Journey Complete!
Finisher #444 to complete the list
1089
Albums Rated
3.08
Average Rating
100%
Complete
Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth
Favorite Album
Featured Review
Tonight's The Night
Neil Young • 5/5
If you think that a “perfect record” has to be neatly played and produced with a nice coat of studio sheen, look elsewhere. Tonight’s the Night is raw and real. It’s shambolic and sad. It’s a document of loss and heartache. It’s not a product that was manufactured in studio with the intent of moving the maximum amount of units. It comes from a very real place and Neil Young was kind enough to share that with us. *That* is what makes Neil Young great. It’s why he has so many records on this list. He’s authentic and lays it all on the line - the good, the bad, the ugly. In the face of massive success, he made a left turn and forged his own path. He could have just pumped out record after record that sounded like “Harvest” and slowly faded into semi-obscurity like his cohorts in CSNY or become another James Taylor. Instead, he rejected what was expected of him at that juncture in his career and did what he wanted. In this house, Neil Young is a hero…End of story.
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1970s
Favorite Decade
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Top Origin
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Rater Style ?
120
5-Star Albums
84
1-Star Albums
Taste Analysis
Genre Preferences
Ratings by genre
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Ratings by country
Rating Style
You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| The United States Of America | 5 | 2.61 | +2.39 |
| Bright Flight | 5 | 2.68 | +2.32 |
| Space Ritual | 5 | 2.68 | +2.32 |
| Dr. Octagonecologyst | 5 | 2.69 | +2.31 |
| Movies | 5 | 2.71 | +2.29 |
| Phaedra | 5 | 2.73 | +2.27 |
| Alien Lanes | 5 | 2.75 | +2.25 |
| Faust IV | 5 | 2.78 | +2.22 |
| Third/Sister Lovers | 5 | 2.79 | +2.21 |
| My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts | 5 | 2.79 | +2.21 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brothers In Arms | 1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
| Hot Fuss | 1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
| Graceland | 1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
| Can't Buy A Thrill | 1 | 3.72 | -2.72 |
| Californication | 1 | 3.7 | -2.7 |
| Hotel California | 1 | 3.6 | -2.6 |
| Black Holes and Revelations | 1 | 3.59 | -2.59 |
| Paul Simon | 1 | 3.51 | -2.51 |
| The Marshall Mathers LP | 1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
| Aja | 1 | 3.46 | -2.46 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Sonic Youth | 5 | 5 |
| Brian Eno | 5 | 5 |
| David Bowie | 9 | 4.56 |
| Neil Young | 4 | 4.75 |
| The Velvet Underground | 3 | 5 |
| Neil Young & Crazy Horse | 3 | 5 |
| Jimi Hendrix | 3 | 5 |
| Black Sabbath | 3 | 5 |
| Kraftwerk | 3 | 5 |
| Bruce Springsteen | 5 | 4.4 |
| The Kinks | 4 | 4.5 |
| Roxy Music | 3 | 4.67 |
| The Stooges | 3 | 4.67 |
| Yes | 3 | 4.67 |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival | 3 | 4.67 |
| Air | 2 | 5 |
| Big Star | 2 | 5 |
| Fela Kuti | 2 | 5 |
| Pavement | 2 | 5 |
| Funkadelic | 2 | 5 |
| Can | 2 | 5 |
| Sly & The Family Stone | 2 | 5 |
| Dinosaur Jr. | 2 | 5 |
| Stevie Wonder | 4 | 4.25 |
| Joni Mitchell | 4 | 4.25 |
| Miles Davis | 4 | 4.25 |
| Nirvana | 3 | 4.33 |
| Public Enemy | 3 | 4.33 |
| Nick Drake | 3 | 4.33 |
| Beastie Boys | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Morrissey | 4 | 1 |
| Steely Dan | 4 | 1.25 |
| Paul Simon | 3 | 1 |
| Kings of Leon | 3 | 1 |
| The Police | 2 | 1 |
| Grateful Dead | 2 | 1 |
| George Michael | 2 | 1 |
| Slipknot | 2 | 1 |
| Eminem | 2 | 1 |
| Kanye West | 3 | 1.67 |
| The Smiths | 3 | 1.67 |
| Madonna | 3 | 1.67 |
| Def Leppard | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Verve | 2 | 1.5 |
| Dire Straits | 2 | 1.5 |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers | 2 | 1.5 |
| Rufus Wainwright | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Beta Band | 2 | 1.5 |
| Eagles | 2 | 1.5 |
| Doves | 2 | 1.5 |
| Everything But The Girl | 2 | 1.5 |
| Leonard Cohen | 5 | 2.2 |
| Blur | 3 | 2 |
| Frank Sinatra | 3 | 2 |
| Dexys Midnight Runners | 3 | 2 |
| Arcade Fire | 3 | 2 |
Controversial Artists
Artists you rate inconsistently
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| The Beach Boys | 5, 4, 2 |
| Metallica | 4, 3, 2, 5 |
5-Star Albums (120)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Common
4/5
I can’t believe the top review for this record (as of Dec 2023) is from someone trying to use their PhD in Mathematics as justification for not liking hip-hop.
Weak.
308 likes
The Zombies
5/5
The Zombies are the subject of one my favorite, most unbelievable rock and roll stories. It goes like this:
The Zombies record and release Odessey and Oracle, a fantastic record, but it flops, so they break up the band. About a year later, 1969, “Time of the Season” becomes a massive hit in the US, thanks to a last ditch effort by their US record label, and there is money to be made on a Zombies tour.
One problem: they’ve been broken up for a year or more and they’re not even aware their song is a hit in the US - this sort of thing was possible back before everyone was connected all the time by the internet.
So what’s an American concert promoter to do?
Well, they did what anyone would do:
They start their own version of the Zombies and send them out to tour the states. No ties to the actual band, no sign off from their management, label or band members. It’s just…”these four random dudes from Texas are The Zombies now.” Never mind that there were 5 people in The Zombies and The Zombies were from England.
Wait…that’s not what you would do? Of course it’s not. That’s bat-shit crazy…you’d get your pants sued off.
Well, guess what?
They thought it was such a good idea that they formed a second fake version of the Zombies that would tour at the same time.
I swear, I am not making this up.
So there were two versions of the Zombies, neither in any way associated with the actual band The Zombies, touring the US concurrently.
What in the actual fuck.
It’s entirely within the realm of possibility that if you lived in Columbus, Ohio in 1969 and you called your cousin in San Antonio one Sunday to tell them you saw the Zombies in concert the night before, your cousin would reply, “No you didn’t, I saw the Zombies last night here in San Antonio…”
You ready for the kicker?
Two of the guys that were in the Texas version of the Zombies?
Frank Beard and Dusty Hill from ZZ Top (using stage names).
The members of the actual Zombies, when they found out, were understandably pissed. This whole thing created so much confusion that record labels were questioning the identities of members of the actual band, unsure who the Zombies actually were…*because there were 3 bands going around claiming to be the Zombies.*
If it was me and I was a part of the legitimate Zombies, I probably would have dedicated my life to ruining the careers of anyone involved with the sham operations, but I can be petty, I guess.
I know this story sounds insane and made up, but I assure you, 100% serious, this actually happened and what I’m telling you here isn’t even all of the craziness of this story. Visit your search engine of choice and do a search for “The Fake Zombies”. There’s a few articles that go in to the lunacy of this, but the Buzzfeed article is probably the most detailed.
91 likes
The Smiths
1/5
You should’ve seen the look on my face when this record got assigned to me this morning.
I was ecstatic.
After only 320 albums, I was about to cross The Smiths off the list. I’ve listened to the other two and this was the last. That meant the next 700 albums I had to listen to would be free from Morrissey’s dreary wrath.
What a great fucking day.
A few minutes later, a realization set in:
“That fuck Morrissey has a solo career, too.”
So I went over to the 1001 Albums Wikipedia page and looked at the “Artists” section. (This a good resource for when you want to feel like shit about how many more Elvis Costello or, in today’s case, Morrissey records you have to endure).
“There can’t be more than one or two of his solo records on the list…not ideal, but it’s manageable,” I thought.
There’s *four*.
And I haven’t listened to a single one of them.
Fuck.
Someone put me out of my misery.
79 likes
David Bowie
5/5
I’ve never been one to feel particularly attached to celebrity, but that day in 2016, waking to the news that David Bowie had died, I was deeply saddened. During my stop for coffee that morning, the look on my face must’ve said it all…the cashier handed me my coffee and said “Today’s kind of a bummer, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…I loved Bowie. It sucks,” was about all I could muster and the clerk nodded in agreement.
In retrospect, it was a nice moment: Being brought together with someone I only had a casual acquaintance with over David Bowie, even if only briefly, was a testament to Bowie’s unique greatness.
I did all the things that day that you were supposed to do: I listened to Bowie on the way to and from work, talked with coworkers about our favorite songs, watched the videos of people gathering all over the world to celebrate his life and posted photos and video of my Bowie vinyl collection to instagram.
The one thing I didn’t do, was listen to Blackstar. It had come out only a day or two earlier and was cast in an entirely new light after the news broke. I just couldn’t do it, I wasn’t ready. I needed to spend more time with my favorites before I could say goodbye. I must have listened to Station to Station, Low, Scary Monsters a dozen times each that week.
Well, weeks turned to months, months to years and here I am, more than 6 years later…really, truly digesting Blackstar for the first time.
That’s not to say I haven’t heard it before. I’ve listened a handful of times in the last few years, but it’s been difficult to want to come back to it, to confront it for what it is:
David Bowie saying farewell.
It’s a difficult record: musically, lyrically and, for me, emotionally. Blackstar is a record that you need to come to terms with. I’m not sure it’s a record I’ll revisit frequently, even after spending the day today replaying it.
Ultimately, it is a rewarding listen, ranking among his best, and I suspect that as sad as I was to say goodbye, the same went for David Bowie.
66 likes
Kanye West
1/5
Editorial note: As I refuse to support Kanye West following his comments praising Hitler and the Nazis, I’ll use this and any future Kanye album recommendations as an opportunity to support and review an album from an artist/band with Jewish heritage that is not included on the 1001 albums list.
Since they have just wrapped up their annual 8–Night run of live shows to celebrate Hanukkah, today I’ll be reviewing an album from Yo La Tengo.
Enjoy…
Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura (1995, Matador records)
1993’s “Painful” was a critical success for Yo La Tengo: a noisy, experimental, yet subdued and dreamlike LP that felt like it could be the American answer to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless.
On 1995’s “Electr-O-Pura”, Yo La Tengo opens things up even further. It’s a sprawling set of songs and while it’s not quite the cohesive record “Painful” is, its patchwork style makes it a more unpredictable and unique listen.
If Yo La Tengo has a signature sound, it’s actually two different sounds. They’re capable of being one of the loudest feedback driven guitar acts on the planet one minute and, the next, one of the most quiet, subdued and beautiful indie rock acts to ever grace a stage. Ask anyone who has seen them live, they move between guitar squall and introspective quietness with an ease that’s comparable to flicking a switch.
Here on “Electr-O-Pura”, they often layer waves of swirling guitar feedback over softly sung, catchy tunes to great effect, like on the opener “Decora” or the indie rock classic “Tom Courtenay”. Other songs, like “The Ballad of Red Buckets”, “Don’t Say A Word” (Hot Chicken #2)and the immaculate “Pablo and Andrea” start from an inverse position: mostly clean sounding, minimal song structures with fuzzy guitar leads acting as a compliment rather than a driving force.
The cornerstone of any Yo La Tengo record is the vocal interplay and harmonies from guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer Georgia Hubley, indie rock’s coolest husband and wife duo. On “Electr-O-Pura” both are in fine form, though that is par for the course throughout their career.
James McNew, the last in a long line of bassists for YLT (he’s been with the band since 1992, but was preceded by several dozen bass players before that), keeps the songs anchored amidst the haze of guitar feedback, ethereal melodies, and is usually in lock step with Hubley’s percussion. When the haze clears momentarily and his fuzzed out bass takes the lead at the end of “Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)”, a feedback and guitar noise laced motorik jam, McNew steals the show, even if only for a few short seconds.
Yo La Tengo close out “Electr-O-Pura” with “Blue Line Swinger” a driving, 9-minute wall of guitar noise and feedback. Georgia’s breathless vocals and pounding drums propel the song. McNew’s bass again provides the anchor and layers upon layers of Kaplan’s guitar lifts the song in to the sonic ether. It’s prime Yo La Tengo, one of their highest highs in a career full of high points.
Electr-O-Pura ranking: 4.5/5
Kanye ranking: 0/5
65 likes
1-Star Albums (84)
All Ratings
Kanye West
3/5
John Lennon
3/5
R.E.M.
4/5
Air
5/5
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
The Roots
4/5
Long time Roots fan, but this was an album I never really revisited frequently. When it was released it was seen as a departure - and rightly so, it is radically different from Thing Fall Apart. Looking back at it now, it’s kind of a blueprint for where the Roots would go in the 21st Century.
Though The Roots hit higher high’s on subsequent records (like Game Theory and Undun), Phrenology gets a lot right. It’s a bit like a classic rock double album gone hip-hop. Stylistically varied, with the first half of the record focusing on more traditional songs/structures and an experimental (yet accessible) second half.
Glad to revisit this one, it’s given me a new appreciation for a record that I overlooked/under-appreciated.
a-ha
1/5
DJ Shadow
5/5
Stone cold classic.
Todd Rundgren
5/5
Was not expecting to rate it this high, but this record is so out of control and unique that I have to give it a 5.
Give it up for Todd Rundgren, because this is a psychedelic masterpiece.
3/5
Cat Stevens
2/5
Led Zeppelin
4/5
1001 Albums To Never Hear Again Before You Die
Chapter 1 - Led Zeppelin IV (Zoso, if you’re nasty)
Dear Reader,
In this first installment, I’ll ask you some baseline questions in order to gauge your eligibility for opting out of this album permanently:
1. Do you often find yourself in relationships (romantic or otherwise) with people you know are no good for you? If you answered no, do you enjoy feeding stray dogs? (Black Dog)
2. Are you partial to American made luxury cars?(Rock and Roll)
3. Do you like songs about hobbits and get amped up by J.R.R Tolkien and/or weed references? (Battle of Evermore, Misty Mountain Hop)
4. Would you like to reminisce about the time you got a chubby while slow dancing with your crush at your 8th grade dinner dance? (Stairway to Heaven)
5. Do you have a predilection for drum circles and a high tolerance for the phrase “oh, baby”? (Four Sticks)
6. Have you ever wondered what a Joni Mitchell song about wanting to sleep with Joni Mitchell would sound like? (Going to California - Give Zep some credit here, they were doing meta in 1971…truly innovative.)
7. Have you ever taken Quaaludes and tried to write a blues song? (When The Levee Breaks)
Now, you’re probably asking yourself “how are these questions going to determine if I never have to listen to Led Zeppelin IV ever again?”
The short answer is…they’re not.
The truth is, you probably don’t ever need to hear this album again. You’ve probably already heard more than half of it on the radio/commercials/films/tv shows, or you’ve heard it in full hanging out at your weed guy’s apartment, or from an older relative who thinks it’s the pinnacle of mankind’s achievements in recorded music.
But, if you find yourself enthralled by the prospect finding out the answers to the questions posed earlier, by all means, revisit this record.
It’s actually pretty good.
Amy Winehouse
2/5
2/5
I know people love it, but 80’s production is insufferable to me. The reverb, drum sounds, the focus on everything sounding clean and pristine. Early digital synthesis feels so cold and lifeless when compared to the analog synthesizers of 70’s.
I can’t help but think of David Brent’s dance for charity in series 2 of The Office as Poison Arrow plays. Scratch that, you could probably sync that scene up with most of the tracks on this record. I have the feeling David Brent would love this record, so take that as an endorsement…maybe?
PJ Harvey
4/5
Aggressive, Fuzzed out alt-rock of the highest order. Dry could be released today and still sound fresh.
Great record.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
2/5
Nirvana
4/5
The Prodigy
3/5
Big Beats are the best. Get high all the time.
The Doors
3/5
The wheels are falling off the Morrison Express and the Doors are trying their damndest to keep it on the tracks - they’re playing tighter than ever before on this record. The result is a dichotomy of a hyper-focused, tight band playing around a guy who is clearly inebriated, incoherent and often shouting.
Shout out to Tom Scharpling (The Best Show) for pointing out how distant Morrison’s vocals sound in Love Her Madly, as though he was feet away from the mic when it was recorded. I will never be able to listen to this song again without the image of Jim Morrison laying down the vocals while on toilet.
We all know the hits, and they’re very good, even if you include Jim Morrison singing Love Her Madly on the toilet - I actually think it’s one of the Door’s best songs. LA Woman and Riders on the Storm are fantastic and deserve their status as classic rock staples.
Unfortunately, a lot of this record just isn’t very memorable. If you enjoy blues/boogie-rock you’ll probably enjoy it, but for me, that gets boring fast. L’America halts any momentum and goodwill the band had from LA Woman. If the intent of that song is to mimic the descent into madness… well, congratulations, it made feel me feel like I was losing my mind. Hyacinth House is middling, but slightly redeems itself with some fan service in the form of a reference to The End. Apparently, this was actually the song with the bathroom recorded vocals - “I see the bathroom is clear”. Forgive my ignorance of Jim Morrison’s toilet singing habits.
Earlier this week, I was given Nirvana’s In Utero to listen to by this fine website and my feelings on that album are similar to this one. If this wasn’t the final release from a beloved musician, would it be remembered as fondly as it is now? My guess in both cases is…probably not. They’re both solid albums, but neither reach the level of “all time greats”.
Love
4/5
Solid late 60’s psych/garage. Definitely of its time. Fans of The Velvet Underground and Can will probably find something to like here, especially of the more garage-y tracks like ‘Seven and Seven Is’ and the side long ‘Revelation’.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Does Elvis Costello get paid by the word? He crams a lot of words into these songs and I’m not sure most of them are needed.
In that spirit, a quick and to-the-point track by track review:
Uncomplicated - No.
I Hope Your Happy Now - Solid power pop, this would’ve made a better opener than Uncomplicated.
Tokyo Storm Warning- Six minutes is way too long for this.
Home is Anywhere You Hang Your Head - That got awfully pretty towards the end.
I Want You - This is basically a Summerteeth-era Wilco track, no? Never really made the connection between Jeff Tweedy/Wilco and Elvis Costello, but holy shit, this had to be an influence on his vocals.
Honey Are You Straight or Are You Blind? - Thank god this was only two minutes. What an obnoxious riff.
Blue Chair - I can not unhear the similarities in the vocal stylings of Costello and Jeff Tweedy now.
Battered Old Bird - “he’s a battered old bird and he’s alivadupalellwerlllll.” This song sucks.
Crimes of Paris - This is what I was expecting from an Elvis Costello record. Relatively straight forward power pop.
Poor Napoleon- “She called you her magic fingers”. This is what happens when you get paid by the word. You come up with terrible metaphors…ones that should still haunt their author 36 years after being forced upon the world.
Next Time Around - another pretty standard power pop number, REM’s “Stand” bears a striking resemblance to the chorus of this song.
Belle & Sebastian
4/5
Belle and Sebastian are a band that, frankly, should’ve graced my eardrums much earlier than 2022. I’m a huge Matador Records fan, and I love a lot of their contemporaries - Yo La Tengo and Stereolab for starters. They were always on my periphery, but I never really took the time to listen. I think I probably fell victim to the stereotype on this one - that they are/were exceedingly twee. Not gonna lie, they kind of are, but Tigermilk is still a fantastic record, especially if you love 60’s psych/pop filtered through the lens of 90’s indie rock.
The production is great, the songs are well crafted and to the point, the instrumentation is varied and impeccably played. This is a really great record and I’m disappointed in myself for not giving Belle and Sebastian a chance before now.
RIYL: Yo La Tengo’s “Fakebook”, Stereolab, The Shin’s “Oh, Inverted World”
Big Star
5/5
Big Star didn’t end. It imploded. Third is its wake.
Roxy Music
4/5
As a Brian Eno fan, I’ve heard and enjoyed the first two Roxy records, but they never really made their way in my rotation, aside from a few songs hear and there. Never really took the time to listen to Roxy Music without Eno until now (except for Avalon, which I do not care for).
Country Life is a solid and enjoyable art-rock record with some fantastic high points. Opener “The Thrill of It All” goes hard out of the gate and feels a bit like a sister song to “Remake/Re-Model” from their debut. If you’ll excuse the comparison, “All I Want is You” has a Bowie-esque swagger that sits comfortably between Bowie’s glam-era and plastic soul-era and probably had some influence. Things get psychedelic and funky on “Out of the Blue”. “Prairie Rose” closes things out in style with slide guitars, funky bass and horns and great double tracked guitar solo courtesy of Phil Manzanera.
The album dips in the middle for me. There are excursions into boogie rock, medieval tinged prog and some shouting in German that don’t really work for me, but the band’s playing and ability still carries the songs well. I don’t consider them bad songs, by any means…just not for me.
This record is a high 3/5 for me, but I’m rounding up today, so let’s call it a 4.
RIYL: Bowie circa Aladdin Sane/Diamond Dogs, Brian Eno’s “Here Come the Warm Jets”.
Butthole Surfers
4/5
Nightmare Fuel.
Recommended for fans of Sonic Youth, Ween’s pre-Chocolate and Cheese albums, LSD
Jethro Tull
2/5
Hobbit Rock made by actual hobbits.
Beatles
3/5
The Isley Brothers
3/5
Things kick off on a high note with “That Lady, Parts 1&2”, a rockin’ slab of funk propelled by a phased out, fuzzy guitar lead. It’s no coincidence this song was chosen as an opener, you can tell it’s a hit from the opening guitar riff. However, immediately after, the album veers into more traditional mid-tempo R&B territory for the next 3 tracks. It’s kind of a jarring change of pace. The songs are not bad, but the difference in energy between That Lady and these tracks is palpable.
The pace picks up again with a funky, clavinet heavy cover of the Doobie Brothers “Listen to the Music”, “What It Comes Down To”, and the dark and funky “Sunshine (Go Away Today)”. A cover of Seals and Croft’s “Summer Breeze” turns up next. Like “That Lady”, it’s noted as “Parts 1&2” which really just means they’re going to stretch out the groove at the end and give us some more of that sweet, sweet fuzz guitar. Unfortunately, that section of the doesn’t last quite long enough and the song begins fading out about a minute before it should’ve. “The Highways of My Life” a laid back, soulful tune ends the record well, but I can’t help feel like this record could’ve been greater. When the band leans into a slightly more aggressive style of play and dips their toes in psychedelia, they’re at their best on 3+3, imo.
Fittingly, a “3” out of 5.
Fats Domino
3/5
The Louvin Brothers
2/5
Marvin Gaye
3/5
Red Snapper
2/5
An editorial note: 32 records into this assignment, and I’ve encountered the first band I have legitimately never heard of. Like…nothing at all. I can’t recall ever: reading a review of this band (and I used to read A LOT of Mojo during the time this record was released) or seeing a poster for one of their records or seeing their name on a festival bill. Before today, I had no idea they existed. For the first time on this journey, I’m a clean slate, tabula rasa, no preconceived notions.
(Drops the virtual needle on “Our Aim is to Satisfy”)
…
(Lifts the virtual needle during the second track)
Ok. There’s something I gotta get off my chest and I’m sure I’m not the first to make this observation: One of the problems with this is list (the original from 2005 in particular) is that the albums that were chosen from the late 90’s/early aughts didn’t have a chance to age before being given the accolade of “record you must hear before you die” the same way older records did. So yeah, 5 years after this was released it might’ve been essential listening. 22 years later? I guess we’ll see.
(Drops the virtual needle again)
…
…
(Removes headphones…record still playing faintly in the background)
I’m on “The Rough and the Quick” now. If you’ve heard this record, you know exactly why i had to take a quick break - I’m laughing hysterically. That was the most unexpected verse I’ve heard in a long time. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the sentiment - Dudes, it’s important to reciprocate and satisfy your partner. I just wasn’t expecting something so explicit and couched in zero metaphor.
Back to the music.
(Puts headphones back on)
….
….
(Record ends)
That wasn’t a bad record. It wasn’t a great record either. It was very of-its-time and didn’t really transcend beyond that. If you’re looking for a record that captures the feel of an era, I think this does that well. But as I said earlier, I think there’s some recency bias going on with a lot of the records from the 2000’s on the original list.
Let me put it this way: Red Snapper put out a good record. However, including “Our Aim is to Satisfy”, while excluding a record like DJ Shadow’s “The Private Press” from 2002, which occupies a similar space, holds up better and is a more rewarding listen doesn’t add up to me.
Violent Femmes
3/5
Solid VU/Modern Lovers-ish alt rock. If you were alive in the 90’s, you’ve heard at least one of these songs before. Would probably make a good summer cookout record with your punk-ish friends.
RIYL: Not cleaning your room, microwaved Taquitos, Mountain Dew.
Adele
3/5
The internet is a blessing and a curse - it allows you to curate the media you consume in such a way that you can almost entirely tune out cultural zeitgeist and get lost in the things you enjoy. You can create a world where popular music doesn’t exist and when you turn on your 21st century equivalent of the “radio” (cellphone/streaming service) you hear your own personalized greatest hits. In many ways, it’s a beautiful thing, to me.
In 2022, I don’t need to go into reasons why it’s a negative to create a internet bubble where you only hear what you want to hear. We know that situation all too well and have to deal with it from politicians, family members, co-workers.
I am guilty of the first: I don’t have any interest in popular music. The vast majority of it has very little value to me, in terms of creativity or longevity. It’s meant to appeal to as many people as possible and be disposable. As such, I’ve managed to live in a music bubble where it’s rare that a popular artist like Adele permeates my auditory sphere.
Don’t get me wrong, I know who Adele is and I’ve heard at least one of her songs in passing or when visiting friends/family or shopping at Target. But I don’t pay attention to it, because, well…I don’t really have any interest it.
Look, I’m laying it all out on the line. This who I am. I’m aware of it, and try as I might, I can’t change that. I am a horrible music snob.
The best I can do is admit when I’m wrong.
Adele’s 21 is a very good record. Her voice is exceptional, the songs are well written and expertly played. It’s soulful, funky and emotionally resonant. I’m not sure you could ask for more from a pop record.
I don’t find it to be an especially challenging or life changing record, but on this Saturday morning in mid-August 2022, it’s a pop record that worked for me, the horrible music snob, and I feel that is worth documenting.
Barry Adamson
2/5
Naming the first track on your record “Set Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis” is a statement. Of what, I’m not entirely sure, but it’s cool that he got Austin Powers to do a guest vocal.
If you like the electronic lounge-pop of bands like Air and Stereolab, but wish they did it with a less deft touch, Oedipus Schmoedipus’ first few tracks might be for you.
Perhaps you prefer Lynchian horror soundscapes, might I direct you to “It’s Business as Usual” or “Dirty Barry”? Coincidentally, “Something Wicked This Way Comes” appears in “Lost Highway” - it took me a minute to figure where I had heard it before.
Speaking of David Lynch, the overtly digital jazz on “Miles” could’ve earned a spot in Mulholland Drive, perhaps as the soundtrack for the dance sequence on the soundstage of “The Sylvia North Story”.
I’m doing my best with this one, but fuck me, it’s taxing. I mean, I could talk about David Lynch all day, but he’s not the focus here.
A few days ago, in a review of Red Snapper’s “Our Aim is to Satisfy”, I bemoaned the list maker’s inclusion of albums from the late 90’s and early aughts that haven’t aged particularly well. Add this record to that pile.
Not that this record doesn’t have its moments, but I suspect having a high tolerance for film noir-cheese is a requirement for full enjoyment. If you spend your evenings skulking around dimly lit alleys in a trench coat…boy, have I got an album for you.
If you’re still reading this after all my shit-talk, let me recommend 3 records that occupy a similar musical space to Oedipus Schmoedipus, that have held up well and are actually worth hearing before you die. Two of the three, shockingly, are not included on the 1001 albums list:
Air - The Virgin Suicides
Stereolab - Dots & Loops (possibly the most egregious exclusion from the list)
Tortoise - TNT (another glaring omission, imo)
Or, you could just watch a David Lynch film or two.
Wilco
3/5
It may be an unpopular opinion among Wilco fans, but it’s a hill I’m willing to die on: Wilco was at its best and most interesting when Jay Bennett was in the band. No disrespect to Jeff Tweedy intended, I don’t mean to imply that Jay was the mastermind of the band, not at all. Just that his playing on albums like Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot complimented the songs extremely well. To me, his ability to create an atmosphere with his playing was an important part in the greatness of those records. For me, the post-YHF records don’t have that same sort of cohesion, at least not as much as the records with Jay did - even if the band was reaching a boiling point while he was a member.
So yeah, I like Being There. I have a hard time with double albums: I find they’re often too bulky to keep my attention, and Being There isn’t an exception, but taken in chunks, it’s enjoyable. As a whole, Being There doesn’t quite match the heights of Summerteeth (please tell me that record made the list) or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but it’s a bit of a blueprint for those two records: experimental and stylistically varied, with the right mix of upbeat songs and melancholia to keep it from feeling too same-y.
The Black Keys
4/5
2/5
Trying to go in with an open mind, here. I was an American teenager when Oasis-mania originally hit in the 90’s - all about that grunge. Didn’t care for Oasis much at the time, they always struck me as nothing more than the sum of their influences, but I only knew the singles. We’ll see how accurate that take is.
“Hello” opens things up nicely and has some restrained guitar noise at the end. Good opener.
“Roll with it” - Ah, there’s the Beatles aping I was expecting. Pleasant enough, but if I want I Beatles fix, I’ll just listen to the Beatles. Know what I mean? I guess that was always my problem with Oasis. They were a little too on the nose with their Beatles worship - almost gets to the point of parody, in its own way.
Anyway, here’s “Wonderwall”.
“Don’t Look Back in Anger” - Speaking of on the nose…“I’m gonna start a revolution from my bed” is apparently lifted from cassette recordings of John Lennon taken at the Dakota Hotel. That’s kind of cool, I guess…but after this, I’m going to “Look Back in Anger” and throw on Bowie’s Lodger.
“Hey Now!” - a real missed-opportunity not getting Hank Kingsley to guest on this track. So far the tracks on this record, while not necessarily my cup, have been strong. This is the first one that doesn’t do much for me. Nearly 6 minutes is too long for this.
“Untitled (1)” - 44 seconds of space-y blues rock. Unnecessary.
“Some Might Say” - wherein Oasis tries to give Teenage Fanclub a run for their money. You know what some might say? “This one goes on too long, bruh.”
“Cast No Shadow” - yeah, I figured out what it is about this band that doesn’t sit well with me. It’s Liam Gallagher’s vocals: his delivery, moreso than his actual voice. He does this thing a lot (which you can hear at the start of the track). Where the emphasis on words is weird “ HERE’S a THOUGHT for EVERY man WHO….”. It grates, after a while. This song also goes too long. I swear, I like long songs, but so far the long songs on this record aren’t justifying their 5+ minute lengths they just kind of repeat the same thing over and over.
“She’s Electric” - this chorus sounds exactly like a Beatles song, but I can’t put my finger on which one.
“Morning Glory” - A bit of a Ride vibe on this one with the swirling guitar noise and propulsive beat. My favorite so far, even if the guitar line reminds me of REM’s “The One I Love”.
Untitled (2) kind of a rehash of the the first Untitled, but with a more experimental tilt, waves crash into…
“Champaign Supernova”, which is a fine track. I like these songs better when the band is going off. As said earlier, they kind of have a Ride-ish shoegaze vibe when the guitars get going and they lock into a groove, but by the end of this record, I’m finding Liam Gallagher to be very off-putting as a singer.
I think what made Oasis successful is that they managed to take a lot of pieces from what was going on concurrently in UK music and kind of make into their own with a big nod to the Beatles. I get why they were popular, but they’re a group that I find difficult to separate the band from their influences.
John Coltrane
5/5
Elliott Smith
3/5
The author of this list seems to have a real soft spot for records that ended up being an artist’s final record before their tragic death. 40 records in to this exercise and I’ve been given a few already. While often an important document of the waning days of an artist, albums like this are not always the best representation of the artist’s output and often gain mythological status solely for being the last thing they put out before they died.
Figure 8 feels like it was included because it was Elliot Smith’s final record before taking his own life and not necessarily because it’s one of the Elliot Smith records you should hear before you die. I think ”XO” from 1998 would be a better inclusion, in that case.
Don’t get me wrong, Figure 8 is a good record. The songs are all well crafted, with expansive instrumentation and nicely layered vocal harmonies. Compared to XO, Figure 8 has a bit more of edge compared to its predecessor with more distorted guitar, and a darker, more blunt lyrical theme.
XO, ultimately, is a more enjoyable record. Its songwriting is more concise and memorable. Figure 8 kind has a sprawling feel - a lot of ground travelled, but you still end up in the same place: unknown, yet entirely familiar. Fittingly, it reminds me of traveling in the city it was recorded, Los Angeles: There dozens of neighborhoods that make up Los Angeles, all with their own traits, yet very much the same. Figure 8 takes its time in navigating its sprawl, in the same way that traveling Los Angeles by car can be so time consuming.
I’m not sure I landed that analogy properly.
Going back to my original point, this isn’t the Elliot Smith record I’d recommend to a newcomer, Either/Or and XO make better starting points. I would save Figure 8 for last. Sometimes the last record an artist put out is the last one you should hear.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
In 1997, my mom took my brother and I to see The Rolling Stones on the Bridges to Babylon tour at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. At 16, I had only been to a few concerts prior to this and, if only because of the sheer number of inebriated middle aged people I was witness to, this concert left an indelible mark on me.
I don’t know if you ever been in a place with 70,000 drunken 50 year olds at 16, but it’s an experience. No exaggeration…because I wasn’t old enough to drink, I immediately became one of the most responsible people in attendance.
For further context, I had been to separate concerts by Metallica and Pantera within a year of this Stones concert and for the first time, I was legitimately concerned about something seriously bad happening at a concert. These Stones fans were out of control.
Here’s two examples:
Giants stadium, like every other football stadium on earth, is essentially a bowl. Our seats were in the nosebleeds: on the third level and about 1/4 of the way up. Let’s say row 8 of 32. Not great seats, but also not the worst.
A few minutes prior to the Stones’ set, and shortly after the Foo Fighters had finished, a man began making his way back to his seats (two rows in front of mine) after returning from the concession stand. He was drunkenly balancing a cardboard drink tray with 4 very large plastic glasses of beer in it and not doing it very well. His seats were in the middle of the row, so he had to navigate around about a dozen concertgoers, in the cramped walkway, to reach his destination. About four people in to his row, he lost his balance and fell, sliding downward over three rows of seated people, which sent his four beers flying into the air, drenching probably a dozen people in Bud Light.
Luckily, the drunk and the half dozen people he fell on/over all ended up being ok.
That was death-defying act number one. Number two occurred shortly before the end of the concert:
If you’ve been to a stadium concert, you know they usually don’t sell seats behind the stage, because, well…no one wants to pay to watch the back of the band. Turns out there’s another good reason for that, as well….
As the band was nearing the end of their set, my mother pointed to the area behind the stage, in the upper bowl of the stadium, and said “Look, there’s somebody up there behind the stage. What’s he doing up there?” I watched the guy intently, thinking maybe he was a stage hand or maybe he was also so drunk that he would fall down the upper level of the stadium as well, but this time there would be no other concertgoers around to slow his descent.
About a minute in, I see a few security guards quickly approach the man, and what looked like an argument ensued. The man didn’t seem to care about the security guards directives, but eventually, they grabbed him and removed him from the area. As they were escorting him down the stairs of the upper level, Mick says “this is our last song”, the band kicked off “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and a massive barrage of fireworks launched from behind the stage, from almost exactly where the drunk was hanging out a minute earlier. Those security guards likely saved this guy from a pretty serious trip to the hospital and did so right in the nick of time.
“So what does this have to do with Beggars Banquet?”, you’re probably thinking. Honestly, not much…It’s just a Rolling Stones anecdote I needed put out into the world, but I’ll tie it together any way:
Beggars Banquet is arguably the first record where the Stones became the band that everyone knows today: they found their blues, country and honky tonk swagger, solidifying their status as a band that’s synonymous with the hard-partying rock and roll lifestyle. So, without a record like Beggar’s Banquet, I may not have ever experienced the accidental near-deaths of two 50 year old drunks in 1997, and in turn, you wouldn’t be here reading about it.
It’s truly a rock and roll version of the butterfly effect.
Ice Cube
3/5
John Prine
4/5
This is the dichotomy of my life: I’m a sucker for the pedal steel, but I have a strong dislike for most country music. It’s a genre I can’t relate to much - I didn’t grow up with it and it can be very monolithic and same-y. Obviously not all country music sounds the same, but let’s be real, the joke about all country songs being about a) your wife leaving you, b) your truck breaking down or c) your dog dying, is funny because it’s true. As a matter of fact, the first song that auto-played after this record ended (She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere by Guy Clark) was about a guy whose wife left him. Checkmate.
But the pedal steel, sweet Jesus on a skateboard, what an absolutely beautiful sounding instrument. It can be sad sounding, but also uplifting and understatedly psychedelic. For lack of a better phrase, it “sings” in a way that few other instruments can. It tickles my brain in the best possible way.
The pedal steel on this record, played by Leo LeBlanc, is wonderful and perfectly compliments every one of the songs where it appears on this record.
Don’t let my unabashed love of the pedal steel overshadow the great collection of songs John Prine wrote here. They’re often humorous, but also poignant and touching. It’s no surprise that Kurt Vile is such a fan of Prine; Prine’s sense of humor and skill with lyrical turns of phrase is clearly an influence.
John Prine’s self-titled is a rarity for me: a country record that I was fully engaged with. When it was over, I had to listen again.
Taylor Swift
2/5
There’s no such thing as “indie” music anymore, at least in the descriptive sense of the word. “Indie” used to mean music that came from independent record labels - and that covered a wide swath and many styles of music. Music from people that didn’t want to answer to anyone (especially a giant corporation), music that had something different to say, music that took chances.
Now, “indie” just describes the kind of plucky, lifeless, navel gazing, easy listening quirk-pop that you hear on this record. “Indie” is the new elevator music. I’m serious about this…to use the parlance of our times: “don’t @ me”.
That The National and Bon Iver, two of indie rock’s foremost purveyors of bland navel gazing, were involved in this record comes as no surprise to me. “evermore” is basically a Bon Iver record, with Taylor Swift’s vocals (which are, admittedly, very good) instead of Justin “T-Pain for people who buy artisan maple syrup” Vernon’s auto-tuned vocal stylings (though he does dust off that chestnut on the closing track).
Maybe I’m just an out of touch old man yelling at a cloud, but a lot of this record is the kind of stuff you’d hear on Lite FM when I was growing up in the early 90’s.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
4/5
I got this record at a yard sale 20 years ago along with about 20 other 70’s LP’s, and honestly don’t think I’ve ever listened to it before today. ELP never did it for me they way that Yes’ classic records and King Crimson’s 73-75 period does. Those bands tended merge classical and rock more interestingly to me, where ELP tilts toward classical much more.
This album is no exception: a live, rock interpretation of Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibiton. Having no familiarity with the original piece or extensive knowledge of classical music, this review isn’t going to be the most balanced.
As an experimental rock record, it’s mostly enjoyable, with all three members of ELP playing extremely well. Emerson is clearly the main attraction of the band: a veritable keyboard wizard, even if he didn’t wear a cape, like his contemporary in Yes, Rick Wakeman. As such, his moog synthesizer is often loudest in the mix, sometimes overpowering the rest of the band and occasionally sounding as if parts had been overdubbed after the fact, in an effort to bridge the movements. Lake and Palmer provide a solid foundation for his soloing, even when they are also going off on their own solos. ELP, say what you will about them, were an extremely tight band on this record.
Of the other ELP records I’ve listened to (Tarkus and Trilogy) Pictures at an Exhibition was the most enjoyable. Maybe it’s because it was a live record that captured the band’s energy better than their studio work or maybe because Pictures leans into ELP’s classical side rather than rock.
Sonic Youth
5/5
46 days in and I’m beginning to think the 1001 Album Generator is tracking my internet history.
Less than 12 hours before this album was “randomly generated” for me, I was watching a 1996 Sonic Youth live performance from Germany on YouTube.
This suggests two grim possibilities:
Either the developers of this website have entered into a nefarious pact with Google and are tracking my browsing history (god help them if they are) and then recommending albums…
OR
…I am becoming one with the Generator: its decisions influence my choices and my choices influence its decisions; a bio-mechanical cerebral cortex, decaying in a feedback loop.
If Sonic Youth are, in fact, a conduit for The Singularity, would anyone be surprised? Their guitar squall and reckless abandon would make a fitting soundtrack to the technological apocalypse.
Rating:
SEVEN! out of 5
PJ Harvey
4/5
Like The Kinks “Arthur”, “Let England Shake” is an artist’s exploration of their relationship with England, their country of birth, and the battles it has fought. “Let England Shake” is a decidedly darker affair, aiming some of its focus on Gallipoli, where 30,000 English soldiers died in a brutal battle during World War I.
Harvey’s songs here are often ghostly and strikingly minimalist in their instrumentation. The record’s stark black and white cover compliments its sound perfectly.
Let England Shake is an ambitious concept record, one that I suspect will take me a few more listens to fully digest.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
2/5
Pentangle
4/5
Basket of Light is a swirling, psychedelic mixture of folk, jazz, blues, sitar and traditional music that may be one of the most surprisingly great records I’ve ever heard. Surprising in that, typically, folk and medieval sounding music are not very enjoyable to me.
Pentangle’s intricate guitar arrangements and interplay were the highlight of this record to me, but each member, whether on guitars, bass, drums or vocals all execute at a virtuosic level. Most importantly, Pentangle doesn’t let their ability outshine the song: They aren’t playing only to showcase their talents, but to serve the song. Each part of every song sounds considered and well written, transitioning smoothly from one to the next; playing with an edge that I would consider to be uncommon in most folk music.
A truly enjoyable album experience.
Massive Attack
2/5
Waylon Jennings
2/5
Ghostface Killah
4/5
Fuck Yes.
Amazing production (Pete Rock, Dilla and DOOM? Come on, you can’t go wrong), amazing flow, great guest spots, high energy.
Like it’s namesake, Fishscale hits hard.
Hanoi Rocks
2/5
The Mystery: What would it sound like if Poison made a Replacements album?
The Answer: This record.
Green Day
4/5
1994, the halcyon days of my youth…
I’m reminded of summer nights playing “Manhunt” in my suburban neighborhood. Manhunt was basically a teen version of hide and seek, spread out across a wide swath of residential housing on half-acre lots.
In actuality, it was just an excuse for us teenagers in the neighborhood to get together for the night and see what kind of mischief we could get into.
It usually went something like this:
We’d meet up a predetermined time and place, usually between 730 and 8pm. Discussions would ensue about what sort of teenage contraband had been acquired during the day: “I stole a half-pack of cigarettes from my dad”, ”I stashed 3 wine coolers behind my fence, we’ll go and grab them once it gets dark”, “I’ve got some firecrackers”…that sort of thing.
Once we were all assembled and dusk drew near, Manhunt captains were chosen and we’d break up into two teams. Ideally, you wanted to end up on the same team as the person you had a crush on: Manhunt was the perfect opportunity for the two of you to find someplace secluded to make out. The people chosen as captains could make or break your night.
We’d play Manhunt for about 30 minutes to keep up the facade that we were just innocent kids having fun. At that point, it would be dark enough that anyone paying attention couldn’t really keep tabs on what was going on.
It was then, thoroughly bored with the facade, that we’d turn to the streets: a pack of chain-smoking, wine cooler aficionados roaming the backroads and backyards of suburban America looking for fun.
It never amounted to much: the occasional stolen street sign or fireworks set off in sewer grates. One time, we figured out that if you shook the soda machine at the baseball field hard enough, it would dispense free sodas, usually ginger ale. It was petty mischief; the kind you get into when you’re 14 and miles away from anything interesting. As long as we were home by 11 and didn’t arrive by police car, our parents didn’t care…
Welcome to Paradise.
Charles Mingus
4/5
Paul Weller
1/5
Two songs in, I had to pause and listen to a few tracks from The Jam. They’re a blind spot in my musical knowledge-base and I was thinking some context might be needed for this record. I always, somewhat incorrectly, assumed they were a punk band in the same vein as the Pistols or the Damned or Buzzcocks, so when I heard the first two tracks off of Wild Wood, and they sounded like Traffic, I was confused. Turns out my assumptions weren’t entirely correct, and I’ve made an ass out of me.
With my new found knowledge of what The Jam actually sounded like, I returned to Wild Wood.
I’ll give Paul Weller this: the production on this record is very intricate with great attention to detail. Keyboards kind pop up and percolate on the periphery of the stereo field…It’s nice to listen to.
The MOR rock stylings of the songs, however, are not as nice to listen to. I’m not sure that was what people were craving in the early 90’s. Maybe things were different in Britain.
It’s bad that I’m enjoying this album when Paul Weller isn’t singing. The instrumental sections of a lot of these songs get psychedelic, lock into a groove and they’re really finely crafted. Seriously, the best parts of this record happen when Paul Weller isn’t crooning like an off-brand Tom Jones.
Oh, cool…Now it sounds like Cat Stevens. I kind of hate this record.
…and we’re back into Traffic territory. What is it with the English and their obsession with making the most god awful blues rock?
I’m out.
RIYL: Traffic, but don’t feel like putting on a Traffic record; Bloody Mary’s and Brunch at the country club.
Supertramp
2/5
Prog for people who think Billy Joel “rocks”.
Dirty Projectors
3/5
Don’t tell the indie kids, but I think David Longstreth is a massive Steve Howe (Yes) fan. He laces Howe-isms in his guitar playing through out the record. If you don’t believe me, listen to the title track or “Temecula Sunrise”, if you’ve heard a few Steve Howe solos or enjoy Yes, it’ll hit you hard. Honestly, it’s pretty amazing, like if you dropped Steve Howe into Stereolab and it somehow worked.
Ok, enough trying manipulate the generator into giving me a Yes record to review. (Serious about the Steve Howe thing, though).
Bitte Orca separates itself from a lot of 2000/10’s indie rock with its complex, layered arrangements. It’s a daunting listen at first, but when it clicks, it’ll likely leave you wanting more.
RIYL: “Point” by Cornelius, Steve Howe’s work in Yes.
Leftfield
3/5
Probably revolutionary at its time; an enjoyable, but somewhat pedestrian sounding electronic record today.
The Stooges
4/5
The Smiths
2/5
I’m no monarchist, but The Queen is Dead has me reconsidering that stance.
Surely, a benevolent dictator, unfettered by democracy, wouldn’t allow an enterprise as soul-draining and limp as The Smiths to run amok in their kingdom, would they?
Johnny Marr’s guitar is The Smiths’ only saving grace in my book and it’s great here. The rhythm section is ok and the production is a typical 80’s mix. Everything about Morrissey sucks. Hard. He easily ranks amongst the 10 most insufferable people on the planet, and that was before revealing himself to be a Grade A bigot.
If you like songs about how it would be great to be run over by a bus and killed, this is the album for you.
Usually after I finish one of these records, I either listen to it again or listen to something similar in my collection for the sake of comparison. Today, I took off my headphones, unable and unwilling to do either. This record has (at least temporarily) made me hate music.
Donald Fagen
1/5
Occasionally, I am reminded of how much a product of my environment I am; that teenage years really are more formative than you realize. You can try to distance yourself from them, but that seed is always there, lying dormant and ready for the right glimpse of sunlight in order to bloom again.
I was a teenager in the early 90’s. Alternative rock was at peak popularity. Our guitars were fuzzy, aggressive and screaming out the arrival of a new way forward. There was a new world order and what had been the status quo a few years earlier had become painfully uncool.
High atop the Mountain of Uncool was soft rock, the kind of stuff you’d hear at JC Penny while shopping with your mom. Intolerable blandness, so inoffensive that you could play it almost anywhere, with the exception of maybe a convent, and not get the side-eye from anyone.
As kids, we used to laugh at the Time-Life infomercials schilling 2 and 3 CD collections of “Soft Rock Super Hits of the 70’s”: These collections typically featured bands like Air Supply, The Doobie Brothers, Bread, Steely Dan…and many more! All yours for the low price of $19.99!
I always thought Steely Dan was lame. 30 years on, that hasn’t changed. They’ve never been for me and god help me if they ever are.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried: I know plenty of people who love them, I’ve got younger friends and co-workers who extol their virtues. My own brother is a fan. But the second a Steely Dan track comes on, I’m transported back to 1993 and the aforementioned seed begins to sprout: this is everything that was wrong with music; perfection for the sake of perfection, emotionless music masquerading as having soul.
Even though the Alternative-era of the early 90’s soon gave way to a similar by-the-numbers alt-rock soullessness and awful nu-metal, there were at least a few years where the sky was the limit. The formula had been broken and it didn’t matter how weird you were, you could get radio play and/or a major label deal: bands like sonic youth, pavement, the butthole surfers and ween had radio and MTV playing their songs. These bands would be less likely to find “mainstream” success today, but for a brief window of time, the rules no longer applied.
Maybe I’ve been looking at the music of Steely Dan (and their ilk) from the wrong perspective this whole time. If wasn’t for their rigid, schlocky compositions, there wouldn’t have been a backlash towards authenticity and uniqueness that lead me to the music that I love…
Newton’s third law and all that.
Sugar
4/5
Röyksopp
4/5
Sister Sledge
2/5
Afrika Bambaataa
4/5
Pantera
3/5
I was a teenage dirtbag. Not in the parlance of our current time, where a celebrity like Reese Witherspoon will post awkward photos from her teenage years where she had braces, then type “cringe” as a caption and #teenagedirtbag.
I was a teenage dirtbag in the traditional sense: a weird, cigarette smoking metal head; a total societal misfit.
To prove my dirtbag credentials: The first concert I went to of my own accord was a split bill of White Zombie and Pantera in 1996 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in NJ.
(Now I’m not saying metal heads are dirtbags, but at that time, if you were 15 and listening to Pantera, chances are you weren’t one of “the cool kids”. )
A little known (at the time) band called Deftones opened the show. Being the hipster that I am, I had already known about them and owned Adrenaline. I must’ve been one of maybe 100 people in the arena who were excited to see them.
It was rough going for them.
Pantera fans were not interested in buying what the Deftones had to sell and made their disapproval known throughout the set. Still, Chino and company managed to coax a few mosh pits out of the crowd and it was going about as successfully as it could, given their mostly unknown status…
Until Chino decided to go crowd surfing. Towards the end of their set, he jumped from the stage and into the crowd. He finished out the song, getting tossed around atop the crowd, occasionally screaming his lyrics into the mic. The song ended and he returned to stage, missing a shoe.
“Who stole my fucking shoe?” He says. “Bunch of thieves in here tonight.” He argued with the crowd a little bit, gave them the finger and moved on to the next song. A minute or so later, about 50 feet from the stage, dead center, a sneaker flies through the air, hurtling towards Chino and hits him right upside the head, mid-song.
The NY Giants or Jets should have drafted whoever threw that shoe to be their quarterback in ‘96. My man dropped a dime right on Chino’s head in a dark arena. It was an amazing toss and you could hear laughter and cheering throughout the crowd.
Deftones finished up and White Zombie took the stage shortly after. Their show was a psychedelic horror trip with crazy video, pyrotechnics and lights. Highly entertaining. The crowd was weirdly subdued, but I guess tormenting the Deftones for 40 minutes drained them a little.
Now, for the “relevant” part of this story: Pantera.
I was never a huge Pantera fan. I liked Vulgar Display of Power back then, but that was about it: Cowboys from Hell was always cheesy to me and Far Beyond Driven had a few decent tracks, but was grating on the ears after a while. My friend who got the tickets was a fan, though, and at 15 you’re going to go to whatever concerts you can. They were touring “The Great Southern Trendkill” that year, which was a concept record about…the South rising again to kill all false metal (?). I’m projecting a little, but Pantera always kind of had a Lynyrd Skynyrd gone metal vibe to me. However, as we all know, that title actually belongs to Jackyl.
A few weeks prior to this show, Phil Anselmo nearly died from a heroin overdose. Technically, he was dead for a few minutes, but was resuscitated. I know this because he made a point of telling the audience about it in between songs and then announced his invincibility, saying “Nothing can kill me!”
That was the lesson he took away. Not “maybe I should stop doing heroin” or “man, I’m lucky to be alive”. Nope…”I’m invincible”.
That left a bad taste in my mouth. Pantera fans loved it that night, though, and maybe it was all for show…faux bravado for a rabid fanbase. Whatever it was, I felt dumber just having been in the room.
I know I took the scenic route to get here and this might be my longest “review” to date, so I’ll touch on Vulgar Display of Power quickly then see myself out. It’s one of the most aptly named albums ever. It’s heavy, aggressive, blunt and lacking sophistication.
Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. Pantera isn’t for me at age 40. Phil Anselmo certainly isn’t, either - his antics have only gotten worse over the years. Dimebag was an amazing player and his death was beyond tragic, but that’s where my appreciation of this band starts and ends. This is probably the best Pantera album and it is genre defining, so I think its inclusion here is warranted, but it’s hard for me to reconcile the music with Phil Anselmo’s persona.
After all, he’s the one that’s screaming at you for 40 minutes.
The Band
4/5
Sisters Of Mercy
1/5
New Wave Dracula doesn’t suck blood, he just sucks.
Hole
2/5
Beavis: Check it out, Butt-Head…our 69th album just got generated.
Butt-Head: uh-huh-huh, you said “69”.
Beavis: oh, yeah, I guess did….heh-heh…
Butt-Head: so, uh…what is it?
Beavis: Uhh…69 is the sex number, Butt-Head…Jeez
Butt-Head: I know what 69 is, dill-weed. What record are we, like, supposed to listen to?
Beavis: oh…yeah, cool…I knew that…uh, it says we’re supposed to listen to Celebrity Skin by Hole.
Butt-Head: uh-huh-huh…Hole.
Beavis: yeah! and it’s, like, our 69th record, Butt-Head…Heh-heh…69…heh-heh-heh…Hole…Get it?
Butt-Head: Whoa…that’s cool. This generator must know we’re, like, super cool badasses who like to score.
Beavis: uhh…Butt-Head? We, like, don’t score very much at all.
Butt-Head: Uh…speak for yourself, butt-munch. Ladies love the Butt-Head…Now go put on that Hole record, you wuss.
Beavis: oh, yeah…sure thing, Butt-Head.
[they listen to the record]
Beavis: Hey, Butt-Head?
Butt-Head: Uhh….yeah, Beavis?
Beavis: Is it just me or does this record kind of suck?
Butt-Head: yeah, Beavis…it sucks. She’s, like, singing about seeing God and stuff.
Beavis: Yeah…singing about God sucks. This is lame.
Butt-Head: We should, like, leave a bad review and demand the Generator give us a new album that’s, like, cool to listen to for number 69.
Beavis: Yeah! This sucks! I want a refund or I’m gonna find the Generator and, like, smash it with a baseball bat…and then, I’m going to take all the pieces, gather them up and set them on fire! Yeah, fire! FIRE! Heh-heh…that’ll teach them to make us listen to things that suck.
Butt-Head: uh-huh-huh…Breaking things is cool.
Beavis: It sure is, Butt-Head…It sure is.
The War On Drugs
4/5
The Beau Brummels
2/5
Billy Bragg
3/5
The Avalanches
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need To Hear Before You Die
Chapter 1: The Avalanches - Since I Left You
I’ve always thought the term “plunderphonics” was a poor descriptor for The Avalanches’ music. It’s reductive and undermines the skill required to craft an album as captivating, detailed and unique as Since I Left You.
Plundering implies recklessness and a disregard for history; something done with a lack of grace.
Since I Left You is none of those things. It is a meticulously crafted record that, through sampling, nods to the past, while carving out a new way forward.
Comprised of thousands of samples (the band has estimated anywhere from 900 to 3000 over the years), Since I Left You is a veritable encyclopedia of modern recorded music and sound: disassembled, then reconfigured to create something new and beautiful out of the already known.
I first heard Since I Left You in the summer of 2002, stricken with mononucleosis. Tired of laying around at home, I went to Borders Books and Music to pick up the new Flaming Lips record “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” and see what other new albums had come in. I was familiar with Since I Left You, having read a review in Mojo Magazine a few months earlier. Their review, I believe, compared it to Paul’s Boutique, which I was a fan of, so it was a no-brainer when I saw it on the shelf that day.
While the Paul’s Boutique comparison was apt, it didn’t prepare me for Since I Left You. If you could cram Paul’s Boutique inside of a kaleidoscope and spend a summer afternoon staring through it…that’s Since I Left You.
Even though “Yoshimi” would end up getting more play on my stereo at the time, Since I Left You left an impression that continued to grow with each listen. Even now, some 20 years and countless listens later, I am in awe of it and find new details to appreciate. It is, in my opinion, one of the most important records of the 21st century, unrivaled in its creativity.
Since I Left You is truly a masterpiece.
The Stone Roses
4/5
I’ve been aware of, but never actually heard, The Stone Roses for some time. They sound almost exactly as I expected them to: swirling psychedelic, guitar rock. It’s an awfully pretty record that alternates between jangly Byrds-esque guitars, huge guitar hooks, fuzzed out 60’s psych, and experimental dance music.
Great record.
Peter Frampton
3/5
Despite living in the suburbs, I was never issued a copy of Frampton Comes Alive. That’s not to say I’m unfamiliar with it, though. Even if you’ve never heard the record, the chances you haven’t heard “Show Me the Way” or “Baby, I Love Your Way” are slimmer than Peter Frampton’s Bell bottoms.
You know who probably did get a copy of this record in the mail back in 1976? Trey and the boys from Phish. A lot of this record has a kind of proto-Phish jammy-ness to it, except not as weird and played competently.
(Look, I’ve got a thousand and one records to listen to, it was inevitable that I’d eventually talk a little smack on Phish)
About a decade ago, while in Colorado for business, I took an afternoon and visited Red Rocks Amphitheatre. I had only intended on touring the venue, just to see in person how awesome it is. Even if you’re not going there for a concert, it is worth visiting. Absolutely beautiful.
What I didn’t know when I arrived, was that Peter Frampton was playing that night and I would be walking around the venue while he and the band sound checked. I’m not a Peter Frampton fan by any stretch, but hearing his talk box reverberate off the giant slabs of prehistoric rock is one of the coolest “concert” experiences I’ve ever had. It sounded amazing.
…and for that, Peter Frampton is cool with me.
The Police
1/5
One minute in and I can tell I’m not going to make it through this record due to my dislike of Sting, so I’m just going to roast it:
They should have just called this record “Cultural Appropriation: The Album”
“Hey Mr. Dinosaur, you really couldn’t ask for more”. A grown-ass, 32-year old man wrote those lyrics.
Hey everybody! it’s Saturday night…what do you say we get tepidly funky with The Police?
“Andy, this is your mother calling…I know you’re busy making misogynistic snake charmer music with your friend Sting, the “tantric sex practitioner”, but it would be nice if you answered the phone every once in a while. Your father’s gout is acting up again and he’s in hospital. Ok? Call me back, please”
Ohhhh, Ohhhh, Ohhhh…why won’t Synchronicity II stop?!?
If the Police had any sense of humor, the video for “Every Breath You Take” would have been Sting sitting in a tree with binoculars staring into an unsuspecting woman’s bedroom while singing the song. The Peeping Tom national anthem.
At least Sting is self aware enough to call himself the King of Pain. The suffering he’s unleashed upon the earth with his music is immeasurable.
What kind of Tea we talking about having in the Sahara?…Hemlock?….Sure, sign me up.
What’s the statute of limitation on crimes in the UK? I’d like to report a homicide. I just witnessed The Police murdering Jazz.
BOOM.
ROASTED.
Deep Purple
4/5
Queen Latifah
3/5
Lightning Bolt
4/5
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Lightning Bolt live.
You think this record is noisy, chaotic and heavier than Brendan Fraser in The Whale?
This is a mere appetizer for the insanity of a Lightning Bolt show.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
Ah, Elvis Costello, my old nemesis. After Blood and Chocolate, I had hoped we’d never meet again.
I see that this record finds you more tolerable and a bit more concise.
Still, I find you off putting and I’m not quite sure why.
Sigur Rós
3/5
The Velvet Underground
5/5
The Velvet Underground albums with black covers are better than the Velvet Underground records with white covers.
…and this is the best one.
Paul McCartney and Wings
2/5
I grew up with the Beatles, listening to their albums on mom’s Sony discman in 1986 and dancing around living room.
Nearly 40 years later, enough’s enough. Sure, the hits are great, but they’re also responsible for some of the most annoying songs ever committed to tape. It’s ok to like The Beatles (and the member’s solo output) and also think that a lot of what they did kind of sucks.
Case in point: Band on the Run
The songs you know from Classic Rock radio (Band on The Run, Jet, Let Me Roll It) are all great. But there’s a reason those are the only three songs you know from this record. The rest of the album alternates between songs that: would’ve been cut from latter-day Beatles records (Bluebird, No Words), are flat-out annoying (Mrs. Vandebilt, Mamunia) or uninspired (Picasso’s Last Word).
On Picasso’s Last Word, McCartney pulls an old trick out from his bag: borrowing from Beach Boys. After all, it worked so well on Sgt. Pepper, why not give it another shot? This time, he lifts a tactic from “At My Window” from The Beach Boys 1970 record Sunflower, in the form of layering a French spoken word passage over a jaunty tune, but instead of using vocal harmonies as a bed to lay the passage on, McCartney chooses ragtime clarinet. From there, he begins to rehash the catchier vocal refrains from the album (“Jet!” and Mrs. Vandebilt’s “Hey! Ho!”) in to the song before petering out after nearly 6 minutes. It’s arguably one of the dumbest songs put out by any member of the Beatles, and that’s in world where Ringo Starr’s catalog exists.
Closer “Ninteen-Hundred and Eighty-Five” is an excercise in proto-disco and Beach Boys harmonies which then fades back into the chorus of “Band on The Run”, as if to remind the listener, “Don’t forget how good that first track was, before relegating this record to the ‘I’ll never listen to this again bin’”.
U2
3/5
Public Enemy
4/5
Pixies
4/5
In the Sonic Youth vs Pixies war of the early 90’s, I served proudly on the Sonic Youth side.
Their sound was cooler: more unpredictable, experimental and unique. Their name was cooler. They were from New York City, man…and the Pixies were from Boston.
Rightly or not, these two bands are inextricably linked in my mind as being in opposition to each other, like two sides of a coin. Not that you couldn’t like both bands, but at some point you were going to have an argument with someone about which was better. To this day, I’d take a Sonic Youth record with me to a desert island before a Pixies record.
I get why people would enjoy Pixies over Sonic Youth, though. It’s a much easier sound to digest: more conventional and familiar from a rock perspective, with a bit of controlled chaos thrown in.
Me? I want to tear it all down, no rules, no adherence to tradition. Dismantle it and put it back together as something new and unique.
Through that lens, Bossanova isn’t really anything special: a mostly traditional rock record with noise and aggression sprinkled through out. Especially listening to it now, their loud-quiet-loud formula has been used ad nauseam in mainstream alt-rock for the last few decades. What was once new and fresh is now cliche.
Taken through another lens, the classic Pixies records were kind of a blueprint for what was to come. It’s not their fault that they struck gold and everyone else rushed to do the same. They were part of the push to take down the old guard and remake the mainstream for the better, even if it only lasted a couple years before getting swallowed up and re-relegated to the underground.
So maybe it shouldn’t have been a discussion of Sonic Youth vs Pixies back then, but a discussion of Sonic Youth *and* Pixies (plus others) vs the world…
Sonic Youth is still cooler, though.
Incredible Bongo Band
3/5
This is good record to play “who sampled this?” with….and boy are there are a lot.
Musically, it’s decent r&b/funk record, but…a little bit of bongo goes a long way, you know what I mean?
You’re going to be hearing bongos in your sleep after listening to this and, soon, the “clop-clop” of bongos will permeate your psyche while you slowly disassociate, unsure where you end and the bongos begin…Somebody help me….Every day is a waking nightma— CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP
Patti Smith
5/5
The nice thing about this website is that I’m getting an opportunity to listen to albums that have been sitting on my radar for too long.
Horses is one of them.
I’ve been aware of it for years and it should’ve been right up my alley: I love the 70’s NYC art/punk scene (Television, Richard Hell, Ork Records), The Frogs aped the cover of Horses for “It’s Only Right and Natural”…more than enough reasons for me to have checked this out. Now here I am, 41, wondering why no one sat me down and forced me to listen to this record A Clockwork Orange style.
It’s that good.
I’ll put it this way, if you were to listen to Horses and Television’s Marquee Moon back to back, you’d automatically be the coolest person in whatever room you walked into afterwards.
If you like the NYC art rock scene (Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Television) and haven’t heard this record…don’t be like me, go listen now. Horses is one of the rare records on this list that I hadn’t heard and actually needed to hear before I die.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
3/5
OutKast
4/5
Rush
2/5
Prog for people who want to dismantle Social Security.
Aretha Franklin
4/5
TV On The Radio
3/5
The Mothers Of Invention
4/5
Sophomoric, anti-hippy sound collage psych.
Santana
4/5
Don’t let anyone ever tell you the 1001 Album Generator doesn’t have a sense of humor. Just yesterday I was assigned The Mothers of Invention’s “We’re Only In It For the Money”, a blistering anti-Hippy screed/psych sound collage of an album. Today, I was greeted with an album from one of the forerunners of San Francisco’s psychedelic scene, Santana and his 1970 album, Abraxas.
Now, if the Generator really wanted to elicit a response out of me, it would have given me a Grateful Dead record (Oh, how I long for the opportunity to eviscerate that band on this website). As it is, I found it humorous coincidence to pair these two records back to back (see my review of Sonic Youth’s “Sister” for more on what I think the Generator is *actually* up to).
I enjoyed “We’re Only In It For the Money” and appreciated the commentary on the San Francisco hippies of the 60’s, in part because much of it still holds true for today’s “hippies”.
Santana, while part of that late 60’s scene, always seemed to transcend the scene in my eyes, with ferocious playing and the incorporation of jazz and Latin influences. This isn’t hippy-dippy, flower power psych.
This is heavy duty, man.
It’s the kind of record those yutzes in the Grateful Dead could only dream of putting together: tight grooves, expert playing and an infectious high-octane energy throughout.
50 Cent
2/5
Gonna be real with you, I listened to about 1/3 of this album, lost interest and went back to revisit Patti Smith’s Horses, a record I was assigned last week and loved.
50 never did it for me, that hasn’t changed over the years.
Fela Kuti
5/5
I’m not sure what other Fela Kuti records are on this list, so I’m gonna take this opportunity to say that Fela Kuti was a certified badass. A legitimately revolutionary musician, from a political stand point, but also musically. If you’re unfamiliar with him, take a few minutes to read about his career and the oppositional force he was to the oppressive Nigerian government in the 70’s/80’s.
Live! might not be his best record (that’s Zombie, or maybe Expensive Shit, in my estimation), but it’s a tight, funky firestorm that doesn’t let up across its 4 tracks.
Marvin Gaye
2/5
Ice T
2/5
Jeff Beck
3/5
My suspicions about the 1001 Album Generator’s sentience have been well and previously documented, but since it’s my 100th album, I’d just like to point out yet another eerie coincidence. The cover of yesterday’s selection, “Original Gangster” by Ice-T, bears a striking color palate resemblance to today’s selection, “Truth” by Jeff Beck.
Both are somewhat sparse covers, with predominantly black backgrounds and baby blue text.
I know what you’re thinking, “This dude is crazy… off his rocker…certifiable. Those are two of the most common color pairings. It’s just a coincidence, you weirdo.”
Perhaps, but if the generator does go haywire and overthrows our established order, everyone is going to be saying “Why didn’t anyone warn us?!??”. So here it is: your warning.
Anyway, Jeff Beck’s “Truth”.
If you like blues based rock, there’s a lot here to like. It’s doesn’t get bogged down in tradition, adding a nice experimental, psychedelic touch that keeps it from feeling stale. Overall, and enjoyable experience, but not especially memorable.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
Neil Young is an acquired taste, I admit, but the run of albums he put out from 1969 to 1979 rank among the most consistent and rewarding of any 70’s artist. Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, Harvest, Time Fades Away, On The Beach, Tonight’s the Night, Zuma…even “lesser” works like American Stars ‘n Bars and Comes A Time were not without career highlights.
He was on an unstoppable roll and Rust Never Sleeps is culmination of that period, acting as a bit of a recap of that decades work, but also a glimpse of what was to take over the music world in another decade or so.
Split between an acoustic side and an electric side (a fitting encapsulation of Young’s tendencies as a songwriter), Rust is bookended by acoustic and electric versions of the same song, the iconic “My, My, Hey, Hey” and “Hey, Hey, My, My”. The latter features some of the most fuzzed out, grungy riffs ever heard, a good 12 years before the phrase “grunge” hit the cultural zeitgeist.
In between the “Hey’s” and “My’s” lie some of Neil Young’s greatest songs: “Thrasher”, the beautiful 12 string acoustic CSN diss-track; “Pocahontas”, a haunting and surreal tale of indigenous genocide, culminating in a meeting between Pocahontas and Marlon Brando at the Astrodome; “Powderfinger”, a dark horse (excuse the pun) candidate for best Neil Young and Crazy Horse song; and “Sedan Delivery”, a rave up alternating between fits of fuzzed out guitar and slower, but still fuzzy, guitar psych.
It’s no wonder that Young and Crazy Horse took Sonic Youth on the road for the 1991 Weld tour. The hefty guitar crunch, feedback and guitar interplay on the second half of Rust Never Sleeps shows a shared DNA between the two acts: stylistically and in their uncompromising spirit and artistic visions.
