1001 Albums Summary

Long-time listener, first-time reviewer. I thought I liked reggae, but this album made me realize I like it in small doses. Most of the songs sound very similar but maybe that’s just reggae. The best part about it was that it prompted me to go to Wikipedia and look up the life history of Marcus Garvey, which was pretty cool. I did appreciate the reference in the title track to James 4:17 (“So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, for him it is sin”) and the use of Christological imagery in Tradition to make a point about racial injustice. Still, it’s not an album I would seek out, but the kind I wouldn’t mind playing at low volume in the background while visiting with friends.

On balance, I liked this a whole lot more than I thought I was going to. I expected it to be an album that you’d listen to out of obligation due to its historical significance as an early example of sampling, but that wouldn’t hold together musically. I was wrong. I didn’t like all the tracks (I could do without “Napalm” for example), but others (like “Transmission 2” and the Soul tracks) had a strong appeal to me, and I think its because of their ambient sound. If only the whole album sounded like that, I’d rate it higher. One side note: the second Soul track sounds a lot like Radiohead’s Climbing Up the Walls. Not sure which one came first.

To me the production quality of this album and it’s overall sound seem behind the times, even for the 80s. To my untrained ear, by the time he recorded his most popular track “California Stars” in 1998 his sound had matured considerably. Or maybe he just got a much more talented producer.

You have to REALLY be a student of music history to appreciate this album. I hated it. Maybe there are some redeeming qualities of the lyrics but I couldn’t get past the music. Just painful to listen to. 0/5

If you didn’t listen to this with headphones or earbuds the first time through, you need to go back and listen to it again. The tasteful use of the background singers and instrumentation really comes through in beautiful 1969 stereophonic sound. And the southern style really shines in tracks like “It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin’” (which sounds like it should be sung by cowboys around a campfire) and “After Loving You.” Listen to the snare in “Only the Strong Survive” — it’s so restrained and appropriate; every drummer (and producer) for the last 50 years would take the snare and amp it up, until it reaches its full culmination in the snare in Green Day’s Basket Case. In this case, the percussion stays in the background, probably in an effort to emphasize Elvis’s voice. Before I listened to this I didn’t know any of these songs other than “Suspicious Minds” and “In the Ghetto”, but I can’t believe more of these haven’t been covered. “The Power of My Love” is so bluesy — I’d love to hear a Blues Traveler version. I think Elvis himself covered “Gentle on my Mind” on this album and of course Glenn Campbell’s cover came along a few years later and really made it famous. Some of the songs like “Mama Likes the Roses” and even the famous “In the Ghetto” sound like Elvis trying to continue the tradition of teardrop rock that was popular in the 1950s, but now just sound sappy. If I’m in 1969 I prefer Zeppelin, but this isn’t bad at all.

Okay, I’ve always liked “Family Affair.” And I appreciate the base on “Africa Talks to You.” But the vocals on “Spaced Cowboy” are just yodeling. And “Runnin’ Away” sounds like a bad 70s sitcom theme (I dare you to disagree with me). The best track to me is “Just Like a Baby” and I would listen to that again. But overall this is just way too funky for me.

This is an odd rating for me. This album has four all-time great songs, which should be enough to lift any album to a five rating. “Homeward Bound” and “Scarborough Fair” are probably enough on their own to do that. But the other two — “59th Street Bridge Song” and “For Emily” find their definitive versions on another album, Simon and Garfunkel‘s Greatest Hits, where they are sung live. The versions on this album sound like tinny practice sessions in comparison. Really, you owe it to yourself to go right now to the Greatest Hits album and listen to art Garfunkel sing For Emily. We all know that Paul Simon was the musical genius of the duo, but you need to listen to the power of Garfunkel’s voice as he sings the final words of that song, accompanied by the intensity of Paul’s guitar. That’s the moment when you really appreciate Garfunkel’s voice and the magic of this duo. Other than those four incredible songs, however, the rest of the songs on this album were not hits for a reason. And two of the four are better elsewhere. Hence the 3 rating.

