I've never heard any XTC before, and I'm not sure this was the best place to start; sounds like a bunch of middle-aged men in a shed in Shropshire doing a Beatles-prog crossover on the weekend. It's fine, but not great.

Just painful. Angry adolescent noise. (Having said that, I'd probably have been really into this when I was about 15.)

The dude was right. The 1 star is for the title track, even though Gipsy Kings did it better.

UB40 deserve to have greater recognition for this type of work than their later more MOR hits. Having said that I appreciate this album and its importance, but I don't actually like it very much.

Aside from the hits, a lot of dated 80's filler.

I didn't think I liked heavy metal. But, I really, really liked this, a lot. Very melodic, very fast, very loud.

Really not my thing, but more enjoyable than I would have anticipated

Rock Bottom is right

Not really a country guy but I dug it

Title song is a classic. Fame is pretty good. The rest, let’s be honest, is proto-Simply Red stuff

Never listened to this Joni album through before, but love it

Nice but unmemorable garage rock

The Doors are basically the Stones, if the Stones were a bunch of predatory jocks. Douchebag music.

This is a really good record: not overlong (like many/most rap albums); great lyrics, good music. Pleasant surprise given I'd never heard of Little Simz before now.

Ho-hum 70s MOR

I'm not a big jazz person, but I thought this was pretty ok. Pleasant enough background listening, not too noodly. But I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to it again.

Pretty pleasant, but mostly forgettable, with the exception of the Dylan cover

Pleasant but not exactly memorable

Good songs: Ain’t talking bout love You really got me Atomic pink The rest is pretty meh

kinda boring

I never really got the Lemonheads; had friends who were super into them, but they always seemed a very generic and not particularly interesting iteration of late 80s-early 90s college rock. Hard not to think the tenuous Harvard-MIT links did a lot of heavy lifting in giving them greater prominence than they deserved. Having said that Mrs Robinson is a banger, one of the best covers of all time (but wasn't originally even on the album). Title track is good. The rest totally forgettable.

Never understood the friends who preferred this to Suede or Coming Up, and still don’t. The Asphalt World is alright but the rest is cat.

Solid album, but not as strong as any of the S&G stuff or Graceland.

It's pretty good - not as good as Déjà Vu - but gets an extra star for Helplessly Hoping alone

Truly an awful album. Some of the worst singing I’ve ever heard. The only halfway decent songs are the ones covered on the Nirvana Unplugged album (and much better there because Cobain could sing at least a bit). Hard not to think this is on the list only because Cobain loved them for whatever reason. I love Lake of Fire but even that doesn’t save this from being one star, sorry.

Better than most 80s synth pop albums. But title track is far and away the best thing on this.

A solid album but the only outstanding track is The Man Who Told Everything.

Title track raised hopes - really interesting forerunner of Duran Duran & the others. But the rest of the album was painful, especially the shockingly bad cover of ATP.

Top-tier dad music and I am loving it

bo-ring

Not good.

Interesting to hear the early stages of post-rock, which I know more from later successors (esp Mogwai). But there's something a bit adolescent about the vocals, in particular - this would have been a much much stronger album if wholly instrumental.

Hasn't aged well, but some decent tunes in here.

It's OK, honestly nothing super special.

unlistenable shit

Mostly meh, very tedious last song.

Not as shit as I expected

Pleasant enough. Fave track: Lost

nice.

nope nope nope

Just painful. Angry adolescent noise. (Having said that, I'd probably have been really into this when I was about 15.)

not as good as san quentin but still pretty lit

Sometimes I think I just don't like hip-hop that much, then I listen to an album like this and realise I've just not been listening to enough of a range of hip-hop. Top stuff here; much prefer this to the Wu-Tang collective output.

It's fine, more melodic than most hardcore. Return to Heaven is a real stinker though.

Solid, not sure I'd put this ahead of his Smog output

Listened to this on heavy rotation when it came out. Still stands up, still rocks, still in my top 10 of all time.

meh

First half is 5 stars, stone-cold classic. 2nd half is 2 stars. 3.5, rounded up to 4 b/c Flea.

It's fine, not in my view one of Morrissey's better solo albums.

I can see how it's influential and really pioneering for the time, but honestly, aside from Ghost Rider, this didn't do it for me. 'Girl' was serious cringe.

It's fine, I think maybe I just don't like Nick Cave as much as the author of this book.

In my Beatles top 3 for sure

this really shreds

I really like stereolab, but honestly, they’re kinda samey after a few songs.

20 years on I now much prefer Speakerboxxx to The Love Below, which just seems weirdly retrogade and misogynistic on a lyrical level (especially 'Roses'). Too many skits and interludes. And instead of 2 separate albums this could have been one stellar album. Still 4 stars, though, I think?

as a Dubliner I have an in-built U2 bias, but when I was young and innocent I bough the Joshua Tree and listened to it so so many times trying to figure out what the fuss was. Still don't get it. U2 have some terrific singles (first two on this album, for example, I never really liked WOWY), but they're not an album band. And yes, Bono is a gobshite. One star for each outstanding song.

being objective I know part of the 5 stars is because this was the soundtrack to a really pivotal time in my life. But I still love every single song on this album. In my top 10 for sure.

