Nov 10 2021
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Electric Warrior
T. Rex
4
Nov 11 2021
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Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago
Didn't know what to expect from this, not knowing the band name offhand. Started off funky, OK, I like, then we got to "I'm a man" and it capped off a load of psych-funk/free-form that I wasn't expecting at all.
3
Nov 12 2021
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Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
Pavement
First track seems like a weird mashup between Jane's Addiction and Buddy Holly.
By end of this album, I felt a palpable sense of relief that it had finished.
2
Nov 15 2021
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Homework
Daft Punk
I know this album really well. Let's give it a spin...
More disjointed than I remembered - some of it is aggressive and repetitive in a way that I'm not sure translates to today's listener. That said, it's for sure a groundbreaking album that's set off in a direction that others have followed.
4
Nov 16 2021
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Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
The Kinks
Yup. This'll do.
5
Nov 17 2021
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The Atomic Mr Basie
Count Basie & His Orchestra
Enjoyable. Kinda what I needed at that moment too, so hurrah for coincidences.
5
Nov 18 2021
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MTV Unplugged In New York
Nirvana
This album is the embodiment of why I'll never pick live music over "produced".
Yes, it is clear that there's a huge amount of talent there, but you know what? Producers are talented too, and they make music sound better. I don't need or want to hear people whooping appreciatively and cheering - I can enjoy the music without a live studio audience yo let me know what I should think about it.
Let's hear it for studio producers. The most underrated people in music.
3
Nov 19 2021
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Bone Machine
Tom Waits
First album that I'm not looking forward to hearing.
I'll give it a crack.
Despite knowing precisely zero about this album or Tom Waits in general, it turns out that my apprehension was entirely justified. This is a falsetto cacophony of meritless free form jazz leading to bad blues. I'm pretty sure that for "Who are you this time" he was singing with his eyes closed because the music is just so damn moving. Can this pish end soon please?
1
Nov 22 2021
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Stardust
Willie Nelson
Not to my tastes.
2
Nov 23 2021
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Something Else By The Kinks
The Kinks
Second set of Kinks. No bad thing.
Yep, it's The Kinks alright. Cannot complain even a little bit.
5
Nov 24 2021
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From Elvis In Memphis
Elvis Presley
Some cracking bassline in this album. Some great guitar work here. Can't help but feel it would be better with a voice less Elvisy than Elvis, and let the music stand up on its own.
4
Nov 25 2021
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My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Brian Eno
Experimental. Intriguing.
4
Nov 26 2021
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Dry
PJ Harvey
3
Nov 29 2021
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Morrison Hotel
The Doors
5
Nov 30 2021
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Tea for the Tillerman
Cat Stevens
Good stuff, will possibly listen to the odd track again, here and there.
4
Dec 01 2021
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Phaedra
Tangerine Dream
First question on starting to listen to this... Did it become before or after Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon?
Apparently after. I would definitely prefer to listen to DSotM, which this album strongly reminds me of in parts. It's not something I could find myself actively listening to, but is pleasant enough to work away as background music.
3
Dec 02 2021
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Mothership Connection
Parliament
Yass!
5
Dec 03 2021
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Little Earthquakes
Tori Amos
Double yass!
Like so many people, I discovered Tori Amos via Professional Widow. This album is not like Professional Widow. Most tracks are a simple piano/singer combo, and while the style is very familiar to those who grew up in the 1990s, it holds up still. Amos is earnest, emotionally aware and just plain splendid. One of the best albums ever recorded.
5
Dec 06 2021
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Maxinquaye
Tricky
Not quite what I was expecting, but I am very much enjoying it. Yep. Wish I'd heard it 25 years ago.
5
Dec 07 2021
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Rust Never Sleeps
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Can't find it on Tidal, so skip.
Probably a year or so later I come back to take a stab at the albums I missed or skipped on the first run. Through, and by about track 3 I'm thinking that I might actually have preferred to slit my wrists.
His voice is not exactly good, the guitars are, when they're not jangly, oppressively strummy. I'm not going to finish this, am I? No.
1
Dec 08 2021
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Broken English
Marianne Faithfull
Well, it's a listen. Not sure if I'd go for the whole album again, but it does grow quite considerably between the first and last tracks.
I can definitely see how this has influenced later work. I was thinking Grace Jones, and it turns out that Barry Reynolds worked with Jones following the release of Broken English.
4
Dec 09 2021
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Junkyard
The Birthday Party
Challenging listen. Not awful. Not for me.
2
Dec 10 2021
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A Love Supreme
John Coltrane
Great album. Couldn't ask for better jazz.
5
Dec 13 2021
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Grace
Jeff Buckley
Not looking forward to this.
My apprehension was fully justified. This album is the emotional equivalent of an oversized mallet wielded by a character from a 1950s cartoon. It is fairly obvious that Jeff had his eyes closed whilst singing for this album, because the music is just so very overwhelming. One is reminded of the Clueless quote - "What is it about college and crybaby music?". Cher was, of course, referring to Radiohead in that quote, but the sentiment (and boy, there's sentiment abound) remains valid for this self-indulgent wankfest.
1
Dec 14 2021
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You've Come a Long Way Baby
Fatboy Slim
5
Dec 15 2021
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Oxygène
Jean-Michel Jarre
This has way more similarity to both Jeff Wayne's War of The Worlds and Wendy Carlos' Clockwork Orange soundtrack than I remembered.
The influences of both are clear, and while there is vast amounts of this album that is theramin and plinky-plonk heavy, it is clear that there's a lot of visionary stuff in it. I'd be genuinely interested in finding out if Jarre had any contact with the BBC radiophonic workshop or Carlos, as it really sounds like there's been a lot of cross-pollination.
4
Dec 16 2021
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This Year's Model
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
A few familiar tracks. Very of its time, clearly influential.
4
Dec 17 2021
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1984
Van Halen
80s hair metal.
It may be that Van Halen were the first, they may have been the most proficient, but to my ears the progenitor of 80s hair metal is not distinguishable from so much of the work they inspired. I appreciate the position in history, I even enjoy the genre they were instrumental in creating - from time to time - but I'll not be listening to this again.
3
Dec 20 2021
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Murmur
R.E.M.
Interesting to listen to.
4
Dec 21 2021
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The Seldom Seen Kid
Elbow
I'd only heard "One day like this" before, and I have to say that I think that song is an updated version of The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony - that is a wrist-slitting dirge with absolutely nothing to redeem it.
I put my preconceptions to one side and listened to this, and was actually surprised to find out that some of the tracks on this album have some slight merit. I mean, I don't like any of it. But I can tell that there's some good production and musicianship in evidence. "One day like this" remains an appalling stain on the musical landscape, and for that alone this album gets 1 start. Unforgivable.
1
Dec 22 2021
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Paul Simon
Paul Simon
While I prefer Simon's later work, this sets out his stall as an immensely talented musician, drawing on influences from many genres. Definitely worth a listen.
4
Dec 23 2021
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Modern Kosmology
Jane Weaver
Enjoyable.
5
Dec 24 2021
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Nevermind
Nirvana
Yes, yes. The music that shaped a generation, blah blah.
Oh well, whatever, nevermind.
3
Dec 27 2021
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A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
Various Artists
No. Just no.
Sure, these are better-than-average Christmas songs, but they are still Christmas songs. Curated by a murderer.
Just no.
1
Dec 28 2021
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Funeral
Arcade Fire
At least they tried.
The epitome of what someone who grew up in the shadow of uninspiring britpop comes up with to prove that music doesn't have to be... Well, britpop. This has chord changes for the sake of it. Tempo changes because of course they do. And of course, the orchestra is there because Oasis did it for "whatever" and it kinda worked on that.
It isn't a horrible album. But it does not live up to its own pomp and bombast. If they'd toned it down a bit, it could have nestled in alongside every other mid-2000s post-britpop album, but for some reason, reviews and listeners have bought into the sales pitch and here we are on a list of 1,001 albums to listen to.
2
Dec 29 2021
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Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
Yeah, I like this. Surprising I've not heard of her before, great voice. Good instrumentals. Give it a listen.
4
Dec 30 2021
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Entertainment
Gang Of Four
Didn't know what to expect. Wasn't expecting this. Certainly a new (at the time) way of recording music.
3
Dec 31 2021
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Fred Neil
Fred Neil
Never heard of him before - not consciously anyway - but I think Harry Nilsson made "Everybody's talking" his own. Great song on an album with few standouts.
4
Jan 03 2022
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The Köln Concert
Keith Jarrett
Really good background music. Would probably have been exceptional to have actually been there. Not something I would be actively sitting down and listening to, but then I'm not sure you really have to. It's good.
4
Jan 04 2022
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Off The Wall
Michael Jackson
Did I enjoy it? Yes. Would I listen to it again? Probably not.
The story of Wacko Jacko is ultimately a very sad one. His huge wealth of talent was pushed forward by a work ethic probably quite literally beaten into him as a child. His music industry connections, the people who stood to make money from him, pushed that forward to his personal detriment. His internalised racism and disturbing, just plain wrong attitude toward and treatment of children may well have existed outside of his wealth. He may well have become a drug addict; so many Americans did through the mis-prescribing of opioids. But ultimately, one can't help but focus on the negative, even while enjoying the vast talent, enthusiasm and hard graft that went into Jackson's career. How much of his ouvre was his own talent and work? A lot of it. But the weaker tracks on this album show that it takes more than a talented front-man to make something great. The great tracks on album are great. But they're a combination of great talents in all aspects. A great front-man alone cannot compensate for mediocre material.
3
Jan 05 2022
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Superfly
Curtis Mayfield
Yass!
Pusherman is a truly wonderful track. Mayfield's voice layers superbly with an accompanying bassline from heaven itself and drums and bongos to keep you interested and focused on listening.
Freddie's Dead has been part of my listening rotation for years. Superfly itself is just a masterpiece of funk. This is a film soundtrack. I mean, there's no doubt about it, it was written for a movie and it sounds like that. It isn't an album per se, but the quality of the music is just.. Well. Just listen to it.
5
Jan 06 2022
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American IV: The Man Comes Around
Johnny Cash
Will admit to some trepidation before listening to this. I do not like Johnny Cash's music. "Heresy", I hear you shout. But you know what, I just don't. His genre, his semi-spoken, semi-sung delivery. I don't like it. But I have to admit that "when the man comes around" is genuinely a work of exceptional greatness. Reznor himself has said that Cash now owns Hurt. And I kinda agree. Cash sounds broken in a way that Reznor wasn't, physically. The slightly off-key spoken monotone just works so well for this track. I mean, the Nine Inch Nails original is better produced, has more layers and nuance, but Cash's voice and delivery fits so well that you can overlook it.
Unfortunately things go rapidly downhill. Bridge over troubled water does not fit. At all. The same can be said for everything up Personal Jesus, which is an intriguing take on Depeche Mode. Sam Hall is actually quite a fun track, I'll give it that.
Danny Boy is just hideous. It's the indulgence of someone who is way past his best, remeniscent of an elderly uncle who insists on singing at a funeral. It might be touching, it might mean a lot to the performer, but it is objectively awful. The same can be said for I'm so lonesome I could cry. Tear-stainded letter thankfully picks up the pace, which is genuinely a relief. Finishing up the album is a surprisingly upbeat and swingy tale on We'll Meet Again - which is immeasurably better than Very Lynn's cloying version.
After the initial hesitancy, an I glad I listened to it? Kind of. The highs are high. But the lows are really low.
Would I listen to the full album again? No. I'd absolutely not. There is no way I would subject myself to Bridge or Danny again, except if maybe I was wallowing in a Hurt-amount of masochistic anguish. Would I listen to the best tracks from this? Absolutely yes.
3
Jan 07 2022
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There's A Riot Goin' On
Sly & The Family Stone
I never thought I needed yodelling funk in my life, and after listening to Spaced Cowboy by Sly and the Family Stone, I realise that I was totally correct.
The rest of the album, thankfully, is much better.
4
Jan 10 2022
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Tidal
Fiona Apple
It's nice that this influential album's cover was used, a decade after its release, as the inspiration for the Doctor Who villain Lady Cassandra.
The music itself is strong. It holds up well as any of its direct contemporaries, and I think I'd go for this over Jagged Little Pill. Some tracks, naturally, are better than other but overall, I'd probably listen again.
4
Jan 11 2022
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Metallica
Metallica
This is an enjoyable album with some classic tracks. I'm not a big metal aficionado, but I can see how this album exemplifies the genre. What I'm not sure of is whether this album created the formula, or just follows it, but it is incredibly difficult to not notice the structure of it. We start out strong, very metal. This continues until we reach the softer, more heartfelt "the unforgiven". We then get a 50:50 softer/harder track in "Whereever I Roam" and then the metal comes back, with a stonking finale in The Struggle Within.
It's pressing emotional triggers in a way that were the music less good might seem cynical, according to a defined structure. I can't really criticise that, given how successfully they've done it, but it stands out like a sore thumb. It's reminiscent of so much metal, from the narrative of Bat out of Hell and Use Your Illusions through the later structures of Roots Bloody Roots or even some of the numetal of the mid-late 90s. Would I listen to the whole album through again? Probably not. Would I listen to tracks from it? Absolutely yes.
4
Jan 12 2022
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This Is Hardcore
Pulp
Interesting choice for a Pulp album. I'd probably have gone Different Class myself. Wow. Party Hard is such a relief!
Some good tracks in here. I'm actually genuinely surprised to see it in the 1,001 albums list because while Pulp were clearly an incredibly influential part of the 1990s British music scene.... This is not their best work.
3
Jan 13 2022
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Sincere
Mj Cole
I know precisely zero about this prior to listening to it.
Wow. Thinking "OK, this is some light and relatively unchallenging jazz" it turns out to actually be some UK garage. This is going to be a fun ride...
OK, so this album is long. I managed to get through Oxygene by having it land on a day that I had a three hour drive. But I didn't have two hours to spare for this. Got about an hour through the first volume and there's some good stuff in here. I'd come back to it out of a sense of completeness, but I doubt it'll enter my regular play. What I can say about UK Garage is that at the time, it seemed world-changing. The direction was new, refreshing and exciting. With the eyes of time looking back at it, though, it seems tame. From UK garage's world-changing start we've seen the birth of dubstep and grime. As important and exciting as it was... It has been eclipsed by its progeny. I feel the same way about what I heard of Sincere as I do about The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. It's a good album, and one that exemplifies a sea-change in music. But they are, perhaps, the giants that other people are standing on the shoulders of.
4
Jan 14 2022
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Time Out
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
Exceptional collection of jazz standards.
5
Jan 16 2022
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Countdown To Ecstasy
Steely Dan
I can appreciate the technical aspects of this album, but blimey it's boring.
2
Jan 17 2022
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The ArchAndroid
Janelle Monáe
This is excellent. Some fabulous rap, some amazing soul - all very varied, very experimental. Her voice is amazing, and although I think she might be reaching the edge of her talent on one or two of these tracks, that talent is way, way, way better than 95% of the other talent in this list. I might be a convert.
5
Jan 18 2022
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Bat Out Of Hell
Meat Loaf
There are some thumping ballads on here, but time has not been kind to many of them. Paradise by the dashboard light is genius. Takes the album from 3 to 4.
4
Jan 19 2022
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The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
No.
No Bob Dylan.
I can't stand the sound of his voice, I can't stand the fawning hero worship, I can't stand his terrible paintings. I flatly refuse to even entertain the suggestion of listening to this.
No.
1
Jan 20 2022
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Music for the Masses
Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode... A long time after Vince Clarke left, but before Violator. Hm.
OK.
Why pick this Depeche Mode? They were pioneers. They changed (well, Vince Clarke did) music with Speak and Spell. They changed it again with Violator, sans Clarke. This album? Say what? Hell. Even Songs of Faith and Devotion was bigger, better and differenter.
The album ain't bad - not by a long stretch. But I'd simply not include it given objectively and subjectively better albums from them.
3
Jan 21 2022
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Double Nickels On The Dime
Minutemen
I like this. I like this a lot.
5
Jan 22 2022
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The Chronic
Dr. Dre
I forgot about Dre. 🙁
4
Jan 23 2022
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Germfree Adolescents
X-Ray Spex
Not on Tidal. Not on Spotty-fry. Not on Hamazon Music. YouTube? Yeah, that's got it. And I'm glad I looked for it, because it's a solid album.
5
Jan 24 2022
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The Wildest!
Louis Prima
Yup. Happy with this.
5
Jan 25 2022
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Young Americans
David Bowie
Wow. David Bowie really was decades ahead of his time. And several years behind.
The title track - Young Americans - starts off sounding exactly like the opening theme of a mid-90s sitcom.
The rest of the album is, as Bowie described it himself - a facsimile of soul. He does well for a white boy, but I can't help but think that he's making a gesture at the genre rather than actually contributing to it or bringing the music foward. I suspect this album is considered influential because it is a change of direction from an established artist, shining a light on music that hadn't reached white suburbanites before - at least not in a way that could have been considered acceptable at the time.
Knowing Bowie and his understanding and love of music, I think this is very much a case of cultural appreciation rather that appropriation, but that being said, Bowie cannot make (and he's admitted this himself with the definition of "plastic soul") this music his own. A famous white boy putting his money and influence into expanding the listenership of the genre is commendable. I think this - today - might not fly the way it did 45 years ago. It is a good album, and a paradigm shift for Bowie, giving a shot in the arm to soul, but ultimately being derivative in a direction that wasn't mastered.
3
Jan 26 2022
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Led Zeppelin III
Led Zeppelin
I mean, it's Led Zeppelin.
5
Jan 27 2022
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Station To Station
David Bowie
Am so conflicted by this. On the one hand, I quite like it. On the other, I don't very much.
It's the second Bowie album recommended by this list this week, and like Young Americans, I get the feeling that Bowie was entering into a world made by other people. With his earliest work, he went and did things nobody had done before. With this, it feels like he's latched on to something else. Listen-to-able, but again feels kinda derivative.
3
Jan 28 2022
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New Forms
Roni Size
Yes. I remember a couple of these tracks from release, and enjoyed at the time. Listening back now I'm pleasantly surprised at how cohesive, catchy and just plain good this album is. Gets five stars for freshness, even after 25 years.
5
Jan 29 2022
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Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon & Garfunkel
There are some cracking tunes on this album. Bridge Over Troubled Water is not one of them. Do yourself a favour and skip the first track. Promise it gets better.
3
Jan 30 2022
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Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Lucinda Williams
This sounds alarmingly like it might be country.
This is country.
This is also awful. Repetitive steel gee-taws, raspy voice, I'm really struggling to find anything to redeem this album. OK, we've got to "Joy" now, and I quite like the opening of this track. Until she starts singing, and I don't like it anymore. The more bluesy guitar is a blessed relief, but these lyrics are samey, pointless and thoroughly unengaging. This is gonna be a one-star from me, fam.
1
Jan 31 2022
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Talking With the Taxman About Poetry
Billy Bragg
Bragg sounds like he's desperately trying to be Ian Dury on some of these tracks, although without the charm, intelligence or charisma. I get that this music is political, but can't music be both political and fun?
Oh, the cover of "tracks of my tears" isn't great.
1
Feb 01 2022
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Veckatimest
Grizzly Bear
Not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. Very listen-to-able, unchallenging and emerging at a time this sort of music wasn't The Thing gets this a reasonable, better-than-average 4 stars.
4
Feb 02 2022
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Fear and Whiskey
Mekons
Decent. Varied between thinking "is this a precursor to I, Ludicrous" and "No, this is a bit more punky".
Decent listen. Would I listen again? Probably not. Would I turn it off if it came up on random places? Probably not.
3
Feb 03 2022
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Illmatic
Nas
Rap. Got to admit that I was falling asleep while listening, and my semi-hazy recollection of the first few tracks was that the beats were pretty repetitive, but the rap flowed really well. I'll have to listen again, but I'm gonna go 3 on the basis of those repetitive beats.
3
Feb 04 2022
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Tubular Bells
Mike Oldfield
Obviously a classic, but different to what I remembered. It is long and repetitive, with some bits that just make no sense. Chill out music long before chill out. Would I listen to it again? Probably, but not out of anything other than intellectual curiosity.
2
Feb 05 2022
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Home Is Where The Music Is
Hugh Masekela
Enjoyable, though not world-changing.
4
Feb 06 2022
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Deserter's Songs
Mercury Rev
Omfg this guy's voice is awful.
Theremin.
More theremin.
Yeah, this isn't my thing. Not unlisten-to-able, not no discernable merit.
2
Feb 07 2022
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Oar
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
Got as far as broken heart before my will to live was similarly broken.
What a load of melancholic guff.
1
Feb 08 2022
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Black Holes and Revelations
Muse
What is it with the mid 2000s and bombast? Muse clearly think of themselves as ultra-important, and this album has all the nobs turned up to 11.
The production on this album is superb, and Muse at least have the chops to not settle into the grim post-Britpop trough-of-nothing that Arcade Fire, Interpol and Elbow wallowed in. This album is overindulgent, self-important and actually not that bad. There's enough variety to keep your attention, and while the pomp and indulgence means that I'll not be playing it again, I'm not reaching for the skip button. 3 stars. If it was less balls out, it'd be far more appealing.
3
Feb 09 2022
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Heaux Tales
Jazmine Sullivan
Dozed lightly through it... Perhaps I should have attempted to pay attention to the actual lyrics, but I was too busy wondering if I was listening to 1995.
Intrigued by the reviews, I listened again and paid attention to the lyrics. I have learnt that women being turned on, sexually, by money is apparently a legitimate expression of desire. Well, yeah, I guess. Seems a little cynical, but who am I to judge?
The second listening reinforced my nusoul impression. It's not a genre I liked in the 90s, and while I have more time for it now, this album is still musically meh.
2
Feb 10 2022
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Kenza
Khaled
French-African music - the first non-English-language, non-Western music I've got from this list since starting it nearly 3 months ago.
First couple of tracks were a little bit cliche Eastern/Arabic, but the album really opens up with a variety of styles. Definitely listen-to-able.
4
Feb 11 2022
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At Budokan
Cheap Trick
A live album? FFS why? Music production exists for a reason. I do not need to hear the audience, they can get in the sea for all I care.
Let's hear it again for music producers!
OK.
Track one and I'm skipping the rest of this album. A showboating drum solo may be electric when you're in an audience, caught up with a crowd. But listening at home? Nope, that's not cricket.
1
Feb 12 2022
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James Brown Live At The Apollo
James Brown
Another live album on the bounce? Goddamn it.
So James Brown is infinitely more talented than Cheap Trick (yesterday's live album) and its on that basis alone that this album is going to get three stars. These songs, studio recorded and with production involved, would get 5. Hands down. But live albums can get in the goddamn sea.
3
Feb 13 2022
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Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Might be the second time I've listened to this album since the mid-late 2000s. Did we honestly used to think that Anthony Kiedis could rap? His mouth just can't mouth it, it's really bizarre.
The bass is just faultless. The drums can do little wrong. Overall though, this as an album is just that little bit too much of a wall of noise. Individually there are tracks that just fizz with energetic excitement. But considering it as a whole album, adds up to remind us that we can have too much of a good thing. It doesn't hang together as an album, taking us on a journey. It works just as well on random play, and that's sad. It should definitely be regarded as influential; back in the 90s, saying that you had a Chilli Peppers album was kind of like admitting that you breathed air or that the sun comes up in the morning. But that ubiquity seems to stem from their live performances. The Chillis were the gold standard of gigs - not that gigs appealed to me then or now - and I can't help but wonder if their scene presence - and indeed scene creation - is where their inclusion stems from. Album gets a 2 from me, it hasn't aged at all well.
2
Feb 14 2022
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Sister
Sonic Youth
Listened to this earlier today and I do believe that I have forgotten every single last thing about it. It can't have been objectionable, but it sure wasn't memorable.
2
Feb 15 2022
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3 + 3
The Isley Brothers
Not as good as I was expecting it to be - but admittedly I had very, very high expectations. More soul than funk. The talent is extraordinary, but I'd prefer their later stuff.
5
Feb 16 2022
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Woodface
Crowded House
If this was any more middle-of-the-road, it'd have cats eyes.
2
Feb 17 2022
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Hms Fable
Shack
Yeah, this is just typical britpop. The fact this album and this band are utterly unknown to me, someone who was a teenager in the 90s in the UK and bought in, at least a bit, to the britpop scene, speaks volumes.
1
Feb 18 2022
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Master Of Puppets
Metallica
This album is technically adept in a way that's genuinely quite astonishing.
This album is boring AF.
The lyrics are rather cringey, with frequent suggestions that the listener should obey their master. Whatever, my guy. If you have to tell me, you've lost. Sorry dude. The relentlessly aggressive guitar becomes tiring really quickly, despite the play being adept it fatigues the listener.
1
Feb 20 2022
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Fishscale
Ghostface Killah
This is pretty dang good. Production is tight, rhymes are tight, samples well chosen. Two thumbs fresh.
4
Feb 21 2022
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Sunday At The Village Vanguard
Bill Evans Trio
Not come across Bill Evans before, but this is now in my list of jazz to listen to.
5
Feb 22 2022
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Ready To Die
The Notorious B.I.G.
Yeah, the rhymes may be great, but the beats are not doing any favours for me. I'm gonna have to go 2 or 3 tops - the skill and the flow push it towards 3, but the edgelordy skits and the repetitive beats, themes etc push it back down to two.
I wanted to like it, I really did.
2
Feb 23 2022
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Tres Hombres
ZZ Top
I'm just straight up not enjoying this.
1
Feb 24 2022
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A Seat at the Table
Solange
What?
Why? Just why is this in the list? I can only assume that the collator of the list has some kind of deep love for warbling vibrato.
1
Feb 25 2022
View Album
A Northern Soul
The Verve
Absolutely not. This is trash. Utter garbage. Pretentious dishwater-grade Britpop. Ashcroft's voice is grating, the guitars are crashy and dissonant. Whiny shite. Probably the progenitors of the ultra-pomp of renting the nearest strings section to play backing while the lead singer grizzles about something of zero consequence, and for that I cannot forgive.
1
Feb 26 2022
View Album
Live At The Harlem Square Club
Sam Cooke
Another live album.
The music is good. The songs are familiar, the players are very good. The singing is decent. But it's yet another example of a recording that would have been better with some production. Do not need audience participation.
2
Feb 27 2022
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Five Leaves Left
Nick Drake
I can see the talent on display, but blimey it's boring.
2
Feb 28 2022
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Paris 1919
John Cale
I can see the talent here, but this is just that bit pedestrian for my tastes.
2
Mar 01 2022
View Album
To Pimp A Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar
The superbole, hype and gushing praise for this album is utterly lost on me. I've tried listening to it several times.
I just don't get it.
Sure, there's a couple of tracks on here that I've found myself tapping my foot to, and I can tell that it is excellently produced... But I just don't get it. It doesn't click. It may well be pearls before swine, but I just can't take this above a 2 based on the fact that while I didn't enjoy it in any meaningful way, I would not actively go out of my way to turn any given track of it off.
2
Mar 02 2022
View Album
Tusk
Fleetwood Mac
Everything up to Tusk is middle-of-the-road soft rock at best, absolute brain-melting garbage at worst. Tusk is great. Never forget is back to middle-of-the-road soft rock.
Would I listen to this album again? Oh good lord no. Not in a million years. Would I listen to Tusk again?
Yes.
2
Mar 03 2022
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Raw Power
The Stooges
Absolutely meh.
2
Mar 05 2022
View Album
Modern Life Is Rubbish
Blur
I own this album, on CD. Bought in the mid-90s I thought it was worth spending a week's allowance on.
Having heard it now for the first time in 20+ years, I find myself humming For Tomorrow. For this, and almost this alone, I give the album five. I've got no problem acknowledging when my teenage musical self was "misguided", shall we say, but I just can't here. I came back to this thinking I'd find some egregious examples of crashy Britpop wank... But there isn't. There's just not. It obviously sets up britpop tropes, but each track seems to skirt around the edge of Britpop guff without succumbing. Astonishing. Albarn's vocals fits. Alex James' bass is tight. And the drumming from Dave Rowntree is stellar.
5
Mar 06 2022
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Rejoicing In The Hands
Devendra Banhart
Well this is a laugh a minute.
2
Mar 07 2022
View Album
Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand
So Franz Ferdinand saved music.
You see, in the early 2000s music just... Kinda stopped. Britpop had given way to awful shite like Coldplay. House music had grown tired, UK Garage had shot its bolt, and the industrial/alternative scene had collapsed into Nickelback, with Evanescence lurking in the wings. The world had "more important" things to worry about. The history that we believed had ended in 1989 became quite historic and very, very present, and music was generally, and genuinely, awful.
Franz Ferdinand changed that. Take Me Out is genuinely a masterpiece. The changing tempo. The catchy hook. The evocative lyrics, dripping with self awareness and beauty of language. Most of all, it is fun. Almost the entire album of it is fun, managing to convey its messages in a way that's actually enjoyable, danceable and not filled with the self-indulgent wankery of their contemporaries. I'd like to say that Franz Ferdinand opened the door to the Scisssor Sisters - the other band of the mid-2000s to let "fun" play a part in music again, but I think that Scissor Sisters had found another way in and were able to steal the silverware on their own. The two of them though, genuinely represents a clear signal that music wasn't dead, just very badly burnt. Good on 'em.
5
Mar 08 2022
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Sweet Baby James
James Taylor
Total barrel of laughs.
Straight in the bin.
1
Mar 09 2022
View Album
E.V.O.L.
Sonic Youth
This is the second Sonic Youth album to come up. My review of this album is essentially exactly the same as my first, which I shall quote verbatim here:
"Listened to this earlier today and I do believe that I have forgotten every single last thing about it. It can't have been objectionable, but it sure wasn't memorable. "
2
Mar 10 2022
View Album
Punishing Kiss
Ute Lemper
An exercise in technical appreciation, rather than enjoyment.
2
Mar 11 2022
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Arc Of A Diver
Steve Winwood
As other reviewers have commented, this is 80s AF. The synth is heavy. It's a decent album - not one that I'd turn to again, but definitely representative of its time, and very well produced.
3
Mar 12 2022
View Album
evermore
Taylor Swift
This is the musical equivalent of beige. It's a chicken korma. While it's not actively offensive, I find it genuinely bizarre as to why this has been included on a list of 1,001 albums to listen to. Speaking to my sister about it - she is, apparently, a fan of Taylor Swift - I should be paying attention to the lyrical wit and the musicianship. However - I'd genuinely prefer to listen to White on Blonde, a Texas album from 1997 that's known for being incredibly bland. I can honestly say that Texas is far more interesting, varied, punchy and listen-to-able.
I cannot actually dislike this album - that would imply that it caused an emotion other the half-and-half mix of bafflement (as to why it's included) and boredom. Ultimately a nothingburger, I'm finding it hard to justify having written as much as I have about it. Oh well. At least I've listened to Texas again for the first time in nearly 25 years.
2
Mar 13 2022
View Album
21
Adele
100% meh. One track on it, "I'll be waiting", appears very much to be trying really hard to be Pauline Evan's 1992 cover version of Bad Company's "I feel like makin' love". Other than that, it's entirely skippable.
2
Mar 14 2022
View Album
Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Small Faces
Brilliant opening track. There's strong work on the rest of the album. Many reviews here suggest Python connections with the narration and themes of the music - we should realise that this album was recorded (should one say compiled?) well over a year before Python was first broadcast. Python were Oxbridge - small faces came from East London and the language and cadence of the narration are, while clearly not being Polari, are very much Polari-esque and steeped in music halls the Pythons would absolutely not have known, except by academic interest.
The album is definitely worth a listen, and whilst undeniably a concept album, has enough great music to be worth dipping into again. Not faultless, the novelty aspect of it won't reward repeat plays in full, nonetheless I'd say a solid 4/5.
4
Mar 15 2022
View Album
Seventeen Seconds
The Cure
I mean, it's decent The Cure but it hells isn't peak The Cure. Reflective and relaxed, The Cure are pretty unique. While this album has to get a top rating, don't for a second think that this is the best they have to offer. It isn't.
5
Mar 16 2022
View Album
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden
This is from 1980? Wow.
I'm actually pretty surprised by this. I've never paid any attention to Iron Maiden - and to be fair I absolutely will not after this - but I was surprised at how punky it is. I was expecting heavy metal, and there is definitely notes of Deep Purple in this - but I was not expecting punk. And there's oodles of it. The drumming is actually pretty swing too.
I mean, this album has to get 5 stars because it's both influential and I quite enjoyed it. But does it inspire me to listen to more Iron Maiden? Nope.
4
Mar 17 2022
View Album
Odessey And Oracle
The Zombies
There isn't a bad track on this album.
There are a couple of truly exquisitely good tracks on this album. Two thumbs freshly, even after more than fifty years.
5
Mar 18 2022
View Album
Nowhere
Ride
I knew nothing of this, but as I listen I think that this must be either highly derivative Britpop bilge, Ride being an act that prowled the scene in the mid-90s, but were only picked up by incredibly poncy public school journos writing for NME while trying to convince scene chicks that they were the son of a chip shop owner from Stoke rather than of the EMEA commercial director of a mid-tier bank from Surrey, or the incredibly influential progenitors of britpop bilge, only listened to by whiny Mancunian teenagers.
Turns out to be the latter.
These guys have clearly heard The Smiths, Inspiral Carpets and The Cure, but manage to take their music away from shoegaze towards the britpop tropes that became relevant four years later.
Musically, it's too sweeping melody, wailing guitar for me. But I can see how they'll have shaped music.
2
Mar 19 2022
View Album
Blue Lines
Massive Attack
Truly an innovative direction in music and the start of triphop as a genre.
5
Mar 20 2022
View Album
Blood On The Tracks
Bob Dylan
Aw hell no. Dylan can get in the goddamn sea.
1
Mar 21 2022
View Album
Doolittle
Pixies
I was hungover like anybody's business while listening to this. A few tracks I didn't quite have associated with The Pixies. Good album. Solid 4/5.
4
Mar 22 2022
View Album
Endtroducing.....
DJ Shadow
Cracking album. Holds up well today.
5
Mar 23 2022
View Album
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
George Michael
Ultimately meh, it's well produced and well performed, but just meh.
3
Mar 24 2022
View Album
Exodus
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Pretty good.
5
Mar 27 2022
View Album
Orbital 2
Orbital
Asides from the first track, this album is superb.
5
Mar 28 2022
View Album
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
Eurythmics
Decent. New direction musically, and you won't be able to find fault with either the performance or the production. I find it doesn't capture me though. Am I humming Sweet Dreams today? Nope.
4
Mar 29 2022
View Album
Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers
How odd. After Bloog Sugar Sex Magik I was almost reluctant to play this. The first tracks did nothing to reassure me. Then scar tissue came on and it was a genuine reaction of "oh yes, of course! This is why people like the chillis."
It (scar tissue) goes on just a tiny bit too long, and otherside takes just a tiny bit too long to get going. I'm surprised at how badly otherside has aged, and my desire to skip every track other than road trip was nigh on impossible to resist.
Overall, this is a hugely forgettable album with a couple of good tracks.
2
Mar 30 2022
View Album
There's No Place Like America Today
Curtis Mayfield
I'll get one thing clear. I think Curtis Mayfield is one of the most talented, influential and all-round spectacular artists to have spent time on this blue spinning orb. This album is soulful and magnificent. Apart from Jesus.
Despite Jesus, this is still a Curtis Mayfield album and it has to get five stars. If you've given it fewer, you need to give your head a shake.
5
Mar 31 2022
View Album
Queen II
Queen
Well this started out as rather well produced meh, but rapidly shuffled through to some prog rock, then into some heavy metal and then into to just good old fashioned rock. Genuinely quite surprised by it, but I suppose I shouldn't be. Excellent drums, guitars, bass - and who can say a single solitary thing bad about Freddie Mercury's voice? Cracking. Would I listen to it again, all the way through?
Well no.
4
Apr 01 2022
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Protection
Massive Attack
Not as good as Mezzanine or Blue Lines. Still good.
4
Apr 02 2022
View Album
Achtung Baby
U2
Zoo Station - what in the parted buttocks is wrong with the production of this? It sounds like a concert bootleg from someone with a tape recorder in the khazis. Muffled, echoey, generally unpleasant to listen to.
The next track - one I vaguely remember from the 1990s - is by a sheer fluke of coincidence called "one", and it is shit. Bono's voice is grating, incapable of holding a note and generally reminiscent of a third rate pub singer.
Now we move on to "to the end of the world" and I don't want to think that the bass is hitting some resonant frequency where it's overpowering, but the guitar's soaring pomposity makes me think they've spent too much time listening to Ride, and the overpowering bass is actually deliberate. I can't finish it because it hurts my ears.
The first forty seconds of "who's going to ride your wild horses" is enough to convince me that this album is going in the bin.
Byeeee!
1
Apr 03 2022
View Album
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
Charles Mingus
As expected, Mingus took me on a journey. Some good places, others pretty dark. The musicianship on display here is amazing in ways I would struggle to express, so I'll take an easy cop-out and just give it five stars.
5
Apr 04 2022
View Album
Second Toughest In The Infants
Underworld
Love underworld. I am a little bit surprised that we didn't have dubnobasswithmyheadman or Beaucoup Fish, but hey. I've listened to SGitI no more than a handful of times in the past decade, so let's put it on.
As I sit here, I am becoming increasingly impressed. As the music builds, I find myself wondering about the Americans who don't have even the first clue about what "second toughest in the infants" might mean. It isn't all killer, no filler though. There's quite a bit of dull on here, and that does stand in stark contrast to dubnobasswithmyheadman. But it's good enough to get 5 stars, even if it is too long.
5
Apr 05 2022
View Album
Wild Wood
Paul Weller
OK, so Wild Wood itself is one of the best tracks of the early 1990s. The rest of the album, I'd take or leave. But Wild Wood is the tits, yo.
4
Apr 06 2022
View Album
Opus Dei
Laibach
Well this is really not an album I was expecting from this list.
Am I glad to have heard it? Yes.
Can I see where it might have been influential? Also yes.
Does it hold up as good music? Kinda. Sometimes. There are some highly repetitive noise tracks in this and they properly start to grate after a while. Not having read any user reviews yet, I'm almost entirely sure that there will be a swathe of 1-star "terrible"s, but there something here. The militarism is difficult to get past. I don't know if it's genuine or a pisstake, and am almost reluctant to look into it.
Will I be listening to this again? Heck no. Though I do reserve the right to play people German language Queen covers from time to time.
3
Apr 07 2022
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Arise
Sepultura
Yeah, with a couple of exceptions, this is a bloody good album.
5
Apr 08 2022
View Album
Casanova
The Divine Comedy
Oh hell yes!
I absolutely adore The Divine Comedy. I don't even have to listen to it today to know that this is a work of genius. Hannon's voice is sublime.
I'd rather die than be deprived of Wonderbras and thunder thighs.
5
Apr 09 2022
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Moondance
Van Morrison
I don't think I am going to like this.
I didn't dislike it as much as I was expecting.
Two. Ish.
2
Apr 10 2022
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Abraxas
Santana
I mean it's OK...
3
Apr 11 2022
View Album
The Genius Of Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles is definitely a genius, but this is not really the album I'd use to demonstrate that. This is great music for listening to while wallowing in a nice hot bath. Not something that rewards close listening.
4
Apr 12 2022
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Music For The Jilted Generation
The Prodigy
What we're dealing with here is a total lack of respect for the law.
5
Apr 13 2022
View Album
Make Yourself
Incubus
On first blush, I thought that this was going to be utterly typical numetal pap.
After careful listening, I can confirm that this is utterly typical numetal pap.
It isn't actively offensive, but it is dull. Meh.
2
Apr 15 2022
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All Mod Cons
The Jam
Some corking tracks on here. Worth 5 stars for David Watts alone.
5
Apr 16 2022
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Harvest
Neil Young
Listened to the first couple of tracks. Feel absolutely no desire to listen to any more.
2
Apr 17 2022
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Psychocandy
The Jesus And Mary Chain
Well this album feels long. A lot of it is unpleasant to listen to. In fact, none of it is pleasant to listen to.
1
Apr 18 2022
View Album
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
David Bowie
It's not a popular opinion, but I reckon I could happily live my life without Bowie's music.
There's a couple of decent tracks on this album - literally a couple - in Starman and Ziggy Stardust. Five years is an absolute chore and almost had me skipping. I understand his influence and his talent, but his music just isn't for me. Not actively unpleasant (Five years excepting) but by no means something I'll go out of my way to listen to again.
2
Apr 19 2022
View Album
Untitled (Black Is)
SAULT
Not objectionable, one stand-out track that I remember (Bow) but mostly I'm left feeling a little bit underwhelmed. I prefer more whelm in my music.
3
Apr 20 2022
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Face to Face
The Kinks
I mean, it's The Kinks. I'm never not going to love this.
5
Apr 21 2022
View Album
(What's The Story) Morning Glory
Oasis
No. No. Thrice no.
1
Apr 22 2022
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Toys In The Attic
Aerosmith
Probably ahead of its time, but there's only, like, two tracks on here I actually liked. Overall pretty meh, as I'm fairly certain I can't remember anything much about it beyond the two I tapped my foot to.
3
Apr 23 2022
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Purple Rain
Prince
The musicianship on this is astonishing. Prince can get a bit samey though - I prefer the tracks to the album.
4
Apr 24 2022
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Scream, Dracula, Scream
Rocket From The Crypt
Some good tracks. Not something I'd listen to again.
3
Apr 25 2022
View Album
Machine Head
Deep Purple
Well I first discovered Deep Purple in the late 1990s and it has probably been a decade or so since I took the time to listen to them. Highway Star was always one of my favourite tracks, but honestly, listening to it again this time I'm utterly blown away.
This is from 1972, nobody had done Heavy Metal before Deep Purple, Led Zep and Black Sabbath and this album absolutely exemplifies the genre.
Love it, and although Smoke on the Water has become a massive cliche, this album rocks so goddamn hard. Amazing!
5
Apr 26 2022
View Album
Rage Against The Machine
Rage Against The Machine
What can I say? This is one of the best albums of all time, and you should definitely listen to it before you die.
For preference, you shouldn't just listen to it. You should HEAR it. The issues that are raged against are still here now, unfortunately. It's shame that everyone who already knows this already knows, because the people who don't or won't like this music on the basis of its messaging probably won't be changed; even when someone sets themselves on fire.
