The intersection of prog and yacht rock, with Pink Floyd influences doing the heavy lifting. Couple of hits; indulgent.
Groundbreaking concept album that bores the life out of me. With a few exceptions, it hasn't aged well in the age of mental health and actually trying to avoid misery and existential angst.
Variable electronic music from 2009. Low energy Bjork meets apathy.
Psychedelic folk from 1968 that makes Syd Barrett's life-altering solo work look restrained and coherent. Gentle and mental. Why did nobody play this to me at uni? I demand a refund!
Lots of waiting around for "Paper Planes".
Loved it, would not have chosen this to start with but glad I did. Tracks 6, 8-10 less familiar and could have also been singles. Solid quality.
Smooth as expected, interesting long takes on pop and country.
Only two tracks available on Spotify. Noodly prog rock with the occasional headbang.
Lovely stuff. Hits and glorious, unashamed album tracks from the kitchen-sink 80s of the Smiths coasting on a high. 4.5 stars, actually.
Good background EDM.
Can't say anything bad about Bad, it's polished 80s sunshine and doesn't get much better. Relistened to the two non-single tracks and they could have been singles too. Feels churlish to give this anything less than top marks.
Gloomy, paranoid and sullen. A perfect album for a similar mood.
The best debut album ever? Probably. All killer, even "Light My Fire" which I forgave when I became a Doors fan.
Groundbreaking concept album that bores the life out of me. With a few exceptions, it hasn't aged well in the age of mental health and actually trying to avoid misery and existential angst.
Interesting 90s soundtrack-for-no-movie merging EDM with psych and chillout lounge.
Classic and seminal, echoing influences without ripping them off in a way Oasis completely failed to do. Album tracks innovative and pleasing. A long overdue full listen.
First Elvis LP I ever listened to all the way through, I get what the fuss was about now. Sparkly poppy rocking stuff from when it was all new.
Not bad, a few bangers, torch songs, overall pretty decent.
Country blues, slightly psych in places. Not that interesting.
Smooth, polished soul, instant standards, and the voice of Aretha. Beautiful.
The classic debut, all piss and vinegar and darkly funny.
Late 80s LP hailing new 90s sounds and the prescient shoegazey voice of J Mascis. Varied and subdued, this kicks in its own subdued fashion.
Perfectly gloomily violent post-Fall rasping from young Nick Cave. Rock out with your Goth out.
Repetitive black metal, a few moments and a couple of “please can’t we play something else?” tracks.
Smooth Bristol dark acid jazz, trippy and chill with a jagged edge.
A killer first line ushers in an enjoyably upbeat downbeat LP that hinges on the incomparable classic "Alison". Where post-punk and new wave intersects with the 50s.
Dark crunchy goth grooving. The soundtrack to trying to stay standing up on a dancefloor for longer than you'd like.
Got hopeful from the glimpse of Kinks inspiration at the start, but mostly just blue-eyed blues and stuff the 60s had already left behind by that point.
A complete joy and a personal favourite. The threshold between teenage and adulthood on one CD.
Country psych blues echoed by The Doors and The Strokes. Janis had one hell of a voice.
Rich and varied, enlightening, and angry and suspicious. Required listening.
Doors sliding spectacularly into blues.
Funny, aware indie EDM.
Groundbreaking hip-hop with hits, grit, and heart.
The unexpectedly good Robbie debut. Snarky, catchy and cute.
Subdued and cynical follow-up to the rebellious and romantic Different Class, but the sweetness is still there.
Dylan goes electric and back again. Some of his biggest and best on this from his mid-20s.
Cream-like jazz blues slides into country through folk. Interesting and engaging in places.
Some heavy Pixies, Talking Heads and B-52's vibes from 1981. Post-punk new wave soundtrack to a student house party in a movie, any movie.
Non-pop RnB with highly inventive rhythm and melodic structures. Causing echoes of psych pop. Less strident and more indie voice than her sister.
