This is the second time I've listened to this album in a fortnight - and it's actually pretty good. Very poppy, although I do question whether this album will have staying power. It's just a shame that so many people are latching on to it being new. The fact that we've regressed to the point that campy excess is considered to be innovative really is heartbreaking. I guess it's a fight we have to have again and again and again.

This is going to be a tough review. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this, never having heard of it, or her. When it started up, I was genuinely pretty intrigued. And then she started singing, and oh my very god, I hate her vocal style. Justin Vernon is grand - and Greg Brown is better - but when the primary artist has a voice that drives you nuts, it makes it very hard to work through. It really is a shame, because in almost every other respect, I actually really quite like this. I say "almost every" because there's that fingernails-on-a-blackboard "bwap-bwap-bwooow!" of country guitars every so often too. God. I really can't express how much I hate her vocal affectations. In "Flowers", 'red' becomes 'Ray-ee-aye-eh-hed' - utterly piss-boiling, especially as it's clear she's actually got a voice in her. If it wasn't for her indie-girl, cursive singing nonsense, I think I'd actually say this was one of the better entries on the list - easily top 100 - but I'm afraid I really am gonna have a ding a star for it.

28 years ago, when the singles from this were being released, I absolutely hated all of them. Just that visceral reaction of "Oh for fucks sake" when you heard that "bap bap badow ba bap bap" in a nightclub and you knew it was time to go to the bar to get another pint of three point something percent lager and wait for that intermimable tripe to stop. Nearly thirty years later, I can't think of many things from the late 90s that I miss less than Shania Twain. It was everywhere, which didn't help, but then so was cigarette smoke and that literally gives you cancer.

One hour seventeen minutes of heavy guitars and terribly fatiguing bass? Well, this is probably gonna be a struggle. So far I'm up to H. and I'm bored witless. The best track on here is "Intermission". It's the only one that isn't relentlessly doomy- oh so edgelordy. Only heavily strummed bass guitars can describe my anguish. I bet he sings with his eyes closed. Yeah, I'm really glad that people like this, but it isn't for me

I wasn't at all sure what to expect but I certainly didn't expect something from 2003, the nadir of music, to be this good. John Zorn, behind one of the worst-rated albums on the original list, is credited on this, and I can see why some folk might find his stuff objectionable, I really enjoyed Spy vs Spy so I was more than prepared to find out what was going on with this. It's a delight! One of the main problems I have with metal is that it so often outstays it's welcome. This album is brilliantly designed to limit your exposure to it, so it actually has an impact without rapidly descending into the fatigue that so plagues the genre. This is jazzy, ambient - in parts contemplative, in others outrageous. I liked it a lot, thanks for the recommendation!

This is really good. One of those collections that I'm sure I've been aware of in the past, but never really arrived into my conscious mind as something. There's quite a lot of quite a lot in here - and it is very clearly contemporary to the likes of Thievery Corporation and Nightmares on Wax. It reminds me a bit of Mr Scruff's selections in places, and the four-to-the-floor disco revival of late 90s Moloko in others. Naturally, anyone who had this playing in their bars in the late 90s was aiming for a cosmopolitan, too-cool-for-school Tribeca warehouse kind of feel. And I get that - I totally do. It's not something I'd want to sit down and actively listen to for over 2 hours really. It's absolutely, 100% the sort of thing that should be playing in the background while Martinis are mixed for you. You need to be chatting up people with way better fashion sense but way less money than you. You'd have looked into the production of this album, and you'll have interesting facts prepped about it - like did you know that Jazzy Jeff was involved? Yes, that dude that Uncle Phil kept throwing out in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. You absolutely won't have pulled, but at least you'd be charitably waved at by the immaculately dishevelled young thing you were trying it on with next time you went to that warehouse bar. You see - this is the difference between the 90s and the 00s. This music is funky, relaxed, effortlessly cool and makes you think that you can do everything. Even get a number from someone dressing for the cover of Vogue from charity shop finds and dumpster dives. The equivalent to this in the 00s was angry, aggressive, cynical and overconfident to the point of arrogance. You definitely would get that number in the 00s, but you'd also have woken up with them, covered in kebab and chlamydia. And that's the difference. In the 90s, it was OK to be optimistic, because there just wasn't anything left to worry you. In the 20s there are hints of optimism coming back through in music, but it is (rightfully) imbued with a sense of responsibility. This is absolutely a record of its time. After The End of History but before Dubya. It represents a world that genuinely didn't think it had anything to worry about, and I like that. Sure, I appreciate the maturity and the compassion of 20s music, and I'm glad that we're less naive about who we have around us. We can reflect on the sheer fucking hubris of the 90s with a degree of guilty shame. But holy god damn I miss how good it felt to be this amount of cool.

