User Albums Journey
Exploring beyond the book, one album at a time
247
Albums Rated
3.44
Average Rating
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Average rating over time
Ratings by Decade
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1990s
Favorite Decade
Indie
Favorite Genre
US
Top Origin
Cheerleader
Rater Style ?
28
5-Star Albums
2
1-Star Albums
Taste Analysis
Genre Preferences
Ratings by genre
Origin Preferences
Ratings by country
Rating Style
You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peasant | 5 | 2.57 | +2.43 |
| Eye | 5 | 2.68 | +2.32 |
| Emotion | 5 | 2.99 | +2.01 |
| To Be Kind | 5 | 3.01 | +1.99 |
| Re | 5 | 3.04 | +1.96 |
| I And Love And You | 5 | 3.05 | +1.95 |
| Puzzle | 5 | 3.05 | +1.95 |
| Brat | 5 | 3.15 | +1.85 |
| The Lonesome Crowded West | 5 | 3.17 | +1.83 |
| WORRY | 5 | 3.21 | +1.79 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weighing Souls With Sand | 1 | 2.58 | -1.58 |
| Don't Say No | 2 | 3.33 | -1.33 |
| HELLYEAH | 1 | 2.19 | -1.19 |
| The Evil One | 2 | 3.18 | -1.18 |
| In Between Dreams | 2 | 3.18 | -1.18 |
| Night Drive | 2 | 3.15 | -1.15 |
| Mad Dogs & Englishmen | 2 | 3.06 | -1.06 |
| Cleopatra | 2 | 3.05 | -1.05 |
| Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino | 2 | 3.04 | -1.04 |
| God Shuffled His Feet | 2 | 3.03 | -1.03 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Daft Punk | 2 | 5 |
Controversial Artists
Artists you rate inconsistently
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| TOOL | 5, 4, 3, 2 |
5-Star Albums (28)
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Popular Reviews
Swans
5/5
This album reminds me of being in my last year of college and getting really into Anthony Fantano’s YouTube channel. A rough time for all involved but a stunning album. A droning and hypnotic 2 hours of purgatory that feels like you’re waiting to explode
7 likes
Various Artists
5/5
I don’t think musical theatre soundtracks should be included here buttttt this is basically a rock album anyway and it’s a damn great one. Incredible musical, incredible film, iconic songs - got to be a 5
6 likes
TOOL
5/5
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
3 likes
Cardiacs
4/5
Good god, this was an experience and a half. Eclectic nightmare fuel, like The Residents meets Devin Townsend, with some incredible harmonies and wild instrumentation choices. Each song was quite exciting and it was impossible to tell where it was going to go next, but the double album format worked against it to an extent - as that unpredictability ironically just got a bit repetitive after a while, and each song melded into one. Still, very inventive and fun on the whole, and would have been a highlight if just a bit more selective with its tracklist
3 likes
Anaïs Mitchell
4/5
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
2 likes
1-Star Albums (2)
All Ratings
The Burning Hell
4/5
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!
Chet Baker
3/5
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
Valerie June
4/5
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
Sampha
3/5
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
Garmarna
4/5
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
Madvillain
5/5
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
Josh Ritter
4/5
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
Childish Gambino
4/5
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
Wussy
3/5
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-182
4/5
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
The Upsetters
3/5
A solid and groovy dub record that’s very laid-back and atmospheric, but ultimately a bit too samey throughout to keep me hooked
5/5
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
Marillion
4/5
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
Robyn Hitchcock
5/5
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
The Alan Parsons Project
3/5
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
Steven Wilson
4/5
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
4/5
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
blink-182
3/5
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
Earth, Wind & Fire
5/5
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
Jellyfish
4/5
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
Chappell Roan
4/5
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
Jimmy Eat World
4/5
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
First Aid Kit
3/5
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
The Posies
3/5
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
Billy Squier
2/5
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
My Chemical Romance
5/5
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.
The Avett Brothers
5/5
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
John Mayer
3/5
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
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong
3/5
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
Frank Zappa
4/5
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
2/5
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
Ian McDonald
3/5
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
Primus
4/5
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
The B-52's
3/5
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
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
5/5
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
100 gecs
3/5
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
Shania Twain
4/5
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
GAS
3/5
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
Tame Impala
4/5
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
Ani DiFranco
3/5
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
Operation Ivy
3/5
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
Shudder To Think
4/5
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
They Might Be Giants
3/5
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
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
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
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
4/5
A pivotal and atmospheric post-rock debut for sure, but not quite as powerful or enduring as its follow-up Lift Your Skinny Fists…
Kayo Dot
3/5
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
Type O Negative
2/5
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
Status Quo
2/5
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
The Jesus Lizard
4/5
Really interesting and impactful noise rock that covered a lot of ground in its very short run time
The Mountain Goats
4/5
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
Sunny Day Real Estate
4/5
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
Switchfoot
2/5
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
Phish
2/5
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
Café Tacvba
5/5
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
Sufjan Stevens
5/5
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
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
4/5
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
Anaïs Mitchell
4/5
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
The National
4/5
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
Harmonium
3/5
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
Garbage
4/5
Another really fun Garbage album filled with hooks and a great combination of rock and electronic production
Protomartyr
4/5
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
Angelo De Augustine
4/5
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
Adam Green
3/5
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
Nik Kershaw
4/5
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?
Marillion
3/5
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
Debbie Gibson
2/5
Fun, inoffensive 80s pop with some catchy choruses but nothing much else going on
Maldita Vecindad Y Los Hijos Del 5to. Patio
4/5
An incredibly catchy and varied Latin ska album with hooks for days. This was just very very fun
Salif Keita
3/5
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
Sparks
4/5
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
TOOL
5/5
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
Khruangbin
3/5
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
The Marcus King Band
3/5
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
King Tubby
3/5
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
Koritni
2/5
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
4/5
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?
The Cure
3/5
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
4/5
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
Bloc Party
4/5
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
The Amazing Devil
3/5
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
Childish Gambino
4/5
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
The Lumineers
2/5
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
Amon Düül II
3/5
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
Screaming Females
4/5
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
Procol Harum
3/5
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
Margot & The Nuclear So And So's
3/5
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
Hikaru Utada
4/5
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
Jóhann Jóhannsson
3/5
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
Nightwish
3/5
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
Biffy Clyro
5/5
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)
The Angelic Process
1/5
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
Oingo Boingo
4/5
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
Carly Rae Jepsen
5/5
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
Bad Religion
4/5
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
Vulfpeck
3/5
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
Death Cab for Cutie
4/5
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
Faith No More
3/5
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
Gotcha!
2/5
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
LaBelle
4/5
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
Wishbone Ash
3/5
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
Bran Van 3000
3/5
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
Killswitch Engage
4/5
I remember getting a Living Colour album on this generator just after CM Punk returned to WWE and now, just a few days after he brought back This Fire Burns for his Wrestlemania main event entrance, I get Killswitch Engage. Looks like the algorithm is a fucking massive nerd as well
Howard Jones took over on vocals shortly after this album, and he’s the singer on the few Killswitch songs I’m familiar with, so it was quite interesting hearing an album with Jesse Leach. Jones’ voice is more soulful and he brings a bit more power to his choruses, but Leach brings a lot of variety and emotion to the tracks on here. I haven’t really heard enough to properly compare the two, but they both seem to be killer vocalists in their own right
It’s a pretty badass metal album, with some really fun riffs and generally favouring huge rhythmic breakdowns over noodly guitar solos, and it all hits really hard. I don’t listen to anywhere near as much metal now as I did maybe 10 years ago, but albums like this remind me why I used to be so fond of the genre
Mary Chapin Carpenter
3/5
A solid country pop album but with some good storytelling songs here and there (He Thinks He’ll Keep Her) but nothing too exciting going on melodically or instrumentally so everything just kind of blended into one. Didn’t care for the duet, and it was no real surprise that the best song on here was a Lucinda Williams cover
Richard Dawson
5/5
I’m very glad someone submitted this and it has become one of my absolute favourite records of the last decade. One of the first truly great albums I remember being introduced to by an Anthony Fantano review embarrassingly enough - this made a huge impact on me with the first listen and I’ve just grown to enjoy it even more since.
It does such a good job of conveying the uniquely rustic avant-folk sound of this fantasy world, with weird guitar tunings and an almost percussive acoustic playing style, overlaid with Dawson’s otherworldly bardic caterwauling.
The melodies are deeply strange yet somehow embed themselves into my brain, and the album is somehow quite scary and overwhelming at times but ultimately brings me a lot of joy. It’s an incredibly original piece of work and is not only an album, but a doorway to a fantastical land of ogres, shapeshifters, and heavily-bearded Geordies.
