The album starts off okay, a reasonably decent instrumental to kick us off followed by Afterglow (Of Your Love) which is great. The next track is filler, feels a lot longer than two and a half minutes (partially because it does that thing where it fades out and fades back in again). Then Rene, a song about a prostitute at the docks which if you'd told me was from a Monty Python sketch I would've 100% believed you... at least until it spends a couple of minutes at the end in a long, drawn out, instrumental finish. Song of a Baker is better, great guitar in this. Lazy Sunday is next, this is the one that is miles ahead in the Spotify listening numbers, but it's like Madness trying to do prog rock. Kinda catchy, but not great. Then we change tack completely. I had a quick google and this is the other side of the album, which I guess gives them an excuse for a stylistic change. Lots of narration, and the worst of prog rock weirdness. It's a gibberish fairy tale about someone looking for the other half of the moon, consulting a fly and a tramp. There's the odd interesting instrumental bit, but it's 50% narrative and just strange. Just about squeaks a 2 for me on the strength of the first couple of tracks.

Fine, but a bit dull. Very long first track, which isn't a crime in itself, but it felt like four or five different tracks needlessly stitched together (although it is telling the one story). Other side of the album is a bit more accessible, but nothing that really stands out. I do like a bit of prog rock, but it needs to be a bit tighter and a bit cleverer than this. I came into this not knowing Rush at all, but am not particularly minded to investigate further. 2/5.

Top end of a 3, this one. Really liked the energy and had a bit of edge to it. I really don't like Alright though, find it really grating despite its popularity!  Can definitely tell that loads of the indie bands from the early 200s listened to stuff like this, it's definitely got more attitude and oomph than most Britpop (but it's not as catchy as Oasis or as clever as Pulp).

Had never listened to a Blur album before (although obviously know quite a few of the singles). Song 2 always transports me back to 1998 and playing the world cup Fifa game (think that was the one where they had the indoor mode too)? Overall, though, decidedly underwhelmed. Maybe there's a better Blur album out there (there must be, surely?), but if there's not then I've no idea how Blur vs Oasis was even close. 2/5.

2/5. Not great, but better than I expected given some of the reviews here! No real standout tracks, angry, mostly tuneless grunge without much to say really. Can't imagine I'll ever listen to it or any song on it on purpose, but wasn't offensive enough to give a one.

So this album came out when I was 16, and I remember being really disappointed with it then :( feels like their attempt at doing a Night At The Opera that just falls a bit flat. The lyrics aren't as clever as they think they are, and it's super overengineered. Forced myself to relisten to it this morning though. First track is really quite dire, don't want to sound too much like a grandpa but it's just noise, isn't it? Starlight is decent twinkly pop, Supermassive Black Hole is less good twinkly pop. Map of the Problematique is ok, but it'd still be one of the worse tracks on the previous albums. The next one is a floppy wander with no energy. I like Invincible at the very end, when it sounds more old school Muse, but it spends way too long getting there (and the lyrics are SO cheesy). Assassin sounds like a proper Muse song and is probably the second best song on the album. The next two I have no proper opinion on, they are in the old Muse style but just doesn't really get going at all and are in no way memorable. One after is half Muse, half theme tune to a Western and it is not a combination that works. Then Knights of Cydonia - the only song on this album that actually achieves the level of theatre that they're going for. Almost prog-rocky, I do like this. Should have left it at that, would've been a nice closer, but they added on another track at the end that is similar to the 8 and 9 in that I am utterly indifferent to it.

Very different vibe for this next one, particularly after doing them back to back :D Feels very much like the sort of thing that I've quite enjoyed, but will almost certainly never listen to again... I don't know the R&B scene at all, but this is a lovely gentle intro to it, very relaxed in terms of the style of music (even if the first track is about someone getting shot!). Also, at 35 minutes it doesn't overstay it's welcome, only 7 songs too. Not normally a God fan but Jesus is class... Spotify listens suggest a big drop off after the first three songs, but that's not the case in terms of the quality. Tracks 2, 3, and 7 my faves.

Not really my thing, to be honest. 2/5. The song with Beyonce was probably the one I enjoyed the most, which is pretty telling given it's quite different in style to most of the others. Generally, I tended to enjoy the bits that weren't Missy Elliott rather than the bits that were, which isn't great. I just don't get on with her style of rapping for some reason, Play That Beat (which was much more R&B but still just her) was quite good.

The Massive Attack one is my favourite so far. 4/5, will be listening to it again. Very chilled, electronic plus gentle hip hop. Opening track is super, quality stays high until you hit Unfinished Sympathy (the one track I knew before today), then drops a little but the last track is great again.

The album starts off okay, a reasonably decent instrumental to kick us off followed by Afterglow (Of Your Love) which is great. The next track is filler, feels a lot longer than two and a half minutes (partially because it does that thing where it fades out and fades back in again). Then Rene, a song about a prostitute at the docks which if you'd told me was from a Monty Python sketch I would've 100% believed you... at least until it spends a couple of minutes at the end in a long, drawn out, instrumental finish. Song of a Baker is better, great guitar in this. Lazy Sunday is next, this is the one that is miles ahead in the Spotify listening numbers, but it's like Madness trying to do prog rock. Kinda catchy, but not great. Then we change tack completely. I had a quick google and this is the other side of the album, which I guess gives them an excuse for a stylistic change. Lots of narration, and the worst of prog rock weirdness. It's a gibberish fairy tale about someone looking for the other half of the moon, consulting a fly and a tramp. There's the odd interesting instrumental bit, but it's 50% narrative and just strange. Just about squeaks a 2 for me on the strength of the first couple of tracks.

I always like the idea of jazz more than I do actually listening to it. I don't think I'm sophisticated enough for it. This is very easy listening, gentle stuff, but it doesn't really grab my attention.

A real mixed bag, very top heavy. Running Up That Hill is a gem, Cloudbusting, The Big Sky, and Hounds of Love also good (but better when done by the Futureheads). Then it gets worse from there. Just sneaks into the 3/5 range.

This is good. Not quite enough oomph and energy to warrant a 5, but a really nice listen. Went back and played it again straight after I finished it the first time around. Her voice is incredibly soothing, it's a nice, gentle listen. Don't know if I've heard the album as a whole before, obviously knew the opener and a couple of others sounded familiar. In contrast to the Kate Bush album, it keeps up the quality right the way through - although it is a little bit same-y. Reminded me a lot of an Eva Cassidy album that my parents used to have on all the time.

Not my favourite this. Think it makes the list by virtue of being seminal in doing something first (or almost first) in 1979, but a lot of people did similar stuff better. A couple of decent tracks (the opener grew on me after the first listen and Fall In Love With Me is good, very Duran Duran-y), but nothing else grabbed me.

Again, not one for the ages. Miserable subject matter, in a musical style that isn't my favourite. Just getting to the end of this now, and been tempted to tell him to pull himself together at least four times over the last half hour. This is my first 1.

This is just a bit dull. Saccharine country female voice, nothing that I can put my finger on as being particularly wrong (other than the lyrics getting quite kitschy every now and then), but nothing that's particularly stand out good either. This feels like the sort of thing that Taylor Swift has been doing for 15 years, but it doesn't have the oomph or the sass. 2/5, marginally better than yesterday.

This was good, but not spectacular. Two songs I knew before (It's The End Of The World As We Know It and The One I Love), both I like. Nothing else really stood out - although Exhuming McCarthy was a fun listen for the lyrics. Would I turn this off if it was on in the background? Probably not. Will I ever think, "you know what, I really want to listen to Document right now"? Probably not.

Yeah, this is excellent. 4/5 for me. Opening track is really fun, then Paranoid is a classic. Planet Caravan (Track 3) is really odd - feels completely out of place on the album and isn't interesting at all in its own right for me. Back to form on Iron Man, then a couple of good but not great songs before it perks up again at the end. Only critique of the album as a whole is that the songs drag a little bit, could maybe do with shaving 30 seconds to a minute off a few of them. Paranoid really leaves you wanting more, but some of the others go on a bit too long.

Lovely stuff. I didn't enjoy quite as much as the rest of you, but it's definitely a 4, particularly of the context of when it came out. Did feel a bit same-y on occasion, but Tutti Frutti and Rip It Up are absolute delights.

This is.. fine? Had some rave reviews in here, and I don't think I quite get it. There's a decent energy to it, particularly if you play it loud, but it's not a top scorer for me. White Riot and Police & Thieves the standout tracks for me, but even after a couple of listens it's not getting past a 3.

Lovely bit of yacht rock! Do It Again is just brilliant, love that song. A couple of other really solid tracks (Midnite Cruiser, Reelin' In the Years, and Change of the Guard). Suffers a bit from a few tracks that slightly overstay their welcome (despite not being that long), and is a bit too middle of the road to get a top tier score, but an enjoyable listen nonetheless.

This is great - had never heard of the band or the album (but do know their other work as Funkadelic). Not a bad track on this album, but none that are absolutely stellar, stand-out individually either - that's why it only gets a 4 for me even though I really like it and will be listening again. It has great energy, a bit of attitude, and a really cool sound that fits beautifully with the zany track titles, lyrics, and broader theme of the album.

This was good, but not quite as good as I expected it to be. I love the wit in Johnny Cash's music, and his voice is incredible, but this album was missing some of the soul and emotion that you get from his other work. Give My Love To Rose has it in buckets, but there's not so much other than that. Also, I thought it could done with a bit more of the back and forth with the crowd - the big thing about this album is that it's recorded live at the prison, but you lose a lot of the interaction and the energy from that. There's a recording of A Boy Named Sue that he did at San Quentin Prison which captures that perfectly - this album doesn't reach the same heights as that. 4 on 5.

Dry by name, dry by nature. Felt like the sort of thing that I should have liked more than I did, it sounds like things I like a lot more except that it's missing something. Sheela-na-gig was excellent though.

3/5 for me, pushing a 4. This is a really cool sound, on my second listen of it now whilst I'm working. I'm not a fan of what's traditionally referred to as 'world music', but this is a really fun fusion of bits of that and rock and roll guitar. Would thoroughly recommend the deluxe edition, which has three extra songs, all covers. The fact they did Should I Stay Or Should I Go? and Kashmir says something about their inspirations (they also do Soul Makossa, which a quick Google tells me is originally by a Cameroonian sax player). I listened to it cold first, and enjoyed it, then had a quick read up on the story behind it (they are Malian, from a region that got taken over by fundamentalist Islam, so they had to flee to the capital). If I could speak the language, I think this would push up to a 4 or maybe even a 5, would be interested to understand what they're actually saying.

4/5 for me. I agree with the rest of you that it was way too long, and would add that it was too sprawling in terms of what it tried to cover. you've got: - big instrumental hovering between rock opera and prog rock (Funeral For a Friend) - ballad types (Candle in the Wind, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, This Song Has No Title, Grey Seal, I've Seen That Movie Too, Danny Bailey, Roy Rogers, Harmony) - Elton with attitude (Bennie and the Jets, Saturday Night, Social Disease) - reggae Elton (Jamaica Jerk-Off) - smutty Elton (Sweet Painted Lady, Dirty Little Girl, All The Girls Love Alice) - Elton the Beach Boy (Your Sister Can't Twist) Would have worked better as a double album, with the ballads on one disc. As it is, it doesn't really feel like an album, there's not much connecting the songs and the styles. That being said, there are some phenomenal songs on there, those first four is probably the best start to an album that we've had so far. Then you've also got Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, which I knew coming into this and a couple of others (Roy Rogers and Sweet Painted Lady) which I didn't know before but really like.

Not for me, this one. Not awful, but doesn't say a lot to me. I feel like this one must be something that inspired people rather than being brilliant in its own right? Does definitely sound later than 1977, more so the instrumental than the vocals (which are very punky and of their time). About the same number of tracks as Elton yesterday, but half the length in time - only two of the tracks are over 3 minutes long. There are a couple I enjoy in there - Ex-Lion Tamer being my favourite - but I can't see myself listening to this ever again. 2/5.

A mixed bag. I was expecting to like this more than I did (obviously I know a fair few Bowie songs, but I don't think I've actually listened to an album before). Definitely front-loaded, Changs, Oh You Pretty Thing and Life on Mars the highlights, (3 of the first 4!), but did also quite like Quicksand as a slower one, and then it picks up at the end with the last two tracks. 3/5, probably would've been a 4 without tracks 7 thru 9.

This is bizarre. Not unenjoyable, but very unlikely to listen to again. The first track was really good (in a peculiar way), and built my expectations up a bit too much - the rest of the album only hit that again in fits and starts. A real mix of styles and genres, but it does have something that I can't quite put my finger on that holds it together. Panis Et Cercenses, Baby, and Ave Genghis Khan my favourites. Think it fits in at the very top of 2 out of 5.

A bit disappointing, to be quite honest. I knew nothing other than California Dreamin' (which is spectacular), and the rest of the album couldn't live up to it. It's perfectly acceptable folksy pop music, but it doesn't offer much more than that outside of a track or two. They don't make the most of the girls' voices (which are stronger than the guys). The very last track is great because of this, it's much more powerful and has some proper oomph. Also, the out of place apostrophes on the album cover annoy me. 2/5.

This is really, really good. Best we've had so far, I think, comfortably a 4 but not knocking on the door of 5. Really powerful stuff, stories that resonate now as I'm sure they did in 1988. Those first two tracks are amazing, it can't maintain those heights the whole way through but it comes surprisingly close. It feels like a coherent set of songs whilst still giving a bit of variety in theme, mood, and style, and there's not a bad song on the album. What a voice as well, not many singers who could pull off a track completely a cappella like Behind The Wall as well as her.

Fine, but a bit dull. Very long first track, which isn't a crime in itself, but it felt like four or five different tracks needlessly stitched together (although it is telling the one story). Other side of the album is a bit more accessible, but nothing that really stands out. I do like a bit of prog rock, but it needs to be a bit tighter and a bit cleverer than this. I came into this not knowing Rush at all, but am not particularly minded to investigate further. 2/5.

This was fine, pleasant enough to listen to (although I didn't think there was any need for two parts to the Mojo song), but not spectacular. Tiger in Your Tank and Soon Forgotten are the highlights. 3/5.

Was expecting to enjoy this more than I did. Scrapes a 3/5 really. It's too long, and a bit too bland, not an unpleasant sound but not particularly striking. Very bluesy and not as energetic as I'd hoped for.

Top end of a 3, this one. Really liked the energy and had a bit of edge to it. I really don't like Alright though, find it really grating despite its popularity!  Can definitely tell that loads of the indie bands from the early 200s listened to stuff like this, it's definitely got more attitude and oomph than most Britpop (but it's not as catchy as Oasis or as clever as Pulp).

This is fab, really like this. Almost falls out of the 4 category because it does get a bit self indulgent - to a lesser extent at the end of Light My Fire, and definitely on This Is The End. It's amazing that this album is 55 years old, there are bits of it that sound so fresh, and it keeps up the quality pretty well throughout. Some really nice changes of pace, too.

2 4s in a row! This is really fun, bags of energy and some cracking songs. Like the Doors, the psychedelics probably led them to be just a smidge overindulgent (not sure we really needed 11 minutes of Heard It Through The Grapevine), but there are some really good tracks in there. Up Around The Bend the stand out for me, but there are no bad tracks on it (although Ooby Dooby is not my thing).

Too long (20 tracks is obviously too many), too many instrumentals (that's not really what I listen to the Beastie Boys for). Sabotage obviously a stone cold classic, and a couple of other decent songs, but no more than a 2 for me.  Does get some bonus feels for reminding me how much I like Q-Tip's voice though.

Pretty middle of the road 2/5. There's the odd bit of cool sound in there, hints of Stone Roses type music, but nothing particularly notable. Probably would've been better with the original, shorter version than the remastered one that Spotfiy hoists upon you, but can't say I was ever hooked.

3/5. Solid, but unspectacular. Preferred it to the last couple of albums, but not by a huge margin. I really liked the opener, but it's all a little bland afterwards. Not awful, but not one that I'll listen to again. Sneaks into the 3 category as it all fits well together as an album.

This was fun, quite jolly for a few songs, but I wouldn't want a whole one! I enjoyed listening to it, very upbeat, but I'm not going to rush back to it. First track in particular has such a strong start. 2/5.

This is the opposite of most of the albums we've listen to - the first few songs are fine, but nothing special, and then it kicks up a gear or two when you hit the middle of the album. Exodus - Jamming - Waiting In Vain - Turn Your Lights Down Low - Three Little Birds - One Love/People Get Ready is as good a run as we've had so far. 4/5. Not something I'll listen to regularly, it's not really my style of music, but of the limited amount of reggae that I'll listen to, most of it is on this album.

Definitely doesn't hit the heights as regularly as the previous Elton album we had, but is a lot more focused (and more like a normal album length at 45 minutes). On the flipside, each song is probably a bit longer than it needs to be; only the last track (which is more a vignette than a song) clocks in at under 4 minutes. Tiny Dancer is a wonderful song (although I need to keep listening to it more to cleanse the memory of that awful remix that was everywhere 11-12 years ago when I was at uni), but it's a bit weaker after that. Fun to discover Indian Sunset (that's the one 2pac used for Ghetto Gospel!), but there's not a huge amount of depth in quality. No songs other than Tiny Dancer that I'd go back to, so it's a 2/5 for me.

This is cool, did enjoy this a lot as a whole. Not that many tracks that really stood out individually, but it comes together really well. Locked Inside, Cold War, and Come Alive probably my highlights. Couple of bits of odd sounding filler in there which cut the rating down a bit (and it's over an hour which also doesn't help), but a comfortable 3/5, getting close to a 4 but not there. She has an absolutely wonderful voice which I think she doesn't quite make the most of on this album? There are some moments, but could push it a little further I think?

Christ, this is dire. Feels like they were just mucking around in the studio being silly and decided to release it. There's a song written from the point of view of a time bomb on an airplane... Completely disjointed. Felt like getting to the end of this 38 minutes was a real challenge. There are a few of these songs that could have maybe gotten away with being the quirky song on an album, but this is packed full of them and it becomes an exercise in 'how are 10cc going to try and piss me off next?'. 1/5.

Upper end of 2/5. Really didn't like it at the beginning of my first listen yesterday, but it definitely grew on me towards the end and on a re-listen. The first few tracks are a bit tuneless and shouty, it gets much better later on when she sings rather than shouty. I'd heard Maps before (but didn't know the name of the song or that it was by them), didn't know any of the others. Not really for me, but not awful.

3/5 for me, this one. Leans pretty heavily into the breakup theme, gets a little wearing after an hour and a quarter. Irritated me that he had three versions of the same song, too. But, it's beautiful, soulful singing with a shitload of emotion. A pleasant listen that is gentle from a pure musical perspective, but harder work from an emotional perspective. I think we'll have better Marvin Gaye albums to come.

Not a disco fan, but this is class. This was an absolute delight. Some classic disco here mixed in with some really lovely, soulful ballads. Nice and upbeat, will be listening to this again when I need a pick-me-up. 4/5, maybe deserves a 5 but I don't like disco enough for that.

Mid to upper range 2/5. Not awful, but not particularly memorable. Neil Young's voice is a bit ropey for someone so successful, isn't it? Very much a downer after Sister Sledge on Friday, not a bad album but not one I'll be revisiting.

This is quite cool, but not as memorable as it should be to get anything more than a 3/5. Aisha probably my favourite track. Probably not what they'd want, but it serves as excellent background music for working - not so distracting that it captures your whole attention, but enough going on that it keeps your mind moving. I guess that's why their music is used a lot in soundtracks?

Probably not an album best appreciated sat at my desk working, but quite enjoyed it. Felt that it took a while to get going - I wasn't a huge fan of Break and Enter, and Their Law wasn't much better, but it does pick up through that middle section. There is no need for this to be so long, more than an hour is very rarely necessary, particularly when it's relatively intense music like this. I expect there should be another Prodigy album on this list, which will be better than this? Just scrapes a 3/5.

Not great. When the album finished on Spotify, it autoplayed the first track of the Massive Attack album we had a few weeks ago, and I realised that there's a lot of similarities between that and this, except that the Massive Attack album is basically better in every way. The songs with the woman singing in Spanish are generally OK, the ones with the bloke chuntering on generally aren't. However, the title track (particularly at the end) is so peculiar that I actually quite liked it for its bizarreness, 'oh look, a fragment of plastic! Oh look, a sports commentator. Or was it a disused railway line?' 2/5. Just.

Better than the last Neil Young album, but still not great. I still don't like his voice, but these songs seem to fit it a bit better than the previous album. Not something I'd listen to again. Upper end of a 2.

Don't actually have a huge amount to write about that one. Opening track is good, but goes a bit beige after that. Not unpleasant to listen to, but in no way memorable. Could have waited until after my death. 2/5.

A mid-range 2. It sounds so miserable, without the jaunty bits that make Joy Division / The Smiths more bearable. I wouldn't say there was a standout song. Not going to listen again, but not the worst we've had.

Absolutely dire, this. Not a massive fan of this kind of music, and for it to work it needs to have a lot more energy than it does. Also, almost two hours long???

Too screamy for me, really, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting after the first minute or two. Won't listen to it ever again, but glad that I did. Top end of a 2/5.

This was good - the two songs I knew before (One Day Like This and Grounds for Divorce) are really, really good, and the rest of the album is pleasant to listen to. Not mind-blowing by any stretch of the imagination, but a comfortable three out of five.

I like this - 3/5, pushing a 4. Feels quite ahead of its time. Wouldn't complain if this came on, have listened to it a few times now ahead of moving on to the next one. Good energy, nice mix of songs and sounds, a couple of more ballad-like songs, some cracking guitar (Steppin' Out in particular). Folksy Beatles, very pleasant.

I quite enjoyed this - seems to have sparked some pretty strong opinions both ways here, but it's a middle of the road 3 for me. Quite gentle, picks up the pace on a couple of the tracks. I know the name Belle & Sebastian, but couldn't name a song of theirs. It's perfectly pleasant, there are a couple of tracks that remind me of the Shins, quirky lyrics and some odd messages.

Best we've had in a long time - 4/5. Bags of energy, witty lyrics. Still has enough of that rawness that keeps it edgy and punky, but is probably a bit more refined than others in the genre? Definitely preferred it to that early Clash album we had (which if memory serves was from the same year as this). 

It's good, and you can easily see what kind of music it comes from and where that genre's headed since, but it's not particularly remarkable on its own. Bottom end of a 3 for me.

This is really, really good. Wouldn't have been able to name any of the songs ahead of time, but definitely a couple that seemed familiar. Runnin' with the Devil, followed by the guitar solo in Eruption (which is enough to show that these guys are great with their guitars and love pushing them to the limit but not so long that it gets nauseatingly self-indulgent and overstays its welcome), and a rocky cover of the Kinks is an amazing way to start, and the quality stays high right the way through. Also seems pretty well put together, tracks flow nicely and it's nice and snappy, doesn't overstay its welcome. 4/5, will listen again, loved this.

3/5, just. Came out the same year as the Little Richard album we had a few weeks ago, and it just isn't as good. This album is a little bit twee, a bit too soft, and doesn't really have the oomph that even the Little Richard album did. I don't know fifties music well at all, but this embodies what I think of when I think of middle of the road towards the end of the decade. Maybe this is a bit unfair, but I feel he'd be much less well-known know had he not died in that tragic plane crash.

