800
Albums Rated
2.93
Average Rating
73%
Complete
289 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1970s
Favorite Decade
Post-punk
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
61
5-Star Albums
73
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman | 5 | 2.22 | +2.78 |
| Trout Mask Replica | 5 | 2.28 | +2.72 |
| Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water | 5 | 2.47 | +2.53 |
| The Modern Dance | 5 | 2.48 | +2.52 |
| Bright Flight | 5 | 2.68 | +2.32 |
| I Am a Bird Now | 5 | 2.84 | +2.16 |
| Damaged | 5 | 2.87 | +2.13 |
| Kollaps | 4 | 1.9 | +2.1 |
| I Against I | 5 | 2.93 | +2.07 |
| I See A Darkness | 5 | 2.97 | +2.03 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Californication | 1 | 3.7 | -2.7 |
| Oracular Spectacular | 1 | 3.61 | -2.61 |
| Blood Sugar Sex Magik | 1 | 3.5 | -2.5 |
| Crosby, Stills & Nash | 1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
| The Marshall Mathers LP | 1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
| Aja | 1 | 3.46 | -2.46 |
| Bat Out Of Hell | 1 | 3.45 | -2.45 |
| Sound of Silver | 1 | 3.42 | -2.42 |
| My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy | 1 | 3.42 | -2.42 |
| If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears | 1 | 3.42 | -2.42 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Jimi Hendrix | 3 | 4.67 |
| Nirvana | 3 | 4.67 |
| Black Sabbath | 3 | 4.67 |
| Talking Heads | 3 | 4.67 |
| Funkadelic | 2 | 5 |
| The Band | 2 | 5 |
| Johnny Cash | 3 | 4.33 |
| Leonard Cohen | 3 | 4.33 |
| Echo And The Bunnymen | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Steely Dan | 4 | 1.5 |
| Aerosmith | 3 | 1.33 |
| LCD Soundsystem | 2 | 1 |
| Kanye West | 2 | 1 |
| The Divine Comedy | 2 | 1 |
| Eminem | 2 | 1 |
| Massive Attack | 2 | 1 |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers | 2 | 1 |
| Christina Aguilera | 2 | 1 |
| Orbital | 2 | 1 |
| Madonna | 3 | 1.67 |
| Eagles | 2 | 1.5 |
| Paul Simon | 2 | 1.5 |
| Rufus Wainwright | 2 | 1.5 |
| Taylor Swift | 2 | 1.5 |
| John Martyn | 2 | 1.5 |
| Barry Adamson | 2 | 1.5 |
| Fatboy Slim | 2 | 1.5 |
| Simon & Garfunkel | 3 | 2 |
| Pet Shop Boys | 3 | 2 |
| Morrissey | 3 | 2 |
| Van Morrison | 3 | 2 |
| The Byrds | 4 | 2.25 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Marvin Gaye | 5, 2, 3 |
| My Bloody Valentine | 3, 5, 2 |
5-Star Albums (61)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Pentangle
1/5
Yesterday I gave Incubus a 1.5 rounded up. Today I’m giving this a 1.5 rounded down.
Here’s the difference: if I were out and about and incubus were playing in the background, I would barely notice it. If this were playing in the background I would say “What is this. Why.”
19 likes
Khaled
3/5
There’s a whole world out there eh? This guy sold 80 million records and I never heard of him until now!
This is good and cool, except for the Imagine cover. Can’t get away from that song.
4 likes
Os Mutantes
5/5
Future editions should cut every English and American psychedelic album from 1966-1970 and replace it with a repeat of this.
It was a really weird experience to look at the cover of this and think “Oh God, more of this,” and then actually listen to it. It has a lot of the musical trappings that make the last five hundred sixties psych album on this list sound similar, but it also sounded creative and fresh and worthwhile and interesting.
I can’t believe how sick this was! I can’t believe I had to listen to an entire record by the Zombies to get here!
4 likes
Napalm Death
3/5
I believe this is the first album so far, where I knew right off the bat that I wasn’t going to subject my family to it.
Either way, I liked it alright, I think it’s cool that it exists, and I think every single person who one starred it is a huge nerd. I’d much rather listen to Napalm Death than another Elvis Costello.
3 likes
The Chemical Brothers
1/5
A guy can make a case for Doing Drugs as a creative exercise. Sometimes people can access a way of expressing an idea, sometimes they can access the idea itself, while doing drugs. Regardless of someone’s moral stance, it can at least have artistic merit.
This album is a Doing Drugs album that never gets past “huh huh this is trippy mate innit”. It sounds like the least interesting guy you’ve ever met, telling you about that one time they did DMT.
Man this sucks.
3 likes
1-Star Albums (73)
All Ratings
2/5
Better than my baseline opinion towards U2. Impressive 3 song run to open the album.
Bono undeniable, but also just Too Much.
Public Enemy
4/5
Aggressively busy and noisy. Never lets you forget you’re listening to it. Very cool.
Cyndi Lauper
3/5
Good stuff. A balance of known commodities in the front, and some wonky and weird synth pop stuff in the back. Rounding down from a 3.5.
The Go-Go's
3/5
This was a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be.
Beastie Boys
4/5
One thousand times in my life, I’ve expressed that I am something of a Beastie Boys hater, and someone has replied “You should listen to Paul’s Boutique.”
Well I have now, and I’ll be damned if they weren’t right. I stand corrected.
The Last Shadow Puppets
2/5
Couldn’t possibly sound more like a British super group from 2008 (bad thing).
Funkadelic
5/5
This one knocked me on my ass. Wow. What a record.
Kraftwerk
3/5
This was a positive Kraftwerk experience. More smooth and musical than some of their other stuff. I liked it pretty good. It was really funny how the album opened with like 90 seconds of synth and then the first word spoken was “Europe!”
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
Does Nick Cave always sound like pirate music? This surprised me. I didn’t expect it to sound like pirate music. I probably could like a Nick Cave record, it seems eerie and weird. But not this one.
The Stooges
4/5
It’s the Stooges!
Little Simz
3/5
Hey this was pretty cool.
Stereo MC's
1/5
You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this one, you probably can.
King Crimson
4/5
This thing is so bonkers and so good. I’m not sure I had ever listened to it in its entirety before, and now that I have. I definitely will again.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Super cool guitar stuff, and she sure finds weird and nice melodies over it. Liked this one a lot, didn’t know I was a Joni fan.
Metallica
3/5
It rocks. It’s not their best, Cliff Burton isn’t on it. But it’s good and it rocks.
Frank Zappa
4/5
Frank Zappa seems like a guy where if you were spending a day with him you’d be saying a lot of, “Ha ha, ok, let’s settle down, Frank…”
I like this one a lot.
LCD Soundsystem
1/5
This is an album that dares to ask: “What if there was a cool guy at a cool party in New York?” over and over for almost an hour.
If Chuck Klosterman were born in 1985 he would have written a fifteen thousand word think piece about how great this album is, and you’d read it and say, “Really?”
This one is very much of my time, and I liked it then. I hate it now. Gruel for millennials. Real bad stuff.
Def Leppard
2/5
This has all the trappings of something that rocks, but it does not rock.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
Astounding that the guy only did 3 albums, and this one was less than two years after Experienced. Really creative, love this one, wish we could have found out what kind of wacky crap Hendrix was doing at 50. A merman, he should be.
Jeff Beck
3/5
One day ago, the album was Electric Ladyland, which I think affected my experience listening for this one, or at least my review. I do still like this, though, it’s got a lot of interesting stuff going on. Beck’s Bolero is especially rad.
The Clash
5/5
This was my favourite album when I was in junior high school and it’s my favourite album now. When it came up on the list, I didn’t think “Oh yeah, this is a slam dunk 5”, I thought “Oh nice! A reason to listen to London Calling!”
The National
2/5
Not terrible or anything but I feel like between 2003 and 2013 I heard this same album six other times by six other bands.
Fats Domino
3/5
Fairly cool in the way that all early proto-rock stuff is cool. Not something I would necessarily seek out to listen to again, but fine.
Johnny Cash
3/5
Waffled on which way to round this one, went up because of the last song.
Cash sounds great here. Really clean production, breaking down voice.
Really don’t like a lot of the song selection. Feels like Rubin picked about five cover songs that are specifically designed to become sleeper minor hits on the strength of the general sadness of the record. And hey, he got one!
Tracy Chapman
3/5
Had no idea Chapman was so politically radical (in both senses of the word).
Hard for me to get past the super slick late 80s early 90s singer songwriter sheen, from a sonic taste perspective, but it was doable, and this is a good one.
Pulls no punches.
FKA twigs
3/5
This makes me feel out of touch, but not in a way that makes me mad.
Layered synths very nice to the touch, good sparse vocals, introspective themes: these are footholds that make sense to me, and they’re all well executed, and it’s nobody’s fault but my own that I’m 15-20 years too old.
Sisters Of Mercy
3/5
This one is more fun than it has any business being. It sounds exactly like its cover, in a good way. I never got much into gothy stuff but maybe I could.
Earth, Wind & Fire
4/5
This exercise is really opening my eyes to funk. Not sure why I neglected it.
Ute Lemper
2/5
This sounds like the soundtrack for a musical that doesn’t exist, which makes it very unappealing to me.
Impressive vocalist, can imagine someone loving this, but not me.
3/5
Maybe I am just not able to put myself in the shoes of a 1960s folk revival purist, but oh man: imagine going to see Bob Dylan, and he does a great set, and then he comes out for a second set with a band, and the band is The Band, and you’re like “Wow, this sucks.” So many people did that.
Anyway, Bob Dylan is pretty much always good, right. This is neat, good time capsule sorta thing. Not the best live Dylan I’ve listened to, and nowhere even close to the worst.
Eagles
2/5
Since the last time I had listened to this in full, I became a dad. I thought, maybe I’ll get the fuss about the Eagles now. I didn’t.
The The
4/5
When I was a teen, we frowned on 80s sounding music. Too old to sound current, too recent for retro appeal. It’s now very rewarding to go back and discover how much absolutely sick stuff was going on in the new-wave-adjacent world.
This rocks! It’s weird and aggressive and sweaty as hell. My understanding is that The The covers a lot of sonic ground over the years. I’m going to check out more, but I sure enjoyed this one at least.
The Mars Volta
3/5
I finally got into At The Drive-In, over the last couple years. Remember Mars Volta being a big deal to people, and I always assumed they’d be more my thing.
Turns out they aren’t, or at least not this one. It’s good, kinda like a better Coheed and Cambria, but not as good as I hoped and anticipated.
Queen
3/5
Every British guy loves to sing songs about old world creatures like fairies and monsters. Guys in Queen no exception. It’s good though.
The Who
2/5
I feel pretty positively about the Who in general. First listen of this one, and boy. They did know how to rock, but they really didn’t know how to write a musical. And why would they? They’re the Who!
This is maybe an interesting example of the impulse to believe that innovative pop music guys were some sort of creative geniuses, able to do more or less anything, when really most of em were just cool pop music guys.
The Darkness
1/5
It’s really odd to look back and remember that this was sort of critically acclaimed when it came out. I guess it’s part of a cycle, every 8 years or so some band comes out that sounds vaguely like Led Zeppelin or something and all the rock guy cranks are like “ROCK AND ROLL IS BACK BABY”.
This is just a particularly funny one. Imagine The Darkness had actually kickstarted a revival or whatever this is, in 2003?
Real silly.
Lucinda Williams
3/5
I feel like I’ve seen Lucinda Williams live a half dozen times and never listened to a studio album.
This is nice.
4/5
Coincidentally got this not long after Tommy. I ripped The Who for biting off more than they could chew… only to hear the Kinks do something kinda similar and, I think, do it a lot more artfully.
Randy Newman
4/5
Definitely didn’t expect to love a Randy Newman record as much as I did this one. Political Science especially good.
Hookworms
2/5
I found this sort of neutrally pleasant to listen to. Sort of surprised it was from 2018… sounds very 2004 or so to me.
Stan Getz
3/5
I listened to this and thought “dang Stan Getz sounds cool” so I texted my father in law (jazz guy) and he recommended a bunch more Stan Getz for me to check out. Gonna become a jazz guy now
Jeff Buckley
4/5
Probably a lot of lost creative potential with this guy right? Have listened to this record many times, always struck by the guitar work.
Gram Parsons
3/5
Very nice one. Emmylou Harris sounds great. Gram Parsons was just a name to me before, this will be a re-listen for sure.
UB40
2/5
Not really my thing here, but there was some stuff I liked about it. I’m coming around to some reggae for the first time in my life, but I guess I’m just not quite ready for British dub.
Ice Cube
2/5
One time I saw Ice Cube open for Snoop Dogg at an arena show, and during his set he went on this prolonged rant about how even though he’s in family movies, he’s still hard. Personally I think it would have been more wise to not repeatedly remind the crowd that he’s in a bunch of family movies, and just sorta let them suspend disbelief.
Anyway it’s neat to hear his stuff from before, when he’s still got this legitimate piss and vinegar about him. Not my favourite, but good.
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
I really like Run DMC and this record in particular has a lot of very sick songs on it. It can be a bit hard to get past how often their cadence sounds like “My name is [name], and I’m here to say,”
Iggy Pop
4/5
I’ve listened to the Stooges so much but never much Iggy Pop beyond the singles and a few other songs here and there. Big mistake?? I liked this better than most of the Stooges stuff I know!
Badly Drawn Boy
3/5
I was kind of grumpy at this one for the first half. Familiar with it already, and it was the sort of dull English singer songwriter from the early 2000s sound I remembered. Won me over a bit by the end though, there’s some fun and different stuff in the back half. A favourite, no. But worthwhile!
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Last time I had a Joni Mitchell album, it was Blue, and I admitted to myself after decades that it turns out I actually like Joni Mitchell a lot.
Holds up here. So much of this cuts to the core. Really beautiful stuff.
Emmylou Harris
2/5
I like Emmylou’s voice a lot, but I liked her a lot more on a 70s Gram Parsons record than I do here, with a 2000s country sheen that is hard to get past.
Bill Callahan
3/5
Lots to like here, nice voice, nice production, nice songs.
Garbage
2/5
Can imagine liking this one more than I did. It’s got a good edge to it, pretty aggressive. For whatever reason it’s so hard for me to get past that drum sound that in so much 90s rock. That was the case here, and that’s what brings it down.
Bonnie Raitt
2/5
Just can’t do it with the rock drums and the shiny finish. Sorry Bonnie.
King Crimson
3/5
I still don’t believe I could fully embrace being a Prog Guy, but this is the second King Crimson album this list has provided, and the second I’ve enjoyed.
Billie Holiday
5/5
I was like “Ya I like Billie Holiday, I know what to expect, this will be good.” Two songs I was like “what is happening??” and by the end I was floored. Have since read a bit about the production of the album. Amazing. One of a kind.
Michael Jackson
4/5
Went into this feeling cynical about Michael Jackson. Hard to detach him from his place in the zeitgeist, for better or (much) worse. But with each passing song I was like “Well, shit.”
It’s not all good with Jackson, but this record, and a couple others that I’m sure are on this list… my god. Who will ever top this guy from a straight pop perspective?
Otis Redding
4/5
Easy one for me to love. Lifelong fav, one of the best voices there ever was.
Sinead O'Connor
3/5
Have come to appreciate Sinead. Real heavy stuff on this one, nice record.
Elliott Smith
3/5
This is my favourite Elliot Smith. I think he shows off quite a lot in it, but comes off as bashful anyway. Usually haven’t been drawing attention to individual songs while writing these, but Junk Bond Trader must be the softest song to ever rock real hard.
The Byrds
2/5
I know it’s influential, but with all this time between then and now, it kinda sounds like 32 minutes of Spinal Tap’s Listen to the Flower People.
I did like the prolonged Bo Diddley bit quite a lot though, that was cool.
Motörhead
3/5
Motörhead is of course a bit “if you’ve heard one you’ve heard em all”. But it’s still plenty of fun to listen to this whole record.
I believe the “know I’m going to lose, cause gambling’s for fools, but that’s the way I like it baby I’m not gonna live forever” is the hardest rocking 10 seconds ever committed to recording. And don’t forget the joker!
Johnny Cash
5/5
This thing has the most deranged energy. The back and forth between Cash and the audience is friendly and tense at the same time, and like 40% of the whole thing is the back and forth.
If a live album’s aim is to capture a moment that happened, this is one of the most worthwhile live albums there is.
Rush
3/5
A Prog Guy friend said this one is the best entry point into Rush. I can see it. Being a Canadian, I’ve heard their singles a million times on the radio, but associated their overall work with long, drawn out epic type prog. Was delighted this was 40 minutes long and all but one song was to-the-point. Still not exactly my thing, but a fun listen. Great bass stuff, too.
Elvis Costello
3/5
Lukewarm on Elvis Costello, but don’t think I can go as low as 2 for this one. Lots of songs I liked, some filler. Wish it was 45 minutes instead of 60.
Air
2/5
This sounds like every kinda-indie movie from 2000-2008. Not in a bad way, and there were a couple songs that sort of grabbed me, but it just doesn’t do much for me overall.
Tempted to round up to 3 because it’s so funny that the cover says “French Band” on it, which I like.
Led Zeppelin
2/5
The community average for this one is so high, too high. Realistically this could round up, but I know there are at least two Zeppelin records I like a bit more, so I’m leaving space for them.
Misty Mountain Hop is a cool song, especially when Plant isn’t going “OoooOOOOOh Yeah!”
I do like the rhythm section in the band, too bad how overshadowed they always are.
The Roots
3/5
Odd to think of these guys as a late night house band, and I guess that is how they would be widely known at this point.
This is a very cool record.
The Vines
3/5
Whenever an album comes up and it’s Of My Time, I tense up and expect it won’t hold up that well.
Pleasant surprise on this one. These guys seem to have sort of faded behind the other *The* bands that came out, but I think this is a decent record. Was especially tickled by Factory.
Queens of the Stone Age
2/5
I know these guys are pretty well regarded, especially Homme as a guitar player. Not 100% sure what my expectations were, but I definitely did not expect it to sort of just be Butt Rock.
Beatles
3/5
I’m a big Beatles Guy and I lean heavily towards Paul. But on these early records, you really hear John’s value. He’s so good at this kind of borderline-gritty early rock thing.
Not my favourite of their records, the later the better for me, but it’s a Beatles record. Of course it’s good.
David Ackles
1/5
When I saw this album cover I thought “Cool an early 70s cult following singer songwriter thing” and then three songs in buddy is singing a song about sailing ships, and putting on a little sailor voice to do it, and then a couple songs later a song opens with “THE NIGHT… BECKONS HER WITH ITS CALL” or something, and then I’m certain I’ve been tricked into listening to some sort of Theatre Guy album again. I listened to the whole thing, but I can’t give stuff like this more than 1 again. Can’t do it. Ute Lemper is got lucky, 50 albums back.
Paul Simon
2/5
In recent months I’ve really tried to give fresh chances to artists I’ve had it out for, Paul Simon included.
There are times on this record where guest musicians are really getting into it, going somewhere, and then Paul Simon starts singing again and I snap back to reality. These are still Paul Simon songs.
It’s not gonna happen for me.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
I wonder if there are a lot of Bob Marley records on this list.
Like many white guys, I mostly just know Marley via greatest hits collections or whatever. This album has (I think) just the one song that is usually on those?
Anyway I thought this one was real nice to listen to as a whole.
Blondie
4/5
Lots of records have good songs on them, not that many records have all good songs on them.
It’s not all GREAT, but there’s no stinkers here.
Good stuff from Blondie.
Kanye West
1/5
Not the only guy on this list to be subject to art vs artist on this list, but a uniquely egregious, conclusively awful, and of-our-time one. Had time for this once, but pop music is not sacred and I have no hesitation to leave West behind.
The xx
2/5
After the first song I thought, “Huh that was pretty cool!” and then it got increasingly dull from there. I was disappointed because I remembered liking another album from this band, but then I remembered that one also started strong and then petered out.
That’s all. This one was fine.
The Velvet Underground
3/5
It’s good. Won’t belabour it here, but I just don’t see this band the way people seem to see this band. I just think they’re pretty good.
Gang Starr
3/5
This was a good time. I don’t have much of an ear for hip hop, but I know this was sparse, creatively sampled, and every song had a place.
Emmylou Harris
3/5
1001 Emmylou albums to hear before you die.
Like this one considerably more than the early 2000s one we got a while back. Same voice, just a production difference I guess.
Various Artists
2/5
I don’t have a lot of patience for Christmas music, but this did sound pleasant in a Spector-doing-his-thing way, and my kids did have a fun time dancing around to it, so I guess it did its job. Not bad!
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Cohen’s songwriting was always good and his instrumentation varies a lot over the albums and was pretty much always good too. He has one wild variable that makes him different from a lot of others, which is that the older and gnarlier he got, the better his voice sounded. This is as old and gnarly as it gets for him, and it’s fantastic.
Gotan Project
2/5
Boy a lot of this is so cool and creative, shame the whole thing is set to Default Chill 90s Hip Hop Beat. That sound is pervasive on this list!
The Zombies
2/5
Maybe I am becoming (or just am) an aglophobe. Thought this one started off fine and interesting, and then a few songs in it was just another super British guy singing in a silly voice about a butcher from the olden times or something, to 60s psych rock backing.
Green Day
2/5
I don’t remember Green Day fondly, and I think it’s because this album was the first time I really felt a band I liked Changed. I saw them on the tour for this one and it sucked, I almost never listened to them again after that.
However, after listening to about one hundred 1960s Brit Rock Operas on this list so far, this actually doesn’t seem that bad.
The Divine Comedy
1/5
I can’t stand this stuff.
Hüsker Dü
3/5
I know these guys, I like these guys. This isn’t their best one, it’s maybe 15-20 minutes too long, maybe a little too samey by the second half, but it’s still a Hüsker Dü record and it’s still good to listen to.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
Know this one, knew it rules. Thought maybe a 4 star, by virtue of it not being my absolute favourite Neil. On note solo in Cinnamon Girl convinced me not to be so precious.
Jamiroquai
1/5
Imagine listening to the whole hour of this, the whole time knowing that the last song is called Didgin’ Out. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel, Didgin’ Out.
Beatles
4/5
The Beatles maybe exist on their own pop music plane a bit. Like how if someone says “Who’s the best hockey player there ever was?” that question either comes with the assumed implication of “Well, other than Wayne Gretzky,” or it’s a pointless question.
Anyways, I think middle period is kinda my least favourite Beatles period, which gives me the uncomfortable opinion of not liking Rubber Soul that much. It’s cool hearing them start to really put it together, but I like them more when they’re already totally put together, and also more when they’re right at the end of being Just A Rock Band. They’re best when they’re at the stage of having mastered something, rather than when they’re frickin around (but also White Album is my favourite, which is maximum frickin, so who knows).
It’s still obviously a great album though, duh.
(Also, this list has given all sorts of 60s British rock, contemporaries of the Beatles, and I’ve disliked a lot of it more than I expected to. Beatles just head and shoulders and another set of shoulders above the rest of that stuff eh?)
fIREHOSE
4/5
Mike Watt can do no wrong? Maybe?
