My 1001 Albums Journey

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3.2

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1038 albums remaining

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1970

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Folk

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5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
The Man Machine Kraftwerk	5	3.31	+1.69
Zombie Fela Kuti	5	3.46	+1.54
Crosby, Stills & Nash Crosby, Stills & Nash	5	3.48	+1.52
Kid A Radiohead	5	3.71	+1.29
Appetite For Destruction Guns N' Roses	5	3.72	+1.28
Time Out The Dave Brubeck Quartet	5	3.83	+1.17
Tapestry Carole King	5	3.91	+1.09
What's Going On Marvin Gaye	5	3.94	+1.06

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
White Ladder David Gray	1	3.07	-2.07
Talking With the Taxman About Poetry Billy Bragg	1	2.96	-1.96
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge Mudhoney	1	2.85	-1.85
Grace Jeff Buckley	2	3.74	-1.74
Ellington at Newport Duke Ellington	2	3.43	-1.43
More Songs About Buildings And Food Talking Heads	2	3.42	-1.42
The Village Green Preservation Society The Kinks	2	3.4	-1.4
Parklife Blur	2	3.38	-1.38
Peter Gabriel 3 Peter Gabriel	2	3.29	-1.29
Younger Than Yesterday The Byrds	2	3.14	-1.14

5-Star Albums (9)

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Popular Reviews

Exit Planet Dust

The Chemical Brothers · 1 likes

4/5

Got this one right after "The Man Machine." Kindof cool to see the progression of the same sort of music a decade and a half later. 90s heist music. Doesn't transport me like other similar albums but great driving music.

Cross

Justice · 1 likes

3/5

Some nice ear candy here, but sort of seemed surface level/not cohesive when compared to other records in the genre. I had fun in parts though, and that's worth something.

Dummy

Portishead · 1 likes

3/5

It's 1994, but also it's sort of the future, 3am. I'm in an anonymous bar in an anonymous metropolis. I'm investigating a murder, possibly committed by a cyborg. My contact hasn't shown up, so I wait, a drink of stale whiskey in my hand. I keep one eye on the door and the other on the stage, where, through the cigarette smoke, this band is playing. Portis-something. Kids these days. Man, the world these days. The crime I'm investigating - I've been at it too long. Awful stuff. I can't get my head straight. The whiskey makes my head swim, almost psychedelic, like those old hippies were talking about down in Badgertown. But I realize with a start that it isn't the drink affecting me, but the music. What is this? Some new drug the Lab-men have cooked up? I look around. Others are similarly entranced. Staring, their eyes all-but swirling like some cartoon character. Portishead, I remember. All one word, a word with no meaning as far as I know. I'll check the archives, if I remember. I glance up. My contact has arrived. I'm almost disappointed as I tear my attention away from this band, this beguiling singer. But I'm on the clock. I nod and he sits and we get down to business.

La Revancha Del Tango

Gotan Project · 1 likes

2/5

"Your call is important to us"

1-Star Albums (3)

All Ratings

Tapestry

Carole King

5/5

Rubber Soul

Beatles

5/5

Illmatic

Nas

3/5

Zombie

Fela Kuti

5/5

Van Halen

4/5

The Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks

2/5

Grace

Jeff Buckley

2/5

Talking With the Taxman About Poetry

Billy Bragg

1/5

Faith

George Michael

4/5

Document

R.E.M.

3/5

The Köln Concert

Keith Jarrett

4/5

Innervisions

Stevie Wonder

4/5

White Ladder

David Gray

1/5

LP1

FKA twigs

2/5

Peter Gabriel 3

Peter Gabriel

2/5

Crosby, Stills & Nash

5/5

Abraxas

Santana

3/5

Suzanne Vega

4/5

Time (The Revelator)

Gillian Welch

4/5

Younger Than Yesterday

The Byrds

2/5

Home Is Where The Music Is

Hugh Masekela

3/5

You Want It Darker

Leonard Cohen

4/5

Elephant Mountain

The Youngbloods

3/5

Destroyer

KISS

2/5

Why do they repeat the choruses like fifty times? Seems like they're padding out the runtime, and not very well at that...the album's only 34 minutes even with all that repetition. It's weird feeling nostalgic for an album ive never heard, but this is the prototype for a lot of the big, dumb rock albums my teenage self loved in the late 90s/early 2000s. I loved "Detroit Rock City" and "Shout it out Loud" going in, so points for those, though I'm not huge on the extra sound affects/setup on DRC. "Beth" kind of sucks? But if I'd been born twenty years earlier I would probably love this album. But I wasn't and I don't.

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Mudhoney

1/5

I liked "Into the Drink" well enough but probably only in comparison to the rest of it. I can't imagine ever listening to this again.

