I was 4 years old and about 150 miles away when Redding's plane went down near Madison, WI. Oddly enough, I spent the last week listening to his catalog, but didn't really focus on any single album - Although I was a little obsessed with "I Can't Turn You Loose." A week later, I joined this and my first album is "Otis Blue." I already knew it was a classic and I listened to the mono version on Apple Music, while reading up via The Mojo & Rolling Stone Record Guides. It was interesting to find out that one of his idols, Sam Cooke had died about 3 weeks before they went into the studio, which explains the 3 Cooke songs (There were usually one or two on most of his albums). Incredible backing by Booker T & The MGs with The Memphis Horns. Classic Memphis/Stax/Volt soul.
I used to like this much more in High School. I probably first heard it in 1979, before The Clash's London Calling changed my life. Listening to this now, it sounds pretty bloated & self-indulgent, but back then it felt more like the next Pink Floyd or something like that.
Given that the music hasn't changed (just me), I probably would've given it 4 1/2 stars back then and I would give it 3 to 3 1/2 now - So I'll split the difference.
If it wasn't for hearing her cover "I Want You" by Elvis Costello on some VH-1 show, I probably wouldn't care about her much. I was sort of impressed that this was associated with Jon Brion (a true genius).
There were brief moments when I heard a great jazz singer in there somewhere and as much as I tried to keep that frame of mind, it kept getting pushed away. I would love to hear her re-do this album someday in more of the style of the jazz standards and jazz singers that Fiona Apple obviously loves, but for now, too much of this left me mostly flat.
This is a bit outside of my wheelhouse. Often times it was just too dense. It's a challenging listen and too long - Made in the "CD era" when everyone wanted to fill the entire disc. That said, there were moments that I enjoyed, but I don't really see myself going back to listen to this again. Although, I am now curious to hear their other albums - Maybe an earlier one will have a couple of less layers of studio production piled on it (and be of a more listener-friendly length). I don't think this is supposed to be an entry point to the band and is probably considered classic by already existing fans.
This would probably be a lot better if it had been recorded 5 or 10 years earlier. The 80s production saps most of the soul out of these slow jams and makes them sound more plastic than soulful,
Even though the effect of the album is a cold, sterile, robotic feel, what sets it apart is the use of (mostly) live musicians playing the music,,,or at least the impression at times - a point & violin break, a bass line, a drum fill. Not unlike the early 3 album run of Eno's vocal albums, this give a certain opposing or unconscious humanness to the proceedings at times. This welcome intrusion prevents the album from becoming too sterile and is a major factor in it's longevity.
To paraphrase an old cliche, I don't know rap, but I know what I like. With my admittedly limited knowledge, the stuff I've heard that I have gravitated towards has been generally labeled as UKG, Grime, or original Hip Hop. Even being from the US, I tend to enjoy the UK rap stuff more. As I said, I don't know enough about rap and it's sub-genres to really know what is good or not, but I found this mostly enjoyable.
Björk lost me after The Sugarcubes. Too much of this gives me flashbacks to growing up and going to Catholic church.
A bit too lethargic for my current mood. I know I generally like this album, but it's more of an early morning album than a night/evening one. Also, The Grateful Dead have sort of ruined this for me. I would probably give this 3 1/2 stars, but based on the string of somewhat painful albums I've had, I'm going to round it up.
A total and complete classic!
(I'm 10 albums in on this thing...and this is the first album that really belongs on the 1001 list)
After 2 failed albums, The Alice Cooper Band had successful 5 album run. Of that 5 album run, "Killer," "Billion Dollar Babies," & "Love It To Death" are all superior to "School's Out," There's a lot of filler on this one. Thankfully, the majority of the filler is still good and entertaining, but I wouldn't even rank this as THE Alice Cooper album that you need to hear before you die (that would be "Killer"), let alone one of the 1001 albums that you need to hear before you die.
Between 1981 and 1984, X released 4 albums - an album a year. My favorite is their 4th one, "More Fun In The New World." (This is probably due to me seeing them for the first time...and three times on that album). In total, I've probably seen them about 10 time and they are still pretty great live...albeit older. It was great to listen to this one again and remind myself why I fell in love with the band. When we had a wild night, a friend used to say, "Last night everything broke." - A line from "We're Desperate" the best song here.
(Not to be confused with the Australian bad of the same name, who formed about the same time or the Japanese band, who were force to change their name to X Japan).
People that call this "Grunge" have no idea what grunge is. Soundgarden *were* grunge, but by the time of this album, they were just another Heavy Metal band.
This album is definitely a victim of the CD era when bands felt the need to fill up the available space, but didn't have the material to justify a 70 minute album. Tuneless songs (as in no melody) based on a single riff is called filler - and this album is at least 75% filler. Thankfully after 55 minutes of what basically sounded like the same song most of the time, the last 3 songs were slightly more interesting and helped me make it to the end.
