Jan 24 2022
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The Fat Of The Land
The Prodigy
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.
4
Jan 25 2022
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Exile On Main Street
The Rolling Stones
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.
4
Jan 26 2022
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Veckatimest
Grizzly Bear
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.
2
Jan 27 2022
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Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
Frank Sinatra
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.
3
Jan 28 2022
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Aqualung
Jethro Tull
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.
3
Jan 29 2022
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Mermaid Avenue
Billy Bragg
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.
3
Jan 30 2022
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Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Devo
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.
4
Jan 31 2022
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Let England Shake
PJ Harvey
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.
4
Feb 01 2022
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Metallica
Metallica
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.
3
Feb 02 2022
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Hysteria
Def Leppard
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.
1
Feb 03 2022
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Sticky Fingers
The Rolling Stones
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.
5
Feb 04 2022
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Shaft
Isaac Hayes
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.
3
Feb 05 2022
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Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand
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.
4
Feb 06 2022
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S&M
Metallica
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.
2
Feb 07 2022
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Street Signs
Ozomatli
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.
3
Feb 08 2022
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Aja
Steely Dan
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.
5
Feb 09 2022
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Music From The Penguin Cafe
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
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.
4
Feb 10 2022
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Court And Spark
Joni Mitchell
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.
4
Feb 11 2022
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Van Halen
Van Halen
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.
4
Feb 12 2022
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Different Class
Pulp
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.
5
Feb 13 2022
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Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Aphex Twin
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.
4
Feb 14 2022
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Fear Of Music
Talking Heads
5
Feb 15 2022
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Rain Dogs
Tom Waits
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.
2
Feb 16 2022
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Tommy
The Who
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.
3
Feb 17 2022
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Cut
The Slits
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.
3
Feb 18 2022
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The Age Of The Understatement
The Last Shadow Puppets
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.
3
Feb 19 2022
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A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Coldplay
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.
2
Feb 20 2022
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Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Stereolab
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.
2
Feb 21 2022
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The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
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.
4
Feb 22 2022
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American IV: The Man Comes Around
Johnny Cash
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.
4
Feb 23 2022
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The Contino Sessions
Death In Vegas
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.
3
Feb 24 2022
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Eli And The Thirteenth Confession
Laura Nyro
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.
3
Feb 25 2022
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Fear and Whiskey
Mekons
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.
2
Feb 26 2022
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Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd
Not much to add here. It's a very good album.
4
Feb 27 2022
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Chemtrails Over The Country Club
Lana Del Rey
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.
4
Feb 28 2022
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A Hard Day's Night
Beatles
Bulletproof. A couple of sentimental slowies hence not the full five.
4
Mar 01 2022
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Surfer Rosa
Pixies
What a sound.
5
Mar 02 2022
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Oedipus Schmoedipus
Barry Adamson
Enjoyable, hugely varied. Standout tracks featuring Jarvis and Nick Cave. Need to listen to a couple more times really.
3
Mar 03 2022
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Orbital 2
Orbital
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.
5
Mar 04 2022
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White Ladder
David Gray
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.
1
Mar 05 2022
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Bayou Country
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Sturdy swampy rock. Not much fat on this.
4
Mar 06 2022
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Born To Run
Bruce Springsteen
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.
5
Mar 07 2022
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The La's
The La's
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.
4
Mar 08 2022
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Sea Change
Beck
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.
4
Mar 09 2022
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Private Dancer
Tina Turner
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.
1
Mar 10 2022
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Dare!
The Human League
Phil Oakey's voice is perhaps the bit that's aged least well.but the songs are bulletproof.
4
Mar 11 2022
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1999
Prince
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.
3
Mar 12 2022
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Ritual De Lo Habitual
Jane's Addiction
3
Mar 13 2022
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Space Ritual
Hawkwind
3
Mar 14 2022
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KE*A*H** (Psalm 69)
Ministry
A bit all over the shop, that type of metal/industrial that really does very little for me.
2
Mar 15 2022
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Chirping Crickets
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
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.
3
Mar 16 2022
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Vol. 4
Black Sabbath
Just about their best and a high-water mark for the first heavy metal era.
5
Mar 17 2022
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Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
Soft Cell
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.
4
Mar 18 2022
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The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
The Incredible String Band
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.
1
Mar 19 2022
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Tigermilk
Belle & Sebastian
Solid debut, though the production I always feel with B and S is a little thin and twee, the songs are well-written.
3
Mar 20 2022
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Unhalfbricking
Fairport Convention
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.
3
Mar 21 2022
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Sound Affects
The Jam
Their most consistent.
5
Mar 22 2022
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Odessey And Oracle
The Zombies
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.
3
Mar 23 2022
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Let's Get Killed
David Holmes
A bit dull, nice background for working but some of his other albums are better.
2
Mar 24 2022
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Greetings From L.A.
Tim Buckley
Dull as dishwater meat and potatoes early 70s songwriter-rock.
1
Mar 25 2022
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Heroes
David Bowie
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.
5
Mar 26 2022
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Paul's Boutique
Beastie Boys
Was a good listen but not the revelations promised quite.
3
Mar 27 2022
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Live At Leeds
The Who
3
Mar 28 2022
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Kilimanjaro
The Teardrop Explodes
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.
5
Mar 29 2022
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Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
The Kinks
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.
3
Mar 30 2022
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American Pie
Don McLean
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.
2
Mar 31 2022
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In It For The Money
Supergrass
Always a good sign when every track sounds like a single. A quantum leap from the caffeine rush of the first album.
4
Apr 01 2022
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Siamese Dream
The Smashing Pumpkins
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.
5
Apr 02 2022
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Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division
5
Apr 03 2022
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Cross
Justice
2
Apr 04 2022
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Music for the Masses
Depeche Mode
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.
3
Apr 05 2022
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The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
Charles Mingus
Pretty dense but pretty good.
3
Apr 06 2022
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Underwater Moonlight
The Soft Boys
Glad to hear this, the title track is great and the rest a solid slice of early 80s powerpop/psychedelia.
3
Apr 07 2022
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Caetano Veloso
Caetano Veloso
An ok listen, but the nuances of this perhaps passed me.
2
Apr 08 2022
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Shake Your Money Maker
The Black Crowes
Solid southern rock with a cleaner 80s production, nothing groundbreaking here.
3
Apr 09 2022
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The Yes Album
Yes
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.
4
Apr 10 2022
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Searching For The Young Soul Rebels
Dexys Midnight Runners
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.
5
Apr 11 2022
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Snivilisation
Orbital
Very consistent without hitting the high points of the 'brown' album.
3
Apr 12 2022
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Frank
Amy Winehouse
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.
2
Apr 13 2022
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Out Of The Blue
Electric Light Orchestra
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.
1
Apr 14 2022
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Emergency On Planet Earth
Jamiroquai
Aged like a fine wine. No more like rotting fish found at the bottom of the bin.
1
Apr 15 2022
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The Clash
The Clash
Hard to find any faults, a pretty perfect debut. Perhaps only a 9 out of 10 for their somewhat clodhoppy reggae cover.
5
Apr 16 2022
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Raw Power
The Stooges
Great sound, everything turned up to 11
4
Apr 17 2022
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Smokers Delight
Nightmares On Wax
Great 'relaxing' music.
4
Apr 18 2022
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Like A Prayer
Madonna
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.
4
Apr 19 2022
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GREY Area
Little Simz
A grower and the beats are great.
3
Apr 20 2022
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The Low End Theory
A Tribe Called Quest
Solid effort from one the best rap groups of the early 90s.
3
Apr 21 2022
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Golden Hour
Kacey Musgraves
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.
4
Apr 22 2022
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Bone Machine
Tom Waits
Really strong songs, and I like industrial junk Tom so much better than crooner tom.
4
Apr 23 2022
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The Blueprint
JAY Z
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.
3
Apr 24 2022
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Head Hunters
Herbie Hancock
Side 1 5 stars, side 2 3.5.
4
Apr 25 2022
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There's No Place Like America Today
Curtis Mayfield
A real discovery, a brilliant album and none of his big hits.
4
Apr 26 2022
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Bad Company
Bad Company
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.
3
Apr 27 2022
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Basket of Light
Pentangle
Occasionally you can admire the musicianship, craft and artistry while finding the entire thing unlistenable to.
1
Apr 28 2022
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Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Raekwon
Yeah the beats and flow are pretty good, almost like another Wu album as so many end up on here. Solid rap album.
3
Apr 29 2022
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Bitches Brew
Miles Davis
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.
3
Apr 30 2022
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John Barleycorn Must Die
Traffic
Prog folk not my scene.
2
May 01 2022
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Pink Flag
Wire
Amazing to think they were making this as punk was also about The Damned and The Pistols.
4
May 02 2022
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Drunk
Thundercat
Pleasant, funky, surprisingly gentle at times, would listen to again without consciously opting for it over other stuff.
3
May 03 2022
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Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
I want to like this: Brummie ikon and all that, but really it's fairly dull seventies singer-songwriter stuff. Sorry Joan.
2
May 04 2022
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Good Old Boys
Randy Newman
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.
2
May 05 2022
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Penthouse And Pavement
Heaven 17
Provocation: this has aged much better than Dare. Just saying.
4
May 06 2022
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Darklands
The Jesus And Mary Chain
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.
5
May 07 2022
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Back At The Chicken Shack
Jimmy Smith
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.
4
May 08 2022
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Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde
The Pharcyde
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.
3
May 09 2022
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Calenture
The Triffids
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.
5
May 10 2022
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The Gershwin Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald
Purely because lush strings and jazz vocals are not my thing, but I can appreciate how brilliantly it is done here.
3
May 11 2022
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Solid Air
John Martyn
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.
2
May 12 2022
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It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Public Enemy
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.
5
May 13 2022
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The Man Machine
Kraftwerk
Nothing more to be said other than five stars. My favourite Kraftwerk album.
5
May 14 2022
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1989
Taylor Swift
Pretty good pop album, maybe a track or two too long
3
May 15 2022
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Teenage Head
Flamin' Groovies
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.
2
May 16 2022
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Tubular Bells
Mike Oldfield
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.
2
May 17 2022
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Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
Nothing much to add. A band who said EVERYTHING they had to say in one pretty perfect album.
5
May 18 2022
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Bryter Layter
Nick Drake
Well that slipped down very pleasantly. Feel the first side is stronger than the second, but very listenable.
3
May 19 2022
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Chelsea Girl
Nico
It's all pretty good stuff...until Nico starts to sing.
2
May 20 2022
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Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth
Not quite singalong, but the first album of theirs where noise and melody is in balance.
4
May 21 2022
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good kid, m.A.A.d city
Kendrick Lamar
I like the melodies and his flow, but again why oh why do rap albums have to be soooooooo long.
3
May 22 2022
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A Northern Soul
The Verve
3
May 23 2022
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The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
the sheer brilliance of the music overcomes the fact no album with Ian Brown singing should be five stars, or even three.
4
May 24 2022
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Blue Lines
Massive Attack
Flawless. The singing alone on Hymn of the Big Wheel...
5
May 25 2022
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Melodrama
Lorde
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.
3
May 26 2022
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Call of the Valley
Shivkumar Sharma
Quality of the playing and composition really not fit to judge. But it's a very enjoyable listen and good working music.
3
May 27 2022
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Suicide
Suicide
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.
4
May 28 2022
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Actually
Pet Shop Boys
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.
5
May 29 2022
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Songs From A Room
Leonard Cohen
You know this was not so bad, better than I thought. He can sing (after a fashion) and the songs are pretty strong.
3
May 30 2022
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Groovin'
The Young Rascals
The fabulous sound of the Golden Hour from Wonderful Radio One. There was landfill before indie and this was it.
1
May 31 2022
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London Calling
The Clash
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.
5
Jun 01 2022
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Come Find Yourself
Fun Lovin' Criminals
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.
2
Jun 02 2022
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Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman
John Zorn
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.
3
Jun 03 2022
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Pieces Of The Sky
Emmylou Harris
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.
2
Jun 04 2022
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That's The Way Of The World
Earth, Wind & Fire
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.
2
Jun 05 2022
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Bright Flight
Silver Jews
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.
3
Jun 06 2022
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Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Country Joe & The Fish
Passed me by a bit. Not as annoying as I thought it would be, but nothing standing out.
2
Jun 07 2022
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Marcus Garvey
Burning Spear
A great reggae album, from my favourite era of reggae music. Also - love an album that's 10 songs, 3 minutes each.
4
Jun 08 2022
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Achtung Baby
U2
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.
5
Jun 09 2022
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All That You Can't Leave Behind
U2
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.
4
Jun 10 2022
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Vincebus Eruptum
Blue Cheer
Enjoyable in a Cream/Allman Brothers vein.
3
Jun 11 2022
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Here Are the Sonics
The Sonics
Proto-garage, almost all covers. Insanely good fun and very listenable to.
3
Jun 12 2022
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Supa Dupa Fly
Missy Elliott
Liked this, definitely one of her stronger albums.
3
Jun 13 2022
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If You're Feeling Sinister
Belle & Sebastian
Their best, the strength of the tunes overcoming familiar weaknesses.
4
Jun 25 2022
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Moondance
Van Morrison
I prefer this to Astral Weeks, controversial I know.
5
Jun 26 2022
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The Specials
The Specials
Flawless debut.
5
Jun 27 2022
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Headquarters
The Monkees
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.
2
Jun 28 2022
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Nothing's Shocking
Jane's Addiction
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.
3
Jun 29 2022
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I’m a Lonesome Fugitive
Merle Haggard
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.
4
Jun 30 2022
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Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
Maxwell
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.
3
Jul 01 2022
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You're Living All Over Me
Dinosaur Jr.
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.
3
Jul 02 2022
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Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Wu-Tang Clan
4
Jul 03 2022
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B-52's
The B-52's
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.
4
Jul 04 2022
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Disraeli Gears
Cream
Solid mid-sixties blues rock. Not my thing, but very listenable.
3
Jul 05 2022
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Vespertine
Björk
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.
3
Jul 06 2022
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Hot Rats
Frank Zappa
Amazingly as he has such an off-putting vibe, this is a good album.
3
Jul 07 2022
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Birth Of The Cool
Miles Davis
Five stars. Tempted to deduct a quarter of a point for the vocal jazz on track 12, but really can't complain.
5
Jul 08 2022
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The Joshua Tree
U2
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.
4
Jul 09 2022
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Cosmo's Factory
Creedence Clearwater Revival
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.
4
Jul 10 2022
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Truth
Jeff Beck
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.
2
Jul 11 2022
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Five Leaves Left
Nick Drake
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.
3
Jul 12 2022
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21
Adele
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.
2
Jul 13 2022
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Lam Toro
Baaba Maal
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.
2
Jul 14 2022
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The Marshall Mathers LP
Eminem
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.
2
Jul 15 2022
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One Nation Under A Groove
Funkadelic
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.
3
Jul 16 2022
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Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco
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.
3
Jul 17 2022
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Phrenology
The Roots
Listenable to, but not really anything I could latch onto as above the norm.
2
Jul 18 2022
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Bubble And Scrape
Sebadoh
This grew on me, and need to give it another couple of listens. Some real songwriting charm, and the variety is great.
3
Jul 19 2022
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British Steel
Judas Priest
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.
3
Jul 20 2022
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Brown Sugar
D'Angelo
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.
1
Jul 21 2022
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The Beach Boys Today!
The Beach Boys
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...
2
Jul 22 2022
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This Year's Model
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
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.
5
Jul 23 2022
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If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
The Mamas & The Papas
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...
2
Jul 24 2022
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Darkness on the Edge of Town
Bruce Springsteen
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.
5
Jul 25 2022
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I'm Your Man
Leonard Cohen
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.
2
Jul 26 2022
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Eliminator
ZZ Top
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.
4
Jul 27 2022
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Harvest
Neil Young
Not much to say here other than a fantastic album.
5
Jul 28 2022
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Dr. Octagonecologyst
Dr. Octagon
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.
3
Jul 29 2022
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Third
Portishead
Not as even an album as the first two, but after a near decade's gap still a remarkable return.
4
Jul 30 2022
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Lady Soul
Aretha Franklin
The first album of 160 or so that after listening I went 'I need to buy this album.'
5
Jul 31 2022
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Songs Of Love And Hate
Leonard Cohen
the songs are great, the voice is fine. Just 70s singer-songwriter is not my vibe.
3
Aug 01 2022
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Revolver
Beatles
5
Aug 02 2022
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Cheap Thrills
Big Brother & The Holding Company
I can understand why this made a splash at the time, and the Janis-ites love it, but not for me.
2
Aug 03 2022
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The Idiot
Iggy Pop
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.
5
Aug 04 2022
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Bongo Rock
Incredible Bongo Band
Somewhat one-note, but a good note. Or beat. Horns plus bongos plus covers equals sample heaven.
3
Aug 05 2022
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Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
Eurythmics
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.
2
Aug 06 2022
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Urban Hymns
The Verve
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.
4
Aug 07 2022
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Odelay
Beck
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.
4
Aug 08 2022
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Amnesiac
Radiohead
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.
4
Aug 09 2022
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Hunting High And Low
a-ha
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?
1
Aug 10 2022
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Tea for the Tillerman
Cat Stevens
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.
2
Aug 11 2022
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L.A. Woman
The Doors
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.
4
Aug 12 2022
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Low-Life
New Order
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.
5
Aug 13 2022
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The Downward Spiral
Nine Inch Nails
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.
3
Aug 14 2022
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Slipknot
Slipknot
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.
1
Aug 15 2022
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Mama Said Knock You Out
LL Cool J
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.
3
Aug 16 2022
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Suede
Suede
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.
4
Aug 17 2022
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There's A Riot Goin' On
Sly & The Family Stone
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.
3
Aug 18 2022
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Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
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.
3
Aug 19 2022
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Under Construction
Missy Elliott
This was not unpleasant but kind of passed me by.
2
Aug 20 2022
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Femi Kuti
Femi Kuti
Good working music. To dip in and out of.
3
Aug 21 2022
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Group Sex
Circle Jerks
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.
3
Aug 22 2022
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The Holy Bible
Manic Street Preachers
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.
2
Aug 23 2022
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The Slider
T. Rex
Just such a great album, anyone who thinks he was only about singles (which he was chiefly) should listen to this. Fantastic pop.
4
Aug 24 2022
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Debut
Björk
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.
4
Aug 25 2022
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Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
Pavement
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.
4
Aug 26 2022
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Eagles
Eagles
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.
2
Aug 27 2022
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Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
PJ Harvey
One of the best female songwriters of the 90s, along with Bjork. Possibly her high-water mark.
1
Aug 28 2022
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Picture Book
Simply Red
Jesus wept. The singles are enough to go no further.
1
Aug 29 2022
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Blood On The Tracks
Bob Dylan
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.
5
Aug 30 2022
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The Last Broadcast
Doves
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.
5
Aug 31 2022
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Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips
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.
3
Sep 01 2022
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Gasoline Alley
Rod Stewart
1
Sep 02 2022
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Berlin
Lou Reed
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.
2
Sep 03 2022
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Garbage
Garbage
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?
4
Sep 04 2022
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Dry
PJ Harvey
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.
3
Sep 05 2022
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Fear Of A Black Planet
Public Enemy
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.
5
Sep 06 2022
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New York Dolls
New York Dolls
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.
3
Sep 07 2022
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Before And After Science
Brian Eno
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.
3
Sep 08 2022
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Coat Of Many Colors
Dolly Parton
not unpleasant and some solid tunes but not my thing.
2
Sep 09 2022
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Hearts And Bones
Paul Simon
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.
3
Sep 10 2022
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The Queen Is Dead
The Smiths
This came up on Friday 9 September 2022. Its title is indeed accurate. One of my most-played and loved albums.
5
Sep 11 2022
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(What's The Story) Morning Glory
Oasis
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.
4
Sep 12 2022
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Technique
New Order
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.
5
Sep 13 2022
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Can't Buy A Thrill
Steely Dan
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.
5
Sep 14 2022
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Arise
Sepultura
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.
1
Sep 15 2022
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Dire Straits
Dire Straits
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.
3
Sep 16 2022
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Sweet Baby James
James Taylor
Yes it's sturdy songwriting and at least there's a band, but hard to get too excited about this now.
3
Sep 17 2022
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The Chronic
Dr. Dre
P-funk bass, rolling beats, unrelenting misogyny - the post-golden age rap album of the 90s.
3
Sep 18 2022
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I Should Coco
Supergrass
Excellent debut album, three catchy as hell singles and every track is a great listen.
4
Sep 19 2022
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Seventh Tree
Goldfrapp
Brilliant sideways move into pastoral and gentle psychedelia. Synths are gentle washes and pulses, a move that absolutely suited them.
4
Sep 20 2022
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Fuzzy Logic
Super Furry Animals
Very solid effort, Beatles, psychedelia, choruses. All good.
4
Sep 21 2022
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Lust For Life
Iggy Pop
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.
4
Sep 22 2022
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Selling England By The Pound
Genesis
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.
