Now look. This album is OK. But it's not essential. Nothing by Supertaramp is essential. Unless you're puzzled by all the fuss about "Breakfast In America" and I doubt if you are.
Once every three or four years, when I go through my iPod alphabetically, I'll listen to Crime Of The Century. It's OK. It's not a waste of time. That's as far as I'm going.
Wonderful album. Not immediately catchy, sometimes not even melodic. But the lyrics are wonderful, TW's voice is perfect for them, and you want to listen to it again tomorrow.
Of its type this is more or less peerless.
"Essential" is pushing it. It's good though.
Some good basic (southern US) rock but really it's all about the vocal emergence of Janis Joplin. Essential listening.
It's not perfect. Like many double albums Tommy would have made a killer single album. Put Christmas at the end of side one. Then side two is The Acid Queen, Pinball Wizard, I'm Free and See Me Feel Me/Listening To You, finishing with Underture. Shame to leave out Cousin Kevin but there we go. It's still a great album though and I love it.
One of my least favourite Floyd albums - I'd rather listen to pretty much anything else from Atom Heart Mother to The Final Cut. Other people love it.
A bit full on for me, but it's not a waste of time.
Unhalfbricking (and WWDOOH) will always be in the shadow of Liege & Lief for me, but it's still an excellent album. It showcases Sandy Denny beautiful lead vocals and Richard Thompson's emerging talents. Great sleeve photo.
A true classic of its type.
A beautiful album. Steve Winwood's vocals are perfect as usual.
Laura Nyro is very much an acquired taste. The first LN album that I heard was Christmas & The Beads Of Sweat. I still listen to her music every year.
A far, far better album than it has any right to be. Impeccable songs and performances help a lot of course but a band they weren't.
The chat and stuff could get a bit intrusive for some, but it's an excellent album.
Lovely album. I don't know his recent stuff but every 70s album is worth a listen, there are some beautiful songs here.
yeah well
One of the finest written, and finest performed, albums of all time. Which is better, The Band or Music From Big Pink? Tough one, I don't care. Both albums are brilliant.
Overrated but with some nice moments. Listening to it is not the overwhelming experience that it's been cracked up to be, but it's not a waste of time either. Good cover.
I loved it back in the 80s but for me it hasn't improved with time. I never listen to it now, although I still believe the songs are perfect. Strange.
Odd to find on this list, but interesting in parts.
Not the band's favourite I believe. I really like it, and it has happy memories.
Beautiful album, the first of many.
Many will find this difficult. I like it, give it a try. A few tries.
Hmmmm. Yes. No longer my thing. If you like prog it will be yours.
It doesn't get me like I'm told it should, but good album.
Great cover though.
It's good, but it's still Genesis.
I don't know anyone who thinks this is NY's best but it's still very good. An essential step towards who he was going to be.
Of all the albums that were considered seminal/essential/stone cold classics back in the 60s I've been most disappointed with this one. It's a good album but it ain't Revolver, Beggars Banquet or The Doors. Whenever I listen to it I remember how dodgy the sound quality is too.
A very interesting album. I listen to it. But not as often as I listen to TVU&N or WLWH. I guess they'll come up, if they don't that's weird.
This will never be my favourite Santana album - that's been Caravanserai for over 40 years - but it is very good. It's more poppy than Santana 3 or Caravanserai, I don't mind pop but I don't think it really suits Santana.
Lots of fun. You can criticise it - the best tracks tend to come early on, the style has been improved upon - but (Elvis excepted) it's difficult to name an album more important in the birth of popular music.
The cover though.
"OK guys I want each of you to have one hand on a guitar"
"But I'm a drummer"
"Just hold the guitar"
Not to everyone's taste but for my money the most interesting album from this era of FM.
I don't think they ever released a bad album. However two or three albums really stand out, Aja is a great record. Worth owning on vinyl just for this beautiful cover,
Almost a perfect album.
There's not much more to say about this one. A nailed-on classic, always the highest jazz album on any all-time greats list.
