My first user submitted album. I was pleasantly surprised. Good songwriting, nice instrumentation. Some of the tunes blend into each other i.e. tracks that are similar to one another. That said, the end of the record pushed it over the line to a four for me. The cover of "Sweet Thing" is nice and weird, and "Endless Supply of Poison" had great energy.
(Oddly those are on the 2 CD version only, which is the one that Spotify streamed to me... so it's possible if I only listened to the original album, it might have gotten a three.)
I had low expectations, having been told by several folks online that the user submitted albums are a really mixed bag. That said, I liked this. It reminds me a bit of Icehouse aka Flowers i.e. a modern pop sound.
Some of the tunes on this album are reminiscent of 60s doo-wop but modernized. I liked some of the instrumentation and her vocals are evocative, but that said, I didn't find this relevatory or particularly inspired or unique.
I'm generally a big fan of the band and have vinyl of "Angst in my Pants" and "Pulling Rabbits Out of a Hat" in my garage.
I was a little surprised to see "Kimono My House" on the 1001 as I didn't think that was as strong as some of the other records... particularly this one.
I love Giorgio Moroder and particularly his work with Donna Summer. I think this record has some comparisons with the Brian Eno / Talking Heads or Brian Eno / David Bowie records. It's fantastic when a great producer works with an incredibly talented artist and the two together make something that neither could ever have made without the other.
Really awesome user submitted album!
The first track left me a bit concerned... this is my third user album, and I was like "OK, here comes some of the endless parade of metal that I've been warned about". Well, some of the other tracks were pretty surprising. I don't know if I'd choose to listen to this record again, but it certainly had some interesting melodic passages.
"Lady Marmalade" is a stone cold banger.
That said, one stone cold banger doesn't make a great album.
The instrumentation is interesting and I like a good horn section. The vocals and harmonies are good too.
I just wish this record had one more tune that was anywhere near the caliber of the leadoff track!
It's interesting, each time I listen to TOOL I end up realizing I should listen to more TOOL.
I hadn't listened to this album in quite some time, being tied up with the 1001 LOL, but am glad this is part of the user submitted albums.
TOOL are a great example of how metal can have interesting music, instrumentation, vocals, and lyrics, and still be quite heavy!
I laughed out loud when I heard the first track from this user submitted album. My brother in law had encouraged my wife and I to watch this artist on a major streaming platform. We went into it with no preconceived notions, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had no idea there was a corresponding album.
Very witty lyrics, sometimes insightful, sometimes banal, sometimes ridiculously banal to the point that they seem possibly super insightful, or perhaps not. Total ripoff of every major music style, more or less, but played with panache and vigor.
Super fun. Thanks for putting this in front of me again.
I went back and forth on this a bit. It felt a bit tongue in cheek at times, a bit too earnest and cultural appropriation in places... so somewhat difficult to rate.
That said, my rating scheme is that if something is decently well put together and shows competence, it's a three, and if I'm likely to want to listen to it again, it should get a four. I wavered back and forth as I went through my initial listen, but ultimately, felt there was enough there to warrant further listening... hence a four rating, but barely.
I enjoyed listening to this record but their first album was played constantly by me at the time, and maybe it's just bias, but I didn't think this record rose to the level of the debut album.
That said, it's a concise record and I thought it was all solid, not a mix of killer and filler.
I could have gone either way with a three or a four but generally when I am unsure I tend to be generous with my ratings.
The only track on this album that really made it into the broad consciousness is "Uncle Albert", but overall the album is quite good, better than I expected.
I really like Wings, and this has some of the same elements, just stripped down a bit.
This reminds me a lot of Robyn Hitchcock and the Soft Boys.
That said, I'd rather listen to Robyn than this. The songs have a lot of similarity to each other, in terms of structure, instrumentation and vocal harmonies.
I do appreciate that the album is relatively brief. There's nothing more frustrating than one hour and fifteen minutes with seventeen songs or something and there are only four or five good musical ideas across the entire album!
Certainly worth the initial listen.
As the album started, I was not getting a great vibe from the first few tracks. The vocalist seemed a bit affected in the delivery, and the songs felt a bit same same, not a lot of variety in the style.
I'm glad I stuck with it. It got quite a bit more interesting about a third of the way through, much more range, different instrumentation, some harmonies that were cool.
The five star scale is limiting, but generally I give a four to anything I think I want to listen to again, and so I'll give this four stars.
It's interesting, these guys came along so late for me in my own personal musical journey that I've never been able to take them seriously.