Very pleasant samba swing but somewhat forgettable.
Cool, likeable, fuzzy, indie bop-along jangle.
The intersection of prog and yacht rock, with Pink Floyd influences doing the heavy lifting. Couple of hits; indulgent.
Rap concept album, very samey.
Still mesmerising, seminal, the start of many wonderful things.
Interesting and diverse mix of styles from MMcL, throwing everything against the wall. Some of it stuck, though.
Early metal with a dash of psych and very melodic with plenty of unexpected hooks.
Melodic, self-conscious new wave indie with winking lyrics, Bacharach and David joining The Smiths as influencers.
Laid back and toasted folk country blues rock with enough poke to keep you awake and listening.
Multistyled post-Roses grooves, borrowing Oasis's played-out schtick of nicking from familiar songs to prick up the ears. Interesting, pre-Grandaddy sci-fi buzz. Likeable.
Fast and furious, 15 short metal punk songs in just over half an hour. Making rock achievable again.
Oh damn yes. This is funk. Smooth, tight, just enough synth, chunky bass, and a sense of fun.
Rather delightful, folksy acoustic guitar and coo-coo singing, minimal 4-track arrangements. Restful, nostalgic, comforting.
60s hippy country music, low on impact. Stand out track: their cover of Dark End Of The Street.
Atmospheric, moody, beautiful and almost wistful. Pace changes and themes keep it interesting. A soundtrack that works well as a standalone LP. Play in background at party to subtly raise guest paranoia.
What didn't this influence? Getting hints of Blur, Bloc Party, The Fall, structures of Britpop rising here. Perfect for throwing shapes to while waiting for Duran Duran to show up.
More 70s country, pedal steel, Neil Young edging towards Jimmy Buffet. Perfectly tolerable.
Produced by William Orbit, a warm electro-bopper with stand-out singles from new mum Madge.
Coming out of the 60s strong with a decently diverse folk country album with substantial hat tips to jazz and the South. Similar guitar phrasing fraternity as Paul Simon, piano that you know made Ben Folds listen. And at least two timeless classic tracks. An LP that 14yo S&G me is kicking myself I missed.
This is how a classic rock'n'roll album should be: recorded live in front of an enthusiastic audience, and over in under 23 minutes. Well played.
Gloriously experimental yet accessible and even dancey. The soundtrack to a movie you have to imagine and looks amazing.
The sound of pre-revolutionary Cuba. Warm, romantic, and beautifully performed. Jam along on your otamatone.
Good times, then slow times, then kinda meh times.
Guns and roses, the wild wild west. Love, dust, prisons and Mexican girls. What country was.
A gorgeously diverse and imaginative blend of rock, soul, and cabaret, engaging and enrobing. 1973 going on 1982.
An amazing voice, very personal modern slice-of-nightlife stories with Rat Pack grooves, something old and something new. I should love it but I don't, the style feels overdone and forced, it doesn't connect with me.
Progressive britpop? Mr Godlike Genius and pals take 90s UK music to new-ish and quasi-interesting places.
Lots of waiting around for "Paper Planes".
Newman and his honky-tonk, Ray Charles-dreaming piano, off-beat lyrics, drinking songs to intricate to drink to. Aiming for a wry smile.
What a debut! Punk edge meets polished rock with prog timings thrown in, and Chrissie Hynde immediately becoming the 80s benchmark for women rock singers. Unexpectedly sweary start, four hits, a fun instrumental, and not a dull track on the whole thing. This was the true promise of the 80s.
South American rhythms with African influences, infectious and hip, not much to say about it otherwise.
Rather splendid jazz soul funk from '74, part instrumental and part lyrical. Lights down, silk sheets, champagne and candles.
Their first and their best, while they were still a more accessible and innocent Radiohead, before they were LITERALLY AND UNAVOIDABLY EVERYWHERE OH MY GOD PLEASE JUST SHUT UP.
Folk, blues and traditional. Fairly bland, felt a little like a contractual obligation album.
