Not to everyone's taste but for my money the most interesting album from this era of FM.

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. ;)

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.