1001 Albums Summary

87/100: Much more filler than I was expecting listening to it in one go. I think this album gets a lot of praise because of the drama and turmoil going on amongst the Beatles behind the scenes, but I think for all of the groundbreaking songs on this album that possibly benefitted from that turmoil, just as many made their way on the album that probably wouldn’t have made it on earlier Beatles albums. I think this is the struggle in producing a piece of art as innovative as The White Album is, for every novel shot in the dark that lands (“Helter Skelter,” “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”) there are just as many, and sometimes more, that miss the mark entirely (“Revolution 9,” “Piggies,” “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road,” and “Honey Pie”). It might be unfair to hold that against the Beatles because that’s a part of the process of making good art—how can you know what will stick when no one has ever made music like this before—but I can think of many other innovative albums that are better coherent albums than this, hence the less than stellar review.

56/100: Every song on this album is basically a worse version of “Ballad of Hollis Brown” and the best song on the album, “Death Is Not The End,” is just a Bob Dylan cover anyway. In fact, if you ever wondered what you get when you cross Bob Dylan with Ted Bundy, well here’s your answer. I can’t think of a bigger red flag than someone getting in their car and blasting the song “Stagger Lee.” Reading the lyrics of these songs while listening along was a deeply uncomfortable experience. I guess that speaks to the power of Nick Cave’s writing and it could be argued that’s what makes this album good, but it’s also the reason I’m rating this album so poorly. I can handle and even appreciate a troubling story in a song when it’s written well and has a thought-provoking moral like Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of Hollis Brown,” but this album is not that. I mean what type of message is “The Kindness of Strangers?” The final line is “So mothers keep your girls at home / Don’t let them journey out alone / Tell them this world is full of danger.” This album feels like murder ballads for the sake of writing about murder, which is the most troubling part to me. I can never see a situation in which I would want to listen to this album again, and if anyone ever hears me or anyone else listening to this, please call the police or a therapist.

85/100: This is just a fantastic album nearly all the way through. I say “nearly” because the album does drag a bit between “Jeremy” and “Release,” but every other part of this album is so packed with incredible songs that this lull is more than excusable—like a lull in conversation between two good friends, it’s bound to happen and can even be comforting. To have songs of the caliber of “Even Flow,” “Alive,” “Black,” “Jeremy,” and “Release” all on the same album is mind-boggling, and for it to be on their debut album is even more impressive. Eddie Vedder’s voice is just so soothing to listen to, although it is a part of the reason this album isn’t receiving a higher score than it is. I think a lot of the songs on this album aren’t necessarily great songs in and of themselves, but sound as great as they do solely because of Vedder’s style of singing. With any other lead vocalist on this album, I think it instantly becomes a lot closer to mediocre.

87/100: This is the album that got Bob Dylan booed off a stage in Newport. Dylan fans despised him using an electric guitar in “Like a Rolling Stone,” saying he was disrespecting the folk genre. But Bob Dylan is the single greatest storyteller in the history of recorded music, I’m sure of it, and so too was the rest of America, because this album—despite the anger it fomented—still became a massive hit. My favorite part of Dylan’s persona is his mystique, how close he keeps his cards to his chest, and it’s showcased on this album better than most of his. I mean what the hell does “The commander-in-chief answers him while chasing a fly saying, ‘Death to all those who would whimper and cry’ and dropping a barbell, he points to the sky saying, ‘The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken’” mean? The commander-in-chief is presumably LBJ, those who whimper and cry are presumably anti-war protesters, but why is LBJ chasing a fly, what does it mean for the sun to not be yellow but chicken? Is LBJ so aloof that he’d rather preoccupy himself with things as insignificant as chasing a fly than answer to the war in Vietnam? Yellow and chicken mean the same thing, cowardice, is this a jab at politicians for never saying anything new? Is LBJ calling the protesters chickens? Is this a nod to the obsession of politicians at the time referring to communism as just a color: red? Bob Dylan never answers these questions, leaving it for his listeners to interpret for themselves. He does the same thing in “Ballad of a Thin Man.” The identity and even any hints to the story behind Mr. Jones have never been answered by Dylan. The closest he’s ever gotten is saying Mr. Jones is a pinboy who wears suspenders and “puts his eyes in his pocket.” Excuse me, what? In some concerts he would introduce the song as “a song about people asking me questions.” That’s got to make you laugh. This song also has one of my favorite Bob Dylan lines of all time: “You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books. You are very well read, it’s well known.” That’s just a hilarious and cunning dig at this mystery man, it’s so hard to not appreciate that kind of writing. The cryptic Mr. Jones even finds himself referenced by John Lennon in “Yer Blues,” saying he feels “so suicidal, just like Dylan’s Mr. Jones.” This is the power of Bob Dylan, even the Beatles were enthralled by his songwriting and mysticism. In this listen through, my favorite song was “Desolation Row,” which was really surprising, because I’ve never really appreciated that song until now. Following along with the lyrics while listening, though, made the song entirely new to me—this also is the beauty of Bob Dylan. It goes without saying, then, that this is, in my opinion, a fantastic album; however, this is not Dylan’s ceiling. His works get even better than this album. It’s for that reason this album does not receive an impeccable score from me.

95/100: The ideal album is a standalone piece of art, a work that is greater than the sum of its parts. Most “great” albums don’t actually fit this description. The Beatles “White Album” is considered a classic because it’s chock full of legendary and ground-breaking songs, but I would argue that “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is a better song than the “White Album” is an album. What I mean is most albums fail to follow a through line sturdier than the general sound of each song, but not the concept album and there is no greater concept album than Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” Although full of timeless songs like “Comfortably Numb,” “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2,” and “Mother,” none of these songs are better songs than “The Wall” is an album. I can think of no other album where the more forgettable, less listened-to songs, are arguably more important than the album’s singles and critically-acclaimed hits. This is the case because, although these songs—like “Don’t Leave Me Now,” “One of My Turns,” and “Stop”—are generally pretty atrocious listens in isolation, they carry the story of the album. They tell of an abusive relationship leading to a divorce, a man going through a manic episode with a roadie in his room, a suicide attempt, and a man begging for his downward spiral to stop having realized he alone might be at fault. This, to me, is what an album should be—a story told from a distance, not a conglomeration of good songs—and the story Pink Floyd is able to tell thanks to their respect for this philosophy should speak to the power of this approach. “The Wall” tells a story of a man’s trauma throughout his life—from a controlling mother and being raised during the Blitz to abusive schoolteachers and a divorce—leading him to isolating himself from the rest of the world. The album fades out with the same riff as it opens, making the album a loop—hammering home the powerful, albeit depressing, message that Pink’s problems are deeply rooted within him and will return, or maybe that the story isn’t over in that Pink’s trauma is something that every generation is susceptible to experience, ad nauseam. In this listen through I gained a new respect for the dream sequence portion of the album between “Comfortably Numb” and “Stop,” specifically in the song “In The Flesh.” Previously, this section and specifically this song felt directionless compared to the rest of the album, like Roger Waters stretching the capacity of an album as a story-telling vessel to its breaking point; however, perhaps due to current events, this listen through revealed that perhaps the most important message of the album lies within this section, specifically in the song “In The Flesh.” In this song, Pink hallucinates that his concert is a Neo-Nazi rally as he calls out minorities in the crowd: “Are there any queers in the theater tonight? Get them up against the wall. Now there's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me, get him up against the wall. And that one looks Jewish and that one's a coon! Who let all of this riff-raff into the room… If I had my way, I'd have all of them shot!” This is the end result of isolation: radicalization. This is the answer, told four decades beforehand, to how QAnon and other radicals can harbor their levels of intense hatred. They’re all Pink, radicalized in their own way by their isolation. They’ve all experienced their own controlling mothers, their own Blitzes, their own manic episodes and divorces. They’ve all let walls be built brick by brick around them until it’s easy for them to hurl slurs and threats of violence at minorities and “riff-raff” like Pink does in “In the Flesh.” Perhaps keeping this in mind can help us, when faced with inexcusable prejudice and racism in our lives, to respond not with further anger but maybe with sympathy or, at the very least, pity.

70/100: This is the first album I’ve come across so far that feels genuinely mediocre. I’ve listened to bad albums and great albums so far, but this one couldn’t be more “meh” in my mind than it is. With that being said, I fully expected “Bad Moon Rising” to be the best song on this album—as it was the only one I’d heard of beforehand—but I was shocked at how great “Wrote A Song For Everyone” was. In fact it was by far my favorite song on the album and I’d never heard it before. I will say, I’m disappointed I didn’t like this more, I’ve heard incredible things about CCR but have never taken the time to dive into their discography. I was really hoping, and maybe expecting, to find a gem here, but found instead an albeit clearly talented band simply pumping out different versions of the same song. I can see why some people love CCR, it’s a really cool mix of country and rock, but it’s not the best mix of those two genres I’ve ever heard before (The Eagles and Lynyrd Skynyrd just to name a few). Maybe this isn’t their best album, I certainly hope so because it’s intensely forgettable.

68/100: This wasn’t a stellar album, but it was fun, I’ll give it that. Something about the lead singer’s voice just screams that he’s having an absolute blast delivering each line—that paired with the fun sax solos and interjections just makes for a really lively and fun album. This album, though, feels to be quite literally all fun and games—there’s no room for anything else. It doesn’t seem to be very well produced, either, in that it feels like there are twice as many songs in here than there actually are. Most of the songs have breaks at seemingly random points throughout only for the band to kick off a completely different song within the same song. I get the sense there was a lot of cocaine involved in its production (maybe I’m confusing cocaine and fun in my analysis of this album, in which case I wouldn’t be the first person to make that mistake in life). I will say, I found one of my favorite parts of the album only about 3 minutes into the opening song, “Re-Make/Re-Model,” with their little nod to, or possible rip-off of, the iconic bass line in Day Tripper. Even if it was an intentional ripping-off of the Beatles, I think they pull it off well, adding a new flavor to the already well-known riff. Hearing the drums and guitar cease only for that bass line to playfully break the silence followed immediately by the guitar player vigorously returning to his solo with the drums beating back on in the background damn near gave me goosebumps.

