The magic that is the year 1971. I wonder if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point--I just expect 1971 albums to be amazing so I make them so in my mind? Nope. Can't be that. I was slain from the opening track, with that psychedelic, apocalyptic guitar. I've rarely heard anything so soothing and hypnotic. Eddie Hazel, where did you learn to play like that? The rest of the album is pretty great, the other high point being "Super Stupid", but nothing compares to the epic opening track. It's like it opened a door to another realm. Dude's playing his guitar as if his mother had just died, just as instructed.

I dig this so much...in spots. No one swallows his histrionics the way Ric Ocasek does. To me, this music is all the updated swing and swagger of 50s rock for the contemporary new wave crowd. This must be one of the earliest examples of power pop, and it's all just so pure. Yep. "Moving in Stereo" would be the perfect song to strip to.

An overrated album by an overrated band. People who put this poster up in their rooms need to be punched in the nose.

The magic that is the year 1971. I wonder if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point--I just expect 1971 albums to be amazing so I make them so in my mind? Nope. Can't be that. I was slain from the opening track, with that psychedelic, apocalyptic guitar. I've rarely heard anything so soothing and hypnotic. Eddie Hazel, where did you learn to play like that? The rest of the album is pretty great, the other high point being "Super Stupid", but nothing compares to the epic opening track. It's like it opened a door to another realm. Dude's playing his guitar as if his mother had just died, just as instructed.

It's not that this is bad. The musicality and whatnot are all on point. I guess for me this has more to do with Bob Dylan. My love of Dylan is directly proportional to my dislike for The Byrds. You don't need to dress up Dylan's songs this way--or any way.

I like Queen. They’ve got a fun, clean feel. Their close harmonies are always a delight, even though they may sound a bit passe today. I prefer the glam to the hard, but that’s just my sexual preference. And the iconic album art is a perfect level of retro-cheese.

Holy shit. This is worse than I imagined. Is this some kind of parody? I can't imagine anyone involved in the production of this turd went in with a straight face. I guess they laughed all the way to the bank. I mean, white trash money is still legal tender, right? The only people who listen to this album are people who literally have nothing better to do. Oh fuck, that's me.

I dig this so much...in spots. No one swallows his histrionics the way Ric Ocasek does. To me, this music is all the updated swing and swagger of 50s rock for the contemporary new wave crowd. This must be one of the earliest examples of power pop, and it's all just so pure. Yep. "Moving in Stereo" would be the perfect song to strip to.

I'm not supposed to be bored by Springsteen. I am. I'm supposed to like this guy. I don't. Generic rock that I can't remember two minutes after it's over. The title track, "Born to Run", sounds like theme song to an 80s TV show reboot of "Grease". Truly terrible stuff. Whenever I'm constipated, I do my best Springsteen imitation, and it clears my bowels right away.

I'd love to vibe to this with all the guy's vocals cut out. The musicality of it all is pretty nice.

Boring music for boring people.

I don't care a bit for her, and I'll never understand her appeal. The perfect example of the kind of music that just passes me by. I'm sure it's very good for the right kind of listener.

A great example of one of those albums that, at my age, I shrug and turn off halfway through. It's decent, but it ain't for me.

What a pleasant little album I couldn't give two squirts of piss about! Clunky melodies sung in a way that I'm convinced the singer is thinking, "Damn... almost, but not quite" and cringing.

All Zep had to do was fucking give credit where credit was fucking due! Some folk singer named Anne Bredon whom no one has ever heard of getting partial songwriting credit for the second track wouldn't have detracted from Page's arrangement, his playing, or Plant's wailing. Must've been an ego thing, which doesn't make sense, considering how excellent the band is. Adaptation is its own form of artistry, ya cunts!

Kill me. Why the hell is this album on the "1001 Albums to Hear Before You Die" list when everyone's already heard it piecemeal 1001 times in every damn movie, mall, and TV commercial known to man? Fuck you, whoever compiled this list.

Two excellent ballads cannot save a mediocre album of worse ballads and questionable choices in blues-rock flirtation. Besides, you can't handle the truth, John.

A garage-rock cover band of their future selves, with Dickinson trying to sound like Rob Halford.