One hour seventeen minutes of heavy guitars and terribly fatiguing bass? Well, this is probably gonna be a struggle. So far I'm up to H. and I'm bored witless. The best track on here is "Intermission". It's the only one that isn't relentlessly doomy- oh so edgelordy. Only heavily strummed bass guitars can describe my anguish. I bet he sings with his eyes closed. Yeah, I'm really glad that people like this, but it isn't for me

Sounds like the kind of music you try and ignore when you accidentally turn out to an open mic night at a pub. You just wanted a jaunt out, good chat, few beers, maybe talk to some people you've never met before... and then some eejit with an acoustic guitar starts strumming away and singing, which ruins your plans. But it turns out OK because actually he's got some talent and hey, he finishes eventually. The barman is wearing a hand-plaited friendship bracelet and he prefers making coffee to pulling pints. I think the best thing about The Mountain Goats is that I always confuse them with an album called The Mountain Dogs by Stealing Sheep. The thing I like least about this is the deliberately janky recording.

Cliffy Biro.

I've actually really enjoyed this. Surprised to have, but there's definitely something about this that appeals. Glad I listened.

An enjoyable antidote to grunge - by far and away less self-destructive, and definitely a fresh take at the time.

This is great, why didn't I listen to this in the 90s? Or any of the 3 subsequent decades? Shameless is The Tits.

Rootin' tootin' country rock dreck. He's got a nice (if you like that sort of thing) voice and I've not immediately wanted to turn it off, which is pretty high praise for country, but it's still country. Bleh.

I guess this is what you'd call nerd rock? Definitely strikes me as the sort of thing that people who like TMBT or Jonathan Coulter would be into. I didn't mind it, but would be in no hurry to listen again.

Delightfully bonkers, although that gets tired after a while, so could do with being a bit shorter.

So many hints of their antecedents! The vocal delivery sounds a bit like I, Ludicrous. The music has nods towards New Order. Like many other reviewers have opined, this is a grower. Not something I'd have stuck with without the framework of this project, and I'm quite glad that I did towards the end of The Lotts. Liberty Belle is a hoot.

One of the genuine surprises of the original list was the absence of INXS. I'm looking forward to listening to it. So yeah, it's a good album. Not a great album, but a good album with some great songs on it. It starts and ends wrapped around Need You Tonight, the obvious stand-out, with a couple of highlights. So slide over here. And give me a moment.

Not as terrible as the edgelordy name would suggest.

The Sound From The Lion's Mouth - Is it a roar? It'll be a roar, won't it? Well no. What it is us surprisingly unknown early 80s that fits right in with its contemporary stuff, but apparently never got anywhere. Bizarre! I'm glad to have heard it, but it just makes me wonder why nobody else did either.

I can see what the end goal is here, I just think it has been done better by other people. That being said, it's a fairly bold attempt.

Gotcha. Moderately surprised at how early this was - would easily have expected it to be a self-produced effort from the late 2000s. Self produced because the production values are utterly garbage. Half the time it sounded like live album played in a pub. The other, well - some of it is funky and highly listenable. On the other hand, there is also "any better love" and "money", which are hot effluvia. I view this as an interesting distraction from a country that has otherwise only given us gabber and 2 Unlimited.

Well, this sure is Malian music. It's pretty good too.

My initial reaction to this was "What on earth is this tosh?" It's performance art for the sake of performance art - I see little merit in it, apart from being able to stroke your beard contemplatively at the impressive juxtaposition of this, to that, and the counter-play of the meta-dichotomous plurality of the tripe and the bilge working harmoniously with the pretentiousness and the codswallop. This occupies exactly the same space as Throbbing Gristle. My final reaction to it is "should I listen to it again? Am I missing something?" - a question that can easily be answered.

Absolutely delightful. While I'm not as keen on the slower numbers, it's still a great album from the dying days of disco.