Sarah Vaughan
3/5
Nothing I don’t like here just not something I love either. Crowd noise adds a lot
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
Came into this one with some pre-conceived notions (probably based on hearing the same two singles every day of my childhood on the alternative rock station), and ya know what? Pleasant surprise. Not sure I’d like every thing they did, but this one is good. Radio station shoulda played some of these ones instead.
Robert Wyatt
4/5
I read a ton of music magazines as a kid, and especially liked Uncut because it came with a CD every month. One time in the early 2000s there was a big write up on Robert Wyatt because he had a new record coming out. I read about him and was fascinated. Downloaded all the albums etc.
This one is an obvious stand out because of its place in the guy’s life. Much greater than the sum of its parts, even though the sum of its parts is quite good on its own.
Eminem
1/5
Three songs in I knew this whole thing absolutely stunk but I powered through. Next time someone tries to tell me Eminem is good, I can ask “When’s the last time you listened to a full record?” and I’ll have them beat.
Even if not for the rancid lyrical content (listen to Bonnie and Clyde and ask yourself, “Why and when would anyone ever decide to listen to this song?”)… the whole thing sounds bad! This may be peak Dre, but if it is, he should have spent this time working with someone who doesn’t sound like they’re making fun of their own voice.
Also: people say this guy is uniquely talented at rhymes? Buddy did not invent internal rhyme schemes. Those have been around for a thousand years.
God this shit sucks.
Janelle Monáe
4/5
Felt momentarily Cool when this one turned up. I thought “Hey, a new one that I know, and know I like!” then realized that 2010 was 14 years ago.
Still like it nonetheless. A 3.5 rounded up because my kids have a Sesame Street DVD that features Monae, and her segment is maybe the only one on there that I don’t mind hearing repeatedly.
Britney Spears
1/5
The positive thing about this, is that when I think of a 90s pop record, I think “two or three singles and 35 minutes of filler”. This record is an hour long, and most of the songs could pass for late 90s singles.
The negative thing is that it sounds like two hundred people made this album, and not one of them had any creative care towards it. Completely dispassionate.
There exists a line at which Art becomes Commerce in full. Good radio pop music often gets close to the line but doesn’t QUITE cross it. I don’t know exactly where it is, but it’s way East of this one.
Not to mention the fact that there’s an actual human teenager in the mix being dragged around and exploited (look at the fuckin cover man, Jesus Christ) so that this can make a lot of people a lot of money.
White Denim
3/5
This is maybe the definitive 3⭐️ experience to me so far. This had some interesting stuff, songs I enjoyed, good overall sound, but I’m not sure it’ll stick with me.
The Stone Roses
4/5
This one snuck up on me. Went in thinking “I know a couple of their songs, probably a 2.5 rounded down to a 2.” Gave it the ol’ honest listen, and nope. An easy 4. Very good stuff to me.
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
Independently rediscovered this one a couple of months ago. Really interested in West African blues as a genre, guess this is the jumping off point.
SZA
3/5
Hard to nail down my own perspective on this, think I’m just aging out of the world. Just not a lot of a foothold for me. Pretty musically interesting, and feels distinctly Cool from start to finish.
Willie Nelson
4/5
Willie’s got more musical layers than I realized. Instrumental stuff on this one really beautiful too!
Creedence Clearwater Revival
2/5
I thought I would enjoy this more than I did. I guess my whole life I never listened to more than two CCR songs in a row, which it turns out is as many CCR songs I can enjoy in a row.
Run-D.M.C.
2/5
Probably would have knocked a guy on his ass when it came out!
Liked it about the same as the other one from this list, but they had definitely hit their stride a bit more on that one. Docking a star here and putting it on a Run DMC curve.
Pink Floyd
3/5
This album cover looks familiar have I seen it somewhere before
Marvin Gaye
5/5
How could someone possibly make something so beautiful as this.
5.5⭐️
The Cramps
2/5
There’s only room for one punk band that sounds spiritually similar to Vincent Price saying “Ghouls and goblins! Spiders and snakes!” and they’re called the Misfits, and even they aren’t that good.
ABBA
3/5
Not falling out of my chair for this one or anything. But ANBA is not a group I think of when I think of Bands Trying Something Different, and they do here, and is pretty cool/pretty good.
Foo Fighters
2/5
I read a bit about this one before listening to it. The background made me think, “Well this one should be kind interesting!” and then… it wasn’t. Grohl seems like an interesting and talented guy. How is it possible that every Foo Fighters recording tastes like tap water??
Dizzee Rascal
2/5
This is just Too British For Me.
Ice Cube
2/5
Lots of musical value here, hard to get past a lot of the content.
Soul II Soul
2/5
For a 1995 British album called Club Classics Vol One, this wasn’t what I expected (in a good way).
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
A lot of this kinda psychedelic funk is really hitting a sweet spot for me. This is a great one, I think it makes a case for being a 5, but ultimately the 13 minute noodley sex machine song stands out as a slow point.
Dang this is a sick record though eh
Joy Division
3/5
New Order has always spoken to me a bit more, but I certainly liked this more than I like most sorta gothy new wave.
Second half of this had some sick songs I’m not too familiar with, but overall I think there’s a bit too much fillery sounding stuff for a classic album.
4/5
Tough one to score. Some songs easily belong on a 5 star album but some songs have way too much Silly British flavour for my liking. Ultimately going to round up here on the strength of the good stuff, and add that I think XTC might be a sleeper Band For Me.
The Who
4/5
If a guy were to go back and look at my reviews so far, they would paint a picture of a person who is realizing they don’t care for English music nearly as much as they once thought.
Pleasant exception here. The Who, right out the gate, sounds so much more rough and vital and cool than most of their British Invasion peers. This rocks.
Duran Duran
2/5
This almost felt like an album that I would immediately forget and then never think of again… but then I did think the last song was very cool.
Jacques Brel
2/5
Çe la, c’est pas ma musique.
Miles Davis
4/5
It really rattled me to read that this was recorded in 1949/50. Is this literally the birth of coolness? Is this the first time something was ever cool? I think it might be.
Nirvana
5/5
Have always loved this so much, it’s such a special live record. Pretty much no hits, all these weirdo covers.
I waffled between 4 and 5 while listening to it, and after it was over I decided that the tipping point is the moment where Cobain absolutely botches that big note in the Bowie song. That’s so cool. Come on. 5 stars.
Alice In Chains
3/5
I think each decade (give or take a few years) has its own flavour of butt rock. The one I’m most familiar with, because I was a kid getting a ride to school at the time, so I listened to the radio, is the butt rock that is during/post grunge. Eb tuning, Scott Stapp voice, etc etc.
Sometimes hard to know where the line is between the butt rock and the real thing that influenced it. This one is certainly on the non-butt side of the line, but it sure sounds like the butt side took a lot from it.
Anyway I liked it pretty good, as a thing on its own.
Minor Threat
4/5
This is broadly my favourite stuff to listen to: favourite corner of favourite genre. I hooted when it came up in this list. I love it.
Just that in the context of this exercise, I think four stars is a realistic ceiling for 80s American Hardcore. Call it the Shitty Band’s 5.
Dusty Springfield
2/5
I like this, but it didn’t land the way I thought it would. Maybe I was in a bad mood, maybe it’s because while I was listening to it I read about the term “blue-eyed soul” and it left a weird taste in my mouth. That’s life.
Black Sabbath
4/5
Endlessly funny that this is a document of some dopey British blues guys sort of accidentally inventing a genre.
It rocks so hard.
The line “without warning, a Wizard walks by” rocks so hard.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Even at his best, to me Frank Sinatra sounds like the feeling of standing in a room that is exactly standard room temperature, drinking a glass of water that has been sitting in the same room.
I did like a lot of the backing arrangements here, and I did like that it made me think of that scene in spinal tap where the limo driver gets frustrated that the band doesn’t adequately respect Frank.
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
I rolled my eyes when this came up but then I chastised the inner millennial crank and gave it an honest listen.
It is very sappy and overwrought, but also it’s very good. Better than most of his peers who were similarly trying to be Composers instead of just Rock Guys.
There’s a lot going on, it’s a bit too long, but everything works and it justifies itself overall.
Hugh Masekela
4/5
Wow this was a delight. Every bit of it. What’s that he’s whaling on in track two, Flugelhorn? Rad.
I was told he was part of the Graceland tour. Too cool for that if you ask me!
Steve Earle
3/5
I like Steve, I like him more and more as he gets older and rougher around the edges. But this one is good too.
My wife heard this one and said “This is Gido music”.
Madonna
2/5
A while back I had a Britney Spears album come up and said that my perception of 90s pop albums was that they have a couple of strong singles and then all filler. I was surprised Spears’ wasn’t like that.
This one lives up to my assumption. It’s over an hour long and 80% of it felt like generic club beats.
Giving it an extra star to differentiate from Spears though, because at least listening to this one doesn’t feel kind of criminal or something.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
This is (I think) my favourite Zeppelin, but still. Man. Their songs always start off so groovy, and then Robert Plant comes in with his awwwweeeeeaaaaayyyyyaaaaa baaaayyyyybaaaaay stuff. A guy can only take so much.
I thin
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
3/5
I had only heard the single before. It’s the best song on here, but it’s also cool to hear the rest. Seems kinda foundational to a lot of stuff to come not too long after?
TV On The Radio
2/5
This didn’t make my jaw drop or anything, but it’s a nice sample of the better side of 2000s indie rock. I remember listening to cookie mountain years and years ago, and not enjoying it much. Did like this one just fine.
Frank Ocean
2/5
So this is Frank Ocean eh?
Pleasant, I suppose, but in a neutral way.
Pretenders
3/5
A somewhat cooler, rougher-around-the-edges Blondie? Album maybe a bit uneven, but some really solid stretches.
Simon & Garfunkel
2/5
I can not for the life of me figure out why S&G don’t really do it for me, and never have. I did like this better than I liked Graceland a few weeks back, so maybe Paul Simon is the issue. Didn’t hate this one, it just didn’t stick with me beyond giving it a listen.
Tori Amos
2/5
Easy to imagine this being very impactful to the right person at the right time, but it wasn’t me.
Kanye West
1/5
The weirdest and worst thing about the Kanye West situation is that there’s a decade’s worth of people who were later like, “Come to think of it, he did talk about Hitler a lot!”
He did a whole letterman taping where he talked about Hitler a bunch, to an uneasy crowd. Then they just edited the interview and released it anyway!
Good album, a 1 anyway.
Julian Cope
3/5
Hard to land on a score for this one. On one hand there was a lot of Psychedelic Rock Moments that made me roll my eyes, but on the other hand there were a lot of moments where a song lands in a groove that made me say “Hell yeah”. I also liked reading about the weirdo liner notes, and the guy himself.
I have a feeling that one day I will give this a second listen and wish I had bumped it up a bit. But for now I will call it a very good, but quite uneven one.
Funkadelic
5/5
Funkadelic is the first band two get two five star reviews from me. Would I have predicted that going in? No chance. Am I happy with my self discovery as a Funkadelic Guy? Hell yeah.
The Band
5/5
Never get tired of this one. Not much to say other than it’s an obvious 5, and I’ll listen to it again any chance k get. Maybe it’ll come up again on this list for some reason. That would be cool.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
I’m something of a Stones hater by default, but I’m always trying to be a blank slate when I listen to these records. I know there are Stones albums I will like quite a bit, but this isn’t one of them.
I do like hearing Brian Jones.
But overall there’s just a lot of much better electric blues music out there that doesn’t also require the listener to have to think a lot about Mick Jagger’s weird hang ups about women.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
Last time I got Costello I rounded it up to a 3, and my main complaint was that there was too much filler. This one did not have a ton of filler, and I’m rounding it down to a 3 instead. The numbers look the same but trust me it’s a different three.
I imagine there’s like half a dozen more Costellos on here, maybe he’ll crack a 4 yet.
Radiohead
4/5
Hard to detach these guys from their Image and Reputation among my peers.
I don’t believe they’re the greatest band on earth, but I do believe they’re a good band with some rip-ass guitars, and the guitars are especially rip-ass on this album.
Rounding up on this one, if only to create a reasonable curve for future Radiohead picks.
The White Stripes
3/5
This was probably the contemporary band that was most formative to my younger tastes. I think I still love them but it’s hard to tell how much of it is the memory of hearing any given album for the first time.
Removed from that, this one strikes me as more uneven than I remembered. I think it may be that it’s a transition between the messy garage blues/rock White Stripes of De Stijl, and the more refined and organized White Stripes of Elephant. Those, to me, are the two best albums. This one has glimpses of strengths from both, but also a lot of filler and a lot of Jack White being a bit too preciously bluesy for my sensibilities now.
The good stuff is still real good to me.
Television
5/5
When I was a kid, I read a magazine article about the 25th anniversary of this album. It had an interview with Tom Verlaine, and I thought, “This guy seems very cool.” I took out Marquee Moon from the library, and it was indeed very cool. I’ve listened to it semi regularly ever since.
Really try not to let nostalgia colour my reviews here, and thought maybe this is just a four. But hey I’m not a child of the 70s, I wasn’t there having an impression made on me, this was just some crap that I happened across and loved it immediately and forever.
Nirvana
4/5
This is the Nirvana I’ve listened to the least. It rocks. It’s got some of their best melodic parts and some of their best unmelodic parts. A great final album, sucks there aren’t more.
Gil Scott-Heron
4/5
Pretty radical stuff I’m surprised The Man let this guy live as long as he did. Maybe he didn’t get enough mainstream exposure or something.
I knew Scott-Heron as a poet and of course knew the big one, but listening to this got me pretty interested in his collaborator here. Cool and creative musically.
OutKast
3/5
Guessing I don’t have too many unique thoughts on this one. There is a lot that is really really good, and it’s cool to hear these guys sort of split up and doing their own thing, but with each other as backup. But it is tooooo long and doesn’t justify the length.
Rufus Wainwright
2/5
I had slightly more patience for this than other theatery chamber pop (probably because it wasn’t British this time), but not much. Buddy knows what he’s doing, he’s just not doing it for me.
Taylor Swift
2/5
I have room in my heart to appreciate Taylor Swift as a high end pop star. But Taylor Swift doing ultra processed indie folk? Not great!
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
I don’t have any strong negative feelings about Bruce Springsteen, but he’s never done it for me. No exception here.
An observation: between grade school and post secondary, Springsteen was a full time student until he was 19. His first record came out when he was 24. That leaves him with 5 years in which he could have plausibly Had A Job. Huge achievement to carve out a 50+ year niche as a workin’ man’s hero based on that.
Herbie Hancock
4/5
I thought this was really cool and wild, and I can’t believe Herbie played in the Miles Davis Quintet and is still alive and performing!!!
Drive-By Truckers
2/5
On the whole, I like this band. This one is just too narrow as a concept. Only so many times I need to hear a guy sing the words “Lynyrd Skynyrd” before I say “Ok, ok.”
X-Ray Spex
4/5
Boy this should definitely get a lot more recognition than it does. I thought I was familiar with the way they sounded, but on listening to this, I was wrong. The saxophone rips ass, and the whole thing holds up with the best of any early wave English punk.
Metallica
3/5
Enjoyed it a lot, too long though. Some high quality self indulgence from Metallica.
It has a five star moment, which is when the crowd goes MASTER! MASTER! And Hetfield says “HELL yeah,”
Dion
2/5
More like Yion. (Yawn)
New Order
3/5
New Order is so cool. I’m less familiar with the songs on this one, but they were all cool New Order songs, and so, I liked it.
Radiohead
3/5
The thing I like most about Radiohead is the guitars. This one could never be a favourite to me because they largely forsake that.
Nice though, some good songs, easy to get swept up in it.
Dinosaur Jr.
4/5
Dang this rocks. Less ear wormy than some other Dinosaur Jr, but I can’t complain about a record that shows off Mascis as a guitar guy, which this one does.
Wilco
3/5
Wilco easily has two 5 star records (three, if live ones count). This one sounds like a soon-to-be 5 star band finding its footing.
Sonic Youth
3/5
Sonic Youth has always passed me by, so this was a good reason to sit down and listen to a whole album. It’s good! It’s cool! I like the wacky guitar stuff. I will listen to more.
AC/DC
5/5
AC/DC is the purest rock band. They don’t want you to think they’re cool, or suave, or profound. They just want to rock. They don’t live in a world in which pop music is a sacred art and pop musicians are poets. They say it themselves: rock and roll is just rock and roll.
Nobody’s going to write a 10 paragraph review that reframes the history of their own youth through the lens of an inflated importance of Back in Black. Why would they? Back in Black doesn’t have that much to say.
They write worse Spinal Tap lyrics than Spinal Tap does, because the lyrics just don’t matter that much, beyond being a small part of the rockin.
I put this one on knowing I love it, but thinking it may have a 4 star ceiling (mostly because I prefer Bon). Before the end of the first song I had turned my little speaker all the way up.
Come on man. 5 Stars. Easy.
John Martyn
2/5
Hard to put a finger on this one. Mostly didn’t care for it, but some neat moments.
ZZ Top
2/5
ZZ Top has a lot of charm to me but I’m not sure it goes much further than that. God bless ‘em for being the blues rock band that came up with a good enough gimmick to have real longevity and success.
Muddy Waters
3/5
Most of the time I don’t find electric blues tooooo compelling, but this one has a lot going on. Cool ambient noise, Waters himself being kinda old and kinda fired up. Lots of fun.
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
Holy smokes is this ever different from the last Sly that popped up here. The production on this album is so weird, it shouldn’t be nearly as rad as it is, but here we are.
A while back I read about the last Billie Holiday album, and how the composer/producer said he thought her voice has taken on an Evil character, but not in a bad way. Packed that description away for the right moment, and here it is: this one is evil, and it’s so so good.
Donovan
2/5
Maybe it’s because I’ve heard two dozen albums by his peers so far, but I was listening thinking “I thought I liked Donovan!”
Season of the Witch a great song at least.
Lupe Fiasco
3/5
This is the first hip hop record I’ve listened to that emphasized both Islam and Skateboarding.
Liked more songs than I disliked. Of-its-time, but that wasn’t detrimental here.
Nine Inch Nails
4/5
The angst of the thing was too much for me even as an angsty youth, so it’s certainly too much now. But man, if he was just singing “beebabooba woo woo wee woo” instead of actual lyrics, this would probably be a 5 to me. Reznor knows how to ride the line between noises and nice sounds like no one else. No surprise he’s had a whole other second career as a composer. Coulda done anything, did NIN. Cool stuff.
Peter Tosh
3/5
Legalize what? What’s this guy talkin about do you think
The Jam
3/5
I like The Jam. It’s getting a bit hard to delineate all the English rock that comes up, but these guys do stand out a bit to me. This is a 3.5 rounded down, wouldn’t turn my nose up at listening again.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
I don’t have much to say about Leonard Cohen except for that I more or less like it all. These first ones are a trip, it’s almost impossible for me to imagine him as a youngish man, but there he is. Good good good.
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
3/5
This is a good time capsule of a guy recognizing some problems, and then all of those problems getting so, so much worse over the following years. And I’m sure people figured he was just being uptight, too!
Some musically likeable stuff to me as well, if not the most memorable.
Keith Jarrett
3/5
I don’t have much of a reference point for like, contemporary piano composition. But I liked listening to this a lot, it kept my attention despite being way out of my wheelhouse. Will probably read about it to learn the significance, if not listen to a ton more.
Roni Size
2/5
If I only rated this by how much I enjoyed listening to it, it would definitely be a 1. But I dunno, doesn’t feel right. I just don’t Get it, I have no reference point for drum and bass. Is it good? Maybe. Is it influential? I could imagine so, if not hear it. I don’t know. Giving it a 2, considering it an Abstain.
N.W.A.
3/5
So much of this is so musically exciting, but with age and context it’s so hard to get past a lot of the content. Same thing happened with a previous Ice Cube solo record. I’m very familiar with this one, my young self listened a lot. I know the merit, I’m just not sure it’s worth it to me any more.
The Waterboys
2/5
For whatever reason, this sort of music never really speaks to me. Didn’t hate this, would have liked it more if it leaned a bit more towards traditional folk (maybe it’s the rock drums superimposed on folk music that makes it not speak to me). Also a bit tough to be a singer who sounds like he’s doing a Bob Dylan thing.
Kendrick Lamar
4/5
Had only heard the follow up to this, before now. Liked that one, like this one even more.
Arctic Monkeys
3/5
Remembered this one quite fondly, less into it this time around. I suppose it’s quite a bit better than a lot of the rest of this wave of brit rock, and it’s interesting to know that these guys went on to become a pretty big and (I think) sonically diverse band.
Isaac Hayes
4/5
What a wild name for a record eh?
Fantastic stuff, liked this one a lot. Meandering 12-15 minute songs were a surprise, and fit nicely. Didn’t know Hayes had previously been a session musician, much more interesting guy than I ever realized.
The Damned
4/5
One of the greats. Big fan of Captain Sensible as a guitarist (and as a guy who picks himself a stage name), and also think these guys have a bit more musical depth than most of their peers.
Lyrics a bit too British Punk Society, Innit?, but what are ya gonna do.
4/5
In its low points this comes off as kind of bland 90s alterna-rock, but in its high points it seems 10-15 years ahead of its time in a cool millennial indie rock way. The good out weighs the bad, though, and I especially dig some of the weird little backing instrumentation choices.
Sigur Rós
3/5
I can really conjure up the memory of hearing this for the first time as a youth and being very rattled and impressed by it. Might be taste-related, or just that I’ve heard more music now and my brain is calloused, but I’m less thrilled now.
Still, nice to give it a fresh listen, it’s a bit more varied and dynamic than I remembered. Forget the name of the song, but there’s the one that had the jazzy Hammond sounding part, very good.
M.I.A.
3/5
I vaguely remember this coming out in a time of heavy Poptimism, where Serious Critics would insist that really goobie forgettable radio pop records held some sort of timeless significance. Usually they were very wrong about that. This one does hold up though. Worth revisiting at least.
Bad Company
1/5
I didn’t expect this to be a 5, but I didn’t expected it to be a 1 either. A long while back I gave an LCD Soundsystem record a 1 and called it “gruel for millennials”. This here is gruel for boomers. If you took all the Classic Rock in the world and averaged it and flattened it out into one thing, it would be this.
Most of what I previously knew about Bad Company is that whenever the Rock and Roll HOF announcements come out, people get mad BC isn’t in there. That is so funny now that I’ve actually listened to them. It’s like insisting that plain rice crackers should be in the Chips Hall of Fame.
The Smiths
4/5
Ok fine the Smiths are good. I said it.
Elbow
2/5
Not bad, exactly, but in one ear and out the other. An English rock band from 2008.
Dennis Wilson
4/5
I don’t especially like the Beach Boys, and was kinda surprised and satisfied when I heard the first song on this one and liked it significantly more than any Beach Boys I know. Whole album, more or less the same. Not an instant favourite, call it a pleasant surprise. Rounding up here on the strength of a couple songs in particular.