The Hold Steady
4/5
This was a wonderful surprise. I actually checked out The Hold Steady’s album before this last week off a random recommendation, which I enjoyed but didn’t stick with me too much. This was a slightly more streamlined sound - maybe a bit less individual but a really good display of everything it was going for. A lot of the tracks had this huge stadium rock atmosphere but still with that indie edge, like Bob Mould leading the E Street Band. It kicked off with so much energy and just kept that momentum going, with stellar songwriting throughout. The one low point for me was probably Chillout Tent, and the lyrics in general were a bit hit and miss. Still - a fantastic album and a band I’ll definitely be returning to
Cardiacs
4/5
Good god, this was an experience and a half. Eclectic nightmare fuel, like The Residents meets Devin Townsend, with some incredible harmonies and wild instrumentation choices. Each song was quite exciting and it was impossible to tell where it was going to go next, but the double album format worked against it to an extent - as that unpredictability ironically just got a bit repetitive after a while, and each song melded into one. Still, very inventive and fun on the whole, and would have been a highlight if just a bit more selective with its tracklist
Crash Test Dummies
2/5
Didn’t care for this one at all, not much going on musically and a really irritating Eddie Vedder dialed to the max vocal style
Scraping Foetus off the Wheel
2/5
A quite interesting combination of punky industrial noise with some quite ambitious orchestral movements that fit together slightly better than expected. Didn’t love it but not as violently abrasive as the band name suggests
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
3/5
As smooth and sickly sweet as the titular whipped cream, this is Tijuana brass at its most blissfully muzak. It’s kind of jazz in the way that yacht rock is kind of rock, and despite the genre label the band lineup is as Mexican as apple pie. But damn it sure is smooth
Jeff Rosenstock
5/5
This is the album I suggested! I first heard WORRY a few years ago, after reading James Acaster’s book about music from 2016 (the book is called Perfect Sound Whatever, which is the closing track of this album). I liked it enough to buy it on Bandcamp but didn’t go back to it for a while, when suddenly during lockdown I put it on again and it just had a very profound effect on me. I then had a period of a couple of months when I was listening to this every single day. It became a comfort album for me in a way I’d never really needed before, and the experience of just listening through to WORRY from start to finish and embracing every emotion it brought up was quite therapeutic at a very rough time.
Something about the anxiety of lockdown and the current political climate is so perfectly reflected in this record, which I usually describe to people as ‘pop-punk for grown-ups’. It is angry and raucous in a distinctly modern way and doesn’t hold back with its criticisms of gentrification, doomscrolling/algorithmic bias, and shitty landlords. But it is also uplifting and packed full of hooks and stadium-sized choruses (like the soaring summer singalong of June 21st, or the entirety of Festival Song), with the most powerful gang vocals I’ve ever heard (I still get chills every time We Begged 2 Explode kicks in). It is remarkably entertaining and inspiring.
Jeff gives an incredibly powerful and emotional vocal performance all over the album (with some funny and quite charming slips on the high notes in I Did Something Weird Last Night - the aftermath of recording shouted gang vocals before the other vocal tracks). The instrumentation is really solid throughout with very fun drumming and some fantastic catchy guitar and bass lines, as well as some oddities like glockenspiels and kazoos that are somehow timed perfectly and just fit with the rest of the instrumental palette. Musically it goes through about every punk sub-genre, most notably on the second half of the album which is structured as one continuous movement just like Abbey Road, and flits from ska to hardcore to the electronic pulse of The Fuzz without breaking a sweat.
And it all ends with Perfect Sound Whatever, and that cathartic mantra ‘perfect always takes so long because it don’t exist’. Well I’m sorry to disagree with you Jeff, but this album is pretty fucking perfect
Death
4/5
I’m not a huge death metal fan to be quite honest, and the vocals in particular didn’t really click with me on this one. I thought it was a really well put together album though, with fantastic riffs and Gene Hoglan’s incredible metronomic drumming. The more melodic moments were a nice touch to provide some variety but really the tightness of the heavier sections was the standout. A really strong representation that I actually quite enjoyed from a genre I generally don’t vibe with
Snarky Puppy
4/5
Of course I fuck with Snarky Puppy. I don’t think you were allowed to do a music degree in the 2010s if you didn’t fuck with Snarky Puppy.
This is a good shout for their best album - I also love its predecessor GroundUP which opens with my favourite Snarky song Thing of Gold. We Like It Here has some absolute bangers on it as well though, especially the closer Lingus which is just ridiculous. It’s a fantastic modern jazz album that is so stylish and virtuosic that it’s quite easy to forget it’s all recorded live - it just sounds so tight and expertly constructed that you think it HAS to be a compilation of the best takes, and then you occasionally hear the crowd applauding after a solo and it reminds me just how darn good these musicians are.
I don’t think Snarky have a single album I would say is perfect - their music lacks that element of emotional impact or transcendence that makes some classic jazz or something like The Epic by Kamasi Washington so effective - but it’s a truly impressive outing with catchy heads and mind-bending solos by some of the most technically proficient and inventive jazz musicians of their era
Songs: Ohia
4/5
The first Songs: Ohia album I’ve heard other than The Magnolia Brewing Co., which I always thought was the band name with Songs: Ohia being the album name. The fact that Jason Molina seems to have followed that album up with multiple releases under the name The Magnolia Brewing Co. makes this even more confusing
Anyway, this was a beautiful album. Very emotional and fragile, basically all just acoustic guitar and vocals, and kind of like a cross between Elliott Smith and Magnetic Fields
Avenged Sevenfold
3/5
A very mixed album for me. The Rev’s drumming on songs like Beast and the Harlot and Bat Country were hugely inspirational for me when I was learning, and the guitar playing across the album is fantastic. Unfortunately the songs themselves don’t quite hold up, especially on the second half where the album really meanders. After the big Guns ‘n’ Roses style centrepiece ballad Seize the Day (complete with a soaring guitar solo), every song is about 7 minutes or longer and it’s incredibly uneven (despite some really good moments like the classical guitar outro to Sidewinder)
M Shadows’ vocals are also pretty mixed throughout. There are some really powerful moments like the pre-chorus of Trashed and Scattered and the emotional bridge of Seize the Day, but other times where his voice is super whiny (he insists on doing this falsetto overdub on some tracks that just sounds really bad, and he just generally doesn’t sound great on the tonally-confused closer M.I.A). The production is also quite tinny on a lot of the tracks, which is a shame as you end up missing some details of the very intricate drumming.
It’s nowhere near as consistent as their self-titled follow-up or Nightmare, but there are some absolute bangers in the first half and some very impressive and influential moments elsewhere.
Ornette Coleman
4/5
Can’t say this is a record I come back to that often but its impact on the jazz scene is undeniable. It’s not as noisy as I remembered and actually has some really touching soft moments. There’s nothing too overbearing or squawky, and while the improv does get very free in places it all still follows that familiar bebop structure. Coleman’s sax runs are just insanely fluent and seem to transcend the boundaries of melody, harmony, rhythm, and space-time.
Inimitable playing paired with a groundbreaking singular vision, Ornette Coleman I respect your game
Mull Historical Society
3/5
This was fun! Never heard of this band at all and initially though they were one of those many late noughties American indie bands inspired by Animal Collective - then found out they’re from Scotland and this came out in 2001. Wild
There is a britpop influence for sure and it becomes more prevalent as the album goes on, though that art-pop style still pokes through occasionally with some of the instrumentation. Started really well, got a bit predictable after a while, but a solid project on the whole
Transvision Vamp
3/5
Took me a little while to get into this one (I did not care for the robotic voiceover intro) but it was a fun and campy punk album with a lot of attitude and energy. Nothing too original or inspiring but still well worth a listen
Pink Floyd
4/5
Animals is a fantastic meditative prog rock album that sits comfortably in one of the greatest album runs of all time. It seems to have become the cool choice as a favourite Floyd album and I totally get it, but it just doesn’t hit me as strongly as Dark Side or my personal favourite Wish You Were Here. I would probably even choose The Wall most days, which I think has higher highs and is still remarkably strong on the whole despite being a bit bloated. There are some parts of Animals where I do kind of lose interest, which just doesn’t happen on those other three landmark Floyd albums from this era, and the standout tracks for me are the shorter Pigs on the Wing bookends, with the longer tracks in the middle being a bit sprawling, especially Sheep which seems like it takes a while to get going. Still a fantastic album though
Daft Punk
5/5
A quintessential electronic record with crossover appeal that really should have been the Daft Punk album to make the original list. Homework is a great debut but Discovery just builds on everything that made it work and makes it hit even harder
Alexisonfire
3/5
I remember being about 14 and having a couple of friends who were really into Alexisonfire (and singer Dallas Green’s solo work City and Colour, which I’ve somehow only just noticed is a pun on his name). I never really got into them but always thought they were pretty good
Listening to them again for the first time in another 14 years, I feel kind of the same. It’s aged a lot better than some of the similar bands I was listening to around the same time, but doesn’t quite have the intensity of a letlive. or a La Dispute. It’s a solid post-hardcore record and I like the interplay between the two vocalists (Green providing the cleaner vocals and Wade McNeil hitting the screams before his slightly weird tenure fronting Gallows after Frank Carter left). The songs are just not especially memorable though, and it lacks those big impactful moments I look for in this kind of music. Again, I can’t really get into them, but they’re pretty good
Neutral Milk Hotel
5/5
Just a couple of days after Discovery (which at least had an alternate Daft Punk record for representation) comes another one of the most ridiculous snubs from the original list. I have no idea how Robert Dimery didn’t include this as one of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Maybe he just didn’t like the idea of a concept album about being a bit too into Anne Frank? (honestly fair enough).
In the Aeroplane… is a strange album. Its premise is strange and its lyrics are often unsettling - ‘your father made foetuses with flesh-licking ladies’ is one that always strikes me. Musically it’s very simple until it’s not. It’s one of very few albums I can just play all the way through on guitar, though there are a lot of production details that really stand out - the lo-fi fuzz that breaks through on songs like Holland, 1945 and Ghost to the slightly mistuned brass and electronic orchestration that gives everything a uniquely eerie quality. But it’s also very jovial in places - in particular the bagpipe-led untitled instrumental, which always reminds me of my friend Chris saying it would make great entrance music for an improv group or professional wrestler.
