The GOAT hip hop album, everybody knows that
It's fine background music. Sorry.
Can an album be universally regarded as best in its class, and still be underrated? Sure can! The hits just never stop coming.
Good sex music. Good sad music. Get you a girl that can do both. Spawned an army of imitators, so, like, that's always a big deal. If I were listing 1001 albums everyone should listen to, would this make the cut? No. But do I understand why it's on *this* list? Eh. I guess.
Probably my favorite Radiohead album. 15 Step, Weird Fishes, Reckoner are clearly great. Others are grating. Like it's good or whatever, and the whole sales/marketing aspect of its release was cool. But at least The Bends and OK Computer and stuff get praise for being super groundbreaking, even if I might think it was kinda just hip kids re-inventing prog rock. This came out in 2007, is it really a landmark generation-defining album?
It's freaky and weird. I like freaky and weird! Parts could fit right in on a Deep Purple album which I wasn't expecting.
Highlights:
Tudo a Que
Um Girassol
Um Gosto
Lilia
I love the Spanish horns!!!
Way better than I expect. First 3 songs, Cold Irons Bound, Can't Wait total highlights
Entirely unremarkable. The organ in the first couple songs was kinda cool, where'd that go?
And then this Time song shows up, great little blues number. At least something stands out!!!
Seminal. Nothing wrong with not being as "good" as its thousands of grandchildren.
Going with... 4.49 rounded down to 4. Wonderful vibe music, just standout tracks are rare... But that's kinda the appeal too. I really really like it and it's def entering the rotation.
I'll take Red Alert and leave the rest, thanks. There's a reason we don't consume dance music in album form. Especially when it's this dated. If I was on enough drugs to make this hit right, I'd rather be listening to something more silky and fresh anyway.
Sure why not.
2.6 rounded up to 3
Springsteen is always the same -- the really famous stuff is hot trash, but when you listen to the albums they're loaded with unheralded great tunes.
This one is a famous album without many famous songs -- most played track on Tidal is his #23 highest. Sure enough, this is a REAL pleasant surprise. I only knew Badlands and the title track. Abel Raised a Cain and Streets of Fire are kickass hard rock.
It's so good. So classic. The Spy is such a fuggin jam.
Total classic with so many great songs. I can barely hold on through the Nash tracks though, Teach Your Children and Our House are both icepick to the ear terrible. Neil as usual kills it. Love Country Girl so much.
Again, the more famous a Springsteen piece is, the worse it is. This is the second most famous album, and boy do I not like it. Basically just one long saxophone + piano chord drone (the real progenitor to Arcade Fire?) and if you changed every lyric to mumble-yelling "wish I was James Dean" not much would change. Big disappointment after Darkness was a revelation. The musical equivalent of having just one window open on the freeway.
First track had me thinking I was about to discover my new favorite album. Still overall pleasant but the opener is def the highlight for me. It's still psychedelic country rock so just about my favorite genre, just not to the dizzying heights of a Neil Young or a Little Feat.
The ultimate pub rock album. Highly testicular.
Still Haven't Found still sucks. With or Without You still sucks. Didn't know the second half of the album, given its reputation I hoped it would be more fun jangly stuff like Streets. Nope, pretty dreary. In Gods Country is ok though. Big disappointment.
Oh fuck yes this is one of the best things ever made.
Wow this was fucking terrible. Always thought the title track was stupid and overrated, turns out it's the best pop song on here. The ambient section is pretty standard-issue fart-smelling, but doesn't actually add anything. I want to give it another star just for being Bowie, but jesus fuck this was unlistenable.
Yeah it's cool. Great bones. Cool sounds. I bet if I listened a couple more times I could even start telling one song from another!!
My least favorite of the classic Zep albums. Never got the Whole Lotta Love hype, like at all. Heartbreaker really ain't all that either. Lemon Song is frankly insulting to the great Howlin Wolf. Highlights to me are Thank You and the rockin version of Bring It On Home.
Pretty cool. Pretty good. Pretty fresh even here in the 2020s. Still not my favorite style but yeah it's good.
Obviously breathtaking, she's the GOAT
Total revelation. Never heard of these guys before. Why????
It's cool. Not mind blowing for me. Pretty uneven.
Is that a call-out to Neil Young's A Man Needs a Maid at the end of Don't You Remember?