I generally like this style of music and had they come around earlier I might have been a big fan. As it is, my general feeling is that they are a bit of a caricature, play acting at being edgy post punk, when most of it is an act to sell records.
That said, it's not bad, and "Time of Your Life" is a really catchy tune.
This didn't do much for me.
I went into this with no expectations and found it an interesting listen.
Generally I give threes to albums that are competently played, reasonably entertaining, but not something I'd necessarily want to listen to again.
This definitely earns a four.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. Not something I'd normally listen to.
Nice call, definitely odd that Weird Al was completely missed on the original 1001. Personally I prefer the material when he started having a bit higher production values, but that's a function of what was huge when I first discovered Weird Al, namely "Fat" and "Like a Surgeon".
It's nice, but didn't do much for me, nothing special.
Annoying that this wasn't on Spotify. Was able to listen via Bandcamp.
That said, totally worth the effort!
I don't think I had ever listened to a full album from these guys before. Super fun.
I enjoyed this more than I expected.
Oddly I'm familiar with the actual Mechanical Museum but didn't feel a real connection with this record. It isn't quirky enough, and the pop styling not strong enough. Not bad, but not great.
Unfortunately rather derivative.
It's unfortunate that this compilation doesn't have "Johnny B. Goode" or "Roll Over, Beethoven" as IMHO those are stone cold classics... along with "My Ding-A-Ling".
That said, he was one of the pioneers of rock and roll, for sure!
Wow. One of the most self indulgent boring records I've ever experienced.
This is a very pretty record and has some nice musicianship.
Dolly is a national treasure.
I remember being excited about these guys at the time. Def Con One was a bit of a jam for a while. I also generally liked the concept, certainly with sampling and major artists sounding derivative, the concept that "Pop Will Eat Itself" was very timely. That said, this hasn't aged all that well, other people have done more clever things in the intervening years.
I enjoyed this. It reminded me of The Cult or Soundgarden.
Competently played but not very original.
Yeah. Not exactly a huge fan. She's got a great voice, but this is not the sort of thing I listen to with any regularity, and she's not inventing anything new with this album.
I'm generally a fan of the artist. This is one of her more aggressively weird albums. The result is a mixed bag, but one has to admire that she's pushing boundaries and making creative unique music.
I liked this quite a bit. Reminded me of Rage Against the Machine.
This was a reasonably pleasant listen but didn't do that much for me.
This is a love letter to the five boroughs.
It's really quite something.
I love Lou, and this is a great record. That said, I like some of his other output better.
I'm not a big fan, and this isn't their best.
This is strong but ultimately doesn't rise to the level of five stars. The tunes are a bit too uniform, not differentiated.
I had no preconceived notions and was pleasantly surprised.
This didn't have much in the way of redeeming qualities. Competent playing, otherwise derivative and boring.
I've heard good things about this band and was looking forward to hearing this album. That said, it didn't do much for me, unfortunately.
I had only really been familiar with "Human After All" which is a much less mature work than this one. I enjoyed this record.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. It's a nice contrast to the stuff that is more common on the 1001.
This album has a lot of ideas, but it's a little bit monotonous... quite a trick for a record that's only 44 minutes long, with 31 "songs". It's more of a collection of beats and loops than an actual album.
Old school feel. Honestly a bit dated for 1987 if you were in the know... the Crosscut Crew remix of the title track is where it is at.
I've listened to this band a few times and have enjoyed them in the past. This is an interesting record and worth checking out.
I honestly thought this was an average random 1980s album at first listen. Instead, it's apparently relatively recently released. I'm kind of floored that someone would make music like this in 2017. There are many 1980s albums in the same style that are much better.
This didn't do much for me.
Never heard of this band or this album, and was pleasantly surprised. Interesting material, well played.
Cool! Totally unexpected.
I'm a fan of the band, though admittedly don't know much of their material, and I'm a huge fan of the original Tron movie, though admittedly have never seen any of the sequels.
So, it was pretty cool for this to show up in my feed.
I like instrumentals, and it was really interesting to hear all the orchestral parts on this record. Daft Punk are composers! I had no idea.
Thank you for including this as a user submission. It's not world altering, but it's good music, and I'm glad I got to listen to it.
I liked this quite a bit. Never heard of them.
This was reasonably well played but ultimately felt rather derivative.
I liked this quite a bit, and had never heard of the band or the album. Thanks for submitting it.
