534
Albums Rated
3.15
Average Rating
49%
Complete
555 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1950s
Favorite Decade
Rock-and-roll
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
74
5-Star Albums
38
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Chelsea Girl
Nico
|
5 | 2.63 | +2.37 |
|
Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
The Byrds
|
5 | 2.83 | +2.17 |
|
I Am a Bird Now
Antony and the Johnsons
|
5 | 2.84 | +2.16 |
|
New Wave
The Auteurs
|
5 | 2.86 | +2.14 |
|
Gris Gris
Dr. John
|
5 | 2.88 | +2.12 |
|
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Lucinda Williams
|
5 | 2.99 | +2.01 |
|
The Rising
Bruce Springsteen
|
5 | 3.06 | +1.94 |
|
Queen Of Denmark
John Grant
|
5 | 3.13 | +1.87 |
|
Honky Tonk Heroes
Waylon Jennings
|
5 | 3.14 | +1.86 |
|
Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Spiritualized
|
5 | 3.15 | +1.85 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
The Bends
Radiohead
|
1 | 4.01 | -3.01 |
|
Boston
Boston
|
1 | 3.71 | -2.71 |
|
The Number Of The Beast
Iron Maiden
|
1 | 3.59 | -2.59 |
|
Machine Head
Deep Purple
|
1 | 3.59 | -2.59 |
|
Rio
Duran Duran
|
1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
|
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
|
1 | 3.43 | -2.43 |
|
1989
Taylor Swift
|
1 | 3.27 | -2.27 |
|
The Pleasure Principle
Gary Numan
|
1 | 3.14 | -2.14 |
|
Rocks
Aerosmith
|
1 | 3.12 | -2.12 |
|
The Lexicon Of Love
ABC
|
1 | 3.08 | -2.08 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Led Zeppelin | 4 | 4.75 |
| Bob Dylan | 4 | 4.75 |
| Beatles | 5 | 4.4 |
| Bruce Springsteen | 4 | 4.5 |
| Prince | 3 | 4.67 |
| Pink Floyd | 3 | 4.67 |
| Fleetwood Mac | 2 | 5 |
| The Rolling Stones | 2 | 5 |
| The Band | 2 | 5 |
| Nirvana | 2 | 5 |
| The Smashing Pumpkins | 2 | 5 |
| Johnny Cash | 3 | 4.33 |
| Jimi Hendrix | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Slipknot | 2 | 1 |
| The Divine Comedy | 2 | 1.5 |
| Aerosmith | 2 | 1.5 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| The Who | 5, 2 |
| Stevie Wonder | 2, 5 |
| Black Sabbath | 2, 5, 4 |
| The Beach Boys | 2, 5, 4 |
| Yes | 2, 4, 5 |
5-Star Albums (74)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Beck
4/5
Fun album that is definitely of it's time. Beck can be an acquired taste with his spoken vocals and arrangements. When it hits, it hits. Earthquake Weather and Farewell Ride are highlights.
This sounds like the soundtrack to living in a Motorola Razr with inflatable furniature.
4 likes
Metallica
2/5
Like pickles and ice cream. Both are good, I don't need them together. That coupled with this being the pinnacle of late-90s early 2000s culture didn't do it for me. It was like Metallica doing the N64 Goldeneye soundtrack.
4 likes
Lucinda Williams
5/5
This is the reason I am doing 1001 albums. What a masterpiece. The story behind the album is fascinating and, especially because of its time, amazing. This album was a modern movement before it existed. Alt-Country, Americana, Outlaw, everything good modern country has become. And Lucinda is a fucking badass. This is a collection of amazing character studies that, when taken together are a whole world. You can come back to this well time and time again and find something new. A true masterpiece!
Best saved song: 2 cool 2 B 4gotten
2 likes
1-Star Albums (38)
All Ratings
Queen
5/5
Mid-70s high water mark. Really brought it with operatic bombast and the musicianship to back it up. Brian May's guitar and Freddie Mercury's vocals and piano make this a world. You have no choice but to immerse in it and hold on.
Plus the riffs are metal as fuck. Gimme that pony curl rock.
Jerry Lee Lewis
4/5
Dead Kennedys
3/5
Fast-paced Bay Area Ramones and Sex Pistols. A few songs have the California overtones. It is a snapshot of the frantic fears of the times. Would have been higher if it wasn't a derivative.
Adele
4/5
Soaring pop hits. Songstress who could freaking belt it. Song choice is curated for her strengths and sounds great. Good mix of tender ballads and early 2000s bangers.
Motörhead
4/5
Hard-driving. Run through a freaking wall guitar and bass.
Might not be good for my blood sugar but damn I could rage!
Franz Ferdinand
4/5
Album of an Era. The gasping British drumming is the early 2000s. Touches of the Talking Heads with the driving, wine-soaked British guitar and lyrics. When you need to dance, you dance.
A little too long. A 10 tracker would have been perfect.
Cat Stevens
4/5
Definitely an album of the 70s. One of the best acoustic guitar tones there is. Warm and makes you feel like you are inside the guitar. Acoustic tracks are great pensive musings on life. At times they get into the eye-rolling lyrics, not Dylan-level. Lush strings to back the sound add to the feel and depth of the album. Longer Boats is TERRIBLE. Pastiche of the worst kind. But overall not a bad artistic statement.
Public Enemy
4/5
Leaning into the groove in the creation of a strong hip-hop community facing the backlash of white society for success. I think my favorite era. I don't know if it's age or perspective. But this is where I can fit my mind and perception into it. Historiography? Young enough for it to sound vintage? Beats are classic and the lyrics hold some important messages of a people grappling with life-threatening injustice while making their way and money. Great interludes that make you think and reset the songs. You can hear the influence of the last age of vinyl on hip-hop. At least a minute is added to the songs for the samples to play out, the club era, has to exist for the groove.
The Magnetic Fields
3/5
Absolute bear! Actually 69 total songs. Style, instrumentation, singers, messages, and lengths change constantly. It has perfect songs for love in different situations but as a whole, it cannot be actively consumed in a setting. It is a full tome of various vignettes or short stories to be consulted for comfort, anger, joy, or to feel any of the other feelings of love.
Derek & The Dominos
3/5
Bro-session over another man's wife fueled by cocaine, wine, and feroxious guitars. Some real great songs and some snoozers. But fucking Layla is on this album. It would be a forgettable two without that. Clapton dug deep and Duane soared above. Other than that, it sounds like the thrown together band to jam that it was.
The Black Keys
2/5
The big commercial letdown. Dan went all in on his pho-psychadelic sounds and expanded the band. Lyrics sound like a teenager's basement chasing hits. Lost the soul and the things that made the band special.
The Allman Brothers Band
2/5
Boring. This is HS white boy guitar rock
Two white guys from the south that had some good licks and some soul. This live album has nothing that made the Allmans great. And God damn, whipping post needs to be whipped by now.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
4/5
This is what jazz feels like. Soaked in a cocktail I don't even know the name of because it's that hip. You have to be in the lifestyle to order it, with your fashion, and sense, and words. It stretches your mind in the best possible ways. Move forward to what can be, a meditation in sound. The possibilities are all there. We can take them to the places we allow. That's jazz.
Black Sabbath
2/5
This isn't the cool Sabbath. Cover is iconic and Ozzy and Tony can still shine on some of the tracks. But this is a band grappling with the artistic explosion of the early 70s. They try to keep up but lose the edge and songs like changes just fall flat.
A couple banger riffs, Supernaut and snowbind try.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Another language, but in the best possible way. The Mali guitar has always given the definitive soul in a new way. The blues of the desert air. Sounds of the bazaar that I cannot reproduce because I don't know what dusty instrument that is. The guitar music of Mali has always been meditative in nature. It sounds like a mantra that I can rest on to lose all focus while searching for true focus. The staccato licks pull back to allow the unexpected refocus. No way in the Western tradition to follow the lines that are carved in the desert sand only to be recovered by the next warm wind.
The Verve
3/5
This is 90s Britian. The swan song album with every sound recorded. The lush British orchestral background with the cheeky lyrics and cigarette rock sound. Bittersweet Symphony will always be the sound of the generation. Britain is always a little rougher around the edges. Sound of the all night club that looks like it's in a living room. Crepe paper decorations are all that'll do. But there's a sound there that feel like the truth.
Iron Maiden
1/5
Cool riff dude, you can really scream about Satan.
Duran Duran
1/5
The intersection of cocaine and flash in the pan recording technology.
Al Green
2/5
It's fine. All the sexy hits, but by 72 it's a derivative of a throw back Era. All the style and class, dripping in backup singers bit it's over. Falls in the face of the new consciousness and direction of 1972 and where music of all styles was going. Motown in the face of Hendrix and Floyd.
2Pac
4/5
The epitome of gangsta rap with a purpose. Albim opens with the real shot he loved through. Then he eloquently delivers societal observations with a poets tounge. This is the times, from the soul of someone living it and grappling with amazing fame. A true artist says his piece in as the most important voice to show how it can be done.
Television
4/5
Invented a new guitar vocabulary. Birth of punk from the bloated rock late 70s. The staccato guitar and shaky vocals usher in something new from the CBGB.
Marquee Moon pushes the limits and you have to be on board for it.
Stan Getz
4/5
A cool ocean breeze. There's a reason Getz is "the sound" and you can hear it here. Impeccable guitar tone and saxophone sound and phrasing. This is a 60s cool gin-soaked club night in a sports coat with an undone collar. All through a maraschino lens. This is what happens when jazz is just right. You can't help but be in it no matter what.
Portishead
3/5
Lush trip-hop beats and a 90s Bond longer singer's voice. Another full soundscape of a time, the mid 90s in Britain.
Can
2/5
Why do people like Can. A few moments that were okay but the rest is just polyphonic noise.
The Beach Boys
2/5
I like the beach boys. But this is their SEVENTH album and they had cranked out 6 just like it already. Harmonies are good, rock adjacent music nods to those who started the genre with a west coast lilt. But damn every song was the same. Gotta get Brian off the deep end before the symphonies got going.
Gorillaz
2/5
A few hits. Other than that it is the 2000s equivalent of a synthesizer. Dated, aged quickly and not interesting anymore.
Fatboy Slim
5/5
Iconic work. Late 90s cultural ecstacy and dance-all-night fun. The last societal high point (ever?). DJing from a living room dance party.
A little lump in the throat R.I.P.
Janelle Monáe
2/5
This album is just Beyonce-lite at this point. 😞
Tom Waits
3/5
How far can your tounge go into your cheek? He's a poet, he's NYC, it's live and it's cool. There really is a Bukowski diner feel. It's soaked in gin and grease rolling throguh the gutter. But damn you gotta be in the mood for this one, he grabs you by both ears with his wobbling feel and yells bus drunk soliloquy into your face.
The Beach Boys
5/5
The perfect coming of age album from the genius mind of Brian Wilson. Iconic songs to evoke feelings in an aural world.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
Mid-career greatest hits live. Solid acoustic set with the ones he didn't release on his albums. The lost Americana nostalgic lump in your throat stuff. Electric set has the bangers. Songs that rocked hard without the weird messaging that came later.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Better than it started. Still draws out, too much narrative, just hit it. Good for a rainy day. Soul that gets to some cool places but the songs are long and there aren't many.
Shack
1/5
Cool bro. Oasis exited.
Yes
2/5
Store-brand Pink Floyd. Starts with a banger, then it's all classical guitar and not fully fleshed our themes.
Malcolm McLaren
2/5
Sorry dude. You tried, sampled world music and that may have been am eye-opening experience in Britian. But full, better versions of all of these styles exist elsewhere. Fits with McLaren's aesthetician, doesn't work for me.
R.E.M.
3/5
Short and sweet. Two timeless hits and a bunch of late-80s activism language. Not for my time.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Sprawling mid-career soundscape. Some great songs that showcase all the virtuoso of the band. Lord of the Rings epics and hard rockers. This one was the swan song and it's a pretty darn good one.
The Residents
1/5
What the hell!?
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
The blood is on the Tracks. This is the perfect album tapping right into the vein of events for the band. Real time voyeurism on relationships. True unfiltered.
Isaac Hayes
2/5
Movie soundtrack with a couple good songs.
Thelonious Monk
3/5
Good jazz, but too clean for the Monk. I wanted more of his runs and feeling in the piano of his later records.
Carole King
3/5
She can write. Great tracks that are iconic... for other artists. Piano work is good and the depth of emotion across the album is great. But these are the demos. Great mixes but they're demos to pitch to other artists.
The Rolling Stones
5/5
The Stones become the stones. The evolution is almost complete on the Aftermath of the British Invasion album. You can hear the American soul and R&B influence, the British cool of Brian Jones and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' rage and energy. All bundled up and ready to go. Great songs that set them apart from the other British acts and catapult them into the land they will occupy and dominate.
Dion
2/5
This is the end of a career. Easy listening that Phil Spector thoguht he could produce for another Era. Both are precious dead Era artists trying to be relevant. It's a nah.
Pavement
3/5
Meh. They're alt-pioneers and influenced a movement but this isn't it. Half-cpooked with a few good songs. Lyrica and instrumentation is 90s-passe other than that.
Justice
2/5
Not Daft Punk
Various Artists
5/5
Best Christmas album if all time. Hands down. Even if he's a murderer.
Morrissey
4/5
Soaring birth of Brit pop, glam rock, with a side of rockabilly. This is the album for today, dreary, mid-winter but not cold.
Another artist to detach the art from the artist. This one makes it easier. I like it.
LL Cool J
4/5
Another golden age of hip hop album. He actually was a great MC
Ananda Shankar
2/5
I'm sure it was cool at the time.now it sounds like Moog backed Sitar that AI made as a B-Film soundtrack from the 60s.
The Cure
4/5
Sad boy rock. Done better than others, not the sparing synths or other catnip. Lots of reflective instrumentation and lyrics
2/5
Concept, but it falls flat. There are a couple catchy songs and a few good jams, but overall it's forgettable.
The Zutons
3/5
This will always be freshman year of high school. Kicked me into deeper musical rabbit holes and knowledge.
