Jan 31 2023
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Queen II
Queen
One of the all time greatest albums of all time. This album has worlds in it. It has characters. It has melody and harmony. And rock. The faerie fellas master stroke, controlled insanity. Father to son with its beach boys harmonies. March of the black queen, with its six sections. Oh, did they do that type of thing again? And it’s an album. You start with procession, and you listen till seven seas of rhye fades out. I pity those who don’t get it. It’s its own universe. Walk in and let Freddie, Brian, Roger and John guide you through.
5
Mar 29 2023
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Live At The Regal
B.B. King
For all you Stevie Ray and Jimi wannabes out there - this is how you do blues. Even better is live at cook county jail, with Joe Walsh and carol king in the backing band. But no one did blues like B B.
4
May 01 2023
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High Violet
The National
The national try to do the birds. They try to do creedence. They try to do the band. There’s a little eagles in there. But they don’t, at least for me quite get there. They’re good players and the songs are ok. But I always thought they should have tried a bit more risk taking.
3
May 02 2023
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Vincebus Eruptum
Blue Cheer
Certainly one of the contenders for first heavy metal band (tm) summertime blues is an excellent reworking of one of the top 20 songs of the rock era. Ok, the who did it first, but blue cheer slowing it down gave it a certain something. The rest of the album is less assured - they’re trying for something new, but not quite getting it. To be fair, they’re in uncharted waters and we’re listening with massive hindsight. Still I prefer the kinks, the who, cream, yardbirds, sabbath, cream and zeppelin as pioneers.
3
May 03 2023
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Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco
Preferred to the national and Mumford. They have a more nuanced sound. Great opener and a solid follow up. There’s a consistency to this album, with tweedy being pushed to write better songs by a good band. Wilco gave us all hope for that so called Americana movement.
3
May 04 2023
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C'est Chic
CHIC
Le freak is an ear worm of course. And let’s be honest Nile has milked the same style of guitar playing since at least this album. But it works. And Bernie’s bubbling bouncy bass is a global treasure. For me not an album to sit and listen to. It’s an album to dance to.
5
May 08 2023
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Pump
Aerosmith
Aerosmith are a band I feel I should like more than I do. Great well crafted songs (thanks mostly to Desmond child working with them), great musicianship - Joe Perry is an underrated guitarist. But I’m left a bit cold. I don’t know why. Sure Steven Tyler is annoying, but a great showman. So, this album was … less than the sum of its parts?
In the pantheon of great rock bands, I have many I prefer. This is a better album than many of their others, but a must listen? Nope.
3
May 09 2023
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Appetite For Destruction
Guns N' Roses
At the time I was in two minds. Yes it’s great. Sweet child. Paradise city. Welcome to the jungle. Mr brownstone. It rocks. It rocks hard. But was this the direction rock was going? Back to the future? Didn’t the stones already do this?
Yet taken out of the context of its release time, it rocks. sure, Axl is … well, axl, and is slash a one trick pony, or one of the best guitarists of his generation? I’m still not sure. Izzy Stradlin is the glue and a better guitarist than Slash. Which is either not hard or an Incredible achievement. Duff rumbles effectively. Rumour has it it’s all machines except the voice and guitar. Maybe. Certainly Steven Adler was sacked for poor timekeeping, but we can point to many many drummers who record ok
In all a great album. It’s not as great as Queen II or Aqualung, but it’s up there. Fight me.
5
May 11 2023
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The Village Green Preservation Society
The Kinks
One of the greatest albums of the sixties. How could I not love a song and album that name checks Sherlock Holmes and moriarty. Overall the perfect mix of nostalgia and critique. Sure, this turns into the worrying politics of ray davies, but this album remains a perfect encapsulation of a certain type of Englishness that has understood it’s no longer the world power, but is happy to remain British, unflappable and unbowed. I love this album, despite where it points. But where it is (not where it points) is an expression of my Anglophilia.
5
May 12 2023
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S&M
Metallica
You can’t deny metallicas impact. Both as a listening experience but also as a phenomenon.
The pretence to classical music in hard rock goes back to at least deep
Purple and Ibsen to remember kids doing an album with the Melbourne symphony.
But this album works. A bit self indulgent But the orchestra does enhance the music. It’s not pretentious which is an amazing feat.
4
May 15 2023
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Armed Forces
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Elvis Costello wrote some good songs. Nowhere near as many as he or his diminished fan base will tell you. But mostly he’s a ‘not quite as talented as he thinks bore’.
I suspect the stampeding elephants are meant to represent the power and strength of the music. To me it’s more like the dull thudding headache you get after wilfully exposing yourself to the ponderous pointless meanderings of the Costello oeuvre. David Lee Roth got it right - the reason rock critics love Elvis Costello is because he looks like most rock critics.
Oliver’s army remains one of the greatest songs ever. There’s a couple on earlier albums - I don’t want to go to Chelsea and Veronica Watching the detectives is ok. The rest are at best twee. At worst forgettable mediocrity. Anyone can write one great song. Talent comes in at 4 or 5.
The British new wave gave us compelling, unforgettable acts. Off the top of my head - the pretenders, the police, the cure, Lloyd Cole, Ian dury, the stranglers, the Irish boomtown rats, the list goes on. The wrong Elvis doesn’t make the cut. He was spoiled by the terrific Attractions, second only to the blockheads as a unit, but sadly with Costello, a band who were professional turd polishers.
1
May 16 2023
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With The Beatles
Beatles
Beyond review really. Here they are, young and free and cheeky. Except, not. But, also yes. The Beatles are more than musicians. They are a phenomenon. Still are really. But it’s about the music, man.
And why it is is pretty good. The covers are great. My favourite cover of theirs is Boys, but please Mr postman and money on this album are particularly close to it. (Yes I know, twist and shout, it’s great too). Poor George had to face the ignominy of developing his songwriting in public - his song is, well, a song. And doesn’t really point to the superb efforts he’d later produce. But John and Paul did their dross in Paul’s bedroom in Liverpool.
The album cover suggests the depths they'd plumb, which at this stage, they had no idea of. That it’s only 2 years to rubber soul and is incredible growth. Brian Wilson and Dylan are the only ones who develop that quickly. Also, they are presenting as ‘serious artists’ in that picture, probably cynically at this point. Yet, fate has a way of mocking you, innit?
An important waypoint in the history of rock and a great listen, this is a five star album from any band but from the fabs it’s a 3.5. Rounded up to four.
4
May 17 2023
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The Last Broadcast
Doves
Possibly an album put here to include post 2000 releases? And it sounds like every other 'edgy' Indy band. In other words dull. Plodding. It’s like Elvis Costello but on mandrax. Worse actually, because Costello at least tried to hide his lack of originality. There are 1000 bands that sound like this, and you know, I can’t name one off hand? Maybe we should ban listening to the Smiths, The Cure and Joy Division by earnest young urbanites till they’ve heard more music. (All three bands are vastly superior to their acolytes). I’d rather listen to Coldplay outtakes than this
Another thing to ban is critics who promote this stuff. No one thinks you’re cool or edgy. There’s plenty of great post 2000 music. This ain’t it.
I’m struggling but 2 stars because its mediocrity prevents it being 1 star.
2
May 18 2023
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Le Tigre
Le Tigre
Did indie music atrophy in about 1995?
It’s not horrible but I’m not getting anything I can’t get out of ‘seether’ or Love.
Edgily boring and more hip than the before shot in a weight watchers commercial yet not terribly interesting.
2.5 (rounded up to 3)
3
May 19 2023
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A Hard Day's Night
Beatles
Probably the first great Beatles album, they are in fine form. Imagine hearing this in 1964, not knowing what’s to come. That opening chord - A G9/A - apparently The guitars playing a G7 and the piano playing a A major. Can’t buy me love. All my loving. A hard days night. If I fell. All of it. McCartney finding that melodicism. Lennon’s lyrics. Even the George song isn’t his worst. Stunning even in context.
5
May 22 2023
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The Only Ones
The Only Ones
Enjoyed this. Great songs. Impassioned playing. Shows promise.
3
May 23 2023
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Pretzel Logic
Steely Dan
I should hate this. But there’s a craft there that can’t be denied. Sure, Fagen is a miserable so and so and the late Walter Becker wasn’t much more pleasant but there’s a talent there. Crack musicians in the band. I don’t like this one as much as the glorious aja but it’s good. As a certain kind of musician it’s both the thing you’d love to play on and what you’d like to do. Too cynical to be really classed as ‘yacht rock’ (unlike the less misanthropic Doobie brothers or a tonne of privileged white boys most of whom I can take or leave), I can see why punks and harder rockers tend to dislike this. But it, as the kids say, slaps.
3
May 24 2023
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Morrison Hotel
The Doors
I woke up this morning and had myself a beer.
Ooh edgy.
The pretence. A group that would send Holden Caulfield into conniptions.
If you’re 16 this probably appeals. But you possibly should grow out of it.
Krieger plays guitar well. Densmore is a decent drummer. I can live without the organ. And the angst from a privileged moderately talented nobody. Ugh.
Roy Buchanan on bass (just to shut up those who say ‘there’s no bass man’. Go and listen to b b king ‘live at the regal’ for ‘no bass and an organ’. Morrison is a poet in the way every sensitive year 9 boy is a poet - the world just doesn’t understand me. Sigh.
2
May 25 2023
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Let It Bleed
The Rolling Stones
Gimme shelter. That apocalyptic dervish of destruction. If the rest of the album had been twinkle twinkle little star played half in G# and half in A and half in 3/4 and half in 4/4 that track alone would give the album five stars from me.
And yet here’s the rest of it. A stunning collection of songs from the second (I think) of the greatest run of albums of all time. Beggars, this, through to Exile.
Jagger Richards were a slow burn. Unlike Dylan, Lennon McCartney and Brian Wilson who made massive strides in songwriting in 18 months to two years, the stones take a little longer to reach greatness. Sure they wrote satisfaction. And some really fine stuff. But mick Taylor and gram parsons unlock the quintessential Stones sound. And as great as that early period can be (Have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadows?’ Or Paint it black or she’s a rainbow or dozens of others are truly great.). But the swagger, thanks to country music and blues makes the stones.
The Stones swing. Individually they’re ok. (Charlie being the only one who approaches virtuosity.). But together unbeatable. After the phoney, shallow pretensions of The Doors, this is the palate cleanser we need. You want edge? Jagger delivers in spades. You want rock and roll attitude? Keith gives us the template. What other band would write about serial killers, drug use, the end of the world and end it with a jaded world weary understanding of what one can and can’t have? Tons have emulated the model. Few have equalled it. None have bettered it.
5
May 29 2023
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Black Holes and Revelations
Muse
I should love this. For some reason this doesn’t connect. It’s on me. Not them. Bonus star as an ‘I’m sorry guys. It’s not you. It’s me.’ Can’t even tell you why.
3
May 30 2023
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Mr. Tambourine Man
The Byrds
A band which was let down by its production. In a sense highly important. In another sense less than the sum of its parts. More an artefact than a great listen.
3
Jun 02 2023
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One Nation Under A Groove
Funkadelic
This is good but I like the earlier stuff.
3
Jun 05 2023
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Tea for the Tillerman
Cat Stevens
What a songwriter. Gets right what so many others get wrong. Personal but not self-indulgent. Universal but not cliched. Gentle but not twee. Father and son should be slop. In a lesser pair of hands it would be.
Even the little snippet of the song which is also the title track at the end is the perfect concousion to the album (as it was when it played over the end credits of The Office (UK))
4
Jun 06 2023
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Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
Maxwell
I feel I’ve heard this a million times by a million acts for at least a million days before this 1996 release. There’s a decent groove. Otherwise, meh.
3
Jun 07 2023
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Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water
Limp Bizkit
Misogynist egocentric juvenile pap. Averagely played. No subtlety. No nuance. I’ve rounded up the star rating. This is an album no one needs to hear.
1
Jun 08 2023
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Truth
Jeff Beck
No one played like jeff. When he got it right though he got it right. Rod Stewart is the greatest singer of his generation when he has stuff that matches the magnificence. This is a great album
4
Jun 09 2023
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Superfly
Curtis Mayfield
A great funk album. Curtis, Isaac, Marvin, Stevie. There’s your Mount Rushmore of funk. This album is probably enough to warrant Curtis inclusion.
5
Jun 12 2023
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Disintegration
The Cure
I love the cure. I dislike the cure. I think smith is underrated. I think smith is extremely overrated. I think this is extraordinary musicianship. I think this is simplistic pap.
On balance you can excise every second sentence from that paragraph. But then again the whole thing is how I feel. This album is about as cute as you can get. And I love it. And it bores me. And it’s timeless. But it screams that time.
The three stars represents the five stars and the one star I want to give this album.
3
Jun 13 2023
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Spiderland
Slint
Hmmmm. Not awful. Not my thing. Some good stuff. Some self indulgent stuff. Play songs, not maths formulae.
3
Jun 14 2023
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Can't Buy A Thrill
Steely Dan
Reelin in the years… what a song.
Steely Dan gets their first great album. I know that there’ll be some saying this is too slick. But Fagen and Becker are New Yorkers. New York is slick. And they record out of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is slick. You want a bit of rough, go to muscle shoals or stax in the south, or even get out of Manhattan or Bel Air and go to cbgbs. Sure, it’s middle class first world problems, but they deserve their own songs too. Particularly if they’re this well-crafted and played. The edges are hidden under the slick. But the edges are there. Fagan's lyrics are bitter, twisted and cynical. Under some great playing by the band.
This is a great album. With better to come.
4
Jun 15 2023
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Midnight Ride
Paul Revere & The Raiders
Somewhat disappointing. Not sure why. Much prefer the monkees doing Boyce and hart for example.
3
Jun 16 2023
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Space Ritual
Hawkwind
Lemmy does more interesting things later. I think I don’t like psychedelia? This is … meh. Self indulgent. God, bring on punk.
2
Jun 19 2023
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Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
An incredible group. I’m deeply familiar with two of the singles, the incredible spinning wheel and if I die, which is a song you don’t expect them to do but it’s magnificent.
The rest of the album is a strong album. Liked side one in particular. Side two is pretty great though.
4
Jun 20 2023
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Third/Sister Lovers
Big Star
More critical darlings. Sigh. Actually not too bad at all but like the shins, despite Zach Braffs endorsement in that movie whose title escapes me this probably won’t change your life. To be fair if you were there, then, it might have. But I suspect it meant a lot more to those who lived in their parents basement, railing against the man, man, and earnestly assuring you this THIS is cool!
3
Jun 21 2023
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The Message
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
Has this aged well? Hmmm. The message is of course timeless and sadly still relevant for particular demographics.
I’d suggest that this is important more for the direction it points than the weight of it as an album. Is it good? Yes. Is it great? In parts yes.
But in 1000 years when historians look at the hip hop phenomenon this album will be seen as a seed not a tree.
Grandmaster flash and melle mel deserve their legendhood.
3
Jun 22 2023
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Trout Mask Replica
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Zappa sacked him and for good reason. Overrated, undercooked. Not as clever as he thinks. A decent painter. A pretentious musician. A horrible human being. Horrible humans can make great art.
But not in this case.
1
Jun 23 2023
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Ágætis Byrjun
Sigur Rós
I have a decent level of music theory. I’ve listened too and enjoyed Holdsworth , Coltrane, Zappa, later Joni Mitchell, Shostakovich, stockhausen, Jaco….
I’m still wondering if this is garbage or genius. One wonders if they weren’t from Iceland would they have received any attention?
The stars reflect an acknowledgment I might be too hard. Or. Might not.
3
Jun 26 2023
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Innervisions
Stevie Wonder
Were you to distil my musical dna into 50 albums, this would be one of them. I prefer this album to songs in the key of life. Livin for the city is an astounding song with incredible production.
From the hard funk of Higher ground to the pop sensibility of golden lady. The hard brutal politics of mistra know it all. For me the standout is Jesus children of America. The response and call in it is so so cool.
It’s really the state of black music, 1973-1983. It’s all killer, no filler.
10 stars.
5
Jun 27 2023
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The Gilded Palace Of Sin
The Flying Burrito Brothers
The genius of this group is sneaky Pete of course. That spoiled rich kid brat, gram, knows his country, but compared to his contemporaries, including Kris kristofferson, Merle haggard, joe south, Dylan, the band, and even Mick and keith, he is more of an enthusiast than a legend. There’s nice stuff here, don’t get me wrong, and Hillman is never less than driven, but like grandmaster flash, more a a signpost of what was to come,rather than a waypoint. Solid though. 3:5 rounded up.
4
Jun 28 2023
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Kid A
Radiohead
Never boring, restless, thoughtful, clever. Kid A is a great album, especially after the smash that was ok computer. Opening and title tracks are magnificent. The rest is solid. Check punch bros cover of the opener. I feel this has settled into the place where it should be.
4 stars
4
Jun 29 2023
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Deserter's Songs
Mercury Rev
Not a band I’d put in a 'bands I listen to often, or at all, really’ list, but I enjoyed this. Maybe I should give them a better listen
3
Jun 30 2023
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Ragged Glory
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
This album didn’t convert me to being the Neil young fan I’m told I should be. He can be a great songwriter. But nothing grabbed me here.
2
Jul 03 2023
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The Stranger
Billy Joel
It took me a long while to appreciate the craft of Billy Joel. I know sarcastic elbows has a book that calls him the worst rock star ever, but that same book also calls queen II the worst rock album ever and that is so incredibly objectively wrong so as to completely make it devoid of any credibility. It’s like saying Elvis Costello is more than a mediocre talent with one or two fluke songs. It just isn’t true.
But nonetheless I thought Billy was a cheap Elton knock off. I then heard the my favourite albums podcast with a Long Island singer song writer. And he converted me. Hearing the praises sung by a follower opened my eyes. And Billy Joel can write some magnificent songs. Listen to the construction of just the way you are. Or she’s only a woman. The Wikipedia page lists five singles from the album. I knew them all. and really as crafted songs they’re all great. The band is terrific.
