1001 Albums Summary

Despite my growing antipathy towards RHCP, I actually quite enjoyed that album.

Ok, but doesn't add anything to what Metallica achieved 8 years earlier.

A couple of decent tracks but the rest is a meandering mess of self-indulgence. Not a patch on their later masterpiece: Breakfast in America.

Not my kind of thing, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Excellent guitar work from Graham Coxon and, as a result, the first Blur album that really establishes their sound.

A couple decent tracks but the rest is a fairly monotonous janglefest.

Better than expected though still somewhat meandering and freeform. Second half better than first.

So dull.

Generally good, consistent album. But not a patch on NWA's debut.

Bland.

Probably Coldplay's best album.

Excellent album.

A couple of good singles, a nice blues number and some meandering filler. And he's a prick.

The archetypal blue collar rock album. Infectiously enjoyable. With a title track that humiliated US politicians who only read the title.

The singles are excellent and there are a few decent album tracks. Ok.

Never listened to this before. Really good. Feel I will be coming back to this one again quite regularly.

A couple of good points but mostly background music.

Aside from "Hurt", obviously, the stand out tracks are Cash's own compositions or where it is just him and a guitar. A couple of the covers miss the mark ("Bridge Over Troubled Water", "Danny Boy", "We'll Meet Again" once it broke into a singalong). Some are wrecked; either by an infernal pianist noodling in the background ("Personal Jesus"), or by some awful co-vocalists - Fiona Apple and Don Henley I am looking at you. Overall, though a really enjoyable listen; I just wish they'd have cut out the unnecessary collaborators.

Excellent.

Meh. Not particularly interesting and featuring just one, distinctly average, single.

I decent blues album with a variety of styles. Much more a John Mayall album than an Eric Clapton album.

Tedious.

Most enjoyable Chicago Blues album.

Have to admit to being somewhat disappointed on listening to this for the first time in many years. I now find it quite dated and repetitive. Maybe a result of overplaying over the years. In contrast, DJ Shadow's Endtroducing ... (an album of similar style and vintage) still sounds fresh and interesting.

Musical pollution. In the case of the people vs. Mariah Carey, this is evidence for the prosecution.

An album of two halves. The first half is back-to-back bangers. The second more moody/reflective/Cave-like. Ends on a cracking high. The best of the Bad Seeds so far.

A mixed bag. All the classics are great, naturally. A couple of other good tracks, but I just get bored when he goes all psychedelic and weird. Stick to blues Jimi.

Not my thing at all.

Setting aside the rampant misogyny, this is a great album. A fair amount of that credit must go to The Bomb Squad - the production is top notch and the beats infectious. Ice Cube's delivery is relentless and he carries on very much in the same vein as during his time in NWA - though perhaps even more extreme. Reckon I will be coming back to this one.

Isn't it lovely, made of love? Well, yes it is.

Ok but gets a bit samey after a while. Nowhere near as good as Ms Dynamite's debut, which came out the same year.

Pleasant enough, but probably won't be going back.

Enjoyable and interesting album, though perhaps a little patchy.

A very patchy album with the second disk marginally better than the first. Some great tracks and some absolute dross. A strong argument against double albums in principle.

Kinda interesting but not something I'd want to listen to again in a hurry. One particularly irritating feature of the record is the almost canned laughter during the song intros; a bunch of people laughing to things that are barely funny, in a kind of "we get this but you don't because you're not cool enough" way.

Decent album with a couple of stand-out tracks. Still don't particularly like Neil Young's voice - sounds like John Malkovich doing karaoke. I get the impression that Stephen Stills was the real talent here ...

Great album. Just not as great as its predecessor or follow up.

A good album but not their best.

Came in with extremely low expectations which it seemingly surpassed. Then I realised that pretty much everything good about this album had been pillaged from the greats of 80's hip-hop - you can hear Doug E Fresh, NWA, etc. all loud and clear. So, plagiarism combined with a level of misogyny that would make Ice Cube wince.

I'm sure it's lovely. It's just not my kind of lovely.

Excellent album with some cracking singles and a good mix of interesting experimental tracks.

A stone cold classic. No weak points at all. Pure brilliance.

Whiny Canadian caterwauling. Pretty dreadful.

It's been a long time since I last listened to this one. Good album and very much of its time. Enjoyable listen.

For folk's sake.

A pleasant enough jingle jangle.

Everything that is bad about music today.

Average wannabe indie band. I struggle to see what is super about them.

Fantastic album full of analog synth goodness. Slight dip at the beginning of side B but starts and finishes very strongly.

Pleasant enough "Country Bears" music.

