An incredibly confident debut album that I enjoy more with each listen. The production and Roan’s songwriting are so strong, and the album combines amazing hooks and danceable pop with more tender and genuinely touching ballads. The lyrics are clever, impactful, and often very very horny, and the songs really stay with you. It does tail off a bit after Pink Pony Club in my opinion - the last three songs are probably the most forgettable on the album which is a bit of a shame as it gets so close to a perfect landing. But it is such a strong debut on the whole and, especially after blowing up even more with last year’s fantastic single Good Luck Babe (her best song by far), I’m very excited to see what Chappell does next. Not only does she write great music but she’s already proven herself to be a significant voice for change in the music industry, whether that’s being very vocal about trans rights and honouring her various influences from queer and drag culture to her recent speech after winning Best New Artist at the Grammys calling on record labels to offer healthcare and other work benefits to their musicians. The Midwest Princess has had a meteoric rise and I do not expect her fall to come any time soon

A really cool bluesgrass/rootsy album that sounds like Ancient Greece by way of New Orleans. The instrumentation is brilliantly rustic, the songwriting is winding but also hooky, and the narrative drives the whole thing along at a great pace without diverting from the impact of the music. It really is crying out to be a musical and it’s quite surprising it took six years to bring it back to the stage - all of the key elements are already here! Mitchell gives a very diverse and powerful performance, but it’s the guests who really do help bring this version to life. Justin Vernon and Ani DiFranco both sound fantastic as Orpheus and Persephone all across the record, and Greg Brown’s Hades sounds like he smokes twenty Tom Waits’ a day

This was my favourite album of 2022 and one I’ve grown to love even more since. So many highlights and never boring despite its 80 minute run time, it’s Big Thief’s most tender and exciting project, with some absolutely beautiful moments and stellar guitar playing. It’s a pretty strong contender for album of the decade so far

A remarkable debut album from a true pioneer, and my introduction to hyperpop (for better or worse). When I first heard this back in 2018 it really blew me away - it was futuristic and noisy as hell but also so catchy when you let those hooks envelop you, unlike anything I’d heard before. I think it’s still arguably the pinnacle of the genre. While SOPHIE had been crafting this sound over years of singles, EPs, and production work with the likes of Charli XCX, this is her first - and tragically only - full length project. It is so assured and stylistically confident and feels simultaneously like a veteran professional at the top of their game and a young, hungry artist carving their space in the industry. The alchemy that makes this project click was made even more prevalent by last year’s disappointing and muddled posthumous SOPHIE album, which had glimmers of greatness but ultimately was clearly not as cared for. I don’t think it’s a perfect album - the middle drags slightly for me - but the opening four songs and the closing two are magnificent. It’s Okay to Cry is ethereally beautiful, Ponyboy and Faceshopping are brutally industrial, and Immaterial is just a massive uplifting bop

My first of the user-submitted albums! This was a really good way to kick things off, with a fun album by a band I had never heard of The songs cover a really wide range of territory - stylistically and lyrically - and are consistently witty and defy expectations. The performances remind me quite a lot of The Magnetic Fields and similar artists, but the sheer variety on this does see them carve out their own niche within that sarcastic folk space. A good time!

My first of the user-submitted albums! This was a really good way to kick things off, with a fun album by a band I had never heard of The songs cover a really wide range of territory - stylistically and lyrically - and are consistently witty and defy expectations. The performances remind me quite a lot of The Magnetic Fields and similar artists, but the sheer variety on this does see them carve out their own niche within that sarcastic folk space. A good time!

Man, in a weird and maybe counterintuitive way I feel like I would have enjoyed this more if it was someone other than Chet The tunes are smooth as hell, with some incredible musicians (including the iconic Evans/Chambers/Jones rhythm section) playing remarkably lovely jazz, and Baker’s trumpet playing is truly wonderful. But once you’ve heard the beautiful 1954 album Chet Baker Sings, it’s not that easy to listen to a Chet Baker album where he doesn’t

This was a pretty lovely discovery. A very soulful kind of country album with eclectic vocals and a vintage style that never felt too over the top and still managed to sound fresh and inspired

I really enjoyed this when it first came out and it was one of my favourite albums of 2023. Spirit 2.0 is a truly beautiful song and the production on the whole album is pristine and fantastic. Unfortunately the songwriting just didn’t really hit for me, and on the relisten I just found it all a bit samey. Would definitely recommend checking out the deluxe version, as those four bonus tracks do elevate it, but yeah - a slightly underwhelming revisit for the standard album

This was an interesting one. Swedish folk with an electronic twist. The first couple of songs were lively and pounding, and while they were fun I thought that style was going to get repetitive quite quickly. I was very pleasantly surprised then when the album suddenly started going into darker territory, with the electronics adding to this eerie soundscape rather than block rocking beats. Something very different and definitely worth checking out

One of the most innovative hip-hop albums of all time. Madlib’s production is remarkable, the supervillain concept is really fun and perfectly executed, and Doom’s rhyme schemes, delivery and lyrics are second to none. Possibly the biggest snub from the original 1001 albums list

Another really fun discovery. Kind of an Andrew Bird vibe, or a less extravagant Father John Misty. Very lovely and well arranged singer songwriter tunes

A fantastic homage to 70s funk with a massive Parliament/Funkadelic and Sly and the Family Stone influence. It’s spacy and groovy and Glover is at his most electric all over this. A massive switch up from the hip-hop and pop bangers of his earlier albums, this is just straight up stank. The first half is incredible, especially the epic opener Me and Your Mama and the massive single Redbone, but the album does kind of drop off in the second half. A couple of songs near the end are a bit forgettable, and the closing track Stand Tall has a perfect hook that just drowns in its overbearing effects and unconvincing key changes. That first half though, god damn

