Bjork makes absolutely no sense as an artist. Quite frankly, I've never heard something by her that was listenable. If you want arhythmic spoken word "sung" over a drum track with synth thrown in randomly, this is where to get it.
Kind of boring. Like if Ian Curtis was still around and decided to join an early 2010's folkish band. Something like a further toned down Lumineers.
I've rated four stars, but I'd say closer to three and a half. This album is alright. It's not as boring and average as three stars, but no particularly song is a highlight I will go back to like a four star. Just some nice moments that were fleetingly ear catching.
It's ok. It does meander quite a bit, but there are times where things really come in to focus. People compare it to a conversation, but I'd liken it to getting high (seems apt for the dead). For a large portion, you're just wandering around, feeling a bit strange, experiencing new sensations. But then, briefly, your soul is lifted up from the body. A transcendental experience.
Of course, the focused moments never reach a height like that, but I believe that's what they were going for. The noodling really accentuates the good bits.
Also, feedback is really cool, but I'm a fan of noise. Much cooler than the first track. Maybe the album would've been better if they started there.
I think the reviews are pretty overblown. AC/DC has songs that all sound the same as much as any other band that fits solidly within a genre. Sure, they aren't Led Zeppelin, but what they do is incredibly solid and driving. Great album.
Thoroughly enjoyable. Wayne Coyne objectively cannot sing, but that simply makes the songs more intimate. The album feels better for it, a more genuine musical expression.
I have no idea about the actual history of the band, but this feels like a natural progression of the punk ethos of the grunge era. The songs are experimental, but poppy, with distinct elements of 1999 to them, while being less harsh and noisy.
It's pretty good. Solid album. If you haven't listened to much 60s rock, probably much better, but this music inspired so much after it, it kind of suffers from the "Seinfeld Is Unfunny" effect for me.
Meh. It's ok
Very nostalgic feel and incredibly melodic. I find the harmonies incredibly interesting. They are very well done harmonies, but Simon and Garfunkel aren't as polished and perfect at holding pitches as modern day singers, so it feels much more authentic and intimate.
It's like a little glimpse into life in 1966. Perhaps a bit too optimistic, like a lot of hippie music was, but that makes it all the more interesting. A nice look at the times, one that feels very different from modern day, staring down a kind of bleak future. The exact kind of thing a gen Z person like myself finds very comforting.
It's really an incredibly underwhelming album. And I'm not even against the country pop, Nashville type of sound (except the garbage of today). But this wasn't innovative while also not being all that fun. Still, it'd had just a bit of fun to it to not rate a 1.
I listened to it, and forgot to write any notes while listening. Now, a day later, I basically don't remember any of the album, other than it wasn't particularly offensive. I feel like that speaks of the quality, all on its own.
I like to take a look at the history of an album while I listen to it, especially to find out why it was included on this list. For this album, I saw a lot of references to the "cinematic quality" of this album. Apparently, David Holmes has gone on to compose a lot of music for movies, hence why it's important in retrospect to look at these reviews.
The problem is, that's kind of like saying "this music belongs in the background". Calling music cinematic is like saying, there's no purpose to this music outside of what it could provide to a visual scene. Imagine all the famous pieces of movie music you know. Some absolutely wonderful, amazing pieces. The star wars theme for example. Now, take them out of that context. Would they be good? For sure. But would they be as famous, or would they be AS good without the context of the movie? No. Because music made for cinema is made to not be actively consumed, so to speak. It is not the focus, it is there to enhance. Two parts combine to make a greater whole. Without it, without any vision, the music is rendered meaningless.
It honestly makes the album somewhat, for lack of a better term, offensive to the sensibilities. I'm sure this would work really well if someone made a super cheesy and very late for the cultural moment version of Do The Right Thing, or a really lame and unfunny version of Friday (since, due to the samples, it sounds a lot like white people hip hop, where we remove all the swing and interesting rhythmic qualities). There is nothing stand out about it, and it really makes me wonder why it was included on the list, since it doesn't seem to have been inspirational or really culturally relevant.
Furthermore, imagine you took someone who was a complete blank slate to any form of digital/electronic music. They've purely been listening to bands with instruments for 20 years and had no idea you could even use computers to put together music, or sample, or anything like that. This would instantly turn them off of said music, and probably give them a, in their eyes, completely justified strong anti-sampling view. Every song takes one or two main samples, poorly removes anything interesting from them, loops 2-5 seconds of it, and that is put over the WHOLE ENTIRE SONG, basically the foundation. Then some even shorter samples are thrown in to create the sense of progression, even though it's not there. Even I have made similar sounding songs, except I would never think to release them because they sound amateurish and terrible, because I'm an amateur beginner.