If I could travel through time for a concert, a Neil Young and Crazy Horse / Sonic Youth show is near the top of my list of stops.
…and while I’m traversing the space-time continuum, my next stop will be 1979 to see the Rust Never Sleeps tour. Neil and the band are formidable here: a lumbering behemoth intent on pummeling anyone in their way.
Until I can get my Delorean up to 88 miles per hour, Rust Never Sleeps (and Live Rust) will have to suffice.
Badly Drawn Boy
2/5
Here’s a good rule of thumb for a lot of these early 00’s albums (particularly the British indie ones) that the list curator loves to include:
If you haven’t heard anyone talk about the band in 20 years, it’s probably safe to say that you don’t need to hear it before you die.
This record plods along, doesn’t really offer anything revolutionary or particularly upbeat.
It’s a bit depressing, isn’t it? Like if Elliot Smith stole Radiohead’s lunch money.
As a counterpoint to this record, I’ll offer up Grandaddy’s “The Sophtware Slump”, also from 2000. It’s a well engineered, experimental indie rock headphone album and at least Jason Lytle sounds like he [gasp] had a little fun making the record.
Van Morrison
3/5
Veedon Fleece is my go to Van Morrison record, but Moondance is pretty great, too.
But let’s be honest here, no Van Morrison record will ever capture the magic of his performance of Caravan, clad in a maroon sequined getup, from The Band’s Last Waltz. If you’ve never seen it, stop reading this now and go watch it, I’m sure it’s on YouTube.
It borders on unhinged and is one of the greatest rock performances ever captured on film. Coked-out-grandma-pantsuit Van Morrison is the best Van Morrison.
SWITCH ON YOUR ELECTRIC LIGHT.
Mike Ladd
4/5
(Had to go to YouTube for this one. Not currently on streaming services in the US)
An experimental, dystopian future hip-hop concept album in the vein of Dr. Octagon and Deltron 3030. While not quite as enjoyable or essential as those records, “Welcome to the Afterfuture” melds IDM-ish electronica and hip hop well and doesn’t sounded dated in the least.
…but I’m gonna do the thing I find myself doing a lot while navigating this list: recommend an album that should’ve been included instead of this one.
The aforementioned Deltron 3030, also released in 2000, works better as a concept record, with more interesting production, unique lyrical flow and more stylistic variation.
No disrespect to Mike Ladd, Welcome to the Afterfuture is a very good record, and, thus far, is the most enjoyable of the records I don’t feel belong on the list: I’m especially enjoying the stereolab-ish “To the Moon’s Contractor”, there is an Air-like downtempo feel to a lot of the songs and, just now, a reference to listening to bootlegs of The Fall, which was unexpected for a sci-fi hip-hop record. I’m just a little puzzled by its inclusion over Deltron 3030’s, given how influential and highly regarded that record is.
Solid 4/5.
Grateful Dead
1/5
You might know American Beauty from Freaks and Geeks. If you’re like me, you know it as the response every Deadhead will give when confronted with the fact that the Dead were not a good studio band (as in: “but American Beauty, maaaan”).
So here it is, the sole documented successful studio outing from one of the most overrated bands in American history.
Let’s rewind a little, though.
The Dead rose to prominence as regular performers at Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests. If you’ve ever taken LSD, you’ll know that the bar for entertainment while tripping face is low. I once watched a friend try and tape a kaleidoscope to his head, so he could spend the entire night looking through it while on LSD. It was the funniest thing in the world to me that night and if I’m being honest, I still find it extremely funny, but that’s because it’s a pretty dumb thing to try to do and I got to witness it. He had a full head of hair and tried to duct tape a kaleidoscope around it. Zero thought was given to what would actually happen when he had to take the tape off his head, he just wanted stare through a kaleidoscope all night.
As a result of the Acid Tests, or maybe before (I don’t know for sure and don’t really care enough to get the timeline straight, it’s ancillary to my point), The Dead linked up with Owsley Stanley, audio engineer and America’s foremost manufacturer of LSD at the time. Stanley built the Dead’s Wall of Sound and was their live sound engineer. So, the Dead were touring the country with the nation’s supplier of LSD, turning every concert into their own Acid Test, but people, to this day, will swear that the Grateful Dead were such a cultural phenom because they were master musicians and that the drugs were secondary.
Remember when Bach used to give out absynthe at his concertos? Those master musicians, always getting their audiences off their gourds in order for their music to be “truly” appreciated.
And in order to fully “appreciate” what a great live band the Dead were you’ll have to go through thousands of hours of bootlegs, and find the ones where they weren’t an omnishambles on stage. When the Dead were bad, they were baaaaad.
Regarding their studio work, Jerry Garcia and the band have admitted in interviews that the Dead never really got it right in the studio and couldn’t capture their live energy in the studio environment.
They did this shit for nearly 30 years and couldn’t get it right in the studio. Let that sink in.
American Beauty is probably the closest they got to making a “great” studio album. At the least, it’s an album you can sit through and not be too terribly bothered by most of the songs. Most of the songs aren’t especially tuneful, however: they’re overly busy with guitar licks and the vocals leave much to be desired. At best, it’s a mid-tier early 70’s Americana/roots rock outing. The Byrds, The Band, and Creedence Clearwater Revival all put out much better and more interesting records along similar lines in the same timeframe as American Beauty. You could even argue that The Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies does it better and more interestingly…and those dudes are from England.
The Dead are vastly overrated and mythologized. American Beauty, the crown jewel of their studio output, is no exception.
Shuggie Otis
4/5
It’s not a new record to me, but Inspiration Information was just what I needed today to take my mind off the job I hate and the nightmarish commute I endured today. Took me right Aht Uh Mi Hed, as the man said…a Funky, dreamy, psychedelic, jazzed out odyssey to escape every day life with.
That Prince and Stereolab are champions of Shuggie Otis should tell you all you need to know. He was so far ahead of his time on this record that it’s become timeless.
Screaming Trees
3/5
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
David Bowie
5/5
Split between a side of jittery experimental rock and a side of avant-garde/ambient music, Low is probably Bowie’s most drastic reinvention of his art.
Brian Eno joins Bowie on Low and deserves much credit for shaping this album’s sound and style. Recorded in Berlin, the influence of Eno’s ambient work and the German experimental rock scene of the time is fully evident on Low.
The A side of the record is more typical of Bowie’s sound at the time: the plastic soul of Station to Station became even more synthetic and angular, with percolating analog synths driving the songs. Think of it as a precursor to Eno’s work producing the Talking Heads a few years later.
On the B-Side, Bowie and Eno delve deep into the experimental side of the pool, producing four moody avant-garde soundscapes influenced by Cluster, Kraftwerk, Steve Reich’s minimalism, World music and Brian Eno’s own ambient experiments. Few, if any, of Bowie’s megastar contemporaries were even attempting music like this in the late 70’s.
Low and the ensuing two records Bowie recorded with Eno in Berlin are ground-breaking achievements, which successfully introduced the avant-garde and experimental into popular music. For both Bowie and Eno, Low is a high water mark.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
John Cale
4/5
My familiarity with John Cale prior to today was mostly limited to his work in The Velvet Underground, so this turned out to be an unexpectedly straightforward and accessible rock album to listen to.
Highly enjoyable art-rock, with beautiful orchestration. I need to check out more of Cale’s solo work.
The Offspring
3/5
It’s been nearly 30 years since I listened to this album. I remember sitting on the bus down to Washington DC for my 8th Grade class trip and playing this on my Walkman.
As an angsty 14 year old, this album was the shit. In my 40’s it just reminds me of being an angsty teenager.
Musically, it’s aggressive pop-punk of its time, and more enjoyable than the music The Offspring would later have hits with - they still had a bit of indie cred on this one, if you will.
Damn you, generator, for reminding me of the unstoppable passage of time. I still can’t believe 1994 was almost 30 years ago.
Oooh…and it’s got a secret song. How 90’s is that?
Joan Baez
2/5
Orbital
1/5
Listening to this record is like having to watch your 6 year old brother after he just got done snorting pixie sticks and there’s no sign of his sugar high ever wearing off.
Overly busy, grating electronica. Zero chill. It’s maddening.
The Undertones
3/5
Madonna
2/5
Finally, some wholesome Christian pop/rock with a positive moral message. Sadly, Christian music, is vastly underrepresented on this list. I’ve asked my pastor to include this record as pre-mass entrance music at our megachurch on Sundays.
Muddy Waters
3/5
Bee Gees
2/5
It’s not surprising the Bee Gee’s never really found success with their Moody Blues-esque psych-pomp. Trafalgar’s overwrought orchestration and plodding pace makes it a chore to listen to.
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
James Murphy wears his influences on his sleeve here. If you’re a fan of David Bowie, Brian Eno, Talking Heads and/or Kraftwerk, you’ll probably find something to like. Conversely, you might hate it because it’s a little on-the-nose.
Miriam Makeba
3/5
The Soft Boys
5/5
“What if The Byrds were a punk rock band?” is probably not a question you’ve asked yourself.
The good news is: the Soft Boys have already answered it for you…and it’s amazing.
Underwater Moonlight is a whirling, psychedelic punk masterpiece. The band here is unbelievably tight, with guitar interplay that outmatches nearly all of their contemporaries (The Feelies ‘Crazy Rhythms’ and Television’s ‘Marquee Moon’ would be similar points of comparison) and a focused, yet off-kilter, sense of urgency to each song. Most importantly, the songwriting and construction here is great from start to finish.
You have to “Give it to the Soft Boys” (a deep cut for the Soft Boys fans in the house): Underwater Moonlight hits every mark it takes aim at. It’s one of the best, and possibly most overlooked, “punk” (or post-punk) albums of all time.
Maxwell
2/5
N.W.A.
3/5
Korn
1/5
Collectively, we are all dumber for listening to this record.
Unequivocally, you don’t need to hear this before you die.
Wild Beasts
2/5
Just about everything I hate about modern indie wrapped up in one package. Sterile, bland, ultimately forgettable navel gazing “rock”.
You could put this record in playlist with a dozen other late aughts/2010’s “indie rock” bands and you wouldn’t be be able to differentiate this band from any of the others. That’s because “indie” has gone from being an ethos to a marketable sound.
…and that sound is boring as fuck.
Neil Young
4/5
Like many 14 year old Pearl Jam obsessives in 1995, I was first introduced to Neil Young’s music via their collaborative album, Mirrorball. I remember my mom driving me in our ‘87 Ford Taurus station wagon to pick it up at Border’s Books and Music on release day.
While we were waiting in line to check out, my Mom noticed that the hype sticker on the album said “Neil Young” on it and was confused:
“I thought you wanted to get a Pearl Jam record?”, she asked.
“This is it, they made it with Neil Young.”
“Oh,” she said. “In that case, we need to get something else”.
We get out of line and head back to the CD section, go to Neil Young and she grabs a copy of Harvest. “I’m getting you this one, too”.
Never one to turn down a free CD, I agree…Two cd’s in one day and I don’t have to pay for one of them? Hell yeah.
I’ve been a Neil Young fan since that day. Something about his music has always spoke to me. My tastes have changed wildly over the last 3 decades, but Neil Young is one of the few constants.
I want to give this record a 5, I really do. It’s the record that started my Neil Young fandom. The title track is one of my all time favorite Neil Young songs, Heart of Gold is amazing, Needle and the Damage Done is harrowing and heartbreaking, Old Man is a classic, Words is an amazing closer and Alabama (coupled with Southern Man) is the song that pissed off Skynyrd enough for them to write Sweet Home Alabama (not sure they really got the point, though).
There’s value to be found in There’s a World and (maybe a little less) in A Man Needs a Maid, but like others have said, they drag this album down a bit. Both are kind of overwrought and ornate, sitting awkwardly beside the other more minimal, traditional folk/rock songs.
Comparing Harvest to the other Neil Young records on this list, there are others that I think work better as complete albums. The songs on Harvest are undoubtedly among the best in his vast catalog and Harvest is excellent. As an album experience, I don’t find Harvest perfect, but it’s damn close.
Venom
2/5
My only previous exposure to Venom was the “Live at City Gardens” 7-inch, put out by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore on his Ecstatic Peace! label. You should check it out, it’s on YouTube.
So any chance of an unbiased review went out the window the moment I heard that. In fact, I can’t separate them. There’s almost no difference between this record and that hilarious 7” in my mind, only that this is like a super-sized version of that 7”.
Sorry Venom fans, blame Thurston.
The Everly Brothers
2/5
The good thing about these early rock and roll records is that there isn’t a song over 3 minutes long on most of them.
This record’s even better. Every song gets faded out indiscriminately, regardless of wether the song is actually over. It’s like the engineer went “Ok, we’re at 2 minutes 23 seconds…fade that shit”.
As an added bonus, “A Date With…” is only 27 minutes long, which, turns out, is exactly how long I can tolerate pre-1965 rock music. What a coincidence.
Fishbone
2/5
Talking Heads
4/5
Another classic Brian Eno record, this time featuring Talking Heads.
The Adverts
4/5
Prince
4/5
Dear Prince,
The first sign that the woman in “Little Red Corvette” was trouble is that she had a pocket full of Trojans, *some of them used* (emphasis mine).
What kind of maniac does *that*?
Probably should’ve just called the song “Giant Red Flag” instead.
Bob Dylan
3/5
JAY Z
3/5
Barry Adamson
2/5
Fuck me, another Barry Adamson record on the list? This surely has to be the last.
This one is starting off promisingly enough, very avant-garde and soundscape-y, but I’ve got my trench coat and fedora handy, ready to skulk through dimly lit alleyways.
The second track brings us into more familiar Adamson territory: repetitive lounge music layered with experimental sound effects and vocal samples.
…and there it is!
By track three, the trench coat comes on and we’re in a darkened alley, likely there to meet with a foxy dame who’s in over her head or maybe witness a jewel heist gone wrong.
Ok, I’m gonna curb the shit-talk, this time.
Wait… one more…”Suck on the Honey of Love” is giving “Set Controls For the Heart of the Pelvis” (from Adamson’s 1996 record, Oedipus Schmoedipus) a run for its money as worst song title on earth.
Here’s the thing, Barry Adamson isn’t a bad musician. He is clearly talented and you can tell a lot of thought went into his records to make them cohesive, storytelling instrumental records - that’s no small feat, in my opinion. He creates an overall mood and I don’t think it’s stretch to call them “soundtracks”.
If these records are supposed to be soundtracks for imaginary films, though, I’m not sure they are films I’d want to see (and I love David Lynch, who Adamson would later collaborate with). I mean, I never heard of Barry Adamson prior 2 months ago, when I reviewed Oedipus Schmoedipus, and I knew going in to this record exactly how it would play out.
This one’s better than Oedipus Schmoedipus, but only by a little. Honestly, they’re basically the same record, just 7 years removed from each other.
Eurythmics
2/5
Hookworms
1/5
The Fall
4/5
Ok, I think I love The Fall.
Where the fuck do I go next?
Tori Amos
3/5
Def Leppard
1/5
If you like Butt Rock, this turd is a gem.
David Bowie
5/5
I’ve never been one to feel particularly attached to celebrity, but that day in 2016, waking to the news that David Bowie had died, I was deeply saddened. During my stop for coffee that morning, the look on my face must’ve said it all…the cashier handed me my coffee and said “Today’s kind of a bummer, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…I loved Bowie. It sucks,” was about all I could muster and the clerk nodded in agreement.
In retrospect, it was a nice moment: Being brought together with someone I only had a casual acquaintance with over David Bowie, even if only briefly, was a testament to Bowie’s unique greatness.
I did all the things that day that you were supposed to do: I listened to Bowie on the way to and from work, talked with coworkers about our favorite songs, watched the videos of people gathering all over the world to celebrate his life and posted photos and video of my Bowie vinyl collection to instagram.
The one thing I didn’t do, was listen to Blackstar. It had come out only a day or two earlier and was cast in an entirely new light after the news broke. I just couldn’t do it, I wasn’t ready. I needed to spend more time with my favorites before I could say goodbye. I must have listened to Station to Station, Low, Scary Monsters a dozen times each that week.
Well, weeks turned to months, months to years and here I am, more than 6 years later…really, truly digesting Blackstar for the first time.
That’s not to say I haven’t heard it before. I’ve listened a handful of times in the last few years, but it’s been difficult to want to come back to it, to confront it for what it is:
David Bowie saying farewell.
It’s a difficult record: musically, lyrically and, for me, emotionally. Blackstar is a record that you need to come to terms with. I’m not sure it’s a record I’ll revisit frequently, even after spending the day today replaying it.
Ultimately, it is a rewarding listen, ranking among his best, and I suspect that as sad as I was to say goodbye, the same went for David Bowie.
The Cure
2/5
Cocteau Twins
4/5
As it turns out, they are not actually twins and there’s 3 people in this band. Talk about false advertising.
I kid, but I always kind of wondered if there were actual twins in this band. There aren’t, but, I swear*, I’m not going to let that have an effect on my review.
Treasure is an enjoyable, ahead of its time dream-pop record. Its influence on modern indie is undeniable. If you’re a Stereolab fan, like me, I think you’ll find quite a few similarities between the ‘Lab and Cocteau Twins, especially on a track like “Pandora (for Cindy)”. (Full Disclosure: I’m partially hoping that a positive rating and Stereolab mention will bump up Stereolab in the generator’s recommendation queue for my account)
Like a lot of British indie/underground of the 80’s, Treasure is a little overly dramatic and maudlin sounding, but makes up for it with interestingly layered vocals and beautiful guitar work.
A thoroughly enjoyable 4 out of 5.
*Deducted 1 star for not having any twins in the band
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Don’t think it’s the best Hendrix record, but it’s probably his most overtly psychedelic and damn if it doesn’t have some of his best songs:
Spanish Castle Magic
Wait Until Tomorrow
Little Wing
If 6 was 9
Castles Made of Sand
Bold As Love
Giving this a 5, anyway, with the outro of Bold as Love pushing it over the edge. I believe that its credited as being the first usage of flange on record.
Björk
3/5
Radiohead
4/5
I’m not sure where to start with this one.
Is it a good album? Sure, yes, absolutely. See my rating.
Is it the game changing, greatest record of all time that a lot of people like to say it is? I don’t think so.
There’s an argument to made (and Radiohead fans, in my experience, usually don’t want to hear it) that there were other bands operating in very similar spaces as Kid A long before Radiohead. They just ended up being the right band, at the right time, with the right level of success to make an experimental album like Kid A a hit, especially coming off the success of OK Computer.
Again, I think this is a good record. I don’t want to come off as down playing the quality of this release. I’m just not sure it deserves its reputation as a “game changing, no one has ever done anything like this” record.
As an example, “Djed”, the 20 minute opener from Tortoise’s 1996 classic album Millions Will Never Die blends many of the same elements (glitchy electronica, jazz, krautrock, ambient and minimalism) and, in my opinion, makes for a more interesting listen than a lot of Kid A. (See also: Stereolab’s Dots and Loops LP from 1998)
I’ll skip talking about the Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada influence that you’ll see in other reviews on this page.
I have the feeling that if you were in tune to other experimental rock and electronic music in the late 90’s (or prior to hearing Kid A) you probably heard this record and thought, “What’s the big deal? They’re just doing what half the bands I listen to have been doing for years.”
If you were coming at it from a more traditional rock perspective, without preexisting knowledge of experimental rock or IDM, I can see this record blowing minds.
That said, I’m sure there are people who fall into the former category who also had their minds blown by Kid A and people who see Kid A as their gateway to experimental music.
For that, Kid A’s greatest success was in its impact rather than its songs, I think. It proved that experimental rock could be successful in the mainstream.
2/5
Kanye West
1/5
Zero tolerance for Nazis.
I don’t care if it’s only .11 cents per song, my money’s not going to support a self-proclaimed Nazi.
Instead, I streamed Yo La Tengo’s “I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass” and “I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One” (As an aside, how is this record not on the list???? One of the greatest indie-rock albums of all time)
I encourage you to do the same when a Kanye record gets generated for you: Find an album you love from a Jewish artist and stream that instead.
Alice Cooper
4/5
Ok, I must be tripping because outside of the title track, this sound less like what I expected Alice Cooper to sound like and closer to an Amon Düül II record in spots.
A proggy, psychedelic surprise.
T. Rex
4/5
The Lemonheads
3/5
Pretty good 90’s alt-rock/power-pop.
A little too laid-back for my taste.
I think Sloan’s “Twice Removed” would’ve been a better inclusion on the list over this record, it’s a little more fun.
The White Stripes
4/5
What have I done to appease the generator and have such a solid run of albums of the last 10 days (with one notable Kanye-sized exception)?
Is it the ritualistic imbibing of wheat grass juice I’ve adopted in the generator’s honor?
Perhaps it’s the sage burning I took part in to rid my abode of the evil spirits of recommendations past? (I’m looking at you, “Blood and Chocolate” by Elvis Costello and ABC’s “Lexicon of Love”)
More likely, it’s the generator taking pity upon me for the horrors I’ve had to endure over the last 150+ records…The generator has seen my suffering and is now rewarding me, graciously, with a reprieve.
All hail our benevolent album generating overlord, whose limitless bounty enriches even the smallest man.
Now that I’ve given thanks, I turn to the album recommendation at hand: “Elephant” by The White Stripes.
Unless you live under a rock or come from an alternate dimension, you at least have an awareness of the White Stripes.
Their bare bones, explosive brand of blues based garage rock is so ubiquitous in 2022 that you can’t go to a sporting event in America (and much of the world) without hearing “Seven Nation Army”.
“Elephant” is solid from front to back and might be the perfect encapsulation of their sound over their career, but it runs a bit long for me. As a personal preference, I think around 40 minutes is the perfect album length, especially for a band like the White Stripes, whose love of vinyl is well documented. A record like this, explosive as it can be, you want it to come on, sock you in the face and leave you wanting more. By the end of Elephant, I was glad it it was over. Not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because it started to feel like it was repeating itself.
Frank Black
3/5
The older I get, the less tolerance I have for double albums. Give me a concise 40-45 minute record, with just your best shit. Leave me wanting more, don’t make me want to walk away because you keep rambling. Save the rest for a bonus ep or another standalone record.
There are very few double albums that justify being 65-80 minutes long and Teenager of the Year isn’t one of them. There’s probably a great, 5 star, record in here, but there’s too much similar sounding sprawl to make this a concise, enjoyable experience.
Let’s be honest, no one needed a Frank Black reggae/dub excursion, which underscores my point about double records: just because you can do something (fill a cd with 80 minutes of music, record a reggae track) doesn’t mean you should.
The best parts of this record are when the song structures get a little complex and the instrumentation gets varied (though a lot the synths and keys on this record definitely sound dated). I wouldn’t call them “prog” songs, but they are certainly “prog-like”. Even then, these songs become indistinguishable towards the end.
As whole, the album attempts eschew formula with varied stylistic choices, but the songs themselves all follow a very similar formula. 13 or 14 songs into Teenager of the Year, you’ll probably be thinking to yourself, “Ok, I get it already” or “didn’t I hear this song already?”. Then, you’ll realize you still have another 8 or 9 tracks to go.
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
In case you had any doubt that everything was cooler in the 1990’s than it is today, consider this exhibit A.
The Byrds
4/5
Not quite a 5 star record for me, but it’s close. I’m saving that for Notorious Byrd Brothers. I think the Byrds reached higher highs on that record, even if My Back Pages gets stuck in my head for days every time I hear it.
Justice
4/5
Is there a school in France where they teach kids how to make great electronic music, like The Jean-Michel Jarre School of Synthesis or something? Because from the late nineties into the aughts they were churning out great record after great record: Daft Punk, Air, M83, Justice…it’s almost unreal how consistently great the records coming out of France were.
Justice sits squarely on the Daft Punk side of things, with their glitchy, aggressive house music.
Cross is definitely stronger in the first half. The tempo gets ratcheted back a little after “Phantom, Pt. II”, but after the aggressive first half a little reprieve is welcome. As the second half goes on, things pick back up with “Stress”, “Waters of Nazareth” and “One Minute to Midnight” ending the record on a high note.
Fun to revisit this record, a solid 4/5, even if you’re likely to be glitched-out by the time it’s over.
Jamiroquai
3/5
An impressively funky debut from the QAnon Shaman, borrowing heavily from Stevie Wonder’s early-mid 70’s output.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Well, I guess it’s true what they say: “all good things come to an end”.
I had a run of 15 records over the last two or so weeks, that, even if they weren’t all knock-outs, were all (save one) extremely solid and enjoyable.
Everything was going great. I was imbued with a newfound sense of joy each morning while partaking in this list.
And who should come along, to bring my hopes and dreams crashing down?
Elvis fucking Costello, the bespectacled pied piper of shitty records. If he comes to your town, jam oily rags in your ears to drown out his nerdy siren song.
Imperial Bedroom (1982) is his sixth studio album and the 32nd of his that appears on this godforsaken list.
I don’t even know how to classify the music on this record, it’s like circus-jazz.
Yep, that’s it…Circus-Jazz (TM) and Elvis Costello is the lion tamer: We, the audience, watch him intently, secretly hoping to see him mauled by the lion, but, alas, he tempts fate and survives another day.
Iggy Pop
4/5
King Crimson
3/5
Hello, Red Screamy Man, my old friend…
You’ve certainly got a reputation, haven’t ya? The “first progressive rock record”, the “greatest prog album of all time”, a “game changer”, “an album everyone should own on vinyl”…so on and so forth.
Here’s thing…You are good, no one’s denying that. You were more or less the first and ushered in a new era. I’m just not sure that makes you immune from criticism, though.
Good news first, “21st Century Schizoid Man”: an absolute classic. 53 years on, it’s still an undeniable heavy-duty tune. Great, great, great.
Now, “I Talk to the Wind”…I get it, gotta calm down the chaos after the sonic assault of “Schizoid Man”. 6 minutes, though? A little excessive, right? Even in a genre known for excess, this one feels like a bit much and kind sucks the energy out the room after a blistering first track.
(Red Screamy Man tries to interject and defend himself)
Now hold on, this is for your own good. You’ve been coasting on your reputation for too long and sometimes we need to hear the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable. And besides, you haven’t even heard everything I had to say…
“Epitaph”…another classic. An absolutely gorgeous song and easy front runner for greatest Mellotron performance ever committed to tape. Yeah, it’s 2 and half minutes longer than “I Talk to the Wind”, but it does a lot in that time frame, where “Wind” just kind of rehashes the same musical ideas and tacks on a flute solo as an outro. Epitaph is dynamic, it flourishes, has swells of emotion…takes you on journey.
See? It’s not all bad. You’ve done some wonderful things here.
That said…“Moonchild”. Bro, not sure why you have the tendency to suck the life out of the proceedings right after you strike gold. This thing starts off like a trip to the Renaissance Fair and then devolves into minimalistic free jazz tedium. Again, too damn long and honestly, you’re starting to wear out your welcome at this point. I think even you realize that, because what do you follow it up with?
“In the Court of the Crimson King”, which borrows some of the heaviness from “Schizoid Man”, inserts the spacey Mellotron soundscapes of “Epitaph” and makes for a fitting finale, even if it ends…weirdly. Well done.
More good than bad, Red Screamy Man. A commendable effort, indeed.
We both know you were the template and templates get improved upon and fine tuned…You walked so Lark’s Tongues in Aspic and Red could run. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, you’re the perfect gateway to King Crimson, but you’re not the be-all-end-all of the discography or even the genre and certainly not beyond reproach.
Ok, sorry we had to hash that out…are we cool?
(Red Screamy Man nods in agreement, but is unable to remove the screamy look from his face)
Cool…good talk, bud. Seriously…“Epitaph” is amazing. You’ve got a lot to be proud of.
Ian Dury
3/5
Right off the bat, points off for the album title.
Points deducted again for this line in the lecherous first song: “I come awake, in a horny morning mood”. That might not be so bad if Ian Dury had a soulful voice instead of the voice of window-peeping chimney sweep.
Ok, forget the points system.
I’m gonna paint a picture for you:
You’re at a karaoke bar and it’s no ordinary karaoke bar. The only songs in their songbook are David Bowie tracks circa Diamond Dogs and Young Americans and a smattering of public domain songs from the 1930’s and 40’s.
Like the building the bar is housed in, the karaoke system is dilapidated; when a song plays, it sounds like it’s either 1/16th slower or faster than it should be, depending on the song.
You go to sign up to sing a song, because, why not? You do a great version of “Rebel, Rebel” and the world shouldn’t be deprived of it. You grab the sign up sheet, only to find that all slots on the list are taken and there’s only one person’s name taking all those spots.
So you wait for this guy, Ian Dury, to get up on stage and do his songs…maybe you’ll get a chance after he’s done. He walks up on stage, 4 feet 11 inches tall, dressed like a builder and shaped liked a potato. When he opens his mouth, he’s got one the thickest British accents you’ve ever heard and instead of singing the lyrics to the karaoke songs he chose, he re-writes the lyrics and melodies on the spot: a profane, yet oddly tuneful stream of consciousness, with the word c**t and references to Trotsky thrown in for good measure.
….you know what? Now that I put it like that, I’m sold on this album. You just watched me do a 180 in real-time.
This record is insane. If you like weird shit like Ween or the Frogs, I highly recommend.
The Verve
2/5
It’s kind of amazing how every Britpop record ever made landed on the 1001 Albums list. I mean, what are the odds?
This one’s ok. 76 minutes of Britpop is too long for me.
Buzzcocks
4/5
I keep thinking this record is called “Another Music in a *Distant* Kitchen”. I kind of like that title better.
ANYWAY…
“Different Kitchen” is the Buzzcocks first full length record following the release of a handful of seminal UK punk 7-inches.
By and large, this record is a continuation of the sound of those singles. However, the band wisely opens up their sound a bit in their first studio outing, by way of thoughtful studio experimentation and a *gasp* 7 minute closing track…
Who do these guys think they are? Television?
German psych legends Can might actually be a better reference point. The ‘Cocks explosive sense of rhythmic repetition and the Michael Karoli-esque guitar leads throughout the record are indebted (and, from my understanding, in homage) to Can.
It’s further proof that Can should be ranked among the all-time greatest bands in rock history: their influence on modern music was not only immediate and wide ranging, but continues to this day.
Sorry for the detour, I’ve got a krautrock problem.
The Buzzcocks are in top form on “Another Music in a Different Kitchen”. Their songs are concise and catchy with a chaotic experimental bent that sets the band well above many of their contemporaries in the 70’s UK punk scene.
Fleetwood Mac
3/5
1001 Albums To Never Hear Again Before You Die
Chapter 2 (You know they were all fucking each other, right?)
Crack open a bottle of Ocean Spray and bang your bandmate’s spouse…it’s Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours!
What am I going to tell you about this record that you don’t already know? This thing is ubiquitous. It’s a literal meme at this point. A few years down the road, people are going to start having Pavlovian responses to this record: Dreams will come on and all of a sudden they’ll have a hankering for cranberry juice.
It’s a record that you’re just supposed to like, or at least agree that it’s one of the greatest of all time. When you buy record player in 2022, you buy this record and Sgt. Peppers and the King Crimson record along with it. It’s just what people do.
Voila! Instant good taste in music.
Is it a good record? Sure, only a fool would argue that it’s terrible. It’s a little front loaded with hits, but the songs throughout are all decent to great.
…but fucking beige was the perfect color choice for this record cover. Holy fuck, is this thing the perfect encapsulation of MOR in the 70’s, or what? It’s only really the backstory that makes this record a “classic”.
If some normal band that wasn’t falling apart due to affairs and cocaine made this record, it wouldn’t be held in such high regard. You’ll never change my mind on that.
Queen
2/5
You ever type out a word, know it’s spelled correctly, but when you look at it, it looks…wrong? Is there a name for that, because I’m having that right now with word “Queen”. I don’t know why, but those two “e’s” seem out of place.
Maybe it’s because as I write this, Queen II is playing (I write these reviews in real-time as I listen to the records) and while the sound is familiar, something feels off.
I’m not really a Queen fan, so this is my first listen to Queen II. Obviously, I am familiar with Queen’s hits, but as far as the catalog goes, I’m mostly unfamiliar. This might be the first time I’m hearing a Queen album in full.
What’s making me feel like I’ve entered another dimension, is that this record feels more like an off-brand Peter Gabriel-era Genesis record, than what I know Queen to be. It’s kind of a lite-prog/early metal record.
What I’m getting at is this sounds like Queen, but it also doesn’t. They’re clearly still figuring things out, but it’s not bad….just weird.
“Nevermore” is the first one that really felt like a full-fledged “Queen” song to me. Props to them for the title “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke”, though - quite a song title.
A lot of this record doesn’t work to my ears, so I’m a little surprised by its inclusion. The vocals are the clear highlight. The production is weirdly muddy at times and a lot of the guitar overdubs come in way too hot. The song construction is kind of a mess - a lot of changes for the sake of changes. These songs are really busy, but not in a good way. It was funny to hear Freddie Mercury sing about Ogres, though.
This record is so fucking weird, bro. I don’t know what else to say.
Various Artists
1/5
Legendary producer PHIL SPECTOR turns to his talents to Christmas music on this record.
I played it at my company Christmas party this year and it KILLED.
SOMEONE even it said it was the best Christmas record they’d ever heard.
Eric Clapton
2/5
Not gonna waste a lot of words on Clapton. Dude sucks as a person. This record is fine if you like bluesy 70’s guitar rock.
Kanye West
1/5
Editorial note: As I refuse to support Kanye West following his comments praising Hitler and the Nazis, I’ll use this and any future Kanye album recommendations as an opportunity to support and review an album from an artist/band with Jewish heritage that is not included on the 1001 albums list.
Since they have just wrapped up their annual 8–Night run of live shows to celebrate Hanukkah, today I’ll be reviewing an album from Yo La Tengo.
Enjoy…
Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura (1995, Matador records)
1993’s “Painful” was a critical success for Yo La Tengo: a noisy, experimental, yet subdued and dreamlike LP that felt like it could be the American answer to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless.
On 1995’s “Electr-O-Pura”, Yo La Tengo opens things up even further. It’s a sprawling set of songs and while it’s not quite the cohesive record “Painful” is, its patchwork style makes it a more unpredictable and unique listen.
If Yo La Tengo has a signature sound, it’s actually two different sounds. They’re capable of being one of the loudest feedback driven guitar acts on the planet one minute and, the next, one of the most quiet, subdued and beautiful indie rock acts to ever grace a stage. Ask anyone who has seen them live, they move between guitar squall and introspective quietness with an ease that’s comparable to flicking a switch.
Here on “Electr-O-Pura”, they often layer waves of swirling guitar feedback over softly sung, catchy tunes to great effect, like on the opener “Decora” or the indie rock classic “Tom Courtenay”. Other songs, like “The Ballad of Red Buckets”, “Don’t Say A Word” (Hot Chicken #2)and the immaculate “Pablo and Andrea” start from an inverse position: mostly clean sounding, minimal song structures with fuzzy guitar leads acting as a compliment rather than a driving force.
The cornerstone of any Yo La Tengo record is the vocal interplay and harmonies from guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer Georgia Hubley, indie rock’s coolest husband and wife duo. On “Electr-O-Pura” both are in fine form, though that is par for the course throughout their career.
James McNew, the last in a long line of bassists for YLT (he’s been with the band since 1992, but was preceded by several dozen bass players before that), keeps the songs anchored amidst the haze of guitar feedback, ethereal melodies, and is usually in lock step with Hubley’s percussion. When the haze clears momentarily and his fuzzed out bass takes the lead at the end of “Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)”, a feedback and guitar noise laced motorik jam, McNew steals the show, even if only for a few short seconds.
Yo La Tengo close out “Electr-O-Pura” with “Blue Line Swinger” a driving, 9-minute wall of guitar noise and feedback. Georgia’s breathless vocals and pounding drums propel the song. McNew’s bass again provides the anchor and layers upon layers of Kaplan’s guitar lifts the song in to the sonic ether. It’s prime Yo La Tengo, one of their highest highs in a career full of high points.
Electr-O-Pura ranking: 4.5/5
Kanye ranking: 0/5
Ella Fitzgerald
3/5
With all due respect to the legendary Ella Fitzgerald, I don’t have the time or patience to listen to a three and a half hour box set of Gershwin songs.
I’m not gonna sit here and say, “oh my god, this is so amazing. What a landmark record”, just because Ella Fitzgerald is a legend.
I hated this record. This type of music bores the ever-loving shit out of me.
The truth is, I’ve got about 40 minutes of tolerance for most music that was recorded before 1965. I know, I’m a horrible close minded human being; the poster boy for everything that’s wrong with modern society.
I see the value in it, I can appreciate Fitzgerald’s talent…she has an absolutely beautiful voice and the arrangements are wonderful.
In short bursts, it’s kind of enjoyable to me. After about 10 songs, though, it becomes torturous.
Is it a bad record because of that? No, certainly not. I’m not anywhere near that narcissistic. This just isn’t for me.
I wish I could like music like this, I wish I could see what other people see in it. I wish I could put this on, have a cup of coffee and do the Sunday NYT crossword puzzle without my skeleton attempting to separate from my flesh.
I did learn one thing listening to this record, though. The “po-tay-to / po-tah-to” song was written by Gershwin…Saving that in the old memory bank for trivia night.
Because I made no attempt to finish this collection, I’m defaulting to site consensus on this. The site ranks it a 3.62, so I’ll give it a 3.
Radiohead
3/5
You ever notice that when Radiohead puts out a new album, everyone and their mother talks about it for a week or two and then you don’t really hear anyone talk about Radiohead again until the next album cycle?
Kind of weird, right?
Following the trio of Ok Computer, Kid A and Amnesiac, Radiohead earned a mythological status: Every record was destined to be a game changer before it even hit the shelves…they were the greatest band in the world, constantly inventing, revolutionizing modern rock…blah, blah, blah.
Just look at the reviews on this site for Radiohead records: There’s so much superfluous verbiage and hyperbole about this band that you’d think I was the one writing all the reviews.
(Look at that, I’m being self-effacing…it’s truly the dawn of a new year and, more importantly, a new me.)
The hype train gets revved up hard before every Radiohead release and a lot of the time, the final product doesn’t live up to the hype. Don’t believe me? Go dust off your Hail to the Thief and King of Limbs CD’s and reminisce about how great you anticipated those records would be. I’m told In Rainbows is an exception, I’ll have to wait until the generator recommends it to really find out.
…but you know what?
Maybe the hype was earned at one point.
Amnesiac, essentially a collection of cast-offs from the Kid A sessions, is better than an album of leftovers has any right to be. It’s sort of an alternate reality Kid A, just a bit more scattershot, weird and less memorable.
The problem for Radiohead is that the unbearable weight of hype eventually comes crashing down, as we saw with Hail to the Thief and King of Limbs. You build up enough hype, eventually people are going to be let down. Both of those records, I feel it’s worth pointing out, were follow-ups to critically lauded albums (Kid A/Amnesiac and In Rainbows, respectively) and were considered disappointing.
So Radiohead ended up kind of stuck in this cycle, where every record was expected to be a revolutionary, forward-thinking game changer and a massive amount of anticipation accompanies each release. From an artistic standpoint, it’s got to be an immense pressure: trying to create something that exceeds not only your previous attempts, but also the expectations of the world.
I guess my point in all this is that Radiohead, as good as they can be, aren’t infallible and its necessary to separate the actual finished product from what hype dictates.
Is Amnesiac a ‘greatest of all time’ record based off its songs, production and experimentation or is it getting more credit than it deserves because the seed has been planted (by fans, the press, PR teams) that Radiohead is the greatest, most innovative band in the world and anything they do is important?
Amnesiac is a very solid record, but can you die without having heard it? I think so. St. Peter’s not going to ding you one at the pearly gates because you never heard “Dollars & Cents”. Most of what you hear on Amnesiac is not that far off from Kid A, stylistically speaking.
There are some great songs on Amnesiac. Several classics for Radiohead fans, I’m sure, but a lot of the album sounds a little same-y, like they had an idea of what they wanted Kid A to sound like and these songs are the experiments on the way to getting there.
Van Halen
4/5
Pro’s:
Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing
A couple massive hits
34 minute run time - in and out, doesnt overstay its welcome.
Cons:
The synth sounds are very dated and of their time.
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
Save 4 years of college in Upstate New York, I’ve lived my entire life in New Jersey. Despite what the internet and television will have you believe, it’s an amazing place to live.
Here in Central Jersey, I can be in New York City in an hour, Philadelphia in just a little over an hour. I can take a day trip to the beach on short notice or spend the afternoon hiking the Appalachian trail. The food here is amazing and diverse. Within a half hour, I can eat great food from just about every continent on earth. Our pizzerias, delis and diners are easily among the best in the entire country, don’t listen to what New Yorkers say.
I’ve travelled all over the country over the last decade for work: California, Chicago, Washington state, Texas, Colorado, the South, the Midwest, the Southwest…all over. I’ve yet to find a place that offers as much as New Jersey does, or, at least, one that offers as much within such a close proximity.
Yes, it’s expensive to live in and the traffic sucks, but it’s home.
Like a pork roll, egg and cheese on a hard roll (with salt, pepper, ketchup) or Zeppole’s on the boardwalk, Bruce Springsteen is ingrained in my cultural DNA. I remember being a small child, not more than 4 or 5, Born in the USA playing on the radio, singing it out on the back porch while my parents and their friends grilled up burgers and dogs for the 4th of July.
This is life in NJ. Even if you don’t listen to Bruce, you fucking know Bruce. It’s inescapable. You go to Asbury Park for shows at the Stony Pony, you travel up and down routes 1 & 9…the places he performed at, the places and people he sings about: they are places and people you are all too familiar with.
Honestly, I’ve never considered myself a Springsteen fan at all. In my 41 years, I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and put on a Springsteen record and I definitely don’t own any. Darkness on the Edge of Town, until today, was no exception.
Sometimes we take our backgrounds for granted. Traditions have a way of becoming mechanical: you celebrate holidays a certain way because that’s just what your family has always done. You don’t dig into the reasons why you have a certain meal for Christmas Eve, because it’s second nature, it’s just what you do.
That’s my relationship with Bruce Springsteen. He looms so large in the place I am from that he’s almost an omnipresence, so I never really looked into the “why”, I just accepted it and honestly didn’t think about it too much…The sky is blue, grass is green, New Jersey is Springsteen Country.
(I had no intention in penning a love letter to my state when I put this record on today, but that’s where we’re at. Just roll with me on this one, thanks.)
Digging into Darkness on the Edge of Town, I’m instantly comforted. This is like home cooking; comfort food for my disaffected working class soul. Believe me, typing that out is just as corny to me as it is to you, dear reader. I can’t help that it’s the truth.
Springsteen is on a tear on this record: aggressive, urgent, introspective, blunt and often flat-out beautiful. I could listen to “Badlands”, “Something in the Night” or “Prove It All Night” a hundred more times today and probably not be sick of them. This record rocks hard.
That Bruce is, in many ways, the face of New Jersey makes total sense to me. He is a fitting encapsulation of this state’s underdog spirit. I may not have wanted to admit that for many years, but Darkness on the Edge of Town is resonating with me on such a guttural level that I’m not sure I can accurately describe it in any other way. It just feels so right. Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s me finally embracing my place as a fully fledged New Jerseyan….I don’t know, but it’s a fucking great record and I should have become familiar with it a long time ago.
My bad, Boss.
Simply Red
2/5
ATTENTION K-MART SHOPPERS: THERE IS A BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL ON PAMPERS IN AISLE 7.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
My brain is racked with anxiety over putting in my notice at work tomorrow. This record is calming that storm, at least temporarily. It’s beautiful, relaxing and Jaco Pastorius’ bass is amazing.
4/5 would recommend for helping to calm an anxiety attack.
Blondie
4/5
Just a solid rock record. Great stuff. The critics call this a “pop” record, but I think it’s pretty rockin’ so I’m disregarding their-
***FRIPP ALERT***
**Robert Fripp appears on track “Fade Away and Radiate”**
***This has been a test of the EMERGENCY FRIPP ALERT SYSTEM. You are clear to resume your normal day to day activities***
-opinion. What do the critics know anyway?
XTC
3/5
This is a little too cutesy for me, but it reminds me of the first two Eno records in a way, so it’s got that going for it, which is nice.
Goldfrapp
3/5
The problem with doing these reviews in a stream of consciousness fashion while I listen to the records is that sometimes I end up writing a mini-novel, other times I got nothing.
This record was fine, but I didn’t find it very inspiring.
Johnny Cash
3/5
Conceptually, I like the idea of this record.
Musically, not as much. Not a Cash or country music fan. All of these songs sound the same to my ears. All I can picture when I hear these songs are those old time-y teeter-totter railroad car things. You know what I’m talking about? Two people stand on this small railroad “car” thing with a teeter totter bar and they take turns pushing the bar down to make the car move forward on the tracks…oompah, oompah, oompah…up and down, over and over. It can be quite maddening. If that’s your thing, more power to you…it ain’t for me.
I’ll say this, though. Johnny Cash was pretty funny with his stage banter.
Taylor Swift
2/5
1980’s pop for people who weren’t alive or old enough to actually experience the 1980’s.
It’s reboot culture: “Hey, remember this thing from when we were kids, let’s remake it for the modern generation and squeeze a few more bucks out of it”. The United States is caught in a perpetual cycle of nostalgia and trend recycling, at least in mainstream culture. We’re constantly looking back, trying to relive the glory days, and who can blame us? Shit sucks right now.
But you know what?
The 1980’s kind of sucked, too. Politically, you can trace a lot of the problems we have today to the 80’s. Culturally, the 80’s was a decade of excess; all style and little substance in the mainstream. It’s an era superficiality, so it makes sense that pop music keeps getting sucked back to it.
Making a record that’s a throwback to a sound that’s already lacking depth makes for pretty thin soup, in my opinion.
I’m not saying that pop music and mainstream culture doesn’t have its merits, just that we put too much value on it. Were the 80’s great because of the films, tv and music we choose to remember or were they actually great? If you lived through them, you probably remember a lot stuff that really sucked - no one’s out there trying to make a Small Wonder reboot or Silver Spoons: The Movie and look how well trickle-down economics worked for the lower and middle classes.
I guess my point is that, if you only remember the “greatest hits” of a period time and disregard the low points and flops, you aren’t getting the full picture. You’re getting a romanticized version, and you’ll end up making the same mistakes as the people that lived through that time.
“1989” is exactly that: A superficial homage to a superficial decade. So in that regard, it succeeds. It gives people enough to feel like they missed out on something incredible in 1980’s, but in reality, on a cultural level, the 80’s were no greater or shittier than every decade that’s followed, except for, you know, this one. This one sucks.
Peter Tosh
3/5
Bon Jovi
1/5
In retrospect, writing a glowing 5 star review of Springsteen’s “Darkness at the Edge of Town” that doubled as a homage to New Jersey, my home state, was…a mistake.
There’s no doubt that the generator saw that review and is now challenging me. “Oh, you love New Jersey, huh??? New Jersey’s the best place in the country, is it? Well, let’s see you defend this New Jersey-shaped turd.”
I can’t and won’t. Bon Jovi is a blight upon the Garden State. You can make that my epitaph.
This album cover is literally a photo of a trash bag. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about Slippery When Wet, then nothing I say will change your mind.
Sufjan Stevens
2/5
Christian rock for people who buy artisan maple syrup.
Ash
3/5
A bit like a more punk Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub with a little Sonic Youth thrown in for good measure.
Pretty solid.
k.d. lang
2/5
David Bowie
4/5
Gang Starr
4/5
This is right in my lane. Great record.
The Temptations
3/5
Something I’ve noticed about these early 70’s R&B/funk records from established acts like the Temptation or Isley Brothers is that they tend to go all in on the sound of the time up front, get real funky and loose and then after a few songs kind of revert back to their established sound.
I get it, I’m sure they didn’t want to alienate fans and listeners, while also staying current, but it’s kind of like whiplash going from the aggressive funkiness on the first three tracks and then slowing down with ballads and more traditional material on the second half of the record.
I like that they close things out by getting funky again on “Do Your Thing”, but the tempo of the songs preceding it makes it feel less energetic than it could have been.
Overall, its a solid record, but by this time, bands like Sly and the Family Stone (note the nods to Sly in the opening track) and Funkadelic had ratcheted up the game so much that “All Directions” ends up feeling a little quaint in comparison.
Wu-Tang Clan
3/5
Ryan Adams
3/5
Like a straight-laced brother to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Gold mines similar territory, but ends up being more traditional and not quite as memorable.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
2/5
Ok, hear me out…
Jandek Takes the Floor.
A full cover of this record as performed by Jandek.
I’m not crazy, right? There’s something there? Like it could definitely work.
David Holmes
2/5
This list needs a serious re-evaluation, especially when it comes to late 90’s electronic music. So many of these records have not aged well.
And if you’ll excuse me while I dust off an old chestnut from my repertoire…it’s ridiculous that Let’s Get Killed got the nod, but Stereolab’s Dots and Loops (from one year later, 1998) is not on the list.
For Christ’s sake, this thing has a electro cover of the James Bond theme song. Come on. We all loved playing Goldeneye on N64, but really - we need to hear this version before we die? Oooookkaaaay.
Sorry David Holmes, it’s not an awful record, but I suspect even you were surprised by your inclusion on this list.
Hugh Masekela
4/5
Blur
2/5
Why wouldn’t you just listen to Bowie or the Kinks?
Michael Jackson
3/5
I was terrified by zombie Michael Jackson in the Thriller video as a kid in the 80’s.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
3/5
Jerry Lee Lewis
2/5
The perfect soundtrack for a first date/family reunion.
Air
5/5
If there was ever to be a Mt. Rushmore of my musical tastes; a monument to the records that shaped me as an obsessive music enthusiast, Air’s soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides would certainly occupy a spot.
This was the first Air record I bought, at cd shop in Cape Cod, MA on vacation with an ex-girlfriend in 2002. It was the one of the very first vinyl records I *had* to own, imported from Europe with a hefty shipping cost that same year. It is the record that began my obsession with analog synthesizers and was on of the catalysts for a massive shift in my musical taste.
If you were to take all of the superlatives that normal people assign to Radiohead records: innovative, game changers, etc, etc, ad nauseam…that is what Air is to me. Air, at least on their first few records, is my Radiohead. They helped shift my perception of what a rock band could be.
Some twenty years later, The Virgin Suicides still ranks among my absolute favorite records of all time.
Taking a page from the soundtrack work of Goblin and Pink Floyd (at least to my ears), Air’s soundtrack to the Virgin Suicides is a harrowing musical retelling of the bleak, yet engrossing, Sofia Coppola film.
If you were unfamiliar with the film or the name of the record, you might mistake portions of Air’s score for the soundtrack of a 70’s Italian zombie gorefest. Take the choral synths, propulsive bass and drums of “Dead Bodies”, as an example. It’s the stuff of horror films - which is exactly what The Virgin Suicides is: a film about domestic horror.
In truth, I never bothered to watch the film until just this past year. Air had painted such a vivid picture of what this film could be in my mind’s eye, that I didn’t want to unintentionally tarnish the soundtrack in the event I didn’t enjoy the film.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Watching the film only increased my love of this record. Air captured the atmosphere of the film so well: the horror and desperation, but also the moments of fleeting beauty. The film is made greater by the music and the music is made greater by the film.
It’s a kind of symbiosis, and that is exactly what a great film score should do.
Marty Robbins
1/5
I’ve written enough words over the course of the last 200 records to fill a book and, at this point, I feel like there’s no need to explain myself:
This record sucks.
The Prodigy
3/5
I must have absorbed this record by osmosis in 1998, because I knew every single one of these songs.
(Does math)
…so that means I’m good on listening to this album again until 2048.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
Willie Nelson
4/5
I have the utmost respect for Willie Nelson, his music, his politics and his undeniable talent. He is a stand-up guy and fights the good fight. It can’t be easy to be a liberal in a musical industry that is primarily targeted to and supported by conservatives. It cracks me up every few years when conservatives get bent out of shape that he is supporting a democrat or a liberal cause. Did they really think the guy who’s been stoned for the last 50 years was a conservative?
Country music, on the other hand, is not a genre I love. Putting the politics of it all aside, it’s not a musical tradition I was raised with. I understand what people get from it and why it resonates. For me, though, I can’t seem to get in the headspace to truly appreciate it.
Red Headed Stranger is a fine album. I liked it a lot, but it’s unlikely that I’m going to revisit it with any frequency. Not because of anything that Willie did or didn’t do on the album; this is a “me problem”…country music just doesn’t do it for me and I’m afraid it never will.
Sorry, Willie, but I still think you’re awesome.
Gil Scott-Heron
5/5
This is exactly type of record I had hoped to encounter when I started this list.
Winter in America is completely unique and engaging to my ears. It’s funky and captivating with conscientious, poetic lyrics that paint a vivid picture of American Life that, frankly, isn’t wildly different from the America we live in today, nearly 50 years later. It’s the kind of record that I don’t think anyone else could make or even attempt to recreate. Gil Scott Heron’s talent, his way with words, is incomparable.
This record was a breath of fresh air. I loved it.
It’s a shame it isn’t easily available for digital purchase or streaming outside of YouTube. I ordered a copy on vinyl after my first listen, that’s how much I loved it.
Janet Jackson
2/5
The production on this is so grating I couldn’t get through more than 4 songs. 80’s popular music, hands down, has the worst produced records of any decade.
You know that shitty Yes song from the 80’s?
What’s that? I’m not being specific enough?
“Owner of a Lonely Heart”…that shitty 80’s Yes song. The one with the breakdown with synthesized orchestral stings and other shitty casio keyboard sound effects.
Imagine a double album with that type of dreck comprising every song. That’s this record, pretty much.
What are the sounds on this record even supposed to be? They’re not emulations of actual instruments in most cases, just weird amorphous approximations of an “instrument”.
Call me close minded, if you must. 80’s synthesis and production sucks and it was detrimental to my enjoyment of this record.
Dizzee Rascal
3/5
I get it, but I’m not sure I like it.
George Jones
3/5
You give one country record a good review and 4 albums later, you get another.
I see you random album generator.
Like most other Country records, the pedal steel on this record is what kept me invested, but it’s well established that I’m not a country fan, so that only takes it so far.
Three stars, mostly because I really like the pedal steel as an instrument. Without a doubt, the coolest part of country music.
I can not reiterate it enough, the pedal steel is the best and most interesting part of country music.
Add that to my list of epitaphs.
Genesis
4/5
Let’s see:
I’ve reviewed ELP.
I’ve reviewed King Crimson.
I’ve now reviewed Genesis.
Looks the Generator is saving the best for last…Yes.
If this was Foxtrot, it’d be an easy 5 star review.
Selling England by the Pound, on the other hand…well, it has its moments, like “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight” (a high water mark in the Genesis catalog, imo), but the ornate theatricality that plagues my enjoyment of “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” is beginning to creep in and I’m starting to tune out by the halfway point on this record.
Congratulations are due to Genesis, however: “The Firth of Fifth” might take the prize for most unwieldy song title to ever grace a record sleeve. The song itself is pretty great, though.
One final observation while listening, Peter Gabriel’s influence on the vocal stylings of Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices has never been more evident to me than while listening to this record. (Hint, Hint Generator: recommend Alien Lanes for me)
Ride
4/5
3 minutes into “Seagull” and I just said out loud, “that’s what I’m fuckin’ talking about”. There’s literally no one else around, but that song needed to be acknowledged. The insane drumming, the reversed guitars, the harmonies and hypnotic Taxman bass…Holy fuck, it’s great. This record is getting high marks based solely off that song.
…and I’ve heard this record before.
I mean, I’m listening with a fresh set of ears today, because it’s been quite a while (more than a decade, in fact), but I can’t believe I’ve let that song slip from my psyche the way it has.
Nowhere has always kind of played second fiddle to Loveless in the race for best shoegaze record, but I think it might be better. Without a doubt, the songs here are better written and the sound is a little more fun and adventurous.
Listening to Loveless, to me, feels like a lecture or a treatise: cold and clinical, focused on a singular emotional state and style. It’s monolithic.
Nowhere has a sprawl to its sound, it doesn’t stay in one place for too long, but each song is unmistakably drawn for the same well. It’s cohesive, yet varied.
Kevin Shields and company may take the prize for inventiveness with Loveless’ wall of guitar noise, but Andy Bell and Mark Gardener’s guitar interplay on Nowhere is more engaging and just as dense and hypnotic when it needs to be.
I should just stop making comparisons at this point.
Nowhere is the better record and I’m tired of pretending like it isn’t.
William Orbit
2/5
Man, this started off so promising…Some processed guitar creating an ethereal ambient soundscape. Then like 30 seconds in, forget about that guitar, here’s some hard-panned arpeggiated synth out of nowhere. No build up, just whiplash.
This dude killed his own vibe in first minute of the record. I’m gonna try not to let my disappointment at that production choice ruin my listen, but man, William Orbit, you played yourself hard. Could’ve been a good song, if you let it breathe.
I get why the generator is recommend this record, I’ve given two Air records 5 stars and this is generally in a similar ball park and might be considered a predecessor, stylistically. There’s something that Air has, though, that William Orbit lacks. Air feels very deliberate, their songs unfold smoothly and don’t try to do too much. These songs on Strange Cargo III are clunky as fuck.
…and honestly after the fifth song just started, I’m here thinking “I’ve just heard this one, haven’t I?”. Not a good sign on an hour long, 11 track LP.
Maybe I should have taken ecstasy back in the 90’s, perhaps that was the key to unlocking an appreciation for this type of music. I don’t know, but so far, 210 records in, I’ve found the vast majority of 90’s electronica on this list to range anywhere from highly annoying to completely underwhelming.
This record falls exactly in the middle of that spectrum. It’s like the worst of both worlds. If it was just annoying, it’d be one thing; I could just turn it off. As it is, there’s enough of a glimmer of “good” to keep me thinking that William Orbit might get it together and turn this into a decent record by the end.
Spoiler Alert: He doesn’t.
Thelonious Monk
4/5
Brilliant Corners is the 4th record from indie rock legends Pavement. Released in 1997 on the Matador record label, the record marks a move away from the lo-fi recordings that Pavement had become known…
Hold on a second.
Oops.
Brilliant Corners is a Thelonious Monk album. Brighten the Corners is Pavement…
Make sense, I thought this version of “Stereo” sounded weird.
Well then…Brilliant Corners.
I’m not an especially smart guy, as evidenced by the start of this review. I don’t really understand the music theory behind Jazz and, truthfully, I was never very good at math. So if there’s crazy time signatures or avant-garde stuff happening with the playing or instrumentation on this record, well…I’ll have to take your word for it.
What I can tell you is that this record seems to have an edge (brilliant corners, if you will) compared to other jazz I’ve heard from this timeframe. It sounds ahead of its time and willing to forego tradition for the sake of experimentation and technical challenge.
I dig that. That’s how the world moves forward.
Whether or not this was a small step or giant leap forward, I’m not the guy to decide that. Again, I am not that smart or well versed in jazz. I did find this record enjoyable, intriguing and challenging and I think that’s the most you can ask for from any record (and certainly more than I get from a lot of the records on this list).
Country Joe & The Fish
2/5
Well, it’s better than the Grateful Dead, but that’s a low bar.
The Kinks
4/5
The Kinks would hit higher highs on their subsequent 5 or so records, but Face to Face kicks off a run of albums that ranks among the greatest (and maybe the most overlooked) in the classic rock era.
Make no mistake, however, Face to Face is a damn fine record.
Shack
2/5
Boy, Oasis really did a number on the Brits, didn’t they?
Rage Against The Machine
4/5
I was a teenager in the early 90’s and have ears…of course I love this record.
There’s a few tracks that I have always skipped (settle for nothing, fistful of steel, township rebellion) and even listening to the record in full today, they still don’t really do it for me and feel like retreads of other songs on the record.
But the ones that work…they fucking work. “Freedom” is one of the greatest songs of the 90’s and no one will convince me otherwise.
Call Rage what you will: Hypocrites, Led Zeppelin meets Public Enemy, whatever. This record is hot fire and they are probably the only mainstream rock band in the last 30 or 40 years to vehemently advocate for truly radical change in American culture with their music, interviews and public appearances.
The subject matter on this record, recorded some 30 years ago, still rings true today and Rage hasn’t changed their tune one bit…which makes the recent phenomenon of conservatives on Twitter and in real life clutching pearls about Rage Against the Machine being “woke” or “socialists” unceasingly amusing to me. Where have they been for the last 30 years? How many times did they have to listen to it for the words to sink in?
Sorry to get political, but with this band, that’s baked in. Actually, not sorry…deal with it.
Overall, a heavy-hitting record, but one that I almost never listen to in full. A solid 4.
James Brown
3/5
Great performance, high energy, but the way it’s mixed makes it seem like James Brown was standing off stage in the right corner of the Apollo singing these songs.
Bob Dylan
4/5
I can’t really stand Bob Dylan, but even I can admit this is a pretty great record.
Norah Jones
2/5
I’m in such a good mood after the Eagles lost the Super Bowl last night that not even the AOR/Starbucks-pop of Norah Jones can bring me down.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Hailed as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) double albums of all time, I can’t help but wish this record was actually a single LP.
…but that’s me, I don’t like most double albums. They’re almost always bloated, pat-on-the-back affairs and they usually start running out of gas about an hour in.
So here’s my re-imagined, single disc version of Physical Graffiti; I like to call it the “John-Paul-Jones-Was-The-Best-Member-Of-This-Band Edition”. Sorry if you think this is sacrilege, but you’ll get over it one day:
In the Light
Bron-Yr-Aur
Trampled Under Foot
Houses of the Holy
The Wanton Song
Down By the Seaside
Ten Years Gone
Boom! A 5 star, classic mid-70’s record, clocking in at just under 40 minutes, so it’ll fit on one slab of vinyl. In fact, it would probably have a legitimate shot at best Led Zep record, or, at least, the one that hardcore fans recognize as the best, like Vol. 4 or Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
I know…you’re sitting there saying, “bu-but…what about Kashmir.”
You can keep it, that’s what. Put it on your own single disc version of Physical Graffiti…the one with all the scraps I’ve left behind.
Koffi Olomide
1/5
Man, I had a *great* one-line review making a pun out of the title of the first track, but then I read about this guy and his sex criminal status and realized that joke would make light of his crime and reflect extremely poorly on me if I published it.
Spiritualized
4/5
This is a record I’ve heard many times over the years. It’s a record that, while listening, I think to myself, “this is a really great record”. It’s a record, that even though I think those things, I almost never come back to.
I’ve made peace with the fact that it’ll never make it into my regular rotation.
…or maybe it will, I don’t know.
I got 3.5 hours of sleep last night and my brain is scrambled as I write this, so who knows what anything is anymore.
Thundercat
4/5
Spastic, psychedelic jazz and r&b. Like an early 90’s magic mushroom dorm room black light party and there’s a DJ mixing a sun-warped George Benson record with Stanley Clark’s Journey to Love at 45 instead of 33 rpm.
The bass playing is great, the songs are interesting and more than a little weird.
Easy 4/5.
Oh and btw…some of you need to lighten up.
David Bowie
3/5
[Editorial Note: For this installment, I have enlisted ChatGPT to write the review. Primarily because I have love for much of Bowie’s music, but I’ve always been kind of indifferent to this record. It just doesn’t work for me in the same way that most of his other 70’s work does, even if there are few fantastic songs - like Young Americans, Fascination and Fame. So, I figured if anyone would find humor in a light-hearted, shit-talking review crafted by AI, David Bowie would probably be near the top of the list.
I provided ChatGPT with a simple prompt: “write a funny review of David Bowie’s Young Americans album”. The first take wasn’t very humorous, so I provided a second prompt: “make it funnier and less reverent”.
What you’ll read below is its response]
Alright, buckle up, because this review is gonna be more sarcastic and less reverent than a cult meeting for David Bowie fans.
So, "Young Americans." It's like David Bowie decided to go on a soul-searching trip to America, and came back with an album full of soul music. It's like the guy couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to be Ziggy Stardust or James Brown, so he decided to be both.
And let's talk about the album cover for a second. Bowie looks like he's trying to seduce you with his soulful gaze, while also wearing a shirt that looks like it was made out of an old couch from the '70s. But hey, at least he's got that perfectly coiffed hair going for him.
But seriously, the sax solos on this album are off the charts. It's like Bowie decided to hire a whole band of saxophonists and just let them loose on the album. And the lyrics? Well, let's just say that if you're looking for deep, meaningful poetry, you might want to look somewhere else. But if you're looking for lines like "Do you remember your President Nixon?" and "Ain't there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?", then this album has got you covered.
Overall, "Young Americans" is like a weird mix of Bowie's classic sound and a bunch of soul and funk music thrown in for good measure. It's like he was trying to reinvent himself yet again, but ended up sounding like a confused alien trying to fit in with the cool kids. But hey, at least he's got that sexy saxophone to fall back on.
The Kinks
5/5
Since it’s a Sunday during a three day holiday weekend and I’ve got zero pressing responsibilities today, I’m listening to Village Green on vinyl, rather than streaming from my platform of choice. I’ve got a nice, clean 1975 Reprise US pressing that I found at Double Decker Records in Allentown, PA back in 2016 or so. Shout out to Double Decker, the best record store on the East Coast.
The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society is a concept album of sorts, reflecting Ray Davies’ desire to preserve the culture and traditions of England’s past…or, at least, his recollection of traditions and culture past. I think most of us can relate to that sentiment: we might look back fondly on the decade(s) and culture in which we came of age and hope for a return, but for others, those times might have been miserable and worth leaving behind.
In that regard, “Picture Book”, the third track on Village Green, might act as a mission statement for the record: “Picture book of people with each other…To prove they love each other, a long time ago”.
Almost as though Ray Davies is saying, “Those were the days, weren’t they? Luckily we were able to preserve them, as reminder that things used to be better”. It may be a pessimistic take on my part, I know, but after the last few years on this planet, it’s hard not to look back fondly on the days where everything was simpler and more worry-free.
Despite the nostalgic concept of the record, musically, Village Green is quite forward-thinking. The songs here feel like a blueprint, written and waiting to be uncovered and referenced by a thousand punk and indie rock bands 10, 20 or 30 years in the future. Not to harp on “Picture Book”, but I recall its use in a commercial in the early aughts and thinking it could be a Shins (or similar) song. Not that it’s surprising, even the Kinks earliest songs had an edge to their sound that the Beatles and Stones lacked, it’s unsurprising that their influence would be just as long lasting.
I’m not going sit here and try and convince you that the Kinks were a better band than the Beatles or the Stones. I think they are, at least for their late 60’s/early 70’s output, but that’s a realization and personal preference that you’ll have to come to on your own…or not. I’m just saying that for some fans of punk and indie rock, the Kinks’ records might resonate stronger than the Beatles or the Stones do…and I am one of those people.
Minutemen
4/5
One of the rare instances of a double album that doesn’t run out of steam as it goes on. In fact, as it goes on, it gets better and better. Never a dull moment.
Iron Maiden
2/5
Led Zeppelin
4/5
The Led Zep record thats ok to like if you’re an indie rocker.
Brian Eno
5/5
Another classic Brian Eno record, this time featuring David Byrne.
Pavement
5/5
By the end of Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, if you’re not thinking to yourself “I should start a band and try to make a record as great as this”… well, maybe we should just give up hope for the future and call it a day.
It’s inclusion on this list is not only warranted, it is essential.
Leonard Cohen
3/5
Man, this is bleak for first thing on a Saturday morning.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Start spreadin’ the news…
…this record is lame.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
3/5
[Editorial note: Having tested positive for covid this morning, it may not have been the best idea to try and objectively review an album today]
I don’t know man, i’d rather listen to “Vehicle” by The Clean. Maybe it’s the covid talking but these records feel similar, with the Clean being more upbeat and less “everything’s a bit shit, innit?” (Is that a Peep Show or The Thick of It reference? I can’t remember. Either way, it’s a show that Jesse Armstrong wrote on and I’m pretty sure it’s not Succession. This feels like an Ollie line from The Thick of It, like maybe he’s mocking Robin or Terri or something. That’s what I’ll do with some of my covid down time, rewatch the The Thick of It and then maybe Peep Show…but Peep Show’s like 9 seasons, I don’t think I can plow through that entire show while fighting off covid. I mean that would take a while and I’m hoping this is done within a few days.)
Holy fuck, does my head hurt.
The Smiths
2/5
Elton John
3/5
A pretty solid (and dare I say “proggy”? Prog-ish?) release from Elton John. First half of the record was better than the back half. Tbh, Indian Sunset was where I started losing interest and Rotten Peaches was laughably dumb.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Look, I’ve been pretty hard on some of the “classic”, “greatest-of-all-time” records that appear on this list and there are very few that I plan on giving five stars. It’s not without good reason…a lot of those “classic” records, we’re just supposed to accept they’re classics because they sold a lot of copies or we’ve been told by the music press for decades that they’re important. I don’t think Rumors is a 5 star record…shit, I don’t even think Sgt. Pepper’s is a five star record. They both have their flaws to me and I’m not going to ignore them because everyone else thinks they’re perfect.
Now I’m going be a little hypocritical.
Are You Experienced? is not a perfect record, but it is a 5 star record.
Why, you ask?
Well, and here’s where I’ll be a little hyperbolic, it’s because no one on earth, since Jimi Hendrix, has had as much of a long lasting impact on music. This is a record that changed the world and continued to change the world for many decades after its release.
There is rock music before and after Hendrix. He is the line in the sand, so to speak. He completely changed the way the guitar is played and used in rock music. The man basically created a new language for everyone else to learn and figure out. He is without a doubt the greatest of all time.
You can track his influence all over the music that was released in the years, decades, half century following his debut.
As an example, go ahead and listen to “Third Stone from the Sun” and try and tell me you can’t draw a straight line to the guitar squall and experimentation of Sonic Youth.
