Journey in Progress
Discovering music one album at a time
700
Albums Rated
3.02
Avg Rating
68
5-Star Albums
64%
Complete
389 albums remaining
Rating Speed
5.6
Per Week
871
Days Active
Reviews
619
Written
88%
Review Rate
vs Global
-0.22
Avg Diff
3.02
Avg Rating
Rating Distribution
How you rate albums
Rating Timeline
Average rating over time
Ratings by Decade
Which era do you prefer?
Activity by Day
When do you listen?
Taste Profile
1960s
Favorite Decade
Grunge
Favorite Genre
UK
Top Origin
Balanced
Rater Style
33
1-Star Albums
5-Star Albums (68)
View Album Wall
Taste Analysis
Genre Preferences
Ratings by genre
Origin Preferences
Ratings by country
Rating Style
You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Triangle | 5 | 2.71 | +2.29 |
| Roots | 5 | 2.78 | +2.22 |
| Ys | 5 | 2.8 | +2.2 |
| Street Signs | 5 | 2.87 | +2.13 |
| Superfuzz Bigmuff | 5 | 2.93 | +2.07 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Getz/Gilberto | 1 | 3.65 | -2.65 |
| Young Americans | 1 | 3.62 | -2.62 |
| To Pimp A Butterfly | 1 | 3.61 | -2.61 |
| Head Hunters | 1 | 3.56 | -2.56 |
| The Gershwin Songbook | 1 | 3.54 | -2.54 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums and high weighted score
| Artist | Albums | Avg | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Led Zeppelin | 4 | 5 | 4.14 |
| Bob Dylan | 5 | 4.8 | 4.13 |
| Radiohead | 4 | 4.75 | 4 |
| Beatles | 5 | 4.4 | 3.88 |
| Black Sabbath | 3 | 4.67 | 3.83 |
| Johnny Cash | 3 | 4.67 | 3.83 |
| Metallica | 3 | 4.67 | 3.83 |
| Genesis | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| The Flaming Lips | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Muddy Waters | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Pink Floyd | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Talking Heads | 4 | 4.25 | 3.71 |
Least Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums and low weighted score
| Artist | Albums | Avg | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steely Dan | 3 | 1.33 | 2.17 |
| M.I.A. | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| The Velvet Underground | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Stan Getz | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Kendrick Lamar | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| David Bowie | 8 | 2.25 | 2.45 |
| U2 | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
Popular Reviews
Ghostface Killah
3/5
Another rap album, let me just go over my list:
Over long - check.
Skits I just don't get - check.
A bit of a grind to listen to - che... wait, no, this is OK actually. Rap is never going to be my thing but I can recognise really good rap, and for me this is it. I'm not going to seek it out, but it passed the (still overly long) time.
13 likes
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Frank Sinatra really can sing. I wish he fucking wouldn't, though. Boring bollocks.
7 likes
Coldplay
2/5
Listening to Coldplay is like fucking with a limp dick - whilst to a casual observer it may look fun and interesting, actually everybody involved gets angry, frustrated and upset, and if you tell your friends about it they will laugh at you.
This JUST scrapes 2 stars, because it's not actually really bad and offensive, but by the christ it is close. It is so bland and humdrum, Chris Martin has an annoying voice, and that fucking song about spies coming out of the water, but you can't touch them because they are spies is nearly as bad as Cars Are Cars by Paul Simon.
4 likes
1-Star Albums (33)
All Ratings
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
OutKast
2/5
Radiohead
4/5
Eminem
3/5
Fats Domino
3/5
5/5
Genesis
5/5
Dire Straits
3/5
The Replacements
4/5
The Flaming Lips
5/5
The Stooges
4/5
Ian Dury
2/5
The Police
2/5
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Radiohead
5/5
Bob Dylan
4/5
Donald Fagen
1/5
This album gave me both diabetes and high blood pressure.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
4/5
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
2/5
The Beach Boys
3/5
U2
2/5
The Prodigy
4/5
John Lennon
3/5
Beastie Boys
3/5
Elliott Smith
3/5
Louis Prima
2/5
Kings of Leon
3/5
Megadeth
3/5
Fugazi
3/5
The Strokes
4/5
Green Day
4/5
Genesis
5/5
Beatles
5/5
Beatles
5/5
Lynyrd Skynyrd
4/5
Kings of Leon
4/5
Sheryl Crow
2/5
JAY Z
3/5
The Libertines
3/5
The musical equivalent of the word 'meh'.
Lauryn Hill
2/5
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
Supergrass
3/5
Blood, Sweat & Tears
3/5
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
Marvin Gaye
3/5
The Zombies
5/5
Supergrass
3/5
Public Image Ltd.
1/5
Talking Heads
4/5
Bob Dylan
5/5
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2/5
The Jesus And Mary Chain
3/5
This album would be so much better if they just turned the overdrive down a but, but then I guess it wouldn't be a Jesus and Mary Chain album. It's OK.
Talvin Singh
3/5
I was torn between 2 and 3 stars on this, but thinking about it there isn't really a bad track on the album, just that all the tracks are very, very samey. It really doesn't need to be an hour long, either.
Blondie
4/5
George Harrison
3/5
The Band
4/5
Mike Oldfield
3/5
The National
2/5
I don't know if this is a bad album or not, it just bored me too much to decide.
The Beau Brummels
5/5
I was not expecting much from this album, but boy was I wrong. If you like the gentle semi-psychedlic pop of the late '60s then this could be just right for you. I loved it.
Derek & The Dominos
4/5
I wanted to hate this album because, well, Clapton, but it's actually really good. Yes there's filler, and yes it does go on a bit, but there's enough here to really enjoy. Still, what's the difference between a toddler and a bag of coke? Clapton wouldn't let a bag of coke fall out of a window.
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
Kelela
2/5
Thundercat
1/5
Wow. This was dreadful. Imagine Ross from Friends playing the music Mario puts on when he's railing Princess Peach and you won't be far off.
As for the bestbthing on the album, I'm torn between the cover, and the bit where they make cat noises (which happens more often than you could ever expect).
Alanis Morissette
4/5
So. Many. Memories.
This album was huge in the UK when I was at university, and I connect so many good memories with these songs. It's not perfect by any stretch, but for me it's pretty close.
Fiona Apple
2/5
The Rolling Stones
3/5
The Yardbirds
3/5
The KLF
4/5
Jazmine Sullivan
2/5
Reading other reviews of this I was expecting this to be terrible, but it wasn't. It's not good, not by a long stretch, but its perfectly pleasant bland boring background music - but that doesn't make this an album I either want to ever hear again, or indeed deserving of its place on this list. It's like listening to clear broth when you wanted to hear mulligatawney.
Nick Drake
4/5
Nick Drake
4/5
Nanci Griffith
3/5
Ella Fitzgerald
1/5
OK, the songs are classics, and the singer is legendary, but fuck my hat is this album boring. The nature of this beast (and beast it is - three-plus hours for the full recording) is that there is very little brand new, and for me this just dragged. And dragged. And dragged. And dragged - and I only listened to the best of version of this.
Skunk Anansie
3/5
Pearl Jam
5/5
Oasis
4/5
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
Talking Heads
5/5
This is what I'm doing this for. I knew of Talking Heads, but had never listened or been interested in listening to them, but now I've listened to this I have found a new favourite band. This is just a really great album, start to finish.
Big Star
4/5
Bill Evans Trio
1/5
They say that, in jazz, the notes you don't play are the important ones. This is definitely true, as the bass player here elected not to play any notes that weren't a little bit sharp.
Tracy Chapman
3/5
Buena Vista Social Club
3/5
Traffic
4/5
Peter Gabriel
3/5
The Doors
4/5
Kanye West
2/5
It's not awful, but it's not good, and like a lot of hip-hop records it is overly long (75 mins) and has the weird spoken word segments and skits between some tracks. I don't get it.
Elton John
3/5
Suede
4/5
The Hives
3/5
Muddy Waters
5/5
3/5
Gang Of Four
4/5
The Crusaders
2/5
This is just such an unnecessary album. It's not terrible, hence why not 1 star, but it brings absolutely nothing interesting to the world - it just ... exists. Utterly, utterly bland and forgettable but performed and produced very well. It's like a paint-by-numbers painting of Munch's 'The Scream' - you know the painting is good, but you don't see the point of it having been made.
Incredible Bongo Band
5/5
An utterly joyful album. Made me smile from start to finish.
Isaac Hayes
2/5
Fugees
3/5
ABBA
4/5
M.I.A.
1/5
This album would be improved out of all recognition if it was just Paper Planes eleven times. It would actually be less repetitive and boring, too. Rubbish.
Adam & The Ants
2/5
I was a child in the 80s, growing up in the UK, and I remember the huge hype there was surrounding Adam and the Ants. I went into this expecting nostalgia, and lots of Burundi Beat.
I was disappointed. Both in terms of nostalgia, and a surprising lack of what I, and probably most casual listeners, consider their signature sound. There's only a handful of tracks with the Burundi Beat, and that left me feeling really flat because I really like that. Still, it's not terrible, but I have no desire to listen to this again. 2 stars, but a high 2 stars.
The Verve
4/5
I was in my early twenties when this came out. Bittersweet Symphony was everywhere, and the follow up singles were on heavy rotation also, but I had never listened to the album so was looking forward to this. To open up with the best known, and best, track on the album followed by another big single made me happy ... but then you start to hit the album tracks. And it doesn't start off too pretty.The Rolling People is, frankly, shit, and while they do improve they still aren't great. Ho-hum, three stars it is.
And then you get One Day.
My god, that is a jaw dropping track. Outstanding musically and lyrically, and really elevated the album for me as well as making the hair on my arms stand up, which is always a great sign for me. It doesn't get it up to five, but it rescued a strong four stars.
Ramones
3/5
Not a brilliant album, but it is perfectly.good. Simple, straightforward tunes delivered with high energy- and if you don't like a particular song, don't worry there'll be another one along in two minutes.
SAULT
3/5
This was unexpected. On paper I should hate this album - 21st century R&B really is not my bag at all and I was not looking forward to this, but it's actually OK. It's not something I'm likely to revisit, but it was perfectly listenable. Plus, the drum sound on the first few tracks is incredible.
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
4/5
For many years I have said I like old school hip hop. But then, having come across a good number of hip hop albums during this project and not liking any of them, I started thinking I was wrong, and actually I only liked a handful of tracks rather than the genre.
This album vindicated my original thought.
This is a good album. Catchy, political, angry, articulate, and simply enjoyable - I really enjoyed this. It's not quite 5 stars, but this is definitely going to end up in rotation for me.
The Beach Boys
3/5
This is not at all what I thought I was going to get from the Beach Boys - it's an album of songs that are trying too hard to be serious and political, but it comes across as the band being a bit out of its depth and all feels forced. It's very 'I'm 14 and this is deep'.
It's not bad - it's OK, just bland and takes itself too seriously. The album cover is great, though.
Black Sabbath
4/5
It's Sabbath, and I'm a metal head. Having said that, it's not a brilliant album, and you can tell its the birth of metal as a genre. There are some excellent tracks, but it could use some refinement. It us still a good album, just not one of the very best.
The Notorious B.I.G.
4/5
This is by far the best rap album I've been presented with so far. I'm not a massive rap fan but it's clear to see that Biggie really had talent. Class, maybe not so much, but talent for sure. I enjoyed this album, and would not be upset to hear it again.
I still don't get the skits, though.
Madonna
2/5
This is lift music for people who think they are better than lift music.
Boring, bland, beige album, although Ray of Light is an absolute cracker, and saves the album from being one star.
Animal Collective
3/5
This was OK. I started off really enjoying it, it gave off some nice Sigur Ros and Flaming Lips-type vibes, but it all got very samey. Its nice enough.
The Velvet Underground
2/5
This album disappears so far up its own arse that every time John Cale brushes his teeth he pokes himself in the eye.
Venus in Furs and I'll Be Your Mirror are good, though.
Steely Dan
1/5
What an obstinately, aggressively bland album.literally nothing stands out, and everything goes on for far too long. Dire.
Tears For Fears
3/5
This is a very variable record. Head over Heels and Everyone Wants ... are objectively good songs. Mothers Talk and Listen are not. I Believe sounds like a Sade version of Shipbuilding, The Working Hour has elements that remind me of Genesis' The Brazilian. Its on OK record, good in parts, but I'm not going to hurry back.
The The
2/5
Not a good album, but, like so many, not awful. This Is The Day is packed full of accordions with bontempi organ backing and sounds like charmless zydeco. Also, the organ player wishes he was Ray Manzarek. He isn't.
On the plus side, The Twilight Hour is quite good, and the last half of Giant is a blast. Still, it's just not engaging for me.
Muddy Waters
5/5
Fantastic album. Blues is a strange beast - it can be seen as formulaic, all twelve bar repeating rhythm figures and pentatonic scales, but it's so much about feel and emotion, and this album really captures it at its finest. Wonderful.
The Jam
3/5
Texturally, this album is all over the place. There are tracks that have strong Beatles vibes - To Be Someone riffs off Taxman, for example - then there are some weird, angry almost punk stuff like
Mr Clean. Also, Weller 'singing' "if I get the chance I'll fuck up your life "is the least threatening thing I've ever heard. Then you've got ballads like English Rose which is pretty, but nothing amazing. Overall its OK.
Willie Nelson
4/5
I'd never listened to a Country album before, and I enjoyed this. Good songs performed well, and Wille Nelson's voice is great. Definitely one to revisit.
The Who
4/5
A good album, but very pretentious. For every excellent Christmas there's an indulgent Underture, but on the whole it's a strong work. One thing though - where's the book, Pete?
Soft Machine
2/5
This was a challenge. The first 6 minutes are just some weird soundscape, no real melody or anything, but if you treat it like an orchestra tuning up you can get through it, and it improves, marginally. The rest is ...fine (and I like prog), but I really wouldn't want to hear this again. It's over long, not interesting enough, and Robert Wyatt's voice, which works really well on Shipbuilding, does not really work here.
Heaven 17
3/5
When I got this I didn't know what to expect. I knew of Heaven 17 and assumed they were just very lightweight synth pop. Then I looked at the score and reviews, and was kind of dreading it - 1 and 2 star reviews, average below 3 ... but its really not as bad as that.
It's not great, but it's perfectly pleasant and more political than I expected, but I quite enjoyed it. Not enough to seek them out again, but if I had to hear it again I wouldn't be upset.
Frank Zappa
5/5
What a brilliant album. I'd never listened to any Zappa before, but I definitely will be now. Absolutely amazing from the first note.
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
A perfectly nice album, even if towards the end I started checking my watch a little.
Various Artists
3/5
It's Christmas songs, it's Christmas - it's OK. I have no desire to run across it again, but it passed the time while cooking the dinner
The Cure
3/5
This is OK I guess - hard to tell, really, as it left absolutely no impression on me whatsoever
Nirvana
4/5
Nirvana are hugely important for modern music, but are also massively overrated in my opinion. I think they are good, but they aren't amazing - and this sums up this album too. It has some outstanding moments, notably The Man Who Sold The World and Where Did You Sleep last Night (neither are Nirvana songs, notably), but the three Meat Puppets songs, especially Plateau, are just completely forgettable.
Missy Elliott
1/5
It started badly and got worse. And why does it have to be so long. And so bland. And so samey. This is so safe and non-threatening that I suspect the 'Midemeanor' in her name probably relates to jaywalking or some such stupid shit. Rubbish
At least it doesn't have the skits that so many rap and hip-hop albums have.
Curtis Mayfield
2/5
For a 35 minute album this feels like a very long listen. There is nothing bad here, in fact So In Love and Hard Times start off sounding really interesting. And that's the problem- tracks either start off sounding interesting, like So In Love, and just don't go anywhere with no progression or structural interest beyond the first few measures, or they start off sounding interesting, like Hard Times, and then are over really quickly.
It's OK, but there is nothing that is fully satisfying. It feels like they have come up with a cool idea or riff and gone "right, lets keep doing this for 4 more minutes and call it done" - plus this album is solely responsible for the global wah-wah shortage of 1975.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
I say this a lot on these reviews, but I'll say it again. This is OK. It's not amazing, and it's not bad. It's very OK.
This came out when I was buying a lot of music and reading a lot of music magazines, and so I listened to this at the time - and it was OK then, too.
Like so many other albums here I wouldn't be upset to listen to it again, and I'm also unlikely to seek it out for another listen. It's OK.
James Taylor
3/5
This is perfectly nice, easy folksy-poppy-pleasantness (as long as you ignore the incredibly inauthentic blues of Steamroller and the plain fucking weirdness of Sunny Skies. Oh, and you can get rid of Oh Susannah, too). Several times I thought "oh, Fire and Rain, I know this one" and it turned out to be a different song though, so read into that what you will.
This is a nice, easy, unchallenging album to while away 30 minutes - it's very hard to hate, but also to love.
Motörhead
4/5
This is a completely uncomplicated rock album - verse / chorus / verse / chorus / solo / verse / chorus and on to the next track - but its very good at it. Yes, some of the lyrical content are crass or pretty objectionable, but this is Motorhead, and they play rock and roll.
Talk Talk
3/5
I can imagine Patrick Bateman loving this album.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
This may be a perfect album. Start to finish there is barely a misstep, if there are any at all. Phenomenal.
Keith Jarrett
3/5
It's all very nice, but I half expected to find out I was in the concourse of a huge marble concourse of a top-tier hotel, or the middle of some video game like Journey or My Time At Portia. Can't fault it, but I doubt I'm going to rush back - but I could be wrong about that.
Common
4/5
I have been disappointed with most of the rap and hip hop I've had so far - so many of them are over long, uninteresting, and plagued with those skits that I just don't get. This, however is different - its only 42 minutes, and is right, and clear, and the flow is great. My heart sank a little this morning when I saw another 21st century rap album pop up, but I enjoyed it.
Mudhoney
5/5
I was 16 when grunge hit, and I still think that living through the 90s as a late teen / early twenty-something was a great time, possibly only beaten out by the mid-late 60s. I didn't catch on to Mudhoney at the time, but I knew of them, but listening to this really shows where grunge came from. So much of the energy, anger, garage-bandness clearly influenced much of that scene a few years later.
This brings back memories of a good time, even if the music is (mostly) new to me.
Joanna Newsom
5/5
“Does that mean it’s more whimsical? Is it any more whimsical?”
“Well, it’s one more whimsical, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten...Where can you go from there? Where?”
