1001 Albums Summary

Shite

Superb. Continuingly interesting and a joy to listen to.

Absolutely elctricifying album. Loved the driving bass and viscerally sneering vocals.

Wanted to like it, but tbh it just faded into the background despite repeated listens. Nice enough, but no overall standout tracks.

Think I love this. Didn't realise this was who "Girlfriend" came from. Sophisticated pop.

So good. Early post-rock, vocally reminiscent of the LOUD-quiet-LOUD technique of The Pixes. Lyrically dark, touching on depression, alienation and abandonment. Hard to pick standouts, but loved Breadcrumb Trail; Don, Aman; and Good Morning, Captain. Breathtaking album that spawned a thousand others.

An old favourite I still regularly listen to, the arrangements for strings and choir elevate this album beyond Jason Pierce’s previous work with Spaceman 3 and the earlier Spiritualized albums. Hard to be objective about this album as it informed/(s) so much of my musical taste, but I particularly love the repeating bass refrain on “I think I’m in love”, the juxtaposition of the lost, plaintive lyrics on “All of My thoughts” against the chaos of the music, the emotive use strings on “Broken Heart” and the tentative steps towards acceptance and even hope on “Cool Waves”.

I struggled with this album, despite multiple listens. It's hard to separate this from Neil's other solo work, against which it stacks up poorly. Some standout tracks, like Revolution Blues or title track On The Beech have the scale I remember from Harvest, but others, like See the Sky About to Rain, sound like a airport-hotel lounge-act going through the motions.

Elevator music. The original elevator music, but still elevator music.

Sub-par reggae

Strong start, Gossip Folks had some absolutely filthy beats, but faded towards the end. Whilst good to hear a woman's voice against the background of pervasive misogyny in hip hop, the album wasn't as strong as I'd hoped.

First time listening to any Led Zeplin albums and the opening tracks were more British blues rock than I was expecting. Dazed and Confused, and Communication Breakdown were on the heavier end and better for it. Interesting first album, with some great vocals and guitar, but not the revolution I thought it might be. Looking forward to their later albums

I really dislike "live" albums. They never properly capture the gig experience but sound way crappier than a studio album.

Hauntingly beautiful. Austere yet warmly human.

The classics were ok, but got pretty bored after that.

Pleasant enough jazz

Dull

Less of an afro-beat flavour than some of his other work

Absolute classic

Some great tracks on here like "Sign O the Times" and 'I could never take the place of your man". I think perhaps the album is over long, and some of the production is a bit off but a corker nonetheless.

A poet and musician. Amazing album by one of the greats.

Stones going back to their bluesy roots. Loved the obvious singles and Jigsaw is fantastic.

By turns casually exuberant to beautiful melancholy to majestic, musically this album soars. Guy Garvey’s mellifluous vocals and the wryly observed humanity of the lyrics link the songs back into the familiar. The two together create something quite special, with intimate, relatable songs underscored by emotionally fulfilling music. Superb.

It's ok

Most enjoyable.

Whilst a fun enough listen, I ultimately found all the bombast rather empty and unsatisfying.

A delightful slice of Americana

Dislike

Bangers, init.

Sounds very dated now, but enjoyed this album. Hard Times is a classic, Rock Box signposts their later famous collaboration, and It's Like That is just great.

Really enjoyed this. Some tracks very reminiscent of Talking Heads.

The beats, flow and storytelling on this are exceptional. The misogyny and puerile attitude to sex is a little harder to swallow, if not particularly unexpected. Loved the flow on Gimme The Loot, the guest vocal by Method Man on The What and the honesty on Suicidal Thoughts.

Not for me thanks

snooze

Not my favourite Pink Floyd album. Breathe was the standout track for me

Enjoyably loud

Not a huge fan of West coast pop punk, but this was a fun album

Alt-folk? Baroque pop? Who knows. Love this album; it’s full of sweetly light tracks offset by more urgent ones, darker in tone. Varied in arrangement and accompaniment, all 18 tracks hold the attention and showcase Damon Gough’s talent as composer and multi-instrumentalist. Completed, the album sits fully as a single statement, testament to the value of the long play format.

Really enjoyed this, can't believe I missed it when it came out.

The soundtrack to a thousand tedious dinner parties. "More flan Miriam?"

Bit of a mixed bag this album, with only some tracks, e.g. Thrill Of It All and Out Of The Blue, hitting the feeling of corrupted glamour I was expecting. Most of the rest of the album was less interesting and missed something to temper the baroque excess.