The Man Machine

Kraftwerk

5/5

I feel like a dork giving this one a five after just giving Mudhoney a one but I gotta be me. I've known and loved this album for a while and it was a treat to hear it again.

Exit Planet Dust

The Chemical Brothers

4/5

Moby Grape

2/5

Generic-sounding 60's rock. Luckily I sort of like 60s rock so extra star for that.

The Undertones

3/5

Its ok, some catchy parts (I like "Jump Boys") but there are other albums like this that are better.

Time Out

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

5/5

I might be turning into my dad but this is good stuff. I feel like part of music appreciation is knowing that there are different "uses" for different music. This isn't pump-up music or political music (unless the politics lie in something subtle like "oh he played a D7 here instead of a straight up D how inflammatory" which I acknowledge could very well be the case). Its "everything's cool" music, with a smattering of weird time signatures to keep things interesting. The problem is I have the feeling that all the "everything's cool" records are going to get five out of five from me no matter what because I don't really know what separates a good "everything's cool" record from a great one. I found it funny that the biggest hit from this has a prolonged drum solo in it. But yeah Mr. Rogers learning how crayons are made vibes and I'm 100% in.

Appetite For Destruction

Guns N' Roses

5/5

Amazing this is their first album. Yes there are some filler tracks but the rest is so transcendant, so genuinely sleazy and killer and fun, that I can't in good conscience give it anything but five out of five.

What's Going On

Marvin Gaye

5/5

Marvin Gaye seems like he has one foot in the sixties and one in the seventies in this one. I was expecting some straight 70s R&B and got that, but, like, sort of psychedelic too, which was a cool surprise. Great album for a slow Sunday around the house. I loved it.

Born To Run

Bruce Springsteen

3/5

Want to hear something blasphemous? I think some of the records inspired by The Boss do blue-collar earnestness better than Bruce himself (namely The Killers' "Sam's Town" and The Hold Steady's "Boys and Girls in America"). But I guess Bruce had to walk so these bands could run. Should've been called "Born to Walk." The singles are so, so good. When the sax dropped on "Thunder Road" I was like "oh yeah, five stars, baby". "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" is probably my favorite song by Springsteen. The title track is amazing. Jungleland is pretty cool too. But, you know, that's what greatest hits albums are for. Sorry, Bruce. Hope "Nebraska" is on this album list, that one's better.

Five Leaves Left

Nick Drake

4/5

Some gorgeous songs and production here and some pretty good. One eye opening aspect of this project is seeing how much my favorite artist were influenced by records from days of yore, in this case Beck (on "Morning Phase" particularly) and Fleet Foxes (the whole darn discography). 3.5 rounding up cause that's how we did it in math class.

Nevermind

Nirvana

4/5

I connect with this album but I don't connect connect like some people do, and I'm almost envious about it. I think part of it is the "you had to be there"-ness of it all, and I was a shade too young. But some monster tracks on here that I would give my right pinky to hear for the first time. Or maybe the pinky finger-nail. If there was anesthesia involved. But still. Good-to great record.

Remain In Light

Talking Heads

3/5

This was a slippery one for me. I've heard it before but had rejected it. On re-listeni g, there were parts that were genuinely thrilling ("The Great Curve" is like my internal monologue when I've had too much coffee and am running errands...in the best way possible) but other parts I was sort of bored (most of the second half, honestly). There's something here that draws me back. I've listened to it twice more since the first obligatory listen, and liked it no more and no less. So it's 3.4, rounding down to 3.

Cross

Justice

3/5

Some nice ear candy here, but sort of seemed surface level/not cohesive when compared to other records in the genre. I had fun in parts though, and that's worth something.

Heroes to Zeros

The Beta Band

2/5

Some pretty sounding parts but mostly I don't really want to listen to this again.

The Age Of The Understatement

The Last Shadow Puppets

3/5

I'm a fan of some of Alex Turner's stuff with the Arctic monkeys. This was alright but a bit forgettable by comparison.

Dummy

Portishead

3/5

Kid A

Radiohead

5/5

Alright. I love this album, but full disclosure: if this was my first listen i would have given it a 3, tops. This was a cd I bought because of the glowing reviews...back when cds were $20. So, having invested all this money, what was I going to do? Not listen to it? I remember when it finally clicked. I was on a Greyhound bus, half asleep, listening on my discman. And then suddenly I was awake, thinking "oh, I like Kid A now." This is a somewhat common experience for me. Somehow, half-asleep me is more receptive to music. Are there other albums I'd rather listen to? Yes, of course. This record is depressive as hell. It's not even my favorite Radiohead record. But it's also really really good, and fives don't cost anything baby. I gave "Appetite for Destruction" a five, and I listen to "Kid A" more than I listen to that one. "Kid A" is the exact opposite album of "Appetite for Destruction," so much so that I'm pretty sure I'm the first person in history to mention the two records in the same sentence. But one cannot exist without the other. Yin and yang, etc. Five stars!