Is he a favourite of mine? Well… There are still many I prefer. But this is a very strong album of exquisitely crafted and excellently played songs and I shouldn’t have dismissed him out of hand. 4 stars
4
Jul 04 2023
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The Band
The Band
Another one of the albums which is major part of my musical dna. King Harvest, man. What a fricking song. If it was the only good song on the album this would be a five star album. But all are classics. The instrumentation. The voices. The songs. This is F*ck of music. You listen to it and say 'f*ck off. What else is this good?' There’s maybe 25 albums that are this good. 'Dixie' is one of the best songs about the defeat of the South in the civil war, written by a Canadian just over 100 years later. Its only real rival is 'my fathers gun' written by a couple of Englishmen. Rag mama rag, rocking chair. Just F*ck off.
Poor tragic melancholy Richard Manuel. He of the voice of an angel, the subconscious of a demon and a fine piano player. Garth Hudson, a prodigy, a multi instrumentalist, a musical genius. When they say that the band combined played 26 instruments between them, Garth plays about half of that. Levon Helm. The voice of the south, and one of the trio of great sixties shuffle drummers - Ringo and charlie watts being the other two. Rick Danko: he of the dark eyes, different harmonies and world changing bass. And Robbie. Wrote the songs and played the guitar like nearly no one else.
The album that preceded this one broke up two of the biggest bands - famously Clapton flew across the Atlantic and thought he could demand his way into the band. They said no. He leaves Cream and joins Delaney and Bonnie and friends. I also think George harrison looks at how things were run, and the Beatles start to lose their pallor for him. This album is better.
This is what the Byrds and the flying burrito brothers tried to do. That they failed to get there isn’t really a reflection on them. This combination was unbeatable. If you doubt it, look at the solo careers. Some fine stuff. But nothing to this standard. Levon’s dirt farmer is about the best of it and it’s great but …
For me, The Brown Album is beyond criticism. 25 stars.
5
Jul 05 2023
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Picture Book
Simply Red
There’s an old joke which I’m willing to bet sarcastic elbows will also quote (and I think he told me it anyway) - what’s the difference between a wildebeest and simply red? A wildebeest has the horns out front and the arsehole in the back.
I don’t know anywhere enough about mick hucknall to know if the joke is even fair but I will say there’s a bit of groove on this. It’s that particularly British groove coming out of northern soul - starts with I don’t know, Joe Cockker? Rod Stewart? Continues through Bowie, Queen, the style council, jamiroquai, everything but the girl and no doubt a thousand others I’ve blanked on. But this is part of it and it’s no surprise it sold so well. Well crafted. Well played. Well produced. It’s a 3.5 that I’ll round up to 4.
4
Jul 06 2023
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At Budokan
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick should be a better and more important band than they are. I’m not quite sure what the issue is. They’re great musicians. Great songs. Yet there’s something missing. Surrender is a really great song. 3.5 rounded up.
4
Jul 07 2023
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Ingenue
k.d. lang
You know, I didn’t like this when it came out. I dislike ‘singers’. But with the benefit of however long it’s been since 1992, she’s not a ‘singer’ as such. She’s a great singer. But like George Michael, there’s not a lot of melisma, or thousand notes crammed into a bar. Just strong melody and excellent intonation and a brilliant tone which is much harder than wailing.
But apart from constant craving (so good jagger inadvertently picked it up for ‘has anybody seen my baby’ giving K D a stones writing credit) the songs aren’t really there. I listened to this twice before I realised that I’d listened to it more than once. It’s good but I don’t feel she ever fully reached her potential.
As this is not worse than simply red I’m stuck on a 3.5 streak. Rounded up.
4
Jul 10 2023
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Two Dancers
Wild Beasts
This is musical mogadon. An album you listen to So you die. When I think of post 2000 albums that are great and this comes up. Awful.
I might have to do my own list
1
Jul 11 2023
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Surf's Up
The Beach Boys
No album documents the end of the sixties better than this. We can herald the start as the hope of Kennedy’s election. His assassination. Beatlemania. MLK. Rfk. the hippie movement. Vietnam. Freedom rides Rosa parks. Selma. Woodstock. Altamont. And it’s all here. The hope is watered down. The seventies have started. Dylan has gone small. The Beatles are breaking up. Only Brian Wilson remains at a creative peak. The beach boys were outsiders of course. And the outsider has a special perspective sometimes. Clean cut, nice boys, gorgeous pop more suited to the fifties but their transition to bearded bloated hippies mirrored the sixties. That they could come up with this as has beens- a nostalgia act for a nostalgia that didn’t yet exist - is astounding.
My third favourite beach boys album. 4.8 stars. Rounded up.
5
Jul 12 2023
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Apocalypse Dudes
Turbonegro
*snore*
2
Jul 13 2023
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New Boots And Panties
Ian Dury
This is what halfwits like Elvis Costello want to be, with fifty times the wit and a better backing band and a more honest and authentic Approach. (Though the attractions are a great unit). The songs keep coming, and Dury is an underrated lyricist. This is considered his best but I think it’s more of a harbinger to come. 4.5 stars.
5
Jul 14 2023
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Deep Purple In Rock
Deep Purple
Another musical dna album but I’ll be fair it’s faded a bit. Black knight. Speed king. Child in time. Again just f*ck off music. While Blackmore lord and Gillan are noticed Roger glover and Ian Paice supply seismic rhythm section. Blackmore is one of the top 5 innovators on electric guitar. Lord is about the only heavy metal organist. (Unless you consider DP hard rock. God I hate labels. ). And Gillan has one of the best sets of pipes in the industry.
And they were to get better ….
11 stars.
5
Jul 17 2023
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Teenager Of The Year
Frank Black
He needs the pixies. It’s not awful but sometimes giving someone complete control diminishes them.
Probably better than I think so rounded up from 2.5
3
Jul 18 2023
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Life's Too Good
The Sugarcubes
I feel I should know this but if I did all memory of it has gone. And listening to it, I can see why. No doubt there are people for whom this album was life changing. And good luck and all gods blessings on them.
My life trudges on, unchanged and unmoved by this.
2
Jul 19 2023
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Lost In The Dream
The War On Drugs
Jesus. No.
2
Jul 20 2023
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Dear Science
TV On The Radio
Ok, it’s hard to know what will make the canon. Important stuff fades. Obscure stuff gets noticed. And some stuff starts a the top and stays there. So I might be wrong. But while pleasant enough I don’t see this as a must listen. Or even a yeah, might listen.
I might be wrong. This might go on to be a beloved album listened to for half a century. But I doubt it.
2
Jul 21 2023
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Fever To Tell
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Great albums since 2000. A partial list. No order. Not comprehensive. Not complete. Just as it comes to mind.
Jay-z the black album
Beyoncé - lemonade.
Taylor swift 1989
Punch brothers - phosphorescent blues
Sam bush, circles around me
Mike stern, trip
Jeff beck, loud hailer
Dixie chicks - shut up and sing
Olivia Rodrigo - sour
Any of these over this. How is this must listen? Stop reading critics Dimery and use your ears.
2
Jul 24 2023
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Moondance
Van Morrison
Not as good as the incredible astral weeks but still a good album. After the last few ‘it’s cool to live at home at 35’ albums this is a bit refreshing. It’s still not a must listen (unless you are a van Morrison fan) but at least there’s a standard on it. Morrison is a problematic person and can be inconsistent as a songwriter. But when he hits it it’s brilliant. 3.5 rounded up. 5 from any other artist.
4
Jul 25 2023
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Parklife
Blur
Preferred them to oasis. Sort of. I’m not sure how well they’ve aged. This was enjoyable.
3
Jul 26 2023
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In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Iron Butterfly
In a gadda is a classic.
The rest of the album is better than I remembered. But still not great.
2
Jul 27 2023
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The Blueprint
JAY Z
Jay-z is, in a sense, much like Eric Clapton or the Beatles, strangely underrated. I prefer the black album, but this is solid, with his excellent narrative style mixing beautifully with phat rhythm.
3
Jul 28 2023
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Roots
Sepultura
Not my thing. Good at what it does.
3
Jul 31 2023
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Cupid & Psyche 85
Scritti Politti
The type of band you’re supposed to like, but I wonder how many actually listened to this album more than once or twice, though enjoyed having the cd cassette or album prominently on display - all the while listening to Fleetwood Mac, Duran Duran, Born to be alive, the eagles, pink Floyd, yes, ELP, etc and other horrid dreck, or mega selling crowd pleasers. not bad at all, but there’s a reason it’s more of a cult classic. Perfect way was good actually.
3
Aug 02 2023
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Madman Across The Water
Elton John
Elton and Bernie Taupin are in the first rank of songwriters. Probably only McCartney has as strong a melodic sense as eton and Bernie’s lyrics are magical. This is part of the incredible run of albums Elton released in the early seventies: a five album run that is rare and gems on every one. Now let me confess something. I’m not a fan of tiny dancer feeling it closer to two separate songs (both great) cobbled together to make one. I know that’s not what happened. But there are a hundred other Elton songs that make up my musical
Dna. This is a solid album. I prefer captain fantastic and tumbleweed connection. But I still love this one. 4.5 rounded up.
5
Aug 07 2023
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Alien Lanes
Guided By Voices
Bored. When will something happen?
2
Aug 08 2023
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Tical
Method Man
It’s fine. It’s not the best thing he ever did. That would be the South Park concert thing with Ozzie Osbourne and ol dirty bastard. But it’s solid.
3
Aug 09 2023
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Vol. 4
Black Sabbath
Dimery clearly struggles with ‘importance’. The next album sabbath bloody sabbath is worth a must listen. So is the debut. Just because a band changes the world doesn’t mean everything it does is worthy. Notable exceptions do exist. To think we don’t have little Richard because dimery would rather show he knows rock music man. Black sabbath is cool.
It’s a fine album but not the one you need to understand sabbaths place in the pantheon.
3
Aug 10 2023
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Let's Get It On
Marvin Gaye
Beyond criticism. An extremely important album musically politically socially and culturally .
5
Aug 11 2023
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Guitar Town
Steve Earle
1986 was a key year for country. This is one of the key albums. Finally a must listen album. Earles brand of country was harsh, brutal, gentle, raucous and fun.
5
Aug 14 2023
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Abbey Road
Beatles
My favourite fab album. Or sgt pepper. Side 2 of this is the best thing they ever did. Fight me.
5
Aug 15 2023
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Penance Soiree
The Icarus Line
Pfft
2
Aug 17 2023
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Abraxas
Santana
Another musical dna. Sure carlos has perhaps become predictable but this mix of rock, jazz and Latin is irresistible. Hope you’re feeling better and mothers daughter kick. Samba Pa Ti is fantastic.
Black magic woman pretty much copies greens solo from the original but the backing instrumentation is something special.
Listened to this hundreds of times.
13 stars.
5
Aug 18 2023
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All Mod Cons
The Jam
Always the next big thing. Never the thing. Weller could have been more of a contender than he was. This album shows why. While he could approach transcendence (Town like Malice for example) he never quite gets there. David Watts lacks a purpose. Why listen to this when you have the original? The jam are tight but not quite supported by the songs. Unlike execrable elvis Weller doesn’t waste the band. It’s more that he’s crushed by the weight of unrealistic expectations. But it’s still a pretty terrific album.
3
Aug 21 2023
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Deja Vu
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Ok even though I will be highly this is an album that you must hear to understand the development of post 1950s popular music in the US and elsewhere. The singles are good. The album tracks are filler. The harmonies are absolutely made, not by David Crosby whose note choices are admittedly superb but by the tone of graham nash who brings a clarinet into a flute ensemble (vocally speaking). Nash is the secret sauce. There are vocal blends I prefer. Otherwise. Bloated. Self indulgent, insular, learning all the wrong lessons of Dylan and Joni Mitchell, it’s an artifact rather than art. But yes. Worth a listen. 2.5 rounded up. Also Neil young is overrated.
3
Aug 22 2023
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Emergency On Planet Earth
Jamiroquai
English Funk is great Jamiroquai is good at it. Not 100% solid. But 80% excellent. Makes me wanna dance.
4
Aug 23 2023
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Coles Corner
Richard Hawley
After a run of albums that are arguably must listen, even if I didn’t like all of them, we get this trendoid crap. Released in 2005. Won awards. Completely forgotten by 2006. I’m sure there’s a coterie of people holding onto this as they try and hold on to their thinning hair, trying to live in a place where it’s always 2005 and wondering why it doesn’t have the resonance of 1968 or 1992.
Not as bad as I’m making it out. But nowhere near ‘must-listen’.
2
Aug 24 2023
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Paul's Boutique
Beastie Boys
Hmmm. Is this a must listen? Licence to ill changed the world. This is excellent. I love the beastie boys. Probably the first hip hop act I ‘got’ before I ‘got’ hip hop.
Hmmmm. Must listen? Are the beasties worth more than one album?
4
Aug 25 2023
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Slayed?
Slade
Just the inclusion of gud buy t jane justifies this album. Slade are the forgotten heroes of glam. We tend to remember Bowie, Bolan and Queen, but Slade, Suzi and sweet were there too. Noddy has become a notable figure. They were probably not quite ‘there' to be the superstars that Bowie and Freddie became. But their best was magic.
4
Aug 28 2023
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Fire Of Love
The Gun Club
A critically acclaimed trendoid album I like. Sure, it’s unpolished. And his vocals are off key. And it’s more punk than roots. But here are the seeds that lead to the cruel sea and beasts of bourbon in Australia. I’m thinking later Tom petty took some notes. Probably not as directly influential as claimed. The later roots acts seem to get their inspiration elsewhere. But this album deserves its spot here.
It’s good. Solid. 3.5 rounded up.
4
Aug 30 2023
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Face to Face
The Kinks
Not the kinks best but sunny afternoon is good.
3
Aug 31 2023
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Buffalo Springfield Again
Buffalo Springfield
Sigh. Neil young. Steven stills. A solid dose of musical Mogadon. Richie Furay is good. Carol Kay is good. Jim Messina is on this. Huh.
This album isn’t really historically important except that it has early Neil and early Steven. Csny are important for better or worse but do we want to see every piece of juvenilia?
Let’s get back to albums one can justify.
3
Sep 01 2023
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Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Spirit
Must I listen to this? It tells me nothing of the development of rock music that I wouldn’t get from a dozen other better albums. I do think the title is great. Then it’s all downhill. Perhaps the nadir is space child (instrumental). The title says it all.
Bored. Boring. Tedium. Grinding boredom. You only have 1000. Don’t pad.
2
Sep 04 2023
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Led Zeppelin III
Led Zeppelin
Musical dna. And my favourite zep album. Yes, this is a must listen. One of the great opening tracks. aaa AA aaaaa AA. Down down down de down down…
There’s a few bands where you have to hear their place over a few albums. Beatles, stones, zep. Springsteen. Queen. Dylan. The band. Maybe a couple more. Zeppelin definitely.
Tangerine, the glory of gallows pole. Mah mah ma, I’m so happy, I’m gonna join a baaaand. … celebration day. John Paul Jones is the secret sauce. Listen to gallows pole. Mandolin, banjo. A great bassist. Of course Bonzo is great and page and plant … mwah.
2 stars taken off for since I’ve been loving you. 12 stars.
5
Sep 05 2023
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Rid Of Me
PJ Harvey
I like Polly Jean. Pretenders like Courtney Barnett just rile me, but p j is the real deal. Sure, she can be a bit self indulgent, but she’s a real talent.
3
Sep 06 2023
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Kick Out The Jams (Live)
MC5
One great song. The rest are ok. Not a must listen album.
3
Sep 07 2023
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System Of A Down
System Of A Down
Never a huge fan. Not awful, just never grabbed me. Does anyone still listen to this?
3
Sep 08 2023
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Suicide
Suicide
the overwhelming feeling that Dimery puts this in, and not any one of 1000 more worthy must listen albums. Greatest hits are valid. This isn’t.
2
Sep 11 2023
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The Genius Of Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Not quite musical dna - that would be modern sounds in country and western - but it is to me an album that lives up or at least almost lives up to its title. Rays genius lay elsewhere, but the man was versatile. 4.5 stars rounded up.
5
Sep 12 2023
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Pictures At An Exhibition
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Yes, it should be on such a list if only to explain punk. Modest moussorsgky is a minor composer whose pictures at an exhibition is slightly interesting. If you have pretensions to bring a classical musician this is relatively obscure and technical so you can bask in your own glory.
As this noodles away wrapped up in its own importance and pretensions, I felt the urge to form a punk band.
Queen did the classical thing better. As does Chris Thile, bela fleck, Edgar Meyer. Iron maiden. Yngwie malmsteen. Frank Zappa. ELP don’t quite get it. And listening to this, neither do I. Come back Sid vicious. All is forgiven.
2
Sep 13 2023
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I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight
Richard Thompson
Great musicians. Weaker songs. Solid.
3
Sep 14 2023
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The Low End Theory
A Tribe Called Quest
Another 90s hip hop. No review.
3
Sep 15 2023
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Physical Graffiti
Led Zeppelin
The first four zeppelin albums are musical dna. After then not so much. But there are gems on this. I think you can start to hear the decline. Had bonham lived I doubt zeppelin would have lasted much longer though they squeeze out a couple more after this. This might be the last of the great ones.
4
Sep 18 2023
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Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Arctic Monkeys
Ugh.
2
Sep 19 2023
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Tago Mago
Can
At first, I thought, oh, god dimery. Then I read about it a bit and thought, oh, ok.
Then I listened.
Kraftwerk? Yes. Einsterzende neubaten? Yes?
This? Not a must listen. It’s ok, but has not survived its critical darling status.
3
Sep 20 2023
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Raw Like Sushi
Neneh Cherry
Pretty funky. Pretty soulful. Pretty good. 3.5 rounded up.
4
Sep 21 2023
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Run-D.M.C.
Run-D.M.C.
