User Albums Journey
Exploring beyond the book, one album at a time
View 1001 Albums Summary419
Albums Rated
2.96
Average Rating
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1990
Favorite Decade
World
Favorite Genre
US
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
34
5-Star Albums
20
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
Top Styles
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Sing To God
Cardiacs
|
5 | 2.5 | +2.5 |
|
Choirs Of The Eye
Kayo Dot
|
5 | 2.63 | +2.37 |
|
Symbolic
Death
|
5 | 2.74 | +2.26 |
|
Sunbather
Deafheaven
|
5 | 2.76 | +2.24 |
|
Katamari Damacy
Various Artists
|
5 | 2.81 | +2.19 |
|
Repetition
Unwound
|
5 | 2.84 | +2.16 |
|
First Utterance
Comus
|
5 | 2.87 | +2.13 |
|
Geogaddi
Boards of Canada
|
5 | 2.93 | +2.07 |
|
Yeti
Amon Düül II
|
5 | 2.94 | +2.06 |
|
To Be Kind
Swans
|
5 | 2.99 | +2.01 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
GUTS
Olivia Rodrigo
|
1 | 3.24 | -2.24 |
|
In Between Dreams
Jack Johnson
|
1 | 3.15 | -2.15 |
|
Hammersmith Odeon, London '75
Bruce Springsteen
|
1 | 3.13 | -2.13 |
|
Come On Over
Shania Twain
|
1 | 3.11 | -2.11 |
|
A.M.
Wilco
|
1 | 3.05 | -2.05 |
|
TRON: Legacy
Daft Punk
|
1 | 3.04 | -2.04 |
|
Inside
Bo Burnham
|
1 | 3.03 | -2.03 |
|
Gordon
Barenaked Ladies
|
1 | 2.99 | -1.99 |
|
After Hours
The Weeknd
|
1 | 2.97 | -1.97 |
|
Discovery
Daft Punk
|
2 | 3.95 | -1.95 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Songs: Ohia | 2 | 5 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| The Hold Steady | 2 | 1.5 |
| The 1975 | 2 | 1.5 |
| BABYMETAL | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Tragically Hip | 3 | 2 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Daft Punk | 2, 5, 1 |
5-Star Albums (34)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Ornette Coleman · 9 likes
4/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4sEcIHG0Yc
By definition, if the album is part of the fucking Library of Congress but not on the list, then I'm putting a pin in the Robert Dimery voodoo doll, because how the hell was this not on the original list. And yes, that includes "Sesame Street: All-Time Platinum Favorites" which is also in the Library of Congress. That is actually true, you are free to fact check.
It's free jazz/avantgarde jazz/soundscapes from the elephant torture chamber. It won't be for everyone, but I think this is more my kind of jazz than that smooth stuff. Not sure why. Like, I very barely understand what the hell is going on here. Some parts of this sound like I'm listening to a random note generator, until he randomly pulls out the saxophone Konami code and plays the coolest shit ever for 10 seconds, before reality falls apart again.
4/5. Also somebody should put "The Shape Of Punk To Come" on this list as well. That's a good ass album.
BABYMETAL · 8 likes
1/5
How the hell did two different people land on Babymetal as their album of choice. It's a free country so I'm not judging you, but this has to be a coordinated aerial assault on the user albums list.
Anyways, this ain't good. The debut still had some heart in it, but now we're officially in homunculus territory. The Dubai chocolate Labubu of Japanese metal.
Boo, get Midori up in this joint instead.
Swans · 7 likes
5/5
Big ass album, huge, large even. Calling this a challenging listen is putting it mildly. There's a song on here that's longer than some entire albums.
Michael Gira creates music by picking paper slips from a hat containing the words "Sun", "Baby", "God" and "Blind" on them, yelling them, then grunting for 30 minutes while every instrument ever invented plays at the same time. I have no fucking idea what this dude is on most of the time, but it still manages to be completely engrossing.
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong · 7 likes
2/5
Not really the biggest fan. It's just kind of pointless noodling for an hour. I have nothing against jam bands (that Phish live album on this list was pretty good!), but I couldn't find anything here to latch onto. Very nondescript vocals, lyrics and guitar playing. It's like a jam band with default presets and no sauce. The most interesting moments were when they quoted some famous songs, like the Pink Panther or Ghostbusters themes. That was pretty cool.
Also some meta bullshit: I think some users forget that nobody is forcing them to listen to these albums at gunpoint. There is literally zero reason to tell someone to rethink their life choices over an album choice, lmao
Cardiacs · 7 likes
5/5
This is my suggestion! It was either this or "The Glow, Pt. 2" by The Microphones, but I think we have enough Indie Folk on the list already, so an insane curveball like this was the winner.
One of my all time favorites, from one of the most creative, yet also most neglected bands of all time.
A mindblowingly dense, extremely fun album. Carefully constructed madness. There's more ideas in a single song on here than some bands' entire careers. The greatest guitar solo of all time on "Fiery Gun Hand", the way Tim Smith holds the final note on "Dirty Boy" for 2 whole minutes, the deep-fried Britpop that is "Manhoo", the mosquito riff on "Nurses Whispering Verses".
So much shit to love. Just an insanely deep rabbit hole. Also immensely influential: Mike Patton, Napalm Death, Blur, Radiohead, TOOL, Steven Wilson, just to name a few, all cite these guys as one of their influences.
Cheers to everybody who gave this a fair shot despite the fact that it's 90 minutes of not the most accessible music (to say the least). Personally, every time I listen to this, I find it to be the shortest 90 minutes of my life. I don't think I'd cut a single song from the tracklist.
10/10. RIP Tim Smith.
1-Star Albums (20)
All Ratings
Café Tacvba
4/5
Hello, just arrived in this realm. This is my first user album. I probably won't do the entire thing, but I'm excited to see what interesting stuff got submitted!
This was a very fun Latin album. I know next to nothing about this kind of music, but I fuck with it. Insane amount of variety for an hour long album. All that was missing was a random Grindcore song to tie it all nicely together.
Josh Ritter
2/5
Fuckers took a bite of my horse, can't have shit in Detroit.
Very, very slow. Not my type of folk.
Tally Hall
3/5
I really love how insane this album is. Some of it works better, some of it falls completely flat on its face, but the one thing that's consistent, is that you have no clue what the next song is going to be.
Gotta be the only album in existence to have both the "Baroque Pop" and the "Hip Hop" tags in its Wikipedia infobox.
Alex Cameron
3/5
It's like a generic 80s synthpop album, but with the twist that the lyrics sound like something you'd find written in a public toilet stall. Just to be clear, that's not a bad thing. It is a bit of a jarring combination though.
Marillion
2/5
I saw the genre name for this was "Neo-Prog". My mind went to stuff like Cardiacs and Black Midi, but all I got was U2.
This is one sleigh bell away from being actual Christmas music. Not a fan.
TOOL
5/5
Yeah, now that's the shit. An absolutely insane omission from the original list - both this, and Lateralus.
I'd say this is their best album. Hits the perfect middle ground between the heavier Undertow and the proggier Lateralus. "Third Eye" is the best song they've ever done. That refrain will never not give me chills.
Touché Amoré
2/5
I like post-hardcore, but man, this guy is only capable of yelling in one specific tone and it makes everything blend together so much.
Very repetitive and very depressing. Wasn't in the mood for something like this right now. Rarely am. Interesting choice though.
Jimmy Eat World
4/5
Great choice! Crazy how there are NO Emo/Emo-Pop albums on the original list. Just an entire subgenre (one of the most popular ones of all time) completely ignored because Robert Dimery said that "he doesn't like this kind of music".
Weak. The children love it and the children crave more of it. I am the children. This shit rocks. 4/5.
Childish Gambino
3/5
"Me and Your Mama" and "Redbone" are great, but nothing else really stuck in my mind... Except for that one song with unfathomably dogshit autotune that completely ruins the vibe of the record and made me burst out laughing.
It's alright though. A completely fine album, and a better and more worthy pick than like 90% of the 2010s albums on the actual list.
Debbie Gibson
2/5
Family Guy cutaway music. Props to the guy who submitted this though.
The Decemberists
4/5
"Picaresque" is one of my favorite albums, but I've never bothered to check out the rest of the Decemberists' catalogue, so this was a fun listen.
Interesting rock opera, way more proggy than I expected. Very "Central European fairytale"-esque plot.
Cool pick!
Mary Chapin Carpenter
2/5
Factory settings country music.
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
To cite my almost 3 year old review of the EW&F album that was on the original list: "Listening to Earth, Wind & Fire gives me the same vibes as watching UFO sightings on Youtube."
Still haven't figured out what that truly means, but it's true. Anyways, this is pretty alright.
Bad Religion
4/5
Album cover goes hard as fuck. Screenshotted and shared with my 32-year-old grandson "Félipé" immediately.
Unique vocal style for this kind of punk. Was there even any 90s pop-punk on the original list other than Green Day? Guess there wasn't any space for it, because god forbid somebody dies without hearing all three Dexys Midnight Runners albums.
Whatever, this slaps. Great pick!
Hombres G
2/5
World music is always appreciated, but this was kinda annoying.
THE SPORTS
2/5
Thank you for the user album submission, Robert Dimery.
Rachel Stevens
3/5
This is like submitting "Air Bud" to a 1001 Movies List, but I deeply respect that, and I'm all here for it.
Actually way more fun and consistent than I expected. Sampling "Lullaby" by The Cure is a nutty choice.
Death Cab for Cutie
3/5
Getting an album with the opening track "The New Year" on December 31st.
Cute indie, nothing special though. I was also under the impression that this was an Emo band, so it was a bit of a surprise when Owl City Man 2.0 came in with the vocals.
Childish Gambino
2/5
For an album that seems to put so much effort into its sequencing, this felt like a completely incomprehensible disjointed mess. Too ambitious for its own good.
Overlong, boring. Still has some standouts though, like "3005". I like the fart synths on that one.
Chappell Roan
3/5
Heartbreaking: Another potentially amazing modern pop album held back by generic, soulless production.
Still catchy and an unabashedly queer, decently fun listen though. Belongs on the original list, and I can honestly see it getting added in the newest edition (Brat is absolutely getting on, right?). "HOT TO GO!" was great. Just really hoping to one day get to hear a modern pop album that doesn't sound like a slab of processed ham.
Chet Baker
3/5
Very chill jazz. Would have personally gone for "Chet Baker Sings" for a Chet album. Guy was both a great trumpeter and a singer. Don't do three trillion kilograms of heroin, kids.
Wussy
2/5
Not much of anything. Forgettable alt-country.
Thee Oh Sees
4/5
I was going to say that this sounds suspiciously similar to Les Rallizes Dénudés, and as it turns out, the lead singer was in a LRD cover band (and like 30 other bands, holy shit).
"Sticky Hulks" especially, with its screeching psychedelic guitars, the vocal effects, the intonation. The inspiration is extremely clear.
Amazing, loved it. Definitely not what I was expecting from the album cover. Strong 4/5!
Sufjan Stevens
5/5
His second best album, love the guy's work. Amazing, beautiful, heart wrenching. Five outta five.
The Posies
4/5
I thought The Posies were a really generic pop rock band for some reason, but this was not that. Surprisingly very solid. Some darker alt rock is always a good time.
Cool shit. 4/5.
The War On Drugs
3/5
Dob Bylan.
These guys had an album on the original list as well, but I can't remember anything about it. This sounds vaguely like The Postal Service sung by a Bob Dylan homunculus. It's alright. Not anything I'd ever revisit though.
The B-52's
2/5
Inexplicably unavailable on streaming in Europe (same thing for their debut).
Less post-punk and catchy hits, but way more cheese. I think the original list's B-52's was enough.
MF DOOM
2/5
I sadly couldn't get any enjoyment out of this, because I'm still lost on the fact whether MF DOOM is a dangerous evil villain feared by many and if Spider-Man is after him. I think one more 3 minute long skit of 50s cartoon characters talking could have really brought this one together.
Also, obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THOUT3vZnSY
Graham Parker
2/5
"This sounds like Elvis Costello" is the scariest possible sentence to see when you first open the reviews before listening to this.
Slightly better than Elvis Costello, but maybe that's only because this one doesn't carry the "Oh god, I still have to listen to 5 more of these" weight that getting an Elvis Costello album album meant on the original list.
Harmonium
2/5
This sure was a bunch of very quiet 10-minute long French songs.
Nik Kershaw
2/5
More painfully average 80s music with one big hit and a whole bunch of nothing.
Sorry, not a fan in the slightest.
LaBelle
4/5
Cool stuff!
-50 points, because now I'm going to have "Lady Marmalade" stuck in my head for a week.
Bran Van 3000
1/5
Inferior version of the Persona 3 soundtrack.
Maldita Vecindad Y Los Hijos Del 5to. Patio
4/5
A fine addition to my "What the fuck is this and why does it slap so hard" collection that I am slowly accumulating by going through these user submitted albums.
Also a worthy addition to the "Albums that sound the least like their album covers" list. Extremely unexpected but welcome Ska Punk jumpscare.
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
2/5
This was sort of like listening to dust and cobwebs.
Chromatics
3/5
Donkey Kong Country music.
Pretty interesting, despite the fact that I don't exactly dig this sort of electronic music. The Kate Bush cover was surprisingly really well made. "Tick of the Clock" was the standout though. Despite being 15 minutes of roughly the same thing, it's strangely hypnotizing.
Bruce Springsteen
1/5
Damn, and I thought I was kind of crossing the treshold for submitting that 80-minute Cardiacs album.
Can't stand this dude. I could hardly sit through "Born to Run". Listening to an over 2 hours long Bruce Springsteen live album is an actual Tartarus punishment for my wicked soul.
Gurrumul
4/5
Wasn't expecting to be listening to Australian Aboriginal music today, but what a great surprise.
The guy who submitted this understood the assignment. A hidden gem. Thank you for sharing this.
Valerie June
2/5
Not something for me, but I see the appeal. Personally found the singer's voice kind of grating and everything too samey.
I'm probably not American enough for this.
Jeff Rosenstock
4/5
I think I prefer his debut "We Cool?" a bit more, but there's no denying that this guy's probably the best and most consistent modern pop-punk artist.
Four outta five. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing.
