Journey Complete!
Finisher #578 to complete the list
View User Albums Summary1089
Albums Rated
3.04
Average Rating
100%
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1950s
Favorite Decade
Reggae
Favorite Genre
UK
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
119
5-Star Albums
117
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Rock Bottom
Robert Wyatt
|
5 | 2.39 | +2.61 |
|
Shleep
Robert Wyatt
|
5 | 2.5 | +2.5 |
|
Timeless
Goldie
|
5 | 2.53 | +2.47 |
|
OK
Talvin Singh
|
5 | 2.57 | +2.43 |
|
New Boots And Panties
Ian Dury
|
5 | 2.7 | +2.3 |
|
Dr. Octagonecologyst
Dr. Octagon
|
5 | 2.7 | +2.3 |
|
Movies
Holger Czukay
|
5 | 2.71 | +2.29 |
|
Our Aim Is To Satisfy
Red Snapper
|
5 | 2.74 | +2.26 |
|
Beyond Skin
Nitin Sawhney
|
5 | 2.77 | +2.23 |
|
The White Room
The KLF
|
5 | 2.79 | +2.21 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Thriller
Michael Jackson
|
1 | 4.22 | -3.22 |
|
Tea for the Tillerman
Cat Stevens
|
1 | 3.69 | -2.69 |
|
Band On The Run
Paul McCartney and Wings
|
1 | 3.67 | -2.67 |
|
The Cars
The Cars
|
1 | 3.67 | -2.67 |
|
Madman Across The Water
Elton John
|
1 | 3.59 | -2.59 |
|
Moving Pictures
Rush
|
1 | 3.58 | -2.58 |
|
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
|
1 | 3.55 | -2.55 |
|
She's So Unusual
Cyndi Lauper
|
1 | 3.48 | -2.48 |
|
Dirt
Alice In Chains
|
1 | 3.47 | -2.47 |
|
Aja
Steely Dan
|
1 | 3.46 | -2.46 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Radiohead | 6 | 4.67 |
| Jimi Hendrix | 3 | 5 |
| Beatles | 7 | 4.29 |
| The White Stripes | 3 | 4.67 |
| Bob Marley & The Wailers | 3 | 4.67 |
| Nirvana | 3 | 4.67 |
| The Velvet Underground | 3 | 4.67 |
| Blur | 3 | 4.67 |
| The Flaming Lips | 2 | 5 |
| Aretha Franklin | 2 | 5 |
| The Prodigy | 2 | 5 |
| Massive Attack | 2 | 5 |
| The Specials | 2 | 5 |
| Robert Wyatt | 2 | 5 |
| Fatboy Slim | 2 | 5 |
| Primal Scream | 2 | 5 |
| Pink Floyd | 4 | 4.25 |
| Björk | 4 | 4.25 |
| Simon & Garfunkel | 3 | 4.33 |
| The Stooges | 3 | 4.33 |
| Queen | 3 | 4.33 |
| Pixies | 3 | 4.33 |
| Leonard Cohen | 5 | 4 |
| Led Zeppelin | 5 | 4 |
| Tom Waits | 5 | 4 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Bruce Springsteen | 5 | 1.6 |
| Steely Dan | 4 | 1.5 |
| Rush | 2 | 1 |
| Emmylou Harris | 2 | 1 |
| Big Star | 2 | 1 |
| Gene Clark | 2 | 1 |
| Ryan Adams | 2 | 1 |
| Dolly Parton | 2 | 1 |
| Sepultura | 2 | 1 |
| Yes | 3 | 1.67 |
| The Byrds | 5 | 2 |
| Hole | 2 | 1.5 |
| Genesis | 2 | 1.5 |
| Eagles | 2 | 1.5 |
| Traffic | 2 | 1.5 |
| Adele | 2 | 1.5 |
| Grateful Dead | 2 | 1.5 |
| Def Leppard | 2 | 1.5 |
| Fairport Convention | 2 | 1.5 |
| The xx | 2 | 1.5 |
| Emerson, Lake & Palmer | 2 | 1.5 |
| Megadeth | 2 | 1.5 |
| Christina Aguilera | 2 | 1.5 |
| Neil Young & Crazy Horse | 3 | 2 |
| Echo And The Bunnymen | 3 | 2 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Fleetwood Mac | 2, 5 |
| Slipknot | 1, 4 |
| Depeche Mode | 1, 4 |
| Frank Sinatra | 5, 2, 2 |
| The Beach Boys | 2, 3, 5 |
5-Star Albums (119)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
The Pogues
5/5
I don't like folk music.
Therefore this isn't folk music.
It must be some obscure subset of punk.
30 likes
The Smiths
1/5
I'm not sure why this album makes me so cross. Maybe I'm disappointed that I missed out on something because I don't, "get it". Anyway, it's wrong and I'm right. NAA.
14 likes
ABBA
2/5
I think I managed 4 songs before the wave of pop nausea overcame me. Like aural Kendal Mint Cake.
12 likes
4-Star Albums (282)
1-Star Albums (117)
All Ratings
OutKast
3/5
Meh. Bit too shouty. Sorry Miss Jackson is a banger.
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
An OK album, but it features none of my favourite Curtis Mayfield tracks.
The White Stripes
4/5
Get in! Love a bit of the White Stripes. Thumping drums, stonking gurt riffs and agro vocals with a touch of whimsy. Lovely.
T. Rex
3/5
This album is perfectly fine, until you get to Get It On, at which point it becomes a STONE COLD CLASSIC (TM).
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
4/5
OMG. I don't think I'd ever listened to this full album before. What a joy to find the diversity of tracks on here.
The Smiths
1/5
I'm not sure why this album makes me so cross. Maybe I'm disappointed that I missed out on something because I don't, "get it". Anyway, it's wrong and I'm right. NAA.
David Bowie
3/5
Worth listening to as a whole album. Most tracks are familiar, but together they really feel on that Low feeling. If you are listening to this regularly, you probably need to take up a team sport or something to get you out of the house.
David Bowie
3/5
Yep. Fine. Move on.
Living Colour
2/5
Meh. Really not my cup of tea. I checked out their more recent albums, and they were better.
T. Rex
4/5
Enjoyable, good glam fun.
Hugh Masekela
4/5
Perfectly lovely jazz.
Milton Nascimento
2/5
Bit dull
3/5
The Band
2/5
William Orbit
3/5
I thought I was going to love this, because of his version of Barber's Adaggio for Strings, but it was just pleasant. One piece I imagined would make good backing to an extremely dull wildlife documentary. It promised so much more from they opening couple of songs but didn't fulfill that promise.
The Flaming Lips
5/5
Amazing album, so rich and weird. The melodrama and soaring instrumentals are fantastic.
Prince
4/5
If you ARE going to insist on making pop music, then have the decency to do what Price did, and do it with talented colleagues and make it a little funky.
The Smiths
3/5
Sorry. I'm not a massive fan of The Smiths.
The Yardbirds
2/5
Dull
Coldplay
4/5
I wanted to not sing along, but they're so.... bloody... NICE!
Grrr. Coming in here with their good intentions and catchy tunes.
Public Enemy
3/5
The B-52's
5/5
Good fun.
Not bad fun.
Scott Walker
3/5
Paul Simon
3/5
I want really drawn into this album. It was just kind of on the stereo.
Nick Drake
4/5
Ooh, he was very good that Nick Drake, wasn't he? I'm not a folk fan, but if I was I would probably really enjoy this.
I enjoyed this 3 stars, but feel like it's a 4 or 5 star album.
ABBA
2/5
I think I managed 4 songs before the wave of pop nausea overcame me. Like aural Kendal Mint Cake.
Isaac Hayes
4/5
Oh Chef, Chef, Chef. This is how you got that badass reputation, you smooth motherlover
Brian Eno
4/5
Otis Redding
5/5
Every song a stone cold classic.
Richard Thompson
1/5
Not my cup of tea at all
Donovan
2/5
Whiny folk drivel saved by some catchy riffs.
Hole
2/5
I enjoyed the angry grunge for a bit, but it's all a bit facile and superficially teen angst, and made me wonder how much of being in a band like this is having the rock star image.
John Prine
1/5
I just dislike this kind of country sound.
The lyrics were interesting to read, but the vocal fry and slide guitar have me shudders down the spine.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
Solid gold
Cat Stevens
1/5
Oh no, bit this again
R.E.M.
3/5
Yeah, s'alright if you're into that kind of thing.
Rage Against The Machine
4/5
What a classic
Aerosmith
3/5
Sounds exactly like I expected an Aerosmith album to sound. Heavy-ish guitars, harmonies, non specific lyrics about girls and life.
Neither offensive but interesting to me.
The Youngbloods
3/5
If I were in my 70's this would've been my era, and I would be listening to their record regularly. But I'm not.
The Beach Boys
2/5
Why would you do a Beach Boys album without Brian Wilson? It's like The Jackson 3, NSYNC without Timberlake or Destiny's Twins. It's like a poor photocopy of Harry Nilsson on a bad day.
LCD Soundsystem
4/5
I keep forgetting I kind of like LCD Soundsystem. I think I prefer each song individually though, rather than a whole album at once!
Travis
4/5
I thought I was going to hate this, "Oh God, not Travis!" Maybe the catalogue of middle of the road 70's whining had lowered my expectations. Maybe Travis have some good riffs, with lovely mellow bits and unexpected angry bits, lyrically sound too.
Pink Floyd
4/5
Love a bit of Floyd!
Ash
2/5
What a relief. I thought my sense of taste was going after I enjoyed Travis, but thankfully I found this to be fairly drab middle of the road rock.
The lyrics were indecipherable amongst all the guitar noodling.
OutKast
5/5
Yeah man, this shit is thoroughly entertaining.
The Beach Boys
3/5
Extremely NICE.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
Classic.
Beastie Boys
3/5
Yeah. Quite fun, but not my favourite Beastie Boys
Nico
1/5
She sounds bunged up and posh. I sound bunged up and posh sometimes too, but I'm not sure it's something to aspire to.
The Rolling Stones
4/5
At last a sixties /seventies album I can get behind. This is a classic. OK, it's a load of whiteboy blues covers with questionable accents, but they make them their own and really knock them out of the park.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
You got a problem with Aretha? Yeah? Then you have a problem with me. Don't mess with the Queen of Soul.
Paul Simon
4/5
Nothing says stealing black music and making it white like Graceland. A beautiful album, with coherent lyrics, made by a proper musician. Well done, Mr Simon.
Beatles
5/5
So good. The Beatles are used as an example of how 10,000 hours of practice can give you mastery of a form. I think I listened to The Beatles, mostly this album for 10,000 hours in our basement when I was a child, so I've mastered listening to them, and I've really got it down to an artform.
A lot of the album is quite childish, but so am I, and so was I when I listened to it most. I love the range of songs, the lyrics, and that you can have a song along to most of these.
Screaming Trees
1/5
I think I preferred Screaming Trees by Dust.
After Abbey Road (yesterday), we now seen to be listening to some middle of the road bullshit again. It's not bad music, but the chord progressions are so textbook, with the lyrics on Spotify I can sing along, despite never having heard it before.
The Slits
1/5
Singing out of tune and cultivating an attitude like you've made no effort is SO PUNK. Oops, I am so punk I put on Bob Marley & The Wailers instead.
Johnny Cash
4/5
A banger
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Generic songs.
Was this the Stone's Contractual Obligations album?
Nirvana
5/5
Ah! An album that deserves to be in the top 100!
Fleetwood Mac
2/5
Note the best album by not my favourite band.
Yeah. It's OK.
Sam Cooke
3/5
A Change didn't come. :-(
I think I prefer the studio albums.
Still, Sam Cooke, what a star!
Michael Kiwanuka
4/5
Lovely lovely lovely
Devendra Banhart
3/5
Extremely pleasant background music. Crank it all the way to 4 in your local bistro.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Meh
Jazmine Sullivan
4/5
Do you like sex? Do you like albums about sex? Do you relate to the inner city struggles of Harlem? Well, here it is on a plate. Dig in!
Various Artists
4/5
Beautiful Christmas cheer. Good will upon one and all.
Muddy Waters
3/5
Blues standard
Venom
4/5
Very enjoyable. The lyrics were delightful: black, simple iconography of heavy metal stuff. You could hear what he was on about
My favourite but if the Wikipedia page was that Countess Bathory was inspired by The Magic Roundabout theme music, and that Smells Like Teen Spirit was inspired by Countess Bathory. So now every time I hear that Nirvana song, I'll start humming The Magic Roundabout music. Lovely!
Sarah Vaughan
4/5
My grandmother and I concur, Sarah Vaughan is a classy delight.
Cornershop
3/5
Jolly pleasant, but not really going anywhere.
The Band
2/5
Look out! Will everyone PLEASE stop standing in the middle of the road, it's really not safe. What's that? No, I don't care that you used to be Bob Dylan's backing band, this constant flow of traffic over all lanes at once is a disaster.
You British bands, just keep to the left and everyone else stay to the right and that way we'll have no troubles.
Tricky
5/5
Yes please.
The Stooges
4/5
Grrrrr. Yeah.
Gil Scott-Heron
2/5
Do disappointing. I live a lot of Gil Scott-Heron's poetry, but this just sounded like lift music. I'd heard The Bottle, which was the highlight, but failed to lift the whole album up.
Beatles
3/5
It's your nan's favourite mop-tops. If you've any knickers left over after the Tom Jones tour, chuck em this way!
The Doors
3/5
A solid Doors album.
James Brown
5/5
Yes. All day long. Hit me!
Ministry
1/5
Oh, man, I'm tired and don't need someone shouting at me. Stop it. Even if what you are really singing is,
"In my dang a ding a ding a ding dong
A sticky sticky son of a gun
Ding a danga danga dong dong ding dong
Why why never know
Why why wack a dong a dang ding dong
Then you take it on the bill
Ding dang dong don't dong
Whoa!
I want to love ya!" (Jesus built my hotrod)
I think I'd prefer it in a Country and Western style, and I generally hate Country and Western
Sonic Youth
3/5
Nirvana
5/5
No comment required
Beatles
4/5
I would've been a terrible Beatle. I don't have the hair.
The Prodigy
5/5
Fuck yeah
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Aphex Twin
5/5
Lovely great trippy swooshing noises. Less aggressive then a lot of his work. Beautiful stuff.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
Had some good songs on it.
Sade
1/5
Like being stuck in a hotel lobby in the 1980s.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
Loses one star just for not being Back to Black.
Simple Minds
2/5
I can see how this could be someone's thing, growing up in a town suddenly they discovered this album and no-one else got it like they did. I found it hard to focus on, like trying to catch a worm, it just kept slipping away and something else would pop into my head.
Suicide
4/5
Orbital
3/5
Beep beep sheep
The Stooges
4/5
Good rocking fun
Curtis Mayfield
5/5
What an album. Superb, funky, smooth. Yes please, Curtis.
Funkadelic
3/5
Good fun, but a little incoherent.
Marty Robbins
1/5
Oh no. Just ... Don't.
CHIC
3/5
I feel like I should be wearing a one piece flared jumpsuit in a primary colour. Martinis al round!
This was a cool slinky album, but also quite irritating at times.
Tina Turner
2/5
I can take it or leave it or tie it up in a bag with a brick and throw it off a bridge in a torrential midnight rainstorm.
The Cure
2/5
Oooh, look at that boy, he's so quiet, dark and mysterious. The way he avoids all eyes contact and uses monosyllabic responses betrays his inner genius. He's clearly got high emotional intelligence, I can tell by the eyeliner.
Koffi Olomide
3/5
Very womad. Benign background music.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
I've got this on vinyl and I listen to it whenever I want to feel thoroughly disappointed.
It's OK, but pales in comparison to "The Best Of ... "
Lambchop
2/5
I got all excited when that one song dropped, and thought this was going to be a barnstormer, but then nothing else dropped. I looked up some of the lyrics and was fairly unimpressed.
Lorde
3/5
Yeah. It's a'right.
3/5
Ugh. I should hate this more than I do according to, "people" but fuck them, it's got some catchy ones. This album is very middle of the road 2pm traffic updates coming next. It's sponge cake with decent jam; the excitement of junk mail when you've been at home too long; that clean numb feeling of strange teeth after the dentist's given you a really full-on polish; the smell of opening a jar of Asda's own brand instant; landscapes you don't remember in the family photo album; the back of the head of the person next in queue which is the twin for your presumably long dead school teacher's pate.
Motörhead
2/5
Every song would be improved by someone shouting, "THE ACE OF SPACES, THE ACE OF SPADES" at the end of each verse.
2/5
Rockabilly. Sigh.
Tracy Chapman
4/5
Yeah. It's good.
The Pogues
5/5
I don't like folk music.
Therefore this isn't folk music.
It must be some obscure subset of punk.
The Who
2/5
Why, Who? Why?
PJ Harvey
4/5
Love PJ Harvey, but she's not easy listening. This is one of her finer albums.
Tortoise
3/5
It's like these guys have studied how to be the most background of bands.
SZA
3/5
Lovely stuff
The Stone Roses
5/5
Solid gold banger.
John Martyn
3/5
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I thought John Martyn was all twee fiddledy diddledy stuff, but it was punchy and varied and had loads of good riffs that stick in your head after the song had long gone.
Korn
4/5
An enjoyable mix of nine inch nails type goth metal, hip hop, bagpipes, weird bleeps, funky bass. A bit too angsty for my tastes, but still enjoyable and good stuff.
Songhoy Blues
3/5
All the songs were a bit samey and I don't speak their language. It sounded nice, but I didn't know what it was about. Were they pro Mali or dissing it?
Ice Cube
3/5
Listening to the lyrics I thought made it was trying to address misogyny, but the whole attitude of the album seemed to be in a tone of gangster rap, so I was confused. Like when people go to the opera to see La Boheme dealing with issues of poverty.
Green Day
3/5
I took the time to listen to you whine about everything. Now go and tidy your room and tell your little friends it's time to go because their mum's will be expecting them back for tea.
Queen
4/5
Lovely. God save her Maj from getting the AIDS again
The Modern Lovers
2/5
Roadrunner is a decent song. All the others are weighed down with trying to be The Velvet Underground. They do a good job, but it's just not that great.
Roxy Music
3/5
It sounded like Nigel got a kick ass backing band! The vocal stylings have a lot of similarities.
Nightmares On Wax
4/5
Absolutely lovely. I wish this were as good an album as carboot soul, but it still takes me back to the drowsy days of chillout rooms and basement flats with tea in chipped mugs and the smell of weed, tobacco and damp.
Beatles
3/5
Yes please. A sold Beatles album.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
A really nice album. Worth listening to twice.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
4/5
4 stars for having the balls to be The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: A band that needs to exist. I love the band and the attitude, but I found it hard to get through the whole album in one sitting.
Alice In Chains
1/5
Shouty songs about (or vaguely related to) death and sadness and anger. That's it.
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
Wow! An album that clearly deserves to be in some Top X Albums of ... list.
Incredibly listenable, varied and interesting.
Bad Company
2/5
I got all excited when I glanced at this album, because I love Bad Manners.
Such disappointment!
I get that this was probably ahead of the curve with a lot of blues rock, but I feel like it probably inspired a lot of middle of the road mid eighties crud, so that's not a good thing.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Not great
Black Sabbath
4/5
Phenomenal stuff. I didn't think I'd like it half as much as I did. The Osbornes doesn't show this at all.
Funkadelic
5/5
The absolute Bible of funk. I think I've listened to this album 4 times this year before it came up in this list. I smack my fingertips like a chef. Mwah!
Lucinda Williams
1/5
Nope. Not for me.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
Before I discovered Billy and Ella and Nina, I sung along to Aretha in The Blues Brothers. What a winner.
This album bangs out hit after hit, with all the force of Aretha's almighty lungs and beautiful vocal chords. Great backing, great tunes; loved it!