Another iconic album. Probably the actual one which made me understand just how close country and hip hop are in lyrical themes. Go to church. Stay out of jail. Be part of your community. Don’t have money? Get a job. Merle haggard, bill Monroe and hank Williams would approve. Nwa gets us to the other side of hip hop and country. (I can’t see a moral difference between ‘I put my gun against his head, said hey mofo, gonna shoot you dead' and ' I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die).
But this is an important album and despite its flaws - some awkward flow and rhymes - hey, you invent a genre - is a worthy album for such a list.
5
Sep 22 2023
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Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
Not a terrible band by any stretch. But a weirdly overrated band. While truly iconic bands like jethro tull are not in the rock and roll hall of fame the foo fighters get in on the year of qualification. Ok the rrhof is a steaming pile of garbage and always has been but what is it about the foo fighters? Certainly Dave grohll is considered one of the nicest guys in rock, but is rock ab oh t nice guys?
Which brings me to this. Solid songs. No real standout or classics. An album that left little impact on the world. Again let me reiterate - this is not a bad band. Well played. The songs are above competent. But not like listening to say the white stripes (seven nation army is the type of song Dave grohl wishes he could write).
Of course the elephant in the room is not jack white but Kurt cobain, or rather nirvana who did change the world. I suspect the foo fighters would have been successful if nirvana had never existed. Even as successful as they got. But they wouldn’t have been feted in the way they have been.
Which leads me back to this. More an artifact of what happened than any important document that should go on a list of important albums I didn’t and don’t hate this. And it’s unfair to expect that any follow up to nirvana (or at least any project after nirvana) would have the same type of impact. Did I enjoy this? Yes. Do I think it should be on this type of list? I’m not sure. But I’m tending to no. 2.5 rounded up.
3
Sep 25 2023
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Meat Puppets II
Meat Puppets
Like being stuck at a party with an annoying know it all who thinks that they’re much cleverer and edgier than they are. Or talking to an ‘artist’ who has no clue, and turns out they’re a real estate agent and cross fit trainer.
Boring, annoying and really not worth anything.
2
Sep 26 2023
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A Wizard, A True Star
Todd Rundgren
Ok, I saw Todd Rundgren in ringing starr's all starr band, and by god was he awesome. Brilliant rhythm guitarist, a real showman and a great songwriter.
Todd Rundgren also produced bat out of hell, and his guitar solo at the end of the title track ranks with 'voodoo Chile', 'so we’ve ended as lovers', ‘Brighton rock', 'comfortably numb' 'eruption' etc etc.
Todd Rundgren has written some brilliant work, and has found the level of fame he’s comfortable with.
And dimery continues his habit of the obscure over the important. This is not the best Rundgren album, so why not pick Todd or Hermit of Mink Hollow? Let’s have this lsd fuelled critically loved decent album rather than Todd’s great stuff. Gotta keep that street cred. 3.5 rounded up.
4
Sep 27 2023
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Talk Talk Talk
The Psychedelic Furs
Yeah. Nah.
2
Sep 28 2023
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Boy In Da Corner
Dizzee Rascal
This was ok, but dizzee isn’t as fun as Flo rider or as insightful as jay-z. It’s not as slick as OutKast, and it’s just there. Let’s not talk about Kanye, but dizzee isn’t in that league either. Another award winning forgettable album in a list that should not be about this. I suppose it shows the state of UK hip hop but why not look at French or Israeli or Australian hip hop? 2.5 rounded up.
3
Sep 29 2023
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Closer
Joy Division
Important? Yes. But I never really got Joy division. Whinging poms. Much preferred new order. But a highly influential band. The moaning gets to me. And the clever clever but not really lyrics - like an earnest 11 year old discovering he is a poet and no one understands. Without the wit of the smiths. It was tragic what happened to Ian Curtis. And his fans grieve deeply as they should. But a young death doesn’t make your poetry good, any more than indifference to the work makes ihis suicide any less tragic. In all a boring self indulgent work which somehow managed to attract the love and admiration of millions.
2
Oct 02 2023
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New York Dolls
New York Dolls
Johnny thunders is a superb guitarist. He showed punk could be virtuosic. This album is a great album, with its gender bending, its aggression, its energy. It’s a bit chaotic, but hey, it’s punk.
3.5 rounded up.
4
Oct 04 2023
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Street Signs
Ozomatli
Better than I thought it would be, but dimery has a real knack of picking albums that have lost their relevance. I imagine these guys are terrific live. But on recording? Eh it’s ok. A must listen? Nah. A have a listen and maybe you’ll enjoy. 2.5 rounded up.
3
Oct 05 2023
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Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
Musically dull. Musically brilliant. Overrated. Underrated.
I don’t know what to think. Both positions are tenable. The hits are two chords, maybe three. The album tracks occasionally hit four. Yet the arrangements are, from a professional musical view, superb.
The follow up, Tusk, is easily five stars. This is both a five star album and a one star. 2.5
3
Oct 09 2023
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Live At Leeds
The Who
I did a longish review of this, and the browser jammed and reset and I lost it. What it basically said was if you don’t like the who, you don’t like rock, and this album shows why. It’s better to watch them, thank the great spaghetti monster for YouTube, but this captures the sonic power. Summertime blues is a juggernaut. My generation shouldn’t work. But does. And the insane genius of a quick one… leading eventually to tommy. The rock and roll covers are superb. The who songs are incredible. There were a lot of punk bands that wanted to sound this anarchic, this powerful, this relevant and happening, and didn’t come close.
And there’s essentially only three instruments and three voices.
It’s not quite musical dna for me, but it gets five stars. Who’s next - now that’s musical dna.
5
Oct 10 2023
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S.F. Sorrow
The Pretty Things
If ' Tommy' took any influence from this it would have been ‘well that’s not what to do’. ‘Tommy’ (which wasn’t Townshend's first attempt at a rock opera btw) has catchy tunes and a sense of humour. This has neither. Not worth listening to. 1.5 rounded down
1
Oct 11 2023
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Risque
CHIC
Dimery s ridiculous ban on greatest hits albums shows up here. I know it’s well received, but outside the singles, there’s nothing here that requires listening. Dancing? Sure. But I’d rather hear a compilation of the hits.
I do love the cover. And Niles and Bernard are just *mwah*
3
Oct 12 2023
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Bayou Country
Creedence Clearwater Revival
And yet another band better served by a greatest hits compilation. Proud Mary is a monster of a song - pretty damned perfect. Both Tina turner and the Ohio players prove it if the original doesn’t convince. Well produced. But a full album? Give me the singles. Averaged to three but proud Mary itself is worth fifteen.
3
Oct 13 2023
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Olympia 64
Jacques Brel
And Dimery pleasantly surprises. This is a fine album, from the legend Brel, and from a country that influences anglophone pop in weird yet important ways. This is probably close enough to must listen to justify its presence, though Brel's studio stuff is better, I think.
3.5 rounded up.
4
Oct 16 2023
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Hearts And Bones
Paul Simon
Paul Simon is one of the premier songwriters of the 20th century. More McCartney than Dylan, he is a very gifted and unique writer. This album is done at somewhat of a low point for him with no really strong songs except maybe the title track and Rene and georgette magritte with their dog after the war. Having said that, any of them written by anyone else would see that person building a career from them. He is that good.
It’s a 3 star album at best. Probably a 2.5 but I’ll round it up. He had done better. And he was to do better.
3
Oct 17 2023
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Rip It Up
Orange Juice
A great Scottish band from a movment that produced a lot of great bands. Edwin Collins is a premium songwriter. It’s lost a bit of verve since its release, mainly due to Collin’s stunning solo career - girl like you is one of the great singles of the rock era. But this has, surprisingly enough, lasted and held up.
4
Oct 18 2023
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If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
The Mamas & The Papas
I was about to dismiss this as another band that would have been better served by a greatest hits. But the two singles aside - California dreaming is one of the great songs of the sixties. Monday Monday is superb. But the covers on this are pretty terrific. One of the more dysfunctional sixties bands, which is saying something, they were capable of moments of sublime transcendence. 4 stars.
4
Oct 19 2023
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Dance Mania
Tito Puente
So little happened musically in 1958 that we listen to Tito puente. In fact this is very good. But must listen? Nah. Latinx artists to listen to include Desi Arnaz, Richie Valens and others. Tito is fine, but this is not a top 1000 album. I know, it's on the register, but more as a representation than as a artistically interesting artifact.
3
Oct 20 2023
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Aha Shake Heartbreak
Kings of Leon
*sigh*. This may have lasted a bit better than other contemporaneous acts. But not much. It’s good, but not really a must listen.
3
Oct 23 2023
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Ace of Spades
Motörhead
Ace of spades - sheer bloody poetry. We are the road crew. Psalmist brilliance. This album - magic.
Ok it hasn’t aged that well, or maybe I haven’t aged that well. It works beautifully though. And finally an album that deserves placement in this type of list. Lemmy … Philthy animal … fast Eddie. The unholy trinity of metal and punk.
Just bloody magic.
5
Oct 24 2023
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Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman
John Zorn
Ornette coleman is one of the more controversial but interesting jazz cats. He formulated a system of music called harmolodics which he could never quite explain but was to do with removing the limitations of key, rhythm, tempo and harmony. So, this explains this.
John zorn is an excellent interpreter of coleman and a great avany grade composer in his own right. This is an excellent interpretation with a-list musicians of the highest quality.
Dimery clearly doesn’t understand this type of stuff. I suspect he read some reviews and felt oh this better go on.
1 star for it being here. 5 stars as a work of music. 1 star for its danceability. 3 stars.
3
Oct 25 2023
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California
American Music Club
This is not bad and representative of a particular movement. Dimery must have had an off day. It’s not the best Americana but far from the worst. It’s just sort of there. I’d rather listen to Steve Earle or Lyle Lovatt or even Fleet foxes. But in a pinch this is ok.
2.5 rounded up.
3
Oct 26 2023
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Actually
Pet Shop Boys
What a strange album. I suppose you might find pet shop boys on a list like this, but they are far more of a singles band, so again, greatest hits? West end girls has a zing to it that most of this album lacks. Go west is not bad but again, not on this album. Tenants disinterested ennui is a nice gimmick but wears thin after a while. 2.5 rounded down as it’s not that compelling.
2
Oct 27 2023
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Nowhere
Ride
Shoegaze. The name says it all. Dull, dated and dire. Not my thing really. Must listen? Nah.
2
Oct 30 2023
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Fear Of Music
Talking Heads
I like Tina Weymouth’s bass, Chris Frantz’s drums and Jerry Harrison’s guitar. David Byrne - the more you look, the less he has to say. His book on music is worth reading and rereading. But there are at least three better talking heads albums that are more representative. Apparently this is highly regarded but I don’t see the appeal. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it’s worth a place here. The more I see this list, the more I feel that dimery is trying to impress, rather than illuminate or educate.
3
Oct 31 2023
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Ellington at Newport
Duke Ellington
The greatest of the jazz big bands? Perhaps. The greatest jazz composer? Probably. An absolute watershed in jazz from that most elegant elegance, Ellington. If this doesn’t move you, you don’t like jazz. A top 5 must own album if you’re into jazz - kind of blue, a love supreme, this, Louis Armstrong hot six, and goodman at Carnegie hall. That will do for now. That list will change. But the duke will remain on it.
Timeless. Iconic. Gorgeous. 17 stars.
5
Nov 01 2023
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Headquarters
The Monkees
https://www.toppermost.co.uk/monkees/
The monkeys were an incredible band. This is an incredible album. Zilch! Tape looping in 1967. Randy scouse git. This is an all time great example of sixties pop. Possibly only surpassed by the astounding Pisces …
Think of this. Imagine BTS doing something like Zilch. Not to knock BTS - they do what they do and it appeals to millions. But to bring in cutting edge musical compositional ideas. (To be fair their albums are generally very philosophical even if the music is predictable).
More of my feelings on this incredible band - the band that shouldn’t be - can be found in the link above. 16 stars.
5
Nov 02 2023
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Peter Gabriel 3
Peter Gabriel
Of the genesis alumni, Gabriel was always the most interesting. Nothing against Phil Collins, mike Rutherford Tony Banks or Steve Hackett, but their work, while often superb is much more… predictable shall we say. In Banks' case, I may be being a bit harsh but still…
Even though he’s very capable of playing it, would Phil have given us a hit single in 7/8? Gabriel did with the unspeakably great Solsbury Hill. This is not Gabriel's most interesting album, but it’s not a bad one at all. Jeux sans frontieres is pretty incredible. And of course he was exploring what is now condescendingly called world music years before Paul Simon blessed us with Graceland.
Gabriel’s lineup, which includes Phil, but not Mike or Steve, has some incredible players, and the songs fit them. I tend to prefer the later Gabriel stuff, but this is a good throat clearer. I’m sick of whinging about Dimerys choices, so I’ll give this 3.8 rounded to 4.
4
Nov 03 2023
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Opus Dei
Laibach
2
Nov 06 2023
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Nick Of Time
Bonnie Raitt
The blooz. As I get older, I much prefer listening and playing anything but screeching Chicago style bs. Macho posturing, tales told by idiots signifying nothing.
Bonnie raitt is a fine player and interpreter. She is a hard worker, but this, when I was 19, would have been awesome!!! But now is dull to me. See also Eric gales and Joe bonamassa. All clearly talented. But I’d rather listen to English, New Orleans , Memphis. Yank Rachel thrills me much more than Stevie ray. The originators - wolf, muddy, b b, hooker etc are exceptions.
To be honest, this is pretty good. Bonnie’s got a terrific voice, the songs are solid, and she really can play. But it’s dull. Predictable and I’d much rather listen to her earlier stuff.
I’m glad this sold well. I don’t need to hear it though. 2.5 rounded up.
3
Nov 07 2023
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Blur
Blur
They won the battle but lost the war. What a strange thing britpop was. Sure Noel Gallagher could write songs and Graham Coxon could on Occassion match him - song 2 is a rightful classic. And the standout on this album.
They mostly evade lasting success in America and australia for that matter. But this is a good document of a time in which its first pioneers - the spice girls - are the only band which is still culturally relevant.
2.5. Rounded to 3mainly because of song 2. Maybe song 2 should knock it to 4.
3
Nov 08 2023
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Gasoline Alley
Rod Stewart
Not the Rod album I’d have chosen - every picture tells a story is a stronger contender. But Rod had and has the best voice of his generation - a generation that includes Plant, Tom Jones, Elton, Freddie, Joe Cocker. What he’d sing is a whole different thing. I liked Elton’s country comfort and bobby Womack’s ‘it’s all over now’. Rod is a fine songwriter and his Lady Day is solid.
For a man who, being told he could sing the phone book kept singing it, it’s easy to forget his early stuff is excellent. Some of his later stuff is too. But his fascination with soccer and model trains probably distracts him.
But early Rod, surrounded by good musicians, with an earned arrogance is well worth listening to. Again maybe not this album. But you could do worse by digging into the Rod Stewart discography than this one.
4
Nov 10 2023
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Colour By Numbers
Culture Club
It was oh so shocking! Gender fluid! Not that we called it that then. Or at least the circles in which I found myself didn’t. And Boy George certainly garnered a lot of attention. And controversy.
What people tended to forget was just how damned bloody good this band is. The slightly reggae approach, not quite ska, closer to the police than the specials, really was tight. Superb playing. And the songs. Sure, karma chameleon. But I preferred it’s a miracle as a single. But neither are anything less than great.
George’s voice is really underrated. That reedy tenor but with a bit of heft sounded different to everyone else. At the time, most British singers had brassier baritones - think George Michael or the guy from Spandau ballet, or the guy from the Thompson Twins. Or Howard Jones. All great voices. Paul young another exception. But George coquettishly coos and sighs and holds the melody exactly where it belongs. George Michael was a master of that as well.
I don’t care what you think. 5/5. At least.
4
Nov 13 2023
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The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators
More 60s psychedelia. More artefact than art. Music that is so dated and of its time that it never had a revival. Kind of interesting, but no classic. LSD, what did you do?
I suppose this leads to Disraeli Gears, and SGT Peppers, and American Beauty, and T-Rex, and Dark Side of the Moon, and Ziggy Stardust, and Punk, and the New Wave Movement, etc....
But, this hasn't aged well. Albums you must listen to? I suppose, yes, but only once if you're not interested in psychedelia.
2
Nov 14 2023
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Rattlesnakes
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
Lloyd Cole is a fine songwriter and the commotions are a fine band. This is a fine album but they improve a bit in later stuff. He always seemed to me to be a bit behind in his writing style. This would have fit nicely a couple of years earlier. But more than a few years later it holds up pretty well. But it’s the later albums where the gold is mined.
3
Nov 15 2023
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I'm Your Man
Leonard Cohen
Leonard cohen never really resonated with me. I know brilliant lyricist etc. But for whatever reason I never embraced him the way others did. Having said that, this is a pretty good album. Cohen IS a terrific lyricist and can draw a picture in the mind’s eye that is detailed and clear even when the lyrics are obtuse and hidden in allegory, allusion and metaphor. Everybody knows is probably the track I most enjoyed.
3
Nov 16 2023
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A Little Deeper
Ms. Dynamite
Is this supposed to be interesting? Even in 2002 this felt dated and more ‘clever’ than good. Maybe I’m being too harsh. But nothing grabbed me.
2
Nov 17 2023
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Sunday At The Village Vanguard
Bill Evans Trio
An excellent album. As great as Evans is, this is a showcase for the rhythm section of LeFaro and Motian. The interplay is something else, and it shows both how much jazz grew but also how much that key year of 1959 influenced everything that came after. Just two years later, this shows new directions while learning the lessons.
An album you must hear.