Oh man, I love this album. I've loved it for - omfg - nearly 30 years. Sure, the lyrics are horrifying and most of the music is flagrantly stolen from other artists, but it sure is a great vibe that this puts out.

You could hotswap with with any of their contemporaries and not be any the wiser. Is it The Coral? Is it Razorlight? Could easily be. It's not terrible, it's just nothing exceptional from a period of music that had completely lost its way.

Well, these guys are talented. But that is no excuse for a live album. Nobody needs to hear the audience. The music is funky, and I'm glad I've been introduced to Vulfpeck. I look forward to listening to their studio-produced stuff that doesn't have the chore of the crowd noises or the audience interaction. A lot of these tracks sound like the opening themes to early 90s sitcoms. You can easily imagine (despite the audience noises) this playing over montage shots of Greg Evigan and Paul Reiser.

Well, this sure sounds like music for middle-aged white guys. As with many offerings from prog, it is overwrought, hugely overindulgent and also incredibly long. Sure, the music is pretty decent (and abundant) and the production is pretty good - but for crying out loud, this 100 minutes of prog, and that's more than anyone needs. 3 stars only because I fit exactly into the target demographic.

Wow, three votes so far, at the time of writing. Must have only been suggested a couple of days ago, tops. Anyway. Here's vote four, review three. After the first track I was prepared to go on rant about how The Cure shouldn't be shoegaze. Sure, a load of shoegaze massives would argue that The Cure was one of their primary inspirations, but The Cure are not shoegaze in the same way that The Beatles are not britpop. Blimey though, this is a really shoegazey record. Fortunately, it is also The Cure. The thing about The Cure is that they are excellent. Robert Smith can conjure feelings out the wahooey, and that's exactly what this record does. Conjures feelings. I'm not as old as Smith - he's got over two decades on me - but the feelings this music inspires - ageing, slowing down, loss, reflection, a curious lack of anger, despite protests of injustice and unfairness - are every bit as powerful to middle-aged me as the mournful optimism and hope of Picture of You were to me in my teens and twenties. I mean, even now as a cynical and jaded curmudgeon in his mid forties, Pictures of You can cut through the shield of my bitter and calloused shell. We will have to leave this album to brew for thirty or so years to see if anything from it will hit as hard. On just one listen, I suspect probably not, but it's not really fair to ask anyone - even Robert Smith - to try and equal Robert Smith. It is, to be sure, an absolutely excellent album and I suspect that I'll listen to it a lot...but I agree it is maybe a bit young still to be in the pantheon. Mind you, Kiwanuka is also very young and that definitely needs to be on the list, so I'm willing to allow it. For the moment.

OK, so TMBG are musical nerds who make music for nerds who are not musical. I'm not saying that the Venn diagram of people who listen to TMBG and people who play tabletop games is a perfect circle, but if you were to add TMBG listeners to an n-dimensional Venn diagram that includes tabletop gamers, folk who solve maths problems for fun, people who care about the numbers in the model of a graphics card, anyone who has been to a comicon or anyone above the age of 19 who cares what a pokemon is, you'd have very little negative space in the TMBG portion. Now, bear in mind that I've just talked about something being n-dimensional... I get the nerd bit! But TMBG are just a bit too... too for me. There's a few tracks here and there (Cloisonne) that I really quite enjoy, but added up, it's just too much twee for me. Maybe it's an overstimming of the nerd bit? TMBG do what they do very well, and I can't fault them for keeping nerds entertained for 40+ years, and yeah, there probably should be a TMBG album on the list, so why not this one? You probably should listen to one of theirs because, why not?

This is the second time I've listened to this album in a fortnight - and it's actually pretty good. Very poppy, although I do question whether this album will have staying power. It's just a shame that so many people are latching on to it being new. The fact that we've regressed to the point that campy excess is considered to be innovative really is heartbreaking. I guess it's a fight we have to have again and again and again.

I'd say this is absolutely, 100% unique in the list - it's the only real dance (using the term lightly) with classical I've come across so far and although I've still got 150 or so user-submitted albums to go, I get the feeling I won't be hearing another like this. Definitely worth including, and I thank the person who suggested it for thinking a bit different when it comes to the type of music expected of the list.