Phish
3/5
Mr. President, a second two-hour long live album has hit the user-submitted albums.
Okay, you know what, fuck it. I AM in the mood for this today. Bring it on.
(2 hours later)
That was not so bad. Wish more of this was as psychedelic as "Stash" and spent less time on pointless noodling like the entirety of "You Enjoy Myself" and "Tweezer" (the two longest songs, ugh). Still, I'm really surprised it kept my attention all the way through.
Salif Keita
4/5
Other reviews mention this not being on Spotify, but I personally found it in one search, so I think it's just a region-locking issue?
This is awesome. Very interesting backstory as well. More African albums are always appreciated.
Freddie Gibbs
3/5
Pretty good hip hop. Very Tupac-esque.
I've heard of this before, but never listened to it. From the praise I've seen this get, I was expecting something more envelope-pushing, I think. Still an interesting listen though.
Primus
4/5
Primus was totally robbed a spot from the original list, same with Ween. I demand more bullshit music like this.
Not as good as "Frizzle Fry", probably even "Pork Soda", but a worthy inclusion and a great time. Strong 4/5.
2/5
Listening to this album reminded me of how it feels to not be listening to an album.
The Amazing Devil
2/5
A bit too overly-dramatic for me to file this under the best music genre of all time - "goofy medieval music".
Also, this is going to be extremely specific, but it reminded me too much of music you'd find in Youtube compilations titled something like "Royalty Free Viking Music For Your D&D Campaign 10 Hours (No Ads)".
2/5, but a weird kind of 2/5, because I can tell that I would have absolutely loved it with some production tweaks.
Crash Test Dummies
2/5
Dollar store Eddie Vedder. Genuinely can't tell if this is supposed to be a parody album.
Oingo Boingo
4/5
Some of that goofy shit, love to see it.
I've only heard "Only a Lad" by Oingo Boingo before and while I think I prefer that one, this was absolutely groovy as hell. Knows how to stand out, which is a super important thing when it comes to New Wave.
Screaming Females
3/5
🫲😩🫲
Not bad. Kinda generic.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
5/5
Gizzing so hard right now.
Not only do King Gizzard deserve a spot on the list, they feel like a band that should have at least 3 albums on there with their insanely diverse discography.
This is 42 minutes of raw energy. It's one of the most pure fun albums ever recorded and one of the best of the 2010s by one of the most hard-working bands of all time.
Easy 5/5. Also recommend "I'm In Your Mind Fuzz" to anyone who liked this and would like to hear more.
Cluster
3/5
Fartstep.
Pretty minimalistic krautrock. Very gloopy, very bloopy.
Pedro The Lion
3/5
Every second, this album throws a coin to decide whether it wants to be indie rock like Interpol, or hard rock like Pearl Jam.
Would this count as Emo? No idea.
Anyways, interesting record, thanks for sharing. Kinda depressing, but I was sort of in a mood for that. I don't think I'd ever listen to this over the aforementioned Interpol though.
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong
2/5
Not really the biggest fan. It's just kind of pointless noodling for an hour. I have nothing against jam bands (that Phish live album on this list was pretty good!), but I couldn't find anything here to latch onto. Very nondescript vocals, lyrics and guitar playing. It's like a jam band with default presets and no sauce. The most interesting moments were when they quoted some famous songs, like the Pink Panther or Ghostbusters themes. That was pretty cool.
Also some meta bullshit: I think some users forget that nobody is forcing them to listen to these albums at gunpoint. There is literally zero reason to tell someone to rethink their life choices over an album choice, lmao
Sampha
3/5
Smooth electronic R&B. Probably too smooth, even. It's good background music, but not something I ever look for personally.
Nuyorican Soul
3/5
Somebody beat me to the Sega video game music comparison.
The Marcus King Band
2/5
I didn't notice the release date and listened to the whole thing thinking that this was a 1970s band.
So if their goal was to record "more of the same old, played out country", I'd call it a success. Not for me though.
INXS
2/5
80s new wave albums try to be anything more than "Two pretty good singles and ten more of the most boring songs you've ever heard in your life" challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
Richard Dawson
3/5
Pretty cool Avant-Folk. A bit too samey though. "Ogre" was great.
Above all else, I am very fond of the funny red creature on the album cover.
Susanne Sundfør
3/5
Switches between "generic pop" and "ethereal forest music" like a metronome.
I think I liked it?
The Chats
4/5
Scientifically proven, you can't get more Australian than this before imploding into a black hole. 4/5
Ani DiFranco
2/5
Reminds me a bit of drowning in mud.
The Weeknd
1/5
Listening to this is feels like inhaling tonnes of microplastics and preservatives.
All the songs are either the guy singing like he's getting chased by a Scooby Doo monster over FL Studio preset trap beats, or the obligatory "obvious radio hit bait".
Not a fan.
Garmarna
3/5
A brave cross between Swedish folk music and the Hampster Dance.
Robyn Hitchcock
2/5
"Chamberlain came crawling from Munich, with one piece of paper..." Feels weird listening to this today. Feels weird acknowledging how weird it is.
...And that's about all the emotions I got from this. Rest's the usual jangle pop dross. Singer sounds like all the Beatles at once, but with the cadence of Bob Dylan.
The Mountain Goats
4/5
Some amazing lyricism, also has the sound quality of a 1900s telephone broadcast from across the Atlantic - which is actually a positive thing.
Heard some stuff about this album and band before, but never listened to it. As it turns out, it's really good. 4/5.
Sunny Day Real Estate
4/5
Not as good as "How It Feels to Be Something On", but still a milestone Emo record that should definitely have been on the list.
Also one of the rare albums where some of the best songs are the bonus tracks. Very much worth it to stick around for "8" and "9".
Strong 4/5.
King Tubby
5/5
Actually mindblowingly incredible, holy shit.
So far my winner for the best new album I've discovered through the user submissions by several orders of magnitude. Now I have to go on a Dub binge.
Ty Segall
3/5
Weakest of the three big modern psych acts (King Gizz, Oh Sees, this), but still enjoyable.
Vocals all over the place, shit travels into the nightmare dimension in the last couple of songs. Weird. 3/5?
Kayo Dot
5/5
+50 points right off the bat for the gall to submit an avant-garde metal album. Never heard of this, but I'm super intrigued.
Wow, incredible. An insane blend of metal, post-rock, jazz and a whole bunch of other stuff that the album cycles between before any of them can get stale. Probably a really unusual comparison to make, but the band that this reminded the most of would be Talk Talk. Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock, Metal edition?
I hope everybody gives this the fair shot it deserves and doesn't immediately get scared away by the Wikipedia tags or song lengths, since it's not even all that inaccessible all things considered. Fantastic pick, 5/5.
Steven Wilson
3/5
I really can't take Steven Wilson's lyrics seriously in Porcupine Tree or his solo work, but the guy can compose a fine ass tune. Somebody should tell him to finally bite the bullet and become a full-time "JRPG final boss battle theme" writer.
Transvision Vamp
2/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5pEFAm63NM
Mustafa
3/5
Cute finger food album. Not what I was expecting from the album cover at all.
Hard to hate. 3/5.
Procol Harum
3/5
No idea what this is. Haven't even heard "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and that's got like 200 million streams. Did I just slip into a different dimension?
Extremely similar to Genesis. Formed in the same year. Seems like one of those things where if a butterfly flapped its wings on a random day in 1967, we would have had the drummer of Procol Harum doing the Tarzan soundtrack instead.
Anyways, pretty good, but not something I'd ever return to.
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
2/5
Well, they don't exactly call it "Easy Listening" for its depth and complexity.
Great music for when I'm deviously setting up Rube Goldberg traps in my home to catch a stripey-shirted robber with a burlap sack on his back.
John Mayer
2/5
John Mayer seems like the type of guy to find mayonnaise too spicy.
The Hold Steady
1/5
This album sounds like it's violently fighting against every interesting idea that pops into its head.
They Might Be Giants
3/5
Very unusual pick for a TMBG album. I think most people would go for "Flood" or "Lincoln" instead, but hey, it's a free country.
Pretty good. Has that same nerdy quirkiness of their older stuff, just not as tight of a package with no real standout tracks. 3/5.
Switchfoot
2/5
Like listening to a divorce.
Men I Trust
5/5
As a connoisseur of silly creatures, I have to begin by saying that I am a big fan of the silly creature on the album cover.
Whoa, this is awesome. It's like zoomer sophisti-pop. Very reminiscent of, and I also imagine, very inspired by various video game soundtracks such as the "Earthbound-like indie RPG scene" and Persona.
Maybe it doesn't flow the best and should have probably been like 20 minutes shorter, but I was fully in the zone. Strong 4/5, maybe even a 5/5. Depends how I'm feeling tomorrow.
Update: Alright fine. It's a 5/5. This is an immaculate vibe. Also remembered I am legally not allowed to complain about album lengths after submitting the Cardiacs album.
The Dear Hunter
4/5
Enormous sound. Reminded me a bit of both The Decemberists and Mars Volta, which probably sounds like the most fucked up Venn diagram known to man.
Theatrical and over the top, which isn't a bad thing in my book. Feels weird to be thrown into the fourth part of a massive six-part story, but then again, not like it makes this much more incoherent than your average prog rock concept album.
Teenage Fanclub
3/5
Just some more alt rock for the alt rock pile. Not bad, not great. Whatever, man.
Kaizers Orchestra
2/5
Norwegian penis music.
Porter Robinson
3/5
This is my third time hearing this album and I've only just realized that there is no woman involved in this. That's a man's voice through a filter. All of it. What the fuck.
Anyways, it's alright. Porter Robinson is more of a singles artist to me. One or two songs in a while is fine, but an entire album's worth of this stuff is too much for me. I've tried to get this to grow on me, but it never goes past "that was pretty good, I guess".
My Chemical Romance
5/5
Hell yeah.
The most baffling exclusion from the list save for "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea". MCR is the quintessential 2000s band. When you think emo, early internet, aughties music, or literally just the concept of black clothes - this is the first thing that comes to mind.
10/10, and shame on Robert Dimery and his blatant anti-emo bias.
Jimmy Buffett
2/5
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/J0K9D3/group-of-old-people-supporting-you-J0K9D3.jpg
Gang of Youths
3/5
A bit like The National, but without the feeling that you just took thirty kilograms of Ambien.
Not the most mindblowing thing ever made, but sometimes some "pretty good alt rock" is all you need in life.
Anaïs Mitchell
2/5
Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SU0gFPMwP8
Jesus fucking Christ, who is the evil warlock forcing modern pop/indie artists to sing with that godforsaken affectation and how do we break his curse. Justin Vernon was pretty good though.
Other than that, this is a pretty standard concept album about the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice with an Americana spin. Extremely cheesy, kinda just straight up stupid at times, but that's par for the course, I guess. Not a Musicals kind of guy.
Interesting choice nonetheless. Strong 2/5.
The Jesus Lizard
4/5
Big fan of albums that sound like they were recorded inside a giant pressure washer. RIP Steve Albini, greatest to ever do it.
Gets better with every listen.
The Sound
3/5
The Sound is basically the most "good" post-punk band. Not mind-blowing, not amazing, but there isn't a bad moment on here. It's all good. Is "good" good enough? Who knows. 3/5.
Nightwish
1/5
This makes me feel like the walls are closing in. It's like the music's in an uncanny valley between Metal and "Ay, ay, ay, I'm your little butterfly"-ass Eurodance.
So insanely over-the-top dramatic and epic, that it ends up feeling plastic, fake and annoying. The male vocalist is especially awful. Dude probably thinks he's Sephiroth.
I kinda see the appeal, and "Amaranth" is a great single by them (not on this album though), but it's a 1/5 from me.
Death
5/5
Arguably one of the most influential bands of all time? Kinda crazy this wasn't on the original list now that I think about it.
It's death metal, so obviously it won't be for everyone, but I think even those people can appreciate the insane musicianship on display. Personally love it. Some of the riffs on here are genuinely some of the coolest shit I've ever heard in my life. Five outta five.
Kano
3/5
Grime is such a funny genre. Why do all of these beats sound like cartoon characters slipping on ice.
Much better than that godawful Dizzee Rascal album from the original list. Actually had fun with this. A pleasant surprise.
Yeasayer
3/5
One of those albums where you'll be saying "This reminds me of [insert indie band here]" to yourself after every song.
Vaguely Middle Eastern/South Asian sounding psychedelic rock. Kind of a mixed bag with some bangers and some total misses. Second half was better than the first. I think I enjoyed it though.
Interesting choice. 3/5.
Shudder To Think
2/5
Sounds like a cross between The Dismemberment Plan and Deftones. Drags on like a motherfucker by the end and kind of ruins the well knit-together first half of the album by falling into pretty generic alt rock territory (basically everything after "X-French Tee Shirt").
No issue with Post-Hardcore, in fact please inject that shit directly into my bloodstream, just kinda thought this was pretty unremarkable all things considered. Strong 2/5.
The Upsetters
4/5
Second dub album, hell yeah. A genre that was sorely missing from the original list.
Not as good as the King Tubby album I had a few weeks ago, but still - hell yeah. This ape is so super, dude.
Pink Floyd
5/5
Their best album and the album that got me into music.
I still remember the first time I heard the vocals on Sheep transition into a synth, mimicking the bleat of a sheep, and realized that music is more than just fun bleeps and bloops.
I've heard this probably close to a 100 times already, and it hasn't grown old or stale. A masterpiece. Thanks for submitting.
Sublime
4/5
It seems like every time somebody says they don't like Sublime, it's not because of the music, but rather because they associate it with an annoying frat bro they knew named Chadley or something.
Anyways, banger. Another baffling exclusion from the list. On a roll the past few days.
Status Quo
2/5
Eighty feral hogs are rapidly approaching your location.
The Alan Parsons Project
4/5
Most 70s prog rock albums are 1 extremely long "best song you've ever heard in your life" and then like 4-5 throwaway garbage that sounds like third-rate Disney soundtracks.
Alan Parsons says fuck that, I'm doing "best song you've ever heard in your life" 4-5 times, then 1 extremely long throwaway garbage that sounds like third-rate Disney soundtracks.
Truly the Anti Tarkus. 4/5.
Fontaines D.C.
3/5
Ah, Fontaines D.C. Thought this was a K-Pop band for the longest time for some godforsaken reason.