5
Nov 20 2023
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Cosmo's Factory
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence are really a singles band and Dimery's ridiculous limitations on compilations does hurt Creedence a bit. But this album is full of bangers. Creedence was a great band in a sense. Only John Fogerty was world class in his musicality, but the band is solid. I’ve often wondered what John would have sounded like with Tom petty’s heartbreakers, or the Band, or the E street band. Or the swampers. Or Booker t and the MGS. Or the Funk Brothers. It’s possible that we’d lose something a bar band would provide.* But the songs are so strong that the quality shines through. Long as I can see the light and run through the jungle are as good as anything else he wrote. They can also cover well. Heard it through the grape vine is all about the incendiary vocals, but what a track. Ooby dooby is great too. A good album. But creedence is really a singles band.
A greatest hits double album would be better here, but this album would provide a fair whack of tracks** on such a compilation. 3.5 rounded up.
* I know the hawks who became the band were considered Americas best bar band, but that was never true. Way way above what a bar band should provide.
** Fair whack of tracks is going to be the title of my greatest hits compilation.
4
Nov 21 2023
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Hotel California
Eagles
Like rumours, both self indulgent nonsense and one of the great albums of all time. I’ll never forgive that film for stating that the lead coulbt stand the eagles. Dumb and ignorant and allowed too many bros to stop listening to a high level of songwriting and musicality.
I don’t know. It’s a wonderful artefact of a certain type of culture. But released the same time as a million other equally good records that do nowhere as well.
10 stars. 2 stars. Averaged to 4.
Fight me, I don’t care. I’ll cut you.
4
Nov 22 2023
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Sea Change
Beck
Ehhh. Loser was great and probably untoppable. This doesn’t feel essential to me. Not awful. Not bad. Just not … ehhh ….
2
Nov 23 2023
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Unhalfbricking
Fairport Convention
Fairport convention were the best of the English electric folkies. This album saw the death of Martin lambie just before it was released so the surviving members don’t have a fully positive memory of it but among sandy denny fans and fairport fans it ranks highly.
To be honest liege and lief is the superior album but this is great. Does it belong on a list of 1000 albums you must hear?
I will wrestle with this for a while. But it’s an easier album to beat than the last couple. 4.5 rounded up.
5
Nov 24 2023
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Your New Favourite Band
The Hives
Yeah. They aren’t. Kinda interesting but there are a million better groups from the early 2000s. And hip hop went nuts. But we have this to listen to.
Your new 1500th favourite band. That band that was on the radio but you didn’t turn it off but just waited patiently till it ended when they hopefully played someone better.
Not even worth dire. Just there.
2 stars.
2
Nov 27 2023
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(What's The Story) Morning Glory
Oasis
For the Cool Britannia give me the spice girls.
That’s too harsh. There’s no question Noel Gallagher can write songs. Sure he’d be lost without the Beatles but the songs are good. Even pushing to great. Is there a more blatant example of ‘you really had to see these guys live’ than the strangled croak of Liam? Maybe Anthony Kiedis of the red hot chili peppers
Anyway this is a good artefact of an era that came and went. 3.5
4
Nov 28 2023
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Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan
My favourite Dylan album. Musical DNA.
‘Well god said to Abraham kill me a son
Abe said man you must be putting me on
God said no. Abe said what?
His said ‘you can do what you want Abe but
Next time you see me coming you’d better run. ‘
Abe said ‘where you want this killing done?’
God said ‘down on highway 61’ ‘
Dylan was never better. Though he came close occasionally. Leopard skin pill box hat. Stuck inside of mobile with the Memphis blues again. Dylan himself wondered how he wrote such songs.
And the personnel. And the personnel. My God. Most of the hawks. Most of the butterfield blues band. Other incredible Musicians.
Like a rolling stone with Al Kooper realising he wasn’t as good a guitarist as Mike Bloomfield so teaches himself organ essentially following Dylan’s fingers on the guitar. Bloomfield bought a telecaster and hadn’t even bought a case so was wiping the snow off it. That this guitar was converted to left handed and back again requiring extensive restoration is a story for another day. The slightly behind the beat organ lines are less a musical choice and more of a ‘where’s the G? Oh there!’
11 minutes of desolation row would be self indulgent tripe in anyone else’s hands. But not Dylan. He makes it compelling. Somehow. So many thought they could imitate. So few could.
If you wanted to know what Dylan was about this is the one. Sure Blonde on Blonde and Bringing it back home and John Wesley Harding is great as is the other stuff. But for me, this is peak early (ish) Dylan.
15/5
5
Nov 29 2023
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Blackstar
David Bowie
If you’re dipping your toes into Bowie this is essential. There’s six or seven must hear albums to ‘get’ Bowie. But you could probably condense even that to Ziggy, hunky dory this one and heroes. (And space oddity). To Bowie fans every note he played is essential. Then this one. Note there’s a long gap between great and this. I do like the tin machine one. And scary monsters is decent. Blackstar is an outstanding even great swan song by a dying man embracing mortality. Not that we knew it at the time. So when he died (I was waiting on a plane to jet off to New York when my sister texted me to tell me.) it was a shock. I did find his flat in New York accidentally, up in SoHo (I think) with hundreds of flowers and tributes out the front. I wasn’t sure why they were there and I asked the woman next to me ‘why are these here?’ ‘David Bowie was a rock star …’. No no. Why HERE? I know who Bowie was. ‘Oh that’s where he lived. ‘
He also lived in St Ives on Sydney’s lower north shore, loving the relative anonymity being part of a smaller tight knit community.
Is Blackstar one of the 1000 albums you must hear? Compared to Ziggy, or hunky dory, or heroes? Nah. Is it a good album? Yes. Even a great one. But not essential to understanding rock music.
It’s a 4. But I’m not sure it should be on the list.
4
Nov 30 2023
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Crocodiles
Echo And The Bunnymen
I have a history of rock dvd where the producer hated punk and refused to acknowledge it as an important movement. So we go from glam to new wave. It makes for an interesting approach. No sex pistols. No clash. No Ramones. No echo and the bunny men. No Siouxsie, etc etc.. But, let's accept punk is actually important.
Given that Echo are pretty important in the movement, I think it's good to see them represented. I think this again is the wrong album but it’s a good one. They have a great energy about them.
3/5.
3
Dec 01 2023
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Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age
One of the last of the great rock bands. I do kind of prefer Kyuss, but let's not be churlish. They proved that there was life after Nirvana, and Guns and Roses, though not as much as a rock fan might like. Strong songs, well played, with longish jams.
Turn it up, grab your tennis racket, and air guitar for the rest of the night. Rock may not have much more to do, but it will never really die...
4
Dec 04 2023
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The Wall
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd. Nope. No ambiguity here. I think they’re great. Ok yes it can be muddled self indulgence. And a lot of lyrical there’s are first world rock star problems. I don’t care. Fight me. I have a knife. I’ll use it pretty boy. Shame to see that delicate face messed up.
When I was about 12, Monty Python and the meaning of life came to my home town and the support film (Dubbo held on to double feature matinees well into the 1980s*)was advertised as the odd angry shot**.The wall played instead. A cinema full of 12-18 year old boys weren’t sure what to make of it. Some knew pink Floyd mainly thanks to older siblings. I didn’t know them then except for ‘another brick…’.
The interval between the two films was hilarious. Mostly silence and the odd ‘what was that I just watched? That it starred the singer of my favourite group then, Bob Geldof, helped. But it was nothing like anything the Rats did. When I was a little older I heard The Wall again and ‘got it. ‘
Comfortably numb is probably Waters greatest lyric. And he is highly underrated as a lyricist. Mother - what a song. Even their weakest song (another brick in the wall pt II) has my favourite guitar solo by Gilmour. It’s the documentation of a band in decline. But I don’t care. I love it. Musical dna
Is it bloated and self indulgent? Absolutely. Do the band seem like grim and humourless grumps? Yep. Is the album bleak and depressing? No question. Does it make any sense? Not a whit. Is the film so insane as to make you doubt its very existence? You have no idea.
Am I wrong to like them? Probably. But if loving them is wrong then I don’t want to be right.15/5
* Also the local tv station broadcast the black and white minstrel show on Sunday afternoons. The title did not refer to the video medium.
**The best film about the Vietnam war. If you haven’t seen it I thoroughly recommend it. All the questions of the American attempts. None of the overblown angst.
5
Dec 05 2023
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Goo
Sonic Youth
…
Can you separate artist from art? Well, yes, you can. But is the art any good?
I want to love this. I do. But I think there’s no there there. Simon had a t shirt with that cover, but with Taylor swifts rap from "shake it off'. Which was much funnier.
Atonal music? I’m there. Ornette Coleman, Stravinsky, Boulez, slonimsky, Zappa, chick corea, Jaco pastorius. Tin machine. Me, on occasion, and even deliberately sometimes.
But this? I don’t know. An important album. Yes. But a good one? I’m divided.
2.5 reluctantly rounded up.
3
Dec 06 2023
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This Year's Model
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
The know nothing critics poster boy, elvis costello, underwhelms on this sophomore effort. I’ll be fair, I don’t want to go to Chelsea is a terrific song. But even Ed Sheeran writes good ones occasionally.
In my Creedence review, I wondered how John Fogerty might have gone with a better band. It’s the opposite here. Had the Attractions been with a better songwriter and guitarist might we have got the transcendent album it seems the Thomas's and Steve Nieve had in them?
Meanwhile, mogadon is available in a musical form. Just hit play here.
1.5 stars, just because I don’t wanna go to Chelsea is worth a listen. Rounded down because the album is nowhere near 'good' let alone anywhere near as good as it thinks it is.
1
Dec 07 2023
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Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Dead Kennedys
Interesting but dated. And not in a good way. Less a document of a time than an album that no doubt sounded radical (tm) and wevolutionary (tm) (in my best rik Mayall voice) when they’d finished. There’s perhaps a hypothesis - let’s call it Lewis’s hypothesis - the more offensive the artist name, the less interesting the music.
Again maybe too harsh. But … give me never mind the bollocks or Ramones.
2
Dec 08 2023
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Astral Weeks
Van Morrison
Musical dna. It’s an album that is that rare thing. A work of sonic art. I can’t just listen to it a song at a time, nor can I have it as background music. It’s an experience. Focussed, deep listening. It’s a religious experience. And to me like your best bottle of scotch. Brought out occasionally and savoured slowly and deeply.
15/5.
5
Dec 11 2023
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Tommy
The Who
No one except maybe Jack Bruce or let’s be fair the Beatles had more musical ambition in mainstream rock music at the time. And no one but Townshend had the balls to try. This is an insane mess - his first really successful attempt at an opera based on rock music. He’d tried before but ‘Rael’ and ‘a quick one while he’s away’ are more throat clearing. Utter garbage like that P F sparrow thing is nowhere near this. And really of the dozens and dozens of rock operas that follow, it’s only this, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joe’s Garage and The Wall that go close to really achieving artistic success. And of the five this is the best. Sure Joe’s Garage goes a bit insane (it is Zappa after all). And the Wall does too. Superstar was probably more shocking at the time but holds up musically.
The Who’s manager at the time, Kit Lambert, was the estranged son of noted conductor and composer Constant Lambert and went into rock to annoy his father. He assured Townshend that none of the great operas had plots that made any sense. Add in something about Townshend guru and you have a demented masterpiece.
But a deaf dumb and blind pinball champion, English holiday camps. The acid queen. Cousin kevin. Uncle fricking Ernie. Could you even BE a financially successful pinball champion? The only thing that makes this album a bit saner is the incredibly demented movie. The themes, the lyrics, the structures all make sense, even if the plot doesn’t. Pinball wizard, with its chord progression based on Purcell rocks as hard as the Cream, the stones, and zeppelin. See me, feel me, is a gorgeous ballad.
Reading the wiki article, I read that Molly Meldrum played uncle Ernie in an Australian production in 1971 with Darryl Braithwaite as Tommy. It just keeps getting more demented.
Entwhistle is magic. Moon is on fire. Daltrey is starting to find the voice that would power Who’s Next. And this is possibly Townshends finest moment. Though he still has Who's Next and Quadrophenia to come this lays the groundwork for so much.
This is really musical DNA for me. So 10/5
5
Dec 12 2023
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Hot Buttered Soul
Isaac Hayes
It’s easy to forget just how big Isaac Hayes was. Particularly because living in australia his biggest thing was theme from shaft. (Which is great). But this earlier stuff didn’t really fit in the Australian demographic.* And sadly too, none of his stuff made the big chill soundtrack so the confected nostalgia that attached to Motown and those other soft rock acts didn’t really include Hayes.
He was Chef in South Park and that ended badly. Yay us.
So this album is extremely good. Walk on by is done as a soul epic. Motown meets Spector meets Jim steinman meets early Queen meets Prince. The second track gets down and funky. Johnny wah wah Watson shines. One woman is a sultry ballad. Nice stuff.
And then one of the best songs by one of the best songwriters. Stretched out, phoenix is taken far beyond where Jimmy Webb would have seen it go but keeps its essence. Hayes stretches it out. It’s marvellous. And he had more to come.
A great album by a great artist.
4.5 stars.
* the complication is of course the reluctance of Australian audiences to listen to black artists or the cost it took to get stuff out here or the reluctance of radio stations to play this stuff or the cultural gulf between Australian suburbia and black urban culture. Or all of it.
5
Dec 13 2023
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Smile
Brian Wilson
Smiley smile is better. This is good, even great, but it wasn’t going to push McCartney and Lennon to higher achievements. It occurred to me while listening to this that while most of the comparison goes McCartney-Wilson, Lennon and Brian had one major thing in common. They never move on from the music of their youth, even embracing it in their later days. Both men are capable of many styles, but 50s rock and roll remains their bedrock. This album includes doo-wop harmonies, eighth-note piano, walking bass lines, etc.
I prefer the versions of the songs on Smiley Smile, and none of the new songs grabbled in the way a great Brian Wilson song can. As far as 20th century American composers, he ranks with Scott Joplin, Gershwin, Dylan, Hank Williams, Willie Dixon, Ellington, Jimmy Webb, Cole Porter, Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Aaron Copeland, Thelonius Monk and Burt Bacharach. You can add your personal favourites. I know I'm forgetting some.
But that list should suffice in showing where Brian Wilson sits in the US music pantheon. (It's in no real order, just written as they came to mind).
Having said that, this is not his best work. Go back to Smiley smile, or even the over-rated Pet Sounds, or Cabinessence, or 20/20 or Surf's Up, or Love You. Listen to the glory of Good Vibrations - the original I mean. Listen to I Get Around, or Wouldn't it be nice...
https://www.toppermost.co.uk/beach-boys/
I wrote the first bit, and it's as good a list as any to show Brian's greatness.
Smile is great. No question. But not Brian Wilson great.
3.5/5 rounded up.
4
Dec 14 2023
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D
White Denim
I am dreading listening to this. An album from 2011 that’s not something I heard then, the love of pretentious comedy optics and Dimerys knack for picking irrelevance and mediocrity doesn’t bode well.
Not just mediocrity but derivation. The first few tracks sound like something the Beatles would have given away rather than take up space on one of their albums. And then watched it flop.
Track 4 sounds like they said ‘hey let’s write a pink Floyd song’ having heard dark side of the moon precisely once and were aware of ‘another brick in the wall.’
The rest of the album meanders in trying to find an original voice. And never managing it.
I don’t like psychedelic music so that’s part of it. But I also suspect that if this had been released between 1967-1973 I might have been more tolerant of it. It’s not awful. But I’d rather listen to a whole slew of other stuff from the early 2010s. 1.5
2
Dec 15 2023
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Sound of Silver
LCD Soundsystem
Not bad. Not brilliant. A bit more than mediocre. Nothing to write home about. I liked the second or third track.
3
Dec 18 2023
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Crazysexycool
TLC
I’ve always felt that tlc were either brilliant geniuses or untalented hacks. I’m still not sure. I picked in 1994 that they’d ripped off McCartney in waterfalls. Big fan of McCartney II. But then TLC groove. It’s a tragic tale of left eye. But a tragic death doesn’t mean you were air weren’t a genius.
I’m giving this five. But if it turns out they are untalented hacks they get 1.
5
Dec 19 2023
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Ramones
Ramones
One of the ur-texts for punk. 1 2 3 4!
Fast, hard and deliberately dumb. Ridiculously fun. Anti pc before there was such a concept. If I say I prefer the heartbreakers it’s not that I don’t like this. And a lot more subtle than you’d expect this to be.
End of the century is one of the great documentaries.
4.5.
5
Dec 20 2023
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Ctrl
SZA
Oh, god,dimery, another critically acclaimed almost forgotten trendy garbage record.
Except, it’s good. Neo soul is a favourite of mine, and this captures it fairly nicely. Kendrick appears, and James Fauntleroy. Drew Barrymore was my favourite.
Is it an all time classic? No… not really.
Is it a must hear? Not in a general list, there are more important albums. Erykah Badu, Janet Jackson, TLC (conditionally) all are more important.
Is it worth listening to?
Actually yes. 3.5 rounded up
4
Dec 21 2023
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AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted
Ice Cube
An artifact of gangsta rap. Hard. Well done. Intense.
I wonder if ice t,s work with law and order has diminished this? I really don’t know.
But an album worth hearing even if I suspect it’s here because someone told him it should be rather than any real claim that it must.
3
Dec 25 2023
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Devil Without A Cause
Kid Rock
Because trumpists deserve music too?
Let’s get serious for a second. Most artists are human beings, with a range of backgrounds and beliefs. The beloved Rush drummer, Neil Peart, was a passionate believer in Ayn Rand’s objectivist nonsense. Brian May of Queen and Phil Collins of genesis were lifelong conservative voters. George Harrison’s 'Taxman' is, when you think of it, not really pushing a progressive view of taxation. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull recently felt he’ll probably vote conservative. I enjoy all of these people’s music (some more than others.) The point is people whose politics you disagree with can still make great music. Look at Wagner and the festival in Israel.
Which leads us to Kid Rock. An avowed trumpist, a pioneer in country rap, a once credible hip hop artist, and a massive hit in that mash up of sweet home Alabama and werewolves of London.
