One of the best-sounding records ever made. Even if lush 70s jazz-rock is not your thing you can marvel at the playing and production. Wayne Shorter's solo, the chorus to Deacon Blues...it's pleasures are endless.
Is this a flawless album? Well how about this. I listened to the album without Common People, Sorted for Es and Whizz, Disco 2000 and Mis-Shapes. And you know what? It is - Feeling Called Love, Bar Italia and Underwear would be the singles in any other album. Every track has its own story and sound while also sounding part of a coherent whole.
You know what, on the first side I wasn't completely revolted and though strictly background music was prepared to give it two stars. The second side is dreary though and culminates in the -5 stars for Say hello Wave Goodbye which is unlistenable to, by me at least. Was it the buskers fave which got him a deal. What goes on on Grafton Street should stay there.
In which the JAMC showed that under the pyros they had a sturdy songwriting chassis and (squabbling aside) were in it for the long haul. Flawless collection different from the amazing debut.
This is possibly the most machine-tooled bid for pop stardom since Like A Virgin. Don't play the big singles and it still sounds unstoppable. Not actually an album I feel a great deal of affection for, perhaps the only album I can actually like of hers is 19, but respect.
A trio of unmatchable singles, some decent album tracks but there is filler and tracks are stretched out. While the heights are greater than previous album Jilted Generation it's not as consistent.
Perhaps the Stones most consistent album across 18 tracks, so a very solid four stars. But there's no track here that would get in a Stones top tent. So four stars.
Just passed by without really touching the sides, there are occasional flashes of something more interesting but it's Fleet Foxes style stuff all the way really.
First album I've never heard before. After the initial Frank resistance (AKA oh gawd the 'My Way' guy), this is very listenable. All about phrasing and being on, ahead or behind the beat. Subtle and seductive.
Not a band I would listen to, and their reputation is not inviting. Surprisingly sprightly and concise, mostly, with some excellent tunes. Solid 3, but the amount of flute will prevent more.
a real curates egg - some seem like proper songs (Minor Key) others like a mess of lyrics and jams (Ingrid Bergman). Overall the feel of a high class album where the albums gets everyone to cover an artists tracks, rather than a proper album.
Hard to imagine the shock this would have had on release. Still utterly bonkers in places, the best ever Satisfaction cover, and in Mongoloid a song that could never have been written today (I remember the lyrics being printed in Smash Hits). Only not a 5 as one too many song follows the same template.
Great sound and lyrics slightly lacking at times in the tunes dept hence 4 stars. Dipped a bit on re-listening from when I remember it last.
Riff rehabilitation. As important an album as Nevermind in showing the way ahead for rock in the 90s. Cunning to include a couple of lighters-in-the-air ballads along with all the crunching. Very consistent and though not an album I could ever love, it stands up to repeated listening.
The ultra-80s production, the - at best - dated lyrics. This album was either singles I already knew - difficult to escape if you were around in 1987 - and hated, or album tracks not as good as the singles. Not everything that sells tens of millions of copies then needs to be listened to now - wonder if Englebert Humperdink, famously outselling the Beatles, will be on the list. As he can't be worse than Def Leppard.
This album gets better every time, unlike other vaunted Stones albums where the highs remain high and the not-so-highs flatten out (BB, LIB). This is just a miracle of songwriting and tight playing from start to finish.
Three cracking singles, one of which is just amazing. The soundtrack itself, revolutionary at the time, is a series of funky and slow jams, great to work to and great in a movie, but not a compelling listen.
A shining light in the indie landfill era. I will never get over the fact that what sounds like the greatest song Josef K never wrote ends after a minute of Take Me Out, and becomes another fine but not quite so brilliant song. But sharp suits, tight guitar lines. Good work.
Hey guys feel like doing a live album with a symphony orchestra? It'll be real classy. Sure. My mum said all her friends who only listen to Mozart will buy the album if there's a symphony orchestra on it. Double bubble! Really though. Not an album anyone could describe as essential. Some good songs, but they gain nothing much by this.
Not on Spotify so listening cobbled together from youtube and live albums. The good tracks are really good, with predictably the bass and percussion the standout elements. I can leave the 90s/early 00s staple of 'oh third verse time for a rap' element.
One of the best-sounding records ever made. Even if lush 70s jazz-rock is not your thing you can marvel at the playing and production. Wayne Shorter's solo, the chorus to Deacon Blues...it's pleasures are endless.
I love this band, and there's no better working music. Enough going on to get you through a large spreadsheet, slowly changing enough to not distract.
No-one bears - needs- repeated listening like Joni Mitchell. Even if it's on Youtube as she's pulled this from Spotify over the Joe Rogan spat. On first listen the tunes, even the song structure, are difficult to make out. Each listen, as the songs become familiar, gets better and better.
This is great fun. The precise point at which you can hear metal pivoting from the Sabbath era to the eighties. Of course down the line it would beget the horrific hair metal bands, but this is sharp, tight and both heavy and pop at the same time. Terrific. Can't forgive them for Jump though.
Is this a flawless album? Well how about this. I listened to the album without Common People, Sorted for Es and Whizz, Disco 2000 and Mis-Shapes. And you know what? It is - Feeling Called Love, Bar Italia and Underwear would be the singles in any other album. Every track has its own story and sound while also sounding part of a coherent whole.
Ambient - it's a doddle eh? Some relaxed beats, a bass line and a few chords on the synth. Aphex Twin shows how difficult it is to make great 'ambient', if such a thing exists, by showing its all about the details. Without lyrics or vocals or anything like a verse/chorus stucture to grab the listener, these tracks are a masterclass in detail: detail in how each track unfolds in time, and the textures employed to keep simple elements always evolving.
I now know how people who go 'Bob Dylan - great songs but unlistenable' feel. I've tried with Tom, I really have. There are some good songs here, hence the 2. But that voice. Like someone gargling gravel. And - my bad for thinking this - there's a bit of me that feels that offstage he speaks like Niles Crane.
Not their best album, not even their best double album (Quadrophenia is more consistent), but completely with the zeitgeist in the late sixties, hence it's the one Who album everyone has head of.
One of the first and best post-punk punk-funk punk-dub albums. Dennis Bovell's production is great, the lyrics are witty and subversive and in Typical Girls there's an irresistible single. Absolutely of its time, very listenable.
Alex Turner side project, not by any means unenjoyable and AM fans will get lots of enjoyment out of his usual droll delivery and lyrics, with a sixties flavoured backing. Without quite the crunch and thrill of the Monkeys though.
Nobody must hear Coldplay. They're just there. Like magnolia walls. As an experiment if I have heard an album before I'll listen to it without the singles. Different Class by Pulp would be great album without the singles. This, well without the singles it's one star.
I like the idea of Stereolab, I like the sound of Stereolab. But 60 mins of Stereolab is just a bit too much. Better in shorter sharper doses.
Fantastic. Only not 5 because I'm not a great fan of goofy Bob, evident on a couple of tracks, and he's made several other albums that are 5.
Hurt is a 6 out of 5 and another 4/5 tracks (Personal Jesus, I Hung My Head) are fives, but there's some stuff that doesn't work, like Bridge Over Troubled Water and In My Life, and even Cash can't make Danny Boy seem essential again. So a four.
From the era where dance-due producer bands ruled supreme (Underworld, Chemicals, Leftfield etc) slightly less exalted Death In Vegas stake a very credible claim to be at the top table. There's some quality vocals (not singing) from Bobby Gillespie, Dot Allison and Iggy Pop and an overall vibe of the Velvet Underground meets big beat. A slight reliance on the riff over melody stops this being a 4, but a solid solid 3.
There's only so many times you can listen to Tapestry, no matter how perfect it is. So when you want a bit of that but also something different there's this. Like King Nyro wrote lots of stuff that were initially made famous by other people. Unlike King her voice is a lot more distinctive, bordering on Joni Mitchell at times. I liked this on listening, and wouldn't have come across it otherwise.
Some nice ideas, the Mekons are really an idea band - as in I like the idea of the Mekons more than I like their music. Was it really the first alt-country album? Anyway, not much distinguished music.
Not much to add here. It's a very good album.
This (apart from the title track) seemed a lesser effort. But with each play the subtlety of the writing and production stand out more. And on the last track she's trailing a future as the Gen Z Joni Mitchell.
Bulletproof. A couple of sentimental slowies hence not the full five.
What a sound.
Enjoyable, hugely varied. Standout tracks featuring Jarvis and Nick Cave. Need to listen to a couple more times really.
The first wholly great dance album of the rave era - 91 is pretty early to make a complete masterpiece. Halcyon is a thing of wonder.
You know what, on the first side I wasn't completely revolted and though strictly background music was prepared to give it two stars. The second side is dreary though and culminates in the -5 stars for Say hello Wave Goodbye which is unlistenable to, by me at least. Was it the buskers fave which got him a deal. What goes on on Grafton Street should stay there.
Sturdy swampy rock. Not much fat on this.
It's not the biggest-selling Bruce album, or the best. But it made him a superstar, and it contains three all-time classics in BTR, Jungleland and Thunder Road. A relisten reveals how much it's about Roy Bittan's piano and Clarence Clemons' sax. Possibly the most 'E Street' record of them all. Favourite bit ' the 1-2-3-4 count in during the middle 8 of BTR.
Ah. What a talent was there. Near the top of the list of 'what would a second album have sounded like'. Hard to take that we got Cast instead.
No hip-hop, samples, funk, falsettos, just a ruminative downbeat selection of gorgeous acoustic ballads. If ever you doubted he was hiding a lack of songwriting behind over-complex arrangements, this should set you straight.
I was considering two stars, 80s awful production notwithstanding, as her performance is great, until Help and 1984. Help indeed. Imagine a loop of Tina's 1984 in your ears forever. Far scarier than anything Orwell could come up with.
Phil Oakey's voice is perhaps the bit that's aged least well.but the songs are bulletproof.
As a single album four stars. As the first two tracks 5 stars. There are longeurs and his first 5-star piece would arrive next.
A bit all over the shop, that type of metal/industrial that really does very little for me.
Some eternal singles, but the slow numbers are 'dreamboats and petticoats' mush and he's not really that good a vocalist to make them speak now. Still, only 25 minutes. Shortest album so far.
Just about their best and a high-water mark for the first heavy metal era.
Unmatched in its descriptions of seedy Soho, bedsitter life, sex clubs - all set to what was at the time amazingly new music. Still holds up very well, and surprisingly the original songs have dated far less than the covers.
Holy mary mother of God. Pyschedelic folk. Flutes, hurdy gurdies and lyrics about wizards and green crowns. Not incredible and surely indigestible without smoking a load of weed.
Solid debut, though the production I always feel with B and S is a little thin and twee, the songs are well-written.
Was OK, Who knows? is a banger but there's a bit too much folky stuff for me. Like the track that sounds like Pink Floyd.
Their most consistent.
Pleasant, can appreciate the songwriting. Not quite as amazing as all that and a lot of the sixties stylings grate. But half a dozen really good songs.
A bit dull, nice background for working but some of his other albums are better.
Dull as dishwater meat and potatoes early 70s songwriter-rock.
Stellar. Improves if such a thing were possible by listening to the second side first, which contains more of the ambient tracks. The more uptempo krautrock tracks are just unbelievably good.
Was a good listen but not the revelations promised quite.
Hard to see why this wouldn't be 5 stars as it's pretty perfect from start to finish. Only the horns sound occasionally dated.
Very pleasant listen with some high points, but not going to change my overall view of the Kinks as the fourth-best British band of the sixties. Which is not a bad position to be in.
AP is a tune, Vincent is very annoying and the rest is pretty anonymous singer-songwriter 70s stuff. So a 2 for the greatness of AP chiefly.
Always a good sign when every track sounds like a single. A quantum leap from the caffeine rush of the first album.
Just played the 'weaker' second half of the album and it's fantastic, every track a potential hit. Nirvana have the cool, the zeitgeist, the amazing live events, and the aura of tragic glamour - and the songs that defined a generation. But they never made an album as strong as this.
Pretty essential, they're nearly there re-inventing themselves from synthpoppers to epic synthpopper gloom gothers. Three stellar singles and a strong set of album tracks.
Pretty dense but pretty good.
Glad to hear this, the title track is great and the rest a solid slice of early 80s powerpop/psychedelia.