As much a Snoop Dogg album as a Dre album. Decent enough but falls short of Ice Cube's debut. The relentless misogyny and "look-at-my-big-dick" lyrics are regrettable and mar an otherwise decent effort.

Three or four stand out tracks and a couple of other decent ones. Want to give it 3 1/2 stars really.

Excellent album containing the archetypal Cure track: "A Forest". Production is sparse but excellent.

Pleasant enough listen one time. I don't feel it will stand up to further visits though. File in the "good for one listen" box.

To my mind, incredibly overrated. A meandering, forgettable mess of distinctly average blues rock.

Set fuzz box to full badger's arse and rock out, preferably in some spit and sawdust pub. Quite enjoyable but a bit one-dimensional.

Great album with a couple of standout classics. Still not their best effort, with that honour going to De Stijl, which best captures their down-and-dirty take on classic blues.

Definitive heavy metal album containing, arguably, three definitive tracks of that genre. Possibly the best last three minutes of any album.

Nice, relaxing ambient, possibly only suitable for airports in 2020/21. Not a huge amount of substance though ...

Dreadful.

Far more easy listening than I remember it. A good album but hardly justifying the 60m+ in album sales.

What a great voice. Well produced album containing the classic "Son of a Preacher Man" along with a couple of other well known tracks. The rest is pleasant-enough but not particularly memorable.

Blues standards by hammond organ. Some of the tracks work; some don't.

Knew the band and the singles but had never listened to the album before. First half definitely better than expected, though the album definitely tails off on the second side.

The panpipe player must die.

Very enjoyable continuation of his father's work.

This was 4* all the way until I hit "Stay". Then it instantly leapt to 5*.

Really very dull. A couple of ok tracks.

So Miles walks into the studio and says: "hey cats, I've got an idea: let's all play each other's instruments. I don't have the first f'ing idea how to play drums, but how hard can it be? Also, let's not stick on any particular tune ... or key.". Nigh on two hours I don't wish to repeat.

Mostly enjoyable afrobeat. At least the parts where they've managed to keep the keyboardist away from E. PIANO 1 on his DX7.

Great album with some bona fide classics. A stepping stone to the greatness that was to come ...

Probably one of the most consistently excellent reggae albums I have ever listened to. Not really my genre, but I really enjoyable listen nonetheless.

Interesting album. Liked it more than I thought I would. Very varied and, as a result, a bit patchy.

A great album by one of the most underrated bands of the 90s. Classic.

Ok, but quite forgettable debut. Black Sunday is way better.

Blandy McBlandface

Great album but not exactly one to take you to your happy place. Unless, of course, your happy place involves chronic depression and a debilitating drug habit.

Quite interesting for its obvious influence on the subsequent vocal stylings of Neil Hannon and Marc Almond, to name a couple. Not really my thing though ...

A forgettable album that doesn't appear to know what it wants to be, veering from punk to rock and roll to MOR. A couple of ok tracks.

Classic album. Still sounds great to this day. Legends.

Largely forgettable.

Actually enjoyed this a fair bit more than I thought I would. Those initial expectations were pretty low mind ...

So dull, even the singer sounds bored with it. The nadir is "The Boy Done Wrong Again" - 4:17 of utter tedium. Terrible.

Bass fader to 10. Wah pedal to max. Sit back and enjoy his soulful voice.

Not at all what I was expecting. Largely background music.

Very enjoyable jazz album. Laid back. By the numbers. Just how it should be.

Classic.

A "perfect" voice that sounds like a million other perfect voices. A collection of generic, factory-produced AOR. Offers very little that is new or interesting.

As over-produced, factory-made pop goes, this wasn't bad. Enjoyed the album tracks over the singles, probably due to the overplay of the latter.

An ok punk/new wave album from a band that sounds like a proto-INXS. A lot of the tracks start of promisingly but then fail to live up to that initial promise.

Snoozic.

Excellent, but short. Must of been one of the first recorded works by a major artist featuring a synthesiser.

Not bad overall - just not particularly special or interesting. Many of the songs start strongly but then peter out and end badly.

Nice background music and starts engagingly enough. A bit samey after a while.

Utterly dreadful. One of the worst things I've listened to on this list so far. Monster is the one bright spot on an otherwise derivative turd of an album.

Iconic East Coast rap album with some absolute classics. A couple of weak points though, which docks them a star or two. They still have more influence, relevance and authenticity in the tips of their little fingers than Kanye and his ilk ...

Very much of its time. And "Private Dancer" written by Mark Knopfler - who knew!??!

A couple of stand-out tracks and some background music. "White Rabbit" is the pick of the album.

