1001 Albums Summary

3 20+ years later and still not feeling this is somehow their best, notorious as it is for the start of the Loudness Wars in mastering. BSSM and Mother's Milk are so much better. So much padding. It ends well, though... Even so would not miss it for another twenty years.

This really holds up after 18 years. Euphoric at times, and the Neil Young like urgent fragility of Win's voice has never been deployed better since. Always a good medicine to thaw many a heart that's grown old and cynical.

This was an easy assignment. Can't believe it's thirty years old already. Still a rocking hurricane wind tunnel, with no doubt or hesitation. How Polly came off the blocks this incandescent is still astonishing.

I think I just heard the best version of People Get Ready. Ain't No Way is the deepest cut with the biggest emotional punch.

Compulsory Bowie listening? All for it. On this occasion I worked out that Adam Buxton's Bowie impression is based entirely on the vocal mannerisms in Sons of the Silent Age.

Moreish. I'm going back in.

Need to revisit this asap. Pop sensibility steering well wide of sentimentality, spacious production values. Late 80s sophistopop minus the pretentiousness.

Where has this been all my life? Astral Weeks via Kind of Blue, Stevie Wonder's Visions and Eddie Vedder. Not what I was expecting at all. Love it.

Mostly uninspiring despite oodles of one of my favourite things: Wurlitzer electric piano. They pull a great save with final track Ride The Wind, though...

This should have connected with me more: shimmery synths, Foals-style grooves, beta male vocals. It doesn't quite add up. And then you read the band dissolved almost immediately after this album's release due to sexual assault allegations against the lead singer.

Some potential here, but not grabbing me on first listen.

This album is peak Amy for me. She has some fun with the inevitable Erykah Badu comparisons, but this is a bright new talent, rather than the significantly retro retooled Mark Ronson stuff. I can barely listen to Back to Black due to its ubiquity and idolatry but this? Forever.

I was five when this was released and it made a huge impression on me even then. I have to avoid listening to it for months sometimes years to try and get back to that memory of deep discovery. As an adult I came to love Meddle most of all, but this still sits above TDSOTM for me.

Sublime and atmospheric. Alice in Wonderland especially

At the time of release, I'd kind of dismissed Travis as sitting comfortably in the sweet spot between Radiohead's High and Dry & Fake Plastic Trees. Yes, they're still fairly undemanding, but Fran's lyrics with subversive nods to Oasis (twice) and Beck suggest an edge I'd missed entirely before. Writing to Reach You packs a yearning in the chord progression of the chorus that now feels like the most poignant nostalgia. We've all aged 23 years since this came out, but sometimes it can feel like we jumped the decades overnight. I will be coming back here.

There's some Grandaddy eclectic behaviour here but I need a few more listens to absorb.

A whole new genre created in one album from 1969. Impressive but still not quite there yet for me.

While I get their significance in the Madchester Legend, thirty years on all I can hear is Special Brew INXS.

Refreshingly raw, Hamburg Beatles level rock and roll, everything pushed into the red. Must learn more.

Must spend more time here. If anything more accessible than the debut. After Hours especially.

I am not the target market. Exuberant mediocrity.

Actively avoided listening to this for a while as so many talent show voices had mangled Hallelujah so much. What a phenomenal talent, not a single duff track and even in the rockiest moments sounds intimate.

What can you say?!? It's the bloody White Album. 25 years ago I thought it was half full of filler, now ALL of it is essential.

Quite a ride as advertised. The jazz and funk grooves are exceptional, the humour self deprecating and otherwise, but the misogyny has not so worn well. You could easily carbon date this to the early 90s.

You can still smell the Brut on every track. Even though some of the components should click with this Steely Dan head, it's still not happening for me except with the title track. The smug macho stuff devoid of irony is a tougher sell now. And the outro of The Last Resort is interminable still.

Such a brilliantly filthy romp throughout. Only 13 years after the release of "Folk Singer" this feels so lived in, and raw.

An incredibly intimate follow up to the often over orchestrated Bryter Later, a beautiful mind laid bare and fragile.

An album of huge contrasts from the profound to the brilliantly absurd.