An ok listen, but the nuances of this perhaps passed me.
Solid southern rock with a cleaner 80s production, nothing groundbreaking here.
Not a prog fan at all but this is just a fantastic combination of great tunes - something most prog appears to leave out - and twiddly widdly arrangements that have just enough sixties still about them. Great.
The first side of this is just astonishing - six, even seven stars. A fully formed sound from nowhere. If the second half can't quite sustain the extra-ordinary first five tracks (of which Geno is perhaps the weakest. Think about that.) then its just by comparison. An album so in love with a form of music it seems entirely natural to have a cover from that genre that fits perfectly. ps fun fact Burn It Down was called Dance Stance on original release, as I have the 45.
Very consistent without hitting the high points of the 'brown' album.
The idea of Amy Whitehouse - a noughties update on the torch singer mixing jazz and soul is great, and her voice is amazing here too, but the songs don't quite nail it. Next one would.
This was the first record I can recall buying. When I was still too young to go to second hand shops. Many of the other early purchases - Parallel Lines, Setting Sons - I listen to this day. This not so much. Not at all. Re-listening it is not really the songs. No-one can deny Lynne's songwriting. But there's a general sense of mid-70s ennui that the Eagles turned into gold, but here is just a sense of everything being just a little too laid back. Then there's Jeff Lynne's voice. Just don't like it - because he sounds completely without conviction. Not every vocalist is Iggy Pop, but there's a feeling for me he's doing the guide vocals for someone else. Finally, there's the odd novelty hit/pastiche vibe (Jungle could be a bad 10cc b-side) that a band at the very height of their commercial powers really shouldn't be doing. Want to hear the Quo with a string section? Birmingham Blues. Positives: Mr Blue Sky is still a pocket pop symphony, and the Whale is the bastard son of The Love Unlimited Orchestra and The Orb - bizarre and by far the most interesting track here. But for me the pop energy that fizzed through A New World Record has been traded away for something much lesser.
Aged like a fine wine. No more like rotting fish found at the bottom of the bin.
Hard to find any faults, a pretty perfect debut. Perhaps only a 9 out of 10 for their somewhat clodhoppy reggae cover.
Great sound, everything turned up to 11
Great 'relaxing' music.
Madonna - even Imperial Period - is the master of the '4 bangers so banging the fact the rest of the album is just okay-ish doesn't matter' - viz True Blue, like a Virgin etc. This is the exception that proves the rule, a Madonna album you can listen to like, an album as the bangers still bang, but the variety and quality of the album tracks are a cut above.
A grower and the beats are great.
Solid effort from one the best rap groups of the early 90s.
The perfect pop album is a mythical beast and this album goes as close to nailing it as many. The first half is pretty flawless, and her simple but slyly hooky melodies are outstanding. A few more obvious tracks on the B - side let the quality down slightly, (Happy and Sad, Velvet Elvis) and I for one can leave the piano ballad.
Really strong songs, and I like industrial junk Tom so much better than crooner tom.
Pleasantly surprised by this, though he's a name of course. Not just the flow, which is listenable, but the beats and hooks are great.
Side 1 5 stars, side 2 3.5.
A real discovery, a brilliant album and none of his big hits.
If you had to come up with a reference album for 70s rock it would be this - a bit heavy, a bit hard, a bit FM. All tunes, but without a shred of originality. Guess that's what you get when you mix Free, King Crimson and Mott The Hoople. 1 and 1 and 1 make 3 here.
Occasionally you can admire the musicianship, craft and artistry while finding the entire thing unlistenable to.
Yeah the beats and flow are pretty good, almost like another Wu album as so many end up on here. Solid rap album.
Almost too much going on for too long here. A great vibe, but feel that In A Silent Way and Jack Johnson benefit from a touch more focus while still being loose.
Prog folk not my scene.
Amazing to think they were making this as punk was also about The Damned and The Pistols.
Pleasant, funky, surprisingly gentle at times, would listen to again without consciously opting for it over other stuff.
I want to like this: Brummie ikon and all that, but really it's fairly dull seventies singer-songwriter stuff. Sorry Joan.
I like the idea of Randy Newman, but ultimately his a bit ragtime a bit singer songwriter approach, and his dolorous voice, are a bit much over a whole album, however clever and insightful the lyrics.
Provocation: this has aged much better than Dare. Just saying.
In which the JAMC showed that under the pyros they had a sturdy songwriting chassis and (squabbling aside) were in it for the long haul. Flawless collection different from the amazing debut.
Jimmy Smith is probably the most laid-back person on the planet. This sounds pretty good on a summer day, today. Not five because the Hammond all the way through is a little one-dimensional.
This is very enjoyable, in a TTQ way, the beats are great the samples interesting and the whole air is pretty agreabl(y)thick with weed.
I thought about giving this four stars and then thought 'I'm only not giving it five BECAUSE of Bury Me Deep In Love' which is really punishing them for Neighbours. So, for the songs, the playing, the vocals. 5 stars. A high-water mark of eighties Australian music.
Purely because lush strings and jazz vocals are not my thing, but I can appreciate how brilliantly it is done here.
I can applaud the craft and there are a couple of great songs, but his voice just doesn't vibe with me, like he's singing while swallowing at the same time.
The best - perhaps the only rap album without a second of filler. No skits, and even Flavor Flav is kept on a tight leash. The samples are brilliant and the beats unforgiving. A high water mark.
Nothing more to be said other than five stars. My favourite Kraftwerk album.
Pretty good pop album, maybe a track or two too long
So side one I am there for this, strong vibes of the Stones of the same period which is a good thing and good songs. But the covers that dominate the second half are inessential and Dr Feelgood would come along soon and do this kind of stuff much better.
Yeah ok the first 10 mins and the bit with Viv Stanishall are great, but you're not telling me there's not filler on side 2. And the hornpipe. Grrr.
Nothing much to add. A band who said EVERYTHING they had to say in one pretty perfect album.
Well that slipped down very pleasantly. Feel the first side is stronger than the second, but very listenable.
It's all pretty good stuff...until Nico starts to sing.
Not quite singalong, but the first album of theirs where noise and melody is in balance.
I like the melodies and his flow, but again why oh why do rap albums have to be soooooooo long.
the sheer brilliance of the music overcomes the fact no album with Ian Brown singing should be five stars, or even three.
Flawless. The singing alone on Hymn of the Big Wheel...
She's got a way with a sly melody as well as bangers (Green Light). State of the art pop. 3.5 if they did half-stars.
Minimal magic, and the prototype for all the synth duos to come, though few would be as confrontational. Every time I play this it gets better and easier to listen to.
Flawless. By far their most consistent album, passing the acid test that listening to the album tracks without the singles shows no drop in quality.
You know this was not so bad, better than I thought. He can sing (after a fashion) and the songs are pretty strong.
The fabulous sound of the Golden Hour from Wonderful Radio One. There was landfill before indie and this was it.
Bands were travelling at the speed of light in the late 70s early 80s. The distance from The Clash is phenomenal. Again, the pivot album of their catalogue with everything in perfect balance. Amazing.
This has not aged well, if there was anything to age in the first place. I remember Scooby Snacks being everywhere that summer, and it's much the best track on here. Apart from that, it's a desperately thin concoction of trying-too-hard samples, trying-too-hard lyrics and the odd funky bassline. Telling they were never big in the States, as this feels like some NY theme-park experience got up strictly for the tourists. Two starts strictly for the Snacks, and a gimmicky cover of What a Wonderful World showed how short of actual musical ideas they really were.
You know what this isn't that bad once you lean into it. Not on Spootify but there's some good youtube playlists with the full album, and making it to the end is definitely an achievement. Kinda like reading Ulysses, but with more squonking.
I can go a little country, but this is just a bit too country. Can appreciate the artistry, and Boulder to Birmingham is a tune, but it's a bit full-on Nashville for me.
Well you know the singles sparkle, but this amiable album of pop-funk is let down by some familiar weaknesses: the plodding ballads which make you realise what an achievement Easy by the Commodores was, and the noodly jazz-funk odyssey (Americano). So a pretty mixed bag, more mixed than my bag, and on this evidence a band best served by a generous greatest hits.
Heard of them before but never listened, pleasant lo-fi American indie with some good songs rather undersold by singing that may be an acquired tastes.
Passed me by a bit. Not as annoying as I thought it would be, but nothing standing out.
A great reggae album, from my favourite era of reggae music. Also - love an album that's 10 songs, 3 minutes each.
Acid test for a five-star album laden with hits. What does it sound like when you don't play any of the singles? A 30 minute album with 'Zoo Station' 'Waiting for the end of the world' 'Love is Blindness' 'trying to throw your arms around the world' and so on would still be in my top three of U2 albums ever. So yes, all the accolades and more.
My tried and trusted 'no singles listen' for albums I'm very familiar with is dead easy as they put the singles on tracks 1-4. The 1001 randomizer threw up Achtung Baby yesterday, and just as this album's singles are not as strong as Achtung Baby.. so the album tracks aren't either. Probably their last really strong all-the-way through effort, with 4 great singles, so four stars.
Enjoyable in a Cream/Allman Brothers vein.
Proto-garage, almost all covers. Insanely good fun and very listenable to.
Liked this, definitely one of her stronger albums.
Their best, the strength of the tunes overcoming familiar weaknesses.
I prefer this to Astral Weeks, controversial I know.
Flawless debut.
I know we're supposed to say that they were actually as good as the Beach Boys and the Kinks. but they weren't were they? A stellar greatest hits, but their albums? No.
Actually their choppy funky rock is growing on me, sort of like the Red hot Chilli Peppers but complicated and arty. Didn't mind this at all.
An entirely unexpected treat. A few country albums have already popped up on my list and so far, whatever the reputation, I've not gelled with them. This however, lean and spare, is a great listen. Most songs a little over 2 minutes, very few ballads, almost punktry.
So 90s it needs cargo pants. It's not my thing at all, but he's got a nice voice and some of the songs are well-written.
Yes this is pretty good. At the point where they dialled back the pure noise and started to really foreground songwriting and melodies, the first of a five or so album Imperial Period. It's that good that the cover of the Cure feels like an afterthought rather than a commercial imperative, a bit like It's a Shame About Ray has no need of Mrs Robinson. Was clearly a thing at the time though, unlikely grunge covers.
A sound mashed up from fifties rock and roll, easy listening and punk. I think that Wild Planet is a better album but it's a great debut.
Solid mid-sixties blues rock. Not my thing, but very listenable.
Bjork in perhaps the mellowest album of her career, and the last one that could really be called pop. Last song is an absolute tune.
Amazingly as he has such an off-putting vibe, this is a good album.
Five stars. Tempted to deduct a quarter of a point for the vocal jazz on track 12, but really can't complain.
Why is it only four stars? Play it without the first three tracks and it's a good enough album. But overly reliant on the brilliance of the first three tracks, in contrast with Achtung Baby that is five stars all the way through.
One of five they recorded in less than two years. From this Stakhavonite approach this is high-quality blues rock. Several great songs (Who'll Stop the Rain) and an epic cover of Heard it Through The Grapevine.
Though I can vibe with several of the late-sixties blues rock this list has thrown up, this is too far. Not only is their plank-spanking of the worst order, there's Rod and a novelty version of Greensleeves. Too much.
Solid singer-songwriter album with enough melodic and arrangement twists to keep you listening. Never going to be the biggest fan of his 'hushed me' vocals though.
This is possibly the most machine-tooled bid for pop stardom since Like A Virgin. Don't play the big singles and it still sounds unstoppable. Not actually an album I feel a great deal of affection for, perhaps the only album I can actually like of hers is 19, but respect.
Not bad if to my ears a bit backgroundy (as often happens when singers sing in another language than English), two or three very strong tracks.
Why oh why oh why do rap albums have to be sooooo long. Anyway, the big singles everyone knows, but the relentless dissing gets a bit wearying and the beats aren't as interesting as say Wu Tang. So by the end its all a bit samey.
Too funky for Spotify it would seem, but there's an individual track version under George Clinton's account on youtube. Damn this is funky, rocky and for Funkadelic pretty focused. Good stuff.
What would REM sound like with a slightly less charismatic singer, a touch more Americana? I've never quite clicked with Wilco, and this has not really changed my mind. On the two big 'singles' they connect with unanswerable tunes, but elsewhere it does always threaten to drift.