Air
2/5
Not at all unpleasant to listen to, but it very much comes off as a Soundtrack more than an Album. Too much so to make sense as a pick on this list.
Depeche Mode
4/5
Lots of the New Wave classics are pretty cool eh? Liked this better than Violator, which I previously (and for no reason) assumed would be the only Depeche Mode I sort of liked.
Side note: it sure makes a guy nervous to see a song called Little 15. I sighed with relief when they quickly revealed that the guy in the song is also 15.
The Cure
4/5
Over the last ten or so days, I’ve got the Smiths, Depeche Mode, and the Cure, and I didn’t think I liked any of these bands and I gave them all 4. What is the meaning of this. What is happening to me
Soundgarden
2/5
I know there’s a lot more like, human spirit in this than the much worse music that was influenced by it. But it’s hard to listen to this with 2024 ears and not hear Theory of a Deadman or something. I know that’s uncouth to say, and grunge fans do not like it. I’m sorry, I can’t help it.
Massive Attack
1/5
This is the second time I’ve listened to an entire album of English Trip Hop—the first one being Connected by Stereo MCs, also via this exercise. I know Massive Attack has some mainstream recognition, at least insofar as you sometimes hear them talked about outside of England, but I tell ya, if someone had put on Blue Lines and told me it was another Stereo MCs record I wouldn’t have known any better.
I’ve heard Two Albums A British Psylocibin Enthusiast Must Hear Before They Die, and I’m all good now.
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
I was pretty hooked from the piano sample on the first song after the intro. Had a good time with this one, a total unknown to me.
The Birthday Party
4/5
Thirty seconds in I was rollin my eyes like, “Alright, Nick Cave…”
Then each passing song made me feel more insane and by the end I loved it. Honest to god a second listen might bring this to a 5.
Lots of people in the reviews hate this one. “Wah wah wah,” I say.
Spiritualized
2/5
There were moments of this that I really liked. I have a lot of time for overblown dense production, and some of it was very cool here.
Just not enough of it to overcome the underwhelming vocalist/lyrics. It’s rough when the main guy of something is the weakest part.
The Who
4/5
Frickin rocks.
The Slits
4/5
This is the good stuff, to me. Kind of a pointless thought here, but: feels sort of stupid and arbitrary that early English punk often gets distilled down to just two bands, when there’s so much wild and interesting other stuff. Why not The Slits?
Os Mutantes
5/5
Future editions should cut every English and American psychedelic album from 1966-1970 and replace it with a repeat of this.
It was a really weird experience to look at the cover of this and think “Oh God, more of this,” and then actually listen to it. It has a lot of the musical trappings that make the last five hundred sixties psych album on this list sound similar, but it also sounded creative and fresh and worthwhile and interesting.
I can’t believe how sick this was! I can’t believe I had to listen to an entire record by the Zombies to get here!
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
Every once in a while I would be talking to my dad and I’d start talking shit about Eric Clapton. My dad wasn’t a very opinionated guy, but would always say, in that situation, “I never liked much of his stuff either, but Layla is a really good record.” He didn’t seem to care much one way or another, he wasn’t passionate about Layla or anything, but he still always put it out there.
Anyway it had been a long time since I had listened to Layla, and now I have again, and I still think my dad was wrong about this one. It is what it is.
Gang Of Four
5/5
Easy some of the best guitar work so far, especially coming a day after 80 minutes of serif Clapton. Fantastic album, nothing bad to say.
Simple Minds
2/5
Maybe to my taste, new wave has to be a little bit gothy or a little bit punk, to be a good time.
Pink Floyd
3/5
My Pink Floyd curve on this list started with a 3 for Dark Side. I’m very familiar with the band, and I know Dark Side is not my favourite, and I know they are simply not a five star band to me.
I believe this one is my favourite, and according to the curve, it would likely land on a 4.
Upon listening, it turned out the question was not “can Pink Floyd be a four star band?” but “Can Gilmour at his best elevate a 3 star record to a 4?” and to my surprise, despite liking Gilmour quite a bit, the answer was no.
Good, not great.
Pixies
4/5
A lot more demented than I expected (good thing)
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
I should have given Siamese Dream a higher rating. I only gave it a 3. It’s just that it was the first time I realized the Smashing Pumpkins are good, and now, a few months later, I know it for sure.
This one, too, whips ass. A band that is built to be self-indulgent, and does it for two hours, and the whole thing is, at least, Good to Very Good.
Sorry Caleb
Talk Talk
3/5
Maybe a week back I said New Wave has to be a bit gothy or punk to be good.
This is new wave right? It’s not gothy or punk, and it’s pretty cool. Consider this the upper bar maybe. For non-gothy or -punk new wave.
Little Richard
3/5
Like a lot of early rock and roll, a little bit of “you’ve heard one song you’ve heard em all”, but at least in Little Richard’s case, it sure is a cool song to hear.
Weather Report
2/5
Technically good, Jaco is cool, but too clean, too smooth.
Pere Ubu
4/5
Sickos: Yes… ha ha ha… Yes!
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
2/5
A 2 without Neil. Just can’t muster much enthusiasm for sappy hippie-folk, ya know?
Sex Pistols
3/5
Well-trod territory that, over time, has come to feel like Just A Three. Good, influential… The Clash is better, the Slits are cooler, and in the end this is just one album and the songs are pretty samey.
Incubus
2/5
This might deserve a 1 but I didn’t find it totally repulsive. Maybe a 1.5, rounded up for the dumbest song title on the list yet. You know the one.
Pentangle
1/5
Yesterday I gave Incubus a 1.5 rounded up. Today I’m giving this a 1.5 rounded down.
Here’s the difference: if I were out and about and incubus were playing in the background, I would barely notice it. If this were playing in the background I would say “What is this. Why.”
Ramones
4/5
14 songs 29 minutes that’s the good stuff. We should always be so lucky.
These guys lose a lot of studio steam real quick but not on the debut.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
Last time, I had given my second Costello album 3 stars, same as the first one. I said then, “Maybe he’s got a 4 in him yet.” Reversing course on that one. Enough, Elvis, enough.
Jack White
2/5
I got off the Jack White train right after the White Stripes, and this is kind of why: this album! It sounds like the White Stripes but with none of the vitality and charm. I understand he did different stuff later, which I might like, but I don’t care for this much.
Jungle Brothers
3/5
Very nice sampling here. Loved the Good News song that had Hooked on a Feeling and then all the different guitar samples.
AC/DC
3/5
All of the Bon era albums appear to have one or two big songs and then a bunch of filler. But even a filler early AC/DC song is gonna have a killer Malcolm riff. This one’s full of em.
As a side note, even the nastiest AC/DC songs usually have a bit of charm/plausible deniability. Night Prowler probably the biggest exception. Hard to explain that one!
Tina Turner
3/5
Hard to assess. Not my wheelhouse, not my decade I suppose. But jeez you listen to this thing and it sounds like every song was a hit single.
And though I don’t love the ultra polished 80s production sound, it does serve Tina Turner’s delivery pretty good. I bet a lot of this stuff sounded great live, too.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
1/5
I was optimistic that an appreciation for Musicianship would carry this beyond my general attitude towards RHCP. Then the returns diminished more and more with every song. Then Sir Psycho Sexy came on, second last song. That’s all I have to say about that.
Except for: this is meant to be one of their good albums, eh? Jesus.
Radiohead
3/5
There’s at least one too many Radiohead albums one must hear before they die.
Devendra Banhart
2/5
Aggressively Millennial folk. Not much beneath the surface. A lot of talk of beards.
CHIC
4/5
Sometimes a guy discovers a huge pop culture blind spot. I was listening to this thinking, “This band is real good, and who is this guitarist that probably no one has ever heard of??” Turns out it was just me.
Anyway I never would have guessed I’d come across a 4 Star disco album, but here it is.
Janis Joplin
4/5
Well, yeah.
Since I was a kid I have preferred Cheap Thrills, on the grounds that it’s more unhinged than this one.
The little bit of studio professionalism hinders Joplin more than it helps, but the end product still absolutely goes, start to finish
The Pogues
4/5
After a lifetime of not really Getting It with the Pogues, I’ve started Getting It the last couple years.
No one’s fault but my own, but it’s hard for me to detach a lot of European folk traditions from the idea of a like 5th generation Canadian band performing songs in character as their great-x-4-grandfathers or whatever.
These guys are the real deal as far as they can be, and I like them and they rock.
Ozomatli
2/5
Political angle ✅
Music that doesn’t just wash over me ❌
Bert Jansch
4/5
Lots of really nice stuff here, really pushing the limits of Some Guy With A Guitar.
Great guitar work, great songs, somehow sounds a bit ahead of its time despite being a folk album from the mid 60s.
Beastie Boys
3/5
There’s now two Beastie Boys albums I at least sorta like. This one not as much as Paul’s Boutique, but still a lot more than I expected.
Rahul Dev Burman
4/5
Ha ha holy smokes this rips. I wonder what the movie is like.
Leftfield
1/5
1001 Albums a Secondary Character in a Club Scene from a Shitty British Movie from 1995 Must Hear Before the Title Card.
Radiohead
2/5
Ok, I’ve heard enough Radiohead now. This exercise has made Radiohead tumble down the rankings.
My favourite part of listening to this album was when the last song came on, because it was almost not Radiohead, it was mostly a different band.
I wouldn’t have felt that way one year ago, before I was asked to suspend disbelief and entertain the idea that Radiohead has produced four (and counting, probably) of the world’s best one thousand and one records. I would have been like “Oh yeah, decent record, that song at the end was especially cool, I kinda like Radiohead,” like a normal person
Queen
3/5
These earlier Queen albums are not exactly up my alley, but they sure do rock. Except for Bring Back Leroy Brown. That song doesn’t rock.
Living Colour
3/5
Definitely in the upper half of 80s/90s funk rock I’ve heard in my life. Probably a 2.5, rounding it up because I read the guitarist recruited the singer after hearing him sing happy birthday. That’s a good bit of lore.
Lenny Kravitz
2/5
What I expected (bad).
Rounding up instead of down because they dopey “I love love” lyrics throughout are funny.
The Avalanches
3/5
Definitely a rounding up, based on my taste. Just that here, I can really imagine liking it a lot. But I’m not the guy for liking it a lot.
Khaled
3/5
There’s a whole world out there eh? This guy sold 80 million records and I never heard of him until now!
This is good and cool, except for the Imagine cover. Can’t get away from that song.
Elvis Presley
2/5
I’ve been a low level Elvis Hater for a while, but now have some time for the later live recordings. So coming into this one, I had a more open mind than I might have a couple years ago.
This is good when it’s good, but man for a 28 minute album there is a lot of filler here.
Elvis is not my King.
The Mamas & The Papas
1/5
This stinks! No wonder all the hippies grew up to be reactionary conservatives. They thought this stuff was the soundtrack to a revolution!
Lauryn Hill
4/5
The more concept albums I hear, the less I appreciate concept albums in general. This one still easily falls on the good side of the concept album spectrum, which is refreshing.
The production is really nice to me, borders on super slick 90s pop style while still sounding pretty organic and loose.
Very good stuff.
Germs
4/5
Not a ton to say other than I think this album rocks as much as I did the last time I heard it, which is a lot.
Also: it’s really funny that it has sixteen songs, is only 38 minutes long, and the last song accounts for about 1/4 of the whole album. Every punk band should do that. Pad the total.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
2/5
I think every single album ever made by an English guy is on here.
I read about this and bought it on release day because of Paul Simonen’s involvement. Listened once, never thought of it again. Remember why now. Not bad, just totally non-essential.
David Bowie
3/5
I can’t believe this is already like 8 years ago. This is my first listen!
The cool thing (of course) about Bowie is that he was never very stagnant. This one continues that line, and it’s good and interesting, like they usually are.
It’s hard to detach it from the context of its release. Would it be as beloved by people without it? Hard to say. If this were the second last album instead of the last one, it might hold a different place.
Nonetheless I enjoyed it, it’s sad to hear, and I’ll probably listen to it again some day.
Public Enemy
3/5
This must mean there are three Public Enemy records on this list, right? What a world!
Like this one quite a lot, just not as much as Fear, or Nation (which I imagine is the third).
Closing track absolutely rocks but everyone knows that.
Country Joe & The Fish
2/5
Ok boomer.
B.B. King
3/5
When I saw this was from 1964 I thought “oh wow, a young BB King!”
I did not know this man was born in 1925! He was already middle aged!
Anyway, very cool listen. I like BB.
The Notorious B.I.G.
3/5
Same problem I’ve had with trying to evaluate most of the other 90s hip hop albums on here so far: it’s just pretty tough to overcome a lot of the content. Different world.
Sonically, liked this one quite a lot. Better delivery than his peers that’s for sure. This is a round down from 3.5.
Tricky
2/5
Cool, more British triphop. Rounding up because it was marginally more interesting then the last couple.
Nas
5/5
Just recently I was talking to a friend about how I struggle to connect with a lot of the kind of autobiographical hip hop that was big in the 90s. It’s so alien to my own life and the life of anyone I know that it’s hard not to feel like an interloper when I listen to it.
This one made me eat my words a little bit. Of course it’s still completely alien to me, but this is a really beautiful work, sonically and lyrically. Somehow Nas bridges the gap here.
Electric Light Orchestra
2/5
Electric Light Borechestra
Portishead
2/5
It’s just too much trip hop on this thing ok. There should be a compilation and that’s it.
R.E.M.
3/5
I’ve never considered REM to be one of my bands, but whenever I listen to them on more than a one-song basis, I think “Dang REM is kinda cool.” Wish we had half stars. This is a definite 3.5, and could be a 4 should I ever follow through on the idea that REM is cool and I should listen more.
Joanna Newsom
4/5
To my tastes, anything that could be described as chamber pop, or baroque pop, is usually a non-starter. Ol’ Newsom here overcomes it. When these records were coming out I remember getting Milk Eyed Mender and liking it quite a lot. Never gave as much time to Ys, but enjoyed it when I heard it. Giving it a closer listen now, it holds up and is very weird and impressive and good. I hope there’s no more baroque pop on this list and I can go on thinking, “Hey I guess that stuff can be alright!”
Ella Fitzgerald
2/5
I like to listen to Ella Fitzgerald sing, but apparently not so much that I want to listen to her sing three and a quarter hours of American Standards ™️.
I know it’s dismissive, maybe kind of anti-American, but in my mind, 75% of Gershwin songs I’ve ever heard might as well be different versions of Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Aimee Mann
2/5
Liked a few of the songs, but really suffers from over-smoothed 90s production.
Radiohead
4/5
[in the voice of someone who is fatigued from having been given five Radiohead albums on this list so far]
This is the best one
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
Went through a bit of a roller coaster listening to this. Settled on this: Rumours is the better album, it’s a concise and perfect 70s pop rock record. But this one is surely more cool and interesting. Too long, not all good, but it covers a lot of ground that a guy might not expect if he was expecting another Rumours. The White Album isn’t the best Beatles album, but it is my favourite. This may also be true of Tusk.
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
Another brick in the road towards me becoming a new-wave guy. This one is I guess a bit more post-punk than gothy new-wave like the rest I’ve liked, but it’s still got that flavour. Probably a 3.5 but rounding down because there have been peers of these guys that I’ve liked a bit more. Could be convinced to round up after more listens, I bet.
The Chemical Brothers
1/5
A guy can make a case for Doing Drugs as a creative exercise. Sometimes people can access a way of expressing an idea, sometimes they can access the idea itself, while doing drugs. Regardless of someone’s moral stance, it can at least have artistic merit.
This album is a Doing Drugs album that never gets past “huh huh this is trippy mate innit”. It sounds like the least interesting guy you’ve ever met, telling you about that one time they did DMT.
Man this sucks.
Lou Reed
3/5
This is musically probably my favourite Lou Reed thing I’ve encountered (though I know he worked with a wide variety of people through his life, and I’ve barely scratched the surface over the years). But I think it’s kinda hard for me to engage with this kind of bleak/tragic story. It’s very well done, it’s just the sort of thing that tends to not connect with me. My rating here is more about my taste than the album’s content, but aren’t they all.
Prince
4/5
1. As a general rule, I don’t like horny music much. Prince is an exception, somehow, despite being the horniest of all.
2. Some jabroni in the reviews said he “heard Prince is a good guitarist, but this album doesn’t showcase it”. Way to tell on yourself for listening to the first 10 seconds of each song and crying because they started with synths. Prince shreds here!!!
The Kinks
3/5
I don’t think the Kinks are Better than the Beatles but I do think they’re Cooler than the Beatles.
Not my favourite one, but fun nonetheless.
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
Hard to have a strong opinion on this one either way. Nothing terribly unpleasant, but nothing I would go back to.
MGMT
1/5
Empty Millennial Optimism was very similar to Empty Boomer Optimism eh?
These guys have so many lyrics about how like, A Change Is Coming, but none of it articulates what the change is, and if you try to extrapolate it from the vibe of the album, it sounds like the change is “Doing cocaine with some cool girls and talking about Change”.
Terrible.
The Blue Nile
3/5
Nice.
Ryan Adams
3/5
Enjoyed this quite a lot as a youth. Lots not to like about Adams over the years, both as a guy who is pretty bad, and a musician who ultimately has more misses than hits.
Now, I suppose I would call it a good baseline for alt-country or whatever. The good songs are great, but there’s a lot that’s a bit weak too.
The KLF
2/5
My DJ friend tells me this is somehow different and/or more significant and/or better than the average 90s English dance music that one might find on this list.
I listened to it all, I don’t think I buy it, it still just sounds like NN TSS NN TSS OI BRUV to me, but I’m giving it an extra star as an act of good faith.
Beck
3/5
I really loved Beck growing up, and still have time for most of what he does.
HOWEVER. The more music a guy hears in life, I think, the more inclined he is to think “Oh, Beck was just doing his own take on this artist” every once in a while. For example, my favourite Beck album is Midnite Vultures. The other day I listened to Prince’s Sign O The Times, and realized “Oh, Beck was (mostly) just doing Prince”. It doesn’t make the Beck album worse, but it does give it something to directly compare it to, maybe not helpfully.
Anyway this one is good. Midnite Vultures is probably still my favourite. I wonder if Sea Change is on here.
Deep Purple
4/5
A three-star rock record, with one star added for a meaningful reason: some things are more Spinal Tap than Spinal Tap, and that has value in music. Being a band of English guys representing yourselves as Mount Rushmore is funny. There being five guys in the band instead of four, and doing it anyway, is worth a whole extra star.
Bob Dylan
4/5
It’s Blonde on Blonde, it’s great. What can I add to that other than,
I wish I had given the live record a higher rating way back. The more untethered Bob is, the better, and his live recordings always have more charm to me. It should have been a four, too
OutKast
4/5
This one is quite a bit different from the previous one that came up here eh? Obvious and dumb thing to say I guess.
Very cool, more cohesive, still a bit long and a bit precious with the interludes, but what are ya gonna do.
Billy Bragg
3/5
I like the parts of this more than I like the sum, but the sum is still a cool and neat project that I like to go back to every once in a while.
Can
3/5
This is so demented. Normally would be a bit frustrated/annoyed with the prolonged noise parts, but I found myself a bit drawn in. Listened to it all, came out the other side like “Well that was an album I never would have listened to but am glad I did.” That’s somethin!
Elvis Costello
5/5
I am so excited to review another Elvis Costello album. I am so glad there are 57 Elvis Costello albums to review for this exercise. I look forward to each one more than the last.
Costello reinvigorated the literate, lyrical traditions of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison with the raw energy and sass that were principal ethics of punk, delivering passion and intelligence with equal measure. I love it when Elvis Costello covers relationships with biting sarcasm and wordplay, combining jazzy guitars with soulful vocals. I love his hats, almost as much as I love Jamiroquai's. His dress style is so rockabilly, which is aces.
To think, this was his debut album, in 1977, setting off a career without comparison. His aim was surely true.
Radiohead
3/5
This is probably a pretty rad album but I’m just so sick of Radiohead on this list. I suppose I would say this is the third best one I’ve heard, and the absolute cut-off for the last album that MAYBE should be on the list (but they could have got away with just two… or one.)
The Residents
4/5
A guy in Spinal Tap once said, “It’s such a fine line between clever and stupid”. I don’t really know where this falls, but I do know that three days ago I listened to the eighth Elvis Costello record on this list so far, and two days ago I had the eleventh Radiohead record, and listening to the Residents after that made them sound like the cleverest thing to ever exist. Probably a 3 but bumping it because I’m a crank.
The Hives
2/5
A photocopy of a photocopy of something I like a lot.
Alanis Morissette
4/5
Usually, as a Canadian, it’s kind of painful to go back to a classic piece of Canadian media and listen to it/watch it/experience it critically. Because it makes you reckon with the fact that, removed from nostalgia and over-saturation, the piece of media almost always sucks.
Expected that here, didn’t get it. This is actually cool and good, and not just curved against Canadian stuff either. For real cool!
Roxy Music
5/5
Haha wow this absolutely rips! I had no idea! I can’t believe it’s from the early 70s, too. Sounds like 1986.
This is not the sort of thing I ever would have got into when I was younger. All roads lead to Eno I guess.
Sonic Youth
3/5
Sonic Youth is guitar guy music in a way that should be right up my alley but for some reason, they aren’t. Liked this one fine, but I don’t think it’ll stick with me.
Coldplay
2/5
This isn’t bad, 22 years later, but I probably won’t listen to it for another 22 years.
These guys know what they’re doing, that’s for sure.
The Police
2/5
Whenever I’ve expressed a distaste for The Police, someone always says “Yeah, but the first two albums, when they were kinda cool and punk,”
Well now I’ve listened to one of those and the problem is, they still require a guy to listen to a bunch of songs sung by Sting.
There’s a lot of musically cool stuff on this album, but none of it overcomes that the worst part of the band is the main part of the band.
Abdullah Ibrahim
3/5
I’m a Jazz Guy now
Method Man
3/5
This is real cool. The production sounds so evil and ominous. I read that a bunch of the Wu Tang guys did solo albums, but they all had the same Wu Tang guy produce them? That’s kind of funny. Bet they’re all pretty decent though if they sound like this.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Tommy Pischedda : Excuse me... are you reading "Yes I Can"?
Limo Groupie : Yeah, have you read it?
Tommy Pischedda : Yeah, by Sammy Davis, Jr.?
Limo Groupie : Yeah.
Tommy Pischedda : You know what the title of that book should be? "Yes, I Can If Frank Sinatra Says It's OK". 'Cause Frank calls the shots for all of those guys. Did you get to the part yet where uh... Sammy is coming out of the Copa... it's about 3 o'clock in the morning and, uh, he sees Frank? Frank's walking down Broadway by himself...
[Nigel raises the limo partition]
Tommy Pischedda : Fuckin' limeys.
Marty DiBergi : Well, you know, they're not, uh, used to that world.
Tommy Pischedda : Yeah, yeah.
Marty DiBergi : You know, Frank Sinatra, it's a different world that they're in.
Tommy Pischedda : You know, it's just that people like this... you know... they get all they want so they really don't understand, you know... about a life like Frank's. I mean, when you've loved and lost the way Frank has, then you, uh, you know what life's about.