3
Sep 23 2022
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Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon & Garfunkel
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.
5
Sep 24 2022
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Bossanova
Pixies
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.
5
Sep 25 2022
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Superfly
Curtis Mayfield
Got to be a vote for one of the best soundtracks of original music (as opposed to crate digging)
4
Sep 26 2022
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A Wizard, A True Star
Todd Rundgren
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.
2
Sep 27 2022
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Parallel Lines
Blondie
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).
5
Sep 28 2022
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Juju
Siouxsie And The Banshees
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.
4
Sep 29 2022
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In The Court Of The Crimson King
King Crimson
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.
2
Sep 30 2022
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In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Iron Butterfly
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.
2
Oct 01 2022
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Be
Common
Solid rap album, reminiscent of Tribe Called Quest which is on the whole a good thing.
3
Oct 02 2022
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Live At The Regal
B.B. King
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.
3
Oct 03 2022
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Boston
Boston
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.
1
Oct 04 2022
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A Love Supreme
John Coltrane
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.
3
Oct 05 2022
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The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill
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.
2
Oct 06 2022
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Machine Head
Deep Purple
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.
4
Oct 07 2022
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Le Tigre
Le Tigre
One track genius. Four tracks fine. Twelve tracks that's enough now.
2
Oct 08 2022
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On The Beach
Neil Young
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.
4
Oct 09 2022
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Let It Bleed
The Rolling Stones
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.
4
Oct 10 2022
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Rust Never Sleeps
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
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.
5
Oct 11 2022
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The Visitors
ABBA
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.
3
Oct 12 2022
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A Seat at the Table
Solange
Pleasant enough, but lots of serious skits broke up the flow. Kind of drifted in and out of focus.
3
Oct 13 2022
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The Gilded Palace Of Sin
The Flying Burrito Brothers
We got two types of music here boy. Country and rock. Too much country though one or two absolute tunes.
2
Oct 14 2022
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Beauty And The Beat
The Go-Go's
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.
2
Oct 15 2022
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Homework
Daft Punk
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.
4
Oct 16 2022
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Buena Vista Social Club
Buena Vista Social Club
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.
3
Oct 17 2022
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Pornography
The Cure
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.
4
Oct 18 2022
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Blonde On Blonde
Bob Dylan
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.
5
Oct 19 2022
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Live 1966 (The Royal Albert Hall Concert)
Bob Dylan
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 .
4
Oct 20 2022
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At Folsom Prison
Johnny Cash
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.
3
Oct 21 2022
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Close To You
Carpenters
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?
3
Oct 22 2022
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The Poet
Bobby Womack
Very listenable slice of late-period soul, without quite nailing the memorable tune bit.
3
Oct 23 2022
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Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys
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.
4
Oct 24 2022
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Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba
This was a great listen, a little naffly westernised in places but she has a fantastic voice. Solid three stars.
3
Oct 25 2022
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At Newport 1960
Muddy Waters
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.
4
Oct 26 2022
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Happy Sad
Tim Buckley
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.
3
Oct 27 2022
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Synchronicity
The Police
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.
3
Oct 28 2022
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Gold
Ryan Adams
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.
2
Oct 29 2022
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461 Ocean Boulevard
Eric Clapton
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.
2
Oct 30 2022
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Medúlla
Björk
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.
2
Oct 31 2022
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São Paulo Confessions
Suba
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.
4
Nov 01 2022
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Halcyon Digest
Deerhunter
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.
4
Nov 02 2022
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Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan
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.
5
Nov 03 2022
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Faith
George Michael
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.
3
Nov 04 2022
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Illmatic
Nas
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.
5
Nov 05 2022
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Bad
Michael Jackson
One has to admire the machine-tooled production and the rock solid choruses, but not my 80s at all.
2
Nov 06 2022
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Led Zeppelin IV
Led Zeppelin
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.
5
Nov 07 2022
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Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
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.
4
Nov 08 2022
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Document
R.E.M.
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.
4
Nov 10 2022
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Triangle
The Beau Brummels
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.
4
Nov 11 2022
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The Infotainment Scan
The Fall
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.
4
Nov 12 2022
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Live And Dangerous
Thin Lizzy
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.
5
Nov 13 2022
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Deserter's Songs
Mercury Rev
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.
5
Nov 14 2022
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Jazz Samba
Stan Getz
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'.
3
Nov 15 2022
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Screamadelica
Primal Scream
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.
5
Nov 16 2022
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Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black
Public Enemy
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.
4
Nov 17 2022
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Warehouse: Songs And Stories
Hüsker Dü
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.
5
Nov 18 2022
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Who's Next
The Who
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.
5
Nov 22 2022
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Pump
Aerosmith
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.
2
Nov 23 2022
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Untitled (Black Is)
SAULT
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).
4
Nov 24 2022
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Faust IV
Faust
Not unpleasant as background working, and probably great live as well. Grat that there is an actual track called 'krautrock'
3
Nov 25 2022
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Purple Rain
Prince
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.
4
Nov 26 2022
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The Stranger
Billy Joel
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.
1
Nov 27 2022
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Natty Dread
Bob Marley & The Wailers
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.
5
Nov 28 2022
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Sail Away
Randy Newman
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.
2
Nov 29 2022
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No Other
Gene Clark
Yes this ok, a nice listen, without me thinking it's the best album ever made.
3
Nov 30 2022
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Rid Of Me
PJ Harvey
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.
4
Dec 01 2022
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Rio
Duran Duran
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.
2
Dec 02 2022
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Nilsson Schmilsson
Harry Nilsson
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.
2
Dec 03 2022
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Mothership Connection
Parliament
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...
4
Dec 04 2022
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The Suburbs
Arcade Fire
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.
4
Dec 05 2022
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Palo Congo
Sabu
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.
2
Dec 06 2022
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Born In The U.S.A.
Bruce Springsteen
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.
3
Dec 07 2022
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Maggot Brain
Funkadelic
Track one, eleven minutes of shredding. Track seven ten minutes of funk. In between five short and sharp tracks. Superbly listenable.
4
Dec 08 2022
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Take Me Apart
Kelela
Not an unpleasant listen and she can write a tune, but it's too long and quite difficult to focus at times.
3
Dec 09 2022
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Moon Safari
Air
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.
4
Dec 10 2022
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Violator
Depeche Mode
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.
4
Dec 11 2022
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Nowhere
Ride
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.
5
Dec 12 2022
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1977
Ash
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.
4
Dec 13 2022
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Countdown To Ecstasy
Steely Dan
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.
4
Dec 14 2022
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Scott 4
Scott Walker
Very surprisingly pleasant listen, sophisticated late 60s singer-songwriter pop with good arrangements. The fearsome Scott lay ahead then.
3
Dec 15 2022
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Time (The Revelator)
Gillian Welch
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.
4
Dec 16 2022
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Pictures At An Exhibition
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
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.
1
Dec 17 2022
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Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs
Marty Robbins
This is just too country for me, the lyrics are gently amusing with the passage of time but really it's novelty stuff.
2
Dec 18 2022
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Steve McQueen
Prefab Sprout
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.
5
Dec 19 2022
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Leftism
Leftfield
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.
5
Dec 20 2022
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The Score
Fugees
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.
2
Dec 21 2022
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Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
The Byrds
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.
3
Dec 22 2022
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Soul Mining
The The
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.
5
Dec 23 2022
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Inspiration Information
Shuggie Otis
Psychedelic soul, very pleastant listen and that Tarantino track, but not more than a 3
3
Dec 24 2022
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2112
Rush
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
5
Dec 25 2022
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Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
OutKast
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.
2
Dec 26 2022
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A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
Various Artists
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?
4
Dec 28 2022
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Being There
Wilco
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.
3
Dec 29 2022
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The Pleasure Principle
Gary Numan
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.
4
Dec 30 2022
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The Soft Bulletin
The Flaming Lips
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.
4
Dec 31 2022
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Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
Every ten years I listen to this album and think 'its good, but not quite good enough to actually buy'. I still think that.
3
Jan 01 2023
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Tanto Tempo
Bebel Gilberto
Nothing to it, a soft guitar, hushed drums and a simple yet lovely voice. But the whole so much greater than the parts.
3
Jan 02 2023
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Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
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.
5
Jan 03 2023
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Entertainment
Gang Of Four
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.
5
Jan 04 2023
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Planet Rock: The Album
Afrika Bambaataa
Yes some excellent, vital tracks but absolutely not an album.
3
Jan 05 2023
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Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Not really about the albums was he, but of the early ones this is probably the best.
3
Jan 06 2023
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Signing Off
UB40
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.
4
Jan 07 2023
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Madman Across The Water
Elton John
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.
2
Jan 08 2023
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The Undertones
The Undertones
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.
5
Jan 09 2023
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Yeezus
Kanye West
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.
3
Jan 10 2023
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My Aim Is True
Elvis Costello
5
Jan 11 2023
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Mama's Gun
Erykah Badu
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.
3
Jan 12 2023
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Roxy Music
Roxy Music
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.
5
Jan 13 2023
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S.F. Sorrow
The Pretty Things
It might be the first concept album ever but it's late sixties beat psychedelia and the tunes are Europa League.
2
Jan 15 2023
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Lost In The Dream
The War On Drugs
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.
4
Jan 16 2023
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Music From Big Pink
The Band
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.
5
Jan 17 2023
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Your New Favourite Band
The Hives
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.
2
Jan 18 2023
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Behaviour
Pet Shop Boys
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.
5
Jan 19 2023
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Loveless
My Bloody Valentine
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.
4
Jan 20 2023
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Mr. Tambourine Man
The Byrds
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.
4
Jan 21 2023
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More Songs About Buildings And Food
Talking Heads
It's four stars and a really good four stars.
4
Jan 22 2023
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At San Quentin
Johnny Cash
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.
3
Jan 23 2023
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Rust In Peace
Megadeth
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.
3
Jan 24 2023
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Axis: Bold As Love
Jimi Hendrix
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.
4
Jan 25 2023
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Astral Weeks
Van Morrison
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.
4
Jan 26 2023
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Now I Got Worry
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
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.
3
Jan 27 2023
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Fire Of Love
The Gun Club
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.
3
Jan 28 2023
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Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Arctic Monkeys
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.
4
Jan 29 2023
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Remain In Light
Talking Heads
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.
5
Jan 30 2023
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KIWANUKA
Michael Kiwanuka
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.
3
Jan 31 2023
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Live At The Star Club, Hamburg
Jerry Lee Lewis
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?
3
Feb 01 2023
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Seventeen Seconds
The Cure
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.
4
Feb 02 2023
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Nixon
Lambchop
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.
5
Feb 03 2023
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Pelican West
Haircut 100
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...
3
Feb 04 2023
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Dear Science
TV On The Radio
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.
4
Feb 05 2023
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Central Reservation
Beth Orton
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.
3
Feb 06 2023
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Casanova
The Divine Comedy
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.
3
Feb 07 2023
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The Cars
The Cars
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.
2
Feb 08 2023
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The Rising
Bruce Springsteen
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
3
Feb 09 2023
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Pink Moon
Nick Drake
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.
2
Feb 10 2023
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The Seldom Seen Kid
Elbow
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.
3
Feb 11 2023
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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
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.
3
Feb 12 2023
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Punishing Kiss
Ute Lemper
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.
3
Feb 13 2023
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Haunted Dancehall
The Sabres Of Paradise
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.
4
Feb 14 2023
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Transformer
Lou Reed
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?
5
Feb 15 2023
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Strangeways, Here We Come
The Smiths
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).
5
Feb 16 2023
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It's A Shame About Ray
The Lemonheads
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.
4
Feb 17 2023
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Superunknown
Soundgarden
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.
3
Feb 18 2023
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Elastica
Elastica
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.
4
Feb 19 2023
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Imperial Bedroom
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
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.
3
Feb 20 2023
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Peggy Suicide
Julian Cope
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.
5
Feb 21 2023
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Since I Left You
The Avalanches
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.
3
Feb 22 2023
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Rock 'N Soul
Solomon Burke
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.
3
Feb 23 2023
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Rattus Norvegicus
The Stranglers
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.
4
Feb 24 2023
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Gris Gris
Dr. John
Listenable and Gilded Splinters is a proper tune, but elsewhere it's more about the voodoo vibe at times than anything else.
3
Feb 25 2023
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Dig Your Own Hole
The Chemical Brothers
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.
5
Feb 26 2023
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Colour By Numbers
Culture Club
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.
5
Feb 27 2023
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This Is Hardcore
Pulp
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.
4
Feb 28 2023
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Elvis Is Back
Elvis Presley
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.
2
Mar 01 2023
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Dummy
Portishead
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.
5
Mar 02 2023
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69 Love Songs
The Magnetic Fields
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.
3
Mar 03 2023
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Manassas
Stephen Stills
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.
1
Mar 07 2023
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Sign 'O' The Times
Prince
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.
5
Mar 08 2023
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New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
Simple Minds
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.
5
Mar 09 2023
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Close To The Edge
Yes
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.
4
Mar 10 2023
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My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Brian Eno
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.
4
Mar 11 2023
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Songs Of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Three stars. An enjoyable enough listen, and many of the songs are standards. But I'm not that sold on Laughing Len.
3
Mar 12 2023
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Black Metal
Venom
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.
3
Mar 13 2023
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Vanishing Point
Primal Scream
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.
3
Mar 17 2023
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Liquid Swords
GZA
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.
3
Mar 18 2023
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Bookends
Simon & Garfunkel
Solid four stars, probably four and a half. Not flawless, but with a fistful of undying classics.
4
Mar 19 2023
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Real Life
Magazine
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.
5
Mar 20 2023
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Electric Warrior
T. Rex
Great pop album, a fistful of monsters and strong songwriting throughout. His imperial period might have been brief, but it was imperial.
3
Mar 21 2023
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Fragile
Yes
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.
3
Mar 22 2023
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Pearl
Janis Joplin
I am never going to get Janis Joplin.
2
Mar 23 2023
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Make Yourself
Incubus
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.
2
Mar 24 2023
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High Violet
The National
The slowest burn of slow burn bands. Conventionally their best album. In fact their best album. Not quite five stars, but a 4.5.
4
Mar 25 2023
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Aladdin Sane
David Bowie
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.
5
Mar 26 2023
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Imagine
John Lennon
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.
2
Mar 27 2023
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Night Life
Ray Price
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.
2
Mar 28 2023
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Ágætis Byrjun
Sigur Rós
A band still evolving, some moments of greatness, but also some very lengthy passages when not much happens. Around the corner....
3
Mar 29 2023
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Stand!
Sly & The Family Stone
Yes it's a pretty good listen. 3 stars.
3
Mar 30 2023
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Beyond Skin
Nitin Sawhney
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.
3
Mar 31 2023
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Kenza
Khaled
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.
2
Apr 01 2023
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1984
Van Halen
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.
1
Apr 02 2023
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What's Going On
Marvin Gaye
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.
4
Apr 03 2023
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...And Justice For All
Metallica
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.
3
Apr 04 2023
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Ill Communication
Beastie Boys
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.
4
Apr 05 2023
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Sheet Music
10cc
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.
2
Apr 06 2023
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Blur
Blur
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.
4
Apr 07 2023
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White Light
Gene Clark
Pleasant but unmemorable early seventies country-rock.
3
Apr 08 2023
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Talking Book
Stevie Wonder
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.
2
Apr 09 2023
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Safe As Milk
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
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.
4
Apr 10 2023
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The Last Of The True Believers
Nanci Griffith
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.
5
Apr 11 2023
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Green River
Creedence Clearwater Revival
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.
3
Apr 12 2023
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OK Computer
Radiohead
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.
5
Apr 13 2023
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Germfree Adolescents
X-Ray Spex
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.
5
Apr 14 2023
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Reign In Blood
Slayer
Pretty good, if not my stuff at all. Surprisingly melodic in the middle of the screaming and thrashing.
3
Apr 15 2023
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The Renaissance
Q-Tip
Such an engaging rapper, and lovely to hear some native tongues vibes updated for the noughties. Like this.
3
Apr 16 2023
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The ArchAndroid
Janelle Monáe
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.
2
Apr 17 2023
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Dance Mania
Tito Puente
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.
3
Apr 18 2023
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White Blood Cells
The White Stripes
Hard to argue with this. Half a dozen classic WS tracks and its insanely listenable all the way through. Less is more.
4
Apr 19 2023
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Ray Of Light
Madonna
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.
5
Apr 20 2023
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The Healer
John Lee Hooker
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.
2
Apr 21 2023
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Made In Japan
Deep Purple
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.
4
Apr 22 2023
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Pretenders
Pretenders
Refreshing to hear all the big tracks backloaded onto side two. I do never need to hear Brass In Pocket ever again though.
3
Apr 25 2023
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Phaedra
Tangerine Dream
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.
2
Apr 26 2023
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evermore
Taylor Swift
This can't quite deliver the complete shock of Folklore, an utter sidestep from Swift. But it's an excellent collection of tunes, only disturbed by the somewhat disturbing eruption of Matt Beringer's dad vocals. Bon Iver is a much better fit though the National again are the indiefolk magic sprinkled throughout.
4
Apr 27 2023
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Skylarking
XTC
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.
3
Apr 28 2023
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Trans Europe Express
Kraftwerk
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.
5
Apr 29 2023
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Automatic For The People
R.E.M.
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).
5
Apr 30 2023
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The Köln Concert
Keith Jarrett
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.
5
May 01 2023
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Zombie
Fela Kuti
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.
3
May 02 2023
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Timeless
Goldie
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.
3
May 03 2023
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The Lexicon Of Love
ABC
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.
5
May 04 2023
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Time Out Of Mind
Bob Dylan
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.
4
May 05 2023
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The Only Ones
The Only Ones
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.
4
May 06 2023
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OK
Talvin Singh
Very pleasant Sunday morning listening, very nineties mix of Indian and drum and bass. Almost almost really really good.
3
May 07 2023
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Joan Baez
Joan Baez
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!
3
May 08 2023
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Master Of Puppets
Metallica
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.
4
May 09 2023
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Welcome To The Pleasuredome
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
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.
4
May 10 2023
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War
U2
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.
3
May 11 2023
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Ramones
Ramones
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.
5
May 12 2023
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Armed Forces
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
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.
5
May 13 2023
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Exit Planet Dust
The Chemical Brothers
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.
4
May 14 2023
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People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
A Tribe Called Quest
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.
4
May 15 2023
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Led Zeppelin II
Led Zeppelin
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.
5
May 16 2023
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The Dark Side Of The Moon
Pink Floyd
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.
4
May 17 2023
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Rejoicing In The Hands
Devendra Banhart
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.
1
May 18 2023
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Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Fiona Apple
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.
3
May 19 2023
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Catch A Fire
Bob Marley & The Wailers
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.
4
May 20 2023
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Come Away With Me
Norah Jones
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.
2
May 21 2023
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Devotional Songs
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
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.
3
May 22 2023
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The Madcap Laughs
Syd Barrett
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.
3
May 23 2023
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Station To Station
David Bowie
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.
5
May 24 2023
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Olympia 64
Jacques Brel
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.
2
May 25 2023
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I Am a Bird Now
Antony and the Johnsons
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.
4
May 26 2023
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Rubber Soul
Beatles
Just checked that I know every song by heart already. Yes I do. So no need to play. Five stars.
5
May 27 2023
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Trout Mask Replica
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
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.
3
May 28 2023
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A Walk Across The Rooftops
The Blue Nile
Stellar debut. But there's a feeling that they are locating the Blue Nile special spot: not too eighties synth-pop (Stay); not too piano ballad (Easter Parade) - but a goldilocks zone of mournful, funereal rolling (Automobile Noise and the amazing Heatwave which emerges from this listen as the track from this album, setting the tone for the masterpiece that would follow). 4.4.
4
May 29 2023
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Sister
Sonic Youth
Ok, I had this down as a 3 but on second listen, particularly side two, you can hear the tunes emerging from the noise. There'd be a bit of arsing around (ciccone youth etc) and next time out would be Daydream Nation and lift off. Still a 3 but a 3.5.
3
May 30 2023
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Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room
Dwight Yoakam
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.
2
May 31 2023
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Shalimar
Rahul Dev Burman
One two cha cha cha is catchier than....something very catchy. Why it's not appeared on any of those loungecore kitsch classics as it's better than almost all the tracks that do. An interpolation of That's The Way Ah-Hah is also genius. The rest of the album can't quite live up to this twisted magic, which shows George Harrison how to really blend Indian and western pop. But what this list is also all about. Tons of fun. 3.75 so I'll upgrade to a 4.
4
Jun 01 2023
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Tragic Songs of Life
The Louvin Brothers
Tragic indeed, this is insanely listenable and depressing, being a non-stop litany of destitution, violent death, exile and sundered love. But they sing it all so beautifully these Soggy Bottom Twins. Not my genre, but shows exactly what was lost when bluegrass and country became Big Nashville. 3.5 really.
3
Jun 02 2023
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Cloud Nine
The Temptations
Solid album, nothing that remarkable apart from the title track and the 9-minute Run Away Child.. epic. Three stars.
3
Jun 03 2023
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Rocks
Aerosmith
It's not a bad listen, but it is fairly generic mid-seventies rock that other bands did considerably better. Kind of like the Stella Artois of this kind of stuff, no-one will object to a pint of it without being especially thrilled to see it's the only thing on offer.
3
Jun 04 2023
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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Beatles
It's not the best Beatles album (that would be revolver or Let It Be) but it's the one that everyone knows. -1 for the interminable sitar track.
4
Jun 05 2023
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Talking With the Taxman About Poetry
Billy Bragg
This is a great Bragg album to pick for the list, still got enough solo guitar and sandpaper voice Bard of Barking vibes of pre-Don't Try This...Bragg, but with some other instruments now creeping to make it a more varied listen. in Levi Stubbs Tears, Greetings to the New Brunette, The Home Front some of his best songs.
4
Jun 06 2023
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The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
Giving hope to covers bands everywhere...listening to this perhaps says that initially they were a 'right place right time' kind of act. Also, as the excellent recent BBC documentary revealed, this is also Brian's Stones, playing the music he loved. I can't give an album 90% covers more than three stars, but a 3.5
3
Jun 07 2023
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Pills 'n' Thrills And Bellyaches
Happy Mondays
This album is ridiculously listenable to - bearing in mind that it's not clear how much the band played on it, how much was due to production wizadry, and it is clear how Sean Ryder was 'vocalist' rather than singer. Along with the first Stone Roses album a memento of a quite uniquely British artform: baggy.
5
Jun 08 2023
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Post Orgasmic Chill
Skunk Anansie
This feels like a Major Label Album - in all the wrong ways. What do we do with this artist? Make them sound a bit like other artists. 'Going a bit nu metal' really does not work for them, and surprised to see this on the list. Want to like it, but it's even got the big ballad for the radio play track. No.
2
Jun 09 2023
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Dusty In Memphis
Dusty Springfield
Yes it's a classic, love her voice but at times it is - sorry - a bit plodding.
3
Jun 10 2023
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Thriller
Michael Jackson
Am I am Jacksoner? No. Does Billie Jean, Beat It and Thriller make a pretty amazing set of lead-offs. Yes. Is The Girl Is Mine, along with Ebony and Ivory, a crime against music. Yes. Yes. Yes.
3
Jun 11 2023
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Rum Sodomy & The Lash
The Pogues
I love this album, and have very fond memories of seeing them at Oxford Poly on the tour for this too. Less fond memories of an out-of-it appearance at Reading later in the decade. By far their most coherent album, and a thrillingly original idea of joining traditional Irish music with punk energy. Really, this is a flawless album, culminating in an epic take on Aussie anti-war classic And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. How original the melodies of Pair of Brown Eyes and Sally Maclenanne are can be debated, how fresh they are here is unquestioned.
5
Jun 12 2023
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Illinois
Sufjan Stevens
Georgeous voice. Solid songs. Interesting arrangement and the whole single state concept going on.
4
Jun 13 2023
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Beautiful Freak
Eels
This one of those 'suburban' albums that American bands can do so well (think Gin Blossoms, first Counting Crows etc.) - think kids on bikes, the 7-11, walking over to someone's house (oh they actually did that). We didn't quite what a singular and depressive talent E was from this, by far their most 'band' record. But a great set of songs. If it was a photo it would be a 'golden hour' shot of trees, a street, a twenty something couple walking away from the camera.
4
Jun 14 2023
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Winter In America
Gil Scott-Heron
Not on Spotify but The Bottle, the epic H20gate blues and many other great tracks from a youtube clip, make this a great solid four star album.
5
Jun 15 2023
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Giant Steps
The Boo Radleys
There's a lot in here, but mostly let's enjoy the last flowering of indie indie, with a bald singer, a terrible band name and the pre-Oasis Creation label. Because this is in its way as great an achievement as Screamadelica, a genre-busting blend of shoegaze, powerpop and psychedelia. However, they weren't cool and would have to release a much more straightforward and less ambitious album to get into the biggish time.
5
Jun 16 2023
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Larks' Tongues In Aspic
King Crimson
Incredible dynamic range - or another way of saying bits are very quiet and bits are very loud. Not unpleasant, always melodic, a bit banging and crashing at times, full on prog.
3
Jun 18 2023
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Kollaps
Einstürzende Neubauten
I would say that this one of those albums that most people will take a view on about two minutes in. And they'd be basically right. I saw them live twice in the mid-eighties, two of the most extra-ordinary gigs I've been to. At The Hacienda they started drilling into the walls, in Paris they had a concrete mixer which they emptied over the audience at the end of the set. But is it music? Possibly only tangentially. it's there with Metal Machine Music, Weld and another great unlistenable albums. Top cover of J'Taime mind, but no-one can give this more than two stars surely.
2
Jun 19 2023
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Songs The Lord Taught Us
The Cramps
The ur-text of psychobilly, and absolutely massive in goth clubs throughout the 80s. Still very enjoyable, though by the end their one trick is somewhat exposed by repetition. Their next would take it all to another level.
4
Jun 20 2023
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Home Is Where The Music Is
Hugh Masekela
Very pleasant listening, apart from the drum solo three-quarters of the way through. But doesn't quite stick to the sides.
3
Jun 21 2023
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Everything Must Go
Manic Street Preachers
Two great singles, two fine singles and solid album tracks. At times the curse of the rock plodder strikes, and it's not aged that well.
3
Jun 22 2023
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In Utero
Nirvana
this is a quantum leap forwards from Never Mind - the songs are stronger, the arrangements and playing is better, the whole thing is more consistent. Twelve amazing, brutal, heartbreaking tracks.
5
Jun 23 2023
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Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Great debut album. Controversial view reinforced here, that the remarkable musicians in the band were not Page and Plant, but Bonham and Jones. The drumming from the very start is just remarkable. There's a (mercifully brief) sitarish track so could never be five stars, but definitely 4.4.
4
Jun 26 2023
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Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Harmonies to die for, and some solid songwriting prevent me from giving it the two that this bunch of complacent sixties survivors probably deserve.
3
Jun 27 2023
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I See A Darkness
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Quavery voice, acoustic guitar, hushed backing - it could be Bon Iver who maybe took this guy's hustle and made a million with it. Ho-hum. Maybe Spotify turned him down?
2
Jun 28 2023
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Younger Than Yesterday
The Byrds
Solid sixties album with My Back Pages and Rock N Roll Star as obvious highlights. Rest of album is pretty solid bar the awful Mind Gardens, which prompted me to start a discussion on a forum about bands who went 'full maharishi' who really shouldn't. Three and a half.
3
Jun 29 2023
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Eternally Yours
The Saints
This is a very good album, not just the fantastic album opener but above all in the sense of the space, melodies and lyricism that would lead onto the Gobetweens, Triffids and The Church. Good stuff.
4
Jun 30 2023
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I Against I
Bad Brains
Going to go against the reviews here and say that Rock For Light and Bad Brains are fantastic albums, ultra hardcore meeting reggae. This not so much I'm afraid, seems a bit of a watering down of the hardcore and a dilution of the reggae. Sorry.
2
Jul 01 2023
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Floodland
Sisters Of Mercy
At the time - as a loyal Sisters fan present at the last ever concert by Sisters mk 1 at the Albert Hall - this was viewed as an awful attempt to 'go mainstream' . The world had moved on by 1987 and AE was desperate. Thirty years later and I'm of the view it was a great attempt to 'go mainstream' with This Corrosion, Dominion and Lucrezia My Reflection the equal of any earlier Sisters work. Still not quite sure there's a whole album here, so four stars. Patricia Morrison: the goth Bez here.
4
Jul 02 2023
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Blunderbuss
Jack White
Yes it's very listenable, yes its Jack White excitable yelping over the blues. So business as usual without Meg. He seems to have done ok for himself.
3
Jul 03 2023
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Sound of Silver
LCD Soundsystem
This album is a four-star continuation of the first LCD album, witty, distanced, ironic NY cool right up to track 4 - then it lifts into something completely different. Its still got the NY scene beats but the melodies, the rhythms, the vocals are something else. Ageing, worrying about still being cool, worried about clubbing being shallow....the next six tracks are as touching as dance music gets. Then there's a full-blown sad ballad to finish...worried that living in New York is not the answer any more.
5
Jul 04 2023
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Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul
Otis Redding
Yes solid as a rock, the songs are great, the singing is great and the arrangements and playing are fine. He's not got the purest soul voice (Sam Cooke, Aretha for me) but really these are quibbles. Just give the man five stars dammit!
5
Jul 05 2023
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Public Image: First Issue
Public Image Ltd.
Who took the right DNA away from the Pistols break-up is clear from this. While Vicious and Mclaran were messing around with mock-shock rock and roll covers, Lydon was accelerating away into the post-punk era with this ridiculous leap forwards. Sped-up dub bass from Wobble, scratchy funk guitar from Levene anticipating everything that would come from Gang of Four, Fire Engines etc. Lydon's atonal (even for him) speech/howl/singing fits in perfectly. There's even a (relatively) pop-rush in the title track. Fantastic.
4
Jul 06 2023
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Dust
Screaming Trees
A very solid 90s alternative rock album, dusted with the grunge vibe but with great vocals courtesy of Mr Lanagan and solid songs. Enjoyed this.
3
Jul 07 2023
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Histoire De Melody Nelson
Serge Gainsbourg
The music, as some commentators have said, is very proto-trip-hop. Orchestral funk, like Isaac Hayes was doing at the same time, except with a breathy Frenchman speaking over it instead of an anguished black American. Music - five out of five, album concept 1/5. It has not aged well, and sits along Maurice Chevalier in the French musical nonce list of shame. I have to give it a four ultimately. Yes a different time, but hard to think that even in the early seventies having a whole album based around a middle-aged man having sex with a fourteen-year old was pretty unpalatable.
4
Jul 08 2023
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Konnichiwa
Skepta
You know what I really enjoyed this, much more than I thought it would. The beats and samples are great, much more tuneful than expected. His flow is great, and some niche shout outs including Hublot watches. Needs a relisten so giving this the benefit of the doubt.
4
Jul 09 2023
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New Wave
The Auteurs
A solid listen, but prefer Black Box Recorder for the full Luke Haines experience.
3
Jul 21 2023
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Slayed?
Slade
It's a good enough listen but doesn't fundamentally alter the view that they were a singles band. Poor spelling too boys, must do better.
3
Jul 22 2023
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McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sketches, noodles, drafts, demos - if you were being kind you'd say it was charmingly unspun. If you were not being charitable you'd say this would have been long consigned to the dumper but for the Macca brand. Utterly inconsequential, though Maybe I'm Amazed is a tune - one which clearly signposted the MOR direction he'd take in the seventies.
2
Jul 23 2023
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Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Lucinda Williams
This was a cheap CD purchase, and last time I listened I was unconvinced. So one result of listening again might of been to rip and remove. Instead its back on the shelves. The first side of this album is pretty well pitch perfect: a sweet spot between Springsteen, Nanci Griffiths and Gillian Welch. The kind of country rock I can absolutely get behind. Roy Bittan from the E St Band helped produce so no surprise at times it has the boss vibes, and the title track is one that the man himself would wish he had written. The second half can't quite sustain the stellar quality of the first, and there's a track too many, so four stars.
4
Jul 24 2023
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Funeral
Arcade Fire
I was going to post about 'warm' and 'cold' albums but instead will reflect on how extra-ordinarily back-loaded this album is. The first four tracks are indistinct, hesitant, a bit sound and fury signifying not that much. And then the three punch of Kettle, Crown of love and Wake Up delivers something else entirely. The rest of the album maintains that level, perhaps its part of that uber-indie vibe this album has to make people work a bit first. Anyway, not their best album but very good.
4
Jul 25 2023
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Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
I have listened to thirty out of the 41 tracks and feel that's enough to make some comments. This is always listenable, and a fantastic corrective to the glossy Nashville MOR country that had solidified by the early seventies. But whether 41 tracks of it in one go is really the way to enjoy this music is debatable. Would it have been a four with 12 well-chosen tracks, possibly not but definitely 3.5 rather than the 3 it is after 31 rippin bluegrass numbers.
3
Jul 26 2023
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Future Days
Can
Textural, ambient, krautrocky, funky...truly unclassifiable except nothing sounds like it descended from rock and roll anytime soon. Great.
4
Jul 27 2023
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Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
Rule number one: no-one can sustain guitar and vocal over a whole album, no matter how good the songs.
The songs here are so good - Highway Patrolman, Nebraska, Atlantic City - that I am prepared to overlook this rule, if you listen to it as a vinyl album and take a break between the two sides.
3
Jul 28 2023
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Back to Mystery City
Hanoi Rocks
Actually this is ok, the right balance of some sleazy vibes, sing along choruses and chunky riffs. Bon Jovi listened to this, cleaned it up a bit and boom.
3
Jul 29 2023
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The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Genesis
One of the longest albums in this list I would wager, at 1 hr 34 on Spotify. Above it only perhaps the very elite list of triple albums (Sandinista, 69 Love Songs etc). So yes it is much too long to stick with and absorb in a single gulp. I have listened it to it three or four times and: there is ALWAYS something interesting and worthwhile going on musically. It's a mid-seventies rock album - so if instrumental solos, big analogue keyboard sounds and massed vocal harmonies are not your thing then move on. I love it - far prefer it to the cod-folky stuff of earlier Genesis. The only Genesis album I actually 'like' as opposed to the odd track here and there. As with most concept albums, forget the concept, and enjoy the songs.
4
Jul 30 2023
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Machine Gun Etiquette
The Damned
Theory: after the first wave of Year Zero albums: Never Mind TB, The Clash, In The City, Rattus Norvegicus - and here Damned Damned Damned - bands took stock with their second album of more punk (interestingly in the case of The Jam and The Clash the second albums were probably the worst ones of their career) before with their third - London Calling, All Mod Cons, Black and White - and here Machine Gun Etiquette - laying out a post-punk musical template that would see out their careers. In the case of the Damned it's as a fizzy, late sixties psychedelic power-pop combo heavy on the organ and melding this with a bit of glam and garage. This album is virtually a greatest hits collection in itself and the one essential Damned album.
5
Aug 04 2023
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Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age
Yes actually this is pretty, pretty good (perhaps the kind of album Larry David would listen to to wind other people up). All-round sleazy vibes and the world-weary flat vocals work a treat. Could be signficantly shorter and then would go up from 3 to 4.
3
Aug 05 2023
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Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
Mudhoney
You know this is more diverse with a very strong finish than the first couple of tracks would suggest. They're not quite distinctive enough to make them a 'what aboutery' with the grunge Premier League but a strong playoffs from the Championship level.
3
Aug 06 2023
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Deja Vu
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Grudgingly I'll admit these songs are pretty great, even if three-quarters of the band are pretty dislikeable.
3
Aug 07 2023
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Green
R.E.M.
Pretty perfect. The end of their second three-album cycle, moving from the janglemumble sound of the first three, to world-conquering titans. The first time I can really hear the mandolin in their work - crucial to the track that made them global megastars. There's another list song (I remember california), a dry run for a more straightforward acoustic ballad (Hairshirt) and a fistful of ironic powerpop songs (Stand, Orange Crush, Pop song). So, excellence as usual.
5
Aug 08 2023
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Life's Too Good
The Sugarcubes
A whole album of crazy clattering cats in a sack is a bit too much, but tremendous energy and vibes. Birthday is a tuuuunne.
3
Aug 10 2023
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Getz/Gilberto
Stan Getz
This is one of the best background working albums ever made. That's not a slight, just that it does its thing and if you dip out for 5 minutes that's ok, they're grooving and ready for your return.
3
Aug 11 2023
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Roots
Sepultura
The inclusion of Latin American beats at times is interesting but the guitars and vocals are pretty standard thrash, which is not my thing at all. Sorry. And another overlong album.
1
Aug 12 2023
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Tago Mago
Can
This is a game of two halves - half is essential motorik, especially the monumental Hallelujah that a certain Happy Mondays may just have ripped off wholesale without even bothering to change the title for Hallelujah. However there are lengthy drum solos and periods of what appears to be studio chatter and just messing about on the second side. So three stars.
3
Aug 13 2023
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Happy Trails
Quicksilver Messenger Service
I will never complain about how indulgent, noodly and length that Allman Brothers double live album is. Imagine all the skill, fire and interest removed from it and that's what we have here. How is this on this list when 90s scenesters EMF are Unbelivably not?
1
Aug 14 2023
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Roger the Engineer
The Yardbirds
Not a great sixties fan, and this is pretty uber sixties stuff. Not unpleasant, but the Kinks/Beatles/Stones/Doors plus Motown and soul is my sixties pretty much sorted up to sixty seven.
3
Aug 15 2023
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Stripped
Christina Aguilera
Oh my god this is sooooooo long. There are a fistful of decent pop tunes, not my thing but I get why they are good (Dirty, Beatiful etc) but at least ten tracks of filler. Just because you can does not mean you should. Pop albums - twelve tracks, 3 - 4 mins each, 48 mins tops. Simple.
2
Aug 16 2023
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Fifth Dimension
The Byrds
This list loves The Byrds more than is strictly necessary, as this is the fourth album I've got to - while the likes of nineties indie legends EMF go unchosen. It's a pretty solid four stars, two stellar singles and always something interesting going on.
4
Aug 17 2023
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Exodus
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Come for the songs and Bob. Stay for the Wailers - who might just be the greatest backing band ever, certainly top five with the Spiders from Mars, E Street Band, JB's and the Band. Every second of every track there is something amazing going on behind Bob, and for a good half of this album the vocals are so well known I can kind of blank them out. Exodus the title track is just a riff and a vocal line, but oh man the playing.
5
Aug 18 2023
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Modern Kosmology
Jane Weaver
Bands like Stereolab explored ground between motorik and sixties Europop - and Jane Weaver merges these to great effect adding a touch of folktronica on top. She's a sturdy songwriter, so her subtle textures never obscure a great set of modern pop songs.
3
Aug 19 2023
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Graceland
Paul Simon
The politics behind this album have not aged well. Call Me Al was ubiquitous and I never need to hear it again. But there's sturdy songwriting as you would expect. A simple three stars.
3
Aug 20 2023
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After The Gold Rush
Neil Young
Evergreen Neil album, the soundtrack to the exact moment when the hippy revolution fizzled out and the freaks all got proper jobs and mortgages - though still smoked dope. If this was the soundtrack to a film it would be the key party scene in The Ice Storm.
5
Aug 21 2023
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At Mister Kelly's
Sarah Vaughan
I can say after many hours listening to Fitzgerald and Vaughan that I'm no great fan of vocal jazz. And so it goes here. Nothing wrong with anything, except it does very little for me. How High The Moon is a bit of a reach, here's me forgetting all the words and saying the first thing that comes into my head.
2
Aug 22 2023
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Chris
Christine and the Queens
I nearly had a conniption on Spotify, until I realised the listing was the entire album twice, first in English then French. The English half is a hugely enjoyable slice of wonky pop anchored by Christine/Chris's great voice and magnetic presence.
3
Aug 23 2023
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First Band On The Moon
The Cardigans
Gosh this is pretty just OK but it is really one of the 1001 best albums ever made? Slightly twee, very clean and in Lovefool an annoying earworm. Thanks Baz Luhrmann. Cue cliches about Swedes and their sturdy constructions from Volvo cars and Ikea sofas, ok maybe not Ikea sofas, to this. Can you tell I can't think of that much to say about this album.
2
Aug 24 2023
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Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water
Limp Bizkit
I really hope this doesn't appear on my Spotify wrapped for 2023. 'The most embarrassing album you listened to was...' the best bits of this are all samples, and the whole thing is so utterly cringeworthy: from the band name, to the album name to the artwork to the utterly unimaginative swearing.
1
Aug 25 2023
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Heaven Or Las Vegas
Cocteau Twins
What a great second act the Cocteaus last three albums were: more concise songs, clearer production and even at times audible words. This is the strongest of the three and is a pretty perfect statement of the Cocteaus world - the rest is up to you.
4
Aug 26 2023
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Nevermind
Nirvana
Nothing to add here. Except possibly that Nirvana Unplugged is - shush - a more enjoyable album to listen to. About as easy to say something original about this album now as about Sgt Pepper.
5
Aug 27 2023
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Water From An Ancient Well
Abdullah Ibrahim
One stellar track, Mannenberg Revisited, and a couple of other goodies, but the spectre of new age noodlings I am afraid frequently derails this. The mid-eighties was not a great time for jazz, and this kind of shows why.
2
Aug 28 2023
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Stardust
Willie Nelson
My well this is so straight up it's kind of hard to believe the whole thing is not some conceptual joke. But no, Willie Nelson, the great outlaw country rocker, delivers a standard standards set. He brings absolutely nothing to these songs other than sincerity and a certain careworn-ness. The very very definition of inessential.