The trouble is, ‘forever' aside (a great song on the next album) he just isn’t very good. He’s not bad. But most of it is forgettable pablum. It’s like Eminem decided to go even more white trash, and forgot about how to craft a song. And Eminem is on this…
I did struggle with this a bit. Am I being classist? After all, he comes from a fairly lower class background and writes music for ‘white trash’. My personal music collection has a tonne of music written for white trash. I draw the line at racism and try to draw it at sexism.
I can listen to the songs of quite horrible people and enjoy them. There are some lovely people whose music I can’t bear. The great sin is not being very good. Kid Rock is notorious but he is no Biggie Smalls.
2.5 stars.
3
Dec 26 2023
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B-52's
The B-52's
We tend to forget that a lot of so called new wave was really doing the punk manifesto of returning to a Pre 1965 ethic. A short list might include in no real order Nick Lowe. Dire straits. Springsteen, the stray cats the ramones. The cramps. And the b52s. All drew on inspiration from before revolver really. Sometimes it was the Spector wall of sound. Sometimes it was surf music. Sometimes it was pop or rock and roll.
The b52s dressed like they came out of the late 1950s-1960s and their better early stuff gave the impression of cheap exploitation films. Rock lobster is at least to me a 1950s horror, that might have made it into the golden turkeys if it was a film. Gloria in Excelsis
The b52s are tremendously fun. In fact too much fun to write too much about. Analysing this is like explaining a joke everyone gets. Doesn’t add to the enjoyment. Makes you look like a wanker. But I’d have loved to have seen them in a small club, say, the love shack in Atlanta. But they are an arena band now, if indeed they tour at all. My blessings to them. I missed out. Ah well. A great band with terrific musicianship.
Turn this album up loud and pogo till you drop.
4
Dec 27 2023
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Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
It’s reheated yardbirds and stolen Jeff beck. Apparently beck was in tears when he heard it. 'What the hell, Jim? I thought we were friends!' The Jeff beck group took what cream and the who were doing, combined it and made a rocking album or two. Then Beck bogert and appice extended it.
If plant and jones and bonham weren’t so good it’d be awful. But they are that good. Page is as well. But often he’s the least interesting player. Which is really saying something. A great guitarist, sure. But compared to what jones and bonham do ... And there’s a sense where it’s magnificent. Good times bad times is one of the best album openers of the rock era.
Having said that, it’s more a portent of what was to come than a finished product. So 2 out of 5. Maybe 2.5. Should have been 4. But they stole most of it.
3
Dec 28 2023
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Illmatic
Nas
As a gen xer I’m supposed to love 90s rap.
I don’t hate it. It’s not really my musical dna.
It was only when I was lecturing in contemporary music that I started to understand hip hop.
It’s folk music. ‘Goddamn it’ as Roy Acuff said about the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, when the long haired scruffs started playing. ‘This is country.’
.
NAS isn’t quite folk music in the way a lot of people would define it. Or even country. Except …
When you look it at, the themes of country and hip hop aren’t that far apart…
Good ol boys running moonshine, versus gangstas selling crack? What’s the difference? Not much, once you take race and class and 'respectability' out of it. Alcohol is acceptable. Crack isn’t. But don’t they fulfill the same basic human needs?
Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. Merle Haggard turned 21 in prison doing life without parole. His mamma tried.
These are hip hop songs, just sung differently. NAS could sing them. Merle could do a nas song. It was surprising that old town road took so long to exist. But here we are.
So this leads us to illmatic. I didn’t hate it. But I prefer jay-z. Or Erik b and rakim. Or, gulp, early Kanye. Or the beastie boys. Or lil Kim. But this is good. And an important album. (I know. Most of these aren’t 90s. I know).
Just not as good as others I like. But better than others.
3
Dec 29 2023
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A Seat at the Table
Solange
If Beyoncé was more like this, I’d be a bigger Beyoncé fan.
4
Jan 01 2024
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evermore
Taylor Swift
Taylor swift is one of the more important acts to have emerged in the last 15 years or so. This is a terrific album. My only issue is that it takes about 10 years to take the determine canon… but it’s a great album. So 5 stars. But will it still be on this type of list in 5 years? Red or 1989 would be more appropriate.
I suspect this will go down as an important album. I suspect rather as an important album in an important artists catalogue of work than an important album in its own right. Sort of like comparing ‘blonde on blonde’ to ‘Nashville skyline’.
But any look at critics choice or awards from any given year will see a whole range of excellent albums now forgotten. I hope this isn’t one.
5
Jan 02 2024
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Future Days
Can
It’s ok. Is it must listen? The residents, yes. Kraftwerk? Yes. Einszenten Neubaten? Maybe. Neu? Hmmm…
Can? This doesn’t feel essential. 2.5
3
Jan 04 2024
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Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
Frank Sinatra
Sinatra was the second greatest white male singer of the 20th century. Elvis pipped him, but only just. Elvis had the greater note range and stylistic range. But within Sinatra limits, he was untouchable. He could break your heart. He could lift a crappy song to high art. He could make you think you were in the heavens with a great song. Give him a great arranger and it’s hard to even explain. Yes, he was a mixture of great human being and puerile awful son of a bitch, but it’s about the voice. He was the voice. Try and understand it.
With one of the great Latin songwriters, Jobim, this could have collapsed under its own weight if expectations. It doesn’t. Sinatra, for all the macho swagger, had the lightest of touch when it was needed. Really, girl from Ipanema is all you need to get this album. But all of it is great, even the oversung by mediocrities how insensitive.
That this lost out to Sgt Peppers for album of the year is no slight against either album. Finally a must hear.
5
Jan 05 2024
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Something Else By The Kinks
The Kinks
Three great songs. Waterloo sunset, David Watts and Death of a clown. Then filler.
This album highlights the weakness of the concept. How can you not have Waterloo sunset, but when most of the album is dull ….
3
Jan 08 2024
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Woodface
Crowded House
I like a little more grit but there’s no denying the talent of Neil Finn. Or Tim.
Chocolate cake is my favourite of these singles but weather with you and fall at your feet are songs that maybe only McCartney at his absolute best could equal as songs. Maybe Elton too.
An excellent album. And we can claim it as Australian because Hester and Seymour were born in Australia.
3.8.
4
Jan 09 2024
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1999
Prince
Peak Prince? Possibly. The title track is possibly the greatest dance track of all time. Little red corvette is just .. oh!
And the rest of the album. Let’s pretend we’re married (and presumably not talk for months). DMSR. Delirious. All of them. Wow! What he’s a little underrated in is long grooves. When the revolution settle in it’s just magic. No wonder the live reputation is immense.
19 stars.
5
Jan 10 2024
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Bitte Orca
Dirty Projectors
Oh Dimery. *sigh*
Tried. I really did. But when the Wikipedia page takes a paragraph to explain the album title, it’s as good an indication to what listening to the music will be like.
Not surprised. Just disappointed.
2
Jan 11 2024
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It's Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
One of the next big things that sort of fizzled. It’s kind of fun, I guess, but they’re having a better time than I am.
*sigh*
2
Jan 12 2024
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Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
The Byrds
Gram parsons. Massive country fan. Would have made it to Nashville as royalty had he lived despite his difficult qualities as a human being and the poor reception at the Ryman. Elvis didn’t go down well either and now the Nashville country music museum has one of his limos
We forget sometimes just how good the byrds could be. Usher produces this album well and while most of the original byrds have moved on (David Crosby being famously replaced by a horses bottom on one cover) this is a pretty fine lineup. The great John Hartford on fiddle banjo and mandolin is a highlight.
This is a great album. Perhaps the best the Byrds did.
4.5 stars.
5
Jan 15 2024
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Teen Dream
Beach House
It’s either pop or it’s something else. Adding a noun or andject to the fronts smells of superficiality. And I think shoegaze is not to my taste. Pah. 2 stars. Pfui.
2
Jan 16 2024
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Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
OutKast
Hey ya alone gives this 5 stars. A dance song you can’t dance to - it’s in 22/8. A happy melody about a relationship breakdown. One of the greatest songs and singles of the 21st century. In 2003. Will it be matched over the following 97 years? 21 years later there’s not a lot of competition. *
The rest of the double album swerves from great to middling. Without hey ya it’d be a solid 3.5. With Hey Ya it’s a 5.
*This isn’t a ‘music these days!’ comment. Hey Ya is that good. .
5
Jan 17 2024
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Heavy Weather
Weather Report
Fusion jazz. Hated by critics. Loved by its fans.
As great as Shorter, Zawinul, Acuna and Badrena are, it’s Jaco, the man who reinvents how the electric bass is played, less than 15 years after a small cohort worked it out. Entwhistle or Bruce hadn’t tried this, and they were more technically adventurous than James Jamerson, Carol Kaye or Duck Dunn. Jaco was something else.
Let’s look at Jaco's bass solo on harmonics. It sounds like a guitar. But it’s not. It’s Pastorious. He is the Jimi Hendrix of bass and what a show that might have been. Put Bonham on drums and watch the whole thing crash under the impossible weight of expectations.
The other thing about this first album is just how much energy there is. Fusion was developed by the guys who grew up on rock and roll but learned jazz. A lot of later fusion guys forget this thinking it’s about how clever you are. Oh these guys in Weather Report are clever, yes. But they’re also chuck and Richard and the Beatles and the stones. And Sly and Jimi and James Brown, and Motown, and P Funk. Throw it all together and you have a true fusion.
This is jazz. Absolutely. But it’s also rock and roll.
4 stars.
4
Jan 18 2024
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Hms Fable
Shack
That I haven’t heard of this is foreboding. And I listen. And it’s not bad. But must listen? Not even close.
2
Jan 19 2024
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Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Another 'is this must hear?' And the answer is no. You can go your entire life without needing to hear this, though the song harry and hermione dances to in deathly hallows makes that scene something special. Nick cave should be on this list, I suppose, maybe. But not this album. 2 stars because it shouldn’t be here.
2
Jan 22 2024
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Amnesiac
Radiohead
Kid A or Ok computer (ok maybe both) for must listens. Radiohead is great but not every album is a must listen.
I’m starting to think this should be 1000 popular acts of the 20th and 21st century (or maybe the last 100 years) you should listen to. That might be more representative and the selections must frustrate me a bit less.
4
Jan 23 2024
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Truth And Soul
Fishbone
Jacks of all trades, masters of none.
2
Jan 24 2024
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16 Lovers Lane
The Go-Betweens
I never really got the go betweens. I know they are an iconic Queensland band but they were always just off my ‘taste’ radar. They’re really good. Great playing and strong songs and they deserved their success but I missed the appeal. 5 because I know too many people who’d give this at least 4.
5
Jan 25 2024
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Back To Black
Amy Winehouse
Hoo boy. What a voice.
5
Jan 26 2024
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Tres Hombres
ZZ Top
Zz top.
3
Jan 29 2024
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Off The Wall
Michael Jackson
His best album. Sure thriller is great but this has an energy and a risk factor that his later work lacks. Which is saying something.
This documents the prodigy maturing into something more than just that kid who electrified his brothers band into something more than they could be. And they could be great.
It’s before the weirdness, the absurdity, the awfulness. It grooves, it boogies, it gets down. Runs from jazz to a light funk. Quincy jones at his zenith. Crack musicians. Some of my all time favourite musicians on this. . All killer, no filler.
5 stars.
5
Jan 30 2024
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The Hour Of Bewilderbeast
Badly Drawn Boy
Critical acclaim. Was a hit. Won awards. Pretty much forgotten today. Rather dull to listen to. Dated badly. Not unpleasant. Good musicianship. Songs are similar with no real distinction between them. . And poorly produced. It’s muddy with no clarity or definition. Another one of the 80% of this selection that isn’t must hear. 2.5 rounded down.
2
Jan 31 2024
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McCartney
Paul McCartney
Ok, Paul McCartney is absolutely key. But given I only have 1001 albums, it’d be band on the run, McCartney 2 and maybe Ram.
This is a throat clearer, with admittedly maybe I’m amazed as an example of what McCartney could do. The rest of it is mid range McCartney, meaning it would have been a stone cold career making classic for anyone else. But McCartney was to do better.
From anyone else, 58 stars. From Paul? 3.5.
4
Feb 01 2024
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Songs Of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Hmmm. Is Leonard cohen a lyrical and musical genius? Or is he a failed poet who lucked into music?
I still don’t know. There are some gems on this. But am I - are we? - being hoodwinked?
2.5, so zero if it’s a con, 5 if it’s what its fans claim it to be. Rounded up
3
Feb 05 2024
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Yeezus
Kanye West
The most problematic of all problematic geniuses. Maybe not actually. He never killed anyone, and while it must have been awful for Kim kardashian, as far as I know he never intentionally abused her.
But behind a production desk he was untouchable. This ain’t the album I’d have picked - gold digger is way too great of a problematic track - as is heartbreaker.
But man when he’s on fire he burns.
4
Feb 06 2024
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Junkyard
The Birthday Party
A better example for nick cave. Too druggy and pretentious for me but not awful.
3
Feb 07 2024
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Band On The Run
Paul McCartney and Wings
Peak McCartney. Musical dna. I consider 1985 his best composition. Jet, the title track. God. He never wrote a dud melody but he can be awful. Not here though. Let me roll it is of course his pastiche to Lennon. But who else thinks 'no words' is his George Harrison song?
I even like mamunia.
Not a dud on this one. Musical DNA. Only Lennon’s plastic ono band equals this for Beatles solo.
14009487383736384747 stars.
5
Feb 08 2024
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What's Going On
Marvin Gaye
It’s a must listen. But is it great?
The three singles are. The band is of course superb. Marvin is probably singing the best he ever did. The cultural impact of this is still felt 50 years down the track.
But according to the wiki article, Greg kot was in a minority, feeling that the three singles were worthy, but the rest of the album was 'meandering introspection'.
I want to disagree but I can’t. It gets five stars, but not for itself, but its context.
5
Feb 09 2024
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69 Love Songs
The Magnetic Fields
We’ve had two classic albums by two of the biggest and most influential artists of the period.
Now this.
2
Feb 12 2024
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Bitches Brew
Miles Davis
Important and must listen? Yes.
Do I like it?
Well I didn’t. When I heard it many years back (after hearing return to forever, weather report, mahavishnu orchestra, steely dan etc) I found it drab and dull. Maybe I’ve grown into it. Maybe I was wrong then. Maybe I’m old. But I enjoyed it now more than I did. I also have a nagging feeling that Miles is overrated slightly. And I acknowledge that that is not a widely held belief. I also find his ubiquitous influence baffling. It’s only recently that jazz bands have moved away from trying to sound like miles. I don’t resent the influence nor do I think it all bad but I think he inadvertently held jazz back for decades by all of those trying to sound like him. Instead of learning his lesson (find your voice and express that) they copied. So the audience got bored.*
This is not Miles’s fault any more than endless pointless wailing on guitars is Eddie van halen’s fault, or tortured wordplay with no craftsmanship is Dylan’s. But jazz players should know better. The whole history of jazz is innovation.
I’m pretty sure miles has the most impressive alumni of any bandleader. And the bands that came out of this album alone… who didn’t sound like miles.
5 stars because of its influence. Take that away and think I’d have given it 2 when I was 20. But 3.5 now.
Maybe I’ve gone senile.
*of course there are honourable and notable exceptions. But those who complained that jazz didn’t progress had somewhat of a point.
4
Feb 13 2024
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Let Love Rule
Lenny Kravitz
What a weird choice. I mean I know people who revere Lenny and call him the greatest rocker ever. That’s not my view but hey, who am I to judge? I’ll admit, the third album with all the big hits is great listening. But this one? With only 1001 to choose l, I’d think no. I like Lenny, but…
He plays all the instruments. Very few can get away with that. But it’s competent.
Shouldn’t be here. Not his best.
2/5
2
Feb 14 2024
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Ocean Rain
Echo And The Bunnymen
Didn’t we already do this? One album from this group is enough.
2
Feb 15 2024
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Axis: Bold As Love
Jimi Hendrix
Hendrix is one of the very few artists who should have every solo album he did on such a list. This is probably my favourite of his - little wing alone justifies this inclusion It’s an unfinished song - sketch really - but the rest of the album is just superb. Little wing shows his potential more than the widdly wow wow he is known for. But having said this there’s some brilliant stuff here.
And really as life changing as Hendrix was, Mitch Mitchell excels. The bass, at least some of which was played by Noel Redding is more than functional. But the drums - for all the bombast of Moon and the force of nature that is bonham, Mitch is probably the most complementary of the great three.
Hendrix isn’t my favourite guitarist though I suppose he’s up there. This album is, as the kids say, a banger.
5
Feb 16 2024
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Another Green World
Brian Eno
Brian eno is either genius or total fraud. I’m still not sure which. A great band… 2.5 while I work it out.
3
Feb 20 2024
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Time Out Of Mind
Bob Dylan
Can you change the world 3 times? Dylan is in a handful who changed it twice. As for three times? Off hand, Miles Davis, maybe Madonna? I had a longer version of this review that disappeared when the phone battery died and there were a few other names. Bowie perhaps?
Certainly this album is a return to form for Dylan. At least according to fans. Now Dylan is one of those artists who, even on the worst albums they did there’s something worthwhile. (Elton, Stones?, again my mind is dying).
I don’t quite rate this album as highly as other fans, but acknowledge it is an excellent album. After the dire born again years (which still yielded some good songs) this was rightly seen as a vast improvement. The traveling wilburies helped too I think in that Dylan was able to just relax and write.
I don’t rate this quite as highly as other Dylan fans but it is a top ten Dylan album.
4
Feb 21 2024
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The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
Important and actually worth being on the list but I’ve grown away from it. And I heard it a bit when it was current. But I remember none of it. I’ll assume that’s on me. It’s pretty ok actually.
3
Feb 22 2024
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Kenya
Machito
More important for who listened than the listening. Fun and beautifully played.
3.5
4
Feb 23 2024
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The Healer
John Lee Hooker
Done at the time of the blues revival and hooker was one of the original 50s blues men and one of the most important. Apart from the slick production and guest stars, it’s a decent example of what Hooker did so well - the boogie - though I’d recommend his 50s output.