I remember when AC/DC came on the scene. It was like nothing else. And I remember seeing documentaries later that described the shock wave of that guttural voice, screaming out songs like Back in Black. We all thought it was something totally new. But now I realize it was just an echo of John Fogarty from Creedence Clearwater Revival. It’s funny, if you go back and listen to Little Richard‘s version of Good Golly, Miss Molly, even he uses guttural vocalizations from time to time, so it’s nothing new. But even he didn’t sing that way all the time. That seems to be what John Fogerty brought to rock ‘n’ roll. Long before AC/DC and all the Cookie Monster metal bands that would follow. I must say I do like the harmonica in some of these Credence songs, and I appreciate how bluesy they are, and just like Wikipedia said I could hear them trying to imitate Steve Cropper‘s guitar (he of Blues Brothers fame), just not as well. Proud Mary is the best effort here and it still sounds like something you would see in a movie made for boomers. Credence has a dozen or more really great songs, but they’re all on other albums.

The #1 song of 1969 was “Sugar Sugar” by the Archie’s. I know this not only because I looked it up, but also because I was 5 at the time; and we got a free copy of the single pressed into the back of a cereal box (which probably helped propel it to #1). You should definitely listen to Sugar Sugar, and THEN listen to Led Zeppelin’s debut album. It’s only then that you can appreciate the seismic, watershed event that was Zeppelin’s appearance on the musical stage in the context of music history. I loved the reviews in this group almost as much as this album. It’s always a delight when someone of my generation actually gets someone of the next generation to sit down and really listen to and appreciate Zeppelin (though I realize some in this group were more familiar than me). It’s just incredible musicianship. And to think that not only is this their debut album, one they recorded in only 36 hours of studio time, and they had only been together for a few months at that point. Robert Plant had just turned 20 and he sings with the confidence of a seasoned frontman. John Bonham is a generational talent. JPJ’s musicianship comes through in every song. Page is a MONSTER on the guitar - just drink in the solo after the heavy downbeat in Good Times Bad Times, and you get an idea of what set the world on fire. So wonderful to listen to this again. You can hear how some of their early music presages what is to come. For example, you can hear some Bron-y-aur Stomp in Black Mountain Side. I actually didn’t get into Zeppelin until I was in my early 20s. By the time I was growing up, they were fading out and known for smashing hotel rooms, drugs, and general excess. Then I listened to them and finally “got it”. It was about the music first. This early work brings that out. Just because the later work gets even better doesn’t make this any less than 10/5.

I really liked this! Sure wish I’d discovered it in 1984 — I think it would have been one of my favorite albums of the 80s. Love the range of styles, though a few songs (Gospel and Strength of Your Nature) push that range too far and would keep this from being one of those albums I would have listened to straight through. But the rest is great, especially The Whole Point of No Return, The Paris Match and My Ever Changing Moods.

Can you separate your revulsion for an overplayed pop sound, just to appreciate the album’s place in music history? Sometimes you just can’t.

Killer Queen alone is worth three stars, so that’s your starting point. The A Cappella version of Bring Back That Leroy Brown puts their voices and harmonies on full display and was really fun. The rest of the album wasn’t particularly enjoyable listening for me, but my view of their talent sure went up a notch. I guess I never knew how overtly theatrical their sound was; so many of these songs sound like show tunes. Okay, not Stone Cold Crazy, but certainly Now I’m Here. I guess that all makes sense, because their next album would have the all-time quintessential rock opera Bohemian Rhapsody. I’m not a huge Queen fan, but the next two albums after this one were ones that all my friends owned in the 70s and played over and over again. This one is interesting as a prequel. And of course for Killer Queen. By the way it took me about 20 years to realize that the first line of Killer Queen is a reference to a champagne. And only because I saw it in a store and said it out loud.