Music for the iPod generation. I found the lyrics to be cynical, often veering towards misogyny. The mid 2000s was a desolate wasteland for music, and while this isn't the aggressively bad worst of it, it's not something I would ever actively choose to put into my earballs. I say at the top of this review that it's music for the ipod generation, because it sounds like it has been mastered to listen to on cheap-end earbuds, which was the style at the time.

This reminds me a lot of David Gray.

This seems like perfectly average blues from a 20-year old lad. Sure, it's competent enough, but strays into country a bit too often. I guess he's young and he might improve with age.

Oh boy, am I looking forward to a live album from a band I've never heard of, with unpleasant album art. OK. So the album isn't that bad. What it absolutely is though, is live. Which means that while the band might well have been reacting to and vibing with the audience for the full 15 minutes and 55 seconds of "Contraption" - or even the miserably over-long at half the length "Sticky Hulks", we sat in the comfort of our own homes are growing increasingly irritated at the continuation of this repetitive mess. Get these guys into a studio, give them a decent producer and I'll come back to them. Until then, wipe the slobber off your chin, guys, I'm not going to go to one of your gigs and I don't want to listen to a recording of one.

It's tempting to say that this record is only 5 or 10 years old - but no, it's coming up to thirty years since this hit the shops, and I remember it well. Well. I remember Shirley Manson. "Garbage" (by Garbage) is an album that I listened to a fair bit back in the 90s, and, it turns out, I listened to Version 2.0 a lot more, because putting this on for the first time in years was like slipping into a warm friend. The first track is nothing special. Manson's voice sounds almost like it's coming from underwater, with pretty heavy vocoder effects. Things get much better, though. The vocals definitely become cleaner and clearer, and that's brilliant.. Because when they do, especially during "Hammering in my head", those vocals are dirty, urgent and delicious. The second half of the album is as tellingly placed in the late 90s as any music could be. I grew up with it, and going back to it is great. This is actually a much better album than Garbage, so I'm happy with it being suggested.

I wasn't at all sure what to expect but I certainly didn't expect something from 2003, the nadir of music, to be this good. John Zorn, behind one of the worst-rated albums on the original list, is credited on this, and I can see why some folk might find his stuff objectionable, I really enjoyed Spy vs Spy so I was more than prepared to find out what was going on with this. It's a delight! One of the main problems I have with metal is that it so often outstays it's welcome. This album is brilliantly designed to limit your exposure to it, so it actually has an impact without rapidly descending into the fatigue that so plagues the genre. This is jazzy, ambient - in parts contemplative, in others outrageous. I liked it a lot, thanks for the recommendation!

Well, this isn't a bad album, but it is also a thoroughly unoriginal album that contributes nothing but a fun 40-ish minutes to your life. Yes, the album is 51 minutes long. It gets tired after 40 though.

'kin weeb. I genuinely love the fact that the user recommendations are straying further away from the eleventy million Bowie albums, identical-sounding British NME belle-du-jour acts of the 2000s and albums by Bob Dylan that would more usually be included in lists of things banned by UN convention as being cruel and a violation of fundamental human rights. This jpop offering is just that - poppy nonsense. The Wikipedia entry for it reads like a Patrick Bateman review. It is trashy pop and it's a diversion, purely disposable. And that's OK.

A collection of songs you know from other places - but executed brilliantly by an acknowledged master. What isn't there to like?

I'm quite surprised at how many of these seem vaguely familiar, and given that most of this stuff hasn't been in the public consciousness since about 1985, that's quite astonishing. I can't claim that anything from this album will enter my regular rotation, but I did quite enjoy Shame on You's vocal, er... sound, I guess. I wonder what influence (if any) Mr Kershaw had on Camille - it's a similar kind of beatboxy thing to what she does, although I'm genuinely not sure if beatboxing is the right term for it. Anyway - yeah, better than I feared and actually quite a fun bit of otherwise disregarded 80s in a virtually untouched time capsule.

I have no really strong views on this, either way. I mean, asides from shifting the definition of "brat" a lot closer to "basic bitch", this is broadly a disposable pop album that'll disappear from consciousness as quickly as, say, P!nk's "the truth about love". The vocal effects are distracting to the point of mild annoyance, but the basic poppiness of the album means that it is only mild. I guess I'm absolutely not the target demographic for this. Picture Lucille Bluth saying "Good for her!" and you're probably about where I am on this.