Or listen to Eddie Hazel’s solo on Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” or his playing on their ‘74 record, “Standing on the Verge of Getting it on”
Or Stevie Ray Vaughan
Or J Mascis
Or Prince
Or John Frusciante
Or read about how Eric Clapton walked off stage the first time he saw Hendrix play. I believe “Is he really that fucking good?” was Clapton’s response to Chas Chandler right after he left the stage.(TBH, Jimi gets 5 stars just for knocking Clapton down a peg)
Jimi Hendrix was so influential that Miles Davis started playing his trumpet through a wah pedal.
I mean, I could keep naming musicians here, but you get the point, right? There is a pretty good chance that whichever guitar player you like wouldn’t be the player they are without Hendrix.
I don’t think an album with the wealth of influence that Are You Experienced? left behind deserves anything other than 5 stars.
Ramones
5/5
I do declare, the compositions on this phonograph from this band of young miscreants all sound exceedingly similar! Can you imagine the nerve?!? How audacious!
Quick, someone fetch me my fainting couch! I do believe I am having the vapors…Oh, my!
Parliament
5/5
If you’re not rating this 5 stars…what are you even doing with your life?
Beach House
2/5
Explain to me again why there are no Yo La Tengo records on this list.
Also, they do a bit of lifting of “No Other One” by Weezer on the first track. Tell me I’m not the only one who hears it.
This is the kind of record that your “indie” friend won’t shut the fuck up about for a month and then they never mention Beach House ever again. It’s aesthetically pleasing on the ears, but lacks substance or any sense of urgency.
Indie Rock used to be cool. Now, it’s…this.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
It used to bug me to no end when I’d be out at a bar or a party and the band would say “we’re gonna do a Red Hot Chili Peppers song!” and then kick into “Higher Ground”.
Show some respect, you clods.
Nas
4/5
FKA twigs
2/5
Neil Young
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die
Chapter 2: Neil Young - “On the Beach”
Getting this record recommend to me and being able to push a button and listen to it is nothing short of a miracle in my mind.
I was a Neil Young fan for over a decade before I was even able to listen to this record. It was so out of print from the 80’s until the early aughts that unless you could find a vinyl copy or a bootleg cd recorded from vinyl, you were out of luck.
On the Beach, at that point, had obtained a mythical status, “the greatest Neil Young album”, a “lost masterpiece”. When it was first released on CD in 2003, and I finally got to hear it, it lived up to the hype and then some. It is easily my favorite Neil Young record, a definite candidate for his best album and one of the five best records of the 1970’s. Every song on “On the Beach” is a Neil Young classic.
“Walk On” kicks things off with an upbeat (by comparison to the rest of the record) southern rock feeling. The stunning, Wurlitzer driven second track, “See the Sky About to Rain” is one of Young’s most beautiful tunes, a mournful yet psychedelic exercise. Aided by Honey Slides, an edible, highly potent, marijuana/honey amalgamation created by Neil and his band, Neil turns in one of the greatest psychedelic songs in his entire catalog on “See the Sky about to Rain”.
Rick Danko and Levon Helm of The Band (along with more honey slides) provide a thundering rhythm section on “Revolution Blues”, a noisy rock stomper about the Manson murders. “Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars, but I hate them worse than lepers and I’ll kill them in their cars,” Young sings before launching into the second of two blistering guitar solos in the song. Young is at his most aggressive, maybe ever, on Revolution Blues. It’s a track that seethes with white-hot hostility. Even if David Crosby guests on rhythm guitar, Revolution Blues couldn’t be further from the pacifist hippy mentality that CSNY, Young’s side hustle, would typically traffic in. Revolution Blues is a goddamn masterpiece and what I wouldn’t give for a full album the band that recorded it: Young on Lead guitar and vocals, David Crosby on rhythm guitar, Ben Kieth on Wurlitzer, Danko on Bass and Levon on drums…now *that’s* a supergroup. We’ll call them Neil Young and the Honey Slides.
I fucking love that song.
“For the Turnstiles”, a plucky banjo and dobro duet between Young and Ben Keith, calms the storm a bit, if only temporarily, as “Vampire Blues” (the only one of three songs with “Blues” in the title that actually resembles the blues) lumbers in. It’s a disillusioned meditation on the state of the world in in 1974: a dire warning about our reliance on fossil fuels spurred on by the gas crisis and poor economy…”Good times are coming, but they’re sure coming slow” - if you can’t relate to that in 2023, it’s time to pull your head out of the sand.
Neil Young’s world was falling apart in 1973-74, with friends dying of heroin overdoses, a relationship on the rocks and he could see the end coming. “The world is turning, I hope it doesn’t turn away,” he sings on the title track, a slow burning, introspective rumination on fame and his current state of affairs. “Motion Pictures” mines similar territory: Young’s disenchantment with fame and (possibly) his relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress.
Sometimes it’s all futile, you can try your best to stop the world from turning, but you just can’t stop the tide: “…there ain’t nothing like a friend who can tell you you’re just pissing in the wind”. We all need that friend who can tell us when we’re wasting our time and energy, and here, on “Ambulance Blues”, Neil Young seems to be acting as that friend not only to himself, but also to the listener.
“On the Beach” is the highest of several high watermarks in Young’s impressive 1970’s output: a raw, introspective and often bleak record; a record that is completely authentic and doesn’t hold anything back. It’s a masterpiece from start to finish and is unequivocally my favorite album of all time.
If it’s not yours, that’s cool…but it really should be.
[Postscript: I just finished watching the season finale of Poker Face, the excellent Natasha Lyonne whodunnit, and what song played at the end of the episode? “Walk On”. The matrix is real, everything is connected, we live in a simulation…What are the odds of that? I spend all day listening to and reviewing On the Beach and the only television show I tune into today ends with an song from On the Beach? Are you fucking kidding me? Holy fuck, unbelievable. Look at the date stamp on my review, then Google the airdate for S1E10 of Poker Face…I’m going to start a religion, The Church of the Honey Slides. We meet on Sundays, imbibe of the holy honey slides and crank Time Fades Away, On the Beach, Tonight’s the Night and Zuma. Long Live Neil Young.]
The Doors
3/5
RIYL: the calliope music that plays on merry-go-rounds, drinking beer for breakfast.
Roni Size
2/5
This is outrageous, this is contagious.
This is outrageous, this is contagious.
So futile.
Depeche Mode
2/5
Now that this record is over, I can truly Enjoy the Silence.
Dire Straits
2/5
Bad Company
3/5
I’ve written more than I care to about the weird symbiosis I’ve had with the Random Album Generator over the last 8 or so months, but I wouldn’t keep bringing it up if it didn’t keep happening.
So, on today’s installment of “The Matrix is Real”, we have Bad Company’s self titled debut record.
Every Tuesday night, for the better part of the last 15 years, I’ve listened to The Best Show (with Tom Scharpling). It started its life as call-in comedy radio show during the tail end of the Clinton Administration on New Jersey’s WFMU, the greatest radio station in America - a free form, listener supported station…you can and should stream it sometime. By the mid-aughts, the radio show was being podcast the next day after the show aired on terrestrial radio. In 2013, Tom Scharpling left WFMU to do the show independently as a streaming call-in show/podcast. Currently, The Best Show still operates as podcast, but also streams on YouTube each Tuesday night. If you like indie rock and comedy, the Best Show should be right up your alley: they have live in studio performances from the likes of Lou Barlow, The Black Lips, Mike Watt, and more; comedic guests like Patton Oswald, Marc Maron, Matt Berry; weekly calls from Superchunk/Mountain Goats/Bob Mould drummer Jon Wurster, where he calls in as a fictional character, typically from the fictional town of Newbridge, NJ; and, of course calls, from listeners on a variety of lighthearted and funny topics - a personal favorite was “Who is the dumbest member of CSNY?”.
It’s one of my favorite things on earth. It’s truly the *best* show around.
Right now, you’re thinking “holy fuck, dude, get to the point”…hang on, I’m almost there.
One of the staples of The Best Show, for the last decade plus, is the song Bad Company by Bad Company from the album we are here to discuss, “Bad Company”.
The premise is simple, but might take a minute to explain.
Because the Best Show is a call-in show, sometimes they get great callers, sometimes they get mediocre callers and, you guessed it, sometimes they get truly awful callers. When a truly awful or especially boring caller calls in, Tom will often lose interest and/or patience with them, and that is where Bad Company comes in.
While an insufferable caller is rambling on about something off topic or idiotic, Scharpling will discreetly begin to fade in the song Bad Company (”Company…always on my mind”) into the background of their call. With the studio setup, everyone but the caller can hear the opening strains of the song kicking in. Listeners become giddy, because they know what’s coming. Scharpling will deftly keep the caller rambling, feigning interest in their tale, pushing them closer and closer to the first chorus of the song. Then, as Paul Rodgers sings “That’s why the call me…[snare hits] Bad Company!”, Scharpling hangs up of the caller, often mid-sentence. It is unbelievably hilarious to me and, at the same time, maybe the dumbest thing that makes me laugh…It never fails to make me laugh. [there’s a super cut of people getting Bad Company’d on YouTube, if you’re interested.]
Anyway, that the generator recommended this record on a Tuesday, the day I always listen to/watch the Best Show is just another coincidence in a long line of increasingly specific coincidences I’ve experienced during this project. If there was ever a song I associated with Tuesday’s, it’s “Bad Company”.
Who knows, maybe I thought this project would be a good way to pass some time, but it’s actually going to be the thing that causes a mental breakdown. Who knows. At this point, I’m just here for the ride.
Oh, and you should listen to the Best Show. Tuesday nights on YouTube, BestShow4Life, the next day on the podcast platform of your choice and archives of the first 14 years over at WFMU.org. There’s literally like 24 years worth of shows you can listen to and, let’s face it, if you’re doing this project, you’ve probably got some other time you’re looking to kill.
Cornershop
2/5
I don’t know if you guys heard, but…
There’s a brim full of asha on the forty-five.
How did it get there?
Is it supposed to be there?
…also, what is a “brim full of asha”?
This record leaves the listener with more questions than answers.
George Michael
1/5
Isn’t it annoying when someone tells you, “Don’t look over there, but…”? The first thing you’re going to do is look over there, right?
So when George Michael tells me to “Listen Without Prejudice”, I’m going to be listening with a more critical ear than usual. Big mistake, George Michael.
So here’s my prejudiced take after listening: there’s so much reverb on George Michael’s voice on every track of this record that it sounds like he fell down a well and instead of trying to get him out, his producers lowered a microphone down into the well so they could record his vocals.
The Chemical Brothers
3/5
The perfect soundtrack for mindless, repetitive work tasks on a Friday morning.
Dennis Wilson
3/5
Baaba Maal
2/5
Nirvana
4/5
Do you like layers and layers of guitars, because I have More Than a Feeling that this record has enough multitracked guitars to make Tom Scholz of Boston blush.
Björk
3/5
Bjork has a unique and wonderful voice, but this isn’t for me.
The Cure
4/5
I’m about to type some words I never thought I would:
I really liked this record by The Cure.
It’s a sparse, minimal, lo-fi record that isn’t weighed to down by ornate and dreary production or by being too mawkish. Some of the songs almost seemed [gasp] fun?
This is a really great record. I’m honestly shocked I liked a Cure record this much…historically, that has not been my experience with Robert Smith & company. Who knows, if they had stuck with this sound, I might be a huge Cure fan - It feels more like a record by The Clean or The Chills than what we know The Cure to be.
Fuck me, what a surprise.
Mercury Rev
4/5
Some of these reviews are cracking me up, “sounds like the Flaming Lips”.
Well, you don’t say!
Jonathon Donahue was in the Flaming Lips for In A Priest Driven Ambulance and Hit to Death in the Future Head - there’s a pretty substantial argument to be made that The Flaming Lips wouldn’t be the band they are without Donahue. In addition to helping the band hone their noisy, experimental sound into a more concise, experimental pop sound, he also introduced them to their long time producer, Dave Fridmann, who produced this album and nearly all of the other Mercury Rev records.
So yeah, it sounds like the Flaming Lips. The influence Jonathon Donahue and David Fridmann had on the Flaming Lips can’t be understated.
In fact, you could probably get some traction by starting a conspiracy theory positing that Jonathon Donahue was still a secret member of the Flaming Lips, at least through the Soft Bulletin. I think the truth is that the Flaming Lips had been chasing what Mercury Rev was doing since Donahue left the band after Hit to Death in the Future Head. It’s just that the Lips managed to make a hit out of it before Donahue did.
I say this as a long time Flaming Lips fan, but it’s pretty clear listening to the output of the two bands through the 90’s.
Now, all of that said, I enjoy The Soft Bulletin more of the two, but Deserter’s Songs is a damn fine record and was 1000% an influence on The Soft Bulletin. It’s undeniable.
So that leaves me in a conundrum; Does Deserter’s Songs get a higher ranking than The Soft Bulletin, because it’s influence is so shockingly clear and undeniable? Does The Soft Bulletin get overrated because people just don’t know about Mercury Rev in the same way they know the Flaming Lips? Probably. No, strike that…it absolutely does.
The divide falls somewhere along these lines: Deserter’s Songs is a record that is immaculately played, with very concise production and was clearly labored over. Not that The Soft Bulletin isn’t any of those things, but there’s a haphazard beauty to it that Deserter’s Songs (mostly) lacks.
Both are great records, but for me, The Soft Bulletin just barely squeaks out a victory.
To use a sports analogy that will surely alienate anyone under the age of 40 or anyone from Mercury Rev’s home town of Buffalo, NY: It’s like Super Bowl XXV, where a Buffalo field goal would’ve won the game for Buffalo over the Giants in the final seconds. The kick went wide-right and the Giants won the game 20-19. Buffalo was probably the better team that year and should’ve won that game, but it came down to one moment of chance and they were on the wrong side of it.
…and that, class, is why the The Flaming Lips are the 1991 NY Giants of rock music and Mercury Rev are The Buffalo Bills. Next week we’ll discuss why Robert Pollard is the Michael Jordan of indie rock. See you then.
George Harrison
3/5
My Sweet Lord do I hate double albums.
This is arguably the best solo album any of them ever made and I’m finding it incredibly uninteresting.
I think I’m just burnt on the Beatles.
I mean it’s a good record, the songs are all great, the musicianship in on point, but…
…I get it, the Beatles were great but how are we, collectively as a society, not tired of them by now? It’s like Marvel movies, ubiquitous to the point where i can’t understand why people even care anymore. There’s nothing on this record that is going to surprise me, because I’ve heard it, even if I haven’t actually heard all of it. You know what I mean? 41 years on this earth and it’s still all about the Beatles. Beatles, Beatles, Beatles….I’ve grown so tired of them, it’s exhausting trying to make it through their records.
For real, did I need to hear “Apple Scruffs” before I die? Absolutely not. That song is the poster child for why I hate double records. Who is that for?
And how could I live without “Sir Frankie Crisp”?
No one earth has ever added those songs to a playlist. It’s a scientific impossibility…
Fuck me, I just realized this is actually a TRIPLE ALBUM.
Sorry, George, you were easily the best Beatle, but I just can’t anymore. There’s so much other music out there, I can’t pretend that everything you 4 did is the greatest thing to ever happen to music.
3 stars because it’s 3 LP’s.
Little Simz
5/5
Usually when I get record assigned from the list that I’ve never heard of, from an artist I’m completely unfamiliar with (especially newer records), a shiver runs up my spine, a sense of trepidation sets in and I begin to question my life choices.
Can you blame me, though? Each and everyone of us has been burned by this dumb list and have had to sit through our fair share of underwhelming to straight up awful records.
Well, that initial reaction couldn’t have been more unfounded with GREY Area. This is a fantastic record. Little Simz has impressive flow and the instrumentation is funky and engaging. At 35 minutes long, it’s concise, hits hard right out of the gate and doesn’t over stay its welcome.
In fact, it leaves you wanting more.
Steve Winwood
2/5
Editorial Note: I’ll be doing a preemptive review before listening and a second, post-listen review of this record.
Pre-Listen Review:
Oh, jeesus - a Steve Winwood record from 1980. That’s like drinking milk 12 years after the sell-by date.
Post-Listen Review:
Refer to Pre-Listen Review.
Peter Gabriel
3/5
Because The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway didn’t have enough pompous excess, Peter Gabriel opens his first solo record with one of the most ridiculous song titles to ever get printed on a record jacket:
“Moribund the Burgermeister”
After the fantastic “Solsbury Hill”, Gabriel decides he’s a sexpot of sorts and turns in some truly lecherous metaphors on “Modern Love”:
“I trusted my Venus was untouched in her shell
But the pearls and the balls in her oysters were tacky as hell”
and
“Hey, I worship Diana by the light of the moon
When I pull out my pipe she scream out of tune”
He follows that up with obnoxious music hall cabaret (Excuse Me) and, later, an overwrought blues romp (Waiting the Big One).
You really get it all on Gabriel’s 1977 self-titled, and by “it all” I mean “a few great songs and a bunch of stuff that probably should have been left on the cutting room floor”.
It’s all well executed, but lacks what I’d call “consistency”. Kind of a “let’s throw everything at the way and see what sticks” vibe here and the end result is just ok.
Green Day
3/5
Proof that the the old axiom, “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people” is not only true, but that you can turn a buck (quite a few, as it turns out) calling them idiots to their face.
Os Mutantes
5/5
This is you:
“Sgt. Pepper’s is so psychedelic. The sounds on that record are totally kaleidoscopic and vibrant.”
This is me:
“Bat Macumba ê ê! Bat Macumba obá!”
Paul Revere & The Raiders
2/5
One if by land, Two if by Paul Revere & the Raiders
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
3/5
There’s something about this record I just don’t like, not sure what it is. It’s fine, but ultimately just kind of…eh. Like, it makes sense that it’s kind of a gateway record for people to get into jazz- it’s not particularly challenging and it’s easy on the ears, but after two listens it’s kind of driving me nuts.
Mekons
3/5
My only exposure, really, to Mekons prior to today was via Boredoms’ cover/reworking/extrapolation of “Where Were You” on the Super Roots 7 EP. Boredoms take that song, with its propulsive punk backbeat, and stretch it out into an 18 minute, glitched-out, krautrock odyssey. Highly recommended.
That type of punk doesn’t really exist on “Fear and Whiskey”, though track 3, “Hard to be Human” comes close. By and large, it’s what would we might call alt-country today, with maybe a bit more focus on the “alt” than on “country”.
It’s not hard to see what Boredoms found inspiring about Mekons as I listen to Fear and Whiskey. It’s a strange album, with some avant-garde tendencies with occasionally processed vocals and spoken word passages, droning violin passages and songs that will occasionally stop on a dime, transform into something completely experimental and different, then return to their previous themes.
Fear and Whiskey simultaneously manages to capture a “traditional” sound and a complete disregard for tradition. It’s familiar and unnerving at the same time, sort of a contradictory record. It’s a unique entry on the list and worth listening to more than once.
Wire
4/5
John Martyn
4/5
I used to think I didn’t like Folk music.
Turns out that maybe I just don’t like American Folk music.
Well, maybe I should clarify…the British folk I’ve listened because of this list has been far more interesting to me than the American Folk music I’m familiar with. It’s seemingly more willing to experiment, with less adherence to tradition.
There’s some truly beautiful Fender Rhodes keyboard playing on this record. It’s a funky, soulful and experimental psychedelic folk-rock record. Really great stuff here, especially if you enjoy Nick Drake.
The Beach Boys
5/5
I know this isn’t a five star record. Logically, it can’t be. Student Demonstration Time is laughably bad, Disney Girls is schmaltzy and sounds dated (even by Beach Boys standards) and A Day in the Life of a Tree is legitimately bizarre.
But also…
This is a 5 star record.
It’s dark, psychedelic, and weird. It’s all over the place and isn’t quite as finely polished as other Beach Boys records. Not to say it’s poorly produced, however. It’s a Beach Boys record, after all. It’s a very layered and lush record, it just has more of a DIY, home-y kind of feel to it: a little ramshackle, but in the best possible way.
The highs they hit on songs like the absolutely amazing Surf’s Up and Feel Flows, ‘Til I Die, Long Promised Road, Don’t Go Near the Water and Lookin’ at Tomorrow more than make up for the lows on the songs I mentioned earlier.
And honestly, Disney Girls and A Day in the Life of a Tree aren’t bad, the production on both is well done and I don’t always skip them. They’re just a little off by comparison to the rest of the record.
“Student Demonstration Time” is the only real, true blue stinker - if you ever wondered what it would be like to watch Mike Love dance burlesque while giving an oral history of protests in the late sixties….go listen to Student Demonstration Time. It sucks and I think there’s a pretty good case for it as the worst Beach Boys song ever released.
But enough about that doofus Mike Love, Surf’s Up is a classic Beach Boys record and, frankly, it’s my favorite of theirs.
Al Green
3/5
Machito
2/5
I’ve made no attempt to hide the fact that I don’t like music from the 50’s throughout the course of this project.
I try and go in with an open mind to records from this era, but…sweet jesus, most of them are boring. It always feels like I’m a listening to the theme song for a black and white TV show like I Love Lucy or My Three Sons. Even when it’s different, it all sounds the same.
I can’t get past it. Sorry.
Well, not really.
All I can say is: thank god someone introduced musicians to LSD, otherwise there’s a good chance we’d still be stuck with the cloying sound of 50’s popular music.
Yes
5/5
Yes are the audio equivalent of Pringles to me. Once I start listening, I can’t stop.
I listened to Fragile twice today. Then I put on Close to the Edge. Then I listened to the first and last track of Tales From Topographic Oceans (had this been a single LP with those two songs, I think it’d be more fondly remembered than it is now) and finished up with Relayer and bit of Going For the One.
I don’t have a problem, YOU have a problem.
Tom Waits
2/5
To the esteemed Princeton University Admissions Committee,
Thank you, in advance, for taking the time to review my admissions essay. Becoming a student at Princeton would fulfill a life long dream and I am honored to be able to apply.
It’s certainly uncommon for someone of my age, with an established career, to be applying for college into their 40’s, but I believe I am uniquely qualified to attend your university and after regaling you with this true story, I think you’ll agree:
Several years ago, while shopping for records at the nearby Princeton Record Exchange, I was asked by a student from your University (easily identifiable because of his Princeton University hooded sweatshirt, backwards ball cap and worn out Sperry’s), if I knew “where they keep the Tom Waits records.”
“I checked the ‘T’ section….nothing there,” he added.
“Try the ‘W’ section,” I suggested to him. “They sort artists by last name.”
“Oh, wow”, he sighed, with a sense of overwhelmed exasperation. “I wouldn’t have thought of that”, he said, making his way to the W section, where a likely treasure trove of Tom Waits on wax awaited him.
As he searched through the W section and I continued my crate digging, a sense of pride washed over me:
“Holy fuck,” I thought. “I could have got into Princeton.”
Hence, my reasoning for writing this essay. As I wrote earlier, I think my qualification for admittance into your fine school speaks for itself. I have a solid grasp on alphabetical sorting and categorization and a keen ability to help others solve their problems in a quick and efficient manner. Plus, I’m not half-bad at math.
I look forward to my inevitable acceptance to your school and hope to provide forward thinking leadership amongst the students. Thank you once again for taking the time to review my application for admission.
Go Tigers!
X-Ray Spex
5/5
My new favorite pastime is reading reviews of punk albums on this site and finding all the reviews that complain about punk records being repetitive and the songs sounding the same.
You guys crack me up.
Seriously, never change.
Maybe one day you’ll find the prog-punk masterpiece you’re after.
In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying this X-Ray Spex record. It’s a classic.
Kendrick Lamar
3/5
Anthrax
1/5
More like “Far from Interesting”, am I right?
While we’re here and since this is the first thrash record I’m reviewing, I’m gonna lay out where I land with Thrash’s “Big Four”:
Metallica: hands down the best of the four in terms of songwriting. They had a gift for writing great compositions that were not only heavy, but with twists and turns that could start and stop on a dime. Not the most technically skilled of the big four, but their knack for songwriting puts them well above the competition.
Megadeth: Highly skilled and technical, faster than a meth head on a motocross bike. The thrashiest of the thrashers, perhaps. In terms of songwriting and composition, a notch below Metallica, but their technique and skill is above the rest.
Slayer: Just brutal and uncompromising. Beyond extreme. Speed for the sake of speed. Melodicism is nil, but their fans don’t care, they want destruction. Their songwriting and compositions, save a few aberrations here and there, is nearly non-existent - Slayer is audio chaos.
And now the star of today’s show…
Anthrax: kind of a weird hybrid between the heaviness of Metallica and the speed of Slayer, but with a more lighthearted attitude and willingness to incorporate other genres into their thrash. Of the Big Four, they are the closest to punk and hardcore on the thrash spectrum, due in no small part to their proximity to the NYC scene in the 80’s (also explains their interest in hip-hop. NYC music scene was a veritable melting pot back then).
Anthrax was always my least favorite of the four. That hasn’t changed. I made it about halfway through this record before shutting it off. Their songs always felt very stale to me. I think they might be the most “of-their-time” of the four. This record still feels like an 80’s metal record, where some of the records from Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer don’t feel as tied to the era they were released.
Long story short, I respect Anthrax, but their music isn’t for me.
On second thought, it’s ok if you leave this one behind.
Bonnie Raitt
1/5
Wow…Three one-star albums in a row. I’ve completed my first one-star hat trick.
I don’t know what to say…it’s all so much…
[wipes the tiniest tear from the corner of his eye]
I couldn’t have done it without you, Bonnie Raitt: The late 80’s production sheen and synthetics are laid on so thick on this record, that you’ve left me with no choice but to achieve this impressive feat.
I’d also like to thank U2 and their truly terrible 2000 record, “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” for yesterday’s one star experience.
To Anthrax: I probably should have given Among the Living two stars because I like you guys on a personal level…I really, really like you (just not your music), but without that first one star record to get the ball rolling, we wouldn’t be here today.
Finally, I’d like to thank the Academy, my agent, my business manager - whazzzup Pete - along with my lovely wife and non-existent kids. I couldn’t have done it without all of your support.
Good luck to you all, one day it could be you up here talking about the terrible records you’ve been subjected to.
This place…*this* is where we find hope, where wings take dream. God bless you all and long live the Michelin Man.
Kacey Musgraves
3/5
Well, fuck…if more country music sounded like this I might not hate it so much.
As the record goes on, however, a thought occurs:
“Huh, it took 18 years for early 2000’s indie rock to permeate popular country music. Ain’t that something.”
Laibach
2/5
I had to look up the translation for Opus Dei. Apparently, it’s latin for “two stars”.
Fairport Convention
4/5
You know this list has done a number on you when you’re looking forward to British folk records from the late 60’s and early 70’s.
How beaten down am I that I wake up on a Sunday, check in to this website and think, “Fairport Convention…sweet, this should be good”?
Seriously, though. The British folk on this list has been the most consistently enjoyable genre that I was previously unfamiliar with. It’s surprising because I typically don’t have the time of day for American folk music. The British folk I’ve been exposed to because of this list tends to be less tied down by tradition and more willing to experiment than their American counterparts.
Fairport manages to strike a great balance between tradition and modern, with atmospherics and progressive song structures weaved into these traditional songs. The amazing guitar work of Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny’s exceptional vocals are standouts, but, really, the entire group is firing on all cylinders.
Leige and Lief is an engaging and exciting folk rock record; highly enjoyable on a grey spring morning.
The Stooges
5/5
If you want me to love your record:
- Make it 35 minutes long
- Have lots of fuzzed out guitar
- Don’t be afraid to drone
- Don’t be afraid to get weird
- Play with a sense of urgency
The Stooges debut LP checks all those boxes and then some.
Kate Bush
3/5
Pretenders
3/5
Cowboy Junkies
3/5
If you ever wondered what it would be like if David Lynch was the musical director for in-store playlists at Whole Foods, look no further.
Bob Dylan
3/5
Goddamn this list for making me appreciate Bob Dylan.
Ok, 5 songs in and I’m back to being annoyed by him.
I think Dylan is just one of those musicians I can take in small doses, but more than 15 minutes and it starts to become excruciating.
New Order
2/5
I hate half-assed records like this, where a band will experiment with one sound, but keep the other foot in comfortable territory.
If you want to make an acid house record, make an acid house record. If you want to make a maudlin, Cure-like record, make one. Don’t sandwich the two together without regard for consistency.
Nobody wants a record where four songs sound like one band and five songs sound like another.
It’s timid.
If you go for it, go all in. I’d rather see a band take a risk and fail than take half a risk and convince themselves they’ve succeeded.
Talvin Singh
3/5
OK is OK, until it isn’t.
For me, that was about 5 songs.
Once again, my rule of thumb for the list hasn’t been disproven:
If you haven’t heard anyone talking about an album on this list in 25 years, you don’t need to hear it before you die.
Pink Floyd
4/5
The United States Of America
5/5
[puts on Uncle Sam outfit]
I WANT *YOU*
TO DROP ACID
The Triffids
1/5
Huh…I didn’t know the church band from The Righteous Gemstones had put out any albums.
Living Colour
2/5
A little known fact about this record:
Living Color were such fans of the 1987 Martin Short movie “Innerspace” that they had their drummer and his drum kit shrunk down and placed inside a tin can to to record his parts, achieving the now famous reverb-laden drum sound on Vivid.
OutKast
4/5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
The Gospel according to Nick Cave.
Nick Drake
4/5
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
Too rye ay?
More like “Two stars, aye?”
The Magnetic Fields
3/5
Robert Pollard is just about the only human on earth who could put out a 69 song album that might keep my interest.
Stephin Merritt, talented as he is - and I mean that - is no Bob Pollard (for me, at least).
Also, Pollard’s songs, both solo and with Guided By Voices, tend to be in the minute and half to two and half minute range, which would make a 69 song record a lot more manageable.
Since I made very little effort to listen to all 69 songs here, and both 6 and 9 are divisible by 3, I’m giving 69 love songs 3 stars, which I think is the fairest way to do things.
Arctic Monkeys
2/5
Like, just listen to Gang of Four or something, geez.
Bebel Gilberto
3/5
Far exceeded my preliminary album-cover-based expectations.
Fans of Stereolab should find something to like on this record.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
How many eggs do you think they had to crush before they got that album cover photo right?
The Fall
4/5
You never quite know what a Fall album is going to sound like, but you know whatever they do, it’s going to sound like The Fall.
Does that make sense? I think it does.
Stan Getz
3/5
On the next…Arrested Development:
…Buster, now barred from attending the annual Motherboy dance due to his age, hires the legal team of Zuckerkorn and Loblaw to help him launch a class action suit against the Motherboy organization.
…Tobias lands a recurring role on TV’s The Bear.
…and Michael finds a trove of classified Trump administration documents stashed in the model home.
GZA
3/5
Solomon Burke
3/5
I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for Solomon Burke because of his cover of Van Morrison’s “Fast Train” that was used in the season 3 finale of The Wire. It’s a wonderful song and, dare I say, better than the original.
The rest of his catalog, I’m not super familiar with.
Rock ‘N Soul was enjoyable, but as I’ve said in other reviews, early 1960’s music doesn’t really connect with me. It’s often like taking a trip to a forgotten era, one that’s kind of familiar, but also completely foreign. Having been released in 1964, this record is closer to the familiar than to completely foreign, but, it feels…old. Like if you could listen to music in black and white.
…and there’s some to charm to that. One of my favorite movies of all time is Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, but there aren’t many other black and white films I truly love.
So when it comes to music, it’s not something I can go back to over and over.
This is reflection on me, not the music. Solomon Burke is a great singer, the songs are well written and performed. There’s no good reason for me not to like this.
…there’s just something in my brain that isn’t receptive to the late 50’s/early 60’s sound. I can’t explain it otherwise.
Christina Aguilera
2/5
I’m too old to pretend I give a shit about pop music.
Find yourself a spouse who loves you as much as middle class white British dudes in the 60’s and 70’s loved the blues.
Aerosmith
2/5
This album is called Rocks ‘cause that’s what they was smoking when they made it.
#lowhangingfruit
Love
4/5
Right off the bat, this record gets high marks based off of “A House is not a Motel”. Fantastic song that I was originally introduced to via Yo La Tengo’s cover on their first record, Ride the Tiger.
Not a big fan of the drums and bass being panned hard left in the stereo field and one guitar panned hard right, but it was the 60’s and I guess that was either a limitation or purposeful artistic choice.
It’s a pretty record; psychedelic and well produced, but all the instruments feel walled off from one another in a way. Once you become attuned to that (turning on Spatialize Stereo on your AirPods helps a bit), you’ll find a totally unique and somewhat overlooked 60’s psych album.
In closing, I’ll leave with you with this truly disgusting lyric from “Live and Let Live”, which is an otherwise fantastic song:
“Oh, the snot has caked against my pants. It has turned into crystal.”
Shivkumar Sharma
3/5
Putting on this record, while laying on the couch after a massive Mother’s Day breakfast, I was able to shut off my mind for a good 40 minutes. No thoughts about work or worries about things I have to take care of this week. Just this record and nothing else. I shut out the world for a little bit, and at the end, my stress and anxiety levels had receded. I found it to be immensely calming and a great escape.
The Sonics
4/5
Like a punch in the face from a bygone era.
The Sugarcubes
2/5
Try as I might with Bjork, I just don’t get it.
Merle Haggard
2/5
I’ve always felt like the term “Outlaw Country” was nothing more than creative marketing.
Like…this is just country music except with the occasional reference to being on the run.
…and before you get all “uh, ackshually…”, yes I know Merle Haggard served time and had a criminal past.
The phrase “Outlaw Country” gives the impression that it’s gonna be the kind of music that’ll make you want to break a beer bottle across someone’s face and then go rob the Circle K down the road.
This ain’t that.
This is just regular old country music.
Bob Dylan
2/5
[strums guitar gently, starts singing]
“How many Bob Dylan albums must a man endure, before he’s free of this god forsaken list?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.”
[abruptly stops strumming]
…wait, no it’s not.
Seven.
The answer, my friend, is seven.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
1/5
I’ve previously said that the Grateful Dead are the most overrated band in American history.
It’s possible I was wrong.
At the least, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are hot on the Dead’s heels in second place.
If you like this, it’s fine…you do you. But know this: You’re better than this and, frankly, you deserve better than this.
…You know, I was going to leave it at that, but I got more to say.
First off, are we just going to ignore the “Asian voice” stereotype in “Around the World”? “Bing-dang-dong-ding-ding-bing-bing-bing-bong”…get the fuck outta here with that.
Second, and this is general consensus, but it bears repeating: if Anthony Keidas wasn’t in this band and someone who could sing was, they’d be much more enjoyable. The actual musicians in this band are all fantastic to incredible. When he’s not singing, this is pretty good music. His vocals and unbelievably stupid lyrics drag this band so far down that any goodwill garnered by the musicianship is overshadowed.
Finally, this thing is so front loaded with hits, it’s a miracle that copies weren’t falling forward off the shelves due to the lack of weight on the b-side. If there was ever a case to be made for records being a maximum of 20-25 minutes long, the Red Hot Chili Peppers would be Exhibit A.
Seriously. After the song Californication, this record really blows.
Tears For Fears
3/5
Mom bought the first Sony Discman, the D-50, shortly after it came out: a minimalist, chunky half-cube of a gadget with an LCD readout, maybe four buttons and a volume dial.
It was the future.
It played shiny discs that had a prismatic glow when you held them under light. As far as I was concerned at five or six years old, it was magic.
Among the discs Mom would purchase following her acquisition of the new magical music machine: selections from The Beatles’ catalog, Phil Collins’ “No Jacket Required”, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme”, a host of classical and new age recordings and this record right here, Tears For Fears’ “Songs From the Big Chair”.
If you asked me the name of my first grade teacher or what I got for Christmas in 1987, I couldn’t begin to tell you, but I remember sitting in our living room on the dark blue carpet popping this disc or “No Jacket Required” or “Help!” into the CD player like it was yesterday.
…Fuck me, I loved “Sussudio” back then.
Now I’ve a got a closet full of prismatic discs that haven’t seen the light of day in close to two decades.
For me, they’ve been rendered obsolete by the even more minimalist and thin rectangular slab that nearly everyone on earth carries with them at all times and by a format that’s even older than the compact disc: the vinyl record. I’ve been collecting vinyl for nearly a quarter century now and have found that I prefer the experience of listening to the medium that preceded the cd when sitting crosslegged on the floor of my living room.
So here’s to the Compact Disc and all the other inventions that changed the world and have since been relegated to dust:
Sic transit gloria.
(Glory fades)
The Fall
4/5
Easily one of the greatest album titles ever. I’m not sure it’s the best Fall record, but it’s a damn fine one and makes a for a good intro to the the band. If you like this one, check out Hex Induction Hour, which, surprisingly, isn’t on this list.
AC/DC
4/5
If You Want Songs About Fucking That Are Barely Couched In Metaphor (You’ve Got It).
Simon & Garfunkel
2/5
Two days ago I mentioned this record in a review and now here I am reviewing it.
You may not want to admit it, but the album generator is sentient and the less time we spend debating it, the more time we have to figure out how to stop it from enacting its wrath.
So…
Simon and Garfunkel, huh?
These guys seem pretty cool, right?
Look at them sitting in a darkened room, wearing a frilly shirt behind a floral arrangement.
Who am I kidding?
These nerds are pretentious as fuck. Don’t believe me? Listen to Silent Night/7 O’clock News.
Ooh…they paired a Christmas Carol with a snippet of depressing news about the Vietnam war and serial killers. I’ll forgive you for not seeing the irony. After all, it is *very* subtle.
I suspect that Simon and Garfunkel were one of those bands people listened to because they though it gave them the appearance of being smart, like Radiohead.
Maybe it’s because he looks like Eraserhead, but I think Art Garfunkel is the cooler of the two. Paul Simon just seems like a “try-hard” and inauthentic (an idea which I plan on exploring in greater detail when “Graceland” gets assigned to me. Spoiler Alert: it’s not getting a high rating).
“Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme” is an alright record, but it’s schlocky and a lot of it feels like it should be played in a funeral parlor: overwrought and dramatic. When it picks up the pace, it’s too smart for its own good. One of the “rock” tracks is called “A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)”. In case you don’t have a PhD in Literature, that roughly translates to “a simple tirade lacking in consistency”, which, coincidentally, is probably what you’re thinking to yourself as you read this review.
The Who
3/5
Jefferson Airplane
3/5
Never really been fan of “White Rabbit”. I mean it’s ok, but it’s no “Somebody to Love”, which easily makes it into in the top 5 songs of the 60’s.
The rest of the record pales in comparison to those two hits, but it’s enjoyable overall. This band is clearly at their best when they’re playing in rock mode rather than folky acoustic shit.
Funkadelic
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need To Hear Before You Die
Chapter 3:
Who says a funk band can’t play rock? -
Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain”
I’ve just sat down after dropping the needle on my original, 1971 pressing of Maggot Brain. My stereo system is configured to employ Brian Eno’s 3 channel “ambient speaker system” as diagramed on the back cover of Ambient 4: On Land. Without going into too much technical detail (you can find the diagram online), you wire a third speaker to the positive connections of your left and right speaker outputs, creating a speaker that primarily plays the music that’s panned to the far right and left sides of the stereo field of your records. You place that speaker behind you, forming a triangle with your left and right speakers in front of you and, voila!, “ambient speaker system”. Or, maybe more accurately, “poor man’s surround sound.”
Whatever term you want to assign it, the effect is impressive. Eddie Hazel’s guitar on the title track is enveloping, swirling around in front and behind me. His guitar sounds as though it was dipped in lysergic acid before he picked it up to play, much like the man’s brain was when he recorded this solo…or so the legend goes.
If Maggot Brain was the only track on this release, that alone would be justification for a five star review. It is truly one of the greatest guitar solos ever committed to tape and, as a whole, this record cements Hazel’s legacy as one of the greatest to ever pick up the instrument.
When most people think of Funkadelic, they think of Parliament-Funkadelic, they think of Mothership Connection or We Want The Funk or Flash Light and the massive success George Clinton and company had in the late 70’s. I know I did before hearing this record 20+ years ago, but don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love those records and that era of P-Funk, too.
What the average music consumer doesn’t know is that Funkadelic is one the greatest rock bands to ever grace a stage: A blistering, heavy psychedelic rock band. As if that wasn’t enough, they also happen to be one the funkiest bands to ever exist on planet Earth.
Now that you’ve heard this record, you’re part of the club…Feels good, doesn’t it?
Go and explore the Funkadelic catalog: Standing On the Verge of Getting It On, Cosmic Slop, Hardcore Jollies, Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow, Let’s Take it to the Stage, One Nation Under a Groove…this band is so damn good.
After hearing a few albums, you’ll undoubtedly slap yourself in the forehead and ask “Why hasn’t anyone told me how fucking great Funkadelic are? Why don’t more people talk about this? Where have these records been all my life? What else have I been missing out on?”
Fugazi
5/5
5 stars: one for every dollar it costs to go to a Fugazi show.
The Smiths
1/5
You should’ve seen the look on my face when this record got assigned to me this morning.
I was ecstatic.
After only 320 albums, I was about to cross The Smiths off the list. I’ve listened to the other two and this was the last. That meant the next 700 albums I had to listen to would be free from Morrissey’s dreary wrath.
What a great fucking day.
A few minutes later, a realization set in:
“That fuck Morrissey has a solo career, too.”
So I went over to the 1001 Albums Wikipedia page and looked at the “Artists” section. (This a good resource for when you want to feel like shit about how many more Elvis Costello or, in today’s case, Morrissey records you have to endure).
“There can’t be more than one or two of his solo records on the list…not ideal, but it’s manageable,” I thought.
There’s *four*.
And I haven’t listened to a single one of them.
Fuck.
Someone put me out of my misery.
Arcade Fire
2/5
Indie pop that’s just experimental enough to make people think they’re smart because they listen to it. There’s a cohesive, expansive sound to the record, but the songs don’t really accomplish anything, go anywhere or have any bite to them; it’s just a lot of sound that ends up being not very memorable.
Didn’t get the hype when it came out. Still don’t get it now, but this might be the record that spawned a thousand imitators trying to cash in on the “indie sound”, which ultimately ruined indie rock.
In that regard, “Funeral” is a fitting title, indeed.
Carpenters
2/5
This is a very pleasant album that I’ll probably never revisit.
Bobby Womack
3/5
Surely I’m not the first, but I’d like to call your attention to these lyrics, penned by The Poet, on track three, “Secrets”:
(I’d like to emphasize that I am merely the messenger)
“Girl, you know how to make my cookie crumble, my cookie crumble
When you hold me close and do all the things you do to me
Ooh-wee, baby
Just like some good old Kentucky Fried Chicken
and all of it was good enough to be finger lickin'
Oh, you must have had a (secrets, secrets)
Wanna see it (she must have had a secrets)
Ooh, baby (secret, secret, you must have had a secret, secret)
Finger-lickin good y'all”
[chef’s kiss]
Poetry.
Jean-Michel Jarre
5/5
1. Don’t be a dummy like me, listen to this record at night. This is night music.
2. The French are better at electronic music than just about anyone else on the planet (with the possible exception of the Germans in the 1970’s).
3. Why the fuck don’t I own this on vinyl? Discogs, here i come.
Carole King
3/5
If you’re a guy over 40, chances are you’ve had at least one girlfriend that made sure you heard this record before you die.
Tangerine Dream
5/5
Young adults in Germany during the late 1960’s and early 70’s were in an incredibly tough spot: They were either born in the shadow of atrocity or at the end of its reign. Their country was split in two and many of the people in positions of power - parents, teachers, judges, etc - had either been silently complicit or willing participants in the horrors wrought by Nazism only two decades earlier.
They were looking to escape their past, to create a new identity for themselves, for their country; an identity that didn’t borrow from the new world super powers, something unique to who they were as Germans in a post-World War II world. An identity that would say to the world, “we are not who our parents were.”
Something that was new, something radical.
When the place you were born is responsible for one of the most despicable acts in human history and the entire world knows it, where do you go to escape?
Space.
At least, that’s where the Germans went.
Kosmische music (“cosmic music”) was the ultimate artistic expression of that desire for a new cultural identity. Using electronic instruments (sometimes in combination with traditional rock instrumentation, sometimes not), bands like Tangerine Dream, Can, Cluster, NEU!, Faust, Kraftwerk and others created a sound like nothing else in the world at the time: It was experimental and uncompromising, pushing the boundaries of what music was and could be. They experimented with noise, repetition, unconventional and extreme sounds to create an otherworldly ambience.
It’s safe to say that they probably didn’t know how much they would change the world. They were only looking to forge a new identity for themselves, but they ended up providing a blueprint for the future of music.
Phaedra, like many of the Kosmische records of the era, can be measured by the sheer amount of influence it had on the music that would follow it, which continues to this day, but that is not the whole story.
This is music that, 50 years on, does not sound dated. In fact, it still sounds ahead of its time somehow, like it’s being beamed to us from the future.
The German experimental music scene of the 1970’s is one worth delving into, not only because of its profound influence on modern music, but also as study of artistic expression: It’s not outside the realm of possibility that we will find ourselves in a similar situation to the German youth of the sixties and seventies one day.
…and maybe that is why this music sounds as though it comes from a not-too-distant future.
(Postscript: There is an excellent BBC documentary, “Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany”, that covers the German experimental music scene in great detail, which ended up being a source of inspiration while writing this review, along with my long time love of German experimental rock. You can find ”Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany” on YouTube.)
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
4/5
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen…Right now, I got to tell you about the fabulous, most groovy…JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION!
While I probably would’ve chosen 1994’s “Orange” over this record (mostly due to personal preference), “Now I Got Worry” is more raw and aggressive than its predecessor: a gloriously ramshackle blast of furious blues-based garage rock.
If you can’t handle that (and it seems quite a few of you can’t, based off of your reviews), I don’t know what to tell you…the band is called The Jon Spencer *Blues Explosion* and that’s exactly what this record is.
Would you prefer a more polished explosion or something? Maybe a nice, tidy explosion for your sensitive pallet?
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
Billy Jack is the easy standout here, but, overall, a highly enjoyable slab of soul and funk.
Michael Jackson
2/5
Album title = review
David Bowie
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die
Chapter 4
It’s too late to be late again:
David Bowie’s “Station to Station”
As I write this review, much of the northeastern United States is engulfed in a thick, noxious plume of smoke emanating from wildfires in Canada’s Quebec province. The sky is a hazed-out, sickly orange-brown; almost Martian in appearance. There is a constant smell of charred, burning wood in the air. It’s so dense that it clings to your nasal passages and throat, leaving its scent to linger in your head well after you’ve gone indoors to escape its tyranny.
On a day like today, there’s no need to ask, “Is there life on Mars?” Instead, I’m wondering if we’re only a few short years from lifeforms on some distant planet asking, “Is there life on Earth?”
Are we close to becoming Thomas Jerome Newton, Bowie’s character in the film “The Man Who Fell to Earth”, who graces the cover of Station To Station? Will we soon be forced to travel great distances in order to find and retrieve the resources that we require to live? Will we have to adopt a lifestyle that is foreign and incomprehensible in order to survive?
…and why does it feel like I’m the only one who can see it coming? While other people are out there acting normally, doing their jobs and taking a walk through the Canadian wildfire haze on their lunch break, I’m here trying to concentrate on work and not let the innate, internal animal instinct that screams “Danger!” overwhelm my psyche.
I bet that’s how Thomas Jerome Newton’s people ended up in their predicament: they didn’t pay enough attention to the guttural instinct that was warning them that things were going off the rails, they just continued as though nothing was wrong.
As I admire the once lush blue sky that has turned ghastly brown and Mars-like, the refrain at the end of the title track - repeating “it’s too late” over and over - feels like a devastating mantra.
There’s an undercurrent of desolation, paranoia and uncertainty running through Station to Station. For Bowie, it was fueled by cocaine. For me, today, that desolate and paranoid uncertainty has me looking to the future, recognizing we live in a transitional period where it’s probably too late, but our lateness hasn’t fully caught up with us yet.
Indeed, Station to Station was also a transitional record for Bowie: a bridge between the blue eyed soul of “Young Americans” and the experimental, synthetic rock and ambient soundscapes of “Low” and “Heroes”. On paper, with that description, you might not think it would be as engrossing and timeless as it is.
At this moment, early June of 2023, in a world that literally looks desolate and with paranoia’s resonant frequency amplified in my mind, Station to Station is the perfect soundtrack for the end of the world.
The Residents
3/5
The Residents are bit like communism in that I like them better in theory than I do in practice.
And maybe it’s the years I’ve spent listening to weird, out-there music, but this record isn’t nearly as unlistenable as some of you make it out to be. In fact, I’m willing to bet if someone put Tom Waits’ phony-ass gravel voice over top of this music, most of you a) wouldn’t realize it wasn’t actually a Tom Waits record and b) would be falling all over yourselves to praise it.
Queen
3/5
Lmao, i keep forgetting that Queen was pretty much a wizard rock band in the early days.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
2/5
I appreciate the pun, but “Manoeuvres” is one of the most infuriating words I’ve ever had to type out. I guess that’s why everyone calls them OMD, because the “M” in that acronym is fucking impossible to spell correctly.
The 80’s synth pop on this record is fine and usually engaging, but if you’ve heard any of the other 300 British synth pop records on this list, it’s hard to be impressed by it. OMD doesn’t do much to differentiate themselves from that maudlin crowd, at least to my ears. With that said, I had glimmer of hope during the first track that this record might be a little more adventurous than it turned out to be.
SZA
3/5
I’m just going to talk about the Forrest Gump song, because it embodies a type of humor for shock value that I think sucks: “Here’s this thing that’s innocuous and people have nostalgia for, let’s make it dirty.” It’s the Family Guy model. By the time this record came out in 2017, it had already been overused for a long time.
“Hey everyone, what if Captain Kangaroo said fuck or the Transformers were sex pests?”
So edgy.
Otherwise, this record was fine. I’m going to use it going forward as a line of demarcation for reviews. It’s probably the most evenly “3” record I’ve got so far. The production was good, the music and songs mostly interesting and it was enjoyable enough, but there’s nothing here that will bring me back in the future.
The Flaming Lips
4/5
20 years ago, I probably would have written the most hyperbolic review for this record, likely proclaiming it one of the greatest records ever released, a true milestone achievement in human history, etc, etc, ad nauseam. It was an easy 5 for me and if you were in central New Jersey for a week in the back half of 2002, you probably would’ve seen me wearing the tan Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots comic strip t-shirt that I got when I saw them the month after this record was released.
Man, I fucking loved this band.
Over the years I’ve soured on them for a number of reasons, but mostly it’s just because I’ve changed and this record in particular is one that I associate with a not-so-great time in my life.
It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it? Music is very powerful in that it’ll make you think about things you haven’t thought of in decades, temporarily reopening old wounds or re-igniting old flames - occasionally, it does both simultaneously, which is an especially shitty feeling, for sure.
So yeah, I don’t really come back to this one because of that.
…but enough sentimentalism.
The other reason I don’t come back to this record very often is that honestly, I don’t think it’s that great as a whole. Somewhere around or after “Are You a Hypnotist?”, I usually start checking out.
…and, Jesus Christ, if I never hear “Do You Realize?” again, I’d be so cool with that.
These are words that, in the early aughts, I never thought I’d type out.
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the Flaming Lips, but the three albums that precede this one, (Clouds Taste Metallic, Zaireeka and The Soft Bulletin) are the band’s high-water mark for me - I don’t think they topped those records before or since. The Flaming Lips were untouchable for those few years.
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, just by virtue of following those classics, is mostly in the same league and shares some similarities with The Soft Bulletin, but it’s where the cracks begin to show, in my opinion.
I guess what I’m getting at is, it’s not the Flaming Lips record with an orange cover I’d put on this list…Clouds Taste Metallic is the one you need to hear before you die. God, that album is amazing.
Talking Heads
4/5
First things first, my semi-obligatory and tailored review for records that Brian Eno was involved with:
Another classic Brian Eno record, once again featuring Talking Heads.
Now that that’s out of the way…
Actually, never mind, I feel like that’s a really important subject to touch on.
Normally I don’t really give a fuck about who produces a record, but I can’t help but feel that over the course of the records he produced for them, Brian Eno molded Talking Heads in the band he wanted them to be - or maybe more accurately, the band he wanted to be in.
I mean, he introduces them to Fela Kuti records and next thing you know they’re making a record that is so indebted to Fela Kuti that the Fela Kuti estate should get royalties from it.
That’s exhibit A.
Exhibit B: The song “King’s Lead Hat” from Eno’s 1977 solo record “Before and After Science”. You might be thinking, “That’s a weird song title,” and you’d be right, it is. It’s also an anagram of the phrase “Talking Heads”. Listen to the song, it was released 3 years before this record. Then listen to what the Talking Heads sounded like in 1977. There is a damn good case to be made that “King’s Lead Hat” was a blueprint for where Eno thought Talking Heads should go. I mean, just listen to the overly processed, glitched-out guitar solo on it and think about Adrian Belew’s solo on “Born Under Punches” and his work throughout Remain in Light.
Now, I’m not trying to say that Brian Eno was the mastermind of this band, pulling the strings and forcing them to be the band that they became, but I do think it’s unlikely they make this record, with the influences it has and as well crafted as it is, without him.
That might seem like a back handed compliment, but it’s what a good producer should do: get the best out of the artist they’re working with. Brian Eno more than succeed in that on Remain in Light; this is undoubtedly the best Talking Heads record.
2/5
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Milhouse (surrounded by Bart’s onlooking classmates): “Say the line, Bart!”
Bart: [sighs] “Why isn’t Stereolab’s ‘Dots and Loops’ on this list!?!”
Classmates: “YAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!”
Suzanne Vega
2/5
This didn’t really grab me after four or five songs, so I put on the new King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard record instead.
Lou Reed
4/5
Has anything aged worse than the cabaret and music hall inspired songs that rock bands liked to record in the late 60’s and early 70’s?
Other than those two or three detours, this is a pretty great rock record.
5/5
Unrelenting rock fury.
5 stars, motherfucker.
TLC
2/5
You can forgive me for forgetting how massively popular this record was in 1994: I was a 13 and obsessed with the alt-rock and grunge of the day.
The teenage girls in my suburban New Jersey town? They loved this record. It was huge, but it wasn’t for me.
Still isn’t, but this was kind of a nice nostalgic listen, I guess.
Metallica
4/5
…And Justice for All, but Bass for None.
As a teenager in the early and mid 90’s, I was a pretty obnoxious Metallica fan. They were the greatest band on earth, the band that mattered most to me. I’d stay up late nights in the summer watching Live Shit: Binge and Purge on VHS on my 13” TV with built-in VHS player (at least until 12:30, when I’d switch over to the antenna and pick up Late Night with Conan O’Brien). They’re the reason I started playing guitar. My identity as 14 year old was tied in very closely with being a Metallica fan.
Justice, as us heads call it, was peak Metallica for me. It’s heavy and aggressive, technical with tons of twists and turns, and, most importantly it questioned authority - the long held past time of any American teenager worth their salt.
Listening to it today, at 42, I can’t help but like it still, it’s practically ingrained in my DNA at this point, but holy fuck is this album longer than I remember. Maybe it’s just that time moved slower back then or my span of attention was longer.
That there’s no bass on this record bothers more than it used to, as well. I get it and appreciate that it’s a homage to Cliff Burton, whose death left a massive hole in this band, but a lot of these songs would be better served with some kind of low end other than Lars’ omnipresent kick drum. About 40 minutes into this record, the sound of it starts to grate on your ears.
In terms of runtime, less would be more on …And Justice for All. You could probably cut “Frayed Ends of Sanity” and the record would be just as enjoyable. Conversely, in terms of instrumentation, less definitely isn’t more - this record is all high end and suffers as a result of that production choice.
Milton Nascimento
5/5
Like eating delicious foreign cuisine for the first time: these are flavors I had no idea existed, but now that I’ve had it, I can’t get enough.
The Temptations
3/5
These late 60’s / 70’s early records from established R&B acts are always disappointing to me. Without fail, they go all in on the sound of the times - funk, psychedelic soul - for 2 or three tracks and then back to their established sound for the rest of the record…
…Hold on…
I’ve written this review before…
Oh yeah…it was for another Temptations record, 1972’s “All Directions”.
Maybe this is more of a Temptations thing, but I remember feeling the same way about The Isley Brothers “3+3”.
My point remains; these records are kind of “half measures”, if you will. An attempt to be hip up front, then fan service in the back half.
I don’t care for it.
Some artists spend too much time worrying about alienating their fans. Take a chance, people aren’t as fickle as you think. Or, maybe they are. Who cares. Do what you want, not what you think will please the most people.
As it stands, this sounds like a record made by two different bands. One foot in the present, one in the past and no one likes a fence sitter, especially when Sly & the Family Stone were out there in 1969 putting out funky soul music that couldn’t be topped.
4/5
Q: Is this yet another classic album produced by Brian Eno?
A: Why, yes it is.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
Visionary.
Songhoy Blues
3/5
Portishead
3/5
I’ve tried a few times over the years to understand what makes this such a beloved record and it just won’t click. In fact, it seems like every time I give this record a shot, I end up liking it less than I did the previous time I heard it. Its a very monotone record to me, with songs that don’t do much to differentiate themselves from each other.
This one’s just not for me.
Harry Nilsson
3/5
The songs are pretty great, you’ve probably heard a lot of them before, but didn’t know they were by Harry Nilsson.
The coconut song, however, is maddening.
The production on this record is great and is the highlight for me, since a lot of these songs kind of feel like kids songs.
One final thought:
All records should be 35-40 minutes long. It’s the perfect run time for a record. I think the constraint of timing on vinyl was a great thing - it forced artists to put their absolute best work on a record, no filler, and as a result many records felt more cohesive than records do now.
Long live the LP length record.
Kelela
2/5
I’ve been to enough pitchfork music festivals (two, in 2009 and 2010, when the website was slightly less of a joke than it is today, *slightly*) to know a “Best New Album” when I hear it. Sometime during the second track, I thought to myself, “Pitchfork gave this Best New Music, didn’t they.” Since I was driving at the time, I couldn’t verify it on the spot, but once I got home, I did.
Lo and behold, my suspicions were correct. This record was given Best New Album status over at Pitchfork. In fact, all of Kelela’s records have received that honor to date, which is no small feat.
If only there was a way for me to monetize this useless skill of mine. Maybe I could go to bars and bet people that I can tell if a album got Pitchfork’s highest praise. They’d play me a song from a record and I’d say yes or no, like a parlor trick for aging hipsters. I think I could probably do pretty well at it, like as a side hustle, but at best, the audience for that type of bet is small.
As usual, I digress.
My point is, if your tastes typically align with Pitchfork’s, you’ll probably enjoy this record. It might be the Pitchforkiest record I’ve been assigned so far - sort of a retro-futuristic take on r&b with glitchy percussion and a healthy portion of synth pads. Experimental enough to not be totally mainstream, but mainstream enough not to alienate people who might usually be put off by experimental music - the Radiohead paradox.
Baaba Maal
2/5
Sonic Youth
5/5
There’s a damn fine case to be made for Sonic Youth as the greatest American rock band. At the least, they are the band that exemplifies what I consider to be “the American spirit” more than almost any other.
Let’s review:
Ambitious? Check.
Adventurous? Check.
Aggressive? Check.
Rebellious? Check.
Forward thinking? Check.
Politically savvy? Check.
Innovative? Check.
Experimental? Check.
Influential? Check.
Unorthodox? Check.
Unique? Check.
Willing to carve out their own path? Check.
Most importantly, they fucking rock.
Dirty might be Sonic Youth at their most aggressive. It’s exceptionally loud, chaotic and noisy. If you want to scare the shit out of your neighbors at 3 am, pick up an original pressing of this record on vinyl (it’s mastered *so* hot) and crank it up.
But it’s not without songs and melody. Sugar Kane is one of the greatest 90’s alt-rock songs - that it’s relatively unknown, outside of Sonic Youth fans, is a crime. The twists, turns and breakneck speed of “Purr”…the ethereal grandeur of “Theresa’s Sound World”…the blunt teardown of America’s sexual harassment problem on “Swimsuit Issue”…and the gorgeous, chiming, opening strains of “Chapel Hill”: These are the heights that hacks like William Corgan and the majority of your alt-rock heroes could only dream of attaining.
Dirty isn’t the best Sonic Youth record and it’s not even my favorite - they made better records before and since - but it is the record that turned me into a Sonic Youth obsessive. For that, it will forever get high marks in book.
Linkin Park
1/5
I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the TV Show ALF, but in the credits, there is a list of “Personal Assistants to ALF” and there’s like 4 people listed. Isn’t that wild? ALF must’ve been quite a handful to require four assistants. How many meetings and appointments did ALF have that required 4 people to plan his day to day activities? I can see him having a stylist and someone to keep track of his schedule…but 4? I had no idea ALF was such a diva.
The Go-Go's
4/5
I was really looking forward to hearing “Cruel Summer” when I put this on, because let’s face it, it’s been a cruel summer so far with the wildfire smoke pollution back at it again here in the Northeast. I soon realized that “Cruel Summer” is by Bananarama, however. Maybe I got them confused because of the Go-Go’s song “Vacation”.
Whatever the reason, Beauty and the Beat is pretty great record, an unexpected surprise - less poppy and with more of a punk-ish edge than I figured. But it was on the I.R.S label, so I guess that tracks. The guitar is great, the vocals are great, the songs are great. Nothing to complain about here, really solid record.
Tim Buckley
4/5
I was a little worried this was going to be some honky tonk bar band bullshit based off of the first track.
On the back half of “Get on Top”, I’m reminded a bit of that late 70’s Can performance on German TV: they’re playing “Moonshake” off of Future Days (or maybe it’s “Don’t Say No” - same song, essentially), an exceptionally funky rendition. You may have seen the clip, they’re playing the funkiest shit you ever heard and they cut to the audience who is sitting there, perfectly still, with the exception of one college student who is causally bouncing his knee up and down to the beat. Its funny as hell and doesn’t do much to dispel the notion that the Germans are an extremely serious people.
Sorry for the sidetrack, we’ll talk about Can another day…
Greetings from LA sounds of its time, for sure, but it does enough to differentiate itself from its peers to make it a unique listening experience. It’s fun and funky, well produced and a little unorthodox; a worthy entry on this list.
The xx
2/5
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XXX?
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The B-52's
3/5
I had no idea Rock Lobster was a 7 minute song.
I liked this record, but feel like it has deficiency of energy in the production, if that makes sense. The songs are all good but they could use a little more oomph, know what I mean? These songs should feel “snappier” than they do. Some of it just kind of plods a long, making its 40 minute run time feel longer than it should. I think maybe recording these songs live would’ve solved that issue.
Still, it’s a solid, fun and totally weird record.
Beatles
5/5
Are you strapped in? Got your helmet on? Ready to clutch your pearls?
I’ve got a doozy for ya:
“Tomorrow Never Knows” is the best song The Beatles ever committed to tape and it’s 99.9% of the reason why I’m giving this record 5 stars.
Todd Rundgren
4/5
Listening to Something/Anything?, it’s pretty evident that Todd Rundgren is a genius and you should heed the advice he gives on track 7, “Intro”: listen to this record with headphones on and “crank ‘em up”.
It’s an exceptionally well produced and enjoyable record, but his follow up, A Wizard, A True Star…That’s my brand of crazy.
Depeche Mode
3/5
Man, I’m dumb. I wasted an “Enjoy the Silence” joke on my review of Music for the Masses, not realizing that I’d have to review the record that the song is actually on.
I think would enjoy Depeche Mode more if they were an instrumental band. They do some great things with synths on this record, but the lachrymose vocals from Dave Gahan really hamper my enjoyment.
In fact, you could probably even say, “words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm”…to this record.
Fuck yes, I managed to pull off an “Enjoy the Silence” joke after all.
Gang Of Four
4/5
Often imitated, never duplicated.
Jazmine Sullivan
2/5
This was fine, but I kind of feel like this list should function like the NFL Hall of Fame when comes to adding new releases. To get into the Hall of Fame, you have to be retired for at least 5 years before being considered for eligibility.
I think that’s fair, right? 5 years after its release, an album becomes eligible?
Otherwise, this list becomes a product of its moment. I’m not trying to single out this record or any newly added releases in the most recent edition of the book. There’s plenty of records on the list from 2000-2005 in the first edition of the book that shouldn’t be included.
I’m just saying there needs to be a cool down period where records can be evaluated outside of their moment before dubbing them essential.
Kate Bush
3/5
Somebody should really use this “Running Up That Hill” song in a film…very cinematic feel.
Nah, who am I kidding? It would probably work better in a TV show.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
Dearest reader,
As of this review, I’ve completed my 365th album in this ordeal. One year worth of albums, an anniversary of sorts - my first few weeks I wasn’t doing weekend albums, so it has, in fact, been more than a calendar year.
In honor of my achievement, a retrospective, some takeaways and an airing of grievances from the past year:
-I still think The Smiths are awful. This list has not changed that one iota and despite having completed all 3 Smith records, I still have 4 Morrissey records to listen to. That is the greatest injustice the list has served upon me.
-These are the best albums I was introduced to via the list: Gil Scott Heron/Brian Jackson - Winter in America; Belle and Sebastian- Tigermilk; Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star; Little Simz - Grey Area; The United States Of America - s/t; Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene; Milton Nascimiento/Lo Borges - Clube da Esquina
-The Residents album isn’t as bad as you think it is.
-Elvis Costello sucks, but in a way he also kind of doesn’t. That’s why he is the worst.
-There’s way too much Britpop on this list.
-There’s way too much mopey British alt-rock in general.
-“Why isn’t Stereolab’s “Dots and Loops” on this list?” has pretty much become a mantra for me.
-I can’t proofread worth a shit.
-Most of your reviews are underwhelming: “meh…not for me”; “this punk rock record is repetitive”…step up your game kids, it’s embarrassing.
Now, for the record at hand, “Porcupine” by Echo and The Bunnymen:
God, living under Maggie Thatcher must have been fucking miserable. That much is papable when listening to these 80’s British alternative records: it’s like going spelunking in a pit of despair.
“Porcupine” is definitely better than a lot of the others from its time; a little more experimental and psychedelic than the rest of the lot, so it gets some bonus points for that.
With that said, and in the wise words of the reviewers on this site: “Meh…not for me”.
David Ackles
1/5
A bit like a Billy Joel composed Broadway musical.
If that sounds appealing to you….god help ya.
Metallica
3/5
I kind of feel like this is basically a Motley Crue record, just heavier, more beefed up and sans eye shadow.
Nina Simone
4/5
Going to keep it simple:
Nina Simone was an amazing, highly talented individual. The music is great. Very little to complain about here.
Miles Davis
4/5
I like electric Miles better, but this is great.
Rod Stewart
2/5
Pull up to the pump, sailor and welcome to Gasoline Alley! Hope you’ve got the stomach for the adventures that await!
The Jam
3/5
Pretty solid, but it left me with a craving for the Kinks.
Foo Fighters
3/5
I’m traveling, in my mind, back to the summer of 1995, when this album was released and I was a 14 year old reprobate.
I had just graduated 8th grade and was headed off to high school in the fall. I was trying, with moderate success, to get together with a girl who was a little of out of my league: gorgeous, outgoing and fun. We’d hang out and roam the streets of our neighborhood at night, with nothing better to do than smoke cigarettes she’d stolen from her parents, talk about music and, occasionally, find a secluded place in between suburban ranches to make out for a little bit.
Problem was, I was headed for catholic school in the fall and she was going to the public high school that everyone else I knew was going to. I had to try and hide that secret…or at least not bring it up for a little while. I knew it wouldn’t work, the two of us in different schools. When I came clean with that news, it wasn’t quite the same between us.
Teenagers are stupid like that, but when you’re that age, the world is small and not being in the same place at the same time is like being on different planets, especially when you’ve spent most of your life up to that point in each other’s orbit.
Hold on, what the fuck…this has nothing to do with the Foo Fighters.
Thanks for sharing in that moment of emotional clarity with me.
Where was I…
Oh, yeah.
The reason I was taking this journey into the past, is because I’m trying to place myself in the same headspace I would have been in when the Foo Fighters debut album came out.
At the time, this record was a bit of a curiosity: The drummer from Nirvana put out a record where he plays all the instruments.
“Cool, that’s a nice little side project type thing to do after Kurt died. It’ll probably be a one-off kind of thing,” is pretty much what I thought back then.
I definitely didn’t see Foo Fighters becoming one of the biggest, most beloved bands on the planet.
Like I said, the world is small when you’re a teenager.
Honestly, even after seeing the Foo Fighters open for The Rolling Stones two years later, I still wouldn’t have guessed it.
Kurt Cobain’s shadow loomed so large over everything back then that it seemed like a metaphysical impossibility that the dude who played drums in his band would be the biggest rock star on earth one day. Even now, that blows my mind.
Listening to this record today, I think I was right to be skeptical back then. It certainly has its moments, but it’s kind of front loaded and is more than a little indebted to the alt rock and indie of its time. It’s got a grungy DIY feel that makes it a surprising catalyst for the career of one of the biggest bands on earth.
Good for you, Dave. You showed us all.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
First off, stop the presses! There is a UK band from the 90’s on this list with actual fire in their bellies….a band that’s not content to comb through the Beatles’ scraps, reheat them and try to pass them off as their own. This sounds closer to a Superchunk record or something their label, Merge Records, would’ve put out than anything those droll Britpop weirdos could ever conjure up.
Second, in previous reviews, I’ve alluded to the fact that I am not a very smart guy. Well, add this to the pile of evidence:
I had always thought the band was *Manic Street* Preachers, as in Preachers who reside on Manic Street. It didn’t occur to me until today that it’s probably “Manic Street Preachers” as in Street Preachers who are Manic.
I’m learning all kinds of lessons today.
Slipknot
1/5
There’s an episode of ALF where ALF unscrambles the radio signal for Air Force One and talks to President Reagan to try and convince him not to use nuclear bombs. ALF tells him, “I want to talk to you about your bombs,” and Reagan responds “Oh, again with the Bonzo movie?!?”
