134
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3.2
Average Rating
12%
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955 albums remaining
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1990s
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Metal
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8
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3
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You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Metal | 5 | 2.46 | +2.54 |
| Paris 1919 | 5 | 2.95 | +2.05 |
| On The Beach | 5 | 3.47 | +1.53 |
| Now I Got Worry | 4 | 2.52 | +1.48 |
| The Velvet Underground & Nico | 5 | 3.62 | +1.38 |
| Nixon | 4 | 2.75 | +1.25 |
| Black Sabbath | 5 | 3.83 | +1.17 |
| Broken English | 4 | 2.88 | +1.12 |
| Gentlemen | 4 | 2.9 | +1.1 |
| Who's Next | 5 | 3.91 | +1.09 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim | 1 | 3.26 | -2.26 |
| GREY Area | 1 | 3.24 | -2.24 |
| LP1 | 1 | 2.8 | -1.8 |
| Can't Buy A Thrill | 2 | 3.72 | -1.72 |
| Van Halen | 2 | 3.63 | -1.63 |
| The Wildest! | 2 | 3.54 | -1.54 |
| Surrealistic Pillow | 2 | 3.53 | -1.53 |
| Blue | 2 | 3.49 | -1.49 |
| Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers | 2 | 3.39 | -1.39 |
| Come Away With Me | 2 | 3.39 | -1.39 |
5-Star Albums (8)
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Popular Reviews
FKA twigs
1/5
Twigs apparently hates the term "alternative R&B", so let's be fair and not call this album that. Try "monumentally boring hipster bullshit" instead.
23 likes
Little Simz
1/5
The sole interesting thing about this album is the amount of actual live instrumention it employs instead of just sampling. Otherwise it can fuck off.
11 likes
Neil Young
5/5
The best sort of "lost classic", i.e. the one that actually lives up to the legend. Fantastic stuff. Neil keeping it off the market for so long only demonstrates how much of a dick he can be as a person whatever his musical gifts.
7 likes
The Clash
4/5
Was releasing a double album the most or least punk thing Joe and the boys could've done by 1979? Does it matter one way or the other? Could it have been cut down to a more potent single album? Probably. It's fantastic in any case, obviously.
7 likes
Steely Dan
2/5
Cursed by its monumentally hideous cover and the fact that it's a Steely Dan album. Two undeniably good singles and one other likeable song, but hell's teeth this is some smug shit.
3 likes
1-Star Albums (3)
All Ratings
Nirvana
4/5
I was the right age for this when it came out and I never felt even then that it "represented" me in any way, and I still don't understand how it became some sort of world-changer. Always thought the track sequencing was off, too. Nice to revisit occasionally, though.
Arctic Monkeys
4/5
Hadn't heard this before. They manage to do quite a lot in under three minutes that the songs running over three minutes somehow feel a lot longer than they are. Quite liked this.
Green Day
3/5
"Punk concept album" is a scary idea but they manage, pretty much, though *two* multi-part nine minute songs is kind of absurd. "Extraordinary Girl" is... reminiscent of Jellyfish's "King is Half Undressed", isn't it?
Johnny Cash
4/5
Fantastic, obviously. Think this might've been the first country album I listened to in full.
Bon Jovi
2/5
This album is considered a breakthrough for 80s hair metal. Having now actually heard it in full, I am even less convinced this is a good thing.
Pearl Jam
4/5
Nevermind's more stadium-friendly cousin in the grunge wars. Maybe holds up a bit better than that one? Listened to the Brendan O'Brien remix. Unsure if that makes the record sound more or less "90s" as a result. Had forgotten how "metal" the guitar work here is. "Master/Slave" is still an unnecessary indulgence.
The Stooges
3/5
About two-thirds of a fantastic record, but I suppose the fact that it was made at all is something. Another record where the track listing has always struck me as a bit off; Iggy's mix (at least in its more reasonable vinyl mastering) might be an improvement on the original in terms of consistency of sound.
Otis Redding
4/5
Super solid. Only thing that doesn't click for me is the BB King cover which seems misplaced for some reason.
Massive Attack
3/5
Good, but I've never really been able to get too enthused by this one. They definitely picked the best songs for single releases.