Not my thing, but I get it.

Has been in my top 3 since it came out.

Great stuff, maybe a bit tame overall, but what a great voice. Favourite song: Won't You Give Him (One More Chance)

The reputation of DYWM (which is a sensational pop song, btw) has maybe overshadowed how innovative the Human League were, and this album really was the one that put synthpop on the map. A real study in contrast with Heaven 17's debut, and a significant step forward from the earlier Human League work.

I've listened to so much Wilco over the years but never this one all the way through. Is it my favourite Wilco? No, not even in the top 3. But still a great album.

I did not need to hear this before I died, sorry

Obviously this is a very important album to hear, given the pivotal moment of Dylan 'going electric' in the history of music. Honestly, this is not a really interesting album, and what stands out is how much *better* electric Dylan is, because (1) way less harmonica and (2) Dylan's frankly awful voice is less centred. Dylan's a great songwriter, the Nobel was a travesty, this is an essential album to hear, but not a very good or interesting one: all of these things are true and not incompatible with one another.

Very strong album across the board - aside from the 3 hits, personally liked Lonely in Your Nightmare and Last Chance on the Stairway in particular

A true masterpiece

I'm not a jazz person, so I don't really get it, but this was fun to listen to.

Would be 4 stars if not for the long spoken-word stuff on the last track

k.d. lang has one of the best voices in music, and k.d. lang is a Canadian hero, but... this album is just by-the-numbers crowd-pleasing C&W. Music for line-dancers, and I just can't get into it, sorry.

Real edgelord vibes and it's hard to credit that people in their mid-20s could write lines like 'All the people look the same / Don't they know they're so damn lame', but there are decent tunes at least, and I respect the brevity.

Stand by what I said about Morrison Hotel (douchebag jock music that is intellectual in the way your 13-year-old poetry is intellectual), but there are at least 2 great tunes on here (not Light my Fire), plus a bonus star for the Apocalypse Now tie-in and the general death-of-the-60s and harbinger-of-worse-times-ahead vibes.

Nice enough, nothing special

Funky and sometimes mellow but overall pretty safe. Maybe the best ‘pop’ prog album? Mr Blue Sky is a masterpiece.

When Doves Cry and Purple Rain are all-time great songs. Let's Go Crazy...not so much. The rest is all pretty good, I guess.

average singer and subpar songwriter

Really strong album that, surprisingly perhaps, has aged very well - a lot here even beyond the hits. (Though the music video for Lullaby used to give me nightmares as a kid).

'Satire' that has aged like milk. Nice tunes but they all sound exactly like the Toy Story song.

Solid but not as good as london calling by a very long way

After who knows how many Elvis Costello albums on this list, FINALLY I get it. This is a great album - not, for me, a 5 star, but one where EC’s greatness and clear songwriting skill very clearly shines through.

Still revolutionary

Yes, it’s prog rock for the Radiohead generation, but that’s my generation, baby. Bombastic and over the top but amazing hooks in here, and knights of cydonia is one of the all time great songs

the longest 51 minutes of my life jfc

Sounds like all the other GBV I’ve ever heard. Middle aged man noodling in his shed. Fawned over by other middle aged men.

I thought this was OK when it came out; now, I don't understand why I had any time for it. Plodding and tiresome. More overvaluing of albums by artists who have done good stuff elsewhere.

Don't have as much patience for this as I did 20 years ago, but still a milestone in experimental rock, and Orange Claw Hammer is a great song.

Pretty cool

wore out the cassette of this when i was like 7; really struggled to listen to it straight through now, partly b/c of, you know, and partly because this is just very dated now; really, smooth criminal is the only one that really still stands up. leave me alone is ok too.

A bit too MOR for me but she's a great singer and a solid songwriter

The first two SA albums were pretty good; this one just sounds like every other alt-rock soft-metal band from the late 90s/early aughts - frankly not very interesting

Got it as a christmas present in 1995 (or maybe 1996?), one of the first albums i ever owned, and haven't stopped listening to it since. soundtrack to my adolescence, for better or worse.

Not my favourite parliament album but still great

I tapped out after the embarrassing spoken-word stuff in the title track.

Would have been 5 stars if it hadn't been over 3 hours long - so many terrific songs, but they all just run together at this length. Standouts I'd never heard before: A Foggy Day, Stiff Upper Lip, I've Got a Crush on You, Treat Me Rough, Slap that Bass

Phenomenal singer, a bit MOR, but equally one of the most eloquent and certainly most honest of contemporary lyricists in articulating emotions. The depth of the quality on the non-singles tracks is amazing too (think I'd only heard Hello before). Chorus of Send My Love really sounds a lot like Paper Planes by M.I.A.

