Journey Complete!
Finisher #510 to complete the list
1089
Albums Rated
3.13
Average Rating
100%
Complete
Treasure
Cocteau Twins
Favorite Album
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1980s
Favorite Decade
Rock-and-roll
Favorite Genre
UK
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
143
5-Star Albums
91
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Cupid & Psyche 85
Scritti Politti
|
5 | 2.39 | +2.61 |
|
Histoire De Melody Nelson
Serge Gainsbourg
|
5 | 2.75 | +2.25 |
|
One World
John Martyn
|
5 | 2.82 | +2.18 |
|
Quiet Life
Japan
|
5 | 2.85 | +2.15 |
|
Rattlesnakes
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
|
5 | 2.9 | +2.1 |
|
Infected
The The
|
5 | 2.92 | +2.08 |
|
Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Small Faces
|
5 | 2.95 | +2.05 |
|
New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
Simple Minds
|
5 | 2.95 | +2.05 |
|
Pills 'n' Thrills And Bellyaches
Happy Mondays
|
5 | 2.98 | +2.02 |
|
Steve McQueen
Prefab Sprout
|
5 | 2.98 | +2.02 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Are You Experienced
Jimi Hendrix
|
1 | 4.16 | -3.16 |
|
In Utero
Nirvana
|
1 | 3.83 | -2.83 |
|
The Score
Fugees
|
1 | 3.69 | -2.69 |
|
L.A. Woman
The Doors
|
1 | 3.67 | -2.67 |
|
Madman Across The Water
Elton John
|
1 | 3.59 | -2.59 |
|
Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand
|
1 | 3.57 | -2.57 |
|
Tidal
Fiona Apple
|
1 | 3.45 | -2.45 |
|
Either Or
Elliott Smith
|
1 | 3.38 | -2.38 |
|
Endtroducing.....
DJ Shadow
|
1 | 3.36 | -2.36 |
|
The Downward Spiral
Nine Inch Nails
|
1 | 3.35 | -2.35 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Beatles | 7 | 4.86 |
| David Bowie | 9 | 4.33 |
| Bob Dylan | 7 | 4.43 |
| Pixies | 3 | 5 |
| Simon & Garfunkel | 3 | 5 |
| Johnny Cash | 3 | 5 |
| Led Zeppelin | 5 | 4.4 |
| Stevie Wonder | 4 | 4.5 |
| Prince | 3 | 4.67 |
| Kate Bush | 3 | 4.67 |
| The Smiths | 3 | 4.67 |
| Peter Gabriel | 3 | 4.67 |
| George Michael | 2 | 5 |
| Cocteau Twins | 2 | 5 |
| The Police | 2 | 5 |
| Massive Attack | 2 | 5 |
| The Pogues | 2 | 5 |
| Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | 5 | 4.2 |
| Talking Heads | 4 | 4.25 |
| Neil Young | 4 | 4.25 |
| U2 | 4 | 4.25 |
| Michael Jackson | 3 | 4.33 |
| Nick Drake | 3 | 4.33 |
| Beastie Boys | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Robert Wyatt | 2 | 1 |
| Bee Gees | 2 | 1 |
| ABBA | 2 | 1.5 |
| Primal Scream | 2 | 1.5 |
| M.I.A. | 2 | 1.5 |
| Sepultura | 2 | 1.5 |
| Arcade Fire | 3 | 2 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| PJ Harvey | 5, 1, 1, 4 |
| Nirvana | 1, 4, 5 |
| The Doors | 1, 3, 5 |
| Portishead | 1, 4 |
| Elliott Smith | 1, 4 |
5-Star Albums (143)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Throbbing Gristle
1/5
It's completely legitimate to put Throbbing Gristle in this kind of list. I'm glad I listened to it. Genesis P Orridge was an auteur of some note.
It is, of course, absolute garbage and anyone who says they like it, or would buy it, or would listen to it more than once, is a fraud.
12 likes
Japan
5/5
I don't expect to convince people that Japan are one of the greatest bands to emerge from the new wave/post glam scene of the 70s but to my ears they were. This album, their musical breakthrough where they worked out their sound, is the bridge between that scene and the New Romantics. Duran Duran came from the image and the crossover disco/new wave sound of Japan. I mean look at them.
Japan would make better albums, and they would break up too soon, but from every waaaa of the fretless bass to Sylvian's new found baritone this is a superb example of a band actually doing things to move music on and looking good and sounding good whilst they did it. I think after listening to over 200 albums in this project, I'm more sure of their greatness. But that's to my ears, maybe not yours.
4 likes
Kelela
1/5
I'm still fighting through this as I write, but this is awful. It's not got a single song on it. Just aimless warbling over a drum machine with the odd little wibble wobble synth sound in the background. One song of it might work, but a whole album of it is torture.
Only critics like tuneless rubbish like this.
3 likes
Elliott Smith
1/5
As with all these medium known artists I didn't hate it, but I don't see why I should particularly like it either. Nothing stand out.
3 likes
1-Star Albums (91)
All Ratings
The Strokes
3/5
It’s an album I know well and it has the sound that at the time propelled them into consciousness but it’s ultimately a bit flat. I don’t think it’s an album I’d keep going back to.
David Bowie
3/5
The context of this album was incredible. A surprise launch after years of silence from one of the all time greats. This is a good album but if it wasn’t Bowie and out of the blue would people listen to it over and over? I suspect not.
Kraftwerk
4/5
This is a lovely, gentle piece of work which must have been groundbreaking at the time. I'd listen to this again. 36 minutes long - albums used to be short enough to enjoy them.
Jimi Hendrix
1/5
Ok the odd great song that we know well but mainly a mess and not something I’d listen to all the way through with any pleasure
Michael Jackson
4/5
Art not the artist ... It's as good as a pop album gets with any number of absolutely fantastic songs.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
It’s got a few tunes it’s got some filler - it’s not something I’d go back to.
The Doors
1/5
This was a struggle. Turgid 12 bar blues.
Pixies
5/5
An absolute work of genius. Every moment still as good as the first time I heard it. Came from nowhere and will last forever. Other bands wanted to be Pixies
Elton John
1/5
I love lots of Elton John but I don't love this at all. Only one stand out song - Tiny Dancer - the rest a real struggle.
Fugees
1/5
I struggled through
The Charlatans
4/5
Lovely album with some great tunes
Michael Jackson
5/5
This is the perfect pop album. An absolute masterpiece and incredibly consistent. Aside from all the singles the rest could have been singles. The high point of 80s production adds a beautiful listening experience. There's a good reason why this album sold so many copies and it still stands up.
The Young Rascals
1/5
Perfectly pleasant but not something that I’d play again
The Incredible String Band
1/5
Well this is dreadful self indulgent rubbish. I’m sure may have had some sort of influence at the time for those under the influence.
Thank God that’s over.
Dead Kennedys
2/5
Of its time. Still a good noise but not a keeper
Talking Heads
3/5
Beach House
1/5
Slowing down and speeding up the tape is a nice trick on song one, by song 5 it starts to grate a lot. That this is in any list is baffling.
Nirvana
1/5
The authentic rock sound they were looking for is great, if only they also had some songs to go with it.
4/5
Still a beast of an album. Derivative, yes, some painful lyrics but it's a rock and roll album that evokes an era.
Fiona Apple
1/5
This is a really nice sound. Pleasant background music. Completely fine. No stand out songs and nothing remarkable.
The 13th Floor Elevators
1/5
Well, I'm sure it was a thing, but it's not a thing now. I'm glad I listened to it and some bits I remembered but...
Janelle Monáe
4/5
Fun album, really didn’t know it at all but recognised the lead single. Sort of a prog funk epic and enjoyed it.
Hole
3/5
Good standard rock and roll
Elton John
3/5
Some great moments but like a lot of double albums would have made a superb single album
Portishead
1/5
Discordant and tuneless. How the mighty fallen
Tina Turner
2/5
Couple of good pop songs, some terrible covers and a rehash of an old cover. Mundane production but an extra star for her fabulous voice. Overall though a very bland offering.
Black Sabbath
3/5
Classic metal
Sugar
3/5
I didn't know this album at all - it had completely passed me by - though I did know the big hit when it got to it. I enjoyed this, melodic grunge from an era in which I spent a lot of time buying music and going to indie clubs. Well worth a listen.
Prince
4/5
An epic album of funk and songs that heralded what was to come
Sleater-Kinney
2/5
I hadn't even heard of this band before and I sort of liked it in a curiosity way but it didn't have any stand out tracks and I don't think I'd listen to it again
Def Leppard
1/5
I let this wash over me like a bad background record in a lunchtime diner. It's desperately of its era and woefully short of redeeming features. An album that marked a period of time that has now passed.
Daft Punk
1/5
Well, what is to be said about a set of turgid one phrase songs that presumably have some vague interest if you are off your tits on E at a club in 1999. Listening to it is one of the most painful experiences I have had in this escapade. Utter rubbish that a child can now do on Garage Band.
Neil Young
4/5
Classic rock. I was too young first time round but came back to Neil Young out of curiosity and absolutely loved him.
Fats Domino
3/5
Lovely listen to the early sounds of rock and roll. Happy days.
Kate Bush
4/5
This is a stunning albums in many ways. The musicianship, the first tentative sounds of the Fairlight CMI in popular songs. An eclectic album and well worth a listen.
The Jam
3/5
Raw 70s sound, a few tunes, a bit patchy.
Nine Inch Nails
1/5
I have no idea why anyone would listen to this
The Byrds
4/5
Really nice folk rock album, first time to it but I'd definitely listen again.
Lou Reed
4/5
I was a bit hesitant with this, but it is a fine piece of work. Of course the narrative issues are difficult but done with a fine touch. Very much enjoyed listening to this.
The Who
3/5
A bit of a mixture this. Some iconic songs and a lot of pretty standard blues numbers. Some fantastic bass and drums and one of the great songs in the history of rock and roll. Curate's egg.
Jacques Brel
2/5
Pleasant distraction I can see why he’s a thing but not enough to make me revisit.
Dolly Parton
4/5
Delightful album. Absolutely lovely in all respects. Fine words, fine tunes and a great sound. First time I’d listened to an album of Dolly and it was a pleasure.
Jane Weaver
1/5
It’s pleasant enough but I have no idea why it’s on this list. A bit of a by numbers electronica pop album. Nice voice, the odd good tune but there’s probably a reason why this has never come up before in my life. It’s Ok, just that.
Donovan
3/5
I liked this, in a gentle and interested way. Not by any means stand out but certainly worth a listen.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
I found this much better than I expected. 1979 is one of the great songs of all time but I am a bit meh about the rest of their singles. This thought had a surprising tone - some really good songs.
Mike Oldfield
3/5
This is a pleasurable piece of work, for all the bits that are now known there are still musical interludes that are interesting and challenging. That a record company was built on the back of it (and indeed the whole Virgin Branson empire) is amazing in retrospect. However, it's not going to get me to 4 or 5 as I wouldn't listen to it again and again.
Frank Ocean
4/5
To say this isn't my genre is an understatement. So I approached this with some trepidation which was completely unfounded. This is a good album. It's never going to be my thing but it's melodic, interesting, has some good songs and doesn't default to the lazy end of the genre.
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
2/5
I think a little dated. Obviously Message itself as a song is still amazing but the album is a little too soft and underwhelming.
Grizzly Bear
1/5
Nice enough but it is absolutely baffling that this made any list of anything of note.
ABBA
1/5
This may well be some maturing directional shift for ABBA, but to my ears it's oompah music on synths. One of Us is still a great single, the rest is for my granny. I never saw ABBA as an albums band - they produced fantastic pop singles but I can't imagine finding depths over the course of a long player. This confirms my breezy prejudice.
Paul Weller
4/5
Definitely better listening to this 25 years later. I didn’t much like it at the time
Bauhaus
1/5
Dreary, pedestrian goth music. I don't mind the genre but this is not worth the effort.
The Magnetic Fields
1/5
Teenage poetry set to Bontempi organ. Indescribable rubbish.
Don McLean
3/5
Pleasant enough, not something I'd play again and again.
Stereolab
3/5
Pleasant enough. They passed me by at the time. It's a little bit dinner party music for immersion but I didn't not like it.
Adele
2/5
Sold a lot of records. I wonder if anyone plays it now? It's not exactly a fun listen.
The Lemonheads
3/5
I know people for whom this is a defining album. Maybe if I’d have bought it then it would be for me too. It’s good. It’s just good. Not spectacular.
The Streets
3/5
It’s pleasant enough - for this kind of music it tells decent stories
Bob Dylan
5/5
I am late, or adjacent to Bob Dylan. He's always been there, and I've heard his music all my life. But I've never been a Bob Dylan listener. People tell me I'm wrong and this album backs up that opinion. Musically and lyrically this is an outstanding album.
Deerhunter
1/5
My heart sinks when I get a recent album I've not heard of and this is no exception. A baffling entry into any list of any albums. It’s ‘OK’ and no better than that
Elliott Smith
1/5
As with all these medium known artists I didn't hate it, but I don't see why I should particularly like it either. Nothing stand out.
The Cure
3/5
What a great band, and A Forest and Play for Today are still fantastic, stand out songs that make me sit up and listen whenever they are played, but this is merely the herald of things to come, not the finished article. It's patchy, and some of it very clearly reflects how cheaply and quickly it was made. I'd love to give this more, but I can't.
Elastica
4/5
Good old fashioned 90s rock and roll album. So good I listened twice.
Tom Waits
4/5
An artist that of course I am aware of but have never really engaged. This is a lovely album, I enjoyed it greatly.
Bob Dylan
5/5
I wasn't a Dylan fan but everyone is really. This is a superb album, a man at the heights of his lyrical talent. Obviously one of the greats.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
It's the Rolling Stones. It's Sticky Fingers. I would love to give it 5 stars but I've never listened to a Stones album and put it on my list of things to listen to over and over again. Great great songs but not a whole album.
Primal Scream
2/5
Era defining, ground breaking, manufactured indi pop which now sounds like a couple of good songs and a load of filler. Diminished greatly in retrospect.
Hugh Masekela
3/5
Jazz, but in a lively tuneful accessible way. Great listen. Will not be on repeat but glad I heard it.
David Gray
2/5
I listened to this quite a lot at the time but in retrospect it's a bit of a bland nothing. The production sound is "terrible" even on the remaster, which I guess is a result of the technology of the time he home recorded it. One or two nice tunes but mainly a bit blah. It's not a 1 star though - there's enough dross in this list to give this two.
William Orbit
1/5
It’s music, I guess. I’m sure someone likes it
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
Good songs good guitar based indie.
David Bowie
4/5
It's a magnificent mess. Sound and experience and the genius of Fripp in the background. But it's not complete.
Pavement
2/5
I’m sure someone likes this. The style and mood are something I should like, but there are no songs.
Orbital
2/5
I don't really know what this music is for. Perhaps cooking to? It's nice, but it's not anything.
Portishead
4/5
Still a beautiful album, a really nice musical moment and movement and well worth a listen.
Goldie
1/5
I don't know how people listen to this. I don't know what it is. Is it music? I guess someone thought so.
Milton Nascimento
2/5
It was an interesting listen, not something I would obviously seek out. Not something I’d listen to again but was good for one go.
Jeff Buckley
3/5
I sort of like this but not enough. It has pleasant moments but never really grabbed me.
Method Man
3/5
Interesting album, enjoyable
Nick Drake
4/5
Lovely album and a great talent. It’s not his finest work so he loses a star for that but absolutely worth listening to.
Van Morrison
3/5
Much better than I expected, pretty good all round album and well worth a listen.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
Really enjoyed this - I'd never listened to a Siouxsie album and there's no reason why as this is right up my street.
Sonic Youth
2/5
I remember Sonic Youth being a favourite of John Peel and I didn't quite get it at the time. Now I've sat back and listened to this album I still don't get it. It's a sort of mixture of music and throwing stuff together rather lazily. I look back at a lot of the music like this and think that they were just messing with us.
Parliament
4/5
This is the funk, right there.
Nick Drake
4/5
Absolutely lovely album. I came to Nick Drake late and by chance from the soundtrack to Garden State. Whatever he thought about the orchestrations it's a fine album.
Beatles
5/5
It's the Beatles. Get over yourselves, they are absolutely fundamental to the history of popular music and a hell of a lot of what went after them owes them a debt. After two albums filled with covers (people forget about that) this is the first full set of originals and packed with classics. The harmonies - If I Fell? - the energy - HDN. If Can't Buy Me Love came out now it would be a hit.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
I've never been a deep Springsteen fan, though I know some are. Even by my generally ambivalent view I'm not sure there is anything particularly interesting about this album. It's OK.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
Banger of an album, great to hear it again.
Garbage
4/5
Really good pop/rock album that still sounds great. Not perfect - there's a couple of so so tunes - but a solid 4
Cypress Hill
3/5
Enjoyable in a m ephemeral way
3/5
Pleasant enough but not consistent
Ray Charles
3/5
Very gentle listening, all very well known songs and stylistically very dated now but not a difficult album to listen to at all
Paul Simon
4/5
Really good album, one of the true greats of music.
Gotan Project
3/5
I was listening to this whilst cooking and it was a pleasant background for the mood I was in. I suspect I wouldn't have found it so pleasurable if I'd been listening intently.
Tito Puente
2/5
Pleasant enough background music.
Jane's Addiction
2/5
It's an album I bought at the time and struggled with then. It's one stand out tune and the rest is pretty mixed and feels a bit lazy.
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
Not really my scene but quite enjoyed it
Various Artists
4/5
Still an absolute classic, still a murderer.
Genesis
3/5
It’s always been a difficult album to listen to but prig is prog
Steely Dan
4/5
Really interesting very jazz based pop.
Iron Butterfly
3/5
A slight surprise in that I'd never heard of it, yet it had sold so many copies - though in the USA. When it came to it I knew the signature song, of course, which is fun and prog. Sort of enjoyed it but wouldn't really go back to it.
Ministry
3/5
I turned this on with some trepidation but it was actually quite a fun listen. Mad genre, no idea how people get into it but hey, it's part of music's rich tapestry.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
Perfectly agreeable American rock/blues.
Mudhoney
2/5
Nothing of note here. Quite literally.
Q-Tip
2/5
Another odd choice of album to laud. Fairly pedestrian tap/hip hop album with no stand out moments at all. Passed me by for a very good reason.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
One of the greatest rock and roll albums. Seems unfair to lose a star but I think it’s not quite complete. But still, what a sound. Particularly the production on the drums.
Brian Eno
3/5
It’s obviously an important and influential album but it’s also self indulgent and ultimately Muzak. Bits of it I love but as a package it’s like the demo album of a special edition.
Goldfrapp
3/5
Really nice album, some good songs and altogether a pleasant listen. Not sure it should make any best ever lists but nice all the same.
B.B. King
2/5
It's the blues. Which song is it? Oh it's the last one again. It's a thing I guess.
Metallica
3/5
I enjoyed this a lot more than expected. Double album though, so a lot to chew through. Nothing wrong with a bit of metal in your life
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Some absolute stand out songs but some that just are not very interesting. Would be great fun to hear live but on record it’s just a bit flat.
Keith Jarrett
3/5
Pleasant listening, much better than I expected, accessible jazz, but it's still a piano for an hour and repeating themes. It's great that this sort of album got made, reached a big audience and exists but it's not something I'm going to play over and over. I can appreciate it but that's as far as it goes.
The Smiths
5/5
Majestic genius - a rare fusion of incredible riffs, bass lines that are pivotal to the songs and a lyrical master. I nearly marked this one down for Shankly but, really, this is a great album from a group of youngsters who were in a extraordinary creative spurt. Cemetery Gates is a wonderful song and I still have the memory of hearing "There is a Light" for the first time on John Peel.
Prince
5/5
I didn't need to listen again to know this is 5 stars, though I did. Three times. Prince is a genius but his albums are a mixed bag as his prolific creativity was not always put into a filter. This, however, is a definite moment when it all worked. Not a single weak song on an imperious album. When Doves Cry without a bass is still spine tingly good. The title track, recorded live, is an epic ending by a band of supremely talented musicians. A perfect album.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
3/5
Pleasant enough but all merges into one. Needs more barn.
M.I.A.
2/5
Thank the Lord for "Paper Planes" as the rest of this is rubbish.
Songhoy Blues
2/5
Fun, pleasant, not a stand out album but perfectly listenable. I get the left field blues from Mali vibe and it is interesting for that but otherwise a fairly unremarkable blues album.
Queen Latifah
2/5
When I started this I thought it just sounded like De La Soul. Then De La Soul turned up on it. It's fine, I didn't not enjoy it but I wouldn't listen to it again. Fairly generic rap/hip hop with 80s sound.
Steve Earle
2/5
Bog standard country/rock. Not my thing "at all" but for those that like that. Fill your boots.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2/5
Fairly boring standard blues/rock album. A couple of songs stand out from the humdrum but this is not great.
Arcade Fire
2/5
Never really understood the appeal of Arcade Fire. This is a wholly unremarkable set of songs until you get to ‘Wake Up’
Brian Eno
3/5
This is one of those albums in this list I would never have listened to without it. I think it's also one of those albums that if I'd found at a certain time in my life I'd know it really well. Love the fretless bass, enjoy the discordant bits and amused by Phil Collins playing drums.
Adam & The Ants
3/5
Album that sits firmly in my memory of being allowed to listen to it in a Primary School music lesson. The bridge between punk and new wave and that time when everything made the charts because good music was good music. The singles are right there but as an album it drifts a lot.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Really lovely album. Not one I knew and the jazz/fretless bass instrumentation great. Just not the songs.
Blue Cheer
1/5
They didn't invent metal, they just couldn't play or write tunes.
Os Mutantes
3/5
Fun album with some good tunes and the moment of "oh, yes, of course I know this song".
Bob Dylan
4/5
I've always struggled to get into Dylan, whilst of course recognising that what he does is unique and lyrically brilliant. This is a great album though, and reminds me of what I'm missing.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
I can't quite get into the Stones as an album band, though they wrote some of the most sublime songs in rock history.
Frank Sinatra
3/5
I loved this but I'm a sucker for a good voice. Whether it has a set of songs is a different debate.
The Cure
4/5
A love letter to pain, an album that starts by saying "It doesn't matter if we all die" and that makes a new music form out of destructive thoughts. One of the great bands and one of their most important albums. Yet not quite perfect.
George Michael
5/5
A work of art by one of the great musical geniuses of my lifetime. Outstanding songwriting and a beautiful singer and it is amazing this was not actually a massive hit.
Tom Waits
3/5
Really good album. Great voice and lyrics. Enjoyable all round
Pink Floyd
2/5
I've tried with this album, I really have. Many times over the years. But it's got three good songs, one of them played 3 times, and a lot of self indulgent meanderings.
Public Enemy
4/5
A storming beast of an album even now, over 30 years later.
Beastie Boys
4/5
It's classic hip-hop week for me on the generator and this sounds better to me now than it did when it came out. I didn't quite know what to make of it back then but I really appreciate it now. A fun frenzy of white rap. What a band.
Cocteau Twins
5/5
This is simple. It's one of the greatest albums of all time, in my opinion and to my ears. When my first child was born I gave my wife a list of Cocteau Twins songs to choose from and so "Lorelei" is her middle name. A sweeping, storming wall of sonic perfection. I have no idea what she is singing about but it doesn't matter. It's genius. 10/5
Weather Report
3/5
Hmm, what's this about ... oh wait I know this song. Oh "that's" Weather Report.
Good jazzy fun album. I'm a sucker for fretless bass though.
Arrested Development
2/5
Started off brightly enough then goes on a bit and meanders to nowhere. It's OK, but I wouldn't listen again.
Miles Davis
2/5
Jazz improvisation over a repetitive chord change for 20 minutes a song. I know he's a genius, and get the importance of this shift in his music but... well... not for me.
Marty Robbins
2/5
My first experience of him. Good old country music. Not my cup of tea but not unlistenable
3/5
Strengthened my belief that Blur wrote some outstanding songs but were a boring album band. It’s full of good lyrics and oh-so tunes. Very English but just not very interesting musically.
Wild Beasts
1/5
A wholly unremarkable album in every possible way. In fact, the only thing that is remarkable about this album is that it is on this list.