If you ever wanted to understand the difference between Lennon and McCartney, listen to Tomorrow Never knows (Lennon) and Eleanor Rigby (McCartney) back to back. Almost can’t believe how those two collaborated at all, let alone produced some of the century’s greatest music. Maybe the secret is just the right amount of that tension. But as for the rating…. How can you rate an album that has been rated the #3 album of all time by Rolling Stone — twice — anything less than 5? Maybe if you had to force-rank the Beatles albums against each other you could do that, because this definitely isn’t my favorite Beatles album. But just to say the others are better doesn’t mean this isn’t great. Maybe all you can do is honestly reflect on how the music makes you feel in the moment. Some of these are better that I remember (She Said She Said, For No One), some now seem mundane (Good Day Sunshine, Got to Get You Into My Life) and some are just unpleasant to listen to, even if they are The Beatles (Doctor Robert, The Taxman). Funny story: I heard that another 60s band that was really into the psychedelic drug culture of the time (The Doors I think, though I can’t be sure) jumped for joy when they heard the opening lines of Tomorrow Never Knows, because they immediately realized The Beatles were into drugs just as much as they were. Thank God that Paul wasn’t dead and was writing songs like Here, There and Everywhere. And Eleanor Rigby. Ah, Eleanor Rigby. Still makes me weep. The rest of the tracks could be silence and it’d still be a 5 just for Eleanor Rigby.

This is what I love about this 1001 experience. I would never have discovered this without this group. I really enjoyed this. It moves right from the start. Loved the guitar in Santiago and the piano in Dona Isabella. This would be the perfect album to play in the background for a warm summer night party.

Break On Through is such a great song. I’ve heard that what separates a good rock song from a great one is the management and buildup of intensity (Everclear’s “Santa Monica” is a great example). But Break on Through builds up super quick to the punch line, and I love it. And it sounds like the perfect soundtrack to every 60s movie. Light My Fire does too. But that’s about it. The rest are just okay. Twentieth Century Fox was familiar, but that doesn’t make it enjoyable. The Doors just aren’t my thing. I did like Soul Kitchen. In fact, I always liked Smash Mouth’s “Walking on the Sun”, but now I realize it’s just a complete rip off of Soul Kitchen from this album. Soul Kitchen feels more authentic. Between a 2 and 3, but Break On Through makes it round up for me.

I absolutely adore EBTG, but mostly for their 1988 album, Idlewild, which is one of my top 10 all-time, most-listened-to-straight-through albums. So even though I had never heard this album before I was positively predisposed to like it. I was not disappointed. I wish that I had discovered this in 1996 when it came out. I would’ve listen to it a lot over the years and I can see listening to this again and again. It’s definitely not perfect though; it’s a little too percussion-forward. On a couple of tracks they really went crazy with the drum machine. But in some ways that’s period-appropriate for the mid 90s. It sounds like music I would’ve heard at a club in New York when we lived there in the 90s. My guess is that was the effect they were going for. I still like it.

This album came out the year I graduated from high school. In a time before streaming, MP3s and even CDs, we somehow found The Message on FM radio and latched on to it. We memorized the words and kept sharing it with our friends. This and Blondie’s “Rapture” (sampled on “Wheels of Steel”) were our first exposure to this new thing called “rap”. Listening to The Message track for the first time in years gives me that same thrill from when it was new. It still feels gritty and genuine. A snapshot of early 80s New York street life. “It’s Nasty” samples “Genius of Love” from the Tom Tom Club, and if you don’t know that song, do yourself a favor and check it out. This is a case of the sampled-from song being better than the sampled-to song. It’s Nasty, Scorpio and She’s Fresh are exactly what I expected the rest of GMF to sound like. The surprise here came in songs like ”Dreamin’”, which shows their musical range, even though it’s not nearly as good as actually listening to Stevie Wonder. And “You Are” was a shock - a Christian praise song from Grandmaster Flash!? That clicks with me on a personal spiritual level, but musically it took my respect for GMF up a notch. And “Wheels of Steel” just resonates with me because it samples a bunch of songs that I knew from that time. Up one notch from 3 for me, just for the personal connection with The Message from years ago.

This was so different from anything I’ve listened to in a long time. So innovative. I had heard about the end of the John Wayne Gacy song, but still wasn’t ready for it — here’s an artist who is fully in touch with the reality of his human nature.

Elvis Costello was way more of a singer-songwriterthan I remember. Not bad.

I had never listened to this. I thought this would be great, but it was really only good for Pinball Wizard.

I am someone’s dad, but this isn’t my favorite album either. Still, how can you argue with so many huge hits? Here’s how: I am familiar with almost every song, and I like most of them, but none of them are a favorite song. None of them really move me. If Piano Man had been on here it’d be totally different. The closest one for me is actually Scenes from and Italian Restaurant. It reminds me of some great restaurants in NYC (and I’m actually sitting in my favorite restaurant in NYC as I written this). Good but not great.

Best driving song ever: Panama Best song of the 80s: Panama Best snare drum sound of the 80s: I’ll Wait Most iconic keyboard intro of the 80s: Jump Most iconic drum intro of the 80s: Hot for Teacher Most juvenile song of the 80s: Hot for Teacher Best drum fill of the 80s: Drop Dead Legs (at 1:30) Happiest guitarist of the 80s: Smilin’ Eddie Van Halen Best album of the 80s: 1984 This is not thoughtful, melancholy, brooding or complex in any way. It’s just fun. Perfect 80s soundtrack.

Best ever!

Can’t be less than five.

This was so fresh and new at the time. I still know all the words. Listening to it again I still like it, especially Bye Bye Love: “It’s just a broken lullaby…”

So good.

I’ve always loved this album. Gritty real world themes in an easy-going California sound. The best part though is that David Baerwald worked on this album (he of David and David’s Boomtown, one of the best obscure albums of the 80s).

I know everyone thinks this is one of the best albums ever, but I just never liked it.

Worth a 5 just for Ramble On and What Is and What Should Never Be. You should hear them live. Whole Lotta Love, Heartbreaker and Moby Dick are Zeppelin signature songs. And Thank You is wonderful to listen to. Lemon Song isn’t just influenced by the blues; it IS the blues. But I’ll admit the others aren’t ones I choose to listen to again and again. They aren’t enough to drag down the rating though. The perfect album to play loud on the 8 track in a 60s muscle car.

There are only a handful of albums in my life that have listened to straight through again and again and again. This is one of them. One of the best ever.

So very 80s formulaic pop! I hated it when it came out and it got so much radio play at the time. Listening to it now I can’t believe how simple and repetitive it is. My immediate reaction was a 1. A negative 1. Odd reaction: the tempo of Karma Chameleon is way faster than I remember. It’s as if my memory slowed it down to mellow it out or something. And then the real song sounds to me like it’s being played back at 1.25x speed. But a few songs were better than I thought they’d be and showed a glimmer of talent (like That’s the Way). Nah, it’s still a 1.

I’m such a huge Radiohead fan that even an album like this, which most don’t think is their best effort, starts with a presumptive 5. Call it the Radiohead floor. But they earn it here with Knives Out and a Pyramid Song alone. Pyramid Song in particular is just epic. It really rises so far above most music of the time. But to me Dollars and Cents sounds like classic melodic Radiohead, I Might Be Wrong sounds like classic guitar-band Radiohead, and Sardines sounds like a bridge between Kid A and the Radiohead sound that was to come in the ensuing decade. And You and Whose Army is just so pensive. Those are all songs I like to sit and listen to. Others aren’t, but they’re still good: Pulk/Pull, Spinning Plates, Hunting Bears and Glasshouse for me represent the band’s willingness to experiment with new sounds and constantly evolve, but all in different ways (from dueling guitars to New Orleans jazz), which is what makes Radiohead so great. Even so far as to take a song they had just recorded on their last album (Morning Bell) and rerecord it here in a different time signature. None of those are meant to be the next hit single. They’re just the product of talented, curious musicians who found them interesting. Yeah, still a five, and I think they’ve earned it.

Wow. After all these years, I only just now noticed that the spaceships on the album cover are really guitars. Who knew. Well, everyone I knew in high school had this album. The first three tracks were on the radio 24/7. And I still meet people that are massive Boston fans. For me this has always been middle of the road 70s rock, but this is one where the Wiki makes all the difference. I loved reading the backstory to this album being recorded mostly by one guy (an MIT grad) in his Watertown basement even more than listening to the album. And I can really appreciate how this was a big shift in American rock music away from blues-based music like Zeppelin. But despite all that hype I really only know the first three tracks and only moderately enjoy them. So a 3 becomes a 4 for the cool backstory and historical significance.

So was instantly impressive to my most musically-oriented friends at the time it was released. We were all big Kate Bush fans too, so loved seeing her appearance on Don’t Give Up. Big 80s sound from Big Time and Sledgehammer, but In Your Eyes is just wonderful. Really like this.

I have been waiting for this day from the first day I was invited to join this group. Best. Album. Ever. Okay, I know it won’t be at the top of any official list, but I have such a strong personal relationship with this album. I remember listening to my brother’s copy when it first came out, and excitedly sharing it with my friends. I’ve seen them play this exact album in concert — literally, this exact album straight through. Watching drummer Keith Carlock play Steve Gadd’s Aja solo in concert is mesmerizing. I’ve met him and told him so. I love the jazz influences, the production quality, the obtuse lyrics, and all of the other stuff you read about in the wiki. But mostly I just love how it sounds. Every note. I’ve listened to it at least 100 times and hopefully will listen to it again hundreds more. In that vein, 100 stars out of 5 seems about right.

I had the misfortune of having “Without You” running through my head from age 6-10. I hated it then and I hate it now. I’m curious if it was because it’s a particularly sticky song or just because I was young and impressionable. “Coconut” was an early novelty song in the vein of Ballroom Blitz and Monster Mash, only much much worse.

Okay I didn’t listen to it but I’m giving it three stars just because I’ve always thought that The The was the most innovative name for a band ever.

I know Carson is sick of me saying it, but There There is the perfect song. From beginning to end, every note that comes next is exactly the note that should come next. The lyrics are great too. “In pitch dark I go walking through your landscape / Broken branches trip me as I speak” is perfect poetic imagery for a troubled relationship. And “just because you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there” is such timeless wisdom. But none of the rest of the songs are in my Radiohead Top 40. So even for a Radiohead superfan like me, just a 3, on the strength of There There alone.

Okay, Shake It Off is a great pop song — all the more so because of the video of the cop caught on camera singing it while making his rounds. But the rest of it just sounds like bad 80s pop to me. I know she was was going for that sound on purpose, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I love Kate Bush and I love this album. I was recommending songs from this album to someone just a few weeks ago. Four timeless songs are on this album: Running Up That Hill, Hounds of Love, Big Sky and Cloudbusting. They seem to be a deep psychological study of love and other relationships, with lines like, “Tell me we both matter, don’t we?” And “you and me… won’t be unhappy”. Do yourself a favor and watch the video for Cloudbusting with Donald Sutherland. It’s really a short movie about a young woman’s relationship with her father. I shared it with my daughter and the end is so moving it always makes me cry. She has a song about her relationship with her mother too. Still, as a album, it trails off toward the end. The second half seems to me to be almost like a concept album or a rock opera. Interesting but not great to listen to more than once. So deduct one star for that.

Not my thing. It’s so drum-forward, and I usually love that, but here it seems to make the songs sound too repetitive. Monotone even. Like an overactive metronome. Pump It Up is a perfect example. But I do love the vintage Hasselblad on the cover, so the second star is purely for that.

I hate the beastie boys.

I had never listened to the whole album. I liked it a whole lot more than I thought I would. Four stars for my personal reaction plus one for historical significance.

My car has this irritating trait where it plays something random on my phone the minute I start the car. I’ve googled it and I can’t stop it. Sometimes it’s what I was listening to on Spotify, sometimes it’s my white noise app, and sometimes it’s something completely random from my Apple library. Yesterday a tune came on and before I could snap it off, I said, “well I don’t know this one but at least the intro isn’t bad.” It was Black Night White Light from this album. Whadya know. I was set to give this a “did not listen - 1”, and now this. But it’s still no good. It’s not just the heavy handed reverb, so characteristic of this decade. For me it’s the blatant sexuality of Relax in a post-Me Too world. Sometimes it seems to me like a large percentage of 70s and 80s songs were written by young men singing about what they loved most — trying to get a woman in bed. There are some female artists from this era that did that too (Donna Summer and Sheena Easton come to mind), but mostly heterosexual men. So first and foremost, I wonder if that percentage has fallen with Me Too awareness. I hope so. But second, it just seems so unimaginative. There’s so much else in this world to sing about. Maybe that’s where the money was and always has been. After all, Relax is the only hit on this album. Give the people what they want. Hopefully what they want is changing. Or rather, hopefully there’s a recognition that what half the people want is something else.

I’m wondering why I like this so much. I think it’s because it’s so overtly sentimental. I can hear a bit of Beatles influence in some songs, and I like the overall sound. But mostly it’s the sentimentality—from Bookends to Voices of Old People. It all tugs mercilessly at your heartstrings. Like when he turns to Kathy in America and tells her he’s lost, in the context of the youthful banter that precedes it. It just grips you emotionally. Going in, I knew America, Mrs. Robinson, Bookends Reprise and At the Zoo (from ads for the zoo on local tv when I was a kid). Bookends is so poignant — I’ve sung it for years but didn’t know it was from this album. Mrs. Robinson is so familiar, I had to make myself listen to it again, and the guitar work is better than I remember. The whole thing just sounds good. Deep emotions and great sound is a good combination.

I hear: - Elvis Costello - The Cars - The Romantics - The Pretenders - Talking Heads (maybe) Maybe one of them influenced the other. Who knows. Was all that music that sounded original and fresh at the time really just a mishmash of that era’s sound? Will we look back on today’s music and say the same thing?

I'm a big fan of Wake Up because of The Matrix. At the first sound of it, I can see the Matrix credits rolling in my head and the whole feeling of the movie comes back to me. I love it. But other than that, I have a hard time listening to any RATM. Maybe Killing in the Name Of. But not for long.

Bloody awful. Glad it was recuperative for him, but it’s painful for the rest of us. This sounds like someone was just experimenting with a synthesizer to see what would happen, rather than actually composing music.

Monotonous. Tip: Don’t call your album New! With the year on the cover. Unless you want to guarantee that it’s soon dated. It’s like labeling the pastries in the case “Fresh for October”.

Despite its bleakness, I have always loved the title track, because it rightly concludes that the world is a completely messed up place. I always especially appreciated that because I thought it came from a totally irreligious point of view. In touch with reality, and no one needed to tell him so. But after listening to The Cross for the first time, maybe there was a spiritual side to Prince that I never knew about. Who knew. Apparently a very lusty zesty sexified spirituality, but still. Starfish and Coffee is fun too. The snare of his drum machine often has a sound like hands clapping. Strange Relationships is a good example. I never noticed it before, but now it feels like a key component of the Prince sound.

Forty tracks!!! I thought they stopped making concept albums in the 70s. What a piece of work. Without reading the wiki it seemed like a concept album about the lifecycle of a relationship; now I see that it’s two concept albums together. Hey Ya is one of the best sounding pop songs of the century so far. Can’t believe it was 20 years ago. Songs like The Rooster are so innovative! The Love Below and Love Hater are like jazz standards and demonstrate incredible range. Impressive work.

I heard that after John Coltrane became a Christian he felt like the purest expression of his devotion to God was to play his sax, like an act of worship. Whatever it is you believe, thank God for John Coltrane. On a more musical level, I heard that other jazz musicians of the era were blown away by Coltrane’s creativity. They listened to his solos and were astonished at the creativity it took to come up with that. Maybe Coltrane would have thought that was a spiritual thing too.

In an admittedly gross miscalculation, songs like “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” had me thinking of Stevie Wonder as just more 70s pop at the time. But there’s so much range and sheer talent in his music. Songs like a Tuesday a Heartbreak are genuinely funky. And the opening of Superstition alone is enough to warrant a four. From true love to social justice protests. Pretty genius. Grateful to rediscover him now. That said, it’s not an album I want to listen to again and again, like Songs in the Key of Life. Some of the songs are a bit tedious to my ear and happily skipped.

Boy does this sound good to me. This album sounds like the perfect bridge from U2’s earnest social consciousness of the 80s to the disillusionment of 90s grunge. The depth of REM felt like it finally put the nail in the coffin of self-indulgent 80s arena rock. Love the background vocals from the B-52s lead singer Kate Pierson (better known for her accompaniment on Shiny Happy People). Most songs were hits. Glad to discover King of Birds through this review. It’s the End of the World As We Know It is timeless. We all knew all the words at the time (or at least we thought we did). Feeling…Pretty… PSYCHED.

Ah, that was college. Brass in Pocket is awesome. A 3 just for that. Amazing how a song can take you right back to an era of your life. In college we thought Chrissy Hynde was the coolest thing to ever come out of Akron Ohio. She probably still is. But the rest of this album isn’t particularly memorable.

Really love the popular ones. Really. Can’t warm to the rest.

This album made me realize that I like Genesis, and I like Peter Gabriel, but not together.

I had a randomly assigned college roommate that was a punk rocker. Not a throwback punk wannabe — remember this was contemporaneous with the era. And he was in LOVE with the New York Dolls. His #1 music choice. He didn’t so much play them as identify with them. So it wasn’t their music he loved; it was the rebellion that they stood for. I asked him once why he was so into punk. His answer without hesitation was, “Because I hate my mother.” And you have to admit that NYD is perfect music if you hate your mother. My music tastes are much more eclectic now than then. I didn’t listen to NYD at all back then, and I wish now that I had put it on and rocked out with him. Oh it’s not great; it sounds like someone doing a Stones impression but trying to make it edgier. But to me it’s an example of how music can bridge worlds — if you let it. All I am saying is, give music a chance.

If I’m ever a rock star, I’m going to release my debut album in the first year of a decade, so people can look back and say that my album defined the sound of that decade. In my dreams, anyway. This is a really, really good album. I only knew the hits and didn’t know what I was missing. Wish I’d known.

This sounds so nice. Perfect album for a long drive. I could cover a lot of miles with this. It’s strange listening to a foreign language album when you don’t speak that language at all. You make no attempt at deciphering and just listen to the vocals like another instrument. Like scat singing. It works here because the vocals have such a nice tonal quality. Did anyone else hear the Beatles come through on track 8? I swear Ringo was on the drums. Like a Portuguese Norwegian Wood, with strings and everything.

There are no better baseball walk-up songs than “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Paradise City”. I knew someone who was a huge G&R fan when they originally came out. Not for the music, but for their authenticity. They thought that all the hairbands in the 80s tried to look like they were heroin addicts, “but these guys really ARE heroin addicts!” And that was enough.

Confession: I’m a huge Frank fan. He was the soundtrack behind so many all nighters at my law firm in New York. But I wasn’t familiar with this album at all. I loved it. Made me want to watch early James Bond movies. It feels so analogue to me; from a time of mechanical Leica cameras, automatic Rolex watches and stick-shift Porsche 356’s. What really impressed me was that they recorded this in two days, after which Frank and his daughter recorded the hit “Somethin’ Stupid” in one evening. It’s like they just called Frank and said, “Frankie! Come down and sing some songs” and he just says “Hit me. And a one, and a two…”. And bada bing bada boom, it’s done. Contrast with the G&R album we just reviewed where Axl Rose burned up studio time and drove his band mates crazy singing one line at a time. Not Frank. Just sing the songs we got for you, Frank. One take. Pure gold.

A clear Five. Hundred. All Zeppelin albums have a five floor for me, but everyone knows this is the best one ever. I love the legend of how Jimmy Page put the drums in the hallway for When the Levee Breaks to give it a hollow echo sound. Works like a dream. A drummer I know who covers Rock and Roll says no guitarist ever — ever — can figure out when to come in on that song. Misty Mountain Hop makes me so happy. It has a lot to do with John Bonham’s lazy fills. And baby baby baby do you like it? Yes I do. Going to California still makes me pensive. Telling myself it’s not as hard hard hard as it seems… I don’t even need Stairway to Heaven for the rating. In fact I usually skip it because after all these years I’m still reacting to the radio overplay. If you ever doubted whether these guys were great musicians, google “black dog time signature”. Or treat yourself to the YouTube video “What Makes John Bonham Such a Good Drummer”. Amazing. Hey hey mama. That’s all you need to know. 500.