Didn’t really get on with this one. Decent indie rock that reminded me a bit of Pixies if they just did the soft bits of their soft-loud dynamic. Nothing stood out to me much

Blink’s best album and a fantastic slice of energetic and catchy pop-punk, with Travis Barker solidifying his place in the group with some of the most ridiculously quick and technical drumming the genre has ever seen. The only thing keeping this from being a 5 is that there are a couple of songs (especially Mutt and Wendy Clear towards the end) that do absolutely nothing for me. But when the album hits, it really hits. There are the huge singles What’s My Age Again and All the Small Things, the more retrospective Adam’s Song, and the up-tempo ragers Dumpweed and The Party Song - so much variety for a pretty commercial pop-punk record and just a very fun time

A solid and groovy dub record that’s very laid-back and atmospheric, but ultimately a bit too samey throughout to keep me hooked

This was my favourite album of 2022 and one I’ve grown to love even more since. So many highlights and never boring despite its 80 minute run time, it’s Big Thief’s most tender and exciting project, with some absolutely beautiful moments and stellar guitar playing. It’s a pretty strong contender for album of the decade so far

I found the Marillion album on the actual list very underwhelming, but was pleasantly surprised by this one. It’s still got very crisp and clean production but it doesn’t sound as sterile as a lot of the tracks on Misplaced Childhood. It’s arena rock and does have the cheesy elements that can sometimes make that genre quite boring but combines them with interesting prog-inspired guitar licks and grooves, and the strong performances on the ballads stop them veering into schmaltzy territory. In terms of my personal enjoyment it’s probably a 3 but, considering I’m not really into this brand of rock and it surpassed my expectations, I’ll bump it up to a 4

This was great! I’ve heard good things about Robyn Hitchcock before (and embarrassingly somehow got him confused with Robyn of Dancing On My Own fame) but never set aside the time to get into him until now. I also hadn’t realised he was the singer of The Soft Boys (whose album Underwater Moonlight was on the main list and I think I enjoyed??) until today This album was a wild ride - spritely, incredibly varied and with a magnificent presence from the start. He hits an avant-garde folk rock sound somewhere between Richard Thompson and Robert Wyatt that also reminds me a bit of R.E.M and early Radiohead in places. Just a lot of fun and it has definitely inspired me to check out more of his many many albums in the future

A weird album to review. The first half is pretty good if not remarkable prog. The second half is a ridiculous ambitious orchestral suite - it starts amazingly, and then descends into this weird vocoder-driven section. The entire album closes with a pretty weak ballad. There are amazing stretches that I loved and underwhelming stretches that frankly baffled me. I didn’t love it but I sure was entertained

A really solid prog album with fantastic grooves and some really effective more tender moments, though quite a few of these softer parts don’t have as much impact. It’s not Wilson’s strongest work in my opinion, and The Raven Who Refused to Sing or something like In Absentia from his time in Porcupine Tree would be a better example of a more consistent and rewarding project

A remarkable debut album from a true pioneer, and my introduction to hyperpop (for better or worse). When I first heard this back in 2018 it really blew me away - it was futuristic and noisy as hell but also so catchy when you let those hooks envelop you, unlike anything I’d heard before. I think it’s still arguably the pinnacle of the genre. While SOPHIE had been crafting this sound over years of singles, EPs, and production work with the likes of Charli XCX, this is her first - and tragically only - full length project. It is so assured and stylistically confident and feels simultaneously like a veteran professional at the top of their game and a young, hungry artist carving their space in the industry. The alchemy that makes this project click was made even more prevalent by last year’s disappointing and muddled posthumous SOPHIE album, which had glimmers of greatness but ultimately was clearly not as cared for. I don’t think it’s a perfect album - the middle drags slightly for me - but the opening four songs and the closing two are magnificent. It’s Okay to Cry is ethereally beautiful, Ponyboy and Faceshopping are brutally industrial, and Immaterial is just a massive uplifting bop

I’ve listened to more blink-182 this week now than I have done in years. This self-titled (or apparently ‘untitled’) album is a really interesting change of pace for them - at the height of their pop-punk powers, they took a left turn for a moodier emo-inspired sound that must have been a huge inspiration for the wave of mid-‘00s ‘emo’ bands that followed. I think it’s great they did that, as they were already getting diminishing returns with their 2001 album Take Off Your Pants… feeling like a less good version of 1999’s Enema of the State. I was quite excited to give this more mature Blink record another shot now that I’m older, especially as I couldn’t remember much outside of four massive and magnificent tracks. Feeling This is a statement opener and maybe my favourite Blink song, I Miss You is possibly their biggest, Down sounds like a completely different band, and Always is a great song even if it kind of sounds like it could have fit on any of their previous albums. Unfortunately with this latest relisten I had the same take aways - those four songs are still fantastic, but everything else is quite forgettable. There’s interesting stuff going on, such as the hip-hop inspired drum break The Fallen Interlude and the moody track with Robert Smith of all people, but there are also naff lyrics and forgettable hooks. It’s an album I’m very glad they made, I just wish it held up better

I fondly remember being introduced to this album by a former colleague who put it on during an otherwise tedious shift manning our office’s reception area. Very little work was done as we were just vibing out to this. In the Stone is an incredible opener, After the Love Has Gone is a picture perfect ballad, Boogie Wonderland is obviously massive - those are probably my favourite three but there’s really not a bad song on here In my 4-star review of the EWF album on the main list (That’s the Way of the World), I sung its praises but noted it’s not as good as I Am. After relistening to I Am, I definitely stand by that. This shit slaps

