891
Albums Rated
3.43
Average Rating
82%
Complete
198 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1990s
Favorite Decade
Reggae
Favorite Genre
US
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
200
5-Star Albums
31
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
|
5 | 1.88 | +3.12 |
|
GI
Germs
|
5 | 2.54 | +2.46 |
|
Haut de gamme / Koweït, rive gauche
Koffi Olomide
|
5 | 2.6 | +2.4 |
|
A Grand Don't Come For Free
The Streets
|
5 | 2.67 | +2.33 |
|
Orbital 2
Orbital
|
5 | 2.7 | +2.3 |
|
Cut
The Slits
|
5 | 2.71 | +2.29 |
|
Arise
Sepultura
|
5 | 2.72 | +2.28 |
|
Arular
M.I.A.
|
5 | 2.83 | +2.17 |
|
Caetano Veloso
Caetano Veloso
|
5 | 2.85 | +2.15 |
|
World Clique
Deee-Lite
|
5 | 2.87 | +2.13 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd
|
1 | 4.3 | -3.3 |
|
Hotel California
Eagles
|
1 | 3.6 | -2.6 |
|
Machine Head
Deep Purple
|
1 | 3.59 | -2.59 |
|
The Marshall Mathers LP
Eminem
|
1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
|
Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
|
2 | 4.46 | -2.46 |
|
Bat Out Of Hell
Meat Loaf
|
1 | 3.44 | -2.44 |
|
The Dark Side Of The Moon
Pink Floyd
|
2 | 4.43 | -2.43 |
|
Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Derek & The Dominos
|
1 | 3.39 | -2.39 |
|
Doggystyle
Snoop Dogg
|
1 | 3.38 | -2.38 |
|
You Want It Darker
Leonard Cohen
|
1 | 3.34 | -2.34 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Stevie Wonder | 4 | 5 |
| Beatles | 6 | 4.67 |
| PJ Harvey | 4 | 4.75 |
| Elvis Costello & The Attractions | 4 | 4.75 |
| Nirvana | 3 | 5 |
| Simon & Garfunkel | 3 | 5 |
| Bob Marley & The Wailers | 3 | 5 |
| R.E.M. | 3 | 5 |
| Pixies | 3 | 5 |
| Public Enemy | 3 | 4.67 |
| David Bowie | 8 | 4.13 |
| Belle & Sebastian | 2 | 5 |
| Jimi Hendrix | 2 | 5 |
| The Velvet Underground | 2 | 5 |
| Elliott Smith | 2 | 5 |
| A Tribe Called Quest | 2 | 5 |
| The Undertones | 2 | 5 |
| The Clash | 2 | 5 |
| Pavement | 2 | 5 |
| M.I.A. | 2 | 5 |
| OutKast | 2 | 5 |
| Kraftwerk | 2 | 5 |
| Supergrass | 2 | 5 |
| Kendrick Lamar | 2 | 5 |
| Michael Jackson | 3 | 4.33 |
| The Smiths | 3 | 4.33 |
| Beastie Boys | 3 | 4.33 |
| The Cure | 3 | 4.33 |
| Miles Davis | 3 | 4.33 |
| Kings of Leon | 3 | 4.33 |
| Radiohead | 5 | 4 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Leonard Cohen | 5 | 1.6 |
| Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | 3 | 1.33 |
| Deep Purple | 3 | 1.33 |
| Eminem | 2 | 1 |
| Eagles | 2 | 1 |
| Randy Newman | 2 | 1 |
| Bruce Springsteen | 5 | 1.8 |
| XTC | 2 | 1.5 |
| Pink Floyd | 4 | 2 |
| Aerosmith | 3 | 2 |
| Frank Sinatra | 3 | 2 |
| The Rolling Stones | 6 | 2.33 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Sepultura | 5, 2 |
5-Star Albums (200)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Eminem
1/5
Slim Shady does not give a shit. So edgy.
Is it supposed to be funny? If it is, then maybe it’s not just my kind of jokes. If it’s real then it’s super cringy for an adult to stick with the same character for a second record and keep up with the same childish, angry verses. The beats sound pretty childish too.
This is a time capsule of the MTV TRL era and it sucks.
12 likes
Pink Floyd
1/5
1/5. There's very little on this record that I can enjoy.
All of the songs have the same plodding, druggy tempo with a somniferous vocal delivery to match. Synthesizers are used in a basic way: neither mixed low enough to just add depth to the sound or distinctive enough to make the arrangements richer. Guitars are bluesy and noodle across many of the numbers - even giving some parts a west coast desert vibe that reminds me of The Eagles. The lyrics are pretty crappy which is surprising since your average boomer will call modern hip-hop a trash medium and then defend their position with Pink Floyd... a band who rhymes "school" with "fool" or "guitar", "steak bar" and "Jaguar".
12 likes
XTC
2/5
I listened to it twice. I want to have an opinion but I just can't make myself form one.
5 likes
1-Star Albums (31)
All Ratings
T. Rex
3/5
Up-close vocals and laid back instrumentation make this effortlessly cool in the way Roxy Music could never pull off. The tracks that don't sound like Bowie are better than the Bowie-esque ones and the album as a whole is yet to be thoroughly mined for 21st Century Hipster Cinema soundtracks.
ZZ Top
2/5
Music for a blue collar bar in a suburban strip mall. Hot, Blue and Righteous stands out as a sweet song to end side A on an otherwise greasy collection.
The B-52's
5/5
Listening to this album feels like I am consuming all of what became "alternative rock" in the decades that follow its release. I hope that if I was a teenager in 1979 I would have been cool enough to like The B-52's. The kitsch dial is turned up near maximum on this recording but the songs and performances are just too fun to ignore. If the vocal harmonies don't make your spine tingle, do you even like music?
Metallica
3/5
You can't deny these riffs. The songs and sounds on this album share a lot more in common with the grunge bands I believed were far superior as a teen. As timeless as the music may be at times the lyrics get a little too "on the nose". The earnestness of grunge is its legacy rather than the fashion or even the sound.
The production on the remastered version sounds great but Side B is hiding some real clunkers. For one reason or another I think I prefer Megadeth. Ye-yeah!
Nirvana
5/5
The songs are loud, poppy, urgent, timeless. The collection is as artistic as it is consumable making it the pinnacle of the bands career. You could even argue this was the pinnacle of punk rock.
Listen to the Albini version unless you're a Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.
Tom Waits
3/5
It's jazz, I guess? Many of the tracks are film noir sketches between lush piano, bass, and drum numbers that highlight Waits' voice which sounds great on this live recording. The lyrics are poetic and very clever. "Purina checkerboard slacks" from Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street) recalls the funny parts of Alice's Restaurant but in a much hipper presentation.
Evocative stories taking place in the gritty parts of LA. Cars, tough personalities, drugs and booze. This should have been a hip-hop album.
Death In Vegas
1/5
Whatever this album is, it's one aspect of Cool Britannia that never made it across the Atlantic. And it's for a good reason. The duo are not The Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack, Orbital, or even Sneaker Pimps. I guess you had to be there.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
What can be said that Yasi Salek hasn't already explored? The episode of Bandsplain about RHCP really did change my view of the Peppers but this album is a solid work from a band that has evolved so much over the decades.
Eminem
1/5
Cringe-worthy pop rap. The Slim Shady persona is that disruptive kid you knew in eighth grade who tried to come off edgy by telling tall tales on the bus. He was annoying and nobody's friend but unexpectedly shined in the one class he cared about.
This record might be a victim of the aggressive posture that popular performers took in the late 90s. I wonder what persona Eminem would have created had he come up in the Soundcloud/emo rap era. Maybe he could have painted with colors other than "Fred Durst backward red baseball hat" red.
Fats Domino
3/5
Fats has a great voice and his creations provided enough material for groups to mine well into the next decade or more. The songs are not corny like Elvis and more danceable than Buddy Holly. All in all there isn't enough to grab the attention of modern listeners but it's still a cool nostalgia trip.
The Hives
3/5
When this album came out, rock music was in a bad place. Groups like The Hives emerged to bring rock 'n' roll back to its roots by mining early garage rock and punk sounds while adding better songwriting and cleaner dirty production.
This is a compilation album which gives me mixed feelings but if Singles Going Steady and Hatful of Hollow can get away with it, so can Your New Favourite Band.
Ministry
4/5
Aggressive. Sounds like video game music. Very danceable grooves. Must have been a genre-defining album upon its release.
The Jam
4/5
I have so many questions. Where does this album fit between punk and The Kinks? Is this New Wave? Are these guys working class (Oasis) or not quite (Blur)?
The album exhibits top notch production; the recording sounds great and highlights how tight the band is. Set the House Ablaze is a standout track.
The album verges on earning a 5-star mark but the lyrics leave me wanting just a little more.
Joan Armatrading
4/5
Instrumentation and production adds a filmy 1970s residue that obscures the songs and performances a bit but not in a delicious Stevie Wonder kind of way. On subsequent listens it may fade away but hearing this recording for the first time, I can't help but get distracted by it. Fortunately that is the only criticism I have.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
I LOL'd.
Then I tried to give myself a chance to "get" it and never did. When Jazz Police came on, I LOL'd again.
The backing tracks are certainly stylized but they are interesting in the way Ween's tracks are interesting. I don't find the lyrics particularly poetic or deep, however. I must be missing something but I won't be back to find it.
The Flying Burrito Brothers
2/5
cowboy music. longing vocals. twanging guitars. I much prefer Willie Nelson.
Dennis Wilson
2/5
I love The Beach Boys. At least three of the songs on this album sound like The Eagles. I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man. "Thoughts of You" kind of reminds me of Eels which was interesting at least.
Metallica
3/5
When I first picked up the guitar, I didn't know anything about technique. Early on I stumbled my way into palm muting and said to myself, "that's the Metallica chug-chug thing!" The riffs on this album have a harmony and beauty that isn't found as much on The Black Album. The production hides the lyrics a little better on this release, too, which is an overall benefit. (For what it's worth, I listened to the remastered version.)
The Who
3/5
The most punk of the British Invasion bands (except for maybe The Kinks) though you can't really hear it on this album of mostly R&B inspired songs. Not the strongest collection of tunes.
Fever Ray
3/5
This was the sound of the times in which is was released. Alarmingly quotidian lyrics delivered with a highly-stylized affect create a contrast with the futuristic electronic track reminiscent of Kraftwerk.
See also/instead: Grimes, Santigold, Karen O.
Roxy Music
3/5
Upon hearing the first song, I thought maybe this was the missing link between VU and Devo! I should love this, right? The rest of the songs kind of sound like Sparks.
I like the use of synthesizer and Mellotron. There are interesting sounds and a pleasant variation of tunes but nothing here quite sticks to my palate for longer than the length of each song. On occasion it veers into Rocky Horror Picture Show territory and that's where I begin to lose my appetite.
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
3/5
I'm going to tell my kids this was The Police.
I really wanted to give it 4 stars. The diversity of styles is simultaneously a strength and a weakness. The quality of tunes is steady across the album but the sounds are disjointed in a way that keeps me from getting fully absorbed.
Michael Jackson
5/5
Quincy Jones production. Absolutely stacked with hits. I have to give it top marks even if it is a disco record.
Adele
4/5
"Vocal" albums are at the bottom of my list of popular music interests. The production on the vocals is over the top for my taste but she sounds great. Because she is great.
The tracks take old sounds and make them sound modern. I didn't care for the cover song.
Skunk Anansie
2/5
This is an album for people who adopted Fight Club as their whole personality. The songs and performances give off the "international band opening for the group you actually came to see" vibe. It's not bad but nothing really sticks on a first shallow listen.
I have to give it two stars because -- while I didn't hate it -- I did find myself hoping the set would end soon so they could get their crap off the stage already.
Slipknot
3/5
The production is pretty bad. The record-scratching noises are totally unnecessary and the album is missing the art of other heavy bands like System of a Down and Deftones. Also missing: Korn's grooves or Nine Inch Nails' lyricism.
I believe these guys do have something to say and came up with a new sound. There are fragments of songs that wander -- maybe accidentally -- into interesting territory.
Ride
4/5
It's "medium loud" shoegaze. Great sixties-inspired vox, muscular bass, jangly guitar. There's a little bit of The Smiths in here and possibly some Stone Roses. Very pretty arrangements and some really catchy moments in as well.
The sounds on the record are great but the cover of this album put it over the top. Incredible!
The Chemical Brothers
4/5
A couple of massive singles among a collection of genre-defining dance numbers.
Sigur Rós
3/5
Dreamy but not dream-pop. Orchestral but it doesn't sound like an orchestra.
Ágætis Byrjun is easier to describe in terms of what it isn't than to describe what it is. I can say that it is a wonderful piece of art but as an album -- a listenable collection of tunes that you want to hear on repeat -- I'm left looking for something to grab onto. Perhaps this is better consumed as a score than a pop music album.
Ryan Adams
3/5
Funny that the album opens with some banter about Morrissey. Heartbreaker shares some jangly-Americana influences with Mozza's early solo albums. In addition, both vocalists have exhibited some behaviors that force fans to separate the tunes from the performers' personalities offstage.
It's an alright album if you like Bruce Springsteen. The quiet songs are OK when they sound like Sufjan Stevens or Elliott Smith.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
Remember the first Kings of Leon album? That was like a modern reboot of the original Creedence universe.
This album isn't the strongest collection of songs which makes me wonder why it's included in the book. The production, however, is incredible. It really sounds great and keeps me chooglin'.
Tracy Chapman
3/5
Black Sabbath
3/5
I don't know if this album defined metal but it certainly took metal to the masses. The 2012 remastered version sounds great and highlights the album's tunes and performances.
I find that I have a lot of similar opinions as Robert Christgau but I don't get his distaste for Black Sabbath. Sure, some of the lyrics are a little naff, but they don't deserve the roasting he gave them.
Billie Holiday
2/5
Her voice sounds weak - almost to a point of distraction. The songs sound old fashioned and sleepy -- like the songs that we only listen to during Christmas. This music isn't really my thing.
Beatles
5/5
So many great Lennon vocals on this album! I love two minute long songs as well. The 2009 remaster sounds so good.
Ian Dury
3/5
This isn't a three star review. It's a blended four star / two star review.
The two stars come from the weird sex songs. I'll admit to being slightly prudish about this kind of stuff but they stand out to me as an unpleasant listen.
On the other hand I enjoyed the rockers and especially the "slice of life" numbers that sound like a barely-literate Billy Bragg or working class Kinks.
The Stooges
5/5
Michael Kiwanuka
4/5
I liked it. It sounds really new.
Bad Company
1/5
sucks
The Doors
4/5
This album still sounds cool more than a half-century after its release. Like a west coast Velvet Underground.
The Go-Go's
5/5
Practically flawless. A solid collection of songs with some real standouts.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
More songs about cars and working.
Overly emotive vocals usually turn me off. So do incessant honking horn sections and dorky glockenspiel parts.
4/5
Awesome performances; great production; varied songs that kept me interested throughout the whole album. But I'm left wishing for something more.
"You Said Something" is my favorite track.
Paul McCartney and Wings
2/5
Beatle-based mid-70s soft rock. This album sounds like a Time Warner "AM Radio Gold" collection.
Faith No More
4/5
I have a theory that Faith No More, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Fishbone are actually the same band but they originated in different dimensions than ours.
King Crimson
3/5
The lyrics are not great. The oboe is a welcome contribution on the second track and the Mellotron sounds divine.
I ended up liking this more than I thought I would. Robert Christgau called it "ersatz shit" which I love but don't really agree with.
Belle & Sebastian
5/5
I was not familiar with this album before today though I have listened to newer Belle & Sebastian albums a lot. I don't think this is their best material but if this is the record named in the book then we'll just go with it. 5 stars for the album because it is representing an amazing band.
Billy Joel
3/5
It's OK. The title track gives me Steely Dan vibes. I also get some McCartney-esque pastiche vibes. Nothing here is as offensive as Springsteen but I'm not really inspired by the characters Joel creates.
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
This album made no sense when it came out but the singles were huge hits. I listened to this when it was first released and but didn't dig much deeper than the singles. There are some good tunes here but its a little too long.
Typical Billy Corgan production that seems to be improved on the 2012 remaster.
Sparks
4/5
Absolute madness. Sounds like Art Rock that actually kind of rocks. "Amateur Hour" is a great tune and the whole album has aged remarkably well for something that came out in the mid 70s.
Elton John
3/5
Great recording. The novelty songs are kinda weird (what the hell is "Jamaica Jerk-Off"?) and the sappy songs ("Candle in the Wind") aren't my thing at all.
More mid-70s pastiche. What was happening with pop music during this time? More than a few of the filler songs on this double record sound way older than the release date suggest. Billy Joel did it. Paul McCartney did it. But why?
Fiona Apple
4/5
Fiona has a great voice that never waivers through the whole album. The backing tracks are lush with great keyboard arrangements (piano, mellotron, etc.) The production on the whole record is top-notch though I don't like whatever effect is on the vocal track for Criminal.
The singles from this album are amazing. If the whole album had tunes that good, it's an easy five star record. The lower tier cuts are still solid three-star material. I was debating between a three star review and four stars. Considering this was her debut and recorded when she was a teenager, I'll give it the edge toward the higher score.
Richard Hawley
2/5
I don't like crooners. It's not that I don't like modern music that sounds like old music. I really dig lots of bands that do new tunes that sound like music from my parents and grandparents generation. But there's something about crooners that turns me off -- even if they sound a little bit like Mark Lanegan.
Hotel Room stands out a decent track. Born Under a Bad Sign is a sweet tune reminiscent of Petula Clark swinging 60s pop.
The xx
2/5
Super cool hipster music with dual vocalists. I'm not a fan of Croft's stilted cursive singing style and not a single lyric stands out enough for me to know what they are singing about. The spartan, atmospheric tracks are begging for a more evocative vocal performance but we never get a chance to hear one. I'm begging to hear Kele Okereke's voice and words here.
All of the songs sound the same.
Ute Lemper
4/5
WTF is this? Lush, orchestral pop songs about sexual violence? It's certainly a unique concept and the performances are solid. It's exactly what I expect to be included in a list of 1001 Albums. There are a variety of songwriters on the album and Ute's skill as an actress is put to good use. She fits her voice to styles of Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and others.
If this album was meant to have a single, "Split" might be it. Ute's voice sounds great and it's upbeat.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
Does working class New Wave exist? If so, this might be the album that defines the genre. A temporary stop on the evolutionary timeline between The Specials and Fun Boy Three.