“Why don’t you make ten a little more whimsical? Make that the top number and make that a little whimsier?”
“These go to eleven.”
But I fucking loved it.
Queen
3/5
OK it's Queen, but it's early Queen, and there is a lot of growth to be done. Seven Seas of Rhye is an absolute banger though
Marvin Gaye
3/5
It's a classic, just notcreally my thing. The voice is impeccable, and there are some great songs, but as a whole it's ... OK. I won't seek it out, but I also wouldn't turn it off.
Lambchop
3/5
This has that early 2000s slightly breathless, retro, twee feel - it kept reminding me of The Magic Numbers , or Corinne Bailey Rae. It does have some pretty dark lyrical imagery, but that is offset by the melodies and (over) production. It's perfectly nice, but I'm not sure it deserves a place on the list. Having said that, the falsetto on 'The Distance From Her To There' is really shit.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
I really enjoyed this. Being a British child in the 80s I knew of the band, but had never heard anything that I remembered by them. This album though, from note one, was just really good. Really, really good. Monitor especially stood out for me, but it also showed the tendency that this album has that makes it 4 not 5 stars - that song could live with being a minute shorter, and it's not the only one. Voodoo Dolly especially did nothing for me, and it did it for over seven minutes. It's not enough for me to not like the album, but it's enough to knock it down a point. It's staying downloaded in my Spotify library, and that says a lot.
The Bees
3/5
Genuinely thought the opening line was "You smell like a punchbag", which on continued listening may have improved things. Angryman sounds a bit like if Ian Brown had been asked to soundtrack a blaxploitation flick. I kept waiting for Zia to do what it clearly wanted to do and turn into Time by The Alan Parsons Project, but was left disappointed
There's nothing wrong or bad about the album, but it's not groundbreaking, and I can't see it being influential. I fully expect at least one of these tracks to have been on Made In Chelsea. I can't really give it a 2, but it's a very, very low 3.
Jack White
4/5
I like the White Stripes, and I REALLY like The Raconteurs, byr I'd never heard this album before. Needless to say, I liked it. There is no real standout track, but it's solid JackWhiteMusic from start to finish. Good album.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
DUNH-DUNH
Tss
Tss
Tss
DUNH-DUNH
Tss-tss-tss-tss-tss-tss
DUNH-DUNH
Pock-pock pock pock pa-pock pock
DUNH-DUNH
Pock-pock pock pock pa-pock pock
DUNH-DUNH
BAM-BA-RATTAT RAT-TAT-DIDDLY-DIDDLY-DIDDLY-DIDDLY
And then the world changed.
Deep Purple
2/5
"Please can you make it stop! They've been playing the same 7 notes for 10 minutes!"
"I'm sorry son, that's just how it is."
"Oh, thank god, they've stopped ... oh shit, no its just an exaggerated pause! They're doing it again! Even the singer wants to stop - he's screaming and screaming in agony!"
"No, son - you've got it wrong again. That's just Ian Gillan."
By the Christ do this bunch love the smell of their own farts, or what? Technique is incredible, and sound quality and production is great for a live album, but there's maybe 20 minutes of good album here. The thing is over two hours long.
The fire at Montreux didn't go far enough.
Billy Joel
4/5
ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK!
You can imagine this album popping up as the soundtrack to a Dudley Moore film from the 80s, but holy hell it makes me want to move my feet.
3/5
There really is not much memorable about this album. It's very early-90s British music scene, but that shouldn't be a surprise. You can pick up elements of where they were going with little bits foreshadowing Country House popping up on Chemical World (which is really good), and other bits smelling of Tracey Jacks and other Parklife stuff. It's fine, if you can live with Damon Albarn having the cock-er-nee turned up to 11. Chemical World and Villa Rosie stand out.
Beatles
3/5
When i was a kid my parents had a tape of a Stars On 45 Medley of Beatles songs, and that is where I know most of this album from. I'm not a huge early Beatles fan, but those memories are good, so it's OK. Also, Any Time At All has the same George Harrison guitar sound as Fish On The Sand from Cloud 9, which was the very first CD I ever owned. I was a precocious 11 year old.
Beck
3/5
'What the fuck is this ridiculous devil's haircut bullshit?!'
'Oh, mate - wait until you get the bit about having a cigarette on each arm and a carburetor tied to the moon. I must have been so fuckin' high when that came out of me!'
This album is as 90s as tamagotchis, OJs tiny glove, and Mr Fucking Blobby (which is his legal first name).
Nick Drake
3/5
This is all very nice and pleasant, but a bit more variety or texture would be nice. I wonder how much of the shine from Nick Drake's star is down to him being the tragic hero of the British Folk Revival (cf. your Buckley of choice, perhaps). There is nothing not to like about his stuff, but after a while it does get a little boring.
Sugar
5/5
Woah. OK. This is an awful lot poppier than I expected, and that's not a bad thing. I grew up through the birth of grunge, and I knew who Bob Mould was but never listened to either Sugar or Husker Du. I think I missed out.
Cornershop
2/5
This cover of Jerry St Clair's 'Brimfull od Asha' isn't a patch on the original.
More authentic than Kula Shaker. Not as good as Kula Shaker.
Dusty Springfield
2/5
It's 60s torch song stuff, which is fine, if a bit dull - but Son of a Preacher Man is outstanding. The Windmills Of Your Mind, however, is an entirely unnecessary cover - the sort of subtle Bossa Nova inflection really doesn't bring anything and makes me want to hear the Noel Harrison version.
Funkadelic
3/5
If the first or last track had been made by a bunch of public school boys from Hertfordshire it would be called overblown prog wankery.
It's OK.
The Stooges
4/5
I thought my phone alarm was going off during Penetration. Wouldn't be the first time that happened, to be fair.
The Only Ones
3/5
I'm unsure if he's singing or he's simply shagged out after a nine hour struggle with a particularly recalcitrant and pointy shit. It's also nice that he clarifies he doesn't want to fuck his mum. I'm sure she'll be glad to hear it.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
"Tone, Tone mate - are you ever going to change these stupid place-holder lyrics? We're in the studio tomorrow!"
"Ding dong deng deng dong."
Parliament
5/5
I had Maggot Brain 4 days before this and didn't think much of it. This, though ... what an album. Stephen Hawking's medics should have had this on his rubbish laptop rather than the terrible synthetic and that little bugger would have been back on his feet in no time.
To quote notable 90s androgynous croon-metallers Extreme, if you don't like what you see here, get the funk out.
A Tribe Called Quest
3/5
I know A Tribe Called Quest are hugely respected and influential, but all I know of them is Can You Kick It.
This falls into the two tropes of hip-hop albums I don't like, being overlong and having interstitial skits, but it does it with a charm that is hard to resist. It's not one of my favourites, but it's OK.
Neil Young
4/5
First thing to get out of the way - Neil Young's voice. I like Neil Young, but there is no denying that sometimes his voice sounds not unlike Richard Dreyfuss doing a Kermit impression, but most of the time it works.
Second thing - Neil Young's principles meaning that his work is not available on Spotify, making me fuck around with YouTube and it's shitty ads.
OK, beyond that this is a really good album. Some great stuff such as Southern Man, but also some less good, like Cripple Creek Ferry. The good hugely outweighs the leas good, and this is going to be one I keep coming back to. I do think Harvest is better, though.
Elliott Smith
3/5
This is perfectly pleasant, if not very exciting, and does feel like an incredibly long 36 minutes. Having said that it is certainly not worth stabbing myself twice in the chest over.
Brian Eno
3/5
What the fuck is happening?
Moby
3/5
Attempting the Led Zeppelin approach to song writing, but without the charisma, chops, or outright bombast.
Now, for some reason, I feel the urge to buy a Toyota. And some Tampax.
Lorde
3/5
There's nothing wrong with this, but I don't feel I'm ever likely to listen to it again. It was ... OK.
Carole King
2/5
Can someone wake me up when this is over, please?
Todd Rundgren
1/5
The 70s produced some of the greatest music ever made. Todd Rundgren was there, too.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
Like most people I knew nothing of Dexys Midnight Runners beyond Geno, Jocky Wilson Said and its legendary Top of the Pops performance, and of course Eileen and her spunky adventures. This album is better than I expected, but the horn arrangements are so overpowering that a lot of the tracks are a bit samey, and Kevin Rowland's delivery is ... interesting.
The Smashing Pumpkins
5/5
Really, really good album. I'm biased because this was around during my late teens / early twenties but I never listened to the band at that time, and as such I don't really have any Rose tinted view of it - it's just a superb album.
Also, I don't get people hating on Billy Corgan's voice when there are plenty of other things to dislike about him
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
5/5
It's nice to have politically angry albums that sound as chilled as this. Loved it.
Joe Ely
2/5
I'm British, so Country is not a genre I'm familiar with or particularly understand. This is OK, it sounds nice enough, but I'm not remembering a single track, and I only listened to it 20 minutes ago. It's a low 3, but still a 3.
Paul Simon
3/5
Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog after the War saved my marriage. No joke. My then girlfriend and I were on holiday and it had not been good. We were in bad mood all the time, and I had got to the point where I just didn't see the point in the relationship and was going to end it when we got home. And then one night neither of us could sleep, and we just sat there on the balcony in the middle of the French Alpine summer night, listening to our iPods, being with each other - and that song came on. I listened to it over and over, loving the story of two people deeply in love and living their own life as the world around them did its thing, and I realised that I could have that with the woman I was sitting next to, and that that was what I wanted. We've been married now for 11 years.
Cars Are Cars is one of the shittest things I've ever heard though, and the fact that it is the next song on the album is a fucking insult. What's that you're saying Paul? Cars are the same all over the world, but people are different? Well, fuck me up the bum with a cat's paw but aren't we quite the philosopher! Idiot.
Herbie Hancock
1/5
Music for boring porno flicks set in department store elevators.
Stan Getz
1/5
The working title of this was apparently 'Music To Die Slowly In A Care Home To' but they decided to go with something less on the nose.
Santana
3/5
It's OK, but so much of this sounded like an intro waiting to become a song. I've never been blue-balled so hard before.
Well, maybe once or twice ...
CHIC
2/5
I can't deny the instrumentalism is great, and the production is top notch, but its just so repetitive, very of its time, repetitive, and repetitive. Not a high point.
The Vines
3/5
I don't think there has ever been a case of white boys doing reggae that was anything other than at best a bit crap and at worst dreadful- D'yer Mak'er by Zeppelin, Jamaica Jerkoff by Elton John, the career of The Police for example. Credit, then, to The Vines for giving us Factory. Sorry, not credit, that was a typo. It should have read 'Fuck The Vines for giving us Factory'.
If you like Jet you'll think this lot are not quite as good as Jet.
Basement Jaxx
2/5
... and the music keeps on playing on and on ...
Doesn't it fucking just. Thos like being at an office party in a job you don't care about, and Cliff from accounts is on the wheels of steel.
Norah Jones
2/5
There is nothing easy about easy listening...
Kendrick Lamar
2/5
I'm old, white, British, and middle class. This music is not meant for me.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
I'm thinking that with Ms. Mitchell's professed admiration for German wine, she and Alan Partridge would get along famously.
Sepultura
3/5
I enjoyed this when it came out - I was a full on metalhead in the 90s, and Sepultura was about my limit. Listening today for the first time in probably 25-30 years, and it's OK. It's not as extreme as I remember, and it is a bit samey, but it's OK. I do prefer when they lay off the blast beats a bit and give the music some groove and space to breathe, but that's not really the nature of the genre here.
Les Rythmes Digitales
3/5
I have been on a run of albums I really have not rated (two-plus weeks of albums averaging low 2 stars, with only a couple of 3s in there). When this popped up I thought "oh for fuck's sake, more shit!"
I've never been an EDM / house / techno fan, to the point that I don't even know if this is one of those genres, but it's what I imagine they are. And in a shocking twist, I actually quite enjoyed it! Yes, it's repetitive, and I don't really think it belongs on the list, but the hooks are pretty good, and the sound quality and production is crisp as anything. I genuinely may revisit this, and I really did not expect that this morning.
The White Stripes
5/5
Years ago I went to V Festival. Standing waiting to get a beer I overheard the following conversation:
"I've just seen Hard-Fi."
"How was that?"
"They did a cover of Seven Nation Army. They used a kazoo."
"Fucking hell - what was that like?!"
"What do you think?"
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
This is a completely fine album. Nice enough to pass 40 minutes with, nothing bad or unpleasant, but also nothing that really stands out. A high 3, but still a 3.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Frank Sinatra really can sing. I wish he fucking wouldn't, though. Boring bollocks.
Madonna
2/5
The musical equivalent of the Steve Buscemi 'how do you do, fellow kids' meme.
Adele
2/5
The soundtrack to a million prosecco-fuelled tirades against low-quality men by women who know they deserve better.
Obviously she can sing, but it's like playing Cotton-Eyed Joe on a Stradivarius - bollocks music on an extraordinary instrument.
ABBA
4/5
It's quite hard to be objective with this album. The singles from this are so huge, and (certainly in the UK) so regularly played that they sort of interrupt the flow of the album. It is impossible to fault the production and performances, and most of the songwriting, too. Knowing the back story does make this a brutal album, and whilst Knowing Me, Knowing You probably takes the lead on being the most well known break-up song, but some of the lyrics in My Love, My Life are just heartbreaking.
Songhoy Blues
4/5
This is exactly the kind of thing this project is for for me. I would never even have heard of this band let alone listened to the album if it wasn't for the project, and whilst it isn't the best I've listened to it was really enjoyable bluesy rock. A perfectly good way to pass 40 minutes, but maybe not one I'll rush back to.
Nine Inch Nails
4/5
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
4 stars.
Al Green
3/5
Nothing to dislike, but nothing too mind-blowing. The opener is a classic, obviously, but the rest is unmemorable pleasant.
Nico
3/5
My heart sank when I saw this today, but it is way better than the reviews suggest. It in no way deserves to be on the list, but it's perfectly fine in a twee sixties pseudo folksy way. This album is better than anything by Steely Dan (except Dirty Work because that is a cracker), and loads of (American) people think they are great.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
I like Tom Petty, with or without the Heartbreakers, I really do. I was lucky enough to see them live on one of the relatively few (I believe) UK tours they did (the Into The Great Wide Open tour I think it was called), and the music has some real high points. Having said that, there is also a lot of very humdrum, standard Southern rock / boogie rock / by-the-numbers rock on this album. Its nowhere near bad, but it's not amazing.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
1/5
Jazz is shit.
Tangerine Dream
3/5
I really don't know what to think of this album. It would be very easy for it to be the most pretentious wank-fest of a muso album, but it honestly doesn't feel like it - it feels like they couldn't give a shit if anyone listened to how fucking clever they are being, they are just super happy to have done it. I don't think I'll ever seek the album out as one to actively listen to, but I can absolutely see myself just passively zoning out in the woods with this on headphones.
Ghostface Killah
3/5
Another rap album, let me just go over my list:
Over long - check.
Skits I just don't get - check.
A bit of a grind to listen to - che... wait, no, this is OK actually. Rap is never going to be my thing but I can recognise really good rap, and for me this is it. I'm not going to seek it out, but it passed the (still overly long) time.
Os Mutantes
4/5
I didn't really know what to expect, but this was rather enjoyable. It really does seem that 60s psychedelic rock is entirely my jam.
Black Sabbath
5/5
Now, THIS is heavy metal. Sludgy, doom-laden, brutal riffing ... proper primordial stuff. Tony Iommi has probably the heaviest guitar sound ever recorded, and Bill Ward is such a powerhouse drummer. Really, really good. I could live without Changes and FX, though - they don't fuck the album enough for me to drop a star, though.
Bob Dylan
5/5
This may be an absolutely flawless album, start to finish. Start to finish this is absolutely spellbinding stuff - even the 'weakest' track (in my opinion), 'Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts', is still a brilliant story-telling song. I keep forgetting how good this album is, and then I'll rediscover it again and be transported.
Foo Fighters
3/5
Possibly the most 3-star album I've ever heard. It's rock music, it's fine, it's nothing spectacular. I quite like Foo Fighters - they are nice and easy to listen to, entertaining enough, but unlikely to make me sit up and go 'holy shit!'
Neil Young
5/5
Great album - some of the lyrical themes seem a little dated, maybe, and Young's voice is, clearly, an unusual instrument, but this is packed with quality start to finish.
Brian Eno
4/5
Way better than I expected - nice, straightforward poppy melodies with some pretty interesting production choices and sounds. Enjoyed this.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
I have never been a reggae fan, although that is mainly based on shitty white-boy cod-reggae like UB40 or The Fucking Police. I knew the Bob Marley standards and always found them to be OK if nothing more, so was looking forward to actually listening to one of the great reggae albums.
Meh.
4/5
It's a Muse album, so you know what you are going to get - I like Muse, though, so I don't mind that their albums all sound the same. Knights of Cydonia is an absolute cracker.
Public Enemy
3/5
I'm not much of a hip-hop fan, but of all the hip-hop that I'm not really a fan of, I'm most a fan of this sort of hip-hop. It's OK.
Super Furry Animals
5/5
What a fantastic album. I knew of the Super Furries but had never listened to an album before. Error.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
This is pretty good - dirty swamp rock (even if it is more than a bit inauthentic, but so are a lot of classic rock bands) that infects you with something other than malaria. Graveyard Train hangs around a bit too long, but Born On The Bayou (really, John?) And Penthouse Pauper are great.
Little Richard
2/5
Eeeehhhh - it's not bad, but it's not exciting. I can see how it might have been mind-blowing in 1957, but we've had Ziggy Stardust and 'So What' by Anti-Nowhere League since then. Maybe I'm a little jaded.
3/5
It's a perfectly good album, but it didn't set me on fire. There are some great songs, particularly The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore and You Said Something, but it's not one of my favourite albums. I'm borderline on whether it's a 3 or a 4 - it's really on the cusp for me.
Wu-Tang Clan
3/5
Decent hip-hop is decent. This is one of the very few hip-hop albums I had heard before, and it's pretty good. It's never going to be my music of choice, but it's totally listenable to.
The Stone Roses
5/5
As far as debuts go, this is one of the very, very best. King Monkey and his court absolutely killing it, start to finish. As a bonus, the Spotify version linked here also has Fool's Gold tacked on the end, which is epic.
Boston
3/5
This may be the most American thing I have ever heard.
Pink Floyd
5/5
One of the great concept albums, and the last great work by Floyd.
Iron Maiden
4/5
I always thought Eddie was holding a syringe on this album cover.
The Sugarcubes
3/5
Perfectly pleasant indie-pop, but that's about it.
The Roots
2/5
It's not exactly bad, but it's very bland and so bloody boring.
The Monkees
3/5
It doesn't get much more lightweight bubblegum pop than this. It's OK, but I really don't think it should be on the list.
Steely Dan
2/5
Walter White liked Steely Dan, and that should tell you everything you need to know.
Technically brilliant, but very forgettable, bland and boring, they chose to create one of the great evils in the world in pursuit of money and glory. In a similar vein, Walter White was a teacher who made meth.
This album is shit.
Steely Dan are shit.
I'm grudgingly giving it an extra star because 'Dirty Work' is a great song - it's a bit like if Hitler had painted the Mona Lisa, you can appreciate the painting but it's still a Hitler.
Nina Simone
3/5
This is not really my thing, but it's perfectly fine and by far the best jazz-type (although I would say its a bit of a stretch to call it jazz) album I've had so far.
Having said that, this version of Lilac Wine is absolutely amazing. I knewbthe Jeff Buckley and Elkie Brooks versions, but this one is just spectacular - plaintive, and broken and lost, you really feel the pain of loss and ending. Outstanding.
The Allman Brothers Band
1/5
Legend has it that Elizabeth Reed resurrected herself solely to tell this bunch of self-indulgent noodlers to just put a fucking sock in it, please and thank you.
Dizzee Rascal
2/5
I quite like Dizzee Rascal's more well known singles (Holiday, Bonkers etc), but this does nothing for me. He seems to have solid flow, but the whole thing feels very repetitive, and doesn't do anything for me.
Gotan Project
2/5
Dear Gotan Project,
This is just a courtesy note to advise that your album 'La Revancha del Tango' has reached the threshold of accordion content to be authorised as Cliche.
Best regards
The World Bureau of National Musical Stereotypes
Beck
4/5
A very pleasant album. I only knew Beck from the Devil's Haircut / Loser type stuff, so this was a nice gear change, and much more my groove. Its not one of my most favourite albums, but I would not be surprised if I listened to it again.
The Clash
3/5
Yes, it's a good album and I enjoyed it, but I like my punk a little bit more ... punk.
Terence Trent D'Arby
2/5
If Prince was a Pick-Up Artist.
(If You Let Me Stay is a banger, though)
5/5
JUDAS!
There you go, I've put it here because it was cut out of this recording.
I've never been much of a fan of live albums, but this is different. I love Dylan, but the first disc takes some time to get going. I think that the slower tempos of Visons of Johanna and Just Like A Woman take something away from them, and the studio versions are way better.
Then you get disc two.
Holy shit, what an incredible performance - how anyone could have been upset by it is incredible. Hands down, one of the best records I've ever listened to.
Jamiroquai
2/5
If you are planning on putting out a 90s acid jazz revord and are concerned ut may havebtoo much didgeridoo on it, compare it to Emergency On Planet Earth. If your album has even half of the amount of didgeridoo on it as this record, then there is too much didgeridoo.
It's fine. It's forgettable.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Staggering number of reviews here saying 'Gimme Shelter and You Can't Always Get What You Want = 5 stars!' without considering the mid-quality insipid whiteboyblues between those two admittedly great tracks. They even have to resort to covering one of their own tracks, for fuck's sake!
The Rolling Stones are the second most over-hyped band on the planet. The only reason they are so highly regarded is down to first-mover advantage.
Pink Floyd
5/5
I'm willing to bet that this was one of the first albums that the author put on the list - it's a legendary album for a reason, and it wasn't just the cover that made it one of the biggest selling albums of all time. Brilliant record.
Air
3/5
This is OK- nothing bad, nothing memorable. It's a score not a soundtrack, sonisnperhaps a bit kore symphonic than may be expected, but it's nice enough. I'm not going to seek it out again, though.
The Isley Brothers
3/5
This is an OK album - the musicianship is great, and the big songs are good, but it's not exciting, and I won't be listening to it again. Background music at best.
David Bowie
3/5
My first Bowie album of the project, and my first Bowie album full stop - I've tried before, and he never really stuck, and I think the problem was that I had a best of, and if this album is anything to go by his work really benefits from being heard amongst other tracks that were recorded at the same time rather than being cherry picked. What I'm saying is that I enjoyed this album, and really enjoyed the first half especially. The second half is a bit aural wallpaper, but it wasn't at all bad and the first half was really good. Glad I had this today.
Coldplay
2/5
Listening to Coldplay is like fucking with a limp dick - whilst to a casual observer it may look fun and interesting, actually everybody involved gets angry, frustrated and upset, and if you tell your friends about it they will laugh at you.
This JUST scrapes 2 stars, because it's not actually really bad and offensive, but by the christ it is close. It is so bland and humdrum, Chris Martin has an annoying voice, and that fucking song about spies coming out of the water, but you can't touch them because they are spies is nearly as bad as Cars Are Cars by Paul Simon.
N.W.A.
4/5
I was ready with my standard criticisms of rap and hip-hop - skits I don't understand, over long, boring, bland and repetitive ... but this is really good. Yes, it is still a long album an hour on the original release, hour and a quarter on the re-issue with bonus tracjs), but the production and rapping is clear, Ice Cube and Eazy-E especially have great flow, and there are no skits to annoy me. Over all, I enjoyed this - easily one of the best rap albums I've heard.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
2/5
Sounds like the sixth disc of a seven disc collection that gathers together all the lost studio snippets from a great artist, that only insufferable bores ever buy and no-one listens to. It feels like a collection of work-in-progress song ideas that would be played by a pretty average band in a studio while working on their third album that never gets released, whereas in actual fact it's a full-length major label release that made it onto the list of 1001 albums that I apparently have to listen to. Bollocks.
Gang Starr
2/5
So very, very unmemorable.
Baaba Maal
2/5
It's perfectly OK noodling, but it's very repetitive, and very, very long. It wore out it's welcome after about 30 minutes in, which is not even half way through. It's not bad as such, just uninteresting and absolutely never going to cross my mind again.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
2/5
If he hadn't taken that flight would he be anything more than a footnote in music history?
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
I like Simon and Garfunkel, but this is not their best - it's not at all bad, hut its mot stellar.
Thin Lizzy
3/5
I've never been a Thìn Lizzy fan, but I obviously knew of them, and a few of their songs. This is alright, and really clean for a live album (it makes me wonder how much was overdubbed in the studio), and it's good to hear the bass so high in the mix but I guess that's not surprising.
Not bad, not great, but that album cover is a sight to behold - Mr Lynott could have knocked my hat off!
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
I don't think Elvis Costello likes Elvis Costello as much as the compiler of the book likes Elvis Costello.
Todd Rundgren
3/5
I got Something/Anything a few weeks ago, and hated it. Naturally I wasn't expecting much from this, but was very pleasantly surprised. Its a very strange, all over the place kind of album with so many changes of style and tempo (sometimes within a single track) that I ended up with whiplash. There is quite a lot of horrible smooth jazz / yacht rock shittiness, and the amount of saxophone confirms that there is one single rock track in history where the presence of a sax has improved the song. Having said that, there is enough on this album that I enjoyed that it rates significantly higher than Something/Anything - it's not a four star, there's just too much crap for that, but it's a very high three
Deep Purple
4/5
This is my second Deep Purple album. The first one I had was Live in Japan, which I hated - so much self-indulgent fart-sniffing that it just made me want to wrap barbed wire around my cock and then pretend I was trying to start a very old and rusty chainsaw as a more enjoyable pastime. Naturally I was not particularly looking forward to this.
I was very pleasantly surprised. Yes, there is still a huge amount of self indulgent solowanking, and some of the lyrics sound like the song that Homer Simpson wanted Tom Petty to write in the episode when they went to rock school, but it is a very enjoyable time. Smoke On The Water is hugely overplayed, but you can't deny it is a good tune, and it doesntbstand alone here. As a whole there is far too much bullshit to make it five stars, but this is definitely four for me, and probably my first entry in 'Controversial Artists'
Blur
5/5
Very British, very 90s ... and very good. There's maybe a little bit too much whimsy in places like The Debt Collector, and Parklife has been played to death and I can well do without Bank Holiday but there is so much sublime stuff here the less good just disappears. End of a Century and To The End are real standouts, but there is a lot to love in all but the exceptions noted above. I'll dock it one point out of ten for the minor crapness, but that still makes it a good 5 star album.
Prefab Sprout
1/5
This reminds me of Steely Dan, in that it is very shit. Bland, boring, over-produced uninspired and uninspiring pop pap. A limp dick of an album.
Traffic
4/5
Good, good album. The first gig I ever went to was Steve Winwood in the late '80s, and whilst his solo stuff is very different (and significantly less enjoyable) than this it's still his voice, and he really does have one of the great blues rock voices.
Anita Baker
1/5
There is a fairly widely held opinion that music is the 80s was shit, which is untrue. There was an awful lot of really good, groundbreaking music in the 80s that shaped modern music - Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, New Order The Smiths, 'Africa' by Toto etc.
This album is the reason people think the '80s were shit. Horrible, insipid songs, over-produced and layered with syrupy synths and sax - it's the kind of music that people who have Luther Vandross's entire back catalogue buy, and keep in their car.
Joy Division
1/5
Ian Curtis was preventing us from getting New Order. Dreary, sludgy bullshit that certain people think you have to like because it's Joy Division.
Fucking shit.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
A bit of an odd one for me. There's nothing stand out bad here, and there are some absolute gems, but it just feels a bit bloated and too damn long. There's nothing wrong, but it just didn't grip me like The White Album or Physical Grafitti does.
Milton Nascimento
5/5
I've had two big double albums back-to-back - it was Songs In The Key Of Life yesterday, and today this offering from Brazil that I had never even come close to hearing of. I liked the Stevie Wonder, four stars, and did not expect this to match up.
I was wrong.
This is so much more enjoyable. I have no idea what the lyrics are, but the musicality is just so enjoyable that it doesn't matter. Quite lovely.
George Michael
3/5
In the last years of his life George Michael had become a bit of a punchline - being found passed-out in his car several times, crashing into a Snappy Snaps etc ... and then after his death stories started ro come out showing how he may have been one of the few truly good people in the music industry. I had never paid any attention really to his music, it wasn't my bag, but finding out what a kind, generous and humble man he actually was made me sad I never knew this when he was alive.
The album is very mid, however, and there's a lot of filler.
Iggy Pop
3/5
This is OK- I've had a couple of Stooges records but this is the first Iggy
Pop solo record I've had, and I much prefer the rawer, punkier, less polished stuff than this. It's fine though, but not really my thing.
Rush
4/5
It's impossible to deny the incredible musicianship on display here. It's also impossible to deny Geddy Lee sings like a man who has barbed wire wrapped around his balls and is trying to start them like a chainsaw.
Still, it works for me. Good album.
Ray Charles
2/5
Country and Western, Big Band, Swing, and Jazz. I know very little about any of these genres, and actively dislike jazz, so this was unlikely to be a five-star album for me. And it isn't. It's dreary, and it drags, and Ray Charles' voice, as excellent as it is, is not enough to make this enjoyable for me, especially for an hour and a quarter.
Billy Bragg
4/5
Really enjoyed this (although the extra disc on the reissue started off with a big left turn into C&W stuff, which was odd). Levi Subbs' Tears is a fantastic song, and the rest is strong, too.
GZA
2/5
Not my thing, and I wasn't really jn the mood for it either today. Long and dull, although the snippets of film dialogue did break things up nicely. It was nowhere near terrible, but I didn't enjoy it.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
It's fine. It doesn't have the big singles or immediacy of Everything Must Go, but you can see where that is going to come from.
Fleet Foxes
2/5
Absolutely forgettable.
The Clash
4/5
This is a proper punk album. Spiky, loud, quick paced - a really good album. Unpopular opinion but I think nits way better than London Calling.
Dr. Octagon
2/5
Very fucking odd. And not in a good way, if such a thing exists.
Oh, and it also has the other rap album tropes of skits / spoken word interstitials, and it lasts for several decades.
Leonard Cohen
5/5
Fantastic album. I'd never listened to Leonard Cohen before, but I will for sure be listening to more. Brilliant.
The Zutons
3/5
I bought this when it came out, and thought it was ... OK. I listened it today for the first time in around 20 years and thought it was ... OK.
It's OK.
Deep Purple
3/5
This is the third Deep Purple album I've had, and they all have one overarching characteristic - nobody loves Deep Purple more than Deep Purple do. Technically excellent, production is brilliant, lyrics are clunky, screeching is excessive, and I'm bear certain that the band oukd write a very detailed essay on the smell of their own farts.
Having said that, it's OK. I'll take Sabbath or Zeppelin over Deep Purple every time, but I'd probably take Deep Purple over Judas Priest, so gratz I guess.
The Cure
3/5
I don't really get The Cure. It's OK I guess, but it doesn't excite me.
Rocket From The Crypt
4/5
First things first, this album has absolutely no right to be on this list.
Having said that, it is so much better than reviews suggest, and than I expected. I remember them being a big thing in the UK when this cane out and I thought they were shit. This morning I saw this and decided that they were going to be the band a kids TV show has on when they want to pretend to have Misfits on ... and I'm not a million miles away from them sounding not unlike Misfits, and in a good way. I fucking love Misfits, and this album really, really grew on me as I listened. It's nowhere near perfect, but it's very enjoyable and there are some really good tracks. Way better than I expected
Sisters Of Mercy
4/5
Really good album. Proper goth, dark stuff, and I really enjoyed this.
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
OK, this is not specifically a bad musical album, but it's also not really actuallya musical album in my view. It's really cleanly produced, and it's very inventive, and with 19 tracks in under 40 minutes you don't have to wait very long for a new one if you don't like the one you are listening to ... but it sounds like ideas that are waiting to turn into songs. I was struggling between 1 and 2 stars, but I don't hate this, and it's not bland and boring, and there are enough moments of good music and Zappa's guitar work to tip it into 2 stars, just. Just.
Kanye West
4/5
West is a piece of shit. Ridiculous, misogynistic, manipulative, controlling, delusional, and quite possibly in need of support with his mental health - which may be the root cause of his flaws. He is also incredibly good at making his music.
I have very little experience or knowledge of hip-hop as a genre, but I can spot good when it's presented to me, and this album is good. Very good. It is, of course, overly long and that along with the closing 'comedy' skit stops it being five stars, but it is a really solid four. Even though it is made by such a colossal piece of shit.
Joan Armatrading
3/5
I've heard better. I've heard worse. I'd be surprised if I heard this again.
Slipknot
3/5
I'm sure there is more to this album than just very heavy riffing, growling and some very good drumming, but it is eluding me a little. It's OK, but I'm not going back to it.
Dusty Springfield
2/5
This has no place on this list. A covers album by a 60s torch singer is really not one I need to listen to. Not 1 star dogshit, but absolutely 2 star dogshit.
Living Colour
3/5
Opening up with Cult of Personality feels like both an error, and their only option. It stands head and shoulders above everything else on this album, which is just mid-level 90s lite-metal, albeit produced incredibly well. If I ever listen to this again I expect I'll stop after track 1.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
Such a wonderful album. The title track is simply one of the greatest songs ever written - optimistic, compassionate, heartfelt and hopeful, and delivered with a glorious vocal performance. The Boxer, The Only Living Boy in New York, Baby Driver, Keep the Customer Satisfied ... just great tune after great tune. So Long Frank Lloyd Wright is a bit of an oddity but is pleasant enough - really the only minor misstep is the live Everly Brothers cover, which is the kind of thing you might expect on a debut, rather than a final recording. Still, a brilliant, brilliant album.
2/5
Fuck me but this album is so repetitive. Everything would be so much more enjoyable if it lasted for at most half of the time it does. Still, I can't understand how Fleetwood Mac didn't get the shit sued out of them for ripping off Beetles in the Bog for Tusk
Deee-Lite
2/5
It's not so much bad or boring as just very uninteresting. Groove Is In The Heart is an absolute corker though, so it's not one star.
PJ Harvey
2/5
Look, I know PJ Harvey is highly regarded and I admit she has done some good songs, but seriously, what the fuck is this shit?
Depeche Mode
4/5
I really enjoyed this. Dark and brooding synth pop sounds like an unlikely combination on paper but Depeche Mode really pull it off, and Dave Gahan has an excellent voice to complement it.
Sex Pistols
4/5
Looking at this with 21st century eyes this doesn't feel very punk, but by the Christ it shook the UK up in the 70s. Such an important record, it doesn't matter that it's unpolished three-chord musicnoise, it's the sound of music shifting on its axis. Not the best music, but one hell of an album.
Public Enemy
3/5
Rap and hip-hop really isn't my thing. It's not bad, but I'm not going back
The La's
3/5
Ĺee Mavers had a reputation for perfectionism which caused major difficulties in the recording of this album. Rhyming 'knowledge' with 'porridge' does not attest to this.
It's OK- There She Goes is obviously a belter, but the rest is bland skiffle-inflected indie pop.
Robert Wyatt
2/5
"This first track is great - I don't get all these shitty reviews!"
<5 minutes later>
"Jesus fucking christ, what is this bullshit?!"
<3 tracks later>
"Hold on, hold on ... no, this is pretty good actually!"
<4 minutes later>
"FUUUUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!!"
Serge Gainsbourg
4/5
This is a bit of a tricky one. On the one hand the subject matter is decidedly ... challenging, although the fact it is in French (which I don't speak well) does obscure this. On the other hand the music is really good, with a great guitar sound. Then there's the album cover which makes me think I'm not far away from going on a list somewhere.
At the end of the day though, this is a really good collection of music.
Elvis Presley
2/5
King of Rock and Roll my arse.
The Pogues
5/5
Loved this album. I knew a handful of Pogues songs, but had never listened to an album, but this is one of a handful of albums from this project that I have put straight back on after the first listen. Brilliant.
It did feel odd listening to Fairytale of New York in August, though.
Roni Size
1/5
I can get why this album is on the list, as I can see it was influential in the development of this type of music. That is a bit like recognising that the human experimentation carried by the Nazis and Japanese during WWII was vital in medical breakthroughs that came after as they carried out atrocities without consideration of ethics or humanity.
The twentieth anniversary release of this shit is over 5 hours long. Fuck right off, you repetitive prick.
