My 1001 Albums Journey

123

Albums Rated

3.63

Average Rating

11%

Complete

966 albums remaining

Rating Distribution

Rating Timeline

Taste Profile

2010s

Favorite Decade

Psychedelic-rock

Favorite Genre

Top Origin

Wordsmith

Rater Style ?

5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

Breakdown

By Genre

By Decade

By Origin

Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Tarkus Emerson, Lake & Palmer	5	2.79	+2.21
Steve McQueen Prefab Sprout	5	2.98	+2.02
Meat Puppets II Meat Puppets	5	3.02	+1.98
Tuesday Night Music Club Sheryl Crow	5	3.06	+1.94
White Ladder David Gray	5	3.07	+1.93
Welcome To The Pleasuredome Frankie Goes To Hollywood	5	3.11	+1.89
Third Portishead	5	3.13	+1.87
Rattus Norvegicus The Stranglers	5	3.15	+1.85
american dream LCD Soundsystem	5	3.18	+1.82
The Age Of The Understatement The Last Shadow Puppets	5	3.25	+1.75

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Loveless My Bloody Valentine	1	3.17	-2.17
Jack Takes the Floor Ramblin' Jack Elliott	1	2.71	-1.71
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm A Tribe Called Quest	2	3.61	-1.61
Arrival ABBA	2	3.5	-1.5
Coat Of Many Colors Dolly Parton	2	3.42	-1.42
Pornography The Cure	2	3.31	-1.31
Horses Patti Smith	2	3.31	-1.31
Dance Mania Tito Puente	2	3.27	-1.27
Another Green World Brian Eno	2	3.12	-1.12
Ambient 1/Music For Airports Brian Eno	2	3.07	-1.07

Artists

Favorites

Artist	Albums	Average
Pink Floyd	2	5
Beatles	3	4.33

5-Star Albums (29)

View Album Wall

4-Star Albums (34)

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

1-Star Albums (2)

All Ratings

Illmatic

Nas

4/5

Listened as background music, so I didn't fully absorb/appreciate the lyrics. The beats & production are good.

Parallel Lines

Blondie

3/5

Decent, but felt like generic 70's pop/rock

Brothers

The Black Keys

4/5

Knew some of the songs on this album beforehand. Good, but missing a little in replay-ability for me.

Pornography

The Cure

2/5

The vocals really grate on me. Instrumental parts are serviceable but not very interesting. It has a solid base not reflected in the score; it wouldn't take many tweaks to bring this up to a 4. So far I haven't rated anything below a 3. However, this was making my rating scale really inconsistent. I'd go "X is better than Y, and I gave Y a 3, so I guess I need to give X a 4". But then I also had given Z a 3 earlier, and Z was at least as good as X! So 3-4 didn't really mean anything. To fix this, I'm re-calibrating my rating scale, rating "meh"/average stuff at 2 instead of 3, which is where this album ends up. That doesn't make it worse than other stuff I've listened to so far.

Dance Mania

Tito Puente

2/5

I want to like it a lot more than I do. It's just kind of boring, I've struggled to make it all the way through while actively listening, and made several attempts.

Diamond Life

Sade

4/5

Jack Takes the Floor

Ramblin' Jack Elliott

1/5

Not for me.

Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

OutKast

4/5

Birth Of The Cool

Miles Davis

3/5

I know this type of album (jazz, without much of a "hook" in its songs) takes time to grow on you. I've listened to this twice, plan to listen to it more, and very much suspect it will grow on me. That said, for consistency with the other albums, I need to rate it based on my initial impressions alone; this is just the limitation of this 1001-albums format. From that perspective, while the songs are all pleasant, very few sparked my interest. Jazz is great, but I prefer a little more upbeat. I'd prefer anything by Ed Palermo or Gil Scott-Heron over this. Not as bad as Nico's Chelsea Girl (my reference point for a 2), so I'll go 3.

Elephant Mountain

The Youngbloods

3/5

Normally this would be too laid back for my taste, but it caught me at a good time.

Imagine

John Lennon

4/5

It is so hard to find a good recording of this album. The drums in the 2010 and 2020 remasters have been destroyed with compression, and vinyl rips floating around are often crackly and/or clip at the high points. Like many reviews here, I'm torn between 3 and 4. Going up this time because I think I'll likely listen to this occasionally. If I can find a good recording. Standout track: How Do You Sleep?

