I think this the weakest of the albums from Stevie's "classic period", so it suffers a bit in being compared to them. Compared to most other albums from most other artists, it's outstanding, but compared to his body of work, it's doesn't hit the same highs. For 1001 Albums, I think the average person would understand Stevie Wonder's brilliance with Innervisions and Songs In the Key of Life, so having four albums represented seems like overkill. The big singles both work: Boogie on Reggae Woman is slinky and funky, while You Haven't Done Nothin does have a Superstition vibe to it. Heaven is 10 Zillion Years Away is also a standout. The slower tracks don't have the same immediacy - Creepin isn't bad, but Too Shy to Say is pretty dull excepting the steel guitar from Sneaky Pete Kleinow. Again, I like this album, but it's never going to be my Stevie Wonder album of choice.

One of my favorite albums. Andy Gill gets a lot of press as an unlikely guitar hero, but the rhythm section of Dave Allen and Hugo Burnham is seriously underrated. Dave Allen's bass makes you want to shake your ass while listening to heavy political lyrics about Maoist rebels in Latin America. Guerrilla war struggle is a new entertainment!

I've never actually listened to this album front to back even though I've heard everything on it. First album of my 1001 listening project. OK, the spoken word bridge on The Girl is Mine is pretty rough.

Bring the Noise is great, obviously. So this is the first old school rap album I listened to front to back. And it's great. The Bomb Squad production is so sample-dense - the "Wall of Noise" opinion is definitely earned. What should be chaotic really flows and creates a steady groove. Always liked Chuck D, but Flav's contributions make a lot of sense when listened to as part of the whole. Standout tracks (besides the big guns): Terminator X to the Edge of Panic, Louder than a Bomb, Caught Can We Get a Witness?, Party for Your Right to Fight

I mean, it's good, but not really my thing. Empty Pages is the standout track here, but the album as whole feels all over the place even though it only has six songs on it. Stranger to Himself especially feels like it doesn't fit in the with rest of the album and the transition from that into John Barleycorn Must Die is kind of jarring. Jim Capaldi's drums keep the whole thing from veering into some kind of weird jazz-folk hybrid.

It's prog rock. This is one step above jam band bullshit. So the last part of Starship Trooper is cool in a droning way, but the whole thing is kind of stupid lyrically. Clap is pointless and out of place, but Side One of the album is better than Side Two.

Side one is the funkier side, while side two is the soul side. The funkier side is definitely the better one to relax and lounge to, but the album is good as a whole.

I mean, it's the White Album. Other than Revolution No. 9, which I don't think anyone is a fan of, even the tracks that seem like filler or tossed in (Wild Honey Pie, anyone?) actually work when you hear them in sequence as a part of the whole. I was ready to come into this album willing to nitpick all of those weaker tracks, which, to be fair, probably kind of suck in isolation. But taken as a whole, it's an easy 5 stars.

Good Times is a classic, but Can't Stand to Love You is also a banger. Bernard Edwards is an amazing bass player.

I don't dislike this, but 60+ minutes gets really same-y and indistinct.

It's gutbucket garage rock that has a lot of energy. The originals like Psycho and The Witch are great and the covers were specifically chosen as high energy numbers which would kickstart whatever house party the band was playing at. The rawness makes this more appealing for me - I'd rather listen to the Sonics cover of "Money" than the Beatles cover, which just sounds too clean and less dangerous somehow. Five stars if you think Nuggets is one of the crowning achievements of American rock. Which I do.

I'm interested in this band, but I didn't really like this album. But it's also not considered their best, or even their second best, so I'm not sure why it's included over a couple of their earlier releases. So I'll listen to something else by them to see if this album just didn't sit right with me for some reason during this first listen.

I will have to give this one another listen. I liked several of the grungier songs, but there's also some noise-rock to contend with. Not nearly as bad a listening experience as I remember this being 30 years ago.

Tina's great. The rest of the instrumentation and production, not so much.

Breaking the Law and Living After Midnight are obviously great, but Rapid Fire and Steeler are great opening and closing tracks. United is slower and more accessible, but has really has a solid groove and is a nice showcase for Ian Hill and Dave Holland. I'm not a big metal guy, but this is a top shelf album, and is a really nice representation of the genre as a whole.

