Respect is overplayed, but fine. Drown In My Own Tears is overwrought. I expect this to be a trend. I Never Loved A Man signals a worrying trend of complaining about being done wrong by significant others. I get it, but I don't care. Jennifer Hudson and Adele and 1000 other over-singers have beaten this to death since. And that's where I stop song-by-song. Aretha is an incredible talent with a great voice and a pioneer, maybe THE pioneer, in a style of music I can't possibly give less of a shit about. This album is boring and I just don't like it. Thankfully, I can skip the last 3 tracks, being merely repeats of previous songs on the album. So, overall, it's a mercifully short listen. Musically, it's competent. Maybe I'm a victim of my era, but these are just boilerplate soul standards at this point and I've heard all of these moves and choices countless times now, 60+ years later. Vocally, it's Aretha Franklin. Expertly sung with the same tone/emotion/emphasis as every other song in this style. You've heard Aretha Franklin before. You know what these songs sound like. There are no surprises.

Heavenly voices, undoubtedly. Lush harmonies and beautifully performed and recorded instrumentation. I've heard many of these, so I knew what to expect. There's a medieval choral music element to a lot of the vocal arrangements that is a bit off-putting if you aren't into that sound, which I'm not. Paul Simon also always seems like there's a winking attitude to his music I can never get past. Not smug or sarcastic, but too cutesy-clever. Cloying. It's fine, but not my thing. Much like the previous album, it's a mercifully short listen. So that's good.

Really cool mood. Ginger Baker I knew from Cream and other projects, but I'd never heard Kuti. Much funkier and jazzier than I was expecting. Being jam music, every song was 2-3 times longer than I would have liked, but that's par for the course in this genre. Impressive musicianship all around, but not something I'd see myself choosing to put on. It gets tedious quickly. Definitely the best album so far on the 1001 journey, but that's not saying a lot.

Pretty good. Kendrick is a capable rapper, and the overall mood is decent. A few standouts, like Swimming Pools, cross the threshold into being unique. The main issue is that the production is largely pretty boilerplate. Whatever is borrowed from g-funk and dirty south is borrowed wholesale, unchanged. It's standard fare, with above average lyrical delivery. But Kendrick's flow can't elevate it enough to make it noteworthy. I know this album was hyped up and acclaimed to the moon. I assume that's for the storytelling, which I don't care about. I didn't grow up in Compton. I can't identify with that. I don't care about how he was materialistic and then grew into being a more thoughtful and spiritual person. I want an album of music, not a biography.

I didnt need to listen to this one, as Ive heard it several times before. Boston is an interesting group in that they were essentially just one guy's project fleshed out with sessiin musicians. The hits are good, if not super tied to the era in which they came out. The soaring vocals are always impressive but can get tiresome. It's decent. Not great.

Probably his best. I had this in high school and played it often. It's wild that so many of his best overall songs came from this same album. Real Slim Shady, The Way I Am, Stan, Drug Ballad, and so on. The production is definitely a product of the era, and there are way too many skits (which aren't funny and just feel like filler to pad out the play time) but it's a classic for sure.

It's a fine for what it is. It starts off with a few tracks of fluffy party good-time music. There's some surprisingly darker commentary on race relations and whatnot, but musically it's completely inoffensive and it's just the dance music of its time. This is the Motown era that came just before disco, but it's not far off. Not my thing, but it's well written, performed, and produced. The Temptations are a big deal for a reason. I just don't care for this style. Papa Was A Rollin Stone is pretty much the only track I enjoyed, and that might just be because of how it's been used since. It's a movie soundtrack staple, but it does have an irresistible vibe to it. The back half of the album are mostly ballads, and they're....not great, in my opinion. The First Time Ever I saw Your Face is a cover of a cover of a cover. A song written in the 50's revitalized by Roberta Flack in the 60's and kinda fumbled by the guys here in the 70's. Meh.

Even as a metal head, I could never get into Iron Maiden. I'm old enough to have at least caught the end of their big era, but I can't get there. It's very dramatic and they're great musicians in the twin guitar power metal style, and Bruce Dickinson is as operatic as any of those other big metal singers of the era. Problem is I just don't like those qualities. If you like the style, Iron Maiden is probably on your top 10. The musicianship is top tier. The songs are energetic and they have a unique sound (I'd argue their contemporaries Judas Priest, who came out first, do basically the same thing) but I can't get past what I feel is the cheesy comic book-y content of their music. Great band that I don't care for. This album is fine, but never really did a chance with me

First two tracks are really good. Much funkier than I expected, and had a great mood to them. Then we get to some slow live song that deflates everything and end with a 19 minute long absolute slog of wimpy baby-did-me-wrong bs. What a ridiculous choice. It's 4 songs and two are laughably bad and ridiculously long.

I appreciate the intention. Fusing orchestral elements with rock and pop is an admirable goal. The writing is impressive, and the progressive element adds some sophistication to what would otherwise be run-of-the-mill 70's pop-rock. But the result is a watered down, disco-tinged Queen. I'm not a big fan of Queen as it is, so the quirky little brother doesn't really fare any better. The tracks that don't sound like Queen lite end up sounding like The Beatles were locked in the band room of a high school. Oddly placed horns over boogie woogie blues rock throwbacks. No thanks.