There are so many fantastic touches that make this great record even more rewarding. The theremin wail climbing higher and higher in pitch during the verses of the title track, most notably over the lyric ‘how the notes all bend and reach above the trees’; the two wild mid-syllable octave jumps in Oh Comely; the final seconds of the album after its closing line ‘Don’t hate her when she gets up to leave’ when you hear someone stand and leave the room.
It’s a sparse acoustic album until it’s not, it’s incredibly emotional despite being so cryptic that I don’t really know why it makes me emotional, and every song is anthemic and catchy as hell
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
4/5
The longer I spend going through the user-submitted albums, the more I think Dimery is an absolute hack. This is the third album in just four days that should have definitely been included, and is pretty much THE post-rock record at this point.
That’s not to say I adore this album - it’s great but not really my cup of tea - but it is a truly legendary and awe inspiring piece of work. Cinematic, all-encompassing, and at turns beautiful and crushing, it is a masterful sonic experiment that somehow feels deserving of its intimidating 87 minute run time
Arctic Monkeys
2/5
Arctic Monkeys’ first two albums lit a firework under the UK indie scene and pioneered a new wave of pub rock bands. Their two following albums were a bit moodier and more psychedelic - they showed they had range and that they were friend with Josh Homme now. Then came AM, a staggeringly huge record which was inescapable for years, and solidified the Monkeys as one the biggest rock bands of the 21st century. It would have been so easy to follow it up with AM 2 and live off the diminishing returns for another few albums, but instead they took the left-field option. I’m really glad they did as Tranquility Base is so so much more interesting and exciting than if they tried to just recycle their already quite derivative brand of blues rock revival. Shame it fucking sucks though.
It’s a pretty wild concept - Turner is this lounge singer on a luxury resort on the moon, and this gives them an excuse to chuck in a load of sci-fi references and then not really do anything else with the concept. It’s so wild it could just about work, but Turner doesn't have the self-awareness to play into the silliness of it all and pull it off Richard Cheese style, and instead it’s a pretentious half-baked mess. A lot of the vocals are out of his range as well and he just doesn’t have the mic presence to carry it - his swagger from AM is weirdly gone and he struggles his way through song after song.
It’s not all bad - the instrumentation is often fun and plays into the spacy concept even if the songs often meander and don’t deliver. Some of the tracks that do hit are the cool scene-setting opener Star Treatment, Four Out of Five which is the closest this has to a single, and She Looks Like Fun which is the only song where Turner seems to be in on the gimmick - it’s got this haunted funfair vibe and sounds absolutely batshit and is just a lot of fun. I guess my main issue with the album is that so much of it just sounds like nothing. It has this really unique and actually quite fruitful concept that is just not played into enough. If they leaned into the silliness more, it would make the experimentation worth it - if they had more fun with it, it would be more fun to listen to. As it stands it’s a failed experiment and ultimately quite forgettable - and no concept album about a lounge singer on the fucking moon should be forgettable! - and while AM endured for many years after its release, I think Tranquility Base is already starting to be lost in time… like tears in the rain
Joan As Police Woman
4/5
A cool and consistent solo debut from a low-key indie legend. There’s Regina Spektor style piano ballads but a bit of that St Vincent edge on some of the full band tracks. It maybe doesn’t quite carve out its own sound, but it’s a really strong addition to that burgeoning mid-2000s scene. Save Me is a swaggering monster of a track, and the guest feature from Anohni on I Defy is another gorgeous highlight
Olivia Rodrigo
3/5
A strong enough sophomore album from one of the biggest and most exciting pop stars in the game right now. I don’t think it’s as strong as her debut, which was a breath of fresh air and contained banger after banger, but it shows some growth and a bit more range as an artist rather than playing things too safe. Vampire gets the plaudits and it’s a great song (if maybe not as good as Drivers Licence, the emotional centrepiece of the previous record) but the other two singles really stand out for me too. The punky/new wave of Bad Idea Right with its fuzzy guitar solo and the chant-along anthem Get Him Back really push Rodrigo’s sound into uncharted territory to great success.
It’s not as consistent as the debut and not one I’ve really found myself returning to, but it’s still a huge record and makes me excited for whatever she does next
THE SPORTS
2/5
Didn’t care for the first song at all but I enjoyed it a bit more as it went along. A lot of other reviewers have compared it to Elvis Costello and… yeah it sounds just like Costello, other than a couple of songs where the singer just does a bad Jagger impression. I enjoyed the quirky rhythms of the title track and Who Listens to the Radio was a very catchy and well written song, but everything else just felt like a less good version of other songs I’ve heard before
TOOL
4/5
A stunning and dark masterpiece from progressive metal icons Tool, with a more industrial approach than the hypnotic transcendence of later albums like their magnum opus Lateralus. It’s their most aggressive and sardonic album, though tracks like Forty Six & Two are still catchy and anthemic, and it’s full of fantastic moments though doesn’t quite reach the highs of Lateralus for me and is also a little less consistent. Still, when it really hits - especially on the astounding title track - it sure packs a hell of a punch
TOOL
3/5
Another Tool album literally the next day? This one leans more into that abstract and proggy side post-Lateralus, with winding song structures and a lack of real clarity and hooks compared to their previous two albums. It’s still magnificently played but the songs have nowhere near as much punch as their Ænima or Lateralus (arguably even Undertow) and I never really find the urge to revisit this one.
Talking Heads
5/5
The pinnacle of live albums. It loses a bit of its impact by being removed from the iconic visuals of Demme’s film, but it’s still a timeless classic. Not sure why anyone bothers playing live music after this
The 1975
3/5
I’ve never fully enjoyed or fully disliked a 1975 album - I find they never quite have that consistency that makes a great album, but all have pretty high points and their musical evolution is generally interesting enough for me to keep coming back to them even when I know I probably won’t love the whole thing. This is arguably the most consistent of theirs, and the left-field alt-rock of Part of the Band may be my favourite The 1975 song (it always reminds me of Pavement for some reason? not sure if that’s anything to do with the music or just because it has a lot of inventive euphemisms like in Silent Kit or Harness Your Hopes). I also love All I Need to Hear, a really tender and low-key ballad that doesn’t sound too cloying like some of their earlier slower songs.
Those are really the only two that stick with me, but the rest is still a pretty good listen on the whole, and I like that they’re taking risks and pushing themselves. Hopefully album 6 will be the one that really works for me
Joe Cocker
2/5
I don’t really get the reverence for Joe Cocker. There are some solid performances on here, but its frankly quite embarrassing to put out an 80 minute live album exclusively of covers, and Cocker just comes across as an enthusiastic pub singer
Mustafa
3/5
A soothing and very promising debut EP. It has some James Blake production and a Sampha feature and the influence of those two artists really shines through - it also reminds me of Anohni and the Johnsons in places. Its brevity is maybe at its detriment and it does feel more a teaser than a cohesive and intentional project, but as an introduction to Mustafa’s sound it’s a very warm one. Looks like he dropped a full album last year and I’ll definitely be checking that out
Susanne Sundfør
4/5
This started off as a quite lovely acoustic album, with breathy vocals over sparse textures, and was nice enough if a bit overly familiar - but something changed at the end of The Sound of War. The track ended with this unsettling drone that did not let up and just held you in that noise, and the following song was much more avant-garde and felt somehow ominous. The second half of the album was back to the quite lovely acoustic stuff but there was this underlying eeriness, with a rich dreamlike quality that reminded me of Jenny Hval or Agnes Obel. The project closed out with the sumptuous Mountaineers, with an almost unrecognisable John Grant feature, and the final couple of minutes were actually transcendent
Graham Parker
2/5
Another very average late 70s album that sounds just like a less good version of Costello or Petty. I’ve never heard anyone pronounce UFO like Parker does on a track towards the end and I think it’s quite damning that that was my biggest take away from the album
The Beautiful South
3/5
A fun sophisti-pop record with some catchy songs and ridiculous lyrics that sometimes really worked for me and sometimes really really didn’t. Other people seemed to enjoy the ‘Tom Waits pastiche’ but I found it quite disappointing, as it completely misses the soulful quality of Waits’ voice and just opts for a generic gravelly growl - though the closer with that Heartattack and Vine-style bassline was a highlight. Rotterdam is the real star of the show though, a charming and jaunty banger perfectly positioned near the middle of the hit-and-miss tracklist
Kaizers Orchestra
3/5
A pretty cool ‘00s alt-rock album that reminded me a bit of Franz Ferdinand, but with some Scandi folk melodies creeping through. I enjoyed this quite a bit and got more into it as it went on, but it didn’t quite do it for me
Sublime
4/5
A pivotal ska album that really deserves a spot on this list. Now that I think about, I’m not sure if there was any ska in the original 1001 albums. There was hardly any reggae either - basically just a couple of Marley records and that dogshit Clapton album.