Don't get me wrong. I don't hate Soundgarden. I saw them at a small club in Milwaukee (The Odd Rock) in November of 1989. They had full 8x12 cabinets in a club that holds about 75 people and they damaged some eardrums in an incredibly intense show.
Historical perspective aside, most of this is all over the place. The real star of the album is guitarist Scotty Moore, (along with bassist Bill Black & drummer DJ Fontana).
At this time, singles were singles & albums were albums - Songs released as a current single usually wouldn't appear on the current album. Therefore, #1 hits like "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Hound Dog," & "Don't Be Cruel." along with (now considered) hits "That's All Right," "Blue Moon of Kentucky," & "Good Rockin' Tonight" didn't land on albums until Greatest Hits compilations. Other than this compilations, many of the early Elvis albums are kind of weak - Soundtracks serving as promotion for his long string of movie appearances (and vise versa). In a way, he was an early pioneer on music videos, promoting himself via movies.
I get why this music exists, but I don't really understand why anyone would listen to a while album of it in their home (unless they were a DJ that was previewing tracks).
First album with Crazy Horse.
5 of the 7 songs have become Neil Young standards - Cinnamon Girl, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Down By The River, The Losing End, & Cowgirl In The Sand.
100% Classic
Although I do like some to the singles/hits, I haven't really heard a full Siouxsie & The Banshees album before. The album sets a mood and sticks with it.
This is basically Yacht Rock - Slighty jazzy, 70's slow jams, Disco-lite.
This is like the Yacht Rock of rap with a pleasant 70's soul slow jams vibe.
Mostly kinda boring, but at least not the extended into 10 minute jams kind of boring - Plus, "Strange Brew" rocks and "Mother's Lament" shows that they didn't take themselves overly seriously.
If you're going to listen to a Bad Brains album, this wouldn't even be in the top 3. They have some great albums, but this isn't one of them.
I'm usually not this dismissive of any music - But this Sucked. It reminded me of when I worked at a record store and someone put a Hole record on...One of my coworkers said, "If I wanna get yelled at, I can just go home."
I put this album on repeat and had an incredible 8 hours of sleep - This is in no way an insult, but a testament to the consistency of this album. I woke up wanting to listen to it again.
I don't know why, but I really want to like Sufjan's music - I'm guessing it's something I heard (or read) once that I really liked. This has moments, but never emerges. I would rather listen to something like The Polyphonic Spree or The Shins or The Weakerthans than this.
This is great stuff. I highly recommend most everything on Eno's early Obscure label imprint. My favorite being Gavin Bryars' "The Sinking Of The Titanic," with this being in the Top 3 or 4 albums released on the label.
100% Classic! This album saved RnR when it was released. It is as historically as important as the 1st Ramones album and just as good (in a completely different way. It takes elements of The Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan and completely updates it to something that is still relevant today.
Good album. Probably the only album by The Killers that I really like. I would give it 4 stars, but it kinda fades and is probably just too long.
I listened to this a bit when it came out and was considered hipster music. I never really connected with it, but points for being the spawning ground for Spiritualized (and Sonic Boom).
Lyrically dark in a Leonard Cohen way, but beautiful and lushly orchestrated. This is England-Gothic-Chamber-Folk-Music ...Completely a category of it's own.
When I was a teenager I would babysit for my oldest brother's kids, which basically consisted of listening to music while they slept. Although "Indelibly Stamped" is the album cover that drew my attention, this one had the music to suck me in.
This album is great. I still prefer their debut, but that's the way it goes with first loves. Elevated to 5 stars because the "Walk This Way" video is the greatest video of all time.
I like The Byrds, but I've never really understood the reverence for them. Many of their best songs were covers of Bob Dylan songs. That said, this album is enjoyable background music, but the only song that really grabbed me was "Goin' Back" and it's a Goffin/King cover.
Rocks...and Rolls. This is the sound of Aerosmith finding their sound and their confidence. This is sex & drugs & rock & roll. It's a little dated now - Especially since it spawned so many imitators - but the 1-2 punch out of the gate of Saddle/Last Child is a force to be second with.
Rock 'N' Roll the way the devil intended it to be played...Not the big, scary animated Satan of today, but more like the red polyester dressed Jon Lovitz version of the Devil from SNL.
I had never heard this album before and I had to listen to it twice. First time through, I just grooved to it and the second time through I listened to it on Apple Music with the lyrics turned on.