The B-52's
4/5
This rocks. The guitar is so good, the vocals are so good. Every song is so good. A novelty act that overcomes being a novelty act.
Gene Clark
3/5
Can’t say I was dazzled by this, but it far exceeded my expectations of an album that was made by some guy from the Byrds. Cool early alt-country.
Tom Waits
3/5
I’ve soured on Tom Waits over the years, but this album in particular is kind of sentimental to me. When I was about 13, my uncle gave me two Tom Waits CDs for my birthday: this one, and Closing Time. I had never heard of Tom Waits, and it turned out neither had he. He read about him in a magazine and thought “This sounds like something my 13 year old nephew would like.”
Closing Time never spoke to me much, Swordfish did. In hindsight, I think it served as a bit of a baby’s-first toward a lot of music I like now.
It’s kind of a bummer it makes me roll my eyes now, even though I do still think it has some musically interesting stuff to offer. I’ve become a crank.
Michael Jackson
4/5
An obvious all-timer, being deducted one star for an obvious reason (I hate to listen to both Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney say “doggone” over and over).
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
Another day, another kinda sick new wave/post punk record on here.
This one’s not all killer, but the good stuff is real good.
Fever Ray
3/5
This one caught me by surprise a bit, as a thing that doesn’t seem like it would be in my wheelhouse but kind of is. I’ve never cared much for The Knife, maybe I was just assuming based on that.
Anyway I could easily see this growing on me. Dreijer is real weird in a cool way.
The Isley Brothers
3/5
😎🎸
Neil Young
3/5
I like Neil Young a lot, and hadn’t listened to Harvest in quite some time. It was a less straight-ahead obvious-great-record experience than I expected. I find his folkin side a lot less compelling than his rockin side, or at least I like a bit more balance than Harvest provides. And I really don’t like the stuff with the symphony! That doesn’t work with Neil Young, I think.
It’s good but I’d rather listen to the guy flip out on the electric guitar for 40 minutes.
Sorry Caleb (?)
Parliament
5/5
These guys are the kings of concepts albums, and I don’t have a politically correct way of saying why: the concept is always “What if there were a bunch of cool black guys from the 70s in an unexpected place?”
This one’s a bit cleaner and more precise than the previous Funkadelic records we’ve encountered, which is neither better nor worse here, just different.
I could listen to a thousand of these and enjoy every single one I think.
Goldie
1/5
Timeless? More like TimeMORE! On account of how long the opening track is!
[or]
Timeless? More like 1995!
Haha we like to laugh, but seriously, good god. I think it’s really important to hold the idea that most all kinds of art have an artfulness to them even if I don’t understand it. On the other hand, when I was a boy I had a PS1 demo disk that included a demo for a game called MTV Music Generator. It was basically a crude looping station, with built in samples.
This album sounds indistinguishable from something a 12 year old me would have made on there, and again… I only had the demo, with a limited set of samples. And it was the PS1! That game probably came out less than 3 years after this album did. Come on! A guy does not need to hear this before he dies.
Sister Sledge
3/5
I appreciated listening to this having learned the Nile Rodgers context of it after having Chic come up a couple months ago. It’s not as good, but it’s still good. Remarkable how many one star reviews are like “Ugh! Disco SUCKS!” People probably born in the 80s, like me, still totally affected by butt-rock radio campaigns from the mid-70s lol
JAY Z
2/5
Always kind of wondered why this was the hip hop guy who got offered whatever weird Faustian bargain the American State was offering hip hop guys a couple decades ago. Listening to this—an album from when he was ostensibly cool, pre-bargain—illuminates it. Even when the subject matter has some edge, it’s not convincing at all. This guy sounds like he was grown in a lab! They never would have tried to get Nas to a state where he would be willing show up and say “Ya know, I think octogenarian Democrats are Pretty Fly!”
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
3/5
Graceland, without the bad parts (the Paul Simon parts).
James Brown
5/5
I waffled a bit between a 4 and a 5 here, but the way Brown harnesses the screaming crowd’s energy into the most psychotic sounding call and response imaginable (on Lost Somebody) is enough to make the call. Remarkable.
Beth Orton
2/5
Can’t muster much of an opinion on this one. Different time and place I guess.
Gene Clark
3/5
Not sure of the necessity of two Gene Clark albums on the list, but just like the other one, I thought this was decent and pleasant enough. I’ll fly off the handle and give a one-star if there’s a third one though (just kiddin).
The Cure
3/5
Just like the last one by the Cure, I liked this quite a lot. There’s something earnest and touching about the over commitment to being a spooky weirdo, I think the knowledge that Robert Smith is still Like That really goes a long way for me.
Van Halen
2/5
Of course EVH shreds. But the experience of listening to a Van Halen album is not great.
I do have one big positive here: Hot For Teacher imagines a world where beavis and butthead type characters are hot for teacher… and teacher is hot for them back. That’s pretty funny, and worth an extra star alone.
Napalm Death
3/5
I believe this is the first album so far, where I knew right off the bat that I wasn’t going to subject my family to it.
Either way, I liked it alright, I think it’s cool that it exists, and I think every single person who one starred it is a huge nerd. I’d much rather listen to Napalm Death than another Elvis Costello.
Buena Vista Social Club
4/5
There’s some weird tendency, when producing “world music” for a North American audience, to smooth the edges off things. Maybe it’s that the main market is for cafe playlists or something. To my ear, it often sucks the life out of what should be a more raucous, organic sounding thing.
This is smooth, but it at least breathes a little. At its best, you can imagine you’re in the room with these guys, and that feels exceedingly rare for a 90s recording that isn’t in English but was marketed towards primarily English speakers.
Anyway, I didn’t understand the lyrics, so it’s a 1⭐️ for me.
(Just kiddin)
Beck
2/5
Beck 📉📉📉
When this one was new, I listened to it a lot. Either it’s aged badly, or I have. Just something mechanical and lifeless about it, can’t quite put my finger on it.
Minutemen
5/5
This is such a great record. Weird format, mostly comes off as buddies frickin around, but also has a surprising amount of musical depth. Love it.
XTC
4/5
I like these guys. This one was less (a bit less) gooby than the last, and the Todd Lundgren mixing error lore is real interesting. Would like to hear that original mix.
Like the last one, we’re riding the line of being too Preciously English here, but something about XTC makes it work to my ear. Quickly becoming One Of My Bands.
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
2/5
I did my best to stitch together as many songs as I could via YouTube. It wasn’t worth the work. This was an album by a white Englishman who calls himself Jah, and it sounded like it.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Usually I think it’s corny when someone does their take on the American Pop Standards. I still do here, but Willie pulls it off pretty well.
Nick Drake
4/5
I don’t know why Kendrick Lamar has a problem with this guy. He seems nice
Marvin Gaye
2/5
Marvin Gaye sure comes off better when he’s singing about the state of the world, versus singing about the state of his divorce. Bit of a tough one to get through, but at least you still get to listen to Marvin Gaye sing.
Nick Drake
4/5
Two Nick Drakes in three days, I ain’t complaining. Can now confirm I like him best unaccompanied, but this was another great one.
Unreal that he went 3/3 at such a young age and in such a short amount of time.
New Order
3/5
Pretty glad they bailed on overcommitting to the Ibiza thing after just one song. The rest was a pretty fun New Order record.
Beyoncé
2/5
It’s good in the sense that if you give one hundred skilled people a large amount of time and money to put together hit songs that fit the zeitgeist of the time, you’ll end up with a bunch of hit songs that fit the zeitgeist of the time.
But here’s how disconnected from reality the finished product feels for me: Beyoncé references drinking several times throughout, and every time, my main thought was “I can not even imagine Beyoncé having a sip of alcohol and having a nice time.”
A strange listen.
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
[on the phone with the manager of the pet shop]
“Yeah I was just wondering, what’s your return policy for boys?”
The Doors
2/5
I listened to the Doors extensively as a dopey young man, then got real tired of their shtick.
Going back to this one, I enjoyed more than I expected, in spite of Jim Morrison. The rest of the band has its moments! I doubt other Doors records will hold up as well, but Morrison Hotel is solidly Fine.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
2/5
I thought this would speak to me, it didn’t.
Wikipedia references it as being influential in a proto-punk way. Thank god it wasn’t THAT influential.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3/5
I like the format of this. Some guy giving his take on folk songs and telling you where he heard them.
Hard to tell how legit it is, but hey I’m not the arbiter of that.
Supertramp
3/5
Bloody Well Right is the worst, most English song that I like.
Breakfast In America maybe a bit better than this one to my ear, but I think Supertramp is good and cool.
They prog, that’s for sure.
Le Tigre
4/5
I didn’t listen to this much at the time, very much felt like it wasn’t For Me, and I suppose it wasn’t. It sounds dated now, especially with the massive wake of similar electro-pop acts that followed.
But Hanna is impossibly cool, seeming a bit self deprecating on this one but still absolutely givin’r in a way that most people don’t. Lots of great stuff here, and certainly holds a place. Liked it a lot.
SAULT
4/5
My star rating here is based on the music alone, and I thought this was a great record. Especially the way it was produced—comes off as living and breathing in a way that ultra-digital pop/r&b rarely does.
But here’s my main thought: sometimes I bristle at music that carries a really on-the-nose political message. Not that it bothers me that an artist wants to express their political views, but more just that I don’t think pop music is the best medium for axe-grinding. But man oh man, I read some reviews for this one and realized it’s cool and good sometimes when an artist puts it out there on-the-nose.
Listen, if you heard this record and your main thought was “This is RACIST MUSIC”, you’re a dweeb and a crybaby and you should read a book.
This album, apparently, does its job. Makes the point it wants to make.
Fairport Convention
2/5
Maybe it’s my mild anglophobia, but this is so far removed from anything I can imagine wanting to listen to for fun.
I felt bad and knee-jerky after giving Pentangle a 1, so I’m making up for it here. This is actually 1.5, and the extra half star goes to Pentangle. They both still stink though.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
The more I am made to listen to Nick Cave on this list, the more I think “ah ok he’s kinda cool”. He’s the anti-Costello in that way.
This one isn’t as good as Junkyard, but I like it much more than Henry’s Dream
Talking Heads
4/5
Yeah. Hell yeah
Bad Brains
5/5
When it comes down to it, HR may be my favourite punk singer.
And to be even more wild: is the title track the single greatest hardcore song? I think it might be.
Anyway, an easy 5.
Adele
2/5
All I have to say about this as a listening experience, is that it’s a really really good singer performing nothing music. Like Beyoncé a few weeks back, it was written and produced by an army of people, and it sounds that way.
But also: how is it possible that someone who was 25 years old sang these songs and everyone accepted it and thought it was relatable? These are the songs of a 45 year old, at least!
DJ Shadow
3/5
I don’t think I properly respect this sort of thing as an art form. I often like hip hop that is built on samples, and Shadow is one of the best at that. But removed from that context, a record of samples stitched together, existing entirely for its own sake, rather than working as a foundation for something else, maybe just can’t do it for me.
I know what he’s doing is impressive and cool, but I don’t know that I care.
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
Good god this rips. It seems impossible that this is their first record.
I’m usually not too inclined to listen to things real loud, but for this one I was. Last time I said that in a review was Back in Black, and I gave that 5⭐️ and this is obviously better than Back in Black.
Painted myself into a corner that I am happy to paint myself into.
Ash
2/5
Nowhere near the worst thing I’ve listened to on here, but maybe the least essential. Not unpleasant, but bland. And when I get to the end of this thing, I’m going to think of all the 90s rock bands I like that aren’t on the list, and then I will remember this one.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
These guys hold up. Every band from the mid-2000s did a transition from garage rock to electro pop, when the tides turned in that direction. To me, most of em were worse off for it.
I’m not sure about Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I didn’t listen to them enough. But this is their electro pop of them, and it’s good. Consider this a 3.5 rounded down, to leave more of a ceiling if it turns out I like the garage rock version more.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
1/5
When I reviewed Deja Vu, I did not expect to land on a 2, but I did. I thought, “Would this be a 1 if it didn’t include Neil Young?” Well, here we are.
I’ve already said a lot about my feelings towards hippie folk, all that still stands here.
It’s not really the WORST thing I’ve ever heard, but it sucks a lot, I will never listen to it again, and it now exists on a curve against CSNY.
Sepultura
3/5
Felt good to expand my familiarity with Sepultura beyond Roots.
This one’s less impactful, a bit more conventional, but still a very solid 90s metal album. It’s thrashy!
Iron Maiden
3/5
Man this rocks. Running Free could be the archetype of Rock Songs.
It’s hard to imagine a world where Iron Maiden is a new band, with one album. But definitely if I lived in that world and heard this I would say “Whoa what is this! This rocks!”
Beach House
2/5
This stuff washes over me like it’s nothing at all. It did in 2010 and it does now.
I remember when this sound first started emerging as a trend in rock music, and thinking “this doesn’t bode well”. Guess what: I was right.
Rod Stewart
3/5
Hard to evaluate. I think this general kind of music is so dopey, and I think Rod Stewart himself is a real goober.
But the production is real nice, and I can’t help but like the way he sings in the late 60s/early 70s. This is a rounding up, but barely.
2.55 or something ya know?
Incredible Bongo Band
3/5
This backstory on this one is extremely weird. The concept is extremely dumb. But it made me bob my head and go “ya” a few too many times.
Kate Bush
4/5
At the halfway point this thing felt like a easy 5 star. Too bad it lost a bit of momentum with half a handful of weaker songs in the back half.
But man does this ever rip. Something Patti-Smith-like about Bush, but with a bang on new wave sensibility. Great production of great songs with a great performer.
The Offspring
2/5
This is marginally more listenable than later Offspring because they haven’t quite worked out how to compose the worst sounding novelty songs ever made, and then somehow turn them into minor hits.
But Come Out And Play is a hint of things to come and it sucks as bad as it did the first time I heard it.
They-Might-Be-Giants-ass Orange County punk. Bad stuff.
Big time round up, lest there be another, worse Offspring record to come on here.
Al Green
3/5
Genre- and era-wise, this is in my wheelhouse, but at least from this album, Al Green doesn’t stand out from his peers enough to get me goin nuts.
It’s good, it’s great, but there’s already been a couple handfuls of albums on the list that do a similar thing better and I bet there are many more to come
Peter Gabriel
3/5
Mostly not my thing, but easy enough to understand it being someone else’s thing. This is a round up, only because I’ve given some recent 2s to records that I liked significantly less than this one.
I wonder how Phil Collins records will stack up against this.
Mariah Carey
1/5
When I listen to guitar guy music around non guitar guys, is this what they hear? If so I have a lot of apologizing to do.
An entire album of Mariah Carey songs is an insane experience. You hear her pack 12 notes into 1 note once and go “wow she has good vocal control” and then she does it for another 48:57.
Genesis
2/5
When an album opens with a bard-like voice saying a line about a unifaun’s true love, you know you’re in for some Spinal Tap adjacent stuff (in a bad way).
Neu!
4/5
A cooler-than-me pal hipped me to these guys (and this record) way back when. I was ready for it then, I am now.
I love the A/B split here, it really goes wilder than a person would expect. Great creative stuff, a solid and satisfying record.
Yes
2/5
What’s a word that’s somewhere between yes and no but leans towards no? Like a maybe-but-probably-not.
Morrissey
2/5
I liked this alright, in a neutral sort of way, but it really lacks something compared to the Smiths. Sounds Generic New Wave in a way the Smiths do not
Nirvana
5/5
I’ve always thought of Bleach as being my favourite, because it’s less refined, more off-the-wall, than the later ones. Looking at the track listing for Nevermind, I thought the same.
Turns out when I was looking at the track listing, I was remembering all the songs that are catchy and refined, and glazing over the ones that are more Bleach-y.
An absolutely sick middle ground between two fairly different things that Nirvana does exceptionally well. Not a bad song on the thing, even Smells Like Teen Spirit being heard for the millionth time.
Norah Jones
2/5
Great voice, tap water songs. Nothing objectionable about it, but none of it sticks with me and I’ll probably never think “Hey I should listen to Norah Jones.” It lacks any amount of chaos or something, I dunno.
Led Zeppelin
2/5
There were times that this got into some of the more interesting places Led Zeppelin is able to go. There were also times this got into 11 minute songs that started 9 minutes of JPJ playing a noodly synth solo. The bad times outweigh the good, and the sum total of the times is over 80 minutes, which is entirely too long to have to listen to Led Zeppelin for.
Drive Like Jehu
4/5
Not what I remembered, in a good way. This is a hell of a record! Great melodies, great tension (especially in the longer songs).
Eagles
1/5
1 star for the album. 0 stars for the dozens and dozens of reviews that quote the Dude. That movie was like 30 years ago, get over it for god’s sake!!
The War On Drugs
2/5
More like the Snore on Drugs ha ha ok let’s hear the next one
The Beach Boys
3/5
Easy to appreciate the weirdo innovation of this thing, but I can’t say I ever really Enjoy listening to Beach Boys. This is a big round up, just so no one gets mad at me.
Cowboy Junkies
2/5
At first I thought this album seems totally non-essential. But then I remembered, not everyone in the world has a lot of exposure to CanCon. So this IS essential, so that non-Canadians can have the experience of listening to it and thinking “Ok, this is a familiar genre, but something is off about it…… oh it’s Canadian that’s the problem here.”
It’s just not essential to me, as I’ve been going through this my whole life. The prison of being Canadian.
Jethro Tull
3/5
It progs, it progs in a way I find marginally better than most of the other prog we’ve heard so far.
A 3 here is generous, but it represents that marginal betterness, because I think most of the other prog has been a 2.
5/5
Whoa this rules. It’s so deranged, it’s so fun. The drummer is so good! Easy sell: I’m a Devo Guy now.
Scott Walker
2/5
Scott 2 is right. 2 stars. And that’s a stretch!!
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
Did I already make a joke about returning boys to the pet shop? Yes? Ok, well,
Queen
3/5
Coming to terms with the idea that I don’t really like Queen anymore. Can’t say I think this one is bad, it’s not. It’s kinda cool, it kinda rocks. But this is probably the last time I’ll ever listen to it start to finish.
Rounding up here, because a 2 doesn’t feel right. But a 2 might have been right.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
This is the fourth (I think) Led Zep I’ve encountered on here, and I think I’ve said it all in a general sense.
For this one I will add: Ramble On is a great song, and it’s so funny that it sounds like a lyrically normal dumb rock song for about 3 minutes and then all the sudden Plant starts singing about Mordor and Gollum and you realize that’s what it was about the whole time.
Sebadoh
4/5
New to me, neat and cool. I could see going back to this many times, and checking out more. That’s what it’s all about, babyyyy
Big Brother & The Holding Company
5/5
“Psychedelic blues” is not a combination of words that I like to hear, but leave it to Janis Joplin to overcome that and then some.
I love the way the band kinda sucks. They sound like they’re about to fly off the rails from the first few measures of the first song, right up until the end, but they never really do. And Joplin herself was never on the rails to begin with.
Everything she did was good to me, but this is the best. Sounds like her in a natural state, whereas later albums sound a bit reigned in.
Love Cheap Thrills, always have always will.
Nightmares On Wax
1/5
There is just so much English trip hop a guy must hear before he dies eh
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
I went back and forth on this. It delivers on the promise of its title. It’s unbelievably violent and nasty, it’s right in Cave’s wheelhouse. It had some stinkers but some real highs too. Musically neat and varied. I loved the conclusion.
Ultimately the rating will suffer due to my own earlier misjudgement. Junkyard shoulda have been a 5. This maybe should have been a 4, but it ain’t Junkyard.
David Holmes
1/5
Yes let’s
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Alright this is the last one on the list (I think). In the end, it’s my favourite one. It’s probably like a 3.4 or something.
Some of the songs rock so hard, Good Times Bad Times especially. What an opener for a debut album! But also there’s a lot of stinkers, and I still simply to not care to hear Robert Plant Doing His Thing.
Goodbye Zeppelin it’s been fun, sort of.
Killing Joke
4/5
I may be hearing this favourably because the last few days have been a forever-feeling cycle of boomer rock and English club music from the 90s.
It benefits from not being Robert Plant, or Freddie Mercury, or some molly’d up DJ from Pordenshire-on-Frent who took a gap year trip to Ibiza and then Changed The World.
One way or another, this one was cool as hell
The Velvet Underground
4/5
Alright alright I guess I kinda get it now
Eminem
1/5
Butthole Splatters LP
Ha ha, we like to have a laugh. But seriously, approaching it critically,
Butthole Splatters LP
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Remarkable how kinda bland this is. None of the covers do anything the originals don’t, they’re just less-than because they’re not performed by the original cool Americans. English guys shouldn’t be allowed to sing about Route 66. They shouldn’t even be allowed to acknowledge it.
Pink Floyd
2/5
I won’t be banging down the door to listen to this again, but Syd Barrett brings an element of fun to Pink Floyd that makes them palatable in a way that later Floyd is not.
The Saints
3/5
It makes sense that Australian punk would be kinda cool. This is not all killer, there is a decent amount of filler, but the main sound is very sick and the good songs are very good.
R.E.M.
3/5
I like REM just fine, but they never reeeeeally do it for me. No exception here. A good album, some standout songs (like Stand!). But nothing I’m terribly likely to go back to.
Peter Frampton
2/5
In a lot of ways this feels like an archetype for the idea of Classic Rock. That is both good and bad, but leans more bad.
Van Morrison
2/5
Here’s what I can muster for this: it was ok.
Harry Nilsson
4/5
This once was a favourite of mine. I don’t have anything insightful to say, I still love it a lot. Have maybe just heard too much music now and it’s got a bit bumped down the list. Nilsson is cool as hell.
Brian Eno
3/5
Easily the best snippety-samply record that’s popped up so far. Guess 90s club music sets a low bar (pun intended). Go figure it would be Eno and Byrne who clear it. First half better than second, but all in all a decent listen.
Ice T
3/5
A bit too long, but a real treat among other 90s hip hop on the list. A lightheartedness and sense of humour that makes Ice T stand out from his peers.
The Dandy Warhols
2/5
The Bandy Borehols (this band is boring)
Louis Prima
4/5
I have a real aversion to 50s big bandish swingish type stuff. Turns out if it has some human spirit (is far enough away from the Rat Pack), it can really frickin rock.
Miles Davis
4/5
This guy sorta knew his way around a song eh
Maxwell
2/5
Too smooth. Nothing to hold on to.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Boy I just don’t know about Bruce Springsteen. Just don’t see it. The “if you listen to the lyrics, he’s actually CRITICAL Americana!” trick works once, the first time, and it IS cool. But the music is pretty not cool, to me.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
These guys are not what I thought they were!
First half of the album stronger than the second, but carried me through nonetheless.
Iron Maiden
3/5
Tempted to round up on the strength of the real good ones (especially the closing track). I bet if I went back and listened to this a year from now I would regret rounding down instead. Oh well. Iron Maiden rocks, regardless of rating.
The Prodigy
1/5
Above all, a waste of a great band name.
Jurassic 5
4/5
This is so cool, and not just because it makes me think of THPS. Clean and clear production, great vocal trade offs. Good stuff.