5
Apr 27 2022
View Album
Disraeli Gears
Cream
The supergroup Cream were indeed influential. And popular. The musicianship shown is exemplary. Sunshine of your love is the only track on this whole damm album that sticks in the memory. I remember enjoying a couple of the other tracks - no more than a couple - but not enough to have them stick in my mind. Most of it was not aggressively bad... Just meh. And for that it gets a meh score.
2
Apr 28 2022
View Album
Smile
Brian Wilson
God this is tiring.
It's everything the Beach Boys did well sixty years ago, diluted with twee baroque guff interespersed with novelty tracks like "Mrs O'leary's Cow".
If ever there's an example of the artist being put before the art, I think this is it.
What utter wank.
Good Vibrations is the only good track on the album, and it was done better sixty years ago.
1
Apr 29 2022
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Vulgar Display Of Power
Pantera
Can see where they're coming from. Enjoy it on the right mood. Not in regular rotation.
3
Apr 30 2022
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Cross
Justice
Couldn't get into it.
2
May 01 2022
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Whatever
Aimee Mann
This is dull as ditchwater. Straight up did not enjoy.
1
May 02 2022
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Eagles
Eagles
Man, come on. I had a rough night and I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man!
1
May 03 2022
View Album
Africa Brasil
Jorge Ben Jor
4
May 04 2022
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Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Wu-Tang Clan
Didn't gripper me, but there were some good tracks. Solid 3/5 from me.
3
May 05 2022
View Album
Like A Prayer
Madonna
Some great tracks in here. Promise to try is awful.
Like, almost bad enough to tempt me to drop a star from the rating. But then Express Yourself is Madonna's second best ever song (Material Girl beating it) so it's gonna have to keep that fifth star.
5
May 06 2022
View Album
Time (The Revelator)
Gillian Welch
Yeah, this is not a preferred flavour of guff.
It's tolerable, which is more than can be said for other examples of this sort of guff, but there are too many occasions where she sounds like she's singing with her eyes shut.
2
May 08 2022
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Juju
Siouxsie And The Banshees
Enjoyed it, although some tracks had the peculiar problem of a ripping bass line and a great rhythm, but let down by the melody. Four.
4
May 09 2022
View Album
Rising Above Bedlam
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
Started badly, turned good.
4
May 10 2022
View Album
Sea Change
Beck
Interesting. Beck from 2002.
Hadn't heard any of this before, and while not exactly objectionable, Beck really is one morose motherfucker right here. I'm sure if you'd just been sacked, your other half had dumped you for your mum and your best mate decided that they'd rather take up stoat farming in the Hebrides than talk to you again, this would be an ideal soundtrack. But for a nice run out on a May evening when you just wanted to put a few miles under your feet - it just won't do at all.
2
May 11 2022
View Album
Cheap Thrills
Big Brother & The Holding Company
This is another really good example of music that would be better produced, rather than live. I mean, the live performances are superb - genuinely remarkable - but the reliance on "first take" recording means that there's so much in here that could be made better. The drums, I don't think, were mic'd particularly well, so they sound rather clipped and tinny. The balance between Joplin's singing and the music is not great. I mean, this music is brilliant. Truly brilliant. But it would have been so very much better in a studio. Even a mediocre producer could have taken this from brilliant to world-changing.
5
May 12 2022
View Album
In The Wee Small Hours
Frank Sinatra
I appreciate he has a silky voice. I understand that he has a corking songwriter, and the calibre of both the instrumentals the production are sky high.
But it is Frank Sinatra.
He can be nothing but the epitome of cliche crooning.
3
May 13 2022
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Roots
Sepultura
What an album!
5
May 14 2022
View Album
Closer
Joy Division
Solid choice for the list. Joy Division sure were influential.
4
May 15 2022
View Album
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
It's Led Zeppelin. What isn't to like?
5
May 16 2022
View Album
Kings Of The Wild Frontier
Adam & The Ants
Surprisingly varied. Some corking tracks on here, with few (if any) that were a chore.
The twee nonsense of Adam Ant's theatrics distract from a very talented musician.
4
May 18 2022
View Album
Blackstar
David Bowie
Yeah, this continues my view of not actively disliking David Bowie, but not liking him either. If this was anyone other than Bowie it wouldn't be in the list.
2
May 19 2022
View Album
Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Right, so the bluegrass on this is about the best collection of bluegrass you can get. The proto-country of this is barely tolerable. The overriding thing to say about this though is that long album is long.
Like, really long.
After an hour you're thinking to yourself 'holy crap, is this not over yet?' and no, it isn't. There's another whole hour left to go.
Jesus H Christ, this is longer than China's famous march. It's longer than John Silver. It's longer than the way to Tipperary. If it was a kitchen appliance, it'd be made by De'Longhi. Ice ages could come and go, and this album will still be playing.
It should have been released as three albums, and for that I have to take a star off. The bluegrass is 5 stars, the proto-country takes down to 4, the length makes it 3.
3
May 20 2022
View Album
Dig Your Own Hole
The Chemical Brothers
I don't think this is as strong an album as either Exit Planet Dust or Surrender, but the brothers Chemical sure are good enough to get one of their weaker albums into this list.
Saying that - "it doesn't matter" is one of TCB's finest tracks. Bonkers, bassy, interesting enough to keep the ear and visceral enough to carry you off somewhere else. It's going to be five stars, obviously.
5
May 21 2022
View Album
Pink Moon
Nick Drake
Singing with his eyes shut.
Skip.
1
May 22 2022
View Album
Parachutes
Coldplay
Hard skip.
1
May 23 2022
View Album
Our Aim Is To Satisfy
Red Snapper
Well this is repetitive.
I've given it a decent go, and while it isn't awful I can't imagine anyone would put it in a list of must-listen-to albums.
It is just absolutely, 100% pure meh.
2
May 24 2022
View Album
OK Computer
Radiohead
I didn't like Radiohead much at the time - and I've got to admit that while a few of their songs are really good, I have never really been able to mesh with their vibe. Saying that, the good really is good and both the production value and musicianship are superb.
4
May 25 2022
View Album
Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
I like Nick Cave, but I don't necessarily enjoy this much Nick Cave.
3
May 26 2022
View Album
At Folsom Prison
Johnny Cash
On the one hand, this is actually fairly good.
On the other, it's live, which is always a shame.
3
May 27 2022
View Album
Low
David Bowie
Some good tracks in here. Best Bowie I've heard yet.
4
May 28 2022
View Album
London Calling
The Clash
A work of genius. Angry, melodic, no wasted notes or words.
5
May 29 2022
View Album
Colour By Numbers
Culture Club
Hmm. This may be an interesting experience.
Karma Chameleon is a time-honoured classic, but while the rest of the album is good, I can't ever imagine a situation where I'd play it again.
4
May 30 2022
View Album
Tragic Songs of Life
The Louvin Brothers
Starting this with an open mind, it appears to be country music. I do not have time in my life to subject myself to it.
1
May 31 2022
View Album
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
Aretha Franklin
Well. What a remarkable album.
One hell of a set of pipes, and she knows. Confident, capable, what isn't to like?
5
Jun 01 2022
View Album
Fever To Tell
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
I maintain that there was absolutely no good music released between the end of 2001 and the middle of 2005. This album, released slap bang in 2003, emphasises that point admirably.
I quite some of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's stuff. This album is painful. It is disjointed, lacking in theme. They scale up the anarchic without compensating with hooks, beats or talent. It is cacophonic in a way that assaults the earballs in a thoroughly unpleasant way. The drums just don't work. The vocals don't work. The guitars, guess what - don't work. The bass is tight, but doesn't fit with anything else. It's just seventeen different varieties of wrong all mashed up in a bucket, and I hate it more than words can express.
Saying that. It's probably the best music to have emerged in that timeframe.
1
Jun 02 2022
View Album
Pornography
The Cure
Decent. I think I prefer less of the cure though. They've created brilliant music, but one can be overwhelmed.
4
Jun 03 2022
View Album
Gold
Ryan Adams
Meh.
2
Jun 04 2022
View Album
Brothers In Arms
Dire Straits
OK, the first thing to talk about is the use of homophobic slurs.
This is from the early 80s, and there sure was a different attitude back then. If the use of the slur is what puts you off this music, I'd say you've kinda missed the point of the song.
That said, we can review the album. Which is excellent. Genuinely brilliant. Local lads done good.
5
Jun 05 2022
View Album
Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill
Funky beats and the flow is there.
Listening to an album from thirty years ago talking about police brutality and corruption sure does make me sad.
Would I listen to it again? Don't see why not, but it's not as strong as some of its precursors and contemporaries.
4
Jun 06 2022
View Album
Let It Bleed
The Rolling Stones
Gimme Shelter is great. While the rest of the album probably does have some merit as an exercise in blues, it doesn't really appeal beyond the opening track. Gimme Shelter is worth 5 on its own. In the context of the album, I'm gonna have to drop that a touch.
3
Jun 07 2022
View Album
At Mister Kelly's
Sarah Vaughan
No idea who this is, which doesn't bode well. And it appears to be a live album, so it's got that going for it too.
If I vote it higher than 2 on general principle, it's going to be an amazing record.
OK, so I've listened to it and it's a 4 star.
Her voice is nothing short of amazing. The band are well mic'd and tighter than a gnat's twat. Obviously if this were studio recorded it'd be five stars, but there we go...
4
Jun 08 2022
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Vincebus Eruptum
Blue Cheer
This was pretty cool.
4
Jun 09 2022
View Album
The Sounds Of India
Ravi Shankar
Enjoyed.
4
Jun 10 2022
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Beach Samba
Astrud Gilberto
Canny. Some questionable choices - the circus thing was pretty bleak, but otherwise an enjoyable enough album.
4
Jun 11 2022
View Album
Lady Soul
Aretha Franklin
Can't fault it.
5
Jun 12 2022
View Album
The La's
The La's
"there she goes" is part of the soundtrack of my youth, but I could honestly not name you a single other track by The La's. Which I think probably says all that needs to be said about them.
Just having "There she goes" makes this a 4 star album - but the rest of it is 100% forgettable.
4
Jun 13 2022
View Album
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Bruce Springsteen
Well this is a lot better than I was expecting, but there is absolutely zero chance of me listening to it again. Sad rock, talking of situations and characters I cannot relate to. Springsteen's voice is gravelly to the point of railway ballast, and I'm not going to pretend that I enjoy that. The music is evocative and melancholic - but it evokes images I do not understand, and it makes no attempt at explanation. Take, say, Tori Amos. I have zero frame of reference, but her music and lyrics set a scene so completely and compellingly that you don't need to have experience to understand and empathise.
Springsteen literally explains in one his songs what the cubic capacity of his car engine is - and that needs reference and understanding of allegory that is not provided by the song itself, or set up anywhere else in the album, leaving you uninterested and othered by it. I mean sure, you can look up what the American street racing scene wss, and how it might have fed into what's going on in the song, but it's assumed knowledge for Springsteen and that's alienating.
I suspect that this sort of thing is why Springsteen is loved so much by the people who love him. If you "get" the yarns he spins, it probably clicks into place for you. It makes you feel heard and understood, and damn anyone who doesn't get it. If you don't, you're really left with a voice that you can't call refined and a competent but overtly sad set of rock tracks.
2
Jun 14 2022
View Album
Come Away With Me
Norah Jones
I've previously stated that there was no good music released in the early 2000s, and this entry continues to supply hard evidence for this assertion.
One of the greatest quotes from Star Trek: The Next Generation is "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not failure, that is life." and this album is the musical embodiment of this observation.
There is nothing wrong with this album. Jones' voice is perfect. The production values are superb, the songs are almost faultless.
But does it win, given it does so much right?
Does it hell as like.
Overall, it is musical wallpaper. Beige in a way I've not heard since Taylor Swift's Evermore. Not actually offensive, because that would imply that has affected you in some way, this has the substance of blancmange.
2
Jun 15 2022
View Album
Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Fiona Apple
In 1999, Jessica Hynes and Simon Pegg teamed up with Edgar Wright to produce Spaced - one of the most brilliant television programmes ever crafted. Spaced did things with single-camera comedy that had never been done before, and paved the way for Wright to direct big-budget Hollywood films, for Pegg to make multiple appearances in fan-favourite film franchises such as Mission Impossible and Star Trek, and for to Hynes continue with Bafta-award winning comedy performances.
Why do I mention Spaced?
Well, the third episode of the first series is called "Art", and strongly lampoons talentless, self-congratulatory avant-garde "performance" through the character of Vulva, played by David Walliams in probably the least intolerable performance of his career. I could easily imagine some of this album being the soundtrack for one of Vulva's art installations, in that many of the tracks are hacky, avant-garde hogswill with few identifiable merits. Thankfully, not all of the tracks are atrocious, there is some good stuff in here. Not enough to make me want to tolerate the rubbish, though.
2
Jun 16 2022
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The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
I straight up don't like the Stone Roses.
1
Jun 17 2022
View Album
It's Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Way better than Fever to Tell, this album does, unfortunately, contain "Skeletons" which I simply had to skip.
3
Jun 18 2022
View Album
Live At Leeds
The Who
Goddamn it live albums. Just no.
1
Jun 19 2022
View Album
Bummed
Happy Mondays
I've never been able to "get" The Happy Mondays.
The vocals are painful, whiny like shoegaze but with added Mancunian sly arrogance tinting it. The beats are poppy, but honestly I can't pick through it to reach any value.
Weirdly, I quite enjoy some of Black Grape's stuff, however Shaun Ryder very much ditched the whininess for that. Bez is Bez, and his contribution to the actual recorded work is so close to non-existent that it might as well be called non-existent.
1
Jun 20 2022
View Album
Kimono My House
Sparks
Ah, Sparks. A band where you're aware of how influential they are, and maybe you know a couple of their songs. But then you think about it, or maybe do a bit of research, and suddenly they're everywhere, permeating through western music through the past fifty years.
This album is good. Like, really good. But having This Town as the opening track is the icing.
Like so many Sparks tracks, it sounds like it could be a novelty record. But it is not. There is lyricism, vocal excellence, tunefulness... It has so much going for it that it's almost impossible to play it down.
Let's talk about Russell Mael's vocals. I put the album on while driving, and despite having this song in my life for, well, my whole life, I found myself thinking "Hang on, are Sparks women?". No. Russell Mael just has an absolutely incredible voice. Ron's keyboards are just as good, balancing tune and melody perfectly. I really don't think I can wax effusive about this track enough. The rest of the album doesn't reach the heights of This Town, but in literally any other context they're superb. The brothers Mael are showing off talent by the bucketload, creating a unique sound that endures.
On the back of this album selection, I went off and watched The Sparks Brothers documentary, directed by Edgar Wright (my second reference to Wright in my reviews, but this time in an entirely positive way) and was blown away by literally a fifty year ouvre, including of course Johnny Delusional - a track from their 2015 supergroup team up in FFS - which might be one of the best tracks of the 21st century. I'd say listen to this album. Then go off and listen to more Sparks. Excellent.
5
Jun 21 2022
View Album
Power In Numbers
Jurassic 5
Hey wow, J5 in the 1,001! I'm surprised, but I do like their brand of MCing, so despite not having heard this before today, I'm looking forward to listening.
Well, I'm about halfway through this album, and what I can say so far is that it is the absolute tits.
The flows are every bit as good as J5's earlier work, the beats are every bit as good as their previous too. I like this a lot. A lot a lot.
5
Jun 22 2022
View Album
Sex Packets
Digital Underground
There sure aren't all that many hip hop concept albums, and this might even be the first. The first few tracks had me questioning my sanity. Is this ICP?
Nope. ICP don't rap about underwater concerts. With 30 years reflection, this seems - well - kinda childish. I'd imagine that some 14 year olds would snigger along to the lyrics. Despite that, it's classic hip hop done actually pretty well, with good beats and excellent flow. Sure, some tracks needed the judicious application of the "skip" button but in the main, I quite enjoyed it.
4
Jun 23 2022
View Album
Dust
Screaming Trees
Not objectionable in any form. Nothing that suggests I would ever listen to them again.
2
Jun 24 2022
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Electric Ladyland
Jimi Hendrix
Good. Bluesy. Strong work.
5
Jun 25 2022
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The Undertones
The Undertones
Oh, every different flavour of yes!
So this is a brilliant album. Northern Irish. Equally angry as joyful. An almost perfect rock album. The only criticism I could level at it is that it doesn't include "It's going to happen".
5
Jun 26 2022
View Album
At Fillmore East
The Allman Brothers Band
I should probably like this more than I did - but just seemed like background. Never once engaged me on a conscious level.
3
Jun 27 2022
View Album
NEU! 75
Neu!
OK, so while I didn't actually listen to this today, I know that this is a brilliant album. Neu! took the foundations of krautrock and built a template for electronica, punk, post punk and so much more. Cracking stuff!
5
Jun 28 2022
View Album
Let It Be
The Replacements
I have absolutely no memory of what kind of music this was.
Listening to some of it again (to refresh my memory of yesterday's forgotten run through) I find myself wonder why it was included. It's fairly uninspired rock and roll. Bizarre.
2
Jun 29 2022
View Album
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Ray Charles
What can anyone say, its Ray Charles. The man was a hell of a performer.
Bit cruel of to have made him sing some of the lyrics in careless love, mind.
One thing I will say about this is that you should listen to it in two goes. It does get challenging after a while.
4
Jun 30 2022
View Album
Triangle
The Beau Brummels
First track - skip. Country.
Second track - skip. Accordion.
Third track - do I listen to this? It's a bit psychedelic. A blind gentleman who's the painter of women? Skip.
Fourth track - OK. Let's give this a crack. There's an unfortunate ukele (or is it a banjo?) backing. But I didn't skip.
Fifth track - take the pretty young girls, they don't get better. Yeah, seems a bit paedo. All the pretty girls -stop crying because you can look better... So paedo and misogynistic. Double win.
Sixth track - I think I'm losing the will to live. Skip.
Seventh track - skip. No comment needed.
Eighth track - is this over yet?
Ninth track - oh, gods it isn't.
Ten. Let's channel our inner Zorba the Greek and combine it with our very best corn-worshipping guff.
Last track - at least this is a bit more upbeat than the last one.
Overall. Did not enjoy. Won't listen again.
1
Jul 01 2022
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Country Life
Roxy Music
I thoroughly enjoyed this.
5
Jul 02 2022
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Faith
George Michael
It's probably fair to say that George Michael was trying to put some clear blue water between his Wham! pop image here. There's some great stuff on this album, and while I think the songwriting is great, this is not a perfect album. There are too many overblown love songs. George Michael's voice suits upbeat and poppy way better.
4
Jul 03 2022
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Let's Get It On
Marvin Gaye
5
Jul 04 2022
View Album
Pump
Aerosmith
I'm sure that this appeals a great deal to many people, but I honestly find the majority of it quite tiring. The lyrics have really not stood up well. Even at the time "Love in an elevator" appealed most to the puerile sniggering teenager. It just seems so silly.
2
Jul 05 2022
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Straight Outta Compton
N.W.A.
Straight up classic.
This album was game-changing in so many ways. Taking p-funk samples and creating g-funk. The flow! Second to none.
This album redefined rap, changing the West Coast paradigm and, without any question, powered the social movements that altered the whole course of the 1980s.
The lyricsm, the power, the anger. It makes me genuinely a little bit sad that after 35+ years of young black men drawing attention to their issues, the systemic oppression... After god alone knows how many platinum records and oblivious people singing along to lyrics born out of pain, there's still bitches who only want them for their money.
Straight Outta Compton has aged, it's true. The beats, the flow, the loops - have aged like fine wine. One could argue that the misogyny, homophobia and casual violence have aged like milk, but that might not be the best analogy. Misogyny is just as much a problem now as it was in the 1980s. Homophobia is thankfully decreasing, but in the US, at least, causal violence is still ever-present. As social commentary this album gets lots right and lots wrong. As music - it gets almost everything bang on right.
5
Jul 06 2022
View Album
Songs Of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Something something something, well renowned, famous, blah blah dear god this is dull and I don't want to listen to any more of it.
1
Jul 07 2022
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Elastica
Elastica
Worth it just for Connection.
Anything else good on the album is gravy.
4
Jul 08 2022
View Album
Truth And Soul
Fishbone
Well this starts out with a truly appalling cover version of Curtis Mayfield's classic "Freddie's dead", which took about forty seconds for me to truly hate.
However, we've now moved in to a more enjoyable ska-ish feel. Is this the link between two step and California aka?
Pouring Rain is dismal. It has the ska horns, some of the basslines - slowed to a dirge. Terrible.
Overall - this album has some great ska on it. Anything that isn't ska is bunk. And that Mayfield cover makes me want to cry.
3
Jul 09 2022
View Album
The Queen Is Dead
The Smiths
Frankly Mr Shankly is a twee monstrosity that had me reaching for the skip button.
I know it's over actually got me pressing it.
Never had no one ever is a dirge.
The bass line for cemetery gates has my interest. Yes. This is actually quite enjoyable. Best track so far.
Bigmouth strikes again has some cracking drums. And again, the bass is highly engaging. I don't like the backing vocals, which seem to have been pitch shifted up.
The boy with the thorn in his side is The Smiths at their finest. Simple, Morrissey's vocals fit absolutely perfectly and again the bass lines are just wonderful - if there's anything to criticise it for, it's the 8-stone weakling of a finish.
Vicar in a Tutu seems like a return to the twee mess of Frankly Mr Shankly, however the bass keeps you interested. Not interested enough though - my mind is wandering to how that bass could easily be the backing for a hootenanny.
There is a light.
Wow. Yes, so THIS song is The Smiths at peak. The imagery of the lyrics. The soaring strings. This just works.
Some girls are bigger that others. Well this is all kinds of question marks about Morrissey's attitudes to women, sexuality and, frankly attention to detail.
Thankfully, this is a quite a short album. There are some genuinely timeless classic tracks on here. But overall I can't really get past the twee filler tracks. Would I listen to some of these tracks again? Absolutely, 100% yes. Do I think that The Smiths were a supremely talented act that deserve recognition? Yes. Would I listen to this exact album again, as an album? Nope.
4
Jul 10 2022
View Album
The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators
Some psychedelia, I'd imagine..
"You're gonna miss me when I'm gone" does some really interesting things. The unique sound of what some research tells me is known as an electric jug adds some weirdness and otherworldliness to the track that works really well. Onto the second track and there's a total reframing of the music, like they drop a cog and hammer down the accelerator, changing lanes and blasting past the caravan they'd been stuck behind for four miles.
Track three - splash 1 - is a bit of a let down - too slow and not really in keeping with the album. Reverberation picks the pace back up again. I think the age of the recording might be a factor here - but the bass sounds muddy somehow. It could be a production choice, but it just doesn't quite fit.
Overall, this is a great album - pioneering, but immediately placed to its time. It should be 4 tracks shorter, but overall I enjoyed it.
4
Jul 11 2022
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I See A Darkness
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Dull as ditchwater.
2
Jul 12 2022
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Inspiration Information
Shuggie Otis
This is excellent. Like Jarimoquai twenty years before Jarimoquai, with the added bonus of not having Jay Kay anywhere near it.
5
Jul 13 2022
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Wild Gift
X
Pretty good.
4
Jul 14 2022
View Album
Arrival
ABBA
The first track - about kissing the teacher - has aged like yoghurt. Was it even acceptable in the 70s?
So many of the tracks on this album are good. Multi layered pop that's danceable, fun and hold up to repeated listening. The exception is the titular "arrival", which is just hot garbage, sounding like someone who's never been to Scotland imagining what it's like to see the sun rise over a loch.
5
Jul 16 2022
View Album
Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Spiritualized
This.
I first came across this way back in the year 2000. I was given a geet massive stack of CDs by a Northern Irish colleague and this was by far and away the most memorable, packaged as it was in a pill box, blister packed CD and patient safety notes. My colleague was herself a pharmacist, so it stood out even more.
The ingredients are here for post-Britpop pomp and grandiosity, but we're never punished by it. It's like driving to Lake Garda on a lovely summer day. The journey of the album is twisty roads, tunnels and insane pensioners driving knackered old fiats way faster than should be even possible - but with a satisfying regularity you're rewarded by breathtaking views. The grandiose pomposity is there, but it's in the distance - to be appreciated - rather than stuffed down your throat, like some of Spiritualized contemporaries were wont to do.
The production is faultless, using almost every knob on the control board at least once. It is never less than slick.
Try as I might, I just can't dislike this album. There's too many associations with good experiences. Listen to it. Let it wash over you. You can, if you want, drive this album like an insane Italian pensioner. You can seek out the racing line, hug the corners and overtake buses on blind corners, and I'm sure it'll be absolutely great. But I'd prefer to let it show me its curves and stunning scenery.
5
Jul 17 2022
View Album
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age
Despite dismissing QotSA back in the day, I've mostly enjoyed this. Not ultra-keen on the novelty album aspect, but the tracks that rock rock hard.
People who enjoyed this, be sure to listen to The Divine Comedy's version of Noone Knows. It's extraordinary.
5
Jul 18 2022
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The Age Of The Understatement
The Last Shadow Puppets
Yeah, I'm sure this is good and all but it just isn't my bag, baby.
3
Jul 19 2022
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Close To The Edge
Yes
Well I don't hate it. It sounds like perhaps the most proggy that prog rock could be.
3
Jul 21 2022
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The Bends
Radiohead
What is it with college and crybaby music?
4
Jul 22 2022
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Tuesday Night Music Club
Sheryl Crow
Meh.
2
Jul 23 2022
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Cosmo's Factory
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Well, I know a couple of CCR tracks from here and there, but never listened to this album before. It's actually really good - very rock & roll. Sure, there's some country-ish twankiness (you can leave off the T if you prefer) but overall, this is rock & roll front and centre. And it's pretty damn good. Up Around The Bend is just a brilliant track - the opening! Wow! Could listen to this all day.
5
Jul 24 2022
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Physical Graffiti
Led Zeppelin
It's led zep.
Kashmir is the standout track. Rest of the album is good, but Kashmir takes the cake.
5
Jul 26 2022
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The Band
The Band
Rockin' Chair was a very fast skip. The rest of the album is tolerable - nothing to write home about,
3
Jul 27 2022
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A Grand Don't Come For Free
The Streets
Oh. My. God.
This is terrible.
After skipping the first three tracks due to the uncomfortable bleeding out of my earballs, I have decided that this is officially the worst album on this list, joining Jeff Beck and Bob Dylan in the accolade of being music that actively makes me want to injure myself to spare me from the putrid filth that's invading my head.
I'm pretty sure that if I took the time to tell you how much I actively disliked this album, I'd have grown old and died before I finished.
This.
Is.
AWFUL.
1
Jul 28 2022
View Album
Rapture
Anita Baker
Soultastic.
She'd a lovely voice, and were I trying to seduce a woman in the 1980s I might even have put this on the stereo.
Instead, it is the 2020s, and such things are probably "a bit cringe". So I'll listen to it once. Appreciate her voice and then move on with my life.
4
Jul 29 2022
View Album
No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (Live)
Motörhead
I can only begin to imagine that this live album is in the list because Motörhead - as a band - are tighter than a fat gimp's leather knickers.
Lemmy has a dreadful voice - it's gritty, hoarse and barely in tune. The crowd noises are distracting and irritating. Everything wrong with a live album is right there. But it's tight AF. As a live album, it does not encourage me to listen to Motörhead.
An extra star simply for the talent of the band.
2
Jul 30 2022
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The Soft Bulletin
The Flaming Lips
Straight up did not enjoy this.
1
Jul 31 2022
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Songs The Lord Taught Us
The Cramps
I mean, I've nothing to say against it.
4
Aug 01 2022
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Timeless
Goldie
Musically this is pretty nice, if a touch boring. The sort of thing you might put on if you wanted to slip in and out of consciousness while still being able to wake up and be alert when you needed to. Say, on a long train ride.
3
Aug 02 2022
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One Nation Under A Groove
Funkadelic
I don't even need to listen to this again to tell you that it's great. I mean, I will listen to it again. But that's mainly because it's great, not because it's on the list.
5
Aug 03 2022
View Album
Let Love Rule
Lenny Kravitz
Not Objectionable. Tbh I slept a very deep sleep through this.
4
Aug 04 2022
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Low-Life
New Order
Literally none of these tracks are the stand-out New Order tracks. It's a decent enough listen, but New Order did so much betterer.
3
Aug 05 2022
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Basket of Light
Pentangle
Decent album. I thought it was going to be some usual late 60s psychedelia, but ended up going pretty Indian. Definitely worth a listen.
4
Aug 06 2022
View Album
Stankonia
OutKast
So this OK. Some great tracks, but they ain't half drowned out by the vast amounts of filler that doesn't really add anything of any worth. If this was cut down to 6 or 8 tracks it'd be great.
3
Aug 07 2022
View Album
Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
They blew a chicken man in Philly last night, and they blew a piss house too?
Yeah, I'm not digging this even slightly. Dirge followed by dirge. Until "state trooper" which starts out nice and shows promise, but is ultimately a bit shit without actually going anywhere. It almost imperceptibly gathers pace in a way that, if it actually went anywhere, could be considered threatening... But then it just literally fades the fuck out, achieving absolutely nothing. And is instantly followed by another dirge.
Open All Night is almost a straight up beat for beat cover of Dire Straits Walk of Life, but without the upbeat pleasure of it. A couple more dirges for good luck and yeah, I've heard all I need to. This is a rock solid one-star bag o'shite.
1
Aug 08 2022
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The Gilded Palace Of Sin
The Flying Burrito Brothers
Not for me. Less awkwardly awful than I usually find country music, but I would actively avoid listening to it again.
2
Aug 09 2022
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If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
The Mamas & The Papas
Yes, yes and thrice yes. This is a good album, and my life is better for having listened to it. Yours will be too.
5
Aug 10 2022
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Tical
Method Man
I was not hugely grippered by this on the first listen. It may grow on me, but it gave me no reason to try and work it into a regular location. Nothing offensive, but that's just how it is sometimes.
3
Aug 11 2022
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Seventh Tree
Goldfrapp
A&E is the absolute standout track on this.
4
Aug 12 2022
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Bitte Orca
Dirty Projectors
Well this isn't awful but it sure ain't good. It seems to revel in broken melodies and dissonance, without the charm needed to carry it off.
2
Aug 13 2022
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Drunk
Thundercat
I struggle with this. Thundercat's work is always rich, multi-textured and exquisitely produced - but never, ever manages to engage me. This album inevitably ends up in lists of "albums to test your speakers with", and I can see why. There's a lot going on, and audiophiles love it because you can choose to focus in on an instrument at a time - it's made so much easier because they all appear to be doing their own thing. I can appreciate it, but I can't like it.
2
Aug 14 2022
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Private Dancer
Tina Turner
As other reviews have noted, this is eighties as fuck.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. Turner's voice is incredible. Powerful, expressive and unmistakably hers. Majority of the tracks on this album suit her voice perfectly. "I can't stand the rain" is aggressively horrible. It's better than Miss Elliott's cover, but that isn't saying much. It's raspy, repetitive and a hard skip from the tracklist.
Private Dancer is a bit sad. Would I listen to this again? Nope. Would I object someone else playing it within earshot? Nope. Do I see the significance of the album in its historical context? Yep.
4
Aug 15 2022
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1989
Taylor Swift
I was not looking forward to listening to this. I like the style of "Style". The rest of it seems to be middle of the road pop tosh. Completely forgettable, moderately inoffensive pink noise. The sort of thing you'd expect to hear at a school disco.
2
Aug 16 2022
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(Pronounced 'Leh-'Nérd 'Skin-'Nérd)
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Decent enough.
3
Aug 17 2022
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Devil Without A Cause
Kid Rock
I'll admit to knowing absolutely nothing - zero, nada, zip - about Kid Rock. When putting this album on, I thought to myself that it was a harder-edge, rappier pastiche of a Beck album. Odelay for aggressive ex-High School American Footballists who, no longer bound by sportsism, are now free to snort coke from the tits of girls who are anything but ex highschoolers.
It does not bear continued listening. The point was made in the first couple of tracks and as it progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Kid Rock is not a good performer.
I tire of it. Won't be finishing.
2
Aug 18 2022
View Album
Ace of Spades
Motörhead
Lemmy's voice is rough as smashed concrete. The band are awesome. The lyrics were typical rock fayre until "Jailbait", and now I feel ill.
How the fuck did they get away with it? Why hasn't it been deleted? Lemmy would have been 35 when this album came out. Grim.
1
Aug 19 2022
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Phrenology
The Roots
Well this is from 2002, so is doubtlessly awful.
Except it isn't. This is hip hop that goes in unexpected and rewarding directions. Tracks that tickle your earballs delightfully. Tracks that make you feel slightly uneasy. Tracks that flow. Tracks that pop. I will be listening to this again.
Given the year - unbelievable!
5
Aug 20 2022
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Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba
Good stuff, but I can honestly say that it's unlikely to enter rotation.
4
Aug 21 2022
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Now I Got Worry
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Well, the first track of this is deeply unpleasant. Nothing subsequent has yet to persuade me anything different.
1
Aug 22 2022
View Album
The Pleasure Principle
Gary Numan
This is an extraordinary album. Difficult to overstate the influence that Numan had on music - taking electronica mainstream and paving the way for new wave, synthpop and - you might have to stretch your head around this - industrial rock and metal.
One of the best, most delightful stories in music involves Numan. After a prolonged period of writers block, Numan felt himself at a loss. Nothing he tried was working, music had dried up and left him feeling a bit rubbish. And then he came across Nine Inch Nails. Listening to Reznor's work, Numan pressed some industry connections and asked if maybe he could talk to Trent at some point, thinking that he would be brushed off - after all, NIN were by this point on a massive upward trajectory on the back of The Downward Spiral. Trent Reznor heard of this and said "What, are you shitting me? I listened to Gary Numan literally every day.". Reznor wrote in support of Numan's US immigration application, and they've worked together on multiple occasions.
So onto The Pleasure Principle. It is absolutely chuffing brilliant. Soaring synth, interesting and compelling bass lines, and as listen-to-able now as it would have been 43 years ago. Hooks aplenty, a legacy still cited today and genuinely new (at the time) directions in music make this a very, very worthy entry into the 1,001 albums.
5
Aug 23 2022
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Hysteria
Def Leppard
Quintessential 80s metal. It follows "the formula" of all the metal bands - rock, rock, ballad, more rock, then an almost wistful love song. I mean, it works even if it is trite and a bit dated. Hilarious looking back on it that so many people took it seriously when it's so clearly a pastiche.
5
Aug 24 2022
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Microshift
Hookworms
Yeah, so I really enjoyed this. A lot. So much so that I had to look up Hookworms - an act I'd literally never heard of. And I rather wish I hadn't.
This album game me strong Spiritualised vibes - and that cannot possibly be a bad thing. Catchy, melodic and multilayered, this album stands up. I might even go an listen to their first two albums.
Just don't go looking into the band and you'll be blissfully unaware of the need to separate art from artist and the context its made in.
5
Aug 25 2022
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Life's Too Good
The Sugarcubes
First track - had Bjork heard this before recording Big Time Sensually?
Holy shit. Just glanced at the album notes and these guys are Icelandic. So yes, Bjork had definitely heard this before recording Big Time Sensuality.
Second track is also strongly Bjorkish in vocal vibe. I mean, the music isn't, but the vocals sure are.
Hah. Reading the notes more, the lead singer IS Bjork! What a journey of discovery!
The album is great. Can really see the evolution of Bjork as a singer and artist. I wonder if the rest of the band have gone on to other stuff?
5
Aug 26 2022
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First Band On The Moon
The Cardigans
I rather enjoyed this. I mean, it's impossible to anything about this album without mentioning Lovefool, which is one of the biggest singles of all time, ever - ever! 4.
It does lean slightly towards samey, but it's enjoyable pop so you can kind of forgive it.
4
Aug 27 2022
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The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill
Doo Wop (that thing) is a cracking track... The rest of this album gets boring real quick.
Urgh. The cover songs are genuinely awful.
2
Aug 28 2022
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Music From Big Pink
The Band
Take a load of fanny?
3
Aug 29 2022
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Rattus Norvegicus
The Stranglers
The Stranglers. Difficult to say more than that.
4
Aug 30 2022
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A Girl Called Dusty
Dusty Springfield
Well this is extraordinary. Definitely one of the best.
5
Aug 31 2022
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Sheer Heart Attack
Queen
Queen. Afraid the ubiquity of Queen records have diminished their value a little, but it's still a cracking good album.
4
Sep 01 2022
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American Idiot
Green Day
I actually enjoyed this considerably more than I thought I was going to.
This was released at a time when George "Dubya" Bush was making America look awful, for having elected an idiot. How simple those times were!
4
Sep 02 2022
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Darklands
The Jesus And Mary Chain
Given my dislike of shoegaze, this isn't as horrible as I'd expected. But not something I'd choose to listen to, and not something I'll finish listening to today.
1
Sep 03 2022
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School's Out
Alice Cooper
Wow, I love Blue Turk. I was not at all expecting this from Alice Cooper.
Wow. There's a lot more to this than I would have guessed. I like.
4
Sep 04 2022
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We Are Family
Sister Sledge
July 12, 1979. Comiskey Park, Chicago. A sad, sad and tragic day.
Disco, when done well, has no equal, musically, for danceability, for joyfulness, for pure hedonistic pleasure of moving your body. This album has some cracking good disco on it. But also some crappy disco. The slow end-of-the-night numbers are just plain uninteresting,, even though they showcase the talents of the performers admirably.
The higher energy disco hits, though, are superb.
4
Sep 05 2022
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Moss Side Story
Barry Adamson
First track - what pretentious bilge wank is this?
Second track - OK, this is a bit of jazzy Propellerheads, and who can ever dislike a Hammond organ?
Other artists have done film soundtracks, both the obvious ones where there's an actual film, or people like The Real Tuesday Weld who do soundtracks to novels. I guess it's an interesting idea, but by the time we reach track "Sounds from the big house" we're forced to conclude that this is the soundtrack to a shitty 80s film, probably starring a very badly cast household name actor as the drunken and off-the-rails detective lead. Russ Abbott, or maybe Guy Siner. Whoever the lead actor is, the director is clearly gurning towards Michael Winner.... Actually wait. Did Tony Maylam hear this before directing Split Second?
Ultimately, this might be "a good idea", but in concept it's meh and in execution it is just a bit rubbish.
2
Sep 06 2022
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Ocean Rain
Echo And The Bunnymen
A so-so album with not much going on, and then BOOM, The Killing Moon enters the frame. And suddenly the inclusion of this album kinda makes sense.
One track shouldn't be an album-maker, and while there's some other good tracks here, but nothing stands out like The Killing Moon.
3
Sep 07 2022
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Repeater
Fugazi
Punky. Fine. Nothing to write home about.
3
Sep 08 2022
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Kid A
Radiohead
Everything in its right place. Track and a half.
How to disappear completely. Oh my dear heaven in jeebus, I need to slit my own wrists.
Overall this album is bad. The production value is there. An abundance of talent is evident. But why focus that all, laser-beam tight, on making you miserable? Yeah, no. Couple of very good tracks, but it doesn't make up for being crybaby music.
2
Sep 09 2022
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Wonderful Rainbow
Lightning Bolt
Well, from the chaos emerges order. Not something I'd go out of my way to listen to, but am I put off by it? No.
4
Sep 10 2022
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The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
Merely good until Venus in Furs, which is a straight up masterpiece.
4
Sep 11 2022
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Nixon
Lambchop
Absolute epitome of meh.
2
Sep 12 2022
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xx
The xx
Due to an accident with the play button, I actually started listening to This Old Tune by James Kant. I was thinking to myself "Hey, I never realised the xx did this! This is cool!".
Unfortunately, I realised that I was listening to the wrong thing fairly quickly and actually started listening to the xx and all I can say it's probably one of the less dismal albums to be released between 2002 and 2010. Did I object? No. Would I recommended it to a friend? No. Would I rather be listening to Hugo Kant? Yes.
I mean, it's not bad. But it just kind of exists.
2
Sep 13 2022
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I'm Your Man
Leonard Cohen
Well the first track set the tone as being 80s AF.
Is Leonard Cohen meant to sound like a dodgy pickup artist?
I mean, I'm literally never going to listen to this again. It's like being subject to the boring guy in the pub, except he's crooning at you instead of just talking. The lyrics are a bit "yeah, rightoh mate".
2
Sep 14 2022
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Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
50 Cent
Sigh.
Let's try and get this over with.
OK, so this is bad. Like, genuinely not very good. I had forgotten quite how much I loathe, despise and detest "in da club". As far as I'm concerned this album isn't quite the nadir of early-mid 2000s music, but it is damned close. It's almost irredeemable. I'm trying hard to find something good about it, but I just can't.
1
Sep 15 2022
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Jazz Samba
Stan Getz
I don't really need to listen to this to know I'm going to love it.
I listened to it. I loved it.
5
Sep 16 2022
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The Lexicon Of Love
ABC
I only knew Poison Arrow, but the rest of this album is great in the same way. Thoroughly enjoyed.
5
Sep 17 2022
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The Marshall Mathers LP
Eminem
It legit annoys me that I like this. I shouldn't like it. Mathers is an obnoxious, homophobic asshole. His lyrics are disgusting, his delivery cocky and irritating. But the record bounces. The flow is fluent, the imagery is vivid.
God that's annoying.
4
Sep 18 2022
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Tarkus
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Indulgent. Not awful, but not for me.
2
Sep 19 2022
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Natty Dread
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Well, this is an album I'd not heard of before, and I'm not sure it could be any more perfect. I'd not even heard these versions of the tracks I had heard before. Great stuff.
5
Sep 20 2022
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Axis: Bold As Love
Jimi Hendrix
I have a small problem with reviewing this album. I can listen to Jimi, but I can't hear him. There's a difference. Just because I'm listening to him, it doesn't mean I'm hearing him.
I also cannot jump.
5
Sep 21 2022
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High Violet
The National
After the first track, I'm prepared to believe that this is going to be an absolutely awful album. It possesses all of the pomp and self-aggrandizement of the worst of the Arcade Fire, Elbow-y type shite that infected the mid-2000s.
I've made it as far as "Little Faith" and I've decided that there is nothing in this album for me. I've no time for this kind of guff.
