1001 Albums Summary

The breadth of this album is incredible. June’s singing manages to effortlessly mould itself to every iteration of soul music from pop to old-timey blues to hard rock and (of course) that mild-sauce indie sound that every hipster burger joint played in the 2010s. I’m also a sucker for the vintage aesthetic.

Very chill and minimalist. Will definitely come back to this if I ever get into meditation.

Not really my thing, but Judas absolutely slaps.

It’s creepy, silly, bizarre and beautiful all at the same time. I wish Nick Cave stuck around for the whole album. Great submission!

Goddamn, I did not expect French punk to go this hard! This deserves a spot on the original list!

Science’s singing is a little underwhelming (not bad, not great either) but the instrumentals are awesome.

Very chill and catchy album, perfect for brooding.

Incredible. It’s like the music itself is alive, confused, and in excruciating pain. I especially love the track “Smoke 7” where it sounds like SpongeBob is performing an exorcism on Louis Armstrong.

I was volunteering for my city’s jazz fest a few years back, and my sole responsibility was selling t-shirts. I remember a couple of vendors from Snarky Puppy’s crew showed up with their merch (which us volunteers weren’t licensed to sell), then randomly fucked off to watch the show. A bunch of Snarky’s fans showed up trying to buy his stuff from the unattended vendor’s table while we looked on helplessly. Pretty sure they were fired. Anyway, that’s my little anecdote.

A sweet, jaunty little album. I really enjoyed this one!

Was expecting something grungier based on the album art but the funk was a welcome surprise. I wanted to enjoy it more but some of the tracks got a little grating.

It was kinda fun putting this on with no context and going from “what the hell is this?” to “Oh never mind this is actually awesome” as the tracks went on. I’ve been meaning to get into more post rock beside GSY!BE so this was a great addition in my book.

This is by far the dorkiest thing I have ever listened to. While I can appreciate the originality of this submission (I’m guessing “filk” rhymes with “fic?”) it’s most definitely not my thing.

Classic Canadian dad rock that should definitely be represented on the list.

Well this was an… interesting one. I remember liking the opening song, then growing more and more annoyed by the male singer as the album went on. “Blackbird on the Wire” has this afterschool special vibe to it that made my eyes roll. By the time the brass section plays in “The Sound of North America,” any hint of cleverness is replaced by a cloying sentimentality that sticks to the rest of the album like plaque on teeth. The Tom Waits impression in “Liars’ Bar” is grating as hell, and “Artificial Flowers” is just pure sophista-pop corn syrup — I honestly think it gave me diabetes. Near the end, “One God” gave me flashbacks to Lennon’s solo career (good riddance), and the retrograde eighties production and cabaret elements placed throughout had really soured my listening experience. Anyway, I don’t mean to be a dick to the user who submitted this, especially since it’s clear this has some fans, but for me this is a hard pass. Maybe I’d enjoy one of their other albums?

As an idea this album is awesome: a bunch of German prog rock dudes singing in Latin in a faux-Catholic mass. I was expecting some crazy acoustics and chanting on this. Unfortunately it ends up being pretty standard skunkweed rock, only now they have an excuse to use those goddawful organs even more. Also, their singing is diabolically bad. Interesting submission, but not something I will be revisiting.

Conscious hip hop that’s pro choice? Based af

“Hello Time Bomb” is a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s cheesy, stupid, and kinda awesome. That being said, I am not keen on listening to a full album of Matthew and his Not-So-Good Band.

This has one of the most beautiful album covers I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately I’m kinda indifferent to Stewart’s singing.

This album is somehow both unintentionally hilarious and legitimately awesome.

Really hope somebody helps that guy’s pony.

Groovy-ass dark cabaret music in a foreign language? Sign me the fuck up!

Creepy, but poignantly nostalgic at times. Listening to this feels like revisiting a childhood fear. I remember really getting into this album in late 2020 and will now always associate its eeriness with the COVID-19 pandemic, so I guess that helps boost my own appraisal of it. Also, even though this is a Scottish band, I love the fact that their name is an homage to my country’s National Film Board, which churned out an impressive amount of propaganda that informed the whole “haunted PSA” aesthetic of this project.

I’m reading the reviews and learning there are people out there who hate this album. I imagine they hate sunshine, rainbows and ice cream as well.

Okay so I’ve been doing this list for over three years now, and have encountered my fair share of albums that surprised me with how good they are. This, however, was the first time I’ve ever paused an album 25% of the way through so I could go and order the vinyl. This is a goddamn masterpiece.

Definitely not my thing, but I like the fact that the submitter gave their own personal history and reasons for choosing this album — it makes me feel like I’m sitting though something that’s actually important to someone rather than a checklist of supposed “greats”.

BOARDWALK EMPIRE MENTIONED

It’s alright. I usually enjoy the swing and blues elements of these albums but I’m also chafing at the obsessive retelling Greek myths at this point.

Emo dude on the vocals: “Addiction is in, I guess addiction is in, yeah” Guy who is getting his balls crushed in a hydraulic press: “CONVOSAHHNG! OHN THE FLOAHH! ZHE SHE-GOAHH! WAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

Since Adams clearly wants to be Thom Yorke, he’d have better luck covering “Creep.”