An archetypal 80s yuppie CD. Tina's evergreen voice plays second place to the then-popular "more is more" production. Lots of 80s tropes, bits of Pat Benatar, covers of Al Green and Bowie, and noticable Heaven 17 production. I thought I'd hate this yacht-soul album but it's interesting enough for a tentative thumbs up. And Tina can wail, it's undeniable.
Made for the mosh pit, high octane fast grunge punk metal, lots to enjoy.
Laid back, generally cheerful, cool-ass blues. Martinis all round.
Minor-key wailing miserablism, dark yet uplifting, possibly thanks to the Adam & The Ants-style floor-tom heavy drumming. A gateway to goth.
First proper listen of FA. The barmy rhythm and avant garde sound structures become familiar, the internal sounds of a brain at work.
Morrissey without The Smiths, and it shows. Overwordy, underclever, not enough balance of singing and band. Much filler and idea (even lyric) rehash. Still good, but the cracks are showing.
Background jazz from the man who opened the world of sould to the Hammond Organ. Very smooth, you'll hardly notice it's there.
Desperate People and Open Letter are the shining, glowing spots on this late 80s, cultural wannabe metal/funk hybrid - bits of Faith No More, Pearl Jam and lots of RHCP - but generally it's forgettable
Breakthrough hits, innovative structures, lots of variety, rarely a dull moment.
Strangely likeable folk guitar, loose and floaty. Title track filled with wonderful mumbling.
Variable electronic music from 2009. Low energy Bjork meets apathy.
Pop folk done right, perfectly even in places. It doesn't matter that Wild World and Father & Son have been played to death by others. This has the title track and the sublime Into White.
This and Blur's Great Escape wrap up the 90s half way through the decade. Jarvis and the band is on point; lyrics, themes, melodies and riffs, whispers and croons and yelps. It's in a class on its own.
Variety and depth and rock and roots, up front or in the background. So much going on here. "Punk" is too small a word, The Clash were always far greater than that.
Big songs, big ideas, feels like a pop concept album. A forgotten master of 80s hit LPs.
Classic early Elton, country piano pop, feeling at home in Georgia, relaxing on tour with characters and stories.
Lovely stuff. Peaks and troughs of energy and emotion, with everyone singing except Messrs Fleetwood and Mac, as it should be.
Modern prog for modern stadia. Rocking, thumping, operatic and powerful. Music for spaceship engines.
Hats off to the first notable rock opera, which Tommy and The Wall both nod to whether they admit it or not. Bit of a downer but that's opera, doc.
People absolutely love and adore Joni for good reasons, and this album is one of them. Dreamy internal monologues, relational observations and hidden conversations meet ambling guitars and early 70s Bacharach & David folk swing. Also, after 34 years, I finally get that reference from "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker". It's never too late.
A few bright points but generally a pretty droopy record. Is this landfill indie?
There's a lot to like here. Taylor can turn a phrase, fashion a hook, and be relatable. Intelligent lyrics rub shoulders with throwaway radio-friendly disco.
This isn't the 1967 album pictured. This is a very different album from 2012. However, it's a well-needed sorbet to cleanse the palate. Optimistic, new age-y guitar and woodwind based instrumentals, the kind of thing Windham Hill Records used to publish. Relaxing albeit a bit too plinky-plonk to really let yourself go.
This probably sounded very fresh and new in '88 but has aged poorly under the weight of the funk rock and ska rock we're now overly familiar with.
Psychedelic folk from 1968 that makes Syd Barrett's life-altering solo work look restrained and coherent. Gentle and mental. Why did nobody play this to me at uni? I demand a refund!
Splendid country-boiled rock, wry lyrics and commentary on life and growing older that doesn't get in the way of the chunky guitar sound. Would listen to again.
Slow blues, slightly faster blues, blues with extra singers and musicians, all 12-bar, just an awful lot of very samey stuff.