1
Sep 22 2022
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Swordfishtrombones
Tom Waits
I approached this with caution. Having previously been subjected, via this list, to Bone Machine, I fully expected this to be similarly atrocious. In fact, the first couple of tracks are quite nice, bluesy stuff. Then comes track 3 - Dave The Butcher - which is the exact kind of a cacophonic bullshit that I was fearing. It sounds like a college kid has been given the brief to make something that sounded like a haunted circus. Johnsburgh, Illinois starts off with a beautiful, perfectly recorded and produced piano solo. And then he starts singing in that broken voice. Nah.
Next track track - 16 shells - is actually quite engaging, in an Americana sort of way. But I think he needs to see a voice coach. That sound cannot be good for his larynx.
Town with no cheer. Bagpipes? Srsly? I get the very real feeling now that Tom Waits is deliberately trying to be antisocial. Especially when it leads straight into be being played on a Stylophone.
Then we coast along in a bit of bluesy Americana until Gin Soaked Boy, which is great. And we round off the album with an abrupt nothing.
Difficult to rate this, because while the bad stuff is bad, the good stuff is great. If I didn't think he was trolling, it would probably get a 4. But I do think he's trolling, so I will bestow a punitive 2.
2
Sep 23 2022
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The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
Joni Mitchell
Yup. Thoroughly enjoyed this.
5
Sep 24 2022
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The Healer
John Lee Hooker
I enjoyed this, but then I knew I would. John Lee Hooker is The Tits when it comes to blues. This isn't quite what I expected, being a touch more 80s than anything I've heard by him before. Good though.
4
Sep 25 2022
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Ananda Shankar
Ananda Shankar
A lot of Indian covers of rock and roll tracks. Interesting, but nothing that's making me think anything over and above some good, if uninspired musicianship.
4
Sep 26 2022
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Beyond Skin
Nitin Sawhney
Interesting Indian chillout album.
4
Sep 27 2022
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Dirt
Alice In Chains
It is actually dirty. But that's just fine. I managed a very deep sleep whilst trying to listen to this. I'll have to give it another go sometime.
4
Sep 28 2022
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Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
It's a decent album, but a couple of tracks stand out way more.
I can't divorce this, as a work, from the stories that go with it. I think that had it not been such source of speculation, rumour and newspaper inches it wouldn't be as highly rated as it is.
Shortly after the release of this album, Stevie Nicks was approached by Bill Shatner, who proposed marriage. Looking at the Star Trek money, Stevie considered it briefly before realising that she didn't want to be called Stevie Shatner-Nicks for the rest of her life.
3
Sep 29 2022
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Liege And Lief
Fairport Convention
Yeah, I enjoyed this a lot.
5
Sep 30 2022
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Since I Left You
The Avalanches
I knew Frontier Psychiatrist. Turns out I also knew Since I Left You, without actually knowing that it was The Avalanches.
Frontier Psychiatrist can be a little overpowering. It's a great track, but can get a bit tiring because there is loads going on, and it's difficult to keep abreast of all the things there are assaulting your earballs. However - in the context of this album, it is amazing. This album is amazing. Speaking of keeping abreast - you need to, because this album is absolutely, 100% The Tits.
I was not expecting it to be. I was in the market for this sort of thing back in 2000/2001 - and it didn't hit me. I wish it did, because I think it may have changed the course of my life.
I'll say again. This album is The Tits. If there's anything I'd want to give more than 5 stars because it has gone over and above what I was expecting, what I was hoping for, and what I need to hear, it's this. There's some great albums in this list - and very, punishingly few of them come close to how good this is. Man, this is GOOD.
5
Oct 01 2022
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The Score
Fugees
I didn't even listen to this on the day, I instead listened to the day before's suggested album (Avalanches - Since I left you) twice more. God that's a brilliant album.
Anyway. The Score.
I have to admit, I've spent 25 or so years actively trying to avoid the Fugees. I absolutely hated "Ready or not" when it was released. I wouldn't want say I like now either, but I dislike it less intensely. I also disliked Fu-gee-la intensely on release, but that's grown on me. I quite often meow it to my cat. She humours me, although I suspect that she prefers it when I meow the Robocop theme to her.
Scanning down the track list, I see we've still got Killing Me Softly With His Song - and guess what, I absolutely detested that back in the 90s too.
The odd part of all this is the fact I clearly dislike Lauryn Hill rather than The Fugees, because the rest of this album is really jolly good. The flow is great, the beats mellow, relaxing and expertly constructed. It's hard to rate this album, because the strong dislike I have for the flagship Lauryn Hill tracks really does detract from the actually really bloody good rest of the album. I can skip a couple of tracks and enjoy the rest.
4
Oct 02 2022
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Back In Black
AC/DC
Yep. Pretty much AC/DC.
5
Oct 03 2022
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Eternally Yours
The Saints
This album is loud.
3
Oct 04 2022
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Is This It
The Strokes
Last night is the stand out track here. The album is not offensive, some of the baselines are catchy, but the relentlessly strummy guitar coupled with showboat electrics gets dull real fast.
Strum strum strum. Yawn.
2
Oct 05 2022
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Merriweather Post Pavilion
Animal Collective
Well this is OK. Enjoyed listening to it, but despite the fact it tries to be experimental and outlandish, remains pretty tame without all that much to push the envelope
4
Oct 06 2022
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Be
Common
I've been putting off reviewing this for a few days, mostly because I wanted to find a positive thing to say about it while not offsetting that nice thing with how fundamentally boring it is.
The beats are tepid and monotonous. His voice is tepid and monotonous. Yes, I'm sure the flow is there, but man I do not enjoy listening.
It's certainly different to have a rapper sample cheesy lounge music, rather than the usual funk, soul and disco staples. Sure enough, this album is reminiscent of one of those torpid 70s flicks about a sales executive for a packaging company having an affair with his secretary. These samples come straight from the scene where he lays in bed smoking while his secretary showers in the hotel en-suite. It's not interesting there and it isn't interesting here.
1
Oct 07 2022
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When I Was Born For The 7th Time
Cornershop
Seeing this in the list gave me a visceral, audible "Oh fuck" reaction that is based solely on the fact that Brimful of a shite is one of my most hated songs in history.
Cornershop. A literal cold shake, along side Toploader's "Dancing in the moonshite" and absolutely anything by Bob Dylan or Elbow.
Listening to the first track did not start well, filtering in with an accordion - a musical instrument with zero redeeming qualities - and continuing with overly repetitive licks that make me want to stab myself.
Brimful of course gets skipped - I'm not a masochist - and we're taken into more repeating scratches before a delightful tabla/sitar bit, marred at the end by yet more identical scratch loops.
I love the idea of British Asian mixup music, but Cornershop don't possess the ability to do it. It's gimmicky, amateurish and unrefined. Are we wanting to be catchy Britpop fusion, trip-hop fusion, psychedelic fusion or something in between all of them?
God, I find it difficult to express how much Brimful has tainted this whole album because nothing I've listened to is anywhere close to as bad. But yet my head is unable to dissociate between abject torture of that track and everything else on the album.
1
Oct 08 2022
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Loveless
My Bloody Valentine
Listened to approximately 12 seconds of each of the first two tracks. Easily enough to tell me that I'm gonna be tortured by this shoegaze atonal bilge.
1
Oct 09 2022
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Da Capo
Love
As I lay here listening to Da Capo, I wonder why this uncomplicated poppy 60s fayre has been included on the list. At which point Seven and Seven Is starts being a pre-punk, pre-surf punk delight that genuinely surprises me by being from 1966. We then go straight back to uncomplicated 60s pop fayre that - wait a minute - is actually complicated quite a lot by an awesome bassline and some tempo variations that I proper was not expecting.
Thumbs up.
5
Oct 10 2022
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The Number Of The Beast
Iron Maiden
This is so amusingly twee that it's almost impossible to realise how controversial Iron Maiden were.
Tshirts with Iron Maiden artwork on them will literally never see a washing machine, let alone be put in one with some detergent. Music is not always inseparable from its listeners. Almost anyone can enjoy, say, hop hop without being clad in trousers that fail to adequately cover the arse, an American football jersey five sizes too large and a backwards baseball cap. It is absolutely possible to enjoy psychedelia without being dressed to the nines in tie-dye linens and reeking of patchouli. It is not possible, however, to be an Iron Maiden fan without having body odour that arrives several minutes before you do, and stays past your departure by several hours. Perhaps said body odour has become semi-sentient? Maybe it gains sustenance and succor from the music itself, as if the exact frequency and harmonics provide life-giving force to it, like something from an episode of Doctor Who?
Anyway.
This album does exactly what it sets out to do, which is to be the kind of balls to the wall heavy metal piffle that is lapped up by the sorts of people (and their accompanying body odours) who lap up balls to the wall heavy metal piffle.
4
Oct 11 2022
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Technique
New Order
I feel this is another inclusion because of who they are rather than what the work is. It's OK. But not a new direction or enjoyable enough to warrant inclusion.
2
Oct 12 2022
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The Only Ones
The Only Ones
An act I was aware of the music of, but not in a way so as to have actually known who they are.
The first track on this album seems like a bit of a whiney white boy lamentation. Lovely sax though.
The second track is great, and probably (I don't know yet) the only track from the album I knew previously. The intro strongly reminds me of The Cars, which can never be a bad thing. When it gets going, it's a much more upbeat white boy feeling, pop-punk, being poppier than punk. I like this track a lot, including the showboat guitar piece.
Third track is a different vibe entirely. That bass sounds like it could be an organ at times. But then so does the lead guitar. Breaking down is the name of the track, and the drums are great. The vocalist is fits in nicely around a varied, but thematically cohesive tour of pace, tempo and rhythms... And that actually is an organ, isn't it?
Fourth track - City of fun - picks up the pace wonderfully. Lots of reverb on the vocals. Showboaty guitars again. Tight bassline.
The Beast is another irksome white boy lamentation. Although the bassline is pretty neat.
Unfortunately, the rest of the album becomes quite fatiguing quite quickly. There's nothing, per se, wrong with it, it just feels like it doesn't add anything extra.
3
Oct 13 2022
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Bad
Michael Jackson
I'm listening to the 2012 remaster and what in the parted buttocks has been done to this? The levels are dismal. His backing vocals are more prominent. The hi-hat synths are uncomfortably prominent and genuinely, I'm afraid I almost can't listen to it. What on earth was the producer thinking?
The way you make me feel isn't quite as bad as Bad. But it still reeks of terrible remastering.
Thinking it couldn't possibly be such inept remixing, I checked out the video on YouTube, and it actually is terrible.
The album - well. It's Michael Jackson. He done had problems. He was insanely talented in ways that very, very few people could hope to match. But he had problems, and the resolutions of which were insulated from him by vast amounts of money.
Album has to get a 3.
3
Oct 14 2022
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Happy Sad
Tim Buckley
I'm almost entirely certain that I'm going to hate this. Before I even put it on.
However. The first track has started nicely. His voice is lovely. Please don't fuck this up, Tim.
Tim. You've fucked this up. You're closing your eyes when you sing this, aren't you?
Oh noes! My emotions!
On the plus side. This album is only 6 tracks. Unfortunately they're all 6+ minutes long.
1
Oct 16 2022
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New Boots And Panties
Ian Dury
Without having to listen to this again, I know it to be one of the best albums ever pressed to vinyl.
Dury's lyricsm is unparalleled. His imagery, wordplay, delivery, pitch - everything - is almost perfect. The Blockheads are tighter than a gnat's twat.
Wake up and make love with me is a song that achieves a perfect balance between romance, passion and frustration.
Sweet Gene Vincent starts beautifully, capturing the skill of the Blockheads, before exploding into a rock and roll delight.
The production is spot on. Balanced, exactly the right amount of vocal reverb.
Partial to your abracadabra - more beautiful musicianship from the Blockheads. Dury sounds hoarse. This is not problematic for me.
My Old Man is a masterpiece of storytelling songwriting. I can imagine that those with no frame of reference may find this difficult to love, but for those who understand the understated admiration, the difficult to express love and the hardness that was expected of working class father/son relationships - this is just perfect. The swinging bass and the soaring sax absolutely counterpoint the socially enforced difficulty - "all the best, mate, from you son". Mate. The word contains so much, and it's just tucked in there like nothing.
Billericay Dickie is a pure delight. "I had a love affair with Nina in the back of my Cortina, a seasoned-up hyena could not have been more obscener." - just bloody marvellous.
Clever Trevor follows on from Billericay Dickie by being almost a diametric opposite character. Dickie is not a blooming thickie - but is certain, wiley, confident. Clever Trevor on the other hand is nervous, vacillating and caveats everything he says. It's a perfect juxtaposition.
"If I was with a woman" is the closest thing this album has to a bad track. It's cynical and unpleasant.
Blockheads is angry, powerful and aggressive. "I'm pissing in your swimming pool"- Dury is railing at the harsh commentary received in relation to the polio he suffered as a child, and serves to underline how purely goddamn talented he was.
Plaistow Patricia is also angry - but with more humour and probably utterly eludes definition by anyone born after 1991, or outside of England. How on earth is a millennial born in Omaha supposed to understand what "She's got a siamese cat in a council flat" means?
Siamese cats are expensive, and fussy little pricks. Council flats are social housing, usually pretty low-grade. Patricia clearly pretends to be posh. And she isn't.
Blackmail man is a wild ride. But it only really serves to bring us to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Which is a classic for all time.
Yes - this truly is one of the 1,001 albums to listen to. Sod that. It's one of the 101. Maybe even the 10.1.
5
Oct 18 2022
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Armed Forces
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Decent enough, I guess, but I'll not be going back to it. Probably too "of its time" - particularly Squeeze took the style and made it better.
3
Oct 19 2022
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Fear Of A Black Planet
Public Enemy
Fantastic album. Good beats, great samples, excellent flow. Worth it, 100%.
5
Oct 20 2022
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Paranoid
Black Sabbath
Jolly good.
4
Oct 21 2022
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Halcyon Digest
Deerhunter
This really isn't doing anything for me. Seems like a tired mashup of a dozen different styles, none of them done particularly well.
2
Oct 22 2022
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That's The Way Of The World
Earth, Wind & Fire
Funky, souly. I like it.
4
Oct 23 2022
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Bookends
Simon & Garfunkel
Yeah, something else I just don't get. Simon & Garfunkel seem to make decent enough, pleasing enough music that for some reason is revered as being the best thing ever, ever, 4! despite never actually going beyond decent enough, pleasing enough.
Paul Simon on his own is absolutely extraordinary. I can only conclude that Art Garfunkel acts as a brake on him.
3
Oct 24 2022
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Welcome to the Afterfuture
Mike Ladd
This is interesting, although I wouldn't go as far as compelling. I didn't think I'd like it. It grew on me. I'll probably consider listening to it again, but it won't be soon.
3
Oct 25 2022
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The Man Machine
Kraftwerk
It might be easy to dismiss this as plinky plonky scifi-ish synth, but it's actually really bloody great.
The music has structure and texture. It creates an image, it sets a mood. Sure, it's not Kraftwerk's first stuff, and it expands upon, rather than creates electronica as a genre - but it is cohesive, skilful and really appealing to listen to.
Try listening to The Robots on headphones while walking. It's almost impossible not to fall into step with the beat. Great stuff.
5
Oct 26 2022
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With The Beatles
Beatles
I know it's the Beatles, but this is such a meh example of the Beatles that I can barely finish writing this revie
2
Oct 27 2022
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Hypnotised
The Undertones
Really good. Unmistakably The Undertones. Not as snarky as Sharkey often is. Wednesday Week is the clear stand out track from this album.
5
Oct 28 2022
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Tago Mago
Can
Bits of this album are exceptional. Some bits are irritating.
Halleluwah is great. Fifteen minutes of bonkers rhythm that just sucks you in.
Peking O is annoying.
Overall, I love Can. So this is getting the full five stars.
5
Oct 29 2022
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Bitches Brew
Miles Davis
A masterpiece.
5
Oct 30 2022
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Music From The Penguin Cafe
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
I have never, before today, heard of these people. I approached it knowing literally nothing. And it's really good.
Tracks that are just on the edge of familiar while being absolutely new. This will definitely be listened to again.
5
Oct 31 2022
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Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division
Dark. Brooding.
Influential.
4
Nov 01 2022
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Channel Orange
Frank Ocean
Track 2 - thinkin' bout you - is so awful that it made my ears bleed.
Actually... Is this a parody album?
This opens out into almost pastiche R&B. It's like Sexual Chocolate for the 2010s.
The "not musical" interludes are grating. He dives all over the place, putting in little asides that just don't make any sense.
"Crack rock" might be a highbrow critique using meta to illustrate how hard drugs just don't fit in - but no, it just doesn't fit in.
There's actually quite a lot to like about this. His voice is lovely. Clearly he's thought about what he's doing. There are some lovely refrains. And some of the lyricism is quite nice. Maybe it can win me over, but I'm half way through it now and I'm not liking its odds.
Nope. Showboating indulgence. Had he gone for a more restrained, nuanced approach without the over-the-top attempts to be new, different and away from the mainstream then the pastiche R&B might actually have worked. But it swings three times and the poor bugger only gets the walk.
2
Nov 02 2022
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The Hour Of Bewilderbeast
Badly Drawn Boy
Fun fact - I used to drink in many of the same pubs and bars as Badly Drawn Boy, living as we both did in Chorlton in the early 2000s.
This album is expertly penned. The musicianship is lovely, the production is impeccable. It is also dull as ditchwater, with maybe two or three good songs on it.
2
Nov 03 2022
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Moby Grape
Moby Grape
I've heard of Moby Grape before, but never to my knowledge heard their music.
It's very decent. They do things with genre and timings that work well. Their guitars and drumming work well. Their songs are catchy.
I like.
5
Nov 04 2022
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Mr. Tambourine Man
The Byrds
This is very high pitched. Your tweeters will not like the tinniness of this.
It's... OK. There's a couple of decent tracks here, but it isn't great. Won't be listening again any time soon.
1
Nov 05 2022
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Ten
Pearl Jam
Yeah, it's OK. I mean, it's obviously better than OK, in that it is structured, performed and produced beautifully. But it just doesn't gripper me. I like to be grippered by music, and this has left me feeling unfortunately un-grippered. Which is a shame.
3
Nov 06 2022
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Bongo Rock
Incredible Bongo Band
Don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting this. I rather like it.
5
Nov 08 2022
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A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Coldplay
Tired, overplayed and no longer fit for the modern age.
1
Nov 09 2022
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Eli And The Thirteenth Confession
Laura Nyro
This is an interesting album.
On the first listen I was really fired up about it, as she does things I wasn't quite expecting from 1968. However, it is a bit too out there for the sake of being out there. Especially towards the latter tracks, where she seems to be writing vocal cheques that her voice can't cash.
The lean towards ostentation makes me want to give this a 3. Her voice, when in its lane, is superb. Which makes me want to go 5. The compromise has to be 4, hasn't it?
4
Nov 10 2022
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The Dark Side Of The Moon
Pink Floyd
Did I need to listen to this again to rate it five stars? No. Did I listen to it again anyway? Yes.
This album is magnificent.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown, waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Yes - it is probably music for gadgies like me. I first heard this in the 1990s, as a teenager. And I thought it would never be me. But here I am, loving the album still. The production is superb. The music is superb. The guitars are superb. The vocals are superb. Everything fits superbly.
If there were a list of perfect albums, this one has to be on it, probably quite near the top.
I know I'm going to sound like a massive ponce when I say this, but listening to this album on a REALLY good stereo, in a darkened room, while sipping on a glass of port is one of the most heart-bendingly beautiful experiences one can have.
5
Nov 11 2022
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The Notorious Byrd Brothers
The Byrds
I mean, it's OK. Considerably better that the other Byrds album from the list, but I'll not be going out of my way to listen to it again.
3
Nov 12 2022
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Mermaid Avenue
Billy Bragg
Do I like Billy Bragg? No.
Do I like Woody Guthrie? Also no.
Do I like this album? Absolutely not.
Dirge after dirge, I'm turning this hogwash off.
1
Nov 13 2022
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Debut
Björk
Another album to add to the list of "perfect" albums. This record is extraordinarily good. Pretty much only Björk could get away with taking possibly the catchiest, funkiest four-on-the-floor riffs you could come up with, and then buggering off to the khazi. In There's More To Life Than This, she has some sheer Icelandic bollocks and just nails it. Some just cracking tunes on here, and the production is through the roof.
Listen to it on decent headphones or a good stereo and marvel at how it all just fits together.
Brilliant.
5
Nov 14 2022
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Sheet Music
10cc
When I saw this come up I thought to myself "aren't 10cc the guys who did 'I'm not in love'?", but didn't really think much more about it until I was actually listening to them.
Well. I really enjoyed it. Couldn't even begin to describe the music, other than catchy, innovative and really well constructed.
Having enjoyed it, for no other reason than absolutely no reason, I mentioned to my sister that I'd listened to it and really enjoyed it. Turns out my sister knows a guy who's good mates with Graham Gouldman, who is actually in 10cc.
OK, so that means nothing to you, reading this review, but I thought it was pretty neat!
5
Nov 15 2022
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Lost In The Dream
The War On Drugs
I first came across The War On Drugs as Diane Nguyen dropped Bojack Horseman off in rehab at the end of series 5 of, well, Bojack Horseman. It's a scene that more or less stopped me dead, being a perfect culmination to a near-perfect series of a near-perfect tellyshow. Unsurprisingly, the music selection was near-perfect.
The album though - well... I like it. It's like Dire Straits came back from the early 1980s, stopped off in the early-mid 2000s and picked up Death Cab for Cutie then had an illegitimate love-child called The War On Drugs. I like it a lot. But I'd not choose to listen to it when I wanted to be lifted, spiritually or emotionally, to a happier place.
4
Nov 16 2022
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Deja Vu
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Wasn't expecting the first track to be anywhere near as funky as it has turned out to be.
I was expecting track two to be as country as it is. Grim.
Track three seems pretty dad rock. Was this in the soundtrack for Withnail and I?
Track four kinda defies explanation. It's slow rock with the dirty streak of country manifesting as thread-like veins beneath the surface.
Track fives rocks out a bit more. Oh, this track is called Woodstock. That makes sense.
Look, I know that CSNY are the ultra-revered supergroup, but I ain't buying it. It's exactly what you'd expect from a supergroup, and this is not a ringing endorsement. Everyone seems to be waiting their turn to do their bit, especially in track 6, which lurches hither and yon, veering between ostentation and banality. We have definitely all been here before.
Our House stands out. It is simple, unpretentious and, frankly just lovely. The same can be said of 4+20, which seems to call out to Gordon Lightfoot.
Country Girl veers wildly back to ostentation, with crashing chords, dramatically emphasised organs and melodrama rippling like the muscles of a wiry old man. It's the sort of track that has everything dialled to 11, and honestly, I can't wait for it to be over.
We finish up the album (after skipping the remnants of County Girl, god what a chore) with a gloriously upbeat and funky Everybody I love You. Again, it's the supergroup taking turns to do their turn. Each turn is exemplary, but... Like the whole album, it's actually pretty damned unremarkable.
2
Nov 17 2022
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Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
I've got to admit that I've tried this album quite a few times over the past decade and a half...but I've never 'got' it. You're started with a wall of noise, but the album rapidly becomes less than the sum of its parts. It just doesn't hang together as an album, despite many of that tracks on it being quite good.
I understand the legacy of it. But it doesn't fit together. And that's a shame.
2
Nov 20 2022
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Duck Rock
Malcolm McLaren
Having skipped out on this for two weeks - life generally having got on top of me - I come back to this after being recommended the absolutely dismal Urban Hymns by The Verve. Well.
Is this seriously from 1982? Like seriously?
And from the former manager of The New York Dolls and The Sex Pistols?
Wow.
This album is piggin' great. It comes at you from every direction - hip hop, hodown, electronic, African - it's all over the shop, yet still completely coherent and cohesive. I'm genuinely impressed.
5
Nov 21 2022
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Water From An Ancient Well
Abdullah Ibrahim
5
Nov 22 2022
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Dear Science
TV On The Radio
Never heard of this, or them. About a third of the way through I'm thinking "does this fella want to be Bowie?"
About a third of the way through I ponder if that he would perhaps prefer to be Prince. Then it started being pompous and orchestral, which demanded that I look up and find out if it was from the mid-2000s and yes, it just about was, released in 2008. Which is a shame.
... But hang on there. Red Dress. This is a bad song, but it is at least not the dirge/bilge of mid-2000s post britpop wankery.
I don't think I am the target demographic for this album. I can find very little to redeem it. It doesn't engage me, I'm not blown away by the production and it seems pretty derivative.
2
Nov 23 2022
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Rip It Up
Orange Juice
Music from skinny white boys.
Rip is up is brilliant. There are some decent enough tracks peppered through the rest of it, but I guess "who they are" is the key thing for this album.
3
Nov 24 2022
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Scum
Napalm Death
Has he got himself caught in his zip?
3
Nov 25 2022
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AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted
Ice Cube
It's difficult to offer a decent take on this album. On the one hand, it's absolutely piggin' great. On the other hand, it is tied to its time in a way that becomes rapidly uncomfortable. I was really pleased to hear Yo-Yo contributing to "it's a man's world", which goes a little way to showing that Cube knows his brand of misogynistic rap is "a bit much" but does it make up for the juvenile attitude of the rest of the album? Yeah, naw.
I appreciate that Cube is a parody of himself and of the genre, but its not explicit enough to not be seen as genuine. He is bloody good though.
4
Nov 26 2022
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Rocks
Aerosmith
I'm listening to this hung over as a motherfucker, and all I can think of is that this is, in music archaeology terms, the missing link between heavy metal and hair metal. Last child has quite a funky bassline. Other than that - I got bored of it very quickly.
2
Nov 27 2022
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Cloud Nine
The Temptations
You may have to resort to YouTube to find this as it doesn't appear to be listed on either Tidal or Amazon Music.
Once you do find it though, well, what a cracking lite album. The music, the voice, the pace - all spot on.
5
Nov 28 2022
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The Poet
Bobby Womack
Knowing nothing about this, I was slightly apprehensive about the title. Poetry is garbage, and there was a fear in my mind that this might be - the horror - folk rock. Thankfully it isn't. What it is is is soul. I mean, it's uncomplicated, soully and ultimately forgettable, but it's not exactly bad.
3
Nov 29 2022
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Fulfillingness' First Finale
Stevie Wonder
This is Stevie Goddamn Wonder.
Of course it's five stars. The man is a musician beyond musicians. Innovative, talented.
5
Nov 30 2022
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Central Reservation
Beth Orton
This is exactly what I'd imagine of an album by Beth Orton, except without having "She cries your name" on it.
I'm almost entirely certain that it's haunting and beautiful and shit, but dear gods it is boring. It is the soundtrack to a low budget independent film where a mid-to-late-twenties woman breaks up with a forty-something man because he's incapable of socialising without alcohol, doesn't want to settle down and hasn't had quite enough of a health scare yet to convince him to start jogging daily. As she sits sobbing on the back of a bus, Beth Orton's music highlights how broken her heart is.
I am the forty-something man with the low-grade alcohol dependency and all I can say is "FFS pet, WTF were you thinking? Listen to some Dido instead, at least that has some remix value."
2
Dec 01 2022
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The Modern Lovers
The Modern Lovers
This started out really strong, but tried very hard to lose my attention. By the time "dance with me" finally came around, I just wanted it to be over. For 1976 I can see how it has influenced others, however it's pretty clear that it is derived from Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk and Neu! so I guess swings and roundabouts?
Will be difficult to go higher than 2 for this simply because it lost me so quickly after such a good start.
2
Dec 02 2022
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Talking Book
Stevie Wonder
Second Stevie Wonder in, like, two days. And I do not object even slightly. This one is objectively a better album than Fulfillingness' First Finale, with Wonder doing so much that was technically cutting edge, and yet still sounding amazing.
And, of course, this album has Superstition on it. One of the best tracks ever recorded.
5
Dec 03 2022
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Ágætis Byrjun
Sigur Rós
This is an album that gets itself all over the shop. If you fancy testing out some new speakers, people will tell you to use this album. I can't for the life of me work out why.
I have tried more than once to listen to this album. Each time, I think to myself "There must be SOMETHING" to this - but every time I find myself reaching the same conclusion. This album is just really really boring.
It is obvious and boring.
It's exactly the sort of distilled wankery that plagued early-mid 2000s music, in that it is full of trowelled-thick sweeping orchestral tosh. Many of the tracks are painfully repetitive. The middle section of Svefn-g-englar is basically the needle stuck in the groove of some antisocial blighter making the noise "Tjú", which is warbled so frequently that I think I wanted to boil my head before it was even halfway finished.
I've seen in places that this is an album for millennials, something that may just solidify that I am not a millennial. Others have said that they use this album to journey through sweeping soundscapes, to lose themselves in imagery - and bully for them. I am just left with mental pictures of Professor Brian Cox looking gormlessly into the middle distance in front of a greenscreen backdrop, waiting for some clever chaps from the BBC to composite in an elaborately rendered 3D animation of some nebula or other. It holds almost zero interest for me, and I find the love for it perplexing.
When I listen to this album I am reminded that Spiritualised exist, and released Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space two years before this. Ladies and Gentlement is just better in every conceivable way.
I just don't get it. I don't have to, of course, and if you enjoy this bilge then power to your elbows, may your nipples explode with delight etc. It's not for me.
1
Dec 04 2022
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Urban Hymns
The Verve
No. No. Thrice no..
This album is interminably wanky and Richard Ashcroft is a massive wanker.
1
Dec 05 2022
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Heartattack And Vine
Tom Waits
The first question that leaps to the fore is "will this be as bad as I expect?"
The first track starts out strong, being bluesy AF. His voice starts and hang on, his broken voice works so well for blues.
Amazingly - and I stun myself here - the album continues to be very good. I think there was one track that I found less satisfying, but yeah, this was not at all a bad listen.
4
Dec 06 2022
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Bandwagonesque
Teenage Fanclub
This is decent. Not something I would regularly go back to, but certainly nothing to object to.
3
Dec 07 2022
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Close To You
Carpenters
To quote Austin Powers...
"And now for the music of Mr Burt Bacharach"
This album is "luvvie duvvie" in the extreme. Saccharine sweet, and incredibly twee. But also expertly put together and really rather lovely
4
Dec 08 2022
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OK
Talvin Singh
This is a superb album. I loved it in the early 2000s and while I prefer Ha!, this is a really great album too.
5
Dec 09 2022
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Like Water For Chocolate
Common
Another album where, having listened to it merely yesterday, I can remember almost nothing of.
Let's play it again.
OK, so yeah, this seems really quite well produced. I'm not exactly grippered by it, but it is diverting. Perhaps it's a grower?
3
Dec 10 2022
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Surf's Up
The Beach Boys
I want to like this. I really do. But I don't. It is dull. It is not fun. Yes, it's a different direction for The Beach Boys and I'm sure it was considered groundbreaking at the time, but do I enjoy it? No. I do not.
2
Dec 11 2022
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Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo
MC Solaar
I almost forgot about how much I enjoy French hip hop.
This is a particularly good example of it, too.
5
Dec 13 2022
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The Gershwin Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella's voice is, quite frankly amazing. Gershwin's songs are amazing. Sure, the whole of this album is twee and predictable, but that's because this has set the standard by which it is judged. It is the alpha to a vast array of artists and performers, and the inspiration for music way beyond what's on this platter. Unashamed in its commerciality, this is probably the epitome of crowd-pleasing musical standards.
5
Dec 14 2022
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Songs Of Love And Hate
Leonard Cohen
To quote Holden McNeil - Well look at this morose motherfucker right here.
Some artists will lift your spirits. Leonard Cohen will not. He will make you wallow in misery, with - to be fair to him - the occasional glimmers of hope scattered about the place. But while this is not at all my bag, I didn't actually object to listening to it. Not the best, but also not the worst.
3
Dec 15 2022
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Live At The Witch Trials
The Fall
Punky, in the dad kind of way. Clearly inspired the likes of I, Ludicrous and Sultans of Ping. Enjoyable.
4
Dec 16 2022
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Disintegration
The Cure
This album is worth five stars just for Pictures of You. The rest of it is almost irrelevant. I mean, fortunately the rest of the album isn't bad.
5
Dec 17 2022
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Winter In America
Gil Scott-Heron
I have no objections at all to giving this album four stars. It is very difficult to find, which is a shame. I guess some mild licensing issues?
4
Dec 18 2022
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Southern Rock Opera
Drive-By Truckers
Yawn.
I mean, it's all a bit samey. Perhaps if I were driving around the back roads of Hicksville USA this might be a good soundtrack, but I'm not so it isn't.
2
Dec 19 2022
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Music Has The Right To Children
Boards of Canada
DNF on this one. I'm sure it's all very impressive, but it didn't hold my attention for very long.
3
Dec 20 2022
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Emergency On Planet Earth
Jamiroquai
Some really good funk, let down only slightly by Jay Kay being a prick.
5
Dec 21 2022
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Pretenders
Pretenders
This sounds way ahead of its time. Late 70s, really? Impressive.
5
Dec 22 2022
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good kid, m.A.A.d city
Kendrick Lamar
I know that Kendrick Lamarr is viewed as some sort of god, but I cannot for the life of me work out why. "Bitch, don't kill my vibe" makes me want to question why he's putting that voice on. The flow vacillates wildly between "hey this is pretty decent" and "ohmygod, what is this amateurish tosh?"
The whole album seems to delight in wobbly bass, which doesn't half get tiring after a while. TBH, not sure I'm going to sit through the rest of this.
1
Dec 23 2022
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Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs
Marty Robbins
What the actual shit?
1
Dec 24 2022
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Beggars Banquet
The Rolling Stones
Sympathy for the devil gets this a five star rating in the bag. Anything after this can only detract. And bugger me, the rest of the album detracts.
"No expectation" is a blues/rock chore.
"Dear Doctor" is a blues/country chore.
"Parachute woman" is Mick Jagger straight up doing a bad cosplay of John Lee Hooker. White boys can't blues.
It doesn't open out to rock and roll again until track 6, "Street fighting man", and even that seems kinda repetitive and whiny somehow.
Prodigal Son is an excellent track, but also a cover version of some actual blues. Stray Cat Blues comes around, and like the titular cat is has no home - neither with rock or blues. I feel as if I've heard enough at about the time the drums start to get interesting and am compelled to not skip just to find out where Charlie Watts goes with it.
Factory Girl comes up interesting, with some genuinely very good percussion and the fiddles work incredibly well with Jagger's un-Jaggery vocals.
Salt of the Earth sounds like the third act opener of a rock opera, rather than the final track of a Stones album.
Overall, this album starts with one of the best tracks of the twentieth century and then immediatly falls to shit. It does get better, but other than a straight up cover version and a couple of passable Stones tracks, this album fails to live up to its opener.
2
Dec 25 2022
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Night Life
Ray Price
I had hoped, on getting a fleeting first glance at the album art, that this might have been a jazz album. It is not jazz. It is the countriest of country music.
Not something I'd ever want to listen to.
1
Dec 26 2022
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Highway to Hell
AC/DC
Doubtlessly one of the best rock albums of all time. Bonn Scott's voice is perfect for this style of music. There's not a dud track on here. Each individual element is in itself perfect, and add up together to be somehow better. Thankfully AC/DC seems to have avoided the questionable lyrics that many of their contemporary bands seemed to delight in too.
5
Dec 27 2022
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Sticky Fingers
The Rolling Stones
There are some good rocking tracks on this. There are some interminably long and boring tracks in this (looking at you Can't You Hear Me Knocking?) album.
Has it stood the test of time? Kinda. Is it way past its best? Also yes. Is it good for four or five stars? Even three?
No.
2
Dec 28 2022
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Post Orgasmic Chill
Skunk Anansie
You know, I don't think I've listened to this album for nearly twenty years. Stoosh is such a good album that any time I want to hear Skin belting something out with her - let's be fair now - absolutely incredible pipes, I'll go straight to that. That's not to say that this isn't a good album. It is a good album. But as I listen to it, I hear some little production issues that put me off a little. Skin sounds like she's in a room just slightly too small for her. There's some late 90s compression going on too, where the recording doesn't do justice to the material. It feels flatter than it should be, and that's a shame. Because Skin's voice is able to be beautiful, fragile and indeed angelic in the quiet moments. And like a furious angel, she can tear the flesh from your bones with it during the loud parts. But there's not enough to difference in this recording to capture that, which is almost a crime.
4
Dec 29 2022
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Calenture
The Triffids
White boy music from the 1980s that I have literally never heard of? WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
But really - this is utterly tepid. If it were any more middle-of-the-road it'd have cats eyes. This is the biggest "Huh?" in just over a year of doing 1,001 albums. It isn't terrible, but it sure isn't good.
2
Dec 30 2022
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Life Thru A Lens
Robbie Williams
Really?
Really really?
OK, so obviously Williams comes from the background of Take That. He's got some talent, we can't deny that, but what he has in spades is ego. This comes through more than anything else on this album. He went to great lengths to ride the post-Britpop, post-boyband wave and collected songs that complimented his style. Can't fault him - he plugged in with exactly the right people at the right time. Is his style enduring? No. Clearly not. Was he of his time? Yes.
This album is almost painfully 1990s. As someone who was there, "Angels" cannot help but bring back images of the penultimate song in the nightclub, when all the girls had sensibly gone off to find taxis home, this song would come on and a load of beery-teary blokes would stand in geet big circles, arms draped companionably over each other's shoulders, singing this at the top of their lungs to demonstrate to any straggling women that they were decent blokes and not beer-swilling monsters.
This album is OK. It's not great. It's certainly not something I'd include in list of must-listens, but it's OK. One thing I will suggest though, is to go off and find the video of Robbie Williams on stage with Tom Jones at the 1998 Brit Awards. Williams is trying so very hard, bless him. He's doing well. The crowd are enjoying him. It's good. And then he introduces Tom Jones and the crowd goes FUCKING NUTS. Jones outclasses him effortlessly in every possible way. It's so cute to watch Williams strut around trying to get himself noticed while Jones has the crowd eating from the palm of his hand. Can't recommend it enough!
2
Dec 31 2022
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All Things Must Pass
George Harrison
Blimey, long album is long!
Some decent tracks here - especially for 1970 - but by golly gosh there's some self indulgence about. "Let it down" is interminable. It could do with being 7 minutes shorter, and no mistake.
I feel that someone, somewhere in the process of making this should have said "Look George, I know you were a Beatle, but I really think you should trim the playing time by about ⅔ here mate..."
It's just too damn long. If he'd put this out as three separate albums he'd have got one very good album, one good album and a pile of dross. But it somehow made it into the wild being over two hours long. And that shouldn't have been allowed to happen.
2
Jan 01 2023
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Very
Pet Shop Boys
Back in the early-mid 2000s I was given a burnt DVD containing (among other things) the entire catalogue of Pet Shop Boys releases. Everything, singles, albums, best of mixes - if it had been released, it was copied there in glorious 320kbps MP3.
There were a LOT of Pet Shop Boys tracks - to the point where a random play of mp3s from my selection would pop up with one of them every four of five songs.
And I'm afraid that this has rather polluted the Pet Shop Boys for me.
They are an important act in the history of electronic music - but this selection is from 1993 when they had broken a not insubstantial amount of ground already. Saying that, I've tried to listen objectively. Is this a good album?
No.
Is it an important album?
Also no.
Why is it included on this list?
Because Pet Shop Boys. It's the artist, not the album being honoured here. And that's a shame.
2
Jan 02 2023
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Hejira
Joni Mitchell
Mitchell's voice is silken, her music understated. And holy heck it is a difficult listen.
I can't describe these as songs. They're long-form narrative stories set to music. I tried to pay attention to the "lyrics" (story) whilst listening, but so often found myself just totally zoning out, because everything is enoted in much the same way. This album is, for sure, an experience. But not one I'd wish to repeat any time soon.
2
Jan 03 2023
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Rubber Soul
Beatles
This starts out "oh so Beatles-y" and continues to be unmistakably The Beatles throughout. Special mention needs to be made of Norwegian Wood, which is a track which surely must sit up near the top of greatest recordings ever made. I feel somewhat guilty of calling it that, given I've just this morning absolutely slated Joni Mitchell's Hejira for being long-form storytelling, but it is just brilliant. I also need to mention how absolutely bloody horrific "Run for your life" is. Say what you like about the misogyny of gangsta rap or dancehall - this is it, right here, pure and unbridled. Grim.
Norwegian Wood puts this album to 5 stars. Run for you life knocks it down to 3.
3
Jan 04 2023
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I Against I
Bad Brains
Well, I've never heard of these guys before. I guess what they're doing sounds more 90s than 80s so I can imagine that they're that influential type that nobody outside of the music industry has ever heard of, but apparently inspired everyone else to make music that is both good and popular.
Nothing wrong with this album - it's not too long, not to short. And does sound ahead of its time.
4
Jan 06 2023
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Treasure
Cocteau Twins
Listening to this, I'm thinking to myself "This is music for sex isn't it? They've gone out to create sex music. And they're twins. Ew."
Turns out that thankfully they're not twins at all so the sex bit is less uncomfortable.
This album is quite a lot like sex in that I don't get it. Other people, who do get it, seem to love it.
2
Jan 07 2023
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Songs From The Big Chair
Tears For Fears
This is an album with a couple of genuinely great tracks on it, unfortunately these are few and far between, tucked between the very wankiest of 80s ballads and sad white boy dirges. Donnie Darko did Tears For Fears an absolutely solid favour by using Head Over Heels in one of the most memorable scenes of the past 30 years. Without it, would we still be considering this album? I most certainly would not.
2
Jan 08 2023
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Behaviour
Pet Shop Boys
Another Pet Shop Boys. Joy.
The sheer chutzpah of Neil Tennant to record a track called "Being Boring" when his vocal style is so close to monotone. The things about it - the damn thing about it - is that his voice is as close to perfect as it can be for these synths. The synths are great.
2
Jan 09 2023
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Bryter Layter
Nick Drake
Based on the album art alone, I thought I was going to hate this. He looks like exactly the sort of person who bores the tits off everyone at house parties by singing sad songs, obviously with his eyes closed, because the music is just so damned emotional. Listening to him though, I actually quite like it. Remarkably upbeat, he weaves in a few lovely-sounding diversion, some jazz, some bossa nova, some soft rock - it's quite nice. I don't think I'll ever care enough to listen to the lyrics, but it's quite pleasantly pleasing background music.