Stevie Wonder
4/5
One is Stevie's least crap albums.
I love Stevie, but a lot of the album tracks don't stand out.
Air
4/5
What a fantastic album. I may have to watch the film again.
Johnny Cash
3/5
Really good covers of songs I don't much like in the first place = 2 stars.
Bonus star for Hurt and Sam Hall, though.
The Hives
2/5
Generic punky band.
AC/DC
3/5
I think I've figured out how to be myself after listening to this album.
2/5
Simultaneously enjoyable and annoying. I can't separate my history listening to this and assess it objectively, sorry.
The Auteurs
2/5
Whiny singing style: quite contrived. I feel like the musician is more into the guitar playing than the singing.
The lyrics don't connect with me personally, so I find it hard to give a shit. Maybe you can't win with me though, the lyrics are VERY easy to understand (well enunciated and not jumbled in strange rhythms). If they were less hard to understand would I like them more?
Lou Reed
3/5
It was not terrible.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Undeniably a force in songwriting.
Genesis
1/5
No thanks. Not for the likes of me.
Parliament
4/5
Oh yeah!
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Great stuff
Randy Newman
2/5
Track 1, I thought I knew Randy Newman. That guy from Toy Story, right?
Track 4, yup, I've heard all I need to.
Garbage
3/5
I was really enjoying this. Then the guitars just kept on doing the same thing and the lyrics kept on about angels and demons. Maybe I don't have the patience for this, or maybe it's a little bit pants.
The Byrds
2/5
Terrible
ZZ Top
3/5
It may be a bit cheesy rock, but they're not taking it too seriously, and made a good album for good times.
I'm torn between giving it a high 3 stars or a low 4 stars.
Iggy Pop
4/5
Liz Phair
1/5
Not very good.
Eagles
1/5
Ugh. Eagles. No.
Judas Priest
2/5
Classic heavy metal. Well made, but just not my thing.
Fela Kuti
4/5
Dirty Projectors
2/5
It took 3 or 4 goes to listen to this album.
TIP: They made it too complicated and it's better with only one headphone bud in. I used the right one. I don't know if the left channel is any better.
The lyrics were utter bobbins.: think teenage poetry attempts.
I can't go as low as one star reasonably because they clearly made an effort and have some misplaced talent.
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
Very enjoyable.
Elvis Presley
4/5
I've got a raging boner for the king and fuck you if you can't stand him. Unless it's on racist grounds... In which case fair enough.
Van Halen
3/5
Surprisingly good.
Steely Dan
1/5
When I was a boy, my sister and I had a record player in the basement and a small selection of records including Pretzel Logic. I thought it was dull then and I haven't changed my mind.
Traffic
1/5
What terribly terribly waffly wank
Pantera
2/5
Red Hot Chili Peppers
4/5
At last! An album which deserves a spot on this list!
Yes
1/5
Meh
Harry Nilsson
5/5
Think of this as the twee, desperate ramblings of an alcoholic American trying to keep up with the British invasion, then you may see the beauty of it as I do. Sure, it's 70% utter bobbins, fuelled by frozen margaritas and too many meetings with record execs, in the heat and ennui of affluent 70s California. Sure, some of those earworms are sung loud and desperately in the halls of asylums for the insane. But you can be sure when you've ratched Russian Doll and Gotta Get Up starts up for the seven thousandth time, a little smile will creep across your face and your your will tap along.
Beyoncé
3/5
Nice enough.
Hüsker Dü
2/5
Husker Dön't?
Many of my friends with excellent good tastes like Hüsker Dü, so I'm missing something.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
I just couldn't focus for a whole song.
The Waterboys
2/5
Wiffly piffly rinkerty tink
Guns N' Roses
3/5
MORE COWBELL!
Iron Butterfly
2/5
These hippies! Not my thing.
Cypress Hill
4/5
4/5
A proper good album.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
A good fun knees up of an album. No idea what he's muttering about, mind. Do you think the singer intonates like this at all times? While asking for a carrier bag in the supermarket or boarding a bus?
Supertramp
3/5
Better than I thought it was going to be.
Massive Attack
5/5
Classic. It's not my favourite of their albums, but it is a timeless wonder.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Lovely stuff. Thanks Nick. I feel like I should have read the lyrics in preparation for listening because the odd line I picked up was highly literate, but snippets here and there didn't coalesce into anything sensible.
Paul McCartney and Wings
1/5
Oh no. I thought this was going to be an undiscovered classic. How wrong I was: indulgent, twee nonsense (sorry, Paul).
Hole
1/5
It looks like Courtney Love could be a contender for the 1001 best fucks in the world, but I'm not sure why this album is here.
Solomon Burke
2/5
When the opening chords of Cry To Me pounded in, my heart pounded, \"Another Banger!\" Thinks I. But then, that was the one good song, what a disappointment!
Raekwon
3/5
A lovely accompaniment to the Wu Tang docudrama on Disney+
It's all guns, bitches and homophobia, which is not my jam. One liners in foreign slang with great rhythms and samples does tick my boxes though.
Cyndi Lauper
1/5
She's best when she's on the helium.
The Fall
3/5
Great stuff. I'm just not a big fan of The Fall. This is one of those things where a lot people I respect think they're the best, but I just don't really get it.
Bob Dylan
3/5
Having this alongside The Fall was interesting. Both if their vocal stylings were unique and mildly annoying. It's a fine set of songs though.
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
Pleasantly surprising, this one. Hints of Autechre and ambient droning, whereas I think I expected something like a bad metal score to a slasher movie.
Al Green
5/5
Wanting less than 3 stars is incorrect, and you should try harder on your next listen.
Jeff Beck
2/5
Twiddly guitar blues rock.
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
Really good. I liked it.
Fugees
4/5
Classic album. At times cheesey, at times pop, but I love the hooks and their version of killing me softly. I understand that it was overplayed on Radio 2 for a long time, but I still have love for this album.
DJ Shadow
5/5
Five stars all day everyday and it's not even my favourite DJ Shadow album. I listened twice just to prove a point to you all. I'm not sure what that point was, may be that I'm a dick, but that's for you to decide.
Ice T
2/5
Braggadocios
Billy Bragg
2/5
If I listened to folk music
This might be the kind of folk for me
And if I wrote lyrics for folk songs
I might sing them over these tunes
Kind of witty sentiment and
A fag packet bar chord structure
Old twenties Americana
Or contemporary satire
If I listened to folk music
This might be the kind of folk for me
David Bowie
4/5
Banger after Banger, but I want really in the mood this evening. Undeniable quality, mind.
The Kinks
3/5
Not bad
Black Sabbath
3/5
Pretty good.
Amy Winehouse
5/5
Barely a shower goes by where I don't belt out a song or two from this album.
Throbbing Gristle
3/5
Well... that was a thing. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I don't know if I want to listen again.
It was probably innovative and unique at the time, but it's a bit dull to listen to now.
I've just listened to their modern work, and found it much more interesting. It's still borderline art/bullshit, mind.
Bruce Springsteen
1/5
Is the singular for tedium tedia?
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
1/5
Everybody knows this is meh.
Steely Dan
2/5
Initial reaction, "Oh why bother? Who wrote this stupid list?"
After the album, "If this was my lift music, it wouldn't be so bad to live another floor up."
Ananda Shankar
1/5
Oh no.
The Byrds
1/5
No. No no no no no no no.
Sonic Youth
2/5
"Can you sing it as if you have constipation throughout?" anon, Sound Engineer
Thundercat
3/5
I feel like I should like this more; funky basslines and humorous lyrics. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but it's just not in my top albums.
Public Enemy
3/5
Insipid, middle of the road and dull.
Oh, no, sorry that was 90% of the albums thus far.
This is quite cool and a bit more interesting.
I'm not sure if listen that often though.
U2
2/5
I don't hate this as much as I should. It's perfectly fine benign middle of the road stuff.
Talking Heads
4/5
Lovely stuff
R.E.M.
4/5
Good.
TV On The Radio
5/5
You know what? I think this album deserves to be in this list!
Janelle Monáe
5/5
Love it. Not as good as Dirty Computer, but literally fantastic.
Ian Dury
5/5
Not as strong as I remembered. But I remembered it as strong as chilli pickles and Social Workers, so it's still a 5 from me.
Billy Bragg
3/5
Music to be listened to with subtitles.
My little beard had now been smoothed into right-on correctness.
Antony and the Johnsons
2/5
I found the singers voice really offputting: so breathy, husky and with vibrato on everything. I ended up just listening to how much I disliked it, rather than to music. This was most apparent, when there was a lovely Rufus Wainwright sounding track in the middle all of a sudden.
The Kinks
2/5
I like that one tune.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
Nice. Far too nice. Terribly horrifically nice.
Eminently forgettable, not bad, just not great.
3/5
Well hello, someone wants to sit on Queen's throne.
Lenny Kravitz
1/5
Oh no, it's like being stuck in the mind of a horny 55 year old woman with poor taste.
Manic Street Preachers
2/5
Overated
Cheap Trick
1/5
All sounds like one long song from the Bill & Ted's movies to me.
Frank Sinatra
5/5
Frank Sinatra makes me feel like Fred Astaire (but less tired).
Frank Black
2/5
Not as good as The Pixies.
There were a couple of good tracks, but not enough to make it great. I kept stopping to listen to other things, to be honest.
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
Bag of shit
Bob Dylan
3/5
Nice stuff. Good work Bob.
The Byrds
2/5
Tedious. Spotify says they were more responsible than any other band or artist for the entire folk rock movement. Fuckers.
The Avalanches
4/5
Fab stuff. Mostly instrumental bobbins, but with good beats and little samples of this and that. Sometimes a bit self indulgent. I get why others mightn't rate it, but it's right up my street.
Slipknot
1/5
I think one of these songs was about shopping for nice things to eat because his best friends were coming over for a tea party, but maybe I didn't hear it properly.
Taylor Swift
4/5
Synthetic manufactured pop. I hatred myself for singing along and doing my little dancer in the kitchen.
1/5
Is a zero stars rating possible? Thankfully none of those times were catchy.
Roxy Music
2/5
I was really not bothered. I listened to it two days ago and it made no impression at all.
Deep Purple
4/5
A solid block of rock. Deservedly good.
SAULT
5/5
Sublime
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
Woe is me, gloom and heartbreak.
Moby
3/5
Was it a great album? We'll come to that.
Was it overplayed? Yes.
That summer, that winter, all the Bourne films, and a lot of tedious wankers really loved this album.
What did it do well?
Great samples, interesting lyrical bits, a range of styles, nice to here some old stuff in a modern style that want just a cover version with a heavy beat.
What did it do wrong?
Too many instrumental mood pieces.
Was it a great album? Yes, for its time. It was brave and innovative.
It doesn't age that well though.
The Police
4/5
Pleasantly surprised by this. Not entirely the middle of the road fare I've come to expect from this list. What was "mother" all about?
Quite fun.
Arctic Monkeys
5/5
F-ing marvelous. Solid gold songwriting, attitude and riffs.
Elvis Costello
3/5
You know when someone labels the Christmas presents wrong and you are given a lovely floral scarf, which would really suit aunty Susan?
That's how I feel about this. In this metaphor aunty Susan has perfectly good taste, by the way.
In an alternate reality, I had a flatmate who was obsessed with Elvis Costello and I learned to love this album along with the rest of his back catalogue, and I could carry off a floral scarf with panache and lavender eau de toilette.
Anita Baker
1/5
Just brain-melting goo.
Prince
3/5
Probably a great album, I'm just not that into Prince. It all feels like a mid 80s party.
Foo Fighters
3/5
Solid rock. Like a pebble or some't.
Nirvana
4/5
Ra Ra Ra . Quality noise.
Big Black
2/5
It wouldn't work on Spotify, so I streamed it from YouTube, every 2-3 songs, I'd think, "Oh, this is different, nice interesting change ... " and then find I was listening to an advert.
It's good solid guitar noise, which I want to like, but when I find myself enjoying the jingles more, it's very telling.
The Prodigy
5/5
Banging retro electro.
Bobby Womack
1/5
Pretty f-ing dire.
Not good enough to be soul.
Not funky enough to be funk.
No standout singles.
The kind of music some bloke you're stuck with on a ferry boat for 2 days into.
Super Furry Animals
4/5
Very nice.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Can't go wrong with Jimi.
Kid Rock
1/5
Talk Talk
3/5
Eminently pleasant as background music; full of hits; I didn't really notice when it went on to Spotify autoplay and kept on churning out 80s synthpop, though, so I wasn't gripped.
Massive Attack
5/5
Absolutely love this one.
The Pogues
4/5
Rollicking good fun
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Decent stuff
Serge Gainsbourg
3/5
Better than I thought it was going to be. It sounded like a load of Portishead samples!
I didn't understand much of the lyrics, though.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
Oh, that was lovely.
Adele
2/5
Not terrible pop, but not great either.
The Smiths
3/5
Oh, so this is why people like The Smiths. Not bad.
Joy Division
3/5
Nice. Sounds more modern than 1979!
Black Flag
3/5
I thought it was going to be manufactured pop punk metal for some reason, and was pleased that it was raw and fun and I could make out some of the lyrics. TV Party was a highlight.
Pearl Jam
3/5
Classic. That girl at uni loved this and played it over and over and I liked her so I listened to it over and over and agreed it was amazing. It's OK.
The Incredible String Band
1/5
Possibly the worst thing I've heard so far (in my life).
Gorillaz
5/5
As good as ever.
Patti Smith
3/5
Pleasant
Kate Bush
1/5
MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP
Dr. John
4/5
Very enjoyable.
Grateful Dead
1/5
A load of reckless white boys roaming the American suburbs at the end of the 60s. What's to like?
Rush
1/5
I'm so glad someone is taking Spinal Tap seriously.
Nas
2/5
I want really listening. There was some good ones in there, but it's all a little gangster isn't it?
Robbie Williams
3/5
Meh. Pop bangers, but not my thing. Good sing along tunes.
2/5
I'm glad that someone made this and it exists. I don't ever want to listen to it again. There's something about it, like when you go to an art gallery and see some pretentious shit and think, "My toddler could do that." But there is some subtle difference. This is the musical equivalent of Tate Modern finger painting.
Johnny Cash
3/5
Have we not listened to this already?
Maybe I just had our on repeat after watching Walk The Line...
Good stuff, anyway. I like the live element, it does add something.
Only three stars because I'm not into country music.
Jerry Lee Lewis
2/5
I just can't separate the art from the artist on this one.
I really liked his boogie woogie energy when I was a teenager, but now I am just imagining the leering perv.
Q-Tip
5/5
Yes. More of this, please.
The Kinks
1/5
Ducking atrocious
Dennis Wilson
4/5
I approve this album
Kanye West
2/5
I dislike his bragadociousness and misogyny, but he has good samples and flow.
I want to either like this more or hate it, but I'm honestly struggling to do either with much emotion.
Def Leppard
1/5
A bit shit.
Sigur Rós
4/5
I honestly had trouble starting awake through this. It's beautiful, but verging on the medicinal.
The Young Rascals
3/5
Surprisingly not as shit as the album cover. I thought it was going to be awful, but it was quite pleasant.
Sabu
4/5
Enjoyable blue note jazz, works music stuff.
LL Cool J
2/5
Very average hip hop.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
He does his thing very well. I'm not always in the mood for it, but it's objectively good.
Pink Floyd
5/5
This should be in the top 1001 albums OF ALL TIME (1000 - 2022AD)!
Jeff Buckley
4/5
Lovely.
Love
3/5
I like Love's sounds they are a lot more raw than other acts of the time and their big hits are fantastic.
Nothing in this album particularly moved me though. I can only assume Forever Changes is somewhere else in the list of greatest albums? And the one with Just Be Thankful For What You Got on it?
The Last Shadow Puppets
3/5
Enjoyable pre-post-britpop jangly guitar stuff w/acerbic lyrics. File next to Albarn, D. if room on shelf.
Missy Elliott
5/5
Quality
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
It's a Sin? It's an earworm more like. #actually #Ithinkyoullfind
I got quite into this, and then the second half bored me
Destiny's Child
2/5
Started off thinking this was enjoyable enough pop. But it wore thin very quickly.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Loved this. A nice new gem of an album to listen to from time to time.
The Shamen
3/5
Enjoyable synth sounds. electro hand clap cla-cla-cla hand clap.
Eagles
2/5
Yeah, s'alright, innit?
a-ha
2/5
Listening to Take On Me, it was a lovely piece of pop. Then it was all eighties dribble.
Justice
4/5
What a treat. A post daft punk electro dance thing. I felt like I'd heard every song before somewhere.
Enjoyable low calorie fodder.
Gang Starr
2/5
Dull
Gang Of Four
4/5
Good stuff.
The Crusaders
1/5
Just terrible. Even the recognisable hit is terrible.
Billie Holiday
3/5
This album should be called Lady Day Phones It In.
It's obviously her, as there's none like her, and she has a great voice; but why is this over orchestrated mush on this list and not her greater jazz contributions?
Peter Gabriel
3/5
This is a really interesting album. It was original and had great composition, the lyrics were good and you could hear it constantly innovating from all these different sources. This is definitely sometimes favourite album of all time, and if I were on The Desert Island with just this album I'd get really into it before dying of starvation.
... I'm just not sure I'd choose to listen to it ever.
3/5
Catchy and vacuous, but I think that was the intention from the melodrama of the lyrics and the pulp fiction artwork. I'm tempted to give it 3 stars.
Elliott Smith
2/5
Mystically forgettable. Like a really serious academic paper, I tried to focus on it, and my brain instantly wandered off on s shipping trip, I must but some tubs from the hardware store, and I'll grab a coffee. In the coffee shop they're probably playing Elliott Smith, but I can't be sure because it sounds so benign and when I try to listen above the coffee cups and subdued chatter my mind wanders off and I'm listening to the "greatest"albums. I wander what the next over is. What was I doing again?
Elvis Costello
3/5
OK
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
3/5
Formulaic songs in simple language,
Crowbarred into matching suits and ties,
Torn between Rock n Roll and being christian virgins.
I imagine it's still in the top hundred albums of the 1950s.
Laura Nyro
1/5
Just about the worst thing ever.
Neneh Cherry
4/5
Thought it was a'right at the time.
In retrospect, I enjoyed the singles and began considering it a classic.
On actual listening it's got some great tracks but doesn't consistently hit every ball out the park
I like the originality it shows.
Janet Jackson
1/5
Number one pop hit you like very much. Coca cola chic, yes? Make good and very enjoy. Have you ever want to visit? Click here for discount. All your needs!
Neil Young
3/5
Elliott Smith
2/5
Haven't we heard this already?
Deep Purple
2/5
Long guitar solos.
And a long drum solo.
And a bit of singing, which couldn't quite be made out. I think it was something about a woman?
And smoke on the water which is always nice.
But this version went on a bit and had too many long guitar solos.
And a long drum solo.
And a bit of singing. It was just too indulgent, that's the point I'm trying to make when I go on about the long guitar solos.
And the long drum solo.
And that bit of singing.
Too indulgent and too long.
If you really like guitar solos you'll love this.
There was also an organ which was playing, but it wasn't particularly notworthy. Not as noteworthy as the long guitar solos in any case.
Or as the long drum solo.
The organ was comparable with the singing, I suppose. But not with the long guitar solos, which were far too self-indulgent.
The Divine Comedy
3/5
Yeah. Good.
Keith Jarrett
4/5
Really nicely done. Some of the best background music I've heard in years.
Probably good to see live in concert.
Also good to play at home if you've got a deadline or an aunt visiting, or if you're going out and the dog gets lonely.
The Killers
3/5
Set stun to mild.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
I thought there'd be more of this kind of thing on this list. A refreshing change, but not particularly my thing.
The Adverts
2/5
The ultimate A level band in the back room of a pub.