Riffs huts and great Britpop songs. It may be basic but damn it gets the feeling across.
The Divine Comedy
2/5
It's weird. Definitely a different genre and not in my wheelhouse. Another way to look at Brit-Pop for the 90s.
First couple hooks are interesting. But that's it. It'd all panache and empty Broadway after that.
The xx
4/5
It grew on me. I thought it was another middling English record but Jamie XX created something more interesting by the end. Another sound scape to float thought this season of my life to.
Muddy Waters
4/5
A man and a guitar throwing down for a bunch of white people. Muddy could play and this is the hits. He's wailing with a pretty good band.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Hill Topanga Canyon lyricist. One of her albums before it got a little too poppy. Great piano and rhythm of lyrics that breaks the spell of background music monotony.
ABBA
2/5
I don't get it.
The Incredible String Band
1/5
What the fuck is this shit? They gave these Scottish people a bunch of instruments they didn't know how to play and they banged on them and chanted shit
The United States Of America
3/5
Embryonic, but the door was opened for psychedelic electronic experimentation. High points include some great song writing and proto-freak out rock. But there was some cacophony.
CHIC
5/5
Bangin. Nile Rogers created a new guitar vocabulary and the groove matched. Funky as hell and impossible to sit still to.
Stan Getz
3/5
Great musicians but bossa nova ain't boss. Two Americans do a great job but they aren't the Brazilian masters.
Cool for dinner prep or a cocktail.
Beastie Boys
3/5
Scott-Stapp-Frat-Rap-Midwest-Boo-Bap.
I won't ever say I don't like them, just didn't age great. White dudes yelling over really good samples.
4/5
Grower. Wasn't sure with the title track, it goes to 11 pretty quick and takes a little orienting.
Definitely a program statement. The baroque musicianship is second to none. Every track has some pretty interesting places that push the boundaries in multiple directions. ALMOST Pink Floyd at some points.
Nico
5/5
Thin soundtrack to a Sunday at a museum.
Jurassic 5
3/5
It's the early 2000s. The mixes, samples and lyrics are all of the Era.
I can't get into it at this point.
Talking Heads
5/5
New wave born with a bang. Always loved the Talking Heads and this album gets beyond the hits to show just how deep they could go, especially on a debut!
Always another layer of tight musicianship to hone in on and David Byrne's vocals are iconic. Big re-listener!
Roxy Music
4/5
Fun album. Definitely one I want to sit down again and listen to with headphones.
Glam rock without all the camp. Just strong musicians and vocals to match.
Miles Davis
5/5
It's just fucking cool.
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
2/5
Another time. I get it with the message. But it's so 90s. Pre-connection, pre-technology, it was just another thing.
The beats aren't good, it's "underground" but there's no ground to be under in the same way anymore.
Beatles
5/5
This is the big bang of Brit-pop going psychedelics. One Rubber Soul and Revolver, the Beatles tuned in, turned on, and dropped out. You can hear it all on this album, the whole evolution is there. Instruments, lyrics and studio production.
Always great headphone fodder. Just have to figure out if you want British or American.
Little Richard
4/5
Unbelievable starting with that album cover. The epitome of energy and funky sexy cool coming out of the wild side of the late-50s.
It would be a 5 but it's from the time before albums were full stories. Three hits that are where it's at. Long Tall Sally, Tutti Fruiti, Slipping & a Slidin. Cmon! Banging that piano and screaming for his soul!
Terence Trent D'Arby
3/5
Not my style, a more clean Prince. I get that the activist lyrics may have appealed to the right audience at the right time.
Now it sounds like a 90s GAP commercial
Elton John
4/5
Come a long way on Elton, my taste with him is evolving. Great performer, pairs lyrics with some fantastic arrangements and this backing band is completely in the pocket. Can't beat the Tiny Dancer opener, even if I've heard it 1000 times. Especially on headphones.
3rd release of '71 and that shows a little. This is about 3 clunker songs from peefect.
The Cramps
2/5
The Cramps will always be a sideshow band. Much like Southern Culture On The Skids. They can have a few good songs, but the tin can production and rockabilly sound will always make it scene music.
Beatles
5/5
Part of two albums that changed rock. The evolution of Rubber Soul into Revolver crushes.
This album has amazing lyrics and instrumentation.
Throbbing Gristle
2/5
Experimental for experiments sake. Probably have a time it could be interesting but, man, for the whole thing, that would have to be very specific.
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
3/5
Iconic and wildly inconsistent. Great tracks with samples and rhymes that will live on forever as primordial hip-hop.
Then there are songs about dreaming about Stevie Wonder...
Julian Cope
4/5
This one was a behemoth. Had all the elements that I love. Sounds a lot like what BJM went for later. Influences from all over the place.
Definitely a starting point for me and Cope. I'll be diving into his other stuff.
Radiohead
2/5
So forgettable, just like every Radiohead record. Never worth the hype. It's all background music with a few moments of actual songs.
MGMT
3/5
Three great records and the rest filler. Those songs shaped the electronic dance Era of the early 2000s, they're great for sure, but they fell short elsewhere. Tried to be Foxygen and didn't hang the songwriting or producing chops.
Animal Collective
1/5
I guess I don't like Animal Collective.
TV On The Radio
3/5
The addendum band of early 2000s rock. A few hits and overall, good songs but the album as a whole doesn't do it for me like the strokes or LCD soundsysyem.
Nick Drake
4/5
Root of a lot of alternative themes and styles to come. You can hear the sounds that from the 60s on would inspire people to push fringe music into other places.
This is one I'll come back to with headphones to explore.
Queen
3/5
Not as good as their other releases. Tried to be more of a pure rocker but still with the queen theatrics. Some of their iconic live records made their debut on this one. Still had the camp without being campy, just didn't quite get there as a full vision for me.
Suicide
2/5
Too avant-garde without the direction. Louis Reed without the feed. It kinda seems like a bunch of dudes got together with a drum machine and a synthesizer and tried to do edgy shit.
YEa, it was 77, but whatever
Tortoise
3/5
Gets a 3 solely for Djed. That song was an evolution and interesting experience in post-rock.
But then I need lyrics. Otherwise it's just jamming
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
4/5
Like some portal into the grey bruised sadness of Will's mind. But it feels good. Soft, touching themes to lay over rainy spring days where the temperature doesn't quite reach the promise.
Headphone record to come back to.
Johnny Cash
5/5
The perfect collection of late-life sadness and regret. The felling of pressing on bruised, papery skin. Song selection and argument are perfect for lamentations on the darker feelings of being a human.
Tears For Fears
5/5
Shit, a good album out of the 80s. Monster hits and the perfect mix of good production, technology used right, and a layer of great instrumentation.
This has to be the high-point of British 80s pop.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
5/5
OG supergroup stuff. On their own they are heavy-hitters, on this album they come together to kill it. CPturws the sound of superstars laying down the sound of a scene and an era.
Everybody brings great songwriting and style. Young only really shows up on two, but Country Girl is an epic.
Wild Beasts
3/5
2000s British indie darling album that's just "eh" today. The falsetto seems a little gimmicky and the lyrics leave a lot to be desired. Players are good, but this one is forgettable.
Boston
1/5
Yea! Rock music! I can throw a football over a mountain!
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
The follow up to Rumors. A band where the love is gone, the creativity has still bound them together and they must still search for the sound.
Buckingham was going for broke to be an artist and the deep scars were still there for all the stars. The commitment is now to the work over the love but the album shows the moment in time. It's long, it's weird, it's over the top. But it's cool.
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
The title track is iconic. That and the rest of the originals are so dialed in they are the perfect representation of a hot studio band. Sound "timeless and perfectly of their time."
But the covers just get boring.
Yes
5/5
This might be the best Yes album. Their abilities as songwriters, arrangers, and musicians is on full display. They're firing on all prog-rock cylinders and it doesn't go completely off the rails. There is still an album feeling that pulls all compositions together. Steve Howe's addition made the band complete and his sum added exponentially to the whole.
Pere Ubu
2/5
I guess I don't like post-punk. It all just feels thrown together Most if the songs are just passable with yelped vocals.
Charles Mingus
4/5
Really cool theme for the album. The "dance" variations provided a listening anchor for me to ground myself in. It gets hectic for C and D, definitely not just a "throw on" album. This one takes some concentration.
Mingus is the man. Need some more exposure for sure. Does being behind the bass give a deeper perspective and feeling? Maybe
Radiohead
2/5
Just boring. There are moments that feel like you haven't been paying attention, then you come out of it for a few minutes. It is just background music and vocals that just sound like he doesn't want you to understand.
I don't like Radiohead
Sigur Rós
3/5
Music to stare at icebergs to.
Sonic Youth
5/5
Part of it was the perfect context I listened to this album in, buy man. The perfect mix of driving rock guitar, lyrics and vocals. Everyone on for this part-psychadelic rock freak out. Badass.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
I dunno, shoegaze just seems like wanting to put all the paint everywhere on a canvas. Big feeling, big sound, but everything is washed out in the noise.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
The perfect swan song. Cohen meditating on life, faith and death 16 days before his own. It gets darker. But also beautiful as last rites and the juxtaposition, like Dylan, of beautiful, masterful music, and the stark reality of age in the vocals.
Depeche Mode
2/5
Not my thing. I get the groove and this is clearly a new 80s sound. It's just derivative and dated at this point. The haunting synth behind a drum machine bash and emo vocals.
U2
4/5
Out of the gate one of the best 3 openers of all time. Punk tinge, frantic early 80s rock. Stayed outside of the tropes of the Era that are passe. For me, their later work has always tinged my opinions of the band. Damn, these early albums can really do it though.
The Band
5/5
Old, Weird America is born.
Paul Simon
3/5
Paul coming into his own exploring musical styles that he will lean into for the rest of his career. There's the fade between Simon & Garfunkel, world music, blues and jazz. It doesn't quite coalesce as a whole album, but the single are great.
Fairport Convention
2/5
Folk after folk was cool.
Garbage
2/5
Not for me.
Muddy Waters
2/5
I had a professor once who talked about blues traditions. When blues artists were making in-group music, it was about the words and the message. Instrumentation was there to give feeling. When the music was made for a white audience, words didn't matter as much, it was all about solos. That has always resonated for me with great blues and consumer blues.
I mean, get that money Muddy, I ain't mad at you, but this is the pinnacle of white people consumer blues.
The Flaming Lips
4/5
Great album that really brings me back to a specific time and place in my life. Great music by a revolutionary band grappling with what they wanted that to mean and themselves. The different version releases and some filler muddies the waters for me though. Only thing that keeps it from a 5.
R.E.M.
3/5
Never really got R.E.M. Their hits are great and fine to put on and feel like it's the 90s. But this album just seems like a worse version of what the Talking Heads were putting out. And Michael Stipe loves to say borderline offensive things about Asian people...
Blur
3/5
Brit-rock trying to be American Indie.
Beatles
4/5
Solid album for the time. McCartbey and Lennon hitting their stride as songwriters and there are some true classics on this. Side 1 is killer, but I still don't quite get a whole albim vision.
Abdullah Ibrahim
4/5
Great jazz album. It eas approachable, themes were interesting without being overwhelming, and I was challenged to listen closely. This is one to come back and ruminate on. There is more water in the ancient well. Headphone album for sure.
Motörhead
3/5
They rock. They rock hard and this was probably a great show to be at (just look at that plane crash stage set-up!).
But I like my Motörhead studio.
The Beau Brummels
1/5
This is some freshmen team shit. All I had to do was hear their version of nine pound hammer with tiny hammer backing. It sounds like the scene with Ben Stiller in the mines in Zoolander. Sorry dudes.
Buena Vista Social Club
4/5
It was cool. Culturally important, but background music.
Dire Straits
5/5
Man, this one got me. I thought it was gonna be another dated, 80s-produced blah. But the depth in sound and production by Knopfer knocked me off my feet. This is a headphone album for sure. Surface hits and aural songs to dive deeply into.
Donald Fagen
3/5
Anyone else see this cover and want to hear a great Nick Cave or Tom Waits album?
That's not what this is.
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
Second favorite Tribe Called Quest record. Flow is unmatched and the 90s Tribe is all about the damn vibes!
Beck
4/5
Fun album that is definitely of it's time. Beck can be an acquired taste with his spoken vocals and arrangements. When it hits, it hits. Earthquake Weather and Farewell Ride are highlights.
This sounds like the soundtrack to living in a Motorola Razr with inflatable furniature.
Linkin Park
2/5
Everything about the early 2000s culture. Highest-selling debut since Apetite for Destruction. Creaters of two eras that exploded and disappeared. The nu metal rap rock did NOT have a good shelf life. It will always be 7th grade in my Etnies
The Chemical Brothers
3/5
Fine. It's accessible house music for the masses. Dated with the technology but, as someone else put it "perfect for mindless work tasks on a Friday morning."
King Crimson
4/5
Supper proggy. The suites are basically overextended versions of Pink Floyd interludes done ad nauseum. I liked some moments but it is a mid-70s prog album awash in a sea of mid-70s prog albums.
Milton Nascimento
3/5
It's fine. Some great guitar work and melodies. Without the lyrics being accessible to me, it's much harder on my part to truly engage and assess. One ill probably come back to in a quiet space and time.
Willie Nelson
5/5
Willie at his best with his first song cycle. He could capture the feeling with Trigger and his vocals the way no one else can. Story of love, loss, craziness and the fragility of man. This is a perfect outlaw album.
Sam Cooke
5/5
Best live album of all time bar none. Cooke used the tour to perfect an experience for the artist that felt spontaneous and moving. 3rd show of the night and everybody's feeling it. The sweat comes through the speakers. One of the most enigmatic figures in late 50s early 60s soul. He was a voice of social change, but this shows he knew how to thread the needle and sometimes that meant just having a party!
Jimmy Smith
4/5
Cool album. Very Booker T with more sax. Definitely something to throw on in the background that supports the party. I need to get better at full focus on albums without lyrics. It's hard for me to stay in the pocket there.