Yeah it's got some pretty darn good songs. Some filler. And just hate the production so much, like my head is being blown off.
Some of their best. Bigmouth Strikes Again is just so incredibly great.
Yeah man I tried to get it years ago. Still feels the same. Stressful and random. Idk man idk
Super cool. Started out more easy listening than I expected but no way that was gonna last forever. Want to come back to it with a lil more focus in the future!!
Obviously I love Tom Petty soooo much, this isn't quite as perfect as a Damn The Torpedoes or a Full Moon Fever but it's still raw and wonderful. American Girl as the closing track is such a flex.
Call it a 3.49. Gloria, Free Money, and Land are absolutely perfect. The rest... eh.
Easy to see why it was such a big deal at the time. Everything sounds the same except Express Yourself which isn't very good. Title track goes pretty hard though with the horns. Interesting how it's sounding almost as quaint as Run DMC etc.
Pretty much GOATed. Can't imagine a musical palate that would score this lower than 4 stars. Who is this NOT for? Fuck it's so good. Imma freak if I read the reviews and people are hating
It's not greater than the sum of its parts, but it's some pretty good parts. Not quite as dreary as I remember, but Those Memories of You is still by far the highlight.
One of the all-time debut albums. So much energy, so much tension. The bass is so so good. Really puts the punk-metal "divide" into focus -- like, if you took out all the guitar solos, this would be ur-punk.
Yo this is dope. First track def the highlight. I'd heard things sampled from it but not the og. Wish it had stayed smooth all the way through without the noisy guitar bits.
Mostly inoffensive Stones impression. The voice does get old. Just kept chuckling to myself that apparently Rod Stewart has the reputation of being the dumbest motherfucker in show biz... some of the awful rhymes seemed to lend that credence.
No one digs Common like Common digs Common. But he gets bodied by any guests on a track. The double edged sword of conscious hip-hop is that if you do say misogynist or homophobic things, there's no playing it up as an act. It doesn't suck or nothing, but if, say, Black Star is 5 stars, no way this is more than 2.49.
Only song I'd heard before is California Stars, which fucking sucks. Some of the tracks were alright, especially when more country flecked. Overall just pretty unremarkable, would definitely be one of the 10,001 albums.
Like it's definitely good. Feel good blues is just so weird. And just doesn't hit like Muddy or the other two Kings.
Genesis for Pixies fans.
Now, reconciling the tension between alt rock and prog rock is no mean feat. But I'm real tired of hearing how everything before Radiohead was banging on rocks, while everything after is a cheap knockoff.
I Might Be Wrong can stay.
There were times when, while packing up books for a move, I almost felt like I got it. If the only way I can get down with some music is if I'm super distracted, what does that say? Idk man, it's gonna be super embarrassing when jazz is my least-liked genre at the end of this, but I guess I'm just not a hep cat. At least not when it's ponderous pretzel jazz.
At first I was like, this is better than I expected. Then I was like, no it isn't.
Just the least interesting to me of the Nick Drake albums. Obviously the dreariness is the point, but this one suffers that killer combo of being kinda boring too. Things Behind the Sun is tremendous though.
Music to lie naked on a waterbed with a rose between your teeth to, with your hairy little prawn flopping around, praying your girl doesn't hit traffic coming home from work because then you might have to break the pose to flip the record over.
Dripping with Napoleonic references and driving home on a sunny day with a band famous for energy made me pretty excited for this. What in the ever schmaltzing fuck was that. Last song is kinda ok but that's it.
Boy, hearing Babylon and Sail Away out me right back in Woods Hole, 1999, at ten years old. That deserves a star on its own. so very 90s but in a good way. Fun to rediscover.
This is super, super dope. Love the percussion. Makes me wanna spread my arms and paddle turn for my life. Whirling dervish! Gonna have to revisit this next time I'm playing a strategy game in this part of the world.
Also I can't wrap my head around all the people in the reviews complaining about how they can't understand what he's saying. Bananas. Though I don't even really listen to lyrics until several times through even when it's in English. Just interesting (and a lil frustrating) to see the different ways people listen to music.
Oh my god I get it you liked To Pimp a Butterfly
I mean it's Beggars Banquet
This was pretty darn good. Wayyy better than trash ass Heroes that the cover riffs off. Liked the two parenthetical songs - The Stars (Are Out Tonight) and (You Will) Set the World On Fire.