The eternal set-closer "Born to Run" is a stone cold classic. The rest of the album continues in much the same vein but not quite so memorably. Born in the USA is a better album and more varied.

Great album. Wonderful production. The opener is a (25 year old) modern classic.

Definitely not. Mediocre Beatles/T-Rex karaoke in a pub round the corner from Maine Road.

Crazy varied album with some very interesting high points together with some decided vanilla 70s prog.

Great album title. Fantastic cover photo. One stone cold classic track. The rest a mixed bag; second side better than the first.

One of the more tedious albums I have had the misfortune of listening to. Thought it had finally got interesting but then discovered that Spotify had moved me on to other artists ...

Morris dancers sing Don McLean. Dire.

He IS the king of bongo bong.

Starts strongly but becomes somewhat anonymous

Five great tracks bookend this album, around a somewhat anonymous middle section. Quite why they decided to drag "I am the Resurrection" and "Fools Gold" out to well north of 8 minutes each, is beyond me - ended up turning good tracks into tests of endurance.

Wasn’t impressed by this. Aside from the hits, a bit dull.

Classic

For an album of not much more than half an hour in length, it really does drag. 20 seconds worth of musical ideas are dragged out to minutes and the vocals are really uninvolving. Disappointing.

A couple of great tracks but generally a little disappointing

Genius schmenius. An album of dull crooning of which, 5 minutes later, I can't even remember one note.

Some bright moments but a lot of background music and some terrible lyrics. Suspect Trent has a lot to do with the bright points ...

Not an ideal morning listen. Ok. Had its moments; but I won't be listening again in a hurry.

Why don't all albums have instrumental interludes?

Starts off promising but quickly becomes background music.

A remarkable recording even if it does descend into background music at some points.

Interesting banter …

Definitely one of the best Smiths album. Some great tracks but some filler also.

Their fourth best album, if you count the "Come on Pilgrim" EP. Some bright spots but nowhere near as consistent as their earlier work.

Hoping for upbeat Canadian eighties rock but ended up with ownbeat audlin ccoustic uzak.

Boy does Jimmy Page owe this lot ...

Background hip hop. Decent beats though.

A classic, building on the promise shown in "Black Celebration". Backed up by a legendary tour and live album.

Ok. But rapidly becomes background music. Can barely remember any of it. Not a patch on his earlier work: Armed Forces, This Year's Model, My Aim Is True.

Better than I expected from a band with probably one of the most pretentiously crap names in history. Dodgy cover though.

It's probably as good as people think it is. Just for me, it's kinda slow and ploddy. Maybe I just don't really like Pink Floyd ...

Can write songs. Can play guitar. Can't sing. Thinks he can play harmonica. Can't play harmonica. Good though!

Possibly one of the worst albums I've heard by one of the worst bands. Commercial "hard" rock by the numbers, sold by the bucketload, lapped up by sad losers chanting "THEY CAN'T CHANGE WHO I AM!". Whatever, Gene. Whatever.

Country Bears suicide music.

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" - probably one of the worst things ever committed to vinyl. Then again, "Come Together", "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" - all fantastic. Seems like George was really on form on this one. Macca not so much.

Unexpectedly enjoyable. Got better as it went on.

Not their best album. Probably not in their top 3. Still very good though.

No.

Clearly a big influence on QotSA, Incubus etc.

Brilliant album. No idea what he's saying, but he is great at saying it. Let's just hope it's not about anything dodgy ...

Chilled out, pleasant-enough listen. Think I'd prefer "Hawley Corner" by Richard Coles though.

A truly nostalgic listen which takes me straight back to sixth form. Still fantastic.

My least favourite of the first four Led Zep albums. That said, worth it alone for the epic "Since I've Been Loving You".

Classic. Even if he did rip off Los Lobos. Prick.

Sweet Love is a great track, but a whole album it does not make. Most of the rest of the album is filler, though the last track isn't bad.

Four minutes of a good track then endless muzak. Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Sax, see what evil you have wrought upon this world.

Some great tracks, and a lot of filler.

Difficult to rate. I like to think of myself as being at the noisier end when it comes to music appreciation. However, this album proved a bit wearing after a while. I think I need more than just noise ...

Okish album from one of the most overrated bands. Mostly background music but refreshing in that Stipe hadn't yet developed is full whine of a voice.

"Can't Get Enough" is a great track. As for the rest of the album, it's ok when it picks up the pace a bit, but the majority is just too slow. Ok Company.

Well, it goes on a bit, but I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to.

John Wick in a pig farm.

Very enjoyable blues album from a legend. Could've done without the Santana-smothered opener though.