Led Zeppelin

5/5

The Downward Spiral

Nine Inch Nails

4/5

This gets a 4 instead of a 5 because some tracks are just a little bit too harsh for my ears. It's great art, but I also prefer my music to be enjoyable to listen to. Mixing is fantastic though. Syncopated drums in the latter half of Piggy are a standout.

Innervisions

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Fear Of A Black Planet

Public Enemy

3/5

I like concept/themed albums, and this is a 5/5 on that front. The beats are also solid, with impressive production. That said, the choice of "instruments" makes it a bit… ¿noisy?, in a way that make it hard for me to pay attention to the background sounds individually, but also makes it hard to pay attention to the lyrics. It's a little bit strident for background listening, but also hard for me to actively listen to for the reasons I just mentioned. My heart wants to give this a 4, but my head has to give it a 3 based on my previous rating scale. So far that's been: 3. I liked this but probably won't listen to again 4: I liked this and will likely check out to see if I want to add it to my regular rotation And unfortunately, due to the "I don't know when I would listen to this" issue I doubt the second part will happen.

Machine Gun Etiquette

The Damned

4/5

It probably only deserves a 3 (based on my rating scale of 3=I liked it; 4=I liked it and will listen to it again), but the sheer quantity of hits on this record and the fact that it's still stuck in my head the day afterward is making me generous.

Pyromania

Def Leppard

4/5

Shadowland

k.d. lang

3/5

I put it on in the background while doing work. A few minutes later, I noticed Black Coffee was playing (in a good way). Then, to my surprise, the music stopped. Apparently I'd reached the last song. So I restarted from the top, surely intending to listen this time, and the same thing happened! Three more times I repeated this strange sequence of events. Then I came here to write a review. Hard to know what to make of this. At the least, it's so utterly inoffensive that apparently I can listen to it all day without getting bored. The times when I gave it my attention were quite pleasant; her voice is great. But it also wasn't really able to hold my attention even when I was intending to sit and listen for a little, so I can't in good conscience give it 5 stars. Torn between 3 and 4 stars. I think I'm going with 3 but this is going to shift my rating scale going forward, because if this is a 3 then Nico's Chelsea Girl needs to be downgraded 3 -> 2 at least.

Beach Samba

Astrud Gilberto

4/5

"You Didn't Have to Be So Nice" is overwhelmingly, heartwarmingly sweet and sincere. "Stay", "A Banda Parade", and "Não Bate O Coroção" were other standout tracks. A few (imo) fillers (Misty Roses, The Face I Love), but they're short so don't detract much. Not quite 5 stars but it's enjoyable and I'll likely listen again, so solid 4/5.

Live At Leeds

The Who

3/5

It's good. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Weird thing is, I also don't see myself coming back to listen to it again. Having a hard time deciding between 3 and 4.

Kind Of Blue

Miles Davis

5/5

Rust Never Sleeps

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

3/5

Appetite For Destruction

Guns N' Roses

3/5

Maybe I'd give it a 4 if I hadn't heard many of these songs played to death on the radio?

Chelsea Girl

Nico

3/5

There are some standout songs, like the title track and Eulogy to Lenny Bruce, but overall I was underwhelmed. The flute + strings are nice in some songs but cut in and overshadow the vocals in places on other tracks in a jarring way. I'm torn between giving this a 2 or a 3. Currently feeling closer to 2 but it also feels like the kind of album that would grow on me, so I'll be generous and go with 3.

Marquee Moon

Television

5/5

I'm rating albums here with the understanding that this is a first impression. So a 5 isn't perfect, just "very good". Torn Curtain was the standout track for me.

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

A Tribe Called Quest

2/5

Green

R.E.M.

4/5

Straight Outta Compton

N.W.A.

3/5

Figure 8

Elliott Smith

5/5

Rattus Norvegicus

The Stranglers

5/5

Standout track: Peaches

Another Green World

Brian Eno

2/5

Starts of strong with Sky Saw, Over Fire Island, and St Elmo's Fire. Interesting instrumentation. Funky and Jazzy riffs. It has all the ingredients to make a 5 star album. But somehow even on those songs, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts, and struggles to hold my attention. It gets worse as the album goes on. Even on my dedicated listening session, I got distracted and reached for my phone around the time of Sombre Reptiles. Conclusion: I like Eno more as a producer than a composer. Would make a good movie soundtrack, I think. I would give the first 3 songs a 4, but they are significantly dragged down by the rest. Struggling whether to leave 2 or 3 stars.

Fire Of Love

The Gun Club

2/5

I appreciated hearing a piece of history, and I'm sure this was unique at the time, but it didn't do it for me.