This was incredibly fun. I was expecting a grunge or more R.E.M-ish ‘90s indie album but this was like… if Queen did a kind of grungy R.E.M-ish 90s indie album? Lavish production and great hooks with a bit of fuzz and attitude that resulted in a really interesting and unique listen

An incredibly confident debut album that I enjoy more with each listen. The production and Roan’s songwriting are so strong, and the album combines amazing hooks and danceable pop with more tender and genuinely touching ballads. The lyrics are clever, impactful, and often very very horny, and the songs really stay with you. It does tail off a bit after Pink Pony Club in my opinion - the last three songs are probably the most forgettable on the album which is a bit of a shame as it gets so close to a perfect landing. But it is such a strong debut on the whole and, especially after blowing up even more with last year’s fantastic single Good Luck Babe (her best song by far), I’m very excited to see what Chappell does next. Not only does she write great music but she’s already proven herself to be a significant voice for change in the music industry, whether that’s being very vocal about trans rights and honouring her various influences from queer and drag culture to her recent speech after winning Best New Artist at the Grammys calling on record labels to offer healthcare and other work benefits to their musicians. The Midwest Princess has had a meteoric rise and I do not expect her fall to come any time soon

Yeah I didn’t really give Jimmy Eat World enough credit back in the day. They were the band that bridged the gap between that gate kept ‘emo’ sound and the various pop-punk-adjacent bands from the mid-‘00s branded as emo. Their more mature and slightly darker tone put them closer to the former but their urgent drive and knack for catchy choruses meant they were misleadingly marketed as the latter, despite never really fitting solidly into either category. As a fan of your Panic! at the Discos and All Time Lows and the like growing up, a lot of which I no longer listen to, I just never really got into Jimmy Eat World and dismissed them as being quite bland outside of the absolute smash of a track The Middle. I appreciate them a lot more now, as while they were far less theatrical than their Warped Tour contemporaries, the songwriting holds up. The slower moments on this album I never really connected with are actually very emotional and well considered, and provide a nice contrast to the more energetic singles like The Middle and the title track, which opens the album in beautifully sardonic fashion

Another solid country-tinged folk album - this one with gorgeous harmonies and a Conor Oberst jumpscare on the last song - that was really nice to listen to but just didn’t really stick with me

This was pretty good! Grunge-adjacent but more of a power pop sound with very catchy hooks especially on the first three songs (my favourite of which was Solar Sister which had a really fun guitar solo). The album lost a bit of steam after that though, with some hooks that didn’t really land for me, and I wasn’t too enamoured by it until the last two songs which were a lot darker and kind of shoegazy. It was a really welcome change of pace and I’m glad it ended as strongly as it started, even if it didn’t quite hit in the middle

Didn’t get into this one at all I’m afraid. A cheesy ‘80s take on ‘60s-style rock with generic songwriting, rubbish synths and reverse snares all over certain tracks, and really cringy lyrics. The falsetto in the ballad Nobody Knows is pretty painful, and the bass tone in the verses of I Need You sounds so much like a Casio preset it’s actually kind of funny (though otherwise I think it’s a pretty good song and probably my favourite on the album) Apparently two songs from this album have been sampled by Eminem which is fun Also my goodness Billy, please put your dogs away

Another ridiculous snub, I have absolutely no idea how this still isn’t in the 1001 It’s a landmark album that still holds up incredibly well, and is the undisputed highlight of the ‘emo’ genre. It’s theatrical, energetic and packed full of hooks, and every single song on it is a winner.

A really lovely and creative folk album that also contained a couple of punk elements. Great songwriting and singing and lyrics, with inventive rhythm and metre switches (even if a little over-done in one of the songs) and just generally great vibes. I’d never heard of this band going in so this was a very nice discovery

I’ve just never really clicked with Mayer’s music. Great guitar player and the production is solid but his songwriting is just a bit bland

This was really fun in places with some great energy and incredible playing, but certain parts got old very quickly. The interpolation of the Pink Panther theme on Offshoot was a nice little reference but then became the entire B-section of the track for no good reason. The 15 minute Ghostbusters cover was also pretty exhausting by the end That being said, considering the amount of live albums already on the list, I’d much rather have something like this - where the live setting and the jamming it allows space for is the key feature of the music - than the live Cheap Trick album that’s just a rougher performance of their studio tracks

Another really solid Zappa record. Not quite my favourite of his, and I don’t think I’d replace any of the 3 on the main list (even though I don't vibe with Freak Out quite as much, it’s an incredibly important album that deserves its spot), but if you were going to add another this would almost certainly be it It’s also one of his most accessible albums, with genuinely catchy songs like Uncle Remus complementing the usual zaniness like St Alphonsos Pancake Breakfast, and nothing goes too far into full-on freak territory

Avicii was one of the poster boys for a wave of EDM that has just never really been my thing - it’s fun in the right setting but just not something I enjoy listening to on my commute or whatever. The big single on this album is Waiting For Love, which is an alright club banger but not on the level of his previous tracks Levels or Wake Me Up. Elsewhere the album is a bit more adventurous, playing with a country sound on quite a few songs rather than just recycling the same EDM tropes. It was more varied than expected and I appreciate what it was going for, just not one for me