The production isn't great. I find the lyrics hard to make out and Rowland's vocal delivery doesn't help. The record has its moments with a few good tunes that are held back by the rough sound and a dodgy singer.
The Smiths
5/5
Smiths records always sounded bad to me but the 2011 remaster goes a long way to improve that.
In my mind The Smiths are a singles band to the detriment of their albums. The Queen is Dead is a good enough album with about half of it being singles-worthy cuts.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
2/5
Combination of the Two: great groove
I Need a Man to Love: blues, I guess
Summertime: more blues - bad vocal
Piece of My Heart: the single
Turtle Blues: oof. blues.
Oh, Sweet Mary: some psychedelia
Ball and Chain: BLUES
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Jimi Hendrix recordings have always sounded otherworldly and chaotic - much like the tunes themselves.
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
"It's got a good beat and you can dance to it"
Do you love a massive synth bass sound? I fucking do and this album starts with one a great one. However... the rest of the album sounds like LCD Soundsystem. "i used to" has some more cool synth sounds that remind me of the artists and albums that the band seems to draw inspiration from: British character-driven-post-human rock from Bowie and Numan and German robot bands like Can and Kraftwerk. What I find missing in this album -- and other work by LCD Soundsystem -- is a compelling narrator for the trip we are taken on throughout the course of the record. Maybe I'm distracted by the music and the way all of the instrumentation is mixed so carefully to create lush tracks that demand attention. The final song is the exception to this rule and fits well as an album closer.
Joy Division
5/5
Still haunting after so many listens. A chilling work of art for the ages. Can I give this one six stars?
Tricky
4/5
sexy vocals - genre-defining. perhaps multiple genres. talented songwriter with a unique vision and lyrics that have something to say. does something absolutely post-modern before anyone was ready.
Sonic Youth
5/5
Sounds like Sonic Youth but more pop. Another foundation of alternative rock. How many albums would not exist if these songs weren't recorded? A lot, probably.
Chicago
2/5
I liked it more than I thought I would. The lyrics are pretty bad throughout and the whole production sounds like the 1970s. There are moments that make me really excited but nothing here is edited in a way that keeps the album moving forward.
Seven minutes of tuneless guitar noise is perhaps excessive but I prefer it over a blues jam of the same length so there's that.
Kelela
4/5
Sounds kinda old and kinda new at the same time. Kelela has a great voice which sounds mercifully natural for an album recorded in the last decade.
Stylistically the album doesn't fit well in any category. You can imagine these songs getting remixed into any number of electronic genres. For my tastes I think I would like to see the material contorted even further into rougher electronic versions but I understand why the choices were made to let Kelela's songs retain their origins in R&B.
Buzzcocks
5/5
It's Buzzcocks. What else can you ask for?!
The Cardigans
4/5
"Been It" fucking slaps. The vocal and the lead guitar sound so good together. There's also a bouncy, melodic bass which I fall for so easily. This could be a Jellyfish song. "Losers" is another strong tune. The tumbling vocal and drums in the chorus contrast with the dreamy verses. The "Iron Man" cover is weird.
I bought this album when it was first released after becoming enchanted by the song "Carnival" from their previous record. I never gave this album too deep of a listen back then and I'm surprised to see it on this list.
All in all, it's a solid alternative rock/pop album that captures where popular music went after grunge yielded to other sounds.
Badly Drawn Boy
4/5
Major Elliott Smith vibes and really bad cover art. Even the sounds of the instrumentation makes it sound like he sat down in the room where an Elliott Smith recording had just taken place to put down a few of his own tunes.
That being said, I still like it.
Travis
3/5
It's hard to have a strong opinion about this one. There are a lot of really pretty songs on this one and its hard to get mad about that but some tunes do lack a little bit of substance. They can't all be singles but you also don't expect filler on a record with ten tracks.
Orbital
5/5
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
I just really like it.
Van Halen
2/5
Cringe vox and songs. Sounds like Kiss without the disco.
The guitar brings amazing melody, harmony, and rhythm to some otherwise lame toolbox rock tunes.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
So cool. The coolest. 😎
The recording is crappy, the performances aren't super tight and Nico's voice is hard to listen to but does that really matter?
The Jesus And Mary Chain
4/5
I like the aesthetic a lot but nothing here stands out as a classic. If only it was just a little more... something. Anything. Louder, quieter, sadder, prouder.
Jefferson Airplane
5/5
Hippie music generally gets a "pass" from me, but this is just too poppy to for me to ignore. It's really, really good.
The Temptations
3/5
The rhythm section on the opening track is next level. The rest of the songs didn't spark much interest.
Taylor Swift
3/5
An album following the Big Swedish Pop Tunes (tm) formula.
Listen to the highly processed vocals. Each song employs a melange of trendy and modern sounds. Lyrics engineered to engage listeners in the target demographic.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
Name a better lyricist than Elvis Costello. Pro-tip: you can't. The way he blends interpersonal strife with world politics is on great display here as evidenced by the title of the record.
New wave music brought new sounds but this album does not depart from The Attractions sound: chirpy keyboard, muscular bass, and tight, anxious drums.
Van Morrison
3/5
Sounds like 1968. Bluesy acoustic guitar and flute. It's OK, I guess. I file this under "Sunday morning household chores" music. There are a lot of stories here - not unlike a Bruce Springsteen album I was forced to endure earlier in this project.
The Temptations
3/5
The recording sounds great and the vocal harmonies are as good as they get but I find the lyricism and songcraft lacking.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
Peter Tosh's songs stand out along with "High Tide Or Low Tide" on the expanded version.
Linkin Park
2/5
Sounds like Limp Bizkit.
Beatles
4/5
Never gets old. OK - the covers are actually a little tiresome.
Butthole Surfers
3/5
Is this really an album? Definitely.
Are these songs? More or less.
Is it art? For sure, but not really pop/rock in the usual form. There are some catchy moments and the noise experiments are interesting.
David Holmes
3/5
Sounds like a hip-hop record without rhymes. The only MCs on this tape are in the form of recordings of conversation which set a mood of real street level humanity.
The sounds are all over the place but cohesive enough to make a good album. At first I thought this might be a house album but I was pleasantly treated with some synth tunes, jazzy beats, etc.
More Moby than Aphex Twin but still an enjoyable listen.
Violent Femmes
5/5
This might be the first "alternative" album I ever heard. I thought it was the weirdest thing I had ever heard. Was this guy serious? Is he actually angry or not? I hadn't heard punk before so the attitudes and forthright emotion confused my 12 year old brain.
I thought a lot about the lyrics in a way that I had never analyzed the records I liked from C+C Music Factory and Culture Club. When I was exposed to this record I also heard Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The vocals on those records were hard to make out at times but the vocals on Violent Femmes are so clear.
Air
3/5
Cool sounds. Evocative in a way that fulfills the mission to be both a film score and a standalone album.
Moby
3/5
Downtempo electronica with blues and gospel samples. It was a pretty novel idea in the 90s - especially to mainstream American audience who didn't listen to any of these genres much.
The way Moby as producer puts his own vocals on tracks between the gospel ones keeps the collection interesting throughout the hour-plus runtime.
I thought the Mission of Burma cover was going to be on this one.
Wilco
4/5
There was mega hype when this came out and to me it signaled the end of the "first wave of indie rock." I wasn't too thrilled with the songs back then but I closer listen two decades later and I get the attraction. There is something about the vocal performances that turn me off still but the instrumentation and songs are solid.
Parliament
5/5
Terrific production. Especially the drums.
What can you say about the grooves on this record? Anything but the highest praise is short shrift to what the P-Funk collaboration created for these songs.
Taylor Swift
2/5
I don't know what these songs are about. I cannot identify with them at all. Is there some Taylor Swift lore that I need some background on or are they purposely obtuse? The lyrics remind me of those AI-generated bro-country anthems from the radio.
The duets sound artificial. This album is just bad.
The Prodigy
4/5
Frenetic breakbeats. Samples from metal songs and TV shows.
The first side is a little bit monotonous for my tastes. The second side has some great variety.
The Beach Boys
3/5
Beach Boys tunes recorded to sound like The Velvet Underground.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
4/5
This must have been a pretty wild recording back in 1958. I really like the guitar.
Motörhead
4/5
The recording quality is more than listenable for a live album from the early 80s. Solid performances and a good selection of songs.
The Dictators
4/5
Some of the tunes border on novelty song territory and that turns me off. Other songs are tuneful punk singalongs that I can totally get down with.
Pink Floyd
1/5
1/5. There's very little on this record that I can enjoy.
All of the songs have the same plodding, druggy tempo with a somniferous vocal delivery to match. Synthesizers are used in a basic way: neither mixed low enough to just add depth to the sound or distinctive enough to make the arrangements richer. Guitars are bluesy and noodle across many of the numbers - even giving some parts a west coast desert vibe that reminds me of The Eagles. The lyrics are pretty crappy which is surprising since your average boomer will call modern hip-hop a trash medium and then defend their position with Pink Floyd... a band who rhymes "school" with "fool" or "guitar", "steak bar" and "Jaguar".
Madonna
4/5
Madonna's voice has never been the main attraction but the top tier production on the album brings out the best of it.
The singles are all massive songs. Pop perfection. The rest of the album is a mix of solid synth pop and softer ballads.
All in all its a great collection at an important junction in Madonna's career.
The Incredible String Band
3/5
This album could benefit from some tighter focus. The medieval or renaissance-sounding instrumentation is really cool but there is some folky Dylan-esque guitar as well. The lyrics also switch time and place with references to Christian themes as well as pagan and Hinduism.
It's an interesting melange and it kept my interest throughout but nothing stood out as amazing. Other artists have taken influences from early music and done more with it.
The Wicker Man album art is 5/5. For the tunes, it's a solid 3/5.
Julian Cope
3/5
This is one of the albums ever made. There's a song about a motorcycle.
Mj Cole
3/5
Jurassic 5
4/5
Great beats and the MCs put on a rhyme clinic throughout. The mix of tempos, sounds, and flows keep the album moving and interesting for the whole hour.
Pink Floyd
3/5
Sounds like a 60s rock album with vocal harmonies, plenty of production effects, and mystical lyrics.
Eels
4/5
sad songs. Some of the lyrics come off a tad overemotional. Even The Smiths threw us a fun one every once in a while.
There is something about the effects on the instruments -- guitar and organ I guess -- that creates really harmonious, beautiful, emotional sounds.
David Bowie
5/5
My second favorite Bowie record. The arrangement on Life on Mars sounds like a Beach Boys song. The words to Kooks are so sweet. Queen Bitch might be the crunchiest three-chord tune ever recorded.
Songs 5/5.
Performances 5/5.
Recording 5/5.
George Michael
2/5
Vocal pop isn't my thing. I imagine this is similar to Barbra Streisand? The production on the remastered version sounds very crisp and expensive like a modern Christmas song.
Freedom 90 is funny. It's one of those songs that plastic pop superstars eventually deliver as fan service to tell the adoring crowds that their new persona is finally the "real" person.
There are some parallels between this album and the Taylor Swift albums on this list. There is some skillful songwriting on the record but the lyrics just do not offer me anything I can identify or empathize with.
Final thought: Wouldn't an acoustic cover of Heal the Pain by Alice in Chains sound amazing?
Pearl Jam
5/5
Before there was post-grunge, there was grunge.
Eminem
1/5
Slim Shady does not give a shit. So edgy.
Is it supposed to be funny? If it is, then maybe it’s not just my kind of jokes. If it’s real then it’s super cringy for an adult to stick with the same character for a second record and keep up with the same childish, angry verses. The beats sound pretty childish too.
This is a time capsule of the MTV TRL era and it sucks.
Janis Joplin
3/5
Bob Dylan
5/5
I used to ask my parents what the Sixties were like but I never got a satisfying answer. This album is what I was looking for.
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
This must have been a seriously groundbreaking sound in 1978. At this point there were still 15 years or more of solid punk records to make but PiL were ready to move on. Lydon is so pissed off and I love it.
“Theme” could be an unfinished Nirvana song. “Public Enemy” sounds a little like the Pixies. This album must have been a big post-rock influence of the alternative bands who would make it big decades later.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
The keyboards on this record sound great and Stevie's distinctive voice does as well. Top-tier songcraft is supported by lush arrangements that keep revealing more complexity after repeated listens.
Crowded House
2/5
I'm so annoyed. This is not for me at all.
I actually like music so this album was a chore to get through. Everything about it is absolutely "mid" except for the lyrics which are awful. Like Squeeze awful. Like Chicago awful.
Note to self: when you need to reset your rating gauge, consider returning to this album as it is the ultimate two star clunker.
Scott Walker
2/5
60s orchestral vocal pop with naughty lyrics. I still don't like crooners.
Bob Dylan
4/5
I didn't know Bob Dylan had a sense of humor.
David Bowie
4/5
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Crisp production and catchy, tight songs. Castles Made of Sand, Wait Until Tomorrow and Little Wing are almost pop songs.
4/5
Achingly poetic lyrics and totally original song structure and arrangements... are not what you will find on this album. What you will find are the vibes that will make you believe that Cool Britannia was a real thing.
Hüsker Dü
3/5
This album is from an era -- that might only exist in my head -- where American bands competed with each other to see who could create the most EARNEST songs. Earnestness is a feeling that I get a lot when I listen to Husker Du and it's what attracts me the most to their tunes. Maybe it's Bob's plain voice or his first-person lyrics. I'm not sure but I know that I'll never not like anything that sounds like this record.
There's a lot of Husker Du songs I love but they aren't on this one.
PJ Harvey
5/5
Great songs and blistering performances highlighted by Steve Albini's engineering.
Beastie Boys
3/5
I heard this album a decade before I'd ever heard a Led Zeppelin song so it was surprising to discover the original cuts when I get around to Led Zep's catalog.
I really like hip hop and The Beasties but this one is just OK. While it was a landmark release at the time, the beats and rhymes don't hold up.
Hole
3/5
Solid lyrics. The production is lush and buries Love's vocals in some cases. (We're talking ELO level of production on this one.) These are her songs and I would have preferred to hear more of her performances. Auf der Maur's bass sounds great.
All in all, as good as the singles are the rest of the album is pretty generic.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
The song selection sounds like its a B-Sides compilation instead of a proper album. We get one inventive, artistic song in Sympathy for the Devil and then some odds n sods blues/country rock tunes. I guess at the time of its release, this album would stand out because of its straight-forward acoustic guitar and piano sounds.
I kind of like Jigsaw Puzzle but Salt of the Earth is truly shit.
Mudhoney
3/5
Great production that balances the fuzz with clear vocals and punchy drums. "Good Enough" is my favorite track. The songs are average. There is some variation in instrumentation which is cool but I find the collection as a whole to be somewhat monotonous.
The Cure
4/5
The sounds are all here but the songs are not quite developed to the heights that The Cure would eventually achieve. "A Forest" is really the only standout track from Seventeen Seconds. The album that came out a year later is the real masterpiece of early Cure.
Beastie Boys
5/5
Great rhymes and the classic Beastie flow with three MCs trading lines like they have been doing this since they were teenagers. Musically, Ill Communication fits so well between Check Your Head and Hello Nasty in the continuing evolution of the group's sound. At the time, this record sounded like the end game for the Beastie's style - especially because it would be four years until they released a follow up album.
When this record first came out I thought the noisy/scratchy beat samples sounded so cool. In 2022 they still sound cool. Ill Communication also mixes in jazz instrumentals and hardcore tracks which would be completely out of place on a hip hop record but somehow they work.
Erykah Badu
4/5
There are a handful of five star songs and a couple of two or three star numbers. The production balances a lush full band with Badu’s vocal performances to make a great sounding headphone record.
Depeche Mode
3/5
One massive single with some solid synth-pop after. I don’t particularly like the dramatic parts. I might listen to the record again but synth pop isn’t really about albums, is it?
The Gun Club
3/5
Pretty good. I liked the parts that sounded like The Angry Samoans and The Velvet Underground.
Arrested Development
4/5
The beats are very typical of the time but aren’t as abrasive as what the Bomb Squad did on the Public Enemy albums. The lyrics are still evocative of Afro-centric cultural revolution. There are a couple of notable songs on here and the rest of the album is worth a listen.
Morrissey
4/5
Call me emo but this whole record fucking slaps. Now My Heart Is Full is one of a very few songs that can give me a lump in my throat. The production on the solo Morrissey albums outshines anything he recorded with The Smiths too.
Various Artists
4/5
Elvis Presley
2/5
This ain’t it.
Thin Lizzy
3/5
I like the parts that sound like Van Morrison. I don’t like the parts that sound like Kiss.
This whole record is pretty standard toolbox rock but Lynott’s voice stands out as something unique among the standard 70s hard rock sounds.
Elliott Smith
5/5
Top talent, too songs.
The Pogues
3/5
Pirate rock 🏴☠️
The Stranglers
4/5
Like Elvis Costello meets The Damned. Great bass tone on the whole record.
Manu Chao
4/5
Super Furry Animals
5/5
SFA would reach heights beyond this record later in their career but this is still a 5 star from me. Ffa Coffi Pawb am byth.
Michael Jackson
5/5
Paul McCartney really lost his shit in the 80s. The duet here is lame but when Thriller starts it is all forgotten.
Mekons
4/5
Kinda cute. Like in a Belle and Sebastian way.
Rush
5/5
2112 is not for everyone. Listen to the last 30 seconds of the opening track as that tells you everything you need to know.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
I'm a big reggae fan so this album gets a 5 from me. I do wish the genre could be represented by acts that are not Bob Marley. Confidentially, I'm not that much of a Marley fan.
1/5
Cheap sounding production. Cheap references to other music acts -- and Macromedia Shockwave (wtf). Cheap dick jokes. If I was a wrestler looking for a new entrance song for an upcoming heel turn, this is the album I would start with.
I like when the vocalist goes into his weird falsetto whine raps -- especially on the hokey-pokey sections of "Rollin'."
There's a part of "The One" where the bass kind of sounds like The Cure. That's my favorite part of this record which I will never listen to again.
"Boiler" gives some Deftones vibes but the vocals, again, are just really not good.
A pile of crap at the intersection of Eminem and Linkin Park.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
2/5
Goldfrapp
3/5
I like the vocal and instrumentation but the songs are not interesting.