James Brown Live At The Apollo

James Brown

3/5

Dear Science

TV On The Radio

3/5

I'm a sucker for a concept album. Unfortunately, this isn't one. The tracks are individually good, but the album is sadly less than the sum of its parts.

Nick Of Time

Bonnie Raitt

3/5

I have found it extremely difficult to rate these albums, for two reasons: - My rating scale is very subjective and varies album-to-album, making the numbers useless for comparison. - Often my first impression does not line up with how I feel after a few more listens. I'm trying to be more consistent by using the following scale: 1 = Boring or unpleasant enough that I couldn't finish (or had to force myself to finish) 2 = Finished but didn't particularly enjoy 3 = Liked it this time but not interested in listening again 4 = Planning to listen to it again (for enjoyment; listening again because I haven't formed an opinion doesn't count) 5 = Likely to listen frequently (basically the same as 4, but with a

Low-Life

New Order

3/5

1989

Taylor Swift

3/5

Better than I expected. Still over-processed. But well-produced.

Here, My Dear

Marvin Gaye

4/5

Moon Safari

Air

4/5

Interesting sounds, but also good background music. Would probably be a 5 if I liked this genre more.

In A Silent Way

Miles Davis

3/5

In It For The Money

Supergrass

3/5

Heaux Tales

Jazmine Sullivan

3/5

White Blood Cells

The White Stripes

4/5

GREY Area

Little Simz

4/5

3 = Liked it this time 4 = Listened to it again at least once because I wanted to (not just to decide if I liked it) 5 = Likely to listen frequently

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Elton John

4/5

London Calling

The Clash

3/5

Moondance

Van Morrison

4/5

The Modern Lovers

4/5

C'est Chic

CHIC

3/5

I'm Your Man

Leonard Cohen

3/5

Enjoyed, but several songs were a bit too samey. Likely won't listen much in the future. Maybe here and there.

Horses

Patti Smith

2/5

Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

Spiritualized

3/5

Violent Femmes

4/5

Arrival

ABBA

2/5

Songs From The Big Chair

Tears For Fears

4/5

Standout track: Broken

American Beauty

Grateful Dead

3/5

Hot Fuss

The Killers

3/5

To Pimp A Butterfly

Kendrick Lamar

5/5

Struggled whether to rate this 4 or 5.

The Message

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

3/5

Rid Of Me

PJ Harvey

4/5

Reminds me of early Imogen Heap

...And Justice For All

Metallica

3/5

Rock Bottom

Robert Wyatt

3/5

Really liked this on first listen. But I need to downgrade because very little has stuck with me. Maybe I'll come back and relisten again. 3 = enjoyed but won't listen again 4 = listened again at least once because I wanted to hear it again So this is a 3.5, which breaks my scale. I haven't given many 1's though, so I guess I'll round down and recalibrate future ratings lower.

Hounds Of Love

Kate Bush

3/5

The Stranger

Billy Joel

4/5

Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Aphex Twin

4/5

With The Beatles

Beatles

3/5

The Gershwin Songbook

Ella Fitzgerald

4/5

Bad

Michael Jackson

5/5

3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days In The Life Of...

Arrested Development

3/5

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill

3/5

Goo

Sonic Youth

4/5

Supa Dupa Fly

Missy Elliott

3/5

Pleasant enough, no desire to re-listen.

The Suburbs

Arcade Fire

5/5

Loveless

My Bloody Valentine

1/5

Histoire De Melody Nelson

Serge Gainsbourg

3/5

The Wall

Pink Floyd

5/5

The Age Of The Understatement

The Last Shadow Puppets

5/5

Abbey Road

Beatles

5/5

Murder Ballads

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

4/5

Slim Shady meets blues. It's good, but I have the feeling it gets more notability for the subject matter than it deserves for the music. 'Stagger Lee' has a great groove.

Blackstar

David Bowie

3/5

Blackstar is good, carried by the syncopated drum beat & production. The rest seem kinda forgettable. I'm trying for an objective rating scale, 1 = Couldn't make it all the way through. 2 = Finished the album, but didn't enjoy it 3 = Finished the album, enjoyed it 4 = Also listened a second time for pleasure 5 = Added to my library So it should get a 4. But I can't in good conscience give it that with only one standout track, so I'm going to downgrade in this case.

Bug

Dinosaur Jr.

3/5

Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D'Arby

Terence Trent D'Arby

3/5

Hail To the Thief

Radiohead

3/5

5+ listens, still can't decide if interesting or boring. Fine as background music at least.