4
Jan 10 2023
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Liquid Swords
GZA
This album is The Tits.
Usually, if I were to hear martial arts film quotes interspersed through an album, I'd assume that the artist was targeting specifically to the sort of awkward, friendless no-hoper who wears cat ears and buys "Katanas" online. His low-grade steel will be pride of his collection, alongside his waifu bodypillow. Of course, the whole sorry lot would be under a cloud of stench that's managed to develop its own personality.
This is not that album.
The beats are great. The flows are great. The lyrics are catchy and engaging. The film quotes are referenced with a wink rather than an adolescent stiffy. And the album builds. It takes you as a listener on. Journey.
I like it. I like it rather a lot.
4
Jan 11 2023
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Suicide
Suicide
This isn't exactly an easy album to listen to, but it is worth a listen.
3
Jan 12 2023
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S&M
Metallica
This is a live album?
Skip!
By Metallica in the late 1990s?
Double skip!
1
Jan 13 2023
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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Beatles
I'll be willing to wager that there isn't much to be said about this album that hasn't already been said. Almost 30 years ago, I "studied" this album for my music GCSE. It was nearly 30 years old then, and plenty had been written at that point.
This album is exceptional. Musically wonderful, diverse and each track is curated wonderfully. Stand-out tracks are Within You, Without You and, of course, A Day In The Life.
A Day In The Life might be one of the best tracks ever recorded... well, ever.
I'll say something though - when I last listened to this album, I sure wasn't listening to it on the kit I have now. I've heard more of the instrumentation this time around, and it all fits together splendidly. Even the de-tuned piano at the start of A Day In The Life fits perfectly.
I remember thinking, at the age of 15 or 16, how the language used in She's Leaving Home was extraordinary. I'm not usually one to apply literary criticism to song lyrics - but this is just a masterclass in it. No reason is given by the girl for why she left. No reason is given by the parents. Despite this, it is clear as day why she did. Every utterance of the parent's lament is about themselves - "How could she do this to us" - "What did we do that was wrong?" - at no point did they attempt to see that their daughter was an individual, with her own thoughts, feelings and wants. It's just great.
5
Jan 14 2023
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Rum Sodomy & The Lash
The Pogues
Enjoyable, jaunty music that's dark AF. Hadn't listened to this before, or anything much my the Pogues but appreciate it now I have. Would I listen again? Maybe. Not as a day to day thing though.
4
Jan 16 2023
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Penthouse And Pavement
Heaven 17
Well, I'm sure that this was a groundbreaking album that helped bring synthpop to the British mainstream, but lordy I think this is dull. What it says in a whole album could probably have been achieved in 2-3 tracks. Maybe if Vince Clarke had been involved, they'd have been more interesting.
2
Jan 17 2023
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Ill Communication
Beastie Boys
I rather enjoyed this. Stand-out track was Sabrosa. The Beastie Boys sure have cleaned up their act. There's lots of nice samples in here, and lots of great breaks and beats.
4
Jan 18 2023
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Songs In The Key Of Life
Stevie Wonder
Immediate five stars - I know this is going to be superb because a) it's Stevie Wonder and b) it's Stevie Wonder's best album.
Important things to note - this is an INCREDIBLY important electronic album. Yes, this album is chock to the brim full of synth. Wonder basically took all of the latest bleeding edge stuff - literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth - and made an incredibly funky album using synths. This is also one of the most influential funk albums, soul albums, pop albums - it's just, absolutely 100% deserving of its accolades.
5
Jan 19 2023
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A Date With The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers
It's disposable pop.
I spent a lot of time listening to the Everly Brother on my walkman back in the early 1990s and I have to say that these are not the best songs to illustrate them. They harmonise well, and they're mostly inoffensive, but far more interesting things were happening in music, driven by people who were not as straight and white as the Everly Brothers. What the Everly Brothers did was to decant some of this work into a nice white boy package, to make it easier to sell.
It's a shame that we don't have more recognition in this list for the now sadly mostly forgotten inspirations.
3
Jan 21 2023
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Jagged Little Pill
Alanis Morissette
Gosh, this album reminds me so very much of the mid 1990s.
Of course I had (probably still do) this on CD. Lots and lots of people did. What strikes me about it now is how hilariously emotionally undeveloped it is. "I'm here to remind you of the mess you left when you went away" - sorry pet, he went away. Your emotional response is no longer his concern.
How can we forget her breaking into another guy's house and getting upset to find a letter from another woman. Hyew lass, why not try not being a creepy stalker, laying in this guy's bed so you can, um, smell him? Honestly, it's the 90s equivalent of going through somebody's text messages.
For all the emotion and talent on display in this album, I'm fairly sure that the problem was her. This thought is pretty much solidified by "head over feet" - the man she describes is doing the minimum fucking possible. He listened to her. He held the sodding door open. Clearly the catch of the century. Um, yeah. I'm guessing that she'd been self-selecting asshole blokes then getting upset upon finding out that he's an asshole.
Finding a Prince has nothing to do with kissing frogs. Probably a better place to start is "Not a pond". Get some self respect. I guess that this album is quite good in that we'd had decades of whiney white boys being able to put their teenage inexperience and dismal ineptitude onto vinyl, and yeah, it's sure nice to have a woman do that, but it's still whiney emotional ineptitude being shown here.
All that being said - this album was massive, and did shift a paradigm or two, which has to be acknowledged. And I mostly enjoyed listening to it again for the first (maybe second) time in a decade or more. Biggest surprise was the absolute reawakening of my hatred of "Mary Jane". I had completely mentally erased it from my memory of this album. For the aged familiarity of non-single tracks like Perfect or Right Through You, Mary Jane stirred memories of having to skip the track as the only genuinely bad track on an otherwise great album. I was honestly surprised at both how much I disliked it, and how completely I had managed to remove it from my memory of an album I must have listened to hundreds of times.
Rating this album may be tricky. Because I really do find it (now) to be painfully immature, with a hilarious lack of self awareness or introspection (something most whiney white boy music has in nauseating overabundance) present. The music slaps though, and her vocals are generally pretty good. The production is great, and it genuinely is an album that changed music. I'd err towards 5 stars due to the impact of the release, but its underdeveloped character and the inclusion of the godawful Mary Jane does have to lock it down to a high 4.
4
Jan 23 2023
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Stand!
Sly & The Family Stone
This album slaps. Got some cracking good stuff on it. Would recommend.
5
Jan 24 2023
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Green Onions
Booker T. & The MG's
I know that I'm going to love this. Green Onions is one of those "Epitome of cool" tracks that simply can't help but make you feel like you're the smoothest human to ever stalk to face of the planet.
Second track comes at you with the Hammond organ croaking out a slightly clipped, muted tune. The backing is great, but when we come onto track 3, Jones is making that organ sing like a Yukon bear trapper on his annual visit to the brothel.
Sure, the band is great and there's not a note out of place, but the organ is in this like Blackpool rock. It's magnificent.
Track four up and we've got such a funky sound it almost hurts. Mo' onions? Mo' funk! Mo' organ!
It isn't as cool as Green Onions, but it uses similar,well, everything. After this is Twist and Shout, which isn't as good The Beatles or Ray Charles' covers. Mildly let down, the Hammond becomes soulful and down tempo. We go further towards melancholy in track 7.
Lonely Avenue, track 8, turns bluesy, with the Hammond doing the Lord's work, intricately replicating what you've come to expect from a Louisiana bluesman's harmonica.
Track 9 comes upbeat, and I'm here for that. "One who really loves you" gives us intricate melodies and we move on apace with a nice short track that once again makes you want to get up and dance - and you know you'll feel great doing it.
Track 11 comes around to blues again, and to be honest it's a little boring. The twiddliness reminds me a little of Withnail and I, but not quite in the way I'd home.
Comin' Home Baby is a nice gentle finish to a superb album. Although nothing will reach the heights of Green Onions, Mo' Onions does come close. And Green Onions alone would get this album a 5.
5
Jan 25 2023
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Ragged Glory
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
God Country Home is awful. His voice is terrible. Out of tune. Whiny. Skip.
I've made it as far as "over and over" (track 4) and I'm going to have to abandon this. The instrumentals are OK-ish, nothing to write home about, but his voice is absolutely fucking awful. He can't hold a tune any more than I could hold the plums of an enraged bull elephant. This is dismal. People actually like this crap?
1
Jan 26 2023
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You're Living All Over Me
Dinosaur Jr.
What garage band tripe is this?
2
Jan 27 2023
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Sound Affects
The Jam
This is probably the best The Jam album. Couple of scorching tracks here. Not a huge amount of filler. Good.
3
Jan 28 2023
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Here Are the Sonics
The Sonics
Rock and roll. Less refined than contemporaries. But that was probably the intention.
3
Jan 29 2023
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Let England Shake
PJ Harvey
Some of this album is even kinda OK.
Unfortunately a larger percentage of it is appalling. Like, uncomfortable to listen to appalling. "England" was the first of it to get a skip. Warbling tosh, the sort of thing you expect to hear from a talentless 2nd year university student at an open mic night.
"Written on the forehead" needs to get in the sea.
1
Jan 30 2023
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Two Dancers
Wild Beasts
Having made the mistake of reading the reviews here before listening to anything beyond the first half of the first track, I was kind of expecting this to be utterly awful. It isn't. I mean, it isn't world-changingly amazing, but it's pretty decent-ish experimental music, happily released at a time that the music world had taken a battering of the absolute void that was 2002-2008.
The music industry was reeling; they'd evacuated their bowels so completely, with such violence and vigour that it had taken their brains out with it. "Oh noes!" they thought. "Napster and Limewire and torrents and Apple Music are going to ruin us!", wailed the music execs. And they sent their lawyers. Wave after wave of lawyers, all claiming that a teenager putting half a dozen of their favourite songs on limewire meant tens of trillions of "unrealised revenue". Indeed, Limewire was sued in 2012 by the Recording Industry Ass. of America for $72tn. $72tn! The World Bank tells me that the GDP of the entire USA in 2012 was $16.25tn, which just goes to show how ludicrously delusional the music industry had become.
The Fear Of Piracy ruined music in the mid-2000s, like some eviscerating beast. Any executive with any record label was more acutely aware of the myriad lawsuits against teenagers and college students than of the talent and aspiration of up-and-coming artists. Declining revenues - which would normally be a bad thing - were ascribed to piracy, and yet the music that they made available was dismal. Colour me a conspiracy theorist, but declining music sales could easily be shown as proof that piracy was ruining them - and it might actually have been in their interest to continue pumping out dismal music and dismal artists.
This album doesn't really fit that theme, though. Before being recommended this, I had literally never heard of the album or the artist. So clearly the music industry weren't pushing this down our throats in the way that they were for, say, The White Stripes or The Killers. But this album is better constructed than a The White Stripes or a The Killers album. Whilst there are some clear gurns to the camera telegraphing how new and "innovative" this album is, there's also a clearly constructed method to how the album progresses. And that's quite refreshing. Would I rate it as a must-listen? No, clearly not. But is it as bad as the reviews here make out? Also no.
3
Jan 31 2023
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Solid Air
John Martyn
Who on earth is John Martyn?
What is this album all about?
Turns out that this album is The Tits. It's just great. Unashamedly absolutely fan-piggin-tastic.
Which of course means that John Martyn is going to be a wrong'un. Of course it means that. It has to mean that. Let's do some research. Oh, yes, there it is. Alcohol and drug abuse, spousal abuse, generally being a bit of a dick to a lot of people. Hmmm. Why is it that people who are so damn good at music are always such turds? If we can divorce the art from the artist, this is 5 stars.
In this case - I think I probably can.
5
Feb 01 2023
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Scott 2
Scott Walker
This is quite enjoyable, in an over-the-top and theatrical way, complete with its questionable lyrics. Jackie is clear and away the stand out track.
4
Feb 02 2023
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Signing Off
UB40
Yeah, this holds zero interest for me. It is bad reggae. Nice, maybe,that it opened people up to reggae. But beyond that, nope.
1
Feb 03 2023
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Rust In Peace
Megadeth
It's been a few days since I listened to this, and I find myself having to re-listen to remember what it's like. I mean, it's good. Not my genre. The imagery of it is quite hilariously "teen boy" and you can imagine the stench of unwashed leather and denim at their concerts. That saying, the whole thing is tighter than a tight thing and it does exactly what it sets out to do - with aplomb.
Probably going to have to be 5 stars, isn't it?
5
Feb 05 2023
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Antichrist Superstar
Marilyn Manson
Separating the art from the artist - this album changed the 1990s for me. It is brilliant, aggressive, reflective, seductive and dangerous. Unfortunately, this turns out to be a good description of Brian Warner too.
Thing is - the warning signs were there from the very start. Beautiful People is a Glitter beat, for the love of all things. Such a shame that people allowed him to carry on.
The album itself is an easy 5 stars - and that's what I'll be rating it. But I couldn't listen to it again. I tried. And I just can't dissociate enough to let myself continue.
5
Feb 06 2023
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Live And Dangerous
Thin Lizzy
A live album. Joy.
Decent-enough tracks, clearly a talented outfit, but not something I'd get excited by and an immediate 1 star review by virtue of being a live album. Maybe 2 for not being painful?
2
Feb 07 2023
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Amnesiac
Radiohead
The OK stuff is OK. Merely OK. Not great.
The terrible stuff is absolutely awful.
This is one of those albums that the britpop music ponces cream themselves over. To them, this album is genius. If you don't like the awful, talentless thrashing of the bad stuff it's simply that you're too stupid to appreciate the craftmanship and the beauty of the Emperor's new clothes. I have briefly considered giving this two stars, given that there genuinely are a few listen-toable tracks in here. Unfortunate that the overwhelming wankiness totally obviates that.
1
Feb 08 2023
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Pieces Of The Sky
Emmylou Harris
Sure, I'll admit she has a lovely voice and sure, I'm sure that lots of people love this. But I just can't get away with the overwhelmingly vast majority of country.
1
Feb 09 2023
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The New Tango
Astor Piazzolla
As good as one could ever expect from music played on the xylophone and accordion.
3
Feb 10 2023
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Come Find Yourself
Fun Lovin' Criminals
I'd forgotten quite how good some of these tracks are. Nothing says mid-1990s like Scooby Snacks. There's some terrible stuff in there too. Like that cover of "We have all the time in the world".
3
Feb 11 2023
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Deloused in the Comatorium
The Mars Volta
What a mish-mash of unpleasantness. DNF.
1
Feb 12 2023
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The Sun Rises In The East
Jeru The Damaja
Quite surprised by this. Started off being fairly generic, but grew on me considerably. Will probably listen again.
4
Feb 13 2023
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Scott 4
Scott Walker
Well listen to this morose motherfucker right here.
The album isn't terrible. Sounds a bit like the soundtrack to a 70s film. Could be worse.
2
Feb 14 2023
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Blur
Blur
Well, this is the fifth album Blur released but it is far from the best. Saying that, Beetlebum is brilliant, Song 2 was ubiquitous in the 1990s and there's probably not many people who've never heard it even now. The stand-out, hands-down track of the album though is On Your Own. I'd forgotten it, but it just slams. Synth, bass, drums (machine?) and different work on the lead guitar adds into some almost spot-on perfect, archetypal Blue vocals. Shows that Blur could hurl out some cracking stuff.
There's some dross in here too - country sad ballad man was painful in the 1990s and still is now. Theme from Retro wants to be a blur-ish take on the circus-y bits of Sgt Pepper, but it just comes off as cack-handed. Overall, I'd say this would be a 5 star album from someone who wasn't blur. But because it is blur, four..
4
Feb 15 2023
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Remain In Light
Talking Heads
Yeah, this is pretty good. Once in a lifetime is the one everyone knows, but the rest of it just goes down nicely.
4
Feb 18 2023
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Back At The Chicken Shack
Jimmy Smith
This is just perfect. Listen to it. Love it.
5
Feb 19 2023
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Maggot Brain
Funkadelic
Impossible to overstate the influence George Clinton had on music.
5
Feb 20 2023
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A Walk Across The Rooftops
The Blue Nile
Well this wasn't as bad as many of the reviews made it out to be. I didn't enjoy it hugely, but then I don't think I was "listening to it right". I probably should have fed this through some hilariously expensive speakers.
At least this is all kinds of better than Thundercat or Sigur Rós, another couple of artists wheeled out by the audiophile crowd when they want to stroke themselves off over the equipment rather than listening to and enjoying the music. I would actually be moderately tempted to listen again, just to see.
3
Feb 21 2023
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Being There
Wilco
Pick a genre, my dude.
3
Feb 22 2023
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Pearl
Janis Joplin
Beautiful, brilliant.
4
Feb 23 2023
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Vauxhall And I
Morrissey
Mercifully short.
"The more you ignore me" has some small merit, but the rest of this appears to be tosh wrapped up in boredom and melancholy.
It would be remiss of me not to point out what an asshole Morrissey is.
1
Feb 24 2023
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Music in Exile
Songhoy Blues
I really enjoyed this.
4
Feb 25 2023
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Revolver
Beatles
Great tracks that start going downhill a little with "Yellow submarine"
5
Feb 26 2023
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Kilimanjaro
The Teardrop Explodes
Pretty eighties. Some good tracks. Not something I'm compelled to listen to again, but decent enough.
3
Feb 27 2023
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Femi Kuti
Femi Kuti
Great. Easily listen-to-able, band's tight, what could you dislike?
5
Mar 02 2023
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New Wave
The Auteurs
This is wholly umremarkable.
2
Mar 03 2023
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Deep Purple In Rock
Deep Purple
As a teenager, I purchased a "Best of Deep Purple" album. A lot of the tracks on that compilation were from this album. This probably should tell you that this is a great Deep Purple album.
5
Mar 04 2023
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Beautiful Freak
Eels
Awww, YISS!
I remember buying this album. I would have been 16 years old, and this would have been the first album I ever bought on CD.
I loved it. I listened to it a couple of weeks back, actually, inspired by another album in the 1,001 - and am very pleased to see it come up in its own right. This album is great. I'm not speaking from a history of nostalgic whatever - there are some supberb lyrics here "Looking out with an ugly face, Winston Churchill in drag"
5
Mar 05 2023
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Dummy
Portishead
Brilliant album. Love almost everything about it. Put Bristol on the music map, for sure.
5
Mar 06 2023
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Aladdin Sane
David Bowie
Oh joy, oh rapture. More Bowie.
The bassline to "Aladdin Sane starts out fun, turns into an 80s sax yawn then becomes rapidly awfu in its repetitiveness. Hey, the 80s sax continues onto later tracks too, fun.
I'm entirely sure that Bowie was the first to put together so many of the things he "was influenced by" but as I've opined many times before in my reviews of his interminable ouvre, I could happily live the rest of my life not hearing him again.
His cover of "Let's spend the night together" is irritating. Oh, plus bonus paedo lyric. This isn't a one star album, because it's mostly not actually offensive, but I can't say it's enjoyable.
2
Mar 07 2023
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Brilliant Corners
Thelonious Monk
This is Thelonious Monk, therefore it gets five stars.
5
Mar 08 2023
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Skylarking
XTC
I mean, this is OK. I don't really have an opinion on it.
100% neutral.
What is it that makes a man neutral, Kiff?
3
Mar 09 2023
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Olympia 64
Jacques Brel
I was genuinely quite impressed by what is, unfortunately, a live album. He sings well. It is recorded as well as a live performance could be.
4
Mar 10 2023
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Manassas
Stephen Stills
I was quite enjoying this until "fallen eagle", which sounds like it's enjoyed by someone called Jeb who sits on his porch in a swing chair with a shotgun on his lap.
There's a few tracks in this album that are genuinely decent southern rock fayre. The out-and-out county distracts from them, which is unfortunate.
2
Mar 11 2023
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Head Hunters
Herbie Hancock
I thoroughly enjoyed this.
5
Mar 12 2023
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The Slider
T. Rex
This makes me think that this is what David Bowie might sound like if he made music I enjoyed.
4
Mar 13 2023
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Heavy Weather
Weather Report
There's another review for this that suggests it sounds like the soundtrack to a tellyshow from 1981, and I think that person got it cock on right.
Once you get past the saxy tracks, this becomes rapidly very boring. Sure, you can appreciate the saxy saxing, but past that I find it difficult to pull anything out.
2
Mar 14 2023
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Here's Little Richard
Little Richard
Absolutely groundbreaking.
Changed American and world music by doing the things few had done before, but having the courage, flamboyance and showmanship to risk the opprobrium of racists.
5
Mar 15 2023
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Court And Spark
Joni Mitchell
I very much like small doses of Mitchell. Her stream of narrative style of prose lyrics make it very hard to pay attention. I suppose I could just not pay attention and let the sound of her voice just wash me away, but it doesn't quite work like that. You find yourself re-attaching to the narrative and then thinking "But how? Why did we get here?" - and I find that quite irritating.
The music isn't engaging enough to keep me apace with the lyrics.
3
Mar 16 2023
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Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John
This is a difficult one to review. The first track is pretty good, but I cannot express in words how much I hate Candle in the Wind. All I can do to brighten my mood after the mere mention of that track is to picture a bunch of rugby lads trying to light their own farts.
The rest of the album just seems like Elton John. I'm sure that many people really love this, but I do not. It's just meh, meh and thrice meh.
3
Mar 17 2023
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The Stooges
The Stooges
This is brilliant. Difficult to believe that it is over fifty years old. Playing it now, it feels fresh and vibrant. Well. Mostly.
Five stars for the music. Five for what it went on to inspire.
5
Mar 18 2023
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Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Dead Kennedys
I've not listened to this album before, but I am familiar with many of the tracks. I'd give this 5 on the basis of California Uber Alles on its own. The rest of the album is pretty good too. Some genuinely interesting drumming on Drug Me. The vocals are great, but that tinny distorted kick drum and the snares are just fascinating.
In fact, the drums are one of the best bits of this. Brilliant stuff.
5
Mar 19 2023
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Murder Ballads
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Ah, the edgiest of edgelord albums. The music is great, the lyrics are... Um. Edgelordy.
If it wasn't so good, it'd probably be on some kind of watchlist.
"I am the man for which no god waits,
For which the whole world yearns" is a cracking line though.
5
Mar 20 2023
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Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Aphex Twin
Well this is all very nothing.
There is some merit to the album, despite the nothing. The repetitive nature of it is soothing. There is familiarity within the texture. You're not going to sit and listen to it, but if you can't bear silence, this is a good alternative. The most interesting thing this does is play around with bass and sub-bass frequencies. But it isn't designed to be interesting. It is ambient music - Music that fits into the background, washes over your consciousness and occupies space you didn't know was there.
4
Mar 21 2023
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Birth Of The Cool
Miles Davis
A nice collection of jazz. I prefer his later stuff, but this can't be sniffed at.
5
Mar 22 2023
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Vespertine
Björk
I made a mistake when listening to this album, in that before starting it, I played Hyperballad.
To hear what Björk is capable of, then playing Vespertine, almost has to be a bit of a disappointment.
That's not to say this album is bad. It isn't. But it isn't good, either. I'm not convinced it would be a grower, either. It is "bright" - almost to the point of distraction. I get that Björk is experimental. I also need to accept that often experiments fail.
2
Mar 23 2023
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She's So Unusual
Cyndi Lauper
80s pop sensation.
5
Mar 24 2023
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Honky Tonk Heroes
Waylon Jennings
Why do I do it to myself?
I know I won't enjoy a country album, but I gamely listen to a country album anyway because this might be the country album that changes my mind.
It was not.
Sure, it was tolerable. Jenning's voice is lovely. The honky tonk stuff was less awful than the country.
Did I enjoy it?
No.
2
Mar 25 2023
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Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
What a voice. Having heard so much of this music before, taking the time to really listen to it seemed a little unnecessary, but it actually really revealed how repetitive fast car is.
Despite that, this is a solid 5.
5
Mar 26 2023
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Larks' Tongues In Aspic
King Crimson
Well this is overwrought.
Some exceptionally talented musicians have managed to produce something really quite dull.
3
Mar 27 2023
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Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
Frank Sinatra
Croony croony croon, croon croony croony croon croon croon.
This starts out with Girl From Ipanema. Which is one of the weirdest songs ever. We then go onto some bossa nova standards which only kind of supports Sinatra's style. I mean, this is kind of an ego trip record. It's good, but is it world-changing? Not really. Bossa nova is great. Making Sinatra do it seems a bit perverse.
2
Mar 28 2023
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Selling England By The Pound
Genesis
Ah, prog rock. If this doesn't say "I'm a white Englishman who's over 40" then probably nothing would.
Technically very adept. At times odd. At more times, boring. Overwrought and showboaty.
3
Mar 29 2023
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Planet Rock: The Album
Afrika Bambaataa
I rather enjoyed listening to this. Clearly a source of a lot of beats and samples.
5
Mar 30 2023
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Buena Vista Social Club
Buena Vista Social Club
This is very acceptable background music. Performed by supremely talented musicians. It is not something I want to sit and listen to.
4
Apr 01 2023
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At Newport 1960
Muddy Waters
I don't usually like live albums, but sometimes sheer talent can outweigh the chore of audience noise and poor production.
This is one of those times.
5
Apr 02 2023
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Black Monk Time
The Monks
This is brilliant. I am actually disappointed that I'd not heard it previously. Especially liked We Do Wie Du, but the whole album has a lovely pre-punk feel that really strokes my yak. I'll definitely be coming back to this.
5
Apr 03 2023
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Virgin Suicides
Air
Air have produced some amazing music. All I Need is probably one of the best tracks of the 1990s and almost certainly one of the best tracks out of France. But Virgin Suicides is definitely an active listening album. It isn't bad, but you kind of need to have another focus for your attention that isn't the music.
I mean, this is 100% intentional by Air. It is, after all, a film score rather than an album of music for its own right. There are repeated motifs in the music, and this again is perfectly normal for a film score. Characters have themes, and events are underlined - and this doesn't necessarily have the same impact without the accompanying visuals.
It's a bold inclusion in the list, but there's enough to it to make it worth a listen, in a late 1990s French space-beat electronica kinda way.
4
Apr 04 2023
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Rock 'N Soul
Solomon Burke
Superb collection of music.
5
Apr 05 2023
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Suede
Suede
I start this off having grown up, very much, with Suede. So Young is a delicious track to listen to fresh for the first time in years. The distortion of the soaring electrics - stolen from and improved massively over their shoegaze inspiration - the competency of the drums and a bassline that complements, but doesn't overwhelm... Oh holy fuck that piano is just perfect isn't it? And it stays there, nestling in with the guitars and Brett Anderson's utterly incomprehensible voice, just at the edge of your hearing. Then the very first moments of Animal Nitrates and, wait, sorry, I'm having difficulty typing this from behind my massive throbbing erection. What does it take to turn me on? Apparently the first couple of tracks of this album.
She's not dead is a little bit shoegazey for me. Very twiddly and a little morose. The drums of "Moving" assault your earballs in an absolutely delightful way, giving you a Bishop Brennan style kick up the arse.
Pantomime Horse is a chore. The only good thing you can say is that it just about prepares your earballs for another drum lick at the start of The Drowners.
Bernard Butler does solid work throughout this album. Brett Anderson's vocals really do stray, sometimes being utterly magnificent, other times completely indecipherable. Mat Osman is consistent, underlining the whole album without ever sounding like a show off - unlike, of course, Butler. The drum work from Simon Gilbert is massively underrated.
The album doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first two tracks, straying at times too close to the overwrought and overplayed shoegaze style, but the power of it - the influence of it - gets it high marks.
4
Apr 06 2023
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What's Going On
Marvin Gaye
Naturally this is going to be five stars - it's Marvin Gaye for crying out loud.
5
Apr 07 2023
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Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine
Cee Lo Green
A speech intro almost had me thinking that this album was going to be almost without merit, but it launched into a really good hook. After a few more tracks I fell into a very deep and satisfying sleep. Which was great. I did listen again later on, and I'll say that I quite enjoyed his flow, though can't say I'm a fan of his actual voice. I couldn't help but feel, as I was listening to it, how awkward it must have been in the studio as all his backup singers and collaborators were being briefed... "Yes, you have to sing my name repeatedly, and tell me what an amazing man I am, and how you love me so much"
3
Apr 08 2023
View Album
Vol. 4
Black Sabbath
If I said this was anything other than boring, I'd be lying. I should enjoy it. But I just don't. Sure, I can see Sabbath's place in musical history, but compare this to Deep Purple or Led Zep and this just seems pedestrian.
2
Apr 09 2023
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Headquarters
The Monkees
Manufactured pop that actually does surprisingly well for itself.
4
Apr 10 2023
View Album
A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse
Faces
This quite surprised me. Rod Stewart had never been anything much other than a joke, joining Peter Stringfellow as a long-blond haired twat with too much money and a penchant for women decades younger than him. Turns out he can actually throw out some tunes.
Sure, I don't think my world has much been changed by it, but it does go to show that sometimes there's a legit reason for someone to have absurd amounts of money,
4
Apr 15 2023
View Album
The Village Green Preservation Society
The Kinks
I listened to the first half of this yesterday and rather foolishly decided that perhaps it isn't my favourite Kinks album - but starting from the beginning again this morning makes me think that maybe that's simply a lack of familiarity... It is 60s pop masterwork. Each track is short and punchy. When you listen closely you notice that the harmonisation is absolutely top class. The guitar, bass and drums are faultless.
Some of the hooks are just astonishing. I think it is sage to say that The Kinks will continue their 5-star streak.
5
Apr 16 2023
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More Specials
The Specials
For me, this lacks the energy, anger and punch of The Specials.. I'd probably not have gone quite as pop-ward with it, but it is still a hoot.
4
Apr 17 2023
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Out of Step
Minor Threat
This is great.
It started out good, and carried on good, before ending up with Cashing In, which is just such a hoot that it makes the whole album.
5
Apr 18 2023
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Thriller
Michael Jackson
You're a vegetable (you're a vegetable)
You're a vegetable (you're a vegetable)
Still they hate you (Still they hate you)
You're a vegetable (you're a vegetable)
You're just a buffet (You're just a buffet) (You're a vegetable)
This is a legit lyric from a top-ten single from one of the best-selling albums of all time. Mindblowing.
This album is genuinely catchy. It is, however, Michael Jackson. Who was a problematic guy. Divorcing the artist from the art, this is an easy 5*. Do I want to divorce them? Not really.
4
Apr 19 2023
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Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash
An interesting album. Far better than Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. But every track seems kinda derivative of something else.
4
Apr 20 2023
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Let's Stay Together
Al Green
This is worth five stars for the opening track alone.
5
Apr 21 2023
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New York Dolls
New York Dolls
Cracking album. Changed the way people looked and music and helped spawn a whole genre.
5
Apr 23 2023
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Before And After Science
Brian Eno
Not sure what I was expecting from this, but I was not grippered immediately.. I think it's a bit out there for the sake of being out there. A strutting catwalk of musical showboating.
3
Apr 24 2023
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Machine Gun Etiquette
The Damned
Another punk masterclass. Not enough good things to say about this album, so I won't try.
5
Apr 25 2023
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Devotional Songs
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
It's very difficult to find this. He appears to have recorded about eleventy million albums, a significant portion of them posthumously. Which is impressive indeed.
What I've managed to find, I've enjoyed. So let's go for 4.
4
Apr 26 2023
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Boston
Boston
From the upside down guitars / UFOs of the album sleeve to the absolutely belting "More than feeling" into, there's sense of promise in this album that's hard to match. Fortunately, the rest of the album pretty much does match it. Not quite the heights of the initial highs, but there's a fizzing energy that's through this album like it's Blackpool rock. I very much approve.
5
Apr 28 2023
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The Wall
Pink Floyd
As a massive Floyd fan, I actually don't like this album much. Yes, there are some cracking tracks on this, but the whole thing is a bit too... Well, much. 26 tracks of self-referential rock opera?
Sure. Why not.
Once.
Otherwise, give me the singles.
2
Apr 29 2023
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Pelican West
Haircut 100
Genuinely quite surprised at how good this is. It's got some great swing, the composition and performance is great. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
5
Apr 30 2023
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Surfer Rosa
Pixies
Good stuff. Not much more to say than that.
5
May 01 2023
View Album
Sign 'O' The Times
Prince
You know, Prince was an incredibly good musician. You also know what? Almost all of his music sounds the same. There's a certain Princey quality to it which makes it unambiguously Prince.
I'd like to say that I loved this album. But I don't. It's just OK.
3
May 02 2023
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I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Sinead O'Connor
I'll not lie. When I started this album, I didn't think I was going to finish it. The first couple of tracks are just dismal. The best one can say is that it becomes tolerable during the middle tracks, before ending up on a dirge of a track that I, yep, skipped. Incredibly, this album came directly after Prince's Sign 'O' The Times, and in my review of that I suggested how almost all Prince music as a certain Princey quality that makes it unmistakably Prince. Nothing Compares 2 U is unmistakably Prince. Even down to the number & letter. I mean, it's by far and away the standout track on this album, so I guess we can conclude that I don't really rate Sinead O'Connor all that much. Nevermind though eh, it's not like my opinion counts for anything.
2
May 03 2023
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Yank Crime
Drive Like Jehu
While I can see a lot of merit in this album, oh lordy is it fatiguing. It could do with being 15 minutes shorter.
3
May 04 2023
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Kollaps
Einstürzende Neubauten
Not as bad as the ratings would have you believe, but a challenging listen.
2
May 05 2023
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Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Tortoise
This is an intriguing album. It's not something to actively listen to, more something to have on in the background as you're doing other things.
It's by no means bad, but does have some interesting, if not outright questionable production choices. I'd personally not have gone for quite so much "wibble", but hey, it's not my album.
3
May 06 2023
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The Next Day
David Bowie
Bowie had straight up lost the plot by this point. Had this been anyone else, it would not have made the cut for this list. Chalking this one up to cult of personality.
1
May 07 2023
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Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
Maxwell
In the 1990s, people had sex to this sort of music. This probably explains an unfortunate amount about millennials.
2
May 08 2023
View Album
Trout Mask Replica
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Well this is a chore.
28 tracks of what mostly sounds like three albums playing concurrently.
I mean, each individual element seems to be if not pleasant then at least competent.
This might - eventually - form itself into coherence. Free form jazz did that, just pinged from being godawful noise to transcendentally beautiful in the space of a couple of seconds. It hasn't done it yet, though. When the most accessible part of your music is cacophonic sax, you might have a problem engaging with new audiences.
2
May 09 2023
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Dance Mania
Tito Puente
This is exception in every way I care to think about. Excellent performances, superb composition, great recording and, as then name would suggest, highly danceable.
5
May 10 2023
View Album
Spiderland
Slint
The first time I became aware of Slint was in the late 1990s. My housemate at the time was sleeping with the editor of a sadly departed TV listings magazine, and after coming back from London where they'd engaged in a threesome with a relatively well known television pundit, one of the pairing was wearing a Slint tshirt.
I remember this very well, because the format of the text spelling "slint" coupled with the folds of the fabric to make the "sli" very much look like a "cu".
I thought this was a particularly splendid tshirt to be worn by anyone, the editor of a sadly defunct TV listings magazine.
The Slint tshirt went on to make many appearances at my house. One evening was spent in deep analysis of the film "Nightbreed" - written by Clive Barker and based on his short novella, "Cabal". Cabal has a very fond place in my heart, as me and my friend Gareth were thrown out of English class, aged 11, for laughing so much at the sex scene between Lori and Boone. Of course, I'm pretty sure that Clive Barker, a gay man, would be delighted to know that his heterosexual sex scenes were a source of such amusement to two pre-teenage boys in 1991, but we laughed and laughed and laughed.
Anyway. Yes. So I've known about Slint for over 20 years, however this is the first time I've actually heard them. They're OK.
4
May 11 2023
View Album
Imagine
John Lennon
I need to point out that Imagine is the most overrated dirge of a track. I simply can't believe that anyone would choose to actually like it. The rest of this album is actually very reminiscent of earlier (and better) Beatles tracks, and that's a great relief because had the rest of the album been like the title track, I'd have not been able to listen to it.
Overall, this another album that's here because of the legacy of the artist rather than any inherent merit of the music.
2
May 12 2023
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Scissor Sisters
Scissor Sisters
I'm sure that there are people reading these reviews who simply don't know how awful music was in the early 2000s. It's difficult for those of us who suffered through that time to express quire how atrociously awful just everything was. We'd had some fun with Britpop in the 1990s, trip-hop had fallen by the wayside. Rock, metal and hip-hop had got it on and spawned the lightly-fried turd that was numetal, and literally the only fun that could ever be found after about 2002 was Mr Scruff. For literally years, the music industry pumped out dismal dirges and post-britpop fart noises. The happiest music one could find was Coldplay - and literally nobody needs that.
And then, along came Scissor Sisters.
They took a look at the desperate, desolate wasteland of the early 2000s music scene and said "Balls to that, let's DANCE, motherfucker!" and released this joyous masterwork.
Back in the day, I loved it. Sure, there's a couple of bum tracks. Incredibly, when it was released I thought that their cover version of Comfortably Numb was an abomination. Listening to it again today, it's actually pretty good. Filthy/Gorgeous is underrated, eclipsed but not outdone by Take Your Mama.
Scissor Sisters, along with Alison Goldfrapp and Franz Ferdinand started music back towards fun. For that, they have to get 5 stars.
5
May 13 2023
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Superfuzz Bigmuff
Mudhoney
This is full of energy and zing. While I enjoyed listening to it, I don't think I would go out of my way to listen to it again. It did start music in a direction though.
3
May 14 2023
View Album
Permission to Land
The Darkness
This album is hilarious. But it is also extremely tiring. Better as singles.
Essentially, Justin Hawkins and his chums saw the dismal state of music back in the early 2000s and thought "there is literally nothing good to say about Lowestoft, which means we'll be perfect for today's music scene".
Fortunately, being from Lowestoft means that you kinda have to have a certain ability to just say "fuck it, it can't get any worse" - and that's exactly what they did. They said "fuck it" and decided to do what they wanted to do, which was hair metal. In Norfolk terms, this was about the latest, most exciting, fizzing with excitement musical genre since Cromwell banned fun in 1642, and fortunately, The Darkness carried it off spectacularly. The glittery, plunging neckline unitards of Kiss, the spectacular Def Leppard haircuts are all there. Make no mistake - The Darkness are as good as anyone at what they do. They just did it 25 years after anyone else.
4
May 15 2023
View Album
More Songs About Buildings And Food
Talking Heads
Talking Heads; nothing and noone sound quite like them. This is sometimes a very good thing, but also sometimes not. This album does have some great music on it - but are Talking Heads overrepresented on this list? Yes, probably.
4
May 16 2023
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Something/Anything?
Todd Rundgren
Blimey Nora, this album is LONG.
I first started listening to it in 1997, and I still don't think I've finished the first disc.
I can't say that this music is offensive - it isn't. It's audio wallpaper, mostly. Kind of like the soundtrack to a "Based on real events" TV movie.
Some experimental stuff started kicking in around 2005. And that is actually pretty good. It's just surrounded by nearly a decade's worth of beige.
4
May 17 2023
View Album
The Real Thing
Faith No More
Well there's a few things that come to mind with this. The first is "Wow, this reminds me of the GTA soundtrack", despite none of the songs from this album being on any of the GTA soundtracks. I guess it does establish their style, though, because their 1992 track "midlife crisis" is indeed on the GTA San Andreas soundtrack.
Another couple of things popped into my head while listening. First up was the thought of how much these guys reminded me of Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Turns out that there's a fairly longstanding rivalry between the bands. Fun.
Lastly, wow, this is kinda like Numetal a decade before Numetal.
The cover of War Pigs is a bit pointless. No flair, no interpretation - just a straight "let's make it as close as we possibly can" cover. Kinda glad I heard this, but it doesn't change my world.
3
May 18 2023
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Clandestino
Manu Chao
Wasn't sure what to expect from this, but ended up quite enjoying it. "Bongo Bong" and "Welcome to Tijuana" are my top picks.
5
May 19 2023
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Green River
Creedence Clearwater Revival
There's a couple of stand out tracks on this. I'd love to say that the album gripped me with its brilliance, but it didn't.
4
May 20 2023
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16 Lovers Lane
The Go-Betweens
This wasn't bad. Wasn't great. To be perfectly frank I can't remember much of it.
3
May 21 2023
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Elephant
The White Stripes
A couple of decent tracks. A couple of easy skips.
Given it's from 2003, it not being a literal recording of camel flatulence means it has to be better than 95% of music released around then.
Being better than a lot of things from 2003 doesn't make it a must-hear album.
3
May 22 2023
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Snivilisation
Orbital
Decent until Crash and Carry, then it becomes amazing.
5
May 23 2023
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Survivor
Destiny's Child
Oh-eee-YO-eeh-oooh-hooo-eeee-aaahh-yeah!
Independent Women is terrible.
Survivor is terrible.
Bootylicious is actually reasonably good. Certainly the best of a bad bunch.
The trilling, vibrato, vocal runs - so distracting. The music doesn't seems to have any real structure either. Every progression has a cut-off. Every tear-down stops short. It's like musical edging, and nobody comes. I just can't get behind it.
2
May 24 2023
View Album
Unhalfbricking
Fairport Convention
I think I need to braid flowers into my hair and sleep with someone's wife.
The Dylan tracks let it down. Otherwise it would have been 5*.
4
May 25 2023
View Album
Blunderbuss
Jack White
One of those where you look at the suggestion, raise a quizzical eyebrow and ask "Seriously?"
Actually listening to it - it isn't actually bad. Seems like White has tried to put a bit of swing into it. Don't think I'll be going back to it in a hurry.
3
May 26 2023
View Album
Sulk
The Associates
I knew of The Associates from Party Fears Two, but hadn't explored any of the rest of their ouvre.
The music video for Party Fears Two includes Martha Ladly on the keys, formerly of Martha and the Muffins. She's wearing a suit and a hat, and looks exactly as bored as she needs to for the song. It's bizarre, because she's also got the tiniest of beguiling smiles.
And that sums up the song perfectly. It is tuneful, poppy and also, 100% entirely unnerving and discordant. The vocals are perfect - slightly Bowie-ish, but in the good way. I genuinely hated it the first time I heard it. It made no sense. It was dissonant.