60/100: I’ll start this review off by saying my knowledge of reggae is very much limited. It’s a genre I don’t listen to much, and therefore I don’t really feel well equipped to judge how this album stacks up within its genre. This was an album I had to listen to twice, partly because of that fact. My first listen through, I only really paid attention to the music itself—the sound and notes and nothing else. On that first listen through, I found this album really disappointing. Each song blended into one another, the sound was essentially the same from one track to the next. Now I know this is a critique coming from a place of not listening to much reggae, so I’ve tried to not let it factor into my review. Instead of focusing on just the music, then, I decided to dive into the lyrical composition of the album, and wow did I find this album goes so much deeper than what I initially thought. It almost feels intentional that UB40 hid their scathing criticism of conservatism and Margaret Thatcher’s government within such an otherwise unassuming album. The lyrics go beyond just that, though. This album has everything from a song about how Martin Luther King, Jr. died in vain, his dream still a dream to this day, to critiques on British colonialism and even a cover of “Strange Fruit.” Having discovered all of this, I find it extremely interesting—and perhaps unsettling—that a majority of this group, to include their lead singer, are white. There are members in UB40 of Jamaican-decent, so perhaps they were the creative minds behind this album, but it should be their story to tell—emphasis on tell. Having a white man as their lead singer actually telling these stories, is an odd thought. I’d feel pretty uncomfortable listening to a white man song a reggae cover of Strange Fruit, and frankly I don’t know how they got/get away with it. All in all, at its face, this is a good album, but I wouldn’t listen to it again on my own volition and I certainly wouldn’t see them perform live. (Fun fact: Brett Kavanaugh did see them live and then got into a bar fight at Yale that same night along with future NBA star Chris Dudley—who famously got dunked on hard by Shaq and then threw a ball at him)

65/100: Having never really listened to Steely Dan before, I had really high expectations for this album. For the most part, I was pretty let down. Most of the songs on this album were pretty boring, although a few did stand out—but I was expecting an album full of songs like this from Steely Dan based on the few songs of his that I have listened to. “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” “Night By Night,” “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo,” and “Pretzel Logic” were all pretty good, if not at least interesting listens. The rest of the songs felt either pretty straightforward or too dissonant to really be enjoyable. I’m holding out hope and assuming that this isn’t Steely Dan’s best album in this project and my expectations from them will eventually be met.

72/100: I was hungover when I started this album, but by the time I was done listening I felt fully well-rested and completely energized. Maybe that’s because this album was so fun that I listened to it on repeat for over two hours or maybe it’s because this album is a good time manifested in a song. Some songs are impossible not to dance to, every song on this album is like that—they just force you against your will to smile and dance. It occurs to me now that this is what music should be, this is the true power of music. Inexplicably, this album can make a bad day good, I think that’s beautiful. This was a really fun listen to and I’m really glad the album generator helped me discover some of the songs on this album.

63/100: I’m so glad this album came up in this project. As a huge Bob Dylan fan, I’ve always meant to listen to Joan Baez, but the problem is I always end up reverting back to Dylan instead. Dylan and Baez play the same type of music, but Dylan is clearly the better artist, so I never choose to listen to the “worse” artist on my own volition. I’m glad this project forced me to, though. While I don’t think I really discovered anything new, this album did provide interesting context to the musical world Bob Dylan surrounded himself with, which I found really cool. Listening to this album full of new arrangements of old traditional songs gave me a newfound respect for Dylan’s sound as heard by his own generation. Most folk artists at the time were like Joan Baez, stretching the limits of old arrangements—and doing it very well as this album proves. But Dylan went out and wrote his own songs, told his own stories, with these songs as inspiration. Baez is an incredibly talented singer, her voice is so beautiful and soothing, sometimes even hauntingly so, but this album left a lot to desire in terms of songwriting creativity. That amount to be desired can be satisfied by putting on any Bob Dylan album, which—no disrespect to Joan Baez—is exactly what I did after listening to this album. It was a fun listen, but mostly only for the historical context it provided around another artist.

70/100: Our first jazz album, and a big band jazz album at that! This was a really fun listen to and came at a perfect time: on a day where I had to knock out a lot of homework. This album provided the perfect soundtrack for that. Although, I wouldn’t ever listen to this album solely to listen to it, I think that’s an unfair metric for jazz. I find my appreciation for jazz doesn’t come from listening to it in the same way that I listen to other genres—making the act of listening to the music the primary focus. I instead find it beautiful how jazz unconsciously seeps into your mind while it plays as background music to another activity. Multiple times while working on my aero homework, I found myself unconsciously bobbing from side to side to the music I had gotten so used to hearing for the past hour that I forgot it was even playing. That’s the power of jazz, and this album did as good of a job as most jazz albums I’ve listened to in revealing that power. There are jazz albums I like better than this one, though, and I hope to see those at some point in this project.

75/100: This has been the first album by an artist I’ve never heard before that I would listen to again. I’d never heard of the Stone Roses before, but I absolutely loved their sound and really want to dive into their discography more; however it does appear they were mostly one hit wonders with this album. To be fair though, this is a very good album. Any artist releasing this as their debut would have a very difficult time trying to trump it. The lead singer’s voice is really what sells this album to me, every song feels that much more interesting and easy to listen to because of his voice. I also appreciate how this album, released in 1989, even sounds like an album released near the turn of the 80’s and 90’s in that it’s a fun fusion between late 80’s rock and early 90’s grunge.

78/100: This was a really exciting one to be given by the generator. I’ve only listened to a few Jeff Beck songs, but have loved all of them. I’m a massive Led Zeppelin fan, so Jeff Beck’s connection with Jimmy Page through the Yardbirds is an even more exciting aspect of this album. Listening to Jeff Beck’s version of “You Shook Me,” released before Led Zeppelin covered it on their debut album felt like being dropped into a recording session with Led Zeppelin, or at least glimpsing into the inspiration behind those recording sessions. I could see what Led Zeppelin took, what they ditched, and what they improved upon. Beyond providing cool context to Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck also does some really cool and innovative things in this album. His cover of Greensleeves on an electric guitar is maybe one of the coolest ideas that actually panned out I have ever heard. The song Blues Deluxe sounds like if you took Led Zeppelin’s strand of blues and injected it with even more blues while keeping the same amount of rock. It even has an unforgettable hardcore blues piano solo, something Led Zeppelin never would have tried. To be fair, though, I still don’t know whether the piano solo is incredible or deeply terrible. But either way, it’s certainly unforgettable. This was a great album, I’d definitely listen to it again and likely will very soon—or at least will listen to the highlights, “Greensleeves” and “Blues Deluxe.”

69/100: This album makes me want to listen to the Buddy more. I really liked how soft and folk-y this album was—it was a really easy listen. With that being said, I think it was almost too soft and too easy of a listen. This album doesn’t really do much, make much of a statement, or even have any memorable songs on it. All said though, Gene Clark’s voice is really nice—I honestly wish Bob Dylan sounded more like him, keeping his own songwriting abilities though obviously. What does give me hope about this album—well less about this album and more about Gene Clark himself—is that this album has the sound of a talented musician on the tale end of his career. I’ve never listened to the Byrds before, but this album sounds exactly like a mediocre solo album that would have been produced by a previous member of a much better band. Hopefully there are some Byrds albums in this project, because I look forward to them!

81/100: Wow, what a unique sound on this album. My biggest gripe with this project so far is that, by virtue of the sheer number of albums, trends are pretty quickly identified. “Oh this artist sounds like a Kirkland Bob Dylan.” “These guys sound like a raw Led Zeppelin.” Things of that nature. I wish I could get my mind to stop making these comparisons—it’s true, comparison is the thief of joy. Brian Eno’s sound, though, puts my mind at ease on this front. His music defies comparison. I haven’t heard an album like this maybe ever (the closest I can think of is the Talking Heads but that’s such an off comparison, it doesn’t really work). I’d never heard anything by Brian Eno before listening to this album; in fact, I’d never even heard of Brian Eno before. But I liked this album so much, I think it constitutes the first true gem of an album that I’ll revisit and an artist I will hopefully dive into more in the future. This is the type of music you drift into, where if you close your eyes you quickly forget the orientation of the room you’re in, you forget how long you’ve been listening, you enter into a world of sound and melodies. I don’t know what this type of music is made of, I couldn’t tell you what features a song has to have to elicit that experience, but I know it when I hear it. Brian Eno has produced that type of music and fostered that experience with this album.

85/100: Very funny move giving this album on the day the Queen died, but oh wow is this an incredible album. I absolutely love The Smiths, so this review will obviously be biased. I don’t see how anyone could dislike this album, though. When I first started listening to The Smiths, I didn’t think much of Morrissey’s voice. I liked the music, but didn’t think it was anything all that special. The more I listen to them, though, the more I realize how truly special it feels to listen to Morrissey sing. As a singer, it’s such a hard line to balance between having a unique “sound” that helps you stick out without that uniqueness being distracting. There aren’t many examples of this balance being struck perfectly—Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, Freddie Mercury nearly exhaust the list. Morrissey absolutely belongs in this category. As soon as you hear a song by The Smiths, you immediately know who it’s by because of that voice and I think that’s really cool. The other great aspect of a singer this talented is how their voice can create beauty within simplicity. None of the songs on this album are very complex, most are very straightforward; however, they all have incredible replay value because of the beauty contributed by Morrissey’s voice. This is a fantastic album and I would (and certainly will) listen to it again.

77/100: I really wanted to like this album. I really did. I went in fearful it was just gonna be “Maggot Brain” (the song) and a bunch of a filler, but hopeful there were hidden gems in this album. I’m afraid my fears were realized with this one; however, the song “Maggot Brain” is such an unbelievably, indescribably amazing song that this is still a good album in my mind just because it has that one song on it. I could ramble on about Maggot Brain for hours, I could try to describe how the guitar makes me feel with my eyes closed, how I always thought it was bullshit when people said they felt like they were floating during an enjoyable experience until I listened to this song. I could try to describe the chilly feeling of the hair on my arm slowly rising up as my mind melts into the song, but I think that takes away from the ineffable beauty of this song. Just listen to it.

83/100: Wow, never heard of this group or album before and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long in my life to find this. What an incredibly fun energy from this album. It sounds like a group of friends just decided to make an album. I can almost picture De La Soul cracking jokes throughout recording sessions. The through line of the game show is both genius and hilarious, and I mean the sheer number of “De La Soul” based plays on words—from “de la clothes” to “de la heaven”—is so damn comical in a great way. Through all the fun, though, this group produced a masterpiece. I saw a YouTube comment (because this album for some reason isn’t on Spotify) calling this album the “Sgt. Pepper’s of rap,” and honestly I see it. This album follows no set of rules—it does what it wants throughout every second of every track. The interlude “Cool Breeze on the Rocks” is a great example of this. This song just sounds like flipping through stations on the radio, but somehow it just works within the context of the album. I wish this album was on Spotify so I can listen to it on repeat for the next week.