It's a pretty good post-punk record. Nothing mindblowing, but it gets the job done with some really thick Irish accents. 3/5.
Shania Twain
1/5
One day I'm going to wake up and find out that somebody submitted the Tarzan soundtrack to this fucking thing.
More power to you of course, but listening to this felt like slowly succumbing to "The Rot".
Bloc Party
2/5
Crazy this wasn't on the list, since this is exactly the type of British nothing-alt rock that music journalists go crazy for.
Wish I understood what makes this special.
The Postal Service
3/5
Don't really care for Death Cab For Cutie, but this is pretty good. Opening and closing tracks especially.
So many people ripped this sound off. Not this album's fault or anything, but I can't get that fucking "You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies.." song out of my head while listening to this.
blink-182
2/5
I can't take this band seriously, man. The Blink-182 singer is like the male version of cursive singing.
Enema is better. Both kinda suck though.
Joan As Police Woman
3/5
Better than I expected. Worth sticking through those ungodly boring opening 3-4 tracks, because it actually gets pretty interesting after that. Once the whole band finally chimes in is when this gets good. More of that and less of Norah Jones 2.0 singing over "piano_preset.mp3".
Les sheriff
4/5
Not gonna lie, this was fucking awesome. I was very skeptical going into this, since a French live punk album that's 70 minutes long is a totally demonic concoction, but it somehow didn't get old.
It's just really solid punk rock. A lot of fun despite the fact that I have no idea what's being said. Sounds a bit like Misfits or Bad Religion.
Korn
2/5
This is better than the Korn album in the book, since with this I don't have to listen to that Fred Durst rap-battle song.
"Blind" is pretty good. "Daddy" is really heavy and disturbing. Not sure about the rest of the songs. Might be heresy to say this, but I think Korn is more of a "put your favorites in a playlist"-kind of band rather than an albums band. Also still not sold on the vocals.
Type O Negative
4/5
Type O Negative albums are always like 20 minutes longer than they need to be, and I don't think anybody would miss those sex sound intermissions, but cool shit nonetheless.
"Black No. 1" is probably the undisputed best goth metal song of all time. Peter Steele is also probably the undisputed "guy with the most powerful aura" of all time. RIP, legend.
4/5.
Cardiacs
5/5
This is my suggestion! It was either this or "The Glow, Pt. 2" by The Microphones, but I think we have enough Indie Folk on the list already, so an insane curveball like this was the winner.
One of my all time favorites, from one of the most creative, yet also most neglected bands of all time.
A mindblowingly dense, extremely fun album. Carefully constructed madness. There's more ideas in a single song on here than some bands' entire careers. The greatest guitar solo of all time on "Fiery Gun Hand", the way Tim Smith holds the final note on "Dirty Boy" for 2 whole minutes, the deep-fried Britpop that is "Manhoo", the mosquito riff on "Nurses Whispering Verses".
So much shit to love. Just an insanely deep rabbit hole. Also immensely influential: Mike Patton, Napalm Death, Blur, Radiohead, TOOL, Steven Wilson, just to name a few, all cite these guys as one of their influences.
Cheers to everybody who gave this a fair shot despite the fact that it's 90 minutes of not the most accessible music (to say the least). Personally, every time I listen to this, I find it to be the shortest 90 minutes of my life. I don't think I'd cut a single song from the tracklist.
10/10. RIP Tim Smith.
Vampire Weekend
2/5
Sounds like every other Vampire Weekend album I've heard, but this one doesn't have any of the hits.
Not feeling it.
Weezer
3/5
I don't think this is masterpiece, or even anything close to one, but it definitely deserved to be on the original list. One of the landmark 90s albums, super nostalgic, and songs like "My Name is Jonas" and "Say It Ain't So" are still certified bangers.
Shame on the dumb fucking anti-Emo bias the book had. So insanely stupid to write off an entire genre - one of the biggest ones of all time - just because Robert Dimery's not a fan. And yes, that's actually the reason this and many other Emo albums weren't on the list. The Arcade Fire entry of the book talks about how the band is saving music from "Emo trash". Suck my nuts, man.
Still the funniest album cover of all time though. They're just standing there. Favorite activity of mine is photoshopping the guys into backgrounds of various photographs.
The Tragically Hip
2/5
In the famous words of a fellow reviewer: Ni fu ni fa.
I get this has a legendary status in Canada, but to me it just sounds like They Might Be Giants if they made generic alt rock.
CAKE
3/5
These guys are like RHCP, but instead of doing black tar heroin, they all had comically oversized lollipops and propeller hats.
It's good.
Carly Rae Jepsen
2/5
Ah cool, the weekly obligatory "overproduced modern pop album".
This sure was 12 songs arranged in a particular way, alright. It had music, by god, it even had lyrics. What will they think of next?
Ornette Coleman
4/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4sEcIHG0Yc
By definition, if the album is part of the fucking Library of Congress but not on the list, then I'm putting a pin in the Robert Dimery voodoo doll, because how the hell was this not on the original list. And yes, that includes "Sesame Street: All-Time Platinum Favorites" which is also in the Library of Congress. That is actually true, you are free to fact check.
It's free jazz/avantgarde jazz/soundscapes from the elephant torture chamber. It won't be for everyone, but I think this is more my kind of jazz than that smooth stuff. Not sure why. Like, I very barely understand what the hell is going on here. Some parts of this sound like I'm listening to a random note generator, until he randomly pulls out the saxophone Konami code and plays the coolest shit ever for 10 seconds, before reality falls apart again.
4/5. Also somebody should put "The Shape Of Punk To Come" on this list as well. That's a good ass album.
Mogwai
3/5
Mogwai is fine, but they're my least favorite of the "big 90s post-rock" bands. Not really sure why. Probably because they haven't perfected that buildup->payoff formula as well as the others. Some songs are way too much buildup for not enough payoff. Most notably "Mogwai Fear Satan" which barely goes anywhere despite being 16 minutes long.
Still enjoyable though, and I definitely agree that the list needed more post-rock.
The Burning Hell
4/5
Whoa, this is some cool stuff.
It's cute, simple indie folk. Very easy listening. Vocals remind me of The Magnetic Fields and a bit of the Black Country, New Road guy if he wasn't in constant agony. Clever lyrics, but that kind of clever where one half of people will really love it and the second half of people will want to throw rotten tomatoes at this dude.
Great pick, thanks for sharing! This is one of those albums I would have never come across.
The Stooges
2/5
World War II combat footage audio quality.
100 gecs
1/5
Can't do Gecs. It's totally beyond me.
It's probably the fifty layers of autotune and the "random xd" humor that makes this sound like nails on chalkboard to me. The Garden pulls off this weird manic shit so much better.
Better than their debut. 1/5.
The Cure
4/5
There's like a 98% chance this will be in the new edition of the book if they're still making them, so greetings from the User Albums list to all the people listening to this over on the original list in 2028.
This is probably their best album since Disintegration. Not like that's a particularly big hurdle to overcome, but it's always awesome to see an artist pull off something that can stand alongside their classics 40 years after their prime.
Killswitch Engage
2/5
Halo 3 kill montage music.
Extremely "Early 2000s". Endearingly kitschy in a weird way, but this is very much not my type of metal.
Gotcha!
2/5
They fucking got me. I'm so mad.
It's like a Dutch RHCP clone. The "Dutch" part makes that seem like it would be kind of interesting, but really, if I didn't read that little Wikipedia blurb before listening, I would have never even suspected this is a non-Anglosphere band. Just your run-of-the-mill funk rock. Very long, very dated.
Daft Punk
2/5
Nowhere near as consistent as I remember it being.
"Face to Face" is amazing, "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" and "Crescendolls" are pretty good as well, but the rest is generic, overly long electronica.
Really weird production on here as well. Can't describe why it sounds so off to me. It's strangely hollow and uncanny valley. Especially noticeable on "One More Time".
"Alive 2007" is better. 2/5.
Neutral Milk Hotel
5/5
Arguably one of the most influential album of the 90s, even if mostly retrospectively. Changed both indie music and annoying music discussion forums forever. Like another reviewer said - this truly was like the second coming of "The Velvet Underground & Nico".
I dare to say that this is the original list's most glaring omission. A beautiful masterpiece with some of the greatest and most genuine lyricism of all time. It's a 5/5. Actually even a 10/10.
Björk
4/5
I think this is her most consistent and creative album. Weird how they had Medúlla and Vulnicura on the original list over this one. That's like having Ummagumma instead of Dark Side of the Moon for Pink Floyd.
The Caretaker
3/5
Now this is definitely not something I expected to see on here! I imagine this pick was sort of an "Everywhere at the End of Time" surrogate, since siccing a 7-hour long, incredibly depressing album about Alzheimer's on unsuspecting strangers might be a bit too evil.
Solid ambient music with an interesting concept. 3/5 from a musical enjoyment perspective, but you're a legend for submitting this. Waiter, more weird shit please.
blink-182
2/5
Not a fan of blink-182. They kinda stink-182.
Billy Squier
3/5
They call him Led Blimp. They call him Shallow Purple.
No idea who this guy is, but it's like listening to a homunculus of every 70s hard rock band imaginable. Serviceable.
Modest Mouse
5/5
Just started getting into this band like three weeks ago.
It's great indie rock with a slight alt-country tinge and a vocalist that sounds like he'd be on stage spinning around like Taz from Looney Tunes. Maybe just a tad bit too long, but it's alright - that messiness actually sort of fits the vibe.
"Teeth Like God's Shoeshine" is an incredible opener. I absolutely adore that fucky guitar outro that sounds like somebody choking a hamster.
5/5, great pick.
Great Big Sea
2/5
If you'd asked me to predict what this album sounds like before I listened to it, "Newfoundland sea shanties" wouldn't have been in my top 100 guesses.
Kinda silly, not gonna lie.
Margot & The Nuclear So And So's
3/5
This is the most 3/5 thing I've ever heard in my life.
Jimmy Eat World
4/5
I thought Jimmy Eat World was more of an Indie Pop/Emo band, but this is just straight up no bullshit Emo. Pretty cool.
I think I like this one more than "Bleed American".
Also just realized why I've never seen anybody refer to this band with an acronym before.
Mull Historical Society
4/5
You know what, if I randomly stumbled upon this in my Spotify recommendations, I'd probably write it off as just some simple, kinda cute, but ultimately forgettable alt rock. But the fact that somebody out there loves this enough to submit it onto this list over literally every other album ever made endears it to me so much. Cool shit. I love it. And it reminds me why I love this list so much as well.
Does that make sense? Not sure.
4/5 though. Reminds me a bit of The Bends-era Radiohead, strangely The Kinks as well. Very interesting instrumentation. Every song has something extra in it that makes it stand out from the rest.
Amon Düül II
5/5
A banging, super fun Krautrock album. Huge fan of jam bands that sound specifically like this. Swear to god, the Germans had a time machine back in early 1970s.
It sucks that the "Improvisation" tracks aren't on Spotify, because they rock as well. Definitely don't skip them. The title track sounds like a lost "Saucerful of Secrets"-era Pink Floyd song.
Hikaru Utada
2/5
Were there really no East Asian albums on the original list or am I forgetting something? Kinda crazy.
That being said, this is just kind of basic J-Pop. Some cool moments near the end, like the Kingdom Hearts song, but pretty generic over all.
I think something city poppier like "Timely!!" by Anri would make a better first impression for this genre.
Jai Paul
4/5
My biggest problem with R&B is usually the fact that the songs are way too long and super overpolished, so this is right up my alley.
Crazy how well this works despite being unfinished. If you had told me it's meant to sound like this, I would have totally believed you. Some really, really cool sounds. 4/5. Thanks for sharing.
The National
3/5
The least sleepy album by everybody's favorite auditory Ambien producer, The National.
Not sure what's up with this band's sound, but the second a soundwave of one of their songs touches my ear, my whole body powers down like a cyborg getting unplugged. I think I should like this more than I actually do. Better than "High Violet", but so is smoking asbestos.
Chloe x Halle
2/5
Default preset R&B. Like listening to the concept of oxygen.
Charli xcx
3/5
This has aged 10 years in 10 months.
Charli had a great thing going with almost Industrial-sounding Hyperpop back on "how i'm feeling now". Not sure why everybody looked at this pretty fun, but ultimately shallow club pop album and said: "Yes, this is our favorite diva now."
It's still good and I enjoy a significant chunk of the songs on here, but people were talking about it like it saved pop music or something. All chips on this being mostly forgotten about in 5 or so years. Already feels like it has faded away after the depressing way Brat Summer had to end in November 2024.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
4/5
Not as well paced as their later works (by that I mean literally their next album), but still amazing. One of the most apocalyptic-sounding albums of all time and a side of post-rock that wasn't captured by the original list at all.
Wish the LP version was available on streaming as well.
The Angelic Process
4/5
This is like a musical weighted blanket. Strangely comforting, insanely heavy soundscapes.
The MBV and Boris influences are very clear. Wish the album sequencing was a bit better done. Like another reviewer mentioned, this really does feel like a collection of disconnected songs rather than a full album. Still love it though. 4/5.
Roger Waters
2/5
Solo album by Roger "🗿" Waters.
Really shows how much Roger needed the other guys and how much the other guys needed Roger. There was a celestial balance that tipped during The Wall and got obliterated inside a black hole during The Final Cut.
Could have been an interesting concept album if he had somebody yanking his chain, because this just ends up feeling like "Middle-aged man rambling for 40 minutes" otherwise.
Wonder how the alternate universe where they worked on this instead of The Wall looks like.
Scraping Foetus off the Wheel
3/5
Nine Inch Nails meets Butthole Surfers meets that one Futurama episode where Bender goes to Robot Hell.
Really dumb. On purpose of course. Also fun and way more musically diverse than you'd expect from an album like this.
Enjoyed it. Not as good as "Hole" though, the only other Foetus album I've heard. Strong 3/5.
Biffy Clyro
3/5
Poo Fighters.
Awesome surprise to see this band on here!
Fantastic shoegazey indie rock from Denmark that stays consistently beautiful throughout. Probably a really shitty comparison, but it sounds a bit like if you told the Sigur Rós guys to do a Radiohead album.
"Comforting Sounds" is an all-timer.