Paul Simon
5/5
I love the Zulu-style tracks. Since these songs are written or co-written by Paul Simon, they are as perfect as a pop song can get.
The Black Crowes
3/5
Performances are good, especially the vocals. Recording is solid. If only the Led Zeppelin albums were engineered this well.
It's a great collection of songs with a couple of standout singles. After all, though, it's pastiche.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
A little Simon and Garfunkel, a little bit of The Bee-Gees, too. I bet Elliott Smith was really into this record.
The music is OK and the vocal performance is a lot better than I was expecting. I don't take too much away from the lyrics at all.
In summary, I regard this record in the way I take that one cottage-core Taylor Swift album.
The Streets
5/5
I was a big fan of this record when it first came out.
Devendra Banhart
2/5
coffee shop
Lorde
3/5
A dance pop album with solid production that sounds great in headphones.
There are a couple of major points that prevent the album from keeping my interest. The otherwise solid vocal performance suffers from trendy cursive singing style. Further, there is not much to distinguish the music from Billie Eilish or Lady Gaga.
The White Stripes
5/5
The performances are honestly not great. Not that it matters. This duo were on a mission to save rock music from the dire condition it was left in at the turn of the millennium.
John Coltrane
3/5
As a smooth-brained popular music enthusiast, I don't know how to listen to this. I've watched a lot of Adam Neely videos, too, and I still can't crack the code.
PJ Harvey
5/5
An incredible concept and brilliantly executed. "Written on the Forehead" is a bop and the whole record is flawless. This is a 5+/5.
Jeru The Damaja
4/5
Hip hop music can mean a lot of different things but at its core its beats and lyrics. This album is just that.
Hole
5/5
This record really holds up.
Gang Starr
5/5
The album sounds like a product of its time but the beats and rhymes are 5/5.
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
Beautiful opening track. Very lush instrumentation that supports Rufus' intriguing vocal melodies. (I almost called them unique but they do remind me of Thom Yorke's and Thom Yorke wanna-be Matt Bellamy.) Evocative lyrics tell personal stories.
I feel the album wanders a little in the second half. More focus on the particular sounds on some of the earlier songs would make this one perfect.
Prince
3/5
There's a couple of good songs and a bunch of weird ones. It sounds like a Prince album. It's a bummer that the best song on the record is the shortest one.
James Brown
3/5
The band sounds great and the album captures what must have been a very exciting night for those who attended.
George Harrison
2/5
you: "Mom, can we get The Beatles?"
mom: "No. We have The Beatles at home."
The Beatles at home:
ABBA
2/5
I can take an ABBA single every now and then but omfg this is rough.
Every instrumental part and vocal part is engineered to be overly corny. I don't know how a high hat can sound corny as fuck but, damn, they achieved it here. I had to disassociate to get through the middle of this record.
I will say that for 1981, the instrumentation does sound pretty forward-thinking. Synthpop was still pretty early then and this album sounds pretty mature for being a forerunner.
The Kinks
3/5
As an Anglophile, the music of The Kinks lets me live out my lad fantasies. These songs are little sketches of life that are not particularly evocative. I do like the pop style of the backing tracks quite a bit.
Sisters Of Mercy
4/5
Am I crazy to call this a fun record? I'm not the type to go out to dance but this is something that would get me on the floor.
The instrumentation and production is very 80s but it holds up. Solid songs, too. Everything is accented by the vocal performances of a 400 year old vampire.
The Afghan Whigs
3/5
kinda creepy
Common
5/5
Backpack rap. I love it. It sounds like early Kanye West and is a successor to the first Talib Kweli solo record.
Aerosmith
2/5
Back in the Saddle: A middle-of-the-road blues rocker with horse sound effects at the end.
Last Child: "sweet sassafrassy" The near-funk rhythm almost saves this one
Rats in the Cellar: I would prefer the Judas Priest version (if there was one)
Combination: More riffs. The bass part is pretty rocking.
Sick As A Dog: Sorta poppy in a Spinal Tap way
Nobody's Fault: The Led Zeppelin one
Get the Lead Out: Possibly the worst riff on the album
Lick and a Promise: The Motley Crue one
Home Tonight: of course it ends with a ballad
Not really that bad but not good at all. It's safely a two-star record but its only saved because it has fewer references to carnal knowledge of teenagers than a Kiss album.
Throwing Muses
3/5
major Sleater-Kinney vibes but weirder songs and lyrics and a decade ahead of time
R.E.M.
5/5
"The singer, he had long hair
And the drummer, he knew restraint
And the bass man had all the right moves
And the guitar player was no saint"
(portions of the review are originally found in Unseen Power of the Picket Fence. © 1993 Pavement)
Black Sabbath
3/5
The songs are kind of all over the place on this album. Supernaut rules. I've always liked Sabbath's extremely plain and matter of fact lyricism which shines on Changes. Further, I appreciate a Mellotron in any capacity so the songs that feature this instrument stand out.
Beyond those three sparsely related highlights, this album is OK. The cover art is awesome as well. For me, this is a 3.99 rounded down to a 3.
The Youngbloods
2/5
Boring. In fact its so inoffensive that I have to deduct one star for being so close to Ed Sheeran on the boring scale. Also the lyrics to Sunlight are gross. There are some parts where the electric piano sounds kind of cool I guess.
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
FLAWLESS VICTORY. This is a six star record for me along with In Utero, Hunky Dory, and Closer.
a-ha
3/5
This is more sophisti-pop than I was expecting. I need to give this album low marks for those tracks. Take On Me is an incredible single that I never tire of. The instrumentation and overall feel of these songs are a great representation of 1980s synth pop but other than the lead single nothing stands out. This could have been replaced by a Culture Club or Cyndi Lauper album that both had much more impact.
Bill Evans Trio
3/5
I wish I knew what this music meant. "Waltz for Debby" was my favorite on this record.
Fairport Convention
3/5
🌼 ✌️ 🙂
I like the folky vocal melodies a lot -- the guitar noodling not so much. Leaning a little bit more into the folk thing or more into the crunchy, raw rock thing would have made the album more intriguing.
Arctic Monkeys
4/5
This record ushered in a new sound and aesthetic so it gets an extra star for that.
Queen
3/5
Brian's side sounds like Black Sabbath. Freddie's side is really, really fun.
Mudhoney
4/5
Spotify only has the Deluxe Edition so I'm listening to that release.
Nailing down what grunge bands sound like isn't easy but this album sounds more grunge than most. The guitars sound so good!
The Flaming Lips
3/5
"Oh, Yoshimi, they don't believe me." No? Its the previous record? In any case, its a record by The Flaming Lips. The lyrics are naff and the tracks are sleepy. After the first four songs, they all start to sound the same.
Elvis Presley
3/5
Pixies
5/5
My first trip through Bossanova had me thinking: "This sounds like Pixies but its not weird enough! Two stars." I had to listen to the album twice before I understood how weird it is and I like it very much.
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
Theatrical.
Saint Etienne
4/5
Question: Is this sixties lounge/pop revival or nineties house?
Answer: Yes.
I had to listen to this album twice before I decided if I liked it. I do like it but its hard to decide if its a three or a four bagger.
Miles Davis
5/5
Wow! Venus De Milo. I think I'm starting to get this jazz thing.
Basement Jaxx
2/5
annoying
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
Kind of a weird pastiche record. It's especially for 1976 -- the year that punk happened. In any case, the tunes are fine and the performances are tasteful. The closing track is a gem.
Carpenters
4/5
The songs are good but the arrangements are schmaltzy. The performances from Karen and Richard are solid. I don't know why I like this. I really shouldn't.
GZA
5/5
another easy five star album
Skepta
4/5
Eagles
1/5
I fail to find what anyone enjoys on this record. I have to be thankful that this shitty arena rock inspired early punks to tear it all down.
Eagles
1/5
I believe we can chug all night
I believe we could hug all night
The band is loose and the groove is right
You're so much woman
Believe we could chug all night
oof - the finger-picky guitars and vocal harmonies are just on the wrong side of whatever sound this record is trying for. Absolutely shitty lyrics throughout. The production does sound great for what its worth.
I don't know what I did to deserve two Eagles records in a row followed by Dire Straits of all things. I'm pretty sure my dad owns multiple copies of all of these albums.
Dire Straits
2/5
Great performances and top-tier production longing for better material.
Sheryl Crow
3/5
Because I have the time, I'll do another track-by-track review:
1. Run, Baby, Run: pretty generic radio blues rock. OK vocal. Nothing else of note.
2. Leaving Las Vegas: Painfully 90s production but the song is good.
3. Strong Enough: The track is sweet but I get "Midnight Train to Georgia" vibes which bums me out.
4. Can't Cry Anymore: This one feels really manufactured for the Adult Contemporary radio format.
5. Solidify: 😐 what
6. The Na-Na Song: OK side two is taking on a totally different flavor. I can't say I hate this one actually.
7. No One Said It Would Be Easy: my favorite number so far - despite my trashing of those two Eagles records I had last week.
8. What I Can Do for You: Kind of a pulled punch when Courtney Love and Alanis Morrisette were making angrier and better songs at the same time. The vocal refrain is bad.
9. All I Wanna Do: This is the big one. This song was everywhere back then. For good reason, too. The lyric and vocal performance are 5/5. The track really does sound like that one Stealers Wheel jam from Reservoir Dogs though!
10. We Do What We Can: the muted trumpet sounds cool? idk I'm kind of getting tired already.
11. I Shall Believe: Another adult contemporary one.
The Who
5/5
So good. It's a long record that sounds much shorter due to the short songs, varied characters and themes. I was surprised to find out that Tommy came so early in The Who's career.
Air
3/5
Middle of the road electronic mood music. Not as weird as Stereolab and not even approaching the bombast of Daft Punk, this record is more like a serious Moog Cookbook. Enjoyable enough sounds but nothing you'll go back to again and again.
Fiona Apple
5/5
Fiona Apple makes good records. This is one is endlessly unique -- challenging and catchy at the same time.
Johnny Cash
2/5
This is kind of a rough listen. It comes off as a dying man singing songs about dying. "Sam Hall", placed right in the middle of the record, comes in like the first breath of fresh air after being bedridden with the flu.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
1/5
Shitty record. I was looking forward to the Ray Charles cover but its mostly a dumb ass drum solo. Eric Clapton Sucks
The Notorious B.I.G.
3/5
Puff Daddy is too corny. Before I listened to this album I was prepared to give it a low score. All of the Puffy produced hits in the 90s were super corny. After the first few tracks of Ready to Die I was prepared to change my opinion but the album detours into some corny territory near the middle. Juicy stands out but Combs has to put his dumb vocal all over it.
The beats are enjoyable enough, if a little bit predictable. There isn't much production on them -- rather many songs are instrumental tracks from 60s and 70s soul records.
Britney Spears
2/5
This is music for kids. The producers did a good job making the best of Britney's vocal but the backing tracks are absolutely mental if you listen hard enough. The guitar solo and the unnecessary record scratching on "(You Drive Me) Crazy" is almost too much. And the reggae one? I'm dead. The Euro-House "Deep In My Heart" probably spawned a million remixes that never made it to the US.
The whole thing is super plastic and manufactured. There's nothing I can really fault since this kind of record is a bridge between Kidz Bop and grownup music.
[post-script: On "Thinkin' About You" there are a couple of lines where Britney harmonizes with herself. Not sure what the interval is (Beato) but it sounds like the same effect used on more than a few Sublime songs.]
James Taylor
4/5
The blues songs don't do a lot for me -- no surprise there -- but his folky and jazz numbers do.
Django Django
3/5
I went in totally ignorant of this record and artist. At first I was getting Kraftwerk vibes but then the harmonized vocals kicked in which remind me of some sixties groups like The Hollies, The Association, or The Byrds.
All said, I find myself drawn to records that successfully fuse cold/mechanical machine noises with warm/human musicality. Django Django certainly scratches that itch but when it veers into the longer, jammier songs I admit to getting bored. I love Stereolab but they are guilty of the same tendency. I think some editing of the longer tunes would be an improvement.
Roxy Music
3/5
The album is pretty rockin and the production sounds great. However, I don't find anything here that stands out in the way other art rock groups do. Both Sparks and Of Montreal come to mind. The songs and performances are solid so I can't call myself a detractor. It's almost a four but just not enough.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
5/5
I've read the wikipedia article for tumbao. I've watched a dozen videos about clave rhythms. My limited musical experience means that I only barely understand the basic structure of salsa but the more I listen and study the more I appreciate it.
Terence Trent D'Arby
2/5
Wikipedia categorizes this record as "funk rock." In my opinion its not funk if it hasn't been sampled on any hip hop record in the last forty years. Also, TTd'A refers to himself as a genius which throws some red flags.
He has a great voice. That's undeniable. However the songs and instrumentation are a little too serious. All in all its not a bad record. Ultimately its a couple of Top 40 sounding singles with some filler and a Miracles cover.
Minutemen
5/5
What a trio these guys were. Blue collar thinking man's punk that couldn't be constrained by the typical LA punk sound.
The Jam
3/5
It's great but there are groups who did it better: The Who, Elvis Costello, The Kinks. The final track sounds like The Clash.
Ice T
4/5
O.G. is a listenable rap record with all of the hallmarks from this era of hip-hop. The beats are not as hard as the Public Enemy records and the flow isn't as smooth as other contemporary MCs but the album has some solid features and great samples.
The War On Drugs
3/5
British Sea Power meets Bruce Springsteen
Arcade Fire
3/5
Sounds like an indie album from the early 2000s. To be fair, this album probably popularized the sound. Big production, emotional vocals, varied instrumentation. There are some strong singles but the rest of the album feels a little same-y.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
4/5
OK, look. I can barely keep common time. I don't know what the fuck a mode is or why a song becomes a standard. What I do know is that these guys sound damn cool on this recording. The melodies are pretty and the compositions are vaguely classical to my ear. It's nice. I like it.
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
The waviness of the grooves on Loveless give me a seasick feeling. In a good way. Great tunes that defined a new genre that continues to evolve even into the 2020's.
Pink Floyd
2/5
What is this? Some kind of concept album? It sounds like Dire Straits on dope.
The sounds are too much at once -- like a kitschy disco record or some Dave Matthews type shit. Tell me you like that soul vocal on The Great Gig in the Sky with a straight face.
This one isn't as bad as Wish You Were Here (1 star) but its dorkier than The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (3 stars) so the rating I'm giving it nestles it rightfully between the two. And hopefully this is the last Pink Floyd record I have to listen to for a while.
Common
3/5
Great production makes the band sound great. Common's flow and verses sound as good as ever but I think I'd like the featured artists to have a bigger impact on this album.
The grooves are exemplar of the "turn of the millennium conscious rap" sound that was just emerging. For that reason it deserves its spot on the list but there are other albums that did it better -- including albums by Common himself.
Gorillaz
2/5
A couple of earworms on the big singles but a lot of filler.
The Smiths
4/5
The Smiths were a singles band. I'll fight anyone who says otherwise. That being said, this is as good an album as they ever made. The 2011 remaster cleans up a lot of the gunk from the original release.
Public Enemy
4/5
Can’t Truss It, By the Time I Get to Arizona, 1 Million Bottlebags. These might not be the biggest singles from PE but they are as good as anything they released. The production on this album isn’t as hard as the other albums but it flows really well track to track.
Herbie Hancock
4/5
Todd Rundgren
3/5
Psychedelia without the burden of trying to be cool. The keyboards sound good and I liked "Sometimes I Don't Know What to Feel" which reminded me of a plainspoken, angsty Brian Wilson song like I Just Wasn't Made for These Times.
The tone of the whole album had me wondering if this guy is trying to be serious or not but there was a single lyric that made everything clear: "My voice goes so high you would think I was gay /
But I play my guitar in such a man-cock way" Amazing.
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
If the drum breaks, bass lines, and in-your-face horn sections couldn't push the revolution to victory, nothing was going to do it.
The Killers
2/5
Trying hard to be cool is fine if you achieve it but this album misses. The production is great and the instrumental performances are good but everything else is mediocre or worse. The lyrics are bad and the vocal performance is Simon-LeBon-tweaked-to-sound-good-on-early-millennium-pop-radio. The corny moments happen too frequently to ignore. Any band committing these sins can be absolved by creating terrific songs but they just aren't here.
Tina Turner
2/5
This is a "rock" record in the same way Rod Stewart made "rock" records. To me this is a soul album that is overproduced, overwrought, overthought, and dated. She's giving it her all with the vocal performances but they don't do enough to save this one.
TV On The Radio
5/5
Tunde's vocals sound great on this record. Top production, performances, tunes.
Gil Scott-Heron
3/5
Lovely performances and enjoyable songs.
The Bottle felt like the first chapter of a trilogy including 1 Million Bottle Bags (Public Enemy) and Swimming Pools (Kendrick Lamar).
Machito
3/5
As exciting as the percussion is, the rest is some instrumental big band jazz. I would have appreciated some vocals to break up the horns.
Jeff Beck
3/5
I liked it more than I thought I would. At least it’s not Eric Clapton. And Rod Stewart isn’t especially annoying here either.
Kate Bush
3/5
Tasteful eighties synth production. Great vocal performance and solid songs.
Weather Report
2/5
“All operators are busy. We appreciate your call so please remain on the line and we will speak with you shortly.”
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
flawless
Soundgarden
5/5
Emblematic of popular rock at the time: blending sludgy production with addictive hooks and melodies. "The Day I Tried To Live" is my personal anthem.
Hanoi Rocks
3/5
In an effort to keep my reviews consistent, I keep these attributes in mind when I choose an album's rating: recording, performances, and songs. The performances and recording of this album are fine but the songs are not good. Say what you want about Motley Crue and Poison, they had song craft figured out.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Interesting jams, pleasant instrumentals but it's not P-Funk by a long shot.
The Police
3/5
Top performances and production on this album. There are a few fantastic songs and quite a bit of middling tunes.
Al Green
4/5
Wow!
Beck
4/5
5/5 songs and 5/5 production. The performances are fine but like much of Beck's work there isn't much here to provide an emotional attachment that a 5/5 album has.
Brian Eno
2/5
Too much fretless bass and the singing reminds me of Pink Floyd. It's a shame. I really wanted to love this one. I don't consider these songs to be minimal or even really ambient, either. Perhaps at the time of the album's release they were? For me the songs with vocals sound too druggy and the instrumentals veer into new age whale sounds territory.
Ray Charles
3/5
Ray's voice sounds great.