57/100: There are two pretty good reasons why most artist don’t throw 11 minute long instrumentals on their albums: few artists wants to slot away a fifth of their album to one song with no lyrics and if you’re instrumental is going to be 11 minutes long, it’s got to be really fucking good, which is hard to do. Well George Harrison found a nifty loophole to avoid that first reason—just make your album 2 hours long so the monstrosity of an instrumental only takes up a tenth of your album. Unfortunately, he found no such loop hole for the second reason. “Out of the Blue” would be a good 4 minute long song, maybe even 5 minutes. But to force listeners to listen to that track for 11 minutes is the most blatant masturbatory stroke of an artist’s own ego I’ve ever seen. Actually, no I take that back. Having a second, 7 minute long instrumental on top of an 11 minute instrumental objectively beats that. Well, actually, throwing two versions of the same song on your album might trump that. Come to think of it, nevermind. Pumping out a 2 hour long triple album takes the cake. We get it, George. You had something to prove because Paul and John were mean to you. One album would have sufficed. Keep “What is Life,” “If Not For You” (a Bob Dylan cover anyway, albeit a nice one), “All Things Must Pass,” “Art of Dying,” just one version of “Isn’t it a Pity,” “Hear Me Lord,” and cut “Out of the Blue” in half then get rid of literally everything else. You’d have yourself a pretty damn good album then. I can’t in good conscience call this album as is a good album though, and I really wanted the plot line of George Harrison, the mistreated musical genius of the Beatles, to be true. Based on this album, it seems like George was treated by the Beatles about as well as he should have been. There are some seriously shocking production decisions on this album, namely in that it appears George Harrison takes so much pride in all of his works that he feels they all are good enough to make an album’s final cut. Just imagine how he’d react when Paul or John told him to ditch a song idea. I mean how dare they insult his musical talent, don’t they know every song he writes is golden? In fact, he has so many golden songs, he should make a 2 hour long triple album, that’s a great idea.

64/100: Another album I’ve never heard of before. Now usually I’m a big fan of grunge, but this album neared too close to the precipice of scream-o for my liking. At times it felt like screaming just for the sake of screaming and playing loud just because you can. If every note is loud, nothing is powerful. With that being said, there were times on a few songs when Hole quiets everything down only to return to screaming again shortly afterwards. These moments, although everything was probably at a normal volume, felt extra beautiful relative to everything else, which I thought was pretty cool. All in all, not one of my favorite grunge albums and probably won’t seek it out for a re-listen.

50/100: Very forgettable album. There’s not a single song that stands out on this album. This is probably what’s played in purgatory. I don’t have much to say for this one besides that I’m incredibly unimpressed.

83/100: Oh man, I’ve been waiting for a Talking Heads album for a while now. The only two Heads songs I’ve ever really listened to are “Once in a Lifetime” and “This Must Be The Place,” but I’ve always been curious what their albums are like. Needless to say, I was super excited to get this album today. Upon first listen through, I could confidently say that “Once in a Lifetime” was the best song on the album, but that was kind of expected going in. What did surprise me, though, was how different every song on the album sounded. This is such a rare thing in music—especially in my experience throughout this project. Most songs on an album tend to blend together and I find myself having a difficult time remembering which was which. The Talking Heads completely avoided this issue on “Remain in Light.” The only connective tissue between each song was that they were all equally “weird.” That “weirdness” is exactly why I loved this album so much though, each song is like a good time distilled into 4-5 minutes. The tone is infectious, it’s impossible not to smile and tap your foot while listening to this album. That’s what music should be.

79/100: I’m classifying this album as another hidden gem I’d never heard of before. I had no idea who Garbage was before getting this album, but wow do I love this group now. This album is quintessential 90’s grunge, and as a fan of grunge, I don’t know how I’d never heard it before. The song “Only Happy When it Rains” is an absolute banger, as is “Fix Me Now” and “Not My Idea.” In fact, I’d argue there’s not much filler on this album at all, even the songs that I wouldn’t classify as “great” are still very good. I’ll definitely be revisiting this group and album again in the future.

74/100: This was a fantastic album that I had never heard before, but had definitely heard of before. This album was a different style of rap than I had ever heard before, it stands at the intersection of R&B, reggae, and rap—which is such a cool fusion of genres. With all of that being said, it’s not my favorite rap album I’ve ever listened to, even within its own era; however, it’s definitely an album I would listen to again.

43/100: Ok who the fuck let Tom Waits sing like this. Who told him this sounds good? If you bought this or any of his other albums, you are complicit in this embarrassing pandering. Tom Waits sounds like Bruce Springsteen smoked 10 packs of cigarettes before holding an underwater concert. He sings like Louis Armstrong had his vocal cords slashed with razors. There’s no way this is how he actually sounds like. He has to be putting on some sort of an intentional show with his voice right? And if, so, I have one question. Why? Why the hell would he want to sound like this if he could sound like literally anything else. It’s really a shame, musically (and I’m exclusively referring to the instrumental portion of these tracks) this album has a lot of really nice songs. As soon as Tom Waits starts singing, though, the song is immediately ruined. Not only will I not listen to this again, I don’t know if I could physically handle it.

75/100: This was a really cool listen because it allowed me to see into a new side of The Rolling Stones. I’m the kind of Rolling Stones fan who only really listens to their hit songs—“Sympathy for the Devil,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Paint it Black,” and so on. While “Sympathy for the Devil” was hands down my favorite song on this album—how could it not be—the sound of the rest of the songs on this album proved really surprising to me. I did not expect as much of a blues and folk influence as I heard in this album. All of The Rolling Stones songs I’ve heard have all been purely rock classics, so I assumed all of their discography mirrored that sound; however, that proved entirely untrue. If I heard “Stray Cat Blues” or “Factory Girl” on the radio before listening to this album, I would have never guess they were by The Rolling Stones, so I’m really appreciative that listening to this album all the way through expanded my musical knowledge in that regard. Beyond that, this was a really good album, too. I still prefer the “classic” Rolling Stones songs over these newly discovered ones, but they were by no means bad songs at all.

80/100: Never heard of this group, but I’ll say it—I’m intrigued. This album was interesting. I say interesting because I still don’t know how I feel about it. This albums is so different than any other album I’ve ever heard. Usually that sentiment accompanies an album that’s hard to listen to. “Different” can often be difficult to enjoy; however, I didn’t really find that to be the case with this album. Without even realizing it, I found myself three listens deep into this album. There are a lot of unsettling parts of this album. The bass blaring at the end of “Threads” in particular sticks out in my mind. Maybe it’s because it sounds vaguely siren-y, like a sound you’d hear at the start of the purge. Despite feeling deeply uncomfortable during that portion of the song, I couldn’t for the life of me skip it. I think I love this album? But maybe I hate it? I don’t know. It feels like a soundtrack fit for a movie or maybe a long drive at night? That’s it actually, I need to listen to this song while driving on the highway at night. All in all, strange album, but I plan on revisiting this group in the future.

67/100: Another group I’ve never heard of before. They definitely had a fun time making this album, or at least it sounds like they did, and that’s always something I appreciate—so props to them. With that being said “fun” only Carrie’s an album so far. The lead singer is having a great time delivering each line, I love that about this album. But therein also lies the principle fault I’ve found in this album. Every single line is delivered with the same excited energy. A song doesn’t become energetic by constantly being energetic. This album is an argument against plugging yourself into an “experience machine.” Let me explain. Things feel good because they’re relatively better than bad things you’ve experienced. A night in the penthouse suite of the Mandalay Bay is a boring Wednesday for a billionaire, whereas for me, it would be the highlight of my year and possibly life. That’s because a billionaire has few experiences “worse” than the penthouse suite of the Mandalay Bay, while I have few better. On this album, every song is packed full of energy, but with nothing to compare that energy “high” to, it’s monotonous. It loses its energy. You could listen to this album all day, or you could just do coke for 24 straight hours. You’d probably have a pretty similar experience. Lastly, I want to passionately complain about the last song on this album. I had to listen to it three times to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. The song “Smash” is nearly 11 minutes long. Or at least that’s what it’s listed as on Spotify. In reality, it’s really a 4 minute long song. I don’t mean the last 7 minutes are awful and can’t justifiably be called a “song.” No, the last 7 minutes is literally just silence. It’s literally not a song. What the hell?? I’m flabbergasted.

65/100: Pretty bland album. No songs really stuck out except for the aptly named “Let The Drummer Have Some,” which was a pretty decent drum solo track. Probably won’t revisit this album, mainly because I’ll likely forget about it.

69/100: I can tell that this is a really smartly written album. A lot of the riffs and sounds clearly took a very talented ear and mind to create. With that being said though, that doesn’t necessarily mean I actually enjoyed the album all that much. Sure, Beck clearly did a great job writing this album and thought very deeply about each song; however, it’s not that fun to listen to. I think it was probably more fun writing this album, honestly. I’d be surprised if I ever find myself listening to this album again.

61/100: Super unique album, but not in a good way unfortunately, although the name is absolutely incredible. This is a live album (which is cool) with hardly any audible applause. Either the producer edited out most of the applause, or—and this is more likely—no one in the audience clapped this whole concert because the music is so strange. With that being said, every once in a while there’s a decent song, like “The Great Gates of Kiev,” but not nearly enough to make this a good album. If you like this album, you’re probably a pompous contrarian.

73/100: This was an incredibly beautiful album. I would love to listen to this again, but it was so hard listening to this since it isn’t on Spotify. I respect Joni Mitchell for making the stance she did, but wow it makes it impossible to listen to her stuff. Overall great album though.