I’m very glad I got to check this out again, as I remember not really vibing with it a few years ago. I think I went in expecting bright and punchy horns-led ska like Reel Big Fish, so the harder skank of Sublime just didn’t hit that spot. It’s much more an extension of skate punk, with some hip-hop and almost nu-metal influences in there too, along with some great hooks even if they’re a bit more subtle than other bands. Enjoyed this quite a lot in the end
Weezer
5/5
Spoiler alert - his name isn’t Jonas, it’s something much more stupid
This album basically redefined American indie rock in the post-grunge vacuum, and it’s just a bunch of dorks talking about playing D&D and how cool it would be to surf to work. Not much to say about this one other than it’s a pretty much perfect album, and a very notable omission from the original list
Freddie Gibbs
4/5
Instant classic and one of the finest hip-hop albums of the 2010s. Gibbs takes the hard-hitting street consciousness of gangster rap and combines it with the swagger and hooks of the bling era, all over some of the most luscious beats Madlib has ever cooked up
Porter Robinson
3/5
A bright and blissful electronic album that made it to my best of 2021 list, though I haven’t revisited the whole record until now. Look at the Sky is euphoric and a fantastic way to kick off the album, and Blossom near the end is an incredibly beautiful song and one I went back to a lot shortly after the album came out. Everything else is pretty good, and the production is remarkable throughout, but it’s really just those two songs that stick with me
Bon Iver
3/5
A radical reinvention for Bon Iver, whose folky leanings of the astounding For Emma Forever Ago are drenched in electronics here. 22 (Over Soon) is such a strong introduction and I don’t think the rest of the album quite holds up to it but it’s still a lovely listen, with gorgeous melodies chopped and screwed in all sorts of ways
The Decemberists
4/5
A vibrant concept album full of hooks that weave in and out of each other and reprise themselves just as you managed to get them out of your head. I caught a bit of The Decemberists at a festival last summer (having only heard their two earlier albums Picaresque and The Crane Wife) and The Wanting Comes in Waves was a song that really stuck with me - pleased to report it is just as catchy and hard hitting on the album
Streetlight Manifesto
4/5
Absolutely huge-sounding punchy ska, with hooks for days and a ridiculous amount of energy. One of those bands I’ve known of for ages and never really given a listen, and I completely understand the hype now
Jai Paul
3/5
An odd case where the story behind the album is more interesting than the music for me, especially as Paul’s reaction to his demos being leaked online was just to completely distance himself from the music industry
It’s one of the first albums to have that chronically online feeling to it, which was pushed to the extremes with the advent of hyper pop in the years between its initial leak in 2013 and the official drop in 2019. The mixing and mastering is kind of all over the place, with these random swells of volume and intensity all over the project, and some quite obtuse hooks buried in layers of chaos. It can take a while to really lock in, but when it does those hooks are golden, and the R&B silkiness of Paul’s vocals is a delicious contrast to his abrasive beats
Martha
4/5
I always find singers with strong regional accents very charming - after hearing so many fake-American voices in British bands, it’s refreshing to hear a group who are indisputably from County Durham. Martha are from a village called Pity Me (incredible name) but their brand of pop-punk is surprisingly positive, with a bit of a Rosenstock vibe but also a Puzzle-era Biffy Clyro approach to some of the hooks. It’s nothing too new or groundbreaking, but it’s really enjoyable and uplifting stuff
Ok so i have a weird Mandela Effect false memory of listening to Mew’s 2005 album (Mew and the glass handed kites) as part of this project - but I have triple checked and it’s definitely not on either the main list or the user-submitted list, so not sure what happened there.
Anyway, both albums are decent but nothing too memorable. The first few tracks of this are quite bold and hint at something majestic to come but the other songs didn’t quite hit the same heights, and it fizzled out after the slightly creepy kid singing
Arthur Russell
3/5
Arthur Russell makes really cool cello music that just doesnt do very much for me. It’s an incredibly fitting album title as yes, it does feel like you’ve entered into a world of echo, and it sounds a bit like Nick Drake at the bottom of a well drowning in feedback. The overall sound world is really quite lovely and inviting, but it gets incredibly repetitive over the 70 minute run time
Rachel Stevens
2/5
I’m very glad I got an excuse to listen to this, though ultimately it wasn’t exactly life-affirming. Secret Garden is a really fun and quite weird track, and Some Girls is a genuine bop. Everything else is classic mid-‘00s run of the mill pop fare, over-produced to shit, and not that interesting despite its incessant optimism
The Chats
3/5
Punchy and direct Aussie punk, with an actual punk spirit rather than just appropriating the sound while saying fuck all, like Brisbane’s answer to the Sex Pistols without that manufactured svengali sheen. There’s maybe not quite anything as infectious as The Chats’ behemoth single Smoko, but it’s a very solid punk album with a lot of promise
Great Big Sea
4/5
A very fitting album to be assigned on my last day in Canada. This has a big Pogues influence, with a lot of folk and sea shanty melodies combined with more modern pop-rock songwriting. Fast As I Can is a spectacular adult-contempo-pop ballad while the rest of the record is very folky, but it all complements each other incredibly nicely
CAKE
4/5
CAKE are a really fun band who put out consistently pretty good albums without ever really having a great album in my opinion - all the ones I’ve heard sit kind of between a 3 and a 4, with Comfort Eagle being my favourite and Fashion Nugget right here being a close second.
They just have an impressive knack for writing these really catchy songs that have a bit of a Weezer or Spoon or Beck vibe to them but really are just quite identifiably CAKE - I can’t think of another band who could cook up a song quite like The Distance and make it work so well, but there we go
Touché Amoré
4/5
I’ve always been more into La Dispute than Touché (for reasons I can’t really explain as they’re basically the same band) but this is a really strong post-hardcore record with some very emotional and well-written lyrics. Some of the songs at the start are maybe a bit samey but there’s a lot of variety towards the second half, with a bit of a midwest emo influence on a couple of tracks and a quite lovely surprise Julien Baker duet
Karnivool
3/5
Groovy technical metal which I’ve seen compared to Tool a lot but reminded me instead of more theatrical metal bands like Nightwish combined with the rhythmic pulse of djent. Enjoyable enough but I struggled to lock in for the full 77 minutes of this, though closing track Roquefort was a highlight
Extrechinato y Tu
3/5
How to even begin describing this? A very eclectic Latin rock album with influences up the wazoo. A bit inconsistent but when it slapped (like on Tres Puertas) it really really slapped
Dave Matthews Band
4/5
Oh god, it turns out I actually really like the Dave Matthews Band. I’ve always heard about them in discussions about jam bands so was expecting something more like Phish or Grateful Dead but instead this was much funkier though always with quite grungy vocals - like if Eddie Vedder fronted Jamiroquai. A very interesting mix that I’m surprised works as well as it does, but the songwriting is just so damn good across this album. One of those rare hour-plus projects where the runtime feels warranted
Igorrr
2/5
Technical death metal pushed to its most ridiculous operatic and electronic extremes. It’s fun, it’s silly, and there are some surprisingly nice moments like the guitar part in Spaghetti Forever - it’s just not always too pleasant to listen to. There’s a bit too much going on all at once, which admittedly seems like the whole point but sometimes an accordion waltz, dubstep, and death growls is more than one song needs
Os Mundi
2/5
A true Ronseal album, in that it sounds exactly what you’d expect a krautrock rendition of a Latin mass to sound like. Blurry and warbling synths, a tight as heck rhythm section, and a pretty decent choral setting. Unfortunately it does get very repetitive as they basically approach each movement in exactly the same way, even making both Credos almost indistinguishable. A really interesting concept that never quite gets out of first gear, like driving an ‘09 Fiesta on the Autobahn
TOOL
2/5
The 4th and easily the weakest TOOL album on the user-submitted list. Maybe submitting 4 of their 5 albums makes up for the fact that none were included in the original 1001 albums (the exclusions of Ænima and Lateralus are ludicrous). Maybe not
This album is fine, it’s just a far cry from their heyday. If we have to wait another 13 years for another TOOL album, hopefully they have some more ideas
The Stooges
3/5
The chaotic coke-fuelled dissolution of one of the greatest punk bands of all time, immortalised on wax. It’s fascinating in the way a YouTube compilation of car crashes is fascinating.
The first half, from a 1973 gig, has arguably the most atrocious sound quality I’ve ever heard from a live recording, and I’ve listened back to sets of my teenage hardcore band recorded with a Samsung Galaxy perched on a kick drum in some of Leicester’s dodgiest dive bars. The second half, from the Stooges’ final ever gig in 1974, is a much clearer recording but somehow even harder to listen to. Iggy Pop is just picking fights with the audience the entire time, yelling insults at them and goading them to throw bottles and eggs at him. Because it’s only the second half of that 1974 set, and because the mics are all on stage, this is all removed from context and just comes across as a deranged monologue. It’s kind of incredible that this was recorded, and even more incredible that they decided to release it. As an album it’s atrocious, but as a historical artefact it is truly one of a kind, so I guess I have to rate it right down the middle
Daft Punk
5/5
Another day, another iconic live album (though this time it’s iconic because it’s really good rather than because you think someone’s about to get beaten up - see Metallic K.O.)
A masterful remixing and reimagining of some of the biggest electronic/dance songs of all time, making them somehow hit even harder in the live setting. It’s maybe not as essential a listen as Discovery but deserves a spot more than Homework in my opinion, which I’m still surprised is the one Daft Punk album that made the original list. Can’t believe Digital Love didn’t make it onto the set list though, what’s up with that?
