As one reviewer aptly put it in this section, post-2000 metal, postmetal and avant-metal are among the music genres done dirty in the 1001 Albums book (along with post-rock and several jazz classics -- other styles also explored by Kayo Dot in *Choirs Of The Eye*, incidentally). So I get why someone would want to place this particular avant-garde metal album in the list, just to set the karmic balance right in one swift stroke. Some of the tones (often owing more to postrock than to metal genres, to be honest), build-ups (gosh, that insane climax leading to black metal mayhem at the end of the third track!), and harmonies, whether darkly pretty -- the Lynchian and melancholic double-bass and piano-laden conclusion of "The Antique" -- or downright atonal, are impressive for sure, and you just can't deny the creativity and very open mindset that went into the writing and recording of this album. That said, and as the same reviewer also stated in here, it's admittedly a little weird to name this record first when so many other acts in adjacent subgenres have been ignored in Dimery's book. See that other reviewer's list when it comes to postmetal (to which I would add Converge, early Cult Of Luna, Neurosis, Gojira or Birds In Row). Same with post-rock, actually : no Mogwai or Godspeed You! Black Emperor's in the 1001 Albums book - if I had had more than one record to add in the users list, you would all have to review "Lift Your Skinny Fists...", along with the Canadian band's debut album that a user with good taste already placed there. So yeah... *Why* Kayo Dot first? Beyond that "contextual" perspective, I will add that I can also understand why some nonplussed listeners would perceive this LP as indulging a little too much in "noodling" instead of tighter compositional work. In some ways, *Choirs Of The Eye* sounds a little unfocused at times (especially for the sung vocal parts). I don't know... Maybe it's a little ironic that the spirit of The Grateful Dead can find its way in a 21st century metal band. I'm pretty sure that fan John Zorn would lambast me for such a caricatural take, though. What do I know, after all? I'm just a music fan with very subjective tastes among millions of others... 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 4 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3.5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 0 for now Albums from the users list I *might* include in mine later on: 2 for now (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't include in mine: 1

Let's give it to Alex Turner. Starting with this album, he has become a world expert in the difficult and even perilous art of auto-fellatio. Such skills, requiring flexibility and a lot of patience, should be commended, I guess... Not every man (or artist) can give himself a blowjob and then let the whole world see the results. Unfortunately, those praiseworthy skills don't include a knack for memorable hooks or any dynamic flair that could have helped the man structure his compositions away from the self-indulgent drivel often polluting this record. Likewise, the so-called "psychedelic" overtones sprinkled throughout this LP are often quite stale. They evoke a simulacrum that's ironically of the sort the cryptic lyrics in this record seem to parody or criticize. Yet in spite of that (involuntary?) mirror effect, the thing fails to leave you with any deep thoughts about (post)modern online "simulations". What you have instead is just a bad taste in your mouth, lingering after 40 minutes of listening to Turner mostly singing to himself or a nearby love interest, in between two indirect allusions about virtual reality or politics, all of this with his pocket mirror at hand. Reading David Foster Wallace doesn't mean you have the chops to become his pop music equivalent overnight, mind you. Nor that you have the right angle for such endeavor in the first place. I still don't understand why anyone would select this particular record for a list such as this one, to be honest. Those very strange lyrics give a somewhat sophisticated feel to the whole thing for some, maybe... I mean, who picked *Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino* for this app? The list of keepers from Dimery's list in that person's summary are almost all great in my own "book", oddly enough. Good choices here for sure. Yet I couldn't help noticing that those choices are also mostly *old stuff*... Guess that this person doesn't really want to be challenged by new, livelier and intense sounds today. Pretty ironic when you realize that Arctic Monkeys wanted to renew their act with that particular album (helped along by a bunch of very indulgent critics in the music press). Looking into the past is sometimes a solution, sure. But other times, it's an artistic dead end, as barren as the surface of the moon. Now let's face it, vintage or retro textures straddling the pastiche line just for the sake of it do not always make exciting music, whether old or "new". And neither do pointless ramblings about fame or consumerism or the internet automatically make great lyrical contents -- all those frankly sickening, hackneyed metaphors, or those unfunny puns such as "Star Treatment" in the opening track having the same name, they are just... grating. "Bear with me, man, I lost my train of thoughts," goes Turner at the end of the inoffensive second song, "One Point Perspective". You sure did, Alex. You sure did. But you've actually lost us from the get-go. The problem is that you're just using all those dystopian elements and ideas sprinkled throughout the lyrics to mostly speak about yourself and your feelings as a famous British rock star now feeling disconnected from the real world right after settling in LA. Hence why you're losing your "train of thoughts". Yet one can sense that you're still in quite a comfortable position, no matter how disconnected you are. So you can still play it cool, and with similarly cool vintage music in the background. Stanley Kubrick, obviously in Turner's mind as he populates his moon colony with all sorts of different "characters", sometimes applied those sorts of distanciated tricks to describe dystopia, of course. But then, Kubrick would break the big guns, the Strauss or Beethoven brass section blasting their way through the glossy screen to jolt the viewer. But where are the big guns in this record? Nowhere to be heard or seen. Not that *everything* is downright terrible or fully complacent in *Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino*. The music suddenly gets more interesting on third cut "American Sports", for example, thanks to that trippy, psychedelic organ in the background. But this specific cut is no real song, it's basically just a nicely instrumented short interlude with some vocal parts on it. The title track's is also OK, I guess, but "Golden Trunks" is definitely not: I dare anyone in here to convince me it's not a totally pointless dirge on a purely musical standpoint. Single "Four Out Of Five" thus instantly erases any memory of that so-called "song" which preceded it, thanks to its main hook, chorus and well-crafted final build-up. Unfortunately, the supposedly "meta" lyrics in the song -- actually just plain narcissistic -- are a little annoying, and even sometimes as grating as the bridge changing keys just because, well... why not? "I can lift you up another semitone", croons Turner during that bridge. Er... OK. What for, though? Does that make the song per se any better? In all honesty, Geordie Greep is a little more astute at sending those kinds of meta winks to the audience these days. Plus, he's better at layering his own parodic, borderline-cheesy instrumentation into something that truly sounds lively and one-of-a-kind. Cue Arctic Monkey's terrible waltzy, schmaltzy meanderings of "The World's First Ever Monster Truck Front Flip" in comparison, to witness everything that must NOT be attempted in that sort of parodic endeavor. It's just a cut that's totally dull. And once again, it's self-indulgent as f*ck. That's all too bad, because the deep synth tones of "Science Fiction" (probably one of the three cuts you can fully salvage here, along with the title-track and "Four Out Of Five") are great. And at least there's a thematic scope in the lyrics that's useful for once. But then, we grudgingly dive into the heavy-handed main riff of "She Looks Like Fun", alternating with more Serge Gainsbourg-adjacent shenanigans in anything but a graceful fashion. The seams are *so* visible here. And what's aggravating in this particular cut is that its protagonist knows he is just a boring prick, and yet tries to be a smart Alec (Alex?) about it: "Finally, I can share with you through cloudy skies / Every whimsical thought that enters my mind / There's no limit to the length of the dickheads we can be" Yeah sure, this here is also a barely veiled satire about social media, and I guess Alex includes himself in the people he criticizes, which is not a bad move on paper. The thing is, we never EVER get beyond the "dickheads" level. Bukowski is mentioned right after, by the way, and quite logically. One does not dare imagining how tedious and tiring Bukowski would have been in the digital age. So it checks out, I imagine... Then, a little later: "I'm so full of shite / I need to spend less time stood around in bars / Waffling on to strangers all about martial arts / And how much I respect them / Key changes..." Please no. Not *another* meta joke about key changes. Please. And if you don't want to be seen as a narcissistic twat, just stop wallowing in the thing that makes you look like such in the first place. Who cares what you tell those people about yourself in bars??? This constant look in the mirror is simply unbearable, just as Turner's next aimless, meandering vocals and lyrics in penultimate track "Batphone", that I don't even want to delve into. Just shut up, man. Shut up. The drowsy, aptly-named "The Ultracheese" finally concludes the proceedings. Once again, the whole thing is just terrible, devoid of any clear musical direction, just like that weird conclusion ending on a harmonic question mark. The vocals sound forced at times. The meter is often awful and verbose. It's everything good music involving a singer singing lyrics shouldn't be. And I'm not only talking about the last song in this LP here... I'm talking about *all the other duds* in it. Three or four decent cuts... A fistful of other discrete moments extracted from a couple of tracks here and there... *That's* the total sum of the music that's listenable in this thing. Everything else just... sucks. And might also incidentally explain why even among Arctic Monkeys fans, the once-stellar reputation the band originally had live has been sullied in the recent years. Maybe because their new artistic direction is mostly a chatty overrated borefest, and it shows onstage whenever they play new stuff (from this album and the next one). Simply put, the once fun and witty working-class garage kids have now turned to consensual bourgeois musicians, crooning about imaginary resorts for the space elite while expressing some distant irony about the whole situation (that's sadly never mordant or biting). To which you can add ultimately empty self-referential allusions here and there. OK, maybe Arctic Monkeys were never truly 'working class' in the first place. But if that's the case, at least that one simulacrum sounded far better than its latest iteration. To finish, one thing about the album artwork: it is admittedly gorgeous, and evocative of an interesting "concept" on paper. Yet you get it by now, said "concepts" are not necessarily conducive to genuine artistic success. So let this overall failure be a warning for future generations of musicians when the time comes up for them to renew their game. After all, said warning is often included in the album's lyrics anyway - a rare case where the poorly inspired artist is so defensive he automatically gives ammunition to his most fierce detractors: Cue the conclusion of *Science Fiction*: "So I tried to write a song to make you blush / But I've a feeling that the whole thing / May well just end up too clever for its own good / The way some science fiction does". I guess the comparison makes sense. Only in a parallel universe such as one explored in a sci-fi flick can *Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino* be considered as an "essential" album. 1/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums (not exactly "Four Out Of Five" for this taqueria, huh?) 6/10 for more general purposes (5 + 1) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 0 for now Albums from the users list I *might* include in mine later on: 0 for now Albums from the users list I won't include in mine: 1 (including this one)

I didn't know the first thing about Ani DiFranco, and I want to thank whoever posted this album in the users list, because it allowed me to learn more about her. She's obviously a great singer and stellar guitar player (especially on acoustic guitar, from what I'm hearing here - awesome tones and a nice overall energy are coming out of her playing chops for sure!). And from what I've read online, it also looks like she's a good person, with her heart in the right place in terms of ideals. Which obviously can't hurt, and transpired in some of her lyrics -- admittedly also quite tormented at times. My first impression of *Dilate* is that Ani sounds a little like a more sophisticated indie version of Alanis Morissette, which is bound to be highly reductive for her fans, of course. DiFranco certainly sings better than the famous pop rock star, and she is more adventurous stylistically speaking. Yet there are commonalities, which includes a quite convincing way to express anger and frustration in interesting or poetic ways. It's the sort of highly expressive quality that make both women still endearing to listen to today. Listen to opener "Untouchable Face" to have a nice example of that for Ani. Not that this album is flawless. Just like with Alanis Morissette, there are also typical mid-nineties so-called "alt-rock" flourishes that didn't age that well (those supposedly groovy live drums breakbeats are a little hackneyed today, aren't they?). And there's also a couple of totally underwhelming cuts kinda spoiling the fun once or twice. I mean, what's the point of "Going Down", more like a pointless moody interlude than a song proper... ? But I guess that DiFranco is a free soul feeling the need to experiment with things so as to avoid formatting, which shows her good intents, at least. And when you listen to the very moving conclusion of the track that follows "Going Down" ("Adam and Eve"), you know that Ani surely has the goods people who like alternative folk and alternative rock would want so as to fall in love with her music. Same with breathtaking closer "Joyful Closer" (those angelic background vocals over that minimal and hypnotic acoustic guitar hook are a thing of wonder). Hence the cult following Ani still seems to benefit from today. Good for her. Not sure I will be part of that cult one day, but I leave the door open, at least. 3/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums 8/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 0 for now Albums from the users list I *might* include in mine later on: 1 for now (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't include in mine: 1

As one reviewer aptly put it in this section, post-2000 metal, postmetal and avant-metal are among the music genres done dirty in the 1001 Albums book (along with post-rock and several jazz classics -- other styles also explored by Kayo Dot in *Choirs Of The Eye*, incidentally). So I get why someone would want to place this particular avant-garde metal album in the list, just to set the karmic balance right in one swift stroke. Some of the tones (often owing more to postrock than to metal genres, to be honest), build-ups (gosh, that insane climax leading to black metal mayhem at the end of the third track!), and harmonies, whether darkly pretty -- the Lynchian and melancholic double-bass and piano-laden conclusion of "The Antique" -- or downright atonal, are impressive for sure, and you just can't deny the creativity and very open mindset that went into the writing and recording of this album. That said, and as the same reviewer also stated in here, it's admittedly a little weird to name this record first when so many other acts in adjacent subgenres have been ignored in Dimery's book. See that other reviewer's list when it comes to postmetal (to which I would add Converge, early Cult Of Luna, Neurosis, Gojira or Birds In Row). Same with post-rock, actually : no Mogwai or Godspeed You! Black Emperor's in the 1001 Albums book - if I had had more than one record to add in the users list, you would all have to review "Lift Your Skinny Fists...", along with the Canadian band's debut album that a user with good taste already placed there. So yeah... *Why* Kayo Dot first? Beyond that "contextual" perspective, I will add that I can also understand why some nonplussed listeners would perceive this LP as indulging a little too much in "noodling" instead of tighter compositional work. In some ways, *Choirs Of The Eye* sounds a little unfocused at times (especially for the sung vocal parts). I don't know... Maybe it's a little ironic that the spirit of The Grateful Dead can find its way in a 21st century metal band. I'm pretty sure that fan John Zorn would lambast me for such a caricatural take, though. What do I know, after all? I'm just a music fan with very subjective tastes among millions of others... 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 4 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3.5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 0 for now Albums from the users list I *might* include in mine later on: 2 for now (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't include in mine: 1