And then the Divine Comedy covered it. If Neil Hannon likes it, I should probably pay more attention to it... but no. Its still nonsensical, dissonant and unnerving. Several years later, with the song appearing in my life from time to time, I find it has changed from being a messy, awkward track to being possibly one of my very favorites from the 1980s. Given it was written in the late 70s, it rather cements The Associates as people to listen to more of. Which I finally got around to doing with this album.
Which is excellent.
It is both genre-defining, and genre-defiant. It is both a product and a producer of 1980s syth, new romantic and pop. I love it, and think I will continue to love it for quite some time.
5
May 27 2023
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Slippery When Wet
Bon Jovi
It's 80s rock - while it is a good example of it, it really is of its time.
4
May 28 2023
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Pacific Ocean Blue
Dennis Wilson
I'm sure this is full of talent and musical ability and yes, it is well produced, but holy hell this is boring.
I mean, it's Taylor Swift level beige.
And dear gods, it's long. Well, actually not. Only look at the original pressing and you're on 12 tracks. It just feels like several decades of your life you won't get back.
2
May 29 2023
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Goo
Sonic Youth
Very tiring.
2
May 30 2023
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Out Of The Blue
Electric Light Orchestra
This album has Mr Blue Sky on it.
The rest of the album would have to fuck up royally for this to be worth less than 5 stars, and fucking up royally is something it manages to avoid with aplomb and panache.
Synths, vocoders, wide expansive sounds with stuff going on, all seemingly designed to sound uplifting. It's a classic.
5
May 31 2023
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Locust Abortion Technician
Butthole Surfers
Well, this is going to be a challenge.
Well, actually no, it isn't. Whilst there are some challenging tracks, the album altogether just works. The Butthole Surfers are one of those verymost irritating of bands, in that they seem to just fart about. Nothing of them should work. They give no indication of ever putting any effort in, and yet they produce works of musical genius. They shouldn't be this good.
Now, I'm not saying that they weren't hard working - but a million bands have worked just as hard (or harder) and not achieved what the Butthole Surfers managed to. Admittedly, Kurt Cobain said in an interview once that he liked them, and that probably helped quite a considerable amount. Luck is more of a factor than hard work, and "who you know" helps out an awful lot more than that.
I can't not mention in this review though how Orbital sampled the opening lines from Sweat Load for their track "Satan". What a track. Beautiful. I'd genuinely had no ideas that it came from the Butthole Surfers.
5
Jun 01 2023
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Rid Of Me
PJ Harvey
I may have said something similar of the other PJ Harvey albums in this list, but I cannot help but think of a university open mic night, where some over-enthusiastic lady from the Feminist Society takes to the stage and relentlessly performs an entire set of angry songs about the patriarchy.
She's not very good, but people still clap appreciatively between songs, if only because they're grateful for a couple of seconds respite between the numbers. Every so often, she'll break from the anger and perform some really very emotional readings of her own poetry, where she laments the cruelty of menstruation and rails against the unsustainable societal pressure of having to shave your legs.
I found the volume shifts to be quite antisocial.
This isn't a terrible album, but it's one that I can't connect to on any level; emotional, intellectual or visceral.
2
Jun 02 2023
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Pictures At An Exhibition
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
My first reaction to this was "Oh dear gods no" - live albums automatically start with everything to prove. Not much enjoying the other ELP I've heard from the list, I approached this with much trepidation. However - I actually found myself quite appreciating it. I mean, not enjoying it. Heavens no, it's a live album. But definitely appreciating it.
3
Jun 04 2023
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Run-D.M.C.
Run-D.M.C.
Run DMC have always been sort of vaguely there in my life, but this is the first time I've listened to a full album.
The beats are so stripped down! I found myself questioning who Run DMC are, because given the number of references to DJs and MCs you'd expect more turntableism - but I think what we have is maybe a couple of drum machines. Beats and flows is what this album is all about, and while I'm not super-fussed by some of the beats, the flows are always right up there.
Run DMC are some of the rap pioneers, and still some of the East Coast's finest. Genre-defining and absolutely worth a place in the list.
5
Jun 05 2023
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Mama's Gun
Erykah Badu
Decent album. Some nice funk, some nice R&B.
There were a couple of skip tracks - I'm surprised that the repetitiveness of the lyrics in Orange Moon and In Love With You made it past production.
"How good it is" in Orange Moon is sung about 25 times - but even this is knocked into sharp relief by the repetition of "In love with you", where I go to about 40 repeats before losing the will to live.
I think only Daft Punk can lay claim to having the same lyric repeated so often in their track "around the world".
Noted with interest that she also revisits the rhythms and beats from On & On, released in '97. I mean, it's a cracking track so I don't blame her. Also slightly odd to hear same samples Dre used earlier in the same year this was released.
Overall, if it wasn't so damnably repetitive in places, it'd be a brilliant album. But a 5* album can't have skip tracks on it at all, and a 4* can't have more than one.
3
Jun 06 2023
View Album
Green
R.E.M.
Did Michael Stipe listen to The Smiths and think to himself "Yes, I fancy being Morrissey for my next album"?
Stand is the only standout track.
2
Jun 07 2023
View Album
Tigermilk
Belle & Sebastian
This is an interesting one to review. It clearly is of its time, yet quite strikingly different to its better known contemporaries. The queer is strong with this, but in a very 90s way. It seems quite astonishing 25 years later that the world was ever as closed off as it was in the 90s - but there we go. I can't say that I like it. I can understand its place and its influence, but I don't think I'll be opting for repeats.
4
Jun 08 2023
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Step In The Arena
Gang Starr
The flows and the beats are absolutely remarkable on this. Stand-out. Some great use of some classic samples. Why are these boys not better known?
5
Jun 09 2023
View Album
The Holy Bible
Manic Street Preachers
I absolutely hate the Manics.
They join the small group of bands who are inexplicably overrated - U2, Coldplay, Oasis. I just don't get them.
I have tried to force myself to listen to this bilge, and I just can't get why some Welsh boyos are so revered.
1
Jun 10 2023
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The Madcap Laughs
Syd Barrett
This is...
Appalling.
It's Beatles-esque late 60s psychadellic pop way past the pinnacle of Beatles-esque late 60s psychadellic pop. Syd sounds almost exactly like Neil from the Young Ones.
From a musical history perspective, this may be an album to include. From an objective point of view, this album is terrible. It shouldn't have been made at all. It definitely shouldn't have been included in this list on the basis of any merit inherent in the work.
Dear gods. "If it's in you" is atrocious in a way that actually, legitimately gives me a headache. This is a car-crash of an album and it feels ghoulish to be even listening to it.
1
Jun 11 2023
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Marcus Garvey
Burning Spear
One skip track due to repetitive lyrics, otherwise spot on reggae music.
4
Jun 12 2023
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Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water
Limp Bizkit
This is in no way as bad as the reviews here suggest - I mean, "outro" is legitimately one of the most obnoxious tracks to ever have sullied my Tidal account, and there's nothing which even slightly tempts me, on a day to day basis, to think "I know, I'll play this again", but we can't argue that numetal wasn't something that happened, and we can't argue that it dominated music for a few years. Coincidentally, around the early 2000s when music was utterly, utterly awful.
Give me a choice between this and Bob Dylan, it'll be this literally every single time.
2
Jun 13 2023
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The Message
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
I'm half way through track 2 and I realise that my feet have been tapping. I'm gonna like this.
After listening - I really did enjoy it. Not quite so keen on the slower, more luurve tracks, but they're not enough to put me off.
5
Jun 14 2023
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Warehouse: Songs And Stories
Hüsker Dü
This was actually a bit of a chore to get through. The guitars are relentless, and I find that very tiring.
I will say that the second half was considerably easier than the first.
2
Jun 15 2023
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No Other
Gene Clark
Well, this isn't as objectionable as I thought it was going to be. In fact, I might go as far as saying I actually quite enjoyed some of it.
3
Jun 16 2023
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Tapestry
Carole King
This immediately gets points simply for having a cat on the cover.
Having listened to this, there is no reason at all to deduct points from the cat.
D'aww, pushcat.
5
Jun 17 2023
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Leftism
Leftfield
One of the best albums of the 1990s.
I bought this on CD from a record shop on Buxton high street some time in probably 1997, or maybe 1998, so I was a little late to the party, but I got there eventually. Everyone in the 90s knew about Leftfield from the Guinness advert, but their stuff was worth way more than mere popularity. This is an absolute pleasure to listen to again.
5
Jun 18 2023
View Album
Parklife
Blur
This an album I've owned since the 1990s, but probably haven't played in 15 years or so. Starting with Girls & Boys, it's almost impossible to not find this catchy, infective and downright joyful.
Alex James is the true hero of Blur - his basslines are surprisingly complex, funky and tie together tracks only when they're not out-and-out saving the show. Tracy Jacks is a terrible track, but you can get through it by listening to the twiddliness of that bass.
End of a Century is a superb bit of music, capturing boredom and conformity with a dryness that just didn't exist in the mid 1990s.
Parklife, the title track, uses Phil Daniels superbly. Relegating Albarn to just the choruses is a welcome break.
Bank Holiday is fast paced, happy-surfacing but deeply cynical track, and one that I have absolutely no memory of, despite having listened to this album probably hundreds of times.
Badhead struck me similarly, but the catch of "I might as well grin and bear it, because it's not worth the trouble of an argument" does loom somewhere into consciousness.
It leads into The Debt Collector - the boys clearly thinking that they'd take a The Kinks or Beatles style diversion. It's not terrible, but it clearly a bunch of very talented session musicians going along with the whims of some posh boys trying to pay homage to some other, slightly less posh but ultimately more successful boys from 30 years prior.
Far Out similarly pays homage to Bowie and as such is something I have no time for. But it does push you down a bit, ready for To The End - which is genuinely a piece of genius. Way up the very best that Blur came out with, even with it's ludicrous diversion into accordion-driven tosh..
The album should have ended here. What comes next is technically very competently handled. London Loves is an aggressive (thank you James, again) track, eviscerating the hostile nature of London's uncaring big city reality. Imagine how angry they could have been without any hope.
Trouble in the message centre. Difficult to quantify or express how little this song interests me. It's just a weaker rehash of better expressed themes from earlier in the album. I might even go as far as calling it a skip track, because it genuinely adds nothing.
Clover over Dover is another Kinks homage. Alex James' bass once again rides to the rescue with competency.
Magic America and Jubilee blur (if you'll excuse the expression) into one, but This Is A Low picks up again.
Ultimately, the album should have finished with To The End. If it had been wrapped at that point it'd have to have been a solid 5 stars. Unfortunately they kept it going that bit too long, and for that reason it has to be dropped to 4.
4
Jun 19 2023
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The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
Probably the best Stones album I've heard from the list, but not the best Stones music I've heard from the list.
Almost entirely cover based, they perform really competently. I can't help but think of it as stolen music though.
3
Jun 20 2023
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Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
Mudhoney
Looking at this appear with a 29 track-long caused a definite sinking feeling.
Fortunately, that appears to be the 30th anniversary "deluxe" edition.
I'll be sticking to the 14 tracks of the original, thanks.
First couple of those tracks I think "They're doing some interesting drumming. The production sounds a bit weird. Is this deliberate?"
I think it is deliberate. Interesting.
That drumming though. That stands out as being something worth focusing on - if I can.
After a while of listening but not listening - I realise that I am bored witless.
2
Jun 21 2023
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Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
PJ Harvey
This is way better than any of the other PJ Harvey stuff I've been subjected to. It actually sounds like an album as opposed to an angry open mic night.
4
Jun 22 2023
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Tommy
The Who
Genre defining, a staggering display of raw talent.
REALLY boring.
2
Jun 23 2023
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...Baby One More Time
Britney Spears
Is this taking the piss?
1
Jun 25 2023
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Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco
What a weird album. There are some utterly dismal dirges on here that make you question your ability to stomach listening interspersed quite liberally with some actually quite fun upbeat stuff.
Were there fewer utterly awful bouts of pure misery, this would probably get much more attention from me.
2
Jun 26 2023
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Real Life
Magazine
Interesting. I can't really see it catching on. But has taken up a bit of time in this flight, so I guess it's all good.
3
Jun 27 2023
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Risque
CHIC
I absolutely love the disco dancefloor fillers. Disco as a genre is much maligned and that isn't really something we can justify given the massive impact it has (still) on music. Giving young, gay black artists a genre to fully own and develop has been hugely important to western music and one cannot understate its place.
That being said. The end-of-the-night slow dance numbers really ain't my bag. This is not the best disco album.
But this album has some of the best disco..
4
Jun 28 2023
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They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Liars
Someone from the early 2000s that I haven't heard of - this is either going to be awful or obscure.
And boy is it obscure. It's noise.
It's also good.
4
Jun 29 2023
View Album
Born In The U.S.A.
Bruce Springsteen
This is by far the best of the Springsteen albums. Anguish tarnished with hope, mixed in with a bit of destructive hedonism from time to time. I can't claim to like Springsteen - I have no common frame of reference. "Cover me" had me giggling the peurile giggle of a teenage boy. The rest of it was, well, OK.
3
Jun 30 2023
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Catch A Fire
Bob Marley & The Wailers
It's almost impossible not to tap your foot along to this. I love the bass. I absolutely love the clipped, zero reverb guitars. Bob Marley and the Wailers may not be the best ever example of reggae, but they sure are the most popular, and that helps bring people to the genre.
5
Jul 01 2023
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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Really not my thing, but at least it's tolerable.
3
Jul 02 2023
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Queen Of Denmark
John Grant
Much better than I was expecting. I think I'd probably have to listen to it a couple more times if I wanted to make a proper judgement, but in the meantime 4.
4
Jul 03 2023
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Rattlesnakes
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
I was moderately surprised at how many of these tracks I knew. If you'd asked me a question about Lloyd Cole, I'd have said I only knew anything at all about him due to the track "Lloyd, I'm ready to be heartbroken" by Camera Obscura, but I found myself appreciating this album for its familiarity.
4
Jul 07 2023
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1977
Ash
This is a decent enough listen. The problem with it is that it became briefly massive because some A&R man thought "Hey, it's called 1977. Let's price it what it would have cost in 1977" and thus, this full album hit the scene costing £4, when most other CDs were on the shelves for £12 or £13. Kids with pocket money would see it there and look at the £10 note in their hand (if they were lucky... It was probably saved £1 coins in their pockets... The £2 coin wasn't going to be released for another two years) and what would you know - they bought the album, because they could also buy a magazine, go to the cinema and still have enough left for the bus home.
To call it a "number one" album from 1996 is a bit of a stretch. It was a gimmick of release, not because they were stupendously popular, ground-breaking or all that great. It was significantly cheaper than anything else you could buy at the time. And a lot of people took a punt on it simply because it was that cheap.
The single tracks are entertaining enough, in a Britpop-kind of way. The story of its dirt-cheap pricing seems almost (but not entirely!) impossible to corroborate, and modern listeners will probably have no idea how relatively expensive music was in the 90s so perhaps this album does deserve a place in the list, for the sake of its history. I don't think it does for its music, though.
3
Jul 08 2023
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Screamadelica
Primal Scream
There's some truly great tracks in this album. Also some shonky ones. What this album did do, though, is make me want to listen to Utah Saints.
4
Jul 09 2023
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Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Well this is an utterly bonkers album, moving from some awesome funk to I don't know what, passing through rock opera just for funsies in the middle.
While I don't particularly object to any one of these genres, the album is just way too much of a mish-mash... As I type we've just launched into some Latin merengue which then dissolves into an organ lament. On first listen it is just tiring. The funk is beautiful. The jazzy stuff is beautiful. Blues part 2 is beautiful.
There's so much to love here, but it just doesn't seem to hang together properly as an album.
I don't know. Do I want to look past the oversaturation of styles? Lordy, it's a tough choice.
4
Jul 10 2023
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Brothers
The Black Keys
I came to this from the early 1970s, and the first thing that hit me was that there isn't a part of the audio spectrum left alone by this. I pulled out a nice little audio visualiser/oscilloscope, and sure enough - it distorted and noisy to the point where its just like some muddy white noise. It's relentless and doesn't give you anywhere to go.
And then Howlin' For You comes on, with its looped to hell glitter beat and I'm done. Nope. This isn't for me. Not a whole album of it.
1
Jul 11 2023
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Immigrés
Youssou N'Dour
Familiar funkiness with some greatly influential African twist.
You can see N'Dour's fingerprints across so much, and that's a good thing.
5
Jul 12 2023
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A Hard Day's Night
Beatles
The Beatles establishing themselves as bona fide songwriters. Pop-tastic.
5
Jul 13 2023
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The Joshua Tree
U2
Much as I hate to admit it... This is actually a pretty good album. I mean, U2 are universally accepted to be awful. Bono is a giant turd. But "with or without you" is annoyingly good.
And it isn't the only good track on there.
I'd say that this is one of those ones where you really want to dislike it. You really should dislike it. But it's just good enough to surmount the hill of U2 being shite.
4
Jul 14 2023
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Live At The Star Club, Hamburg
Jerry Lee Lewis
Nope, he's not as good as Little Richard.
Yarp, he's a massive scumbag.
Nope, very few (if any) of these are originals.
Yarp, it is, unfortunately, a live album.
Nope, I wouldn't turn down a chance to witness one of those concerts first hand. And that's speaking as somebody who actively dislikes live music performances, preferring not to be jostled by bellends who also happen to display no ability to use a khazi properly.
4
Jul 15 2023
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If You're Feeling Sinister
Belle & Sebastian
This is almost insufferably twee.
2
Jul 16 2023
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Paul's Boutique
Beastie Boys
Not the best Beastie Boys on the list. But it does solidify the genre of white boys playing at hip hop, laying on snarky cynicism that doesn't really honour hip hop as a genre, but appeals to high brow people who can't relate to the real deal.
3
Jul 17 2023
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Crocodiles
Echo And The Bunnymen
The drumming is pretty nice, but asides from that, this album is unobtrusive and uninteresting.
2
Jul 18 2023
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The Libertines
The Libertines
Can't stand you now?
Couldn't stand them then, either. Post-Britpop bilge that's almost indistinguishable from Arcade Fire, Razorlight et al. There is nothing outstanding to redeem this that wasn't available in spades at the time, with Pete Doherty taking the "bad boy britpop wanker" thing into overdrive. Less enfant terrible, more outstanding fuckup.
2
Jul 19 2023
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Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
The Smashing Pumpkins
Long album is long.
If it were an actress, it'd be Eva Longoria. If it were a cow, a longhorn. If it were a group of work-shy union car manufacturers, it'd be Longbridge.
In this album's favour - it's actually impossible to listen to Tonight, Tonight and not be transported back in time to the 1990s - in a good way. 1979 might be one of the most outstanding songs of the 1990s as a whole.
That said - this album genuinely is over-long. The absolute genius of some of the best tracks really does have an unpleasant patina from some of the less worthwhile.
4
Jul 20 2023
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Blood And Chocolate
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
I put this on the other night, thought to myself "Gosh, Costello's voice is pretty rough, isn't it?" then promptly fell asleep. Not the most ringing endorsement, I'm afraid.
2
Jul 21 2023
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Guero
Beck
On first listen - this isn't as good as Odelay.
I think, however, that this is because for some reason the production doesn't quite fit Beck's vocals. His style and musicality is just great - but for some reason his voice just don't settle in right with the rest of the instrumentals.
This is really highlighted in the standout-track of the album - Rental Car. This is brilliant and every bit as good and exciting as anything on Odelay - but has very little of his voice.
I think I might like to listen to this again.
5
Jul 22 2023
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Chemtrails Over The Country Club
Lana Del Rey
About six months or so ago, an excruciating pub singer apologised to an entire bar full of people by saying "I might not have the right crowd for this, but my next song is a cover of an artist you might not have heard of - she tends to appeal to a younger crowd - Lana Del Rey".
It's official, I am too old to appreciate Lana Del Rey.
Whether it's because I'm too old - at the fresh end of generation X - or simply because I have ears, I don't know, but appreciate Lana Del Rey I do not. I can see past the outrageously over-camped breathiness, but I can't see past the fluttering warble of someone trying to in in a register higher than her voice can properly manage.
It's not offensive beyond uninterested boredom, but is it worth shunting Franz Ferdinand off the list?
Nope.
2
Jul 23 2023
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Melodrama
Lorde
Who is Anton? And why do I need to jack him off?
This is background noise.
Not unpleasant, but neither distracting nor compelling. I might listen to some Rilo Kiley after this. Infact I won't even get to the end of the album - after "Liability" I call it quits and listen to More Adventurous.
I did go back later on to finish up, and actually the second half of the album was actually a bit better when listened to on headphones while walking.
I guess with albums as recent as this, the production is probably set up to sound best on headphones while walking. Still couldn't recommend spending any actual time on it though.
2
Jul 24 2023
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The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Pink Floyd
The unfortunate thing about this album is that it just isn't as good as their later work.
Sure, Syd Barrett is taking some new directions, but it's unrefined. Some judicious production could tone down some of the repetition, maybe sort of the jangling.
Lucifer Sam is the standout track with its detuned Californian surf feel. Anything that twoddles on about goblins drinking wine should just fuck off and bury itself in soft peat for six months.
2
Jul 25 2023
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Haunted Dancehall
The Sabres Of Paradise
Man, I enjoyed this a lot. Never come across this album, or this artist before. Sure, it starts off a bit messy, not really finding its way for a few tracks, but it does get there. One of the few times I'll listen to the same album again the next day.
4
Jul 26 2023
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Trafalgar
Bee Gees
This is atrocious, whiney nonsense. Wrist-slitting music.
Probably one of the least enjoyable experiences of this list.
Some of the reviews have said that the latter tracks are better. They are not. It's just that so much of your brain has shut down by that point, you don't really notice it as much.
1
Jul 27 2023
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Play
Moby
The word that has to lead this review is "ubiquity".
In the early 2000s, the tracks from this album were everywhere. Every track has its place and purpose. But is that purpose being in an album you would sit down and listen to?
The rating for this has to take into account the meta. Yes, it's got some great tracks on it. Is it extraordinary? Not really. But as a story, as a context, yes, it is hugely influential. As an album, without the context, it's be a straight 3. The surrounding to it - pushes it to 5. That's a tough call, and feels wrong given what we know about the artist. So maybe I'll split the difference.
4
Jul 28 2023
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Ray Of Light
Madonna
I would like to gush effusive about this but I just can't. Ray of light - the single - was epic at the time. It was fresh and new and a pretty different way of going at music - and it was Madonna, who at that point was viewed as being a bit tired, a bit embarrassing really. We all knew that she was top of the world in the 80s, had made a bit of a tit of herself with the whole Sex thing, because honestly, it was kind of like your mum talking about how much she loved getting spunk on her face. She was a former star, married to the fella who did the Laaandan gangsta fillums - and out of nowhere she was filling up dancefloors again!
Genuinely was a smash, and it put the dried-up Madonna back on the map.
The album though... Not quite so good. Yeah, there's some more hits on it, but the single is where it has to be. Genuinely a bit of a struggle to pick between 2 and 3 - 2 because of godawful tracks like 'skin' and 3 because of how completely ray of light - the single - reinvigorated Madonna.
3
Jul 29 2023
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Mott
Mott The Hoople
Enjoyable but apparently forgettable.
4
Jul 30 2023
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Frampton Comes Alive
Peter Frampton
As with all live albums - this is going to have to be absolutely goddamn exceptional for me to see past the fact it was recorded live. The sad thing is that just from the first track I can tell that it absolutely isn't going to be.
His voice is just...not good.
The guitar playing is decent, in an showboating sort of way. The drums and bass are tight. But in track 2 we "get to" hear the audience clapping along - and I simply don't give a monkeys about that. I don't want to feel like I'm there - in an uncomfortable seat, or being jostled constantly by some prick.
The combination of audience noise, ludicrously over the top wah-wah & talk box, and the fact I just don't much like this kind of soft rock is not a great combination.
1
Jul 31 2023
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All Hail the Queen
Queen Latifah
Some decent tracks here, some utterly terrible production choices. Who on earth in that studio on that day thought "Yeah, let's pitch-shift and pretend that it's a child's voice. That's a great idea and people will enjoy listening to it!".
Big up to her for doing what she did, and her flow is great, but it is important as a historical piece - an archeological find - rather than a going concern that will continue to find new audiences.
3
Aug 01 2023
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Foxbase Alpha
Saint Etienne
This is short, but brilliant. I'd not have guessed that this would have gone back as far as 1991 - it's doing things that I'd assumed would have been a few years (at least) later, and it does them well. Top notch.
5
Aug 02 2023
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This Nation’s Saving Grace
The Fall
It's probably not a good sign that I've spent most of this album thinking "is it over yet?" and checking how much of it there is left.
I get that these guys are influential. But I can't help but think that they might be the giants that people who have seen further were standing on the shoulders of.
2
Aug 03 2023
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Slanted And Enchanted
Pavement
Compared to the other Pavement album in the list, I enjoyed this immensely. Great stuff.
5
Aug 04 2023
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Illinois
Sufjan Stevens
This is just meh, piled upon more meh, with a side helping of meh.
2
Aug 05 2023
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Future Days
Can
Such a great album!
5
Aug 06 2023
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Black Metal
Venom
Well this is an absolute assault.
Unfortunately, what it's assaulting me with is tedium. Yes, yes, you bleed an unexpected amount. Yes yes, you worship the devil. I expect you've got a teatowel with a picture of Baphomet on his throne on it. Your mum bought it for you, because while she doesn't exactly approve, well, it's harmless isn't it and the least she can do is encourage you to get out of yourself a bit.
I get that this inspired a genre, but I honestly think that 2/3rds of this album could easily have been left out and we'd all still get the point.
I wish my mum had bought me a teatowel with a picture of Baphomet on his throne on it.
2
Aug 07 2023
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Kenya
Machito
Not over-sure what this has got to do with Kenya, like. Or the Congo.
Seems like some pretty good Latin jazz, occasionally veering a bit towards samba. I mean it's good Latin jazz, in that way you kind of expect it to be playing in a restaurant or a theme bar.
4
Aug 08 2023
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Welcome To The Pleasuredome
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
OK, so this is out-and-out one of the greatest albums ever made. As I notice that I'd somehow missed this on the day of review, I find myself getting out of bed at 23:30, going downstairs and retrieving my B&W headphones. Because I want my earballs to be both assaulted and stroked by Holly Johnson, and cranking up the stereo on a Wednesday night is a bit rude to the neighbourhood.
Frankie is early 80s through-and-through, but a shaper, not shaped. Johnson (and almost more importantly, Trevor Born) created a sound that was and still is utterly unique to Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Every time I listen to this album I get something more from it. The tonal, rhythmic and tempo changes throughout, hells bells, even within the tracks keep you absolutely glued to it.
Trevor Horn is an indisputable genius. The production of this album is superb. Horn layers in sounds across the whole range, with bass as deep as the great lakes, trebles as high as the stars and mids that can't help but satisfy. The changes up for the covers actually improve on the originals. But the hits are where it's at. If you skip half this album - I often do - it isn't because the covers aren't good. They're great. But the hits hit the target so well that you're left wondering how music can be this good.
Amazing stuff.
5
Aug 09 2023
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The Fat Of The Land
The Prodigy
What a smashing album.
From the controversy of "Smack my bitch up" to the pretendy Indo-hippy chants of one of England's most awkwardly embarrassing musical mistakes - of course I mean Crispian Mills - this is a masterpiece of English EDM.
Starting off strong with Breathe, this album doesn't really back down. While it is ultimately a product of the mid nineties, it is the epitome of The Prodigy's ouvre, giving them success out the wahooey and doing what was previously impossible. Getting pill-headed ravers, speeding metallers and lager-swilling britpoppers onto the same dancefloor. Without them killing each other. Well. The pill-headed ravers would be too busy hugging each other, but there might have been some collateral damage from the lager and the whizz.
It's actually fairly astonishing that an album as out-and-out aggressive as this managed to win almost everyone over. There was the usual knee-jerkery from the Mary Whitehouse types, but they utterly failed to spot of factionalism was just abandoned totally in appreciation of this album.
Today it holds up. A lot of the samples now are almost painfully 90s (hey hey hey!) but the record still hits the same. You're angry and you bloody love it.
5
Aug 10 2023
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Hybrid Theory
Linkin Park
Well, it would be an exaggeration to suggest that I enjoyed this. Numetal is not my bag, baby. Saying that, one has to accept that it was a thing once, and these guys picked up that thing and ran with it. It pretty much has to be considered the epitome of the genre, selling more than anything else numetal before or since.
One could observe (and in my other reviews, I have) that the early 2000s was where music died. Linkin Park is almost proof positive of this. Highly compressed and loud, this is music designed for radio play, or low-bitrate playback on headphones. It came just a tiny little bit too late for Napster, but just in time for the Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 PC satellite speakers and sub (unless you are born after 2005, you know exactly what I'm talking about) combo. And this music is made for that.
Because it lacks dynamic range, because it's just loud, it gets tiring fast. I completely accept that a couple of tracks here and there are actually pretty good to listen to, but I tell you what - writing this review on my phone, I've played a couple of seconds of a few tracks to try and pick out the ones I enjoyed when I was listening this morning on my stereo... And my phone speaker loses nothing of this music. It's bonkers to me how everything is squished into the middle.
I guess my distaste for numetal, my dismay at the loudness and the "early 2000s" clause are gonna have to brush up against the zenith of genre and peak popularity and do what the producer did, and squeeze everything to the middle.
3
Aug 11 2023
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Legalize It
Peter Tosh
I'm enjoying this. Not come across him before. I was rather apprehensive that the whole album would be about marijuana, but thankfully not.
4
Aug 12 2023
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Destroyer
KISS
Embarrassingly over-the-top tosh. It's hard to not rock out with your cock out.
Or jam out with your clam out, whichever is more comfortable for you.
3
Aug 13 2023
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Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Country Joe & The Fish
Well, I approach this with a great deal of nervousness. Country? Ew.
Is it actually country?
No, thank the lord it isn't. It's psychedelic rock, which is on every measure better than country.
Speaking of "country", I absolutely love the filth of "Not so sweet Martha Lorraine". Clearly a reference to Shakespeare's "Country Matters", this is a song about sex.
A bookish woman has learnt about sex from books and by rote. She doesn't take pleasure in it, but uses it. She wants him "to die" is obviously, glaringly la petit mort, the little death. Wiping the tears "from his friend's eye" is sordidly descriptive.
She's using sex, using it to bring him to climax even - but she's never learnt "the country ways" - she doesn't know how to take any of that pleasure for herself. And he's lamenting that.
What a cracking little track and what a story it tells!
5
Aug 14 2023
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Raw Like Sushi
Neneh Cherry
I know maybe two of these tracks - and one of them is obviously Buffalo Stance. Such a great late 80s track.
The rest of the album doesn't disappoint. Particular favourite was "My bitch" - the pure joy of both singers having enormous fun shines through splendidly.
5
Aug 15 2023
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Exit Planet Dust
The Chemical Brothers
Bought it in the 90s, and it is good.
No mistake, it is repetitive. Not only is it repetitive, it is also repetitive. Coupled with how often it repeats itself, you might think the repetition would get repetitive, but somehow the repetitiveness is ABSOLUTELY AWESOMENESS.
There's so much to love about this. It's catchy, it's clever, it's immaculately produced and it absolutely does not feel like it's almost thirty years old. The brothers' gonna work it out.
5
Aug 16 2023
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Quiet Life
Japan
Eighties new wave in the late 1970s. Yep, I can see how this was influential.
4
Aug 18 2023
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Happy Trails
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Better than I was expecting it to be, based on the reviews. Unlikely to make it into rotation though.
4
Aug 19 2023
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Led Zeppelin II
Led Zeppelin
Not a single thing can be said about this album that hasn't already been said a million times before,
5
Aug 20 2023
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Midnight Ride
Paul Revere & The Raiders
Yes, I like this a lot. Not really psychadelia, not really rock and roll, and not rock. It has a lot going for it.
The songs tell stories, which I appreciate. How are these guys not better known?
Actually, this album ends poorly. Melody for an unknown girl sounds like someone doing a bad Ronald Reagan impression, and it goes further downhill. SS396 is just terrible.
3
Aug 21 2023
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Idlewild
Everything But The Girl
Literally the only thing one can do is yawn.
Holy hell this is dull.
1
Aug 22 2023
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Document
R.E.M.
There's a couple of catchy tracks on this, but I can't help but get the feeling that if you didn't like REM at the time, it's unlikely that you'll learn to enjoy REM after discovering them later.
3
Aug 23 2023
View Album
So
Peter Gabriel
Sledgehammer truly is a brilliant track. The bass, the percussion, the lead guitar, all entirely perfect for the track it is. 37 years on, it sounds fresh and exciting. Gabriel's voice is just wonderful. The production is through the roof.
The rest of the album - yeah, not so good.
Both Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel have incredible sounding voices, but weirdly they chose to waste their pipes on an incredibly pedestrian song - Don't Give Up . Bizarrely, it starts going somewhere after 5 minutes and 45 seconds of interminable pap before just straight out giving up on an incredibly lazy fade. The irony, when they'd spent half an eternity telling each other not to.
There's interesting drumming on That Voice Again, but the track turns out to be Gabriel cosplaying as Sting. The Sting cosplay continues with Mercy Street, and again in totally unironic irony, there is no mercy to be shown in over six minutes of meandering doldrums that take forever to get anywhere. You keep listening hoping to find some of the Sledgehammer magic, but it just doesn't come.
Big Time thankfully has a bit of punch to it, but doesn't get close to where it should be, and then goes straight back to meandering with We Do What We're Told.
This Is The Picture underuses Laurie Anderson. Again, someone with a magnificent and distinctive voice, just left to wander aimlessly.
The finishing track - In Your Eyes - is not strong enough to finish an album on. I can't help but conclude that Sledgehammer was such a massive hit - a song (and video) that changed music - that its host album was sellotaped onto the 1,001 out of courtesy.
This should be a two-star album, but the heights of sledgehammer brings it reluctantly up to a three.
3
Aug 24 2023
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Madman Across The Water
Elton John
I just don't get it. It's background music, yet people pay money to go and see it. Baffling.
1
Aug 25 2023
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Chirping Crickets
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
Archetypal rock and roll
It's not so much that this music is pegged rock solid firmly to it's era, it's more that the era is pegged rock solidly to this music.
5
Aug 26 2023
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Mama Said Knock You Out
LL Cool J
This album strongly reminds me of the late 00s, possibly the early 10s as I used to have this album in rotation for my drives to work. I'd often drop off my housemate at his work while on the way to the office while this album was playing, and his office was best accessed via a lay-by clearly signed as being "No buses". We would always shout "fuck you, no buses!" as we pulled into the layby, because clearly we weren't even in a single bus, let alone multiple buses.
Anyway, this album is just fun. It makes you glad that you're listening to it.
5
Aug 27 2023
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Viva Hate
Morrissey
It has to be said... Morrissey needs to be consigned to history. Sure, he came along at a time that kinda tolerated him, even appreciated his work. But that time has gone, and it won't ever come back. He's railing against his own irrelevance, desperately voicing hateful bilge just to court some controversy. He is the GB News of music, and it would genuinely be better just to forget him.
1
Aug 28 2023
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Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Devo
This is great. Didn't know what to expect, but I've been pleasantly surprised. Obviously some of the language used is problematic, but what wasn't problematic in the 1970s?
The inclusion of live tracks is unfortunate, but the performances and recording are decent enough to not distract too much. But live stuff is usually an automatic 1 star, so we have to acknowledge it in the score.
4
Aug 29 2023
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Searching For The Young Soul Rebels
Dexys Midnight Runners
Any album - well, there's probably only one - that contains the lyric "You're supposed to be so angry, why not fight? Let me benefit from your rage" is going to get five stars from me.
Dexys are a strange act. Kevin Rowland drove the band relentlessly, mercilessly. Finding out about it makes it seem cultish and worrying. One cannot argue that the result isn't some of the tightest band work it's possible to imagine.
The legacy of Come on Eileen makes Dexy's seem like less than they are. Geno is a superior song in almost every way, but There There My Dear is just sublime. The uniform incomprehensibility of the lyrics notwithstanding, the lyricism is unbelievably strong. It's hard not to nod toward Feargal Sharkey, especially "It's going to happen" - released a year after this album, the horns are clearly drawing inspiration.
Talking of inspiration - Quantic's Sol Clap - released 30 years after this album - is one of the only times I can point to horns with such macho pomp. Such confident, balls out joy of strutting around. What fun!
Anyway - Dexys. The album is a hoot. High energy, high talent, and with more than a few absolutely stand out tracks. Not to mention that Come on Eileen is central to the opening of the best episode of Spaced. It has to be one of the best albums of the past 50 years.
5
Aug 30 2023
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The Dreaming
Kate Bush
I am someone who appreciates Tori Amos a great deal.
And here is Kate Bush being Tori Amos a decade before Tori Amos became Tori Amos.
This mlght also be one of, if not the first, times I've commented upon some album art. I love this. I'm very glad to say I caught glimpse of it on a big screen, rather than merely viewing it on my phone. Had I not, I may have missed the wedding ring on the tongue, in a classic Hammer vampire type pose. It's a great picture and I think I'd like to buy some wall art of it.
Onto the music. I can totally accept that many people will hate this.
Those people are entitled to their opinion, no matter how wrong that opinion is. This album is genius. Kate Bush is a genius. From what I know of her, she started out super-young. She was dissatisfied with the studio/label directions and producers often didn't quite keep up - and this album was the first she produced herself at her own studio.
I can't help but think about Gary Numan. Also under twenty when he hit the music scene, also utterly unlike what had been seen before. Kate Bush took everything about being a singer/songwriter and said "this is too pedestrian for me" before doing her funky thing and just utterly blasting everything out of the water. This album is Bush in a position to self-produce, and it is wonderful to hear how she's able to push things further, go in uncomfortable directions and create music that can push boundary and inspire others.
Clear as day, this album pushed two minor artists - Bjork and Tori Amos - into directions that yielded even more remarkable music.
Yes, this album is just great.
5
Aug 31 2023
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Honky Tonk Masquerade
Joe Ely
Urgh. Country.
I guess if you like country, this might not be irredeemable pap.
Unfortunately, for normal people, this is irredeemable pap.
1
Sep 01 2023
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Lazer Guided Melodies
Spiritualized
Cracking album. Not as good as Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, but certainly sets the direction that Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space went in. Hurrah.
4
Sep 02 2023
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Moon Safari
Air
This is not a good album with some great tracks, it's a great album with some good tracks. And two kinda janky ones.
All I need is beautiful in a way I'd find it difficult to express fully.
Sexy Boy and Kelly Watch The Stars are perhaps the two weakest tracks on the album, and both of them were released as singles. Which probably goes a long way to justifying this as a great album.
5
Sep 03 2023
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The Grand Tour
George Jones
The literal first few seconds of this was enough to tell me it's not for me. The most country of country. Nope.
1
Sep 04 2023
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Floodland
Sisters Of Mercy
Well this is dark, moody and sexual.
It's kind of like Type O Negative without the fun. There is a sort of optimism to it though that I find surprising from behind the black-clad, heavy eyelined Generation X cynical delivery.
By the time Flood II comes around, I think I'm fully invested. I am Gen X, so that might have something to do with it.
I can easily imagine swaying awkwardly (but rhythmically) to this at Slimelight, probably while drinking a pint of snakebite and black from a plastic cup, while impossibly beautiful girls in corsets and lace writhe around me.
God damn it, this album is actually good, isn't it?
5
Sep 05 2023
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Ghosteen
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
5
Sep 06 2023
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Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts
The Adverts
This is some really good punk music. It isn't particularly angry, it's just punks having enormous fun and playing music really well.
I get the feeling that I've listened to "the ultimate edition" or something, because with 25 tracks, some of them 3 versions of the same, this is too long.
Great music, but unless you're really really into it, just stop the playback after track 13.
5
Sep 07 2023
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Dare!
The Human League
Some might describe this as the pinnacle of 80s synth pop, and in many ways they've got it right. The problem I have with this is that it's a culmination, something that almost allows no further refinement.
To go further with this would mean changing it into something else, distinct and different to what it already is.
4
Sep 08 2023
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Hot Buttered Soul
Isaac Hayes
And now for the music of Mr Burt Baccarach!
This is funky, sensual and just a tiny bit repetitive in places. Damn good though.
5
Sep 09 2023
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Hunting High And Low
a-ha
I have difficulty rating this one. While the well-known greats are indeed great, some of the cratediggers are pretty decent too. Production is through the roof, and there's clearly some talent there. However, as an album it just doesn't quite hang together right. Weird.
4
Sep 10 2023
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Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Stereolab
It is wrong to approach Stereolab as producers of music.
They make soundscapes and feelings.
When you bear that in mind, most of their soundscapes are enormously fun. This is no exception. I have to say that I prefer Dots and Loops, but sure, I'll take this.
5
Sep 11 2023
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Fromohio
fIREHOSE
An album and an artist I've never heard of.
I have no idea what to expect. I'm halfway through the first track and I still don't know what to expect. It is very left-channel.
The stereo balance does even out through the rest of the album. "What gets heard" had quite the a-ha vibe, doesn't it? Following on from that appears to be a drum solo. Which is pretty cool. In fact, "pretty cool" is the overriding impression one gets from this album, full stop.
4
Sep 12 2023
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Space Ritual
Hawkwind
This isn't actually terrible, but it does have the disadvantage of being both over-long and live. Meh.
2
Sep 13 2023
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Another Music In A Different Kitchen
Buzzcocks
Enjoyable, and I didn't even get as far as the killer tracks when listening yesterday.
5
Sep 14 2023
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Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod Stewart
Better than I was expecting it to be.
4
Sep 15 2023
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Oedipus Schmoedipus
Barry Adamson
Hey, this is surprisingly good. I even knew a couple of the tracks.
Also fun to hear Jarvis Cocker.
5
Sep 16 2023
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Atomizer
Big Black
I'm rather hoping thar the first track doesn't set the standard for this album.
Well, it both does and doesn't. The rest of the album is just as aggressive, but decidedly less harsh.