Hole
4/5
Courtney Love's California in the 90s. Great single and some other scene tracks that are a great time capsule. The lore/baggage that surround Hole and Courtney Love will always loom large. But the feel, of this record will always be a late-90s sign post.
N.W.A.
3/5
This is a seminal album. Late-80s hip-hop was exploding into a fragmented place that would birth a universe. Public Enemy, Run D.M.C., De La Soul?, Tribe Called Quest, and N.W.A. all took direction to make that reality.
N.W.A. took the hyper-masculine reality state to the stratosphere on this album. Every member of the group has their skill set on full display at full volume in support of some of the most violent and virulent lyrics imaginable. This is what it meant to be young, angry, and powerless as a black man in 1988. None of it is real, but it comes from the place of distorted realism in a young man's mind. Messages may not have aged well, they may ruffle feathers, but this was the world.
Ramones
5/5
Seminal punk album. Embodies everything about the embryonic movement. How man riffs can you fit into these breakneck songs? The first two are as anthemic as anything else, part of the Canon.
They also set the punk undertone of connection and admiration for 50s Tin Pan Alley hits on songs like "Be My Boyfriend." Interestimg scene phenomena and I'm here for it.
CHIC
3/5
The hits are the hits man. This was dance music to the max. "Good Times" has to be one of the best of the Era. Nile Rogers guitar work will forever have its own track and identity. But the rest of this one is just extended dance-floor filler for me.
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
A couple of highlights but this one was flat for me. Mayfield is good but this one was slow without much action. The first track and Hard Times were the high points.
Pere Ubu
2/5
This album reminds me of being 14 and first learning guitar. You don't really known the notes so you confidently bash them out, 90% wrong with a few times that you play it right.
Frank Sinatra
3/5
Sounds like a collection of show tunes. Great concept but old blue eyes had so many better ablums.
Nick Drake
3/5
Not as good as Bryter Layter. First album and he is stretching with every single lyric. You can get to the point where your stuff is too dense to be accessible and that's this album for me.
The Temptations
3/5
Didn't do it for me. I don't need my Temptations jammy and psychedelic. I want the tight soul music of the early years.
The Undertones
4/5
Solid new wave/punk with some iconic tracks. But too long. These albums have a half-life that degrades pretty quickly in one sitting. That energy just can't stay at this level for that period of time.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
This is the reagge sound of the west. We hears this and it was a genre. This one is good because you get a could hits but it is much more of a Wailers album overall. I love the keyboard.
Metallica
2/5
Like pickles and ice cream. Both are good, I don't need them together. That coupled with this being the pinnacle of late-90s early 2000s culture didn't do it for me. It was like Metallica doing the N64 Goldeneye soundtrack.
Van Morrison
3/5
I like Van Morrison. His Irish-soul really hits for me. On this one he hadn't settled in yet. Yhe music is nice and all the songs start with a great groove and promise. Then it all just...goes astral... I was excited to see Van the man this morning, bit this one wasn't it for me. He needed a producer who he wasn't going to listen to.
Peter Gabriel
4/5
Massive 80s album with a really lush soundscsape, albeit somewhat dated with technology. A couple absolute massive hits. Gabriel was a great songwriter for the time and proved with this album that he could cross over to popular appeal.
Grant Lee Buffalo
3/5
90s. Sounds like the other 90s. Sound, lyrics, everything was just 90s.
The Doors
3/5
Some GREAT tracks, some eh. At their best, they were a freaked out roadhouse band. But they also had some psudo-potetry stinkers and BAD blues imitations.
Bill Evans Trio
3/5
I like the review that his piano sounds like "falling down." The bass and piano are heavy on this one and pulled my focus in. But there wasn't quite enough for me to keep it there.
Incubus
2/5
How was this trend ever successful in music? The hits on the album are okay pop songs. But the DJ is TERRIBLE and the "metal" elements laughable. I mean, I get why angsty 13 year Olds were into it, but how did music execs and critics get on board?
Public Image Ltd.
2/5
Started to get into it. The post-punk sound is representative of the feelings of creeping paranoia and self-doubt. I felt that for the first 3 songs, but then this one just goes off a cliff. Too long and the second half suffers from falling off the deep end.
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
Awash in the shoegaze wall of drone.
Fleet Foxes
1/5
Folk and Americana for people that don't actually like the genres. This is what they play at the Gap when they want to sound "earthy." For a fan of the grittier sound of both of those genres, this is the album that launched a thousand lame versions.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Somehow this went: Mali blues is kinda like American blues. Ry Cooder can kinda play American blues. Let's make a record.
Brian Wilson
4/5
Another wildly beautiful creation from the mind of Brian Wilson. His creations always bring out textures and feelings that only he can conjure. This one has my favorite Wilson compositions: Heroes and Villians.
It just makes you smile.
The Human League
2/5
I dare you to listen to the first 9 tracks and remember any of them. I do not love you baby.
The Who
5/5
All of the Who's early maximum R&B with the tight orchestration of Tommy and beyond. This is a recording that makes you wish you were at the show. An assault on the senses: loud, driving and relentless rock.
Fela Kuti
5/5
Something mesmerizing about both of these men. A cult of personality and a force of nature. Both speaking on the fringe of sanity and searching for the eternal groove. Wasn't sure how this mash up would go, they can both get pretty out there. But this one was a complete Reese's peanut butter cup for my ears. Everything jibes and it's like a hot summer night.
The Roots
3/5
It's alright. Interesting moments for me but never really moved the needle either way.
The Crusaders
2/5
The first song is a great film score. The rest are late-70s department store jazz.
Elvis Presley
4/5
This album will inevitably lead to the Elvis debate about authenticity and privilege. Yes, he got credit for music already being performed by marginalized peoples. But that was going to happen. Someone had to be the acceptable (for a racist time) bridge to popular culture. And if that's the historical hand being dealt, I'd rather it be Elvis who had some connection and admiration for the source material than someone like Pat Boone. This record still has some soul for '54 and it sure opened the flood gates.
The Offspring
4/5
Damn, the skate-punk of my youth. These were the sounds of teenage angst for the mid-90s to the early 2000s when nu-metal ruined everything. Yes, it can get juvenile, but that was the point. Punk crossing over to the pop market to shape the heart of Gen-X culture. The singles on this one are undeniable.
Van Halen
3/5
Starts off so strong out of the gage. But this ain't an album band. Everyone is here for the stadium hits. Beyond that everything is forgettable, lyrics, arrangements' et al.
Justin Timberlake
3/5
Maaaaan
Thin Lizzy
3/5
A couple songs by an okay band.
4/5
Iconic album from the Starman. From the burgeoning rock-as-art Era, he tells a good story with great instrumentation. Always a fun one to come back to.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
The beginning of Neil's long, weird journey. After his first solo album, he decided to rock. HARD. This one has some of his enduring classics and he let's them breathe with a great backing band.
Blondie
4/5
Catchy, driving songs especially the hits. But for me this falls in the liminal space between the Talking Heads, real punk, and 80s pop. It doesn't quite go all in or represent any of them fully.
Joy Division
2/5
Dark, brooding, droning, depressing. Felt like I just kept waiting for the song to make me like the album that never came. I've heard some Joy Devision and New Order that I like, this album wasn't it. The air of Ian's depression just made it kind of spooky.
John Grant
5/5
Interesting album. Great distillation of the feelings of alienation and stress that come with addiction and coming out.
This is what Father John Misty wants to sound like. Rye, cheeky lyrics that cut and orchestration that makes you stop what you are doing to listen.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3/5
These old folk albums set off entire movements. Dylan took his while persona for the first album off recordings like this. Doesn't quite get to good "album" status for me. It's a collection of songs that were great to learn from, steal, and pass on. But there's none of the continuity I want if I'm gonna sit down and spend the time.
Little Simz
3/5
Flow and instrumentation are cool. Not very familiar with British hip-hop but this is one I'll come back to. The cool sound that works great in the background or to think on.
The Go-Go's
3/5
Fun. Not sure about this being post-punk. But it's pretty good.
Jeff Buckley
2/5
Not a bad album. Captured the 90s sound and a couple songs were great. But overall for me this is one that is popular due to his death. With a career I don't think it lives up to the hype. And I hate Hallelujah
Stevie Wonder
2/5
Just not a Stevie guy.
Louis Prima
5/5
This album was fun! Didn't know how many Louis Prima songs I knew. It was an infectious, wild 50s party start to finish. Everyone in the studio was feeling it and the musicians were hot.
Saved songs:
- jump, jive, an wail
- oh, Marie
- just a gigalo/I ain't got nobody
Slint
2/5
Intriguing at first, then just kind of boring. Like their name.
Eurythmics
3/5
Spooky, ethereal, shallow.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
Very Mucha post-punk touchstone. Punishing guitar and sharp, staccato vocals. I needed more that was human to be able to balance that out in the lyrics.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
This album feels like just one long hipster mansplain.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
There’s some complexity in the lyrics but I couldn’t help myself from thinking “ worse British version of Chicago.”
Peter Gabriel
2/5
Strange mix of sounds. Not the traditional Peter Gabriel. Into more experimental sounds at times. Also kinda sounded like a discount Phil Collin’s a-la Tarzan soundtrack. Also heard some Bruce Springsteen in there. Another pass over record for me.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
Every time I try to discount this one. Say it's overrated. But damn, this one has it all. The members are in full force with hits of every kind. Might as well be a greatest hits.
Nirvana
5/5
This one encapsulates the band's crossroads with culture. The edges are smoothed, Kurt has given in somewhat to the fame, and it is very much a performance of the moment for MTV. It's the statling coda no one saw coming and offers some of the cold comfort to cling to in the Aftermath.
Saved songs:
Dumb
Come As You Are
Jesus Don't Want Me For A Sunbeam
Lake of Fire
All Appologies
Where Did You Sleep Last Night
The Pretty Things
3/5
It was cool, it was interesting. It hit the marks for the early classic styles, but AFTER hearing all of them, it's hard for this one to have the same impact. I'll listen again to really get the story.
Elliott Smith
4/5
This one hit me really well when I threw it on late at night. Sometimes this whisper-sing style isn't for me bit Smith is a master. The variation in style and masterful lyrics and playing make this a great artifact of the time and culture. I'll be back for more, missed out on him in life but, at certain times, this is the music I want to hear.
John Cale
3/5
A couple cool tracks, but kidna boring and reductive. Has much better work elsewhere.
The Smashing Pumpkins
5/5
Wow. Sprawling in style and length. Ruminations on life, love, and loss. This is the expansive world of mid-90s alternative. I've known Bullet with Butterfly Wings since I was a teenager, but this album is so much more. Killer!
Saved Songs:
- Tonight Tonight
- Bullet with Butterfly Wings
- Cupid de Locke
- Muzzle
- 1979
- Through the Eyes of Ruby
- Strumbeline
- Lily (My One and Only)
Coldplay
3/5
Some huge arena hits for the time. Instrument, lyrics, whole vibe is on the nose mid-2000s. Not great interesting stuff in hindsight, but a scene-report nonetheless.
Elastica
2/5
I read it best in another review: "this sounds like the album of a band created for a movie." It's not necessarily bad, but it's not great either. Just sounds like small parts of every band in the genre, but eith all edge and character smoothed over.
Prince
4/5
What an album. Did this guy ever have any doubts? Doubt it. It's all sexuap energy and cool. I'll echo some other reviews, some of these songs were way too long. But man, Prince and his band kill it.
4/5
Sweeping stadium hits that made U2 U2. I've never really focused on the Edge's guitar playing before. It's deep, full of texture and interesting. They were firing on all cylinders here and Bono wasn't quite nauseatingly self-righteous yet...
Van Halen
4/5
What a fucking debut. Sometimes they're stars from the get go. Everybody's locked in, but David Lee Roth and Eddie were something else. No snoozers, just hits and other songs.
Taylor Swift
1/5
It's just not good. I'm not the demographic, etc, etc. But this is just a music-style vampire record with worse versions of different genres behind lyrics shallower than a baby pool.
Arcade Fire
5/5
Not been an Arcade Fire fan before, but this one blew me away. I think part of that corresponds to growing up in the American suburbs at this time. The concept hit me in the chest and the sprawling narrative kept me all the way through. There is a lot here, but the story is real and the songs are constructed in a way that make this a true masterpiece.
Saved songs:
- the Suburbs
- Empty Room
- city with No Children
- Suburban War
- deep blue
- We Used to Wait
- Sprawl II
Jeff Beck
2/5
Sometimes you just need to jerk off. You don't have to do it with a guitar in your hand. Yes, a lot of these guys became rock legends. But this is just boring for me. The late 60s English rock guys who just did blues covers is so played out. The originals got good but Americans did this part better.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
Cool band, great new wave sound. But I couldn't fully invest. Kept making me think of other bands and I got lost in the flow.
The Band
5/5
Damn. Every. Single. Song.
Saved:
- all of them
The Kinks
4/5
It's cool, the characters are interesting and the Kinks always took left turns before everyone else. Doesn't quite get to 5 for me, it meanders and loses me a couple times. But this one was revolutionary and is recorded in a way that sounds awesome!
Lucinda Williams
5/5
This is the reason I am doing 1001 albums. What a masterpiece. The story behind the album is fascinating and, especially because of its time, amazing. This album was a modern movement before it existed. Alt-Country, Americana, Outlaw, everything good modern country has become. And Lucinda is a fucking badass. This is a collection of amazing character studies that, when taken together are a whole world. You can come back to this well time and time again and find something new. A true masterpiece!
Best saved song: 2 cool 2 B 4gotten
Basement Jaxx
2/5
Not my bag.
Love
3/5
A collection of underground styles that other people would do much better. Too much anchoring in the baroque-cosplay of early psychedelic.
AC/DC
4/5
If you ever need to run through a brick wall, put this album on.
Talking Heads
4/5
B-Side is peak Eno X Talking Heads. Pulling some of Byrne's frantic energy woth a more danceable rhythm. Still embryonic and not a 5-Star Talking Heads album, mostly due to side A.
