1001 Albums Summary

First four songs SLAP

Give this to the cabaret-obsessed high schooler in your life

10/10 album to smoke dirt weed with your crush to in your dad’s basement. I’ll listen again.

This album is great, wish I'd listened more when it came out.

This sounds like exactly the record store I worked in and the moldy apartment I lived in when this came out

God I love this album, every song is essential to it and even the interludes add to the narrative.

This is what your mom plays while she makes a Sunday bolognese, and I plan to do just that on Monday.

Me, listening to this album: Hell yeah, hell yeah, love this one too, oh shit my kids are in the car. This came out when I was 12, they’re 11 and 14, I only trust one to listen to this responsibly. Update: I made it through three songs and then felt terrible that my sons were hearing lyrics about women like these. I still like this album but I’m not playing it for the kids.

Every time I see the Beta Band anywhere I think about the scene in High Fidelity where Jack Black's character comes in and complains about Dick's Sad Bastard Music (even though that was Belle and Sebastian). I've seen Beta Band live opening for Radiohead, and have heard them hundreds of times on KEXP, but still only can think of Dry the Rain. Update: I made it three songs in and remembered nothing about each song as soon as it ended.

YEAH HERE WE GO. I have this album on CD and it’s beat to hell, I’ve listened to it so much. A friend studied abroad in Spain in 2003-4 and came back to spread the good word of Manu Chao. This album sounds like treating myself to a little fancy cheese and a bottle of cava on a summer afternoon, it was the first non-English-language album I ever bought. If it wasn’t for Manu Chao I wouldn’t own Rosalia and Bad Bunny albums. The music is eclectic and chill, the review that called it a “stoner classic” is correct. I love the collage of sounds that make it up, and that even with all the samples and snippets, it still feels organic.

I’ve smoked a lot of weed, read a lot of fantasy novels, and spent years working in record stores and I still don’t get zeppelin.

I’d never heard this album all the way through but when I listen to it for the first time, it sounded like a whole lot of 90s all at once. Sonic Youth begat Pavement, Pavement begat Modest Mouse.

I bought this album when it came out but forgot about it for years (except for Tightrope). This is a flawless listen, Janelle is truly the new Bowie: a genderfluid hot talented weirdo. Who else but Janelle could put both of Montreal and Big Boi on an album? Proof you can make experimental yet danceable music.

If I’m gonna listen to 1950s jazz Dave Brubeck is right there and so is Miles Davis.

Thirty years after The Chronic, Kendrick’s chronicle of life in Compton is another solid album front to back, and one I would listen to in front of my kids without fear. Poetic Justice is a great song with a weak-ass Drake spot, but it’s nice that Kendrick got his revenge later.

Ren faire-ass album.

I’ve owned this album for years but hadn’t listened to anything but The Art Teacher for a long time. Love the concept, and the only album on the list that uses the line “baptized in cum.”

What would my life would have been like if my parents were listening to this in 1973 instead of Zeppelin? I hear this band in so many albums I love, and this is lesson in making a no-skips banger in under 40 minutes.

“Every finger in the room is pointing at me I wanna spit in their face then I get afraid of what that would bring” I was 13 when I heard this album and it hit like a bomb. Listening 30+ years later and it still hits.

I made it through 1.5 songs and gave up.

Upon relistening to this for the first time since my 20s, I: A) remembered all the lyrics B) was horrified all over again by the lyrics C) resolved to not play this around my sons D) remembered that now Em is sober and a grandfather. Incredible production, absolutely degenerate lyrics, you can hear Em's genius once you get past the incessant threats to his ex's life. A 5 for production, a 1 for lyrics, balancing out to a 3.

It’s a real jarring transition from listening to this in the car at a high volume to my job as a children’s librarian. I own this album, but I listen maybe once a year just to get all riled up. Thrash metal isn’t my genre (I prefer sad women with guitars or lesbian pop), but I can acknowledge the talent and work that goes into this, even if I never need to listen to another Slayer album. In conclusion, FUCKIN SLAYERRRRRRRRR!!!

Okay, I’m not a Zep fan but this album objectively whips ass.

The man wrote his own eulogy

I bet Zeppelin fans were so relieved when IV came out after this.

Wouldn’t call it metal but would call it solid early 90s rock with some sleeper social messages. Really loved Cult of Personality and Letter to a Landlord.

For the Beatles fans who thought the white album went too hard, there was this album from the Monkees to fall back on. My favorite part was discovering the origin of Mistadobalina.

I’m a white person and this is the Whitest Music Ever for people who thought Putumayo compilations were too exotic.

📣LET FIONA APPLE BE WEIRD📣 This album was the scream a lot of people needed in spring 2020, but it also reminded a lot of people that she wasn’t just the teenager of “Criminal”. I’ve listened to a lot of noodly dad bands in this project and it’s nice to hear my preferred brand of weird.

You don’t need any other Beach Boys in your life if you have this.

The second Steely Dan album in two weeks? God mocks me.

That’s definitely a Paul McCartney album.

This album made me wonder how many times the Ramones listened to it.