4
Sep 17 2023
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The Who Sell Out
The Who
This may be an interesting experiment, or more likely an irritating and arrogant display of style over substance. It's OK, I guess, as a novelty to show you can afford to waste the opportunity of an album, but if I'd bought this on vinyl in the 60s I'd have been mildly miffed. It's a joke that could only ever go so far, and utterly obviates any desire to listen to it again. Shame really, as there's actually a couple of good singles hidden in amongst the annoyance.
2
Sep 18 2023
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C'est Chic
CHIC
Ah, disco. That most maligned of the musical genres.
Thing is, the "disco" stuff is great. The slow numbers are kinda not. The disco does outweigh it though, so drag yourself through the end of the night cooldown tracks and boogie like it's 1978 to the good stuff.
4
Sep 19 2023
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Infected
The The
Was wondering how long it was going to be before I got a The The recommendation.
I'm aware of the band. Pretty much anyone who's ever been exposed to the sort of music poncery that exudes from NME writers will have heard of The The. They're one of those bands who seem to be incredibly influential without managing to be successful. Or even particularly good.
I can't say that I particularly enjoyed this album, and I'd certainly not be spending any time listening to it again, but it isn't terrible either.
2
Sep 20 2023
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Group Sex
Circle Jerks
Mercifully short, this is a punchy, punky album. Taking cues from previous punk, they get to the point straight away and don't overcomplicate it, which I very much appreciate.
4
Sep 21 2023
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Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
Well, I am not at all displeased by either the inclusion of this wonderful album on the list, nor that I have been asked to listen to it again.
Massively influential, massively good, this album makes me happy in a way few albums can.
There is a hint of creepiness and desperation to this album that never quite makes itself unpleasant. This is probably helped by there being just so many good, brain-invading tunes. There is just so much to love about this. It's great, and easily gets top scores from me.
5
Sep 22 2023
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American Gothic
David Ackles
Oh my this is dull.
I mean, his voice is more than competent. The production seems decent, but the mix of TV show theme tunes, vaguely but thankfully not-quite country and show tunes gets tired very quickly.
2
Sep 23 2023
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Reign In Blood
Slayer
Exemplary work - thankfully not too long, but exactly what it needs to be and exactly what you'd expect.
5
Sep 24 2023
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Ellington at Newport
Duke Ellington
Proof once again that live albums aren't great.
If it wasn't for the sheer, unbelievable talent of the musicians, I'd have no interest in this whatsoever. I don't enjoy the audience noise. I don't enjoy the compere. I sure as toffee don't enjoy live albums generally.
Sure, these musicians are insanely good. Would they be better in the studio, with a great producer? Absolutely yes.
5
Sep 25 2023
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L'Eau Rouge
The Young Gods
I listened to this a couple of times, and it's definitely an experience. Not something I'd go out of my way to listen to again.
3
Sep 26 2023
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3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days In The Life Of...
Arrested Development
This is rather good. Seems like the antidote to West Coast rap, tracking the same kinds of social injustices, but without resorting to desperate, toxic-masculine traits.
I knew a couple of tracks beforehand - I'd only have been able to name Mr Wendal as one of theirs consciously, I think - and I was moderately surprised to hear more that had somehow escaped association. Definitely a nice listen.
4
Sep 27 2023
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The Suburbs
Arcade Fire
I am perfectly content to live the entire rest of my life never having heard any Arcade Fire at all. Yet here we are, listening to it.
By the halfway point, I am bored to the point of desperation. And that's after some judicious skips.
I'm going to have to stop. Made it as far as Half Light II (no celebration).
I'm definitely celebrating the decision to stop listening to this bilge.
1
Sep 28 2023
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Made In Japan
Deep Purple
Difficult to balance my fondness for Deep Purple, my delight at the track selection and the talent of the musicians against the fact this is a live album. Honestly, Deep Purple are great and this album.. Isn't. Because I'm not interested in the showboatery of a twiddly lead guitar solo. I don't care about audience participation, and I'd far, far rather listen to music being the best it can be rather than "the best it can be live".
3
Sep 29 2023
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Graceland
Paul Simon
I don't need to listen to this again to tell you that it's great.
Sure, there's a lot to unpack, with Simon's breaking of Apartheid travel bans, and whether his work is culturally appreciative or culturally appropriative, but the long and short of it is that the music is just fabulous.
"You can call me Al" is probably one of my all-time favourite songs, though I have to say that when listening to this album again, I found "Graceland" to be way better than I remembered it being. The lyrics hit me this time in a way I don't think I'd picked up on before. Great stuff.
5
Sep 30 2023
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Heroes
David Bowie
Not the worst Bowie album I've heard, but genuinely I don't get the (excuse the pun) hero worship.
Heroes is a decent track. The album is just OK.
3
Oct 01 2023
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Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys
There's definitely some great tracks on here.
There's a few which sound massively dated, and not in the good way. But overall there's a lot to like and not a lot to object to.
4
Oct 02 2023
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Yeezus
Kanye West
Nope.
The fact that Garfunkel and Oates have a video from 2009 called "Who said it, Kanye or Hitler?" should say everything that needs to be said about Kanye.
1
Oct 03 2023
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Penance Soiree
The Icarus Line
An album I've never heard of, from a band I've never heard of, released at the nadir of 2000s music... Oh boy, am I looking forward to this.
Reading up, the album was beset by arguments from the band - with rolling eyes, one observes that this is always such a good sign. Now what is reassuring is that the record label did nothing to help them. Given the staggering lack of wit, nous or decent taste in the music industry then, this is the smallest glimmer of hope about what looks, on paper at least, like it's going to be a lightly fried turd of an album.
Right then. Let's give it a listen.
OK, for first impressions, I can see exactly why they were signed to begin with. Despite being a cross between Jane's Addiction and Melt Banana, there's a little bit of talent here. Unfortunately I don't think that little bit of talent ratios well enough to the amount of talent they think they have.
This music is the very epitome of "Prima donna", but without the goods to make the bad worth tolerating.
Had this been as workmanlike and as dedicated as Melt Banana, it could have been so much more. But it's swimming in testosterone and misplaced swagger, like every other damn thing from the dead years of music.
No lads, you're not the next Beatles. Get over yourselves, play some music. Only play for the audience, yeah, not your own egoes.
2
Oct 04 2023
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Felt Mountain
Goldfrapp
This isn't the best Goldfrapp album. I mean, it's pretty good and it set a decent direction for them to travel in, but it sure ain't the best they've done.
4
Oct 05 2023
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Damaged
Black Flag
Good fun. I especially loved the TV party one. Reminded me very much of my mid twenties.
5
Oct 06 2023
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In Utero
Nirvana
So edgy.
Thirty years ago, I was too young for Nirvana. That isn't too say that there weren't people in my class at school who genuinely shed tears on finding out Cobain's death. But I was not struck by their brand of angsty grunge.
Now, I am too old for Nirvana. I understand their almost singlehanded creation of a new genre, I understand Cobain's now almost trite tortured genius. But I cannot get into the angst. Grunge as a style, ethos or musical expression can never really go further than the perfection of Seth Green - both from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Austin Powers. It as much of a pastiche as hippy and as ironically un-self-aware as the post-Britpop bilge of the early 2000s
Grunge is often held up as a point delineating Gen X from the Millennials - but we Xers had another half a decade past grunge, encompassing trip-hop, gangsta rap, rave, britpop, garage, funky house and - yes, I'm going to call it - everything up until the Spice Girls.
Nirvana gave us a pause and a reset between the 80s and 90s but it is no more than a chapter within Gen X.
It is an important album, but not one that I personally enjoy.
4
Oct 07 2023
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It's Too Late to Stop Now
Van Morrison
I have precisely no interest in this, whatsoever.
Even if it wasn't a double album (boo!) of live tracks (double boo!) I would have zero interest in it. Van Morrison is of utterly no consequence to me, and I genuinely find it hard to believe that he is to anyone else, either.
1
Oct 08 2023
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Good Old Boys
Randy Newman
Yeah, this is not for me.
1
Oct 09 2023
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69 Love Songs
The Magnetic Fields
Boring and samey. Is there really three lots of 23 songs to endure?
I sure wouldn't like to actually listen to these. Concentration over that period of time is a legitimate chore, however just having this playing along in the background isn't actually objectionable. It does seem like a lot of effort to go to for such a juvenile joke, though.
2
Oct 10 2023
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Billion Dollar Babies
Alice Cooper
A little more pedestrian than I was generally expecting, but fun enough.
3
Oct 11 2023
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World Clique
Deee-Lite
A pure delight.
Funky house might have existed before Deee-Lite, but Deee-Lite picked it up and ran with it.
5
Oct 12 2023
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Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
There's not really much to say about Presley, other than he's a white guy making black guy music. Obviously he wasn't the person behind the music, but he was very much the acceptable white face of it. It's great that he managed to make mainstream music that could not have been without him (or someone like him) but it's terrible that that's how it had to have happened.
4
Oct 13 2023
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Shaft
Isaac Hayes
Funky AF. Cool as hell. Some of the tracks are a little dull to sit down and listen to, but that's explained entirely by it being incidental music to a fillum. The highs beat out the lows though, hands down.
5
Oct 14 2023
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São Paulo Confessions
Suba
What would happen if you were to take samba and make it wobbly?
This is what would happen. It isn't great, I'll be honest. There's a lot of production choices that I just don't get - like the overly repetitive beats and riffs. The sound seems compressed, with not all that much in the way of dynamic range and the preponderance of frequency around the 100hz mark makes this actually quite tiring.
When the kick drums break out and bring you some low frequency to drag you away from the floor toms, it's a blessed relief. I'd have preferred some of the vocals to be more prominent, as the balance against that incessant 100hz muddy murk is just too damn low.
I guess if this were produced better, had tighter focus on the distinct and stripped out a lot of the padding I'd like it a hell of a lot more.
2
Oct 15 2023
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Dirty
Sonic Youth
I don't get it.
This is apparently revered by some, and I really wish someone could explain why. It is muddy, flaccid and noisy. The vocals are flat and seemly deliberately off-key. The only track on here I can suggest I "like" (and I use the term in a very loose sense) is Sugar Kane, which goes on a minute too long.
I guess if you grew up with Nirvana and were tired of grunge, this represents and a nice little change of direction, but jeebus it's a not a fun album to listen to.
1
Oct 16 2023
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Dub Housing
Pere Ubu
I quite liked how this started. I do not like how it finished. Seemed to go from fairly nice, experimental but melodic right through to dissonant, cacophonic mess with a bad David Byrne vibe. It doesn't seem to go anywhere - like any old claptrap were shoved in with a "that'll do".
2
Oct 17 2023
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O.G. Original Gangster
Ice T
Love this. The flow's great, T is clearly top of his game. And he isn't a giant kangaroo yet.
5
Oct 18 2023
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This Is Fats Domino
Fats Domino
I have absolutely no idea if I've been listening to the "right" Fats Domino, but what I have been listening to, I have enjoyed a great deal. I think I have a couple of compilation CDs somewhere.
Truly a great, an inspiration to so many artists and set the direction of western music for a generation.
5
Oct 19 2023
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Surrealistic Pillow
Jefferson Airplane
Incredible to believe that two of the most iconic tracks of the 1960s didn't top the charts!
The album is good. The songs, individually, are better.
4
Oct 20 2023
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Justified
Justin Timberlake
Better than I was expecting it to be, never something I would choose to listen to again. Ultimately, it is perfectly well produced disposable pop. I doubt anyone would miss its passing.
3
Oct 21 2023
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m b v
My Bloody Valentine
This is appalling..
"nothing is" - legit, is this stuck in the groove?
Dismal, almost unlistenable. The absolute best thing one can say of this is that the relief one feels when it stops is extremely welcome.
1
Oct 22 2023
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Different Class
Pulp
One of the reviews here suggests that this is the best album of the 1990s. Now, I wouldn't go that far, but it's definitely in contention for it.
While some of Cocker's lyrics are a little less than savoury, he writes from a position of knowing, living and breathing the realities of his subject. He's a dirty little bastard, he revels in it.
There are few albums that can consistenly blend anger, filth, comedy, yearning and reckless self-destruction together while still being poppy and winsome.
Listening to this again (I bought it on CD when it came out) I can see how Cocker's vocals could be distracting, and the simplicity of production may not appeal to youthful tastes, but being of and from its era, it is a masterpiece.
5
Oct 23 2023
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All Hope Is Gone
Slipknot
I was pleasantly surprised at how 80s metal this was.
3
Oct 24 2023
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Let's Get Killed
David Holmes
When I was a much, much younger man, I used to work with a delightful pharmacist from Northern Ireland. One of the best albums I've ever heard was loaned to me by her, complete with its blister-pack CD case looking like a box of prescription medication; Spiritualised's masterpiece, Ladies and Genlemen, We Are Floating In Space. Amongst the other CDs she lent me was David Holmes' Let's Get Killed, an album which I found interesting enough to remember - vaguely - when I heard the first strains of it this morning, but not interesting enough to have listened to it in over 20 years. I wonder that lovely pharmacist is up to, nowadays?
Listening to Let's Get Killed again this evening, I am surprised by its familiarity. Rodney Yates is a great track and I'll fight anyone who says it isn't.
Definitely worth a listen to; boy from Belfast doing well.
4
Oct 25 2023
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Hard Again
Muddy Waters
I can't be satisfied.
Oh wait. Yes I can. By the track "I can't be satisfied".
Bluesgasm.
5
Oct 26 2023
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Hotel California
Eagles
3
Oct 27 2023
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Lam Toro
Baaba Maal
I think I'd like to spend more time with this album.
4
Oct 28 2023
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Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman
John Zorn
Chaotic greatness.
5
Oct 29 2023
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B-52's
The B-52's
My first impression is that this is enormous fun, however it does get a little samey after a while.
I'm very glad other people agree that their cover of Downtown is a stinky patch of ick on the otherwise silken sheets that adorn the bed of this magnificent album.
5
Oct 30 2023
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Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul
Otis Redding
An enjoyable set of covers.
Otis was a great performer, but every one of these covers has a better version elsewhere.
4
Oct 31 2023
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Ctrl
SZA
The lyrics are just bad. I don't give a monkeys about the language - the lyrics are just bad. Being mistaken for a clitoris?
Er. Tell me you've never seen ladyparts without saying that you've never seen ladyparts.
Overall, this is just about tolerable, musically, absolutely appalling lyrically and comedicly awful anatomically.
More than willing to accept that it might be for someone. But it is not for me.
2
Nov 01 2023
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Violator
Depeche Mode
This is a decent album with some very good tracks on it, but I'm afraid it doesn't grip me in the way I'd want it to. Despite a couple of tries at it, I remain ungrippered.
4
Nov 03 2023
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Here Come The Warm Jets
Brian Eno
Girl is on fire.
Enjoyable enough. Out there. Discordant in places.
4
Nov 05 2023
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Chris
Christine and the Queens
Interesting Frenchy pop.
3
Nov 06 2023
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Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D'Arby
Terence Trent D'Arby
Lovely voice, splendidly produced, ultimately unappealing.
2
Nov 07 2023
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Appetite For Destruction
Guns N' Roses
Something to move rock away from hair metal. The hits rock. The misses miss, but not by much.
4
Nov 08 2023
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Trio
Dolly Parton
Nope, can't do it.
It's just too country.
I'm sure it's brilliant within its genre, but it literally hurts my earballs.
1
Nov 10 2023
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Wild Is The Wind
Nina Simone
Nina Simone has done better stuff. But that's also in this list, so...
5
Nov 11 2023
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Bayou Country
Creedence Clearwater Revival
It's CCR. It slaps.
5
Nov 12 2023
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The Low End Theory
A Tribe Called Quest
This is definitely a grower. Not hugely engaging to begin with, the flows and the hooks give you a bit of background noise before you realise that actually, you're quite digging it.
4
Nov 13 2023
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Who Killed...... The Zutons?
The Zutons
This is probably going to be shit.
Post britpop shite.
On listening, it's a bit more upbeat and "fun" than I was expecting it to be. This does not mean I enjoyed it.
2
Nov 14 2023
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GI
Germs
Small punky album. A decent enough listen.
4
Nov 15 2023
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Maverick A Strike
Finley Quaye
Is this really from 26 years ago?
Back in the 1990s I took an ill-advised job as a door-to-door lead generator for a double glazing company. Five of us would climb into a decade-old Ford Granada and get ourselves to some part of town where we'd knock on people's doors and ask them if they'd like double glazing.
Surprisingly few people did.
A couple of things stick very clearly in my mind from that awful fortnight. The first is the the driver of the Ford Granada had spent more money on the car's stereo than he had on the actual car. The second is that he didn't have a driving licence. Or insurance. Pretty sure he didn't tax it, either. Any rate, the stereo was pretty good; CD players in cars, especially cars as old as a Granada, were incredibly rare. Most that could play CDs were serviced by a cassette adaptor plugged into a Sony Discman stuck to the dashboard, and this was exactly the situation here. Each day one of the five would bring in a CD to listen to as we were driven from area to area to flog double glazing. Even after all this time (see what I did there?) I remember that one of the people enjoying the back seat of that enormous Ford was a girl called Hannah, who brought this CD with her one day. And it was by far and away the best album anyone brought along for the whole ten days I dragged my teenage arse to that terrible job.
Looking back, I have absolutely no concern about what the rat-like Granada driver did with his life, if anything. I couldn't care less what the other two scrotey teenage boys have become. But I do wonder if Hannah ever amounted to anything, with her impeccably awesome music taste.
This album is the easiest five stars of the week, and I wish I'd spent more time with it over the past twenty years, with its lovely wobbly bass, catchy tunes and questionable appropriation. No, it isn't authentic. It doesn't have to be. Listen to it, relax to it and enjoy the vibes.
5
Nov 16 2023
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New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
Simple Minds
This isn't anything beyond average.
3
Nov 17 2023
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GREY Area
Little Simz
I think I conflated this in my mind for Little Mix, and thankfully it wasn't that. Some of the lyrics are what I believe the kids today would say "a bit cringe" but she makes up for this in flow and beats. An enjoyable listen.
4
Nov 18 2023
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White Light
Gene Clark
Well this has all the things going for it, doesn't it?
Folk, singer/songwriter - 🤮
Country - 🤮
Dylan cover - 🤮
Boring, uninspiring, but thankfully short. 👍
2
Nov 19 2023
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Reggatta De Blanc
The Police
Some good enough tracks from before they became properly creepy.
4
Nov 20 2023
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A Little Deeper
Ms. Dynamite
Ms Dynamite is underrated. I'm not planning on listening to this album again any time soon, but if I do, it won't be a problem.
4
Nov 21 2023
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Os Mutantes
Os Mutantes
Note really sure how to rate this. It's not unpleasant, it's clearly an interesting and exciting mix of sounds. Not something I'd particularly want to listen to again, and I definitely can't imagine it entering my regular rotation, but am I pleased to have heard it? Yeah - kinda!
4
Nov 22 2023
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Ramones
Ramones
Top notch punk.
5
Nov 23 2023
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Want One
Rufus Wainwright
What is it with the early 2000s and bombastic pomp?
It's very tempting to blame Oasis and The Verve, but I'm not sure it can be in this case.
Everything is soaring, full of grandiosity - and a bit shit. Vicious World has some truly unpleasant stereo imaging, which is I can only assume the mixing desk equivalent of an extremely drunk bloke at a house party flicking the lights on and off while shouting "Disco!" to a bunch of unenthusiastic and slightly embarrassed teenagers.
Every track has that bright ostentatious sound. An old piece of bacon never eaten by Elvis.
1
Nov 24 2023
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People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
A Tribe Called Quest
What the shit? Does this start with the sound of a baby crying? The noise honed by evolution over hundreds of thousands of years to be the most unpleasant sound a human ear could hear?
Fortunately it gets better very, very quickly. By the time Public Enemy comes around I am fully invested. Talking of public enemy - I piggin' love the loops on this track.
Beats, flow, lyrics that bust. Yep. This is good stuff. Just a shame about the baby.
5
Nov 26 2023
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Want Two
Rufus Wainwright
I got Wainwright's Want One just two days ago. I described that as overwrought, full of pomposity and ridiculous grandeur. This is similar, but somehow worse.
I don't want to be the one baptised in cum.
Someone will ask for my head
And I'll get down on my knees and give it to him.
When your lyrics are this beautiful, I guess it distracts from your voice being as nasal and whiny as that. Jesus H Christ, you mopey little bastard.
1
Nov 27 2023
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I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail
Buck Owens
Entirely too country for me. While I understand the influence Buck Owens had on the development of the quintessential country style, I really wish he hadn't.
1
Nov 28 2023
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Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips
An interesting album. So many people I know absolutely love it. I can never quite go as far as loving it. It's decent enough, but not lovable. Given its from the early 2000s that's actually the highest praise its possible to level toward it.
3
Nov 30 2023
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Haut de gamme / Koweït, rive gauche
Koffi Olomide
I enjoyed approximately ⅔ of this album. If I'd heard the other ⅓ at another time, on another day, I'd probably have enjoyed it then, but the relentless sunny optimism of this music is rather taxing on a snowy November day.
4
Dec 01 2023
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Eliminator
ZZ Top
There's a couple of cracking rock tracks in here, but overall it becomes fatiguing very quickly.
3
Dec 02 2023
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The United States Of America
The United States Of America
I attempt this album for the fourth time, today. I have not disliked it; it seems like innovative, experimental psychedelic rock that really pushes towards the latest (at the time) technology, using electronica in a way that few people could possibly have done before.
There's a lot of anarchy and cacophony in here. Some of the vocoder / modulation of the vocals is incredible. Strongly reminiscent in delivery to Dubstar, recorded 30-ish years later. As I sit and properly try to take it in, I'm increasingly impressed with what they were doing with their synths. As I get to "I won't leave my wooden wife for you" and "Where is yesterday" I realise that actually, yes, this is a brilliant album.
5
Dec 04 2023
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Feast of Wire
Calexico
I started off very much not liking this, but as it goes on, I find myself warming to it considerably. I rather think that I'll have to come back to this again.
4
Dec 05 2023
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Grievous Angel
Gram Parsons
This is entirety too country for me. Skip.
1
Dec 06 2023
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Smash
The Offspring
Back in the 90s The Offspring were starting to be viewed as a bit of a joke band - something they leant into with Pretty Fly - but that wasn't entirely justified. Like their contemporaries, Green Day, this wasn't entirely justified. There genuinely are a few very decent tracks in here, tracks that despite not having heard for 20 or so years feel like slipping into a warm friend. None of these are in the first 3 or 4 tracks though, so it does need a bit of a run-up.
4
Dec 07 2023
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The College Dropout
Kanye West
As I look down the shameful list of five, count them, five albums that remain unreviewed from the last week, I am presented with a Kanye West album, which I have absolutely no intention of listening to. I already know it will be overwrought gumpf from a mentally unstable nazi sympathiser. I'll go back to something from the list of shame.
1
Dec 08 2023
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Everything Must Go
Manic Street Preachers
I absolutely piggin' hate the Manics. Hugely overrated, massively egotistical nationalist wankers.
1
Dec 09 2023
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Berlin
Lou Reed
While I love Lou Reed, many of the tracks on this album can only really be described as "interminable".
Sad Song appears to have been going on for at least two hundred years.
3
Dec 10 2023
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Peter Gabriel 3
Peter Gabriel
Bold and expansive, this starts out hard and stays pretty hard throughout.
It's something I'm glad I've listened to, although not something I would necessarily want to listen to again.
4
Dec 11 2023
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Fever Ray
Fever Ray
I enjoyed what I've heard, but she's way better as part of The Knife.
4
Dec 12 2023
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Rings Around The World
Super Furry Animals
Rings around the world?
Maybe rings around the bath.
This is probably the last hurrah of the britpop era, before the early 2000s curse kicked in. Fortunately, very little of it is actually britpop, which had overstayed its welcome by this point in history. There's great variety in this, and I genuinely like some of the tracks, but I don't think it works as a cohesive album.
3
Dec 13 2023
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Golden Hour
Kacey Musgraves
Dear God this is dull. Uninspired country-ish mope pop.
She has a nice voice, and the album seems to be produced well enough, but I'm bored witless by it.
1
Dec 16 2023
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Vivid
Living Colour
Rock on. Surprisingly listenable
3
Dec 17 2023
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Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
TV On The Radio
I've tried this a couple of times over the last few weeks and I just can't summon enough enthusiasm to review it.
2
Dec 18 2023
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In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Iron Butterfly
OK, so the first and most important thing to note is that there are two versions of this, named identically on Tidal, one a very reasonable 36 minutes long, the other nearly 2¾ hours long.
Try the reasonable one first. If you like it, knock yourself out with the silly one.
Up to Mr Mirage, this all seems pretty pedestrian. I quite like the drumming.
.....
The drumming is actually pretty stand-out in this. Is that a double kick drum? No... Apparently Ron Bushy only used a single kick drum - which is frankly absolutely incredible.
Probably better to just listen to side B. Thats great, but unless you have a special interest in psychedelia or great drumming, you'll get everything you need from the stand-out track.
4
Dec 20 2023
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The Coral
The Coral
Post-britpop, but entirely less wanky than their contemporaries. Dreaming of you is genuinely a fun track, however the rest of this album strays worryingly close to twee in its perkiness.
The biases and pecadillos of the compiler really show up in this selection, though. White boys (check) from the North-ish of England (check) and making music almost specifically for Oxfordshire-born journos working for Melody Maker or the NME (check) - it more or less couldn't not make it to the list. And it really shouldn't have. One decent track doesn't make an album, and there's a good few hundred albums I'd opt for before this one.
3
Dec 21 2023
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Supa Dupa Fly
Missy Elliott
While Missy Elliott should definitely have a place in this compilation, I don't this this album is the work to remember. She's starting up and not yet at the top of her game. Also, this album has "The Rain (supa dupa fly)" on it - a track I absolutely cannot stand.
Even omitting that track, the album would be merely "jolly good" and not "exceptional". The track is not omitted though, so....
3
Dec 22 2023
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Too Rye Ay
Dexys Midnight Runners
Kevin Rowland is a nutter. Incomprehensible lyrics, slavedriver mentality, showman and perfectionist.
There's so much to like about this. The horns. The energy. The anger.
4
Dec 23 2023
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Sunshine Superman
Donovan
Very enjoyable album. Doesn't have Donovan's best work on it, but there's so much good here, that can be overlooked.
4
Dec 24 2023
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Better Living Through Chemistry
Fatboy Slim
Almost archetypal of Big Beat, Norman Cook proves himself an absolute master of yet another genre.
This is the dude from The Housemartins who went on to score Number 1s as Beats International (dub be good to me) and Freak Power (Turn on, tune in, cop out) before defining a (rather large) subset of the 90s UK music scene. Yes - this is repetitive. It's big beat, it's supposed to be. The beats are supported by often near incomprehensible vocal samples. Inevitably in the mainstream club scene, people would attempt to sing along to these vocals, and there was honestly something genuinely lovely about watching towny lads in the 90s, clad in their uniform Ben Sherman shirts, chanting "Gay porn gay porn gay porn" as "Give the po' man a break" spun on the Techniks.
It's not Cook's best ever work, but it sure is some of his most influential.
5
Dec 25 2023
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Vulnicura
Björk
So far this is almost comically stereotypical Bjork stuff.
Synths mixed with orchestral, variations in tempo and tonality. Her voice is rougher than previous works. I don't dislike either her voice or this album, but I don't think it reaches the heights of her debut album, Debut.
4
Dec 26 2023
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The Good, The Bad & The Queen
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
I can't help but think that this album did not need to be made. It very much strikes me as a vanity project. While I don't object to it as an exercise in music, I don't see what value it contributes.
3
Dec 27 2023
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Doggystyle
Snoop Dogg
This is such a good album. Yes, the lyrics are juvenile but they're also really funny.
The beats and hooks are some of the best there're been. And to this day I refer to gin & OJ as "Snoop juice". Tha Shiznit.
5
Dec 28 2023
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Slayed?
Slade
Glam rock without a terribly huge amount of glam.
Incredible how this list can pick a Slade album with only one of Slade's best three tracks.
3
Dec 29 2023
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Meat Puppets II
Meat Puppets
I'm totally here for the punk and hardcore of this album. When the slide guitars and fiddles come out, it makes me want to gouge my earballs out. You know. I'm not actually sure that there are any slide guitars or fiddles in this. But whatever country voodoo it plays, it makes me think of slide guitars and fiddles and that's actually unforgivable for a punk hardcore act.
Plateau is a lovely track.
If you took the obnoxious country out of this, you'd have a decent, slightly experimental punk hardcore pop crossover album, and I'd probably thoroughly enjoy it.
2
Dec 30 2023
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I Am a Bird Now
Antony and the Johnsons
First track - what is this obnoxious guff?
Second track - oh crap, this is basically Rufus Wainwright but with falsetto warbling instead of nasal whining. Let's check the sleeve notes. Oh joy, Rufus Wainwright's a guest performer.
Third track - ah. This is a concept album about transsexuality. Great. Good for you, pet. Can you stop singing now please?
Track four - no, you're gonna carry on, aren't you?
The rest of this album is a hard no from me. I don't need this kind of tosh in my life. The mid-2000s continue to suck giant donkey balls. Jesus, looking back, the global financial crisis came as an actual relief.
Actually... Fistful of Love has just come round and is stepping far enough from morose cry-wanking to be actually quite nice, however it leads directly into Spiralling, which ratchets up the self-indulgence and presents what could and should be a nice voice. With a couple of show pony displays, the track and the voice are utterly ruined by the vibrato.
The production is pretty good, if only if it didn't sound like it was sung from atop a washing machine at the busiest part of the spin cycle.
1
Dec 31 2023
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Stripped
Christina Aguilera
I was not expecting much, and much is exactly what I didn't get, so it has that going for it. To be charitable I'd say that it wasn't appalling, but boy was I glad when it was over.
2
Jan 01 2024
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The Modern Dance
Pere Ubu
Not really what I needed to be listening to with an enormous hangover, but even through the discomfort of the often quite dissonant instrumentals, you can tell there's reason to the rhyme.
4
Jan 02 2024
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It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Public Enemy
Not as funky as other Public Enemy stuff. Good, but a little harsher.
3
Jan 03 2024
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Picture Book
Simply Red
This is not anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be. There's some reasonable tracks which actually show of Hucknall's voice quite well, and he is very much better suited to jazz than to pop.
I mean, that's not to say that I'd ever listen to it again. But 80s Simply Red does seem worlds better than 90s Simply Red.
2
Jan 04 2024
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Smokers Delight
Nightmares On Wax
This album attaches itself to the mid-1990s like a limpet to a rock. That isn't a bad thing, by any stretch, because to go into a bar playing Nightmares on Wax during the 90s was about the coolest thing one could do.
Sure, it isn't as good an album as Carboot Soul, but it is still really very good. If you imagine yourself chatting to a girl in a hip (probably underground) bar in Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol or London - you'd be talking to her about Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, or maybe about how tiresome Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Tamara Beckwith were - and this is the soundtrack to that chat-up. You'd buy her a hilariously expensive cocktail and have a g&t for yourself, and you'd feel like you owned the world.
Nightmares on Wax are the soundtrack for swish bars, funky hotels and relaxed ambiance. If your chat-up worked, though, when you got her back to yours and picked a CD to put into your B&O BeoSystem, it'd be Kruder & Dorfmeister that you put on while you went down on her. Sorry Nightmares, but you're cool music, not sexytime music.
5
Jan 05 2024
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Boy In Da Corner
Dizzee Rascal
Was this really 2003? Clearly sets up Dizzee as a musical force, and while I much prefer both Tounge N Cheek and The Fifth, this is where it began. Dizzee is an incredible artist, and this is an incredible album, establishing grime as a genre. Given fact that the music industry was stuffed to the gills with bomboclaat execs more worried about the imaginary trillions they were losing from than they were about finding and promoting new talent, I'm genuinely surprised they picked him up. But I'm very glad someone in the music industry was doing their job.
5
Jan 06 2024
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Fifth Dimension
The Byrds
I'd love to say that I enjoyed this. But I didn't. It's tepid. Production is good, but man, this list has way too much The Byrds.
2
Jan 07 2024
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Dire Straits
Dire Straits
Good album. Some filler. Establishes Knopfler as a performer. Local lads did good.
4
Jan 08 2024
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American Pie
Don McLean
Starts with one of the most famous songs about the death of a hero, and it's just one track of filler before "Vincent", which is a similarly amazing.
At just over half an hour, this is a perfect length for the type of album it is. Any longer would have been crass self indulgence. As it stands, it's great with just a bit of filler.
4
Jan 09 2024
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A Night At The Opera
Queen
I don't think I've ever listened to this album before. And there's some tosh on it. However, there is also a couple of the best tracks ever to come out of Queen.
4
Jan 10 2024
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Hearts And Bones
Paul Simon
Every story I've heard about Paul Simon breaking anti-Apartheid travel restrictions and going to South Africa involve tales of him being bored and disillusioned with his own music, and as this appears to be the album he released before traveling to meet decent musicians - I can fully empathise.
This album is technically a very competent recording, but blimey o'reilly it is ditchwater dull.
Who could fail to be inspired by "Song about the moon"? Let's not mention the staggering obviousness of "Cars are cars". Are they really, Paul? It takes some real lyrical genius to spot that.
Simon is a great musician, but there is little that exemplifies writer's block and moribund, contract-fulfilling journeymanning more than this tepid, desperately dull album.
1
Jan 11 2024
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Le Tigre
Le Tigre
What's your take on cassowaries?
Big fuckin' birds, want to kill you. Would not recommend.
5
Jan 12 2024
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The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground
Just too many great tracks to not be considered amazing.
Just too influential to not be considered amazing.
Venus in Furs is a standout among outstanding tracks.
5
Jan 13 2024
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The Nightfly
Donald Fagen
What the hell is going on with this?
For the first track, it did not start out well. It's kind as if Fagen had taken Rafferty's Baker Street, taken out the sax and replaced it with replaced with the cheapest of cheapo Casio synths. Added to this, a bit of a UB40 lilting drum and late ELO type vocals. It is genuinely pretty terrible.
However, the very next track starts with some godawful I don't even know - and then some really interesting funk happens.
The whole rest of the album is like this. It does musically interesting things, but manages to always fail at being interesting, ruined by the pervasive early 80s soft rockiness, which vascilates between unspeakable twee and irredeemably obnoxious. If only a producer had stepped in and told him "no", this could have been a genuinely interesting musical experience.
Unfortunately, as it stands, it isn't - and has rightly been consigned to the obscurity of being forgotten and unregsrded. .
2
Jan 14 2024
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KE*A*H** (Psalm 69)
Ministry
Cracking stuff.
5
Jan 15 2024
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John Prine
John Prine
Someone I've never heard of, self-titled album, sat in full denim on bales of hay with a guitar behind him.
Not to go into this with any prejudice, but I think I'm going to dislike it.
Yes, this is entirely wrong for me.
1
Jan 16 2024
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Hunky Dory
David Bowie
Oh joy.. Another Bowie album.
Saying that... This does appear to be his best. Some great tracks, not too much filler. This might be the highest rating I can give to a Bowie album, given that I just fundamentally don't get it.
4
Jan 17 2024
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En-Tact
The Shamen
This is great.
5
Jan 18 2024
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Licensed To Ill
Beastie Boys
It'd be so easy to dwell on the juvenile, offensive lyrics - "the girls I like are underage" - and there really is no excusing their crass, misogynistic wordplay.
It would be so easy to point out that the lyrics almost take a back seat to the infectious riffs, beats and set-ups.
What becomes tricky is having to balance these two things. I mean, this album was great, but it is definitely not without flaws.
If you are, like me, a white guy, it's probably quite difficult to detach yourself from the vicarious distaste for what's being said, but you know what? I can't imagine it's any different to being a black guy and detaching yourself from the distasteful narrative of Gagsta life when listening to Snoop or Easy E. So put it out of your mind and enjoy it in the spirit that it's intended - as something that's a whole heap of fun piled up into a little hillock of silly pastiche.
5
Jan 19 2024
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Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Arctic Monkeys
I really don't want to listen to this.
My feeling was justified. I got to track eight before the relentless Arctic Monkiness of it got the better of me. How can something be both oppressive and boring at the same time?
Maybe - just maybe - if thus was just one track used in a film to emphasise how much of an arrogant wanker dome coke-addled posh boy pretending to be working class in the mid, 2000s was - I would think that the song was perfect.
It isn't, and it just reminds me of how music in the early-mid 2000s killed clubbing, with its posturing androcentric lack of fun and danceability.
1
Jan 20 2024
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The Beach Boys Today!
The Beach Boys
Well this sure is The Beach Boys.
Unmistakably The Beach Boys.
I mean, it's practically the same as 95% of The Beach Boys ouvre. Sure, there's some stand-out tracks, but they're the ones that don't sound as Interchangebly identical to the rest of them.
It does The Beach Boys impeccably well, but as soon as you've heard the first track (maybe throw "Help me Rhonda" in, to make sure you've got the best) you might as well switch it off because you've heard everything from this album.
2
Jan 21 2024
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Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
OutKast
GhettoMuzak is a try-hard Bran Van 3000 track, but doesn't do it well.
Unhappy makes me unhappy. Things do start to pick up with bowtie.
I've now got as far as "church" (which I dislike enough to snap me from whatever lull I was in) and I'm looking at the remaining hour and a half with some dread.
Bamboo is genuinely fucking terrible. Skip.
In fact, I think I might skip the whole of the rest of Volume 1 (Speakerboxx?) because it appears to be an absolute chore. Sorry Big Boi - you're not getting a high vote for this.
Having skipped through the last bit of Speakerboxx, it does seem that volume 2 (the love below) is more appealing. I quite like the crooning and freeform jazziness of Love Hater, but there is a meandering lack of direction that I don't like to what follows.
There's a couple of really great tracks in The Love Below but for 2¼ hours worth of album, that is absolutely not enough justify having to commit to 2¼ hours of album.
In the end, I've bailed. It's a Saturday afternoon, I've nothing in particular I need to do other than drink wine and listen to music, and I could do without the music being this.
Of course. This was released in 2003. That explains it.
1
Jan 22 2024
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Dr. Octagonecologyst
Dr. Octagon
Juvenile lyrics that are dancing a fine line between edgy and schoolboyish.
The beats are OK. It's almost as if Dr Octagon is trying to be a bit ICP, but not really knowing where to go with it.
I'm not mad at having had to listen to it, but I won't be listening to it again.
3
Jan 23 2024
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...And Justice For All
Metallica
I know I'm not big into metal, but I just think this is kinda dull.
2
Jan 24 2024
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Goodbye And Hello
Tim Buckley
There is a danger that Buckley sang some of these songs with his eyes shut.
3
Jan 25 2024
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2112
Rush
Prog-tastic.
Like much prog it has the disadvantage of running for approximately 47 years. Other than that, it's dandy.
3
Jan 26 2024
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Don't Stand Me Down
Dexys Midnight Runners
A third Dexy's album? Gosh.
Kevin Rowland has done something with this album. It's production is challenging, with huge leaps in dynamic range taking us from imperceptibly quiet to horn-blaring loud. 7 tracks over 46 minutes leads to a pretty indulgent 6annabit minutes average track length. Now for instrumentals, that might not be so bad - but Rowland continues his theme of incomprehensible singing. He then mixes this in with spoken word numbers which combine imperceptible quietness with incomprehensible speech. It's a difficult album to listen to.
I'm very fortunate to have a really bloody good stereo system, and I live somewhere very quiet. I can just about get away with the dynamic range. But if you're trying to (say) listen to it in the car, or while you're out and about, listening on headphones - this is going to be really hard to listen to.
Musically, it's pretty good. Despite everything, Rowland is great. A consummate musician, and something of a perfectionist, he also seems to have that detachment, not quite understanding what makes an album accessible and popular.
I'd love to rate this higher, becuase there's genuinely a lot good going for it, but the questionable spoken word stuff and the inaccessible nature of the production is just too much to let slide.
3
Jan 27 2024
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Aftermath
The Rolling Stones
What a track to start an album with!
Couple of genuinely awesome Stones tracks on here. This is probably their best.
5
Jan 28 2024
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Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde
The Pharcyde
Ya momma has an afro with a chin strap.
This is a bloomin' wonderful album. It's happy, it's catchy and I really enjoyed listening to it. Great stuff!
5
Jan 29 2024
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Slipknot
Slipknot
I quite like "eyeless".
Overall, it's a bit shouty, and seems very much "problem teenager" in its outlook and execution. That being said, the drumming is pretty good. Scratching is so very late 90s and it has not dated well. I'd prefer it overall to be a little bit more doom metally and less numetally, and I absolutely won't be listening to it again, but it isn't totally awful.
3
Jan 30 2024
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Bluesbreakers
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
This is pleasantly surprising. I mean, it was fairly obviously going to be blues ("The Bluesbreak" gives that away) but it turns out to be pretty good blues. Especially for some white guys.
I've no idea what percentage of this is original material, if any, but even if it isn't, it's executed well. So it'll get a good rating.
5
Jan 31 2024
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The Last Of The True Believers
Nanci Griffith
This is disturbingly like cuntry music. It isn't as objectionable as most, but it still lunches on truck nuts and domestic abuse.
1
Feb 01 2024
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Moving Pictures
Rush
Like much of Rush, this is overwrought and overlong. Technically a masterpiece, but it doesn't appeal.
3
Feb 02 2024
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Guitar Town
Steve Earle
This starts out being obnoxiously country.
There's the briefest of pauses where the music becomes tolerable but it then rapidly descends into interminable slide guitars and cowboy boots. Euch.
1
Feb 03 2024
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One World
John Martyn
This seems to be more experimental and "out there" than Solid Air, and I'm not entirely sure that I'm quite comfortable with that. Solid Air caught me totally by surprise, being a genuinely excellent album.
This one... Well. I'm not so sure. "Smiling stranger" has a nice little bassline with some strings, aqx and... A wobble board? What is that? It's a bit repetitive though, which is something that can be said of the whole album. There's a smattering of funk through the music, some heavy wakkas from the guitars - but I'm really not sold on that matching Mayer's voice or lyrics.
Maybe it's a grower, but do yourself a favour and listen to Solid Air again instead.
3
Feb 04 2024
View Album
Dog Man Star
Suede
Much as I usually enjoy Suede, I straight up think this album is dull as ditchwater. It's all filler, no killer. The only truly stand-out track is Stay Together, which isn't really a track from the album.