Neil Young
4/5
Obvious influence on Doug Martsch from Built to Spill lyrically and stylistically. Neil's guitar playing also had an effect on Elliott Smith.
On Harvest, Neil portrays a lonely character full of yearning for something real and permanent. The themes on the album remind me of James Taylor a little but something about the lyrics or delivery on this record seem a less genuine that Taylor's albums. Chock it up to Canadian aloofness?
Old Man is the best song on the album.
Elvis Costello
5/5
There's only one album whose title is tattooed on my body and its this one. 5/5 obvs
Arcade Fire
3/5
Hipster anthems from the mid-aughts. It's a fine collection of songs. No more and no less.
Pink Floyd
2/5
I went into this album wanting to hate it. By the end of the nearly hour and a half running time I still hated it.
Was Another Brick In The Wall ghost-written by The Bee Gees because it's a disco song. Young Lust sounds like The Eagles.
Like the other Pink Floyd records this one has druggy vocals and squealing guitars. It's a concept album with a lame concept but it does have some tolerable parts so I can't give this a total failing grade in good faith. We'll put this in the two-star pile next to Dark Side of the Moon and the Terence Trent D'Arby album.
George Michael
2/5
I can't believe I find myself analyzing this album so deeply. George Michael really tried to combine the sounds on big pop records of the time by Michael Jackson and Prince. It sounds cheap to my ears. There are monkey noises at the end of "Monkey."
The songs themselves are fuckin weird. Is he singing about being naked with his dad?? Maybe I'm a prude -- OK, I am for sure -- but these songs give me the ick like a Tim & Eric sketch.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Background noise. A dial tone.
It's the same thing as other Springsteen albums. The performances can't be faulted but the songs are all the same. The guy never met a road he didn't write a song about.
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
RIP Phife
The moments where the MCs take a chance to boast up the other members of the group is the most wholesome thing ever.
Guns N' Roses
5/5
I love this album. I hate this album.
Appetite for Destruction came into my life at a crucial point. I was probably 11 years old and just starting to discover my own masculinity. Being an overtly masculine group Guns n' Roses had an immediate appeal to me along with Motley Crue and Def Leppard. This was a drastic shift from my early pop obsessions like Boy George, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Paula Abdul, and Michael Jackson reflecting my newfound identity. For a whole summer loud, macho bands were all I wanted to hear.
It was only another year or so before the hair metal era ended and my tastes changed again. Nirvana, The B-52s, Pearl Jam, and The Violent Femmes challenged notions of portrayals of masculinity in popular music. This was a deeper thing and I moved on from GnR's overt butchness. I cringed at how cool I thought Def Leppard looked and strutted. But isn't that what adolescence is? Cringing at the person you were only six months ago?
Revisiting this album now I am able to reconcile all of this art that I liked. Appetite For Destruction is over the top with masculinity but it also has everything that makes a great record: well-crafted songs, brilliant performances, listenable production. I hate this album. I love this album.
ZZ Top
2/5
What if Devo rocked out to the Texas blues?
"Elements of the past and the future combining to make something not quite as good as either..." Finally, the drums sound bad on this album.
The Verve
3/5
Really pretty songs. Huge production on the remastered version.
5/5
Radiohead
5/5
Marvin Gaye
3/5
Sex jams. It's OK. I didn't think I would like it but it's not bad. There isn't much here, honestly.
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
I am finally ready to admit that this is a grunge album.
Van Halen
3/5
ChatGPT prompt: "Generate a hard rock album that sounds like the early Reagan Years."
Production: 5/5 (2015 Remaster)
Performances: 5/5
Songs: 1/5
The songs are so corny. I was hoping maybe the deep cuts would have been interesting but they're just like the single without good hooks.
Album art: 10/5
Flamin' Groovies
3/5
It's a guitar band and I like guitar bands so this is fine. If I didn't like rock music then this is nothing special. The Sonics were better.
Neil Young
3/5
I like the melancholy hippy folk ones. I don't care for the blues ones. The production on the 2016 Remaster I found on YouTube sounds great.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
If the organ part on What Goes On doesn't give you chills then you need to seek professional help.
The choice of songs and their order on this album is so hopeful it is a joy to listen to as a complete record.
Marvin Gaye
3/5
"It's me against the world"-era Kanye but also disco.
Jane's Addiction
4/5
Very engaging lyrics and powerful, varied musical accompaniment.
The Undertones
5/5
Miles Davis
3/5
Experimental for sure and always interesting. Occasionally the band stumbles into a groove. If that was the intent of the recording then the mission was achieved.
Solomon Burke
5/5
They don't make them like they used to.
David Bowie
5/5
My favorite David Bowie album.
Maxwell
3/5
this album is more about vibes than songs
Tears For Fears
4/5
Three stellar tracks and some rather good synth pop in between.
Steely Dan
3/5
Terrific production and compact songs make this collection more palatable than other Steely records.
Little Richard
5/5
These recordings sound great and the performances capture what must have been absolutely mental energy of Richard and his band.
Megadeth
4/5
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
Do you ever encounter rock music fans who say they don't really like The Beatles? I have and it's weird. But... I am a reggae fan who isn't really a fan of Bob Marley. The title track and Bend Down Low stand out on this album but the rest of the songs don't really do it for me.
Radiohead
5/5
The Bends aged remarkably well over 25 years. Six out of five stars.
The Clash
5/5
It's not the most amazing collection of songs but it's The Clash, so...
Talking Heads
4/5
This album must have been a big influence on some favorites of mine: Devo and They Might Be Giants. David Byrne has a unique voice that I find very appealing. Talking Heads is punk for clean cut kids.
Eric Clapton
2/5
This music feels really inauthentic. The type of person who listens to Eric Clapton doesn't really care about authenticity but I do.
Vocals are bad all over the album. Please Be With Me is sweet. Let It Grow is some awful hippie shit.
Fugees
5/5
Massive singles and some solid features. The beats are from the sample-heavy 90s but the references are on point. The rhymes are real hip hop and the three MCs voices sound great together.
Nirvana
5/5
The song choices for this performance are incredible. Krist plays the accordion. Kurt solos Pennyroyal Tea and his voice sounds amazing throughout the whole record.
Thelonious Monk
4/5
Lovely melodies, engaging instrumentation, compact songs
Adele
5/5
The production is like an email where the entire contents are in bold, italics, and underlined. It's a well-crafted cocktail that's a little too bitter, too sour, too sweet, too fizzy, and too strong. Compared to 21, Adele's vocal sounds powerful and clear but the music is a bit forward on 25. Some tracks are worse than others and the B-side does sound better.
Besides the complaints about the shiny backing tracks, the songs are great and the lyrics are emotional but not overwrought. The album closer is a banger.
Pavement
5/5
Bobby Womack
3/5
This was released in 1981??
The Pogues
3/5
Are you allowed to make punk songs in waltz time?
The Last Shadow Puppets
3/5
Glad to have heard it. The music and performances are not mind-blowing but I appreciate the bands restraint in not trying to sound too cool while making really cool music. Owen Pallet rules.
Peter Gabriel
2/5
As you would expect from a Peter Gabriel project this album features aloof vocals, songs, and performances. The backing tracks are interesting but they sound like the test track that your Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 would play when you finish installing the drivers.
In Your Eyes isn't bad.
Television
5/5
Japan
3/5
Duran Duran with bad vocals. This must have been unique in 1979 - before the whole New Romantic thing went mainstream.
And maybe it's just because of the band name, I can't help but draw a dotted line between this record and Japanese visual kei.
Coldplay
4/5
You have to understand the state of popular music when this was released. American alternative/indie had already peaked and that tiresome macho, aggro thing was at its height. Music production had fallen victim to the loudness war which made listening to a whole album in one sitting a fairly unpleasant experience. It was time for the pendulum to swing back toward the opposite pole. It was time for sad British guys to make their return.
The production on Parachutes sounds great. It's clean and clear with plenty of breathing room for the performances to shine. Maybe the lyrics are a little bit obvious but that's not what this is about.
Pixies
5/5
Frank Black's vocals are absolutely unhinged while Kim Deal's are as sweet as ever. This album is another part of the foundation of alternative rock.
Fleetwood Mac
2/5
Another track by track review:
1. Awful lyric with an especially annoying chorus.
2. The instrumental is kind of a hippie version of 70s soft rock. Stevie's vocal and lyrics are the only enjoyable thing here.
3. Another Lindsey Buckingham song. This guy is trying to be Paul Simon but he sounds like a shitty backup singer for The Eagles. And the words are really trash. He's got nothing to say.
4. The radio hit. It's not bad except it has that "honky-tonk" 1970s thing that turns me off.
5. Yecch. The rhythm section does sound good here despite the rest.
6. And a ballad to close out the first side. Perfect. It's OK I guess. I like it the way I like The Carpenters.
7. Kinda bluesy like a softer Led Zeppelin or Heart but without any edge whatsoever.
8. On a very white album this might be the only number with any kind of soul. Unfortunately it has that gross 70s way of writing about romance and sex that gives me the ick. Is this what set the mood for the conception of millions of people my age? I can't let myself even entertain the thought.
9. I really like Nicks' voice. I really do not like Buckingham's voice. I know this band was basically a polycule before that even existed but Stevie and Christine should have started their own thing.
10. The fuck? OK I take it back. Stevie Nicks is the only good thing in this group.
11. I could have sworn Kiss had a song by this same name.
AC/DC
2/5
File under: Toolbox Rock.
It's like KISS but slightly less gross. But only slightly.
XTC
2/5
I listened to it twice. I want to have an opinion but I just can't make myself form one.
Ella Fitzgerald
4/5
Musicals are very not my thing. Stuffing weird narrative dialog into a song feels false.
With that out of the way, the songs on this album are tolerable enough. I like the slower, crooning ones best. Regardless of the naff lyrics Ella seems to posses several difference voices across all of these tunes. Artists like Elvis Costello have tried to pull this off but I've never heard anyone do it as well as she does on this recording. Also, the band sounds great and the recording does both the vocals and backing tracks justice.
Aretha Franklin
3/5
It's OK, I guess. To me it's kind of like that Ray Charles record only a decade newer. It's a foundation of later work but it's not as interesting as what came after.
Keith Jarrett
4/5
I don't know what this is.
There is something about it that is deeply appealing in the same way that other experimental artists like Battles, Silver Apples, and Can are. But this has soul in a way that those groups do not. The live, acoustic nature of this recording makes it so human.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
Is this goth-rock or rock that goths like? Anyway, it's solid 80s dark, atmospheric guitar music.
Suede
3/5
I think I understand what they are going for and I do find it interesting. (Let's call it "Nineties T-Rex" for short.) The songs are also good. Beyond that I can't find myself latching on to anything in particular. It's fine. There was better alternative rock in the 90s and nobody out T's the Rex.
Talk Talk
3/5
Mid. Not sure why it's on the list.
Aerosmith
2/5
"Camel Cigarettes: The Album"
Sweet Emotion is Aerosmith's only good song.
Motörhead
3/5
heavy but melodic, fast but under control, plodding but groovy
Jethro Tull
4/5
Funkadelic
4/5
I'm not sure the diarrhea noises add much to the record but overall its great.
Deerhunter
4/5
Not bad. Definitely a specimen of the indie rock sound from this time. The production and instrumentation sound great. I didn’t listen close enough to get a feel for the song quality but it does make me want to listen more.
Foo Fighters
4/5
No other record sounds like this. To me it's hard to categorize but it somehow fits with some of the other post-grunge-power-pop-rock albums that came out around the same time.
These songs have always been mysterious to me. It's probably the muffled vocals. What could have become if the group maintained some of the mystery instead of going for all out rock radio fame?
Beatles
5/5
Remember when you were in the Beatles and you did that album Abbey Road and at the very end of the song, it went: 'And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make'. You remember that?
Silver Jews
3/5
kinda sad, kinda pretty
Blue Cheer
2/5
The riffs aren't great and it all comes off like a Hendrix ripoff. I don't see how this album birthed heavy metal when Black Sabbath (and even Steppenwolf!) exists.
The Cramps
3/5
Pretty rockin' and I appreciated The Sonics cover
The Prodigy
4/5
The Beach Boys
5/5
The sentiments in Brian Wilson's lyrics are plain and juvenile and epitomize pop music. For some reason they hit me in a deep way that other pop lyrics are not able to.
The production, instrumentation, performances, vocal harmonies are all first rate. This is another 6 out of 5.
Aerosmith
2/5
A is for Anachronism. This band keeps revisiting the same sound that was exciting in the 70s.
E is for Easy. Lyrics about chasing girls and rockin hard.
R is for Repetitive. Same beat, same solo, same dumb album art.
O is for Oafish. Aerosmith is the first band listed under "toolbox rock" for a reason.
S is for Sleaze. Ten songs about flesh and drugs.
M is for MTV. Remember those videos with Alicia Silverstone? It was all too much.
I is for Innuendo. These guys are geniuses when it comes to writing dirty songs but keeping them PG-rated.
T is for TOO MUCH. This is third Aerosmith album I've had to suffer as I progress through this project.
H is for Hits. Some how these guys had hits for multiple decades.
Dolly Parton
3/5
This is the kind of country music that is meant to break your heart. I suppose if I allowed myself to get caught up in it, it may be effective even on me. Parton, Ronstadt, and Harris have great voices and are amazing performances but I'm not sure about the song choices. My general unfamiliarity with country music may be limiting my appreciation of the songs but I have a suspicion that this album's late 80s release date has something to do with it. I compare these tunes with the original songs on Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose from 2004.
I do like The Pain of Loving You, Wildflowers, and Those Memories of You. I don't like the dead hobo one.
King Crimson
4/5
"Easy Money" dips dangerously close to Pink Floyd territory but the rest of the album is compelling.
David Bowie
4/5
David Bowie never lost his touch. What an amazing body of work he left us with. I don't know if I would regard this album the way I do if it was by an unknown performer.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
The rockers sound great and there are some really pretty moments. The blues and gospel stuff I am not really into. Having to sit through a whole Stones double album made me realize that it's Mick that bums me out about the band.
Germs
5/5
classic
Norah Jones
3/5
You can't say the sounds or songs are particularly original. You can say that Norah Jones' voice sounds great on the recording and the tunes are pleasant.
Muddy Waters
3/5
got my mojo workin
Stevie Wonder
5/5
Some records come up in this project that you can rate right away and this is one of them. Stevie Wonder is a genius.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
The term Southern gothic comes to mind. This is a theatrical album with big songs that have pop hooks. It's OK. The band sounds good but I don't care for Cave's vocal performances.
UB40
4/5
Bob Dylan
2/5
This Bob's "Jakob Dylan's dad" era and it is the Bob Dylan sound that I was most familiar with before I started the 1001 Albums project.
Can't say I enjoyed much on this one. "Standing In the Doorway" was a good sad song but the rest of the album is sad songs that aren't so good. Also the production is very... noticeable? and seemed out of place for Dylan's style.
Gotta give it two stars. That is the rating I give albums that have me calculating how much time I have to listen before I can put another album on.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
Introspective sounds of the revolution. A totally different energy from Sly's Stand! album. It's a compact statement with amazing songs, production, and performances.
The Doors
3/5
The Doors sound is distinctive but nothing else on Morrison Hotel stands out.
Santana
4/5
se acabo
Public Enemy
5/5
MCs have been biting rhymes from this record for decades. "Party for Your Right to Fight" is the perfect phrase and track to summarize this album.
The Bomb Squad's production found its balance between abrasive sampling and listenable tracks on this recording.
Otis Redding
5/5
Great vocal performance. Song choice is solid. The band sounds great.
The Cure
5/5
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
R.E.M.
5/5
Dr. Dre
5/5
Classic G-Funk beats. The guest MCs add a lot as far as the rhymes go. Not every song is great but I have to give The Chronic its due for its place in history. This album is the archetype for Southern California rap and the sounds live on today in the works of artists like Kendrick Lamar.
Tom Waits
3/5
Wacky like a Danny Elfman score with storytelling like Sufjan Stevens. This record has a lot of acclaim but I'm missing something because I find it interesting but not appealing.
Stephen Stills
4/5
As lovely as anything he did in the groups he belonged to in the sixties.
The Doors
2/5
Way too much blues. Two stars for being Clapton-adjacent. The songs are unpleasant and don't build on the unique sound that the Doors established on the five previous records.
Yes
3/5
I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.
Deep Purple
1/5
Worse than Aerosmith.
The first track is pretty rockin but "Child In Time" has too much guitar noodling, bad vocals, and the lyric "I want to be inside of you." Dumb lyrics continue on Smoke On The Water which also includes some Clapton-esque guitar chugging. Once that ends you are treated to a dull drum solo. This is the closest I have come to skipping a track in the over 300 albums I've listened to in this project so far.
There is a part in the middle of "Strange Kind of Woman" where a guitar is trading licks with someone making dumb mouth noises. That is the exact moment I decided to give this record one star. "Lazy" includes some harp that gives me major "Honkin On Bobo" douche chills. This sucks.
Slayer
3/5
I'm a metal neophyte but I can see how this is an archetype for so much of what came after.
Caetano Veloso
5/5
Quite exotic to my ears. Veloso's voice is perfect for this style. Alegria, Alegria is a masterpiece.
The Residents
3/5
The Residents walked so Ween and Primus could run.
Nick Drake
5/5
Finding this album in my college days would have fucked me up. Back then I was really into contemporary sad-boy artists like Elliott Smith, Galaxie 500, and Pedro the Lion. Even if this album was unknown to those guys it certainly touches the same parts of the psyche as the best of their work. The spartan, clear production and concise confessional songs make the whole album feel very near and honest. The rare hooks highlight engaging melodies that are just enough to hang Drake's bedroom vocals on.
Green Day
2/5
The production is too much. It sounds hot, bright, and overly sweet. The songs are decent. These Bush-era protest songs are not nearly as good as the Thatcher-era produced but the rock opera format is honored by this album -- for whatever that's worth.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
4/5
The production is so bad its good - like a Velvet Underground album. The tunes are bouncy and raw like ? and the Mysterians. There's a little Motown soul in here, too. It's weird but I like weird.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
Dirty Projectors
2/5
Backing tracks are interesting: math rock guitar shreds, super odd drum beats, weird squeaks... I'm into it. The lyrics and vocal performances throw me. It is also unfortunate that this album is 14 years old, putting it squarely in that trough between nostalgia and novelty. The whole presentation and sound of this record is very "Anthropologie-core".