Dirty Projectors
2/5
A Monet of an album - looks OK from a distance, but when you pay some closer attention it's a right old mess. Half the time the rhythm section seems to be playing a completely different song to the rest of the band, and there are moments when it settles down into a more regular type of music and then they realise that they need to be more avant garde and it jets off even further up it's own arse.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
2/5
I think jazz is shit. This is shit, but at least it's largely inoffensive. I'd still rather listen to some dude's old car glovebox play light jazz than this, though.
The Smiths
4/5
This is admittedly quite dated, but it is still a really enjoyable album by one of the most important British bands of the 80s. No Smiths = no Britpop. No Britpop means this list is probably half as long ...
The Temptations
2/5
Really not a single exciting thing about this album. Dull.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
A great album by a great artist.
Aretha Franklin
2/5
It's fine, and Respect is a classic, and there is no doubting the voice ... but it's not my thing. I don't dislike it, but I don't like it either.
D'Angelo
1/5
My god, this is so shit. An album of music to have disappointing sex to. I ended up listening to this on YouTube because I didn't want to fuck up my Spotify algorithm. Perhaps the worst album ever thought of, recorded, and produced (very badly).
Joni Mitchell
3/5
It's OK. Musically it's nice, vocally it's nice, but I'm afraid that 'nice' just doesn't really butter my parsnips.
Michael Kiwanuka
3/5
Well, it wasn't quite what I was expecting (in a good way), but it didn't blow me away. It's fine, I'm not sure it deserves a place in the book, though.
John Lennon
3/5
Would this be on the list if it was a Ringo Starr album?
Aerosmith
2/5
I bet Alan Partridge likes Aerosmith.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
OK, it's the Stones' debut album so there is an argument for it deserving a place on the list ... but its such a bang average record by such an over-hyped band. An entire album of inferior covers really is not important, and if it was any other band it would be laughed out of the room.
If The Rolling Stones formed tomorrow they wouldn't even be a footnote.
The War On Drugs
2/5
I listened to this, and my first thought was that this is just some old '80s MOR Don Henley bullshit. Looked at the reviews and found I was not alone. It's not bad, it's just not interesting, and there certainly doesn't need to be an hour of it - every track could be 25% shorter and nothing would be lost, and then this would clock in at a far more reasonable 45 minutes.
The Who
4/5
Nothing quite says 'rock and roll rebel rousers' like a song about caravans.
2/5
Mediocre musicians with a good singer playing bland pap. U2 are the band people who pretend to like music say are their favourite band.
Yes
3/5
It was all going perfectly well, and then they butchered America. What a box of cunts.
Pulp
3/5
This is boring.
Air
3/5
This is an odd one - it's perfectly nice, with some very nice noises, but it's also not very engaging. I feel calling it background music is really harsh, but if I was the kind of person to host dinner parties I think this would probably be the first album I'd reach for to play during dinner.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
This is perfectly nice, but largely unmemorable. I like Neil Young, so it's a solid 3 stars.
Teenage Fanclub
3/5
I never heard these at the time as I was a straight ahead metal head. This is OK, probably as good as any of the Brit Pop fare that followed it, but it really is not memorable.
Sonic Youth
3/5
Eeeh, it's alright. There is nothing really that makes it stand out from so many other alt / sludge / proto-grunge stuff that was around in the early nineties. I listened to it, I remember nothing of it.
The Byrds
3/5
This is perfectly pleasant jangly 60s country infused pop. Nothing stands put, but I wouldn't hate to hear it again. One thing I will say is that I do go hard on albums that simply hang around for too long, and a sub-30 minute album makes a nice change, and less of a commitment for repeat listens.
Portishead
2/5
The 90s were, in my opinion, the best era to grow up in musically. That opinion is not based on Portishead being active, as they are the dreariest bunch of bastards.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
It is maybe a little meandering, and some parts sound more like well produced demos rather than actual tracks, but there is enough absolute quality here to outweigh it. Crosstown Traffic, Long Hot Summer Night and (of course) All Along The Watchtower and Voodoo Child (Slight Return) are just mesmerising.
Anthrax
3/5
The smallest of The Big Four, and one I'd never listened to before. This takes a while to get going, and even at at it's best it's not as good as the other three, but it's OK. Scott Ian is a great rhythm player and the album gallops along like a decent thrash album should, but it doesn't quite have that certain something that Ride the Lightning or ...And Justice For All or Seasons In The Abyss has, and so not even Judge Dredd can get it above three stars.
Elbow
3/5
When my wife and I got married in 2013 we were both overweight - in fact when we looked at the wedding photos on a DVD my wife said we looked like Les Dawson and Matt Lucas in a dress. All the while, over the top of these photos, the photographer had added One Day Like This by Elbow.
3 out of 5, would get married looking like Les Dawson again.
UB40
1/5
To paraphrase 10cc, I don't like Reggae - because it is shit.
Also, that reggaeification of Strange Fruit is a crime all by itself. Fucking he'll.
The Smiths
4/5
I like The Smiths, but I do think they are a bit over-rated. Still, having said that it's hard to ignore the quality here, and without the band then the landscape of modern British music would be dramatically different. Bigmouth Strikes Again, The Boy With A Thorn In his Side and I Know It's Over are all really good, and of course There Is A Light That Never Goes Out is magnificent. Good album.
Fela Kuti
5/5
Groovy
As
Fuck
CHIC
2/5
To all the idiots saying that this is an album full of incredibly repetitive songs that could be a minute long and would contain all that the song had to offer, I refer them to My Feet Keep Dancing, which has a tap-dance solo in it. Take that, dickheads!
This album makes me think of pressing a 9V battery onto my sweaty balls - yes, it may make my leg jiggle a bit, but it is otherwise horrible and makes me feel a bit ill.
The Afghan Whigs
3/5
This is a cross between Smashing Pumpkins and any band that played at The Bronze in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
It's OK, but it hangs around far too long.
The 13th Floor Elevators
3/5
I can say with absolute certainty that some people made this album, and that I listened to it. Beyond that, I've got nothing. So totally unmemorable.
Arcade Fire
3/5
It's ... fine, I suppose. It isn't that it is all very samey, but there is just nothing distinctive about any track on this. You could play me anything from it and it would be like hearing it for the first time again. Beige music.
Radiohead
5/5
This is such a good album - I personally rate it as only just behind Kid A, Amnesiac and OK Computer. I totally get why some people just don't gel with this album, but there's so much really good stuff here - There There (which is amazing live), Sail To The Moon, Scatterbrain, A Wolf At The Door are amongst their very best material in my opinion. Brilliant, brilliant album
Tim Buckley
3/5
Eeeeh, it's OK I guess - just twee folky tunes that hurt noone, but are entirely unexciting.
The Human League
3/5
Many years ago I went trekking in Nepal with a bloke who was at art college with Phil Oakey. He said he was a foppish twat.
This album is better than I expected, not that I had very high hopes. It's fine.
Julian Cope
4/5
I did not know what to expect, and checking the reviews I feared the worst. Went on to Spotify and saw it clocked in at 2.5 hours and my arsehole nearly dropped out. I checked Wikipedia and saw the original release was 'only' 1 hour 16 minutes, and found that one instead.
I wish I'd gone for the two and a half hour deluxe edition, because this is a great album.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
It's not my favourite Zeppelin album by any means, but it's still one of the best heavy rock / blues rock / folk rock albums ever made. Immigrant Song, Since I've Been Loving You, Gallows Pole, Tangerine ... just so much really high quality stuff.
King Crimson
4/5
Proper prog done proper. It does get a bit over-weird (Moonchild's second half could do with getting back in its box) but otherwise really good.
Gene Clark
5/5
Never judge an album by its cover. This one looks like a shite New Romantic-type of thing, and then you find out it was critically savaged, barely troubled the top 150, and was deleted from the catalogue in short order and expectations drop further.
And then you listen to it.
Jesus Christ, this album is great. It's initially a little bit over countrified for my British ears, but once the shock wears off you realise what a bunch of idiots critics in the 70s were. A brilliant album.
Prince
2/5
Prince is the Stephen King of music. Talented, but can't write an ending for shit. I don't know about his views on weird teen sex, though.
Pretty much every track here could be cut in half and nothing of value would be lost. Having said that, an album like that would still only get 3 stars at best from me, so the fact this bloated thing is solidly over an hour long means that I'm sorry Mr Nelson, but it's a 2 from me - I just don't get your stuff.
TV On The Radio
2/5
Remarkably unremarkable. This left no impression on me other than it was not a bad album, just utterly unmemorable.
Linkin Park
3/5
Nu-metal was a bit of a bust genre for me - I was more of a blues rock / heavy rock / heavy metal / thrash metal kind of guy, and so was very judgy about it. This is OK, not my thing but not awful, and the singles are OK. It's short, too, which always helps when you're not a big fan.
Jorge Ben Jor
5/5
Such a good album, and totally unexpected. Really groovy - if it doesn't get you tapping your toes it probably means that you have early stage leprosy.
LTJ Bukem
1/5
I could have spent 2 hours scrolling through my phone's ringtones and had the same experience as listening to this. Absolute shit.
Eric Clapton
3/5
Who really wants an album of covers by a racist, hypocritical, over-rated hack? Let It Grow is lovely (even if it is, ironically, a shameless, schmalzified Stairway to Heaven rip off), but the rest is either unnecessary, or just shit. Willie And The Hand Jive? Really?
Having said that, the three closing tracks - Let It Grow, Steady Rollin' Man and Mainline Florida - are excellent and raise the album. It's only to a 3, but then it is also a covers album with some really shit decisions on it.
Randy Newman
3/5
It sounds like Randy Newman, and that's about all I can say about it. It isn't horrible.
Kendrick Lamar
1/5
Ronnie O'Sullivan is one of the most naturally gifted snooker players of all time. Watching him play still bores the tits off me.
I am not built for rap and hippity-hop; rap and hippity-hop isn't built for me.
Wilco
3/5
It's not bad, but its very unremarkable, and it goes on for way too long. Pot Kettle Black sounds like The Lightning Seeds doing a cover of the Manic's Australia, and fucking it up.
Carpenters
2/5
We've Only Just Begun is a lovely song, and the modal shift in the chorus is great. From there though, it's all downhill. The cover of Help is just woeful - I'm not a fan of pre-Rubber Soul Beatles, but that is terrible.
Also, the cover of Alan Partridge's Close To You is unnecessary.
New Order
3/5
It's not horrible, but it's not great, and the vocals are pretty terrible. If I'm going to listen to New Order it's going to be Blue Monday or True Faith, not anything from this album.
Sepultura
5/5
Really good album, I guess less so if you aren't at least a bit of a metalhead. The production is excellent with a proper bottom end driving the whole thing along. It's long, overlong probably and that does go against it, but it is still a great record with very few missteps - i coukd live without Canyon Jam, or at least not all 13 minutes of it, but thats the only dip.
Willie Nelson
2/5
I really don't know about this one. Willie Nelson is a legend, but this is a collection of covers of songs that I just don't particularly like. I don't get it, and I didn't really enjoy it.
Ray Charles
2/5
The voice is great, but I just find this type of music so very, very boring.
LCD Soundsystem
4/5
This is so much better than a lot of the reviews implied. Decent electronica, although it is overly long - and it's not like there are tons of tracks it's just that they individually go on for a bit too long, each one. Having said that I did enjoy it quite a lot - not 5 stars, but a good 4.
Madness
3/5
As a child growing up in Britain in the 80s, Madness were a part of the cultural wallpaper. As I grew older they became the staple of office Christmas parties, where 50 year old sales managers would try and recapture their distant youth by doing the nutty boy dance to One Step Beyond or Baggy Trousers. As such, this has been my total exposure to Madness.
This album is better and more nuanced than I thought it would be. The singles Our House and Tomorrow's (Just Another Day) are good, but they are not alone on this album. There is a lot to enjoy here, it's far better than I expected.
David Bowie
1/5
Bowie had to be trolling us here, right? He thought to himself "right, I've got this Radiohead rip-off of an album that sounds like someone doing a parody of me, and I've got a week to live. If I put this out just before I go toes up then people are going to be tricked into praising it, rather than pointing out it's a bit shit. You can't speak ill of the dead, right!"
Also, it's only 41 minutes, but it seems to go on forever, especially 'I Can't Give Everything Away' which ends with around 4 to 5 weeks of him bleating about how he can't give everything away. We get it, Jones, we heard you the first time, and also read the title of the sodding song.
Johnny Cash
5/5
I've never been a Country fan (I'm British, we don't do that kind of thing over here) ... but God damn, I like Johnny Cash.
Queen
3/5
Queen to me are a bit like Guns 'n' Roses - a huge reputation based on a few songs, although Queen do have a lot more than GnR do. They are fine, technically gifted musicians front to back, if a bit pedestrian ... but a singer who could elevate mundane lyrics into magic. Take Your My Best Friend, for example. Now, I love the song, but the lyrics are pretty simplistic, and the music is nothing special, but Freddie lifted it to something brilliant. I'm In Love With My Car, however, is a different story. Ignore the lyrics, and musically it's a pretty good rocker - but Roger Taylor singing doesn't add anything. I'm not saying if Mercury had done it it would have been good (the lyrics make sure of that), but it would have been better.
Tl;Dr- Queen are a bit over-hyped, and the album is fine but not amazing.
Cheap Trick
4/5
I had never knowingly heard Cheap Trick before, and didn't know what to expect. And, actually, this is surprisingly enjoyable in a 'this is a bit shit and predictable, but it's making me smile' way. I'm no fan of live albums, and especially not self indulgent Deep Purple 'Made in Japan' bullshit, but the bridge section between Need Your Love and Ain't That A Shame is great, and Surrender is a genuinely good song ... but then I listen a bit harder and it sounds a bit like Status Quo, Suzi Quattro and Showaddywaddy blended together into some weird showband and put out this album. But, then again, I seem to quite like that.
Alice Cooper
2/5
Somebody seems to have replaced the album with a recording of a local am-dram society performing an acid-tinged reimagination of West Side Story.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
Nice is the word that I think of when listening to Stevie Wonder. His upbeat stuff is nice and jaunty, his slower stuff is nice and soulful ... but nice is just that. Nice. Not amazing. Not brilliant. Not great, or even good -just, nice.
Talking Heads
5/5
I'm about 350 albums in, and the best thing the project has given me is a total live for Talking Heads. This is my third Talking Heads album, and it's my third 5 stars. Excellent, through and through.
Oh, and Once In A Lifetime is one of the best songs ever written.
Coldplay
2/5
It all sounds like incidental music from a particularly dull episode of Hollyoaks.
Circle Jerks
3/5
It doesn't have great musical proficiency, but what do you expect from a 15-minute punk album? It's not at all bad.
New York Dolls
4/5
Really enjoyable proto-punk-glam-rock. If you can't get behind the energy, attitude and enthusiasm here you probably need to stick to Steely Dan and ironing your underpants.
The Cramps
2/5
I like punk, but I don't like surf rock, and I think my dislike of surf rock outweighs my liking for punk here. I wanted to enjoy this more, but just didn't.
Jethro Tull
5/5
I think Ian Anderson's flute is a little bit like Lemmy's warts - identifiable, and the thing that people who don't know either artist, know. But, in both cases, they are extremely incidental to the majesty of the artist, and in some ways detract from them.
Anyway, this album is incredible - I'd only listened to one Tull album before, but I'm revisiting the rest of the catalogue, as this is now one of my favourite albums of all time.
The Who
3/5
There is such a thing as 'too much Keith Moon.'
Justice
3/5
I'm not much of an EDM fan but this is perfectly pleasant, although it does get a bit repetitive and draggy towards the end.
k.d. lang
2/5
God damn but this is dreary. There's no denying she can really sing, but a 40s / 50s inflected collection of country covers is very far from my cup of tea, and I doubt its validity in this list.
Megadeth
4/5
I was never a Megadeth fan, because I bought into the whole Mustaine / Metallica feud thing, and I loved Metallica. That's my loss, as this is a great album. I'm knocking off a point because I'm not a fan of super-shreddy arpeggio lead guitar (sorry Marty), but that's still a 4.
ZZ Top
2/5
This album has all of the worst hallmarks of the 80s - massive over production, too much crappy synth, over-gated electronic drum sounds that just go 'dik-dik-dik-dik' ... The whole thing makes me feel like I'm wearing a shiny suit with the sleeves pushed to the elbows, and (judging by the lyrical content) some old man's cum stains on the crotch.
Billy Gibbons is a great guitarist. Frank Beard is a shit drummer. Dusty Hill was on the album too.
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
Look, it's a good album, with some great songs ... but for me the second half really tails off and I just don't see it as one of the greatest albums ever made. I think the legend of the album is why people rate it so highly, but it just isn't that amazing. It's a good 4, but not a 5, and nowhere near the best ever.
Bad Company
3/5
OK, I Suppose Company.
Hole
3/5
Grunge was the music of my youth and my generation, and I do like it ... but I lean more towards the Pearl Jam end of the spectrum rather than the Nirvana end, and this is (probably unsurprisingly) very Nirvana-y. It's OK, I didn't dislike it, but it was just there. Nothing stood out for me.
Kraftwerk
5/5
My lunchtime walk around Telford town centre felt like I was in Bladerunner. I mean it does, anyway, but this added to it.
5/5 would hunt replicants whilst not realising I was a replicant myself again.
Metallica
5/5
James Hetfield isn't the reason I play guitar, but he is the reason I play rhythm guitar - his playing on Disposable Heroes and Leper Messiah is some of the best rhythm playing ever laid down. Great album.
Johnny Cash
4/5
I'm a British, dyed in the wool indie-kid and metal-head, but god damn do I love me some Johnny Cash.
M.I.A.
1/5
If I wanted to listen to an angry Londoner shout over dial-up Internet sounds I'd go and listen to, well, I don't actually know because recording and releasing something like that would be mental.
I had the other (because for some reason there are two albums on the list) M.I.A album a while ago, and it got 1 star. This album is worse.
Dagmar Krause
2/5
I'm not going to pretend I listened to all of this, because I could only find it on YouTube and no-one's got time for that. What I did listen to wasn't bad, per se, but it was very fucking weird.
MGMT
3/5
This is not good, and it's not bad, it's just OK. Time to Pretend is the absolute stand-out, and as the opener it just means everything else is not as good. Also, I can never not hear "That's a lovely bit of cheese, Grommit" in the chorus of Kids. This may or may not be a good thing.
Prince
2/5
I just don’t get the fuss about the dirty little puppy that was Prince. Everything is just so overlong, and so much is repetitive and never really goes anywhere, and it just bores the wrinkly tits off me. The one high point was the somewhat-out-of-left-field rocker The Cross, which has an incredible drum sound, but even then I was getting bored. It just does not tickle my pickle.