Solomon Burke
2/5
This did nothing much for me. The sort of thing where I can appreciate the artistry involved, but I find myself having nothing much to say about it one way or the other.
The Yardbirds
3/5
One of those bands by whom you really only need a good compilation rounding up all the singles, but if you want a "proper" album this is the one to get, I suppose. Recorded in under a week and sounds like it, but covers some interestingly diverse ground in just 32 minutes.
Blur
4/5
Blur finally react to rather than against American indie rock and move on from Britpop. Not all the experimenting works, but the result is still pretty great on the whole.
FKA twigs
1/5
Twigs apparently hates the term "alternative R&B", so let's be fair and not call this album that. Try "monumentally boring hipster bullshit" instead.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
Always thought B&S were a bit fey and lightweight back in the day (Murdoch's voice is not exactly a giant death metal baritone, is it?), though on listening to this album in full I find myself well disposed towards it. Maybe I've just aged into them or something. I don't know.
Neil Young
5/5
The best sort of "lost classic", i.e. the one that actually lives up to the legend. Fantastic stuff. Neil keeping it off the market for so long only demonstrates how much of a dick he can be as a person whatever his musical gifts.
The Avalanches
3/5
Never heard this in full before, though I evidently heard a lot of it on Triple J when it came out. It's good enough, I suppose, "Frontier Psychiatrist was a genius single, but it wears thin over a whole album. Something with an estimated 1000-3000 samples should be doing more with them, I feel.
Michael Jackson
3/5
Perfectly good pop/R&B/disco album, if very much of its time, that I wish I liked a bit better than I do. But Michael was undeniably respectable as the king of pop before he mutated into the king of WTF...
The Rolling Stones
4/5
Almost the dictionary definition of 70s classic rock, isn't it?
Marvin Gaye
3/5
On first listen I found this kind of boring, to be honest. It may benefit from repeat listens, though, like What's Going On did for me.
Mott The Hoople
2/5
Never heard a full Mott album before, in no great rush to hear another one.
Louis Prima
2/5
I do not care for vocal jazz or swing, so this is simply not to my taste at all (the only things I really liked were the instrumental tracks). I'm sure it's fine if you do like this sort of thing.
Talk Talk
3/5
I don't love this, but I'd much rather listen to this again than either of the albums that followed it.
Big Black
3/5
One of the more yikes-inducing albums on the list, I'm sure. I hope Steve Albini is confused by my having listened to as flac files taken from a vinyl edition.
Kraftwerk
4/5
Wasn't a big fan of this when I first heard it (I still think they peaked on the previous album) but I appreciate it more these days. Although, having heard it in German this time, I think it probably works better in English.
Green Day
4/5
Solid. I suspect they did pick the best tracks for single release (and what fine singles, too), and it tapers off a bit in the last third or so, but if you're going to do pop-punk this is how to do it. Not surprising it was such a hit.
Deee-Lite
2/5
Never had much use for this sort of thing at the time, don't have much use for it now, and this album didn't change my mind.
Leonard Cohen
3/5
Generally decent songs (maybe not "Jazz Police") offered up in a production that generally serves them poorly (especially "Jazz Police").
Miles Davis
5/5
Everyone's favourite jazz album, with good reason. Pretty much set my own tastes in jazz, such as they are.
Hanoi Rocks
3/5
I enjoyed this more than I feel I "should" do (or expected to, for that matter). I think I just admire the sheer unlikeliness of a Finnish band writing a song about Tooting Bec.
Jefferson Airplane
2/5
The Airplane never interested me as much as most of the other big 60s names. Sounds better in stereo, though.
Dr. John
3/5
An odd album even for that time. Not sure how much I actually like it as such, though. Good, but not one I'd return to often.
JAY Z
2/5
Wikipedia tells me this is considered one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever. God/dess help hip-hop if it is. Also, it more or less gave us Kanye West, which is another strike against it.
Ice T
3/5
Good grief but 72 minutes of this was WAY too much, though when it really hits it's good. Sampling Zeppelin and Sabbath on "Midnight" was particularly amusing.