I am a huge Pink Floyd fan, so this is totally biased, but this is an incredible piece of music. We've had some prog rock on our list already, which was average at best, but this showcases what you can do with the genre. That being said, it's still probably only my third favourite Pink Floyd album  It's not as iconic a sound or as tightly crafted as Dark Side of The Moon, but it tells this wonderful story that is comprehensible and relatable (two things which prog rock normally struggles with), and has this amazing haunting sound throughout. It flows perfectly between tracks, managing to switch the mood several times without it feeling jarring; it's clearly one piece of work rather than an assortment of tracks. And it does singles way better than almost any prog rock (Dark Side of The Moon included) album I've heard. Another Brick In The Wall, Run Like Hell, and Hey You are all brilliant standalone songs that you can take out of this.

Just a bit beige. Some really nice songs in there, particularly in the first half, but the album really dragged. Had it been ten minutes shorter, might have snagged a 3, but as it is it only merits the top end of a 2. Weather With You is lovely though, and I did know Fall At Your Feet before (but only because James Blunt covered it). 

Given the reviews above, I thought it'd be worse than it was, but I think we'll get a lot better hip hop than this. Mixes in some interesting social commentary that would've been pretty inflammatory in 1990 (but feels a bit stale now) with a lot of lines that made me wince pretty hard. It's pretty crude in a lot of places - 'Get off my my dick and tell your bitch to come here' as the title of a song sounds like a bad parody of rap, and the attitude towards women in general is pretty grim. Also, I'm not a prude, but the unrelenting tide of bitch/nigga/dick is pretty wearing and it loses its edge by the end because you're so worn down. 2/5.

This was mixed. Some really good songs in there, mixed in with some slightly tedious dirge. I much prefer their other album. This one just sneaks a 3.

OK. Young Americans was a good opener, then it builds up nicely through the middle of the album, and I was really enjoying it by track 5. Then the cover of Across The Universe comes along. I really like the song, but this cover is just not very good, it doesn't add anything to the original and he just uses increasingly sillier voices through the song. Took the edge off the album for me, the track after that isn't great and I never really liked Fame. 2/5.

Dross. Boring, beige synthesiser stuff which has been done so much better by a lot of other people. Opening track is the best of the bunch, which isn't saying much. 1/5.

This is... strange... A particularly weird start, and roughly alternates between mostly short, punky songs that are kind of cool and weird instrumental breakdowns that are just strange. 2/5, would've been higher if they'd have skipped a load of the particularly peculiar stuff. Won't listen again.

This is cool. Not 5/5, but I think a solid 3, pushing a 4. His voice is obviously really weird, but I do like it, and there's a really nice variety in the song mix, from blues to full on crooner. All with a lovely helping of gravel.

This is a bit dull tbh. Slightly elevated lift music. Not unpleasant to have on in the background, but it didn't grip me at all. 2/5.

Short and sweet(ish). Just squeaks over half an hour, but nothing particularly memorable. Like Tim said above, I knew a fair few Aerosmith songs before listening, but none of these. Won't listen to many again, but I did like the last one (I do have a weakness for schmaltzy cheesy rock ballads though). 2/5.

This is really fun, great beat and energy to it, little bit corny but not too much. Bit too long, could've stripped it back a little and pushed it higher, but 3/5 seems fair.

Started off thinking 'this is really cool', but it's just too long (both the album as a whole and most of the individual songs, particularly when you get to the second half of the album). That said, I'll definitely be listening to a few of these songs again - Pictures Of You, Fascination Street, and the title track my favourites. 3/5, too long and samey for a 4 but it's just too good to be a two.

Started brightly, sounded like a good Elton John album, but fell away pretty quickly into saccharine ballad territory. Not one for the ages, 2/5.

Really like this. One of the few albums we've had so far that I've actually listed to from start to finish before, but it must've been at least a decade since I last heard it all the way through. That beginning section is wonderful, it tails off a little in the middle, and then picks up again at the end with that closer. Just squeaks a 4 for me.

Fine, but a bit dull. Gentle, smooth listening with a bit of soul, a couple of stand out songs that elevate it to a 3, but mostly background music really.

This is really, really good. One of the best we've had, comfortable 4 and not far off a 5. It flows really nicely (like a proper album), there are quite a few really good songs on there (it'd still be a decent album even if you only had 2 out of I Wanna Be Adored, She Bangs The Drums, Waterfall, Made of Stone, and I Am the Resurrection, let alone all 5), and there's not a lot of filler. It does dip a bit briefly in the middle (the main culprit being the weird reworking of Scarborough Fair into Elizabeth My Dear), but not a lot. Without a couple of those tracks, it'd be close to a 5; if you tightened it all up and took 30s to a minute out of most of the tracks, it'd comfortably get a 5.

Not great, but not actively offensive either. Fine background music, the kind of thing you'd expect to hear playing in a hotel lobby, but no edge or interest. The penultimate song (You Didn't Have To Be So Nice) has a child singing on it and is vomit-inducing. Sits at the bottom end of a 2.

Definitely better than the Brazilian album we had yesterday - has a lot more edge to it, and attitude. Think it just sneaks a three, although not sure I'd ever listen to it again.

I like this much less than the previous TW album we had. In places, sounds like a parody of himself - the opening track in particular is pretty painful to listen to. That said, I do really like his voice when he doesn't try to go too fast/jolly with the music. Hang Down Your Head works nicely, and Downtown Train is superb. There's too much weirdness on this album for me, which keeps it firmly in the 2 category.

His voice is gorgeous, and some of these songs are really pretty. However, there's nothing here that really elevates it. I think it just scrapes a 3, it's a perfectly pleasant listen but doesn't hit any real heights.

Fine, but not particularly mind-blowing. A bit too angry and shouty for my tastes at the beginning, but settles down a bit without losing its energy. Nothing that really stands out, bottom end of a 3 I think.

I love this kind of music, a kind of fusion between Irish folk and punk (hope we get some Dropkick Murphys on this list too), and this is a really clever album in the way it incorporates both of those and a load of other influences. That said, the quality of this is pretty variable, a lot of ups, but a lot of mediocrity there too. I think it's the top end of a 3 for me, doesn't do quite enough to get into a four (but a lot of the reviews on the site say that there's a better Pogues album out there, fingers crossed it makes the list).

I was hoping this would be an album called Sepultra by the Roots. It wasn't. I'm not a fan of screaming metal at all really (although one of the plus points of this singer was that it was relatively easy to understand the lyrics). Still, this genre of music has never done anything for me really, and this album has done nothing to change that. 1/5.

Dull as ditchwater. I looked it up afterwards, and there's a host of really interesting musicians on it (Joni Mitchell, Jerry Garcia, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young), but I barely noticed any of it because it offered almost nothing. It's fine background music I guess, but without anything to lift it above a million other similar albums, despite the stellar cast. I finished listening to it about an hour ago... if only I could remember a single song... 2/5, only getting that because it's not actively unpleasant to listen to.

This album ends up being a bit dull - it can't decide whether it wants to be soul or disco. It ends up not having the richness and depth of a good soul album, and not being as fun or as energetic as a good disco record. Nothing on there that I'll ever seek out to listen to again. Feels like what Magic FM probably plays at 3 am. 2/5.

This is not particularly gripping. I'm pretty busy at work today, so maybe not giving it the attention it deserves, but it's quite formulaic I think. Nothing really stood out to me, once the album was over I went back and listened to the most played songs to see if I'd missed something. If I had, it didn't reveal itself to me on a second listen.

Good energy to this, but ultimately not that interesting. Brass in Pocket the clear standout, but I did like the sass throughout. 3/5, just.

Quick re-listen, as I listen to this quite often anyway. It's really, really good - crackles with energy, switches moods all quite smoothly, and there's not a bad song on it I don't think? 4/5, great stuff.

Yes? No! Well, not really. I quite enjoyed the first track, felt very Genesis, but it doesn't quite have the energy to get you through 18 minutes - it's got some at the beginning, and kicks into gear at the end, but slows down a bit too much in the middle. I think I will listen again, feels like the sort of thing that will grow on me, but the thing really putting me off is the nasty Simon & Garfunkel cover (the original is a song that I really like). I think I'll give it a 3, just.

This is really fun - loses its way in places (the lowlight was the 45 second 'He's So Unusual' which sounds like a super saccharine 50s musical song), but generally bustling with energy, good bit of attitude, and a couple of all time classics. Time After Time beats Girls Just Wanna Have Fun for me, but the Spotify listener numbers have it the other way round. Just falls short of a four, but not by a lot. 

Never heard of them. I don't think that there's much that really stands out here, but it's a really well put together album, the sound is good (if a little generic rock), and it's a fun listen. Wikipedia says that they're a grunge band, but I don't get that at all? Comfortable 3 for me, could've made a four if there had been a bit more to make it unique.

This was quite nice - perfectly pleasant to listen to, but not particularly exciting or gripping. Wouldn't switch it off if it came on, wouldn't choose to switch it on either. 2/5.

It is outrageous that this was created in the mid-60s. I find the Beach Boys in general a bit schmaltzy, but this is really well put together, and Wouldn't It Be Nice / God Only Knows are all-time classics (God Only Knows being the better of the two). Could get a 5, but I just don't like their type of music enough to put it up with the best albums I've ever listened to. 4 it is.

There were parts of this that were fun, interesting sounds - these guys can clearly play their instruments - but they didn't take it anywhere worth listening to. Very little coherence, nothing behind it. Noise rock is a very apt name. 2/5 as it had quite a few moments of interest, but definitely nothing more than that.

BORING! Having had Pet Sounds a couple of picks ago, this one was so much less interesting (despite being just a year earlier). Saccharine pop, very twee, nothing really to recommend it at all, and the lyrics are so bland. Scrapes a 2.

This was... okay... Everyone obviously knows Immigrant Song, Since I've Been Loving You is a great slower song, and I really like the gentle sound on Tangerine. But, as a whole, it's not super gripping - I expect we've got better LedZep to come... 3/5.

Listened to this without really concentrating yesterday, didn't enjoy it particularly. Listened to it again this morning, and have completely changed my tune. We had that Rufus Wainwright album a week or so ago, and this feels like what that could have been - both have wonderful, haunting voices, but JB is just better at imparting energy and emotion into the music. There's a great variety here, from slow, almost creepy sounds to proper rock music (often within the same song!). Solid 4/5 for me. The Hallelujah cover is obviously amazing (but I've heard it so many times that the effect is starting to wear off), and the title track is also brilliant.

It's quite fun for a while, but I lost interest in it pretty quickly - an hour of this stuff is just too much. Probably would've stepped up to 3 had it been a tighter 35-45 minutes, but there's too much filler (both in the album as a whole and within a lot of the individual tracks), so it's a 2. Won't ever put it on again, I imagine, but don't regret listening to it.

One of the few albums on this list that I have listened to the whole way through a load of times before. This is proper nostalgia for me - I would've only been 5 when this came out, but my dad loved it so it was on in the car all the time. In retrospect, the lyrics are really inappropriate for a five year old to be listening to, but I don't think it's messed me up too badly! I can't give it anything other than a 5, the combination of some proper singalongs (Common People & Disco 2000 the most obvious) with a few of their hallmark album tracks (the slightly creepy, slower songs like I Spy and Live Bed Show) with a proper ballad (Something Changed) and some really clever social/political commentary. Fits together really well as an album, and closes nicely with the energy in Monday Morning into the drunken ramble of Bar Italia. Mile End (which is only on the Deluxe Edition) is also well worth a listen (and not just because I live just round the corner from there).

Think we can file The Clash under 'bands I don't like as much as everyone else'. This is definitely better than the other one that we listened to, but it's not a showstopper for me. Title track is a classic, but it's pretty much all downhill from there (although Train In Vain is also great to finish it off). A lot more variety than the previous album (which is good) and it hangs together quite nicely, but loses points for being too long with too much filler. 3/5.

I like this - it's gentle, easy listening in the most part. It's aged pretty well (other than the odd lyric that is slightly iffy in its attitude to women), but it doesn't offer anything particularly spectacular or lifechanging. 2/5.

Just a bit dull, really. Inoffensive, and a bit one-paced. No stand out tracks (unlike the last Steely Dan album we had), but it's well put together. 2/5.

Listened to this for the first time yesterday, and didn't get it. Saw all the love it was getting on here, so listened to it again this morning, and... still don't get it. It's clearly cleverly put together, but the resulting sound isn't one that particularly appeals to me. 2/5.

Enjoyed this, more so on the second listen this morning than my first yesterday. Hadn't heard of them before really, but do remember Connection. It's a good sound, and keeps the quality pretty high all the way through, although was a bit samey bar a couple of tracks. 3/5, not miles off a four.

It's perfectly pleasant and competent from a musical perspective, but not really challenging. The themes / subject matter are interesting, but the music doesn't change enough to tell the different stories in a particularly interesting way. Re: the confederacy stuff, it does get dangerously close to tipping into longing for the good old days of slavery etc. - apparently the writers did try to make sure that it was telling the story from the perspective of one non-slave owning Southerner who lost his brother in the war, but they didn't clarify that until 2020... 2/5, not miles off a 3 though.

Listened to this on Friday and thought it wasn't great then, flicking through it now and I don't disagree with past me. Not awful, but not particularly good either. Not my favourite genre, and I don't think a particularly good example of it. 2/5.

Had never listened to a Blur album before (although obviously know quite a few of the singles). Song 2 always transports me back to 1998 and playing the world cup Fifa game (think that was the one where they had the indoor mode too)? Overall, though, decidedly underwhelmed. Maybe there's a better Blur album out there (there must be, surely?), but if there's not then I've no idea how Blur vs Oasis was even close. 2/5.

Listened to this not long after the generator first gave it to us. Clearly didn't generate a huge amount of energy in me! That said, listening to it again now, it's decent - not outstanding, but fits together nicely, doesn't outstay its welcome, and Walk This Way / Sweet Emotion elevate it a level. 3/5.

I think I liked this more than most of you, but it's got some pretty big flaws. It's far too long (both some of the tracks on their own and definitely the album as a whole). Lazarus is great, and if you skip the first minute then so is the opening track. The rest of it is fine, but nothing else really stands out. 2/5.

Really like bits of this - Brown Sugar a classic, and Wild Horses is even better. Then it starts to go a bit downhill. Can't You Hear Me Knocking is overblown and self-indulgent, You Gotta Move carries on in the same vein, but it picks up again after that with Bitch and I Got The Blues. Nice, slow, really bluesy sound carries on a little, then gets more upbeat in style for Dead Flowers and Moonlight Mile is a nice chilled ending. Comfortable 3 for me, probably would've made a 4 without the two tracks that annoyed me in the middle.

I thought this would be pure crooning before listening, but it's got a fair bit more energy than I expected, which is great. Short, sharp, and snappy songs, that blend into each other quite nicely with a couple of changes of pace. No particular standout, but nothing unpleasant either (although he crosses the line into crooning on Alison). Just fails to squeak into 3/5 territory I think, so a gentleman's 2 for me.

Liked this a lot - it's a bit miserable and definitely not an album for all times and moods, but it's done really well and consistently good all the way through. Not often that an album ends with its best song, but this one did. Just falls shy of a 4, but not by much.

Suffers a bit from coming straight after Portishead - just not quite as good as that. But, the music is a bit more upbeat (even if the songs aren't really). I like the title track, but not much of the rest is super memorable. Yesterday was the top end of a 3, this is the bottom end.

I'd never heard this album before, but it definitely felt like I had - feel like it sounds like a genericised version of a lot of the much better music that was coming out around that time. No real standout tracks, not unpleasant to listen to but not deserving of any more than a 2.

I can't decide whether this is complete pseudo-nonsense or whether I really like it... there are some really creepy lyrics in it, the style is all over the place, and it's all a bit mad, but there's something about it that's really interesting. I don't think I'll ever listen to the whole lot again, but there's a couple of tracks that I'll stick on a playlist somewhere. A fair 3 - could've been a 4 without the aggressive creepiness.

4/5, but a low 4. Starts really well, the opening couple of tracks are great, then fades a little before the two absolute classics, Back In Black and You Shook Me All Night Long. Then fades again at the end. Won't come back to it as an album, but happy to have discovered the first two tracks.

2/5. Not great, but better than I expected given some of the reviews here! No real standout tracks, angry, mostly tuneless grunge without much to say really. Can't imagine I'll ever listen to it or any song on it on purpose, but wasn't offensive enough to give a one.

Started tedious, and got worse. I did laugh when he did an intro spiel about how people often seek solace in sleep, but that it sometimes made it worse, before launching into a song about bed bugs :D then we have what sounds like a hostage situation with Woody Guthrie to start track 5. Now he's quacking at the end of track 6 (which is about geese, who don't quack. They hiss or honk). Next track wasn't offensive until he started yodelling midway through. Back to inoffensive but interesting for the next couple, then whiny, and then a song that is better than the others but still not good. He just really can't sing very well. 1/5, but only because I can't give a 0. Probably the worst thing we've had so far, but at least he had the good manners to stop after half an hour.

This is... not what I expected... but really quite good. Very easy, gentle listening in general, and he takes it up a notch every now and then. It's an interesting sound, somewhere between crooner and the slightly arch conversational style (you can tell he was in Pulp for a bit!). I'm coming into this after a little run of really dire albums, so resisting the urge to overrate this one because it's not them, but it comfortably merits a 3. The Ocean in particular is a great song, title track is good, and none of the rest are bad.

Meh. Not unpleasant to listen to but, despite the punchy subject matter, the musical style is pretty slow and gentle which doesn't really work. Veers into being preachy and self-righteous. 2/5.

yay, more Brazilian stuff. 2/5 this, we've had worse Brazilian music and this was a bit funkier and cooler than the previous. Still not of huge interest.

This is beautiful, very gentle, folksy music. There aren't many cleverer lyricists than Paul Simon, but this is all a little bit too gentle for me. Homeward Bound is the best of the bunch, and Scarborough Fair / 59th Street Bridge Song not too far behind, but it doesn't have enough bite. 3/5.

Mad. Absolutely mad. There is so much going on that is absolutely bonkers. I think this'll need another couple of listens at least to properly appreciate, but I think it might be a bit too out there for me. Starts really well, but the descent into madness of the two 17 minute songs is a bit much. I think someone mentioned they have some slightly more accessible stuff? Well up for that, 3/5 for this though, just about. Definitely want to try some slightly less intimidating krautrock though.

This is fun, nice and jolly and easy to listen to. Not much that elevates it though - Sunny Afternoon is superb, but not much else that I think I'm likely to go back to. Just squeaks a 3 as well.

Not for me, Clive. A couple of good moments - more towards the end of the album than the beginning - but not my cup of tea. It mostly fits well together (although there are a couple of jarring moments), and there's a bit of variety in there, but it's a bit too grim. There are a couple of tracks on there which are really unpleasantly sexual, and the guy needs to pick and choose where to swear better. I imagine NIN don't get compared to Ice Cube much, but I felt similarly after listening to his album - a bit gross. 2/5. Did like Ruiner though.

Mixed on this - it flows together beautifully, it shows off Freddie's voice beautifully, and it's a really fun concept. But, it's so overblown (probably at least a bit deliberately?) that it takes some of the shine off, and there are some bits that don't work very well (I'm In Love With My Car is not great, and The Prophet's Song is a bit too prog-rocky in a bad way). Doesn't quite make a 4, even with Bohemian Rhapsody in it.

I don't think I'd ever listen to a single track of this on its own, none of them particularly stand out. But, together, it kinda works? 28 songs in 41 minutes is completely mad, but it's good fun, the fact you change tracks every 90 seconds or so means it has this manic energy to it which I like. But don't think I can give anything more than a 3 to an album where I don't really like any of the tracks individually! 

Nice, gentle, country folk style stuff. A couple of recognisable songs (Friend of the Devil and Ripple), but was all a bit chilled. 3/5, pleasant enough to listen to but not particularly memorable.

It's a bit twee, isn't it... At least it would be if the lyrics weren't so casually chauvinistic. You can miss that quite easily given the nature of the music, but it feels so dated because of that. It's well sung and performed (and nice and short), but can't give it any more than a 2.

4 for me. Had heard of The Fall (almost entirely due to the big fanfare of publicity they got when Mark Smith died), but never knowingly listened to any of their stuff. I started out thinking that it wasn't really my thing, it's almost a bit too noisy and jarring, but after a few tracks I started to get properly into it. Really solid quality all the way through, I thought, didn't really tail off in any way. It's all a bit weirk, dark, and quirky, but it fits together really well and I like it a lot.

More obviously my kind of music than most we've had recently, but not one I'd heard before. This is a really nice sound, something in between Bloc Party and M83 in that it's quite synthy indie stuff. Will listen to this again for sure, but I don't think it offers quite enough to make a 4 (although I'm sure it would if I'd come across it back then).

A cosy, pleasant enough listen with a nice big band sound, and I like the sax that pops up in most of the tracks. But as others have said before me, it's all just too much, the songs are almost all too long, and it is very self-indulgent. Just squeaks a 3, would've been edging close to a 4 if it was 20% shorter.

Perfectly fine background music, quite a pleasant listen if you're not really concentrating, but doesn't offer a huge amount beyond that. A step above lift music, but only a small step. 2/5.

A comfortable 3, pushing a 4. Really strong, consistent album with some solid tracks right the way through (and a couple of less good ones like the one about Gary's Boner!). But, there's nothing there that elevates it to the level above, nothing that  which is why it stays at a 3.  Could do with sanding off the rough edges a little, but did enjoy listening to it.

This is great. 4/5. Seven Nation Army has been done to death and beyond, but it's still an amazing song, and what a way to open an album! The energy is really high right through (even though the pace changes a bit). Falls away a little towards the end (no need for the little monologue about squirrels or the weird last track), but a proper banger. Well worth the listen, will revisit for sure.

Didn't look at the release date for this initially (although you'd have thought I'd get a clue from the first song!), but was very impressed when I did - this feels very ahead of its time (actually in places sounds really similar to the White Stripes album that I just listened to before this). Do I actually like it though? Not massively... can see that it's totally trailblazing, but didn't actually enjoy listening to it that much. The 11 minute track is absurd, even the first two tracks could probably have benefitted from being a bit shorter (but are still pretty good), and after that it's fine but doesn't below me away. 3/5 overall.

She's got a great voice, and it doesn't sound dated despite being 60+ years old. That said, I really didn't enjoy it, it's not my style of music at all, so it gets a 2.

This was fine. I'd listened to a bit of Manu Chao before when I was a teenager (it was the exotic international stuff that you listened to because you thought it made you look sophisticated rather than because you actually enjoy it). It's great background music for a bar somewhere where it's sunny, the sea isn't far away, and you're sipping cocktails. Unfortunately I'm in my home office in Bethnal Green and I'm sipping a cold coffee (cold because I made it about an hour ago, not because it's supposed to be). Sun's shining though... Still, not really for me, fine to stick on the background but nothing more. 2/5.

Loved this, it's the best punk album we've had so far IMO. Given it's a punk record, goes without saying that it's full of energy and edge, but they hold it together really well. It teeters on the edge of being a bit too sleazy, but just stays on the right side of the line and is all the better for that. Solid consistency all the way through, it's a few yeras after the Stooges record we had recently and it seems to have taken that sound and refined it to make something that bit better. 4/5.

So much better as an album that the previous Beastie Boys one we had, fits together much better and it's much more consistently good throughout the album. I do find them hard work to listen to for more than a couple of tracks at a time though. I think this is the high end of a 3 from me - a couple of good songs (Shake Your Rump and Johnny Ryall my favourites), but I just don't like their style enough to rate it higher than that.

This was not for me. Did quite enjoy the track where he explained how it all worked, but the actual sitar music itself is just so dull. The intro track saves it from being a 1, but only just. 2/5.