Listenable to, but not really anything I could latch onto as above the norm.
This grew on me, and need to give it another couple of listens. Some real songwriting charm, and the variety is great.
Two monster hit singles, and barely a bad track on this. A bridge between Sabbath and 70s metal and the NWOBHM, with its poppy concision. Can see why they were huge.
Is mid-90s neo-soul the hardest genre to listen to now? Beware of any artist who has his/her top off in their photos as a USP. One star for the first track, but boy this is inconsequential.
can you make (about) 11 albums in 4 years without stretching stuff a little thin? I'm no Beach Boy devotee and understand all the critical stuff about this being the start of their studio golden period, but its 26 minutes plus skit, two covers...
One of the greatest image/attitude/music look at me launches in music history. The Attractions replace Clover and the music is instantly more varied, textured and interesting - still anchored by Costello's brutal lyrics and sneer, and brilliant way with a melody. Two albums into his Imperial Period.
Beyond the two smash hits this is pretty thin stuff, very standard for mid-sixties LPs that were merely means to extract more money from fans. Five cover versions in 12 tracks...
Apart from possibly Adam Raised A Cain, this is Springsteen's most brilliant album and there is not a weak track. Amazing to think now it was seen as a disappointment after Born To Run.
Hey Len. I've got good news and better news. Let's go with the good first. The record company love your new songs. And the better? They feel inside the Laughing Len persona (so passe) there's a modern MTV star just waiting to be unleashed. They do. They do so much they've put it in your new contract. You do want a new record contract don't you? I guess so. Excellent. So sign here for gated drums. Here for over-assertive backing singers. Here for casio tone synths. Here for fretless bass. And here - very exciting this - for what they're calling 'Paul Hardcastle style' for Jazz Police. What's that I hear? It's the sound of MTV Heavy Rotation Baby. You know the wierdest part of the whole thing? Cohen produced the album himself. Listen to Jazz Police and wonder if the whole thing isn't a satire on the 80s music industry. Four stars for the songs, 0 for the production.
Take out the four singles, play the other tracks. How many stars? 3. 3.5 if they did half-stars. So add four singles back in, and difficult to argue with at least 4 stars. Why not five? What is done is done brilliantly, but it is only the one thing that is done.
Not much to say here other than a fantastic album.
If this list has one criticism, it's at times too tasteful. Not something that can be levelled at this completely-new-to-me slice of 90s hip-hop. It is absolutely mental, chiefly based around an alter ego who is an alien sex-obsessed gynacologist from Saturn, the eponymous Doctor. The beats are fantastic, sparse, melodic and spooky in an early Wu-Tang way. The rhymes are ridiculously misogynistic, pornographic (one track appears to be a sampled soundtrack to a porn film) but so lurid and OTT it's difficult to be outraged. Is it any good? I don't know, but glad it's on the list and three stars.
Not as even an album as the first two, but after a near decade's gap still a remarkable return.
The first album of 160 or so that after listening I went 'I need to buy this album.'
the songs are great, the voice is fine. Just 70s singer-songwriter is not my vibe.
I can understand why this made a splash at the time, and the Janis-ites love it, but not for me.
The second album, after Lady Soul by Aretha Franklin, I've been motivated to buy after listening to this. Really its the fourth of Bowie's Berlin trilogy, or rather the first, and that's reason enough.
Somewhat one-note, but a good note. Or beat. Horns plus bongos plus covers equals sample heaven.
Dave and Annie. They bestrode top of the pops like mid-80s colossi, making the most of that new MTV thang to the max. Received wisdom: she had a great voice and presence. He wrote snappy pop songs. My wisdom: cynical industry chancers who were so in the middle of the road they've got white lines all down their faces. Inescapable at the time, irrelevant now. Two stars only for the last track which hints at what they could have done with a little less slavery to the machine.
Remove the 4 big singles and you are still leaft with a consistently good album, the final refinement of the Verve sound (mid-paced winding and wistful with the occasional outburst of pissed off vocals and angry guitars). Only four stars because it is only one song, a great song, done in 10 slightly different versions.
Some long albums drag (most rap albums). This one is almost like a radio station being flipped from channel to channel, held together by Beck's voice and his marriage of hip-hop beats and blues guitar. His best album still and doesn't drag a bit.
this is a great album, and as well as the noise/electronica there are some more conventional and very beautiful songs that would fit into Ok Computer or In Rainbows. Definitely start here for the 'difficult Radiohead' rather than Kid A.
My tried and tested formula for any album where I know the singles by heart (Achtung Baby or Eliminator for example) of not playing the singles and seeing how strong the rest of the album is has badly let me down here. I deeply dislike the singles and the album tracks do nothing to change my mind. Saving grace: at least it's quite a short album. But still shockingly mediocre (And You Tell Me is shockingly awful) and a model for everything that was bad about 80s production. There's no end of the badness here. (Not even started on the lyrics). Is this really the thousand and first best album ever made?
Gosh Father and Son, Sad Lisa and Wild World are irritating aren't they? A bit like American Pie there is surely no need to ever listen to them again, so whether they're any good or not is beside the point. Apart from these monsters there is a well-arranged set of 70s singer-songwriter tunes. He could craft a song alright, but not my scene at all.
Got to be a candidate with Abbey Road for best final albums. Not five stars because of a couple of slight treading water tracks, L'America in particular but the highs are spectacular.
The debate will always rage about New Order's 80s albums vs the singles, possibly the last group where this a genuine discussion. The Perfect Kiss 12" is better than the album version, they recorded a 17 minute version of Elegia and put out another 12" version of Sub-culture. But it's a pretty perfect album nevertheless.
It is long. And the first half is fairly monotonous industrial - but the songwriting improves a lot in the second half. Ending of course with Hurt, a song just about anyone from the past 60 years would give their eye teeth to have written.
I'd wear a mask if I'd made this album, though there is one point where the drum intro threates to go drum and bass. So one point for that.
Historical artefact this, from I guess when major labels still wanted rappers to produce MTV-friendly fodder rather than controversy. LL is an engaging enough presence, but NWA were about to blow this kind of rap completely away. Only one track with an explicit warning! Bless.
Rarely has a debut set a template for a band so solidly from the start: pop bangers (Metal Mickey, Animal Nitrate) and epic ballads (Breakdown, Next Life) pitting Brett's Bowie-esque vocals against the nagging guitar of Bernard - for the first two albums at least. Thirty years later it's still working. Listening to it again the debt to Bowie makes it much more singular than the Britpop landfill that came along shortly after in debt to the Beatles, Kinks, Traffic etc.
I hear what many people say about this being quite a challenging listen, with pop soul highs only really there on the singles and some quite angry grooves forming the bulk of the album.
The very definition of curate's egg - Here Comes The Flood is magnificent, probably his greatest solo song (whether overproduced or not), Solsbury Hill a pop banger, and Humdrum a great track. But Moribund the Burgomeister, the cocktail jazz/blues of Waiting for the One and so on are perhap more like a rich 70s rocker struggling to work out what to say when going solo. Three stars but not evenly distributed.
This was not unpleasant but kind of passed me by.
Good working music. To dip in and out of.
The shortest album on the list, kind of like the Clash if their songs were only 60s long. The kind of album being always cited as incredibly influential rather than listened to and enjoyed. Bet they were great live.
Boy this is tough going. Too long, as many 90s albums were. And suffers massively from each song being about a minute too long, and way too similar to the others around it. I like them better when they go for tunes over riffing.
Just such a great album, anyone who thinks he was only about singles (which he was chiefly) should listen to this. Fantastic pop.
Lots of 'artists going dance' albums from the early 90s don't stand up that well, but this is still very listenable to. Lots of thoughts about whether the 12" mixes of Violently Happy and Big Time Sensuality are the best tracks (they are) and not on this, but this is the case with a lot of albums around this time.
Did I like this? Not expecting too, with their wacky vibe and 'American Fall' billing. But it was full of melody and well-built songs. Maybe one of the very select albums I buy following hearing it here, but need to give it a couple more listens.
Not much here beyond the singles, and as I don't like Witchy Woman that is two tracks. Two stars is generous. The stars aligned as a singles band got it together for one terrific album. This is not that album.
One of the best female songwriters of the 90s, along with Bjork. Possibly her high-water mark.
Jesus wept. The singles are enough to go no further.
Is this five or four stars? Most of the tracks are unquestionably a straight five. Is it a perfect album? No because Meet Me In the Morning is pretty throway. Is it great enough for five stars, yes.
One of my favourite bands, I love them perhaps more than strictly their music warrants (ie inordinately). But I listen to this again and think who else can blend the anthemic, the melancholy, power and reflection quite as well as they do. Yes the two singles (Pounding and Fear) are peerless, but Sulfur Man, Caught By The River and Words reveal themselves this time as their equal.
An album which perhaps got a bit thinner on a relisten. Yes the melodies are stuck on wistful and yearning, and the vocals on falsetto - and over a track or two the Lips formula here is great, over a whole album it becomes a little samey. I prefer (don't shoot me) the albums which precede and follow (Soft Bulletin and Mystics) as though they were never lovelier than here, in the other albums there is more variety.
Here's my Rod theory. It's always easier to forgive the later lapses of an act you got to know when they were great, than work backwards from an act you first had to hear on the radio when they were awful and put that aside when considering their earlier and clearly superior work. And so it is here. While I can appreciate this is a good album, I can never disassociate that voice from the crimes of the late 70s and 80s. Do You Think I'm Sexy, Baby Jane, Young Turks and so on. So sorry Rod for the music it's three stars, for the vocals it can only ever be one.
Is there a more 90s band? Vat-grown hybrid of grunge guitars, dance beats and a sharp pop songwriting core. Almost like they were put together by a famous producer.... so with a slight caveat it's still a terrific sound even if the album is slightly too long. Ten tracks would have made it a whole lot better. So four stars. Can any album with the lyric I am milk. I am red hot kitchen really be five stars?
I love PJ's middle period but her early period is a bit too scratchy for me to really get into it. It's ok, but nothing compared to what would come five or so years later.
Lot of noise when this came out about how the production was too dense to listen to. No, sounds fantastic. Had to check my vinyl and yes there were 20 tracks, 1 hour long, on it, so may have in fact been the mastering. The music is excellent, the hi points among their very best.
Along with the Velvets and the Fall, a real influencers band. Unlike them the music is fine, but not amazing. Another in the endless series of New York bands where the look was at least 50% of the appeal.
Not one of his strongest albums for me, pleasant listen but slightly too much going on for background working, not strong enough on the tunes for attention grabbing.
not unpleasant and some solid tunes but not my thing.
On the surface marred by the 80s production, very evident in the first few tracks. But Johnny Ace is a great track, the others are solid, and props to persuading Philip Glass to do a little orchestration for your album closer.
This came up on Friday 9 September 2022. Its title is indeed accurate. One of my most-played and loved albums.
Wonderwall, Roll With It, Don't Look Back In Anger and Some Might Say is a four-track hit machine that guarantees four stars. For the five are the non-album tracks their equal, or are they sixes that demand a perfect score overall? No, and no. Bonehead's Bank Holiday and Hey Now are three star efforts, and Champagne Supernova outstays its welcome. So a very solid four. Possibly four and a half.
Yes probably the most consistent of their albums and fully deserving of five stars, though its reputation as their'rave' album is overstated. Fine Time is a club banger, but the rest is 100% classic NO 80s sound.
The Dan bear such repeated listening because at their heart is mystery - is this a tune or just noodling? What do the lyrics really mean? And each time one has to unravel it all again. However, here they would never be so pop in their melodies and straightforward in their lyurics. Aja it ain't, but still five stars.
They might be Brazilian but on this evidence bog-standard death metal. Blast beats, chugging riffs and the throaty screamy vocals all the way through. Sorry.
Pleasant enough debut, Walking in the Wild West End is a tune, and Sultans of course. But not enough memorable stuff elsewhere for more than 3.
Yes it's sturdy songwriting and at least there's a band, but hard to get too excited about this now.
P-funk bass, rolling beats, unrelenting misogyny - the post-golden age rap album of the 90s.
Excellent debut album, three catchy as hell singles and every track is a great listen.
Brilliant sideways move into pastoral and gentle psychedelia. Synths are gentle washes and pulses, a move that absolutely suited them.