Extrechinato y Tu
2/5
Not sure what to think about this. Pretty sure I wouldn't like it even if I understood the lyrics. Just kinda seems like kitschy hard rock to me.
Ian McDonald
2/5
Ian MacDonald and Michael Giles concoct a potion in their lab that extracts every bit of fun from a King Crimson album.
Very talented guys and KC is pretty much the greatest band of all time, but this is very much not my thing and lowkey highkey kinda boring.
Alexisonfire
3/5
Default preset screamo. Not great, not terrible. Their later albums are more interesting from what I remember. 3/5.
Arthur Russell
3/5
Probably the loneliest sounding album of all time.
A very heavy listen. I know some people call this their comfort album, but it's so strangely disturbing to me. The emptiness and the way the vocals echo feels very crushing. It's like you've been stuck floating in space alone for 30 years and your brain is occupying itself by trying to recall Nick Drake songs.
Strong 3/5. Super interesting.
Joe Cocker
2/5
Word of the day: Purgatory.
John Martyn
2/5
Third John Martyn. "Solid Air" is solid (ha), but the rest of his catalogue seems to go way too deep into generic 80s territory. It's not bad, but it's also totally forgettable.
What can I say. They call him John Martyn cause he be fartin. 2/5.
Savages
3/5
Having a band named Savages in the 2010s is so crazy. Like, how was that not already taken. That should have been the name of a 1970s one-hit-wonder garage rock band.
Siouxsie & The Banshees but with a bit less sauce. Still good though. Anyways, just learned that this band has the funniest feud of all time with Sufjan Stevens of all people, after he criticized the font choice on this album cover (valid).
TOOL
4/5
We really went from no Tool albums on the original list to three Tool albums on the user list. Gotta hand it to Tool fans. I always underestimate this band. This is really not the kind of music you'd expect to be pulling 200 million Spotify streams on some songs.
Is it an essential metal opus like Lateralus and Aenima? Nah. Too unfocused and bloated for that. Did I still have fun with it? Definitely. 4/5.
The Beautiful South
2/5
Band name doesn't ring any bells, but I recognize "Don't Marry Her" from somewhere. No idea where though.
That godawful album cover is really not doing this any favors, but it ain't that bad. Folksy sophisti-pop, with some crazy-ass curveballs thrown into the track listing. Not something I'd ever return to, but at least it was listenable. Strong 2/5.
Angelo De Augustine
3/5
Sufjan S-two-vens.
GAS
4/5
First third: Thirty squirrels standing in a circle in the forest, alternating their piss streams in a harmonizing way.
Second third: Scrapped soundscapes from the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack.
Final third: Tripping balls in the bathroom stall at a rave.
I fuck with this heavy. No idea why. It's so hard to describe Ambient music and what makes it work for me. It's almost like my brain throws a dice and picks whether I enjoy it, or find it to be the most boring thing I've ever heard in my life. Rolled a 4/5 this time.
Amyl and The Sniffers
2/5
X-Ray Spex but without the saxophones, what even is the point smh
Like an angel without its wings. 2/5.
Olivia Rodrigo
1/5
Instrumentation as generic as it gets, lyrics sounding like they were written by a fifteen year old, 26 people working on the production - now we're cooking with gas.
Unfathomably boring. [GIRLYPOP-SERIAL_NUMBER-3291394] doesn't bring anything interesting to the table. Comparing this to the other (actually good) contemporary pop artists on the user list like Chappell Roan and Charli xcx, this is a slab of tofu.
Courteeners
2/5
Jarvis, shove saltine crackers down my ears.
Alexisonfire
3/5
This is a bit better than the other Alexisonfire album on here. Some more song diversity and the switch-ups between singing and screaming seem less random. Opening track's a banger.
Still, not really my type of Post-Hardcore.
Wishbone Ash
4/5
First side's pretty good hard rock, but it really hits its stride on the second proggier side.
Way cooler than I thought it would be. Also the album cover emanates an immaculate aura. 4/5.
Courtney Barnett
4/5
On the first song, she says that: "I like to imagine I'm playing SimCity, all the people look like ants from up here". This is very blatant SimAnt erasure.
This type of silly lo-fi indie rock is exactly what tickles my brain. So much variety. Not an album you'd expect to have multiple shredding guitar solos from that album cover. I loved it, thank you for the recommendation. Strong 4/5.
Backstreet Boys
2/5
First three songs are bangers. There is no shame in admitting that. We all know it to be true.
Then just when you start to think to yourself: "Wait, hold on, am I actually really enjoying a Backstreet Boys album?", the rest of the album starts and you suddenly find yourself listening to 9 different songs they'd play in a DreamWorks movie while an animated animal sadly looks at his reflection in a puddle of rain.
That being said, this definitely should have been on the original list. One of the best selling albums of all time. Massive cultural influence.
Frank Zappa
3/5
I think I generally prefer Mothers Zappa to Solo Zappa. Hot Rats is the exception.
The Yellow Snow suite is a bit too "random xd" humor for me to enjoy. Zappa's always been known for wacky lyrics of course, but I really don't think it lands on here. It's kinda boring honestly.
The rest's solid though, especially "Cosmik Debris", the title track and "Uncle Remus".
Joe Jackson
2/5
No idea what this is.
*Opens reviews* "This reminds me of Elvis Cost-" *Immediately closes reviews*
Suddenly the album generator starts feeling like clocking into your 9 to 5.
It's not bad or anything, but I feel like I've already heard every single combination of notes a new wave song could possibly have after enduring the original list.
Songs: Ohia
5/5
Magnolia Electric Co. is one of my favorite albums of all time, so it's great to see some Jason Molina on this list. He has to be one of the greatest songwriters of all time and it's such a shame he died so young.
Brilliant, dark, heart-breaking. Definitely a 5/5.
Damien Rice
3/5
Painfully slow start but picks up quite a bit in the second half. It's not the most exciting folk rock or anything (especially when comparing it to the Jason Molina album I got yesterday), but I guess it gets the job done. Three outta five.
The Tragically Hip
2/5
This band does literally nothing for me. I could very well be listening to 40 minutes of cricket noises. Sorry, Canada.
Louis Armstrong
2/5
Yeah yeah, it's basically the most important piece of music ever to exist, but I'm not going to pretend like I get that much enjoyment from listening to an entire hour long compilation of extremely low quality trumpet recordings from a century ago.
Chucklehead
2/5
Forgettable funk from the absolute trenches of the mid 90s.
There's so little information on this album and band anywhere on the internet that I have to assume the backstory as to why this was the pick of the first person to ever finish is thirty pages long and contains drama, romance and betrayal.
Protomartyr
2/5
Professional word sayer saying words over instruments going BWOHHH for 40 minutes. Blends together so much that I didn't even notice when the album ended and Spotify started autoplaying other stuff from this band.
In the 2010s, there were roughly 3 dark brooding post-punk bands per capita. These guys, Squid, Women, Iceage, Fontaines, Savages, list goes on. Every now and then somebody interesting breaks the mold, like BCNR putting a trillion horn instruments into every song, or Viagra Boys singing about having sex with my mother. This ain't it though.
Fontaines D.C.
4/5
Way better than Dogrel. That one was mostly just pretty safe post-punk. This one is much more varied and confident in itself. I think they finally found their niche. "Starburster" is a highlight. What an earworm.
Strong 4/5.
Boards of Canada
5/5
This is one of the most unique electronic albums of all time. It might not be as consistent as "Music Has the Right to Children", but there is just something so captivating about the weirdly nostalgic soundscapes it creates.
One of those albums where no matter how many times you listen to them, you always find something new to appreciate. It's a musical kaleidoscope.
Also one for early 2000s netizens, you might recognize the song "Beware The Friendly Stranger" as the Salad Fingers theme song.
Jóhann Jóhannsson
4/5
This guy went on to compose film soundtracks, but what this really reminds me of is a video game soundtrack. Not only does it sound like one, it even has the structure of an OST. During every song I was saying something like: "This sounds like a dungeon theme", "This sounds like a song they'd play during an emotional cutscene", "This is the overworld theme".
And it opens with that one robotic voice they used for that one fucking terrifying video of the android woman singing "I Feel Fantastic". 4/5.
Titus Andronicus
2/5
That sure was an hour of really crusty garage rock.
TOOL
4/5
The fettuccine sequence.
Tool album number 3. Not quite as good as Ænima, but still an essential listen and a glaring omission from the original list. Cut everything after the title track and you have a 10/10 on your hands.
Arctic Monkeys
3/5
The album on which Alex Turner finally discovers that his true passion lies in LARPing as a 50s crooner.
Much more of a grower than the other Arctic Monkeys albums, especially since everyone's first thought when hearing this is: "What the fuck is this. Why are they doing this." But it's not that bad and actually has some very nice songs like the opener and title track.
This is them mid-air doing a somersault while jumping the shark. The shark only gets fully jumped on their next album, "The Car", because what the fuck was that. Why are they doing that.
Koritni
2/5
The guy who submitted this went through the entire list, gave a 1/5 to everything that wasn't cock rock, finished, submitted a cock rock album, then went through the users list and gave everything a 1/5 until he finally got to his own submission, gave it a 5/5 and left forever.
I fully respect that but I also really fucking hate cock rock, so it's a 2/5 from me, chief.
Portishead
5/5
The three album run of Portishead is a gradual transformation from gloopy fungus music to James Bond villain theme songs.
Every time I listen to this album, I find myself enjoying it more and more than "Dummy". It might honestly be their best. Certainly has the most vivid soundscapes of their catalogue.
Bon Iver
2/5
Justin Vernon, your voice is completely fine, why in the actual everloving fuck do you insist on using thirty billion layers of earpiercingly godawful autotune that ruins the entire vibe of your album.
Every single potentially ethereal experience is replaced by visuals of that one video where Travis Scott falls off stage while yelling in autotune (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jCkU-eIlJA). Inject experimental music directly into my veins, but this feels like experimentation for the sake of experimentation. It really just sounds like the creative process was: "I wrote a bunch of indie folk ballads, idk put some glitchy filters on top of it lmao, also make the track titles random unicode characters".
Bob Mould
2/5
Wish the entire album sounded like "Hair Stew", because the rest was kind of forgettable. Way more Sugar than Hüsker Dü and I sadly don't care for Sugar that much.
Interesting pick though, I think most people would have gone for Zen Arcade (which definitely should have been on the original list!).
Haley Heynderickx
4/5
Short and sweet indie folk album. Not much to be said, not much to hate either. It's cute. I like it.
The Vaccines
2/5
Yeah that was basically exactly what I was expecting from The Vaccines.
What if Interpol made car commercial music.
Karnivool
4/5
Never heard of it, didn't seem very interesting at first, but it totally hooked me in by the end. Something between Mars Volta and Tool.
Very cool pick. It's nice to see so much diverse metal on here, since the original list was sorely lacking in that department.
Bon Iver
3/5
Better than the other Bon Iver album on here, but I'm still not really sold on them. Justin Vernon is only behind two layers of autotune as opposed to eight hundred on "22, A Million" on here, so that's a plus. Still no idea why he chooses to do that when his voice is completely fine.
Songwriting is fine, the beginning and end are quite strong, but something is missing and I can't really put my finger on it. It's just not very interesting. In one ear, out the other kind of thing. 3/5.
Polvo
4/5
Only familiar with "Today's Active Lifestyles" because Spotify keeps autoplaying songs off of that every time I finish listening to a post-hardcore album.
Very good. The textures of some of these tracks are ethereal. Sounds a bit like Dinosaur Jr. but even fuzzier and more like absolute ass (in a good way).
Daniel Bélanger
2/5
What if Stereolab was French and really boring. Oh wait.
Jellyfish
3/5
This sounds like being strapped in the Clockwork Orange chair and getting brainblasted by every rock song recorded in the late-80s/early-90s at once. Sounds like Queen for a bit, then immediately sounds like Pearl Jam a few milliseconds later, then Cardiacs, then Supertramp, then [insert band here].
It's a bit silly.
Operation Ivy
3/5
Ska Punk and TOOL, the British post-punk and Elvis Costello of the user albums list.
This is fine early ska punk, enjoyable enough. A bit long and unfocused, but it is a compilation album after all. 3/5.
Khruangbin
2/5
This is the type of shit you'd expect to hear in a Youtube video titled "10 hours of royalty-free chill beats to study to" or something. Blandly bland. The blandest to ever do it. At least it's short though.
Sports Team
2/5
Less interesting Viagra Boys. I have absolutely nothing else to say about this.
First Aid Kit
4/5
Beautiful Swedish folk.
Americana is such a weird genre, because it simultaneously contains some of my favorite albums of all time and some of the worst shit I've ever heard in my life. This one of course belongs in the first category. What can I say, I'm a sucker for whiny folk.
Very good, 4/5.
Refused
5/5
Naming your album after an Ornette Coleman album and promising to be the sound of the future of punk just like "Shape of Jazz to Come" was for avantgarde jazz has to be in the top 5 most pretentious things ever done in the history of humankind, but then actually pulling off something genuinely as progressive and interesting as this is kinda astounding.
Jazzy, electronic hardcore punk, loud as fuck, infinite energy. It's a great time and paved the way for a bunch of music I love.
Slowdive
5/5
Imagine putting all 3 MBV albums on the list and not having Souvlaki by Slowdive on there as well. The "piranha flood" is approaching, Robert Dimery.
Quite possibly the greatest shoegaze/dream pop album of all time. "Alison" in the running for greatest song of all time in general as well. Used to fall asleep to this in college almost every night and it still hasn't gotten old.
The Breeders
3/5
If this was less generic grunge and more whatever the fuck "Roi" and "Mad Lucas" were, I would have loved this way more.
Not the best, but definitely in the top 5 for "Album covers I want to eat the most".
Talking Heads
3/5
Still incapable of stomaching Talking Heads without getting a throbbing headache after 30 minutes, but this wasn't as awful as their other albums. It is pretty much a glorified "Best Of" compilation after all.
There's some catchy songs on here ("Psycho Killer", "Girlfriend is Better") and I'm sure it works very well with the visuals of David Byrne having a seizure in an oversized suit. I haven't seen the movie, but I might have to now.
Os Mundi
3/5
New winner of "Most obscure album on the list"?