Arca
3/5
Other than some of her production work on albums like Yeezus and Vulnicura, I hadn’t heard any of Arca’s music until her 2017 self-titled album, so it was pretty interesting to go back to this EP from 2012. It’s very glitchy as expected and has a dancey and groovy vibe rather than some of the more delicate and haunting textures of her self-titled or the apocalyptic chaos of the KiCK series. The production is impressive and the vision is there, but it’s not quite as effective as some of her more recent releases
Bob Mould
3/5
A solid effort from alt-rock icon Bob Mould. It’s not as electrifying as any of his work with Hüsker Dü, as catchy as Copper Blue with his side project Sugar, or as varied and interesting as his solo debut Workbook. Just a solid Bob Mould album - sometimes that’s all you need
Portishead
4/5
Another great Portishead album. I still think Dummy is their magnum opus, but the other two records and fantastic to be fair. This one doesnt have the catchiness of some of the tracks from Dummy but is also generally not quite as eerie and ruminative as Third about a decade later.Instead Gibbons’ vocals are a lot more present in the mix and more theatrical, a la Kate Bush, before the distant grooves really kick in. It’s a great stepping stone between the single-heavy debut Dummy and the more mature and obscure Third - the darkness is there for sure but it’s peeping through rather than decaying everything
Times New Viking
2/5
A lo-fi garage album that frankly just did not catch my attention or stand out amidst anything, just quite an empty sound for what could be a fruitful subgenre
The Sound
3/5
A decent post-punk album that just doesn’t offer much to stand out in that scene. Just sounds like a B-tier The Cure album really
Polvo
3/5
An angular slacker rock album that’s surprisingly light on the vocals, focusing instead on that dissonant guitar interplay. It’s certainly a vibe and quite fun to listen to but not exciting or memorable enough to want to return to
System Of A Down
5/5
A monumental metal album that just nails everything it sets out to do. Furiously political in places, punishingly noisy and silly in others, and stunningly emotional on songs like the grandiose Aerials, it covers so much ground while being remarkably consistent and hard hitting.
Prison Song is a staggering opener with an off-kilter intro of crushing stabs before addressing the inequality of the prison complex in North America; Chop Suey is the behemoth single that somehow made a stadium singalong out of System’s idiosyncratic onslaught of sound; Shimmy has a ridiculously good groove with those snare drum drags; and the title track is maybe System’s master work, perfectly blending the aggression of their heavier tracks with the sweeping melodies of their ballads. It’s an album I cannot see any other band pulling off, and a shameful omission from the original list
Stars
4/5
A great record, beautiful songwriting and a lovely sound that you can just get lost in. Straddles the line between sounding like Death Cab and The Postal Service, to the extent that I was quite surprised Ben Gibbard wasn’t also involved in this project
I thought I was being insightful by suggesting this sounds a bit like Broken Social Scene, then found out they share three members. I swear every Canadian indie rock band from the early 2000s has at least one member in BSS.
Alexisonfire
2/5
Alexisonfire’s second album came up a few weeks ago, and I explained then that I just never really got into them at the time but always thought they were fine (I also misattributed the screamed vocals to their guitarist and backing vocalist Wade McNeil rather than the actual lead George Pettit - oops)
Anyway their debut has a lot of the same good things as it’s follow-up - the interplay between those screamed and clean vocals is quite fun, and there’s a lot of inventive riffs on this record - but it does also feel sloppier, both from a performance standpoint and a songwriting one. There’s often a quite linear approach to the songwriting with no cohesion between the sections and no strong hooks (either vocal or instrumental) to return to, which just results in the end product feeling disjointed and unfulfilling
Al Stewart
4/5
Never heard of Al Stewart before and really enjoyed this. At first I thought it was just another 70s album riffing on The Beatles, Bowie and Elton… and it basically is, but it does it really well. Great hooks and some real theatricality and character to the songwriting
David Baerwald
3/5
A political pop-rock smorgasbord that’s just not as revolutionary as it seems to think it is. The album cover is quite striking and there are a couple of quite incendiary tracks, especially the opener and AIDS & Armageddon which has the spirit of a Saul Williams anthem. Unfortunately they’re interspersed with some really dry arena rock-style ballads, with The Postman in particular sounding like a late U2 B-side, and a couple of forgettable, emotionally flat blues numbers
Courtney Barnett
4/5
One of the best singer-songwriter records of the 2010s, Barnett exudes so much personality and charm across this swift 43 minutes of her debut. There’s an endless supply of quotable witty lyrics either delivered as these dry and confident streams of consciousness that she pulls off expertly, or over hooks that are remarkably solid for such a laid back acoustic album
Les sheriff
3/5
31 tracks of a French-Canadian punk band sounds very overwhelming at first, but due to the sheer urgency of everything it only clocks in at just over an hour. Sure, the language barrier maybe prevented me from getting the full experience, but I doubt I’d be able to make out the words of any other live punk album.
This was a whirlwind of energy and hooks that I never really got into but was enjoyable enough. There was a decent amount of variety between the songs and they all led into each other really smoothly which gave the impression of this non-stop party - just not a party I’d stay to the end of
Joe Jackson
3/5
Sharp and smooth new wave with a real reggae influence on a few tracks - quite far removed from what I expected having only really known the big single Is She Really Going Out With Him? coming in to this. Sunday Papers is very catchy, and another track I did recognise, and is the best execution of that reggae vibe (which comes across as quite grating elsewhere on the record), and there are a couple of very fun faster punk-inspired tracks that really surprised me. All in all I enjoyed it but don’t see myself going back to the full album
Chucklehead
2/5
I really swung between loving and hating this at different times. Really in-your-face funk that’s just obnoxiously silly at times - sometimes in an endearing way and sometimes just really annoying. Some of it was magnificent. Some of it absolutely sucked. The Beatles cover on here does not deserve to live.
Mogwai
4/5
Melancholic, introspective, and very Scottish. Young Team is a quite bleak post-rock album that gets real damn loud at times, but there are also moments where these shimmering guitars break through the fog and everything seems wonderful
I also wanted to share this incredible line from the album’s wikipedia page:
The band took up pseudonyms for the liner notes on the album… John Cummings took the nickname Cpt. Meat after his obsession for eating chops
That Handsome Devil
3/5
My only knowledge of this album was the track Rob the Prez-O-Dent being an absolute bastard to play on Rock Band 2
Very weird album that covered a pretty wide range of styles, this had the gruff vocal delivery of Tom Waits at his most playful and the musical theatricality of Danny Elfman or something. It also reminded me a bit of the Greg Brown tracks from the Hadestown concept album? But also quite rockabilly… an odd mix that really worked, but ultimately a quite front-loaded record
Emicida
2/5
Really struggled to get into this, the language barrier didn’t help and what I’ve seen of the translated lyrics are pretty great, and the vocal delivery was strong enough, but the music was just really bland pop-rap that did absolutely nothing for me
Roky Erickson
2/5
Incredibly cheesy horror-themed pop rock that had far too many tracks that literally just repeated one line over and over again and got insanely annoying. The second half was a bit better when the songs started resembling songs rather than just monotonous motifs, but even then the guitar sounds were so thin and the music was just pretty boring
Sam Fender
3/5
Fender really leans into the Springsteen influence on this one. The title track (probably the standout on the album) is pure 70s Springsteen extravagance, and Crumbling Empire is that more laid back Dancing in the Dark-style 80s Springsteen through and through.
It’s a pretty good record on the whole, even if it has a bit less personality and excitement than his previous two, and is all pretty safe and as expected - other than the moody and mysterious shuffle of TV Dinner which was my favourite track bar that banger of an opener. Still some huge singalong choruses and good guitar jams from front to back - one more of these and he’s got to be one of the newer generation of Glastonbury headliners, right?
Cluster
3/5
A really cool and varied kind of krautrock / kind of electronic album, with some tracks resembling the ambient soundscapes of Tangerine Dream and others having those tight and almost mechanical krautrock grooves.
It’s a lot more concise and to the point than a lot of other krautrock albums I’ve heard though, with a real pop sensibility shining through, and also sounds ahead of it’s time in quite a few places - Caramel sounds like it could be an LCD Soundsystem instrumental and Marzipan sounds like something from Butterfly 3000
It was a bit inconsistent, with some songs really not doing much for me at all, but the highs were pretty impressive and it’s one I’d revisit for sure
Savages
3/5
Spiky post-punk (or I guess post-post-post-punk considering this came out about 30 years after post-punk’s heyday) with a lot of energy and some huge choruses but nothing too original or exciting. Very reminiscent of Siouxsie and the Banshees in its atmospheric moments and of bands like Screaming Females when it’s rowdier, and also some early-Queens of the Stone Age-style riffs
Tally Hall
2/5
Tally Hall are one of those bands I’ve heard about quite a bit but just never got around to checking out - and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Some of it was quite charming, and it’s a very eclectic baroque pop album - there’s a clear Queen influence and I’m getting some Sgt. Peppers-era Beatles as well - while also really feeling like it’s of that early YouTube scene with Lemon Demon etc.
