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.

Frank Sinatra really can sing. I wish he fucking wouldn't, though. Boring bollocks.

This album gave me both diabetes and high blood pressure.

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.

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.

This album gave me both diabetes and high blood pressure.

The musical equivalent of the word 'meh'.

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.

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.

I don't know if this is a bad album or not, it just bored me too much to decide.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An utterly joyful album. Made me smile from start to finish.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What an obstinately, aggressively bland album.literally nothing stands out, and everything goes on for far too long. Dire.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

What a brilliant album. I'd never listened to any Zappa before, but I definitely will be now. Absolutely amazing from the first note.

A perfectly nice album, even if towards the end I started checking my watch a little.

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

This is OK I guess - hard to tell, really, as it left absolutely no impression on me whatsoever

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I can imagine Patrick Bateman loving this album.

This may be a perfect album. Start to finish there is barely a misstep, if there are any at all. Phenomenal.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

'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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I thought my phone alarm was going off during Penetration. Wouldn't be the first time that happened, to be fair.

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

What the fuck is happening?

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.

There's nothing wrong with this, but I don't feel I'm ever likely to listen to it again. It was ... OK.

Can someone wake me up when this is over, please?

The 70s produced some of the greatest music ever made. Todd Rundgren was there, too.

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.

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

It's nice to have politically angry albums that sound as chilled as this. Loved it.

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.

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.

Music for boring porno flicks set in department store elevators.

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.

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 ...

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.

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.

... 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.

There is nothing easy about easy listening...

I'm old, white, British, and middle class. This music is not meant for me.

I'm thinking that with Ms. Mitchell's professed admiration for German wine, she and Alan Partridge would get along famously.

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.

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.

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?"

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 really can sing. I wish he fucking wouldn't, though. Boring bollocks.

The musical equivalent of the Steve Buscemi 'how do you do, fellow kids' meme.

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.

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.

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.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! 4 stars.

Nothing to dislike, but nothing too mind-blowing. The opener is a classic, obviously, but the rest is unmemorable pleasant.

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.

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.

Jazz is shit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!'

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.

Way better than I expected - nice, straightforward poppy melodies with some pretty interesting production choices and sounds. Enjoyed this.

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.

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.

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.

What a fantastic album. I knew of the Super Furries but had never listened to an album before. Error.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This may be the most American thing I have ever heard.

One of the great concept albums, and the last great work by Floyd.

I always thought Eddie was holding a syringe on this album cover.

Perfectly pleasant indie-pop, but that's about it.

It's not exactly bad, but it's very bland and so bloody boring.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Yes, it's a good album and I enjoyed it, but I like my punk a little bit more ... punk.

If Prince was a Pick-Up Artist. (If You Let Me Stay is a banger, though)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So very, very unmemorable.

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.

If he hadn't taken that flight would he be anything more than a footnote in music history?

I like Simon and Garfunkel, but this is not their best - it's not at all bad, hut its mot stellar.

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!

I don't think Elvis Costello likes Elvis Costello as much as the compiler of the book likes Elvis Costello.

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

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'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Absolutely forgettable.

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.

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.

Fantastic album. I'd never listened to Leonard Cohen before, but I will for sure be listening to more. Brilliant.

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.

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.

I don't really get The Cure. It's OK I guess, but it doesn't excite me.

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

Really good album. Proper goth, dark stuff, and I really enjoyed this.

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.

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.

I've heard better. I've heard worse. I'd be surprised if I heard this again.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

Rap and hip-hop really isn't my thing. It's not bad, but I'm not going back

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.

"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!!!!"

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.

King of Rock and Roll my arse.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ...

Really not a single exciting thing about this album. Dull.

A great album by a great artist.

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.

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).

It's OK. Musically it's nice, vocally it's nice, but I'm afraid that 'nice' just doesn't really butter my parsnips.

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.

Would this be on the list if it was a Ringo Starr album?

I bet Alan Partridge likes Aerosmith.

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.

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.

Nothing quite says 'rock and roll rebel rousers' like a song about caravans.

Mediocre musicians with a good singer playing bland pap. U2 are the band people who pretend to like music say are their favourite band.

It was all going perfectly well, and then they butchered America. What a box of cunts.

This is boring.

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.

This is perfectly nice, but largely unmemorable. I like Neil Young, so it's a solid 3 stars.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Groovy As Fuck

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Eeeeh, it's OK I guess - just twee folky tunes that hurt noone, but are entirely unexciting.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Remarkably unremarkable. This left no impression on me other than it was not a bad album, just utterly unmemorable.

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.

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.

I could have spent 2 hours scrolling through my phone's ringtones and had the same experience as listening to this. Absolute shit.

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.

It sounds like Randy Newman, and that's about all I can say about it. It isn't horrible.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The voice is great, but I just find this type of music so very, very boring.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It all sounds like incidental music from a particularly dull episode of Hollyoaks.

It doesn't have great musical proficiency, but what do you expect from a 15-minute punk album? It's not at all bad.

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.

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.

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.

There is such a thing as 'too much Keith Moon.'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

OK, I Suppose Company.

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.

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.

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.

I'm a British, dyed in the wool indie-kid and metal-head, but god damn do I love me some Johnny Cash.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Avery pleasant little album, with some good songs.

It starts off very nice, but it is all a bit samey. Not bad by any stretch, but that’s it.

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.

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.

I really do not like jazz. This is not really awful, but fuck my hat is it dull.

Jack White really does seem to think he’s better than he actually is. A long way short of the White Stripes best.

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.

There are so many better McCartney solo albums than this.

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.

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 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.

“Mum, mum - can we have Pearl Jam?” “We’ve got Pearl Jam at home.”

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.

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.