If you asked ChatGPT to write a Ziggy Stardust album it would sound like this.

Look, it's OK, but it doesn't really do it for me; wouldn't be on this list if it wasn't by the Pixies.

4.5, on reflection, Unfinished Sympathy (one of the greatest songs of all time) is not quite enough to make this a 5-star overall

It's pretty good but not his best album by a long way...

I've never heard any XTC before, and I'm not sure this was the best place to start; sounds like a bunch of middle-aged men in a shed in Shropshire doing a Beatles-prog crossover on the weekend. It's fine, but not great.

one word: wank

just sounds so adolescent now. Drugs and guns are cool, guys!

It's fine, cover of Oye como va is great, otherwise a bit ho-hum.

Less violently misogynistic than a lot of his contemporaries (and successors) but to paraphrase Mrs Doyle, it's wall to wall bitches in here. A shame because this is otherwise a likeable and solid album (which I'd never heard, or even heard of, before this list).

Finally got my favourite Nick Drake album; this one's a 5/5. For me the one where you hear most clearly his incredible abilities and sense for melody; the potential that was never fully realised is there. Hard not to separate the art from the artist's tragedy in this case.

Pretty good but a real music journalist choice

the worst kind of village-fete renaissance fair folk shit.

Standard Moz solo fare (not as good as the Smiths, handful of great songs)

Love old-school hip-hop.

The dude was right. The 1 star is for the title track, even though Gipsy Kings did it better.

Our House is a classic (even if the lyrics are a bit naff); the rest is a curate's egg.

Bit meh, Dreaming of You is a great song, the rest sounds (as it did at the time) like pretty generic post-Britpop stuff

pretty, pretty, pretty good

Fine, just kinda...boring?

5 stars for Livin' on A Prayer, minus 3 stars for everything else being shit

Meh

My third TW album off this list, and head and shoulders above the other two (Nighthawks and Bone Machine). Not saying I'd choose to listen to this on the regular, but listening to this I get him in a way I didn't with the previous albums; weird in a good way

Dated so badly

I can't stand jazz but I love this

I like it, I don't enjoy it.

Would not have picked this specific Hot Chip album but it's pretty solid

Not bad, just boring

Bloated, overlong, lyrics that were problematic at the time (never mind not aging well...), on the other hand, marks the birth of the G-funk era, and Nuthing but a G Thang is a song for the ages. 2001 is miles better tho.

Pound shop Animal Collective. And I fucking hate Animal Collective.

Feels like heresy to give this 3 stars but it is just so bloated and meandering

Not my thing, but glad I listened

Aside from the Imagine cover, this is a really solid and fun listen

Music for guys who 'aren't like the other guys' and whose favourite novel is Tender is the Night. Give me strength.

I guess if it weren't for this project I'd never have listened to an entire Kiss album right through. An unfunny and significantly less musically talented Spinal Tap.

the only album my da ever forbade me from playing on the stereo because 'it's not real music, it's just noise, it's doing me head in, would you not just put on some of them radiohead lads again, at least there's a bit of a melody in their stuff' Love you da but there’s more to music than the Fureys

Not terrible, but very hard to take this type of hyper-polished 80's pop-rock seriously...

A very good album, but not exactly innovative, or so outstanding that it's more memorable than many other albums that aren't on this list... I like it a lot, I bought it when it came out and listened to it a bunch then, but probably haven't heard it in 20 years. Still holds up, but I don't really understand why it's on this list.

Studio versions don't do justice to what a great live band they were at this point: listen to live versions of Money; All My Loving; etc., and you'll see the difference. The least good Beatles album.

UB40 deserve to have greater recognition for this type of work than their later more MOR hits. Having said that I appreciate this album and its importance, but I don't actually like it very much.

well this was an unexpected delight

Might be my favourite album ever.

Not terrible. But it wouldn’t make the list if anyone other than MG had made it. And 30min too long.

I feel bad giving this such a low rating but it really doesn't do it for me; background music.

most overrated Wainwright.

1/5 for first half, 4/5 for 2nd half.

Not my thing (too honky-tonk), get the sense it's important, but I don't know enough about country to judge. Not actively bad tho.

I love noise rock, this is not good noise rock.

This was fun; very Kanye-like. Skip the Outro.

3 stars for one of the best songs of all time; 0 stars for everything else

Utterly forgettable.

What a disappointment; 3 stars for Waterloo Sunset alone (one of the best songs of all time) but the rest is just dreck.

A great great album and another one I heard at a young & important age (still remember staying up late to tape their 1996 concert at the Point off the radio). 5 stars for me for sure. Slightly doubting whether it should be on this list (question how influential it's been) but it is a way better and more polished piece of work than probably half the stuff on this list. And they were *so* young. This album is teenage potential and teenage possibilities in a bottle. Favourite songs: Goldfinger, Angel Interceptor, Darkside Lightside.