In The Court Of The Crimson King

King Crimson

5/5

Doolittle

Pixies

5/5

Third

Portishead

5/5

Rating scale: 3 = Liked, won't listen again 4 = Liked, listened again for pleasure 5 = Liked, downloaded Might be benefiting from being good background music while working.

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

David Bowie

4/5

Guero

Beck

3/5

Rapture

Anita Baker

3/5

Eli And The Thirteenth Confession

Laura Nyro

4/5

Lost Souls

Doves

4/5

Started strong, lost some luster on repeated listens.

The Boatman's Call

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

3/5

Lost In The Dream

The War On Drugs

3/5

I've listened 3x in the background and I'm not sick of it yet… but it has also not caught my interest once.

Tarkus

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

5/5

Welcome To The Pleasuredome

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

5/5

Falls off a little in the second half, but the first half is strong enough to carry it to five stars (meaning good enough to download for regular listening, not perfect).

The Rise & Fall

Madness

4/5

Tuesday Night Music Club

Sheryl Crow

5/5

The Dark Side Of The Moon

Pink Floyd

5/5

Easy

Ambient 1/Music For Airports

Brian Eno

2/5

Crushingly boring. Only gets 2 stars because I made it through the whole thing as background music. I can accept it being on the list as an important historical album, but released in any other year I would be aghast.

Talk Talk Talk

The Psychedelic Furs

2/5

Boring

Me Against The World

2Pac

4/5

Stand!

Sly & The Family Stone

5/5

american dream

LCD Soundsystem

5/5

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

Soft Cell

3/5

It's fine, it's catchy, a few good songs, but I don't feel the need to listen again. Maybe I'm underrating this because I've heard Tainted Love 1001 times on the radio, hard to tell.

Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

The Kinks

3/5

White Ladder

David Gray

5/5

This record gets rating whiplash award. For context, my scale is: 1. Was not able to force myself to listen all the way through. 2. Listened through, but did not enjoy 3. Enjoyed, but feel no need to revisit 4. Listened again for pleasure. (Sometimes I also listen again if I'm not sure how to rate or just had it on as background music). 5. Downloaded for future listening. Doesn't mean it's a masterpiece, because that's hard to know on first impression; there's a lot of variation within this category. In the morning, I listened to this for the first time. Thought it would be a 2. Just nothing that caught my attention, and not even great as background music. In the afternoon, exhausted, I gave it a second try. Instantly: wow that's the vibe. Highly recommend listening at the end of a long day, and only then.

Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Pavement

3/5

Hard Again

Muddy Waters

5/5

Nebraska

Bruce Springsteen

3/5

Apple Venus Volume 1

XTC

4/5

I liked it quite a bit, listened like 6 times before deciding that I don't really care about having this in my regular rotation. It's just missing some spark, hard to describe.

Amnesiac

Radiohead

3/5

A Northern Soul

The Verve

2/5

That's a lot of the same song. It's OK to start, but I'm so done by the end.

Brothers In Arms

Dire Straits

5/5

Steve McQueen

Prefab Sprout

5/5

Nevermind

Nirvana

5/5

I can't rate this fairly, because these songs have been deservedly played to death on the radio. Normally I give an album a 5 if I want to download it and listen to it regularly (even if it's not my favorite). I think this would reach that bar, if not for the radio. If I were to stick to my scale dogmatically, this would get a 3: I enjoyed the listen but am not going back to do it again.

Who's Next

The Who

4/5

Meat Puppets II

Meat Puppets

5/5

Worthy of list. Except 'Split Myself In Two', which is painful to listen to. I just can't do distortion that sounds like noise.

Live And Dangerous

Thin Lizzy

3/5

Coat Of Many Colors

Dolly Parton

2/5

Parton's voice is great but besides that the songs are just kinda run of the mill?

Meat Is Murder

The Smiths

4/5

Starts and ends strong ('Barbarism begins at home' is an awesome jam). But the rest is a bit samey, struggled to pay attention during or remember afterwards. Sometimes these type of songs grow on me, like Dear Science, which I gave a 3 and would now consider a 5. So this might be a 5 ("good enough to download for my library"), but for now I can only give it a 4 ("played again at least once for pleasure").

Revolver

Beatles

5/5

All Hope Is Gone

Slipknot

4/5

Aqualung

Jethro Tull

5/5

This is a personal favorite, so I knew what it would be before listening. Listened first anyway, though :)