It experiments quite a lot with its style and some of it really works, while some of it really really doesn’t - the few rap sections here and there and the awkward reggae of Banana Man were difficult to get through. I’ve seen a couple of comparisons to AJR and I really get that - the ukulele-heavy tracks also reminded me of Twenty One Pilots at their most insipid. Still a lot to enjoy in places though - I appreciated the overall ambition and the Haiku song was cute, but it just didn’t work for me
Jack Johnson
2/5
Harmless but forgettable pop folk. Better Together is a lovely song and everything else sounds like a lesser version of that
Björk
5/5
Completely forgot this wasn’t on the original list - what the actual fuck? Björk’s best album for my money, combining beautiful soundscapes with punchy hooks and harsh electronics. Hunter is a rhythmic battle cry of an opener, Bachelorette is a suave banger with incredible strings, and Jóga is ethereal beyond comprehension. There’s the uniquely gorgeous melodies one always expects from Björk - how Scandinavian of her - but also some really aggressive moments that add so much to her sound, from the feral growling on Alarm Calls to the distorted shrieks all over the second half of Pluto. And then it all closes with All is Full of Love, Björk at her most delicate and balladic with that soaring chorus repeating over and over until it can’t help but warm your soul
I also remember listening to this on the drunken walk home from a night out in York and I posted like 5 blurry photos of practically nothing on Instagram with a Homogenic lyric (for example - I’m no fucking Buddhist but this is enlightenment) in the caption thinking it was really artsy, and looking back the next day and wondering why the hell I did any of that
John Martyn
4/5
It feels slightly ridiculous to refer to a John Martyn album as folk at this stage of his career - this album contains a lot of elements and folk is right down on the list. The first half is by far the rowdier and more impactful of the two. The prog and jazz influences from albums like Solid Air are still there (just listen to those keys in Lookin’ On) but that Nick Drake-esque folky backdrop has more often that not been usurped by pure psychedelic funk rock. That hard driving groove of Johnny Too Bad would give Pete Seeger a heart attack. One World (the other non-Solid Air album by Martyn on the original list) leaned a bit too hard into effect-heavy funk bass and sounded quite cheap in places, whereas this album has really developed that sound and displayed it in a far more tasteful and effective way
The second half completely changes its approach and kicks of by just delivering some solid 80s ballads - maybe the choruses aren’t big enough to call them power ballads, but all the other elements are there from the strings pads and twinkling keys to the melodic guitar solos to Phil freaking Collins. The last two songs are then possibly the worst and then best tracks on the whole record - an electronics-heavy misfire followed by a soulful banger to close it out. I didn’t enjoy side two as much as the first half but it does the job
One the whole a great discovery from an artist I thought I’d heard all the highlights from
Jason Isbell
3/5
Not sure why but I’ve never really been able to get into Isbell’s stuff. It’s well written and he’s a good singer and musician but it all just sounds kind of the same to me and I never connect with anything. This album from earlier this year is no different
Damien Rice
3/5
A nice enough singer songwriter album that I think gets a bit of stick due to the X Factor-fication of its big single Cannonball. It’s actually a quite lovely song when it’s not stripped back and given that John Lewis Christmas advert treatment, and the other lead single (The Blower’s Daughter) is even better. Ultimately it gets a bit lost in the middle and, while the penultimate track I Remember is really effective with its chaotic ending, the closer is a bit messy and anticlimactic
Vampire Weekend
3/5
Fun and quirky rhythmic indie pop with an expansive instrumental palette… and probably the least interesting Vampire Weekend album (and definitely the weakest of the first three)
The debut is explosive and full of earworms and Modern Vampires rounds out the trilogy with a darker chamber pop tone - Contra sits in between, a slightly awkward transitional album that doesn't have too much new to say. A safe follow-up to an infectious arrival on the scene, it’s still a lot of fun, but outside of Cousins there really isn’t that much in terms of bangers to go back to.
Teenage Fanclub
4/5
Well, I was ready to say this is a solid Teenage Fanclub record but not on the level of Bandwagonesque or Thirteen. That’s on me, I guess I just hadn’t spent enough time with Grand Prix.
It’s really good. Combining slacker rock grooves with almost power pop levels of hooks, there’s so many great tunes on this thing. Definitely worth a listen and it’s made want to want to go back to those previous two albums to determine which one is the best - and I think if you finish an album and immediately want to listen to more of the same band, the album has definitely done its job
Chromatics
2/5
I really wanted to like this because Chromatics’ song Shadow was a moody standout from the Twin Peaks: The Return soundtrack. Unfortunately nothing on this album really came close
Their overall vibe is good - eerie and ethereal synth pop with enough atmosphere to crush a space shuttle - and the album started off well. But then there was the god awful Kate Bush cover, with pitchy and hesitant vocals that absolutely ruined one of the greatest songs of all time. The few tracks after that mostly went on for far too long and got very repetitive very quickly (did the closer really really need to be 15 minutes?) A bit disappointing even though I enjoyed the overall aesthetic
The Tragically Hip
3/5
Cracking band name. Pretty decent alt-rock album, with vocals that often remind me of Michael Stipe over music that veers from dreamy jangle pop to swaggering hard rock. Definitely could grow on me after another couple of listens but just sticking to a solid 3 for now
Chloe x Halle
3/5
Catchy and cool R&B from sister protégées Chloe x Halle. This felt like a real statement album at the time, really confirming that they had arrived and they were going to dominate that pop sphere for the next few years - and then nothing really happened. Halle was in that pointless The Little Mermaid remake, they both released some solo stuff that I’ve heard little to no fanfare over. This is an album that never quite hit for me but is full of potential - hopefully we see the results of that potential soon
Mylène Farmer
3/5
Brooding in places but upbeat in others, this is a pretty varied synth pop record that holds its themes of religion and sexuality on its sleeves. It can feel a bit repetitive at times but the atmosphere it creates is cool and welcoming, and it’s much more engaging than the Chromatics record from a few days ago
Backstreet Boys
2/5
The first two songs are absolute bangers but the rest is just over-produced and boring 90s pop garbage, with so many naff synths and awkward step-up key changes
Titus Andronicus
3/5
A pretty cool indie concept album and very different to what I expected - for some reason I always thought Titus Andronicus were a metal band.
It draws a lot of sounds and styles together really well. Not sure how many of these were direct influences but I feel like it has the conceptual scope of The Decemberists; the songwriting framework of Springsteen; the punk spirit of The Pogues; and the vocal style of Bright Eyes. The spoken-word snippets between tracks also reminded me a bit of The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers
It dragged a little in places but was generally solid and a fun listen
Enter Shikari
3/5
What a throwback. I haven’t properly listened to Enter Shikari in a long time but they’re a lot of fun - combining trance with metalcore to make this really unique and hyperactive brand of electronic heaviness that takes essentially the same approach as nu-metal but is stylistically very distinct.
It has the scrappy energy of a debut by a group of guys in their late teens and early 20s and naturally doesn’t have the focus and cohesion of later and more mature albums like A Flash Flood of Colour, but what it lacks in polish it makes up for in promise
It’s also a rare rear-heavy album - while songs like Mothership and No sssweat shine brightly on the first half, Sorry You’re Not a Winner is in a league of its own as it veers from breakdowns to breakbeats with its uniquely danceable aggression. And just when it seems like the album has peaked, Adieu comes out of nowhere, a genuinely beautiful and anthemic track that somehow doesn’t feel out of place and shows the breadth of what these guys are capable of
It’s probably not their best album, and some bits have aged badly. Rou’s screams are a bit choppy in places and some of the tracks in the first half rely on a lot of the same tricks to diminishing returns. But when it works, it really really works
Fontaines D.C.
4/5
I didn’t vibe with this on the first listen last year but I think that’s because I had it on while training for a 10k and I just hate running. Revisiting it without being distracted by exercise a few months ago, I appreciated it a lot more.
A slick and melodic post-punk album that marks a new chapter for Fontaines after their rowdy debut and the Irish-folk-punk of Skinty Fia (which is still probably my favourite of theirs). Romance returns to the dreamier sound that peppered Fontaines’ second album A Hero’s Death but sticks the landing a bit better here, and welcomes in some new sounds like the rap-inspired swagger of Starburster. Here’s the Thing is basically shoegaze, and the melancholic yet bright outro of Favourite really sticks with me after each listen. Maybe a bit soon to be on a best of all time list, but it’s one of the standout records from last year for sure
Tori Amos
5/5
Amos takes the stellar songwriting from her debut Little Earthquakes and really steps up the production and scope a notch or two. It’s playful in places, it’s atmospheric in others, and it flits between sparse and precarious melodies to audacious off-kilter grooves like the unreal swagger of God. Cornflake Girl is the big single but it honestly doesn’t stand out too much in the middle of the album, the tracklist is just that intriguing and stacked. Just a stunning album that gets better with each listen
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
Another delightful little Sufjan album, this time with Asthmatic Kitty labelmate Angelo de Augustine (whose 2019 release Tomb was a gorgeous highlight of these user-submitted albums). I feel like I enjoy Sufjan’s music most when it’s either extravagant like on Illinois or stripped-back and intimate like the intensely personal Carrie and Lowell. This is not really either of those things but it’s still very nice, a welcome return from the trilogy of ambient albums Stevens released just before this which really weren’t my thing
The concept is fun - each song being inspired by a movie the pair watched together in a cabin. It’s a real eclectic mix of movies as well from All About Eve to Point Break to Hellraiser III. There’s also a song about Night of the Living Dead that plays off a Bon Jovi interpolation - weird shit but somehow works
The songs are delicate and witty in classic Stevens fashion, and the pair blend together really well. Not as emotional or exciting as some of their earlier work but still a pretty lovely outing
Boards of Canada
3/5
Not sure why but Boards of Canada’s style of haunting downtempo electronica has just never really clicked with me. It’s a technological marvel of an album, with incredible production and attention to detail, and the occasional fragment of a melody or soundscape will really make an impression but there’s just not enough meat on this 66-minute ambient bone for me to dig into
Roger Waters
2/5
A far cry from the heyday of classic Floyd albums, this was a meandering slog of aimless noodling with hardly a hook to be found. Some great guitar playing in places but disappointingly little else to care about
John Coltrane
4/5
Well this was a delightful surprise. Somewhere after the trailblazing harmonic mastery of Giant Steps and the wailing avant-garde leanings of the Village Vanguard live album, and before the spiritual and conceptual tour-de-forces of A Love Supreme and Ascension, Coltrane stripped it all back for this lovely collection of jazz ballads with classic baritone singer Johnny Hartman. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Coltrane play in such a beautifully restrained way, and it’s one more feather in the cap of such a diverse and accomplished musician and bandleader
Thee Oh Sees
3/5
I was actually quite surprised to find out these guys are from California because they sound like every Australian psych rock band that blew up in the 2010s
The first Thee Oh Sees album I heard was A Weird Exit, which came out about a month after this live recording, so this was a pretty good quick-fire way to hear some highlights of their earlier work. I do enjoy their music, and the live setting really amplified the punky energy they bring, but I don’t know if this was necessarily a better choice than just one of their studio albums.