Funkadelic
3/5
The title track has it all: sing-along vocals, banging rhythm track, funky synth. Even though its seven and a half minutes long it feels as compact as a pop song.
The rest of the album is varied in song quality and feel.
Fleetwood Mac
3/5
The production is really late 70s/early 80s but it still sounds good on the 2015 Remaster. (btw... curse Spotify and/or the labels for replacing the original mixes with endless remasters)
As usual, I like the Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks numbers and loathe anything by Buckingham. All in all, for a Fleetwood Mac album I find this one more tolerable than the others. I might even say I liked it.
Everything But The Girl
3/5
The lyrics are echoes of The Smiths who had a way of expressing quotidian British maudlinism. The sophistipop backing tracks would have chased me off but I almost appreciate how carefully they are crafted. I listened through the album almost twice and the tunes started to blend together to form what sounds like an hour long ending credits song for an ITV-produced family drama series from 1988 taking place in a town with a name like Grimsby or Sowerby Bridge.
I can't find much to love or hate here. Three stars, I guess.
The Byrds
4/5
The title track is a 6 out of 5 for lyrics, production, and performance.
The rest of the album is similar sixties pop/folk. The sound of this record really speaks to me and I feel sixties pop could still be mined for inspiration for new music.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
Some enjoyable tunes -- especially on the B side -- that regrettably lack what makes Elvis' lyrics special. "I Want You" is totally unhinged and is the standout song on this collection.
Supertramp
2/5
sounds like some Pink Floyd shit but with harmonica
Count Basie & His Orchestra
4/5
Mrs-Maisel-core
M.I.A.
5/5
Like an updated version of The Clash's Combat Rock, Kala addresses an ever-shrinking globe and the tension between the rich nations and rest of the world. The sounds are bombastic and modern. The rhymes are a great example of grime in the early 2000s.
SAULT
4/5
Fantastic sounds and performances. I enjoyed every track. Lyrically the album doesn't say much that hasn't been said before but every word on this record needed to be spoken in 2020.
Soft Machine
3/5
The production on the remastered version is fun. The stereo separation and sub-bass sounded great on my bookshelf speaker system.
Overall there are some interesting parts but it is long and I found myself losing interest by the middle of the third track. Better editing could have made this a four-star record for me.
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
It sounds exactly like the 90s and it sounds exactly like today. RIP Phife Dawg
The White Stripes
4/5
The White Stripes album with the big production. Terrific tunes as usual.
The Byrds
4/5
Not as good as Mr. Tambo/Urine Man but still terrific.
Faust
4/5
This is what it would sound like if the Velvets did a year of study abroad in Germany and lived in the same dorm as Kraftwerk.
Ice Cube
3/5
Cube has great flow and rhymes as usual. The thing that stuck out to me is how race relations are discussed on this record versus the discourse that we hear today. Today's language around racism and equality issues is so academic compared to the real talk on The Predator.
The beats don't stand out too much here.
Fela Kuti
3/5
The Smiths
4/5
The performances are great and the production on the 2011 remaster sounds great. But the tunes. Meat is Murder doesn't have the quality of other releases from the band. If you want to be a purest and exclude "How Soon Is Now?" then you're only really left with "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" and maybe "Barbarism Begins at Home". RIP Andy
The Fall
3/5
file under: Your Favorite Band's Favorite Band.
file under: One of the Groups Created After Seeing Sex Pistols in Manchester
Lenny Kravitz
3/5
Performances: solid.
Songs: kinda OK; kinda not.
Concept: 90s radio rock with 60s nostalgia.
Question: Why is this on the list?
Rating: a very soft three stars
The Beta Band
3/5
I'll agree that it doesn't sound like anything else. What it does sound like is a little bit dated. It's OK.
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
Proto-disco-soul-funk-trip. This album doesn't hit me like some of its predecessors. I miss Sly's world weariness and anguish. I miss Eddie Hazel's and Bootsie Collins' shredding. The edge of those records are worn down and polished smooth on "That's The Way Of The World". It's not necessarily bad but it doesn't grab me and thrust me back in time the way I was by Sly and P-Funk.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
A seven minute long ballad about a fuckin car. CHECK.
Lots of groaning. CHECK.
Glockenspiel. CHECK.
A song about going to work. CHECK.
Yep... it's another Springsteen album.
The Sonics
5/5
I found a stack of my dad's old 45s in an old bowling ball bag left up in the attic. That is when I heard The Sonics for the first time. The raw power and excitement sticks with me today. Five stars for almost inventing punk a decade before it happened.
The Who
3/5
It's fine. The songs are great, of course, and the performances are solid. The stage banter is a little out of place and upsets the excitement of a live recording.
M.I.A.
5/5
I love this album. More than Kala. I don't know why but it just bumps so hard from start to finish. Sunshowers, Bucky Done Gun, Galang... all classics.
Frank Ocean
4/5
At ten years old this album the sounds on this album are not as common today as they were in 2012. Channel Orange is a solid representative of the new soul sound: kinda druggy, kinda sad, kinda horny. Frank's voice sounds good and the songs -- though numerous -- keep my interest through the whole record.
Haircut 100
2/5
Mostly throwaway songs - especially the ones that sound like XTC. This album would be totally uninteresting if not for what other groups did and continue to do with the sound.
Mott The Hoople
2/5
High concept and self-referential. I do like the 70s production and appreciate the restraint in "fixing" it for the digital age. The songs are kinda dumb.
Tangerine Dream
3/5
Mellotron-heavy songs that sound like a film score. This record must have influenced many artists I admire but this one doesn't do much for me. It gets too noodley for my taste and does not evoke much more than "futuristic robot space music" vibes.
I'm giving this one a soft three because I do love electronic music.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
I listened to this one twice. On the second trip through I found myself listening to more of the pretty parts. Ramble Tamble could be a mid 90s indie rock song. Some of the other songs are a little weak. Travelin' Band is some kind of 50s boogie woogie pastiche that makes me think of Sha-Na-Na. Between songs like this there are some real bangers. The handclaps on Up Around The Bend highlight the strong sing-along melody and steady rhythm groove. CCR's version of I Heard It Through The Grapevine moves the song's origins much further south than Detroit re-imagining it as a Delta Blues song. (The additional white guy noodly jamming doesn't improve it. Perhaps its too Clapton adjacent for my tastes.) The album closer - Long As I Can See The Light - is as solid of a final track as any album I've heard.
All in all this is a genre-defining record with some solid singles. And there's a guy on a bike on the cover.
Jeff Buckley
2/5
Possibly the most 90s record I have ever heard. More than Alanis, more than Stone Temple Pilots, more than the Singles soundtrack.
Jeff's got a great voice. Many of the songs don't exactly stand out and the production is a little sappy for my taste -- especially here where the singer has more than enough emotion to deliver what's required.
All said, this is a grunge record however its influences differ from the big grunge records of the day. I found the songs that showed those difference influences more interesting than the others.
3/5
When I first started the record I thought to myself, "this isn't jazz. This is a hardcore album". Upon reading the wikipedia article, it became clear that it's not an accident. In fact it's the whole concept of Spy vs Spy. The production is exciting throughout. The drums sound killer!
I have no familiarity with the originals so my enjoyment of the versions on this album are not what they could be, but I still loved the thrash and frenetic energy of the recording.
The Libertines
5/5
The songs are not as good as they are on Up The Bracket (a six-star album in my opinion) but everything you love about The Libertines is here on the S/T record.
The Cure
4/5
Justice
2/5
too much disco
The Band
3/5
Not bad for hippie music. Some songs are real gems; some songs are just songs.
2Pac
3/5
Me Against The World is a solid example of rap in the mid-90s. At the time Tupac was a phenomenon. He was on MTV constantly in his own videos and featuring in other artists videos. His movies were crazy popular, too. Media loved to talk about his life and he relished the attention.
On this album I find his flow to be monotonous but unique. Other rappers bit his style at the end of the 90s. His rhymes are his signature: the sensitive side of a thug. I like the beats on the album. It's G-Funk but not as bumpin as other albums from the time.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
My review echoes what the Boys probably heard from every record executive ever:
"Have you got more songs like West End Girls?"
The Yardbirds
3/5
Blues rock. Mostly boring but occasionally sounds like The Kinks.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
Production is bad. Songs are OK as are the performances.
What listeners should realize is that this album is where the band became its own genre. Previous Red Hot Chili Peppers records represented the bands unique mix of its influences: hip hop, funk, jazz, blues-rock. Californication is dad rock for guys born in the 1980s.
The last song sounds like Elliott Smith.
Beach House
3/5
Pretty songs. The words would probably break my heart if I could make any of them out from the reverb.
Le Tigre
3/5
Real punk
Dr. Octagon
3/5
Sonic Youth
4/5
The Clash
5/5
Dolly Parton
4/5
Great songs, performances, and production. I can't fault this one even though it isn't something I would normally listen to. There are some solid Nashville country tunes between gospel numbers and even some almost-rock-n-roll hippie bops.
Can
3/5
Upon starting Tago Mago my first thought was that this sounds like it could veer into some musical territory that is dangerously close to Pink Floyd. Thankfully it never does.
My second thought was that this record isn’t especially interesting in a world with bands like Tame Impala, Kraftwerk, Deerhoof, Aphex Twin and Public Image Ltd. Obviously those bands would not sound like they do if Can hadn’t made this record so for that I give them credit.
Malcolm McLaren
3/5
This is an album in line with the direction some English punks rockers went after punk blew up: Jah Wobble, PiL, Big Audio Dynamite. It's an awful mess of genres but I like it and I think its fun.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Lame. Zero edge or energy.
This record makes me thankful that the year it was released is the same year that rock 'n' roll came along.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
Very pretty songs. It’s obvious to me how much Neil Young had an influence on the musicians of the early 90s who brought his approach to songwriting and performance into their styles.
Songhoy Blues
3/5
Blues isn't my jam usually but Music in Exile is something fresh. I find the production a little bit elaborate but the 11 songs on the album are all interesting enough to keep me engaged.
Brian Eno
4/5
Sounds like Roxy Music but a little bit weirder. I like it. There are some really beautiful moments on the record.
Underworld
3/5
This is one of a few albums that required me to listen twice before I felt confident giving it a rating. I appreciate it more on a second listen now that I'm settling in to the vibe. The listening mode is more Boards of Canada than Kraftwerk. I'm listening as if it's a live DJ set and not an album as a collection of pop tunes. That approach gives a look into a time and place and a scene. Second Toughest In The Infants is not timeless but a touchstone to its era of electronic music.
OutKast
5/5
I was ready to call this album a 5+ but I will agree with the other critics who said that The Love Below does take some odd turns. It's a double album so its bound to have some filler but do we really need a free jazz/breakcore version of a song from The Sound of Music? I know I don't. That inclusion of that track and some of the other clunkers knock this down to a solid five.
Charles Mingus
3/5
I do enjoy avant-garde music but I believe context is required to get the most out of records like this. Unfortunately I don't understand the world this record comes from.
Fred Neil
5/5
What a record! Like Dylan meets Lou Reed but they get a baritone to sing it.
The Mamas & The Papas
5/5
Pretty songs. I love sixties pop. Beautiful vocal harmonies and absolute classic Wrecking Crew backing tracks.
Bee Gees
3/5
The Bee Gees really know how to turn tragedy into song and it's obvious how much they put into songcraft. (Also low-key this album art is 10/10.)
As a whole I find the album kind of odd but I like it. The overwrought emotion of some numbers get to me a little and bum me out but the gall of the Brothers Gibb to make an album like this in a world where Jimi Hendrix was still fucking shit up is respectable.
Duran Duran
5/5
One of the many things I have learned doing the 1001 Albums project is that 80s synth pop didn't just come out of nowhere. Duran Duran was not a result of spontaneous generation but is proof of intelligent design. Listening to these songs again with that context makes Rio that much more interesting.
(Another 10/10 album art score for this masterpiece.)
Miles Davis
5/5
This is the kind of music I think of when I hear the word "jazz". I don't know a damn thing about jazz but I like this record. I'm giving it a 5 because I think that's what music nerds are supposed to do and I'm a music nerd.
Pavement
5/5
A perfect example of post-grunge indie/alternative rock.
Lambchop
3/5
Halfway through the first song I had convinced myself that the vocalist was Gibby Haynes and that Lambchop was a side project he had started. It made me excited because I assumed the album would start getting REAL WEIRD soon. After the fourth track no weirdness had revealed itself. At this point I started to settle in and my mind wandered into the territory of those Scott Walker records. The music on them was OK but they also got weird.
Now we come to Nixon. It's not a Butthole Surfers off-shoot. The songs are not meant to shock uptight 60s music consumers. Instead this was probably a hallmark of the alternative country or New Weird America or whatever scene was popping at the time. It's OK. Not really my thing, honestly. I wasn't into Wilco 20 years ago. Maybe if I was then Nixon would be a revelation.
Beatles
4/5
Let's do another track-by-track review of The Beatles lamest long player:
1. Rubber Soul starts off with a typical Paul pop ditty. The rhythm section sounds great but the guitar solo is really weak. It's OK.
2. Norwegian Wood is one of John's best songs. A masterpiece.
3. I've obviously heard this song before but I have no recollection of "You Won't See Me". It's a wonder John Cena never used this one.
4. John mope. Plenty of la-la-las but it's a bit more mature than the love songs the group had been making previously.
5. George complains about the government. Like "You Won't See Me" I must have heard this song before but I've got no memory of it. The fuzzy guitar is fun.
6. Hippie stuff. Dig that organ, though!
7. Michelle is a pretty song. I bet a lot of girls named Michelle had suitors dedicate this one to them in the sixties. The backing track is terrific. The acoustic plucking sounds great.
8. The Ringo One
9. Is this the horniest Beatles song?? Like Norwegian Wood the instrumentation has a slight Eastern thing going on.
10. Great track - especially the percussion and organ. Shout out to Ringo.
11. In My Life is probably the best song the Beatles ever recorded. What a track!
12. Wait is filler.
13. The other George one. It's OK.
14. Produced like an older Beatles song and the lyrics are wack.
The Lemonheads
4/5
I'm a sucker for these early 90s alternative rock albums.
The vocal on Confetti sounds like it could have been on one of Elvis Costello's first two records. And the Mrs. Robinson cover is iconic now.
Stan Getz
5/5
The Pretty Things
3/5
All of the songs sound like Paperback Writer.
S.F. Sorrow can be filed under "first of its kind but later eclipsed by albums with better songs, production, and performances".
Drive-By Truckers
3/5
Some moments are a little too Bryan Adams. I like the story though it is told in a rather obvious, on-the-nose way. I bet these songs rip at a live show, however.
Radiohead
3/5
Hail To The Thief doesn't hit in 2024 the way it did when it was first released. We Suck Young Blood still haunts me just as much. Wow - what a performance.
10/10 album art
The Fall
3/5
The vibes are cool. The songs are very minimal. I can't decide if its a punk dance album or a dance album with punk sounds. The second half really picks up the dance groove which I think is the best part.
G. Love & Special Sauce
3/5
Unique sounds and some real head bopping grooves.
Beck
2/5
Pretty mopey. Or occasionally pretty and completely mopey. The arrangement on "It's All In Your Mind" is a treat but the rest of the record is too moody for my taste.
Iron Maiden
4/5
I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but The Number of the Beast has all of the melody and songwriting of a Queen record. The songs aren't all just riffs and verse / chorus / verse. Some songs are actually surprisingly melodic and are more Iommi than Mustaine.
Dusty Springfield
4/5
White soul. Terrific songs and performances.
Ray Charles
3/5
Songs from the primordial ooze of modern popular music. A little sleepy for my taste honestly but Ray is a great performer.
Jazmine Sullivan
3/5
R&B brought back the album after streaming threatened to make it irrelevant. I don't know if the sounds on Heaux Tales will age well but the concept is unique.
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
Sounds like seven remixes of Superfly but I'm OK with that.
Sonic Youth
4/5
Alternative rock as art. I like it.
Fela Kuti
3/5
As a jazz album, I really have no context for this. If this was pop I would probably love it.
John Grant
4/5
"Chicken Bones" is perfect.
Songs: The music is beautiful and the lyrics are odd. Personal and aloof at the same time. There is something engaging about the vocal melodies on this album that remind me of songs from the classic rock era.
Production: The flange/chorus effect on the vocals make everything sound like John Lennon's vocal on Across the Universe. The backing tracks sound authentic and are absent of whatever ugliness was happening with recording in 2010.
Performances: Solid.
The Only Ones
5/5
Cousins of Buzzcocks, strung out neighbors of Elvis Costello, and the uncles of The Libertines. I found this album to be instantly engaging. Great pop songs and shambolic performances.
System Of A Down
4/5
Aggressive and melodic.
Tom Waits
2/5
Why?
It's a cute presentation and the songs are fine I guess but they sound very sappy and overwrought like a sad movie.
Throbbing Gristle
5/5
I think this is great.
Fuck it -- five stars.
Koffi Olomide
5/5
5 / 5 songs. 5 / 5 album art.
Buck Owens
3/5
This kind of music used to make me cringe but "I've Got a Tiger By the Tail" demonstrates how much country music contributed to rock 'n' roll.
Thankfully rock vocals evolved away from this vocal style that is still present in modern country music. I have to say that the instrumental was my favorite track from this album. Act Naturally goes hard, too, of course.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
3/5
This album is way more punk than I remember. It's closer to Mudhoney and Gas Huffer than I gave it credit for.
Steely Dan
2/5
It's a disservice to the songs on Countdown To Ecstasy to call it a rock recording. Rock has guts. "The Boston Rag" has a guitar solo and a driving drum beat which makes it rock adjacent but the rest of the album is... mild? "1970s mellow gold AM radio background noise" is what I would call it. Put this next to your Bread and Looking Glass records so you can put them on when your lame neighbors come over for mayonnaise sandwiches.
Pearl Of The Quarter is the best song on the record.
The Byrds
4/5
Aretha Franklin
5/5
Songs: 5, Performances: 5, Production: 5.
This one is all-killer, no-filler. I listened to it twice in a row.
Nine Inch Nails
5/5
The Downward Spiral is possibly the most unlikely commercial success of 1994. It's not metal or dance or industrial.
This album was my whole personality in ninth grade. The lyrics might tend toward "edgelord" but as a kid in his early teens they really spoke to me. Thirty years later I still appreciate the themes though the words are maybe too obvious.