I really enjoyed this. I'm familiar with his remasters and remixes but only passingly with his music with Porcupine Tree and never his solo work. I'm tempted to give this a five, it's that good, though I rarely give them out.
I had never heard of these guys at all much less this particular album. I enjoyed it quite a bit on my one casual listen. Will have to follow up, looks like there are several albums.
This album is a bit too "indie" for it's own good. Feels like a caricature at points. That said, it's well played and the lyrics are interesting in places.
I thought this was cool. A nice and unusual choice for the list. Not necessarily something I'd listen to frequently, but certainly worth a listen, and maybe again down the road. Thanks for adding some variety!
Great record. Of course I'm super biased, living in Seattle, but this album (and band) really made rock and roll fun again!
Perhaps a little bit more aggressive in places than I might like, but overall interesting and definitely worth the listen.
I liked this quite a bit. I had no exposure to the artist, and had never heard of the album. It has a great feel to it. The beats are creative, the vocalizations interesting.
Didn't do much for me. Was expecting something more engaging.
This was an interesting experience. My initial reaction was that it was horrible lite jazz elevator Muzak. After a bit more listening, I found the tune catchy... and after a bit more listening, I realized the musicians were actually quite good.
I could see this being some sort of elaborate prank, but conversely, the whole thing is played with great verve, energy, and swing in places. The bass and drums are quite tight. I think the earnestness saves it, ultimately.
This album has very high highs, and is absolutely great in places. Great enough to question the lack of inclusion on the OG 1001, except for the obvious bias towards older records. That said, there are a few tunes on this record that are, for a better term, filler, and that keeps me from giving it a five. Great inclusion for the user list though!
This was fairly derivative, a blend of more or less common styles at this point. Not bad, just not terribly interesting.
Not bad, but nothing special, at least to these ears.
Nothing special...
Super cool!
I did not find this particularly interesting. I was considering a two but it's not terrible.
I liked this but I didn't love it. Creative, but not as creative as one might want.
Not sure what to think. I generally like this style, but something about this particular set of tunes doesn't really work for me.
Strange. I guess it's unusual enough to warrant a listen, but I like this band, and I did not get this album, at all.
Totally bizarre album, and I don't mean that in a good way. Derivative, slow, not interesting. I like ambient music, and classical, and even opera, but this somehow manages to be a bunch of relatively lame versions of things lumped together in a meandering way.
I will give two stars because of musicianship.
This album was on my short list to be my own personal inclusion on the 1001 user selections. It's outstanding and quite possibly my favorite King Crimson album. The power of "Red", the majesty of "Starless", the improv of "Providence"... it's excellent. Thank you for including it!
Interesting but not really my cup of tea.
Never really listened to these guys though I had heard of the band. Very proggy, which usually I like, but it ultimately didn't really click for me.
This wasn't bad but it didn't do much for me, either.
I thought this was a fun listen, a bit irreverent, skillful playing. Reminded me a lot of a fairly obscure band "Trout Fishing in America".
I liked this. It felt very much like The Church, just a bit reinvented for the current time, vs. when they first became a bit of an international sensation.
Not bad, didn't make much of an impression.
I have only a passing familiarity with the artist, and likely have never listened to one of her records all the way through at one sitting. That said, this is a very good record, one that certainly warrants more listening, and I appreciate the inclusion on the user submitted list.
This is a good album, possibly great, with the caveat that I personally got overexposed to it. As a result, these days I probably prefer the earlier R.E.M. albums to this one. I think it's arguable that this record reflects a certain maturity which contrasts to the freshness of the early records... some may prefer the more refined indie pop sound of this record, I suppose.
In any case, certainly a good addition to the 1001 via user submission.
Honestly, looking at the album title and the artist name, and the image for the album, I wasn't expecting that I'd like this.
That said, it was fun, interesting, somewhat out there... many of the things I look for when I want to listen to new music.
Thank you for adding this to the user submitted list!
I have the vinyl of this album in my garage. Back in the day, APP was very well regarded and played a decent amount on "classic rock" radio and AOR. I hadn't listened to this record in ages. It holds up fairly well and is still a good listen.
Somewhat unusual listen for me. I rather enjoyed it at first, but eventually the album dragged a bit, and got somewhat repetitive. Normally I find myself not enjoying something new at the start but slowly coming around to it, if it has a certain quality, this was the opposite. That said, I want to listen to it again, which is always a good sign.
Somewhat surprised, I thought this album was a bit of a yawn. It especially got boring in the second half, just very repetitive. Too many songs that are like every other Muse song.