Norah Jones
2/5
Dum de dum de dum de dum. Glass of wine would be lovely thanks. Dum de dum de dum. Who is this album? Ah yes, I heard it at Peter’s house last week, and I think Sarah was playing it too. Dum de dum de dum. mmm Dinner looks lovely thanks. Dum de dum de dum.
Rush
3/5
I had this album as a kid so know it well. Whether I think it is good or not is dressed up a little bit in nostalgia. I mean, I was 9 years old - what did I know of Ayn Rand? Ok so it's bonkers, and over the top but it's a prog metal album.
The Undertones
4/5
Great album, fun bursts of pop and some great tunes. Real attitude and enjoyed it.
Kendrick Lamar
4/5
Of its genre it's a really good album. Obviously a bit full on lyrically but goes with the terrain.
The Jam
3/5
Some great tunes, great sound. Falls away a bit so not quite four dtars
A Tribe Called Quest
2/5
Fairly tedious by numbers hip hop.
FKA twigs
1/5
I mean, really? Whatever.
Music should have songs, tunes, that sort of thing.
Deee-Lite
2/5
Albums by one hit wonders usually explain why they were one hit wonders and this is unfortunately not an exception. Not terrible and not unlistenable, just not very good.
Bad Company
3/5
Nice to hear a bit of rock and roll after a week of blip blip "mood" albums. Very much of its time but hey, it's the rhythm and blues as it should be before the tuneless people stole the genre.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Enjoyable rock for the ages.
Madness
4/5
I've always loved Madness for their singles but have never listened to an album. They never really struck me as an albums band but this is a beautiful work musically and lyrically. A real gem.
David Bowie
5/5
This could have been Life on Mars and a load of filler and I'd still give it 5 just for that extraordinary song. I didn't really get into Bowie until my middle ages and it's been an immense pleasure that I could go through his work and enjoy the changes and shifts in his songs. This is a musical opera and probably my favourite Bowie album.
Booker T. & The MG's
2/5
Green Onions the song is a work of genius. The Stax house band at its finest. These musicians are legendary. This album, not so much. After the high of the iconic title track it quickly descends into elevator music. It's just not that interesting.
Slipknot
3/5
The amazing textures here - the different rhythms and light and sound. Lyrically very interesting and ...
... oh wait, no that was another album. It's a load of angry metal stuff. Was pretty good though.
1/5
Some people said listen to the end and you would be surprised. I was. It is surprising this ever got released, ever got onto this site and I ever had to listen to it. Not least until the end.
For the UK people amongst us, this is the joke band from Jazz Club on the Fast Show.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1/5
Good prog is enjoyable. Bad prog is not.
The Modern Lovers
3/5
I quite enjoyed this but it came off the back of a week of very difficult listens. Always quite liked the NY new wave/proto punk scene. Apart from Roadrunner it's pretty basic fare but it's come at a time of rare generosity on my marking.
The The
5/5
I had this album as a kid and know every sound on it, which must mean it's a five star. A complete album in every sense - story telling, beautiful production and some excellent songs. If you get a chance, see the film that accompanied it.
OutKast
3/5
It's a much better listen than I expected but it suffers from running out of ideas and though there are some good songs, there is a lot of aimless meanderings too.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
Pleasant enough, sort of washed over me but a nice listen
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
3/5
I was slightly dreading this, as I'd had their studio album last week which was a sonic mess. However, this was a bit of mad escapist fun. No band would do this now, and sometimes it's worth remembering the joy of music doing things you shouldn't expect. Not by any means a classic, but nevertheless.
The Divine Comedy
3/5
Some good songs, some crazy songs, some nice songs. It's hard to hate this but I don't love it either.
The Dictators
3/5
The good bit of this process is discovering albums - things that clearly sit in the family tree of music but I didn't know. A lot of them don't stand up but that doesn't mean they are not fun, of the time and of the genre. I've been a bit down on my marking on some of these but this one I'll give a 4 to as it is something I could imagine myself listening to.
Soundgarden
3/5
I don’t know - it’s an album I might have really liked if I had known at the time but now seems a bit unremarkable. Black Hole Sun is a banger though.
The Avalanches
2/5
I had this at the time, though it wasn't an obvious album for me. I quite like it, but I'm not sure it stands up to much repeat listening. It's sort of OK, I don't know, maybe now I've got to talk about it maybe it's just quite boring and repetitive. Still like Frontier Psychiatrist though.
Gorillaz
4/5
It was when this came out, or maybe the second Gorillaz album, that I realised I'd got the Britpop wars all wrong and Damon is the genius from that era. I think you only get to extend a career by taking on new influences and trying new things, and this is a great example. Better than any Blur album with some great songs and still a great listen.
Air
2/5
I enjoyed Moon Safari. I'm not sure this adds a lot though. In fact one or two of the tunes sound like pastiches of the first album tracks.
Machito
3/5
Fun in a random way.
Gang Of Four
2/5
I never really listened to the Gang of Four before - I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Very of its time, and I'm sure plenty of others influenced but not convinced there was much there beyond the sound/vibe.
GZA
2/5
Not immediately my thing but quite an interesting trip hop feel to a hip hop album. I don't think I'd want to listen again though, so gets a low mark.
The Hives
2/5
It’s a great sound but lots of bands have this sound. Some of them don’t forget that songs need melodies and lyrics too. The Hives were good for one song but their schtick lacks the licks.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
I came to Cave late - because I knew him from the Birthday Party which I found too impenetrable. He's a genius, a lyricist up there with the best and an auteur of our age. A beautiful album from a beautiful spirit.
Dinosaur Jr.
3/5
Wasn't expecting much from this, though obviously knew Freak Scene is a banger. I can see why many recoil from his vocals - because he can't actually hold a tune. Weirdly though I didn't mind. It was some pretty good rock and roll indie from the time when guitars ruled the world and for 35 minutes of pure noise enjoyment it was pretty good. Singer aside it was quite tuneful too. Obviously apart from the last track, Don't. Which was a load of noise.
Eminem
5/5
It's not possible to listen to this in 2023 without recoiling from what was considered perfectly normal in lyrics. This is the supreme rap album of all time though. The tightness of the words over the music, the genius of his phrasing, the fun and the craziness of the singles. It's the finest example of its genre and still blows a storm.
Devendra Banhart
1/5
A folk singer that can’t write lyrics or melodies. It’s a novel singer and guitar approach… Christ I’m only on the first song.
The only positive is that each dreadful, insight free, song is mercifully short before the next tuneless banality begins.
Only 25,000 copies sold and I'll take a punt as to how many ended up in charity shops.
X-Ray Spex
2/5
I really wanted to listen to this and it started off with a bang. However, over time it really began to be difficult to listen to. I just didn't like it by the end.
Emmylou Harris
2/5
Pleasant enough but slightly aimless.
Beatles
5/5
I'm definitely in the set of people that believe The Beatles changed everything and this is, at the end of their career together, the epitome of why they were so good. Three songwriters (OK 4 if you allow Ringo's contribution) desperate to outdo each other. Harrison finally getting his due regard. Something has the most sublime bass line from McCartney which, whatever Harrison thought about it, makes the song.
I know "Come Together" was a rip off, but it's still my favourite Beatles song. Golden Slumbers is a beautiful piece of work. "Because" is a beautifully structured song.
You know what? I like "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" - McCartney was always keen to nod to the story telling tradition of British music hall and why not?
I hadn't listened for a while and the second side is still a whirlwind. The Beatles could throw away songs the best of the rest couldn't imagine writing.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
4/5
A great example of how you can use mood and noise and guitars and still remember that songs need tunes. Really good album m.
The Prodigy
2/5
I am sure this is great in a certain situation under a certain influence but it isn't an album to listen to, enjoy or immerse in. It's a songs characterised by a series of repetitive beats. And musical phrases. There's worse dance music, I have had to listen to some of it here, but it's still not interesting to do anything more than dance to.
Green Day
4/5
I liked this a lot more - and knew it a lot better -than I expected. Some good tunes, plenty of good melodies. Obviously the theme is a bit "American" for my interests but that's kind of the point. A good find.
Muddy Waters
3/5
I like the blues but it’s all a bit repeat. Maybe it’s his earlier stuff that I should listen to.
Gillian Welch
2/5
One of the easiest games of ‘guess the rhyme’ so far. Very trite and obvious lyrics backed by unremarkable meanderings.
Love
2/5
This isn’t the Love album people should listen to. It’s a bit thin.
Alanis Morissette
5/5
It's still a great rock/alternative album that evokes a moment in time in music. Plenty of songs, plenty of anger and passion. Definitely in the top 20% of albums I've listened to so far.
Beatles
4/5
This is where I came to The Beatles as my mum had an original vinyl copy. I played it over and over. Yes it's raw, and they were only starting out as songwriters but it's still got it. The harmonies, the playing. It's not a perfect album but it's a good reminder of how they developed.
Beatles
5/5
Two Beatles albums in a row and from 2nd to 6th is a giant leap. This is the Beatles on the cusp of genius.
2Pac
2/5
It's not really my genre, but this didn't really seem to offer anything musically. I guess if lyrics is your thing it might appeal but I don't think there's anything going on behind them.
Teenage Fanclub
4/5
Wasn't a band that I was into at the time, but I know all the singles really well. Indie standards. I know there are those that really worship Teenage Fanclub and that great Scottish indie scene. This is a good album, one I am sure if I'd bought at the time I'd have played to death.
Donald Fagen
3/5
Smooooooooth
LCD Soundsystem
2/5
I guess this could be described as a goth disco album. Unfortunately it's just a dreary shamble through a set of unremarkable songs. Not completely impossible to listen to, just not very rewarding.
Michael Kiwanuka
5/5
It's really hard to listen contemporary albums and wonder whether they will endure, whether people will look back on it as a classic. I thought when I first heard this album it was one of those albums. In an era of music where so much is mood and ambiance without songs this was a stand out of the year it came out and of the decade it came out in. When I first listened I thought that this could have come out in 1973 and we would still be playing it now.
There are few new albums that I listen to over and over again in an era of all I can consume streaming. Indeed, I'm doing this project so my average listen to an album I haven't heard before is sharply tending to zero. This, however, is a beautiful piece of work and I don't hesitate to put it in the top 20% of albums on this list.
Santana
3/5
A few songs, a lot of nurdling, prog/jazz it's the 70s man. Not terrible, not spectacular.
The Who
2/5
One good song and the rest goes on and on. I’m not buying.
Deep Purple
4/5
I was a bit of a metal fan as a kid and so this was a rush of memory. I enjoyed it. Metal that is closer to rock.
a-ha
4/5
Pure synth pop from the 80s. There are better albums for sure but few better songs than Take on Me.
Charles Mingus
2/5
A mess, a musical mess of tooting and blowing. Just not my thing at all.
Arctic Monkeys
5/5
This arrived with a b-b-bang. The greatest debut record of the 21st Century. An absolute explosion of music with lyrics, humour, observation and just the right amount of anger. A group of lads that worked out how to make music in their own way. A classic.
Dr. Dre
4/5
This surprised me - west coast hip hop has good sounds and beats but plenty of anger. The lyrics take a bit of stomach on the first few, but the overall sound is great.
Chicago
3/5
Like many people coming to this for the first time I was completely surprised by the sound and the songs - not what I expected from the Chicago I knew from the late 70s/early 80s. Really interesting music and songs, then it over does the prog and meanders away a bit with guitar solos.
UB40
3/5
A really interesting album - of course very British in its politics and its music. I enjoyed this. Something about the sound of the dub and the horns and the lyrics.
Dusty Springfield
5/5
A beautiful album. The great American song writers, the great American Sound Studios house band. Everything about this oozes the sound of Memphis Soul. Dusty's sound, her voice, her phrasing is all perfect.
Goldfrapp
3/5
This is a lovely, tuneful atmospheric album but drifts around a little over time.
Jazmine Sullivan
1/5
It's probably my least favourite genre of music but this has an astonishing lack of merit. Musically tedious and there are better examples of the genre from that year alone. I don’t believe this will stand any test of time.
Van Morrison
2/5
I've tried with this album so many times. I've tried to understand why it gets high up all time lists. It's just a rambling sound that offers nothing. No song structures, no songs. Maybe it's something I can't hear but what I can hear bores me.
Fela Kuti
3/5
I kind of liked this in a bouncy fun kind of way. Not something I'll put on my re-spin list but interesting enough.
Mike Ladd
2/5
Another album I wasn't really looking forward to once I'd opened the site. The start was a real surprise - really interesting, great sound. Then it slowly morphed into boring hip hop albeit with some musical interludes though all basic repetitive phrases.
Happy Mondays
5/5
It's an album so tied up with the British music movement of late 80s/90s, that I wonder what other nationalities make of it. Some guys stole some instruments, learned to bash out a tune and worked out that the guy they gave the mic to was a genius.
Working class boys played in guitar bands and hoped to be famous and get out of the terrible lives they had. This gang of boys then took some ecstasy, went to the Hacienda and discovered rave. Then rather than throwing their guitars away and becoming a dance band they put it together. OK there were producers that helped, but this was the moment it all worked.
They were too much of a shambles to be a stadium band, or to dry out or to keep it all together for a few more albums. But on this album, in that year, they created something absolutely unique and brilliant.
The Who
2/5
I listened to it twice and mostly it just merged into one long song with the obvious moment Pinball Wizard jumps out at you. Ultimately not a very interesting or listenable album.
Japan
5/5
I don't expect to convince people that Japan are one of the greatest bands to emerge from the new wave/post glam scene of the 70s but to my ears they were. This album, their musical breakthrough where they worked out their sound, is the bridge between that scene and the New Romantics. Duran Duran came from the image and the crossover disco/new wave sound of Japan. I mean look at them.
Japan would make better albums, and they would break up too soon, but from every waaaa of the fretless bass to Sylvian's new found baritone this is a superb example of a band actually doing things to move music on and looking good and sounding good whilst they did it. I think after listening to over 200 albums in this project, I'm more sure of their greatness. But that's to my ears, maybe not yours.
Julian Cope
3/5
Not sure what I make of this. Some songs, some music, some moments but mainly it drifted past me.
Orange Juice
3/5
I really enjoyed this - funky, dance sound with a really light feel to it.
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
I liked this, and may give it another go sometime, but it didn't grab me. He's a fantastic singer, obviously, but there was a groove rather than songs that stood out.
The Who
3/5
Second Who album in a week and I'm concluding I'm just not a big fan of The Who. This has two absolutely stand out songs and then a lot of not very much.
The Cramps
3/5
A perfectly good example of a perfectly good genre of music. Psychobilly by the masters. It's fun, it's got attitude and it's not overall my cup of tea but I'm not put off by it either.
Coldplay
4/5
I know it's achingly uncool to like Coldplay but there's a reason an indie band sells 13 million albums and that's because Chris Martin could write tunes. I've never massively been a fan of his voice but this is a great set of songs.
The Stooges
2/5
Exactly as expected from the Stooges, some proper shouty garage. A band to see live, I suspect, as on record it lacks much substance.
Elbow
3/5
I'd resisted the obvious charms of Guy Garvey and the lads as it was not quite my kind of thing but this is an undeniably lovely album and very listenable.
Kings of Leon
3/5
It’s a great sound and when they write a tune it works. When they don’t it sort of drags.
The Velvet Underground
4/5
I'd never heard this and didn't know of this kind of Velvet Underground. Reading around it, the exit of John Cale allowed Lou Reed to perform songs without the desire to make it knowingly arty. I really enjoyed this, a very nice set of songs. I'll listen to this again.
Supergrass
3/5
The singles are great but the album tends to drift a little.
Scissor Sisters
4/5
Joyous fun album that is still a good listen
Pearl Jam
3/5
Very American sound of rock that didn’t quite make it in the UK. Some well known tunes, big sound. Not bad
Tom Waits
2/5
It's a raw, great sound but it's a bit of a dull offer. OK for the once through but I don't think I'd ever listen again. Bit of a novelty record.
David Bowie
5/5
His last and one of his best albums. An absolute masterpiece of an album. Something missing in modern music of the experimental never overshadowing the tunes and the songs. A heartbreaking album but an amazing parting gift from one of the greats.
50 Cent
3/5
I entered yet another hip hop album with trepidation. It's not my genre and so many of them are just about the words. This though felt a bit more musical, interesting, listenable. I like his rapping style and it has momentum.
Look, all rap is of its time and time has moved on, but I enjoyed this.
Beck
4/5
Great album, plenty of variation, some good songs and fuses styles.
The National
3/5
I liked it a lot more than I expected but it sort of drifted nowhere. Repetitive phrases sometimes works but isn't particularly ground-breaking
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
5/5
I know every discordant piano chord, every lick of Paul Desmond's clarinet and honed my chops as a drummer learning 5/4 and 7/8 from the master, Joe Morello. My indie/new wave band introduced me to its genius at the age of 16 and I've loved it ever since. Jazz with a wink and a smile on its face. Pure enjoyment. Go on songwriters, throw a change of time signature in every now and then and make the music interesting.
Faith No More
2/5
I don't think this adds much to the history of music. A couple of good songs and then just a turgid rehash over and over.
2/5
It's got Bowie and Eno on the desk, it's got attitude and distinct US new wave sound, it's just a bit difficult to listen to without thinking it's all mood and no songs. I get it, I just don't enjoy it.
Sabu
1/5
Constant sound of bongos. It's like sitting in Covent Garden on a Saturday. After a while all you hear is bongo bongo bongo. Bongos are great, in moderation.
I was going to give it two stars, on the grounds that at least I can listen to it but, I'm afraid, I really can't. I made it through by mentally blocking the noise out.
Bert Jansch
2/5
Dum de dum de tiddly dum dum. Might sound better with a band.
George Michael
5/5
Beautiful album, great songs, wonderful voice. What a talent George Michael was.
Billie Holiday
2/5
Wasn't my morning for this album. Feels like her voice was losing some strength and the richness it had. Pleasant enough but I don't know whether decent singer knocking out another album of covers is good enough to rate highly.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
1/5
Good grief, that was hard work. Well done lads, you got someone to pay you for this. Joke's on them.
Madonna
4/5
Great pop album with a few duffers - sadly the two Prince tracks in that. First time I've listened to this and plenty to recommend it but ultimately not perfect pop.
The Human League
3/5
Some classic pop, some slightly going nowhere pop. Very of its time.
Boards of Canada
1/5
I’m assuming they are referring to the sound of children randomly hitting keys. Which appears to be what this is.
If music was this easy we would all be making it.
Black Sabbath
3/5
Good melodic metal. Not an album I knew but certainly an enjoyable example of the genre.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Lovely voice, lovely sound, but there is something about 15 minute long songs that don't surprise at any point that is ultimately a bit aimless.
The Clash
4/5
This is a great punk album, songs that stand up and attitude. Unlike a lot of punk they could really write a tune.
Skepta
1/5
Dum Dum Dum Dum tingaling tingaling Dum Dum Dum "Here's some more about me".
Tedious
The Police
5/5
The Police are one of the greatest bands of all time. Three piece that Copeland and Summers filled out to sound amazing. Sting is "a hell" of a songwriter. He was throwing out hits for fun in this period. Message in a Bottle is one of the greatest songs of all time and I never tire of hearing it.
I remember this as being a bit patchy but with some real songs. Listening to it again in the middle of this exercise, I realise the difference between good bands and a great band. I've been a bit mean on the 5 stars and wouldn't have given this at the start of listening but this is is as good an album as anything else on this list.
Janet Jackson
3/5
I read the notes and an hour long concept album about poverty slightly terrified me. The resulting album wasn't terrifying at all, a gentle pop album with a smattering of songs and plenty of 80s dance. Obviously the lyrics are ludicrous, but lyrics often are.
Baaba Maal
1/5
Not my thing ‘at all’. Two chords and wailing.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Beautiful album. Absurdly I know some of the songs from listening to Miles of Aisles a lot as a kid but had never listened to this before.
David Bowie
4/5
Of course Bowie made the best glam albums of the era. Not consistent but consistently interesting this has two of the greatest - Drive In Saturday and The Jean Genie. A pleasure.
Steely Dan
4/5
There's something about this album that is joyous. Fun, prog rock with a great sound.
They got the Steely Dan T Shirts.
Morrissey
3/5
Some good moments, always good lyrics but not quite the standard of songs and consistency of a great album.
The Velvet Underground
4/5
It’s hauntingly good. A mad musical experiment but with really good songs peeping through.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
It's an interesting listen, to hear where they came from. Covers were a standard thing at the time - the Beatles' early albums were also full of them - so it is not odd that the Stones started with them.
I can't mark it up without original songs but the sound is there and we all know where it ended up.
The Adverts
3/5
Another bridge between punk and new wave. Fine as it is but there are better examples.
The Crusaders
3/5
A fine example of noodling without destination. Perfectly pleasant to listen to whilst doing almost anything else, but not interesting in and of itself. Streetlife obviously a banger, the rest of it gentle noodling in the void.
Willie Nelson
4/5
I was surprised by this. Another album of covers of standards never twitches my interest but this was beautifully done. Gentle, sparce and great interpretations.
Jimmy Smith
2/5
Looking at the reviews, I'm out of tune with the group on this one. Fairly pedestrian jazz album.
David Crosby
4/5
I thought this was a beautiful, gentle album. Lots of artists I know but an album that was new to me. Really enjoyed the harmonies and the general sound.
DJ Shadow
1/5
I guess this means something, I guess it did something at the time. But it's just a series of samples and a drum beat that you could throw together in 5 minutes in Logic Pro now. I don't know why anyone would want to listen to this ever again.
Kendrick Lamar
3/5
Often the rap albums I've listened to on this project have lacked ambition, texture, tone, musicality. You can't accuse this album of any of these things. Whether it has tried too hard or is too discordant is another matter. I enjoyed listening to something that was different in the rap genre but it was not an ultimately satisfying experience.
Elvis Presley
3/5
Before recorded music had all the tricks a lad with a beautiful voice rolled into a studio and sang like an angel. Such a stunning voice we are so used to it we forget how lucky we were to ever hear it.
Jack White
3/5
It's a great blues album and it is also totally forgettable.
Deep Purple
2/5
I thought I'd like this, I was a fan as a kid and I always wanted this album but didn't get round to buying it. Starts off well, it's Highway Star, it's fun. Then it goes on, and on and on and on. It even has a long drum solo in one of the tracks that dates it horribly. It's how Prog Metal was, it's great if you are there and in the moment. On record it's a tiresome noise.
Shuggie Otis
3/5
One of those unexpectedly fun albums you get from this project. I'm not sure it's a classic, but it was good to listen to.
The Black Keys
3/5
Enjoyable rock and roll with a few good songs
Aerosmith
3/5
This is a fairly unremarkable experience. American middle of the road rock.
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
How to follow Rumours, one of the greatest albums of all time? Well, put together a double album with a load of random songs and sounds including a marching band and produce something so different it's still a fantastic piece of work.
An eminent music journalist in the UK said there is never a time when listening to Tusk is wrong. He's absolutely right. Some incredible songs. It's just not Rumours.
But nothing is Rumours.
Listen to Tusk. Take it all in.
Yes
2/5
I have a theory that prog like this died out because the boys that were making it and listening to it never got any sex. A tedious album in all respects.
AC/DC
5/5
Metal doesn’t get anything like the column inches it deserves. It’s a massively popular genre and this is one of the greatest metal albums of all time. Consistent, powerful and popular for good reason. After a run of pretenders it’s great to hear a proper rock and roll album.
5/5
I mean, it's Sgt. Pepper.
I used the opportunity to listen yet again to the extraordinary Giles Martin Dolby Atmos remix. The way he lifted and cleaned the bass and the drums is amazing. It sounds clear, open and notes and sounds that I'd not heard in the many times I'd heard the album before appear out of nowhere. The harmonies the Beatles did were brilliant, on this version superlative.
They left the singles off the albums, that's how good this album is. Get off with your ideas that they are not the most important band in the history of pop. Of course they are.
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
3/5
I saw the Beatnigs live and I know bits of this album - TV, Drug of the Nation and California Uber Alez so I knew what to expect. I think probably the older me finds it all a bit different to the younger me.