Horns and percussion carry this album. As someone else noted, it sounds like a generic salsa album, but when you learn it's actually the best-selling salsa album of all time, you understand that it's influential rather than derivative. I like it well enough, but I don't know enough about salsa to explain if this good compared to other salsa albums or how exactly it is influential. An enjoyable listen though, and ticks some of the same boxes as Getz/Gilberto's bossa nova album that I also really like.

It's not bad, but it is dull. I get why people like this, but I'm not one of them. I don't need to listen to this again.

The horns on Know Your Product are amazing and give an old school soul vibe to a punk album. First punk album for the listening project, and it's one I'm not familiar with so I may be scoring it highly for recency bias - but it's quite good. Some slinky basslines on this record - Lost and Found is surprisingly fun and fluid.

Under the right circumstances, I could totally listen to this. Unfortunately, those circumstances would involve being in a k-hole surrounded by a lot of other people, and a time machine set for 1997. Nowadays? A couple of tracks on a playlist would be good. 78 minutes worth? Not so much.

Krautrock is not my jam.

I live in a city with a lot of British expats. I mean, a lot. Oasis is the band that you hear drunkenly yelled along to after a brunch or at the bar, but they are the less interesting band overall. Probably because they're kind of a one-man gang with Noel Gallagher, who I think is talented, and then bandmates who ended up being somewhat replaceable. Blur sounds much more like a band. Dave Rowntree is seriously underrated as a drummer, and Graham Coxon is an all-time great guitarist. I understand the "Damon Albarn is too smart" critique, since sometimes you just want to drunkenly caterwaul to Wonderwall and call it a day, but when his lyrics work, they really work. I get the Kinks comparisons as far as the themes go, but I don't feel like this album is aping anything older - this feels more like an update than anything else. Singles are all strong tracks (Sunday, Sunday is a bit on the nose, but still sounds good with those horns), Advert, Pressure on Julian, and Star Shaped are standout album tracks. Starts to bog down a bit on the beginning of side two, but a good album overall, though a handful of dud tracks keeps this from being a 5.

Smooth jazz from the 80s. Was this the soundtrack for a coked-up finance bro scoping out the fern bar for the woman with the biggest shoulder pads in her suit jacket while nursing his Bartles and James wine cooler in the corner? This is unappealingly bland, and every musical choice made by the band and producers seems to be the least offensive one possible. Nice job mixing the bass front and center; unfortunately the album has no groove at all. I never need to listen to this again.

The music isn't distinctive enough to draw me in, so this album wants me to be drawn in by some profound lyrics which really aren't there. The title track is actually pretty distinctive musically from most of the other tracks which really bleed together and sound samey. This Year's Love isn't particularly novel, but it also stands out from the rest of the songs. I guess this guy gets points for influencing the 21st century British singer-songwriter scene, but I don't particularly like those artists either.

Ticks a lot of the same boxes as Dummy by Portishead combined with the Rome album from Danielle Luppi and Danger Mouse. It's a good album to have droning in the background. The singles Utopia and Lovely Head are obviously the standout tracks. The other benefit of this album is the length - my recent Prodigy and Chemical Brothers listening experiences were over an hour. This is done in 40 minutes, so you're not getting hammered with repetition. I'm split between a 3 and a 4, so I'll round up.

For me, Bob Dylan is the ultimate "you had to be there" artist. My parents were Dylan's original target audience so I heard from them how important he is. This is also echoed by a lot of other Boomers, like Rolling Stone including 11 Dylan albums on the Top 500 Albums of All Time list. Younger listeners are constantly told that he's great by people who cared about that 60s folk scene and protest music from that era. That protest music doesn't resonate with me since I didn't have any sort of Vietnam equivalent and I'm not naive enough to think dudes strumming acoustic guitars with some oblique poetry is going to get the US out some foreign military adventure. I don't think any discussion about Dylan doesn't include being hectored by someone about his "importance". So it's been decreed that he is so. I like some Dylan songs, but I don't obsess over the lyrics as great poetry. I don't obsess over Ginsberg's word salad either (another you had to be there guy). Some songs like Desolation Row are interesting lyrically, but that's my other problem with Dylan. When he's playing with a full band, there's enough to get into musically so you aren't stuck with some basic strumming, aggressive and screechy harmonica, and that voice that is never described as good, but charitably as "distinctive" (if not worse). The folky part at the beginning is dull and highlights the least appealing parts of Bob Dylan. The second part is better and is the Dylan I can get behind more. "One Too Many Mornings" is a good example that shows how exciting Dylan can be when he gels with a good band. That said, it's still a mixed output from an artist that I will think is somewhat overrated because there's no way he will ever be as important to me as he is to the people who came before me.