I have no patience or appreciation for troubador Americana shit like this. Boring.

Impressive musicianship. It's an interesting blend of influences. Kinda Motown bass and drums, with blue-eyed-soul vocals, rock guitar, and Latin percussion elements. I get why they're influential. But the result is kinda goofy. Beginnings has a really cool chord structure and harmony halfway through. And Free Form Guitar is a complete left turn into experimental noise guitar performance. I dig the willingness to abandon genre and venture into weirdness. But ultimately, it feels like a worse version of its component parts. I appreciate it, but if my rating requirement is whether I'd choose to listen again, I'd have to say I won't be returning to this one.

I didn't really need to listen to this one. I've heard it a bunch. It's a classic metal album, but not among my favorites from Metallica. They're a band who informed and influenced my early appreciation for metal, but a band that I moved past pretty quickly. This was a turning point in their career and sound. A few too many ballads and downtempo songs for me. Not a lot on this album that I feel really holds up or has the staying power to make it worth revisiting in 2023. Of Wolf And Man, for as corny as the lyrics are, is probably the only song that I think has anything to say today. Musically, it has some complexity and some interesting turns. The rest of the album is a bit too safe, especially the few hits/singles. At this point, Metallica were clearly aiming for rock radio. You can hear the watering down of any of the elements that made them different in the albums before this one.

This is pretty good. Kinda samey throughout, but definitely one of the better albums I've heard so far in the 1001 journey. Reminded me of Rooney (who obviously came later). It's garage pop-rock, but slightly polished. I don't think it says much or stands out, but it's not a grueling listen at all, like some of these have been. The first track is the best, and the last track is an interesting way to end an album. Kinda just a breezy instrumental jam to cap it all off. Not bad.

If the most deluded person you knew made an album it would sound like this. This is a self-serious Prince/MJ knockoff who just cannot avoid the cartoonist and ridiculous aspects of the genre. Every single goofy aspect of funk/soul/rock in the 80's slapped together. I do not understand why this is on this list of classic albums.

Since I'm not going to have a lot to say here, I'll use the space to make a note to myself about how I'm choosing to rate these, for future reference: 5-I love it and I'm gonna listen to it a lot 4-its very good and I'll listen again 3-its decent/average. I'll listen if it's on 2-I don't like it, but I get why people do 1-terrible music. Indefensible. That out of the way, this is a fun record. I'd never heard of the band before, but once I got to Kung Fu, I realized I'd heard it before from the credits of Rumble In The Bronx. They're Irish Weezer with a bit more of a pop-punk element. I like it, but it's not groundbreaking. This is better than Teenage Fanclub, but not by a lot, so it's gonna get the same rating.

This is the one I was waiting for. I've been crossing my fingers that in deciding to listen to an album every day from some list of classic albums, I'd discover some artist Is never even heard of that does something to disarm my bias. This is the first. Hopefully the list has many more wins like this. I don't like this style of music. I don't like this era of music. I don't like the subject matter in songs like these. I have every reason to not liked this album. But it gets by all my defenses. It's too good. Not perfect, but undeniably good and infectious and weird and unexpected. What an album.

Bombtrack, Killing In The Name, and Wakeup are good. I'd heard them all before, though. The rest are just ok. It's hard to separate the album from the hype and impact the band had when they came onto the scene. Probably the first band to really successfully merge rock and hip-hop. They avoided the cheesiness inherent in previous attempts to combine the styles. Good band. Good energy. But they never really blew my socks off. This is a fine album, but beyond the few good songs, it's not particularly great.

Not bad. I was familiar with RFTC, but hadn't really paid much attention. This is about what I expected. Impressive musicianship, particularly for punk, but a little one-note throughout. On A Rope is probably the only track I genuinely liked, but most weren't bad at all. Just not really my thing.

I'd heard most of this album before. Bad brains are unique. The fuse punk/hardcore with progressive metal elements in terms of structural complexity. They also have the tiniest bit of reggae to their sound, but in an almost imperceptible way, kinda just in spirit. They remind me a little of Fear and NoMeansNo in that added level of musicianship and heady songwriting in a genre not usually known for it. That said, this album really suffers from dated production choices. Gunshot gates reverb snares and the most overbearing of 80's mixing staples. It's an interesting and they're obviously considered pioneers and influential for a reason, but I don't find myself coming back to them, and this album doesn't do anything to change that.

Gentle and beautiful. This is gonna be the second 5 star so far. Oddly enough, both folk albums, which I don't usually like. This one is heartbreaking in all the right ways. I don't love every song, but the few I do are unbelievably pretty and sad. Things Behind The Sun is my standout favorite, and I found myself listening to it over and over after hearing it the first time. It's captivating, but simple. The guitar lines are exactly what I look for in dark, sad, beautiful chord structures. Parasite and Harvest Breed are also both great tracks in a similar vein. I'll revisit this one frequently, for sure.

I get why this was popular. It's fancy, well produced, and performed. Songs have hooks. It's got the requisite parts of a hit pop album. I cannot get past the singer. The Bob Seger schtick is grating to my ears. Just sounds like a complete put-on. Not for me.