heard their first single (At least, the first one released in Australia); We Care A Lot. In 1987 I traipsed down to the Virgin Megastore and plonked down my hard=earned for a copy of the 12", pressed on criminally flimsy 80s vinyl. it was so thin, I initially thought there wasn't a record inside the cover. That single was later stolen from a share house I lived in, and I wish I knew what bastard took it so I could explain to them in short, percussive terms how displeased I was. I managed to pick up a 7" copy to replace it quiet recently. I should pull that out and give it a spin... This album was released in late 1989. My mate Tim and I loved it, and used to play it a _lot_. It was a point of reference for the band we were trying to form. So, when FNM announced an Australian tour, playing at the (tiny) Marquee Club in Camperdown, we jumped on tickets. That must have been in about March 1990. In July, they released Epic as a single, and it went gangbusters. It entered the chart at #22, about two weeks before the gig on 5 August. But the end of the month it was #1 on the ARIA charts. Needless to say, the shows became a very hot ticket. Everyone suddenly wanted them, and Tim and I had them. I could not wait for this show; much anticipation. And then the day before the gig, I started coughing. By the afternoon of the show, I could barely stand with some horrible pneumonia-like chest infection. Despite being 19 and generally feeling invincible, even I could tell that going to the show would probably kill me. So Tim scalped my ticket and made a tidy profit. He said the show was a fantastic, but I missed it. I still regret that I didn't see them in a small club at the height of their powers., when I was _that close_. But I still love this whole album. It's basically a bludgeoning metal album, although the rhythm section swing a bit more than a typical 80s metal band, and they don't take themselves too seriously (which immediately makes them more listenable than, say, Megadeth). There are tunes you can sing along with, Mike Patton is a charismatic front man, and the keys lift the arrangements (even if the cheesy digital synths are hilariously of their time). The influence of musical genres outside of straight metal help maintain interest without descending into willfully "weirdo" genre-hopping pastiche or collage (cf Mr Bungle, Mike Patton's other band). There were other bands doing similar things (Fishbone, Living Colour, Bad Brains), so it was hardly unique, but it was well done, and certainly more listenable than most of the horrible rap-rock that followed. or "nu-metal", even worse. This was one of the first initial pre-shocks of 80s alternative busting into the mainstream. Nirvana really kicked the doors down, but bands like Faith No More were among the vanguard. And I really dug it when I was 19. I enjoyed revisiting it now, 30 years later. I miss Tim, and this album reminds me of him.

It is hard to say anything new about Aretha, at the height of her amazing powers here. Even the filler tracks ("Niki Hoeky", anyone?) are funky and she sings the hell out of every song, and there is a reason the standout tracks from this record are absolute classics. An unambiguous five-star all-time classic album. I could listen to this every day. Damn it, I _should_ listen to this every day. Most surprising moment; her two whoops right at the end of "Good as I am to you"

This is my favourite U2 album. I (generally) find them a bit bombastic and earnest, a bit too polished and almost completely devoid of swing. But this is the record where they discovered noise, irony and even a modicum of funk. I love industrial music, so the noisy, industrial production style really appeals to me. And, despite the deliberately trashy presentation, there are some really strong songs here, including One, which I would argue is the best song they ever wrote. I saw U2 once in the early 2000s, and I was surprised at how closely Bono stuck to the vocal arrangements from the records, occasionally throwing in snippets of other songs (with mixed results) to try and keep things fresh, but I really got the impression that, despite his great pipes, he doesn't think on his feet particularly quickly in a musical sense. I suspect in the studio he works really hard until he finds the best performance, and that is generally locked in forever. But when he sang One, I felt that this was a song he deeply understood, musically, and it was not just a replaying of the record. His performance was much more fluid and in the moment. While not nearly as hard-edged as a lot of the records I was listening to when this came out (Einsturzende Neubauten, Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, etc etc), this had the advantage of having really great songs at the core (which you would certainly not accuse Skinny Puppy of. The only late 80s, early 90s industrial band with really good songwriting was Nine Inch Nails). I listened to this album a lot when it first came out, and is still probably the first U2 album I would pull off the shelf (a close tie with Joshua Tree). I listened to this record a lot, and each track still stands up for me. The songs are less ambitious, global, worthy and important, and much more human and morally ambiguous. There is a quite a bit informed by the Edge's divorce, and the band's own near-divorce. It was a bold swing at a real change, and one that paid off for them, extending their career that had perhaps run out of obvious places to go. Bono is still annoyingly full of himself, but the more self-reflective approach on this album tones that down just enough to be palatable. Interestingly, having heard some of the demos, I think a LOT of the greatness of this album comes down to the production and mixing team of Eno, Daniel Lanois, Flood and Steve Lillywhite, who took some pretty half baked ideas and crafted them into an amazing record. Lanois can record, Eno can edit, Lillywhite can mix, but for my money, the real secret sauce is Flood. This is Flood starting to move into the big time, from the alternative bands he had worked with previously. The band threw everything and the kitchen sink on tape, but it is the editing and mixing that really lifts this into something special (and I think Flood's distinctive work can be clearly heard here). I am noticing how often Flood's name turns up on records from the late 80s and 90s on this list. He gets my Most Valuable Player award.

I've tried with the Replacements, I swear to god I've tried. I just don't really love it. Reviews like this one in Consequence of Sound (https://consequence.net/2008/05/album-review-let-it-be-deluxe-edition/) talk about them as "the only band that matters", and this as the greatest album of all time. But I swear, I have seen a hundred bands playing on a Wednesday night at the Sandringham Hotel in the 80s who were this good or better. Is this the emperor's new clothes, or did you really have to be there? I think the over-the-top adulation really makes it hard for me to approach the Replacements without some immediate resentment. The shitty playing and marginal recording don't offend me, but at least half this album is filler: Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out, Seen Your Video, Gary's Got a Boner, or Black Diamond (a Kiss cover, god help me) to name a few. Reviews describe I Will Dare or Unsatisfied as the second coming of Jesus Lennon, but I don't see it. They're OK, but, you know, not all that and a bag of chips. The only song on here that did anything for me is Androgynous. I feel like the papers are full of conservatives bashing on gender diverse people, and I found this song an unaffected and moving call for tolerance. This album is 2.5 stars for me, rounding up because of Androgynous.

I was not at all familiar with Miriam Makeba's early career. A somewhat strange assortment of material, but I guess this is the concept of "world music" just starting out. I think we could have lived without the novelty songs like "The Naughty Little Flea" or "One More Dance" (especially with that horrible laughing all the way through), but the variety of material (however relevant) shows that she could sing _anything_. What a voice! I could happily listen to her sing the phonebook. The tracks closer to her South African background are the strongest tracks ont he album (The Retreat Song, The Click Song, Mbube, Umhome, Olilili, Nomeva, etc), but even with material from elsewhere, she is controlled, dynamic, and powerful. She has a confident projection in whatever genre she is singing. Enjoyed.

It's all terribly tasteful and melancholic and polished and... sorry, just drifted off there for a minute. Why are there three Pet Shop Boys albums on this list? And of those three, this is probably the most soporific. I guess you could understand this as an elegy at the end of the worst of the AIDS crisis, mourning for friends and lovers lost. Apparently, Neil Tennant didn't come out until 1994 (four years after this album). I'm not quite sure how that was a secret... This album really is incredibly well done, and the singles are OK, but the whole thing is really not my bag.

Just the other day my group was complaining about too many slow and boring albums recently. And now, Motorhead! Live! Motorhead were a one trick pony, really, but what a trick it is! It's loud and fast and raucous and funny and noisy, but mostly loud and fast. I love that 'Capricorn' is introduced as a slow song (by Motorhead standards). They only really play variants on two different riffs, and Fast Eddie only knows one solo, and all the lyrics are interchangeable (and certainly not Shakespeare), but I find this album fun. Unlike most of the NWOBHM, this doesn't take itself too seriously (case in point; "We are the road crew"). This is Motorhead at the height of their powers, doing their thing. It's rougher than their studio recordings, which just heightens the raw rock and roll nature of their (limited) oeuvre. Truth be told, this album really just "Ace of Spades" at the beginning and "Motorhead" at the end, and a bunch of stuff in the middle. Fun, loud, noisy and doesn't outstay it's welcome. This is the one Motorhead album that I actually play, because it is all the best things about Motorhead.

Nice songs, really nicely recorded. I'm not quite sure why Elliott Smith has two albums on the must hear list. It's OK... just OK.

This is probably the most perfect pop-rock album ever made. And that is NOT a good thing. Polished within an inch of its life, this is just bloodless and over-long to me. Steve Albini was right when he said if you assemble perfect parts together, it doesn't make a sexy rock record. So, so polished, and over long. 'Perfection' really doesn't do it for me. I know it sold a gazillion copies, and I am glad it exists, if only to prove why this approach doesn't work. It is charming enough not to be loathsome, but I really don't need to listen this again. Sitting through an hour of this is boring and like eating an entire cheesecake. A single piece is a tasty treat, two is too much, and a whole cheesecake will make you want to vomit and never eat cheesecake again. I can't believe that there is ANOTHER Def Leppard album on this list. Why two, for god's sake? What else do they have to offer? (Note: this is the same review that I gave to Def Leppard's Pyromania album. They are, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable records.)

When I was a young man, with young friends, all prone to heartbreak and relationship drama, we had a sort of ritual. When one of us went through a nasty split (temporary or permanent), we'd chip in to buy a bottle of Jameson's, then then stay up until 3am to drink, commiserate, and play Tom Waits records. Including this album. I really enjoy the mixture of Beefheart-style blues growling and Bukowski-inspired ballads. It's the ballads that really stand out as classics: Jersey Girl (better known in the Springsteen version, perhaps), On The Nickel and Ruby's Arms are all beautiful songs, even when filtered through Wait's increasingly graveled voice.

I never got The Fall, so I thought "here's an opportunity to give them a proper go, listen to whole album, one that is regarded as their best and most accessible. Maybe Mark E. Smith's voice isn't the most annoying bleating you ever heard once you get used to it. Maybe this is not just one of those bands that John Peel fell in love with and played so much that they became a beloved British institution through sheer familiarity, regardless of being complete rubbish. Maybe this is a band so bad that they're good." Nope. Just nope.

I recently listened to Parliament's Mothership Connection (great party album, five stars!), and it is hard to believe that this is from the same P-Funk collective. It is dark and disturbing, and funky, and funny and scary and rocks pretty hard. The title track is one of the most monumental rock guitar solos. It is bold choice to mix out most of the rest of the band, and to lead the album with a ten minute long single take guitar solo. The album is bookended with the much more up tempo, frantic Wars of Armageddon freak out, that pre-sages Miles Davis' electric albums. The songs in the middle are all winners, although darker in tone than typical for P-Funk. Super Stupid in particular is one of my favourite rock songs ever, and certainly the best Hendrix song that he never wrote. Can You Get To That, Hit It and Quit It, and You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks are all classics, and widely sampled. This album is all widely covered and sampled. showing how influential this record is. Half the band quit after this album (although some of them came back), and they never made another album quite this heavy ever again. And it was probably unsustainable. I love it, classic, five stars. (A small anecdote: I bought my copy of this album mail order in the 2000s from Ernie B's Reggae. Ernie B's stocks both kinds of music: reggae and not-reggae. This was a re-issue on the hipster 4 Men With Beards label. And the stamper on one side was misaligned, so the stylus travels and elliptical track and the record audibly goes out of tune. Very annoying. Ernie B's did refund my money, to their credit, but I have not yet managed to replace my unplayable copy of this album. But here's a tip for all you players at home; avoid the 4 Men With Beards pressings.)

Strychinine, Psycho and The Witch are garage classics, and the covers are well chosen (even if no improvement on the original, or even some of the subsequent covers). But it is the delivery that really sells this album. Fast, loud and out of control, lots of distortion and screaming, this is honest, take-no-prisoners garage rock. This is a 29 minute long adrenaline rush, which never lets up. I really enjoy the energy of this record.

Tasteful, gentle, soporific. I was expecting proto-landfill-indie, with completely forgettable tunes, and it was marginally better than that. But I never need to hear this album again in my life. The production is a little bit edgier and interesting than I expected (thanks, Nigel Goodrich), but at best, at its most hard-rockin', this comes across as OK Computer Lite. Actually, I'm just listening to the coda of As You Are, and this is the worst case of Thom Yorke wannabe-ism I have ever heard. I don't hate this, as it is custom made to be un-hatable, but it has no grit at all.

Foundational rock and roll (although he maintained this was rhythm and blues, that he had been playing for 15 years before anyone coined the term "rock and roll"). It's rollicking good time stuff, but, truth be told, he travels a pretty narrow path. There really are only minor variations on two or three tunes here, and it gets a little repetitive. I don't feel like the seminal 50s artists really geta fair shake on this list, with its obsession with original albums (not compilations). While this is a fair representation of Fats Domino at the peak of his powers, but if this took more than an afternoon to knock out in the studio, I'll eat my hat. He really was a singles artist, not an album artist. He had been putting out million-selling singles for over a decade before he released an album. This does have Blueberry Hill on it (an all-time classic), which makes it worth listening to, but I really am stretching to give this more than 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 because this list is biased against artists like Fats.

This is such a great record. My favourite track is Natural's Not In It, but Damaged, At Home He Feels Like a Tourist, and Love Like Anthrax are also bangers. This has been copied a million times since it came, but it still sounds fresh, energizing and surprising to me. Most of the copyists still can't touch this.

Norman Whitfield and the Temptations convince Berry Gordy to try something new, and kick off psychedelic soul. And set the precedent that Motown can do something other than polished 2 minute pop songs. So, this inadvertently gives us a whole genre that takes off int he 70s, plus opens the door for Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder to blow the roof off. Side 1 is terrific with the title track, a psychedelic reading of Heard It Through the Grapevine and the 9-minute freakout of Runaway Child, Running Wild. Side 2 is much more conventional, but still a great listen.

Brian Wilson is no longer on the road, and concentrating on production and songwriting. But he hasn't hit his straps yet, for better and for worse. Help Me Rhonda and When I Grow Up (To Be A Man) are stand-out songs, with Dance Dance Dance and I'm So Young also pretty strong, but the rest of this album barely rises above cliched filler tunes. The harmonies are terrific (with strong incorporation of jazz chords into their doo wop style). and the backing tracks are starting to channel the best parts of Phil Spector production methods, without yet degenerating into the worst excesses that lay around the corner ('Vegetables" anyone?). I think this album gets a critical pass because it is part of the run-up to Pet Sounds, and a progression beyond the more adolescent girls & cars songs that preceded. Not that the concerns of this album are much more mature. Brian Wilson is clearly still trapped in an adolescent fantasy world, and preoccupied with disturbingly young women. But the Beach Boys are really still a singles band at this point (case in point: Help Me, Rhonda is far better on the single version), and the 1001 albums list's obsession with albums precludes the best way to listen to the Beach Boys: i.e., on a single compilation.

Hard to think of a more influential or better alternative album than Doolittle. Peter from Scratches put me onto this album when it came out. I loved it then, and I love it now. I have listened to this so many times that every song is imprinted on me. This is an album that I could listen to every day and hear something new in it. It has all the things I like: noise and aggression, energy and space, anger and melancholy. They really wrote the book on the loud/quiet/loud thing. And the songs are short and punchy, and there are some great tunes on here. Debaser, Wave of Mutilation, Monkey Gone to Heaven and Here Comes Your Man are all classic tunes, plus I have a real soft spot for Hey. To quote Mark Moody in Soudblab: "Whereas so many albums of that era sound tinny and dated, Doolittle, by relying on tried and true instrumentation, pop’s structures and melodies with punk’s energy, along with sweet/salty harmonies, remains as fresh sounding today as it was bracingly college rock ready upon its release. For sheer crank up the volume enjoyment, setting aside whatever might be going on lyrically, Doolittle has to be right at the top of the heap of any indie rock collection." If I had to pick one alternative album to give someone to listen to, I would pick this. A deadset classic. [Peter and I saw the Pixies at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall in the 2014. It was professional and tight and loud, but not as raucous as I would have thought they were in their initial hey-day. Kim Deal was notable in her absence, and there just wasn't the life in it that I was expecting. Not that I begrudge them the right to cash in on their legacy, and they certainly weren't terrible, but it didn't have the spark that this album has. Not a terribly sympathetic venue, perhaps. Might have been better to see them somewhere like the Hordern Pavillion. Or get in the way-back machine to 1989 when they were touring this record at the height of their powers.]

When I was a teenager, I really dug Syd Barrett, so I listened to this album and his solo LPs quite a bit. I enjoyed the mix of whimsical psychedelic pop songs and longer improvisations. The industrial band I was in during the 1990s used to play Interstellar Overdrive often when we needed to pad out sets (especially when played largely improvisational electronic sets for dance parties or similar Clan Analog events). I stopped listening to Syd a long time back. But this album showed me new musical possibilities when I was young, and I enjoyed revisiting this record. Astronomy Domine, Interstellar, Lucifer Sam and Bike are all standout tracks for me.