4
Feb 26 2024
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The Good, The Bad & The Queen
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Not terribly impressed though I’m sure whoever picked this was terribly impressed with themselves.
2
Feb 27 2024
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The Clash
The Clash
I dislike the clash. Hypocrites. Posers. W*nkers. Try hards.
Then you play them and they are genuinely one of the best bands ever.
What a debut. London calling is one of the great songs of the punk era and maybe even of the rock era.
So you give them one for being wankers and 12 for how good they are. I’ll average it to a 5.
5
Feb 28 2024
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Toys In The Attic
Aerosmith
The singles range from good to magnificent. The rest is filler or just better.
3
Feb 29 2024
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Aftermath
The Rolling Stones
Mick and keith really come into their own, second only to Lennon McCartney, a Strauss they’ll keep till at least John, Taupin.
This is a strong album - I think the uk version is a bit better. It probably hasn’t lasted well although I never really believed Micks misogyny. I don’t think he did either.
By stones standards, bottom of the top. Anyone else, career making one off. 3.5 stars.
4
Mar 01 2024
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For Your Pleasure
Roxy Music
A band that escaped me, like 70s Genesis. I enjoyed this but I might have passed by when this would have been awesome to me. Great musicians. 3.5
4
Mar 04 2024
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Green Onions
Booker T. & The MG's
That Wikipedia entry is terrible. Reads like a year 8 summary written at the last minute by a bored student who used Wikipedia.
Booker T and the MGS are among that cohort who I bent how to play soul music with four new instruments - the Hammond B3, invented 1955, the fender precision bass, invented 1951, and the fender telecaster, invented 1949-1952.
So they’re new instruments with four creative and brilliant musicians who’ve worked out how to play these new instruments.
This context is important. It’s a good album,a nd a little more than an historic artifact. It’s rough and ready, but virtuosic. And if you play any of those instruments, one of the records you should learn. At least green onions.
4
Mar 05 2024
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Reggatta De Blanc
The Police
The police. Kind of the mirror image of the clash. A great bad. And this might be their best.
Sting wrote some of his best songs. And he is wonderfully backed up by summers and Copeland.
Definite must listen.
4
Mar 07 2024
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The Slider
T. Rex
He’s somewhat of a neglected figure now but Marc Bolan was a huge star. He is somewhat limited in his songwriting but boy within those limits he could write. Again the ridiculous limitation of greatest hits compilations means that we listen to all of this and not just the outstanding singles.
3
Mar 08 2024
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Strangeways, Here We Come
The Smiths
The biggest whinging Pom who ever whinging Pommed. Also very witty. And the smiths are a great band. Even if I’m a bit … suspicious of them. Steven can write lyrics, even if they do seem to moan and whinge. Marr is an excellent player and it’s a solid solid rhythm section.
But, something about them irritates me.
I’m sure that Manchester was quite miserable - try Dubbo NSW growing up. If I could afford a train ticket the most interesting place I could get to was Sydney. From Manchester a couple of hours on the train to London and then you have Europe.
I prefer Springsteens epic vistas that cover economic and social oppression. But as I grow older though the smiths do make more sense.
3.5 rounded up.
4
Mar 11 2024
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Kings Of The Wild Frontier
Adam & The Ants
Must listen? Hmmmm
Adam ant was that link between the first new wave and the second new wave - how the pretenders were usurped by Duran Duran if you like. None of this is bad. Just history.
So is this album:
Great fun? Tick
Lots of filler? Tick
Marvellous singles? he’d do better. But ant music is a banger.
Dated horribly? Tick and cross. Production has surprisingly held up.
Is it 5 stars? Nope. 2.5.
3
Mar 12 2024
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Youth And Young Manhood
Kings of Leon
3
Mar 13 2024
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In It For The Money
Supergrass
Not awful. Not bad. Passed me by at the time. Not a must listen. 2.5
3
Mar 14 2024
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Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Sigh. Important I suppose and gorgeous harmonies. Well crafted songs.
Just not for me.
3
Mar 15 2024
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Grievous Angel
Gram Parsons
Excellent album. Probably the best of the Parsons repertoire, and really shows what a musical loss he was. The band, mostly Elvis's TCB rhythm section, minus Jerry Schett, cooks. The guests, including future Eagle Bernie Leadon, Linda Ronstadt, and legendary fiddler Byron Berline are inspired.
Parsons and Emmy Lou were magic together. Parsons wife was suspicious and so excised Emmy Lou from the cover. She really shouldn’t have done that. It’s really as much an Emmy Lou album as a Gram one. And that makes it terrific.
5
Mar 18 2024
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NEU! 75
Neu!
3
Mar 19 2024
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Wonderful Rainbow
Lightning Bolt
Nope. I already heard this. Except I knew it as ‘Goo’ by sonic youth.
1
Mar 20 2024
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Live 1966 (The Royal Albert Hall Concert)
Bob Dylan
Judas.
I don’t believe you.
One of the three or four musical performances in which Dylan changes the world. And deservedly so. The hawks are a powerful unit. And Dylan rises to the occasion.
But it’s 25 years after the event, and the event was shrouded in legend. Dylan of course both knows the power of legend and has spent more than 50 years both downplaying his and using it to keep known.
This is an event that you need to be aware of. But the album may make a non Dylan fan wonder what all the fuss was about.
4
4
Mar 21 2024
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Time Out
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
One of the essential jazz albums. Brubeck had traveled to turkey and heard 9/8 time. Unusual rhythms abound. But perfectly arranged. Brubeck got people listening to 5/4 in the Paul Desmond written take five. So beautifully constructed. You can dance to it.
Blue rondo a la Turk is another masterpiece. In fact all of it is. 1959 might be peak jazz - kind of blue also comes out this year.
This is astounding. 10/8 stars.
5
Mar 22 2024
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Killing Joke
Killing Joke
Better than expected. Not completely enjoyable.
2
Mar 25 2024
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The Madcap Laughs
Syd Barrett
Stretching from Chaucer, through Shakespeare, to swift, to Lewis Carroll, to Edward Lear, James Joyce, the goons, the Beatles, Monty Python, Syd Barrett gives that whimsical nonsense beloved of those English and Irish writers.
To be fair, the idea of Syd was always more appealing than the existence of the music. I wonder if he’d be as remembered if it wasn’t for the tragic circumstances he found himself in. The early Floyd stuff is essential. This is interesting but not awfully essential. Historically important? Ask me tomorrow. My mind might change.
3
Mar 27 2024
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The Chronic
Dr. Dre
An album that changes music. How did that make this list? Oh right 90s hip hop.
I think more garbage and pretension has been written about this album by suburban white critics than the same breed writing about Jimi Hendrix.
In fact it is a great album. Dr Dre knows the form (much better than I do) and grows, expands and changes it. Snoop shows why he becomes a star. And the anger and bitterness is nicely done. .
5 stars.
5
Mar 28 2024
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Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
I did enjoy this, though Joan would go on to more commercially viable stuff later but also be a bit more adventurous. Terrific musicians with Hellecaster Jerry Donohue and ex faces and
Who drummer Kenney Jones among others appearing.
It does show the breadth of UK music in 1976 - Bowie, Queen, Bowie and Quatro don’t really fit here. Neither do the soon to be recorded pistols, clash or pretenders. She’s two to three years ahead of Costello (but then who isn’t?) and even Sting and the police are a bit behind. I’d probably compare her most closely to Kate Bush given both have unique voices and are women following their own vision, not the vision of male producers.
I was going to give it three but it’s growing on me. 4.5.
5
Mar 29 2024
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Surfer Rosa
Pixies
4
Apr 01 2024
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My Generation
The Who
What a statement of intent. A mission statement that is definite and quickly superseded. But there’s a sense in which it’s all in here.
Let’s look at the achievements. The censor baiting stutter - not just to imply vulgarity but also to imply the effects of amphetamine. The angry slashing guitar chords that launch a million rock bands and punk bands and industrial bands. The frenetic drumming. The first electric bass solo. And that’s just the title track. One of the absolute songs you need to know if you think you like rock music.
The kids are alright is a stone cold Classic. Most of the rest is serviceable to great covers. But that Townshend kid shows promise as a songwriter.
4 .5 stars
5
Apr 02 2024
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Young Americans
David Bowie
The singles are fantastic.
The album tracks are ok. Really, the only Bowie album which has consistently great songs is Ziggy. Fight me. Bowie could do great singles. But his albums tend to be patchy. Wanna try it out? Take out the singles and then sequence the rest. What stands out? Yeah, thought so. Not much.
Sigh. 3 stars.
3
Apr 03 2024
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Electric Ladyland
Jimi Hendrix
Changes the world of guitars.
A very good to excellent songwriter.
At least one classic.
Mitch Freaking Mitchell.
Mitch freaking Mitchell
5
Apr 04 2024
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Arc Of A Diver
Steve Winwood
Why? Must listen? It’s a decent listen. And Winwood is a superb musician and excellent songwriter. ‘When you see a chance’ is great. But top 1000 album? No.
3.5 stars. It’s good. But not 1000 album good. Rounded down.
3
Apr 05 2024
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After The Gold Rush
Neil Young
I suppose one Neil young album has to be on this list. I’d have thought Harvest. But anyhow…
Neil Young is what most people think about Bob Dylan. That other people do his songs better. That’s not necessarily true with Dylan as he digs deeply into genre and style and vocalises accordingly. Neil doesn’t have the vocal tonal range of a Dylan. And while it’s easy to dismiss a lot of his songs because of this, if you listen to Dolly, Emmy Lou and Linda’s version of after the gold rush, or Neil himself backed by the Band the strength of the songs comes through.
But mostly I’m not impressed by his work. Strident. Loud mouthed. A peace loving hippie who seems to love conflict.
I might be too hard. I’ve never met him and I haven't done the deep dive. But while this is fine I’ll go back to other versions of Neil’s work. And really Harvest is a better album.
3
Apr 08 2024
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The Scream
Siouxsie And The Banshees
Siouxie is a legend. Great band. Good album.
4
Apr 09 2024
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Sweet Baby James
James Taylor
Is it important? Yes. It helps launch the singer songwriter west coast thing.
Is it well played? Yes. Excellent musicianship and songwriting.
Did I like it? Fire and rain is a good song. And there’s a couple of others. Otherwise I’m going back to other acoustic music I prefer. That’s ok.
3
Apr 10 2024
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Bongo Rock
Incredible Bongo Band
One song that gets sampled. Otherwise it’s …irritating? I love percussion but this seems inessential.
2
Apr 11 2024
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The Who Sell Out
The Who
Oh boy do they get good. I can see for miles. Townshend wrote it as a no 1 and deliberately put a mostly one note solo as a statement about Clapton, page Beck etc. Topped out at 10 in the UK and I think 15 in the US. The charts are idiots.
I’ve often thought of all the rock stars I’m closest in temperament to Brian May. But Townshend is probably closer to me in intellectual interests. This album celebrated what Townshend called the greatest art movement of the 20th century - advertising. And they paid for it too - Daltrey allegedly caught pneumonia after spending all day in the baked beans.
Mods at the top of the game. They wouldn’t be as good till who’s next. Though they’d still be pretty great anyway.
5
Apr 12 2024
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Getz/Gilberto
Stan Getz
Hard to be negative about this. Gorgeously done. Ruined by poor imitators. Not their fault. 4.5
5
Apr 15 2024
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Endtroducing.....
DJ Shadow
Best listened to in a club. Otherwise forgettable.
2
Apr 16 2024
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On The Beach
Neil Young
Another Neil young? Nope.
2
Apr 17 2024
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I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Sinead O'Connor
A great album. Not quite as good as its predecessor but still. 5 stars.
It’s easy to forget just what a great performance she gives. In nothing compares, just listen to the verse about the doctor. And then it builds into the chorus. Magic. And she does this type of thing again and again.
5
Apr 18 2024
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Rio
Duran Duran
I’ll give them this. They’ve spent the last 40 years working their guts out. The songs are decent and they’re good musicians.
But seriously? You have 1000 albums. This isn’t one of them.
2
Apr 19 2024
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Now I Got Worry
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
It’s not bad. It’s pretty good. They at least try and take blues elsewhere rather than blooz a la every second rate Stevie Ray hack. But is this the one? I think they did better.
3
Apr 22 2024
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Antichrist Superstar
Marilyn Manson
Even at the time I struggled to see the shock value after little Richard, Screaming Lord Sutch, Alice cooper, the sex pistols, Bowie, etc.
That said, Marilyn Manson was a bit interesting. This is the album to pick. That he was a tool, unlike Alice cooper, is irrelevant. This is an interesting album. Not a great album. Probably slips past ok into pretty ok.
3 seems too high. 2 seems a bit low. So rounded up.
3
Apr 23 2024
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The Sun Rises In The East
Jeru The Damaja
Oh obscure 90s hip hop.
*farts*
2
Apr 24 2024
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Floodland
Sisters Of Mercy
I was bored.
2
Apr 25 2024
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Here's Little Richard
Little Richard
This is rock and roll. Either Richard or Chuck were the king of rock and roll and Richard roared on to the scene. Is there a greater opener than ‘a wop bop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom?’ Is there a greater song on perversion than slipping and slidin? Is there a greater song on another kind of perversion than longboat sally?* Rip it up.. my god. What a song. Even the b sides cook.
2 million stars.
*no kink shaming here. But this was revolutionary in the 1950s
5
Apr 26 2024
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Duck Rock
Malcolm McLaren
Hypocritical cowardly creep with music that reflects that. Zero stars. Rounded up because whoever was in charge of buffalo girls did manage to write a decent pop arrangement.
1
Apr 29 2024
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New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
Simple Minds
This is a good album and explains where a lot of U2 comes from. The singles are magnificent. The rest is pretty great. 3.5.
4
Apr 30 2024
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Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division
Whinging Poms. Actually that’s a bit harsh. I do prefer new order but hook et Al are a good band. That Ian Curtis needed more help than he could get is a recurring theme in the history of pop music. I find this stuff maudlin and dull but recognise that it has a significant following. And yes probably an album you should hear.
3
May 01 2024
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Blood On The Tracks
Bob Dylan
Not every one of Dylan’s many albums needs to be must hear in a broad sweep of popular music. This is one that you probably should hear. It is a bit of a shame that this list continually brings up the overrated Neil young but Dylan, while here, doesn’t seem to be as noticed. I might be being harsh.
Dylan had withdrawn from music. Or at least he’d wound back. A motorbike accident in 1966 saw him release less important albums. However this after a string of smaller albums seems like an attempt to be game changing again without actually trying to be.
Some of the love for this album I think is a love for Dylan. But it has some highlights. Given Dylan’s importance as a composer this album should be listened to. But I will always prefer the other greats. 4
4
May 02 2024
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Paris 1919
John Cale
Got about halfway through and got bored. Better than Elvis Costello Lou reed and Neil young. But that’s not hard. I like Cale. But should this be here? 2.5.
3
May 03 2024
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Fear Of A Black Planet
Public Enemy
Should be on such a list. Although maybe takes a nation of millions should be the one.
Didn’t fully enjoy though some good grooves.
3
May 06 2024
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Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan
The first of the electric albums. Side one explodes with electric instruments. Side two is acoustic. Maggie’s Farm still bites 60 years down the track. So does subterranean homesick blues. A stellar cast of musicians. And he was only to get better from here. And possibly the greatest closing track of any American album. It was over. And something new was beginning.
75 stars.
5
May 07 2024
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Oar
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
I don’t know. Is this good? Or ‘good’? I don’t think it’s must listen. It’s more of a ‘oh you should hear this because of the circumstances’. Not ‘this album defined 20th and 21st century popular music in this way or that way.’ I mean I like it. But Willis Allan Ramsay, Joe South, late Elvis, the band, credence, the allmans and on and on seem more compelling.
I don’t know. I think he needed more help than exploitation. I don’t know.
2
May 08 2024
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People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
A Tribe Called Quest
This is good stuff. Neo soul is a great genre and it doesn’t get much better than this.
4
May 10 2024
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Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Ray Charles
This is the shizzle. Ray shows the hairs width difference between r and b and country. Jimmie Rogers, the Everly brothers and Hank Williams get their genius polished. Musical dna. 1500000
5
May 13 2024
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Brothers In Arms
Dire Straits
This is one of those albums, like Rumours or Hotel California that is almost beyond criticism. Easy to dismiss as dull, its ubiquity is a major factor in that conclusion. In fact, like the other two, it’s an exceedingly well crafted album. Important in being the album that the sound quality of cds was demonstrated using this album it is a mix of brilliance and banality. Dire Straits to me at least is a rough equivalent to Creedence Clearwater Revival, insofar as they were made up of brothers and friends and the songs that Mark wrote were much bigger than the band. They are a fine band but not a virtuosic band like, I don’t know, The Police or The Blockheads. Except for the exceptional guitar playing of Mark the band is a bit journeyman. Mark’s limited vocalising works, especially on things like ‘your latest trick’. Of course he wrote the songs and was aware of his limitations.
I think it’s telling that the best songs have wiki links. And were singles. I do like this album. I suppose it’s musical RNA to me. There’s a sense that readers in this group may find it dull. It’s not dull but it’s not an album that for me I need to listen to much even though as a guitarist I deeply admire Mark Knopfler’s style.
3.5
4
May 14 2024
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The Modern Lovers
The Modern Lovers
I keep hearing how great these guys are.
I’ll take your word for it.
I suppose it should be on this list as he’s deeply regarded. But there’s no craft here. There’s no emotion. There’s no art.
Maybe you had to be there.
Interested to see Jerry harrison was a part of it.
2
May 15 2024
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Graceland
Paul Simon
I suppose to be fair in a just world this would be an album that was well regarded in a post Peter Gabriel world. In an even more just world the magnificent band and Ladysmith black mambazo would have been world famous anyway.