This album is described as a challenging listen - I get that. I need to listen to this a couple more times to see exactly how positively I feel towards it. I'm between a 3 - 4 right now, but I'm going to go conservative on this review.

I didn't like LCD Soundsystem's first album and wrote off their later releases. This album has changed my mind about them, and I'm definitely more interested in the other LCD title on the 1001 List. Get Innocuous! worried me with its beginning of the long droning note, but really kicks this album into high gear from the start. North American Scum and Us v. Them are supremely danceable and really fun. All My Friends is a bit too repetitive for my liking, but Watch the Tapes is a better example of a less dance-y track that works alongside the more dance oriented numbers.

Never listened to Nick Cave. After this, I'll need to check out more. For an album called Murder Ballads, there's a lot more musical variety than I expected. Where the Wild Roses Grow is gorgeous with the string arrangements and duet with Kylie Minogue. The other two traditional tracks (with adaptations) Stagger Lee and Henry Lee are also standouts. Death Is Not the End is a change of pace which makes a good closing track to what is an album far less bleak than expectations.

I love the Louvin Brothers - enjoyed them before I even started this project. I don't get why I like them so much, while something like this album, which should be in that same wheelhouse, leaves me somewhat cold. Is there some kind of perceived inauthenticity that sort of creeps through? When James Dolan, who owns the New York Knicks, plays shitty blues gigs with his band and sings over blues riffs about how hard he works in the mine, the bullshit posturing is obvious. Someone embracing a style that sounds so anachronistic has a similar hollow feeling somehow? I don't know - that's not really a fair comparison. Anyway, some tracks work better than others. Title track is good, as is Red Clay Halo, but if I want something like this, I'd rather go back to older artists like the Louvin Brothers or the Anthology of American Folk Music.

There She Goes, a single so good, it was released four times. Another good single, Timeless Melody. And a lot of filler.

I think this the weakest of the albums from Stevie's "classic period", so it suffers a bit in being compared to them. Compared to most other albums from most other artists, it's outstanding, but compared to his body of work, it's doesn't hit the same highs. For 1001 Albums, I think the average person would understand Stevie Wonder's brilliance with Innervisions and Songs In the Key of Life, so having four albums represented seems like overkill. The big singles both work: Boogie on Reggae Woman is slinky and funky, while You Haven't Done Nothin does have a Superstition vibe to it. Heaven is 10 Zillion Years Away is also a standout. The slower tracks don't have the same immediacy - Creepin isn't bad, but Too Shy to Say is pretty dull excepting the steel guitar from Sneaky Pete Kleinow. Again, I like this album, but it's never going to be my Stevie Wonder album of choice.

I love the Pixies, but of the three albums they have on the list, this one is my least favorite. Doolittle and Surfer Rosa are both pretty much perfect, while this album has a couple of smaller missteps. Again, compared to other albums, it's great, but compared to the two other Pixies entries, it's just not quite as strong. I'm not going to go below 4 stars because I do like this album a lot, but is it required on the 1001 list if you already have Surfer Rosa and Doolittle?

Good album. The only dud title for me is Turn Your Lights Down Low, which isn't even a bad song, just the weakest of a strong tracklist. Of the songs the average person doesn't know, Guiltiness and The Heathen are both outstanding. This is the toughest rating for me - I'm going 4 stars today though I could easily go 5 stars depending on the day I'm listening to it.

The review that said 10 songs in a 15 song bag is pretty accurate. Disc 1 is solid top to bottom (though In My Time of Dying starts to wear out its welcome a bit), but Disc 2 starts to get repetitive and and side 4 is underwhelming. The Rover is the underrated track on this album, Kashmir is the climax, and In the Light is experimental but still Zepplin-y.