Sisters Of Mercy
3/5
All I needed was to be tipsy on cheap fruit schnapps somewhere formal like a funeral or railway station waiting room, listening to this on cheap headphones, and I would feel teenage again.
Solange
3/5
Good songs but very same-y.
The Sonics
3/5
Beatles covers
Shuggie Otis
4/5
Lovely cheesy funky shit.
Lana Del Rey
2/5
Mmm
The Fall
3/5
It's OK. I think you have to be in the mood for some weird. It's as if they go at great lengths to make it as out there as possible. And this is one of their most accessible albums!
Bad Brains
1/5
Do you like Pearl Jam? If your budget doesn't stretch to Pearl Jam, why not try Bad Brains?
All the nutritional content of Pearl Jam without the inconvenience or cost?
Maple Jar
Love
4/5
Joyous
Aerosmith
3/5
I was in there mid for this cheesy uplifting slice. All me tomorrow and I'll hate it, but today I enjoyed.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
Not my thing. Sorry, Mr Horse and Mr Young.
Kraftwerk
4/5
Fun
Slint
3/5
Like Bauhaus meets the Velvet Underground or Godspeed...
Arcade Fire
4/5
Fun indie pop rock
The Go-Go's
1/5
Easily in the top 5 of my list: Albums Called Beauty and the Beat.
Faust
4/5
Lovely droning guitar stuff
Elvis Presley
2/5
Not a great Elvis album. Back of your gran's record box.
Sister Sledge
3/5
Quite fun, bubbly pop. It reminded me of a supermarket lemon mousse. Very manufactured, but the idea is there.
Without Nile Rogers it would have been unbearable.
Bob Dylan
4/5
This is in my own personal Top 1001 albums (somewhere). It is good.
Elbow
5/5
Absolutely love this.
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
Funky stuff.
Barry Adamson
3/5
Lovely dark atmospheric stuff. It has no teeth though.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
2/5
This would make great music for the end credits of a budget ITV drama
Taylor Swift
2/5
Listenable but it's got a very commercial pop sound. I enjoyed the quiz, "Swift or Shakespeare" though.
David Bowie
4/5
Quite a good Bowie album. I didn't know he co-wrote Fame with John Lennon until just now. The funk influences are strong. I liked it.
fIREHOSE
1/5
Coincidence that the band banner is an anagram of ire of use? Yes? I'm too tired for this.
Maybe as it makes no sense; no? No coincidence, just nonsense? Gah!
The Cars
1/5
Standard eighties fare.
Todd Rundgren
4/5
Yes please. This is the kind of batshit weirdness I was hoping to discover on this foray into albums. I could hear influences of (or to) Pink Floyd, Meatloaf, The Beatles, psych rock, Zappa.
It's not something I'm particularly INTO, but it is GOOD.
Eurythmics
3/5
OK
Neu!
4/5
This is sublime music to work to.
Mj Cole
2/5
They had so many of the cocaines that they started thinking that crew was spelt with a k.
Killing Joke
2/5
Basic.
Bonnie Raitt
1/5
Terrible
Deep Purple
2/5
I didn't manage to get all the way through the last Deep Purple album. It's not that it's bad, it's just that my emotive response to it is boredom, so I keep listening to something else instead.
This one I hung on until I woke up when Spotify decided to play some Zappa instead.
Bob Dylan
3/5
Bit long. Genuinely a good album though.
The Who
4/5
Grinding, fabulous post-Beatles evolution.
Crowded House
2/5
Limp like three week old lettuce.
Good sing along tracks, though.
Culture Club
2/5
Very eighties. Too radical for Stock, Aitken & Waterman, maybe, but not by much.
The Cardigans
4/5
Pleasant pop
Dire Straits
3/5
I wanted to hate this more than I did because it's so middle of the road and so over played, but I think it's probably played so often because deep down it is quite good. Ah me, oh my.
Down to 3 stars because of all the radio drive time airplay.
Butthole Surfers
3/5
It's funny because it's obnoxious and noisy.
Sheryl Crow
1/5
Painful
Tito Puente
4/5
Absolutely what I thought I'd be listening to when we embarked on this voyage.
Funky salsa rhythms.
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
Really enjoyed this one.
Iggy Pop
4/5
Yes! Fabulous stuff. Admittedly led by two bangers, Lust for Life and Passenger. The Bowie is strong in this one.
Kraftwerk
4/5
Fabulous. I really liked this. Not exactly listenable, but funny and weird and innovative.
The Replacements
3/5
More six form bands. This one's quite good, and I'd have gone to their gigs in the back of a pub until they broke up because the bassist wouldn't stop saying how fit the drummer's mum was and it all got a bit tense. The lead singer probably knew that half their fans only came to gigs because they fancied the drummer AND his mum.
Pulp
3/5
This is a good album
Dusty Springfield
4/5
I was in the mood for this cheese and happily sand along to a few numbers. The Carol King-penned tracks in particular got me through some of the smoochier Burt Bacharach & Hal David numbers.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
There are some classic tracks on here, but somehow it's never really worked as an album for me.
I want to like it more.
Louis Prima
4/5
I absolutely loved this. OK, it can lose a point for being all covers.
4/5
I had to listen to this twice to give it proper attention. It was quite far out of my comfort zone, but I would definitely listen again. Weird and wonderful. Hectic latíno electronics. It was rocking all the right boxes, but there were points where it all got a bit too crazy.
The Zombies
2/5
Nearly redeemed by Time Of The Season, but it is not ticking my boxes.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
2/5
Unimportant
Femi Kuti
3/5
I was really enjoying this, but then it was somewhat ruined by my teenage son asking why I'd been listening to the same song for half an hour.
I couldn't shake that, so my rating went right down to 3 stars. Maybe it should be 4?
Christine and the Queens
2/5
It was enjoyable, but went on for far too long in the same style, until by the end I was angrily doing little Christine and The Queens impressions to myself.
Joni Mitchell
2/5
Not my thing at all.
The Louvin Brothers
2/5
Tragic
B.B. King
4/5
Great fun.
George Harrison
3/5
Nice. Far too nice.
The Rolling Stones
4/5
I really enjoyed this album. Proper old school.
Finley Quaye
4/5
Nostalgia filled me to the brim and then I spilled over with joyous bubbles of musical pleasure.
Maybe if you didn't listen to this weekly in your teens, your feel differently.
Violent Femmes
4/5
Good stuff, punky whingy stuff. Not every track hit, but there were some great tunes in there.
Linkin Park
2/5
What are they so cross about?
Joy Division
3/5
Bit sad and grumpy.
Booker T. & The MG's
2/5
Green Onions is a legendary track, but the rest of the album was, frankly, a disappointment.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Very pleasant and a bit sad.
Tori Amos
5/5
What an album! I love this. It's got emotional depth, gothy vibes, virtuosity, literary references.
Machito
4/5
I really enjoyed this one. I have reasons.
New York Dolls
4/5
Jolly good, but I wasn't angry enough to appreciate it.
Charles Mingus
3/5
Jazz; nice.
The Isley Brothers
3/5
A weird mix of love music for the ancient and decrepit and absolute bangers. Some of the soppy numbers were so unlistenable for my rough gruff grizzled boxer ears that I've only rated this three, despite having a lovely sing along.
The Velvet Underground
4/5
Noisy poetic dirty fun.
Bob Dylan
2/5
Ugh. Why is Bob Dylan doing a dodgy Bob Dylan impression for this whole album.
It reminds me of sitting around in a campsite with my mother's tedious hippy friend.
Dead Kennedys
4/5
Solid lump of punk.
Steely Dan
1/5
Awful
Eminem
5/5
Totes mazin
Dinosaur Jr.
2/5
Noisy boys and their body guitars. Shouting shouting shouting all the bloody tube. Just calm down, eat some food and get some sleep FFS.
2/5
Tedious.
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
Joyous fun. Very groovy. No idea what the lyrics were on about, but it sounded good. A little to heavy in the cheese.
Sugar
2/5
Right down the middle of the road.
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
Meh
John Coltrane
5/5
A lovely slice of jazz.
Meat Loaf
2/5
Beastie Boys
5/5
Simply amazing. Dope beats, guitar licks, great rapping. A proper classic album. One of the greatest.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
3/5
Bit dour
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
3/5
A little pretentious but interesting.
Anthrax
2/5
Real spotty teenage stuff. I had to listen to it in tiny bursts with the volume down.
I like that you can make out the lyrics and enjoyed the Judge Dredd song.
Immature, not (just) in a poobumwilly way, but like if they kept pursuing this, it could grow into something better.
Television
3/5
Good fun.
Tom Waits
4/5
Great moody swathes. Lyrically interesting, but like good classic poetry I feel like it needs undivided attention.
I'm going with 4 stars because it seems like an objectively good album, despite the fact I wasn't really appreciating it.
The White Stripes
5/5
Sometimes you just need good lyrics, a guitar and drums.
This album was played on full on 6 Music the other night and a song got stuck in my head, consequently it's the third time I've listened to the album in full this week. I still enjoyed it.
Pixies
5/5
Love this.
Mekons
2/5
It was probably good if you're into that kind of thing.
Buena Vista Social Club
5/5
A genuinely lovely album. Ry Cooder had a great idea getting all these neglected amazing musicians together.
White Denim
3/5
I thought this really picked up at the end of the album, but it turned out my streaming service had just switched to playing similar, and slightly more catchy, music.
I was impressed by the lengthy guitar harmonies and jazzy bits, but didn't really enjoy them that much.
Common
2/5
I didn't enjoy this. The laid back rythms are good, but all the casual sexism and racism really put me off. Maybe when it comes to the misogyny I didn't, "get it". Maybe it was ironic or satirical or something?
Suede
4/5
Good fun. A little whiny. Guild me with nostalgia for indie clubs in the 90s.
Radiohead
4/5
Simply fantastic. Not my favourite Radiohead album but nevertheless it is great.
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
U2
3/5
The Jam
4/5
A good solid album by The Jam: no complaints here!
Wu-Tang Clan
3/5
Faith No More
3/5
As soft metal (leaden perhaps?) goes, it's not too bad. There are a couple of good tracks, but it's not really my thing.
5/5
Amazing. I thought it was great then, I think it's great now. It's a got a real variety of music, there's story telling, straight up songs, nonsense and I love it.
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
I love A Tribe Called Quest. The combination of jazz samples and positive raps is nice.
Fela Kuti
4/5
Well, I thought this was a winner. I love a bit of jazz drumming, and these two pros did not disappoint. It didn't write make it to be a 5 star album because I couldn't imagine myself listening to the whole album over and over.
Kendrick Lamar
3/5
Yeah, it's alright.
Jamiroquai
3/5
Pop funk.
You can hear the cocaine arrogance seeping through, but at the same time it's toe-tapping stuff.
When I was a barman, I'd put on The Pogues when the pub seemed a little dull and everyone would spring into conversation. I imagine this would work for the same trick.
Saint Etienne
3/5
This was a nice album.
David Bowie
3/5
I know he has now transcended into alt-sainthood, but I didn't go all the way to give stars. It has done great tracks on it, though. I appreciated it's brevity, too!
Röyksopp
4/5
So chilled.
Very background music, but lovely nonetheless.
Turbonegro
2/5
Instantly forgettable punk rock.
John Grant
5/5
A phenomenal album. I just love this one because of its bitchy lyrics, its range of musical style, its electronic bits and its harmonic bits.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
2/5
Pants
Prefab Sprout
2/5
Dull, but not horrible.
Method Man
3/5
When we listened to Wu-Tang earlier on this list, Method Man was on my favourite tracks.
I enjoyed the vague sounds of this, but didn't listen to it properly; my bad.
FKA twigs
3/5
Fine
The Everly Brothers
4/5
I had my aunt's old record collection when I grew up in the 80's, so listened to a lot of fifties music growing up. This has some real classics in it.
Very cheesy, but very enjoyable once you get over that.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Don't get me wrong, I like Sinatra, but this is an hour of listening to a guy go on, in the barest of detail, about how he's sad because his baby has gone. It's sixteen different ways of saying the same thing
I had to listen to it in installments because it was too boring.
Talking Heads
2/5
It's fine. But I think I need to have a kooky haircut and a beard to enjoy it properly.
The bass is fantastic.
The lyrics are probably very clever, but I can't make them out, so I have to look them up.
The whole is less than the parts for me though.
The Style Council
1/5
"Yes!" I thought, "The Style Council! Great!" It turned out I was thinking of The Jam.
Weather Report
1/5
The first track is a classic. The rest is dross. Another disappointment.
Syd Barrett
2/5
I feel thoroughly depressed now.
Not technically accomplished or particularly sophisticated, but brutal in his honesty about the mental health struggles he had, which ultimately consumed him.
Abdullah Ibrahim
3/5
It's lovely to have some jazz, but I honestly stopped focussing on it after a few tracks.
Arcade Fire
3/5
I was really impressed by the credentials and accolades when I read about this album. I didn't get the same by listening to the album, which was fine. Just fine.
I know a few Arcade Fire tracks to hum along to, and I'm not sure why this album was picked instead of one of their other albums.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Not bad for country.
Youssou N'Dour
3/5
Fine. Viva Nigeria was great.
Madonna
3/5
Started strong. I sang along to bits of it, but it fizzled out.
Happy Mondays
3/5
Bum! ha ha!
It's rude.
Paul Revere & The Raiders
2/5
So benign. Would be one star, if not for I'm not Your Stepping Stone, which in turn would be great if not for the band who wrote it changing their name to Liverpool 5, to cash in on Beatlemania. They weren't from Liverpool.
Radiohead
4/5
Lovely slice of Radiohead. But why this album?
Depeche Mode
1/5
So very very dull.
Roni Size
4/5
Quality. I'd like it less if I didn't live in Bristol at that time; but I did: so I do.
Emmylou Harris
1/5
The antithesis of my musical tastes.
The Byrds
2/5
Fine. Not my thing really.
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
Bit punky, bit show-offy in a self conscious way. It overtly says, "Oh look at me aren't I contraversial?"
Barry Adamson
3/5
80% genius.
Van Halen
4/5
Just the kind of enjoyable nonsense I was in the mood for today. Like a trashy film.
I'll hate it tomorrow, but I enjoyed it in this ice tea swigging summer's day.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
It's got some good stuff on, but all sounds very same-y.
Depeche Mode
4/5
Got some really good songs in here. I enjoyed it very much.
Malcolm McLaren
3/5
Interesting. It ticked all the boxes for me: Varied, silly, a bit of jazz a bit of hip hop.
It didn't quite hold it together in the execution though.
I liked it a lot more than I thought I was going to.
Orange Juice
2/5
I felt this was tedious. Not my bag at all. Standard four four drums and guitar and nothing to make it stand out to me. I imagine there a better band to see live in a dingy cellar club, but I wasn't there at the time. Maybe I'd have loved it.
The Chemical Brothers
5/5
BANGER
Moby Grape
1/5
Sigh. Not another of these.
Spiritualized
4/5
I like the ambient noodling, but I prefer Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.
I like that it's different to a lot of stuff. The horns and keys washing in and fading out amongst the other bits and bobs is great
I'm not usually a fan of soundscapes, but they do this very well.
KISS
2/5
Pants
The Gun Club
3/5
Today I learned that punk blues is a genre and it sounds like you'd expect.
Not offensive, but it didn't stand out to me.
The Doors
4/5
Classic.
I am guessing this will be divisive as some in our number think that Jim Morrison was a twat, but I enjoy it. It has a load of great songs on their, the organ noodling isn't too indulgent compared to their other work and the bangers BANG HARD.
Riders on the Storm? Yes, please.
Love Her Madly? A great track.
Elastica
5/5
Superb. Dancing in the kitchen.
Scritti Politti
3/5
Yeah. It was alright.
I had a Scritti Politti take in my collection as a teenager and every now and then I'd fish it out and be pleasantly surprised that it wasn't a shit as I'd thought. This time, thinking it was going to be a pleasant surprise, it was not all that.
3.5 stars.
Rush
1/5
Bag o' poo
Bon Jovi
1/5
Painful. It hit every nerve in me that cried, "This is terrible." Somehow I listened to the whole thing, but it wasn't for me at all
I am quite aware that there will be people for whom this is their #1 of all time. Let's agree to disagree.
Rod Stewart
2/5
Rod was the Ed Sheeran of his day, I guess.
Django Django
5/5
I am really enjoying this funky, bleepy alt-pop.
Michael Jackson
3/5
I enjoyed the first and last funk numbers, but not so much the romantic soul.
I can't reasonably drop my score below 3 stars because Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough is so good.
Well done, Quincy Jones.
Elis Regina
3/5
Neither amazing nor offensive to my ears.
The Cramps
3/5
Yeah. S'alright.
Gotan Project
4/5
I listened to this album a lot. It takes me back to a time when Giles Peterson rules the stereo system and WOMAD was always on the cards for summer.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
I like the Latin vibe, but it was just too soppy for me. Perfect for an Audrey Hepburn moving picture.
Tom Tom Club
3/5
Pretty good. I got into this more when I knew it was a Talking Heads spin off.
Nice guitars and catchy tunes.
Wordy Rappinghood reminds me of the kind of things that teachers do in a school assembly which seem like a good idea at the time.
The Blue Nile
2/5
Oh. Another album of earnest whining and guitars.
It's fine and all, if that's your jam, but by the end when they were singing "Are we rich or poor? Does it matter any more?" I was shouting, "Yes, it does matter, if you're poor." Maybe I missed the point of the song ... Maybe I missed the point of the whole album?
Einstürzende Neubauten
1/5
I had this girlfriend at uni who was an intense Greek cellist who listened to Einsterzenden Neubauten. Or maybe it was the German's who came for some kind of summer language school when I stayed behind and worked in the halls of residence. In any case I got this on cassette in the late nineties and found it completely unlistenable then, even as a teenager with a modicum of angst and a recent B grade in GCSE German.
I imagine watching Fritz Lang's film Metropolis is just as tedious and is also only done by art students who want to show off how clever they are.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
3/5
Nice stuff. Not world changing but good, solid, Big Band work.
Tears For Fears
3/5
Surprisingly enjoyable for yet another middle of the road eighties pop act.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
A bit dull.
Stan Getz
4/5
Delightful
Goldie
5/5
Fantastic work. I love this album.
George Michael
4/5
I'm increasingly surprised by how much I enjoy this pop music. I was sick of it in the eighties, but it's not so bad now.
Skunk Anansie
2/5
Meh
David Gray
1/5
Are we definite that AI was not around when this was released?
Marvin Gaye
2/5
A bit too smoochy for I.
N.E.R.D
3/5
I listened to this just after attempting Bitches Brew and it was just the pop antidote I needed: Neither to alternative not to facilitate to put me off. So saying it is enjoyable without being complex. A charming mash-up of genres.
The Damned
3/5
Quite nice punk rage.
Herbie Hancock
4/5
Good jazzy vibes
Talvin Singh
5/5
Love it. Right up my electro weird avenue.
The Specials
5/5
The best
Madonna
3/5
The music was alright and the songs were alright.
Marvin Gaye
4/5
It's got some great tracks ... it's got some alright tracks.
Miles Davis
3/5
The first couple of tracks made for good angry walking to and fro from the corner shop with headphones in. The last few tracks were on in the background whilst I worked. It was as if the musicians were consciously trying to skirt around an actual main tune whilst never hitting it. When the album ended and Spotify auto played, I got a sense of relief.
Painful listening at times and interesting at others.
Suede
2/5
Beigest
Happy Mondays
5/5
Good fun. Not sure about the intentionally off singing, but I enjoyed it and like their musical output.
I pushed it from 4 to 5 stars purely because it would be funny if this was our group's top rated album.
John Lennon
4/5
Wonderful.
At times a bit soppy, but there are plenty of great songs on here for me.