31 years on and still a monster, one I've warmed too much more in my forties and fifties

Feels like a mid-70s What's Going On. Spending more time here.

Samples and grooves are excellent, lyrics unfortunately not so eargrabbing. Shame.

Peak Prodge, by far!

Never heard this in full before but now appreciate why its spacerock gospel is loved so much. Borderline euphoria in contrast to extreme melancholy: what a mix!

Smith's playing is so light and economic - a rarity in a lot of jazz - but feels like he's in danger of taking a back seat in his own band.

Too many favourite things here

Known about this since '96 and only heard in full for the first time. Not what I was expecting at all. Incredibly immersive. A portal to another world.

First heard this in the early 2000s. Mostly buried since '76. I'd take this over the Eagles any day.

As much as the title track and Fire and Rain are undeniably classics, and considering his bitter battle with Warner's recovering decades of owed royalties...I always get the impression there's a very angry and cynical bastard singing the sweetest songs. I may be completely wrong, yet I can't shake the impression.

Last album of the imperial phase? Maybe. Still feeling every note and word of it? Yes.

This one still sticks out of the Orbital catalogue as their most experimental, as the dancefloor is cleared for more dystopian underscoring. Some great riffing on Kraftwerk's Radioactivity is in there, plus the speech samples of preachers keep up the oppressive culty feel. Easy to admire but for me hard to warm to. Hoping to encounter In Sides again on the 1001 journey.

First ever listen. Significant experimentation here in the midst of the hit singles, almost Prog in places!

This was a tough journey. Relentless strutting and name dropping.

Timeless sophistopop where so much of the magic is in the spaces. Tinseltown in the🏃‍♀️Rain: perhaps only Richard Hawley's Coles Corner gets close to the same fragile melancholy.

I finally got Dylan when he started to make me laugh, rather than the background whine of my early childhood. I was sixteen when this finally opened the floodgates.

In some ways over-orchestrated compared to FLL - time can only just be kind to the "hello trees" instrumentals, but Poor Boy and Northern Sky are sublime. Anyone else hear Hazey Jane I and think it anticipated Dire Straits by 8 years?

All the familiar kindling but this band doesn't ignite for me fully til Document

You are there!!

Can't believe I first got immersed in this when I was nine years old. Probably scarred me for life. Gilmour brings the odd flash of brilliant sunshine to penetrate the Orwellian/Freudian misery woven by Waters. It does still hold together, perhaps surprisingly.

Extremely competent but continues to not grab me. As for Freebird, impossible to hear without picturing a high Jenny (Robin Wright) pinballing around a balcony.

A very easy assignment. Absolute classic from beginning to end.

A staple of my hi-fi salesman years. A recording of incredible faithfulness to live performance, and compelling stories of the musicians and their traditions...so why do I find it so wearing after the first half?

Surprised by how much I didn't hate this.

An ordeal from beginning to end.

First listen ever and despite the superb production not connecting with me much at all

Tasty baked goods between the ears, but the contrasting cock strutting gets wearing. Maybe a later KL will work for me.

I'm still with Hounds of Love for peak Kate, but is this truly her most experimental album? Yes.

Though long aware of the sleeve art's notoriety, I was fully expecting some more of the glam peacocking of For Your Pleasure, but arrived at much more introspective tunes, lush strings and a very different vocal style.

Odd that the tracks with more electronics hold up better than those with acoustic drums and guitars. Let's Stay Together holds its own in comparison with Al Green's original and the Heaven 17-boosted songs makes you wish it had been a consistent style across the album. Help! in particular still clangs heavy for me.

You can sometimes have too much of a good thing. Two thirds of the time this sounds like tuning into two radio stations at once as the orchestra PLUS power chords is so dense. It works best in the "ballads" and Master of Puppets, but this is not one I return to often.

Impressive debut, but they really hit their stride on Time's Up

Decent musicianship and the Indie Rock/Reggae is... experimental. A dear and trusted friend recommended this album to me 25 years ago. He really shouldn't have. The two stars are for me committing to the project and getting through those 52 minutes again.

I can't even hate on Student Demonstration Time, Disney Girls is lush and the rest: sublime.

Absolutely fearless, loud, real!