This is some weird shit. Krautrock with latin chanting. Some songs are almost avant-proggy. Not sure if I'd ever want to return to this, but points for creativity.
Crystal Castles
3/5
10 gecs. It's fine.
Times New Viking
4/5
It takes a while for your ears to get used to the noise and get properly sucked into it, but it's worth it. So strangely beautiful underneath. Genuinely made me a bit emotional towards the end.
One of my favorite user album discoveries so far, amazing pick. Strong 4/5.
2/5
This will surely click for me one day, but that day is not today. It's kinda just very consistently alright for 90 minutes. Obnoxiously consistently alright.
I think I prefer Adrianne Lenker's solo work.
Avicii
1/5
Thank you for the cool intro music, now I can finally start my Minecraft Youtube channel.
Jason Isbell
3/5
Starts out slowly and opens with a jumpscare full-on bullshit yeehaw country song, but thankfully moves on to a much better sort of folksy singer-songwriter sound later on. That whole song run from the title track until the end was great.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
5/5
Yesss, I love GY!BE and this is definitely their best album. One of the best post-rock albums in general. Definitely should have been on the main list.
Extremely vivid and apocalyptic on an active listen, but also just a straight up banger on a passive one.
If you don't start levitating in your seat during the final 5 minutes of "Sleep", your ears are probably broken. Crazy how well paced this album is. It's 4 songs, each of them 20 minutes long, but it never seems longer than like 45 minutes when I listen to it.
Spose
2/5
Hearing a bar about "sus amogus" 90 fucking minutes into this godforsaken album felt like biting the curb.
It's not horrible. The flows are pretty good at times, but Jesus Christ, this has to be the corniest shit I've ever heard in my life.
Roky Erickson
3/5
Psychedelic Halloween music by the guy from 13th Floor Elevators. Surprisingly Led Zeppelin-y. I think I like it, even if it kind of starts blending together by the end.
Sam Fender
2/5
This will truly go down in history as an album released in 2025.
Ex-Easter Island Head
2/5
Are we running out of band names?
Sounds like music for a documentary about fish. Treads a very fine line between "experimental music made accessible" and "experimental music made boring". Over all, nothing wrong with it, but I don't think I'd ever listen to this again when there's so many albums that do this sound but without holding back.
Arca
2/5
Immediately became less cool once I realized that the album cover is just a long leg with a floating blue poker chip and not a weird cum fetus with a blue eye.
Yeah not a fan. Seems to take from the Björk school of experimental music of "putting a billion random sound effects in your songs is experimental". All that was missing was the Looney Tunes banana peel sound effect. No wonder she went on to produce Vulnicura, aka the album where Björk is the furthest into her ass.
Stromae
2/5
Fine commercial electropop.
This is pretty much the exact polar opposite of my music taste in every conceivable measure, but I somehow didn't hate it. Stands out with its lyrics (or I assume from what I read about it, I don't speak French) and some pretty cool instrumentation in certain parts. Strong 2/5.
Yo La Tengo
3/5
As is often the case for albums I've seen described as "The White Album of ____", this is an endearing, but overlong mess. Half very cool, half excruciatingly boring. Three outta five.
Vulfpeck
3/5
Mr. President, a third extremely long live jam album has hit the user albums list.
Never heard of this band before. That bass player is playing like his family's lives are at stake. Not my kind of music, but it was pretty fun.
Snarky Puppy
4/5
They apparently had music students strapped into Clockwork Orange chairs listening to this album on loop back when it first came out.
Thankfully, it fucking slaps. Very good modern jazz (fusion) representation.
4/5
I kept avoiding this because I thought it would sound like 100 gecs or FKA Twigs, both of which I really dislike, but turns out I'm stupid, because this nails its weirdness so much better than those two.
The 1975
1/5
Without sounding like an annoying hipster, I have no fucking idea how the modern pop crowd likes listening to these disgustingly plastic, autotuned vocals and overproduced synths. This is a musical homunculus - a crime against the very concept of music itself.
We need to shoot Jack Antonoff out of a comically oversized cannon into the Sun. Slop. 0/10.
Guy Clark
2/5
The user albums list rocks, because on one hand, I want to write this off as one of the most bland and generic Country albums I've ever heard in my life, but on the other hand, there's somebody out there who went through 3 years of a list with humongous Country over-representation, said "nah actually, you missed one", then submitted this.
Anyways, this was one of the most bland and generic Country albums i've ever heard in my life.
Al Stewart
4/5
Never heard of the album or the guy, but I loved it. Simple but lovely folk pop with unique songwriting and production. The title track hits hard, what a tune.
Strong 4/5.
Tori Amos
4/5
Not as consistent as Little Earthquakes or as batshit as Choirgirl Hotel, but still, Tori Amos was on some extraterrestrial fungus in the 90s. Those first four albums are all classics and any of them would be worthy of being on the list.
I don't even usually like piano-driven art pop. I'm also fully conscious of the fact that she has like 2-3 song structures that she keeps endlessly reusing with different lyrics, but it scratches some itch. It's good shit. 4/5.
Igorrr
3/5
This sounds like they set some guy on fire and then asked him to compose boss battle music for the new Devil May Cry game.
Genuinely incomprehensible. Saying "what the fuck am I listening to" is obviously the intended reaction, so I'd say it succeeds in what it's setting out to do, because what the fuck am I listening to. Strong 3/5.
Jack Johnson
1/5
So inoffensive it loops back to being offensive. Someone zapped a Nick Drake album with the evil machine that extracts all heart, soul and good guitar playing.
White bread. No sauce. No anything. 1/5.
Tosca
3/5
Serviceable downtempo, unhateable, but also nothing special.
Wonder what the backstory of this submission is. Not something you'd expect from a person that has Sepultura's Roots as their favorite from the original list.
Ween
4/5
Ween is one of my favorite bands of all time and I'm happy that somebody finally submitted an album of theirs (hope to see The Mollusk and Quebec on here as well someday so I can gush about Transdermal Celebration).
It's quirky and weird, seemingly never taking itself seriously, which might put some people off, but the guys are very talented and even the "joke songs" have a lot of effort and care poured into them.
If you want somebody to truly understand what this band is about past vaguely knowing them as "the Spongebob band", play them the song "Baby Bitch", where the line: "Most beauty I've seen, you come from a dream, but I can't close my eyes anymore" is preceded by the line: "Fuck you, you stinkin' ass ho".
David Baerwald
3/5
Where are some of you guys finding these albums lol. I wish every submission came with a little blurb written by the submitter since it seems I got here before they wrote their review.
Don't get me wrong, this is surprisingly pretty good and I'm happy to listen to some more obscure music, but like.. What even is this. Who the fuck is David Baerwald. Fitting this is an album about conspiracy theories, since I'm choosing to believe that this was retroactively added into our timeline last week by an evil time warlock.
Neil Cicierega
4/5
Hahaha what the fuck, I didn't expect to see this on here in a million years.
This guy is insanely prolific when it comes to internet culture. You might not recognize his name, but if you were online for at least a microsecond in the 2000s, you'll most likely recognize at least one thing he did. "Brodyquest", "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny", "Potter Puppet Pals", or his musical project "Lemon Demon".
Maybe some better representation would have been his genuine, non-jokey album "Spirit Phone" (geeky synthpop, it's pretty good), but I can definitely also get behind how funny throwing this hour long album with Smash Mouth and Full House samples at unsuspecting users truly is. And it's a genuine banger at times - songs like "Daft Mouth" and "Mullet with Butterfly Wings" have no business working as well as they do.
It's extremely stupid, creative fun and I refuse to pretend I'm above it. A 4/5 from me. I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but sometimes you just listen to an album and say to yourself: "Yep, what a concept".
Chris de Burgh
3/5
It's pretty good. I thought it would be totally unremarkable hard rock going into it, but it's got a special kind of goofiness that helps it stands out. Title track and "Spaceman Came Travelling" are the standouts.
Streetlight Manifesto
5/5
X-Ray Spex figured out that punk is meant to have saxophones back in 1978, then it took everybody far too long to catch up. Ambrosia of the Gods for my fucking ears man.
5/5. Not as good as "Everything Goes Numb" though.
Avenged Sevenfold
3/5
Scooby Doo chase music with HD graphics.
Stupid fun, way too long, hit or miss vocals, band members look like villains from Alvin and the Chipmunks. Sure is an early 2000s metal record.
Duncan Dhu
2/5
VERY long Spanish soft rock album taking influences from every other soft rock band you could possibly name. Some cool moments but also a deeply exhausting listen.
Ni fu ni fa, as I've learned during my stay in user album land.
Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera
2/5
Such an unremarkable, boring 60s psych rock record, that it makes you wonder: "How the hell was this not on the original list?"
Lady Gaga
2/5
As is almost always the case with these albums, they lull you into thinking it's going to be a banger by putting all the cool songs you know at the beginning. Then you get past that and the other 80% of the album sounds like fake music from a Disney Channel sitcom.
Put a gun to my head and ask me to tell you any word sung or any note played in any of the songs after "Poker Face" and I'd tell you to shoot me in the head. Strong 2/5.
Talk Talk
4/5
Definitely up there with the most glaring omissions from the original list. The birth of post-rock - and not many people seem to know that the quirky 80s one hit wonder band was behind it all.
It's great. Very much an album you should give your full attention to and get properly sucked into, despite the Ambient tag. It's a slow burn, but a rewarding one.
I think all of the final three Talk Talk albums should have been on the list. It's one of the most interesting musical evolutions of all time and hearing it take its final shape in "Laughing Stock" is an essential experience.
Dead Boys
3/5
I know you shouldn't judge an album by its cover, but I'm willing to bet my entire family's fortune on this being a punk rock album that sort of sounds like it was recorded in a trench during the Battle of the Somme.
Yeah that's exactly what this is. Not that bad though. 3/5.
Final Fantasy
3/5
For a split second I thought somebody submitted a video game soundtrack.
Agree with the guy who said this sounds like somebody doing Eleanor Rigby for 45 minutes, but disagree on that being a bad thing.
It's a cute album and some of the wackier choices like "An Arrow In The Side of Final Fantasy" being essentially a violin cover of the Super Mario Land 2 space world theme give it heart.
No actual Final Fantasy covers though, so like, what even is the point of calling your musical project that. I demand the indie violin version of One Winged Angel.
That Handsome Devil
4/5
Album that makes you say: "Damn how has nobody submitted a Mr. Bungle album yet".
Very clearly inspired by them. "Rob The Prez-O-Dent" is literally just "None Of Them Knew They Were Robots".
Actually really slaps though.
Unwound
5/5
Unwound is so sick. Gotta be one of the most consistent bands of all time. Straight up no misses in their entire discography and this might even be their best one. 5/5
Noname
2/5
Very chill hip hop. Not my thing. Shoutouts to that one song that sounded like it had the Koopas from Mario doing "bah bah bah" in the background.
Calibro 35
3/5
Remember that one weird fucking Barry Adamson album from the original list that was "a soundtrack for a detective movie that doesn't exist"?
Sounds like if you took that and mixed it with a beat MF DOOM would use to rap about how he likes lasagna.
Magdalena Bay
4/5
Thank god, I was starting to feel like a pretentious dickhead with the way I haven't enjoyed a single modern pop album on here so far.
This is actually really fun and fresh! Reminds me a bit of Cibo Matto. Cool production as well. It's pretty maximalist, but not to the point where I start feeling like I'm listening to a guy putting every possible FL Studio preset on all the instruments, like so many modern pop albums tend to sound like.
"Death & Romance" is so good.
Very new album, but I think it has staying power. Already being in the Top 100 on RYM is crazy work, even if I think having it as the top synthpop album of all time is silly as hell (it should obviously be "Violator", let's be real).
Mylène Farmer
2/5
Man, if this kept the vibe of the first song throughout the entire album instead of fizzling out into bland synthpop territory, it could have been a great one.
Freestylers
1/5
What evil conniving supervillain submits another hour long British electronic album from the 90s that three construction workers from London have heard about.
You are stealing Robert Dimery's thunder.
Feels like being trapped in the time loop dimension for eighty millennia. Did not enjoy. 1/5.
Deltron 3030
4/5
General rule of thumb for concept albums seems to be that the stupider the concept, the better the music.
This one is about saving the planet from evil overlords by having rap battles with them, which also sounds like the plot of a Regular Show episode. Sick. 4/5.
Sufjan Stevens
3/5
One of his worst albums. Still like a strong 3/5 though, so just goes to show how much of a juggernaut this dude is when it comes to indie folk.
R.E.M.
4/5
Probably should have been on the original list over "Green". This not only has two of their biggest hits, but it's also one of their most musically diverse.
I like the folksy tinge on it. Definitely wouldn't blame anyone for thinking it's their best.
Garbage
4/5
"Not garbage" - as you are contractually obliged to say under every positive review of this band.
Not as good as their debut, but man, what a comfort band.
Madvillain
3/5
I'm sure that one day MF DOOM will finally click for me, but that day isn't today.
This shit is so funny to me. It's literally 40 minutes of MF DOOM rapping: "Uh, I'm a lyrical miracle, I love eating green eggs and ham" and then it transitions to an old sample of a guy going: "Oh man, MF DOOM is so fucking evil, we have to stop him".
I get it from a "hip hop album not taking itself seriously" angle. It definitely succeeds at that. It's dumb fun, production's on point, and "All Caps" is a genuine 10/10 song.
I absolutely, positively do not see it from a "greatest album of all time" angle. Maybe one day. But yeah, this is a glaring omission.
Sparks
3/5
Just like the last Sparks album, I see the appeal but I'm not sure if it fully works for me.
Fun enough, I guess. Certainly better than like 90% of synthpop we had on the original list.
Dave Matthews Band
2/5
I've heard the name Dave Matthews Band, but only now am I learning that they're not a 60s band.
Despite that, this sounds exactly how I imagined it would. Over-the-top jam band that doesn't know when to wrap a song up. Not great, not terrible. 2/5.
Daft Punk
5/5
Easily their best album. Taking the songs from "Discovery" and making the production not sound like dying of dehydration in the Sahara desert is all it takes.
Also fixes the other problem every Daft Punk album has - songs being way too long - by essentially being a remix album. The very, very rare live album that sounds better than a studio one. 5/5.
Psyche Origami
4/5
This is the type of hip hop I love.