Cat Stevens
4/5
Avery pleasant little album, with some good songs.
The Cure
3/5
It starts off very nice, but it is all a bit samey. Not bad by any stretch, but that’s it.
The Offspring
3/5
I like punk, but this is very 90s in that’s it’s very clean, very well produced, and not quite the same. It’s not bad, but I much prefer The Misfits, Pistols, or Ramones over this.
Neil Young
3/5
I’m listening to this on a dull December morning, and this album is a bright and breezy day of an album, which is lovely. I like Neil Young, and this album is nice enough - but I’m not sure we need this one on the list when there is already plenty of his other stuff there.
Jimmy Smith
2/5
I really do not like jazz. This is not really awful, but fuck my hat is it dull.
The White Stripes
2/5
Jack White really does seem to think he’s better than he actually is. A long way short of the White Stripes best.
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
It’s ok, but it’s stylistically all over the place. Not bad, but of all the Neil Young-adjacent albums on this list this was one of the least enjoyable I’ve listened to so far.
Paul McCartney
3/5
There are so many better McCartney solo albums than this.
The Residents
2/5
I was checking my history a couple of weeks ago and realised that, whilst I had had a good number of the highest rated albums on the list I had not had any of the lowest. The next day, I got Dagmar Krause’s Tank Battles, and today I got this.
I was happier two weeks ago.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
I may have misheard, but I suspect someone’s baby maybe done made other plans.
I feel a bit bad, but Stevie Wonder just doesn’t do much for me. Superstition is, by any metric, an absolute cracker and I Believe (etc etc) is wonderful, but the rest of this just falls on the wrong side of schmalzy for me. Sorry.
David Bowie
3/5
David Bowie really isn’t as good as people make out he is. Changes is good, and Life On Mars is great, but Kooks and Andy Warhol are just a bit shit, and the rest is forgettable. It’s three stars not two, but it’s only just three.
Screaming Trees
3/5
“Mum, mum - can we have Pearl Jam?”
“We’ve got Pearl Jam at home.”
3/5
I just don’t understand the vast volumes of smoke that gets blown up Bowie’s arse. This is fine, Starman and Ziggy Stardust are good tracks, but the rest is just … there. It’s fine, but no better.
Tori Amos
3/5
Really don’t have much to say - it’s ok, it goes on far too long, and I really couldn’t be doing with the unaccompanied vocal of Me and a Gun (not a judgement on the vocal itself, she can surely sing, but it just really annoyed me). Very, very mid.
Beastie Boys
3/5
I’m no fan of hip-hop, and this is nothing more than fine. It’s very shouty and very brash, but it’s not terrible, and rhythmically it is really good. Still, I’m not likely to head back.
Sister Sledge
2/5
If you’ve heard the singles (and who hasn’t?) then you’ve heard the best this album has to offer. I get why the album is on the list, and don’t begrudge its place, but don’t make me listen to this repetitive shite any more, please.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
Siouxsie Sioux has a great voice and delivery, but this album does become a bit samey as it goes on. It’s not bad, but it’s not as good as some of their later stuff such as ‘Juju’.
Faust
2/5
It’s just … noise, really, a lot of this. It’s not dreadful, but I didn’t really enjoy it.
Jacques Brel
2/5
Not being a confident French speaker probably hurts my enjoyment of this. I knew Amsterdam through the Scott Walker version, but everything else is new to me, and it’s … it’s music, I guess. Didn’t hate it, didn’t enjoy it, never listening to it again.
Rage Against The Machine
4/5
I bought this when it came out on the strength of Killing In The Name Of, but didn’t really gel with it. Now, thirty-some years later I’m a much more cynical and disillusioned person, and this really hits hard. It’s pretty heavily front-end loaded, but it is still solid and enjoyable throughout.
Van Halen
3/5
There are three songs here that are significantly better known than everything else, and it’s easy to see why as the quality outside of Jump, Panama and Hot For Teacher takes a massive nosedive.
Technically gifted as EVH is his playing is all flash and little substance for me - if you want a guitarist known by three initials start looking at SRV instead.
Mid-rate, poodle rock, ‘hey ma, look how good at meedly-meedly solos I am!” uber-American inconsequential ear-botherers.
Miles Davis
2/5
Background music to the character creation screen of a Temu Sims knock-off.
Goldfrapp
2/5
Alison Goldfrapp has an excellent voice, but holy shit is this dull.
Abdullah Ibrahim
2/5
Sounds like a colliery brass band doing covers of obscure TV themes and playground songs. That isn’t a good thing.
David Bowie
2/5
I think that there might have been some recording interrupting Bowie’s arduous cocaine sessions for this. A staggeringly long 38 minutes of music.
Dolly Parton
3/5
This is both very lightweight in terms of music, but really pretty fucking heavy on lyrical content. Pleasant but not amazing.
Eels
4/5
Great album. I bought it when it came out on the strength of Novocaine For the Soul, I wasn’t disappointed then and I’m not disappointed now.
The Adverts
4/5
I like punk, and this is definitely punk, but it’s punk with surprisingly high production values. Good album.
Weather Report
2/5
“Too jazzy?”
“It is a bit too jazzy.”
Metallica
5/5
My favourite Metallica album, and one I’ve loved for thirty-some years. Yes, the bass is non-existent, and arguably Master of Puppets is a ‘better’ album but that doesn’t matter - as a body of work it is simply great.
Michael Jackson
2/5
Yeah, the clue here is in the title …
Everything about this is so affected and dated, and it’s just so boring and bland. The high-gated drums. The horrid synth bass. The syrupy over-production. Jackson ticking ‘ooh’, or ‘hee’, or ‘cha’, or ‘chamone’, or ending every word with an extraneous ‘-ah’. Everything just comes together in one horrible cloying glop like a really unpleasant dog-egg that has worked its way into the tread of your boot and leaves its subtle perfume everywhere.
Says a lot when I give an album a roasting and don’t mention that the artist was likely a paedo. Hee-hee! Cha! OW!
Nirvana
3/5
I should be Nirvana’s prime fan base - I was late teens when they blew up, was a metal-head, and I like grunge … I just don’t really like Nirvana. They’re ok but I never got the hype, and this is missing the big singles that lifted Nevermind. It’s fine, but I’m unlikely to go back.
The Kinks
3/5
It’s ok. I think, like a lot of ‘legendary’ ‘60s bands, The Kinks benefitted from first-mover advantage and their status has been cemented as far greater than it would be if they were formed today. It’s far from bad, but it’s far from good as well, it’s just very mid. Waterloo Sunset stands so far above the rest of the album in quality that it really shows how average the rest is.
Ms. Dynamite
2/5
I have two major issues with this album. Firstly, I derived absolutely no pleasure from listening to all 61 minutes of this album. It didn’t upset me or make me angry, it was just rubbish and filled my ears with sounds that I have no desire to ever come across again. And, secondly, I don’t see it as deserving of a place on this list at all. I don’t think it was groundbreaking, and I don’t think it was hugely influential, and as an artist Ms Dynamite was very short-lived as high profile, even in the UK. I can promise anyone who cares that if I had died yesterday my last thoughts would not have been “oh cock, I didn’t get around to hearing ‘A Little Deeper’ by Ms Dynamite! I’d best hang around a bit longer.”
Depeche Mode
4/5
Really good album. Personal Jesus and Enjoy The Silence are clear standouts, but the rest is great as well.
John Coltrane
2/5
One thing this project has taught me is that I think jazz is really, really shit. There’s a bass solo in this - I didn’t enjoy it when Jason Newstead did a bass solo when Metallica played the Milton Keynes Bowl in 1993 so I’m not likely to enjoy one here. And I didn’t. Because it is shit.
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
2/5
This really is a rum egg. World music via broad Essex - I’m not saying I enjoyed it, but I didn’t not enjoy it. The weird stream of consciousness but in the middle can get back in its box, though. Very borderline 2/3.
Coldcut
2/5
What’s That Noise is about right. I found three tracks on YouTube as it’s not on Spotify, and that was enough. There’s a reason this isn’t widely available …
ZZ Top
3/5
A strange hotch-potch of stolen (Master of Sparks is basically Fleetwood Mac’s Green Manalishi) and stolen from (AC/DC clearly took a whole lot from Jesus Just Left Chicago for Ride On). It’s ok, nothing special. ZZ Top never broke into the UK, you’ll very occasionally hear Legs or Sharp Dressed Man, and I’m not overly surprised.
Janis Joplin
3/5
It’s fine. Solid, bluesy rock, and she had a remarkable, instantly recognisable voice, but it doesn’t set me on fire. It’s right on the cusp of 4, but it doesn’t quite get there.
Lupe Fiasco
2/5
Why do rap albums have to be so fucking long?! At least jazz albums generally have the good grace to release the listener after 35-45 minutes. This is 72 minutes!
Not my taste, not going back.
Cypress Hill
2/5
Rap and hippity-hop are never going to be my tempo, but this is not over long, and some of the samples are enjoyable. Still never going to listen to it again, though.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
1/5
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Tim Buckley
3/5
Tim Buckley is that bleak prick who turns up at a house party with an acoustic when all everyone wants is to drink, get stoned, and fuck.
This is fine, but completely unremarkable.
Red Snapper
3/5
It’s not bad, but I’m never going to listen to it again. It goes on way too long, but it didn’t totally bore me or make me irrationally angry so it’s a low three, I think.
Bonnie Raitt
2/5
I’m not sure why she is fingering a Fleshlight on the cover, but it’s the most interesting thing about the album.
Randy Newman
3/5
Nothing special, but refreshingly short. Somewhat ironic considering Mr Newman’s professed opinions on short things.
Sly & The Family Stone
3/5
Excellent production, great musicianship, boring bollocks.
Dr. John
3/5
This is OK - nothing really stands out but it’s a cool enough vibe. I don’t know if I’ll search it out again, but if I heard it I wouldn’t be sorry.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
It’s ok 80s pop. My sister had this and it was in the car tape deck when I was a kid, but nothing other than It’s A Sin is even slightly familiar, which says a lot about the music, I think.
Eminem
3/5
72 minutes. 72 fucking minutes of a successful famous man whining about the problems of success and fame.
Still, it’s well delivered, and the production is clean as - I’m tempted to knock a star off for popularising Dido but that would be churlish. I’m very unlikely to listen to it again, but it wasn’t total shite.
The Thrills
2/5
County Leitrim (You’re Not That Far).
An album of chemically pure mediocrity.
Lightning Bolt
3/5
Odd one, this. On the one hand it is, basically, what old people say about modern music in that it is just noise. On the other hand it has some interesting motifs and rhythms buried in there. Not bad, but not something I’d likely want to listen to actively again.
Goldfrapp
3/5
It’s fine. Alison Goldfrapp’s voice is excellent, but the music is just a bit meh. It starts to get more interesting towards the end when it drifts away from the folky-type stylings, but nothing remarkable.
Pixies
3/5
Hmmmm. Massively influential band, but really not a great album. It is very rough around the edges, and there are some flashes of quality, notably in Gigantic and Broken Face, but overall not great.
Meat Loaf
4/5
It’s stupid, overblown, bombastic bullshit, but by god is it entertaining. And there is no denying that Meat Loaf had a hell of a pair of pipes. And bitch tits.
Boards of Canada
2/5
Well, it’s not terrible but it is quite repetitive and dull, and a lot of the tracks don’t really develop into anything. It really reminds me of menu background music from a sci-fi video game.
John Lee Hooker
3/5
I like the blues. I really like the blues. This is not really the blues, and it’s clearly demonstrated on the opener, a collaboration with Carlos Santana, which basically becomes a Santana song. Also, the 80s production really does everything dirty. When this finished Spotify served me some Muddy Waters, and that really showed up how un-blues like this album actually is. It’s not bad, but I’m sure it has to be towards the bottom of John Lee Hooker’s quality.
Talking Heads
3/5
I do like Talking Heads, and I enjoyed the album … but I really don’t remember anything about it.
The Undertones
4/5
Classic punk record - turns up, does its stuff really well (and surprisingly well produced, too), and fucks off leaving you wanting more. Great Friday album.
Cowboy Junkies
2/5
Rejected background music for Twin Peaks.
Kanye West
1/5
‘What’s this song about, Ye?’
‘I’m just so fuckin’ steamed about not having any CROISSANTS!’
Fucking dog shit.
Syd Barrett
2/5
This is not a good album, not even close. If it was anyone other than Syd Barrett I very much doubt it would even have been released, let alone made its way on to the list. I like Pink Floyd, but only after Barrett was no longer involved.
Leonard Cohen
3/5
Very much not his best work, but it’s ok. Nothing more than middling.
The Auteurs
3/5
Pffffffff … it’s ok. I’m reviewing so many of these albums like this, but it’s true. It’s not bad. It’s not good. It’s there, and that’s ok.
Napalm Death
3/5
I can understand the low rating, as this is an extreme genre, and very early in the genre’s birth at that. Having said that I don’t think it deserves the roasting it gets - I’m not going to listen again, but there were some interesting elements here that I enjoyed. However, a bit like Trout Mask Replica, or We’re Only In It For The Money it’s very different to a standard type of album.
Peter Gabriel
3/5
This album definitely shows a transition from the much proggier Genesis stuff and also from Car, and starts to sound more like So. A good album, Games Without Frontiers is a great tune, and the whole thing hangs together well.
Beyoncé
2/5
This is music just to make money, not music just to make music. No soul. No passion. No heart.
No, thank you.
Sade
2/5
Great voice, outstanding production, boring as fuck.
Queen Latifah
2/5
This is just so lacking in edge - cosy hip-hop. Not my genre, and not interesting enough for me to like it.
The Dictators
4/5
Those French pretenders and their silly plastic hats aren’t daft punk - THIS is daft punk! Really enjoyable album, with some surprisingly excellent guitar work.
Doves
3/5
This is fine, but it’s very bland, and absolutely nothing stands out. Also, does it need to be 59 minutes? They don’t say anything in the extra 15 minutes that they couldn’t have said in a standard 45.
Jeff Buckley
3/5
If Jeff Buckley had been a better swimmer he would have been forgotten by now.
Throwing Muses
3/5
It’s ok - very Siouxsie and the Banshees, but not quite as good. Also, the Spotify link sort of works - the first ten tracks are the same as the album.
The Cardigans
2/5
I didn’t think the world needed an acid jazz cover of Sabbath’s Iron Man. I still don’t, but now that view is based on direct experience rather than conjecture.
David Bowie
3/5
I can confidently say I just don’t get the hype around Bowie. This is the fifth album of his I’ve had so far, and it’s just very mid, very forgettable pap. He had some outstanding individual tunes, but so much just passes by. This album doesn’t even have the benefit of a standout track, everything is just sort of … there. It’s limping over the line into a 3, and only just, because while there is nothing particularly good here, there’s also nothing particularly bad. It’s all so mediocre.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
I must admit my heart sank when I saw another Elvis Costello album today … but this is pretty good. Oliver’s Army is a great tune, and it isn’t alone here. However, there is a bit of filler, and if there was one less of this and one more good song then I think it would be a 4. As it is it’s a 3, but a high one.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
3/5
This is fine. Janis Joplin has the voice, and blues rock is my thing, but it doesn’t completely connect for me. It’s not at all bad, and I enjoyed it - but I also cannot remember a single thing about it except for the adequate cover of Piece of my Heart. It’s a high 3, but a 3 nonetheless.
Tom Waits
3/5
An odd record for me. Blues / jazz spoken word, which intros to each ‘song’ that are barely distinguishable from the actual song itself. Not bad, but I would definitely need to be in a certain mood, and I’m not sure what that mood actually would be, to want to listen again.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
It’s ok, it’s Neil Young, and all Neil Young sounds a bit samey. It’s over-long, and a lot of that length could be cut out by slimming down the bland instrumental breaks in the middle of songs, and by getting rid of the stupid almost-feedback-but-not-quite open mic / pickups that comprises the last couple of minutes of a surprising number of these songs.
Goldie
1/5
I haven’t spent an hour and fifty-three minutes in close proximity to so much shit since I came down with dysentery in the Atlas Mountains.
Beach House
2/5
Not bad, not good, not even particularly boring it’s just uninteresting.
Pavement
3/5
This is ok, if unremarkable. I don’t get why this has been singled out for inclusion ahead of many other identikit indie rock albums that sound like they are from The OC OST.
Harry Nilsson
3/5
Ken Lee, ee libidibidouchoo.
Ash
4/5
There was a massive buzz around Ash in the UK when this came out, but they never really seemed to properly take off. This is a good album though, but maybe that’s more a memory thing for me, as I was in my early twenties when it came out.
Big Black
3/5
Not bad, but it’s a little too industrial for my proper enjoyment. I prefer my punk a little grittier.
Ray Price
2/5
If you quickly glance at the cover it really looks like that woman is giving him a blowie. Also, this music is more than a little bit shit.
MC Solaar
2/5
It’s better than I expected it to be, but my expectations of French hip-hop were benthonically low.
Minor Threat
4/5
I wish I had realised sooner how much I like punk. Great album, spiky, harsh, angry, vibrant, powerful. If you don’t like this you’re probably part of the establishment.
The Dandy Warhols
3/5
When this started I was thinking this could be my first 5-star in a loooong time - but as it wound on the quality took a major downward trajectory. It never gets bad, but it does get uninspiring, and to end an already overlong album with 15 minutes of navel-gazing instrumentals that rival Deep Purple at their own-fart-sniffing best just drops it down pretty hard. Shame.
Happy Mondays
3/5
I wanted this to be better than it was. The Mondays are hugely important to the Baggie / Madchester / Indie scene of the early 90s, but this is really just so very … meh.
Love
5/5
Such a fantastic album, and one I’ve loved for a long time, but Arthur Lee must have had some properly dark shit going around his head when he wrote this.
Brian Eno
3/5
This is perfectly pleasant but feels a little directionless. I had ‘Here Come the Warm Jets’ earlier in the project and loved it, this is just ok.
Richard Thompson
4/5
I really enjoyed this. It’s a little bit countrified, which is a bit surprising from a British duo, but it also has some really nice folky elements come through. Overall, very pleasant.
The Smiths
3/5
Ste, Ste, Ste. Ste, we get it - you were subjected to corporal punishment at school and didn’t like it. A lot of people were, and I’m going to say most of them didn’t like it either. You aren’t special.