I have purchased this album on CD three times due to how much I listened to it. The in-between song sketches are dated and racist, the songs are flawless.

I’m not listen to some racist conspiracy theorist if the only way to do so is stream it and pay him.

Gorgeous, will absolutely get played again. It’s not cohesive but it’s an incredible overview of her range.

At the Drive-In liked this album

This was a little long, but I’d forgotten how damn talented Christina is, even on mediocre music.

Cash fucking rules, I can only think of one current country/americana artist who’s played a prison in the last decade. No skips.

God Ian MacKaye kicks ass. I love short and to the point punk albums.

The first half of this album is incredible, then it slumps into seven minute bores before finishing strong.

10 songs 27 minutes no skips I love you dolly

Well, I can certainly see how this appealed to a ton of people. It's less bro-y than Limp Bizkit, it's better-written, and the "you" that the band sings about is amorphous enough to be a partner/friend/parent/teacher. That being said, I wasn't into this when it came out and I'm still not into it, despite the talent involved.

I put this on at work and then successfully dealt with a nine page spreadsheet, all hail Sepultura. This was one of the better metal albums I’ve heard and I’ll listen to it again.

In high school in the 1990s, there were always kids who made "California" their whole personality, and they all loved this album (and Sublime). I made it through the first five songs, remembered I had free will over this project, and then listened to the first minute of each of the remaining songs. None of this changed my opinion of the album, but now I can legitimately say I tried. Fuck the Eagles.

It is 1999, I’m wearing pleather pants and dancing to this album at a dorm party with a Marlboro Light and a bottle of Zima. “This is the coolest I will ever be”, I think. I am mistaken on all counts.

I think my brain associated Roxy Music with Brian Eno so much I assumed this would just be a more upbeat Music for Airports and instead it’s glam rock.

Five stars for the first three songs, two for the others. Run Charlie Run is incredible, I want a whole album like that

The first Beatles album I ever actually listened to of my own volition, despite being inundated by THE BEATLES ARE THE BEST EVER since childhood. Come Together is the GOAT opening track.

I hear the talent but it’s kind drowned out by the misogynoir

I guess, but they all sound the same.

Thoughts while listening: Hey Chris, Martín, do you like Jeff Buckley? I can see why I thought of them as a Radiohead tribute band but I was mistaken, they’re just huge fans of Grace.

Parts of this are incredible and parts are just songs.

Bro I tried but I survived the early 2000s in real time I don’t need to be reminded of all these fucking bands

This definitely sounds like the feeling of going into a coma because of rat poison and morphine.

Emmylou is always five stars.

In 2001 one of my roommates in a punk house was an industrial goth guy who played this album every time he had a girl over, so I cannot take it seriously.

Bro I can't listen to it if it's not on spotify.

I already owned this album. Half of it sounds like it was recorded in a garbage can, multiple songs are covers, but I love the balls-out energy of the band. The Witch is a playlist staple for me.

I bet this hit hard on speakers as tall as I am and a bitchin hi-fi

I made it three songs in, and I'd rather hear Dusty sing originals than covers.

Nancy Myers-ass music for coastal grandma vibes. Pair with a nice Pinot Grigio and a 5000sf summer cottage at Newport.

If I wanted to hear blues music I'd go listen to Muddy Waters, who did this much better and didn't blow any talent he had on booze and heroin. I made it 3.5 songs into this album and feel positive about quitting it.

I wanted to be Super Into Floyd when I was 16, so I bought this album and tried to listen to it multiple times. I’m 45 now and I still can’t get into it.

I can see where Mezzanines came from and I prefer it infinitely to this.

MILSK (Man I Love Sam Cooke). I have never heard his live albums but I’ve always loved his studio work, this makes me want to be sweaty in a club.

Vibes music

Absolutely middle of the road late 90s punk

Not my thing but undeniably whips ass

This album sounds like the soundtrack to talking shit with my cousins while drinking cheap beer at a family reunion. three stars

Wow this list was really made by a middle-aged British man.

Radiohead reaching peak weird, losing a star for the last half of The National Anthem

Hey do you guys like the eagles and dire straits?

I already know people are going to drag this from the cover, but it's kind of a hidden gem.

Sometimes there's an album on here that just screams "a middle aged British dude chose this"

I started listening to this, it reminded me of that wave of early 2000s indie. Then I started thinking about how Modest Mouse blew up then and nobody was asking for TV On The Radio in the record store, they just wanted Modest Mouse, so instead I turned on the new Modest Mouse album, which is great.

I love this album so much, it is the anound of summer for a couple years of my 20s and I am forever angry at Maya for becoming a conspiracy theorist anti-vax crackpot. (Insert Tyra Banks “we were all rooting for you!” gif here)

The only good Chili Peppers album is Blood Sugar Sex Magik, which this album is not.

Absolutely not

I listened to this while drinking an iced coffee in traffic, but I feel like it would be better appreciated on a giant hi-fi absolutely ripped on acid.

Love this album.

Bro says it’s okay to rape women. I say it’s okay to not listen to this album.

I’ve heard it before, I don’t need to spend more time with Clapton the racist

This album rips so hard