As with all of the NIN albums the production and songcraft is top notch. As with many other albums from this era (the mass adoption of the compact disc) the length is too long. Trimming some of the tracks from the tail end would make this absolutely killer.
Afrika Bambaataa
4/5
Ramones
5/5
All of the albums on this list are significant but this is the only one that matters.
Brian Eno
4/5
I really wanted to love this one but its sterility does not leave me enough to latch onto. The experience of listening to Music For Airports through headphones while I sit at a desk feels like only half of what could be. What would this sound like at high volume? Or in a totally black room? Maybe in a sensory deprivation float tank... or an airport?
Mariah Carey
3/5
The hip-hop tracks are solid late 90s singles. The Top 40 vocal pop songs are rough. The vocal performances are great, of course, but suffer because they are accompanied by middle of the road instrumentals.
Donovan
4/5
Another sixties pop record with a couple of standout singles. The remainder of the collection is pretty good. Not Byrds good, but it passes the vibe check.
Depeche Mode
2/5
Two and a half good songs and the balance of the record is bad songs.
Miriam Makeba
4/5
Pretty voice and pretty songs.
Steely Dan
3/5
sounds like Steely Dan... ?
They used to play that De La Soul song that samples Peg during timeouts at Sonics games in the 90s.
Prince
3/5
Did Prince invent Bedroom Soul?
Listen... I get it. There is no other artist in popular music who has a more singular style than Prince. Its so singular that I find myself needing to re-tune my ear to it any time I listen to his albums. And Sign 'O' The Times is a good album. To me its more mature in content and style than his other records but I'm not blown away by the tunes... there's no I Would Die 4 U and no 7 here but as an album its fine.
10/10 album art
Oasis
5/5
Hook-laden post-grunge Britpop displaying its influences obviously. The production is massive and the tunes are instantly infectious.
I was too cool to like this in 1994 but looking back I think it's great.
Patti Smith
4/5
Horses is cool. Horses is unique. Horses is groundbreaking.
Sister Sledge
3/5
Tasteful disco with rock solid performances and engaging songs.
Alice Cooper
3/5
Mom, can we have David Bowie?
No. We have David Bowie at home.
David Bowie at home:
-----
Memes aside, there are some really good rock songs on Billion Dollar Babies. The concept is executed well and must have been a huge influence on many groups for decades after its release.
Thundercat
5/5
Is it hyperbole to call this a modern masterpiece? Probably. But I really like it a lot. To my ear the music is challenging and unexpected but the songs are engaging throughout. The performances are next level without any virtuoso wankery.
Iron Butterfly
3/5
Decent sixties psychedelia even if its over the top.
MC Solaar
3/5
Flow: 5/5. Beats: 3/5. Rhymes: no idea/5.
Elbow
3/5
Coldplay-core. Pretty generic record that sounds like 2008.
B.B. King
3/5
Incredible recording and super tight performances by the band and B.B. especially.
Digital Underground
3/5
I would have loved this back in sixth grade but I'm not sure it has the staying power of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, etc.
Beatles
5/5
Terrific collection of songs from The Beatles Maharishi era. Superfans will enjoy the album knowing the stories behind the songs but casual listeners can appreciate the tunes all the same.
Pixies
5/5
Radiohead
4/5
Kid A reaches toward the artistic white it retains Radiohead's deft abilities in creating emotional pop, rock, and ambient songs. After the acclaim and success of OK Computer this was seen as a departure and challenged a lot of listeners at the time.
Leonard Cohen
1/5
This would be good music for a child's funeral. 1/5
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Pretty good for hippie music
Prince
3/5
Good funk and R&B tunes. The title track absolutely rips but the songs on the rest of the album are hard to distinguish.
Heaven 17
3/5
I'm down with this album's concept for sure - especially looking back on the early 80s this far into the future and realizing that yuppies still exist in the 21st Century.
The synth grooves and hooks are solid but many of the songs don't quite hit for me. LCD Soundsystem fans will probably love Penthouse and Pavement.
Beatles
5/5
Revolver is the "not-quite-Sgt-Peppers" album. The melodies on this record are off the charts perfect. The acid tracks that close out each side (She Said She Said and Tomorrow Never Knows) are among the best work The Beatles ever did.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
Am I hearing things or is Neil having FUN on this album? Some of these tunes sound like pop songs. Maybe there's a little bit of Matthew Sweet grunge-power-pop going on?
The Louvin Brothers
4/5
AC/DC
2/5
Back In Black appeals to the prurient interest in the same way as Kiss and Aerosmith. A couple of songs have hooky riffs.
Lupe Fiasco
3/5
Conscious early millennium rhymes with huge beats. On Lupe's debut I don't hear a unique flow but the raps are solid.
Mercury Rev
2/5
sounds like Wilco. two stars
Portishead
3/5
sexy
Ms. Dynamite
3/5
Ms. Dynamite has a great voice and a smooth flow. The reggae beats sound really cool on all of the songs. I just wish this went a little bit harder: bigger beats, more powerful emotions in the lyrics, stronger feature artists.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
The Scream is proto-post-punk, proto-goth, proto-alternative-dance. The vibe is heavy and Siouxsie's vocal performance is perfect. The only thing I find lacking is strong songs. These aren't the Sex Pistols twisted pop songs. Nor are they The Cure's dark ballads.
The Boo Radleys
4/5
It's like a britpop Pet Sounds. Cutting this down to ten tight tracks would have made it a contender for the Five Star Club. Oh, well. It's a 4+ for me.
Turbonegro
3/5
pretty fun and I'm not always the biggest fan of fun albums
Pretenders
5/5
Ice Cube
5/5
Derek & The Dominos
1/5
There are some surprisingly sweet love songs on the album yet the songs' catchy rhythms struggle to exist under waaaaay too much squealing blues guitar noodling and unfortunate vocal performances.
Layla sucks and Eric Clapton sucks.
Soul II Soul
4/5
This sound was so exciting as a kid in the early 90s. This album doesn't have many deep cuts but the singles are amazing.
Gary Numan
5/5
Easy 5/5 for this vampire alien robot with a Moog collection. Terrific songs and inventive instrumentation.
Magazine
3/5
I never wondered what Buzzcocks would sound like without Pete Shelley but now I know.
The Zutons
1/5
Yecch. Very bad songs.
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
I know I'm supposed to love everything about this but honestly it is completely mid. I even listened twice. Cupid Come and Several Girls Galore are cute but everything is OK. Good for mbv for making exploring new sounds and having the courage to go even further afield to define a completely new genre on the next record.
Brian Wilson
3/5
Like a B-sides collection from the Pet Sounds era. I was WAY into this era of Beach Boys when this came out and listened to it a lot. It's good but the songs feel like sketches instead of those perfect little three minute radio tunes that the group is known for.
Kanye West
3/5
Kanye is rich.
Kanye is horny.
Kanye is pissed off.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
The Boss does disco. Now I've heard it all. Thankfully he sticks to songs about driving around. Running low on material, Springsteen combines his usual themes of roads and working into a single track about "Workin on the Highway." On "I'm Goin' Down" he works driving into a song about a failing romantic relationship.
Emmylou Harris
3/5
Great voice, solid performances, OK songs. The sappy 70s soft rock production makes this hard to listen to in some places.
Ananda Shankar
3/5
This album isn't particularly ground-breaking today. Maybe it was back in 1970? It sounds awesome, though.
The Specials
3/5
More Specials is a great mood with terrific songs. Stylistically its a little bit of a mixed bag but I liked taking the journey.
Kraftwerk
5/5
Side A is great. Side B is great.
Bert Jansch
3/5
The Jesus And Mary Chain
5/5
pop rock songs emerging from goopy noise
Everything But The Girl
3/5
Walking Wounded has extremely nineties production that aged quite well. The songs are good, too. This was a surprisingly pleasant listen.
Janelle Monáe
5/5
It might be stylistically unfocused and maybe the themes are a little bit light but the songs and performances are top notch.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
It's just a bunch of blues shuffles with Mick Jagger singing.
The Crusaders
2/5
This is the kind of music that plays when the doctor's office puts me on hold.
Nick Drake
4/5
Beautiful songs but the production is unnecessary.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
It's OK. The nine minute long plodding blues number in the middle of the record bums me out.
The Offspring
2/5
Time to Relax: wow, a skit.
Nitro (Youth Energy): a decent skate punk song
Bad Habit: Orange County punk band writes a song about driving
Gotta Get Away: a bad grunge rip-off (About A Girl, anyone?)
Genocide: another skate punk song. It's OK but at this point in the album the overly compressed guitar overdubs give me ear fatigue.
Something to Believe In: Here's where I admit that I don't really like The Offspring and the vocal effect employed on every recording they ever did is a major part of why I never listen to their records. It overpowers everything like alfalfa sprouts on an otherwise delicious sandwich.
Come Out and Play: novelty song
Self Esteem: the other grunge song
It'll Be a Long Time: the other skate punk Pennywise song
Killboy Powerhead: the cover
What Happened to You?: the ska punk number? ROFL
So Alone: filler song
Not the One: the angsty song trying to be Bad Religion
Smash: I LOL'd at the half-time breakdown at the end
Nice little skit and hidden track at the end because it was the nineties.
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
The The
3/5
Soul Mining has a bop or two and the instrumentation, production, and vocal performances are certainly unique and engaging. It's OK.
Giant Sand
1/5
What in the "Give Me a Leonard Cohen Afterworld" is this shit?
Elvis Presley
3/5
Elvis does Motown? This record was released in the same year as Altamont, David Bowie's Space Oddity, and The Beatles last concert. The songs are typical for Presley and the backing tracks are good but I can't see why this is an important recording. In 1969 this music must have felt like a relic of the malt-shoppe-going-steady-poodle-skirt days.
Johnny Cash
3/5
Half live record / half comedy record
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
If all of the songs on Talk Talk Talk were Pretty In Pink this would be an easy five. But they aren't.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Did the Stones ever do anything interesting? By the time Sticky Fingers came out both The Beatles and The Velvet Underground had come and gone. Black Sabbath was releasing music by this time.
The songs are well-crafted but to my ears they are all so obvious: bluesy dude rock with lush instrumentation. It's just not for me.
The Blue Nile
2/5
When you go shopping at the expensive hifi store, this is the kind of record they use to demo the $5000 bookshelf speakers. The production is crystal clear with soft instrumental parts and distinctive vocals over the top. The piano sounds just like a piano and the synth bass fills the room with low frequency sound. And with all recordings used for this purpose, the songs take a back seat to the enjoyment of the mechanical process of recording sound and playing it back.
KISS
2/5
Destroyer is a weird album. It has some very melodic sing-a-long tunes, the expected posturing of a sexual predator, and the New York Philharmonic orchestra. There are many songs about "guys in a hard workin' band" that I find to be very lazy in the songwriting department.
Kiss isn't a good band.
DJ Shadow
5/5
Grant Lee Buffalo
2/5
I don't think the songs are very good and the vocals have too much "performance" in them. I bet this guy is really into John Lennon.
Moby Grape
3/5
Grateful Dead x The Mamas and the Papas hybrid
New York Dolls
4/5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
1/5
Morose. Maudlin. Murder Ballads.
This was a slog. Are these songs? Dude is just talking over some movie score type beats. It's a great album to put on during your Agatha Christie cosplay event.
Drive Like Jehu
4/5
The United States Of America
3/5
I think these kids were on acid.
Muddy Waters
3/5
New Order
3/5
A collection of attention grabbing synth sounds punctuated by occasional greatness lack a pop hit like Blue Monday.
Dion
2/5
WTF why?
Your Own Back Yard is a little bit of Velvet Underground smack music which is cool, I guess.
Wild Beasts
1/5
oh its one of those post-Coldplay-core bands
Madonna
4/5
Dance albums don't usually age as well after 25 years as Ray of Light.
PJ Harvey
5/5
What a debut!
Primal Scream
3/5
Melange
Boards of Canada
5/5
Listening to an electronic album with music so natural and organic feels like scratching an itch deep in my brain. This album includes sounds I remember from early childhood programs that aired on public television when I was a kid making it even more of a satisfying listen.
The Magnetic Fields
4/5
What an opus. There are some amazing melodies among the 69 tracks. I tried to review each song on its own but I was worn about before I reached the end of the first disc.
Madonna
3/5
The second album in Madonna's maturity phase. We've got some millennium pop optimism going on but it has actually aged better than some of the other albums from this era. A few solid songs make this a good collection.
The Specials
5/5
Mylo
2/5
If Daft Punk had bad taste.
Supergrass
5/5
There were a lot of albums like this in the late 90s but this was among the best.
TV On The Radio
4/5
The sounds are all here but the songs don't hit like later TVOTR albums. Still a great release from 2004.
The Icarus Line
3/5
Great production. That bass tone! Good songs and a fun mix of styles. Bonus points for the sick album cover.
The Soft Boys
4/5
The Band
5/5
These Canucks made the most American rock album ever.
Van Morrison
5/5
I hear where Elvis Costello got his white guy Irish soul inspiration from.
Sufjan Stevens
5/5
I'm still blown away by the songs and the performances on Illinois.
Kings of Leon
5/5
The Shamen
3/5
En-Tact is certainly a time capsule of a record. Is it distinguishable from other work in the same style? I'm not sure. Did I enjoy it? Yes.
Baaba Maal
3/5
I'm with Christgau: it's exotic background music.
Gillian Welch
3/5
It's OK. I kept waiting for the tunes to really get going but they never did.
Genesis
2/5
The Byrds
4/5
Kraftwerk
5/5
I love the optimism on Trans Europe Express. There wasn't a lot to be optimistic about as a European in 77.
Anita Baker
3/5
Sounds like 80s R&B. The instrumentation doesn't age well but the songs and vocal performances are solid.
Black Flag
4/5
Damaged doesn't have the sleaze of Angry Samoans nor the absolute chaos of The Germs. Bad Brains had shredding that Black Flag avoids and nothing can replace Fugazi's bop. That being said the performances and songs on this album are still fantastic. The raw angst and energy of Rise Above, What I See, and Depression make these the top tunes on this record.
Sonic Youth
3/5
How much Sonic Youth is in this book? They're cool but I never thought of them as critical darlings.
Sonic Youth
3/5
This Sonic Youth album sounds like a Sonic Youth album.
Stereo MC's
3/5
Connected is a good sample of some of the sounds of early 90s clubs in Great Britain. There was one hit from this record and good vibes throughout. Like many records on this list it doesn't exactly stand the test of time but I enjoyed it all the same.
Neil Young
2/5
What the hell is this? Normally I like Neil but these songs make me think of a bar band saying, "now we are going to play some originals" between Pink Floyd and AC/DC covers.
Metallica
3/5
I don’t know. It’s OK. I was hoping this would be Ride The Lightning II. There’s some thrashing going on but some songs go hard into the head banging chugga-chugga stuff too. Orion veers into Eric Johnson guitar harmony territory. Master of Puppets is a mixed bag.
The KLF
4/5
I listened to both the original North American release and the director's cut version. These sound like very different works with the same name. I preferred the original release. Acid synths and soul vocals work well on these numbers. I could dance to this.
Elton John
3/5
Like many of Elton John's albums there are absolute masterpieces (Tiny Dancer) among some really cringey numbers (Indian Sunset). As a stalwart of the rock album era I have always struggled with how bad his albums actually are despite his excellent singles.
Finley Quaye
4/5
Great production on Quaye's Caribbean-tinted pop songs. I really enjoyed the first half or so but the songs do get weaker toward the end of the album.
Slipknot
3/5
Aggressive sounds with origins in 90s alternative metal with better production than the band's debut combine with some fairly generic angry poetry on All Hope Is Gone.
Bad Brains
5/5
Pentangle
4/5
It's some kind of hippie folk church music or something. Not my usual thing but I still like it.
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
Incredible instrumental and vocal performances but the songs don't exactly get the point across that there is a riot in progress.
Destiny's Child
1/5
I'm not into it. I think it's for kids.
N.W.A.
5/5
Paul McCartney
3/5
Cute but not precious. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
Def Leppard
3/5
Hysteria's production has a very modern radio feel. I can hardly make out many of the lyrics. I imagine Ibanez dropped off a create of Tube Screamers and the engineer plugged every vocal mic, instrument cable, and drum mic into one of them. Each part is overdubbed and compressed within an inch of its life.
The songs are good. This is a radio ready pop-rock record. Catchy songs with massive choruses and memorable hooks are a requirement.
Incubus
3/5
I liked it more than I thought it would. This album is like a poppier Deftones or a sober 311. The turntable stuff didn't age well -- not that anyone would think that it could.
Small Faces
3/5
This is what Jimi Hendrix would sound like if he wasn't cool.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Sinatra stinks. This is so boring. I stopped paying attention after the third song.
Big Black
4/5
dark. like joy division dark.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
The Stones made a lot of records and Aftermath is one of them. I listened to the UK version which puts that 11 minute long blues dork jam at the end of the first side.
nah
Metallica
3/5
The orchestra arrangement works well with most of the songs on S&M.
Van Morrison
3/5
The quality of the numbers varies across four sides - some of the covers are terrific, some are OK.
Björk
3/5
It's sexy but all of the songs sound the same.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Frank Black
4/5
It's long but the songs vary enough that its not fatiguing. An icon of alternative rock releasing a record in 1994 was a risk but 30 years later it sounds right at home among contemporary albums.
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
avant-pop with political commentary
Willie Nelson
5/5
5/5 songs
5/5 performances
5/5 production
About the songs... I know many of these because they are old standards but I don't really care for how they have been performed before. Willie's voice is perfect.
Astor Piazzolla
3/5
please-come-to-my-dance-recital-core
Paul Revere & The Raiders
3/5
It's OK. It reminds me of my mom. I love the style but the song selection could be better.
Klaxons
3/5
All of the songs sound the same and this is what everything sounded like in 2007. Wannabe Bloc Party.
The Thrills
3/5
mid. A lot of records sounded like this at the time.
Paul Weller
2/5
I don't like it. The vocals and some of the blues noodling is Clapton-adjacent. I think I know what it feels like for Elvis Costello haters to listen to Elvis Costello now.
Gotan Project
3/5
La Revancha del Tango is cool music to play in the background of your wine party but it doesn't leave a lasting impression.
Dinosaur Jr.
5/5
Fairport Convention
4/5
I trash a lot of blues records on here but I found myself enjoying this recording a lot. I don't know what that means.