Their whole gimmick seems to be changing their name to slight variations (they currently go by Osees) every time they change up their line-up and/or sound, so I was expecting to hear a wider range of music than this offered. It was all good but all pretty similar oddball garage rock without really demonstrating any distinct periods or growth. Maybe there is a clearer demarcation in the studio recordings and a greatest hits retrospective would have emphasised this more. Anyway - good stuff, just nothing too notable, and I’d rather go back to their 2017 album Orc
Louis Armstrong
4/5
I generally find the kind of Dixieland jazz that forms much of this collection quite difficult to get into - jazz as a form has changed so much and become so much more expressive and exciting since this era, and even though the musicianship is often exemplary, the style as a whole leaves me wanting.
That being said - these sessions are the cream of the crop, and honestly it’s just mind blowing that some of these tracks were recorded 100 years ago. The 1928 sessions are the standouts for me, with West End Blues in particular just screaming its vitality from the get go with its iconic trumpet intro. An essential compilation spanning 5 years of ridiculously prolific recording sessions from one of the most important artists of the last century
Talk Talk
4/5
A fascinating album, especially considering the history of Talk Talk at this point. 1988’s Spirit of Eden is a slow-burning and spacious post-rock record, with sinewy sonic builds, building on the jazz-influenced new wave of 1986’s The Colour of Spring, but a far cry from the synth-pop of 1984’s It’s My Life. It’s kind of like if Duran Duran followed up Rio by just dropping Spiderland by Slint
It’s a great record - maybe not quite as strong as it’s follow up Laughing Stock, but probably more notable for being such a hard pivot and taking that risk
The War On Drugs
3/5
Another very chill synth-tinged rock album from The War on Drugs, A Deeper Understanding builds on the effortlessly cool vibes of its appropriately dreamy predecessor Lost in the Dream, but lacks the little urgency that album provided. Each song is so drawn out, with only one registering under 5 minutes, and once you get through the swamp of admittedly incredible and blissful production, the writing just doesn’t really cut it. Holding On was a standout, and the 11-minute Thinking of a Place was fantastic for the first and final third, but temporarily collapses into nothingness around the 4:30 mark as if the song itself saw its own runtime and became overwhelmed.
The closer is another highlight with its slow build and emotional arc, but so many of the other tracks seem content to drift at their own glacial pace. If I completely zone out then it’s really lovely background music with that warm and luscious production to become completely enveloped in, but when I tune back in I’m just waiting for something more to happen
New Model Army
3/5
A fun and punchy post-punk album with a real folk influence - like a heavier Billy Bragg. I’ve always like New Model Army’s whole vibe and ethos but other than a handful of occasions this was lacking a bit in the tunes department
Fontaines D.C.
4/5
Another Fontaines album - this scrappy debut is nowhere near as refined as their latest effort Romance or the perfect storm of Skinty Fia, but it’s a fantastic introduction with great energy and some great hooks. Some of the songwriting feels a bit basic (as one could probably expect from any debut) but it’s got enough charm and raw spirit to counterbalance that.
Boys in the Better Land still might be their most exciting song (also how the hell was it the 7th single from this album? You’d lead with that surely!)
Jimmy Buffett
3/5
It’s a 5 somewhere
I enjoyed this more than expected, some fun dad rock/smooth country that never got too cringy or annoying. A couple of great tracks on this, and a fair bit of filler about how much he likes tequila - nothing too exciting, but all pretty amiable
Psyche Origami
4/5
Pretty cool turntable-heavy hip-hop with some weird and funky beats. It reminds me quite a bit of Deltron 3030 though the sampling chops are almost Madvillain-esque at times, while At Last felt like a boom bap classic. Some motifs were maybe repeated a bit too much and a couple of the skits fell flat for me, but otherwise it was an adventurous and enjoyable record
Haley Heynderickx
4/5
Never heard of Heynderickx before but this was a great introduction. Really lovely indie folk with some stunning acoustic guitar playing and really strong vocals. I feel like a lot of folk-adjacent stuff recently has been slightly hampered by weird California-vocal-fry whisper singing, so it was great to hear something in that vein with some powerful and emotive vocals
Frightened Rabbit
5/5
An emotionally wrought Scottish alt-rock blinder, like Biffy Clyro post-divorce. The melodies on this are marvellous as it kicks off with the anthemic The Modern Leper and remains catchy throughout with tracks like Old Old Fashioned. The album also shines in more tender moments like The Twist and the heartbreaking ode to intimacy Keep Yourself Warm, and closes out with the devastating Floating in the Forth. A truly special record that hits hard in a variety of ways with every listen
Pedro The Lion
4/5
Catchy and emotional alt-rock that maybe sounds a little dated but stands out from a homogenous early ‘00s scene with its slice-of-life realness. It’s a concept album about heartbreak and the scourge of capitalism that manages to not quite tip over into melodrama and instead is punchy and sometimes insightful - like if Ben Gibbard fronted a post-grunge band rather than reinventing emo and indietronica. Pretty great stuff from a band I’d never heard of
Gurrumul
4/5
One of the most gut-wrenching entries to this list, this was genuinely quite painful to listen to for a decent chunk of its 70 minute run time - but in a good way
Just an incredibly heartbreaking record with a stellar and visceral vocal performance, and some gorgeous and haunting orchestration to round it all out
Amyl and The Sniffers
3/5
Rowdy and raunchy Aussie punk from one of the most exciting live bands of the last few years - I caught about half their set at All Points East a couple of years ago and they were incredibly fun to watch
This album opens extremely well but the second half isn’t quite as strong. The energy is fantastic the whole time though, and the tracks as presented here are really just a placeholder for their riotous live shows
Chris de Burgh
2/5
A few really good songs on this - A Spaceman Came Travelling is a classic (and not actually that Christmassy when removed from its usual modern context) and Lonely Sky is a genuinely great ballad. The self-titled track is a strong opener as well, and the story it tells reminds me of The Devil Went Down to Georgia (though musically it’s pretty far removed). The other songs didn’t do much for me though, especially the music-hall theatrics of tracks like Patricia the Stripper and The Painter which felt very dated for a mid-70s record
Not for me on the whole, but still worth checking out for those three highlights
Ween
4/5
Genre-hopping wizards Ween at maybe their most eclectic, this is a real masterclass in throwing shit at the wall and watching it turn to gold. It’s probably their most indebted to Zappa and not as consistent as The Mollusk or Quebec when they really secured their place as quirky alt-rock legends, but there are some all-timers in here and everything else is at least a fun little oddity.
Some of the early tracks like Spinal Meningitis and Roses Are Free are great, but it steps up to a new gear in the second half. Baby Bitch is lusciously psychedelic, Voodoo Lady is infectiously groovy, and Buenas Tardes Amigo is a gripping mariachi rendition of a classic but effective story of jealousy and betrayal. And then there’s stuff like The HIV Song, which sure is a song
Magdalena Bay
4/5
A hazy and blissful pop record, and one of the standouts from 2024 - as well as featuring one of the best album covers I’ve seen in a long time
This took me a little while to get into, as I checked it out a couple of times last year and thought it was good but didn’t fully click with it. Well this time it worked. It sounds kind of like if Carly Rae Jepsen put out a dream pop record. The production is immaculate and there are some fantastic hooks throughout as well as some just lovely constant soundscapes. Death & Romance is an absolute banger and That’s My Floor is super catchy as well, and the closing track wraps things up in a perfectly understated way. A lot of stuff to enjoy here, and who knows - maybe it will be a 5 on the next listen
Boy Azooga
3/5
A fun and funky indie project from a Welsh band with a Vegas aesthetic, with a nice variety of danceable and chill songs. I kind of wish they were mixed up a bit more, as the slower and longer songs are all lumped together at the end meaning the album feels a bit like it’s losing momentum as it goes on. But the songs themselves are a lot of fun, and it’s always great to come across some bangers on here that I’d never heard of
A solid collection of songs from freak folk pioneers AJJ. Good songwriting and fun (if often a bit extreme) lyrics, but some pretty rough recordings and a lack of variety (though admittedly the album’s only 25 minutes) that holds it back from its full potential. I think AJJ really nailed their sound a few years later on Knife Man, which is far more confident, exciting, and better produced
Slowdive
4/5
An iconic shoegaze album with ethereal production you can just get lost in - like floating in a calm sea. I much prefer this chill and dreamy style of shoegaze to the fuzzy noisescapes of My Bloody Valentine and the like
Unwound
3/5
This was pretty cool. I remember listening to Leaves Turn Inside You (their album after the album after this) and enjoying it but that was many years ago and I remember none of it
Apparently this is post-hardcore but doesn’t really sound like most other post-hardcore I’ve heard, and has more of a post-rock Slint-adjacent vibe to me. Very fuzzy, slinking grooves with vocals that alternate from pained screams to almost Stephen Malkmus-esque? Interesting and hypnotic in places but just a bit too much unwarranted static for my liking
Lo Fidelity Allstars
2/5
Not for me at all - some fun and trancy grooves every now and then but they all went on for so long that I just got kind of fed up. The vocals were just not my thing either, alternating between Madchester yelling and not-as-deep-as-it-thinks-it-is beat poetry
Bruce Hornsby
3/5
This was a quite fun soft rock album but I didn’t get too much out of it. Catchy hooks but very dated production, even for the 90s when it came out. Kind of like Billy Joel with more of a groovy jazz/funk influence
Charli xcx
5/5
One of the boldest and most exciting album releases of recent years. Everything from the videos to Charli’s stage presence to the album’s branding are just so perfectly aligned with the music and its attitude, making a completely cohesive artistic impact. Charli had been knocking on the door of pop superstardom for a while, and brat was that undeniable moment of breaking those doors down and spitting in the mainstream’s face (but like in a sexy way)
And the music is killer, absolute bangers and club classics all the way through the tracklist (highlights include but not limited to 360, Von Dutch, Sympathy is a Knife, Everything is Romantic). But brat also showcases some of Charli’s most intimate and emotional songs to date, with her tribute to trailblazing producer SOPHIE on So I and her musings on motherhood on I Think About It All The Time - living up to her rave queen persona but simultaneously reminding us that behind the icon, she’s still that young girl from Essex. There was also the remix album which I wasn’t too keen on on the whole but did feature the incredible version of Girl So Confusing with Lorde, as well as the fun and cheeky Guess remix with Billie Eilish.