In the immortal words of David St Hubbins, it's such a fine line between stupid and clever. And this band is right on that line. Were the Happy Mondays a bunch of ham-fisted, untalented, drug-addled chancers who stumbled into a music career as a cover for their ecstasy dealing, or were they the outsider poet geniuses of a new musical scene that melded indie and dance? Well, kind of both... I find Sean Ryder's loose and impressionistic lyrics both infuriatingly stupid and also full of fresh and surprising imagery. He can't really sing, but he can get the point across. The band are technically limited (and that's being a bit generous), and Martin Hammet's (final) production slathers everything in reverb and delays, which suits the dance-clubby vibe. Apparently, the band tried to manage Hammet's alcoholism by keeping him loaded on ecstasy. They didn't really have their own musical ideas: they pilfer and grab musical snippets from wherever, most notably the lift of Taxman for Lazy-Itis. But when they play back their magpie gleanings, they emerge in an idiosyncratic and unfiltered way that actually is something fresh. This accidental innovation is a mixture of lack of musical knowledge, carelessness, low inhibitions, and heavy drug use. I suspect this sounds great if you are off your head on acid. Some of the songs here are really rubbish (Lazy-Itis for example, which, believe it or not, is actually worse in the One Armed Boxer Remix, which is featured in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6otmccrb2c ). The Mondays really hit their straps just after the release of this album when they start teaming up with proper dance remixers like Paul Oakenfold, Vince Clark and Andy Weatherall to start producing really great dance versions, like the W.F.L. 12" or the Hallelujah Club Mix which came out shortly after this record. The dance production really highlights their strengths and covers up their weaknesses as a band (particularly the inept drumming). So, this album may be a musical turning point, but frankly, not the best representation of the curious and specific pleasures of the Mondays at their peak. I'm sure this was great in the Hacienda in 1989, but at the end of the day, all I can really hear is the drugs. So many drugs.

I read Ian Hunter's "Diary of a Rock and Roll Star" when I was a teenager, and all i can remember is a lot of humble-bragging about how tough life is on the road as a rock star. And this is the soundtrack album to that memoir! You can hear how much they learnt from Bowie and Mick Ronson (who produced their previous album), and also the heavy Dylan-esque affectation. It's a pretty good early 70s glam rock sound. I kept having to check that it wasn't Mick Ronson playing on a lot of the songs. But there's nothing here as good as "All the Young Dudes", although they are not afraid to run a (admittedly quite credible) facsimile of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, even down to the "You're not alone" refrain at the end of "Hymn for the Dudes" (lifted from Rock and Roll Suicide").

Elastica have been criticized for recycling hooks from Wire (Connection draws from Three Girl rhumba) and the Stranglers (Waking Up leans on No More Heroes), and I hear Bowie (Lined Up from It's No Game) and the Pixies (S.O.F.T. from Tame). But, in the words of Elvis Costello "It's how rock & roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy." And in all these cases, their broken pieces are tastefully chosen and the new toys are thrilling. Justine Frischmann does do the flat-affect monotone vocal styling that was a feature of Britpop, although she isn't quite as bored as the blokes sometimes seem (I'm looking at you Damon and Liam). But the playing is energetic and straightforward rock and roll. Short, sharp, smart and to the point, there are a bunch of catchy post-punk tracks here with a point of view and something to say, and I really enjoy the listen. They are energetic, muscular, snarky and smart, sexy and stylish and cool as fuck. I listened to this album straight through 3 or 4 times in a row, and it never outstayed it's welcome. The highlight tracks (Stutter, Connection, Car Song, Lined Up, Smile) are numerous, and the whole thing speeds by and is done and dusted before you get the chance to draw breath.

I don't like gangsta rap. Never did. This album is credited with reviving the genre, but is not a strong example of the form. I don't generally rate Dr Dre's production, and there is not much on this album (except In Da Club and possibly P.I.M.P) to change that impression. The album is over-long, monotonous, and self-obsessed. Fiddy is certainly no Tupac, Biggie or Snoop, the rappers he most clearly idolizes. It's cliched and hollow and generally unpleasant. Exception: In Da Club is a bangin' track, but once you've heard Beyonce do it, you'll never need to listen to Fiddy again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvSnSd2-DKY

Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Nirvana's Nevermind, Primal Scream's Screamadelica and Trompe Le Mode by the Pixies were all released int he same week, September 1991. I was working the counter at Scratches Records in Newtown, and we sold a lot of copies of all of those, but this album was certainly amongst the most consistent sellers over the following year as they kept releasing more hit singles. This record was on pretty consistent rotation at the store and at home for the next year or two. I went to the secret gig they _almost_ played at the Lansdowne Hotel after John Frusciante quit the tour in Japan and delayed their tour. Reliable sources said they were had rehearsed a replacement for a few days and would play with the Meat Puppets and Hard-Ons at the Lansdowne. Until an idiot DJ announced the rumour on Triple J late that afternoon, and the band freaked out at the crowds that turned up. I did spot them loitering backstage, but they didn't play. But I caught them when they eventually came back to the Hordern Pavillion a few months later, and they tore it up. By that stage, they had a bunch of hit singles and turned into one of the biggest bands in the world. I played this a lot when it first came out. I had been a fan of Mother's Milk prior to this, and really enjoyed the looser, less polished feel that Rick Rubin brough to this record. It's a little less frenetic than their previous records, and the more organic production suits their playing. "Mellowship Slinky in B Major" or "Suck my kiss" are probably the best examples of the agreeable funky nonsense on offer. Frusciante really is the star player on this record. They were not an intellectual band, but they had feel and energy and charisma at this point in time, and were at the height of their powers. But I am not sure how I feel about it now. The Chili Peppers have not aged well as a band. I have loathed just about everything they released after this record, and the seeds of that deterioration are here in this record. The weak link is Anthony Kiedis. I feel like Under the Bridge is the initial success that convinces Kiedis that he can be a more melodic and 'sensitive' singer, and it is all downhill from there. His lyrics are nearly all terrible, especially when he thinks he is being profound, and the spectacle of a nearly 60 year old man strutting around like Sir Psycho Sexy has progressed past ridiculous into being creepy. So, the 30 years of increasingly terrible music that followed this record has put a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, and I haven't listened to this album is quite a while. But, coming back to it after quite a long break, I can pretend they never did anything after this, and it _is_ a great album, consistently fun and fresh all the way through. I feel bad for denying myself the charms of this record. If you'd asked me in 1992, I certainly would have called this a five star album, and, when I look at those other classic albums released in the same week, it's not out of place with those 4/5 star albums. I think I am going to have to overcome my habitual distaste for what the Chili Peppers now are to (grudgingly) give this five stars, despite Kiedis' terrible lyrics and borderline singing.

This album is so boring. The energy level is consistent and just palls. It is recorded and mixed in such a way that an individual track would pop when played on the radio as the best thing you heard that hour, but listening to the whole album is exhausting. I hate his whiny voice, which just seems like posturing. I hate the arrangements. There is no point. It generically 'rocks', but there is no real grit to it. I'm sure they put on a decent live show (and it seems like they do a lot of live gimmicks), but these songs bore and tire me. I give it a second star because it is energetic and decently recorded. Actually, I think Come See, Come Saw is just a re-write of Know Your Product by the Saints. One star off for plagiarism of a far better song.

Sonic Youth are starting to learn to write songs, rather than just making a helluva noise. Now, don't get me wrong; I enjoy a helluva noise as much as the next man, possibly more. But, seriously, how many Sonic Youth albums do you need? There are five (five!) on this list, and I would argue that they don't really hit their straps until Daydream Nation. This 1001 albums project really likes an album where a band is starting to develop into the changes that would make them great, rather than just sticking to the albums that really are the band at their peak. I was kinda interested in this record, and I didn't hate it, but found it really inessential. The only song that really leapt out of the speakers at me was Bubblegum , which is a cover. There are some arresting soundscapes on here, but their songcraft has a long way to go. Wake me up when it is time to review Daydream or Goo.

Weird. Yesterday's record was EVOL, and I finished my review with "Wake me up when it's time to review Daydream Nation", and very next day here it is. This was the first Sonic Youth album I listened to a lot. I'm pretty sure that Peter Prichard recommended this record to Tim, who bought it and let me make a tape copy. I have since bought my own copy. This is the album where they really started to write songs, without sacrificing the noise. The noise is now in service to the song, rather than just for its own sake, which is the weakness of most of their prior albums, none of which have ever grabbed me. I love noisy song approach, and it still influences what I like in a record (ie, I like some noise). Some great songs on here: Teen Age Riot, Eric's Trip, Kissability, Hey Joni. Steve Shelley is the secret ingredient who keeps everything grounded and rocking. Bless him. And Kim Gordon is too cool for words. I really dig this record. I really enjoyed hearing it again for the first time in a long time, and, despite my well known distaste for long albums, I didn't feel like the double album is too long.

I really wanted to like this. I always _wanted_ to like Pavement. But I just don't hear the tunes. I liked Cut Your Hair (bought the 7"), but everything else I've ever heard from them leaves me kinda 'meh'. I know many fans and critics really dug them, like they were the second coming of whatever, but I never heard it. They sounded like a 1000 shitty bands (and I mean that in a good way. I like a shitty band) that played at the Sandringham Hotel in the late 80s/early 90s. I just didn't get excited by them as much as the hype would lead me to expect. Maybe you needed to see them live? I am grateful for the impetus to listen to this album all the way through (and I listened to it twice), but I cannot for the life of me remember a single thing I heard.

Minimal krautrock/shoegaze/psychedelic songs, with massive (and noisy) orchestral arrangements. The thing that elevates this particular album is the raw emotion of the lyrics. The hurt of lost love, compounded by an unhealthy relationship with drugs, leaves the narrator of this extended suite completely laid bare and vulnerable. The emotion is exhausted, sung in a deadpan delivery as an exhausted calm after the (musical) storm. I was a bit obsessed with this record when it first came out, and I listened to it on continuous play for probably a year. I love that the songs are quite simple, yet played on this maximalist scale. A masterpiece.

It surprises me how quickly Siouxsie and the Banshees evolved from a punk band who couldn't really play their instruments into a polished outfit with a distinct point of view. I This album is really polished and distinct. Some production choices have dated a bit, but it still sounds terrific. I credit John McGeoch as MVP on this record, but it is clearly a team effort. Spellbound is a real stand-out track, but this atmospheric and creepy album has a unified and unique vision. Enjoyed listening to this, but truth be told, if I was going to pull one of their records off the shelf to play, it would the Once Upon A Time singles compilation.

B.B. King is a classy performer, with a crack band, and he knows how to put on a show with his polished uptown blues. This is really the ur-text for a whole class of of by-the-book players (Joe Bonnamassa, I'm looking at you), who play play increasingly bloodless imitations of what B.B.King laid down here. And I really shouldn't blame him for the horrible blues lawyers who came after this, but I can't help but hear it through that lens. I can admire this, but not love it. I like my blues with a _lot_ more grit.

This hits all the sweet sports for rock critic cult album; psychedelic chamber pop, a flop on release in the 1960s, band broke up due to record industry shenanigans, and ripe for rediscovery by rock archivists, and hailed as a forgotten masterpiece. See also: Skip Spence's Oar, Shuggie Otis' Inspiration Information, the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society, Love's Forever Changes, the Beau Brummels' Traingle, the Electric Prunes' I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night, The Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow, Nick Drake, Syd Barret, jeez you could probably name a dozen others.... It's _such_ a cliché., and there are a _bunch_ of them on this 1001 albums list. It's a jones that white boy rock critics just can't resist. It's the cult that sold a million Mojo magazines. And they don't sound that different, you know? That said, this album is a corker. Time of the Season is a dead set classic, and stills leaps out of the speakers as soon as it starts playing. Car of Cell 44 is my other favourite on this record. They could write a cracking tune, beautifully arranged and played, and Colin Blunstone's voice is really great. The album is recorded with that wonderful warm late 60s Abbey Rd sound. This is probably the best of the albums of this type that I have reviewed in this project. A few tracks are a little filler, and Butchers Tale (Western Front 1914) was a bizarre choice of a single. God bless Al Kooper for insisting that the record company release Time of the Season as a third single. Shame about the misspelled album title, though.

oof, this was a tough listen. I like Ice-T. He is smart and charismatic, and I saw him live at the Enmore Theatre in 1989 with my mate Tim, and he was terrific live. I liked the Power album, and some of the Iceberg. But this is not good. It sounds like an early blueprint for gangsta-rap, even though it comes well after Straight Outta Compton and some of the other foundational-texts of the genre. It should sound a lot better than this. He repeatedly refers to himself as the \"O.G.\", and mentions his classic track \"Six in the Morning\" multiple times, which sounds like just trying too damn hard to establish his O.G. status cred. The misogyny is appalling. And he sure loves the n-word (to an almost ridiculous extent). And there is so much flab on this album. Home of the Bodybag, MVP and Ya Shoulda Killed Me Last year (and most of the skits) are just Ice rambling off the top of his head (not even free styling). And so long! At 72 minutes, this could have been significantly edited down, and made a much stronger album. I really wanted to like this, but it's flabby, lazy, repetitive, irrelevant and unpleasant. And Ice-T can be so much more than that. Not his best.

Loud, colourful, fun, unapologetic. This is a punk album that still feels relevant. The simultaneous embrace and critique of consumerism feels very contemporary, even 40 years later. It's energetic and fun. I listened to this through four times in a row, and enjoyed it more every time it went through. This is 4.,5 stars; the only failing is that it doesn't have Oh! Bondage Up Yours on it, which would make it perfect. (I know this was corrected on the deluxe CD reissue, but I REALLY want a vinyl version with it on). But I'm rounding up, because I enjoyed this so much. I think "I Am A Poseur" is my new personal; theme song.

Super lush and ultra polished, this is sophisticated and mature songwriting that was released just as I was embracing noisy, energetic and unpolished rock and roll. I had a number of friends (mostly female) who were very much in love with this album when it first came out, but it didn't really click with me at the time. The title track was memorable, but the rest of the album washed over me. Just a bit too smooth for my taste. So, have my tastes matured enough to dig this album? Well, a bit. It's very of the 80s without being too dated (Mick Karn's bass and Dave Gilmour's guitar notwithstanding). It's super tasteful, with a few tweaks that stop it from being pure wallpaper (real drummers, uilleann pipes, Trio Bulgarka, Dave Gilmour tearing it up), but the best moment is probably This Woman's Work, which seems to be the song on this record with the most ongoing resonance. I own this record and appreciate it, but really, I'm unlikely to play it often.

Look, the 1001 albums list has a clear problem with being incredibly white-boy, rock centric. The list is heavily weighted towards male, 60s and 70s white rock. Like, a lot. It is sweet blessed relief to hear a black woman singing it out. And she's pretty good. Great voice, great feminist point of view, good production. I dig it. My position on skits is well established; don't like them. Also, I wonder if this album (or EP?) is just too recent to really award it a must-hear classic status? Surely there are a few more albums from the past that would fill out the massive blind spots on this list (especially with regards to female artists). Like I said, I dig it. And, as I am sure Jazmine Sullivan herself would agree, the 1001 list needs to put in some effort to properly representing the whole history of female artistry in the list.

Metallica's Black Album is metal for people who don't really like metal. It' loud, sure, with big catchy riffs and lots of angry yelling, but I find it hard to really ascertain what I think about it. Bob Rock (still unforgiven by many old school Metallica fans) helped the band slow down, simplify, increase the melodic content , turn up the bass and embiggen the sound to polish a commercial monster that sold a bajillion copies and turned Metallica into one of the biggest bands in the world. What I still don't understand is where the band (and record label) got the idea that a thrash band could become a blockbuster mainstream success. And yet they did, invested a year and million dollars in this perfectly honed unit-shifter., And shift units it did! In some ways, this fits into the same cultural space as AC/DCs Back in Black; it's a highly polished hard rock album from veteran road warriors, that sells to the point of ubiquity. But it lacks the humour and cheeky charm, and most of all, the swing of AC/DC. Paying out on Lars Ulrich is a cliché these days, but I swear I can hear him counting the beat while he plays. The slower, simpler beats highlight his limitations (no swing), and this is rare example of a hugely successful band that doesn't have a great drummer. There's nothing wrong with having a drummer with limitations (see Mo Tucker or Meg White) if it adds to the musicality of the band. You have to wonder what how much better this record could sound like with a great drummer. AC/DC are a good comparison, as they are also working in the simple, hard rock genre, but they play with swing. The songs are catchy (especially the singles), though I find the length exhausting. I own a copy of this album, but honestly never play it. It's an important album, as probably the biggest unapologetically and unambiguously metal album to sell this many copies. But it is overplayed and over-polished for me to the point where I am a little sick of it, although I can admire the achievement,. I begrudgingly give three stars for having the ambition to turn metal into a mainstream genre, and actually achieving it.. But that means it really is just (louder) pop music. If I want to listen to metal (which I sometimes do), this is not the album I would choose to play.

I feel like I have reviewed a bunch of albums like this; perfectly produced, highly skilled, over long... it doesn't have the slight edge that captures my attention. Another Ok album I don't think I ever need to hear again. And did it really need to be 73 minutes long? Interestingly, once spotify had finished playing this album, it started on his first album, which grabbed my ears much more immediately

Possibly the greatest hard rock album of all time. Lean, punchy, dumb, sexist and aggressive, but also funny and catchy. The production is stripped of ornamentation to an almost punk-like degree, the band is moving away from blues rock and into a harder, leaner thing. It's a dumb formula, but, my god, what a formula.

This album has been on my want-list for quite a while. it's far more Fela than Ginger (probably to its strength). I love the funky intensity of this album; it's perfect for a sweaty night of dancing. Love it.