Sure it’s corny but it’s also perfectly harmless (and occasionally catchy) bubblegum pop. There’s an honest to God song about loving your mom in here that I can’t bring myself to hate.

I was expecting to give Avicii a pass on this out of nostalgia and consideration for his tragic suicide. Plus his delivery of “MONNDAY LEFT ME BROKENNN” always cracks me up. Unfortunately the other tracks are so diabolically bad that I cannot let this slide. Sounds like the shit they’d play at TPUSA rallies. It’s not quite a 1 but “Pure Grinding” almost dragged it down to that level.

Chet absolutely Baked with this one.

Arguably the greatest pop album of all time (it’s me, I’m arguing it).

I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did! While I can’t really get on board with the guy’s singing voice, the melodies were beautiful and far more engaging than a lot of other prog rock.

This absolutely blessed my ears.

Essential listening or not, Crass sounds like an annoying parody of British punk music to me. I can almost get behind the whole “all authority is bad” message but honestly if I heard this shit in ‘78 I’d probably become a churchgoing neoliberal on the spot.

One of my dad’s favourite albums, and I can see why. Lou Reed has reached new heights of not giving a fuck on this one. Singing? Nah, he’s gonna talk through the whole thing, because singing is for inbred hillbillies and he’s from NEW YORK.

This shit is way funnier than Bo Burnham.

You’ve gotta get over her bro.

It’s truly inspiring to know that grizzled lighthouse keepers are contributing to this list too.

A sprawling, hypnotic maelstrom of strings, horns, and field recordings that echo around like they’re straight out of someone else’s darkest and most cherished memories. Eerie store announcements and radio broadcasts spill into doomsday preachings, build into a hellish tide of sound, and flow onto an elderly man’s memories of Coney Island before receding into a melancholy, overpowering feeling of loss. There’s moments where hope shines through, like the kids who appear to be singing nursery rhymes in French, but it’s always bookended by something that feels sinister or downright empty. Still, happiness recedes and returns with its own peculiar gravity. My favourite album of all time. 11/10.

King Crimson: Back 2 tha Hood

Possibly the most Toronto-sounding album I have ever heard.

This one was frustrating to me because the music is technically quite good, I just couldn’t connect with it at all. I was reminded of Fleetfoxes and Arcade Fire, two of my favourite bands, but there was a complete lack of grit —or any interesting texture— to give me something to grab on to. Everything feels just a little bit too coy and saccharine to me.

As power pop, this is a pretty solid album. As punk rock trying to “save rock and roll”, this is absolute dogshit. Unfortunately, it looked like they were leaning towards the latter. Speaking for myself, FOB is really fun when I’m listening to their singles, but a whole album of them is just too much. There’s only so many times I can hear a millennial nasally croon about being young forever.

By far my favourite Portishead album.

New wave at its clearest and catchiest. Also one of the most baffling exclusions from the original list — it could have replaced either New Order album already on there.

I chose this one for my second submission because it’s both my favourite hip hop album and, in my opinion, one of the most significant albums of the 2010s. Kinda surprised no one added it before me, actually. Either this or Igor should have made the original list. I came to the Tyler fan club a little later than most. His earlier work with Odd Future (a group that included Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt) was closer to an online sketch comedy like Smosh than something like Wu-Tang Clan, and the lyrics reflected that: “Fuck the police / break the law / n*gga twist your fingers off / break your balls.” Classics, really. His earlier albums like Goblin reflect a lot of his anger and loneliness in a way that feels… less than good. Following the Eminem/Slim Shady format, he tried to do the whole dark alter-ego thing that a lot of rappers were doing years ago only dialled up to another level of edginess. Even when the songs were catchy, the references to cartoonish murder fantasies and sexual violence are pretty damn juvenile. His rampant homophobia, on the other hand, may have been a little more tongue-in-cheek than was publicly understood at the time (but still pretty shitty to listen to nonetheless). The less said about the song “Tron Cat” the better. He matured, of course. Wolf and Cherry Bomb are both solid, but still feel a little rough around the edges in my opinion. No hate to either one, but they feel more like experiments than a fully-realized work of art. Here, Tyler manages to move past his earlier edgelord persona without losing any of his energy. He sings/raps about alienation in a way that feels down to earth while also dabbling in some pop and orchestral flourishes that lend the project a really lush, summery feel. It also has him coming to terms with bisexuality with a refreshing lack of angst. This felt especially “real” to me as a young(er) adult who was also realizing their own queerness, even though I listened to it in full several years after the album’s release. For a lot of artsy middle class white dudes like myself, this was also a gateway drug to a lot of other hiphop, which is mostly slotted into the 1990s on both lists. Also, this is my effort to atone for unleashing “News at 11” on you all.

Jesus Christ. I usually have a little more patience for self-indulgent and unfunny 90’s rock, but I found this downright childish. Just repeating lines about animals and sex sung in that same ironic and “funky” hillbilly intonation. This shit AGGRAVATED me.

I love the mood of this album, but his singing just isn’t my thing. Recognized “Tiny Tears” from The Sopranos. Also, just to nitpick the album art, I know he’s being fitted for a suit but it looks like he’s wearing a life jacket. I don’t know why this irritates me so much but I can envision him with wearing the actual finished suit and it fits the music a helluva lot more. Cool submission though, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected.