The third early to mid nineties album I’ve gotten in a row is probably my favourite of the lot. Yes, this might be because all the cool music sounded like this when I was 12. Kinda sounds like if Phil Spector did a grunge album. But it seems like if Spector and Corgan made an album, not everyone would make it out alive.

What a start to my new project. Is there a better voice in rock? Love how frequently piano makes an appearance.

Surprisingly precise and regular in its rhythms. Feels like mellowed-down poppy punk - not just the jacket that seems related to the Ramones. Tom Petty is great, if not yet height of his powers.

Before listening to this album I thought that Pink Floyd wasn’t my thing. I thought their music was bloated and sounded like a 14 year old trying to be deep with their first attempts with effects at their disposal. Turns out I was right. This entire thing feels insanely self-indulgent. From the screechy synth to the constant use of the second person voice in the lyrics it all makes me cringe and roll my eyes. Pieces are great - Roger Waters’ bass line and David Gilmour’s guitar on Have A Cigar are pretty fun until they get buried, and Wish You Were Here benefits from being stripped down but starts to get drowned by the end as well. Basically - it’s not for me.

This album reminded me of my Grandpa who died 15 years ago. On its own merits I'd probably give it 3 stars but my Grandpa was the coolest person I know so 5 stars for making me think about him.

Makes me feel like an angry 90s teenager again. Fun, with some bangers, but gets a bit repetitive. Still boggles my mind that the screaming lead singer now has a PhD in molecular biology. Some people have layers I guess.

Took a few songs to get going but then was fun. Wikipedia article calls them the "British Jefferson Airplane" and it does sound very Grace Slick, but the parts that sounded more like Allman Brothers were my favourite.

Blech. Not for me. It seems like Chris Martin is responding to late-90s brainless aggression with pablum. But it just ends up pouring terrible music on top of bad.

An example of low expectations being blown out of the water. What a bop.

Why did we all have so much angst in the 90s? I’m not super fond of this - all pretentious sadness. Also not fond of when bands mix the vocals in under the instrumentals to make you lean in. But at least it’s better than Coldplay.

Man this album was absolutely everywhere for awhile, but it just didn’t penetrate my lily-white suburban neighbourhood. Our loss. Glad for this chance to catch up.

This album is so great that it can name one of its tracks “Splanky” and make it sound cool.

Sounds mostly like the most dated aspects of the Beatles music. Every so often some of the harder elements of their future bleed through, but mostly it just feels quaint. Not a hard listen, just a bit dry.

I waffled a lot between 3 stars and 4. There’s a lot to like about this album. Each song has a piece that makes me think I’d really like the music Stuart Murdoch listens to. But then in so many songs they add something like a harmonica or a triangle or a weird vocal harmony that distracts from the rest. Better than I expected, it got better further into the album, nearly but not quite a 4.

I don’t get prog. It’s irritating how they cram four songs together and try to say it’s one track. And I bet they’re doing inventive things with rhythms and chord progressions, but it makes it a real slog to listen to. Having said all that - still better than Pink Floyd.

Great voice. No expectations, very pleasant listening. I don't know anything about her EDM roots but this made me curious for more.

Man I wish I had better musical taste when this album came out. I could have saved a lot of money on bad CDs. This is great from top to bottom. I really missed the post-punk boat.

I used to think the title was some kind of marketing ploy aimed at Elton John himself. Now I think maybe it refers to longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin, whose lyrics are completely bananas. Is there a luckier man to ever exist, who responded to the same newspaper ad the same time as the only person alive with enough talent and charisma to turn his words into magic? Anyway, Elton John is incredible despite whatever nonsense Taupin makes him sing about.

I expected to hate this but turns out it's pretty perfect pop music - fun to listen to but immediately forgettable. Feels like McDonald's for your ears.

I guess all recordings are a type of time capsule, but this one feels especially so. Seems like a good example of both the good and the bad of what rock thought sounded cool in the early 80s. I wanted to give this five stars but there was just a little too much cringe. Mark Knopfler sure plays a soothing guitar though.