One of my great pleasures in life is when my children introduce music to me. Hal recently recommended Little Simz to me, and pointed me at her later Sometimes I Might Be Introvert album, which I really like (especially the song Point and Kill). I hadn't spent any time with her back catalog yet. I rate her flow, which is much more in the British grime tradition than an U.S. inflected style. I love the production (led by her main collaborator, Inflo, from the Sault collective). The use of real instruments is funky and soulful. I love that the album is concise and to the point (and no skits -- hooray!) Given that most hip hop records on this list are some form of gangsta, it was sweet blessed relief to hear something fresh and outside of the gangsta genre (which I really don't enjoy), although Boss leans heavily on the n-word, but I love it when she calls out "I'm a boss in a fucking dress!" I am relived to have an album on the list that is by a woman of colour, and not in the rock tradition. I would argue that this album is a bit too recent to truly tell if it is a classic album that you MUST hear (given that she won the Mercury Prize for her following album, it suggest she has more to offer). I give this 3.5 stars because I think her later album is better, and round down because I think this is a bit too recent to be on this list. but don't get me wrong; I really enjoyed this record, and found it a breath of fresh air after weeks of white-boy rock.

Ok, so this is a five star for me. It's hard to believe that this album was constructed over tracks left over from recording sessions across the previous few years. The material is understandably eclectic, but held together by Ms Simone's authoritative voice and piano playing. There are standards, ballads, folk songs and one (astounding) original, mixing love songs with the political. She is completely in control of the dynamics and presentation of the material, and it comes out with a consistent and definitive voice. Four Women is a powerful song of racial inequity and discrimination (banned on many radio stations at the time, with the still common conservative tactic of claiming that material calling out racism is, itself, racist.) Subsequently sampled by Jay-Z on The Story of O.J., picking up on the themes of racial discrimination (although there are elements of his message I find a little baffling. Art speculation as a cure for racial inequity?) Her version of Lilac Wine is definitive and was clearly massively influential on Jeff Buckley, who lifted her arrangement intact for his album 'Grace'. David Bowie was also a massive fan, covering Wild is the Wind on 'Station to Station' in explicit tribute to Nina Simone. And it obviously stayed close to him; he released it as a single in 1981, opened his 200 Glastonbury set with it, and performed it at his final ever live show in 2006. I have listened to this album straight through three times in a row, and I hear more from her performances every time. She is so in control of her performance, even when she goes slightly out of control, such as her screamed "my name is Peaches!" at the end of Four Women. This is a masterclass in how deeply a musician can understand and project a song. She is at the height of her formidable powers on this record. A five star classic, perfect and massively influential. My hidden gem on the album: If I Should Lose You. It's beautiful and heartbreaking. A moment of reflection on the 1001 albums list; why does Paul Simon (the adjacent artist on this list) rate six album inclusions, and Nina Simone only one? More evidence of the white-boy rock critic bias of this list. I cannot understand why an artist of Ms Simone's stature and breadth of material only rates a single inclusion.

Around 1989, Triple J, the Australian public 'yoof' radio network, just recently expanded to a national network, decided that it could establish its cred by putting "Fuck Tha Police" into rotation. It was a national scandal, mentioned in parliament, that the government-funded national broadcaster would play such an 'evil' piece of music. A Triple J journalist was suspended for playing it, which led to industrial action (including a whole day of playing Express Yourself, and nothing else, on repeat). You can read the details here: https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/flashback-triple-j-challenge-authority-nwa-marathon-12171/ As a result of all the attention, NWA became a cause celebre and a way of signaling your rebellious nature, and this album sold a ton of copies in Australia. And a lot of people who bought the album based on "Fuck Tha Police", listened to it, and then decided that this was definitely not for them, and offloaded the CD. At the time I was working at Scratches Records, an alternative record store , that bought and sold second hand CDs. All second hand CDs were test played to make sure they were OK before they hit the shelves, and so I listened to this album a bunch of times in 1990-91. People were constantly coming in to sell their CDs of Straight Outta Compton. So I listened to this album all the way through a number of times when it was a relatively new release. Now, I liked hip hop. But this I couldn't hack. I understood the rebellion and rage of Fuck Tha Police and Straight Outta Compton. Express Yourself is a fair enough song. But the most of it.... violent, misogynist, homophobic, and deeply unpleasant. This is an important album and massively influential. Cube is a charismatic MC with pretty good flow, and Dre's production was the blueprint for West Coast hip hop. But I find this hard to handle, and am still upset that the success of this set the tone for much of hip hop ever since. It's influential, sure, but its influence is largely negative, and, frankly, I wish this album never existed. I do not want to listen to it ever again..

Pleasant, samba-flavoured jazz-lite. I like her voice, but this is hardly the most inspired album. Is it significantly different from other samba albums from the previous four decades? Why did they choose THIS album? It doesn't really have anything to particularly recommend it, other than some occasional Portishead-like loops and synths. Soporific. Except Bananeria. I like that song, although exactly why we need another cover of this song from 1975, I don't know. Did not hate, but seems like a pointless inclusion on this list.

I frequently have cause to complain about the white boy rock critic bias of 1001 albums list, and this is kind of a case in point. Elvis Costello, bless him, is the quintessential darling of white boy rock critics. There are six (six!) EC records on this list, and, while I am a fan of EC, I find it hard to regard this record as essential listening. Admittedly, I find a lot of his 90s output hard to stomach (a covers album! a ballet! collaborations with unexpected artists like the Brodsky Quartet or Burt Bacharach! concept albums!), and so this more straight-ahead rock album is much more to my taste. Re-uniting with the Attractions is a good thing, and I enjoy the relatively unadorned rock presentation, but the songs seem under baked, and there are plenty of other EC and the Attractions albums that are better. Why is this one essential listening? I loved 'When I Was Cruel' a lot, and think it is a far better example of later-period EC rocking out. Love EC, but this album is a bit "meh", really. Maybe I'm being too harsh. Even a mediocre Elvis Costello album is still pretty good, so I am giving this 2.5, rounded up.

Here's an album that I have never really given a chance before. I have seen this a million times in bargain bins, but have never given it a chance. I think, mostly, I was put off by the cover art, not realizing that it is satirizing the go-go 1980s, not a sign off of cocaine-smoothed, success-obsessed, smooth synth pop. The sound is really 80s, but in a way that holds up, and certainly with an edge. I always loved Fascist Groove Thang (the 7" lives in my DJ box), and I really cannot explain why I never gave the whole album a go. I own the Luxury Gap album, which I also never really listened to. I suspect that, had I picked up a copy of this when I was a teenager, I really would have dug this. And it is far better than post-split Human League. IK listened to the deluxe reissue with a bunch of bonus tracks, which really stand up. They were clearly on a creative roll around this time. Star player: John Wilson on bass. Funky, political, satiric, and often catchy, with an innovative sound. Would listen again.

Smooth, funky, sophisticated in both flow and production. Exquisite sample choice. This has dated really well (although I suspect the French rapping covers any lyrical deficiencies). Pleasant and laid back without being wallpaper. I regularly play the 12" of the title track in my DJ sets, and the album stands up similarly well, with the exception of Ragga Jam, which is the fly in the ointment of this album.

I want to like Rush, and this is the album I _would_ like if I liked Rush. But I just don't.

Spare, beautiful, sad. Great voice, great guitar picker. It's got Everybody's Talkin' on it. I'm not a massive 60s folk fan, but I can admire this. (The folk/blues raga is a bit strange)

So this is what I came to this 1001 albums project for; an album I did not previously know, and needed to hear. I don't think I had ever heard of or even seen a copy of this album in my 35-odd years of trawling record stores. I did, of course, know who Gene Clark was. I have only relatively recently come around to country rock, 'which explains why I had generally avoided his oeuvre for a long time, but reading the way that David Geffen buried this album probably explains why I had never come across it. And, in all fairness, if I had heard it before I turned 40, it probably wouldn't have registered with me. But now, I am old enough to get it. Now, this does hit the white boy rock critic sweet spot; magnum opus by ex-Byrd, buried by record company and essentially lost for 40 years. recorded in a reported cocaine storm at great expense by the top LA session musicians of the time, the risk was that this would actually be another Steven Stills album (shudder!). But, wondrously, it avoids that path. The songs are really strong (personal faves: Silver Raven, title track, Some Misunderstanding and Lady of the North), and the production, castigated at the time as pretentious and over-blown, is rich and lush. I don't feel; it overpowers the material. It unites the country, RnB, funk and gospel feels into an unhurried cinematic panorama. Gram Parsons talked about a Cosmic American Music, but I think Gene Clark may have actually recorded it here. A revelation.

Elvis' first album, and a mammoth landmark in rock and roll. The first rock and roll album to top the Billboard Pop Charts (where it sat for ten weeks), and the first rock and roll album to sell a million copies. This straddles the Sun sessions (five tracks) and RCA pre-army years (seven tracks), it has Elvis still rockin', before the Colonel and the movie studios and major label really buffed the edges off Elvis with lousy song choices and insipid backing (although some tracks sail close to the wind, like One-Sided Love Affair). The RnB covers (like I Got A Woman and Tutti Frutti) are serviceable, but not as good as the versions by Ray Charles and Little Richard. This shows, already, the types of music that Elvis liked to put out, with a mix of country, RnB, rock and roll, ballads and almost novelty pop songs. We can see how much Elvis likes a ballad, and his vocal styling is powerful and energizing and everything here oozes with confidence and charisma. The band swings (especially on the Sun recordings). I can see why this was massively influential at the time, but I generally prefer Elvis' later imperial phase. Trying To Get To You was a surprise discovery for me, I really dig it. But the towering monuments on this album are Blue Suede Shoes (which eclipses Carl Perkins' original version, through ubiquity if nothing else) and his haunting version of Blue Moon. I love this track, so evocatively used in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train movie,.

Described as anthemic, grandiose, dramatic, sweeping, cathartic, emotional, oh, how the critics swooned. I am so bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, boringly bored, bored, bored. I am so bored, I can't even be bothered writing a new review. This is recycled from the Arcade Fire's Funeral album, which at least had the song Wake Up on it. Nothing as catchy as that on here.

Lord help me, Arcade Fire yesterday, The National today.... major snoozefest. I completely lost interest in alternative music in 2000s. I had kids (who liked pop music), and a busy life, and I thought it was just that I was getting old and irrelevant that I wasn't particularly interested in a lot of the new alternative music coming out. I read enough to be aware of the bands that were getting critical acclaim (The National, Arcade Fire, Wilco, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc, etc), but I just thought I was getting old and just didn't get it. These days I am less inclined to blame myself. I really try with these records, but they are all so fucking dull! It's the emperor's new concept album, I swear. Even the singles are dull. How is it possible to write a song called "Bloodbuzz Ohio" that is this boring? It's literary and worthy, emotional and poetic and profound and tasteful and blah blah blah blah blah, I am so bored.

As pitchfork says, Blue Cheer are "musicians who... live not to perfect their technique, but to simply rock". Well, that sounds GREAT to me. The playing is rough as guts and pretty over the top, especially the lead playing. Lots of bends and trills, feedback, barely in tune. The slow, heavy, vaguely blues based playing is a prototype for metal in general and stoner rock in particular. This is the shit. This sounds like they set up in a room, chucked a few mics in randomly and just started jamming it out. It's loud, noisy and obnoxious. And that's what I like!

This was a hard one, and I listened to it a few times. This album has quite a reputation, partially as a result of its history (which I only know vaguely). I love the sound design. It is weirdly recorded and played, with lots of noise, distortion, collage and extraneous sound, which I find appealing, but I can see how it is not mainstream. It is unusual to find this is an a gentle/semi-acoustic album (as that approach is often more common in industrial records, that are more into sound design). It reminds me of Grandaddy, a band I love. The songs are clearly growers. They didn't grab me at first listen, but I can tell that they could, potentially, grow a lot. That being, said, I gave this a repeated, good hard listen about a year back, and none of these songs have stuck with me, and I am never troubled by the desire to spin it. This is better than the Arcade Fire or The National, but still only OK for me.

If you are following my reviews, you will note that I tend to like my music and bit raw and noisy, not too polished. But all that goes out the window with Chic, here at the height of their powers. I always keep a couple of Chic singles in my DJ crates, because they are guaranteed floor fillers. I was playing a party just last weekend, where there was a break for speeches and cutting the cake. I played Le Freak to get people back on the dance floor after the interruption. And it worked, because it is just impossible to resist. I confess that I've never listened to this whole album before, and it is a dead-set winner all the way through. It's disco, but funkier than a lot of disco. Check out the break in I Want Your Love at 4.30; it's 8 bars of Bernard Edwards, Nile Rogers and Tony Thompson in the pocket, with nothing else. And they are deep in the pocket, as for the whole album. Vocals by Alfa Anderson, Luci Martin, Luther Vandross and David Lasley are exceptional. The orchestrations are classy and compelling. The whole album is classy, cool, smooth and funky, almost irresistible on the dance floor. Daryl Easlee, reviewing for the BBC, says "C'est Chic isn't even Chic's best album (that was their next one, Risqué) but it is a bright, shining example of what mass-produced, intelligent dance music should be. Thirty-two years old at the time of writing, it remains irresistible." Le Freak is the monster single (the biggest selling single of all time on the Atlantic label, apparently), but you could spin any track from this record and people would dance, and that is awesome. Five stars.

Just last weekend, I was talking to my dear friend and DJ-ing partner, Peter, about the fact that we haven't had any LL Cool J on this list so far, and, voila, here he is! "Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years". The majority of hip hop albums on this list are gangsta rap, which was emerging in 1990, and LL was feeling threatened. "Don't worry" said his grandma, "just knock 'em out". hence the mission statement of this record. I love LL, and spin a lot of his singles regularly (special shout out for Going Back to Cali), but this is his best and most consistent album. His flow is a bit old school, but I like his laid back confidence. At his best, he almost whispers. He is so confident, he doesn't need to shout (unlike much of the genre) although on occasion he will raise his voice. The production is funky and varied, great work by Marley Marl. Six singles from this record, all pretty damn good, and the title track is an all-time hip-hop classic. This record is a corner stone of hip hop, and a real classic.

Over polished, derivative, boring. Work-shopped and honed within an inch of its life. Cliche ridden. I've seen this described as one of the high points of 80s hair metal. And that is damning with very faint praise. I never want to hear this corporate rock drivel again as long as I live.

Man, I really want to hate this album... but it is a catchy hard rock romp. I mean, it's objectively terrible, but far and away best in class, and sort of fun. Marc Burrows in Drowned in Sound writes (in 2018): "There are several moments during Guns N’ Roses recent Download Festival appearance where the phrase ’The Most Dangerous Band In The World‘ pops into your head. Not because it’s apt, but because it’s hard to square that much-touted tagline with what you’re seeing – a three-hour plus set overblown with classic rock covers, fronted by a rock n’ roll Liberace, rings dripping from his fingers, fringed jackets swapped every three songs. But every once in a while, just for a few seconds, the polished surface cracks and you get a glimpse of the exhilarating scum underneath. A reminder of the band this once was. Every time that happens, without fail, it’s during a song from Appetite For Destruction. When GN’R crawled out of Hollywood in the mid Eighties they were fucking feral. Penniless gutter rats, three of them strung out on smack, all of them boozehounds, all of them messed up in some way. In LA’s thriving glam scene, amid the pretty-boys of Poison, Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Great White, GN’R were from another, scuzzier planet. … From the very beginning GN’R were a rare real-deal in rock n’ roll. A perfect storm of punk, metal and sleaze-rock with an unexpected sideline in epic ballads… Appetite for Destruction, their three-decade-old debut was the perfect representation of that band. You can taste the scum. " This reminds me of Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous (a clear influence). They have an amazing rock'n'roll outlaw swagger (that they backed up with some real life bad behaviour), but does anyone REALLY believe they are all that dangerous? And I never really bought the 'punk influences'; I mean, they covered a bunch of punk songs over their career, but their sound is consistently hard rock/lite metal. The rhythm section has a lot more swing than most bands of the genre, which I appreciate. Big choruses, catchy riffs, high energy and bit more authentic rock attitude than most of their contemporaries, this is an album I secretly enjoy. They later self-inflated into a bloated pomp-rock behemoth, which was occasionally amusing, but usually best ignored. But here, they are lean and mean, and (somewhat) dangerous to know.

Nope. Bored. I can see that this album has been expunged (rightly) from the latest edition of 1001 Albums. Pitchfork writes: "Debating the validity of Pharrell Williams' bandname seems like a contentious trifle, but the dude continuously positions himself as a wide-reaching musicologist. In the press, he seems convinced that merely mentioning the fact his record collection contains Steely Dan, Chick Corea, Stereolab, and EPMD coupled to his role as producer of tracks for the likes of Britney Spears and Philly's Most Wanted makes him a pop prodigy crossover messiah. The name "N.E.R.D." arrogantly admits to a higher IQ, while excusing Williams' potentially embarrassing prog-R&B; hybrid as a goofy cult experiment. Sadly, like a tackle-shocked J.O.C.K., Fly or Die is stupid and boring." Agreed; stupid and boring.

Yet another white boy rock critic cult classic... an overlooked gem of 1960s chamber pop, just like soooo many others we have reviewed as part of 1001 albums. I mean, it's pleasant enough (by design). This marks the point at which Ray Davies had successfully torpedoed his career by fighting with seemingly everyone who might be able to help him, and the Kinks transition from pop-hitmakers to cult favourites (i.e., commercial irrelevancy). I have long liked the title track (never released as a single in the UK!) and The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains is a rollicking English take on Smokestack Lightning. But I have no great nostalgia for the Britain of years past, so it's a bit of a non-committal shrug from me. The 1968 NME considered the album "too twee" even then, and I tend to agree. 2.5 stars, rounding down.

Oh my god, Metallica manage to out-pomp themselves. This bloated, two hour long slog through Metallica's back catalogue embellished with Michael Kamen's admittedly cinematic orchestrations deliver the biggest, most bloated, most loudest, most bombastic, most EVERYTHING metal album of all time. Only Metallica could pull off something like this. It does suggest that they could potentially deliver a passable James Bond theme. I could absolutely live without the crowd cheering and sing-alongs, though. But listening through this album felt like marching on Moscow with winter approaching. It was just tolerable at the outset, but then the days shorten and the ice winds blow in. By the end, I am huddled in the endless snow, eating the boiled boots of my fallen comrades to avoid starvation. I am a 2000 mile march from home and hearth, and surely will die here, never to return, buried in an unmarked grave at roadside. Tell my wife and children I love them...

I love this album. So smart, so melodic, such great production. The songs are varied, each with its own identity, great playing, whip-smart lyrics, great melodies, inventive and tight playing. Beatle-esque in places, this album was great leap forward, and showed much more of the breadth of what E.C. could achieve. I could listen to this album over and over without getting bored. The singles are classics (although I have increasing discomfort with the use of the n-word in Oliver's Army. I gather E.C. feels similarly.)

I understand why this album is on the list; it is a great artifact of the Beatles going into Beatlemania. Recorded with a little more time and polish than Please Please Me, but retains a strong connection to the Hamburg Beatles (especially in the covers and Astrid Kirschner influenced cover). This was the UK's second ever million selling LP (after the South Pacific soundtrack). Massively popular and influential. But is it really that great to listen to now? I own this record, but I don't think I ever pulled it off the shelf in preference to other Beatles records. This deserves to be on the 1001 list, but not even nearly my favorite Beatles album. But it's the Beatles, you know?

Contrary to its inclusion on this list, you could (and should) lead a long, happy and fulfilled life without ever hearing this album by these tepid Coldplay-wannabes. It made so little impact on me, that I have just finished listening to it and cannot remember anything about it. Forgettable tripe.

I'm kind of shocked that there isn't anything by Bikini Kill on the 1001 albums list. I mean, they are abrasive and difficult sounding, with angry yelled political lyrics, but given the seeming million hardcore albums on the list that fit that description, why is the most important band from the Riot Grrl scene neglected? Too feminist, perhaps? Or am I being too cynical? Anyway, Kathleen Hanna, frontperson and leading light of Bikini Kill, followed up that band with a largely forgotten solo album, and then formed Le Tigre. And this is their first record, recorded on the cheap for a tiny independent feminist record label. The mission statement is there in the first song: "Wanna disco?/ Wanna see me disco?/ Let me hear you depoliticize my rhyme" This is feminist punk wrapped in a danceable pop format. This hearkens back to the punk ideal of barely being able to play your instruments (bad guitar, bad bass, augmented with basic drum machines and some samples), influenced by 60s pop (who took the bomp, indeed?), hip hop, punk rock , surf, etc, but simplified down to a basic core. There are unabashed hooks across the album, and some catchy songs. The hook from Deceptacon is sampled in the Sound Opinions podcast opening sting, alongside other iconic riffs, Hot Topic and My Metrocard are my favourite songs on the album. The whole thing is amateurish and badly recorded, and pretty simple, but it's fun and energetic and political and funny. It's unpretentious fun, made for a small audience (I mean, really, it came out on the Mr Lady record label. This was a small, independent release, with little expectations of being big. It has had a subsequent life, that I suspect nobody really foresaw). I dig it. I don't want to be part of your revolution if I can't dance.

It is hard to rate the Beatles, because, you know, they're the _Beatles_ and their records have become part of the DNA of popular music. Hard Day's Night is one of my favourite Beatles albums, and one that I regularly pull off the shelf to play all the way through. It's a full on pop album, with increasing confidence in the studio, and less reliant on the (admittedly thrilling) rock and roll adrenaline of their previous albums. No covers here. Bob Stanley said "If you had to explain the Beatles' impact to a stranger, you'd play them the soundtrack to A Hard Day's Night. The songs, conceived in a hotel room in a spare couple of weeks between up-ending the British class system and conquering America, were full of bite and speed. There was adventure, knowingness, love, and abundant charm." I love the punchy, all-killer-no-filler approach. No song is over three minutes, and there is not a wasted second on this record. The tunes are all cracking, the production un-fussy, the band rocks (dodgy solo in "And I Love Her" aside), the hooks are super catchy, and the whole thing is slathered in charm. It's the ultimate Beatlemania album. Five stars!

The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music named The Only Ones one of the 50 best punk albums of all-time, claiming that the Only Ones were "the closest thing the UK had to Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers, a laconic, shamble of a band who were, at moments, touched by a creative greatness that made you get out of the glare". By sheer coincidence, I just finished watching a documentary on Johnny Thunders literally an hour before this album popped up for me to review. And let me tell you, the Only Ones ain't no Johnny Thunders. I don't hear creative greatness, and there ain't no glare. "Another Girl, Another Planet" is a classic song, but the rest of this album I found forgettable and generally enervating.

Steely Dan. Just a bit too smooth, a bit too clever clogs for me. I just need a little bit more of an edge to really appeal to me. There are a few slightly rockier numbers on this album that work a bit better for me (Night by Night, for example). I don't mind smart rock and roll, but I just need a bit more rock. There is some filler here (East St Louis Toodle-oo - neither satisfyingly rock nor jazz) I own this record, but almost never play it, and have considered giving it to my son (who likes prog and jazz. He was a very excited to find a copy of Countdown to Ecstasy in a record store bargain bin recently). Actually, I'm listening to Night by Night again, and it's pretty good... I'll bump my rating up a bit I think...

God, I totally don't know what to do with the Doors... many people go through a Doors phase in their teenage years, which I somehow bypassed, and I am aware that the hip consensus seems to be to sneer at the Doors. Morrison is a pretentious prat and not nearly as deep as he pretends, although he certainly knew how to strut around in leather kecks convincingly -- Iggy Pop, possibly the most compelling rock and roll front man of all time credits Morrison as his inspiration. I acknowledge Morrison's formative influence on rock star posturing, for better or worse. The band are a glorified lounge act, aspiring to bar band status when they get fired up. The lyrics are often pretty naff... and yet, and yet, this record is surprisingly listenable. Most songs are short enough to not outstay their welcome, the tunes are catchy, the band can occasionally rock (although their take on the blues borders on pastiche) and their dynamic interplay is not too bad. The lyrics are not TOO dumb (for the most part). I really want to hate the Doors, but this album is kinda fun. I can forgive the band for this record.

In my first share house, this album was constantly on the turntable. It was a favourite in that house, and, as a result, is probably the Stones album I know and love the best. It's got a cool, slightly menacing vibe. They had only recently really discovered their greatness (on the Beggar's Banquet album), and this album is confident, fantastically arranged and played (with nearly all guitar playing by Keef). I occasionally dabble with other albums, but truth be told, this is my favourite Stones record, and the one I would recommend to someone who asked me where they should start listening.

I listened to this all the way through. I found it pretentious and dull and tuneless and twee and with so little redeeming anythign that I went past boredom into active loathing. The 1001 list LOVES under-rated lost psychedelic 'gems.'. And this album is possibly the worst example yet. I am sick of it.

When Radiohead stopped making proper guitar albums after OK Computer, other bands moved into the space that had been abandoned. Coldplay took the softer end, and built a stadium sized career out of it, and Muse ditto with the louder end. It is no surprise that the bombastic end of Radiohead crossed with a healthy dose of Queen also turned out to be a stadium-filling beast. With magpie like references to other moments of bombastic excess (Soundgarden, Ennio Morricone, ELO), this is cleverly composed, schmickly produced, and expertly played, but really, at the end of the day, this is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

So there are five (five!) Byrds albums on the 1001 albums list. Which seems, to me, too many. I would accept the argument for the inclusion of Sweethearts of the Rodeo and this album, though. The concepts make perfect sense: contemporary folk songs played in the style of the Beatles. And they invent the whole template of jangle-pop. Massively influential over the years, this is still a really enjoyable album. Great playing (McGuinn really took to that electric 12-string), great singing, including wonderful harmony singing, and some top notch songwriting (four Dylan numbers, and some terrific Gene Clark originals, notably I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better). And it packs a punch, at only 32 minutes. The closing cover of We'll Meet Again is a mis-step, but otherwise a classic album.

My mate, Peter from Scratches, put me onto this album when it came out. he loved it with a passion, and I loved it too. Is it possibly the album the Beatles might have made in 1965 if they hadn't made it big? The tunes are all first rate, and There She Goes is one of those all-time classic, can't-be-improved, \"play it again\" pop songs. Apparently, Lee Mavers kept re-recording and remixing and polishing the album, and the record company finally took over the tapes and had Steve Lillywhite do a (quite sympathetic) mix for release. Lee immediately disowned the record as not meeting what he heard in his head, and he never recorded again. That left this as one of the perfect one-album bands. (If you look at a list of great single-album bands, many of them are artists who were fairly prolific, but only released a single album in a particular line-up. I mean, Blind Faith and Derrick and the Dominoes often appear in those kinds of list, but you could hardly accuse the members of those bands of being \"single album\" artists). In this case, he NEVER did anything else, leaving this perfect (but possibly imperfect?) single document. It's a massive \"what if\" scenario... I mean, Noel Gallagher took this formula and ran with it to great success. The songs are great, the playing has a charming mid-60s British invasion sound (early Beatles, Byrds, etc) and you can sing along to every song on the record. I have played this album a lot over the past 30 years. I keep a spare copy, just in case one gets damaged. There is never a time that I wouldn't happily throw it on the turntable. This is one of my all-time favourite records, and I find it hard to think of any way to improve it. Five stars.

I completely lost interest in alternative music in the late1990s/2000s. I had kids (who liked pop music), and a busy life, and I thought it was just that I was getting old and irrelevant that I wasn't particularly interested in a lot of the new alternative music coming out. I read enough to be aware of the bands that were getting critical acclaim (The National, Arcade Fire, Wilco, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc, etc), but I just thought I was getting old and just didn't get it. These days I am less inclined to blame myself. I really try with these records, but they mostly don't light my fire. That said, this album is the best I have heard so far from this cohort. The songs are appealingly melodic, and clearly growers. They didn't grab me at first listen, but I can tell that they could, potentially, grow on me a lot. I like this more than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, of which I cannot remember a single note, despite repeated listening. This is much better than the Arcade Fire or The National, who are both boring and pretentious. I vaguely recall "Outtasite" from the radio when it was first released. The songwriting is melodic and fairly straightforward (c.f. the overly literary blancmange from the Arcade Fire or The National, or even later Wilco records). There are a handful of pretty good songs here, played with dynamics and a rough-edged verve. I dig the unpolished and spacious production. I think the double album was a mistake. I mean, Outtasite and Outtamind are different recordings of the same song. That's padding the runtime a bit, and we really don't need that. I think a 40 minute album of highlights would have had a much stronger impact, although maybe the double album run-time strengthens the inevitable Exile on Main Street comparisons. It's pretty good, but it ain't no Exile. So, over all, pretty good. I like the cover art. Three stars.

All hail the P-FunK! Who says a funk band can't play rock? Every time a P-Funk album comes up on this list, it's like a massive breath of fresh air. I reviewed Maggot Brain a while back, and it is a masterpiece, but much darker than this. This album is so great; fun and funny and slinky and funky and rockin' and wild and super catchy. The title track is a mission statement of the all-inclusive Funkadelic party, and we are all welcome. I have listened to this album three times through today, and it gets better every time. There is something new to hear every playing. I love Eddie Hazel, but Mike Hampton and Gary Shider are tearing it up in his absence. Interestingly, the bonus tracks on the version I listened to included a 1978 live recording of the Maggot Brain track, which is as majestic as the album version, but a bit more celebratory and less foreboding. Funkadelic are at the height of their powers here, but in a more positive space than at the beginning of the decade. I love this record and could easily listen to it every day. Five stars.

I understand that this was super popular in the 1970s, but so was Mogadon, for for many of the same reasons. Boring cod-philosophy, inoffensively produced to the point of torpor. Occasional sexism (Wide World). For me, this one crosses the line from merely bland to actually aweful.

This is one of the first albums of the 90s neo-soul movement, and I am quite partial. While still not yet showing the influence of J.Dilla (who, along with the playing of the Roots, marks the later works of the Soulquarians neo-soul recordings), I dig this. Wearing his influences (Marvin Gaye, Prince, Sade) on his sleeve, and roping in some collaborators from those artists, this is smooth, sexy and lush. I prefer the funkier tracks on the first half of the album (Urban Theme, Sumthin' Sumthin', Til the Cops Come Knocking), the back end of the album descends into slow jamz territory. I listened to this three times through in a row, and enjoyed it.

I do not even know where to begin with my loathing of this album. The juvenile title, abysmal cover art, the terrible songs, the annoying vocals that swing between yelling and whining, the terrible production, the angry and misogynistic lyrics, and just plain base idiocy of it all. I only just managed to get through all 75 minutes of it, and now have to wash the nasty taste out of my mouth. God, this is just awful....

My mate Dave will be pleased to see this album pop up, he being a big fan of Jeff Beck. I read a lot about this being a seminal text in the formation of heavy metal, but I think that is drawing a very long bow. I mean, the recording of this was influential in the formation of Led Zeppelin, but this is a British heavy blues album, not really metal at all. The reliance on covers points to the lack of song-writing strength. Some of the covers are... questionable choices (Greensleeves and Ol' Man River, I'm looking at you two) or only very thinly veiled re-writes of existing blue numbers (Rock My Plimsoul is an original? Really?). But You Shook Me and I Ain't Superstitious really set the scene for British heavy blues. Playing is generally great (although Nicky Hopkins has a tendency to noodle, in my opinion) and Rod Stewart has never been in finer form. Beck is pushing what a guitar can do at the time, but he's not unique in this. It's not quite as pyrotechnic as Jimi Hendrix and the songs are not as strong as Jimi or Cream, and the arrangements aren't as tight as what Led Zep would later do. It's listenable, but really the only track I would go back to is I Ain't Superstitious.

A super funk classic. Lush arrangements, super funky rhythms, Curtis' beautiful vocals. A far better album than the film probably deserved.

Rumour has it, the recording of this album completely depleted world reserves of digital reverb. But seriously, this album is the Cure's most cinematic album. It's pretty gloomy and depressing, but the songwriting is stronger than their early 80s gloom albums. There are few memorable songs (Lovesong, Lullaby, Fascination St), but generally this is a wash of atmosphere, deservedly beloved by goths everywhere. How it sold 3 million copies, I'll never know. If you were going to pick one Cure album to listen to, this would probably be a good choice. But better off playing their singles compilation.

What a great story; the unheard album that becomes a cult classic and effectively establishes a genre. Loving this album becomes a shibboleth of "you wouldn't have heard of them" coolness. I worked in an independent record store in Australia during 91/92 and was totally and completely unaware of this record. And it was my job to be across stuff like this. No reviews, no advertising, certainly no touring. I did not hear of this album until the early 2000s. I had dipped my toe into post-rock, but generally, I generally like a steady driving rock and roll beat (that I can bug out to), so the stop-start nature of post-rock gives me the irrits. I think that was always my problem with this record; the first song, Breadcrumb Trail, is particularly stop-start, changing time signature, far too clever-clogs for my taste. But listening to the rest of the album, I found much more tolerable as that aspect was much reduced. And by the time you get to the closer, Good Morning Captain, we are into driving two chord rock. The whispered, occasional screamed, lyrics are almost inaudible and completely devoid of tune, which makes hem seem a little superfluous. I think that, if I listened to this about 25 times, I would learn to love it (it sounds great; really immediate and un-fussy). But does it fill me with the desire to run out and form a band, or even just buy a copy of this album? Sadly, no. I am generally too old and settled to buy records just because they make me look cool and knowledgeable, and so, Slint, I will, with regret, walk past your record and purchase something else. PS- I do appreciate that CD copies of this album have "this recording is meant to be listened to on vinyl" printed on the back. Especially at a time when vinyl was basically wheezing its dying breath, this is a cool gesture. Also, the front cover photograph is pretty damn great.

Oh god, I try so hard with Steely Dan... lots of people I really respect _love_ Steely Dan, and yet, and yet, it doesn't really move me. Robert Christgau once described Steely Dan as "the Grateful Dead of bad vibes". I think he meant it as a compliment. I think it is apt, in that both bands attract incredibly devoted followings for reasons I don't quite fathom. Christgau reckons this is the Dan album to start with, being the most 'rock' (although we use the term 'rock' in an early 70s 'take it easy' L.A. kind of way, which reminds me of why we needed punk. But don't get me wrong: Do It Again and Reelin' In The Years are terrific singles, and I quite like Dirty Work. They are all songs I would happily listen to any day. But I just can't buy into the cult of Steely Dan.

If I'm going to listen to 60s garage rock, it just needs to be a bit more wild for my taste. I am overwhelmed with 'meh'. 2.5, rounded up for not being too bad.