Considering that this is probably Bowie's 10th or 11th best album, I'm really surprised it made this list. It did have Bowie's first Top 40 song in the US (Young Americans) and his first Billboard #1 song (Fame). He only reached #1 once more with the single "Let's Dance." Ultimately, The best thing about this album is that it led to "Station To Station" - His best album/
Wow - This is not at all what I expected. I've seen The Young Gods name around for decades and (for no good reason) I kinda thought they were something like Fun Lovin' Criminals. Most of this did nothing for me, but some of the more atmospheric stuff was interesting.
Let's face it, an "essential" reggae album is an oxymoron (just like an "essential" jam band album would be). If there were to be one essential reggae album, it would be "Legacy" by Bob Marley, but that's a greatest hits, so it doesn't qualify. Don't get me wrong. There are definitely Essential (capital E) Reggae Songs - "Tosh's "Stepping Razor," Dekker's "Israelites," Cliff's "Many Rivers To Cross," Toots' "Pressure Drop," and Marley's "Redemption Song" just to name a few.
One of the best of The Beatles
Fantastic album. Accidents Will Happen, Green Shirt, and the US bonus track of Peace, Love and Understanding are all classics. I've listened to this album 100s of times, and it's the first time I noticed the "Rebel Rebel" riff in Two Little Hitlers.
So many great pop songs - Hanging on the Telephone, One Way or Another, Pretty Baby, Sunday Girl, even the over-played Heart of Glass, surrounded by so much filler (Good filler, but filler none the less).
Can an artist have more than one essential album?
Is essential not really the same as favorite?
My favorite Eno album is "Here Come the Warm Jets," but this one is pretty great too.
This didn't really fo much for me until the last 2 songs (Stranded In Time & The American Way Of Love). Then I had to go back and listen to the whole thing again with the bonus tracks. I was mostly right with my first impression. On the expanded version, I liked tracks 9 through 20 more than I liked the original eight.
After hearing that stupid "Bondage, Up Yours" song on every punk comp forever, I wrote this band off as a complete waste of space. Then I watched the Poly Styrene documentary and was a bit more interested in hearing more. Now, after listening to the entire album, I realize I was wrong - About half of this is pretty good...and the Bondage song is nowhere to be seen 7/10
Excellent listen and wonderful vibe throughout
A lot of this album sounds really dated. But, it's a testament to her inluence that the rest sounds classic. I could do without The Beatle cover and I can think of at least 50 Bowie songs I would've rather heard her take a stab at (but it was 1984 after all). I think it's cool that, while listening to this album, it stated to rain about the time that "I Can't Stand The Rain" came on...and turned into a hailstorm - A fitting metaphor for Tina's voice.
I would rank this higher, but I'm generally not a fan of live albums. This one is a really barn burner though and I would probably listen to it again.
"7 and 7 Is" is a classic. The other 5 songs on Side 1 could rival The Zombies "Odessey and Oracle."
Their 5th album in 2 years and still packed with hits! Six songs were Top 5 singles! Lookin' Out My Back Door, Run Through The Jungle, Up Around The Bend, Who'll Stop The Rain, & Long As I Can See The Light are all classics.
Mostly boring and bland jazz-rock. It could go 1 star to 3 stars depending on your mood. This isn't really music that sets your mood - you have to be in the right mood to listen to it.
They definitely chose the right songs for the singles - "All I Wanna Do," "Leaving Las Vegas," and "Can't Cry Anymore" are all great. No real clunkers in the whole batch.
Fantastic, if not shambolic album of some of Lennon's best solo material.
Saint Etienne straddle a line between chilling out and dancing (usually on the same song). Unfortunately, there's not much substance here They can't find a vocal sample that they don't repeat over and over...and over...and over. "Carnt Sleep" is a cool song, but I didn't hear many alluring melodies until "Like The Swallow" and the too brief "Dilworth's Theme." There are enough tiny hooks to keep it interesting, but a completely unnecessary cover of Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" *almost* ruined the record for me - Leading off, it set the wrong tone for me and set me against the album. But, they pulling me back in. I think the album could grow on me if I wanted to put in the time.
5-Star album with some of Dylan's best songs. All Killer / No Filler
I had a friend in High School who had a cool older brother. My friend would play me albums from his brother's collection (I don't remember ever meeting the older brother). I remember hearing this went it was still relatively new and being blown away. Listening to it today, I'm still kind of impressed, This was the lead in to their best album (Fear Of Music) and before they started their slow decline into caricatures of themselves. I've enjoyed this album for most of my life and it's still enjoyable.
This album has one good song (Love Removal Machine), a bunch of okay ones, and a truly terrible version of "Born To Be Wild." Skip this one and go for "Love" - The album that was released a year or two before this one.
"Sunshine Superman" & Season Of The Witch" are excellent. The rest follow the trippy, hippy thing with diminishing results.