Lauryn Hill
4/5
I've got a soft spot for this album. I love her vocals and the attitude. The lyrics are positive and upbeat and the beats are great.
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
Can I kick It?
Is it possible this is greater than the Lou Reed sample? Probably not, but it's a great track and makes the whole album worthwhile.
I also enjoyed the party vibe in Ham 'N' Eggs and the laid back smoothness of I Left My Wallet In El Segundo.
Burning Spear
5/5
A great album. He re made it away from Island Records as Garvey's Ghost. Which was great too.
I really enjoyed listening to this and then went down a dub rabbit hole all afternoon.
Ride
2/5
Here's my trick: When an album gets too dull or unbearable, nip over to Wikipedia and check out how many tracks were on the original release. Have you listened to 9 Ride songs? Well that'll do then, won't it?
The Undertones
4/5
Good fun. Banging tunes and killer tracks alongside some standard punk rock. Very enjoyable though.
Ms. Dynamite
4/5
Modern soul. I like the vibe. I enjoyed the pop numbers, too. It's quite cheesy overall, but I like it. I wonder why she stopped releasing music.
Bill Evans Trio
2/5
I thought I was going to really enjoy this, but it was all just a bit limp. They need a person up front giving it some.
X-Ray Spex
1/5
Purposefully jarring singing is not good.
The Who
4/5
Good fun. I really enjoyed this one.
Jane's Addiction
3/5
I had a cassette with The Pixies on one side and Jane's Addiction on the other. They were never up to bring measured by that standard, but they do have some good tracks.
Jeru The Damaja
2/5
I bought this on vinyl and never really got into it. I put Come Clean on a fair few mixtapes, but nothing else really hooked me in. A disappointed 2 stars.
The Offspring
3/5
They just kind of troweled on the angst and anger without much finesse. Somehow it sounds both raw and contrived to me.
Come and Play is a undeniable banger. The rest I could do without.
Gary Numan
3/5
Most of this album is just a prelude to Cars
Red Hot Chili Peppers
4/5
It was a good album with some good tunes on it, but I had a bit of a headache and wasn't really in the mood for it.
I can't bring myself to vote it as low as three stars, though.
Julian Cope
2/5
Pretty crap. I stopped listening hard and was weirdly enjoying it by the time it got to the extended edition remixes, which made me want to go back and listen to the originals again, and then they were still crap.
There's something in it, but it does sound a lot like a talented, burnt out, crusty going on and fucking on.
CHIC
2/5
Another case where the music got massively better as soon as the album stopped and Spotify started playing similar hits.
Each tune was a couple of minutes too long . Good Times was an inspiration for a lot of samplers in the eighties.
The Rolling Stones
4/5
Well done, The Rolling Stones (claps politely), that was nicely executed. There were plenty of good tracks and you ended on a beautiful earworm. Highly enjoyable.
David Bowie
4/5
Very good.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
3/5
Frankie says funny things over music.
Frankie says sex noises and David Gilmour style guitar wailing.
Frankie says cover versions are a great tribute.
Frankie says, "Poppers?"
The Who
4/5
Enjoyable. I liked the hits and the other stuff was fi-ine-ish. For once having the 2.5 hour extended edition with live concerts and such added to my enjoyment. But it was mostly background music as I got in with my day.
Maybe if have been a mod if I were born at the right time.
Roxy Music
3/5
Quite fun. Some good tunes in there.
Big Star
1/5
Superficial bollocks.
Cocteau Twins
2/5
No idea what she was singing about. It might as well have been in French. It wasn't offensive, but it wasn't very good either.
De La Soul
5/5
Like a familiar hug. Such a nice album.
I think DeLa Soul are a group who have only improved with age, though.
#####
The Black Keys
4/5
I mentally prepared myself for listening to a Black Eyed Peas album, then was pleasantly surprised.
George Michael
3/5
The pop is strong with this one, hhmngh.
Blood, Sweat & Tears
4/5
Good funky pop jazz. A shame it's mostly covers, but I liked it!.
Marilyn Manson
4/5
3/5
Good fun.
The Young Gods
1/5
What was all that about then?
Got it off your chest did you?
Have something to eat and a little sleep and you'll feel better in the morning.
Britney Spears
1/5
I got through this by checking out the credits and Googling who else put in the hours apart from Britney. Eric Foster-White and Max Martin are the main culprits.
It is vapid, chewing gum music, slickly produced and cynically written.
I enjoy a lot of vapid, cynically-written television, but and is the equivalence of being too tired/stoned to change the channel at 3am and watching some Hallmark bullshit.
The Beat Goes On was a surprise halfway through, as I quite liked The Allseing I, and this was that, identically, again, but with Britney instead of Cher.
I survived it: Go me! Now I have to catch up on that Iron Maiden album I similarly put off until my completionism got the better of me.
Wilco
3/5
Inoffensive benign jingle janglery
Ghostface Killah
3/5
Apart from the misogyny, violence and drugs it's good. Great rhymes, good samples and witty. I enjoyed it, but didn't approve.
Billy Joel
3/5
Really really well made music that just isn't my thing.
It raises the bar in the middle of the road.
Elton John
1/5
Pants
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
4/5
I absolutely love Penguin Cafe Orchestra. I would have given 5 stars for their second album, which I much prefer.
It's got lovely melodies, eccentricity, musique concrete found sounds.
Traffic
2/5
I go down to the seafront in Weston-super-Mare sometimes and there's a pub garden with a microphone and amplifier set up the. Usually there's some guy playing covers to a backing track. Occasionally they're quite good, but more often than not there is someone playing dodgy covers, not up to the original and nothing to sing along to in the first place.
There is usually a cluster of pensioners nearby who clearly just want to eat their basket of chips undisturbed by seagulls or guitarists, but are having a good moan about both.
I bet Ken Bruce loves Traffic.
The Zutons
3/5
They were a one hit wonder, but then Amy Winehouse blew shit out of the water with her cover of Valerie (or was it the other way around? Did they do a decent cover of her song? Just Googled it: no).
They headlined the Godney Gathering festival last summer, but I couldn't be arsed to stay to see them live. I was tired, it was muddy and I had one tired teenage child moping about and one who wanted to party until dawn.
This was the right kind of contemporary upbeat to suit my mood yesterday and I did enjoy listening to it even if it was a bit like Travis with a horn section.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
I had a mixtape from my first girlfriend with Everyone Knows on it.
I am unable to separate the nostalgia from any subjective appreciation.
####
Mike Ladd
3/5
I really like the idea of this album (and how nice was it to get something other than 3 men with guitars, a drummer and singer?). I felt it fell short by not having any obvious catchy hooks or chorus.
New Order
3/5
Yeah. It wasn't bad.
A new Peter Saville /Steven Morris project, CP1919, featuring an extract of the voice of Ian Curtis is getting its preview on 6 Music as I type.
###
Eels
5/5
What an album! I'd forgotten this existed. I think I had it on cassette or iTunes, or something...
Great lyrics, great riffs.
So bleak and twisted.
American Music Club
2/5
This singer must be really nice. He sounds really nice. I expect he doesn't forget birthdays and he's the kind of guy who pops around when you've been ill or if you're low. I don't know why else he would be on this list as the album doesn't stand out at all.
Madness
4/5
Absolutely!
(Sorry: Wrong album)
I love Madness and they have top songs, but they don't have a solid gold album that is bangers wall-to-wall.
Nutty boys, silly songs, sensible songs, ska, reggae: good stuff all.
Robert Wyatt
5/5
I was kind of aware of Robert Wyatt because of his version of Shipbuilding, but I think I assumed he was just another folkie la-dee-dah troubadour.
I really enjoyed this album though, and exploring his catalogue. I was in the sweet spot for listening to chilled soothing melodies and innovative choices of instrumentation.
The story behind the able was so captivating and made me want to listen more carefully.
Plus: Ivor Cutler! Anything featuring Ivor Cutler ticks my box.
Robert seems to have moved in all the right circles in my mind. Ivor Cutler's children's books (yes please), born in Bristol (me too), his accident happened whilst he was in Venice with his wife who was editing Don't Look Now, which I keep meaning to watch (I think, maybe, Edgar Wright mentioned it as a great film to watch), staunch leftie during the Thatcher years (go on, my son!), working with Bjork, Brian Eno, John Peel, David Gilmour (what good taste).
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
4/5
Absolute classic. I think I listened to this a lot in my late teenage years. It was on the right side of the listenable spectrum in my step-dad's collection of jazz CD's.
All good, solid jazz. I held back from giving it 5 stars as it's a little cliche now, and more cafe background music than smoky jazz dive with clicking fingers and goatees.
Adam & The Ants
3/5
Good fun. It's got a real dressing up and playing vibe.
I can see why it was a smash with the kids at the time.
Pop, though, innit?
ZZ Top
3/5
Good fun blues, I guess.
Bruce Springsteen
1/5
The blandest. We're talking mild cheddar; overheard nattering from the front seats of the bus; hospital catering grade blandness.
Little Simz
4/5
Good to have some modern sounds on here.
Lyrically it was thematic, rather than narrative driven; the flow was strong and the backing music was beautiful.
Ozomatli
4/5
Good fun. Lively and different. I almost understood some of the slower Spanish! Hooray!
Incubus
2/5
I thought Incubus sounded like a death metal band, so that was a relief. It wasn't very interesting, though.
Teenage Fanclub
2/5
Not much of anything
The The
2/5
Not good.
Throwing Muses
3/5
I wasn't really into this, but I got into some of the "Doghouse cassette tape" bonus tracks. Maybe they're exactly the same and I just needed to give it a second listen, though.
Pixies
3/5
I wanted to like this a whole lot more.
The Black Crowes
2/5
Dull blues rock.
I like their version of Hard to Handle, so it wasn't a complete washout, but I was largely bored listening to this.
Gene Clark
1/5
Not my cup of tea at all.
The Cult
2/5
Soft rock bollocks
Coldplay
3/5
I am supposed to love this because it was multi platinum selling album.i should love it because I once met one of them before they were famous, but I forget which. I should love it because my wife does, and my children and it at school concerts.
I am suppose to hate this because it was EVERYWHERE and overplayed on Radio 2. Sitting alongside other vilified soft pop targets as James Blunt, David Grey and Bryan Adams.
I never really hated it, nor loved it. It has some good sing along numbers, but doesn't really grip me much.
I apologise for the lack of strong opinion.
Morrissey
3/5
It's got done good singles on there, and had a certain eccentric style, but I just didn't gel with it.
Fairport Convention
1/5
My teenage big sister loved this at the height of me hating my big sister. I grew to love her, but not Fairport Convention.
Fiddly diddly dee dee medieval knights and tragic love oh-I nonny no.
Flutes, gong and tambor play-ed in time,
Sentence like Yoda for to scan the rhyme.
Ice Cube
3/5
Radiohead
5/5
This is the best one. Decided.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
I've tried to love this a few times over the years because many of my friends with good taste rate it highly, but it's just too folky and earnest for me. Maybe it reminds me too much of the worst aspects of my childhood.
Basement Jaxx
2/5
The best songs were the ones where they get a sample of a great song, looped it and chucked a load of beats and one finger keyboard playing at it, and then asked a budget soul diva to wail a bit, and then sampled the worst bits of that alongside some stuff of their favourite telly programs. And I like electronic music. Catchy though...
Khaled
2/5
I made it all the way through this one. Enough said.
Baaba Maal
3/5
Reminds of me of WOMAD. I don't have the cultural knowledge to appreciate this properly, maybe. Or maybe I just need to listen in the right environment.
Ravi Shankar
4/5
I kept getting interrupted and when I went back to listening, I had no idea which track I was up to as they all sounded the same to my untrained ear. I like Ravi's explanations (although they clearly didn't go in) and I was enjoying the music.
Bee Gees
3/5
These are not the Bee Gees I was expecting! Where's the falsetto disco gone?
Pleasantly not unpleasant. Not great either, though.
The xx
1/5
Ugh. A bit dull.
I think the recipe is: (4 mins, 4/4 beat, mild crescendo)
Take a slow moody guitar, breathy vocals and generic non-specific lyrics about one person feeling something about another. Mix with some basic electronic stuff.
Merle Haggard
1/5
I just dislike country music.
Super Furry Animals
5/5
I really got into this. I loved this album, then I listened to a bit of Griff Rhys's latest one, then I went back and enjoyed a bit of Neon Neon.
The tongue in cheek lyrics, experimental sounds and laid back guitar were spot on.
Beck
2/5
I bit too melancholic.
I cannot relate to his dry desert winds. He should write more songs about grey dull skies and interminable rain.
Madonna
2/5
Well.
Let's see, shall we?
It's better than Ray Of Light, agreed?
I was also rather mean about Beck yesterday, so now I feel like I shouldn't go too low on albums that aren't offensively poor.
I'm not enjoying listening, but it's not offensive. If I was in a cafe and this were on I'd vaguely think, "Ugh; Madonna." and make no more of it.
Kings of Leon
4/5
A lovely album, not mind blowing genius or trailblazing innovation, but well made, catchy, well sung and interesting to listen to. I can't really fault it.
Peter Gabriel
3/5
Nice. A lot of recognisable songs. Nothing really objectionable.
Deee-Lite
3/5
Average.
This samples a whole load of great tunes; as a source/reference guide it might be worth checking out the originals.
I would have loved this a lot more when I was a teenager. Now I think this was included by some music journalists who rightfully love the one hit
Bootsie Collins MAKES Groove Is In The Heart, which is a floor filler in the best way.
2 Stars, plus a bonus for Groove Is In The Heart.
The Libertines
3/5
Oh, those silly boys.
Genesis
2/5
It's like a medley of extracts from a confusing musical, where they forgot to write a plot.
Oh god, I just read the plot on Wikipedia; oh dear; oh no.
I'm not into these long form monologue progressive rock tracks.
I liked the enthusiastic explanation of, "Erogenous Zones" on Counting Out Time.
Did he ever get his penis back from the raven (who was carrying it in a shoobedoobe)?
Hawkwind
1/5
Pretentious pricks
Guided By Voices
1/5
"Hey, Brian, the audience screening feedback just arrived in the post from the record company!"
"Oh wow, that's great Gerald. Did they like the orchestral pieces?"
"Umm, let's see... Orchestral... Orchestral... Uh, no. No mention of orchestral pieces. Hey, is audience feedback usually written in crayon?"
"What? Well what did it say?"
"The gist of it is that the tracks are too long, too complex, with too many instruments, and it says here that the 17-22 year old market doesn't like that it was in tune."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"I see."
"Yeah. But the record label really liked it and said can we make a bazillion songs to go on the album."
"They liked it? OK. Well let's do all that then."
Brian Wilson
4/5
Finally! Another album I'd include in a Top Albums ... list.
Hookworms
4/5
I had to give this a few goes. I was surprised if never heard of it. It seems like a bit of an obscure choice for this list.
It was enjoyable to listen to, but I don't know if I'd go back to it.
I liked the subsequent suggested tracks that listening to this on Spotify generated, too. 3.5 stars.
Paul Simon
4/5
A bit too folky for my tastes, but there are some undisputable killer mic-drop tracks on here. It's no Bridge Over Troubled Water, but it is also less twee than that.
Dwight Yoakam
1/5
I was going to give it an extra star for being short, but I hate country.
Paul Weller
4/5
I used to listen to this a fair bit in my teens, it was a go-to not bad album too hum along to.
Tom Waits
4/5
The works is definitely better for having this album in it. It's not something I would listen to often but it's a fan sight better than a lot of the crud on this list.
It makes me think of the comic book/movie Sin City.
Frank Zappa
3/5
Nope. I like nuts but this was too far.
Willie Nelson
1/5
What is this and why is it here?
Willie Nelson sings soppy covers? Really?
Why do I need to listen to this?
Jean-Michel Jarre
3/5
I would argue that whilst it flows nicely as an album, it is ALL ethereal keys and noises, and that's too much for a whole album. I listened in 2 sittings and it was lovely hearing this mix in straight after some Indian music.
They are lovely pieces but it doesn't work as an album for me.
k.d. lang
3/5
I want particularly listening, sorry. There was something nice about seasons in the middle, and Constant Craving at the end, which I think was the theme to Green Fried Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café. (Quick Google: Nope, it was a Nob Dylan cover).
Probably enjoyable, if you're paying attention.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
I rolled my eyes to see another much-discussed late seventies American rock outfit on this list, but I see why they deserve a place.
I like the blues energy of this album.
Personally, I wouldn't choose to listen to this though. I'm 3 songs in and it still has work to do to earn a 4th star.
Joan Armatrading
4/5
I enjoyed this kind of gentle funk with soulful lyrics. Nice.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
I enjoyed this. A few tracks I'd heard before and some new. Not worried changing, but enjoyable.
The Specials
5/5
Every single song is great. This is a top album.
Sarcastic, funky, political. It's got it all.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
3/5
Yeah. Fine, but not really that interesting. Nice and short.
Mike Oldfield
4/5
A real work of art. Idiosyncratic, weird and enjoyable. If you can get Viv Stanshall or Ivor Cutler on your albums, get them on your albums (you can't: they're dead).
Flamin' Groovies
2/5
Predictably average country rock. The best songs were covers.
David Bowie
3/5
Not my favourite, but good quality Bowie.
Dion
2/5
I enjoyed reading about Dion much more than listening to him. It seems that his work features a lot of great singles, but I didn't get anything from this album.
The Verve
3/5
Yeah, fairly decent alt rock. Akin to a lot of other fairly decent nineties/nighties bands. 3 and half stars.
Beck
5/5
Fantastic. This album was on BBC 6 Music in full the other night, so I happily listened to it twice this week. I'm too tired to review it properly, so you'll just have to trust me that it's good.
The Roots
3/5
I have this on vinyl. It has a really good mix of different things on here (although the Pussy Galore track sounds distastefully sexist). The Roots are a really interesting band.
There are no standout catchy tracks for me.
Yes
2/5
Not good.
Lupe Fiasco
1/5
Deeply unpleasant.
I'm glad that's finished. 12 minutes of shout-outs was more unbearable than sitting through the credits on a Marvel film for a 12 second bonus scene setting up the next shit film that gets cancelled anyway.
Norah Jones
4/5
I love this album like a Tom Hanks / Meg Ryan movie. It's pure schmaltz, with jazz musicians in the background as invisible and talented and as obviously there as Spielberg. It's an indulgent weepy raise-a-ghettoblaster-above-your-head indulgence that I am 100% there for. You are welcome to disagree because it doesn't meet your rebellious agro-punk credentials, it's not cool and not alternative, but I have a soft spot for this album so there.
Eminem
4/5
It would be five stars if not for the painful to listen to kidnap skits.
King Crimson
3/5
Enjoyable and what artwork!
Elton John
3/5
Better than most Elton John albums. It has a couple of good songs in.
Emmylou Harris
1/5
Ugh. Country! Whining soppy music.
UB40
4/5
I had this on vinyl and really enjoyed listening to it again. Far preferable to their later work.
Björk
4/5
Lovely stuff. A bit of a weird choice compared to some of her other albums, but she does weird so wonderfully. I spent a happy afternoon LISTenINg to Björk.
####
Portishead
5/5
My teenage daughter has been hating on Portishead lately, but I just can't bring myself to dislike it, it has so many happy memories tied up with it.
I love the melancholy, the mash up of old and new, the vocals and drum and bass playing together. Glorious!
Animal Collective
4/5
Contemporary electro noise with a kind of wall of sound vibe and some lively harmonics. I'd not really listened to this before, whilst I'm tempted to go for 5 stars, that might just be because it's not F*&king COUNTRY AGAIN., so I'll be cautious and drop a star because I didn't instantly listen twice.
Mudhoney
3/5
Absolutely fine grunge. I enjoyed it, but not vastly.
On my own in the kitchen whilst doing some work was not the correct listening environment.
The Charlatans
4/5
Good fun.