Very solid effort, Beatles, psychedelia, choruses. All good.
Not quite the lightning bolt that The Idiot was, the second of the Iggy/Bowie albums is still a great collection of tunes, perhaps stronger in its predecessor. Great album, at a period when music just flowed out of Bowie like a river.
Quite like this, possibly the most Rush-like of their albums I've listened to. But it's still pretty wibbly and just when you start to think they're onto something they start another tune. I Know What I like excepted of course, great track.
Can you not give it five stars? There's a five-star set of songs here, only perhaps let down by the throwaway live cover. Truly splendid.
Just matchless. A classic test of a great album is that different songs reveal themselves over time. On this listen the vocals and guitar on The Happening are just amazing.
Got to be a vote for one of the best soundtracks of original music (as opposed to crate digging)
Somethings too much is just too much. It's like one giant track which changes its mind every 90 seconds. Some lovely melodies in this, but a severe lack of focus.
This was one of the very first albums I bought - actually my brother bought it, I bought ELO's Discovery, the only time he has demonstrated better taste. Only two things to note on one of the easiest 5 star reviews: I never knew that Hanging on the Telephone was a cover until very rcently, and you need to make sure your copy has the 5:50 disco mix of heart of Glass and not the single edit some early pressings of both vinyl and CD use (including my brother's copy I quickly inherited and still have).
Their gothest and heaviest album - which is saying something. The perfect balance of pop-rush (Arabian Knights, Spellbound) Banshees and heavy grinders (Monitor and the quite awesome Nightshift which contains one of the best silences on any record). A very slight loss of focus at the end so four. Probably four and a half if halves existed. John McGeoch - the best guitarist that punk/new wave produced - at his absolute peak.
The prog motherlode. All a lot of huffing and puffing in search of something they don't quite find. Apart from the last track which really does pull it all together very well.
It's generous really as the organist and bassplayer are not bad to listen to. The vocalist! It's like he listened to Jim Morrison and took all the wrong things. Also incredibly influential which is a bad thing.
Solid rap album, reminiscent of Tribe Called Quest which is on the whole a good thing.
Yes this is a good album, and the guitar playing is fantastic, but over a whole album it lacks the deep devilment of the best blues. He's a showman rather than a shaman.
Usian Bolt's entire career at the highest level can be boiled down into a little over 100 seconds - that's all it took him to win six Olympic medals. Boston's entire top-level career can be boiled down into the 205 seconds that is the radio edit of More Than A Feeling. And just like Bolt's attempts to turn pro football (training with Man United, embarrassing try-out matches with Australian teams), the rest of Boston's career is somewhat pointless and second rate. Really, the second track here makes a decent fist of retreading the formula but after that it's desperate stuff. Chugging seventies boogie with hackneyed lyrics about being in a rock and roll band, having hard times, making it big, wanting girls, absolutely nothing of note here.
Heretical I know. Not five stars. Not my favourite Coltrane album (Blue Train all the way). It's about this point that the idea of John Coltrane becomes so powerful that it's impossible to judge the music objectively.
This album is soooooooo long that that's really my take-away. Just an exhausting album - made even longer by a minute of classroom skit after many songs. She can sing, she can write songs but someone get her an editor.
Why not 5 as it's one of the template heavy rock albums. Not quite perfect, as Lazy is some standard boogie. But otherwise just brilliant.
One track genius. Four tracks fine. Twelve tracks that's enough now.
Long-deleted Neil album from the mid-70s finds him in a pretty low mood, living on the beach, thinking about leaving town and generally beset by vampires of all descriptions. It's not an altogether easy listen. However, the last three songs are top-grade shakey and well worth the four stars.
Take out the 5/5 tracks that start and end this album and its position at the very top of the Stones tree looks a little shakier: there's some filler (Country Honk) and some 3/5ers alongside great tracks like Monkey Man and Love In Vain. So 4/5 it is.
Pretty safe 5 star album and one I've listened to lots and lots. Not only is every track an absolute banger it's got some of his very best lyrics. Weakest track, Welfare Mothers, is still absolutely great.
The eighties was hitting hard here. The Abba sound now sounding a little threadbare and tatty (oompah folk disco), the lyrics a little cynical. But more to the point, they were possibly the most singlesy singles band of all time, looking forward to Abba Gold coming up but this is 4 stars for the singles, 3 stars for the album tracks so 3 it is.
Pleasant enough, but lots of serious skits broke up the flow. Kind of drifted in and out of focus.
We got two types of music here boy. Country and rock. Too much country though one or two absolute tunes.
Allegedly they were fiery punks when they started. You wouldn't know it from this watered down slab of major label corporate New Wave. The aural equivalent of the skinny tie and check jacket that pop bands put on around this time to fit in (looking at you the Cars). Our Lips Are Sealed is a brilliant song (co-written with Terry Hall, perhaps that's why), We Got The Beat less so and the rest forgettable. Belinda Carlisle would go on to dull out the late 80s as a solo star. Yes they were the famously first all-female band to write their own songs, yes that's important. But just not enough going on here.
Not so much an album as a dj mix in the form of an album. Two stellar singles and some great rhythms, but they'd nail that 90s elusive beast 'the great dance album' next time round.
Though not my thing three stars for the exceptional musicianship, and the fact that on a sunny late autumn Sunday this was great wake-up and coffee music.
The third and gloomiest of their gloom trilogy (17 seconds, faith, this) I saw them on this tour and boy they did not look or sound happy. The first side of this takes some time to get going, but by the time of The Figureheard you are definitely there. Couldn't possibly top this, so pop singles it was next.
Most artists would place their dopey goofin around track half-way through side 2. Not here, it's the first track. Betraying a supreme confidence of peak Bob, more confident in his genius than perhaps anyone ever has been. Sad Eyed Lady.. might just be my new favourite ever Bob track.
Yes the band are in fine fettle but early signs of Wavering Bob Voice. It sounds like a great gig to have been at, but not quite THE BEST THING EVER .
Genuine respect for a singer with a man in black image of murders, betrayals and heists going to a prison full of people who did those things for real. Almost like Gangsta Country and Western. Couple of novelty tracks in between the murdering, drug taking and prison timing.
Jazz odyssey! Really the last track Another Song (one short of the album guys, let's do Another Song right here) resembles nothing less than Derek Smalls' finest moment in Spinal Tap. Apart from that its expert studio musicianship in the classic Burt Bacharach sixties style topped off with creamy Carpenter vocals. Two huge hits, a cabaret-style Beatles cover and lots of BB songs. Not my thing in the remotest, and so square daddi-o you can hurt yourself on those corners. Four stars for the two singles, two for some of the album filler but that last track eh?
Very listenable slice of late-period soul, without quite nailing the memorable tune bit.
This is fine, it's really fine, and perhaps the well-known songs I know well, and I'm not such of a BB fan to give it five stars when the slighly less well-known ones don't make me sit up.
This was a great listen, a little naffly westernised in places but she has a fantastic voice. Solid three stars.
Not a mahusive blues fan but this really is very good. Full of filthy innuendo all the way with a top-notch live band. Everything is tight and concise with tons of blues personality from Muddy.
So hated Greetings from LA, lumpy coke-rock of the worst kind. This however is really much better, slinky winding jazz folk not a world away from John Martyn, but with much more emphasis on extended instrumental arrangements.
Super shiny deluxe pop. Take away the four monstrous singles (conveniently all back to back at the start of side 2) and we have a slight affair with in-jokes (Mother, Miss Gradenko), vocals by the drummer etc. etc. But those singles eh? BIG.
Hmm made two-thirds of the way through this. Basic indie singer-songwriter from the noughties. Clearly a very nasty man as well. Let's hope this is his one and only entry.
Never mind the politics or personality. This is lazy masquerading as laid-back. Dull. And his reggae vibes have not aged well, though you do have to give him a tiny bit of respect for bringing Marley to a wider audience, about as much as the Stones and Chuck Berry. Not much at all then.
The exact point that Bjork's music became a theoretical construct: an idea about making music, rather than making music. There are other good albums later in her work, but never again the quality of her first four.
This is possibly the greatest bar album of all time and should have been released on Mo Wax in the late nineties. Though I can't help but think of it as music to drink Corona to, it's pretty fantastic.
the first 3 or 4 tracks didn't really do it for me, but the middle third of this album is very strong. Very early 00s US indie but some great songs.
The ultimate expression of Bob world. Listening again for this revealed that perhaps Desolation Row is a touch less amazing than I had previously thought, but the band is just magnificent.
Ok I deeply disliked Wham and GM in the 80s and 90s, corporate pop. But listening fairly he's clearly a proper songwriter. Not the only artists whose production in that era has not worn well, and only the ballads are really difficult to stick by. Others, good radio.
Why aren't all rap albums like this? Tight beats, melodic hooks and samples, and every track a 4-minute unspooling of bars. Has to be five stars as it escapes the cardinal sins of rap albums: no skits, no 18 tracks, all killer no filler as they say. Also - like the best Public Enemy, Wu Tang (who do all of the above) and it shames me to say the first NWA album, bears repeated listening.
One has to admire the machine-tooled production and the rock solid choruses, but not my 80s at all.
The fiviest of five stars. Theory: though Robert Plant was necessary, as every hard rock band had to have a wailer, this is all about the other three. Case in point: Bonham's drumming on When The Levee Breaks. Case two: Stairway to Heaven is the best example of can hardly hear it/quiet/soft/nice/loud/very loud dynamics ever recorded. Who cares about the lady who knows? Not me Clive.
The title, the double album. This is surely one of his gnarliest and most forbidding for the casual listener. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is one of Cave's most accessible albums period and several tracks, notably Beautiful World, Easy Money and O My Children have what can only be described as sing-along choruses. So come on in, the Bad Seeds play beautifully and you'll be ready for Your Funeral My Trial in no time.
A band squarely in transition. Without two tracks this would sit deeply in the lineage of the first four albums, while perhaps introducing a slightly heavier sound. There is a small town wierdness that pervades tracks like Oddfellows Local 151 and Disturbance at the Heron House. But then there's two tracks that mark the absolute point at which world domination became a possiblity. REM at this point were the ultimate slow-burners: five albums in and their final form was only just emerging.
Well this is a surprise. Great tunes, interesting arrangements and at that exact sweet 66 spot when the beat explosion met psychedelia. Forced to admit this is pretty good, a shame all their catalogue goes for ridiculous prices.
Excellent album but would it even make my top ten Fall albums? No it would not. A more interesting point in their catalogue it can claim to own is the last unarguably great album they made.
This is pretty much the TL greatest hits, from the golden run of albums from Vagabonds through to Bad Reputation. Notoriously lots of overdubs, but one of the great 'live' albums.
An album which grows greater the older it gets. The links with The Band are clear here - Levon Helm appears on one track - with this an updated ghost tour through American history. I like to imagine they're driving through deserted gas stations and tumble down wooden shops on Highway 66.
You know not every album has to stop you in your tracks. This one sidles up beside you and starts stroking your hand. As the Fast Show would say 'noice'.
There are some albums you respect, admire or are even awestruck by. And then others that are just love. This is one of those I cannot love enough. Ten reasons why: 1. It easily passes the ‘what’s it like without the big hit singles’. Take out Movin On Up, Loaded and Come Together and you still have one almighty album. 2. Loaded is surely by common consent the greatest remix ever - and the Higher Than The Sun Orb remix and Terry Farley 12” remix of Come Together are not far behind. 3. It’s one of the great studio albums - like London Calling, The Hounds of Love or Revolver. By that I mean there’s a great producer at the helm (here the sainted and sadly departed Andy Weaterall, Jimmy Miller, The Orb and Hypnotone) and a sense of everyone pushing their skills and the tech to the max. 4. It’s the album - the track - that brought dance and guitars together. Well, it and Fool’s Gold. Unpopular view: it’s a better album than The Stone Roses. 5. Nobody, not even his mum, knows whether Bobby Gillespie can actually sing or not. 6. They left the title track off the bloody album! 7. It’s the entire PS career in one album - Memphis 70s rock, dub reggae, a rock band’s take on acid house, ambient. About the only thing missing is the Ramonesesque racket they’d get to on Xterminator. 8. There’s not one. Not two but three versions of Higher Than The Sun. 9. There must be a Memphis Sessions style original album before the fairy dust was sprinkled. Come on Creation. 10. The cover was - like all great albums of the time - a great t-shirt.
