1001 Albums Summary

Fill of classic Marley songs. The production on some of the later songs were a little less exciting but that might be that the classics were earlier on the record.

The only Metallica album I really like. Most of the songs are on my workout playlist.

Pleasant opening with a motorik beat. But it mostly just stays pleasant and not attention grabbing.

The Immortal Otis Redding. I grew up listening to this, and I got the album with Jimi Hendrix and Otis on each side from the Monterrey Pop festival. His voice is amazingly textured.

Good album with multiple rappers. Liked the themes of the lyrics.

Warmed over Rolling Stones. So what.

Classic. The wellspring of Cool Jazz which was hugely influential.

Dad rock. Boring.

I think there are two kinds of people: those whose families listened to the Beatles and those who didn't. I'm in the 2nd category so even though I remember reading a John Lennon bio in high school and covered Back in the USSR, I never listened to the Beatles that much. I certainly didn't get the dance hall flourishes that they use on some of their songs. I knew a lot of the songs on this album because of covers so it was nice to listen to the whole album. It is especially interesting as a document about their trip to India.

Classic album. Timeless production.

Definitely a mid-70s album. Laidback except for the last two tracks. Couldn't Clapton find someone who could actually sing a bit bluesy? Mostly all the blues have been leeched out. A bit of a talk-box effect at the end. Frampton turned that into millions a year later.

The idealism. The nostalgia. Joni Mitchell's track is the best. Can't quite figure out the harmonies the group is using, but it is very distinctive.

It's funny that I got this just after the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album. It's of the moment both lyrically and harmonically.

An artifact from a simpler time of rock and roll. Obviously the Beatles listened to this intently.

Surprisingly catchy. Quite clever.

First side is fine. Second half is a sketchy. Album cover gets 5 Stars although I'm puzzled why a British album has an armadillo tank on its cover. Ah, the slow 70s.

Did not finish.

A classic. Too bad they stopped making records.

The running time of 65 minutes makes this album bloated. A couple of good songs and I suppose the Sex Packets tracks at the end was an attempt at a funny narrative, esp. in the era of gangsta rap, but ultimately isn't that successful.

Stunning. Heavy. The best album recommended to me so far.

An impressive songwriting album. No wonder its reception was so strong.

A 2000 lb. gorilla of an album that stayed in the charts for what, decades? And rightly so.

Yeah ok. A duo trying to be Led Zeppelin. I'm so tired of blues influenced rock & roll.

Yes, the night is magic.

I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the narrative thread that ran through this album in high school. It only became clearer as I got older. Also the movie played in a dance club where I went with my date and friends after prom but in a tan color. Some guys tried to give us plastic ants while they were tripping. Fun times.

Not my metal cup of tea but I dig their attitude.

Mixed feelings on this album. I was a huge fan of Soundgarden from Louder Than Love on. Saw them 5 times. The first was in Houston at Fitzgerald's in 1989. Not a huge crowd. Cornell sounded like an avenging angel and was one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen. Perfect skin. It's too bad that his voice was ravaged in his later years. Superunknown came out and they played the album in its entirety on the radio in Austin, and I was pissed. It wasn't metal enough for me, but now with this listen, I can see why it was so popular in spite of Kim Thayil's Sonny Sharrock style soloing. I didn't realize at the time that people mellow as they get older and want to try new things.

Definitely still finding their stride.

Not great rai. Rather inspid.

Aural pleasant wallpaper.

White Memphis soul. Some classics, but a little too heavy on the syrupy strings.

A beautiful album.

Mostly inoffensive.

I think Simple Minds peaked with Empires and Dance (1980) and Sister Feelings Call and Sons and Fascination (1981). Even Real to Real Cacophony is good (1979). New Gold Dream is where they smooth all the jagged edges, and it's a great loss.

Sade has a great instrument. Classic mid-80s with sax and fretless bass.

I bought this due to the hype when it was released. I quickly sold the CD back to a record store. All the songs have the same tempo. It's boring.