Era-defining sound

Too polite. Missing some grit

Meh

So of it's time. Has not aged well

Perfect distillation of the 80s sound

Not bad, but not clear what's significant enough about it to be included here?

Complicated circumstances to say the least.

I hate Tina Turner so much. This album typifies everything shit about music of this era

Some classics, goes on a bit

Superb. Didn't realise how many of the Smashing Pumpkins tracks I knew are from this album

Overblown twaddle

I've never been angry at a record just for existing before, yet here we are. This is a album so banal it's offensive. One star because I can't give zero.

Fantastic, every song a highlight

A bunch of very talented musicians combining to make a thing that's somehow less than the sum of its parts.

Americana with southern roots. Hints of trad and Dixie jazz from the brass and southern rock in.the guitar. Dr John light. Bit too god-y in places for me.

Seminal album

Loved it.

Sounds so dated and hasn't aged well at all.

Great album, with a really lovely energy

Beck you big beautiful weirdo. Musically and tonally quite varied, this sets out the palate for much of his later work, albeit perhaps with less focus on any one particular style that occurs in subsequent records. It's a really enjoyable listen that never quite settles, keeping it continually interesting.

Yawn

Glam rock as it should be.

Not Orbital's best album, but a corker nonetheless. Stand out track for me was Are We Here

Lived this album. Varied yet stylistically consistent, it was engaging was from beginning to end

Pfftt

Masterpiece

Meh

Dull album by a shitty human being

Absolute dross

Some really great tracks on this, probably a bit long

Great Chicago blues

Hard to rate. Probably important, but now sounds like cartoon themes

Technically gifted saccharine pop that was ultimately rather unsatisfying. Interesting only in the sense of showing how far they traveled.

No

Landmark psychedelic rock album.

Not my favourite album by the scream, and very much of its time, but still sounds great.

A beautiful, enchanting album

Quality 80s tunes

Lovely

Jaaaazz. Nice!

zzzzzz

Looses a point because Morrissey's gone all fash

Bohemian Rhapsody is a five, album is a begrudging three

Fantastic

A complex work that will reward many re listens

The single is a classic, the rest of the album is not

Just realised where most of my favourite bands of the past 30 years were getting their inspiration from. Amazing album.

Meh

Looses some of the intimacy of the studio albums

Dull. Sounds like adverts.

Ethereally beautiful

Not Neil's best work

Polly Jean in full-on rock goddess mode.

The impact of The Wu and this album is hard to understate. Superb.

This is an album in the truest sense. Lyrically, it tells a story, pivoting from the tired, misogynistic cliches in the opening couple of tracks to discussing the structural problems with hip hop culture, to alcoholism , and to personal growth against the backdrop of growing up in Compton. Powerful stuff.

Weird inclusion

One of Myles's most accessible albums, played by some super musicians

Sleezy pomp

Top-notch christian rock

3.75 out of 5. Norman's smashing it

Peak 80s, and not in a good way

A phenomenal album. So, so good with such a strong sense of theme and flow. One of trip-hop's finest albums.

Great album with some excellent production by David Bowie

Never got this one. Boring, over-rated, and most definitely not punk.

Enjoyable enough, but very much of its time

Beautiful album. Where No Cars Go is a personal favourite.

Shite. Hate this banal soul-lite crap.

Noise rock outsider art. Fantastic

Couldn't finish it. Sounds like an angry 14 year-old edge lord.

Love this. Jane's crystal vocals work so well against the cosmic psych rock background

Perfect album? Bruce's song writing on this album is exceptional, with small-town, everyman vignettes set to an acoustic performance so vulnerable it's heartbreaking. The production creates a sound that's deeply intimate, like sitting up front, listening to the last performance of the night in a 2 am-empty bar. Amazing work.

Beguiling

Meh

An important album, but I'm not a fan of "live" albums, particularly those of poorer quality recording

Not favourite Bowie album

All killer, no filler. Prince at his funky best.

Morrisey is a twat but fuck me The Smiths are good.

Rather immature, lyrically and musically

Snore. Dull af

Amazing voice, perfectly accompanied

Child In Time is pretty good, but the rest is a bit meh. Historically important album, one of the founding texts of "metal", but it's a genre that has moved on so far this just sounds like caricature now.

Probably my favourite Scream album

4.5 Superb album, always interesting

Albums like this are exactly why I'm doing this project. How have I not heard this before? Excellent

MOR shite

Just beautiful

Not as interesting as it should be. All a bit too surface and no depth

Snore

One great song, rest is a bit meh

Not for me

3.5. Great music, bit long

Some nicely crafted tunes

Best ever Christmas album?