This is THE seminal cock rock album, pun intended. Also the seeds of speed metal. Can't wait to see how much the hip kids hate it.
That Ian Gillan scream is really something. Gotta be second only to the Tom Waits croak for signature move by a rock vocalist.
Ok when this came up I was like, oh yeah Talk Talk they're okay I guess. I was NOT prepared for how excellent this is. A lot of Tears For Fears vibes. Consistently great top to bottom. Living In Another World is a banger!!
Ok definitely a lot going on here. Not many artists who inspire such simultaneous love and loathing in me as Paul Simon. Art is cool.
More sounds than I expected. The synth in the second track made me think I'd left something else on the queue. Mrs Robinson is obviously a great song. Hazy Shade of Winter is a banger I didn't know before. So there's plenty of good.
But holy crap the preciousness. I usually care about music far more than lyrics, but Paul Simon REALLY pushes that sometimes. "I said be careful his bowtie is really a camera" has always been one of my most hated lyrics in rock n roll, it's just absolutely awful. But that Punkys Dilemma song may have left it in the dust. "I wish I was a kellogg cornflake, floating in my bowl" oh my god make it stop. Also Fakin It seems like a total ripoff of Plastic Fantastic Lover?
With all there is for me to hate here, it's quite an accomplishment for this to get 3 stars from me.
Yo who tf is this???? This is absolutely incredible and I can't wait to listen to this a shit ton. Big win for the 1,001.
Just immense blues rock, obviously. One of the all time greats. Hard to believe they were all so damn young. I appreciate that unlike a certain dirigible-themed blues rock band, they want you to know where the music came from.
Honestly expected it to hold up worse. Once upon a time I listened to this a ton, but even then I feel like I remember thinking it was very uneven. Not how I feel now! So many bangers and I love the weird stuff.
You guys I think this dude might have listened to David Bowie before
No mere mortal can resist the evil of the Thriller
Ok not quite what I was anticipating! I of course have heard the "hits" so many times it hurts, so I was expecting more sparse soundscapes, laid back tempos, and kinda dopey melodies. This went pretty hard pretty often, even that Maiden like gallop in the first song. Makes a lot more sense with the influence on Nirvana than the Here Comes Your Man, Where Is My Mind types.
I mean it's Sticky Fingers
I'm starting to think it's chic. What is it? Nobody knows, that's what's so chic.
Was ready to give it 2 stars for not being actively unpleasant, but those last few tracks were brutal. Which is mostly to be expected. Next.
DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING
the parts with an organ were ok
James Brown is one of the titans of American music, just immense. But this kinda ain't it. The sound quality kinda saps the energy, making this somehow sleepy. A touch too much screeching, both from JB and the crowd. Just a forgettable experience from one of music's most unforgettable acts.
Lily Rosemary has that magic combo of being an earworm and being kinda really ass. Other than that, basically a perfect album.
If every time someone thought about putting on Talking Heads, they instead put on the Cars, we'd probably have flying cars by now. Pun intended.
Wow Doncha Stop is hot garbage though.
If you seek to really understand modern popular music, apparently 1/500th (at least) of the work you'll do is Cocteau Twins. This is quite surprising to me, given that practically every song sounds the same. Odd!
Title track was cool though
Something bigger than music
I mean, it's... nah jk this just ain't quite at the level of the other 3 we've already had. Still great. Awesome blues. I have the original British pressing on vinyl!
First 5 songs were SO good. Like Joni blended up with Zevon. Then the rest was real self indulgent and kinda awful. Was thinking 3, then went back and listened to the beginning again. 4 stars it is.
It's good and stuff. I don't know that it will cure your gout or walk your dog or pay off your student loans like its reputation would suggest.
I was pleasantly surprised by Take Me With U and Computer Blue. Darling Nikki is one of those songs where, if it had generic lyrical content, nobody would ever think about it twice. Completely uninteresting. I forgot how long When Doves Cry is. And the title track is really, really boring.
Still plenty of good here. I like some of the rhythms and he's a great guitar player. I just can't get down with it being one of the best things ever made.
1 2 3, it's Mos Def and Talib Kwe... oh. More Bowie.