Well, this album is all about sex, baybee. It lacks the variety of earlier albums but maybe it's better for that.

HEAVY AF. Can't go wrong with Zeppelin.

Power pop. Fun.

A classic. I really got in to Missy Elliot the year I was in Nepal.

Tepid. Boring. Pedestrian. Damon Albarn coasting because of a post-grunge hangover?

The slow 70s where you can have a double album with not much content.

Ridiculous.

Distinctly British. Rather ordinary, which is part of the charm.

No thanks.

Absolute classic. This and their live ROIR tape The Blow-Up were mind blowing. It was too bad that Little Johnny Jewel was difficult to get ahold of until the reissue.

Their album Bug had a bigger impact on me back in the day, but this was is also a masterpiece.

That gated snare in Born in the U.S.A. helped to stand up the Reagan regime. One of the most misunderstood songs in American history.

Pleasant.

Obviously a classic and their swan song. Lots of memories with this.

tepid

Mmm hmmm.

Spooky in hindsight. An ok debut.

What a classic. Comes in just under forty minutes. No filler.

Wasn't feeling it.

This is the end. My beautiful friend, the end.

The slow 70s. Stevens get this album done in under 40 mins. Some folks say it's his best, but I'm not that big of a fan.

Interesting Plunderphonics experiment. Too frantic for me, but I get the artistry.

Lovely.

You can see why he abandoned the states' album project after this one. He'd reached a dead end. It had gotten as baroque as it could get. I still prefer the earlier albums, but that's just because that I heard them earlier.

monochromatic as fat bob starts to move towards a more Banshees' sound. lots of songs with the same tempo and apparently the drums were treated to sound like a drum machine. faith is better although in the same vein. a forest is my favorite song of theirs.

more ferocious than i remember. Almost there to Rid of Me. Great repurposing of the blues.

A classic. A must hear for Texans.

A necessary artifact of its time.

What a surprise. Concise songs that deliver. A send-up of Dylan in A Simple Desultory Philippic which is hilarious. The angst of Patterns against MASS MAN. What fun in 28:48.

Good jazz album.

Seminal but rap has come a long way since then.

Serious as a heart attack. Came out the same year as Zen Arcade. The Minutemen's annus mirabilis.

Not my cup of tea but I can why it was influential on hardcore punk.

The most accessible of the Berlin Trilogy.

A mixed bag but necessary given the zeitgeist.

What a big load of 80s synth cheese. It's like they deliberately picked the tritest synth sounds. Too bad he wasn't keeping up with developments by Bowie and Gabriel. No edge to it at all.

Leads up to Innervisions. 4.5.

I don't know where to begin. This album is crazy.

Silly.

A beautiful classic.

A little Velvet Underground, a little Nick Drake vibe. Twee AF.

More Crosby Stills Nash and Young. No thanks.

Rolling Stones with a Bawstawn accent.

I took the time to listen to this carefully. So solid.

Raunchy and sloppy. Fun.

A follow up album to Loveless was an impossible task. It is so sui generis that it created a subgenre within shoegaze that still reverberates today.

Nothing will ever compare to Paul's Boutique but I had lost interest in them by this point.

Might have been way into this in the 80s. Sounds like a precursor to Spiritualized... white boy soul with rockist tendencies.

During their hot streak.

I sang a surprising number of these songs in high school choir. Of course, Ella sings the heck out of them.

This is a ridiculous album.

Did not listen

One of the Ur-texts for R & R.

Groundbreaking. Too many cheap imitators though.

A terse classic. Iconic. I'm glad I got to see them in 2020.

I was ready to say no but I'll say a tentative YES. Prog rock fans claim this is one of the best of the genre, and who am I to disagree? It's odd to hear Jon Anderson's voice when I was only familiar with later Yes from the 80s like Owner of a Lonely Heart.

Of its time and starts off strong with the pop hits and then gets into more ballady blue-eyed soul.