82/100: Ok, I’m back to being a believer in this 1001 albums project. I’ve had some bummer albums recently, I was in desperate need of a good album to bring my spirits back up, and boy did The Flaming Lips deliver. Let’s just start with the album’s title: “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.” That’s how you capture the attention of your audience. Granted, it’s pretty terrible for word-of-mouth advertisement. This album balances, blends, and fuses Tame Impala like synth with beautiful acoustic guitar rhythms in an indescribably beautiful way. “Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell” (by the way, quite possibly the greatest song name in recorded history) sounds straight out of a Tame Impala album, while “Do You Realize??” is straight out of a Beatles album—complete with references to the imperceptibility of the Earth’s rotation, a fan favorite for this reviewer. Then you have songs that reside at the intersection of these two sounds, like “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1,” which has the coolest combination of the two sounds all within its opening riff. Something about the acoustic sound fading out and down like a synth shutting down just satisfies an aural itch. I enjoyed this album so much I got pulled over for speeding, ironically while listening to “Are You a Hypnotist??” I guess the song pulled me into a trance deep enough for me to not realize I was going 50 in a 30. The cop sure realized though. Returning to the album after the traffic stop, I immediately was in a better mood with “It’s Summertime.” My mood was admittedly also helped by the fact that the cop let me off with just a warning. Either way, this album is a banger and will be in my rotation in the future.

93/100: Few artists reach the level of fame to be publicly acknowledged by on name. Many incredibly well respected artists never reach this level (sometimes arguably for the infortune of being given a generic name). Freddie Mercury is neither referred to as Freddie nor Mercury. Elton John is not Elton. But Tupac is Tupac, Kanye is Kanye, and Kendrick is—well—just Kendrick. This album holds a special place in my heart; therefore, I will be leaving all pretenses of impartiality at the door. This is the album that quite literally opened up the world of music for me. Before listening to this album, music was just something to be listened to—pleasant sounds, ineffable feelings, surface level appreciation. The first time I heard “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” something struck me—an imperceptible intuition that something worth understanding lay beyond the realm in which I’d hitherto been existing. By the Kendrick was boasting about having a dream in “Backseat Freestyle,” I had the rap genius app downloaded on my phone and was following along, line by line. I listened and read along to that album for weeks, maybe even months, listening to nothing else. I saw a respect for language and a mastery of music as a platform for a message nothing short of genius; in fact, orders of magnitude beyond that. Most rappers interject their albums with skits as separate songs. The good artists tie this skits smartly, maybe even humorously, into the story conveyed in their album. The great ones (if pluralizing that word is even legitimate is up for dispute), like Kendrick, weave these skits within songs, backed by musical tracks. In “The Art of Peer Pressure,” interjecting skits not only provide context—in one moment, letting the listener know that Kendrick’s and his friends’ robbery attempt has flopped, in the other, highlighting a police chase—they propel the song through its story. Beyond imaginatively clever uses of skits, Kendrick writes lyrics that reveal an incomparably creative relationship with language. In “Money Trees,” one set of three lines stands out in my mind. In the first line in this set, “dreams of living life like rappers do,” Kendrick focuses in on the topic of rap artists; however, in the third line, “I fucked Sherane then went to tell my bros,” he’s locked in on ideas of sex and women. To find a good line to fit between those two, most rappers would elaborate on what a rapper’s life is like, presumably a good way to tie sex and women into the topic of rap artists—making for a pretty seamless segue. Kendrick does something entirely different and wildly creative. As the second line in this set, connecting rappers to sex, Kendrick decides on “back when condom wrappers wasn't cool.” Upon first glance, this might seem to be a pretty abrupt transition from dreaming of living a rapper’s life of luxury to sex, but when read aloud, “condom wrappers” sounds a whole lot like “Compton rappers,” and Kendrick surely leans into this with his delivery of that line. Thus, Kendrick finds a way to deliver two ideas with one line, with both ideas tying the preceding and subsequent lines together. This is mastery. There are few albums with as much to analyze and interpret as “good kid, m.A.A.d city” (most of those few are also Kendrick albums). The fact that this album opened up that world of analysis and interpretation within music for me elevates it beyond those other Kendrick albums. This is my favorite album of Kendrick’s—it was my first—it will forever remain that way, and I am in no way surprised that this album held up to the same level I remember from my last listen through.

70/100: Never heard of this artist before, but this was a really good album. In general, though, I wasn’t vibing a bunch with how much this album harps on sex. It’s unfair because male artists, especially rappers, do the same thing and no one bats an eye, but it still bothers me then too. If your entire album is just rapping about tits and ass, I’m not gonna listen to it. I felt a similar way hearing Jazmine Sullivan talk about how “that dick spoke to her.” It just doesn’t feel very substantial to me. With that being said, I still enjoyed this album musically. The highlight was definitely Anderson .Paak’s verse on “Price Tags.”

91/100: I did not expect to like this album as much as I did. It’s not that I don’t like Bruce Springsteen, I love his music, it’s just that most of his albums I’ve listened to tend to have a lot of bland songs on it with the sporadic banger thrown in there. “Darkness on the Edge of Town” is far from that, though. As each song ended and a new song began, I found myself repeatedly thinking “holy shit, no this is my favorite song on the album.” There’s no better feeling than realizing that a case could be plausibly made for each song to be the best on the album. There are absolutely no skips to be seen here. Lyrically, this is a really sad album, Bruce clearly dug deep to create this masterpiece. Thanks to listening to this album all the way through, I’ve discovered what is quite possibly my favorite Bruce song of all time, “Racing in the Street.” Overall incredible album, will be revisiting this frequently in the future.

80/100: The lack of the Oxford comma is pretty whack, but overall really good album. I’ve never listened to any of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s stuff but really enjoyed this. They have a vague sort of Grateful Dead sound to them that makes me feel like I would like this album even more if I was high. I don’t know if I’ll listen to this album again, though. There’s a very specific sound and feel to this album, it’s not really one you’d just throw on as background music.

66/100: Never heard of this guy before, but found this album lyrically pretty funny. It almost feels like Lil Dicky’s mind dropped into a rock star’s body. With that being said, the music itself isn’t all that great. The only song that I actually enjoyed listening to was “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll.” Will likely not revisit this album intentionally, but I’m glad I got a chance to discover this artist.

74/100: Good album, but nothing more than that. In fact, it’s only “good” because it has two fantastic songs on it—“Detroit Rock City” and “Beth.” The rest of this album is a lot of gain and loud power chords. No real precision in refinement of sound here. I guess what else do you expect from hard rock?

73/100: Another incredibly unique album from Brian Eno. The album generator gave me “Before and After Science” a week or so ago, my first time ever listening to Eno. I found “Here Come The Warm Jets” to be just as unique as that first album; however, it doesn’t sound as artfully crafted as “Before and After Science.” This album feels a bit closer to the “wall of sound” end of the musical spectrum, although much of it is still really beautiful. I love that this scratches an itch no other album can. With all of that being said, though, there are only a few songs on this album that I’d genuinely enjoy listening to again in the future.

40/100: To be fair, I will caveat this review by saying that I am by no means a country fan; in fact, I’m pretty against the genre as a whole—especially older country albums such as this one. The few country artists I listen to are the more pop-y ones, basically just Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan. Even then, there’s a handpicked few songs of theirs I genuinely enjoy. With all of that being said, I know a good country album when I hear one. This album is definitely a beast amongst its genre; however, I still didn’t enjoy listening to it, and I don’t see why I should be grading on a curve here.

74/100: This is not something I’d normally listen to, but I’m definitely appreciative that the generator forced me to. This album just gives you a pep in your step. Every song is so lively and full of energy. I will say, the lines about women wanting to do like men, men “changing themselves” to women, women marrying women, and men marrying men seemed to carry a problematic tone considering they followed the line “in these crazy, crazy times.” I don’t know, maybe Femi Kuti meant it in a good way, but this album is from 1995 so I doubt it. I guess besides the possible (probable) sexism, transphobia, and homophobia, this was a fun listen to? I don’t know, weird note to end it on man.

72/100: I don’t know what makes an artist a one-hit wonder after listening to this album. I thought one-hit wonders only produced one good song and the rest of theirs are awful. For a band considered by many to be the prime example of a one hit wonder, this seems to be far from the case for Dexy’s Midnight Runners. This album was an absolute bop full of really good songs. To be fair, “Come On Eileen” is certainly miles better than any song on this album, but that’s just because that song’s so good, not because these are bad. It seems to me that being a one hit wonder doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of your discography sucks. It just means one of your songs is relatively considerably better than the rest. I wonder if this group, in hindsight, wishes they’d never released “Come On Eileen,” because I think this album would get a lot more respect if it weren’t constantly held in comparison to that magnificent song. Truly suffering from success.

57/100: I wanted to enjoy this album, but I really, really disliked it. Every song sounded the same, and it wasn’t even a good sound. I don’t think Lorde is actually a good singer, which is a shame because she’s not a great songwriter either. Maybe I was already in a bad mood when listening to this album, but I think it might have ruined my day.

54/100: The song Ace of Spades is really good, but this album is one of those that really tests your promise to listen to every album all the way through before writing a review. By three songs into the album, I knew this was going to be a tough listen. The album “Ace of Spades” is aptly named, because it’s essentially just the song “Ace of Spades” and 11 variations of it. When the distinct part of your musical style is just playing loud and fast, it’s hard for any song to stand out as unique. I won’t listen to this album again, I had a hard enough time listening to it once through.

76/100: Never heard of The Charlatans before, but I really liked their sound. They sort of gave me an Arctic Monkeys mixed with The Sex Pistols kind of tone. Since I like both of those groups, of course I liked this album. While the sound itself was really cool and definitely fit neatly within my musical interests, I’m not sure how much I’ll revisit this album in the future. It didn’t really stand out to me all that much; however, I’m certainly interested in The Charlatans as a group and will likely explore their discography in the future.

67/100: This was a really fun listen. Having it on loop kept me in a good mood while doing my fluids homework. I also want to appreciate how great of an album name this is. “Hot Buttered Soul” is exactly what this album sounds like—just hearing or reading the name of the album emulates the feelings that arise while listening to it, that’s a beautiful thing. Also, the songs “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic“ deserves attention just based on its name alone! This album felt like listening to a modern Marvin Gaye album, which was cool. With all of that being said, I’d rather listen to Marvin Gaye than this album. Since I rarely listen to soul or R&B, the few times I’m in the mood for it, I’ll probably be putting on a Marvin Gaye album as opposed to this.