2
Sep 01 2023
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Let It Be
The Replacements
Unpolished, ragged at times but always very listenable and with a huge heart. Halfway between husker du and REM which is a pretty good place to be.
4
Sep 02 2023
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The Doors
The Doors
One of the few albums I can rate without needing to play. All these tracks are etched deep in my brain and need nothing saying. All this without a bassist! A true marvel. Less than four years separates Please Please Me from this, but it seems like four light-years.
5
Sep 03 2023
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The Scream
Siouxsie And The Banshees
Punk, post-punk, goth - pretty much everything and the best debut to come out of the first punk wave. It's five stars even without Hong Kong Garden and Staircase mystery - both singles but not on the original album. John McKay on this album is as good a guitarist as John McGeogh - very different, and a lot harsher, but as good.
5
Sep 04 2023
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Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine
Cee Lo Green
Can exclusively reveal who ran off with all the talent from Gnarls Barkley...............its.....................Danger Mouse. This is a pretty mediocre album only livened up by the two Pharell tracks, and its sixteen tracks -plus intro and outro long. Why it's on here I am really not sure.
2
Sep 05 2023
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Killing Joke
Killing Joke
slow down the punk guitars, tribal drums, add some reggae bass and a general sense of doom. One of the founding texts of goth. The first Killing Joke album is absolutely essential and in Requiem, Wardance and Change (the latter on the expanded reissue) a phenomenal piece. They'd sell way more records in the mid-eighties, but this and its successor are the Killing Jokes.
5
Sep 06 2023
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25
Adele
Back once again with the beige mistress. Now that she has more money than she knows what to do with, and has unveiled yet another slab of Live Laugh Love in aural form as 30, how about not making 35 yet another MOR product and use that voice for something artistically interesting. For example:
Get Rick Rubin in as producer.
Get Massive Attack in as writers/producers - they conjured a career-best out of Liz Frazer for Teardrop following great outings with Tracey Thorn and Shara Nelson, so know a thing or two about great female voices.
Get Sigur Ros in - no need for a lyric sheet at all.
Steve Albini at the controls - maybe a stretch, but what have you got to lose? He'd make a 12-track album in two days, and you don't need to share the royalties.
Even - gawd help me - Dave Grohl would be something better.
The album? It's not one star. That would indicate something to object to. It's Stella Artois, it's Pizza Express it's a Ford Focus.
2
Sep 07 2023
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Billion Dollar Babies
Alice Cooper
If you're never listened to this, then try and put all the Alice baggage to one side, and listen to it is a seventies rock album (ok this is not entirely possible with I love The Dead). But Billion Dollar Babies, Hello Hurray, Elected and so on are solid-gold rock classics. I did not know Donovan featured on the title track. The musicianship on this album is exceptional - check out the stuttering rhythms of Generation Landslide for example.
4
Sep 08 2023
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Pyromania
Def Leppard
This is nothing like as bad as Hysteria. Helped by the fact that it does not have four singles that I have an extreme allergic reaction to. But it's still overproduced and in Joe Elliot an extremely annoying (to me) vocalist. So, it gains a star by being one step back. By that calculus if their debut makes it onto the list it's be four stars.
2
Sep 09 2023
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Truth And Soul
Fishbone
I am sorry. You put everything out on the table and people don't know what to choose. Much though the idea of Fishbone is a great one, the reality of Fishbone is a billion things going in different directions.
2
Sep 10 2023
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Gentlemen
The Afghan Whigs
Nothing wrong with this. 3.5 starts, but the Whigs - eternally half-way up the main stage bill at Reading in the early 90s - are not really a Champions League level act are they?
3
Sep 11 2023
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Me Against The World
2Pac
Mediocre I'm afraid. Not interested in the 'was he a great or awful man' debate, but his rapping is uninspired and the samples and beats repetitive and one-paced. Also like many 90s albums waay too long. Not even any skits.
2
Sep 12 2023
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John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
John Lennon
It's not a bad listen, but musically it's not that adventurous. He's always an engaging vocalist, and there are three standout songs in Mother, Working Class Hero and God. Just can never get that excited about any ex-Beatle solo stuff and this is no exception. Apart from the Frog Chorus of course.
3
Sep 13 2023
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Goo
Sonic Youth
Right in the middle of their Imperial Period, and repaying the big bucks Geffen threw at them. The first side is them reaching for the rock mainstream brilliantly, the second a little more in the 80s SY noisenik vein. In Song for Karen Carpenter one of their very very best.
4
Sep 14 2023
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Music
Madonna
Hmm. On a re-listen this feels like a bit of a curate's egg, betrayed by three different producers. Three stellar tracks in Music, What It Feels Like and closer Gone. But bits of it feel like out-takes from Ray of Light, bits of it feel like a not quite fully achieved French filter house album, and bits of it are a bit duff. Then of course one of the worst covers of all time. So can't give it more than three stars.
3
Sep 15 2023
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Savane
Ali Farka Touré
a very pleasant listen, but not above the level of background music. sorry.
3
Sep 16 2023
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I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
Aretha Franklin
I bought Aretha's 'Original Classics' series of five albums, in which this features, after hearing another of her albums earlier on in this list. I've only bought three other albums from this list as being without them in physical form is unthinkable having heard them. Surely the greatest female singer of the last fifty years.
5
Sep 17 2023
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MTV Unplugged In New York
Nirvana
I'm not a great fan of the Unplugged series, and what started off as a distinctive idea gave birth to the horrors of Jo Whiley's Live Lounge. But this is the exception that proves the rule - stripping back the noise is completely revelatory. Top covers, great playing and just a sense of the most important band in the world at the time.
4
Sep 18 2023
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Wild Gift
X
Hmm. I'm a fan of their first album, but I think their bit of punk bit of rockabilly bit of new wave is already sounding a bit thin. Enjoyable enough, but not pulling up any trees.
3
Sep 19 2023
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Atomizer
Big Black
Listened to this on my vinyl copy, can't have listened for twenty years and it's insanely listenable. Now hoping Songs about XXing turns up on this list as well to get that out too. No Spotify.
4
Sep 20 2023
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L'Eau Rouge
The Young Gods
Euro punk cabaret. Not as impossible as Einstrurzende Neubauten to listen to but hardly easy. Probably awesome live.
2
Sep 21 2023
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Fromohio
fIREHOSE
American alternative music of the eighties is a hinterland I'm still exploring. This is virtually unclassifiable, but there are some elements of the Feelies, Violent Femmes and hardcore bands. But all melded together in short, sharp songs that prioritise rhythm and impact above melody.
3
Sep 22 2023
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Felt Mountain
Goldfrapp
Picking up the indecipherable singing style and gauzy soundscapes of the Cocteaus, on their first album they added trip-hop vibes for something that still sounds odd and fresh thirty years later. They'd forego this for a more straightforward electropop sound, then decide they didn't want that either. One of the more interesting bands of the last thirty years.
4
Sep 30 2023
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Tellin’ Stories
The Charlatans
Four monster tracks, two instrumentals (surely a rule of rock that you can only have one per album if you're not an instrumentals band) and some business as usual Charlieboys album. Solid but not their very best. 3.5 rather than 3, but not 4.
3
Oct 01 2023
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Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
Bill Callahan
Although not an unpleasant listen, there's not really enough going on here to leave a mark, other than his Lou Reedesque voice. The songs are not as strong as Lou Reed's.
2
Oct 02 2023
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Dirty
Sonic Youth
Second installment of Geffen's advance, more grandfathers-of-grunge sharp rock tunes. Spread over a double it doesn't have quite the focus of Goo, but several high points (100%, Sugar Kane, drunken Butterfuly) and an overall sense of a band both tight and loose at the same time. That old trick.
4
Oct 03 2023
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Teen Dream
Beach House
Music that floats and drifts, catching you in its wispy melodies and airy textures. Yes from minute to minute it recedes into the background sometimes, but that's not a bad thing always. Not a bad thing here.
3
Oct 04 2023
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Scott 2
Scott Walker
Not my cup of tea, though he has a fine voice. You can hear the cracks starting to appear in the Pop Phenomenon - particularly in Plastic Palace People which is a deeply wierd track. Jackie an absolute tune.
2
Oct 05 2023
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Hybrid Theory
Linkin Park
This now appears a bit better as its meat and potatoes combo of rap and metal was the album before the legendarily awful Kid Rock album. So no it's nowhere as bad as that, but it is very monotone. At a place I worked the boss had on her desk a rap album she'd confiscated from her son. This is the kind of music that twelve-year olds put on loudly to annoy their mums.
2
Oct 06 2023
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Devil Without A Cause
Kid Rock
Jesus wept. The bastard love child of The Beastie Boys and Lynryrd Skynyrd. Actually not as good as that sounds, as its so repetitive. Also appears he has not listened to a single rap album since the first Beastie Boys album.
1
Oct 07 2023
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Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Pretty much the Neil and Crazy Horse template for the next 50 years, particularly in Cinammon Girl, Down By The River and Cowgirl in the Sand. So yes five stars.
5
Oct 08 2023
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Songs From The Big Chair
Tears For Fears
I try I bloody try but in between the pretty acceptable first and third albums this is an album I disliked from the start and with every listen nothing changes. Why rave had to happen.
2
Oct 09 2023
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Surrealistic Pillow
Jefferson Airplane
This is in my top five of discoveries on this list, along with Nightclubbing by Iggy Pop and Otis Blue. The first side is one of the best sides ever committed to vinyl, in a genre (sixties psychedelic pop) that is not one of my home zones. Fantastic.
5
Oct 10 2023
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Shaka Zulu
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
this is a breeze to listen to. Ambient singing if such a think were possible (possibly yes - Cocteau Twins).
3
Oct 11 2023
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Surf's Up
The Beach Boys
This is a bit all over the shop, but an enjoyable listen, apart from the rewrite of Cell Block No 9 as Student Demonstration. Royalties owed there surely. But no particular desire to hear it again.
3
Oct 12 2023
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Green Onions
Booker T. & The MG's
Yes 5/5 for Green Onions itself, and the rest of the album is a groovy collection of organ-driven mainly covers. Very pleasant, though a little monotonous as a whole album and no 'Soul Limbo' - the intro to Test Match Special for UK listeners and up there with Match of the Day as the greatest UK sports show intro music.
3
Oct 13 2023
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Forever Changes
Love
Going to disagree with the consensus on this album and go that yes Alone Again Or is a tune, but it's pretty standard late sixties a bit psychedelic a bit folky pop/rock.
2
Oct 14 2023
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So
Peter Gabriel
A lot has been made about the production, and on Sledgehammer and Big Time it does rather go for it. But under all the gated drums and synths there's a clutch of very solid songs. At least half of this album is so over-exposed though it's difficult to actually rate it properly.
3
Oct 16 2023
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Kid A
Radiohead
Every time I play this album it gets better. Just a staggering range of textures and approaches to what a song or track is. In Morning Bell they event deliver a 'proper Radiohead song' with verses and choruses and everything to stand with their best.
5
Oct 17 2023
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Street Life
The Crusaders
Street Life is an undeniable tune, but elsewhere it is jazz fusiony grooving and noodling. All very tasteful and immaculately played in a 'quiet storm' stylee but not really anything to shake my tree.
2
Oct 18 2023
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Fever To Tell
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Ok this has aged pretty well as that NY millenial movement - better than The Strokes that's for sure. A slight monotony does set in, but its short and sharp and does not outstay its welcome.
3
Oct 19 2023
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Electric Ladyland
Jimi Hendrix
| am guessing you either think this is his masterpiece or four sides of self-indulgent wibble. What we can all agree with surely is that remove Voodoo Chile (15 mins) and 1983 a Merman (13 mins and you have an absolute kick-ass 46 minute album that would just about fit on a single album pressing. But we'll never know. So 4 - and 5 for the Electric Singleladyland
4
Oct 20 2023
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Alien Lanes
Guided By Voices
28 tracks in 41 minutes. Excellent. Each one an amuse bouche of early ninties indie, from some that sound like Oasis to some sounding more like Dinosaur Jr. or Nirvana. I like this a lot, though not sure how good it actually is.
3
Oct 21 2023
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Elephant
The White Stripes
Pretty much peak Stripes, listening again reminded me how much they wrought out of so little. But how much was Meg? That we will never know.
4
Oct 22 2023
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Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Fast Car, Talking About a Revolution and (tho I don't like) Baby Can I Hold You are all serious tunes. Backed up by a pretty strong set of album cuts. The production is uber eighties, reminiscent of Paul Simon/Peter Gabriel at the time. It's a definitive three, but no more.
3
Oct 23 2023
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Freak Out!
The Mothers Of Invention
Crazy but accessible, and one of the first double albums ever released. Not a zappahead so can't give this more than three. One of my partners favourite albums.
3
Oct 24 2023
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Feast of Wire
Calexico
Very pleasant, and some deep songwriting skills as well as the TexMex vibes, some bits recalling DJ Shadow as well as Los Lobos.
3
Oct 25 2023
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The Man Who
Travis
Writing about bad music is so much more fun than writing about good - I guess that's what makes you a journalist. Me, I will just pass on that for our non-UK friends this album is one of a select few that cluster in the shelves of the charity shops of our fair country. Robbie Williams solo albums, Coldplay early stuff, b-grade britpop like Cast, rank boybands like Blue...The Man Who...is one of this select group. Because it's the album that your girlfriend bought you for your birthday that you chazza'd (technical term) as soon as you split up.
2
Oct 26 2023
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Throwing Muses
Throwing Muses
I love Kristen Hersh and Tanya Donnelly's solo work, and Belly, but have never quite vibed with where it all started. Perhaps just a bit too much going on at once, so this is a good listen but hasn't quite pushed the switch.
3
Oct 27 2023
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A Grand Don't Come For Free
The Streets
As a Brummie of twenty-five years standing got to love Mike Skinner, even if he was responsible for one of the worst-sounding gigs I ever attended at the old NIA. This is The Streets most coherent statement, a rap odyssey in which Mike loses a grand, goes out, loses the girl, finds another girl, finds the grand. A lot of this is insanely catchy, and despite its well-chosen ultra cheap beats can't hide the fact that he's got some real craft as a songwriter. Listen to it in the album order pls, and marvel how everything comes together in the epic last track that could even be termed prog hig-hop/grime. It's definitely a concept album.
4
Oct 28 2023
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Hotel California
Eagles
Not an album I need to play again to rate. Has there been a less likeable band than The Eagles. Much of their music has been so overplayed that it's out there in the ether without anyone needing to choose. I would point out The Last Resort as my personal highlight of what is a pretty perfect album, the definitive statement of LA country rock and one that should be as celebrated as Rumours. Why isn't it? See maybe they're just not that likeable as people...
5
Oct 29 2023
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Metal Box
Public Image Ltd.
Not an easy listen by any means, but treat it as one long soundscape inhabited by Wobble's dub bass, Levene's sparse guitar and Lyndon's vocals and it accumulates over time. Normally I'd split a double album for two listens, this one is best done right through.
4
Oct 30 2023
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The Predator
Ice Cube
Ice Cube's early solo career, repetitive lyrics about homies, gats, AKs, bitches, punk ass niggas, and cars notwithstanding - it is gangsta rap after all - is pretty damn listenable. And so is this.
3
Oct 31 2023
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Hejira
Joni Mitchell
What a run of albums led to this. One of her most enigmatic, but seductive albums. Everything comes together on the final track which one of my very favourite of hers.
5
Nov 04 2023
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Porcupine
Echo And The Bunnymen
John Webster was one of the best there was. He was the author of two major tragedies. The White Devil and the Duchess of Malfi-O. You've either already bailed or you're on board. The lyrics are abstract to the point of absurdity, but the Bunnymen are perhaps one of the ultimate atmosphere bands. And this one is perhaps their densest, least user-friendly vibe. Singles The Cutter and The Back of Love are ridiculously catchy, but its perhaps their gloomiest album. Every time I listen to it it gets better and better, whereas Ocean Rain sounds a bit thinner, a bit more calculated. I will go to my grave convinced that Bono stole the world-conquering crown that was the Bunnymen's by right.
5
Nov 05 2023
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Walking Wounded
Everything But The Girl
If Stella Artois is the reference point for all lager - it can be weaker or stronger, better or worse - this album is the reference point for every dance/d and b inflected coffee table album of the nineties. Portishead miles better, a Leffe perhaps. Morcheeba miles worst - Carling. Needless to say, it deserves 2.5 stars. But I will reluctantly round up.
3
Nov 06 2023
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Innervisions
Stevie Wonder
A great album, but unless you're a paid up Wonderfan it's not five stars. Make no mistake, Livin for the City, Higher Ground, Don't You Worry, Mr Know It All are all five - but that's not the whole album. No fan of Stevie syrup and Golden Lady is that, All In Love is Fair similarly.
4
Nov 07 2023
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In Our Heads
Hot Chip
Solid. One of the few times I've seen a support band blow the headliners offstage, when they supported Goldfrapp. Flutes is an absolute tuuune and other very solid tracks are Motion Sickness and Where We Are. I don't fundamentally think they are an albums band, but this is a good listen. 3.5.
3
Nov 08 2023
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Little Earthquakes
Tori Amos
One of my favourite albums from the early nineties, and has weathered incredibly well. Not sure she ever got the balance between restraint and expression quite as right as she did here.
4
Nov 09 2023
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Aha Shake Heartbreak
Kings of Leon
I don't mind the Leons instrumental schtick - kind of Strokes meets Lynyrd Skynyrd - but that voice. He is doing something that makes it like scraping nails on a blackboard to listen to. If there later stuff is tending to Coldplay vibes then let's hope the vocals go with that, as beige would be distinct improvement on this.
1
Nov 10 2023
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Foxbase Alpha
Saint Etienne
The 'radio selector' album is bit of a risk - if it comes off it sounds varied and rich, if not an incoherent mess. On the whole this is the former, from French sports announcements to movie dialogue and fake TV themes, as well as a fistful of great tracks. Only Love Can Break Your Heart and Nothing Can Stop Us are ageless and it's a quintessentially early nineties time capsule.
4
Nov 11 2023
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Don't Stand Me Down
Dexys Midnight Runners
A sense of a band running on fumes here. Overlong tracks, several spoken word ruminations, arrangements that seem like more tortured versions of what seemed natural in the first two albums...I'm not buying the 'overlooked classic', but the well running dry. Having said that, Listen To This is a lovely callback to the northern soul stomping of their debut. Not enough for three stars though.
2
Nov 12 2023
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No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (Live)
Motörhead
One of the very best live albums, as Motorhead flatten their own songs from the studio versions into noisescapes even more reliant on blast beats and pure speed.
5
Nov 13 2023
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Let's Stay Together
Al Green
Super-sophisticated seventies soul. Title track is 20 out of 5, rest of the album a lovely listen.
4
Nov 14 2023
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Live!
Fela Kuti
Very listenable, apart from possibly the final track which shows that there is such a thing as too much drumming. But the ensemble is pretty amazing and Fela provides great frontman vibes. 3.49999.
3
Nov 15 2023
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Ten
Pearl Jam
Not so much the Stones to Nirvana's Beatles, as the Clash to Nirvana's Pistols perhaps. Listening to this album it becomes apparent that Nirvana's sound was a complete one-off, built from Cobain's singular songwriting and the trio's chemistry. So it was that on this a template was created that would power so much rock through the nineties. This also falls under the rare category of albums I love while also not being that tempted to explore the rest of the canon.
4
Nov 16 2023
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Elephant Mountain
The Youngbloods
Another of a seemingly endless series in pleasant but inessential mid/late sixties r and b/pop/country hybrids.
2
Nov 17 2023
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Gorillaz
Gorillaz
Some debuts are the best thing the band ever do, some are - appropriately enough for a cartoon band - a sketch of what they will go on to grow into. This is a latter, with Demon Days as a 1000% leap forwards. Is it just my imagination or was the Clint Eastwood single version way beefier than this, or has time flattened my memory?
2
Nov 18 2023
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I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Sinead O'Connor
Ok this is not as fearsome as much of her work, still at this point making major label music. Not sure I would listen again, but got to the end. is it three stars? Not quite. 2.5.
2
Nov 19 2023
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Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo
MC Solaar
great flow in a Gangstarr/Quest/Jungle Bros early nineties style. Very early listen to, though of course not sure what he's on about.
3
Nov 20 2023
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If I Could Only Remember My Name
David Crosby
God this doesn't all sound like everyone was coked out of their brains making this. Half the tracks have no lyrics. It's only 1970 and yet punk already had to happen.
1
Nov 21 2023
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Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
George Michael
I have listened and this has not altered my prejudices.
1
Nov 22 2023
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The Who Sell Out
The Who
The time has come to admit that The Who's purple patch lasted in album terms from Tommy (generously) through to Quadrophenia - ie 4 albums over 4 years if you include Live At Leeds. Outside that it's patchy with great singles (My Generation, A Quick One, this one, Who Are You, Who By Numbers) and completely inessential and mediocre stuff - everything after Who Are You. This then is patchy with great singles. 3 stars.
3
Nov 23 2023
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Guero
Beck
Solid Beck album, revisiting to some extent the pick n mix magic of Odelay with another album that shows what a good songwriter he is, as well as sonic artist.
3
Nov 24 2023
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Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
though a bit early to be classically 'prog' this is proto-prog - very talented musicians demonstrating how talented they are at length. I think I like prog for prog's sake - so Rush, Yes, even early Genesis - rather than the 'progging up' other genres like classical, blues or jazz - both of which are on offer here to lengthy and tedious effect. Spinning Wheel is an absolute tune though so drags the whole thing up to a two.
2
Nov 25 2023
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Bat Out Of Hell
Meat Loaf
Oh lawdy I am with Clive Davis who said that Steinman didn't know how to write rock music, this is more like the most ridiculous musical ever made - which is how it started. He could craft an ear-worm, but surely the only missing thing from this absurdly OTT outing is the Liza Minelli version of this album. Should add that all the singles - title track and 2 out of 3 - were inescapable on the wonderful Radio 1 of the early eighties.
1
Nov 26 2023
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Something Else By The Kinks
The Kinks
I agree with the overall feeling that this may be the best Kinks album, and contains without doubt their best song, and one of the best ever written. 4.5 stars really.
4
Nov 27 2023
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D
White Denim
Yes lot's going on, almost too much. The shredding at the end of At The Farm is a wonderful thing, and it's a right old southern stew. 3.5 but it's tough at the top so rounding down guys.
3
Dec 01 2023
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Risque
CHIC
Not much to say here other than this is three of the finest musicians in the world at the top of their game. Their sound is surely one of the most influential ever.
5
Dec 02 2023
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Penance Soiree
The Icarus Line
This appears to have a lot of hate, but you know it's a fine noisy late 90s/early 00's rock. Certainly prefer this to nu metal. Very listenable to - but it is too damn long hence only three stars.
3
Dec 03 2023
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Hunky Dory
David Bowie
Such a flawless album it needs more than five stars. Again, an album grooved on my brain and absolutely no need to play it again.
5
Dec 04 2023
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Honky Tonk Masquerade
Joe Ely
The nice thing about this is the sweet spot between rock and roll (Fingernails) and country (Honky Tonk Masquerade). The other thing is that it's not that distinctive. I can see why he went on tour with The Clash, and enjoyed listening, but no real desire to add to playlist. Also very short and sharp. Sidebar: some of these tracks have 3,000 spotify streams. Even notorious 1001-ers like Kollaps and Duck Stab/Buster and Glen have streams in the many 10,000's - making him I guess one of the most obscure artists on this list.
2
Dec 05 2023
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Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
I like the early Foos when they were more of a post-Nirvana sideshoot and less of a Classic Rock Band. This is early Foos. Maybe it's just the first two albums I really really like.
4
Dec 06 2023
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Scissor Sisters
Scissor Sisters
Revisiting an album I last heard when it came out, and when the songs were everywhere, I expected to dislike this intensely. But you know what, it's pretty likeable and has aged much better than I thought it would. A pleasant surprise, and shows that they were more than a gimmick cover and cool videos band.
3
Dec 07 2023
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Young Americans
David Bowie
Time was this was my favourite Bowie album. But over time I can see it was precursor to Station to Station, which is my favourite and possibly the greatest album of all time. Two monumental songs, the title track and Fame, but elsewhere a bit shallow at times.
4
Dec 08 2023
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Broken English
Marianne Faithfull
Only occasionally does that cracked, rich voice coalesce into a full album. Here the title track and Ballad of Lucy Jordan do a lot of heavy lifting, elsewhere it feels a bit like a luxury Island Records solo album of the eighties, tho it was 1979.
3
Dec 09 2023
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Superfuzz Bigmuff
Mudhoney
I'm not averse to this at all, some songwriting beneath the slackerdom and noise.
3
Dec 13 2023
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Psychocandy
The Jesus And Mary Chain
A quite brilliant debut, up there with the best debuts of all time. Just Like Honey showed that beneath the noise there was a sturdy songwriting chassis that would enable them to evolve (a bit!).
5
Dec 14 2023
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Damaged
Black Flag
The passage of time renders this pretty listenable, hardly the society wrecking terror it was viewed as at the time. Still short, sharp and occasionally hilarious.
3
Dec 15 2023
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My Generation
The Who
The sound of a band evolving at the speed of light. There's plenty of Motown, Bo Diddly and the blues alongside the powerpop. Do you rate the Deluxe Edition which includes Anwhere, Anyhow and I Can't Explain or not. So on the strictly original track listing which only contains ten-star My Generation it's a four-starrer. My Generation though - their entire sonic career from crazy drum fills, bass as lead, feedback, solos and power chords. Just the moog of Won't Get Fooled Again missing. That and all the bad stuff. Roger Daltrey is a surprisingly generic vocalist (MG excepting) - controversial opinion.
4
Dec 16 2023
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Life Thru A Lens
Robbie Williams
After The Man Who the second chazza shop classic on this list. Angels would be pretty near the top of 1001 Songs You Never Need to Hear Again. Apart from that and other inescapable single Let Me Entertain You it's still a breeezy if featherlight pop listen. And the most childish F U teachers every committed to tape at the end. 2.5 but rounded down for that.
2
Dec 17 2023
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The Good, The Bad & The Queen
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Coming after Parklife in my list, one of the three Blur-less Damon manifestations (solo, Gorillaz) and perhaps the weakest of the three. Pleasant enough but a distinct lack of killer tunes.
3
Dec 18 2023
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Parklife
Blur
The creative high point of Britpop, and also of one of the most enduring British bands of the last thirty years. Come for Phil Daniels comedy stylings, stay for Albarn's knack for finding the melancholy and downbeat (This Is a low) as well as the party anthems (Girls and Boys).
4
Dec 19 2023
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Chore of Enchantment
Giant Sand
Mmm. Kind of like Grandaddy but without the depth of tunes. Straight out of early noughties college rock. Not unpleasant, but really a 2.5. Rounded down for length.
2
Dec 20 2023
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Ananda Shankar
Ananda Shankar
Absolutely not something I would reach for, but this fusion of sitar and moog works pretty well, though it can never completely escape the whiff of cheese.
3
Dec 21 2023
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Sheer Heart Attack
Queen
The earworms are the singles, the non-singles are not earworms. I don't like the earworms, though can concede their immaculate craft. Elsewhere it's all a bit hairy blokes in drag.
2
Dec 22 2023
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Time Out
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
Ah one of the twenty or so jazz albums that make this list - a typical 'jazz for non-jazzers' along with Kind of Blue, Blue Train, Ah Um etc. etc. It's an excellent album, his blocky piano playing really shines through.
4
Dec 23 2023
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Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod Stewart
The Rod so far on this list has been awful. This is...probably his best. Still not for me at all, but the song selection and playing is nothing but copper-bottomed and can see how this made him a huge star.
3
Dec 24 2023
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Legalize It
Peter Tosh
Too much liberation and ganja for international superstardom, but his songs were at their best Marley's equal
4
Dec 30 2023
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Straight Outta Compton
N.W.A.
Fittingly I bought this album on a bootleg cassette in the States. Now have it on CD. As electric as ever, 35 years on.
5
Dec 31 2023
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Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John
Surely no-one ever needs to hear the big singles from this ever again, doubly so for 'Candle' - there's a nice Zydeco-flavoured cover from kate Bush I'd recommend. Elsewhere this is still a pretty pretty good 70s singer-songwriter album and a solid four stars. Even though I really don't like EJ all that much.
4
Jan 02 2024
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Lazer Guided Melodies
Spiritualized
Beautiful, drifting, stately, otherworldy etc. Jason would get the tunes sorted in subsequent albums to add to the vibes on show here. Three stars.
3
Jan 03 2024
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From Elvis In Memphis
Elvis Presley
You know what this is not a bad listen, quite fun. In The Ghetto and Suspicious Minds are tunes. The band are tight and the up-tempo numbers at the start are perhaps an indicator of a slightly more interesting road than he ended up taking. The second of his albums after his debut that I could contemplate listening to all the way through.
3
Jan 04 2024
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The White Room
The KLF
Head to Youtube for the original mix of the album and the three monster singles. KLF were only ever about hits, Top of the Pops, 12" remixes, the Brits and all that really important stuff. Albums less so, as why would you throw away good stuff that won't get played on MTV/Radio One. 3 stars for the backups, 5 stars for the singles. 4 it is.
4
Jan 05 2024
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Done By The Forces Of Nature
Jungle Brothers
Kind of like Tribe Called Quest without the magic, and like many rap albums of the time waaay too long. When I am world dictator it will be 12 tracks, 48 mins or the gulags for you. So really 2.5 but rounded down for length.
2
Jan 06 2024
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The Wall
Pink Floyd
Nothing new to say about this album. Hideously unfashionable at the time, hideously unfashionable ever since. Some everygreen songs, but the concept and the linking bits are very skippable.
3
Jan 07 2024
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Kimono My House
Sparks
Everyone knows 'This town' but this is an excellent album from start to finish. Along with the wonky pop there's a distinct krautrock chug. 3.5 stars really.
3
Jan 08 2024
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Let Love Rule
Lenny Kravitz
Chat GPT's take on how to mix Beatlesesque song structures, some Hendrix guitar stylings (toned down so nothing too scary), Prince vocals and a DOA early nineties production style. Lyrics auto-generated from keywords 'love' 'baby' 'freedom' and 'peace'. But we're still a world away from AI creating anything you could call original.
1
Jan 09 2024
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Cafe Bleu
The Style Council
My oh my. We've only had Sound Affects from The Jam before this came up. It'll be a crime if this makes the list and the other two albums from The Jam's golden trio, All Mod Cons and Setting Sons, doesn't make the list. As someone who was a massive Jam fan the Style Council were always underwhelming - I can remember hearing Into Tomorrow (his first solo single) and going 'finally' - like instead of a difficult second album he went for a difficult second musical career. Funk, soul, jazz, mod all jostle uncomfortably on a confused record that goes off in a million directions without sounding convinced by any. In a non-instrumentals album you're allowed one, any more (like here) ends up sounding like half-finished tracks. The next album, Our Favourite Shop, is generally seen as a stronger and more coherent work. Maybe that's on here too.
2
Jan 10 2024
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Second Toughest In The Infants
Underworld
The naming of killer boy....Reverend Al Green...Karl Hyde's cut-up lyrics are an under-rated part of Underworld's armoury, along with his sometimes sung sometimes spoken delivery. This is an amazing album, showing how swiftly dance music was changing the musical landscape in the mid-nineties. Not since progrock had albums seen lengths like this: the first two tracks clock in at over 30 minutes, and the first has distinctly-named sub-sections, another prog move. All the tracks shift and alter evolve slowly - a bassline here, a hi-hat there, as melodies and Hyde's vocals emerge and subside from the central groove that anchors each (and made them such a mainstay of the 'DJ compilation mix' of the time). Apart from prog, an even better comparison is the minimalism of Steve Reich - imagine Music for 16 Musicians with a drum machine and you're halfway here.
5
Jan 11 2024
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Jack Takes the Floor
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
You know this was not a difficult listen, lots of talking blues and guitar picking in an early Bob Dylan style. Jack is a more straightforward proposition, perhaps why he ended up nearer LLewelyn Davis than global megastar.
3
Jan 12 2024
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Antichrist Superstar
Marilyn Manson
Jesus christ (hah!) this was a slog. Each song sounds exactly the same, and there are lot of songs. If the devil does have all the best tunes then Mr Manson must have sold all his to someone else.
1
Jan 13 2024
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C'est Chic
CHIC
Easy five stars here. Anyone who can should watch the 3-part BBC series Disco, Sound of Revolution which has some truly amazing interviews and footage, with Nicky Siano as a breakout star. The instrumental prowess on this album is mind-blowing.
5
Jan 14 2024
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The Rise & Fall
Madness
Their brilliant career. Unlike their two-tone peers they could both sustain a lengthy career (Specials and Selecter, The Beat all imploding after 2/3 albums), and like them hit the ground running from the off. All of the first four Madness albums are excellent, a proper imperial period straight off the bat. This is the fourth and last (IMHO) and introduces a more reflective tone into their music, more lyrical ambition - it's really a love letter to the London they grew up in (Our House, Primrose Hill), and just a greater maturity from a band never far from silliness. Both a long way from The Prince and not. Perhaps the most London of bands since The Kinks. All of these things are compliments.
4
Jan 15 2024
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The Sounds Of India
Ravi Shankar
Impossible to rate really as a Western casual listener but the spoken word intros are great and as a soundscape its great working music.
3
Jan 16 2024
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Go Girl Crazy
The Dictators
In the category of 'Interesting yes, influential yes, good not really' . An extra half a point docked for a pretty lame cover version. Along with The Tubes their 'progenitors of punk' credentials are slightly oversold to these UK ears.
2
Jan 17 2024
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Ace of Spades
Motörhead
The Velvet Underground of heavy metal. Hard to think of much happening in the thrash/speed metal scenes without Lemmy's discovery that turning the speed up to 11, keeping the songs to 3 minutes and the solos to 20s was a winning formula. Two absolute classics in the title track and We are The road Crew, but like many rock bands of the time their best album is live (No Sleep, also on this list I think).
4
Jan 18 2024
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Da Capo
Love
I'm sorry I know Love are much beloved but have now heard two albums from this list and don't get what raises them above a billion other beat bands who went a bit psychedelic.
2
Jan 19 2024
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Melody A.M.
Röyksopp
Such a clever and well-crafted album. It's a bit trip-hop, especially Portishead, at times, it's a bit coffee table dance, but there are some lovely melodies here that really nail this down as a pop album. Gotta look to the remixes for anything to actually dance to.
3
Jan 20 2024
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Playing With Fire
Spacemen 3
What a great album this is, the Velvets mixed with late sixties psychedelia, and a touch of Terry Riley drone music. Mixed in with the freak-outs and drones there'sa touch of gospel in which salvation or getting high are pretty much the same.
4
Jan 27 2024
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Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Derek & The Dominos
One hour and fifteen from the old r****t Eric, a double helping of smug self-satisfied blues rock. There is a little bit of energy that saves it from one star, but the coda to Layla goes on and on and is a classic example of more is less. And it doesn't have Wonderful Tonight on, so there's that.
2
Jan 28 2024
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Murmur
R.E.M.
This is just a perfect album, not a single weak track. Not much to say about it other than it being one of the most stupendous debuts of all time, and its reputation only growing. If I had one caveat - only one - it's that the production is a little basic. The drum sound on tracks like Radio Free Europe is a little tinny. But really, it's nitpicking. Five stars.
5
Jan 29 2024
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All Directions
The Temptations
Papa is 10 mins of utter brilliance, and elsewhere there's some sold seventies pop-funk backing it up. The sun was slightly setting on the all-covers soul ensemble, and their versions of Do Your Thing and The First Time Ever are a bit bloodless. Overall 3.5, feeling generous, rounded up.
4
Jan 30 2024
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Here's Little Richard
Little Richard
This holds up really well because there are no ballads, just faster R and B and slower R and B. Simple. Got to give it a 4.
4
Jan 31 2024
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Bug
Dinosaur Jr.
Wiinning combo of angry fuzz guitars and lovely pop melodies. There's an agreeable ragged edge to Dinosaur Jr., a real songwriteryness which is why I guess they've endured so long.
4
Feb 01 2024
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Meat Puppets II
Meat Puppets
Yeah this is a good listen, a bunch of rattling melodic short and sharp songs.
3
Feb 02 2024
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Third/Sister Lovers
Big Star
Over the three Big Star albums there is one absolutely knockout to be assembled. This is a third of a great album, and This Mortal Coil knew what they were doing when they picked out Kangaroo and Holocaust.
3
Feb 03 2024
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Country Life
Roxy Music
Stunning first side, fine second and a double punch of Really Good Time and Prairie Rose to finish. Slightly more guitar-based with the departure of Eno, and after a shift taking place from the wild art experimentalism of the Eno era to their mid-era sophisticated Euro pop this is Roxy at the top of their game.
5
Feb 04 2024
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The Next Day
David Bowie
I'm of course liking this a lot, as it pretends that his entire iffy career from Let's Dance to reality never happened. Certainly only Heathen of his post-LD works stands up to this, both a calculated return to the golden years of heroes and low, and a survey of virtually his entire career. Certainly some Ziggy-era glam and Hunky Dory big balladeering feature. if there's a melancholy, valedictory tone to much of the lyricism, well three years later we knew why.
4
Feb 05 2024
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It's Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
A textbook example of noisy guitar bands of the noughties going 'synthpop'. Some of these tracks have big fat analogue synths Gary Numan would recognise. But a really really strong set of songs, slightly more guitar heavy on the second side, and all built absolutely for singing along to at Reading midway through the evening.
4
Feb 16 2024
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Definitely Maybe
Oasis
Tonight/I'm a Rock and Roll Star is just about the most perfect statement of Album one, side one, track one 'We're Here now' possible. Listening to an album that just about every British guitar band has had to relate to in some way over the past thirty years, it's hard to recapture how fresh and brilliant this sounded when it came out. The template for every single Oasis album ever is already in place: four killer singles (here Supersonic, Shakermaker, Live Forever, Cigarettes and Alcohol), some solid album tracks that would be singles on other albums (not least the aforesaid opener), a soaring epic (Slide Away), and a throwaway acoustic number (Married With Children). And lastly, one track that sounds so like someone else's you can't believe they haven't been sued for a writing credit (here Shakermaker = I'd Like to Teach the World To Sing). If all the singles here are scored at 10/10, the great album tracks 9 and the others 8 take one off for each subsequent album, so by the depths of 5th album Don't Believe The Truth it works out at 6, 5 and 4 which sounds about right. Bonus: their B-sides in this period were better than most people's A-sides, and are included in The Masterplan which is better than any other album they did apart from this one and (possibly) the second. Overall 5/5. Lyrics: Noel for No(b)el Prize for Literature. I'll take my car and drive real far/You're not concerned about the way we are. Genius.
5
Feb 17 2024
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Fun House
The Stooges
erm a bit disappointing as up for the Igmeister usually. Sludgy.
2
Feb 18 2024
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Heavy Weather
Weather Report
Just because you are excellent at noodling, and this has a reputation of one of the greatest noodling albums of all time, and the players went onto noodle for other bands and enjoy international noodling careers, does not make it not noodling. That and any fusion saxophone risks tipping into epic sax territory. Two and a quarter, maybe two and a third. But not 2.5.
2
Feb 19 2024
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BEYONCÉ
Beyoncé
it's a 2.5, at the back end of this in XO, Flawless and Superpower there's a lot of stuff to like. But to get there there's a lot of quite boring stuff, immaculately sung and produced but which does nothing for me. Other opinions are available.
2
Feb 20 2024
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Apocalypse Dudes
Turbonegro
There are bands that just, well are - Kraftwerk, Roxy Music, peak Stones - and then there are the 'What if..' bands. Here the proposal is 'Imagine if Tom of Finland dressed a band blending Ramones/Dictators with rock guitar solos.' Well the results are a bit derivative, and it's hard to know how to take their 'Ass Cobra''Scandinavian Leather' gay/trans stylings. Some kick ass tunes, but really nothing distinctive on record. Can agree they are probably awesome live.
3
Feb 21 2024
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The Number Of The Beast
Iron Maiden
Have to admit I am no Maiden fan, and though I bought a couple of their early singles I very rapidly moved away from this kind of stuff. Cartoonish album covers, ridiculous clothes (striped spandex!), songs about ancient Egypt, Civil War ghosts, the usual Satan stuff. And while I will never be convinced about them as a band, this is an absolute banger. The first side is solid, but the second four songs are just brilliant.
4
Feb 22 2024
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A Girl Called Dusty
Dusty Springfield
My son (jazzhead) has theory about why no-one can play like Clifford Brown or Miles Davis anymore. There were so many jazz musicians in the thirties and forties that you are hearing now the very best of hundreds of thousands of players. To make it to the top you had to be truly extra-ordinary. And so it is with female singers in the sixties (viz. Aretha). Though the material here is sometimes slight the phrasing, the variation, the tone...all truly exceptional. Greater things would come, and her truly great moments were of course singles. So a very solid 3.5.
3
Feb 23 2024
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Permission to Land
The Darkness
Tons of fun. Channelling the more optimistic seventies classic rock sound, all duelling guitars, falsettos and killer choruses. Amazing they got a whole career out of pastiche Lizzy/Aerosmith/Queen etc.
3
Feb 24 2024
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Dookie
Green Day
No sorry this is energy, three chords and not a lot else. Can see how incredibly influential it was, but rather monotonous over an album. Full marks for taking Fugazi, Black flag et al and making an absolute mint from it.
2
Feb 25 2024
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Shleep
Robert Wyatt
Himm. A bit all over the shop. Some lovely playing, and his voice is just as amazing as ever. Reminded me of the Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls album at times, which is a good thing. Straightforward three.
3
Feb 27 2024
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Out of Step
Minor Threat
Surprisingly varied, glad I listened, not sure I will again etc etc.