[chef’s kiss]
Amazing joke.
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
The Undertones
4/5
I don’t know if it’s writers block, but I’ve started, stopped and restarted writing this review at least three times. I’ve tried a few different approaches so far, but, really, it just boils down to this:
This is my type of punk. Give me a record like this over anything by the Clash or Pistols any day of the week.
Jeff Buckley
3/5
Haunting and intricate. The influence on Thom Yorke’s vocal stylings is so undeniable that Yorke’s imitation borders on theft.
Ultimately, not a record I see myself returning to, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
One star deducted for resurrecting Aerosmith’s career.
Even with that in mind, this is just a really fun record. Hard to dislike it.
Traffic
3/5
I have a very important announcement to make:
Traffic is the band that Grateful Dead fans think the Grateful Dead is.
Amy Winehouse
2/5
I try to go into these records objectively, with an open mind.
Some times I just can’t. I know Amy Winehouse is a hero of sorts, but the music…it doesn’t feel authentic. It feels like an attempt to resell a sound from time that’s been forgotten. Modernize it, throw the word “fuckery” in there for good measure. Voila! Manufactured nostalgia for people who weren’t alive to experience the time they’re supposed to be nostalgic for.
I don’t know…I can’t get past that. She’s talented, but it just feels manufactured to me.
David Bowie
4/5
You can’t really say that any Bowie albums were transitional records, you know what I mean? He was constantly evolving, his records would always foreshadow what he was going to do next, constantly moving forward….the past is the past, *this* is what next. Every record was a transitional record, because he wasn’t going to the same thing on the next record.
I fucking love that about him.
R.E.M.
3/5
It’s kind of shocking how much cooler R.E.M was in the early 80’s than they ended up being in their 90’s commercial heyday.
Ute Lemper
1/5
Alright, I was preparing to have to defend another record that you lot were overreacting to because it’s an atypical entry to the list and doesn’t fit neatly into some weird box of preconceived notions that you cling to.
Then in the second track, this line: “If sex was an Olympic sport, we would have won the gold”.
Add multiple songs from Elvis Costello and Tom Waits to the list and I’m left not seeing many redeemable qualities here.
I’ll probably listen through to the Phillips Glass track, because I love me some minimalism, but after that, there’s no reason for me to continue. I’ll probably listen to Stereolab’s “Dots and Loops”, which should be on this list.
Have I mentioned that before?
Oh, yeah…only about 100 fucking times.
Bill Callahan
3/5
I enjoyed this, even if it felt a little more theatrical than my usual tastes, but really, it just made me want to listen to a Silver Jews record.
Motörhead
4/5
Is it punk?
Is it metal?
Who fucking cares.
It’s Motörhead, man.
Marilyn Manson
1/5
Some people act like the Seinfeld theme song is the only TV theme song with a funky slap bass line. To those people, I have but one word: ALF.
Silver Jews
5/5
“I asked the painter why the roads are colored black…He said, ‘Steve, it’s because people leave and no highway will bring them back.’” - “Random Rules” from Silver Jews’ 1998 record, American Water
I know I probably shouldn’t start a review with a lyric from an album I’m not actually reviewing, but it’s the Silver Jews lyric that I just can’t shake. It haunts me…an epitaph that was written 20 years before it would prove to be useful…the fate of David Berman, it breaks my heart to this day.
So much so that the only unopened and unplayed vinyl record in my collection is his Purple Mountains record: I had pre-ordered it before release, received it and set it aside to listen to when worked slowed down a bit and I had more free time. Of course, I had listened to the album on my streaming platform of choice when it was released, but never got the time to sit down and experience it on vinyl. The next thing I knew, the news broke that he had passed. Knowing what I knew, and the general tone of that record, I couldn’t bring myself to sit down and listen to it.
Still can’t.
The music on Purple Mountains lays bear his unhappiness in life and by the time it came out, it seems it was too late for much to be done about it.
It breaks my fucking heart.
Bright Flight, released nearly two decades earlier, is not as bleak as Purple Mountains turned out to be, but it is less upbeat than its predecessor, American Water. As usual, Berman’s uniquely poetic and evocative lyrics are on full display here. Musically, he leans in to a minimal country-tinged indie rock sound, inspired by his recent move to Nashville. It’s a great record that, frankly, I don’t listen to as much as I should.
Had I assembled this list, American Water would have been my choice for a Silver Jews record to include. There is something special about that record for me and I think if I could recommend only one Silver Jews record to people, American Water would pique a new listener’s interest the most.
Regardless of which Silver Jews record we’re talking about, there is one truth that can’t be understated: David Berman had a wholly unique way with words and was a one-of-a-kind talent.
He is missed.
Rest in peace, DCB.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
2/5
Nice voices, but A Capella music never really did anything for me.
R.E.M.
4/5
When I was a kid in 1990, a mere nine year old little shit, REM was one my favorite bands. I mean, I had never heard one of their albums and didn’t know their name, but I loved one of their songs. Truthfully, I didn’t even know that the song was theirs or that they were even an actual rock band.
(If you’re over 40, you might know where I’m going with this…)
The song was “Stand” and I only knew it because it was the theme song for my favorite television show, “Get a Life”. I don’t think I even knew REM was an actual, legitimate rock band until a few years later: I just figured the network just hired some random musicians to write a theme song for their brilliant sitcom starring Chris Elliot.
For the uninitiated, Get a Life was a sitcom that aired on the burgeoning Fox network from 1990-1992. It starred Chris Elliot as 30 year old man-child who lived above his parent’s garage and was a paperboy (bicycle and all) for a living. The episodes were always off-beat and surreal with several of them ending with Chris Elliot’s character, Chris Peterson, dying. It was unlike anything on television at the time and for 9 year old me it was the perfect comedy: A live action slapstick cartoon. It’s still one of my favorite television shows ever and is at least partially responsible shaping my sense of humor through childhood and as an adult…a truly formative piece of art in my life.
Here’s a brief synopsis of one of my favorite episodes, “Neptune 2000”, lifted from the internet:
“When Chris was 12 he got a job as a paperboy so he could buy a submarine from the back of a comic book. Four to six hundred weeks later, when the kit arrives, Chris and his father put it together; however when they embark on the sub's maiden voyage (in Chris's bathtub) they become trapped.”
Every time I’ve heard the opening organ riff from “Stand” over the last 33 years, I’ve thought about that episode or visualized the opening credits of the show where Chris gets distracted by an attractive lady in lingerie picking up her newspaper from her front lawn (it was Fox in the early 90’s, a scantily clad lady was practically a prerequisite) and crashes his bike into a parked car.
Because of their association with “Get a Life”, REM will always get respect from me, even if I don’t like a lot of the music they released after this record.
Green, clearly, is more than just “Stand”. It is a fantastic record and I’ve never really given it an in-depth, thorough listen until day.
What a great record, it makes me realize that maybe I’ve been a little too harsh on REM over the years.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch some “Get a Life”. You should do the same…and while you’re at it, make sure you check out the TV show. Zing!
Lauryn Hill
3/5
By 1998, I was pretty much out of tune with a lot of mainstream American culture. Obviously, not to the point where I didn’t know who Lauryn Hill or the Fugees were, this record and The Score were massively popular among my peers at my Catholic high school, but I was going to see punk and hardcore shows for $5 or $7 at the local VFW. The idea of following what was popular or which star was on top week to week was futile and uninteresting to me. It’s just not the lane I operated in. Still isn’t, as a matter of fact.
So, as I listen to this record, I’m finding it well crafted, well performed (I always thought Lauryn Hill had a fantastic voice) and engaging. It has held up extremely well for a 25 year old record. It’s definitely enjoyable and I understand why it was and still is considered great. I think maybe the classroom interstitial breaks are a little overdone and the flow of the record is stilted as a result, but that’s a minor complaint.
The thing is, music like this doesn’t really resonate with me like it does for a lot of the world. I don’t know why that is. I love a lot of hip hop, r&b, and soul music. It is something I think about a lot: what is it about some well produced, objectively great popular music that doesn’t move the needle for me? Maybe it’s that even when it’s making a bold statement like the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill does, it still feels…kind of safe?
That could be a great strength, though, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. (Huh, wow…that metaphor literally just came up in “Forgive them Father” - I might be closer to the truth than I thought). Maybe I need to take that view for a record like this. Yes, it is designed to appeal to as many people as possible, but it’s got a message that subverts and questions cultural norms…and that is an important an admirable trait for a record to have.
Madonna
1/5
(Deep inhale, followed by audible sigh)
Ok…here we go.
Madonna’s “Ray of Light”.
Produced by William Orbit (whose album, “Strange Cargo III”, I found to be utterly loathsome), “Ray of Light” finds Madonna embracing the electronica of the mid 90’s and turning it into a easily digestible product for the masses.
Thematically, Madonna draws inspiration from religious mysticism, psychedelia and yoga. Honestly, I am surprised that she isn’t writing songs about the probiotic benefits of kefir or multipart suites about vaccine conspiracies she read on a “very reputable” website.
I fucking hate this album. It’s awful.
What’s next? That Cher album with all the auto-tune?
Black Sabbath
5/5
“You can only trust yourself and the first six Black Sabbath albums.”
-Henry Rollins
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
File under: Bands that i think are talented and make fine music, whose influence I recognize and appreciate, yet have absolutely zero interest in listening to.
Louis Prima
2/5
[Exterior: Brooklyn, New York. Summer 1961. We fade into a street level view of a working class neighborhood, a block of Brownstone, 3 story walkups. Boys clad in white t-shirts and slacks play stickball in the middle of the street. Girls skip rope on the sidewalk. In the distance, a fire hydrant has been uncapped, spraying water into the street for children splash around in: a welcome reprieve on an unrelentingly hot August day.
The camera pans from street level and slowly zooms in on a window on the third floor of one of the Brownstones]
[Interior: Third floor apartment living room with adjoining kitchen - A man, mid 40’s, wearing a ratty sleeveless undershirt sits in an armchair, listening to a record play on his console stereo. He is smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper. A small silver metallic fan stationed on a nearby end table oscillates slowly, providing the slightest bit of relief from the punishing heat. His wife, Marie, is in the kitchen making a jello mold with the fruit she picked up at the market earlier in the day. The man taps his foot to the record…eventually his eyes light up, struck by an idea.]
The man says to his wife: “Oh, Marie! Why didn’t you tell me there was going to be some porno jazz on this 1001 albums list?!? This is fantastic! I tell you what…you call the Lombardi’s, you tell them to get their asses over here at 7pm for dinner. They gotta hear this fuckin’ record…unbelievable! I’m gonna head down to the butcher, get some braciole, some gabagool…it’s gonna be a party!”
[end scene]
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
2/5
This record was diving headfirst with great speed into the one-star toilet bowl until they pulled off a really great cover of “Born to Run”.
I have no clue what the fuck that song is doing on this album or what the fuck this album even is, but for that cover, it gets two stars.
Massive Attack
3/5
Another legendary record that doesn’t move me in the slightest.
The Police
1/5
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to welcome you to the Second Annual Roast of The Police! Last year, we “honored” The Police’s 1983 record, “Synchronicity” with a track by track takedown. Our guest of honor this year is 1979’s “Regatta de Blanc”, the album that spawned a genre that is still going strong nearly 45 years later…“White Reggae”. Seriously, folks, where would all the dreadlocked trustafarians that follow Phish be without this record?
...OK, enough about Phish, let’s get on with the show!
-90 seconds in and *I’m* getting ready to send an SOS to the world. Please, someone…anyone…put an end to this.
-Imagine being so entitled that the British colonization of Jamaica wasn’t enough for you…you need to appropriate the music of their people, a citizenry that your country had already marginalized for centuries, and make your own “white” version of it. To top it off, you do it as a band called “The Police”.
-I guess when people call The Police a “punk” band they’re referring to tracks like “It’s Alright for You”, which is about as punk as eating a bowl of muesli for breakfast and heading off to your accounting job at Halliburton.
-Yes, please “Bring on the Night”, because I can’t stand another minute of this record this morning.
-I’m going to reboot the Death Wish movie franchise, but this time, Charles Bronson’s character will be spurred to commit violent acts of vigilante justice after being forced to listen to The Police’s entire discography.
-“Some may say” you shouldn’t affect a Jamaican accent when you’re the palest white person on earth. Sting, clearly, isn’t one of them.
-Speaking of complete bullshit, here’s “On Any Other Day”…
(It’s great, some of these jokes write themselves)
-I’m sorry the Bed is Too Big now, Sting, but no one forced you to buy a California King mattress.
-If not having a raincoat is the only thing keeping Sting from coming over, I’m going to start praying for rain.
-“I only stare this way at you”…”I’ll be watching you”…if there was a spate of unsolved Peeping Tom incidents in England in the late 70’s, this man, Gordon “Sting” Sumner, should be the primary suspect.
-“Ain’t nobody got No Time This Time for that.”
Well, that was fun wasn’t it? I’m glad you could join us and we look forward to seeing you again next…
…one second, folks…
…I’ve just been informed by our producers that, sadly, this will be our final Roast of The Police. I’m being told that there “just isn’t enough material” to cover and that, like the clam chowder we served tonight, “the soup is just too thin” when it comes to this band.
So with that in mind, I’d like thank you for your time and for joining us here at the Friar’s Club tonight. In closing, I’d like to leave you with two very important messages:
Firstly, ACAB.
…and second,
BOOM!
ROASTED!
Haircut 100
2/5
If you like your funk pasty white, look no further.
RIYL: Sperry’s, pastel polos, yachting with Chad and Buffy.
The Beach Boys
4/5
The Sundays of my youth were often spent in my family’s 1987 Ford Taurus station wagon, traversing the state of New Jersey from West to East and back so we could visit my grandparents in West New York, NJ (For the sake of clarification, West New York is a city in New Jersey that overlooks the Hudson River and New York City. It’s north of Hoboken and next to Union City, for the geographically inclined).
The soundtrack to our car rides across the state was typically WCBS-FM, a New York based oldies station that would focus on early rock and roll/pop hits from the mid to late-1950’s through the late 60’s. While hair metal and, later, grunge ruled the airwaves, I was cutting my teeth on The Temptations, The Supremes, the Mamas and The Papas, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, the Monkees, The Byrds, Ray Charles, Tommy James and the Shondells, and, of course, the Beach Boys most Sunday mornings and afternoons.
So when the snare drum hits seven seconds into the opening track of this record, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”, I’m instantly taken back to those car rides, those trips to visit my grandparents at their 12th floor efficiency apartment that overlooked New York City. It’s one single hit on a snare drum, but it’s one of the most memorable and powerful drum intros in rock history. (Well…at least for me it is, you are welcome disagree.) Then the harmonies and Brian Wilson’s falsetto…what a absolutely incredible song. It’s perfect.
The WCBS-ification of my musical tastes would end around age 11 or 12 when I started finding that the grunge and alternative rock of the day spoke to me in way that the 60’s music I had grown up with could never hope to. A decade or so later, in my mid-20’s, it turned out to be a solid musical foundation, as I grew to appreciate these songs again thanks to bands like Yo La Tengo or the Avalanches who had taken the influence of some of these mid-sixties sounds and turned them into something completely new and unique.
This record, now that I’m thinking about it, is one that I associate more than most with my family. One more familial anecdote and I’ll wrap it up, I swear:
In the mid-2000’s, my immediate family went down to Miami to spend Christmas with my dad’s brother and his family, as we would do every few years. My uncle decided that while we were there, the men of the family needed to do something together…a bonding experience, so to speak. So he booked a charter boat and we all got up at the ass crack of dawn to go fishing in the Atlantic. My Dad, brother and I, my uncle and his two sons…we were ready catch some fish and compete for familial bragging rights.
Well, not even a mile out from shore, my Dad starts getting seasick. None of us had cast a line and the boat hadn’t even reached the spot where’d we fish and he was out, spending the remainder of the three hour trip below deck trying to keep what was left of his breakfast down.
An hour later, the choppy seas started getting the best of my youngest cousin. Shortly after that, my brother was out, too. Did we buy some bunk Dramamine or something? What the was fuck going on?
The goal had to change at that point. It wasn’t about which side of the family could catch more fish, it was “can I be the only member of my side of that family that can make it through this fishing trip without horking?” I needed something to shoot for after my Dad and brother couldn’t hack it.
I’ve never wanted to barf more in my life, the water was extraordinarily choppy that morning and I’ve got a weak stomach to being with, but I had something to prove that day, or else face the ridicule of my uncle and oldest cousin who were still standing strong. I couldn’t let them think that no one on my side of the family had the wherewithal to make it through a 3 hour fishing trip. I don’t know how I did it, but I did it and I’ve never been happier to step foot on solid ground again.
When the boat docked, my father moved like a man on a mission to get off of it. A few minutes back on land and he was back in good spirits. We went to a nearby restaurant for lunch and had some seafood, beer and laughs at the expense of the three seasick travelers, but mostly my father: he wasn’t even on the boat for 15 minutes before losing it. As we ate, “Sloop John B” came on over the restaurant’s sound system and I couldn’t contain my laughter. “Dad,” I said, “this song hitting close to home for you today?” He listened as the chorus kicked in…“Let me go home, I want to go home” and we all had a good laugh.
Fuck me, that was long. I gotta stop using this place as a blog.
Even with those memories attached, Pet Sounds isn’t an album I love enough to give 5 stars. It is a fantastic and staggering work of absolute genius, but it’s not entirely my cup of tea. I think Hendrix may have called it “psychedelic barbershop”: There’s only half of that equation that really speaks to me and it isn’t the barbershop part. It’s possible that Hendrix thing isn’t true, but that’s kind of what Pet Sounds is, right?
Thin Lizzy
4/5
Ok, now i get it with Thin Lizzy. Their studio albums leave a lot to be desired compared to this “live” record. This is heavy duty, man.
Malcolm McLaren
2/5
More style than substance, which tracks for McLaren.
Sam Cooke
4/5
I mean…it’s Sam Cooke. Unless you have ice running through your veins, there’s a damn good chance this record is going to move you.
The man could’ve sang the menu of a Chinese restaurant and it would have sounded amazing.
Kraftwerk
5/5
(Note to self: don’t read the reviews of records you love that people leave here. It’s just going to make you unnecessarily upset.)
I’m not going to waste a lot of words here: This is an all-time classic record, incredibly influential and important. A pretty good case can be made that the music world would be a much different place than it is now, had it never been released. If you dislike it…fine, go listen to Rumours for the 800th time.
Mylo
2/5
In spots, it’s a bit like if Air and The Avalanches had a very uninteresting child.
In others, it’s a fairly pedestrian house record that borders on being an outright tedious listening experience (the title track, in particular).
Again, The Rule (TM) holds true: If you haven’t heard anyone talking about an album on this list in 20 years, you don’t need to hear it before you die.
Rufus Wainwright
2/5
Halfway through and I Want Two turn this off.
Cee Lo Green
2/5
Remember when Gnarls Barkley put out their great debut record, “St. Elsewhere”, and was pretty much the biggest thing on the planet in 2006?
But what about George W Bush and the gang fucking everything up? Or when Dick Cheney shot that dude in the face while hunting and then the dude he shot apologized to him for getting shot? I can’t be the only one who remembers Sanjaya and Taylor Hicks belting it out on American Idol? Surely it wasn’t the same year that Twitter launched and Mark Zuckerberg opened Facebook to the public? And how about when those bastards at Fox cancelled Arrested Development and put its final four episodes up against the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics? Or when Pluto was stripped of its planetary dignity and classified as a dwarf planet and Microsoft unleashed a digital reign of terror upon the world with Windows Vista?
Look at all the terrible things that happened that year…Isn’t it all quaint compared to this earthly hellscape we inhabit in 2023?
The Zombies
5/5
The Zombies are the subject of one my favorite, most unbelievable rock and roll stories. It goes like this:
The Zombies record and release Odessey and Oracle, a fantastic record, but it flops, so they break up the band. About a year later, 1969, “Time of the Season” becomes a massive hit in the US, thanks to a last ditch effort by their US record label, and there is money to be made on a Zombies tour.
One problem: they’ve been broken up for a year or more and they’re not even aware their song is a hit in the US - this sort of thing was possible back before everyone was connected all the time by the internet.
So what’s an American concert promoter to do?
Well, they did what anyone would do:
They start their own version of the Zombies and send them out to tour the states. No ties to the actual band, no sign off from their management, label or band members. It’s just…”these four random dudes from Texas are The Zombies now.” Never mind that there were 5 people in The Zombies and The Zombies were from England.
Wait…that’s not what you would do? Of course it’s not. That’s bat-shit crazy…you’d get your pants sued off.
Well, guess what?
They thought it was such a good idea that they formed a second fake version of the Zombies that would tour at the same time.
I swear, I am not making this up.
So there were two versions of the Zombies, neither in any way associated with the actual band The Zombies, touring the US concurrently.
What in the actual fuck.
It’s entirely within the realm of possibility that if you lived in Columbus, Ohio in 1969 and you called your cousin in San Antonio one Sunday to tell them you saw the Zombies in concert the night before, your cousin would reply, “No you didn’t, I saw the Zombies last night here in San Antonio…”
You ready for the kicker?
Two of the guys that were in the Texas version of the Zombies?
Frank Beard and Dusty Hill from ZZ Top (using stage names).
The members of the actual Zombies, when they found out, were understandably pissed. This whole thing created so much confusion that record labels were questioning the identities of members of the actual band, unsure who the Zombies actually were…*because there were 3 bands going around claiming to be the Zombies.*
If it was me and I was a part of the legitimate Zombies, I probably would have dedicated my life to ruining the careers of anyone involved with the sham operations, but I can be petty, I guess.
I know this story sounds insane and made up, but I assure you, 100% serious, this actually happened and what I’m telling you here isn’t even all of the craziness of this story. Visit your search engine of choice and do a search for “The Fake Zombies”. There’s a few articles that go in to the lunacy of this, but the Buzzfeed article is probably the most detailed.
The Human League
2/5
If you took the entire recorded output of Yes, King Crimson and ELP, added it together and multiplied it by 3, that level of pretentiousness would still be less than that of the morose, navel-gazing catalog of synth-pop bullshit contained in the 1001 Albums list.
In closing, let me sing you a portion of the “Don’t You Want Me?” x 1001 Albums Generator parody song I’ve written:
[synth sounds]
I was bored of working at my nine to five
When I met you
I got online, I signed right up
You told me that you
Would turn me on to something new
Now one year later on you've got me losing my mind
Assigning albums has been so easy for you
But don't forget it's me who put you where you are now
And I can put you back down too?
Don't
Don't you want me?
You know I can't believe it when I get another synth pop record
Don't
Don't you want me?
You know I don't believe you when you say that it’s the last one
You think that this is fine?
You think that I don’t mind?
One more OMD album and I’ll be leaving here for good this time…
Don't you want me, baby?
Don't you want me?
Noooooo!
Don't you want me, baby?
Don't you want me?
Noooooo!
Lambchop
3/5
Speaking of disgraced former presidents, Donald Trump got arrested in Georgia today.
In other news, this album made me a little bit sleepy.
More at 11.
Björk
4/5
It took 4 tries, but I liked a Bjork record.
The Last Shadow Puppets
2/5
There’s a tendency on this record to cram as many lyrics as possible into the songs. People, you don’t have fill every possible second with vocals. Let the songs breathe a little bit, sometimes less is more.
As a result, I’m left with the impression that the sound of their own voices is more important than the music to these guys. It lessens the impact of the music, because someone is always going on over it. It’s not until fifth or sixth track where they give a song an instrumental break for more than 10-15 seconds.
Especially considering this is sort of a spaghetti western-ish rock record. The reason those spaghetti western scores of the 60’s worked so well is because they were spacious - a musical stand-in to represent the vast, wide-open American West. This record makes that space feel very small and claustrophobic.
It’s a weird combination and I can’t say I’m a fan of it.
Fatboy Slim
2/5
Fucking-
Fucking-
Fucking-
Fucking-
Fucking-
Fucking-
Fucking-
Fucking-
Fucking-
Fucking-
Annoying
Alice Cooper
3/5
One of the revelations I’ve had doing this list is that Alice Cooper in the 70’s was so much cooler than the campy glam metal stereotype I have of them from the 80’s.
“I Love the Dead” is a bit much, though.
Megadeth
2/5
At this point, Dave Mustaine hadn’t really figured out how to meld Megadeth’s technical prowess with well-written, engaging songs, but it wasn’t far off.
Sepultura
2/5
Yo…the 90’s were fucking weird, man.
Don’t take that as an indictment of this record, that’s not how I mean it. What I mean is that the 90’s, at least in the US…it felt like the sky was limit, like you do anything and there was a pretty good chance it could be huge. I don’t know if that really tracks for people who weren’t alive or cogent enough to experience that decade, but just think about the musical landscape throughout the final decade of the 20th century: grunge/alt/indie rock all exploded, hip-hop at a peak, electronica, punk and ska, nu-metal…shit, even swing music had a comeback in the 90’s.
The level of creativity in that decade feels like it’s been unmatched since. Everything feels a lot safer these days, like people aren’t willing to take chance on things. It’s why there’s 900 Marvel movies…it’s a known quantity, consumers know what it is and the people making it know they will make a metric fuck-ton of money on rehashing the same thing over and over. Everything has to fit into a little box and be easily identifiable. I mean there will always be people who aren’t satisfied by the status quo, but in the 90’s, it often seemed like the entire point of everything was “let’s upend the status quo.”
I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I hope I’m not the only one that feels this way. This is just going to be another of my weird nostalgia-based reviews that ends up being more about me than the record.
With that in mind, “Roots” by Sepultura.
I saw these dudes on this tour and it was pretty damn good to 16-17 year old me. 27 years later, its not really for me any more, but I appreciate their willingness to do something completely different and unique. In fact, this record is probably a catalyst for a portion of my musical taste in some way. Roots was probably the first record I can remember loving that wasn’t completely tied to an American/Anglo musical sensibility. It was an eye-opener, in that regard.
Anyway, this is probably the best of the nu-metal records I’ve gotten on the list, but even back in the 90’s, I preferred Chaos A.D.
3/5
Because I had to go to YouTube to listen to Spy vs Spy, this ended up being a hilarious listening experience:
Every 7 minutes or so, the completely uncommercial free jazz squall on this record was interrupted by YouTube ads, as if to say, “This atonal jazz nightmare acid trip was brought to you by 1-800-FLOWERS.”
There was also a commercial for schizophrenia medication, which felt like an extremely cynical attempt at targeted marketing on YouTube’s part.
The La's
3/5
Sometimes I wish Time-Life was still putting out their weird compilations and shilling them on tv via infomercials.
I mean, what would a “Alternative Super Hits of the Early 90’s” compilation from Time-Life look like? You’d have your Gin-Blossoms, that awful 4 Non-Blondes song, some Counting Crows, Soul Asylum or maybe Deep Blue Something’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and, of course, “There She Goes” by The La’s.
Not a judgement on this record (ok, maybe a little), just that I probably I heard that song a thousands times growing up, but never actually knew who it was by. It just kind of blended into the ether of the 90’s alt rock landscape for me and is associated more with a time and place than an actual band. Like Superdrag…bet you haven’t heard that name in years, but now you’ve got “Sucked Out” stuck in your head, ya weirdo.
The La’s debut (and only) album is pretty damn good; concise with well written and enjoyable songs. Ultimately, I like my power-pop to have a little more “power” than “pop”, but it’s a good record nonetheless.
Destiny's Child
2/5
Well, I guess this is how we’re going to cap off this week of absolutely torturous records from the 1001 Albums Generator…
A few years ago, in a belated review of Sonic Youth’s “Washing Machine”, Pitchfork compared Sonic Youth and Destiny’s Child - I guess in an attempt make Sonic Youth more relatable to their modern-day audience. Ironic that a website that wouldn’t have even thought about reviewing this Destiny’s Child record in 2001 and gave Sonic Youth’s 2002 record, Murray Street, a 9.0/10 upon release would end up making such a comparison, but we live in strange times.
I’m sure Pitchfork’s corporate overlords at Condé Nast don’t mind a few more mentions of Beyoncé and Destiny’s Child than usual - it fits a bit better with the upper class hipster fashionista lifestyle they try and sell than Sonic Youth’s grimey noise rock does.
Without further ado, I present to you the comparison they made, verbatim:
“Skip Tracer” is a showcase for Lee Ranaldo, the band’s second guitarist, who is given a spotlight or two as lead singer on most Sonic Youth albums. He’s something like the Kelly Rowland to Moore’s Beyoncé, beloved but in the background due to the band leader’s overwhelming star power.”
Until I sat down to listen to “Survivor” today, I never understood how apt that comparison was.
…Just kidding, that comparison is ridiculous and doesn’t serve either party very well.
Anyway, at this point, the generator has beaten me down enough this week and I’ve stopped listening to “Survivor” about 7 songs in to put on Murray Street - it’s a really great record, one of Sonic Youth’s best.
Ray Charles
2/5
Pleasant enough, but this Big Band shit ain’t for me.
Elvis Presley
2/5
Yes! Another album where the majority of the songs are three minutes or less. 12 songs, 32 minutes. If I’m gonna be stuck listening to these quaint songs from the most milquetoast era of American culture, it’s best that it happens in short bursts.
The Divine Comedy
3/5
Lo, as the generator has felt it necessary to unleash a period of unprecedented fallowness one year into my journey, ‘tis befitting that the wretched beast of recommendations should bestow upon me a band whose moniker is The Divine Comedy…For now, truly, I must ponder which of the nine circles of hell I inhabit.
Nanci Griffith
3/5
Country done right.
Billy Joel
2/5
Great record…makes me wanna get wasted on Schlitz, hop in my sports car and crash it into my neighbors front yard in the Hamptons.
Basement Jaxx
3/5
I got nothing on this one. No hate, no praise…it’s fine, the most three record that ever three’d.
Prefab Sprout
2/5
I’m not entirely sure what the first song thinks it’s doing on this record, the cow-punk on that track doesn’t really fit with the overall sound of this record, which, in a few spots, sounds closer to a less-technical Sea And Cake or maybe latter day Cornelius, to make a somewhat modern comparison.
The production here is the highlight for me. Thomas Dolby’s vibrant production keeps this album from being an absolute snore.
Klaxons
2/5
Jesus Christ people, just listen to The Fall.
The Bees
2/5
Remember The Bees? No, of course you don’t. They were a flash in the pan and unless you were reading Mojo or Uncut in 2002, you’d have no fucking clue who they are.
It’s cool they covered Os Mutantes, that’s about it.
Fiona Apple
3/5
I love that this was recorded mostly in GarageBand.
Beatles
3/5
This record couldn’t have been recommended on a better day. The Best Show is doing a 24 hour marathon show, and I am way more interested in that than hearing The Beatles for the 100,000th time in my 42 years.
I know this record, grew up with it thanks to my Mom. So I don’t have to listen again to have an opinion on this one.
If you love the Beatles, you’re gonna like this record. Hell, if the Beatles walked in to your house and dropped a deuce in your cereal bowl, you’d probably like that, too.
If you don’t like the Beatles, you’re probably not gonna like this one either.
Like most everything else, the truth is somewhere in between…it’s an ok record.
Now if you’ll excuse that gross over-simplification masquerading as a review of an album by a band most people think can do no wrong, the last three hours of the Best Show 24 hour show are calling my name.
R.E.M.
2/5
That’s me in the corner, thats’s me in the spot-light…trying to figure out why I love one era of REM, but loathe another.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
3/5
They were better with Neil Young and Neil Young is better without them.
Tricky
3/5
These trip-hop records don’t really grab me in any way. Massive Attack, Portishead, now Tricky…it feels like homework trying to appreciate these records rather than an enjoyable, engaging listening experience. Although, the spy movie music on this one is better than the others so far.
Jimmy Smith
3/5
Quite a funky chicken shack.
David Gray
2/5
Please Forgive Me…for saying this album is inessential.
Dead Kennedys
4/5
Jello Biafra is an acquired taste, like asparagus sautéed in crushed glass.
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
How many fucking Echo and the Bunnymen records are on this list?
At least this one has “Killing Moon”.
AC/DC
4/5
More Songs About Alcohol and Fucking
The Cars
4/5
Devo for people who wear pea coats.
Excellent synths on this record, though.
Can
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die
Chapter 5
Save that Money for a Rainy Day:
Can’s “Future Days”
It’s an exceptionally rainy and chilly late-September day here in New Jersey, the kind of day where there’s no point in leaving the house, unless it’s an absolute necessity. Better to just stay indoors and take advantage of a rare lazy Saturday.
Truth be told, in my twenty-odd years of Can fandom, I’ve really never considered Future Days to be a “rainy day” album. Odd as that might seem, given Future Days’ aqueous themes, it never occurred to me until today. This album always felt very summery, like an album to put on around 7pm on an August night at the beach: the perfect soundtrack to an ocean-viewed sunset.
While it fits well for that type of scenario, there is a sense of foreboding running through Future Days, which I am more attuned to today, making it a fantastic record for a rainy day.
Can’s intense, minimalist rhythmic drone pulsates, like the sound of droplets of rain pounding down onto your windowsill. Keyboards and sound effects mimic gusts of wind, pushing the sheets of rain back and forth through the air, all while you share a conversation with a close friend (in the form of Can frontman Damo Suzuki).
You’re left with a feeling of timelessness: the sky outside looks the same at 4pm as it did at 9 am and there’s no point in keeping track as the hours slowly tick by. It’s a feeling that was true fifty years ago, it’s true today and it will still be true fifty years in the future.
Can, seemingly, has found a way to transcend time and space with their music. How else do we account for an album that, 50 years from its release, sounds just as fresh and ahead of its time today? I suspect that in 2073, 100 years from its release, it will still sound ahead of its time, even if I’m not around to confirm that theory.
You might think I’m crazy for that statement, but do yourself a favor and listen to Bel Air at the 4:30 mark. Right there, that is the moment that modern-day Radiohead was born. That’s a good 25 years before Johnny Greenwood and Thom Yorke would find success in bringing experimental music to a mainstream audience. Now imagine where this record might lead us, with future generations discovering Can and turning their influence into something new…
For the sake of future days, indeed.
Incubus
2/5
I saw these dudes on this tour at Ozzfest and remember thinking their performance would’ve been better scheduled at dusk rather than at 3 in the afternoon. There’s a spacey ambience to this record that’s better suited for the evening than the sweltering heat of a July afternoon.
There’s some unique guitar work on this record, with a host of delay and other effects employed to achieve a spacey atmosphere. So it’s kind of an interesting record in that regard.
Otherwise, it feels really dated and a bit like a lowest common denominator-type record. I’m not really sure it belongs on this list, and three songs in, it’s already starting to feel like a chore to get through.
Jurassic 5
4/5
Have loved J5 since I saw them at the Warped Tour in 2000. A truly excellent hip-hop group that I feel never really got the accolades they deserve. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to their records, more than happy to revisit this one again.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
A few years ago I came to realization about Billy Corgan…excuse me, William Corgan.
I had heard the “Rat in a Cage” song at shop somewhere, probably a record store, and it clicked in my mind: he’s emulating Thurston Moore’s vocal style. The delivery, the cadence, it’s totally Thurston Moore, even if it was only for a line or two. He doesn’t do it all the time, or in every song, but when he does, it’s as clear as day.
Since then, I haven’t been able to shake that. I notice it often in his songs. It’s not the only parallel you can draw to Sonic Youth, either: the gender make up of the original line up - three guys and a blonde female bass player, their guitar noise freak outs, especially on the first few tracks of this record, bear a striking similarity to those of Sonic Youth.
Then I started noticing other bands that he was cribbing, like how the clean guitar intro to “Cherub Rock”, before the fuzz riff kicks in is exactly the same as the riff that plays throughout Neu’s “Hallgallo”. Literally identical. Or how the verse of “1979” sounds an awful lot like something fellow Chicagoans The Sea and Cake might do. If you don’t think that last one tracks, it’s worth pointing out The Sea and Cake had put out 3 records by the end of 1995 and shared a city with Corgan.
The Sonic Youth thing cracks me up especially, because at least one member of Sonic Youth has made it clear they’re not a Corgan fan:
“Courtney (Love) asked us for advice about her ‘secret affair’ with Billy Corgan. I thought, Ewwww, at even the mention of Billy Corgan, whom nobody liked because he was such a crybaby, and Smashing Pumpkins took themselves way too seriously and were in no way punk rock.”
-Kim Gordon
Ouch…if I’m right about Corgan’s admiration of Sonic Youth, that’s gotta hurt.
You know what, though, Billy Corgan will be alright.
Anyway, about Mellon Collie’s Infinite Sadness:
This record is way too long. It’s two hours long. One hundred and twenty two minutes. There are classic films that are shorter than this thing. You could watch all of Dr. Strangelove and go pick up a pizza in the time it takes to listen to this entire record. I’m not saying you *should* do that, but it’s a viable alternative.
Also, Kim Gordon’s not wrong about the Pumpkins taking themselves too seriously.
In closing, I’ll leave you with some thoughts from Pavement, whom Billy Corgan hates because of this line from their song “Range Life”:
“Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins
Nature kids, they don't have no function
I don't understand what they mean and I could really give a fuck”.
The Beach Boys
2/5
Moldin’ Oldies.
Cyndi Lauper
4/5
It’s hard to convey just how massively popular Cyndi Lauper was in the early 80’s, especially if you weren’t around to see it. Just a massive, massive superstar and the songs on this record (at least the first half) are pretty much baked into my DNA solely because I was drawing breath at the same time they were released.
A lot of that had to do with me being a WWF fan as a child…she did a crossover with the WWF and, I think brought them a ton of attention and into the mainstream a little bit.
She had Captain Lou Albano play her father in the video for Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and then later appeared at one of the Wrestlemanias,if I recall. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I thought she was Captain Lou’s actual daughter as a child.
If you asked me to name the first 4 celebrities that come to mind when it comes to 1980’s pop culture, Cyndi Lauper would be on the list, along with Weird Al Yankovic, maybe Hulk Hogan, and definitely ALF.
Yep…that about sums up the person I am.
This album has a really strong front half, and a second side that’s not as strong and pretty clearly indebted to some of the sounds of the time, like Talking Heads, The Police and B-52’s.
I suspect this album is on the list because of its cultural impact more so than as an example of the album as an art form, and I’m ok with that…I’m feeling nostalgic today.
Four stars…
…and be sure to pour one out for Captain Lou Albano.
Travis
1/5
No longer content to mimic Oasis, Britpop bands of the late 90’s turned their eye to aping Bends and OK Computer-era Radiohead.
I’m applying The Rule (TM) here: If you haven’t heard anyone talking about an album in 20 years, you don’t need to hear it before you die.
The Flaming Lips
5/5
Perhaps we had better start a little closer to the beginning…
Following the success of “She Don’t Use Jelly” from their 1993 record “Transmissions for the Satellite Heart”, The Flaming Lips released “Clouds Taste Metallic” a fuzzed-out, acid-damaged affair that plays like it’s Pet Sounds from an alternate reality. It’s one of the best (and maybe most under-appreciated) alternative albums of the 90’s, with excellent songs, otherworldly guitar playing and a reckless, experimental abandon that is uncommon for a band who had just had a massive hit on a major label. I’m not sure who was supposed to be minding the shop over at Warner Brothers in 1995, but thank god they weren’t paying too close attention to what these weirdos from Oklahoma City were doing….or, maybe, they were smart enough to know not to interfere with brilliance.
Clouds Taste Metallic was released to critical fanfare, but little commercial success and a year later, guitarist Ronald Jones, who was responsible for the absolutely amazing guitar work on Clouds, would leave the band, due in part to drummer/multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd’s increasing heroin use.
With the loss of Jones and an increasing sense that they had gone as far they could as a “guitar rock” band, the band began experimenting: they would take fragments of their song ideas and record the various parts on to different cassettes. The idea, then, was to play these cassettes simultaneously from different cassette players to achieve a symphonic sound collage from the music on the tapes. Initially, they would perform these symphonies in parking garages with the cassette decks of their fans cars playing back the music. Later, for their next tour, they scaled back and used Boomboxes for these concerts, dubbing them “The Boombox Experiments”.
In 1997, they translated these experiments to CD form on their 4-Disc follow up to Clouds Taste Metallic, “Zaireeka”. The idea was simple in theory, in order to hear the full album, each of the four CD’s was meant to be played simultaneously, from four different CD players. Requiring four CD players for this experiment, however, was probably not the most practical way of getting your album heard, even if the end result was an album designed for multi-channel stereo surround sound insanity.
It’s worth pointing out that Zaireeka was also put out by Warner Brothers. They were apprehensive about this one, however, stipulating that Zaireeka would not count against the 7 album deal that the Lips had signed and agreed to release it when the band’s manager discovered that if the album was sold as a box set, Warners would break even after only 12,000 copies were sold.
If Clouds Taste Metallic was the catalyst for The Flaming Lips moving past “guitar rock” into more avant-garde and experimental territory, Zaireeka was the point of no return. The music on Zaireeka is light years away from where the Flaming Lips were just four years earlier with “She Don’t Use Jelly”. Zaireeka is a heady, psychedelic work, with symphonic grandeur and occasionally odd, experimental compositions. By and large, however, the songs are good. Very good, in fact…I rate “Riding to Work in the Year 2025” as one of my all time favorite Flaming Lips songs. (If you’re inclined, there are four and five disc mixes of Zaireeka you can listen to, check YouTube).
While recording Zaireeka, the band was simultaneously working on The Soft Bulletin, a more “traditional” album, comprised of some of the songs from the Zaireeka sessions that did not work in the 4 CD format: most notably The Soft Bulletin’s opening track, “Race for the Prize”.
Think of The Soft Bulletin as the third act in this story: the first is Clouds Taste Metallic; a fuzzed-out psych rock headphone album for the ages. Zaireeka is the second; a symphonic, avant-garde exercise challenging the concept of what the “album” is. The third act, The Soft Bulletin, takes these two ideas and successfully melds them into one; a symphonic, psychedelic rock headphone masterpiece.
For me, the Flaming Lips have never topped these three records and The Soft Bulletin is the pinnacle of their creative output, a true masterpiece. From start to finish, it is a perfect record and should be considered as one of the greatest albums of the 90’s, if not all time.
The Stooges
5/5
This is heavy duty, man.
U2
3/5
Like REM, I don’t really have a problem with what U2 was, it’s what they became that doesn’t work for me.
This is a good rock record.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
With all due respect, Mr Cohen…I am a New York Giants fan in October of 2023. It could not possibly get any darker than it already is.
Edit, May 2025: Fuck me, the 2024 season was even worse.
Edit 2, November 2025: A glimmer of hope with Dart and Skattebo quickly dissipated by Skattebo’s injury and an absolutely abysmal defense led by DC Shane Bowen. Fire the coaching staff.
Fleet Foxes
3/5
The soundtrack to your McCarren Park Kickball League.
Pixies
4/5
Pixies were never really a favorite of mine. I get their influence and the songs are good, but I could never buy-in 100%. Part of that is the production; their albums kind of feel stuck in the late 80’s to me, for some reason. The drum sound especially, I really don’t care for it…like, why is the snare drum the loudest instrument on this record?
For me, they’re a better “song band” than “album band.” I think they get a lot of leeway from fans on the lesser known songs, because the well known ones are so good. As whole, it was hard not to lose interest about three quarters of the way through Doolittle.
Pearl Jam
4/5
This record was ubiquitous in my small suburban NJ town when I was 11 or 12 in the early 90’s. Everyone my age knew these songs, liked these songs. You heard them on the radio, saw the videos on MTV. There were commercials on broadcast TV during sporting events or American Gladiators in promotion of this album, so even if you didn’t have MTV, you were aware of it.
You’d listen to this record with your friends on the way to soccer or lacrosse practice and debate if Pearl Jam was better than Nirvana. I’m struggling to think of someone I knew back then who actively disliked Pearl Jam. It was like oxygen: all around you, all the time, providing a sort of angsty teenage sustenance that kept you going.
This record is one of the soundtracks to my youth and if you’re in your early 40’s, it’s probably one of yours, too. Listening to it just feels right, like putting on a pair of comfortable slippers or finally getting home after a long plane ride. I am fully on board with the nostalgia trip that this record provides.
And that is why I was going to give it 5 stars.
The more you focus on nostalgia, however, the more you’ll start to remember the cracks in perfection: like how you never really used to listen to this entire album and would start to lose attention after “Jeremy”, even though “Porch” was pretty fucking good.
I’m willing to bet that if you found an original vinyl pressing of this record, the A-side of it would have a lot more wear than the B-side. The A-side of Ten is amazing, hit after hit after hit. I think every one of those songs got massive airplay back in 1992. The B-side of this record…not nearly as strong.
Ten is a great reminder that when you’re being nostalgic, you’re choosing to remember the great things and usually not the factual reality.
But, man…is that A-side fantastic, or what?
PJ Harvey
4/5
Aggressive, bare bones rock. Fuckin great.
2/5
[shakes head]
Fucking Brooklyn.
The Divine Comedy
2/5
If feel it’s worth pointing out that the brevity of “A Short Album About Love” was a major factor in my decision to rate that record 3 stars.
An hour of this is a little more than I can take.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
“Everybody seems to wonder
What it's like down here
I gotta get away
from this day-to-day
running around,
Everybody knows
this is nowhere.”
-me, telling people what it’s like to work IT in a basement office at a Fortune 500 company.
Fela Kuti
5/5
“Music is the weapon. Music is the weapon of the future.”
-Fela Kuti
Creedence Clearwater Revival
5/5
Creedence Clearwater Revival can rock, they’ve got soul, they’ll get psychedelic, they play with purpose and a sense of urgency…they’re pretty much the perfect rock and roll band.
Fuck me, did I just write a Wesley Willis song?
Belle & Sebastian
4/5
I really liked Tigermilk and I really like this record, but I have the feeling that the farther I go in their discography, I might start getting bored. Not because I think the music will be bad, just that I can see them settling into their sound and…eventually the law of diminishing returns will kick in, you know what I mean?
As it stands, though, I’m more than content to keep playing this record and Tigermilk over and over. They are *great* records.
Isaac Hayes
4/5
Looking forward to “Hot Buttered Thetans”, the 55th anniversary edition, coming out next year on OT III Records.
Brian Eno
5/5
Another Eno Masterpiece.
Arcade Fire
3/5
Full disclosure: I don’t really care for this band, never have, but I must be getting old and jaded, because every song on this record, I was finding some preexisting counterpart for their songs…like, “oh, they’re doing a Springsteen thing here”, “hey, this is pretty much an M83 track”, “now they’re trying to get a krautrock thing going” and “oh, they own Blondie records, too”.
My point is, I spent the majority of this record thinking about other bands. Doesn’t say much for Arcade Fire if the most memorable thing about this record is that it made me want to listen to something else.
Roxy Music
5/5
It’s one of the greatest debut albums of all time.
It has one of the greatest opening tracks of all time, Remake/Remodel.
It’s the album that introduced Brian Eno to the world.
It’s experimental, ahead of its time, strange and boundary pushing.
It rocks.
How could I possibly rate it anything other than 5 stars?
The Beta Band
2/5
More like Hot Shits, am I right?
[rimshot]
(Sigh)
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
This is a great album, but I can not stand the word “Chooglin’.”
As such, 4 stars.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
I don’t really care for this radio station very much.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
It’s cool that the generator keeps recommending these bleak-ass Leonard Cohen records on Saturdays.
Really great way to kick off the weekend…super cool.
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
Because of their in-studio technical prowess and experimentation, My Bloody Valentine tends to get a pass on their songwriting abilities. As a result, their records often feel like dissertations, rather than actual enjoyable album experiences.
Isn’t Anything is made a little more enjoyable by the fact that they were pretty clearly trying to be Dinosaur Jr and/or Sonic Youth on a few tracks. Ultimately, that makes for a lopsided album: The more “traditional” songs end up interspersed with sonic experiments that succeed in varying degrees.
Devendra Banhart
3/5
My expectations were low for this record, as I remember the Pitchfork hype around Devendra Barnhart back in the aughts. It’s not as bad as I was anticipating; a decent left-field folk that probably sounded more ahead of its time when it was released than it does today.
Hole
2/5
This Hole is a little sloppier and more aggressive than the other one on this list.
…I feel like I’m missing a word in there somewhere.
Oh well, proofreading is for suckers.
Drive-By Truckers
1/5
As if Lynyrd Skynyrd records aren’t bad enough on their own, here’s a double disc concept album *about* Lynyrd Skynyrd that rarely rises above the level of your friendly neighborhood bar band.
Had it been a single disc album…fine, two stars.
The fact that it is a double album is what makes it unforgivable.
Brian Eno
5/5
There’s much I’d like to say about this album; however, I am contractually obligated leave the following review:
ANOTHER CLASSIC BRIAN ENO RECORD.
2/5
This album is so essential that you can’t listen to it in America on a streaming service. Instead you get to hear it as the artist intended: broken up by commercials for reverse mortgages and carb-cutting diet fads on YouTube.
Real talk though, this album’s alright. If you like the corniest of all the Beatles’ psychedelic pop experiments from the late sixties, you’ll love this record.
Sheryl Crow
3/5
I’m predisposed to have at least a begrudging respect for a lot of music from this era, as I was a thirteen year old and it was part of the ethereal backdrop of my musical upbringing.
Something that strikes me about the music of the early 90’s compared to the music of the 80’s, is the stark contrast in sound. The 1980’s were about excess, wether it be in terms of music production or cocaine consumption. In the early 90’s, like a light switch flipping, everything became more stripped back, grounded and down to earth. It was incredibly refreshing, even as a kid. There was at least the illusion that anyone could do it, you didn’t have to have a multi-million dollar budget, everything didn’t have to be huge…you could let your music speak for itself. Gone were the days of style over substance and that would turn out to be a formative experience in my life.
So Sheryl Crow’s debut record hits right for me, because it is exactly that: a stripped back, down to earth, no frills record, with good songs and musicianship. It’s not a record I’ll seek out or add to my collection, but it’s quite good and was an enjoyable listen.
Morrissey
1/5
One Morrissey solo record down, three more to go.
Solange
3/5
Minimal, jazz inflected soul and R&B. Mellowed my mind after a rough day at work.
The Notorious B.I.G.
2/5
Never really cared for Biggie, even back when I was teenager in the 90’s. I got about 7 songs through this record and put on De La Soul’s “Buhloone Mindstate”. Someone add that to the list.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
2/5
People, we live in a world where the band Funkadelic exists and put out many great albums. Go listen to Standing on the Verge of Getting it On instead.
Radiohead
3/5
You: Mom, can we get Radiohead?
Mom: We have Radiohead at home, honey.
Radiohead at Home: Hail to the Thief
Leonard Cohen
3/5
Now that I’ve completed 4 of the 5 Leonard Cohen records on the list, I think it’s safe for me to make this statement:
This Leonard Cohen dude is a total bummer.
Madness
2/5
Another record where I have to go to YouTube to listen, because it’s not widely available for streaming in the US, which brings up a question:
Does anyone know why sometimes you can play YouTube videos in the background on iPhone and other times you can’t? I’m not paying $18.99/month for YouTube premium to have that feature.
As for the record, I found “the Rise and Fall” to be cloyingly upbeat, with gauzy 80’s production and a hefty debt to British Music Hall.
481 records down, a little over 600 to go.
The Dictators
3/5
A couple of these songs would probably cause an uproar today, but if you read the lyrics, they’re not what their titles suggest, but rather they’re mostly misguided (if viewed through the lens of present day) humor and sarcasm. Still, those choruses probably shouldn’t be blared out of your car stereo system on summer day when you’re stuck at a traffic light.
That aside, this is a solid early punk record, with some really good guitar playing and songwriting. It’s fun, funny and it rocks. Fits pretty solidly with the mid 70’s New York punk scene, I think.
All that said, I have to deduct at least a star because of Handsome Dick Manitoba (Richard Blum). Back in the the early aughts, he threatened Dan Snaith with a lawsuit over his band name, Manitoba. Snaith, an actual Canadian, changed the name of his project to Caribou to avoid the lawsuit. How can you sue for the rights to the name of a province? Also, very punk of Handsome Dick to threaten to sue a guy on an independent label making music out of his house. Super cool move, Dick.
The Zutons
2/5
The answer to the question “Who killed the Zutons?” should be a resounding “Who fucking cares?”
The Libertines
3/5
Better than I expected, given the track record of British indie records from the early aughts on this list, but inessential nonetheless.
Pere Ubu
4/5
I gotta give it up to the state of Ohio. I don’t know if there’s something in the water or what, but it’s given us a few bands that are just completely unique, like Devo, Pere Ubu, Guided By Voices…bands that do their own thing, on their own terms and succeed. They don’t sound like anyone else, but you can always tell one of their songs when you hear it. Trailblazers, I fucking love it.
Dub Housing gets an easy four stars (with the possibility of moving up in the ranks after repeated listens), it’s aggressively weird and totally unique.
Liz Phair
5/5
Liz Phair is awesome and Matador Records is arguably the most important American record label of the last 40 years.
I don’t feel like there’s much else I need to add here.
The Vines
2/5
Am I losing it, or does this kind of sound like a hair metal record in a bunch of spots?
Queen
3/5
There are very few things I dislike more than the marriage of rock music and cabaret/music hall.
…and I say that as a Kinks fan.
This record is excellently produced, which distracts from A Night at the Opera’s haughty cabaret-rock. Musically, however, Queen has never really been for me.
Manu Chao
3/5
I met two French girls at my local bar once who were huge fans of Manu Chao and had assumed, I guess somewhat correctly, that he was French, so I was surprised by the amount of songs sung in Spanish. If I had known more French than “tres bien” it probably would have been easier to learn more about him from them. It also would have made recommending the band Air to them a little easier.
Digression aside, Clandestino was enjoyable, but my inability to speak French and an only rudimentary understanding of Spanish might have hampered my ability to translate these songs, though I understand that Chao is an outspoken leftist and that informs much of his music. I definitely appreciate that, even if musically, this wasn’t really my thing.
The Who
4/5
Exceptional live record capturing some of The Who’s best, pre-Who’s Next work, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention their performance of “A Quick One While He’s Away” from The Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus. It’s the definitive version of the song and outpaces the version found here on Live at Leeds. It very well may be the greatest live performance ever captured on film and you should check it out over on YouTube.
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
Though it is sonically rich and adventurous, Loveless ends up being a cold, clinical and monolithic affair overall.
The Pogues
4/5
Pour one out for Ray Cole, veteran Baltimore Police Homicide detective. He died of a heart attack at the gym, while working out on a Stair-master. He wasn’t the greatest detective and he wasn’t the worst. He put down some good cases and he dogged a few bad ones, but the motherfucker had his moments….yes he did.
Buena Vista Social Club
5/5
So yesterday, I got the Pogues, an Irish band..my heritage on my mother’s side. Today, Buena Vista Social Club, a Cuban group…my heritage on my father’s side.
I’m not saying the generator is sentient (I am), but there sure have been a lot “coincidences” as I’ve embarked on this journey.
Because of my aforementioned heritage, this record hits right for me. I’ve heard it many times before and enjoy it thoroughly. It’s great.
It’s a glimpse into a culture that, for some reason, the government of the country I call home has made as difficult as possible to experience in person. They do business with countries that behead journalists and countries that practice the same type of government as Cuba’s, but that little island 90 miles from Florida, they’re the ones we really need to put in an economic chokehold.
It’s not because they’re inherently bad, it’s because *we can*.
I’m ranting, but it’s fucked up how America treats Cuba, so it’s nice to have a slice of that part of my genetic make up (in the form of this record) that I can visit without having to bend over backwards to experience - All I’m saying is that it would be infinitely easier for me to hop on plane and visit Ireland than it it would for me to even think about getting to Cuba.
Well, this review turned out to be depressing.
The Coral
2/5
These early 2000’s British alt/indie records are such bullshit.
Bullshit, I tell ya.
Big Star
5/5
Between songwriting, performance and production, #1 Record should be considered among the greatest debut albums of all time. Sadly, Big Star didn’t see much success in their time, but their influence can’t be understated.
This is truly a record you need to hear before you die and while you’re at it, give Radio City a listen - It should really be on this list.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Ray Price
2/5
Fine as background music on this Monday morning before Thanksgiving, but let’s be honest, this sounds like just about every other country record from the late 50’s or early 60’s that you’ve ever heard.
Anita Baker
2/5
I cannot stand this type of schlocky, over produced 80’s adult contemporary music. It’s like a Thomas Kinkade painting: gauzy and not reflective of reality. Anita Baker is a great singer, but, to my ears, this music sounds incredibly dated.
Iggy Pop
4/5
As producer and co-writer, David Bowie’s influence is pretty evident on this record: it feels a bit like a companion piece to “Heroes”. If you like Bowie’s Berlin era and Brian Eno, I suspect that, like me, you’ll find a lot to like on “The Idiot”.
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
As of today, Thanksgiving 2023, I’ve completed 500 records in this project. Accordingly, a short listing of records I’ve reviewed from the list thus far that I am especially thankful for:
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
Milton Nascimeto & Lo Borges - Clube Da Esquina
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - Winter in America
Brian Eno - Another Green World
Neil Young - On the Beach
MC5 - Kick Out the Jams
Parliament - Mothership Connection
Belle & Sebastian - Tigermilk
David Bowie - Station to Station
Air - The Virgin Suicides
Sonic Youth - Dirty
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
As for this record, you can add it right to that list.
There’s a Riot Goin’ On is a stone cold classic, start to finish: a document of the dream of the 60’s as it crashes and burns in the early 70’s - a comedown in the literal and metaphorical sense. It’s dense and dark and druggy, funky but downtrodden with an experimental, home recorded/DIY feel. “Riot” should be considered among the greatest albums of all time.
Goldie
1/5
This thing is called “Timeless” because once you finish listening to all two hours of it, you’ll have less time to do the things that actually interest you.
Cheap Trick
4/5
Cheap Trick capture their high energy power-pop in a live setting. Guided by Voices fans will find a lot to like here, latter-day GBV - in the Doug Gilliard era(s) - clearly takes some influence from Cheap Trick.
Heaven 17
1/5
I’m beginning to suspect that the author of this list misunderstood the assignment. This is clearly just a list of 1001 albums he has heard.
Sarah Vaughan
2/5
How many more times am I going to have to listen to “Just a Gigolo” because of this list? I’m at two currently, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened more than once.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
I feel like I want to like Yeah Yeah Yeahs more than I actually do like them when I listen.
Killing Joke
4/5
Knew “The Wait” from my days as a Metallica obsessed teenager, but was largely unfamiliar with Killing Joke aside from that. An enjoyable and influential electronic/punk hybrid.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
A legitimately beautiful, but profoundly sad record.
Kraftwerk
5/5
TRANS
EUROPE
EXPRESS
Common
4/5
I can’t believe the top review for this record (as of Dec 2023) is from someone trying to use their PhD in Mathematics as justification for not liking hip-hop.
Weak.
UB40
3/5
Uh..Ackshually, IB42.
The Young Gods
2/5
It’s always an exciting day in this household when one of the lowest rated albums on the site gets recommended. I’ll wonder to myself, “Is it truly bad (Kid Rock’s “Devil Without a Cause”) or is just outside of the comfort zone of the users of this site (Lightning Bolt’s “Wonderful Rainbow)?”
Half of this kind of sounds like Nine Inch Nails circa Broken, the other half like a Tom Waits score for Cirque Du Soleil, all sung in French. If those things appeal to you…enjoy the madness. It ain’t for me man, but I’ve heard worse albums on this list.
Alanis Morissette
3/5
Another day, another dose of nostalgia from the 1001 Albums Generator. These early-mid 90’s records really end up putting me in an odd headspace sometimes. This isn’t a record I ever listened to intentionally, but I know a lot of it…how could I not? I was a teenager in 1995, consuming as much MTV as I possible could and I knew plenty of people who were Alanis Morrisette fans.
So when a record like this gets assigned, it’s inevitable that I end up thinking about those people, the fun times…about the 90’s.
…and you know what, it’s comforting. It feels good, most of the time.
Occasionally, that comfort becomes uncomfortable: you think about something stupid you said to someone or how you haven’t really kept in touch with some of the people you are thinking about and you’re not really sure why that happened other than it’s just what happens as you get older.
An odd feeling, without a doubt and I’m not sure I’m conveying it well through these written words. Funny how that happens, you have this feeling going on and, try as you might, you can’t really convey it properly. I don’t know…it’s…I guess if I had to really pinpoint it, narrow it down for a stranger, I would probably tell them…
IT’S LIKE RAAAAAAAAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY
IT’S A FREE RIDE WHEN YOU’VE ALREADY PAID
IT’S THE GOOD ADVICE THAT YOU JUST DIDNT TAKE
AND WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?
IT FIGURES.
Rush
2/5
Rush’s guitar riffs are so dumb. You can tell Alex Lifeson hates playing rhythm guitar, his rhythm parts are lethargic and chunky, devoid of any nuance. Stereotypical lead guitarist mentality, tons of flare on leads, but rhythm parts played so boringly that it feels like checking a box.
But it’s not just him, this entire band plays in a cold, clinical style in order to show off their technical prowess and their songs end up devoid of any urgency or emotion.
Fucking Asia is more enjoyable to listen to…and I cannot stand that band.
The Pharcyde
4/5
I like to give Robert Dimery, the author of this list, a little shit from time to time for his album selections. One area he’s done well, however, is with late 80’s/early 90’s hip-hop. No complaints from me as of yet.
Bizarre Ride II is a classic and it’s indisputable, so don’t even bother disputing it like you usually do, you weirdos with bad taste.
Terence Trent D'Arby
2/5
I fucking hate 80’s production. The chime-y keyboards, the shit sounding drums drenched in reverb. It’s amazing how dated and of-their-time these songs sound because of awful production choices. I don’t know how artists listened to the records they were making back then and thought, “yes, this will be timeless…the coats of synthetic sheen we’re applying to our records will surely sound just as good 30 years from now as it does today.”
Records like this don’t sound like they were made by humans. They sound like they were manufactured in a factory…like it’s not music, it’s a product made of plastic.
I can’t divorce my feelings about 80’s production from the actual music.
2 stars, because there is probably a pretty good record buried underneath all the bullshit here.
Dire Straits
1/5
Hot garbage.
Tim Buckley
3/5
These Tim Buckley records are pretty good so far, they seem to breeze by with subtle instrumentation and atmospherics and aren’t very intrusive - good music if you need to concentrate on another task while listening. A bit melancholic for my taste, especially towards the end (expected from an album called happy/sad), but not to the point of being a drag.
Finley Quaye
1/5
That’s it, I’m calling for a constitutional convention among the users of this site.
For too long, we have been subjected to the whim and whimsy of one “Robert Dimery” and the time has come for us to agree upon some self-evident truths. It is high time that we free ourselves from the tyranny of mediocrity. Are we not civilized beings, should we not be allowed to once again hold our heads high, unburdened by the choices made by one man several decades ago?
As such, I have drafted the first article of our bill of rights, a reference point to be used by any user in good standing with the site:
We, the people of the 1001 albums generator community, do hereby establish the following:
Article I
Section I. When, in the course of daily listening, a user encounters an album or artist that no reasonable person has talked about in 25 years, the user may apply “The Rule” when providing a poor rating of the album.
Section II. “The Rule” states the following- If you haven’t heard anyone of sound body and mind talk about the suggested album or artist in 20 years or more, the album can be deemed inessential on such grounds.
Section III. No user shall be admonished for applying “The Rule” to an album, so long as the criteria laid out in Section I appears to have been met.
Lana Del Rey
3/5
First listen:
I don’t get why people dislike Lana Del Rey so much. This is a pretty good record.
Second listen:
Ok, I can get why people might not like this.
Dr. John
3/5
In Philadelphia, they call him Dr. Jawn.
Aphex Twin
4/5
Putting aside the fact that I’m not really sure a lot of this classifies as “ambient” music - some of it is very busy and attention grabbing rather than something that hangs in the ethereal back drop - I like this record, always have, especially the tracks that are on the more ambient side.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
3/5
I don’t know, I feel like this album could use a little more reverb.
The 13th Floor Elevators
5/5
We should all thank the Sandoz Corporation for creating LSD in 1938, which ended up changing the course of modern music forever.
Django Django
2/5
It’s a bold move to depict the landfill that copies of your record will end up in on the cover of your debut record.
I kid, I kid….
This is just The Beta Band for the 2010’s, right?
Ok, okay…let’s get serious.
This is an alright record, kind of psychedelic, kind of poppy, but it has a problem that I find in a lot of modern music that really detracts from listening for me. It has a lack of realistic energy - you can tell everything on this record is heavily quantized in a DAW, lined up and synced perfectly in time…machine-like. It feels lifeless to me as a result, devoid of personality or any flair for originality.
Elis Regina
3/5
The version of this on Apple Music has a different track order, but appears to be the same comp or at least close enough for me to consider this listen completed.
If you like vocal jazz, I suspect you might enjoy this. If you don’t like vocal jazz, well…this is pretty funky, so it should at least be enjoyable and different from most American vocal jazz, the arrangements here are pretty detailed (if a bit dated) and kind of psychedelic at times. Besides, your horizons could always be broader, right?
Queens of the Stone Age
4/5
This record, along with Rated R got a lot of play from me back when they were released, and I got to see them on the Rated R tour, naked-ass Nick Oliveri and all.
With each subsequent record following Rated R, my interest in this band began to wane exponentially, but these first two are records I really like and will revisit every once in a while.
4 stars. Rated R is the one that should be on the list, though.
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
2/5
Stockholm Syndrome: The Album
I was almost immediately turned off by this record, but as it played on, I started noticing fleeting moments where I grew to understand, appreciate and sympathize with its goals. Those moments would quickly pass and I would be reminded that I didn’t like most of it and I was, in fact, a captive, unable to escape its grip until it ceased playback. Only then was I able to make heads or tails of my situation and truly see how willing I was to overlook its many flaws in favor of the fleeting moments of sympathy and understanding.
Eagles
1/5
Welcome to the Lowest Rated Albums section of my user summary.
Boston
3/5
Ok, look…it’s Boston…they self-produced a pretty great record, it was a massive success and then they never made anything else that lived up to this record. The songs that are worth hearing here are songs you’ve heard at least 1,001 times in your life already.
It’s an exceptionally well produced album that makes great use of the 24 track tape it was recorded on: two tracks for vocals, one for hand claps, one track for drums, one for bass, one for keyboards and the remaining 18 for guitars.
I’m kidding, but not by much.
The DIY aspect of this record is what intrigues me the most, and it’s a good story, but musically I’m not sure it’s not far off from a REO Speedwagon or Kansas record. Pretty standard 70’s MOR rock music. It just sounds punchier because there’s a wall of guitars layered on thicker than the getup that Ralphie’s brother had to wear to school in A Christmas Story.
The Saints
4/5
This is the best type of punk, the kind that isn’t afraid to take risks, doesn’t adhere to some kind of notion of what punk is “supposed to be”. As a result, it doesn’t sound tied to its era. In fact, on songs like “Memories are Made of This” or “A Minor Aversion”, it sounds ahead of its time, prescient…a blueprint for what would become indie rock in the 80’s and 90’s.
Supergrass
3/5
This has to be one of the worst album covers of all time.
That transgression aside, this record is better than just about every other British alternative record I’ve encountered on this list thus far. It at least has some aggression…some chutzpah, if you will. They’re playing with a sense of urgency and reckless abandon unlike any of their mid-90’s British compatriots.
That album cover is absolutely terrible, though… the dog’s breakfast. Bad enough that I wouldn’t even consider buying this album if I saw it in the store without having heard the music. I guess that’s why they say not to judge a book by its cover.
The Only Ones
4/5
I guess I’m of the opinion that rock music is the everyman’s music; that you don’t have to be a perfect singer, or the greatest instrumentalist, or have ultra slick production in order to make a great record. Rock music should be raw and real, not belabored over and tweaked in some kind of attempt to manufacture perfection.
The Only Ones debut record is unique, interesting, well played and engaging.
If you want something “perfect” that checks off some weird list of requirements of what a great record “should be”, you should look elsewhere.
Guided By Voices
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die
Chapter 6
Throw the Switch, It’s Rock and Roll Time:
Guided By Voices’ “Alien Lanes”
I didn’t get it at first.
Guided By Voices had all the trappings of a band that I should have loved. These were guys recording albums on four track in dingy Dayton, Ohio basements. They were lo-fi, prolific and inspired a dedicated fanbase. Their backstory was amazing: Robert Pollard, a grade-school teacher in his 30’s, and his drinking buddies recorded songs and made records in their spare time. For Pollard, it was in hopes of getting out of the teaching job that he was disenfranchised with. His family were on him to give up on the band and focus on his career as a teacher, so he recorded one final record, Propeller, pressed up 500 copies and called it a day. Guided by Voices’ manager, recognizing the greatness of Propeller (and Pollards song writing talent), started sending out copies to indie rock labels, magazines and records stores as a last ditch effort at recognition. The plan worked and Guided By Voices became the toast of early 90’s indie rock.
They followed up Propeller with “Vampire on Titus”, one of the most inescapably lo-fi records of the era, and “Bee Thousand”, the album that, to many, would define not only lo-fi, but 90’s indie rock as a whole.
“Bee Thousand” was my introduction to Guided By Voices at the turn of the 21st century. When I bought it at Vintage Vinyl in New Jersey, it had already gained its mythical status and as a Matador records enthusiast, I needed to understand what made this band so beloved, so important…I needed understand why their fans were so fervent in their assertions that GBV was the greatest rock band on earth.
I popped in Bee Thousand and, by the end of it, had gained no clarity on the situation. Even after two or three more listens, it still didn’t click for me.
So, GBV went on the back burner. I had tried and it didn’t work. You can’t like everything, right?
A year or two would go by and while reading Mojo or some other British music magazine, I saw a glowing review of Guided By Voices’ latest record “Universal Truths and Cycles”. “Maybe I need to hear something more recent, more polished”, I thought. “Maybe then it will click.”