Such a perfect, beautiful, creative, and progressive album that you’ll feel like you’re tripping even when you aren’t. This album turns your mind inside out. The first track, “Close to the Edge”, in its four part composition, might just be the greatest prog rock composition ever penned.

This is much better than I thought it would be. Catchy, short, fun songs with a lot of attitude. It's not for me, but I'll nod in understanding if someone else wants to nosebleed over this album.

I’m not sure how highly I should praise this album. It’s obviously a groundbreaking, legendary album that helped guide the course of rock history, but my style of listening to and enjoying music is to come to the albums in my collection with as much of a clear mind as I can. That is, I try not to bring meta considerations to my appreciation. I really can’t stand the “oh this is an important album” mindset. I don’t care if an album is important. I only care if I enjoy it. There are tons of “important” albums I either don’t care for or flat-out despise. So what about this gem? For it is a gem in my collection, no matter its place in rock history. It has such a strong beginning, of course, one that always leaves me stunned at how brutal it is, but for me, the closer is even stronger. “Desolation Row” is one of my favorite Dylan songs. Everything about it is beautifully ugly, and I find that paradox fascinating. And I love the little poetic flourishes that anchor the song as an image in my mind, like when Dylan sings, "Cinderella, she seems so easy, 'It takes one to know one,' she smiles, and puts her hands in her back pockets Bette Davis style." I also have a soft spot for sprawling, epic songs.

Falsetto and fiddles, swaggering saxophones blasting in time to my heartbeat gait, oh my! So this is where that "Come on Eileen" song comes from. Huh.

If you've not yet heard William Shatner's version of "Common People", do yourself a favor.

Look, I like violins as much as the next person--maybe even more--but damn these overdubs (like they're trying to make every song sound like "Eleanor Motherfucking Rigby"). They're so tacked on, not matching Nico's voice at all, which sounds like she's pulling her jaw back into her throat. And then just listen to "Winter Song": the power is right there in the (rather frightening) lyrics. We don't need a flute to tell us "this is a pastoral song, in case you couldn't figure it out". RYM ranks "It Was a Pleasure Then" as the worst track on the album, but I think it's the best because it's not got those damn overdubs. Everything is more real--the music, the vocals. It's pretty VU at its heart, too, what with the short bursts of howling feedback and the minimalist experimental vibe threatening to explode into a welcome cacophony that never comes. Nope. Bring the flautist and string quartet back in. Break's over!

Pretty underwhelming. I still don't get the appeal of The Boss. No, I'm not asking for help. I'm fine forgetting about this forgettable music.

The finest day I ever had was when I realized I don't have to like Talking Heads.

A reference to "Innervisions" always makes me happy.

Sting would punch this dude in the throat.

I'm sure this is fine, but it's pretty bog-standard blues rock.

This album reminds me of my dad. He was (is?) super into this band. He also had a massive beard.

Does this bloke think he's Marc Bolan? Meh. I'll just go listen to T. Rex. Why the fuck should I listen to this bland shit before I die? Is this list... a joke?

I don't care. This music is all kinda hollow. Nothing here to hold my interest.

I've got an entire room just for trying on clothes!

An overrated album by an overrated band. People who put this poster up in their rooms need to be punched in the nose.

Right. The dude who compiled this 1001 list thing is an idiot. Out of all the albums that exist, he chose to include this one? (Eh, this album isn't terrible; it's just a mediocre album that's come along at a time in my torturous journey through a list of music compiled by a guy who clearly has no experience or taste and has only serendipitously hit upon actually good albums.)

Pretty cheesy, actually, but I like how his glasses are the only straight thing.

Man, these vocals suck.

a massive meh from me, dawg

Whatever I say about this album is going to be nothing more than a vain scribbling of words. What do you say in response to the distant thunder and the clarion call from a landscape beyond? When you stand naked on a dark plain amidst the warring music above and around you? I’ve already said too much. Go get lost in this album that is a world unto itself. Give yourself to its mystery and wonder.

GreatValu Beatles. Nurse Robert. Sweetheart of My Bunghole.

meh

Like Talking Heads, these guys just miss the mark with me.

I prefer the poppier sound of "Breakfast in America", but this isn’t bad. This is one of those albums that squeaks by into my collection.

git up git up git up n git down

Amazing how Cohen can tread a dual path that leads in opposite directions, yet he follows them both simultaneously: one leading to nothing but a scrapbook of women, the other to a place where love calls him by his name. I can't imagine he didn't understand the full meaning of love calling someone by his name. This is dangerous music because if you're alone and have access to alcohol, this could be...unhealthy. The music is so close, so corporeal, and the lyrics are so detailed they're confessional. No one succeeds at failing at love the way Cohen does. And he's got a huge crush on Joan of Arc. But why? Because of her bravery, her conviction, her virginity? No, because her heart is a fiery brand. He longs (lusts) for that fire, but he fears getting burned. Unlike the saint, though, he is not fearless.

George Michael was born under the right alignment of stars, for he looks as good as he sings, and he sings as good as he looks.

Just made me wanna go listen to Hank, who has more pathos and more spice than this technically-proficient yet bland music.

I'm trying to re-imagine a sci-fi / aquatic setting wherein the queen has a thing for her stepson, and when he rejects her, she tells the king his son tried to rape her. The king believes his wife and banishes his son, who soon gets trampled by (sea)horses and dies. If you're sober, you need to bring something of your own to this album to give it claws. Just lie back on the sofa and close your eyes. Listen in complete silence, and it'll be like an underwater journey with lights flashing in the deep.

An album I listened to a million times at university (back when it came out), and don't really need to listen to any more. Definitely the kind of music one outgrows if one is serious about music appreciation and exploration.

80s af, and that's not a good thing.

annoying af

This album is a walk—no, a romp, a wallow—through a moonlit garden at night, except that the garden is on a planet of lush, thick magic, and the moons are red and blue, mingling to purple, making the petals of alien flowers glow.

Just... give me the music and cut out ALL the vocals.

The Doors aren't bad, but they're certainly overrated. They've got some good singles, but who the hell wants to sit through their full albums?

Some of the best singles of the 80s herein. As a full album, however, it just misses the mark for permanent inclusion in my rotation.

even "girls who are boys who like boys to be girls who do boys like they're girls who do girls like they're boys" can't save this massively meh album

There aren't many jazz albums I sing along with--because they're instrumentals!--but this is one. I just find my voice singing whatever. I'm not sure why. It's only with this jazz album. Maybe it's because the music is just so damn smooth and melodic. Maybe it's because I've listened to and loved this album so much. Whatever the case, I drink this music. If music was a slushy alcoholic drink on a hot summer's day, the liquid would be blue, and the bottle from which the concoction came would have this album cover as a label.

Like almost everything mainstream in the 80s, this is lame, boring, and dated.

What up, niggas and niggettes! LMAO G-Funk music like this makes me ALMOST like hip hop.

Idiots in my high school liked this album when it came out. Just listen to Mr. Bungle, which is far more interesting.

Is this the most technically proficient album ever made? The most beautiful? Is it even that good musically? No, not really. But that doesn’t matter. I love this album for its unique NY charm and sense of detached cool, carried a lot by the awkward vocals. “Perfect Day” is the song that, for most people, rises above the rest of the tracks, but for me, it’s just part of the suite. Reed certainly had a knack for writing a melody, especially when it came to the chorus. If you haven’t yet, babe, take a walk on the wild side.

It's tempting to label Pet Shop Boys as a singles band, and if you want to listen to them that way, it's fine, of course. "What Have I Done to Deserve This?", "Rent", and "It's a Sin" are among the best songs of the decade, but you'd be missing something of what the band offers if you stick just to the hits. They have an excellent knack for building a nocturnal, urban atmosphere across an album. Just gotta add: Dusty Springfield steals my heart every time.

*shrugs*

Today I learned that "Chipmunk Soul" is a genre.

I'm confused. Is he fat or slim?

This is all right, but it ain't gettin' in the way of my Elton John!

A helluva debut album that set the course of college radio everywhere. Strange considering I hear songs about speaking in tongues, martyrdom, and a meditation on the challenges in carrying one’s Cross. Sure, let’s talk about the Passion, but let’s live it, too, in our own little ways! After all, we’re not required to carry the weight of the world, just what’s been given to us to bear.

Though this album isn't as good overall as the ones preceding and succeeding it, the first track is one of the most low-down gut punches you'll ever hear opening an album. I wish I'd not read some random review calling attention to the fact that the mouth harp is used on every track, because now I can't unhear it. I guess it was always just something in the atmosphere of the music for me, but now it's center stage. Like all Cohen's records, this one is delicate, intimate, and oh-so confessional. A kind of gentle yet earnest wrestling.

Yet another album that solidifies in my mind that 1971 would be the one year to pick if I had to choose only one year of music. Halleluwah! And throw a little Japanese in there for good measure. For all its intimations of spinning in circles until you're dizzy, I find myself rather inclined to recline and just mong out with this album. Listening to "Aumgn" is like being digested through the guts of the universe and shat out the butthole of space.

This is no different from all the other shoegaze out there: a massive, undifferentiated waste of time.

I never feel up to the task writing down my thoughts about giant albums like this. What can I say that’s not already been said? In cases like this, I just stay away from all reviews and scribble down my disjointed thoughts as I listen. This album is a music painting. I can hear the colors. The sounds are stroke patterns and wet paint, layer by layer, from the undefined center to the consummate edges.

Look, I know you're cool and everything, Mr. Jack Black, but recommending this album in a feature film was a moment of real cringe.

Bland and boring and sounds like everything else bland and boring, or at least it spawned its own brand of bland and boring (which they do very well, mind you). In either case, no thanks.

"Skin on skin, let the love begin... women!" Wow, this album is worse than I remembered. Aged like milk.

Meditations on love can sometimes--though by no means is it common!--lead to ecstasy, and in that ecstasy the still, small voice of that supreme Love becomes a whirlwind of fire. Do not awaken love until it so desires.

First of all, the name of the band: quite a juxtaposition from the sound, though perhaps not the lyrics, of their music. One thing I love about this album is how their lead singles are the first and last songs, arguably their most famous track being last, which means you have to sit through the whole album to get to it. I'm going to assume this was intentional, the band saying in 1968 that they weren't just making an album with a couple of singles and a bunch of filler tracks. There is no filler here. Every song is brilliant and fits in the overall whole of the album, a document dominated by the dual perennial themes of vivacious love and inevitable death. Leaves fall, and the summer crown of your roses wither. Also, opening your album with a seemingly innocent love song about “baby you’re coming home” type feelings but actually having it be a letter sent to a jailbird who’s about to get release from prison is a wonderful twist on the romantic song trope. Scratch the surface and you will reveal a darker message here: we’ll kiss and make up… wait. Why is the person in jail?

King Volcano this guy

“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” reminds me of two things. The first is in its entirety, for as it is a song broken into two parts and separated, it reminds me of Rush’s “Cygnus” suite. It’s multi-sectional, sprawling, beautiful, mysterious, gripping. The other song it reminds me of is Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say?” It’s all in the build up, teasing you at where he is going to finally, at last, come in and cry, “Hey, Mama, don’t you treat me wrong...” Same goes with “Diamond”. Such a build up, teasing you, tricking you into singing a stanza before Waters croons, “Remember when you were young.” I love the simplicity of “Wish You Were Here,” one of the first songs I, like so many others, learned to play on guitar. Basic yet beautiful.

Slave of Poop World.

Good for driving, I guess.

If someone said "Fast Car" is the greatest single of the 1980s, I'd not disagree.

Well, I know what song I'm singing next time I play "this little piggy" with my kid's toes!

Good music, but too anti-religious for my taste.

Please like this shit?

I hate Kanye. I hate everything about him, everything he has ever done, and that feeling will never change. He is a garbage human being and a terrible musician. The world is a worse place for his existence. "It's a Wonderful Life" but in reverse.

Boring shit that sounds like all other boring shit.

A banger of an opening track with a robustness that supports its runtime! I've heard it a million times in films. So this is where it's from... huh.

Damn, girl, it looks like he found you. Time to put another ocean between you and him, and let's hope he drowns this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkfLKiYIfL4

Musical syncretism. I'm sure a lot of people will rightfully find something compelling herein.

The most tedious album opener I've ever had the misfortune to hear. These skits age like milk.

A truly awful mess of an album. Pick a lane!

What y'all need is some of dem easy-listening classics!

Dude, that kid is going to fall into the ocean while you're standing there looking cool!

Depeche Mode was an MTV staple back in its heyday, and since I was basically raised on MTV, the band figures prominently in my memory, especially the singles, "Personal Jesus", "Enjoy the Silence", and "Policy of Truth". I'm not actually a big fan of synthpop as a genre, but this album is just brilliant. It's not "dark synthpop", but the atmosphere evoked by the music--and even more by the vocals--is dark, not in the macabre sense but in the sense of it being urban and night.

Just play the music, and stop telling us about it! Dammit, 1001-guy, you couldn't have chosen "Music of India: Three Classical Rāgas" for your stupid list? What's wrong with you?

I'm kinda hating the project now. I'm 121 albums in, and the idiot who made this list is right only serendipitously.

There are moments when the stars align and the muses themselves come down to touch the lips and fingertips of artists they favor. This is one such album—or rather, the way “Willie the Pimp” and “The Gumbo Variations” go together. Willie is the only actual voice on this whole album, but “Gumbo” is him speaking in a different way—speaking with his feet as he walks his neighborhood, speaking with the back of his hand when he has to put his hos in line. I wish I hadn’t given my pimp costume to my friend. I had this amazing pimp costume I wore at Halloween. It was made of (fake) crushed velvet, lined with zebra-striped felt—and platform shoes to match. The ridiculous, wide-brimmed hat was lined in glittery gold ribbon. I’d wear it right now while listening to this album, the way Buscemi puts on lipstick and listens to “Telephone Line”.

This isn't interesting for the same reason Seinfeld isn't funny. To be honest, this album is to music lovers what the Gospels are to atheists: something we've never heard but are already weary of.

Wait. People have actually given this clown money?

Though more highly rated by many, this isn't even in my top 3 favorite Beck albums. But it's damn good. I'm trying to figure out why it's not one of my favorites, and it might be because I've never had a world-weary heartbreaking depression. But though I've not shared his experience, even I am moved by the brutal resignation of the album's centerpiece, "Lost Cause". It's a devastating meditation on what's left behind when the love of your life has rejected you. I cannot imagine how subhuman one would feel in that situation.

I've got a few Neil Young albums in my collection mostly because (a) I like his music well enough, and (b) he is highly regarded. There are a lot of serious music lovers out there who adore this man's music, even going so far as to say he is the voice of a generation and that his albums are the best of their time. I wouldn't go that far, but I do sense there is more to Mr. Young than I've yet discovered. Every once in a while one of his songs really grabs me. The eponymous track on this album does. "I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day." Although this isn't a state of mind I can personally identify with, I know a lot of people who feel this way, so I try to sympathize. As for me, I learned long ago that people just ain't no good. I avoid them whenever possible.

There's something about his voice that I just can't put into the proper words--a mysterious smoothness, a complete lack of vibrato without sacrificing melody, singing from the back of his throat but not from the lungs, so that the vocals are immediate and profound without being overbearing. For a depressed man, Drake didn't make depressing music. Soft, nuanced, beautiful yes, but not depressing. It is quite introspective, though, like a man looking at things and saying everything by saying as little as possible. This definitely is less-is-more music.

I love the conflation in music of sex and religious experience. That album opener is like standing in a violin downpour at night. The instrumentation on track 2 is actually quite experimental, demanding the listener's ear. Then a walk in the wet garden after the downpour. If this music doesn't speak to you, it's because it doesn't speak to your heart. Because that's the only thing this album can speak to. The heart. I think this is the perfect album when you're returning home after staying out all night. I love how the harpsichord goes hard then silent then hard again. If music were an embroidered object, it would be some of these songs. This album is about turning points--when the rain gives way to clear skies, when the night gives way to the dawn--standing on the cusp of love. "Madame George" is spellbinding, the last song you listen to as the dawn comes, when you've been out all night and are dead tired but still enchanted by the memory of the stars. This is falling in love, not with a person but with an experience and a forgotten but remembered snatch of some whispered line. Here's that violin downpour again. Feel it on your face as you turn your collar up, as you turn your face toward home. This is an album detailing the life portals we must all step through, the last being death. I love that final moment of experimental dissonance. The music--like life--is over. The music is disrupted.

This has at least three iconic folk rock songs direct from the popular hippie free-love consciousness of the end of the 60s. Pretty good stuff overall and a fine album to mellow out to. The trio really benefited from collaborating with Young, and vice versa, since based on the popularity of this album all their solo stuff sold better.

An exquisite album... that's not for me. But I bet it's for you, so check it out.

The band's final and best album, Synchronicity blueprints all the cynicism of the 80s in one artistic statement, focusing on the uniformity driven into us by the tendencies of societal conformity, and how though we may all look alike, we are alienated and dissociated from one another, in some dystopian world where God isn't dead--He's sadistic. And where you have to yell over your Rice Krispies if you expect anyone to pay attention to your bogus suicide attempts.

Look, Mr. Gaye, I understand that “push” rhymes with “bush”, but no matter how iconic and sexy your title track is, it still strikes me as thirsty. When his father shot and killed him before his time, I wonder if Marvin had his “If I Should Die Tonight” running through his mind. And if so, I sure hope the “you” in that song was a real person.

To me, this seems to be where all the 21st-century artsy indie suburban teenage angst started. You know what, Will? Wherever you go, there you are. And that’s all I really have to say about this one. Good tunes, though.

Bad music. I hate anyone who likes this.

"Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks." This is where it all started. There's just so much affirmation and positivity all over this album, and even the female vocals chanting on the all-too-short "Everyday People" sound like something they'd sing while skipping rope on the pavement. The dark side of this is that this album stands in the shadow of Sly's massive cocaine addiction. One thing this album does well is evoke the feeling of the emotions it's trying to communicate, like how the raunchy electric guitar is the exact sound a sex machine might make, complete with the increased rhythm of the pounding percussion that leads to inevitable orgasm. In the end, this album is bookended with songs meant to uplift the listener. Stand up and try! You can make it.

Syd is just so damn beautiful! I’m intrigued by the title of this album. The madcap laughs. “Madcap” is often used an adjective, so is he describing the silly laughs of someone? Or is he using “madcap” in the noun place, as in “a clown”? The clown laughs? The clown is laughing? This album’s got an overall fragmented feel (which isn’t a criticism), but that’s to be expected what with the three different recording sessions as well as five different producers. Barrett was known for his unpredictable, erratic antics with the Floyd, so perhaps that’s the origin of the use of “madcap”. And what to do with a madcap person? Why, nothing but take him by the hand and lead him into the studio. Because he’s not going to go himself. He’d probably rather be gardening.

Leaving the politics of this album aside, probably because they’ve been analyzed and referenced to death, I’d like to focus on a deeper truth explored in this document: the quest for discovery as a race against time. Indeed, this album is aptly named, for the harvest is plentiful, and the workers are few. Whether it’s the junkie or the philosopher, we’re all searching for meaning, and we have a limited time in which to discover it.

This is some kind of weird unidentified weapon album, the warm and magical musical hinting at the development (discovery?) of the Softest Bullet, the strange "prize" everyone had been racing for, its element so heavy that a spoonful weighs a ton. This whole album glows with radioactivity, some of it being from the laboratory, some from comic book spiders, and a lot more of it from outer space, where our supermen come from. How long have our heads been bleeding and we've not realized it? How is it that we are all glowing with this...substance? This wonderful album explores the intersection of the material and the immaterial, the chemical and the emotional, helping us understand that we are ineffable, hybrid beings, a mix of the physical and the spiritual. And it's okay to be so.

I had kind of a shower thought while listening to this album, specifically during the second track in which Stevie ponders why people think of him as a lesser man because he’s black. This made me think of a lot of other Stevie songs that deal with discrimination and race relations. Here’s a blind man who deals with issues of people judging people based on skin color. Color. Something he’s never seen. Being blind, Stevie simply cannot judge people on what they look like, including skin color. But here he is singing about being black. That’s just so fucked up...that prejudice is so strong a blind man knows what it means to be black.