3
Feb 28 2024
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Fulfillingness' First Finale
Stevie Wonder
Snoozie Wonder.
2
Feb 29 2024
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Ellington at Newport
Duke Ellington
I guess that the jazz albums in this list are those from the '100 best albums of jazz' lists. It is a great album, and the vaunted solos on Dimuendo and Crescendo are superb. But the jazz albums here are a bit random - why not for example have Jacqueline Du Pre's recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto? Anyway, four stars.
4
Mar 01 2024
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Two Dancers
Wild Beasts
This appears very polarising which baffles me. I would regard this as a solid slice of 00's indie, with a more distinctive vocalist than most. But the songs aren't really strong enough for more than 3.2/3/3
3
Mar 02 2024
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The Atomic Mr Basie
Count Basie & His Orchestra
1958 so can see why this is in. Tighter than a gnat's chuff. So tight you can see right through it. If all big band was all killer no filler like this then I'd like it a whole lot more.
4
Mar 03 2024
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Shadowland
k.d. lang
You know this is a revelation. Insert the old Buddy Rich at the hospital gag. Are you allergic to anything? yes country music. Pretty much describes my feelings, but the combination her voice, tasteful arrangements and a rock-solid song selection make this a solid three, probably 3.25 and I might even put it on the relisten pile.
3
Mar 08 2024
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The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators
What a great album this is. Mid-sixties garage rock is not my comfort zone, but I've heard this album several times before and it never disappoints. You're Gonna Miss Me and Reverberation are obvious high points, but it's strong writing and playing throughout. Probs 4.5 but have to round you down a bit.
4
Mar 09 2024
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Vulnicura
Björk
The 'return to form' album is the holy grail of mid and late career artists, wished for far more than their ambient/reggae/classical excursion is a re-nailing of why we loved them in the first place. Rarer than hen's teeth, Bjork gets pretty close to the RTF ideal with a focus on strings and the kind of hushed electronic beats that dominated Post and Homogenic. If none of the songs are quite a Hyperballad or Joga then that's understandable. But always listenable, and within touching distance of a melody. 3.5 but feeling generous.
4
Mar 10 2024
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Vulgar Display Of Power
Pantera
Nothing much for me here, a white power version of Slayer. Sorry no.
1
Mar 11 2024
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Live At The Witch Trials
The Fall
I have only twenty-odd albums and saw them live only 4/5 times, so a lightweight Fall-head really. This gets less spins than others possibly due to being on the original Small Wonder vinyl and safely stashed away. Their run of brilliant early singles - collected on Early fall 77-79 - has rather put this debut in the shade. A relisten reveals that it's - what do you know - already a classic fall album. Rebellious Jukebox, Two Steps Back, Industrial Estate and No Xmas for John Quays are all prime cuts, supported by such perennial Fall tropes as a dig at the music biz ('Music Scene') and a sub-1 min amouse bouche (title track). Their sound - rolling bass to anchor, clattering drums , obtusely tinny yet melodic keyboards - is here in template form. MES appears already full-formed, speech-singing and making everything rhyme by putting 'ah' at the end. Not a five as that would say it is the equal of 'This Nations...' or 'Hex Enduction'. But 4.25 definitely.
4
Mar 12 2024
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The Boatman's Call
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
One of the NCATBS albums I would point as somewhere sensible to start. Full of Nick in Love vibes and with the Bad Seeds in a classic lounge band mode. Some of his loveliest tunes (Into My Arms and Are You The One particularly) and less gnarly guitar from Blixa and 8 minute old testament workouts. Not my favourite though, a solid 4.
4
Mar 13 2024
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Remedy
Basement Jaxx
Perhaps the least-heralded of the bands who took rave and turned it into 'proper album music' (with the Chemicals, Underworld, Leftfield, Prodigy, Orbital) this is as light as a feather, perhaps a little overlong like several 90s dance albums, but full of lovely touches.
4
Mar 14 2024
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Get Behind Me Satan
The White Stripes
Hard to find a Jack White album less than listenable to, and this sees them stretch their sound with more piano and instrumentation beyond the blues guitar and drums. My Doorbell is - a banger - and it's great all the way through.
4
Mar 15 2024
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Another Music In A Different Kitchen
Buzzcocks
When I was about 15 at school I went round to a friend's. We played bass and keyboards for a bit, then he showed me a dirt motorbike he had. As he was 14 all he could do was ride it round the garden. I had a music sheet book of Another Music In A Different Kitchen that was his, and never gave it back. Ebayed it for a healthy sum thirty years later. The album? By the band who were the first band I ever saw live. Just perfect. The sleeve, the title...everything that was exciting about music when I was 15. Still sounds amazing.
5
Mar 16 2024
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At Fillmore East
The Allman Brothers Band
You know I had it in mind to be severe with this, as when I ripped it had only a single CD's worth I could find a decade ago. But I'm at work ripping through tedious admin like bank details and budgets and some mellow endless shredding is exactly what works. So a solid three stars. Sitting down and listening to it without having something else to do would however be surely banned under the Geneva Convetnion.
3
Mar 17 2024
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Hail To the Thief
Radiohead
Right album, wrong time. If this had followed OK Computer it would have been seen as a great step forwards, upping the glitchy textures and losing the last shreds of 'anthemic Head' from The Bends, Lucky, Karma Police. Following on from the double punch of Kid A/Amnesiac it can't help but feel like a step back in the catalogue. However, it's a pretty immaculate set of songs, and if it doesn't get the five it's to reflect the fact that 14 is one or two too many and there are 5-star albums elsewhere in their catalogue.
4
Mar 18 2024
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Endtroducing.....
DJ Shadow
Ambient hip-hop trip-hop soul. Surely one of the best albums of the nineties. A debut so perfect he's never really got out of its Shadow.
5
Mar 19 2024
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Black Holes and Revelations
Muse
When I was in the fourth form and starting to buy vinyl I bought a couple of albums by The Boomtown Rats (notably not listed so far and I'm up to 600 odd). Then within a couple of years I was listening to The Clash. For millenials aged 14 I guess this was who you listened to before Radiohead. Frightening to think that you wouldn't move on pretty quick. TBF, like the Rats, they can put together a tune - this one starts and end pretty well, but boy does it sag in the middle. 2.5 really but as a gateway drug to OK Computer I'll give it 3.
3
Mar 20 2024
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Heaux Tales
Jazmine Sullivan
It's really an EP once the skits are removed (serious skits rather than those on 3 feet high...) - but these half-a-dozen songs are a great listen, and they get stronger as things progress. solid three stars, in a genre that's not really in my comfort zone.
3
Mar 21 2024
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Maxinquaye
Tricky
What an album this is, one of the founding trilogy of trip-hop debuts alongside Portishead and Blue Lines. The first six tracks are as brilliant as anything on the other two, and like Blue Lines the contribution of a brilliant singer (here Martina Topley-Bird, there Shara Nelson) is perhaps underplayed. Still sounds fresh.
5
Mar 22 2024
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Licensed To Ill
Beastie Boys
Young, dumb and still quite a bit of fun. You do listen to this album with a smirk all the way through.
3
Mar 23 2024
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Rising Above Bedlam
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
Listened to this twice, and if you can I would recommend. On first listen it's a bit unfocused and the plethora of different voices can mean it slips by and doesn't really grab you. While there are passages that are more textural and ambient, on a second listen melodies and structures reveal themselves.
3
Mar 27 2024
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System Of A Down
System Of A Down
Pros: the songs are short. Most are based around some semblence of a tune. Cons: They all sound the same. Generic late 90s thrash I am afraid.
2
Mar 28 2024
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Moby Grape
Moby Grape
Not all on Spotify but the 9/12 of the album I could hear was great, in that sweet spot around 66 when beat went just a bit psychedelic but was still pop.
3
Mar 29 2024
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Viva Hate
Morrissey
Conflicted. Big conflict. I can look on at the Kanye or Clapton arguements and ultimately not got that much skin in the game. Kanye's first three albums are fine. Can leave the rest of it. But Morrissey. I loved The Smiths and saw them twice (ticket stubs framed of course). I've seen Morrissey solo once. Vauxhall and I, Viva Hate and his early singles compilations are all regularly played chez nous. And yet he's throughout his career written songs and spoken not just from a conservative standpoint. That would be Phil Collins or Tony Hadley. No, from an anti-immigration and 'England for the English' standpoint. He's endorsed far-right activists and the arguements that it's either because of his animal rights views or he's being a provocateur don't wash. Yet....the music on Viva Hate is fantastic. Like many first solo albums you suspect these songs were brewing during the end of the Smiths. Everyday Is Like Sunday, Suedehead and Late Night, Maudlin Street are fantastic tracks that could slot into say Strangeways....perfectly. Vini Reilly's guitar work on the above is very different but equally wonderful to Mr Marr's. Bengali in Platforms has a stunning looping, nagging guitar part....but it's a massively anti-immigrant rant. So, you could mark him down for his views, ignore this and mark the music. I'm a massive hypocrite and going for the latter. So, it's a four. Aargh. Will never buy any more of his music or see him live.
4
Mar 30 2024
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This Is Fats Domino
Fats Domino
The roll bit of rock and roll. Steady beat, that flowing piano and Fats melodious voice, never yelpy or hoarse. Easy three, and you can reconstruct this album in 5 mins from Spotify even though the album itself isn't there.
3
Mar 31 2024
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Electric Prunes
The Electric Prunes
Two monster singles, a short and sharp sixties album from that golden period when beat was blending into psychedelic. 3.5 really but rounding down.
3
Apr 01 2024
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Here, My Dear
Marvin Gaye
Many albums are a spite listen, few are a spite make. From its awful cover art to Is That Enough? and other raw lyrics it's one of music's greatest FU's. The music though, is great.
4
Apr 02 2024
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Queen Of Denmark
John Grant
This is a good album, and each individual song is fine. Possibly many are a four (Sigourney Weaver for example). But at over an hour it's much too long and suffers from the chocolate box effect: after twelve of such rich musical fare the delight has diminished somewhat through sheer repetition.
3
Apr 03 2024
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The Sensual World
Kate Bush
I would place this exactly midpoint on the Bush discography: below Hounds of Love, Aerial, Never for Ever and The Dreaming. Equal with Red Shoes, and above Kick Inside, Lionheart and 50 Words for Snow. One of those disconcerting albums when side 2 is much better than side 1, and nothing else to say about what has to be a four. Hope the others are on the list. Not that I need to listen to them.
4
Apr 04 2024
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Dirt
Alice In Chains
Plus point: they can touch a tune. Minus points: everything else and the length of the album. I guess CD was still a shiny new format in the nineties. Nevermind is 49 minutes. This is 57 but feels soo much longer.
2
Apr 05 2024
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Rock Bottom
Robert Wyatt
What is it? Jazz? Folk? Singer-songwriter? I have decided that I can't really get with John Martyn, but Robert Wyatt just has something that means he is always listenable. If you like you like.
3
Apr 08 2024
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Electric
The Cult
This has not aged well. Love Removal Machine still kicks something, but the rest of the album is a wasteland of oversized riffs and ridiculous rock posturing. They would keep all that in the next album and add a chunk of tune. There are some missing links that should stay forever missing and the one between The Doors and Aerosmith is clearly one. Most of its two for LRR. No album with a cover of Born to Be Wild this bad and inessential can get more.
2
Apr 09 2024
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...Baby One More Time
Britney Spears
Hey Max it's great we're halfway through the album. If we keep up the standards of the first half of the album this is going to be a stone classic album. Can't wait to hear the tracks for the second side.
Er yeah Britney about that. I generally find that four or five bangers upfront plus an equal amount of B-grade filler that no-one will listen to more than once is the way to go here. It's worked for Madge for twenty years.
You the man Max.
3
Apr 10 2024
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Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor
Lupe Fiasco
What! 16 tracks! 70 minutes. Another over over long rap album to make your heart sink. More on that later, but this is one of the best rap albums this middle aged white guy has head in the last twenty years. Mr Fiasco has an engaging and open 'flow' with plenty of wit and intelligence in the bars. The samples are on the whole melodic, well-chosen and I would say make this a pretty good pop album. Now, back to that length. I see a gap in the market for 'Record Reducers' who will provide you with an authoritative 12-track, 45 minute cut of any album that bloats. This is more a case of just too much of a good thing rather than sprawl, and had it clocked in at the 45 min mark may well have been 5 stars. Legend has it CD length was fixed by Phillips to get a complete version of Beethoven's 9th on there. How they wish now they'd gone with the Ramones first album instead.
4
Apr 11 2024
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90
808 State
When this was made the dance revolution that would define the nineties (far bigger than grunge or Britpop, a proper cultural revolution) was a live events and singles affair. DJ Mix albums were recorded onto dodgy cassettes and sold at Camden Market. Two years before the first Prodigy album, four years before 'dance bands' like the Chemicals, Leftfield and Underworld would start to crank out proper dance albums this feels like a long EP. Absolutely of its time, and signposting the way ahead to greater glories, there's nothing here to equal the timelessness of Pacific State but its aged pretty well.
3
Apr 12 2024
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xx
The xx
This is one of those rare albums that gets better the longer it plays. Intro and VCR are the weakest songs, and at that point you might be wondering what all the fuss was about. By the mid-point of the album why it's so special is abundantly clear. Very few artists use space in such a way, and by letting each element (beats, bass, guitar and vocals primarily) stand out in crystal clarity each reinforces the others. Up there with the classic debuts of all time.
5
Apr 13 2024
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The Trinity Session
Cowboy Junkies
Vocals five, song choices four, instruments three. Lovely to listen to.
3
Apr 14 2024
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Blood And Chocolate
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
A pleasant surprise. Not Imperial Elvis (first six albums, a proper golden run, not counting inessential Almost Blue) but a first-rate second tier Elvis. Tails off a bit towards the end and EC is not a six-minute man, but really this is a strong three stars.
3
Apr 15 2024
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Butterfly
Mariah Carey
Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Absolutely nothing to distinguish it from the tsunami of pop R and B in the nineties/early noughties than her voice. Which is a taste I have yet to acquire.
1
Apr 17 2024
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GI
Germs
Yes listenable classic punk. Not a lot else to say, didn't outstay its welcome but not one I'm likely to revisit.
3
Apr 18 2024
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Smile
Brian Wilson
I can see all the fuss, a vintage era Beach Boys album in all but name decades afterwards. Beautiful playing and singing. But not my cup of tea. There is some trail off by the end (Vegetables) as well. 2.5 but will round up to 3.
3
Apr 19 2024
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(Pronounced 'Leh-'Nérd 'Skin-'Nérd)
Lynyrd Skynyrd
I had a battered copy of One More From The Road which I played to death decades before I heard their studio albums. And it is to that album that I would direct anyone to hear definitive versions of four tracks on this album, not least Freebird. The other tracks are fine back-up but as Motorhead (No Sleep..) and Lizzy (Live and Dangerous), UFO (Strangers...) the live album contains the versions that leap out of the speakers.
4
Apr 20 2024
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Black Monk Time
The Monks
The second-hardest album to find that I don't own. A 45-minute Youtube rip was the only thing I could find. This is pretty fine in a Seeds/Electric Prunes/Moby Grape/13thfloor Elevators beat going to psychedelia moment. But it also has many low points (Cuckoo) and thus can not be more than 3 stars. Great story behind the band.
3
Apr 21 2024
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You've Come a Long Way Baby
Fatboy Slim
There's inescapable and then there's Right Here Right Now. Equally at home across sports footage, film montages, DIY presenters walking into homes, probably even local news about roadworks, it has become shorthand for 'this is exciting, honest'. It and Praise You and Rockefeller Skank are killer singles. The rest of the album is, well could work in a club mix.
3
Apr 22 2024
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Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Somewhat odd choice, as its her second album that has the only tracks the wider public will remember (Luka and Tom's Diner). So is Solitude Standing also on this list, as 2 Suzanne Vega seems very generous. Anyway. Fey is a very underused word but absolutely describes Vega's delicate, at times whimsical vibe. Marlene on the Wall is a top track, and the album a good listen. Not so sure about the The Queen and the Soldier which is a valiant attempt to update the seventies singer-songwriter love for getting medieval on yo song (thinking Mr Stevens and his Lady D'Arbanville or Lindisfarne's Lady Eleanor. Not mentioning the full Rick Wakeman. So at times four, but overlal three.
3
Apr 23 2024
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The Band
The Band
Pretty safe five stars here.
5
Apr 24 2024
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The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
David Bowie
Albums by Bowie that would need a comment because they are less than five stars and there are things to say about them: Space Odyssey, Man Who Sold The World, Pinups, Young Americans, everything from Lodger onwards. This is not one of those albums.
5
Apr 25 2024
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Arrival
ABBA
There's the 'four singles/8 b-grade album fillers' pop model beloved of Madonna, Britney et al and then there's this. What to make of the fact that the title track has been streamed 4 million times while Dancing Queen has 1.5 billion. What you can make is of course that some tracks are very very good, exceptional, and others not so much - the singles. You could give it 8/5 for the singles. Maybe even 35/5. But let's be clear as an album, unlike say Pulp's Different Class, you take out the big singles and there's being generous a 3/5 album. So it has to be a 4 for me Clive.
4
Apr 26 2024
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Odessa
Bee Gees
Not buying the hipster narrative that their disco heyday was a sellout, and that the late sixties stuff is some kind of Nuggets buried treasure. This is at times embarrassing and pretentious - if you're names not Eurovision or the Champions League then better not be writing a 'National Anthem for All Nations'. Hoping the Sat Night Fever soundtrack be on this list, but only 250 left to go and its not so far.
1
Apr 27 2024
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Maverick A Strike
Finley Quaye
so insubstantial it needs pinning down before it floats away. Not actually offensive, but so inoffensive it kind of comes out the other side and is offensive again.
2
Apr 28 2024
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A Date With The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers
Its short, its sweet but a little sleepy and clean-cut for modern ears. There's a lot of album cuts here to back up two to three classics. A three out of respect to the quality rather than personal taste.
3
Apr 29 2024
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Low
David Bowie
Albums by Bowie that would need a comment because they are less than five stars and there are things to say about them: Space Odyssey, Man Who Sold The World, Pinups, Young Americans, everything from Lodger onwards. This is not one of those albums.
5
Apr 30 2024
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Kenya
Machito
Frantic but fun, and absolutely the soundtrack to some sixties spy caper movie with exotic locales, femmes fatales and - ideally - Cary Grant in a great suit.
3
May 01 2024
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Off The Wall
Michael Jackson
Five stars for side one, 1 star for the ulta-treacly She's Out of My Life. 3 for the rest of side 2. Round it up to 3.6. 4 for featuring the talents of Cleethorpes finest, Rod Temperton.
4
May 02 2024
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Tarkus
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
This was a surprise in that it was not toe-curlingly awful. In fact pretty listenable to, in that there were tunes and the playing was pretty good. Nothing like the stuff I actually like, and the throwaway rock and roll number at the end is quintessentially inessential. 3 stars.
3
May 03 2024
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Heroes to Zeros
The Beta Band
Without the shock of the new of the 3 EPs, still a great offbeat listen. Steve Mason is a genuine one off and needs to be cherished.
4
May 04 2024
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You Want It Darker
Leonard Cohen
Len was into Late Style early, so at the very end this is unsurprisingly an impossibly severe exercise. The voice is reduced to a whispery speech-song, the instruments are hushed and the actual tunes evaporate almost as they are played. Expertly done, but rather a tough listen.
3
May 05 2024
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Logical Progression
LTJ Bukem
Yes it's a compilation, but it's head and shoulders above the other two big D and B albums of the mid-nineties, New Forms and Timeless. Rather than the 'biscuit tins falling down the stairs' vibe and shout-out MC's, this has ambient keyboard washes and jazzy rhythms. Incredibly influential, just listen to Demon's Theme, Music and Horizons which are three of his very best. His club mixes (the Mixmag one is great) are harder and my ears bled when I finally got to hear him dj last year. As many people have said on here, some of the best working music ever made. For me also, put this on when driving at night in the city and you have the perfect visuals and music. Even better if there's light rain.
5
May 06 2024
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Welcome to the Afterfuture
Mike Ladd
Ok, a little bit like a DJ Shadow album with rapping over the top. Not going to return but a pretty good listen.
3
May 07 2024
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A Night At The Opera
Queen
I am going to pretend that Bohemian Rhapsody is not on this album. On that basis: it's their most winning combination of end-of-the-pier show campery (Seaside Rendezvous is literally this) and pop-rock chops. You're My Best Friend is a fine lead single, The Prophet Song the epic prog-rock piece, and a clutch of perfectly ok album tracks. On that basis 3 stars. Can't wait for the album with Bo Rap on as that's get a COMPLETE shoe-ing.
3
May 08 2024
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The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Pink Floyd
This is a great rag-bag of folk, psychedelia and pop. Very different from the Waters Floyd, with Sid's whimsey well to the form - gnomes and bicycles etc.