This is good, but not great I think? I don't know the Chemical Brothers album by album, but I don't think that there's quite enough here to excite me compared to some of their other work. That said, it's definitely not a bad listen - the fact that I was happy to listen to an hour of dance music at 7.30-8.30 on a Monday morning suggests it must be pretty good - but there weren't any tracks that really stood out. I tend to prefer their more psychedelic stuff, so the end of the album was more me than the start, but still a good album. Top end of a 3. 

I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would... Basically, it's better than the previous Neil Young albums because there's a lot more to hide his voice than usual (the songs suit it better, there's more backing vocals, and there's much more weight given to the instrumental parts). Still not exactly mind-blowing, but scrapes a 3 as I'm in a generous move and it is better than the two other Neil Young albums we've had.

Not listened to this before, I knew one of his songs that wasn't on this album, and don't have any nostalgia for this at all. Not particularly fond of it to be honest, it's fine background music but doesn't offer a lot more than that (although it goes a bit weird sometimes). Voice sounds quite similar to Maverick Sabre, but compares unfavourably I'd say? Can't give this any more than a 2, there's a couple of good tracks (I liked Sunday Shining most) but nothing much more.

I've seen the Eagles live, and they weren't very good. Played their guitars and sang beautifully, but there wasn't any stage presence or much in the way of energy. I went into this with quite low expectations, but it was a lot better than I expected. Hotel California is at that stage where it's a great song that I've heard so many times it takes the edge off, but there are plenty of other good songs on this album too. Lots more edge in the lyrics than I expected, I came into this thinking it would all be kinda kitschy country-ish (and New Kid in Town doesn't do much to disabuse that), but there's plenty of variety and a decent bit of wit too. 3/5, top end and not far off of a 4.

This is one of those albums that I'd be shocked by anyone giving it a 1 or a 5, it's middle of the road, slightly tarted up gentle pop with a couple of stronger songs. I quite enjoyed this, an easy three. Straight down the middle, more or less like the music.

This starts off OK, feels like a nice entry to what'll turn into a Creedence Clearwater Revival type album, but loses all it's energy pretty quickly and never really gets it back. It's too long, too meandering, and too boring to get anything higher than a 2. It's fine background music and not actively unpleasant, but nothing more.

Not as good as the last Doors album we had, but still a really good listen. Strong 3 out of 5, just shy of a 4. It's a good album, the quality keeps up the whole way through, but I don't think there are individual songs that really lift this up to a 4 or 5. Will probably listen to this again, it's good music both for working to and for active listening.

This is brilliant. Knows exactly what it is, doesn't try to be anything more than anthemic stadium rock that is of its time, and totally nails it. Can see how people would dislike the style (and if the album was 15 minutes longer it would definitely get a bit too much for me), but I love the exuberance and the energy. Is it the most musically sophisticated album we've listened to? No. Are the lyrics particularly insightful? No, it's Springsteen without the depth. Is it the most fun album we've had so far, 130 albums in? Probably, yeah. 4/5.

Also like this - I knew Hoover Dam (think the Spotify algorithm recommended it to me a couple of years ago and it stuck), but nothing else by Sugar, and it's good fun. An easy three, doesn't do enough for me to lift it above others of its type and get into the 4/5 range, but a pleasant listen. Might not ever go back to the full album again, but if it comes on I certainly wouldn't be switching it off. It's pretty consistent the whole way through, wouldn't say there's a bad song on it, and a good bit of oomph to it. I had the remastered edition on, and it's clear to see that the real sound they like is a bit more raw than this. Unlike Tim, I prefer the recorded version of Hoover Dam to that live one, it's too scratchy and raw for me.

This is a really interesting listen, but I don't really like it. Must've been groundbreaking in 1977, and probably was the grandfather of a lot of music that I like more than this, but it's just a bit too weird for me. It's all very repetitive, and really creepy. I did quite like The Hall of Mirrors for its over the top creepiness, that felt quite clever, but the rest is just creepy without being OTT. 3/5 for me, it's clever, well-done and clearly groundbreaking, but not that enjoyable.

I see no way to differentiate this from the fifty million other Brazilian albums that we've had. Honestly, I'm baffled by the reviews on the site being able to go into so much detail about it, I listened to it twice yesterday and have already forgotten almost everything about it. 2/5 as it was perfectly fine to have on in the background.

Completely different to the album yesterday, but somehow exactly the same. Some very nice sounds that are gentle and easy to listen to, but nothing that is in any way memorable. Just read the Wikipedia page, and I know that album sales aren't everything, but it reached 184 in the album chart at its peak and the single hit number 56. It's not particularly influential I don't think, there's certainly nothing new here as far as I can tell. Literally no idea why it's on this list. 2/5.

Couldn't get into this at all. Listened to it the first time last week, thought it was dull, then listened to it again when a couple of you thought it was really good and still didn't get it, then listened to it again this morning and still find it dull. Too beige for me, doesn't do enough to elevate it above background music. 2/5.

This is decent - the start of the album is great, and the guy's voice is great for this kind of music, sounds like the lovechild of Jon Bon Jovi and Axel Rose. But, it goes a bit downhill after the first four tracks to be honest. Gets a bit too long, drawn out, and self indulgent in places and doesn't quite have the same pizazz as the first section.

Simon & Garfunkel always seem to have one foot in the too twee camp and one in the beautiful, brilliant folk song camp. This is no different - the first few tracks illustrate this perfectly, Bridge Over Troubled Water (brilliant), El Condor Pasa (weird and incredibly twee) and Cecilia (great). The Boxer and The Only Living Boy in New York are also super songs, which gets this album a squeaky 4 - just about.

This was nice, easy listening stuff but with a little more oomph than most easy listening. Lovely background music, there's a bit more there if you choose to listen to it, but not a huge amount. Just scrapes a 3. 

Doesn't even scrape a 2. It's really dull musically, and the lyrics are both cliches and throwbacks to the creepy lyrics you'd get in 50s/60s music but without the innocence that gave the oldies a bit of an excuse. Would've got a 2 had I only been half listening to it, but the lyrics drop it down to a 1 as it made it actively unpleasant to listen to.

This is class. I always get nervous about metal because I hate screamer songs, but this is not that at all, I'd barely class it as metal really. Little bit cheesy in places, but it stands up forty years later and I will definitely be listening again. 4/5.

Expected a bit more from this - it's all a bit too gentle for my liking. There are a couple of songs that step it up a bit (Beginning To See The Light probably my favourite), but tough to give this any more than a 3.

Not quite sure what I think of this. A little bit overblown - despite not even being 35 minutes long, each of the tracks felt a bit longer than they needed to be. That said, other than that there's nothing bad about it, but there's not really anything that makes it stand out either. A bog standard, middle of the road 3 for me, Clive.

Not for me. This is one of those albums that is trailblazing and influenced loads of other groups, but it's just not that interesting in the context of knowing what comes after it. It sounds so dated, both the style and the lyrics. Rock Box the best of a bang average bunch, 2/5.

This is some reasonably pretty but unexciting folksy music punctuated with a couple of brilliant songs. America is possibly my favourite S&G song, it's much closer to most of what they do than Bridge Over Troubled Water or Mrs Robinson, and it really shows off how good Paul Simon is at telling a story in song.  Then towards the end of the album the pace picks up, about thirty seconds into Mrs Robinson, that and Hazy Shade of Winter would've made a wonderful climax to the album, but they then inexplicably put a song about going to the zoo at the end  It's not awful, and would have fitted nicely a bit earlier in the album, but feels a bit jarring here. 3/5 for this one, really not far off of a 4 though.

I was not expecting to like this having read the description that 'because Hot Rats largely consists of instrumental jazz-influenced compositions with extensive soloing, the music sounds very different from earlier Zappa albums', but actually it's really quite good, isn't it? Suffers from the same issue as almost every instrumental album in that it goes on a little too long and gets repetitive in places, but the sound is great and it's a super background soundtrack to get some work done to. Loses it's way a little towards the end, but I think it gets a comfortable 3.

Pretty beige in the most part. Alanis Morrissette without the anger, pain, and lyrical cleverness. Run Baby Run and All I Wanna Do are good enough pop songs, but it's all a bit bland with a couple of real stinkers in there (yes, I'm looking at you, Solidify and The Na-Na Song). 2/5. 

This is fine, perfectly pleasant to listen to but not a whole lot more than that. Jingly jangly and a bit dull, takes a lot of the energy out of their covers and don't add much else. 2/5 for me.

I love this - really not far off getting a 5. I knew a few of the songs, but never listened to the album from start to finish. What elevates it from other S&G stuff is the quality of the album as a whole - all the albums we've had from them have had a least 1 or 2 really good songs, but amongst a sea of mostly forgettable folksy stuff. Graceland and You Can Call Me Al are the two standouts on this album, but the rest is much much stronger. Have listened to this 3-4 times over today and yesterday already in the background whilst working, and will happily listen to it again. There's so much variety in the album (with a clear African flavour to it).

This is a good listen, but definitely fades towards the end. Don't quite understand how they got so popular tbh - it's not super accessible, and it's quite laid back and chilled out. Not my favourite, but a comfortable three heading in the direction of (but not reaching) a four. Probably would have made 4 if it had stayed at the level that the first three tracks set.

Well, this is odd. I'm kinda glad that I've listened to it, it's definitely interesting, but I can't imagine ever going back to it again. It's very much harking back to ages past, the style is very folky (with a strong hint of Celtic in there) and the stories the songs tell feel almost medieval. The singer's voice is fantastic, haunting when it needs to be and gets mroe upbeat to. Overall a 3/5 - it's definitely worth a listen but I'm not going to rush to seek out more of their stuff.

These guys are great - distinctive voice and sound, great energy, and really fun songs. 4/5, last track of the original 7 drags it down. Born On The Bayou and Proud Mary are super songs.

Really not much here. Jane Says is a really good song, but other than that there's not much to recommend it at all. 2/5, pushing a 3 because of the strength of that song. Quite cringey in places.

Was expecting a lot more from this than I got. A really strong start with those first three tracks, but even those are a bit elongated and could've done with shaving off a minute apiece. The rest is just a bit dull. Middle of the range 3, really all because of the beginning.

This is great - a solid 4 which is impressive given that so many of the songs are covers. Will very happily listen to it again, a great bunch of songs although it plays more like a collection of hits than it does an album. The opening track definitely my favourite, but it's a great opening 3 songs in particular.

This hasn't aged as well as a lot of the other Beatles albums (or maybe I've just grown out of this sort of thing), it's a bit too saccharine. The opener / title track still hits reasonably hard, but any edge that had is very much filed down through the vast majority of the rest of the album. That said, it's a really solid pop album that keeps up the pace through a tight 30 minutes with a couple of really big hits, so it's a comfortable 3.

This was a big old bucket of not very much. Sounds ahead of its time, but not in a particularly interesting or exciting way. There's a lot of talk in the reviews and wikipedia about similarities to The Who's Tommy - by all accounts Tommy is a lot better. This doesn't really have any memorable tracks, the story of the album isn't particularly clear and it just all sounds a bit beige. 2/5

Not for me, this one. I think I don't really like Bowie as much as most people do, we've had a couple of his albums now and I haven't really gotten along with any of them. I've read that this album is really influential etc., but I didn't find it a particularly enjoyable listen. It doesn't feel like it's finished, loads of the songs either drift out or end a bit abruptly. Sound and Vision is the best of a pretty average bunch (but even that feels like it's missing something despite a really good hook). 2/5.

Listened to this first last week, and didn't get it at all. Listened again this morning and get it a little bit. I do want to give it another listen to see if it keeps growing on me, but need to move on to catch up with the rest for now (and also to give my ears a bit of a rest, that album is quite hard work!). It's too long, but there's some glimpses of gold in there once you dig a bit deeper, it's not accessible by any means but I will certainly go back to it. 3/5 for now, may well update to a 4 in a few more listens time.

Can't give this anything more than 2, there really isn't anything of particular interest. Janky synth notes, uninteresting lyrics, feels incredibly dated. Best bits are when they relegate the synthesiser to the background and let the guitars play, but those are too few and far between.

I shouldn't like Janis Joplin's voice, it's way too gravelly and it feels like she pushes every note too hard, but I really do. There's so much energy to this, and a couple of real stand out songs - Piece of my Heart is the best, with Summertime not far behind. Solid 3/5, but it's not consistently good enough for a 4.

I liked the title track on this, but not much afterwards tbh other than Sweet Thing. 2/5. I like the type of music that this almost is, when it has a bit more energy like Dropkick Murphys or a bit more soul like the Pogues, but this doesn't quite reach the heights of either except in the odd place.

Feels quite dated to me - religion and holy war plus nuclear armageddon is so eighties... I can appreciate that it's technically really good, and well put together, but it doesn't grip me at all. Lyrics are a bit too cheesy, and it doesn't quite work for me. Not unpleasant to listen to, but not one I'll ever go back to. 2/5.

This sounds so tired, it's like you've taken a Duran Duran album and sucked out all of the energy. It's super generic and really long, it's only 10 am, I've had a strong coffee, and I still feel like I'm struggling to stay awake during it (although tbf the heat probably doesn't help). Only the first 12 tracks are on the original release, and I have no desire to listen to any more of this than I absolutely have to. 2/5 - just. It is not actively repulsive, just dull as hell.  Actually, that seems harsh on hell.

Might be the best electronic album of all time, but it still isn't for me. Maybe my musical ear isn't sophisticated enough to tell the difference between good electronica and bad, but I just don't get that much out of it. It can just scrape a three based on its wider contribution and because it's perfectly fine to have on in the background whilst I work, but I can't justify giving it anything more than that.

Oh good, more electronica  this is way more accessible than Aphex Twin, but what it gains in accessibility it loses in interest. I've heard the second track somewhere before, but can't place it. Everything is a bit too long and rambling, most if not all of these songs could've been a minute shorter and been much better for it. 2/5, nothing to raise it above pleasant background noise.

I have never listened to anything that has made me so completely sure that the person responsible for it is a total c**t. It's like the Beastie Boys, mixed with the worst of early 90's rap/hiphop, with any charm or nuance stripped out. Lyrics are a mixture of generic self-promotion that regularly turns into breathtakingly unself-aware arrogance, and lazy misogyny.  But, there are bits of it that are quite catchy  Nearly burst out laughing with Only God Knows Why (a self-pitying song lamenting how people don't understand him and like him) after ten songs of this, and then immediately followed by a song titled 'Fuck Off'  Pretty much every song is at least a minute too long (and there is a line in one of the songs where h talks about the producers telling him this and him ignoring them). 2/5, because it was quite entertaining in places.

Underwhelmed by this to be honest. I'm sure we'll get more Iron Maiden in the next 900 albums, but this just didn't have as much to offer as the Judas Priest and Black Sabbath albums we've had. Maybe that's unfair (as I think this is older than both of those), but it just didn't grab me in the same way that they did. Nothing really wrong with it, but nothing particularly exciting either. 3/5, would've considered giving it a 2 but it definitely doesn't belong with Kid Rock!

I... really liked this... After the Can album (which was a bit too much for me) and Kraftwerk (bit too repetitive and creepy), I thought that Krautrock probably wasn't for me, but this was great. Lovely transition over the course of the album from some really mellow electronica to something approaching heavy metal at the end - I liked it all, but definitely enjoyed the second half more. Sounds incredibly modern for something made in 1975, certainly feels fresher than the Kraftwerk album which came out a couple of years after it. 4/5, really strong.

This was really underwhelming - I wasn't super excited by the prospect of it, but it's got 2 songs on with 100m+ plays on Spotify so I figured it must have some interest to it. It really doesn't, it's pretty bland, not really sure what the genre is but it's not tuneful enough to be poppy or loud and energetic enough to be rock/metal. And it all sounds more or less the same. Not bad enough for a 1, but not close to getting 3. 2/5.

There are a couple of different versions of this on Spotify - the one it linked me to was the British release, which was 10-15 minutes longer and didn't start with Paint It, Black (which is a real loss). The start of the British version of the album sounds very different to the rest, if it wasn't for Jagger's voice being pretty distinctive it could quite easily have been a Kinks track. Quickly slips back into more American sounding folky rock, which is not unpleasant but not outstanding either. Gets a three, not close to getting a 4 but comfortably above a 2.

This was not close to being as good as Blue Lines - Blue Lines seems to have a much more developed sound, despite being three years earlier. This feels more focused on reggae/ska, early tracks very reminiscent of the Specials, and it's just a bit too slow for most of it for me. 3/5, disappointing.

No one had any thoughts on this on Friday, and I can understand why! Starts off quite cool, that opening track sounds like what you'd imagine CCR would if they were a bit less Southern in style, but quickly fades in interest from there. Unoffensive and uninteresting. Decent enough for background listening, but it's nothing more than that. 2/5, but a high 2.

Never heard of this before, but quite liked it. The overall sound is interesting, nice gentle electro atmosphere, quite low impact but just enough there to keep me listening. I saw MO at Glastonbury a couple of years ago and that felt very similar to this (albeit a bit more upbeat and with some extra oomph). Would I actually go out of my way to seek this out? Probably not, but it's a perfectly pleasant listen. 3/5

45 minutes of the Beastie Boys is just too much. All the songs sound way too many similar, the slow rapping passed back and forth with the extended notes at at the end of every few lines gets grating after a while. This album takes a while to get going as well, not a great first few tracks, but then a couple of their best songs about halfway through. This gets a 3, relatively high 3 because it's got a couple of their best songs on it but it's really hard work to get through a whole one.

I always confuse Nick Cave and Nick Drake in my head, so the first ten seconds of this really shocked me before I twigged :D It's dark, heavy, and not an easy listen by any means, but I really enjoyed it anyway. It's a double album, the first half (Abattoir Blues) much more rocky and full of energy than the second half. Don't really understand why they released them together tbh, it's a very different vibe and both are plenty long enough to be an album in their own right. I think the first album is a comfortable 4, the other is a middling to high 3, so it's a scraped 4 for the pair together.

I do not like this  Their two voices mesh together very well, but neither is actually particularly pleasant to listen to so the overall effect is not great. Definitely lives up to what it says on the tin re: tragedy - there are some pretty grim songs on there, the single is about beating a woman to death and getting arrested for it. Other themes include the death of a brother and the subsequent discovery that his sweetheart had been playing away, and a whole lot of Jesus towards the end. 2/5 for me, not far above a 1.

Yeah, this is class. Doesn't quite make a 5 because there's a bit of filler in there, but it'd have to be quite bad to stop an album with Welcome To The Jungle, Sweet Child O' Mine and Paradise City (my personal favourite) getting a 4. Their ballads are much more hit and miss - My Michelle works but a couple of the others don't really. That said, it's a long album at 53 minutes so does need some variety. Would probably have been better at a tight 40 mins with 3-4 tracks fewer, but even as is it's a comfortable 4. 

Only one track on Spotify, and a few more songs on YouTube. I quite enjoyed what I heard tbh, and would be quite happy to listen to a whole album.  Really fun mix of genres, hiphop base with a few different latin influences. 3/5 (on the basis that I think this is what a whole album would've got).

Quite enjoyed this, although it seems like most of the songs are covers. That's a shame really, because their original stuff has a lot more edge to it than the covers that they do (which are by and large inferior to the originals). All sounds quite raw, it's almost like a precursor to punk, and they sound much better without the very sixties backing vocals they have on most of their covers. 3/5, won't listen to the album again but will add Strychnine to a playlist.

Not a lot to say about this album, except that it suddenly grabbed me with the last track. There's so much menace in that, it really suits her voice (which sounds exactly like you'd expect someone who's been through all the things she had to sound), but it doesn't work so well for the rest of the album. Working Class Hero is one of my favourite Lennon songs, and I really didn't like the cover of it, not quite sure why but just had something missing. 2/5 for the album, but the last track is worth a listen.

More world music. This is not interesting at all, fine to have on in the background but doesn't really offer much and gets very repetitive very quickly. Bland and uninspiring, 2/5. Just.

Felt like this album just got better and better as we got through it - wasn't convinced at the start but it really grew on me towards the end. It's lightyears ahead of some of the other stuff we've had from that era, and it's so influential on basically everything that comes after it. But, am I going to be listening to it a lot? Probably not, it's not really my kind of music and it lacks a bit of variety in the style - Scenario (the last track) changes it up a bit which is good, but I think it falls short of a 4.

Big fan of Arcade Fire, but hadn't listened to this full album in a long time. It's really, really, good - I love the almost orchestral sound they create - and there aren't many bad songs on this. Definitely a little pretentious when it comes to song titles (I'm inherently sceptical of most albums that have songs split into different numbered tracks) but there's so much depth to the record that I can move past that. There's also tonnes of energy, coming at you in slightly different ways, and the album if anything gets better than worse as you get towards the end. I've always found that I can take or leave their albums after the first listen or two, but they really grow on me. 4/5, not far off a 5.

A little underwhelmed by this - Here's Little Richard came out a year after this and feels so much fresher and full of energy. There's tastes of it here - Blue Suede Shoes and Tutti Frutti have that oomph - but it's a bit too croonery for my liking. Doesn't feel like a revolution. 3/5, closer to a 2 than a 4 though.

This was exactly as I expected it - something that really needs a proper listen to and tough to appreciate on the first way through. It's slow, emotive, and often pretty miserable, but his voice just makes you need to listen and the lyrics make it worthwhile. It's a tough listen, and probably not something I'll be revisiting regularly (it's not good background music at all!). A comfortable 3.

I don't really know Talking Heads, and this doesn't really grab me to be honest. It feels like it's almost something that I'd really like, but never quite gets there. You can see that the style is a big influence on later stuff though - Modest Mouse, that kind of thing. I don't think I'll ever actively seek out a song from this album again (apart from maybe Take Me To The River), but interesting if not mind-blowing. 3/5.

Not as unpleasant as I had expected - this seems like an attempt to move a bit closer to the mainstream, after the first couple of tracks most of the lyrics are sung rather than screamed. That said, it still isn't very good - it's loud but a bit dull. Not sure why it's made this list to be honest, I get that people like Slipknot but surely you should include an album of Slipknot doing Slipknot things rather than a pretty lacklustre attempt to go more poppy? 1/5, might've got 2 had it not been so bloody long.

What a start to the album! The title track has tonnes of energy, then leads off really nicely into With a Little Help From My Friends and LSD which is great, but from there it loses its way a bit. It's all quite disjointed - the songs all sound very different and don't fit together particularly well as an album. The next three are a bit fluffy, then we go back into the psychedelic stuff with Mr Kite and a strange sitar interlude, before two more very nice but very twee ballads. Then we go back to the energetic and psychedelic stuff from the beginning. 4/5 for me, there's so many good songs on here, but it doesn't quite fit together well enough and there's some filler.

Just a bit dull and repetitive. Good Times is a classic but it needs a radio edit, absolutely no need for eight minutes of it. Not the best disco record that we've had, it's fine but just a bit too slow and all sounds quite similar. 2/5.

This was really fun! I struggle with live albums a bit - and this one (like many others) is cut from a few different shows. There's a bit too much instrumental (which works when you're there, but not so much when you're listening to it on your own at 9.30 on a Wednesday morning!), but that doesn't mark it down too much. Phil Lynott's voice and attitude is great, would've been great to actually see them live I reckon. Good, but not great. 3/5.

Second CHIC album in 3 days... not ideal, but not bad. This one is definitely the better of the two, but it still suffers from being pretty repetitive and each song being at least a minute too long. But, it's got a bit more energy, I enjoyed the instrumental Savoire Faire a lot, and that elevates it to a 3/5.

The album art has them doing their best to look hard, but it's a pretty twee, janky, pop rock album that doesn't offer an awful lot. Think the Lightning Seeds or The Magic Numbers but with a bit less oomph. Synths sound very dated, it's all a bit cheesy. Will gladly never listen to a song from this album again. Not painful on the ears though, so it squeaks a 2.