70/100: Defining Pop as a genre is always something that has eluded me. To me, the genre has always felt like the default with other genres (like country, rock, grunge, soul, rap) branching off from it. I picture it like a road system—Pop being the main road and those other genres being offshoots from it. This perspective might lead one to believe that I hold Pop on a pedestal; however, don’t get it twisted, let me explain further. It’s easy to get on the highway, set your cruise control to five over the speed limit and zone out; in fact, that’ll get you really far, arguably farther than taking a side road. But it takes courage, curiosity, and imagination to ditch the monotony of the highway to explore what else is out there. In terms of effort put in per mile, it’s the less attractive choice—but it yields the most lucrative rewards. Picturesque scenery, unexplored lands, and adventure await those bold enough to get off the highway. I say all of that to shine a light on my attitude towards Pop as a genre. I see it as an easy way to make a song that sounds pretty good, a song that’ll make you a lot of money and be played a lot on the radio—one that will get you really far. But sounds like rock and roll, grunge, soul, and rap were all new at one point. They were all kicked off by an artist getting off the highway, adventurously exploring their own sound. Madonna is the epitome of the pop artist. For millions of people, when they think of pop, Madonna is the first person to come to mind. Now I don’t claim Madonna to be an uninspired artist. What I do think is that she found the autobahn. She’s clearly in a sports car going around 100 mph in the fast lane, but on cruise control nonetheless. “Ray of Light” is a beautiful album, just like most sports cars are beautiful cars. There’s a lot that’s pretty creative and unexpected about this album, like it’s heavy use of electronic sound. But just because you’re using innovative modern technology like sport mode on the highway doesn’t change the fact that you’re still mindlessly cruising on the highway; in fact, it makes it feel even more a shame that that technology isn’t being put to use flying through corners on a F1 track or zipping down country roads. My first time listening to this album, I loved it. I’d love the chance to fly down the autobahn at 100 mph. But by the second and third time, I began to see it for what it was. The relative speed became normalized. You’re still on the highway. You’re still coasting. It’s still just pop.

89/100: The album generator saw my review cutting down pop as a genre yesterday and gave me the King of Pop’s best album as a test of my integrity. I guess I fail, well technically I don’t. To call Michael Jackson’s music “pop” is to try to capture the smell of a rose by painting it. Calling “Thriller” a “pop” album strips it of all its nuance and beauty. This album is disco, it’s funk, it’s rock, it’s soul. It’s all of those things before it’s pop, unless you’re simply defining the pop genre as “popular” music, in which case this is definitely that. Admittedly, I have never listened to “Thriller” in its entirety, least of all in one continuous sitting. This is one of those albums that demands to be listened to this way. There’s simply no other way to appreciate this album to the fullest without hearing “Thriller,” “Beat It,” and “Billie Jean” back to back to back. These are arguably three of the best songs of their decade. Not only are they all on the same album, they’re consecutively tracked. This is a bold decision from Michael Jackson, one that would be hard to pull of if the rest of the album fell flat—and even the best of songs can fall flat juxtaposed with those three absolute bangers. But this album skirts that issue. “The Girl is Mine,” a beautiful song prominently featuring none other than Paul McCartney, casually and calmly prepares you for the musical awakening that awaits you in the following three songs (obviously the “Thriller” to “Billie Jean” sequence). The rest of the songs on the album don’t back down either. “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” gets you bobbing your head, maybe even moving your hips. “Baby Be Mine” grabs you by the hand, twirls you around, and transports you to a dance floor—of course equipped with a disco ball and bright lights. Reeling from the end of “Billie Jean,” “Human Nature” settles you down; puts you at ease; starts a warm, calming fire in your soul. “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” stokes the fire started by “Human Nature” until it’s burning with passion in your heart. Finally, “The Lady in My Life” rocks you back to Earth, aptly ending your journey through this album. A beautiful album.

86/100: First Led Zeppelin album of the project! Yay! Looks like the album generator is easing me into their works, thankfully. I’d hate to start with their best work, but none of their stuff is bad. Each and every Led Zeppelin album is an album that can be listened to over and over again, ad nauseam (but you’ll never get sick of it, so not really nauseam per se). This makes rating their albums exceedingly difficult, though. “Led Zeppelin IV,” for example, is a much better album than “Led Zeppelin II,” but when you’re discussing albums this good on a 1-100 scale, they’re both near the top of that scale, so it’s hard to really display the difference. Perhaps I should employ a logarithmic scale. Either way, this album is incredible. Like teaching a baby to swim by dropping them into a pool, this album mercilessly swings for the fences from the get go. “Whole Lotta Love” kicks things off by kicking you in the ass. This is followed by a much more laid back song, “What Is and What Should Never Be,” or so it seems. This song showcases one of my favorite aspects of Led Zeppelin. A “New Yorker” music critic once described Led Zeppelin’s sound as clash of velvet and energy. “What Is and What Should Never Be” is a velvet-y smooth song intermittently punched through by high octane energy. Or is it a high octane song intermittently pulling into velvet? I suppose both. It’s through this lens that I appreciate this album as a whole. The album itself proves the velvet/high-energy balance found within their songs to be a microcosm of the album as a whole. You have songs that are entirely velvet, like “Thank You,” songs that are an uncontrolled fire hydrant of diesel, like “Heartbreaker,” and then some songs that are both, like “What Is and What Should Never Be.” I feel like a whole section ought to be devoted to “Moby Dick.” John Bonham is the greatest drummer to ever live, and he absolutely kills this song, as he does every song on this and all their albums; however, this is one of those rare songs that is only good live. In fact, it stretches the definition of a “song” in that each live version was completely different than the last, and completely different than the studio version on this album. I love this song, but not because of how it sounds on this album. I love it for all of the versions that exist—for its fluidity, the spotlight it shines on the world’s greatest drummer, for its elusive freedom. Fantastic album, but not Led Zepellin’s best.

81/100: Very fun album, very soul-y and super energetic. Few songs can get away with being as long as “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” but that song is so damn good it easily gets away with it; in fact, I went back and listened to it multiple times after finishing the album. This album is super interesting in that I think it really encapsulates the, excuse me, soul of soul as a genre. Listening to the songs on this album, I found myself feeling simultaneously on top of the world and deeply sad, each equally in part because of the other. I don’t have the words to explain how that could be the case, but I think the answer lies within the appeal of soul.

92/100: Feeling absolutely blessed that the album generator gave me this album today. This is the single easiest album to listen to. Music shouldn't be effort to listen to, when you find an artist or an album you like and appreciate, that effort is lifted. It doesn't feel like you're trying your best to make it through the album—the songs just drift between your ears and time accelerates. It can be hard, though, to find an artist that creates this experience. The msot beautiful part of "Rumours," in my mind, is that this album achieves that experience for everyone—and I mean everyone. You could listen to exclusively soul, or only listen to Toby Kieth, or refuse to lsiten to any artist other than Kanye West, it doesn't matter. You will love this album. It will be easy to listen to. It's as if Fleetwood Mac tapped into the universality of music. This album has a clear sound and genre, but it's so good that listeners of all genres will appreciate it. I genuinely can't think of another album that I feel I could confidently claim everyone who listens to it will like it. Pink Floyd's "The Wall" is a masterpiece; however, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it wasn't someone's cup of tea. Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly" is a stroke of genius and one of the best albums ever released, but, again, not everyone who listens to it will appreciate it. "Rumours" is a masterpiece and I guarantee you everyone who has ever lsitened to it has enjoyed it.

80/100: I had high expectations going into this album; perhaps too high. I've heard a lot about "The Blueprint," and as someone who's really enjoyed most Jay-Z song's that I've listened to but never dove into his work, I was really excited to listen to this. I'm really disappointed that my expectations weren't met. This is a good rap album, no doubt, but—I don't know—I find it hard to believe this is considered Jay-Z's best work. I think maybe Jay-Z is a great single-producing artist, but his albums themselves aren't great standalone works. I know all of this is really controversial, and I hate that this is how I feel—I really wanted to find this to be a masterpiece. I just can't honestly say this is that great. There are some pretty cool lines, like "I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell. I am a hustler baby, I'll sell water to a well," but they're just well-worded variants of the typical braggadocious lines you can find in any mediocre rap album. I don't think that makes a good album, especially in the rap genre where competition for the top spot is hotly contested.

73/100: Incredibly disappointed with this album. They should rename it to "Paint It Black and Assorted Sexist Songs." You can go ahead and call me a snowflake, but this album gets pretty egregious. Perhaps I'm missing the point of some songs, but "Stupid Girl" is heinous and "Under My Thumb" is arguably just as bad. I guess I shouldn't be surprised about the content of this album though. The Rolling Stones' bassist, Bill Wyman notoriously "dated" (read: raped) a 13 year old girl before he eventually married her. He was 47. Now, normally, for better or for worse—although I tend to dislike this trait of mine and consider it a bad quality—I can abide by the dismissive phrase "separate the art from the artist," but it's hard to do that when the content of their art is what you're trying to dismiss in the first place. "Paint it Black" is a great song, The Rolling Stones are a great band, but this album is apparently an uncomfortable look into their dysfunctional personas. I'd prefer to ignore this album if I'm going to try to continue to appreciate the music this band has produced.

70/100: Never heard of this band, never heard of this album. Although I didn’t really love it, I clearly see why this album is on this list. I’ve never heard an album like this, of course it’s one of the 1001 you have to hear before you die. Not everything new and novel is good though. This album, although definitely harboring a unique sound, overstays its welcome rather quickly. Glad I heard it but likely won’t listen again.

61/100: Lyrically, a very impressive album, and definitely the type of album I would enjoy. But I’m actually listening to this album, I found I didn’t really enjoy it very much at all. I don’t think that old country sound will ever grow on me, but I have profound respect for the artists in that era/genre and their touching, morose, and altogether astute way with words.

79/100: Feeling very blessed by the album generator today. It’s not that this was my favorite album so far anything close to that. I had to wake up at 2:30AM to get to the airport this morning, so I really needed an album that would keep me up. Boy did this do the job. At certain points I felt like I was traveling through space and time as opposed to heading south down I-65. Very good album for what it is; however, I don’t think I ever plan on casually listening to this.

71/100: Each artist in this band is better than the band as a whole. I don’t know how that happens, it’s like the opposite of them being greater than the sum of their parts. They’re like the current Lakers. Great individual players. Terrible team. Maybe terrible is too far, some songs on this album were fun to listen to, but it was by no means a great album. I would maybe revisit a song or two on here. I never plan to listen to it all at once again.