I guess you had to be there... I don't mind space rock, and this rocks more than most. I found the first 20 minutes vaguely entertaining, but this just goes on _forever_. Orgone Accumulator, Time We Left This World Today and Master of the Universe are the only songs that really stand out as songs, compared to the aimless noodling and meandering noises that make up most of the album. The synthesizer wibbles and swirls are incessant. I could live without the spoken word, as all of the lyrics are science fiction twaddle and so really need a tune to carry them. That said, this is a precursor for a lot of the psych and doom metal that I listen to now (Wooden Shjips, Boris, Electric Wizard, etc), so it's not all bad. The cover art is outstanding. And I'm sure the live show was pretty fun, if you had enough drugs. But I don't really need to sit through the whole record again, let alone the extended re-release with an hour of bonus tracks.

While I might admire Al Kooper's vision to fuse rock and jazz (particularly big band jazz), he had left the building by this second LP, and BST were on their way to becoming a harbinger of everything that is loathsome about over-engineered 70s jazz-inflected rock music. According to the wikipedia page, the band has had more than 165 members over the years, and the band has essentially become as franchise instead of a band. In his lengthy contemporary review, Jon Landau of Rolling Stone dismissed the album, writing; "The listener responds to the illusion that he is hearing something new when in fact he is hearing mediocre rock, OK jazz, etc., thrown together in a contrived and purposeless way." I could not agree more. Spinning Wheel is pretty great song, but everything else on this album is just awful. Of the covers, there is a not a single song where the BST version has anything to offer compared to earlier versions. God Bless the Child made me vomit into my mouth a little bit. Blues Pt. 2 is an appalling pastiche of blues riffs and posturing. The more I listen to this, the more I dislike it. Very recently, I purchased (for $2) a Taiwanese bootleg pressing of BST Greatest Hits from 1972. It has five tracks drawn from this self-titled album. It is worth $2 just for Spinning Wheel and Lucretia McEvil, but the rest of the album probably needs to go on skip. Or in the skip.

I first came across 'Holocaust' and "Kangaroo' as (exquisitely tasteful) covers on the first This Mortal Coil album, which I listened to a lot over the years. Big Star were one of those bands you heard about, but their records were just impossible to come by, and, in fairness, this one wasn't even really an album. It has been released on a variety of labels, under different titles, with different track listings, and, while their is a now a complete set of recordings available, there is no definitive album. It really surprised me to read that these songs had been extensively demoed before recording, because these recordings are chaotic and damaged. The songs are haunting and often sadly beautiful, but the recordings fucked up (pardon my french). And I can understand why record companies didn't want to touch it. According the Pitchfork: "Fry shopped the album to labels in 1975 in the hopes of recouping some of the money poured into the project. Nobody bit. Lenny Waronker at Warner asked, 'I don’t have to listen to that again, do I?' Over at Atlantic, Jerry Wexler claimed 'This record makes me feel very uncomfortable.'" It was more than three years until it got its initial release on an indie label, well after the band had split up (and it is even debatable whether this was ever a Big Star album). There are aspects of the album that speak to care and ambition (the strings arrangements, for example), but much of the album seems deliberately bad sounding. This adds to the discomforting feeling that the album imbues, and even Alex Chilton's voice (So strong and compelling in the Box Tops) is fragile here. The songs are intense, and I can see why this band and this album have become cult favourites, highly influential on many alternative artists in the 80s and 90s. I want to mention This Mortal Coil, Jeff Buckley, REM, and Sparklehorse, off the top of my head. Stephen Deusner in Pitchfork writes "For many listeners-- including, for a few years, me-- Big Star were more legend than band. They were the beloved patron saints for struggling musicians: These albums were inspired and inspiring but never found a wide audience, yet the fact that they eventually became so revered offered encouragement to young songwriters with their own dream of big stardom and No. 1 records. Even if you never found an audience in your prime, you could always hope for later cult success. And to some extent, of course, the myth overtook the music" I have listened to this through a number of times today. It is uncomfortable and haunting, but there is a depth there. The myth of the album is almost overwhelming, but these are songs that I am learning to love. It's a weird and difficult album though. It's a challenge to give this a star rating; it's got some really beautiful aspects, but it is also so broken. I'm really struggling to know what to think. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

The single of The Message is the first real hip hop song I ever heard. The video got a lot of play on Australian TV, even if the song was pretty much ignored by radio (which tended to shun black music, especially music that really pushed the boundaries, as this did). The single is so compelling, and set the tone for hip hop to come, especially the opportunity to be politically and socially aware. I wish a few more rappers had followed the path (gangsta rappers, I'm looking at you." I'd never listened to the album all the way, and it is a mixed bag. Things I liked: the early sampling, the appropriation of funk and disco riffs, the playing of the excellent Sugar Hill band (Keith LeBlanc, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald went on to form the excellent Tackhead industrial dub), the proto-electro synths. The Message and Scorpio are dead-set classics, and much of the album is surprisingly listenable. The flow is not as sophisticated as rappers are these days, and the scratching is embarrassingly basic by today's standards. the ballads (Dreamin' and You Are) are appalling, and should be relegated to the bin. This is clearly a formative text in hip hop, and I was surprised at how well it stood up (generally), and how many of the foundations of hip hop were already here. This was more sophisticated and listenable than I was expecting, much to the credit of the terrific backing band. But, I might spin the singles, but wouldn't sit down to listen to the whole album.

It's the emperor's new album. I've tried, but nope.

Jayson Greene (Pitchfork) said of this album "If you are inclined to sniff suspiciously around grandiose music, examining it for kitsch, you probably reeled away staggering from Sigur Rós, who proudly stink of it. This was another part of their appeal and their strength: The music is texturally complex, for sure, but the emotional framework is deliberately simple and clear." Hard to state more clearly; the sound is cinematic and huge with large emotions, even if rendered somewhat cryptic through use of Icelandic and (made up) Hopelandic lyrics. Does this make them an ideal screen on which the listener can project their own emotions? Maybe. It doesn't connect for me, though I can hear the massive influence of the scope and sound, which you hear everywhere in TV, films and advertising. I can listen to this, but I don't trust it enough to be moved by it.

Stevie Wonder is one of the all time great singer/songwriter/musicians/producers/harmonica players, and this is one of his great albums from the height (and midpoint) of his imperial phase, which Slate described as "the Greatest Creative Run in the History of Popular Music". The songwriting, singing, playing and production are all of the highest quality, resulting in a warm, inviting, complex, funky, and above all, deeply human record. This album contains a lot of examples of the genius of Stevie's songwriting. His songs are harmonically complex, rich and deep, full of surprises and moments that push against musical cliché (although he doesn't always avoid that in the lyrics, the ballads can tend towards the sentimental), but it all sounds so effortless and intuitive. I could happily listen to him sing the phone book. When I saw him in concert in 2008 in a massive arena, he started singing his first song, and I burst into tears. I love his singing so much. This is an absolute classic, and a record I would recommend to anyone as an album you should own and listen to regularly. I always hear something fresh when I listen to this record, but it is also familiar and inviting, and you can dance to it, too. This is as close to a perfect album as you will ever find.

Gram Parson's solo albums were my entry into the world of country rock. I enjoyed this record, which is of the same cut (although no Emmy-Lou Harris, missed here). Hippie Boy finishes the album on an unfortunate and dated joke, but the rest of the album fuses the influences of rock, country and r'n'b in a away not really done before. Parsons is really stretching out what (cosmic) American music can be. The playing of the band and guests should not be underrated either, with weird and wonderful variations on traditional country playing throughout. GP and Grievous Angel are 5 star albums, but this is well on the way.

I miss guitars. And tunes. Some actual songs on here amongst the electronic bleeping, but needlessly obtuse. If I listened to this 20 times, I'm sure I would find things to like, but I just wish it rocked a bit more.

This was not what I was expecting. I had in my mind that Mercury Rev were the kind of boring, semi-corporate quasi-indie band that proliferated in the late 90s and early 2000s, and with which I was (and continue to be) bored by. But, when I started playing this record, I recognized the songs Holes, which is a a woozier, more interesting song than I was expecting. The connections to the Flaming Lips are significant. This album was the one of the first of that late 90s softly psychedelic, quirky rock sound (possibly twee?) that followed, especially centred around the production of Dave Friedman (Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, Pond, etc). I liked some of the records that followed more than this, but I can see how this was instrumental in breaking the way through and showing that music like this could be commercially viable. I admire that they made it for themselves, as this was highly unfashionable at the time, personal, and quirky. It certainly did not resemble much on the charts at the time Some critics have accused this of having some strong songs (Holes, Opus 40, Goddess on the Hiway), and some filler. I don't mind the "filler". It's different and weirdly produced, even if not particularly memorable. I really am on the line of 3 or 4 starts, but, in my heart of hearts, I wished this rocked just a little more, and his singing voice does get on my tit after a while. I can also live without the musical saw. I am putting it in as a three, on the understanding that this is clear 3.5.

This loud, rough and ready, and quite garage-style album was _really_ out of step with the prevailing production style for major (and major-label) artists at the end of the 1980s. No drum machines, minimal overdubbing, noisy guitars, all creating a real garage rock vibe. It's pretty raw and immediate, which I like. In hindsight, we can see this was prescient of the changes that grunge ushered in a year or two later (although, the undergrounds scene had always embraced this kind of sound). it was only really revolutionary if you were a long established major label artist. But, Neil Young's flannel shirt wearing, feedback embracing, live in the room sound certainly resonated with many of the major rock artists that came up in the early 90s. But I don't think Young really heralded the way; there were plenty of bands that are more influential on this movement. Young seems almost completely uninterested in musical fashion, and his (understandable) rebellion against he then current sound of corporate rock and roll accidentally coincided with a whole movement. It made him temporarily relevant, even if still a long way from the cutting edge. So, I quite like the sound of this record; the guitars are loud and the live-in-the-room immediacy appeals. It rocks, although I wish Young would embrace brevity. There is no reason for songs as long as these (there are 2 over ten minutes!). It's just indulgent. But I do like Neil Young when he turns up the amps (my favourite Neil Young album is the Deadman soundtrack, no lie). But I find Young's baby boomer, old hippy bullshit lyrics incredibly annoying. Worst offenders are "Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)" and "Days Used to Be". His subsequent railing against the mp3 format and spotify (and seemingly any technology since the steam engine) are wildly out of touch. OK Boomer, you had a good time living a yurt with your old lady in the 60s. Glad to hear it, now fuck off.

I respect Billy Joel's songwriting chops. These are incredibly successful songs and have been played on radio a bazillion times, and I know most of this album backwards just from the ubiquitous nature of the thing. But it bores me to tears. In Slipped Discs – the Worst Rock ’n’ Roll Records of All Time by Jimmy Guterman & Owen O’Donnell, they list Billy Joel as the Worst Rock and Roller of All Tie, stating "No single performer has done more to encourage musicians without a shred of rock credibility to think that pretending to rock out is the same thing as rocking out than Billy Joel." I strongly agree. Billy Joel is not rock and roll (despite Billy's later protestations); it's much more popular song based in the Broadway tradition. And it is very successful in that mold. But I don't really need it in my life. Sorry.

When I signed up for this project, I was expecting more albums of this kind of stature and reputation. Despite constant prodding from my mate Dave Lewis to give the Band some attention, they have largely sat on my back-burner. I mean, I've seen the Last Waltz, I know the hits, I even have a favourite deep cut ("Don't Do It", probably the funkiest thing they ever recorded). And I've certainly read a thousand hagiographic magazine articles about The Band. I know the legends, and this is a legendary album from a legendary band. _The_ Band. So what is it like to sit down and properly listen to the album? Well, I can certainly hear how this was massively influential in both song-writing and production approach. And like many super-influential albums, it was followed by a few people who did it better, and a whole lot of crappy imitators playing terrible and increasingly pale carbon copies of this record. The Band really did set the template for Americana. People are still copying this record. There are a few absolute classics on this record (Cripple Creek, Dixie, King Harvest), but some filler, too. The recording quality is a bit more coherent than Big Pink. But here come my blasphemous opinions; some of the singing is weak (especially Richard Manuel), and I have never really rated Robbie Robertson's playing. This album is, possibly, a bit over-rated. But it really is hard to judge an iconic album like this; so much of what has come since has been shaped by it; "authentic" production, band dynamics, the embrace of American roots styles, country-soul... And I do love that it isn't polished to the point that there is no life left in it, unlike so many albums. I can respect it, but I don't know that I really love it. I'm glad I have given it some proper attention. See Dave, I told you I would, eventually.

What's the difference between Simply Red and a bull? A bull has the horns up front and the arsehole at the back. According to wikipedia, Mick Hucknall was among the people present at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester in June 1976 where the Sex Pistols were playing. This gig was influential in the formation of Joy Division, the Smiths, Buzzcocks, The Fall... and Simply Red? Jesus, Mick, you were right there; were you not paying attention? How do you see one of the single most influential punk shows of all time and end up doing... this? This is a slightly warmed up regurgitation of soul with tepid jazz inflections, all passed through the 1980s cheese-ulator production filter. The over-reliance on synths sucks all the warmth out of the record, and the drum machines squeeze all the swing out of everything. The cover of Talking Heads' 'Heaven' is appalling. It's an insipid and inhuman record that only Patrick Bateman could love. The more I listen to this record, the more I despise it. I own a copy of this record, which I think I need to get rid of immediately. I am _never_ going to listen to this again.

I was chatting with my mate Dave Lewis a few years back about how I didn't really like live albums... except then I started listing off some of my favourite live albums, and I realised that, actually, I do quite like live albums. I don't mind the rough recording, or flubbed notes, or the crowd noise. What I really like is the sound of a band really tearing it up, playing with a real edge. And Cheap Trick At Budokan is a classic example of just that. This is exactly what power pop should sound like: melodic, tuneful, catchy, and (above all) rockin'. This record was something of a "guilty pleasure" amongst the grunge-leaning musos I hung around with int he early 90s, and Surrender would regularly pop up as the obligatory cover for a number of local pub bands around that time. I confess that I don't find the songs particularly memorable (except for Surrender, of course), but I LOVE the way they deliver this set. it's fast, loud and almost out of control. The tunes are catchy as hell, and you can rock out to it. This really is the archetype of everything you could possibly want in a live rock album. I should spin this more often.

I worked at Scratches Records in Newtown in the early 90s when k.d. Lang's Ingenue was released. We had a significant lesbian clientele, and we sold boxes of this album. I reckon we probably sold more copies of this in 92 than Nirvana's Nevermind. It was a big seller for us, and it got a lot of play in the store. I thought it was ok at the time (although my favourite track was a non-album track on a single b-side called Barefoot). But this wasn't really my bag at the time. I was young. Not having listened to this in nearly 30 years, I was curious to see what I thought after all this time. My tastes have changed (and broadened) over those years, and this is right in my wheelhouse now. I love torch songs (Dusty Springfield, Peggy Lee, Julie London, etc) and this fits right in that tradition. The songs are sensuous, filled with longing, the arrangements are spacious and tasteful, and her voice is amazing. Nobody had really made an album like this in decades. There had been lesbian torch singers before (Dusty Springfield, for example), but not an out lesbian. The pivot from her country albums and leaning into her new out identity (although it is debatable how deep in the closet she ever was. I see that haircut on the cover of Shadowland) made her a new type of crooner These days, I love this type of album of torch ballads, and I wish there were more like it on this list. This was a magic discovery for me, and i need to track down a copy of this LP.

Irrelevant and pretentious wallpaper. Was 2009 such a crap year for new music that critics had nothing else to praise but this tepid blancmange? According to Wikipedia,this is Wild Beasts best selling album, having shifted a grand total of 55,000 copies in ten years. Clearly, the punters know what the critics don't understand. Which is that this is dull and unimportant and no fun. You can happily go to the grave without having heard this.

In 2012 I was in New York City,band had the opportunity to see the Beach Boys, including Brian Wilson, performing in Central Park for GMA (https://youtu.be/ASfjoEadmow). They only performed about four songs (including soundcheck) and it was at 8am, but it was a chance to see Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys for free, so I dragged the family off to see the show. Between songs, Brian was super cranky, and admonished the (bored) crowd for bouncing around the beach balls that the production had provided. Most of the musical heavy lifting was done by Brian's band, but the were tight and upbeat and could still punch out a compelling rendition of their past glories. I love Brian's earlier more pop.oriented song writing and particularly his amazing vocal harmony arrangements. Here's a piece I wrote about twenty years ago for McSweeney's extolling the virtues of Don't Worry Baby (https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/dont-worry-baby-by-the-beach-boys). Little Ed is now a 6'4" man, which goes to show how.long ago I wrote that piece. This is by way of saying that I love the beach boys, but as a singles band. I never really bought into the "Brian is a Genius" cult, especially the "Pet Sounds is a work of unassailable perfection" dogma. I'll wear my heresy proudly: "Vegetables" is a shit song. I know that Surf's Up is like a shibboleth for a certain sect of alternative white boy rock snob. So I really tried to hear what they are talking about on this record. But what I hear is the last grasp of a band that had really burnt out three years earlier. New management had stepped in and made some tough decisions. Brian is largely sidelined (although I'll come back to that), with Carl placed in charge (good move). Dennis held back most of his songs for his solo record (probably not great), which left only a few songs from Brian leftover from the aborted Smile sessions, and some material of variable quality from the rest of the band. The band are on record as trying to arrange the songs to sound like the Beach Boys (even though they _were_ the Beach Boys). A few songs are alright (Feel Flows, Long Promised Road), but some are embarrassingly bad (Take a Load Off You Feet, A Day in the Life of a Tree, Student Demonstration Time). Like, really bad. New management had also tried to make the band more relevant by ditching their matching outfits (good move), playing some high profile shows in credible venues (good move) and embracing more socially relevant subject matter (not so great). The results of the new concerns with environmentalism, political upheaval and social unrest vary between clumsy (Don't Go Near the Water) and painfully reactionary (Student Demonstration Time, Disney Girls, Looking Towards Tomorrow). An attempt to speak to the kids showed how out of touch they really were. I suspect that one of the reasons that white boy rock snobs like this record is that they find the politics appealing. Many of these choices helped extend the band's longevity, although taking over the lead vocals (A Day in the Life of a Tree) is pure hubris. Would it actually have been better if the Beach Boys had faded away in 1970 instead of staggering through the 70s and 80s to diminishing returns? I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. But there are those three Brian Wilson tracks a the end of the record. I'll say straight out that A Day in the Life of a Tree is rubbish. Til I Die and Surf's Up are beautiful songs, with Brian's gorgeous and sophisticated harmonies, which I love. But the lyrics are nonsensical. I can hear the influence of this album all over alternative music on the 90s and 2000s, such a Spiritualized, Polyphonic Spree, Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, MGMT and a host of others. I can see how much people have built on this template. But, for my money, there are only four good songs on this record, and none of them are as good enough to hold their own with the Beach Boys best singles. And the rubbish songs are really shite. This is a 2.5 star album for me, rounded down for being over-hyped. A final word on the cover. Another choice by the new management, and it is genius. The juxtaposition of the image and the title is so evocative. The image is called The End of the Trail, and that really was prophetic. This album was the last gasp of a dying band. The corpse kept twitching for decades (see the 2012 video linked above), but this really was the death throws of their creativity.

