My 1001 Albums Journey

Albums Rated

2.88

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1039 albums remaining

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2000s

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5-Star Albums

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Rejoicing In The Hands Devendra Banhart	5	2.82	+2.18
Kala M.I.A.	5	2.91	+2.09
Sign 'O' The Times Prince	5	3.45	+1.55
Remain In Light Talking Heads	5	3.67	+1.33
Second Toughest In The Infants Underworld	4	2.86	+1.14

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Rocks Aerosmith	1	3.12	-2.12
Buena Vista Social Club Buena Vista Social Club	2	3.65	-1.65
Moving Pictures Rush	2	3.58	-1.58
Gorillaz Gorillaz	2	3.53	-1.53
Queen II Queen	2	3.49	-1.49
Murmur R.E.M.	2	3.42	-1.42
2112 Rush	2	3.39	-1.39
Eliminator ZZ Top	2	3.38	-1.38
Blur Blur	2	3.33	-1.33
Meat Is Murder The Smiths	2	3.32	-1.32

5-Star Albums (4)

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Popular Reviews

Murmur

R.E.M.

2/5

A little prom bandy

1 likes

Rejoicing In The Hands

Devendra Banhart

5/5

Nice to get an album I know and love. This is the Way is a favorite song of mine. Like lots of great poetry, Banhart’s lyrics lie somewhere between nonsense and profundity. And his heavy vibrato voice delivers them perfectly. The fingerpicking isn’t overly complicated, but the songs don’t fall into folkie cliches. Eccentric and whimsical like listening to a familiar stranger play songs by the fire.

1 likes

1-Star Albums (1)

All Ratings

Murmur

R.E.M.

2/5

A little prom bandy

Tracy Chapman

3/5

Fast Car! Love that Dire Straits guitar on She's Got Her Ticket. Mountains O' Things probably sounded more unique when reggaeton wasn't such a prominent pop genre.

That's The Way Of The World

Earth, Wind & Fire

3/5

Excellent dance grooves. Not a big fan of falsetto or horn sections.

Queen II

Queen

2/5

Seven Seas of Rhye is classic Queen. Otherwise, the rock opera elements didn’t quite gel.

1984

Van Halen

3/5

Eddie’s pyrotechnics are awesome. But they’re paired with lyrics like, “Throw my rope, loop de loop / Nice white teeth Betty Boop”.

British Steel

Judas Priest

2/5

I’m not a heavy metal maniac

Meat Is Murder

The Smiths

2/5

Bassline in Barbarism is good. Maybe I’d enjoy it more if I was on the dole in Thatcher era Britain.

Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul

Otis Redding

4/5

The album is a solid three stars production wise. But since these songs are the basis of Redding's absolutely stellar Monterey Pop show, I'll give it four stars. His performance of I've Been Loving You Too Long in particular is the epitome of soul music. You could say the same for his recording of Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, which isn't on this list unfortunately.

Eliminator

ZZ Top

2/5

Some nice pentatonic riffs. They didn’t really bring anything unique to blues rock, besides top hats.

The Specials

2/5

Eh nothing special

Blur

2/5

Went by in a blur. Some nice guitar sounds, but I’d like less studio experiments, more songcraft.

Sign 'O' The Times

Prince

5/5

Guess I'm a Prince fan. Listened to it twice and watched the concert film. The drum machine tracks are almost abrasively filtered, but they work really well in these songs and create an addictive pocket with the wide variety of synths and instruments utilized. Whether it's the evocative bass of the title track or the hair rock guitar in U Got the Look. Then the second half has a live band feel that's reminiscent of Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense with infectious horn lines and workout video energy. And Prince's voice of course, which soulfully inflects standard funk mantras like Hot Thing and funny surreal stories like Starfish and Coffee. The Cross is also a great song.

In A Silent Way

Miles Davis

3/5

The drummer riding the hihat must have been tired after Shh/Peaceful. Proto ambient fusion suitable for moments of contemplation. When it comes to two trackers by Miles I prefer a Tribute to Jack Johnson, but you can’t really rate an album like this.

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Eurythmics

4/5

Sweet Dreams is one of those songs I never tire of singing along to on the car radio. And I wish other songs like Love is a Stranger or Wrap it Up got more radio play.

Low

David Bowie

3/5

Cool sounding record. None of the tracks really stand out though.

Nebraska

Bruce Springsteen

2/5

Title song inspired by the movie Badlands, nice lyrics. The album was kind of boring.

I Should Coco

Supergrass

3/5

It was good. I wasn't paying much attention to it.

Second Toughest In The Infants

Underworld

4/5

Gotta listen to the re-issue for that sweet sweet Born Slippy. NUXX. In my top five for songs to dance to: smoothly with the iconic opening chords, then all out crazy when the kick drum comes in. Singing along to the rambling stream of consciousness lyrics. Rez is also an all time great electronic track. As for the songs on the original disc, I'm not familiar with them, but the outro to Sappy's Curry had me up and dancing. Otherwise good background music, songs for soundtracks.