2
Feb 06 2024
View Album
90
808 State
Almost worth it for Pacific 202 on its own, but there are other great tracks here. I like.
5
Feb 07 2024
View Album
Parallel Lines
Blondie
I don't need to listen to this again to know it's one of the most cohesive, splendidly performed collections of music pressed to vinyl.
I did, however, listen to it again, and was blown away by quite how good it is.
It is genuinely an exceptional album, and Debbie Harry is a wonderful frontwoman.
5
Feb 08 2024
View Album
Traffic
Traffic
This really isn't what I was expecting to hear from a Traffic album. Nicely varied, some good tunes and I was expecting a great performance. Good stuff.
4
Feb 09 2024
View Album
Chelsea Girl
Nico
My first reaction to this is that this is terrible.
Unmitigated bullshit.
Reading up a bit, I see there is a strong Andy Warhol connection, and this very much starts to make sense. Doesn't make it any less bullshit - she can't sing. The downright monotone of her delivery is painful.
Turns out she was nobbing half of the music industry at some point or another, and I'm not saying that she fucked her way into a record deal, but it seems very likely that she fucked her way into a record deal. The names that surround her - Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, John Cale, Jim Morrison - all hyper-influential, and "for some reason" contributed to her career. There's some rather dubious claims, here and there, of her antisemitism - but that doesn't quite stack up with her relationships with Lou Reed (whose father changed the family name from Rabinowitz) and Dylan (whose father was a Zimmerman) so I can't really leverage that into a rating, but the story about her stabbing someone in the eye with a broken glass for the heinous crime of "being mixed race" seems pretty well documented and corroborated, so that definitely will be factored in.
I only wish I could go lower than 1 star, because that's where the "artistic merit" of this bilge was going to end up anyway.
1
Feb 10 2024
View Album
Nick Of Time
Bonnie Raitt
Judging by the album cover, the year and the fact I've never even heard of her, I'm guessing this might be country.
It thankfully doesn't start out being country. It starts out being obnoxiously 80s. It does go on to become country, which is unfortunate. A few hard skips in there, but it finishes up with an actually decent blues track, and Tidal algorithmed onto her singing with John Lee Hooker which is always a bonus.
That said, I will literally never listen to this album again.and asides from one fairly decent blues song, there's nothing of merit here for me.
1
Feb 11 2024
View Album
Alien Lanes
Guided By Voices
I'd like to say I like this, but I don't. I don't especially dislike it - sure, there were a couple of skip tracks, but having listened through this album I can honestly say that my life is no better for having heard it, and that gives me no inspiration whatsoever to listen to it again.
2
Feb 12 2024
View Album
On The Beach
Neil Young
I was genuinely surprised to not loathe this, as I have any other Neil Young in the list.
Pleasantly enough bluesy to not be offensive, not Neil Youngy enough to be offensive. I might even stretch to a 3.
3
Feb 13 2024
View Album
The Downward Spiral
Nine Inch Nails
Many people smarter than me have written oodles on the subject of this album.
It is difficult, it is angsty. It is industrial.
What can't be underestimated is the production value behind this. There is not a note audible that wasn't decided on. There isn't a sound or a nuance that hasn't been selected to contribute to the overall picture. There's stuff hidden in the music that can't be heard that has been selected to contribute to the overall picture.
I don't think I can even try and sum up what this album is. Yes, it hasn't aged particularly well in places, and no, it hasn't got any form of fun or frivolity to it. But it is a great album, a considered album and a masterpiece of production.
5
Feb 14 2024
View Album
Django Django
Django Django
This was way better than I was expecting. Probably needs some time to build up in the consciousness, but it's nice and varied with some genuinely interesting diversions.
4
Feb 15 2024
View Album
Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
Angry manufactured punk. It's a great album, with plenty of genuinely great tracks. A testament to the skill of producers - you absolutely do not need talented musicians when you've got great production.
5
Feb 16 2024
View Album
Histoire De Melody Nelson
Serge Gainsbourg
Well. What a conflicting album this is. On the one hand, it's brilliant. Musically, lyrically, stylistically it is genuinely one of the most compelling, captivating and consuming albums I think I've ever heard. The production of it is great. On the other - the subject matter is a bit icky.
I guess it's meant to be. Brilliant album. And L'hotel Particulier is absolutely stand-out. Can clearly see how it influenced Jarvis Cocker for F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.
5
Feb 17 2024
View Album
Among The Living
Anthrax
The main problem I have with this is that it is terriblely boring. Once you get the central gist of it, it's just relentless, aggressive two-drum, guitar thrash. This is a 50 minute album with 9 tracks - so not only is it boring, it's long.
I can't fault their execution of the genre, they are adept and do what they set out to do. It just bores the tits off me.
2
Feb 18 2024
View Album
Henry's Dream
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Nick Cave is often a challenge. This is a good album, but he is perhaps a touch overrepresented in this list.
4
Feb 19 2024
View Album
Electric
The Cult
This album needs VU meters.
Saying that - The Cult have precisely one song in their repertoire, and it isn't on this album. I actually went to see them live back in about 2010/2011 sort of time - and they were actually appalling. So far up themselves, they thought that it would be a good idea to have looped footage of various Vietnam war atrocities projected onto a screen behind them, as if some wash-up, past-middle-aged rockers from the 1980s had any relevance or influence over the idea war and peace. They reluctantly played their one song (She Sells Sanctuary, obviously) and the crowd showed considerably more appreciation for that than anything else they'd played the whole night. The band glowered angrily at the crowd, clearly upset that they're only known for one thing.
Anyway - this album isn't terrible. It's pretty generic VU-meter power rock. Meh.
2
Feb 20 2024
View Album
Crazysexycool
TLC
What, really?
I mean, it's better than I thought it was going to be.
4
Feb 21 2024
View Album
In Rainbows
Radiohead
This was not great, but tolerable up until "nude".
I don't say this often, but Thom Yorke needs to shut the fuck up. We don't need that kind of whining.
After nude it seemed to go even further downhill. Dissonance in the background, detuned synths, more Yorke sounding like a strangled cat.
By the time Faust Arp comes around I'm ready to shit-can this album.
I'm kinda glad I didn't because "Jigsaw falling into place" is a kind of niceish track. It utterly falls apart again with "Videotape" - which is a dirge.
1
Feb 23 2024
View Album
american dream
LCD Soundsystem
This surprised me in a couple of ways. Despite it being recognisable as LCD Soundsystem, it is quite different to the previous albums. If I were to try and describe this, I might say that this had a geet big chunk of David Byrne influence, and that actually works really well. It's actually a very listenable album with some compelling tracks, but it unfortunately misses out on a top rating simply because it is too damn long. If it was twenty minutes shorter it'd be a masterpiece. As it stands, the eponymous "American dream" earnt itself a skip for being obnoxiously repetitive, and looking back at the track now I'm genuinely surprised that said track is "only" 6m8s long when others on the album weigh in over 7 minutes - and an excruciating 12 minute finale.
Proof positive that you really can have too much of a good thing.
4
Feb 24 2024
View Album
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
There's a few really good tracks on here, but honestly the fact it takes 4½ minutes of the first track before it becomes interesting is really not on.
I get whiy the album is here, but it is not as easy or as fun to listen to as, say, Deep Purple.
3
Feb 25 2024
View Album
Shaka Zulu
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Good recognition for a lovely collection of music.
4
Feb 27 2024
View Album
1999
Prince
Prince is one of those once-in-a-lifetime acts who spews music out, and quite a lot of it is good.
It defines "the music of Prince" perfectly. There are some production choices in this that now sound amateurish and silly, but overall there's not Princier Prince album around.
4
Feb 28 2024
View Album
Cupid & Psyche 85
Scritti Politti
This is starting to get fatiguing with its chirpy 80s poppiness. Those synths sure are tiring.
Hang on. Wood Beez. Is that The Beach Boys' "God only knows" floating around in the background?
Yeah, absolutely no clue why this is regarded as a "must listen" album.
2
Feb 29 2024
View Album
I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight
Richard Thompson
This is boring. I'm not actively repelled by it, but there is precisely zero danger of this being added into my rotation.
2
Mar 02 2024
View Album
What's That Noise?
Coldcut
Oddly, I have never heard of this artist, or this album, yet practically every track on this album is familiar and - more importantly - good.
5
Mar 03 2024
View Album
In It For The Money
Supergrass
I wasn't really into Supergrass back in the 90s. I mean, I didn't dislike them and a couple of the tracks were pretty good. Listening back to this now for the first time in 25 years, I find myself feeling slightly more generous to them. Compared to their contemporaries, they're actually a fair bit better. The music fits together more cohesively, but it is very hard to escape from them being a 90s band. Ultimately the "samey" approach of being lead, bass, drums and occasional keyboards or synths does the listener a disservice, and while lots of these tracks make me sit up and think "Oh yeah, I remember this!" the fact I actually haven't listened to it in 25 years should tell you everything you need to know.
3
Mar 04 2024
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Getz/Gilberto
Stan Getz
Well this is smooth.
5
Mar 05 2024
View Album
Bad Company
Bad Company
Another one where there's nothing particularly offensive, but really nothing much to write home about.
2
Mar 06 2024
View Album
In Our Heads
Hot Chip
Hot Chip have never failed to miss the mark for me. I always think to myself that they should be incredible, I can see what they're trying to do and literally every time I hear them, I think "I should be subscribing to your newsletter" - yet every time I think "This should be so much better than it actually is".
I've not heard this album before, or any track on it. So let's see how it pans out. Maybe this will be the one that wins me over?
It isn't. Yet again I've found myself so very close to really liking it. There were a couple of tracks that I actually did enjoy, but it's jus a little bit not quite there.
3
Mar 07 2024
View Album
Roger the Engineer
The Yardbirds
This was almost pedestrian until the Hot House of Omagararshid, which is such a fun track that the rating for this album goes up by a clear 2 stars.
4
Mar 10 2024
View Album
Palo Congo
Sabu
Can't fault the musicianship, and can't fault this being an exemplar of the genre. It's great as background music, but very tiring to actively listen to.
4
Mar 11 2024
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Pyromania
Def Leppard
Rock on my dudes. This is surprisingly awesome.
5
Mar 12 2024
View Album
Zombie
Fela Kuti
I mean. Zombies look for braaaaaains but they'll find none here, because this is a no-brained five star review. Afrobeat par excellence, genre defining artist and exceptional talent. Fela Kuti is just brilliant, taking influences from West African music and East Coast jazz to make something lovely and wonderful.
5
Mar 13 2024
View Album
Chore of Enchantment
Giant Sand
Well this is odd. I've never heard of this, or them. Yet the singer sounds kind of like Mr E and Lou Reed's bastard son. It is both amateurish and polished. Dull, yet engaging. I don't think I know how to rate this.
I'm very much turned off by Satellite. Because it shows that the Lou Reed thing is known and leant into. Which very much detracts from the overall vibe.
Right. I've just got to "Shrine" and thought to myself "Blimey, this album is a bit fuckin long" and checked the album list. To find I was at track 16 of THIRTY tracks, with a playing time of just shy of two hours, and actually fuck that shit. That's too long. The album is too long, and they should feel bad.
3
Mar 14 2024
View Album
Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan
Knowing that I absolutely hate Bob Dylan, I thought I'd actually give this a crack.
And you know what, "Like a rolling stone" is his least utterly shit. His voice is atrocious. And it's over 6 minutes, which is approximately 5½ minutes too long, because enough is established within the first 30 seconds to tell you everything you need yo know.
We then go into Tombstone Blue. Which is bad blues and a voice that doesn't suit blues generally.
"It takes a lot to laugh. It takes a train to cry" establishes that Dylan has attempted to catch the 17:30 east coast main line service from King's Cross on a Friday afternoon.
You know what, I tried. And Bob Dylan is every tiny bit as shite for this as literally every other record.
1
Mar 15 2024
View Album
Aha Shake Heartbreak
Kings of Leon
This wasn't as bad as I was expecting, although the last track was genuinely awful.
2
Mar 16 2024
View Album
Destroy Rock & Roll
Mylo
Better than I was expecting, but hardly inspiring.
3
Mar 17 2024
View Album
John Barleycorn Must Die
Traffic
Meh.
3
Mar 18 2024
View Album
Isn't Anything
My Bloody Valentine
"Lose my breath" reminds me a lot of Stereolab and that's probably the nicest thing I've ever said about shoegaze, although the fact it feels like a 6 minute song despite only being 3½ is indicating that this might be a trek of an album.
It's no secret that I massively dislike this genre of music, and this album is genuinely a chore. It is relentless, cacophonous and almost completely indistinct. At 38 minutes, it's 34 minutes too long. Sure, it was a bit of a new direction for music and clearly went on to influence some artists who did actually good stuff, but lordy it is not for me.
1
Mar 19 2024
View Album
Hot Rats
Frank Zappa
This is awesomeness. 1969? Incredible.
5
Mar 20 2024
View Album
Crime Of The Century
Supertramp
Decent listening, but I'd not say significant. Doesn't have the logical song, which is Supertramp's best.
3
Mar 21 2024
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Teen Dream
Beach House
This is probably going to get a low vote simply on the basis of having one of the most wankily pretentious album covers I've yet to see in this list.
Oh shag. I've just read the reviews and the term used is 'dream pop' which is what the Americans call shoegaze. Amazing how the likelihood of pretentious wankery has just tripled.
Sigh. Let's have a listen.
Yes. Pretentious wank.
Guff.
1
Mar 22 2024
View Album
BEYONCÉ
Beyoncé
Whoa-oh-eeee-ooooh-oh!
There's actually some decent music hidden under the unbearable vibrato. But it is most certainly not for me.
2
Mar 23 2024
View Album
Done By The Forces Of Nature
Jungle Brothers
This is an interesting one. Load of New Yorkers who've clearly never been to the south of Africa rapping about the Zulu Nation... I was very much expecting to not like it, but I found it growing on me steadily.
4
Mar 24 2024
View Album
White Light / White Heat
The Velvet Underground
Much as I want to rate this highly, this album is just too much of a mess to be listenable. VU have done so much better than this.
1
Mar 25 2024
View Album
Soul Mining
The The
So many familiar but unknown tracks.
OK, so uncertain smile is legit a great track.
Giant is overindulgently long. 9+ minutes of a 41 minute album, it should be better to justify ¼ of the running time - but it is repetitive to the point of distraction and genuinely serves as a demerit to the album.
3
Mar 26 2024
View Album
Melody A.M.
Röyksopp
I actually used to listen to this quite a bit back in the early 2000s - but I'm not sure it's particularly stood the test of time.
Compared to most stuff released in the early 2000s this is by contrast a pretty decent CD. It is very much uninspiring but competent background music.
3
Mar 27 2024
View Album
Jack Takes the Floor
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Not really my genre, is folk. And the yodelling was especially painful. But as folk goes, yodelling notwithstanding, this wasn't terrible.
2
Mar 28 2024
View Album
Fisherman's Blues
The Waterboys
I actually quite like the title track. The rest of it is competently performed, but utterly uninspiring Oirish guff. So many skips that it met the threshold for giving up on it.
2
Mar 29 2024
View Album
Take Me Apart
Kelela
This is bullshit.
It's not terrible, but it is utterly forgetable.
2
Mar 30 2024
View Album
Remedy
Basement Jaxx
Basement Jaxx have done some incredible, fun, memorable music.
This album is conspicuously not that. The singles are actually pretty decent, although Rendez-vu always makes me think of 187 Lockdown. The rest of the album is repetitive, disjointed and in many ways quite amateurish when compared to Jaxx' later work, or contemporaries like Groove Armada. Shame really.
2
Mar 31 2024
View Album
Hot Shots II
The Beta Band
I, Monster did it better.
This wasn't a bad album at all. I mean, I'm literally never going to play it again, but if someone else played in my presence, I'd not exactly be upset.
3
Apr 01 2024
View Album
Shadowland
k.d. lang
DNF. Triggered my allergy to steel guitars
1
Apr 02 2024
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Ritual De Lo Habitual
Jane's Addiction
This is great.
4
Apr 03 2024
View Album
Exile On Main Street
The Rolling Stones
You know what - I think this might be the Stones' best album, despite only having one ("Rocks Off") of their "Big" songs on it.
5
Apr 04 2024
View Album
Dig Me Out
Sleater-Kinney
Kinda shouty. There's probably a reason I didn't pay much attention to it in the 90s.
2
Apr 05 2024
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It's A Shame About Ray
The Lemonheads
A few familiar tracks. Some of them even good!
Very much a case of "you had to be there", I guess.
2
Apr 06 2024
View Album
Garbage
Garbage
Wait, these guys are American? Since when was Edinburgh in the US? I guess that just goes to show that Shirley Manson was well and away the only part of this band I was interested in.
Anyway, Shirley seems to have evaded all of the controversy that came up around her sister, Marilyn, and that's a good thing. While Antichrist Superstar was a great album made unlistenable, Garbage remains a very good album, with the most controversial thing happening in the nearly thirty years since its release being Ms Manson taking on a somewhat unfortunate role on the The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
The album still holds up, and while at the time I may have preferred some of their contemporaries, Garbage have managed to put love most of them, so good show.
5
Apr 07 2024
View Album
In A Silent Way
Miles Davis
Don't even need to listen to this to know it's amazing, although I will be listening to it later today on the train.
5
Apr 08 2024
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Elvis Is Back
Elvis Presley
He's got a voice on him - some lovely covers.
4
Apr 09 2024
View Album
Red Headed Stranger
Willie Nelson
Turns out, country music is a lot better when it doesn't have steel guitars or mouth harps.
This was actually kinda tolerable. Good work, Willie.
2
Apr 10 2024
View Album
Next
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
"The Faith Healer" is an absolute chore - so glad it has finished.
There's sure some cringingly juvenile lyrics in this. Bet it's great if you're 14 and don't understand anything yet.
2
Apr 11 2024
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Pretzel Logic
Steely Dan
This is thoroughly listen-to-able!
5
Apr 12 2024
View Album
Trans Europe Express
Kraftwerk
I mean - this is Kraftwerk! It's ahead of its time. Yes, a couple of the tracks become repetitive eventually, and yes, a lot of it is a little bit simplistic, but it's listenable 45 years later. I can't even imagine what they would have come up with if given access to today's musical tech - but the funny thing about that is that without Kraftwerk, today's musical tech wouldn't be where it is.
5
Apr 13 2024
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Dusty In Memphis
Dusty Springfield
Got to love Dusty.
4
Apr 14 2024
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Underwater Moonlight
The Soft Boys
This is definitely an interesting listen. I kind of feel it would be worse if he were a better singer. I enjoyed the lyrics quite a bit more than either the vocals or the music, but I legit think that I'll try and listen through this again.
4
Apr 15 2024
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Automatic For The People
R.E.M.
This is a musically very accomplished album, but boy can it be a chore to listen to.
I firmly believe that both "Everybody Hurts" and The Verve's "The Drugs Don't Work" would be better placed as feature songs in a Futurama-style suicide booth. Urgh. Abysmal.
Fortunately, there's a couple of tracks to lift this album up again. Michael Stipe actually has a decent singing voice that makes him nice to listen to. His success is pretty well deserved, but I just can't rate this high given the dirges on the disc.
3
Apr 16 2024
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Astral Weeks
Van Morrison
Dear gods this is dreary. I'm on track 4 and can't stomach the thought of listening to the full 47 minutes of it.
1
Apr 17 2024
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Shalimar
Rahul Dev Burman
Not really sure how to rate this. It's like a bhangra version of the Glee soundtrack.
2
Apr 18 2024
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La Revancha Del Tango
Gotan Project
While this picks up a bit in the middle with something interesting, it's gimmicky with repetitive saminess. Not terrible, but I've absolutely no desire to listen again.
2
Apr 19 2024
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Fragile
Yes
Just when you think Yes can't find any more ways to be overindulgent wank, they pull put all the wank stops and indulge some more.
2
Apr 20 2024
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Gris Gris
Dr. John
This is a dark, brooding and absolutely amazing album. I've held off reviewing it for a couple of days, but that's only because I've not been able to get it out my head. "Walk on guilded splinters" is a masterpieces. Love it.
5
Apr 21 2024
View Album
Buffalo Springfield Again
Buffalo Springfield
This is an album of two halves.
Well, maybe not halves. Maybe the ratio is different, but there is a genuinely excellent album in here let down terribly by a couple of country tracks, replete with steel guitars and brother-cousins.
As I read into the album notes I see that this album took 9+ months to record, with the artists in question "largely working independently of each other" and that absolutely tracks with the feel of the album. Because clearly there's exceptional talent involved. Unfortunately, that's talent is not displayed by the producer, who should have said "take this country shit out and leave it in the bin where you found it".
Unfortunately, Stills and Young were the artists, and neither of them listen to anything other than their own inflated egos.
If you took the country out, this would be a solid 5. But it's in there, and that ruins it. So 3 stars.
3
Apr 22 2024
View Album
Arular
M.I.A.
Interesting - perhaps not a full album's worth of interesting, but I'm glad I listened to it. I think it might get better with repeat listenings.
4
Apr 23 2024
View Album
Back to Basics
Christina Aguilera
Better than I was expecting it to be. She's got some pipes, but there's only so much "weee-oooohhh-eeee-oouuuwwww-ah!" you can stomach - and that's decidedly less than the 2+ hours this seems to last for. OK, so it's actually 1h18m - that's still about 45 minutes too long.
3
Apr 24 2024
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A Wizard, A True Star
Todd Rundgren
This is 1973? Bonkers.
It's cacophonic, darting between styles in a way that didn't really catch on again for 20 more years. I love to know more about the thought process behind the production of this, because it's delightfully all-over-the-place.
5
Apr 25 2024
View Album
Transformer
Lou Reed
I've loved this album since my early-mid 20s. Lou Reed smashes it out of the park as a solo artist, with some of the best material to come out of the 1970s, let alone out of Lou Reed. I didn't know until today, though, of David Bowie's involvement. I like him better as a producer than a performer, I think.
5
Apr 26 2024
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If I Should Fall From Grace With God
The Pogues
This is pretty good fun.
I mean, it should get five stars for Fiesta alone.
5
Apr 27 2024
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Odessa
Bee Gees
The title track for this is a monstrosity. Warbling and overindulgent, it doesn't even make up for it by being interesting. At 7:35 it is a chore, and I look at the total running time of an hour and five minutes - it sends shivers down my spine. I really hope the rest of this album gets better.
After about 25 minutes, I realise that it probably isn't going to. "Whisper Whisper" is a significant uptick, but then it tails off again, and I'm done with it. Not for me.
1
Apr 28 2024
View Album
Time Out Of Mind
Bob Dylan
Yet again I find myself thinking "I'll try and give Dylan a fair crack, it can't be as bad as I think it is if so many people seem to absolutely love it" - but it genuinely is that bad and I really don't understand how people can like it.
1
Apr 29 2024
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3 Feet High and Rising
De La Soul
Such good fun.
5
Apr 30 2024
View Album
So Much For The City
The Thrills
This manages to be utterly uninterestin, even when compared to the rest of the mid-2000s dross.
It's like somebody took The Supernaturals and made them twee. Guff.
1
May 01 2024
View Album
Fire Of Love
The Gun Club
Interesting variations on punk. Some good energy in here.
4
May 02 2024
View Album
Rio
Duran Duran
Iconic tracks, iconic sleeve art.
So many great tracks, and I sit here listening again to some of the most intricate and compelling basslines that almost just seem hidden. Remarkable.
5
May 03 2024
View Album
The Sensual World
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an exceptional talent, even amongst the exceptional talents of a collection like this. Her voice is magnificent, and the production of this album is off the charts good - but I don't really understand what it's for.
I mean, it's not something I can really imagine anyone sitting down and listening to. It's definitely not something to dance to. I can't see a place for it as a soundtrack, and it sure ain't incidental music to have playing while you do something else. So I just don't really get it. I'm sure it's doing something, but I've been left completely befuddled about what that thing is.
Other than that, it's Kate Bush. And it's not actively bad. Just - what?
I mean, I'd be pretty embarrassed about putting it on if I wanted some sex music. Despite it being called "The Sensual World", it's just not sex music either. So I really - genuinely - don't know where it's supposed to be. And that's kinda sad, because I feel it should be better.
3
May 04 2024
View Album
Aja
Steely Dan
I guess that this is surprising for being perhaps the most 80s soft rock from the 70s.
Can't say I enjoyed it much.
2
May 05 2024
View Album
Here, My Dear
Marvin Gaye
Gaye.
This sounds smoother than the silken fur of a cat's belly. Unfortunately, the lyrics are as sharp and eviscerating as a cat's claws.
I can't quite work out whether he's bitter or not. No wait....
The music is good. The vibe is confusing. The lyrics are grim. I feel that as concept albums go, this is probably about one of the most bizarre. Why would you publish your diaries in song form? Especially if you're setting it to sex music.
I mean... I literally never want to listen to it again. So. Um.
2
May 06 2024
View Album
The White Album
Beatles
Number 8 [Belch]
Number 8 [Belch]
Number 8 [Belch]
There are some truly brilliant Beatles tracks here. And some utterly abysmal. Overlong and incohesive as an album - if they hadn't immediately preceded this with Sgt Pepper's, it wouldn't have had the same punch.
3
May 07 2024
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Fly Or Die
N.E.R.D
This was way better than I was expecting it to be. A couple of tracks I'd probably look back to.
3
May 08 2024
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Third
Portishead
For the whole first half of this album I was prepared to write it off as a bad job. I've got to "We carry on" and it's actually settled into something I quite like.
I had hoped that it would continue into the second half of the album, and it kinda does. This is not an instantly accessible album, but then Dummy wasn't when that was released 14 years previous. There's now a 16 year gap between the release of Third, and a 30 year gap since Dummy - and honestly Dummy is the better of the two.
That's not (at all) to say that Third is without merit; it absolutely spurs an emotional response. I'm not sure it's a response I'd want every day, but I dare say I will probably listen to this again at some point.
4
May 09 2024
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McCartney
Paul McCartney
This is actually way better than I was expecting it to be. Some genuinely lovely little ditties in here, and the whole affair strikes me as being surprisingly brave for a multi-millionaire.
4
May 10 2024
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Logical Progression
LTJ Bukem
Could only find this on YouTube, bu I piggin' love it.
At the end of the first CD I was genuinely excited to learn there was a second. Absolutely cracking music to work to, provides stimulation without distraction. Superb.
5
May 11 2024
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Go Girl Crazy
The Dictators
Enjoyable, punky, short. Some fun covers.
4
May 12 2024
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Rhythm Nation 1814
Janet Jackson
If you told me that this was from a year other than 1989, I'd call you a liar. It is as unambiguously 1989 as any album possibly could be. 1989 permeates this album, written indelibly through its very core, as if it were a stick of 1989 rock.
Taylor Swift has nothing on the 1989-ness of this.
It's kinda alright, in a terribly over-the-top and brash poppy kinda way.
4
May 13 2024
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Public Image: First Issue
Public Image Ltd.
The first track is what I imagine they played to Al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
Irritatingly it continues bring terrible, with the post-punk giving way to some ludicrously over the top pedal work, making it sound like some kind of proto-shoegaze torture.
Fodderstompf takes a relatively interesting loop and overlays it with vocals that manage to be both incredibly repetitive and exceptionally annoying.
If the brief was to take the anger and rebellion of punk and remove anything that's fun, likeable or catchy, then Public Image ltd have managed it with aplomb. Which is weird, because I've genuinely loved other PIL stuff.
1
May 14 2024
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461 Ocean Boulevard
Eric Clapton
This is the very competent ripping off of artists who may not be as technically adept, but at least were original.
It's kind of sad that our history has this kind of person in it.
2
May 15 2024
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The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
The Incredible String Band
This is fuckin' abysmal.
I mean, it's not instantly terrible like Bob Dylan is, but insidiously terrible. You'll start listening to it, thinking that it's uninspiring or perhaps even boring, but before long you'll start to get this uncomfortable feeling grow, where you realise that you've had your earballs filled with utter shite. The really awful thing is that every so often you'll hear something that you think "maybe this isn't do bad" - but it genuinely is.
This is the worst "not country", "not Bob Dylan" record on the list. The low rating is entirely justified.
1
May 16 2024
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You Want It Darker
Leonard Cohen
If I wanted it darker, it'd have to be pretty bloody black to get there.
I'm not usually a fan of Cohen, but this album is one that I respect. It's beautiful in a way few things can be, and dances around the limits of rawness without becoming a charicature. Great.
5
May 17 2024
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Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
Soft Cell
The album starts well, but meanders it's way through several over-long indulgences. The album as a whole is too long at just shy of an hour and a quarter. Sex Dwarf is, uh.
3
May 18 2024
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Third
Soft Machine
Well this 1¼ hour long album of four tracks came immediately after another 1¼ hour long album recorded by another "soft", and of the two I'd probably go for Soft Cell over this one.
It starts badly with an overindulgence of cacophony. Yes, it does get better in a prog wankery kind of way, but ultimately it's a prog rock album. It is not an outstanding example of prog, and what does make it notable is the amount of just unpleasantness contained..
2
May 19 2024
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Caetano Veloso
Caetano Veloso
After an unfortunate false start with the Tidal link taking me to a live album, I had more success with the actual album listed. There's a decent variety of styles and it doesn't go on too long.
4
May 21 2024
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Medúlla
Björk
Finishes better than it starts. Yes, it's quite challenging. Yes, it is quite innovative. It's not something I'd listen to every day, but it is something I might put on if I was bringing a woman home and she'd said that she liked Björk.
4
May 23 2024
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Diamond Life
Sade
Well this seems like a polarising album. I think it's OK. Very much does exactly what it sets out to do.
3
May 24 2024
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Duck Stab/Buster & Glen
The Residents
This is quite a challenging listen. It's not by any means awful, but it is not easy listening.
3
May 26 2024
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Architecture And Morality
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
An ELO album I've never heard before, and I'm honestly thinking "this is balls".
As we approach the end, I maintain this assessment. Balls.
2
May 27 2024
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Aqualung
Jethro Tull
Well the track is a bit of a chore, but the album thankfully opens out considerably.
I've never spent any time with Jethro Tull and maybe I ought to.
4
May 28 2024
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Beauty And The Beat
The Go-Go's
This is cracking good fun. And who, but who, could not love a track called "Skidmarks on my heart"?
5
May 29 2024
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Giant Steps
The Boo Radleys
Really? The Boo Radleys?
Who had one good song in the early 90s?
Okaaaay.
..... And their one good song isn't even on this album!
Actually listening to this. It's a mixed bag. Some of their tracks are actively unpleasant (leaves and sand, thinking of ways, spun around, run my way runway) and others are nice upbeaty pop tracks (Barney (...and me)) - but saying that, even the nice upbeat ones have way too much screeching guitar and would have been better being a minute or so shorter.
Overall, I think this is far more unpleasant than pleasant. And as such, it can do one.
1
May 30 2024
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Follow The Leader
Korn
To be honest, I just find it boring. It just mushes itself up into noise that not even the toe-curling angst can peek its way out of.
1
Jun 02 2024
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Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby
Girls Against Boys
One of those ones where I've never heard of the album or the artist....but ended up thoroughly enjoying.
It gives lots, and clearly shows things that others have coped. Genuinely had a good time with it.
5
Jun 03 2024
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Walking Wounded
Everything But The Girl
I enjoyed this loads more than I thought I would, but then I really don't like "Missing" and had kinda imagined that this album would be more of the same.
It's not. It's pretty much a mid 90s mildly experimental lean towards drum and bass. When listening to it, I thought of Kosheen and I haven't thought about Kosheen in years.
So yeah, I'm gonna say this is a 4. They're definitely a notable act, and this is a decentish album.
4
Jun 04 2024
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The Doors
The Doors
I listened to this album a lot in my late teens, early twenties and I loved it.
I was slightly apprehensive about listening to it again for the first time in twenty ish years, but my fears were without any form of merit because it is still a great album. I see from some of the naysayer reviews that these is dislike of Morrison's weak lyrics, and you know what - some of it genuinely is lyrically weak. For this though, I kind of fall back onto Mansun - the lyrics aren't supposed to mean that much, they're just a vehicle for a lovely voice. And Morrison's voice is lovely.
Morrison himself probably was an asshole, but this music is catchy, pushed the envelope of what was around at the time and was the Holy Trinity of popular, influential a d good.
It has to be a five star review, because it has to be.
5
Jun 05 2024
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Bubble And Scrape
Sebadoh
I've got to admit that this was a tough listen to begin with. It is not exactly top of the list for harmonious, pleasant-sounding music. It did kinda grow on me, but I have to say that having heard it once was probably enough.
2
Jun 06 2024
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25
Adele
Adele has some pipes, but her diction absolutely boils my piss.
In the opening track, the word "more" becomes "moe-er" and in the second track, "more" becomes "met" and her mangling of words just becomes the focus of the track for me.
Asides from this, it sounds really overproduced and sterile. On this record, more than any other, you get the impression that each aspect was recorded separately and sellotaped together at the end. I know that that is exactly what music production has been for the past 60 years, but there's just zero bleed-through from each mastering track and it sounds sterile.
Not for me.
2
Jun 07 2024
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Actually
Pet Shop Boys
I know before starting that this is going to be a chore for me. I know this because I was once given a burnt DVD of EVERY PSB track. A sides. B sides. Unreleased bootlegs. TV show performances.
Like an idiot I loaded these tracks into my collection, and suddenly about one in five tracks was PSB. They got old very quickly after that.
Having listened to it, it wasn't terrible, and wasn't even the chore I was expecting. PSB are pioneering, and have their place in the 80s pantheon.
5
Jun 08 2024
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Connected
Stereo MC's
Any album that lends a track the soundtrack of the 1995 Angelina Jolie & Johnny Lee Miller fillum "Hackers" has to be a great album.
HACK THE PLANET!
5
Jun 11 2024
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Are You Experienced
Jimi Hendrix
You know, I can't help but think that Hendrix got by more on charisma than talent. I mean, I like this album but it's crashy in ways that don't actually sound good, but somehow works in context. There are few artists who match his star power, and he definitely helped bring music forward - especially in the UK.
5
Jun 12 2024
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British Steel
Judas Priest
I'll admit to having heard of Judas Priest, and indeed this album, but I can't claim to have known anything at all about it. Turns out to be heavy metal, and pretty bloody good heavy metal at that. I don't know enough to talk authoritatively on the subject, but I'd speculate that it was a directional change away from the rock-derived heavy metal of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zep and set itself on a path towards the more mentally metal sounds. I enjoyed it.
5
Jun 13 2024
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Highly Evolved
The Vines
I started out being quite pleasantly surprised by this, but it fairly rapidly became a chore. It descends.
3
Jun 14 2024
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Call of the Valley
Shivkumar Sharma
There's a lot good to be said about this. But I'll leave that to other people.
5
Jun 15 2024
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Hail To the Thief
Radiohead
When your first reaction to seeing the day's recommendation is "Oh fuck off, Radiohead" you might have discovered an overabundance of them in the list.
Le sigh.
On listening, it sounds exactly,100% like what you would expect a Radiohead album to sound like. Fart noises, moaning and whinging and very little to be happy about.
1
Jun 16 2024
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Live!
Fela Kuti
I was prepared, on first listen, to describe this as less than good. I found it repetitive, especially in the drumming. However - after coming back to it, I realise that - for a live recording - it's actually incredible. Don't get me wrong, I will always, always prefer studio-produced to live, but this is pretty dang good, like.
5
Jun 18 2024
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Killing Joke
Killing Joke
Surprisingly good.
5
Jun 19 2024
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Forever Changes
Love
"The snot is caked against my pants
It's turning into a crystal."
First track is the best, but the album as a whole is very listenable.
5
Jun 20 2024
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The Contino Sessions
Death In Vegas
Hearing this album again is like slipping into a warm friend.
I really enjoy the mood it sets. And despite having owned this album since pretty much its release, I had genuinely no idea that it was Iggy Pop singing Aisha.
I'm very glad I listened to it again. Might even listen to Dead Elvis next.
5
Jun 21 2024
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Vanishing Point
Primal Scream
This just feels incoherent. There's a few pretty good tracks available, but I can't quite see how the massive variety of styles patching in between the "trad" Primal Scream stuff just doesn't quite work.
3
Jun 22 2024
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Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Raekwon
Yeah, I didn't quite get this. Not terrible, but maybe it's a thing that needs time to sink in.
3
Jun 25 2024
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Sunshine Hit Me
The Bees
Turns out I actually know one of these tracks!
I will admit, when I saw an unknown from the early 2000s my heart sank, but actually it's OK.
I mean, OK for an early 2000s act, which makes them pretty mundane for actual good music, but hey, I thought it was OK.
3
Jun 27 2024
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Freak Out!
The Mothers Of Invention
Some 60 years after this was recorded, the most notable thing for me is how little speech patterns, mannerisms and accents have changed in the intervening time. This could have been recorded weeks ago. It's a bit of an all-over-the-place album, with lots of stuff pressed that doesn't really make sense, and a lot of it is repetitive to the point of annoyed distraction.
It's avant-garde jazz for people who like rock & roll.
3
Jun 28 2024
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The Stranger
Billy Joel
I mean, there's a couple of decent tracks on there, but it's vapid poppy nonsense.
3
Jun 29 2024
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The Man Who
Travis
Jeepers, haven't listened to this for over 20 years.
There is probably a reason for that.
I think, on reflection, that this was actually very good album in the 90s. It has a merit, in a morose, over-romantic sort of way. Maybe it's because I loved it as a teenager, and am slightly reminiscent of being youthful and less cynical, but I didn't dislike it as much as I thought I was going to. I'd even go as far as to say that some of it was actually pretty good to listen to!
Ultimately it was an incredibly influential album, not in a particularly good way in that it very much paved the way for utterly abysmal artists and bands that took the morose feeling of this but mixed it up with the self-important grandiosity that Fran Healy displayed in real life, but not particularly in his music. I'm talking about the Interpols and the Elbows. The true horrors of early-2000s shitpop. That's really not a good thing.
3
Jul 01 2024
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Bossanova
Pixies
I'd love to say that I loved this, but it's left me remarkably un-grippered.
2
Jul 02 2024
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After The Gold Rush
Neil Young
Oh my gods, is this whole thing sung in this godawful falsetto?
Hey! I know "Only love can break your heart" - unfortunately I know it from the infinitely superior St Etienne version.
The best thing I can say about listening to this album is that it is mercifully short. The best thing that I can say about this album is that there's tracks on here that have inspired other people to make better music.
1
Jul 03 2024
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Coles Corner
Richard Hawley
Croony croony croony.
Decent enough album, sounds like it should have been made in the 50s or 60s. Won't be going back to it.
3
Jul 04 2024
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The World is a Ghetto
War
This is just piggin' excellent. Start to finish, it's absolutely The Tits.
5
Jul 07 2024
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Innervisions
Stevie Wonder
I mean, naturally Stevie Wonder is going to throw out awesome music, but this one has some of his absolute best.
What is even better is when you realise that in 1973 he was using just as many synths and sequencers as Kraftwerk - only difference is you didn't know that. Amazing.
5
Jul 09 2024
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...The Dandy Warhols Come Down
The Dandy Warhols
It would be easy to imagine that an album starting up with the faux warm-up of an orchestra pit would be a load of pretentious bilge.
Fortunately, it skirts around pretentiousness while managing to keep the bilge.
There are precisely two good tracks in here and the rest is entirely forgotten.
2
Jul 10 2024
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Mask
Bauhaus
I don't really know what to say about it. It's later than you think it would be, given the style. The strange bedfellows of austerity and avant garde is interesting, and I always enjoy experimental new directions - but on the whole I didn't exactly enjoy it.
3
Jul 11 2024
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Lust For Life
Iggy Pop
Some great tracks. Some kinda self-indulgent tracks.
Singles are better than the album.
4
Jul 13 2024
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Hounds Of Love
Kate Bush
What an exceptionally good album.
Challenging in places, always innovative. I've mentioned before how Bjork and Tori Amos would not be who they were without Kate Bush, and this album absolutely cements that.
The only thing to say is that Something Good by the Utah Saints is just better than the original. And the original is great.
5
Jul 14 2024
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Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams
I think it's fair to say that singer/songwriter is pretty solidly down there amongst my least favourite genres. Probably second to country and third to shoegaze.
So when I see a description of singer songwriter doing country-ish songs, my heart veritably sinks. And it was not lifted at all by this.
The best one can hope for from this genre is that you won't want to physically hurt yourself in favour of having to listen to it. And - I'll be fair to him - I actually didn't. But that doesn't make it something I actively want to listen to.
1
Jul 15 2024
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Frank
Amy Winehouse
Imagine, if you will, Erykah Badhu making "coochie-coo" type baby noises.
Actually, you don't have to. You could just listen to this album.
This is an early 2000s take on what was new and innovative in the mid-90s. There's a bit about it that reminds me of the Brand New Heavies, but ultimately I don't think that Winehouse has fully found her feet yet.
Saying that, there are some corking tracks in this. "Amy Amy Amy" is great. Good enough to lift the album from 3 to 4.
4
Jul 16 2024
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Superunknown
Soundgarden
/me air drums appreciatively in GenX.
5
Jul 17 2024
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Konnichiwa
Skepta
This scooches wildly between really good and insufferable.
I don't think it's possible to hear "fam" and "blud" quite so often. That said, where he's on form it's great.
3
Jul 18 2024
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American Beauty
Grateful Dead
Yeah, this is entirely too country for me. Straight up Did Not Enjoy.
1
Jul 21 2024
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The Cars
The Cars
Ah, The Cars!
These guys are understatedly brilliant, although nobody seems to remember them.
When I say "understatedly", I mean that you might well start this album off and then forget you've started playing it. After a few tracks you'll realise that this is pure, joyful pop music.
Genuinely, I am pleased to have this album in my life.
5
Jul 22 2024
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Nilsson Schmilsson
Harry Nilsson
I'm not sure that anyone has ever taken someone else's song and made it so completely, utterly their own.
And he didn't want to do it.
His producer wouldn't let him do what he wanted with it. He made him ramp up the emotion, throw caution to the wind and make it full on, nuclear force of hurt and need.
As far as I'm concerned, producers are every bit as important as the artists, and help to make the music be as good as it can be, in a way that can't be done through live performance.