Girls Against Boys
3/5
Terrific production with the occasional bop. It could have been more with better songwriting.
Holger Czukay
3/5
When the Rock is Extra-Krauty 👌
The La's
3/5
Pretty music. Some pretty good songs and some pretty OK songs.
The Go-Betweens
2/5
Damn this was hella boring. And I usually love this sad boy dreary day mopecore stuff.
Hugh Masekela
4/5
I don’t have the knowledge of the context this record was released into but the playing certainly sounds capable and the tunes are tight and enjoyable. Minus one star for the saxophone solos.
Radiohead
3/5
Spacemen 3
2/5
Playing With Shit
David Ackles
2/5
Neil Diamond type beat. Pirates-of-Penzance-core.
Missy Elliott
3/5
A perfect time-capsule from the mid 90s.
Cocteau Twins
5/5
Terrific production that ages so well. Otherworldly vocal performances and instrumentation that is solid and lilting at the same time.
John Lee Hooker
2/5
John Lee is a lot better solo than with the dorky collabs.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
"There are simply too many notes."
It might be progressive but this isn't rock.
Goldie
4/5
While the music may be Timeless, the album art surely is not.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
I can't give Little Stevie less than five stars. I just can't do it.
3/5
Punk for people who don't like punk?
CHIC
5/5
10/10 album art
C'est Chic endures because of its production and performances.
Sinead O'Connor
3/5
Good songs but there's something about the production that stifles what could be a great record. The album lands in a non-specific zone between pop and rock that I find unsatisfying.
Robert Wyatt
4/5
I shouldn't like this at all but in fact I enjoyed the whole thing quite a bit.
Merle Haggard
3/5
Great voice and good performances but the songs don't pull me in. Let me be clear that these songs are vastly superior to modern country pop songs that try to do what these songs do. I just don't get any kind of feeling when I hear them. "Someone Told My Story" is my favorite of the collection.
Deee-Lite
5/5
You can't help but love those vocals and house piano chords.
Christine and the Queens
4/5
OK, sure it's got a real eurotrash vibe but the instrumentals sound really good.
Arcade Fire
2/5
Just like the suburbs this album is too expansive, dull, monotonous, full of angst, and not worth returning to.
Method Man
4/5
Os Mutantes
5/5
what a masterpiece - how have I not come across "Os Mutantes" before?
Ozomatli
5/5
The clave beat and the salsa piano chords get me every time.
Oye! Chica! Tirate! Que Tirate!
Fugazi
5/5
Our Band Could Be Your Life
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Great tunes but I have to dock IV a star for the production. It probably sounded great on an AM radio but there are many other recordings from the era that sound so much better.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
3/5
One of the best parts of Will The Circle Be Unbroken is the banter between some of the songs. It's terrific.
I think this album would be way better without most of the vocals and more solos by the instruments. I found myself engaged much more in the instrumentals than the songs with a singer. The songs are stifling the band.
Jamiroquai
3/5
Solid disco band featuring a white guy who sounds like Stevie Wonder. Unnecessary didgeridoo.
Culture Club
3/5
The first 7 inch record I remember owning was Karma Chameleon so I really wanted to like this one. The production is overly sweet and more than a few songs edge a little too close to George Michael territory.
The Undertones
5/5
10/10 album art
Feargal Sharkey's voice somehow conveys the desperation of a lovesick teenager more than even Buddy Holly.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
This is one of my favorite records. Easy five stars. Elvis' scathing lyrics about his continuing interpersonal and romantic struggles are front and center on Imperial Bedroom. "Men will literally write five albums full of the cleverest turns of phrase about romantic strife instead of going to therapy."
The Monks
3/5
Ghostface Killah
5/5
5/5 for beats, hooks, themes, verses, and features
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
3/5
Terrific production and amazing performances. I admit that I struggle to appreciate a cappella music and as good as these songs are it does color my opinion. The group's sound is striking at first but I get lost before the first side ends.
Scritti Politti
4/5
Just read what Christgau wrote about this album. It's all that needs to be said.
Neneh Cherry
2/5
I don't get it.
Cowboy Junkies
1/5
Pretty vocals -- but yowza -- the rest of it just isn't my thing.
Alanis Morissette
4/5
Jagged Little Pill is poppy and alternative. It's no wonder that this one was so massive. Alanis' performances are 10/10 and the songs feel very authentic. I think Head Over Feet is gorgeous and features some very tasteful harmonica.
The Saints
5/5
The saxophone that starts the first side threw me at first but I ended up loving the record.
Belle & Sebastian
5/5
NINETEEN-NINETIES SAD BOY CLASSIC
10/10 album art, too.
Grizzly Bear
5/5
Amazing production, infinitely interesting songs, lights out performances.
Blur
4/5
The lives explored in Parklife seemed exotic to me as an American teenager. Britpop itself was exploding after grunge and the sounds from Blur appealed to me when this came out. I still listen every once in a while and I still like it. Nostalgia trip? Maybe.
2/5
Just because its challenging doesn't mean its good. They Were Wrong, So We Drowned was probably more fun to make than it was to listen to. At least its short.
Ravi Shankar
3/5
It sounds cool and I guess it's a good introduction to this kind of music but its so strange to my ears that I don't have the context to judge it.
Peter Frampton
2/5
I shouldn't like this...
and I don't.
For a live album, the production is incredible. The tunes have an occasional 70s groove and most of the record is pretty laid back. Lots of "ooooooh I love you, girl" themes. There was an acoustic song that sounds a little like Zeppelin. Some songs veer into the Jimmy Buffet zone.
I was wavering between a two-star review and three stars. Shine On had me thinking that I could round up to three stars. I told myself, "the production is great and some of these songs are OK!"
Then the Jumpin' Jack Flash cover kicks in! That finally relegates Frampton Comes Alive to the two-star tier.
Wilco
2/5
the boring songs are boring and the upbeat ones sound like Springsteen
Coldplay
3/5
It's a Coldplay record. They pretty much define the middle-of-the-road, three-star album, don't they?
Suicide
3/5
Super unique sounds. I like it and I don't know why but I also don't love it.
Michael Jackson
3/5
Well, it's not Thriller. I like the Stevie Wonder song. It's a good counterpoise to the tough guy songs that follow the overall theme of the record.
Jane's Addiction
5/5
Fatboy Slim
4/5
Exciting sounds from the days of future passed
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
I really wanted to love this one but it did not grab me in the way I thought it would. It's fun and novel but that's about it. Bummer.
Jungle Brothers
5/5
Madness
3/5
It's a funny coincidence that this album was generated back-to-back with The Village Green Preservation Society. Blur's Parklife came up only a few weeks ago. I like The Rise & Fall but I don't think it's as good as either of those albums.
The Kinks
5/5
The Village Green Preservation Society is the biggest five that ever fived a five.
Kings of Leon
5/5
Elvis Costello
4/5
One of EC's pop-rock records. I kind of lost touch with Elvis in the 90s but Brutal Youth follows in the line from his 80s classics to his 21st century return to loud music with When I Was Cruel.
Brutal Youth is a good record but is it something you MUST hear? I'm not sure.
1/5
absolutely not
John Prine
3/5
sad songs
Cat Stevens
3/5
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Some parts I really like. Some parts I don't care for.
Milton Nascimento
3/5
Lots of different genres on Clube Da Esquina. The psych-rock ones were my favorite.
3/5
sexy vocals over late night tracks
The Charlatans
4/5
Great production and performances. A couple of bangers on here, too.
The National
2/5
J. Crew-core
Like a mopey indie drama film, High Violet uses every emotional trick in the book to make you think that its deep.
David Bowie
4/5
In modern parlance, Heroes was a mixtape that Bowie dropped right after a career high album that marked him entering his sober Berlin era.
Dinosaur Jr.
4/5
Doesn’t have the same indie guitar heroics of the later Dinosaur albums but still a great record.
Duke Ellington
3/5
I don’t know anything about jazz. I really like the oboe and muted trumpet.
Run-D.M.C.
5/5
The flow and rhymes are not where hip hop would eventually go but for the mid 80s these songs were banging and also had mass market appeal.
The Zombies
5/5
I love this kind of 60s pop. Not every song on here is amazing but some really are.
Nightmares On Wax
5/5
Elis Regina
3/5
This kind of reminds me of Japanese city pop.
Kid Rock
2/5
Catchy songs but the flows/rhymes recall Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer. The samples reference all kinds of 70s bad taste.
Dead Kennedys
2/5
I’m a big punk fan but DK has always been a little bit cringy to me.
Nico
2/5
What if medieval bards were on the smack?
Nico's voice is the saddest voice I've ever heard.
Cypress Hill
4/5
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Love Bonham's drumming always but the production sounds crummy - as it does on all of Led Zeppelin's studio recordings. Why?
Tom Tom Club
4/5
kind of new wave; kind of hip hop. Good performances and production.
Tim Buckley
2/5
I'm not sure what I just heard but I didn't really like it. I'm also wondering why I had to hear this before I died.
Sepultura
5/5
I think this album turned me into a metalhead.
Rod Stewart
3/5
Talking Heads
4/5
Like Devo but disco. If I was a teenager in the late 70s I would have been into this album so hard.
Franz Ferdinand
4/5
The sound of this album was so exciting when it came out and spawned many new indie bands that made it cool to dance at rock shows again.
Femi Kuti
4/5
The dance-able ska-like arrangements make this a very accessible afrobeat album.
Khaled
3/5
The genres are all over the place on Kenza. The vocals are exciting: relatable and exotic at the same time. It didn't make a lasting impression on me but I enjoyed it all the same.
Happy Mondays
4/5
An exciting sound and a couple of big singles.
Can
4/5
I enjoyed this one a lot and could have happily listened to another 40 minutes of these songs.
The Vines
3/5
I believe The Mighty Boosh once said, "Elements of the past and the future combining to make something not quite as good as either." This applies to Highly Evolved. Lots of influences are laid bare but nothing of interest has been added.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
5/5
Dark. Energetic. Fantastic performances and songs. What a voice!
The Human League
3/5
The sounds are great but the songs are not hitting like Pet Shop Boys, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, et al.
Nirvana
5/5
The first time I heard this album was when my older cousin loaned me three CDs that changed my life: Nevermind, Blood Sugar Sex Magick, and Violent Femmes. I was in seventh grade and my music collection included C+C Music Factory, Amy Grant, Def Leppard, and a cassette single from DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. This "alternative" music completely caught me off guard. I had heard about Pearl Jam from kids at school but never actually got my hands on anything like it.
I listen to Nirvana a lot still even 30 years later. Nevermind is probably the album I listen to the least and I don't think I have ever listened to it as closely as I did this morning. Today it really hit me how poppy these songs are. Kurt putting bands like ABBA and the Bay City Rollers on his list of influences wasn't ironic. The performances and production is loud and punk but the songs retain quite a bit of sing-along, toe-tapping energy.
Daft Punk
5/5
I remember this album coming out. I thought it sounded like it came from another planet and I was inspired to install pirated versions of music production software that taxed my beige Pentium-powered PC so I could enjoy some knob-twiddling myself.
3/5
Nitin Sawhney
4/5
Very interesting theme with cool instrumentals and great vocals throughout.
De La Soul
5/5
The group of MCs and producers who made this album couldn't get any cooler and it feels like they are letting the listener in on their coolness.
Raekwon
4/5
Steely Dan
3/5
I like the horns on track 2.
There are some really terrific melodies on Can't Buy A Thrill but there is enough of that slimy 70s blues grime that it prevents me from getting into the groove.
The Dandy Warhols
4/5
Remember when records could sound lush and full but they didn't hurt your ears? The mid 90s remembers.
Jack White
3/5
There are some cute songs I guess.
Les Rythmes Digitales
3/5
Background music for the "Choose Your Car" screen on a Playstation 2 racing combat game.
Pretty bad vocals on some songs.
Mike Ladd
2/5
If you buy Kool Keith from Temu you get Mike Ladd.
Brian Eno
3/5
I like Eno but I don't get this one. It sounds like XTC! That's not good.
Through Hollow Lands was very enjoyable.
Guided By Voices
4/5
Bob Dylan
4/5
I suppose this is meant to be an automatic 5 out of 5 but as a whole it doesn't grab hold of me like it should. There are a couple of beautiful tunes and the band sounds great but Blonde On Blonde just doesn't hit me as an instant classic.
Cream
2/5
Bangin rhythm section, dorky songs, tiresome guitar
The Cult
3/5
Sounds like Mother Love Bone. I like the production, too, even if its not perfect.
Abdullah Ibrahim
5/5
I don't know much about jazz but I really liked Water From An Ancient Well.
Deep Purple
2/5
Dorky like Yes, gross like KISS, cringe performances like Van Halen
Sam Cooke
5/5
Bruce Springsteen
1/5
The third verse on the first track is about driving away from somewhere. The second track has Bruce moaning his own vocal harmonies.
Springsteen sucks and having listened to the FIFTH album of his throughout this project hasn't done anything to prove otherwise.
David Crosby
3/5
Wire
5/5
minimalist masterpiece
10/10 album art
Fleet Foxes
5/5
Fleet Foxes evokes 1960s vocal folk pop that I love to listen to. The production is deep and encompassing -- modern yet warm. 10/10 songs and performances, too.
Röyksopp
4/5
Melody A.M. doesn't scratch that itch deep in the nerdiest part of my brain like Röyksopp's contemporaries on Warp Records but it does show off the bands cooler influences.
Alice Cooper
3/5
Alice Cooper pictures himself as a Jellicle Cat whose parts were cut in the final edit.
Lou Reed
3/5
I love Lou Reed. I don't love Berlin by Lou Reed but I don't hate it either.
5/5
It's Ziggy Stardust
William Orbit
3/5
Cool vibe but the songs are not supporting the instrumentation and production. I immediately noticed how this sounds like Madonna's Ray of Light album. I could be convinced that Strange Cargo III was a demo tape given to Madonna asking her to pick sounds for her mid-90s electronic work.
Hot Chip
2/5
There is nothing especially revolutionary on In Our Heads. I've heard Kraftwerk and Human League already so in fact I could have died without having heard Hot Chip.
The Everly Brothers
4/5
So much of the music I love is inspired by these songs.
Spiritualized
3/5
Sensual and dreamy. Good but I wish it was more.
Beastie Boys
5/5
If my generation had their own White Album, this would be it.
CHVRCHES
5/5
DEFEND SYNTH POP
The Auteurs
3/5
Were people looking for a new T. Rex in 1993? New Wave was either five years too early or five years too late. The vocals are perfect and the album sounds great but songs are not memorable.
Queen
5/5
Black Sabbath
5/5
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
Vocal pop records are not my thing usually but RW's voice keeps my attention. The tracks and production are also enjoyable.
The Coral
2/5
The Coral was probably a breath of fresh air when it came out and we all collectively felt like we heard rock music again for the first time. In 2025 this sounds like The Kinks doing pirate rock.
Marty Robbins
2/5
More songs about horses and dying.
I don't have a logical reason to not like this. I just don't. It doesn't feel authentic to me and all of the songs sound the same.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
I can't count how many blues albums I have suffered after 700 recordings on this list but this might be the only one I actually like.
Antony and the Johnsons
2/5
The music is good but overall it's too emotional. I can't enjoy this. Holy shit... have a glass of water and go for a walk. Maybe you'll feel better if you quit moping.
Happy Mondays
3/5
Great production and grooves but the sounds on Bummed are not as exciting and as fresh as they were on the first Mondays album. I was also waiting for the banger single to come up but it never did.
Roxy Music
3/5
It sounds like the 1970s but not like how the Talking Heads sound like the 1970s.
Barry Adamson
4/5
Cool concept and unexpected vibes
JAY Z
1/5
The fake David Bowie "Lame" sample in the Nas diss track is embarrassing.
Jay's flow is absolutely mid at best on the whole album and whatever persona he tries for on The Blueprint did not age well. He's trying to hold onto the millennium-era flossing rap mogul look with his pop beats while bragging like he's still out in the streets. Then at the end of the record he puts "Song Cry" out trying to be a backpack rapper.
Jay-Z is fake as hell.
Supergrass
5/5
Love this one! Tons of great tracks and high energy.
Traffic
3/5
The blues numbers had me worried but they ended up closer to Hendrix territory than Clapton Hell. I also enjoy the vocals a lot more than similar albums by Rod Stewart. The production is much better than Zeppelin's albums from the same era.
The Stone Roses
5/5
Tom Waits
3/5
Another dramatic Tom Waits album. It's OK. I can see why British people would think the American sounds on Rain Dogs are interesting.
Spiritualized
3/5
I should love this but the songs just don't hit me.
Kings of Leon
3/5
Only By The Night is the sound of a band who is comfortable with their recordings and creative output. It's not a big departure from their earlier releases. It's pretty good but I'm not sure it needed to be on this list.
Fishbone
5/5
I love everything about this. Norwood Fisher is in my list of the top five bass players.
Meat Loaf
1/5
This isn't a rock album. It's opera-inspired musical theater and I'm not into it. Rocky Horror Picture Show should replace this one. The baseball sex thing makes me feel gross on "Paradise".
The Waterboys
5/5
This is not too far removed from Will the Circle Be Unbroken by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The songs are really good. If you would have told me that this was some kind of offshoot of The Smiths, I might believe you. 1 extra star for how the bass guitar sounds in the mix.
Love
3/5
And I wish it was the sixties
I wish I could be happy
I wish, I wish
I wish that something would happen
Cocteau Twins
3/5
Lorelai rips. This album is goth as fuck.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
The band sounds good, Frank's voice is fine. It's just that the songs just don't appeal to me. I don't find them romantic or passionate at all. Instead I feel like this is a collection of movie themes.
Stereolab
5/5
Stevie Wonder
5/5
The Moogs are bumping and grinding. Stevie's voice is telling the truth. You can't help but get transported back to the mid 70s.
Rocket From The Crypt
4/5
Absolutely rockin album. I'm not sure how I missed this when it came out. Huge production, moshable riffs, poppy songs. The glockenspiel on Used had me worried that we were going to swerve into Springsteen territory but thankfully that never happened.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
5/5
I went in listening to this without knowing anything other than the cover art, name of the group, and the year it was released. Near the end of the album I heavily suspected that Brian Eno was some how involved. It had that mysterious and ambient feel to it that gave him away.