Expecting this will get lots of 1*s on the site (assuming everyone gets it today rather than it being a ridiculous fluke), but I think it's brilliant. Ticks every box that you need for a 5/5 - quality songs throughout, a really recognisable sound, quirky, clever lyrics, properly memorable stand out tracks (There Is A Light That Never Goes Out in particular), a range of styles that blend together nicely, and NOT TOO LONG! 5/5.

Tough one to rate, this. There are some brilliant songs there, really good bluesy-rock, and Kashmir just sounds incredible. On the other hand, almost every track is long-winded to the point of self-indulgence, and an hour and 20 is just too long for an album. There's a fair bit of variety in style from song to song, which in most places works well but occasionally feels a bit jarring. Loses its way towards the end as well, not much there after Ten Years Gone. Despite all those flaws, I think it does just about merit a 4 - the highs are so high.

Again, it's just too long - if an album is over an hour long, it really needs to justify it and this doesn't quite manage it. The opening 5 tracks are brilliant, it flows brilliantly, there's some real changes of pace and style, Andre 3000's rapping in particular is brilliant. But then it starts getting a bit scrappy, it doesn't flow as well, and there's some weaker songs. The interludes work when there's a really good song either side, but not so much when it's their less good stuff. 3/5 for me, would easily be a 4 if they trimmed it to a tight 45.

Love this. I knew the title track and Frontier Psychiatrist from before, but never listened to the album. This is one that is very much an album rather than a collection of songs, it flows so well and it manages to be a really easy listen to have on in the background whilst working and worth delving into deeper for a proper listen. 4/5, will definitely listen to again. Amazed by the complexity of it too.

A mixed bag. And that's four in a row that have been over an hour. Amazing amount of variety and range in the type of music, but I don't think it all quite works? A couple of tracks really hit home (The Seed in particular), but most of it washed over me really, and the second half is quite a bit weaker than the first. 3/5.

I actually quite liked this, unlike most of you it seems. Was refreshing to have a nice, tight, short album with all the songs between 2 and 3 minutes. The opener is great, if it had been released by a band with a slightly less silly name it might be better known than it is, and there's a couple of other really good tracks on there. But there are also a couple of stinkers, particularly towards the end. So it's 3/5.

Not sure why they bothered releasing this as a live album - if there was an electric atmosphere, they certainly haven't captured it, and the live versions of the songs they do are elongated worse versions of the original recordings (which I don't rate that highly anyway). 2/5

This is really good - it's Cohen's first album and his voice hasn't developed the gratingness that makes his later stuff harder to listen to. The songwriting is great, and it's very relaxing to listen to. The album fits together well - a little too well, to be honest, it's all a little bit the same, and that knocks it down from a 4 to a high three.

This is really good, and miles ahead of its time - if you don't listen too hard this could very easily be mid 2000s indie rock (a la Maximo Park, Franz Ferdinand etc.). Don't think there's a huge amount of filler in this either, punchy, gritty not quite punk music. Top end of a 3/5, really enjoyed.

Meh. Title track is good, as is Political Science, but I don't like the songwriting enough to overcome the sketchiness of his voice (which is great at within a pretty small range and not great otherwise). It's pleasant, but not a lot more than that. Squeaks a 3.

Apparently this album is called Cross if you buy the actual record/CD, but Justice in digital format. That's odd. Anyway, to the music - was much much better than I expected, a French dance duo who I hadn't heard of. Very listenable, not overly repetitive (which is how I find most dance/electronic stuff) and most importantly not too long! Each track was 3-5 minutes, nothing really outstayed its welcome and the album didn't either. Think it deserves a 4, really good.

This is consistently very very good, but not quite great - lacking really memorable standout tracks. But, blimey, what a debut! Not a bad song on there, although it does suffer from the same issue as every Led Zeppelin album imo, it's almost all a little bit too long and drawn out, could be a bit tighter. Otherwise, it's great, like the bluesy style, feels very much like a British CCR. 4/5.

Did not enjoy this really, it washed over me with a pretty heavy tinge of melancholy. Musically not particularly exciting, lyrically pretty miserable. There are better miserable albums out there, can't imagine myself ever revisiting this. 2/5.

This is a bit mad. Very funky sounding, a lot going on from all sorts of different directions, and some clever layering. But, for the most part, the sound that comes out isn't something I actually like that much. It's not unpleasant, but it's not something that I find particularly memorable for anything other than 'that was a bit weird'. Top end of the 2 range. 

I quite like this, but feel like it's missing something... mainly a decent middle... there's some good stuff at the beginning and the end, but they go a bit into prog rock without the sophistication in the middle. The proper glam rock songs are pretty good, would happily listen to those again. If It Takes All Night takes the pace down a bit, which is fine, but then leads into Bitter Sweet and Triptych which are utter dross. Gets a bit better towards the end, but not more than a 3 overall.

Wasn't convinced by this at first, but it did really grow on me. Only know a couple of Specials songs (Rudy and Ghost Town). Surprising amount of variety, good to hum along to, and really works as an album together. Someone mentioned that it sounds a bit dated, in places I agree but in others it sounds totally fresh. 3/5.

Knew the name, didn't know the album or indeed any of the songs on it. Totally up my street, really liked this. Really good background music for working, beautifully atmospheric, but I did also listen to it with much more attention whilst I was having my lunch and it's got a lot more to give. Not an album with many real individual standout tracks, but the overall sound is one that I really like, will listen to this much more regularly and seek out their other stuff.

This is really good, it's been on my work music rotation playlist for ages. People (rightly) mock Coldplay for becoming very middle of the road, crowd-pleasing, and a bit bland, but this is before that happened when they still had some edge (even if it is a little blunt). The quality and consistency is really good throughout. Is it the most exciting? No. Is it very listenable and one of the best examples of dinner party pop rock? Yeah, it probably is. 4/5 for me.

This is quite boring. Obviously know the title track, but thought given their reputation the album might offer a bit more than it does. There's a good patch (My Generation / The Kids Are Alright / Please Please Please) but nothing more than that. Not far off a 3 on the strength of that burst, but it's just a bit dull.

This is fine. Not quite as exciting as you'd expect from a Kinks album, it's more of a concept album focusing on the end of the British empire. Maybe it's a bit unfair, looking back on it from almost 60 years later, but it doesn't really tackle any of the interesting themes around the end of empire. The musical style is all a bit twee, nothing particularly striking. An underwhelming 2/5.

This is really cool, I definitely prefer this older style of ambient to stuff like Aphex Twin (which I tend to find a bit more jarring), and also to Kraftwerk, which is just too robotic. This is way smoother (probably shouldn't go too heavy on the French vs German stereotypes, but fits well here!) Feels very 'old sci-fi' in its vibe, which isn't a bad thing, could quite easily get lost in this and would imagine it is excellent fun to listen to whilst tripping. 4/5.

This is fine... I like that it doesn't take itself too seriously, but it does feel a bit lightweight. I don't see what makes this stand out as particularly memorable, if it was the first of its kind (which surely it wasn't in 1992?) then maybe you could class it as innovative, but I don't think it particularly stands out. Beginning of the album sounds like the kind of rap that a GTA character would make. The guy's got a good flow though, shame he didn't make more interesting music. 2/5.

There are moments in this when I think that it's about to be something that is really really good, but it never quite makes it there. He's clearly having a bit of fun making it, trying out all sorts of different styles, but the overall effect is a bit of a mish-mash that never nails even one of the genres that he's playing to. Also, it's so long, Disc 1 of the deluxe edition (which I imagine is the original release) is well over an hour. Not for me, Clive, 2/5.

Wasn't expecting much when the intro rolled in, but actually this was pretty good. Hadn't heard it before, but it captures that era of early-2000s rap/hiphop really well, a bit more accessible and commercial than most of what you got in the nineties but still keeping some edge. Quite refreshing subject matter too, only a bit of it about the streets/conflict with the police and a lot more about the broader culture of that area of American life. 3/5, none of the tracks really stood out for me.

Not really my type of music, but this is really good. I like the more psychedelic stuff more (think Climbatize was my favourite), a bit less aggressive big beats than most of it, but the rest of it still works really well despite being 25 years old. Consistently good, three instantly recognisable tracks, 4/5 for me.

Wow. This is I think the best album we've had of the 230 odd that I've reviewed so far. Never listened to this start to finish before, and it's mindblowingly good. Energy, pathos, a really interesting window into a side of America that I don't think anyone's captured as well as he has (definitely not musically). Was umming and ahhing about buying tickets for his Hyde Park show this summer, but so so glad I did it now! 5/5.

Album title exactly reflects how I feel about it (Waterloo Sunset aside). It's decent, definitely more coherent than Arthur, but not a lot better. Scrapes a 3 on the strength of Waterloo Sunset, the rest is fine but easily disappears into the background.

I liked this, having not heard anything of them other than All The Young Dudes. You can very much tell that they were friends with Bowie, the influences here are really obvious. It's good and fun, but misses something to really take it to the top level. 3/5.

Pretty bland. At least it was short! Jazzed up rock, easy listening but doesn't really offer anything more than that.

I really like the idea of Talking Heads, and want to like their music, but just can't get properly into it. Suspect it is one that requires more listening than I'm able to put in at the moment given how far I am behind! Nothing really stood out for me in terms of individual tracks, the sound is not unpleasant (although David Byrne's voice is a bit jarring), but there's nothing that I'm particularly excited about going back to. 2/5.

Now this I enjoyed much more than I expected. Had heard of McLaren because of the Sex Pistols and Vivienne Westwood stuff, but didn't know that he'd released anything under his own name. Not sure how much of this is actually him, but it's a bizarre mix of sounds and styles that fits together pretty well and is a really fun listen. The radio presenter schtick is a nice touch the first time, but it gets a bit wearing after 40 minutes... Does not sound British at all, he's borrowed sounds from everywhere (sometimes without crediting the people he's borrowed from). 3/5, it's really fun.

Not far off of a 5. Three really really good songs (Free Bird, Tuesday's Gone, and Simple Man), a couple of okay to good ones, and then Mississipi Kid and to a lesser extent Poison Whiskey towards the end which drags it down from a 5 to a 4. Won't listen to the album again, but will be picking out those three songs and listening to them over and over.

Pretty unremarkable punk record. Maybe I'm being harsh, it's not unpleasant, but it's a bit less raw than the rest of the punk we've had, particularly from that era. It doesn't sound as angry and lashing out in the same way that the best punk albums do - you can't listen to them without feeling a bit of that emotion, but this didn't move me at all. 2/5.

Haven't listened to this album for ages, and it's a mix between some really quite good songs (generally the ones with a bit more emphasis on the music - Ragged Wood, Your Protector probably my favourite 2), and some vocal arrangements that are perfectly pleasant, but a bit twee. Listening to it back in 2008, it felt very different from anything else that I was listening to then, the sound isn't quite as unusual now but it's still a decent listen. 3/5. 

Sounds like a 2000s girl band with some edge, which isn't bad for a record from 1994. Chasing Waterfalls is the song that everyone will know, but the album as a whole has a fair bit more edge to it. Flits between R&B and hip hop, does both of them pretty well. 3/5, annoying amount of interludes that never really hit.

Really underwhelming. I mean, it's not my type of music anyway, but this is held in such high esteem by metal people and I don't really know why? We've had a few metal albums over the course of our 250 albums so far, and the Judas Priest one was streets ahead of this. Don't particularly like the guy's voice (yeah, I know metal is supposed to have an edge to it, but it's always better when they actually sing as well), it's long, repetitive, and convoluted. 2/5.

This is so dull. Only 31 minutes, but still really dragged for me, little energy to it and nothing particularly worth listening to in the lyrics. I don't mind country, but this is pap. 1/5.

File this away with Manu Chao in the 'things that I only ever listened to to impress girls' cabinet. Not memorable in any way, can appreciate that there's a range of styles there, but don't particularly enjoy any of them. Not unpleasant background music, so it can sneak a 2.

Not as good as Rush of Blood to the Head, but still some really good tracks on it, and fits well together. That opening couple of tracks (I really don't like Yellow, the success of that followed by The Scientist on the next album sent the band down a direction that I really didn't like) is great, Shiver being my favourite. There's not a bad song on the album, but there's not as much that elevates it as Rush of Blood to the Head. 3/5.

I love Pink Floyd, but I don't love this. Syd Barrett gets a lot of love, but the band made much better music without him - this is too out there for me (although every album should have a song with as silly a title as Take Up Your Stethoscope and Walk). Interstellar Overdrive is a very cool instrumental that loses its way and drags, there's no song that obviously appeals, and then you have stuff like Bike which is just too weird. 2/5.

Not a lot for me here, it's gentle 90s electro / D&B with a haunting female vocal over the top. Nothing really grabs me, it's all a bit bland tune-wise, the lyrics are pretty miserable in general. 2/5

This is good, but doesn't quite get really good. The middle section is the best bit, good bit of energy, but I think Paul Weller's voice is too polished to make a properly rough album, and too rough to make a properly polished one, so it sits kind of uncomfortably in the middle.  Doesn't stand out enough to get a 4, but comfortably too good for a 2.

I think I've come to the conclusion that I like Bowie songs, but don't like Bowie albums to the same extent. This is OK, but never quite works for me - there are a few tracks on it that are good (and it does sound very modern for the early seventies) but also a lot that I don't like. Drive-In Saturday is good, Jean Genie is Bowie at his glammiest, but I don't particularly want to listen to this again. Just scrapes a 3 because I'm feeling generous, and Drive In Saturday is great. 3/5.

Not unpleasant, but very strange. Can't justify giving it any more than a 2, really don't get the purpose of it. A film soundtrack is supposed to elevate and add to the film it's supporting, how on earth are you supposed to judge it if there's no film attached to it? 2/5.

I like Tom Waits when he does his spoken word stuff, I like him when he sings properly, I really really don't like where he does something in the middle. The first track on this is exactly what I don't like. I love his lyrical style, and when he describes these almost film noir scenes it works beautifully with his gravel voice, but the faster and more upbeat stuff just doesn't do it for me. I'll be generous and give it a 3, because when it hits it hits really well, but there's a couple of tracks on there that I'd barely give a 1.

This is perfectly fine, but I don't think it's outstanding. Quite similar to the Alanis Morissette album that we had, but without the same level of energy or raw anger, this is a bit more reflective throughout. It does suffer for that a bit, and the quality fades away at the end. An easy 3 though, a pleasant listen with some really soulful lyrics underneath it.

Not my cup of tea. Feels like one of those bands who are more famous than they should be because of tragedy? Too scratchy and tuneless; the music isn't great and you can't really hear much of the lyrics. Apparently it's the first hardcore punk album, but I don't think there's much there that we haven't heard from other artists recording earlier in the seventies? 1/5, it's just not nice to listen to and has very little in the way of redeeming features.

This is good. Really strong, haunting voice, with a lot of range in the songs. Nothing Compares 2 U is the one that everyone knows, but there's a couple of others that are worth listening to as well - Black Boys On Mopeds is one for the anti-English, and The Emperor's New Clothes is much more upbeat in Tempo (and a bit less bleak!). 3/5, not a showstopper but really good.

Just completely beige. Musically has no edge, lyrically even less. And it has the Jesus element.  It's a pleasant enough sound, so it gets to a 2, but doesn't warrant anything more, there's nothing of interest there.

Don't get it. The version of No Woman No Cry is way weaker than what he produces later on, and there's not much else on this album that excites, it feels a bit light somehow. Them Belly Full is good, but I don't think I'll be listening to much else of this again. Expect we'll get better Marley albums on our list. 2/5.

I liked this more than our last Bjork-based adventure - felt like there was a bit more depth to it. It's quirky, it's odd, but in places it's really really good. Pagan Poetry is brilliant. Some people seem to find her voice/singing style really offensive, but I certainly don't on this album. Very chilled out soundscape with a lot of nuance on top of it, it's great to work/write to. 3/5, could do with another stand out track to get it up to a 4.

Not sure about this, it's almost like two different albums in one. First half is pretty standard post-punk, except the music is all a bit too jolly. Nothing from it grabs me like 'Jane Says' did from the other album of theirs that we had. Been Caught Stealing is apparently their big hit from this album, but I don't think I can forgive it for starting with the dogs barking... Second half is completely different, it's quite prog-like, very long tracks, and much more introspective. If you could combine the two halves (literally blend them, not just stick one half in front of the other), then it might make for a decent album - as it is, the first half is too lightweight, and the second half is too faux-serious. 2/5.

Another good album, and one that I hadn't heard of. Equally good for having on in the background during work and for actively listening to. I don't quite get why I like it, it's definitely an overall construction thing rather than any specific part of the music or individual track being out of this world. Her voice is nice, the stuff behind it is verging on psychedelia. And it's really consistent, solid tracks pretty much from start to finish. Top end of a 3, missing a standout element, but I will be listening to this plenty more.

This was not as bad as I expected it to be, particularly after the first two tracks (which are basically the same but one happy and one sad). Also, Black Rose probably crosses the racist line about being ashamed of an interracial relationship. Apart from that, it's not a bad album (for country, anyway). I really want to find some country music I like (other than Johnny Cash), but this isn't quite it. It's a bit more rock and roll than pure whining country music (which is why I like it a bit more I think), there are some decent songs in there, but it's not anything I'll go back to. 2/5.

This album starts off brilliantly - that first five tracks is really, really good, she has a fantastic voice and the storytelling is great. But, it loses its way in the second half, there's not really a track that stands out. Definitely someone who's reputation benefited from dying young, not as good as a lot of people think but still really strong. 4/5.

What a disappointment. After the first two tracks (which are a big old bombastic prog rocky style intro) followed by Relax, I was expecting a proper concept album. What you end up with is a couple of their songs mixed in with a lot of really underwhelming covers. It's overproduced to the point it sounds like it's done on purpose - might've worked quite well had they properly leant into the Pleasuredome theme, but it's just a bit of a mess. 2/5, credit for The Power Of Love completely cancelled out by the painful cover of Born To Run.

Every song is basically the same, but it's pretty fun. Some really dodgy lyrics in one of the songs in particular (Jailbait) which is a bit grim. It's an odd kind of music, it's simple like 50s rock & roll (Dance in particular sounds like this) but with louder guitars. Not really for me, one track of it is fine (particularly when it's Ace Of Spades), but it gets very samey very quickly. 2/5.

Not particularly memorable - that said, I thought it was early 2000s indie and it's actually early 90s, so probably gains some bonus points for being ahead of its time. Title track is decent, and their Mrs Robinson cover (which I knew already) is great, but otherwise there's not much here to recommend. 2/5, nearly a 3 but just not enough depth.

Had this on in the background whilst working, and the first time I listened to it made no impact on me whatsoever. The second time I tried to listen a bit harder, and it still didn't do a lot for me. The site describes it as 'never commercially successful and critically ignored outside of its release', and that seems fair to me. The folk isn't done artfully enough to be properly good, there's not enough cleverness in the lyrics, and when they add the brass backing it just sounds a bit comical. 1/5.

I struggle with entire instrumental albums at the best of times, and this was no exception. Freeform, improvised jazz is not my cup of tea, there's not enough structure to this and IT'S NEARLY TWO HOURS LONG!!!! There probably is an album that I'd be quite happy to listen to in there somewhere, if you cut out a decent chunk of the repetition and twiddling around that slows everything down, but it gets lost in the mess. 1/5.

I really like this, it's a really nice blend of electronica and 'real' music, somehow peaceful, ethereal, and haunting at the same time, and her voice is amazing. The opening track and Utopia are the standouts, the rest is good but not top drawer. 3/5, comfortably.

Liked this, didn't love it. She's clearly a really talented rapper technically, the flow is really quick where she needs it to be and she controls the pace really well. There are some really good beats in there too, and it's a tight, coherent album, so this should be something I really like... but I just don't. 3/5.

This is somewhere between folk and rock & roll, similar to the Eagles in style. It's good - a perfectly pleasant listen without a really bad track on it - but doesn't hit any particularly great notes. Feels pretty ahead of its time for 1968, holds together really well as an album. 3/5, quite comfortably. Will be listening again.

I like this way more than I did the 'real' Metallica album that we had before, which I guess shows that I'm not really a proper metal person (sorry @Hector). Feels like they've taken their previous work, listened to a load of Bon Jovi, and set this new record about half way in between. Agree with Joe on this version of Nothing Else Matters, but it's still a brilliant song and so different to what they've done before. Also agree that it's a bit bloated, but it's still pretty listenable. 3/5, has its flaws, but I do like it.

Again, I really struggle with Bowie albums. This is really experimental, a bit odd, and nothing about it really grabs me, other than the title track. I read that he put out 11 albums in the seventies and, based on the handful that we've had, I think he would've been better working a bit harder on 6... There's clearly shedloads of creativity and innovation here, just needs a bit more of a filter because a lot of this stuff really doesn't work. Still a Bowie singles fan, but we haven't yet had an album that I think is really good. 2/5.

Another underwhelmer, although I went into this with lower expectations. Nothing that stands out at all, it's not awful but it's not something I'll ever be tempted to come back to. Falls somewhere in the cracks between punk, glam, and new wave without seriously troubling the best of either. 2/5.

This is quite fun, but too meandering to get a really high score. Can just about scrape a 3, would probably have been a comfortable 3 without the SIXTEEN MINUTE drum solo track at the end. Fun sound, strays into the overly experimental at times but not too often. Probably won't listen again, but glad I listened once!

I think a low 4 for this. It's lyrically very nice, tells some great stories, and is wonderfully haunting, but doesn't do enough musically to elevate it further than this. Not a lot of variety in it, other than the harmonica (which I don't particularly like).

First porn music album we've had for a little while. Doesn't do anything for me at all, it's not unpleasant to having washing around you whilst you get on with something else, but no real appeal. 2/5.

This is really good, way ahead of its time and well worth a listen. Definitely better than the Pink Floyd of its era, but not as good as later Pink Floyd. I still find that prog rock albums set in fantasy world albums are a bit cringey, and this has its cringey moments, but it mostly manages to overcome them. 3/5

This is really patchy. I really like it in places, but really don't in others. Starts off very bland, has some really interesting bits interspersed with some dross in the middle, then bland again towards the end. Just didn't fit together very well (did they decide to make an experimental album or is the album referred to as experimental because it's an incoherent mess?). 3/5, just.

Fine, nothing more, nothing less. Perfectly serviceable 90s rock, but nothing stands out to me on this, won't listen again, and it drags towards the end. 2/5, not unpleasant but nothing worth recommending.

Really disappointing, this. Superstition is a classic, most of the rest is very basic saccharine stuff, not particularly interesting lyrics over the top of mostly lift music. Stevie is much more interesting when he gets the proper slap bass going, a bit of sass and rhythm, rather than crooning. 2/5.

I liked this, but not quite as much as the rest of you did. The lead singer's voice probably stops it from being a 5, and it does drag a little, but it's still a great listen. Can tell that it's a good album by pretty much everyone having a different favourite song from it  A really good sound (love the ever so slightly self-indulgent guitar solo in Soma), could probably criticise the lack of variety but it's all pretty good so I don't want to! 4/5.

This is a really tidy, really tight 35 minute album. Everyone knows Last Nite, I didn't know anything else other than that and Someday, and really enjoyed this. Another 4/5 (not sure I've given 2 in a row before!), missing a bit of variety that might lift it up to a 5 but it's really good 2000s guitar music and clearly an inspiration for a lot that came after it in the mid-00s.

Oof this is good too. An easy four, could well have been a five without the flight into Tolkein-y fantasy in the Battle of Evermore. Starts and ends with brilliant songs, and of course you've got Stairway to Heaven in the middle. Lovely stuff.