Deerhunter
3/5
In my mind, anything that came out after 2009 might as well have come out yesterday, and chances are it sucks. Because, after all, it just happens that they stopped making good music as soon as I aged out of being cool.
I can admit this is good though. Maybe it was recorded a couple years before, when I was still under 21, and just didn’t get released soon enough. That would explain it.
Common
2/5
I remember kinda liking this when it came out, but it feels like a harder sell now. Maybe it’s the Kanye West connection, maybe it’s John Mayer.
Maybe it’s that I know Obama really likes the guy. I dunno. It’s not good when any president thinks you’re cool.
Kraftwerk
3/5
My twin three-year-olds are obsessed with the song Robots. Any time I put on any song, there’s a good chance they will yell “CAN YOU PLAY ROBOTS”. When they hear the first synth hit, they tense up, ready to run in circles, pumping their arms and screaming. Whenever they see a fan, they stick their faces right in front of it and say “WE ARE THE ROBOTS”.
I have heard Robots ten thousand times. Yesterday I heard it four times. Once for this project. Three times on their request. Every day, Robots.
Good album though. Not the coolest Kraftwerk, but still good.
Jane's Addiction
4/5
Something is shocking: Dave Navarro has made not one but two albums that I like a lot. Despite them having a lot of the trappings of indulgent rock music I usually don’t like. Dave Navarro, for God’s sake!
Wilco
5/5
If I’m ever in a situation where I have to prove to someone I’m a late 30s white guy, I’ll just show them this 5 star review.
Aerosmith
2/5
Absolutely does not rock
Portishead
2/5
More substance than the others English 90s electronic, which isn’t exactly saying much, but still,
Kraftwerk
4/5
I’m glad to have now listened to multiple Kraftwerk records. There’s more to them than I knew.
This was my favourite. The first and last songs are really great.
For guys on mid-70s synths, this is so much greater than the sum of its parts.
Laura Nyro
3/5
Backstory to Nyro’s career is neat, she seems like a cool and respectable musician.
Good record, too.
Cream
2/5
My two favourite things: English psychedelia, and Eric Clapton. I listened with an open mind, but it was no use.
The Temptations
4/5
Review for the album: the funk stuff is better than the smooth r&b stuff, and the real long song was good as hell, this was a solid album and I liked it a lot. Four stars.
Review for other people’s reviews: if you listen to this and say “This is DIVISIVE and TOO POLITICAL” because there is a song or two about how maybe people shouldn’t be racist, you have an American Baby Brain and should read a book and calm down lol. Zero stars.
Queen Latifah
3/5
I forgot Queen Latifah also had a music career, and this is the first time I’ve heard any of it. It’s neat! Solid late 80s hip hop, fun sampling. A decent record.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Superstition is a 6⭐️ song. It, along with a couple others, almost carries the album to a 5. I’m rounding down though, because there’s a couple that are a bit too adult-contemporary for me.
Songhoy Blues
4/5
I wish I could be as cool as a Malian guitarist.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
Kind of rolled my eyes when this came up, just because it’s a band that I (and most people, I think?) would consider a one hit wonder.
A good lesson in checking oneself. Sounds like if the Clash had done one more album, and it was their second worst one, but in a good way. Rounding down from 3.5 here.
Simply Red
2/5
A big time “this was ok”.
It had an ok cover of a great song (Heaven).
I can’t imagine ever thinking to listen to it again.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
Last Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I said I was rounding down from 3.5, in case I liked their earlier garage rocky one more.
I did like this one more, but in a way that made me think the previous was inflated. Call that one a 2.5 rounded up, this one a 3.5 rounded down.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
4/5
I didn’t have high hopes for a 1969 psychedelic album by the guy from Moby Grape, but hey. Sometimes we make mistakes.
Kate Bush
4/5
Maybe the biggest value of doing this list is that every once in a while it shines a light on a blind spot. I haven’t found all that many acts that I didn’t previously know at all, but there have been a few that I just neglected until my phone sat me down and said “Listen to this.”
Kate Bush is one of em, Kate Bush rules.
Buck Owens
4/5
This is the kind of music a guy’s Gido would listen to while a guy’s bouncing around in the passenger seat of a truck that should have a child seat but doesn’t.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
5/5
Rules.
Elvis Presley
3/5
I thing I’ve discovered about my own taste in Elvis Music is that the closer he is to death, the more I like him.
This is better than 50s-Rock-and-Roll Elvis, but not as good as 70s staggering-around-Vegas-incoherent Elvis.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
When I was a young man I was averse to Bob Marley because his place in the young white guy cultural zeitgeist was so irritating. But now it’s been close to 20 years since I last stood in a room that had a Bob Marley poster in it, and I’ve finally let myself come around.
I like Bob Marley now.
CHVRCHES
2/5
With a name like that you’re either getting totally psychotic metal, or totally bland millennial electro pop. Unfortunately this is the latter.
Dr. John
3/5
I don’t hate it. I think I would hate it if the guy were not actually from Louisiana. But I don’t love it either. A 2.5, rounded up.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
My contrarian nature makes me reluctant to give a Classic Rock Classic full grades. But I have to speak my Guitar Guy truth.
Nobody does it like Hendrix, to the point that I’m not sure I even consider him Influential in the way that we like to call some guys Influential. Has anyone ever really figured out how he did what he was doing and built on it? I don’t think so.
It’s hard to imagine hearing this when it first came out. But it’s even kinda hard to imagine hearing it for the first time now, ya know?
David Gray
1/5
It’s a 1.5 that I would normally round up. I’m rounding down because the last album I had was the Hendrix debut and in human spirit alone, it wouldn’t be fair to say this is within 3 stars of that. There aren’t enough stars in the world to bridge that gap.
Tangerine Dream
4/5
Maybe it’s because I listened to it while stuck in downtown traffic on a snowy evening, but the more I this album went on the more hypnotic and pleasant it became.
Elliott Smith
4/5
It takes a special kind of talent to be a sad folk 90s acoustic guitar guy and make multiple records that stand out and hold up.
William Orbit
1/5
[vigorously shaking]
“Magic eight ball, are ANY of these English electronic albums going to be inspiring whatsoever?”
[UNLIKELY]
George Jones
4/5
Great songs, beautiful voice. My friend tells me this was Jones’ 50th album? Imagine if Radiohead had 50 albums. There would be 38 of them on this list!
Paul Weller
2/5
First five songs or so, I thought were pretty strong. Lost momentum pretty quick. Too bad, coulda gave probably made a nice 35 minute album out of this.
Not bad, but definitely did not need to hear it.
John Coltrane
4/5
🎷😎
Beastie Boys
3/5
Yeah yeah fine I get it now, I kinda like the Beasties now.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
2/5
At one time I just have liked this quite a lot. At this time not so much. Not awful, but not something to go back to.
Christina Aguilera
1/5
Not as psychically excruciating to as the Spears, or as sonically excruciating as the Carey. But some other thing, that I can’t quite put my finger on. I liked it distinctly more than those, but not enough to give it two stars. Rough time for too 40 chanteuses.
Big Star
3/5
I wasn’t super Moved by this, but there’s definitely something kinda special about it. It’s like… an unusually tasteful interpretation of Big 70s Rock or something? I might regret rounding down if I listen to it again in the coming weeks.
Soft Machine
3/5
At times this drags quite a bit (obvious by the total run time x number of tracks) but it also has a lot of moments where it locks into something really rad. And also I’m very partial to Robert Wyatt.
Roxy Music
3/5
I’m less thrilled by this one than the last Roxy Music we had. Feels a bit more shy or something. Still cool, just not the same magic.
Giant Sand
2/5
I like the name Giant Sand quite a lot. Is it a giant grain of sand? A giant area of sand?
Not all that much to say about the record. Mostly forgettable, with a couple of Moments throughout. Lots of that on this list. Decent, maybe not essential.
Justin Timberlake
1/5
Truly a horrible time in pop music, and in hindsight, maybe a tipping point. The last little bit of human spirit squeezed out, pure grey goop. When there are hit songs that are 100% AI Generated they’ll have the hits of the early 2000s to thank. This was a primer.
Remember the follow up to this album, which people insisted was Groundbreaking? More grey goop, please! Yum yum yum!
Violent Femmes
4/5
Extremely rad, very sick, I bet if I were a bass player I would be going 5.
Bee Gees
2/5
Weird to think this is the Bee Gees, but in a “huh” way, not a “this is great!” way.
D'Angelo
2/5
Not the sort of thing that I will ever go back to, but I sure wish there was a 0 star option, because this is certainly more than twice as good as the timberlake a couple days ago
Kings of Leon
1/5
Kings of Leon? More like Stinks of Pee(on)!!
Seriously though I knew I had a vague distaste for these guys, based on singles after they went mega big, but this is their debut. Shouldn’t it be kinda cool or interesting or something??
Astor Piazzolla
3/5
I didn’t go nuts for it or anything, but I appreciate something a bit different. I wouldn’t have listened to this otherwise, and I’d rather listen to this than a lot of other stuff
TLC
2/5
Roughly what I expected, and definitely better than a lot of the 90s pop we’ve encountered here. Still don’t care much to listen though. That’s life.
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
First time listen for me, despite being a big fan of Loveless. Interesting to hear them with less time and budget. Same band, but a bit less effective.
Really liked You Never Should. Like a pop punk song in structure and melody, but with the psycho drums of MBV.
Tom Tom Club
4/5
This rules, this is cool, it’s a lot of fun and a lot of good stuff.
The Go-Betweens
2/5
Kind of bland, but not totally unpleasant.
Mike Ladd
3/5
Nerd rap from the early 2000s is not something I’d especially expect to like, but this he enough moments for me to think, “Alright! This is alright!”
Some slick production, some slick songs.
U2
3/5
Maybe I was in a weird mood or something but I found myself enjoying this more than I’ve enjoyed U2 in the last. Don’t know if I enjoyed it to a 3 Star level, but I know I gave the Joshua Tree a 2. So I’ll bump this, as a document of The Day I Enjoyed U2.
Baaba Maal
4/5
Rules.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
3/5
Big band music will probably never really speak to me, but this one got me boppin my head a bit in the car. Gotta give it credit for that.
Justice
1/5
There’s a part of me that wants to generously round this way up to a 2, because it Sounds Better than all the English dance music from a decade or so earlier. But I’m not sure it deserves it. It sounds better by default, being from Continental Europe, and being made by guys who are playing on a better computer than the ones available in the 90s.
Either way, this sucks. It reminds me of all the sorta indie-rock guys I knew discovering cocaine and getting sweaty and annoying. Sounds like shit too.
Barry Adamson
2/5
That’s a big “🤷ok?” from me.
John Lennon
4/5
It’s really something to be John Lennon and open an album with the dumbest empty-headed hippie anthem ever written… and then follow it up with basically an entire album about the darkness within.
This thing rocks. Great Lennon sound, pretty wacky at times. Much better than I remember it.
Christina Aguilera
1/5
This was musically marginally better than the later one that came up a week or two ago. But it also felt a lot more kinda gross ya know? Spiritually damaging to listen to, in the same way as Britney Spears was.
Coldcut
2/5
This is better than some of the English DJ stuff that’s come up so far, but only because it has lots of samples of music that isn’t by English DJs.
Still not great!!!!
Nico
3/5
Nico isn’t even English is she? Who put her up to this? It feels like there’s a really great album buried here, if they de-ren-fair’d it.
Ms. Dynamite
2/5
Started strong, tapered off quick. Not terrible, but probably not essential either.
Femi Kuti
4/5
This is a hard one to assign a star rating to, on account of how Femi sounds quite a lot like his dad (voice especially) and his dad is one of the greatest.
Answers the question of: What would Fela sound like if he had 85% less psychotic energy.
The answer is that it’s still really good, it just doesn’t make me want to run through a wall.
I hesitated to go as high as 4, because that more or less commits me to giving 5 to any Fela that comes up. Oh well.
Paul Simon
1/5
This is spiritually better than Graceland because it doesn’t feature Paul Simon trying really hard to be African. But it’s musically worse because it doesn’t feature all the cool African musicians.
Basically an irrelevant point though, overall it’s another Paul Simon record and it sucks.
Steely Dan
2/5
This is the first time I’ve really listened to Steely Dan and it was exactly what I expected. 1.5, but feeling generous with the rounding because yesterday was Paul Simon, who is spiritually similar to this, but worse.
Merle Haggard
3/5
When I was in junior high my friends and I decided there was nothing much funnier than saying to each other, “You look like you listen to Merle Haggard!”
The White Stripes
4/5
Really hard to assess this one, too much nostalgia tied up in it. Will just lean into it I guess.
Great album for when you’re 15, walking around in the winter smoking cigs and listening on a mini disc player.
Probably the best White Stripes album, the end of the line for the Jack White self-limitations REALLY working. I think I like De Stijl more, but I can clear-eyed say that this one is better.
Soft Cell
3/5
I never really thought, “I wonder what the rest of the album that Tainted Love is on sounds like?” and I’m kinda glad to have had a reason to find out. It’s a lot more rough around the edges and wacky than I expected that’s for sure.
Didn’t like it quite enough to become a big Soft Cell guy who gets mad at people for only knowing the one song. Too bad. Would be pretty funny.
Suzanne Vega
2/5
Neutral, not unpleasant. Rounding down from 2.5, only because the first song sounded a bit like something Bruce McCulloch would sing, and that stuck with me for the rest of the album.
Manic Street Preachers
2/5
[pulling out a dusty file that says “Bands I Never Thought About Before But Now I Think They Are At Least Kind Of Ok” and adding a new page to it, never to be revisited again]
Leonard Cohen
5/5
Leonard Cohen rules, he’s maybe the only public-facing Canadian to ever be as cool as Americans can be.
This one is so unglued and evil sounding. Diamonds in the Mine is one of the raddest songs ever.
I think The Future remains my favourite, but this is a close second.
R.E.M.
4/5
Always knew I had it in me to be an REM guy. This list is giving me the pretence to do it.
Prince
4/5
lol good god Prince was a weird little dude
Pavement
5/5
Pavement rules, this album rules. Apparently they have one more on the list—should be more, that’s for damn sure.
Van Morrison
2/5
If you cut out all the filler songs, and also fired Van Morrison and hired Wilson Pickett in his place, this might be a decent album.
The Byrds
3/5
I sort of rolled my eyes when I saw I had to listen to an entire Byrds record, but this was a pleasant surprise. The Gram Parsons effect, I suppose. Rounding down here, might regret it later. A good proto-alt-country album that made me think: “What really IS alt-country?” A possible answer: “When a rock guy sings a country song.”
5/5
Once more I consulted with my Jazz Guy father in law, to see if he had any thoughts of John Zorn. He said: “The man is disturbed.”
Loved this. The first time they break from noise into a few bars of kind of normal jazz, and then back into noise, had me jumping up and down like an animal.
Almost every star here is for the record itself. But maybe like 1/4 of a star is because it made me think about Spy vs Spy, which also rocks.
Donald Fagen
1/5
Somehow even more nothing-like (or: less something-like) than Steely Dan. Glad I generously gave that one 2—now this one fits on the Dan curve.
Fatboy Slim
2/5
Rounding up to differentiate from all the other English DJs. On a curve with the others this is probably like a 7⭐️. At least it sometimes kinda goes somewhere.
Black Flag
5/5
WHAT DO THEY KNOW ABOUT PARTYING….. OR ANYTHING RLSE?
Ryan Adams
2/5
I worried this might be one of the good ones and I’d have to factor in how much of a Mondo Creep the man is. Fortunately it’s not.
He’s a Mondo Creep and he sounds pretty gooby doing this pop rock thing.
John Lee Hooker
3/5
I’m sure there’s a lot of John Lee Hooker that I’d like more. Does he have a whole album with Santana, for example? (Just kidding, I would like that less)
Gary Numan
4/5
While back I got it in my head that I should give Gary Numan a shot, and I listened to this album in full. Liked it, then forgot to ever go back. Don’t remember why.
Anyway, it’s real good. Synth based pop/rock is a lot cooler when it sounds evil instead of revelrous.
The Everly Brothers
2/5
Boy thank god pop music took another turn after this eh? Imagine this is still what we were listening to.
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
I think I like Zappa now, but this one is a bit much. I imagine the psychedelic rock aspect is tongue in cheek, because everything Zappa does has to be Versus something. But even so, it’s too much like other 60s psych rock for me.
Thundercat
4/5
This was a real hoot, to me. My friend called it “doom scrolling: the album”, in a bad way, but hey. Maybe there’s merit in making an obviously high effort artistic representation in an obviously low effort cultural phenomenon, even if it’s a negative one, huh???
Everything But The Girl
2/5
Not much to say here. In one ear, out the other? Sorry, English sophistipop duo.
Steely Dan
1/5
More like aaaaaaaaaahhhh
Slade
2/5
Surprisingly quite a lot better than the average American glam rock I’ve heard in my life. Maybe because they’re English, it tracks more as Spinal Tap to me, which makes me like it more.
Or maybe it’s because yesterday I listened to Steely Dan, and it was nice to follow that up with something that sounds like it was made by people who at least kinda enjoy making music.
Fela Kuti
5/5
Hell yeah, obviously
G. Love & Special Sauce
1/5
One of the worst vocal deliveries I’ve ever heard. Maybe the worst album on the list so far. Low energy Beastie Boys. Sublime, if Bradley Nowell had never smoked a cigarette.
I hate this.
Let us never speak of it again.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
This is one of the good ones, that’s for sure. How many good ones are there? I don’t know. But I’m sure they’re all on this list and then some.
One thing I was struck by here: the coolest thing about this album was the horns. I wonder which of the Stones played the horns? I wonder if there’s some pattern here, re: the best parts of the best Stones material.
The Byrds
2/5
Musically I liked more of this than I expected to, but it’s so hard for me to get in to this style of vocals. Hearing the Everly Brothers recently helped me understand that a bit. Did a lot of these early psych-ish things take vocal inspiration from Everly Brothers? Before they realized you could just yell and scream and stuff and it would be better? I think they did.
The Killers
4/5
This could be one of the latest samples of dumb guy rock that still absolutely rocks. There’s a bit of filler but not much, and the whole thing has a lot more energy and purpose than most of the Killers’ indie rock peers (though at the time I liked them less because they seemed like they were trying).
Nothing they did after this was very worthwhile. You can’t make a good concept album about Vegas dummies if you yourself are a Vegas dummy.
“I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” is such a stupid lyric that you could think about it all day. You could get lost in it.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Anyone who says he’s not the greatest guitarist is either severely over- or under-thinking it.
The Auteurs
3/5
Nothing to go nuts for, but better than most of the 90s Brit rock on here so far. Rounding up, feeling fine about it.
The Undertones
3/5
“Proto-pop-punk” isn’t something I think about much, but that’s what this is, and it’s pretty fricken cool.
This might be my favourite album cover I’ve seen on here so far, and I’m almost inclined to give an extra star for that. But this isn’t 1001 album covers to look at before you die, is it?
The Lemonheads
3/5
Good in the way that a lot of 90s rock is good, but would not stand out among some of the heavier hitting peers. I’m not putting on Lemonheads when there’s Built to Spill to be put on, for example.
Holger Czukay
4/5
This was a ride. Maybe it’s because it’s been a kind of bad stretch on here these last couple weeks, but I felt very In To This.
Cool in the Pool was vaguely city poppish, right? Pretty interesting.
I’d go back to this one.
The Bees
1/5
I try not to let my Hater Friend influence me too much but he got me on this one. Call it a rounded down 1.5.
The Bees?? More like the Dee Plusses!
Jimmy Smith
3/5
Talk about an album cover not lining up with the content of the album eh?
I might regret rounding down here, I just don’t really have the context for jazz unless it’s really obviously Out There. I liked this though, and will probably check it out again.
Fatboy Slim
1/5
I was too generous to the fat boy last time.
Destiny's Child
1/5
This sounds like what it is, which is a huge bummer.
It is an interesting relic of radio-pop-in-the-CD-era that it’s top loaded with all three huge singles, but that’s about all I got to say about it.
The La's
2/5
“Hey Tiny, who’s playing tonight?”
“Jolly Green Giant, and the Shitty Beatles?”
“Shitty Beatles? Are they any good?”
“They suck.”
Orbital
1/5
Running out of things to say about this shit so I’ll say this again: it was a mistake to let the English find out about any drug except for speed, smokes, and alcohol.
Coldplay
2/5
If nothing else, it’s interesting to go back and hear these guys when they sounded a bit like some dudes in a band, rather than a billion dollar institution. You can already hear their destiny, but they still sound somewhat human.
Guided By Voices
4/5
Really dwelled on this one for a few minutes. It feels like it could be a 5, but that might be because I’ve incidentally had a run of stinkers on this list.
Very cool, very strange, love a lot of the snippets that sound like part of a fuller song but then just kinda end. Suspect a lot of them actually wouldn’t hold up as well as full songs, even though they rock and sound like they would.
Public Image Ltd.
4/5
It always throws me to remember that Sex Pistols is a drop in the bucket of Johnny Rotten’s career. Not the sort of guy you’d expect to have a deep well of inspiration to draw from, but he does.
This is a great one. It’s so wonky and deranged. Maybe tails off a bit in the back half, after a few real strong ones off the top. Still, like it a lot.
The Associates
3/5
Genre wise this is up my alley, I like most of this synthy post-punk dumb-guy-smart-guy sort of stuff. This one is good, just not top of the class.
Kate Bush
4/5
Damned if Kate Bush hasn’t emerged as one of the most consistent artists on this list. I think this is the third one, and the third 4⭐️!
Liked this one’s production more, maybe a bit less glossy 80s (if only slightly). Overall maybe marginally weaker songs, but another great album.
Public Enemy
4/5
The first time I ever heard Public Enemy was on a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack and in hindsight I think it was sort of eye opening to me. I had some openness to hip hop before then, but these guys were the first act that made me realize that hip hop could be done with a noisy sensibility that connected with my existing tastes. I’ve expanded my hip hop palate since then, but appreciate Public Enemy for being a way in.
Many years later I saw them perform outdoor at a rock festival. Flava Flav hyped up that he was going to play a drum solo and everyone went crazy, then he played the worst drum solo in the world while everyone cheered him on as if it were incredible. That was a lot of fun.
Jefferson Airplane
2/5
At some points I felt I liked this a lot more than I typically like 60s psychedelia. At other times, it dragged on and on. This is rounding down, but like… there wasn’t that much chance of it rounding up.
Todd Rundgren
3/5
When I hear his name, I always conflate Todd Rundgren with Harry Nilsson, even though I’m much more familiar with the latter. Now that I’ve listened to a very long Rundgren record, I have a way of remembering the difference: Nilsson is the one who is cool and charming.
This is fine though, if a bit corny and long.
Iggy Pop
4/5
Me at 19: “I’m a Stooges Guy.”
Me at 36: “I’m a Solo Iggy Pop Guy.”
The Undertones
4/5
Dang these guys are cool. The other one a while back was sick, and so is this.