I quite like a The Smiths, but I have to admit it’s in an Alan Partridge-esque “Very Best of The Smiths” kind of way. Give me the good tunes, filter out the filler - I think the fact that only ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore’ is regularly anthologised in best ofs kind of sets out where I stand on this. No better than ok, the self-titled debut and The Queen Is Dead are both far superior.
Rod Stewart
2/5
This is such a mediocre album. Nothing good, nothing particularly bad, nothing to write home about. Boring, bland, entirely unmemorable.
The Mars Volta
3/5
Hmmmm. I like prog. Actually, I LOVE prog. But it’s ‘70s prog I love, and really this isn’t something I could get my head around. I feel bad, and may give it another go quite soon because it wasn’t bad, but I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it, either.
The Pretty Things
3/5
This should be right up my street, but it doesn’t quite land. Reminded me in parts of a greatly inferior ‘Days of Future Passed’ which I think is a massive omission when this album is included.
The Beta Band
2/5
Perhaps the most beige album I’ve ever heard. If the cover had just been a stencilled ‘Live Laugh Love’ I wouldn’t have been surprised.
American Music Club
3/5
It’s perfectly pleasant, but nothing more. Reminded me of Counting Crowd in parts, and Sheryl Crow. Quite a crow heavy review, really.
Korn
2/5
Pros: for a heavy and heavily distorted album the production is really crisp and clear, so much so that you can actually hear every word.
Cons: for a heavy and heavily distorted album the production is really crisp and clear, so much so that you can actually hear every word.
Pixies
3/5
I’ve never got the fuss about Pixies - I was into rock and metal at the birth of grunge and before, but out of all the early grunge bands and influences it was only Pearl Jam that I liked, although I have since discovered Bob Mould.
This is ok, but absolutely inconsequential for me. I doubt I’ll ever spin it again.
I got this album this morning, and then later that day got diagnosed with glaucoma. Listening to U2 was the worst part of the day.
The Doors
4/5
Whilst The Doors recorded some brilliant, brilliant stuff they also recorded some really unenjoyable shit. This album is no different, but when they hit their poetic majesty, especially on Crawling King Snake and Riders on the Storm, it’s good enough to outweigh the crap and keep it in the ‘really good album’ slot. There’s too much crap for it to be 5 stars, but it isn’t far away.
Björk
2/5
Weird electro-dance-jazz own-fart-sniffing. We are all supposed to like Bjork because she’s a proper artist. I just think she’s bonkers.
2/5
I’m guessing that the reason that this is on the list is because it’s Serbian, and from a time of major conflict in the region. However, it’s still a bit shit and nondescript, and for sure doesn’t need to run over an hour.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
I had never listened to a Springsteen album before, but this was really enjoyable. Powerful messages delivered simply and effectively. A very good album.
fIREHOSE
3/5
14 tracks in 31 minutes? Ok, this has to be punk or hardcore - excellent!
Yeah, not quite. It’s not bad, not at all, but it’s quite forgettable. It was ok, but I’d have been way happier if it had been punk.
Isaac Hayes
2/5
I really have no idea why this is on the list. Soundtracks are an odd choice, and if you’ve got this one why not Saturday Night Fever or Who Made Who as well? Massively over long and a bit shit does not make me love this.
Judas Priest
4/5
Of all the big players in the NWOBHM, Priest were the one that passed me by. I didn’t hate the music, but the image was just a little too overblown for me (and how anyone was surprised when Rob Halford came out is amazing). Listening now, a few decades later, I can see why they were so big. It’s not quite my flavour of metal, but it’s a really good album. Happy today.
Finley Quaye
1/5
As 10cc (almost) said I don’t like reggae, because reggae is shit. This isn’t even really reggae, but what it lacks in authenticity it makes up for with a Jafaican accent that, if a white artist had done it rather than one whose heritage is Ghanaian, would have been called out for audible blackface.
A horrible cold turd of an album.
Khaled
3/5
It’s fair to say I didn’t have high hopes for this - nearly an hour and twenty minutes of Algerian pop, with an average rating of around 2.5 on the site. However, it comfortably exceeded those hopes. It’s not great by any stretch, but it’s also not bad at all. I suppose the 2.5 score is probably about right, as it is very ok, but I’m going on the high side of it.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
I simply don’t get the Rolling Stones. Warmed over, derivative, stolen blues, the only reason they are revered is because they did it first. It’s not bad, but that’s only because it’s inoffensive sonic wallpaper. Beige music.
Spiritualized
2/5
So much of this album was spent going ‘seriously? What the fuck is this self-indulgent shithousery?!’
It’s not bad, and it would almost be background music if it didn’t spend so much of the run time jumping up and down and trying to draw attention to how very very interesting the artist was trying to be. Never listening to it again, it left no impression on me whatsoever.
Dennis Wilson
4/5
Whilst nowhere near a brilliant album, it’s solidly in the ‘really good’ bracket. I’ve always thought the Beach Boys were inconsistent and over-rated - not bad, but not the musical geniuses they were lauded as. This solo effort by the other Wilson brother though is a most enjoyable listen, maybe if he’d picked his friends better, or maybe been a better swimmer, we could have had more.
Radiohead
5/5
This is not my favourite Radiohead album, but even Pablo Honey would get at least 4 stars. Pyramid Song and Morning Bell/Amnesiac are absolutely sublime, and the rest is really good.
Pentangle
4/5
Ok, I do love myself a bit of folk, but I just think this is a really good album anyway. Sandy Denny had a wonderful, ethereal voice and the music really complements it. Thoroughly enjoyed this.
Malcolm McLaren
2/5
It’s like Graceland without the wit and charm. The rampant cultural (mis)appropriation here is breathtaking, trampling over huge amounts of African and Afro-American musical styles with little seeming acknowledgement, all over-ridden by (what I’m presuming to be, but I’m struggling for confirmation) Malcolm McLaren and a horrid cod-American accent.
Having said all that, it’s not as horrible as it could be - whatever else you can say about McLaren he had an incredible ear for what people wanted to hear, and this is … ok. It’s not great at all, and the largely uncredited appropriation leaves a bad taste, but I didn’t hate it completely.
Koffi Olomide
3/5
I do like the afrobeat sound, I have done since I first heard Graceland. What Graceland has that this is lacking somewhat is a western structural songwriting style - whilst this all sounds good it is very repetitive, with songs consisting of a single rhythm pattern repeated and repeated with no bridge, verse / chorus or middle eight for variety. It’s fine, but it hangs around too long.
Patti Smith
3/5
Well, this is fine. You can see the punk elements in it, and it does have a bit of the Dylanesque about it, but neither of them are strong enough to carry the album. Not bad, but not the amazing album people hold it up to be.
Sarah Vaughan
3/5
I don’t like jazz, but of all the jazz I don’t like this is the type of jazz I don’t like the least. Inoffensive.
Dolly Parton
3/5
Apparently they were trying to make this album for around a decade. They could have saved that time and not bothered. Bland, pedestrian, inoffensive pap.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
This was the first Zeppelin album I listened to, and it’s still one of the best albums of all time. Ok, the plagiarism issues and lack of credit to the artists that made the music possible are shitty, but put that to one side and you’ve got possibly the greatest hard rock / blues rock band really starting to gather momentum. Brilliant album.
Astor Piazzolla
3/5
Incidental music for a ‘70s sci-fi thriller soft-core porno. But it was ok.
Morrissey
4/5
There has been no greater victim that Steven Morrissey knows of than Steven Morrissey. Having said that, he really has an ear for music, and his stuff generally ranges from no worse than ok, right up to gorgeous. This album is good, there is no denying it - put aside the personal qualities of the artist and just listen to som really good tunes.
Hot Chip
3/5
Well, the record happened but I remember nothing about it.
The Charlatans
3/5
I bought this when it came out, wasn’t massively impressed but thought it was fine. Listened to it today for the first time in 25-ish years, wasn’t massively impressed but thought it was fine. I was surprised by how many songs were very familiar, though.
Dead Kennedys
4/5
There’s a reason Dead Kennedys were so important to punk and hardcore, and that’s because they were formative in the movement. This isn’t brilliant, but it’s very, very good - California Uber Alles, Holiday in Cambodia, Kill the Poor are all absolute classics.
The The
3/5
I did not have high hopes going into this, but was pleasantly surprised. I’m more of a punk rather than post-punk fan, but there was enough anger and spikiness to make this pretty good, actually.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
I’ve always ragged on the song ‘Born In The USA’, mainly because it is musically the most boring song ever written - 4 notes looped in a single pattern over the whole song. I’d never really considered the lyrics, although I knew the general gist and that it was often misinterpreted as being a positive theme, but listening to the album as a whole really impressed me. Born In The USA, Dancing in the Dark, and Glory Days are all great, but the album as a whole is also really good, and one I’ll revisit.
R.E.M.
3/5
I love Out of stone and Automatic for the People, and think Monster is OK, but that was my range of REM. I had tried Green and didn’t think much of it, so wasn’t expecting a lot of this - and wasn’t surprised initially. It starts off slow and mediocre, but as it goes on it really improves and the second half of the album is really good. A definite surprise, and a pleasant one.
The Streets
3/5
An odd one, this. It’s not my type of music, and the production and Mike Skinner’s delivery is, to be blunt, a bit shit. But here’s the odd thing - it’s intended to be a bit shit, and it’s endearingly so. It probably helps being British and only a couple of years older than the protagonist of the rap opera so I find this sort of relatable, but I really didn’t hate it.
The Triffids
2/5
I had this on whilst I was making breakfast, and one of my dogs decided to shit on the floor. Cleaning that up was more memorable and enjoyable than this album.
The Velvet Underground
1/5
Gives pretentious shithousery a bad name.
B.B. King
3/5
Good blues album - the voice is incredible, and the guitar sound is great, but for some reason it didn’t grab me like Muddy Waters at Newport did.
Calexico
3/5
Well, it’s perfectly pleasant, if a little bland. I suspect this may benefit from multiple listens, but unfortunately what I listened to isn’t making me want to rush back.
Common
2/5
I’m halfway through the project, give or take, and I now know I just don’t really get on with rap or hip-hop. I’m sure this is fine, but I don’t get it and didn’t enjoy it.
The Byrds
3/5
Perfectly pleasant 60s jangle. Not amazing, but perfectly fine.
Spiritualized
2/5
This is so very repetitive, and dull. And it’s repetitive. It’s also dull, and repetitive. I do think it is repetitive, though, and dull.
Paul Simon
3/5
I like Paul Simon … but I often don’t like Paul Simon albums. This is a perfect example of why - this has one of my favourite songs of all time, Me and Julio, and a couple of other good tunes, but most of the album is inconsequential filler. As such, this can only ever be a mid-quality score.
Minutemen
4/5
This is really fun - it’s punk, but it’s also a bit proggy, and the musicianship is surprisingly good to the point it reminds me a bit of Primus (who suck). It can’t be a 5, because it’s too long, and too scattershot, but if this had been trimmed down it could easily have been up there.
Steely Dan
1/5
Steely Dan are absolutely shit.
Wilco
2/5
An hour and a quarter of unmemorable blandrock.
Ice Cube
3/5
I’m no fan of rap or hip-hop, but this is pretty good. It’s not all good by any means, but there’s some really good stuff here. It’s generally the more angry tracks that feel more authentic to me - and the fact that the anger comes from a point of frustration, oppression and a real feeling of injustice in society gives it a real edge that hits. I’m not likely to go back, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
Frank Black
3/5
This is fine, if unremarkable. I couldn’t hum you a single note from it, but I didn’t dislike it.
Moby Grape
3/5
Perfectly good protocol-psychedelic rock. Assed the time.
Michael Jackson
4/5
I’ve never been a Jackson fan, even before the raging noncery became apparent, but there is no denying that this is a good album even if it’s not my kind of music. Best ever made? Not even close. Good enough? Sure, why not.
Pretty Young Thing, though? That’s right officer, this one right here.
Paul Simon
5/5
I loved this album for a long time, but this was the first listen in a while, and it hasn’t aged wonderfully well. I don’t think it’s fair to level cultural appropriation at it, as this is largely collaborative with full credit to the artists, but the production is very 80s with the gated reverb on the drums and the synth sound is not great. Having said that, the actual writing is really strong, and You Can Call Me Al, Boy In The Bubble, Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes, Crazy Love and The Myth of Fingerprints are all really, really good songs.
The Undertones
5/5
Really good, authentic punk album. The Undertones seemed to never really get the credit they deserved.
Barry Adamson
2/5
What a weird bunch of bollocks.
Deerhunter
2/5
I cannot remember a single thing about this album.
Silver Jews
3/5
This is ok, a pretty run-of-the-mill early 2000s indie rock album, and there is no mistaking it for anything else. It’s perfectly pleasant.
Tortoise
2/5
Les and his Bontempi keyboard from Vic Reeves Big Night Out finally released an album of uninteresting noodling. I will never even think about this album again.
The Chemical Brothers
5/5
I am in no way a usual fan of EDM, but The Chemical Brothers have a different take on it, and it’s one that I really enjoyed. There’s much more of a rock-style sensibility to this than the usual “doof-doof-doof-doof”, and it works for me. At times it felt very Screamadelica-y, and that is one of my favourite albums, so today was a good day.
Orange Juice
3/5
It’s fine, but if I wanted to listen to something that sounded like Talking Heads, I’d listen to Talking Heads.
Taylor Swift
4/5
You may or may not be a fan of Taylor Swift, but it is really hard to deny that this is simply a really, really good pop album.
This is the first Taylor Swift album I’ve ever listened to, and honestly it won’t be the last. I may be a rock and metal head at heart, but I’ve always recognised great pop stuff, and this is totally that.
Elastica
3/5
A lot of the buzz when this came out seemed to be that Justine Frischmann was Damon Albarn’s other half. I didn’t think much of it at the time, and not much has changed really, although it’s better than I remember. It’s not quite punk enough, and is a bit smug but it’s ok.
The Louvin Brothers
3/5
This is a completely fine album - very of its time, and as such very dated, and it’s all a bit samey, but it passed 45 minutes (with the god-bothering extras on the end) painlessly.
Aretha Franklin
4/5
One of the greatest voices of all time, and good tunes … but it doesn’t really excite me. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t particularly love it.
Baaba Maal
3/5
Enjoyable, but hangs around too long, and I’m unlikely to ever think of this again.
Fatboy Slim
2/5
This album could be twenty minutes long and nothing would be lost. It’s not terrible, but it’s dull and incredibly repetitive. Its only strength lies in the quality of a handful of the samples, and that’s not enough for me to like this.
It does bring back memories of clubbing at university though - Norman Cook was omnipresent in the late 90s, and some of this music really soundtracked my mid twenties so it’s not all bad.
Prince
3/5
It’s ok, not quite sure if it gets to good. The best of the three Prince albums I’ve had so far on the list, not least in part that it doesn’t go on forever. The singles are part of the cultural wallpaper, but aside from that nothing is amazing. He could sure as shit play guitar, though.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
Nice enough Salsa, but it does feel a bit repetitive at times. Good for the background, but not overly exciting.
Donovan
3/5
Very average 60s tweeness from Shaun Ryder’s ex father-in-law.
David Bowie
2/5
I really am done with Bowie. Every album has maybe one or two good tracks with the rest shit, and yet smoke gets blown so far up his arse he ends up looking like Mt Etna. I’m glad he’s dead.
Shuggie Otis
2/5
Soundtrack to a Ralph Bakshincartoon porno.
The Beach Boys
2/5
I think we need to have a full and frank discussion around the fact that the American Cultural Hegemony has made the world believe the Beach Boys are a great band, when, under real observation, they are creepy and formulaic shit.
R.E.M.
4/5
Really enjoyable album. My REM knowledge was basically Automatic For The People, Out Of Time and Monster, but I knew both The One I Love and It’s The End Of The World As We Know It from this album, and I really liked the rest of it too. Happy day.
Janelle Monáe
3/5
Well, it’s fine, but I don’t remember it at all. And I’m not sure it needed well over an hour of my time.
4/5
I’m a simple man - I get served a punk album, and I’m likely to be happy. This was proven true again today.
The Cars
3/5
Perfectly pleasant American rock, but nothing special.
Klaxons
3/5
I mean, it’s ok … but it’s very unremarkable and there is absolutely no requirement to have heard this before dying.
Burning Spear
2/5
10cc were half right. I don’t like reggae, because reggae is shit.
Ice T
3/5
I’m not a fan of rap, but this is ok. Hugely overlong, but at least there aren’t too many stupid skits. It’s fine.
Sly & The Family Stone
3/5
It’s perfectly fine, but not really my lane.
The Lemonheads
4/5
This came out when I was 17, and is very much of its time so it really reminds me of my youth. It is by no means outstanding, but it’s perfectly good pop, and I enjoyed it.
The Cult
3/5
The most egregious faux-American accent since John Osbourne started talking about dangerous pigs. This is fine - I never liked the Cult at the time, seeing them as music for poseurs and girls, but this is ok. Solid heavy rock, although it is all a bit samey. Not quite a 4, but a very high 3.
Sebadoh
2/5
Weird, in a frankly quite shit way. It’s a bit like Nirvana / Pixies, but not quite committed to it fully - it isn’t quiet-loud, more quiet-not quite as quiet. A bit rubbish.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
It’s fine in its post-punk new-wavey way, but it’s borne terribly exiting, and doesn’t have any standout tracks like some of their other stuff. I didn’t hate it.
Funkadelic
4/5
Yeah, it’s pretty good - I’m not massively into this kind of thing but I can tell good music, and I enjoyed this. Better than Maggot Brain (which I was underwhelmed by), not as good as Mothership Connection (which I loved).
T. Rex
4/5
Good album, this - a really solid early glam blast, with some really great tunes. The flow feels a bit off for me, and that stops it being a 5, but it is really close. Definitely a keeper.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
5/5
Why true crime now?
Hail Gein!
The Black Keys
5/5
I don’t get some of the reviews here - rated 3.6 at the moment, but 75% of the top reviews are absolutely ragging it.
I really enjoyed this - a really good rock album, and one I will definitely be coming back to great stuff.
Country Joe & The Fish
3/5
It’s ok. It would probably be better if I was baked out of my gourd, but I’ve got work today, so …
Taylor Swift
3/5
It’s impossible to deny that Taylor Swift has a really lovely voice … but this is all rather dull, certainly nowhere near interesting enough to keep me occupied for an hour. It’s not bad, not even close, but it is quite dull.