Maybe I don’t hate prog after all! Or maybe CanCon rules have made this music part of my life for years. Whatever it is, between the incredible Neal Peart drumming and Geddy Lee’s bizarre voice and fantastic bass playing this works for me from beginning to end.

3.5 if possible. Enjoyable, really can see how they've filtered early 50s rock through 70s and 80s hard fuzz. Probably won't feel the need to revisit.

A lot closer to timeless than I expected it to be - a lot of it sounds current. Sweet Thang is a 7* out of 5, and the rest of the album is very good.

Track 1 is a perfect pop song. The rest of the album has tracks that have questionable beginnings but by the end you’re nodding along and getting it. Well done.

A lot of layers here. Hard to describe. Impressive even if I don't really understand it. Worth a listen. I can see why it got such high ratings upon its release.

More musical than I expected. I get how important it is in concept, but loses points for being so long.

The cool kids I went to school when listened to Sonic Youth. Now I just feel bad for them. Yuck.

Is it cultural appropriation if the guy who invented the style is singing with the white man who's just visiting? Either way, this album slides down as smooth as silk. Never been to Brazil but this feels like an all-inclusive resort - a tourist's version of what Brazilian bossa nova is like.

Enjoyed more than anticipated. Punk is fun!

Part of the Wikipedia article describes this as among the best-recorded albums of all time. This seems like such a backhanded compliment - like saying your ugly house is made of great materials, or that your new partner has a "fantastic personality." It all feels slightly like what Patrick Bateman would play after Huey Lewis & the News. Nothing to complain about but not much for me to sink my teeth into.

This might have been the best album yet from this project. I will be revisiting this many times in the future, which I can't say for most of this. Pretty close to perfect.

Seems like the parent of the Sonic Youth album I rated a few days ago but slightly easier to take.

“Pink Floyd guitarist auditions to be part of the more irritating songs in the Beatles catalogue.”

Piano AND trumpet, with sax in an appropriate supporting role? Yes please. What a pleasant surprise. Never heard of this band but this album is them throwing every genre at the wall to see what sticks, with not 100% success but enough to have fun with.

Such a cool surprise that the only song I knew from this album was not even close to the best one.

Again, punk is fun. Especially with a brass section.

I did not know how much I’d enjoy this. Karen Carpenter is incredible and I never knew that or anything about the tragedy that was her early death.

Love Dave Grohl as a great guy but never been a big Foo Fighters fan. Still an interesting album. Not hard to see the Nirvana influence on this music-as-therapy recording. Everyone should read his book, he’s also an enjoyable storyteller.

She seems talented and some interesting stuff musically but her voice is not for me.

The third early to mid nineties album I’ve gotten in a row is probably my favourite of the lot. Yes, this might be because all the cool music sounded like this when I was 12. Kinda sounds like if Phil Spector did a grunge album. But it seems like if Spector and Corgan made an album, not everyone would make it out alive.

I mean it’s easy enough to tell that this album is packed with a truly insane amount of talent and innovation. It’s just more difficult for this ignorant brain to grasp it all. Easy and enjoyable even if it didn’t grip me.

Perfection

This is a vibe. This is what music is supposed to sound like in our flying cars or on the holodeck.

I’m worried that I’m only 5% through this list and I feel so strongly that I would have been ok dying without ever hearing this album. It’s fine, but I think there probably are better options.

After reading about how this album was basically made by Tom Sholz in his basement, and basically passed off to executives as a professional job, I'm far less embarrassed to say this is exactly up my street. I should have been born 20 years earlier so I could have experienced the 70s.

Not a shock to learn that Bowie produced their album before this one. Sounds like Ziggy Stardust Goes To the Farm. But I did enjoy it more than I predicted.

She blew me away in the Summer of Soul doc, and while losing the visuals does take away some of her charisma there's still a ton of power in that voice.

This did not work for me. Apparently this is a seminal work in the Shoegaze genre. No thanks.

Great voice, weird music. A bit too weird for that fourth star.

More punk that I enjoyed. I missed my calling. The "Under the Boardwalk" cover very nearly pushed it to 5 star territory.

The first album that I've listened to in entirety before this project! I still like it, but not as much as I remember.