They don't 'alf sound like they want to be Dire Straits.

Oh yes! I was so tempted to suggest something by Type O Negative myself. When reviewing the Sisters of Mercy for the main list, I suggested that they "were kind of like Type O Negative, without the fun". It is very important to remember that Type O are a band that's all about fun. Yes, goth metal is an unlikely vehicle for it, but these guys, and most everyone I know who like them, are having an absolute blast. Type O are goth camp. The dials are turned up to 11 and and we're having the time of our lives. Also in my Floodland review, I mentioned the impossibly beautiful girls in corsets and lace writhing around me. Type O pastiches this, and I'm totally here for it. While there is clearly a 2020s reinvigoration of goth, thanks in part, let's be fair, to Jenna Ortega, I think we should go further. Pass me the eyeliner, get me in some leather trousers and a frilly shirt and let the impossibly beautiful girls in corsets and lace writhe around me.

This is going to be a tough review. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this, never having heard of it, or her. When it started up, I was genuinely pretty intrigued. And then she started singing, and oh my very god, I hate her vocal style. Justin Vernon is grand - and Greg Brown is better - but when the primary artist has a voice that drives you nuts, it makes it very hard to work through. It really is a shame, because in almost every other respect, I actually really quite like this. I say "almost every" because there's that fingernails-on-a-blackboard "bwap-bwap-bwooow!" of country guitars every so often too. God. I really can't express how much I hate her vocal affectations. In "Flowers", 'red' becomes 'Ray-ee-aye-eh-hed' - utterly piss-boiling, especially as it's clear she's actually got a voice in her. If it wasn't for her indie-girl, cursive singing nonsense, I think I'd actually say this was one of the better entries on the list - easily top 100 - but I'm afraid I really am gonna have a ding a star for it.

Look, I'm sure this is great and that, but it's just too country, and country is universally rubbish.

I was about to say that while I listened to this just yesterday, I have absolutely zero memory of it, but trying really hard to pluck up some memory, there actually are some flashes of recollection. The main one that comes up in amateurishness. The vocals especially had me wondering if it was a live gig, because surely no recording engineer or producer would have said "Yep, that's it, that is perfect!" and put them into the final mix? That being said, I liked the varied nature of it, and nothing really offended me. Just kinda feels like the sort of album that has a personal connection to the suggestor, rather than something that's going to change the world for anyone. Who knows, they might have excellent stage presence that doesn't really translate into a produced album. Either way - middle of the road for me.

Fun, disposable pop in a language I don't understand. Fair enough!

Sure, was there in the late 90s when this was apparently popular - but in a different country - but despite this, I just don't get it. Sure, they're mostly inoffensive, occasionally repetitive, but they fail to gripper me in a way that has me questioning the gripperedness of the people who love 'em. Sure, you do you I guess. Everyone is entitled to their opinion - I just can't help but feel like I'm looking in from outside at a cult.

Early - and very definitely influential, by the sounds of it. Several times I found myself thinking "Whoa, that's where ... must have gotten it from!" Decent.

Nice. First time I've listened to a whole album through by Tame Impala, and - I'm not going to lie - probably the last, too. I like their tracks, but 51 minutes of it just seemed like too much. I do approve of what's being done, but was just a little tired of it by 3/4 of the way through.

Beautiful, low, wobbly bass.

Just because you can do something experimental and different, it doesn't mean that you should. I can appreciate the production, but this music leaves my boxes unticked.

I'd originally misread the release date for this wrong - thinking it was a 90s album - which made me question all kinds of things about the sanity of the person submitting. As a 90s release, it's all kind of tired, done-to-death 80s rock, with multiple tracks that could easily and seamlessly have been slotted into the 1986 film masterpiece / toy advert "Transformers: The Movie" without anyone noticing. As an early 80s release - well, it may well have been an introduction to the style. Given some of the other reviews on here, it might well have been. Personally, I thought it was OK. There is no danger at all of me listening to it again - I'm sure not going to fit into the requisite skinny jeans - but it was nice to hear something from someone who was clearly very popular and influential at the time, but since has pretty thoroughly vanished from consciousness. Not my thing, but I can see the value of it and why it's gotten a nod.

Obviously knew Mmmm mmmm mmmm from when it was new, but I think this might be the first time in thirty years that I've even considered that they'd have done anything else. Listening to it, I have the question forming in my mind of if CTD invented the indie girl / cursive style of singing. It's OK. Nice variety of styles, a step away from the "mainstream" of the early 90s. Definitely worth a listen.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy this immensely. Was really not expecting to hear such a mashup of stuff, it very much appeals to my sensibilities, and while I'm not a fan of accordions generally, the presence herein did not offend me too much. Good choice, good selection, good album.

Took a very long time to get started.

Not reading anything about Stromae before diving in, I was prepared to accept this entry as being a really jolly good fun French hiphop album. Scrolling down the tracklist though I see the track "moules frites" and instantly this becomes a Belgian album. With that in mind, it also becomes a surprisingly excellent Belgian hiphop album. At least, until Merci, it was an excellent Belgian hiphop album. Merci just blew me away. What a take. The influence of Italo-disco on a thoroughly modern interpretation of piano-driven house, diverting in the second half to full synth - just great and I'm here for it. It takes this album up to an extraordinary Belgian hiphop album. Yep, solid choice for the list, and I am definitely going to pay more attention to Stromae.

My heart verily sinks when I see "2003" as the release date, and when you combine that with never having heard of Switchfoot in all my puff, it does not add up to a hopeful picture. Starting to actually play it completed the trifecta - this album met my expectations exactly. There are very few albums that will get a DNF, and this one joins them in ignomy.

28 years ago, when the singles from this were being released, I absolutely hated all of them. Just that visceral reaction of "Oh for fucks sake" when you heard that "bap bap badow ba bap bap" in a nightclub and you knew it was time to go to the bar to get another pint of three point something percent lager and wait for that intermimable tripe to stop. Nearly thirty years later, I can't think of many things from the late 90s that I miss less than Shania Twain. It was everywhere, which didn't help, but then so was cigarette smoke and that literally gives you cancer.

The Smashing Pumpkins of the mid-2000s. Yes,i do mean it like that.

Listening to this morose motherfucker on what was meant to be a cheering spring morning walk was absolutely a mistake. Reading (with increasing bafflement) all the glowing reviews, I see that another The National album made it to the main list, which I had apparently blotted out of my memory. Re-reading my review of High Violet, I can say that this album is better than that one - at least this one doesn't have the overworked grandiosity of High Violet - but don't mistake that faint praise for me liking this album, because I absolutely do not. It's like Death Cab For Cutie without the charm, optimism or likeability.

Oh hell yes. There was not enough Tori Amos in the main list. While I would probably have to say that Liite Earthquakes is a better album, this has the benefit of better production - the piano sounds genuinely incredible here. I firmly believe that Boys for Pele should also be listed - could easily remove half a dozen David Bowie albums to make way. Enough about Amos' other stuff though - this is meant to be about Under the Pink. As a 14 year old boy, who'd just gotten his hands on a sound sampler, Cornflake Girl would have been one of the songs I sampled, I loved it. So unlike any the in the charts at the time, and loaded to the earballs with glorious, sumptuous piano. Sure, there's synths too, and a somewhat pedestrian drum going on, but the star of it is her keys. Clean, forefront and delicious to hear. It makes me wonder, when Professional Widow from her next album got a dance remix, why Cornflake Girl didn't get a wonderful Tribeca loft bar house take done. If anything could be said about Amos' vocals is that she is less powerfully vulnerable here than the preceding album - there's an edge and an anger that didn't really come through in Earthquakes.which kinda contrasts with the delicacy and easy confidence of her piano. Still has the ability, thirty years later, to make me want to immerse myself in the sound, wrap myself up in it and live it completely for nearly an hour - and that makes me happy.

You know what, I am actually quite glad that I've listened to this. There is precisely zero chance I'll ever listen to it again, but I do appreciate the effort of putting it together.

This is very competent, well put together music that I don't really want to listen to. Sure, it's technically adept and the production is unbelievable for the age of the record, but one cannot help but know that somewhere behind the music there's a bunch of insufferable white guys. Is it a good example of British 60s rock/blues - yes. Could it replace one of the many, many doubled-up artists from the same era? Yes - but would I rather have something that wasn't white guys from 60s British artists instead? Also yes.

I'm very glad that this came so soon after such an obvious 60s British rock album. Very much appreciated the approach of taking pop, rock, metal and a whole grab bag of other genres and just saying "Yeah, this music is Mexican now pendejo!". That's it. That's the whole venture. I mean, it ain't much but it's honest work.

Enjoyable punk, but I think I'd like to write more after another listen.

It's incredibly tempting to rate this as 3-stars, because the middle-of-the-road stuff on here is absolutely, purely and comprehensively middle-of-the-road. However. The opening track (Table For Glasses) is excruciatingly awful. A snare drum every 3 seconds and a twiddly guitar accompanying a whiny dirge. Oh hey! Some dude's been given a glockenspiel! The upbeat stuff is, by way of relief, a joy in comparison, but when looked at outside the context of the juvenile emo-ish dirges, it's literally just OK. It is because of these dreadful over-long couple of tracks that this has to get dinged. Sorry. Bleed American is a way better album.

Despite the trepidation of a 2000s album from a group I'd never heard of before, and despite a slightly awkward start, this turned out to be a really enjoyable ska punk offering. Thoroughly enjoyed this, and will recommend to friends.

Tell me you're an elder millennial without telling me you're an elder millenial. Naturally Blink 182 started out kinda X-y but this album particularly has to be one of the signifiers, stating that Gen X had truly passed. I think that the start of the changeover is probably pretty easily tied into the 1995 Amy Heckerling fillum Clueless. Clueless featured the dying strains of X - Bowie, Radiohead, Coolio, for real X-gen stuff. But notably tete was also some No Doubt and Mighty Mighty Bosstones, whose ska-punk ushered in the millennials, and Blink 182, The Offspring and Green Day all jumped into new, more poppy and rocky variations, but all very noticeably shifting from a late X sound to a discernibly different Millennial one. Naturally, as one of the last of X I find Blink 182 to be mostly juvenile and overhyped. That being said, a couple of tracks on here are genuinely pretty good. And they do very much exemplify the change of an epoch. So there's that.

Back in the late, 90s, early 2000s, a mate of mine followed the Eels round Europe on one of their tours and ended up meeting them after a security guard noticed he'd been following them. That dude is now a music journalist, published in the NME, the BBC, Q, and a huge geet long list of other notable organs. Dude's now living in New York City and for all I know might still be mates with Mr E. I'm sure he's a better writer on the subject of Eels' third album, but I'll give it a stab. Daisies is unfortunate in that it starts off with Grace Kelly Blues. Unfortunate because while it isn't entirely terrible, it is a very bad introduction to the album. It has that awful Country-sounding guitar - intolerable - but the main thing is that Daisies is a bit of a departure from the wallowing, nerdy melancholy of nearly everything they'd done previously. I don't really think Daisies really picks up until I Like Birds - but from there on its just cracking. Eels definitely deserve a second spot in the list, and Daisies just edges out over Electroshock Blues.

Yep I can get behind this.

Another of the journey of discovery things. First thought was that this MF has obviously heard MF DOOM, but doing a bit of reading up, it actually is MF DOOM. What a delight! This is better than MM FOOD but still has that sight tryhardism with the comic book, B movie schtick.

This is fuckin garbage. Trying so hard. Yes, it avoids the androcentric aggression of earlier Arctic Monkeys, but still manages to capture the arrogance, the sneering disdain. The work of someone who couldn't separate acclaim from value. Fortunately it isn't an over-long album, although that doesn't stop it feeling both overlong and obnoxiously repetitive - four stars out of five ain't gonna happen. Sorry lads.

The cover art has my interest. Let's have a listen. I'm not usually one for "folk singer/songwriter" - but this album is the fuckin' tits, yo. The old witch sleep and the good man grace... What a track!

This is deceiving. Do not be fooled by the description as folk/indy - it's country. Dirty, mouth-harps and fiddles country. Dnf for that reason.

This is a bit of a mix up, really. Most of the tracks are a confusion between two or more different things being played at the same time, and while I really didn't enjoy it to begin with, o have the feeling that it might grow on me.

This was considerably better on the second listen.

Slightly over-indulgent, and why in the name of all things do people actively choose to have children singing (badly) on their records? Other than that, well - it's kind of OK I guess.

Dullscythe is annoying. I was pleasantly pleased that this had some really nice, poppy tracks that make you feel happy. Unfortunately it's interspersed with some experimental gumpf that sounds like a failed download. The nice poppy stuff really is quite nice though.

