I tried to like it. I really did. And any one of those songs is fine. Good, even. But, man that album felt like a slog to me. There’s just so much of it. And every song is not as [adjective] as [contemporary reference band].

I guess I was aware of the Afghan Whigs but never spent much time paying attention to them. Was surprised to find out this is an album about being sad about having a boner. This is Incel Rock. I didn’t care for it, and “Angst in My Pants” is my favorite Sparks song.

Good album but only hints at the great things that are to come from all the iterations of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. A lot of elements on this album are repeated to greater effect on later projects. I recognize this is not judging the work on its own terms, but I can’t forget the existence of the other works and I can’t I hear the things in their later, more refined and capable form.

Competent, by the numbers. You know, like Uptown jazz.

I have spent a lot of time with this album in my life. Like others we’ve heard so far, this is good but only hints at how good his later work becomes.

Superstitious is one of my favorite songs.

The shtick gets old and this one sags in the middle. “Underbelly” is great and refreshing near the end but not enough to make up for the previous 4 or 5 tunes straight with no perceptible shift in tone.

It struck me how meticulously clean the drums were.

Dead serious. 3 stars. It’s competent and, as a Beatles fan, I love the shuffle-beat skiffle of their roots. But this s not why we love the Beatles. It isn’t why they’re iconic and it doesn’t merit being on the list of 1001 albums I need to hear.

There’s a weird association in my head between Bragg and Robyn Hitchcock, which is strange because I listened to Hitchcock in High School and I didn’t discover Bragg until my 20s. Now, though, when I hear either I think of the other.

I tried to like it. I really did. And any one of those songs is fine. Good, even. But, man that album felt like a slog to me. There’s just so much of it. And every song is not as [adjective] as [contemporary reference band].

Like, it’s fine. This is probably the Apex of Green Day.

Almost called a 4.

I don’t have Fatboy Slim nostalgia goggles?

Really liked what was going on here. Title track was fantastic. Might be gimmicky? I might not care.

I think I didn’t understand what Janelle Monáe was, before.

Probably guilty of things I’ve marked other albums down for. Don’t care, I’m real into this stuff.

All one volume, screamed at the tippy-top of the singer’s range. All one energy, at one of two tempos. Awful. “Eileen” is s finger and deserved hit status. The whole album is a dog. Maybe they were important for Ireland or something.

Not my favorite REM album. The REM lyrical formula where they string together some unrelated phrases to simulate depth of thought is pronounced on this one. It’s fine, though. Way better than Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

Man, I totally forgot about Pulp.

My first five. I sang along with some songs I haven’t heard in 20 years. This might be too subjective a reason, but I’m going to choose to lean into it. People go on about Kid A, but OK Computer is my Kid A.

The Boy in the Bubble seems weirdly prophetic. I could never hear Call Me Al again and be okay with it. A lot of gems on this album, though.

The album for today is a novelty album called "Bongo Rock." A bunch of covers, most of them predictable. It's an hour twenty minutes long. Most of it, mildly entertaining at best. Then it stops me entirely in my tracks with a cool 70s slow funk arrangement of "Sing, Sing, Sing." Then immediately loses me again with a lazy instrumental "(I can't get no) Satisfaction."

I guess I was aware of the Afghan Whigs but never spent much time paying attention to them. Was surprised to find out this is an album about being sad about having a boner. This is Incel Rock. I didn’t care for it, and “Angst in My Pants” is my favorite Sparks song.

Almost defies critique. I’ve docked other albums for sprawling of Lodi g focus, but it works here. It exists entirely within its own set of rules, so if isn’t fair to impose a set of rules onto it in order to review it. I’m going to default to five stars.

I love this album so much.

I don’t know if this is the best Iggy Pop album, but The Passenger is for sure my favorite Iggy Pop song.

Starts and ends strong, but not even close to Lennon’s best post-Beatles work. “How?” shamelessly rehashes “Long and Winding Road.” It’s the most blatant example of how lazy this album is. Lennon, at his worst, is a sanctimonious fuck and he gets a bunch of it out of his system here.

Every tune a single.

Good album, but sags a little in the middle. “Going Mobile” is, generously, lazy.

When it’s good, it’s great. But it isn’t good all the way through.

I was going to under-rate this to make sone sort of statement, but the break after “64” to the intro of “Lovely Rita” is one of my favorite sounds.

Man, I totally forgot about “Run Charley Run.”

It pulled me in and lost me several times, but “Monster Love” won me over.

I might have the nostalgia goggles on for this one a little bit.

I’m not ashamed to say “I prefer their later stuff.”

It’s fine.

I don’t know enough about this music to know if this is a good example, but I had a good time listening to it.

I love Garbage.

This is an excellent example of this sort of thing.

Inventive, interesting. Disarmingly simple in execution. Novel without being overly quaint or precious. “Sogourney Weaver” is my new favorite song.

Pablum.

My favorite version of Birdland.

Pretty sure there’s a better Sonic Youth album to be on this list.