Sinead O'Connor
4/5
The rest of the album does in fact compare (and quite favourably) to the hit single. Liked this.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
I was at a goth night once where the DJ played "Free Bird" because he needed to go for a piss.
PJ Harvey
3/5
"Dry" is about right. A bit scratchy too, perhaps. Good but I tend to admire it from a distance rather than really like it as such; I think better things lay ahead of her.
4/5
A friend whose tastes usually run more to prog and metal once said this was one of his favourite albums. I was so taken aback by what I felt was the utter unlikeliness of this that I had to listen to it immediately. He was right. This is about as good as this sort of thing gets.
Cocteau Twins
4/5
The album where they arguably became the "Cocteau Twins". They hate it. The disjunct between the general etheralness of the music and the solid crunch of the drum machine (did they feed that through gated reverb? It has the same sort of machine gun sound as The Church's "Seance" album) is fascinating.
Steely Dan
2/5
Cursed by its monumentally hideous cover and the fact that it's a Steely Dan album. Two undeniably good singles and one other likeable song, but hell's teeth this is some smug shit.
Bob Dylan
2/5
I haven't heard Dylan's 80s albums, but the fact that this was considered a comeback from those suggests to me how bad they were. Well enough produced, I suppose, but the songs are allowed to crap on unnecessarily (only two out of 11 songs run under five minutes), old Dylan has always sounded to me like a shitty parody of young Dylan, and the whole thing is 73 minutes of merciless self-indulgence. I finally abandoned it halfway through "Highlands".
Tim Buckley
3/5
Actually liked this more than I expected to. I'm not a big fan of what I've heard of his post-Goodbye & Hello stuff, but this is the first I've heard this album in full and sexy R&B Tim actually worked for me quite well.
The War On Drugs
3/5
Listening to this for a second time, I think I realised why I hadn't previously listened to this for a second time. Goddamn but these songs are just wiltingly long. I like the basic material they're made from—the tunes are good and I enjoy the crossover of 2010s indie with 80s classic rock—but they didn't need to be *quite* so much as they are...
Frank Ocean
2/5
Eh. Don't get what the fuss was about.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2/5
Well, it's an American rock album from 1976, isn't it? Not sure what else to say about it, other than its brevity (under 31 minutes) isn't really a virtue, cos several of the songs (particularly on side 1) tend to sound underdeveloped as if they're missing a verse or something (apparently "Breakdown" was edited to under three minutes from seven or eight). Better things were to come.
Lambchop
4/5
Hadn't heard this in over 20 years. I find myself rather better disposed towards it now somehow. "Grumpus" and "Up With People" are still my favourite tracks from it, but now we can also add "The Petrified Forest" which I'd entirely forgotten (how *could* I have forgotten that wild flanging?). Really not a fan of Kurt's falsetto, though...
The Who
5/5
Oh, that album cover's a pisser, isn't it? The album shouldn't work, being various bits pulled from the wreckage of the Lifehouse project (I've heard a reconstruction of that which is interesting) and an unrelated Entwistle song, but somehow it's one of the best albums ever made. Particularly brilliant beginning and ending, of course.
Pink Floyd
4/5
I can't help but feel that Roger Waters going to therapy would've been a lot cheaper (and less traumatic for the rest of the band and Bob Ezrin), but they needed a new album to help stave off bankruptcy after some bad financial decisions... so we got therapy on record instead. Finally moving from mere concept albums into proper rock opera, Waters is sometimes more strained as a vocalist than I remember him being, but the end result somehow (mostly) disguises the difficulty of the production and the cracks in the band. Nothing if not overcooked, but Gilmour's guitar work on "Comfortably Numb" just about excuses the album's oddities and flaws.
Also, frankly, "Another Brick pt. 2" is one of the earliest songs I can remember hearing around the time it came out (I recall my brother having the single), so I always have a certain affection for it because of that.
Tom Waits
3/5
I gather this is where Tom Waits started seriously going down the wilfully difficult path. I liked this, albeit at a bit of a distance, think it might require a few listens to sink in some more.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Genuinely not sure what to say about this. Again, it's one of those cases where I understand the intention and admire the artistry behind it, I appreciate that it's Willie doing exactly what he wanted in the face of record company opposition (not to mention the country music mainstream at large), but I'm not sure how much I like it as such. But it's one I'm sure I will come back to.