It sounds ok, I guess. It's energetic and loud, and the guitar player is pretty hot stuff, but the singer is rubbish and the adolescent sniggering lyrics and rock and roll posturing wear a bit. I mean, I can see the appeal, but it really wears its influences on its sleeve, so why wouldn't you just listen to Ziggy Stardust or any Motorhead record or something instead?

Stompin' band at the height of their powers, and a charismatic front man. Sometimes the lyrics are little overly clever (Dury never saw an easy rhyme he didn't like; Billericay Dickie is an example there), and the line between sexy and sexist is often crossed, and has dated poorly (Wake Up and Make Love With Me is a case study in why we need consent training). Still, Dury is trying to shock and provoke a sense of fun. It's hard to be too outraged when you're dancing, after all. Dodgy sexual politics aside, this is a fun listen and the cover photo is ace. Would buy.

Dave C. was a regular fixture in various student share households I lived in during the early 90s. He loved Deep Purple, and we played their albums a lot, especially the Mark II version of the band, and especially this album. Deep Purple were then, and remain,an uncool outfit, but I really love In Rock. It's everything you could want from a 1970s hard rock outfit; driving rhythm section, wailing guitars, vague classical allusions, and a screaming lead singer. This album has all of it, and the n-th degree. And it doesn't take itself too seriously, which makes it a ton of fun. Speed King is my all time favourite Deep Purple track; Ian Gillan has learnt all the right lessons from Little Richard. The scream he does in the middle of the line "Tutti Frutti WOOOOH, so rooty" is one the absolute great moments of rock and roll. I could listen to that all day.

I love the Pixies. I discovered them with Doolittle, and then bought all of their albums thereafter at release. I played and loved them a lot. I even like Trompe le Monde and Bossanova. But when they split, I transferred my affection completely over to Kim Deal and the Breeders. I know I listened to Frank Black's first couple of solo albums (including this one) when they were released but I found little that grabbed me, and easily forgettable. It felt like a fading carbon copy of the Pixies, almost like someone trying to make a record that sounded like a Pixies record. But without the power or biting edge. Frank Black has released a pretty prodigious catalogue of music since then, all of which I have managed to ignore. So, coming back to this album nearly 30 years after release, do I find it any more compelling than I did at the time? It's slightly better than I remember, but I still stand by my initial assessment. Not much that sticks out here, except for Headache which is a pretty good song. I like that the tracks are short and to the point, but with 22 tracks clocking in over an hour, there are more than a few songs that could have been happily left on the cutting room floor. 'Fiddle Riddle' and 'Ole Mulholland' are the first tracks I would cull. On a 1001 list note, I do not understand why this album is on the list but the Breeders 'Last Splash ' is not. It was a much more successful and impactful record both commercially and critically at the time, and, I would argue, has had a much greater lasting influence. Plus, Last Splash is a lot more fun than Teenager of the Year. I find it hard to ascribe this substitution to anything other than chauvinism.

I instantly took to the Sugarcubes as soon as I heard them, and bought this album when it first came out. Birthday is an instant classic. Peter regularly drops 'Birthday' into the set when we are DJing together, and it still pops , 35 years later. My mate Tim and I saw them at Selinas at the Coogee Bay Hotel in 1990. I remember that Bjork was great and compelling, but that Einar was equally annoying. This record is weird and naughty and funny and scary and funky and dark and rude. It certainly has precedents (B52s, Birthday Party, Gang of Four, etc.), but when you look at them all in a list like, it is a pretty oddball mix, and could never be accused of being a copy of any of them. They really understand pop, but the way the tunes are constructed is compelling and unique. It was pretty clear from the beginning that Bjork was a vital creative voice (both literally and figuratively). They complained at the time that media attention focused mostly on her, instead of the band, but she really is the star of this album. And history has gone on to prove what a star and great artist she is. Her approach is always fresh and surprising, and you could hear that from this, her first international appearance. This album is still fresh and surprising to me. Bjork is still the star, and Einar is still annoying (in a good way, like Fred in the B52s). Five star, classic.

I have never consciously heard anything by the War on Drugs. It's got a strong influence of Americana-ish, but with a hazy spaced out production. It doesn't surprise me that the guy was largely writing about his own depression. It's a fair record, but didn't set my world aflame.

"A bombshell: as good as it undoubtedly is, this record isn't going to change your life. Nor will it be considered an OK Computer or a Velvet Underground & Nico in ten years' time. Did it ever promise to be? Some people seemed to think so, and many still might." - Rob Webb, Drowned in Sound. It's ten years on, and I think his prediction has become true. This was the flavour the year, 2008, but do we really still need to listen to this record? It sounds great, it's smart and approachable, even if little short on real hooks and energy. 1001 Albums; I suspect this was a relatively fresh album when putting together whatever edition this went into, but I'm willing to bet it will be cut from the next edition. Just my little prediction there.

I've been meaning to read Lizzy Goodman's 'Meet Me in the Bathroom', her well regarded oral history of the NYC rock and roll scene in the early 2000s. It covers the much hyped scene that included the Strokes, Yeah Yeahs Yeahs, Interpol, LCD Sound System, etc. But I haven't got around to reading it yet. Part of my tardiness has been a general antipathy towards many of those bands as over-hyped, style-over-substance poseurs. The Strokes were especially too-cool-for-school, louche, rich kids showing off for the cameras, more interested in doing drugs and shagging models than actually rocking out. I never really bought their 'saviours of rock and roll' posturing. I probably lumped the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in with that whole crew, and had not really given them a proper listen. They were, in fairness, massively hyped on the basis of one ep (which was pretty good) and a single (which was OK) before they even put an album out. Lots of press and photo shoots for a band that is barely out of the practice room never bodes well for the longevity of a band. This album was met with some of the inevitable skepticism and backlash that follows that kind of hype. The NME was certainly responsible for the early crash and burn of many a young hopeful in the UK, and the same trend seemed to be occurring in this New York scene. But it's 15 years later now, and now that the dust has settled, how does this album strike me? Well, it rocks. The guitar and drums cut loose, and the playing is noisy and dynamic (which is to my taste). Karen O is a charismatic and compelling front person. She tends towards louche restraint on occasion, as was endemic in that scene (Julian Casablancas is the worst fucking offender at that), but she is usually energetic and compelling. after three listens, there were some songs that caught my attention and memory. Of the albums from this particular scene that I have heard, this is my favourite so far, even if not wildly different from a bunch of local bands I have heard tearing it up at my local small venue. Maybe that's what I find so off-putting about the hype thing. I have seen bands as good as this at the Sandringham or Moshpit or the Burland Community Centre or in a fucking laneway in Marrickville, that might release a demo tape as good as this, but nobody has ever heard of them. I love this kind of band, playing as if their lives depend on it in a sweaty pub in front of 30 people. It's real, it's special, it's right in front of you. It's loud, close-up, gritty rock and roll. But will it save the world? Is it the greatest thing ever? It's the greatest thing right there in the moment for those 30 people, but it's an ephemeral thing. And that's its beauty. I bet I would have LOVED the Yeah Yeah Yeahs if I has seen them as unknowns in a small bar. But as a worldwide musical phenomena? It's not the right context for what they are doing. But I will acknowledge that The Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a fucking great band name.

Van Morrison is one of the great cranky bastards of rock. Throughout his career, he has often struggled to overcome (or even conceal) his contempt for his audiences. At this particular point in time, however, he knew he was on his last chance with his record company. Astral Weeks had been a critical success, but had not found wide commercial appeal, and he had one more shot in the locker to get his career going. And so he made an album that would accessible and enjoyable for wide audiences. The tunes are cracking, his voice is fantastic, the horn-led band is warm and welcoming to listen to. The lyrics are still a bit spiritual, but a bit more accessible. It's a really easy album to listen to. Given that he has spent the next 50 years being a cantankerous arsehole, it's kind of a miracle that he had this in him. He was difficult to start with, and I don't think that success and cocaine did him any favours. I find it easier to listen to this album if I don't think too hard about Van Morrison the person. 4.5 stars, rounded down for bad behaviour.

I never really understood the cult of Blur. Some great singles, but over-rated albums. It's a British thing, isn't it? Maybe you had to be doing coke in Camden in the 90s with the Britpop crew to really _get_ it. And I don't know why they have THREE albums on the 1001 list. They were certainly an epochal English band of the early 90s; they were massive selling and really important in the British scene at the time. They are the most Britpop of all the Britpop bands (Oasis were, ultimately, a bigger band, but they are not quite so typical of the scene). The NME wasted miles of column inches to their every move, and particularly their supposed rivalry with Oasis. Noel Gallagher once described this album as ""Like Southern England personified". I'm not sure he meant it as a compliment (qv. 'London Loves'). Girl & Boys is a terrific single (especially the Pet Shop Boys remix on the 12", which I regularly spin when I am DJing). Robert Christgau opined that it was the only good song on the album. The rest of the album is comprised of generic indie rock or novelty songs. Parklife annoys me more every time I hear it. And it isn't the only novelty song on the record (The Debt Collector, Far Out, But in fairness, I'm not British, and so the specific concerns of such and Anglocentric album don't really speak to me. If you look at the chart performance of this album, there is a marked difference between how it charted in Britian compared to anywhere else in the world, which I think speaks to the cultural specificity of this record. And you certainly don't need to listen to THREE different Blur albums in your life. This is a 2.5 star album for me, in that it isn't really _bad_ per se, except that the constant over praise from the British music press still annoys me. Rounded down.

Stephen Erlewine at allmusic.com (https://www.allmusic.com/album/in-a-gadda-da-vida-mw0000177147) wrote this very astute review: "With its endless, droning minor-key riff and mumbled vocals, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is arguably the most notorious song of the acid rock era. According to legend, the group was so stoned when they recorded the track that they could neither pronounce the title "In the Garden of Eden" or end the track, so it rambles on for a full 17 minutes, which to some listeners sounds like eternity. But that's the essence of its appeal — it's the epitome of heavy psychedelic excess, encapsulating the most indulgent tendencies of the era. Iron Butterfly never matched the warped excesses of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," either on their debut album of the same name or the rest of their catalog, yet they occasionally made some enjoyable fuzz guitar-driven psychedelia that works as a period piece. The five tracks that share space with their magnum opus on In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida qualify as good artifacts, and the entire record still stands as the group's definitive album, especially since this is the only place the full-length title track is available." I lived in a share house on Shepherd St in the early 90s where side 2 (the 17 minute title track) was played a lot. We never spun side 1, and listening to it today, I remember why. It is boring and unremarkable guff. But the song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is really great. I mean, it is a rambling repetitive drone of a song with a 2.5 minute drum solo in the middle, but, if you can stomach the self-indulgent psychedelic noodling of it all, it really is best in class. it is more listenable than, say, Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive and certainly better than anything ever by the Grateful Dead. So, the songs on side 1 are struggling to even make two stars for me, but I really love the title track. Three stars, on balance. The title track does turn up as cultural reference occasionally, most notably in the Simpsons episode where Bart switches out the church sheet music with "In the Garden of Eden" by I. Ron Butterfly. The organist struggles through the whole 17 minutes before collapsing with exhaustion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulDC1w1ydLI). The strangest cover, though, must be its appearance in the Resident's deeply disturbing medley of deconstructed 60s hits (https://youtu.be/lPCoM1Kcf_o?t=787). Try it, I dare ya.

I really love the production of this record; the use of old soul records (including the pitch-shifted 'chipmunk soul' samples) was massively influential, but rarely matched. The use of samples is lush and big scale (not the scratchy old funk samples that had been previously more common), and, as lover of the original tracks, I find this really listenable. It's pop rap, but it's hard to argue when it sounds this good. Jay-Z's skill and flow are pretty amazing, although he manages to make it sound effortless and natural. That said, this album (as most of Hova's output) is a monument to his ego. The endless braggadocio is just a bit of a yawn after a while. If it was me, I'd trim this album back by 20 minutes, and maybe encourage Mr Carter to expand his areas of lyrical interest.

This album was clearly highly influential on nu-metal, and is far better than most of that godforsaken genre. Despite the occasional touches of Latin percussion, field recordings of indigenous song, and acoustic guitar, this is still an hour of yelling, yelling, yelling, over a brutal and repetitive metal riffage. I am exhausted. And the 13 minute percussion jam at the end of the album just adds insult to injury. Alfie, my 15 year old son, wandered into my office while this was playing and his ears pricked up. "What's this?" he asked. When I told him, he went "hmm" in a thoughtful manner and wandered out again. It wouldn't surprise me if he added this to his playlist. But it does go to show, this really is intended for teenage boys, not middle-aged men.

I remember when this album came out, there was a kid at school (whose name escapes me now) who was particularly evangelical about synth pop in general and Scritti Politti in particular when this album came out. I don't think he was aware of their past as a Marxist agit-prop, post-punk collective. And in all fairness, there isn't much about this very expensive production that would suggest such a past. The singles certainly caught my attention at the time, influenced by his proselytizing, This album is probably the pinnacle of 80s synth pop. Sophisticated, polished, intricate, smooth, light. Robert Christgau wrote that "the high-relief production and birdlike tunes and spry little keyb arrangements and hippety-hoppety beat and archly ethereal falsetto add up to a music of amazing lightness and wit that's saved from any hint of triviality by wordplay whose delight in its own turns is hard to resist." I'm not sure that I am taken with the lyrics; they're clever, but I feel like Green Gartside is a bit in love with his own cleverness. Generally, I find his approach a bit narcissistic, which makes the album hard to love. Although, Miles Davis was a fan, and covered Perfect Way on his Tutu album. I love the singles, notably Wood Beez and Perfect Way, but a whole album is like eating a 10kg bag of fairy floss. Light and fun for the first few handfuls, but sweet to the point of nauseating over the space of a whole album. I own a couple of Scritti Politti albums (including this one), which I never spin all the way through. I should ditch the LPs, and invest in copies of the singles instead. That would work better.

3 Feet High and Rising is my favourite hip hop album of all time, and probably in my top ten albums of all time. I reckon this was played at nearly every party I went to between 1990 and 1993. I bought it when it was pretty fresh out, and still play it today. It's funny and smart and silly and surprising and funky and playful and thoughtful. I hear something new every time I listen to it, and it always makes want to dance. So many great songs on here, and great hooks. This is one the late 80s sampling records that showed how the use of samples, recontextualizing moments of other records drawn from a diverse and eclectic collection, can gel into a new work of art that has something new to offer,. Sadly, the legal ramifications mean that it is hardly feasible to make records like this (or Paul's Boutique or A Nation of Millions) these days, and it kept this album from being readily available for a long time. Which is a damn shame, because this album is so great. It introduced the idea of skits on hip hop albums, which I generally find to be annoying blight, but I love this record so much that I will forgive the skits. I still play songs from this record when I'm DJing, and they always get people on the floor with a smile on their face. An absolute classic, five stars.

Elton John doesn't do it for me. I know a lot of his material from its incessant play on commercial radio, and I enjoyed the biopic, but I would never choose to put any of his records on the turntable. I would not buy one from a $1 bin. I don't change the radio station when one of his songs comes on (as compared to Billy Joel, whose music I actively despise), but neither do I respond with familiar enjoyment (as opposed to Fleetwood Mac, who I always enjoy when they come on the radio). I can no longer tell if his classic songs (and there is really only one on this album) are actually good songs, or just played so much that they are familiar. Like, just played so much that we confuse ubiquity for enjoyment. This is almost exactly the same review as I gave to Yellow Brick road. Except that this album doesn't have the same number of classic singles. Tiny Dancer is a pretty good song, although most of my fondness derives from its appearance in Almost Famous. I don't like Bernie Taupin's lyrics; I find them needlessly obtuse, and sometimes just downright silly. Elton can write and sing a good tune, but this album all seems pretty much the same (understandable, given that it was his third album of 1971). All the songs are a bit too long and over-orchestrated. I found this a real struggle to get through.