Honestly, I am not one to generally hate music. I welcome all types that aren't modern pop country. I didn't even give one star to Bjork, and I hate Bjork's music with a dying passion. I was going to give this three stars when first listening to the first three songs. Then it dropped to a two throughout the album. Then I went back and listened again, and it just became even more offensive. That's why this album is getting a 1. Further listens just really drives home that there's is basically absolutely nothing here. It's filler commercial music, put to an album. It's basic copyright free youtube music, that creators never pick because it's just too obviously copyright free music, due to its lack of musicianship, interesting ideas, general melody, and the complete monotony and reptiveness of it all.
As a guitarist, I'm really, incredibly biased towards this album. Jimi Hendrix was a visionary, an innovator, truly a master of the craft of guitar. Plus, this album has some massive hits on it. I'm going to give it a 5, but it's really a 4.5 for me, and here's why.
This album has beautiful chord progressions on it, wonderful guitar playing, great composing. But not back to back. Not every single song was memorable. None of them were actually BAD, but some are just forgettable, more filler than killer. Still, it's Jimi. I can't bring myself to round down.
It's really hard for me to be objective, this kind of music is incredibly nostalgic, due to my mom being from the south.
With that said, this Willie Nelson album is like a warm blanket wrapped around your shoulders on a silent Texas Prairie night, smoking on the porch, looking at the stars. Oddly lonely, but still comforting.
Nice break from the over produced nashville sounds I've heard on my list recently, too.
I've heard this album a billion and one times. This is one of THE top jazz albums, and DEFINITELY one of the top bossa nova albums. Great all the way, front to back.
Corcovado is one of the greatest songs ever written. For me, it has this sound that is like... walking alone along a busy, snowy, city street around Christmas time. It's not exactly lonely but more solitary. Something nice looms ahead, but for now you think about times past.
Now if only I could remember all these Portuguese song names...
I really liked this album, but doubt I will be coming back to it. It's really interesting, and very different, but just didn't hit me. But I am VERY certain it has an audience that loves it. That's why it will be getting a four.
It's INCREDIBLY "of its time", so to speak. So, if that's appealing to you, you should love this album. It really is a quite fun album, though. But then again, I like the sound of this specific time and place.
To me it sounded like if you mashed up The Replacements and The Clash (but I don't know enough similar sounding bands to make a more accurate description). I'd really put it 3.5, because it's not enough my thing that I'll be revisiting much, if at all, but it's overall really fun so I'll round up to 4.
Everyone knows Space Song. Other than that, I'd only ever listened to the Bloom album. So Teen Dream really fell flat of that and is a disappointment in comparison. It's not awful or anything, but it's a solid 2.5 at best. But, since Beach House has been pretty good on another albums, I'm going to round up instead of down in this case.
A fun New Wave album. I'd really put this more around a 3.5, but I'm leaning towards liking slightly more towards the 4 side. Therefore, 4 stars.
It's fun enough, but it felt more novelty to me in 2024. Nothing particularly stood out, personally. It's definitely not bad, quite the opposite. But I'm just not going to personally play it again on purpose, unless I want to show a friend some whacky 50s jazz (kind of jazz). But you know, good enough to get a three. Nothing was offensively bad, or even bland.
I'll be honest, I absolutely cannot be partial on this album. I love rock and metal, I love 70s rock specifically, and I absolutely love Led Zeppelin. I love and play the guitar, too, so Jimmy Page is a bit of an idol (for guitar only, save yourself and never look into him as a person). Robert Plant has an amazing voice, John Paul Jones was doing cool stuff with the bass and taking a way more active role than his contemporary bassists, and John Bonham was just a stupidly talented and innovative drummer that has influenced drummers for generations now.
I've listened to this album front to back dozens of times, and certain songs on it, I've heard a billion and one times. Getting a 5, perfect album
It's a fun enough album. Not the best in the world. But it DOES have Our House, and then there's a few more fun songs. Just a tad above average, I think
The songs can be pretty good in the right mood, but they can also often be incredibly boring. The instruments are playing some pretty interesting stuff, but they sometimes stretch and meander for too long. Isaac Hayes definitely had a very unique voice, but it also gets pretty damn boring. Especially for the spoken word section. So, this one really depends on mood.