81/100: I’ve listened to a few Muse songs before and really loved them, so I was really excited going into this album. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t listened to much Radiohead when I first heard Muse, but on this listen through I was struck by how similar their sound was to that of Radiohead. They seem to be a softer around the edges version of Radiohead, but I think with the type of music the two bands produce, “soft around the edges” isn’t necessarily what you should be going for. I really liked this album, though, despite it underperforming when held up to Radiohead’s discography. That’s a pretty unfair comparison though, as most albums don’t hold up to Radiohead’s best albums. I’m also a big fan of the fact that no song in this album shares the same name as the album; however, in “Starlight,” the name of the album appears a few times. I like that vague subtlety.

75/100: I’m shocked that this album was released in 1972. This does not sound like a 70’s album, especially not one from the early 70’s. This must have sounded so weird when it first came out because it’s such a “modern” sound. The lead singer doesn’t steer into any clichéd 70s sound; in fact, he sounds more like a pop grunge artist from the late 90s than a counter culture singer of the early 70s. With that being said, I really liked this album, but it just doesn’t stand out to me enough to warrant receiving a stand out score. On to the next one.

78/100: Ok this album serves its purpose. Each song is very specifically targeted to a certain emotion and situation, albeit most of the emotions are some variant of heartbreak. The strength of this album lies in that writing style. When you’ve gone through something similar to what’s sung about on a song in this album, it’s incredibly powerful; however, the biggest weakness of this album is the other edge of that sword. If you haven’t gone through something that’s sung about on this album (which is a much safer bet than the alternative), those songs kind of suck. Adele really trusts the empathetic and even sympathetic abilities of her listeners. Most people aren’t naturally empathetic or sympathetic. I like to think most people can be with some effort, but I don’t listen to music to try to connect to what the artist was going through. The songs from this album that I feel echo my own experiences are incredible. I could listen to them over and over again. The rest (i.e. most of them) are hard to listen to once.

31/100: This album is atrocious and it should be expeditiously removed from the list of albums. It does not deserve more of my time than it has already stolen from me.

72/100: This was a good listen to. Vaguely grunge-y rock, on paper this is right up my alley. It's not that I didn't like it, it's just I feel like I should have liked it even more than I did. It's like the ingredients were all there for it to be a really loveable album. The cook wasn't in the kitchen though, I suppose. It's hard to put a finger on it, I guess it sort of felt like Pavement just kinda skated their way through this album without a whole lot of emotion put in. Now that I've had that thought, they do somewhat remind me of a less emotional and energetic Radiohead. Maybe if I ever get sick of Radiohead I'll explore this group more.

68/100: This album sounds about as good as it's album art: super grainy and hurriedly put together. A lot of the melodies are pretty nice, but the overall production quality seems shockingly low. I probably won't listen to this again, it just doesn't stand out nearly enough to be worth a second listen.

82/100: This was an absolutely, shockingly fantastic album. This album is an acid trip in the medium of music. I momentarily forgot who I was while driving down the road listening to "Helicopter." Deerhunter sounds like if you mixed Tame Impala with your local garage rock band in the best way possible. I will definitely be exploring more of their stuff, as I love their sound.

85/100: "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" stays on during sex. Joking aside, this was a shocker of an album. It felt like every song that fit in the category of "I've heard this before and loved it but never knew who sang it" was on this album. On top of that, there were many songs that I had never heard before but thoroughly enjoyed. I expected this album to be really shitty '80s synth pop. I'm ecstatic that I was as wrong as I was. I will listen to this album many more times in the future and think I'll probably buy it on vinyl too.

91/100: Mesmerizing. Transcending. Ethereal. This album is more than just jazz, at times it even feels to be more than just music. I've never heard music like this. I've never felt this way while listening to music. I found it impossible to pin down all the genres present as inspiration in this album, yet at the same time it all sounded so familiar—perhaps universal. To me, that's why this album shakes me to my core. This is the type of album you would put on a golden record to introduce extraterrestrial beings to the concept of music as we humans understand it. I will be buying this on vinyl and playing it all of the time.

80/100: This is a great album, it's always a blast listening to it; however, every time I listen to Def Leppard, I always come back to the same complaint. Why the hell is Def Leppard so goddamn horny. I suppose this was a trend amongst many 80's rock bands, but it really begs the question: why was it cool to sing about being desperately horny? Don't get me wrong, "Love Bites" and "Pour Some Sugar On Me" are both absolutely fantastic songs. The guitar riff during tghe chorus of "Love Bites" is one of my favorite riffs of all time. But, my god, both songs can basically be stripped down to "I'm horny I wanna fuck you so bad it'll feel so good" with really cool guitar riffs and drum fills in the background. It just feels awkward to listen to at times. I'm thankful music has moved away from this weird obsession with describing love through the lens of sexual intimacy, because, for me at least, it's incredibly off-putting. With that being said, this is still, musically, a very well put together album chock full of hits.

78/100: This album feels like a bit of a cop out from the editorial staff. If you think Indian music is something people have to listen to before they die (which it is, it's fantastic music), then put a real album from that part of the world on here. Instead, we get "Indian Music For Beatles Fans/White People." Ravi Shankar doubtlessly has plenty of music in his discography not made with the intent of being a cursory overview of all Indian music. Why not pick one of those? Instead of getting a "The Sounds of Jazz" album, we get "In A Silent Way." Instead of "The Sounds of Rap," we get "good kid m.A.A.d. city." There's no "The Sounds of Rock," we get 100's of classic rock albums—arguably too many. So why when it comes to Indian music do we treat it as a topic to be explicitly taught as though in a classroom setting as opposed to experienced? Mind you, this was a blast to listen to, I just think it's bullshit the way it was handled by the curators.

79/100: For a brief moment, while driving back from class, listening to this music blasting with my windows down, I felt like a limitless French teenager. All I needed was a cigarette and I could've been any one of the local kids in Kortenberg. This album sets a tone better than most albums I've ever listened to, perhaps a part of that is with most of the lyrics going over my head, all that is left is the music. Another part is, only being able to understand fragments of sentences contributes a beauty that's hard to put into words. In "Caroline," I picked up on "I rethought her, us…" and "strawberries, raspberries, blueberries." Clearly this song is about some sort of love, my sense is an ex who MC Solaar wishes he could be back with. I love drawing conclusions based on the few lines I can understand. It's impossible to do that with music in English. I've never thought about this aspect of French music, but perhaps I'll explore more of it solely for that unique experience.

67/100: Most of this album is "Stroke Simulator: The Album." Im incredibly good at multitasking while listening to music. I've never had any issues doing work while listening to music. Oftentimes, I'll even read while listening to music. This album broke me on that front. I had to skip "Input Out" after I accidentally wrote "translation" while doing homework. I think there is something to be said in favor of this being a good album, and maybe even an important one, but I'm not gonna be the one to say it. I feel mentally slower having listened to it.

70/100: This was a good album. I'm not sure I have much more to say than that. It kinda scratches the itch most late 80's early 90's rap scratches but doesn't do much more than that for me. I'd listen to it again but probably won't go out of my way to do so. There are a number of albums I'd listen to before resorting to this one, if that makes any sense.

73/100: This was one of those albums that was very hard to pin down from a genre standpoint. I settled on electronica solely because that's what the album generator website said, but this album has so many elements of reggae and rock too, it feels wrong to just say electronica. I enjoyed this album, mostly because of how unique it is. With that being said, I don't think it's objectively that great of an album, but it's unlike anything else which is pretty cool.

71/100: Pretty good, but didn't really live up to the hype. I've heard great things about Jefferson Airplane, but unfortunately didn't find very many great songs on this album. Spotify suggested their psychedelic rock playlist after this album and that feels like a swing and a miss. I don't know how you'd classify this album as psychedelic rock, it just feels like bland normal rock.

77/100: An enjoyable album to listen to. I've never heard of Joan Armatrading before (by the way, that has to be a fake last name right?), but this definitely sounded like something I would listen to regularly. Nothing hits like good acoustic guitar rock. The song "Like Fire" really stuck out to me. The opening riff sounds like Eric Clapton covering the opening riff of "Neon," which is obviously high praise. On that note, to me, this album sounded like if you took Eric Clapton and substituted his blues influence with soul. That's a pretty cool combination, and definitely not a fusion I can say I've ever heard before.

76/100: I felt like I'd teleported to an 80's prom listening to this album. And what an album at that. By nature of having "Time After Time" and "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," this album is a banger. I love the energy of the rest of this album, and had a blast listening to it. I'll potentially revisit this in the future, but, if not, I'll definitely be listening to "Time After Time" and "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" again as usual.

70/100: This was an interesting album, pretty different than most other, even experimental, rap album. I really liked the lead singer's voice and the beats on a lot of the songs. With that being said, I think the sound curated on this album is cool for a song or two, but eventually it kind of gets old, slow, and repetitive.

63/100: This album, and more generally Elvis Costello's entire discography thus far, makes me question my music taste, and not in a good way. I like 70's rock. It's probably the type of music I listen to most often. But this is pretty awful and so was the other album of his I reviewed earlier. His music sounds like it was written after closely analyzing polling data on what people want their music to sound like. It's just so generic and entirely unexciting. It actually makes me angry. This dude just straight up sucks, I do not enjoy his music.

70/100: I wanted to like this album more than I ended up actually liking it. I think the Sex Pistols are really cool from a historical, development of punk as a genre standpoint, but unfortunately their music isn't that fun to listen to. The lead singer's voice is pretty annoying and the sound of the guitar is far too distorted into overdrive. It's clear that artists after the Sex Pistols progressed the genre leaps and bounds beyond where they left it, as I really like punk and grunge music now. Respect to the Sex Pistols for their founding role, but I won't listen to them again.

72/100: U2 sounds a lot more like Coldplay than I remember them sounding. U2's clearly a great band, but this wasn't their best stuff. I admittedly don't know much about U2's discography and don't listen to them regularly, but I really hope this isn't considered one of their better albums, because it's very mediocre. Like I said, sounds like Coldplay. Generic pop rock.

71/100: This was like a slightly less abrasive version of the Sex Pistols, which means I liked this better than the Sex Pistols; however, that's a relatively low bar. This was a pretty good album, but it got repetitive and a bit boring by the end. Probably won't listen again.

81/100: What a beautiful album seeping with emotion. I did not expect to like this as much as I did. I also can't believe it came out in 2000, but now that I think about it, the sound of this album is so timeless, I'd be hard-pressed to make any reasonable guess as to when it was released. This album is suitable to so many listening environments. While some albums are ideal for driving and others are perfect for doing homework or having a good cry, this album somehow seems to thrive in all of those environments. It's simultaneously easy and difficult listening. I've found this dichotomy, or perhaps universal nature, to be present in every soul album I've listened to as a part of this project, and my love for this genre is beginning to grow rapidly largely in part of that. I love that an album can make me sad and comforted at the same time. I love how many seemingly conflicting emotions seem to be simultaneously present.

