1001 Albums Summary

It's got Root Down, it's got Sabotage, what more could you want? ...That's not enough? Well, every track is a banger. It's the Beastie Boys, what did you even expect? This album made me commit grand larceny on at least three grandmas.

This album is like Theon Greyjoy. It looks tough, it fights tough, but it's all rock and literally no cock. Imagine a Pitbull emasculated ten years ago with molten gums for teeth, dwarfed legs, eating a steady diet of nutritious kibble. It's bark is so loud it resonates wholly within... then whimpers out as a metallic fart.

It sounds classy, but it has your pants off in about five minutes... and last time you checked, you didn't need to sit in a fridge to ensure your rectal comfort. That's Willie the Pimp. Frank is getting weirder... somehow. But not weird enough yet. The music gets even better, so does the humour.

PJ Harvey's music feels like thick, black tar. Bare, ashen, smoking... for the first time here, it's more like molten sugar: pretty, and you might want to touch it, but the smell of fresh bacon and the impending absence of your lovely skin should you do so reminds you that it's still PJ Harvey. An artist of immense vision, painting in brighter colours for once.

Imagine living your whole life in the bargain bin. Every decade this album has been like £5, they don't even adjust this thing for inflation it's so hard to get rid of. But now all those dudes who bought it when they were 20 are like 70, and Frampton Comes Alive... again. Pretty poppy, a perfectly middle of the road album.

fuckin hell m8, pour a glass oot for oor gar'barlow whose bin absilutily forgoten by this shity list for a two bit mug lit bobbi williums let me entirtain you? nah mate, pyure angliphyle pish

Trevor Horn's production is at its peak, Frankie turn out a high divisive and political LP that's too confidently queer for the media... but so catchy they could never contain it. I only wonder how Frankie's first LP would've sounded without Horn's influence? They're a really bloody good band, it just sucks that the production shines over the musicianship.

A perfect sort of album, the kind you couldn't distinguish as belonging to a particular decade but as soon as it's heard, you know it's timeless. REM on this album truly prove they have the hooks and phrases of any great songwriting group, straight from the get-go.

"Cannae help feeling that Manchester had a witch of some sort, that promised musicians fame and fortune, with one catch. You will later become a right stupid cunt and an embarrassment." - Limmy Then again, Limmy also noted that Johnny Marr, Bez and Shaun Ryder were just a bit too cool to be considered members of the cunt club. The Gallagher brothers though? Oof. Way before the cocaine fever dream that was 'Be Here Now', Definitely Maybe is the progenitor for their pompous shiteheadery and inflated sense of musical worth. I can understand why people would like this, but Oasis to me is a lot of background noise played by psychedelic wannabes, singing about mystical junkie incantations brought on by four eccies and the coronation of a Burger King crown. If Oasis really want to be 60s, they ought to take their sleeping meds and call the carer for an early night. 2 stars, one because I like Mad Fat Diary, two because Noel Gallagher is... sort of okay these days.

When I was about 15 I started collecting records, spurred on by my mate Lewis and my LP hoarding uncle. My dad, however, thought records were crap and belonged in the past where they'd been left. That's obviously changed seeing as he now has a Garrard and about 7 Kallax cubes. But there was a point right around the start when he saw the albums I was listening to and must have realised that I was just as impressionable as he was at 15... and it came to my 16th, (I think! Maybe I was younger...) where he gave me two albums, AM by the Arctic Monkeys and For Your Pleasure. Those who know my dad know he is quiet, outspoken, hard-working, but if you truly find something to share and talk about, you would be surprisingly endeared. I remember talking to dad about AM, why my uncle refused to listen to it, and I truly got the impression my dad thought it to be one of the great British Rock albums - like it truly defines a place and an attitude. He didn't exactly say that, mind you, the conversation was much more curt and pointed... but his quiet conviction made me believe that's how he really felt. I was really pleased to get the Arctic Monkeys. I fucking hated For Your Pleasure. I'm sure I told my dad I liked it, but I really wasn't for the SQUEEK SQUUUANK SQUORK that Brian Eno felt like he had to apply to the most basic harmonica, and Bryan Ferry's warbling, death bird cry. It's not an easy album apart from maybe a few songs, but I think how truly different it was made me want to understand it at some point, whether that was then or now. Now, I truly love it. When I was younger, I would tell myself I didn't like Rap, I didn't like Country, this, that... it's so easy to define things as being out of your wheelhouse if you're convinced they truly are bad. If I'd given For Your Pleasure even five minutes on Spotify when I was 15, I probably wouldn't be listening to Roxy now, but instead I had the LP and had to sit through every second of The Bogus Man. Fucking hell, I'm paying good money to hopefully see them play The Bogus Man in Glasgow tonight. These two LPs represent great change. Both bands created a mammoth of an album, and both bands had to change because it was the peak of what they could achieve in that form. For each group, a magnum opus, and in reality they had to fall apart and reform otherwise they would fail to reach the same great heights. To the same extent, I have changed and learned to appreciate more deeply things that sound bad... to the extent they become beautiful. I wouldn't have that if it weren't for my dad, and probably this album too. I love both, they are dear to my heart.

Sonic madness. Wouldn't you just hate to be the lawyer in charge of sample clearance? Some of these LPs have never seen the light of day. A real good time, a great albums that stands toe to toe with the likes of DJ Shadow's debut. There's something for everyone to recognise on this.

A nice wee nugget of a Punk album. A bit of reading required on the context of this band and the time period and you'll appreciate their place in music history a great deal more. That being said, there are certainly Punk albums on this list I find more personally engaging. A nice discovery, but not one I'll return to that often.

One of the true gems of the Island catalogue, and one of the best from their early 70s line-up of Folk artists. Chris Blackwell really did prioritise quality over quantity with his label. Iconic. That's all that can be said, it qualifies as a Cat Stevens 'Best Of' and it's one bloody album. I was always more preoccupied with Richard Thompson, John Martyn and Nick Drake when I was learning guitar, so his work was a little lost on me until my partner got me into this LP when we first started courting. I love her more than this album, but it still gets five stars.