SAVED songs:
- The Good Thing
- Take Me To The River
- The Big Country
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
This album captures the full range of experiences for Americans post-9/11. It's not the Toby Keith stong-man trope, nor a sad sack collection of grief songs. The album follows real emotions of real people grappling with an event that would shape life going forward. A man form New Jersey called survivors and those who lost family members, made connections, and got his iconic band back together to work through it. As someone who remembers that time and place, this was an interesting reflective experience. Bruce did it right.
Saved Songs:
- lonesome day
- nothing man
- empty sky
- worlds apart
- Mary's place
- you're missing
Duke Ellington
4/5
Definitely a seminal jazz performance. I opted for the original 1958 release and I will definitely go back and listen to the complete show. The final track was great, crowd worked into a frenzy, frantic playing, festival! The Duke re-crowned.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
Should have called it Emotional Fascism, what a great title. Otherwise, a solid Costello album. This is the transition from angsty you nerd to songwriter with a mission. The "concept" thoguh he hated the concept is great. Interplay between militarism, colonialism, imperialism, and relationships is profound and interesting. The music is relentless as all get out and his lyrics are damn good and so full it takes multiple listens to try to follow all the thought trails.
Saved songs:
- Senior Service
- party girl
- goon squad
- moods for Moderns
- 2 little Hitlers
Amy Winehouse
2/5
It was okay. Kind of cool to hear pre-Amy Winehouse Amy Winehouse. But this one was pretty much a pretty good singer doing karaoke.
Funkadelic
4/5
The cover is iconic, George is iconic, the album is good. Opening track is amazing, the highlight for sure a representation of the pain and beauty of birth. A couple other standouts but it didn't quote coalesce as a whole album for me. I think I could use a little mind altering help to really groove to it. But I'll definitely come back to ruminate more.
Saved Songs:
- Maggot Brain
- Hit It And Quit It
- Super Stupid
Barry Adamson
4/5
This one was wild. Started absurd, then descended into terrifying madness, with lounge jazz interludes. This makes sense as a soundtrack, but it is most realized as a soundtrack into a schizophrenic oedipal breakdown.
There were some cool tracks, but this is mostly just background music I'd put on for someone to leave. Although I might stick around with a cocktail and keep listening...
Tom Waits
2/5
I cam dig the smokey lounge singer. I loved nighthawk. I can't do the kitchen-sink carney approach. Some of these songs were comically bad. Not a Tom Waits guy.
Saved Songs:
- Clap Hands
Stephen Stills
3/5
It's just CSN with more jams and less lyrical content. Too long.
4/5
Soo close to a five for me. The opening and closing tracks promise an entire world to open before your eyes. A lot of the tracks within deliver, but there are a few stinkers for me. A Day in the Life is my favorite Beatles track of all time. And there are songs here that inspired entire genres. Overall, bravo boys, thanks for launching something amazing
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
Not great. A couple absolute classics but he has MUCH stronger album offerings.
Happy Mondays
1/5
This album sucked. Not sure what I was supposed to get out if it, but it was too long, had redundant, annoying 80s background sounds and lyrics that were just boring/inaudible.
Will not listen again.
Slipknot
1/5
I can't with the nu-metal. Tried to be open minded, but I don't think I'm angry enough at the world for this.
Robert Wyatt
4/5
This album was cool. Not familiar with Robert Wyatt's solo work. Oscillates between the mundane, meditative and absurd. Went on a little too long but it was a cool experience. One of those I really had to stop what I was doing and focus on.
SAVED SONGS:
- heaps of Sheep's
- maryan
- September ninth
- a Sunday in Madrid
The War On Drugs
4/5
I've always loved this one. Seminal for me when it came out. You can really lose yourself in the rich textures of the songs that all build to a frenzied crescendo. A little too long for a 5, I think there's some filler, but the bones of the album are perfect.
OutKast
4/5
Tour de force by one of the greatest hip hop duos of all time. Innovative idea, but it floods the album, the danger of a double lp. Clocking in at over 2 hours it's a bear to try to consume in one sitting. Each really gets to flex into their individual style that made Outkast great, but two sides to one lp may be been a superior "5."
Led Zeppelin
5/5
This one just rocks. Early Zeppelin defining their style with blues and originals. The bass is so high in the mix, the riffs are the baddest around and it's just heavy and cool! This might be their best ever.
Saved Songs:
- livin Lvoin Maid
- The Lemon Song
- Heartbreaker
Talvin Singh
3/5
90s background Indian electronica.
Cee Lo Green
2/5
You can hear the short man syndrome come right through your speakers. Some good features and alright tracks, but not a great hip hop album.
The Doors
4/5
Seminal debut. All style and substance. Also a bonkers ride and some of it only half cooked. But 4 nonetheless
The Smiths
4/5
Album full of feels. There were some cool songs and some redundant ones. But this is one I'll probably come back to.
Song I Saved (and felt):
- That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
LTJ Bukem
2/5
This sounds more like the album you hear while you're dying.
Talking Heads
3/5
It's cool, not their best.
Pixies
4/5
Unforced cool. Hot, sweaty punk basement music. And good gid, where is my mind.
Lauryn Hill
4/5
Female MC dropping knowledge on the mic. Lauten Hill had all the crossover appeal on this one. Forever and always a classic!
The Velvet Underground
4/5
It's almost perfect. I WANT it to be perfect. But it's Lou Reed. There has to be a performance art element and something to justify less than perfect so he could have his masochistic cycle with critics and fans alike.
The foil he hated us perfectly balanced on this one in Nicco's voice and songs. Love everything here. And sometimes I love the full throttle nature of European Son. But mostly it's "why?"
The White Stripes
4/5
If you can hear a piano fall, you can hear me coming down the hall... Weird, angsty early 2000s masterpiece. Back when they were brother and sister and only wore white and red. This was a true album by a true band from a real scene. Doesn't happen much anymore.
Frank Zappa
3/5
Frankie Z guitar jizzin on the Tracks.
Peaches en Ragalia is great though.
Giant Sand
3/5
An interesting journey through the dusty southwest. The man who invented alt-country kind of feels like flipping through a radio dial: some cool, some interesting, some boring. A less raspy Tom Waits and a less Shakespearian Neil Young. Too much meandering for me in one album but I'll probably spin it again.
Miles Davis
3/5
Aight
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
5/5
This was a great jazz record. Sounds cool as hell in the way only a late-50s album can. Put this on in any setting and you're immediately hip. Take 5 is a top song of all time!
The Byrds
3/5
Mostly filler, some killer. This was music dipping just one toe into psychedelia. Still too much harmony and organization for me. Adding Graham Parsons, breaking off to be Buffalo Springfield developed the sound more interestingly and fully. This album is embryonic.
Saved songs:
- Eight Miles High
Brian Eno
4/5
I need to spend more time on this with headphones. Cool, out of left field album but it is all eno. The embryonic sound he would help develop for himself and so many other bands. This is the crux, the art-rock-big-bang. Throw on the headphones and rock.
Arctic Monkeys
2/5
All adrenaline, no feel. Decidedly British.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
Mind blowing look into Jimi's head. He did what he wanted to on this one. There are some massive highlights and, as a single disc I think it would be a 5er. But suffers from length and the challenge as a listener. Still cool as hell.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
Karen O will forever be the early oughts goth riot girl that was edgy as hell and kicked your ass with her vocals. Backed by a tight trio, they are forever a sound and vibe of a period in my life. This was their "mature" album and a little bit of a departure from the dark aggressiveness of their earlier career. It spawned some dance hits and brought a dark hue to fill out the jangly glittered NY scene of the Strokes and LCD Soundsystem.
Kraftwerk
2/5
Autobahn was cool. The rest was weird.
Adam & The Ants
2/5
First song tried but it was all downhill from there for me. The songs sounded like "almost" so many good things but never got there.
Then there was the random pirate song...
Santana
3/5
Guitar virtuoso and some cool Spanish elements mixed in. But sometimes guitar hero ain't my bag
The Who
2/5
Feel like a hater lately. I'm a Who fan and man, this ain't it. Three KILLER tracks with My Generation, The Kids Are Alright, and The Ox. The rest is just half-baked poorly recorded who.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
This album is a groove. Some songs that would become massive hits and some other great songs. Didn't have high hopes but this one is Marley before he went full messiah. Great reggae sensibility coupled with some great crossover appeal
Big Star
2/5
Big Star is not great. There is a reason they weren't a big band.
Radiohead
3/5
Better than other Radiohead releases, but it still doesn't quite get me over the hump. Too much atmosphere, not enough substance. The lyrics come in and out much like the instrumentation. I need it a little.more lucid and solid for my tastes.
White Denim
4/5
White Denim has a sound. Their palpatating jams are relentless and the guitar tone is always great. Fun albums every time I throw them on.
Metallica
3/5
It was metal, it wad Metallica. But the songs were too long.
Blur
2/5
Never been sure why Blur is put up there with the britpop royalty. Albums are too long, lack a through line and just don't do it. Songs are forgettable.
Tito Puente
4/5
Just fun as hell. The 50s and Latino music was awesome. Peak culture of fun and enjoying life!
Joni Mitchell
2/5
Too many words. Always.
The Sugarcubes
2/5
80s. Forgettable.
ZZ Top
3/5
The hits and the style are undeniable. But MAN is the filler bad. Great opening and these dudes had some guitar tone, big sound, Texas vibe. Could have used a lyricist.
Beastie Boys
3/5
I'm always conflicted with a Beastie Boys album. Always feels like a college white dude party trick. But there are also always some UNDENIABLE bangers. Cmon, Sabatoge! I just don't know. The two tracks that made me turn my head had features and were done in the style of those artists so it was hard to really feel those as Beastie Boys songs.
Pink Floyd
5/5
An album! And a double at that. This one is such a great listening experience. Waters perfectly captured the creation of a tortured, isolated mind in post-war Britain growing into a pseudo-fascist isolated star. The songs flow to capture all stages of development and feeling until the wall is destroyed. Best double LP of all time. Play it loud!
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
This may not quite hit perfect for me on a continuity and vision side. But damn if it isn't perfect for influence. Jiminy went solo, with this debut and changed the guitar. This sound in '67 blew everyone apart then and for generations going forward. Entire genres were formed because ears heard these sounds. Name one guitarist after this that wasn't influence. Jimi was a force unto himself and made everyone experience this one.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
Another perfect record. Gaye meditates on all aspects of a world he is trying to make sense of over a great groove. He expands the scope beyond the normal themes. He pushes into ecology too! This was a turbulent time for all in American history but especially black culture. Unfortunately, it seems just as relevant on the eve of the 2024 election as it was when he penned it.
Supertramp
3/5
No identity besides "made in the 70s." Some undeniable hits, radio and movie-friendly songs. It sounded like a cover band of some of the great prog rockers but nothing to make them stand on their own. Another in the nebulous wave of this Era of music.
Bob Dylan
5/5
I love Bob Dylan. This is (one of) his best albums. He had a knack for figuring out when it was time for something different, usually before everyone else. Artists have done this throughout the history of recorded music. Torch-bearers. Dylan decided to have some fun, get loud, and keep his silver tounge. So many classics of resistance, love and spite. Get over his voice, it's part of the bag, and the smallest part there is.
Saved Songs:
- She Belongs to Me
- Love Minus Zero
- Bob Dylan's 115th Dream
- It's Alright Now Baby Blue
- It's Alright Ma (I'm only Bleeding)
Michael Jackson
4/5
Michael could make hits. This album opens with two of the best in a massive catalog of great pop songs. I struggle with these albums serving the purpose of a coherent musical vision. But I don't know that they have to.
Neil Young
4/5
Oh Neil. You can take a sad song and make it sadder. You can take a high voice and make it higher. Listened to this one the day after Trunp won the 2024 election. Lots to ruminate on and this album had some songs that really worked for that. It's soo close to a 5, probably a 4.4. But Till The Morning Comes and I Believe In You are filler no matter how you slice it. Damn if After the Goldrush and Southern Man aren't two of the best songs ever written. Cool story about a failed screenplay breaking the writer's block wide open and creating an amazing song and album.
Saved Songs:
- After the Gold Rush
- Southern Man
- Birds
Soft Machine
2/5
I get the concept but this was was trying to be too avant garde for me. At some point, it's a lot of noise.
Coldplay
3/5
Not all of the Coldplay hate is warranted. Solid musicianship and songwriting. The comparrrisons to U2 and Radiohead are apt. Radiohead especially with this album. The tracks are disorienting with their speed and tone. Spawned some undeniable hits, didn't quite move me enough for 4.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
4/5
Classic album for a reason. All of these guys could sit down and write a song, then they could all get together and play the shit out of it. So many songs on here are now embedded in the American music vernacular. More of a showcase than an album statement but, damn, as a group debut it's pretty awesome.
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
For all the people that said this is a worse version of Radiohead, I beg to differ. Lyrics were reflective, songs could be jarring, but the instrumentation really drew me in. It was one that made me stop and think, especially from the first song. That one forced me to stop what I was doing and listen. I'll be back to this one with more focus for sure.
Fred Neil
2/5
There were some good tracks. Everybody’s Talkin is a classic. But the rest were just okay and the last song was garbage.
3/5
Kinda boring. Diet version of herself, Fiona Apple and Patti Smith.
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
This album is cool. It is a whole scene and you definitely want to be in it. The beats and sample are all time, the MCs are slick and the lyrics make you think. It's fun, there's meditations on life and it is an entire album to lean into. You want to be in the crew, from the round-robim tracks to the outtake laughing.
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
Sufjan created delicate little worlds to crawl into. Their is love, despair, excitement, and joy. It's all nestled in a cocoon of melancholy. This one takes time. You need to be in a room with headphones, or in a car at night. You have to come to it, it will not come to you.
Dad rock to the max. Not bad, Stay with Me is an undeniable hit and this absolutely launched Rod. But it's an album of dudes fuzzin out on the guitar and signing about sex.
Daft Punk
3/5
Nostalgic. The launch of a movement and something great. But this was still a club record. Some great hits, but it's loooong.
David Ackles
3/5
Strange one. Weird vaudeville feel that went all in. There were moments he came back to some restrained melancholy that I liked but damn, that Montana song was crazy. I'd listen again when I have time and a drink.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
Tough New Jersey lament. Strong guy being vulnerable about cars, women, and life. Put of the gate the E Steeet Band rages. The first half is perfect. A couple clunkers of side two are all thst keeps it from 5 stars. It does what an album should, takes the listener to a time, place, and feeling. A young man om the cusp fighting to find his place.
David Bowie
2/5
Nope, none for me. This one is just. Not like the rest. Earlier albums had direction, sound, "cool." This one is a last gasp for the Era. Bloated with sound that doesn't do it and a stones cover? On to the next era.
Mott The Hoople
2/5
Opening track might have had the most boring sax solo of all time.
Green Day
2/5
Dated, boring, pop punk from Target
The Blue Nile
2/5
Twas the 80s
David Bowie
2/5
Young Amaricans and Fame are hits. The rest sounds like Pink Floyd backed by the SNL house band. Not in a good way.
Beatles
4/5
This album is good. It's even good by Beatles standards. But side B doesn't quite touch perfect. Side A is amazing, hits galore and cool studio shit. The songscape of late-side B is just a little too floated for me. Carry That Weight is dope though. 4.4
The Beach Boys
4/5
Mid-career, weird Beach Boys. Brian Wilson had really started exploring his mind and attempting to make it real with studio tools. Surfs Up, Disney Girls, Take Care of your Feet, and Feel Flows are some of the best they ever made. Not quite a perfect album statement but one worth returning to.
TLC
3/5
Banging female MCs, 3 monster hits and a bunch of great features. But with the interludes and extensions, the album drug. It was good, but the idea of an album statement wasn't really what this was all about.
The Doors
2/5
Not their best. A lot of Doors Albums on this list. There are a couple radio hits, but you don't get Jim's best lyrics or Robbie's most inventive guitar work. It's a sad beginning of the end.
Public Enemy
2/5
These dudes were MC's. The style was fresh and the DJing was something to behold at the time. These guys were political, tough, but not the braggarts about women and drugs. MCs with a purpose. But out of the context of the times it's tired. The album sprawls and doesn't have the original bombast.
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
80s man. The lush world.of post-punk might just not be for me. The emo, drum machine-drvien songs just got lost and the random sounds didn't help. I understand this is music people like but it just sounds like a dated John Hughes movie soundtrack.
Lou Reed
2/5
Reed's got better. Walk On The Wild Side is a GENERATIONAL hit. But so much of the rest is just navel-gazing filler. Out of the context of his uneven career, its forgettable as a statement.
Eminem
4/5
Didn't expect this, almost avoided the album, but it was a high 4. This is a cultural time capsule of the early 2000s through the lens of the most skilled participant. The hits exploded and his ability to rap in the hyper-pop culture space made him an icon. There is some reprehensible content, but it is this guy grappling for every midwest teenage male with the new world of MTV and constant entertainment.
AC/DC
3/5
Drank a martini while I listened to this album. I don't really think it's a martini album, but I was in the mood for a vodka drink and a dry martini sounded really good. It wasn't wholly incompatible, ice cold and cutting. It just struck me as a little weird to be sipping a martini while Highway to Hell blasted on my headphones. Anyway, I think it's a 3.
Gang Of Four
4/5
Jagged in every sense of the word. A general sense of unsease permeates the whole work, but with pop overtones. Hard for the mind to bridge the gap but it feels good to try. No sugarcoating the hard side of love. Giitar, drum, and bass work spawned a thousand bands. In 1979, this was pretty damn amazing.
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
Zappa is a skilled musician, parody is funny. But he was so pissed people didn't want to play his avant garde that he went full-tilt with a whole album thumbing his nose at all parts of the 60s music industry. It's adept at capturing the sound of the different styles and twisting the message. But it's also... unoriginal and not very good. He sacrificed his integrity and skill on this one. It's fine, a passing listen is at least funny, and there are moments that sound cool, but by the end of every song it's just "yea, okay. Got it."
Plenty of assholes in the history of the music industry who are willing to spite themselves just to "show" the doubters. Frank Zappa is definitely one...
Deep Purple
1/5
Me get guitar. Me play songs. Dad's happy long time.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
This one's a workhorse. Three albums that went all in on a bare bones sound of rock. Tight, white quartet, bringing it. Classic version of Proud Mary. One of if not the best white band at this sound in this Era. Always in the pocket. And Born on the Bayou is a song to sweat, drink, and rock. Tight 30-minute albums are a thing!
The Velvet Underground
4/5
The vibe that spawned 1,000,000 vibes. Lou and company hit their chic palpatating stride on this album. Steered back toward pop from the total avant garde they find the scene. Yet still not complete. A few odd ones but overall probably the best Velvets release.
Kings of Leon
3/5
There's a lot to unpack when I listen to the Kings of Leon. I found Youth and Youngmanhood when I was young, my hair was long, and my pants were tight. I once drove 90 minutes down the highway in the wrong direction, realized it, turned around and balred that album.
This is not that album. It came out the year after I graduated high school. Navigating an entirely different reality. In hindsight, even the early stuff is a little cringier than I thought. This one is mixed. I can't completely pan it. Is it over the top? Yes. Is it completely self-reverential and pompous? Absolutely. But there are moments when the sound is pretty fucking good. And that's what they could do. It took me a long time to realize just how problematic the lyrics on the first few albums were. Because the sound really did it for me. And I feel that still. At least a little bit.
Nick Drake
3/5
Started off interesting, ended dragging. A few pretty stylistically abrasive tunes mixed in. Music that needs a specific mood
Steely Dan
5/5
Yes I’m white, American, 36 and male. I think this album (most Steely Dan albums) have a part of my DNA coding. But, man, it’s good. Musicianship is on point, songs are diverse, and there are 3 massive hits that all sound totally different. These guys are crazy, but they can catch some damn lightning.
Nina Simone
4/5
Nina Simone is the musical embodiment of the pain and sorrow of the African-American community. Her deep voice and tortured arrangements bruise even the sweeter songs she sings. Her’s can be challenging emotional albums to deal with. But they give clarity and feeling to the tortured reality of being a second-class citizen and dealing with the mental health challenges that plagued her life.
Saved Songs:
- Four Women
- Why Keep Breaking my Heart
- Either Way I Lose
The Rolling Stones
5/5
One question: Stones or Beatles? They are both great, both immensely important to the history of popular music. But deep down, you’re a one or the other kind of person. Gimme the Stones. This is the second to last album of the greatest four album run of all time. At the top of their game they could churn out all-killer-no-filler statements. This one has it all: homages to the music they loved and originals that take it all further. A perfect early 70s rock album from the time when they really were the greatest rock band in the world.
Saved Songs:
Sway
Wild Horses
Can’t you Hear Me Knocking (maybe the best stones song of all time!)
Moonlight Mile
The Libertines
2/5
This album was not good.
Bauhaus
2/5
80s. Post-punk and goth aren’t my bag. The bass work is definitely the most interesting element. Other than that a lot of the elements are not for me. They’re the same, predictable and lyrically uninteresting. Bunch of sad 80s boys. These bassists needed a different decade.
OutKast
4/5
I had this album in 5th grade. I had no business as a white suburban Midwest kid with this album in 5th grade. It blew my mind. I loved B.O.B. I didn’t know why but I knew the album was cool.
There are the undeniable hits of Ms. Jackson and So Fresh So Clean. They pulled you in then smacked me in the face with tales of Atlanta stunting. I didn’t understand any of it.
After three amazing left turns two very different dudes from Atlanta continued to crush it. Stunting on every style and refusing to be boxed in. The album is hip, fun, street, intelligent, and sexy.
Almost perfect, but not quite. Too damn long!!
Steely Dan
3/5
Steely Dan is kind of like straight glucose syrup. It’s objectionable good. REALLY good. But it looses its luster as we scoop it into our mouths.
This is the last album with the “original lineup” and these guys can play. The instrumentation and arrangements are flawless. These are the players’ players all together to make objectionably amazing music.
But by halfway through the under 40-minute album I was tapped out. There are a couple songs that really caught my attention, but other than that it was a lot of just “damn these guys are good.” I think other releases (Can’t Buy A Thrill and Aja) are better as full album statements.
Saved songs:
- Any Major Dude Will Tell You
- Pretzel Logic
Tim Buckley
1/5
Damn, this album was annoying. Another reviewer said it best. This dude just wanted to scream “I had sex!” 😂
I think the L.A. sun might have fried his brain. It was an imitation of a bunch of musical styles but worse. The production was hollow, absolutely no low end. A few good studio musicians playing but parts but the songs sucked. Worse version of the Doors which is a worse version of American soul and R&B.
The Byrds
5/5
I have history with this one. I’m a Gram Parsons guy, hook line and sinker. Stayed at the Joshua Tree Inn, followed the albums, devotee through and through.
This is the one that busted it all wide open for me. By happenstance, not plan, the Byrds brought musical styles tighter and caught some lightning in a bottle. The psychedelia of ‘68 LA, trust fund hipster culture of Parsons, and an unbelievable lineup of country/bluegrass pickers in Nashville.
For all the firsts and mythology of Opry scorn and genre big bangs this one really does give something clean. It’s a listen for the headphones. Musicianship is second to none, lyrics and themes are pure Americans and the vocals are accessible. Young men pining for what is real (or at least what they want real to be for someone, somewhere if not for them). This one does it for me!
Iron Butterfly
2/5
I listened to this while I played video games with my 7 year old son. That’s about peak experience for this album. It’s not bad classic rock, but it’s far from revolutionary. Lyrics are mid at best, the musicians can play alright which is their saving grace.
The whole mythology is built around some poorly scribbled lyrics that became a 17 minute psychedelic jam. Okay.
Iron Maiden
3/5
It’s a lot like musical theater. There’s even a song called Phantom of the Opera… Strong theatrics in instrumentation, lyrics, and singing. the people who are into it ARE INTO it. Their culture, lives, style revolve around this stuff.
And the guys are clearly nerds. This is rock that didn’t care about style, played dungeons and dragons, and showed up in sweatpants. But there is a virtuosity to the orchestration. Not my bag, but I didn’t think it was terrible. I’d listen to some more, when they rocked they brought the heat.
Black Sabbath
5/5
5 star heavy album. What a statement. Geezer Butler created an entire ominous universe and use the most suited musicians to bring it to life. Punishing tracks that still manage to be catchy. Listening to this it isn’t a surprise this band spawned entire genres. 5s all around for songs, sound, band members, album cover. A goodun
Suede
2/5
Time and time again, this just isn’t my style of music. It’s a specific English depression that is too foreign for me to make any connection. The whiny council flats vocals sound like the 80s, before my time. Washed out guitar tone blends together to sound exactly the same in every song.
These albums show up a lot on this database, I get the British flair, but time and time again I can’t do it. Came into this one with a complete open mind but it ain’t for me.
Parliament
3/5
They are in fact funky. In case you didn’t hear the puns. It’s fun it sounds like they’re just jamming and having a great time.
But after about 15 minutes of that I need a little more structure. Yes I’m white, maybe I’m not at funky as I want to be, but this funk is just a little too unstructured for me to stay engaged with. I like my George Clinton with just a tad less PCP.
Bebel Gilberto
2/5
It was bossa nova from the early 2000s. It wasn’t bad, but it was just kind of there. Not sure what would make any bossa nova record “essential” other than some cool patina of age. A past era where I can’t remember the hipness. Anyway, this wasn’t it.
DJ Shadow
3/5
Cool vibes but it wasn’t quite right for just a listening experience. This one needs a party or hang or something to share.
The influence is clear and wide-reaching. But I couldn’t fully engage with just headphones on.
David Bowie
4/5
Great early Bowie! A little bit of everything he would dive into later to create his many personas. Rocker, out there artist, show tunes, space man, this one’s got it all. Including some of his best hits.
Not quite a 5 because he’s got some clunkers (Andy Warhol???) but he seemed to break into a real interesting artistic place with writing on the piano for this album. Always a fun one to come back to.
Saved Songs:
Changes
Oh! You Pretty Things
Life on Mars?
Queen Bitch
Waylon Jennings
5/5
Two great songwriters spawned a whole movement. Johnny Cash may have the picture with the double birds, but these two did it on record. Outsider music in the country tradition has created an enduring through line to 2025. This album is why Sturgill Simpson exists.
The production sounds like the Smokey bar on the cover. And those are the hard drinking, hard living cats that made it happen. I love all the songs on this album, hard guys willing to put themselves out there for the sake of the song.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
Never really been one to gaze at my shoes…
John Coltrane
3/5
Jazz is hard man.
The Flaming Lips
4/5
It’s really hard to follow up a masterpiece and this album will forever live in the shadow of The Soft Bulletin. A lot to like here in strands. Wayne creating the modern Flaming Lips universe. Lush soundscapes, good lyrics to meditate on issues, driving drums, synth, orchestra. You can hear them coming to life. Not really a concept album, but with a title like that, it’s hard to divorce the expectation. Ultimately the songs all just kinda float.
Arcade Fire
4/5
I had a good review about generations of strife and the pain of continually being let down and doing it wrong, but it deleted.
Oh well thus resonated because of when I was born
Gene Clark
4/5
Gene Clark is one of the interesting side characters in 60s rock. He was the member of the Byrds who didn’t launch a career of his own as big as the others. But a couple albums really stick: this and the one with the Godsden Brothers. In all honestly that other album probably deserves a spot on this list more than this one, but it’s still a good time capsule of folk rock at a burgeoning age of consciousness.
Hüsker Dü
2/5
Unless it’s the Beatles, any story that starts with “they broke up after this album” usually doesn’t bode well for posterity. This album was just eh. Didn’t have the edge that made Hüsksr Dü cool and it was way too long for the style. Worse version of EEM was Ana pt analogy.
Ute Lemper
3/5
This might be the most left field album I’ve gotten yet. German cabaret singer doing songs by an eclectic set of famous musicians. It wasn’t the terrible mess a lot of people see to think it was.
Still not exactly my bag, but it was an interesting listening experience. The arrangements and her vocal abilities were pretty impressive and it was a fun exercise to keep my brain with.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Female Sinatra. Blue-eyed soul in that era. She has great singles through her career and this is the first one.
Bob Dylan
5/5
Not even his best yet, but damn. Dylan is my number one. The songwriting, playing, and feel are second to none. He wrote multiple songs on this album that stand the test of time and cut to the core right at the time of release. Some people tap into the core of the American experience and can live in that place reflecting back to us the experience. Dylan is that. Best living American songwriter.
Maxwell
4/5
This album is sex. In all forms and emotions it’s sex. The album is 2000s cool. Sade production and backing with one of the last true New York musicians. It’s a classic cultural piece from the Afro-chic culture in Brooklyn before the hipsters razed it. The production stretches the piece into an entire world for your ears. Ebbing and flowing form the lush instrumentational meditations into lyrical phrasing to connect the themes.
Paul McCartney and Wings
3/5
All the Beatles sunk into their own identities after the breakup. For better or worse, the nexus had broken and they careened deeper into their personal selves. For Paul, that was the quirky pop sensibilities. He was always a saccharine writer and this album is full of those songs backed by a synthesizer band at his command. There are some great hits, but a lot of filler. This one might have put him back on the map, but it ain’t perfect. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five was probably my favorite.
Mike Ladd
1/5
This album sounds like the soundtrack to an edgy tech thriller from 2000/
Ray Charles
3/5
All sides of Charles on this one. Horns, crooning, piano playing, belting. It’s a classic and always great to put on, but also forgettable as a collection of songs. It’s great, I loved it, but I couldn’t tell you one song on it. It’s an atmosphere album, put it on to set the mood and party. Like most from that era and style.
Joe Ely
2/5
I like country, I really like outlaw country. I was excited because I thought “hey I don’t know this one maybe it’s an uncovered gem!” It wasn’t. Surface album that’s only stand out point was how often I thought he was playing a different song, then came in with lyrics that were in fact not that song. Forgettable and I could have died without hearing it.
R.E.M.
2/5
The radio hits are good songs. But Stipe is so self-righteous and with the hindsight of the way boomers and gen-x have destroyed society doesn’t sit well when I listen to REM albums.
Marvin Gaye
3/5
An album that exists in multiple levels. It’s obviously horny as hell, but there is the layer of Gaye coming to terms with his own childhood abuse and trying to heal. There’s a lot here, but for me it still got caught up in the funk soul cliches of the 70s. Those musical things don’t resonate with me, and make it hard for me to fully connect with an album like this.
Foo Fighters
2/5
Cool and admirable that Grohl recorded everything himself. Emotionally interesting that he used the recording to cope with Cobain’s suicide. You can hear echos of Nirvana’s grunge and the roots of Foo Fighters stadium rock. But really it’s a guy playing some demos. Echos and roots are cool but they’re not fleshed out in either direction.
Jeru The Damaja
4/5
Man, the mid-90s were cool as hell for hip-hop. Pre-technological overload, the craft was insane. Crate digging and socially conscious grooves. The one downside is the cultural bent toward misogyny. It came up multiple times and is the one thing that turned me off. This was the magic time in NYC when it was livable and everybody in the culture was optimistic about a future world. That world never came to be, it the ciphers of old give a cool window into a better musical time in hip hop.
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
This album is shot out of a cannon. Before they were corny VH-1 TV personalities these guys could bring it. The first half is classic after classic with great beats, solid rhymes and infectious fun. Then there is the all-time best crossover track of all time.
Like most albums of this era, it falls off in the second half and we get a healthy dose of misogyny and questionable beliefs. It was the times, not all their fault, but that keeps it from perfection.
Judas Priest
4/5
Badass metal album. Not gratuitous, killer cover, and songs that make you wanna run through walls. Enough imagery to be edgy but not too campy (impossible to completely avoid that in the genre). This one is the perfect balance between mainstream-sensible songs (Breaking the Law and Living After Midnight) and harder songs to bring you in deeper. Drags on a little long, could have taken a nod from the punks on length. Definitely an amp-up keeper.
Moby
2/5
Man, Moby is white as hell. Southside is good, but I am white.
Beck
2/5
I got Beck right after Moby. That’s a run to make you doubt modern albums can be perfect… Devil’s Haircut was good, but then it just devolved into and experimental soupy mess with grunge vowels.
Beastie Boys
2/5
White frat rap. Interesting that the second half was much better than the first. But man, they knew how to put a classic rock riff behind some juvenile lyrics!
The Afghan Whigs
2/5
As shallow as the cover. Forgettable 90s songs with “edgy” themes that end up sounding washed out and juvenile
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
1/5
I’ve had a bad stretch. Not even all “bad” albums. Just all forgettable stuff that makes you question if there is any good music or if you’ve lost your touch. I think it’s the albums.
Harry Nilsson
5/5
Harry Nilsson is the tortured artist who tortured himself and self-sabotaged until he died. He is one of those “your favorite artist’s favorite artist” types. A guy with unbelievable talent that terrified him into a bottle and album decisions to derail any chance of the massive success he was capable of. This album is the perfect representation. Starting with the self-deprecating title and continuing through the disjointed beauty, anguish of everyday life, and absolute bombast of the songs with full bands. Harry liked to drink and he was good at it. You can tell. But dammit he was good. This album is all of that: beauty, heartbreak, gin-soaked and piano-driven tottering pieces about love, loss, and his inevitable failure pushing people away. I love it in a perverse sad way, this is the perfect representation of Nilsson.
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
Nostalgic Laurel Canyon comp. Doesn’t evoke an album feel, but it was kind of before that time. The hits are undeniable and defining of a sound, place, and generation. Its drawbacks are of the era. I don’t need them singing Spanish Harlem. Leave that to Phil Spector’s stable. These throw away knocked it down a couple for me. But fun nonetheless.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
This one kicks from moment one. This was a seminal album for me growing up. So hard for 1969. From Good Times Bad Times to the end everybody went full-throttle. there’s the ripoff accusations, but they took it to a different place just like all music.
Bee Gees
4/5
If this was labeled The Beatles people would flock to give it 5 stars. Because it’s The Bee Gees they can’t get the feel of velour and sounds of Stayin Alive out of their heads.
The album is big (are double albums ever really necessary?) and the ideas are pretty grandiose. But the songwriting was sound. Big flourishes added feeling and there was depth in the content. I’ll listen to it again.
Pixies
4/5
Most mainstream-accessible Pixies. Even some hits! There were still some songs that drowned into the background, but always something that made me perk back up. SoCal vibe detectable throughout. Not sure where that influence on the guitars came from, but I like it!
Elliott Smith
2/5
I like the solo acoustic Elliot Smith albums. They are the right level of melancholy and brooding to make them interesting listens. This one seems like a collection of songs too big for Smith. Matt Damon’s favorite brooding artist to put in a sad movie montage.
Aerosmith
1/5
Aerosmith is the boring, white version of classic rock bands. They’re generic, the vocals and lyrics are bad and the songs go on too long. This one doesn’t even have hits.
Primal Scream
1/5
I tried for about three songs
The Divine Comedy
1/5
Jesus, this is a more pretentious, less skilled Father John Misty.
B.B. King
2/5
I had a professor once who talked about the nature of the blues. There is blues made for two audiences. Traditional blues, played culturally for black audiences is all about the lyrics. When artists crossed over to play for predominantly white crowds, they found the audience didn’t care much about the lyrics and instead it became all solos.
BB King, through no fault of his own, is the latter. The Chess brothers found him, polished him up for the white world, and that was it. There’s just a lot of better blues out there.
The Black Crowes
4/5
It’s fun. It’s like a karaoke/cover band/nod to an era that had disappeared. Yea, they just wanted to the be the Stones. But they had some hits. Fresh air from hair bands, rock could still be a traditional “rock band.” They got an ego, it wasn’t as amazing as they probably felt like they were. But they created a world and they lived in it for YEARS and still are. That’s success.
3/5
I wanted so badly to turn this off, give it a 1 and move on with my life after about 3 seconds. Started and stopped it multiple times over the course of the day.
In the end I’m glad I saw it through. That’s the point of this project. This album is an all out assault on your senses. I ultimately listened to it while I was making dinner. The rush of getting ingredients prepped and hitting times was about the only time this album isn’t overwhelmingly uncomfortable. The A side is a punishing wall of sound. It’s what my head felt like cooking while parenting. It was unavoidable. Grabbed my attention with both hands and fixed me to look, refusing to let go.
The B side had what resembled traditional Ornette Coleman takes in snippets. I came out of my survival to enjoy and contemplate those moments. Against my better judgement, this one gets a three. It was a statement and an avant guard piece of music that demanded my attention for the duration. I think I need a cigarette.
Belle & Sebastian
4/5
First time really listening to this group. It was clearly the touchstone for so much music I liked in the early 2000s. Throwback, light and airy, and just enough in-group pretense to make it hip.
Not quite a perfect statement but a time capsule for my musical life.
The B-52's
2/5
Man, I can’t. I’m glad people like Rock Lobster and Rocky Horror Picture Show, but it ain’t my bag. The songs sound the same, too hipster and no feeling for me. It’s a jerky Patti Smith that is younger and cheek to the max.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
Massive. Samples galore, the fountainhead of a clear genius. This album truly feels like being in the mind and life of Stevie. Exploding out in every direction with music and experience.
2/5
All the other reviews nailed it.
Kanye West
5/5
Yes, modern Kanye is terrible. He was a genius artist that like most others struggles with mental health. Couple that with modern technology, social media, and general cultural toxicity and it’s no surprise what we got.
That being said (required denunciation out of the way) this is a perfect album. This was the zenith of what Kanye could be. Creatively and culturally it is amazing. This is a triple LP on vinyl and well worth every side. He curated a trip through the mind of a genius (much like Stevie’s Songs in the Key of Life). We got everything: amazing samples, features, and Kanye’s childish but biting wit.
I won’t apologize for this one. I remember when it came out, the video build up and the glory of listening to it on repeat for months. This one is still perfect even if the human is far from it.
Lou Reed
4/5
What a complicated emotional album. This is one Reed put all of himself into it and was hurt by its initial reception. Definitely a hard one to stomach, especially when you are married and have kids. The song with the kids screaming in the background is especially jarring. It’s a great piece of art and one worth revisiting. It has all of Lou’s style and artistic genius laid bare in the tracks.
The Clash
2/5
Punk is cool. It gets you amped up like it should. An album’s worth of punk? It just doesn’t do it for me. It’s supposed to be short, punchy, to the point. This album is just too long to be that.
Police and Thieves is a badass track. Garageland is sick. But those are probably the least punk songs on the album. Maybe I’m just not a punk guy…
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Had a good one, didn’t save. Blue eyed soul with a sad backstory.
Keith Jarrett
5/5
Unbelievable. One of those meteoric pieces that the world conspired in a bunch of mistaken ways to birth. Jarrett’s felling and genius comes through in every note. He made this instrument sing like only a true virtuoso could. This very much deserves to be the best selling solo jazz album. Going to buy a copy now.
Travis
3/5
Boring, could have died without hearing.
Massive Attack
4/5
One of those that was way better than expected. Didn’t expect much and there was a lot to dig into. It was smooth, the Sade-esque vocals were right on time and the whole thing flowed very well as a statement. Saved it to throw on at the right times.
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
This album is an American classic. It is an artist that went against the grain of Bruce and the style that made him a hit. But he tapped into a cultural and person vein and let the songs flow. They could only exist as his home recordings.
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
Side one is perfect, side two is pretty good.
Depeche Mode
2/5
I just don’t get the 80s.
Goldfrapp
3/5
Incredibly adequate.
Mariah Carey
2/5
Kind of like eating an entire bowl of sugar
Donovan
2/5
Other than Season of the Witch (which is bagnin) this album is everything that sucked about the psychedelic 60s. It’s a boring white guy trying on musical costumes because he’s hip.
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
Cool album. I love polyrythms and world music to spice up my listening. I’m also a lyrics guy so the language barrier knocked it down a little. But definitely had the meditative grooves that a I crave every once in a while.
4/5
Cool Kinks album. Definitely underrated by most. Lola was the pinnacle, but this is top of the heap of concept albums. Edgy, entertaining, and great songs.
Brian Eno
3/5
Second half saved this from the dreaded “two” or “one.” The shift to more recognizable musical styles with world influences helped me make some mental sense of the work. I think the first half sounded different to Eno and Byrne’s ears. They’re geniuses, but that means living on another planet sometimes.
R.E.M.
3/5
R.E.M. all sounds the same to me. Man On The Moon and Everybody Hurts are iconic, but the rest is just background music. I think this is era-music. You had to be there otherwise it’s just something for commercials and the grocery store.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
1/5
So bad it made me question my own musical taste and the idea of music and impactful music as a whole. I’m good, it sucked.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
Back To Black is a seminal period album. This project solidified Mark Ronson’s reputation as a producer and catapulted his career of helping artists get into the modern classic groove. It’s a sad study, one of the last “troubled artist” arcs. We watched this one overlayed with modern times and technology. Everyone knew the end and it happened anyway. Relationships are hard and some people feel every part deeply. This is what it sounds like on wax.
Prince
5/5
Damn. This era of music has always been hard for me to get into. It has dated instrumentation and production style that often make it DOA in 2025. Absolute genius savant exploring his artistic nature and styles as the world of music changed.
Instead of resting on immense success, he went all in on a double album exploring his brain after abandoning two stalled projects. Absolute artistic fearlessness and commitment to the art. If the music commands it!
Pentangle
2/5
I bet this was cool in late-60s coffee houses. The beginnings of psychedelia was a renaissance throwback. There were a couple songs that pulled my attention enough to stop what I was doing an really listen. But for the most part it was just people jamming on lutes and glockenspiel…
Lorde
4/5
Cool exploration of young love, loss and grappling with the comedown nuanced production and smart lyrics make this one so much more than a Royals one-hit-wonder follow up. Beginnings of Jack Antinoff’s absolute stranglehold on pop production. Really works here, I like it!
U2
3/5
A couple timeless songs. But the rest is U2. Mill toast backing while Bono does his thing.
Meat Loaf
5/5
Part of me can’t believe it, but, by god, this is a 5-star album. Yes, it’s over the top. But dude sends it from note one and is fully committed until it ends. This is a full album statement for sure. Don’t have to love the style to recognize the artistry. Plus, my god, Paradise By The Dashboard Light is a freaking anthem. This one hits man, and it’s up there with other perfect albums.
Pink Floyd
5/5
See all reviews. This one is it.
The Police
3/5
Never got into Sting’s fake reggae. Wasn't ever as cool as Paul Simon’s or Vampire Weekend’s. There are some classics on here, but there is also Mother. What the fuck was that?
Jefferson Airplane
4/5
San Francisco late 60s to the max. Two iconic songs with one of the most memorable female singers of the era. But then you got guitar throat goes to the loud blues solo well a few too many times. These blues rave ups ain’t quite Pigpen even if they’re not bad.
The Zombies
3/5
Had Jefferson Airplane yesterday. Another side of the San Francisco sound here. The spawn of hipster bands for generations! It was fun, again, carried by an iconic song. Wild story behind the album I never knew. Plus one for that
The Cars
4/5
New wave that isn’t completely terrible. There are times and songs that definitely don’t do it for me, not a 5-star, but there are some undeniable hits. They knew how to ride the new wave synths in a pop-sensible way to not totally date and destroy the album. Side review from my wife: I hate this album.
Sepultura
2/5
Cool concepts, some cool things done with instrumental parts, but nu metal themes and screamed vocals off ramp me real quick. I know this is a me problem but it didn’t go for me.
Merle Haggard
3/5
Some good songs, but too early for Merle to really be Merle. When the put all the songs on the front it’s a collection of singles, not an album.
Boards of Canada
1/5
I work in a school. And now a days everyone has “lowfi trip hop chill” YouTube playing in their classroom everyday. I hate it, that all stems from albums like this.
Django Django
4/5
This one is a classic power hour album. Trance inducing songs and beats that locked me in. The wavelengths went back and forth but when I was on the same one, it amplified and hit hard. Default was a great highlight. I’ll come back to this one at the right times
Bob Dylan
5/5
One of his best. 30 years after his first heyday still creating masterpieces. An atmospheric creation from New Orleans reflecting on life, loss and near death.
Wilco
4/5
An album as a portrait of a new band coming into its own despite the ashes of another. Tweedy struggles with the breakup with his past and forging a new path ahead. It could have been a single album that cut ties with all things Uncle Tupelo. But he fought to keep it a double album that was a full picture of the musician he was. You can hear it all: country twang, punk roots, and the drone and discontent of everything Wilco would become. After A.M., this one really is a big bang for Jeff and the boys. Great snapshot of time and place.
Aerosmith
2/5
I’m not old or horny enough for this album. Aerosmith is a worse version of your favorite rock band. And, if you’re gonna call this the album with your “serious” material, maybe don’t make the cover two trucks fucking.
Marianne Faithfull
3/5
Sad story behind the record. Marianne Faithfull’s arc is fully representative of the 60s optimism crashing down under its own weight in the 70s. Her voice and the arrangements embody the tired pessimism of the late 70s for those involved. Tough on the listen to, but a redemptive feat for her.
The Pharcyde
4/5
One of my favorites that is linked strong to memory. Listening to this in the early 2000s on a burned CD in my friends old Chevy Nova was peak. This is a collective records with a bunch of skilled dudes having a great time. They had fun and the loose song collection follows the flow. Some great grooves and fun mc bits.
G. Love & Special Sauce
2/5
Nah
Elvis Presley
4/5
Elvis after the soundtracks before the end is my favorite Elvis. He goes back to his roots on this one and showcases who he really is as an artist and person. It didn’t quite make his the modern rock dude he wanted, but it was a hell of a comeback. The openers and Suspicious Minds may be the best Elvis recordings of all time.
Sister Sledge
3/5
Nile Rodgers created his own town and distinctive world on the guitar. It is undeniable when you hear those first funky, punching notes. Some massive dance music sample originated on this album and it’s clear why artists keep coming back to his well. Fun, dancy, hip, would have been higher without the ballads.
Kid Rock
2/5
I mean, at least he has some more intelligence with the tongue in cheek stuff than Limp Biskit. My 13-year old self came out a little bit…
Paul Weller
2/5
Steve Windwood in a fake mustache and glasses playing 90s rock.
Bobby Womack
3/5
Great songwriter, turmoil in his personal life adds more depth to the material, not always in a good way. The songs are clear slices of everyone’s life, but as a full statement there is too much.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
Great songwriter, turmoil in his personal life adds more depth to the material, not always in a good way. The songs are clear slices of everyone’s life, but as a full statement there is too much.
Christine and the Queens
2/5
It was alright, but didn’t quite get me. Lost in the 80s vibes that aren’t my thing. A couple good songs, but I think the English transition looses something.
Elbow
2/5
Sad boy stuff
Dr. John
5/5
Sad boy stuff the night tripper! He completely reinvented himself for this album and created a persona that brought New Orleans to the world for generations. Mac was the real deal and this became a life of cultural history and performance art that is amazing. Gris Gris is real, weird, heavy, psychedelic, and soulful. Every song has a place in creating the Big Bang that was De. John The Night Tripper
Bad Brains
2/5
Living Color did it better.
Leftfield
2/5
I’ve never been to a rave, I think you have to have been to a rave to like this.
Common
4/5
Chicago hip hop from this era is good. It pushed into consciousness, elevated the style and had the Midwest flair close to my heart. The death knell for gangsta rap, I like it.
But Common is a really bad actor. I mean one of it not the worst rapper-turned-actor there is. In everything he’s in, he’s terrible. I don’t get it, he seems smart and capable but he is not good.
Joy Division
2/5
Not sad enough to like this
Deep Purple
3/5
Good concert, fine rock band. Not an essential live album. They played some big riffs in Japan, that’s about all.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
I went to Chicago when I was 12 years old with my family. I had a gold Sony Discman and we went to Borders at some point. I bought Weezer’s Green album and this one. Not really sure why I picked it up. This was pre-internet and I vaguely knew the story of Costello’s performance on SNL and the legacy of Radio Radio. Since then, this album has always been a core for me. Costello coming into his angsty nerd own. A KILLER backing band that steals the show on most of the tracks. Not to mention Costello’s slick lyrical turns coming from an acid tongue. He pulls it all off without being trite. Killer album all around!
Everything But The Girl
3/5
Sounds like a white 90s version of Sade with trip hop backing sprinkled in.
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
I threw this one on not expecting an in-depth listen. I know the title track, I know the concept, but it always just kind of seemed like a promo movie thing. Surely there wasn’t any depth to it. I was wrong. The tracks are smooth, instrumentation is great, and lyrics tackle the full picture of the struggles Mayfield saw at the time.
Bob Dylan
4/5
I love Bib Dylan. I love this album. In the Dylan spectrum it’s iconic. From the first snare hit Like A Rolling Stone made a statement. A new Dylan was here and he wasn’t taking any prisoners. Songwriting, lyrics, playing, for the time it’s amazing. Not quite perfect one some doesn’t do it for me. But the rest is peak Dylan.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
2/5
Not a synth guy
Paul Simon
5/5
The is one can be divisive, but it’s perfect. Simon is in constant search for the perfect groove. After the folk days of Simon & Garfunkel he went on to find sounds outside of the western canon that he could incorporate. He got attention for African artists that had none especially during apartheid. And he made a badass record!
Antony and the Johnsons
5/5
The continuation of New York City. Lou Reed got involved and it feels like a part of the factory brought to modern times. Anthony’s voice is painful, forlorn and soft in a way that draws you in and hurts.
Christina Aguilera
2/5
Bad Company
3/5
Dad. Rock. Bad Company itself is a pretty badass song. And Paul Rodgers can belt it. But it’s short, unmemorable and isn’t much more than some classic rock hits.
Suede
2/5
Every Brit rock Axum for this era on this list sounds the same and sucks
Sarah Vaughan
3/5
She can clearly sing, and to belt these live is amazing. But the arrangements weren’t my favorite for a couple tubes, especially when done live.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
Took some time for me to hit the rhythm. Very much in the being of the Slits and Patti Smith. Helter Skelter cover was a huge highlight for me. The whole thing was cool.
Rod Stewart
3/5
Are you there God, it’s me, Rod Stewart. Very average, not bad, I can belt it. But far from revolutionary. I just exist
Fela Kuti
4/5
Fela always had that great African trance. Wild dude. Every time I listen to one of his albums it’s easy to get lost in everything that flows.
Erykah Badu
4/5
Erykah Badu is just cool. This is the hippest early 2000s album that is just a lost sense of flow and hipness. Great throw on for a sweaty summer night
The Smashing Pumpkins
5/5
90s alternative reverb glory.
David Crosby
2/5
Only the airy elements of CSNY. Sounds like a less cool version of Grateful Dead jams and a dude who smoked a little too much before the session.
The Birthday Party
3/5
Wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but 47 minutes was WAAAAY to long for that to go on. Liked the goth/punk vibe when I got into it. Very droney.
Pixies
2/5
Went a little too far left for my taste. Love some other Pixies records but this one just didn’t quite tickle me in the right way.
The Damned
2/5
Prince
5/5
It’s Prince. At his finest and most creative. This man could play everything and his mind was a fountainhead of some of the best pop material of all time.
Bon Jovi
3/5
I mean it’s fine. Everyone knows the hits and they were massive. But every other song is so passive and insincere.
Fishbone
4/5
Took me back to playing Tony Hawks pro skater, in my parents basement. This one is totally the feel of the 80s and 90s and into the early 2000s for me, black sky bands, crushed it and paved the way for the rest of the genre. Why does there always have to be a creepy song about sisters?
Mercury Rev
4/5
Very pleasant surprise. Sounded like the best of the mid career Flaming Lips. Light, playful and whimsical at times. I’ll come back to this one for sure. Cool band!
Brian Eno
4/5
Good for the plane ride I listened to it on. Eno was definitely ahead of his time and there is some groundbreaking stuff here. It can also be hard to focus in on at times with the ambience. But I’m working at it!
Dolly Parton
4/5
Three badass bitches doing their thing out loud.
Queen
4/5
Great representation of everything Queen can be. The first half suite is perfect. The rest is great.
Laibach
2/5
I’m not metal enough
Doves
2/5
British dudes just droning ad nauseam
1/5
I have too many brain cells for this shit.
Black Sabbath
4/5
RIP the Madman! Prince of Darkness. This one is killer, the first foray into metal. Not quite perfect but really damn close. The opening salvo is haunting as hell and an apt introduction to the band. The Wizard is one of the most badass stomping blues horror numbers ever (should have been on the Sinners soundtrack). Only knock is that the middle sections get a little too jammy. Split those songs up and drive em hard! But damn, this is badass
Fugazi
4/5
Goes hard but remains culty. I know it’s cool and the guys were groundbreaking but I always felt a little arms length during the listen.
50 Cent
4/5
Memories of middle school I went and saw this live tour as a freshman in high school. Clearly a skilled guy knew how to have a great beat a ton of hits on this record. The rapping is a little dated, but Eminem knew what he was looking for for sure.
CHVRCHES
3/5
Cool at the start. Smart electronic but then it spiraled into the same thing over and over.
Morrissey
2/5
Sad boy whined.
Queen Latifah
3/5
Female MC holding her own in the early days of rap. Enjoyed some old school beats and cool samples. Yea, it feels dated, even a little soft or juvenile at times. But overall a fun blast from the past to remind me about the early days of hip hop.
Slipknot
1/5
David Bowie
3/5
Average Bowie. Not great Bowie, not terrible Bowie.
Jane Weaver
2/5
1001 albums that are mediocre listens before you die.
Radiohead
1/5
1001 albums that are mediocre listens before you die.
Johnny Cash
4/5
Hard because I’ve heard it so many times. But in 1968 to go into a prison and have the setlist and band to blow it away? Johnny knew how to put on a show and this captures it.
Björk
4/5
This is hard music to understand as sometimes. Björk demands a listen, and an active listen at that. But if you are willing, you are rewarded with little moments of beauty, pain and joy that can be overwhelming.
The Louvin Brothers
4/5
Never heard the Louvin Brothers do bluegrass. Great old school bluegrass harmonies and sound. Classic tracks played in the classic bluegrass style. Right down the middle.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
4/5
An entire world in the album. I expected Relax to be the only song. But this was an 80s fever dream complete with originals, covers, and crazy 13 minute tracks. It’s on my list to come back to again because it was waaaay more complex than one listen.
Orbital
1/5
Beeps And boops man. Beeps and boops.
Jazmine Sullivan
2/5
Any more modern album really needs to be out of the park in a different way to end up on this list. This album isn’t that. It’s not bad, has some standout tracks, but I already had Miseducation of Lauren Hill and that knocked this style out of the park. This is just a pretty good album.
Alice In Chains
4/5
Badass album. Grunge classic that goes hard and matches the feeling of these guys. Powerful music hits you in the face and grabs your shirt to make you listen.
I do have one 90s bone to pick. If the song was good enough to make the album, give it a damn name. Calling it untitled gives it a damn title. It’s a cop out to call a song “untitled.”
Genesis
2/5
Peter Gabriel needs to chill the fuck out with this shit
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
Haven’t had a great string of albums lately. He’s clearly skilled and I’ve heard some good Nick Cave. But this one is so absurdly Vaudeville that it’s comical. Trying to get every “shocking” line in that he can is too much for me. Edge lordy
Einstürzende Neubauten
1/5
Yea. This sucks.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
4/5
Haven’t had a great string of albums lately. He’s clearly skilled and I’ve heard some good Nick Cave. But this one is so absurdly Vaudeville that it’s comical. Trying to get every “shocking” line in that he can is too much for me. Edge lordy
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
Only Bruce can do Bruce. One of those albums that the story behind it makes it all that much more full. Bruce can write like few others about a very specific time, place, and feel. He’s a songwriter that puts you there no matter where “there” is or if you have any connection to it. Some massive highlights that got me deep in the headphones here.