79/100: Truly a very, very good album. This album is good fit mostly one reason: Marianne Faithfull's voice. With that being said, I can see how you might hate her voice, I find it incredibly beautiful and unique. I've never heard a singing voice quite like this until I turned this album on this morning. Somehow her voice is both raspy and soft at the same time. Really cool and unique sound.

76/100: This was a pretty decent album, they reminded me of a grunge-influenced The Killers. I would potentially listen to more of their stuff, as I'm definitely interested, but if I were to find this is the best they get, I'd be pretty disappointed. This isn't really an album I see myself listening to again very much in the future; however, it's a sound I could get behind if further matured in their other works. I specifically really liked the song "No Surface All Feeling," I'd definitely love to find more songs like that. I think it's a really cool mix of soft and hard rock with little to no transition between the two when the chorus hits, which is super cool.

83/100: I can see how someone might dislike the sound of the lead singer's voice on this album; however, I'm not one of those people. I thought the lead singer's voice was really beautiful throughout this album. It's actually a big reason I liked the album as much as I did. To each their own, I guess. The instrumental tracking on this album creates such a unique vibe, big fan.

63/100: I've never heard an album that was so clearly well-produced and touched by talented hands but also so incredibly horrendous and difficult to listen to. I think it clearly took a very talented artist to create the song "Lovefool," but it's such a shame that it's such an obnoxious song. It's honestly on the order of "What's New Pussycat" in terms of difficulty to listen to. Most songs on this album fall into this category. This album really made my 3am drive to the airport even worse than it already was, which is really rough because I was really hoping for a great album to boost my mood.

73/100: Very energetic album. This is one of those albums in which you can feel the fun that was had in the recording studio through the music. It nearly sounds like Devo just took all of the fun riffs and lines that jokingly come up in jam sessions and made an album with them. I don't necessarily think this is that great of an album, but it is certainly very fun to listen to, which I greatly appreciate. That doesn't make it a great album though unfortunately.

68/100: I find it interesting that I can like grunge as much as I do, yet every single punk album I've come across so far in this project I've found entirely uninteresting. The Adverts didn't buck this trend. I found this album super repetitive and boring. I guess punk just kind of sucks.

67/100: Not a huge fan of this album. It didn't sound all that unique, and definitely won't stick out in my memory. Honestly, I can't even recall any songs that stuck out in my mind. Overall, incredibly forgetful, so much so I think I've already forgotten it. I certainly will not revisit in the future as I likely won't think of this album ever again.

77/100: Super experimental Beatles-style rock. I'm a big fan, although it at times feels derivative. I suppose if you've listened to all of the Beatles stuff and are growing bored of it, this is the perfect group for you. Very unique album, but I get the sense this isn't the best the Byrds get.

83/100: This was a fantastic album. I was just complaining to my friend about how absolutely mediocre all of my albums have been lately, I'm glad I got this album to balance things out. Again, I absolutely love this type of music. It's both mournful and celebratory and sexual all at the same time. It takes a true genius and careful touch to produce the sound and emotions that are present in this album. Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this on my drive to the airport.

79/100: First Taylor album, let's go! This is a good one, although I had never listened to it all the way through before. Having done that for the first time today, I found myself noticing a lot of things that really detracted from my previous view of this album. For instance, why does every song on this album end so abruptly? It's honestly so blatant that it feels hard to place on just poor production, especially with an artist like Taylor Swift. Maybe it was intentional, maybe there's a deeper meaning behind it, but either way, it's pretty off-putting. "Champagne Problems" is possibly Taylor's best song, though, so this album instantly gets a rating boost for that.

82/100: I love getting albums like this one. That is, I love getting albums that I think I've never heard of before, only to find a bunch of songs that I've heard and loved but never knew the name of or who wrote them. "You Oughta Know" and "Ironic" immediately stuck out as songs like that on this album, but I also found so much more to love in this album than just rediscovering songs I'd heard in the past. Most of all, this album sticks out to me for the way Alanis unabashedly and expertly throws a harmonica onto otherwise very grunge-heavy distorted electric guitar riffs. That's such a cool pairing that on paper shouldn't work, but absolutely does. It's also something that fuses two of my favorite genres that I hitherto thought were unpairable. I never would've thought you could create a listenable middle ground between Bob Dylan and Nirvana (with a healthy dose of Olivia Rodrigo), but Morissette has proven me thoroughly wrong with this album. Fantastic album and a fantastic artist whom I hope to listen to more of in the future.

75/100: Never before has a new album met my expectations so precisely. Knowing a little bit about Rod Stewart, I found this album sounded exactly how I thought it would. It was exactly as good as I thought it would be. Let there be no confusion, though, I did not expect this album to be fantastic. I expected a lot of moody guitar riffs and got them. I do love moody guitar riffs, but not an entire album full of them. This is still a good album, but it's by no means anything monumental or even that memorable. With that being said, "That's All Right" was fantastic, mostly because I was not expecting a cover of "Amazing Grace," so that was a cool surprise, albeit the only one in the album.

68/100: This is background music at best, although maybe my perspective is skewed by the fact that I was in fact listening to this as background music while doing homework. Despite the possible bias, I objectively did not really enjoy this album. The general sound and vibe is just a tad off-putting. If music is a spectrum ranging from art to sound as the two extremes, this album is definitely much closer to the "sound" end of the spectrum. I can vaguely see what sort of album Guided By Voices were going for, but they were misguided if their record label told them they'd achieved that. This album is a lo-fi beats playlist on anti-depressants trying to do too much.

71/100: This is one of those albums that I feel I can't fully review fairly and thus won't give it the credit it deserves. I think the concept of combining heavy metal with a symphony orchestra in a live concert is absolutely fantastic. It's a stroke of artistic genius that Metallica clearly handled with observable mastery; however, I fear the beauty of this album is wasted on me, someone who has never and can clearly still not get into heavy metal. There were a lot of really beautiful orchestral bits of this album, and the version of "Enter Sandman" on this album might be my favorite I've ever heard (besides whenever it was played in Yankee Stadium, of course), but I couldn't help but view this album as simply an action movie soundtrack. Like I said, it's a beautiful album, but I can tell I'm not fully appreciating it's beauty; however, I'm not grading on a curve here. I review albums based on my perspective and how I enjoyed listening to them. I didn't really enjoy this album unfortunately, but I can easily see how one might.

80/100: Shockingly fantastic album. I knew nothing going into this one, I wasn't even aware of what genre I was about to dive into. I love the specific sect of rap created in this album. I don't really know how to define it, although Wikipedia calls it "alternative hip-hop." I guess that's probably a fair way to classify it, this album does feel alt/indie-y in the rap realm. Either way, however you classify it, this was a fun and energetic listen. Specifically, the sogns "People Everyday" and "Mr. Wendal" absolutely blew me away. "People Everyday" for its creative and fresh sampling of "Everyday People" and fantastic melody and beat, and "Mr. Wendal" for the though-provoking lyrics. I'd love to explore Arrested Development in the future, because this album indicates a real talent that I'd expect to extend to all of their music.

70/100: This will be a hard album for me to review. In nearly all of my previous reviews, I at least have some sort of context that I can bring to the table with respect to the genre. With this album, though, I have never listened to any samba; therefore, have had a difficult time deciding how to tackle this review. Relativity has always aided my reviewing process. Oftentimes consciously, always unconsciously, I compare albums to others I have heard in the same or similar genre. This isn't really possible for this album, so I guess the best approach is to genuinely review how much I objectively like this album in a vacuum. With that being said, I did really like this album; however, I don't really see myself actively seeking it out again. It was nice to listen to while reading a book on my flight to Newark, but I don't see it being as enjoyable in other contexts.

74/100: This was a cool album in a genre I never would normally actively seek out but am glad I was forced to explore. I really enjoyed the ambience and atmosphere this album created; in fact, I'd say this album surpasses most albums in that regard. That's obviously not enough for me to give this a score that surpasses most albums, though. Beyond the atmosphere invoked by this album, it is mostly just drums, bass, and whispered vocals. It's really cool for a few songs and is incredibly well done on songs like "Radio 7," but it's a bit worn out by the end of the album. I likely have that mindset solely because of my music taste, but it exists nonetheless.

79/100: Once music veers into gospel-inspired lyrics in any regard, I usually am immediately turned off. I'm not a religious person, but even for me, the monetization of religion feels observably cheap and makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I understand that in many cultures music exactly like this is incredibly important to religious services, and I'm biased by my own cultural experiences, but as I have said in many of my previous reviews, I do not grade on a curve or in consideration of other people's tastes. With that being said, this is the first album I have listened to that was so good I found myself actually overlooking that offense. I mean, first of all, I'm a sucker for alliteration and this album title is fantastic. Why is it the finale of fulfillingness? That's not even a word is it? More importantly, why is it implied there will be more finales? That seemingly contradicts the definition of the word finale. On top of that, the music itself is also breathtakingly fantastic and fresh. I found myself repeatedly wondering what chord changes Stevie Wonder was passing through in each song, because they all were so unpredictable yet so beautiful.

73/100: This was a nice indie rock album, but "nice" is the most impassioned I'll get about this album. If this album were a Pokemon, it would evolve into "AM" by the Arctic Monkeys. That's not to say this album is a Magikarp and "AM" is a Gyrados, more like this album is a Charmander. It's a good ("nice") album just like Charmander is nice, but upon inspection, it's really clear that they haven't reached the ceiling of what this type of sound can achieve like other similar artists have. I might be interested to explore some of their other stuff to see if it gets better, but I doubt I'll find myself listening to this specific album again in the future.

71/100: I'm not gonna lie, I expected a lot more out of a Rolling Stones album. Maybe I should've braced myself for a mediocre album better when I noticed there were no tracks I recognized when first perusing the album. In the moment, though, I was hoping for an album full of Rolling Stones songs I'd never heard before but should have discovered far earlier. Unfortunately, this was certainly not the case. I found this album to be very disappointing and bland. In all honesty, it sounds more like a Rolling Stones tribute band trying to write their own songs than it does the actual Rolling Stones. There are many Rolling Stones songs and albums I'd rather listen to than this.