Aphex Twin
3/5
It feels bad calling it background music, but really that’s what it is, and it’s pretty good at being it. Nice enough.
Gary Numan
3/5
Gary Numan is older than Gary Oldman.
3 stars.
Björk
2/5
Lush soundscapes, incredibly produced with an ethereal voice over the top … but overall a bit shit.
2/5 - would get smashed in the face by a tiny Icelandic woman wearing a swan again.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
Really good album, but not quite great. There are some great tracks but overall it’s a little too uneven for a full complement of stars. Obviously the guitar playing is superb - Hendrix just has so much feel and is so comfortable with the instrument it barely seems like he is playing, it’s more like it’s just coming out of him - but what I think is sometimes overlooked is how great a singer he was as well. If this was a little more consistent in quality, and if we had a little more of the outtro to Little Wing, this would have been 5. As it is it’s a really strong 4.
Pere Ubu
3/5
Not what I expected but not terrible. I’m much more of a punk fan than post-punk / new wave, but this has enough punk about it that it is listenable to. Once.
Neil Young
3/5
It’s fine but left no real impression on me.
Ozomatli
5/5
Really, really enjoyed this. Had to track it down on YouTube, and some of it isn’t there but what I heard I could not fault. Excellent.
LCD Soundsystem
2/5
This may be the most early 2000s album I’ve ever heard. It’s like Talking Heads without the charisma or talent.
Roxy Music
3/5
You would never miss the Brian Eno influence on this album, despite having quit the band the year previously. This is just a bit weird, and not particularly enjoyable - I’m not quite sure what it is trying to be. Lovely norks, though.
SZA
2/5
Well, this was a load of pussy-obsessed shit, wasn’t it?
TLC
2/5
I had Ctrl by SZA yesterday, which was released 24 years after this. They could have been released on the same day for the amount of artistic progress made between the two exceedingly similar albums.
This is less obsessed with minge, which is probably a sign of the sensibilities of the times, and it has Waterfalls which is an objectively good song, so it is better than SZA. Not enough to go up a star, but it’s a high 2 as opposed to a low one.
Sonic Youth
2/5
Someone seems to have listened to too much Jesus And Mary Chain
Garbage
3/5
This is ok, though it’s pretty standard non-descript mid-90s indie rock. Stupid Girl and Only Happy When It Rains are great though.
Pantera
4/5
I loved this when it came out, and periodically revisit it. Really strong groove metal album, and Dimebag’s (although he was still Diamond at this point) shredding is outstanding.
Phil Anselmo has proven to be a bit of an, erm, ‘difficult character’, and listening to some of the lyrics here with awareness of some of his apparent views does really make you wonder.
However, having said that, it’s still a great album. RIP Vinnie and Darrell.
Germs
2/5
I love punk, and I recognise how influential Germs were to a lot of the alternative and grunge bands that followed them … but this is not a good punk album. Yes, a lot of punk’s raison d’etre is to be anti-establishment and part of that is not being technically polished, but there’s not being technically polished and then there’s being a pretty musically shit band. Pat Smear went on to greater things, but Darby Crash was simply not a good vocalist at all, and that really gives the album an even-rougher-than-rough feel.
It’s a shame, but there is little to like about this album.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
I don’t quite know why Joni Mitchell does nothing for me. On the face of it she should be right up my street - folkish singer songwriter with a great voice, but it just doesn’t spark anything in me.
Joni Mitchell
1/5
“I went to Staten Island to buy a mandolin” - yep, you sound like the kind of arsehole that would buy a mandolin.
Fuck me, it’s like Colin Robinson decided to stop being on What We Do In The Shadows and record an album instead. My ring doorbell went off about halfway through the first several months of listening to this and that livened everything up considerably.
Lou Reed
4/5
Let’s get this out of the way - Lou Reed seems to be one of the spikiest, least pleasant people on earth, and is also a crap singer. Further, the first track is very shit.
But then the rest of the album waddles along, and is extremely enjoyable. Really good psychedelic rock, and it fits Reed’s voice and persona well. I like this, crying children and all.
Queen
3/5
Gunpowder, gelatine … what the fuck has jelly got to do with anything here? Did they really confuse ‘gelatine’ with ‘gelignite’ - at least two of these people were supposed to be scientists! And don’t say it fucks the rhyme - all they would need to do is switch the next line to ‘laser beam with some dynamite’ and it works. I accept bank transfers or PayPal, messrs May, Taylor and Deacon.
My problem with Queen is that, although they are regarded as one of the greatest bands of all time, I have a feeling that this is based on the first two Greatest Hits collections and the Live Aid performance. A lot of the albums are so inconsistent that it’s hard to pin them down - are they rock, or rock and roll, or prog, or opera, or disco, or funk, or vaudeville, or pop, or heavy rock? On this album alone they go from sounding like the Beach Boys to Judas Priest in the space of two songs. Just pick a lane - you are all excellent musicians, but I never know what I’m going to get, and I can’t really be bothered with their albums.
Pixies
3/5
I’ve never got the hype around Pixies - they have the occasional good track, and influenced a lot of later bands, but never really did it for me back then, and still don’t now. It’s ok.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
3/5
It’s ok, if a little bit too lo-fi at times. It’s pleasant but not amazing.
Christine and the Queens
2/5
Well, it’s ok - very lush pop, but the production and arrangement is so thick that there is no space for the music to breathe. Not bad, not good.
Black Sabbath
5/5
One time, in an attempt to curb his excesses, Sharon bought Ozzy some chickens to look after. Perhaps unsurprisingly Ozzy soon tired of this and decided to get rid of them the best way he could. That way was to set fire to the coop, and then as the flaming chickens attempted to escape he stabbed them with a samurai sword. His neighbour at the time spotted the legendary Prince of Darkness standing in a flaming wreck, samurai sword in hand and surrounded by the corpses of smouldering chickens, and delivered perhaps the most British line ever:
“Back from touring I see, John. Unwinding, are we?”
666 out of 13 - would stab flaming chickens with a sword again.
Metallica
4/5
This is a bit of an odd one. Sometimes the orchestra add a sense of majesty and epic grandeur to the songs, at other times it just feels really gimmicky and off. It’s a bit long, leans a bit too heavily on Load and Reload, and only one … And Justice track is criminal, but it’s still a good album, and shows how good Metallica were live.
Also, it’s Jason’s last record with the band, and he will forever be my Metallica bassist (no shade on Cliff, but my first album was Metallica, and I saw them live twice on that tour).
KISS
2/5
Kiss are Spinal Tap, but written by Andrew Dice Clay.
Neu!
4/5
Really enjoyable listen - ambient psych rock, with some more proto-punk stuff in the back end. Like. Like a lot.
Haircut 100
2/5
Another classic ‘what the fuck is this doing on the list, Robert Dimery?’ Moment. It’s not terrible, but they barely made a splash even in the UK, so why are they here?
Tito Puente
2/5
It’s very well done, and the orchestration is great … but it’s very boring after the first two tracks. You could have it on shuffle and you’d be none the wiser.
Destiny's Child
2/5
The musical equivalent of a paint-by-numbers picture - no heart, soul, or emotion, just music to make money rather than music to make art.
Bollocks.
Rahul Dev Burman
2/5
This is … ok, I guess - but I have no cultural connection to it so can’t really judge if it’s good or bad. I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t interest me. Meh.
2/5
I tried to be open-minded about this, but this is just so whiny and juvenile, and very over-long. A thirty-year-old bloke bragging about how many times he can say ‘fuck’ in a track, or whining about how Gen X is constantly ignored is hardly earth-shattering stuff - although from what I could stand to listen of the near 10 minute ‘Outro’ suggests maybe they do know how fucking ridiculous they are. The music is not terrible (Wes Borland deserved better than this) but the whole thing could have been 30 minutes lighter and no-one would be upset. Also, including a remix of one of the other album tracks seems lazy. A bit bollocks.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
I do not like reggae, but I especially cannot stand the inauthentic white-boy reggae of the likes of UB40 or The Police. At least this is authentic.
Still a bit shit, though.
Duran Duran
3/5
I was a Brit growing up in the 80s so Duran Duran were everywhere. I know the singles on this, but never listened to a full album before, and those singles really stand out as by far the best stuff here. One thing that gets overlooked is the musicianship on display, which is really, really good, and Simon le Bon was as archetypical an 80s pop/New Romantic/new wave frontman as Robert Plant was for 70s stadium rock. This is ok, but nowhere near a favourite.
Peter Frampton
2/5
The thump of miniatures, the crunch of Doritos and the benevolent gaze of Peter Frampton coming alive tells us we have once again entered the ‘Mediocre Mid-70s Live Album’ Hut! And this week, we have bland songs, embellished with crappy effects and adequate guitar playing, all smushed together together to make an hour and a quarter of my life I’m not going to get back.
The Associates
2/5
Of all the ‘why the fuck is THIS unimportant shit on the list’ moments, this may be the most WTF of them all. Bland, unremarkable, does nothing better than any of their peers. Just, why? Why is this here?
Peter Tosh
2/5
Reggae really is not my thing at all, and whilst this is better than any of the shitty white-boy reggae I grew up with, like UB40 or The Poluce, it is still shit.
Ute Lemper
4/5
This album is just so much better than the average rating suggests. Yes, it’s a bit musical theatre / operatic, but that’s not surprising when you consider who is involved. What it also is is brilliantly performed, and musically strong. Just give it a fair crack of the whip.
Miles Davis
2/5
This is one of those legendary albums, like Dark Side Of The Moon, Sergeant Pepper, Rumours, Velvet Underground and Nico, or Pet Sounds, that anybody who knows anything about music has heard of.
This is peerless in its execution.
This is boring bloody bollocks.
Jazz is jam band music for people who look down on jam bands. Jam bands are also shit.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
3/5
I have no cultural connection to this so it is hard to say if it holds up against other similar albums, but I didn’t hate it. I’m never going to listen again, but it wasn’t bad and boring like a lot of this list is.
Aimee Mann
3/5
This just reminds me of the soundtrack to any mid-90s Ugly-Duckling-Removes-Glasses-and-Becomes-Swan movie. It’s ok.
The Saints
3/5
Lightweight early punk - it’s fine but very ubremarkable.
Michael Jackson
3/5
I’ve never been an MJ fan, even before the full-on craziness and paedo shit came out - it’s just not my kind of jam, and the super-slick over-production doesn’t help either. It’s very uninteresting to me, but at least it doesn’t have as many “ow”s, “cha”s, “sha-MONE”s or “hee-hee”s as his later stuff. Scrapes a 3.
The Stranglers
3/5
I generally prefer punk to new wave, but this is punky enough to be pretty good. Unapologetically British and grubby, and that’s fine by me.
Scissor Sisters
4/5
I thought this was great when it came out, and it’s still pretty solid although it hasn’t aged wonderfully. Even if they had not done a not-terrible cover of Comfortably Numb you would be able to smell the Gilmour influence all over this - the guitar tone on especially Return to Oz is pure prime Gilmour, and I’m here for that.
About as flash-in-the-pan as it is possible to be, but a pretty good album.
Django Django
3/5
I can’t claim to like Talking Heads and then not say I like this. It’s pretty good, one of the better picks from the 2010s on this list for sure. It’s not brilliant, but it’s fine.
Bee Gees
2/5
This is not the worst album on this list, but don’t get me wrong it is still quite shit. However it may be the most ‘why on earth is this on the list’ album in the whole project.
This bears no resemblance to the recognisable form of what the Bee Gees would become, and the music is really derivative 60s tinged pop. It is also just fucking weird in places - at some points it feels like it’s a novelty record or slightly comic ‘b’ side collection, occasionally they seem to be doing weird vocal impressions and end up sounding like Neddy Seagoon from The Goon Show, or some weird parody of Scott Walker with his balls in a vice. So often the lyrics are completely nonsensical - Don’t want to live inside myself / I’m much better off alone - I mean, that sounds very much like the same thing to me, but maybe I’m just an idiot.
All in all a very fucking odd record, and an even odder inclusion.
OutKast
2/5
I think the best way to sum up this 40-track, two-and-a-quarter-hour monstrosity is ‘self indulgent’. It’s not completely awful but I did not enjoy any more than maybe 15 minutes of it, and that ROI in my books is pretty shit.
Rufus Wainwright
3/5
There were a lot of albums and artists like this floating around in the early to mid 2000s - Anthony and the Johnsons, Jack Johnson, Corinne Bailey Rae, James Blunt, or the Magic Numbers for example. That doesn’t mean that they were good, but they were inoffensive and easy for people who don’t really listen to music to listen to.
This is bland, inoffensive, forgettable, and very beige. It’s not terrible, it’s not even bad, really - it’s just … there. There are a couple of good-ish tunes, but this album is nearly an hour long and a couple of tunes is just not enough to make me like the album. It’s three stars, but really it is 2.5 as it’s totally mid and rounding makes it 3, but it couldn’t be any lower on that grade without dropping.
Marilyn Manson
3/5
He’s not the Antichrist Superstar, he’s a very naughty boy!
Separating art from artist this is ok, but very samey and really is the most edgelordy album I’ve ever heard which I guess is not surprising since Manson is perhaps the uber-edgelord.
The Pharcyde
2/5
It’s hip-hop; it’s over long; it has rubbish skits; its not terrible, but it’s not for me.
Rush
3/5
I feel like I should like Rush - I like prog, after all. But, aside from a few tracks (that aren’t here) they just don’t really gel with me.
This is not shit, but it’s just average rock music, with a little bit of tasteless cultural appropriation in A Passage To Bangkok and a weird section where Alex Liefson spends a minute or two just tuning up.
I’ve tried, but I can’t love this.
The Prodigy
3/5
I’m not a big EDM fan, but I really enjoyed Fat Of The Land. This is nowhere as accessible, and it goes on way too long (both individual tracks and as a whole album), but it’s pretty solid.
William Orbit
3/5
This is ok in a background-y ambient soundscape. I’m never going to actively listen to it again, but I’d happily have it on whilst pottering around the house.
John Grant
5/5
I did not have high hopes when I saw this - an artist I’d never heard of, released in 2010. But then I listened to it and loved it. Really engaging folk-pop/rock, angry and acerbic and tender and just really, really enjoyable.
Marvin Gaye
2/5
God damn is this boring, self-pitying and childish.
Ice Cube
3/5
Hip-hop is not my thing, but this has the decency of being a lot shorter than most, and the beats and the flow are good.
Lyrical content … oh.
The Black Crowes
4/5
I dismissed The Black Crowed at the time, lumping them in (incorrectly) with The Cult, and not my thing. Which is odd, as I loved Little Angels, and they sound remarkably similar. Suffice to say I really liked this, good hard-rocking bluesy rock, exactly my sort of thing. Plus, the cover of Hard To Handle is excellent.
George Michael
3/5
George Michael was an absolutely glorious human being in an industry that is jam-packed full of shitcunts. I wish I liked his music more than I do, but it’s just a bit bland for me. This is better than Faith, though, and Praying For Time is just such an accurate and scathing assessment of the world as it was and as it is. George Michael was too good for this world. RIP.
The Flaming Lips
5/5
A great, great album. At times invigorating and uplifting, at others introspective and heartfelt, but always interesting. Also, that thunderous drum sound on Fight Test is epic.
Gram Parsons
2/5
Herky-jerky, plinky-plonky, twingy-twangy, wishy-washy wank.
Plus, somebody smashes a glass in the live medley and the crowd doesn’t go “WEEYYYYYY!” Fucking embarrassing.
Tina Turner
2/5
I finished listening to this crap, looked down and found out I was wearing a single dangly cross earring, white slip-ons with no shoes, a snug fitting t-shirt and a shiny sports jacket with the sleeves pushed halfway up my arms, and somehow my greying hair had been transformed into a luxuriant bouffant with platinum blonde highlights swept through it.
Jane's Addiction
4/5
Nothing’s Shocking - Jane’s Addiction
I never caught hold of Jane’s Addiction at the time - I was more blues rock / hard rock / thrash so they were never likely to float across my deck. I knew Been Caught Stealing, of course, and liked it, but any other stuff I’d heard I dismissed, with Perry Farrell’s voice not helping.
Listening to this today I was very pleasantly surprised. It’s a really good, melodic, and driving record, and Dave Navarro is a hell of a guitarist. I still don’t like Farrell’s voice a lot of the time, but this is a really good album.
Sigur Rós
3/5
Hmm, an odd one this, and I feel a bit bad about my opinion.
I remember when this came out and there was a bit of fuss in the UK about them - there were a few of these gentle, pleasant albums around at the time (José Gonzales, this lot, Magic Numbers etc), and I bought it and never really listened to it.
I didn’t really miss much.
It’s very pleasant, and nice … but it’s not very interesting, and it goes on forever. Background music feels harsh, but that’s my impression. It’s not bad by any means and if it was on somewhere I wouldn’t be upset, but I’m never taking it off the shelf again.
Big Star
2/5
I love #1 Record, it was completely new to me and was one of my early great discoveries. This, however … this is just a bit shit. It’s unremarkable and unmemorable, and nowhere near the high watermark of #1. Disappointed.
The Beta Band
3/5
This is better than I expected, and the opener is engrained in British consciousness by featuring in endless adverts and incidental music, but other than that I can’t really remember a thing about it.
Beatles
4/5
The first properly good Beatles album. It’s still quite lightweight pop, but Lennon and McCartney are clearly showing a growing maturity in the songwriting, and there are a some really good tunes here. Not their best by a long way, but still a really good album.
The Ringo song is a bit shit, of course.
Bob Dylan
5/5
Oh, yes please.
Suicide
1/5
Jesus fucking Christ.
Thelonious Monk
2/5
Jazz continues to be shit.
Drive Like Jehu
3/5
The reviews of this are pretty rough, and it starts off as quite a difficult listen, but I like punk, and whilst this is more hardcore than punk it settles down into a pretty strong album with some good punk / post punk sensibilities. One I think that will benefit from more listens.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
Lounge disco - a bit odd but it’s not bad. The first track kind of sums it all up, really.
The Killers
4/5
“All please rise for the National Anthem of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, ‘Mr. Brightside’.”
Electric Light Orchestra
5/5
Such a fun album, if a bit bloated and overly long. So much variety, yet also very clearly ELO - a really good album.
Duke Ellington
2/5
Whilst, naturally, jazz is and will always remain shit, this is among the slightly less shit examples of a shit genre. That doesn’t mean it isn’t shit, of course - it is. It’s just not quite as shit as most other jazz.