If this wasn't released so close to his death, would anyone really care? There's a LOT of... just... not good here. Will there ever come a day when discordant saxophone doesn't automatically get you the "experimental" crown? It's actually, genuinely, such old news.
Feel like Leonard Cohen pulled off the trick to better effect later in the year.
When are we gonna pull some actually fun Bowie?
Sets the bar for pleasant yet forgettable.
What? And more to the point, why?
Hello, you claim you're on the other side. The following 40 minutes of caterwauling about your permanent heartbreak determined this to be a lie.
Remains the gold standard for painful production to my ears. Like the equivalent of those deep fried memes. The vocal fry and squeaking now lives inside my brain. No great mystery why she struggled with vocal chord injuries.
The rockers here are actually fairly good. Specifically Send My Love, Under the Bridge, and River Lea. But holy hell are the ballads excruciating, and the second half is completely drowned in them.
I'm sure it's been said a million times here - there's a 5 star single album in here, that was swamped out by the self-indulgence of going for a double album. When it's good, it's right there with Rumours. But wow so many of the Lindsay tracks are just epic trash. Horrible, horrible. Everyone was yakked out AF here but apparently he just totally cracked. What the fuck man.
Well, at least it's a much better streaming album than it is vinyl. Much easier to skip the garbage here. Still, just can't bring myself to put it at 4.
When I saw this was prog that all the cool kids said was unlistenable garbage, I got real excited. Turns out it's just unlistenable garbage. Too bad.
With the exception of the Velvet Underground cover, which sucked, this was an awesome surprise. I was expecting some Talking Heads bullshit, Blondie bullshit, but this was spooky evil and great.
Almost becomes bearable when they stumble their way into something resembling a melody which I'm sure was an accident.
I want to like it. But boy do all the songs sound the same. YAWR YAWR YAWR. Add in that I don't really like Maps and yeah.
The body of Venus WITH ARMS
This is super rad and I can't wait to listen to it a bunch more. Think I'd been conflating her with HER but I like SZA's style much more.
Ok I already thought this was my favorite U2 album but it's even better than I thought. Bass + drums are the MVP here, esp the drums. Gorramn.
Man, some of the greatest songs of the last decade are on this. Mother We Share, Lies, Gun, just absolutely incredible tracks. More filler than I remembered though. Recovery is an earworm in a bad way.
Come on guys, Blondie kinda sucks and "kinda" is doing a lot of work here. Take away the cult of Debbie Harry and there's really not much there, with the important exception of Rapture being a seminal event in the mainstream legitimization of rap.
Hanging on the Telephone is great. Fade Away and Radiate was a pleasant surprise. One Way or Another sucks. Heart of Glass is great for the first 15 seconds then sucks. Everything else sucks.
*sigh* I don't wanna. Never gonna be my thing.
Well it's not Liege & Lief. Which is not a perfect album. Which makes 3 stars make sense. I like the sound more than the songs, outside of Autopsy which is awesome.
Best Queen. Super proggy.
I'd somehow never really listened to De La Soul. This was great! Like what I was always promised with A Tribe Called Quest, but much more satisfying to me. Loved the one that mixed up Peg and Sitting On The Dock. I understand it's pretty brand new on streaming too so that's neat.
I mean.... I really love classic Johnny Cash. Feels like the people falling over these projects are the ones who wouldn't cue up Big River or Get Rhythm or stuff. I like the more country oriented stuff more... some of the pop song covers are pretty dumb. I also just don't really believe Johnny on Hurt the way I believe Reznor... I still think the original cuts deeper. Especially because changing "crown of shit" to "crown of thorns" really, really, really undermines the impact. They just ain't the same thing, sorry you don't wanna swear no more Johnny. Also the production top to bottom is Pro Toolsy bullshit.
With all those complaints, still a 3 star. The man is great, this just ain't the real real Cash.
Such a great album. While it's one of the most consistent double albums, it STILL could've really been just one. But yeah it's great.
Dreadful divorced mom pop. Sounds like Thom Yorke but less interesting. Club me in the head with a bowling pin. Eughh, gotta wash my ears out with Blood Incantation or something.
Top notch punk. Love the vocal affectation, the surf guitar, the very forceful messages. Some unexpectedly creative musical ideas in here too, the guitar in Holiday in Cambodia is genuinely exciting.