This was great. I'm surprised it's as obscure and unknown as it seems to be, because it just has that energy of an album that would be big in the online music circles, next to stuff like Deltron 3030 and Madvillainy.
Boy Azooga
3/5
A bit of Tame Impala, a bit of Britpop. Not something I'll probably ever think about again, but it was pretty good I guess.
Aesop Rock
3/5
Fourth Abstract Hip Hop album I've had in 10 days.
This is not my favorite Aesop Rock album ("None Shall Pass" is so much more consistent and was also way more varied with its beats/themes), but you can't deny that the guy's always been a crazy lyricist. Your mileage may however vary whether "crazy" in this context means "extremely good" or "insanely up his ass".
Probably sleeps with a dictionary under his pillow. 3/5.
Stars
2/5
I'm pretty sure that I've heard this exact same album under a different name at least 5 times on here at this point.
Frightened Rabbit
3/5
Sad folksy indie rock.
After reading the story behind this band and the lead singer, I understand that it's more deep and genuine than I first thought. Especially the song "Floating in the Forth", fucking hell man.
That being said, I don't think this is all that musically interesting and the vocalist's voice was kinda getting on my nerves by the end, no matter how much I tried to stomach it. Still like a strong 3/5 though.
System Of A Down
5/5
I still refuse to elaborate.
3/5
I generally like Slowcore and depressing slow indie rock in general, but Low never really did anything for me.
"Sunflower" is an all-timer, "Embrace" and "In Metal" are also great, but I don't love the whole thing as much as I probably should.
New Model Army
4/5
Album cover made me think this was going to be 2000s Metalcore or something.
Very solid post-punk. The folksy elements make this stand out from the infinite avalanche of dross that were the original list's post-punk entries.
4/5
I have personal beef with this album. For some godforsaken reason it is simply not available ANYWHERE in Eastern Europe (me) and Australia. The rest of their catalogue is - it's just this one. I've also heard that the streaming version for the rest of the world is weirdly quiet and compressed.
So today I'll have to listen to this in the only format available: very crusty Youtube reuploads from 16 years ago with Windows Movie Maker transitions.
And yes, it's fantastic. It's a cornerstone of alternative rock, shoegaze and post-hardcore. Inspired Deftones so hard that Chino Moreno said: "Hmm, equine on a single color background, fuck that's genius.."
Wish I could listen to an upload of this that's not shit from a butt though.
Tame Impala
2/5
Lame Impala.
HELLYEAH
2/5
Avengers Endgame for people who beat their wives.
of Montreal
4/5
This is Kevin Barnes' best work, happy to see it on here.
Great psychedelic indie pop. One of those albums that feels way shorter than it actually is because it just flows so well. The 11-minute long track is an obvious standout, but I've always also really loved "Suffer for Fashion".
"Weird Al" Yankovic
3/5
Y'know, it's kind of an enigma - Weird Al's like 80% fart and "random xd" humor - but hating on him is infinitely lamer than being a fan of his.
Shame that he got assassinated by Madonna's mafia back in '85 though. Maybe in another timeline he went on to release better albums called something like "Running With Scissors" or "Poodle Hat". (Weak 3/5)
Floating Points
4/5
I've finally cracked the code of what makes a good Ambient album. Usually with a bad Ambient record, I'd open Spotify and see that I'm still on song 2 after like 24 millennia. This time, I opened Spotify thinking I'm on song 2 and saw that the album was ending in like 3 minutes.
Flows like a river. You love to see it.
Also nice to see some better jazz representation. Still can't believe we only had 1 John Coltrane album, 1 Mingus and no Pharoah Sanders on the original list.
Ozzy Osbourne
3/5
RIP Ozzy, but also... this is just kind of generic hard rock, innit?
It's still good of course, but I don't think there's a single song on here except maybe "Mr. Crowley" that holds a candle to anything off the first three Black Sabbath albums.
Electric Callboy
2/5
I keep forgetting that this is a real music genre that exists and gets hundreds of millions of streams, and not just something that spawns from the mist every time a Youtuber needs an intro for his cool tutorial on how to get free V-Bucks in Fortnite.
Bon Iver
2/5
Justin Vernon released "For Emma, Forever Ago" then decided he'll never be involved in anything remotely good ever again.
Absolutely no sauce to be found in a hundred million radius. The most sauceless man to ever live.
BABYMETAL
2/5
Dumb novelty band that probably did irreparable damage to the image of Japanese metal in the eyes of western metalheads. But not like anybody should care about that, when this album's biggest sin is how obnoxiously bland it is if you look past the gimmick.
How about somebody gets a bunch of fat hillbillies together and makes them sing bubblegum pop. Now that's something I'd listen to.
Pearl Jam
3/5
For better or for worse, this is exactly how you'd expect a second Pearl Jam album to sound like.
Rawer, heavier and edgier than "Ten", mirroring Nirvana's evolution from "Nevermind" to "In Utero".
Not as consistent as their debut, but "Rearviewmirror" might genuinely be the best song they've ever done. Strong 3/5.
Rita Ora
1/5
We as a society have to officially declare the "Ship of Theseus" threshold for music. 35(!!) different people wrote the lyrics on this album - that is not an exaggeration or an embellishment.
So, like, am I actually even listening to Rita Ora? Or am I listening to an eleven pound whole slab of deli ham? An amalgamation of the meat of several pigs, emulsified, liquefied, strained and ultimately inexorably joined in an unholy meat obelisk?
Turnpike Troubadours
2/5
Somehow the second 21st century Country album with a cover featuring a wooden building on the user list?
Ugh okay this is THAT type of country. Inoffensive in an offensive way. Not a fan.
John Coltrane
3/5
I mean, I wouldn't personally go for a vocal jazz album if I had to pick a second Coltrane record when "Giant Steps" and "My Favorite Things" are right there, but sure, why not, obscure picks are also great.
It's pretty good. Not really my type of jazz, but if I ever find myself smoking a cigarette on a rainy night while a British man narrates my love life, this will be perfect background music.
Enter Shikari
2/5
I understand the appeal, but this type of dubsteppy metalcore makes me enter a primal state of fight or flight.
Cat System Corp.
2/5
Man puts a gigantic neon arrow saying "THIS ALBUM IS ABOUT 9/11" next to his generic vaporwave album.
"What if 9/11 never happened" is an interesting concept on paper (or the Wikipedia summary in this case), one that I think everybody has thought about at least once. In practice though, this album does basically nothing with it. Hard to do a concept album about something not happening of course, but even then, this is literally just 50 minutes of smooth jazz with weather reports. There's no narrative, no coherence.
In the words of Peter Griffin: It insists upon itself.
Also funny that I got this generated on September 10th.
Screeching Weasel
4/5
Early pop punk. Slightly Ramones-ish, which isn't usually my type of punk, but I surprisingly really enjoyed it.
The Lumineers
3/5
I had the Lumineers mentally filed in the "Godawful overproduced garbage" category next to shit like The 1975, but as it turns out, it's completely inoffensive indie folk.
Nothing that hasn't been done a million times before on much better albums, but whatever, I kinda enjoyed it I think. "Ophelia" was great.
Vangelis
4/5
One of the greatest movies of all time, with one of the best movie soundtracks of all time.
Obviously much better in context, but impressively conveys the dark atmosphere of the world even out of it. Probably Vangelis' best work, unless we're counting Aphrodite's Child.
Yoko Ono
3/5
Well, if there's one thing you can't say about Yoko Ono's music, it's that it's boring.
Yeah, the second disc is insanely up its ass and songs like "You" and "Fly" just straight up suck donkey dick, but I unironically really love disc one. There's some really, really great stuff on there. "Mindtrain" is a a genuinely fantastic Krautrock song with a hypnotizing groove (very reminiscent of Tago Mago). "Midsummer New York" and "Mrs. Lennon" are also very good.
A mixed bag, but an interesting one. Cool choice. 3/5.
Boredoms
2/5
Soundscapes from inside a washing machine.
I'm only familiar with "Vision Creation Newsun" by Boredoms, and not like that's a particularly accessible album either, but holy shit man. This could kill a Victorian child.
I didn't exactly love it (or even like it), but it's a ballsy and unique pick, and I respect that.
Shihad
2/5
Dips its toes into a pretty cool industrial sound, then goes "yikes ouchie ouchie too hot" and decides to rather stay in generic 90s hard rock territory.
3/5
Modern electronic indie.
Very much one of those "Two songs everybody knows and then 50 minutes of songs that vaguely sound like inferior versions of those two songs everybody knows" albums, but it ain't bad.
Fall Out Boy
1/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En_VILln4qE
BABYMETAL
1/5
How the hell did two different people land on Babymetal as their album of choice. It's a free country so I'm not judging you, but this has to be a coordinated aerial assault on the user albums list.
Anyways, this ain't good. The debut still had some heart in it, but now we're officially in homunculus territory. The Dubai chocolate Labubu of Japanese metal.
Boo, get Midori up in this joint instead.
The Groundhogs
4/5
Thought this would be generic blues rock, but no, these guys got hit by the discombobulator. Has a uniquely fucky sound that made it stand out. Cool stuff.
Jon Batiste
3/5
They call it the most perfectly serviceable R&B album of all time.
Modern Life Is War
3/5
Screamy emo punk. I consider myself to be a fan of that kind of music, but this was just kinda alright. Better stuff out there.
Blackalicious
4/5
Wow, this is great! "Hour long hip hop album I've never heard of" is usually a groan-worthy addition for me, but this was enjoyable all the way through. Great flows, great beats. Very cool. 4/5.
The Church
3/5
Took me a while to realize that this is, in fact, THE Church, and not some other band with the same name. I'm only familiar with their 80s work so it was a surprise to learn that not only do they still make music to this day, but also that it's still surprisingly solid.
Doesn't sound like an album released in 2023 at all, for better or for worse. Bit of late 70s Pink Floyd in there. Strong 3/5.
Reincidentes
2/5
This is pretty good if generic Spanish punk rock, but man, the production is ASS and has ZERO sauce. The entire album comes off as extremely flat and boring because of it.
Maybe if I understood the lyrics it would have stood out more to me. "Ay Dolores" was great though.
The Notwist
4/5
Alternate universe Radiohead.
I can tell that this is one of those albums that would have significantly rewired my brain if I discovered them as a young teen. Especially "Consequence", what a song. Worked as a closer so well that I almost felt bad listening to the bonus instrumental tracks included in the Spotify version.
Nujabes
3/5
Another one of those sacred cow albums where my opinion starts and ends at: "Yeah that was pretty alright I think".
Inoffensive, chill jazzy hip hop. 3/5.
Deafheaven
5/5
Wholesome album about bathing in the sun! Summer vibes and fun for the whole family! 5/5!
Manchester Orchestra
3/5
Starting this album thinking it's going to be post-rock, only to be met with those stomp and holler Mumford vocals was like a sledgehammer to the nuts.
Pretty good indie album otherwise. Kind of trying too hard and very much a tonal clusterfuck, but it's musically enjoyable enough.
Dream Theater
3/5
Rush for even bigger nerds.
I like how all the vocals and instruments sound like they had this album for homework due by midnight and they remembered they have to record it at 11:35.
In the words of the band's bassist, the tempo is really fucking fast. It fits the manic lyrics so well. It's like I'm being yelled at by a lunatic, which I think was the intended listening experience. Strong 4/5.
Charly García
2/5
The final note on this album is the memory wipe device from Men in Black that makes you forget the entire album you just listened to.
Shpongle
4/5
I was not expecting to be Shpongled today, but by god did they Shpongle me.
"Hour long British electronic album" is a PTSD inducing combination of words after the original list, so it's nice to see one that's actually interesting. Shpongled all over. Now I have to go take a shower.
Kashmir
3/5
After this and the Mew album, I think I'm now a fan of whiny Danish alternative rock. Can't believe they got Bowie and Reed on this.
Ookla The Mok
2/5
Filk? Alright we're just making up genres at this point.
Quite possibly the geekiest thing I've ever heard in my life. So geeky that it makes TMBG sound like death metal. I see the appeal, but it's not something I'd ever listen to on my own.
Metric
3/5
As it turns out, if you mix generic indie rock with generic 2000s pop vocals, you somehow create something that's not generic.
Cool listen. Had a good time with it.
Agalloch
2/5
This is a bit like a post-rock album if all the build-ups were meticulously designed with the intent to give you blue balls. Every time it tries to pull off something post-rocky, it gets trapped in a nonsensical loop that doesn't go anywhere.
Then Gollum comes in with the vocals. I have no problem with black metal vocals, but these instrumentals are begging on their knees for a deeper voiced singer.
I dunno. I really expected to like this, but it's so empty. 2/5.
Paramore
3/5
Paramore is pretty good. They're also a rare punk band that hasn't fallen off (yet) and arguably even got better with every album.
Not my favorite of theirs, but still a good time. And girl punk will always be better than guy punk, we all know it to be true.
Johnny Winter
2/5
Every day I roll the roulette of user albums with the risk of stumbling across a brand new white guy that hasn't existed up to this point.
John Dawson Winter III? That sounds like the name of some villain from a cartoon about environmentalism that would put out cigarettes on cats.
Anyways, boring blues rock.
Everything Everything
4/5
"Inspired by artists such as Radiohead, Suicide, and Kendrick Lamar" - That's like a carrot under a cardboard box for music critics. I'm surprised this wasn't on the original list.
Singer's falsetto took a while to get used to, but I really enjoyed it. Catchy progressive pop with some great lyrics. 4/5.
Denzel Curry
5/5
Really liked this one. Who would have thought that rapping over video game loading screen music could work so well.
..Alright just listened to this two more times in the span of a day. This is some ethereal shit. I love it, probably my favorite hip hop album I've heard on the user list. 5/5.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd
2/5
Interesting backstory that absolutely makes this a piece of musical history, but I'm also never really in the mood to listen to 50 minutes of worse and noodlier versions of blues classics. Cool submission though.
Powderfinger
2/5
This is a bit like if music was soundwaves arranged in a specific way.
David Allan Coe
3/5
"Once Upon a Rhyme" sounds like a 90s gangsta rap album title. Will grandpa spit?
My relationship with County music is so strange, because this felt substantially better than most other Country albums on the list, but I can't tell you anything it does differently. I think my ears just throw a dice to decide whether I enjoy one or not. 3/5.