The Afghan Whigs
4/5
Four stars. I don't really know what to say about it, though, that hasn't already been said about how nasty it is (particularly by Greg Dulli); good thing the tunes are so good or else it might be a bit *too* bracing.
Carpenters
2/5
I enjoy how the 1001 Album algorithm decided I should listen to this after that Afghan Whigs album. I understand why they were so big in the early 70s, these songs have AM radio written all over them. I'm sure this is a perfectly well made example of the sort of thing that it is. And I do not care. It's nice. It's relentlessly nice. Only "Another Song" at the very end breaks the pattern and it's *still* reasonably nice. Even the jab at their old employer at Disneyland is nice. I've met croissants that were more substantial.
Hole
4/5
Had never heard this in full before now (though the singles, particularly "Violet", were on Triple J all the time), and I really should've done. I think it does run of steam a bit in the second half, but on the whole it's really good.
Björk
4/5
This was actually really interesting. I'm a bit surprised it's taken me nearly 30 years to listen to it in full for the first time, but so it did, and I really should've got to it sooner.
Christine and the Queens
3/5
Not exactly a mega-fan of what passes for contemporary R&B, but this is a pretty fair example of it. Actually liked this more than I thought I would.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Apparently more accurately but less snappily called Dusty in New York Redoing Vocals She Did in Memphis. It's good enough, obviously well made (I possibly prefer the mono singles mixes on the Mercury reissue), she's great irrespective of where she actually recorded it, and I just don't love it as much as most other people seem to do. Son of a Preacher Man is the obvious standout by virtue of not being or sounding like the professionally written pop songs most of the album was otherwise made of.
I can actually kind of understand why it didn't do great business in 1969, though it did have one major repercussion when, during production, Dusty found out her old bass player was in a new band, and suggested to the suits at Atlantic Records that they might want to sign them up. And so Dusty Springfield helped launch the career of a little mob called Led Zeppelin, of whom you may have heard...
Steely Dan
2/5
Actually almost rocks a bit at times. I prefer it to Can't Buy a Thrill (especially the way you can look at the album cover without having to regret that you have eyes), though I still don't care for it that much; the same sort of smugness permeates this album just like the first, and the line about "the Steely Dan t-shirt" in "Show Biz Kids" does have a certain acidity to it, but possibly not in the way Becker & Fagen intended...
Youssou N'Dour
3/5
"World music" is a dreadful term for various reasons, and it's also something that, frankly, I don't really have much experience with. As such I don't really know what I think about this cos I'm not really sure how to respond to it; I'm giving it three stars cos that seems fair, I did find it pleasing to listen to.
Minor Threat
4/5
Amazing how you can make an album under 22 minutes long and it still feels perfectly satisfying. Also, whether Ian Mackaye likes it or not, I do detect a hint of what would become emo here...
Talking Heads
3/5
Mixed bag of some of my favourite songs by them with a lot I don't particularly feel anything for. Definitely don't love this as much as some.
System Of A Down
4/5
This was pretty much as far as I went with nu-metal. I always thought they had something more going on than, say, Crazy Town or Papa Roach; revisiting it now reminded just how short most of these songs are, too, they did quite a lot in these short spaces. Gets a bit wearying at times, perhaps, but solid on the whole.
Nick Drake
3/5
I don't know who first came up with the line about death being a good career move, but Nick Drake is a good illustration of the principle; I'm not sure he would've had the later re-evaluation his work has enjoyed had he not checked out of existence in 1974. FLL is nice. I like it more these days than I did when I first heard it. I don't care about it particularly.
The Last Shadow Puppets
3/5
I liked this, though to be honest I'm not sure the orchestra really added that much to the songs. I have a feeling this one could grow on me with more listens.
Frank Sinatra
1/5
Tedium incarnate. The second side may have been better than the first but I'll never know cos I gave up before then.
Amy Winehouse
3/5
As unnecessary tragedies go, Amy Winehouse certainly was one. I like this but can't help but feel it was more of an indicator of even better things ahead. Better things we got cheated out of.