If you don't know Tom Waits' stuff you should give this and/or Rain Dogs a go. You might hate them, but you'll probably think they're brilliant.
It sounds a bit dated now but in its day it acted as my gateway drug to whole vistas of American country music. I still love this album.
Yes. OK maybe not the production but everything else about this album is perfect - Sandy Denny's singing, the playing of each of her five bandmates, and the compositions. Crazy Man Michael and Farewell Farewell are two of the finest songs ever created, and never performed better than here.
it's OK. Emmylou sings on a lot of better albums.
I love everything he ever did. This is a beautiful album.
I don't get Springsteen as a fan - I think he's made a lot of four star albums but none I'd give five stars to. I find him strangely emotionless, despite all the snarling and balls-to-the-wall stuff. However this is a little bit of an exception, and definitely my favourite of his alongside Nebraska.
Essential
I don't think it's aged particularly well but definitely a classic of it's time and a milestone in the evolution of popular music.
Not my favourite Stones album, or even in my top five, but it's still very good.
What a voice.
Compared this to the last review I submitted for a Marvin Gaye album, the voice is still perfect but the songs are better.
This may seem like heresy, but I always thought there was something special about Lennon McCartney that's not there in either man's solo stuff. Imagin's not bad.
Nothing wrong with it, some good performances. Thin Lizzy were never my thing.
This list seems to have lots of flawed masterpieces. If Janis had lived to complete this album her own way she might have produced something truly spectacular, or she might have ruined it. As it is it's a very good album.
Leonard Cohen's poetry is always wonderful to listen to. When it's part of his best collections of songs it's truly something special. Listen to this album, then listen to it again.
Ever since first hearing The Kick Inside in the late 1970s it's never been replaced as my favourite Kate Bush album. This album is very very good, and many think it perfect, but I find it colder than The Kick Inside.
Generally described as feeling a bit tired (and I bet they were) but nothing The Beatles ever did was less than four stars.
Opinions seem to differ over this more than over any other Beatles album. It's many people's favourite. I'd put it behind Hard Day's Night, Help, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper's, Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road. But it's still by The Beatles and some of it is beautiful.
Ah. Rumours. First off I have to forget that I've got a bit bored with this - I mean , it's nice, it's really, really nice, but you're never going to get excited by it are you? - and remember that I've enjoyed listening to it two or three times a year for approaching 50 years. And Stevie Nicks and Lyndsey Buckingham's songs are great. Although some of Christine McVie's songs aren't. It's a bit of a victim of it's own success too - you're never going to put it on when you have friends round.
I keep getting reminded of this album. Had it in the 70s. It's brilliant. I must buy it.
This album now sounds very old - I was recently out of primary school when it came out - and that can blind me to just how beautiful I thought it was back then. I loved it.
Then I discovered yer Sabbaths and yer Zeppelins.
Yes - love this band. Highly original and distinctive. OK, just like in this cover photo Steve Winwood was central to the whole thing, no Winwood no Traffic etc, but they were a really good band. And there was definitely better to come after this, their second album.
Just makes me sad really. Especially the photograph of the perfect looking human on the cover. The album is perfection, but it'll never be seen like that again.
There's so much about this album that I love, but the faux game-show nonsense risks turning it into a novelty record. At best that stuff is very annoying. I still need to listen to this album again though.
Not bad. It'll always be the follow-up to Funeral.
Probably my favourite Neil Young album, and many other people's. Sometimes I prefer After The Goldrush. The easiest star rating so far.
I choose to believe that car's still there.
The hype surrounding Nick Drake isn't just hype. He never made a bad album. All three are beautiful.
The Doors released six albums and one live album. They're all good. Morrison Hotel, and The Soft Parade, are the two weaker studio albums. I still love them (the two albums, and The Doors.)
It's a great album, of course it is, but I don't listen to it any more. Or any Pink Floyd TBH. I don't feel they've aged as well as some of their contemporaries.
Good title. It's OK.