They seem to have settled in a mid-tempo groove at this point. Not as exciting as Actually.

Mournful at times. Elegiac.

Except for the songs that get radio play, this album is drab. No wonder punk rock happened.

Actually the K. West means that Bowie was his John the Baptist.

It's alright. I missed out on the Britpop phase during grad school.

I can see why this is an 80s classic but I'd have to listen to it more for it to get to that point with me.

Didn't listen.

No thanks.

Excellent.

I guess this was alt-country, but it was plodding both emotionally and in tempo. Glad I missed it back then.

So fresh when this was released. Who could've guess that she would go further and further out.

Post-Radiohead indie rock. Some of the instrumentation is pleasant.

Where do you go with your music in 2003?

What an instrument Stewart has and some of these songs are classics, but not the greatest album.

Another reason why punk rock had to happen. What was the idea setting to listen to this when it came out? A sunken living room with shag carpet and smoking skunk weed? People rave about the production but sure, if you like sterility.

I'm glad I didn't have this album when I went through the really rough patches in my life.

Tepid. Colorless.

Generic Britpop.

Generic Britpop. The singer sounds like Albarn.

It is puzzling that a band from California gets to be called swamp rock.

I just don't get it. Too many words, a weird cadence most of the time.

I was bored late one night in Austin, and I went to Wal-Mart and bought this CD. I reckon it only took me a week or so to sell it back to Sound Exchange. It's pleasant, I guess.

Why would I even listen to this?

Kashmir and In My Time of Dying are the best tracks. A classic.

Essential. Vital 70s music.

Did her accent have some sort of weird Cold War resonance with fans? She sounds flat most of the time. Ok in an ensemble but on her own? Monotonous.

I guess you had to be there. I came around to some of these sounds through the Asian Underground. I think I wasn't young enough for this scene.

I liked Hole's first album Pretty on the Inside. Much harsher than this one. I had moved on from grunge by its release and wasn't interested in hearing this album. It's not bad, and the lyrics with the repetition of "I am" in several songs indicates that Love was defining herself, maybe to distance herself as a musician from Kobain.

Getting to the heights of Remain in Light.

pop

Good to know that Simon was appropriating world music before Graceland.

I guess it's a throwback to 50s but also a way forward?

Baby J. Spaceman getting on the path to excellence.

I dunno. Post-grunge with a Cool Cymru twist?

Such a great New Wave album. The Hurting finally got the recognition it didn't get back then too.

A stellar album. A Goth classic. John McGeoch helps brings the Banshees to new heights through his creativity. If you can find the demos with just drums and bass and Siouxsie's vocals, you can see what I mean.

I had a Rush phase early on in high school and this was the prime album of it, although I did listen to most of their older albums at some point. I love this album, but I was perplexed when they started emulated The Police. I love the fact that my grunge band blew away a Rush cover band at a charity gig. Everyone wanted that grrrrrrUHNGe sound at that point.

A bridge to post-disco per Simon Reynolds. Influenced Duran Duran among others.

This got them started with the Otis Redding cover. They really peaked with their next album, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion.

Four LOOOONG tracks. Presages the sloooow 70s. Hayes has an undeniable instrument, but it is put to mediocre use on this album.

Excellent.

So influential. A massive impact on college rock/alt-rock.

Yeah ok post-punk revival. I missed out on it at the time, but it's definitely in the spirit of post-punk.

It takes a Teenaged Riot to get me out of bed. The most accessible Sonic Youth album.

Fun.

What can you say? Classic Queen songs.

Not spectacular, but not offensive. Yeah, I think not offensive is the best I can offer.

Tepid.

I have Revival and Hell Among the Yearlings and really liked them, but I guess I stopped with this album because grad school penury. Folks think this is where it all comes together, but I miss the intensity of the earlier albums.

Part of the peak before their baroque period. My favorite album of the Beatles.

Probably great live during this era. Seems bloated in retrospect. The Hendrix influenced guitar is fun.

Hard to follow up to their peak of Zen Arcade (and what would have been its impact if the production was better). I still prefer Candy Apple Grey for personal reasons. Warehouse is bloated.

My problem with Metallica is Lars Ulrich. If you compare their breakout album, Master of Puppets, to Slayer's Reign in Blood, it is obvious that Dave Lombardo swings while Ulrich can only plod. In fact, I have suggested that an Ulrich be the measurement of absolute mediocrity which achieves great success. Henry Rollins would be half an Ulrich.

A welcome antidote to the relentless gangsta rap of the period.

A post-Lilith fairy? Whimsical and deserving a more careful listen.

Did not listen

Listenable. The musicianship complements Dylan's songs.

Doesn't reach the heights of Getz/Gilberto but still solid.

Colonel Tom Parker neutered the King on this album.

They made a huge splash and even though my roommate and I had the album, we hardly ever listened to it. Mainstreaming thrash guitar, and a metallic bass, they apparently had a great deal of influence with their later albums on System of a Down and the like. And probably introduced a whole new generation to Black Sabbath with their cover of War Pigs, which is a mitzvah.

A classic. Everyday People is too short, Sex Machine is too long (or maybe the right length for sex?@!?), but the rest is glorious. If you can, check out the documentary The Summer of Soul to see them in their prime.

A New Wave classic with Chrissie Hynde dropping the F-bomb in the first song. Lots of variety and great guitar playing in the songs with Chrissie Hynde exuding charisma and a fuck off attitude.

Swing big bands seem like a foreign country, but this was enjoyable. At some point in the near future, guitar-driven rock and roll will be as foreign.

I've never gotten the whole Grateful Dead phenomenon. I've tried, even when I worked at an outdoor goods store where lots of people where into them. Didn't get into either with a roommate with tons of recordings of live shows. But this album is nice and of its time.

There's the two hits, and then there is a lot of songs with the same tempo. I enjoyed it at first but then the repetitive tempo bored me. I had a lot of friends in the 80s into skate/pop punk, and it as a genre never gelled with me.

Sad bastard music sung by Sinatra beautifully. Trite lyrics and the orchestration is a bit too similar, but if you're in that mood, it's great.

Classic funk disco. Fun.

Feral for 1965. Texas menace with amplified jug. Some hate Roky's vocals, but they are philistines.

more britpop

A wonderful album! I saw them in Houston on their first American tour. I remember Bjork messing up a note while singing and making a face. Her voice was so singular. They had an unusual to me at the time stage set up with the drummer off to one side. I also saw Sigur Rós on their first American tour, and when I went to Iceland, people were impressed that I knew about them so early.

Nascent prog-rock. A little free jazz motions thrown in for good measure. Probably quite the thing in 1969.

Kinda reminds me of Lullaby for the Working Class, except not as sad.

This is a tough album to rate as much of it is meant to be consumed on the dance floor.

Classic

I can totally see why this album was important to developments in metal in the 80s. Surprisingly listenable.

mournful. better than born in the usa which was inadvertently jingoistic.

Guitarists are so fragile. It was criminal when they mixed Cliff almost completely out of Master of Puppets. Who did the production for this album? Oh Metallica did. It sounds like sticking your head in a cardboard box. Thin and trebly. It deserves a new remix with some actual bass in it. Insecure little guitarists.

Lovely.

Not what I was expecting, but post-Hendrix and maybe Miles jazz-rock instrumentals.

I loved this album as a kid in the 70s. It's a classic.

Clever in a very 70s way.

Lots of covers... ok, but the mid-80s production is wretched.

It's ok. I'm not a fan of the group and am perplexed that they got into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Did anyone ever start a band because them? Has anyone ever claimed being influenced by them? Those would be my criteria at a minimum for getting into the Hall. Pedestrian at best.

Real plunderphonics. Trivial.

Pub cowpunk? Shambolic and odd with post-punk spikiness.

Dated mid-80s production and lots of covers but still was a huge hit.

The first 1/3 to 1/2 of the album is ok, I guess. The songs about dealing with his newfound fame have a point but I think young people wouldn't get what he was trying to do (and I'm being generous here), but then it degenerates into misogyny and homophobia.

Lovely. An example of Eno's genius that still sounds fresh.

Ragged, rough, and rowdy.

I bought this album after reading about it in Spin magazine, probably in part because it had the song "Gary's Got a Boner" on it, which sounded intriguing. It's the only Mats album I ever owned because money was tight, but listening to it on Tidal Master after all these years, the nuances stand out. The mandolin on I Will Dare, the solo from Peter Buck, and the obvious allusion to I Will Follow. The hardcore speed of We're Comin' Out and the thrashy solo with the accelerando finger snaps and piano. Androgynous, which is so prescient of the present moment with the classic verse: "Don't get him wrong and don't get him mad He might be a father, but he sure ain't a dad And she don't need advice that'll center her She's happy with the way she looks, she's happy with her gender." Black Diamond is their Kiss cover, which is an interesting choice at this point in the 80s. Next up is Unsatisfied which resonates with almost any relationship. Seen Your Video with its disdain of MTV anticipates their video for Bastards of the Young. Gary's Got a Boner is a great piece of punk rock raunch with coining the phrase a "soft-on." Sixteen Blue is a great song about sexual identity and the end of adolescence. Finally, it's a shame that Answering Machine no longer has the same poignancy that it had back in the 80s when answering machines were dominant. How do you top these lyrics? "How do you say I miss you to an answering machine? How do you say good night to an answering machine? How do you say I'm lonely to an answering machine?" Voice mail just doesn't cut it with the eager anticipation of seeing the blinking light on your answering machine and the bittersweet disappointment when there are no calls. In the outtakes from the expanded version, Westerberg shows that he can do wistful and longing but not sexy in the cover of 20th Century Boy. Perfectly Lethal is about the banality of TV pre-cable and drugs

Not as high as the highs of OK Computer and Kid A, but serviceable.

A classic.

I had this album back in the 90s but I probably traded it in pretty quickly. Definitely one sound of the 90s.

Interesting influence on later music.

This album is garbage. Why is it on this list?

great album

Rarely post-punk on the few guitar-centric numbers, but often the songs are overwhelmed with syrupy strings and superfluous horns.

Sounds just as great as it did in the 90s.

Bumping. Fun.

Accessible blues pop.

A pleasant enough New Wave album. Of course the big hit was Love Plus One which was the only song I knew from MTV. Right before 1984 when things got too glossy.

Maybe the alt-country period really inoculated me against this album. If I had heard it before that period, and if I had been inclined to Americana and C&W which it took me into my mid-20s to get it after growing up in the 80s, I would have dug it.

What's the saying? VU didn't sell many copies of its first album but everyone who bought or heard it started a band. Seminal.

The show on MTV probably had a huge impact at the time, introducing watchers to the Meat Puppets, Bowie, and Lead Belly. I wish the Meat Puppets would've got more mileage out of it.

Beautiful. I've never listened to Mitchell before, and today I saw footage of Mitchell playing "Both Sides Now" at the Newport Folk Festival with Brandi Carlile which is one of the poignant performances I have ever seen. I usually hate music that comes out of folk, probably too much of it is blues based, but her music is refreshing with her alternate tunings and strong writing about the experience of girls and women. Now I will continue to dive into her catalog.

What a weird concept album. Totally at odds with the Alice Cooper concert I saw on Showtime in the 70s, but maybe I wasn't clued in then. An 4 for the effort.

Gritty, clanky, antediluvian, like a seaman's and cowboy's novel thrown on the streets of a dirty metropolis.

A dose of whatever you enjoy probably makes the repetitive songs more enjoyable. Also used the same sample as Mudhoney for Loaded but made it a song. Of the moment at the time.