I didn’t really care for side 1 of this project by two former King Crimson members - it was just a lot of noodling without the commanding vocal presence or impactful hooks and stabs that make Crimson’s music stand out. The second side - Birdman - was a step up though. It kicks things off with a really fun and jaunty track, almost like a Kinks song, that then leads into part 2 with a killer funky groove. The next few parts have some more enjoyable soloing and the suite culminates in a rousing and quite lovely anthemic instrumental section

Very fun, eclectic and inventive funk metal with ridiculous bass playing. I don’t enjoy quite as much as their debut Frizzle Fry, but it’s still a wonderfully unique and enjoyable album

A fun, groovy, wavy time as one would expect from the B-52s. It doesn’t quite reach the heights of their staggering debut or their later peak Cosmic Thing but it’s still a grand way to spend 35 minutes

WOOOO!! One of my absolute favourite albums of the last few years. A continuous loop of jams upon jams, ridiculously good 5/4 hooks, devilishly fun guitar playing, and pure energy and good vibes

It’s fun and noisy hyperpop from one of the most eclectic groups out there. I don’t think it’s quite as impactful as their first album - nothing here is on the same level as 745 sticky, money machine, or stupid horse - but it’s still just very enjoyable. The jarring ska of I Got My Toot Removed, the more metal-leaning Billy Knows Jamie, whatever Frog on the Floor is, and the standout pop single Hollywood Baby - it’s all just good dumb fun

Another one I’m quite surprised wasn’t on the original list mainly due to the sheer size of it. According to Wikipedia it’s the 8th highest selling album of all time (putting it ahead of Rumours, Saturday Night Fever, ABBA GOLD, and any one album by The Beatles) and a whopping 12 of its 16 tracks were released as singles It’s probably the peak of pop country, and while there are some elements I’m not a fan of at all - a lot of the production choices are very lifeless or just generic, so many songs have great chorus/boring verse syndrome, and the duet From This Moment On sounds like the big ballad from a forgotten post-Menken Disney film - but Twain has enough presence and charm to pull it off. And when the songs hit, they sure do hit. I think every Shania Twain song I know is on this album, including songs I forgot I knew like Love Gets Me Every Time and When. Some of the songs I didn’t know are a lot of fun, filled with needless stand-up key changes that are all pulled off annoyingly well. It all just sounds so professional and expensive and meticulous, and has enough heart that the downsides that kind of sound can bring are easily overlooked. There are a few weaker songs towards the end, especially the very cringe Rock This Country, but thankfully it pulls things back for the tender closer You’ve Got a Way

Yeah, ambient techno just isn’t really for me, sorry. There were some very interesting textures in this and I appreciate that it was a bit more varied than I initially thought - with the last couple of tracks picking up the tempo- but otherwise it all just kind of blended into one

Fantastic vibes bolstered by ethereal production on what is probably Tame Impala’s strongest album. It opens incredibly strongly with the psychedelic Let It Happen and other highlights include the blissed out Eventually, the swaggering stomp of The Less I Know The Better, and the hazy banger New Person Same Old Mistakes Some songs don’t quite hold up - Past Life has never worked for me and I don’t think Kevin’s vocals are too great on Yes I’m Changing - but it’s mostly pretty consistent with its dreamy sheen and catchy, inventive songwriting

A very eclectic and expressive alt-rock record that reminds me quite a bit of later releases from Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor, but with some heavier riffs and harder beats on some tracks. The blistering opener was a highlight as was the closing track, and the fantastic guitar playing throughout added a really interesting dimension to the songs. Unfortunately it didn’t all work for me, especially the 7 minute cover of Amazing Grace about halfway through which really dragged

Fun, raucous, energetic hardcore/ska from a truly innovative punk band but, even though it’s under a hour, at 27 songs long this compilation is just far too long and repetitive. The album and EP are both pretty good on their own, but listening to them stuck together like this became a bit of a slog. There are some absolutely great tracks on here, and a lot of filler

A very interesting album with almost Tool-esque prog-metal grooves and angular post-hardcore guitars, alongside some of the wildest vocal melodies I’ve ever heard but also some huge grungy choruses - like Alice In Chains meets self-titled-era Deftones but also nothing really like either of those bands. The opening song was so aggressively discordant in a truly unique way - the vocals never sounded ‘out of tune’, they were clearly meticulously planned to create as much tension against the instrumental as possible. It was like an alien had listened to a handful of 90s alt-rock albums and confidently spat out vocal lines with no concept of how they ‘should’ progress or resolve - but it worked and added to the dark and isolating tone of the album

An interesting selection considering the much more well known releases earlier in TMBG’s eclectic catalogue. The fact that they don’t have a single album in the original list is ridiculous when really any of those first five albums (especially Lincoln and Flood) have a pretty strong claim. This seems to be TMBG’s return to ‘music for grown-ups’ following a series of charming children’s albums. I think it would actually be difficult for them to write an album that’s not fun at this stage, they just have such a knack for melodies and a real curiosity for song structures and textures. Stylistically it’s all over the place yet somehow cohesive as expected, whether that’s the presumably-Strokes-inspired You Probably Get That a Lot or the overbearing nonsense of The Lady and the Tiger. There are some delightfully quirky songs like Cloisonné and Three Might Be Duende, as well as the fantastic heavily-panned canon of Spoiler Alert, that really stand out in the way some of their greatest hits do, but on the whole the album does seem to lack the vibrancy that makes their first few albums so engaging

Springsteen is on fantastic form on this album and his energy across the two hours is magnificent. Unfortunately it’s a bit early in his career to really warrant a live record of that length - with only the three albums and some covers to choose from I did feel like I was just counting down the minutes to the next Born to Run track, and everything on the second half especially seems to go on a lot longer than is really necessary. It’s all performed very well but nothing elevates it above the studio recordings. At the end of the day, I’d rather just listen to Born to Run