Joni Mitchell
2/5
No thanks. Not into the voice, bored by the songs and the overall sound struck me as kind of flat and lifeless.
David Bowie
4/5
Somewhat mixed bag featuring a bunch of songs that are among Bowie's best and a bunch that... aren't. Dana Gillespie did "Andy Warhol" better (perhaps unsurprising since he wrote it for her in the first place) and "Fill You Heart"... just... no. (I understand why he swapped out "Bombers", cos the latter is really not very good either, but that wasn't the thing to replace it with.) But look at this thing: Changes, Oh You Pretty Things, Life on Mars, Kooks, Queen Bitch, Bewlay Brothers... I have to give the album four stars cos the individual good things about it are *so* good even if the whole album is kind of second-tier. Just think: Ziggy was only six months away...
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
Bruce used to get "new Dylan" comparisons but I don't think Dylan was ever capable of this sort of grand romanticism. He also used to get doubters and cynics questioning him thanks to the record company overhyping him at the time (which he abhorred), but I think any doubts about whether or not he was for real should've been blown away by a cursory listen to the album; whatever you think of it, he *meant* this stuff. Maybe a bit too self-conscious in being big and widescreen, and "Jungleland" at the end does frankly get out of hand and overcooked, but on the whole hard to beat as an example of this sort of thing...
The White Stripes
4/5
Actually wound up liking this rather more than I expected to, given I wasn't a big fan of them at the time and "Seven Nation Army" is one of the most overplayed songs of the oughts. But, nearly 20 years later, I've finally heard the album in full, and I actually got into it. Much more fun than I thought it would be.
Magazine
3/5
I suspect Magazine are another one of those bands where a well-chosen best-of is all you really need as such, but still interesting to hear them at proper album-length.
Charles Mingus
3/5
I didn't even begin to get this until one time I listened to it up close on headphones. Even so, it's another one of those albums I admire from some distance rather than particularly like as such; orchestral/big band jazz has never been my thing at the best of times, and if I need a Mingus fix I'd much sooner go for Mingus Ah Um.
Van Halen
2/5
I've never been a big Van Halen fan, and, now that I've heard a full album by them, I'm still not.
Madonna
3/5
The title track remains Madonna's top contribution to popular music and culture. Rest of the album can't match it but puts up a brave fight even so; I think she maybe got better known around this time for her non-musical provocations, but arguably none of those were as perverse as not only following "Dear Jessie" with "Oh Father" but segueing them together...
Led Zeppelin
4/5
The Brown Bomber! I love Wikipedia's description of the three blues classics knockoffs here as "reinterpretations", which is both diplomatic and charitable... Sounds remarkably coherent considering its somewhat complicated making; what actually grabbed me on this revisit for some reason was Jones' bass, I listened to the 2014 remaster and the bass just jumped out in a way I don't recall it doing before. Fantastic stuff.
Norah Jones
2/5
Nice but no thanks.
The Clash
4/5
Was releasing a double album the most or least punk thing Joe and the boys could've done by 1979? Does it matter one way or the other? Could it have been cut down to a more potent single album? Probably. It's fantastic in any case, obviously.
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
It's funky, it grooves, it rocks, and the drugs weren't quite a problem just yet. Well, maybe they were on the 13-minute instrumental jam...
Little Simz
1/5
The sole interesting thing about this album is the amount of actual live instrumention it employs instead of just sampling. Otherwise it can fuck off.
Elastica
2/5
Another case where the singles were ubiquitous back in the day but I never heard the whole album until now. Kind of nondescript on the whole and passes by in a bit of a blur ("pun" unintended).
George Michael
3/5
Apparently this was criticised at the time for not being as "fun" as George's earlier, which is... not unfair, but also kind of misses the point. I kind of wish it had been a bit more varied, but then again it does have "Freedom 90" on it which is only one of the best pop songs of that era, so. And it sold an awful lot in the UK, so apparently it *was* what people wanted from him...
The Beach Boys
3/5
In which the Beach Boys were encouraged to modernise and did so to the point where they sounded weirdly dated. Actually, the whole album is kind of weird, a mix of some of their best and worst material and most of it buried under a mix I found hard to penetrate (at least the version I heard sounded kind of thick, maybe there's a brighter version out there somewhere). I don't really get the general love for this.
ZZ Top
3/5
For some reason I liked this a lot more on a second listen than I did on the first one not that long ago. "Lagrange" is still the obvious highlight, and the whole album *is* a fairly straightforward early/mid-70s southern rock boogie thing, but I liked it this time round.
Coldplay
4/5
This is one of those albums with a distinct A and B side like singles used to have, with all the really good stuff front-loaded onto the A-side and the not so good stuff tucked away on the other. But the A-side *is* really good, enough so that I'll give it 4/5...
Venom
5/5
FUCK. YES. Teenage Satan metal at its most delightfully neanderthal and teenage. The over the top, hydrogen bomb subtlety of the thing would, of course, have kind of grim repercussions a decade later, when a bunch of kids in Norway approached it without any irony and started setting things on fire... but for all that there's a certain magnificence in its recorded-in-a-week grottiness. I get far more joy from this than a lot of other "better", more reputable records.
Neil Young
4/5
This is such a good album apart from the unnecessary excrescence of the London Symphony Orchestra on "A Man Needs a Maid" and "There's a World". Not that either of these would be great songs if you stripped them back but the recordings would be a damn sight better. Otherwise, great stuff, one of Neil's defining moments.
Metallica
4/5
Full points to Metallica for carrying on after the death of Cliff Burton, cos we would've lost some great music had they chosen not to continue at that point, but this would've been a tremendous note to bow out on if it had come to that. This is them at an early peak.
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
In which Eric Clapton's (then) unrequited hard-on for George Harrison's wife results in a classic example of the double album that should have been a single album. Or maybe even just a single, the title track with the second half chopped off with one of the less tedious tracks on the B-side would've been more than enough... I've never had much use for "God", and on this revisit to this album (wasn't a fan first time round either) I still don't. And I may actually hate this version of "Little Wing", ludicrously overcooked and completely missing the point of the original.
Happy Mondays
3/5
OK. Never exactly been a big Mondays fan. The behind-the-scenes story (whereby the band were doing a roaring trade in ecstasy pills, including selling them to soldiers at a barracks near the studio) interests me more than the end result. Still, worth getting in its 2 CD which also has the Madchester Rave On EP plus other single versions and remixes etc.
Pixies
3/5
Eh, it's all right. Another one of those albums and bands that's never really done much for me.
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
This album is good enough that I can almost overlook how much I normally dislike the sound of the cuica. Certainly Rod Stewart liked one of the songs on here, "Taj Mahal", enough to steal it outright for "Do You Think I'm Sexy"... I don't speak a word of Portuguese, but I get the overall period funk vibe (dig the synthesiser as well); no idea about its place in the overall scheme of "world music" (ergh) but I liked it a lot. And not enough songs name-check Hermes Trismegistus...
Supergrass
4/5
Solid bit of work that doesn't give away the tense circumstances under which it was evidently created. First half/two thirds is better than the latter part, probably, but the best songs on here are major highlights of the later end of Britpop.
John Martyn
3/5
This is an album I've always felt I *should* like more than I do, and it is certainly very good, but something about it I can't pin down stops me from fully engaging. Maybe it's Martyn's somewhat slurry vocal style. I don't know. Great bass playing, though.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Perfectly fine early/mid-60s pop/white soul. Think I like this more than the celebrated Memphis album.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
An album that was evidently revelatory to a lot of listeners in 1978, and whose influence on a lot of other musicians is something I obviously accept, but to be honest it doesn't do that much for me. Bigger and better things lay ahead for them.
Marianne Faithfull
4/5
Goddamn but "Why D'Ya You Do It" is still bracing, isn't it? So many controversial songs get tamed by the passage of time, but somehow this hasn't...
T. Rex
4/5
It *is* basically Electric Warrior part two—having finally discovered what would make people buy Bolan's records in large quantities, "more of the same" was certainly logical—but damn it's good anyway. Tony Visconti's production, partly his string arrangements, definitely elevates things.
Brian Eno
4/5
Eno's early solo records feel like the work of someone who's heard about pop music, been told about pop music and how it generally works, decided to have a go at doing that himself and... wound up making something else. This may be where he comes closest, which means it's still kind of removed from "actual" pop. Fantastic stuff, though, and appropriate that I got this one on Eno's birthday too.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
3/5
It's nice. It's 50s rock and roll. I'm not a mega fan of early rock. But it's short (only thirty-four minutes even in the expanded edition with the two added non-album singles) and it's painless. It's perfectly pleasant. And there were one or two production details that did intrigue me. I like the cover art for the Australian/NZ release on Brunswick much more than the "proper" one, though.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
There may be bleaker albums, but probably not from a multi-million record selling major label artist of Springsteen's. Even the nominally "up" songs aren't really.
The Doors
5/5
My first favourite band when I was a teenager, but it was only after I'd fallen out of love with them before rediscovering them about 20 years later that I *really* understood just how odd they were even for that period. Having heard a lot more late-60s music in the interim gave me a bit more perspective on that. And the instrumental section of "Light My Fire" is a trip you don't get from much other music. One of those mid-60s recordings that's really better heard in mono, too.
Joan Armatrading
2/5
Eh.
Liz Phair
3/5
This is pretty good, but it's hard to escape a feeling of losing the thread a bit in the last third or so. Phair claimed to have had the idea to "respond" to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street at some point in making this, and it kind of feels like some songs are there mainly to make up the numbers. I do suspect this is one I'll get more from on relistens.
The Chemical Brothers
3/5
I give this 3/5 mostly for the second half. The first half is a slog to get through.
Hugh Masekela
4/5
I'm never 100% sure how I feel about jazz records, but I find this more than satisfactory. Some solid grooves on this.
Roxy Music
2/5
An ungainly beast, full of prog mannerisms (only just discovered Peter Sinfield produced it) and generally wobbly and uneven. "Remake/Remodel" is really the only thing on here I like without reservation; the rest of the album has moments but could be summed up as "Rewrite/Re-record" (which Brian Ferry apparently did on some of his solo recordings)...
The Kinks
4/5
Having played this in both 12 and 15-track configurations (handy being able to do that with CD, eh), I'm not 100% sure now which of the two I preferred, but I suspect Ray Davies was probably right in the long run... And part of me feels it should've been a lot more successful than it was, but at the same I'm not surprised somehow that it wasn't. It doesn't sound like "1968" somehow. I've often felt that if all 1960s music was lost except for the Kinks' records you'd never guess psychedelia happened. This is exhibit A.
Arcade Fire
4/5
Arcade Fire are so overwrought that I feel just getting up in the morning and making breakfast involves a major production number for them. Fortunately for them the songs are generally good enough to live up to the treatment, at least on this album; I first heard this when it came out and did not expect much from it (wasn't a fan of the self-titled EP that preceded it), but it actually proved to be really solid. Still is.
Aerosmith
2/5
Never been particularly interested in Aerosmith, and, well, I'm still not. Always liked "Janie's Got a Gun", to be sure, and I can understand why they became popular again at that time, but it's not exactly for me.
Dolly Parton
3/5
Nice. Don't really have much to say about it other than that.
Iron Maiden
4/5
A very fair debut, though I possibly do prefer Killers out of the two Paul Di'Anno albums, and the 1998 reissue actually scores over the original by adding the non-album single "Sanctuary" ("Remember Tomorrow" makes more sense as a third track than a second).
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
3/5
Hasn't really dated well, has it? "Visions of You" is an undeniable hit for the ages but the rest of the album... well, it's world fusion stuff of a particular time, and it's not necessarily my favourite flavour of that sort of thing. Excellent bass playing, obviously.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
The kinder, gentler Nick Cave... well, sort of. There's still some... choice words and phrases in those lyrics, but the music is more piano-driven and slow than in the past. Certainly a change after Murder Ballads. Also the point where, to be honest, I start losing interest in Nick and the gang. It's good, I just like the earlier stuff more.
Les Rythmes Digitales
2/5
I give this two stars cos there is a small number of tunes I actually do like, those being "Take a Little Time", "Sometimes" and "Damaged People". Apart from those, this album represents pretty much everything I hated about late 90s dance music back then and still have no time for now.
