1001 Albums Summary

Great straight-ahead rock music with strong moods. One star deducted for the annoying delta blues pastiche in the middle which kills the flow for me. When I want that, I’ll listen to a proper blues album.

Through the first few tracks it was feeling like good-not-great alt dance pop. When I got to Skeletons I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to escape the feeling of this being a direct precedent to a lot of the awful indie music that would come out in the following decade, even if I liked this quite a bit more. But then, to my ears the tracks/beats started to get more textured, more interesting, and the album started to move into great territory. And it started to remind me of why a younger me *almost* enjoyed those terrible indie bands - the sonic encapsulation of youth, exuberance, moodiness, sexiness, infatuation with drunken nights and faux love, etc. etc.

It's not the Byrds' fault that I wore myself out on this sound by listening to Rubber Soul so many dozens of times in my life (yes I know RS came out later, but it entered my life first). That being said, Rubber Soul is full of variety that keeps me engaged and I just couldn't get past how one-note this album sounded to me. It's bookended by what I believe are the two most moving tunes though the former obviously suffers somewhat from being overplayed. On the one hand the writing and arrangements are possibly worthy of as many as four stars, but it all hit my ears with two-star excitement. Three it is.

Opening track is easily my least favorite which had me uneasy. But it quickly improves from there with colorful writing and particularly arrangement/production which buoy even the moments where things start to feel annoyingly pastiche. Not something I'd always be in the mood for but plenty of good-great material. Of course 'Fame' is undeniable.

Despite this feeling like a reminder of a musical phase I'm no longer a part of (I loved many of the Radiohead records when I was younger but never really spent time with Amnesiac) the electronic textures, melodies, and endless eerie/melancholy moods still hit me in a special way. When this music matches your mood, it's sublime. One star deducted for the fact that there aren't many tracks that jump out as individually memorable with the possible exception of Pyramid Song because of all the hooplah surrounding its time signature.