From headlining festivals to dominating TikTok, brat summer was a truly momentous movement in pop culture which we haven’t really seen for a while - it seems a bit cheap to compare it to Beatlemania but honestly I’m not sure what else to compare it to. And the music actually lived up to the hype. That is something truly special.
Refused
4/5
A revolutionary post-hardcore album that really revitalises the genre by blending it with jazz, electronica, and a heavier metal sound.
It’s a hell of an ambitious album title but manages to live up to it, and the whole ethos of the record (‘that punk and hardcore music could not be anti-establishment by continuing to package revolutionary lyrics in sounds which had been increasingly co-opted into the mainstream’) is pretty rad. Despite its anti-establishment core, it’s still catchy as hell in places, like Liberation Frequency’s refrain demanding the airwaves back. New Noise is the standout single and it’s just a perfectly crafted song - the riff builds tension so magnificently, it bubbles and infuses with that electronic warbling, and then just blows the fuck up with that cry of ‘Can I scream?’
Guy Clark
4/5
Really impressive and emotional country. It avoids a lot of the cliches that make country music often very annoying for me and instead delivers some damn good songwriting and guitar playing
Yoko Ono
2/5
I’ve seen a few people say this is probably Yoko Ono’s most accessible album, which is actually hilarious because there’s literally a 22-minute song where she squeals and buzzes and pretends to be a fly and that’s the entire song. There’s a couple of more straightforward tunes on here - the opener is a pretty great alt-rock banger that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early PJ Harvey record - and some catchy krautrock-inspired grooves in places, but so so much of it is just intolerable squealing and I can’t hack it
HELLYEAH
1/5
Really boring songwriting with repetitive chugging butt-metal riffs.
Some of the country-inspired acoustic guitar touches are quite nice, and the track You Wouldn’t Know is admittedly very catchy (I felt like I recognised it and then found out it was on the video game Smackdown VS Raw 2008, which makes a lot of sense and probably gives you a decent idea of how it sounds). Unfortunately the rest of the album is either very forgettable groove metal or wish-I-could-forget-this-shit-able whiny country ballads, with some truly appalling lyrics (you’re telling me a 35-year old wrote ‘I found my star. That star is you’? Give me a break)
The Vaccines
3/5
What DID I expect from The Vaccines? I guess I expected 35 minutes of catchy if not especially impressive early 2010s indie rock that straddles the line between that Vampire Weekend-esque special spark and trademark landfill indie. And this met my expectations.
If You Wanna is a great tune, and Post Break-Up Sex is really well written. Other than that it’s generally a good time (except one pretty sus song about going on a date with a 17 year old) but slightly formulaic and forgettable.
Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera
3/5
A fun little jaunt of late 60s psychedelia but nothing that stands out too much against other more prolific and remembered bands
Spose
2/5
The first half of this was pretty fun - kind of a mix of emo rap and just a straight up indie rock record, with some varied and inventive stuff in there as well (like the doo-wop inspired Dudes). The second half was a step down though as it just went for a full-on hip-hop approach - the charm of the first half didn’t really carry over and it was a lot less original and interesting, and really highlighted the quite weak vocals. The idea of a first half rock / second half hip-hop record is good, but that second side just wasn’t executed too well, and the mega run time of 97 minutes really started to weigh the album down
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
4/5
A sprawling and groovy King Gizzard album, and one of the highlights of their ridiculously prolific 2017 run (this was the 4th of 5 albums they released that year, and their 12th overall since their debut in 2012)
After dabbling with microtonal acid rock, blistering prog-metal, and jazz-inspired psych-pop on their previous 2017 releases, Polygondwanaland combines some elements of the three and as a result sounds the most comfortable and distinctly King Gizzard record of the lot - rather than King Gizzard’s version of a certain genre
It kicks off with the epic Crumbling Castle, whose nearly 11 minute runtime absolutely flies by, and contains some other absolute bangers with Inner Cell, Horology, and the fuzzy prog of The Fourth Colour
I don’t think it’s quite as consistent as the previous year’s Nonagon Infinity, as impressive and punchy as Infest the Rats Nest or Petrodragonic Apocalypse, or as fun as Fishing for Fishies or Paper Maché Dream Balloon - but its still a hell of a record and borders on top 5 Gizz territory
ISIS
4/5
Very groovy and very heavy - pretty brutal and guttural screams over some very technical and doomy guitar playing. Apparently this is post-metal, which almost makes sense as a moniker - it has the experimental ambient nature of post-rock and combines it with metal, so I guess they just smushed the genre names together. Fine
The album is pretty great though
4/5
My introduction to Low was their 2018 chilling ambient masterpiece Double Negative, and then their 13th album HEY WHAT (which is now sadly their final album after the death of vocalist and drummer Mimi Parker the following year). I’ve been meaning to check out their earlier work for a while so this was a long-overdue recommendation
This was a more straightforward indie rock record on the whole but with that pervasive melancholy tone and a lot of really beautiful melodies and harmonies seeping through. I enjoyed this a lot and imagine it’s one I’ll get even more out of on future listens
Fall Out Boy
2/5
Fall Out Boy are one of the few ‘emo’ pop-punk bands from my mid ‘00s childhood I still enjoy listening to, and their first four albums are all stellar examples of the genre, with fantastic hooks all over the show and a real openness to experiment with a wide range of different sounds, with more hardcore punk leanings on their debut and musical theatre sprinkles on their final pre-hiatus record Folie a Deux.
The five years between Folie a Deux and this album felt like an eternity, and I cannot overstate the sheer fucking hype when it became clear they were actually coming back. And then Save Rock and Roll came out and it felt… off. The energy and creativity of the first four albums was not there at all, and this is a far less interesting project (though nowhere near as bad as some of the absolute dross they put out after).
I wanted to give this the benefit of the doubt after so many years - the sudden shift to a more pop-oriented sound screamed of cashing out at the time, but I thought it may bear more fruit with some distance, similarly to how Linkin Park’s more electronic and pop-oriented A Thousand Suns really grew on me after some time and revision of expectations. But no, I still found this very disappointing. There’s some good stuff on here - the opener The Phoenix is a banger, and the twee acoustic Young Volcanoes is very catchy, but the album crashed and burned in so many places, and the audacity of its title just seems incredibly unearned. If this is what saving rock and roll sounds like, then the rumours are true - rock and roll is dead
Various Artists
5/5
I don’t think musical theatre soundtracks should be included here buttttt this is basically a rock album anyway and it’s a damn great one. Incredible musical, incredible film, iconic songs - got to be a 5
Harry Styles
4/5
Not as good as Harry’s House but some real pop bangers on here, and much better than anything with 1D
3/5
This might be my least favourite 1975 album, sorry - just trying too hard to ape OK Computer and a bit all over the place. The album before this was pretty cool and their latest one is great, but this one doesnt click for me. Sincerity is Scary is an absolute banger though
The Who
4/5
Built To Spill
4/5
Everything Everything
4/5
Swans
5/5
This album reminds me of being in my last year of college and getting really into Anthony Fantano’s YouTube channel. A rough time for all involved but a stunning album. A droning and hypnotic 2 hours of purgatory that feels like you’re waiting to explode
Deltron 3030
4/5
Spacey conceptual hip-hop from one of the most underrated MCs out there
Bright Eyes
5/5
The best album by the world’s saddest band
Modest Mouse
5/5
WELL COWBOY DAN’S A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE COWBOY SCENE
Denzel Curry
4/5
A really strong project from Denzel, further cementing him as one of the most consistent rappers of the last few years. I still prefer TA13OO but there is some great stuff on here (lead single Walkin’ is phenomenal), and the reimagined version with live instrumentation makes some of the tracks hit even harder