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
Listening in 2025 this sounds very safe and tame compared to what came after. It really isn’t very exciting, the beats are bland but the rapping and flow is solid, it’s just very dated and not my bag in general. Not rubbish, but not good.
Stan Getz
2/5
This is the music that gets played in bars where old white people drink cocktails prepared by a brown person (but one of the good ones) and arrange to cheat on the person they’ve been married to for forty years but hate, before going off to slowly and painfully fuck each other in grim silence.
Samba deez nuts.
Pulp
3/5
Pulp got their big breakthrough at a time when I was peak clubbing age, and a solid Brit Pop Indie-Kid … but I did not get into them. Obviously Common People and Disco 2000 were always played at student nights, but they always left me cold, and the first half of this album didn’t change my opinion. The back half, though - not brilliant by any stretch, but really pretty good. Sorted For E’s and Wizz and Underwear are great tunes, and while they don’t tip it into 4 stars, it is a very high 3.
Marianne Faithfull
3/5
Marianne Faithfull’s career is testament to ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you …’ well, you know the rest.
It’s not bad, but is it needed? The production values of the time don’t do it any favours either, especially on “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” which gives a weird disco vibe to a sad tale. Low three, but no worse.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
3/5
The most backgroundy background music to have ever filled the background.
LL Cool J
2/5
Ladies may well love cool James, but I don’t.
It’s like Will Smith found out about sex and some almost rude words and wanted to make a record but wasn’t quite brave enough. Humdrum, pedestrian hippity-hop that hangs around far too long.
Snoop Dogg
2/5
I had LL Cool J yesterday and this today. I’m not a fan of hip-hop, or juvenile waffling generally, so I have not had a wonderful two days.
It’s not bad, it’s not good, it’s not interesting, it’s not getting played by me again. 3 stars, only because I don’t think it really deserves 2, but that’s a very grudging 3 stars.
Nah, fuck it - it’s 2. Bitches.
Justin Timberlake
2/5
If a cumsock came to life and decided to make an album, this is the album it would make. Except even a sentient cumsock would probably think 63 minutes was taking the piss a bit.
Tom Waits
4/5
This was a bit of a ride - I started off wondering why I was listening to some fucked up Cooger and Dark carnival music, and ended up really rather enjoying it - although it’s not light and breezy by any means.
Brian Wilson
2/5
Barbershop bollocks (like most Beach Boys stuff). It gets 2 for Heroes and Villains, but the rest is just cobbled together antique slop, and if this had been my life work and passion project I’d have gone bonkers too, because of the shitness.
Jeff Beck
4/5
Rod Stewart is so dominant on this record that it feels like it should be his name on the door. Otherwise, this is a really good bluesy, hard-driving rock record. Ol’ Man River and Greensleeves could go and get in the bin and the quality overall would be better, but this is otherwise really good.
Paul Weller
3/5
Sellers stuff all sounds the same - slightly dull dad rock. It’s fine.
Elvis Presley
2/5
Elwood Parsley was always more about image than music. Shakin’ Steven’s tried the exact same shtick, and his career shows how well it aged.
This album is just boring rock and roll, which has never been my thing. There is maybe one track that is more rootsy / bluesy and is infinitely better than the rest of the doo-wop crap.
This is not awful, but it is not good and just cements that whilst this may have been the foundations of modern music, like in buildings, I don’t want to spend time experiencing the foundations when the soaring edifice built on them is so much more enjoyable.
There are too many Elvises on this list.
Otis Redding
4/5
Proper 60s soul done proper.
Alice In Chains
3/5
Grunge broke just as I was getting my musical identity, but Alice In Chains passed me by. This album is fine, but nothing really stood out for me. I may dig it out again, mainly because I know I should listen to them, but I’m pretty sure my next listen will be as if it was my first. Three stars, and a solid top-half of that three, but nothing quite here yet to make it four.
The Gun Club
3/5
I like punk, and this is ok - but that’s all. Nothing really stands out, and I’m unlikely to come back. It’s not bad though.
Q-Tip
2/5
Hip-hop is never going to be my thing. At least this has the decency to fuck off after 46 minutes.
Travis
3/5
I have not listened to this album in 25 years, half a lifetime ago, and I haven’t missed it. I thought it was good when it came out, but now looking at it with an additional 25 years of listening to a wide variety of music I can see just how derivative it is. That’s not to say it’s unlistenable, it’s not - the singles are generally ok, and Turn really is pretty good, but nothing is really new, or exciting. Absolutely didn’t hate it, but it is oh so very mid.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2/5
Some music-type stuff happened, but I don’t remember a thing about it.
Quicksilver Messenger Service
2/5
When I woke up this morning I did not expect to come to the realisation that loveable Aussie surf-hunk Henry Ramsey from Neighbours had recorded the definitive version of Mona.
Insufferable, self-indulgent art-wank.
Hookworms
3/5
Perfectly good electro-techno-indie-alt-rock. Not exactly memorable, but not bad.
The Young Gods
4/5
If Daft Punk’s mum married a much older man who was the head of a French crime syndicate these would be their new, angry, step-brothers.
I really rather enjoyed it, but it’s not the kind of thing I’ll listen to regularly.
David Bowie
1/5
Yacht rock bollocks from the emperor in his new clothes.
Kings of Leon
2/5
Very occasionally I think it would be quite cool to be in the Kings of Leon. Far more frequently I think about how epic it would be to have been the pigeon that shat directly into the singer’s mumbly mouth.
All style, little substance.
AC/DC
5/5
Theirs is nothing particularly complicated, or innovative, or fresh about Accadacca, but when they do what they do well there is no other band that can touch them. Yes, a lot of their stuff is hard to tell apart, even on this album (but that’s the same for the Rolling Stones, or Muse), some of the lyrics are absolutely terrible in terms of the crassness and misogyny (“Let me put my love into you, babe / let me cut your cake with my knife” for example), and two-thirds of the rhythm section is literally just count-to-four simplistic, but when the whole starts firing well, fuck me but you can’t help but nod your head.
There’s a reason why this is one of the biggest selling albums of all time.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
I genuinely think it’s hard to dislike CCR. Rootsy, bluesy, dirty swamp-rock that’s just good fun. It’s not high art, it’s just good rock music.
Morrissey
3/5
This is alright, I suppose. It’s not a patch on anything The Smiths did, but it’s ok. The bloke is still a rampaging knobhead, though.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
2/5
The only sensations associated here are mild nausea and the feeling of wasted time. Possibly the longest 35 minutes of my life, it’s like T Rex without the charm or quality, Gary Glitter without the stomp or sense of self parody. And, hopefully, less child abuse.
2/5, and a low 2 at that.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
Even in the ‘80s in the UK if you asked someone in the street to tell you anything about Dexys Midnight Runners you would get something about Come On Eileen, dungarees, a fat dart player, or a song about Geno Washington. Dexys were not a wildly popular band, they had a wildly popular single. They aren’t bad, but they really didn’t cause much of a ripple in the UK beyond tales of Eileen’s spunky adventures, and I really don’t think they need at least two albums in this list.
As for the music, it’s ok, nothing bad, nothing exceptional. I suspect it was a smart choice to put Come On Eileen as the last track otherwise 90% of album listens would get no further than it.
Perfectly good early 70s rock. Rod Stewart’s voice is Rod Stewart’s voice, so take that how you will. It was ok.
Jane's Addiction
3/5
I had Nothing’s Shocking a month or so ago, and really enjoyed it. I liked this, too, but not as much - there’s no Jane Says here, but Three Days and Then She Did … are both really strong. Asa a whole though I just didn’t find it as engaging. Still an enjoyable album, though.
Orbital
3/5
Let’s get this out of the way - this is very long, and it’s very repetitive. Normally I would mark those as major negatives, and whilst they still aren’t positives, I feel like this album benefits from both of them. This isn’t really an album you listen to, but as ambience I think it works really well, and I was surprised that I quite enjoyed it. I always thought I hated EDM, but clearly some is right in my groove - Chemical Brothers and this lot seeming to be there.
It’s not getting a huge mark, and I’ll likely never listen to it again consciously, but I wouldn’t turn it off. 3 stars, but a high 3 stars.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
3/5
Why? Just, why? Utterly forgettable, I don’t think it was important in the 80s, and I know because I was there. Not bad, not good, not vital to listen to. It gets three because it isn’t bad, but it’s a grudging three because two feels harsh for something that neither improves nor diminishes the world by existing.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
4/5
I really wish I had generated this before Trout Mask Replica, but there we go.
I hated Trout Mask Replica, really hated it. I get the trope that you have to listen to it x number of times before you get it, but I didn’t see the point of inflicting pain on myself and so left it at one listen, and that’s plenty thank you.
This one, though - wow, night and day. Really enjoyed this, really good bluesy rock, and accessible, too. It’s not quite 5, but it’s a really strong 4, and I’m toying with the idea of revisiting Trout Mask Replica to see if I can get a handle on it. I may need to register to this a few times first, but that’s something I’m happy to do.
Stephen Stills
4/5
When I saw a 70s double album pop up today I did sigh a bit, but this is great. It’s not a 5, there are too many indifferent or heavily countrified tracks to give it top marks to my ears, but I genuinely enjoyed a good 75% of this. Easy 4.
Cocteau Twins
3/5
Unmemorable dream-pop. Didn’t hate it; didn’t rate it.
The Stooges
3/5
It’s ok, but of the Stooges albums I’ve had it’s impressed me the least.
DJ Shadow
3/5
Very much not my usual thing, and it feels more like a soundtrack to a game than an album, buts it’s ok in a dynamic, background-y kind of way. It’s not completely shit.
Mj Cole
2/5
The album cover looks like a magazine advert for Pandora, and the music is pretty much just bollocks. I defy anyone to tell one track from another if you removed any vocals - they are all so repetitive, and non-distinctive, and the whole thing is so, so long. Not at all good.
David Holmes
1/5
<Michael_Scott_Shouting_No.gif>
Van Morrison
3/5
A middling album made by a gigantic cunt.
White Denim
3/5
This is ok, if very uneven - it doesn’t seem to know if it’s prog-rock, blues-rock, or country-rock and so the listening experience is a little bit all over the place. Not great, not terrible.
Femi Kuti
3/5
I cannot in any way say that this is bad, but it’s not my bag and I don’t know anything about the genre. Never listening to this again.
Slint
2/5
This is … not good. It feels like they are trying really hard to be all artsy and mysterious and ends up feeling contrived.
Neneh Cherry
2/5
This is so unneccessary. Buffalo Stance is head and shoulders the best track here, and that is really dated. I remember it being really exciting when it came out, and it’s still a good tune, but it hasn’t aged brilliantly, and I’ve never understood the weird Dick van Dyke mockney bollocks in the middle of it - “Wot is ee loike!? D’ja no worrae meen!”. Weird.
The rest of the album apparently exists, but I doubt anyone pays any attention past track 1 - and an hour and a quarter for a debut album (for the CD version)? Nobody needed that. Boring album that should be over after five and three-quarter minutes.
The Divine Comedy
4/5
Wow, the reviews for this are so harsh and seem to focus on a couple of lyrics as being weird for an album of live songs. Maybe it’s a culture thing, with Americans not quite getting the very British sense of humour here - in the UK, the Divine Conedy are probably best known for the theme music to Father Ted and a song about the general cranes of travelling by coach.
Anyway, this album is really good, gentle, thoughtful pop, and deserves your time.
Johnny Cash
5/5
God damn, but I love me some Johnny Cash!
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
This was a bit of a grind. It’s ok, but every time I enjoyed a track, I wouldn’t enjoy the next one. Never listening to this again.
Tom Waits
5/5
“Oh, ‘Saving All My Love For You’! I only know the Whitney Houston Version”
<several minutes later>
“Well, that was quite different! Ah, ‘Down Town’! Now, I really like Petula Clark’s take on this - how will this go I wonder?”
<several more minutes pass>
“Pass me the cheap women and the expensive whiskey, this is going to be a night to remember but I don’t think I will!”
Incredible album - lost nights in the gutter gazing at the stars out of 10.
Dinosaur Jr.
3/5
Eeehhhhh - it’s perfectly ok grunge / alt / indie rock, but it’s a bit paint-by-numbers. It passed the time, but it wasn’t very exciting.
Roxy Music
3/5
I listened, but no impression was left. Very mid, dull pop
Dr. Dre
2/5
It’s another hip-hop album that sounds exactly the same as all the other hip-hop albums. And it’s over an hour long.
Steve Winwood
4/5
I like both Traffic and Steve Winwood, in fact the first concert I ever went to was on his solo Roll With It tour, but there is no denying that this album is a little dated. I have never heard fartier sounding keyboards, and some of the songs hang around a bit too long, but I quite liked this. The first two tracks are great, and whilst it does drift away towards the end it’s still a strong collection.
It seems not many people agree with me …
Manu Chao
3/5
I really have no knowledge of this type of music, so don’t know if it’s good or bad. I didn’t dislike it, but every song sounded the same, and nothing really seemed to go anywhere. It’s … fine, I guess?
System Of A Down
3/5
When theatre kids do nu metal.
Van Morrison
2/5
For someone with such an enormous ego, Van Morrison really is very mid-talent. Forgettable pap from an insurmountable cunt.
Kraftwerk
3/5
I don’t dislike Kraftwerk, or this album in particular, but it is a little too repetitive and samey to be an enjoyable listen. I get the fact that it’s a concept album, but it didn’t land anywhere near as well as The Man-Machine.
The Pogues
4/5
They may not be the most authentic of Irish/Celtic Folk bands, but they are probably the most well known, and had a major role in popularising the genre. This isn’t quite as good as If I Should Fall From Grace With God which came after, but it’s still good with some outstanding stuff - And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda in particular.
As far as Irish bands go, U2 aren’t fit to sniff the shit on The Pogues boots, and Shane MacGowan had a thousand times more integrity and poetry in one of his rotted teeth than Bluto and The Fridge have in their entire bodies combined.
PJ Harvey
3/5
It’s a bit spiky, and raw, and a bit punky, and that would normally get me in a good mood but this is just largely unmemorable. It’s not bad, and I wouldn’t turn it off, but I’m unlikely to seek it out again.
Eurythmics
3/5
In the 80s there were two certainties at the Brit Awards - firstly, the Best International Band would be Bongo and The Hedge and their two chums, and secondly that Best Female Vocalist would be Annie Lennox.
There is no denying she’s a great vocalist, and this is very well produced, slick synth-pop … but I don’t find synth-pop, however well it is crafted, very exciting. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but I also couldn’t say I did. Meh.
James Brown
3/5
A surprising amount of female screaming here. Not dissimilar to Mr Brown’s house, or so I’ve heard.
The Fall
4/5
The first time I’ve ever listened to The Fall, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I think the legend of Mark E. Smith casts a long shadow, and it’s fully deserved - I don’t think there would be The Fall without him, but I also think that in some ways the band is good in spite of him. A bit like Shane MacGowan, the vocal delivery is somewhat questionable, but the lyrical content is outstanding, and you don’t get one without the other. Musically this is right up my alley, and the only thing stopping it getting a full house is there are too many experimental noise tracks that I didn’t enjoy, but it’s a good four, and definitely listening to more of them.
Joan Baez
2/5
I like folk, but I like British folk, not this boring bloody bollocks.
Sabu
2/5
Ok, standard defence - I have no cultural connection or touchstone to this kind of music so cannot objectively say if it’s good or bad, just what it makes me feel.
Firstly, the stereo mix is fucking horrible on headphones. Saying it is a mix is being generous, it’s almost like one set of mics went into left channel, and another went into right channel, and never the Twain shall meet. Horrid.
Secondly, it is so repetitive. I like percussion as much as the next man, even if the next man is Neil Peart. I gave Bongo Rock five stars. I don’t think Moby Dick is the skip track on Led Zep II. But, fuck man, come on - give me a bit of a break, please! Please? Please.
Mekons
3/5
This is a pretty ok punky / post punk album. There’s some more experimental stuff on it which is less fun but over all it’s pretty good.
Amy Winehouse
2/5
Dick-fixated Nelly Furtado impersonator who looks like she smells like the ashtray in a 1977 Morris Minor Traveller. The fifties were a bit shit for music, why would I want to revisit?
3/5
This is maybe a bit too proggy too quickly for my liking but once you get over the initial mental mess it settles down. The cover of America on the deluxe version is unforgivable, though.
Girls Against Boys
3/5
It’s indie rock and roll for me. But not that strongly. In fact, I could live without it.
The Verve
2/5
God damn this is so dreary - I can’t imagine anyone getting even faintly excited about anything on here, and every song lasts 30 seconds to a minute longer than it needs to.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
Fuck, this is a tough listen. Musically it reminds me quite a lot of Kid A / Amnesiac era Radiohead, which is good because that’s my favourite Radiohead era. Lyrically and emotionally … fuck.
Great music can come from personal tragedy - Rumours, Arrival, Zeppelin’s ‘All Of My Love’ - and this is on a par with those. It’s raw, and broken, and a really hard album to hear, but it is good although not something I really want to go through again soon.
Fred Neil
2/5
“But I don’t want to listen to this faintly shit, boring yank-folk!”
“I know, son, I know - but we committed to this project and we’re going to see it through no matter what.”
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
2/5
I don’t know if this is good or not. I do know it is boring.
Arctic Monkeys
5/5
This is one of the very best debuts ever recorded.
Alex Turner is an extraordinary song writer and hit the ground running here, and backed by Matt Helders’ drumming this makes for an incredibly powerful and clever album. There’s barely a misstep here, perhaps the harshest criticism can be levelled at the guitar leads which tend to be very simple boxy pentatonics, but other than that this is brilliant. The hype it had, and I remember it as I was there, was fully deserved.
Love
2/5
If ever there was an album of two halves …
The first half of this comprises of six songs that, whilst not as good as anything on Forever Changes, show flashes of some of the greatness that would come. The second half, though … whew, it’s like parody Doors, just meandering boring bullshit and completely shafts the record. I can’t imagine many people flipped the LP more than once.
2/5
Well, I can’t say I hated it but I sure as shit didn’t like it.
2/5
The most dedicated experts of ABC are only able to state three things with certainty:
1. ABC had success with the single ‘Poison Arrow’
2. ABC had success with the single ‘The Look Of Live’
3. Martin Fry looks like the economics teacher who was sleeping with the mother of one of his pupils
Having listened to this album I now rank alongside the greatest of ABC scholars. My life is not richer for this.