Guitar Town

Steve Earle

2/5

I don’t like most country music.

The Queen Is Dead

The Smiths

3/5

Better than Meat is Murder. Queen is Dead and Bigmouth take some tricks from the U2 playbook. There is a Light is a classic sadboy anthem. But Morissey’s singing style still seems lackluster and sometimes annoying to me.

Van Halen

3/5

Good guitar and alright vocals

Songs From A Room

Leonard Cohen

3/5

Bird on the Wire is great, Tonight Will be Fine was pretty good. Seems like a bit of a sophmore slump between two better albums though. They blew their production budget on Jew’s harps. And the lyrics are a little uninspired sometimes.

Led Zeppelin

4/5

Classic riffs, guitar solos, drum fills. Babe I’m Gonna Leave you is awesome, fun to play on guitar. They were still figuring out what their band could do, clearing blues songs from their back catalogue, and they hadn’t yet discovered their mystical side or funky side.

Rocks

Aerosmith

1/5

How is this on the list??

Tragic Songs of Life

The Louvin Brothers

2/5

Nice mandolin. Very little variation.

Central Reservation

Beth Orton

3/5

When listening I thought, “This seems like music that would be on Dawson’s Creek.” And sure enough. Good to have a feminine voice after all the macho rockers.

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Arctic Monkeys

3/5

Pretty good, listenable. Nothing too stellar.

Destroy Rock & Roll

Mylo

3/5

Solid electronic music. I liked the choice of samples, especially Bette Davis Eyes. Will have to listen to his BBC Essential Mix.

Too Rye Ay

Dexys Midnight Runners

3/5

Come on Eileen is a fun song with a cool rhythm change.

Master Of Puppets

Metallica

3/5

Still not a heavy metal fan, but I liked some of the arrangements and solos.

A Northern Soul

The Verve

3/5

Rejoicing In The Hands

Devendra Banhart

5/5

Buena Vista Social Club

2/5

I don’t know. I don’t speak Spanish.

Gorillaz

2/5

Don’t know why these songs in particular needed a cartoon band concept.

Savane

Ali Farka Touré

4/5

I have a nostalgic attachment to Toure’s Niafunke album, but these songs are just as good. Music that makes you feel cool listening to it. Fun songs to play along to with guitar. Good variety of instruments: amplified harmonica, saxophone, etc. I like the French lyrics of Savane, wish there were more translations online for the tracks in Peul.

Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

Dexys Midnight Runners

2/5

I never thought I’d become a Dexys Midnight Runners completionist

Bandwagonesque

Teenage Fanclub

2/5

College rock from what I heard.

Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

Spiritualized

4/5

I used to like the title track a lot. I still do, but I used to, too. Except the reissue album cover looks stupid, like a tilted lego. The whole album is noisy and repetitive, but in a good way. Elvis and Beatles references, besides other rock n roll throwbacks, make it feel like part of a grand tradition of pop.

Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

Ray Charles

3/5

Good songs and voice. Not a big fan of the big band style.

Sheet Music

10cc

3/5

Not bad. I like the Worst Band in the World.

Remain In Light

Talking Heads

5/5

Darn infectious grooves. Kind of like Michael Jackson’s songs where every instrument track is a catchy hook. Laudable for kickstarting Phish’s cow funk era. Knausgaard has a good vignette about listening to this album in Dancing in the Dark. A very inspirational album for artists of all sorts. The heat goes on. Same as it ever was.

Fleet Foxes

3/5

White Winter and Oliver James are classics. Good folky stuff.

The Band

3/5

Nice

2112

Rush

2/5

Truth And Soul

Fishbone

2/5

Yeah, people in 1988 would love this.

Kimono My House

Sparks

3/5

Pretty sure I’ve heard this album before. Definitely like This Town. Kitschy rock pop with cartoon guitars.

Kala

M.I.A.

5/5

Top 20 album for me. Maybe top 10 if not for that terrible Timbaland verse. All of these beats are precision engineered to deliver the maximum amount of dopamine possible. It’s also a fun musical journey when you delve into the cross references. For instance: Paper Planes samples the Clash. It was produced by Diplo whose Essential Mix includes an awesome remix of Boyz. Diplomat’s Son by Vampire Weekend samples Hussel. Etc. MIA embraces musical traditions from India and samples from sounds around the world (as seen in her movie), but her mix of rap and pop is also super original and prescient of current internet DIY music trends. Iconic voice, iconic lyrics. We still like MIA and we still look fly.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

David Bowie

3/5

Starman is awesome, especially that solo at the end. Other songs were fun but a little less stellar.

Closer

Joy Division

2/5

Kind of like goth Devo.

Moving Pictures

Rush

2/5