Idk, maybe it was cool for its time, but it was pretty boring to me. Felt like it suffered the same thing as the Dead do for me. It's fairly devoid of catchy melodies. Nothing very ear catching. But, eh, it's not Bjork so it can't be a one. Maybe like a 2.5
I won't lie, an electric piano basically just always draws me right in. That smooth, round, cool sound and its lulling, subtle phaser just gets me. The Rhodes piano was just great, honestly. I'm very biased right off the bat to give it a great rating because of that.
I'm not really sure why it's labeled as jazz, though. That would be like calling city pop jazz. I'm not exactly sure what you call this, though. It's very much like western city pop, though. It's certainly jazz *influenced*, but that doesn't make it jazz. Probably part of the reason some people don't like it. Mismatch between expectations and reality.
The title track, Street Life, is just too damn fun. It's the sound of walking home at night, alone, on the street, after a fun night out. I, personally, don't really care about lyrics and others seem to say the lyrics are mismatched, but it's just all about the melody and feel for me.
The other songs are good, too. Not nearly as memorable for me as Street Life, though. But I did like one or two on Spotify
This album has one of THE classic guitar solos in the title track. Hit and Quit It and Can You Get To That are also solid 5s, can't keep from bouncing in my seat while listening. I used to dislike the other four songs, but they've grown on me in recent years and with repeated listens. Either way, Maggot Brain on its own gets this album a 5
I didn't even get through the whole album before deciding this was 5 stars. Nina Simone's voice literally gives me goosebumps, true ASMR.
It's amazing that these are essentially throw away B sides. I need to explore everything she's ever done now.
This album is just pretty damn boring. Enough said.
Aerosmith sucks and Steven Tyler is a pedophile, enough said.
Oh my god The Doors are so painfully BORING. Why did so many 60s groups feel the need to bang directionless on an organ for 4 minutes in a 7 minute song? And Jim Morrison just sat there tunelessly "singing" for the whole fucking album. I was almost tempted to give this a 1 just because of how highly rated this utter dog shit was, but it's still not as bad as bjork
This day's album was a very pleasant surprise. I was listening to the album and quickly realized that Bjork was the singer. Now, I literally use Bjork as my measurement for whether an album deserves 1 star or not. If they're better than Bjork, they get 2 stars.
But in this album, she is reigned in by the music of the band. Bjork can sing, and has a very unique voice and makes interesting choices, and with more straight forward music in the background, those choice really shine.
It's not exactly the most profound amazing music, probably really just a 3.5, but because it made me like Bjork and even consider giving her another chance, I'm going to give it a 4.
It was a pretty good album. Everyone is right on the money, very artsy Duran Duran. It honestly also reminded me a bit of Type O Negative
The rating on this one is tough. When thinking about it being on a "1001 albums to listen to before you die" list, it solidly deserves a 1. Compared to all the music I've heard in my life, it would get a 3, because it's incredibly average. Nothing really grabs at me. So I'll meet in the middle and give it a 2.
Also, the comparisons to The Smiths or Bowie almost made me give it a 1. That's honestly insulting and an incredibly surface level analysis. I guess the singer kinda sounds like Bowie, and the guitar has a similarish tone to The Smiths? Sometimes, for both of those. That's about it
I really tried. I tried so hard to not let other's reviews of this album influence my own. But I just can't ignore Taylor Swift's own remarks, and the rabid musical ignorance of fans of this album.
Saying that this music is 80s inspired could be technically true, but anyone who has given an even cursory listen to 80s pop, especially synth pop, would know that comparing this album to it is frankly offensive. Just using synths doesn't suddenly make this 80s music. This is the most safe pop garbage I've had the misfortune of listening to. Without looking at the history at all, I guessed this album's release year within a year because it has such a hyper specific, dated sound that really only existed from 2011 to 2014.
This doesn't sound like 80s pop, anyone saying so is frankly extremely ignorant and confidently incorrect. And that sound of 2011-2014 is so extremely fucking irritating, it's ridiculous. Only Blank Space saves this album from a 1. At least it's not Bjork.
I liked this a lot. This is going to sound bad, but it sounded quite amateurish, which I love personally. The horns intonation was just a bit off, the singer is not a conventionally very good singer, and it was an odd mash of punk and soul. I loved all of that, because it combines to make you feel like you're listening to your friends' weird ass band in a basement somewhere, as they belt out something that absolutely shouldn't work but it comes together wonderfully.
I couldn't finish this, I just can't take this seriously. This album really highlights a feature missing from this website. I want to see what versions of the 1001 albums list each album was on. There's just no way this album was on every single list, and the original 2005 list was already pushing it's luck by including this.