But we live in this world. And Paul Simon, a first rank songwriter, produces this after critically acclaimed but commercially subdued albums.
And this is superb. IIt changes the world. I know Paul Simon may be a problematic figure. But the music here. And the lyrics. What is not generally noticed is that Simon doesn’t move far away from his usual lyrical themes - Manhattan life, relationship breakdowns. So diamonds on the soles of her shoes - possibly the standout track - is not about Soweto. They fall asleep among the bodegas of Broadway. The title Track may be Simon’s best lyrics. I know what I know is another standout. There’s no filler on this.
I’m aware of all the criticisms. Is it exploitation? Did Paul Simon ripoff his musicians? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. If true they are valid. But this is a joyful, joyous and wondrous album. If you haven’t heard it, listen closely. Let it seep in.
It is musical dna for me. 88 stars.
5
May 16 2024
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Guero
Beck
Didn’t we do Beck already? After Odelay is there anything to add for only 1000 albums?
This is good. No question. But not a must listen. 2.5 marked down because it shouldn’t be here.
2
May 17 2024
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Blood And Chocolate
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
. Awful garbage. A poor songwriter, now past his peak in the gently undulating foothills of his talent (I use the term loosely though I did think Oliver’s army a great song and I don’t want to go to Chelsea is also decent.) How could the producer let him get away with wasting a great band in this junk?
Enough with the critical darlings. This list has shown most critics don’t understand ‘quality’ ’rock’, ‘roll’, ‘good’ or ‘music’ Let’s have more albums you must hear.
0 stars. Rounded up because it’s too mediocre for a negative score
1
May 20 2024
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Psychocandy
The Jesus And Mary Chain
Hmmm. Garbage? Great?
Dull, certainly.
2
May 21 2024
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Superfuzz Bigmuff
Mudhoney
Yep. Should be here and is pretty great. If I named my album like this it’d be Wah bluesdriver delay. This is how you do noise. And rock.
5
May 22 2024
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Basket of Light
Pentangle
I know already that Alan is going to dismiss this as English folk but in all love and affection give me 20 of these over French folk.
With that out of the way, that British and Irish guitarists of the 1960s were incredible. This is Beck Page Clapton Townshend, Rory, etc.
But the acoustic guys were better in a sense. On this album Jaensch and Renbourn. It’s a true fusion - jazz blues folk all mixing as if they always did. This, Solid Air, Planxty and Fairport. And this stuff leads to zeppelin, Jethro Tull and other such acts.
5
May 23 2024
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Heaven Or Las Vegas
Cocteau Twins
This is good stuff from a band I’m not as aware of as I should be. But I enjoyed this. And I think is an act that belongs here. Whether it’s this album or not I don’t know. But one of their albums should be here anyway.
4
May 24 2024
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Grace
Jeff Buckley
It’s the worst version of hallelujah but to be fair that’s because all of the awful copies. So not really his fault. I like the original and I like John cales version. The restraint in both of them suits the song.
Would have been interesting to see where he would have gone. This album is not bad but I think it’s more an harbinger of things to come rather than a fully realised musical vision. That it was not to be is a tragedy.
3
3
May 27 2024
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Exile In Guyville
Liz Phair
If she hadn’t called herself the blowjob queen would pathetic sniggering white boy critics have cared?
I think this is good though. And yes probably one of those albums you should hear.
4
May 28 2024
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Hypnotised
The Undertones
Old tree bird fishlock is in great voice here. This is a really great album. It evaded me at the time but I would have been all over this on release.
4
May 29 2024
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Roger the Engineer
The Yardbirds
I had written a Toppermost article (https://www.toppermost.co.uk/the-yardbirds/) on the yardbirds and after it was published I realised something. Apart from the three important guitarists who made up the lineup - Clapton Beck and Page - they weren’t a terribly good blues band. They were however a pretty terrific pop band particularly on this album. Jeff Beck, one of the greatest rock guitarists, never stopped developing as a player. The songs on this are terrific. Over under upside down is amazing. The Nazz is blue led one David jones, under his more renowned stage name, to describe the character of Ziggy Stardust. It also led Todd Rundgren to name his band.
This is worth a listen. Though nearly all members would go on to to other interesting and important things. Not all the songs are bangers. But those that are slap hard. Vale Jeff. (And Keith).
4
May 30 2024
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Want One
Rufus Wainwright
Must listen? More like might listen if that’s all there is. Not especially great. Not especially awful. Not my cup of tea. But nothing special either. Why is this here?
2
May 31 2024
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The Gershwin Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald
That key year 1959. Ella is like Hendrix, like Dylan, like Bird. Greatness themselves but too many inferior copies dilute.
But here, with two of the figures (well three) that make up what was great about American 20th century music - the gershwin’s and Nelson freaking riddle - we see magic.
5
Jun 03 2024
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If You're Feeling Sinister
Belle & Sebastian
Hadn’t heard this before. Thought I wouldn’t like it. Didn’t hate it. Might be a grower. Currently a 3.5. Might improve.
4
Jun 04 2024
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Pelican West
Haircut 100
Reallly? Highly commercialised pop with admittedly some craft but little originality? It’s fun but that’s about it. Love plus one is an almost great single - rang and i rang and I rang and I… is a terrific hook. But you know, really?
2
Jun 05 2024
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Cafe Bleu
The Style Council
Weller never quite got the genius level his early work suggested. Nonetheless Style council was pretty cool. It ain’t over is soulful. The album is strong.
But top 1000? 3 stars.
3
Jun 06 2024
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Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D'Arby
Terence Trent D'Arby
This is a grower. When it came out I thought yeah it’s good. But decades later it’s a bit ahead of its time and has incredibly great songs. Finally a must listen. 4.5
5
Jun 10 2024
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American Idiot
Green Day
At least it’s an album of importance and broad critical acclaim even if I don’t like it that much. It’s more of a throwback than a progression. It’s not bad at all. But is it punk? I will concede it belongs on this list.
3
Jun 11 2024
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Follow The Leader
Korn
Yes ok. It’s fine. They have a big but niche following and are representative of that type of thing. So yeah. Ok.
3
Jun 12 2024
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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Beatles
It’s either this or abbey road for my favourite Beatles. I know, it gets a bit of snark. But any album that includes’A day in the life’ is instantly five stars. The opening track. Wow. The closing track. Wow. The hidden track. Wow. Lennon at his diminished best. Not a lot of songs but those he does do - wow. McCartney at his best. Wow. George decides to master Carnatic music. As you do. Wow.
There’s a reason this was a cultural phenomenon.
65000009 stars.
5
Jun 13 2024
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If I Could Only Remember My Name
David Crosby
The least interesting member of Crosby stills Nash and young, a group that included stills Nash and young. This is ok. He can sing and play and write decent songs. But it’s not compelling. 2.5.
3
Jun 14 2024
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Electric
The Cult
The cult is fun. The cult is hideously derivative. I remember syncing up a cult song and an ac dc song. Same riff. Same key. Same tempo.
I’m not sure they belong here, and it’s the she sells sanctuary album if they did. Dimery, do your job.
2
Jun 17 2024
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Lazer Guided Melodies
Spiritualized
This experiment failed.
2
Jun 18 2024
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Zombie
Fela Kuti
Most white critics missed the point of this. It was not about freedom, but oppression. It’s good actually. An album you should hear.
5
Jun 19 2024
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Permission to Land
The Darkness
It’s fun. But they sort of fade after this. It’s a good representation of that early 2000s. One does wonder what they’d do if they’d never heard a Queen album. But yes I can accept this.
3
Jun 20 2024
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Born To Run
Bruce Springsteen
Crack band. Crack songs. Springsteen is the best of the post Dylan songwriters. Shut up he is. Ah, what would you know?
Born to Run is an anthem - a song that unites in its criticisms of American capitalism. Springsteen understands that the system could work but it’s been taken over by crooks, by shysters, by scammers. The everyday worker gets screwed. You can run. You can’t hide. There is redemption out there somewhere. There must be. There has to be.
He puts all this in a vista that is mythic in its vision. It’s an America of small towns. Of broken dreams. Of disappointment. But in there is a little hope. And that’s the magic of it.
Growing up I got Springsteen. The cars. The long endless roads. The dying towns where once was promise but now was despair. Central West NSW could be Wisconsin. Or Tennessee. Or Virginia.
Sheer poetry, wrapped in Dylan, Motown, The Who, Woody Guthrie, Nashville and Pete Seeger. And a crack band. Did I mention the band?
PS - that telecaster is why I play a telecaster.
5
Jun 24 2024
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The Atomic Mr Basie
Count Basie & His Orchestra
Basie.
5
Jun 25 2024
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Microshift
Hookworms
White boy critics love this. It’s safe, it’s predictable but you can look down on the noobs who like Elton, or Billy Joel, or Celine Dion or Taylor swift. I’d grown tired of this stuff by 2003 or so. This adds nothing to music, musical knowledge or technique or songwriting. Shortcomings was ok. The rest was … blergh.
1 star
1
Jun 26 2024
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The Undertones
The Undertones
Didn’t we do this? Feargal Sharkey is a fine singer and they are fine instrumentalists. But one album is enough.
3
Jun 27 2024
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The Boatman's Call
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Unusually I prefer nick caves later stuff. Into my arms is lovely and was a deserved single. The piano is somber , quiet and doesn’t have the heroin haze or pretension of his really early stuff.
Should it be here? I’m not sure. But it’s a solid 3.5 rounded up.
4
Jun 28 2024
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It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Public Enemy
An album that changes the world. One to listen to. Yes it’s confronting and violent and misogynistic. But it’s also a statement on what it is in the U.S. then. Bring the noise and party for your right to fight - a cheeky retort and homage to the beastie boys - are my standouts. But the anger passion and insight is strong in this one.
5
Jul 01 2024
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Repeater
Fugazi
I liked the bass and drums. I’m starting to think the electric guitar is played out. Noise can be music. Sometimes it’s just noise. Boring. But the bass and drums are good. 2.5.
3
Jul 02 2024
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Beggars Banquet
The Rolling Stones
They’ve found the sound. Well nearly. Street fighting man, with its air of distant curiosity and regret hammers hard.
Brian Jones’s slide guitar is exquisite. The acoustic songs show just how good these guys get, once they move away from pop and back to country and blues.
Sympathy for the devil has incredible imagery - I drive a tank with a general’s rank, where the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank. Underrated lyricists those jagger Richards boys. I think mick wrote that one.
Not that the rest of the album is worse. Probably the best thing about this album was they were to get better. Any other band, just about, would have had this as their peak.
5 stars.
5
Jul 03 2024
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Reign In Blood
Slayer
Absolute must hear if only to understand thrash. Second only to Metallica in sales. Possibly exceeds them in pure hard metal. Yes it’s brutal and fast and difficult. Just like my ex girlfriend. But unlike my ex worth revisiting and you don’t need a jail pass.
Even if you don’t like thrash, this is a must hear. Even once.
5
Jul 04 2024
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A Grand Don't Come For Free
The Streets
Sigh. No. Sterile. Passionless. Dull.
2
Jul 05 2024
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Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams
To think that people made sure they made a distinction between this guy and Bryan Adams. Both I suppose should be on such a list. A lot of people like them and they sold exceptionally well. And god bless both of them. I don’t like either man’s music much. But I’m clearly in the minority.
2
Jul 08 2024
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Fuzzy Logic
Super Furry Animals
Not quite mediocre enough to be mediocre. Not quite good enough to be good. Guess it’s ok.
2
Jul 09 2024
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Who's Next
The Who
Musical DNA.
One couplet Nearly all understanding of politics can be summed up in
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss.
That song. That song by itself gives this album 19/5.
And yet the others. My wife, by the ox. Baba oreilly. Teenage wasteland. I knew exactly what it meant. Behind blue eyes. Townshend lashes out. Arrogance hiding an insecurity so deep the song nearly collapses. That cover by limp bizkit missed the point. This is how strength can be broken by weakness. Getting in tune. A career making song for any other band. Here, almost filler.
Brilliant.
5
Jul 10 2024
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The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
A pretty strong debut mostly of the live show with one jagger Richard and Nanker Phelge tracks.
The stones were probably the best of the early British blues bands - maybe early Fleetwood Mac were the rivals. I know the Irish contingent are screaming Rory but he’s just a bit later. None the less the blues are authentic and the band will go on to be much much more than this debut suggests. They would transcend blues without leaving it completely behind.
4
Jul 11 2024
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Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Raekwon
It’s really a Wu tang album. One Wu tang album is enough. It’s good though.
3
Jul 12 2024
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In Utero
Nirvana
I think this is a better album than never mind. But in 1001 albums do we need more then never mind. A lot of the love for nirvana is the potential that was never to be realised. Not all of it of course. He could write songs and the band was incendiary. But should it be here? Still, I think it a better album than nevermind. But never mind is the one. Gets five stars though.
5
Jul 15 2024
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Feast of Wire
Calexico
*sigh*.
Give me punch brothers or their solo stuff. Bela fleck. Billy strings. Sierra Hull. Not this warmed over stuff the Band did better. Or eagles. Or the birds. Or the allman bros or lynyrd skynMusic must develop or die. To be fair, this is competent. It has some nice parts. But give me Chris Thile or Chris Eldridge. Or bela fleck. Or anything that doesn’t fit a predictable pattern.
2
Jul 16 2024
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Scott 4
Scott Walker
Scott walker was always interesting. This is not as bizarrely weird as some of his work (really go and listen to Jesse. It’s about Elvis in his mother’s womb dealing with his dead twin). But it’s still interesting. Must listen? Hmmmm.
3
Jul 17 2024
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2112
Rush
I love rush. Shut up you. They were nearly always able to play progressive music without 1) disappearing up their own clackers and 2) being so complex it was impossible to hold onto. Sure Neil’s lyrics were … sometimes only as good as their source material - ayn rand. And geddys voice isn’t to everyone’s taste. But man could they play. Alex plays like a demon being lifted I guess by Neil’s legendary drumming. Geddy’s bass is incredibly great too.
5 stars easily.
5
Jul 18 2024
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Walking Wounded
Everything But The Girl
Actually this is pretty decent northern soul. She’s got a great voice and the songs are decent and the playing is good.
It’s on the border of must listen though …. 3.5 rounded up
4
Jul 19 2024
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Solid Air
John Martyn
Musical dna. Beyond criticism for me.
For all the talk of Eric, Jeff, Jimmy, Rory, Peter and Pete, the acoustic guys were cutting just as much edge. And in fact Page was deeply influenced by this sort of stuff. Incredibly brilliant stuff.
5
Jul 22 2024
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Blonde On Blonde
Bob Dylan
Highway 51 is the masterpiece, but this is superb. My god, Dylan, beach boys, Beatles, Who. Those acts that grew incredibly as artists. 18 months earlier, you’d never have picked Dylan doing this.
Just superb. One of the few double albums I can abide.
25000 stars.
5
Jul 23 2024
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Here Come The Warm Jets
Brian Eno
Eno is either genius or fraud. 2.5 while I work it out.
3
Jul 24 2024
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Southern Rock Opera
Drive-By Truckers
Not the best. But not the worst. Some decent music and good playing.
3
Jul 25 2024
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The Modern Dance
Pere Ubu
Was a time where I’d have thought this fantastic. Not so much now but let’s be fair. I changed. It didn’t.
4
4
Jul 26 2024
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Trafalgar
Bee Gees
Barry gibb is one of the great songwriters. This album is stage one bee gees at their peak. The vocal blend is among the very best.
Yes. This belongs here.
5
Jul 29 2024
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The Poet
Bobby Womack
Ok, I’ve not heard of this album, though I am aware of bobby Womack. Magnificent talent. Enjoyed a great deal. Must listen? I’ll give this one the benefit of the doubt. 4 probably growing to 5.
4
Jul 30 2024
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Celebrity Skin
Hole
As tragic a tale as nirvana and just as much tabloid fodder. But is it good?
It is good. Maybe not great. But good. Strong songs and musicianship. A not untalented band at all. Ignore the drama. This is a good listen.
4
Jul 31 2024
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You're Living All Over Me
Dinosaur Jr.
I think so much about this. The too long won’t write version is that it is really good. But it has issues. 3.5. And 25
4
Aug 01 2024
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Buena Vista Social Club
Buena Vista Social Club
Ry Cooder is an unheralded genius. This foray into Latin music is the soundtrack to a documentary. The documentary is fine but the soundtrack is incredible.
The band, frozen in time it seems since US sanctions is a capsule of 50s and 60s Cuban music.
5 stars.
5
Aug 02 2024
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Mama's Gun
Erykah Badu
I first saw Erykah Badu in Blues brothers 2000 - a film whose soundtrack is way superior to its content.
I then followed her up. She’s never done a dud album.
5
Aug 05 2024
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Make Yourself
Incubus
Not my tea. People like it. Good for them.
2
Aug 06 2024
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War
U2
I saw U2 in about 1988 or 1989 at the Sydney entertainment centre, with BB King as support. Now I really went for B B King. And after his excellent set I sat and thought ‘do I want to see U2?’ I thought about balancing a very early start, the cost of the ticket and my interest in U2. In the end I figured they’d do Angel of Harlem and When Love goes to town with B B. So I stayed.
And they were incredible. It was just before the huge arena tours. So it was just the four of them, some lights and stage presence.
So while their later stuff maybe shows a band who have run out of ideas, the stuff they did in the first half of their career - maybe the album after rattle and hum was the end of this - is really great. This is the first I think of the really great U2 stuff. The first album showed promise but it starts to coalesce here. Perhaps one of the best second albums of all time.
3.5 stars rounded up.
4
Aug 07 2024
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Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
Springsteen early stuff is primo. Stripped back without the band he lays bare the issues in America at the time. Sparse . Honest. Challenging. One of my favourites. I love the E street band. But sometimes one guitar one voice and a harmonica is all you need.