A pivotal and atmospheric post-rock debut for sure, but not quite as powerful or enduring as its follow-up Lift Your Skinny Fists…

Crushingly heavy jazz-inspired metal, with some surprisingly beautiful moments as well. The song structures lurched about quite wildly and while the heavier bits made an incredible impact they didn’t always blend into those softer moments too well. I certainly enjoyed this in places but it was a quite volatile listening experience

Peter Steele’s baritone is impressive and the darkly gothic vibe is fun for a few minutes, but the songwriting is just so boring and dated - and incredibly repetitive, most notably in the first couple of tracks which total 20 minutes without either song really going anywhere

Sorry supporting cast of High School Musical, but I do not really care for the status quo This started better than expected to be fair, with some good variety over the first few tracks rather than all just dated blues-rock - Oh Baby had some really fun riffs and A Year was like something from Led Zeppelin III - but the second half faltered a bit. The Doors cover at the end was a particular low point for me and just didn’t get close to living up to the original

Really interesting and impactful noise rock that covered a lot of ground in its very short run time

Continuing the ‘goat’ theme from yesterday’s The Jesus Lizard album… This is probably Darnielle and co’s strongest album, with insightful storytelling songs recorded in an incredibly raw no-frills lo-fi manner, putting all the emphasis on the magnificent lyricism and songwriting. Blues in Dallas is a real change of pace towards the end - the only song without just guitar, it’s a melancholic yet catchy Casio-backed jaunt and probably the most memorable track on the album. It’s a great tune but maybe would have worked better as a closer, as going back into two final guitar songs does make it feel a bit out of place. Those guitar songs are bloody great though

A pivotal album in the emo scene that I never got into when I was younger but felt somehow nostalgic listening to it now. It’s strange to think SDRE are from Seattle because it’s so removed from the grunge that had defined that area and basically the entire alt-rock scene at the time. This really does bridge the gap from the hardcore emo of Rites of Spring and those other punk-adjacent bands to the more melodic side, and its influence can be heard pretty wildly. From the likely candidates of Jimmy Eat World and American Football to the more theatric ‘emo’ of the mid-‘00s to even stuff like Biffy Clyro’s debut - this feels like the birthing pool of all of those sounds and styles. And even if it didn’t inspire anything, it would still be a great listen

A decent but forgettable radio rock record that had some good hooks in the first few songs, but some of its incorporation of electronics was cheesy and ineffective, and the album ran out of steam quite quickly

An absolute whale of a live album at over 2 hours, apparently cut down from an original selection of 560 takes from across an entire tour I appreciate its ambition and I’m sure the shows would have been a hell of an experience, but the lack of memorable hooks makes the psychedelic jams feel quite redundant. The soloing is impressive and even hypnotic at times but the tunes they’re structured around just have no impact, so there’s no real sense of tension and release - it all just meanders, and meanders for far too long Also I was very disappointed to read on the wiki page that the album title was just due to fans asking when they would record ‘a live one’. I thought it was an actually quite inspired fish pun on catching ‘a live one’ - alas

A lot of fun and incredibly eclectic, and sounding far more modern than 1994. It covers so much ground - from Mexican folk/dance music to synthesised industrial metal - and does it all pretty convincingly, or at least in an entertaining way. Excluding a handful I was already very familiar with, this is my favourite of the user-submitted albums so far by quite a long way

A truly gorgeous record about love and loss, so intimate compared to the elaborate Illinois or the robotic Age of Adz. Sufjan at his most vulnerable (maybe excluding his most recent record Javelin - but definitely his most vulnerable at this point) and, in my opinion, with his strongest set of songs and most beautiful performances

A really solid classic rock album with huge sounding tunes that didn’t get too repetitive. The only Bob Seger song I knew was Night Moves which is from his previous album so this whole thing was new to me and it was pretty great! Strong performances, clever and catchy songwriting, and an instantly iconic sound and presence

A really cool bluesgrass/rootsy album that sounds like Ancient Greece by way of New Orleans. The instrumentation is brilliantly rustic, the songwriting is winding but also hooky, and the narrative drives the whole thing along at a great pace without diverting from the impact of the music. It really is crying out to be a musical and it’s quite surprising it took six years to bring it back to the stage - all of the key elements are already here! Mitchell gives a very diverse and powerful performance, but it’s the guests who really do help bring this version to life. Justin Vernon and Ani DiFranco both sound fantastic as Orpheus and Persephone all across the record, and Greg Brown’s Hades sounds like he smokes twenty Tom Waits’ a day

Probably The National’s strongest project, and certainly more consistent than High Violet which made it on the original list of 1001 albums. It kicks off with one of their greatest songs Fake Empire and goes to strength to strength from there, whether it’s an emotionally wrought ballad or a sardonic mid-tempo ballad - it’s quite a lot of ballads to be honest, but they all sound really good It’s got the energy of their earlier records and the production prowess of their later ones, with gorgeous soundscapes and songwriting throughout

An impressive but overblown prog album. The overall sound world is quite lovely and the musicianship is very impressive, but there are just not enough strong or compelling ideas in here to warrant its 85 minute run time

Another really fun Garbage album filled with hooks and a great combination of rock and electronic production

A moody and spiky post-punk record in the vein of Parquet Courts (reminds me of Idles as well but I think this album predates them) with fantastic grooves and thoughtful lyrics. I only discovered Protomartyr from the album they put out after this which is also really good - definitely one of the most exciting and consistent rock bands of the last few years