Incredible, beautiful, everything a rock album should be. Moments of youth and freedom and light and noise and possibility frozen smiling in amber. I listened to it twice in a row. It's newer now than ever, and has always been here, close. More gushing is possible. What I didn't notice before was the debt Hotel California owed to Moonage Daydream, or the echoes of Lady Stardust in Young Americans. Just perfect. Hurry up tomorrow, I want to give this five stars.
A rap opera, concept album, whatever: a tale of losing £1000, finding and losing love, and living a mundane telly sofa life alongside the pill pub club scene in the early Ohs. Sounds dreadful, right? Wrong! Well, kind of right, but no - it's easy to follow unlike most story-based LPs, lots of humour and self-deprecation - and lots of crap, forced rhymes that stand out because of Skinner's deadpan, unsung, unmelodic delivery. And I liked that. Unpretentious, trying, lots of failing, just like the Mike in the story: shit but he knows it. And it works. Four stars well-earned.
Genre-hopping from psychedelia, country, rock, folk, blues and soul. Structural experimentation in the last Neil Young-ish track.
Nirvana at its most subdued, stripped down and cool - albeit for MTV. Great live set of crackers and covers, tinged with historic Cobain-related sadness.
Fun, thoughtful, funny, enjoyable. "Enjoy Yourself" stands out as the boppy track with frankly depressing existental lyrics. But still boppy.
A slow groove but not a plodder, deliberate impetus; jazz themes and dreamy strums and keyboards, crafted airy vocals. This does feel like a world waking to a new season. Not entirely free of 80s tropes but almost a 90s indie record.
"Novocaine for the Soul" and "Susan's House" made some big promises, and this album delivers. Mark Oliver Everett's laid-back and introspective vocals, melodic arrangements are smooth and consistent against the chaos of his broken characters.
Opening the book on the UK Grime scene with humour social commentary and a cast of diverse characters. Accessible and interesting to non-fans of the genre, especially hearing Grime emerge from DnB.
Smooth, slow and sultry RnB. Lovely to begin with but very samey and got boring quick.
Chilled-out acoustic modern folk. Loved hearing elements I recognised from current psych rock like Tame Impala, as well as 70s folk like Cat Stevens, Tyrannosaurus Rex. Lots of love for "White Winter Hymnal", naturally.
It's like rock never happened. Soaring orchestral epics, rolling melodies, opaque lyrics and tangential historical and movie references. Scott Walker, king of croons.
Sci-fi trance rap and beat poetry, like a Grandaddy and Gil Scott-Heron collaboration. Good idea, disappointing rendering.
The nineties landed two years early. Sonic Youth years ahead of their time setting the guitar heavy template with a laid-back soft edged voice, no hair-rock roaring or screaming here. Prescient stuff.
Charming and unusual journey into strange piano bars that still somehow existed in 1983 having presumably been transplanted from 1920s Vienna.
Melodic and beautifully sung but unaffecting and forgettable. Maybe it's me.
A hit-packed side 1 followed by a suitably Kate Bush-y experimental side 2.
Freaky time signature fun with more familiar melodies than you'd initially realise. Huge, ground-breaking, accessible, creative, almost classical.
What would become MTV rock emerging out of British metal influences, this has enough going on to keep you awake. And Eddie of course, introducing the world to rapid guitar solos.
All gold (last two tracks more gold-plated), classic timeless piano rock veering into prog pop, a blend of ballads and lovesongs and stories, with melodies you can whistle till your lips drop off.
Bit more interesting and contemplative than Lovefool would have you believe. But not loads.
A masterclass in soundtracks. Character-driven melodies and arrangements, so much pace and movement, long-form instrumentals and vocal pieces, and that chunky, solid full orchestral backing. Spot on.
Damn fine western folk blend of Dylan and Neil Young, full of variety and pregnant pauses. I wasn't planning on getting anything out of this at all. Highly likeable.
Progressive at the time, not much going on listening to this now.