This album is seriously just a soundtrack. Every song is like... the opening song for a 90s coming of age movie. The kid wakes up and one of the interchangeable songs on this album plays (doesn't matter which one from what I heard) while they walk to school and it fades out when they walk through the doors.
For some reason, the album is listed as trip hop, acid jazz, hip hop? Like yeah, I GUESS there's a dude rapping on the album, but honest question... was anyone really listening to this for the rapping? It's kind of like if Cake made way more boring, repetitive backing tracks for their singer.
I thought it was more like breakbeat, which I already don't like because it's repetitive as hell and boring, but breakbeat at least has ENERGY. They took breakbeat, slowed it down, and then grabbed the Cake guy to do his laid back rapping. Nuh uh, no way, cannot bring myself to finish. At least it's just kinda boring, not offensively bad, so two stars.
This album was... competent... at parts. That's the best way to put it. Nothing to special, but fairly alright on execution. It's kind of just meh.
Except for "you put de lime in de coconut" which, tbf, is far more interesting in the full song, but still annoying as hell to have stuck in your head.
The equivalent of turning on a fan at night so you have a bit of noise to fall asleep to. Really boring, basically the same thing all the way through
As a massive fan of rock and metal, I always wondered how could you possibly draw a line from '50s rock to bands that said they were inspired by Little Richard, like Led Zeppelin or Queen or Motorhead, and then from there to bands that were inspired by those bands, like Death?
Well, this certainly deserves a spot on this list because you can tell EXACTLY what the influence was when listening to Little Richard. I thought this would sound more like the little snippets of 50s music you get in movies, but this was extremely energetic. I can see exactly where rock and metal singing and even growling comes from with Little Richard's yelling, distortion, and constant peaking of the mic. And the energy is obviously what made people want to push it further and further. Listening to this, you can just picture the hot and sweaty mass of people dancing to Little Richard playing live, practically about to pass out and any given moment from heat exhaustion and fatigue. So danceable, I love it.
Feel free to take this review with a grain of salt, because I just really didn't feel like finishing this album.
I really, on some fundamental level, do not understand anyone who thinks this album is full of emotion? It's intricately produced, and Adele can definitely belt. But that's the exact problem. It sounds like she ran these songs back until she did everything absolutely "perfectly" and then they further polished that.
Her cover of Lovesong is a great example. Adele sounds like she's really focused on her technique. Make sure to expand the stomach, keep your airway aligned, squeeze so you keep the perfect amount of air flowing. Every once in a while, her voice hitches, but that sounds more like damage than emotion.
Robert Smith, meanwhile, sounds like he's struggling to be vulnerable and open up to a partner. He also sounds so sad he can barely move his mouth to sing the song. He's obviously not as good of a singer as Adele, but he also sounds like he's actually feeling the song rather than feeling how well he's singing. It sounds like he recorded a call to his wife where he revealed a tiny, fragile part of his soul, and it just happened to be melodic.
I'll still give it a 3, because it's certainly competent. But that's all it is. It's like a paint by numbers you give a child to learn how to do art, and they just graduated to copying it without the numbers.
This album gets five stars, but it was a bit difficult to pick between 5 and 4.
I just think bands shouldn't do double LPs. They pretty much invariably drag in sections, and it gets really tiring to get through the whole thing. Every double LP I've ever heard, it always seems the band was packing in their actual filler songs to reach the double LP length.
Luckily, this is The Beatles. So while the length does still make the album drag at times, and it's difficult to listen to all in one go, their filler songs still would've been one of the more popular songs of any other band. Whether that's because of actual merit, or because of Beatlemania at the time is up to you, but I feel it's the former.
Anyways, so I was pretty inclined to give it four stars but like, fuckin come on, they put Ob La Di Ob La Da on this album and I'm not exaggerating when I say it's one of my favorite songs of all time.
As it stands, this is already one of the most definitive albums of all time, but imagine if they stripped it back like 10-15 songs? It would practically be a requirement of basic, general elementary education to listen to it at that point to understand the context of music itself to this day.
I like this album well enough, it's very danceable. The problem with rating it is, I think I have two different ratings. This would clearly be a 6/5, maybe even 7/5 if I was drunk at the club dancing to this. But I'm far too sober, so it's really more like a 3. So I'm splitting the difference.
I really like Pink Floyd. Atom Heart Mother and Animals are two albums I have frequently listened to, front to back. Animals would probably go in my top albums of all time, if I was forced to make a list.