OK - I love this album. It has everything that Pink Floyd never had after Syd left because it connects with the emotions. Sadly this includes listening to a man beginning his disintegration, so it can be a hard listen, but it's an amazing album for all that.
Somewhere round the 3rd or 4th ranked KB album I would think, but still an excellent record.
Lovely album
Hugely biased mega-Kinks fan here. But if anyone knows a better written, better performed album of quintessentially English popular music, let me know. And I'll tell you why you're wrong. ;)
You have to like Hendrix to like Hendrix - there's not a lot of middle ground. But are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love and Electric Ladyland are all landmarks in the evolution of modern music.
Nah. Generic and dull.
A foretaste of things to come. It's still pretty good.
No one born after 1980 can imagine the joy brought to pop music by the punks and the new wave. Blondie were right at the forefront of this with a string of genuinely great singles and four wonderful albums. This was the third of them. It's truly amazing.
Some of Lennon's songs are unfinished. There are other places where the coming disintegration shows through. But it's still wonderfully, gloriously, The Beatles. Easily their best album since their Rubber Soul-Revolver-Sgt Pepper peak.
Another act that never did anything that wasn't good. This was the third of their five albums, and every one was better than its predecessor, so they were getting there at this point.
It's definitely good, probably one of my top four REM albums. I just can't get very excited about them any more . . .
Love it.
Jansch was a 10/10 guitarist but a 6/10 singer and songwriter. You'd really need to be at least 8/10 in all three to properly make it as a solo artist, so Jansch was probably at his best as a member of Pentangle. This is still a good album though, and so is Jack Orion.
Not for me Roy
Hmmm. I like Soft machine. Definitely interesting and often enjoyable. But I can't go much further than that. This album is a bit too much for me in some ways. Bitches Brew is a double album that makes me want more, like Topographic Oceans this one makes me want less.
I've given it four stars because it's a Bowie album. imnsvho he made at least six better albums during the miraculous period that began with The Man Who Sold The World and ended with this album. But it's still brilliant.
If almost any other act had made this it would be a towering career highlight.
This is a pretty special album. It has beautiful melodies, and a sound and a feel that will bring me back to listen to it again and again.
It's taking me a long time to get into it but I think it'll be worth it.
Absolutely peerless amongst albums of its type. A beautiful, beautiful album.
Amazing album. In the top five live albums of all time.
I could go on about this - and the obvious but tragically lost genius of Syd Barrett - but that story has already been done to death many times. This isn't a Pink Floyd Album. It is a great album.
Lots of people like this album a lot. I think it's OK. I worry that I don't judge it on its own merits, that I'm always thinking it's too insubstantial for the man who wrote She's Leaving Home, Penny Lane and Let It Be. There we are.
It's not perfect - I think it comes higher up "greatest album lists" than it deserves. But it's still a very good album.
Not for me Roy. Vastly overrated when it came out and hasn't aged well.
Just a phenomenal album. Dated in the best possible way - takes you back to the era.
I shouldn't keep reviewing U2 albums so I'll make this the last one. Popular music should touch the heart and the emotions. It should lift us and bring happiness. It should enable us to share in other's pain or better understand our own pain. U2 never do this for me, so I'm out.
I'm sure it's great. Many, many people say so. I don't like it.
The Ramones were magnificent. This album is magnificent. I love it.
I haven't had this long but I think I'm going to love it. What a voice.
I've tried to listen to Rush and they can FOJDO. Not for me.
Eno did some really nice, and definitely interesting, albums after leaving Roxy. There's nothing ground-breaking here but I like it.
One of the most important albums in popular music since 1950. That is all.
Ha! Now look. You may not like it. You may hate it. You may well feel it's the largest pool of pretentious toss ever committed to any recorded medium. But give it a chance. Once you start finding reasons to like it you'll never stop.
I didn't really think the hype was justified.
The Kinks were on terrific form in this period. Many great songs here.
Dylan is one the key artists who shaped the entire phenomenon of popular music. BOTT is one of the ways he did it.
There should be a special 6* category for albums like this.