Didn't do an awful lot for me, this. Mostly washed over me, occasionally caught me with an interesting lyric or two but musically it's pretty bland. 2/5.

Not quite as good as The Wall, or Dark Side of The Moon (certainly in terms of storytelling), but still very very good. Shine On You Crazy Diamond is the best bit of proper prog (i.e. long songs with lots of instrumental) that they've done (and possibly that anyone has done?), the title track is superb, and there's some really great caustic lyrics about the music industry in particular (by the way, which one's Pink?). It's an incredible soundscape with a few bits that make you really listen - DSOTM and The Wall don't really have those lulls, so that's why this only gets a 4 rather than a 5, but it's very very close.

Queen are a band that I liked more going into this process than I do 300 odd records in (of which I think 2 have been Queen?). I'm getting a similar feel to Bowie - I love a lot of the individual tracks, but there's a lot of dross on the albums. Unlike Bowie, I'm not convinced that I'll like this more with repeated listens. Sheer Heart Attack is a really disjointed record, the transitions between songs are so stark, the pacing is completely varied, it's mad. I love Killer Queen - Queen do big, melodramatic, and either super emotional or (more often) OTT camp glam very well. When they stray from that, they don't offer an awful lot. The more I listen to their albums, the more I feel like they wasted Freddie's incredible talent for showmanship. 2/5 for this, Killer Queen almost drags it up to a 3 but can't quite manage it.

Never heard of Ute or this album, but obviously do know a lot of her contributors. It's been absolutely trashed on the site, but I really quite like it. It's not exactly groundbreaking, but it's lyrically clever, her voice is beautiful, and she tells some really fun stories. The people who compare this to hotel background music clearly haven't been listening properly, it's way too hard-hitting for that. Shades of musical theatre and bombastic Bond theme tunes in places, pretty melancholy in others, I think this is great. 3, pushing close to a 4.

Much better than our previous New Order album, but still doesn't massively grab me. Didn't know any of the songs, but the hook on Love Vigilantes is somehow familiar. It's a nice listen, but there's not a lot there that I'll remember. 3/5.

I think maybe I'll like later Blur albums better? This is fine, but a bit dialed back and bland compared to what they'd become later on. Opening track is good (but not great), but the rest fades a bit into beige. 2/5.

This is a really nice listen - good amount of range, amazing voice, and I do like the big band sound on occasion. But, it feels much more like an anthology than an album, and I get fed up of the style after about 45 minutes. Scrapes a 3, no more than that.

Dreamy, on the verge of porny, but with slightly too much energy to be either. Not unpleasant (although his voice sounds like Louis Armstrong has stopped taking Strepsils and lost a decent chunk of musicality), but not super interesting either. Started badly, got better as it went on, but still not really enough to elevate it above a 2. Did enjoy the final track though.

I was quite excited when we got Fiona Apple again - I hadn't heard of her before listening to her earlier album through this - but this was a bit disappointing. Went a bit too heavy on the 'all men are bastards' theme with not much subtlety or cleverness, and musically it feels a bit weird - can't put my finger on why, but doesn't work for me. Nothing anywhere near as gripping as Sleep To Dream from Tidal. 2/5.

This is quite fun, a quick, tight half an hour of blues rock with a few changes of pace. As has been mentioned a few times, it's very similar to the Rolling Stones. I like it but don't love it, it's all good but there's no standout track. 3/5.

A Bowie album by another name, so I don't really like it  I've given this a few goes whilst I've been working today, and it's not growing on me at all. Not awful, but I just don't really like it. 2/5.

Enjoyed this a lot, in patches. The guy is clearly really talented when he wants to be, the flow and rhythm is amazing and the stories are really well-crafted in patches. But, the skits are generally pretty awful (as they are pretty much invariably on any rap album), and there's a bit too much rapping about his dick for my liking... 3/5, 5/5 for his ability and most of the gang-related song, less 1 for the skits and another 1 for the really crude sexual stuff.

This is quite odd, but I actually quite like it. Really janky changes in styles. Backwater is a bizarre song, but weirdly catchy, there's an instrumental, Here He Comes sounds like it could be off a Jarvis solo album, and the sound of By This River is great. Not a worldbeater, not coherent, but a pleasant enough listen and I'll go back to several of the songs. 3/5.

I don't generally like live albums, and a grungey rock band doing a gig without the ability to go loud on the instruments didn't exactly fill me with excitement. But, this is really, really good. Hearing some of these songs stripped back shows the underlying talent there without the protective layer of being loud and full of energy. The album also manages to capture (in a way that most live albums don't) actually being there, and some of the character of the band. 4/5.

This is pretty beige. Weird staticky start into some drums which sounds interesting, but it really fades into background music pretty quickly. Vocalist is crap, production mix is a bit weird so you can't really hear them anyway. The overall sound is actually quite good (if not that exciting) but the vocals really break it and don't seem to fit well with the rest. 2/5.

This is cool, bounced off me a bit the first time I listened to it but I've enjoyed it a lot more coming back to it now. It's consistent all the way through - a good pace with enough variety that you don't get into your comfort zone - with a handful of really good songs (Someone Great, All My Friends and New York). The album as a whole doesn't seem to drag, but most of the songs do; you've got to be questioning yourself when your average song is over 6 minutes long! Doesn't quite merit a 4, but it's not far off - 3/5.

Have listened to this plenty of times before, and it's just brilliant for what it wants to be. It's musically pretty simplistic, but it's a perfect platform for the snarling rage and caustic lyrics that go over the top of it. Does it merit a 5? Not quite - it gets a bit lazy lyrically on a couple of the tracks - but it's definitely a 4. God Save The Queen, Anarchy In The UK, and Pretty Vacant are all incredible songs.

Bit of a comedown after the Sex Pistols - this is much more charming but lacking a bit of energy. Not sure that it merits being on this list to be honest, there's nothing about it that particularly grabs me, it was never particularly popular, and it just doesn't stand out at all. 2/5, not unpleasant but no reason for it being on this list.

I've ended up listening to this loads - not because I massively like it, but because I keep listening to it and then not actually writing anything. It's quite nice, not unpleasant to listen to, somewhere between rock and country. The kind of music you'd get if you put a cowboy hat on one of the lower energy REM albums, or if you dialled down the talent from the Eagles by 10-15%. Much more country at the very beginning and the end than it is during the middle. 2/5, fine.

Underwhelming. Although I had pretty low expectations anyway. It's pretty bland disco rock, there's nothing here that I'll ever deliberately listen to again. 1/5.

This album is not how I remember it from when it first came out. Did they really combine so many tracks? Weird. The political stuff felt a bit lightweight and simplistic when I was 14, and hasn't aged particularly well - but musically it's still really fun, varied, and got a lot going on. And I'm a sucker for a good rock opera. Can't remember how many of these they released as singles, but could easily have been American Idiot, Jesus of Suburbia, Holiday, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, St Jimmy, and Wake Me Up When September Ends - although none of those songs are lifechangingly brilliant, it's rare that you get six single-worthy songs on a single album. 4/5.

This is... really, really bad. One of those albums which inspired other people to make much better music. The Spotify link takes you to the 2 hour megadeluxe version, the actual one is only 6 tracks and 22 minutes long. It's loud, thrashy, guy with a rubbish voice oscillates between singing and screaming, the odd song with religious influences, a lot of anger. 1/5, will actively avoid in future rather than merely not seeking it out.

This gets stellar reviews on the site, but I prefer her later stuff - to me a lot of the sound here sounds very dated. Her voice is amazing, but the music behind it is a bit too disco/electro in a lot of places for it to work for me. 2/5.

Quite enjoyed bits of this, but did feel that it dragged (although it's less than 40 minutes long). It's fun, synthy pop music - not a huge amount of complexity, nuance, or variation. I didn't know any of the tracks apart from Take On Me, they're all in the same vein as that but without the same levels of catchy energy. 2/5.

This isn't great - I've listened to their slightly later stuff and it's a fair bit more tuneful than this. Full of energy, which is a positive, and you can actually hear the lyrics, which is unusual for this type of music and another positive, but ultimately it's just not a pleasant or particularly interesting listen. 2/5.

I like this, I really do, but there's no need to make it a double album - there's not enough variety there to keep me engaged for over an hour and a quarter, and there's a fair bit of filler. That said, the pace changes a bit, there are a handful of good songs scattered through it, but it's not something I'll come back to in its entirety. 3/5.

Don't think this was as bad as a lot of you are making out - although it isn't great. I'm not going to listen to it again, but it isn't unpleasant. A bit corny, a bit cheesy, overproduced, but not awful. 2/5.

Sounds quite pretty, but it's pretty bland and doesn't evoke much emotion. A 36 minute album shouldn't drag, but this one did. 2/5.

I do like Genesis, but not so much a fan of Peter Gabriel's solo stuff. First track of this is quite Genesis-y, then Solsbury Hill is very different but good, but the rest of the album disappears into mediocrity (aside the end track which is quite cool). 2/5, just falls short of a 3.

This is a really good album. There aren't really standout songs in the same way there are on Funeral, but it all flows together beautifully and shows you a world in a way that very few bands can do (particularly more modern ones). The bonus tracks (not on the link that the site gives us) are also really good, the one with David Byrne in particular. 4/5.

Didn't listen to this on Christmas Eve, based on the feedback in here, and I'm glad I didn't! Utterly miserable, this - so much pain, from so many different perspectives. That's what keeps this record really interesting right the way through though - normally when you get a misery album it's very 'woe is me' and that gets wearing, but this is much much broader. I don't think I'll be listening to this much again, purely because it's so miserable and angry, but it's really really good. 4/5.

This was an absolute delight - packed full of Christmas classics and perfect for Christmas morning. Just the right amount of saccharine, but not too much, with a bit of reflection in there to. 4/5.

First half of this album is really really good (although part of that is probably nostalgia from when I listened to it a lot as a teenager). It's so catchy, mix of some classic indie and more funky stuff, very easy to listen to. Unfortunately, the second half of the album really brings it down; there's nothing there really worth listening to after track 7 (out of 15), which brings my rating down to a 3.

This is the closest we've got so far to a full-on spoken word album. That's really difficult to make work, the lyrics have to be so good and so tight, and for the most part this album doesn't get there. The TV song is great - it's focused on one theme (unlike some of the others that really wander), and it's got some very pithy lines in there - but there's not enough else there that gets close to that level. It also drags - could really do with losing a track or two and focusing the rest in from 6/7 minutes to 4/5. 3/5, some great messages that really resonate 20 years on but needs a bit more polish and refinement to make it truly great.

Nicely put together, short and relatively punchy crooner songs. Does all blend together a bit though, a couple of vaguely memorable tracks but that's not particularly impressive out of 15. 2/5.

Not as good as I remembered it being back when it came out. A couple of great songs in there, a bit mad, felt very out there for 11 year old me but in retrospect it probably wasn't as weird as all that. A lot of filler in there too. Hopefully we get the next couple of Gorillaz albums in here too, they're definitely better than this (but maybe a bit less significant?) 3/5.

I struggle to get Led Zeppelin the same way that some people do - particularly when listening to a whole album. Their songs are always just a little bit too long, and often a bit too waily - don't particularly like Robert Plant as a vocalist and it's just a bit too tortured (and creepy in places). That said, Whole Lotta Love is a great song, but the album is no more than a 3/5 for me.

That opening is absolutely iconic - Right Here Right Now with the radio bit at the end into Rockafeller Skank - but overall the album is a bit of a disappointment. I came into it knowing those two plus Gangster Trippin and Praise You, and I don't think there's another song on there that I'll ever actively listen to again. That said, those 4 alone are enough to get this album to a 3, but no higher.

This is definitely a better album than the previous one(s?) of his that we've had. Not really a standout song, but a much more coherent album with a bit more edge than the lift music that he can sometimes drift into. Happy to give this one a 3, it still doesn't excite me any more than that and I probably won't go back, but glad that I've listened to it.

Preferred this album to the other efforts of the contributors that we've had - they hide Neil Young's voice really well in this one - and it's not a bad listen, if a bit bland. Beautifully put together, some nice harmonies, and nicely sung. If it was on Spotify I'd probably revisit it, as it isn't I won't. 3/5.

Not come across this before, but lots of the sounds are very familiar. Feels like it's probably on the list by virtue of what it inspired and what has borrowed from it, rather than on its own merit. Sounds very dated, lacking a bit of energy, not really my cup of tea. 2/5.

Had never listened to this as an album before, but put it on and was amazed at how many of the songs that I recognised. I don't think it's as high a 5 as some we've had previously, it's maybe a little too middle of the road for that in places, but there are so many good tracks on this that you'd be a fool to give it anything less.

Not as good as his other post-Beatles album - although there are a couple of really good songs on here. Imagine I've heard so much to the point it hurts, so not really a net positive, but Jealous Guy and Gimme Some Truth are fantastic songs (but probably both better when covered by others), and the McCartney diss track is also decent. Not great aside of that, it merits a 3 but no more.

The album art is by far the best thing about this album, it is marvellous. The music's not brilliant though, it's relatively inoffensive but doesn't do much to spark any emotion whatsoever. Hotel lobby / dinner party background music - perfect for that, but nothing more really. 2/5.

A mixed bag - a lot of beige music with a couple of tracks that stand out - the opener in particular. It's easy listening indie stuff, would've been very generic had it have come out in 2006 but the fact that it was 7 years before that shows that it was a bit more unique for its time. Voice gets a bit strained at times, but it's generally a set of quite pretty arrangements that excites in places. 3/5.

This is fine, decent rap but nothing special - the storytelling that makes really good rap great just isn't here (although it gets close in Just To Get A Rep). A lot of filler in this album, only really a couple of tracks that are really worth listening to (the title track is decent, a bit faster paced with a bit more funk than most of the album). 2/5.

Another live album - JC does these much better than most, as you can actually hear the atmosphere and enjoy the back and forth with the audience (rather than the usual poor recording quality and a few screams). This is really good - not sure the music deserves anything more than a 3, but the way it captures an event elevates it to a 4.

More enjoyable than I expected. A bit repetitive. and doesn't have as much character as others in a similar vein, but it's not unpleasant to listen to. 2/5

I love Q-Tip's voice, and his flow, and there's some stuff that works really nicely here, it's really smooth. But nice is all it is - it doesn't bite lyrically and there's not enough punch to it. Not an unpleasant listen by any means, but not a great one. Just about scrapes a 3.

Minus points for album name originality! The album is good, but could have a bit more to it - seems to sit about half way between Springsteen and Bon Jovi without quite getting the lyrical storytelling of Springsteen or the catchiness and infectious energy of Bon Jovi (aside from American Girl). 3/5, hoping we get some more of them later in their career when they've refined their sound a bit.

This is really miserable, but really good. Hard work to listen to, definitely less approachable than their other album, but probably the better for it? Not a bad song on it, good changes of tempo, sounds, and style. Probably won't go back to it as a full album unless something really unpleasant happens to me and I need to misery out, but there are plenty of tracks that are worth having on a playlist. Isolation and 24 Hours probably the highlights, but not by a lot. 4/5.

A perfectly pleasant listen, but feels very dated - big band swing/blues stuff. Nicely arranged, all very smooth, but lacks a bit of grit  for my tastes. 3/5.

This is full on beige - Take It Easy is a decent enough song, but not particularly memorable, but the rest of it really doesn't inspire much of anything. Perfectly pleasant to listen to in the most part (Chug All Night feels very weird and out of character for them), but it's pretty unambitious given how good their voices are. Should be doing a lot more (and did so with some later albums, much better than this). 2/5. 

I struggle with Radiohead a bit, to be honest. Find it very up and down, a lot of miserable dirges with a few real highlights where things come together for me. Unfortunately, on this album, they don't really. There's a decent little stretch from You and Whose Army to Knives Out, but other than that not a lot that works for me. That said, I probably will listen to it a bit more - I haven't heard this one before, and it does feel like the kind of album that's a grower rather than a shower. Feel a bit mean giving it a 2, but doesn't do enough for me to get to 3.

Not for me. Sounds a bit quirky, and not much like almost anything we've had on here, but it doesn't do it for me, it's a bit too raw and doesn't have enough to really hook me in the way that Paper Planes does. 2/5.

Great first track, really catchy pop song, but descends into mediocre schmaltz very quickly. Lyrics go from cheesy to painful throughout most of the rest of the album, it's like ABBA but without the catchiness or the charm. 2/5. Probably a 1 without the single.

This grew on me the more I listened to it - stuck the album on again after I got into it more towards the end of my first listen, and I like this. Maybe it's a bit too clean and smooth for its message and style, but it's still a good listen. 3/5.

Do you remember a few months ago we had the album that was a soundtrack to a film that didn't exist? This is a soundtrack to a film that does exist, which is an improvement on that. I was sceptical going into it - haven't seen the film, so didn't think that it would really add much. It is background music, but it's very listenable, feels like it could definitely be one of those movies where the soundtrack is front and centre. 3/5.

I don't really know what to make of this. And then I look to see that it's from 1973 and I'm really impressed - it sounds much more modern than that, although there is the odd place where it shows its age (the Flamingo synths is where it sticks out the most). It's somewhere in the prog rock / psychedelia mix, and I really like it. Doesn't have the drama or compelling story telling of really good prog, but has a wonderful flow to it and is really nice and light hearted. Just about squeaks a 4/5. 

Didn't enjoy this, despite the excellent track names. Felt very lightweight, fine for background music but didn't engage me much at all. Quite janky and repetitive in places. 2/5.

Much better than our previous PJ album. Doesn't feel like it overstays its welcome even at 53 minutes, got some punk energy too it but some tuneful melodies and thoughtful lyrics too. This Mess We're In with Thom Yorke is a really lovely song, I like A Place Called Home too. 3/5.

Perfectly pleasant to listen to as background music, fun, jazzy stuff but not something I'll likely go back to. 2/5.

Did not enjoy this for the first five minutes, then got way more into it as I listened. Does the album get better as it goes on or did I just get into the groove better? I'm not a massive fan of dance music, but this is way more listenable than a lot of it - still suffers from a lot of the songs being overly repetitive, but it's good. Open Up is wonderful - I definitely prefer their music with lyrics over the top of it rather than the purist dance music. 3/5, verging on a 4 but a bit too repetitive a bit too often to get there.

Pleasant, vanilla, bluesy folky stuff. Pretty voice, nice gentle guitarwork behind it, but not cutting in any way, doesn't really say much, until he goes amusingly off the rails for the last few tracks of the album. 2/5.

This was not quite what I expected, thought it'd be more straight down the line pop rock from my (clearly limited) knowledge of The Cars. Synth sounds feel pretty dated now, but must've been pretty ahead of the curve in 1978. Just What I Needed is a really good song, the rest is fine but a bit cheesy, 3/5.

Never heard much of the Pixies before (although we've had Bossanova a while ago on this which I didn't enjoy that much), but I was pleasantly surprised by this. Still a bit angry, shouty, and tuneless in places, but there's an amazing energy to it, a huge amount of variety without losing a common thread, and it's just a good fun listen. 4/5.

I enjoyed this, but it's a bit harsh to have it follow that Pixies album. The sound is a bit cleaner (though still has a bit of filth), the singing is often even more tuneless, but the lyrics are just a bit painful. Sort of thing that I'd have loved when I was 13 (and would still be fond of now if I'd have listened to it then), but I've mostly grown out of now.

Much more interesting when it's faster - the more laid back tracks give it a major hotel lobby vibe, but Incident at Neshabur and Hope You're Feeling Better have a bit of edge to them. 3/5, better than I expected.

Much better than the other album of theirs that we've had so far - know this one from before, it's really good. Paranoid Android is one of my favourites of there's Karama Police too, there's levels of energy in there but also sophistication. 4/5.

This is full of energy, pop punk style stuff. Feels a bit short of edge and a little lightweight, plus the vocals are quite grating, there's not enough variety there. Still, a tight 35 minutes, we've had much worse albums. 2/5.

I had it in my head (not ever having listened to Echo & The Bunnymen before) that they were much more modern than 1980, but it seems not. It's a good listen, good energy, a sound that is maybe a bit dated now but definitely wouldn't have been in 1980. It is a bit samey though (apart from the final track), and there's no track that really stands out. Just about scrapes a 3.

It's a really nice album, but it's mostly cover versions so I struggle to give it a super high score. His voice is wonderful, he's singing classics, but there's a couple of bits that don't do it for me (not convinced that Satisfaction works in this style, and Respect sung by anyone other than Aretha sounds weird now!). 3/5.

Really like the start of this album - the first three tracks - but after that it slowly descends into much slower, easy listening rap/hip hop that doesn't really work very well. That said, it's not an unpleasant listen, but it lacks the bite that the first section of the album has. Disappointing, but scrapes a 3.

This was really fun, rough round the edges, good energy, but lacking a bit in anything to make it stand out (I Was A Teenage Werewolf seems to me to strip out a lot of the energy that makes the first part of the album more fun). Did quite enjoy the unexpected cover of Fever at the end of the album, very different sound. Another 3!

I'm in two minds about Bob Dylan - I definitely don't see him in the same overwhelmingly positive light as some people, but I do enjoy his stuff? Is he a better singer than... even 50% of most professional singers? No (although I like his voice more later in his career, like this album). Is he a noticeably better lyricist than people like Paul Simon / Tom Waits? No. I'm not sure he deserves a Nobel Prize over them and potentially some others, but it's a really nice, gravelly bluesy listen. Mixes up the pace a little, but overall pretty slow and ballad-like. 3/5, but a comfortable 3. 

Reminds me a lot of Led Zeppelin - although a bit poppier and a bit less folky. It's a bit self-indulgent in places, to be honest, and the lyrics are really average in most places (particularly the sci-fi shit). Highway Star is a good pop song, and Smoke On The Water is great (helps that they're actually telling a real story, which masks some of the lack of creativity in the lyric that you hear on the stuff they've made up), and Lazy is a cool listen (although again, a bit self-indulgent). 3/5.

Bit late to this one, but the Spotify link takes you to a weird remaster rather than the original, with the tracks out of order and some missing. I really liked this - it's not super original, but it's catchy, doesn't overstay its welcome, and it's got bags of energy and is full of fun. The R rolling a la Sex Pistols is funny, the lyrics are really quirky but quite clever and I enjoyed it. Not quite good enough for a 4 though, so still stuck in my rut of 3s.

That first minute really set the tone for the rest. This is really not good - it's a hip hop concept album, based on the concept of a pervy space doctor, and it's just as good as that description makes it sound. The lyrics are either crude, crap, or both - his delivery is pretty good, but there's very little interesting being said. I quite like the idea of a trippy hip hop album like this (and maybe it inspired better ones), but the execution of this is just not great. Some of the sampling, the flow, and the music behind almost lifts this to a 2, but the lyrics just destroy it for me. 1/5.

Sounds like a budget Genesis - vocals are quite Peter Gabriel-y, but the music is a bit more middle of the road than most of what Genesis did (certainly in the Gabriel days). It's got that slightly folky twang to it, but without the lyrical interest or musical complexity really. 2/5, not an unpleasant listen, but not compelling in any way.

A really fun listen, but it's upbeat jazzy bongo cover songs, so it gets a bit wearing after about 5 (and there are 19 tracks, although probably only 17 on the original release?). Prefer it in the contexts where it's being sampled rather than all at once! 2/5.

One of the worst things I've ever heard. Very occasionally, it sounds like it might turn into something interesting, but the vast majority of the time it's just incoherent noise that doesn't flow, doesn't say much, and is downright weird. Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough for this, but it gave me absolutely nothing. 1/5.