Pleasant enough. Sunny, relaxed, fun to listen to. But the clear standout track is A Minha Menina, which is a barely-altered cover of a track by Os Mutantes Mutantes. Why is this album a must-listen? 2.5 stars, rounded up for being fun.

I was not a huge fan of Britpop. It was often Anglocentric to the point of disappearing up its own backside, and not nearly as good as the cocaine led them to believe. There were, to be fair, some really great singles that came out of it, but the albums often left me unimpressed, especially given the hype they received from the UK music press. This album, however, I really enjoyed at the time, and it holds up pretty well. It's clearly an album about Britain, but is far less celebratory than, say, Oasis or Blur. The deftly drawn vignettes of grimy bedsits, bad drugs and worse sex have a universality to them, and are presented with wit, charm and a dramatic flair. That's the word that I feel summarizes this album best; drama. Jarvis Cocker understands the drama in the songs, and sings with a dynamic range that really heightens the drama of his stories (as opposed to many Britpop singers, who sing with a bored and flat affect that gives me the shits). The arrangements aren't anything to too unusual, but they are well matched to the dynamic range of Cocker's vocals. The avoidance of trendy production techniques means that this album still holds up well 25 years later. The singles are cracking (especially Common People), but there are a bunch of songs that really grew on me over a few listens. 3.5 stars, rounding up. Would buy (at a reasonable price)

This one is complicated. I have tried to dip into the GBV back catalog before, and have been hindered by two factors; 1) the massive size of their catalog (35 albums, plus 22 solo Robert Pollard albums, plus all the miscellaneous stuff), and 2) the critical praise. I mean, look at this review of Alien Lanes from Sputnik Music (https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/34199/Guided-by-Voices-Alien-Lanes/) "The genius of this is that the album is a bombardment of staggeringly good songs, with nothing less than the staggeringly good anywhere to be found. That they managed to preserve so much brilliance, without giving it a vacuum-packed feel and managing to do the thinking justice with their delivery in such a small space of time, is astounding. And what’s more – oh, so much more – is that everyone involved has an absolute ball doing it." This is just bullshit on the plain face of it. There are, in fairness, a couple of pretty good songs on this record; Game of Pricks, Motorway, Little Whirl. But there is some awful throw-away shit as well; Hit, Gold Hick, etc. And so badly recorded. This is where this gets complicated for me. I like a grungy, lo-fi aesthetic. I love that this is an album of sensible duration (41 minutes) with short songs (28 songs in 41 minutes!). Pollard can write a good tune when he tries, and the band can crank out some passable rock and roll. But, and this is a big 'but', some editing would help. Does EVERYTHING need to go on tape, and does it all need to be released? And I am looking at the GBV fanboys here: does every note need to be praised to the heavens? Really, this is the demo tape for a potentially good album. A decent producer would listen to this, identify the good songs, send the band into rehearsals to work up some arrangements, which could then be captured for posterity. How good would this album be if you picked the best 12-15 songs and recorded a passable 2 1/2 or 3 minute version of each, once it had been thought through a little? All I can hear is wasted potential. I really feel for Bob Ludwig, who is the unsung hero of this album. I bet Bob was pretty surprised when the record company asked him to try and make a silk purse out of the shitty tapes he was handed. I did a quick A/B comparison with Bee Thousand, the GBV album immediately prior, and you can really hear the difference that great mastering has made. He did a pretty good job with what he was given. I also want to point out that embracing a lo-fi aesthetic doesn't justify cover art as deliberately ugly as this. This is just bad. I think this album infuriates me because it could have been great, but it deliberately chooses to be shit at every turn. And the way that every hiss and sonic fart is hailed by the Cult of GBV as a work of goddamn genius just gives me the irrits. I'm giving this 2.5 stars for being an album that shows some promise, rounded down for the annoying fanboys.

Oh, look, it's another mid-90s Wu Tang album. Sometimes I wonder at Dimery's lack of imagination in compiling this list of 1001 albums, and he clearly doesn't know much about hip-hop.... That said, this is a reliably cool mid-90s Wu Tang album. Method Man's flow is charismatic and compelling. The beats have a wonky lo-fi funky feel, with plenty of cinematic atmosphere. The album sounds good, and the lyrics aren't as unpleasant as most gangsta albums (although not without a faint smell of violence and sexism). I don't like the ham-fisted interpolation of I Will Survive on Release Yo' Delf. I do like that this album is both a sensible album length (44 minutes), and so doesn't outstay its welcome, and there are no skits (which are, IMHO, a blight on most hip hop albums). It's OK, but 36 Chambers is the only Wu Tang album you really need to hear.

I really like Black Sabbath. I mean, they aren't great musicians, but they managed to turn their shortcomings into a whole new genre. This is not their best record (that would be Paranoid), but it is pretty damn close. You can hear them desperately trying to be Led Zeppelin, but it turns into their own thing. There are a few classictunes on here (Supernaut, which was one of Frank Zappa's favourite songs, and Changes, later exquisitely covered by Charles Bradley). As a fan of stoner rock and sludge metal, this is one of the seminal texts. FX is really rubbish, but everything else I find fun, rockin' and charming in its own way. 4.5 stars, rounding up because I always enjoy listening to this record.

It's easy to think of the title track as almost a cliché of 70s smooth soul, but listening to it fresh and in context, it's hard to deny how compelling it is. It is the jewel in the crown of this album, which is a sensuous and rapturous template for so much slow jam, lover man soul to come. While the remaining tracks might not rise to the level of the title track, I find is a consistently great album to listen to all the way through. I would listen to Marvin Gaye, here at the height of his powers, sing the telephone book. This album is not quite as great as What's Going On, but this would be a career pinnacle for almost any other artist. 4.5 stars, rounding up.

A pretty fair cross of country and rock. Highly influenced by Springsteen; the version I listened to included a pretty good cover of "State Trooper" on the end, just to make that influence super clear. It's OK, but does not set my world aflame.

I don’t even know where to start with Abbey Road. I can criticise aspects of this album, but the Beatles are still the Beatles. Things they did on record, especially from their studio-based period, which may have been accidents, have become so influential they seem like deliberate strategies, and people have built whole careers based on them. Some of the marked features of this album have become integral parts of the rock lexicon; the hidden track, the medley, the tom-heavy drumming, the use of effects like the leslie speaker, etc. that emerged out of (arbitrary) opportunity or necessity. Most noted is the side 2 medley; born of necessity to utilise partially written song fragments, it became permission for extended side-long suites with disparate fragments (hello prog rock). The fact that it worked on Abbey Road excused the confusion of willful collage with ‘clever’ song writing. McCartney is one of the worst offenders at this (qv. ‘Band on the Run’, which is a ghastly incoherent mess). On this album, it helped present material that benefited from the succinct presentation. I mean, would ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ be better if edited down to a similar length as Polythene Pam? Possibly. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is, frankly, atrocious and feels like a track that might have made its way onto the White album, but does not belong here. And I agree with John and George that it was not worth the effort to record and include. But other than that, the songs are outstanding. (I was recently doing a deep dive on Let It Be, and the song writing here is SOOOO much better. Come Together, Something, Here Comes the Sun, and the side 2 medley are highlights of the Beatles catalogue. Here Comes the Sun is the most streamed Beatles song Spotify, and has always been a favourite of mine. Despite the clear tensions in the band around this time, they seem, to have put aside the worst of their bickering to lean into what a tight band they were. Augmented by Billy Preston and really great orchestral arrangement and production from George Martin, this last recorded output from the Beatles is confident and leaning towards the future. The crisper sound from 8-track recording and a solid-state desk, tasteful use of synthesizer (white noise in 'I Want You' aside) show that this was not just recycling their clichés, but committed to making a really great sounding record. I rate my favourite albums according to those I most frequently play, and this is definitely in my top three Beatles' albums (along with Revolver and Hard Day’s Night). Everyone should make themselves familiar with the many pleasures of Abbey Road, five stars.

Oh really? This sounds like a willfully obscure post-hardcore band much like any other. Alan Moulder mix helps it sound a little better than many. But, I mean, really, this album was barely released, and is not even on spotify at present. How is this a "must hear" album? I mean, they rock. And I'm sure they are heap of sweaty fun live... but this is really a stretch. All attitude and no songs (exception: Kiss Like Lizards). An absolutely inessential record, with nothing to recommend it.

I used to be a sniffy about disco. It was not serious music, not very cred, too formula driven, etc. In nearly 30 years of mulling over these issues, I have come to the viewpoint that I was pretty much wrong on all counts. The “Disco sucks” movement was largely based in racist and homophobic resentment of anyone having fun without straight white men being in charge. Ideas of musical cred are also based in an exclusionary viewpoint by largely entitlement straight white guys (most critics) trying to gatekeep “good” music. So, now I am talking to all my white, straight, male homies: all of those criticism miss the point that disco is enormous fun. It is absolutely built from the ground up for dancing (which is awesome), and largely attuned to the tastes of women and gay men. And if you’re looking for a fun night out, you can’t beat dancing with a group of women and/or gay men. They know how to how to have a good time out on the floor, and, if you’re lucky, they’ll let you tag along. If you think you’re cool by shunning disco, you are a fool and missing out. I have been DJing parties a bit lately (with my mate Peter), and there is nothing as amazing as getting a room full of people to dance, and, to really get the dancing going, you need some disco. As to the accusation that disco is formulaic, I refer you to Sturgeon’s Law: “ninety percent of everything is crap". There is a lot of crap disco out there, but this Sister Sledge album is the gold standard. Produced by Chic at the height of their powers, I would argue that “We Are Family”, “Lost in Music” and “He’s the Greatest Dancer” are among the greatest disco songs ever. With the exception of the lackluster ballad “Somebody Loves Me”, the rest of the album tracks are excellent. I particularly enjoy “Thinking of You”. The band is tight and lays down a great groove, the tunes are memorable, and the vocal performances and harmonies are terrific (maybe not quite to the standard of contemporaries like the Pointer Sisters or Labelle, but still really strong). This is a consistently slick, groovy and (above all) fun album, that ranks amongst the best disco of all time, and should be celebrated.

In this 1001 albums project, I feel like I have sat through a zillion late 60s white-boy psychedelic rock records, and they bore me to death. Really, when I think about it, they don't have a lot of life in them, and they meander around without much drive and they just shit me. In that context, I can see why Santana were such a dramatic success when they suddenly emerged in 1969. Their career-making appearance at Woodstock was the highlight of the festival (as far as I can tell from the film). Because they knew how to groove. The energetic rhythm drives everything, which is what all those other bands could never really get right. The Santana band can noodle as much as much as they like (and they sure do like to noodle, especially live) because you can dance to it. Despite Carlos Santana's name on the marquee, I'd like to call out Greg Rolie as the most valuable player here. His organ playing and singing really lift this record, and "Hope You're Feeling Better" is the standout original track on the record for me. That said, five (that's more than half) tracks from this album turn up on the 1974 Greatest Hits album, and deservedly so. As time went by, it became clear that Carlos Santana is a bit of a one trick pony, but it a pretty bloody great trick, and never displayed better than on this record. Personally, I prefer the self-titled album, but it's a near thing really. Between the self-titled album and Abraxas, you have all the Santana you'll ever need, but you really do need it.

I just never liked Paul Weller. Don't like the Jam, don't like the Style Council, don't like his solo 'Modfather' work. Lots of people really dig the Jam, and god knows I have tried many, many times over the past 40 years to understand it. But I just don't. Chalk this up as yet another unsuccessful attempt to get into the Jam. The only Paul Weller track I like is the Kosmos (Lynch Mob Bonus Beats Remix). I think this is because it removes all of his singing and, essentially, all of the song itself. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i8djfurMVQ&t=2s

I can see why this is a classic. Amazing harmonies, some stellar songwriting, and really tasteful production that never overpowers the vocals. If you were a singer-songwriter, this would be the bible. Young's contribution, both songwriting and guitar playing, lift things. His approach is little bit more rock and less polished than Stephen Stills' tendency towards perfectionism, which I prefer.

I quite liked Jamiroquai when they first appeared with this album. The template is largely based on Stevie Wonder, but given that he hadn't released a good record in over a decade at that point, the funky acid jazz approach was fun, and certainly welcome breather from grunge. The singles are catchy and engaging, but the album drags as it goes on. Eight to ten minute workouts might be fun live, but they tend to outstay their welcome on disc, and the less said about the didgeridoo playing, the better. I did see Jamiroquai at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 2002. The band was incredibly tight and super professional. I bet they never played a wrong note, and delivered a polished and perfect performance every note. And it was a bit soulless. It was perfectly competent, but never really took off. I mentioned it to my wife, and she has no memory of seeing the show (although she was standing right next to me). And this album is a bit like that; really competent, with good singles, but largely forgettable. Jay Kay was an engaging frontman when this album came out, although as he developed his 'prat in the hat' persona, he became somewhat less likable. I mean, it is hard to take his "peace, love and environment" messages too seriously when all Mr Kay really seemed interested in was shagging models and collecting sports cars (or was it the other way around?). But, as a first start from the gates, they are a cracking and super tight funk band with something to prove, with a charismatic frontman, which felt fun and funky at the time. The singles are pretty damn food, although the album tracks are often not much than a jazzy groove with banal lyrics. Subsequent albums followed the same pattern. I like many Jamiroquai singles and sometimes include them in my DJ sets. But the albums are inessential.

hmm, what? Sorry, just fell asleep for a bit there. Yeah, cool record collection, bro.

I was right in the zone for Licensed To Ill to act as a gateway drug to hip hop for me. I was a 16 year old suburban white boy in Australia when it burst onto the radio. We heard almost no hip hop in Australia prior to this (with the exceptions that prove the rule: The Message, Walk This Way, and, god help me, the Stutter Rap). Licensed to Ill was fronted by white boys and sufficiently rock and roll to be palatable to musically conservative Australia radio and record companies, making this one of the first easily available hit rap album in this part of the world. Within a year, I was devouring pretty much whatever I could lay my hands on, which was not a lot at the time (and explains why I have a Velore & Double-O album in my collection). Not much hip hop was getting local release out here. But this was a big hit on radio, and I loved it. And some of the records that I hunted down following this were a lot better. But this, the second album, just flopped on release. Triple J played a few tracks, but it was just too strange and funky for the same kind of mainstream appeal. I picked it up on vinyl not long after release from a cut-out bin at Central Station Records, with the 4' long double gatefold fold out sleeve. And I played it to death. I loved the new sound. The samples were dense, eclectic and funky, and the wordplay was simultaneously smart and dumb. Legal considerations stopped this kind of sampling within a year or two, which is why this and Three Feet High and Rising and Nation of Millions haven't really ever been replicated. There is something new and surprising and fun every time I Iisten to this album. And they are a lot of fun. I saw them touring Check Your Head at Selinas at the Coogee Bay Hotel in 1992, when they were playing their instruments, and they were awesome. As time goes by, I sometimes wonder whether the Beastie Boys were _really_ hip hop, or whether they were an alternative rock band who happened to rap. This album is the closest to true hip hop that they ever did, and it was massively influential on the sound of hip hop. If it's real enough for Chuck D, it's real enough for me. So, I still spin Hey Ladies or Shake Your Rump in just about every DJ set I ever play.

Well, wasn't this a rough-as-guts piece of heavy glam rock! Not nearly as polished as many of their contemporaries, Chas Chandler made a good call by harnessing a pretty live and loud Slade at the height of their powers. I noticed how much better this sounds as you turn the volume up. I also didn't realise how much Nobby Holder sounds like Janis Joplin until I heard this cover of Move Over. I'd still take Janis' version over this, but it would have kicked arse in concert. That said, the songs selection shows me that they had a pretty narrow view of what their appeal was at the time. The songs on the album are all uniformly loud, raucous and stompin' rock and roll, which makes them seem like a one tricky pony. It all got a bit wearing by the time I was halfway through the album. It was a bit repetitive. I mean, Gudbuy T'Jane immediately followed by Gudbuy Gudbuy suggests that they were maybe a little short of inspiration. But here is a counter-factual to consider: The expanded edition I listened to had a bunch of b-sides appended to the main album; My Life is Natural, Candidate, Wonderin' Y, and Man Who Speaks Evil. They were all pretty good (especially My Life is Natural) and provided a bit more variety of texture than the songs on the album proper. What would have happened if they had cut the four most repetitive songs on Slayed? and replaced them with these more varied tracks? Then I think we're moving from a 2.5 star album to a 3.5 star record. For the purpose of ratings, though, I'm going to split the difference. Three stars.

Kid Congo Powers described the early Gun Club as "too arty for rock people, far too rock for arty people, too cuckoo for the blues crowd and too American for punk". Well, hell, that all sounds great to me! I remember spinning a Gun Club album when I worked at Scratches Records in the late 80s (probably 'Miami', I'm thinking), and it didn't really connect with me then. But I picked up a copy of this album almost on a whim a few years back, and hoo boy, do I get it now. As the final line of 'For the Love of Ivy' proclaims, this record is all dressed up like an Elvis from hell! I really dig this swampy mix of punk attitude and approach with blues and country influences, which, when mixed with a healthy dose of Deep South gothic, gives a gritty swamp rock album. it's not unlike the Australian band the Beast of Bourbon, who emerged from a similar pot pourri of influences with a similar sound only a year or two later. I am a massive fan of the Beasts. Had they heard this record? Maybe. Maybe not. But they ended up engineering a very similar sound. You certainly wouldn't accuse Jeffrey Lee Pierce of being a great singer, and nobody in the band could really play their instruments well at this point, but they approach it with a powerful gusto. The album is well titled; it is sex and fire. I don't think I've ever heard a version of Preachin' the Blues that so well understood the assignment. This really is what I like from a rock and roll record; energetic and out of control, and pretty wild. I really like the low-budget, badly recorded, no technique, but full of piss and vinegar, sound. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but it's got a funky beat, and I can trip out to it.