Jurassic 5
4/5
After initial trepidation about yet another unknown hip hop album I really warmed to this. Light tunes, good sound and nicely put together. A real revelation.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
A beautiful piece of work. Some lovely instrumentation, lilting harmonies and a handful of stone cold classics. 30 minutes long. How albums should be - here's some great songs, that's enough.
Derek & The Dominos
3/5
There's some good here, and there is a whole lot of guitar, but ultimately it's a long drawn out blues jam and that can get tiring.
T. Rex
4/5
I've never listened to a T Rex album and had no idea he made so many - 12 in total. This is a great album, full of tunes and sound and attitude and a real find.
Flamin' Groovies
2/5
I can see there's a logic to something that was of the era/genre of the Rolling Stones that might have been part of a scene but I don't think this holds up well as an album not to miss.
John Lennon
4/5
Imagine is an overplayed dirge,
Crippled Inside a throw away,
Jealous Guy a song written by a genius
It's So Hard is an unremarkable 12 bar blues.
I Don't Wanna be a Soldier Mama, ibid
Gimme Some Truth is OK I guess
Oh My Love is a really nice song
How Do You Sleep is John at his vile, ugly worst
How is another good song
Oh Yoko is a good closer
I felt Lennon phoned in a lot of his last contributions to the Beatles. This has some absolute moments of genius with a couple of not very much but on the whole I'm more positive about it than I expected.
Jethro Tull
3/5
It's folk prog, it's interesting music and interesting lyrics. Those that love it love it, those, like me, that find it a bit much should still be able to recognise that it is worth listening to. Maybe at a different age with time on my hands I could have got into it.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
1/5
Oh I’m so radical me. There are at least 100 better post-punk albums.
Rubbish
Amy Winehouse
4/5
Very good debut album. Not quite the highs of Back to Black but good songs.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
I was not into MBV at all when younger though I’ve dipped into their more well known offerings. This hints but ultimately the singing is poor, the sound has not developed and so the songs are exposed.
Killing Joke
3/5
Pretty raw, but still better post punk than a few of the efforts I've heard in this project.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
Some nice moments. I never really got into Belle and Sebastian, although I'm going to see them live soon. Light, nice, very British.
The Cure
5/5
A simmering beast of an album. A sonic soundscape of love and misery. The height of goth and The Cure's definitive album. Listen, enjoy, and lose yourself in the mood. Lullaby is one of his highest of high points - though the single version had a much better drum track.
Lambchop
2/5
Hi - is it OK if I push past as this is my floor. Many thanks.
The Band
3/5
This is a good album but not a spectacular one. That said, The Weight is a hell of a song and Dylan's lyrics lift many of the songs.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
I understand the reason why Springsteen attracts such devotion, I just can't get into it myself. Yes he has some great songs but broadly the music to me all kind of mushes into one on albums like this. I get it, I just don't get it.
Brian Wilson
2/5
I was unsure whether this was a sprawling work of genius or a sprawling mess and I’ve definitely alighted on the latter.
Miriam Makeba
2/5
Well that was interesting enough to listen to but that's as far as it goes.
Iggy Pop
2/5
I don't know why but I've always found Lust for Life to be a tedious song. I know I should like it but I don't. Then the rest of this album just washes over me and again, I should like Iggy. I just don't think it's that interesting.
Nirvana
4/5
There are few live albums that really cut through and this is one. It's a gentle and brilliant run across their catalogue and covers that just kind of works.
MGMT
4/5
I loved this album when it came down and it holds up pretty well. Great songs, great sound and pop sounding as good as it can be.
Amy Winehouse
5/5
An absolute masterpiece
Nina Simone
3/5
One of those albums on the list that is difficult for me to place. I’m some ways stunning, in some ways transient. I don’t think I’d listen to it often and yet I can recognise how remarkable Simone was.
ABBA
2/5
One of the greatest pop songs of all time, from a band that released a list of superlative pop songs. Yet as an album it’s really hard work. The lyrics on many of the songs are banal and predictable and the tunes weary. A magnificent singles band , one of the best ever, and a terrible albums band.
Quicksilver Messenger Service
1/5
Well, I listened to it. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Probably.
Another of the list of very American albums that don't travel, certainly not as far as these ears.
The Roots
3/5
A curiosity. A handful of good songs, an incredible sound and band but overall a bit boring. I don't love it but don't hate it, so it's bang in the middle I'm afraid.
Peter Gabriel
5/5
The hi-hat (Stewart Copeland) on the opening track still makes me tingle, as does the flute motif opening up Sledgehammer. Kate Bush still raises goose bumps. Great songs, fantastic musicianship and the most amazing 80s production where everything is so clean & clear. Not a bad song on it. Absolutely his masterpiece.
Funny that the slightly off the wall prog of early Genesis ended up in pure pop with each part of its membership.
Sonic Youth
4/5
Sonic Youth were one of those Peel bands I struggled with growing up in the 80s. Too atonal, too based around sound not songs. So I sort of ignored them. This was another one of those albums therefore I had a bit of a sigh when I saw, and when I read the top review.
There's not many albums I've found through this process that I don't know yet want to hear again.
This is great. I will listen to this again.
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
2/5
Kind of enjoyable, a nice groove but ultimately not very satisfying. Strong on vibe, short on tunes. Nothing to make me want to go back to it.
Radiohead
5/5
When Radiohead wrote actual songs they were majestic, epic, peerless. Better than all their peers from Britpop, the band Coldplay and others would dream of being. Everything on here shows the absolute return to structure and melody that they later decided they were against when they drifted into sound and mood.
Every track stands up to listening and all the grunge and indie pretenders on this list would dream they had nailed it the way Radiohead did it on this. An absolute masterpiece and deserving of its position in the all time lists.
fIREHOSE
1/5
The only good thing to say about this album is that it is mercifully short.
Carpenters
3/5
Oh I love the Carpenters, at least I thought I loved the Carpenters. I mean I love her voice and the songs and the sound but a whole album of it is a challenge. It's beautiful and it's shallow.
Taylor Swift
4/5
A perfect expression of pop with great songs and great lyrics. Much better than some other pretenders (Adele). I’ve no idea whether it stands up long term or how it fits in her catalogue but I enjoyed it.
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
It starts as it means to go on - a perfect soulful voice against a great sounding rhythm track. Then it starts to repeat and repeat. Each song a two chord four bar repeat and it becomes really difficult to keep listening. The instrumental gives a welcome break as they actually put a few chords and a melody into it then it’s back to the repeat. It’s fantastic but I can’t listen to a whole album of it.
Stephen Stills
3/5
A great advert for double albums that might have made decent single albums. Sprawling, at times repetitive within each of the genres and could have done with a bit of sorting and editing. As a result the good points are diluted in a lot of so so tracks.
The Slits
3/5
I enjoy a bit of post punk and this compared well to a lot of things I've listened to here, including this week. So I listened to it a few times and though it's never going to be a favourite I'm still OK with it.
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
What a joyous listen. Fun, funky and some great melodies - so good Rod obviously nicked one of them. Really lifted my journey up this morning.
The Smiths
4/5
Listening to it again as I have again and again over the years, the one thing that lets it down is the production which is horribly tinny. This is the remaster and it still sounds like he's singing in the bath.
That said, their is some monstrous talent on display here. That Joke isn't Funny Any More, Well I Wonder, Barbarism Begins At Home are all superbly crafted songs. It's just not quite there across the whole album - and production.
The Pharcyde
2/5
Every beat seemed exactly the same, just a constant rap over the same drum pattern. Yes, the old bit of levity and the odd hook but mainly just a tedious reboot of the last song.
The Doors
3/5
I subscribe to the view that The Doors were/are massively overrated whilst still comfortably enjoying this album as being a decent set of songs and a decent sound. I'll just not over rate it.
Radiohead
4/5
I have a general prejudice about post-melody Radiohead and I don't think I bothered listening to this much after I availed myself of their generous offer to download it for free.
However, my reaction to this surprised me. Sure, they were drifting away from songs to sounds and mood scapes, and deep into prog rock, but this is an interesting album. Johnny Greenwood is a genius and I found myself quite immersed in this.
Thundercat
3/5
I don't know whether this is genius or madness. It's one of those albums that I think needs a bit more time than the one a day listen. I like that it's playing with chords and structure, but it might just be a mess.
Robert Wyatt
1/5
Some classic prog with a lovely voice and totally un-listenable.
Depeche Mode
3/5
I think I've never quite been a Depeche Mode album fan and this is a good example why - it's got some good singles then kind of drifts around a bit going nowhere.
The Auteurs
2/5
I like second rate Britpop as much as the next person. Unfortunately this is third rate Britpop.
It passes my test of being not completely unlistenable, so saves itself from the indignity of 1 star to sit, comfortably, in the cold soup of 2 stars with all the other mediocre lift music.
Joe Ely
2/5
Standard chord structures, predictable lyrics, nothing to see here.
5/5
This is a great album. Lyrically, musically, emotionally all there. Her finest work and also I guess her most accessible. Great to hear this again.
This morning I was sure this was a 4 star. It’s now my fourth listen today and it’s a 5.
Kate Bush
5/5
This would make the top 11 albums of all time. It is an extraordinary piece of work and art.
The first side is a smack in the face with a set of perfectly crafted pop songs ending with the sublime Cloudbusting .
The second side is an amazing immersive story of musical discovery. I don’t think I understood it properly before I saw it live but it didn’t matter in the hours and hours I spent listening to every mad twist of music before the sublime ‘Hello Earth’ emerges with John Williams on classical guitar.
When my daughter was about 5 years old I gave her a turntable and this album. Kate Bush was the first woman singer songwriter to have a number one in the UK.
This album is what happens when you give one of the greatest musical talents of my lifetime a studio of their own, a Fairlight and the space to achieve great things
What an album.
Sam Cooke
3/5
A gig to be in the room not to listen to on a record. Classic songs, classic voice but everything a bit faster and one paced so ultimately the texture of each song is lost.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
I hadn't heard this album before but it's fascinating and friendly on the ear. I came late to Nick Cave. I found The Birthday Party "difficult" so kind of overlooked his following career. This is a great example of his work - an artist and a musician and a really interesting voice but what stands out is his way with words. One of the great lyricists of this era and able to tell a story in music.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
I know bits of Neil Young but not the whole potato. Partly because he's always made it a tricky exercise to listen via a streaming service.
This is lyrically strong, "it's better to burn out than to fade away" is one of the iconic lyrics in rock music, and musically this is a good set of songs. There's something about Neil Young I think I would have got really into if I'd discovered him when young.
Herbie Hancock
2/5
I don’t know, I can respect the musicianship, rate the genre and understand the influence but my oh my I cannot listen to it with anything but ennui.
The Cult
2/5
Great sound and enjoy the single but over a whole album it gets a little one paced and samey.
David Bowie
4/5
Iconic and revered but quite a difficult listen. It’s Bowie so it is littered with genius but it’s also dark and moody.
Linkin Park
2/5
This is one of those US nu metal bands that completely passed me by as we were just never quite into this genre in Blighty. I know of them, and they vaguely make sense but it's the kind of stuff I always equate with turning on the wrong MTV channel and getting some thunderous overblown American roccckkkk. I can pass on this.
Black Sabbath
3/5
First time I've heard this but it's clear from it why this is seen as where metal started. Nothing sounded this heavy before. The blues scale has done plenty of good work in popular music. As always, the lyrics are batshit, but Ozzy is a one off. I enjoyed this. It's also sounding good with the more or less live studio recording under the remaster .
PJ Harvey
1/5
Musically starts out interesting but slowly just repeats itself over and over. However, that's not its problem. It's melodically barren and rendered excruciating by the teenage level "oo England is bad war is bad" lyrics. Dreadful self centred low self-awareness moaning so loved by the kind of people that you should avoid talking to at parties.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
They have a sound and it’s unique to them. I like the basics - and the sound and bass/lead interplay are great. It’s just overall it kind of repeats itself. Has some great tunes but not the whole deal.
The Specials
5/5
Slightly emotional to listen to this knowing I’ll never see Terry Hall singing these songs again. The Specials are an iconic band in the UK - musically an important movement, political but in a clever way and just fun. Ska/two tone was a very British moment and it was all because of The Specials. Great album with all the vibe of a live band playing. Nothing quite like it.
Billy Bragg
4/5
I thought I would hate this but really didn’t. I was a big early adopter fan of Bragg but drifted away as he lost his knack for song and lyrics. This is the folk Americana album that Guthrie deserved for his poetry/lyrics.
The B-52's
4/5
Great new wave and bonkers sounds from a fairly unique band. Very enjoyable all round.
Solomon Burke
2/5
Great voice and great sound but it’s a covers album. I get how for some of the history of music that’s how it worked but it’s easy to pick any song out and pick a different version that resonates.
Joan Baez
1/5
Really not my thing at all. I struggled through with the hope of some sort of musical respect but nope, it was terrible.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
It’s the 80s and it’s pop and it has some great tunes but it’s too samey and it’s too cold for a whole album. But those pop hits are great.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
3/5
This really swings. Great to listen to albums like this that laid the ground.
John Prine
3/5
Great lyrics, good tunes, nothing to disagree with here, though nothing to really inspire either. It's a good album.
Mott The Hoople
3/5
It's a good glam rock album. It's clear why Bowie liked them. It's also clear why we listen to Bowie and not Mott the Hoople but it's an album that I'm glad I listened to.
Todd Rundgren
3/5
Starts off with a banger and maintains a light gray and breezy feel all the way through. I think I enjoyed this though there is a lot to get through.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
My uncle lent me his copy of Physical Graffiti when I was a kid and I remember being captivated by the gatefold sleeve. When I finally got to New York years later I did go and take a look at the brownstone building just because.
On the music this is a colossus of an album and Kashmir is one of the great moments in rock history. Yes it's bloated and overblown but sometimes you just have to let that pass.
The Icarus Line
1/5
I really like this genre of music but this is such a completely unremarkable album. It has nothing stand out, nothing original and no songs that would justify it being here. It's in that list of albums that wouldn't have made it on this list if it was not from America. Sometimes things don't become hits because they are just not very interesting.
The Stone Roses
5/5
There is no debate about this one being here. Despite being it's actual living demographic - an indi kid turning 19 the year it came out and lapping up its licks and groves - this is a stand out album that stands up now. Ian Brown may not have been able to sing away from a studio but on record he created the melodic and lyrical lines that could be underpinned by the swirling arpeggios of sound from John Squire, the relentless grooves of Mani and Reni. Sometimes everything just works, and this is one of those albums. Rarely it also doesn't have a duffer - we can argue the merits of Don't Stop maybe but let's not get too picky.
Louis Prima
3/5
Joyous wild fun and cheered up a morning. Sometimes music is just about the fun they are having and letting you listen into.
Ride
3/5
Shoegaze very much passed me by, though I love The Cure and The Cocteau Twins who were both big influences. I think there's a reason it was never much of a movement and didn't have many successful bands which is that it's not very interesting. Take the songs, take the life out of them and make them so muddy and covered in distortion that you can only take so much. That said Ride have a great song closing this album - Vapour Trail - and a great single in Taste which is added to the extended version. The rest is all a mood and a sound and not a set of songs. I like it, but it's not going to take hold of the conscience. And it didn't.
Throwing Muses
4/5
I loved what I thought was the first Throwing Muses album - I just didn't know about this one at all. I was a big fan of House Tornado/Real Ramona/Hunkpappa and I thought Fat Skier was their first so now I'm totally confused! I saw them live back in 89 and forced my university friends to be fans too.
This is great, full of the slightly discordant tempos and melodies over interesting chord structures. I get it won't be to everyone's tastes but it was great to discover this.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Not a Joni album I know, and none of the songs are familiar. Really loved the jazz vibe and the lyrics and music as interesting as ever. Not sure it quite has enough to get to the four stars but I think this is an album I will listen to again so it might just tip over.
Bill Evans Trio
2/5
I don’t know. It’s a jazz album. I played the version with additional tracks so heard some songs again but didn’t notice. Lovely but not attaching to my mind
The Style Council
2/5
An absurdly pretentious load of nonsense. Two really good songs but even one of those was ruined by the acoustic arrangement. I can't quite believe he did this.
Dire Straits
3/5
Enjoyable blues jangling with one of the great songs of all time. Not the high standard across the album but still an enjoyable listen and a very individual sound.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Stir it up a classic, the sound still as fresh and as fun as the first time I heard the Wailers. Not a consistently great album but a good listen nonetheless.
Spiritualized
4/5
This is a mad collosus of an album. Something I know I would have got into at the time if I'd come across it. I enjoyed this a lot for all its crazed meanderings.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
I like Pet Shop Boys, I like the songs, it's a good sound, they write great tunes and at times interesting lyrics. It's just hard to listen to an album of it because it's very very anchored in the same beat and the same sound and the same compression. It's got no texture at all as an album. It's fun but it's also hard work, which is a shame. Because individually it's a great collection of songs but as a single piece of work it's too homogenous.
The Cars
3/5
Really enjoyable new wave with a banger of a single and some good sound/tunes. Not stand out but enjoyable. A good album rather than a great one.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
It’s a classic. It’s not the best album of all time, that’s a nonsense, but it’s a great album.
Elvis Presley
3/5
It’s late era Elvis and it’s as if the Beatles and rock had never happened and he puts out an album for your grandma. Nice enough but the world had moved on.
Incubus
2/5
Not a moment of note. Standard US shouting over loud guitars and drums with hardly a song of note. I’m sure they loved it in the US but it’s not worth any of our time. I don’t actively hate it but nothing happened on it. Nothing at all.
The Kinks
4/5
Probably the most English album ever recorded and I'm all in for that. Ray Davies is one of the geniuses of British pop.
David Holmes
1/5
My idea of hell. Repetitive sounds made by machines with little artistic merit. Anyone with a synth/sampler and drum machine could do this. Four bar repeats with nothing, but nothing happening.
Make this stop
The Divine Comedy
2/5
Lovely whimsical album but ultimately forgettable.
Missy Elliott
4/5
An album I enjoyed far more than I expected. Really good example of how hip hop can have texture, sound and melody.
The Prodigy
5/5
An extraordinary beast of an album. An aural experience and just better than all of that genre.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
4/5
I can understand the influence of the band and the hype around Clapton. This is the sound of a band at the top of their genre.
Madonna
3/5
This was good but not great, some good songs but not the absolute consistency of a great pop album.
Meat Loaf
5/5
Everything about this is mad, overblown and theatrical and everything about it works. There's a reason it's one of the best selling albums of all time, and who am I to argue. A sprawling colossus of sound.
Cornershop
4/5
A good set of songs, good lyrically and overall a fun album. Of course like most I come into it with the Fatboy Slim remix of Brimful and the album version seems thin by obvious comparison. But there's enough here to enjoy.
Ray Charles
4/5
Ray Charles with his timeless beautiful voice runs through a range of songs with ease. There is always time to listen to Ray Charles.
Eric Clapton
3/5
I can appreciate the artistry, I can understand how people think Clapton is one of the greats, I can even enjoy the album. But I'll never be that into the blues to spend a great amount of time on it. It was a good album, a good listen. I might even listen to it again. But it is covers so doesn't get the high marks.
Al Green
3/5
A lovely album, a fantastic voice a smooth set of songs a pleasant Friday listen and one of the great soul songs. Could have done with a few more like that though.
Sepultura
2/5
Bonkers. Standard predictable metal thrash hokum then goes bongo with classical guitars. An experience. Bonkers
Beastie Boys
4/5
This sounds so much better now than I gave it credit for at the time. In my indie snobbery I’d been too dismissive of Hip Hop. This is a really good, interesting and at the time obviously groundbreaking piece of work by great innovators.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
This is a great album. Not quite the consistency of Show Your Bones but still some really good songs and overall a great sound. I think for that time it came out and the dip music has had in the intervening period it stands up even better than I remember.
Lana Del Rey
4/5
One of those albums I expected to hate - a soundscape rather than a set of songs - but I really didn't. Yes it doesn't ever really change its moods but these are a very solid set of songs.
Underworld
1/5
Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump
Why would "anyone" choose to listen to this as an album, at home. Why?
Manu Chao
3/5
Brightly sprightly bouncy and lively with all sorts.
Massive Attack
5/5
I had the joy of living in Bristol when it all came together and the Wild Bunch settled down to make some fine music. Trip hop came from a time in England and, frankly, in Bristol. The dreadful mess of the 70s and 80s was beginning to get better, cities like Bristol were calming down and bursting with creativity. Massive Attack produced the absolute seminal Trip Hop album here. A genre that was brilliant but very much of a moment but an album that is absolutely timeless.
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
I don't think there's anything very useful to say about this. One of the greatest albums of all time that has been dissected by so those more able to than me. I know everything about this album from the numerous documentaries and articles and I also know every song inside out.
An extraordinary set of songs, three songwriters at creative peaks at the same time, a sound of a band willing to work in a studio to find the right arrangement and lyrics of love longing and loss.
There's a reason that this has sold so many, appears in the best of lists and appeals to people who like all kinds of genres. The best albums are the best albums. This is one of them.
Kid Rock
3/5
One of those albums and artists I didn't know but this kicked into life and kept going. A really interesting mix of music and mahem. I don't know if I'll listen again but I think I enjoyed it.
N.W.A.
3/5
A mixed bag that’s not held up quite as well as I expected. Obviously the raw energy and anger of FTP still makes you sit up and Express Yourself is a stone cold classic. The rest is up and down. Still has to be listened to though.
The Verve
3/5
I thought this was surprisingly flat given the critical reviews it got. Very in the mould of Primal Scream/Oasis ish but without any stand out songs. I like the sound but there's nothing there to get into
The Rolling Stones
3/5
One of the great bands of all time, swagger and sound and a greatest hits list that stands up to the best. But on album ... not so much. Rambling songs of RnB riffs with no particular place to go.
Big Star
3/5
I had never heard of them and I don't know what to make of this on only one listen, but I think I will listen to it again and to their other albums. Not least because I recognise a couple of the songs from This Mortal Coil and so they must be the sort of band that bands I like listened to. So it's a gap in an important influence and I intend to fill it. For that I might have gone to four but at the moment it's a curious three.
U2
4/5
I was a massive fan of early U2 but slowly drifted away as the sound became more bombastic. So curiously it's the first time I've ever listened to this album in full. It is a really good, but not a really great album. Some songs that really endure and I might give it a bit more space now I'm older and not hardline in my tastes in music.
3/5
I feel this is the moment when Muse sort of lost their way. Bland soundscapes and bombastic instead of edge and great songs. It's still a good album, and stands up against a lot here but I don't think it's a great album.
Fishbone
3/5
Slightly unsure what I’m listening to and whether it works but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Wu-Tang Clan
3/5
It’s wu-tang so it’s an experience but not quite my thing.
Aimee Mann
4/5
After a bit of a difficult run it was a pleasure to hear this - light maybe but lovely songs and a beautiful production.
Björk
5/5
This is a really good album. Eclectic and interesting and at moments, like on Venus as a Boy, sublime.
Hüsker Dü
2/5
I know lots of bands influenced by Husker Du but had not got round to dipping in so this was my first effort. I get the energy and the sound but this is a dreary album of standard songs. I found it hard going for an hour. It's boilerplate indie rock from the 80s. I guess one of the things about being influenced is taking a sound/attitude and building on it to make it a lot better.
Eels
4/5
An album to surprise me. Interesting indie-rock from US at a time when most of the interesting indie rock was here in the UK. Great set of songs, plenty of changes of mood and texture. Really good album.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
I've never quite bought into the Springsteen thing, though I can appreciate it. I came to the song "Born to Run" via Frankie Goes to Hollywood" which controversially I still think is a better version. Thunder Road is a nailed on classic and Jungleland a great song. I can acknowledge this album's standing without it quite being my thing.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
No doubt this is in the top of all time. A band that borrowed the Blues, for sure, but made it great in this set of songs.
Talking Heads
4/5
No doubt this is in the top of all time. A band that borrowed the Blues, for sure, but made it great in this set of songs. The new wave that came out of New York at that time produced some stunning music and laid the ground for many other changes in pop. This is beautifully quirky, sparse before they really hit their groove and the songs became top tier but still a great album.
Tortoise
1/5
I'd possibly find 1001 instrumental albums worth istening to before this one.
Otis Redding
4/5
If what you want is a great soul album then this is a great soul album.