Foxing
2/5
I was under the impression that this was a post-rock band, but it's literally just Arcade Fire if they were sauceless and overproduced.
Boo, scammed once again.
ISIS
4/5
This album is great because every time I say to myself: "Alright it's getting kind of boring now", they immediately whip out the nastiest riff I've ever heard in my entire life from thin air.
Huge. Large even. And what a perfect album cover as well, because this totally sounds like the ocean, but specifically that shade of unsettling murky green that's slowly dragging you under.
Second best water-themed album recorded by a post-metal band.
Adam Green
2/5
Geeky folk. Not the worst thing ever, but I kinda got tired of the guy's shtick by the end.
At least it's not boring though, since you'll be constantly woken up by thoughts of "What the fuck did I just hear this guy say". Strong 2/5.
Depeche Mode
2/5
I love Depeche Mode but this is not their best work. In fact, it might even be their worst.
None of that darkwave/gothic sound that makes them stand out so much. Vince Clarke of Erasure was writing most of the songs here at that point, and yeah, it kind of just ends up sounding like a bunch of Erasure B-sides or something.
Barely anything to be said.. "Just Can't Get Enough" is good though.
Also this album cover is hard as shit lol. Kinda wasted the aesthetic.
Martha
2/5
The hierarchy of power in the Nickelodeon cartoon intro music industry is about to change.
Future Islands
3/5
A cool addition to my ever-growing collection of "Pretty generic but ultimately harmless synthpop with one very good single and some other stuff I've already forgotten about 5 minutes after listening".
The pile's getting really big.
Built To Spill
3/5
How crazy is it to say that Built To Spill might be a singles band?
I can listen to songs like "Carry the Zero" and "Randy Describes Eternity" on loop, but trying to make it through any album by these lads is like swimming against the current of a waterfall.
Barenaked Ladies
1/5
This was engineered in a laboratory by thirty evil scientists working day and night over the span of 50 years, fine-tuning every possible sound and millisecond of music, to make me, specifically, upset.
Not even sure why I couldn't stand this. Just something about the vocals and lyrics made me feel like the walls are rapidly closing in. Run, the frog army is approaching.
The Who
4/5
70s rock band concept albums are like: "This is the story of a guy that does drugs and gets depressed" and then it's 30 songs, 2 hours long, and told in the most incomprehensible and overblown fashion imaginable.
Not like that's a bad thing though. This slaps. So much better than Tommy, it's not even close. Surprisingly very consistent and never boring, which is a miracle for an album as lyrically and musically samey (for a lack of a better term) as this. 4/5.
Mr. Bungle
5/5
The most accessible and probably also most consistent Mr. Bungle album. Mike Patton's one of the most prolific guys in music history, so of course he deserves more than one mention on a list like this.
Love the band, love the album, love wacky weirdo bullshit in general. Five outta five.
Pink Floyd
3/5
Ehhh... I would have probably gone with "Live at Pompeii" if we were going to add a live Pink Floyd album to the list, since that's an infinitely more interesting project than this one (and a side of the band that wasn't really showcased on the original list).
Pink Floyd's one of my favorite bands of all time, but I'm not sure I love any band enough to justify 2.5 hours of slightly worse live recordings of their biggest hits. Not bad or anything of course, but as an album experience it's probably a 3/5.
Various Artists
3/5
Listening to this with a 3x debuff multiplier since I've never interacted with anything related to The Rocky Horror Show in my entire life before. To my understanding, it's a cultural phenomenon that's overwhelmingly confined to the Anglosphere, so not even social osmosis is saving me this time.
Okay, that was alright. Musicals are kind of an inherently goofy genre and just not something I ever listen to in my spare time, but I tried following along the absolutely batshit Wikipedia plot summary and I think I get the appeal. Pretty fun, catchy at times, 3/5.
Tom Misch
2/5
Extremely simple easy-listening music for coffee shops and travel vlogs. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect from an album like this. Hard to hate, hard to write more than two sentences about it. Strong 2/5.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
4/5
A second King Gizzard album, you love to see it. One of the most creative and consistently good bands of the past ten years. Great showcase of how many genres they can nail, since this sounds nothing like Nonagon Infinity. Just a really solid prog album, opening track is one of their all-time best.
Bummer they're no longer on Spotify.
Hamilton Leithauser
2/5
Two guys notorious for making every single song they write sound exactly the same get together to make an album where every song sounds exactly the same.
End of Evangelion ass album cover. 2/5.
Lo Fidelity Allstars
3/5
Robert Dimery himself spent 3 years doing this generator because he woke up one day in a cold sweat and remembered that he forgot to put one more extremely long English 90s electronica album in the book.
Not that bad though. One of the better extremely long English 90s electronica albums I've had to listen to on here.
Dolly Parton
2/5
Spongebob chase music.
Brand New
5/5
The crywanking national anthem collection.
One of my favorite albums of all time, just in general. A fucking fantastic, powerful and emotional Emo opus. And it's interesting, because the rest of Brand New's catalogue never did much for me. Just really, really clicked with this one.
Descendents
4/5
Completely forgot this wasn't on the original list, since it's such an obvious pick.
One of the most influential punk albums of all time. Quick, punchy, fun. Zero bullshit.
STARSET
2/5
Halo trickshot montage.
Beyoncé
3/5
Pretty good, but strangely inconsistent. You'll be listening to the godawful James Blake song one minute, then they randomly lock the fuck in for the incredible Kendrick Lamar song, then we're back to a generic R&B closing track.
In the upper third of R&B, but one of the best albums of all time..? Ehh, I don't see it. A respectable 3/5.
2/5
The 1975 is like if you took plain white rice and wrapped it in gold foil.
Kinda just nothing. At least it wasn't actively obnoxious like that other album of theirs that was on here.
Weezer
4/5
Not a Blue Album fan, but this one is good. Lyrically and aesthetically their most mature work, which kind of paradoxically stems from how immature it is. Yearning for maturity and coherence? Not really sure how to put it.
I think everybody sort of knows exactly which part of the brain the lyrics on here come from. 4/5.
Tom Petty
4/5
Genuinely had no idea that this guy was actually really good outside of his big singles. A hundred times better inclusion than the "cock rock"-ish debut that was on the original list.
Just really solid, heartfelt rock. 4/5.
Spinvis
3/5
This guy sounds like he'd shoot green phlegm balls at me from a distance like an enemy from a video game that deals half a heart of damage.
Nothing against my Dutch friends, but some languages just sound prettier to my ears than others, ya get me. Not bad though. A bit Stereolab-ish.
Charles Aznavour
3/5
Great choice, this guy is pretty much the European Sinatra. It's a cool vibe, and I say that as somebody who usually doesn't like vocal jazz/chanson that much. Strong 3/5.
Comus
5/5
I will repeat this until I die: Fucky goblin music is the greatest music genre of all time and we desperately need more stuff like this.
One of the best albums of all time. Literally not even a single second on this album that I'd cut or change in any way. If anything, the fact that "Drip, Drip" doesn't last an hour and a half is this album's biggest sin.
Ornatos Violeta
4/5
Very good Portuguese alt rock. Lots of cool ideas, and while not all of them land, it's still a great time and an album I definitely wouldn't have come across without this list.
And yet again, I am astounded at how much Portuguese sounds like a drunk Slavic language.
Rodríguez
3/5
Interesting story that I wasn't familiar with, love to see it.
Very frontloaded, but damn do those first three songs slap. South Africa was right to not let this guy fade to obscurity. Strong 3/5.
The Tragically Hip
2/5
✅ Band only famous in one country
✅ Every song sounds the same
✅ Three albums on the Album Generator site
Welcome back Dexys Midnight Runners.
Nic Jones
2/5
Sure was a folk album from the 80s.
Eric B. & Rakim
3/5
You'd expect an album like this to be "Seinfeld is Unfunny Effect"'d into oblivion, but it still surprisingly holds up. A bit goofy, sure, but definitely a fun time. Also "Chinese Arithmetic" slaps, I don't care what anybody says. Strong 3/5.
Baroness
3/5
This is like Imagine Dragons if they got visited by three ghosts and reached enlightenment.
Swans
5/5
Big ass album, huge, large even. Calling this a challenging listen is putting it mildly. There's a song on here that's longer than some entire albums.
Michael Gira creates music by picking paper slips from a hat containing the words "Sun", "Baby", "God" and "Blind" on them, yelling them, then grunting for 30 minutes while every instrument ever invented plays at the same time. I have no fucking idea what this dude is on most of the time, but it still manages to be completely engrossing.
Daft Punk
1/5
I've never seen the Tron movies and this is absolutely not the vibe I've associated with this franchise.
Ultra-epic generic Hans Zimmer ass orchestra. It's just nothing. Wouldn't even guess this was Daft Punk in a million years if I didn't see the artist name. Very much not a fan.
Soul Coughing
3/5
The songs on here that hit get surgically implanted into your brain as permanent earworms until the day you die. Get ready to be hearing "A man drives a plane into the Chrysler building" as you're trying to fall asleep at 3AM.
But it's kind of a mixed bag over all. Probably too long and frontloaded for its own good.
Robyn
2/5
Surely one day I'll listen to one of these dance pop albums and I'll have an emotional response stronger than "Yeah that was pretty good".
Anyways, yeah, that was pretty good. Strong 2/5.
Chico Science
4/5
Extremely fun if you imagine the singer being animated like Hotel Transylvania, squash-and-stretching all over the stage as he sings.
Kinda loses a bit of steam in the second half, but still a gem. 4/5
Gerry Cinnamon
2/5
Respectable Scottish folk. Not much to write home about but fine enough I guess.
TOOL
3/5
I'm yet again astounded at how popular this band is. What the fuck do you mean that a 12 minute prog metal song, released only 6 years ago by a band that was notoriously absent from streaming services for a long time, has over 126 million streams on Spotify. That's mainstream pop numbers.
And yeah, we definitely didn't need a fourth one of these. Aenima and Lateralus are must haves. 10,000 Days is pushing it but I can kinda see it. Not with this one.
You can sorta tell the heart's no longer in it. They're following the formula verbatim. Almost feels like a: "Okay damn, here, have something", after 13 years of not releasing any new material.
Current 93
4/5
A second over 90 minutes long experimental album with a crying baby on the cover has hit the user submitted list.
From what I understand, this band is David Tibet, a scary guy who makes experimental music, collecting other scary guys who make experimental music like a Pokémon team, then arranging them in wacky combinations.
I listened to the Spotify version that has those two very long tracks bookending the album, and I'm glad I did, because not only were they easily the best parts of the album, they also added so much to the overall experience and atmosphere.
The actual "meat" of the album in the middle was pretty hit or miss, as I didn't really like the guy's singing voice, but there's still some gems in there. The soundscapier tracks are absolutely where this album shines. "Twilight Twilight Nihil Nihil" in particular. Also Nick Cave jumpscare. What the hell is that guy doing on here.
Had to digest it for a moment, but yeah, this is really good. Strong 4/5.
Q65
2/5
Very simple and by-the-books psychedelic rock album. No deeper thoughts about this one.
Yello
4/5
I'm glad I stuck with this, because my first impression was: "Oh great, another boring 80s synthpop album". Then I got hit with the semi truck that was hearing the Ferris Bueller "Oh Yeah" song, and then the album randomly switched gears into scary ass industrial music, reminiscent of late-90s Einstürzende Neubauten.
Can't fucking believe that a song as good, dark and atmospheric as "Ciel Ouvert" is on the album featuring the funny song they now play in all the movie scenes of a guy looking at a woman's boobs.
The Chameleons
4/5
Oh wow, I could have sworn this was on the original list. It was like 25% post-punk, but they still couldn't squeeze in The Chameleons?
Very good album. Love the cold sound. It's like Echo & the Bunnymen if they weren't boring.
Warren Zevon
4/5
Oh man, I was not expecting to like this as much as I did. 30 minutes of very solid piano rock.
Can't even properly articulate what I liked about it.. Just made me feel good, y'know.
No Doubt
3/5
The hits still hit surprisingly well despite the fact that I've heard them like a billion times.
Rest of the album is just alright though. Less ska and more just straight pop rock than I expected.
Paul McCartney
3/5
At the age of 10, I was cursed by an evil witch to never be able to fully enjoy a Beatles solo album, and to forever be trapped in the horrifying loop of only being able to give them a 3/5 at best.
It's fine. Way more deserving of a spot on the list over the self-titled from a musical history perspective, but I actually think I prefer that album's more lo-fi sound over this one.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre
3/5
Derivative, but so were The Rolling Stones. If anything, BJM is wearing its influences on its sleeve better than the Stones did.
The final song devolving into Sympathy for the Devil "hoo-hoo" over Hey Jude "na-na-na-na" tells you everything you need to know. That's the type of pastiche that makes you smile and feel good.
Kind of inconsistent, but fun. A strong 3/5.
Mac Miller
2/5
the circles in question are the ones under my eyes from listening to this *backflips into oncoming traffic*
Beyoncé
3/5
This was good. Best Beyoncé album I've heard so far. Much more interesting and creative than you'd expect.
Emicida
2/5
Foreign hip hop is always a scary thing, since this is a genre where I know for a fact that I'm missing a substantial part of the experience by not understanding the lyrics, way more than a foreign rock or pop album for example.
Well, I'm not going to pretend like I clicked with this. It's a cool suggestion and by reading a bit about it, I can definitely see the appeal, but it's not really my type of music in general, even putting aside the language barrier.
Chuck Berry
3/5
"Unc still got it", as they said back in 1964.
Matthew Good Band
2/5
This looks and sounds like radio filler for rock stations to play in between the big hits. Listening to this outside of that format feels like I'm sneaking up on a helpless deer with a 12-gauge in my hands.
Also next to impossible to find the full album anywhere on the internet if you live outside of Canada for some reason. Had to listen to a moldy Youtube playlist from 16 years ago that was missing two songs and had a random Maroon 5 song in there.
Getatchew Mekurya
5/5
Oh wow, The Ex! Looks like they removed their catalogue, including all the collab albums like this one, off of Spotify very recently because I was just listening to "Scrabbling at the Lock" like a week ago. Hopefully that doesn't scare off some people from listening to this, because it's really good.