Dissapointing. Missing the sleeze from Beggers Banquet or Let it Bleed

Beautiful stuff

Quality

Favourite Radiohead album.

Can hear the Tribe Called Quest DNA.

Really interesting to hear strong women's voices in this genre. Loved it

Much like the Glorious Revolutioon of 1688, this is contextually important but ultimately not very interesting.

Masterpiece

Brilliant

Tom Waits is a true one of a kind.

So, so good. Amazing flow and fantastic beats.

I get why this is on the list, but Christ is it dull. A quick glance over other albums released in the same year show startling brilliant jazz albums, landmark blues albums and great folk. Then there's this, middle of the road, acceptable to white radio "rock". Historically important, but musically bland

Post post punk album?

As an album, this is a rambling, incoherent mess, desperately searching for a stronger producer. This feels like a brief, misguided staging post between Sgt Peppers and Abbey Road. It is self-indulgent almost to the point of parody, gropingly unsure of what it wants to be, yet at the same time contains some of the greatest individual tracks ever recorded. If we’re reviewing “albums”, then this is an album in the same way a “Best of…” compilation is an album; a nice collection of singles and deeper cuts, but barely registering as singular piece of work in its own right. Songs on it; 5/5. As an album; 1/5.

Such an interesting voice

Surprisingly sophisticated

Best Beatles album, still plagued by too many children's songs

Make it stop

Lacks the immediacy of Zen Arcade

Gets a bit samey, not keen on the production.

Repetitive and dull.

Fairly generic rock

The use of The Who as the theme song to so much CSI Blah made me want to run away, but listening with headphones was revelatory. Excellent stuff

A very welcome swerve from the procession of old white dudes

Contains some of the worst lyrics commited to vinyl and is in desperate need of a re-mastering but I do not give af. This is a thrilling, exciting masterpiece. Raw Power indeed

Bangers, init

A fun pastiche of the New York Dolls

Offensively bland. Musical porridge

Yawn

Great album. Loved the little acoustic set at the end

Sounds like rainy Sunday afternoons at my Grandparents

Interesting, innovative album that still holds true to it's R&B roots

Meh. Live albums suck

Dislike

Preferred the previous album, but this is great too

A begrudging 4

On first listen, I assumed Eminem's first major success must have come out when he was barely out of school. Dude was twenty fucking six when wrote this. Childish, homophobic, misogynistic.

No-one needs 1 hour 27 minutes of this. Stop it Todd.

Disco bangers

Fell a bit flat.

Needed more sleeze

First track is a banger, but the rest is so cheesy

Great voice, but weirdly boring album. Definitely missing the Mark Ronson production

Stone-cold legend

World's biggest christian rock band smash another one out of the park.

Absolutely delightful

A common theme in the 1001 albums is that the writer tends to pick from a band's later albums, choosing one where they've had time to hone their craft and knock off the rough edges. This album is an excellent case in point; whilst it's more accomplished and polished than their earlier stuff, it's lost the urgency and energy. Less southern garage rock, more stadium-friendly big production. Their first couple of albums are 3s or maybe 3.5s. This one is so much less interesting.

A surprisingly varied album 3.5

Nope, still don't like them. Better than London Calling, but still too punk-light.

Landmark album

Not sure how I missed this first time round. Great album!

Scarily brilliant. Nearly 10 years old and still sounds like it's from the future

Shite

Hard to overstate the importance of this record. Superb

What genre even is this? I have no frame of reference. It is either a 2 or a 4

Amazing work. Loved it.

WTF is a TV Eye Iggy?

Complicated. Amazing music, very (very) shitty lyrics.

Meh

Everything I hate about 80s neo soul. Like drowning in vat of magnolia paint.

As much as I love Rock Goddess era PJ Harvey, the confident strangness of her later work is just glorious.

Strong 3.5

Tedious shite.

Indie landfill

The bad 80s

Why?

OK. Finally, an interesting Who album. This is great

Yee-haw

Uncompromising

Awful. Their mums must be so ashamed.

Why is this band popular

Fuck live albums

Bleep, bloop, blancmange. Enjoyable ephemera, lingering barely longer than it takes to hit Next.

Not for me, but undeniably well written pop ditties

WHERE HAS THE WEIRD GONE? Least Graeful Dead sounding album I've heard.

Disappointing