One of the most boring things I have ever had to listen to.

Sounds like an album of Green Day b-sides. And "On a Rope".

Not the best Blur album but it definitely has it moments and surprises.

Crap cover but not bad album.

Classic of the genre. End of.

The effortless groove; the feel-good lyrics; some classics of the genre. It just puts me in a good mood.

Knew the name and a couple of the tracks but had never put the two together. Not bad overall and better when he sticks to the out-and-out blues numbers. "Baby, I love your way", however, is an appallingly saccharine rhodes-soaked-cheesefest.

Possibly the most grating voice in popular music.

The third best Portishead album by a stretch. Fourth if you also include the live album. Not a patch on their first two which are both 5*.

Apart from the execrable "Excuse Me", an otherwise brilliant album.

One good track and then 32+ minutes of AOR nonsense

Suicide music on a grey Monday morning. Just what I need.

Tubular Hell.

Dull.

Chic mk. 2. And nothing wrong with that.

Many people would think this was Layla plus a bunch of filler. I view it as a solid blues album with Layla as a bonus.

First track ok. The rest of it an endless boring dirge.

crappy bad

An album so dreadful that I wanted to stab myself in the ears to make it stop by only the third track.

my bloody wastatime

Nevermore will I listen.

His cover of Black Steel is awesome. The rest of the album is pleasant background music.

1 star for the title track; 1 star for the cover.

Encapsulates everything I hate about folk music. Why can't I choose zero stars.

Best enjoyed whilst eating a 12oz ribeye.

A little funk-light for my liking. Possibly the greatest cover ever though.

I just can't bear his weak whiny voice. Would have given it one star but I know there is far worse on this list ...

There is worse than this on this list.

La Grange, on its own, earns 5*.

Whatever.

Shit was ass. Nothing more to add to that.

Nice production and delivery. Loses a star for being a dick in real life.

Like finding a lost Pixies album.

The first of three great albums from Elvis Costello.

Classic.

Country Bears music. But Country Beats music done well.

I like it when they sound like the Pixies. Actually, I just like the Pixies really.

11+ minutes of Desolation Row did it for me. Quite apt really ...

Decent enough and interesting in places.

Quite enjoyed this but can't say I was listening that closely ...

Sounds like one continuous groove. All good except I've heard it before on other Marvin Gaye albums. Think I'll stick with What's Going On.

The Bee Gees Sing and Play a Sprinkling of Shit Beatles Songs, by Barry Gibb.

"World Up My Ass" is one of the great song titles and this album gets 1* just for that. However, I am struggling to give more than 3 when they could only be arsed to produce 15 minutes of music.

Quite the change from their previous masterpieces, but still very good in its own way.

Great album apart from the crime that is her American Pie cover. And the awful cover.

... good.

Great packaging, and one of those where, though it appears old hat today, I imagine it's impact at the time would have been considerable.

When this was released it would probably have been an easy 5*. 34 years of life later it has lost something of its relevance.

Short and savoury.

mehkons.

Terrible title. Awful cover. Bullshit lyrics. Pretentious band name. 12+ minute track. All of this should add up to an hour or so in sonic hell; but ... actually a really enjoyable listen.

Raiders of the Monkees, Byrds and Beatles.

Crap band name. Shit cover. But, credit to the recording engineer; it's difficult to get a good quality of sound when the vocalist's head is so far up his own arse. Good job.

Harpsichord has no place in popular music.

Tres dodgy.

"Highly Evolved" but not particularly involving.

Electric Jugaloo

Oxygenius

Brutally dull.

The Auturds.

...And no reverb for anybody.

Puts the fun in funky.

You're an arse.

Bluesy Janis beats Folksy Janis

Long live the King!

Thunder thunder thunder thunder ... cack.

But which lord? The Dark Lord? The Lord of the Dance? Jack Lord?

Fuck you I won't do what you tell me.

Never better.

A single catchy song does not an album make. Dull.

Ok but overrated.

What this really needs is a film to watch at the same time.

A very pleasant morning listen. Hopefully the little man didn't steal too much of the profits - though I wouldn't count on it ...

To all you haters out there: f*ck you. This is f*cking gold.

A beautiful album for a morning listen. Almost 5*.

The weakest of the first three Massive Attack albums. A couple of muzak tracks and an entirely unnecessary cover of Light My Fire have cost it a star.

Far from freshly squeezed ...

Feeling fairly fulfilled.

The spirit of MJ is strong in this one.

Perfekt bleep-bleep.

Bonus star for offending organised religion.

The hipster band it's ok to like.

It turns out my life didn't need an eight minute organ solo. Who knew.