4
May 09 2024
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Raising Hell
Run-D.M.C.
One of the first hip-hop groups to really integrate rock guitar with beats and rhymes - setting the template definitively with Walk This Way. Four monster tracks to start, and though the second side can't help but feel a bit of a let down after that this is a straight 4 all the way.
4
May 10 2024
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With The Beatles
Beatles
An enjoyable listen but really musically its not pulling up any trees nowadays.
3
May 12 2024
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White Light / White Heat
The Velvet Underground
Not quite the lightning bolt of the first album, and definitely their least accessible album. Still sounding like no-one else and the definition of anti-commercial. Were they the first band to make a career out of refusing to be in any way careerist?
4
May 13 2024
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You Are The Quarry
Morrissey
You can build an entire career on whining, just think of The Cure. So on a 'comeback' album it's strangely comforting to see his complaint button is practically falling off from over-use. Americans, the British state, Jesus, London, other people in general, people who say they understand him, lesbians, people he's jettisoned...just as well as while the lyrics are exhausting his/colleagues melodic gifts are in fine fettle. The first half of this album is one the strongest of his solo career. Now, he's still a massive racist and bellend and nothing here in any way contradicts this.
4
May 14 2024
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16 Lovers Lane
The Go-Betweens
A completely singular act, who along with The Triffids and the Birthday Party defined the post-punk Australian sound that made it to the UK. Two great songwriters, and on this album at least half of it is top-tier Go-Betweens which is high praise indeed. four point five.
4
May 16 2024
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Hypnotised
The Undertones
Undertones acing the difficult second album effortlessly. A few more sixties influences, an inessential cover and the snap and bite of a top guitar band. The songwriting stands up really well, it is difficult to make songs that sound so simple, yet so complete. 4.25.
4
May 21 2024
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Talking Timbuktu
Ali Farka Touré
Great background working music, but nothing that in my case is going to lift it above a three stars. Nothing against the music or the playing which are both great, just personal taste.
3
May 22 2024
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Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
50 Cent
I can see why this sold a bajillion copies. Dre in pop mode, and 50 cent is a surprisingly mellow and tuneful rapper bearing in mind his rep. However it's way too long (a punchy 40-minute 12-tracker once more the ask to raise it by a star), monotonous and half dollar does not have much to say lyrically or interesting ways of seeing it. Prosaic.
2
May 23 2024
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Brothers
The Black Keys
Tight, tuneful and not a lot more to say. Do they have anything massively original to say in terms of music or lyrics. Not sure they have, but they wear their influences well.
4
May 24 2024
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The Libertines
The Libertines
Basically The Clash for Gen X, there's so much to dislike - their 'mythology', Pete's entire career etc etc but they do know their way around a tune and this is a good listen.
3
May 25 2024
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The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
Joni Mitchell
Some albums are five stars because you get everything the artist has to offer and its wonderful. Joni Mitchell, and in particular this album, gets five stars because every time I listen to it I discover new things, new moments of melody, playing or rhythmic twists that it seems I've never noticed before. The finest Joni 'band' album.
5
May 26 2024
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Paranoid
Black Sabbath
Quantum leap forward from the debut, which is saying something. Not a weak track on one of the greatest heavy metal albums of all time. if there's a weak link it's actually Ozzy as instrumentation is so fresh and complex the vocals can't help but come over as slightly simplistic, great frontman though he is. It works, as Rush do with Geddy. Quibbles, Five stars.
5
May 27 2024
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Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan
Imperial period Bob (Freewheelin' - Blonde on Blonde). One of the albums to counter the argument regarding lack of tunefulness. Awesome cat action on the cover. That is all.
5
May 28 2024
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Among The Living
Anthrax
Three stars for the best musical tribute to 2000AD and ol stony face himself. Two stars for the rest of the album which does at least frequently touch something like a tune despite being thrash through and through. So 2.5 and not feeling generous.
2
May 29 2024
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The United States Of America
The United States Of America
The word 'interesting' is the damning with faint praise applicable here. A bit Byrdsy a bit Bandy a bit Jefferson Airplany. Electronics are 'interesting' and three stars for an 'interesting' listen.
3
May 30 2024
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Deep Purple In Rock
Deep Purple
Child in Time and Speedway King are absolute bangers, but elsewhere it is fairly standard early seventies rock. Hold on though..Machine Head is coming. 3.5 really.
3
Jun 06 2024
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Vento De Maio
Elis Regina
Yes this is a surprisingly enjoyable listen in a genre I don't listen to and in a foreign language (to me). Beautiful singing and surprisingly contempory-feeling arrangements. Solid 3.5 really.
3
Jun 07 2024
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Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Red Hot Chili Peppers
I have always thought this album way too long, and in particular trailing off badly after Under The Bridge. You know this time round, listening in two separate sessions, the second half is pretty good too. I'm upgrading this to a four generously tho is prob a 3.75. Key to the RHCP's I've always thought is to think of them as a rock band. Funky they really aren't, the drumming is pretty square four to the floor most of the time, but that's ok.
4
Jun 08 2024
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Red Dirt Girl
Emmylou Harris
I can't believe it's not Lanois. Or Rubin. A mid/late career re-animation. Stately, sparse instrumention adding some gentle electronic textures to what's a stripped-back country setup. Lyrics absent of achey breaking and instead full of red dirt, brothers dying in the military, my childhood in the boonies and so on. Going light on the pedal steel and other arrangement cliches of the genre. The tempo is mostly mid, no Shania-type hoedowns, as befits a country matriarch. All told a pretty successful resurrection, if she needed resurrecting. 3.5 but there's a slight lack of variety - perhaps a cover of U2's One or a NIN classic would have sealed the deal of a 4.
3
Jun 09 2024
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Kala
M.I.A.
I want to like this, as a more abrasive Gorillaz, and there's a lot to admire. But it's hard work. Her voice is not that expressive, in a presumably deliberately monotone, and her DIY beats and samples don't often result in memorable moments. Having said all that, I may be too old to get it.
2
Jun 10 2024
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Stephen Stills
Stephen Stills
this guy is way over-represented, probably his third manifestation in this list. LTWYW is annoying, the rest of it nothing to write home about. Competent, listenable to but nothing to prompt a second listen.
2
Jun 11 2024
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The Modern Lovers
The Modern Lovers
I'm a bit of a sucker for Jonathan's 'aw shucks just turned up here at the studio from the middle of nowhere with a guitar after two days on a Greyhound bus vibe' tied to a sunnier version of the VU groove. This is pretty good summary of his style, not for everyone.
3
Jun 12 2024
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Here Come The Warm Jets
Brian Eno
Almost an outlier in his catalogue - a conventional 12-track rock album with plenty of singing. Plenty of Roxy vibes, along with the Velvets and a dose of his new chums Iggy and David. It's a fun listen all the way through, and the monster guitar riff on the title track comes out of nowhere. Four stars.
4
Jun 13 2024
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Crime Of The Century
Supertramp
If you combined the worst elements of twee 70s pop (think Gilbert O'Sullivan) and 70s prog then you'd get something like this. I will grudgingly admit that Goodbye Stranger (not on this album) is a tuune but this is a worst of both worlds.
2
Jun 14 2024
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Locust Abortion Technician
Butthole Surfers
I thought I had this on vinyl but it appears I have their next album, which has their titanic cover of Hurdy Gurdy Man on. This is all over the shop - and that's why it's a great listen. Chaotic energy.
3
Jun 15 2024
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Crocodiles
Echo And The Bunnymen
I am a fully signed up Bunnyhead (?) and this is as perfect a debut album as you could ask for. Ian Mcculloch is exactly who Jim Morrison might have been had he grown up in Liverpool in the late seventies, and one of music's best frontmen. De Freitas and Pattinson are a dream rhythm section, as 'angular' as other new wave bands but with a drive and melodic aspect others lacked. Will Sergeant created a guitar sound all of his own, enough said. Have I gone on about how unjust it is that U2 conquered the world while the Bunnymen, the finest of the post new-wave big 3 with them and Simple Minds, did not. It is unjust. The songs? Flawless apart from possibly Happy Death Men which does sound like something they knocked up in the studio in half an hour. 4.9999999. 'Heaven Up Here' is even better.
5
Jun 16 2024
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Sex Packets
Digital Underground
Well this is weird. Doowhatulike and Humpty Dance are bangers, but elsewhere it's a bit 80s cheesy, and the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff comparisons are not unwarranted. Never mind the bonus sci-fi concept suite about Jazz(y) mags of the future.
2
Jun 17 2024
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Infected
The The
Five stars straight through, and check out the 12" mix of Sweet Bird of Truth which is way superior to the album cut. Looking forward to Scraping Foetus off the Wheel appearing shortly on this list...
5
Jun 18 2024
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Coles Corner
Richard Hawley
Who knew we needed a deep baritone with a soulful northern voice, a penchant for sweeping strings and a sense of magnificent melancholy. Never used to better effect than on the title track and the Ocean, Hawley crafts a classic out of fifties crooner styles, Northern grit and lyrics that send him out into the rain one more time in search of love.
4
Jun 19 2024
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Hot Shots II
The Beta Band
Solid three for the Dry Rain hitmakers. Off-kilter rhythms and melodies from Steve and the boys, always a good listen without ever getting you out of your chair.
3
Jun 20 2024
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Goodbye And Hello
Tim Buckley
This is the second TB album on this list and this is two too many. A real struggle to get to the end. Smug 'sensitive' singer-songerwriter pap. If I could give 0 I would.
1
Jun 21 2024
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Trafalgar
Bee Gees
It's slightly better than Odessa, the last faux-history quasi concept album from the Bee Gees and is a single rather than double. But its very end of the sixties orchestral pop/rock and the songwriting is pretty thin.
2
Jun 22 2024
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#1 Record
Big Star
Yes the jangly guitars and harmonies are there, bridging the Byrds to REM, Teenage Fanclub etc - but there's also a glam rock touch that locates this in the early seventies. Not every track is flawless, but its heights are mighty indeed.
4
Jun 23 2024
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Haut de gamme / Koweït, rive gauche
Koffi Olomide
Mmm yes it chugs along pleasantly enough while working without every grabbing me, possibly because of the lyrics in French. At the edges some dated 80s synth textures, but on the whole a 3.
3
Jun 24 2024
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Os Mutantes
Os Mutantes
damn this is a fine discovery. Late sixties beat/psychedelia is not my comfort zone but this is a damn fine first date and thus four stars. Need to go and relisten definitely to see if it joins Iggy and a few others as albums I have bought after hearing them on this list.
4
Jun 25 2024
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Strange Cargo III
William Orbit
Solid three stars. It's best consumed as an ambient album rather than giving it your full attention, allowing the sounds to drip into your ear rather like...water on a vine leaf.
3
Jun 26 2024
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School's Out
Alice Cooper
Once you take this as musical theatre then it's wild style and genre swings are much easier to understand. Four stars for the bangers, three for the rest. On the whole a three.
3
Jun 27 2024
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Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
The first half-a-dozen tracks are an incendiary five stars. Tension and amazement dip somewhat on the back nine of what is ANOTHER overlong nineties rap album but it's an amazing debut full of lines that will stay in your head for days.
4
Jun 28 2024
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Is This It
The Strokes
Sometimes white bread - properly baked, without a load of additives - is what hits the spot rather than all the sourdoughs and rye in the world. And sometimes a bunch of lads playing catchy indie guitar tracks...they didn't take over the world, but they did make one great album and Is This It? It is.
4
Jun 29 2024
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The Dreaming
Kate Bush
Long seen as the runt in the KB catalogue, this album is undergoing a serious re-appraisal and quite rightly. I am a lifelong Kate head so bearing that in mind.... My current view on this album is that it suffers from its place in the catalogue, after Never For Ever birthed 3 monster hit singles (UK) and was her first No 1 album. After three years she returns with an almost entirely synth-led and sample-heavy album with no obvious hit singles. Failure. but what's next? What almost all agree is her crowning achievement, Hounds of Love. Listen to this album as a dry run at HOL, a first stab, and it makes a lot more sense. Tracks 1-5 are the wonky synthpop she would perfect an album later. The second side, though not a suite, explores the varied instrumentation and arrangements that she'd nail on Before the Dawn. This is not five stars, but it set her on a new course that would result in one of the greatest albums of the eighties. It couldn't have happened without this.
4
Jul 02 2024
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Face to Face
The Kinks
Set aside Sunny Afternoon and it's a lovely summary of when the beat boom was just going a little psychedelic, which in the Kinks Kase was bringing their inner music hall and its tradition of social observation and humour into the mix. Solid 3.5.
3
Jul 03 2024
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Idlewild
Everything But The Girl
I do like EBTG but after the first two albums and Walking Wounded it's individual tracks rather than albums. This is one of those albums from the late 80s that feels like everyone is under pressure from the record company to come up with hits...so there's a cover. 2.3.
2
Jul 04 2024
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Music in Exile
Songhoy Blues
Very pleasant listen, goes well with work (as does a lot of stuff in another language than English as you're not decoding the lyrics).
3
Jul 05 2024
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Meat Is Murder
The Smiths
Five stars. The Smiths are on of those groups where everytime you listen to their albums your favourite changes. Not quite perfect, the title track is a little self-indulgent, but elsewhere peerless.
5
Jul 06 2024
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Django Django
Django Django
It's a good listen, with a nagging rhythm that's quite distinct. What I would term an 'emusic classic' - when I had a sweet sweet account that would let me download 75 mp3s a month for not very much money from indie labels. But is it one of the 1000 best albums ever made? probs no. Emusic staggers on like a zombie, I left 5 years ago and some of the albums they had then are still on their homepage. Anyone still using it?
3
Jul 09 2024
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Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Dead Kennedys
The true test of a five star album passed with flying colours: take out the singles and it is still great. Here California, Cambodia and Kill the Poor subtracted and still five stars. I might say 4.99 as Viva Las Vegas rather detracts from the ferocious purity of their debut. Relistening this time, can hear Dick Dale and surf sounds, fifties rock and roll and lots more - in contrast to say Black Flag who are much more monochrome (hah!).
5
Jul 10 2024
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Clandestino
Manu Chao
Short and ridiculously catchy this is a great listen from genres far from my comfort zone. Strong 3, maybe 3.5 but rounding down.
3
Jul 11 2024
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The Bones Of What You Believe
CHVRCHES
Synth-pop bangers ahead, I have to admit to loving this band slightly more then their absolute musical quality might suggest. A sucker for a well-enunciated Scottish accent perhaps. While never deviating from the template set out here, their subsequent albums reveal this to be a debut with lots to headroom for them to expand into. Also great live. Four stars.
4
Jul 12 2024
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Movies
Holger Czukay
great background working, and sure that Eno must have been listening to this. Great touches of quirkiness and humour in the samples. Good choice for this list.
3
Jul 13 2024
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John Prine
John Prine
A social realist Dylan you say? With a better singing voice, ability to craft a song that sounds new and old at the same time. Slight tinges of C and W, slightly more straightforward storytelling lyrics and less stream of consciousness. Sounds like three stars to me.
3
Jul 14 2024
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Whatever
Aimee Mann
Ok if you are not already familiar with Aimee Mann I am going to recommend that you absolutely don't listen to this first. Listen to the Magnolia soundtrack which has 8 of her A-star songs (plus a great cover). That will key you into her subtle, ironic downbeat world far more quickly. Then come back to this which is an excellent album. Yes it's a nineties female singer-songwriter and at times the production, playing and arrangements are of that time. But her lyrics, her delivery, her vibe, her songwriting are all absolutely excellent here as on this and next four or five albums. she is one of music's best kept secrets.
5
Jul 17 2024
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Frampton Comes Alive
Peter Frampton
It's a 2.5 really. Soft rock from the seventies, immaculately played and in the case of Show Me and Baby I Love allied to diamond-hard songs. Elsewhere it can drift badly IMHO and so it's rounded down to a two. - a criminal cover of Jumpin Jack Flash and the self-indulgence encore vibes of the last track precluding any higher score.
2
Jul 18 2024
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Talking Heads 77
Talking Heads
Until True Stories I would say there's an argument for saying TH had the greatest ever run of albums from debut - six studio, one live - all five stars. Nobody's going to make a case for Please Please or The Rolling stones as five star albums, if anyone can find a better run of six I'll be keen to hear. Yes this is 5 stars, not a bad track on it.
5
Jul 19 2024
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Power In Numbers
Jurassic 5
Yes I am liking this a lot, and probably need to replay. On the cusp of joining the very few CDs I've bought as a result of this exercise - 2 exactly, one Iggy Pop, one Pavement. Solid 4 stars.
4
Jul 20 2024
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Boy In Da Corner
Dizzee Rascal
How times change. What appeared confrontational and scary twenty years later is a hoot and a straightforward listen. Solid three stars, though three tracks too long.
3
Jul 21 2024
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Wild Wood
Paul Weller
This is one of the first CDs I bought - the very first a 10,000 maniacs cd - had still pictures encoded for you to watch on a computer while you played the CD. this has aged much better - the most consistent songwriting of his now very long solo career, and brilliant playing and production. Warmth is not always a word you associate with the Modfather, but this has it in spades. Five stars.
5
Jul 22 2024
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The Colour Of Spring
Talk Talk
Ten albums ago on my list was The Dreaming, an eighties album that saw Kate Bush move on from the organic piano and rock band sound of her early albums to a sound dominated by synths and samples. This album sees Talk Talk go the other way - junking the synthpop of the first two albums for an analogue sound featuring organ, piano, harmonica, melodica and a choir. Like Bush Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene used the studio to get the sounds they could hear in their heads down on record, and this album is a perfect mid-point between their poppy roots and their studio tinkering of the last two albums. Everything's in balance - including 4 accessible singles, an epic closer and some more experimental album tracks. One of the all-time great headphone albums.
5
Jul 23 2024
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To Pimp A Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar
Are we nearly there yet? This album is so long I'm still not sure if I listened to it all, but it seemed varied, tuneful and with some great vocals. Three stars.
3
Jul 25 2024
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We're Only In It For The Money
The Mothers Of Invention
Imagine a sixties rap album where it's only skits. Crossed with Sgt Pepper. Immense fun to listen to, but not one that I need to go back to.
3
Jul 26 2024
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Ready To Die
The Notorious B.I.G.
I'm going to level with you here, I felt ready to review this once we'd reached Big Poppa - track 13 with 6 to go. This album is so long not because it's 1 hour 16 but because it's 1 hour 16 of tracks that feel the same. P-Funk samples so beloved of early 90s hip-hop (Dre, Cube etc), bars that feature gats, bitches and money with a side-order of respect to the players, disses to the fakers etc. It's not a bad album and can see why people rate it, but prime Cube for example I would say does this if not better than a bit more concisely. And the skits. Stop the skits.
3
Jul 27 2024
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Autobahn
Kraftwerk
Can't be five, but is 4.75 so is five. Nothing else to add.
5
Jul 28 2024
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Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Small Faces
A tale of two halves, the first side being a pretty good slice of 'beat group gone psychedelic' from 1968. The second side a pretty bad slice of 'psychedelic concept album from 1968'. The narration is super annoying, the story unintelligible. Did Pete Townsend listen to this and think 'No worries those waiting for a good concept album - I got this' First side 3, second side one.
2
Jul 29 2024
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Closer
Joy Division
5
Jul 30 2024
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D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
One of the founding texts of industrial, and on E Coli there's even a tune. An art project that relates to popular music of the time as the VU did in the sixties. And like them, not many people listened but many of those who did went onto form bands. Having said that, its anything but an easy listen. I did have a mate who lived in the mid-80s in Bethnal Green opposite a house he said was the P.Orridge base. 2.5 really, but can't round up for this one.
2
Aug 06 2024
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Doggystyle
Snoop Dogg
Another musical cut from the g-funk era of Parliament, Funkadelic and Mtume beats. But Snoop's drawl is distinctive enough to stand out from the crowd. Still too long tho. What rap album wasn't (3 feet high and rising is the answer).
3
Aug 07 2024
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Want One
Rufus Wainwright
Just about my first DNF. His voice, somewhere between Tom Waits and John Grant, rubs me up the wrong way. And this goes on and on and on. Sorry Rufus, sure you're a great guy and all.
1
Aug 08 2024
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Aftermath
The Rolling Stones
Some unmatched songs, some blues noodling - 11 minutes of Going Home of which 7 are surplus to requirements, and generally was this peak Mick misogyny? Mother's Little Helper, Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl are lyrically a trio of shame - though fantastic music. It's not that they need cancelling, but like a rapper endlessly talking about bitches and hos it does get wearying.
4
Aug 09 2024
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Oxygène
Jean-Michel Jarre
The OG analogue instrumental synth album - Kraftwerk's melancholy vocals were always an integral part of their sound. Pt 4 an absolute banger, though it's also clear how much of this came from experimental as well as disco. Essential. Also managed to create a sound that sounds as French as Kraftwerk are German: the word sophistication comes to mind here. As George Bush might say, the French just have no word for chic.