A lovely, delicate reverb-soaked record. The vocals are beautiful and the instrumentals are sparse and effective. Sounds exactly what you’d expect something on Sufjan Stevens’ record label to sound like

The songwriting is generally pretty great but the lyrics were quite off putting - unnecessarily cryptic with no hints of a deeper meaning, with a load of random pop culture references and occasional filth thrown in there for good measure. The instrumentation is quite stripped back - mainly just guitar and a Wurlitzer piano - which works well on most of the songs but some of the more elaborate ones (like the opener) feel like they’re lacking some broader instrumentation to bring the melodies to life. I enjoyed it on the whole though, as the songs are inventive and versatile, reminding me a bit of They Might Be Giants. I just somehow get the impression this guy would be really annoying at parties

One of the most baffling albums so far. The production is wild - so many very 80s touches that individually I would find annoying but there’s just so much going in that it goes full circle to being really fun. Drum Talk sounds like the fucked up lovechild of Paul Simon, Phil Collins and Afrika Bambaataa, and I am loathe to report that Bogart actually slaps - and the production choices somehow get even weirder from there, with the absolute banger Gone To Pieces and then the frankly ludicrous panning on Shame on You Some of the vocal lines are quite strange for such commercially driven pop music and some of Kershaw’s line deliveries are quite strange for an English singer - I honestly thought he was Swedish or something I don’t really know what to make of this. I don’t think it was good, and a lot of it just confused me - but god damn it, it made me feel something. And at the end of the day isn’t that what music is all about?

I was convinced this was on the original list of 1001, to the extent I even commented on that when reviewing a different Marillion album a few weeks ago Anyway, this is pretty good. I like that all the songs flow really nicely together - so many classic rock ‘concept albums’ are only very vaguely conceptual and just feel like a loose thread tying together a collection of mainly unrelated songs, whereas this is very clearly a carefully considered and cohesive project. It sometimes gets a bit silly and I think it tails off a bit towards the end, but it’s a pretty good effort and I applaud the idea even if not the execution. Also one of the tracks is called The Bitter Suite, which is a phenomenal name

Fun, inoffensive 80s pop with some catchy choruses but nothing much else going on

An incredibly catchy and varied Latin ska album with hooks for days. This was just very very fun

A pretty cool and varied Malian jazz album. There are a lot of Western influences on here, particularly Spanish guitar music, combined with the grooves and timbres that you only really find in West African jazz, that results in an interesting vibe and sound of the whole record. The opening track was incredible and gorgeous, and I really thought this could be a 5, but I didn’t really click with anything else anywhere near as much

I generally prefer Sparks’ weirder art pop stuff, but can’t deny this is an incredibly influential (and just very fun) synth-pop classic. The Moroder production is next level, and the hooks on Tryouts for the Human Race and the title track in particular are remarkably uplifting

The original list is infamously weak on metal, especially anything post-Metallica, and Lateralus is one of its most egregious snubs A remarkable and hypnotic prog metal album that deserves all of the hype. It’s ridiculously virtuosic yet still punchy and emotional. Schism is the song that blew up but the title track is the true highlight for me, especially the ‘bridge’ section where each instrument comes back in in a different time signature and the melodic lines weave together as it builds. Even ignoring the metric complexity and the constant Fibonacci sequence references throughout the song, the build just sounds so incredibly powerful

A stylishly psyched-out debut by one of the coolest bands of the last decade. It’s nothing revolutionary and it’s probably not their most assured or memorable work (I’d give that to the album after this, or the country-tinged Leon Bridges collab Texas Sun) but it’s a solid and groovy 40ish minutes of chill beats to study/relax to

A really solid country/americana record with some great songwriting and guitar playing. It all gets a little samey after a while and, while it’s all good, there wasn’t anything especially noteworthy for me that elevated it to great

A fun and eclectic dub record, not really my thing but there are some interesting moments and I totally see the appeal and influence of this

I didn’t really get anything out of this - ‘80s style hard rock that wouldn’t have stood out in the ‘80s, and just felt incredibly dated for 2009

Ty Segall is one of those modern artists I swear I’ve heard before somewhere or another but never really dove into or kept track of. Well, that’s about to change, because this was a great (re)introduction. Weird experimental rock with an Ariel Pink spirit but a smoother Tame Impala-like sound in places, but also with notes of The Velvet Underground and Bowie? I don’t really know, there was a lot going on, but it was all very good. Also I just read that, while promoting this album, Segall wore a baby mask and went by the name ‘Sloppo’ so… that’s fun I guess?

I do get the hype around this latest The Cure album - it’s the first release in nearly 20 years by a truly legendary band, now the elder statesmen of goth rock, and it’s their strongest release in over 30. It just really doesn’t stand up to their best work in my opinion A lot of the positive reviews commend how much it sounds like their darker and more meditative records like Disintegration and Pornography, and it does sound a lot like those two - just a less interesting version of them. There are some good songs on here for sure, and Robert Smith’s voice sounds exceptional for a guy in his 60s. The slow and foreboding opener Alone, which I wasn’t a big fan of when it was released as a single, actually does a really good job of setting the tone - similarly Endsong does a great job at closing things out. A Fragile Thing is very catchy and the highlight of the album for me, and one of the only tracks on here that does stand up with those earlier records. Everything else just sounds like subpar The Cure, and unfortunately (at risk of sounding like I’m contradicting myself) the one song where they really sound like they’re trying something different is Drone:Nodrone which sounds incredibly dated and just weirdly clunky. I don’t think it’s a terrible album at all, but it’s maybe The Cure’s 7th or 8th best record. Maybe it is a return to form but to me it sounds like a band with nothing new to say since the 80s