American Music Club
4/5
It was difficult to hear all of it as it's not on any streaming services, which is a shame because this is one of those rare finds that I think I would like a lot. I might download it and listen properly.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
This should be docked marks for the awful cover but aside from this, Paul Simon is one of the very very few absolute greats. The shortlist of outstanding songwriters that there is no doubt about. What an incredible set of songs.
Todd Rundgren
4/5
This album is utterly bonkers but is also, curiously, absolutely worth listening to. Sometimes something like this had to be made.
Pink Floyd
3/5
I don’t really know what to make of early Pink Floyd. The band members revered Syd in a way that’s hard to relate from the outside. Sure there was a lot of LSD but this is a mess of sound. I guess it gets a bit of kudos for being part of the psychedelic movement and if it’s time and probably people should listen to it. So it’s going to get far more from me than it deserves on music alone.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
It's Aretha's masterpiece.
The Sabres Of Paradise
1/5
Four bar repeats of basic riffs. Art has to be something I can't do. Anyone can do this. Set the drum machine to 4/4 choose a BPM and write a short bass line. Make some sounds over it. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Utter rubbish.
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
A couple of stone cold classics, some average fayre and some bland boring covers. Definitely a mixed bag of an album.
Saint Etienne
2/5
I wanted to like this album because Bob is such a nice bloke and they have a light air about them. Sadly, though, this was very very pedestrian.
George Jones
2/5
Perfectly listenable pedestrian country music.
Cowboy Junkies
4/5
I wouldn’t normally give good marks for an album with so many covers but this is a lovely piece of work. I’m no fun of country either. But this is worth a listen.
Röyksopp
3/5
Of the albums in the electronica/instrumental dance in this project this is one of the more worthy as it has some tunes, and indeed some singing, but ultimately it's incidental music.
Janis Joplin
5/5
Not an album I knew before, though obviously I was aware of her work and her extraordinary voice. This is a full throated, literally, blues album that absolutely blasts through the speakers. This is going to be the first 5 star that I hadn't heard before. It's a hell of an experience of sound and emotion.
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
This is and it isn't. It has songs, swagger and fun but it's also flat, samey and ultimately uninspiring. I think I'd have liked it a whole lot more back in 1981.
Johnny Cash
5/5
Of all the "American" albums this is the best - some gentle, haunting versions of songs that just feel like Cash letting us know what we would miss. The genius of Hurt is summed up in changing one chord from the original that takes it to being a masterpiece of painful recollection.
Fred Neil
3/5
Dolphins and Everybody's Talking are classics and I quite like his voice and the sound but it's a middle ranking album for me.
Peter Tosh
3/5
One of those middling albums that if I'd listened as a kid I might have made more of but coming to it cold it's fine, but only fine.
Everything But The Girl
4/5
This is a really nice album. Tracey Thorn has a lovely voice, the songs are very gentle and overall a good piece of work.
The Beau Brummels
2/5
A pleasant set of tunes that I didn't need to struggle through but don't necessarily need to hear again.
Slayer
3/5
Why not? WHY NOT?
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
Difficult one to place. It is clearly an album of note, something really worthy of the list. But it's also a mad blanket of noise over songs and tunes trying to get out. Where they are allowed to, like on Only Shallow it creates a beautiful noise. On others the noise wins out. It's not my genre, but I can see that for that genre this is a thing so for sentimental reasons am over indexing it.
Justice
2/5
Well it's a dance album, it's like all dance albums, not made for listening to, but at least it tries a little more than a series of 4 bar repeats.
Rush
3/5
Nothing wrong with some good prog metal. Rush did some good prog metal.
Pulp
5/5
I never was into Pulp and I came back to this fully expecting I'd dunk on it as not quite good enough Britpop warbling. But, well, even misfits have their moments of mainstream and this is as good as a pop/britpop album as any and it's full of gleeful fun songs that bring back great times.
For one album, amongst a load of their average indie output, Pulp wrote and performed a masterpiece.
John Martyn
4/5
A really good album. Solid set of songs, great sound. Something I may come back to again.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
I'm not quite sure about this. I admire Cohen as a writer of tales, a commentator on life, but the songs are not enough to draw you in as a musical work and the sound/production is terrible.
The Who
2/5
I'm no fan of live albums being on this list, but I recognise that this is often seen as a classic of the genre. That said, a handful of covers and not exactly a tight performance doesn't make me think this is all I was led to believe.
Stereo MC's
3/5
I have this on vinyl from back in the day and used to play the singles when I was a DJ. I loved their sound and that dance/indie fusion that was around at the time. Playing it again now I still like it but across a whole album it drags a bit. It’s a good album, it’s just perhaps not as good as I remember. Or maybe music moved on.
Christina Aguilera
2/5
A full throated, fully derivative album of supremely average songs. It’s a nice sound, it’s a good production and it doesn’t have a single stand out track. Background music for terrible bars who would play it too loudly.
The Triffids
3/5
This is amazingly of its time, right down to the terrible electronic drums on the first few tracks. He could go back and record those properly and they might be ok. After a few songs they decide to have a decent drum sound and it's all a bit less ridiculous. Oh wait, no back to hitting a wet tea cloth
Summary. There's something here desperate to break out but it's just very uneven.
Grateful Dead
4/5
The Grateful Dead are one of those bands I was aware of, knew the cult following around them and yet had no knowledge of their music at all. When I heard them I was completely surprised, I had never had in my head the idea that this was the music they made.
It's good, country/folk/Americana call it what you will but I can see why people like them.
Minor fact - they played their first ever UK gig in my village, about 200 yards from my house, 3 weeks before I was born.
A rollocking bit of rock fun
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
What you would expect from the Chili Peppers. A lot of their funky/white rap/discordant guitar and then one great great song. I don't know how to mark something that is generally a bore to listen to but has a stone cold classic but 3 feels very generous.
Leftfield
4/5
I have a bit of a problem with dance music/electronica particularly pure instrumental but this is a decent album. One I owned so I know reasonably well. So it cuts a bit above the crowd.
Bon Jovi
4/5
Ridiculous but great fun.
Tears For Fears
5/5
A perfect album which is almost impossible to pull off, as this project shows. There really isn't a bad song on this album. I know this album really well but still never mind re[listening to it. Every note sounds good to me and the songs build and play out in the right way. Verses, choruses, melodies. Ah those were the days of pop.
Working hour ... the way it builds is beautiful. Everybody Wants to Rule the World was written because it needed a single and it's one of the greatest pop songs of the 80s. Everything about this is glorious. Even the bonkers last, instrumental track.
Oh, and the production is beautiful - the 80s really knew how to let the instruments have space and depth.
Metallica
4/5
I see it's a seminal album in thrash metal and I think for that genre that's a fair comment. It's really interesting, complex, musical whilst being of course in your face. I enjoyed it.
5/5
There are albums that are good, there are albums that are great and there is the Canon. Those albums so far ahead of the pack that there is a special place reserved from them. This is in the rock and pop Canon.
Pere Ubu
3/5
There's a lot of post punk I love, there's a new wave that needed pioneers. I can trace a line from this to them. There's a time when I'd have got into an album like this "just because" but it's difficult listening. But I can see what it led to.
Pixies
5/5
Certainly in my personal top ten albums of all time, this is a track by track experience in perfection. A musical style almost all of their own but certainly influencing many others and a set of songs that burst with energy but are proper songs.
Alice Cooper
2/5
Very middling experience. Plenty of yelling over standard rock tracks and nothing stood out. I knew Election, as most people probably do, but I wasn't really interested by much on offer here.
Cyndi Lauper
3/5
I thought this was fun, it has a couple of classic songs and it could not be more 1984. That said, I thought it was a bit of a chore to get through as it was so light/pop/80s production that it felt it didn't quite pull it off as an album to go back to.
Soul II Soul
2/5
I bought this a long while back and had the same experience then than now when listening to it. A lazy, half hearted album with one of the best songs rendered acapella and lots of beats with random talking over. A great shame because when they made songs they really sounded great.
Leonard Cohen
3/5
I have a lot of affection for Cohen. My mum was a big fan and though as a child I couldn't quite see the point I listened enough to have absorbed it into my musical heritage. This is a good reflection of his work - lyrically brilliant, musically average. That's the point I guess. He is his own genre.
The Go-Betweens
2/5
It sort of passed over me, then suddenly the song I knew was played, then it drifted by again.
George Harrison
2/5
I doubt I'm the first person to say that this proves that Lennon and McCartney were right and Harrison had obviously bought a load of average songs into the Beatles rehearsals. If all double albums might have made a good single album, this triple album has a great EP in it.
The Blue Nile
2/5
I feel with this, just like with Hats, that some people that spent their teenage years wandering around in the rain worrying about girls might have liked this but if you missed that moment of vulnerability you would never quite get it.
Tinsel Town in the Rain is great though.
Stan Getz
3/5
One of those albums on here that's a pleasure to be introduced to. It's never going to be my jam, but I'm glad to have listened to it.
Elvis Presley
3/5
Something that was considered so radical and subversive at the time feels so tame and bland now. He was a good covers artist but other early rock and roll somehow stands up better. An album for your mum here.
KISS
1/5
Lyrics seem to have been written by a 12 year old. A cliché of a rock album and ridiculous.
Geared me up for the Spinal Tap sequel.
Bobby Womack
3/5
A fine sound that washes over me whilst I work. Nothing to send me to either extremes of marking. Bang in the centre. Lovely voice though.
Van Halen
3/5
Ridiculous but fun
Blur
4/5
I didn't have this at the time, and I still have this bias that Blur didn't put together great albums but this is as good as they got. Enough songs to establish itself as a really good album but not quite consistent enough to be great.
The Young Gods
1/5
Well I'm glad I listened to their masterpiece and not one of their shit albums.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
I bought this for my mum, so this is an emotional vote.
Willie Nelson
3/5
It's difficult to find fault with Willie Nelson. Great voice, nice lyrics, it's an easy listen. It's just not my thing.
Snoop Dogg
4/5
I'm not the demographic so kind of missed all of this strand of music when it came out. This is a glorious piece of work. Languid, trippy, hip hop with a hook and I really enjoyed it.
Dirty Projectors
3/5
My opening thought was "oh Jesus" but I oddly enjoyed this. There's some weird stuff, obviously, and some mad syncopation and bad drumming but it's art pop and there's space for that in the world. I wouldn't recommend it to a friend, mind.
Deep Purple
3/5
I loved Deep Purple as a kid so there’s a lot of nostalgia. Musically it’s a great band. Lyrically terrible.
Dennis Wilson
4/5
I think I enjoyed this more than a Beach Boys album. Really good sound, some nice songs and a very pleasant listen.
Lenny Kravitz
2/5
Starts with promise but very quickly runs out of any ideas
The La's
3/5
Just not as good as all the indie press made out.
Ute Lemper
3/5
This is kind of bonkers - overblown show versions of songs with the madcap backing of the Divine Comedy.
Aerosmith
2/5
There's there's a good reason this genre didn't travel past America over to us Brits. It's very very boring.
Spiritualized
4/5
I’ve really enjoyed both spiritualized albums from this list. An album I’d have listened to a lot if it had arrived with me at the time.
PJ Harvey
1/5
Raw, powerful, emotional, atonal, rubbish.
Write some songs Polly, write some songs.
Travis
4/5
A gentle, easy album with some lovely songs. There’s a reason some albums sell by the bucket load.
Cat Stevens
4/5
Gentle piece of work with a couple of classic songs on it. Drifted by quite nicely.
The Bees
3/5
Intriguing collection of songs. Quirky but not in a bad way and I ended up listening a few times.
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
Sort of what you would expect, slightly sparse bleak post punk before PIL hit more of a groove. Certainly interesting.
Mercury Rev
2/5
Pages of 4 and 5 star reviews but an average of 3? Someone's been boosting reviews ...
It's a non-album. Nothing of note at all.
New York Dolls
3/5
Raw new wave New York punk. You can see where it goes.
John Cale
4/5
One of those really pleasing finds. I'll make the obvious comment that I wasn't expecting this kind of album. Very enjoyable.
Culture Club
4/5
I didn't realise how well I knew this album until I listened to it again today. It's a pretty good all round pop album. Of its time, obviously, but I don't think I can knock it on that basis. It's a good set of songs.
The Killers
3/5
It’s got some good songs, it still sounds pretty good but probably tails off a bit too much to be outstanding
Can
2/5
It's a difficult album - experimental prog and I'm aware of Holger Czukay's work from David Sylvian albums. I guess avant-garde is a thing for some and it has influenced some great musicians. Unfortunately in some instances (Radiohead). But ultimately it isn't an album I'd listen to with any enthusiasm.
Thin Lizzy
3/5
One of those albums that isn't hard work but isn't great either. I usually have a no live albums merit greatness award but I can understand why the odd one is put in - this was most definitely the best known Lizzy album when I was a kid.
Baaba Maal
3/5
Much better than I was led to believe by the reviews. Enjoyed the sound and the vibe.
Turbonegro
3/5
Much better than I was led to believe by the reviews. Enjoyed the sound and the vibe.
Tom Waits
4/5
This is another way that Tom Waits has grown on me. It's raw but compelling. I might listen to a lot more Tom Waits.
The Byrds
2/5
A bit of a mess this. Some things hit some things feel like they were just filling out time. I get the psychedelic folk roots thing but this just sounds like a bunch of guys taking too much stuff and recording whatever.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
Some of the greatest songs written and performed - Only Living Boy being the stand out. It’s only let down by a vanilla cover of a song that already had a definitive version. That’s probably churlish though so I’ll skip and ignore.
3/5
I enjoyed it though it did wash over me a bit.
Pixies
5/5
I love the Pixies but over time have neglected this album. It has one of the great "first sides " (for those of us that had it on vinyl originally. Absolutely blasts in with their cover of Cecilia Ann and then continues in same vein with Rock Song. Plenty of changes of style, plenty based on the country music with screaming they are known for. This is a lot better than I remember it.
Ice T
2/5
The best song was the rock song. The rest of it was reasonably boiler plate angry man.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
2/5
Post punk thumping toms but ultimately not quite there yet as a band. Hong Kong garden, not on the album but on the re-release, shows they were starting to write songs but the rest is a bit unsatisfactory.
Def Leppard
3/5
I struggled a bit at the start but then a few of the hits came in and it perked up and then I just went with it. Fun, ridiculous rock.
Roni Size
2/5
I get that it was genre defining, I understand there's a thing. But this is over two hours of one idea over and over again. Someone now could make this with Logic Pro loops. It's of almost no musical merit. But it's not impossible to listen to so it doesn't hit the floor vote.
Jane's Addiction
3/5
Pretty good album of rock/verging on what the UK would have as metal. Nothing spectacular but it's a thing.
The Afghan Whigs
2/5
One of those albums that is very American rock, and another one that doesn't hold much on interest to me, with not US Rock tastes. The lyrics, as others have said, are rather trite but the music is trite too. Nothing interesting, nothing discovered. It hardly sold even in the US, and there might just be a reason for that.
Ian Dury
4/5
We get a lot of very USA albums that don’t work on my English ears. I suspect this is very much the same in reverse. It’s so British it could have been sung by a bulldog with a Union Jack jacket. British observational working class lyrics and a very accomplished band.
Tim Buckley
2/5
Well this is a supremely silly album. Funk is done better by many many other people. It fails to pass my unlistenable test but really 1001 people, we deserve better than this.
Sheryl Crow
4/5
Sometimes the right album comes along in this sequence. After a tricky week of US rock landfill a melodic album with songs and plenty of texture can seem so much better. I enjoyed this a lot, it's a good album and holds up across the whole set of songs.
The Temptations
3/5
Nice sound nice groove but nothing stand out
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
It will be good when it’s finished.
Halfway through it being on I thought "I should put some music on" then remembered this was playing. It's so light as to be overlooked.
Of course, it's not terrible, and I understand why young men might be smitten by it but it's a novelty EP spun out.
The xx
3/5
It's a nice sound but it's very shallow.
Jimi Hendrix
3/5
Hendrix is a genius, inspired many, was one of the great guitarists yet never seemed to make a decent album. The gap between his ability and the consistency of his records is the widest I can think of.
R.E.M.
4/5
I've never been a huge fan as I found them a bit repetitive - maybe the sound of Stype doesn't quite do it for me. But this is a really good album with some great songs and very consistent.
The Specials
4/5
I love the Specials. Fun, energy and just a moment where music of all sorts took over the British charts. Patchy, yes but still a good album.
I suspect one that the Americans really don't get. It's so culturally British and of a time.
Ray Price
2/5
Another album that I listened to without particularly feeling engaged. Pleasant enough but not my sort of thing.
Suzanne Vega
4/5
I enjoyed this - lovely light album. Marlena is a great song. Folky and gentle.
Hole
4/5
This is a great album. Fantastic sound, great set of songs. I've always loved the single, it's an absolute classic.
OK it's one that obviously appeals to my musical taste but it was still very consistent across the whole album and just a great production.
Marvin Gaye
2/5
Rather boring, flat, unremarkable. It may well be a grower or some hidden masterpiece but on the listen I gave it, it's not worth bothering about.
Massive Attack
5/5
I don't know this album as well as Blue Lines, though I did buy it at the time. It's a really fantastic piece of work. For a moment in time trip hope was a sound that was new, vibrant and great to listen to. Often much more interesting than the rap genres it derives from, it is a sound of Britain, and indeed Bristol where I studied at the time it was all happening. So glad to have rediscovered this masterpiece.
(OK we will forget the last track as if it had never happened)
System Of A Down
2/5
For people that like this sort of thing this is probably a very good example. For people that are browsing the genre, it's not exactly going to spark a lifetime's fanship. Probably better full of beer in a field and yelling along.
Steely Dan
4/5
There's no reason why anyone should love Steely Dan but there's also no reason on earth to hate them. This is as smooth as music gets. A great British rock critic once told me that there was never a bad time to listen to Steely Dan and that sort of sold me on them. This isn't the highest of their peaks, but it's a piece of work. Deacon Blue is a beautiful example of the texture, and lyrical agility of Becker and Fagen. Peg is an absolute pick up for any moment - though I think I have to thank De La Soul for that.
Steely Dan
4/5
Two Steely Dan in a row - I guess it sometimes happen. So good I listened to it four times. Some great songs, really well written music and lyrically. And, like the last one, smooth as music gets. Not going to be one of the greatest albums of all time but definitely a good album.
Dagmar Krause
1/5
You know what you are getting right form the start - performance art, not music. It's aimed at a certain type of person to nod along knowingly and point out the strands of the metaphors, how the music brings out the timbre of the artists mood. That sort of rubbish.
Basically it's for people that hate it to pretend they love it to other people who also hate it and are pretending they love it so they all seem "cultured" and smart in loving something they know everyone hates.
Well done.
Bad Brains
3/5
An interesting album of its genre. Nerd point is that I particularly like the production/snare drum sound. Enjoyed it in a good but not great way.
The Saints
3/5
Nice bawdy punk with tunes and a good sound. Just a bit short of stand out songs but pleasant notheless.
Spacemen 3
1/5
Not for me I'm afraid. I'm OK with shoegaze, I'm OK with Prog but this is just a long and uninteresting ramble.
Aretha Franklin
4/5
A beautiful album, obviously important for her breakthrough. Doesn't quite hit 5 because it's mainly a covers album and I have rules.
Caetano Veloso
3/5
Another pleasure from this project. Listening to albums I would have no earthly reason to otherwise find. It's interesting for obvious reasons, and a perfectly good listen. Not ultimately my thing, but we all knew that before I played it.
Girls Against Boys
2/5
Indie landfill. One for a certain USA audience. I think that of this genre there are loads better albums.
Coldcut
2/5
Starts on a real high - I hadn't clocked that was Coldcut for some reason. There's some other good tunes, but ultimately feels a bit like one of those "megamixes" as it winds on. It's of its time of course.
Kraftwerk
3/5
Was a bit too avant-garde for me and a bit early for me to appreciate. I get its significance and that of Kraftwerk but that doesn’t necessarily mean I also would return to it.
Radiohead
5/5
Certainly Radiohead’s high point, certainly one of the best of all time. A sprawling prog rock epic masquerading as an indie album. Moments of the sublime. When Radiohead still liked to write songs they created a classic.
Drive Like Jehu
3/5
It was OK - perfectly passable post-hardcore. Could see myself listening at a moment in time but not going to convince me now.
Incredible Bongo Band
3/5
I don’t know about this. It’s fun I guess and the creator wasn’t taking himself too seriously. And it influenced hip hop. So I cut it some slack
Miles Davis
3/5
I was all ready to dunk on this. Jazz is hard enough but Freeform jazz … anyway to hell with it, one of music’s greats doing something different and there should be more of that in life.
Ravi Shankar
2/5
It’s of interest, and of course of note for his influence. Fair play to him he starts off by saying it’s not actually musical or melodic or structured. It’s honest at least.
Elvis Costello
2/5
His is really nice. Some beautifully structured songs. Good production as you might expect from an accomplished producer as well as artist.
But there’s nothing to raise the eyebrows. No stand out songs.
It’s good but I can’t think it’s moving anything anywhere. Nice though. Might listen again.
The Shamen
2/5
Probably of some note at the time - that dance/acid house movement of the Uk but it’s not aged well. One song and a lot of not very much.
Dr. John
3/5
Fairly mad album - certainly an experience. Not sure what to think about it but I think it was worth listening to.
Maxwell
2/5
I don't think you can accuse this album of having any rough edges. It's a soulful jazzfest throughout. To the point that it might be a parody album, I can't really tell.
John Martyn
5/5
I thought this was an outstanding piece of work. Really reminiscent, or more correctly influential, on music I've enjoyed in my life but first time I've consciously heard him. I can see from the write up that this isn't necessarily representative of his earlier work, but it's a fine piece of music.
The Damned
4/5
A fun raucous punk album. After the last two weeks of bland soup I’ve had to sit though I can fully understand now why punk happened and thank god for it. Sometimes you just need to smash it up a bit.
Syd Barrett
1/5
It’s interesting as a curiosity but my word it’s a shambles. He wasn’t fit to record and it’s mess of half written and half performed songs. I never really got the Sid was the genius story. He wrote whimsical songs. He fell apart. This seems half a sincere attempt to get him through his problems and half an attempt to exploit them.
TLC
1/5
Probably my least favourite genre and this lived down to expectations. Sure, Waterfall is a great pop song but the rest of it is bland plinky plonk over empty drum machines with melodies that are not even trying.
Rufus Wainwright
2/5
It's OK, but no more than that. He has this slightly miserable but wants to be a west end show vibe about him. The songs are fairly unremarkable though. I listened to it a few times and it was passable background music.
Black Flag
2/5
One of those albums that is worth hearing even if it's not quite for me. I guess the US brand of punk/hardcore didn't quite land in the UK, and that kind of genre throughout this project has been littered with US albums that we just didn't listen to. I remember Henry Rollins doing his spoken word gig at my University in the early 90s and I'd never heard of him. Anyway, nice to hear a bit of anger and some structure to punk.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
My standard problem with Costello. Some fantastic songs but I can't take a whole album of it. I should love it as British new wave but I've never managed quite to be sold on him. He's got a greatest hits album many would beg for, but his albums are not very compelling.
Funkadelic
4/5
I kind of love Pfunk, Funkadelic and all of that scene. It was incredibly influential on some great pop but is great in itself. I don't mind the prog funk approach to songs and very happily get into the groove here.
Nico
2/5
I started to enjoy it, at least I think I enjoyed it, then I slowly got lost in its lack of tone and then it just descended into noise.
Tom Tom Club
4/5
This is an album I bought in my heavy Talking Heads phase and it's still a good listen - though it tails off after the pop songs it's still got the kind of grooves and sounds that make it interesting.
Badly Drawn Boy
3/5
A really pleasant listen though on some of the tracks the terrible drumming rather spoiled it for me as did some of the rather forced lyrics. Consequently a bit middling rather than a great album. Another of those Mercury wins that went for "a bit different" over "the best album this year".
"Once around the block" is a good song, the rest a bit ephemeral.
Kacey Musgraves
3/5
Despite being a bit sceptical with it being such a recent album I really enjoyed this. A nice light Saturday listen.