This caught me by surprise. I knew about the work previously, but failed to spot it as I absent-mindedly clicked through to set it away. It took me about four minutes of the first track to get irritated by the repetitiveness. About forty seconds after that, it clicked what it was and I promptly stopped listening to it. Not because I don't like it - it's an extraordinary piece and a statement of art -but because I really needed to listen to something that probably wouldn't make me cry as I was walking down to the pub. You have to approach it for what it is. Something to experience, rather than something to listen to. It's good. Someone should be doing this kind of thing. It isn't really "music" though.

Yay! More Sparks! In my review of Kimono My House, I opined that Sparks, in their 50-or-so years in the music biz, have just been there, doing great stuff. You probably never really think about them, but then you'll hear something of theirs and think "Well, this is really good!". You'll then try and think of something else that Sparks have done - and the song you'll think of will also be really good, but probably completely different... while also being very clearly Sparks. They're massively influential for a reason - and that reason is that they're bloody good. This album is more influenced, perhaps in that it takes Sparks a little bit away from pure, new direction innovation that they pushed in their previous 7 albums (SEVEN albums!). We're now layering the Brothers Mael over the top of Italo-disco. The influence of Moroder is clear, and it is beautiful. It is still new and fun, and an absolute joy 46 years later.

Some fine Gen X right here.

I definitely listened to this yesterday, but as I come to review it today, I don't remember a single solitary thing about it, and that is somewhat rare. Refreshing my earballs of it again, it filters through my consciousness as something I actually did quite enjoy, so let us accept and agree that while not memorable, it did give some entertainment, and as I listen again to "City's full", the vocals give me a little bit of a Grace Slick vibe and I'm very comfortable with that.

This is pretty good, I guess. Modern-sounding and nicely structured.

What bastard hybrid grungy shoegaze is this? Yeah, this is a dnf - just too messy.

This is inoffensive pop music. We need to put some historical context into this, because Come And Get It was released in 2005, and in 2005, music was appalling. We'd had a few years of appalling music by this point, and while there were some tiny hints of improvement, here and there, the landscape was one where the music industry was pushing out utter garbage, taking zero risks on new and different stuff. By 2005, Pop Idol had been and gone, and The X Factor (functionally indistinguishable from Pop Idol, and every other singing programme that's come since) was what people were talking about. It was utter lowest-common-denominator shite, and it pervasive and inescapable. What does this have to do with Rachel Stevens? Well. Pop Idol was a creation of Simon Fuller. Who in the parted buttocks is Simon Fuller? Well, let me tell you. He was the manager of the Spice Girls when they were very much on the up. After the Spice Girls' success, he put together a new band, through a 100% manufactured audition process that later essentially became the process for Pop Idol. The "band" he put together was S Club 7, and that's where Rachel Stevens comes in, because she was in S Club 7. S Club were campy trash, promoted out the wahooey via childrens' TV programmes and the incredibly lucrative gay scene - and they were huge for a while. Their hits were poppy nonsense, and the lowest of the low and the commonest of the common in terms of denominator. Rachel Stevens emerged from this, and worked with - as the sleeve notes suggest - some of the more talented music producers of the time. And came out with this inoffensive pop music. At a time where music, generally, was offensive by way of being awful. The fact that this is inoffensive, emerging as it did from a wallowing hippo-pool of utter tripe, is actually quite noteworthy, historically speaking. The actual music itself is disposable, but the fact it exists at all is the pearls before the swine of the music industry.

Mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the Quebecois version of David Gray, but on the other hand, I couldn't help but think I was listening to the Quebecois version of David Gray. If it'd come out two or three years earlier, and therefore not right at the time that White Ladder was the biggest selling album of the forever, it'd be an incredible album. But I'm pretty sure that White Ladder got played in Montreal cafes, which makes this ever so slightly less impressive.

I get that the people who love Tool really love Tool and I'm happy for them. But Tool bore the very pants off me. DNF because I'm literally not going to learn or experience anything new.

This is truly terrible. I can't decide whether it'd be more appealing to the painfully nerdy crowd who want something edgier than TMBG or to the painfully hip crowd who want something ironic to go with their detached, latte-drinking superiority fantasies. Either way, it's terrible.