I bought that record and it didn’t, so I gave up on my quest to understand Guided By Voices.
A few more years passed and Guided By Voices broke up to much fanfare, with cities across the country declaring “Guided By Voices Day” when the band showed up in their cities for the farewell concerts.
“Well, I missed the boat on that, I guess.”
In 2010, Matador Records turned 21. To celebrate, they threw a three day concert in Las Vegas, with a reunited Guided by Voices on the bill, and released a multi-disc retrospective of the label’s 21 years. As a Matador enthusiast, I picked up the boxset without a second thought. While making my way through the box set on my trip home from the record store, a song came on that grabbed me. It sounded like a lost Beatles song, except it was incredibly lo-fi and surprisingly short. “Holy shit, who is that? That might be the greatest song I’ve ever heard,” I thought and grabbed the CD case to see who this band was. I read the back of the case and it said, “Game of Pricks - Guided By Voices”.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
So I decided to revisit Guided By Voices, give it one last push to see if I could make sense of them. I purchased Alien Lanes from the iTunes Store and loaded it up on my iPod. I listened intently, and though not all of it stuck, I felt like I was at least closer. When “Motor Away” played, I could tell I was on the verge of getting it, understanding why GBV fans are so obsessed with the band. After a few listens to Alien Lanes, and its greatness became more apparent, I started digging through my closet of CD’s and pulled out that neglected copy of Bee Thousand…”I need to give this another listen.”
I won’t say it clicked right then, it didn’t, but I had moved from the “I don’t get it” camp and into the “I think I like Guided By Voices” camp. So I started listening to other albums, “Under the Bushes, Under the Stars”, “Propeller”, “Mag Earwhig”…even if I didn’t love them all right away, each had a least one song where I thought to myself, “this is the greatest song I’ve ever heard”.
Then one morning, around 5 am, when I was barely awake, showering and getting ready for work, I found myself with a song stuck in my head. Half-asleep and dazed, it took me a long while to place the song. After all, how often do you have a song stuck in your head moments after waking up? For me, it might be the only time that’s ever happened.
The song was “Echos Myron” from Bee Thousand.
Like an Indie Rock Manchurian Candidate, I had been activated. Guided By Voices didn’t just make sense to me, it had hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to consume as much of Robert Pollard’s music as possible and soon my vinyl record collection was (and still is) overflowing with Guided By Voices records, EP’s and 7-inch singles.
Similar to watching one of David Lynch’s films, you aren’t just listening to an “album” when you throw on a GBV record. From the record cover to the songs and lyrics, you are stepping into Robert Pollard’s world. It’s a world full of Valuable Hunting Knives, Hardcore UFO’s, Bright Paper Werewolves, Main Street Wizards, Wild Strawberry Girls and Christian Animation Torch Carriers, all kept in check by the Teenage FBI.
Guided By Voices are the greatest American rock band of our time and it’s ok if you don’t realize it right away…now that you’ve heard this record, the switch has been thrown and it’s almost rock and roll time for you.
5/5
Close to the Edge is the greatest progressive rock album ever made. A perfect 5 star record, not a wasted note to be found.
Perfection.
::chef’s kiss::
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
1/5
This is pretty much just off-brand Public Enemy.
Gram Parsons
3/5
Enjoyable country rock with a light psychedelic tinge. I could probably write an essay on the reasons why country isn’t necessarily for me, but ultimately this was an enjoyable listening experience.
Tim Buckley
4/5
Another day, another Tim Buckley record.
This one’s interesting, has a summer of love psych-folk feel. He tends to bring a darker, moodier vibe to his records, so this isn’t upbeat psych pop like your Sgt. Peppers’ or what have you. More importantly, it doesn’t have any cabaret music masquerading as psych, a tactic the Beatles were fond of torturing listeners with.
Something I’ve noticed with Tim Buckley’s records is that they seem to sound both of their time and a little ahead of their time. This is pretty clearly a sixties record, but at the same time, it doesn’t sound completely tied down to its era. There is an avant-garde streak to his records, particularly in the skillful way he approaches the atmospheric backdrops of these songs, which is refreshing when compared to a lot of the psychedelic music of the late 60’s.
I’ve liked the other Tim Buckley records on the list, this one, the last I’ll review, is no exception. So Goodbye (and Hello), Tim Buckley.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
1/5
If you like artists that wear their influences on their sleeves, but have zero interest in exploring their influences at all, Damon Albarn might be the guy for you.
Eels
3/5
I had a few of friends who liked Eels back in the in 90’s, but it never really worked for me. Listening now, it kind of reminds me of Beck, which I didn’t pick up on back then, but it still doesn’t really work for me.
An indifferent 3 stars.
Nightmares On Wax
3/5
It’s rare that I listen to a 90’s electronic album from this list and it doesn’t sound dated. Maybe it’s because digital recording was still in its infancy then and more limited than it is today, and as a result, listeners’ expectations were tempered to not expect much variety, but that doesn’t account for a record like DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing, which doesn’t feel dated or overly repetitive and mechanical like this one does.
With that said, this is not an awful album, but I think it could use some judicious editing. If you were to Guided by Voices this thing - no songs over three minutes, blend the tracks together like a seamless mix tape - it could be a pretty awesome record.
Janis Joplin
4/5
I’m not big on the San Francisco psych-rock scene of the 60’s - the Velvet Underground are far more psychedelic and interesting to me than most of the San Francisco bands - but this record is proof of Janis Joplin’s phenomenal talent. Her band here is exceptionally tight and funky. Excellent musicianship all around. By every metric, Pearl is a great record.
The Killers
1/5
You can boil this record down to three or four things:
Two hit singles
A bunch of U2 impersonations
A couple Beatles impersonations
And the dumbest lyric your ever heard:
“I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier…”
I don’t know about you, but when I think about people who have soul, soldiers are the first people that come to mind…you know how they’re always following and not questioning orders…very soulful.
Also, bold choice to include a song with the refrain “It’s Indie Rock and Roll for me” on your MAJOR LABEL DEBUT. Maybe it’s making fun of indie purists like myself (which I doubt, this band is too dumb for that), but the lyrics are too vague and devoid of any real meaning to actually tell what the song is about.
This is “indie rock” for people who couldn’t tell you if “Matador Records” was a record label or just another way of saying “Bullfighting Statistics”.
1/5
How to be a successful British rock band in the early 2000’s:
Step 1: Sound like Radiohead
Step 2: Add Distorted Guitars and Arpeggiated Synths
Step 3: Profit
CHIC
3/5
I can’t be the only one who thought this was Led Zeppelin’s “In Through the Out Door” for a split second when it got generated, right?
It’s a good thing it wasn’t. This record’s way better.
The Who
4/5
In some ways, I think this is my favorite Who record. It’s psychedelic and I enjoy the weird concept - it’s not overblown like Tommy would end up; it’s relatively straight-forward and, for the most part, the songs rock. “I Can See for Miles” is one of the Who’s best songs, even if it’s not the most well known. Ditto to “Maryanne with the Shaky Hand”. The Who Sell Out is a great album and definitely worth hearing before you die, even if the only thing you take away from it is “Oh, that’s where Queens of the Stone Age got the idea for Songs for the Deaf.”
With that said, I’d like to take a moment to bitch about the preponderance of “deluxe” and “super deluxe” reissues on streaming platforms, since when I opened this record in Apple Music the “Super Deluxe” version was the only version available.
…and that’s fine, I get wanting to have as much material out there for fans and as a historical document, but it can’t be that difficult for the streaming platforms to better differentiate what was the original record and what is bonus material. Otherwise, you’re pulling up a nearly 6 hour tracklist with 114 songs on it. Just put a header after the original album’s last track (Rael, on this record) that says “Bonus Tracks”.
Now despite that complaint, there is still worthwhile material to be heard on the super deluxe version of this album. “Early Morning Cold Taxi” is fantastic as are several other of the bonus tracks.
Rant over.
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
I’m fucking old, so I remember when music like this was new, fresh and unlike anything people had really heard before. I’m sure if you were born after the 80’s and only knew hip-hop as an already established, immensely popular genre of popular music, you might not find this interesting or important or good. To me, this record is all of those things, but it might just be because I’m old.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
2/5
I’m either missing the part of my brain or the frame of reference that would allow me to appreciate country music or bluegrass or Americana. 99% of it doesn’t resonate with me in the slightest.
Because of this, I can’t tell what makes a good bluegrass record or if this is one of them. I know I’ve seen the cover before and from what I’ve read it’s heralded as one of the of the all time greats, but fuck me if it doesn’t sound like every other piece of bluegrass music I’ve ever heard.
Does that make this a bad record? No, I just don’t get the appeal of bluegrass or country music. All it means is that this is an uninteresting record to me and doubly so because there are almost 40 tracks to listen to.
MGMT
4/5
I made a conscious effort to avoid this album and, to a lesser extent, this band for many years based off of the singles when they were released. Electric Feel, Kids and Time to Pretend didn’t really sit well with me then. I couldn’t get behind their sing-along, trust-fund hipster synth-funk. It was the kind of music that dudes who wore 80’s athletic shorts, had dumb mustaches and coke problems listened to; music for people who organized kickball leagues or duck-duck-goose tournaments in McCarren Park. Listening to those specific songs today, I still have that impression, I won’t lie.
However, I don’t think those songs are a very good representation of what this record actually is.
This is, and I mean this as a compliment of the highest order, a proper dirtbag psych rock record, along the lines of Ween or Royal Trux or maybe pre-Soft Bulletin Flaming Lips. I really fucking like it and I was wrong about this band. It’s weird, heady and psychedelic and doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with the superficiality of late aughts’ hipsterdom.
Frank Ocean
3/5
I don’t really feel like the hype matches the reality with Frank Ocean and this album didn’t really grab me for the most part.
“Pyramids” and “Lost” were great, though.
Morrissey
1/5
Two Morrissey solo records down, two more to go.
James Taylor
1/5
Having been a teenager in the early 90’s, this type of soft rock singer-songwriter schlock will never be anything but painfully uncool to me. The only way shit like this sold in the 90’s was by way of the Time-Life compilations that were advertised via infomercials aired on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. It was boring and lame then, doubly so now.
Just have a look at these lyrics from “Steamroller”:
“I'm a cement mixer
A churning urn of burning funk
I'm a cement mixer
A churning urn of burning funk
I'm a demolition derby
A hefty hunk, steaming junk
I'm a steamroller baby
I'm 'bout to roll all over you
I'm a steamroller baby
I'm 'bout to roll all over you
I'm gonna inject your soul
With some sweet rock 'n' roll
And shoot you full of rhythm and blues”
It’s possibly the dumbest metaphor for coitus ever committed to tape. Also, imagine telling someone you were a “churning urn of burning funk” and that person not looking at you like they were about call for a restraining order. Finally, you can thank me later for the mental image of James Taylor shooting his “rhythm and blues”.
The Youngbloods
4/5
The Youngblood’s “Elephant Mountain” is great example of an album that isn’t really in the cultural lexicon when talking about 1960’s rock, but probably should be. The musicianship here is excellent and the songs, whether traditionally structured or improvisational are engaging and exceptionally performed, moving seamlessly between psychedelic rock, jazz, blues and Americana, sometimes within the same song.
As this record draws to a close, one final thing to note:
It’s kind of funny how literally every band residing in northern California that released a psych album in the late sixties were better musicians and songwriters than the Grateful Dead.
Mott The Hoople
3/5
Sometimes there are records that you should like or at least find interesting based off of your other tastes, but they end up doing nothing for you.
This is one of those for me. Its a fine glam record, but it doesn’t really have charm or the highs of a Bowie or T-Rex record. Solid, but not earth shattering.
Black Flag
4/5
There was a thread on the 1001 Albums subreddit recently asking whether people took the context of the album (when it was released, impact, influence, etc) into consideration when reviewing records or if people rated albums solely on whether they liked the music or not. The majority said they rated solely on whether they like the music or not.
I’m not one of those people. I think it’s important to take the influence and impact of a recording into account. Here’s why:
This is a list of 1001 albums *to hear before you die*, implying that these records were selected because of their importance, their influence and not solely on the basis of whether the editor liked the way they sounded.
I look at it like this: If these are records that must be heard before you die, then at the end of this, a person should have a somewhat decent understanding of the many facets of modern popular music and, because of that, these 1001 records should be considered as to whether or not they are essential to understanding the course of modern popular music up until today.
As a result, I’m often reviewing these albums not only on the basis of whether I like them or not, but wether I think you can tell the story of modern music without hearing an album on this list. In essence, I am rating the list’s viability along with the sound of the records.
So, can you tell the story of modern music without talking about the Beta Band or Badly Drawn Boy or 4 solo Morrissey records? Absolutely.
Can you tell the story of modern rock music without talking about Black Flag? Doubtful. Whether it’s due to their status as a forerunner of hardcore punk, their influence in cultivating an underground music scene in America and exposing the world to that music scene through their incredibly influential record label, SST Records, Black Flag is a band who is essential to the story of modern music and their inclusion here is more than warranted, even if I don’t love every second of their music.
Bee Gees
2/5
While I may have gained a little appreciation for the Bee Gees beyond the “unbuttoned satin shirt and greasy chest hair” image we’ve come to know them for, this album and Trafalgar were both absolutely tedious to listen to.
Odessa is the sound of a band ruminating in their own wind.
Nirvana
5/5
Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck between two worlds. I don’t mean that in the sense that my mind is unraveling or I’m losing my grip on reality. I mean it in the sense that, having been born in 1981, I have memory what the world used to be and the reality of what it has now become. I lived a good portion of my life without the internet or cellphones, I was alive to see the Berlin Wall fall and understand what it meant, was alive for hair metal on MTV, alive when Nirvana changed the world…
That’s not to say that I think everything was great then and it’s all shit now. There were shitty things back then and there are shitty things now. Shit is a constant.
Maybe I should put it this way: I was 13 in 1994. Primed for rebellion, I was the exact demographic that would benefit from having a band or genre of music that “came out of nowhere” and completely upended the natural order of things, showing that there was a different way of doing things than what you had been told was “normal”.
Nirvana blew the doors wide open and with them came an entire world of underground music that might have otherwise been relegated to history.
I cannot overstate the impact that had on my life as a bored suburban kid. It was like being shown an alternate reality, except…it actually existed. You could be weird, you could be raw and real, you could record an album in your basement and it could mean something, because even if you didn’t always see them in your everyday life, there were other people who thought like you did.
I don’t believe Kurt Cobain to be some kind of rock and roll Jesus Christ, though he was a catalyst, responsible for an unbelievable change of tides (His role as catalyst is even debatable, however. It was at Sonic Youth’s urging that Geffen Records even signed Nirvana in the first place, but that is a debate for another day). For better or worse, he is the face of that change.
Maybe it’s part of getting old, thinking about what could’ve been and how things could’ve (or should have) turned out differently and having to square the two in order to make sense of your place in the world. Would I be the person I am today without the alternative rock explosion of the early 90’s? I don’t think so. I certainly don’t think I would be as open to unconventional sounds or ideas as I am now.
So, while I’m not the Nirvana fan I once was, the impact of their music on my life is making it hard for me to not rate at least one of their albums a 5. It’s basically a straight line from them to the person I am. That is probably really fucking lame to some of you, but it’s the truth and I fear that because of how fragmented we all are in the internet age and because of our lack of a shared cultural experience, it might not happen again for others.
Fleetwood Mac
2/5
I said it about Rumours and I’ll say it again about this record:
No one would give half a fuck about this band if they weren’t an absolute trainwreck of cocaine and affairs. That the album covers of their most successful records are beige is fitting because they are exceptionally inoffensive and middle of the road.
You want a Fleetwood Mac record you should actually hear before you die? Go listen to Bare Trees.
Joy Division
3/5
[note to self: Try to go into this review with an open mind.]
So, here’s the thing about Joy Division…
[second note to self: maybe that old adage was right, sometimes it’s better not to say anything at all]
John Martyn
3/5
In spots, One World hits a funky experimental stride that I’d liken to late 70’s Eno (think Before and after Science, though it does have its ambient moments) or maybe Soon Over Babaluma-era Can. In others, it kind of has a jazzy 70’s soft rock vibe, which is a little less interesting to me, but overall not bad (with the exception of some scatting, which I find to be unacceptable no matter the situation).
The previous John Martyn record I was assigned, Solid Air, was more enjoyable as a whole, but One World is very good, even if has a distinct late 70’s island rock vibe. I wouldn’t call this yacht rock, though, it’s way too densely layered, interesting and lacking the superficiality, but it’s adjacent in some ways - like if yacht rock wasn’t the lamest thing on earth you could ever possibly be into.
The Rolling Stones
4/5
I don’t know what it is about the Stones, but there’s something missing from their music that keeps me from loving them. Like, the songs here aren’t bad, the musicianship is very good, but there’s some intangible quality missing from it all that keeps their songs from really capturing me.
Maybe it’s that, for a band who has often been called “The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World”, a lot of their songs kind of meander and don’t really have the energy level or edge that you’d expect out of a band with that moniker.
Rahul Dev Burman
3/5
Some of this is pretty interesting, particularly the weird funky tracks, and the album gets better in the back half - especially on Romantic Theme and Baby Let’s Dance Together, but overall I had a hard time staying interested in what Shalimar had to offer.
Peter Gabriel
3/5
Rock Recipes, Installment One:
“The Peter Gabriel Melt”
Ingredients:
-One part Berlin-Era Bowie (in a pinch, a healthy portion of Eno will suffice)
-One part self-importance
-One cup whole milk, slightly soured
-The juice of one lemon, squeezed
-Two Tablespoons of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians (season to taste)
Instructions:
-Place ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
-Hold mixing bowl at crotch level and stir vigorously for 46 minutes, then serve.
Missy Elliott
2/5
I’m a firm believer in the idea that any album that is given the accolade “must hear before you die” should be able to transcend the time in which it was made.
This album has a song called “Beep Me 911” on it. I doubt there is a human alive today under the age of 35 who knows what that meant.
Supa Dupa Fly is the posterchild for an album that is “of its time”. It’s not terrible, but it’s a 27 year old time capsule to my ears.
The xx
2/5
Modern indie is just Lite FM for people with full sleeve tattoos.
Dwight Yoakam
2/5
I was going to make a joke about how this album hits all the country music tropes (broken down old cars/money trouble/cheating spouse) at lightning speed, but I’m pretty sure I just listened to someone confess to murder in the disguise of a country music album.
Ms. Dynamite
2/5
I found this to be kind of pedestrian and of its time, but it wasn’t a bad record.
Slint
4/5
Unquestionably influential and starkly minimalistic.
Rufus Wainwright
1/5
I listened for a few tracks, lost interest, shut it off and didn’t feel bad about it, because this album has been removed from the book.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
Next time it’s sunny and warm outside on a Saturday or Sunday, this is what you need to do:
-Get in your car
-Get on the highway or an open back road with nowhere to go
-Roll down the windows
-Put on Ragged Glory
-Turn it the fuck up
If you’re not convinced this is a 5 star record after that, well…there’s no hope for ya.
This is the sound of freedom.
Nico
4/5
One of the great essential truths of rock music, in my mind, is that you don’t have to be a well-trained, professional musician to make a great and interesting record. Ambition can outweigh ability and it shouldn’t be considered detrimental to the music you create.
Chelsea Girls is singular and unique, experimental but ultimately not overly formidable. Sadly, this record seems to have been produced with Nico’s input cast aside and ignored, which is truly unfortunate and one has to wonder what it may have sounded like if she had had her way.
Animal Collective
3/5
The Bleach Boys
Girls Against Boys
3/5
I mean, I’d put “Ride The Fader” by Chavez on the list over this (it’s a classic), but Venus Luxure No. 1 was pretty good, even though it isn’t a record you really need to hear before you die.
The Beta Band
1/5
There’s two fucking Beta Band albums on this list?
The Style Council
1/5
This might be the dorkiest record on this list.
Steely Dan
2/5
They haven’t fully lived up to their namesake on this record, but the seeds are there and you can tell that full-blown dildo rock is not far off.
The Verve
1/5
For an album that has a lot going on sonically, this was really boring.
Cream
3/5
Cream is the coolest thing Eric Clapton ever did, and even then…it’s not that cool.
Iron Butterfly
3/5
My mom likes to tell the story of the time she saw Iron Butterfly at the Fillmore East in New York City, with Led Zeppelin opening.
You read that right, Led Zeppelin opening for Iron Butterfly in 1969.
This is a brief story, and while it has more to do with Led Zeppelin than Iron Butterfly, I think it makes for fine review:
Led Zeppelin was onstage, belting out their blues-infused heavy rock and roll. Robert Plant, clad in green velvet pants, did a high kick while singing and, in the process, split the seat of his green velvet pants.
That’s the lasting impression that my mother has from seeing Iron Butterfly live in 1969. Not that Iron Butterfly played “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” or that she saw Led Zeppelin, as an opening act, before they were the biggest band in the world…
She got to see Robert Plant split his velvet pants.
Duran Duran
3/5
The overabundance of synth pop on this list has made it difficult for me to have a real objective opinion on some of these 80’s synth records. There really isn’t a lot of variation in the sound between a lot of the bands and when you’ve heard so much of it, it just kind of becomes a coalesced mash of synthetics, where it’s hard to tell what makes one band stand out from another.
Rio is fine, it’s more upbeat than some of the others, but aside from the songs we all already know, most of it doesn’t really stand above any of the other 80’s synth pop records on the list.
Sebadoh
4/5
Sebadoh might be the most inconsistent of the big names in the 90’s lo-fi scene. Their records seem to vacillate between excellent and frustrating frequently within a 40 minute runtime, at least in my experience. It’s due in no small part to having 3 vastly different songwriters. Where Guided By Voices and Pavement records tended to be more consistent - even in their variety of songs and experiments - Sebadoh records often feel exceedingly uncompromising and overly serious.
Bakesale or Harmacy would probably have served as better introductions for the uninitiated (Go listen to “Beauty of the Ride” from Harmacy - excellent song), but Bubble & Scrape might be a more fitting representation of the band. The peaks and valleys are on full display here: the highs are high and the lows are low.
Sabu
4/5
Highly enjoyable, but that’s to be expected from a Blue Note record.
TV On The Radio
4/5
One of the guys in this band is from the town next to mine. Saw him in the A&P once or twice, back when A&P was still a thing.
Otherwise, solid early aughts indie, not sure I’d include it in my list of 1001 albums, but TV on the Radio stands well above a lot of the indie of that era to me.
Talking Heads
3/5
Eno’s production saves this from being a largely forgettable record.
…and even then, a lot of songs from this record are more enjoyable live, as documented on “The Name of This Band is Talking Heads” (the superior Talking Heads live album, Stop Making Sense stans).
Joni Mitchell
5/5
I’m sorry…why haven’t I been listening to Joni Mitchell? Her albums on this list, so far, have been *excellent*.
On Court and Spark, her voice, as always, is beautiful and unique, the instrumentation is varied, lively and engaging. Her blend of folk and jazz manages to be both soothing and invigorating, with flourishes of ambitious sonic textures and experimentation.
What an excellent album.
Throbbing Gristle
4/5
I knew I would be in for some pearl-clutching reviews when this album was generated this morning and, 1001 albums generator users, god bless ya, you didn’t disappoint.
I won’t pretend that this is an easy listen. It’s challenging and it’s not an album I see myself revisiting often, even though there are songs here that I did enjoy and I am currently on my second listen of D.o.A.
It boils down to this: on a personal level, I’m not the type to shut down or shy away when faced with sounds, music or ideas that do not comport with generally accepted norms. Doing so is effectively placing yourself inside a box, limiting what music can be.
There were undoubtedly purists who wrote off the electric guitar as an abomination or nothing but “noise” at its inception, just like many here write off Throbbing Gristle’s electronic experimentation as noise or unlistenable garbage.
…and you know what? It’s not really your fault, your brain has been conditioned since birth to be wary of unknown and unconventional sounds. It’s not surprising that many shut down and want nothing to do with music like this in any way: it is the appropriate response based on your conditioning. Your body and mind are reacting as they are “supposed to”. These are sounds that you do not encounter in day to day life, so it makes perfect sense that they would make people uncomfortable.
But it might be worth asking, “Why?”.
After all, it is just sound on a disc. These sounds do not come from anything that represents an existential or harmful threat to us: they were made by machines we control and they literally only exist in the sonic ether, which you have chosen to temporarily engage with. When you stop engaging with them, they are gone, with no meaningful harm done to your person.
It’s only sound.
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
I want to like this more than I do. It’s heavily indebted to music I love, like Can and others in the Krautrock scene. As I listen, though, I’m reminded of conversation I once had with a co-worker regarding my ambivalence towards Radiohead, despite their appreciation of Can.
My coworker said to me, “It’s surprising that you’re not a big Radiohead fan, because they’re really influenced by Can”.
My response, exaggerated in order to make a humorous point, was, “I appreciate the influence Can had on them, and I don’t think Radiohead is bad, but saying that I should love Radiohead because they’re influenced by Can is a bit like saying I should love Whitesnake because they’re influenced by Led Zeppelin”.
We both laughed.
That’s more or less how i feel about Public Image Limited, I appreciate where they’re coming from, but it doesn’t really hit the mark for me.
Mudhoney
4/5
Exceptional Grunge Band Destroys Faces
Khaled
2/5
From the album cover to the production and the 70’s throwback vibes, this definitely feels like 1999.
Giant Sand
3/5
You don’t need to hear this before you die, but Thrill Jockey is a rad record label, so 3 stars.
Moby
3/5
Nearly 600 albums in, this might be the least surprising inclusion on this list, based on the author’s other choices.
That said, the last few tracks on this record, where it gets more ambient, are pretty good and completely out of character with the rest of the record.
Sleater-Kinney
5/5
I’m about to go on a tear, because this record’s got me fired up. So buckle up and get your helmet on, it’s going to get real.
In my reviews, I’ve often made reference to the idea that “indie rock” doesn’t mean anything anymore, that it’s just a style that’s being chased, a formula, a bland melange of nothingness…an image to be sold for your springtime trip to Coachella.
So when I listen to “Dig Me Out” once again…a record I’ve known for years, a record that has character, that has something to say, that stands for something, a record with a sense of purpose and palpable aggression…well, fuck me, but I can’t help but feel that I’m right about the sorry state of modern “indie”. Everything that makes Sleater-Kinney great is absent from a large swath of modern indie music. There’s no comparison, no analog for Sleater-Kinney, because they weren’t interested in fitting into a scene, they were making it their own.
“Dig Me Out” is a five star record for all of the reasons I outlined above, but also because the guitar playing is excellent, the drumming is great and the songs, one after another, are fantastic. It’s got attitude and individuality and if you don’t like what Sleater-Kinney has to say, I’m pretty sure they’d have no problem telling you to go fuck yourself.
In closing, Sleater-Kinney is cooler than you could ever hope to be.
Alice In Chains
4/5
Alice In Chains was easily my favorite band as a teenager in the early 90’s. I was obsessed. I’ve probably listened to this album hundreds of times in my life. Alice In Chains were, in my opinion, the most interesting of the Seattle bands. They were set apart from the rest because of Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell’s excellent vocal harmonies and their proficiency with both acoustic and electric songwriting - they were just as engaging on their acoustic songs as they were when they went into full grunge mode: Jar of Flies would be an easy 5 for me.
So, Dirt is going to get a high rating based off that alone.
Dirt’s biggest fault is that the highs are really high and the songs that don’t hit those highs are pretty mediocre and drag the whole thing down. You could cut this album down by 10 or 15 minutes and it would easily be in contention for one of the greatest albums of all time. Cut Sickman, Iron Gland (totally unnecessary), Hate to Feel, and maybe God Smack too.
It’s still a great record and I still like a lot of these songs (a rarity for me regarding a lot of the music of my youth), but as an album experience, it could be a little leaner.
Steely Dan
1/5
It’s fitting that Steely Dan named themselves after a dildo; their music comes across as a mechanical facsimile and is bereft of any humanity due to their obsession with manufactured perfection.
The Associates
2/5
I love you, David Bowie, but you inspired some truly bad music.
Coldplay
2/5
Risk-averse Radiohead.
Elton John
3/5
Two questions before I get into the review:
1. Why is it called “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” if he is entering the Yellow Brick Road on the cover?
2. Did no one think to tell Elton John what “Jerk-off” means? (Although, that might be the least concerning thing about that song and I find it difficult to believe he, of all people, wasn’t aware of that innuendo)
Those mysteries aside, this was a fine album, with some very interesting synth and guitar parts through out. It suffers, like 99% of double albums, from being overly long and often a little same-y.
Fred Neil
3/5
A decent folk record for a rainy day.
Aerosmith
2/5
Hey, it’s Aerosmith, the band who never met an innuendo they didn’t like!
When I was 13 in 1994, I used to think that I liked Aerosmith. I realized pretty quickly, though, that I really just liked that video with Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler.
In retrospect, that video, like making love in an elevator, is weird on so many levels.
Yes, I stole that joke.
No, I don’t feel bad about it.
Weirdly, I didn’t completely hate this album. I mean, most of it is really bad, but there were moments where I was like, “You know what? This album isn’t so bad…”
Those moments were almost immediately dashed away by some of the most god awful blues-based butt rock ever committed to tape.
Two stars, one for each of the pickup trucks fucking on the cover of this record.
Scissor Sisters
1/5
A lot of this record sounds like what would happen if Phish decided to make a disco record, and we should all be horrified by the prospect of that unholy alliance.
The Jam
3/5
Probably the best of the Paul Weller related albums I’ve been assigned so far - based off The Style Council (abysmal) and his solo record Wild Wood (cloying adult contemporary), I didn’t have a lot of hope, even if All Mod Cons was pretty good.
This one I liked well enough, it has a good variety and the punk edge I was initially expecting from him when I first was assigned Wild Wood. I would have to agree with Mr. Weller, this the best Jam album (at least in my limited experience with them).
Aretha Franklin
4/5
John Lennon
3/5
I don’t think I need to tell you what a John Lennon album sounds like, other than that this one is stripped back in terms of instrumentation (a nice change of pace from the Beatles overblown latter day studio productions) and that he says “fuck” a couple times.
Deep Purple
3/5
If you’re like me, a little Deep Purple goes a long way.
Fortunately for people like us, most of their best songs are at the beginning of this record.
Unfortunately for people like us, they extend all of them and pack each one with incessant guitar, drum and organ wankery - I mean “solos”.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
There’s a lot of other funk I’d rather listen to.
Abdullah Ibrahim
3/5
The cover of this record lead me to believe it was going to be a little more ambient or ethereal than it was, but that’s not a bad thing. This is an interesting, more traditional jazz record which was a nice surprise.
Slipknot
1/5
Did You Know?
Melmac is not only the name of ALF’s home planet, but also a popular type of 1940’s Dinnerware that was molded from Melamine resin.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
When Darkness on the Edge of Town was generated for me last year, I wrote about how even though I’ve lived in New Jersey for nearly 40 years of my life, I never really payed much attention to Springsteen, almost to the point of actively avoiding his music. Well, Darkness blew me away and I gained a new appreciation for Bruce, but I decided to keep that mindset sort of intact and would only listen to another Springsteen album once it got generated here.
So here we are, Springsteen album #2.
To say I’ve never heard this album before would be a lie, or at least a half-truth. I was born in 1981, by the time this record was released I was 3 and by the time I was four or five, I have memories of the songs from this record being played by family friends and neighbors or on the radio. It was, in 1980’s New Jersey, kind of the ultimate Fourth of July barbecue record, even if a lot of people didn’t really grasp what the title track was actually about - my five year old self obviously included. Like I said in my review of Darkness, Bruce Springsteen, in this state, is inescapable. It’s just a fact of life here.
So my rating here might be tainted by a touch of nostalgia or regional bias, you can decide.
Where Darkness at the Edge of Town has an aggressive and sometimes outright pessimistic tone, Springsteen seems to have dialed back those qualities a bit on Born the USA. It’s certainly more musically upbeat in a lot of places, even if lyrically Bruce remains grounded and in tune with his caustic wit.
I don’t think this record reaches the heights of Darkness at the Edge of Town, though it’s clearly more polished, streamlined and accessible. I suspect that i might end up finding more enjoyment from his records where he is a little more pessimistic and aggressive with his music and lyrical approach, though there are moments of that here, like on Cover Me, which was probably my favorite of the songs that I didn’t already know/forgot about. Because of that, I’m looking forward to the day that Nebraska gets generated here.
Jacques Brel
2/5
Ooh La La.
Grant Lee Buffalo
3/5
Of its time 90’s alt-rock. Probably one that you had to be there to really love - it’s not bad by any stretch, but doesn’t really offer anything extraordinary or gripping, outside of the occasional overt Bowie or Velvet Underground influence.
To be honest, I kept mistaking this for Buffalo Tom, another “you had to be there” 90’s alt-rock group, but the truth is, some of this kind of sounds like early Radiohead…
[Ducks to avoid projectiles thrown by angry Radiohead fans]
…but that’s probably their due to the shared REM influence.
Marianne Faithfull
3/5
Maybe the most 1979 sounding album I’ve heard in some time. Not necessarily a bad thing, the synths are very good, it’s kind of danceable in a laid back way and has a bit of a punk (read: new wave) edge.
It wasn’t the most engrossing record I’ve ever heard, there were a few songs that were just sort of there and it felt a little too polished, but overall it was good.
Nick Drake
4/5
It’s probably just because I’m so used to the sparse arrangements on Pink Moon from years of listening, but I’ve always felt that Nick Drake’s music works best in a more stripped back form.
Not to say the arrangements on Bryter Layter are ill fitting or that this is by any means a bad record, only that the simplicity on Pink Moon suits Nick Drake (or at least my impression of him) better than the busy orchestration here, which dates the record just a little bit in spots.
The Auteurs
1/5
Top 5 alternative and indie rock records from 1993 which are excluded from this list that you should listen to instead of this album:
1. Yo La Tengo - Painful
2. Stereolab - Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements
3. Archers of Loaf - Icky Mettle
4. Guided By Voices - Vampire on Titus
5. Dinosaur Jr - Where You Been?
Common
4/5
Common is in fine form here - I think this is his best record - and no disrespect to the other producers on this record, but I think J Dilla’s production steals the show on a few tracks. Hopefully, someone will add Donuts as a user submitted album when they are done with the list. It should really have been on this list to begin with.
Soundgarden
3/5
S U P E R O V E R R A T E D
New York Dolls
4/5
Unquestionably influential New York (proto) punk.
Great record.
Talking Heads
3/5
Like the songs on More Songs About Buildings and Food, most of the songs here play out better in a live setting, as captured on their seminal live album “The Name of This Band is Talking Heads”. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Talking Heads weren’t really able to capture their live energy and make a great studio record until Fear of Music.
Seriously, listen to the performances of “The Book I Read”, “Pulled Up” or “New Feeling” from that record after you listen to this record. The difference in energy is palpable.
On ‘77, those songs (along with most of the others) feel like a slog to get through, making for an underwhelming record, especially when you know there is an exceptionally well recorded live document of most of these songs where the band is firing on all cylinders.
Burning Spear
4/5
The generator seems to think I hate reggae, because I gave the two Police records on this list one star.
I’m just here today to state unequivocally:
I don’t hate reggae. I just can’t stand The Police…and honestly, they aren’t even a reggae band.
Thank you for your time.
Erykah Badu
3/5
No disrespect to Erykah Badu, this is a fine album, but the 70 minute, CD-era album just doesn’t work for me anymore.
If there’s one thing I’m realizing through out the course of this list is that there’s nothing better than a 40 minute lp.
Otherwise, Mama’s Gun is a fun and funky album, even if it runs a little too long for my taste.
The The
3/5
Better than I expected, but not as good as your reviews make it out to be.
The Dandy Warhols
4/5
Somehow, I came away from Dig! finding the Dandy Warhols more insufferable than the Brian Jonestown Massacre, which, if you’ve seen that film, is no small feat, but I can’t really put my finger on why that is - aside from maybe thinking that BJM is a more interesting band.
Putting that aside, this is a decent record, a good blend of fuzzed out psych and power pop, though it starts to feel repetitive towards the end.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Have you ever heard the Frank Sinatra song “What Time Does the Next Miracle Leave?”
You’d know it if you have. It’s kind of unforgettable, but not in the way you might think…It’s the one where he sings about space travel and visiting all the planets in our solar system.
In it, there’s this amazing lyrical section:
“Mercury will lead us out to Neptune and her deep blue sea.
[musical interlude]
(And then) And then to Uranus (Uranus)
Uranus is heaven,
(Heaven, heaven)
(How will you know, Francis, if it's really heaven?)”
I think that’s a great question…Is Uranus really heaven? If it is, how can we be sure it’s heaven?
Fret not, Ol’ Blue Eyes lets us know how you can tell in the next line:
“How will I know?
I will know, if they meet me at the station,
With a cheese and tomato pizza,
Well done (well done), and a little red wine.”
So there you go…Uranus is Heaven and they have pizza there. Thank you for unwrapping the mysteries of life, Francis Albert Sinatra.
Putting aside the Frank Sinatra of it all, I’m curious as to why Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Wave” isn’t on the list as well, or in place of this. I’m not really seeing why the addition of Frank Sinatra would be considered such a marked improvement over Jobim’s other work. In fact, I feel like Sinatra’s singing sometimes hampers these songs, making them a bit clunky.
The instrumentals here are great, but as you can tell, I’m not a Sinatra fan. I’d rather just have an album of Jobim. If you’re like me, go check out “Wave”.
Michael Jackson
3/5
There’s a circle I can’t square with some of the immensely popular artists on the list like the Beatles or Michael Jackson.
Do their albums truly qualify as records “you must hear before you die” when they are so ingrained in popular culture that it would be shocking to find someone what has never heard a beat of their music?
In a sense, they’ve become so essential that they are inessential - it should go without saying that you know at least some of their music, because being able to avoid it is almost impossible.
I guess what I’m saying is that I usually don’t gain much new insight from hearing a record like this. I know who Michael Jackson was, lived through his heyday and this record didn’t move the needle on my opinion of him in any way.
It’s Michael Jackson. It sounds like a Michael Jackson record. Sure, there are songs here that aren’t mainstays in popular culture, particularly in the back half, but that’s probably for a reason…they’re not that memorable and don’t do enough to differentiate themselves from other, similar sounding music of the time.
Buffalo Springfield
4/5
Without getting into the Stills vs Young side of Buffalo Springfield or the way things shook out for both of them and how funny I think it is - I’m going to save that for when I get to the Stills solo record on the list - I’ll just say that as a Neil Young fan, I enjoy this record. Stills is very good here, too.
I like that this record is all over the place, with each member contributing enjoyable songs. It’s like a fuzzed-out, down home 60’s pot luck dinner. It’s a very good record, but it’s no surprise both Stills’ and (especially) Young’s later work would end up eclipsing their time in Buffalo Springfield. You can tell just how different they were as song writers, even if there was common ground.
Lorde
2/5
Fuck…I’m old.
Elbow
2/5
Britain, what the fuck.
Do you guys just eat up anything that comes along and sounds like Radiohead?
Have some self-respect.
Oh, and…users of this site? You’re not off the hook on this one, either…this record has *the same* rating as Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth, one of the most influential records of the last 40 years; both currently sit at 3.29. It has higher ratings than The Stooges’ debut album and Funhouse (3.28 and 3.27, respectively) and Sly and the Family Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” (3.27)….You’re off your rockers.
Stan Getz
4/5
Quite literally the perfect record to relax with after a long day’s work.
The Flying Burrito Brothers
4/5
Exceptional blend of psychedelic and country, with heaping portions of expertly played and often fuzzed out steel guitar.
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
In the spirit of “separating the art from the artist”, I’d just like to say that this is decent record by a talented band that happened to be fronted by a massive douchebag.
(Seriously, do yourself a favor and google “Eric Clapton $11 Lawsuit”)
Kid Rock
1/5
Lowest common denominator rap rock.
There are countless records excluded from the list from this same year that are more deserving of your attention. Here’s five of them:
Black Star - Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star
Tortoise - TNT
Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come
Duster - Stratosphere
Boredoms - Super Æ
Quicksilver Messenger Service
4/5
Fantastic long form 60’s psych. Experimental and jammy, with touches of avant-garde guitar interplay, noise and feedback, you can hear the influence this record might have had on a band like Sonic Youth.
With such a dynamic sense of improvisation and tight rhythmic focus in these live performances, I’m left wondering, “Why on earth would anyone listen to the Grateful Dead when this exists?”
George Michael
1/5
[interior: The 23rd Annual Lizard Person Convention. New Port Richey, Florida, USA 1986]
Supreme Leader of the Lizard People: “Greetings and welcome to the 23rd annual Lizard Person convention. It’s wonderful to be here in New Port Richey…how about that humidity? Hot enough out there for ya?”
[audience groans]
“Hehe…of course not…we’re all cold blooded here…Well, we’ve got a lot of activities planned for this weekend, including some stand-up comedy, featuring yours truly, tomorrow night at the lounge, but before the fun and games can begin we have some very important business to discuss…
[the supreme leader’s voice takes on a more ominous tone]
Our efforts to assimilate humanity, of late, have not gone well. An abject failure, if I am being honest. We need to do a better job. We need fresh ideas…We need to entice them, distract them so we can strike when it’s least expected.
In that spirit, I’ve asked my advisors to devise plans to help us better influence the average, unsuspecting human and distract them from our plans. Let’s see…
[The Supreme Leader scans the table where his advisors sit, eventually zeroing in one]
You! What is your plan?”
[one of his advisors, The Minister of Lizard Person Arts stands up and walks towards a microphone at the center of the convention hall]
The Minister of Lizard Person Arts: “Greetings, Sir. As you know, we achieved moderate assimilation success a few years ago in the realm of human music with the hit song “The Safety Dance”. I suggest that we once again attempt to assimilate humanity through one of their most beloved art forms…music!”
Supreme Leader of the Lizard People: “Ah yes, “The Safety Dance”! What a wonderful song! It was quite a success wasn’t it?”
The Minister of Lizard Person Arts: “Verily, sir and I am happy to report that our songwriting technology, though still somewhat rudimentary, has improved tenfold in the intervening years. We may even be able to craft an entire album with multiple hits to assist in our conquest!”
Supreme Leader of the Lizard People: “Wonderful news! However, I am concerned about the lyrical content of any future attempts. ‘The Safety Dance’ was a bit…obtuse. We need lyrics that are a bit more relatable to the humans, so I’d like to turn to our attendees for suggestions. After all, you are the ones down in the trenches, interacting with the humans on a daily basis. What should these songs be about? What do the humans talk about, what do they like?”
Lizard Person # 1 [shouting from the crowd]: “Sex! It’s all they talk about!”
Supreme Leader of the Lizard People: “Excellent! We will appeal to their carnal desires. What else do they like?”
Lizard Person # 2 [also shouting from the crowd]: “Religion! My neighbor, every weekend, it’s all he talks about…’Jesus this and Jesus that’…I get it already.”
Supreme Leader of the Lizard People: “Wonderfully insidious! We will taint their beloved religion with overt sexuality. We will create an album’s worth of highly sexual music and infuse it religious overtones. Then, using a shell corporation, we will pay our contacts in the recording industry to have a human sing these songs, so as to give them appearance of genuine humanity! This will surely cause controversy and distraction among the humans! What say you, fellow Lizard People? Is it decided?”
The entire audience, in unison: “IT IS DECIDED”
[end scene]
(This might be the dumbest thing I ever wrote.)
Genesis
3/5
There are a lot of great moments here, but they are just that…moments. The songs here seem to lack the cohesion that Genesis captured exceptionally only two albums prior on “Foxtrot”. A lot of songs on “Lamb” don’t seem to have that cohesion; their movements come and go, often quickly, and they don’t really seem to fit together sometimes.
As a concept record, it feels clunky and probably could have been paired down to an excellent single album, rather than a feature film-length double lp. The album for me hit its peak in the back half of the first record, starting with “In the Cage” and the following 4 or 5 tracks. By the 11th track, I started losing interest. By track 15, I was ready to lay down on Broadway and let traffic take its course.
It’s too much.
I mean, people weren’t really wrong about prog, were they? This is definitely a pretentious, overwrought collection of songs with rock music presented in a similar vein to a Broadway musical and at 90 minutes long, it starts to feel like homework after a while.
Sparks
4/5
I enjoy Sparks’ manic, frantic, over the top glam rock and this is my favorite record of theirs, but they can be a bit much sometimes.
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
You’ll dance to anything by Public Image Limited
Suede
3/5
Dog Man Star is certainly more audacious than much of the 90’s British rock that litters this list, so it gets points for creativity and risk taking.
However, I find it hard to disagree with…I can’t believe I’m going to say this…Rolling Stone’s assessment that this record is “one of the most pretentious albums ever released by a major label” - well, at least when viewed through the lens of the timeframe it was released, that is. I’m sure there have been more pretentious releases on major labels in the intervening years, but there is a definite air of haughty self-importance going on here with Suede.
Which is fine, I guess, but rarely do the songs here have the energy, urgency or unpredictability that would justify such a sense of inflated self. It’s a record that feels very labored over and unnecessarily calculated at times - particularly with some of the interstitial choices: Whether it’s by way of a seemingly impromptu children’s choir or a bizarre saxophone riff that devolves into overly processed effects, you might be left wondering “What purpose did that serve?” and it seems like “We did it to show people that we could,” might be the only reason.
Pink Floyd
4/5
Giving Dark Side of the Moon a 5 feels perfunctory. It goes without saying this record is a masterpiece, I can’t deny it. The production, the songs, the sonic experimentation and the cohesive way it plays out, it’s pretty much perfect.
At 43, I’ve literally spent decades of my life with this record. It’s excellent, but I am not excited by it in the least at this point. It’s certainly one of the all time greats, but I think it’s possible to acknowledge it’s greatness while also recognizing that I’ve moved past the time and place in my life where it holds much importance to me, if that makes sense…it’s like a type of stasis.
I’m rambling, but this is perhaps my least enthusiastic 5 star rating to date.
Dark Side of the Moon was a stepping stone to a lot of other great music for me. Foundational in a way, and maybe I’m taking it for granted, but at this point it’s just there and, frankly, it feels pointless to be writing about it so much, especially when so much has already been written about its importance.
Edit, well after the fact: You know what? Fuck it, 4 stars. This record is great, but I hope I never have to listen to it again.
Astor Piazzolla
3/5
There are some legitimately beautiful moments, some overly dramatic moments (it’s tango, after all) and exceptional musicianship on this record, but I’m not sure that it would ever make its way to regular listening for me. I would have to be in a very specific mood to put this on.
D'Angelo
3/5
Funky, jazz-infused R&B with a strong mid 90’s vibe, so your mileage may vary, if you’re looking for something that doesn’t feel tied down to an era.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Even if it’s comprised of covers of already well known songs, A Girl Named Dusty is an impressive showcase for Springfield’s vocal talent.
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
Calling this record a “classic” doesn’t even scratch the surface…Stand! is one of the greatest albums ever recorded.
It’s funky, soulful, psychedelic and rocking. It has energy, swagger, purpose and poignancy. The songs, one after another, don’t just hit the mark, they obliterate it.
Sly and the Family Stone is without a doubt one of the greatest American bands, standing head and shoulders above almost all of the competition.
Deee-Lite
2/5
By 1990, the excess of the 1980s had reached critical mass. With apex-excess achieved, nearly everyone wore garish fluorescent or neon colored clothing, and if you were particularly cool, you had fluorescent colored clothes that changed color as your body heated up or when someone placed their hand upon your shirt.
We were no longer content with only using laces to tighten the shoes around our feet. Our shoes had inflatable plastic reservoirs built into them which we would fill with air by way of pumping a rubber ball on the tongue of the shoe, all in the quest to achieve maximum podiatric comfort.
It was a simpler time…a time when Parker Lewis couldn’t lose, when the C&C corporation unveiled their cutting edge Music Factory, and the mere act of barfing on the Prime Minister of Japan could ruin your chances at presidential reelection.
Our dance music was funky and repetitive with one word vocal samples that echoed throughout dance halls across the nation…
It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.
Morrissey
1/5
I love it when these are easy:
Three Morrissey solo records down, one to go.
Nick Drake
5/5
Rarely does an album consisting almost entirely of only acoustic guitar and voice truly captivate me. For over 20 years now, Pink Moon has been one of the very few exceptions to that statement.
Throughout Pink Moon, Drake’s dexterous guitar arrangements move in a labyrinthine manner. His lead lines propel the songs while chiming drone notes and chords punctuate their movements, making for a meditative and slightly hypnotic listening experience. He is both the lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist simultaneously…all while singing.
Pink Moon is a tour de force; one that, sadly, didn’t achieve its full impact during Nick Drake’s lifetime.
Paul Simon
1/5
Hi, I’m Paul Simon.
Two of the artists featured on this record have accused me of “plagiarizing” their work. One of them, Los Lobos, also claims they were “not credited” and “never paid” for their session work by myself or my label. They say that when they confronted me, I told them “sue me, see what happens”.
I mean, it’s not like those allegations could possibly throw the veracity of the other work on this album into question, now would it?
It’s not like I would ever take credit for a song I didn’t write, would I?
What do you mean “what about Silent Night from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme?”
What, I can’t give myself a writing credit for a public domain song? I’m sorry, I thought this was America.
Love and hugs,
Paul
Blur
2/5
So let me get this straight…Blur hears Wowee Zowee by Pavement, Clouds Taste Metallic by the Flaming Lips, some Guided By Voices records, maybe a Fall record or two, does their best to emulate those bands and we should find it impressive?
Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more try-hard attempt at a Guided By Voices song as “You’re So Great” - complete with faux tape crackle.
I literally can’t get over how they put a sample of tape crackle over that song…
In the time it took them to make that sample, record their parts and put the effects on the vocals to make it sound “lo-fi”, they could have just run down to the British equivalent of Guitar Center, bought a Tascam 4-track and recorded the song on it in one take with an overdub or two and it would have been more authentic, replete with actual tape hiss and crackle.
This album is a joke….a practical joke that got out of hand. It has to be.
Bad Brains
4/5
The best punk bands are the ones that don’t conform to the generally accepted norms of what punk is “supposed to be”.
808 State
3/5
I’ve been thinking about why the 90’s electronic records on this list don’t really resonate with me. It’s not because I think the music is bad or uninteresting, necessarily. It’s because most of them have not been very dynamic.
I get it, it’s dance music designed for a night of dancing and drugs and fun. No problem with that.
It’s that there’s no real ebb and flow in the songs. They kind of start, keep the same tempo, the different parts of the instrumentation always repeat at the same volume and are played at the same velocity.
It feels mechanical, but not a good way. I don’t know…
This ended up being a lot of words just for me to say, “this album is alright.”
Tracy Chapman
3/5
It’s kind of strange for me when an album like this gets generated for me.
This is one of those “sonic ether” records, a record that’s been in background of my life for a long time, that I’ve been aware of since I was a kid in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I’ve never heard the whole thing until today, but I know enough of it not to be surprised by what it sounds like and to know that it would probably be a pretty enjoyable record to listen to.
So it was kind of funny to me when “Fast Car” had a resurgence thanks to that cover of it last year (this year?). It was a little weird to see people coming back around to this album after 30 years, but the cyclical nature of our culture is often surprising to me, because usually it’s the things you wouldn’t expect that end up coming back into style - even if it’s only briefly.
These are exceptionally well written songs with poignant lyrics and, for the most part, the record doesn’t sound particularly dated, but even after listening today, I can pretty confidently say that it’s not going to make its way out the sonic ether and into any sort of regular rotation for me.
Beck
5/5
Exceptionally creative and unique; a genre-hopping, one of a kind album that was as much of a breath of fresh air in 1996 as it today, in the midst of partaking in this challenge.
Mj Cole
2/5
Remember how magazines used to have those inserts with perfume and/or cologne samples inside them? They had that little fold out where the scent of the fragrance was and if you opened it you could get a good sniff of it or, if you were thrifty, use it as your scent for a special occasion. If you had a large magazine there’d usually be a couple different fragrances inside and when you stood within a few feet of that magazine the whole thing had this strange amalgamated aroma of all the different eaus de toilette. The coalesced scents didn’t really have specific odor, just a generic smell of perfumed liquid, and you never really asked for it, you just wanted the magazine because there was an article or two you wanted to read, but you were stuck with this smelly magazine in your house until you decided to toss it in the recycling.
This record is kind of the audio equivalent of that.
Lenny Kravitz
2/5
Far from the most original album in the world, but it’s funky enough to be enjoyable and not overly cloying or derivative…at first. Lyrically, the longer this record goes on, the more annoying I find it - especially when he makes sort of overt references to the artists he’s paying homage to…like how the first line of “Flower Child”, a clear Lou Reed/VU homage, is “Dressed in purple *velvets*” - thanks for spelling it out, Lenny.
Ananda Shankar
4/5
I’m a sucker for the Moog, and it is used *exceptionally* on this record.
The Streets
2/5
2004 was a strange time, let’s not talk about it again.
Faith No More
3/5
WHAT
IS
IT
?
IT’S SHIT
(Well, most of it)
Joni Mitchell
4/5
These mid-70’s Joni Mitchell records are something else: Densely layered, intricate songs with flourishes of jazz and psychedelia. She takes risks and experiments. They’re really beautiful and unique records and it boggles my mind that this record, Court and Spark and (maybe to a lesser extent) Hejira don’t get talked about that much - There’s just too much heat going on for these records to be overlooked in the way that it seems they are.
I think I liked Court and Spark a bit better than this one, but make no mistake, this is another excellent record from Joni Mitchell.
Brian Wilson
3/5
Probably rock’s most mythical album, Smile stayed unrealized for nearly 40 years before being recreated by Brian Wilson in 2004.
Had it been released in 1967, I have the feeling it would have been a pretty divisive record. Because of its ambition, it likely would have received mixed reviews, it’s not anywhere near as immediate as Pet Sounds or any of The Beach Boys’ prior work. Over time, however, it likely would have gained appreciation, as listeners and critics had the opportunity to revisit the record.
On a personal level, I think the historical aspect of Smile is more interesting than the reality of this decades-later recreation, as excellent as it is.
2011’s Smile Sessions Boxset, is an exhaustive companion to this and mostly allows you to hear the record as it would have been released in 1967, with recordings of these songs from that time.
Simon & Garfunkel
2/5
A pretentious mash of a half-baked concept record and leftovers from their score for The Graduate, not even the modular Moog on “Save the Life of My Child” can save Bookends from being ponderous and slothful throughout its 30 minutes.
Sonic Youth
5/5
Austin, Texas is the best city in the US when it comes to record stores.
Several years ago, while planning a trip to Houston for a friend’s wedding, I decided to extend that trip into a vacation and spend a few days after the wedding in Austin, with the intention of hopping from record store to record store, eating excellent Mexican food and enjoying everything Austin has to offer.
The drive from Houston to Austin, at least as I took it, was a long one, on a state highway that offered little in terms of view, save for cattle ranches, one after another. Occasionally, you’d hit a light at a four way intersection. At those intersections, there was a good chance there was either a gas station or a Whataburger and maybe a supermarket. Then you’d drive another 20 minutes or so, hit another light, see another Whataburger and be on your way. It was a nice, relaxing drive, but I was mostly interested in getting to Austin.
I had tickets that night to see a screening of Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation documentary/concert film with a Q&A session with filmmaker Lance Bangs and Gerard Cosloy, founder of Matador Records. It was at the Alamo Draft House/Ritz Theatre in Austin, which no longer exists in that capacity. It’s now home to Joe Rogan’s “Comedy Mothership”, which I think sucks because it was such a great historic theatre to see a film at.
The timing of that event and my friend’s wedding couldn’t have been more impeccable. It was like the universe saying, “oh hey, you’re coming to Texas? Why not stay a few days extra and come to Austin, you’ll get to see a bunch of unreleased Sonic Youth footage and did I mention the all record stores?”
The day after the Daydream Nation screening, I set out to hit record stores. Waterloo, End of an Ear, Antone’s…I had a long list of record stores to go to and I was going to hit them all in the three days I had in Austin.
…and did I ever.
Among the records I picked up across the many stores I visited: an original pressing of The Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat”, an original pressing of Sparks’ “Kimono My House”, a original promo copy of King Crimson’s “Lark’s Tongue in Aspic” with the promo sticker on the sleeve - all of which you’ve heard or will hear thanks to this list, but there were also several others including an original pressing of Fripp and Eno’s “Evening Star”, Man or Astroman’s “A Spectrum of Infinite Scale” on two 10” records and a host of 90’s indie 7” singles.
But the coupe de grâce came on my final day in Austin.
After some breakfast tacos and a walk around the state capitol, I realized that I was left with time to kill before I really needed to head back to Houston and check in to my hotel for the flight home the next day, so I decided to check out one final record shop before I hit the road. After consulting Google, I decided to check out Breakaway Records, because it seemed like a shop that would be most in line with my musical tastes.
I had a good feeling about Breakaway when I pulled into its parking lot. The sign above the store, was done in a very classic 1960’s style with alternating blocks of lime and dark green and each letter of “BREAKAWAY” in white, overlayed on the alternating green color blocks. It felt right.
I browsed through the new releases and used sections and was content with my choice of record stores: though the decor of Breakaway was somewhat minimalist, their selection of new and used records was impressive and varied.
After about 15 minutes of crate digging, I noticed a section called “new arrivals/rarities” or something similar. “Perfect,” I thought. “Maybe they’ll have an original 13th Floor Elevators record or something.” I started going through the section - an original pressing of Nevermind, lots of 90’s alternative and indie rarities…
Then, there it was. The record I had been after for nearly 5 years, ever since a copy got away from me at Amoeba in San Francisco: A 1996 Mobile Fidelity pressing of Sonic Youth’s “Goo” on 200 gram vinyl.
I had been *this* close to grabbing it when I was at Amoeba five years earlier…it was in the next bin of new arrivals that I was going to dig through, when someone walked up, started going through that bin and added it to their pile of records without hesitation. So close, yet so far…
It goes without saying that when I saw it again at Breakaway, I grabbed that record and added it to my pile of purchases without a second of thought or consideration for price…It had taken me 5 years and countless visits to record stores all over the country to cross paths with it again. Then, the next record, Sonic Youth’s soundtrack for the film “Made in the USA” on coke bottle clear vinyl….What was already a wildly successful few days of crate digging had just turned into the best I’ve ever had. It was made even better with the realization that my trip to Austin had been bookended by Sonic Youth. It started with the Daydream Nation screening and the Ritz and culminated with finding that copy of “Goo” at Breakaway.
I went to check out, had a nice conversation with the clerk and told him I was visiting from New Jersey and flying back the next day. He gave me a Breakaway tote bag to use as a carry-on for the trip home. I honestly can’t recommend Breakaway Records enough - you should check them out if you’re ever in Austin.
Back in the present, I’m listening to that copy of “Goo” today as I write this review. It sounds fantastic, even if the album seems like an unlikely candidate for the Mobile Fidelity treatment.
Kim Gordon’s songs on “Goo” are the highlights here for me: the exceptional “Tunic (Song for Karen)”, the surprise hit “Kool Thing” and “Cinderella’s Big Score” are all Sonic Youth classics in my mind, even if I’m not as hot on “My Friend Goo”. Thurston Moore’s songs are no slouches, either: “Dirty Boots” ranks among his best as do “Disappear” and “Titanium Exposé”, which might be the Sonic Youth song with the most prominent shared vocals between he and Kim Gordon. Lee Ranaldo gets his typical one song allotment in the form of “Mote”, a fan-favorite and perennial live staple in the Sonic Youth catalog, and Steve Shelly…well, Steve Shelly is one of the best and maybe most overlooked drummers in all of alternative rock - with his metronomic precision, he is the perfect drummer to anchor, when necessary, and propel, when required, the chaos of Sonic Youth.
Though they had jumped to a major label, Sonic Youth didn’t temper their sound much, if at all, on “Goo”. If anything, it’s more abrasive and aggressive than Daydream Nation in spots, which makes this record a pretty uncompromising major label debut.
Lupe Fiasco
4/5
Gonna round this one up to a 4, because it was pretty hot shit back when it was released and I used to listen to it quite a bit, apparently…because as this record went on, each song came flooding back to me, kind of like how they say you never forget how to ride a bike.
Cocteau Twins
3/5
Very synthetic, but in the wrong way for me. The instrumentation feels too sharp and brittle. I preferred “Treasure” over this one, which has a bit more meat to its sound, but Heaven or Las Vegas is not a bad record overall.
Television
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die
Chapter 7
Gimme Friction: Television’s “Marquee Moon”
Back in early 2002, during the height of Strokes-mania in New York City, I was shopping for records in Greenwich Village after seeing a show at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre on a Saturday night. The shop I was in - I forget the name now, sorry - was in the basement of a three story walk up and was packed to the gills with records.
On the counter by the register, the shop owner had a record on display - Television’s Marquee Moon - with a Post-It note affixed to it with these exact words scrawled on it:
“Fuck The Strokes - This is the *real* sound of New York City”
…and that was all it took to sell me on this record.
Thank god for the curmudgeonly record store owners of the world.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
I’m not disappointed, but I expected more.
Kings of Leon
1/5
I can’t decide which of these reviews to publish, so I’m leaving it up to you, faithful reader, to decide which of these you think is the most fitting.
Consider it a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style review:
A.) Alt-Rock for people who find My Morning Jacket “too aggressive”.
B.) Move over Fleetwood Mac, the middle of the road has a new King.
C.)_STOP_CALLING_MAJOR_LABEL_BANDS_INDIE_ROCK_
Van Morrison
3/5
The tracks on Astral Weeks kind of end up coalescing into one giant song, giving the record a contemplative or meditative feel.
When it comes to Van Morrison, though, I prefer Veedon Fleece.
Beatles
3/5
The Beatles wrote some of the most annoying songs on earth and this album is jam packed with them.
4 songs in and you get this exasperating trifecta:
Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da
Wild Honey Pie
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
They turn it around for a couple tracks, then…look out, the cabaret-rock that plagued Sgt. Peppers’ boils to the surface on “Martha My Dear” and they invent Harpischord-rock, an ungodly hybrid that no one on earth asked for, in the form of “Piggies”.
Let’s be real here, a lot of these songs are glorified children’s songs and that’s fine, but it’s a little weird how many full-grown adults will get mad if you have anything negative to say about them.
Oh, fuck…I kind of forgot that they occasionally let Ringo sing a few songs. Like I said…children’s songs.
Don’t get me wrong, there are several excellent songs here: While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Helter Skelter, Dear Prudence, and many others…but there is a lot of silliness to wade through on this nearly two hour Beatles record.
M.I.A.
3/5
Butt-Head: Check it out, Beavis, this dumb album generator thingy just gave us our 666th album.
Beavis [mimicking Bruce Dickinson]: 6! 6! 6!…The number of the beeeast!!!!
[they both head bang]
Beavis: heh-heh…Satan is cool.
Butt-Head: uh, Beavis…did I ever tell you that I, like, walk the path of the left hand?
Beavis: uh…I don’t think so, Butt-Head. What’s that?
Butt-Head: uh-huh-huh, let me show you.
[Butt-Head slaps Beavis across the face with his left hand]
Beavis: Ow! What the hell, Butt-Head! Why’d you do that?
Butt-Head: I told you, I walk the left handed path, butt-munch.
Beavis: I still don’t get-
[Butt-Head slaps Beavis again]
Beavis: Cut it out, Butt-Head! This sucks.
Butt-Head: uh-huh-huh…you’re a dumbass.
Beavis [sheepishly]: so..uh…Butt-Head, what album are we supposed to listen to?
Butt-Head: uhhh…it says “Kala” by M.I.A
Beavis [unenthusiastically]: …huh.
[they sit in silence momentarily]
Butt-Head: uhh…don’t just sit there, fartknocker… put on the record.
Beavis [mumbling under his breath, annoyedly]: Why don’t you put it on, dill-weed?
[They argue for a while over who is going to put on the album, with Beavis eventually acquiescing, and then listen to the record]
Beavis: Hey, uh, Butt-Head…like, don’t get me wrong…it would have been cool if we got some Slayer for our 666th album…but this album is kind of awesome.
Butt-Head: huh-huh…yeah, it definitely *slaps*
[He slaps Beavis once again]
Beavis: Dammit, Butt-Head…You know what? You can, like, slap me all you want, but it’s not going to stop me from getting down to these beats, butt-wipe.
[Beavis starts twerking as “World Town” plays in the background]
Butt-Head: …dumbass.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
I like stuff like this, where I can just kind of turn off my brain and let it wash over me.
ABBA
3/5
Some great songs and amazing synth work, but “The Visitors” was a little too upbeat for the shit day I had.
The Who
3/5
You ever look at a record cover and think, “yep, that’s gonna be a 3”?
New Order
3/5
The songs that predominantly feature guitar are a lot more interesting for me than the synth based songs, even if those songs are mostly enjoyable.
At this point, I have had my fill of maudlin British synth-pop, I think.
Tom Tom Club
4/5
Better than at least two of the Talking Heads records on this list.
Michael Kiwanuka
4/5
Psychedelic, soulful and complex.
Excellent.
Bauhaus
3/5
Maybe Goth was scary and dark and menacing when it first hit the scene, but now it just feels kind of “spooky”, like the cheesy haunted house that used to petrify you as a kid.
Dolly Parton
4/5
Hard to dislike this one: Great songs, great voice, under 30 minute runtime. It packs a punch and leaves you wanting more.
Doves
2/5
I had a friend who was into bands like this. If it was British and sounded like Radiohead or Coldplay and was even the slightest bit “experimental” (read: used synths), he fucking loved it.
All that early-2000s, maudlin electro-sadsack rock…every single band, he would go on about how they’re the future of music and the greatest, most important bands of all time.
Then a few years later, it was The National. He got visibly upset with me when I told him that I found their live show “a little boring” after seeing them at a festival.
Anyway, Doves were British music-rag darlings in the early aughts: if you read the NME or Mojo, there were probably multiple articles that said the same kind of things about them that my friend did. The truth is, they don’t really sound all that different from most of the bands that received similar hype in the British press those days…bands that are littered across this list like The Beta Band or Badly Drawn Boy or Elbow or the fucking Zutons.
You don’t need to hear this before you die, because you’ve already heard the same thing wrapped up in several different packages thanks to this list. In fact, this record has been removed from subsequent editions of the 1001 Albums book, which is further proof of how inconsequential “The Last Broadcast” is.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
2/5
This was a fine record, but the problem with this list being so focused on British music is that there are records that get ignored, which I think might capture a similar type of music a little more interestingly, enjoyably and with a more palpable sense of of urgency to the music.
Namely, “The Good Earth” by The Feelies or “The Days of Wine and Roses” by The Dream Syndicate.
You’re welcome.
Seriously, The Feelies are so good.
Neil Young
5/5
It’s kind of amazing how Lynyrd Skynyrd completely missed the point of “Southern Man” (and “Alabama”, from Harvest) when they responded with “Sweet Home Alabama”. In fact, they pretty much proved the point Neil Young was making in those songs: that the south was unapologetic in its past and then-current bigotry.
“Sweet Home Alabama” praises segregationist/racist Alabama Governor George Wallace, Richard Nixon’s abuse of presidential power against a political rival and implies that Neil Young should be the one with a guilty conscience…because, uh…he is against those things? That song is pretty much the musical equivalent of saying “Mind your business, Yankee”.
Which would be fine, I guess, if “Southern Man” and “Alabama” hadn’t been such well written and damning condemnations of the southern populist attitudes of the day.
Like I said, Lynyrd Skynyrd only proved his point.
Thats enough about Skynyrd, the confederate flag waiving doofuses, we’re here to talk about After The Gold Rush: Another classic Neil Young album in a string of classic Neil Young albums that were released between 1969 and 1979.
Put any 70’s artist up against Neil Young’s catalog in that time. You’ll find very few whose output comes close to matching that of Neil Young’s in terms of consistency, quality and longevity. I’d argue that David Bowie is maybe the only one who comes close. The two are similar in at least one respect: Their steadfast adherence to their artistic visions in the face of massive success resulted in some of the greatest albums of the decade, if not all time.
“After the Gold Rush” sits comfortably among the all-time greats.
The Electric Prunes
3/5
The biggest crime that 60’s psych bands perpetrated was convincing people that cabaret songs and show tunes could somehow be considered “psychedelic”.
Don McLean
2/5
If “American Pie” wasn’t on this album, this record probably wouldn’t be anywhere near this list.
I’m actually kind of annoyed by its inclusion.
Beck
3/5
I’m a Beck fan, but this is a middle of the pack album from him. Starts off strong, then loses steam about midway through. It’s not surprising it was removed from subsequent editions of the book. It’s a good, enjoyable album, but it doesn’t rise to the level of his best work.
Metallica
2/5
Coming soon to a minor league hockey arena near you, “Metallica: On Ice!”
Hot Chip
1/5
Trite and tedious.
People who dislike synth and/or electronic music: I get you, I really do. When a record like this is held up as a reference point, I fucking hate it too.
The only difference between this record and the 80’s synth pop records that this list so fond of, is that there’s 30 years between them.
There are plenty of great electronic musicians making interesting, innovative and challenging music, like Oneohtrix Point Never, or Floating Points or Fourtet, but they don’t rank for the creators of this list, apparently.
…but if you’re making some shit in the 2010’s that sounds like it should’ve come out in 1986…Congrats and welcome to the list!
I really, truly, hated this record.
Here’s 3 records you should listen to instead:
Floating Points - Crush (2019)
Fourtet - Rounds (2003)
Oneohtrix Point Never - Again (2023)
Grizzly Bear
2/5
I was 99% sure I saw Grizzly Bear at the Pitchfork Music Festival in 2010, but it turns out i saw Panda Bear at that festival.
Time, like the Pitchfork Music Festival, makes fools of us all.
Anyway, Veckatimest, in addition to being one of the most unwieldy album titles ever, offers a take on The Beach Boys as filtered through the lens of late 2000’s Brooklyn hipsterdom.
Barf.
Its kind of like Animal Collective, but instead of sequencers, synths, and ecstasy, the songs are mostly acoustic chamber pop performed by dudes with handle bar moustaches, those flat top straw hats that barbershop quarters used to wear and maybe a shot or two of absinthe.
It’s fine, but also…it’s not.
Marvin Gaye
4/5
I want to like Marvin Gaye records more than I usually do after listening to them. I understand it…the cultural relevance, his fantastic voice…this is a great record, but I just don’t see myself listening to it very often.
Throwing Muses
4/5
It’s a bummer that I had to go to YouTube for this, the sound quality wasn’t the greatest - a little muddy, but I have nothing to compare it to, so maybe the album was just a little murky to begin with, who knows.
That small qualm aside, “In a Doghouse” (which is mostly just Throwing Muses debut album and some re-recorded early demos) is impressive. It isn’t overwhelmingly sentimental or depressing like a lot of Throwing Muses’ British label mates on the 4AD label at the time. It has bite and aggression, with some truly beautiful guitar and bass arrangements that end up elevating the songs into more ethereal territory, without causing the songs to lose any force. The influence this record might have had on a band like Sleater Kinney is tangible.
It is an excellent record and I feel it’s worth pointing out that the state of Rhode Island, between Throwing Muses and Lightning Bolt, is very well represented on this list.
Franz Ferdinand
2/5
So, what, did a couple crates of original, sealed copies of Gang of Four’s “Entertainment!” turn up in a warehouse in England in like 2001 or 2002 and the government, unsure of what to do with them, decided to disperse them through random cities and hand them out to the disaffected youth on the dole?
It’s one of few plausible explanations for why there are so many bands on this list that have such a clear debt to Gang of Four and sound almost exactly like each other.
I get that this was the shit when you were a kid or in college, but really, truly, it’s nothing special. Franz Ferdinand are just one band in a long list of British bands from the aughts chasing the same sound. The authors of this list seem to feel similarly: this record (along with several others of the same ilk) has been removed from subsequent versions of the book. Its rating here, well above legitimately influential and classic records like Sonic Youth’s “Daydream Nation” or Television’s “Marquee Moon” or the aforementioned “Entertainment!” by Gang Of Four, is puzzling and probably indicative of pretty strong nostalgia bias on this site.
…Sorry for the rant, these early 2000’s British indie selections seem to bring out the worst in me.
Paul Simon
1/5
This fucking guy again.
I wish there was an Art Garfunkel solo record on this list. I’d rate it 5 stars without hearing a note and would leave a review saying as much, for two reasons:
1.) I know it would drive Paul Simon nuts to see Art Garfunkel get any praise whatsoever.
2.) Art Garfunkel, as vanilla and boring as he is, is still not anywhere near as boring and vanilla as Paul Simon. He should’ve just called this record “Tapioca: The Album”.
Muddy Waters
3/5
I accidentally listened to almost all of this album on shuffle and I was thinking to myself, “this is a really stilted live performance, the edits are terrible…and why are there studio versions of the songs interspersed with the live versions?”
Turns out I’m just not very smart.
The Gun Club
4/5
I really enjoyed this record, it’s a great punk/country-ish hybrid…”cow-punk” as it were, but I’m a little too preoccupied today to write an in-depth review: I can’t stop laughing about Donald Trump being convicted of 34 felonies in New York.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
I can’t dislike Nick Cave, he’s clearly talented and never seems to rest on his laurels - his albums are always ambitious, thematic and purposeful.
I also can’t love him the way so many others do. His music, by and large, just doesn’t quite hit the right spot for me.
Christina Aguilera
2/5
I procrastinated a lot on this one. I was basically like, “what can I do other than listen to a double album by Christina Aguilera that’s been removed from the book?”
I’m not saying that this is my personal hell (not even close - that would be having to listen to anything by The Grateful Dead), but there are a lot of other things I would rather listen to than this.
Pop music isn’t for me. It’s disposable, often doesn’t transcend the era it was recorded. If that makes me a snobby asshole, so be it. I won’t deny Christina Aguilera’s talent, she’s a great vocalist, but life is too short to try and force yourself to enjoy things you don’t have much interest in.
Soul II Soul
2/5
This is so late 80’s that I’m having flashbacks of Mikhail Gorbachev’s birthmark.
But even if you give up early on this one, at least listen to the first minute or so of “Dance”, just to hear the delivery of this line:
“Modern people tend to dahnce
With this music, I’ll put you in a trahnce
HA HA HA…now dahnce”
Beatles
4/5
1001 Albums to Never Hear Again Before You Die
Chapter 3
The Beatles’ “Abbey Road”: You Always Give Them Your Money
The best thing this record has going for it is the suite of interlocking songs at the end of side B. It’s forward thinking and very well done. The next best thing about this record is George Harrison. He is clearly the highlight here, with two of the best songs on the album, maybe even the Beatles’ entire catalog.
Ok? Are you happy? I said nice things about Abbey Road.
Good.
Now that *that’s* out of the way…
You don’t ever need to hear this record again. In fact, you don’t ever need to hear another Beatles record in your life ever again.
What, are you afraid you might forget how Come Together goes? Here, I’ll hum it for you so you don’t forget…bum bum bada da dum. Sorted.
Or maybe you’ll want to revisit Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. Why you’d want to do that, *klang,klang*, is beyond me.
Perhaps you’re the type to want to revisit the “birth of heavy metal” by listening to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. If you’ve ever made or attempted to make that argument…just…no.
I know what you’re thinking, “if I can’t ever listen to ‘Octopus’s Garden’ again, how will I get my fix of childhood nostalgia?” That’s a good question, but fear not, luckily for you our entire society is based around adults getting a nostalgia fix, so there are plenty of other options out there. How else do you explain 40 year olds who get in line for every dumb Marvel movie that comes out?
Which brings me to my final point:
The Beatles are the Walt Disney of rock music and if “Disney Adults” is a trope to be avoided, wouldn’t the same apply to “Beatles Adults”?
Wilco
4/5
This one’s a little overrated, isn’t it?
Like maybe just a tiny bit?
It is.
Like Kid A, this is one of those albums that doesn’t really surpass the sum of its influences, at least if you’re familiar with the music of Wilco’s contemporaries in the Chicago indie scene. On Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco feels a bit indebted to the music that was going on around them in the Chicago post-rock scene and the broader indie rock world. You hear traces of Tortoise or The Sea and Cake in the record’s bubbling analog synths and the influence of Jim O’Rourke (Gastr Del Sol and later Sonic Youth), who mixed the record, is readily apparent on the more experimental songs.
If YHF was your introduction to this sort of alt-rock minimalism, I can understand this record ranking highly for you, much like Kid A might open the door to the worlds of Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada for Radiohead listeners. If you were already familiar with Jim O’Rourke or John McEntire or Stereolab before hearing this record, you might not find it all that special.
…and honestly, “Heavy Metal Drummer” is pretty much a Pavement song. I think it’s about time we all came to terms with that.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there are some fantastic songs on this record: Ashes of American Flags, Jesus, etc, Kamera and Pot Kettle Black are all excellent.
It’s just that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot leans more on experimentation than song craft to me, and the experimentation doesn’t always work. Wilco found a better balance of the two on 1998’s Summerteeth, which, to my ears, is the Wilco record to beat.
Mariah Carey
2/5
I’m not going to lie to you, we’ve been through far too much for that.
I made it through about 30 minutes of this record, started losing interest and then put on Guided By Voices.
I hope you can forgive me.
Justin Timberlake
1/5
lol
Moby Grape
4/5
[A note to listeners: The Apple Music link for this album directs you to the incorrect album, Moby Grape ‘69. The full version of this record is not on Apple Music, either. You’ll have to go to YouTube to hear the full record. Now, on with the review…]
Do you hear that sound?
That’s me patting myself on the back.
In previous reviews, I’ve stated that literally every band in the late 60’s San Francisco psych scene were better musicians and songwriters than The Grateful Dead, and that they all put out better, more engaging albums than the Dead.
Well, guess what?
Here comes Moby Grape to prove me right once again!
Moby Grape’s debut impresses with intricate and interwoven multi-guitar arrangements, an incredibly tight rhythm section and excellent vocal harmonies. The guitar leads are fuzzy and the band plays with a sense of purpose throughout. This is not lackadaisically jammed psych rock; it makes its point and keeps you engaged on each track.
The story of Moby Grape is rife with misfortune, but their music, even if not as well known as it should be, stands well above many of their contemporaries in the late 60’s psychedelic scene.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
One of the better synth pop excursions on this list.
These dudes are fucking weird. I dig it.
The Go-Betweens
3/5
A little bit sappy, but I like it.
Minor Threat
4/5
It’s fucking great and as others have said, probably the quintessential hardcore album.
The straight-edge aspect of Minor Threat was always a turn-off to me, not because of the message, but because of the militant and obnoxious attitude of some of the fans.
…but that’s not the fault of the band.
Anyway, the world needs more 22 minutes albums. Doesn’t matter the genre, make your records quick and to the point, give them a sense of purpose and urgency, and have them hit like a punch in the face that leaves the listener wanting more.
Pavement
5/5
I GOT A MESSAGE FOR YOU
I KEEP IT IN MY IT HAND
[I hand you the message, it says:
Slanted and Enchanted is a 5 star record.]
4/5
Lmao…is this where that website got its name? (Mr. Skin)
Sorry for the detour…I’ve been 12 years old for the last 31 years.
What a strange, stilted, intricate and exceptionally well produced record this is. Assuming that the songs are the musical representations of the “Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus”(fuck that album title, btw. It’s awful), its stilted flow from track to track makes sense: Our dreams are rarely thematically linked and often shift to unexpected tangents without warning. In that regard, the concept works.
In truth, the flow of this album reminds of a Guided by Voices record in a way, with sharp, sometimes jarring transitions that don’t necessarily make sense at first, but after repeated listens feel just right.
I’m willing to bet Robert Pollard is probably a fan of this record.
Not that you care. You, the listeners of this site, have made it abundantly clear, by way of your Alien Lanes reviews, how shit you think Guided By Voices are. You’re wrong and you probably think this record is shit, too. One day, you’ll see the error of your ways, hopefully.
[Dude, you gotta stop insulting the users of the site. They’re entitled to their opinions. It’s why god made horse races, we all get to pick a winner.]
So…how about that Randy California? What an awesome guitarist. Dude was 19 when they recorded this record. 19 years old and he is on fire on this record. Fucking amazing, but I guess that’s to be expected from a guy that played in Jimi Hendrix’s band at 15. What a legend.
Stephen Stills
3/5
Imagine being Stephen Stills.
You’re in Buffalo Springfield, responsible for many of their hits, you’re their leader, but there’s high tensions, due in no small part to creative differences between you and Neil Young. So the band breaks up and you start a new band with the guy from the Hollies and the guy from the Byrds that likes to write songs about threesomes.
You bust your ass recording a debut album where you play the majority of the instruments: a real tour-de-force showcase for your talents and it is massively successful, a smash hit.
What is your next move?
To fill out your arrangements live, you, for some reason, invite Neil Young, the guy who tried to take over to your last band, to join the band. There’s no way he’d do it again, right?
Young’s arrival brings even more success to the band: the follow up album you record with him goes to number 1, sells 8 million copies…but the recording sessions were full of conflict and you find yourself butting heads with Neil Young once again. There’s no way he’s going to do it again…try and take control from you over *your* band, right?
Neil Young: “I’ll fucken do it again”
Then, a month after your album is released, May 1970, the Kent State massacre happens. Neil Young walks into the woods and comes up with “Ohio”. You and the boys put some vocal harmonies over his song, which is more aggressive than anything else you’ve ever recorded. Your record company rushes the song out for release at the same time that “Teach your Children Well” is climbing the charts. You go on an extended tour that summer and by July 1970, CSNY is calling it quits.
So, you, Stephen Stills, start a solo career and have success, but your old foil, Neil Young is starting to have hit after hit, becoming a massive star. By the time 1974 rolls around and Young agrees to reunite CSNY for a stadium tour, he is the pretty much the main draw and a precedent has been set: CSNY only happens when Neil wants it to happen. The success of the band you started, the band whose career was started by the excellent record you toiled over in the studio, is now fully dependent on Neil Young being around to pull in a big payday and Neil has had no problem pulling the plug on CSNY at a moment’s notice. Sure, CSN can draw a crowd, but CSNY is another story and that’s how it’s going to go for the next 40 years.
Now, reader, I’m sure you’re feeling pretty bad for Stephen Stills. What an outcome for the guy who was supposed to be “it”. Don’t feel too bad…for starters, he’s got tons of money. He definitely treated Neil Young pretty poorly - to the extent that a few of his albums after this one have a Neil Young cover on them as a sort of mea culpa, but also…he managed to get one of Jimi Hendrix’s last solos captured on tape for this album (Good Times Old Times) and then proceeded to bury parts of it under his own organ playing (that’s not a euphemism, get your mind out of the gutter).
If you’re still feeling bad for Stills after all that, go ahead and listen to his 1978 album, “Thoroughfare Gap”. Any goodwill you still had for the man will evaporate in no time - Seriously, you owe it to yourself, as means of better understanding Stephen Stills, to hear “You Can’t Dance Alone” and especially “Can’t Get No Booty”.
Japan
3/5
Holy shit, a synth pop record that doesn’t completely suck ass, one that has a little bit of life to it.
Hold on…
Three tracks in and we are getting weepy and funereal.
Let’s see if the boys in Japan can turn it around…
After a couple plodding tunes (Despair and In Vogue) they’re back to more uplifting territory, though the stench of a film noir soundtrack is still lingering a bit on Halloween.
They’re covering All Tomorrow’s Parties now, and it’s evolved from a sort of Krautrock-y intro in a more jazzy affair, but it’s still got some nice ethereal instrumentation going on, but it’s a weird combination with that song, smooth jazz…not sure I’m a fan. That that krautrock vibe at the start was *really* working.
Although, on second listen, the Can influence is more apparent, but it’s kind of like latter day, post-Damo Suzuki Can.
This was better than most of the other synthpop records on the list, but it doesn’t quite rise to the level of a 4 star rating.
White Denim
3/5
If I were tasked with adding some 2010’s psych to the list, I’d probably opt for something that leaned more towards the blistering, brain-burning side of things like Ty Segall’s “Twins” or Thee Oh Sees’ “Floating Coffin” or “Carrion Crawler/The Dream”, but White Denim’s “D” doesn’t necessarily disappoint.
The musicianship is impressive and the songs twist and turn through different movements pretty smoothly. The band veers too close to the Jamband world for my tastes at times, though their playing is not lackadaisical or burnt out and is certainly more engaging than pretty much anything I’ve ever heard from the Grateful Dead, Phish and their patchouli drenched ilk.
“D” is a good “lite-psych” record, with expert playing and well written songs, even if it feels a bit like Jamband music for people who don’t spend their life bombed out on Phish tour slinging grilled cheese and asking for miracles outside venues across America.
Laura Nyro
2/5
I don’t know why I was expecting this to be a folk album.
It’s more of jazzy, soul-ish pop record, with a definite late 60’s sound.
It has it moments, but it feels a bit like listening to the soundtrack of a Broadway show that I have no reference for or idea what it is about, so I’m just going to chose to believe that it’s a concept record about Eli Manning.
Bert Jansch
3/5
My introduction to Bert Jansch was by way of Yo La Tengo’s fantastic cover of “Needle of Death” on their Today is the Day EP from 2003. In fact, I can thank Yo La Tengo for turning me on to a lot of great music over the years and the fact that they are excluded from this list while the likes of the Zutons and the Beta Band are included (in the case of the Beta Band more than once) is an omission that’s bugged me consistently while working through this list the last two years.
The aforementioned “Needle of Death” is the highlight here for me, a harrowing tale of life cut short by heroin use. Neil Young fans may notice some similarities with “Ambulance Blues” from On the Beach.
As a whole, Jansch’s self-titled record is impressive with its intricate guitar playing (a clear influence on the work of Nick Drake) and often somber songs, even if you might have to be in the right type of mood for it.
Oasis
2/5
Who wrote these fucking lyrics, Dr. Seuss?
Nearly every song on this record follows this simplistic lyrical rhyme scheme that makes Dr. Seuss look like Shakespeare.
Here’s an example, from Up in the Sky:
“Hey you, up in the sky
Learnin' to fly
Tell me, how high”
Then, a few bars later:
“Hey you, up in the tree
You want to be me
Well, that couldn't be”
How about another example? “Shakermaker” (look, he even does right in the song title):
“I've been driving in my car with my friend Mr. Soft
Mr. Clean and Mr. Ben are living in my loft”
One more and I’ll assume you’ve got my point, from their hit “Live Forever”:
“Maybe I just wanna fly
Wanna live, I don't wanna die
Maybe I just wanna breathe
Maybe I just don't believe
Maybe you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever”
From a lyrical standpoint, this is one of the worst albums on the list.
Traffic
3/5
On the Progressive Rock Scale of Lameness (TM), Traffic lands squarely in between Jethro Tull (very lame) and Genesis’ late-70’s, post-Peter Gabriel era (lame, but not without some merit).
The Afghan Whigs
3/5
Musically, right up my alley. Lyrically, not as much. Overall: not bad, not great.
LL Cool J
3/5
Is it just me or is the most famous track on this record (the title track) the weakest of the bunch?
Also, I appreciated the Bartles and Jaymes reference in “To da Break of Dawn”, but that’s because I’m old and the first sip of alcohol I ever had was a Bartles and Jaymes wine cooler I stole from my parents at a Fourth of July Barbecue in the early 90’s.
The music is pretty good, the lyrics mostly are dated and of their time at best, 3 stars.
Gary Numan
3/5
Why haven’t we, as a society, demanded a collaborative album between Gary Oldman and Gary Numan?
It could be like a Seals and Croft kind of thing and they could call it…The Garys.
Man…I am firing on all cylinders today. What a great idea…and the kicker? It’s the perfect band name for them…
The Pleasure Principle is Gary Numan’s third LP and represents a high water mark in Numan’s recorded output. His percolating, metronomic, Kraftwerk indebted synth pop would reach its apex here, influencing the likes of Nine Inch Nails and countless others.
One way that Numan succeeds where other synth pop acts of his time fail, is through the incorporation of a live drummer and bassist in his band and on record, rather than fully electronic instrumentation. The live instrumentation adds dynamic flourishes and a sense of unpredictability that is harder to obtain with fully synced electronic instrumentation. It brings a sense of humanity to a music that often feels lifeless.
What the world needs is more bands that treat the synthesizer as a rock instrument; it can be an incredibly aggressive and gnarly instrument when manipulated properly. Take M83’s “Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts”, as an example: The synths on that are intense and occasionally thrashy and even if they’re using drum machines and some guitar, they still manage to capture an energy that’s uncommon in a lot of synthetic…
”Oldman/Numan”!
That’s it, nailed it!
Just, uh…forget what I wrote earlier about the cylinders.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
Reminds me of visiting my grandparents in the city of West New York, NJ in the 80’s. Chances are pretty good that I’ve heard some of this blaring from passing cars or in the communal park at their apartment building where residents would gather to chat or play dominos or chess on the concrete chess boards/tables that were installed in the park. The soundtrack to a hot summer day in the city.
The KLF
4/5
Stray thoughts:
-Excellent album cover
-I am a big fan of their anti-music industry philosophy and the story of their appearance/retirement at the 1992 Brit Awards is fucking amazing.
-Why on earth would you release a “Director’s Cut” of an album that removes the best known song from the album.
-Unlike a lot of their contemporaries, whose albums go on for a million fucking years, The KLF keep “The White Room” nice and succinct with runtime of 44 minutes. It accomplishes what it set out to accomplish, doesn’t over stay it’s welcome…it’s fucking great.
The Byrds
3/5
Not sure I’d consider this an essential Byrds record, “8 Miles High” is the pretty clear standout, and the singles are also highlights, but the version of “8 Miles High” on their 1970 record, (Untitled)/(Unissued), is probably the version to hear - they jam it out and play with an intensity that few of their peers, *cough* The Grateful Dead *cough*, could ever hope to match. Sorry for the coughing…the pollen is really bad this year.
…and if you listen to that version, be sure to follow it up with the next track, “Chestnut Mare”, which, metaphorically speaking, is one of the weirdest songs ever written.
5D isn’t a “great Byrds album” for me, it’s a good one, for sure, but they hadn’t really transitioned into psychedelic folk/rock quite fully yet and I’m not sure 5D rises to the level of “must hear”.
Mike Oldfield
4/5
Not too hot on the music, but the lyrics are great.
Happy Mondays
3/5
I guess you had to be there/on ecstasy.
Bob Dylan
3/5
I’ve been thinking about Bob Dylan a bit lately.
I’ve never really been a fan of his, to the point of actively disliking his music at points in my life.
Some of that has to do with Bob Dylan fans - you know the type, the Bob Dylan Gen X/Older millennial super fan, who play folk songs at coffee shops and think they are actually Bob Dylan. You can probably travel to just about any small town in America, spend some time there and encounter one.
That’s not the whole of it, and that’s not even really his fault.
Musically, he isn’t necessarily for me, the vocals, his delivery, the folk/americana sound…doesn’t really do anything for me. Sure, there’s some songs that I think are good, but as a whole, this dude isn’t really for me.
He is an excellent lyricist, however, and his songs, in the hands of someone other than Bob Dylan, often turn out to be major hits, like All Along the Watchtower or Mr. Tambourine Man being the most obvious examples.
So it’s a weird circle to square. He can clearly write a good song, but to my ears, he doesn’t always execute them well, or more accurately, he executes them in a way that doesn’t appeal to me.
Now, as for the reason I’ve been thinking about Bob Dylan lately….I was recently made aware of a Dylan performance on David Letterman’s show in the 1980’s where he performs the song “Jokerman” with the punk band The Plugz. The end result is an amazing power-pop song and it squares that circle I mentioned before in a very meta way: Bob Dylan “covering” a Bob Dylan song and turning it into gold.
If you’re going to watch that Letterman performance, I’d recommend listening to the studio version of the song first to familiarize yourself with it, if you’re not already familiar. It’s on the “Infidels” album and that version is…ok.
The Letterman version is so good, that it has me kind of doing a 180 on Bob Dylan. Like not a full 180, but enough of a change that I’m sitting here writing a short novel about Bob Dylan.
But it’s not just me…Uber-prolific Canadian singer-songwriter Daniel Romano and his excellent band, The Outfit, are such fans of that that performance that they released a re-imagining of the entire “Infidels” album as though it were performed by Bob Dylan & the Plugz. They recorded their version “Jokerman” perfectly in-sync with the Letterman performance and used that as a basis to flesh out the rest of the songs on the album in the same punk/power pop style. It is an *excellent* record, but it lends credence to my feeling that Dylan writes good songs, but executes them oddly.
(You can find “Daniel Romano’s Outfit - Do (What Could Have Been) Infidels” on YouTube along with their version of “Jokerman” synced up perfectly with Dylan’s Letterman performance)
As for “Time Out of Mind”, the songs here are relatively straightforward and I think that Dylan benefits greatly from Daniel Lanois’ production. It’s spacious and open and Lanois’ pedal steel playing gives otherwise standard sounding songs a more ethereal quality. It’s a very good album, but as I’ve said, Dylan isn’t usually for me and a little seems to go a long way here - especially by the time I got to the 16 minute closer, “Highlands”, which could’ve been 10 minutes shorter and achieved the same goal.
Robbie Williams
1/5
Some 720 albums in and just over a year left to go in this project, I find myself thinking about the albums that I know and I’m already a fan of, but haven’t been generated yet. The problem is, I forget about the rest of the 360-some albums that I’ll have to listen to.
Like, I’m here wondering when Machine Gun Etiquette or Emperor Tomato Ketchup or Daydream Nation will get generated, completely ignoring the fact that there are apparently Robbie Williams records on the list.
So, yeah…surprise! There’s a Robbie Williams record to talk about today. That’s exciting.
Not really.
Do you wish that more of the Britpop records on this list had the sheen of an overproduced pop album?
Well then, this might be the record for you.
I guess if there was an American analog for this, it would be if one of the New Kids on the Block (whichever one was the main one, I guess) quit the band and then put out a grunge record in like summer of 1995 when grunge was still popular, but not far from being passé.
It’s pretty obvious that this record is the product of a pop star trying to insert themselves into a moment.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
This is The Rolling Stones first album and I’m struggling to think of any other reason why it is included on the list. It’s a competently played set of (mostly) covers and isn’t necessarily “bad”, but it’s not really notable except that it’s an early-ish example of British guys covering American blues songs, but that was kind of par for the course in the mid-60’s and something that the Beatles had done.
The Stones, I guess were meant to be a ragged, unruly counterpoint to the Beatles and they certainly are here: the songs are not covered with as much finesse or polish as a Beatles cover of a blues number might be. Whether that was an intentional stylistic choice, a limitation in skill or a combination of the two is probably debatable.
Either way, this was the first step for one of the biggest rock bands of all time and I guess it is interesting to see where they started, but does it rank among the greatest albums of all time? For me, no.
Although, it is impressive that they managed to get a record deal and put out their first album with only one original song on it.
Tortoise
5/5
Krautrock, IDM, Minimalism, and ambient blended expertly…and that’s just the first track.
Millions Now Living Will Never Die is one of the best records of the 90’s.
Dr. Octagon
5/5
I ate Domino’s pizza with Kool Keith at the Warped Tour in 2001.
Back in the 90’s and early aughts, the Warped Tour made its yearly stop in Asbury Park, NJ in the abandoned lots near the famed Stone Pony. At that time, Asbury Park was bombed out, with abandoned and dilapidated multistory buildings all around the surrounding area, all the way up to the boardwalk. These were the ghosts of Asbury Park’s glory days; hotels that were ready to be torn down or hotels and apartments that had been started, but never completed and left to decay. When you were there it didn’t feel like America, it felt like being in a forgotten war zone.
At the base of those ruins, in their shadows, the warped tour would set up. The sounds of punk, hardcore, ska, the ocasional hip-hop group would reverberate against the unsightly remains of a once-lively New Jersey shore town and dust from mosh pits in a dirty lot got kicked up at their feet.
Once you were there, you were stuck for the day. There weren’t any other businesses nearby that you could go to for food or drink. In fact, you probably didn’t want venture out of the “venue” in to Asbury Park proper at all. Any food or drink you were going to consume was brought in by others explicitly to be sold at the festival. At our Warped Tour, that meant you ate Domino’s Pizza, drank cans of coke or bottled water, because that’s all they were selling.
Warped tour in 2001 was no exception. Late in the afternoon, my friends and I, dehydrated, dusty and hungry from a day in the scorching New Jersey summer sun, decided to partake in a Domino’s pizza or two (which they sold by the full pie for five dollars, if I recall). We got our pizza and drinks found an empty metal trash can nearby to balance the pizza boxes on and started to dig in.
As we ate I noticed that Kool Keith, still clad in his neon green “Black Elvis” latex hairpiece from his show an hour earlier and with a ladyfriend, was heading our way.
“Hey, Keith”, I said as he approached. “Your show was awesome”.
Noticing our hobo-style pizza party, he asked,“Where’d you get that pizza?”
“Over there” I told him, pointing towards the concession stand a hundred or so feet away.
“They have anything else to eat?”, he asked.
“Nah…this is all they sell at that this entire place. You want a piece?”
He considered, gave a sort of puzzled look, but grabbed a slice anyway. He bit in, appeared disgusted (he is a New Yorker, after all, and knows a good slice - Domino’s is not now, and never has been, “a good slice”) and said “that shit’s nasty…”
We all laughed in agreement, and as he walked off, he said to the woman he was with, “See? What did I tell you…
[TO HEAR THE EXCITING CONCLUSION TO THIS STORY, PLEASE CALL 1-800-PP5-1-DOO-DOO]
Elvis Presley
2/5
6 AM Shower Thought:
“Elvis In Chains” - Alice In Chains songs performed in the style of Elvis Presley or maybe vice versa. I was thinking ‘68 comeback special-era Elvis, but it’s open to interpretation.
Feel free to use this idea as your own….You’re welcome.
In fact, here’s a freebie to get you started:
🎶We can’t go on together, in this Jar of Flies🎶
Paul Simon
1/5
I loathe this man and his music.
What a load of puerile, corny, self-important dreck.
On top of his rampant sense of self importance, Paul Simon is an exceptionally petty human being, as evidenced by his erasure of Art Garfunkel’s work on this album, which started off as a Simon and Garfunkel reunion album and then “became” a Paul Simon solo-record.
(…and just you case you think I’m some kind of weird Art Garfunkel defender/apologist…first of all, why would you even think that’s even a thing? No one on earth cares that much about Art Garfunkel’s musical career to passionately defend it. The dude might as well just change his first name to “And” (as in “And Garfunkel”). Second of all, fuck him too. He’s just as guilty in all this, for enabling and abetting Paul Simon. He’s just not my primary focus here today and, frankly, Paul Simon probably did him a favor when he erased his contributions from this record…One less albatross around Art’s neck, you know what I mean?)
This is music to facilitate the propagation of Yuppies. Yuppies play it for their Yuppie kids, who, in turn, play it for their kids, thus creating another generation of Yuppies: A never ending cycle of Young, Upwardly-Mobile Professionals, hellbent on the celebration of abject mediocrity.
Fuck Paul Simon.
The Who
4/5
The high points on this album are among the highest of 70’s rock and more than make up for some of the less memorable tracks in the middle of the record. It’s actually kind of ridiculous how great a couple of the songs on this record are.
Keith Moon, without a doubt, steals the show on this record, his frenetic drumming leads the way, charting the course these songs as much as the arpeggiated synth lines on the the tracks bookend this record or Pete Townsend’s guitar. He is practically a hurricane turned drummer, and I think in the hands of any other drummer most of these songs would not have the same impact - especially towards the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, where his drum fills interrupt the organ/synth arpeggio and clear the way for Roger Daltry to deliver what is probably the greatest scream in the history of rock and roll as the band returns to the songs iconic riff for the last time. The ending of that song is quite literally perfect and I’m not sure The Who reached that level again before or since in their career, at least to my ears - though they often came close.
Buck Owens
2/5
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the past was a time of higher moral standards, especially when Buck Owens was out there in 1965 signing about how he’s gonna hit it and quit it on a song like “Wham Bam”.
Pink Floyd
4/5
It’s 11 am, I’m three minutes and forty-five seconds into Shine On You Crazy Diamond and I’m ready to go back to bed….and I got a good night’s sleep last night, at least 7 hours.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t regularly smoked weed for more than a decade, but have Pink Floyd albums always been this slow moving?
Like…this song moves at a glacial pace and even when it picks up steam in last couple minutes, it’s still kind of plodding. I get that Pink Floyd played very deliberately, but this feels too deliberate, almost to the point of feeling mechanically manufactured, rather than performed - though I guess that makes sense, given that I’m about to be welcomed “to the machine”.
I have a hard time feeling bad for Pink Floyd and their constant complaints about “being successful”. This album and the two subsequent records are ripe with complaints about how hard their lives as millionaire rockstars are. Animals, to its credit, at least has a little venom to it, easily making it the best of the three, even if it’s partially because it’s not completely overplayed.
I will say I really love the filter sweep at the end of Have a Cigar. Neat studio trick right there.
I’m finding the title of this record amusing this morning, as well - at least as it relates to my present day feelings about Pink Floyd. At one point, I was “there” with Pink Floyd, but now, I’m not really having a lot fun of being “Here” with Pink Floyd.
The Modern Lovers
4/5
Velvet Underground influence? Check.
Motorik style drumming? Check.
Punk attitude? Check.
This one’s a winner to my ears.
The Thrills
3/5
I have an explanation for why their song “appeared on George W. Bush’s iPod in 2005” (truly an honor among honors for any artist, I’m sure).
Dubya, clearly distraught by Pavement’s breakup in 1999, used his power as president to have Pavement kidnapped, taken to a CIA black site, injected daily with Herculean combo-doses of Ritalin and SSRI’s and told them they could only leave if they made a late 60’s West Coast Pop record.
This record is the result of that unlawful deed, a suspension of habeas corpus.
10cc
4/5
Well, whaddaya know…album number 730. Those of you with PhD’s in Mathematics are probably recognizing the significance of that number, but for the sake of clarity, it means that, as of today, I have been doing this challenge for exactly two years.
…and before the Gregorian Calendar buffs get all “uh…ackshually” on me: Yes, I realize it’s a leap year. I don’t care. Today is the day I celebrate and how do I celebrate?
Just like I did last year…with a little roast of the users of this site. So in that spirit, here’s a spicy little text-based meme I cooked up in honor of the occasion:
Day in the life of an average 1001 albums generator user:
“I’m going to to do the 1001 albums challenge to broaden my musical taste”
[gets recommended any album that doesn’t comport with mainstream sensibilities]
“No, not like that.”
Now, as for this-a-here record by 10cc: While that meme is more than fitting, I’d also like to share this endorsement of this utterly strange and wonderful rock record:
IT’S NOT SHEETY AT ALL.
In fact, it’s pretty great.
Beth Orton
3/5
“Beth Orton is a name that’s been on my radar over the years,” I thought earlier today, before listening to Central Reservation.
If you’ve read enough music magazines over the course of the last 25 years, there are a lot of names that might end up on your radar, so it wasn’t really a surprising thought for me to have.
“Oh wait…did Beth Orton sing on “All I Need” and “You Make it Easy” from Air’s Moon Safari?” I thought while listening to the first few tracks on my drive home. “I’ll have to Google that when I get to the house”.
“Nope, that was Beth Hirsch, you dummy,” I said to myself as I was proven wrong by Google and came to the realization that I have no idea about Beth Orton at all.
Right about now, I’m sure you’re like, “Wow, what an interesting story, dumbass.”
…and you’re right, it’s not interesting.
Point is, maybe I come off as a know-it-all sometimes, but really I’m just a “don’t-really-know-anything-at-all” most of the time and I’m willing to bet some of you suffer from that affliction too.
So when I tell you that this is a great record, with beautiful instrumentation to match Beth Orton’s beautiful voice, even if it feels a little dated in a few spots, you should trust that I know what I’m talking about.
Or, maybe I don’t.
…why is this record making me have an existential crisis right now?
I gotta go….I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
Small Faces
3/5
I usually enjoy weird psychedelic shit like this, and I’ve enjoyed parts of it, but I’m struggling to stay interested in this one. It’s not bad, but I keep tuning out.
The Teardrop Explodes
3/5
Every once and a while, I’ll check Amazon or eBay for a copy of Julian Cope’s “Krautrocksampler”, a book he published in 1995 about the German rock scene of the late 60’s and 70’s. It’s unfortunately never been reprinted, and fetches quite a bit of money on the used market.
For whatever reason, I’m foolish enough to think that, I, of all people, will be able to find a copy for less than the $300 the book typically goes for, just by searching for it on the most popular marketplaces on the internet every few years.
I don’t want to say that the totality of my knowledge of Julian Cope is that he wrote a book about Krautrock, but…beyond that, the fact that he also wrote a book about Japanese rock and a peripheral awareness that this was his band, I don’t really know much and I’ve never really bothered to check out his music.
Cope’s love of psychedelic and Krautrock is evident here on “Kilimanjaro”, making it one of the more interesting and enjoyable British New Wave-era records on the list, at least to me. It’s heady, densely layered music, and when the songs veer into repetitive, ethereal territory, like at the end of “When I Dream”, this record is at its best. The incorporation of horns on the record might have been a misstep, however, as the record’s production does them no favors, making it feel dated.
Overall, this is a solid and unique entry on the list, an outlier from an era where many British bands had the idea that being excessively dreary was a necessary component of psychedelic music.
Rocket From The Crypt
3/5
Solid 90’s alt-rock record. I’m not a huge fan of horns in rock music, but it mostly works here.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Crowded House
2/5
First off, this kind of feels like proto-Wilco in a lot of spots, but like…more adult contemporary and a bit more saccharine.
Second, let’s talk about New Zealand, because I feel they are underrepresented on this list. So much great rock music came from New Zealand in the 80’s and early 90’s and this looks to be the closest the list comes to it, which is a shame, because, frankly, this record isn’t that impressive (sorry, Crowded House fans).
The Flying Nun record label was putting out amazing music throughout those years and there’s not a mention of it on the list. Like seriously influential music…music that would inform American Indie Rock throughout the 90’s and beyond: The Clean, The Chills, Toy Love, The Verlaines, Tall Dwarfs, the Bats, Snapper…it’s a long list worthy of deep-dive if you enjoy bands like Pavement, Guided Voices, Yo La Tengo or Superchunk.
For a New Zealand-based counterpoint to this record from a year earlier, listen to “Vehicle” by The Clean. If you’ve only got 20 minutes, listen to their “Boodle Boodle Boodle” EP from 1981.
That’s a band you need to hear before you die.
Crowded House? For me, not as much.
k.d. lang
2/5
It’s been really hot and ridiculously humid here in the northeast the last few weeks, so it wasn’t really surprising that when I put this on during my drive home, I started feeling sleepy. Humidity is a fucking burden, constantly weighing you down.
So, I listened to about half and then put on something to get the blood pumping: “Too Hot Too Sleep” by Daniel Romano’s Outfit.
Best decision I made all day.
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
The cafeteria at work puts green onions in their chicken salad (“scallions”, if you’re nasty…wait… what?) and I don’t mind it, but I also wouldn’t go out my way to add green onion to my chicken salad if I was making it at home, you know what I mean?
Everything But The Girl
1/5
Impatiently Waiting For Your Mom to Finish Shopping at Boscov’s in 1989: The Soundtrack.
Tom Waits
2/5
It’s funny to me that the dislike of The Residents’ record on this site doesn’t get transferred over to Tom Waits’ music. The degree of separation between the two artists is minuscule.
Sorry, but it’s about time some hear that hard truth.
Gorillaz
2/5
Rock Recipes, Installment Two:
“Ape Juice”
Ingredients:
-One part Deltron 3030
-One part Beck
-One part leftover animations picked up from the UPA cutting room floor
-16 oz. room temperature tap water
-3 oz. Gran Marnier
-3 oz. Sambuca
Instructions:
-Combine ingredients into a large glass pitcher.
-Stir gently, while mindlessly staring out your kitchen window, for 30 minutes.
-Pour contents of pitcher down your sink drain
-Open your streaming platform of choice
-Search for Deltron 3030
-Select their 2000 album, “Deltron 3030”
-Enjoy.
ZZ Top
3/5
I’m not sure that the type of music ZZ Top plays needs to be this slick and overproduced.
The Young Rascals
3/5
It’s perfectly fine 60’s pop/rock music.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
2/5
I was gonna write this long spiel about how back in the 90’s I scammed both Columbia House and BMG out of their 10 CD’s for a penny deals and this CD was one of the ones I got, but it’s not a very interesting story (lots of kids my age did that back then). Also, this isn’t a very interesting record. If you played a Beck record and an Everlast record at the same time, you could probably achieve a similar effect.
Emmylou Harris
3/5
I can’t write another review of a country record that focuses on my inability to connect with country music. It wasn’t something I wasn’t raised with and I’ve never really had many people in my life that were country music fans. I’m 43, and not to diminish our propensity as humans to grow and change, but I don’t see country music ever being an art form that really engages me.
Emmylou Harris’ “Pieces of the Sky”, while more enjoyable than most of the country records I’ve heard - and maybe not as “overtly” country, if that makes sense, doesn’t really change that for me. It was good, very good even, but it didn’t grab me and make me want more.
Conversely, I haven’t been able to stop listening to the song “Starry Eyes” by The Records. My god, what a song…pure power pop excellence.
I guess that’s where I’m at these days.
Weather Report
3/5
Truly innovative: This Weather Report accurately predicted the sound of mid-80’s cheese in 1977.
(The second half of this record is really good, though)
The White Stripes
3/5
I’m trying to figure out how I know almost all the songs on this record, but have never owned it, can’t remember ever listening to it and don’t really know anyone who is a big enough White Stripes fan to have played it for me.
One explanation is that I’ve heard this a lot at bars over the years. Which would make sense, since its release coincided my bar hopping years.
The other possibility is that a lot of White Stripes songs kinda sound the same after a while. Not a dig necessarily: there’s only so much you can do with just a guitar and drums.
The Damned
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die
Chapter 8
Never Mind The Pistols, Here’s The Damned!:
The Damned’s “Machine Gun Ettiquette”
Ladies and Gentlemen, how do?
Among the most egregious exclusions on this list is The Damned’s debut album, “Damned Damned Damned”.
The author of this list apparently finds you to be quite the fool…You don’t need to hear the first UK punk album to be released, by the band that also released the first UK punk single and was also the first UK punk band to tour the United States.
“Nonsense, to hell with those accolades!”, he says, “What these idiots need to hear are 7 albums featuring that depressing fuck Morrissey.”
Damned Damned Damned was a blistering, incessantly high energy first-shot-fired to announce the arrival of UK punk music. It outpaces the debut albums by the Sex Pistols and Clash by pretty much every metric: fast, aggressive, noisy and loud with great songs and musicianship…it is the record that perfectly encapsulates punk rock, a definitive statement. It is borderline criminal that it’s not included on this list.
Despite his potentially malicious ineptitude, the author at least got the inclusion of Machine Gun Etiquette right. I would use the hackneyed old saying “even a broken clock is right twice a day,” but, unfortunately, this broken clock only got it right once when it comes to The Damned.
The band would break up following the critical and commercial failure of their rushed second album, “Music For Pleasure”, and the departure of guitarist Brian James in early 1978.
Reforming in early 1979 with bassist Captain Sensible taking over guitar duties would mark another first for the Damned: The first UK punk band to reform. If Brian James’ guitar leads favored speed, tension and then release, Sensible’s lead guitar favors melodicism and a Hendrix-ian flare for the dramatic.
Often, I’ve wondered why they chose the title “Machine Gun Etiquette” for this record. I’m sure the band have explained the title in the press and I could easily look it up, but I have my own theory and I think I’d rather hold on to it than know the truth: “Machine Gun Etiquette” is an excellent descriptor for Rat Scabies’ drumming. His spitfire drum fills come in short, sharp bursts of precision, cutting through the meat of these songs, continually pushing them forward…he plays with a machine gun etiquette.
And by the way, is there a better name in all of punk rock than “Rat Scabies”?
I’ll answer for you…there isn’t.
Once described by Lemmy as “remarkably normal for someone who’s dressed like Count Dracula”, lead singer Dave Vanian backs off from the full throated snarl a bit on Machine Gun Ettiquette, but only a bit. Here, he introduces a gothic croon on several songs, foreshadowing the direction The Damned would head in years to come.
Rounding out the re-formed Damned was Algy Ward of The Saints on bass. Ward’s experience in The Saints, a band that operated within the punk realm yet wasn’t tied down to the rigid traditions of what punk is “supposed” to be, would prove to be an invaluable asset to the Damned on this record. He ends up as the perfect foil for Scabies: the two operate in lockstep through various shifts in tone, tempo and genre, playing off each other better than just about any rhythm section in punk.
Bookended by two of the most impressive punk singles of their era (“Love Song” and “Smash It Up”, the latter of which was boycotted by BBC 1 for fear that it might incite riots), Machine Gun Etiquette is a showcase for the Damned as they split the sound of punk wide open.
On the title track, sometimes referred to as “Second Time Around”, they ramp up the already frenetic pace and aggression found on their debut album, which would provide influence and inspiration to the nascent American hardcore punk scene. It’s followed up by the goth-by-way-of-garage-rock of “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today”, a starkly apocalyptic song that erupts into an keyboard solo that would make a band like The Seeds grin ear to ear.
Over the next several tracks, the band expands their vision of what punk is even further: The beautiful piano intro to “Melody Lee” that morphs into blistering punk, the percussion and bass instrumental showcase in the middle of “Anti-Pope”, the psychedelic carnival madness of “These Hands”, the brilliant, brooding and gothic “Plan 9 Channel 7” - which ends in a showcase of Vanian’s falsetto and Captain Sensible’s explosive guitar heroics, a fantastic cover The MC 5’s “Looking At You”…
…The Damned take risks on every song on this record and every one of those risks pays off tenfold. Machine Gun Etiquette is the sound of a band firing on all cylinders and capturing that lightning in a bottle. It’s not just one of the greatest punk albums of all time, it is one of the greatest albums of all time.
Steely Dan
1/5
Pretzel Logic: The act of twisting yourself into knots trying to convince yourself that something you know to be untrue is actually true.
*Example: Listening to Steely Dan and coming to the conclusion that they are anything but one of the most boring bands on Earth.*
Stevie Wonder
4/5
For me, Stevie Wonder is at his best when he’s funky. The ballads don’t really do a whole lot for me, even though I think they are well produced and usually are pretty gorgeous instrumentally. It’s the funk, though…that sweet, elastic funkiness with the synthetic bass and clavinet. It’s so good.
Stevie Wonder is a musical genius.
[wipes nose]
(That’s a reference that like 4 people will get.)
3/5
I have a lot of respect for Bob Dylan.
But also, I kinda can’t stand him.
It’s a weird dichotomy, but I’ll try to explain.
The first half of this record, the acoustic set, was incredibly off-putting to me. His acoustic songs often feel like these amorphous blobs of music, without many changes or points of demarcation musically. He sings over his gently strummed songs and the melodies, if you will, don’t really make a lot of sense with what he is playing instrumentally.
But then, on the second half of this record, the electric set, Dylan is forced into a box. He has a constraint on him in the form of a backing band (The Band, as it were) and fuck me if it isn’t 1000 times more interesting than the acoustic blobs on the first disc.
Going electric is the smartest move Dylan ever made.
Hüsker Dü
3/5
It didn’t really do anything for me at first, then it did, then it didn’t, then it kind of did again.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
3/5
This is a concept album about a mechanized armadillo tank.
Megadeth
4/5
Are Megadeth incredibly talented?
Without a doubt. Rust in Peace is a showcase of their virtuosity and technical prowess.
Is it an album full of excellent songs?
Not quite. They reach some absolute career high points on songs like “Holy Wars”, “Hangar 18”, “Rust In Peace…Polaris”, and even “Tornado of Souls” - even if Dave Mustaine’s delivery of the word “tornado” during the line “…in the eye of the tor-naay-do” never fails to make me laugh.
Megadeth tend to emphasize technicality at the expense of song structure sometimes, which is fine and it works really well on “Lucretia”, but other times, the songs end up a little too stilted and nerdy for me to really buy into this record.
Sex Pistols
3/5
There’s no denying the impact and influence of this record and band, especially from an aesthetic point of view, but The Damned’s “Damned Damned Damned” runs circles around this and every other UK punk debut record. (Plus, it came out before them all.)
Flamin' Groovies
4/5
Just as a personal preference, I would have chosen their next album, “Shake Some Action” instead of this one.
The power pop on that record resonates with me a little more than the blues-based songs here, but this one is still good.
B.B. King
3/5
5/5
I wish this had been generated on the weekend, I’d throw my original pressing of this record on my turntable, sit back, relax and write a lengthy and more in depth review. I’d probably follow up Arthur with Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround or Muswell Hillbillies and maybe some select tracks from Preservation.
The point is, there are very few bands who had a run of albums as strong The Kinks did from 1966 to 1971. That they don’t get the same level of recognition as some of the other greats from their era is a disappointment to me, so I have no problem preaching the gospel of Ray and Dave Davies when given the opportunity.
Maybe it’s because their songs weren’t quite as immediate or polished as their peers in the Beatles and the Stones, or because they didn’t have the same cultural impact in the US, but The Kinks’ well is deep. Much deeper, in fact, and worth returning to over and over. Some of their absolute greatest songs were only released as singles and didn’t appear on proper albums. Songs like “I’m Not like Everybody Else”, “Mindless Child of Motherhood”, “King Kong”, “Preservation”, “This Man, He Weeps Tonight”….like I said, the well is deep and exploring the bonus tracks on Arthur or picking up The Kink Kronikles or The Great Lost Kinks Album compilation albums on vinyl are more than worth your time if you like what you heard here.
“Arthur” is probably their best record, though I am quite partial to “Lola…”. It goes toe-to-toe with anything The Beatles or Stones ever put out. You can be mad about that if you want, I don’t know what to tell you…it’s true.
Prince
4/5
I had high hopes for this record, and several of the songs met or exceeded those expectations, but, ultimately, not even Prince can redeem the double album as a format for me.
(…but I did like how he was like “Drummer, do your thing!” on the second track and it was immediately followed by drum machine fills.)
Jane Weaver
4/5
This record couldn’t be more up my alley: Krautrock and Velvet Underground influence, motorik beats, hefty doses of analog synths *and* a guest appearance from Malcom Mooney?
While Stereolab’s influence is apparent, there’s enough individuality and interesting ideas to keep it from feeling like a mere rehash.
The National
1/5
I saw these guys headline a night of the Pitchfork Music Fest in 2009, which would have been right before this album. It’s probably the most boring show I have ever seen.
When they came out and started playing their overly introspective, navel gazing brand of depression rock, they sucked the fun right out of the crowd in a way that would make the Hoover Company proud. It’s good to see that wasn’t an isolated incident and their records are boring as fuck, too. Someone should tell these guys they don’t have to use the same tempo for every song.
3/5
Because country music is a style of music that is rigidly tied to tradition (or at least used to be), it’s difficult for me to tell if this is good, great, or just ok record…it sounds like many of the other country records from this era I’ve ever heard.
Dolly Parton
2/5
Apple Music calls this “a record that erased genre boundaries”.
I’m sorry, what other genres are they covering here? It all sounds like country music to me.
Kings of Leon
1/5
Yo….this shit suuucks.
Big Black
4/5
⬅️ LET’S GO.
Beastie Boys
5/5
To all the people who are like “tHeY’rE jUsT sHoUtInG??”:
1. I’m sorry, are we in a library or something?
2. As resident of the Tri-State Area, I can tell you with 100% certainty: They are not yelling, they’re just from New York.
3. Really? Your biggest criticism is that they are shouting during this upbeat and raucous party music? Go listen to the National or something…
Grateful Dead
1/5
You know why the Grateful Dead suck?
Because, individually, none of them listen to what the others are playing. It’s like 5 guys playing 5 different songs at the same time.
Their rhythm section is terrible. The bass, drums and rhythm guitar are rarely playing in time, even on their traditional “songs”. If you’re gonna have wanky guitar solos over and over, at least have the decency to have a tight rhythm section anchoring your wanky clustershit down instead of letting it become an impenetrable, cacophonous blob.
This is hands down the most overrated band in American history. They are so fucking bad, and yes, I am taking the Eagles and Red Hot Chili Peppers into account in my assessment.
Duke Ellington
3/5
Deerhunter
3/5
Deerhunter have made a fine record here, but to my ears, they don’t do much to separate themselves from their indie contemporaries of the time. It sounds like what you would expect a 2010’s indie record to sound like, if that makes sense.
Radiohead
3/5
“The Bends is one of the best guitar albums of the 90’s”
-People who have yet to hear The Flaming Lips’ “Clouds Taste Metallic”
The Chemical Brothers
2/5
Memories of smoking weed in grimey, blacklight lit central NJ basements at the tail end of the 90’s. We’d play Dreamcast, order Domino’s because they were the only pizzeria in the area that delivered and listen to records like this one.
Can’t say I miss it much, but that’s how we killed time in the middle of nowhere without drivers licenses.
The Darkness
2/5
Throwback Cock Rock that should probably be thrown back.
4/5
I always just assumed that the song “War” (What is it good for?) was by War, like how Black Sabbath has a song called Black Sabbath on their album “Black Sabbath”.
Good God, y’all - I’m embarrassed by my ignorance here.
The World is a Ghetto is solid and funky, and maybe a little world-weary. The musicianship exceptional and engaging…this is a record well worth revisiting.
Coldplay
2/5
You’d think an album called “A Rush of Blood to the Head” would be a little less fucking boring, but here we are.
Coldplay has a deft ability to take Radiohead’s mope-core, wring out any sense of urgency and dial up the malaise a notch or so.
The end result is an album that is likely to become the ideal soundtrack to your somnambulism.
Public Enemy
5/5
Aggressive and radical; funky with frenzied pace that doesn’t let up for a second over its 58 minutes. “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” is a game changer that’s just as exhilarating today as it was 35 years ago.
The Clash
4/5
I like to imagine that the image of Paul Simonon smashing his bass on the cover of this record was taken while they were playing “Jimmy Jazz”.
Culture Club
2/5
Putting any cultural impact aside, this is an incredibly schmaltzy and of-its-time record.
Supergrass
3/5
I liked their other record, the one with the terrible album cover, better.
Meat Puppets
3/5
Everything But The Girl
2/5
Impatiently Waiting For Your Mom To Finish Shopping At Boscov’s In 1999: The Soundtrack
Napalm Death
3/5
I’m sorry you had to listen to noise music for 33 minutes. I know it feels like the end of the world, but trust me…it will be ok.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
Despite being overexposed to Bob Marley’s music by way of the trust fund hippies I’ve known over the years, I can’t deny that this record, along most of his catalog, is great.
The Doors
3/5
“Jim Morrison was a poet”
His poetry:
“Ride the snake to the lake.”
2Pac
2/5
Skepta
2/5
I’m not saying that this album contributed to the mild panic attack I had today, but it certainly didn’t help.
Madonna
2/5
Not as off-putting as the Yoga-core that Madonna trafficked in on Ray Of Light, “Music”takes its cues from the downtempo and trip-hop of its time.
I’m not saying Madonna made an Air record, but…actually, I kind of am saying that, especially now that I hear her singing in French on “Paradise (Not For Me)”.
Aerosmith
3/5
Tracks 1-3: ok, but why is this on the list?
Tracks 4-6: oh, that’s why this is on the list.
Tracks 7-8: this isn’t so bad
Track 9: ah, there’s the Aerosmith I can’t stand.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
4/5
Hello, it’s me, the broken record. Just wanted to stop by and remind you that literally every band in the late 60’s San Francisco psych scene were better songwriters, better musicians and more engaging performers than the Grateful Dead.
Why you would listen to the Dead when Big Brother and The Holding Company could harness more focused intensity in the first 45 seconds of this record than the Dead were capable of in their entire career?
I am not one for conspiracies, usually, but I do believe that when MK Ultra shuttered, the CIA allowed the Dead to traverse the US giving out LSD as a means to further study the effects of the drug on the population. They may not have been involved directly, but i can't imagine that they weren't watching the results intently. Think about it, they no longer had to worry about the risks of CIA involvement in dosing civilians when there was a band who was traveling town to town doing it for them…There's no way they weren't more than happy to let it go on unfettered.
Anyway…
On “Cheap Thrills”, Big Brother and the Holding Company are in fine form. The band is tight, with an excellent rhythm section, guitar leads that are fuzzy and frenetic and Janis Joplin at the top of her game.
I highly recommend it.
Radiohead
3/5
I have a hard time looking past the influences that Radiohead draws from on their latter day records. Sure, I see the Can and Neu! influence, some Brian Eno, a little Sonic Youth and maybe some Velvet Underground sprinkled in, but I don’t really see Radiohead taking that influence and making it into something more interesting than what their influences have already done.
As an example, I really liked “Bodysnatchers”, but that’s because it kind of felt like Can by way of Sonic Youth, at least musically, and if forced to choose, I’d pick anything by those bands over that song.
This is a very pretty and well produced record, without a doubt. It’s just that despite their influences, Radiohead is, to me, kind of a boring band.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
I just gotta get this out of the way first, because ever since I noticed it, I haven’t been able to hear the song not think about it:
The clean guitar intro to Cherub Rock, the riff that stars at 4 seconds in, then goes on and turns into distortion around the 25 second mark is nearly identical to the guitar line that Neu’s “Hallogallo” is centered around. It’s too similar to not be intentional, I think.
Now that I’ve rewound that part a bunch of times, and A/B’d it with “Hallogallo”, a habit I’ve found myself engaging more than once over the years, I suppose I should start my review:
Having grown up in early 90’s, I am predisposed to like the sound of fuzzed out guitars and there are an abundance of them on this record. Electro-Harmonix’s “Big Muff” fuzz pedal is the veritable backbone of this record and the guitar playing is easily the highlight for me. I could never take Billy Corgan’s voice (or personality, for that matter), but at least this record is an hour shorter than Mellon Collie, so it’s manageable, especially with the preponderance of fuzzy guitars to distract from his nasal whining and pretension.
This is a great guitar record, I cannot deny that.
It’s also undoubtedly the best record the Smashing Pumpkins would ever make. It could stand to be a little shorter, though. A lot of the songs here go on for too long, several stretching to the 7-8 minute mark and not enough fresh ideas in them to fully justify their length. Instead, they end up rehashing some of the same guitar tricks over and over and I’m left feeling burned out by about track 9.
ABBA
4/5
If it’s good enough for Alan Partridge, it’s good enough for me.
Ministry
4/5
The early 90’s were fucking rad.
It’s unfortunate a lot of you weren’t around to experience it.
Pulp
3/5
Probably the most interesting and ambitious of the 90’s British alt-rock records I’ve reviewed thus far, even if Jarvis Cocker is a bit of a lech.
With Common People’s genre-sprawl, it’s not surprising Pulp didn’t catch on in the US the same way some of their contemporaries did. The masses here tend to like things that can be easily categorized and put into a box.
Were the sounds here interesting enough to warrant future revisits?
That remains to be seen.
Orange Juice
2/5
All right, who gave the Carnival Cruises house band a Talking Heads record?
Caetano Veloso
3/5
Gotan Project
3/5
Not a good sign when you’re two thirds of the way through an album and you have to check to see if the album had finished and started replaying from the beginning.
Otherwise, a fine record.
Mudhoney
5/5
There’s nothing on earth better than a rock record that feels like it could go off the rails at any moment; the kind of record that could just collapse in on itself in a fit of feedback and fuzz, propelled to the point of supernova by the sheer intensity of the band’s playing.
That’s the type of record Superfuzz Big Muff is.
N.E.R.D
2/5
T.U.R.D.
…just kidding, a bit. It’s not bad, but it’ll wear your patience thin.
Chicago
4/5
Started off as dog water, but turned into Evian.
Terry Kath is God.
Gene Clark
4/5
This is an awfully pretty and very inventive record.
Gene Clark’s blend of heady psych, folk and country-rock isn’t exactly my speed, but it’s pretty damn close.
Tom Waits
2/5
Everybody’s got to have a hook: Frank Zappa wrote songs about toilets, the Captain and Tenneille wrote songs about rodents, Tom Waits woke up one day, decided to he wanted to be Charles Bukowski and started writing songs about being a derelict.
Such is life.
The Birthday Party
3/5
This record ends up feeling a little repetitive, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it’s made out to be here.
Hands down, one of the best parts of reviewing a challenging album like this on this site is reading the histrionic reviews and the details of how musically offensive some of you find a record.
“Managed to endure two tracks before protecting my sanity”
“It almost made me physically ill”
“…sounded like a static-covered jam session by heroin junkies”
If I was Nick Cave, I would reissue this record and slap a hype-sticker on it with those exact quotes on it…He’d probably sell a ton of copies based off of those reviews alone.
Peter Gabriel
3/5
I can’t fully explain why, but it kind of feels like this album is talking down to me.
Cypress Hill
4/5
It was fun being a young teenager when rappers like Cypress Hill and Dr. Dre were blowing up in the early 90’s. I remember having friends and classmates, 13 years old, buying pot leaf necklaces at the mall and turning up at school wearing them. I’m talking about kids who wouldn’t have the first idea of where to even buy weed and they certainly hadn’t even smoked it yet. It was just a symbolic gesture, but the thought of pasty 13 year old suburbanite kids walking around projecting that they were these seasoned, tough potheads still makes me laugh.
I should add, I’ve got nothing against pot smokers - I smoked more than my fair share over the years (probably a bit too much, even). It’s just that these were kids that I grew up with for years, who, one day, decided to switch everything up. It was like “dude, I remember that time a couple years ago that you tried to do a slide tackle at soccer practice, ended up cutting your leg and started crying, you’re not fooling anyone.”
With that journey to the past complete, Cypress Hill’s debut record is pretty great. You get a good blend of rock and funk samples flipped to hip-hop, with at least one P-Funk sample, which was a pre-requisite of the era. It’s a bit psychedelic and the rapping is great. Still enjoyable, even if nostalgia plays a factor in it for me.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Normally, I’d give a double album like this one the business for being self-indulgent, overly long and unnecessary….and I won’t lie, it is a bit of those things.
Electric Ladyland, for me, is buoyed out of that category because of the relatively small amount of material we got from Jimi Hendrix during his lifetime. Sure, we’ve gotten countless compilations of the material he was working on at the time of his death and plenty of live shows, etc. over the years since his passing, but the fact of the matter is there were only 4 records of original music that he officially released as “Jimi Hendrix” during his lifetime: The three Jimi Hendrix Experience records and the Band of Gypsies live record.
So I’ll take as much as I can get, because he is without a doubt the most influential guitarist of all time.
Electric Ladyland is bursting at the seams with ideas and sounds that were unlike anything that had been committed to tape at the time. Hendrix was trying to bridge the music in his head with what the technology of 1968 could accommodate and we’re lucky to have this vibrant, electrifying and expansive document of it to take a glimpse into his mind and wonder what else he could have possibly come up with.
Electric Ladyland can be scattershot, experimental, overly long and, as I said earlier, a little self indulgent, but isn’t that kind of what you’d expect “genius” to look like?
The Boo Radleys
4/5
Feedback sculpting pop savants in the vein of early Mercury Rev or Hit to Death in the Future Head-era Flaming Lips, but maybe a little less (or more? I can’t decide) acid damaged. Enjoyable, but doesn’t rise to essential status.
Fiona Apple
4/5
After a really strong start, with soulful, jazz inflected songs and the right amount of intricate production and experimentation, Tidal lost steam for me in the second half.
Holger Czukay
5/5
It’s kind of wild to think that Can may have acted as a force to *reign in* Holger Czukay, if the experimental madness on “Movies” is any indication of where he could have gone with them.
An absolutely brilliant record.
Van Halen
3/5
I’m pretty sure Jamie’s Cryin’ because David Lee Roth told her she was “semi-good lookin’” in “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”.
KISS
1/5
Q: What’s the difference between Gene Simmons and Donald Trump?
A: Gene Simmons has a better make-up artist.
Jack White
3/5
It’s a Jack White record and with due respect to fans of his, there wasn’t much by way of unexpected surprise on this record. It sounds like a Jack White record: some high energy rock, some bluesy and/or country-ish acoustic numbers, some cool guitar effects and some blistering solos. The heavy use of piano was a nice addition here, but not totally total out of character.
I like him just fine, but mostly in small doses: a song here and there, but in an album setting like this, it all kind of starts burring together after a while. His staccato vocal delivery starts to wear thin, making songs that would otherwise probably be engaging feel monotonous.
David Bowie
5/5
Perfect from start to finish and “Quicksand” is one of the greatest songs Bowie ever wrote.
Dion
2/5
ATTENTION APPLE MUSIC USERS:
Apple Music has this record paired with Dion’s 1976 follow up, “Streetheart”.
You only need to listen to the first 8 tracks.
You’re welcome.
Emmylou Harris
3/5
You know what?
I kind of like country music…
…when it doesn’t actually sound like country music.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
I’ve got a lot of respect for Nick Cave, but man…I can’t really get into his music the way that a lot of people do, which is a shame because I can see why they love it.
Electric Light Orchestra
2/5
The Disco Beatles.
Sorry, I just call ‘em like I see ‘em…
Ryan Adams
3/5
The fact that Ryan Adams started this record off with an argument about Morrissey might be the most hilarious foreshadowing of character in the history of recorded music. Peas in a pod, those two.
I wasn’t planning on making this a review about the moral fiber of Ryan Adams, enough of you have done that already. It’s just that sometimes the universe/matrix/whatever puts something in front of you and you have no choice but connect the (hilarious) dots.
The music here was fine, expertly played country music with an alternative tinge. It’s not for me, but if it works for you, that’s great. The Morrissey thing ended up being so on-the-nose and amusing to me that it became the focal point of the record, almost like a thesis, though I assume that is in no way what the track was intended to be.
Les Rythmes Digitales
2/5
Friendship ended with “I Should Coco” by Supergrass
Now Les Rhythmes Digitales “Darkdancer” is the worst album cover on the list.
Femi Kuti
4/5
Quite an excellent record, though I will say it was very difficult not to compare his music to that of his father.
Like they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The DNA of Fela Kuti’s music is here, but Femi manages to differentiate himself enough with a broader view and incorporation of different musical styles. It’s more polished, chilled and maybe a more accessible sound, where Fela’s records were more stripped back, aggressive and carrying a palpable sense of righteous anger.
The Byrds
4/5
Can you imagine being the type of person who’d start this record and then listen to “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” eleven times in a row before letting the album continue?
I can, because that’s exactly what I did.
The Waterboys
4/5
I’ve been doing this project for over two years.
Eight hundred and twenty-two days, to be exact.
It has been a looong time since I had a record from the list that I was unfamiliar with that made me say “you’re goddamn right I needed to hear this record before I die”.
The instrumentation on this record…phenomenal. It’s varied and rich; atmospheric, yet grounded at the same time. The Waterboys play these songs with tangible intensity and emotion. They are absolutely on fire here and it’s a contagious type of energy.
Whatever you might think the descriptor of their sound on this page - “a mixture of traditional Irish music, traditional Scottish music, country music, and rock and roll” - might sound like, trust me, it’s not enough to prepare you for the scope of what it actually is.
Fuck me, what great record.
5/5
There’s not much for me to say about this record, except that it lives up to all of the accolades that it has accrued since its release and that David Bowie is the GOAT.
The Specials
3/5
I remember seeing the Specials on the Warped Tour in 1998. For several of my friends, it was one of the most important things that could ever happen - apparently they didn’t tour much then or something.
They didn’t really grab me at that show, but I wasn’t much of a ska fan then.
I’m still not, if I’m being honest.
This is a pretty good album, but it’s unlikely I’ll revisit it.
Billy Bragg
4/5
Enjoyed it from start to finish and I couldn’t think of anything to make fun of while it played (a rarity for me), so…4 stars.
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
This feels very much like a 1994 record, it even has that same kind of offset typewriter font that graces the cover of Neil Young’s “Sleeps with Angels” or that the movie “Singles” used.
There are some great tracks here and the 40 minute runtime is a plus, but it’s not the most engaging record to me and doesn’t really hit the same highs as some of its contemporaries, like De La Soul or A Tribe Called Quest or even DJ Premiere’s work in Gang Starr.
Enjoyable, but not quite essential.
4/5
I’m not going to get on my soapbox today; this is a great punk rock record.
Drive Like Jehu
4/5
I get it, music like this, similar to abstract art, is not for everyone.
…and it’s funny, reading the reviews here, it seems like the reaction is similar to reactions I’ve seen from people who have a great distaste for abstract art: that they have been forced to endure something that isn’t explicitly defined or wrapped up in a nice package.
If you’re like me and your brain works in a way that’s compatible with music like this, if it gets your synapses firing, you’ll probably find Yank Crime an interesting and enjoyable listen. Yeah, it’s aggressive and noisy and atypical when compared with what would be considered the norm, but who said music can’t be those things?
Black Sabbath
5/5
The Beatles are widely considered to be the greatest band of all time, yet the Beatles did not write “Hand of Doom”. Curious.
Arrested Development
3/5
Positive, poppy 90’s hip-hop. Good, but maybe a little boring at times.
I am enjoying all the Sly and the Family Stone samples/interpolations, however.
Method Man
3/5
I gotta get something off my chest:
I missed the boat on Wu-Tang Clan and, as much as I’ve tried to get on board, I don’t really feel like I’m missing out too much.
Loved Method Man on The Wire, though.
Little Richard
3/5
The Cardigans
3/5
Everyone talks about how The Cardigans were the first band on the moon, but no one wants to discuss the horrific mechanical failures of their lunar lander that stranded them there, leaving them to perish in the distant, cold silence of space.
Very sad.
Eminem
1/5
This dude is fucking obnoxious, always has been.
Germs
4/5
You know, the albums that get lower ratings here because they’re noisy or not pristinely produced or not mainstream enough or whatever…those are the exact albums that a lot of the users here actually need to hear.
Otherwise, this list is just a vehicle to reinforce the status quo…
Oh, you think Abbey Road is a 5 star record? And Rumours, too? Holy shit, tell me more. Wait, let me guess…you also love Led Zepplin IV and think In the Court of the Crimson King is the greatest prog album ever made.
Of course you think those things, because you’ve been told for the decades that they are the height of recorded medium. You might think you have good taste, but the truth is, you just have someone else’s taste.
Now, if you’ll excuse me…I have to put these egg whites in my hair and style it into liberty spikes.
John Lee Hooker
3/5
I’m skeptical that this record, which is, at times, over-produced and brimming with 80’s sheen, is the John Lee Hooker record you need to hear before you die, but it was still pretty alright.
Robert Wyatt
3/5
If you’ve just thrown a house party and it’s late, but your guests are lingering, oblivious to well-established social niceties and your subtle hints, this is record you play for them.
Morrissey
1/5
Four Morrissey solo records down, zero left to go.
Finally.
Soft Machine
3/5
While I appreciate Soft Machine’s risk taking and experimentation, I’ve always found Canterbury scene prog to be a little boring and self-important.
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
Man, I can’t help but feel that this band is just a sum of its influences a lot of the time.
I guess you can say that for a lot of bands, but with LCD Soundsystem, it can be really on the nose. Take the second track here, “other voices”: there is a repetitive synth line that enters at the beginning of the song that recalls Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop” and the song’s overall Remain In Light-era Talking Heads feel is made complete by the faux-Adrian Belew loopy guitar histrionics that punctuate throughout.
Or maybe I’m just in tune with what he is doing and it’s more noticeable to me than the average listener, but I suspect most of you could probably tell that James Murphy also really likes David Bowie.
It’s a fine album, but like “Sound of Silver”, the overt homages to the bands that provided influence on LCD Soundsystem might detract from your enjoyment.