Liked the other album cover more though
Doves
2/5
Remembered these guys a bit more fondly than I maybe should have. A sort of proto-version of the indie rock of my youth, stuff I found really compelling at the time but find kind of bland now.
Maybe over simplifying, but this album made me think of Spoon, but not as good.
Cee Lo Green
2/5
Does it make sense to say this is cloyingly Millennial? It feels like something I SHOULD like. But it’s too cloyingly Millennial.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
3/5
This will surely not be an original review here but:
I can understand the importance of Buddy Holly, and can hear how much stems from what he was up to… but now, 70 years or whatever on, it’s a bit of a slog. Sounds kind of like a parody of old time rock despite being one of THE actual old time rock acts.
My true listening experience is probably about 2.25⭐️ but I’m gonna do a generous round up entirely because it was wild to hear the Diddley Beat on track 2, just a couple of years after Diddley himself started recording. Talk about influence!
The Cult
3/5
Not sure I’ll ever go back and listen to this again, but I sure was struck by the strength of Astbury as a singer. There exists a reality in which he is the singer of my favourite band. The Cult just isn’t it, musically.
Rounding up, but with confidence.
10cc
2/5
Not much to say here other that it just doesn’t really do it for me. Chuckin it in a box that says “adequate classic rock”
Blur
4/5
About 500 albums deep in this thing, I really grumble when a 90s britrock album comes up. No different for this one.
But ya know what? Wheat/chaff. This album is wheat. Song 2 will never not be annoying but I think they knew that too. The rest is real nice, some cool guitar stuff, good vocals, creative and varied songs.
Super Furry Animals
2/5
This one is a real 🤷♂️ to me. It’s an early 2000s rock album and I listened to it
Carole King
2/5
Wasn’t familiar with Carole King’s deal, except for knowing that this is a very famous album. Looked her up while listening. Remarkable songwriting career! Lots of hits over lots of decades.
Found this album to be a bit of a drag though, I guess just as soon as something starts to track as blue eyed soul, I go “I dunnooooo…” and unfortunately that’s what happened here. Rounding down, but still.
The Crusaders
2/5
Too smooth for me.
I did enjoy the part I listened to while I was driving at night, but can a guy give stars to ambiance?
Pulp
2/5
An actual magazine called this the sixth greatest album of all time. That is truly incredible.
It tells a guy a lot about the English mind. A weird, horny, semi-concept album about class? Songs that sound lifted directly from past British artists? There was a song that sounded just like Bowie right?
And it’s the sixth greatest album of all time!? What on earth.
Franz Ferdinand
2/5
It’s a real bummer to be faced with music from my youth and reckon with the idea that I am not able to say to snot-nosed youths, “Ya know, back in my day…”
Most of the cool stuff was already a photocopy of a photocopy of the end of cool stuff, and that stinks.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
3/5
This came off like New Order if New Order wasn’t for guitar guys. That does mean it’s good, but also I would like it more if it were for guitar guys.
I imagine this album begets a lot of later music I don’t like at all, but I liked this quite a bit.
Slipknot
2/5
Never paid any attention to Slipknot before this. I knew they had a drummer + a percussionist so that’s what I zeroed in on, and you know what? It was pretty cool. A slightly bizarro world 14 year old me probably would have loved these guys. Too late now though.
Red Snapper
1/5
C’mon man
Peter Gabriel
2/5
A slog. Didn’t care for this at all. Could be the first or the tenth Gabriel on the list so far. Who knows.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
This is two albums by these guys and neither of them had the Big Song on them which makes me think they must have three on here? Strange, surprising, but also I liked the last this one and I liked this one too. Especially the Zevon rip off, that was a hoot.
Slint
4/5
Musically this is a 5. It is extremely the sort of thing I want to listen to. Sick guitars, especially.
The talking brings it down a bit. More singing less talking? That would be a 5. I’d just rather hear a guy sing a song than recite a monologue or a poem.
The Stranglers
3/5
The Stranglers have passed me by all this time, although I would hear the name come up every once in a while.
There was a local band when I was growing up, called the Operators. They were a sort of punk band, and their main distinguishing feature was that they had an organist. I think, in hindsight, they must have been inspired by the Stranglers. They didn’t sound evil though, and the evil vibe of this record was the best part.
50 Cent
3/5
Having only been familiar with a couple of singles, I didn’t expect to like this much. But it was alright! I like his delivery, pretty subdued beats, and bits of juvenile humour. Will I listen again? Maybe not. But if someone asks if I like it, I’ll say “Sure!”
Björk
4/5
Bjork is so sick. This one’s got enough EDM-backed tracks to hold it back from a 5 to me, but I know she gets there on later albums.
As a singer alone she’s one of the greats. Amazing that’s not even necessarily what she’s most known for.
Boston
2/5
I like that this was recorded in a home studio, but that’s about it. Not for me!!!
Roxy Music
3/5
Another good one from these guys, but either I was a bit too generous the first time, or there’s a bit of a diminishing return the more I hear.
This is a big time rounding down, mostly to offset the first 5⭐️ I did, which probably should have been a 4, but also because I thought that circusy sounding song sucked big time.
4/5
This could be three times longer and I wouldn’t have noticed. In a good way!
Song after song of high quality sad country. Nice guitars, excellent vocals.
Hate to include reviews of reviews in my reviews, but my god people can be weird little freaks about women eh? If you’re reading this and you haven’t written your own review yet, please, take a breath, don’t say anything insane.
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
The contrarian in me feels really goobie giving 5⭐️ to the highest rated album on the entire list, but it is what it is ya know?
Think I bought myself some credit by giving Led Zep IV a two, anyway. Just balancing the books.
Eric Clapton
1/5
This must be what it feels like to have your life force drained by a vampire.
ABBA
3/5
ABBA isn’t my favourite thing to listen to, but it’s remarkable to hear this kind of ultra processed super catchy pop music, but done in the mid 70s and still basically just put together by a band. It takes like 150 people to make this kind of album now and it’s generally not as good. Something in the water in Sweden.
Jazmine Sullivan
3/5
More to like than I expected here. I’m not the target audience and I usually lean against horny music. But this led one track into another, no real duds, and when it was done I thought “Hey, nice!”
Buffalo Springfield
2/5
When Neil Young was singing, this was a 3. When he wasn’t, it was a 2. Rounding down because there’s a lot of much better stuff involving Neil out there.
Pere Ubu
5/5
It was a mistake to not give Dub Housing a 5, and I’m making up for it now (although I think this one is also a 5 in its own right, if not a rounded up 4.5).
These guys are aggressively weird in a way that most bands on this list would never dream of, and they still manage to let some really nice and interesting actual musical stuff slip through. Good shit.
Linkin Park
2/5
Not the worst nu-metal, but not the best either. A bit too polished and quantized for me.
I know the guy was legitimately very troubled, but also, the lyrics are remarkably teenagery. Hard to not feel cynical that they knew what they were doing, and it wasn’t necessarily fully earnest.
Here’s what I did like though: literally every song sounded like plausible entrance music for a wrestler, and that’s pretty funny.
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
Holy frick this is cool.
2/5
Nothing I really didn’t like about this, maybe just a bit of New Wave Fatigue. This one is probably close to the baseline, but slightly below. A rounded down 2.5.
Talking Heads
5/5
Absolutely rips, start to finish. One of the greats. Byrne rules, band rules.
Prefab Sprout
3/5
I like Prefab Sprout, but I guess maybe mostly like Swoon. This one’s got some good songs but some semi-duds too.
A good album but I wish it was better. Isn’t that the way it is
Dusty Springfield
2/5
Listening to an album a day really reveals some things about a guy’s taste, and a revelation for me (which I’m sure I’ve said at least twice so far) is that I don’t have a lot of patience for 60s/70s white person soul. There’s nothing BAD about this, and the production is pretty nice. But I don’t like to hear it, and that’s the main thing about music right?
The Specials
3/5
The other day I was watching a wrestling show and there was a guy in the crowd with a sign that said “Ska and pro wrestling are the only legitimate forms of art”. I agree with half of that, and it’s not the ska part, but… I liked this pretty good anyway. Most of the ska I heard and made fun of as a youth was from the America Skater Wave of ska, which uniformly sucks. This is a lot better. Funny it’s produced by Elvis Costello, maybe the coolest thing he’s done?
Simon & Garfunkel
2/5
This stinks. I don’t know what else to say about it. It’s like a 1.1. I’m rounding it way up to differentiate from Simon solo, which is worse, but I’m not happy about it.
Missy Elliott
3/5
Definitely in the upper tier of this era of hip hop to me… I just don’t love this era of hip hop all that much. Was she making this album when 9/11 happened and then went back to add reference to it? It seems that way to me.
Antony and the Johnsons
5/5
A real surprise fiver here. I remember this from when it came out but hadn’t listened more or less since then. Would have guessed a high 3, low 4.
But dang this thing is beautiful. Great arrangements, one-of-one voice (I can’t help myself, I read the other reviews. If you’re one of the many who is like “Ugh, this vibrato…”: You’re a loser and you probably listen to Sammy Hagar on your free time).
2005 was a different time, and it went right over my head how trans-coded this album is. I’m happy that Anohni lives in a time that she was able to grow up into the woman she wanted to be.
I was hovering at 4.5 at the halfway mark, unsure where I would round it. Then Fistful of Love came on. The mega-distorted guitar mixed 40% quieter than you’d expect, plus the horn arrangement, really did it for me.
Anyway, what a record.
David Bowie
2/5
Bowie is the most represented artist on this list, right? I like Bowie on average, but surely there is too much Bowie.
This one, for example: not good! A lesser Ziggy, with a worse concept. What if there were two wolves inside you? What if fame were a double edged sword?? Really makes you think…
Anyway outside of Jean Genie this is inessential Bowie, let alone music in general!
Tears For Fears
2/5
It’s good, I especially like the hits, but I feel unlikely to ever go back to it. A true 2.5, rounded down arbitrarily.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
Illmatic is to What’s Going on as To Pimp A Butterfly is to There’s A Riot Goin On.
I will not offer any further clarification.
Aerosmith
1/5
It took this list to fully realize that Aerosmith is a bottom-tier band. Awful.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
1/5
When I was younger I would hang out at the Commercial Pub, where drunk baby boomers would go absolutely wild to local blues bands. This is in Central Alberta, which is roughly as connected to the idea of the blues as England is.
Every weekend a guy could see a band that sounds literally indistinguishable from The Bluesbreakers. And it was better than the experience of listening to this album because at least there was a bit of fun and spirit behind it.
I know this is an early enough white guy blues album to be pretty influential, but it still sucks and probably influenced a lot more bad music than good.
Pixies
4/5
God damn Pixies rule
Madonna
1/5
When I was in the sixth grade, this album was pretty recent. We had some sort of assignment where we had to write/perform a parody song in French. One kid, who had not learned very much French, did Music. His lyrics were “Musique//fait les personnes//vien ensemble//oui!” which is pretty funny grammatically, and also pretty catchy, and I still think about it sometimes.
Singing that line in my head was more satisfying than any moment of the actual Music by Madonna.
Dire Straits
3/5
This one was a bit of a journey. The first couple of songs rule, then it really dips in the middle, then pulls itself up a bit in the end.
The Money for Nothing riff cutting through the synth and layered vocal intro is like a top 10 all time Rock Moment.
Feels a bit wrong to round down here on account of how much of a guitar freak Knopfler is, but that’s life. I like Dire Straits, more than I like most classic rock. Maybe the next one will be better overall.
The Teardrop Explodes
3/5
This wasn’t bad. It was a lot better than my knee jerk expectations of English psychedelic rock from the 80s. Kind of enjoyed the Julian Cope from a while back, kind of enjoyed this.
The Cardigans
4/5
Very fricken cool, not exactly what a guy would expect from the mega hit single. I will listen to this again.
Girls Against Boys
2/5
Adjacent to things I might like, but not much for me here.
EXCEPT
Bullet Proof Cupid is a fantastic dumb rock song title. Do people sometimes return fire on a Cupid? With a GUN??
Fiona Apple
4/5
First timer for me here, this is sick. Kinda assumed it would be based on reputation. Lives up to it.
New York Dolls
3/5
These guys are not one of My punk bands but ya know what? Not bad. Better than I remember. I suppose the gimmick was kind of cool at the time too, though now it smacks of hair metal. Not fair to them, on account of how early they are and how they don’t really suck or play hair metal at all, but it does.
John Cale
4/5
This probably benefitted from me being a guy who can’t follow a concept album to save his life. I know what it is, and I would probably find it a bit annoying, but instead it ran right through me and I enjoyed it a lot. Lots of nice moments of composition and all that. Will relisten. I think I like Reed and Cale both now. Time to admit I’m wrong about Velvet Underground too I suppose.
Supergrass
3/5
Some cool songs here! I could probably be convinced that this is actually a 4 and I’m just being grumpy because it sounds influential to a lot of music I used to like and don’t anymore. Oops.
Grateful Dead
2/5
[three minutes into the first song]
“Huh maybe I like the Grateful Dead?”
[six minutes into the first song]
“Ok let’s wrap this up.”
[there are still eleven minutes to go in in the first song]
Listened to the whole thing, but that was the experience.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
This is too geeky for me. Crosses the line.
I don’t actually find it objectionable enough to give it 1⭐️, but this is a HARD round up.
The Rolling Stones
4/5
The overall score doesn’t suggest it, but this album calcified me as a Stones Hater.
Have always liked Let It Bleed, thought it would be a slam dunk 5 here. Certainly the best Stones album I think.
If a guy were to build a Mount Rockmore of songs, I think it would be hard to keep Gimme Shelter off there. Title track is a great song. Can’t Always Get What You Want is a great song.
But my god, listening to Mick Jagger do a straight earnest take on Love in Vain, followed immediately by the borderline-parody sounding Country Honk is rough. I get that before 1955, the only song English people knew was Greensleeves, so I’m sure it was very titillating to hear good American music. It makes sense that rock got so big so fast there. But is there anything worse than hearing a guy like Mick Jagger sing Robert Johnson? Or push a country song through his nose? Awful.
And to think they are STILL going today!
Hawkwind
2/5
In Lemmy’s later years he was still complaining about his falling out with Hawkwind and how he felt wronged by them.
That’s a bit like if Dave Mustaine was kicked out of Megadeth and started Metallica, and resented it.
Moby Grape
2/5
Working a lot of shitjobs as a youth, I would meet a lot of ageing longhairs who loved to talk music. Every single one of them would have a slightly obscure rock band that they insisted was the best one, and should have been much bigger than they were. Moby Grape was a fairly common pick.
I’ve listened to Moby Grape now. Doesn’t do it for me, sounds like a less chaotic Big Brother + Holding Company, and without a secret weapon.
It did make me think of Ross, though, who drove me to the ER when I got cleaning chemicals in my eyes, and offered me a joint in his pizza delivery van, “in case we have to wait there a while.” I liked thinking of that.
David Bowie
4/5
I’ve sold a lot of stock in David Bowie over the years. I still like a lot of what he did, but not nearly as enthusiastically as I once did.
I know there’s like a million more of his records to come on this list, and I anticipate this one being the high water mark to me. I like the synth stuff, and there’s some deep cuts that stand out.
A bit of a rounding up here, but I’m setting the bar with Heroes. Will there be a surprise 5⭐️ that I’m sleeping on? Maybe.
A side note: whenever I hear Heroes it makes me think of the forgotten Wallflowers cover. It is not forgotten to me, because it was in the intro video for NHL 99, which I played the hell out of as a kid.
Jerry Lee Lewis
3/5
In an industry full of pieces of shit it really takes effort to stand out as an exceptional piece of shit, and Jerry Lee does it many times over.
But oh man, there is something about a guy who is like “I am evil, the devil speaks through me,” and then you listen to his live recordings and they make you think “This guy is evil. The devil is speaking through him!”
Real dark energy here, kind of hard to look away. I liked it, I didn’t like that I liked it.
Skepta
2/5
I admire the editor’s resolve to find new and exciting forms of English hip hop that I don’t like, for later editions of the book.
Q-Tip
3/5
This is a cool one.
Aerosmith
1/5
Yesterday when I reviewed Q-Tip’s album my mind was kind of wandering. Not only did I just throw out a one-sentence vaguely positive review, for an album that certainly deserved more, but I also I meant to click 4 stars and I accidentally clicked 3. Two mistakes. That’s life.
Anyway Aerosmith sucks.
The Yardbirds
2/5
Is it remarkable that one band had, at various times, Clapton, Beck, and Page? Sure. Do I like any of those three as guitarists? Not really, but I do have time for Beck every now and again.
This should be the Yardbirds that most speaks to me, then, but it doesn’t. English guys doing blues, English guys doing psychedelia, no thanks.
Charles Mingus
4/5
The best high school teacher I had was an old guy who would give us an English assignment to work on in class, then sprint outside and kinda hide in the trees and smoke 2-3 smokes in a row real fast. We would watch him from the window.
He also talked a lot about Charles Mingus.
The Afghan Whigs
2/5
I get a bit of light in my eyes when I see the album is American 90s alt rock. Unfortunately this was the bad kind. It doesn’t sound anything like Sugar Ray but somehow it feels a lot closer to Sugar Ray than it does to something I would like.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Loved the songs, love to listen to Mitchell play guitar and sing. Plus she’s from the second coolest city a musician can be from (after Edmonton).
Production on this one a bit too slick for me, but it overcomes it.
U2
2/5
U2? Not 4Me.
The Velvet Underground
4/5
I like Velvet Underground now
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
Early goth stuff is so goddamn cool. You’d think it would benefit from crossing wires with metal a bit later on, but you’d be wrong.
This is a round down. One day I’ll listen to this again and regret not rounding up.
Super Furry Animals
2/5
Hearing an extensive selection of post-Beatles British pop music is really making me hate the Beatles.
The Beatles are great, they’re the greatest, but the decades of cruddy British bands going “Let’s do a Beatles this time” that follow… was it worth it? I don’t know.
Dead Kennedys
4/5
Dead Kennedys were not one of My Bands as a youth, not sure why. Maybe this album is just particularly rad, but it caught me off guard. Musically a lot more interesting than I ever gave em credit for. Good band.
Bob Dylan
3/5
Bob Dylan was really touched by God or something the earlier years of his career.
I liked this pretty decent, but it’s hard to imagine it’s the same guy who had the spark to make the first 6-or-so records. I mean it’s unmistakably him, on account of the voice, but nowhere near the same magic level ya know?
Aphex Twin
2/5
I have it in me to enjoy Aphex Twin at its weirdest, but I didn’t much care for this one.
Neil Young
5/5
This one is so, so good. Rocker Neil is my favourite Neil but this is max power Unrocker Neil, and it rules. Love the way it’s produced, got that thing that makes it sound like you’re actually in a room with a kinda fucked up guy playing songs that are always about to fall apart but never really do. And the guy is Neil Young.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
I’m not sure I like this as much as some of the other Mitchells, but it’s got enough stuff that’s weird and unexpected that it was still a treat.
If the production was a bit less slick I bet I would like it more.
I’m gonna round it up here, though, to continue to show my appreciation that this list made me into a Joni Mitchell Guy.
Can
3/5
Can is cool. I think out of all the Can and Can Adjacent stuff so far I liked the solo album by the guy best. But this was a good time, I was driving around listening and said “Hell yeah” under my voice a few times.
John Grant
2/5
Not without charm, but too musically Cute for me, too lyrically Clever.
De La Soul
4/5
Just a name to me before yesterday, and let me tell ya, I frigged that one up. Right up my alley, hip hop wise. Dense, kinda fun, good sampling. Sick
The Young Rascals
2/5
The name, year, album cover, and genre had me coming into this with a good amount of prejudice, but ya know what? It was just fine.
Pulp
2/5
I am very tempted to drop a 1 here. At face value, it’s not that bad. Probably a 1.75. But you better believe a few weeks from now when I’ve heard probably a half dozen more Pulp albums, I’ll wish I had given this one a 1 out of spite.
Lots of this britpop stuff stinks. Pulp stinks.
GZA
4/5
I believe this is my favourite album from the Wu Tang universe, at least of the ones I’ve heard. It conceptually goes over my head, but I like the way it’s laid out, and I like the way it sounds, and I like GZA’s delivery.
A good record, is what I’m saying.
Ghostface Killah
3/5
Didn’t rock like yesterday’s GZA did, so it suffered from being the second in a two-in-a-row Wu-Tang sequence.
Still liked it, though. Maybe more into the Wu-tang universe than I thought.
Randy Newman
4/5
Couple days ago I dinged some other album for being too cute/too clever.
Randy Newman is the correct amount of cute and clever, with a good execution. Something I normally wouldn’t like, but do.
Is You Got A Friend In Me a self-rip-off of Back On My Feet Again? Think it might be.
4/5
This is pretty fricken sweet.
Boomer psychedelic rock 📉
Boomer funk 📈📈📈
Cornershop
2/5
As ok as it gets
Kacey Musgraves
3/5
Better than I expected that’s for sure. Slick enough that I can’t see really getting into it, but this felt like a pretty natural extension of the earlier Country Ladies on the list so far. That’s the part I didn’t expect!
Rounding up here because I appreciated being kinda wrong about my prejudice when I saw and recognized the name of the artist.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
1/5
A stinker? Well, it wasn’t THAT good.
The Dictators
3/5
Fun one, I like the covers on it. Definitely influential on stuff I like, didn’t realize before it was 1975.
Kind of amazing that this is generously 20 years after the start of rock music, and it’s already got to a point of a punkish tongue-in-cheek thing. Bo Diddley wasn’t even that old yet!
Goldfrapp
3/5
First third of this had me hootin and hollering. Less clubby and more weirdo than I previously knew from Goldfrapp.
Then the rest of the thing had a smattering of circus music sounding songs and there’s not much in this world that can sour me on an album quicker than that.
People like to rag on ICP (to this day!) but the truth is there was a solid 20 years where the coolest thing anyone could imagine was a dark carnival. Even cool Europeans. That’s the truth.
Blur
2/5
I liked this much less than the other Blur. The more songs a British band does where they’re trying to Do A Beatles, the worse it is. Too many of those here.
Amy Winehouse
3/5
If I had seen this live I probably would have loved it. I know she was a standout musician, not just a well marketed one-hitter or whatever.
But somehow it sounds a bit sterile to me on this record! This should not be!
LTJ Bukem
1/5
No. No more. English drum and bass is not essential, stop it!!
Solange
3/5
Am I likely to add this to the rotation? No, it’s probably a true 2/5 to me.
But I have to reward it for sounding so much more human/less vampiric than anything I’ve heard from her sister. That’s worth something.
Simon & Garfunkel
2/5
I dunno man. I just don’t know about S&G. I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen for me.
Jane's Addiction
4/5
Speaking my truth: Jane’s Addiction rocks. Two great albums. That’s something.
It’s also cool that Perry Farrell looks like Bruce Campbell in Escape from LA now. That makes Jane’s Addiction rock even more.
MC Solaar
3/5
I don’t know that I REALLY liked this, I’m probably giving it a pretty hard round up here. But I was very tickled to listen to French hip hop, and also thought the production was neat in a bizarro world early-90s-hip-hop-but-make-it-continental way.