When the first track started playing, I was like "oh, this is isn't what I expected". it was very much in that 70s Eno-period/Roxy Music art-pop mold, with a more chilled out vibe. And I really dug it. Probably not really a surprise given the Eno production and appearance by Phil Manzanera. But then the rest of the album is just awful. I quite like Wyatt's voice (although his tunes meander a bit), but jeez, please keep the man away from any other instrument. Much of the instrumental 'soloing' is tuneless caterwauling, and Wyatt himself seems to be the main culprit on fiddle and trumpet. It was pointless, directionless noise. Disliked. Heaps of Sheep is the only listenable track on the record. Maybe I'm having a bad day, but this record actually angered me. Which is quite an achievement, given how chill it is.

I do not understand why this album is on the list. The Kinks (especially in the 60s) were a great singles band, but those best songs were usually not included on albums. And this album is a prime example of not containing singles; Sunny Afternoon is a bit of a classic, and A House in the Country got a bit of love during Britpop, but otherwise, these are not A-list songs from the Kinks. I have been reading pop music history for 40 years, and I don't think I have ever heard mention of this album. I rate the Kinks singles, but this album? Why the hell is this on the must-hear list? Someone has a fondness for 60s Kinks, and felt the need to include something, so they put this down. I honestly feel like it was a waste of time listening to this album. Not much to recommend. Get a Kinks singles compilation instead.

I find it hard to review this. I am so fucking tired of Dimery's obsession with 60s rock, especially when it meets the intersection of his infatuation with Neil Young and Stephen Stills. And country influences. And fuzz guitar. I mean, this is almost the ur-example of a record that would make Dimery splooge in his pants. Ick. I've listened to the album through three times today, and it's alright, I guess. Songwriting, singing and playing is pretty good, but let's get real here for a minute: does anyone (other than Neil Young or CSNY obsessives) need to hear any Buffalo Springfield songs other than For What It's Worth?

Oh goody, yet another late 60s/early 70s cult-favourite. Sigh. Psychedelic influences? Tick! Band broke up on initial release? Pretentious lyrics? Tick and tick! Multiple re-releases on hip reissue labels? Slathered in studio trickery? Progressive leanings? Critical darling with underwhelming commercial appeal? Tick, tick, tick, tick and tick! We just won White-boy Rock Critic Bingo! (I've listened to the album twice through now, and there are some mildly catchy tunes. It's not bad, but I'm not in love with it.)

When I first moved out of home in the very early 1990s, the share houses I lived in were pretty musical in tone. We listened to a lot of contemporary alternative of various flavours, but also a lot of what we referred to as "ancestor metal". Deep Purple, Sabbath, Led Zep, et hoc genus omnes. Dave C. was never an official flatmate, but he spent a lot of time hanging out in our lounge room, and he loved this record, so we played it a lot. Personally, Led Zep II was my favourite, but this is still a pretty great record, and I find it hard to critique. I am reminded of Jon Brion's distinction between songs and performance pieces (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_RsLDMeRj4 for an excerpt, or Sound Opinions episode #32, 2006, for the full interview). He cites Led Zeppelin as the best example of performances pieces: it's all about that specific performance by those specific musicians. And they are amazing musicians playing fantastic performances, but the songs are either simplistic (e.g. Immigrant Song), generic (e.g. Since I've Been Loving You) or loosely plagiarized (e.g. Hats Off to Roy Harper). But it is hard to imagine anyone else playing them in way that is nearly as powerful or compelling as these performances. Brion points that out that there are very few satisfying covers of Led Zeppelin songs (with the notably exception of Dread Zeppelin). I mean, have you ever heard anyone try to cover Immigrant Song in a way that didn't make you just shrug and think to yourself "the original version is much better"? Led Zep are a cornerstone band for me, and I will happily listen to any of their first five albums any day of the week. I know the critiques (bombastic, stupid lyrics, sexist, plagiarized), but I really enjoy listening to them. Five stars for awesomeness and classic status.

I often complain about the woeful under-representation of women on the 1001 albums list. It can be a bit of a sausage-fest. But today, happily, here is an album by a great artist, and an album that absolutely belongs on this list, which happens to be by a female artist. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I worked at Scratches Records in Newtown, which specialised in female artists. So we were very aware of PJ Harvey when she appeared. Having a wide back catalog of female artist (including lots of alternative artists), I was not surprised by the emergence of a powerful, gritty female voice like PJ Harvey, but immediately recognized her as an important artist. Her playing is muscular and compelling (which I love), her singing is dynamic and soulful, and her songwriting is fresh and arresting. I really love her first three albums, which are all packed with memorable and moving songs. This album has a particular punch. Steve Albini's production approach is raw and immediate, which suits the material really well. He often says that all he really does is record what's there and stay out of the way of the performances, and he does that perfectly here. The performances are full of grit and bluster, and it really sounds like you are there in the room as they blast the material out. It's nearly 30 years since I first heard this record, and I still find it thrilling from the first track. I saw her at the Enmore Theatre in the early 2000s, and she is amazing on stage. This is really what I think the best of rock and roll for me: raw, smart (without being too clever), emotional, dark, funny, dynamic, exciting and powerful. Five stars.

Side 1 of this record is one of the best sides of rock and roll ever committed to vinyl. It's sloppy and raw and loud and rebellious and offensive and fast and out of control, The decision to record the band live was unorthodox but inspired. They managed a great job of capturing the excitement of the MC5. That wild excitement has been massively influential on whole branches of rock since then. If I ever wanted go explain what rock and roll should be like, side 1 of this album is really the ur-text. I find the whole thing flags a bit on side 2, especially 'Starship', which loses focus a touch. The intro to Kick Out The Jams, however. is an iconic moment of rock. My recent-ish Rhino pressing has the "motherfuckers" intact, although Spotify has cut the whole spoken introduction . This proves that Spotify are gutless corporate milquetoasts.

I am not, decidedly not, a nu-metal fan. I like some metal, especially 70s-style doom metal and stoner rock. Slow sludgy, heavy shit. With an actual vocal melody, for preference. More recent metal, which tends to veer between screaming and cookie monster growling just gives me the irrits. And I like a groove, so stuff that gets overly proggy with too much clever clogs changing all the time and widdly-widdly bits is also annoying. And the tendency of nu-metal to get overly wrapped up in its own white-boy super-angst misogynistic bullshit is just awful (I'm looking at you Jonathan Davis and Fred Durst). So, that brings us to System Of A Down. Given all of the above, they are far and away the most tolerable nu-metal band I have heard. But being compared to your Limp Bizkits and Korn and Deftones and whoever else is a pretty low bar. I like that the singer can actually sing and choses to from time to time, and they are politically right-on, which makes their lyrics 100 times better than most nu-metal bands. I was talking to my 18 year old son, Hal, and he pointed otu that they strike a really great balance between dumb (which is an important element of all metal) and clever clogs. He also pointed out that they change time signatures and feel suddenly throughout the song, but they don't do it to be clever (like a prog band would); they do it to fuck with you (which is funny). As we were listening, some bonus live tracks came up, and they were awesome. The band was heavy and tight, and you could hear the crowd singing along. It sounded like a really compelling and fun gig. The album itself I found well recorded and energetically performed, but a little boring and repetitive, with some minor sparks of interest (like the oompah band and willfully obtuse guitar solo on 'Peephole'), but I could totally see myself having a great time at a System Of A Down gig. Yesterday I reviewed the MC5s first record, which was recorded live, and these bonus tracks made me wonder what would have happened if SOAD has taken a similar punt with a live debut record. Note to Dimery: why on earth is this record on the list, not Toxicity, which was their big hit, and clearly the more influential album? Final verdict is that this is not really my thing, but the best in class. 2.5 stars, rounding down for the missed opportunity of recording the whole album live.

Like Kollaps by Einstuerzende Neubauten, this is an album that was really influential for me (and lots of other people, as well). The (frankly terrible) industrial band I played in during the 90s was unashamedly influenced by Suicide, partly because of the power of it and partly because we weren't very good, and the simple form was something we could aspire to. The guy who programmed the drum machines (Virtual Mark Selway, RIP) was a huge fan, and we occasionally would let him on the mic to sing a Suicide cover (Ghost Rider or Dream Baby Dream, usually). The album is creepy and disturbing and abrasive and minimal and noisy, and not a pleasant listening experience, really. But it's like they squeezed rock and roll down to its bare essence, and then filtered it back through the limitations of their own way of doing things. But they showed how much you could do with so little; almost no instruments (and certainly no guitars), almost no lyrics, almost no music. And that was a massive realization; you could make compelling rock music out of almost nothing. You can hear Suicide influences all over the place, including as important foundational influences on industrial music and techno. This Pitchfork article has 15 examples of the varied people indebted to Suicide: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1232-15-songs-indebted-to-suicides-alan-vega/ ) I am fascinated, in particular, by the way Bruce Springsteen is clearly playing homage to Suicide in his song 'State Trooper'. It's an unexpected influence, but makes sense when you think about it. It also explains why State Trooper is my favorite Springsteen song. I enjoyed listening to this again, and it made me want to call up the surviving members of my old band and see if they want to get back on stage and make some noise. I confess that I rarely listen to this album, but I always find it fascinating and energizing. But I can see why most people would find it difficult, unpleasant, repetitive and scary. It's four stars for me, but I understand why it would be a 1 or 2 for many listeners.

I confess I am a bigger fan of Ray Charles' more gritty Atlantic sides, which are more blues/r'n'b/soul than this. This was clearly engineered for cross-over appeal with white pop audiences, and it certainly achieved that. I don't mind Quincy Jones' side 1 arrangements, which are tight and powerful. The strings side, however, is a bit schmaltzy for my taste, truth be told. It feels like pandering to the middle of the road. I'd like a bit more flavour. That said, Ray's singing throughout is just wonderful. I don't feel like he compromises his tone or phrasing to pander to the intended audience. And the song choices are mostly excellent, drawn from the best of the great American songbook. So, four stars for Ray Charles being generally excellent, even in a middle-of-the-road outing such as this. (Minor note; is it just me, or are there some weird recording artefacts on this record? Some of the horns and louder vocals seem a bit distorted and harsh.)

And this is why we needed punk. I am not fan of prog. It is often just too clever-clogs for my taste. And this album is absolutely in love with its own cleverness. Some passable moments, rarely repeated, so it assiduously avoids groove or rock (except on 'Blues Variation', which has a groove I can appreciate, but not a lot else to recommend it). Wikipedia notes that "the album continues to evoke a highly divided reaction among critics, with some hailing it as a peak of the progressive rock genre while others continue to bewail it as its nadir." Lester Bangs "brutally mocked" this album in his Rolling Stone review, and (on a separate occasion) wrote: "Everybody knows Classical-Rock (alternating with -Jazz) Fusions never really work. Perhaps what really paved the astroturf for ELP was 2001, that dopey cozzed collegiate smoker flick: not only did it star a computer that could kick ass on Keith E.'s in a microsputum, but crafty Kubrick saw sure the soundtrack was fattened with all the glorioski Classicorn any rube could swallow. 'Also Sprach Zarathustra'; and Keith Emerson heard the word just like he was Joseph Smith shoveling off the tablets. By the time Kubrick got to Clockwork Orange, thereby installing Beethoven in the prostate projection chamber of next-up fad of trendy androhoodlum, the insidious befoulment of all that was gutter pure in rock had been accomplished. It's worse than eclecticism, it's eugenic entropy by design, and Emerson and cohorts are more than mere fellow travelers." Preach, Brother Bangs, hallelujah. Lester and I are clearly both in the 'nadir' camp. At least ELP had the good graces to originally release this as a budget priced release between studio albums. I still wouldn't pay more than the original one quid fifty UK release price.

This was a surprise. I don't care for folk (or even folk rock) generally. I was aware of the reputation of this album (and Shoot Out The Lights even more so). I thought it would be a case of an album I would appreciate but not love. But I listened to this through three times in a row, and then picked out my faves (The Great Valerio, title track, When I Get To The Border, Calvary Cross, Down Where The Drunkards Roll). I very quickly became familiar with and a grew love for this record. While steeped in folk, Richard Thompson's use of electric guitar (and occasionally electric piano) really lift this. Linda's voice is so terrific, and she clearly deeply understands these songs. I really came around to loving this record. I'm putting it on my want-list.

There have been so many gangsta rap albums on this list, that I was almost starting to think I didn't like hip hop. The misogyny and violence of gangsta rap just makes me more and more uncomfortable. It wasn't Ok at the time, and it just gets worse with time. Thank goodness for A Tribe Called Quest. I like this record sooooo much more than many of the hip hop records I have been forced to listen to. It is cool and laid back, smart and funny, sensitive and insightful. I love the chilled production and Q-Tip and Phife's flow is so great. Chris Jones for the BBC wrote that Tribe "almost single-handedly defined the alternative rap scene, where intelligence and musical nouse replaced guns, hos and bragging. ... Low End [Theory] pushed the jazz connection even further with a sparse but not quite minimal selection of grooves built around some exquisitely chosen upright bass samples ... Remember that this was in direct contrast to the West Coast G Funk about to explode onto the scene. Like its predecessor, it combined humour with insight to show the world that ‘rap’ needn’t be equated with the worst aspects of the American dream." Amen. A great, great record that reminds us all of what is great about hip hop. It sounds better with age.

When I was a young man living in share houses, we played a lot of "ancestor metal", including this album a lot. Personally, Led Zep II was my favourite, but this is still a pretty great record, and I find it hard to critique. Assuming you have a taste for what led Zep do, the first disc is almost unimpeachable. The second disc has a lot more filler (Bron-Yr_Aur, Boogie with Stu, Down by the Seaside), but given that this double was a chance to clear the vaults of off-cuts and previously unfinished tracks, the standard is remarkably high. Real kudos to the rhythm section, who really are doing the heavy lifting here. Apparently, Bonham really came into his own in the arranging of songs (eg, In My Time of Dying), and his drumming is just awesome. John Paul Jones' orchestrations and keyboard playing is exceptional. the clavinet on Custard Pie and Trampled Under Foot is wonderful. Led Zep are a cornerstone band for me. I know the critiques (bombastic, risible lyrics, sexist, plagiarized), but I really enjoy listening to them. Five stars for awesomeness and classic status.

I was listening to this album when Hal, my 18 year old son, wandered into my office. "Ah," he exclaimed, "the only Arctic Monkeys album I really like!" "oh, why's that, then?", I ask. "It doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's energetic, and it feels real." True that. This is one really captures the feeling of a young person enjoying the nightlife in a provincial town. And "I bet you look good on the dance floor" is a bangin' tune. Thumbs up!

I do love me some krautrock. I love a hypnotic motorik beat (and Jaki Leibezeit is the king of the motorik beat) I like the weirdness, the stretching out, the minimal approach, the almost funkiness to it. Halleluwah and Mushroom are probably two of the greatest Can tracks ever, and this is my favourite Can album. I know this isn't to everyone's taste, but I really dig it. Halleluwah is even better in the 18 minute version than the 3 and 5 minute edits that float around on various singles and compilations. It really needs the time to stretch out. That said, I _never_ play the side with Aumgn; it crosses the line into self-indulgent and unstructured noise. So, one star off for Augmn. Otherwise, a massively influential album and a personal favourite. Four stars. Side note: this is my 500th review, and it is a pleasure to get a great album like this.

I first heard "Buffalo Stance" when it was initially released in 1988, and I didn't get it. I didn't think it was 'right' to mix genres the way this track does. I thought that if you're going to rap, rap. And if you're going to sing, sing. It was probably a full six months before the penny dropped, and I understood what she is doing here. I had been wrong and extremely short-sighted about how songs could be constructed and performed, and Neneh Cherry was visionary and right. And massively influential; artists mix rapping and singing within a track all the time now, to the point where it isn't remarkable at all. But Neneh was the first person to do it (or, at least, to do it in a way that was commercially and critically successful), and she re-wrote the pop playbook. I am ashamed ghat I didn't immediately recognise the genius of what she did here, but once I understood, I got it. I bought the album when it came out, and it is an iconic album of the 80s. It sounds of its time, but still pretty fresh to my ears. I love her confidence and energy, and the deft mixing of genres. It is no surprise that the Massive Attach crew were involved in the production of this record, and they built on this formula with their amazing Blue Lines album. The album is front-loaded with the singles, which I still enjoy. As a result, I realise that I usually only play side 1 (because that's where all the hits are), so it was a nice surprise to listen to side 2, and it also has pretty strong material, that I enjoyed hearing again for the first time in a while. She has such a great voice and a fascinating and original viewpoint. I had been thinking I was going to rate this four stars, but as I listen to it again, and think about how influential it was, and how fun it still is to listen to, I really am leaning towards five stars. Dimery's list has a real problem with under-representation of female artists. i often think he doesn't understand what female artists are trying to do, and can't see the value. And this is an explicitly and woefully female album, and it changed the way pop music sounds. And I really enjoy listening it. I enjoyed it at the time, and I enjoy it now. I think it has to be five stars.