Korn
1/5
Another desperately American album from a band that didn't every trouble the UK. It's formulaic nu metal with terrible lyrics and dreadful songs. Maybe in its genre it does something but there's a reason none of this ever travelled to the UK.
Haircut 100
3/5
The hits are great, happy infectious pop. The rest of the album makes a lot more sense to me now I know that Nick Heyward was a fan of Talking Heads and XTC. He's trying to create the same grooves and pop sensibility of the two. It doesn't quite work because he lacks, probably, the slight off beam genius of those two bands.
Christine and the Queens
2/5
A few tunes but mainly it sounds like someone has set the loops in Logic Pro and then sung some songs over them. It feels such a lazy boring way to make music. Sometimes it really works when the melody is there but over a whole album it feels creatively thin.
King Crimson
4/5
After a few insipid manufactured albums this was an absolute pleasure of muso self indulgence.
Beatles
5/5
Yea, it's the White Album. It has everything - every idea any band has ever had since stems from this work. It's nearly 60 years old for christs sake. Why doesn't anyone try to make anything interesting any more?
Björk
3/5
I have a lot of reviews bemoaning formulaic albums so it would be a bit churlish to knock this - a proper avant-garde 21st century album. Maybe would like a bit more song to the song but it's still a lovely listen and self-consciously experimental.
Frank Sinatra
5/5
The classic version of all the classics. A different kind of era and a different kind of singer but it's a pleasure to listen to.
Arcade Fire
2/5
It's polished and they are clearly of a kind well liked but I can't get past how flat and uninteresting I find them. Just never grabbed me.
Britney Spears
3/5
Hit Me Baby One More Time is an absolute classic, one of the great pop songs of all time. The rest feels a little formulaic but I'd rather have an album of pop songs than an album of pop "sounds" that don't bother putting a song together. Dated, a bit hit and miss but it's a pop album, it's not supposed to get me to change the world.
Dire Straits
5/5
One of those albums that everyone bought for their parents. Only now I'm a parent and I'm old and this is good and the songs are good and the production is that lovely 80s open sheen of sound. This is what a great album sounds like.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Swampy blues rock that does what it does.
The Teardrop Explodes
2/5
I think this is a fairly uninspiring new wave album with one great song that wasn't even originally on it. There's a strand of UK new wave that was just a bit purposeless/moody but underwhelmed on the songs.
Rufus Wainwright
2/5
Beautifully performed, produced and orchestrated bunch of nothings. It's got a great sound and not a single song.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
I didn't really listen to any Neil Young until my 40s. Which I guess is also the right time to listen to Neil Young. This is a great rock and roll album, from the production to the raw sound of live recording. More one note guitar solos in my life and this sounds tremendous in Atmos.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Enjoyable but essentially musak.
Minor Threat
3/5
I think this is another one where the US post-punk movement and the UK post-punk movement were divergent. So I don't know this and I don't think it was as influential on our strand of music. It's fine though.
Run-D.M.C.
5/5
I started a bit unsure but hey, this is one of the groundbreaking albums that defined a genre and of course everyone should listen to it.
Miles Davis
3/5
Jazz takes many forms, some of which I like some that I can appreciate and some that pass me by. This is somewhere between the last two.
Depeche Mode
4/5
Never quite got into Depeche Mode though I know the singles this was a definite hit. Really good album, great sound and far better than I knew.
Pentangle
3/5
I've done Pentangle a few times now, and I worship at the bass of Danny Thompson but it's not really my thing. That said, it is "A" thing and it's musically very good and part of a very British folk tradition. One of those things that I don't need myself but I'm very glad is there.
808 State
2/5
Not exactly an album to listen to and hum along. Very of its time and I'm sure fine in a club.
Aphex Twin
2/5
Maybe it's groundbreaking but it's also mind-numbingly boring.
The Vines
3/5
Some good moments - and despite all the hype I thought more homage to Beatles than Nirvana - but overall despite a good sound and production it didn't have any stand out songs. I think the hype was willing them to do well rather than recognising their limitations.
Hookworms
4/5
It's good to hear a recent album that has substance, a great sound and songs and is a pleasure to listen to. I don't know whether it will stand up against time but it's one of the best post 2000 albums in this project so far.
Doves
4/5
After a run of variable albums it's always a joy to open up an old friend. Doves had two great albums, in my mind, and a third that was still very good. This is a moody, melodic, atmospheric album that sits at the bookend of the golden era of British indie. Not quite perfect but that’s a high bar for me.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
One of the joys of my later life has been discovering Nick Cave. I didn't take to The Birthday Party as a teenager and took some time to get over that and actually listen to Cave. He's a fantastic lyricist, polemicist and artist. This is a fun, fascinating, captivating piece of work. Listen away. The man's a genius.
Paul Revere & The Raiders
3/5
A minor curiosity of its time.
Rocket From The Crypt
2/5
One paced American rock/post punk that doesn’t intend to go anywhere and succeeds.
Cream
3/5
An album that is mixed but also one I’d place a lot later so I can see how it was influential and moved music along. I think a bit variable but with some absolute classics.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
5/5
The birth of modern music and a genius that was too short lived
Kanye West
3/5
Enjoyable in parts but drags in others. Certainly a broad piece of art but hard going for the casual listener.
John Grant
3/5
Lovely piece of work whilst also being too long and drifting too much in parts.
Motörhead
4/5
Loud raucous rock and roll at breakneck speed. I’m all in for it.
The Gun Club
3/5
Good wholesome post punk and for once a US album from that era/genre which isn’t bland
Terence Trent D'Arby
4/5
I enjoyed this a lot more than I remember. Plenty of great songs, great sound - I'm a sucker for the 80s approach to production - and a good soul/funk vibe to it all.
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
Marvellous - a rousing epic of an album. More things should sound like this.
2/5
To my ears this is the worst kind of plinky plonk country - though I am sure that those that love country may have a completely different view.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
4/5
I didn't know how this would stand up. I had it at the time and saw them live on the early tours but had sort of forgotten how smooth and laid back a lot of this album is - even though they went full lounge jazz after this. Groove and a great sound. I enjoyed returning to this.
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
The first time I listened it fell flat but it just so happened I had time yesterday for a few more listens through. It is really good in an understated way without being spectacular.
Morrissey
2/5
I found this reasonably boring
Antony and the Johnsons
1/5
I don’t know why anyone would find this pleasurable. A long tuneless moan
Arcade Fire
2/5
Such a boring band but I have this theory that if I was 13 years old when I first heard them I would have loved them. But yes, boring. Apart from No Cars Go, which is a really good song.
Blur
4/5
In that way it's probably my favourite Blur album it's also not that consistent. Some good songs, some experimentation. A good band but not a great one. Yet Damon is a genius for all the other things he's done alongside this.
Ice Cube
4/5
High anger high energy rap that is a fine example of the genre.
Robert Wyatt
1/5
I've tried with Wyatt, and I'll try again but this is painful stuff.
Oasis
5/5
Stands up pretty well as a full on rock and roll blast of noise and energy. I think I liked this more now than I did then.
k.d. lang
2/5
A lovely voice wasted on some vaudeville cover-by-numbers country songs. Lovely, but it's just karaoke.
Nirvana
5/5
The 20 year old me thought Nirvana were a Pixies rip off band, though of course in Smells Like Teenage Spirit they did it well. Even Cobain said they wanted to sound like Pixies.
This is an amazing debut album though. The energy/sound/songs and the tight rendering. It just sounds like rock music should sound and is so much better than almost all of the moody but ultimately tune light grunge coming out of the US at that time. Basically all but Pixies, who invented the sound this is based on.
The young me was far too snobbish about the purity of music. This is a classic.
Jefferson Airplane
3/5
Great psychedelic folk that stands up well what with having some great songs and all that.
The Flying Burrito Brothers
2/5
Starts out with a song of howlingly bad lyrics with dead rhymes. Carries on with pretty much every dull country cliché. Maybe they invented the clichés, who knows.
Guns N' Roses
5/5
Proper full on rock/metal with catchy tunes and sing alongs. Yes we all know the songs too well but there's a reason for that.
Moby
5/5
I obviously hate electronic dance music, I obviously bought this album like everyone else. It still sounds good, it's seeped into the consciousness of my brain and it is as good as this terrible genre will ever get.
Buzzcocks
2/5
Oh to be at the dawn of punk when this meant something rather than sounding like a shambolic rant.
The Kinks
2/5
I kind of like the Kinks, particularly their lyrical Englishness, but this is a bit pedestrian as a set of songs. Apart from Sunny Afternoon nothing really sticks out.
James Brown
2/5
It's probably better at the gig, like a lot of live albums. Listening to it each song just merges into the other one.
Joni Mitchell
5/5
My mum loved Joni and she loved Leonard Coen. I loved Blue - the first verse of "case of you" is a masterpiece of writing. I don't think I would have come to her if it hadn't been played to me as a kid - it's obviously very arty folk and her voice and phrasing are unique.
This is a superb album, definitely one of the best ever and it deserves its reputation.
3/5
I really enjoyed this. XTC had moments of pop brilliance with some bits that were too obscure to really engage with. This sits neatly in the middle as a kind of prog album. It's one I hadn't heard before and it was a real pleasure.
LTJ Bukem
1/5
A couple of days ago I posted a review saying that electronic dance music was the worst genre. I apologise to those fans because I had forgotten that drum and bass is the worst music genre.
Botempi organ music - tedious repetitive rubbish a child could create.
Lucinda Williams
2/5
I am not sure whether it's my lack of ear for country but I don't see this as particularly stand out or quite get why it won such plaudits. It's pleasant enough but it doesn't warrant another listen.
Kelela
1/5
I'm still fighting through this as I write, but this is awful. It's not got a single song on it. Just aimless warbling over a drum machine with the odd little wibble wobble synth sound in the background. One song of it might work, but a whole album of it is torture.
Only critics like tuneless rubbish like this.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
An enjoyable pastiche of fiddle music and soul. Not something that I'm going to keep with me but perfectly listenable.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
It's songs in the key of life. Just don't listen to the albums after it.
Super Furry Animals
4/5
I thought this was a lovely album. Great set of songs, very consistent. I'll listen to this again, definitely.
Isaac Hayes
1/5
The Theme from Shaft is a great song. The music from the film Shaft is things to listen to in the background whilst watching the film Shaft. Otherwise it's just a boring pile of nothing.
Van Halen
3/5
I needed a bit of rock today. Apart from a rotten Kinks cover, not a bad attitude.
Duran Duran
5/5
A beautiful polished pop album - new wave/new romantic call it what you will - they put together a great album here. As great a bunch of songs that came from that era, a great sound with Andy Taylor bringing in rock sensibility, John Taylor is an astonishing bass player who should be mentioned in lists but is always overlooked.
(First time for me hearing the US remixes - they sound terrible.)
Eminem
3/5
Although I think Eminem is one of the greats in his field, I did find this a bit more patchy on re-listening than I thought I would.
Radiohead
2/5
I hoped coming back to this that I'd find something new but no, it's just an atonal mess. Self indulgent, and I guess what you can do with a major label recording contract and some hits behind you. Spend months producing sonic soundscapes without any tunes.
Pere Ubu
2/5
I'm glad that avant garde punk/rock exists and I'm glad they released this and I'm glad I don't have to listen to it again. These are not negative thoughts. There's a space for music like this and there are other bands that went somewhere more melodic with the influence of this band/record.
Prince
5/5
This is a sprawling work of genius. Sometimes infuriatingly throw away often sublime.
It's not a first listen album I think - it rewarded me listening a few times as a kid. Something about it being so disjointed and jumping around the styles.
It's a classic though, a one off from a one off. None of the easy constitency of Purple Rain but a rolling sound of bursting creativity.
I had a ticket to see Prince on this tour. He cancelled. I never did see Prince.
The Pretty Things
3/5
Interesting from a British prog/psychedelia perspective. Clearly of that strain of Pink Floyd kind of scene. Not brilliant, just interesting.
Ms. Dynamite
2/5
I was at the Mercury Award ceremony when this won album of the year. I was surprised then and I’m still surprised. It’s nice enough but nothing that engaging. Nice lead track and not a lot else to hook onto
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
Solid album of iconic reggae.
Jerry Lee Lewis
4/5
This is a blast of rock and roll that captures the energy of one of the greats. Without his awful inhumanity he would have been so much more.
Magazine
4/5
I didn't know this album but it felt very familiar to me, and I did know the main tracks. Really enjoy this period of the post punk development of New Wave. The punks learned to sing and play their instruments and it laid the ground for so much that came after.
Minutemen
3/5
An album I don't know but definitely sits in one of my happy places between punk and new wave/pop. The developing scene of music that drew from punk sensibilities but bought musicianship and songs.
It's not full of catchy songs, it's a sound. I think it's something I might have listened to a lot at the time but probably has passed too long for me to give it the time.
The Flaming Lips
3/5
It’s an easy listen and it’s easy not to listen to it again. Good though.
I was ready to trash this as a terrible end of career mistake when U2 had run out of songs but it starts out with three great singles and it is fairly consistent on songs. It's nowhere near the heights of their career, but most bands would be pretty happy to have put this out. I'm not saying it's great, it's just not a turkey.
Queens of the Stone Age
3/5
A good listen but not a remarkable album. Solid.
Laura Nyro
3/5
Really good listen. Sort of timeless - could have been from any decade and I wouldn't have guessed 60s. A pleasure.
ZZ Top
3/5
It’s 1973 and the boys are playing the blues. Enjoyed this.
The Fall
2/5
I've never quite got the Fall. I don't hate it though.
Primal Scream
1/5
I thought this was lazy drivel.
The Coral
3/5
Light bouncy indie psychedelic tunes. Fun and fine.
JAY Z
4/5
Jay Z passed me by apart from the obvious but this is a top rank hip hop album. Great use of sounds and rhythm and a really solid piece of work.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
Solid swamp/blues rock call it what you like but this was a great album.
D'Angelo
1/5
A dreary music genre is not going to be lifted by this example of its oeuvre. the first song drifts into a repetitive phrase, the second song drifts in with incoherency and I desperately want this to end. The third song barely makes an effort.
Christ some of this is total rubbish. Randomly repeating words over dreadful substance free plinky plonking.
Starts very badly and gets much much worse.
Waylon Jennings
2/5
Fairly pedestrian
Green Day
4/5
A set of great songs, plenty of punk energy. What's not to like.
Doves
5/5
Boundless joy. One of my favourite albums of all time.
Peter Frampton
3/5
I was going to rate this low, as it's a live album, but it's a fine piece of work. Not stella, but fine.
Lorde
4/5
This is a really good album - this is how you do electronic pop. Remember to write some songs.
Eagles
3/5
It's a lovely album, it's the Eagles, it's easy and has some great songs but ultimately it's a bit forgettable.
Scott Walker
3/5
It's a great sound and it will eventually work better on Scott 4. This is a more variable set of songs.
Skunk Anansie
3/5
It's a great sound, Skunk is a great singer, everything is great apart from the songs. Not one of them stands out. Maybe "Lately" but even that's a bit by numbers.
Nick Drake
5/5
A superb album by an extraordinary artist that laboured without success in his too short lifetime. White Bicycles by Joe Boyd it a great read about Nick Drake and his life and work. Thankfully due to the friendship and patronage of Joe Boyd his albums were never deleted and he eventually found his audience.
He released records at an amazing time for creativity in music and in British music. The folk movement was overshadowed by rock and pop. Relative to his peers he found it hard to be heard. But over the lifetime of recorded music his work really does stand out.
Sade
5/5
I think this is the perfect album of this genre. It’s a great example pf the fact that you can build a song around a groove or a simple chord structure but you also need the melody to do the heavy lifting. Take note every artist basing their career on albums written on a computer since 2001
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
2/5
I tried with the Penguin Cafe orchestra in my pretentious teenage faze and like now I couldn’t quite connect.
Scott Walker
4/5
I do like this album, particularly the Old Man. A perfect 30 minutes of englishness. Thank god Scott existed.
The Beta Band
4/5
I enjoyed this a lot. I knew the single, the rest was new to me.
Astor Piazzolla
1/5
I get how part of this project is to get you to listen to things you would otherwise not. But this is basically like a soundtrack to a very long children's TV show from the 1970s.
Country Joe & The Fish
1/5
This is a mess. None of the band seem to know how to keep together, it's a shambles. At times un-listenable. Usually I find I can bear to get through every album here. This one I had to take a break halfway through to rest my ears.
Sigur Rós
3/5
I liked this, but I think people only need one Sigur Ros album in their life, and it isn't this one.
Steve Winwood
1/5
For a 1980 album this sounds like it invented the sound of 83/4/5 Everyone else was coming out of punk and new wave and into the cusp of pop. This seems to have been ahead of that. For good and ill.
This is truly tedious though.
Prefab Sprout
5/5
From every note to every emote this is one of the greatest albums ever created. The lyrical dexterity, the songs built on melody and complex chord structure and Thomas Dolby's peak as a producer.
Paddy McAloon is one of the greatest songwriters these isles have produced. This is one of the great albums of all time. I got to it by chance - I won a competition for 4 tickets to the gig in Stoke that evening. Me and my mate went. I still have the other two tickets. Wendy was ill. It didn't matter, I was introduced to some sort of genius.
The Darkness
4/5
I was at a BBQ at a friend’s house in around 2001/2. His old flatmate kept taking the music off and putting his band’s demo tape on. It got very annoying. My pal said they were never gong to make it as they had been trying for years.
The Darkness did make it though. Can’t be too serious about music and sometimes it’s just fun to enjoy.
Rod Stewart
2/5
I like Rod’s voice and all that but covers albums don’t count. I get that Rod couldn’t write songs, but get yourself a songwriter if you want to go solo
Frank Black
3/5
I know I should love it as it's Frank Black but I found it all a bit lacking in something - nothing stand out, nothing terrible. Maybe something if I listened to a lot I could get into but on this timetable didn't grab me.
Pulp
2/5
Never been a big fan of the voice or the sound. They had their short moment in a very long career but this is bland and nothing stands out.
Hot Chip
4/5
Light, fun album. I think this is one I'll listen to again a bit. I like Hot Chip, not least because it gives me hope that as a very old man I can still make it in pop.
Tangerine Dream
1/5
An album can be groundbreaking and still be rubbish. I get how electronica needed influences like this, I can also agree that it is a movement that lacks musical merit.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3/5
An interesting little vignette
The Rolling Stones
3/5
A couple of classics, a lot of standard 12 bar blues and some godawful stereo production putting instruments in each ear (drums only on the left? What were they thinking of).
I get they were influential and this is part of their journey but I'm not sure it's a classic.
Marianne Faithfull
3/5
When someone goes through all Marianne Faithfull did it's going to sound rough. It's all about redemption that she managed it. She's no working class hero though - she's a posh kid that clearly struggled with mental health.
The Birthday Party
3/5
I ignored Nick Cave for about three decades. A good friend at 6th form liked the Birthday Party and I thought it was a hot mess. In the last 10 years I've repented and am very much looking forward to seeing him again live this year.
So it was with some trepidation I went back to the source of my dismissal, and it started off prodding me to that memory. As it went on, though, I started to really see the reason Cave shone through - the anger is focused, the lyrics are forming and the sound is the wail of a young man that mellowed.
The Allman Brothers Band
4/5
It's a rocking blues album with too long songs and jamming and who knows what but I'm all in for it today.
The Notorious B.I.G.
3/5
It started out strong but then really dragged.
David Bowie
5/5
It's Bowie, it's genius.
3/5
Fairly poor recording of an OK set of live songs. My general problem with live albums is that unless they are uniquely interesting it's just a fancy greatest hits album. So I mark them down accordingly.
Bee Gees
1/5
"I cannot understand why you just moved to Finland" sort of encapsulates why this is such a dreadful self-indulgent album.
Some awful cod American accent stuff. Some Beatlesish melody songs. Some of the worst lyrics the Gibb brothers ever put down on record.
Altogether a struggle to get through.
Dinosaur Jr.
3/5
I didn't know the role of Dinosaur Jr in shoegaze, but it makes sense after listening to this. It's an album I might have got into as a kid but it's all too late now.
Thelonious Monk
2/5
There are jazzers there are anti-jazzers and I sit somewhere in the middle. But this didn't grab me.
I did muse that if I was 18 years old when this came out I'd have been right on it, but they had invented words by the time I was born.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
This production sounds so good - really deep sound. And of course the songs and the musicianship. One of the greats.
Klaxons
3/5
This held up a lot more than I thought it would
Joy Division
3/5
Dark, sparse album but has a thread to it that makes it compelling. A long way from Joy.
Sepultura
1/5
I can listen to death metal but it doesn't go anywhere does it? I guess it's more of a live experience or a primordial need for angry sound.
Khaled
2/5
One of those that is discovered by this process that would never have otherwise be found. It jollied along, albeit at a bit too long. Nobody should hear Imagine again in any form though.
CHIC
3/5
It feels wrong to be snooty about the marvellous Niles Rodgers and a band that have been so important and influential in disco and pop. But this is half an album only. Two amazing songs, but as a whole it's fairly uneven.
Sebadoh
3/5
I don’t know whether this is a slow burning indie classic or a bit of a ramble. I’d have been listening to Pixies at the time so would probably have considered this a bit second rate.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
I’ve never been all in on Costello but I needed to hear something with songs and new wave after a procession of average albums so he gets marked up.
R.E.M.
5/5
I've never been a great fan of REM. Something about the sound I find a bit repetitive, something about his voice doesn't quite do it for me. But then this album has such a rich set of songs, Peter Buck hadn't yet bought a mandolin to ruin every song and it's as good an album as you will hear. Four or five absolute classic songs.
Can
3/5
I thought I was going to hate this but it was a bit more of the accessible side of Can.
Joanna Newsom
3/5
Very different, kind of beautiful. I don’t know if I’d listen to it again and again but for this one day I enjoyed it.
The White Stripes
2/5
I am not a massive fan and this is OK but just grates a bit.
The Chemical Brothers
1/5
Unsurprisingly this is incredibly repetitive. For those that like this sort of thing at least they have some tunes but otherwise it is really really boring.
Elektrobank is one of the worst songs ever to grace a No1 album.
Also, "It Doesn't Matter" is too. This song is mind blowingly bad. No song has been this long and less whelming in the history of music.
Sonic Youth
4/5
An album I don't know, though I know the lead single by a band I was never completely aware of, though I know John Peel played them. I think now there's lots of albums and bands I love that have a debt to Sonic Youth, I probably should have given them more time and this was certainly worth listening to.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
An album my mum had that sort of sat there without me playing it for years until I slowly decided to explore some of the back catalogue. It's sort of brilliant, whilst also only understandable if you get that he's a poet not a musician and he's got his own kind of style.
The Mars Volta
4/5
A mad prog album of songs and things and I might actually listen to this a lot. At first I thought it was a bit Muse but it’s much more interesting than that.
Pretenders
5/5
I thought this was a wonderful album. Full of songs, sounds as fresh as if it were released now. I don't think I've ever listened to a Pretenders album but this is going on my list of things to go back to again and again.
OK - I'm a sucker for new wave and anything post punk but this is a fantastic album.
Queen
3/5
I've never enjoyed Queen in the round, only in singles and bursts. This is good, and has interesting songs but it didn't grip me.
Dwight Yoakam
2/5
Not unlistenable is about as enthusiastic as I can get about this album.
Venom
2/5
It's fascinating to listen to, as it's obviously very very influential. It's also very difficult to listen to as a drummer, as he's clearly terrible. It's a fun pastiche of every metal lyric but also bad. Presumably bad in a way that lots of very important musicians found to be good.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
3/5
All the bluegrass you will ever need to listen to. Get one bluegrass album, get this one. That’s it.
The Zutons
4/5
Maybe it’s not one of the greatest albums ever, maybe it isn’t that peak of creativity but for me it is a great album with a consistent set of songs and I’d be happy to listen to it a lot.
The xx
2/5
It's not obvious to me when each song finishes and another one starts. This is wallpaper. Dinner party music. The album the manager of the Noble in Finsbury Park recommended I listened to. Background.
Roxy Music
4/5
Mad art rock which is much older than I thought Roxy started. Enjoyable fun.
Anthrax
3/5
Well if you are going to listen to thrash metal you might as well listen to one of the best.