But The Wall has always been a disappointment for me. I do like Comfortably Numb and Hey You, but I HAAAAAAAAAATE Another Brick In The Wall. To talk about the album itself, it's always weird to me that they went from Animals to The Wall. Animals, like most other Pink Floyd albums (to my ears) is more like one long song. A trip in and of itself. Then The Wall comes around, and it's the most disjointed of their work that I've heard, which is something like 8-9 of their first 11 albums.
With The Wall, it feels like they really just made your average 70s rock band's album instead of the masterful psychedelia of before. Hey You and Comfortably Numb being exceptions. It's ironic, since The Wall is supposed to actually be a story of sorts, with a movie and everything, but it feels like a grouping of songs to me, whereas all of their other albums usually feel to me like the songs melt into each other musically, creating a felt story or sensation, rather than one told through the lyrics.
I've listened to this album front to back a million times. Not a single track is out of place, and they're all wonderful.
Ok, obligatory Morrissey sucks ass.
Anyways, that out of the way, this album is really great. I'd never actually listened to the full thing, but I've had 2-4 of the songs saved on Spotify for years. When these songs connect, they hit hard.
That happens to be The Smiths issue in a certain sense, though. I'm giving this album a 4 right now, but I think if I had ONLY heard it today, it would get a 3. It's sad music for sad people, but that just happens to be its strength. It connects with you when you're a melodramatic teenager, or when you're feeling melodramatic in general.
I didn't really quite get this album. I think Neil Young is ass at singing, but sometimes that works out pretty well (for other bands). The songwriting was pretty... bland, to be honest, but I imagine I would be saying something different if I lived in that cultural context. What came after Neil Young was influenced in large part by Neil Young, so maybe it was more fresh at the time. Either way, boring and almost grating.
I was going to give this a two, but for a split moment, I did suddenly get this album. I was busy fishing in minecraft (not a joke, literally in minecraft) and something about the album mixed with the boring monotony of it that felt kind of elevated. I could understand grandpa knocking back a cold one on the lake, fishing and listening to Neil Young.
And Justice for All is a fairly good album, all things considered. But I really think the first three Metallica albums were better and the Black Album isn't necessarily better but it holds a special place in my heart since it was my entrance to metal.
And Justice for All, while not being prog, is just a bit too proggy for my tastes. Kill 'em All was raw energy captured on tape, and Ride the Lightning + Master of Puppets was thoughtful raw energy. And Justice for All was just trying to be a bit too weighty and thoughtful comparatively. The songs are still fairly good, but just doesn't give the same feeling as the first three.
I'm not sure whether to rate this in the context of all music, or in the context of Pink Floyd, so I'll just explain the difference. DSotM, when looking at music as a whole, is a pretty good album. Especially Breathe and The Great Gig in the Sky (but not Money, that song actually kinda sucks). This album honestly kind of sounds like the sensation of being high. If this was the only Pink Floyd album I'd heard, I'd give it a 4.
Now, onto the context of Pink Floyd. I simply think DSotM is actually just a really average Pink Floyd album. Animals and Atom Heart Mother are better albums. Those are a 5 and a 4.5, respectively. I'd give this 3 stars in the context of Pink Floyd as a whole.
Anyways, if we had half stars, I'd go for a 3.5, but since we don't, I'm going to round down to 3.
Not only is Freddie Mercury's singing range insane, the entire band's musical range is crazy. This album has a song on it (Stone Cold Crazy) that some people view as the start of or inspiration for thrash metal. Contrast that with Bohemian Rhapsody, where they do essentially opera for part of the song, and then contrast that with Cool Cat, where they do a sort of slow funky sort of thing. To be able to do all of these things SO WELL is crazy.
This album itself is so close to a 5. The songs, when they hit, are SO good. There's just some less memorable songs on the album, so I've gotta give it a 4. But oh my god, what proof of how crazy talented and hard working Queen was.
I would love to give this album a good review, since it's cited as an influence for metal and doom metal in particular relatively often. But the songs that aren't In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida honestly sound like you're 14 and your friend invited you to watch their new band rehearse original material. Like sure, they're a bit practiced and not ALL over the place, but it still sounds like multiple people all kinda doing their own thing and the songs themselves are super naive, for lack of a better term. And not naive in the lyrical sense, since I didn't listen to the lyrics. They just sound like the first songs you write when you want to try having multiple people play together for the first time.
Also, I hate that 60s bands loved the organ so much. The organ has got to be one of the most grating sounds on the planet, at least the way it was used in 60s music.