5
Aug 10 2024
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In A Silent Way
Miles Davis
In many ways my favourite Miles album, as it's difficult to actually 'listen' to Kind of Blue. Kind of worn out for me. Minimal enigmatic Miles, extra marks if possible for the transcendent guitar moments at the end of the second track.
5
Aug 14 2024
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Beggars Banquet
The Rolling Stones
Three monster tracks (first, last, Street Fighting Man) and gradually the Stones are evening out the quality to start their peerless run of late sixties/early seventies albums.
4
Aug 15 2024
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For Your Pleasure
Roxy Music
What an amazing album this is. As several reviews have pointed out, the three-way tussle between Ferry’s croon, Eno’s electronic textures and Manzanera’s rocking out gives RM a drive and tension most bands could only dream of. How much more interesting bands are (Beatles, Radiohead) when they’re not dominated by one musical genius with some backing musicians he/she are mates with, or four clones.
The first five six tracks are awe-inspiring. Do The Strand opens by repeating the Virginia Plain stop-start rhythm to equally great effect. Editions of You is a real band wig-out. Everything appears to lead up to album centrepiece In Every Dream Home A Heartache, the title a homage to British popart icon Richard Hamilton. Over a subdued cyclical melody Ferry describes how his dream home, with every modern convenience, is empty - until he found true love with a blow-up sex doll. I blew up your body, but you blew my mind. Cue instrumental freak-out. One of the greatest drops in modern music and a song that’s beautiful, sordid, political, funny and lots more all at once.
If the last couple of tracks can’t keep the impossibly high level up, they would be highlights of nearly every other Roxy album.
A lot of hand-wringing appears about how fake Roxy Music were. As if being ‘genuine’ was any guarantee of interesting music. In fact the later career of Roxy demonstrates this exactly. The more ‘genuine’ a MOR FM pop band they became on Flesh and Blood and Avalon, the less exciting they became. Ferry’s faux-crooner persona in the dinner jacket had become so all embracing he forgot it was just that, a persona.
Think about it this way: RM were genuinely futuristic in the early seventies. Not futuristic in the sense of singing about rocket ships, but in the sense of a sound that sounded like it came from the future. You can imagine Roxy performing in the space hotel in 2001 while Dave makes a video call home, or in some neon-soaked dive bar in Bladerunner.
5
Aug 16 2024
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The Hour Of Bewilderbeast
Badly Drawn Boy
Not sure it really is one of the 1001 best albums ever, but it definitely captures that flipside of club culture that was the acoustic chillouter - see also Beth Orton. The three singles are great tracks, there's always something interesting going on. Cardinal sin: wayyy too long. Pick your twelve best tracks BDB. 3.5 but definitely not a four.
3
Aug 17 2024
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Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Tortoise
First track is fantastic, the rest of the album can't quite hit those heights. Can see why this was mega-influential. Er...not a lot a else you can say. 3.5 really.
3
Aug 18 2024
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At Budokan
Cheap Trick
The second half of this album is pretty damn fine, the first half feels like...well a warm up for their best songs on the second half. So three feels about right. Great screaming from the Japanese fans.
3
Aug 21 2024
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Teenager Of The Year
Frank Black
Is this as good as the worst Pixies album (their last). Not really. Black and his songs are here but... Evidence: 1. 22 songs, even if many are under 3 mins, is just too many. 2. You don't realise how much variety Kim, Joey and David could wring out of their instruments until you hear a more limited band. 3. Not much in the way of backing vocals interplay. Three stars.
3
Aug 22 2024
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The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
What more do you want? Probably the album where it's clear Lou Reed is a quite exceptional songwriter. Candy Says, Pale Blue Eyes and Beginning To See The Light (a candidate for inventing the motorik beat) and evergreens you can imagine covered by anyone from Johnny Cash to The Clash. Every song is fully formed, and they benefit from more straightforward arrangements with more space to breather than on the first two albums. Yes The Murder Mystery is one of those long experimental tracks. But it all works, even and perhaps especially giving Mo Tucker the throwback closer After Hours.
5
Aug 23 2024
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The New Tango
Astor Piazzolla
yes it's fantastically played, and I've not listened to any other new tango, so horizons are broadened. But it is also very meandering - the jazz bit I guess. 2.5.
2
Aug 24 2024
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Hms Fable
Shack
Not every album needs to change the world, and if this album treads some familiar post-Beatles sounds then it's none the worse for it. The songwriting and arrangements are top notch, and while you might not be blown away Michael Head's gift for a nagging melody will start to worm its way into your skull. 3.5 really, but a very solid three stars.
3
Aug 25 2024
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Scream, Dracula, Scream
Rocket From The Crypt
The first four songs are impossibly good, where has this album been all my life? The next ten, while good, explain why I've been without it so far. 3.5 really, but for being a bit one-paced and having two songs too many rounded down.
3
Aug 29 2024
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Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Spirit
The 'people who also listened to' on Spotify for this is a roll-call of men with beards who I find absolutely no compulsion to discover. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Vanilla Fudge, Moby Grape, Savoy Brown, Humble Pie....having said that this is an easy early seventies listen with lots of variety and usually a decent tune. On the early seventies note I've just rewatatched Almost Famous for the third time and absolutely this band sound like they could be Stillwater.
3
Aug 30 2024
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It's Too Late to Stop Now
Van Morrison
The first half of this album I was not really there for the view that this is an exceptional live album with version of his songs that are significantly superior to the studio versions. Also, not there so much for R and B Van (ie Ray Charles) with the plethora of covers scattered through the first half. However it picks up significantly with the stunning take on St Domics Preview and from there on in the hype is justified.
4
Aug 31 2024
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All Hail the Queen
Queen Latifah
This is like 3 Feet High and People's Instinctive...but with all the wit and invention sucked out and replaced by one-note samples and raps about one topic (me). Yes great that she was a successful female rapper, but being significant and making great music are not the same thing. And soooo long.
2
Sep 01 2024
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The Modern Dance
Pere Ubu
Utterly unlike anything else, the first side is a blast of new wave that is still, bearing in mind their forbidding reputation, 100% accessible. The second side is more of their arty stuff culminating in David Lynchian (Thomas' soul brother) Sentimental Journey. Fabulous cover as well.
4
Sep 02 2024
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Sincere
Mj Cole
If you let this wash over you, then it's ok pop radio for background working. Vocals are melodic and the beats are nothing too severe. Having said that it's absolutely not one of the 1000 albums every made. From that year's Mercury Prize we could have had Lost Souls by Doves (epic northern melancholia), the second leftfield album (for the 'Guiness ad' track alone), Death in Vegas' Contino Session (dirty beats) or Nitin Sawnhey Beyond Skin (genuinely innovative).
2
Sep 03 2024
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Tuesday Night Music Club
Sheryl Crow
One of my favourite musical arguements is that U2 had the career that Echo and the Bunnymen should have had. So here then, Sheryl Crow has had the career and sales Aimee Mann should have had. Other than that I can't find much to say about this.
2
Sep 04 2024
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Copper Blue
Sugar
One of Husker Du's great failings, particularly in the last two albums, was the awful production. No bass and biscuit tin drums. Here that is rectified in 12 short sharp Bob Mould tracks expertly produced and played. Different from Husker Du - no Grant Hart, but one of my favourite albums in his canon. Sounds like he went straight from Warehouse.. to this, but he snuck in two solo albums first. Wish I'd have seen either the Du or Sugar, one of my biggest live gaps.
4
Sep 05 2024
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Step In The Arena
Gang Starr
Lots of golden age hip-hop on here and this is a great listen, if not containing their best ever track Jazz Thing. Like TTQuest their beats are relaxed, but here with a slightly fiercer and less playful rap style. But it's a very convincing listen.
4
Sep 06 2024
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Pretzel Logic
Steely Dan
An ongoing debate with myself is which band has the most perfect catalogue in music. Minimum five albums. Talking Heads were in there, but True Stories I feel increasingly is a real step down. The Pixies first five are a contender. So, if like the Pixies we are just going on first runs and regarding comebacks after a long layoff as inadmissable, the Dan are up there with the Pixies and Roxy Music. This, like all 7 - 7! - from their first run, is pretty flawless.
5
Sep 07 2024
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Tres Hombres
ZZ Top
Early mid-period ZZ - some fine songs, and one of those bands who are loose and tight at the same time. If this one is in the list then Deguello and El Loco better be too.
4
Sep 08 2024
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Destroyer
KISS
Very rarely does the word 'lame' apply to an album on this list. It does here. While I can get that their cartoon characters, merchandising and onstage antics are all not for me, but understandable, what is completely unforgivable here is the almost complete lack of ROCK. These tracks are weedy, puny and devoid of almost everything that their image says they will be. Makes me realise that although I dislike almost everything about Meatloaf, at least his music cashed some of the cheques his image wrote. The sound of uncashed cheques here is deafening. I mean, Beth, what gives men? Destroyers of worlds. Hah Destroyers of hankies more like.
1
Sep 13 2024
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Ghosteen
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Great art made from awful circumstances. At times so open it's a difficult listen. Not much more it feels even appropriate to say, but joins Black Star and other albums where the context is inescapable.
5
Sep 14 2024
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Doolittle
Pixies
The finest album by the best band of the late eighties. If only Black Francis had been a hottie, they'd have absolutely cleaned up instead of being the most influential band of their era instead.
5
Sep 15 2024
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Talk Talk Talk
The Psychedelic Furs
Things moved quickly in the early eighties, and in the space of three albums the Furs went from abrasive new-wave squonkers filtering the Berlin Bowie of Warszawa and Neukoln through punk, to sleek MTV pop-rockers produced by Todd Rundgren. This is the mid-point - with tracks like Into you Like a Train harking back, Pretty In Pink looking forwards. It's not my favourite Furs album, but it's a very solid four stars.
4
Sep 16 2024
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The Message
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
an album of two halves here Clive. On the one hand some founding rap beats (Message, Nasty, Fresh and electro banger Scorpio); on the other some lame r and b/soul - the rest. So three it is.
3
Sep 17 2024
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Figure 8
Elliott Smith
As someone who grew up on a post-punk diet of The Smiths, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen etc. the miserabilism of this record doesn't piss me off the way it seems to do a lot of reviewers. Each song is well played and arranged, and the overall Beatles vibe judgement is not unfair. Not sure at the heart of it there's anything massively original to hear, though it's a very pleasant listen. 3 stars.
3
Sep 18 2024
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Tom Tom Club
Tom Tom Club
A great compilation to be had from 'new wave rappers' featuring Blondie, Waitresses, Malcolm Mclaren...and of course this lot. Very solid album and no problem with four stars here.
4
Sep 19 2024
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Back to Basics
Christina Aguilera
Side 1 is listenable if forgettable r and p pop from the noughties, churned out by Christina, Britney and many others. Side 2 though. The lady is not a vamp. This is ersatz vocal jazz of the worst kind. Think Madonna's Dick Tracey soundtrack as bad as that. DNF more than 30 secs of each track.
1
Sep 20 2024
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Honky Tonk Heroes
Waylon Jennings
So straight up country you have to respect it. Not my music at all.
2
Sep 21 2024
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Swordfishtrombones
Tom Waits
Surprisingly listenable from the old groaner - and the third album of his on here which feels at least two too many. But I'm never going to go back to it, perhaps only the beautiful last trick on which Tom does not appear. Also he does a kind of Tom Waits version of rap skits here.
2
Sep 28 2024
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Disintegration
The Cure
One of the great one-paced albums of all time. Some are ever so slightly upbeat, some even slower than seems possible, but they all flow in the same tempo like some great goth rive. They're all fabulously epic, stuffed full of melody and beautifully played. Five stars.
5
Sep 29 2024
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Fisherman's Blues
The Waterboys
This has to be in that quirky position of an album that I know backwards but don't own. Quite brilliant, and aged far better than their 'Big Music' era IMHO. On the relisten standout tracks are Strange Boat and The Stolen Child, When Ye Go Away joining the title track and Bang On The Ear.
5
Sep 30 2024
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Dog Man Star
Suede
The sound of being turned up to eleven, the sound of a band tearing itself apart, the sound of...pretty much everything from the kitchen sink arrangements, OTT Brett vocals, extended run times. But at the heart is some solid gold songwriting. After this flirt with extinction Suede would regroup sans Bernard, and while they'd make more fine albums never again would they sound so dangerous.
4
Oct 02 2024
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All Hope Is Gone
Slipknot
Ok it has some semblence of tune, but it's really blast beats shredding and throaty howl vocals. Sure they're great live. 1.25
1
Oct 03 2024
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Bitte Orca
Dirty Projectors
The very definition of trying to hard. I did not bitte on this one at all, bitte but no bitte.
2
Oct 04 2024
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More Specials
The Specials
In some music you can here the work, the sweat that goes into making it. Rush would be an example. More Specials is an album where the music flows effortlessly, ever changing (unlike Do Nothing) and evolving. As off the cuff as prime Jack Nicholson. Yes there are nods to film music and easy listening from Dammers, but at heart it's as rocksteady as the debut. And as flawless.
5
Oct 15 2024
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We Are Family
Sister Sledge
Six things about this album and why it’s a five.
Absolute disco bangers: He’s The Greatest Dancer, Lost In Music, We are Family. Like any great pop album if you can marshal three classic singles (Madonna, Prince er and probably Jackson) then who cares what the rest of the album is like.
There is no point in discussing the rest of the album, which is mostly fine mid-tempo disco with one ballad, when these three demand your complete attention.
Each starts with a leisurely introduction. Exactly like electronic music would do just over a decade later, Chic knew how to build tension and release. So the first track starts with the bass, drums and Nile Rodger’s brilliant guitar hook, then we get the keyboards, then the strings. Only after a minute of establishing exactly how great this groove is do we get the vocals.
They start with the chorus. Worked for Motown, works here.
Only perhaps Prince and Bowie have enjoyed a purple patch as rich as Rodgers and Edwards did in 1979. As well as this complete classic - to which they gave three of their very best songs, they released Risque with Le Freak and gave Spacer to Sheila B Devotion. A year later they would reboot Diana Ross with I’m Coming Out, Debbie Harry’s first solo album a year later and the quite magnificent Why by Carly Simon a year later. A few years later there would be Let’s Dance and Like A Virgin… wow.
If you’ve only ever heard the single version of Lost In Music the full album track contains four minutes of quite exceptional gospel-inspired vocal shredding by Kathy Sledge.
And that’s why an album of eight tracks can be a five star album on only three tracks.
5
Oct 16 2024
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Stankonia
OutKast
I have gradually whittled my Outkast collection to just this album, jettisoning Idlewild and Speakerboxx/Love Below. This album is also too long, but it's a single and I can just about ride it through. If it has at least two four-star tracks, the endless skits and half-formed tracks drag it down to a three.
3
Oct 17 2024
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Something/Anything?
Todd Rundgren
A double album of seventies pop-rock is still just seventies pop-rock, in fact less so as there's more of it, if that makes sense.
2
Oct 18 2024
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Hard Again
Muddy Waters
Pretty pretty amazing. Yes it's one note, but what a note. Great production. A Rick Rubin album twenty years before such a thing was a thing.
4
Oct 19 2024
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Dub Housing
Pere Ubu
Dave its Dave Lynch here. Been thinking that those new wave bangers from the first album are a bit superfluous. I really liked the crazy soundtrack stuff that sounds like it should be in one of my movies. So make a whole album of that. Cheers other Dave, I think we will. Having said that it's still a good listen, if you lean into the craziness.
3
Oct 28 2024
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New Boots And Panties
Ian Dury
Utterly original, a slightly sleazy top jazz-funk-punk combo fronted by the East End casanova that was Drury. 8 gold-plated singles would be a better representation, but this is still compelling from start to finish.
4
Oct 30 2024
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Brilliant Corners
Thelonious Monk
I don't know about these jazz albums, they just appear to be ripped from another list with Kind of Blue and other usual suspects as 'tasteful jazz albums for the non-jazzer'. Why not some classical for the non-classical? Surely everyone has to hear Jacqueline Du Pre's Elgar Cello Concerto or quite frankly any version of Messiens Quartet for the End of Time? So rant over this is a great album, full of Monk's unique runs and chords, while perhaps being slightly mellower than some of his other stuff
4
Oct 31 2024
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The Genius Of Ray Charles
Ray Charles
This absolutely deserves its place on this list. The craft in the arrangements, playing and singing is fantastic. Standards is not usually my thing outside of jazz, but glad to hear this.
3
Nov 01 2024
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Buffalo Springfield Again
Buffalo Springfield
Nothing to add here other than a very solid four stars.
4
Nov 02 2024
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Music Has The Right To Children
Boards of Canada
I can see why BOC's sound is impenetrable to some. Wicker Man, the BBC Test card, library music, scary 70s childrens TV. Hauntology is a strain of British culture that's quite difficult to explain and how it has given rise in the Uk to a very specific form of dark electronica that BOC are probably the leading exponents of, along with Broadcast and the Ghost Box label. For me a strong four.
4
Nov 03 2024
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Only By The Night
Kings of Leon
The singles are so over-exposed that I felt like giving it a one, but on the whole it's a bland two. Coldplay can't fill every playlist.
2
Nov 04 2024
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Destroy Rock & Roll
Mylo
Great trashy fun. Cyndi Looper, David Booie, Bruce Springsteen et al. Not everything has to be deep and meaningful. Points for Judie Tzuke sample too. 3.5 really but not a four. Should it be on this list, possibly not and I am guessing there's some spitting the dummy over it. But I have to now listen to the Kings of Leon's second album on this list and that is two too many. So chill.
3
Nov 06 2024
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Duck Rock
Malcolm McLaren
You old faker Malcom. Again, plastic pop has been good pop ever since, well at least The Archies. Here the rascal rips off whole genres of black music from hip-hop to S Africa and sells it right back to us.
3
Nov 07 2024
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3 Feet High and Rising
De La Soul
Four or so awesome singles, but just a bit too much of the skitting guys for five starts.
4
Nov 08 2024
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Raw Like Sushi
Neneh Cherry
Whip smart a proper pop lp with four great singles including one for the ages in buffalo stance. Job absolutely done.
4
Nov 09 2024
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Moving Pictures
Rush
An album I can pretty well play from memory in my head. I feel they never pulled off a flawless album - the whole of 2112 side two is pretty weak, maybe this and Farewell to Kings gets closest. The drum solo in YYZ is inessential on record (and on tour when I saw them on this tour). It's 4.75 really as Tom Sawyer, Limelight and Camera Eye are timeless bangers.
5
Nov 10 2024
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This Nation’s Saving Grace
The Fall
It's madness to try and define the best ever Fall album, but this one would be in most people's top five. The balance between Brix-imported poppiness and earlier groove and noise is pretty perfect.
5
Nov 11 2024
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Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D'Arby
Terence Trent D'Arby
You know what this is still a pretty good pop-soul album. TTD delivers 4 monster singles familiar from bar one to anyone who listened to daytime radio one. His singing is great and even the 80s production isn’t too annoying.
3
Nov 14 2024
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They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Liars
Beefheart. The more out there Fall. Pere Ubu. A listening experience, but not one that necessarily needs repeating.
2
Nov 15 2024
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Dig Me Out
Sleater-Kinney
Chunky, great listen and probably 3.5 stars but it's enjoyable but not earth shaking so 3 it is.
3
Nov 24 2024
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Tapestry
Carole King
One of the easiest five stars. Flawless. Received wisdom is of course other people sang her songs better, and of course in the case of Aretha Franklin that would be true. But she's got a wonderful voice, a wistfulness and melancholy that's unique. And that fabled warm analogue early seventies studio sound is perhaps here only equalled by Steely Dan.
5
Nov 25 2024
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Abraxas
Santana
Always an enjoyable listen, and you'll recognise more than you think you will. A bit too noodly and the fact its two best known songs are covers perhaps precludes a four, but a definite 3.5. Album law is surely you're allowed one cover.
3
Nov 26 2024
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Fred Neil
Fred Neil
Leaving aside the absolute sixties hippie shitshow that is the last track, this is a fascinating curio. Dolphins and Everybody's Talking are top songs, and great to hear the originals. But not much call for a revisit. 3.5, rounded down to 3 for the raga-out.
3
Nov 28 2024
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Darkdancer
Les Rythmes Digitales
slighty cheesy, this feels like the soundtrack to a succession of energy drink ads and where is the Fatboy Slim remix. Not unfun in anyway, but neither has it lasted as well as Justice or Digitalism in the post-Daft Funk french dance world.
3
Nov 29 2024
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Music For The Jilted Generation
The Prodigy
Yes it's too long but everything about is great, from the killer singles to the ambient tracks to the great oil painting adorning the inner sleeve (Castlemorton crusty types outwit the plods en route to a humungus rave). Their most consistent album.
4
Dec 01 2024
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A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse
Faces
The Faces are such a 3/5 band. No-one ever needs to hear the big hits like Stay With Me ever again, and the essentially great easy living bottle of whiskey and a fag vibe is fairly evenly spread over everything else. 35 mins though is about right.
3