I listened to it.

Still not dead.

I'm alive!

An album dedicated to the families of 9/11 victims includes the song "Work It". 4/5 stars.

The world's quintessential 3/5.

Where is the 2.75 stars option?

The opening 27 seconds of "Metal Mickey" alone is worth 3 stars.

The organ really is something, isn't it?

More thankful for it than into it. You can't have psych rock revivals without some psych rock to revive in the first place.

No thanks!

I thought I had to save 1-star reviews for U2 and the Doors but here we are

If this is a four, what am I saving fives for?

Untrustworthy. But there is some guitar work worth something.

At some point in my life I wanted more Spacemen 3 but got this instead. /uj According to the "cafe rating scale", this is a 3 (I would not flee). The difference between a 2 and a 3 is largely hostility. Even if this record and that Tom Waits one are basically equivalent in how much "active interest" I have in them, Tom Waits carries "active repulsion" so he's going to get a 2 while this doesn't.

Easy 4. I didn't realize.

Okay.

When I was 15 this was VERY IMPORTANT.

Where's that 3.75-star option?

I did dance a little.

I did not *have* to hear this.

Guru has his moments, but DJ Premier is one big moment here.

Three. Everything's a three unless I am especially moved (in either direction).

I like it when people enjoy making music.

Never disappoints. Even though every time I come in thinking "This has got to be overhyped, right?"

I want to be reincarnated as a square wave

Lots of albums on this list aren't a "must" "before you die". This one is. Historic.

Maybe it's not as ✧･ﾟsophisticated ･ﾟ✧ as Tool, but it's still good.

Trip hop's Straight Outta Compton.

Laying the groundwork for his cameo on The Simpsons. (I was going to leave it at that and give this a 3... but then the second half of the last song ruined it. Literally removing a star because of the last two minutes of "Suite for 20 G".)

Please respect my privacy at this time.

It kept getting better (very rare for an album to do!)

Listen. I think Neil Young is great. An immense talent. A purveyor of bangers. But 9 appearances on this list?

To quote myself on a previous "listen to these albums" quest: "Hanging on the Telephone" *swoon*

The opening 17 seconds of "Shining Star" have more relaxed confidence than I've felt in my entire life.

That drum sound is very LCD Soundsystem

Music for me.

Tough call.

Sometimes this list feels like it's about quality, sometimes about breadth, sometimes about influence. But why is this here?

Happy to come back.

On the "café scale" this is a solid 4; I'm settling in, eating my chocolate croissant a little slower, ready to stay. But I'm never going to put this on for me.

Solid late 80s alternative. (And, for some of us, our introduction to Björk.)

Did Leonard Cohen lose a bet? I'm glad he did.

What are these star ratings for? Like the list itself, sometimes they're about "objective quality + importance", sometimes they're reflecting something about *me*, sometimes literally *who the hell knows what's going on*, and sometimes I'm just being a little saucy. Anyway, I'll tell you who they're not for: Stevie Wonder. He doesn't need me to tell him he made something great. Four stars.

It was something in its time

Like LLMs, this record doesn't innovate in any way, it just regurgitates what's around it. A predictable outcome of its environment.

D. H. Peligro was a gift to the world.

I said it

Hell yeah.