Never was a big Smashing Pumpkins guy, but the bloat on this album lessons the impact overall compared to the leaner Siamese Dream. Instead, this is the album where Billy Corgan's massive ego went on full display. Jimmy Chamberlin shows you why he is such a highly regarded drummer, but who needs multiple 7+ minute grinding grunge dirges?

If this had been my first Dinosaur Jr. album instead of Where You Been, I'd probably have gotten more into them. Where You Been is fine, but this album is so much better than that. Does having a couple of Lou Barlow tracks to break up the J. Mascis a bit make that big a difference? Just a great guitar album.

I've never listened to this before - I know Radiohead more for their earlier albums like The Bends or OK Computer. Other reviewers are dropping 5 stars but saying it's a challenging listen that requires multiple listens to really get a lot out of it. This is a challenging listen, but I don't want to listen to this multiple times to leave a review so I can possibly get everything out of this. I thought listening to this album was more of a chore and isn't really immediately accessible unless you've been watching Radiohead change as a band from their earlier output to this. I'm sure it's a good album, but it's just not really for me.

Didn't own this album in the 90s, but it was everywhere. The songs that you remember are the better ones. It's pretty obvious why the album tracks weren't chosen as singles, as they're just not as good. Production and instrumentation is so dated that it's not surprising so many 5 star reviews here are based purely on nostalgia.

Title track, Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!, Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers), Cholly (Funk Getting Ready To Roll!) are all standouts. Lunchmeataphobia (Think! It Ain't Illegal Yet!) grabs you from the beginning as the heavy guitar riff that opens it stands out immediately. P.E. Squad/Doo Doo Chasers is a good closer - still funky but slower in tempo allowing for a cooldown. Great album start to finish - expectedly funky, unexpectedly funny. Funkadelic was the more experimental half of the P-Funk banner, and a lot of psych-rock influences are apparent. Why isn't this on any streaming service?

Never listened to this whole album. Biggie is masterful, and the trick on Gimme The Loot of Biggie rapping with himself as two different characters is inspired. The production still holds up, but the skits are pretty dire and definitely skippable. I don't know enough about hip hop to know why skits are such a staple on albums, but this would be much better served by cutting them down and making this a leaner and much more hard-hitting album.

I'd rather listen to this ska revival album than the terrible ska revival albums that came out in the 90s and early 2000. That's not really high praise though. It's not offensive, but since I'm not an unemployed 18 year old in Leeds in 1980, this really doesn't do much for me.

Instrumentation is amazing and fluid throughout the album - the strings and horns bring you back when the vocals or lyrics start to veer too far into schmaltz. First side is excellent top to bottom, but does have a couple of bumps on side 2. The Windmills of Your Mind is kind of a dud, and In the Land of Make Believe is more shrill than soulful. Will definitely listen to again.

I can't tell the first four songs apart - everything here blends into a hell march of mid-tempo sludge with random blips and bleeps supporting vocals from the over-earnest folkie girl at an open mic night. Moody is fine. Atmospheric is fine. Painfully dull and indistinguishable is not.

I like Pavement. The famous singles here are Cut Your Hair, Gold Sounds and Range Life, all of which are excellent: hooky and lyrically cool. The opener Silence Kid and closer Fillmore Jive bookend the album nicely - Silence Kid kicks the album off with high energy and a good guitar riff while Fillmore Jive wraps things up using a slower tempo and some droning jamming. Some of the lesser-known tracks don't really stand out too much as individual songs, but everything works well together in the context of an album, which is probably the only way I'd really like to listen to this - this is a much better experience as a whole album than if individual tracks popped up randomly on a playlist, which I suppose is the point of the listening project. Other standouts: Elevate Me Later, Stop Breathin, 5-4=Unity for its jazzbo riffing

"So it's like an opera, but it rocks!" Ugh. I like the Who, and they undeniably have some classic bangers under their belts. This album has some classics: Pinball Wizard, Go to the Mirror!, I'm Free but it's also saddled with some tracks that might be better if they weren't shoehorned into a narrative. Smash the Mirror has good riffs, but could it have been better if didn't have to be about a deaf, dumb, and blind kid's therapy session? I get why this was mind-blowing in 1969, but let's be honest: the story the album is built around is kind of dumb. I think Townshend's operatic narrative tendencies are better served with longer individual songs broken into different parts - think A Quick One While He's Away or Rael from The Who Sell Out. There's no idea being beaten to death over 90 minutes, you can tell a more detailed story with only three singers (which is harder with something like this where rivals Tommy and the Pinball Wizard are both sung by the same guy), and you aren't forcing ideas to fit into a framework they might not be best served by. A bad album? Not by any stretch. An overrated album? Probably more accurate.