Ethiopian Jazz x Dutch Post-Punk. An absolutely fuckular combination that ends up working wonderfully. Really nothing else like this. Definitely a must listen and a worthy addition. Just when I was getting unfathomably bored of the user album list and thinking about quitting, an album like this just breathed like 2 more weeks into me.
Billy Strings
3/5
Goofy farm music for running away from a wild pack of coyotes, then walking off a cliff, looking down, holding up a sign saying "Uh oh" before gravity finally takes effect and you fall down, hitting the ground and making a perfect human sized hole at the bottom.
Actually pretty fun despite the crazy length.
The Weakerthans
2/5
This is like the fifth indie album I've generated on here with that exact shade of beige on the album cover. And they all sound the exact same.
Beige indie rock. New subgenre.
WHY?
3/5
Never would have figured out that this was the guy from cLOUDDEAD without reading the Wikipedia article. This sounds like the complete musical antithesis of that album.
It's goofy, but in a good way. TMBG-ish at times. A fine addition.
Amália Rodrigues
3/5
Not really my thing, but she's got a pretty voice. Also not really sure how I feel about a "Best of" compilation on here. They always kinda feel wrong to listen to.
DARKSIDE
3/5
Atmospheric ambient-ish album with some rock thrown into the mix. Not the most memorable thing ever, but it's pretty good.
Harry Styles
2/5
This album sounds a bit like that feeling when you eat way too much sugar at once and it starts tasting like diabetes, and you can feel your teeth rotting.
In the upper third of modern pop. 2/5.
Jaco Pastorius
3/5
Famously a "Musician's musician" so a big part of this is definitely flying past my head on account of not being a bass player, but it's still a funky and fun listen.
Legendary backstory as well. Terrible shame it was cut so short. Also is it just me or does he look like that "Ever dream this Man?" face on the album cover.
Bruce Cockburn
3/5
Cute folk rock. Strangely reminded me of They Might Be Giants of all things.
Bohren & Der Club Of Gore
3/5
This will be a very useful album if I ever have to find some conspicuous footsteps and other wacky clues with my handy dandy magnifying glass in a dark alleyway while wearing a black coat and a hat.
It's alright. Extremely Twin Peaks, to the point where you'll have yourself saying: "Why am I not just listening to the Twin Peaks soundtrack right now."
65daysofstatic
2/5
Post-IDM?
Interesting album, but I don't think I like it. Many of its more bombastic moments don't feel very earned and just kinda happen, then stop randomly. It's also got a strange structure that barely felt like I'm listening to an album, but rather "30 minutes of cool boss fight music".
Maybe just wasn't in the mood for it though, it's a cool addition regardless.
Pop Will Eat Itself
3/5
Reminds me of that one Coldcut album from the original list. I might be a sucker for wacky albums where they sample cartoon sound effects, because this was kinda fun.
Marillion
2/5
If I was Peter Gabriel and I heard this album, I'd think they cloned me in a vat of green sludge while I was sleeping. That's terrifying man, I'd go into psychosis.
The genre's named "Neo Prog". That pretty much translates to "New New Music". Why is this album, and Marillion in general, so derivative and stuck in the past then? I really don't understand this band's appeal, sorry.
Porcupine Tree
3/5
I mostly know Porcupine Tree from their heavier later work, so I was not expecting this to just straight up sound like "The Bends"-era Radiohead at times.
It's fine. Nice enough poppy prog rock. Maybe a bit too frontloaded.
Lift To Experience
2/5
This fucking album.
Now on my fourth attempt to try and have this click for me. On paper, shoegazey post-rock with insane over-the-top theatrics is right up my alley, but I just keep getting bored of it halfway through. No idea why. Probably the vocals and the instrumental sameyness.
The Heads
2/5
Interesting piece of musical trivia.
Has some bangers and also some of the worst songs ever recorded. It's an absolutely insane mess all around, including it's production and the following lawsuit, but that strangely makes it kinda stand out. Strong 2/5.
Medeski, Martin & Wood
3/5
Album title reminds me of the early days of the original list when there were some guys talking about a dude named SHACK eating lamb chops as the top review under every album. Anybody else remember that or am I going crazy.
Tangent aside, this was fine enough jazz music. Not much else to be said about it. It's background music and it works well.
Living Colour
2/5
Government mandated generic rock album of the week.
Vince Guaraldi Trio
4/5
The best Christmas album of all time by orders of magnitude.
And I say that as a non-American with absolutely zero nostalgic connection or knowledge of anything related to Peanuts.
Mansun
3/5
They called it that because it's a six outta ten.
Bo Burnham
1/5
I respect Bo Burnham, he's one of the very few guys from the early days of Youtube who didn't fizzle out, but rather used it as a launchpad for a wider career in entertainment (and did so without taking any blood money from Saudi oligarchs or crypto scams!)..
..But also this is extremely "lol xd random" humor coded, plain boring and shallow social commentary that boils down to cramming as many quirky millennial Twitter/Tumblr slang into the lyrics as possible. He's also got a very flat production and delivery. Fine for comedy, not so much for an hour long album.
Then again, I gave a 4/5 to the Neil Cicierega Shrek album and genuinely think it's funny and creative, so of course, more power to you if you enjoy this. I'm as far from an arbiter of comedy as you could possibly be.
Lady Gaga
3/5
I feel like Lady Gaga's music is something you sprinkle into your playlists as a lil' treat rather than something you should be listening to full albums of.
It's good though. Better than "The Fame" I'd say. Doesn't have the mega hits, but it's more consistent and fun throughout.
Faith No More
3/5
Probably the best Faith No More album. I'm more of a Mr. Bungle fan myself, but, well, you can't get too mad at an album where a song titled "Crack Hitler" transitions into another song titled "Jizzlobber".
Low
2/5
I only know Low as a Slowcore band. I had no idea they pivoted towards Industrial right before the passing of Mimi Parker. Never been a big fan of them though.
Okay, not sure if I like this. Very loud, but strangely shallow. Some of the crunchy distortion makes this sound like Imagine Dragons lol. Like a strong 2/5.
Stray From The Path
3/5
Pretty good. Rage Against the Machine comparisons are of course justified, but I think it's distinct enough. Solid and short, refreshing change of pace for this list where every submission is like 90 minutes (mine was as well, so not like I get to complain).
Quicksand
4/5
Early Tool / Fugazi vibes.
Oh damn, this slaps. Right up my alley - how have I not heard this before? Like a mix of Deftones, Fugazi and early Tool. Bass player going absolutely mental.
Awesome submission. Strong 4/5.
Black Devil Disco Club
4/5
This rocks so much, holy shit. 30 minutes of super fun disco. From 1978, but somehow sounds more modern that most of 90s/00s electronica. This is exactly the stuff why I'm still on this site after over 4 years.
Queens of the Stone Age
5/5
Certified banger. No filler, all killer. The best hard rock album of the 21st century and it's not even particularly close.
Definitely should have been on the original list over the debut.
Malibu
3/5
Pretty cool one. Brian Eno's "Music for Airports" meets C418's "Minecraft: Volume Beta", which is a sentence that has never been uttered before in the history of humanity.
Songs probably should have been longer, since they very often end before they even manage to properly suck you into their soundscapes. Stuff just sorta happens. 3/5.
Broken Social Scene
3/5
The "3/5 Indie rock album" pile grows ever taller.
Savatage
4/5
I'm not immune to wacky bullshit power metal. Extreme amounts of cheese, but in this genre complaining about that would be like complaining a folk album has too much acoustic guitar.
Yeah, it's a banger. 4/5.
The Avett Brothers
2/5
Man, how are you gonna waste an album title and cover as metal as that on a collection of boring ass country songs.
Zzzz honk shoo zzzz 2/5
Roy Harper
4/5
Consult the title of the closing track on "Led Zeppelin III". Fucking gorgeous.
Mac DeMarco
3/5
Cozy slacker rock. Not a particularly groundbreaking album or anything, but it has heart.
Also titling your debut album "2" is a good bit.
Songs: Ohia
5/5
One of the best albums of all time. Rest in peace, Jason Molina and Steve Albini.
"Farewell Transmission" in particular is an absolute opus. The more you read about the backstory behind its recording, the more it seems like it was a genuine divine miracle. And not to undersell the rest of the songs, because they're all hauntingly beautiful.
5/5.
Wet Leg
2/5
Starting to notice that "Clever lyrics" is code for "This album will be talking about jacking off in quirky euphemisms".
Not a big fan of tongue-in-cheek quirky lyrics in general, and that's sort of what this band spent like 95 of their 100 skill points on.
NOFX
3/5
One song, 18 minutes long. Have I just been assigned a day off?
Cool punk rock. Reminded me of "Jesus of Suburbia". Very hard to rate something like this since yeah, like everybody else has already mentioned, this is very much stretching the definition of the word "album". 3/5 I guess.
Lizzy McAlpine
2/5
I hardly know 'er!
(Serviceable indie folk, I guess)
Mastodon
4/5
Sick as hell. I've heard of Mastodon before, but I had no idea they were this proggy. Vocalist sounds like Ozzy so much that I had to double-check if that wasn't actually him.
Wilco
1/5
This band is my arch-nemesis. I really thought I'd never have to listen to this dude ever again after finishing the main list and the 3 Wilco albums that were already there, but here we go again.
Yup that sure was another excruciatingly boring Wilco album. This one doesn't even have the pretty interesting alt rock flavoring that YHF had, so it just ends up sounding like generic country radio music. Not a fan at all.
Digable Planets
4/5
Effortlessly cool and smooth. Got me floating all around my room and shit.
Ween
5/5
One of my favorite albums of all time, love to see it.
Ween's masterpiece, taking everything that worked about their previous albums and putting it together into an extremely varied rollercoaster that switches between every emotion possible. "Transdermal Celebration" specifically is so insanely beautiful, but there really are no misses on here. And yes, that's counting "Fucked Jam" as well.
Zamilska
2/5
Pretty uninteresting industrial music. Songs don't really go anywhere, just Polish people whispering over very simplistic and repetitive industrial beats.
Way too one-note to be atmospheric.
Sorry to give a fellow West Slav a low score.
The Hold Steady
2/5
Huge album for fans of Bruce Springsteen and listening to the drunk guy at the subway station reciting his life story.
Good for one song at a time. Entire album of having to listen to this dude chanting ancient incantations is like Chinese water torture to me. 2/5.
Helloween
3/5
Cheesy dumb fun that's hard to hate, like most of power metal. Not really the biggest fan of the vocals or the weirdly thin production, but I enjoyed it. Made me feel good.
Big fan of the big buff dog demon on the cover as well. I like how it was a contractual obligation for every 80s metal band to put some random bullshit like that on the album cover.
Vampire Weekend
2/5
Vampire Weekend is like indie pop AC/DC in that they are very good at making one specific song a billion times.
The Mountain Goats
3/5
I liked the more lo-fi feel of the other Mountain Goats album on here better than this, but you can't deny that the guy is a great songwriter.
Various Artists
5/5
Fun and whimsy skill check. If you can't enjoy this, you have demons in your blood.
Imagine listening to a song like "Katamari on the Rocks" and going "What the fuck? Video game music? That's sooo weird, that's not real music" - Grow up. Get exorcised. You are being possessed by an evil spirit.
The Minecraft and Silent Hill 2 soundtracks were on my personal list when I was thinking of an album to add, so I'm happy to finally see at least one video game soundtrack on here. And a really fantastic one at that. I think this is a perfectly coherent album even if you're not familiar with the game. Not like there's much context you need for a purposefully nonsensical game where you roll a ball.
Black Country, New Road
4/5
Very good art rock with dense instrumentation and some really solid, emotional lyrics (until it hits you with bullshit like "She had Billie Eilish style"). "The Place Where He Inserted The Blade" is a strong contender for the best song of this decade.
Definitely a worthy 2020s inclusion for the list, even if I personally think their debut is a more musically interesting and tighter package.
Yellowcard
4/5
Can't believe how much teenage angst lyrics still have an emotional impact on me, lol. This is a really good pop punk album, I can't lie. Had a good time with it. 4/5.
Bright Eyes
2/5
Generator's been serving me whiny indie rock album after whiny indie rock album lately. Generally a fan of that genre, but this one doesn't really click with me, which is a bit strange since I really like BCNR, a band heavily inspired by this one.
Last two songs were good though.
Crass
1/5
The whiplash I felt going from the fantastic, dark opening monologue song to immediately getting assaulted by a drunk geezer singing in hieroglyphics, with the audio quality of World War II combat footage.
Quite possibly the first album where I'd rather listen to the interludes than the actual music. I don't fuck with with it.
Alabama 3
3/5
Fine enough blues-ish trip hop. Nothing really stood out other than getting jumpscared by the Sopranos theme song, but it was good background noise.
Bruce Hornsby
2/5
This is the shit they play on those weird TV stations in hotels where they show slideshows of spa hours and random stuff in the area.
Zero 7
3/5
Music that makes you say: "Yeah that was alright".
David & The Citizens
3/5
More alright indie rock for the alright indie rock mountain that is now roughly 75% of the user submitted list.
This is so alright that I said to myself: "Wow, alright."
The Civil Wars
2/5
I really liked the instrumentals on here, but man, I'm getting kinda tired of all the hundred modern folk bands with this exact same vocal delivery. It's not bad, just well-worn, like the top review says.
Over all, good enough, not something I'd ever return to or something that will stick in my mind until I finish writing this sentence, wait what album was I just listening to, ah shit
Auri
2/5
The line between "modern Scandinavian folk music album" and "10 hour royalty free music for your D&D campaign compilation Youtube video" is a very thin one.
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
2/5
Grebo sounds like the name of some Star Wars background character that has a weirdly in-depth backstory. What the hell is this genre.
Oh, it's just punk Pet Shop Boys. Quite Bri'ish indeed. Not a big fan, but bonus points for the band name.
Less Than Jake
4/5
Ska Punk is one of my biggest weaknesses. If I was a boss in a video game it would be a conspicuous glowing red orb on the back of my head.
So I did indeed enjoy this quite a bit.
Jawbreaker
3/5
Between this, "You'd Prefer an Astronaut" and "White Pony", I'm starting to think that it was a government mandate to put a equine animal on your album cover if you were making a shoegazey post-hardcore album in the late 90s.
It's good. 3/5.