The last of the PE golden run of four amazing albums. Perhaps the least-heralded and its a little less blitzkreig than its predecessor. None the worse for a little more space and possesses mighty hits in the form of Arizona, Shut It Down and Can't Truss it.
Ah the Du. Was ever such great songwriting let down by such awful production....oh guys you did it yourselves? Try and listen past the fact that the drums sound like they are made out of plastic, and there is no bass, to the late-period Du majesty. There are tunes that are catchy as hell (Could You Be The One, ice cold ice, She's A Woman), thrash outs (closer You Can Live At Home Now) and just plain weird (She Floated Away). A warehouse full of songs and stories.
Nothing for me to add here. I look at the track listing and can play every single song in my head. The only time IMHO - Tommy included - that they got it together to make not just brilliant singles, but a wholly satisfying album. Quadrophenia a close - actually not that close - second.
There are some bands you get the sense are in it to make the music they love and all the other stuff - fame and fortune - is a secondary consideration. They'd do what they do for 50 or 5000 people. Then there's bands for whom it appears to be the other way round. Nirvana were just around the corner, and judging by this couldn't get there quick enough. Adequate.
Ridiculously prolific, this is perhaps the album that catapulted them to wider awareness. It's not really 20 tracks, more a soundscape in 20 parts, some of which like Monsters and Wildfires are beautifully rendered modern R and B, some of which are spoken word, some instrumental. Really needing to be devoured in one sitting (maybe a coffee break after track 10).
Not unpleasant as background working, and probably great live as well. Grat that there is an actual track called 'krautrock'
After you subtract the monster hit singles that everyone can sing in their sleep, there's only four tracks left. They are all pretty good. Why only four stars? I don't think it is anything like his best album and what do I give Sign O The Times then? 4.5 if they did halves.
Some albums surprise you. Some are just the way you expect. The big singles blighted my early years of listening to pop via the endless airplay on wunderful Radio One (UK only here). if Tina Turner's 80s input is music for people who don't like music, Joel is right up there too. The album tracks reveal nothing to change the situation.
Stellar stellar album. Listen to the studio version of No Woman No Cry and you'll hear a version that's faster and less heavy on the organ and backing vocals than the much more famous live version from Live at the Lyceum. The second side's intensity drops a little from the first, but it's from a 6 to a 5 really.
I can see absolutely why other people love Randy Newman. But I just don't click. Perhaps a result of associating him with Woody and Buzz. Sorry Randy.
Yes this ok, a nice listen, without me thinking it's the best album ever made.
I recall this album on release as basically unlistenable noise. Clearly wrong. Instead the start of her 90s imperial run of albums up to ... well probably up to Let England Shake in 2011.
My younger brother had this - I was at heart in 1982 a Bunnymen Teardrops New Order camouflage jacket wearing new waver. He, 2 years younger, had the pastel suit, blonde flick and white shirt of the New Romantic. We still have some excellent photos of him around that time. Anyway, the 3 singles were inescapable. The rest of the album is efficient. Now I'm in birmingham and you can buy an art print of the Rum Runner. All mental floss which ends up saying that they peaked with Planet Earth and declined steeply from there. he did go to Milton keynes to see Lets Dance era Bowie, so he got something good out of the whole thing.
He hung out with the Beatlies ddin't he. So no surprise the best of this sounds like early solo McCartney. The worst of it sounds like....Without You. Being less than generous because that song is unlistenable to, it's a two.
You are either a Clintonite or not. If you are this is with the early Funkadelic albums much the best place to start. Pretty damn good from start of finish. And like all good funk albums its chief subject is of course the funk. Getting it, having it, being it, losing it...
It's a four. The first quarter of the album is a five, taking up where The Neon Bible left off. But 16 full tracks is a bit too much and the second half of the album has a couple of samey tracks on. 12 tracks, 48 mins guys.
There is not much latin American percussion in here and I'm a bit at a loss as to what to make of this. The conga playing is clearly great, and the mainly chanted call-and-response vocals add to what is quite a minimal sound palate. Rhythms and tracks that were crying out for just a bit more melody.
There were many turns Springsteen could have taken after the blockbuster variety show that was The River, which in retrospect puts a cap on 70s Bruce. He took the pop and bar band vibes of Hungry Heart and made a whole album following up on that. This is a Big Album, like they made in the eighties and just don't do anymore. Seven singles in the States (I think 5 in the UK) and endless rotation on MTV. Has it aged well? Not really. The title track is rendered virtually unlistenable to by virtue of the production, the Monster Hit is rendered virtually unlistenable to by virtue of being Dancing In The Dark. There's some good stuff here - Downtown Train and My Hometown in particular - but there are no tracks that would make it onto my Desert Island Bruce Disks. It can only be three stars, so that there's proper room for Tunnel of Love or Nebraska on 4, and Darkness.. on 5.
Track one, eleven minutes of shredding. Track seven ten minutes of funk. In between five short and sharp tracks. Superbly listenable.
Not an unpleasant listen and she can write a tune, but it's too long and quite difficult to focus at times.
Some whispered vocals, airy synth washes and gently burbling bass. Some a bit slow, some with a bit more of a pulse. The whole thing is so much more than the sum of its parts and - cliche alert - it's all held together with a great sense of style.
Take away the four huge singles, and it's still a pretty good album. Probably comes closest to breaking the Mode album pattern of astonishing singles and ok album tracks. So four stars.
A band I love more than I should, as I lived in Oxford in the early nineties and even knew a friend of one of the band. Got a guest pass to their gig at Oxford Apollo on the second album tour. Full disclosure over, they have aged brilliantly and this album is full of brilliant tunes, Vapour Trails above all, lush harmonies and clever guitar textures. I listened to it from start to finish in a traffic jam on the M6 and was never less than admiring.
You know I'd not heard this for twenty years, owned by my partner. Girl From Mars was a banger always, but Kung Fu, Angel Interceptor, Oh Yeah are also absolutely brilliant too. I had this pigeonholed as mid-table Britpop but I'd put this in an Europa league place.
Few bands have a core catalogue as focused and high-quality as the Dan. The temptation is to give every album five stars. But things are relative. there are five-star songs here - My Old School and Boddhisvata obvs, but Gold Teeth and Boston Rag though fine songs don't quite hit those heights. And if it's five then what is Katy Lied or the Royal Scam? So four, though a 9 out of ten.
Very surprisingly pleasant listen, sophisticated late 60s singer-songwriter pop with good arrangements. The fearsome Scott lay ahead then.
I'd listened to this a few weeks ago. It's three stellar songs spaces throughout - Title track, I Wanna Sing and the astonishing and astonishingly long end track. They sustain interest throughout with just two guitars or banjo and vocals. Absolutely usually hate this kind of stuff, so it's a strong four.
Ok I tried I really did. I lasted 3 songs and then went 'you know what why don't I actually listen to the original' . Mussorgsky's piece in Ravel's orchestration is a minor classic and very listenable. When replaced by clod-eared synths, bass and drums it's about as listenable to as Concerto for Group and Orchestra. For Mussorgsky (in a recent Wiener Phil/Dudamel version) 3 stars. For ELP -3. This was why punk had to happen.
This is just too country for me, the lyrics are gently amusing with the passage of time but really it's novelty stuff.
Many of the albums I end up giving five stars find the perfect balance between two contrary drivers in the artist. And so it is here: the pop rush and classic songwriting chops on one side, the witty wordplay, clever time signatures and chords on the other. Side one is one of the strongest side ones of any album in the eighties and it's a crime that When Loves Breaks Down wasn't number one: the record company clearly thought so too as they kept re-releasing it every ten minutes with another free single. No 25 with a bullet and since covered by the Zombies, Snow Patrol and Lisa Stansfield who clearly all know a classic when they hear it. they'd get the big hits on the next album, slightly too much pop rush and not enough of the grit in the oyster.
The sound of clubbing in the 90s and with the Chemicals and Underworld part of the 'big 3' of dance music bands making actual albums. As successful as either of the others in making an album that sounded like clubbing while actually being listenable to. Lydon and Halliday the coolest guest vocalists as well.
This is a pleasant listen with some standout tracks. Lauren Hill's voice and the samples are great, but the beats and rapping are pretty ordinary.
Country-rock is a genre I don't immediately warm to, and the balance has to be exactly right. It is pretty much spot on here and it's a great listen. It's 3 and a half rather than 3, but probably for me not a 4 though for lots of others clearly will be.
An album I had first on cassette (with additional album Burning Blue Soul), then on CD and now am streaming. As debuts go it didn't reveal quite how far Matt Johnson would go in terms of blood, sweat and guns but it's a solid gold set of tunes.
Psychedelic soul, very pleastant listen and that Tarantino track, but not more than a 3
The ultimate game of two halves album. Side one sheer prog heavy genius and batshit crazy. Side two some nice but ultimately unremarkable single tracks. Can't give it a five, much though I'd like to, for Tears (ballads always problematic for Rush with that voice), and the ridiculous orientatlism of the guitar lick on Bangkok. Four then. They got the 'long tracks/short tracks' balance better on the next two IMHO
Oh my god this album is soooo long it started in the second Obama administration. It's so long Britain has had four prime ministers (actually that'd be true of The Ramones) before side two. There are other long albums I like, but there just so many skits, filler and so on that the album of corking material is quite lost. I have this and after listening to again am ripping and recycling. So this works both ways I guess.
From the golden age of Christmas albums and songs (Eartha Kitt, Motown, the Beatles and Phil). Yes an awful awful man but shouldn't stop you listening to this. Did you spam me this on Christmas Day on purpose 1001?
There's a lot here, 19 tracks. Not sure I've got it all on first listen, but there's a lot going on. Need to relisten.
What a great album this is. The bass, drums and analogue synths provide a wonderfully warm soundscape on which Numan's chill android voice intones his Philip K Dick suffused tales of future alientation.
Two great singles, and a band who in their second decade suddenly found a sound that resonated. Full of their crazy space lyrics but like the next two albums (their purple patch) underpinned by rock-solid songwriting and loads of hooks.
Every ten years I listen to this album and think 'its good, but not quite good enough to actually buy'. I still think that.
Nothing to it, a soft guitar, hushed drums and a simple yet lovely voice. But the whole so much greater than the parts.
What can you say about this album? Only that I noticed that Second Hand News is false start: a fine song but from another album. But from Dreams on in its pure 70s fm rock magic all the way.
Who would have thought that forty-five years on from punk it was albums like Entertainment that would remain vital and contemporary. Or: 1980. Everyone wants to sound like the Sex Pistols (see US hardcore: Pistols sped up). Eighties and nineties: everyone wants to sound like the Jam or the Clash (white reggae excursions aside looking at you lots of Britpop and the Manics). Last thirty years: the most important bands from the punk/new wave era in terms of influence and bands actually wanting to sound like them: Wire and Gang of Four. In sixties terms then we can see GOF as The Velvet Underground in this scenario with the Jam, Clash and Pistols as Kinks, Stones and….well who were the Pistols? Whereas Wire’s songs were diverse GOF’s on Entertainment cleave to a restrictive template entirely in keeping with their politics. Slashing guitars, tight drumming and bass with a dried-out and sped-up funk tempo, and sloganeering vocals over the top. Elastica, Franz Ferdinand, Rakes and a billion other bands the sound you took from is here. What they didn’t take which makes GOF sound bang up to date is hardcore Marxism. There’s no personal insights, no obtuse metaphors or poetic phrases but political analysis: At Home He’s A Tourist (He fills his head with culture/he gives himself an ulcer) The problem of leisure/What to do for pleasure, Watch new blood on the 18 inch screen/The corpse is a new personality. These are lyrics that would make as much sense on a posterr. I wish I’d bought this on vinyl as the artwork carries all this into the visual arena: I spend most of my money on myself so I can stay fat/We’re grateful for his leftovers, the cowboy and indian sequence and so on. Streaming on Spotify is just not the same. Conceptual joke/situtationist artwork: this was released on EMI. And finally, in the scratchy textures and awkward corners there are nagging tunes and melodies. Not the kind to trouble Elton John or Billy Joel, but enough to have them in your head for a few days.