It's inoffensive, but it's not really interesting. It sounds like the soundtrack to a movie shot in 1985 set "far in the future" year of 2005. This is what a Hollywood music supervisor from the early 80s thinks society will be listening to while in their flying cars. The Willy Wonka sample on "We Are the Musicmakers" is obnoxious, as is the title.

So it's got a similar ambient vibe as the Aphex Twin album the list just gave me, but the songs are distinctive and not simply a collection a bleeps and bloops with a couple of samples thrown in. This is an album that you can actively listen to and have a satisfying experience, and not just have on in the background and kind of ignore while you're doing something else. You absolutely could have this on in the background, but it's not the only state it functions well in (which was the issue with that Aphex Twin album). I'd equate listening to this with listening to a jazz album instead of using the post-rock label - you can let wash over you, but there's also a lot of interesting musical interplay if you're listening closely. The opener, Djed, has that in spades. A Suvery is built around an ominous bass riff, Glass Museum and The Taut and the Tame have some great chiming keyboards or vibraphone playing off of some heavier guitar. Along the Banks of Rivers has some cool spaghetti western guitar running through it. The drums sound a bit thin throughout the album, which makes things sound a bit more tame, but that's my big quibble with this record.

Not a perfect album, but really, really good bloozy rock. Waiting on the Bus, Jesus Just Left Chicago, and La Grange are the famous tracks here, all of which adhere to the older ZZ Top formula of chugging blues riffs over a killer rhythm section. Solid all around. Master of Sparks and Sheik are standout album tracks, but Hot, Blue and Righteous is really impressive swerve into a slower, somewhat more plaintive direction. Four stars, but this is definitely an album I'd reach for if I was driving fast down a country road.

First things first, The Murder Mystery is a tough listen and is representative of Lou Reed's most self-indulgent artistic impulses. It's confrontationally experimental and while I wouldn't necessarily call it bad, it's not a good song either. This is an album that I bought when I was younger and just never got into. Listening to it 20 years on, I'm now very glad that I have it. The first side is stellar top to bottom, and I like Doug Yule's vocals on Candy Says and Jesus, the latter of which has some rich vocal interplay between Reed and Yule. Beginning to See the Light is a fun rave-up, and even the Mo Tucker sung After Hours is ok. A great album with a weird art project shoved into it.

Side one sounds like generic Grass Roots-style 60s rock, though Are You Happy does have more notable psychedelic flourishes. Then there's side 2, which is good if you like drum solos. The most shocking thing about this album is that this band still tours, though the oldest current member joined in 1995.

Probably the first Dylan album I've immediately thought I would listen to again at some point in the near future. Having some ace session musicians and members of the Band backing him up probably helps a lot - the screeching harmonica isn't doing a lot of heavy lifting this time around.

Not a huge blues guy, but I liked this well enough.

So this is at least an automatic 3 if only because of "Don't You Want Me", which is an absolute monster classic. But Open Your Heart and The Sound of the Crowd have a lot of the same DNA as that monster classic, which makes them very enjoyable in their own right. Do or Die is alternately bouncy and dark and moody and totally works even though the vocals and synths don't sound like they should work together at all. Side 2 is a bit more scattered - I Am the Law doesn't work despite having a similar template as Do or Die. A couple of friends and I are all doing independent listening projects concurrently - I'm maybe 15 albums in front of them. One of them rated this album 1 star, which I think I can understand since I was 7 when that monster classic hit #1 in the US, and a lot of what I listened to or saw on early MTV sounds somewhat similar (and was everywhere), while they are a few years younger than me. I was harsh on Dylan in an earlier review for seemingly coasting on older folks' nostalgia, but here I am doing the same thing with The Human League of all things. Hmm.