I don't listen to this album much now but it's been part of my life for over 50 years. It stands as one of the five greatest albums ever recorded - certainly within the rock/metal/blues part of the spectrum. It doesn't have a bad track, or anything remotely resembling a bad track. Every composition, performance and production is magnificent.
I like it a lot, but its reputation is that it's amazing, his best in fact. I prefer his 3rd album. The duets on this album - with Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson - are the best tracks.
Wonderful - certainly one of Young's best five albums. For many it's his best.
For anyone who loves 1960s English beat music. F2F begins a sequence of five albums - F2F, Something Else, Village Green, Arthur, Lola - that's probably only equaled by The Beatles. It's a great album.
What a fine album. Lots of disappointment though - it didn't work out for Moby Grape like it should have, and the story of Skip Spence is terribly sad.
But, everyone should listen to this album. At least they left something behind.
The best ever Stones album. Which is saying something.
I'm sure there are lots of other Gene Clark albums on this list, and I know that White Light is many people's favourite, but it's not mine. It's still good, he was a wonderful singer and wrote beautiful melodies, but this album highlights one of his two* great weaknesses. He didn't finish songs. "For A Spanish Guitar" would be one of the greatest songs of the era if he'd just nailed the ending.
*IMNSVHO the other weakness is not knowing what and how his sidesmen should play. Some of his songs have the most incongruous and unsuitable guitar sounds ever added to beautiful songs.
File under "yeah, pretty good, but just wait ok?"
Unreservedly recommended. Different and interesting with gorgeous melodies.
This is my favourite early Beatles album (where Rubber Soul marks the beginning of their middle period.) So I think it's pretty good.
This is my favourite Gabriel album (although I may have said that about So.) The first listen through is electric.
I think it's a bit overrated, although what the original would have been I can't say. Not bad though.
I don't really go for this sort of Southern boogie any more. But you have to have a lot of sympathy for Lynyrd Skynyrd, and this album has Free Bird on it. So I'm in.
A classic. One of those albums that transcends my not-really-bothered attitude to the artist.
I don't listen to Led Zep much these days. But as a teenager in the early 70s I loved them, and I expect a lot of people still do. Led Zeppelin 2 was never my favourite though - I preferred the four albums that followed it.
Music from a different time. It's fine, I get why it's on list, but not for me.
There should be a special six star category for albums like this. I could go on about this album, but I'll just say this. Blonde On Blonde was fantastic when it came out. It changed popular music permanently. A double album that hasn't got a weak track on is extremely rare, but here's one. And, over and above all that, Blonde On Blonde by Bob Dylan has stood the test of time.
I don't think she ever did a bad album - certainly not in the early days. This is another belter.
Really? An album for the day? I'm not anti T.Rex - Electric Warrior has some good tracks on it - but The Slider is clearly from a man running out of ideas.
It's a good album. I don't think it's amazing, but it's worth owning.
I'm not always sure about Joanna Newsom, but you should listen to this album.
Supposed to be one of the classic live albums. I never really got into Deep Purple though. There always sounds like there's something missing. If I had this album I wouldn't listen to it.
Quite simply one of the finest albums ever recorded. If you don't agree give Forever Changes several more listens before giving up on it. Then listen again.
I think this album is good fun. OK - don't go looking for anything more. It's not profound, there's no virtuoso playing, and some of the songs sound like each other. For pure pop I'd go to a lot of other places first. But there's a few good songs, and it's good fun.
Not for me Roy. Competent but ponderous.
This album is OK but imnsvho it doesn't justify any of the "late period masterpiece" stuff that you can read in books and on the web. After Blood On The Tracks Dylan has made some good albums, like Desire, Street Legal, Infidels, Oh Mercy and this. But that's it. They're OK.
I'm not knocking Dylan, by the way. His recorded output up to and including John Wesley Harding, and then The Basement Tapes and Blood On The Tracks, is an eighth wonder of the world.