Eels up inside ya. An eclectic and interestingly orchestrated indie rock record with plenty of catchy highlights, from the chirpy weirdness of I Like Birds to the slightly eerie groove of Flyswatter to the college rock anthem Mr E’s Beautiful Blues. It has the hook-centric drive of bands like Cake and Weezer combined with the experimentalism of Beck or Sparklehorse and everything just gels very nicely

Mid-‘00s albums are kind of underrepresented on the main list of 1001 albums, primarily because the first list came out in 2005 and revisions since then have mainly added new stuff rather than updating albums from around this time. The latest list only has 3 albums from 2005 - Be by Common, Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens (both fantastic) and Coles Corner by Richard Hawley (pretty average). No Demon Days. No Late Registration. No The Woods. And no Silent Alarm Bloc Party is exactly the kind of cool and influential British indie band that would fit perfectly on this list, and there are quite a few similar but less impactful artists on there, which makes Bloc Party’s omission a bit more baffling. It’s a fantastic fusion of indie and dance punk, with energetic and catchy anthems (most notably Helicopter) and some really lovely and more meditative electronic moments such as the closing track, and surely influenced LCD Soundsystem and the rest of that New York dance punk wave. It’s fun, it’s cool and it sounds so pristine, and it’s more than worthy of a spot here

Folk music for theatre kids (not derogatory). This was quite fun - it got a bit predictable after a while, with a lot of songs going for the same reverb-heavy slow build bodhran-bashing songs that people would have described as epic about 10 years ago. Still a nice listen though, and some fun lyrics varying between a real high fantasy vibe to just some modern day nerds playing D&D and talking about their lives

This is where Childish Gambino really blew up and proved himself as an exciting and versatile artist, rather than just an actor/comedian who could make some fun raps. It’s a really ambitious project, especially with all the visual and online stuff to complement it but even just the album itself is pretty huge in terms of its scope. It is chronically online almost to a fault but very witty and entertaining, and Glover’s performances are great over some really solid and out-there production, combining huge pop hooks with some pretty wild instrumentals. It’s a bit inconsistent, with some tracks coming across more as skits or ideas than fleshed out songs, and not as direct or impactful as his follow-up, the funky and futuristic Awaken My Love!, but it’s a real landmark project

An inoffensive stomp-clap folk album that sounds like every other inoffensive stomp-clap folk album. The first couple of songs are pretty good - the opener is quite expansive and varied while the big single Ophelia is very catchy - but there’s nothing of note later in the tracklist. Not a dreadful album, just a quite boring one, and sometimes that’s worse

The kind of music that could only be made by some crazy Germans in the 70s. It’s an interesting if not entirely enjoyable listen, with avant-garde jazz clashing with tight prog rock motifs with pretty spicy results. Every time I come across this album, I forget that it’s not Amon Düül II by Yeti - it’s Yeti by Amon Düül II. There was another affiliated band called Amon Düül who were just kind of forgotten about. That’s awesome

A really solid modern punk record, combining a quite direct and hook-centric 90s sound with some more angular riffs and less standard grooves to keep things sounding fresh. There were a couple of slower power ballad-type songs that could have made for an anticlimactic end but the performances and energy were still really strong and vibrant

A pretty solid if not entirely inspiring early prog album. The opening track was one of the best written songs I’ve heard in quite a while, and the rest of the album was pretty good but didn’t come anywhere near that level for me

Another fun if quite inconsequential 00s indie record. There’s a good variety of tunes on here - it generally has a quite eccentric Vampire Weekend kind of vibe but some of the more acoustic songs are like a less depressed Bright Eyes, and Shivers (I’ve Got ‘Em) has a very Queens of the Stone Age groove. I enjoyed it on the whole and got more out of the album as it went on but it didn’t quite break through for me

Super catchy J-pop that transcends the language barrier with its vibrancy and innovation. I first heard Utada a few years ago with her most recent release Bad Mode, which I really liked though it feels quite cold and paranoid at times. This is a much breezier and vibier album that you can actually dance to - and the final track was used as the Kingdom Hearts II theme so that’s pretty rad

This was pretty cool and it was nice to hear something very different. Contemporary classical with an electronic twist, combining sparse and somber strings and piano motifs often with some subtle delay or other manipulation (though the opening track is less sparing and just vocoders itself to hell - in an effective way). There were quite a lot of short pieces that seemed a bit too similar to each other and didn’t really develop enough for any one in particular to stand out (besides the very distinct opener as already mentioned). Pretty enjoyable on the whole though. Also the guy scored three Denis Villeneuve films so mad respect

Wow it’s been a wild few days. J-pop, electronic minimalism, and now Finnish symphonic metal. It’s a pretty fun synthesis, and really leans into the theatricality of both genres. My main criticism is that the production is quite flat so everything just sounds a bit muted - albums like Metallica’s S&M, Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Opera, and anything by Ghost really make the riffs and the strings sound a lot heavier and more menacing