It's got some really cool sounds, it's super fresh and unique, Del is the man. Is it mind blowing or anything to listen to now? Mmmm not really, just good. Such a milestone though.
GOAT hip hop album, everyone knows that.
More enjoyable than Bitches Brew, less exciting than Kind of Blue.
Look man I fuckin love The Cult. They understood the assignment of "rock & roll" at a time when a lot of groups didn't. I'd be all about Sonic Temple being among the 1001, maybe even Love if I'm uncreative that day.
But Electric? Cmon, this is just AC/DC for Bowie fans. The Cult at their least creative, least diverse. It's certainly not BAD music to have a bar fight to, but it just doesn't belong in this project.
Yeah listened to this enough and I'm not gonna right now. It's good, it's really good.... But just don't thrill the way it does when I was 20 and trying to connect with a girl who liked it.
Oh my God they seriously spent a full 5 minutes introducing A Quick One (ironic). Look, the story isn't very complicated and DEFINITELY isn't deep enough to merit that much banter. Really the banter throughout is really, really dumb.
I respect that the Who were absolutely determined to be different from what was out there at the time. It's just that sometimes that expressed as some rinky-dink kindergarten bullshit melodies. Substitute and Happy Jack back to back was absolutely brutal.
I do have more appreciation for Keith Moon now, I'll admit. Always thought the drums really lacked potency on the studio recordings. Like if Bonham was the theoretical 10, Moon would be a consistent 4. In this recording I got a lot more of the frantic energy people are always raving about him, which meant the pure power wasn't missed so much.
Really tempted to 1-star this thing just because of that 5 minute A Quick One intro, but there's some pretty putrid 1 stars out there. We're going 2.
I imagine this is what people who hate the Beatles hear when they listen to the Beatles.
Some people say this is one of the great underrated collections of pop music. I presume those are the same people who say that Vampire Weekend is good.
Time Of The Season sucks actually. She's Not There isn't here, sadly. Maybe After He's Gone was kinda cool in sections.
Hey look it's Radiohead before they were the only band that exists! At least the discourse around The Bends is much less insufferable. I just refuse to see Radiohead as great innovators, just because a bunch of Pixies fans with no prog literacy whatsoever said so. Don't get me wrong, resolving the tension between punk and prog is no mean feat, but that's what Radiohead did on OKC and beyond, not tear open the mortal firmament to call down a holy sound never before imagined.
There's just SO MUCH rhetorical baggage with Radiohead, but trying to take The Bends on its own merits... it's nice. Fits into a well established and pleasant tradition. A couple cute pop songs, that are only kinda samey. Some nice melodies, some fun fuzz. Street Spirit is absolutely the highlight. Perfectly acceptable.
Now that's what I call nuclear anxiety.
Peak pop punk. Even tiptoes into being a spiritual successor to the punk-adjacent first Iron Maiden album. I think that riff in the bridge of Genocide follows the melody from the bridge of Maiden's Phantom of the Opera.
Come Out and Play back to back with Self Esteem is just diabolical. Kickass tunes.
It pushes for 5 stars at times, but I think "perfect punk" is an oxymoron. Final verdict 4.25.
Um hello wtf is this? This is awesome? Never even heard of these guys before? Thanks 1001?
Side 1 pretty much sucks. It's got the famous bits, but other than Your Latest Trick they're all either rinky dinky kindergarten bullshit or dopey dad pop. The build-up in MFN is great, but the payoff is MASSIVELY overrated - specifically because of that second little phrase, with the squeaky palm mute that sucks all the air out of the moment. And then the rest of the song is garb.
BUT
That doesn't particularly matter because the Side 2 is one of the great underrated record sides in music history. It's atmospheric, it's kinda spooky, the lyrics are meaningful, the band sounds great. Stacking Ride Across the River and The Man's Too Strong like that should probably be illegal. If the first side had the same energy, this would be a true all-timer in my book.
Pretty funny to me that the general discourse is the exact opposite, but hey.
Some great artists mine for new sounds. Other great artists hybridize existing sounds in interesting ways. Sometimes they conveniently tell you right in the album title which of those they're self-diagnosing as!
Such a wonderfully coherent sonic palette that borrows from basically every musical movement of the 90s - grunge, hip hop, industrial, electronica, nu metal.
The nostalgia is coloring things here and I don't care. To me, you will always be perfect.