Surprisingly enjoyable. Did not expect to like it but slid down smooth as silk. I appreciate wordless music that allows me to get some work done while listening to it. Creates a soundscape and just lets you sit in it for the whole album.

Took an embarrassingly long time to figure out why this sounded so much like Rod Stewart at times. Of course he sounds better when backed by one of the Rolling Stones.

As this project shows me that I have an appreciation for punk, it's interesting to listen to one of the OGs. It really wasn't what I expected - it sounds a lot more like the Doors or Hendrix than I would have anticipated. Makes sense for the time. But has less of a crushing impact than their live shows must have had with Iggy up there bleeding on people.

Do all of the songs sound alike? Maybe, but when that sound is "greatness" who cares?

Completely unexpected from the name and album photo. A trip back to the 90s when things were LOUD and busy. And what an incredible vocalist.

Two Tom Waits albums in about a week is a lot. As cool as it is that he recorded it in the basement of the studio, it seems deliberately challenging to whoever is trying to listen to it, and I wasn't feeling it.

Courtney is cool but this album is less fun than I'd like it to be

This really wasn't my favourite, but it was weirdly cool, and I'm glad she made it.

The piano is pretty, but so few of these songs hook me in. It's hard to avoid comparing one piano-based rocker to another, but somehow Elton John takes way cheesier material and makes it awesome, where Billy Joel's lyrics are way better yet his songs lack the same wow-factor. Talent all over the place but barely ever amounts to more than sounding like elevator muzak.

First thing - shockingly different from The Stooges album of 4 years previous. This is better.

HATE

Real trip down memory lane, but now that my kid is the age I was when it came out it really made me cringe a bit to listen to together. He really does have a way with words and I still respect his flow, but sometimes even biting satire can go a little far.

This is a banger. Very enjoyable. Just misses 5 stars because it needed a little more variety. But it does what it does very well.

So self-indulgent. Feels like it took the entire weekend to listen to. Rock peaked in the 70s but its decline started right when the rockers thought they were this important.

I comment on vocalists a lot, but this has to be close to the top of the pile. So good he got Berry Gordy to change his formula at Motown. Reading the background of the album makes it seem like this is yet another album as therapy for a complicated sexual history - funny how sincerity and introspection can make something great.

I mean it's a perfect sounding album, but you have to take away a star for the lyrics on "Brown Sugar." Even the band is embarrassed enough to no longer play it live. It's unfortunate because musically it's a joy, but it's foolish to ignore what is being celebrated in the lyrics. Best to consign that one to the past.

Not sure why this album felt disjointed to me. I guess it's hard to avoid comparing albums against each other when you get the same artist back to back, but it never felt like the whole package of Sticky Fingers. C'mon, that's a great joke - look at the album cover.

I love the Doors

6 albums in a row from between 1968-1974. Help me. This one was quite fun and maybe the most 70s one yet, in concept - a band based around the bongos? But whooo boy an album from the last 50 years would be nice.

I know nothing about rap, but this feels different. In a good way.

It's fine. That's about all I can say.

I hate to rate everything 3*, because there were good songs on this album, but overall it was a bit too weird for me to rate it higher.

Not really much to add. Deserving in its place as one of the greatest of all time.

One of the worst albums I’ve ever heard

This album really makes me think I'd never want to get stuck in a conversation with Paul Simon. These are lyrics from a man who thinks he is extremely important. Some of these songs are way too over the top folk-y, some of them are pretty good. Was familiar with most of them but pleasantly surprised by the one where they pretend to be Dylan.

Another Mercury Prize winner that is kinda dull.

Yes please.

No real mystery here, this album came out when I was about 8 years old and basically every album I've ever experienced was shaped by it.

Considering it still is the best-selling album of all time it is surprisingly sappy. And I expected there'd be another catchy tune beyond the ones I've already heard a billion times - there is not.

Feels like a bunch of vignettes of pretty pastoral landscapes. Beautiful layers, kind of drifting here & there. As much as I may be a fan, sometimes his voice is jarring.

I did not want to like this, because of what Kanye has become. But man, he really had some talent. This was great.

Sounds mostly like generic late 60s music but gets a bump up because the most famous song on here, a 17 minute monstrosity, is shockingly fun