Mon the Biff! The album after this was my introduction to Biffy - it was impossible to escape the Mountains video on Kerrang TV for a few months - and I absolutely loved it but it took me a little while to go back to their earlier stuff - in fact I don’t think I listened further until hearing their Revolutions live album from Wembley. Their first three albums (which I now really enjoy) kind of scared me at the time, but Puzzle was a fascinating blend of that odd and heavier earlier work with the shout-along hooks and gorgeous ballads of the slightly poppier Only Revolutions. I’ve seen them three times now and Living is a Problem… (the opener to Puzzle) is always ridiculously fun in a live setting, while the soaring Folding Stars and the delicate Machines are both incredibly powerful. Some of the deeper cuts on the album are really fun too - the drum groove of A Whole Child Ago always sticks with me, Now I’m Everyone is super catchy, Love Has a Diameter has that stupid hummingbird lyric, and 9/15ths just sounds absolutely massive. It’s just an incredibly consistent record, and a landmark release from a very prolific band at their most ambitious and impactful As an aside - this was also the era where Biffy started writing great B-sides as well, and the sister album to Puzzle (Missing Pieces) has some bangers on it as well (and sadly is significantly better than anything they’ve released in the last 10 years)

My least favourite of the user-submitted albums so far. I don’t want to be too harsh as the album deals with a quite heavy subject matter and clearly means a lot to quite a few people based on some of the reviews. It’s great that it has provided that catharsis, and the best thing about music is that different music can resonate with different people in completely different ways. That being said I just did not vibe with this. Everything was so reverbed and distorted that it was unintelligible, and the few bits of clean vocals that cut through sounded really rough. On top of that it was all just quite boring as well. There wasn’t really any song structure or development - each track just relied on these thick shoegazy textures, and the textures sounded bad

Got to love Danny Elfman. This album is a great display of very fun and incredibly catchy 80s pop, with Elfman really trying to sound like Bowie but over some slightly weird, slightly gothic, and generally very silly production

One of the best pop albums of the 21st century. Every song has hooks for days, the production has that 80s throwback charm while still sounding modern and fresh, it has THAT SAX RIFF Run Away With Me seems to have usurped I Really Like You as the big song now which is well deserved, though for me the highlight is the run from Making the Most of the Night to Let’s Get Lost - two incredibly catchy songs bookending Your Type, which has Jepsen’s most e.mo.tional performance on the whole album. It’s remarkably consistent all the way through though, even including all the deluxe and expanded editions - It’s just got everything you could possibly look for in a pop record. And the companion EP E.MO.TION Side B slaps as well

The only album by legendary punk band Bad Religion I’ve heard in full before this is their Christmas album so I’m expecting this to be quite different… It’s not that different, their Christmas album goes hard as hell. This does too. I’ve definitely heard American Jesus before but couldn’t tell you where - it’s a great song! Everything else was pretty great as well

Damn, this was actually quite disappointing. I think Vulfpeck are incredibly talented and incredibly fun, but this was not the best showcase of their talents. Some of the songs sounded a bit disjointed and the mixing was quite echoey and not very precise throughout, and the vocals were really lacking. Even though their last couple of albums haven’t made as much of an impression on me, I’d much rather listen to one of their studio albums like The Beautiful Game or Mr Finish Line. Just a slightly underwhelming live album from a band I imagine would be super super fun to see live

Ben Gibbard’s prolificness in 2003 really needs to be studied. Bro released two of the most era-defining projects with two different bands in completely different genres. Give Up maybe seems like the more groundbreaking record, really nailing that electronic indie sound and paving the way for a lot of exciting bands over the next few years, and it also has probably the strongest song across both records with the ethereal Such Great Heights. However, Transatlanticism is still my favourite of the two. It’s maybe a less original sound, just going for the brand of indie that was already popular at the time, but it absolutely nails the sound it goes for and has that more mainstream appeal with the soaring hooks while also reaching that lingering Midwest emo audience with its energy and dissectible lyrics. The New Year is such a statement opener - that first line is probably the most memorable of the entire album - and the hits keep on hitting from there. It’s probably the more consistent of the two albums and covers a lot of ground in its relatively short run time, and just has such a massive emotional and cultural impact

I’ve never really got into Faith No More, even though their sound contains so many elements I usually dig elsewhere. Angel Dust is probably their most iconic and singular album, where their weird little blend of funk-metal seems grander and more vibrant than their by all means still pretty good rap-rock-leaning debut The Real Thing. It’s a fun album and covers a lot of ground sonically while never feeling too disjointed, though none of the songs really stick with me. Even the iconic Midlife Crisis has just never really landed for me in the same way as Epic, the one real standout song from their otherwise less cohesive debut. It definitely deserves a spot on the 1001 albums list, probably more so than their debut which made it over Angel Dust for some reason, but just not really one for me no matter how many times I give it another shot

Another pretty fun funk-rock record with a harder edge - kind of metal in places but also a big hip-hop and dance influence. There’s a lot going on and not all of it works, and while I enjoyed it in small doses the album seems like it goes on for ages

A super funky R&B/soul record, kicking things off with the timeless Lady Marmalade which is of course a standout but never feels like it overshadows the rest of the album. So many great tunes on here with some lovely ballads as well as some quite out-there deeper cuts like Space Children. A great recommendation and a remarkably strong album from a group generally regarded as a one-hit wonder

A solid prog album with some very pretty moments and generally really good playing, but nothing quite catchy or technically impressive enough to make its mark

A very weird and diverse album that I loved at times and found incredibly annoying at others. Having both Curtis Mayfield and Big Daddy Kane on the feature list is insane, though the songs they featured on were a bit underwhelming (with Mayfield’s track riffing waaaay too hard on his classic Move On Up) There’s some fantastic production on here, and some dogshit lyrics, and some very weird and almost pained vocal performances. Speed is a great tune until the singer just starts rattling off a load of Springsteen song titles, like one of those cringy All on the Board ‘poems’. Love Cliché is fantastic and sounds like absolutely nothing else on the rest of the album. It’s far too long and far too inconsistent, and I genuinely genuinely hated some of it - but by god some of it was charming as well