Iron Maiden
2/5
See Anthrax,but with slightly better tunes.
It's as if they just got a white board out and asked some 12 year old boys to write the nastiest stuff they could think of on there. Then they made songs about that.
Two and a half stars, because Run To The Hills was good and 22 Acacia Avenue reminded me of Bananaman, who lived 7 doors up the road.
Talking Heads
4/5
A really enjoyable album that I feel like I must have listened to a few times before. Psychokiller is such a tuuuuunne!
Duke Ellington
3/5
Whilst it's enjoyable jazz, I wasn't particularly grief at any point. Deserves its pace on this list, though.
Wire
3/5
So-so punk from back in the day. Three Girl Rhumba is in my playlist of maths songs!
Marvin Gaye
3/5
Marvin Gaye is/was fantastic but this album is soppy mush Songs for Sexytime, and not really what I'm into.
Let's Get it On, is a classic though.
Boards of Canada
3/5
Too minimal. I could barely hear it.
Like the memory of a whisper in a noisy room.
Neil Young
3/5
I really enjoyed Only Love Can something something Heart, but the others swung between dull and hum-along classics.
Jungle Brothers
4/5
I had a strong feeling we'd had The Jungle Brothers already.
I really like them, and this album is, frankly, stronger than a lot of their other albums. I don't feel like they're massively innovative or original, but they are very good at what they do, and they are not crazily braggadocios or hooked on whores, guns and drugs.
3.5 stars
John Martyn
3/5
Very gentle. So gentle I only know I listened to it through the application of logic. I remember that Lee Scratch Perry track, that was good, the rest of the album was like a lovely light anaesthetic coma.
The The
2/5
No.
Thank you, but no.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
Yes, this is the Velvet Underground album I always reach for. Fantastic stuff! Chilled, weird, good.
Magazine
2/5
Not quite punk, not quite rock. There's a reason I'd not heard of this band. Not that great, sorry.
Jane's Addiction
5/5
Really enjoyed this.
The Sabres Of Paradise
4/5
What an unexpected joy. I have heard of and listened to things by Andrew Weatherall before. He died in 2020 and his stuff went into heavy circulation on BBC 6Music. This was good to listen to as a whole album.
Spacemen 3
4/5
Nice pre-Spiritualised trance inducing guitar noise.
Rod Stewart
2/5
Brian Eno
3/5
Worth a listen, so long as you don't mind falling into a pit of depression the likes of which you have never felt before where you can only pray for the numbness of public transport and bestsellers from charity shop book shelves.
Aimee Mann
2/5
Very middling singer songwriter stuff.
The Cure
3/5
Some good tracks and solid guitar work. I see why it could be someone's greatest of all time album, but it's not mine.
Klaxons
3/5
2Pac
2/5
Celebrates pimping violence and misogyny. I know he keeps saying he's trying to get out of he "thug life" , but he should've stopped being such a dick, really.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
Fine.
Pixies
5/5
A fucking masterpiece. Surreal and real and noisy and sentimental by turns.
Mariah Carey
1/5
Just terrible.
Brian Eno
4/5
Very enjoyable. I'm not sure it entirely works, but it was worth a listen.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
2/5
I'm not racist, but, this didn't do anything for me.
Kraftwerk
3/5
Heard to concentrate on whilst I was working, but the bits I tuned into were good.
Laibach
2/5
This sounds like modern Eurovision entries.
I got the strong feeling they were aware of how ridiculous they were. Maybe it was their album of Beatles covers that did it. They get an extra star for that.
Tom Waits
3/5
John Lennon
3/5
Disappointingly average for John.
Common
3/5
I had his album Electric Circus when it came out and had a similar thing, that I wanted to really like it, it's intelligent hip hop touching in themes of the black American inner city experience. There was a little bit of misogyny in there, and none of the music really hooked me, so I didn't ever get into Common as much as, say Curtis Mayfield, Arrested Development or Mos Def.
k.d. lang
2/5
Meh: country. K D Lang has a nice voice, I just don't like the music.
Iron Maiden
3/5
Loud guitars and teenage angst.
Not too cliche or repetitive. I liked it, but wouldn't seek it out again.
Alice Cooper
2/5
Dull.
Based on Wayne's World, I thought I'd like Alice Cooper more, but it just wasn't very interesting.
The Sugarcubes
3/5
Enjoyable Björk teamwork.
The Lemonheads
3/5
Ooh, he's such a nice boy, with his lovely floppy hair. And he does that nice song by that nice Garfunkel and his lovely friend.
Muddy Waters
5/5
Bloody good.
The Afghan Whigs
2/5
The thing about dub is getting lost in its bouncy, offbeat rhythm and going along for the ride. The cutting of sounds and samples gives a homemade quality. The deep base groove is like a relaxing heartbeat. The sway of reggae takes me away and the electro wooshing on old synths is like a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands.
What a shame this isn't dub.
The Stranglers
4/5
Marvelous original punk. Good hooks, good lyrics great tunes.
Metallica
2/5
Shouty shouty men are very cross about something. They probably need a hug, then they'll feel better.
4/5
Jolly music with amusing lyrics. I feel like this style has been emulated many times since, so I have it an extra star for innovation (although I am just guessing).
Björk
4/5
Björk, innit?
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Solidly benign background music to work to. The covers were almost as good as the originals.
Incredible Bongo Band
4/5
Great fun. Bombastic and funky. Could've done with some singing, on maybe a track or two to add an extra dimension, but it was fantastic and wonderfully different to the usual albums in this list.
Girls Against Boys
1/5
Really not bothered by all this shouting and guitars. Not particularly coherent, funky or witty.
Ryan Adams
1/5
I can do this, too.
The road is long, You've got to be crazy to catch a cliché, it ain't easy, and my brother, looking over my shoulder, it's been a long path; and my sister, where has she gone? Where has the time gone, dripping off my watch like syrup, Dali on my mind, Dali on my mind, Dali on my mind, Dah-a-a-ali on myyy miiind.
Heavy with the pressure, waking up in a motel and thinking, Dali on my mind, Dali on my mind, Dali on my mind. Ooohh, yeeeaah.
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
Beige as fuck.
Jack White
4/5
Very enjoyable. I like the striped back nature of Jack White's performances.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
5/5
Fab: Punchy and fun.
Dolly Parton
1/5
My Country Album, The Gravity of My Firstworld Problems, features tracks such as:
Why Aren't There any Childcare Places?
That Hat Don't Match
I Ordered a 5 but they Delivered a 9
Not Beyonce Enough
Stil' Crushin' on the Mailman
Every Cliché has a Rainbow
... and a cover of McArthur Park
Deerhunter
3/5
Enjoyable but not particularly memorable and I doubt I'll hunt it out again.
Someone's jam, no doubt, just not mine.
Fugazi
3/5
Fine I suppose. Interesting and different enough not to disappoint, but I'm not going to search them out or explore further unless some future person is adamant I must.
Skepta
3/5
Rude boy!
Bit misogynistic, but good sounds.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
1/5
Sigh. Roll over and go back to sleep. Not worth waking up for.
The Go-Betweens
2/5
In Australia, Jonathan Richmond meets Badly Drawn Boy.
This was instantly forgettable. Maybe I've heard it many times before?
I've definitely heard the round and round, up and down song before, so that one might be better and less forgettable.
Prince
4/5
Good funk pop.
The Magnetic Fields
3/5
It took me about a month to listen to. In small chunks it was fine. Individually the tracks can be great and there are some stand out tracks. But it was WAAAAAAYY TOOO LOOONG.
I guess the finish helped them get attention, and considering that it was about 4 albums long the quality is remarkable. But I just didn't want to listen to 4 albums of this stuff back to back.
4 stars with one removed because of the length.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
A zinger! I didn't know this was wall-to-wall needledrops. What a delight. I am an tired and pottering about doing tasks and this is a lovely accompaniment. I cannot go 4.5 stars, so I'll have to round.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Not bad, not bad. A bit chin stroking and smoking gauloise. Dissertations have been written on this I expect.
Slayer
2/5
Absolute tosh, but it could be quite entertaining if you're in the right mood.
Drummer only knows one drum beat, the singer only has the notes he wrote during his maths class and the guitarist had lovely hair.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1/5
Walk the line precariously between novelty album and serious prog rock statement and then nosedives into the novelty camp.
A pointless album.
Miles Davis
3/5
A good Miles Davis album. "So What" is the standout, but I'm never drawn to put this on. It's music to have on whilst drinking Martinis outdoors on a hot sunny day, whilst chatting with intellectual friends.
It's just a bit too long and all a bit too similar.
Can
5/5
What a delight. Proper band work, varied and tight.
I listened as I walked through sunny fields and a birdsong overdub is recommended for the next remastered release!
Miriam Makeba
4/5
Beautiful singing (but I'm not sure what about). I wonder how many were covers...
Nice to have heard. Pata pata is a classic and a shame it wasn't on this album. I remember that Miriam Make a looked after Nina Simone when she needed it, and they toured together.
Kanye West
4/5
Solid hip hop classic. Not my favourite but produced to the max. Deserves a place on the list, whatever your opinion of Kanye.
Talking Heads
3/5
I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve with this one really. I like The Talking Heads, and liked some of these songs, but at times it just seemed a bit rambling.
4/5
The production values and quality of singing are not up to the high and ambitious standard of songwriting. I enjoyed the variety of songs and the content of the lyrics very much though. I would love to hear a modern cover of this, it done genius had nothing better to do with their time.
Circle Jerks
3/5
Yes! This is the way all (well, most) punk albums should be. 1 minute songs, bang, bang, bang and done. FIN.
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
Listening carefully, I've noticed that the lyrics are 90% incoherent bullshit. The backing is nice enough jingly guitar stuff.
It's devoid of anything interesting, really though.
Slade
4/5
Enjoyable bobbins.
LCD Soundsystem
5/5
What a band! Fantastic, gush, gush, fawn. 5 Star masterpiece.
John Cale
3/5
The title track is a clear standout, and accompanied the reading of the Wikipedia pages on the 1919 Paris Peace Accords well.
None of the tunes were bad or tedious they just didn't hook me in much.
The Beta Band
4/5
An interesting band that rises above the typical middle of the road jangly guitar pop.
Thelonious Monk
3/5
Charming jazz.
Adele
1/5
"Adele! Do your thing!"
"Where's me bloody orchestra?"
"In the faacking studio, innit?"
"Oh, I dunno, mate. Quite honestly, I'm just not feeling it."
"Right! Bring in the boyfriend!"
"Wha? Simon?"
"Hi babes. Listen it's not you, it's me..."
Public Image Ltd.
1/5
"Guys, I am running out of cash let's make an album. Call the producer."
"What do I tell him?"
"Like, say, we need a mansion with some recording equipment and a genius Sound Technician guy."
"K"
"Yes, and some K"
"He says, have you rehearsed?"
"Fuck it. Just say we have."
Marianne Faithfull
3/5
Fine. Not bad, but not my thing either.
Justin Timberlake
2/5
Perky pop vibes. Very manufactured
Brian Eno
4/5
Wonky sample nose by art-loving pretentious clever men.
I mean, why not? It's not painful to listen to. The exorcism track is great.
It just has "Interesting side-project" written all over it.
As a teenager, I would pick this out of my step dad's CD rack from time to time when I wanted something different to listen to.
3.5 stars
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
I can't listening to this without hearing Vic Reeves lounge singer. Even Spotify wasn't sure of the lyrics. But, hey, if you give a thousand monkeys typewriters one might shit something in the shape of a letter onto one.
MC Solaar
4/5
I love that I can understand bits of most lines of this, which means I have a better grasp of French than done inner city US slang. Thank you, MC Solaar; well enunciated!
The tunes have great samples and it's not all just bitches, violence, drugs and cars.
Why they picked this album and not La Nouveau Western, with the cowboy vibes and Serge Gainsbourg sample (from the film La Haine) is beyond me.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
I liked this over the other Dexy's album in this list. The northern soul is strong here, and Kevin Rowland's is simultaneously individual and full of character as well as indecipherable and fucking annoying.
I'm not really sure what it was all about, and I was torn between saying that I preferred the original and that I loved the uniqueness and the brass section on slightly punky tracks. 3.5 stars
Eric Clapton
3/5
Well, Clapton is always pretty good, isn't he? This is a nice blues album, nothing terrible, nothing outstanding either.
The Pretty Things
1/5
Back at the dawn of L.S.D. when the "electric" guitar was young, this was novel and exciting. Burroughs was busy creating at the shredder and Waterman had yet to perform a rock opera. Heady days that anyone who was REALLY there cannot remember.
The Monkees
3/5
A real mixed bag, which probably comes from having so many writers. I adore the track "Randy Scouse Git", and "Zilch" is a fun skit. But every time they sing,
"I'm going to be stealing,
That little girl's heart today."
I get a chalkboard shudder.
It was a different time.
Pulp
5/5
The relief of a familiar album! Not having to wade through an obscure 80s, cheesy 50s or acid-drenched 70s album.
5 stars because I would choose to just put it on from time to time all by myself.
I like the lyrics (although the creepy ones go a bit too far sometimes) and the tunes are interesting and catchy.
Def Leppard
2/5
Pretty bland.
Soft Cell
3/5
I can really relate to this album of early twenties pretentious self-aware middle class debauchery. I like electronica and songs where you can tell what the singer is actually saying.
However, this album reads like a diary entry and Marc Almond is not a good singer and you can tell the music was botched together by one person.
File under: Has a good cover of a Northern Soul song.
We've already had "I Shot the Sheriff" (Clapton) and "Seven Days is Too Long" (Dexy's) this week though.
Highlights were Tainted Live (obvs), Say Hello, Wave Goodbye and Bedsitland.
Was Youth ironically out of tune or did they not have anything better recorded and needed filler?
Fred Neil
2/5
Thankfully short. Everybody's Talking is good and raised it from a one star rating, the rest was typical charity shop reject bin stuff.
David Crosby
2/5
The Wikipedia made me dread this; his girlfriend died and his band broke up, so he ended up doing hard drugs and hanging out in a studio whilst celebrity mates checked in on him and jammed a bit. The resulting album of mostly instrumental psychedelic folk was poorly received by the waiting press.
After hearing that, the resulting ambivalence I felt when listening is miraculous.
I liked reading the lyrics of the cowboy song.
Little Richard
5/5
The origin of rock n roll. What a legend!
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
Fine. Pleasant. Funny.
The Who
3/5
Fun. Not really my thing, but I see why it's on this list.
Richard Hawley
3/5
Lovely but consistently dour. The title track is really catchy, the rest just kind of sits there.
Big Star
1/5
Terrible. The kind of album you get stuck listening to at a relatives house where it wouldn't be done to comment on how shit the music is.
The covers, usually the catchy ones, were bad: Nature Boy was out of tune and didn't seem stylised.
Giant Sand
3/5
I felt like I'd heard of Howe Gelb before. His output looks prolific.
I liked the sound, very chilled and poetic like Buck 65 or Lee Hazelwood.
The album wasn't "tight" though and I felt that it could have benefitted from more variety.
Twenty years ago I might have bought this in a record shop, I might listen to another Giant Sand album to see, but probably won't return to this one.
Also: How geeky is calling your band Giant Sandworms? :eyeroll:
Gram Parsons
1/5
Oh God, please, no more country music! Aaargh!
The La's
2/5
There She Goes is such a classic jingly jangly happy song. I've always been disappointed by the rest of The La's output and this album backed that up. One good song doesn't make an album.
R.E.M.
2/5
I tried to listen but it kept moving away like trying to remember a dull dream and resolutely stayed in the background.
Waylon Jennings
1/5
Honky Tonk bollocks
Tim Buckley
4/5
I surprised myself on how much I enjoyed this one. I'll give it another listen some time.
Fiona Apple
2/5
Slinky vocals but slightly devoid of personality.
The Bees
3/5
Lovely pleasant songs. Typically, the cover song is the banger that got put in adverts.
Not a particularly noteworthy entry, though.
Coldcut
4/5
Absolute classic. What fun!
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Comically dark. I like that it manages a range on a theme without coming across too much like s novelty album. Also Kylie not being a total pop princess., which is nice.
Afrika Bambaataa
4/5
A milestone in music making, but it hasn't dated that well.
2/5
Kanye West
3/5
A well produced album. Shame about the Chris Rick and Kanye West vocals.
There is a wealth of talent hidden in this album who should get more credit.
How come Gil Scott Heron didn't get a credit when the last track was his track from an earlier album with added accompaniment?
Hanoi Rocks
1/5
Terrible lyrics, big hair, generic guitar sounds; this was all a bit of an accident. Nothing to see here, move along please.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Strong poetry, but the music just makes me think of my mum after her divorce.
The Temptations
3/5
A lovely little album. It's a bit soppy but there's some gems such as "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face".
The Flying Burrito Brothers
1/5
An insult to burritos.
The Birthday Party
2/5
Dirty grungy nose machines.
Fine, but not my thing.
Pink Floyd
4/5
I enjoyed humming along to this. They don't take their time, but not everything has to fit on a 7", so that's a nice change.
Shame about Roger Waters politics!
I tried getting my kids into Pink Floyd but they weren't interested. I'm pretty sure adults tried to get me into them too back in the day.
Gene Clark
1/5
This is another one of the albums to endure on this list.
The Boo Radleys
2/5
Not bad, but not interesting either.
Sleater-Kinney
3/5
Stripped back guitar noise. Nice, but not noticeable, grunge.
The Flaming Lips
5/5
A phenomenal piece of work. Lovely stuff. I wish I had the time to write articulately about how much I enjoyed it.
Randy Newman
2/5
Family Guy has ruined Randy Newman for me forever.
It's so very twee and idiosyncratic.
Elvis Presley
4/5
Uh huh ahuuurrr. Yeah, babe-uh.
OK, so it's all covers of rhythm and blues, but he did what he did very well.
Mercury Rev
4/5
I enjoyed this, but honestly thought most of these songs were by The Flaming Lips. It's very pleasant spacey music.
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
If you hear this album playing from the other room, just be aware I'm feeling emotionally vulnerable and have put Bridge Over Troubled Water on again. It hurts the spot for nostalgia comfort, story tunes, benign things that don't need attention and those sing-a-long hits. It is naff as fuck though, love it.
Queens of the Stone Age
3/5
If you like Chilli Peppers and Foo Fighters, here's another band you'll probably like. A pretty good dirty guitar and obfuscated lyrics band.
Metallica
4/5
Very enjoyable metal.
I don't often enjoy metal, but this was really well made and I didn't dislike it despite not really being in the mood to listen to it.
1/5
How bad is it?
I'd rather listen to Adele.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
2/5
I had to listen to Can Blue Men Sing The Whites by Bonzo Dog Band after listening to this.
It's good considering they have none of the oppression and were all doing too much coke at the time. It's just not great.
The Strokes
3/5
Yeah, umm, Not bad.
The Vines
3/5
Noisy on a day when I wanted tranquility, light and fun.
Wilco
3/5
A pleasurable album, but not really my thing. The singer seemed to spend a lot of time around and over his vocal range.
I always thought Wilco was one person, like Nico, who popped up walking on other people's records... Huh.
Chicago
3/5
Better than the Chicago LP I have in a box in the attic that's just some middle of the road bollocks. This was quite pleasant and had some originality. Not enough for four stars, but it was better than I thought it was going to be.
Shack
2/5
Do one.
Ryan Adams
1/5
Generic country pop.
Not for me.
Doves
3/5
Pleasant jangly guitars, crescendos and wooshy noises. I don't think there's enough here to hate.
GZA
3/5
Proper old school hip hop. Not too braggadocios or misogynistic. Needs a banger, with a fine hook though.
Mott The Hoople
2/5
Mott the Hoople just sound like filler tracks on an early Bowie album.