Yes some excellent, vital tracks but absolutely not an album.
Not really about the albums was he, but of the early ones this is probably the best.
Listening to this today on the original vinyl I bought second hand in about 82, complete with bonus 12" disc. What a fine album this is, the most successful bringing together of new wave and reggae, perhaps the reggae equivalent of what Gang of Four did for funk. This and its follow up are just great, but from then on its a tale of diminishing returns, awful covers, awfuler collabs, fallings out and ultimately two UB40s touring simultaneously. Never let 'I got You Babe' stop you listening to this. In their defence they went bust several times and covers are a way to get a hit quick and money in. As a Brummie, whose local has a plaque commemorating their first rehearsal, it hurts that they didn't go onto fulfil the promise of the first two albums, though what do I know, they sold 100 million records. Most of which are Red Red Wine or I Got You Babe.
No sorry don't buy the whole he was credible in the early seventies. Yes there are songs here. But not songs I particularly like. Even Tiny Dancer.
Yes one of the crown jewels of punk pop. Very little to add to this which is an album I originally got on a cheap portugese grey import market vinyl and has been a joy ever since. While Teenage Kicks might not be the best song ever (in that vein I would go for Another Girl, Another Planet by The Only Ones) it is definitely top ten.
Hardcore if such a thing were possible in rap. I can see why people rate this, and the final track Bound2 is an absolute banger, but there's too little of the sweet sampling that powered the college trilogy and too much of Kanye banging on about this and that. Short though.
Context is everything. At work had this on while working on budgets. Me and Erykah did not vibe. At home a couple of hours later the second half of the album sounded just fine while cooking. So a modern soul stew.
What must have this sounded like in 1972? Google the Virginia Plain performance from Top of the Pops to see how they looked like they'd descended from another planet. The instruments were plastic, the outfits sequinny and the haircuts held up with clouds of spray. It's the sound of the future, a soundworld completely artificial and ironic, but completely convincing. One of the best debut albums ever.
It might be the first concept album ever but it's late sixties beat psychedelia and the tunes are Europa League.
Though it tails off a bit, this is a fantastic reboot of Dylan, if he was backed by Don Henley's Boys of Summer soft-rock 80s synth sound. They'd perfect this on the next record, which adds a bit of Springsteen into the mix as well.
The thing I always come back to with the first two Band albums is how ego-free they sound. Has a rock band (hah!) ever nailed the sound of five musicans sharing the music so harmoniously. There's other stuff such as the gold-standard songwriting, and their journey into America's folk past just as everyone else was going into the fab future, but it's the interplay of the musicians I always come back to. Still astonishing after all these years. And yes, if you give this 5 then the second album should really be a 6.
I have this on CD, actually a compilation from two albums and various singles. Should it really be in this list then? Anyway, it's a frankenstein stitching up of the Kinks, Stooges, Dictators that doesn't really add anything to the mix except a crisp modern production. Thinking of ripping and binning.
There are some bands who are frozen in their first flush of teenage youth for decades (think the Ramones), and other bands who appear middle-aged from the start. The National come to mind, but the daddies of the prematurely middle-aged pop star vibe are the Pet Shop Boys. So it is that this album is told mainly in the past tense. The adventures of youth (Being Boring) are events that happened years, perhaps decades ago. Though they were around before the phrase 'sad banger' was invented, they took the melancholia melodies at the heart of Kraftwerk and married them with lyrics focusing on failed romances, youths lost to AIDS, regrets at poor choices and misunderstandings. It's all very adult and amazing that they could do all this and sell millions of albums. There's a much quoted comment from Neil Tennant that once Domino Dancing went in the charts at 7 he knew their imperial period was over. This, the first album they made after that, is them staking out a more adult territory that would sustain them for decades. Is it five stars? Definitely 4.5 and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, if just for Being Boring which is perhaps their greatest ever piece of songwriting.
Not much to add to the many comments. It's both an extremely challenging listen and deeply soothing. Best thought of IMHO as one long track through which different melodies rise and fall from the overall texture of distortion and noise. Not really any good or bad tracks, and one of its joys is re-acquainting yourself with the slivers of melody that emerge each time you relisten. Again, an album that absolutely bears repeated listens.
As they influenced so many of the bands I love, Fanclub and Smiths to name but 2, it's great to hear where the whole jangly power-pop Rickenbacker sound started. Ok they leant heavily on Dylan, but this is pretty flawless and the original songs are very strong as well. Heretical view: I prefer this Byrds to the now much-more fashionable country-rock period.
It's four stars and a really good four stars.
Always engaging listening to Cash playing the Man In Black, chummying up to the cons and generally role playing the badass. Strong selection of classic C and W.
Two monster tunes (Hanger 18 and Tornado of Souls) and a great balance of shred and tune. Not my type of music necessarily, but I've enjoyed listening to this.
Possibly the best psychedelic album every made, and also some fantastic stereo effects as it was a new toy. Solid songwriting and of course some of the greatest guitar playing ever.
What an impossible album to rate. It's the sound of driving through dappled sunlight through the trees in an open-top car on a warm summer day. Anyway, four stars.
The bastard child of The Cramps, Stooges and a thousand other scuzz rock garage bands. Is it fake is it real? Does it matter. The only way actually this could be any more enjoyable is if Jon Spencer was actually an Old Etonian called Quentin.
The idea of the Gun Club sound, a punk take on Americana, is great. Can really hear their influence on bands like Mercury Rev. But the songwriting isn't always of the first rank. Fascinating listen, and a sense of wide open spaces that reminds me of the Triffids and Go-Betweens.
Simpler times. Before the loungecore and strings there were razor-sharp Sheffield anthems of pubs, hooksups and misspent evenings. Fully formed straight out of the box.
A band by 1980 so far ahead of their time it would take others several years to catch up. Funk, rap, afrobeats all in a sonic stew anchored by Weymouth and Frantz - surely contenders for one of the best rhythm sections of all time. Though The Overload sees a very slight lessening of the quality, it's 4.75 stars. I've had an earlier TH album ten days ago on the randomizer - assuming from this that pretty well every album up to Little Creatures will come up at some point.
A noughties soul update of the nineties dinner party vibes as practiced by Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps et al. And thus three stars. Goes well with garlic bread.
Some fiery live renditions of Jerry's hits, chief attraction being his rolling striding piano, a thing of much joy. At 24 mins is it the shortest album on the list?
The first of their 'goth cycle' - ok all Cure albums are a form of goth, but this, Faith and Pornography set an ever-gloomier template for the eighties. This is a sparse album of textures and moods, a world away from the spiky pop of their debut while retaining a knack for a good tune (A Forest) that would ensure that they are always listenable.
Wow I listened to this literally two days before it came up on the shuffle. Lambchop are absolutely an unclassifiable band, alt-soul, new country, whatever. But the songs are brilliant all the way through, Wagner's voice a dolourous delight and the arrangements stately. Is it a five? Yes probably.
Three socking singles, and the whole album breezes along on pop-funky good vibes. Sometimes it's ok to be shallow - not everything has to be about Death and Taxes...
This might be the album (400 in) that I am finding hardest to place. It is slippery - there's definitely a touch of Talking Heads nervous funk - sinewy bass, tight dry guitars - but often uses these ingredients to make something entirely new. Post-rock from less accessible bands like Godspeed is there too. I've listened to it five or six times and their superpower would definitely be escaping definition. If it's a four and not a five it's that only occasionally, as on Family Tree, do they pull everything into focus.
Wispy voice, gentle chord progressions, delicate guitars - at times just this, at times with muted drums and bass. The sound of a 1000 dinner parties and mornings after in the late 90s. None the worst for that and holds up very well.
A solid three, two big singles and a high consistency of wit, arched eyebrow and glittery melodies all the way. and yes, Songs of Love is indeed the Father Ted theme.
A quintesssential greatest hits band. Whatever you think of the singles, they clearly are all you need. This is not that greatest hits. Two singles, two stars.
Ok I’ll bite on this one. A 3 for me. But why you ask as a fairly strong Bruce fan. My case m'lud: It’s front-loaded for acclaim: not only the first album with the E Street Band, its Bruce’s 9/11 rallying cry etc etc. It’s really a reunion album, hi guys what have you been up to for the past 18 years. And like all reunions we want it to succeed so much it can’t possibly. The ‘return to form’ never quite is a return to peak form. It is sooo long. 72 minutes for 15 tracks - and whereas earlier albums had epics (Jungleland, Racing the Streets) contrasted with short and punchy tracks, this sees every track stagger long past its natural lifespan. Smoking gun: at least one key change. The ‘dad rock’ comments elsewhere are on the money: in Worlds Apart (Arabic music), and The Fuse (trip hop drums, looped vocals!!) we hear the sound of someone listening to what the kids have been up to. The Fuse is cringeworthy - not a comment one usually. Clunky generic lyrics. Waiting for a Sunny Day, Lets Be Friends and Counting on a Miracle are free of metaphor and are a mite simplistic even for a Phil Spector track. We are a long way from The River. The production is very dated: particularly the drums and synths which sound like this album was recorded a year after Born In The USA not 18. A chugging mid-tempo beat that suggests they are all a bit too old to really rip it up, and that Bruce’s voice is no longer up to the slowed-down intensity of Drive All Night or Wreck on the Highway. Arrangements that despite the aforementioned mid-life crisis effects are very uniform. It feels like an album - the very last track excepted - to give everyone in the band their due, which over 72 minutes means the tracks can blur into one another. In retrospect a midway point: pointing as much towards the middling albums like Magic and Working On A Dream as back to the golden age. Scores on the doors. Here is the tight, four plus star album it could have been: Lonesome Day Into The Fire Nothing Man Empty Sky Worlds Apart You’re Missing The Rising My City In Ruins
Oh I don't know. I dislike this form of music so intensely that I can't judge whether St Nick is actually any good at it. Two stars.
You know it's not bad, in a kind of rainy Sunday afternoon slightly bored and melancholy way. Maybe a bit hungover, perhaps thinking about a work meeting Monday morning. This is the soundtrack to that bit of your life.
Very much a debut album, American Girl a startling single that would grab attention, but behind it a sound that was still emerging from the shadows of 70s rock into something different.
Like a box of Ferrero Rocher, one Ute Lemper song makes you think this is the best thing ever. But after twelve the richness makes you feel a little bit sick. When you add in Neil Hannon as well, we really are at risk of diabetes. If you could discipline yourself to listening to this as one track a day that would be best.
Great ambient dub techno or whatever you want to describe it with. Haunted Dancehall is as good a description as anything else. Stands up well.
Fivety five stars. Take away (deep breath) Vicious, Perfect Day, Wild Side, Satellite, NY Telephone and play the other six tracks and they are all uniformly amazing. For an artist whose vast solo output can mainly be described with the word patchy, this is an incredibly consistent album. That Bowie, he was quite on it in the seventies wasn't he?
The only two bands people are impressed by having seen twice are Nirvana and the Smiths - the latter at the Hacienda and Oxford Apollo, a gig at which future life partner was at but as yet unbenownst to me. All of their albums are five stars, and this is no exception. On yet another relisten you can hear how they had perfected the Smiths sound to such a ridiculous degree that they had said all there was to say: the 2-minute pop thrill dominated by Marr's chiming guitar and rousing choruses (Girlfriend In A Coma, Stop Me, Unhappy Birthday, A Rush and A Push) and the moody workout with a slower pace and more expansive arrangements (Disco Dancer, Last Night, I Won't Share You). Apart from that one can hear some of the early Morrissey quirkiness transforming into People I Do Not Like and Why They Are Awful: here disco dancers, record company executives and girlfriends. Alternative: Unattainable Heroes On A Pedastal who Still Make Me Miserable Even Though I Adore Them (Last Night.., Dead Pop Stars, Dan).
This is just great. The title track and My Drug Buddy are the standout tracks, that any songwriter of the past forty years would be proud of. Ably supported by a consistent slate of short, sharp blasts of early-90s grungy pop. Four stars. Didn't need to even mention that cover.
Veered between a 2 and a 3 on this, and ended up, because Day I Tried to Live and Black Hole Sun are such tunes, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. As 90s as a David Fincher movie.
Hey just because their best songs are other peoples songs doesn't mean this is not worth listening to. Still an insanely catchy and sleazy 40 minutes rifling through the post-punk canon. Think of it as sampling with instruments and you'll be fine.