Same thoughts as on our last Dylan album - although I think the lyrics and the storytelling are a level up on this one. He stretches his voice a bit too far in a lot of places though, which is really jarring, and probably stops it from being a 4. 3 (if I'm allowed to give a 3).

Bit disappointing, if I'm honest. Knew a few of the songs (Shake It Off, Blank Space, and Bad Blood), but had never listened to the album in full. The singles are catchy pop, the rest of the album is... not catchy pop. First track is pretty painful, the synth sounds amazingly dated, vocals are mega over produced and the song is so repetitive and boting, and once you got past Bad Blood it really fades away. Makes a 3 on the strength of the singles, which are really catchy and great pop, but not brilliant.

Probably a bit ahead of its time - it sounds like not very good Radiohead, which is impressively forward for 1978, but ultimately it's not that good. Vocals are okay, a bit strained, lyrics are pretty dull, and there's not much going on musically to grab your attention. Not unpleasant, 2/5.

Weird album - one side taken up by one 20 minute track, the other with a series of much shorter vignettes all in completely different styles. ELP's synth/keyboard sound is unique and instantly recognisable, and they're probably better when they do the weirder prog rock (i.e. side 1) vs the the other stuff (although Infinite Space / A Time And A Place are a bit better). Lyrics aren't great though, it's not as tight or as meaningful as some of the really good prog rock, and in some cases (Jeremy Bender(!)) particularly woeful. 2/5, although the first side is probably a 3 and the second slips close to a 1.

Everyone knows the opener, and it's a good song (although overstays its welcome by about 50%), but the rest is really average, nothing I could ever see myself going back and listening to again. Very beige, slow songwriting. You can get away with pretty banal lyrics if the music has enough energy and interest to get you through it without really thinking, but this is slow, and lyrics-focused without the good lyrics to actually focus on. 2/5.

Four really good songs (three of the first four, plus Lucky Man), supported by a lot of less good stuff. I've seen Richard Ashcroft live, supporting someone else (can't remember who). He was quite good, but got visibly frustrated that almost no one knew any of the songs he sang other than Bittersweet Symphony and The Drugs Don't Work. It's too long (even without the 15 minute final track which is mostly silence), and it's a bit beige other than the singles, but they lift it up to a 3/5.

I want to like this more than I do. It sounds kinda like psychedelia meets the Beach Boys. Maybe a little bit too trippy for me, maybe a bit too much going on, but not as good as I'd hoped it would be? My Girls is very familiar, but wouldn't have known it was by them before listening to this. Clearly paved the way for some music that I like more though, so it can get a 3/5. 

Didn't like this at all, had all the tunelessness of that era of punk without the attitude and aggression or the cleverness in the lyrics. Also, all the songs are way too long, there's very little excuse for a punky song to hit 4 minutes, but most of these do, and Rock Lobster is almost SEVEN minutes long. Would not recommend this to anyone. 1/5.

I also really like Nick Cave, but this is a really weird album. Some great storytelling, but pretty bleak, it's in the title, it's almost all stories of murders, and he definitely gets into character pretty well as a murderer. O'Malley's Bar (just before the end) is the high (or low) mark for this, basically telling the story of a killing spree, then they bring it all to a close with a much more tender number, with Kylie, Shane MacGowan, and PJ Harvey all making appearances. Not his best album (out of the two that we've had so far!), but still worthy of a 3.

I enjoyed this - a pretty little collection of stories with mostly really good lyrics and a nice bit of sass. Occasionally gets a bit rambly, and the album is a little bit same-y, so 3/5.

Yeah, this obviously isn't here for the musical quality, or lyrical dexterity, but it does have something about it. It's mostly either incoherent, unpleasant or both, but I guess you could say that about a lot of punk? Appealed to me to an extent when it came out (I was at an age when I didn't appreciate nuance quite as much as I do now), My Way / Rollin / Take A Look Around still great songs, but they are surrounded by total dross. 2/5.

Going to try and play the ball and not the man here, so we'll focus on the music. It's nicely arranged, and his voice is obviously really good. But, it just feels like he's playing within himself here, it's all quite safe, disco pop without even the hint of any edge - even the most memorable songs feel like brain filler rather than anything that screams genius. I think I just don't really like disco, this one can get a 3/5 because it's good at what disco is, it just doesn't really do much for me.

So the first minute of this is disco, and then the rest slips pretty comfortably into standard Latin American salsa stuff. I really struggle to differentiate much between most of this, my Spanish isn't good enough to get the lyrics unless I really concentrate (and this kind of music doesn't lend itself to intense concentration on the lyrics), and it ends up all sounding perfectly pleasant but lacking in any kind of oomph. Not an unpleasant listen, but no reason to recommend. 2/5.

Beautiful voice (if a little bit raspy), pretty love songs with a great range of emotion, and nice orchestral backing. The downside is, that it's all quite samey from a musical perspective - you can pick a lot of these songs individually, listening on their own, and they are great, but it's a bit too repetitive to make a great album. 3/5

An odd one. Mostly, for me, it doesn't really work, it fades into the background far too easily, and when you do concentrate the lyrics aren't great. That said, I'd listen to Smooth Operator over and over again, great song. 2/5, Smooth Operator almost gets it to a 3 but not quite.

A bit too much in the pure dance music camp for me - there are bits of this that I love, but there's just way too much repetition for me to want to listen to it, and I don't have the fond memories attached to it that others do. I just don't need to hear them say Around The World in autotune 144 times over the course of 7 minutes. The bits which aren't overly repetitive and have a bit of musical depth to them are really good - I love Da Funk and Fresh - but Christ the bits that don't are horrible - Rollin' & Scratchin' is the worse, but there are others too. Will give it a three on the strength of it paving the way for a lot more (including their own work that I prefer).

Felt like this was the stepping stone to something really good, so had a look to see what happened to them afterwards and sad to see that it all fell apart pretty quickly after the difficult second album. This has some really good starts to it - Omaha (not on the Spotify listing) is probably the best of the bunch - but it doesn't quite follow through. Fun, 60s stuff that isn't too folky and boring and has some fun psychedelic elements without straying into the completely mental and unlistenable territory. 3/5.

This is odd. Moody, jarring, dark, without really any singing but the creepy murmurings of a miserable man. It establishes that haunting mood really well, but I don't think it does enough with it to really deserve a top rating. 3/5 again, I'm back in a rut. 

It's a bit odd to release two solo albums as a double album by the collective, but it kinda works. I mean, it's too long (better listened to one at a time), and like almost every rap album we've had has pointless interludes that annoy me, but it's still really good. Probably higher highs on The Love Below, but Speakerboxxx is definitely the one I'd rather listen to start to finish. Andre 3000 grates on me after a while, comes across as a bit too smug and finding himself really funny, which works for a song or two, but not a whole album. Would probably be a 4 for Speakerboxxx, 3 for The Love Below if reviewed separately, but combining them drags them down to... yet another 3

This is fine, but a bit dull. If you're going to do an album cover like that (looks like the Green Day guy doing Springsteen) it probably needs a bit more to it than this has (sounds like Buble doing Springsteen/Dylan). Feels like there's some talent there, but all the edge has been sanded away and you're left with something that is perfectly pleasant, but uninteresting. 2/5.

I think this is the best Neil Young album we've had? Like the two different versions of the same song to start and close the album, agree that Powderfinger is great, and I don't think there's a bad song on it? 3/5... closest we've had to a 4 in a while but I still don't like Neil Young's voice.

Finally! This is great, and sounds amazing for 1990; there's the odd moment where it sounds a bit dated, but it's so much tighter and better produced than most other 90s hiphop we've had. It's full-on, but there's a lot of variety in the pace and flow, some fun sampling, it actually flows as an album without millions of interludes or skits, and Fight The Power is a classic. 4/5.

This was a real eye-opener - similar to an extent in style to other Beach Boys records we've had, but very very different in terms of mood and content. Going into it without knowing anything, and reading the title, expected a worse version of their standard 60s jolly surfing songs. This was really different, much darker, less catchy, but much more interesting. There are some songs that really don't land (the one written from the point of view of a tree, for example), but when it's good it's really good. 3/5, verging on a four but too inconsistent.

Absolutely magic, this. Struggling to decide between a 4 and a 5, but it's the best album we've had in a long old while. Her voice is beautiful, the album hangs together really well with a few changes of mood and doesn't overstay its welcome at all. It's sweet, but not saccharine, and there are a couple of brilliant songs (everyone knows Son Of A Preacher Man, but I think The Windmills Of Your Mind is even better) On balance, will round down to a 4 as not all of the songs are hers, but was very close to a 5.

Veckatimest is a bit of a mixed bag - there are certainly parts of it where it collapses in on itself under the weight of its own self-importance, where it's not quite as clever as it thinks it is, but there are also some real highs. Two Weeks is great, but doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the album, and While You Wait For The Others is also good. It's really nicely put together, the vocal arrangements are good (feels like Fleet Foxes without quite as good vocals but with much better instrumentation), but it doesn't really grip me for the most part. 3/5. 

Billy Joel gets a lot of shit, and I totally understand why - stuff like Uptown Girl is painfully cheesy. But, this album is so much better... Apart from the last two tracks, he stays on the right side of schmaltzy, tells some good stories (although occasionally they do slip into being lectures), and does it in a really catchy way. Works as an album, has some really memorable songs, 4/5.

This is just not very good. The guy has a punk voice, but tries to sing in a way that only works if you have a much better one. The songs aren't particularly musically or lyrically interesting, and it doesn't have the energy and pace you need to carry a voice like that. 2/5.

This is the FOURTH Steely Dan album we've had, which seems whatever the next level up from excessive is. This one, like the other three (apart from 'Do It Again', on the first album we had), was entirely forgettable. Sounds a bit different to the previous ones - we've moved away from purist yacht rock to prog yacht rock - but doesn't make it any less dull, apart from a post-apocalyptic closing track that is actually kinda interesting in a proggy kind of way. If only more of the album was like that... 2/5.

Some absolute magic in there, but a bit too bloated to get a 5. Apparently this was due to be a triple album, but the record company insisted they cut it down to two and I'm glad they did. That said, the length of it does give him a chance to really show off his musical versatility, he sings in several different voices, and the songs are in so many different styles and paces. I like it less when it trips into disco, but he nails funk, soul, R&B, and probably a few more genres over the course of this album. 4/5.

This suffers a bit from coming shortly after we've had Dusty Springfield - both women with beautiful voices, singing over pared back musical accompaniment. This is not on the same level as Dusty for me, whilst her voice is close to as good the musical arrangements are not - it's a bit too country for me, and a bit twee. There's also a bit too much Jesus in there for my liking. Too Far Gone is a lovely song, really showcases her voice and doesn't have the same level of American country to it as most of the rest. That and Boulder to Birmingham are the standouts, but don't do enough to elevate it to a 3. 2/5.

Very short - less than half an hour - but still managed to be a bit boring. Sounds very generic, like a lot of other music that came out at that time, but nothing that particularly makes it stand out, and the guy's voice is quite interesting but strays into territory that it shouldn't (it really doesn't work when he holds a note for a long time, and he does that a lot). 2/5.

Wow. 28 tracks in 33 minutes, with one song lasting just 4 seconds (it's just a groan with a musical flourish behind it). It's an angry album, centred on the themes of corporate exploitation, plutocracy, and moral hypocrisy, all of which remain very relevant today, thirty five years later. Shame that we can't understand any of the lyrics, as they are all either drowned out by the racket going on behind it, totally unintelligible, or (as for 90%+ of the album) both. Not sure if the singer can't sing or won't sing, but it's entirely inexplicable to me why you'd choose to express yourself like that. Some of the guitar, particularly at the beginning of the longer songs, is good, and tricks you into thinking that, finally, they might have done an actual song. But no, it quickly turns back into thrashing noise. I'm not a proper metal man at the best of times, and this certainly isn't the best that metal has to offer (for me at least). With some metal, I get why other people like it, it just doesn't do it for me, but I can't comprehend how anyone would enjoy listening to this. 1/5 (site doesn't allow for 0s).

I don't quite know what to think of this... on one hand it's got some of my favourite MJ songs on it (Dirty Diana, Man In The Mirror, and Smooth Criminal), on the other it flips between so many different styles that it feels almost more like a greatest hits album with the lack of coherence. Plus, outside the songs I already knew (which tbf is half the album), it's not great - there's this horrible run from Speed Demon through to Another Part of Me which was really not good. And Leave Me Alone at the end was pretty bad too. 3/5, feels a bit harsh but the bad bits were really bad.

A good album, but not a great one - it's consistent most of the way through (but not too samey), there's not an awful song on there and a couple of really good ones, North Country Boy and One To Another. They're better when they sound less like Oasis, How High sounds like a budget Gallagher impression, and it serves to remind you that what they've done doesn't have the same energy as the good Oasis albums. One To Another is definitely one that a lot of the British indie from the mid 00s borrowed from, Kasabian sound just like it. 3/5, missing something that would make them really stand out but a solid Britpop album.

This was really boring, Dylan-lite. Voice isn't great, lyrics aren't great, music is not interesting in any way. All sounds very same-y, not unpleasant, just dull, 2/5.

Didn't enjoy this - sounded like a forerunner to stuff I do like (most obviously Genesis) but it was a bit too twee and nonsensical for my liking. Musically not as interesting as you'd want for an absurdist album like this. 2/5.

This is another one of those albums that had to be made so better versions of a similar sound could come after, I guess.. Explosions In The Sky, God Speed You Black Emperor, all that sort of thing that is like this but with a lot more energy and pizzazz. Was fine as background, bit didn't offer an awful lot imo. 2/5.

This was a weird one - I started out not really liking it at all, the beginning part of the album (after a pretty interesting opening sequence) felt like hip hop's answer to easy listening. Then you get to Pyramids, and from then onwards it's so much more interesting, there's more energy to it. That half an hour would be a 4 on its own, but the rest is a bit too beige, so drags it down to a 3 overall.

Hasn't aged that well - a lot of the lyrics are painfully misogynistic, and the rapping is a bit of a mixed bag. Dre and MC Ren are great, Ice Cube is pretty decent, but Eazy-E not so much. That said, when they're not talking about women the rhyming is great, and it's clearly something that birthed a whole genre. Also, way more variety than I expected - Express Yourself is something else entirely. Agree with Phil, not as good as Public Enemy from a couple of weeks ago, 3/5.

I'm surprised that I've never listened to this as a whole - it was when I was most into music, it's totally the sort of thing I would've been into then, and I knew all the singles (and quite liked them). Listening to it now, it's aged... okay... I guess? There are bits of it that still work, but others that feel like proper teenage pseudo-intellectualism (referencing all the stuff that you were supposed to read to seem clever but not too academic back then), and it gets a bit cringey. But, the music is still really good if you don't listen too hard! Golden Skans is the one that everyone knows, but It's Not Over Yet is probably my favourite. Was wavering between a 3 and a 4, but the fifteen minute silence mid-way through the last track tips it down into 3 territory (particularly given that neither half is any good).

I'm kinda torn by this. Having just had Straight Outta Compton, you come out of that thinking that it'd be really nice to have something that's maybe a little more upbeat and positive. This is exactly that, but now I've heard it I'm not sure it was really what I wanted. There's nothing technically or thematically I can fault with it, but it doesn't really excite me - maybe it's a little too long and a little too samey, and there's no real outstanding track. 3/5.

Not my favourite album of all time. Don't get this one, it's got the worst bit of Sound of Silver (the overly long tracks) but without the highs really. There's nothing as catchy as the best few songs on SoS, call the police is the only one that really gets lively. Someone on the site describes it as 'dance music that it's impossible to dance to', which feels not far wrong to me. 2/5.

Easier listening than I expected it to be - given their reputation (and the album title), thought it might be a bit weirder and harder work. Agree with Rolfe that it was too cutesy in parts, but it's pleasant enough with a couple of highlights (Somebody To Love, White Rabbit, and 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds are all well worth a listen). 3/5.

Too much vibrato for me, Clive... Her voice is really unusual, haunting even, and it works really well with the stripped back music, but not in a way that I find particularly pleasant for more than a track or two at once. What Can I Do? with Rufus Wainwright doesn't help - it's a stark reminder that this kind of voice can do a lot more when it's a bit more versatile than hitting the vibrato with almost every note. 3/5, just. Probably would've been a 2 if not for the guest vocalists.

Best Stones album we've had so far, I think, but still manages to lose its way. Opener and closer are fantastic, but most of the time it really suffers when they slow the tempo down. To do slow songs, with a voice like Jagger's, everything else needs to be on point. For most of this album, it isn't. Other than the first and the last songs, Live With Me is the only one that really gets the pulse going. 3/5.

Opening track is iconic, repeated again slightly different later on. The rest of it is funky instrumental versions of other people's songs. Do I like it? Yeah, it's great background music with a bit of oomph and fun, but it's not really anything more than that. Tough to give a high score based on one original song and a load of instrumental cover versions really, opening track almost drags it up to a 3 but doesn't manage it. 2/5.

Not gonna lie, after Dr Octagynaecologist I wasn't that excited by the prospect of a rap concept album starting with a minute long film sample... but this was actually really good. The flow is great, the storytelling is great, despite being of a similar era to a lot of the albums we've had the language isn't jarring or overly misogynistic. Probably goes a bit OTT with the length of the samples, and falls away a bit towards the end, but still gets a 4 from me.

Imagine a Billy Joel album, with a bit more oomph instrumentally, without the singing, add a bit of vibraphone, and some applause at more or less random intervals. Like spending an hour on hold, waiting for a fancy Argentinean boutique hotel to tell you that they've got no reservations within three weeks of the time that you'll be in Buenos Aires. 1/5.

Quite a dull riot, really. Started out quite funky, but got very repetitive very quickly and really feels like it's lacking in energy. It's soul without the really good vocals, funk without the oomph, and it goes on too long (both overall and at least half of the individual tracks). 2/5.

Listened to this twice, both times I stopped noticing it about halfway through. There's nothing that's memorable (either good or bad), just straight down the line rocky pop with a vague military theme. 3/5, straight down the line, like the album.

Don't get the love for this at all, feels like an angry teenager screaming whatever he thinks will get the biggest reaction. If he'd been born 10 years later Alex Jones-style shock jockey, or 30 years later he'd be a Twitter troll. On the plus side, there's a fair bit of variety, in the most part I can actually hear the lyrics (although more often than not I wish I couldn't). Does get better in the second half too (after o not great start and an atrocious middle). 2/5.

Dinner party / background music for me, Clive. It's not unpleasant to listen to, but it's pretty stripped back to focus on the vocals - the singing is fine but unremarkable, and other than the odd phrase in French I can get, I don't understand them. Makes this album very difficult to appreciate for me, I think. 2/5.

This is a fusion of electro/dance music with world (mostly Far Eastern I think?) influences, and it doesn't really work. Not unpleasant, but not as interesting as the collision of two very different genres should be, 2/5 for trying though.

I really liked XO (if you can like something that miserable!), but somehow hadn't listened to this before. He's a great songwriter - his voice isn't as good as his writing, but it's by no means bad either. really well put together music, maybe could have done with a bit more variation in the album but it's still really good. 4/5.

This wasn't great. First song quite catchy, but it quickly degenerates into pretty generic beige new wave, not a lot to distinguish it from a lot of other stuff at the time. Every song outstays its welcome, it's overly repetitive, and just not that interesting. 2/5.

Surprisingly good - punk meets Americana, kinda like the Rolling Stones with a bit more oomph. Feels miles ahead of its time for 1981, sounds much more like early 2000s to me. I like this, it's a pretty cool sound, probably a bit too bluesy for me really. Will happily listen again, 4/5.

Eurgh. The quirky electro sound is cool for a track or two, but then gets so so repetitive. M.E. does sound quite good, but that's only because other people have done better things with the one bit of synth that he really gets right. Cars is the famous one, it's a bit janky isn't it? Everything feels like it goes on too long, and it's all the bloody same. 2/5, verging on a 1.

Like two of the other three PJ Harvey albums we've had, this is consistently good but never really great. Good energy, pace throughout, some variety, but somehow there's never anything that really gets me going and I don't know why. 3/5.

Yeah, a perfectly pleasant listen, but jazz doesn't grab me in the way it does some people. I'm sure it's technically great, and it is a really nice sound, but I struggle to distinguish good jazz from bad jazz (apart from the really experimental stuff, which is either really good or horrific!). 3/5.

This is astonishing. Such a harrowing story, told really well from start to finish, and one of those rare albums where it really peaks at the end. I don't quite know how it's so captivating, the guy can't sing particularly well, the music is pretty stripped back and relatively simplistic, but it captures the mood amazingly well and allows the lyrics to shine though. It's really hard work emotionally - it tells the story of a marriage breaking down because of infidelity, the husband abusing the wife, and the wife eventually killing herself. The most upbeat it gets (both musically and emotionally) is right at the end - talking about how the abusive now widower is freed to move on with his life by his wife's suicide - not exactly a happy ending but weirdly a little uplifting. Too many of the albums we've had have been way too easy to ignore or lose interest in, this one absolutely doesn't do that. 5/5.

A mixed bag. The first couple of tracks are okay, then takes a real downward turn with Oh My God and especially Mother and Miss Gradenko. After that, though, it gets really good - Synchronicity II and Every Breath You Take are superb, King Of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger, and Tea In The Sahara are good, then should have ended the album there. Murder By Numbers (the last track) is a bit too janky for me. 3/5.

With the other Bowie albums we've had, they've had some brilliant individual songs but not really come together as albums for me. This is different - the individual songs don't stand out as much (understandably given the subject matter), but the overall effect is much much more cohesive and better as an album. The real emotional punch for me came right towards the end - Dollar Days and I Can't Give Everything Away really hit hard. The range of genres it hits without sounding incoherent is also really impressive, there's classic Bowie sound, there's jazz/swing, there's some beats behind Sue that almost verge on Prodigy-style rave music, it's mad. I don't think it quite gets a 5 - the beginning of the album is a bit incoherent - but it's easily a 4.

This is not good. The lyrics are a bit too cheesy and in places godawful, the music is quite simplistic. Seems to be trying really hard to make a big hit, but it just sounds too constructed to be good, and there's nothing memorably good about this. The last track is as close as it gets to being interesting, but the lyrics are a bit obvious and in your face. 2/5.

Another good singer/songwriter album - a bit more cheerful than the album of his we had last week, but not by a lot! Not quite as soulful though, and didn't grab me as much as the previous effort did. Feels harsh to only give it a 3, but there we are.

Fine, with a moment of greatness with Layla (which you can kinda tell by the title), it's not particularly exciting, blues-lite music. Someone else on the site described it as ramble-rock, and that seems pretty fair. Doesn't grab the attention other than the title track, which just manages to drag it up to a 3.

Quite enjoyed this at the beginning, but it gets so repetitive very quickly - like a Beastie Boys album with cleaner production. Needs more variety - why Walk This Way is by far the standout track, it brings something a bit different in. There's just something about it that feels a bit too... polished isn't the right word, but it doesn't have the rawness of the really good rap and hip hop of that era. 2/5 for this, the quality dips towards the end and that combined with the repetition make it a difficult listen later on.

Doesn't quite do it for me. It's a lovely album, well put-together, flows nicely, and it's never bad, but it never really elevates itself above that. The alternate version of the opener (which is miles better) and Bloodbuzz Ohio are the closest they get to doing that, but not convinced that this deserves better than a 3. I'm sure there are other National albums on the list that will warrant a higher score, but this doesn't.

Another perfectly pleasant listen, but jazz doesn't grab me in the way it does some people. I'm sure it's technically great, and it is a really nice sound, but I struggle to distinguish good jazz from bad jazz (apart from the really experimental stuff, which is either really good or horrific!). 2/5.