JAY Z
1/5
To start with, I was keen to listen to some good hip hop, then I started to find I was bored by the middle of each track, and by the end it was like being stuck on a long coach journey crammed in a seat next to a mildly bigoted old codger who just would, not, shut, up.
Going on and on and on about sexual conquests and how he was morally sound, but broke the law all the time, and how he was down with streets and trying to do God's work and how he respect bitches and his much money he's got (yet somehow is still riding this fictional coach). I need earplugs and a facemask, not headphones, yawn.
George Jones
1/5
You know those arsehole country singers from The Blues Brothers?
Them.
Pentangle
1/5
Absolutely awful.
Some kind of Human Rights violation.
That children as young as 2 can boot up YouTube and stumble across this deprivation is shocking.
Public Enemy
4/5
A scorching album. I would live to just sit and listen to all the tracks sampled in this. It might make a better (and longer) list than these albums! Lyrically raw and angry.
Cocteau Twins
3/5
Pleasant enough. Rather warbly.
Blue Cheer
3/5
Yet another 3 Star thing.
It makes the argument quite strongly that the whole idea of there being 1001 albums that are worth listening to before you die is stupid.
This album has little effect on me emotionally, and if you ask me who Blue Cheer are in 6 months, I am very unlikely to remember that they were some kind of seventies band with wailing guitars and drum solos.
Hey, future me: Just listen to some Led Zeppelin instead.
Megadeth
2/5
Stereo MC's
4/5
If your have asked me two years ago to rate the Stereo Macs, I probably would've said two stars; 700+ albums into this project I have developed a new appreciation of the subtleties of mediocrity.
The rap is All Filler: No Killer on this album, but the tunes are catchy and they have bothered with interesting instrumentation (i.e. some bleeps and a saxophone).
It's somewhere between 2 and 4 stars, and I've just had a nice breakfast, so...
Next!
Goldfrapp
3/5
Nice.
Really nice.
Far too nice.
Just an ikkle bikkle wookums of a album, isn't it? Yes it is, yesitis.
Sonic Youth
4/5
Enjoyable noise. A good hard grungy sound and some vicious little lyrics.
Dire Straits
2/5
Appropriately, I was on hold to a call centre for most of the time I was "listening" to this album. I barely noticed it.
Oasis
3/5
Not bad, just not my thing.
Queen
5/5
Great fun: Screeching guitars, epic rock tracks and Freddie Mercury doing his thing.
The Beta Band
4/5
I don't know why they picked this album over the 3EPs which I love a lot more (is it because 3 EPs does not equal 1 album?)
This was very pleasant jangly harmonies and stuff. It has a lovely homemade feel to it.
James Taylor
1/5
I could not be less bothered.
The Dandy Warhols
3/5
Lovely jangly guitars and generally upbeat lyrics. I feel like they are a force for good, but a bit too nice and are in their comfort zone.
Ella Fitzgerald
4/5
Ah, this takes me back to by childhood. I love a bit of Ella. It's just classy singing and jazzy numbers.
Dolly Parton
1/5
There is only one country song: Dead Flowers by Townes Van Zandt.
Dead Flowers by Townes Van Zandt covers all the bases of country.
Dead Flowers by Townes Van Zandt says everything.
Dead Flowers by Townes Van Zandt was, is and will be inevitable.
This album is 10 pre-emptive covers of Dead Flowers by Townes Van Zandt.
Stephen Stills
2/5
This was good music too have a cheeky little nap to. It has no sudden anything, and just sort of drifted over me.
I don't think I'd ever listen again on purpose though.
Manu Chao
5/5
Stylish, upbeat and groovy.
Peter Gabriel
2/5
Never a good sign when it takes a month and give attempts to get through an album. There's nothing wrong with this album and I quite like Games Without Frontiers, but it's mostly so dull I just feel like listening to something else.
Tom Waits
5/5
I really enjoyed these stories in their contrived pulp fiction diner stylings. I didn't like the previous Tom Waits album on this list but I was in the mood for (and had time for) lying back with my eyes shut and letting this wash over me.
Dirty, gritty melodrama from the wrong end of town.
Beck
4/5
NOTE TO MYSELF: Listen to more Beck. You think it's OK, but when you really get into it you really like it.
MGMT
4/5
Not terrible modern pop.
System Of A Down
2/5
Witty, gothic rambling, followed by shouted repetition, followed by short guitar stabs, followed by noisy guitar wall of noise and shouting. Repeat.
Kings of Leon
3/5
A bit annoying.
Dagmar Krause
1/5
Somewhere, in a small cobwebbed theatre in Scotland two people with thick glasses are watching this one woman musical.
In my mind there would be long costume changes where her microphone was left on and you could hear her cussing and doing herself up.
Works better as an A Level history assignment than an album.
Supergrass
4/5
Raucous argy bargy. The slower songs are a bit skip-able. Otherwise it'd be a solid five.
The Streets
3/5
Why this and not Original Pirate Material?!
I think the whole hip hopera set-up, instead of giving it a structure and poetic restrictions, instead less it to be a bit dull: Ra Ra, I did lots of drugs and was a scally. This girl I love does or doesn't love me back. Ho hum.
Drive Like Jehu
2/5
Just fucking noise.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
4/5
Good fun. Too hip-hoppy to be punk rock, but doesn't take itself too serious either. I liked the hits and the general fun vibe.
The Stooges
5/5
Fantastic work.
The Dictators
2/5
I quite like reading what the artists (out their label) write about themselves on Spotify. The Dictators wrote, "it seemed that nothing said on the way of The Dictators and mega-popularity. But that's not what happened. There were complications with the record companies ... personnel changes, radio hated them, critical responses were wildly mixed, and lots of audiences didn't get the jokes;"
So, all that stood between them and success was that they weren't all that popular.
I have no idea why this is on this list. The covers are tedious, the non covers are basic American punk. Nothing stands out for me.
Stereolab
4/5
Delightful Frenchy swooshes.
It has the familiarity of a mother encouraging their child to eat vegetables with a tinky tonk made up song.
I imagine the lyrics are quite proper and a bit Poppins, but I haven't made a single word out and I'm on my second listen.
Carpenters
1/5
Dreadful dreadful twee bollocks. Fills me with more rage than a death metal album.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
I didn't hate it, but I wasn't really into it. It's just the ultimate in mid-afternoon background noise really.
Pretenders
3/5
Here's what you need to know:
It's OK.
Dr. Octagon
5/5
Fantastic, subtle, delightful sophisticated. The humour was multifaceted and timeless, like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Pere Ubu
2/5
There were definitely several moments of, "Wait, What is this?" As the music changed from banal post punk screeching over guitar to something more lucid or interesting. The singer could do one, but the rest of the band had their moments. Not enough to make it good, or even worth the listen, but there was something there that they could've worked on.
Paul McCartney
2/5
Fine. Just not as good as The Beatles. Let's just say it's his break-up album, shall we?
There was nothing very exciting here.
Everything But The Girl
4/5
This should be ticking all my trip hop boxes, but it's all just a little same-y after a bit.
I felt I could sing Missing (off a different album) along to most of these songs.
John Lee Hooker
4/5
Sounds a bit like he's doing his Best Of.
I mean, the best of John Lee Hooker, it's pretty great, mind. It's where Eric Clapton got a lot of he's tunes from!
Supergrass
4/5
Yeah, a.good, fun, indie album.
Sebadoh
2/5
I am sorry to all my dear friends in their Sebadoh tees; I have tried, but I don't get it. The lyrics on Spotify have comments from the person transcribing despairing at trying to understand what's going on.
It's just some arty discordant noise: fun basement homemade stuff, which is probably more enjoyable to make than to listen to. If Sebadoh were a mate's band, or if it were cheap and local, I'd go to the gigs, but honestly, I'm sighing and eye-rolling my way through this one.
The Verve
4/5
Highly enjoyable indie.
Mylo
2/5
I can only think that Robert Dimery had this as a massive earworm in 2006 and thought, "Oh, I'll pop it in the book." It's not like anyone has heard of Mylo or he's had a massive productive influential ouevre.
TLC
1/5
I could have done without this pop shit this morning. I did not not want No Scrubs.
Lightning Bolt
1/5
Sigh.
Take the loudspeaker off the singer.
No, feedback is not an instrument in its own right.
And for Pete's sake stop giving the drummer complete creative control.
Sparks
4/5
I liked the lyrics and in small doses it was fun but a whole album of male soprano melodrama got a bit much after just a few songs.
It was very enjoyable, if a little naff.
Stan Getz
2/5
Thank you for calling one thousand and one albums generator dot com. You are position 4.5 x 10e06 in the queue. Your call is important to us. Have you tried looking at the 3 irrelevant FAQs on our website or sending an email into the void? Our Customer Representatives are still busier than usual right now, even though we tell you this every time you call. When your call is finally answered, please resist the urge swear, cast demonic curses or imply malfeasance on our behalf. Press 1 for the wrong department, press 2 for the right department, but a handler who is sticking to a flowchart script, press 3 for finance, press 4 to inexplicably rejoin the back of this queue, press 5 for terms and conditions, press 6 for a s aff m mb r wh n hear ev y oth r word.
The Icarus Line
2/5
A noisy support band type of thing. All suicide and debauchery and teenage woes with feedback and dirge. I like that screaming was minimal and you could hear the lyrics, but being less shit is not the same as being good.
The xx
2/5
Mild background music.
The Residents
1/5
Is it art or is it just annoying?
Ahhh? But mmm? Is?
Jurassic 5
5/5
Jurassic 5, have a solid catalogue of work. Apart from Charli 2na and Cut Chemist I couldn't name the five, but they are fabulous.
The makers of this list clearly didn't spend the hours listening to the album J5 that I did, which I can (and will) sing along to regularly in that 'finishing-the-sentences' way of half remembering a rhyme.
Maybe I should listen to this album another ten times to see how it holds up against J5. I'm up for that.
Frank Ocean
3/5
I know I listened to this last Friday, but I can't really remember much about it. I don't think it was bad or good. 3 stars OK?
Björk
5/5
This was a HEAVILY rotated album for me in my teenage years.
I particularly like "There's More To Life Than This" with the live recording change with her running into another room and the wonderful pronunciation of "ghettoblaster", which I was never quite sure if it was someone's name.
I like the mix of electronic, acoustic, ambient, orchestral, dance... I like the way she sings: Instantly recognisable and varied. I understand why this might bug some people (I get annoyed with Bob Dylan for just doing a Bob Dylan impression all the time. I get it.) but this takes me back to being about 15 in my room with a tape deck, bored, doing homework or playing computer games.
Green Day
3/5
I don't like this much, but I could at least tap my foot and hum along to it pleasantly. I don't want to like it, but it's had so much airplay that I know it. I want to give it one star because it's got the feel of something cynically manufactured for the teen buck, but somewhere there's someone like me for whom this is their Nevermind, London Calling or Appetite For Destruction.
Brian Eno
4/5
Well, I was really in the mood for this yesterday whilst working. It is then ultimate in minimal background noise. To say I listened to it would be a stretch. We were in the same room and it made that room extremely chilled and tranquil.
I'm not sure about its suitability for an airport what with all the announcements, people being in a rush for their gate, bright lights and overpriced goods.
The Mars Volta
2/5
This grew on me, so by the end I wasn't rolling my eyes at every song (or maybe the last 3 tracks were a bit better).
It's mostly tedious emo shit. I can imagine at as backing music for some Buffy the Vampire Slayer style ITV fluff.
Promoted to 2 stars!
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Boring.
I have this on LP and have listened to it quite a lot and my expectation is always higher than the outcome.
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
This, I really enjoy from back in my student daze. My flatmate played it and played it played it until I enjoyed it. At first I think I might have found it cheesygoth, but it has grown on me, so I no longer groan so much and just humm along.
Portishead
4/5
Melancholic, raucous, and sublime
Spiritualized
5/5
One of the finest CDs on any shelf.
Napalm Death
1/5
I've recently started falling asleep to a white noise machine, which is great because it distracts from the whine of my tinnitus. This helps distract from the whine of my thoughts.
Some of the lyrics attempt to be address consumerist culture, whilst also glorifying death and pain in the typical (sigh) angst-ridden way that (yawn) heavy metal typically does. I'm not sure how anyone knows the lyrics without subtitles, mind.
Take Caught ... In A Dream as an example,
"Surrounding spectacle to occupy curiosity,
Nullifies the need to face reality,
Forms of escapism and entertainment,
Occupy and disable thought."
That's alright that is, but it sounded like,
"Hrghbgt hrghbgthrghbgthrghb rghbgt hrghbgt hrghbgt!
Hrghbgt hrghbgthrchbgthrghbgthrghbgt hrghbgt hrghbgt!
Hrghbgt hrghbgthrghbgthrdbgthrghbgt hrghbgt hrghbgt,
Hrghbgt hrghbgthrhh bgthrg gthrgh hrghbgt hrghbgt!"
It would be a lot funnier if it wasn't painful to listen to.
Fishbone
2/5
(phone rings)
- Good morning, Fishbone, my name is Clarice how can I help you today?
- Yeah, hi, umm, I'd like a band.
- OK great. Fishbone is a band so we can definitely help you there. What kind of band are you looking to make an album today?
- Umm, well I was looking for music that's, like, got instruments played by people or, ah, do you, do you... What do people usually... ?
- That's great, let me take a look for you sir. Our most popular offers are The Prince, The Hair Guitar and Generic Australian. We also do Jamaican folk dub with electronic cover versions.
- Oh good, yes I'd like that please.
- Fantastic, which one shall I put you down for, sir?
- All of them.
- All of? Right, let's see if there's an option for all.
- Do they, do they play loud.
- If loud is a problem we can certainly personalised that for you sir.
- No, no, loud is good. Can there be occasional screaming?
- Screaming. Of course.
- But one acoustic guitar love song in the middle.
- And maybe not the Jamaican dub thing.
- Ah, certainly, unselecting the Electro dub with remixes. And how will you be paying today?
- With dad's; I mean, umm, with my credit card.
- How old are you sir?
Sonic Youth
3/5
I quite enjoyed this, but not enough to seek it out again. After the disappointment of Fishbone yesterday, it was good to hear music being well played with confidence and skill.
A solid three and a bit stars: It was fine.
Radiohead
5/5
Such a great album. I love it.
Enough said.
The United States Of America
2/5
Yeah, hmmm, contrived to be bonkers, and I imagine at the time it sounded novel, but it's a bit tired now. According to the internet, the lyrics are good, but I didn't really make them out.
Drive-By Truckers
3/5
I actually enjoyed this, which is noteworthy only because as I usually dislike Country Music. It dragged on far too long though, which means it's still a 3 star album for me.
The Beau Brummels
1/5
Incessantly dull.
Not psychedelic enough to be Jefferson Airplane nor talented enough to be The Mamas and The Papas; not old enough to be Geoffrey Chaucer nor interesting enough to be Scott Walker.
This is what racists might pick as typical white person music.
Doves
3/5
This was a nice slice of indie.
The Clash
4/5
Good solid classic punk. I don't think I'd listened to garage land before.
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
Back 2 tha 80s.
Yeah bwoooooyyy!
Orbital
4/5
Weep weep wobble wooble.
I feel like this got me through many a comedown before I had the sense not to get that fucked.
Serve with a extra large duvet, leftover takeaway and mindless computer games set to easy mode.
Jethro Tull
1/5
Jack Black pitched up one octave.
Bob Dylan
5/5
Even as a 22 year old he has the gravely voice of an old man and sings of an olde timey worlde. The musicianship is really good, and the songs are great. I read that the tunes were lifted from folk standards and am curious as to how much was him covering the classics a la Bob Dylan, and how much was novel.
I didn't think I liked Bob Dylan all that much but this was undeniably enjoyable.
Grizzly Bear
4/5
Perfectly nice album. I'm not sure what would make it stand head above others to make this list, but I enjoyed listening to it.
Ray Price
1/5
A pretty decent classic country album, I just don't like country.
Electric Light Orchestra
3/5
Daft Punk
3/5
Nice defence music, but far too repetitive.
Jefferson Airplane
3/5
I enjoyed the songs I knew enough to make this a tolerable album to listen to.
Scissor Sisters
4/5
I enjoyed this massively. It's camp and silly pop.
Ray Charles
4/5
Yeah! The groove tails off into sentimentality too quickly, but what a groove!
The Only Ones
2/5
Wow. Scraping the bottom of the barrel for essential albums again? Someone clearly likes, "Another Girl, Another Planet" enough to nominate the whole album
Nothing offensively bad here, but really only that one track to revisit.
Blondie
4/5
An eighties album that both serves up his single after his single and doesn't come across as completely manufactured and materialistic.
I like that apparently Debbie Harry was still screaming lyrics as the studio engineer was calling her in to sing.
Slightly punchy, raucous and tuneful.
Stephen Stills
2/5
Has it finished yet?
Not he's just going on about his mate Johnny's garden...
Not objectively bad, but I just don't liked it.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
Yes! I was waiting for dinner Bob Marley on this list.
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
I really wanted to enjoy this. Some little funky nugget of joy and groove, but it was a little wishy washy and I just lost interest.
Todd Rundgren
2/5
Something/Anything/Nothing?
About one in five songs had some interesting/odd bits. (intro/song of the Viking), but it was largely mush. The last quarter of live sessions was listenable, but not magic.
I really like Bang on My Drum, but that's not on this album.
File under: Innovative For It's Time
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
Great fun but far too long.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
2/5
Recorded on a 3 track days after he came out of an institute for mental health recovery.
At times it does sound like I'm accidentally playing a few different things at once.
I think it's a grower, but there's definitely some bun tracks on here. I'm not sure I have three patience to learn to live this. It snowed me when I tried listening properly, but some of the tracks were fine as background music.
TV On The Radio
4/5
This is an album I might actually listen to!
It's edgy and disconcerting, but I like it.
The Jam
3/5
Right down the middle of the three star review.
Perfectly listenable; has that one hit single you've heard on the radio; mostly background music, let's be honest.
Wild Beasts
4/5
Pleasantly different and musically adept, but the spooky falsetto got a bit wearing.
I listened to this a few times and liked it increasingly, but I think what I really like is the, "Similar Artists" auto-generated purify playlist that follows. Wild Beasts keep good company.
ABBA
3/5
Just no. This has been overplayed by the girls of my household too much.
I kind of enjoyed Mumma Mia the movie the first time I watched it, was bored the second time and have refused politely since then.
It's really well made pop, that is very enjoyable if you're felt cheesy, so I can't bring myself to vote lower than 3 stars, but when I was listening to it I was feeling like giving one star.
M.I.A.
5/5
Wow! So refreshingly not a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young for once.
Electronic Music? Tick.
World Music? Tick.
Bit of Hip Hop? Tick.
Sense of Humour? Tick.
Politics? Tick.
Kendrick Lamar
3/5
Really good flow and production, but dubious content.
Santana
4/5
Very good, very proficient, technically very interesting, but I just wasn't that interested. I think I've heard this album a few times before (I think I have/had it on vinyl). It does what it does very well, but I don't reach for it as a favourite or anything.
Erykah Badu
4/5
Erykah Badu bringing the soul back from the streets. A lovely voice, a lovely mix of styles.
Arguably too much gangster tripping, and I would have loved a couple of phat bass-lead funky hooks, but what do I know?
Shivkumar Sharma
3/5
Very gentle nice music for nice people at one with their lives.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
It was relaxing to get this album on the list. No challenging aggression, no mumbling banality, not some country album from the mid fifties, just an old friend popped in. Which is weird when the album was trying to be an album of weirdos and druggies living on the fringe.
Alice Cooper
4/5
Great fun. Alice Cooper is always interesting and listenable.
Pere Ubu
3/5
Not bothered, mate.
Fatboy Slim
5/5
Classic nostalgia fest. We don't get enough dance music in this list, although a solid ninety minutes of dance hits is hard to achieve.