Jethro Tull have never been my thing. They always "do it like this" and often they "do it like this" to the extent it gets predictable and doesn't serve the song they've written. Saw a gig once and got very bored. This isn't bad though, some decent songs.
Absolutely peerless. Groundbreaking. Love it love it love it.
Back in the 70s when I was listening to Todd Rundgren I preferred A Wizard - A True Star. I don't listen to him now, I find his voice annoying. Other people still like him though.
This has all my favourite Madonna songs - the title track, Oh Father and Spanish Eyes are all excellent. The rest is mostly OK. Ish.
For many years this has been my favourite JM album. Many people go for Blue, Court&Spark , Hejira (and others for all I know.) But this one has the perfect blend of beautifully crafted songs and bang-on performance with bits of jazz leaking in everywhere. I love it.
I'll get to the point. I think it's overrated. This is an interesting and pleasant album, but it's not a masterpiece.
It's a classic. A wonderful album. I never listen to it.
It's good but I prefer all of the five that followed it.
Billy Joel. Not for me.
Always found them overrated. Neither groundbreaking nor particularly pleasing.
Another album that's meant to be a classic. I've never got any further than quite liking it.
Absolutely not for me. Never liked ELO and still don't.
I loved it in the 70s but it's become dated. Still good though.
Great cover.
You can argue that many of her albums are better. Elite Hotel was her early-career fans favourite. My own preferred Emmylou era starts with The Ballad Of Sally Rose in 1985. But that's just irrelevant really. Every album she made from Pieces Of The Sky forwards, pretty much everything she ever sang on, varies from very good to perfection.
Interesting choice. It's a good album, I've got it but very rarely listen to it. The bonus tracks on the cd are very welcome.
Yeah, good album. That's as far as I'm going.
Sounded like a really big deal in 77 though.
The format - with mock advertising jingles between tracks - is irritating, but the songs on this album are great. If I could get a "clean" cd of just the songs without the nonsense I'd buy a second copy. The Who's reputation rests to some degree on the magnificent Tommy/Who's Next/Quadrophenia sequence of albums. But in my view there's not a bad 'un anywhere in their first seven albums. (And we could add Who Live At Leeds, making eight.) This album absolutely stands up as a member of that sequence.
There's been a heck of a lot written about this album and most of it is true. The start of the New York scene that gave us Patti Smith, The Ramones, Blondie, Television and Talking Heads. The tracks sung by Nico should make this album disconnected and awkward but they don't, they lift it to another level.
Never quite got Iggy - I thought there were other artists who did it better. This album's OK.
I can't think of any other band who disappointed me as much as The Police. My first exposure to them - Can't Stand Losing You on Whistle Test '78. Phenomenal. First two albums - Outlandos d'Amour then this one - absolutely exceptional. Three tremendous musicians, great songs. Welcome to the future. Then the future turns out to be Zenyatta Mondatta and the sanitised pulp that followed. Wrapped Around Your Finger? Give it a rest. So, in memory of the end of 70s I'll listen to Od'A then RdeB and enjoy them. And stop there.
Not the first Cohen album that comes to mind! Still he never did anything bad.
Every individual member of Queen was great but I never want to listen to what they did together, except for a small number of tracks. One of which, I'm In Love With My Car, is on ANATO. However, here we have one of the greatest live bands of all time, reaching a plateau they would sustain for 20 years. So what do I know?
This is a special album, being the last one released by Cohen before his death. And it has Treaty on it.
No bad albums from Nick Drake. This is too short - leaves you wanting much more - but excellent.
REM albums run into each other a bit, although the run of albums from Green to New Adventures all had some particularly great tracks. Like all of their first five Document is a good album.
One of the greatest albums ever recorded. Certainly the greatest debut album. This is why we listen to rock music.
Sterile music for the masses.
Ah - lovely Amy. I guess it was pretty tough to be her. But to be able to sing with such maturity at such a young age was a great gift. This is an essential album.
I think Dylan became much greater than his early folkie albums, but they're still a body of work very few artists ever equalled.
It's a decent album. But it lacks passion, soul and emotion. All the reasons I listen to music.