Ah. Yes Beyond Belief, Man out of Time and Almost Blue are fine tunes. But elsewhere everything is swamped in complex arrangements and overproduction. I am not one who subscribes to this album as masterpiece. Overthought and overwrought.
Is it his finest solo album? yes. Is it perfect no, and there are signs of the Droolian obsessions that would lead him into full on druidery. But the songs are bullet-proof and providing you don't mind it's a double, it's a fantastic time trip to early rave culture, poll tax riots, the awful afterglow of Mrs Thatcher and how deeply wierd we all were in the early nineties. Also, lots of great photos in the packaging.
A mixtape album rather than an album, a collage of samples lovingly assembled but also, like the 2manydjs and cut up stuff prevelant in the noughties also exhausting.
Very listenable early sixties 'classic soul' - perhaps he doesn't touch the desperation or ecstacy that Sam Cooke or Otis Redding can reach, he seems quite a grounded chap. Full marks for putting forward his worldview that not every woman can be loved, as he is only one man.
What a strange group the Stranglers were. Perhaps in a solid Europa league spot in the punk premiership, they were hardly punk at all. Insanely musical - but the standout instruments being JJB's bass and Dave Greenfield's swirling keyboards. All accomplished musicians/ice cream business owners. This after nearly fifty years is still a brilliant listen, brimming with catchy choruses and sharp chords. The lyrics? Well only Goodbye Toulouse (apocalyptic destruction of society) and the epic Down In the Sewer (rats resurrect society) are not about beating up women, ugly women, prostitutes, sexually available or unavailable women and so on. were they being 'ironic'. Not really sure myself, and I prefer the rat mythologising. Still, outstanding songwriting.
Listenable and Gilded Splinters is a proper tune, but elsewhere it's more about the voodoo vibe at times than anything else.
Though it may not be their most sophisticated album, it's the ultimate expression of their early Big Beat phase. Block Rockin Beats, Setting Son are both immense, and Where Do I Begin an early sign that they might have more conventional song structures under all the dj action. Five stars, and six if possible for Psychedelic Reel which which has one of the best drops in recorded music.
An album that should not wear well. But yet it escapes from an era of albums that have not: Rio and True for two. It has many of the tropes of early 80s Britpop: sax breaks check, featured female backing singers check, Motown backbeats check, dry as dust production check, gated drums check. And yet it effortlessly rises above all of tis to sound as brilliant today as bursting out of top of the Pops in 1982. Reasons why? George is a better singer than many others, and the songwriting is pretty foolproof. It delivers the four monster hit singles, but much more it’s got unstoppable momentum. Not until track eight – eight! - Mister Man, does the momentum slow from effervescent to album track. Even then, only for a moment are we down before Stormkeeper gets us back on track and Victims gives it the big closing number. Rounding up from 4.8 because yes.
The mother of all come-down albums, a completely feel bad album about fame. Perhaps not Different Class, but in the title track, Help the Aged, Dishes and Sylvia there's a fistful of memorable tracks. Elsewhere, Jarvis is never less than listenable and their sound is tougher and harder, if not quite as poptastic in the choruses. Solid four.
Ho-hum. The big tunes you'll know and it's all starting to go a bit Vegas. Again, not an albums artist. Still, it's short. And a nice pic on the cover.
Five stars. Just one of those albums where every sound is so carefully crafted the whole thing appears hewn from a single block of marble. And textures is exactly the right word - the metallic dragging that haunts Sour Times, the theramin that recurs, and the glorious film music samples that litter the album. All to provide a compelling soundscape for Beth Gibbons voice. Great though Glory Box and Sour Times are, it's Roads that is the 10/5 track - a better idea of the contemporary torch song you will not find anywhere.
Both a good album and the high concept of a good album, there is a double album worth four stars, possibly 4.5, but to get to the magic number 69 there's just enough filler to bring the score down. Nothing quite like it in rock, and possibly the only triple album in this list.
Never trust a hippy. This is a fabulously self-indulgent, self-important and cringeworthy album. The nadir is surely Jonathans Garden in which we have to consider the following: With his love And his carin' He puts his life Into beauty sharin' And his children Are his flowers There to give us peace In quiet hours I have considered it enough. One star.
Nothing to add, peak Prince. If Around The World In A Day... was Sgt Pepper, this is The White Album and Abbey Road rolled into one humungous statement. See the concert film for the best live act in the world at the time as well.
I love this album, capturing a moment where the chilly Euro-fluenced dance music they'd been perfecting on Empires and Dance and the Sister Feelings Call set thaw out with a new pop sensibility. It's really one mood, with pop sunshine ('Miracle') and longer more abstract tracks (King Is White) moving the dial back and forth but never leaving the unique mood they create on this album. From hereon in the law of diminishing artistic returns/bigger sales would kick in, as their writing and arrangements became simpler. But marvel at how complete an achievement this is.
Some very sage comments along the lines of 'it's why punk had to happen, but it's also really good' - which is pretty much how I feel about it. Never going to give this five stars with the Anderson voice, but it's a solid four.
One of those albums about which you can say that though it didn't sell a million copies, everybody who bought it was a musician. It's still a fantastic listen, and great working music. Got to love an album with nods from Kate Bush and Public Enemy.
Three stars. An enjoyable enough listen, and many of the songs are standards. But I'm not that sold on Laughing Len.
Not unlistenable to, but really not my thing. The kind of album that everyone who then made millions listened to (Metallica, Slayer etc) as it's the mid-point between NWOBHM and thrash. The band meanwhile sold about 30 copies no doubt, so kind of the heavy metal Velvet Underground.
this is such a curate's egg album. A base layer of echo-ey dub, but there's thrash, 70s dub reggae, ballads and pretty much everything. Accordingly, no focus though a pleasant enough listen. The kind of album a band makes after a golden run comes to an end.
Great listen, the depth and quality of the beats here are just fantastic - as in Swordsman (recalling Portishead) or Duel of the Iron Mic. The rapping is so dense it can sometimes pass you by but a good listen.
Solid four stars, probably four and a half. Not flawless, but with a fistful of undying classics.
Music was really moving at the speed of light in the UK in the late seventies. Released June 1978 only 9 months after Never Mind... and it sounds like punk is already in the rear view mirror. Sharp Shot (a legacy track from the Devoto/Shelley Buzzcocks) is both the best track and untypical of the rest of the album in its guitar thrash. Elsewhere it's jagged rhythms, Barry Adamson's moody bass, keyboards and shining through the first sighting of John Mcgeogh's luminous guitar work. An amazing album, and great though the other three Magazine albums are (until the first split) they would not recapture the consistency and quality of songwriting on here.
Great pop album, a fistful of monsters and strong songwriting throughout. His imperial period might have been brief, but it was imperial.
I'm going to go for Topographic Oceans as the ultimate yes album over this, though Roundabout is an absolute banger. Very listenable, though ultimately not my kind of thing.
I am never going to get Janis Joplin.
Not awful, but it's pretty run of the mill 90s rock, there's that telltale scratching mixed in so its got a touch of nu metal. And there's a big ballad for the radio plays. Very American. Didn't really do much for me.
The slowest burn of slow burn bands. Conventionally their best album. In fact their best album. Not quite five stars, but a 4.5.
On a five-note scale this has to be a five. On a ten note scale still a ten. On a twenty-note scale maybe 18.5, as the Stones cover is pretty throwaway. Other than that, nastier and harder than Ziggy.
There is some nice playing from George and mates, and Lennon has still a way with a tune. but the overall vibe is of being cornered at a works do by that colleague that everyone else is avoiding because they know he can talk no-stop opinionated rubbish at your for an hour. And Imagine would make my reverse Desert Island Discs - ie what 8 records would you least like to have as your sole listening library, alongside Candle In The Wind and Bo Rap.
This is a very difficult listen for a modern ear, though interesting to hear it from a time when bluegrass, honkytonk and western swing were coalescing into what would become the 'nashville' C and W sound. Academic interest only. Willie Nelson played bass.
A band still evolving, some moments of greatness, but also some very lengthy passages when not much happens. Around the corner....
Yes it's a pretty good listen. 3 stars.
It's very listenable to, I was doing a funding bid this afternoon, in a 90s office vibe with a big printer, usb drives and those jelly coloured imacs. I want to say I love it. But I don't.
Well, it's pretty easy listening global pop, interesting to hear how Western textures and music programming infiltrate other genres. An inexplicable cover of Imagine however downgrades this from a three to a two.
I did not listen to Jump as like the entire population of earth I have heard it a billion times. The rest of the album is somehow worse..Jump has at least a pop sensibility. The rest is hair metal with a touch of synth. An album with no redeeming features at all. As you listen you can hear how it was written for the videos.
The five-star tracks really are five stars, but this does drop a fraction on side two until the final track. Also think Let's get It On is the better album, so have to be able to recognise that. Definitely a 4.5.
The sound of a band undergoing furious evolution. The riffs are still pieces of granite, the drums thud, the guitars occasionally wail and there’s growly vocals. The songs are a bit longer than on For Whom… and in the case of To Live is to Die there are slow sections that contrast nicely with the full on sludgerama that is their default sound. On this track, there’s perhaps a whiff of a new genre emerging, thrash prog. Mmm. The slow bits could be lifted from late-70s Rush. Elsewhere, as on opener Blackened it is all thrash all the time. Interesting that they went for a more recognisable heavy metal sound next on the black album, as this is the sound of a band both slowing down (the overall tempo must be slower than Master of Puppets…) and expanding their sound. Dyer’s Eve and Blackened are perhaps last runs through the faster-than-you sound of the early stuff before MTV beckoned. There’s even a thrash ballad in One: practically auditioning for a slot on Leather and Lace IV. What are they singing about? You know, world domination, injustice, terror, death. Going out with them must be a bundle of laughs. Unless they confirm to the old theatrical truism that the cast playing Hamlet are in hysterics all the time, while those doing a Noel Coward are throwing shade to each other non-stop.
The first 3 or 4 tracks are unrepresentative here - shouty and rocky BB's, but after that it gets much more varied and interesting. Funk, easy listening, jazz, soul - almost everything is in the stew. A rap group who became a group where rap was incidental.
This stuff has not aged that well. 10cc are the very definition of a greatest hits band giving you all the stuff you need, so on this album it is The Wall Street Shuffle. Otherwise it's pastiche pop. Immaculately done but absolutely of its time.
If there are no second acts in American lives, in great bands perhaps a second life is what makes them great. The Stone Roses, producers of one and a half great albums, could not for the life of them produce a second act. Neither could Britpop premier leaguers Pulp or Suede, the latter refining their sound over the coming decades rather than ever escaping it. Oasis bless them would never admit such a thing was even possible. So it's Blur who produced on this album an act of escapology - adding grunge, lo-fi, even psychedelia to the Britpop template that in the previous album had both peaked and exhausted itself. A fantastic album, one that showed the band could absorb almost any influence and use it to go to new places.
Pleasant but unmemorable early seventies country-rock.
Superstition is a five-star track, but apart from that and the fine final track it's mid-tempo pop-funk or syrupy ballads. Thin pickings.
Ok I will bite on this one and go never listened, did listen, very listenable. All over in barely 30 mins and some actual tunes and great guitar (courtesy Ry Cooder) to go with DGV's ultra raspy vocals. Hard to believe it would two albums to go from this to Trout Mask Replica.
I am a fully paid-up member of the NG fan club and boy how she's missed. Be grateful that this - her best album - is on Spotify as her catalogue is only patchily available on streaming. This is right in the middle of her proper Imperial Period - starting with previous album Once In A Very Blue Moon (not available on Spotify) and stretching over five albums to Storms where she was operating with a quality and consistency that few singer-songwriters can match. Virtually every track here is gold, Love at the Five and Dime of course the stand-out.
A solid three: blues-rock guitar, that rolling rhythm and the gruff vocals all very much present and correct. Listening this time around I noticed how with some extra harmonies here, studio polish there and some slide guitar on top the chords and melodies in several songs could just slide into The Eagles sound very easily. Not a complement.
What an album this is. The weakest track is perhaps Airbag, and it just gets better and better after that. Two thoughts: it's another example of the law of threes, completing the explosive growth from their debut through the Bends. After this it's a violent left turn with Kid A. Secondly, most of this album passes the 'busker test' therefore a proper tunes - Lucky, Paranoid Android, Karma Police could all work on an Amsterdam street corner with some guy with an acoustic guitar. Kid A, again not so much.