Some nice vocal trickery by Serj Tankian. I like Rage Against the Machine, but this band just doesn't have the same groove as Rage does. If I was young and angsty, maybe this would do it for me, but I'm not.

I mean, come on. I didn't listen to this a ton when it came out, but I did listen to everything it influenced. But I've listened to a lot more since then, and this just holds up.

I'm not sure how I'm feeling about this. I never listened to Eminem other than hearing his singles when out and about. Lyrically, there are a lot of great ideas here - Stan is the standout with its epistolary structure and point of view, Who Knew made me chuckle a couple of times, and The Way I Am and The Real Slim Shady has some cutting critiques of the music industry. Unfortunately, a lot of the lyrical themes have aged like milk. Homophobia? I think it turns out have a lot more respect for Eminem as an artist and songwriter than I assumed that I did, but this probably isn't a record I'll be listening to much in the future, if at all.

Liked some of the power pop style tracks in the first half, but gets a bit slower and draggy in the second. Standouts: Fall At Your Feet, Four Seasons in One Day

I've generally shied away from country music, but this album has always just killed me. It's a recording of two brothers who were born to sing together, with some sparse instrumentation that never detracts from those killer harmonies. Despite the title, not every song is bleak and tragic (unlike Nick Cave's Murder Ballads, which is exactly what it says on the tin) - "Alabama" is a positive recollection of the brothers' home state, "Let Her Go, God Bless Her" is a rollicking kiss-off song, but the tragic songs are the ones that people remember best. "My Brother's Will" is absolutely bleak, "Knoxville Girl" is an old-school murder ballad, and "Katie Dear" is the bounciest song about a suicide pact you're likely to hear. "A Tiny Broken Heart" straight up makes me cry every time I hear it despite having the lowest stakes of the "tragic" songs. This album is definitely an acquired taste, but it is an important example of Americana/bluegrass transitioning into that classic old-school country sound, and I'm definitely happy that the Louvin Brothers are in the 1001 instead of the umpteenth mediocre British electronica album.

Sam Cooke works better with the little bit of grit in his smooth voice that turns up live as opposed to the highly polished studio version of Sam Cooke. This live set is an absolute barnburner, and Sam and the band are firing on all cylinders. You've probably heard all of the songs in this set before many, many times, but listening to Sam Cooke add that extra bit of energy in the live setting transforms them into something better. This is one of the few live albums that justifies why live albums should exist in the first place.

Meh. I think I like the idea of the Minutemen/Minutemen adjacent bands more than I actually like their music.

I do like some of the soul sounds Bowie is going for here, but this is kind of an uneven album. The title track and Fame are both classics, and there are some cool album tracks like Fascination and Right. I don't like the Across the Universe cover that much, and I'd definitely call this lesser Bowie, but maybe that's because it's a transitional album between Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke.

Eh, it's fine. It turns out I like Janis in moderation. And the numbers without Janis are pretty forgettable.

For country music, dueling Telecasters over a strong backbeat is a pretty tough sound to beat. Not the biggest country fan, but I've always dug that Bakersfield sound. I don't know if Merle Haggard is going to turn up on this list (somehow I doubt it as that would crowd out yet another early 2000s UK also-ran electronica act), but I'm glad Bakersfield gets represented at least once.

I listened to this album immediately after Armed Forces. I don't think it's nearly as hooky and accessible as the earlier album, and I think it's less interesting lyrically than the social commentary that you get on Armed Forces. Another case of not a bad album, but we're going to be getting a lot of Elvis Costello, so does this album need to be included? I might soften up a bit on a subsequent listen...

Marc Bolan has such a distinctive sound, both vocally and with his guitar, that he always manages to sound louche and sleazy. This is a good thing.

One of my favorite albums. Andy Gill gets a lot of press as an unlikely guitar hero, but the rhythm section of Dave Allen and Hugo Burnham is seriously underrated. Dave Allen's bass makes you want to shake your ass while listening to heavy political lyrics about Maoist rebels in Latin America. Guerrilla war struggle is a new entertainment!

I just can't do acid jams like this - it's why I could never do the Grateful Dead or Dead-descendant bands. "We're a folky-jazzy-bluegrass and country band with a wah pedal that makes our guitar sound like a sitar!" Fuck off.