Judas Priest
5/5
Too bad the last song is so dopey, but it doesn’t matter. Judas Priest rules, Halford rules. Can’t believe this is the same band that also did Painkiller years later. One of the greats.
Suede
3/5
This was a pretty good one. Better than I expected! I would listen to most of this again.
I recently gave the gears to some British band, saying that all British bands fall into the idea of “What if we wrote a Beatles song?” at least once per album. That wasn’t the full story: sometimes they do that with Bowie too. This one had a fake Bowie song. Low point of the album. Annoying.
The Electric Prunes
2/5
Sometimes this list gets me thinking about the Shitty Beatles joke from Wayne’s World. Contemporary with the Beatles, there actually were a LOT of Shitty Beatles. I guess that’s pretty funny. Tired of listening to them though.
John Prine
4/5
I guess I would call myself a John Prine skeptic. But maybe I’m wrong. Probably. This was really great.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
I’ve got a real high baseline for how much I like a record like this, and figured this would be about at it, if not a bit higher.
But whoa, Aretha Franklin rocks. She locks in with her drummer so good, amazing singer. Loved this.
Shuggie Otis
4/5
Dang this is so good. Stuff like this is such an easy sell for me.
Shuggie.
Gorillaz
4/5
The first time I ever independently learned about an upcoming album and then bought that album when it came out, I was about 12 and it was this album.
I never really connected with another Gorillaz album. People really like Demon Days but if I remember correctly there’s several years between the self titled and the follow up, and I guess by then I had moved on to other stuff.
Anyway I still like this one a lot. Does sort of drag at the end, but the first half is very cool to me.
Suede
2/5
I liked the other Suede alright, but not this one.
David Bowie has so many songs. He already had so many songs by the time Suede rolls around. There’s no reason for other bands to be writing more Bowie songs
Thin Lizzy
4/5
Oh ya it rocks
Faith No More
5/5
I’ve been developing into a Pattonhead over the last few years. So far, I haven’t put that much attention on Faith No More.
That is obviously a mistake.
This thing rules. It’s as weird and scattered as any other Patton thing, and the rest of the band is sick. I’ve never liked slap bass in rock, but I like it here!
Hard to go any lower than 5 here, I was grinning like an idiot half the time I was listening.
Moby
2/5
This is not my preferred way of listening to cool old blues and soul songs.
It’s a 1.5, but hearing Porcelain kind of brought me back to when I was a kid hearing it on a compilation CD. I remember it being pretty hypnotic to me. Glad I heard better music after that though.
Miriam Makeba
4/5
I was surprised this was 1960, thought it was a bit later than that. Great. I liked her intros to songs, and it’s neat to think of the genesis of African musicians crossing over into western pop music. Will for sure come back to this one.
Primal Scream
2/5
At its best this sounded like slightly cooler U2, and at its worst it sounded like the soundtrack to an extremely of-its-time hacker crime movie. Which I guess is kind of what they were going for?
There’s a high ceiling for what a bunch of Irish anarchists are gonna sound like as a band. This doesn’t get too close to it.
Hanoi Rocks
3/5
Seems like this book is easily judge-able by its cover, but you know what? I was wrong. It actually kinda rocks. I like the wonky sax on a lot of the songs. It’s pretty weird and pretty good.
Elastica
3/5
Feels influential. I’ve heard a lot of later bands that sound pretty directly like this (in a good way).
In the interest of being less of a hater I’m inclined to round up to a 4… but also the big single on this song sounds so much like it would have been menu music on an NHL video game, that I will instead round it down. Maybe it WAS. It’s got the familiarity of a riffy pump up song that I’ve passively heard a thousand times.
I’m not going to look it up.
Mercury Rev
3/5
I used to be a pretty big fan of the Flaming Lips but really got tired of em over the years. This kind of sounds like the parts of the Flaming Lips that I do still like, and that’s got to be worth something.
The Strokes
2/5
I really don’t like to listen to the strokes. I don’t like the wealthy art school vibe, I don’t like the put-on chill guy listlessness. I don’t like the way it’s recorded, I don’t like the distorted vocals or the jangly guitars. The experience of listening is one star to me.
But also I made the mistake of reading reviews before doing my own. It stands out how much people viewed albums from this time as representing a rock revival. I was still pretty young when this one came out, still enjoyed radio butt rock etc. If I had been five years older at the time I bet this would have felt like a breath of fresh air.
Still sucks though.
Sparks
4/5
At best this reminds me of a charged up Supertramp. At worst it reminds me of a charged up Supertramp feat. Meatloaf.
The Good outweighs the Too Much though, I think this is weird in the right way, and very good, and I’m glad Sparks is around and on this list.
Brian Wilson
3/5
I’m not a Beach Boys guy at all, this is maybe the one kind of exception. I think it’s real cool and neat to come back to a project after that much time and see it through. It’s probably not all that close to the original vision, but it’s something. Probably felt good for Wilson.
Culture Club
2/5
Found some of it sort of charming, but not a needle-mover for me overall.
CHIC
4/5
When it comes down to it, CHIC has to be one of the most influential American bands right? Last one ruled, this one ruled, I love to listen to Nile Rodgers.
Lou Reed
4/5
I have come to learn that I like David Bowie less than I thought I did, but also that I like one-step-removed-from-Bowie stuff more than I thought I did.
I’m also not a Velvet Underground hater anymore, I'm cool now, but I do think this is more up my alley than VU is, if only slightly.
2Pac
3/5
Not often I sit down and listen to 2Pac. Seems more like a figure than an actual guy who made some records.
Very good album here. Wish this guy would have lived longer, I think he had a lot to say that would have been easier to say when he wasn’t a cool young man anymore.
Massive Attack
1/5
I have a, at this point, long written record of getting mad whenever any of this stuff comes up on the list.
This time I groaned, put it on, and then thought “Hey this song is pretty cool. The singer is good, and it’s got a bit more dynamics than a lot of other recordings do, I like that”
And then the second song came on and I was like Charlie Brown kicking the football.
Massive Attack remains better than their peers, on the whole this is more like a 1.75, 2. But the experience of it was as 1 as it gets.
Ian Dury
1/5
Something had me thinking this guy was gonna sing in a like Little Lord Fauntleroy voice for some reason. He didn’t, so it was better than I expected, but oh boy it was still pretty bad.
Talking Heads
5/5
David Byrne said that at the time, the band felt a bit disappointed by the end result of this record, because it didn’t really sound like Talking Heads.
Imagine hearing your own band played back to you, sounding like the coolest band in the world, and being like, “I don’t know, it doesn’t really sound like us.”
The Style Council
2/5
Sort of good. Not unpleasant. Decent
Tito Puente
4/5
I could definitely see having an episode of dance mania from this. I’m much too self conscious to dance. But I could see someone doing it
Heaven 17
2/5
Thought this was a bit more enjoyable than a lot of the many similar-but-different English albums on the list so far, but “liked” is a strong word.
Machito
4/5
This was a great album to listen to while driving around. Felt cool, even though I drive a 15 year old sedan with the engine light on.
Great album otherwise too.
Dr. Dre
3/5
Like I probably said in a past Eminem review, I like Dr Dre’s production at this time. Everything is smooth and cool and well put together.
I like this a lot better than Eminem too, because I don’t have to listen to Eminem’s voice.
Overall, a classic that more or less missed me decades ago and will miss me again. I enjoyed it, but probably won’t ever go back.
Terence Trent D'Arby
2/5
No thanks
Calexico
4/5
It’s great! These guys are so neat. They seem like a band that would be subdued in studio and then go nuts live. I saw them once, and I guess they didn’t really do that. But it’s nice to imagine.
The Kinks
3/5
I have a soft spot for this album. Listening to it this time, I can’t say I remember why I have a soft spot for it. But I do.
Megadeth
3/5
Megadeth is really really funny, Dave Mustaine looks like the cowardly lion, but you know what? This rocks. It’s good and it rocks. It’s stupid. But it’s good. And it rocks.
The Smiths
4/5
I really hate that the Smiths are kinda great.
Bob Dylan
4/5
Not my favourite Dylan but certainly one of the great ones. I don’t think it’s possible for Like A Rolling Stone to be overplayed. Inclined to go 5 because of it, but arbitrarily resisting for some reason.
The Who
2/5
The Who is great when they’re rockin but outside of that, they can be pretty iffy. This isn’t the worst English Band Being Cheeky record, just by virtue of being by a band who knows what they’re doing. But it’s still an English Band Being Cheeky record.
Einstürzende Neubauten
4/5
It truly makes me so upset to think of this being the lowest rated album on here. To me this sounds like a group of weirdos doing something interesting, and that alone clears so many less worthwhile albums I’ve come across so far.
This is awesome! It’s demented and strange. Sometimes it sounds like NIN in a good way. Sometimes buddy is yellin out German words and you’re like “I don’t speak German” and then he yells “CHINGGIS KHAN!” and you’re like “I know that one!” It’s fun and wild!
Anyone who contributed, or contributes, to this being the lowest album on the list is a huge baby.
The Incredible String Band
1/5
Terrible. Awful
Eurythmics
3/5
Annie Lennox is so sick as a singer. I know everyone knows that but I guess I sort of didn’t. Always heard about it but never heard her songs beyond a couple big singles. She goes really wild on some of the deeper cuts on this one.
Hard to settle on a review because musically I don’t like the album all that much! I just like to hear Lennox. This is a 3.5 rounded down and maybe regretted later.
Bebel Gilberto
2/5
This isn’t BAD, but it’s very smooth in an early 00s way that is disappointing for a type of music that should sound at least a bit sweaty.
3/5
I thought this was good, I basically like Blur. But it did get a bit harder to like Blur with this being the third one in the last couple months on here. Don’t know what that says.
Elis Regina
2/5
Funny to get two early 00s bossanova records in a couple of days. What I’ve learned is that I think I like bossanova but I really don’t like the early 00s. This has some great performances on it but also it sounds like Brazilian Steely Dan or something.
Chicago
3/5
The single most expensive new Fender guitar available on the Long and McQuade website is the Terry Kath signature Telecaster. I can’t put my finger on why that’s so funny, but it is.
I actually liked this more than I expected. The main base is pretty corny and bland but it goes off in some pretty wacky directions at times. Didn’t like it enough to become a Chicago fan or to seep out more. But liked it more than I expected.
Throbbing Gristle
3/5
Turns out I kind of like this proto-industrial stuff. This one didn’t get me hootin and hollerin like Kollaps did, but the whole album blew right by and I was pretty interested the whole time.
Who’d have thought.
My Bloody Valentine
5/5
Makes me feel insane every time I listen to it. What more can a guy ask for
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
The biggest disservice this list could have done to this album is delivering it one day after Loveless, and that’s what it did.
It’s still good, but hearing it right after Loveless made it feel very unnecessary. It’s not in the book called Two My Bloody Valentine Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Röyksopp
3/5
Maybe if Norwegians had taken over the top 40 instead of Swedes, pop music would be a bit more wacky and fun now. Who knows. Fun to imagine.
Tom Waits
2/5
Tom Waits has a spectrum that goes from “pretending to be a deranged lounge jazz singer” to “pretending to be a steam engine”. The closer he gets to the latter, the worse he is.
Some of these songs are kind of great. Dirt in the Ground is kind of great!
But for every Dirt in the Ground there’s two songs where he’s like “Hooh! Hah! Clang! Bang!” and it’s a bit rough.
Björk
3/5
Not the best Bjork I’ve heard but still carried the experience of putting on a Bjork I’ve never heard, and having a good time with it.
Belle & Sebastian
2/5
Can’t say I was ever a big fan of B&S, but as a youth I had a sense of “these guys are innately cool because people who like other music I like, also like them.”
I am amending that: they’re not innately cool, I find this album sort of annoying, and I probably won’t ever listen to it again.
Faust
4/5
I’ve been having a good time with the krautrock on this list. Could there possibly be a more Cool German Guy band name than Faust? Doubt it.
Digital Underground
2/5
Ha ha I dunno man. This is out there. The album cover and title made me laugh several times throughout the day. Sex Packet.
Robert Wyatt
3/5
Robert Wyatt is so cool. Spirit of an outsider artist but with a higher than average level of skill. This one maybe less impactful than Rock Bottom but also nice in being less bleak.
Malcolm McLaren
3/5
Culturally/socially this thing is a can of worms and McLaren was almost definitely not a Cool Guy.
Musically I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. I guess I assumed that a guy who has a made up title like impresario would have made a really shitty record. But it turned out he made a kind of compelling record, by not doing any of the important parts himself.
Van Morrison
2/5
Van Morrison does not do it for me. Even his good ones, like this one. It’s bad.
Marty Robbins
4/5
My great great grandfather was a horse thief who came to Alberta because he was no longer welcome in North Dakota.
I think if I were alive back then I would have mostly been a coward. A real yellowbelly
Milton Nascimento
3/5
I enjoyed almost all of this but also gotta point out: even some Brazilian acts aren’t immune from being Shitty Beatles
Black Sabbath
5/5
Absolutely rules.
I’m convinced there aren’t any good riffs left to be discovered. At least minor pentatonic rock riffs. Black Sabbath didn’t use up ALL of them. But probably most of them.
Paul McCartney and Wings
5/5
The third best beatle album.
(That’s only kind of a joke. At worst it’s the fifth best Beatles album).
Peter Gabriel
2/5
Once more I am saying: I dunno, man
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
Last CCR album, I believe I said that it’s not great to hear more than three CCR songs in a row. I’ll take that back, this is a good CCR album as a whole.
I do think it’s offputting that Fogerty is a Northern California guy and puts on that voice but whatever, it sort of works and CCR is good.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
Not my favourite Neil my a long stretch but still a great Neil. Probably rounded down a bit.
Meat Puppets
5/5
I knew I would like this but didn’t know it would be an easy 5. Excellent guitar playing, nice songs. Like a rougher Double Nickels, in a way. At least some spiritual similarity. I don’t know.
The Flying Burrito Brothers
4/5
I never gave these guys a chance because I am not drawn to Woodstock Type Bands with dumb names. Even though I knew they were Gram Parsons’ band I guess I assumed they were more psychedelic and he went more countryish later.
Anyway this is good as hell. Great album title too.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
4/5
I’ve listened to Psychocandy before. Is this one more upbeat or something?
I have the loose thought that these guys are one of those bands where every song is kinda the same song (but it’s ok because it’s a good one). Did half the songs on this album have at least one element of Just Like Honey? Felt like it. Again, in a good way.
Mott The Hoople
2/5
“Who’s playing tonight?”
“Shitty David Bowie.”
“Is he any good?”
“He sucks.”
LCD Soundsystem
1/5
I was hard on the LCD Soundsystem that came out a decade earlier and sucked.
Here we have a guy who is 20 years too old to be at a party that hasn’t happened for 10 years anyway.
Making chill ironic indie electronic with titles like “change yr mind” in 2017.
Awful, terrible, hate it.
Ministry
3/5
My actual listening experience here is probably a 2, but I’m boosting it with a full “better than I expected” star.
A buddy of mine introduced me to the term “weird hang” as a noun, meaning “someone who is a bit offputting to spend more than a few minutes with”.
As in, “You know Bob? Nice enough guy, but kind of a weird hang.”
Anyway I bet the vast majority of big Ministry fans are weird hangs. Got that vibe.
Mudhoney
4/5
Like a lot of people who weren’t there in the 80s, I just knew Mudhoney ad one of the bands that influenced Cobain. I was surprised with how direct the influence comes off, especially compared to Bleach. Need sounds like it could be straight off that record.
Loved this, will return to it.
Django Django
2/5
It’s probably just because I was aging out of being cool around 2009-2012, but I just have no time at all for the rock music of that time. This sounded like a boring version of a good band from a few years earlier.
Music was better in 2008, which has nothing to do with myself being about 20 at the time.
2/5
I remember a time that Muse was often mentioned in the same breath as Radiohead. I saw the comparison at the time.
Now I think that’s pretty insulting to Radiohead, and I don’t even really like Radiohead.
1.5 rounded up because there are definitely worse Muse albums than this one.
Snoop Dogg
2/5
This was fine to listen to, but hard to connect with at all.
I’m a huge fan of the strange and terrible album cover though, more covers should be like that.
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
Hell yeah
Cheap Trick
2/5
Guys of a certain age will talk about Cheap Trick as if they’re the biggest band in the world. Had to be there I guess. Like some middle aged Gen Z parent telling their kid about how Imagine Dragons ruled the charts for a decade and the kid is like “huh?”
Rufus Wainwright
1/5
I can only put this one in terms that will only make sense to a Canadian.
No one will say it, but Rufus Wainwright is a cut-rate Hawksley Workman. The same worst instincts, but without any of the janky charm. Hawksley Workman sanded down to a little nub.
I sort of enjoyed this for the first 30 seconds of fricked up violin but then this guy starts singing fake Latin with his thick Canadian accent (no amount of theatre kid delivery can cover it sorry Rufus) and it lost me.
I don’t like it.
Sonic Youth
4/5
I’m not really sure which Sonic Youth album I’ve liked best so far but I do know this is the one that made me think “Jeez I guess I really like Sonic Youth.” So maybe swap this out for one of the 3s I previously gave. Consider this an overall grade for Sonic Youth.
Anita Baker
2/5
A good singer but not much else for me here.
Booker T. & The MG's
4/5
😎🎹
American Music Club
3/5
This sounded like a band called American Music Club (in a good way) (I think?)
k.d. lang
4/5
Obligatory extra star for being Alberta coded. But also liked it a lot on its own merit. Not quite as cool as cowpunk k.d. but still cool.
Grateful Dead
4/5
I’m vaguely interested in the grateful dead, because they come off as very baseline decent classic rock, but people who see them at the right time in the right context went absolutely nuts for them.
So when I listened to this, I thought “Musically it is ok.” But I was flying over the Rocky Mountains when Ripple came on and it hit different so I thought “I will let the context affect how I like this” and I’m a deadhead now. Not really, but you know.
Rage Against The Machine
3/5
I like the idea of Rage and do find them somewhat respectable in their consistency. But I also have a hard time with them musically. I like a few songs, but when it’s a whole record I kind of remember how it can be grating.
Lambchop
3/5
Nice stuff, could see it growing on me more.
Charmed by the idea that this caught on in the UK but not so much in the states. Americana innit
Carpenters
1/5
Negative musical appeal. A real slog. I thought it would be neutrally boring. We should always be so lucky.
The Jam
3/5
I like the Jam’s sphere of influence more than I like the Jam themselves, but this one was a lot of fun nonetheless and it’s a round down.
The Pretty Things
1/5
The shittiest Shitty Beatles I have encountered so far.
Rod Stewart
3/5
I guess I have a bit of a soft spot for Rod Stewart. Musically I think this is pretty standard boomer rock, but the guy’s voice is just so weird and good.
David Bowie
3/5
I’ve been radicalized by a pal and now think Bowie is mostly a Greatest Hits Artist.
This one is a great example. I saw Young Americans and I thought “Oh yeah this is one of the good ones.” But after listening… is it? The first song is great and the last song is great. There’s a lot of filler and the Beatles cover sucks pretty bad.
I think there’s like 7 more Bowies to come for me on here, I wonder if they’re mostly all like this. I suspect they are!
Michael Jackson
3/5
Can’t say I have a lot to say about this one other than I like it in the same way I broadly like any peak-era Michael Jackson I hear. Every pop era has a handful of people working on another level and that’s him here.
Rocket From The Crypt
3/5
There’s nothing I love more than engaging with art for the first time, having already formed a prejudice against it.
I had two angles for these guys. I had the vague idea that they were a ska band, and also they’re called Rocket From The Crypt, which makes it sound like they’ve got an element of horror punk or whatever.
Anyway I figured this would suck bad, but it didn’t. It was a pretty good and fun album. Rounding down from a 3.5, because I still don’t want to fully let go of my prejudice.
Sleater-Kinney
4/5
Sick. Good. Cool.
4/5
I’m pretty deep into this list now, it’s time to start thinking about it in the big picture.
When an album has an average over 4, it’s usually an Accepted Classic, which often means it’s slightly overrated, but will usually still be good.
When the average hovers around 3, it’s usually going to be a boring album (which, in my opinion, should be a 2 at most).
When the average is around 2? Baby that’s the good stuff. That’s the stuff that is too off the wall for anyone who gave a 5 to Dark Side Of The Moon. The most compelling albums on here are around 2 on average.
Anyhow. This rocked. It’s so weird and kind of dumb. I was almost at a 5 but that last song is too Dark Carnival to me. Bands shouldn’t do that. Never comes off well.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
There’s some pages of the Neil Young Catalogue I have listened to over and over and over, and some I’ve neglected entirely. A lot of the 90s stuff is the latter, although I know it’s known as a peak not a valley.
I think this is the second 90s Neil on the list, so I’m getting there.
Musically this is good. The band sounds good. He rewrites Rockin in the Free World a few times, but that’s fine because that’s what he does. I like the long jammy songs.
But also Neil Young sure is Nostalgic in the 90s, in a really unpleasant, on the nose, boomer sort of way. I can’t stand that!
Fairport Convention
3/5
It’s a real uphill battle for me to enjoy any kinda old time English folk music. When I saw this one, I thought “Never have I been so sure of a one star, I should just skip it”. But I am an honest and self-hating man, and I have never skipped one yet.
You know what? Kind of good. Very good production. Some neat creative choices. Not excruciating to listen to. How about that.
Morrissey
2/5
Morrissey is so much less good without the Smiths eh
Bob Dylan
4/5
I love the lore of Dylan insisting he’s never Revealed Anything About His Whole Self.
Actually not sure I had ever listened to this one start to finish. It’s great! Good Bob stuff right here.
Astrud Gilberto
2/5
Usually surprises on here are pleasant, this is the opposite. Thought I’d like it, but it’s too Muzak-y. Whatever the Portuguese word is for Muzak.
Deep Purple
4/5
Deep Purple rocks. Not my favourite band, but they rock.
The Beau Brummels
1/5
Bad
Frank Black
5/5
Absolutely rules. It’s so impressive when a person from a great creatively-shared can also do something this good on their own. It won’t be on the list, but decades later, the Kim Deal record rocks too.
Steve Winwood
2/5
I can’t even really imagine digging an album like this. It’s not like, repulsive. But it’s so far from the kind of vibe I can enjoy. So smooth. Frictionless. No thanks.
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
This is so much better than any of the other 60s psychedelic rock records on the list so far, which is funny, because it hates 60s psychedelic rock.
I still don’t love it. But I like Zappa being mean, and I like that it answers the question, “What if there was a psychedelic album where the musicians didn’t stink?”, and those are both worth something.
Marvin Gaye
3/5
So far it seems like the quality of Marvin Gaye albums directly corresponds to what’s on his mind at the time?
The state of the world? Great.
His divorce? Real bad.
His horniness? Fine.
Black Sabbath
5/5
I’m not bothered by Roger Waters’ weirdo subversive politics. Someone’s gotta do it.
But I read that recently he started talking a bunch of shit about Black Sabbath? Listen buddy, all of the Pink Floyd albums put together aren’t as good as Vol 4, and Vol 4 isn’t even the best Sabbath record. What a geek.