Setting aside Biggie’s contribution to the nature of rap and what it was, this is an amazing album in terms of what makes an album interesting regardless of the specific content. It plays like a prog rock concept album in that regard. No one’s pulled it off as well since.

The production on the album doesn’t exactly hold up. I would have picked something more recent if there’s only one Afrika Bambaataa album listed. Putting that aside, there’s a lot here to enjoy.

His first album is a 5, I think.

Laura Nyro is hard to rate, I think. I think she’s great, but sometimes an individual tune just misses me. This album is pretty great. It coalesces into something like an over-arching narrative by the end or feels like one to me.

Why wasn’t I into Fugazi in the 90s?

The Go-gos built a formula that works. Is it good? Maybe?

This is my kind of weird. Not what it pretends to be. There’s something eldrich lurking in the lyrics that never reveals itself.

I mean, it’s fine.

I’ve always been reluctant to admit that Jane’s Addiction is good. But it is.

I might have had the nostalgia goggles on for this one. I can’t tell.

Lauryn Hill has the goods, for sure. I’m not sure the narrative of the concept lands all the way through, but it’s a solid effort.

Make my funk the P-Funk.

Outlaw Country! Or starts out that way. Then it shifts to sad-sack country.

I never liked this. This listen did not change my mind. My current standard for ratings is that if it is better than Bongo Rock it gets three stars. I concede here in the notes that this album is, but I’m rating it two stars anyway. They’re lucky they aren’t getting one star for not really being better than my only one star rating, Afghan Wigs.

It just didn’t go anywhere.

This is another one that was such a big deal at the time but so much came after it that it now seems quaint by comparison.

Best live album I’ve heard on the list so far. Fewer of the sort of live mishaps that generally show up (I’m looking at you, Cheap Trick at Budokan).

Not my kind of music, but I recognize this is a good album if I put my preference aside. It’s produced well and all the performances are sincere and proficient.

He has some ideas and things to say, but there’s little follow-through. The beats are lazy. Even when the raps open with a strong thesis, the rhymes and construction fall flat. Overall, lazy compared to even his least-inspired previous work. He’s better than this.

I don’t love ABBA, and I could go the rest of my life and never hear Dancing Queen again. I have to admit, though, that Bjorn can write a song. Not necessarily a song that I like, but an objective dinger nonetheless.

The most profound thing I’ve learned doing this exercise is that I’m kind of into Missy Elliott.

I liked this more than I expected to. Still a 3.

I grieve for the artist Taylor Swift would have been if she didn’t get so successful so young and nail down such a focus group-formula so early. I don’t think this is Taylor Swift’s level best. I think she’s being artistically lazy. Maybe I’m wrong and this is the best she can do. Or maybe this is what she consciously aspires to. Can’t argue with her success.

When it’s good it’s great. The rest of the time it’s okay.

This is a very good album. But Nirvana just never hits quite the same again.

Good art is made of good choices and it’s become pretty clear that Brittney wasn’t making a lot of choices. Not a personal slam on Brittney. I think she’s great. I just don’t think this album is.

It got my mojo rising.

Aimee Mann really knows how to write a song.

I’ve heard “American Pie” probably hundreds of times in the last decade or so, but so haven’t listened to it since I was a kid until this listen. It deserves to be every bit the American classic that it has become.

It’s… like, almost good.

When Kanye is good, he’s amazing. I wish it were a greater percentage of his stuff.

They’re still coming together here.

I kind of don’t like Supertramp, but accounting for taste, it’s a good album.

Clearly influenced by a lot of groups I like, but nothing particularly ventured. It’s okay?

When 50’s good, he’s incredible. I want it to be more of the time on this album. If you’re going to have Eminem hype you, you have to outdo him on the next verse. That being said, “party like it’s your birthday” is fully ensconced in the culture, possibly worldwide. You can’t ignore a feat like that.

The singles are strong, along with a couple of the other numbers.

I remember hearing this album for the first time and I’ll never forget it. It’s one of those albums.

It’s really probably a 3 and I don’t like the arguing “but it’s so important to stuff that happened later,” but it’s so important to stuff that happened later.

I like this album except the arbitrary synth screaming. WEEEEooooWEEEEEEEEEEEOoooooWEEE-EE-EEEEEE!!

I liked this more than I remember liking it.

Bowie’s last album is challenging. But fuck it, it’s Bowie.

Deserves all the adoration The Cure gets.

I can’t rate Elvis Costello’s first album up for being packed full of singles and then not do the same for this album just because I don’t particularly care for The Eagles.

I almost rated this four stars because there are three or four better Prince albums. But it’s still better than more than at least 81% of everything else, so 5 stars it is.

It’s a little sparse, but I like what’s going on.

I’ve panned a lot of albums on this list for being all one tone. I concede that Sugar is guilty of this, but I really like this album. I never pieced it together before, but I think the reason I don’t like Smashing Pumpkins is because they aren’t Sugar. Four stars +1 bonus star for the most aggressive tambourine playing ever recorded on a couple of those tracks.

I like this sort of thing.

Max Weinberg is a very clean drummer.