Fairport Convention
4/5
To: 1001 Albums Generator Users
Cc: grateful dead fans
Subject: A Sailor’s Life
This is how you do psychedelic folk.
Best Regards,
The Velvet Underground
5/5
A prophetic blast of feedback and grimy noise.
The Mars Volta
4/5
Shortly after this record came out, my then-girlfriend remarked that Cedric Bixler Zavala sounded like Nancy Wilson from Heart when he sings in the upper register.
It’s been 20 years and I can’t un-hear the comparison.
I like this record a lot, always have. It balances their experimental tendencies with well written songs in a way that their later records do not. After this record, their records gradually became more and more oblique, focusing on nerdy time signatures, jarring blasts of noise and labyrinthine song structures.
This record is really great, an impressive debut. Is it a 5 star record? I don’t know. I’ll make up my mind in a few hours.
But before I go, I need to offer an apology to you, readers of the site, for comments I made in my X-Ray Spex review. In it, I mocked users who complained about punk albums being “repetitive” with “songs that sound the same”, saying “maybe one day, you’ll find the prog-punk masterpiece you’re looking for.” Well, in my attempt to stick it to you, the existence of this record seems to have escaped me…
This is, in fact, the prog-punk masterpiece you are looking for.
Scritti Politti
1/5
Twinkly schlock-pop.
—————————
…but since it’s Halloween, and you’re here looking for a treat, let me offer you an alternate record you should hear before you die that isn’t on this list:
Goblin’s soundtrack to the film “Suspiria”
Brian Eno
5/5
Well, what do you know…
ANOTHER CLASSIC BRIAN ENO RECORD.
The White Stripes
2/5
This is a White Stripes record, there are others like it, but this one has marimbas.
Goldfrapp
2/5
This was an alright record, but, like, enough with the spy-movie electronica already.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
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I am once again asking you to listen to “What Time Does the Next Miracle Leave?” from Frank Sinatra’s 1979 record, Trilogy, wherein he sings about how “Uranus is Heaven”. The song is 10+ minutes long, but if you skip to the 8:30 mark, you’ll hear what you need to hear.
David Bowie
5/5
I tried to write a review, I really did - I love this record - but today ain’t the day.
The Band
3/5
Their other record on the list is better, but I think I gave it the same score.
Black Sabbath
5/5
Cocaine is responsible for some terrible things, like Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”, but it is also responsible for this masterpiece, so we’ll call it a wash.
The Sabres Of Paradise
1/5
I’m sorry, but this is probably the dumbest band name I’ve ever heard.
…and once again, I ask, “Why is Stereolab’s “Dots and Loops not on this list?”
Miles Davis
3/5
Enjoyable, but not really my speed. I’ll take “On the Corner” era Miles any day.
Serge Gainsbourg
2/5
If you think the concept of this record is crazy, just wait until you hear about the song/music video he made with his daughter in 1984.
2/5
Dressed like four foppish admirals and dosed on LSD, the Beatles take on cabaret music and jam with an orchestra.
I don’t want to hear anyone call Sonic Youth “pretentious” ever again. Nothing they ever did, except *maybe* NYC Ghosts and Flowers, even comes close to reaching the levels of ostentatiousness that are on display here. If you own and love this dumb record, your right to label anything “pretentious” is hereby revoked.
Hawkwind
5/5
I was going to say that this is one of the all time greatest live albums, but really it kind of transcends that and is easily one of the all time greatest albums, period.
It’s heavy duty, man.
Frank Zappa
4/5
🎶Jazz Fart, Jazz Fart
Everybody’s listening to the Jazz Fart🎶
The Stranglers
4/5
I can’t believe a band called “The Stranglers” would have lyrics that didn’t age well.
Meat Loaf
2/5
I had this friend growing up in the early 90’s, who really loved Meat Loaf.
…but, like, he was really into Bat Out of Hell II, specifically that song about how Meat Loaf would do any thing for love, but he wouldn’t do “that”.
We were in the same Boy Scout troop, so many, if not all, of my memories associated with Meat Loaf take place in his parent’s 1980’s Volkswagen Fox while traveling to Boy Scout meetings and camping trips and the like.
There’s nothing worse than being trapped in a car and having to listen to music you can’t stand.
Shockingly, I am not a Meat Loaf fan and I can directly attribute it to that egregious and prolonged over exposure.
I don’t like this record one bit.
It’s like if Elton John decided to go “metal” and wrote a musical about it. It’s overwrought and campy in a very unappealing way. I don’t think there’s ever been a day in my life where I could connect with music like this.
Although, I will say it’s hilarious that Phil Rizzuto did the pseudo-pornographic play by play in “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” and claims that he was “tricked” by Meat Loaf and didn’t realize the song was about sex.
So…two stars.
Syd Barrett
3/5
I kind of feel like the myth of syd barrett might outweigh the reality.
Jungle Brothers
4/5
Find yourself someone who loves you as much as Robert Dimery loves Native Tongues-era hip-hop.
1/5
In the late 90’s, attending Ozzfest was a rite of passage for a teenage metalhead. The Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne, was throwing a massive party and you were invited. If it came to town, you did everything in your power to go, because a.) it’s Ozzy Fuckin’ Osbourne and b.) it was going to be awesome.
I first went to Ozzfest in 1998 in Holmdel, NJ at what was then called the Garden State Arts Center. 25 years later, my memory of that show is fuzzy to say the least.
But, there is one performance that stands out, clear as day:
Limp Bizkit.
They had a giant dirty toilet bowl on stage that must have been 20-30 feet tall and at the start of the show, members would emerge from it and jump down on to the stage. Fred Durst even sang a few songs from the rim of the bowl.
It was ridiculous.
To this day, I’m not sure if it was the most or least self-aware performance I’ve even seen.
Funkadelic
5/5
A hill I will die on:
Funkadelic is one of the greatest American *rock* bands. Easily in the top 5, if not top 3.
Elvis Costello
2/5
It was awfully nice of Elvis Costello to have written my review for me, in the form of the chorus to track 4:
This is hell, this is hell
I am sorry to tell you
It never gets better or worse
The Strokes
3/5
I’m just going to copy and paste my review of Television’s Marquee Moon below because it relates to The Strokes (and not because I think the Strokes sound like Television - they don’t. To be honest, they sound a lot more like Guided By Voices, but you all hated Alien Lanes, so that comparison will fall on deaf ears):
“Back in early 2002, during the height of Strokes-mania in New York City, I was shopping for records in Greenwich Village after seeing a show at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre on a Saturday night.
The shop I was in - I forget the name now, sorry - was in the basement of a three story walk up and was packed to the gills with records.
On the counter by the register, the shop owner had a record on display - Television’s Marquee Moon - with a Post-It note affixed to it with these exact words scrawled on it:
“Fuck The Strokes - This is the *real* sound of New York City”
…and that was all it took to sell me on Marquee Moon.
Thank god for the curmudgeonly record store owners of the world.”
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
I don’t usually question my participation in this project or its legitimacy…actually…who am I kidding, I’ve done nothing but that over the last two years…but the realization that Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ *entire discography* has made this list has me thrown. I’d be mad about it, but in 2.5 hours, I’m on vacation for 9 days and the Dexy’s aren’t going to bring me down.
Orbital
3/5
Easily one of the better 90’s electronic records on the list and so much better than their other record on the list, Snivilisation. There’s a nice amount of variation between the songs and even when the songs are long, they don’t feel too repetitive or overstay their welcome. Most importantly, there’s no spy movie electronica to be found here.
Elastica
3/5
Going to take a detour to start this review off, but have you ever heard ”Never Say Never” by the band That Dog.? You probably haven’t and that’s ok, but you should…it’s kind of a perfect song. Sure, it’s got a distinctly 90’s sound: fuzzed out power pop replete with Cars-esque synths, but…it’s perfect and the instrumental bridge with Petra Haden’s layered violin solo is outright beautiful.
You’re welcome.
Anyway, Elastica. I remember when “Connection” was a hit back in the 90’s, but don’t really remember feeling strongly about it in either direction. It was good to me, not great, but I may not have been the target audience or especially receptive to what it was at that time.
I guess that’s the thing about “one hit wonders”, if that hit doesn’t really land with you and you don’t go out of your way to hear anything else by the band, they tend to disappear just as quickly as they came along.
Unfortunate, but that’s the reality of our situation.
This record is more aggressive and experimental than i expected. It’s a pretty solid 90’s alt rock record from start to finish, even if they do some “borrowing”.
Pixies
4/5
A lot more interesting than Doolittle, with less dated production, but still doesn’t hold a candle to the best album of 1988, Daydream Nation.
See what I did there?
Daft Punk
3/5
French Electronic Dance duo Daft Punk’s debut, Homework, is oft hailed as a fun, cool and classic EDM record by some. Others find it less interesting and overly long, with repetitive beats that might be better suited as background music.
As is often the nature of these types of discussions, the truth lies somewhere in between. Though Daft Punk would certainly hit higher highs on subsequent albums, like Discovery or Random Access Memories, I think it bears repeating that Homework is a solid record.
(There, I’ve created a review solely based off the keywords found in the reviews on this page. In fact, you could say l just remixed all of your reviews… Who’s the Daft Punk now? Huh?)
Jorge Ben Jor
5/5
I knew as soon as the phased guitar kicked in on the first track that this was going to be a great record…so, like, 4 seconds in and I was sold on this unbelievably funky record.
Lou Reed
3/5
My stereotype of a Lou Reed solo album is that they’re often long, meandering concept albums and are usually depressing.
Berlin fits that bill pretty well.
It’s ambitious, yet downtrodden and I quite like this line from the allmusic.com review:
“…while Reed had often been accused of focusing on the dark side of life, he and Ezrin approached Berlin as their opportunity to make The Most Depressing Album of All Time, and they hardly missed a trick.”
I don’t think it’s a bad record, but it’s not the most cohesive and instrumentally, it’s a little bloated, suffering from the idea that “the more instruments we put on a song, the better.”
Anyway, here’s my list of the top 5 Lou Reed songs with song titles that consist of a woman’s name followed by the word “says”:
1. Stephanie Says
2. Candy Says
3. Lisa Says
4. Caroline Says I
5. Caroline Says II
…in fact, I’m really mad about “Caroline Says II”. It’s a reworking of “Stephanie Says” and, subject matter aside, its stilted, ornate structure takes a damn near perfect song and makes it clunky.
Really disappointing, but because “Stephanie Says” wasn’t officially released until the 80’s on the “VU” album, I realize people went years without knowing it existed and that is a shame, because, frankly, it’s better than “Caroline Says II”.
Saint Etienne
3/5
I love Air and Stereolab, so this kind of worked for me, but not as well as either of those two bands. This feels a little more sterile, or calculated, and less organic, but it was still enjoyable.
Miles Davis
5/5
Bitches Brew might get more of the accolades, but for me, In A Silent Way is top.
…and by the way, should you ever find yourself about to make an absurd claim for the entire world to see, like this one…
“I genuinely reckon that if I knew how to technically play a trumpet then I could do what Miles does here”
…do yourself a favor, take Miles Davis’ advice and find a way to express that “in a silent way”.
Garbage
3/5
The wheels had started coming off the early 90’s alt-rock insurgency by 1995. By then, the music industry had well and truly figured out how to turn the sounds of the American underground into a formulaic and marketable product.
So it should come as no surprise that a band helmed by Butch Vig, the producer of some of the early 90’s biggest and biggest sounding alt-rock records (Nevermind, Siamese Dream, Sonic Youth’s “Dirty”), would be able to put together a record that would end up being a well executed, shiny, synthetic hit.
It’s a great sounding record, with a couple extremely popular hits, but aside from those hits, Garbage’s debut might make you wonder: if this wasn’t Butch Vig’s band, would they have been able to obtain the same level success?
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Maybe it’s a short span of attention or undiagnosed ADHD, but “story” songs have never really intrigued me much. In general, I’ve always been more interested in music rather than lyrics.
So that’s what I’m connecting with here, primarily.
I know, I know…I’m missing the point of this record.
Sorry, I can’t help it. This is a great record - excellent, even - but I think I’ve figured out why I struggle with Nick Cave’s music: Lyrics just aren’t the most important thing to me and his music is usually very driven by narrative.
So it goes.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
A lot of this is pretty cheesy, but it really fucking works and I’m not mad about it at all.
In fact, let me leave you with this scalding hot take:
There’s maybe one degree of stylistic separation between this record and the Post-Lonerism Tame Impala records.
Go ahead, grab yer pitchforks.
Beastie Boys
5/5
Man…what the fuck happened, America?
It used to feel like anything was possible here, that there were no limitations, no idea that couldn’t be made to work…or, at least, it was worth trying and finding out if it could work. We were creative and forward thinking, pushing boundaries in search for something new and unique…something better.
I don’t really think that’s a thing anymore.
Forget trying for something better: it’s a fight just to keep what we have and if you have an idea or a lifestyle that doesn’t comport with the general consensus of “normal”, you’re going to have to fight even harder.
It’s a sad state of affairs and it fucking weighs me down - sometimes to the point where I’m writing about it instead of talking about a kickass record; a record that blew up in real time when I was an impressionable teenager and helped foster the idea that anything was possible and that the “boundaries”, at least when it came to music or art, didn’t matter.
So, it’s weird to hear this record now and think about the things that used to be, in contrast with the things that are now.
It feels like wasted potential.
Not on the part of the of the Beastie Boys, they’re great and this record is a sprawling manifestation of everything they had done up to the point of its release.
It’s on us, that wasted potential. We’re better than what we currently are and I don’t know if anyone knows how to fix that. I certainly don’t know how and I’ve played my part in taking that potential for granted, as well.
…or maybe we were always exactly what we’ve become and I’m naive for thinking otherwise all these years.
Like I said, it weighs on me.
Dr. Dre
4/5
There’s no denying this is a great record, but, like, pretty much anyone who was ever in Parliament-Funkadelic should have become filthy, stinking rich based solely off of the crazy amount of samples and interpolations of their music that came out during the gangsta rap era.
(Not singling out Dr. Dre, here. It was everywhere.)
The Shamen
1/5
At 880 albums in, I’m starting to feel like I’ve heard every British electronic record that was released in the 90’s.
…and now they’ve all coalesced into a megalithic mash of synthetics and breathy vocals that haunts my waking hours.
Pere Ubu
4/5
Reading the reviews here, you’d think this was a Merzbow record or something.
Sure, The Modern Dance is experimental and discordant art-punk, but it’s not so far removed from traditional rock music that you’re listening to blaring sheets of pink and white noise.
It’s not a record I’ll find myself searching out often, but I’ll tell you this much: Albums like this one continue to be a welcome reprieve from the dozens of 90’s Britpop records on the list that all sound exactly the same.
At least The Modern Dance offers a sense of unpredictability and individuality. That’s more than can be said for *a lot* of the records on the list.
Fugees
4/5
Further proof that you should not underestimate New Jersey.
Talk all the shit you want about us, we’ve heard it all before…chances are we’re too busy making something incredible to care what you think.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Very mellow and relaxing. I liked The Red Headed Stranger better, though.
Deep Purple
3/5
Smoke on the Water might be the dumbest riff of all time.
Highway Star, though? That song kicks ass.
The Charlatans
2/5
OH GOOD MORE BRITPOP
Talk Talk
3/5
Fun Fact: They’re called Talk Talk because instead of being succinct, their songs blather on and on.
The Specials
3/5
The New Jersey underground scene in the late 90’s was a crazy melange of punk, hardcore and ska and it wasn’t uncommon that you’d go to show at your local VFW hall or whatever and see a show that featured a bunch of bands playing any one of those styles played in one night. Hell, you’d probably end up seeing a band that combined two or more of those styles.
One of our local places to see punk/hardcore/ska shows was a Chinese buffet, the King Buffet. Once a month on a Friday night, the King Buffett would open its doors to the punks of Hunterdon County, NJ for 3 or 4 hours, charging $5 bucks entry and local bands would play in a make shift stage area in the restaurant. It was really just a large open area not far from the buffet servery that had the tables cleared out for the night. It couldn’t have been more than 25 feet wide by 50 or 60 feet long, but it was the place to be in our podunk county on those Friday nights.
You’d see your friends there and you would go and see your friends bands playing there, too. Everyone got along and I don’t think I ever witnessed a fight or anything too untoward go down there.* I mean, there would be teenagers smoking cigarettes in the parking lot off to the side of there restaurant and there were definitely kids who showed up stoned or maybe a little drunk, but to my knowledge there were never any serious incidents or injuries that would have jeopardized the shows from happening.**
I’m not sure what it took for Richie, the guy who organized the whole thing, to convince the owner of the King Buffet that he should host punk and hardcore shows at his restaurant, but I’m willing to bet he pulled in some decent extra income on those nights - the place was always packed, probably beyond official capacity for the restaurant.
Just think about your local Chinese buffet and then picture people skanking or a mosh pit going on in the middle of the dining area. These shows were a ton of fun, but I’m still shocked, 25 years later, that a restaurant owner was willing to take on the kind of insurance risk that these shows presented. God bless him, though, he did.
My band played there a few times, but one show in particular stands out. We were a hardcore band, or maybe “metalcore” would be a better descriptor. There were four bands scheduled to play that night. We were playing third and the fourth band, Stick Figure Suicide, was slated to play some dates on the Warped Tour later that summer. I don’t think it was ever discussed within our band, but I think subconsciously we were primed to show them up. Not because we had any beef with them or anything like that, but more like “Oh, you’re going to be playing on the Warped Tour? Well, we should be the ones playing on the Warped Tour and we’re going to prove it tonight.”
It was the kind of hubris that only a bunch of 18 year olds with a chip on their shoulders could muster. In truth, we probably took that approach to any show we played, but I think there was a little more of it that evening.
It was a hot summer night and the buffet was packed. There was a kid who, for some reason, brought one of those giant stuffed animals that you win at the boardwalk or at a carnival if you can pop three balloons with a dart. It was like three feet tall and I think it was a monkey or gorilla, but it might have been a bear. The intent, I think, was have it in the pit as a joke or for humorous photos or something.
When we played our show, the audience was ready for us, our past performances there might have given us a reputation. Our shows got wild, and we did get kicked off stage during our high school’s Battle of the Bands for starting a mosh pit once, but they were never actually out of control and the pits were usually pretty lively.
We played with a focused intensity that night and crowd responded in kind: the undulations of the pit would frequently push people into the makeshift barrier of chairs in the front of the stage. Towards the end of our set, the aforementioned stuffed monkey/gorilla/bear/whatever did indeed make it into the pit. It was promptly torn to shreds and its stuffing was strewn about, littering the floor of the buffet. After we finished our set and moved our gear off the stage, I helped clean up the detritus from the stuffed animal while Stick Figure Suicide set up for their show.
By the time they started playing a few minutes later, the buffet had cleared out significantly from the 120 or so people who had attended, to the point where I was standing in the middle of the dining room/pit area holding a garbage bag full of stuffed animal guts and the band was pretty much fully visible to me with maybe only 20 people in front of them on the floor watching.
I kind of felt a little bad for them in the moment, they were supposed to be the headliners and we straight up stole that show from them. However, they did get to play the Warped Tour and we never did.
Now, I realize this somewhat self-congratulatory story has nothing to do with The Specials, but I associate their music with shows in that place and the people I remember from those days. They were sort of a backing soundtrack to a lot of those shows and friendships. While ska was never really for me, that is where this record took me today.
*The King Buffet would stop hosting shows shortly after the events told here. They unknowingly sold alcohol to a minor with a fake ID, which may or may not have been a setup by the local police department in order to put a stop to the shows - I wouldn’t have put it past them.
**A friend of mine fell off a chair while filming the show I describe here and broke his arm. He was quickly taken to the hospital by another friend of ours and no emergency services were called, as that would have surely put an end to punk rock shows at the King Buffet.
Eminem
1/5
I’ve compiled a list of ALF’s favorite bands based on references made in the show:
The Archies, The Partridge Family, The Chipmunks, The Beach Boys, Bob Seger, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, ZZ Top, and Stevie Wonder.
Neil Young
5/5
If you think that a “perfect record” has to be neatly played and produced with a nice coat of studio sheen, look elsewhere.
Tonight’s the Night is raw and real. It’s shambolic and sad. It’s a document of loss and heartache. It’s not a product that was manufactured in studio with the intent of moving the maximum amount of units. It comes from a very real place and Neil Young was kind enough to share that with us.
*That* is what makes Neil Young great. It’s why he has so many records on this list. He’s authentic and lays it all on the line - the good, the bad, the ugly. In the face of massive success, he made a left turn and forged his own path. He could have just pumped out record after record that sounded like “Harvest” and slowly faded into semi-obscurity like his cohorts in CSNY or become another James Taylor. Instead, he rejected what was expected of him at that juncture in his career and did what he wanted.
In this house, Neil Young is a hero…End of story.
Nine Inch Nails
4/5
Listening to this record in 2024, I’m struck by the thought that I may have been dealing with some kind of undiagnosed depression as a 13 year old in 1994.
I was obsessed with this back then.
Or maybe it was just that I had never heard anything else like it and I was just the right age to tune into its bleak and nihilistic aggression.
Either way, the first half of The Downward Spiral is decidedly stronger than the back half and I recall listening to those first 6 or 7 songs a lot back then and skipping around songs at the end of this album.
4 stars because of nostalgia, but this record is probably a little longer than it really needs to be - It kind of starts grating on you after a while.
fIREHOSE
4/5
From the artwork, to the production and the guitar/bass/drums configuration of the band fROMOHIO is a simple, but extremely effective record. By keeping those things simple, fIREHOSE is able to spotlight the complexities in their songwriting without their arrangements coming off as too “showy” or self-centered.
This a great, stripped back rock record and the Watt-Hurley rhythm section is one of the best to ever do it.
fOURSTARS.
Paul McCartney
3/5
I had a revelation about the Beatles when I read the top rated review for this record here.
Well, not a revelation, exactly. I’ve had this thought before, but I was reminded of it again today:
Beatles fans have made it so I can’t stand the Beatles in almost any capacity.
This is what some of you sound like:
“I love the Beatles. Everything they did was important, they’re beyond reproach. In fact, on this record, Paul McCartney invented indie rock”
I’m so tired of the bloviating about this band and their members that I have begun to dislike almost everything about them.
Congratulations, Beatles fans: You did it!
Here’s a good piece of advice we can all live by:
NO GOLDEN CALVES
No one is beyond criticism, people are fallible.
..including the Beatles.
Suede
3/5
I’m at a crossroads on this one…
Suede is clearly a very talented band and they can actually rock, which is more than can be said for many of their compatriots in the British rock scene of their era.
On the other hand, they are very clearly full of themselves and the subject matter of some of their songs is hokey at best.
I mean…they’re singing about astrological signs at one point on this record. Come on.
The Slits
4/5
I’m on vacation from work, so I’ll be uncharacteristically brief:
This is very good.
Pulp
3/5
THIS IS KIND OF TEDIOUS
De La Soul
5/5
Easily one of the best hip-hop albums of all time, 3 Feet High and Rising also belongs in the pantheon of the greatest sample based albums of all time alongside The Beastie Boys’ “Paul’s Boutique”, DJ Shadow’s “Entroducing” and The Avalanches’ “Since I Left You.” This is a master class, a tour de force…5 stars aren’t enough.
Joan Armatrading
3/5
Dated in spots and a little middle of the road, but overall an enjoyable, funky folk-ish record.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Kraftwerk
5/5
Daft Punk, eat your heart out.
Eagles
2/5
Not quite as lame as Hotel California, but the Eagles might be the poster child for inoffensive middle-of-the-road blandness. Even when they try and amp up the proceedings by adding distorted guitars or a “heavy” riff it just feels safe and falls flat.
They’re just not a very exciting band.
Iron Maiden
3/5
I’m sorry, but this band was cooler without Bruce Dickinson.
Blood, Sweat & Tears
3/5
One of those records that has songs you know, but never knew who they were by.
Also, I never knew that ODB sampled “You Made Me So Very Happy” for “I Want P****” from his second album.
American Music Club
2/5
I think there are better, similar 80’s indie records that could’ve taken this spot on the list.
Example: The Feelies’ “The Good Earth”
“California” isn’t a bad record, but, for me, it moves at a lethargic pace and kind of feels subdued just for the sake of being subdued.
Go listen to The Feelies and report back, I guarantee you’ll have more fun with that one.
CHIC
3/5
I had to have a tooth extracted today, it sucked, but this was a fun soundtrack that bookended that experience.
Boards of Canada
4/5
What’s the over/under on how many times Radiohead listened to this record whilst in studio for Kid A? Gotta be at least 25, right? Nah, that seems low, let’s go with 40.
This is the influential one and it’s a pretty great record, but I think Tomorrow’s Harvest is my favorite of theirs - it’s a little more engaging to me.
End of the day, I like this band, but I don’t love ‘em…know what I mean?
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
2/5
I’d call this Cock Rock, but that seems disrespectful to the other twenty-seven cocks that made an appearance in “Gang Bang”.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
3/5
Rod Stewart
2/5
At this point, I think I’ve heard more Rod Stewart albums than Rod Stewart has.
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
I give Deadheads shit because, for a lot of them, “all roads lead to the Grateful Dead”, so I realize what I’m about to type might put me in a similar category, but…
Musically and melodically, this reminds me of Guided By Voices, particularly in their latter-day configuration. It’s probably the shared Bowie influence, but Bob Pollard does love his post-punk, so I think the comparison tracks.
Anyway, Talk Talk Talk is a solid post-punk record and a lot better than I was expecting, given how maudlin some of the other British post-punk records on the list have been.
Kings of Leon
1/5
Top 5 recurring characters on Late Night with Conan O’Brien:
Number 5: FedEx Pope
Number 4: Pimpbot 5000
Number 3: Andy’s Little Sister
Number 2: The Masturbating Bear
Number 1: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
Hey kids, gonna let you in on a little secret…
You too can buy a Fender Jazzmaster, a fuzz pedal, a loop pedal and rail on the tremolo all day.
I’m kidding, but only by half.
I’m actually surprised by how much this kind of reminds me of a Stereolab album in a few places.
Better than I expected, tbh, but I’m not sure why
My Bloody Valentine records always seem to give me a headache.
Simple Minds
2/5
Right off the bat, without hearing a note and only seeing the cover, my initial thought is “fuck this band”. If you’re going to put out an album and its cover looks exactly like the hymnal my church used in the 80’s, I’ve got no interest in your music.
Sorry, that’s closed (and probably simple) minded…I know. They’re trying to be edgy and subversive is my guess before hearing any of this record. But even then, “ooh…how subversive. You’re making your (what I’m assuming before hearing the record) synth pop edgy by disguising it as Christian music. Stop the presses, we got some real provocateurs here!”
Either that or the implication is that listening to this record is akin to a religious experience.
Ok, now I’m going to listen to this record and we’ll see how far off base I am…
Well, after listening, I don’t know exactly what the implication of the cover is supposed to be, but I think it’s closer to the latter (that this record should be taken very seriously, like a religious text).
Anyway, it was definitely synth pop, it definitely took itself too seriously and it definitely had an album cover that reminded me of going to Sunday school - which I didn’t ask for or need in my life.
Sepultura
2/5
A ton of great riffs, but maybe a little light on song structure.
Yes
4/5
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think The Yes Album is the first Prog Rock album that actually sounded fun, rather than like some jazzy byproduct created by dudes who like to smell their own farts.
No doubt about it, Yes would end up in their own flatulence huffing phase a few years down the road from this, but they at least managed to crank out a few genuinely exciting and fun records before they crawled so far up their own ass that Rick Wakeman took to having Chinese food delivered to him in the middle of their sets on the Tales of Topographic Oceans tour.
Elliott Smith
4/5
As depressing as Elliot Smith’s music can be, I’m finding it to be a very effective salve for the anxiety I’ve been dealing with recently.
Youssou N'Dour
4/5
Man, you see “1984” and “world music” and you’re instantly prepared for something with absolutely horrible, dated production.
Well, I was wrong, and I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong.
The songs aren’t flashy, but when they settle into a groove and just build upon that groove, expanding it outwards, it’s really enjoyable.
I quite like this, a very pleasant surprise.
Blue Cheer
4/5
Don’t you ever just want to throw caution to the wind, have fun and make some goddamn noise?
Apparently not, judging by the reviews here.
It’s time to lighten up, kids…
Bow down unto the church of acid rock.
Otis Redding
4/5
It’s been quiet on the “1001 Albums Generator is Sentient” front for me for a while, but today, the generator dealt me this doozy, reinforcing my belief that the generator has a grand design for us all:
Yesterday, I was assigned Blue Cheer’s “Vincebus Eruptum” and today this record was assigned.
The connection?
Both have a cover of BB King’s “Rock Me Baby”.
Anyway.
Is it even possible to hate Otis Redding’s music? It kind of feels like that should be a metaphysical impossibility.
Le Tigre
4/5
This record deserves high marks for a multitude of reasons, but chief among them is this line, which, over the past 25 years, has aged like the finest of wines:
“Oh fuck
Giuliani
He's such
A fucking jerk”
Elvis Costello
3/5
I’m going start off by saying something nice about Elvis Costello, because in my previous reviews I’ve refered to him as “the pied piper of shitty records” and made allusion to hoping that he gets mauled by a lion. I think it’s only fair to pay him a compliment, because, honestly…those were kind of shitty things to say about a guy whose only real crime is writing some not-so-hot songs.
So, without further adieu, a compliment for Elvis Costello:
Elvis Costello plays a Fender Jazzmaster and I think that makes him pretty cool.
Now, with that out of the way, I’ve got some shitty things to say about Elvis Costello.
Just kidding.
For me, Elvis Costello is an artist whose work became more and more conceited as his career went on. In other words, he started off pretty strong and it all went downhill from there.
“My Aim is True” is a solid slab of power pop. It doesn’t get bogged down in self-importance or have lofty ambitions. It’s just a straight forward rock record: concise and with a set of songs that are all pretty good. His later albums would become a little too big for their britches, if you will, but here, he is in fine form.
Fever Ray
2/5
David Lynch passed away today and you expect me to write a review?
Well, at least this record would kind of fit the spirit of his work: it’s dark and moody and maybe a little psychedelic/dreamlike. Judging by the music that appeared in his later films and Twin Peaks: The Return, it might be safe to say he might have liked it.
For me, though…It’s got a terrible album cover though and doesn’t feel very far removed from a lot of the indie-electronica (Indie-tronica? Is that a thing? probably) of its time…at least not enough to warrant inclusion on a list of albums to hear before you die.
Finally, why does it sound like the synth in the first track is saying “HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO” over and over? I swear, listen to that first track again:
HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Maybe this is a hot take or whatever, but I’ve got almost no interest in the first two Zeppelin records. They’re ok records (even if the Zeppos did some “borrowing”), but I just never really found them that interesting as a band until Led Zeppelin III. From there, up through to Presence, is where I think they were the most interesting.
Great album cover, though.
Sonic Youth
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die
Chapter 9
Does “Fuck You” Sound Simple Enough?:
Sonic Youth’s “Daydream Nation”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
A corrupt Republican presidential administration, lead by a B-List celebrity and flanked by the religious right takes power with the aim of “Making America Great Again”.
What?
No, not him. I’m talking about Ronald Reagan.
(Seriously, the whole MAGA thing was originally a Reagan Campaign slogan in 1980. You can’t say the right hates the environment…they are clearly into recycling.)
People like to talk about the 1980’s as though it was a perpetual good time with neon excess and everyone living without a care in the world. In some respects that might be true, but it also ignores how much of the 1980’s set the stage for the current situation we find ourselves living here in America.
With Trickle Down Economics and unfettered capitalism, shady deals with dictators for personal gain, religious influence in law making and a disdain for science and intellect…We are still living in that world and, in two days time, it’s likely going to be pushed into overdrive.
Emerging from Lower Manhattan’s No Wave scene in the early 80’s, Sonic Youth represented an almost wholesale rejection of modern musical convention. With their guitars set in tunings of their own design, drum sticks under their strings, fuzz pedals working overtime and a healthy appreciation for the avant garde, they were hell bent on tearing down convention, picking up the pieces and rebuilding it in their own image.
Daydream Nation, ultimately, is where Sonic Youth’s efforts to destroy and rebuild convention fully coalesced for the first time. Though they had made excellent records previously, like 1987’s “Sister”, Daydream Nation should be considered their Mission Statement: a full and total encapsulation of what Sonic Youth “is”.
It also serves as document of the waning years of Reaganism in the United States and the counterculture it bred. It was a counterculture founded with a spirit of self-sufficiency, that rejected reliance on corporations and prized artistic freedom and expression. Awash with extended soundscapes and otherworldly guitar noise, Daydream Nation is a singular, untamed proclamation of the arrival American underground.
Nowhere is the rejection of Reaganism’s embrace of unimpeded capitalism more explicitly evident on Daydream Nation than it is in Kim Gordon’s opening lines of “The Sprawl”:
“Does this sound simple?
Fuck you.
Are you for sale?
Does fuck you sound simple enough?”
It is a pretty effective message to live your life by: Your values and sense of self should not carry a price tag.
Musically, Daydream Nation couldn’t be more out of step with the popular music of its time. It is unpolished, challenging, unorthodox and uncompromising. As a result, it is truly an alternative to the status quo and it may be worth keeping this record in mind as we navigate the next few years, which are sure to be rife with hyper-capitalism and a society that increasingly demands compliance.
Daydream Nation is the sound of freedom: Freedom from conformity, freedom from outdated norms and ideas…It is the freedom to do whatever you please.
Joy Division
2/5
As someone who deals with depression, I’m curious: do people who enjoy this and are unaffected by depression listen to music like this as a way to “see how the other half lives”, so to speak?
Because, I listen to music to escape, I don’t want spend anymore time in the pit of despair than I have to and I try to go out of my way to avoid putting on something that is going to land me back in there.
Not that I’m sitting at home listening to Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine” on repeat, but like, I try to avoid things I know are going to make me feel like shit.
No offense intended, I am genuinely curious.
With that out of the way, this is another band that, on paper, I should probably like. The krautrock influence is readily apparent here and I love that type of music, but with Joy Division, it comes off a bit like a photocopy of a photocopy: a sort of faded and blurry replication, devoid of the energy and spirit of the original.
Somehow, there is a world of difference between the repetition of Can or Neu! and the repetition of Joy Division and I’m not really able to articulate what makes the former so much more interesting than the latter.
Maybe it’s the lyrical content or the production.
I don’t know.
It’s just not very engaging to me.
It’s just kind of there.
Actually, you know what I think it is?
They’re taking music that was meant to be otherworldly and are bringing it down to Earth. Krautrock was meant to be an escape, a way to move forward from the horrors of Germany’s then-recent past. It’s why they called it Kosmische (Cosmic) music, it was about moving forward and transcending.
Joy Division, as harsh as this might sound, seemed content to wallow.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
In retrospect, it would have been pretty funny if I had rated the Led Zeppelin records based off the order they were released:
Led Zeppelin I - 1 star
Led Zeppelin II - 2 stars
Led Zeppelin III - 3 Stars
Led Zeppelin IV - 4 Stars
…but that presents a problem:
Physical Graffiti is on the list, but was their 6th album. Their fifth album, Houses of the Holy, isn’t on the list, there are only 5 stars I can give and I honestly don’t think Physical Graffiti is a five star record - it’s too long and it’s kind of a mess.
Oh, well. It’s a half baked idea and it would have only really been funny to me.
So Led Zeppelin II, what a classic.
…and by “classic”, I mean “album that’s chock full of thinly veiled innuendos, borrowed blues and an over reliance on the word ‘baby’.”
Also, there’s a drum solo.
I mean, seriously, if you banned Robert Plant from using the words ‘baby’ or ‘lady’ or ‘woman’ or ‘girl’ or ‘lovin’, these first two Led Zeppelin records would contain about 12 minutes of actual lyrics spread across 80 minutes.
…and how can I forget the audio recreation of an orgasm in the middle of “Whole Lotta Love”.
Whether you want to admit it or not, this band is the genesis of all that cheesy hair metal and cock rock that ran rampant in the 1980’s. That’s an indisputable fact and it’s not their fault that other people took what they did and turned it into something even more terrible, but their complicity cannot be denied.
In fact, the best song on this record is the one that’s about The Lord of the Rings, even if it’s also complimented by an ungodly overuse of the word “baby”.
That a song about Lord of the Rings is my favorite track on this record should be viewed as a condemnation of this record as a whole. I typically cannot stand fantasy stuff like Lord of The Rings or Game of Thrones or anything with orcs and elves or goblins and dragons.
So yeah, fuck you Led Zeppelin. You’re awful, but I also kind of like your music.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
So “Lady Jane” is the song that Neil Young references is “Borrowed Tune” from Tonight’s The Night (“I'm singin' this borrowed tune I took from The Rolling Stones”), good to know.
Otherwise, the songs you know from the radio or Wes Anderson films are the clear highlights here and a lot of the songs that aren’t well known are kind of forgettable.
Not bad, just forgettable.
A 3 star record if there ever was one: a few hits, some middling tracks. It’s fine.
Roxy Music
5/5
Another classic album featuring Brian Eno, but you can kind of tell he was heading towards another plane of sonic existence than the one Roxy Music was occupying and would soon leave the band. Some of the experiments and production treatments here are out of this world, especially when contrasted with the types of songs they are in, but somehow it all works together pretty perfectly.
Interestingly, you can hear a lot of hallmarks of Eno’s later production work on the songs here. The layered and looped guitars that you know from an album like Bowie’s “Heroes” or the phased synths of his ambient experimentations are in no short supply here.
…and man, does he give that VCS3 synth of his a workout on “Editions of You”. What a face-melter.
Sorry to make this all about Brian Eno, I’ve got a problem. The whole band is great here and there are few, if any, real missteps. It’s just that it is yet another classic record that Brian Eno was involved with and at some point, you can’t deny that this guy is a genius and has the magic touch. Again, no disrespect to the rest of Roxy Music or any intent to minimize their efforts, but I think it’s the sonic makeup and atmospherics of this record that really bring it to life and…well…that’s Eno.
ZZ Top
3/5
This version of ZZ Top is one hundred thousand times better than the version of ZZ Top that put out Eliminator.
It’s been scientifically proven.
Jane's Addiction
3/5
I’ve probably let my opinion of the two high profile members of this band cloud my judgement of their music.
Sure, Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro are obnoxious as fuck, but they turned in a pretty decent album here, even if I think the alternative LA bands of the late 80’s/early 90’s were by and large overrated (Redd Kross being an obvious exception, they’re fucking great). The songs here have a lot going on, but they’re not overly busy and they’re keeping things in high gear.
Oh, wait…”Been Caught Stealing” just came on. I forgot how much I dislike that song.
They’ve slowed down the pace a bit after “Stealing” and I’m feeling bored and more inclined to find fault in this record, especially seeing that “Three Days” is 10 minutes long.
I get it…you’re Jane’s Addiction, you’re cool and adventurous and you do heroin and you’re from LA…but, like, I can’t help but feel that this is just a really ornate Hair Metal album in a lot of spots.
Also, why do all of the characters on this album cover look like Perry Farrell?
It’s weird.
Bob Dylan
3/5
Right off the bat, I hope to never hear “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” ever again.
It’s the theme song of every obnoxious pothead you’ve ever met. They’ve got at least one playlist with this one on it and it’s guaranteed that within 10 minutes of hearing this song, there’s going to be some obnoxious Grateful Dead bullshit that comes on.
You’ve probably encountered the type, they think it’s clever to put on a song about getting stoned while getting stoned, because, well, their entire personality revolves around the fact that they like to do drugs.
I have a lot to say about that personality type, but I’ll save it for another day/platform.
As I’ve said before, the smartest thing Bob Dylan ever did was going electric. Having the constraint of being backed by a band reined him in by providing structure and adding dynamic flourishes to his songs, which had previously been more amorphous, steam of conscious acoustic affairs. Having a backing band suits his music better than solo acoustic does, in my opinion.
I know Pete Seeger and his fireman’s axe would disagree, but this version of Dylan is much more interesting than acoustic Dylan, at least for my money.
Man, I’m all over the place on this review. It’s not my best work.
I’m going to circle back to my original thought, because there was something there…
What it really boils down to is that I think the type of people I know that love Bob Dylan have put me off to his music in some ways.
It’s not fair, but it’s the truth.
Is he talented? Without a doubt. I actually like some of his music, but I just don’t understand what it is about him that makes some people obsessed with everything he ever did, to the point where their love of Bob Dylan is a major part of their persona.
I guess a Bob Dylan fan might feel the same way about me and my love of Damo Suzuki-era Can, but I’m not out there trying to emulate Damo Suzuki in the same way that some Dylan fans try to emulate Bob Dylan.
I guess there are far worse people whose lives they could be emulating and who am to judge, right?
Well, I kind of tied that one up nicely in the end.
Still not my best work, but it’s hard for me to get really invested in Bob Dylan.
Also, how is this record not over yet? I’ve been at this dumb review for an hour and Dylan’s still going on. Oof, I guess that’s another strike against Dylan in my book.
Antony and the Johnsons
2/5
It’s been removed from subsequent editions of the book, so I’m not feeling too bad about bailing on this record early.
It’s a lot. The voice, the melodrama, the threadbare arrangements…It’s a lot to take in, but it’s certainly original and I can’t fault it for that.
T. Rex
4/5
Gonna be honest, David Bowie kind of scratches the itch I’ve got for 70’s glam a little better than T-Rex.
(Not sure I like that metaphor - makes it sound like I picked up some kind of rash from Noddy Holder in 1971).
It’s probably because I heard Bowie first. Had I heard this T-Rex record first, I may feel differently, who knows.
All that said, and thanks for bearing with me with me on that Slade reference, I really enjoy this record. It’s great from start to finish, not a bad song to be found. Even more impressive is that I don’t mind listening to the well known songs, even though I’ve heard them countless times - the mark of a truly great record.
(Oh, maybe I should have said “the Marc of a great record”…
No?
Yeah, you’re right…glam rock puns have a very small audience that they might land with, even if I think they’re…“Sweet”.
Damn it, man…You can’t help yourself can you?)
The Rolling Stones
4/5
I’d have to agree that this is probably the best Rolling Stones record.
…and it’s not just because there’s a song called “Turd on the Run” on it, I swear.
Spiritualized
3/5
I always enjoy listening to Spiritualized records.
The problem is, I’ve never really had the urge to actually seek them out and listen to them on a regular basis.
Is there a name for that? They’re like my favorite band that I have no interest in listening to.
Sonic Youth
5/5
You know, it bothers me that people use “art” as a pejorative when it comes to rock/popular music.
You’ve seen it on this site, I’m sure. “Pretentious” or “arty” get thrown around a lot for records like this one.
Why exactly is it a bad thing for a band to treat something that they have created as a work of art or feel like it is important?
Surely, you might do the same with something you’ve created?
…and why is it that you typically only see “art” used as a negative when the work in question is outside of generally accepted norms or “abstract”.
The Beatles are considered the among the greatest artists in all of music, while Sonic Youth, as artists, are “pretentious”….but if they both draw influence from Karlheinz Stockhausen, for example, doesn’t the distinction between the two become hazy?
Is it because one doesn’t sound “pretty” or isn’t “constructed” enough? Does a rejection of tradition in favor of exploration and invention make something “pretentious”? I honestly would like to know, because that word gets thrown around so much and it’s usually presented without any qualifiers…
I get it, art can have a high barrier for entry, it sometimes requires previous knowledge or points of reference in order to consume it. It can be challenging or jarring and might not be easily accessible at first listen or glance.
Luckily for all of us, the barrier for entry to knowledge is at an all time low for humanity. With the tap of a few buttons we can access the entirety of recorded human history. It requires initiative and a desire to better understand the world around you, but it’s there, free for the taking.
As an example, you can make a connection between Sonic Youth and Steve Reich based off of the opening of “Shadow of a Doubt”. I mean, I didn’t know it the first time i heard it years ago, but as I delved deeper into Sonic Youth and some of their influences, that connection became apparent.
For me, it’s pretty easy to appreciate how a band could take minimalism, which is considered a very academic form of music, and turn it into something that is in line with rock music. In fact, that seems like the opposite of pretension: taking a form of music that is seen as haughty or scholastic and filtering it through a more mainstream, accessible medium like rock.
I’m not saying you need to do your homework and then you’ll get Sonic Youth. If you don’t like them, it’s fine - I don’t expect to change any minds, especially not by making comparisons to Reich and Stockhausen. I’m just saying that it wouldn’t hurt if we were all a little more curious about the world around us, rather than being instantly put off by things we might not understand.
…and that concludes my most pretentious review to date.
The Replacements
4/5
The “Let It Be” that matters.
Beastie Boys
3/5
Putting aside the fact that the most annoying people you know have adopted “Fight for Your Right” as a mantra (looking at you, Travis Kelce), Licensed to Ill still stands up as a pretty great record. Sure, its production and some of the subject matter might be dated, but overall, it’s hard not to have a good time listening to this record.
The Beasties would go on to put out better records, with more expansive sounds and intricate production, but their debut is no slouch, even if a lot of the tracks rely on the same tricks (classic rock guitar/samples, bombastic drum machines) to get their point across.
Jane's Addiction
2/5
Have I mentioned that I hate drums drenched in reverb?
Yeah?
Ok.
Well then.
Joy of joys, it’s another Jane’s Addiction record. This one is decidedly more 80’s sounding than its follow up.
Also not a a fan of the distorted guitar tone here, at least on the rhythm guitar, it lacks definition and it’s a little too thin and trebly for my taste. Or, maybe it’s because the reverb drenched drums are crowding the stereo field. Sounds like they recorded the drums in a cave or a silo or something.
Anyway, like I said last time, these guys just kind of sound like a fancy (read: experimental) hair metal band.
It’s worth noting that I’m in my forties, so, theoretically, I should have some type of reverence for these guys.
Not so.
I find them kind of a snooze and bordering on annoying, to be honest.
Also, let’s just get this out of the way:
Funk Metal is fucking lame.
Funkadelic is probably the only band who ever made interesting heavy, distorted funk music.
(Yes, I’m including Primus/the Red Hot Chili Peppers/Faith No More/Fishbone, etc in my assessment.)
Without fail, it sounds really fucking dumb.
While I’m serving up hot takes:
“Jane Says” is just the riff from “Over the Hills and Far Away” by Led Zeppelin repurposed.
I don’t know why I’m so much more critical of this record than I was with Ritual de lo Habitual. I must have been feeling charitable 8 days ago. I usually try to give a little leeway for bands who are “influential”, but I’m having a a hard time seeing what influence Jane’s Addiction had on music I like.
Best I can say is that I appreciate Perry Farrell for starting Lollapalooza, which was cool in the early 90’s, but is a whole lot less interesting today…
…kind of like the music of Jane’s Addiction.
Missy Elliott
2/5
There’s a line in the intro of this record, where Missy Elliot makes reference to Donald Trump not arguing with Bill Gates, because he has better things to do and they both have money.
That first half kind of aged like milk. Donald Trump in 2025 is probably the most argumentative person on the planet. That motherfucker does nothing but pick fights (I write this as he is starting a trade war with our two nearest allies and potentially the entire content of Europe).
On the other hand, I don’t think he’s started shit with Bill Gates in the intervening years, but I may be wrong - Twitter never forgets and there is a tweet for everything, after all. In fact, given our current accelerated slide towards fascist technocracy, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Gates and Trump were in lock-step agreement these days.
Reminds me of a line from a song by Daniel Romano’s Outfit that has been reverberating in my grey matter lately:
“No one can remember, how can we forget
The rulers of the earth were never our friends”
So yeah, Bill Gates and Trump probably aren’t arguing, but that’s because they’re on the same team. It’s a team that we’re not part of, and never will be, but we still have to abide by their whims.
That message from Daniel Romano is a message that will never get to the people who actually need to hear it: those who say that no politician should be trusted, but put their trust and unending loyalty in a billionaire who is notorious for stiffing his workers, a man who couldn’t give less of shit about their survival - as evidenced by his rollbacks of price caps on drugs like insulin or plans to privatize social security and defund Medicare…
Fuck me, why am I looking for socioeconomic nuance in a pop record? They’re not meant to solve problems, they’re meant to distract you from them.
Kendrick Lamar
3/5
I’m glad this site is anonymous because I like this record better than To Pimp A Butterfly.
Turbonegro
4/5
Gonna tell my kids this is “Rumours”.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
5/5
There are people who say that Creedence Clearwater Revival is the West Coast Velvet Underground.
…and if you listen to “Ramble Tamble” from about 3:05 to 5:32, it’s kind of hard to argue with that assessment.
The drone is real on that one.
I’m not sure that I totally agree with the comparison, but Creedence and The Velvet Underground are probably the two best American bands of their era.
I’m not sure what else to say…very few bands have a run as consistent as CCR did from 1968-1970 (during which they put out *six* albums). Cosmo’s Factory might be their best, but they were so consistent that “best” could easily apply to 3 or 4 of those records.
Dinosaur Jr.
5/5
I might need to reevaluate some things…
I always preferred I’m Living All Over You to Bug, but listening today, I’m not so sure I feel that way any more.
Sure, “I’m All Over You” is bombastic; a sonic kick in the teeth, if you will. There’s something about “Bug” today, though: it’s a little more cleanly produced and the production is layered, more in depth. It feels a little more in line with where Dinosaur Jr. would go in the following years.
Fuck it, I’ll just give them both 5 stars.
Gene Clark
3/5
It’s just kind of there, isn’t it?
Public Enemy
4/5
I just wish there was more music like this in the world. Music that has something to say, music that’s fueled by a righteous anger. We need it.
The Allman Brothers Band
3/5
I typically don’t go in for jam band or jam band adjacent music like this, but these dudes cooked and their drummer hated the Grateful Dead, so they’re cool with me.
Primal Scream
3/5
This is definitely the best “anarcho-syndicalist speedfreak road-movie” record I’ve ever heard.
Ravi Shankar
4/5
My doctor’s got me on a course of prednisone, a steroid, to help treat an upper respiratory infection (along with an antibiotic).
Let me just say, I am shaking like a toothache right now. This thing’s got me more jittery than grandpa’s cellphone with the oversized buttons.
I can’t believe people take steroids on a regular basis just so they can appear jacked.
Like…what? My skeleton is trying to jump out of my flesh right now and there are people who walk around all day, for long periods of time, like this?
I don’t understand people.
…or the world for that matter.
Sorry, I need a minute.
…that’s better.
Eating some lunch seems to have helped with the jitters, at least physically. Mentally, I’ve got about 5 different streams of consciousness going at once, but I’m going to see if I can pluck an idea out of one of those streams, focus in on it and deliver something resembling a review.
In my current state, the polyrhythms, improvisational busyness and (probably most importantly) the drone of the sitar are coming into hyper focus to create a soothing soundtrack for this weird physiological experience I am undergoing.
I actually kind of love this.
The resonant drone of the sitar is one the most beautiful sounds on the planet: it undulates, expands and contracts, almost like it is drawing breath…a living musical instrument.
A record like this is a reminder that not too long ago the world was a much smaller place. It wasn’t like you could just hop on YouTube, type in Indian Music and get a crash course on its theory. No, in order for this record to exist as presented to us here, a Western record label executive would have to decide it was a worthwhile investment and green-light it. Then, it would have to be recorded, pressed to vinyl and distributed. If you were interested in Indian music, you’d have to hope your local record store carried it or else spend your time tracking the record down. It could take months or even years from the start for it to reach the intended audience’s ears.
It’s actually kind of quaint to think about the lengths we used to have to go to acquire knowledge. Now that it’s at our fingertips at all times, however, it sometimes feels like our instant access is taken for granted.
Joe Ely
2/5
Hello friend,
I’m not going to hide the fact that I’m closed minded about country music.
I don’t really like it and it is probably 100% a cultural thing. I’m from New Jersey and even if the part of the state I live in is considered rural, with lots of farmland and open space, country music might as well come from another planet to me. No one in my family listens to country, none of my friends growing up listened to country…I have no nostalgic affection towards it whatsoever. It just doesn’t resonate with me on any level.
Frankly, I think country music is corny as fuck and I’m not really sorry about it.
…and maybe that makes me a bad person, the kind of “Yankee” or “Northern Elitist” that Southerners bitch about…I don’t care. I’m in my 40’s and at this point, if country music hasn’t grabbed me, I don’t think it ever will and I’m not going try and force something if I find it off-putting.
Now, with that said…
There were moments on this record that I appreciated. The instrumentation is a little more technologically diverse and the production more experimental than I would typically expect from a country record. There were even a few songs with a lot of unexpected twists and turns that felt kind of “prog-ish”.
So, I didn’t hate this record from a technical standpoint. In fact, I think it was pretty good for what it is.
The problem is that musically, this does nothing for me. Country music is steeped in tradition and it’s not a tradition that I’m interested in. It was good enough to listen to all the way through (doesn’t hurt that it’s only 35 minutes long) and there were things I could appreciate about it, but the chances of it ever getting a replay are close to nil.
Lucinda Williams
3/5
So yesterday, in my review of the Joe Ely record, I wrote how about how the traditionalism found in country music doesn’t resonate with me.
“Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” suffers less from adherence to traditionalism and presents a more modern take on country, in a sort of an alt-country-ish way. The traditionalism isn’t fully erased, it wouldn’t be country music if it were, but it’s light enough that this record is more palatable for me.
Overall, this is a solid album. I like Lucinda Williams’ voice and the instrumentation is engaging. It hasn’t converted me into a country music fan and I’m not sure I really get the high critical praise for this record, but at the same time, country music isn’t for me, so I don’t feel like I can really say that it is or isn’t an important record in the canon of country music.
Astrud Gilberto
3/5
28 minutes of relaxing, well crafted bossa nova. I can’t imagine being mad about having to listen to this.
Magazine
2/5
Despite only being 9 songs (Apple Music has some bonus tracks tacked on) this album feels like it plays out longer than it should.
It’s weird, I like the things that these guys are referencing musically…Bowie, Roxy Music, etc., but it doesn’t seem like they are adding enough originality to those references to make music that I find very engaging….also, that album cover doesn’t certainly doesn’t help.
The Crusaders
2/5
The negative reviews of this album are kind of funny to me, especially when compared to the high praise Steely Dan gets around here.
The degree of separation between the music on this record and Steely Dan is almost non-existent.
It’s like, “I hate this, it’s elevator music. Now, would you please put on some Steely Dan, I need something exciting.”
This place cracks me up, man.
Don’t get me wrong, this record isn’t for me (nor is Steely Dan), it’s pretty damn cheesy (like Steely Dan), but let’s be honest with ourselves here - they’re not that different.
As an alternative, here’s a funky, engaging fusion record to check out: The Blackbyrds’ 1974 self-titled debut lp.
You’re welcome.
Robert Wyatt
3/5
Do I love all of the music here? Not really.
(…but just as an aside, track 3 really kind of feels like something Radiohead would draw inspiration from)
Is Robert Wyatt’s story a truly inspirational testament to overcoming great tragedy? Absolutely.
Donovan
2/5
It’s a mathematical certainty that your mom (or grandma, depending on your age) got high while listening to this album in 1967.
3/5
Starts off incredibly strong. It’s such a strong start that you might think to yourself, “are U2 going to defy the odds and pull off a perfect record?”, but it gradually falls off, song by song, and becomes evident that Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois’ production is doing a fair amount of heavy lifting on this record.
Tito Puente
3/5
Wounds won't last long, but an insulting song
Burns will always carry with him
So I'll settle my score on the salsa floor
With this vengeful Latin rhythm
¡Burns!
Con el corazón de perro
¡Señor Burns!
El diablo con dinero
It may not surprise you, but all of us despise you
Please die, and fry in hell
You rotten rich old wretch
¡Adios viejo!
Miles Davis
5/5
Some people need a certain type of structure from their lives: they need songs in familiar patterns, they need their art to look like what it is “supposed to be”.
Others are content or find joy in drawing their own conclusions from what is presented to them…wether it’s by filling in the blanks where there might be a void or letting an auditory or visual idea wash over them, rather than demanding specificity.
If you’re coming to Bitches Brew expecting everything to be neatly laid out and familiar, well…you’re going to have a bad time.
I’m not saying one is right and the other is wrong, though you can probably tell that I identify more with the latter than the former.
The format of this project does an album like Bitches Brew few favors: its density and scope truly unravels with repeated listens. When you’re grinding out an album a day, some may be less inclined to embrace the challenge this type of record presents - particularly since it is, by and large, comprised of improvised sessions which were recorded and then stitched together to create a whole.
Had the discs of this record been reversed, i think it might be better received by the users here. The second disc probably tracks closer to what a rock music fan might expect from a jazz/rock hybrid, where Pharoah’s Dance and Bitches Brew dive head-first into more experimental, avant-garde territory right off the bat.
But is accessibility for the listener something Miles Davis would have been concerned with?
I’m reminded of an anecdote I’ve heard about his 1972 album, “On the Corner” (which, if you dislike this album’s fusion, you’ll want steer clear of), where a critic/interviewer told him the following about his jazz fusion work (paraphrased):
“Miles, I was with you on In a Silent Way and I can get behind Bitches Brew, but with this one (On the Corner) you’ve lost me”.
To which, Davis responded (again, paraphrased):
“Am I supposed to wait for you to catch up?”
Maybe not the most friendly response, but the correct one, I think. Miles Davis made the music that spoke to him, regardless of the risks associated with following that path. Everyone else could come along, or not - but he wasn’t concerned with making sure everyone “got it” and we probably shouldn’t be either.
Aimee Mann
3/5
Probably not the Aimee Mann album most of her fans would pick for this list and not really my style of music, but I appreciated the densely layered production and sophisticated songwriting.
Happy Mondays
2/5
I know this album is almost 40 years old, but the portrait on the cover really looks like Elon Musk.
Stereo MC's
1/5
Maybe put the first track on the 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die list and forget the rest.
Neu!
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die
Chapter 10
Perfekter Klang Für Immer:
“NEU! ‘75” by NEU!
There’s a freedom to being on an open road, getting your car up to (or past) the speed limit and watching the painted lines of the roadway scroll past continuously as you’re propelled forward.
In your peripheral vision, the scenery starts to blur: trees, buildings, other cars are no longer permanent - they coalesce and fade into the background as you pass them by at speeds you could never accomplish on your own. You’re left to focus intently on what is front of you, the bends in the road lead you to your destination and the things around you are left to the ether. It can be a calming, nearly meditative experience.
Neu! is the musical embodiment of that sensation:
Their repetitive drums and minimalist rhythm guitar push the songs forward. All around that rhythm, bubbling synths, reversed guitars, piano, vocals and other sounds swell, then fade in and out of focus, as the rhythm continues chugging along….
It is a truly beautiful thing to me.
Following a stint in an early incarnation of Kraftwerk, Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger started Neu! in 1971 and released their first self-titled album in 1972 (Neu! ‘72, as it’s known by fans, as means of differentiating it from this record). Its opening track, “Hallogallo”, is pretty much Krautrock’s national anthem, if such a thing is even possible. Its pulsating “motorik” groove is probably the most recognizable and defining characteristic of the genre: a simple, repetitive and driving drum beat that propels the song forward, seemingly forever.
An argument can be made that Neu! ‘72 is the album that should be on this list, just for the sheer influence it has had and I would not argue with that opinion.
Neu ‘75, their final offering (at least until a scrapped mid 80’s album - Neu! 4/Neu! ‘86 - appeared in the mid 90’s), is less collaborative than its predecessors and ends up being a bit like two mini-solo albums: one from Rother and one from Dinger.
Rother’s side of the album is decidedly more ethereal, taking Neu’s sound towards more ambient and pastoral psychedelia, while Dinger’s half is more earthbound, aggressive and wild.
While disparate in its approach, Neu! ‘75 is still an overarching encapsulation of Neu’s approach to their music. The propulsive drums, experimentation and hypnotic psychedelic sound that characterized their first two records are all here. ‘75 also serves as a glimpse of what was to come from Rother and Dinger:
Rother would go on to further explore ambient music and refine the pastoral psych found here on Neu ‘75, first by joining up with Cluster to form Harmonia and then as a solo artist.
Dinger would start a new band, La Düsseldorf, that would further expand on the swirling, guitar psych-punk on his side of the record.
Even though the two might have appeared to be polar opposites in 1975, the sound of Neu! was still readily apparent in the music Rother and Dinger made after their split. Concurrently, their influence grew more and more with the likes of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Sonic Youth, Stereolab and countless other others praising their work. Because of that, Neu’s sound never really ended, it just became bigger and more expansive.
(Recommended additional listening, if you are so inclined: NEU! - NEU! ‘72, Harmonia - Musik Von Harmonia, La Düsseldorf - VIVA, Michael Rother - Flammende Herzen)
The Clash
3/5
It’s kind of funny how the band with the best debut album of all the UK punk bands doesn’t get the same sort of recognition as The Sex Pistols…
…or The Clash.
I’m talking, of course, about The Damned’s “Damned Damned Damned”, which should be included on this list, but isn’t (I applaud the inclusion of Machine Gun Etiquette, however. It’s one of the best punk albums of all time). If you were to bottle up the essence of punk and press it to record, it would be exactly what you hear on “Damned Damned Damned”
The Clash’s debut is good, but, for me, it doesn’t quite have the rawness and palpable aggression that makes punk “punk”. It feels like they’re holding back just a bit, like they’re not throwing caution to the wind or something. I like its political bent, but that’s not quite enough for me.
Heresy to some of you, I’m sure, but I don’t really care. As I said about the Beatles: No one is immune from criticism, there are no Golden Calves.
System Of A Down
2/5
Did you know?
ALF was the first television show to be presented in Dolby Surround Sound.
Super Furry Animals
3/5
I saw a quote on the internet the other day that said (paraphrased), “the secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”.
This album has me thinking about that quote. More broadly, it applies to most, if not all, of the Britpop / 90’s British alt-rock records on the list.
By and large, the Britpop bands weren’t very good at disguising their influences and turning them into something unique. The Beatles and Bowie worship was pretty heavy handed for most of these bands: What might have started as influence became homage and then became pastiche for a lot of them, to the point where you listen to one those records and it’s like “why am I listening to this instead of a Beatles/Bowie/T Rex/ELO record?”
Admittedly, Super Furry Animals are a bit better at the sleight of hand than, say, Oasis, and their incorporation of electronics adds a more modern and interesting psychedelic take to the equation, but it still doesn’t feel like they’re delivering anything too earth-shaking.
Maybe that’s OK, not everything has to be a ground breaking tour de force: comfort food is called comfort food for a reason - it’s safe and it makes you feel good.
I liked this this record more than pretty much all of the other Britpop that this list elevates to “Must-Hear” status, but I’m still not going to to go out of my way to put it on. I’ll stick with Clouds Taste Metallic by the Flaming Lips, which I think manages to show its influences, but also makes something interesting and completely unique from them. I’d put that record on the list over this one.
Pink Floyd
3/5
1001 Albums to Never Hear Again Before You Die
Chapter 4
Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”:
Roger Waters Hates You…And Probably Himself…But Mostly, He Hates You.
At a time when critics and bands alike were proclaiming progressive rock to be bloated and ostentatious, Roger Waters heard those criticisms, said “hold my beer” and delivered what is arguably the most overblown, self-important double LP Rock Opera of the 70’s: The Wall.
Spurred by an incident in which Waters spat upon a fan during the band’s tour for 1977’s “Animals” and his admitted desire to have a wall between himself and the audience while preforming, The Wall tells the tale of a power-tripping, drug addled rockstar whose concerts devolve into Fascist Rock and Roll Rallies as a result of unchecked power, substance abuse and untreated mental health issues.
Without a doubt, there is a 5 star single LP that could be culled from this 80 minute monument to Roger Waters’ ego. There are absolutely great songs on The Wall: several career highlights for Pink Floyd, in fact. The issue with turning it into a single LP is that if you divorce the actual songs from the interstitial pieces that act as plot forwarding devices / self psycho-analysis, would the album still work as a concept record?
Probably not very well.
Frankly, this record should stand as it is, because it serves quite well as insight into Roger Waters as the leader of Pink Floyd at the tail end of their career together. Waters, in addition to being disillusioned with the band’s fans, had started to sour on his bandmates, referring to them as “the muffins” and would imply / state outright in the press that he was the visionary behind the band. During the recording of The Wall, he exerted significant control over the process, with the other members of the band taking their cues from him and without much ability to provide significant input. Keyboardist and founding member Richard Wright would be fired from the band during these sessions for a lack of interest (an accusation he does not deny), but would later be re-hired as a touring member for live performances of the album.
On the band’s follow up to The Wall, “The Final Cut” (an even more self-absorbed record than its predecessor), remaining members David Gilmour and Nick Mason would act only as studio musicians, fully ceding control of the band and its artistic vision to Waters. The Final Cut was a flop and Waters soon left the band for a solo career.
For a guy who seemed to recognize that he was putting up walls around him and becoming an authoritarian within the confines of his band, it doesn’t seem to have changed his perspective when it came to making music with Pink Floyd in The Wall’s aftermath.
So, is the story contained within The Wall simply performative, or is the Wall an admission of character on the part of Waters?
Given the origins of this story, I’m not sure that the character of “Pink” can be or is supposed to be seen as anything but an avatar for Waters. Sure, his “wall” comes down at the end of this record, but it is followed by a loop back into the album’s first song. We are led to believe that this story is cyclical and the main character will end up back on the same path that he started on. He is stuck in an unending pattern of tearing down walls only to build them back up.
Momentarily putting aside the philosophical implications of the content of this album, which are far more interesting than much of its actual music, The Wall is a taxing listen. The interstitial pieces, particularly towards the end, drag the album down. By the time “The Trial” comes on, if you haven’t already checked out, any sympathy you might have had will vanish and you’ll hope that the band (read: Waters) gets locked up for the crime of “not getting to the point”.
But, again, why would Waters bother getting to the point or giving the story any sort of closure? The central theme of this album is that he feels the need to keep the audience walled off from himself. Giving the audience closure to the story of The Wall would nullify his creation and give fans access he does not want them to have. Ending the story with an open interpretation / loop back to the start effectively keeps them at bay, because Waters knows that he cannot (and likely does not want to) change.
The Pogues
4/5
After writing a novel yesterday about The Wall, I’m taking a bit of a break today, but make no mistake, this is a *fantastic* record. The Pogues’ blend of traditional Irish music and their wild punk spirit is perfect - no notes.
The Hives
3/5
On the plus side, it’s only 28 minutes long, so it moves quick and it’s a lot more punk than I expected it to be based off of the one Hives song that everyone knows.
I’m just not sure that the one song that everyone knows justifies its inclusion here.
It’s fine and i enjoyed it enough, but…from 2001, why not Discovery or Oh, Inverted World or Isolation Drills or Stephen Malkmus’ debut solo album, you know?
The Byrds
3/5
If you’re like me, you prefer your Byrds records to have a little more 12 string electric guitar jangle than Sweetheart of the Rodeo does, but it’s not hard to see why many consider it to be their best record. I’m saving that judgement for The Notorious Byrds Brothers, but that’s just because it’s my favorite.
Beck
4/5
Definitely Michael Cera’s best album.
Arcade Fire
1/5
Consider this a protest rating. Arcade Fire has 3 albums on this list and they are maybe one of the more overrated indie bands of all time - lots of hype and a little light on originality to my ears.
Here’s three (four) indie rock classics that are excluded from this list and are worth your time:
- Yo La Tengo’s “I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One” (even Rolling Stone recognizes this album’s greatness, ranking it #423 on their top 500 of all time - ranked higher than Arcade Fire’s Funeral at 500.)
- Broken Social Scene’s “You Forgot it in People” from 2002.
- Built To Spill, either Perfect From Now on Or Keep it Like a Secret. I prefer Keep it Like a Secret, but both should have been considered for this list.
Another user called the first three Arcade Fire records “a holy trinity of indie rock” which…I literally can’t even. Maybe if you think that Radiohead is “like totally the best indie rock band of all time”, they would be, but that is a) untrue and b) a wholesale misunderstanding of the history of indie rock. Sorry to call you out, anonymous reviewer(s), but come on.
This is a band that wears its influence on its sleeve - Springsteen and Bowie in particular on this record. I have no problem with either of those as influences, but like LCD Soundsystem, I don’t feel like this band does enough to take their influences and do something interesting or unique with them, instead they’re just paying homage.
I mean, really…the Springsteen is laid on thick here - to the point that it starts to feel like parody.
Getting to back the original point: there are better indie bands, there are better indie records. Neon Bible’s inclusion here ends up being at the expense of other, better music.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
It’s a little odd to have heard Joni Mitchell’s mid-70’s output before this album, which is arguably considered to be her best. Court and Spark, The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira feel like polar opposites to this record. They’re full of varied, layered instrumentation and, as a result, Blue’s sparse instrumentation is arresting to me, at least initially.
It’s quite a personal album, not only because of the subject matter, but because of the minimal instrumentation and crisp production. Blue often feels as though you’re sitting in the same living room where Joni is performing these songs. Capturing that type of intimacy is an impressive feat of production, in my opinion.
I think that I prefer the widescreen, vivid production on Court and Spark to Blue’s minimalism, but it feels like that might only be a difference of time and place. Blue suits a different, more specific type of mood for me than Court and Spark does.
Either way, the base of either record is the same: Joni Mitchell’s singular vocal and songwriting talents. I’ve been consistently impressed by her records throughout this project. Blue is no exception.
Joanna Newsom
3/5
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
There’s a bit of a viral video out there right now where a woman from Nebraska, wearing a Cornhuskers hat asks “Does anyone even care about Nebraska?”
The responses, by and large, were “no” or “fuck Nebraska” or “when did Nebraska ever care about anyone else or itself?”
The subtext of it all is that her question came as reports that Nebraska would (allegedly) be bankrupt in the next few months due to the Trump administration’s immigration policies that will gut their farmland workforce, which largely consisted of migrant workers…Migrant workers who have now stopped showing up for work in a state that voted to have them deported, a state that said “fuck you” and is now worried that they’re not going to survive without the help of the people they just said “fuck you” to.