Kid Rock
1/5
I think this guy and Limp Bizkit are often held up side by side as the goobers of their time but look: at least Limp Bizkit were somewhat Real. They were trashy Florida Guys being themselves. And, they are a bit musically interesting.
Kid Rock, a fancy suburban Michigan boy, is totally unconvincing as anything but. Musically tight but boring, like a bunch of studio guys being paid to make a fancy suburban boy seem cool.
Awful stuff here, just so bad. Nothing good to say.
Raekwon
2/5
Not the most compelling of the Wutang world stuff I’ve heard by now, but still some fun. Rounding down because it’s too dang long. Everything from the early CD era is too dang long!
The Monkees
2/5
I dunno man. I loosely knew the deal with the Monkees as a bit of pop culture history. Sitting down and listening to a full album of the Monkees did not really add or subtract anything.
Can’t give it a 1 though because it’s definitely not the worst Shitty Beatles version I’ve heard off this list. Can’t even imagine the dozens of Shitty Beatles that didn’t make the cut. Grim.
The Human League
3/5
You never know what you’re gonna get when it’s some 80s band with one song you’ve heard before. This one was pretty good! A decent baseline for this sort of thing. I liked it just fine. If this comes off as damning with faint praise, it isn’t. If it was it would get a 2.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
3/5
Neutrally cool, which could be a bad thing but in this case skews good.
Bon Jovi
2/5
Nothing for me here really. It’s a silly album.
I do like it when a lyricist uses convoluted grammar to make a line fit though, and “On a steel horse I ride” might be the single most famous/prominent line like that in all of pop music. Extra star for that.
Goldfrapp
3/5
More relaxed than any other Goldfrapp I’ve heard, and about as enjoyable, which is “pretty enjoyable”.
It’s probably forever tied to a weird feeling of sentimentality as of yesterday though: while listening, I was driving with my four year old kids, and we went by a construction site. One of my kids said “Maybe when I’m big they’ll build me a yellow house to live in!” and I thought of her growing up and felt a bit sad and said, “Yeah, maybe.” Then she said “And you can live in the dump!”
Steely Dan
2/5
There’s something so funny about skilled musicians working as hired guns and then deciding “Hey! We have something to say!” and then their original work sounds like skilled musicians working as hired guns but with a less exciting vocalist.
Anyway I think I’ve heard enough Steely Dan now.
Dolly Parton
4/5
It’s real good. How could it not be
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
4/5
This was a good time, and it also led me to read about the history of Salsa on Wikipedia. Interesting stuff, more contentious than I would have guessed. Not weighing in on that though, I’m just hear to listen to some tunes and say “Oh ya”
Underworld
1/5
Been a while since I got an English club record, I thought “hey I’m in a good mood, I’ll give it a blank slate fair chance!”
Still stunk
James Taylor
3/5
It’s good, it’s fine. I know people went nuts for James Taylor, I’m not sure he stands out to me THAT much. Different time I guess.
Pantera
2/5
It rocks, but the good ends there.
If a guy were to make a case for vibes being a real thing, this would be exhibit A. Bad vibes off the charts, and I believe that would be true even if you didn’t know the political leanings of the members.
The Flaming Lips
3/5
Wayne Coyne has tracked as an Old Guy the whole time I've been aware of him. So, as I have become an Old Guy, with each passing year he has become more insufferable to me. He’s a bad, unrepeatable, kind of Old Guy to a fellow Old Guy, is what I mean.
It also doesn’t help that the band has musically gone further and further up its own butt from Yoshimi(ish) onward.
Hadn’t listened to any of the older ones in some time. This one is more Fine than I expected. Not a true 3, but curved to Flaming Lips expectations, sure why not.
Silver Jews
5/5
[taking out the list of Lyricists who are Actually Poets]
[it’s tiny, it fits on one of those half size post its]
[adding David Berman]
The Young Gods
1/5
I’ve learned lessons about myself in the process of doing this list. I haven’t figured out what some of them mean though.
Sometimes I listen to something that is immediately repulsive to me, but over the course of listening to it I convince myself that it must have some merit that I’m just not noticing yet. Then I give it a 2 star. I always end up regretting it: on further reflection, I think “No, it was repulsive.”
Didn’t take many seconds of this to be like “Ugh!!!! No!!!” and it didn’t let up. I listened to the whole thing. It didn’t let up. I know the truth, which is that this is a one star record, and I hate it.
(There was one interesting thing about it, which is that to my ear the guy sounded very Québécois. But he is Swiss? Weird.)
Mekons
2/5
Can’t overcome my underlying anglophobia on this one. Can’t accept anything near country rock from an English guy. Rolling Stones kinda got there a couple of times but that’s it.
Echo And The Bunnymen
5/5
When I started this I had the idea that I should review every album in a vacuum, on its own merit. But that was like 700 and some albums ago, and I’ve heard so many stinkers that it’s hard to still do that.
I forget what I gave the other Echo + Bunnymen, I think it was 4. I liked that one more than this one, but this time I was more struck with “in the big picture, these guys actually really rule.”
So this is maybe just a 4 star album, but on the list, they’re a 5 star band.
The Charlatans
2/5
I’m not convinced the author himself has listened to all of these himself. This sounds like AI generated oasis. It’s not TERRIBLE, but that’s the highest praise I can muster.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
1/5
A few times in this album I thought “I could maybe like this if they had a singer”, and that’s about the best thing I can say, in total, about the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I do have a loose comment though: I wonder if Kiedis still does That Part when he performs Around The World.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
3/5
This served me well as a drivin’ out of town record, and sometimes that’s all you really need.
Sade
3/5
30 seconds in, I expected to hate it. It pulled through though. Not my style, but far from Bad. Rounding up to protect myself from allegations of being a crank.
Fred Neil
3/5
60s Singer Songwriter is not my favourite realm of music in the world, but this had some real charm to it.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
5/5
This album is so beautiful. Always has been always will be
Happy Mondays
2/5
There’s just so many albums that sound exactly like this one ya know
Youssou N'Dour
4/5
Cool. Rad. Sick
John Martyn
1/5
I thought about giving this a 2, because it obviously does have a lot of technical proficiency. But you only live once, and it’s hard to imagine something I would pick this over. Unless I was soundtracking a scene in a movie that was meant to make fun of the vibe of coffee shops in the late 90s. Then I might pick this.
Spacemen 3
2/5
Listening to this like “This sounds like that Spiritualized album but a tiny bit less corny and a tiny bit more dumb.” Imagine my face when I looked up Spaceman 3.
I think the listening experience was 1.5, but I’ll round it up because of the lil laugh I got from making the connection.
The 13th Floor Elevators
2/5
Maybe a bit better than my general feeling towards late 60s psychedelic stuff, but not that much.
Barry Adamson
1/5
You know that scene in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia where they’re doing an induction ceremony for Schmitty and they play that Gregorian chant that breaks into a dance beat and they start swaying from side to side and grinning?
The first 20 seconds of this album felt exactly like that and unfortunately it never recovered.
Love
3/5
I think my final position on 60s Psychedelic Rock is this: if just one band had come up with it, and done one album, it would be a really cool album. But instead, every band came up with it, and did many albums, to rapidly diminishing returns. The whole thing is diluted past a point of being able to even appreciate the good stuff.
With that said, this is maybe the good stuff? I gave it an honest chance and it sort of delivered. A bit more edge than a lot of similar ones, some actually cool instrumentation.
It was fine. If it was the only psychedelic record I would probably think it was great.
Wild Beasts
2/5
Ugh whatever.
David Bowie
4/5
Historically my favourite Bowie album, and I imagine that will hold up as I get like seven more of them in my final 300-ish albums here.
Queen Bitch probably rocks more than any of his other songs.
Brian Eno
3/5
This was cool. I guess I’m not the biggest Eno Guy on the planet, but I had a good time listening to this one. A 3.5, but I’ll round it down because Eno is so heavily present on this list. He doesn’t need the stars. He’s swimming in em
Orange Juice
3/5
The strong stuff was really strong, but there’s too much filler for sure. Most of the prolonged dub/reggae adjacent stuff could go!
The name of the band made me crave a glass of orange juice, so I had one, and it was a five star glass. Doesn’t count for anything, but worth noting maybe.
Morrissey
2/5
I guess I think Morrissey is fine, which is better than bad.
The Louvin Brothers
4/5
Always sounds nice to listen to a couple siblings singin together.
Maybe not always, probably some exceptions. This one was nice though.
Cocteau Twins
3/5
A pure 3 star experience to me. It’s good, I enjoyed listening, there was nothing objectionable, it just wasn’t Up My Alley or Surprising enough to get the 4 star bump.
Billy Joel
2/5
At a certain point a fella’s gotta pick whether he likes Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, or Billy Joel. One is acceptable, more than one is a problem.
I picked Paul McCartney. Sorry Billy, I think this kinda stinks.
Waylon Jennings
4/5
Great. He’s nowhere near my top guy from his general peer group, but I still had a four star time listening to this.
Hot Chip
1/5
Driving this one down to the Millennial Culture Dump at the edge of town. They make me pay extra to drop it off
Suicide
4/5
Any time you get a late 70s post punk album with a sub-3⭐️ average on here, you know it’s going to at least be interesting, and probably be really good.
Surprise surprise this is both. Weird as hell! Had me going “what on earth??” a few times. A worthwhile listen.
The Youngbloods
3/5
This one had highs and lows which is more than I can say about a lot of comparable time/place/genre albums.
The more countrified stuff was pretty nice a lot of the time!
5/5
Here’s how it breaks down:
2⭐️: A couple of really great musicians in this band, makes them more compelling than a lot of other nu-metal acts. Still not a great listening experience though, just a good and colourful example of a bad genre.
2.5⭐️: In the Woodstock ‘99 footage you can watch Fred Durst gradually realize that the crowd is becoming a tinderbox. Instead of easing off like a normal person, he goes on a long spiel about imagining everything that’s ever pissed you off, and then commands the crowd to release their negative energy. You can see the angel on one shoulder and devil on the other, and the devil tells him to throw the match and he does it. It’s maybe the most captivating bit of film I’ve ever seen. Obviously it’s not Good. But it’s certainly Special.
0.5⭐️: “Leadership/Leave your shit” “Enough of this/Now I’m pissed” is probably the best pair of rhyming couplets ever composed.
Patti Smith
5/5
One of the greats, obviously. Gotta be a geek to not see that. A real dweeb
Stereolab
3/5
It’s good but it’s too like Continental or something for me. I see why people like em so much, and I bet a lot of bands I do like, liked them.
Stan Getz
4/5
So nice to listen to. You listen to it and you say, “Oh yeah. That’s so nice.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
In the past I’ve enjoyed Skynyrd quite a bit, including a handful of songs on this album. Maybe I’m just simmering with anti-American sentiment but I didn’t like this listen all that much. Guitar stuff obviously great, and I always kinda appreciate the band’s extreme and psychotic approach to systematically practicing and perfecting the art of sounding like Good Ol Boys, but I dunno. Today it was just fine.
Rush
4/5
I’m not a Rush Guy, and never have been. Probably haven’t heard this in full since high school or so.
I listened with an open mind and had more fun than I expected.
Realistically it was a 3.25 or something but I’m giving it the boost because it had moments that rock harder than most Canadians ever rock.
Laibach
4/5
I’m becoming a broken record about this but sometimes you can tell something is gonna be good, based on the negative reviews on here.
No chance I wasn’t gonna come out of this one like “Ha ha. Hell yeah.”
Definitely one of the strangest records yet, but kind of weirdly accessible?
Taylor Swift
1/5
I’m just gonna skate
Skate
Skate
Skate
Skate
Skate
Skate
Skate
Tony Hawk!
Tony Hawk!
I don’t have much to say other than: how do they pick em, these artists that get to be bigger than God?
Dwight Yoakam
1/5
This kinda stinks, right? Shiny late 80s production makes it hard to buy as Country Music, and man oh man is it ever important to properly come off as Country Music if you’re gonna sing songs about shooting your wife and whatnot. Like it has to be grounded in Country Music kayfabe. This is not.
Death In Vegas
1/5
After one song it felt like it might have a bit more juice than some of the other albums the author did 90s drugs to, but that turned out to be wishful thinking.
Meat Loaf
1/5
Whenever I watch high level sports I like to try to imagine how it would feel to have a body that could do the things an athlete can do. It’s a fun line of thinking, especially when it turns out I basically can’t imagine it at all. I know how to skate, but I really can’t even picture myself being able to hit 40km/h or whatever.
I get a sort of similar feeling when I imagine having a body that would enjoy listening to Meatloaf. Musical theatre sensibilities, uncanny but too earnest to come off as funny, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Americana, and also every song is about four and a half minutes too long. It’s like if a future civilization discovered the fragments of rock music and tried to reconstruct it, and did a pretty bad job.
Massive waste of a great album title, too.
Paul Revere & The Raiders
2/5
I can’t say I really LIKED this, but I’m coming off four consecutive 1⭐️s , and in that context this album at least sounded like something adjacent to something I might like. High praise.
The Doors
3/5
I’m pretty averse to the Doors, but you know what? With an open mind and as little prejudice as I could give it, this one is pretty cool. Band sounds great at times, and Morrison sounds like a guy who is on his last legs. Sad, but also sort of compelling.
The Band
5/5
In a world of rock bands trying to tastefully countrify their sounds (1960-present), The Band is so much better that they make the rest obsolete. Gram Parsons can stick around, but that’s about it. Couple records by the Band and that’s all the Classic Americana a guy needs. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.
Daft Punk
3/5
I’ve spent a lot of time complaining about electronic albums on this list, but I was kind of interested to hold this one up to the rest.
I wouldn’t put it on for no reason, but I liked it quite a bit more than the average… easy to see why. Continental euros, not Brits. A world of difference.
Madonna
2/5
I recently listened to 1989 and wrote that I wondered how they pick which pop stars get to be bigger than god for a bit.
I wouldn’t say I really enjoyed this album, but I understood it a bit better than the Swift. Probably just for crotchety reasons though. This sounded more like it had a proper band, a bit more life to it. Pretty silly songs though.
Circle Jerks
4/5
To this I simply say: yeah, hell yeah
Dr. Octagon
3/5
I can’t go TOO high on this one just because if someone walked in the room and I was listening to this I would feel embarrassed.
That said, to tell you the truth, I liked this quite a bit. It got me thinking about my extreme distaste for Eminem. In a way, they share a lot. Both kinda shocking, horrorcore type stuff. This comes off so much better to me though, like I get the artistic idea of it at least. Maybe it’s just that Eminem’s artistic perspective is “what if there was the most fucked up guy ever and what if he was me??” and that doesn’t have legs in the same way a nightmare sci fi version of the same thing does.
Anyway this was cool.
The United States Of America
2/5
There were moments in this that set pretty high marks for cool stuff I’ve heard in bad psychedelic records since I started on this list. But it was still a bad psychedelic record and it was still a slog to get to those moments. It is what it is.
The Adverts
3/5
Hard to really identify what the secret ingredient of good punk music is. There’s no obvious reason for this to not be on the level of any of the top tier English punk bands from the 70s, but it isn’t. Just don’t have the juice.
To be honest it almost comes off as Canadian, which I know it isn’t. But maybe the secret ingredient is “don’t be Canadian or even sound like you MIGHT be Canadian.”
Anyway this is good, fine.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
3/5
Not nearly as compelling as his more psychotic work, but a lot more compelling than any other psych rock in the list.
I think all the psych rock on the list should be dropped except for this one, and Os Mutantes.
Arcade Fire
1/5
A real stinker. Self-serious dumb guy poetry to the highest degree. Chamber pop adjacent sound (already a hard sell) without any sense of humour or playfulness. Awful stuff, get outta here.
Orbital
1/5
Snore-bital Poo
The Black Crowes
2/5
Nothing for me here.
The Byrds
2/5
This one is for the birds!
(I didn’t like it any more than any other of the many albums that sound basically the same as this one)
The Temptations
4/5
In the sweet spot of R&B right when everyone was getting all weird and experimental. Made some of the worst rock music, and some of the best R&B.
Cool stuff.
The Boo Radleys
4/5
I’ve heard the name but never checked these guys out. Probably because it’s corny to name a band after a book you read in high school.
I was wrong to avoid em, this is very much up my alley. Probably a lesson to be learned here, but I won’t be learning it.
Common
2/5
Hard to get past a major prejudice with this one: the one thing I know for sure about Common is that Barack Obama is a big fan. I think if an artist exists in a subversive genre, and the president of the united states likes their art, that artist is doing something wrong.
That aside, I liked this alright. Cool jazzy stuff, love a Femi Kuti appearance.
A 2.5 but I have decided to round it down due to the President thing.
The Who
4/5
I have less time for The Who than I did as a young man, but when they rock, they rock.
They’re at their best when they let Keith Moon be the main guy, and there’s a lot of that on this one.
Fugazi
5/5
Sometimes you’re dragging yourself through the desert and you find a tall glass of lemonade. You chug it down and keep draggin’
The lemonade is Repeater, by Fugazi
The Magnetic Fields
4/5
This one was a big deal with my peer group for a time. I still like it despite it being aggressively long and having a lot of filler. How could it not.
In a vacuum my experience this time was probably a 3.5 that I would normally round down, but since I’ve complained so much about concept albums on here, I have to give this one the bump because I admire the commitment and execution of a concept album that is just 69 Love Songs. Exactly as advertised.
Korn
2/5
Korn never landed with me when I was an angry youth. More of a Bizkit guy. I think I liked irreverence more than dead serious angst.
Korn’s first one is compelling and I think it’s a cool relic in a fucked way, though I’m not too drawn to listen to it. I just appreciate it from a distance.
This one is… ok. It’s dumb as hell and too serious and too dated in a bad way, but it’s got moments that really rock and I’m nothing if not a guy who seeks moments that really rock.
The Flaming Lips
3/5
I suppose this is the best Flaming Lips album, but also the bar for “best Flaming Lips album is not very high for me. A band for guys my age to discover at a formative age and absolutely love, and then watch them tumble down the rankings.
I do think Do You Realize is a really nice song but would probably be better performed by almost any other band.
Fight Test is good, even performed by the Flaming Lips.
The Pharcyde
3/5
Definitely better than it has any business being, for how stupid it is. You never know what you’re gonna get when you see a hip hop album with that style of album art. What do you call that? It’s like the style you’d see on a bootleg looney toons shirt where Bugs is smokin a cig or whatever.
Sugar
4/5
Somewhere out there on the user list is a guy who is just like me but instead of complaining about all the Bowie and Costello on here, complains about all the Mould and Watt.
That guy’s wrong though, and I am right.
Brian Eno
3/5
This doesn’t deserve to be a 2, but it’s a hard round up. I get the appeal of Eno, and I’m not totally averse to his thing. But he can be way too cute or something, and this is one of those ones.
Beck
4/5
Two things I don’t much care for are Overproduced Introspective Singer-Songwriter Songs, and Beck.
Remarkable that this is both of those things, and held up. One of my favourite examples of OISSS comes from Beck. One of my favourite examples of Beck is him doing OISSS.
Music is so stupid.
TV On The Radio
2/5
I remembered this as having a bit more edge to it, or at least some forward momentum.
If someone had played this for me and said it was some lesser-known Arts + Crafts band, I don’t think I’d have had any reason to doubt them.
Hole
4/5
The album: rocks.
The unhinged reviews on here: do not rock. Calm down. Courtney Love isn’t your ex or something! Go to bed, gramps!
Everything But The Girl
2/5
It may not be Good… but it’s Fine
Aretha Franklin
4/5
Aretha Franklin was outta control eh
The The
4/5
Wow really great stuff. Looks like lots of reviews single out the piano in Unforgettable Smile. I’m doing the same. It rules.
I could bend this to a 5, but the band name irritates me so much. Anything but The The! Did they not try saying it out loud before committing to it??
Lorde
3/5
I generally think I don’t like the Antonoff thing, which is not the fault of the singer here, but it is her problem.
There was some cool stuff here though. I liked it more than I expected to. Put it this way, I would listen to another Lorde record based on having heard this one.
Screaming Trees
3/5
Has all the trappings of something I would like, and I do. Maybe more listens would change this but overall it came off as a Pretty Good Alt Rock Album, which ain’t nothin!
2/5
It’s got that mega processed 90s fusion flavour. Like a Locos Taco or something
The Doors
2/5
Break on Through came on and I was like “Oh man, have I been too hard on the doors? Do they actually kind of rock the way I thought they did when I was fourteen?”
Then it was followed by like four of the shittiest songs I’ve ever heard.
That’s an exaggeration but whatever. There are some cool songs, and Manzarek is pretty cool. But overall, more bad than good.
The Divine Comedy
1/5
This has negative appeal to me. Absolute stinker. Get outta here.
Steely Dan
1/5
They can’t keep getting away with this
Echo And The Bunnymen
5/5
If there is one big piece of news I have received in the process of going through this exercise, it might be, “Echo and the Bunnymen fuckin rule, ya dummy!”
Paul McCartney
5/5
For a guy born in the 80s I’ve spent far too much time in my life thinking about the Beatles. Nice when I get to use one of those thoughts, even if it’s to do something totally pointless, like write a little review for McCartney I in 2025.
Anyway one of the cool things about the Beatles is that individually they all kinda suck for various reasons. I’m talking musically, not as people, that’s irrelevant here. You can hear it on Beatles albums, but usually just in the background. The proof of this is how comparatively spotty all their solo careers are. They were checking each others’ worst instincts.
This one has SOME sucky Paul instincts, but it’s overall probably the most tasteful out of many post-Beatles solo albums.
I think this guy coulda made 10 more White Albums and they all would have been great.
The Sabres Of Paradise
1/5
If someone invited me to a haunted dancehall I would be so excited. If I showed up and this is what was playing I would feel betrayed.
Johnny Cash
5/5
I have nothing but good things to say about this, so I’ll just focus on one part: a long while back I was knocked on my ass by the way James Brown could harness an audience, string them along, make them part of the show, etc.
Johnny Cash is just as skilled at the same thing, but in a totally different way. He’s so understated, and doesn’t draw attention to what he’s doing, but this is a tough crowd and he masters it. Right off the bat, he starts ribbing an audience member, and the other guys love it. Cash himself is like, a wimp compared to anyone he’s singing to here, but he picks his spot and gets them on his side. A bit later, he draws attention to the sheriff in the room and the reaction of the crowd is one of the more sinister crowd sounds I’ve ever heard.
Having this one and San Quentin both on the list is a real double dip, but in this case it’s worth it. Great recordings, one-of-one (or I guess two-of-two).
Deep Purple
3/5
Deep Purple rocks, but there’s not all that much crossover between bands that rock, and bands that I want to hear do extended live noodling.
The album sounds cool, nice live recording, but almost every song goes into something that is A Bit Much.
Caetano Veloso
4/5
Brazilian musicians are so much better than pulling off a psychedelic thing that Americans or, even more so, Brits. Probably Brazilians are just much cooler.
Love the sinister album cover too.