These are the records that I am happy to see appear when I open up my project in the morning. It's much more exciting to dig into the Penguin Cafe Orchestra than a damn Bruce Springsteen album.
Venom
4/5
Animal Collective
2/5
aging hipster writes sappy indie shit
sounds like the conversations you have catching up with a friend from high school who only talks about his girlfriend and kids
Slade
2/5
I was expecting something like Bowie or T. Rex but this sounds more like AC/DC meets Led Zep. Not for me.
Rod Stewart
3/5
When the album first started I thought, "well at least this doesn't sound like Cream" but then the fourth song kicked in and that's when it started sounding like Cream.
The tunes are fine. The performances are fine. It's just not that interesting.
Baaba Maal
3/5
Q-Tip
3/5
Love the theme and the rhymes. The beats are OK.
Electric Light Orchestra
2/5
There are undeniably pretty melodies and arrangements on Out Of The Blue. Where I struggle with it is the songs themselves. Many of them sound like a mix of disco and those out of place old-timey songs that The Beatles would drop on every album. If I was an English baby boomer I might understand the pastiche and appreciate it but it misses me. Overproduction and an overstuffed album length makes this a two-star record.
Johnny Cash
2/5
Sounds like hymns that old people sing at church.
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
Great voice, enticing instrumentation, varied songs with great energy throughout.
Blood, Sweat & Tears
2/5
Too much blues. Good recording, though.
Dr. John
3/5
Coco Robichaux
Iron Maiden
2/5
I was expecting some proto-thrash/speed metal and really wanted to like this but it sounds like a Rush copycat band.
Massive Attack
3/5
Cool synth and dub sounds but nothing about the songs pulls me in.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
1/5
Next is like a shitty version of shitty albums by shitty bands like: AC/DC, Kiss, Meatloaf, Aerosmith, etc.
When I was in second grade, a kid brought in a record that his dad's band had recorded. Everyone in the class got a copy of the 12 inch album to take home. I ran home to listen to the tunes and I remember it sounded kind of like this.
The cover of Next was fun by I recall liking the Scott Walker version more. Giddy Up A Ding Dong!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
I love the vocals and the production. Songs are good. It's like Bikini Kill meets The White Stripes and it smells like American Spirit cigarettes.
The Stooges
3/5
Great production and performances. OK songs.
Peter Tosh
5/5
Better than Bob Marley. There... I said it.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
3/5
Pretty solid. The whole package sounds more like The Mars Volta than I was expecting. I enjoyed the amazing tone on those classical sounding bass parts.
3/5
It sounds like a revolution. I like it.
David Bowie
3/5
Terrific sounds and production. The Next Day reminds me a bit of When I Was Cruel by Elvis Costello in that it is an artist releasing an album that is something of a return to the old sounds but with a mature outlook. Staying cool but not pretending that they didn't live half of a lifetime since those old records.
Sleater-Kinney
4/5
Love the energy and songs. This is what 1997 sounded like to me.
Gram Parsons
3/5
The songs are solid and the performances are, too. Emmylou Harris' voice is a big part of what I find appealing on this one.
Garbage
2/5
Butch Vig Pro Tools All-Stars
These songs were very MTV and alternative radio-ready tunes. Garbage had very commercial-sounding production and the just right image for the time. Before pop stars were called "industry plants" we had Garbage.
I'm listening to this for the first time since tenth grade. It's good nostalgia trip but it might be another thirty years before I listen again.
Adam & The Ants
2/5
This one is sort of annoying in an XTC way.
Billy Bragg
3/5
we need another Woody Guthrie
The Beau Brummels
3/5
I just really like this stuff. Nothing major sticks out to me on this album however.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
Dire Straits
2/5
The Final Boss of Boomer Rock Albums. If The Rolling Stones were into ZZ Top they would sound like this.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
Beats: 10/10
Flow: 10/10
Rhymes: 10/10
3/5
A little bit of Thom Yorke, a little bit of Rufus Wainwright, a bit more Thom Yorke/Radiohead, and a lot of 2006-era production. Anthemic songs full of the angst of the new millennium.
Todd Rundgren
5/5
Something/Anything? was a huge surprise. I stayed interested throughout the whole album which is saying a lot.
Primal Scream
3/5
Joni Mitchell
3/5
I really like the instrumentation on this one and the album art is 10/10.
Killing Joke
5/5
Aimee Mann
3/5
This is the most Gen X album title and artwork possible. It's OK. File under: Nick Lowe-core. Some different instrumentation or production might help Aimee's songs shine a bit brighter. She's a great songwriter and solid performer.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
3/5
This might be the only version of a Springsteen song that I actually like. Relax is iconic and despite the long run time of the album, it's not boring and presents a real time capsule of the mid 80s.
The Beach Boys
3/5
The missing link between the surf rock era and the orchestral pop of Pet Sounds.
Anthrax
2/5
cringe lyrics and vocals
Sepultura
2/5
Sounds a lot more like Deftones, Korn, and maybe even Slipknot than I was expecting.
Ray Price
3/5
cowboy music
Randy Newman
1/5
Sail Away sounds like church music by Tom Waits. The only redeeming performance on this album is the song from The Muppet Show.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
4/5
During my first listen Architecture And Morality sounds like The Cure. And it sounds like Kraftwerk. It also sounds like Joy Division and sometimes like Brian Eno. After giving it a second spin, it sounds like itself.
I much prefer the A side. The side starting with the Joan of Arc songs is a bit maudlin for my taste.
R.E.M.
5/5
You might not like their politics or fashion or whatever but I challenge you to find a group writing better melodies and pop songs than REM.
Bon Jovi
3/5
Insanely poppy and produced like a Ronettes album. The way grunge brought punk to the masses, Bon Jovi must have exposed tons of kids to metal-adjacent sounds.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
5/5
Easy five. I love these songs.
Björk
4/5
Great concept and wonderful performances by all of the vocalists.
Korn
2/5
Good singles, lots of filler, and Fred Durst sucks.
Burning Spear
5/5
Gene Clark
3/5
Great instrumentation and production. Gets a little bit druggy on the B side which isn't my thing.
Meat Puppets
5/5
Meat Puppets II is like Minutemen and Sonic Youth with some Dinosaur Jr and Built to Spill sprinkled into the mix. Possibly hearing some Butthole Surfers inspiration as well.
The Triffids
2/5
This really sucks. Like really. I think it's the style and performances that I don't like. And the songs, too, now that I think about it.
Lucinda Williams
3/5
Minor Threat
5/5
Five stars obviously.
Scott Walker
4/5
Solid vocal pop. I much prefer this over Frank Sinatra. It reminds me of The Magnetic Fields.
Laibach
4/5
I liked it. Reading about the band concept reminds me of other projects like Public Image, Ltd. and The KLF. The songs are good and kept me interested throughout.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Southern American blues rockers The Rolling Stones express how they were feeling as young working class Black men at the height of the Civil Rights movement.
Did I get that right? Oh they aren’t American? They’re not Black? Or working class?
Calexico
2/5
I’m sure they’re great guys with really cool music taste but Feast of Wire does not leave an impression on me at all. It’s straight up opening-act-core.
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
Crocodiles nestles very comfortably between The Cure and The Smiths
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
I love hip-hop with acoustic instrumentation and Thundercat's contribution to many of the tracks on the album really stand out. Great featured artists throughout the record.
fIREHOSE
3/5
The Darkness
3/5
A couple of absolutely cracking singles alongside fun album cuts. I love the vocals.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Megadeth
3/5
Dizzee Rascal
4/5
Unique flow, unique beats.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
3/5
Genesis
3/5
I wanted to crap on this one but it’s too mid to have a reaction. Lots of tweedly parts.
Neu!
4/5
I especially like the quiet instrumentals that are similar to Keith Jarrett and Brian Eno. There are some other fine krautrock numbers on the album as well. I find this mechanical-sounding music to be very emotional.
Quicksilver Messenger Service
1/5
"This is truly exciting and groundbreaking work" is what I would say if I listened to an album that wasn't boring blues guitar noodling.
The xx
4/5
Moody indie-house. I like it.
Scissor Sisters
2/5
Elton-Disco-Funk for millennials.
I swear to Fairuza Balk that the Return to Oz Pink Floyd pastiche at the end of the album sucked.
Carole King
5/5
My mom liked this album.
Cee Lo Green
3/5
I liked the songs with featured artists and some of the soul numbers. Unfortunately the filler on this one brings down my review to three stars.
Morrissey
5/5
What a debut. Four absolute classics from Mozza: Everyday is Like Sunday, Suedehead, Break up the Family, and I Don't Mind If You Forget Me. Love this one.
Soft Cell
4/5
S E X D W A R F
SD goes hard
Tim Buckley
3/5
Overall the vibe is good but the songs are not what they could be. The performances and production is great.
Shivkumar Sharma
3/5
Joanna Newsom
2/5
I'll never listen to this again. It's all too much. The vocal inflections, the orchestra, the theatrical lyrics make it hard to enjoy the album as a suite.
Bebel Gilberto
3/5
It's weird how Portuguese sounds like Russian sometimes.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
4/5
Normally I get annoyed with 1970s blues rock but this one is too good to ignore. Great songs, performances, and production.
Björk
4/5
Incredible instrumentation and vocal performances.
Robbie Williams
2/5
If Noel Gallagher wrote an album for Avril Lavigne it would sound just like Life Thru A Lens.
Slint
5/5
Rock album as art. I'm with Albini: "ten fucking stars"
The Slits
5/5
Amazing performances (that rhythm section!) and endlessly listenable songs.
The Mothers Of Invention
4/5
I thought it was kind of dumb at first as it struck me as a Sha-Na-Na-esque novelty album. I gave it a little more consideration and thought back to the The Velvet Underground's poppier experiments and the twee music of the 80s and 90s that struck me as a particularly effective foil against the aggressive music of the punk underground.
I suspect that The Mothers had similar motives with Freak Out! Maybe they wanted to shake up the underground a bit with some pop music styles from a decade ago and lyrics that satirize the current political and social movements.
It's weird.
The Young Gods
2/5
I struggled to find anything appealing or interesting about this work. There are not many records on this list with non-English lyrics, aggressive electronic sounds, and circus tunes. While I was glad to see something a little bit challenging appear this morning, it does not hit me like Butthole Surfers or Throbbing Gristle.
OutKast
5/5
Astrud Gilberto
2/5
Bland 60s pop
MGMT
3/5
Optimistic street pop from the era that lead to the Obama election.
Great production and solid songs.
D'Angelo
3/5
1990s sex jams.
The vibe is great and D'Angelo's voice sounds great but the songs don't go anywhere.
Nas
5/5
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
At least it's short. I like the Bach part.
Cyndi Lauper
5/5
terrific production and great performance by Cyndi
What a moment in time.
Nick Drake
3/5
Pretty songs.
John Lennon
3/5
Ringo's drums sound great on I Found Out.
Snoop Dogg
1/5
It's a classic but Snoop is a Trumper now so fuck him.
4/5
Amazing performance. Minus one star for the blues noodling.
Kanye West
3/5
I was a big fan of Kanye's first couple of records but this is when he started getting weird. Too many bars about balls. It makes me sad. Great features from Kid Cudi and Rihanna. Jay Z always sucks.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
It's OK. There are some pretty parts but most of it sounds kind of pointless.
Incredible Bongo Band
3/5
I like these bongos more than I thought I would. Apache is the obvious standout track and the rest isn't very interesting. The album art is 10/10.
George Jones
3/5
I love how the drums sound on The Weatherman.
Love
5/5
The Stone Roses probably love this album. I do, too.
Aphex Twin
5/5
Simultaneously coldly mechanical and absolutely heartwarming; ambient and urgent; contemporary and timeless.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
1/5
I hate this.
The first album has all the shitty parts of blues rock and southern gothic tropes. There's a bit of Rolling Stones in here as well as Elton's rhythm and blues pastiche. Jumpin Jack Flash meets Crocodile Rock.
The second album is some acoustic gothic ballad crap.
Talvin Singh
3/5
Back in the early aughts I used to go to Las Vegas a lot. Whenever we would visit some hotel, restaurant, or lounge that wanted to be cool the music sounded just like this.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
5/5
Incredible vocal harmonies by the CSN fellers. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" will always remind me of my mom.
Bonnie Raitt
2/5
Hey, have a fart.
Blondie
4/5
Great production and terrific songs. The Buddy Holly cover sounded great.
50 Cent
2/5
Corny bars and corny beats
The Replacements
3/5
I know I am supposed to like this but some of the songs just are not great.
Leftfield
3/5
I love the sound of the Roland sequencers and drum machines.
Elliott Smith
5/5
Doves
3/5
U2
3/5
3/5
Disappointingly mid
Kacey Musgraves
2/5
Temu Taylor Swift
completely over-produced vocals highlight dead plain lyrics
Public Enemy
5/5
Christina Aguilera
2/5
There are a couple of terrific R&B songs on the first disc but the jazz/soul throwback numbers are not great. And the whole second disc makes zero sense. This should have been two albums.
Marianne Faithfull
1/5
Really didn't like this one - especially the electric blues tracks.
Dagmar Krause
3/5
I am reminded of Punishing Kiss which I first heard three years ago at album #55. Tank Battles is not something I would normally come across in my casual listening but I was engaged in the songs and the performances throughout.
Randy Newman
1/5
what the hell is this
The Verve
3/5
Pretty good. Bitter Sweet Symphony is terrific.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
2/5
10/10 album art
Little bit of Roxy Music, some Velvet Underground, and maybe some Smiths in there, too? I'm not really into this.
Sex Pistols
5/5
Never Mind The Bollocks captures the filth and the fury of early punk and still holds up today.
The Pharcyde
5/5
I love this. Is this the album that the Beasties were trying to make with Ill Communication?
Napalm Death
3/5
Beautiful music for a wedding.
OK obviously its not beautiful. It is hard to listen to and represents the edge of what is an acceptable expression of human emotion in the form of recorded music. Enduring an album like this can be enjoyable if you choose to find beauty in it.
The Kinks
4/5
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
This is when Elvis started to intermix the strife of intrapersonal relationships and political themes.
The Adverts
5/5
I might be in my mid-forties but I'll be a Bored Teenager forever.
Living Colour
5/5
Hooky riffs and powerful vocals drive an infinitely catchy 1980s rock record.
k.d. lang
3/5
Not bad. As other reviews have stated the songs on Ingenue are the weakest part. k.d.'s performance is great and the style reminds me of some of Elvis Costello's pop albums.
Dwight Yoakam
2/5
The songs don't overcome the cringe of honky-tonk music. The Johnny Cash one is pretty good but overall I don't find much here.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
3/5
Like Pedro the Lion but more gothic. I like his voice a lot.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
4/5
Terrific tunes. I wish I could have witnesses the 60s first hand.
Sugar
5/5
Bob Mould made a pop grunge album.
Talking Heads
4/5
Great energy on this one.
Manic Street Preachers
5/5
Leonard Cohen
2/5
Lou Reed
4/5
"I wonder what it would sound like if Lou Reed made The White Album?"
Einstürzende Neubauten
4/5
I don't know what everyone is complaining about. This is as musical as some movie scores and I like it.
Björk
5/5
I heard many of these songs when the album was first released. Back then I thought the music was weird and almost alien. Revisiting this decades later and with a broader understanding of music - especially electronic and dance music - lets me appreciate what Björk created on this album.
Leonard Cohen
1/5
Some old dude moaning about Jesus.
This is my FIFTH LC album on this project and its making me really question what people enjoy in these records.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
3/5
This is an example of a brief moment of white guy coolness that happened in the mid 1990s -- a brief return of masculinity defined by movies like Swingers and Pulp Fiction.
The Electric Prunes
3/5
I love this psychedelic stuff but The Electric Prunes is just OK.
Queen Latifah
3/5
Fun beats. Queen Latifah has a great voice and her flow and rhymes are typical for the day. I'm a sucker for the Afro-centric postive raps of this era. Is it as good as Low End Theory or Three Feet High? Not at all but she was a mainstream star with obvious crossover appeal.
k.d. lang
2/5
Nothing here caught my attention. It's fine.
U2
4/5
anthemic
urgent
Ash
5/5
1977 is full of romantic songs with terrific production (90s loudness/low dynamic range notwithstanding). I really loved this record when it was first released and still do.
Roni Size
4/5
Didn't need to be so long. Skillfully produced and innovative work otherwise.
Queens of the Stone Age
3/5
David Bowie
3/5
Sorry, DB, I don't love this one.
The Who
2/5
There is a concept here but not a great one.
Deep Purple
1/5
Horny blues rock. The instrumental sections actually anger me.
Solange
3/5
Traffic
2/5
The soulful parts are OK but they are surrounded by too much hippie shit.
Stan Getz
3/5
LCD Soundsystem
2/5
Every song sounds the same Soundsystem.
Repetitive sixteenth-notes Soundsystem.
There are some exciting moments on this record but I still find it dull.
Barry Adamson
3/5
It's OK. This stuff sounded really cool in the mid-90s but I'm not sure the aesthetic is valued so much today.
Portishead
3/5
Terrific production throughout. I like the part of Plastic that sounds like Wu Tang Clan. Terrific vocals from Beth Gibbons as usual.
Nanci Griffith
2/5
The arrangements are pretty corny and the lyrics don't help. Top performances and production as you would expect from an 80s Nashville album but all-in-all this is forgettable.
Youssou N'Dour
3/5
Joe Ely
2/5
I'm not into the Honky Tonk thing at all.
Iggy Pop
3/5
The Passenger is great: lyrics, music, and especially the production. Big +1 for that track.
The blues song sounds like a blues song. Big -1 for that one.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
Three records from Dexys is too much and this might be the worst of them all.
Jane Weaver
3/5
I like it. It's like krautrock but shiny; like cosmic but poppy.
Tom Waits
2/5
The vocals on "Dirt In The Ground" remind me of the Jack Black inward singing thing so that's pretty cool. I like the beat poetry ones but you can miss me with the blues stuff and definitely miss me with the funeral ballads.
Bone Machine's sounds are intriguing and unique which is worth something. The spooky production and sparse instrumentation add to the creepiness of many of the tunes.
John Lennon
3/5
Some sad and pretty songs - especially Oh Yoko - that remind me of Elliott Smith.
The Beta Band
2/5
Equal measures of LCD-esque hipster shit and lush orchestral tracks. I want to say that this is a genre hopping album of millennial optimism but usually it comes off as mild white guy stuff.