Theres some filler on this album, don't get me wrong, but the good stuff is next-level good. Hell, if Without You was tucked in here amongst half an hour of pigeon coos, that track would still elevate the album to at least four stars.
5
Jul 23 2024
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Darkdancer
Les Rythmes Digitales
Up until "Damaged People", this can best be described as an immaculately produced collection of really jolly good electronic dance music.
Some of the well-known stuff is truly superb. I enjoyed it right up until the last track.
4
Jul 24 2024
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All Directions
The Temptations
Can't fault the musicianship. Can fault the song selections. The slower ones are interminable. Maybe 2 good tracks in here, 3 OK ones and the rest I could definitely live with ever hearing again.
2
Jul 25 2024
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Tank Battles
Dagmar Krause
Cabaret songs written in the Weimar Republic?
Schmältzig!
I won't lie - it's a bit of a chore to listen to. You have to pay attention, and that's pretty hard to do.
2
Jul 26 2024
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Back To Black
Amy Winehouse
This is a far, far better Winehouse album than her first. She's more confident, and although Mark Ronson is all over the sound like a rash, she seems more comfortable with what he has to say.
4
Jul 27 2024
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Savane
Ali Farka Touré
Fascinating look at Malian music - released posthumously, this album does not succumb to the introspection of many artists recording while terminally ill. What it is is lovely listening, great as a backing to something, with bits interesting enough to stop what you're doing and make you focus in on the music. Exquisitely played.
5
Jul 29 2024
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Teenage Head
Flamin' Groovies
This is musically very competent. I don't think I'll ever choose to listen to it again.
Yes - it is better than the Stones.
4
Jul 30 2024
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Sound of Silver
LCD Soundsystem
Reminds me of playing Forza 2 at my old place back in the 00s - despite none of these tracks being in that game.
I guess LCD Soundsystem have a sound - and that isn't a problem, because that sound is good.
5
Jul 31 2024
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Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
Bill Callahan
I was expecting to hate this, but instead found something that I thoroughly enjoyed.
4
Aug 01 2024
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My Generation
The Who
I'm pretty sure I've listened to this album before. Some of the tracks on it are genuine timeless classics - the title "My Generation", for example, is wonderful. "I'm a man", though, is almost insultingly bad.
As we get further forward we find more cover versions - I guess this is what happened in the 60s. I mean. I get it. I just don't quite get it.
3
Aug 04 2024
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Horses
Patti Smith
Thought this was good, but not great until Horses/Land of a thousand dances / Le Mer (de)
I love what she's done with it.
4
Aug 05 2024
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Metal Box
Public Image Ltd.
I took a second attempt at this.
I first played it in my shitbox car, on its shitbox stereo. I was fully prepared to write it off as an abysmally produced album. Honestly, I started to question everything about it. It sounded like I was listening to it from 2-3 metres away as it leaked out of somebody else's headphones. The tinny and hollow-sounding hi hats and cymbals overwhelmed the whole experience, Lydon's voice sounded feeble and phoned in.
After getting home and boring myself with a couple of hours playing Fallout, I queued it up to give it another go. Mainly because I didn't want to listen to Joan Baez, like I probably should given my couple of days of backlog with the project. And...
Well!
On a stereo system that cost approximately 5x as much as my entire shitbox car, I can tell you, there is bass here. Hefty geet wodges of it. There is nothing tinny or aggressively sibilant about the hi hats or the cymbals. And Lydon's voice control swings dramatically into focus. Between Nevermind the Bollocks and Metal Box, he had singing lessons. And you can tell. His enunciation is clear, his timbre is deliberate and his knows how to put power in.
Yes, this album is a bit challenging. The tracks are too long, but there is a lot of experimenting in there which seems to have directly opened the door for later stuff. And bugger me, there are better things to do with your life than listen to FOUR HOURS of "special deluxe super edition". Do yourself a favour. Listen to the original track list, leave it at that. And listen to it on kit that can actually manage to distinguish between lows, mids and highs. I can't think of many albums produced with such dramatic clarity and separation between the instrumentation and the vocals. Each of them tend to do their own thing, slightly, which adds to the challenge, but it does mean that you can listen to a different album every time you put it on, and that's actually really quite fun.
4
Aug 06 2024
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John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
John Lennon
I could easily have lived the entirety of my life never having heard this. A couple of nice catchy numbers, some utterly appalling ones, so mixed bag. I'll pass on playing it again.
2
Aug 07 2024
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Fun House
The Stooges
I had to give this a second go. I like a lot of The Stooges other stuff, but the first encounter with this was pretty grim. It's dissonant, at times genuinely unpleasant. It does work, though - which is odd. Most bizarrely, the "jazz" bits, the ideas from which the rest of the album takes inspiration from, are the worst tracks from the album. I get wanting to do some freeform jazz when you're clearly trying to pay homage to freeform jazz - but sorry guys - you don't quite get it.
3
Aug 08 2024
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The Idiot
Iggy Pop
Within maybe four seconds of starting this album, I think to myself "This isn't Iggy Pop, this is David Bowie."
I check the album cover. Nope, Iggy Pop.
I check the album notes. Produced by Bowie. Composed by Bowie. Lyrics written by Bowie.
I guess Iggy Pop sings on it.
Narrative around this is that Iggy was recently out of a mental health institute, trying desperately to not have his life amount to nothing, and Bowie essentially gave him this album.
I also guess that this is why it has been included in the list, along with apparently every other Bowie album ever made.
I don't dislike it, I just wish it had more Iggy flavour.
As China Girl finishes, I find myself being moderately pleased that we're towards the end. And boom, Dum Dum Boys wallows langourously with 7¼ minutes. Ulp.
The we move on to the thankfully very short "Tiny Girls" - which reads like the most horrific incel screed. Urgh. Nasty.
Mass Production slams the lid closed on this album with 8½ minutes of experiment, and it is on many levels the best track of the album. I have to ding a point for Bowie. And I have to ding two for the grimness of the lyrics. Which doesn't leave many to play with.
2
Aug 09 2024
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Gorillaz
Gorillaz
Steady watch me navigate, a ha ha ha haaah.
Although I had forgotten quite how objectionably irritating that chipmunk voice in "All Alone" is, this is actually a reasonable album.
Talking of voices, Dare is probably Shaun Ryder's best ever track. You can almost enjoy the heavy synth trombone/zipper hybrid that provides the bassline.
Coming in 2005, this was actually an important release. I've spoken previously about how utterly awful early-mid 2000s music was. And it really was. The music industry was reeling from its own incompetence and the mishandling of filesharing. Their approach was (instead of promoting music that was new, different and good) to simply and straightforwardly act like gigantic gaping arseholes. According to the early 2000s music industry, if someone shared an MP3 they instantly became liable for eleventy quadrillion squillion dollars, because naturally the person you shared an MP3 with would otherwise have bought that track on CD. And naturally, they'll also pass on that MP3 to five of their mates, who each in turn would pass it to five of their own mates, who also would otherwise have bought it on CD. This obviously would have deprived the poor label execs of their second, third or 38th yacht. You see, dear readers, the music industry in the early to mid 2000s was not about music. It was about suing. The Recording Industry Ass. Of America sued Limewire for... $72tn. At the time, that was roughly £48tn. More money than the combined GDP of every nation on the planet.
Anyway - how the shit do Gorillaz fit into this?
Well. Enter Tank Girl.
No, seriously.
James Hewlett and Damon Allbran shared a flat in London. Both were pretty cut up about ended relationships (I refuse to say failed :the only failed relationship is one that doesn't end when it really should) and Allbran was starting to see how bloody awful the music industry was. Pointing at manufactured bands, where soulless music execs would take hopeful performers and pipe them through the machine to make cynical dollah from easy, formulaic music - the pair decided to take the piss.
Allbran had an absolutely stellar pedigree with Blur. But ideas that didn't work with Blur as a vehicle. Hewlett had a great run with Dark Star comics and a kind of a cult hit with Tank Girl. So between them, they manufactured and unquestionably manufactured band. Gorillaz.
The idea was that there could be no question that it was a "virtual" band without some photoshopped teenagers, angsty twentysomethings or, indeed, anyone at all for the music execs to milk.
Of course, they did this way before 2005. This album was basically a "yeah, fuck you. Try and make us fit your mould" to cement the success of their first album.
And you know what?
It kinda worked. It flew off the shelves. And the music industry started to take a few more risks. I mean, it took them years. They're still not over it. But Gorillaz definitely helped. Which can only be a good thing.
The only thing that really stops this from being a true five star release is that chipmunk in "All alone".
4
Aug 10 2024
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Another Green World
Brian Eno
Another review to mention my shitbox car within a week? Yes, yes it is.
The thing about this album is that it's actually pretty decent. I like the way it layers, and I like the way that mostly it doesn't really have a point. What is problematic is that some of the sounds that are layered in are exactly the sorts of sounds you might expect an elderly, shitbox car to make as its wheelbearings go, or its water pump knackers itself trying to keep more fluids circulating than leaking onto the ground.
You'll have to stop the music every so often if you're listening to it in an area that has any sort of mechanical activity going on.
4
Aug 11 2024
View Album
Groovin'
The Young Rascals
I literally just finished listening to this about 25 minutes ago, and I already can't remember anything about it.
If this was any more middle-of-the-road, it'd be made by Armco.
2
Aug 12 2024
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You Are The Quarry
Morrissey
I've tried. I've really tried. But this is shite. Whinging and pedestrian - I've already tied the bedsheets together and I'm just about to kick the stool away from under me.
1
Aug 13 2024
View Album
Club Classics Vol. One
Soul II Soul
The change from African Dance to Dance is jarring, because it's essentially the same track except just generally worse.
Asides from this mistake, and I can only call it a mistake, the album is kinda soulful, as you'd expect from an outfit called Soul II Soul. But it's also jazzy, funky and building up around a central core of just lovely house music.
Some of the bass work is great. And crosses nicely with some of the soaring symphonic strings.
4
Aug 14 2024
View Album
Safe As Milk
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
This starts off great - really enjoyable bluesy blues. It doesn't feel exploitative, like so much white boy blues.
4
Aug 15 2024
View Album
The Specials
The Specials
Just great. Lovely album, I've been listening to it (on and off) for probably nearly thirty years. I still find the bass mesmerising, however I also love the Hammond, I love the drums, I love the horns, I love the vocals.
Straight up 5 star classic.
5
Aug 16 2024
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Bright Flight
Silver Jews
My god, this is like Mr E had to endure a massive talentectomy and went on to reprise the Eels' worst tracks. While still semiconscious from the 1anaesthetic.
Guy's voice sounds like he's got half a cup of water in his mouth and he's trying to sing without letting you know that he's got half a cup of water in his mouth.
Yes, this is genuinely, legitimately awful.
1
Aug 17 2024
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Gasoline Alley
Rod Stewart
Well this is inoffensive.
3
Aug 18 2024
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Born To Run
Bruce Springsteen
Incredibly passionate and theatrical music about things that I neither know about nor care to learn.
2
Aug 19 2024
View Album
Band On The Run
Paul McCartney and Wings
This is leaps and bounds better than the post-Beatles Lennon stuff. Like, a hundred times better.
It sounds much further on than its 1975 release date would suggest.
5
Aug 20 2024
View Album
Oracular Spectacular
MGMT
While I quite like some of the tracks on this, it's not exactly a faultless album. Could do with maybe 3 fewer tracks. On the plus side, it's a direction in the mid-late 2000s away from the godawful pap that was dominant at the time, so it has that in its favour.
3
Aug 21 2024
View Album
I See You
The xx
This album starts out strong, with a really engaging and toe-tapping bassline that piqued my curiosity almost immediately. However - it continued into tepidity. "Performance", for example, is pedestrian to the point of distraction. It's the auditory equivalent of a group of slow-walking tourists taking up the entire pavement. You just want to skip past it, but then when you do you're immediately caught behind a mother's group (Replica) dawdling along with prams and toddlers on reigns. Before you know it, you've pulled up alongside "Brave For You" and you realise that you're probably going to have to spend the next 10 minutes or so doing that awkward leaning-forward, shuffling kind of walk until you can get to the open space of "the end of the album".
Production values are out-of-sync with the mood of the album. It sounds like it wants to be faster-paced, more energetic and generally less like a pensioner. Shame, a bit more energy and I could see myself really liking it.
2
Aug 22 2024
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Playing With Fire
Spacemen 3
This sounds remarkably like something that would have influenced Spiritualized, for Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. And that's a Really Good thing. That this was released more than half a decade earlier than LAGWAFIS is quite frankly astonishing. And I really like it.
And... Exactly like I did with The Sugarcubes, I've made a huge mistake....
Turns out that Spirtualized were formed from members of Spacemen 3.
What a(nother) journey of discovery this is!
Yes - this album is The Tits. I like it. A lot.
5
Aug 24 2024
View Album
Only By The Night
Kings of Leon
I absolutely, utterly hate Sex Is On Fire.
If it is mate, go to the chemist, get some ointment for it. Fucksake.
Anyway. This album apparently starts with Closer. Which has perhaps the most irritating drumming one could imagines. Couldn't finish it.
We skip on to Crawl. Now this started on a way that irritated me, but the noise factor is compelling. It's almost enough to get me pass the drumming, which continues appalling. Then the vocals start and I'm turned off again. Is this another skip?
Yes.
I'm not even going to play SIOF on general principle, but going straight to Use Somebody gives me hideous Elbow vibes, and the drum still makes me want punch someone. The vocals start and is this Adele? Balls to this. Three skips in the first four tracks - and one I won't play on general principle.
Manhattan - oh my god, this drummer might actually be the most talented drummer in history - if that talent is to piss me off
OK, I'm 100% done with this album, I don't need to subject myself to any more. This is terrible.
1
Aug 25 2024
View Album
Exile In Guyville
Liz Phair
I literally only know of Liz Phair because Todd in the Shadows did a video about how she immolated herself by moving from whatever the fuck this album is to something "more popular" in style. Listening to this I wonder what the hell she could have done much worse.
Detuned guitars seem abound, and then it strays toward noise rather than tune or melody. On some tracks I might even be tempted to say there was some country trying to creep around the edges of some of the bluesier bits.
Six tracks in and I'm a ungrippered. It's not as actively bad as I initially thought, and reading through reviews suggests that it might be about the lyrics - but I have zero desire to dig any deeper. I can safely say I've tried it, and now I'm moving on. No harm no foul, if it's your thing then bonza.
2
Aug 26 2024
View Album
Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Derek & The Dominos
This isn't a bad album, but at an hour and a quarter, it is a long album. The production isn't stellar, but both the drumming and the bass progress by leaps and bounds as it progresses.
The end ends well, but it is overindulgent to the point of annoyance. Tone it down and trim it down and it'd be a dozen times better.
3
Aug 27 2024
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Back to Mystery City
Hanoi Rocks
I mean, it's entertaining enough but I'd find difficulty in writing a great deal about it.
3
Aug 28 2024
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Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
I can appreciate the harmonising and the layering, but blimey I can't appreciate how tepid it is.
3
Aug 29 2024
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Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor
Lupe Fiasco
I started off very much not liking the slightly nasal delivery of this, however both the beats and the flows improved greatly as the album progressed.
By the time Daydreamin' came round, I was apprehensive about what he'd do with a cover of such a great little track - but boy did good. It's a good take.
The outro though. Oh my god. You know that thing that YouTubers did a few years ago, when Patreon first got going? They'd basically just read out the names of all their sponsors for the least appealing, ill-advised "content" choice one could imagine. Turns out, this Lupe Fiasco chap did it first by straight out reading aloud the names of everyone who vaguely influenced him. It is just as appalling on a hip-hop album as it is on a YouTube video, and I don't know why somebody didn't tell him not to.
3
Aug 30 2024
View Album
Don't Come Home A Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)
Loretta Lynn
There's another review here explaining that this is why people don't like country music. And they're not half wrong.
1
Aug 31 2024
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Elephant Mountain
The Youngbloods
I remember not objecting to this, but it didn't exactly stand out beyond the initial moderate surprise of "oh, this isn't what I was expecting"
3
Sep 01 2024
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Ambient 1/Music For Airports
Brian Eno
I kind of want to know what the production process behind this was. Was Eno pacing angrily around the studio, occasionally stopping to press a key on the piano and angrily scowling at the sustain pedal for it's usefulness to the music.
What I absolutely cannot imagine is this being played in an airport.
It's not bad. But it also by deliberate choice not something you want to listen to actively.
Eno is incredibly influential in music but I can't help belive that's in spite of him being Eno, rather than because of him being Eno.
4
Sep 02 2024
View Album
Raising Hell
Run-D.M.C.
Great stuff. Very few reasons to fault this.
5
Sep 03 2024
View Album
The Bones Of What You Believe
CHVRCHES
Back in the early to mid 2000s, when music was a desolate wasteland of miserable tripe, there was a phenomenon called "Internet radio".
One of the very best of these experiments was a "station" called Global Pop Conspiracy.
GPC radio would play a genuinely very good mix of lowfi and synth covers, often veering into no-label, bedroom produced stuff. And this is kind of what this sounds like - except half a decade later and without enough of the quirky earnestness that GPC staples had.
It's got a bit of tryhardism to it that really doesn't quite tesselate with the innocent poppiness it strives for. What it does do is fit right into the set of millennials who suffered the tryhardism of early-mid 2000s "serious" music and the vapid, cynical, pop-by- numbers tosh they grew up with. In that context they're alright. In a wider view, they're just kinda meh.
3
Sep 04 2024
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Abbey Road
Beatles
Come Together is undoubtedly one of The Beatles' finest tracks. It sounds 40 years ahead of its time, and it's 55 years old. And they start this album off with it!
I don't think this is the best album ever, but I do think it's massively good, supremely influential and a nice culmination of the success of a genuinely great band.
5
Sep 06 2024
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Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
The Byrds
"You ain't going nowhere" sounds disturbingly country. Skip to the next - and that sounds even more country. A few more skips and I'm asking - when did The Byrds become country?
Oh. It turns out with this album.
Yes, this is guff. No, it isn't guff. It's actively painful. That steel guitar "bwap bwap bwooow" noise causes actual pangs of revulsion. This is a hard, hard no from me.
1
Sep 08 2024
View Album
California
American Music Club
Impossible to find, and thoroughly uninspiring when you get there.
2
Sep 10 2024
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Nighthawks At The Diner
Tom Waits
I kind of want to like this.
There is a really pressing friction where the fantasy of the club, singer, audience interaction is so polished that you can't really help but be taken along with it, and the reality that it is curated, honed, re-recorded and edited to the point where one can no longer suspend one's disbelief.
It is no secret that I'm not a fan of live recordings; audience noises contribute nothing of value, and almost universally the sound production and performance cannot match what can be achieved within a studio. I can think of perhaps three or four live sessions where the talent overcomes the limitations of "live". This is not a live album, and that is evident by the silkiness of the production that surpasses even the likes of Ellington at Newport, Jerry Lee Lewis at the Star Club, Hamburg or Muddy Waters live at Newport, 1960.
However skilled the artifice though - it's a jarring disconnect from the fantasy it portrays. This might be the intention - I don't know, I'm not clever enough to know these things - but if it is, it would make the exercise one of ridiculous ponciness, and that makes it more difficult to suffer.
Ultimately, I want to like it. I just don't feel I can switch off enough to actually really like it.
4
Sep 12 2024
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Led Zeppelin IV
Led Zeppelin
It's easy to want to buck the reviews on this and say that it's less than brilliant.
I'm not sure I can. I mean, sure, some of it has become almost passe from over playing, but the reason it's played so much is because it is bloody good.
Other people can write better about the history or the music or whatnot. So I'm just going to say that "when the levee breaks" has possibly one of the best kick drum openings in the history of music.
Two thumbs up.
5
Sep 13 2024
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War
U2
Yes, this is better than U2's later stuff.
Yes, Bono is a masskve twat.
At least he's had the decency to be talented first.
4
Sep 19 2024
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Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd
There are probably not many albums that have had as much discussion, dissection and dialogue as this. I'm not going to try and out-review anything that's come before, but I will say that this is, genuinely, an exceptionally good album. I've been familiar with the album art since the re-mastered CD re-release in 1994, but this might be the first time I've noticed the burn-out in the top right, which is genius in more ways than I care to talk about here.
Onto the music. Shine On You Crazy Diamond is indulgent in a way that only prog rock from the 1970s can be. Indulgent it is. Sumptuously so. At 13½ minutes long, it can't be described as anything other than "long" - but what glorious minutes they are. One stupours in it. Not many tracks are as dissociative.
In one way or another, it takes up most of this whole album. Welcome to the Machine is pleasingly, well, mechanical. It follows some of the themes present in Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, though very much fails to do so as well as either of those others.
Have a Cigar noodles along capably, with soaring guitars that never really seem to reach a destination.
Wish You Were Here asks the most important question - you think you can tell heaven from hell? Well, I thought I might have been able to, but now I'm not quite so sure. It is the title track of the album for a reason. It fits best with the sleeve art, for sure.
Given Pink Floyd's massive success, it really does tell how much the ideas of missed connections, lost opportunities and the melancholia of ageing resonate with music lovers.
All that hyperbolic guff out of the way - onto the negative aspects of the album. The synths are dated. I've no idea what they could be replaced with, but it's so inextricably tied to the mid-70s that it's almost all you can focus on as they squeal away. And that's a bit sad. It's also not Floyd's best work. That has to be Dark Side of the Moon. But claiming that an album is "bad" because it's not the best example is ludicrous. It isn't a bad album - I'd even go as far as to say that it's a magnificent album. But every time I listen to it, I always kind of think to myself "Perhaps I should put on Dark Side instead?" and that's an odd thing to think.
5
Sep 21 2024
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The White Room
The KLF
There is far more to be said about the KLF than there is about "this album" - mainly because what probably 80% of the reviewers on here have listened to hasn't been "the white room" as originally released.
The KLF (sometimes backronymmed to Kopyright Liberation Front) "stole" - that is, flat out and unashamedly copied riffs, samples, beats, melodies and, well, you name it. The current streaming versions are without anything copied that they couldn't sort licencing for, and it is a weaker release for that.
The KLF got to a height that few get to. Yes I will admit that a LOT of their success was overhyped by their very own publicity machinery. But they were by any objective measure incredibly successful. But they never really meant to be. They never expected anyone to take them seriously and were sort of like the excited dog that catches the car as a result of it. They're definitely worth reading up on, or if you have a chance to, watch Chris Atkins' documentary "Who Killed the KLF?".to get a snippet of their amoral, sociopathic energy.
As one of the last of Gen X, I was a tad too young at the time to experience KLF for the raves, but I remember watching Doctorin' The Tardis being performed on stage, featuring a real life Gary Glitter.
Glitter was sneaked in to the TOTP studios by Cauty and Drummond and the first the producers knew of his presence was when he was brought on stage live on air. Glitter had previously been banned from the studios - whoever would have thought it - and while I missed (thankfully) the reasons for the controversy as a child, I absolutely did not miss the controversy itself.
Why do I mention Doctorin' The Tardis on a review of The White Room though? It's because with the KLF it is literally impossible to separate the art from the artists. The art is the artists and the artists are the art. The White Room does shitty, cynical things because the artists know that "the people" will react to them in sheer delight. The music is selected (stolen) and arranged by producers and engineers to tap into primal, almost subconscious needs and wants in the listener. You don't listen to the KLF's music as much as you experience it. In so many ways it is genius, in so many more it is a choice about whether to join Drummond and Cauty in their cynical, destructive, anarchic and in many ways actively unpleasant world view, or you put your hands in the air and ask "what time is love?" while having the time of your fucking life.
It's a tough choice, and one only you can make. Personally, knowing what I know about how deeply disturbed and downright unpleasant the grubby world of KLF was, I choose to kick out the jams, motherfucker!
5
Sep 22 2024
View Album
Definitely Maybe
Oasis
If you'd asked me even twenty years ago, I'd probably have gone on about how two Manc lads stuck two fingers up at the system and defined the zeitgeist for the best part of a decade.
I mean, they did do that, but their pervasiveness through UK culture is all sorts of cringe. The buskers singing "Wonderwall", the ladsladslads stood in a circle, hanging drunkenly off each other's shoulders while singing "She's electric" to each other. The headline news stories about Ticketmaster price gouging.
That said - their best material is on this album (Rock 'n' roll star, Cigarettes and alcohol) or not on any album at all (Whatever, Half the world away (shut your face, The Masterplan is not an album)) and so the truly heinous, pompous, nasal, whiny, guitar - droning dross comes later.
There's an observation that really does hold true. You can tell a lot about a person by the sort of music they like, and if they like Oasis it probably means they have terrible taste in music.
Rating this album is hard, because while I find Oasis' later stuff to be genuinely triggering, there are actually a couple of decent tracks in this album, and it's impossible to understate quite how influential Oasis became on the back of this, and their subsequent album.
What you can't forgive them for is their role in popularising The Verve, or opening the door to early-mid 2000s dross indy.
But that isn't this album, so it's probably going to have to be an uncomfortably high 3.
3
Sep 23 2024
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Lady In Satin
Billie Holiday
Her voice is amazing. The music is mellow. But lordy it is samey, unengaging and pedestrian.
I want to love it, but I just can't.
2
Sep 24 2024
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Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Spirit
I put this on with absolutely zero idea of what to expect. The opening bars had me won over completely - exactly what I needed to hear on a wet Monday morning at the end of September. This lasted for about 45 seconds before the album took the first of what turns out to be MANY turns, changes in style and diversions. This isn't a bad thing at all, because while sometimes it sounds a bit rock-operaish, it keeps itself fairly consistent within the boundaries it has set for itself.
A nice example from a band I had no idea about.
5
Sep 25 2024
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The Last Broadcast
Doves
An early 2000s album - urgh.
Anyway. I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and while is sure is an album from the early 2000s, with over-sentimental bits hiding underneath the soaring pomposity the infected the time, this album is considerably better than its contemporaries. I mean, I won't go as far as saying I liked it - it is an early 2000s album after all, but it definitely isn't as bad as the other filth that was pumped out around then.
2
Sep 26 2024
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D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
I'm not sure it is possible to like this.
As a statement piece, it takes some cojones. Many aspects seem deliberately placed to annoy. While a lot of it is actually quite intriguing, the overall effect is to make the annoying even more annoying.
As an "art" piece, it sure does provoke a response. But that response is not to like it.
1
Sep 27 2024
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Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room
Dwight Yoakam
We got both kinds - country AND western!
1
Sep 28 2024
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Autobahn
Kraftwerk
Repetitive.
Repetitive.
Repetitive.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Excellent.
5
Sep 29 2024
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The Scream
Siouxsie And The Banshees
This is actually a little disappointing. I was expecting to like it much more than I did. Just seems to miss the mark a little bit - not quite as certain as their later stuff, but for sure it's an opening salvo.
3
Sep 30 2024
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Can't Buy A Thrill
Steely Dan
Jfc this is tepid.
Sure, there's talent but it's wasted on rock that's as far from hard that you can't even talk about Mohs, let alone quantify this album using it.
The best bits are the noodly showboating lead guitars. The worst bits are the entire rest of it.
2
Oct 01 2024
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Hot Fuss
The Killers
Mid 2000s stadium rock. This is likely to be a chore.
And it is. It never occurred to me before exactly how much Brandon Flowers desperately wanted to be Bono. Sure Mr Brightside is a track for the ages, but seriously dude, she's moved on, you should too.
2
Oct 02 2024
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Cut
The Slits
Far more ska-ish than I was expecting it to be, and clearly there's a lot of reggae / dub influence going on.
What there also is is an abundance of 70s bad punk vocal. It's not exactly sonorous, is it? That's being said, there's some groove to it that isn't objectionable, and I guess getting their tits oot for the album cover didn't do any harm to their chances.
Many of the tracks are as stripped back as the band themselves, and that was very much the style at the time. I can see how they've influenced so many - but I think they've planted the seeds. Other people have cultivated.
3
Oct 03 2024
View Album
Music
Madonna
Madonna's extraordinary collaboration with Scottish legend, Hamish the DJ.
I've not listened to this album for over twenty years. I remember it being a surprising continuation of the redemption of Madonna after her slippage of the mid 90s. Music is actually a corking track - the bass is thumping and pumping and it leads nicely to Impressive Instant, which is a track that had completely exited my memory until it kicked off with an absolutely wicked four-on-the-floor beat that invigorates me in ways I might even be ashamed of it wasn't so damn good. Clearly Madonna had taken notice of Boris wosshischops' mixing for Moloko's Sing It Back because it's almost the same level of good.
Runaway Lover suffers a bit for being too "out there" - it can't support the tempo it sets itself and feels five years too late, missing Prodigy and Kosheen doing this what it tries to, but nowhere near as well. The vocals sound disconnected and that's a shame.
We then come onto a bit of a "Can you try and make me sound a bit like Dido?" sort of track in I deserve it, and I'm tempted to skip. In fact, at over four minutes it IS a skip, because it does everything it needs to within about 50 seconds.
Amazing, put onto this album in the year 2000, has incredible resonance in late 2024 with "Hagmaxxing" being the word du jour. Madonna was doing it back in the day, Gen Z.
Nobody's Perfect is an abomination of vocoding and it gets a skip straight into the "Madonna being a bastard hybrid of Green Day and Cheryl Crow" that is Don't Tell Me, and that almost gets a skip too. It doesn't, but only because I quite like that start/stop thing it does. It's also (weirdly) the most "Madonna-voice" track in the whole recording. And I quite like that. She has actually got a good voice, and it's nice to hear it almost unfettered here.
The whole rest of this album can do one, though. Do I know what it feels like for a girl? No, surprisingly. As other commentors here have said, that cover version of American Pie is a pickled turd. Rating this album for the first 2 tracks, it'd get a comfortable 5. It doesn't hold its energy well enough to be more than a 3.
3
Oct 04 2024
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Either Or
Elliott Smith
I'm kinda sad today. In that Buffy the Vampire Slayer elicited some tears from my middle-aged eyes. I've had my share of depressive episodes. But I'm not sure if there could ever be a time where anyone could be sad enough for this to become good.
If it was therapy for Mr Smith, that's good, I guess, the poor fella. If it's therapy for someone else, I guess that's good too.
But this is never going to darken my earballs again.
1
Oct 05 2024
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Peace Sells...But Who's Buying
Megadeth
I like this, just not in the dosage provided. It becomes terribly samey after 2-3 tracks.
3
Oct 06 2024
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Talk Talk Talk
The Psychedelic Furs
This is a tricky one to rate, because there's quite a lot of post-punk angriness that I quite like, but also a lot of noisy thrash that I don't. I think I'm going to have to accept that it's probably better than I first give it credit for.
4
Oct 07 2024
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Apocalypse Dudes
Turbonegro
These guys sound like A, but with more swearing.
They're not terrible.
3
Oct 08 2024
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Steve McQueen
Prefab Sprout
I'd love to rate this higher. I live about 2 miles from Witton Gilbert (note for Americans, that's pronounced "Whitt-un Jill-butt") where the band was from, and it's nice to see local talent (and there is no doubt they are talented) doing well. I have, however, checked to see how much album I've got left to endure more than once, and I can't overlook that.
I don't think it's terrible, not compared to, say, anything at all that's country or a folky singer/songwriter who sounds like they're singing with their eyes shut. But the interesting bits, when they do turn out, are swamped by genuinely dull-as-ditchwater morose synth twaddle.
I actually feel quite sad at having to give it a two.
2
Oct 10 2024
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Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega is great. Marlene On The Wall is perhaps one of the most underrated songs of the 80s. Although I have to admit that I've never dipped into this album before.
On listening - Cracking is really irritatingly produced. The vocals are distant and almost smothered by the instrumentals.
The album really kicks up a notch when Marlene comes in. Vega's voice is just exquisite - capturing desperation, exasperation, hope - it's just a brilliant track.
There's a really strong album here, with The Queen and the Soldier also being a fantastic track, leading straight into an almost as good Knight Moves.
Yep. I like this. Really strong album from a great artist.
5
Oct 11 2024
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Shleep
Robert Wyatt
I like it, but I'm not sure why.
5
Oct 14 2024
View Album
The Slim Shady LP
Eminem
This is a difficult listen.
On the face of it, this is stuffed with misogynistic, homophobic, puerile bilge...but on closer inspection it proves itself to be stuffed with misogynistic, homophobic puerile bilge.
From the opening strains of the Labi Siffre sample (I got the - look it up) to the closing of I don't give a fuck, this album is absolutely immaculately produced. Mathers, for all his posturing, has tapped into an absolute motherlode of white working class disaffection. It's all here - underemployment, underachievement, inceldom, social impotence - it's a smorgasboard of everything to bumblefuck America that NWA was to innercity Compton, from an equivalently male perspective.
What it doesn't have is even the smallest hint of personal accountability. Dre can't impart anything on Mathers, because Mathers has no desire to listen. I do believe that this album edgelords like few others - but that's not really an excuse for its content.
He isn't the first to do what he's doing. If I were to draw any comparisons at all it'd be to ICP.
It's a shame, because with the exception of '97 Bonnie and Clyde this album sounds amazing. It's just a shame that Mathers and Dre didn't direct their formidable talent into something less destructive. Or even as destructive, but with a better narrative around it. Dinged a star due to content and another due to how piss-poor '97 Bonnie and Clyde is.
3
Oct 15 2024
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Fuzzy
Grant Lee Buffalo
It's not my usual style of music, but I have loved Jupiter and Teardrop since Trigger Happy TV. The rest of the album isn't as good, but it's still bloody good.
5
Oct 16 2024
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Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
This is an absolutely stand-out album for me. I played it through twice, which is a rarity. While I'd not heard of The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy before, I was vaguely familiar with Michael Franti. Also new to me was the concept of industrial hip hop, and it works really well.
The whole lot is carried by Franti's voice, and while some of the flow is "a bit tired" it still adds up to an album I really can't square off with being as underappreciated as it appears to be. The beats are there, there's some we'll-considered social commentary and I genuinely enjoyed listening to it.
Easiest 5 star for a long time.
5
Oct 22 2024
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A Short Album About Love
The Divine Comedy
Alright, I'll admit it, I have loved The Divine Comedy for more than thirty years.
I almost knew what my review was going to be before even having to listen - until I read some of the others here.
Couple of general (and one specific) retort. First and foremost - the clue is in the name of the band. Third word, six leters, starts with C, ends in Y. For this album, the comedy comes both from the absurdity of romance and its destructiveness. It's a version of "would you still love me if I was a worm?" set to massively indulgent orchestral music.
Hannon's previous work was more overtly whimsical, and there is an argument that he owes considerable success to his involvement in one of the most popular comedy television shows of the 90s (Father Ted, now impossibly tainted by the repugnant views of its creator) - but people coming to this album without that context may not be clued in to that.
It is tempting to quote Mansun's Open Letter to the Lyrical Trainspotter, from the year before this album - "The lyrics aren't supposed to mean that much, they're just a vehicle for a lovely voice" - but that does Hannon a disservice. The lyrics are crucial to appreciating (not enjoying) this album. You can enjoy it just fine by regarding the lyrics as the vehicle for a lovely voice - because Hannon really does have a lovely voice. To really appreciate the album though, you have to acknowledge that the lyrics are deliberate. Juvenile, outrageous, puerile, vicious, ecstatic, and above all - absurd. Just like love.
Hannon really knows what he's doing, and this mostly very good album fits snugly into his ouvre. It nestles between the burnt bitterness of Cassanova and the introspection, soul searching and awakening of Fin de Siècle, and knowing any of this should help with the appreciation of it. If you want to. If you don't, then just use it as a mechanism for hearing saccharine orchestra and a beautiful baratone singing stuff.
Or don't.
You see, the thing about us Gen Xers is that we don't really care what you do.
5
Oct 23 2024
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Bug
Dinosaur Jr.
Believe it or not, I actually thought this was OK until "Don't" - which was too noisy even for me.
4
Oct 24 2024
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KIWANUKA
Michael Kiwanuka
I can't quite begin to put into words how genuinely brilliant this album is. So much going on. I can imagine this being a record of the ages 50 years from now.
5
Oct 25 2024
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Live At The Regal
B.B. King
Yep, sure, talented act, talented band - but live. I don't need to hear the whoops and cheers. Boo.
3
Oct 26 2024
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Siamese Dream
The Smashing Pumpkins
Overwrought and really not to my taste. I could appreciate maybe ⅓ of it.
3
Oct 27 2024
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Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Well, it starts off like someone who is trying to escape from prog rock, but not actually managing to.
On the plus side - the album plays like someone trying to escape from prog rock, but eventually kinda making it.
Clearly rips Gabriel away from Genesis by the end, and that's actually a pretty cool thing. I can't think of a single solitary reason to listen to it again though.
3
Oct 28 2024
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The Trinity Session
Cowboy Junkies
I would like to like this, because she's got a lovely voice and clearly they know how to do everything - except record well. "Recorded using a single microphone in a church" is not a selling point - get a studio, pay a producer, make your stuff sound better. It's not rocket science.
The tracks I did like though, I liked a lot. The nails-on-a-chalkboard sound of the twangy country slide guitar makes me want to jump out of a window. So the album is going to get a considerable ding for being too country, covering some of the worst Elvis songs, and lacking a sane approach to recording and production.
2
Oct 30 2024
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In The Court Of The Crimson King
King Crimson
Half of this is a magnificent prog rock album. The other half is trying to be, but not quite getting there.
Sure, it may be one of the first, if not the actual first properly prog rock albums and therefore you can justify it taking a while to find its feet, but objectively, this album finishes way stronger than it starts.
4
Oct 31 2024
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The Infotainment Scan
The Fall
This ended up much better than it started. I was tempted to describe it as "more influential than good" - and that temptation remains strong. But when it moved away from post-punk and into something a bit less "deliberately antagonistic", shall we say, it actually started to make more sense.
I'll clearly never listen to it - or anything else by The Fall - ever again, but yeah, I can see how people have been influenced by them.
2
Nov 01 2024
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The Rising
Bruce Springsteen
Competent, well performed music from someone I have no commonality with. Shame about the production choices.
Sure, there's some merit in the concept of the American working class needing a distraction from terrible events, but look what the fuckers have done since then.
1
Nov 02 2024
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I’m a Lonesome Fugitive
Merle Haggard
Intolerable country. Why would anyone subject themselves to this?
1
Nov 03 2024
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Electric Prunes
The Electric Prunes
Quite a surprise in its mixture of vibes and styles.
4
Nov 04 2024
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The Predator
Ice Cube
Angry, well delivered - exactly as you'd expect. The selection of samples really wins this.
4
Nov 05 2024
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Porcupine
Echo And The Bunnymen
I wasn't super-fussed about this on the first listen, but I found myself humming, whistling or otherwise sounding out a good few of these tracks for many days after listening. Went back to it and appreciated it a lot more on a second and third listen.
4
Nov 06 2024
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Who's Next
The Who
Gonna get out there and say it. Baba O'Reilly is one of the absolute killer tracks of rock. However - "Won't get fooled again" is also one of the absolute killer tracks of rock.
And this album uses them as top and tails.
The filling of the sandwich isn't quite as impressive as the bread - but made with a lesser loaf, it would probably also be stand-out.
Thoroughly deserves a listen.
5
Nov 09 2024
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Shake Your Money Maker
The Black Crowes
There's some decent stuff in here that I remember from the early nineties, however I can't help but think that if you like this sort of music enough to listen to it regularly,, you're also comfortable with the idea of big pick up trucks, you've probably unironically said "Yeehaw" and you'd probably explode if you listened to some AC/DC unless you had your favourite pair of snakeskin boots on..
3
Nov 10 2024
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Live 1966 (The Royal Albert Hall Concert)
Bob Dylan
Both live AND Bob Dylan?
Aww hell no.
1
Nov 12 2024
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Throwing Muses
Throwing Muses
Mildly irritating music that occasionally comes up with some killer moments.
Too much filler for the killer, though.
3
Nov 13 2024
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The Rise & Fall
Madness
Was a time in my teenage years that I'd have counted Madness as one of my favourite bands.
Those days are long, long past. They're excellent musicians, tight as a gnat's twat, and they did start to bring ska and two-tone to the UK. But their best works are straight up covers, and the "larf" attitude expressed in their music just doesn't quite feel right after all this time.
I've met Suggs - twice - and he's a genuinely different from the stage persona, being more sober, less whimsical and actually a jolly decent seeming human. But I really can't listen to them anymore without thinking that I'd honestly prefer to be listening to either the British contemporaries like Bad Manners or The Specials - or even better, to Island acts like Prince Buster, the Skatellites.
It's actually a bit of a shame because they're not a bad act - at all - it's just that I don't really dig them anymore.
3
Nov 14 2024
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The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Genesis
I got about 9 tracks into this, thinking that it was pompous and self-indulgent.
I mean, prog is meant to be pompous and self-indulgent, but this doesn't manage to be interesting with it. I looked at the track listing and discovered I was only just over a third of the way through it and I've decided to give up. There simply isn't enough time in my life for this.
2
Nov 15 2024
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Dookie
Green Day
I always enjoyed Green Day, well, until around the time of American Idiot, anyway. Listening to this for the first time in probably nearly twenty years, I enjoyed it. Not enough to bring it back into regular rotation, but it was still a glorious dose of nostalgia, reminding me that once we thought Dubya was the worst president one could have.
5
Nov 16 2024
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Strange Cargo III
William Orbit
I very much enjoyed this. Earlier than I was expecting, from William Orbit.
Some other comments on here about how it sounds great on good headphones, or high-end speakers. Can confirm.
5
Nov 19 2024
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G. Love And Special Sauce
G. Love & Special Sauce
On the first bars of the first track I was prepared to write off this album as a dismal mess. However - there's something about it that seems to come from nowhere. I'm not sure I could describe it as good as much as compelling. It makes you want to hear more, see where it's going to next.
I should probably come back to this at a later date and give it another go. There is an obvious love shown for the influences here, in a way that almost makes you think that the G is short for "genuine"..
4
Nov 20 2024
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The Colour Of Spring
Talk Talk
While I've no particular objections to this music, I do object to the use of children's choirs.
Those little bastards cannot sing in tune for shite, and no record anywhere has ever been improved by including children singing.
Thankfully it seems to be limited only to the opening track and the rest of the album is mercifully free of it.
By the time I get to the absolutely awesome Chameleon Day, I'm ready to almost forgive it. What a track!
4