74/100: I saw one review of this album that said The Pharcyde was clearly a talented group but perhaps didn't take themselves seriously enough on this album. I tried to ignore this review and approach this album with a fresh and untainted mindset; however, either independently of this review or because of it, I found myself thinking the same thing. With that being said, I think my view is slightly more nuanced than the original reviewer. While I agree that The Pharcyde's laid back attitude definitely doesn't do this well-produced and impressive album any favors, I think there's a place for jokes in music, even rap music. Not every rap album has to be about the same hard tropes. I think this album essentially full of "your mom" and penis jokes was actually really refreshing due to it's novelty. Despite that, though, there's a reason it's novel. It gets a little old after a while. I don't typically listen to music to laugh nor do I think most people, hence why there's not much demand for albums like this (and therefore not a large supply of them, econ lesson for you all). Overall, I enjoyed this album, but did not really vibe with it by the end.

92/100: This is quite possibly Bob Dylan at his most cryptic, his most pensive, his most experimental. What is there not to love? With songs like "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Maggie's Farm," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," this album is a veritable masterpiece. I can think of few songs where "meaning" is as illusive of a term as it is for many of the songs on this album. You can try to look up what Bob Dylan means by "Disillusioned words like bullets bark as human gods aim for their mark, make everything from toy guns that spark to flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark. It’s easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred," but you'll likely end up more confused than before you began your journey. This is what I love about this album. Meaning becomes a very personal word. What one person gathers from one song on this album might differ drastically from another person. In this listen through, I found my favorite song was "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream." I expected to fixate on what was previously my favorite song, "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," but instead found Dylan's dream to be fantastically captivating. From the very beginning, it doesn't take itself seriously, Bob Dylan has to attempt twice to start the song while fighting through laughter (of note, this is not a live album, so this was intentionally kept for a reason). The rest of the song feels as though it is meant to be taken seriously; however, that taste of laughter still remains in the listener's mouth. I think this creates a beautiful juxtaposition that truly refines Dylan's point with this song, a song ironically and hysterically recounting the founding of America.

68/100: Eh, this one wasn't really for me. I appreciate music like this, and when I'm in the exact right headspace, I even personally enjoy it sometimes. I guess I wasn't in the right headspace for this album, or maybe the fact that it's also in Spanish creates yet another barrier of entry for me. Either way, I found myself forgetting I was listening to this album while it was still playing. I doubt I'll explore this artist further or revisit the album again in the future.

81/100: I was beginning to grow sick of exclusively listening to Black Sabbath while working out, so I was excited to listen to this during my workout today. I then found my thoughts about this album to be incredibly dependent on the circumstances of my environment while listening to it. That is to say, I absolutely loved this album. I thought it was incredible, and kept thinking to myself, "Damn, I need to listen to more hard rock." In hindsight, though, I wonder how much that perspective was influenced by the fact that I had a bunch of pre-workout coursing through my veins and was moving heavy objects. I should probably listen to this one again in a more sober state, but I don't know if I really want to. Right now, this album resides in a niche but otherwise nearly vacant corner of my brain: music that can unfailingly pump me up. I'm worried listening to it in any other setting besides one clouded by pre-workout and dumbbells will unconsciously tie the album to other corners of my brain, thus tainting its niche role. I suppose in terms of reviewing this album, though, I'm at somewhat of an impasse. I don't feel comfortable classifying this album as one of my top albums of the project so far, because I know it doesn't deserve to be; however, based on how I felt listening to it while working out, maybe it should be? I frequently say "I don't grade on a curve," but that's usually with respect to other people's opinions of albums or, more typically, genres. I feel like I'm battling my own split opinion here; therefore, I feel a bit more comfortable "curving" my grade of this album down a bit to reflect some of the retrospective, more sober thoughts I have about this album.

79/100: This album, from here on out, will be the album I point to as an example when I describe an album as "a cute little album." I realize that might come across as an incredibly dismissive, maybe even patronizing phrase to use in describing an album as historically significant as this one, which is partly why I've decided to use this album as the example for that phrase. When I say an album is "a cute little album," I don't mean it in a dismissive way. I recognize how important this album was for development of The Beach Boys, eventually paving the way for "Pet Sounds" and thus a myriad of ground-breaking rock albums. To me, this album is both that and cute. It's fun and easy to listen to, and I'm sure the "ease" is a product of the time in which I'm listening to it. Maybe when it was first released it felt like an entirely new sound, forcing listeners to pay attention to every artistic decision made throughout; however, nowadays, to me, this sound doesn't feel new. It feels familiar and easy. This is why I think it's a cute little album, but I do think there are many albums better than this (it's not even The Beach Boys' best).

73/100: I don't know enough about Bob Marley to know if this is considered one of his best albums or not, but I'm assuming because it is on this list that it's probably up there somewhere. I never really go out of my way to listen to reggae and I was beginning to feel the stress of finals overwhelm me, so this was an incredibly welcome album to receive today. It felt like the random album generator saying, "Hey, it's gonna be ok, relax." Admittedly, I did listen to this while studying, but it made the studying much more relaxing and far less stressful, which I really appreciate. As for the musical merit of this album, that's a little harder for me to say. Reggae isn't really my cup of tea, but it felt nice listening to this.

75/100: This was pretty good, pretty much exclusively blues-y Clapton. This album includes "I Shot The Sheriff," so that immediately bumps it up a lot. I will say though that, while I really appreciate Eric Clapton's talent as a guitarist and even emphatically love many of his songs, in general I'm not a huge fan of his sound. His MTV unplugged album is fantastic. Most of his Derek and the Dominos work is also incredible. This album doesn't really do it for me. In fact, most of his solo albums don't really do it for me. He's also a shitty guy.

79/100: I didn't think I liked R.E.M. until I listened to this album. Sure, I like "Losing My Religion" and have heard "Everybody Hurts" plenty of times, but I'd never explored the rest of their discography enough to be able to say whether I liked them as a group before. Listening to this album, I was definitely pleasantly surprised. There were plenty of songs I'd never heard before but really enjoyed listening to, which isn't always the case in situations like these. This is the type of experience that will definitely lead me to explore more R.E.M. albums in the future.

95/100: A masterpiece. I recall reviewing "good kid, m.A.A.d city" by claiming it is my favorite Kendrick Lamar album. I think I might want to amend that. "good kid m.A.A.d city" means more to me as an album; however, I think "To Pimp a Butterfly" is objectively a better album, which is hard to do as "good kid, m.A.A.d city" is nearly perfect. This album is tightly written lyrically, Kendrick uses a self-written poem to propel his message from track to track; includes beats that, in and of themselves, would get the song playing over and over again on the radio; and displays a level of forethought and planning I've never detected when listening to an album before. This first and last point, I think, are either one and the same or at least complimentary. To write a poem and then slice that poem up into thematic verses that parallel each song of the track, clearly conspicuously hints at the amount of time Kendrick put into this album. It pays off by ensuring a tightly delivered message and beautiful storytelling. The final track on this album, "Mortal Man," includes an interview with 2Pac at the end. Obviously 2Pac is dead, but Kendrick brings him back to life by editing and clipping audio recordings of previous 2Pac interviews, stitching them together with questions of his own to create the appearance of Kendrick interviewing 2Pac. Even in description alone, that is a genius concept. In practice, it gives you goosebumps, it's chillingly impactful. Creating an interview with a dead rapper based on audio clips alone that actually ties into the message of your album, I imagine, is no easy undertaking. But Kendrick does it. And he does things like this over and over again throughout this album that scream "I toiled for years on this album and think what I'm saying here is important, and so should you." As a mere listener and consumer of this album, it's hard to not hear Kendrick screaming, both figuratively and literally in songs like "U." The one gripe I can potentially see with this album, and it's more so a gripe with Kendrick in general, is its density of content. Listening to Kendrick can sometimes feel like reading Kant or trying your hand at "Ulysses." Every song can feel like it has hundreds of allusions, double meanings, and subtleties to unpack. I can see that infuriating some listeners. To enjoy a song, you shouldn't have to know the entire history of rap as a genre or be forced to scour the internet to find a hidden double meaning in a relatively unknown slang phrase. This is the most aired grievance with "Ulysses," too. Reading that book, it can feel absurd how little of the message gets through without the aid of a companion book or explanatory video. So it goes with Kendrick sometimes; however, in the case of "Ulysses," I found setting aside the desire to know every little thing James Joyce meant in each allusion and parable wuite literally opened the book up for me. In doing so, you discover the beauty of the prose, the genius of the story-telling, and the profound ideas expressed. And so it goes, too, with Kendrick. Many of the songs on this album are bangers in and of themselves, even without analyzing his self-written poem or knowing what each line means; in fact, I think this is probably even more true for "To Pimp a Butterfly" than it is for "good kid, m.A.A.d city," which is partly why it's so hard for me to argue with myself that "good kid, m.A.A.d city" is actually a better album. "How Much a Dollar Cost," "King Kunta," "Alright," "The Blacker the Berry," and "i" are all easy to listen to, no in depth analysis needed to enjoy the music itself. What I love about this album, though, is that there is also an absolutely immense amount of thought and intent packed into these songs lyrically, too—a dichotomy damn near impossible to strike musically. As an aside, I also want to touch on a feature of this album that I feel in general is a great litmus test of "good" albums. That is, many of the tracks on this album blend into the next. Not many albums do this, but I feel like every album I know of that does is a fantastic album. To me, it's not because of this feature, but it's because of the attitude that attracts this feature. Artists who seamlessly transition from track to track have adopted an attitude in their creative process that holds the album in the highest esteem. They aren't writing individual songs, they're writing an album. When an album is written from this perspective, it shows. The message is coherent and unified. It's not an assortment of selfish songs battling to be hits. It's one album. Pink Floyd and Kendrick Lamar both do this well. They respect the album as an art piece more than most musicians and it's why their albums reside at the mountaintops of musical discourse. To wrap up my thoughts, I think I have to be objective here and admit that "To Pimp a Butterfly" is a better album than "good kid, m.A.A.d city." I have to give it a better review than that album because it is certainly a better album and I enjoyed listening to it more. There's genuinely little to nothing wrong with this album. The only people I could see disliking this are people who refuse to listen to rap at all, which is honestly a real shame but a topic I could talk about for 5 more paragraphs, so I will conclude my review here.