Jungle Brothers
2/5
It's perfectly enjoyable, but not very profound.
Bonnie Raitt
3/5
I don't know whether this is a perfect expression of country/pop in the late 80s or oddly bland. It's taken lots of awards and plaudits (though in the UK we have never heard of it/her) so it means something, and it's not a bad album really. I'm going to give it a break.
Carole King
5/5
There were a whole load of records in the pile my parents had at home that I listened to all the time.
One of the records in the pile was this, which my mother owned. I never played this as a kid for the following reasons:
1) I'd never heard of Carole King;
2) I'm still not entirely confident of the difference between a tapestry and an embroidery.
3) It seemed to be a load of cover versions. My mum also had some terrible covers albums and I thought this was one of them. Frankly why would I listen to this woman I'd never heard of singing a song rather than listen to the Aretha Franklin original?
So I don't know exactly when it happened, but I either read it was a thing or someone told me it was a thing and I thought "I've got that". It's pretty much a perfect album if you pretend that Smackwater Jack doesn't exist. And I've come to terms with that song as time has gone by.
Of course, they were all her songs and like others (some here) the covers thing was a mistake. She was a hell of a songwriter and it turns out she was a hell of a performer too.
Carole King is a remarkable and important figure in the history of music and this is one of the greatest albums ever made.
Marilyn Manson
1/5
This was a struggle.
The United States Of America
1/5
I'm sure groundbreaking, it's definitely avant garde but it's also not really a selection of songs, it's a selection of sounds. A curiosity so I'll give it an extra star.
Lauryn Hill
2/5
My wife has a theory that the Fugees ruined pop music. They took everything and slowed it down with generic "beats" and wailing. She's onto something with this bland procession of blah.
The Louvin Brothers
2/5
Another country album that I'm sure is great of the genre but isn't for me. Nice harmonies. Pretty samey all the way through.
G. Love & Special Sauce
2/5
Slacker blues and perfectly listenable. Not really that compelling.
Megadeth
2/5
Like a lot of the influential metal and thrash albums I recognise that it’s an important and wildly popular genre but often it’s just not for me. This is too samey.
Tim Buckley
2/5
I don’t know whether this is a pretentious album that would have appealed to my younger self or a pretentious album that bores my older self.
Wilco
3/5
It’s a nce album but if they had picked the best songs and kept it single they could really have had something. As it is there’s too much drift.
Ozomatli
1/5
Could not find a way of listening to this full album on any service. So only heard the first song. I don't feel I was missing out.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
I always find the Stones albums very variable. A real inconsistency in songs backed up by some of the greatest of all time. This is no exception. A curious band.
Jean-Michel Jarre
3/5
Ground breaking and incredibly influential but so lame in retrospect. It’s hard to appraise this in a modern era where it’s just repetitive sounds when it was such a leap when it came out.
Liz Phair
4/5
Unexpected this one - it didn't pass consciousness in the UK. It's a really interesting album. Lo fi, but tuneful and engaging.
Dion
1/5
"Dion effectively disowned the record" and so should you.
Neil Young
4/5
More to add to my late life discovery of Neil Young
Paul Simon
3/5
It’s a lovely album. Whether it’s a great album is a different matter. Minis points for terrible car lyrics and ending the Art Garfunkel collaboration for good.
Violent Femmes
4/5
I did not realise it was recorded in 1982. Makes it more of an influential ahead of its time piece.
Jeru The Damaja
2/5
I don’t see this as anything particularly notable. And some lyrics have dated terribly.
Björk
3/5
Avant-garde, mental, weirdly compelling. I mean there are tunes here and she just does her mad thing. It’s worth listening to. Really.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
A lovely stripped down immersive piece
TV On The Radio
4/5
Really enjoyed this. Something a bit different, not heard of it before. A nice break from some of the drudgery of this project.
Adele
2/5
I saw Adele live at the time. She said about 4 songs in "you better dance to this one because it's all slow from now on" or something like that. It was and so is this. Shouty lyrics and soulful sounds and my god it's tedious. I can't believe this will stand up to history. But hey. It sold "a lot".
Beastie Boys
5/5
This is a mad masterpiece.
Roxy Music
2/5
Not my favourite Roxy sound. Though some of it clearly influenced another favourite of mine, Japan. A bit too honky art rock for me and a bit short on stand out songs.
Abdullah Ibrahim
3/5
Jolly bit of jazz. Light and not too jazzy.
Mylo
2/5
Well it had one thing I knew and lots of other samples I could recognise. But in the end it's just the same thing on repeat on every song. I imagine it as useful stock music for "TV Montages" but really, would you listen to it?
Simply Red
2/5
I knew as soon as I saw it that the US contingent would go nuts that this was on the list. A well known band in the UK and indeed one year had the biggest selling album in the world (Stars).
Sadly, the US contingent are correct. This is an awful album in retrospect. A couple of songs, a lot of filler and the worst ever cover of a Talking Heads song ever committed to vinyl. It was painful listening to him kill Heaven.
This "does not" stand up in retrospect.
Ella Fitzgerald
3/5
Beautiful voice, incredible array of songs. Minus points for compilation and covers.
Mariah Carey
2/5
So much of modern RnB is just warbling over "sounds". I don't think there's a single recognisable song here.
The Byrds
3/5
Jingle jangle jingle jangle jingle jangle.
Nice harmonies. A bit one paced.
Television
3/5
A difficult one as I know it well and have a fondness for it but I'm not sure objectively I would rate it 4/5 stars. So I have plumped down the middle.
Screaming Trees
2/5
I enjoyed this and it's a perfectly good rock record but it's not something I'd be that interested in properly immersing myself in.
Napalm Death
1/5
Everyone should listen to this. It’s a seminal album of its genre. Then everyone should give it one star, because it’s rubbish
Burning Spear
3/5
Bouncy fun roots.
The Flaming Lips
4/5
A really good album. Plenty to immerse yourself in, some great songs and a warm sound.
The Dandy Warhols
3/5
Pretty solid album, good sound, some songs. Nothing remarkable but reasonably up my street.
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
One of those albums that didn't quite gel on first listen but I had the chance of being on train journeys so listened to it a few times and it grew on me.
Dr. Octagon
2/5
I don't know. In some ways it was an interesting experience. It was not difficult to listen to. But did it do anything interesting?
The Sugarcubes
4/5
Ah, takes me back to 6th form college and Birthday coming out and sounding like nothing else and then this album with its post punk energy. It's a great album, though I think their third is better.
Motörhead
3/5
Some seminal metal and for once a live album that actually sounds live rather than overdubbed.
Stephen Stills
3/5
A lovely piece of work, some nice songs, some nice textures. Not a stellar album but plenty of charm.
Brian Eno
4/5
Avant gard, tuneful, experimental. Really interesting piece of work. I might listen to this a few times.
Sex Pistols
5/5
Every so often in this you get an album that stands on its record. Lots of bands have influence but this was a seismic point in the history of music. Their influence is obviously huge but also, as a Brit, you can ground it in a time when everything was going to shit. The 70s were terrible, a dark, dangerous, difficult, hopeless decade and it took a long time to get out of it. Punk was a product of that.
Sure the Clash made better albums, and others had the same ideas but the Pistols were a package of music, attitude and PR management that made a serious impact.
And you know what, Anarchy in the UK, God Save the Queen, Pretty Vacant etc. all sound forceful nearly 50 years later. And people still jump up and down and sing along. Not bad.
The Temptations
4/5
The uptempo funky Temptations with their fine voices and some banging tunes.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
3/5
There's room for innovators. After the horror of Trout Mask Replica this was a blessed relief.
Slipknot
3/5
Surprisingly accessible end of Slipknot. Underneath this kind of metal is some incredible musicianship.
Beatles
5/5
It's The Beatles, it's Revolver. Take a step back you ridiculous person - it's one of the most important albums in the history of music. We amateurs are not worthy of reviewing it. Modern music started here.
Giant Sand
2/5
It’s not a terrible album, it’s just a very unremarkable album. Nothing happens
The Beta Band
2/5
Perfectly pleasant but completely unremarkable.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
I wasn’t sure about this but it was a great piece of work full of texture.
Slade
2/5
I found this a bit of a struggle. It's not a great set of songs. Sure, the glam/metal edge to it was interesting and for a time they were "huge" in the UK. But it really hasn't dated well.
Dizzee Rascal
1/5
Grime is one of the worst musical gifts that England has given to, well, just England as none of this travels for obvious reasons. A mildly popular sub genre that gets far far far too much media attention. This is slightly interesting but no more.
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
Good bouncy soulful album that is a pleasure to listen to but doesn't stand out.
The Isley Brothers
4/5
Great songs great sound. Second soul in two days but back to back I’d give this one more star.
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
I've always liked this album. A very British mash up of soul, ska and I guess folk. Geno was such a good single, really made an impression on me at the time. Still enjoy listening to this.
The White Stripes
2/5
This is a lazy set of songs. Half formed jamming riffs with terrible lyrics. Really terrible lyrics.
Orbital
2/5
Not the worst of the electronica, by far, but not that compelling either. It's just repetitive sounds and never feels that serious as a musical form.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
4/5
Lovely gentle album, just the thing to listen to on a long train home after an exhausting 5 days at a conference.
Emmylou Harris
3/5
Sort of lovely but it's mainly covers. The Beatles cover is outstanding though.
Grant Lee Buffalo
3/5
Really good for what it is - I'd probably listen to this again. Nothing spectacular though.
Mudhoney
2/5
There's a big cultural difference in the paths indie took in the early 90s. In the US I do think it got stuck in this rather uninteresting deep indie sound and forgot the songs.
Christina Aguilera
4/5
It's a great piece of pop. I'm no great fan of modern RnB but this has songs and attitude and a great sound.
Everything But The Girl
3/5
Thorn has a lovely voice and their better work has been on songs with traditional structures. I get why bands try new musical styles but ultimately this genre dumbs down all the music. Definitely liked it better on second listen though it drops off a bit.
Nanci Griffith
3/5
It's a sweet set of songs. Definitely at the pop end of country.
New Order
4/5
A really great bridge from new wave/post punkish Joy Division to what really became New Order and the use of sequencing/loops and techniques from the dance world to develop a different strand of indie music in the UK. The two down sides are the lyrics and Barney's dreadful voice. Which is a shame because this is a really good album otherwise.
Elliott Smith
4/5
Really lovely piece of work. Hadn't heard of him or his tragic story before.
Laibach
3/5
Some of the best German Industrial music ever created. I don't know whether it's maddening or musical though. But if you only listen to one German Industrial album, this is probably the one to listen to.
Barry Adamson
2/5
I have said before, I like that music has space for albums like this. I just think the conceit has been executed better by other instrumental albums.
The Byrds
4/5
Gentle, lovely sound and great harmonies. Ultimately a song or two light.
The Beach Boys
4/5
I wasn't totally sure what to expect but this is a really good album. All the use of harmonies you expect from them and with some rich songs and just a good listen.
Big shout out for 33m long albums too.
The The
4/5
I came to this album via Infected, which is a more polished album. The drum machine still grates a bit but the album itself stands up really well. Very much enjoyed going back to this.
Throbbing Gristle
1/5
It's completely legitimate to put Throbbing Gristle in this kind of list. I'm glad I listened to it. Genesis P Orridge was an auteur of some note.
It is, of course, absolute garbage and anyone who says they like it, or would buy it, or would listen to it more than once, is a fraud.
Small Faces
5/5
This is the most English album (and English, not British) probably ever made. Maybe only The Kinks could rival that. I don't expect anyone outside England to understand what the hell is going on with this - from the light pop of Lazy Sunday to the great Stanley Unwin.
It's delightful, bonkers and a pleasure to listen to. If you are English.
Faust
4/5
This isn't about the 1001 most listener friendly albums of all time. It's an anthology of music - how we got to where we are. Some things in the history of music sent it in different directions, influenced people that used sounds and bought them into the mainstream.
On that basis, this is absolutely the sort of thing that should be here. It's worth listening to.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
5/5
As with all Nick Cave I was a late adopter but this is a towering album with some magnificent songs.
Björk
2/5
Sound + warbling = art. I mean, write a tune Bjork.
Astrud Gilberto
2/5
Oh this is pleasant, nice sound, mmm samba. Sorry, can I squeeze past, this is my floor.
Common
2/5
It’s nice enough. But what’s the point in listening to it? It doesn’t break any new ground.
3/5
I enjoyed this in a mad "prog-it-was-the-70s-why-not?" kind of way.
Basement Jaxx
1/5
This sounds like the sort of terrible music played too loud in over-expensive bars I used to have to go to with friends back in my single days. I hated it then and hate it now.
Or it's just a set of incidental music stings from TV shows.
Either way, it's not something I'd care to listen to again.
Gram Parsons
4/5
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this as it’s not my genre of choice but this is a lovely album. Even the covers are rendered beautifully and the contrast of f the two voices is bliss
Hawkwind
1/5
This is a turgid mess of nothing in particular. My oh my it was hard work.
Tori Amos
5/5
This far in I can now calibrate the marks much more objectively. This is a wonderful, tuneful, fascinating album that deserves its place. It’s a great work.
Butthole Surfers
2/5
Not the greatest of albums but I guess had a place in the movement that had stronger bands like Pixies
Fairport Convention
4/5
As good as it gets for English folk.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
I like Neil Young but this is a bit of a rough rag bag of an album. Not one of his high points.
Van Morrison
2/5
It's not a great recording. His voice is not in great form. There's a load of cover versions. Other than that ...
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
Always been a gap between their high points - Tonight/1979 the latter of which is one of the great songs of all time IMHO - and their albums which I always thought could be a bit variable/stodgy. This is a good listen in retrospect but still not quite consistent enough.
Queen
3/5
Pretty decent album all round. They have such a fascinatingly unique sound. Short of a few songs but you can see where it's going.
Muddy Waters
4/5
You can trace so much music of the 60s and 70s back to Muddy Waters. It’s all here - the good kind of RnB.
De La Soul
5/5
One of the seminal rap/hip hop albums. Yes it’s sketchy at times and the vocals are surprisingly badly recorded and mixed. But it’s a piece of worlk that stands out.
Destiny's Child
2/5
An album I had time to listen to a few times today and it got curiously worse every time I listened to it. Once you get past the hits it's very lazy by numbers pop/RnB. Outro is terrible.
Eagles
5/5
It's one of those albums that is in popular culture because it is up there as a great piece of work. Musically interesting, good songs. I mean it's not going to start a revolution but everything has its place.
Gene Clark
2/5
I don't know but this sort of drifted past me. I didn't engage much with it. I might, given the story around it give it another go when I've got some time on my hands but at the moment it scores low. Maybe I'm like David Geffen.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
5/5
A mighty album of mad 80s pop, art and Trevor Horn. It still sprawls around and sounds like a moment in time.
CHVRCHES
2/5
I've always wondered why I never got into Chvrches and now I know. It's thin, vacuous synth indie pop.
Talking Heads
5/5
It's all loops and repetitive sections but each song still fascinates me. A kind of album that only a band can make. The freedom to make albums like this, and giving it a way to find an audience feels like something that's been lost a bit in music. This is a real piece of art.
Iron Maiden
5/5
Optimistically I would say that even if you find some of the metal albums in this project difficult this is very much at the listenable end. Proper songs, the right amount of screaming and musically interesting. They have kept going on the basis of being about the best that there is in this genre and this is as good a metal album as you will here.
Tracy Chapman
4/5
It is a good piece of work, very evocative of a time for me. Some great songs. Overall a little too background music at times but stands up well.
The Go-Go's
4/5
A bouncy fun new wave album that got me through US election results
Franz Ferdinand
1/5
Franz Ferdinand is everything I love from music - indie with discordant guitars.
Yet I absolutely hate it.
Trite lyrics, unnecessary tempo changes and the worst kind of root note oompah bass that makes me think the player never learned an instrument in his life.
I struggled through every awful, unlistenable song of this.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
I like Dexy's and I admire his inventiveness and sheer bloody mindedness but this isn't a great album.
Peter Gabriel
5/5
An experimental, fascinating album. Sounds really raw and loved it.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
I'm not by nature a Costello fan. He's got a great back catalogue of singles but I've never really managed his albums. This is good though - consistent, enjoyable, really nice production on it.
Simple Minds
5/5
Those coming to Simple Minds when they became a stadium rock band often don't know their roots as an influential and important part of the new wave electronica scene. Until this their albums were packed with instrumentals. This is really the bridge to their popular phase but I still really like the nods back to it with "someone up there likes you" and the more proggy/electronica tracks. I like this a lot. It's got depth.
Love
3/5
It's one of those albums that consistently gets plaudits but I can't really see past the first, of course brilliant, song. The rest of it plays out nicely without ever engaging.
OutKast
4/5
I was a bit nervous about this one but it deserves the accolades. A hip hop album of substance and texture. Not the perfect article but definitely stands out in that genre.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
It's a good album. Possibly a great album. But the "best of all time"?? Come on, that's nonsense and you know it's nonsense. I'm not trying to detract from the fact that this is a really good piece of work, but. "Come. On".
Lyrically groundbreaking sure, but musically quite safe. Some stand out songs but tonally and textually quite samey in between. The second track is almost a cover of the first track. Maybe intentionally, but it adds to the sense that it isn't breaking ground musically.
M.I.A.
1/5
I was going to give it 2 stars on the grounds that you can actually listen to it but halfway through I made my mind up. If just for the sheer audacity of being on this list it's not worthy of 2 stars but nobody can in all conscious listen to this all the way through without screaming into the void.
It's an album so transparent you can see straight through to the lazy drum machine programming that sits behind every tuneless yelp of this samey, boring, unmusical piece of rubbish.
Make it stop.
Erykah Badu
2/5
It's jazz, lounge, smooth, dinner party, background hum scat singing nothingness. As pleasant as you want it to be and no more.
Grateful Dead
2/5
Noodle noodle noodle.
I knew about the myth of the Dead long before I'd ever heard them and I was a bit surprised. It wasn't what I expected at all. It's fine, for them. For me it's just a bit aimless.
Fun fact - they played their first UK gig at a festival in a village on a farm behind my house a month before I was born.
Kraftwerk
3/5
Kraftwork were of course groundbreaking and incredibly influential. Making the most of a nascent technology and providing art in the widest sense. They were also, because of those constraints, pretty boring.
I can admire the art and the influence and still think this is pretty boring.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
4/5
Nobody sings like Janis.
Silver Jews
2/5
His biggest drawback is he can't sing. Lyrically pretty good but why not listen to Nick Cave instead?
I found it a bit tedious/flat/samey.
Animal Collective
1/5
It's the tribute band known as the Boring Beach Boys. At least to me.
Really really really tedious. Each song is one idea over and over and over. And each song is that same idea. An album of one idea. Over and over.
The Associates
2/5
I've always loved Party Fears Two, I quite like Country Club, I love new wave and this kind of era synth/pop/new wave. But this really grated over a whole album.
White Denim
4/5
A properly interesting, inventive, tuneful piece of work. I ended up listening to it a few times and will definitely do so again.
Tom Waits
4/5
It's a work of mad genius and luckily I had time for a few listens (it is a Sunday) so got past my immediate reaction and settled into it.
Ryan Adams
4/5
I really liked this. Ryan Adams is one of those artists I've never really engaged with. It's a good, consistent album.
Shivkumar Sharma
2/5
Soothing enough. Not really my thing but pleasant ambling background music.
Kate Bush
5/5
Some people in music got to the point in the year where they had to write an album and knuckled down and wrote enough songs. Bush from Hounds of Love onwards seems to have just absorbed herself and written symphonies. Whole album of texture and sound, of musical experimentation. One of the finest prog rock artists of all time.
I bought this in the autumn it came out and I'm listening to it here in November and it still screams cold, dark days and nights to me. A virtually perfect piece of work.
Hell this is good. It even has Mick Karn.
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
An album that by any normal means I should hate. Sparse, just basically drum machine and rap. But it's just got something that makes it maybe of its time but also very listenable. We all know it was influential and what it led to and it's still got a charm.
Lupe Fiasco
3/5
Enjoyable, musical hip hop album. It's churlish to say it but it's too long so it loses its way. I didn't fully immerse, but it chuntered away in the background just fine.
XTC
5/5
I bought this - not at the time but later - and listened to it enough that going back to it every song was surprisingly familiar. This project has also given me a much deeper regard for it. An album of originality, musical experimentation and a heap of good songs. Having two songwriters creates a great contrast too. This deserves to be here.
Fever Ray
3/5
This should have been my kryptonite but actually is a tuneful, interesting side of electronica that was a good listen.
10cc
2/5
I wanted to like this but it's a bit of a shambles really. I like 10cc, they are clearly having fun but this is very etherial. Maybe I need another listen or two.
Lou Reed
5/5
I liked this album a bit when I got it as a kid, I now think it is a great album. Maybe not perfect but up there as something that sounds great even now.
Iggy Pop
3/5
Sort of a Bowie album with someone else singing, kind of like Low but not quite ready. A set of songs that are not quite right but reflect a mood that led to other good/great music. I'm not a natural fan of Iggy's voice though, which doesn't help. You hear China Girl knowing the Bowie remake and that's the gap in talent between the two.
Randy Newman
3/5
A whimsical album with a couple of classics but not enough to grab attention over the whole record.
Brian Eno
4/5
The album that invented ambient as an art form and it's well worth a listen. A soothing balm that will definitely go onto my "bedtime" list. I've listened to a bit of ambient over the years some of it I like, some of it is screamingly affected by the desire to be atonal. This is definitely in the musical side of the genre.
It is what it is, and absolutely belongs in a list that tries to demonstrate the development of music in all forms.
The Stranglers
3/5
Probably more post punk than punk but songs, organ, attitude. Not an absolute classic but plenty to like in this. Peaches is a classic.
Calexico
3/5
Pleasant eclectic album with enough to maintain interest throughout.
Little Richard
5/5
This is the original source material, how it all started, one of a handful of pioneers that created what became rock and roll, and pop and all that came in and after it. It's almost the entire point of this exercise to look from beginning to now how music has been influenced and adapted by people.
It's Little Richard, it's Tutti Frutti. It is obviously constrained by its time and its limitations. An era where if you got a hit the record company would say "write that hit again". But here it is and here are we and I'm hand jiving.
The Yardbirds
3/5
It's one of those where I know the story of the Yardbirds and this is really their only studio album and it's Jeff Beck and all that but it's a fairly flat album without any stand out tracks, even the singles don't really punch through.
It's a curiosity and everyone should listen to it but it's ultimately not a classic.
Supergrass
4/5
A mixed bag but I think Gaz Coombes one of the more interesting of the britpop crowd. His solo albums are very good and show he has a good songwriting craft. Supergrass themselves were always moving around in their styles and though they wrote some great singles it's a bit hit and miss. Still, a good album though.
Fela Kuti
3/5
It's a jolly bounce and it's the source of Afrobeat. For that it gets a middling score. I wouldn't listen to it again.
Hanoi Rocks
2/5
I always wondered what Hanoi Rocks sounded like. They were one of those badges on the back of denim as a kid. It's kind of middling putative glam rock but the big problem is that, as it's their second language, the lyrics are painfully bad. Trite and obvious rhymes.
It's not great, but then not everything is.
2/5
Nice groove, nice sound but ultimately just a bit boring.
David Ackles
1/5
Um. Well. I'm not sure this is one I'd recommend bothering with. It's kind of crazy in its ambition and reasonably flat in its execution.
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
On another day I'd have found this excruciating but I had time, I was chilled out and I drifted through a musical experimentation with time signature and rhythm changes, mad psychedelic sections, babbling and enjoyed it. I think. I mean not enough that it changed my life but there's as strain of Zappa that changed the way people do music and that's OK. Maybe I've had a difficult week of albums this week, but I don't mind this at all.
Michael Jackson
4/5
This absolutely kicks in and I thought I was going to hear a masterpiece given I knew what was coming up. And it is certainly a piece of work, but in the end not "quite" consistent enough and tails off a bit. It has some outstanding tracks though, starting with that first song.
Bee Gees
1/5
It's amazing it's their 9th album and equally amazing that they made it to disco and some actual songs with this bland overblown easy listening bag of bones.