3/5
Every time something by MC5 comes up, I get fooled into thinking it's going to be hip hop. It's not.
Standard shouty post punk stuff. Neither bad nor good in my opinion.
The Associates
1/5
Nearly unlistenable Boy George wannabies.
They could have been big if only they had
stuck at it and been any good.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3/5
Very gentle pre Bob Dylan Americana blues. Just a guy and his guitar and a whole bunch of stereotypes.
The Chemical Brothers
4/5
I enjoyed the tracks individually, but it was a bit much as a whole album.
It really is fantastic to listen to in a dark night club with the neon lights and everyone around you having a great time though.
The Cure
4/5
Great production on this dark classic. There's a pearl inside this grit.
The Thrills
2/5
Instantly forgettable.
Modern sop in 4-4.
The Mamas & The Papas
4/5
Delightful harmonies and classic covers. Really really enjoyable. I listened to these guys and girls a lot over the years.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
4/5
I really want to like Captain Beefheart, but it's such a challenging listen.
Nick Drake
3/5
Really good songs for the mildly depressed on a rainy afternoon.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
I'm really not bothered by Elvis Costello. It all sounds very much the same.
He seems like a really nice turned-on guy. I think we just have different tastes, is all.
Morrissey
2/5
I'm just not that into Morrissey.
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
Something dilapidated about this, but it's got heart.
It's probably a four star masterpiece, but I'm not enjoying it as much as I want to.
4/5
Such an enjoyable, original sound, full of surprise and a light sound.
It loses a star for the covers, but they made the covers their own and did them well.
The 13th Floor Elevators
1/5
From Wikipedia, "The album's sound ... is notable for its use of the electric jug, as featured on the band's only hit, "You're Gonna Miss Me", which reached number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100"
Oh, for fucks sake.
I get the feeling that there was a meeting at 1001 Albums HQ, where Robert Dimery (speaking in a Chicago accent) removed his sunglasses and said, "This needs more cowbell, boys. More cowbell. What's more cowbell than cowbell, boys?" There were no girls, there was, however, a lingering silence. The kind of silence that only comes when someone temperamental with obscene amounts of money says something completely guff. Through the fog of cigar smoke, a falsetto junior piped up nervously, "The ... The electric jug, sir?"
"Get some electric jug on this list now goddamnit, I don't care if no-ones ever heard of it, they'll hear of it now. More electric jug!"
Buffalo Springfield
2/5
Ugh. More Crosby, Stills and Nash...
This one was short and sounded like the Rolling Stones.
Miles Davis
4/5
I quite like jazz and this was nice, vaguely-on-in-the-background, music.
Christina Aguilera
2/5
It's good that people are revisiting the sounds of the old days and trying to put some soul back on the table, but this just came across as vapid, manufactured and self-obsessed.
She has a great singing voice and has sold a lot of albums, so I'm sure she's achieved what she wanted.
I just don't know why it would be on this list.
Radiohead
5/5
Sublime songs with witty lyrics (as usual Thom could enunciate better, but I guess that's, "his thing"). Really nicely produced, with all those intricate drum patterns, whooshy guitars and electronic layers.
Slightly dark, slightly catchy. I love it.
Fats Domino
4/5
I would happily listen to this any day of the week.
I'm not sure it works as an album and the boogie woogie all sounds the same after a bit, but it's great stuff.
Nanci Griffith
1/5
I hated the first 5 seconds instantly. Blooming country music.
After ten minutes every song is blurring into the previous one.
Listening to the lyrics is like being stuck on the seat behind some loud teenage girl on public transport.
Air
4/5
There are some great chillout tunes on here and some OK background tunes.
It's not amazing, but it is good.
Le Tigre
4/5
Good funky, angry noise. Well put together. Unfortunately I was not in the right environment to enjoy it, but I would definitely listen again.
Bert Jansch
3/5
Pleasant folk.
Neil Young
3/5
There's just too much Neil Young in those list. This one was not annoying, like much of the other stuff, and some of the early tracks were nice, but it didn't stand out in any way other than that.
Badly Drawn Boy
4/5
Catchy pop rhythms from a tender, sensitive place.
I know this got overplayed quite heavily on the radio, so a fair few people dislike it, but I do enjoy this.
Is it a bit too nice in that Coldplay kind of way? Perhaps. Did I hum along? I did.
Three and a half stars.
Minor Threat
2/5
These boys are very angry about ... Umm ... Something?
I did listen to the album and read some of the lyrics, but I couldn't tell you whether they didn't get enough pocket money when they were little or they were getting about the injustice of the capitalist machine.
Kings of Leon
4/5
I've a soft spot for Kind of Leon, because my former flatmate Tim loves them so much.
Laid back and rocky Americana.
Tim Buckley
2/5
Mostly sad though.
Some of it felt like you could play at x 1.25 speed and other bits were just a bit mopey.
I'm aware that this is a seminal album to many. Reading up on his personal life (having kids too young, driving cars too fast, wasted on drugs and booze) on Wikipedia did not fill me with sympathy, but maybe I let my prejudice and assumptions get in the way of enjoying a perfectly nice album, then again maybe I'm just not that into folk.
Mudhoney
3/5
Made-up fact: Placed #3 in the 1991 Dirtiest Guitar Competition as a direct result of this album.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Listening to all this list of albums is eye opening. When I started going through these albums I really thought that I probably wasn't bothered by Bruce Springsteen either way, but now I've spent the time to listen to his music properly I know with certainty that I am definitely not bothered by Bruce Springsteen either way.
Donald Fagen
2/5
Classic Friday album: I've completely forgotten it by the time I come to review it on Monday.
I don't think it was much of an anything.
Weird harmonies: I bet Jacob Collier likes this album!
King Crimson
4/5
I enjoyed this a while lot more than In The Court Of The Crimson King.
Groovy, jazzy and catchy.
Snoop Dogg
4/5
Bangin'
Goldfrapp
4/5
I enjoyed this more than I wanted to add it so schmoooshy.
But them 90s chillout orchestral backings get me every time.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
3/5
On paper, it has the makings of a fantastic album, but I'm having a second listen now, as I completely failed to have any kind of opinion after the first listen. It isn't very interesting is it?
Germs
2/5
I'm not a racist, but, I just can't understand what he's on about.
The band is generic punk band. You could stick Johnny Rotten on here and I'd believe it was The Sex Pistols, but if you stick Johnny Rotten on here it would have lyrics you could hear about some engaging eye rolling guff.
Beatles
5/5
Just a phenomenal piece of work. Nothing is 100% perfect, but to have such a range of musical styles and so many songs that land so well in there is outstanding.
Plus it always takes me back to a certain time and place in my childhood.
Lou Reed
5/5
What an album!
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
2/5
That one guy in the corner shouting obscenities and giggling whilst everyone else tries really fucking hard to pretend they don't exist.
Usually that guy is me.
When I drink I think I'm funny.
That time it was Captain Beefheart. But he wasn't drunk and he roped a load of impoverished musicians in and made them repeat his crazed shit over and over, and he wasn't drunk (at least not all the time) and it went on for hours.
All the squares in the bar had never seen a guy giggling and shouting like this before and eventually they looked over and asked each other what the heck was going on.
And then they gathered around to see if they could figure him out, but they couldn't.
I kind of agree this is an album to listen to before you die, but that doesn't make it good.
One of his musicians started crying.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Smooth funk. The title track is amazing, and the rest is some good blaxploitation-era fun. Being a film soundtrack a lot of it is quieter music and not as upbeat as I would like, but also that may just be Isaav Hayes for you.
Needs more chocolate salty balls!
Fatboy Slim
5/5
I'm a bit fan of this nonsense, it gets me moving. I'm sure it's not everyone's cup of tea though.
Queen Latifah
3/5
Very eighties American hip pop.
Janis Joplin
4/5
Really quite enjoyable.
CHVRCHES
2/5
Fairly inoffensive pop. But I really had to force myself to keep going with it when I'm tired. Not good music to be forced to listen to.
Pavement
2/5
To quote my grandmother, "What's this? It just sounds like noise; it's not music."
When I say grandmother I do not mean wife.
Grateful Dead
2/5
Very much not bothered by this.
I've never got what the guys was all about.
Maybe there was a drought of good music in the ol' Americana dustbowl of the 50’s when your choice was a sticky black quiff or a washboard and a piece o' chewin' straw.
Suzanne Vega
4/5
Feels like I should drive my old 2CV to a a beauty spot in the rain and have a cry.
This is tortured and sensual music for the self-obsessed indie girl in your life. Streaked eyeliner and big dreams.
Japan
3/5
Classic eighties pop. Not the worst of this genre, it was quite listenable, but I wouldn't listen to it on purpose again.
Gillian Welch
2/5
Ugh, more country music.
Kelela
3/5
Another tick in the box for "Sexy lady singing about sex in a sexy way."
Less pop than a lot of other sexy vibe songs, but to be honest I was bored by the whole thing.
Red Snapper
5/5
Lovely groaning funky bass, samples and dirty electronic stuff.
Digital Underground
3/5
Old skool hip hop with dick jokes.
Christina Aguilera
1/5
I have nothing positive to say about this album.
R.E.M.
3/5
Standard R.E.M. stuff.
I'm afraid that I was present in the room where it was played, but not really listening.
Death In Vegas
5/5
Marvelous!
I have always enjoyed this album, it's got such a big sound. It's dirty and it's passionate.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
Lots of screaming alright.
Not all bad.
Joanna Newsom
4/5
Really enjoyable, harp-led eccentric whimsy.
Can
3/5
Trying to be weird a bit too hard.
Pink Floyd
4/5
Quite a good listen
Tangerine Dream
4/5
Pew! Pew! Pew! Warbble wibble. Wooshy swooshy thrwip! Bloopy bloopy bloo.
Minutemen
4/5
Upbeat post punk stuff, but with some quality guitar riffs.
Quite good, for this sort of thing, but no track particularly stood out to me.
The White Stripes
5/5
I got my stomp on commuting to work with this in my ears. I was joyfully moshing people out the way and waving as I bounced through the train station barriers. Why are all these grumpy commuters frowning? Turn those friends upside down guys, it's White Stripes Monday, you know.
The Monks
4/5
Pretty good punky noise.
Underworld
4/5
I happily set off on an Underworld adventure yesterday, and emerged to the sound of my wife asking what all this horrible noise was.
It's like a dream now. I can't tell you exactly what happened. I think I was happy then.
The War On Drugs
3/5
Pheasant background noise, if a little whiny.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Yeah. It's alright, I suppose.
Jacques Brel
3/5
I assume it's witty, which is totally wasted if you don't speak the language properly.
Is he the French Jake Thackeray, or is Jake Thackeray the English Jacques Brel? Anyway, I prefer Thackeray from a subjective point of view that I understand the lyrics.
The National
3/5
Fine. The one song about Ohio stands out, but I prefer the Dan Deacon about Ohio.
Astor Piazzolla
3/5
I really understand why this makes the list and classical music doesn't.
I like Astor Piazzola though. I had some album with Revancha del Tango (sp?!) in the nineties and it had some Roni Size -esque remixes, which were ... interesting.
Buzzcocks
4/5
Good
Beastie Boys
4/5
Great fun. Very much the playground sensibility of the Beastie's oeuvre though.
The Pharcyde
4/5
Quality beats. Enjoyable hip hop.
Soul II Soul
3/5
Takes me back to daytime radio in my teenage years.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
3/5
I enjoyed this, but I still think their best work was still their collaboration with Kermit T. Frog, which sadly didn't stretch to a full album.
M.I.A.
4/5
Very lively, upbeat shouting. I enjoyed this a lot, but I am bemused by there being 2 M.I A. albums in this list, which makes it seem like the author is just a fan.
Miles Davis
4/5
I have been revisiting the compilation series of albums Rebirth of the Cool lately, which are great if you fancy some mid-nineties jazz electro.
This album is great. I never reach for it but I enjoyed having it on and replayed it, which is always a good sign. Now (a few days later) I couldn't make a single track or hum any of it.
The Doors
5/5
What an album! The hit rate is high and so many are classic tunes that put you straight into the zone you were in when you heard them before. I may have listened to this album a hundred times, it's possible.
Os Mutantes
4/5
Kinda charming.
Ray Charles
3/5
Oh, damn it. This keeps happening: I get all excited about some quality music and then it's not the good Ray Charles music: the soulful blues or the raw funky stuff. No, it's Ray's country and western pop project which sold loads in the sixties to my grandparents generation who didn't know any better. Yuck.
Don McLean
3/5
This 36 minute album is 28 minutes too long.
Queen
4/5
Classic rock. Such a weird (nice) mix of rock, quintessential British references, paganism and melodrama.
It is odd that the album cover is Bohemian Rhapsody style, but that that's not here.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
Albums to listen to when you have run out of ideas.
It's fine.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
I think this deserves a place on the list.
Holger Czukay
5/5
Really enjoyable strange sounds. More of this please!
Astrud Gilberto
3/5
Now available in your local charity shop bargain bucket.
Boston
2/5
Hot like a cup of Malted Milk on a Sunday evening.
Sexy like big pants and support stockings.
Groovy like guttering.
Joan Baez
2/5
It's not a bad album, but it's not for me.
The Police
4/5
CONS:
Their lyrics are a little creepy.
They took ska and added pop.
Police corruption is horrific.
PROS:
But I like ska, so it's not all bad.
Catchy pop hits.
Police uphold the law and capture criminals.
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
Classic Zappa cray-zee-messs
Classy AF
Motörhead
4/5
Banging.
The Triffids
1/5
Not even popular enough to be an obscure pub quiz question.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
I listened to the first half whilst at work. Kashmir is such a good tune, but the rest was bored blues guitar.
I thought it would get better on the drive home, and cracked it up, but honestly it wasn't all that. To be generous, I imagine it's a classic case of everyone copying whatever they did that was innovative until it sounds retrospectively generic.
N.W.A.
4/5
Whilst I don't like all the gangsta stuff, this is a seminal album. Straight Outta Compton and Fuck The Police are classics.
The Divine Comedy
3/5
Meh.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
My wife is in a wind band in the village and this is very much their style. Think an old lady get dewy eyed, one cold, veiny hand giving a little squeeze as the other taps slightly out of rhythm.
The scent of flowers, piss and cleaning products. A simpler time when the milkman got a Christmas bonus.
Shall we have another sherry? No, I think one is enough.
Maxwell
2/5
Too much cheese.
Nick Drake
3/5
I don't mind Nick Drake, but he's just not really my cup of tea.
Meat Puppets
3/5
Standard young punk stuff.
Caetano Veloso
3/5
Sixties Brazilian pop fun.
A moustachioed Austin Powers strutting across the beach in an indecent pair of budgie smugglers stops and peers over the top of his shades. Wink to camera. Strut on.
Silver Jews
2/5
A studious avoidance of charisma.
Blur
5/5
Very enjoyable; indie pop classic.
Sinead O'Connor
3/5
If only Sinead had got a pound for every time someone said "Actually, I think you'll find, Nothing Compares 2U was a Prince song."
That and The Emperor's New Clothes stood out. The rest was very wishy washy,
Sex Pistols
4/5
Only yesterday I was looking at the sliding sign on an office door which says, "Engaged/Vacant" and thinking about writing "Pretty" on the sliding section.
PJ Harvey
5/5
An absolute belter of an album: Raw and honest, catchy and witty.
Rocket From The Crypt
3/5
Half of the songs had me humming, "On a Rope, on a rope, got me hanging on a rope."
A solid 3 star album: It's not bad, it has at least one good track
One star: It's offensive to my ears
Two: It has no merits
Three: It doesn't stand out particularly
Four: Yeah, this is good
Five: A masterpiece that deserves repeated listening
Cee Lo Green
4/5
A really nice album. An odd choice, given the smash hit Gnarls Barkley album, that came out only two years after.
I listened on Friday and here I am reviewing it on Monday unable to remember any of the tracks, but I did enjoy it.
Ute Lemper
1/5
Posh bollocks.
Went down well at Glyndebourne, no doubt.
This album is absolutely terrible. The singing sounds unrelated to the music in places and insists on being grammatically correct, as if dull story were being told.
It is overly orchestrated and sounds starchy and contrived.
Grant Lee Buffalo
3/5
Normal music played by normally proficient musicians in Los Angeles.
No need to listen before you die (unless it buys you extra time).
Thin Lizzy
3/5
Quite fun hair rock.
Primal Scream
5/5
What an album! Having seen the film Vanishing Point helps to add an extra dimension to it.
Sepultura
1/5
I found this really triggering to my tinnitus. I liked that the lyrics were clear. I wonder if this is more common in bands singing in a second language?
But overall it was dogshit.
I wondered whether lyrics like these could be created by a random word generator in Excel if there was a dictionary of sad words in a table somewhere split into verbs adjectives etc...
Scott Walker
2/5
Crooner croons covers.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
3/5
Les Rythmes Digitales
3/5
Bleep bleep, weeble blew schlang bleep.
Mildly annoying pop house.
I think he said it best when he said,"Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)
Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)
Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)
Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)
Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)
Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)
Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)
Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)
Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)
Music makes you lose control, control, control.
Music makes you lose control (control, control, control, control, control)"
Missy Elliott
3/5
When Missy got to work with Timbaland, she decided she had struck gold. "How can I ever pay him back?" she thought as she sat down to pen lyrics, "I know I'll mention how awesome he is at every chance I get. Now what I need is to express that aspiration of success and craftsmanship, let's see...."
Cream
3/5
Pretty good. This kind of blues rock is what I think of when I think about that Cream.
Metallica
2/5
6 of these songs were covers of songs by the same band already on this list. How many songs are duplicates in this 1,001 list? How many duplicated by the same artist? Probably Neil blooming Young...
Very enjoyable though. Although I'm only ten minutes in.
An hour in and I'm starting to flag ... multiple pauses to do something else ... It is attention demanding, but not actually interesting enough to hold my focus.
Maybe in 1999 this would be more striking and original. I think this is definitely an album for Metallica fans who want more.
Radiohead
5/5
What a fantastic album!
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
2/5
Morose
Aerosmith
3/5
The album passed without registering at all.
The Mothers Of Invention
4/5
Whacky, man.
Out there whacky.
This may have blown my circuits.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
4/5
Enjoyable depressed folk indie, but I spent the whole time trying to remember the name of that song about someone thinking they saw Bonnie "Prince" Billy on a train.
Googled it: Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror by Jeffrey Lewis
Bee Gees
2/5
Oh, in what world is this essential listening?
It's not bad, but it's in no measure good. A solid three stars throughout with not much of note.
Minus one star for pissing me off!
Simply Red
3/5
Decent bass, decent soul vocals, but it just doesn't all add up to the sum of its parts.
The Beach Boys
5/5
Iconic and changed the face of music.
4 1/2 stars because listening to the whole thing at once it's too much, like eating a whole black forest gateau.
But it's hit after hit and has just genius scoring.
Primal Scream
5/5
A phenomenal album, with film samples, gospel, and indie rock. It's all over they place and coherent at the same time.
I get s lot of nostalgia listening to this.
Tom Waits
4/5
Tom Waits is good fun. This isn't his greatest, but it's grimy dirty bluesy growling.
Everything But The Girl
2/5
Incredibly normal.
Kacey Musgraves
2/5
Yay! A modern album, I'll enjoy listening to ... Oh, hang on, it's country.
Or is it pop?
Bebel Gilberto
4/5
I didn't think we'd get any Amon Tobin on this list, but there he is producing the first track.
Largely slinky Brazilian smooth numbers on this. It sounds original and cool and I love the sprinkling of electronics.
Maybe a bit too smooth though?
50 Cent
2/5
Yeah, what Greg said.
P I.M.P. cover by Bacao Steel Band is better than the original.
Dr. Dre
3/5
Whilst swearing is funny, calling women hoes all the time is not.