5
Aug 08 2024
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White Light / White Heat
The Velvet Underground
Over, let me introduce you to rated. The pretentious nature of this. Yes every one who watched formed a band but how many of those bands were any good? The solo work of Cale is good. There are people who love Lou Reed. Good on them. He wrote a couple of songs I enjoy.
But, even if Vu were to be on the list, this isn’t the album.
2
Aug 09 2024
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Hunting High And Low
a-ha
Really? Sure take on me is a great song with a great clip. And the other singles are strong. And yes Scandinavia punches well above its weight in pop. (Even if you remove the Swedish ABBA)
But what next? Get the knack? Racey 1?
Focus guys.
2
Aug 12 2024
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Are You Experienced
Jimi Hendrix
Mitch. Jimi. An incredible phenomenon. Yes. A must listen. Hendrix is one of the few acts where all the studio recordings are must listen.
5
Aug 13 2024
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Tusk
Fleetwood Mac
This is, at least for me, the best of the Buckingham nicks Fleetwood Mac albums. The bloat is used better and the songs are a bit more interesting. The title track should fail but succeeds with the best of them. The mixed down hooga huggas and other verbal noises just add to the bizarre atmosphere. Sara is a great song too. Mick Fleetwood said that this album was driven by Buckingham but, in my view, as usual the best songs tend to be Christine mcvie’s.
It sold 4 million - 2/3 of the population of Sydney for a bit of perspective but they were such a sales juggernaut that it’s a commercial flop.
Had you asked me before I’d have firmly planted this at 1982. But it’s 1979. A bit ahead of its time I think. A better album than rumours, I guess I’ll have to give it five.
5
Aug 14 2024
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Live At The Harlem Square Club
Sam Cooke
It’s rough. Ready and swings and rocks with a whole dollop of soul.
5
Aug 15 2024
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Brilliant Corners
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious was always a bit ahead of his time. And he doesn’t quite fit into jazz. He’s jazz. Yes. But if you listen he’s also a bit classical. He’s closer I think to Ellington than Armstrong. None of this is criticism, just observation.
I liked this album. Still do. Listen to how he pushes harmony and rhythm. No one really thought like thelonious. Maybe Ellington or Ornette.
5
5
Aug 16 2024
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Vanishing Point
Primal Scream
Ehh. I want to like it and I kind of do.
3
Aug 20 2024
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Your Arsenal
Morrissey
He can turn a lyric, old Stephen. He can do a melody too. But maybe it’s his attitudes. Should you judge art through the attitude of the artist?
The gobshite’s gobshite? Or a genius whose truths are too high for muck like me?
In any case this is a poor album from a guy who’s done much better. Vauxhall and I is the album. This is pap
Or both?
I’m not a fan, but I can’t deny the influence.
1
Aug 21 2024
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Odelay
Beck
The only beck album you need. Loser is one of the great singles of the pop era and this album is pretty solid. So between them you have the essential listening for Beck if you’re a casual fan or are unaware and are looking to find out about him. You can of course if you like go to the rest of his work. And I enjoy it. I hope you do too. But with only 1001 albums this is the one.
3
Aug 22 2024
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Happy Trails
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Quite interesting. One chord vamps as done by Bo can be done well. This is. Wouldn’t we be better to hear Bo? Or early John Lee hooker? Nonetheless worth a listen. 2.5
The second side starts with another bo Diddley.
3
Aug 23 2024
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D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
I liked it. Not much to say. But it’s a good example. I feel we’re getting a little bit of white boy critical in crowd. But it was ok.
2
Aug 26 2024
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Rock 'N Soul
Solomon Burke
5
Aug 27 2024
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Licensed To Ill
Beastie Boys
This is rightly held as a classic and like becks Odelay, the one album you need to introduce yourself to the beastie boys. Yes they grow and change but you start here. 4.5
5
Aug 28 2024
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Eliminator
ZZ Top
ZZ Top. Saw them in 1986. Loved it.
They introduce synths to the blues. A New York or Chicago band, let alone a Sydney or Melbourne or London blues band, would have been laughed off as pretentious wankers.
ZZ Top are - or were - the real thing. This is probably the last really great album they did. Guns, cars and girls. What more do you need?
I’ll be honest. This type of thing tends to bore me now. But they do it very well.
3
Aug 29 2024
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Soul Mining
The The
An over hyped band who don’t quite reach the heights we were promised. If they belong on such a list, it’s the album with Beat (en) generation. This is for the fans. Not for the masses. They’re not a bad band at all. Kind of the smiths but without the energy that the smiths had. Not bad. But not essential.
3
Aug 30 2024
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Rage Against The Machine
Rage Against The Machine
I don’t know anymore if they are genuine revolutionaries or middle class wannabes. I know Zach de la Rocha’s father was a genuine revolutionary. But is it valid? I suspect it is. But the cynic in me suspects it’s less cred. Too many crappy bands of rich middle class kids botching killing in the name. That’s not ratm’s fault.
They also need to swing a bit.
3.5
4
Sep 02 2024
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Sheet Music
10cc
Not sure this is the album but 10cc is rather underrated these days. The two writing partnerships - Goldman and stewart and godley and crème are superb. This might have been better as a greatest hits or the album with I’m not in love. But this is a good album from an always interesting team.
4
Sep 03 2024
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Post Orgasmic Chill
Skunk Anansie
Nah. I mean. Nah.
2
Sep 04 2024
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Take Me Apart
Kelela
This is not bad. I was unaware of this. But I don’t mind it at all. It’s a bit samey . But sets a nice mood. It may be a bit early to see if this becomes canon or whether it becomes a weird artifact in a book that dumps it in a few years for some other new act. But that’s not for me to decide.
3.5 rounded up.
3
Sep 05 2024
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Blue
Joni Mitchell
‘One of the greatest albums of all time’. ‘The pinnacle of composition and structure.’ ‘Not bad for a girl’.
It’s hard to review or critique or even listen objectively to this. Every mediocre cafe singer has heard this and when they sing of their intensely personal life and tell you pointless stories of how this particular song came to be, this is the album to blame
‘This next song came to me when I was doing a load of laundry. Then I caught the bus to buy some milk and my sister rang and we chatted for 34 minutes. I had an itchy nose so I scratched it. My cat meowed and I fed it. This song is called ‘feeding the cat while doing the laundry’ (start cliched chord pattern).
Joni is not at fault here. (Neither is Jimi Hendrix or Yngwie Malmsteen or Aretha Franklin, or Stevie Ray Vaughn, or Bob Dylan or Jaco Pastorious or Celine Dion or Metallica to name a few.) A prodigiously talented songwriter, a brilliant guitarist and a great singer, I can’t blame people for wanting to copy her but her stuff is uncopyable.
In short this is a great album. One of the few that you should listen to. But I prefer others - offhand Hejira or Court and Spark - from her. Nonetheless five stars.
5
Sep 06 2024
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In The Wee Small Hours
Frank Sinatra
Musical dna. Sinatra was pretty much untouchable at the top of his game and coupled with Nelson riddle, nothing expressed American masculinity and art like this at least not until Presley or Chuck. Sinatra is not a singer put in front of the orchestra - he’s a vital part of it, as important to the sound of the orchestra as Sweets Edison or George Van Eps. This is as much to do with his talent - his gift - as it is to do with Riddles arrangements.
If this doesn’t move you, something’s wrong. And this isn’t my favourite of those magical Columbia albums - the glory of Songs for Swinging Lovers is my favourite. But this is just incredible. I bask in it, revelling in each note, beat, chord and lyric. Essential listening. 25 stars.
5
Sep 10 2024
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American Pie
Don McLean
He’s a fine songwriter. Of course American pie is a baby boomer anthem, one of those songs that created a false nostalgia for a better time in Australia for example. Are there levies that we could drive a Chevy to to watch good old boys drinking whiskey and rye? And yes the lyrics have been analysed to death, ironically given the song theme. It’s a bit beyond criticism really. Over played. Not its fault. Over analysed. Not its fault. False nostalgia. Erm.
Vincent is lovely. Again over played. But if you haven’t heard it in a while it’s good.
They are the two best tracks. The rest are fine tracks written by a talented songwriter. McLean still tours and is by all accounts a terrific performer. Without the two singles I think he’d fit in to the California singer songwriter - think Joni, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Jim Croce, Eagles, post Peter green Fleetwood Mac. But he wouldn’t stand out. Those two songs though.
It’s not really a five star album but giving it any less feels wrong. So I’m going to cheat and round up a 4.5. It’s sort of a 3.5. But the cultural impact of the title track bumps it up. (I’m not a huge fan of the song anymore having heard it thousands of times.)
5
Sep 11 2024
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Live At The Witch Trials
The Fall
The fall is one of those bands you should like and there’s a lot to recommend them but I’m not the biggest fan. A bit like the smiths. Mark e smith was a very clever man with a great turn in lyric. Yes. You probably should hear this. But you mightn’t get it. Nonetheless it has a style. And is important to the growth of post punk and post classic rock.
3
Sep 12 2024
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Boston
Boston
Joyless pap. Micromanaged to within an inch of its life with all the rock, life and joy sucked out of it.
Even steely Dan has joy. This is middle class, no culture white boy rock writ large.if the bland suburbs of middle America or Australia had a soundtrack to wallow in their mediocrity it’s this. If beige was music, it’s this. This is like going to a party where some bore is intent on telling you all about his obsession to the nth degree. Give me something I can dance to. Give me something that moves me. No wonder Maryanne walked away. I’m surprised she didn’t run and then get a restraining order.
Give me the who, zeppelin, Springsteen, Tom petty, the kinks, Queen, or even Aerosmith. No wonder punk hit so hard. This is 1976, punk is 1977. Can we really be surprised? The pistols or The clash pee all over this. Let alone the ramones or Television.
This album angers me. Tasteless White boys and music. Pah.
1
Sep 13 2024
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Quiet Life
Japan
The sound of 1983. In 1979. This is actually quite good. Atmospheric and easy to listen to. That’s a good thing.
3.5
4
Sep 16 2024
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Dusty In Memphis
Dusty Springfield
I’ve never really got this one. It’s fine with a terrific band. But Aretha did son of a preacher man better.
Being honest, I like the other divas better. Give me Linda ronstadt, sick of your male shit. Give me Cher, recounting the hypocritical racism she faces in Gypsies tramps and thieves. Give me Aretha, Mavis Staples, Whitney, Etc. People love this album. And that’s perfectly fine. I don’t. I do like windmills of your mind and land of make believe. I like the album but don’t love it. It is very popular so I’m averaging my three and everyone’s else’s 5 to a 4. And I feel that’s a little high.
4
Sep 17 2024
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Django Django
Django Django
Who left the studio door open and the synth on? I told you don’t play with these things unless you know what you’re doing. Or for god’s sake, be with an adult who can show you what to do. No one wants you to not play music but get some lessons.
This is everything rock or pop shouldn’t be. Thinks it’s smart. Too ignorant to be smart. Thinks it’s fun. It’s about as fun as reading the obituary of a child. Thinks it’s original. About as original as the 95th photocopy of a not really funny meme stuck to the office notice board. Django Django. So clever - if you’re in year 9 and a tortured poet. Otherwise go listen to Django Reinhardt.
Must listen? If it was the last album on earth I’d give up music.
1
Sep 18 2024
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At Fillmore East
The Allman Brothers Band
I wanted to say that I’m bored with weedly endless guitar solos and that southern rock was limp toxic masculinity.
But I can’t. Not in regards to this album. I listened to it as a young musician and liked it, mainly because I was told to by Critics and Music Experts. Over time my tastes developed and I moved away from this type of thing.
However listening to it again, it’s not as brash as I remember and there’s some damned fine playing and composition in it. Whipping post, an alleged favourite of Frank Zappa is a masterpiece.
Yes it strains adhd with its length of tracks and launches a million mediocre jam bands. But like so much in music that’s not the fault nor the intention of the album.
All in all, this belongs here. I suspect that some of us in our little group won’t like it. That’s ok. Their arguments are probably right. But I enjoyed this much more than I remembered. Points deducted for too long (though as Mozart allegedly said to the emperor, which notes do I remove?’)
And a little bit of self indulgence. But still an album that wouldn’t hurt you to listen to.
4
Sep 19 2024
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The Idiot
Iggy Pop
Ok. 3.5.
This is a good album. Hadn’t heard it before but enjoyed it. I had heard Iggy pop. Just not this one. Probably his best work. Very strong.
4
Sep 20 2024
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Dry
PJ Harvey
3.5. Polly Jean is an excellent player and songwriter with a good band. I enjoy this from time to time.
4
Sep 24 2024
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In The Court Of The Crimson King
King Crimson
This is a great album. Just incredible.
5
Sep 25 2024
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Among The Living
Anthrax
I might be wrong here, but Metallica were your older cousins, telling you scary stories and introducing to bits of life that perhaps your parents didn’t want you to know about. Slayer was the weird guy up the street who you should avoid but was too compelling with horror stories who lived in a creepy house and couldn’t be ignored. Megadeth was the lunatic up the road, spouting conspiracies and railing against immigration and the gubmint. But again, compelling. Anthrax were the goofy guys, barrel of laughs, just great fun to be around. What and how you you were laughing about was a whole other thing, again, probably not parent approved, but there you are.
And that’s this album. Heavy? Yes. Intense? Yes. But a self deprecation and humour that isn’t apparent on the other three. Most people will only need to hear this once, but it’s a good listen. 3.5.
4
Sep 26 2024
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My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Brian Eno
Not more Brian Eno. And David Byrne? Some good, not great stuff. He needed Jerry Harrison and Tina Weymouth. Honestly. It’s like Neil Young or cult sixties albums. Way way over represented and after you’ve heard one you’ve got the idea. If you like it chase the artists up but on your own time. Django Django broke me. This is pissing on the pieces.
0 stars on general principle. (Album actually not awful but I’m on a crusade here. Sorry Brian and David if you read this. It’s not you.).
1
Sep 27 2024
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Hot Shots II
The Beta Band
This is what happens when you listen to white boy critics. Another 0 stars.
1
Sep 30 2024
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Don't Stand Me Down
Dexys Midnight Runners
Interesting but inessential. 2
2
Oct 01 2024
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Come Away With Me
Norah Jones
The last great mainstream jazz album? A great mainstream jazz album? She’s good. She can carry a tune and invest it with all the things you need. That some of the tunes are a little dull is certainly more a product of the time than any failing on her behalf. But she has a monster group of musicians and that she diverts from textbook jazz is also a strong mark in her favour.
Worth a listen.
4.5
5
Oct 02 2024
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We're Only In It For The Money
The Mothers Of Invention
One of the great Zappa albums. Its beatle baiting cover apparently impressed the Fab Four. Zappa was always somewhat ahead or apart of his time so this sounds like something from 1979 or 1983
One of the very few artists I’d accept more than one album on such a list.
4
Oct 03 2024
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1984
Van Halen
Musical DNA. Shut up. I don't care what you think. There is no better opening than Hot for Teacher. The middle finger extended as the high level virtuoso playing gets mixed with juvenile sexist puerile nonsense is sublime.. Isn't that what Scotty Moore, Cliff Gallup, Duane Eddy, Chuck Berry did?
In another life, Eddie Van Halen is Alan Holdsworth, changing the world of guitar . while playing to a tiny but devoted audience. The genius is David Lee Roth, he of the ok vocals, but massive charisma, and naughty lyrics. Alex van Halen was the perfect foil to his brother, and the secret sauce is Michael Anthony on bass and backing vocals.
Jump, Panama, Hot for Teacher, the opening track.. musical DNA... just magic.
5
Oct 04 2024
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The Specials
The Specials
A message to you Rudy is superb. Actually the album is superb. Concrete jungle another banger.
2 tone launched a lot of great bands and the specials might have been the best. Ska music is fun and serious.
4
Oct 07 2024
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Palo Congo
Sabu
Hmmm. This is good. But I’m not sure if this is white boy wannabe posing. So it gets two till you can convince me otherwise.
2
Oct 08 2024
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Veckatimest
Grizzly Bear
Oh get lost. 0 stars. Not only not a must hear, it’s mediocrity is such that I’m a worse person for listening to it. Predictably unpredictable. Cliches. Cliches so cliched that other cliches roll their eyes. Music so dull you could play it in lifts without having to rearrange it. Music so dull you could use it in your end of life procedure.
I wish they would take this list seriously.
Seriously, Get lost.
1
Oct 09 2024
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Urban Hymns
The Verve
One song doesn’t make a great album. This actually has a couple of very good songs - drugs don’t work is a bit special - but it’s more of a decent attempt showing promise than a must hear. Another couple of albums might have seen a must hear. This is fine. But a not yet. 2.5.
3
Oct 10 2024
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Hot Rats
Frank Zappa
The Zappa album to listen to to understand the genius of Zappa is the greatest hits selection ‘strictly commercial.’ But due to white boys thinking greatest hits lack credibility, you have to hear every album they praise. We get this, we’re only in it for the money, apostrophe, joes garage maybe Broadway the hard way, so ensuring curious but unfamiliar listeners get an overwhelming introduction to difficult, idiosyncratic brilliance. This is a disservice because Zappa is his own thing. He’s not strictly commercial. In fact he, like Prince later, struggled with corporate interference so did his own recording and distribution. Like Prince too there’s far more in the vaults than can be released in Zappas children’s lifetime. So Zappa is a study in himself
This album is five stars. Many, hearing it for the first time will give it three. Peaches en regalia is what would happen if you took steely Dan and gave them more advanced musical theory. Willie the pimp is the only decent thing van Vliet did.
It’s one of Zappa best lineups. . Lowell George later of Little Feat, sacked by Zappa for reasons unclear, plays rhythm guitar. Ian underwood. Jean luc ponty. Shuggie Otis. Just magic. Listen. But understand that it’s challenging. And it’s not the whole of Zappa. Listen to strictly commercial. Then you can dive in to everything else.
5
Oct 11 2024
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Music for the Masses
Depeche Mode
Nope. Sixth album from an above average but nothing special band. And there’s nothing special here.
1.5
2