This is really fun. It's quite consistent all the way through - to the point that a lot of it starts to sound the same - but that's mostly fine here. It's probably a bit too poppy to be really good, it's a bit too clean for this kind of music, but a nice way to start the week. 3/5.

This is not as good as the previous Cohen album we had - it's weaker lyrically and musically just as simple and relatively empty. There's not a song there that really captures me, Bird On A Wire is good but nor great and there's nothing else that really comes close. 2/5.

I should like this more than I do - I'm a sucker for concept albums with a bit of narrative behind them - but this didn't quite work for me. It all merges together a bit, and not in the good way that you'd expect a concept album to. The intro to Pinball Wizard is incredible, shame really they put a song about pinball after it. Needs to be a bit tighter (really should have ended it after Smash The Mirror rather than the nonsense about a cult), and the lyrics aren't quite there in most of the songs to rival something like The Wall (which has a similar journey but builds a world much better). 3/5.

Glam rock works when it's a bit self-aware and leans into itself properly. This doesn't do that at all, really - The Darkness do a cover of that first track that is just much better, it goes full glam, and it sounds like they're having fun, whereas here it's a similar level of OTTness but without the sense that anyone is taking this anything other than 100% seriously. 2/5.

His voice is just amazing. I saw him live when I was a lot younger, not knowing any of his music, and it was just so impressive. That really shows through on this album, but there's something about it which stops it being truly great. Maybe it's because it's musically a bit too safe, maybe it's because some of the lyrics are a bit too on the nose? Probably a bit of both. The opening of the album (Praying For Time / Freedom / They Won't Go When I Go) made me think we might get something really special, but it tails away a bit after that. 3/5.

This is great fun - it sounds at times a throwback to some of the 60s stuff that we've heard, and at other times a flash forward to a lot later in the 80s/90s. Great level of energy, some of the lyrics are pretty clever and I'm glad that I've heard it. Will I listen to it again? Probably not, so 3/5.

Another fun album, but not a lot really stands out (apart from the atrocious spelling!). Mama Weer All Crazee Now is the best of a beige bunch, 2/5.

Don't quite get it. It's perfectly pleasant to have on, but doesn't grab me at any point. Starts off well enough, but goes downhill pretty quickly and doesn't really recover. 2/5.

This is the best Joni Mitchell album we've had so far (think this is our third?). That said, it's still not really for me, I'm not a huge fan of the wobbliness in her voice, and it's a bit too samey throughout. 3/5.

This is good. Must've been pretty shocking for a WOMAN to produce something as explicit and casual about sex as this in such a conventional musical format back in 1993, although I guess this kind of sound wasn't as well-established then as it is now. That said, her voice lets it down a bit, and that probably drops it down from a 4 to a 3.

We've had Randy Newman before, but this album is quite different to that - he's much more political, even if the sound of the music is identical. That said, I don't think a lot of it lands particularly well, sounds like he's trying too hard, and the emotions he's trying to get across don't really fit with the laid-back style of the music. 2/5.

Was expecting a fair bit more from this than I got. I'm not mega into rap, so only passingly familiar with Dre's work, but this is way less clever than I thought it would be. Apparently 2001 is better, hopefully we'll get that too. Sampling and production are really good, the actual content and lyrics aren't at the same level. I don't particularly like Snoop, but he does bring this album up a level on the handful of tracks he contributes to. 3/5.

This is a step down from Graceland, which we had near the beginning of this project. It's very stripped back, very singer-songwriter, and although the lyrics and storytelling are really good, they aren't great enough to hold up an album like this on their own. And Paul Simon's voice isn't that strong - he's at his best with Art Garfunkel, or working with something a bit more musically complex. 3/5, just.

This feels way ahead of 1981 to me, but I still don't particularly like it. I wouldn't have batted an eyelid if it had been from the early 2010s, it's electro/synthy but something about the vocals makes it feel more modern. There's just not enough to it to make it interesting for me, most of the time it lacks energy which this kind of music really needs to work. 2/5, could get a 3 for being so forward-looking but I just don't like it enough.

I like this, but I don't love it. Where is My Mind and Gigantic are amazing, but the rest is only a little notch above OK, I think. Of the three we've had, I'd put this better than Bossanova, but not as good as Doolittle - so the top end of a 3. Could elevate it to a 4 given that it's their debut and it's clearly a bit of a game-changer more broadly, but I'm not going to, it's still too tuneless and shouty in places to deserve that. 3/5.

Dire Straits do moody and bluesy really well, and they do proper upbeat dad rock really well, but too much of this album falls in between the two and it doesn't quite work, sounds like easy listening. Not awful, but doesn't quite reach the heights of some of their other albums (which I'm sure we'll get to). Knopfler is a brilliant guitarist, and I like his throaty vocals, but this isn't their best work. Sultans of Swing is a great song, but there's nothing that gets close to that on this album. 3/5.

This is really quite dull. They've got the ingredients there to be much more interesting than they are - you can't really fault their singing voices (because Neil Young isn't part of the group yet), they are competent musicians, but the songs all sound the same, and the same isn't particularly lively in the first place. Lacks energy throughout, don't see this as an essential listen by any means. 2/5.

Marginally better than The Chronic, but still not really good. It Was A Good Day is a step above the rest, but other than that it's nicely produced but not much more. Nothing specifically wrong with it, I don't think, but it just doesn't grab me. 3/5.

This is... fine... Nice voice without being noticeably brilliant, perfectly solid R&B but nothing more than that. Songwriting isn't particularly special, a pleasant but not exciting listen. 2/5.

Yeah, this is not my cup of tea, but I don't think it's even a particularly good example of what it is? Other than Brown Paper Bag, the rest all sounds quite generic - this relatively minimalist music with no/minimal lyrics really needs to have something to give it an edge to be memorable, and the vast majority of this doesn't. Also, an hour and 20 mins of this is far too much when I'm not on something. 2/5, better than Goldie.

This was not great, and I don't get why it's on this list? If you're going to include Indian music (and you probably should given the population makes up 20% ish of the world) then include something made for the purpose of being listened to, rather than something that is setting the scene for something more visual and vocal! We've had a couple of movie soundtracks (and at least this one is for a film that actually exists), but this one doesn't seem to have anything that makes it special. 2/5.

This is really solid early 2000s indie, without ever really hitting a mega high point - There Goes The Fear is as close as it gets, but that'd be nothing more than a strong album track from the real stars of the era. 3/5, I liked it having not heard it before but it's not outstanding. Minus points for a having a song named after a motorway.

This is fine, but nothing more. Each individual song is quite nicely put together, but it's all a bit too gentle and doesn't have the impact that its trying to, and there's not really much coherence. As a few of you mentioned, it's in the same style/genre of a few contemporary albums we've had, and it's just not as good as them. Shouldn't be on the list really. 2/5.

Lyrics are really sketchy, vocals are even worse, and it's musically passable but nothing more. Is it particularly influential? I can't see that it is, and it is not a pleasant listen. 1/5.

I liked this. Not loads (and don't see why it's in this list as it's definitely not the best of its type, or particularly groundbreaking), but it's fun, slightly OTT glam, on the way towards metal but doesn't get that close. Nothing special, but quite a good listen, a low 3.

I don't think I'd ever heard a Cheap Trick song before, and I'm not particularly minded to seek out more of their work, but this was a really fun album. Tonnes of energy, sounds like them (and the fans) are having a really good time, and that's infectious. It's a little bit samey, and doesn't really get going until right near the end, but a solid enough album (particularly for a live one. 3/5.

Not as good as The Queen is Dead. Has a highpoint in the middle (Girlfriend in a Coma / Stop Me / Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me), but other than that it mostly lacks the emotional punch and the energy of the previous album. 3/5.

Very laid back, pretty music, but lacking a little oomph. First track is easily the highlight, some clever musical stuff going on around it but nothing that really draws me in much closer. A fair bit of variety, and a nice listen, but lacking something that takes it to the next level. 3/5.

Production is great (really emphasising the voices and somehow making it feel like they're all around you when you listen, even not on headphones), and their voices are great, but on its own it's nowhere near as interesting as when Paul Simon brings it into Graceland. Glad I listened to it (and did so twice), but won't revisit. 3/5.

This is really good for what it is - somewhere between glam and electro, quite experimental, with a couple of classics in there. Properly dancey in places, quite reflective in others, and peculiar in others - Sex Dwarf clearly inspired Pulp's This is Hardcore album (both soundwise and filthwise). Just about squeaks a 4 from me - there's a bit of dross towards the middle, but the stuff at the start and the end elevates it to that.

Fun. Could've done with being 15 minutes shorter - remove some of the filler and keep the actual range that the album shows, and it'd be an easy 4, but what we've actually got is a bit lazy in places. It reverts to the same sounds, the same injects, and you lose a bit from that. Could benefit from being a bit rawer in a lot of places - there seems to be a conscious effort to make it stand out from every other album of rapping over a beat, but that's what these guys are really good at. Rebel Without A Pause the most egregious example, where you've got a really decent, varied song, that has this high pitched wavy drone over it for no real reason  Bring The Noise is a stone cold classic though. 3/5.

This is really pleasant, particularly at the beginning. It's levelled up crooning - it's got that style to it, but it's got something else about it that elevates it above your Randy Newmans. Album flows together beautifully, there's a little bit of variety, and the lyrics are interesting enough but without being world-beating. First half of the album is stellar, falls away a bit in the second half, but still just about merits a 4. Will listen again. 

This was better than I expected, but still not really to my taste. It's a lot more modern and electronic than most of the rest of the Brazilian music we've had. but still retains a bit of that repetitiveness (fine for dancing to, but not so good if you're just listening to it). Definitely outstays its welcome, although I think it improves towards the end - could do with a bit of pruning of the first half of the album. As it is, a strong 2.

This one was exactly as expected! Three very pleasant (but not earthshatteringly brilliant) voices, hopping between full on country and gentle soft pop. Nothing particularly inspiring, nothing to really note. 2/5.

This has had a good stab at being the worst record we've had so far. Doesn't quite deserve it, but it's not miles off. It's like what a Red Dwarf set from the early series would sound like if you asked it to sing - vaguely futuristic, incredibly dated, weird, and absolutely awful if you concentrate on it for too long. 1/5.

This is fun, ZZ Top tend to be, but it falls short of being really really good. La Grange has a great little riff behind it, and the rest is all really good for nodding along to, getting close to funk in some places. The live versions of three of the songs at the end are also really good. A strong 3, just falling short of a 4.

Amazing that this is 55 years old, I know we've got the White Album coming up and from memory I think it'll struggle to compete with this, but both deserve their places in the 'crazy experimental stuff that inspired so much more' pantheon. Is there a single song on there that is brilliant? Other than Heroin, probably not, but there's so much variety in the sound across the 11 tracks, it's probably the best prog rock record that was out there by 1967 without even being prog rock. That said, it's not a good enough listen in its own right to get a 5, so 4 it is.

As I expected, not as good as Nico. There's a really good album somewhere in here, but it's probably around 45 minutes long rather than an hour and a half. I'd can all the tracks that sound like kids songs on it (Bungalow Bill and Rocky Raccoon at the very least), as well as the weird sounding experiments that don't work (Wild Honey Pie and Piggies the worst examples, Revolution 9 has something to it but not enough...). Ob-La-Di is a bit too janky and twee for me (as are many of the Beatles hits). But, when it does hit, it's amazing - Helter Skelter is my favourite Beatles song by quite some way, While My Guitar Gently Weeps is also a stone cold classic. The album also showcases their range: you've got pure ballads, experimental stuff, proper pop, and a couple of songs that if they were a decade later you'd call punk. That merits a 4, not as high a 4 as Nico got, but a 4 nonetheless.

I like this as an album probably more than the previous Swift album we had, but it lacks the standout hit tracks that she had in that one. It's definitely more sophisticated (musically and lyrically), but she's sacrificed a lot of the energy that she had in the old music. And it drags. 3/5.

So this is an odd one. It's a pretty run of the mill country album for the first two thirds, too biblical and twee for my tastes, but then livens up a lot with two tracks entitled Hot Burrito #1 and #2. That's a lot more like psychedelia, which I much prefer. Quick return to twee country with Track 10, before a proper proggy closer which I also really liked. Just manages a 3, on the strength of the three good tracks, but wouldn't recommend as a full album.

This starts off strong with the title track that everyone knows, and Crazy (which I would expect most people, like me, would know it if they heard it). After that, it's a really uninspiring saccharine tour through various genres (Britney + reggae = total fucking shite!) and painful cliche; it feels really, really dated. And it's an hour long (if you include the two remixes of the single). 2/5.

She's got a really nice voice, it's well arranged, but it rarely really hits the spot - The Queen And The Soldier being the honourable exception, which is a super song. Otherwise, it's a little bit folky for me to give it a really high score, so 3/5, as per usual.

Not sure about this, it's pleasant enough on the ears but it's experimental without being at any point exciting. Feels like it's been made by people who aren't quite as clever as they think they are (or maybe are just so much cleverer than me that I've missed the point). 2/5.

A real mixed bag, this. Some funky electro pop, a couple of nice ballads, a fair bit of trash, and an excruciating cover of Comfortably Numb. Just squeaks a 3 on the strength of most of the first half, but that does feel pretty generous (and probably helped by me being a teenager when this came out).

Our second Stooges album, but probably the worse of the two, I think? Decent energy to it in places, but most of the tracks (definitely the second half of the album) drag at least a little for me. No obviously bad songs, but no real standouts for me either - a good listen overall, but not a great one. As per the last one, influential and ahead of its time, but not one of my favourite listens on its own account. 3/5.

I've listened to this a couple of times now, and it's definitely grown on me, but I think its good rather than great. It's a 2010s rehash of 80s electropop - doesn't particularly stand out in this regard, although her voice is nicer than most who've done this kind of record. Sounds better in French than in English. 3/5.

I like the single, and the track after it is kind of cool, but it's not much beyond that really. Lead singer's voice isn't great, which works okay in the more punky stuff but suffers when they try to be tuneful. 2/5.

I wanted to like this more than I did, but it just doesn't really do it for me. Her voice is super powerful, but there's really nothing else to the album than that, the drums are tinny, there's a bit of odd synth and a saxophone every now and then, it's everything that you learnt to hate about the eighties. 2/5.

Not as good as I expected it to be - the Dusty Springfield collaboration was a pleasant surprise, and It's A Sin is a classic that I already knew, but the rest of it feels a bit lacking in nuance (maybe that's unfair given that it's 25 years old and society has really changed regarding a lot of things they were talking about). Definitely preferred the second side to the first, but it's a 3 from me.

Never get these guys. All the ingredients seem to be there, but the combination never rises above dull for me. She's got a great voice, the tunes are pretty enough, but I've just finished listening to what is a pretty short album and I couldn't say that I remember even one of the songs. 2/5.

I like this, unsurprisingly, but not loads. It feels like it's almost really good, but doesn't quite hit the heights of what their contemporaries were doing - then I check my dates and realise that Pink Floyd at this point haven't come out of their proper psychedelic period, and Genesis hadn't really got going either. So this is actually ahead of a pretty forward looking bunch (in the early seventies, anyway). Doesn't feel disjointed at all, but also doesn't quite get me going in the way that the later work from Genesis/Pink Floyd did - hope we get some later Yes albums. Just about squeaks a 4.

I like this, and think it'll grow more on me with a few more listens. It's in your Fiona Apple / Alanis Morissette wheelhouse - something that comes from folk but with a lot more fun and oomph behind it. It's not quite as full on as Alanis, but it's definitely slightly prettier music, and despite not having the emotional volume keeps the range. A downbeat album, probably not one for one of the hottest days of the year, but one that I'll add to my rotation. 3/5, lacking something really standout to push it to a 4.

This is more grown up Elvis than we had before, and I like it better. It's still pretty cringey in places (and some of the lyrics really haven't aged well), but you can definitely see why he was really successful in this reinvention of himself. Not trailblazing at any point really during this album, gets too croonery at points, but there's some real highs too - is there a better Elvis song than Suspicious Minds? I don't think so... That and In the Ghetto are the all time classics from this album. 3/5.

43 tracks is too many for any album! Admittedly, they're all less than 3 minutes long, but it still adds up to 74 minutes. That said, I was pleasantly surprised listening to it (having kinda written it off because of the structure), there's a really nice variety of styles in there ranging from all-out punk through jazz and some spoken word type stuff. It's very political, angry without being too shouty and, whilst 74 minutes is definitely too long, it doesn't drag too much. Probably could have benefitted from cleaning up a bit and taking some of the filler out, and misses any real standout hits (possibly because most of the songs don't get a chance to get going), but well worth a listen. 3 still, but a higher 3 than Elvis.

This is the worst album we've had in quite some time, I think. Opening track is a 9 minute mess - seems like they've tried to marry punk and prog, and forgotten that the two didn't really get on. Then we have a spoken poem about religion that is about as subtle as being hit over the head by a brick, and track 3 is the same poem set to music and elongated to 3x the length. Track four would be a passable punky type song if it was half of its 6 minutes. Then 5/6/7 are all reasonable punk album tracks (the title track being the best of the bunch) before we get to a final track that has a simple hip hop style beat with some weird quiet half screaming set to it. For eight minutes. At least the album is over in 40. 1/5, title track almost gets it to a 2 but it is just unlistenable for the most part.

Did not gel with this at all really. Not my jam in general, and this doesn't seem to be a particularly good example of the genre? The 'Be Sincere' motif does a lot of heavy lifting, I didn't count but it felt like it featured on at least a third of the tracks. That said, there's one guy who contributes on a couple of tracks (Danny Vicious) who is the most obvious inspiration for Kurupt FM - they even do an interlude where they pretend to be running a pirate radio station and it's just as cheesy and painful as the worst Grinda bits... 'all the text message crew'... but with a bit more layered in. 1/5

This was better than expected - I struggle a bit with reggae sometimes in that it's too easy to make it all sound the same, but this was really good. Great shifting between the personal and political in subject matter, beautifully put together (backing vocal are superb throughout), and some nice changes of pace. Lacks a standout track to get it to a 5, but definitely merits a 4.

Pretty much everything about Def Leppard had passed me by until now (though I did recognise Pour Some Sugar On Me), but that was pretty good. Massively OTT, very glam, but bags of fun. He can't sing particularly well, but that doesn't even matter that much with this, it's half sung and half shouted anyway. Best if you don't really listen to their lyrics (they aren't offensive or anything, just a bit cliched), just nod your head to it and enjoy the GINORMOUS sound. 3/5 - in a similar vein to the Bon Jovi album we had quite a while ago, but not as catchy as that was. Almost a 4 though.

This feels a bit too much like hard work. Clearly a lot has gone into this, it's a really complex layered album, but it's a bit too far gone from what makes a pop song; there's not enough real energy and structure in most of it, and the overall effect is too heavy to be ethereal but too lacking in... something... to be dark. 2/5.

I don't hate this, it's fine, but it's not particularly inspiring. Definitely more listenable than the previous Hole album we had, but a bit more generic too - and you really can't get away with a voice like that when you're singing music like this (whereas she kinda could with the proper grunge album before). 2/5, but a high 2.

I listened to this once, read some of the reviews on the site and they said it improves with a second listen, so listened to it again just in case. I did learn to appreciate the bits where he isn't doing an accent a bit more, but other than that did not take much away from the second listen. It's psychedelic, and there are a couple of cool instrumental bits, but he really can't sing very well, the lyrics are more miss than hit, and it's quite a painful listen in places. 1/5.

Fine, pleasant background music, but did nothing to inspire me. Wouldn't turn it off if it was on in the background, but would never seek it out. Beautiful, gentle sound, but nothing more. 2/5.

Maybe it's because I'm just back from the dentists, but found this more grating than interesting. Not my genre anyway, really, but it seemed more repetitive than most of this stuff we've had. That said (and this feels like a total contradiction of what I just wrote), there's loads of variety between the tracks - the contrast between Kein Trink Wasser, Quality Seconds, and the beginning of Are We Here? which are one after the other is crazy. 2/5 - they've tried some interesting stuff but it doesn't work for me.

She really can't sing, and there's nothing interesting enough in the music or the lyrics that really atones for that, particularly given that it's quite a stripped back album with a lot of focus on the vocals. Actually unpleasant, it's another 1/5.

This is much better than we've had over the past week or two, and a lot more thoughtful and reflective than the other rap/hip hop albums we've had from the early nineties. That said, what it gains in lyrical dexterity and subtlety it does lose a bit in energy and catchiness - there's not much that really sticks in your head musically aside from Can I Kick it?. Definitely liked this album, but am I actually likely to revisit it? Probably not, so it's a 3/5.

I just don't like the guy's voice that much, and it almost all lacks a bit of energy. Perfectly pleasant listen, but again nothing that's really stayed with me or caught my ear whilst I was listening. 2/5.

Is the title a name or an instruction? This is a fun listen, a bit more depth to it than a lot of mid-sixties stuff. Happily listened to it twice, would I go back and listen to the whole thing again? Probably not, there's not enough spark to it to really get me going. 3/5.

I do struggle to get on with this style of singing, it's just a bit too electro/robotic for me. That said, it's a really good example of this kind of music - the production is really clean, there's not a bad song on it, some good beats and synth. Enjoy The Silence my favourite track on it, which is almost dance music - there's a decent amount of range here too. Not far off a 4, but we'll stick with 3.

A pleasant surprise - I was expecting a worse Beach Boys album but this is something different and intrinsically more interesting (if not as catchy). Drink and drugs had changed his singing voice, making it much throatier and giving it a bit more edge. Leans a lot more into funk, jazz even. Well worth a listen, but still lacks something to take it to a high score, so it's another high 3.

Don't like this as much as I do some of his other work - it's a bit too brooding and ballady, lacks the energy of some of the other stuff. Also gets a bit cringey lyrically - the first track is a bit too on the nose with its atheism, and People Ain't No Good is a bit much too. 2/5.

One of the better Neil Young albums we've had (which isn't saying much!) - first track was excellent, then consistently decent until it lost its way a bit with the last track. The songs are written in a way that mask the weaknesses in his singing voice. Solid but never quite spectacular - 3/5.

Sounds very of its time - not sure why this does more so than a lot of the other electro-heavy albums we've had, but it does. This Is The Day is good, catchy, but I struggled a bit to connect with the rest. Most of the tracks drag on a bit too long, there's a bit too much going on in places. A fine listen, but not one that I'll return to, 2/5.

This is Julian Cope again, and (much like his solo stuff), it's quirky and interesting without ever being super catchy and memorable. You could have told me this was released in the 2010s and I wouldn't have been particularly been surprised - it feels like a slightly more modern take on synth rock/pop which I quite like. 3/5

It's just a bit dull and insipid? Doesn't show off his guitar playing, which is his greatest asset, doesn't have much energy to it, doesn't have much of anything really. 2/5.

Not totally uninteresting, but didn't really give me anything to hang onto. Slightly weird energy to it, bluesy rock stuff verging on psychedelia in places. We've had a lot of stuff that sounds similar to this on the list so far, and most of it has been better than this. 2/5.

Again, we've had lots of albums like this in the 500 odd so far, and this doesn't really stand out. It's late 60s rock with a bit of blues influence thrown in, and a hint of psychedelia in places. Not an unpleasant listen, but not much to write home about, though I did enjoy Cryin' To Be Heard more than the rest. 2/5.