Leaving a contribution to allow Alexander to run this app without ads is very nice. I wish I had the means set up a monthly payment myself. The thing is, when someone reviews only 15 albums in the first half of January 2025, and then suddenly stops, it gives you the nagging feeling that this person who was allowed to submit a first album before finishing the project -- thanks to their early contribution -- doesn't really have the chops to defend their choice in the grand scale of things yet. Too soon, young Padawan, too soon... I sincerely hope that this person is OK now, that nothing too serious distracted them from using the app, and they they just suddenly got bored with the whole thing. But if it's the latter, I don't really see why we should pay much attention to this particular album dabbling in a genre so stale and inoffensive it *does* become offensive after a short while, quite paradoxically. Hey, if you're reading this, whoever you are, let us know you're doing OK at least. Leave a review, once in a while. It would be nice. And if you're not OK, my heart goes out to you, very sincerely. Going back to *Stories*, I readily admit that its first two tracks are pretty effective in the EDM genre, thanks to some fun spiky synthetic flourishes that are not wearing you out yet at this early point. But then the whole shebang quickly goes down the drain, owing to an overabundance of cheesy arrangements and tepid chord progressions -- so predictable everything soon becomes a borefest. If you want electronic pop that's as "effective" and catchy as it is layered and daring, you can take your pick between acts as different as Jamie xx, Dua Lipa or Charli XCX. In comparison, there was nothing daring in Avicii's music, god rest his soul: it's just surface gloss filled with hooks that cross the grating line a little too easily. And to be honest, it's not that catchy either. Chances are that this thing will age as badly as Scritti Polliti or ABC -- the bad taste of the eighties (at least part of them) still has an imprint on today's mainstream commercial output, I imagine, as vastly different as the electronic genres involved are from one decade to another... Another point of contention is how perfunctory and devoid of true soul all the guest vocalists sound in this record. Looks like 2010s-era Chris Martin is surrounded by like-minded performers here, which certainly brings... cohesion to the whole project! Some vocal hooks slyly copypasted from older pop songs are also annoying as hell 2Pac's "California...!" even makes a sudden appearance at some point, too discrete to be a real homage, but also too obvious not to raise eyebrows. And speaking of hip hop influences, Wyclef Jean's featuring in one of the "deep cuts" from the tracklist -- some sort of half-baked reggae song -- is probably one of the most embarrassing things the man has done (and he has done quite a few since the end of the Fugees!). So all of this is obviously part of a very manufactured formula, like with the fistful of glossy "acoustic" country-rock-ballads-oriented cuts also recorded for this project. Oddly enough, those innocuous tracks actually made me want to explore the already gargantuan output of Zach Bryan, that I am not very familiar with, in an admittedly close range of "modern" countrified pop music harboring gentle and accessible melodies. Because anything sounds at least a little "authentic" compared to Avicii's music. Even the most streaming-friendly stuff out there. One track stood out in the album's second half, though, thanks to a more "extravagant" feel and a bouncier, far more original rhythm pattern. A little campy, maybe, but campy implies having something akin to taste instead of total blandness at least. That song is "Somewhere In Stockholm", and very ironically, its chorus, "I left my backbone/ Somewhere in Stockholm", sums up everything I think about the vast majority of the other songs, all interchangeable and lacking personality, and all written in "committees' to boot (but also quite logically, if you think of it). Because let's be honest for one second: where is the "backbone" indeed on this thing? Was the "real" Avicii a flesh-and-bone person, only a producer, or just a brand? Well the jury's still out on this one. But what it comes to stating whether this album deserves to be in this list, I'm afraid the jury has reached an unanimous decision here. 1/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums 6/10 for more general purposes (5 + 1) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 0 for now Albums from the users list I *might* include in mine later on: 2 Albums from the users list I won't include in mine: 2 (including this one)