Circle Jerks
3/5
Just the sort of thing that can infuriate but why not. Some of these 14 songs have potential and whether they couldn’t be arsed or because they were making a statement isn’t the point. It’s what it is.
Afrika Bambaataa
2/5
As with some other albums, there's one thing being influential at the time and there is another thing being timeless. This has aged badly, and is a grating listen for that.
The Pogues
5/5
My cousin bought this back from University and played it to me - though it took me much longer to appreciate it as a work of broad genius. The songs are all episodic narratives, and tunes underpin the traditional Irish folk style. Others have tried but nobody has matched this.
I don't usually allow the extended versions but this has Rainy Night in Soho, which is a sublime piece of work of great great beauty.
Alice In Chains
3/5
Another one of those bands that was at the time the US and the UK were listening to different music and different artists. They never made it over in any meaningful way to the UK and this brand of grime/hardcore never took off.
Musically there's something about this metal adjacent music that is really interesting - it cracks off in 7/8 time and there's plenty going on. It's ultimately not really quite my thing but there's another world where I was in my 20s but in the USA not the UK and I'd have lapped it up.
Einstürzende Neubauten
2/5
Some Germans banging metal and shouting. Not everyone’s idea of music.
Metallica
3/5
Starts off with a great classic song but then feels like a very one tone album. They have a fast song and a slow song and the guitars always chug in the same rhythm and it's all very samey.
4/5
Remarkably I really enjoyed this. Again one of those US bands that passed me by but it’s a good consistent album. I was expecting to hate it but there’s a reason it sold so many copies.
Nightmares On Wax
1/5
Trip Hop is such a good genre of music but this isn’t that. It’s a lazy boring set of one idea songs. Just the same four bar repeat in each song and nothing happening. Maybe it passed for innovation in the 90s but it’s day one of playing with a DAW in the 2020s. Music can be this bland but it isn’t worth it.
Joan Armatrading
3/5
It's pleasant, but ephemeral. She writes ok songs, the odd great song and it's a nice album to listen to. But she's not breaking any ground. I don't think it's an artist anyone would feel they had to go back through their catalogue and immerse but it's fine.
Coldplay
4/5
I am one of those people that dunked on Coldplay. When I went to work in the UK music industry the cool boys that were in charge of the office stereo said that Coldplay produced several brilliant albums and I was confused. But they have a great set of songs. Clocks is a classic. This is a good album. Maybe not top draw brilliant but definitely up there.
Raekwon
1/5
This has not aged well at all. If indeed it was any good when it came out.
David Bowie
4/5
Bowie at this stage in his career managed to pull out timeless classic songs every album, whatever else was going on. This isn't his best, or indeed his most inventive, but it has some great songs and stands up pretty well.
Miles Davis
5/5
Trite to say it but if you listen to one jazz album listen to this one. It's the album that changed the genre, that influenced a hundred others. Lie back and just fall into it.
5/5
The 17 year old me, a firm early U2 fan was horrified by the sell out that was The Joshua Tree. The arrogance of youth. I still went to the Wembley concert. We played it for the first time in the common room of our 6th form for the rest of the school.
It stands up as one of the great rock and roll albums. Consistent, full of energy and, despite the moderation of the sound, plenty of righteous anger.
Neu!
3/5
A mix of instrumental and krautrock, a perfectly good album for doing what I was doing which was getting a mechanical massage.
The Only Ones
3/5
Enjoyable and very British take on New Wave/punk.
A Tribe Called Quest
3/5
It's sometimes hit and miss with the hip hop albums, particularly as many don't age well. This was a bit of both. Somehow quite mellow in the background but also somehow just not quite interesting enough.
Barry Adamson
3/5
It must be a 6 music favourite because curiously I knew a few of the tracks and wasn't expecting to. Pretty enjoyable though Miles was a bit pastiche.
Buck Owens
3/5
I enjoy this kind of album. Something I'd never ever pull out to listen to myself but gives a timeline of the history of music. Not my genre, not my cup of tea but worth listening to just for that.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
A haunting, beautiful album. One of his best works, and I will put this on my list for listening.
Merle Haggard
3/5
This benefited from a week in which I had another pioneer of the Bakersfield sound and this is much more the superior work. Not a country fan by any means but this had enough tempo and crossover to be a good listen.
Serge Gainsbourg
5/5
A fascinating piece of work. As soon as it started I recognised the trip hop influences. Really enjoyed this, will definitely listen again.
Hey, it's not the most modern storyline but lots of people here don't realise France didn't have an age of consent "at all" until recently and only then set it at 15 in 2001.
Sarah Vaughan
3/5
Genuinely never heard of her before, which surprised me. Lovely voice, standard songbook though. I know it's of its time to do the songbook but it is just lovely covers.
Foo Fighters
3/5
Disappointing really. Starts off with a tune but then it's a long set of tonally similar songs. All great energy, but not really that engaging.
Les Rythmes Digitales
3/5
A jaunty number for a Sunday morning. Not my usual thing but it was bright, and enjoyable.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
A lot more immersive, interesting and consistent than the other Hendrix album I listened to here. Some compelling rhythm section behind his obviously unique guitar style and plenty of songs.
New Order
3/5
I found this very patchy. New Order are always a bit hit and miss, but underneath it all were quite interesting and ground breaking, in many ways, but this fell a bit flat on me.
Neneh Cherry
2/5
Buffalo Stance is, unfortunately for Cherry, one of the great singles of the 80s. The rest of this album is half written, half made and half arsed.
Soft Cell
3/5
Generally fun, and was doing something at the edge of the technology at the time, for all it sounds like now. A bit patchy in places but does have three songs that have stood up really well - or maybe that's just because they are very evocative for me.
Not a high scorer, but not a dud either.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
3/5
On the one hand this is an oddity, a mess and hard to place. On the other, it's a wonder to listen to and one of the reasons for being here. I don't know whether this is influential, well known or just "hey, listen to this - it's very off beam".
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
I found the last Pet Shop Boys album I did on this project very difficult. It was so single paced pop that it started to slightly drive me mad. This is a different prospect. The pop is uplifting, there's more variation - though of course they have a sound and it's not instrumentally going to break any boundaries.
Some good songs, generally a lot of fun.
Scritti Politti
5/5
An album that might only work if you were a teenager getting into pop in the mid 1980s with a copy of this that you listened to constantly. Luckily, I'm in that very narrow demographic and have a long affection for this. As 80s as a production can get, with Fairlight and big drum sound and that clean clean production that I kind of miss.
I'm not able to give an objective reveiw of this I'm afraid. It's as familiar to me as an album gets and I think, personally, incredibly strong and consistent set of songs.
Suicide
3/5
Mad punk electro that has its place in time and here. I kind of liked it in a tortured new wave way. Though I picked up my 10-year-old from school just as Frankie Teardrop reached its screaming middle:
My boy getting in the car: "why are you listening to this".
Me: "because I have to".
John Lee Hooker
3/5
I guess the purists will hate it for the collaborations and for the lack of authentic Hooker. The casual listener in me enjoyed it. I guess I know enough of early Hooker to see where it is coming from and probably I'd prefer the authentic to this.
The Waterboys
4/5
I think This Is The Sea is their magnum opus and had a niggle that I didn't like this at the time - too much violin. We also covered Fisherman's Blues and I used to drum one handed whilst smoking with the other as I found it so boring.
Now, listening back, I'm really drawn in. I think he's a very good songwriter. I'm a sucker for the production at that time and the drums really ring. I like this a lot.
U2
5/5
Just a great album. Anger, sound, and the swagger of youth. They made few better albums and this was the last of their raw, unproduced sound. I listened to this about 8 times yesterday for old time's sake.
As an aside, there are actual bass lines on early U2 rather than du du du du root notes.
CHIC
4/5
Tricky one this. On the one hand it's one of the great bands of disco, on the other hand it's a bit tedious and the lyrics are banal. There's so much to admire about Chic but there's a sense that an album of it is listening in the wrong way. It's for on the floor.
Rahul Dev Burman
2/5
It’s not my kind of thing. A bit obvious and a bit easy. I listened through it 5 times - it was a weekend and I had time. And nope, nothing to see here.
Wire
4/5
I knew Elastica ripped Wire off so had heard a few songs. This is a great example of early new wave and you can tell the influence that comes from it. Definitely worth a listen.
TV On The Radio
3/5
A curiosity and an interesting album. Lacked enough real songs to be a classic but had enough originality to be well worth a listen.
Big Black
4/5
I did not know about Steve Albini's prior life as a punk rock singer/guitarist. I also haven't heard punk with a drum machine. This is ace, though of course crazy and of its time.
Mekons
4/5
Weird, unique, crazy and yet listenable. People need to make this kind of stuff or we will all go mad.
Fatboy Slim
4/5
Enjoyable dance music - Fatboy Slim realised you could still structure "songs" with texture and melody even if it's electronic and dance.
The Beach Boys
5/5
I think it’s clear that the best albums stick out and the best songs. I was prepared to be a bit churlish but this is as good as it gets.
Richard Hawley
4/5
A gentle and beautiful piece of work.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
3/5
Always a fan of new wave and the early UK synth pop movement. Some ups and downs but a great couple of songs too.
Supertramp
4/5
One of those bands that I've never been completely sure who they were. I assumed American rather than British. Dreamer I knew, but I didn't know what else to expect.
Solid prog influenced sound and a good set of songs. I liked this, though it's of its time and place, why not have a bit of dad rock.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
3/5
Mad, fun over the top and perfectly enjoyable
Guided By Voices
3/5
This has a lot of snippets of things that could really go somewhere. I know it's the vibe they are looking for but I don't know whether this is brilliant work in progress or just a bit lazy. It's listenable though. And it is what it is.
Talking Heads
5/5
77 is probably the Talking Heads album I know least. They used to play Slippery People at the local clubs when I was a teenager but the band themselves were not well known in the UK. I started with the mid era/later era albums which were a more fully developed sound/production but the early stuff really is good. Quirky, musical, different to everything else. Talking Heads are one of those bands that really stand out when you look back at music.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
Good natured rock and roll with a country influence. Songs, chugs along nicely and as good as this genre gets.
John Lennon
5/5
Always a bit nervous when I come across Lennon solo work. It could have sublime songs, it could sound like he threw it together in a morning and didn't quite finish it. This is more towards the first and a pretty complete piece of work.
Mj Cole
1/5
Good grief this is a tedious piece of one paced light entertainment.
Funkadelic
5/5
Epic. An outstanding blast in the ears.
Iron Maiden
4/5
If you want some metal get some Maiden. But this doesn’t quite feel like their best.
AC/DC
4/5
The metal greats with the last Bonham album. It was different with him, but the fundamentals remain. Probably not quite the full album of Back to Black but it’s got some punch.
Randy Newman
2/5
A pleasant and totally unremarkable piece of work. I listened a few times without once being captured at any point.
SAULT
3/5
I went into this with an element of trepidation. Identity politics and RnB sounded like a catastrophic mix.
However, this is a good album - not spectacular but very enjoyable. The sound is much more like a trip hop end of RnB and it floats on nicely.
Kanye West
4/5
A masterful piece of work.
He's a terrible man mind.
Sly & The Family Stone
3/5
I don't know about this, which might reflect the reception of the album itself. It's interesting, has a bona fide classic song on it and the use of a drum machine is pioneering and fascinating (to this drummer). But it's also a bit lifeless at times.
I think it's an album that needs time, and immersement.
Gary Numan
4/5
Some great finds in this - some fantastic fretless bass, a proper drummer and clearly influential in new wave/synth. Still not quite consistent, not quite a whole package of songs. But definitely worth listening to and definitely a moment in time in music.
Le Tigre
4/5
This bounces along with some proper post punk energy.
Lightning Bolt
2/5
"It will certainly wake you up in the morning" as Gordon Brown said of the Arctic Monkeys.
It's fine, quite needed it, but only the once.
Neil Young
5/5
One of those albums I didn't know until middle age, which is probably about when you should start listening to Neil Young. One of the albums that just stands above others.
Billy Bragg
4/5
I know every note and tone of this piece of work. A time of teenage political awakening. England in the 1980s in an industrial city that was falling apart, an angry punk poet with a guitar and I made a tape of the first two albums for my pal and between us we became the school Bragg fans.
There's a point in time where I had seen Billy Bragg live more than any other artist. I saw him on this tour and still have the t-shirt. As time went on he did the Wilco stuff, put out decreasingly interesting albums and lost his way politically.
It's as English as it gets, it's raw and it's probably baffling to any non UK audiences. But it is there in my own history of music and here it is.
Johnny Cash
5/5
I had San Quentin but have never listened to Fulsom before. In some ways it's more raw, and the combination of songs and crowd is really powerful.
I've marked down live albums here a few times because they don't offer anything extra but this is about the whole combination and experience and it's an incredible moment to have preserved.
Jamiroquai
3/5
There's some definite positives - some great songs, plenty of energy. But overall I think it's just a bit one toned for my liking.
Brian Eno
5/5
This really was one of the finds of the project. I loved this sort of stuff in my teenage listening years and never came across this. Eno is such an important figure in music. Though it's not a spectacular, or breathtaking album, it will get full marks just for being there and being part of an extraordinary era of music which Eno was fundamental to. From Bowie to Talking Heads to U2.
The Smiths
5/5
It’s the favourite album of Morrissey and Marr of these and who am I to argue? It’s probably not got the absolute stand out tracks of some of the other albums but it’s very consistent. A subtile break with their sound but all the essentials. It’s also the only Smiths album I bought at the Time and I remember exactly where I was when I played it at a party after buying it.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
I have never quite been a Costello fan, though he had many great singles I couldn't quite get into any of his albums. I know I either had this or listened to it a lot at the time and I think it has, again, some of his best songs. Tokyo Storm Warning & I Want You in particular.
I have so much more context about what is good and bad and average in the albums to listen to that I'm confident now to say that this is a good album.
Bob Dylan
5/5
This is the first time I've felt I am really into a whole Dylan album. This is a great set of songs, obviously some of the great lyrics of the rock and roll era and really consistent.
This is the very definition of a great album.
The Thrills
3/5
Bobs along in a jolly way with some fine singles then kind of runs out of steam. I think if I listened to it more than once I'd find it quite annoying.
Billy Joel
5/5
Put a load of songs together, play it with a band that swings and sell 10m records. It's that simple.
Kings of Leon
3/5
With this I thought about whether I would actually want to listen to it over and over again. I had this album but I suspect the answer is "no". It's got a few great songs and I sort of like the sound but ultimately it's just not quite good enough to bring me back to it.
MC Solaar
4/5
The only French rap I have or need to listen to. This is great, I'm sure it doesn't get much better than this.
Happy Mondays
4/5
I don't know whether I would have payed much attention to this after first listen if it hadn't been for Pills n Thrills, which is a groundbreaking UK indie album. I wasn't grabbed by this, it seemed a bit of a shambles and the original production was "terrible". Though the remix is slightly better it's still far too reverbed and sparce. This could have been so much better with decent production.
But it is a great album, it's got all the groundwork of Pills without the polish. They were a band fusing dance and indie and guitars and attitude and they had a singer that sounds like a rock singer but has the most incredible way with words. The late 80s/early 90s golden era of British indie was my university days and this band were absoultely pivotal to that.
It was, though, one of those albums that when it came up I thought "the Yanks are going to absolutely hate this" so British and so of a moment this is.
Oh, and Wrote for Luck is one of the greatest songs ever released and on the back of this The Mondays came out with Hallelujah. Double Double good.
Peter Gabriel
4/5
Fascinating mixture. I am sure I've listened before but probably not with quite the attentiveness of this listen. It's musically interesting and the songs are absorbing if not quite hitting the catchy high of Solsbury Hill on the rest of the album. Still very proggy.
It's interesting that post Genesis both parts of the band learned how to write pop songs.
Yet another Fripp collaboration. That man's a genius.
The Beach Boys
3/5
It's ludicrously hubristic to not like the Beach Boys, but I think I don't like the Beach Boys. Sure, they have catchy songs that have been around us for decades, a beautiful way with harmony and still, it's just not easy to listen to.
I can recognise their craft and not put them in the unlistenable categories but I can't really give them more than bang average.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
4/5
A beautiful piece of work, and having four songwriters (and singers) means that the tone and the sound shifts throughout.
Sister Sledge
4/5
Some of the greatest pop. Thinking of you is an absolute classic. But my oh my those boys couldn't write lyrics could they?
Morrissey
2/5
It's such a disappointment to listen to Morrissey solo albums. The lyrics are still usually above par but the music is so pedestrian.
Gil Scott-Heron
3/5
It's a bit laid back jazzy to captivate my ears. Though perfectly nice groove there's also a bit too much jazz flute. Extra mark for The Bottle though.
Elis Regina
3/5
As a compilation it moves from some great early stuff into some more pedestrian pop which is a shame because it starts off with a bang.
Finley Quaye
2/5
It's one of those albums that is perfectly fine as far as it goes but feels like it's been a bit over-promoted by being on this list. I don't feel it has moved music on enough to be in that category nor is it stand out enough to survive on its own.
Roxy Music
3/5
Mixed bag this. Definitely an important album with new wave roots and influence on the British arty music scene. But also a hit patchy on songs. Which ultimately is the point.
2/5
1 point for the song titles
1 point for the attitude
Do what you do guys.
Judas Priest
3/5
Bit of proper old school British Metal. Nothing unexpected and nothing to argue with here.
Bill Callahan
3/5
It's a lovely album. Probably not massively in my area or completely captivating but very nice to listen to and I'm not ruling out giving it another go.
Suede
5/5
It’s a great album which is definitely their high point and one of the highs of britpop. I think of a time for me and us Brits. But I appreciate this more than I did at the time and definitely more in the context of this project and the competition.
R.E.M.
4/5
My R.E.M not quite getting it issue continues. I like this album I don’t love it. It’s obviously a really good album though.
Also bad news that Buck found a mandolin. Ruined that band for good.
Public Enemy
5/5
A blast of energy and attitude. One of the great albums and certainly a milestone of the genre.
Radiohead
2/5
Every time I listen to an album from Radiohead like Amnesiac I get angry at what they were and what they turned into. This self-indulgent experimental rock/electronic with falsetto meanderings that doesn't have any melody. Yorke just twittering across a "soundscape". This band made OK Computer then thought that gave them the licence to loop white noise for 4 albums.
Get a grip lads. You used to be able to knock out world class songs.
Kanye West
2/5
Not my cup of tea. I get that it's supposed to be sparse, but as a result it doesn't have anything to grab attention.
Ananda Shankar
2/5
I preface my remarks by saying I don't like the sitar anyway, but this is just lobby music.
Cee Lo Green
2/5
This is a big nothingburger. Lots of aimless 4/4 beat songs with something happening over them.
Joy Division
3/5
More raw and less melodic - if that’s possible - than the first album. Quite a difficult listen but not a terrible album.
The Undertones
3/5
Bubbly fun and easy on the ear but ultimately ephemeral.
Blood, Sweat & Tears
3/5
Something a bit different, something to lighten the mood. Tight and musical. Not one for the ages but not bad.
The Pogues
5/5
Raucous, lyrically brilliant, fun and always joyous. There was just something very fun about the Pogues.
Gang Starr
3/5
Nice daisy age style hip hop. A good listen, but not something that will stick with me.
Queen
4/5
This album reminded me that in the 70s Queen were seen as part of the metal movement and having a Queen badge on the back of your denims was not seen as odd. There's variety here, obviously a couple of absolutely stand out songs.
I still don't quite love Queen enough to give them the full 5. They were right to be annoyed about the car song too.
Patti Smith
5/5
Raw poetry to punk. It's an important album.
Nas
4/5
The greatest hip hop album of all time but I've never heard it, or him. It's a raw example of a decade where we Brits were just listening to very different music to America. Even then, I'm amazed I haven't come across it before.
It's a fine example of hip hop. I can see why it gets the plaudits. Something just a bit higher level about the way it all fits together.
Public Enemy
3/5
I can't hate Public Enemy, they are one of the most vital bands in music generally never mind Hip Hop specifically. But this doesn't have the full on pull that they have at their finest. It's definitely worth a listen but I think it's not something I need to hear again.
Digital Underground
2/5
Three US Hip Hop albums in a row and severe diminishing marginal returns. The luck of the draw means I can listen to this in the context of Public Enemy and Nas and comparatively this is thin fare indeed.
The Chemical Brothers
3/5
I enjoyed this in a banging British block rocking beats way. Not my thing, by any stretch, and I'm not going to listen to it again, but it's part of a British musical movement that is worth noting.
Crowded House
4/5
Bright and lovely piece of work. Never going to move from safe but nevertheless comforting.
Paul McCartney and Wings
5/5
I have listened before but not attentively and I tried after the first listen to "forget he was in the Beatles" because this is a long way from that kind of music. By a couple of listens I started to give it proper credit as a good pop album. There's some really interesting stuff and ends on a great song.
Cheap Trick
2/5
I think the cultural significance of this is lost on me, as it sounds no better than a pub rock band running through some average songs.
Koffi Olomide
2/5
One of those albums that listening to in the sunshine, drink in hand, dancing away in a crowd might be fun. In the cold light of day it's bright, breezy but boring.
The Monkees
3/5
Some moments, jumps around the genres a bit as you would expect from several different songwriters and singers. Sits as an important cultural artifact without being one that stands up to much repeat attention. A good album and an interesting album. The story of the Monkees is worth anyone's time if you are interested in music and popular culture of the 60s.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
I don't know whether there is much point to this. It's easy listening, it's of its time and it's for a different generation to me. Sure he could sing but this is not rock and roll.
Pantera
3/5
No knowledge of this band at all. Good melodic thrash metal.
The Black Crowes
3/5
I listened in the car in the channel tunnel whilst trying to have some sleep. No song woke me up, and it all trundled into each other. A bland mid rock album of middling songs.
Little Simz
3/5
Pleasant enough listen but it's not for me.
Holger Czukay
4/5
After a run of so so albums it's refreshing to hear something different and experimental.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
I don't dislike MBV, but I can't see through this to where the music is.
The Everly Brothers
3/5
Jolly album, of its time and finishing with one of the great songs of all time.
Beyoncé
4/5
I think this is a proper album. A body of work, a project. It's not a set of pop songs with a load of filler. It's not my scene but it is something worth listening to as an album.
Pavement
3/5
One of those albums I'm not sure about because it was in an era when we were just listening to different stuff in the UK. Though the counterpoint is that this charted here but not in the USA.
It starts slow, hits a few tunes in the middle then tails off.
I don't know, I think I would have possibly liked this if it was one of "my" albums at the time.
John Coltrane
3/5
This is, so it says, one of the seminal works of jazz. I can listen to it, admire it a bit, and still feel like I'm not quite getting the point.
I'm not going to dunk on Coltrane's masterpiece, but jazz is definitely not for me.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
5/5
A timeless masterpiece. Lyrically and musically sounds as good as when I first heard it. Not a single duff track and several that I'd say are classics. One of the great albums.
The Zombies
5/5
One of those albums I'd listened to before because of reading it was an all time great. It's a delightful listen and on the strength of all the (over 900) albums I've listened to in this project , it is one of the best.
Fugazi
3/5
One of those bands at the start of the UK/USA schism in music so absolutely new to me. I like the sound, the energy and the attitude but it's slightly short on the songs.
Red Snapper
3/5
A gentle jazzy album to soundtrack my daily work. Perfectly good for that reason, not sure I'd will and urge people to repeat my experience though.
Slint
2/5
Another influential album, another quirky experience but this is all form and no finesse. Much as I like hearing some time signatures doing the work, it can't be the only thing.
Big Star
4/5
Another album that is of note that I’d never heard of but clearly has an importance in the development of American rock music. Very enjoyable. I might come back to this one.
Johnny Cash
5/5
This is the live from prison I have, and so know it well. It's a shame there are two live from prison albums on this list - I've had Folsome - but I'd acknowledge both are powerful. His end of career threw up some really interesting albums and listening to the same vibe twice isn't as interesting as hearing a bit more of the texture of Cash's career.
But, hey, it's a classic.
Nitin Sawhney
1/5
Successfully melting together all of the worst genres of music with some childish whining over the top. Risible.