First properly good album we've had in a little while - I'd heard bits of this before but never listened to it from start to finish. First of all, it's one of those rare hiphop albums where the little skits between songs actually add something! Pretty unusual to have such a good singing voice and be able to rap that well too (particularly at that time), plus she can really write meaningful lyrics that flow. There's a really good variety of pace and style in there too. I think it's a 4 from me - the only thing that it's missing is a really catchy, massive hit type song (Doo Wop comes close but isn't quite catchy enough, and Ex-Factor also falls just short).

This is somewhere halfway between painfully bad and glorious fun - you can tell they're loving doing it, hitting all the cliches from the glam metal of 20/30 years before. From what I remember at the time, it was a nice counter to all the Pop Idol / X Factor stuff that was just emerging (as well as the trend in rock at the time towards being whingy), and it chimed really well with 13 year old me, it always makes me smile. That said, I haven't listened to it for a long long time, and doing so again now I'm older reveals that it really wasn't that good, the lyrics often make me wince, and I'm almost certainly not going to listen to it again. 2/5. 

Probably a bit too metal for me to really enjoy, but this is decent. Nothing as catchy as Smoke On The Water or Highway Star on this album, but it's consistently good without being great. Awesome energy to it, maybe overstretched on a few of the tracks. 3/5.

Did not enjoy this, but it was definitely interesting. My French isn't good enough to understand what he's on about, but the titles of the tracks suggest some unpleasantness that definitely chimes with how it sounds. A lot of the commenters on the site mention how it sounds a bit like Tom Waits in places, and I'd agree, a really deep raspy voice at the centre of it all, but it also goes into the creepier end of metal in places. 2/5, worth one listen but no repeat.

Listened to it once yesterday whilst deep in concentration on some work stuff, and it kind of washed over me, didn't take any of it in. Listened again this morning and was much more impressed. All the usual Dylan criticisms apply; his voice isn't great and the way he inflects his voice is weird and a bit annoying, but the storytelling is great, he combines some pretty cutting snarkiness with really tender moments and it's a really good listen (barring a couple of tracks that are a bit too on the nose). I don't enjoy Dylan enough to give it a 5, but it's definitely a 4.

This is one that I've listened to a couple of times now, and it's definitely growing on me. Sounds like the album you'd get if Arcade Fire replaced their singers with Bob Dylan. I'm enjoying it more and more with each listen, but there are definitely some weaknesses to it: the songs are all a bit drawn out (Arcade Fire do similar but not to the same extent as this), and the vocals aren't as strong or as striking as Arcade Fire. I think in a few months time (if I keep listening) this will be an easy 4, so we'll give it the benefit of the doubt now and stick it in that category.

Found this a bit naff, to be honest. The gangster stuff isn't really my style, then they shift to some stuff about the joys of marijuana - but there's no real stylistic shift between the two sets of tracks, so it feels a bit weird and all sounds quite similar (apart from a couple of the really stoned tracks), just centred round a different sample. Production is pretty good - the one real sound style they create is quite good but not particularly original. 2/5.

I wish I could understand it! Musically it's great, there's shedloads of variety and changes of pace, it sounds really smooth but can grab your attention when it really wants to. In terms of production, flow, and style, comparable in quality to anything coming out of LA at the time... 3/5, would almost certainly be a 4 if his lyrics are as good as the rest of it.

I quite like this. It's quite psychedelic, trance-like on occasions - lots of weird instrumental interludes, long tracks, and interesting sounds. Would say it's probably not as interesting as Tago Mago which we had before, it's I think a bit easier to listen to though? 3/5.

This was decent, particularly for a live album, but not as good as Moondance which we had before. Some decent energy in it in places, and obviously the songs are decent, but it doesn't have the pace/energy to keep it up for the length of the album. 3/5.

This is... fine... Nothing special about it really, it's a tiny bit too jarring to be good background music but doesn't give you enough to warrant your full concentration. Not awful, but we've had much better examples of this kind of thing. 2/5.

Again, this was okay, didn't blow me away for the most part. But the end is really good - the last two tracks are the standouts for me, A Bomb In Wardour Street is a great more punky one, and Down In The Tube Station at Midnight is a bit softer, but it's some really good storytelling. Lifts the album up to a 3.

Not lifechanging, but not bad either. Marginally more of a nuanced take on gangster life etc than you got from the albums 3-4 years earlier, but still not exactly subtle. His flow is great, the production is good but not great. A solid but unspectacular album, 3/5.

Sound track of my teenage years, this. Going back to it as a whole, it's really weirdly structured - did no one realise that the first five tracks were all going to be the singles when they put it together? Then tracks 6/7 are the next best two, before a load of a dross and then a nice closer. Still sounds great, they were really good live when I saw them last year as well. 4/5

Couldn't get along with this at all, I'm afraid. Vocals just too weak and almost in the background, whilst the foreground instrumental wasn't doing enough on its own to sustain it in the most part - it does get more interesting when it gets heavier, but not enough to sustain an album. 2/5.

I liked this more than I thought I would after the first track. Still not that much though! It's a bit heavy for me, though the screaming gets closer to singing the further you get through the album. Jesus Built My Hotrod is worth a listen for its sheer silliness, rest is tolerable but not great. 2/5.

Not as good as the previous PE album we had, but still decent. They're really good, political storytellers, but it has dated a fair bit (in the mixing and the style more so than in the lyrics, sadly). Fun range of styles and beats, but just doesn't grab you as aggressively as their other work. 3/5.

This is fine. It's pretty, gentle, and melancholic, but it's a bit too passive and fades into the background too easily. I think it would require a really dedicated listen to properly appreciate it, and I don't think that it's good enough to warrant that. It'll grow on me over time, but for now it's a pleasant background listen and not a lot more. 3/5, just.

I flit between really liking this and it really irritating me. The sound is really cool, as Hector says it's like a more modern Massive Attack, there's a really fun range in there. It goes on a bit too long, but the thing that grates on me is that there are too many places where it's just completely lacking in any sort of subtlety with the messaging, painfully so, and that jars with the style of the music quite a lot. Appreciate that a 3 minute song is not the easiest place to have a nuanced discussion about race, but there are a few too many moments where this album is let down by some real lowest-common-denominator lyrics and messages. Still gets a 3/5 based on the highs.

This is definitely a level or two above most of the rap albums we've had in terms of sophistication (both production and thematically). Really cool fusion of different styles and the callbacks/references fit in really smoothly without sounding forced, there's a real variety in moods. But, I can't make up my mind whether I like his voice or not, it's too long, and there are a couple of tracks that I don't like as much (For Free? as track two is definitely going to put some people off). 4/5, but only just.

I'd always assumed from the name that Primal Scream were a metal band, so never chose to listen to them  This is much easier to listen to than that, a nice mix of rock and dance mostly led by the dance beats, often drifting into psychedelia as per the title.  The dance/psychedelia bits work much better for me than the more guitar-led sections, which feel a bit overproduced (Damaged could quite easily be an album track on Be Here Now, the album where Oasis went wrong). Album as a whole suffers from that a little, plus again quite a few of the tracks are just too long for my tastes (given they're repeating the same beats over and over). 3/5.

This is rubbish, shouldn't have made the list. Didn't sell well, wasn't critically acclaimed, and doesn't seem to have much in the way of redeeming features. Maybe it's one that grows on you, but it hasn't made enough of an impression first time around to deserve another chance. Occasionally finds an interesting combination of her overly theatrical voice and the overly theatrical music, but most of the time it's just too much. 2/5.

I definitely preferred this to the other one of his we've had - this one is his attempt to be the lovechild of Bob Dylan and Neil Young rather than his previous attempt to be the new Bruce Springsteen. This one works better. It's pretty good country rock, better in the places where it veers more towards rock than it does country. 3/5, meanders a bit but there are a couple of good songs on there. Disappointed to hear that he (like too many of the artists on our list) is a bit of a piece of shit.

I hadn't heard I Can See For Miles before, but absolutely love that. The rest of the album I can take or leave, really - I like the idea of the theme of it being a pirate radio station with loads of ads, but they lean into it a bit too far. Is there another song on the album I actually like? Not really, so it's a 3 for me for the one great song and the interesting idea (but failure to deliver it in a way that works for me).

I think this is positively poppy compared to the other album of his that we had? Not as interesting (although with a couple of highlights) and FAR TOO LONG! I don't think I've ever listened to an album much longer than an hour that couldn't have done with being a bit shorter, and at 89 minutes this one doesn't break that streak. The reward for getting to the end is an eye-opening closer called 'Slut', which is exactly as pleasant as you'd expect. It's a bit straight down the line, ballady, and not really good enough to excel in that genre. 2.5.

Message In A Bottle is obviously a classic, Walking On The Moon also good, but not a huge fan of the Police when they get too reggae. On the plus side, this is mostly less creepy than our previous Police album, but I think the places where it gets full on white reggae are a bit much for me. 3/5, Message In A Bottle elevates it.

I really want to like The Fall, people whose taste is almost certainly better than mine think that they're brilliant, but I really struggle. It's too tuneless, and rambly, without anything to elevate it from there in my opinion. 2/5.

This is better and more consistent than I expected - of course I knew the singles, but the rest of the album holds up okay as well. It's too long, there's a bit too much production on it so it sounds more manufactured than I'd like, but I guess that's part of the appeal. Won't ever listen to the album as a whole again, but pleasantly surprised when I did. 3/5.

This is a bit odd. Cool in places, the title track in particular, but jarring in others (if you have a track titled JC Hates Faggots, you know you're not getting subtlety). That lack of subtlety takes something away from this - he's borrowing a lot from other artists and genres but not really doing anything other than making inferior versions of the music (the Kraftwerk pastiche in particular sounds like a lazy coverband). 2/5, has a lot of potential but doesn't live up to it.

Knew this one already. It's a really nice listen, but lacks a little bit of spark to get it up to a properly top score. It's 5/5 background music, but doesn't stand up to that if you really listen, there are a few too many places where it's a bit lacking in energy and excitement, and the songwriting is maybe a bit too clever for its own good. That said, it blends a really nice variety of styles (although sometimes a bit jarringly). Just about a 4/5.

I didn't clock that this guy was part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young until I read some of the other reviews. Given that, it's more interesting than you might expect, with more energy too. Opening track is a good one, a bit dated in its style but still decent, and there are a couple of other solid songs (Go Back Home being the most notable). Vocals get a bit strained and almost slurry towards the end of the album, and it fades in terms of quality towards the end, but not an unpleasant listen. 3/5.

I tend to find this kind of music really grating (when the beats are a bit too strong and there's less complexity in the layering) or that it completely washes over me. This is closer to washing over me - I couldn't listen to it without doing something else at the same time, there's not enough energy and it's all a bit elongated. That said, there are some interesting bits, I particularly liked the end bit of the second track (both of the first two are over 15 minutes long). There are definitely a lot worse albums of this kind of music, but it's not blowing me away. Another 3.

This is really good, isn't it? Never listened to it start to finish before, but plenty of the individual tracks are familiar. I disagree to an extent on the skits - whilst I can't think of any album where the skits in the main are truly additive, they're a lot less jarring in the most part on this album than they are on almost any other (apart from the one at the beginning of the Method Man track where they're threatening each other). We've had a few of the (sort of) solo albums from some of the members, but this is a level up from any of them - all of their styles grate a bit in their own way eventually, but when you're skipping between them it keeps it feeling fresh in a way that a whole album from one of them doesn't. 4/5.

This is better than I expected - does get a bit screechy in places (although with a backing band called the Banshees, should really expect that), but in the most part it's punk with a bit more musical depth and tunefulness to it. Didn't like the Helter Skelter cover really, took a load of the energy out of it (which is unusual given how full of energy the rest of this album is). Solid album, not quite a 4 but pretty close.

Not sure this is worthy of the list, tbh - it's interesting from a historical perspective, as it shows what they were doing before they made the more Britpoppy stuff that was much better, but it's not an album you need to hear before you die, is it? It's way more 80s than their later stuff (understandably), but it sounds like a slightly tuneless, less tidy Pet Shop Boys album. 2/5. 

Yeah, this is great. Beautiful sound almost throughout, great atmosphere to it, and a lovely warm voice. Could listen to this all day (and am, currently on my backtobacktoback listen of having this on whilst working). Fun mix of upbeat and downbeat, some really reflective stuff, great lyrics, some a bit more fun. 4/5.

This is really good fun. There's still a bit of grunge in here, but it's much closer to the reworking of punk that comes in the early 2000s really, so ahead of its time. The singer's voice is a bit grating over the course of a whole album, but it's fine for a few songs at a time. On A Rope is mega catchy, like that, there's some decent variety in styles throughout. 3/5, not miles off a 4.

Yeah, this was pretty dull. Vanilla pop/soul stuff that doesn't say enough to make it interesting, and isn't funky enough to really get you going. Not unpleasant, but felt very dated. 2/5.

This is mega. Bit of a steady start, had me worried that I was going to have to give a bad rating to another of Hector's favourites, but it really takes off by track three. I'm not a real metal fan, but I don't think this is real metal - it's far too tuneful and you can actually hear the words. It's pretty well-written lyrically, but the thing that elevates it is that you can't listen to this without tapping your feet or nodding your head, it's that catchy (again, not something I'd say about most metal albums). I'm sure they wouldn't take this as a compliment, but it's like listening to a good Bon Jovi album, with 25% more bite to the lyrics and 50% more bite to the music. And that guitar at the beginning of Run to the Hills is just magic. 5/5.

In My Arms is the best song on this, and much of the rest is either a smidge too repetitive (and therefore irritating) or a bit beige. It's low-fi, chilled dance music, and that doesn't really do it for me unless it's really catchy, which most of this isn't. 2/5, not my jam.

This is very different to the other Pet Shops Boys album we had, but I like it - it's a fair bit quieter, slower, and more understated. It's different music, for a different context, it's not for dancing, it's much more reflective and is actually pretty good for working to - when you need to focus on the work, you can, but when you need a distraction there's enough there (lyrically and musically) for it to be worth actively listening to. Soundwise it sounds a little bit dated (as does anything which uses that much of that type of synth), but the lyrics still resonate. 3/5.

Less convinced by this one than by their earlier offering that we had. This one doesn't seem to have evolved from that much, in the way that Pink Floyd and Genesis evolved and changed going into the 70s. There's not enough that really grabs your attention, and the prog bits are really, really prog in a not particularly good way. The America cover on the deluxe edition is the worst of the bunch, taking a wonderful song and stretching it out to 3x its length with a load of noodling that adds nothing. 2/5.

This is really good, sounds somewhere between The Smiths (obviously) and early Pulp. I don't think there's a standout track on this, but there's nothing that lets it down either, right to the end (if I had to pick, either the first or last tracks would be my favourite. He's a great storyteller and lyricist - limited in the sense that he can only seem to write misery and despair well, but he does that really well. 3/5 for this one, pushing a 4 but not quite getting there.

This is fun - had no idea that all these hits were on one album (reminds me of Rumours in that sense). A few of the tracks feel like filler, but not many, and there's the odd song which really surprised me (Fade Away & Radiate goes almost proggy in the second half). That said, it's a bit samey through that middle section. Could've done with a bit more edge to the music, it gets a bit twee and ABBA-y in places, which takes a bit away of it (they're not as good as ABBA are at being ABBA, sounds much better the punkier it gets). Just squeaks a 4 though.

Never heard of these before, was fine but didn't inspire me really. It starts off well - the opening track is a good, but not electric opener (it lacks a bit of pace and energy), but it doesn't really accelerate from there. My favourite track - and the only one I'll save to listen to again - is the closer, which is a guitar-led instrumental that works really well. Feels a bit harsh to give them a 2, given they're quite early proponents of this type of music that I generally quite like, but what came later really improved on this, so 2 it is.

This is completely mad. I can't see myself ever listening to it again, but I'm kind of glad that I've heard it once. It's mostly in German, combination of a bit of metal, some creepy spoken word, and some orchestral pieces. The guttural German cover of Queen's One Vision is a highlight. 2/5, knocking on the door for a 3 but it's just too weird.

Not really for me, this one. Have heard of Sonic Youth but don't remember ever listening to them. It does sound quite modern (or more likely it's more that other more modern bands grew up listening to this), but it's really missing something for me. A lot of the songs are way too drawn out in a way that doesn't really work for me; when you're playing music this loud, it really needs something to sustain it if you're going beyond the 5 minute mark per track, and this just doesn't have enough. Also, the industrial noise bits really do my head in. 2/5.

This is really modern for 1978, could quite easily have come out in the 2000s and not felt dated. That said, it's just a bit underwhelming, isn't it? Feels like every song on there is an album track, in a style that is designed to generate singles. There's plenty of energy, all the ingredients are there, but it never quite comes together to make something truly memorable. 3/5.

That was harder work than I expected. Never listened to this start to finish, and it really is far too long and convoluted. There are a few brilliant bits in there - The Cage, both the On Broadway tracks, and Carpet Crawlers - but it's surrounded by a lot of what feels like filler. Story is convoluted and too literally 'Hero's Journey' for me, and musically it's much the same. Shave out the filler, cut it down to under an hour, and it's probably a 4 for me, as it is it barely scrapes a 3. Hopefully we have more, tighter Genesis albums to come...

Always worrying when track one has the same title on the album, and has more than twice as many Spotify streams as all the rest put together. It's all a bit bland, reasonably generic country soft rock that doesn't really speak to me. What you'd have got if Springsteen was half as talented and grew up 1000 miles further south west. 2/5.

Funny one, this. Feels like it hits a different genre with every other song, flicking between glam, ska, metal, soul, ballads, all sorts really. There's something here for pretty much everyone, but it never really comes together to make something properly coherent, it's a collection of songs rather than an album. Scrapes a 3 because it is an interesting listen, but not one that I'll return to.

A couple of brilliant singles, supported by a load of new wave glam that is interesting at first but gets a bit samey after a while. Not a bad song on there, but other than Rio and Hungry Like The Wolf there's not really anything to go back to. 3/5.

This is good. Drifts a little bit in the middle, but a really punchy opener and plenty else to keep me interested. Definite notes of Lana del Rey in there, but it's a bit more euphoric and synthy than most of LdR's stuff. I think it just misses out on a 4 by virtue of not having a really outstanding song on it, so 3/5.

I didn't enjoy the last Sonic Youth album we had, and this one was less good than that. It's really depressing, but not interesting, it's grungey without the energy. 2/5.

Everything's a bit slow, without the tunefulness and (ironically given the title) soulfulness of Urban Hymns. All the tracks are probably a minute too long (although tbh Urban Hymns was the same), and there's nothing on this album that's as arresting as the top 3 or 4 tracks from their earlier work. 2/5, washed over me pretty much completely.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood today, but I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would given the reviews above. Like I said when we had the studio Motorhead album on it, they've only got one trick. It's a good trick, and I'd challenge anyone to not get lifted by Ace of Spades, but the rest of it does get a bit formulaic and mostly one paced. Again, it's a good pace, full of energy, but it does make it all sound really similar. Glad they kept it to 40 minutes though, it is a really good cut of what presumably must've been a much longer set? And it ended pretty well - the air raid sirens and plane noises leading into the last track pumped up the ambience, pulling it up to a 4.

Didn't really get this at the time it came out, and don't really get it now. Chicago is a good song (but absolutely does not need to be 6 minutes long), there are a couple of nice ballads in there but it all gets a bit twee after a while (and definitely after an hour and a quarter). Gets a 3, because it's beautiful easy listening music if you don't really concentrate on it, and is interesting when you dial your attention in for a track or two at a time, but it's too much to last a whole album.

Technically I'm sure very impressive at the time, but feels a bit dated now in places (the vocals are definitely a bit clunky, and The Model is a bit too straight down the line in terms of the beat) - but much of the rest has held up really well. 3/5 again.

Not for me, this. Trigue Lycee was a pleasant enough listen, but none of the rest really stood out. Apart from the cover of Imagine, that was really, really painful. 2/5, Imagine nearly dragged it down to a 1 though.

This is really good - love the title track, it's got some proper edge to it, which is great. Far too easy for this kind of music to slide into easy listening (which this album kind of does towards the end), but the beginning is great. Would be a 4 if it could keep that up, but as it is I'll give it a mid to high 3.

This is great. I mean, it's proper dad rock but it's a giant of the genre, most of those bands wish they could get anywhere near an album like this. It's pretty cheesy in a lot of places, it's ever so slightly overblown all the way through, but with this kind of music that's all part of the charm. More Than A Feeling is the obvious standout in a positive way, but the album is really quite good throughout. 4/5.

Another good album. Lots of blues music ends up a bit too soft for me, but this keeps its hard edges throughout. There's attitude, energy, some fun lyrics, and a great vibe to it. Some of the songs, particularly towards the end, overstay their welcome a little, but it's still good enough for a 4.

Underwhelming. Never really gets going, not a patch on Paranoid which we had before. Reviews on the site suggest that this is a proper landmark album - the first heavy metal one - but they moved on from it pretty quickly and rightly so. 2/5.

This is our fourth Cave album, and I've ranged around a bit with the first 3 in terms of scoring (2 for The Boatman's Call, 3 for Murder Ballads, and 4 for Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus). I think this one is also a 3 - it sounds most like Abattoir Blues of the previous three, but doesn't have the same catchiness, lyrical interestingness, or energy. Even Straight to You (the best song on this album imo) doesn't hit the level of the top 5 tracks on Abattoir Blues. 

Sounds way more modern than it is, somehow. But I'm not sure that it's that good - shades of Nick Drake but not as good really? It's good a nice variety to it, all relatively slow and folky but it brings in some jazz in places. And he's quite tricky to understand, which makes music like his (lyric-driven) a bit less accessible. 3/5.

Never really got on with this. Blended into the background very easily. not really much I can say that I don't like about it, there's nothing obviously wrong but there's nothing obviously right either. Not a patch on someone like Dusty Springfield who came before, or Norah Jones / Eva Cassidy who came after. 2/5.

Why is this on the list? Commercial and critical failure, nothing really new about it. The random bits of mumbled conversation aren't interesting or endearing (leave the skits to the rappers), the tracks are too long (even if the album is mercifully short), and his voice shifts from decent in some places to tuneless in others. I think on one track he does an Elvis impression. But it does have some moments of interest and isn't totally unlistenable. 2/5.

It's beautiful, it's tuneful, it's really nice lyrically, but it just doesn't go anywhere. It's lovely to have on in the background, and quite nice to listen to closely for a track or two. But this is sung poetry, rather than proper music; the song structure isn't there, it meanders and wanders and doesn't ever catch me. Shedloads of talent there - the lyrics are good, her singing voice is superb, but there's just not enough actual music in there for me to want to listen to it again. 3/5. 

Beautiful Day is one of those tracks that is only good to listen to now if I'm a bit drunk and/or really excited, it's been so overplayed over the years that I'm immune to it except in times of weakness. Stuck In A Moment is my favourite song off this album, then you have Elevation that is U2 attempting to make their own Song 2 (and is inferior in every way), and really not a lot else of note. 2/5, a real nothingburger.

Cracking pun in the album title, and the album itself doesn't disappoint. Didn't think I'd heard of these before, but I knew the first song, and the other single. Infectious energy, lovely pop punk with a bit of new wave thrown in. It's a really fun listen, not as polished as the Blondie album that we had in a similar vein, but well worth a whirl. 3/5.

This was pretty good. Sounds like a Rolling Stones album which swings a bit closer to rock than to blues. Nice mix of pace and energy, good they slow it down and go thoughtful every now and then, but give it a bit of oomph at other times. She Talks To Angels definitely my favourite, but it's all rather good. 4/5. 

Quite enjoyed it as background music for the first 20 minutes or so. But it's a combination of low-fi dance music and Latin, both genres that tend (for me at least) to get pretty repetitive pretty quickly, and it really does. 2/5, fine for background (and better than a lot of this kind of thing than we've had), but really nothing more.