GZA
4/5
You know when you have something really good? I mean like perfect and decadent as hell? Then it’s so available that you just keep consuming it. Eventually it loses meaning. You know it’s good but it doesn’t compute. That’s how I got by the end of this album. Lyrically, musically, thematically? Awesome! But the full album almost becomes too much of a good thing.
Radiohead
4/5
You know when you have something really good? I mean like perfect and decadent as hell? Then it’s so available that you just keep consuming it. Eventually it loses meaning. You know it’s good but it doesn’t compute. That’s how I got by the end of this album. Lyrically, musically, thematically? Awesome!
The Auteurs
5/5
This one hit right as fall is hitting. Not always a fan of new wave, but the album that kicked it off had everything I wanted. Hooks galore, biting lyrics, and just a touch of shoegazing. Lush production without being tinny or dripping. This was a cool one I didn’t expect but it made 5 for me!
Eels
3/5
Thought I was in for Korn with that cover. Instead some fun style-spanning indie rock. Not an essential album but a fun one nonetheless
Butthole Surfers
2/5
Didn’t have enough of the right acid for this one to really hit for me. Too much of the weirdness without enough of the melody for me. A band as wild as its name and capable of some cool stuff. This one had its moments that sunk in with my mind but not enough to be a defining album.
Dinosaur Jr.
4/5
Like a giant, loud, musical bruise washing over me. Comfortable in a painful way. Overdriven guitar provides a lush foundation for the sensitive lyrics and singing.
George Jones
2/5
The possum is the king of the heartache country song. He can cry in his beer better than anyone else. The songs are great, but this era of country ain’t about the albums. It was a singles game and this one shows it.
SZA
3/5
Not for the kids. R&B is back and it’s all about the sex. Strong female perspective, she is pulling for a different place than the other modern female artists (Nicki Minaj, Meagan Thee Stallion, etc) which is cool. I came in and out of focus with this one. Some songs absolutely got me with the grooves others turned me off with the content.
Astor Piazzolla
4/5
Bizarre and out of left field, but it sucked me in. Xylophone is a crazy instrument but the more I listened the more engaging it was. The nuance between the piano and xylophone could be both subtle and breathtaking at times.
Johnny Cash
4/5
First one from prison is cool, second one is a little derivative for me. There are some really great ones on here, I mean, Boy Named Sue! But I’ll take Fulsom over this one. Still cool as hell to play a huge show in prison.
Scott Walker
2/5
Scott Walker could sing, and write a song. He and his brother made some massive hits. Solo albums showcased his craft, unique nature and vision. But by 4, I feel like the shooting star was burning out. Just not quite as good. This one is a solo album that remained obscure for a reason.
The Undertones
2/5
Jittery fun for a Friday afternoon .
Spiritualized
5/5
Such an amazing artistic statement. J Spaceman makes killer music and has its own vibe and universe. Defined a scene with Spaceman 3 the. Did it again with this act. The album is packaged produced and played to create a full driving experience. Start to finish it really is a spiritual musical journey.
Frank Ocean
5/5
Tyler the Creator proved to be a force of gonzo songwriting and energy after Odd Future’s explosion. Frank Ocean the interesting, fluid musical core. This album exploded the scene and solidified him as an artist. It is a journey through the young millennial mind with influences and features that span the spectrum of music and art.
The White Stripes
5/5
This is the best White Stripes album. On others Jack can get too into one facet of his many musical identities. The one is the perfect amalgamation of everything that made Jack and Meg great! The album never loses pace. It’s hard driving with MONSTER riffs and ear worm hooks. Any time we get a breath it is for a cutting song from either Jack or Meg that serves as a soft, bruised reflection point.
Sex Pistols
2/5
They’re influential, they pushed some major boundaries at the time. But looking back, the songs are really just bratty. They say naughty things because it’s scandalous and sneer with their safety pins. Sorry blokes, not for me.
Simply Red
2/5
Followed a couple bangers so this one fell a little flat. It wasn’t terrible but there was a lot of 80s/90s dated flair that didn’t quite hit with me. Not a cohesive album statement with live and studio mix. Not bad, but not for me.
The Byrds
2/5
When the Byrds hit their groove, which they do a couple times on this album, you cannot beat it for distilled 60s sound. Psychedelia linked with country and an undercurrent of light jazz is a mainline sound for me. But this is also pre-the album as a thing era. As such there isn’t much that binds this together as a statement. The embryonic explosion of 60s influence I still love. Plus they made a living off of good Dylan covers. And I love Dylan.
Billy Bragg
2/5
Over this scene
Hanoi Rocks
1/5
Does it though?
1/5
Dime a dozen 80s album.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
1/5
Take all of the skill out of the white Stripes and the Black keys and you have this shit. What the fuck was that opening track?
The Mars Volta
4/5
Man, this one was rad! I’ve avoided Mars Volta for a long time. Too much prog and the albums were too long for me to really get into. I had time to throw this one on, uninterrupted today while I worked and it was killer! These guys made a full stop musical statement that flowed as well or better than any 70s prog-rock album, it was hard, it was soft, it was fun. I will definitely come back to this one. Always heard how amazing these guys were musically and it is all true based on this one. Great stuff! And unexpected! Everything this list should be.
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
That’s gonna be a no for me dog. Shopping and Rent are the worst of everything of the 80s
Rod Stewart
3/5
Mid
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
Definitely a band with a divergent sound for the 80s. Fun, rolling, definitely a party. The problem is the party goes on too long, with songs and the album. A good party knows its limits and stops when it’s time to stop. This party reeks of stale beer and stale feelings…
Def Leppard
2/5
80s. Cool man.
Fiona Apple
4/5
Fiona has her own signature vibe. The 90s angst at the piano is well-earned and lyrics match. Probably her most famous tracks on this album and I found myself stopping to mull lyrics a a few times. Great album to finish a drive home.
Violent Femmes
2/5
Shitty drums and acoustic guitars when they should have been electric. Blister In The Sun is great, I don’t need the rest.
Germs
2/5
Not my bag. Want it to be but it isn’t.
Pink Floyd
4/5
Almost gets to the heights of earlier stuff. Still a great musical statement with instruments and lyrics exploring the pain of synthetic life out of our control. I will never not get excited when a Floyd album pops up here. These are ALBUMS in the truest sense. They are always able to deeply explore themes of human life in interesting and profound ways.
The Bees
3/5
Ambient, cool. Nice intersection between jazz, ambient and rock. Great to have on in the background while I was cooking. Nothing super groundbreaking but it definitely grew on me over the course of the listen.
Gary Numan
1/5
This future never came. Sorry, we still have shitty cars.
Throwing Muses
4/5
Rad
Janet Jackson
2/5
This album has been made over and over and the world is still a shithole in the brink of demise. Consciousness is music can be cool, but there is a fine line and the 80s wasn’t it.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
Pretty okay. Roots of indie rock with a sad-boy British twinge. I don’t think it was quite as good as the other echo and the Bunnymen that I had on this list. Or maybe you only need one of them in your life. Production is pretty cool on good speakers.
M.I.A.
4/5
This album sounds like 2005. Merging styles in the early days of mass technology. A left turn with political lyrics, dance music, and harsh edges to think about. Knowing this album when it came out felt like a fresh breakthrough in and left turn surrounded by roiling indie rock.
David Holmes
2/5
Beeps and boops
Mudhoney
2/5
Rocked harder than Pearl Jam. Good music to rip out plumbing to. But I don’t think I can name a song. Just loud fuzz washing over me.
Iggy Pop
2/5
I prefer my Iggy Stooged. This was a lesser version of Iggy and a lesser version of Bowie. Sometimes the combination means that we end up with less.
FKA twigs
2/5
Ethereal and everything 20-teens. The slacker, cozy, mumble vibes that slacked through that era. It’s pretty and lush, but ultimately is hollow. A sugary-sweet facade.
Buffalo Springfield
4/5
Buffalo Springfield hits this interesting spot where they are nostalgic, and feel almost pure but with an edge. The group created the distinctly late-60s American sound of unbridled freedom and optimism. No, this album doesn’t have for what it’s worth, but songs like Mr. Soul, Expecting to Fly, and Broken Arrow are absolutely classics.
Klaxons
3/5
The early aughts had some cool rock music. But this list is saturated with a lot of mid-tier examples. This included. The intersection between rock, experimental and almost club songs. There were a few that found the pocket but most of them were just average and blended into the background noise of the day.
Saint Etienne
4/5
This album was fun. Way more fun than I thought it would be. Grabbed me track one and kept my attention coming back while I cooked. Background music in the best way. Interesting themes, great influences, and a lush backing to fall into and explore.
Stereo MC's
1/5
It’s like if the Sopranos theme just kept going.
Sugar
2/5
Redundant, derivative, etc., etc.
Fats Domino
4/5
A lot of my early musical relationship with my wife was buoy around Fats and other 50s American artists. Still love hearing his piano and croon. It cuts through with a smile that’s infectious and makes everything feel better. I’ll still argue this is the ear before “albums” were a a thing. I’ll give it the 4 for Fats and his style, not necessarily the album because it was about the singles and New Orleans feel, there is no arc for a statement as a whole.
Rahul Dev Burman
3/5
This was fun. Early Bollywood with some cool tunes. Not one I’ll come back to a lot, but a genre defining work early in the history is always worth a listen.
The Slits
4/5
A jangly, nervous album that has always intrigued me with its drive. They take no prisoners with their beats, lyrics, or feel. Iconic version of Heard It Throgh The Grapevine, but everything here is cool and jagged in a way that makes you want to get in somebody’s face and dance.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
1/5
Music to want to end it all to.
Dizzee Rascal
1/5
Not sure why this is here.
Nightmares On Wax
1/5
Not high, don’t need background music for it.
John Martyn
4/5
Interesting artist and album. Folk that takes you through jazz and psychedelic doors at times. A dense expression of Martyn’s mind. I was in and out while listening and at times it got too self-righteous and hip but overall an interesting experience I will come back to.
George Michael
2/5
I wanted to like Georgie. I love Faith, Father figure wasn’t bad, but it was all downhill from there. Just campy and 80s and so passe.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
1/5
Is this a joke? Please tell me this is a fucking joke.
Nirvana
5/5
Some albums are classic for a reason. This one is perfect. Grungy, fun, deep, hard and soft. I know it’s a more mainstream sound, but damn it, this is so good. Rocks hard and gives the space for the softer songs.
Khaled
2/5
Interesting but I couldn’t quite get into it. Maybe too poppy and inaccessible for me with language.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1/5
Fuck this man.
New Order
3/5
Better than expected, still too 80s
Genesis
2/5
Listened to this, then Dark Side of the Moon. Dark Side did it better in half the time. Sometimes too many drugs and stop Amy themes isn’t the right move.
Cream
5/5
Pure, china white psychedelia. Three dudes who have fucking chops for days and wrote killer tracks. All three have changed music in their ways for years to come. A few silly ones but there’s a reason “Clapton is God” graffiti existed. Ginger Baker was a psycho
Ian Dury
2/5
Weird-ass sexual predator shit. A couple good grooves
Soul II Soul
1/5
Fucking elevator club shit.
The Clash
3/5
The Clash wrote some great hooks, but there is some cringy stuff on this record too.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
This is the quintessential soul album that is great despite being before the era of and not in the theme of the “album.” Her singles are so strong that they are unbeatable and put together this is an amazing show of a true talent at the height of her power. Intoxicating, sensual and heartbreaking in a perfect spin.
Blue Cheer
2/5
The pseudo Latin title tells you everything you need to know. I was probably really heavy at the time but now it just sounds like some stoned kids in a garage that really don’t have any other vision. The whole did Summertime Blues better
Simple Minds
2/5
Weird-ass title followed by a totally forgettable 80s album. Not bad but not memorable but definitely one that I could have died without listening to.
The Smiths
4/5
Never been a new wave, post-punk guy but this one is probably the closest to getting me there. Not overly produced or awash in synth, not totally whiny, and some cool melodies. I’ll come back to this one and explore more. This is a great avenue into the genre.
Jean-Michel Jarre
4/5
Worth listening to on good-ass headphones with a good drink. Do not expect to mull over this one like I did. One of those cases where it hit on the right day at the right time and just felt good to listen to. Give me an evening with some snow in a comfortable chair with this all the time.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
Looked for every reason to give this one a four. But I am a white middle class American male and this is absolute hipster catnip. The Beth of the movement. A little bit left of center with instrumentation., beat, and lyrics from Paul and some iconic tracks. These guys geled at their height like no one else and it’s always a great listen.
Haircut 100
2/5
80s to the core again. Nothing noteworthy.
Teenage Fanclub
4/5
Context mattered. I was on my back in a crawl space insulating pipe when I listened to this for the second time. It felt young and free of adult life. I remembered the cathartic feeling of making music as a teenager with nothing else to care about. And that felt good.
Buzzcocks
3/5
They’re relentless in driving beat and lyrics. Seems to be a very British them from a certain ilk of performer. This was a grower, thought I’d heard it all before to start but by the end I was brought into the fold
Creedence Clearwater Revival
5/5
Vince McMahon always says the perfect wrestling show is 45 minutes long. The perfect rock album is between 30 and 40. Hard driving, soft a couple times, catchy hooks, guitar, and danceable. This one hits it all. Fogerty at his prime bleeds young America rock and roll. This album epitomized it.
Can
2/5
When they hit a groove they krout rock the hell out of it. It gets mathy and real locked in. But then they like him some weird shit for 10 minutes and it blows the whole thing. Songs: great. Album? Naw
Deee-Lite
1/5
Shoulda kept 90% of that groove in their heart.
Röyksopp
3/5
Remind me is a heck of an ear worm. I enjoyed it his background music but for me I don’t think it’s genre will ever rise above that so well enjoyable it’s not gonna be one of those perfect albums.
KISS
2/5
Man, they really send the on the nose sex stuff huh? Detroit Rock City rules.
The Everly Brothers
4/5
Clean pop hits from clean pop boys. Fun to hear, like spun sugar for the ear drums