Good grief I’ve got to ‘The Conference’ which is basically the Ying Tong song. This can’t finish soon enough for me.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
1/5
Interesting to listen to but really not my sort of thing at all.
Aerosmith
4/5
I've had a run of critically acclaimed and influential albums in the last week including math rock and religious songs. I've had some artistic and culturally diverse albums in that mix. It's been, frankly, a struggle.
Then along comes this.
An up and down mainstream rock album with some guitars and some songs and it was a timely reminder that music doesn't have to be clever or influential or complex or arty. Sometimes it just has to be simple and superficial. I enjoyed this a lot. Probably as a result of where it was placed in my feed of albums but so what. Don't think too hard, just enjoy it.
Blondie
5/5
Thumping new wave with disco influence and yet another classic album that Robert Fripp has turned up to offer a bit of texture to. What's not to like?
Tim Buckley
3/5
Gentle, enjoyable, tuneful, wistful, forgettable. I quite liked it but this stuff is done better by others.
The Verve
4/5
It should have been a band in my wheelhouse but never made it. They have the right basics and that period in Britpop that I was immersed in. But for some reason I couldn't quite get into them. Of course Bittersweet is a classic, and Drugs Don't Work a great song but overall it's not quite enough.
The Mothers Of Invention
4/5
After listening to over 900 albums on 900 days, it's a bit refreshing to listen to someone just doing something a bit different. Here's to Zappa.
Neil Young
4/5
I like Neil Young - not an artist I had any background in until the last decade this is my first listen to this album and I think I'll go back to this. None of the well known hits but plenty to enjoy.
The Boo Radleys
4/5
A much more interesting album than I expected. I might try and listen to this a bit.
Ice Cube
2/5
I thought this was a bit uninspiring all over. Not the best and certainly dated.
Tricky
4/5
Trip hop was a momentary scene but produced some great music. This lilts along like a lullaby.
Boston
4/5
Shameless pop rock and one of the pioneers. Come on, you enjoyed it.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
I'm aware from the reviews I should have concentrated harder on the lyrics, but musically this isn't very engaging. I've never quite loved the Manics, though they actually have a pretty good catalogue of songs from their career. This though doesn't even have that. It's probably worth another go at some point.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
If you like Salsa this is the pre-eminent example of the genre. Uplifting tunes, tuneful horns and that driving beat .
I do not like Salsa.
Ryan Adams
3/5
It’s a nice album. Pleasant and I have no up and down to say on it. Maybe I would like if I had it on rotation.
Paul McCartney
4/5
Fascinating album of pieces that in the main were obviously being prepared for The Beatles. This is the first time I’ve listened and there are some great songs and a captivating DIY to it all.
Dusty Springfield
4/5
Such a lovely voice and I love the very 50s feel of it all. I love it whilst recognising that it's also a set of covers, which I know was of the time. I don't know though, the more I listen the more I think this is just something to enjoy.
Fiona Apple
3/5
A simple categorisation in this list is the difference between albums purely set out to entertain and those set out to create art. This is one of the latter - an attempt to do something different. Sometimes those approaches work (Kate Bush) sometimes it sounds a bit like this - a germ of ideas but not compelling enough an execution. I liked this but I just can't imagine listening to it.
The Police
5/5
After nearly a thousand albums there is an obvious boot when an album of such essential worth is played. I would put every bit of this is on a level above most of the albums I’ve listened to.
The songs are so good. The musicianship sublime. This is an album.
Air
5/5
The warm blanket of an album from a time in my life of great enjoyment and no responsibilities. Sure it's a bit hackneyed now but it's still just a wistful soundtrack to nothing in particular and I like it.
Ahhh "Ce matin là", it certainly is.
Ramones
5/5
So this is where it all began. Blitzkreig Bop still sounds great. This is raw fun.
I saw two punk bands yesterday after listening to this. They didn’t have any songs. All the best music has songs, not just a sound
Malcolm McLaren
3/5
A curiosity and overall a bit of a mess but something interesting in it, which is always the way with Trevor Horn. I think it may have been more impactful at the time but in retrospect lacks a bit of cohesion.
James Taylor
2/5
This is too wet for me.
Beth Orton
3/5
It's a really nice sound, it's a really nice mood, it just never goes anywhere. What's wrong with modern music's antipathy towards chorus?
Megadeth
4/5
If you want to listen to complex rhythms, changing time signatures and top class guitar playing, I've learned that really thrash metal is the place to go. Everything is sonically more interesting than a lot of the things I've heard here. Plus the thrash metal fans just seem to be having a lot more fun.
Fleet Foxes
2/5
It's a nice album with great harmonies and a lovely sound but I can't imagine wanting to listen to it.
LL Cool J
2/5
I didn't engage with this at all, it was just a procession of plain vanilla rap songs. Maybe the content was absorbing but the sound wasn't.
Dolly Parton
3/5
Sort of beautiful but also sort of the world's most talented karaoke troupe.
The Doors
5/5
After a long period of dunking on The Doors, I have to eat a bit of 'umble pie and recognise that in the context of all the albums I've listened to this is a fine piece of work. It has some bona fide classics and then ends with the haunting "The End".
Living Colour
3/5
More evidence that metal bands have some of the most interesting music. Lacks a bit of a hook here and there though.
Buena Vista Social Club
3/5
A pleasing piece of background music but probably not worthy of all the hype and adoration around it. I think I probably bought it at the time but like now, I can kind of appreciate it without being bowled over.
Beck
4/5
I am very much into the Sea Change type Beck. There’s no particular reason why I should prefer this to other more gentle acoustic offering but I think there’s something about how he structures songs that appeals ro me. I hadn’t heard this before but I did listen to Morning Phase a lot.
ZZ Top
3/5
One of those that reminds of an era. Some classic 80s chart tracks and a certain blues groove. But ultimately a bit throw away and the drum machines sometimes grate with this kind of overlay.
Alice Cooper
3/5
A lot more interesting and wacky than I expected- as others have noted. Not sure it quite hangs together but nevertheless refreshingly bonkers
Gene Clark
2/5
This sort of drifted by without leaving an impression. I listened a couple of times but couldn’t connect with any of it.
Talvin Singh
2/5
One of the worst decisions of the Mercury Panel. So desperate so seem "ooh soooo edgy" and up to date with the kids that this fairly mundane album wins. It wasn't a vintage year, looking at the shortlist, but nobody is going to go back to this.
Drab, monotonous and without any kind of light and shade.
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
A wild ride in early post punk, almost industrial at times. I quite enjoyed it without thinking it was something I would be hooked into.
Taylor Swift
5/5
This is what a pop record should sound like. Incredibly high standards across the whole album, bona fide sing along bangers, great production.
T. Rex
5/5
Really enjoyed this, solid and consistent. A great sound and some great songs that still stand up. One of those influential albums that deserves it.
Duke Ellington
4/5
I've been a bit up and down on jazz but I am a bit attracted to big band and this is the sort of thing I'd be happy to be jangling away in the background.
The Band
3/5
On the one hand it has an all time classic song. On the other hand it’s a fairly unremarkable set of songs. I can see how it might have been a thing, and how it endures. But ultimately it’s not for me.
5/5
One of those albums that I had to listen to a few times to get my head around. I didn't know it at all, or the background to Randy California. It's a really good, interesting album full of tunes and sound. I have been a bit mean on marking with a lot of stuff on this project and I think this is something that really deserves listening to.
Richard Thompson
2/5
Unfortunately this started out very much at the Hey Nonny Nonny end of folk. Which immediately makes my ears roll. The sound is very good - feels like it could have been made 20 years after it was. But the songs are of a style that I just can't get into.
2/5
Nothing remarkable here. Sometimes just the same lame four bar repeat with nothing in particular happening above it. It happened to be quite good for what I was doing whilst listening - walking around a city. But it's wine bar music, and of no great importance.
The Fall
4/5
994 albums into this project I get the Fall. And because I'm 994 albums in I finally 'get' The Fall. In a world of many albums of bland, meandering lack of purpose, every so often you need a kick in the stomach from music.
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
I loved this. Something about the Bunnymen always appealed and out of the singles there’s a brash new wave indie album with plenty of variety and texture. I’m nearing the end so a bit more generous but this is a good album.
Metallica
3/5
From a musical point of view this, like a lot of the metal albums on this list, was a fascinating listen. Time signatures, variety of theme, musicianship etc. But it just lacked enough cohesion in the songs to keep me interested. Ultimately it just lacked a few songs.
Django Django
4/5
This bounced along nicely. Really like it.
Talk Talk
5/5
A lovely album of texture and tone and some singles peeking out of the ambience. I think I really like this album.
Solange
1/5
A classic of the genre "albums without any songs". It feels like everything was built in a studio with layering "sounds" then singing "something over the top". I'm sure it's all very punchy social comment, but it's not music to listen to.
Anita Baker
2/5
Sweet Love is a great song, lovely opener and the only thing of note on this run of the mill soul album that descends into scatting and aimless warbling. It's all a pretty sound but it's short of any depth
5/5
An absolute masterpiece in bombastic 80s pop. Listening back to the clean production, the early Fairlight and bass lines that you can just hear Trevor Horn's developing sound that became Frankie etc. British pop at its finest, and some great songs that still stand up.
Pink Floyd
5/5
An album in a world of songs put back to back on a list. An arc of music in a world of squiggly lines. It’s magnificent, still. And the title track is one of the greatest songs of all time.
Prog rock artists that remembered to write songs made albums that stand above the rest. It’s such a joy to go back to this album, as I often do.
Super Furry Animals
4/5
A pretty upbeat, fun, melodic album that I'd definitely go back to.
The Electric Prunes
2/5
I'm not sure I gained much from this. It's so-so psychedelic rock.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
This starts with two absolute classics then slowly fades away. In a different mood or a different album this would be an album I might have stuck with but ultimately it's not quite consistent enough.
Eurythmics
4/5
A aparece electronic pop album which really focuses the ears on Annie Lennox’ extraordinary voice.
The Kinks
4/5
As English as cricket and cream tea. Such a good band with so many good songs. But this isn't quite the complete article.
Kings of Leon
4/5
A good, consistent rock album with some great songs and no pretences of trying to do anything different.
The Cardigans
3/5
I wanted to like this, and I think a lot of Cardigans sounds good but apart from the big single this struggled a bit. Musically really interesting but not quite consistent.
Stan Getz
3/5
It's a lovely sound, but it's a boring album. I can happily relate to its importance and the role it has in Brazilian music and indeed jazz. It's just not for me.
Ali Farka Touré
2/5
The sort of album a certain type of person buys to show how intellectual they are.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
4/5
I remember vividly the day I bought this on cassette, got it home to listen to it and thought "what the fuck is this". The poppy distortion singles were only dipping their toe in the distortion. In those days, when an album was a month's pocket money, I had to give them a bit of a go. So I kind of forced my way into it.
This, in retrospect, is a great album. A complete oral barrage overlaying a host of melodic songs. I know it won't be for all tastes but place it against a lot of the stuff in this project and it stands out. For all the reasons that people also hate it, I understand that.
The Byrds
2/5
This was a very plodding plinky plonk country album. Not for the likes of me.
The Soft Boys
3/5
More from the fascinating era of new wave experimentation in the UK. Punk receding, New Romantics on the horizon.
Another record where the liner notes take me on a fascinating journey. Matthew Seligman I know from Thomas Dolby work and its quite a career. Robyn Hitchcock of course I know but not from this. Then the links from the two all over the place. Then Rew wrote Going Down to Liverpool, Walking on Sunshine and a Eurovision winner.
Music sometimes is one big family.
Not a bad record either.
Moby Grape
2/5
Sort of plodded along without any stand out tracks.
Rod Stewart
4/5
It’s Rod at his finest and the blues sounded blue.
Traffic
4/5
I will now search a Steve Winwood documentary as he has had an absolutely fascinating career. Weaving in and out of music genres and playing with some fine bands.
This was interesting, quirky, listenable. I need more of this sort of music in my life.
Common
2/5
So long, so pointless. I suppose if the artistic process behind the music is setting up a drum machine and some vague keyboard sounds you can pump out over an hour of music reasonably quickly. Every so often something sounded pleasant because the sample was interesting but mainly it was turgid.
Bebel Gilberto
3/5
An album that chuntered nicely in the background as I drove around without doing anything to engage me further. Drifted by, perfectly pleasantly but without any great revelation.
Youssou N'Dour
3/5
Quite an interesting album, but not one for me.
Wilco
4/5
One of those bands I've never quite got into, but this is a really good album. Fine sound, fine set of songs.
Sparks
4/5
A quirky and eclectic take on glam rock by a band that have deserved their place in the list.
The Stooges
4/5
It's a seminal album, it's worth a listen or three, and whilst some of it resonates today, the bits that don't influenced a whole host of things
Traffic
3/5
One of those so so albums which may have been a moment or fill a timeline but given Winwood’s career before and after doesn’t feel particularly remarkable.
Ash
3/5
Some good singles and I'd like to like this more but apart from the hits it's a bit flat and samey.
Beck
3/5
I really like Beck but this is one of his least interesting albums. Though he still writes songs even here, it’s sort of dragged down by the backing tracks.
PJ Harvey
4/5
Definitely early PJ Harvey over her later works. This is a raw, energetic album that I may go back to and give more time to
Meat Puppets
3/5
Not something I ever knew existed, even the Nirvana connection. It’s quirky, kind of interesting, slightly tuneless singing at times and OK as a cult thing .
Stevie Wonder
5/5
It's Stevie's best period, he's 15 albums in and he starts to write really good songs. This is a great album, with some classic songs.
Genesis
5/5
I was given some early Genesis to listen to as a kid by a friend of my dad's and didn't really take to it. I had Duke though and loved it. Now I go back to it, there's really something fantastic about this, about prog rock and its commitment to form, shape, substance. The concept story aside, this is a fascinating piece of work and I'd definitely listen again.
Yes
3/5
I've had a bit of a week of prog and this doesn't quite come up to the standard of the Genesis album yesterday. I enjoyed this but I don't think it's a keeper.
Electric Light Orchestra
3/5
Some sparkle but its length ultimately defeats it as it rambles a bit at times.
Fairport Convention
5/5
Not particularly my thing but if you are going to understand music you have to admit this is the seminal modern English folk album.
The Sonics
2/5
So a seminal garage rock/punk album that has a certain something as he yells over, mainly, a set of covers. I can understand the sound was influential but I’d be much more generous if it was originals.
Radiohead
4/5
This sits nicely in the pocket between the Radiohead of sublime songs and that of the white noise atonal Radiohead that can disappoint. I thought this was stronger going back to it and in the context of all the other albums here than I'd remembered. Some very high points and I think I should give this a good reappraisal.
The Residents
1/5
A bit of a high school prank of an album and there is much better music that is avaunt guard on this list.
N.E.R.D
3/5
I was blithely unaware of Pharrell Williams for a long time. This is a good, funk backed rap album but it’s not got enough stand out for me.
k.d. lang
3/5
This is undeniably beautiful but so bland it needs a lot of chilli sauce with it.
Constant Craving is a banger of course.
The Clash
5/5
The first few bars of London Calling are amongst the best in rock/pop music history. Everything about this album is absorbing. The switches in influence, bass lines that have been sampled, even an iconic album cover.
To call this punk misses everything about it. A band in West London taking on all the musical influences around them and producing a double album where there is barely a weakness.
Heaven 17
2/5
This was a bit of a struggle. It's dated horribly and as the article explains, it wasn't even that popular in the first place.
Madonna
5/5
Ok she paid William Orbit to come up with it but it is my favourite album of hers . A real musical shift and a consistent quality.
Elvis Costello
3/5
I thought this a bit uninspiring. Fairly plain 12 bar blues and rock and roll pastiche.
The Stooges
3/5
An album I have to listen to quickly in one go on holiday that I read deserves a lot more than that. So I don't know what to think. It's interesting, and it's got a raw sound but I can't quite feel the full force that it clearly made.
I'll give it another go later ...
The Velvet Underground
3/5
A vital band but this isn’t the best album of the velvet underground nor of its major constituent parts.
Shack
2/5
Like a lot of others here I’ve never heard of this band and I feel I’m very literate about UK music in this period. However I do know The Pale Fountains so get the genesis.
It’s just an Ok album. Which is probably why it’s not revered now or considered of note. I like it without thinking it’s as good as, say, Doves from a similar genre.
Normally a three as it’s perfectly fine but a two for annoying obscurity and middle of the roadness .
The Last Shadow Puppets
4/5
A bit less than remembered but nevertheless good.
Cocteau Twins
5/5
Ah the Cocteau Twins ‘go commercial’ in the way only they can. Soaring guitars laden with chorus and delay and multi part harmonies in a mixture of tones. For me not their masterpiece but still ‘a’ masterpiece.
Sisters Of Mercy
3/5
Not quite good enough to be up there but a good album with good songs. Achingly 80s production, which I'm a sucker for.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
3/5
Another one of those Albarn projects that falls short on the quality of the songs.
Sinead O'Connor
4/5
This is a really good album. Not perfect but a good listen, plenty of songs and a really nice sound.
Rage Against The Machine
4/5
A refreshing blast of energy and a good, tight sound.
Femi Kuti
3/5
One of those genres where it all feels very bouncy and fun and then after 15 minutes you realise it’s all the same and just jazz noodling.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
I like Echo and the Bunnymen, but not as much as Robert Dimery, clearly. It's an OK album but I never found their first album quite as compelling as their second/third album. It's part of a UK musical movement but maybe Joy Division did it better?
The Youngbloods
3/5
It’s a really good album if also a hit unremarkable. I’d never be disappointed if someone said they loved it and played it whilst not naturally wanting to play it. I don’t know where it stands. Needs a few hits I guess.
Justin Timberlake
2/5
When did albums start being an hour long? We can travel back the filler and sound over substance back to that moment. Before the CD age bands had to really want to make a double album. At this point there was nobody saying ‘stop’ and throwing out the 5 pointless mood pieces. This might have been a solid single album. Instead it rambles on with songs that lack any form.
Though maybe I’m right and modern r’n’b is the worst music form ever created. It steals the name of one of the bedrocks of great music too. Doubly criminal.
The Fall
3/5
This is the Fall I knew and never quite connected with. It's a thing, very British and a cult rather than a musical following.
Paul Simon
5/5
Some things are just a 5. Those classic albums that sit above everything else. When they come along they are obvious because you already know they are.
Soft Machine
1/5
Prog I usually like. Jazz I'm not a great fan. But this seems to have fused the worst of both together. Some interesting bits of time signatures. Some interesting bits of music. A lot of nurdling.
R.E.M.
3/5
The sound of a band that are going to make it but haven't yet. It's a bit raw, a bit short on songs but you can see looking back how they got from there to here.
That said, whilst I've never been a great REM fan, this is a fairly nondescript album all over.
Harry Nilsson
4/5
A marvellous set of songs and a fascinating man. I enjoyed this a lot and there's plenty to enjoy.
Suede
4/5
Britpop was a thing, at least for us Brits. And this was as cool and important an album in that period as any.
Robbie Williams
4/5
Proper pop album - nothing to complain about here
Bob Dylan
4/5
I've never managed to love Dylan, even though I can recognise the genius I fall down a bit on the albums. This was great though, which probably puts me in the world of the sort of person Dylan fans would hate. It's a good set of songs. Lyrically not quite the highs you would expect from Dylan.
Germs
2/5
I do enjoy listening to these seminal albums. Really interesting to see what influenced people. It’s rubbish though.
Sonic Youth
3/5
I think I like Sonic Youth and definitely understand now its influence on lots of the music I love. But this doesn't feel like the best representation of their work.
Morrissey
4/5
I started out with preconceptions, but it is a really good album. Unlike other of his solo works it has a good balance of songs and the music is interesting. I'd agree that of the solo I've listened to this is clearly the best.
I don't think it's ever going to be easy to love a Morrisey album outright. It's a terrible cliché that when I listen to Morrissey records, I can't help but think the music is boring and low grade. In the same way, when I listen to Johnny Marr records I think every song would sound better with some decent lyrics and Morrissey singing. It's the curse they both have that they were in one of the best bands of their era and neither has been in any way remarkable as solo artists.
I have this shtick that the Government should nationalise some important bands and force them to reform and play for us. That would resolve this.
Sonic Youth
3/5
My second Sonic Youth of the wee and I do like it but I would find it hard to categorise as great.
The War On Drugs
3/5
I couldn’t work out whether I really liked it or not so I listened to it again. And it’s nice enough but boring.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
3/5
One of those perfectly pleasant jolly albums that there’s nothing to hate but no reason at all to listen to.
King Crimson
5/5
I first tried this when I was in a band in 6th form. 16 years old and my two fellow band members recommended it to me. I really struggled with it. I tried it again a few times in my life and slowly got to grips with it. I come back to it as part of this and realise its insane majesty and the influence it has had on some of the greatest bands on this list.
I didn't know Fripp invented prog. I know, though that he did play some of the best guitar on some of the greatest albums ever made.
Including this.
The Offspring
3/5
Another band I didn't know I knew. Obviously this doesn't have the song I di know, but it's a rollocking rock album and I'd be happy to listen to this every now and then.
Fatboy Slim
3/5
It's the best big beat album, it's got some of the sounds of a time and it's also unfortunately wholly repetitive, as all dance music ultimately is. It's not for listening, it's for experiencing.
Frank Zappa
4/5
Ah Zappa - I do love it but it's not for everyone.
Drive-By Truckers
3/5
I quite liked this, treating it as if listening to an all day rock station on the radio and hearing pretty much what I'd expect. But it doesn't particularly stick out as a piece of art.
The Replacements
3/5
One of those US bands that didn’t really register in the UK. So the nostalgia and youthful support of this passes me by. I enjoyed it but it’s not going to stick.
The KLF
4/5
KLF ruled the UK charts and then walked away. A fun reminder of the madness and music.
2/5
I like these albums that were clearly part of something - the start of a movement or certainly an influence on it. This is a bit of a shambles though, and surely there are better proto punk examples?
The Monks
4/5
Absolute delight - bouncy, boppy, joyful music from the middle of nowhere.
Pink Floyd
5/5
After over 1000 albums and only missing one day, sometimes they can roll into one a bit and I feel there's a run of "fine but so what" albums. Then along comes a titan and I realise the real difference between the good and the great.
This is such a great album that every song feels like it's been crafted carefully, not just plonked down on a DAW. Because it wasn't. They needed to use tape loops and all hands on the mixing deck.
This is how glorious music can be when it is an all consuming craft.
Ghostface Killah
3/5
Another rap album that can just go on and on and on because they don't actually have to construct any songs or concentrate on melody or bother about quality control.
When it's good it's good and it's in the upper half of Rap for sure. Last (bonus) track may be the best on the album.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
There's something unfathomable about someone's "golden era" starting with their FIFTEENTH studio album. Usually by that time they are throwing out covers of show tunes.
This is, though, the first time I've listened to this particular album. Yet some of it is completely familiar.
It's nice but in retrospect it feels a little bit like an easy listening album so it didn't grab me at all.
The White Stripes
3/5
I've never been quite able to enjoy the White Stripes. That whiny voiced, thin sounding garage thrash. It's all fine, there's some good tunes but I'm just not very taken by it.
Missy Elliott
2/5
Please save me from this turgid mediocrity.
Death In Vegas
3/5
Something a bit different. Enjoyed it ina superficial way but ultimately it’s a nice sound in the background .
Bob Dylan
5/5
I've never been able to get into Dylan but I can admire this piece of work as a lyrically brilliant album and much more engrossing than other albums I've tried of his - including in this project.
SZA
2/5
It's an album in the worst genre of music ever invented - modern r'n'b - and starting off it doesn't disappoint. Or whatever the opposite of not disappointing really is. Screaming 'get some proper drums" to replace the stick on a tea bag drum machine.
Then it surprises a bit with some songs.
But it's modern r'n'b and ultimately dreadful.
The Libertines
4/5
I was definitely in the ‘overhyped’ group back in the day. I had this album and liked it. Then now I go back and compare it to a lot of the list and think it stands up well for all its slightly shambolic feel it’s lyrically and musically good. Maybe there was something about the hype.
Jeff Beck
5/5
A message from a different era. Rod’s pipes sounding great, a blues swamp and a great guitar sound.