I like quite a bit of hardcore, things like Black Flag, Bad Brains, and so on.
This has energy and the band obviously is committed, but it's not that good.
This is an odd record.
It's a bit of a mashup of yacht rock or lounge music, with an attempt to bring that genre into the future.
Ultimately, it's not successful. I would rather listen to actual yacht rock, or more modern pop, than listen to this mixture.
That said, it was worth a listen.
I absolutely love that this is a 12 song album that runs 24 minutes.
I really loved how the dynamic mixes brought new life to old favorites. I somehow had missed this record and it's great to get a chance to hear it.
This is pretty music, and well played, but somehow I just don't get a strong emotional appeal, or conviction. I prefer more passionate material.
Spotify does not have this album in the US so it took some effort to track it down.
I didn't find it bad, but I also didn't find it compelling.
I liked this quite a bit. It was very atmospheric. It reminded me a bit of Wilco in that the lo fi production made it sound genuine and heartfelt.
Interesting to have this show up on the user list. I had listened to this band a little bit a long time ago, but then never found any of their later material.
This was a good listen, and something I probably will return to.
I liked the overall tone and instrumentation but ultimately felt this was pretty derivative and not something I'd necessarily want to listen to again.
I like their earlier records, but this one seems to attempt to be more profound, more more... this is Red Hot Chili Peppers trying to be something they aren't, and it doesn't really work for me. It's not bad, but I'd just rather listen to an earlier record from them.
I feel like I'm being trolled.
I've listened all the way through every single album up until this point, around 1500 of them, and now this pops up on the list.
Ugh!
I suppose using my criteria, I won't give it one star, as it is competently played, and earnest, but wow, just really difficult to listen through this.
Even the really awful one star albums have some redeeming qualities.
Yargh. I just hit the last song on the record, a cringy ode to Mom. I can't give this two stars anymore. This record represents everything I dislike about Big Music and mass market culture.
If this really was put on the list because someone thought we should all hear it, sorry for my (possibly extreme) opinion, but wow, this is just horrible.
I appreciate adding this to the 1001 as the genre is under represented and this particular recording, as well as a few others, are certainly deserve to be considered as pop music.
This is a great record, one that I own and have listened to dozens of times, if not hundreds of times.
I think the songwriting is top notch, and the instrumentation shows a lot of variety as well as mastery.
This is one of those records that really should have been on the original list, given the exposure and popularity of the band, and it's appropriate for it to be on the user submitted list.
This did very little for me. Derivative. I generally enjoy raucous music but this felt monotonous in spots and oddly, the energy lagged in places. Not even remotely creative.
It's like a bad My Bloody Valentine.
This wasn't bad, but it also didn't do much for me.
This is a bit of a guilty pleasure sort of album. I don't think it's doing anything revolutionary, but it's fun, and the individual performances are good. Poker Face is a banger for sure.
This was an interesting listen. A bit hypnotic in places.
I liked this, I think largely because of the breezy delivery of the lead vocalist. The instrumentation has a bit of a throwback feel to it as well.
Amusing to see this on the user submitted list, I have the vinyl in my basement. I grew up in eastern Washington, near Spokane, and our area was absolutely heavily into "the canon" i.e. rock and metal. Sammy Hagar (as a solo act) got the key to the city in 1985 or 1986. Scorpions, Def Leppard and Motley Crue were hugely popular. Van Halen was considered a bit soft LOL. Anyhow, Billy Squier got quite a bit of airplay on the local rock station, and it's easy to see why, there are a couple of bangers on this record, and a couple of other tunes that are solid. That said, I don't think it holds up all that well in the modern era, or as an actual album vs. a couple of strong songs.
Fun to have it on the user list to get folks to listen to it, but there's a lot of other stuff I'd put on the user list first.
Is this better than Elvis Costello? Perhaps, certainly better than some of the less interesting Elvis Costello albums. Is this something I'd want to listen to again? No, not really, though I remember liking this artist when I was a kid, I checked out some vinyl from my local library in the mid 1970s.
I was brought up in the canon, and this album was played constantly back in high school. This record contributed the massive global hit "Crazy Train" and has a couple of other solid tracks. That said, this isn't even remotely as good as early Sabbath. The production is too clean, for starters. It's pretty typical for the time given that it's radio friendly "lite metal" but that said, I don't have to like the production. I also think the songwriting is trite, for the most part. In this general time frame, Judas Priest and Scorpions were kicking Ozzy's butt.