New York Dolls
4/5
Fuck Whispering Bob Harris, this rocks as well as anything did in 1973.
The Lemonheads
3/5
It's nice, reasonably inoffensive, no particularly strong feelings either way. The songs Triple J used to play back in the day were the best ones on the album.
Isaac Hayes
4/5
And we can dig it.
Nick Drake
4/5
The only Drake album I actually honestly like, because it's just him and a guitar (plus a dash of piano on the title track).
Burning Spear
3/5
Solid 70s reggae stuff. I remember the accompanying dub album being good, too.
fIREHOSE
3/5
I knew nothing about fIREHOSE other than this was what messrs Watt and Hurley did after the Minutemen ended, so I had no real idea what to expect from this... but I still don't think I would've expected what I got, which is... roots punk, if that's a thing? Minutemen with a bit of early REM overlaid on them? Whatever it is, it seemed good.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
Oh I did NOT like this when I first heard it. I'd seen an Andy Warhol documentary which included a bit of the famous VU performance at the Factory that the police interrupted, and that looked great, so when VU and Nico turned out to... well, not be like that, I was quite let down. (Conversely White Light White Heat was much more like what I was expecting.) It took a while but I now realise it is cursed with one of the worst stereo mixes of the mid-60s. It's a fantastic album, but it *must* be heard in mono.
John Cale
5/5
Cale at his most approachable, one of my favourite albums.
Elbow
3/5
Not actually bad but not particularly exciting either. But I'll give them marks for trying to keep out of the loudness wars...
Miles Davis
4/5
I've neve entirely understood the "jazz-rock" tag applied to this album, cos it doesn't really sound much like rock as most people would've understood it in 1970, and actually more like jazz than most people probably thought it did then too. Great stuff either way, of course, although it is nearly impossible to really love; it's dense and abstract and murky, and in some ways it's fantastically grim in its kind of unrelenting seriousness. Not even remotely easy listening.
Death In Vegas
3/5
This was more my speed when it came to electronica, although in the end it proves too monotonous for me to really call it great as such.
Peter Frampton
2/5
I've never understood how Frampton went from a somewhat struggling solo career to selling eleven million copies of this. Having heard it in full for the first time I can remember, I still don't understand. It's kind of peak mid-70s rock, I don't know why the live versions of these songs sold so well when their studio originals didn't, I have no great urge to hunt up those studio originals now, nor indeed to hear this album again. Points for obvious ability and skill and all that, but I don't care.
Sabu
3/5
There's something oddly ancient about this, which is not just because the record is, frankly, 65 years old; for some reason it doesn't feel like a 1957 recording made in a New York studio, it feel much older and stranger somehow. Can't explain it. Far from my usual fodder, but I like it.
Miriam Makeba
2/5
Well this was profoundly uninteresting.
Bonnie Raitt
3/5
OK. The 80s production hasn't aged well (was it a digital recording? Can't find out, but it sounds like it has that sort of early digital cold cleanness), though I can understand why it wound up being a hit for her at that time after some pretty bleak years.
The B-52's
3/5
Mostly notable for "Rock Lobster", which is an astounding new wave anthem. I remember downloading it back in Ye Olden Days of Napster and being amazed to discover it's nearly seven minutes long. I mean, I know it is, but it doesn't feel like that somehow.
Lenny Kravitz
3/5
If you're going to be *this* retro, I suppose you may as well also be this unabashed about it. Don't think I ever realised just quite how goddy it gets at times, but Leonard was sufficiently rock'n'roll that he'd never really cut it in the Christian market proper. Wears a bit thin by the end but the high points are great.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
4/5
The aural equivalent of the accumulation of dust and scratches on old film prints that have seen better days. One of those albums where obnoxious demo quality is exactly what the music needs.
The Killers
3/5
Obviously frontloaded with the hits, but the rest of it isn't bad, and the hits were hits for good reasons.
Soul II Soul
2/5
Boldly if not preposterously titled, this is nothing if not the sound of 1989. Think I'll stick with the singles, to be honest.
CHIC
2/5
"Good Times", great, disco classic and all of that. Rest of the album... not so good times.
Black Sabbath
5/5
Fuck, and I can't stress this enough, YES.