Wow. *Huge* thanks to whoever put that album on the list. I didn't know the first thing about aboriginal artist Gurrumul, and this posthumous album presenting rich orchestral pieces displaying his distinctive vocals is a thing of wonder. You feel like you're watching the stars in the night skies of North Australia as you listen to it. It's so humbling that you can discover so much great music after going through 1001 albums (actually far more than that, with everything that couldn't go inside the original list). Music is a whole universe, seemingly without any boundaries. To the person who added this record, but also to anyone potentially interested in orchestral music: the instrumentations and arrangements written by Errki Veltheim and Michael Hohnen for this record obviously owe *a lot* to the groundbreaking works of minimalist and postminimalist composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Very obvious influence here. So if you don't know those works and love this Gurrumul LP, I strongly advise you to check those names as well. It's a shame said key works are not in Dimery's book. I guess that the rationale was that there was no room for orchestral or "classical" music albums in his list, but I think that for their cases (and also adjacent contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, another obvious inspiration for mystical, mournful and hypnotic cut *Marrayarr* here), it's a huge mistake not to mention any of them. Because some of Reich and Glass and Pärt's full-length releases exactly fit with the 'modern album format'. Those composers are still alive, and they released LPs under their own names -- a huge difference with the usual performances of older orchestral music by symphony orchestras or smaller groups of classically-trained musicians all around the world, which would need their derivative 1001 Albums book with its own set of requirements. So in a sense, including *Djarimirri* sort of implies that you must also include ones from at least a couple of those minimalist composers. Not a problem for me. Not a problem at all. 🙂 Of course, what I'm saying here is a 100% "Western" perspective. Other positive views are possible. First, you'd need to point out that the minimalistic style of Reich and Glass also partly draws from the repetitive nature of African music, for instance. But more crucially when it comes to today's record, Gurrumul's enchanting or haunted vocals also bring specific warmth and emotion there that are obviously only his. It's the spark that probably makes the orchestral canvas around him accessible to many listeners with other tastes than mine. And there are also many instantly memorable vocal lines in those compositions ("Galiku", "Djolin", "Gaou"). I have sometimes stated that "global music" is so "large" that it would also need another book on the side. But listening to *Djarimirri*, it feels like it might also be unfair to exclude voices from all around the world in an overall list of albums to listen to before you die. Especially with a voice that is so stunning and beautiful. What we have here is a match made in heaven, nothing less. Hope that Gurrumul can smile from there after all this hard work. 4/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 5. 9/10 for more general purposes (5 + 4) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 1 (including "Djarimirri*, which will join works by Reich, Glass and Pärt in my own list) Albums from the users list I *might* include in mine later on: 2 Albums from the users list I won't include in mine: 2

Discovered who The Chromatics were through their inclusion in the soundtrack of the third season of Twin Peaks (The Return). Went back to this 2007 album right after that. It's pretty well-crafted synthpop / dream pop, but in the grand scheme of things there's nothing in this record that Beach House hasn't pulled off ten times better in the following years. First proper song "Night Drive" is a nice calling card for the rest of the tracklist, but it's not exactly thrilling either. "I Want Your Love" is overlong and a little cheesy. The Kate Bush cover is OK, but I don't really see what it brings to the original song. "Killing Spree" and "Tomorrow Is So Far Away" use the same "Diamonds Are Forever"-adjacent xylophone/ glockenspiel gimmick (remember that old James Bond title song?), which makes one of those cuts a little redundant (the first one for me). "Healer" is a little more exciting than the rest, with a nice build-up towards the end. "Tick Of The Flick" is, on paper at least, an interesting 15-minute (!) attempt to ape Kraftwerk's hypnotic dirges, but lack of clear stakes and intents makes it fall on its face after only five minutes. "Shining Violence" and "The Gemini" are shorter and wonderful moody instrumental pieces, though. But the songs in between are just a borefest for me. And that female lead singer definitely lacks punch to properly dynamize her performance. Fortunately, closer "Accelerator" is awesome and mesmerizing. Very cinematic, the way some Kavinsky cuts are. Crazy how only the instrumentals shine on the album's second half. So yeah, it's a mixed bag for me. Not excluding that album from my list of keepers right away because of its peaks, but I highly doubt it will make the final cut. To be honest, I also hold a huge grudge against the Chromatics because of a later hit song ("Shadows") which rips off the melody of Sonic Youth's "Wish Fulfillment" in such a blatant and even odious manner it's amazing the New York band didn't sue at the time (guess they had other fish to fry, or were just not greedy enough to give a rat's ass about it). But that song wasn't on *Night Drive*, so I guess in this doesn't weigh too much on my assessment here. The thing is, I just hope they didn't plagiarize any other artist in this particular album. That would not paint the project in the best of lights, right? 3/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 8/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 1 Albums from the users list I *might* include in mine later on: 3 (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't include in mine: 2