Not a good album. Is Ma and Pa supposed to be serious or goofy? And this is one of this band's best songs? The production on this album yields a thin, trebly, and tinny sound. Of course, this is exactly what great funk bands go for - no bass, all snare. This doesn't work as funk or ska and the hard rock flourishes which were praised back in the day really don't amount to much.

Haven't listened to this album in ages, and I forget how good this album is. If the Velvet Underground inspired all of their original listeners to start bands of their own, the Ramones are equally important for everyone who's ever started playing guitar or bass. Simple guitar chords, chugged eighth-note basslines, this is an album that is musically accessible to everyone in its simplicity, but has an influence that is greater than the sum of its parts. A very fun album.

I know Curtis Mayfield's Superfly will be coming up on the list later, which to my mind, is a much stronger choice for "blaxploitation movie soundtrack" if someone felt that niche genre had to be included. Here's the difference between Superfly and Shaft: Superfly actually works as a standalone album, not just as a soundtrack. Shaft is one iconic song - "Theme from Shaft" is rightfully legendary - and then a lot of instrumental filler. It's not bad music at all, but it doesn't really work outside of the context of the film.

Jesus Built My Hotrod was very enjoyable when I first heard it 30 years ago, but I didn't like this album a lot when I bought it new in 1992. Thirty years on, it's just a heavy drone with an industrial drum beat. It's just not my thing.

Good album. Steve Nieve steals a lot of the focus on this one with some chirping organ and ABBA-esque fills.

I'd be hard-pressed to not give this 5 stars - Paul Weller is a great songwriter and Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler are a criminally underrated rhythm section. The album loses a bit of momentum with the last couple of songs Boy About Town and Scrape Away, but those two tracks are following an absolute Murderer's Row of songs - Start, That's Entertainment, Pretty Green, and my favorite, Man in the Corner Shop. Probably the best Jam album (though I am partial to Setting Sons, which is not on the list) and this group is either 1 or 1(a) on my list of best power trios (along with Hüsker Dü).

I have always liked Duran Duran, but they always had the reputation of being a singles band. I'm not sure how they picked up that label, when this album is as shockingly stacked as it is. So there's Rio, which is a classic single with a classic video, Hungry Like the Wolf, which is an absolute monster of a classic, and Save a Prayer, another well-regarded single. If the rest of the album was straight filler, then I'd get the singles band label, but the album cuts are also bangers: Last Chance on the Stairway is a funky Roxy Music meets Chic track, Hold Back the Rain is infectiously danceable, My Own Way is another John Taylor funkbomb bass showcase, while The Chauffeur is icy, ocarina-laced, and more experimental (compared to everything else on the record) while still sounding like Duran Duran. Honestly, the biggest challenge I had listening to this was not hitting repeat as soon as I get to Hungry Like the Wolf. This might be the most surprising 5 star rating for me up to this point.

This is not a good album. The overly nasal vocals with singing in what turns out to be an affected Jamaican patois. When you get a different sounding song like Sunday Shining, you remember it until you go right back into the most generic dub-sounding instrumentation on everything else. This might be the most soulless "reggae" album I've heard.

More about the collaborators than John Lee Hooker. The first track sounds like a Santana track featuring Hooker instead of the other way around. Stop Santana-ing up everything you guest on, Carlos! The Musselwhite collab is a better example of what this album is trying to do, but it's just really uneven. I'm not sure why this was the Hooker album picked compared to an earlier release from the 60s, but I'm glad Hooker got paid regardless.

Another from the "weak entry from a strong body of work" category.

If I'm feeling like bossa nova, I'll do Getz-Gilberto, and not reach for the samba album from the Girl from Ipanema vocalist. It's a "known" name fronting a weaker example of a genre the name is associated with. It's not awful, but there are so many better examples of this type of music.

This is one of those albums I’ve tried to get into before, but it just doesn’t gel with me. Jeffrey Lee Pierce does some cool stuff, but the album never has worked as a whole for me. I used to drink Scotch occasionally to remind myself that I didn’t like it, until one day I did. I keep waiting for that with this album.

Better than average Britpop. Standout tracks - A Design for Life and Enola/Alone. I liked this overall, but all of the strings are leaving me conflicted as they make some of the tracks sound a bit more maudlin than they probably mean to.