Everyone should try Big Star. Only three albums, maybe listen to one a day for a month. Totally worth it. Despite how it came about Third/Sister Lovers is as good as the first two.
In my nsvh opinion this is one of the most important albums in the history of popular music. It demonstrates that great music doesn't have to be finished, complete or perfect. It shows that the emotional connection from the artist, through the music, to the listener is everything. I couldn't ever listen to this album all the time, but I'll always listen to it now and again, and it will always mean something to me.
Almost perfect. 4 1/2 stars.
A stunning debut album.
I don't listen to everything in my collection, and this includes all the prog that I bought some years back. I got it as a nod to the stuff that I listened to in the 1970s. So - I've got five ELP albums and almost never play them. Maybe once in every five years. When I do listen to them I still really like Tarkus. Side one - the "fantasy about a monster" as Greg Lake introduced it at a gig in the Empire Pool Wembley sometime around 1973 - is still good to listen to.
Tricky one. Back in the 70s this album seemed amazing - like a total revelation. Perfect songs performed with passion and wonderful guitar interplay. To me now it feels a bit dated. I'm still never giving it less than five stars. Not so tricky after all.
It wasn't revolutionary - a synthesis of known musical styles is never going go be - but it _felt_ new. The tunes were good and it's a lot of fun.
They never released a bad album, from their debut to Avalon. This is one of my favourites.
John Prine had a great reputation among his contemporaries. I don't quite get it. This album is worth listening to, but I'm not going to rave about it.
Absolutely legendary, but I can't imagine ever voluntarily listening to Sinatra.
Beautiful album. Astral Weeks will be rated higher but this is my favourite - and the title track and Into the Mystic are my favourite van Morrison songs.
Groundbreaking and great fun.
It's not their best, but if it was that might well make it the greatest album of all time. A superb album all the same.
Now look. In many ways this is their towering achievement. Double album, very little that could be considered a bad track. But it's almost as if the world has moved on past the 70s, and past led Zeppelin, so it's no longer relevant any more.
I prefer the earlier albums, especially Bob Marley And The Wailers Live!, but there's no BM album from Catch A Fire to Uprising that gets less than four stars.
Lovely album. Very relaxing. James taylor sings and plays well. His song writing doesn't have the sparkle of a Joni Mitchell, a Neil Young or a David Bowie that would elevate this to five stars.
I'm not a Bruce Springsteen afficionado, but this album is one of my two favourites, along with Darkness On The Edge Of Town.
I like this album although Neek herself was apalled by the production. It was the flutes apparently. I'm hoping that Desertshore and The Marble Index will be on this list though, in my view they're far more interestiing albums. Thought by some to be difficult however, which Chelsea Girl certainly isn't.
Blah blah blah Oasis blah blah
One of the all-time greatest debut albums. They got better as performers, and a few rough edges disappeared from the compositions, but they never again had the originality and drive they showed here and on For Your Pleasure. The feeling of hearing this for the first time was wonderful.
I accept how important Raw Power has been in the development and progression of popular music. But it's not one that I listen to. A step on the way rather than a fully realised and finished article, in my view.
It's OK. Worth owning. Never an album to get excited about though.
I submit that, having followed three excellent folk albums, BIABH, Highway 61 and Blonde On Blonde are as good a sequence of albums as any artist ever realeased.
Pop. But not great pop.
This is a real personal favourite - beautiful from start to finish. Very much of it's time, but in my view it stands alongside Deja Vu as the best album Crosby ever played on. Give it all the time you need to, it's worth it.
What a voice - and this album was the highpoint of her career.
Worth owning for it's strange angular guitar work and slightly unusual compositions. I don't know if this band and album were a consequence of punk/new wave or if they'd have happened anyway, but they were a significant contribution to an era that was terrific fun.
Bowie did some middly albums, but this is one of his best. All the same, my favourite Bowie era is Man Who Sold The World to Diamond Dogs.
An excellent album from Tim Buckley. Very jazzy.