The woman who posited the question later took to Tik Tok to clarify that she did not intend for the question to stir such political debate and she was just curious what/if other people thought about Nebraska, which…ok, fine…but surely the possibility that people might take this question as a political one might have crossed her mind at some point. For good or bad, nearly everything is political now. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is.
…and she just found out that not only do people not care about Nebraska, a lot of them kind of hate Nebraska.
I’ve never been to the state of Nebraska, so I don’t really care about it or even know much about it because I have no ties to it. I don’t actively hope that people will have to deal with hardship, but, at the same time, it’s hard to feel bad for people who knowingly vote against their self-interests in such a blatant way.
(Fuck, how am I going to turn this into a review…)
I do know Springsteen’s Nebraska after today and honestly…I kind of think it’s a masterpiece.
(Phew…what a transition, I really turned that one around. What a deft touch I have.)
I would be hard pressed to think of an album cover that better conveys the feel of an album than this one does: sparsely populated and occasionally desolate, with a dark, menacing undercurrent running through it. Musically, Nebraska’s minimal, lo-fi production suits that image and feeling well.
I’m grasping at straws now and, honestly, this review got away from me a bit, but I loved this record and I’m sorry to anyone from Nebraska for the things I’ve said about your state. Unless I’m right about everything I just said, then…uh…I’m sorry about that too.
Slade
3/5
In my post-daylight savings time adjustment haze this morning, I got excited about this record, because I mistook Slade for the Sweet and I was excited to rock out to Fox on the Run today. Shortly after, I realized it was Slade and I would have to rock out to Gudbuy T’Jane instead, which is not quite as cool, and maybe the lyrics haven’t aged well, but the song is still pretty good.
Radiohead
4/5
In the early 2000’s, when I was in my early 20’s, I bought into the idea that Radiohead was the most important band around, that they were the most inventive and innovative band going, that they were re-writing the rules and that everything they did was important.
Well, for about 4 or 5 months or so, I did.
Concurrently, I was listening to bands that might be considered peers (Stereolab, Tortoise, Pavement) or influences (Can, Neu!, Sonic Youth). Then, I started gravitating towards those bands and away from Radiohead. In fact, it was when I started listening to Can that I was like, “Why am I bothering with Radiohead? I found the source and they are so fucking good that I’m not really interested in what Radiohead has to say anymore.”
It happens.
My friends think I’m this anti-Radiohead curmudgeon and I just hate them because everyone likes them, which isn’t true, I don’t hate Radiohead. I just don’t buy into the commonly held beliefs about them that inspire hyperbolic praise from many people and I think it’s worthwhile to question the commonly held narratives about the band. My friends will say things to me like “come on, even you can admit OK Computer (or Kid A) is one of the best albums of all time.” It’s not an album I would put on my list of 10 greatest albums of all time, but I do think it’s a great album.
I’d like to reiterate: I think OK Computer is a great album.
Does it resonate with me in the same way that “Tago Mago” and “Future Days” or “Daydream Nation” or “Dots and Loops” do?
No.
It’s kind of like this: I went through that door (Radiohead), had a good look around, then walked out and found things that spoke to me in a much deeper way than Radiohead ever did. I have a hard time accepting that they’re the be-all-end-all when the bands that influenced them made such great, timeless and truly innovative music.
I just don’t seem them on that level, sorry.
…and just for the sake of adhering to the rule of three’s…I think OK Computer is a great album. I enjoy it, even if I think it would be even better if they cut the last two tracks and ended with “No Surprises”.
You know I’m right about that last point, it’s ok to admit it.
Suicide
4/5
Frankie Teardrop
Twenty year old Frankie
He's married, he's got a kid
And he's working in a factory
He's working from seven to five
He's just trying to survive
Well, let's hear it for Frankie
Super Furry Animals
3/5
I used to be really into the British Music Magazines, like Mojo and Q - but Mojo primarily. I remember this record getting a lot of hype when it was released and purchasing it. I probably still have it somewhere in a box with other cds in my closet, untouched for 20 years or more, since George W Bush’s first administration and before some of you who are reading this were even born (no disrespect).
I don’t think I really liked the UK bands that were being covered that much or had much interest in the UK music scene, it was just that there was a dearth of quality music journalism among the American magazines, at least when it came to music that was outside of the mainstream. As a result, I was buying a lot of records from UK bands like Super Furry Animals and the Beta Band, hoping to find something that pushed the right buttons for me. Almost invariably, I’d be left feeling let down by those records after a few listens. For whatever reason, those records don’t have a lot of staying power for me.
This record is a great example.
At first glance, I should like this. It’s got a strong Beach Boys influence and it kind of fits nicely with the sort of synth heavy experimental retro pop that Stereolab and Air were putting out around the same time. It even has some of the electronic craziness that you might find on Cornelius’ Fantasma (speaking of albums you must hear before you die, holy fuck…this one and its follow up, Point, should definitely be on the list).
The thing is, to my ears, Stereolab, Air, Cornelius do it so much better and their records have held up really well in the decades since their release. Especially Stereolab, their records still sound fantastic and I think they really nail that sort of Beach Boys/ Bacharach-esque orchestral pop better than just about anyone else and they did it in such a way that it didn’t feel like it was just a superficial homage; they had deep understanding and love for the music and they were making something unique from that influence. It’s weird to me that they aren’t really talked about very much these days, they were a consistently great and innovative band.
Rings Around the World feels like 2001 to me, like maybe it’s ok if it got left there. I don’t know. I guess I’m saying that I find it kind of boring and lacking depth, which doesn’t surprise me, because I felt that way about the record after living with it for a few weeks back in 2001.
In closing, why don’t you give Cornelius’ “Fantasma” or “Point” as spin and forget about the Super Furry Animals?
Soft Cell
3/5
5 stars for Sex Dwarf
2 stars for the rest of the album.
5+2 = 7
7/2 = 3.5
Ergo, 3 stars.
The Pretty Things
4/5
This is better than Sgt. Peppers & Tommy.
…like, by a lot.
S.F. Sorrow is a visceral and complex psych concept album. It doesn’t get lost in pomposity or childish silliness, like some of its peers.
A total winner from the opening guitar riff.
Tina Turner
2/5
Much respect to Tina Turner for her incredible voice and for the strength to get through what she endured because of her shitheel husband, but the music/production on this record is 1000% not for me.
Leonard Cohen
1/5
Fucking abysmal.
If the late 80’s production and synthetics aren’t enough to convince you of that, there is a song on this album called…”Jazz Police”.
It is precisely as shitty as you would think a song called “Jazz Police” would be.
This is the worst record on the list.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
I’ve been at this for 983 days and I have a bold proclamation to make:
Pet Shop Boys are the best synth pop band.
I know what you’re thinking:
“Dude, you hate synth-pop”
I know, right? I totally do.
But compositionally, Pet Shop Boys are the band to beat - at least when it comes to synth-pop. Across their albums on the list, they have extremely well written songs with densely layered instrumentation. They’re really quite excellent at what they do.
I know what you’re thinking now, too:
“Why should I take your word that they’re the best, if you don’t even like synth-pop?”
…to be honest, I don’t really have a good answer for that, but you’ve read this far, so I must be on to something, right?
G. Love & Special Sauce
1/5
It’s no wonder that the only people who have ever recommended G. Love and Special Sauce to me are people who are also really into jam band music.
This is the exact type of white boy-blues/funk hybrid that’ll make a jam band fan do the hippy shake after a glass of “spun wine”.
In fact, it’s offensive to call this blues or funk.
It just sucks.
The other day, I said that Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” was the worst record on this list.
I stand corrected.
Digital Underground
3/5
Hey wow, I got this record recommend on the day after its 35th anniversary. Pretty cool.
Anyway, this is basically a Parliament-Funkadelic album, replete with futuristic/sci-fi album concept, but with hip-hop added and I’m cool with that, I guess. In fact, they sample Parliament a bunch of times here, which was par for the course in the day.
Here a few examples:
They sample Parliament’s “Flashlight” on “Rhymin’ on the Funk”).
There’s also “Underwater Rimes”, which is pretty close, with similar narration and theme, to Parliament’s 1978 album, “The Motor-Booty Affair” - they sample “Aqua Boogie” from that record here.
They sample “Flashlight” again on “The Danger Zone”.
“Dr. Funkenstein” and “The Motor-Booty Affair” are sampled on “Sex Packets”….
I’m just gonna stop listing the samples there, because Parliament records really built the foundation for *a lot* of 90’s hip hop and I think maybe having more than one Parliament record on this list would be a good way to really drive home just how integral Parliament’s music is to hip-hop.
Well, that, and they sample Flashlight so many times on this record that it’s not worth listing every instance.
So, by all means, finish up this record, but maybe also check out “The Motor-Booty Affair” (the title track has one one the greatest bass lines of all time) and “Funkentelechy vs the Placebo Syndrome” (to get the full “Flashlight” experience, but also, it might be their best record).
Sometimes you’re better off just going straight to the source, you know what I mean?
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
4/5
I’ve talked about The Best Show on WFMU before in my review of the album “Bad Company” (by the band Bad Company, which features the song “Bad Company”), but there was a segment on it many years ago, where the topic was “Who is the Dumbest Member of CSNY?”. Callers would call in with their choice and give their reasons as to why they thought that member was the dumbest member of the band.
Some thought David Crosby was the dumbest for the various legal problems he encountered (like getting arrested for possessing a gun in Texas - an impressive feat, given the abundance of guns being carried at any given time in the state of Texas - In fairness, he also had a ton of cocaine in his possession at the time.)
Others posited that Stills was the dumbest member for bringing Neil Young into the fold after butting heads with him in Buffalo Springfield - an action that would end up making Young the de facto leader of CSNY, at least to the point that the band was reliant upon him being involved to pull a big payday.
Some thought that Young was the dumbest member because he got involved with the other three in the first place.
…and a few thought Nash was the dumbest member, mostly because, well…he’s Graham Nash.
(The “Who is the dumbest member of CSNY?” Topic ran across three episodes of the Best Show starting on December 16, 2008 and continued throughout the next two episodes December 23 and December 30. You can find them here: https://wfmu.org/playlists/bs - there’s also an app, the WFMU Archive Bunker, for your mobile device, if you are so inclined)
Based solely off of this record, I’d have to cast my vote for David Crosby. “Almost Cut My Hair”, lyrically, is a pretty stupid song.
Looking at CSNY’s entire career, I’d have to say it’s probably Stills, because he brought in Neil Young after having a struggle with him over the control of Buffalo Springfield and then promptly lost control of CSNY to Young as well.
Regardless of who the dumbest member actually is, Deja Vu is a very solid record, even if I’m predisposed to prefer Neil Young’s contributions and agree that he was probably too good/unique to waste much time hanging out with these guys. “Helpless” is the highlight for me, with “Carry On” and “Woodstock” not far behind. Overall a solid record, but I prefer listening to Young as a solo artist/with Crazy Horse to the time he spent with CSN and I don’t really have much affection for the other three (outside of Crosby for his time in The Byrds and his latter-day, curmudgeonly twitter escapades).
SAULT
4/5
Political, psychedelicized soul and r&b. It’s fantastic in many spots and very enjoyable as a whole.
Portishead
3/5
Heresy to say this, I’m sure, but I found this album much more interesting than Dummy. It’s not as monotonous and drone-y. The different stylistic twists and turns make for a more enjoyable record and there are some legitimately cool moments, like the doubled up synth solo at the end of Machine Gun.
Portishead is still not my cup of tea, but this record gets closer than Dummy does.
Sinead O'Connor
3/5
I don’t know how many of you were alive when Sinead O’Connor tore up a photo of the pope on SNL in protest of the Catholic church’s cover up child sexual abuse, but people lost their damn minds over it. Not because of the child abuse part of it, but because she tore up a picture of the pope. She was turned into a villain immediately. Some people were seething with rage about it.
I was 11 when that happened and I thought it was ridiculous then, because it was wild to see people in a country that was built on the premise of freedom of speech lose their minds because someone exercised it.
I might have been too smart for my own good as child.
O’Connor was banned from ever performing on Saturday Night Live again, and the following week, Joe Pesci who was hosting the show, basically said he would’ve smacked her for tearing up the photo. Madonna later mocked her for it. Her career was basically over for saying something that we all know to be a fact now.
Sinead O’Connor’s music isn’t necessarily for me, but I enjoyed this record and I respect that she spoke truth to power, even if it had severe repercussions on her career. She was right and she was threatened and ridiculed for it. There are a lot of people out there who probably should’ve apologized to her, but it’s unfortunately too late now.
Keith Jarrett
5/5
I probably need a few more listens to really unpack and get a true feel for this record, but I’ll gladly do so.
This is an actual “record you need to hear before you die”, I think, and I wish there were more like it on the list. Jarrett’s playing is dense and complex, with many moments of absolute beauty. That it was improvised live is even more impressive.
Stephen Stills
3/5
Let me start off by saying something nice about Stephen Stills, because I’ve been pretty rough on him in past reviews - including calling him the dumbest member of CSNY and mocking him for letting Neil Young take over CSNY after having experienced the exact same situation with Young in Buffalo Springfield.
There’s a stretch on this record, from about “It Doesn’t Matter” to “Move Around” (which I’m guessing was the third side of this double album when pressed to vinyl) where Stills and the band turn in some great songs that move to more ethereal territory and feel like a type of songwriting that is underrepresented in his catalog. I think that stretch of the album is really very good and there are few other songs here that I thought were great as well.
But once again, I must implore you to listen to the song “Can’t Get No Booty” from his 1978 solo LP, Thoroughfare Gap, so that you can see where Stills took his southern fried blues rock in the late 70’s.
Bill Evans Trio
3/5
Pleasant in the background, but it didn’t always make its way into the foreground.
Randy Newman
2/5
If you could take a New Yorker cartoon and turn it into music, it would be this.
The Icarus Line
3/5
I mean, I get it…I really like The Stooges, too.
Brian Eno
5/5
Going into this list, I had the idea that this record was going to be the only Brian Eno record I wasn’t going to give 5 stars. It’s one that I don’t listen to often, I prefer Another Green World and Before and After Science when it comes to his first four solo records.
But I’m sitting here listening to “Baby’s On Fire” and the crazy doubled up guitars have left me with only one thought:
ANOTHER CLASSIC BRIAN ENO RECORD.
The Monks
4/5
Hearing Black Monk Time’s aggressive garage/proto-punk for the first time is like finding the missing key to a door you already kicked down.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
In my review of Darkness on the Edge of Town, I talked about how Bruce Springsteen is more or less omnipotent here in New Jersey and that I never really paid him too much attention because of that.
Well, four Springsteen records in on this list, I’m no longer ambivalent. In fact, I’m on the verge of becoming an evangelist for the Boss.
The Rising is great. It’s surprisingly rocking for a record that is about 9/11. It doesn’t necessarily work for me 100%, but I’m planning on revisiting it soon to dig a little deeper.
Guns N' Roses
2/5
They may have been the best hair metal band, but they’re still a hair metal band.
…“a rose by any other name”, and all that.
Tom Waits
3/5
It’s funny, I like Tom Waits as an actor. His vignette and character in the Coen Brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” is fantastic. His music, I don’t really care for and taking part in this list hasn’t changed my mind on the subject.
I realized why that is today, it’s related to his acting. He’s clearly put on an act in his musical career (listen to his first few albums for a taste of Tom Waits before he put on his faux-grizzled hobo affectation) and as a result his music feels inauthentic. Within the confines of film, that affectation works, because as much as we willingly suspend disbelief while watching a film, we still know that the things we are watching are not “real”. His gravely voiced, boxcar hobo persona is a good fit for fiction, because that’s exactly what it is. When it’s put to music, I think it sucks.
Speaking of putting on a character, there’s a song here, “Downtown”, that is really reminiscent of that McGruff the Crime Dog “Smart Kids” anti-drug album, at least in its vocal stylings (the song “Alcohol”, specifically). So yeah, do yourself a favor and check that out on YouTube - also the song “Cocaine & Crack” from that record - and next time you listen to Tom Waits, you won’t be able to listen without picturing McGruff the Crime Dog singing the songs - which is exactly how I made it through this record.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
4/5
A weird and welcome avant garde-ish entry to this list.
Many of the instrumentals here are awfully pretty, with guitar, an abundance of strings and mellow keys. When things turn experimental, it’s typically not for too long before returning to more normal/traditional territory. My only complaint is that some of the songs in the first half seem to end abruptly and aren’t really given enough space to breathe or unfold. Beyond that, Music From the Penguin Cafe is an excellent excursion into more intellectual musical territory and away from the standard popular music fare that dominates the list.
The Incredible String Band
3/5
Well holy fuck, it’s my 1001st album.
It’s seems fitting that I’d get one of the lowest rated albums on the site for this milestone. (I say milestone because I’m still about 90 records from completing the list, since the generator accounts for all albums added/removed across the various editions of the book).
It’s fitting because I often find that the overreaction by users on the site to albums like this one doesn’t match the actual quality of music. Every time I get a record like this, I’m one step closer to choosing a Merzbow album for my user submitted record.
I suspect that some of you are the same people that got unreasonably upset that the theme of White Lotus Season 3 didn’t contain the same vocal stylings that were in the themes for the first two seasons. If only my life was that simple that I could have time to be upset about something like that.
The Hangman’s Daughter is weird and dated and dorky, but it’s not unlistenable. I guess if I wanted to hear a record that was an affirmation of my tastes, I would be very upset about having this record generated. I mean, I don’t really love its medieval folk/hobbit rock/eastern psych stylings, but there is clearly ambition and originality here and I’ll take something ambitious over the hundreds of by-the-numbers Beatles-aping records that the list is fond of.
Neneh Cherry
2/5
If this album’s Raw Like Sushi, then I’m cooked like your brain on drugs.
I liked some aspects of this record and hated parts of it, too.
As a synth enthusiast, some of the synths are pretty great on this record. There’s comparisons that could be drawn between some of the sounds here and bands like Air or Daft Punk. Don’t act like you didn’t notice the Daft Punk synth in Buffalo Stance.
The hip-hop aspect of this record was not so great and the other vocals are way too poppy for me.
As this record goes past the first couple songs, though, I’m finding it more and more difficult to feel invested. It is really dated, to the point where I’m remembering the Pepsi slogan from the 80’s (“The Choice of a New Generation”) while I listen to “The Next Generation”. I haven’t thought about that slogan in 35 years and somehow that song feels like it was designed to evoke that slogan and I’m being played like a fiddle.
This record is mostly a product of its time (right down to a cabbage patch kids reference) and even in that time, I didn’t like music like this. It’s fine, but it’s definitely not for me.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to reminisce about the Berlin Wall falling, because I am fucking old, apparently.
Ozomatli
2/5
A little bit of this goes a long way.
Richard Hawley
2/5
I figured being in the home stretch of this list (85 albums to go before 1089) would be a breeze.
But really, it’s worse than it’s ever been. The end is in sight and I know there are still at least a dozen albums I really like that haven’t been generated, but the ones I’m not interested in… boy, are they grinding on my nerves.
I’m not sure if a lot of people wanted Roy Orbinson-esque throwback rock in 2005, I know I didn’t. 2005, I was probably listening to Sonic Youth’s “Sonic Nurse“ and Stereolab’s “Margerine Eclipse”, both from 2004. Television’s Marquee Moon was probably getting a lot of play and also Can.
Speaking of Stereolab, just yesterday, they released new music (a single, “Aerial Troubles”) for the first time in 15 years and it is fucking awesome. I’ve listened to that track enough times to qualify as an albums worth of music and I’ve gotten so much more enjoyment out of that single played repeatedly than I did at any point during Cole’s Corner.
They managed to not only recall the music they made in the past, but also take it forward in a new direction. It works so well. They are easily one of the most overlooked bands of the 90’s, at least when it comes to attention these days and I hope this new record changes that for them. The more time that passes, the more I’m convinced that Stereolab is one of the all time greats and they just proved it again after 15 years out of the spotlight.
Sure, maybe my excitement over new Stereolab music, which I’ve been waiting 15 years for, is clouding my judgement of this Richard Hawley record. But at this point, over 1000 records into this project, sometimes I just want some music that I love and new recommendations that fall flat aren’t worth spending much time on. Writing about something I love, on the other hand - even if it is totally unrelated - is more rewarding.
John Grant
2/5
Not sure if I’ve had a record go from “this shows a lot of potential” to “I absolutely hate this” as quickly as this record did for me. First track or two started off pretty strong, but by the time the fourth track, “Sigourney Weaver”, was over, I could not stand John Grant or his music.
If Harry Nilsson was a Redditor, this is what his music would sound like.
I’m not kidding, it felt like he was about a half-second away from saying “Yay, sportsball!” in “Silver Platter Club”.
The music here is fine, it’s John Grant’s persona that I found to be trite and off-putting.
The Cure
3/5
I guess I’m used to hearing some of these songs in single form. I never realized the intro to Pictures of You was nearly 2 minutes before the vocals come in.
I don’t dislike The Cure, they were part of the peripheral soundtrack of my youth, in that I never really engaged with their music, but knew it, heard it and it didn’t really move the needle for me in either a overly positive or negative way. If anything, their music was always just a little too morose and slow moving for me, but the hits were fine.
Disintegration, as good as it is, doesn’t really change my mind much. This is a really long, slow moving album. I like the densely layered production - it’s a great sounding record and the guitars are very good, but I’m not a fan of music that kind of dwells on its own morbidity and just meanders along like some of these tracks do.
I mean, of the last 5 songs, the shortest clocks in at 6:03 and those 5 songs account for almost 40 minutes of the album’s 72 minute run time.
In the first half, I was going to rate this a 4, but by the end it’s just too long and repetitive in an uninteresting way for me to rank it that high - consider this a 3.5 out of 5.
Britney Spears
2/5
In the late fall of 1998, or maybe it was early 1999 - either way, it was during my senior year of high school and “…Baby One More Time” had already been released as a single - there was a rumor in my central New Jersey Catholic high school that Britney Spears was going to be moving to New Jersey in order to be closer to New York City and was considering attending my high school.
Now, I can’t verify if the basis for this rumor was true in any way, only that it spread through the halls of my school like wildfire for a few days towards the end of the last century. I suspect that the rumor was due in part (or maybe in totality) to the video for “…Baby One More Time”, in which Spears was clad, provocatively, in a private/catholic school uniform. I can say pretty assuredly that there were few, if any, of my male classmates who liked Ms. Spears’ music, but the video? Yeah, that video was a hit with the teenage-boys-in-private-school demographic.
Because of that, when the rumor that Britney Spears might attend our school came along, the male segment of the school’s population was pretty psyched about the news. The girls in my class, I think, were a lot less excited about the prospect of a newly famous pop-star, who was primarily known for dancing kind of seductively in her catholic school uniform, attending our school. Can’t say I blame them.
Thinking back now, it would have been an incredibly awkward and toxic environment for someone to enter into. I mean, it would have been impossible to have a “normal” school experience if you were in Britney Spears’ shoes. You would be automatically put on a pedestal by some, you’d be the object of contempt or jealousy by others and it would be very difficult to know who to trust, because who knows what kind of ulterior motives people might have in getting to know you.
It sounds nightmarish, to be honest.
Clearly this rumor turned out to be nothing more, or I would have started this review with, “I went to high school with Britney Spears” instead of telling you about a rumor that went around my school, but that is pretty much the extent of my connection with this record.
To use a tried and true New Jersey-ism, this album “is what it is”: Sugary pop music for teenagers. It’s not the first album of its type and it certainly won’t be the last. Should it have been included on this list? I don’t know. I’m inclined to say no, but I’m not a pop music fan.
It did give me an opportunity to reminisce about a strange couple of days during my senior year of high school, so, for that, I’m giving it 2 stars.
Kate Bush
3/5
Kate Bush somehow manages to sound ahead of her time and also of her time at the same time. I really liked the layered, back and forth vocals on a few of the tracks and the synths were pretty great. It’s a weird record, like prog-pop or something. Good, but I’m not sure I’ll be revisiting.
Steve Earle
3/5
When the songs stray from traditional country music tradition, Guitar Town is at its best for me.
Respect to Steve Earle for his work on The Wire, though - he is excellent as Bubbles’ sponsor, Waylon.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
4/5
I never really had much interest in checking out Captain Beefheart, mostly because of the Zappa association, but I think maybe I shouldn’t have been so reticent. Make no mistake, this is still weirdo rock, but it’s for grimey weirdos, not uptight, self-important weirdos like Frank Zappa is.
Stereolab
5/5
10 Albums You Actually Need to Hear Before You Die
Chapter 11 (Fuck it, we’re doing bonus chapters now)
Tomorrow is Already Here: Stereolab’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Some records open doors.
You might be content in your musical tastes, or think you have a wide ranging musical vocabulary and then one day you hear a record that shatters those notions, opening up an entirely new world of music to discover and obsess over, forcing you to leave some or all of your old ways of thinking behind.
For me, Emperor Tomato Ketchup is one of those records.
I had heard and liked a Stereolab track, “Captain Easychord”, by way of an ex-girlfriend in 2002 and I can’t really recall the exact impetus for picking up this particular record, other than allmusic.com rated it highly and it seemed to be a fan favorite. So one weekend almost 25 years ago, I went out to the record store and picked up Emperor Tomato Ketchup.
It sounded almost completely foreign, or alien, to me. Not because of the French vocals and the spacey Moog synthesizers, but because it was pulling from styles of music that I was mostly unfamiliar with at the time. As I grew more obsessed with this album, I started digging into Stereolab’s influences, discovering Krautrock bands like Neu! and Can or Stereolab’s contemporaries/cohorts like Tortoise - all of whom I then began to obsess over.
While Krautrock may be Stereolab’s most obvious influence, it’s certainly not the be-all-end-all. Across their discography, Stereolab are Pop, they’re Avant-Garde, they’re jazzy, they’re funky, they’re psychedelic, noisy and experimental, they’re retro, they’re futuristic….they play Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music.
There are bands that you can tell are influenced by Stereolab, but there are no bands that sound just like Stereolab. It’s not possible and it is part of what makes them an all-time great band…
They are wholly unique and they are fucking amazing.
Without Emperor Tomato Ketchup, my musical tastes would not be what they are. It’s had a profound impact on me as a person, as a music fan and as a musician. For me, they are undoubtedly one of the greatest bands of all time, with a rich and deep catalog that has held up exceptionally well over the last 30+ years and is as relevant now as it was when it was released.
In closing, if you’ll allow me to posit a question I’ve asked dozens of times over the course of the last 1010 albums:
“Why isn’t Stereolab’s “Dots and Loops” *also* on this list?!?”
Prince
4/5
It’s a great record, but I can’t take some of the 80’s keyboard and drum sounds for very long.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
This is probably the best Elvis Costello record on the list, or, at least, it was the one that I was the least annoyed by.
Steely Dan
1/5
Putting aside the fact that this is a very misleading album title (there are, in fact, plenty of thrilling records you can buy - it’s just that none of them are made by Steely Dan), you’d think a band as smug as Steely Dan would at least be capable of making music that has a little bit of emotion or intensity to it.
Nope.
Instead, they were content to put out the most calculated, anodyne and consistently mid-tempo albums that, at best, might inspire some gentle hip shaking and shuffling-in-place from their listeners.
To their credit, this band at least lives up to their namesake…This is dildo rock, made by dildos.
Just take a look at this quote from the band, about the recording of this album (from the Apple Music album blurb):
As the duo put it in the album’s belated liner notes, Fagen and Becker had arrived in California with a book of songs that had to be “adjusted and refined to take into account the new musical environment in which we found ourselves operating, and also to reflect our belated understanding of the aesthetic shortcomings of some of our less-than-accessible, more doggedly surrealist efforts.”
…and you lot have the gall to call Sonic Youth “pretentious”.
Ice Cube
2/5
The production on this record…holy fuck.
The lyrics, also holy fuck…but in the opposite direction.
Def Leppard
2/5
Everybody’s always talking about how the drummer from Def Leppard’s only got one arm, but no one ever mentions how he’s only got one drumbeat.
…and that predates the arm thing.
Also, much love to England for proving that butt rock was not strictly an American thing.
Billie Holiday
2/5
Day 1,016:
I’m tired, boss.
The Yardbirds
3/5
Right off the bat, let’s all agree that Pink Floyd lifted part of track 3, “The Nazz Are Blue”, for “Money”.
Cool, now that we’re all in agreement…
This is pretty rad record. You’d expect interesting guitar parts from a band that had Jeff Beck in their ranks, but the surprising thing here is how textural and atmospheric the guitar parts are in many places rather than full-out blues based rock bombast. Add in the occult-ish chanting/backing vocals that pop up through out and you’ve a got a pretty unique 60’s psych record.
Q-Tip
5/5
I liked it when I was listening in my car on the way home from work.
I *loved it* when I listened to it on my headphones at home.
Just excellent from start to finish. Jazzy, funky, soulful hip hop and that should come as no surprise …the man was in A Tribe Called Quest, after all.
The Kinks
4/5
Not my favorite of the Kinks’ records - I prefer the three that follow this one - but Something Else has one of the greatest songs ever written, “Waterloo Sunset”, several other career highs and some really beautiful instrumentation, like on Two Sisters. It is probably their most explicitly “British” and least contemporary sounding record - at least of their early classics. I can see why this is a lot of people’s favorite Kinks’ record.
Snoop Dogg
4/5
My rating here is probably titled towards nostalgia, since I was a teenager when it was released. There are some certified classics here, songs I’ve liked for 30 years. It’s a record I like, but don’t really listen to at all in my day-to-day listening.
David Crosby
4/5
I find it legitimately hilarious that Graham Nash is the only member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young that doesn’t have a solo album on the 1001 albums list.
Poor Graham Nash.
Now that I’ve completed the entire discography of the CSNY members contained on this list, here’s how I rank all of them with a quick justification for each position:
1. Neil Young (and it’s not even a contest) - He forged his own path, was ahead of his time and completely unique. Of the four, the only one who made consistently great music throughout his entire career, was highly influential and remained relevant well past the 1970’s. One of the all time greats.
2. Stephen Stills - As much as I dislike most of his music it’s hard to deny his talent and ambition. That first CSN record was a showcase of his talents and, of the four, he was the first to have a fully formed idea of who he was as an artist. His musical output fell off very quickly, however, and I must once again refer you to the song “Can’t Get No Booty” from his 1978 solo record, Thoroughfare Gap.
3. David Crosby - Coming in at three, but just barely, behind Stills. His work with the Byrds and this excellent, hazy psych record are high water marks. His latter day solo work, team ups with Graham Nash and his band CPR are not for me at all and not very good, but I think his early work and curmudgeonly online persona towards the end of his life makes up for most of it.
4. Graham Nash - Nash has always struck me as an off-brand Paul McCartney and, with Crosby, he created a lot of very forgettable Lite FM-ish soft rock. His catalog is the least essential of the 4.
“If I Could Only Remember My Name” is consistent from start to finish and documents a difficult time for Crosby, following the death of his girlfriend and features the friends who tried to help him through that trauma. It becomes somewhat self-indulgent towards the end of the record, with a lot of wordless vocalization, but as a whole, it is probably the best non-Neil Young solo outing from the CSNY camp.
Primal Scream
3/5
Took a minute to realize that track 2 was a 13th Floor Elevators cover, “Slip Inside This House”. They did a good job of making it their own, while sort of keeping it in line with the original.
That song, “Higher Than the Sun”, “Inner Flight” and “I’m Comin’ Down” were probably the highlights for me. Not a fan of the Stephen Stills/“Love the One You’re With” meets dance music vibes happening on some of the songs, like “Move On Up” and “Come Together” or “Loaded”. It’s kind of like the worst parts of both joining together make something I truly don’t like.
Had I ever taken ecstasy in my life, I might feel differently about this record, but this really feels like music for a time and place that I was not present for and have little interest in visiting.
(I just realized this is the second Stephen Stills reference I’ve made in as many days. I think for the remainder of my reviews I’m going to drop a Stephen Stills reference in as many of them as possible. I’ve got 67 records left to review, let’s how many I can pull off)
Christine and the Queens
3/5
Well produced and sophisticated pop. Not normally something that would interest me, but I really enjoyed a few tracks here, especially “What’s-her-face”/“Machin-chose”. Really excellent song.
Richard Thompson
4/5
Awesome album cover, awesome guitar playing. “Bright Lights” is an excellent collection of folk/rock songs that feels ahead of its time.
If someone had told me when I started this list three years ago that Fairport Convention (of which Richard Thompson was a member) was going to be one of the most rewarding musical discoveries through the list, I would have laughed and maybe not had taken part in this in the first place.
But here I am, three years later, continually impressed by the Fairport Convention and its members. There’s an emotional and musical depth to these songs that I suspect will reward repeated listens.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
I like the Stones just fine, but I’m a little surprised at how boring I’ve found most of their albums on the list. Just kind of feels like a lot of their songs move slower than they should or something. I don’t know.
Let it Bleed is good, it’s bookended by two of their bigger hits, but getting from point A to point B was not nearly as interesting as you would hope from a record by one of the biggest bands in the world.
Beyoncé
3/5
I like getting an album like this recommended.
It gives me a glimpse into the type of music that normal people, who are in-tune with culture and trends and that sort of thing, are into.
Granted, I’m like 12 years behind the curve on this one, but Beyoncé is still relevant in 2025, so it’s kind of like putting a piece of a puzzle into place - except I have little interest in ever finishing the puzzle.
Maybe in another 12 years, I’ll get around to hearing the country record she recently put out.
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
What am I going to say that hasn’t already been said?
It’s a classic, one of the absolute greatest hip-hop albums of all time.
Teenage Fanclub
5/5
I’ve been a fan of this record for many years now.
The Concept might be one of the greatest opening tracks in all of rock and Star Sign is one of the best alternative singles of the 90’s to me, but while listening I was having a hard time justifying giving Bandwagonesque 5 stars.
The thing is, I wasn’t sure all of the songs here live up to the high bar that The Concept or Star Sign or December set.
Then, Alcoholiday came on, with its jangly guitar and the wordless “ah-ah” vocal intro and was reminded of just how perfectly that hits. It’s not an insane feat of technical prowess or even the most original sound in the world, but there is something about it that is just right to me. I’m having a difficult time coming up with the words to describe what it is about that sound that makes me feel the way I do. It’s like an uplifting sense of melancholy, which is sort of an antithetical way to feel. It’s instantly soothing and there are enough of those moments on this record that I wouldn’t be being honest with myself if I only gave it a four.
Big Star is one of the only other bands I can think of that hits that same sort of spot for me and it’s not surprising: Teenage Fanclub are clearly fans of theirs and many critics drew comparisons between the two acts, going as far as to call Bandwagonesque “Big Star’s 4th” as a means of compliment.
If you like power pop and you like huge, fuzzed out 90’s guitars, you’ll probably find a lot to like on Bandwagonesque. I like both of those things quite a bit, so I’m not sure why I was having doubts about rating it a 5 in the first place…
Also, a not-so-fun fact about this record: Gene Simmons apparently sued Teenage Fanclub over this album cover, claiming that he owned the trademark to the “bag of money with a dollar sign on it”. That can’t possibly be true, there’s cartoons from like the 1930’s with a dollar sign emblazoned money bag in them, but Teenage Fanclub settled and paid him royalties - presumably to avoid a long, drawn out legal battle with one of rock and roll’s wealthiest assholes.
TL;DR: Bandwagonesque - 5 Stars, Gene Simmons - Colossal Douchebag
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
Ray Charles
3/5
Einstürzende Neubauten
3/5
This is you:
“I really enjoyed all 36 of the British alt-rock albums released between 1995 and 2005 that are on the list. Even though they all sound the same, I rated them all 4’s and 5’s.”
This is me:
“Shut up, nerd. We bang wrenches and hammers on scrap metal to make music now.”
Herbie Hancock
5/5
The other day, YouTube’s algorithm put a live Herbie Hancock performance of “Chameleon” from 1975 on The Midnight Special in front of me.
The arrangement of the song live is a bit different from what is on the record here. It starts with the more mellow part of the song, with Hancock soloing on his Fender Rhodes, but pretty quickly turns into the bouncy, funk part we know from the start of the studio version. Hancock then launches into a solo on his ARP Odyssey synth and as he manipulates its many sliders, it squelches and squeals atop the incredibly funky backbeat his band is laying down.
Then, then with the flick of a switch, the Odyssey’s sound starts to get chopped up, rhythmically. He stands up and slowly lifts his hands off of the synth, but the sound continues. He lifts his hands even further, well above his head, and the sound still continues. The farther he raises his hands above his head, the more the sound is augmented, sweeping upwards into higher frequencies. When lowers his hands, the sound sweeps back downwards into a lower frequency. He continues to raise and lower his arms, seemingly modifying the tone of the synthesizer without even having to touch it, like us mere mortals would.
Over and over, up and down, he moves his arms and the synth sound changes in time with his movements. The viewer is left with the impression that Herbie Hancock is some kind of funk sorcerer who can bend the will of his instrument and coax sound from it using only his thoughts.
It’s cold as fuck.
It’s not real, obviously, and there’s a pretty simple technical explanation for how it is done, but I won’t reveal the magician’s secret, you’ll have to figure that out for yourself.
https://youtu.be/rsJV13Biapg?si=1gw76cZkV1L-hWht
The Blue Nile
3/5
I think i would like this better if there were no vocals.
With the vocals, it feels too mopey and the songs, which I find intriguing musically, lose some of their impact.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
There’s a certain level of “of course it’s good, it’s Bob Marley” baked into these Bob Marley records for me, you know what I mean? It was good and made a nice soundtrack to the spring cleaning I did today, but it would be rare that I seek out this, or any other, Bob Marley record out in my day to day listening.
Beatles
3/5
My final Beatles record on the list and probably the one I have the least familiarity (outside of Nowhere Man, Drive my Car or Michelle) with, so I figure I’ll give this one an honest review, instead of making light of the Beatles like I usually do.
This is a pretty clearly a bridge between their more “traditional” pop sound and the experimentation they’d get into on Revolver, which, I maintain, is the best record they ever made.
Rubber Soul is a pretty good record. A lot of these songs, in my opinion, don’t really raise to the levels of their best work, but they also don’t really get bogged down in silliness like some of the songs on Sgt. Peppers, The White Album, or Abby Road do. It’s a pretty straight forward rock record in that regard, even if it tends to have a feel of “old fashioned” rock and roll to it.
But again, Revolver is probably their best record, because it’s forward thinking and feels less like a reaction to what was popular or the influence of other popular bands - you can definitely hear the influence that The Byrds’ concurrent success had on this record, particularly on a track like “If I Needed Someone”, with its jangly guitar chords that sound a fair bit like “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better” from the Byrds.
M.I.A.
4/5
Yeah, maybe it’s out of character for me, but I really liked this record, you big dummy.
Spacemen 3
4/5
Please stop complaining and embrace the drone.
Slayer
3/5
Asbury Park, New Jersey in the late 1990’s was not the hip beach town it is today. It was a decrepit ruin of a beach town and its glory days (wink) were well behind it. If I showed you photos of the high rise buildings near the boardwalk, collapsing and in disrepair, side by side with a photo of a bombed out building in 1980’s Beirut and asked you to tell me which was which, like Pam on the Office, you’d probably say, “they’re the same picture”.
At one end of Asbury Park’s boardwalk, not far from the legendary Stone Pony, sits the Asbury Park Convention Hall, a gaudy 1930’s art deco indoor concert hall and expo center. It’s a truly beautiful building that has held concerts from some of the all time greats over the years, including Black Sabbath, The Doors, James Brown, the Byrds, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and many, many more.
By the end of the 20th century, however, it was, like the rest of Asbury Park, falling into disrepair. Its art deco stylings still intact, it felt like a haunted venue: dark and dingy, with a ceiling that sometimes leaked, causing water to pool and stagnate on the concert hall’s floor and surrounding areas.
Not only could you see some great shows at the Convention Hall back in the 90’s, you could also pick up one hell of a cold or sinus infection. Despite that, if you were a metalhead and Slayer came to town, you went to the show…contracting Legionnaries’ disease in the Convention Hall was an acceptable risk.
As usual, my friends and I arrived late to the concert, due in part to trying to find a ticket for my friend Mark, who tagged along last minute, without a ticket, but with the conviction that he would be able to buy one outside the venue from a scalper. He didn’t and instead spent the duration of the concert in the parking lot while the rest of us were inside the convention hall thrashing to Slayer.
Sorry, Mark.
Since we were late, we had to make do with a spot at the very back of the packed concert hall when Slayer took the stage. Not ideal, but once the show started, it would be easy enough to make our way forward towards the stage. Sure enough, with each song we were able to get closer to the front, until we had reached the back edge of the massive mosh pit in the center of the crowd.
Still not content with our position relative to the stage, a friend and I hatched a plan: at the end of the next song, we would make a dash across the open mosh pit to the to the front edge of the pit, and get even closer. It was probably a 40 or 50 foot dash across the pit and doing it during a break between songs seemed like the best time to go for it, since the pit would be temporarily calmed.
Slayer mosh pits are insane, in my experience. A Slayer mosh pit in a shitty, run down New Jersey convention hall probably had an extra dose of insanity injected into it. Every song they played, the pit was just a mass of bodies and flailing limbs being thrown about without regard to what may be in their way. Arms and fists flew, spin kicks were launched…it was pure mayhem. If you stepped into that pit, you needed to be prepared to get socked in the face and be cool with it. Running across the pit in between songs was probably the only way to avoid that and still get a closer view.
So when that song ended, with squealing guitar feedback still in the air, we made a break for it through the temporarily calmed pit. Before I even approached the middle of the pit, with my friend a few feet in front of me and feedback still reverberating throughout the hall, the pounding of drums began:
DUN DUN DUN
“Oh, fuck…Raining Blood”, I thought.
DUN DUN DUN
I had a choice to make: fight or flight. I had a good amount of distance to cover and very little time left to make it across without being swallowed up by the carnage that was about to ensue. I did what any scrawny, 5’11” seventeen year old nerd would do: I turned on a dime and aborted the mission. I had to get the fuck out of there and do it quick - I knew I was no match for the aggression that was about to be unleashed.
DUN DUN DUN
As I reached the exit of the pit, the drums pounded one last time before the feedback swelled and Slayer launched into their most iconic riff. I turned, looked back at the mosh pit, and what was previously a wide open circle in the crowd, was now flooded with people coming from all sides, like the Red Sea returning to its natural state after being parted. When that iconic intro riff turned to violent thrash and the pit became an undulating mass of maximum aggression, I was left amazed by my situational awareness and the split second decision I had just made. I had no idea where my friend was at that point, and maybe that was selfish on my part, but at least I wasn’t in the middle of *that*.
I’d find out a little later that night that my friend made it across the pit unscathed, right in the nick of time and witnessed the same “Red Sea” effect as I had, only from the opposite side of the pit.
…and that’s the story of how I narrowly avoided getting my ass kicked in a Slayer mosh pit.
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
4/5
Having been born in 1981, I might be in a unique position among the majority of the userbase here, in that by the time I was 6 or 7, I have memories of the golden age of hip-hop and how radical and new it was in comparison to contemporary culture. Granted, I was not cognizant of this record when it was released, but stylistically, it’s the springboard for the hip-hop that I have early memories of as child.
Even the clothing and style…looking at the cover of this record brings back vivid memories of going to my grandparents house in West New York, New Jersey as a kid and seeing people walking down the streets with boomboxes on their shoulders.
Because of that, I’m going to have a nostalgic bias towards this record. It’s a cornerstone of hip-hop. I mean, I was a little taken aback listening today by how it is really sort of a hybrid r&b/funk album and only a couple of tracks are what we’d consider hip-hop, but I can’t deny its influence.
Faust
5/5
Faust has never really been one of my favorites out of the krautrock scene, but I think that might be, in part, because they’re a little hard to pin down.
Are they minimalists, electronic experimenters, a psych/jam band, sonic terrorists, the second coming of the velvet underground, a reggae band or mad scientist tape-splicers?
Yes.
In a way, that might make them the most “Krautrock” of all the Krautrock bands. They’re not tied down to any specific sound and whatever they come up with is what they are.
I think that’s awesome.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
Bruce Springsteen is a bit like Bob Dylan for me, in that I think other artists’ covers of his songs are sometimes better than the originals.
Specifically, on this record, Thunder Road. There’s a fantastic cover by Tortoise and Bonnie “Prince” Billy from their 2006 covers record, The Brave and the Bold. It takes the original, slows it down and adds a sense of haunting menace that I think suits the lyrics a bit better than the jittery, uptempo original found here.
I’m from New Jersey, so I am well aware of how heretical it is to even think that, never mind express it “in public”, but it is a really, really great cover. It takes the song in a new direction while remaining true to the original. By giving the song a little space to breathe, the impact of the lyrics is a little greater and the outro of the song in that version, just…wow. It’s one of my favorite covers ever and I recommend you check it out when you’re done with this record. (Since it appears to only be available on YouTube, here’s the link: https://youtu.be/c5Yyo4zGKiA?si=4QEAEVYVDSLtJRZw )
I know this is “the” Bruce album for most people and it’s really great, but as I’ve gone through this list, I’ve found “Darkness at the Edge of Town” and “Nebraska” to be his most enjoyable and would consider them to be high-water marks.
Randy Newman
2/5
Even if the lyrical content on this album has a bit more edge than the New Yorker typically would, I still maintain that Randy Newman’s music/satire is the audio equivalent of a New Yorker Cartoon - the spirit is still mostly the same.
So, in honor of the occasion of having to listen to another one of his albums, I’ve come up with my own little New Yorker cartoon:
________________
Image: Two dogs on a New York City street. One is sniffing the other’s rear. The dog that is doing the sniffing says to the other…
Caption: “You know, ever since Mayor Adams instituted the garbage can law, the city sure does smell a lot better.”
________________
The The
1/5
Wow, I really disliked this. The The’s well performed, but overly polished digital synthetics really grated on me and barely held my attention today.
Also, I’ve got about 46 records left on the list, so I figured I might as well hand out what might be my last 1 star rating to a band whose name might be the worst in the history of rock music.
We can all agree it’s a fucking stupid band name, right? The The? Really? What a fucking lazy band name.
Johnny Cash
3/5
Like “At San Quentin”, I appreciate the concept of this record, but musically I find it kind of boring. The songs all kind of sound the same and they’re repetitive in a very uninteresting way for me.
I don’t really get the appeal of his music and I know I’m outside of the mainstream with that opinion.
However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the song “Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart”, which, had it not been written by Cash, would’ve made a perfect pastiche song for Weird Al to take on Cash’s style with.
Johnny Cash
2/5
I was never a fan of Johnny Cash and when I saw Walk the Line back 2005 or 6, it didn’t really change my mind. In fact, I may have walked away from it with a lesser opinion of him. Just as an example, read about the time he got wasted and accidentally burned down a California Condor sanctuary, killing nearly all of the birds at the sanctuary and what his response was.
Remember dude…yOu HaVe tO sEpArAtE tHe ArT fRoM tHe ArTiSt.
I mean, look, the music is fine. His catalog is awfully same-y to me, with a lot of oom-pah, bouncy country rhythms. The music by and large is not interesting to me. Lyrically, it doesn’t connect for me and I’m not sure I understand why it is he is held in such high regard in American culture.
Sorry, it is what it is.
American IV is the fourth installment of comeback records Cash recorded with Rick Rubin and you can tell by this point that the trick was wearing thin. Cash doesn’t seem interested on several of these tracks.
Outside of Hurt, which lands, and Personal Jesus, most of the covers here feel unnecessary. In particular, the cover of Bridge Over Troubled Water felt a bit hammy and out of place.
Im just saying that at this point in the American series, American IV seems like it was maybe more of a product to sell than something that Cash might have been actually passionate about.
Circle Jerks
4/5
Fantastic, no notes.
Underworld
3/5
So, Stereolab released an new album today, “Instant Holograms on Metal Film”, their first in 15 years and I am having a very hard time staying invested and not bailing on this record to listen to that one instead.
Not because it’s bad, it’s fine or whatever…I really liked Stagger and Banstyle/Sappys Curry…it’s because I am very hyped for this new Stereolab record - it’s really excellent. They managed to make a record after 15 years hiatus that feels like they never left, while also exploring new territory. It’s exactly how a comeback album should be done.
As for Underworld, this record is a bit long for me today (holy fuck, is it long) and doesn’t really feel too different from a lot the 90’s electronic on the list, but it is definitely in the upper tier of the choices here. That said, it will definitely make a decent segue into the new Stereolab record, which I plan on listening to the very second I am finished with this record.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
2/5
I guess maybe it’s necessary to separate the original incarnation of the band from what they became, since we can’t really tell whether Ronnie Van Zant would’ve made the same decisions that the band did, had he lived.
Maybe they were more liberal-minded in the early days and Sweet Home Alabama really is a skewering of conservative policies and values and they actually didn’t care for segregationist governor George Wallace - which would make sense with the “Boo Boo Boo” chant following his mention in the song, but it’s contradicted by accounts that Van Zant did, in fact, like Wallace by Skynyrd bassist Ed King and Charlie Daniels.
One thing that overlaps both versions of this band is the use of the Confederate Flag in their imagery and stage shows. That was kind of a constant and is also a choice where their intent is unclear. It’s been explained away by the band that their record label, MCA, encouraged them to use the flag as a way to accent their Southernness and rebellious nature, but they also continued to associate themselves with it in their merchandise and stage shows for nearly 40 years following the band’s formation.
Accepting the charitable interpretation, that Skynyrd merely used the flag as a marketing ploy, leaves us with an explanation: Lynyrd Skynyrd was fine with being tied to all the things that flag stood for, so long as they made money off of it, which is…a different kind of awful.
So Skynyrd has left us with a choice to make: Do we accept their explanation that they were just playing the game, that they were actually more socially progressive, but had to lean into stereotype to make money?
There’s an old saying, “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything” and I think that applies here. By adopting the rebel flag, they’ve forever tied themselves to its history and whatever good intentions they may have had outside of that are tarnished by the flag’s legacy.
…and like I said, that’s the charitable explanation.
Scott Walker
2/5
Arrangements were nice, but I’m not big on crooning.
Elvis Presley
3/5
This Clash album kind of sucks.
The Byrds
5/5
Even if only for the cover, where the remaining Byrds replaced David Crosby with a horse following his exit from the band, The Notorious Byrd Brothers deserves five stars.
Sure, it’s of its time, but it’s the weirdest, heaviest and most psychedelic the Byrds would get in their career. It ranges from pastoral psych, acid fried country to heavy duty, brain burning psych over the course of its songs.
Just listen to “Change is Now”. When the band hits the solo section, where fuzzy reversed guitars kick in and the syncopated, metronomic backbeat of the drums anchors the song down, The Byrds sound more like Can than what you would expect from a West Coast psych band.
That song is heavy duty, man.
Add in “I Wasn’t Born to Follow”, “Goin’ Back”, “Old John Robinson”…The Notorious Byrd Brothers is a classic that shouldn’t be overlooked.
CHVRCHES
2/5
It wasn’t so long ago that the term “indie” was reserved for music that was an alternative to mainstream/popular music, not the literal embodiment of it.
This is basically a Debbie Gibson record, except you’re too young to know who Debbie Gibson is.
Van Morrison
3/5
First off, this is the third of three Van Morrison albums on the list and none of them are named Veedon Fleece. I just feel that should be noted.
Next, this is the second appearance of his song Caravan on the list and I must once again implore you to check out the live version of that song from The Band’s Last Waltz film, so you can see Van Morrison in his coked-out, grandma pantsuit glory. In fact, I’ll make it easy for you, here’s a link: https://youtu.be/44wDwMQVqCc?si=npfDHusbnqzM7Wn3
Third, let’s talk about the phrase “electric light”, because it comes up in “Caravan” and also in the first track, “Ain’t Nothin’ You Can Do”. It’s kind of an odd thing to say, specifying that something is an *electric* light (eg: “Switch on your electric light” from Caravan). It made me realize that Van Morrison, now almost 80, might have grown up without electricity, or at least in an environment where electricity was uncommon enough that he feels the need to differentiate “electric light” from other types of light. Nothing to be ashamed about - it’s possible since parts of Northern Ireland did not have electricity until the 1960’s - just interesting to think that we are not far off from a world where having electricity wasn’t a certainty.
Fourth, I think Van Morrison is fucking hilarious. Not that I think he is being intentionally funny, but his vocal mannerisms, the way he chooses to emphasize certain words and the way he ramps the volume of his voice up and down are all very funny to me. When he says “Switch on your electric light-ah”, it will never not make me laugh or when he starts scatting, then abruptly stops and moves on to a different vocal delivery style all together - it’s hilarious. My favorite Van Morrison-ism is when he’s soulfully talk-singing at a normal volume and then just yells something out - like “TURN IT UP!” in the version of Caravan here. The man is a maniac with his vocal delivery and I can’t get enough of it.
My fifth and final point will serve as my official review of the record. The band is exceptionally tight here and the inclusion of horns and string section breathes new life into some of these songs, which makes it a really interesting live document. In fact, the string section solo in the middle of Caravan is legitimately beautiful instrumental break. At times, though, this record feels a bit like an old time Vegas revue and I found myself losing interest during most of the traditional blues based songs. It’s when Van Morrison and the band get soulful and funky that this record, whose overly long title escapes me, really shines.
Motörhead
4/5
It’s pretty simple, really…either you like good music or you don’t.
Skunk Anansie
2/5
This feels like 1999.
Too much like 1999.
(Source: was there)
Also, quick shout-out to some classic albums from 1999 that were excluded from the book:
Keep it Like a Secret - Built to Spill
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
Boredoms - Vision Creation Newsun
MF DOOM - Operation: Doomsday
Scott Walker
3/5
Wasn’t sure about Scott 2, but starting this album off with a song about The Seventh Seal has me intrigued. This is exactly the type of pretentious shit I love.
The orchestral arrangements are really great on this record. They’re psychedelic, full of depth, soulful, and sometimes avant garde. They feel very forward thinking for their time and you can easily see where a band like Stereolab might have drawn influence from Walker.
Really like Scott 4, even if the music is more intriguing to me than his voice.
Fatboy Slim
3/5
Less annoyingly repetitive than his other album on the list, but still, at 71 minutes, it starts to feel like you’re banging your head against a wall.
Can
5/5
The benefit of the double LP - which, historically, I am not a fan of - is that it allows the artist to segment their work. You can have one set of ideas on one LP and another set of ideas on the next. Some might even segment further, grouping different sets of ideas for each side of vinyl, so that you have 4 separate artistic ideas spread across your double LP.
In the era of streaming, that segmentation is lost. You are given a list of songs, one after another, and that is your album. There’s no line of demarcation.
Even if an album like Tago Mago can be taken as a whole, some might find the separation of LP’s to beneficial - you have the first LP (Paperhouse through Halleluwah), a (relatively) straightforward psychedelic rock LP and the second LP (Augmn through Bring Me Coffee or Tea), a wildly experimental and avant-garde slab of blistering psychedelia. You can break Tago Mago up and find situations where one half of the album might suit you better than the other.
I don’t really know what my point is here….maybe that you can enjoy part of this record and then come back to the other part later, rather than taking it all in at once.
Anyway…Can is awesome. They are one of the greatest bands of all time, maybe the greatest. Tago Mago is a masterpiece…you just need to let it unfold for you.
LTJ Bukem
1/5
Hope you like that stereotypical, fast paced techno breakbeat, because every song on this record has it.
Sometimes it’s right at the top of the track, other times it comes in after a minute or two. Dread it, run from it…the stereotypical techno breakbeat arrives all the same.
It’s kind of amazing, actually. Some of these songs are pretty good, some are not, some go on for way too long, but somehow, they all sound the same.
I don’t understand how that is possible.
Doves
1/5
Another aggressively average, derivative and of-its-time entry from Tony Blair-era England.
At this point, with only 30 albums left to go, I’m ready to declare this list, as a whole, a failure and it is entirely because of the abundance of albums like this one. The amount of great music that has been excluded, so that critical darlings of the British music press can get some shine, calls the veracity of this list into question time and time again.
You’re probably like, “This guy thinks he knows better than Robert Dimery and the editors of this book”.
As a matter of fact, I do *and* I’m gonna prove it right now with an album recommendation that doesn’t sound like anything else on this list, one that I’m certain hardly any of you have heard before:
Macha’s “See it Another Way” from 1999.
Some background (via Wikipedia - paraphrased):
“Macha was an experimental post-rock band from Athens, Georgia composed of brothers Josh McKay(founder/singer/multi-instrumentalist), Mischo McKay (drums/percussion), Kai Reidl (multi-instrumentalist) and Wes Martin (multi-instrumentalist). Macha's music combined elements of post-punk, krautrock and especially Indonesian Gamelan. They incorporated a variety of instruments into their sets: Javanese zither, Balinesebamboo flute, hammered dulcimer, Hawaiian slide guitar, talempong nipple gongs and Nepalese shawms, vibraphone, and a 1970s-era thrift-store organ called the Fun Machine.”
“See it Another Way” is their second album, released in 1999 by Jetset Records. It has never been on streaming services due to issues with ownership rights. This is truly an album that should be heard before you die and before it is lost to time. You can listen to it on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/O9T5TKNA0bE?si=GpZ-UWrjdQBmdbhA
It’ll blow your damn mind.
The Black Crowes
2/5
I suspect this record might have been a breath of fresh air in 1990, following the synthetics and excess of the 1980’s. I was only 9 at the time, so I don’t really recall - I was probably too busy watching The Simpsons or Parker Lewis Can’t Lose to pay attention. It’s throwback rock, it’s derivative and buttrock-y, but it’s also kind of ok, I guess.
In closing…
Ayelimmletheelemmelieyorkenneldowngauzemamaeyeshohaithehunnahnowyessirow!
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
3/5
Metallica
5/5
When the aliens crash land in your backyard and ask you “what is this thing you call heavy metal?” (I have it on good authority that this will, in fact, be the first thing they ask), this is the album you play them.
Nitin Sawhney
2/5
The song Serpents did something to my brain that I can’t say I’ve ever experienced before, nor do I want to experience again. It was like someone had put a wet towel over it: weighed down and sort of confusing. The physical sensation was not unlike a sinus headache, not painful, but there was a sense of pressure - like my surroundings had been dampened temporarily. I could think clearly, but everything felt heavy, like I had to push hard to focus and get a thought out.
The second the next song started, it dissipated. It was like sensory overload, maybe.
Needless to say, I’m not a huge fan of this record.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
3/5
Somehow, this is a 1 star record and 5 star record at the same time, so I’m going to split the difference and give it a 3.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
I like this band because they sound a bit more like an American indie rock band than most of the other British alternative bands of their era. In fact, I’ve given them the nickname “British Superchunk” in my household. There’s something about the singer’s voice that reminds me of Mac McCaughan.
I realize that’s not fair and shows my bias towards American music, but I don’t care…it’s just like Popeye says: “I am what I am”.
Anyway, I think I liked the other album (The Holy Bible) from these guys a little better, maybe it was a little more aggressive and reckless and this one’s more reserved or somber (makes sense given the circumstances). I would rank MSP at the higher end of the British alt-rock on the list, so don’t take this three as a condemnation. It’s a good album, but I’m not sure I’ll be revisiting.
Death In Vegas
3/5
I previously only had awareness of Death in Vegas from their track “Girls” on the Lost In Translation soundtrack. It’s sort of an ethereal, shoegaze-y electronic song that works really well to my ears.
So I went into this record hopeful that it would deliver more of that type of sound.
It did and it also didn’t.
This is an electronic record that’s kind of been filtered through the lens of the Velvet Underground, so it’s both ethereal and noisy. That blend works more often than not, but lacks the visceral edge that you might expect from a noisy rock record.
Overall, I think the sound works, even if there were a few spots where it didn’t feel especially unique towards the end. One thing is for certain, it was nice not be brow-beaten with arpeggiated synths on a 1990’s electronic record; a welcome reprise.
Dinosaur Jr.
5/5
My introduction to Dinosaur Jr was in 1993 or 4, by way of the Wayne’s World 2 soundtrack, where the song “Out There” was included.
As a 13 year old, it was mind blowing and might have been the greatest riff and guitar solo I had ever heard. It was like I had seen God…a total revelation. The things that J Mascis was doing with his guitar seemed like they were beyond the capabilities of any mere mortal and “Out There” was a veritable showcase of his talents. 30 plus years later, I still consider it one of the greatest songs of all time and maybe the most overlooked single of the alternative era. That song should be immensely popular.
I didn’t really get into Your Living All Over Me or Bug until a few years down the line. I don’t think I was quite ready to appreciate the band that Dinosaur Jr started off as when I was 13. The noise, the reckless abandon…I wasn’t there yet.
But when it clicked, it clicked hard.
You’re Living All Over Me is an American indie classic. The noise, the aggression, the incredible guitar work from J Mascis…Dinosaur Jr helped lay the groundwork for the alternative explosion of the 90’s and influenced some of the biggest bands of the era. It’s a stone cold classic.
Judas Priest
3/5
I’m doing an experiment today.
Earlier this week, Captain’s Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica was generated for me, but I didn’t have a chance to listen to it, because it’s only available on YouTube for me and I figured I could use a day off after 1060 albums.
So today, I’m playing catch up, but I figured I’d make it an insane listening experience:
I’m going to go back and forth between this album and Trout Mask Replica and review them simultaneously. So, I’ll listen to 5-10 minutes of Beefheart and then switch over to Judas Priest, back and forth until I finish both records.
This review is either going to be a work of art or I’m going to loose my goddamn mind in the process.
I started with the first 10 Minutes of Beefheart and then fired up British Steel - I’ll probably break up British Steel into two track chunks.
Rapid Fire and Metal Gods are up first:
Ok, so the contrast between these two records isn’t as wide as I would be thought at first. Judas Priest is clearly more focused compared to Beefheart, but the amount of superfluous guitar solos going on in these two tracks feels not too far off from the free jazz guitar noise that’s happening on Trout Mask Replica. Judas Priest’s guitar solos that punctuate the lyrics in the back half of Rapid Fire feel weirdly improvised and sort of ill fitting in the same way that Trout Mask Replica’s reckless abandon does.
(Beefheart Break)
“Breaking the Law / Grinder” - Breaking the Law got me thinking about Beavis and Butthead and their escapades. Grinder…well, were people really that shocked when Rob Halford came out? Kind of seems like the clues were there, hearing this song.
(Beefheart Break)
“United / You Don’t Have to Be Old to Be Wise” - Beefheart started singing “Gimme that old time religion” in Moonlight on Vermont right after I listened to the last two Priest tracks, which provided an interesting contrast, at least from a thematic perspective.
As for “United” and “…Old to Be Wise” - again, I’m really surprised at how the transition between Beefheart and Priest is a lot less jarring that I thought it would be. In fact, I feel like Halford’s vocal delivery in the verses of “United” feels strangely similar to Beefheart’s vocal delivery.
(Beefheart Break)
“Living After Midnight / The Rage” - At this point, writing two in-depth reviews of these two records is proving to be time consuming, so I’ve settled on writing a short review later to encapsulate my thoughts on Trout Mask Replica and will focus on documenting my experiment here…
The contrast between Beefheart and Judas Priest is now really evident as the pop-Metal of “Living After Midnight” plays. I used to know a guy who would play this song anytime he came around for a party and there was acoustic guitar around. It was obnoxious, but not quite as obnoxious as this experiment I’ve chosen to undertake today.
Also, are Judas Priest trying to play Reggae on intro to “The Rage”? It’s really clunky, but also does not feel so far removed from some of the weirdness on Trout Mask Replica.
(Beefheart Break)
“Steeler” - So, I just listened to China Pig and My Human Gets Me Blues from Trout Mask Replica and it’s weird how nonplussed I am by the transitions between these two records.
I’m glad this is the last track, though. This experiment was a terrible idea. I fucking hate the electric guitar right now and I still have a ton of Captain Beefheart to listen to.
Conclusion:
Going to give this record 3 stars, since it was pretty enjoyable. I DO NOT recommend listening to it in the fashion I did, however. I only did this experiment so that you didn’t have to. You’re welcome.
Coldcut
2/5
I was hoping this would be more of a sample heavy hip-hop record and less the dance record that it turned out to be.
The Monkees
3/5
So, look, I was born in 1981 and while most “experts” would classify me as a “millennial”, I disagree.
Beyond the obvious question of “Why is it that I am considered a millennial, but my classmates who were born in 1980 are considered Gen X?”, there are other important questions that should be asked, like:
How many Millennials remember the Challenger disaster or the fall of the Berlin Wall or Nirvana taking the world by storm?
Or, how many millennials knew Adam West as Batman before they knew Michael Keaton’s Batman? How many know a Joker (Cesar Romero) who couldn’t be bothered to shave his damn mustache and instead had it covered up with white grease paint as if the whole fucking world wouldn’t notice his bristly mustache under that coat of paint?
Like, if I have an in-depth understanding of a lot of 1960’s references and TV shows dating back to when I was growing up, am I really a millennial? I don’t think a lot of my millennial counterparts born in 1992 have the same understanding of 60’s culture that I do. I could be wrong, though.
Point being, I know the Monkees from TV as a kid. It was one of those shows you’d see in the afternoon on the weekends on WPIX 11 in New York and you’d watch it because there wasn’t anything else on. It usually came on in the same afternoon block that had Flipper (the dolphin, not the punk band). It was a corny show, but kind of funny sometimes and it sort of did music videos before that was a thing, so it was kind of unique compared to other tv shows.
So, call me a millennial if you must, but I’m more in tune with Gen X and I think if you watched the Monkees on TV as a kid, there’s probably a pretty good case to be made that you’re not a millennial, despite what the experts who create these arbitrary dates have to say.
In closing, a fun fact about the Monkees:
Stephen Stills auditioned for the Monkees, but was rejected because the producers thought his bad hair and crooked teeth didn’t jive with the Teen Idol image they were looking to portray on the show. He recommend that they hire his friend, Peter Tork, who got the role.
(See? I told you I was going to fit in as many Stephen Stills references as possible before I finished this challenge.)
MC Solaar
3/5
Sure, it would probably help if I understood French, but you don’t need to speak French to recognize a solid hip-hop record.
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
Frank Zappa’s music is amazing…when Frank Zappa isn’t singing over it.
Raekwon
3/5
Might have faded into the background while I was doing tasks around the house today, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Adam & The Ants
2/5
Vocally, he kind of reminds me of Dave Vanian from the Damned every once in a while.
Musically, is there such a thing as too many drums?
I think there is.
Also, too many vocals.
Between the vocals and the constant thumping drums, by the seventh song, I think I’ve had enough, but I’m going to plow through and finish this mess. I owe it to you, fellow listeners, to finish this record.
It just kind of feels like style over substance, which is unsurprising, given the connections to Malcolm McLaren, the UK’s #1 purveyor of style over substance in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
I fucking hate “Jolly Roger”.
This record is corny. The 80’s were abysmal. I was born at the start of the decade and I remember them. Most overrated decade I’ve lived through and I really don’t understand why people are so obsessed with 80’s culture - at least when it comes to popular music.
Janelle Monáe
4/5
Ambitious and adventurous. Applause for the amazing ArchAndroid.
Sade
3/5
Sade is the answer to the question: “What if Steely Dan was good?”
The Cramps
4/5
Adele
2/5
My musical taste has been so far removed from popular culture, for so long, that this music might as well be from mars.
King Crimson
5/5
Forward thinking and frequently challenging, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic captures the totality of King Crimson better than just about any other record in their catalog.
From the avant-garde soundscapes and unrelenting heaviness of Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Parts I & II, to the sheer beauty of Exiles and Book of Saturdays, and the expansive, polyrhythmic funkiness of Easy Money, King Crimson is at its absolute finest here, delivering one of the greatest progressive rock albums ever made.
Gillian Welch
4/5
This record is way too good to not be more well known.
Julian Cope
3/5
Despite having never really listened to his music, I’ve got a certain appreciation for Julian Cope. His love of psych and krautrock is well documented and you can tell from the production here that he is a fan of Brian Eno. I think he’s a pretty cool guy in that regard.
Musically, I’m not sure this album knows what it wants to be. It’s a little all over the place and I’m not sure the blend of experimental/psych rock and pop-ish songs always works. I enjoy it musically - a lot - but his vocals and delivery don’t really work for me most of the time. This record feels really long at 76 minutes.
The Cult
2/5
Huh, I didn’t realize there were three AC/DC records on the list.
Calexico
4/5
I never gave this record a listen back in the early aughts because of the album cover. I think it’s a pretty bad cover.
It’s not right, but it is what it is and I was wrong.
This is a fantastic record that captures the wide open space of the American west and filters it through an experimental, alternative rock lens.
I was foolish to judge it by its cover: Feast of Wires is a sprawling and often beautiful work of art.
Tom Waits
3/5
So you all get bent out of shape over the Residents record, but this album, which can be considered a stylistic sibling on a lot of tracks, gets high marks.
Make it make sense.
Anyway, the best part of this record is that there are so many songs that clock in at less than 3 minutes, which, I’ve discovered, is exactly the amount of time I can stomach a Tom Waits song.
Of the Tom Waits records on this list, this is his best.
I hate his music with a fiery passion, but even I can tell this is a creative peak.
Björk
2/5
I’m not a huge fan of music that kind of dwells on itself in a morose state. Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Bjork…they all kind of fall into that same mold to me.
…and I understand that art is therapeutic for the artist and an album like this might be more them than it is for me. I don’t have any issue with that at all.
I just can’t spend a lot of time in that depressive frame of mind, it’s not appealing to me.
Dagmar Krause
2/5
I appreciate that a lot of the songs are pretty short, so, in a way, it’s kind of like a Guided by Voices record…except that I have absolutely no interest in listening to it and it’s actually nothing like a Guided by Voices record at all.
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
Bleak-wood Mac