Beats are peak Dre, but the lyrics are more dated than Neil Young's politics.
Pavement
3/5
Sorry, but I found then a bit dreary.
A couple of songs on the verge of being catchy. Some almost jazzy elements.
I don't know about chords, but I bet they were mostly minor.
Duran Duran
2/5
Very generic pop.
The go-to for examples of eighties pop.
I tried to listen to it, but in the end I only heard it.
10cc
3/5
Upbeat, fun (pre-Queen?) mild rock, but not mind blowing or that noteworthy.
Dinosaur Jr.
2/5
"Hi"
"Yeah."
"Are you?"
"Joey."
"What? Oh I see."
"Yeah man. Right at the front"
"At the front?"
"It was the best. Did you see them?"
"Well, Mr Dumit, were just in your area to talk to people about their broadband provider. Do you ..."
"I was right by the speakers."
"Errr."
"So cool. You could literally like, see the bass, you know, like really see it."
"HERE'S A FLYER MR DUMIT. For fucksake."
PJ Harvey
4/5
I really like PJ Harvey, and this album in particular as I think it was the first "proper" gig I went to in the Bristol Anson Rooms.
But do we need 4 PJ Harvey Albums in the 1,001 !?
I love the raw, dirty dinging and guitar; the sensuality and ferociousness of it.
Sonic Youth
2/5
5 Sonic Youth albums you need to listen to before you die!? Surely that number can go down?
Not bad, but not my thing.
To quote everyone's dad, "It's just a load of noisy guitars."
Small Faces
4/5
I think Lazy Sunday and everything with Stanley Unwin made this album for me.
It's not something I'm going to reach for again, but I'm glad it exists.
I would love to have heard the Spike Milligan version of it had ever been made.
There was lots of gentle, post rock n roll British music. And the drumming was amazing.
Steely Dan
2/5
Steely Dan are not my thing. Everyone else loves them, but I don't like his voice, and the style of it.
The Coral
4/5
A week ago I woke up with, "Up in my lovely room, ooh..." going round my head; Googled it; played it twice. Now the whole album is here. It's surprisingly enjoyable for pop music. I like that it has a good range of styles in it. Dreaming of You is the obvious stand out single, but there's nothing wrong with the rest, they were pleasant enough.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
Sublime, I was typing, just as Nick Sang it; beautiful; gentle; moody.
It could really do wiv a bit of the ol' knees up muvver brown halfway through, though.
Into My Arms is great, but unless you want to enter a long, dark teatime of the soul and wallow in your own self pity for a bit, there's no need for an hour of it.
Slipknot
4/5
I was weirdly into this (I had some data-entry to do, and the furious vibe and mindlessness helped). I couldn't stomach it all at once though, and decided to intersperse tracks with Mr Bungle.
Why aren't Mr Bungle on this list?
The downside to listening whilst working is that I don't look up the lyrics as they are sung and have to make up my own,
"Whhhyyy?
Did Iiii?
FORGET TO PUT THE BINS OUT!
It's FriiiiiiDAY
Bin day Friday
I ALWAYS PUT THE BINS OUT
AAAARRRRRG!"
Also
"Booking the window cleaner FOR THURSDAY
I know that he can't come ON A TUESDAY
Booking the window cleaner FOR THURSDAY
I hope he brings his friend
I will make him a mug of HOT CHOCOLATE
I offer him tea be he drinks HOT CHOCOLATE
We use to have that CACAO NIB HOT CHOCOLATE
but now it's just standard stuff"
I also particularly liked the song, "Liberate bananas".
G. Love & Special Sauce
4/5
Pre-trip hop blues meets hip hop at a family BBQ. I loved the summer vibes and the absence of hos, violence and dollar dollar bills y'all.
D'Angelo
1/5
Ooh, yeah, I love you so much girl, slide over here cos I'm sexy, mmm, yeah like that, uh uh, yeah over here girl, that's it girl. Uh huh.
Why did you walk away girl? So sexy. Now I'm lonely, uh uh.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
Not so bad for a Neil Young's album, but this is, ridiculously, the sixth on the list (I've probably missed some bands he was in).
Are we sure this isn't just a list of 1,001 albums featuring Neil Young?
Belle & Sebastian
4/5
Wonderful, light happy daytime music.
808 State
4/5
Quite good electrónica.
Crucially to getting a 4 star rating it wasn't bloody country music again.
Generic music, well played.
I can imagine this must've been thrilling in a stadium full of fans, but it is quite vapid, too.
Buck Owens
3/5
Quite cheerful. I was looking across the plains of north Spain as he bantered away about his little ditties. Apologies to my hating friends, but this was not that objectionable (for country).
Big Brother & The Holding Company
4/5
I am loving the growling vocals of Joplin's decidedly alternative delivery.
This is the definitive version of Another Piece Of My Heart for me.
It's a shame that's it's mostly covers and that she died so young as this album is passionate and exciting.
Nitin Sawhney
5/5
I've got this one in my collection.
The Fall
3/5
I have tried many times to board The Fall train, but I just don't get the appeal. It seems like the kind of genius you come up with on a drunken night and regret in the morning.
Black Sabbath
4/5
Good, fun metal.
The Brum is strong with this one.
Peter Frampton
3/5
Yeah, it's alright I suppose.
As rock songs from the 70s go.
The Temptations
4/5
First impression: Barrett Strong was a hell of a song writer. I love this slinky funky shit.
Wikipedia says this was a response to the strength of power of Sly Stone's brand of psychedelic soul, and it does have a lot of that in it. It's a shame this is the music industry's response to copy a thing rather than someone making an expression of their own.
Final impression: Maybe a bit sentimental, maybe cynical, but I still like the tunes.
Fever Ray
4/5
What a lovely little treat if an album.
The comparisons with Björk (I heard the lyric Way Down With my pixie lord) are unavoidable. There's elements of moody dance like Sister Bliss from Faithless or Everything But The Girl.
I enjoyed it very much, although it was a bit too dirgy at times.
The Clash
4/5
Yep. Obviously, this is on the list.
David Bowie
5/5
Yes. Of course this is on the list. Such fine tunes.
The Teardrop Explodes
2/5
Tedious Cure-esque waffling
Each line of song seemed to be split up between the singer's bit and the band's.
Singing, twiddly guitar, singing, twiddly guitar, etc
The lyrics were typically vague and Julian Cope's posturing a bit half arsed.
2/5
Byaab Dilughn seen so wiyrd.
I was listening to it thinking about all the covers I'd heard of each song, and preferred.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
Veers occasionally into the smooshy, but it is a very strong, funky, smooth, charming and unique album.
The Saints
3/5
Noisy boys making noisy noise.
I would rate this as standard punk, but was interested to read their first album came out before most other punk.
Blur
5/5
This is such a comforting album, for me, as it has been on such heavy rotation in my house.
Rahul Dev Burman
2/5
What is this doing here? Some kind of western influenced Bollywood thing?
I didn't enjoy it.
If this is tokenism, there must have been something better in THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF BOLLYWOOD than this.
Fairport Convention
2/5
This band has quite the story asking with this album. They were so young!
My sister and mother both loved this kind of folk so much that I now just associate it with teenage rebellion, overly sincere hippies and the smell of boiling beans.
It is well done, so I can't bring myself to give it one star, but it still stirs more anger in me than your typical heavy metal album.
The Notorious B.I.G.
2/5
I Googled "Notorious B.I.G. Freud" and was surprised no-one has written a massive treatise about Biggie's phallic obsession.
It sounded good, but the constant disrespect for women did my head in.
Soft Machine
3/5
There's just not enough jazz on this list, and then, when it comes, it's sort of generic prog.
Disappointing, but professional, noodling about not getting anywhere.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
2/5
OK. I made some inroads into understanding why people like Crosby, Stills, Nash (and the other one on the other albums). I guess if you grew up listening to The Hollies, The Byrd's and Buffalo Springfield, this is an interesting mix of those differing styles.
However, I'm not in my late seventies.
The KLF
5/5
What a joy.
Upbeat, pop, dance.
A smattering of everything to keep all the kool kids happy.
4/5
Some great tubes on here. I can see what they were aiming at. Show BUSINESS, baby!
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
4/5
Barely in the top 1001 albums of 1973 when it was released.
Much more of a camp musical than most of that blues rock stuff in that era. It had a real Cabaret vibe.
I bet Meatloaf loved this shit.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
What guitar heroes!
This is an inspirational album of wailing and soaring, fiddling about and making the guitars sing.
Nine Inch Nails
5/5
The existential pain and angst of being teenage in the nineties. Good times, good times...
I enjoyed the driving bass and the overwhelming noise of it.
Michael Jackson
4/5
It's so hard to separate the art from the deluded paedophile traumatised by childhood pop fame and an echo chamber of people who agree with him to gain access to his power and money. To the extent that they let their children be close to him, build him his own fairground and have I'll advised pets. But once you do, it's quite a good album of funky pop numbers.
Jimmy Smith
4/5
Yeah, just the summer jazz vibes I needed for wandering in the sunshine.
Bill Callahan
5/5
About a week ago, I woke having dreamed of something melodic and thought, "I should listen to some Smog." Which is odd, as I knew of them vaguely but I don't know if I knew them enough to place the sound. That was a lovely sunny morning of music listening, and now he's back in my life so soon, with this delight of a piece of art. I'm taking it out on a dog walk with me. Blue skies.
Van Morrison
4/5
This was my go-to album for something to listen to during my revision. I also saw him at some festival with my mum in the late nineties, so all kinds of feelings are stirred up listening to this in full again.
The Darkness
4/5
Yeah. Rock on you krazy freaks. Let your yodel be heard across the open plan office; let your bright socks raise eyebrows; don't be constrained by a pony tail when you could be whipping that thing around in the lift; who loves you? Out of The Darkness comes a helium balloon with YOUR NAME on it.
Kisses!
3 star album with an extra one for cheerfulness.
XTC
2/5
Barely noticed it, TBH.
Jane Weaver
3/5
That is an interesting one.
A bit more modern, obscure electro folk.
Bauhaus
3/5
I always think Bauhaus are going to be unbearable industrial noise, but they are quite middle of the road, with a sprinkling of Art School pretention.
Unfortunately, I had Bella Lugosi's Dead on a mixtape in my teens, and none of their other stuff measures up to it (on first listen).
Nina Simone
5/5
At last. I only had to wait 1.027 albums to get some Nina.
Not even her best album in my opinion. Overly romantic for my taste.
Such a fine singer, composer and pianist though.
Hot Chip
2/5
I thought this was going to be Metronomy, but it was slightly more pop than them, without such catchy tunes.
I thought it was the the band that puts more effort into the music videos than the music, but that was OK GO!
It wasn't unpleasant, but it just sounded like generic café background music really.
David Holmes
4/5
Lovely noises.
Ambient electro full of samples and dirt and grit. But with a real range of styles from dub to techno. I loved the street recordings from the disaffected New York underclass.
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
I was disappointed by the lack of funk, despite the bandname.
Quicksilver Messenger Service
3/5
It hung together really well, and the playing was really good, but all the best songs were covers.
The Soft Boys
4/5
Better than you'd think some post-punk semi-mod 70's Cambridge indie group would be. But then I'd think it would be shit and it was actually a'right, I suppose.
The lyrics were pretty nifty and the guitar work was jangly fun.
Ramones
3/5
Punk epic.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Pleasant enough mid nineties World Music.
Ry Colder doing his thing, before the Buena Vista Social Club collaboration.
Ali Farka Toure plays lovely guitar, but two guitars, a little bit of singing and a drum wasn't enough for a whole album for me..
The Human League
3/5
Quite fun eighties electro pop.
Not sure I had to listen to it before I died.
I'm not sure that I haven't listened to it before.
Am I dead?
Baaba Maal
3/5
Jangly afro rhythms.
They're probably better even if you speak the language.
I felt there was a real difference between the tracks produced by Baaba and by other people. Maybe more of a European influence sometimes?
I probably need to be steeped in the culture to appreciate these properly.
The Byrds
3/5
Bob your head to the sixties groove, baby.
Some kind of album from waaay back when your (great?) grandparents were grooving.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Seminal guitar noodling.
A giant of that era, and unsurpassed.
Arcade Fire
2/5
Wow. They are like a modern day Bruce Springsteen.
But nearly twenty years old now, I guess.
So .... Like Bruce Springsteen.
Hmmm. I'm not much of a Bruce Springsteen fan come to think of it.
Beach House
3/5
Gentle soothing sounds for the permanently apathetic.
Haircut 100
2/5
So very eighties.
Fairly middle of the road with a couple of nice ska moments.
Joe Ely
3/5
This is bound to rate poorly as it's not a genre I enjoy, however, I was impressed by the instrumentation and lyrics. Also, if The Clash liked him, he can't have been all bad. There were some upbeat numbers and some catchy little things in there.
LTJ Bukem
3/5
Too long.
I listened to the first half on a day walk in the near pitch black, it was dark, cold and exciting; trance like but even then each team was a bit long, but I could lose myself in my thoughts and let it wash around me. I listened to the second half at home in the daytime and it got very boring and slightly annoying.
Really well made, but without enough of body to it, it just kind of jangled along like a long car journey.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
I'm still stankin.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
I kept coming away from this humming, "In suburby, in sub-urb-i-aaa" despite the fact that it wasn't on this album.
Maybe their songs are a bit same-y?
Calexico
4/5
A very enjoyable mix of American borderland music. A bit hit and miss, but more hits than misses.
Megadeth
1/5
Immature ranting on about destruction and decay, war and illness, etc.
AC/DC
2/5
I am not bothered by this posturing, bad boy band. They are crying out for those also crying to cry along, but I'm just not in the mood for the needyness.
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
4/5
Before woke was a thing, these guys held up a mirror to social injustice.
Morrissey
3/5
The other day, Labi Siffre issued a cease and desist order to Tommy Robinson for his use of Something Inside So Strong (he said, “Anyone who knows me and knows my work since 1970 will know the joke of them using the work of a positive atheist, homosexual black artist as apparently representative of their movement.”)
I enjoyed the witty lyrics of You Are The Quarry, but worry that Morrisey might have written Irish Blood, English Heart in support of this spirit of isolationism and intolerance. Hopefully I am completely misguided, but the bad taste remains in my mouth.
So 5 stars for the good music and outspoken content.
Remove a star for Morrisey's dubious politics.
Remove another star because I've never really got on with Morrisy/The Smiths on a subjective level: my toe tap doesn't tap to their tunes.
But? I? Kind of? Liked? It?
Terence Trent D'Arby
3/5
Alright, I suppose. Bit dull, though.
Leftfield
5/5
I love the range of different styles and samples, brought along with those driving drums.
This was such a solid, consistent album and was always great to hear when on a night out in the nineties.
The Electric Prunes
2/5
Never a good sign if one of those most notable things about the album on Wikipedia is that it, "was listed in the book, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die."
Quite nice psychedelic sixties stuff: Touches of ragtime and kitsch among pre-Beatles mop-tops. But, even the band seemed to agree large parts of the album were filler rushed out to capitalise on the success of "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)"
I dug into some of their other stuff, and the band apparently fell apart when they tried to do complex covers of traditional Jewish religious music in a psychedelic way. That should've been on the list rather than this, but it's really not essential listening.
The Undertones
4/5
Out of respect for John Peel, I cannot give The Undertones 3 stars, but it didn't really move me much past that marker.
Steve Winwood
2/5
I recognise the talent, but this wasn't my thing.
Cowboy Junkies
1/5
Well I'm glad that's over it was making me sleepy and angry in equal measure.
File under dull.
Fleet Foxes
3/5
Pleasant, booked out folky warbling.
It evoked pastoral strolls, campfires and romance.
The pitch was high, everyone was proficient musicians, the harmonies were tight.
Unfortunately, it's not really my thing though. I got a bit bored listening to it.
Country Joe & The Fish
3/5
Pleasant enough country adjacent twanging. Way ahead of its time, but not as far ahead of its time as I am. So it's quite old to me.
Björk
4/5
I have this record, but it is not something I seen out that often. It not particularly catchy, and Björk is very Björky on it; but I love it. I find it beautiful and odd and an inspirational mix of genres.
More of this weirdness, please.
Van Morrison
3/5
Van the Men covers the greats, is how I imagine this was marketed. It would have been a great gig to attend, but did it make the list?
Not really.
Lots of good covers, good musicianship and sturdy work here, but it just wasn't essential listening.
Heaven 17
2/5
This makes me think of that time I went on a gay pride march in the nineties.
I find the singing too dour.
The jangly synths are quite fun. I expect the London Philharmonic Orchestra has had a good at these.
Alanis Morissette
3/5
A coupler of catchy numbers on here.
The irony of writing a song about irony without understanding the definition of irony!
The songs which weren't singles didn't move me particularly.
Fiona Apple
4/5
Beautifully chaotic and angry.
Like a well reasoned longstanding argument occasionally spilling over into emotional outbursts.
Sepultura
1/5
Mostly screaming until the last track, which was quite cool.
I found it unpleasant overall.
2/5
Some fairly standard psychedelic rock.
Tim Buckley
2/5
Not my thing at all.
Too folky.
Too much poetry on acid.
Robert Wyatt
5/5
I listened to it twice.
Peter Tosh
4/5
4 stars, just for the nostalgia sake of those hazy days I can't quite remember.
Metallica
3/5
More teenage anger expressed through various stereotypes of emotional and physical pain.
New Order
3/5
Pleasant synth stuff. This band know they are doing.
It doesn't move me particularly, but it's not shit.
Soundgarden
2/5
A bit tedious.
Neil Young
4/5
Quite good Neil Young.
The Allman Brothers Band
3/5
Guitar noodling at it's finest. Very Rhythm and Blues.
Some quite good tracks there, but it certainly could have done without a 23 minute solo jam session at the end.
David Ackles
2/5
Seems like it wants to be a shit eighties musical more than an album. Too theatrical,melancholy and folky for my tastes. My it takes a second listen with a song sheet, though.
I did like the song Down River, but that was on a different album.
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
Dark, moody and a little grumbly.
Kate Bush
2/5
Not for me. Sorry Kate.
Beth Orton
3/5
Charming.
Michael Jackson
1/5
If you can separate the art from the artist, then Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', Beat It, Thriller and Billie Jean are all high energy, rhythmic and funky pop classics.
If you cannot separate the art from the alleged child molester then reading the lyrics of Human Nature and P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) will send a chill down your back and want you to never take a child with you whilst visiting a millionaire in their exclusive ranch.
Carole King
4/5
Really lovely, if somewhat twee, songs.
Dizzee Rascal
3/5
Rude boy massive.
Enjoyable jangly grime, shame about the misogyny.
Steve Earle
1/5
Why are we listening to another country album that only got a single to #7 when it was released. Whilst we're at it, why is country?
Johnny Cash nailed it, and it should have just stopped there.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
Probably a seminal prog rock album or something. It sounds like professional musicians up to their eyeballs in cocaine, but that's just speculation.
Beatles
5/5
Up and coming young things. Keep an eye out for them, they could be the next Arctic Monkeys.
Kate Bush
4/5
Surprisingly good.
I have never been a fan of Kate Bush, but listening to the whole album at once was enjoyable. I liked the abstract bits and didn't find her voice as jarring as listening to the singles on radio 2.
Van Morrison
2/5
More Morrison innit?
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
Not if this was enhanced, obscured or amplified by my tinnitus.
Not a fan, but I see why some people might be. It's not objectively bad in the most part, but it's not for me.
Arrested Development
4/5
Woke and proud from a time when Conscious Hip Hop was an effort to move away from gangsta rap to something about being positive, as well as highlighting the shit times people were having day to day.
I'm not sure how Sly doesn't get a credit for People Everyday.
Morrissey
2/5
This sort of washed past me. I had a glance at the lyrics to see how hateful they were, but raised no eyebrows.
Schmorrissey...