Did music ever move as quickly as it did in the three years from 1977-1980? New Rose by the Damned was October 1976 and barely two years later bands like X-Ray Spex were moving light years beyond the speeded up pub rock punk template. Oh! Bondage Up Yours is one of the classic punk singles - a howl of protest from an extra-ordinary new sort of singer in Poly Styrene, mixed race, wearing braces and with a sandblasting voice. But by their debut album the punk howl was only one of their registers. The title track opens on a hypnotic synth riff and an unfolding rhythm that the new romantics a few years later would kill for. Then there’s Rudi Thompsons er unique sax playing - in fact Laura Logic and even someone called Ted all took a turn at the sax keys. Along with the thrilling sound what impresses in this album forty years on is the strength of the ideas. From OCD cleanliness, genetic engineering, the emptiness of consumerism, personality and identity crises: this is a cumulatively brilliant critique of late seventies society. Though its the student radicalism of the Gang of Four who get the plaudits for injecting post-punk with the overtly political, and the Au Pairs who hold the feminist ring, this album holds its own with both of them in the strength of its ideas. An essential album, one of the albums on the cusp of punk/post-punk that has lasted best. 4.5 stars but surely needs rounding up.
Pretty good, if not my stuff at all. Surprisingly melodic in the middle of the screaming and thrashing.
Such an engaging rapper, and lovely to hear some native tongues vibes updated for the noughties. Like this.
Just too much going on here - too many songs, too many style changes, too much in general. Some great songs - Cold War is fantastic, Say You'll go Good but it sorely needs an editor. Just lost me too many times.
A couple of tracks yes a perfect tonic - a whole album the hypnotic rhythms, the clack of the timbales, the horns, the call and response vocals, it is all a bit samey. And music made worse by bringing the vocalist on. two and a half stars really but feeling generous.
Hard to argue with this. Half a dozen classic WS tracks and its insanely listenable all the way through. Less is more.
With a slight dipping with Bedtime Stories and American Life, Madonna's run of albums from Like A Virgin through to Confessons on A Dancefloor - near twenty years, is pretty well unmatched putting her up with critical darlings like REM and Prince. Like A Prayer and Ray of Light are the Everest and K2 in this range - I have a personal preference for the latter as I love the William Orbit wooshes and wibbles that provide the distinctive soundworld of this album. As ever the question is take the singles out and what's left. The answer is a lot. I'll even forgive her a bit of karmic nonsense with the om shantis and everything. This album is almost 25 years old which seems crazy as it still sounds contemporary.
These collabathons can be pretty dull affairs, and so it proves here. Santana IMHO the kiss of dullness to anyone he works with. Concert at Newport the place to start with JLH not here.
Tons of fun with all the Purple early classics sounding bigger, better and bolder live. No album with a 7-minute drum solo is getting five stars, but this is a shoe-in for four. Do agree that the presence of other Purple albums make this a pretty redundant use of a 1001 slot.
Refreshing to hear all the big tracks backloaded onto side two. I do never need to hear Brass In Pocket ever again though.
Yes ok I can see how this is incredibly influential and all that but no matter how much I listen I can't get this - great textures but much less in the way of actual tunes.
I have a lot of time for XTC and Black Sea, Drums and Wires and English Settlement are brilliant albums. Hope they come up later. I don't quite buy the 'late stuff is even better' - this has some lovely songs but it doesn't quite cut through, feels a bit 'classic' to me, though the occasional cut-through of the Wiltshire burr is always a joy.
What more can be said about an album that like Sgt Pepper or Pet Sounds virtually nothing is left to say. Two notes from the relisten here: their melancholy beauty is even more pronounced in a Brexit Britain listening to this love song to Europe. And the transition from Trance Europe Express to Metal on Metal is an awesome drop.
What album buries its two strongest tracks three-quarters of the way through the album? A group so confident in their game they can do whatever they like. (tracks in question Man on the Moon and Nightswimming).
Not much to add, one of the most perfect pieces of music ever created. Extra-ordinary to think it was all improvised. On tracks one and two you can hear someone composing in real time.
I like a bit of Fela, and this is a strong album. Limitations really that (sorry) it's great working music rather than something that makes me stop and actively listen.
He wasn't the best D and B artist of the 90s, but a bit like the Damned he was the first to get his stuff out there and into the mainstream. Soft spot for anyone from Wolverhampton. This has some great peaks but it's a bit compromised by trying to make a home listening album out of club music. Not the first person to get caught here.
I know every moment of this album from start to finish and wore my vinyl copy out before buying it on CD. One of the greatest debut albums ever. How much is ABC and how much is Horn is open to debate, but the results are spectacular. The exact moment that post-punk gave way to 80s pop. Rewards listening on the best stereo/headphones you can find.
Yes it is a bit of a return to form, if by this do we mean better than Infidels or Down in the Groove. Is it a good Dylan album, yes it is. Is it the equal of his sixties golden period. No it is not.
This is not just about Another Girl..., though it is mainly as that's like saying A Night at the Opera isn't mainly about Bo Rhap. So five stars for probably the best use of 3:02 in music history. But the opening and closing tracks are really strong. Extra-ordinary singing voice too - like Howard Devoto's another voice you couldn't imagine breaking through at any other time other than post-punk.
Very pleasant Sunday morning listening, very nineties mix of Indian and drum and bass. Almost almost really really good.
Not my thing, acoustic guitar and vocals but her voice is so sincere, pure and expressive (this is not news, it is literally the things everyone says about Joan Baez) that this is a very engaging listen. Favourite track: Woman of Constant Sorrow, take that Soggy Bottom Boys!
You know it’s not bad. It’s really quite good. I’ve played it three times and can enjoy listening to it. What I like: Intros and middle eights. They’ve got a good grasp of rock dynamics and know that if you have 30s of acoustic noodling/slow strumming then the crunching riffs come on even stronger. Twin guitars. Always a sucker for some double-guitar interplay. Bits of this, the best bits, sound a bit like Thin Lizzy. A good thing in my book. It’s not really thrash though is it? If it is its the slowest thrash ever. So there’s actually room for tunes, singing, musicality etc to come through. It is intense. There’s no number about a lady in a red dress to be found anywhere. Doomy lyrics. It was the eighties. Ronnie was joking around with the nuclear football, cruise missiles and the like. Not to mention the height of Thatcherism over here. So lyrics about death, destruction, madness, conscription and cannon doddering and general catastrophe are just fine. And the screaming, roaring delivery really sells it. Riffs. Huge riffs. Riffs from outer space. Riffs carved from the side of Mount Rushmore. If these riffs were an actor they’d be Brian Blessed shouting from the top of a Welsh mountain. What’s not so good. The inessential instrumental. When your other tracks are called things like Leper Messiah, The Thing That Should Not Be or Sanitorium then having an instrumental called Orion rather lets the side down. Like YYZ on Moving Pictures its the heavy metal equivalent of the hip-hop skit. Where’s the screaming? Not that it’s bad, just that it’s not really needed. They could do with an edit button. Most of the tracks clock in at the 6 minute mark which given the sound is everything up to 11 can get a little exhausting.
Perhaps the most epicly insessential album in history. Relax and Two Tribes had already been released in multiple 12" mixes by the time this came out, and the album mixes are not the best ones. The Power of Love and Welcome to the Pleasuredome were both also monster singles, though the latter is here in its full 13 minute glory. So, beyond this it is thin indeed - a slew of inessential cover versions, the odd filler instrumental, and three okay album tracks tucked away on side 4. So, 5 stars for the singles, 3 for the rest, 2 for the covers - round up to 4.
Ah Bono. The Tony Blair of music. This feels like the first album in which the full on Bono Messiah complex hit home. The three singles on here I never really need to hear again, and New Years Day is a fine mid-80s rock single. Beyond the singles it's still pretty uneven with Red Light (featuring the Coconuts on backing vocals) and Refugee rather cringeworthly in lyrical terms. One of my least favourite of their albums - the more straightforward Edge's guitar sound is, the less interesting they sound. Three stars.
Though there were precedents with the NY Dolls this arrived pretty much like a bolt from the blue. Side one is unbelievably strong, side two couldn't sustain but still it's gold all the way through.
Slap bang in the middle of his golden run of pretty flawless albums, and not just two monster singles though this is true, every track is brilliantly composed and the Attractions really find their feet as one of the best ever backing bands.
I can't rate this 5, as then where would Dig Your own Hole go? But this is a very solid 4, with a very clever downtempo feel to side 2 after the dancefloor action of side 1.
One of my favourite rap albums, and the one you should play anyone who goes 'it's not really music'. This is such a musical album, full of snaggy hooks, great samples and just a sense of joy. The last couple of tracks see the quality dip a little. And the 'why' remix of Bonita Applebum is not on the album - to which one can only say WHY as it's awesome.
Yes can't really see any reason not to give this five stars, other than there are other LZ albums that should have more than five stars. It is heavy.
Yes it's great, but it's symptomatic also of the facelessness of the Floyd. Their best-known album and it doesn't have a track that punches through to the global music psyche like Bo Rap or Whole Lotta Love. Having said that, the production on this album is amazing.
One of the most annoying albums I have ever listened to. The voice of Marc Bolan's irritating brother coupled with twee as hell acoustic guitar. I rejoiced in the end of the album.
Someone anyone please get this artist an editor. There are some great songs (Ladies in particular) but they are somewhat buried in too many tracks, too much of the whacky production and generally too much of everything. I have listed to this before, and it did improve this time, so maybe in ten years it willbe a five, but for now its a three - really 2.5.
I'm not normally a fan of deluxe editions, but the one of this album is essential. You can hear the original Jamaican mix, and the Island Records rockier remix version. Both are great, and you can hear Marley's songwriting progressing at light speed. A four, the last Wailers album before he was a superstar.
I am loosely associated with some jazz concert programmers and we get vocal jazz artists wanting to get programmed sending their music through. This is exactly why the never get programmed. It's not objectionable, but it's not really jazz. It's like jazz, in the way that Bud Light is like a beer.
So why this album - of the possibly over 200 that Khan released? It's on a 'pukka' Western label, Real World, and has a western art director in charge of the sleeve. So I guess that. And that it's one of only four or so you can link to on wikipedia. My point being, and I enjoyed this album, is that is it better or worse than the other 200? I have no idea. And bluntly I'm not sure the compiler of this list really does too. Maybe he has a quawwali expert he can run this one past. But I've got no reason to believe it's not representative, and its a good listen, even if it's cultural value entirely goes above my head. let's finish with an anecdote: I attended an early WOMAD Festival in Essex in the mid-eighties and Nusrat was on the bill. We listened for an hour or so, then decamped to the main field to listen to New Order, who were great, then we came back and the man was still going strong. Respect.
Yes it's whimsical psychical folk and has an endearingly unfinished air, but you know what? I'd rather listen to this than Nick Drake.
If I had to pick one album as my personal greatest of all time it would most days be this. Staggering both in its achievements and the fact that Bowie was so out of it he can remember very little of making it. The only album I can recall actually being interested in listening to the live versions on Stage vs the original album vs the remaster (the Maslin mix) to see which is the most stupendous.
This is so ridiculously French it should come with a breton jumper and a beret. Drama and histrionics all the way, and though 28 minutes long an absolutely exhausting listen.
I came to this fully expecting to dislike it, but after a couple of tracks I settled down and really enjoyed it. At the heart is some very solid songwriting, and his voice is pretty amazing. If I have a quibble, not one I thought I would, is that the Johnsons are time are a bit predictable and limited in their arrangements. But a very solid 3.5. One of the more surprising listens so far. Going to invest in a 4 on the basis I'll listen again.
Basically unrateable. My view here is that you have to forget like or dislike, get or forget. It can't be reasoned with, it doesn't stop, it feels no pity. Whether you are there or not, it exists. Double album is too much, but 40 minutes is an audio equivalent of wild swimming. Bracing, a shock to the system and you return refreshed. 3 but could be 5, or 1.
We got all kinds of music here. Country AND Western. It's not unpleasant but really this won't convert anyone to C and W who isn't already. Less rhinestones but the same music.