Water From An Ancient Well

Abdullah Ibrahim

2/5

Brass is a funny thing. I love when it shows up unexpected in music. Like the saxophone on "Thunder Road" (as mentioned in my "Born to Run" review). A well placed trumpet or sax can just elevate a song, like a dash of cinnamon in a nice mulligatawny soup. You didnt know it'd be good until you tried it. That said, I don't want a mouthful of cinnamon. Too many people all playing brass at once sort of kills it for me. That said, I didn't hate this. It just mostly seemed like nice wallpaper. It's a bit of a relief, because after "Time Out" I'd just assumed I'd love all the jazz albums on this without understanding why. Well, I still don't understand why...this one, like "Time Out" would be good to put on while cooking that aforementioned mulligatawny. But I just didnt like this one so much.

Shadowland

k.d. lang

2/5

Kd Lang has always been on the periphery of my awareness, though I'm familiar with "Constant Craving" which was everywhere for a while. That song, I think, is more suited to her voice. She sounds ageless, like the ghost that haunts my attic. Why is the ghost that haunts my attic having a hoedown?

Ellington at Newport

Duke Ellington

2/5

OK I know live albums would be hard to record in the 50s but this is not the greatest quality. Musicianship top notch but not really my thing. Like "Water from an Ancient Well" a little too brassy which is not my thing. I feel like if I was there instead of listening to a fuzzy recording I would have been blown away. But if I was there there would have been a time machine involved and I would probably be too stressed trying to remember/prevent future events from happening to fully enjoy myself. So either way, two stars.

Doggystyle

Snoop Dogg

4/5

Snoop Dogg seems, more than his peers, to be playing a part. Nobody is this cool in the face of hard drugs and extreme violence. It's a refresher from the neurotic, overcaffenated reality of my own self, melting down because I'm five minutes late for work. The record's a sort of phantasmigorical mess. We're at a house party, but also we're listening to the radio? Then we're in the afterlife for a bit, then back at the party? But it works. I have a working theory that the west coast rappers of the 90s were the prototype of the MCU (though sticklers could argue the Marvel comics were that). Hearing some of the older albums like this and Dr. Dre's first, I can see how cross referential they are with the later ones, which adds a bit of Easter-egg spotting.

More Songs About Buildings And Food

Talking Heads

2/5

I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, I want music and artists like this to exist. I want weirdness in the world. I realize David Byrne is a thoughtful guy and a true artist (check out his book "How Music Works" if you haven't, its great). I just...don't want to listen to this. The best song by far is "Take me to the River" and that's a cover. I liked "Remain in Light" a bit better so I think maybe Talking Heads were just a bit undercooked at this point in their career.

Parklife

Blur

2/5

It's funny, I've just spent the week obsessing over the new Gorillaz (Damon Albarn's other project that's arguably now more successful than Blur) album ("The Mountain"). It's so good. Unlike this album which I didn't like very much at all. It just goes to show...something.

Smash

The Offspring

3/5

OK I had Blur yesterday (the "lesser" of a who's better rivalry between them and Oasis) and now Offspring who (at least in my circles) were compared to Green Day. I'm expecting a Megadeth album any day now. For the curious, I'm team Oasis (barely), Green Day (though I like a lot of Offspring singles) and Metallica. I guess I'm just basic that way. Anyway this is a 2.5 bumped up to a three because 2 seemed too low. So a 2.55 really. Again, I like the singles, and the other parts were palatable enough but made me sort of wish I was listening to Insomniac or something.

La Revancha Del Tango

Gotan Project

2/5

"Your call is important to us"

A Love Supreme

John Coltrane

3/5

Some of this sounds like what I imagine people who don't like jazz think all jazz is - that is four or five people playing stuff that's unrelated all at the same time. At times it sounds like a panic attack. The wildness is weighed by other moments of focus that show that everything here is deliberate. I was going between 3 and 4 and landed on three because, while I enjoyed it enough, I doubt I'll be coming back to this one when Miles Davis' "In a Silent Way" is right there.

Band On The Run

Paul McCartney and Wings

4/5

Paul McCartney is my favorite Beatle. That said, like Ethan Hawke said in that video, The Beatles work best as a whole, greater than the sum and all that. I love some of the songs here but by the end (around when they started bringing in the melodies from the previous tracks) it dawned on my that McCartney sometimes skews a little too cute on his own. Did the other Beatles temper these impulses only for them to come out stronger when he was surrounded by yes-men? Or did it happen as he aged? We may never know. Still, pretty darn enjoyable.