530
Albums Rated
2.73
Average Rating
49%
Complete
559 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1960s
Favorite Decade
Post-punk
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Critic
Rater Style ?
42
5-Star Albums
81
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Trout Mask Replica
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
|
5 | 2.29 | +2.71 |
|
Metal Box
Public Image Ltd.
|
5 | 2.41 | +2.59 |
|
Bubble And Scrape
Sebadoh
|
5 | 2.65 | +2.35 |
|
Bright Flight
Silver Jews
|
5 | 2.69 | +2.31 |
|
Yank Crime
Drive Like Jehu
|
5 | 2.7 | +2.3 |
|
Cut
The Slits
|
5 | 2.71 | +2.29 |
|
Tago Mago
Can
|
5 | 2.79 | +2.21 |
|
White Light / White Heat
The Velvet Underground
|
5 | 2.88 | +2.12 |
|
Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch
|
5 | 3 | +2 |
|
Sister
Sonic Youth
|
5 | 3.02 | +1.98 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Thriller
Michael Jackson
|
1 | 4.22 | -3.22 |
|
Harvest
Neil Young
|
1 | 3.83 | -2.83 |
|
Bad
Michael Jackson
|
1 | 3.81 | -2.81 |
|
Graceland
Paul Simon
|
1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
|
Hot Fuss
The Killers
|
1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
|
Brothers In Arms
Dire Straits
|
1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
|
Can't Buy A Thrill
Steely Dan
|
1 | 3.72 | -2.72 |
|
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Simon & Garfunkel
|
1 | 3.62 | -2.62 |
|
Oracular Spectacular
MGMT
|
1 | 3.61 | -2.61 |
|
Hotel California
Eagles
|
1 | 3.6 | -2.6 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| The Velvet Underground | 3 | 5 |
| Jimi Hendrix | 3 | 4.67 |
| Johnny Cash | 3 | 4.67 |
| Nick Drake | 2 | 5 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Steely Dan | 4 | 1 |
| Simon & Garfunkel | 3 | 1.33 |
| Aerosmith | 3 | 1.33 |
| Eagles | 2 | 1 |
| Michael Jackson | 2 | 1 |
| Paul Simon | 2 | 1 |
| Eminem | 2 | 1 |
| Prince | 2 | 1 |
| Christina Aguilera | 2 | 1 |
| Fatboy Slim | 2 | 1 |
| Metallica | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Divine Comedy | 2 | 1.5 |
| Taylor Swift | 2 | 1.5 |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Flaming Lips | 2 | 1.5 |
| Beastie Boys | 3 | 2 |
| Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | 3 | 2 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Neil Young | 1, 5 |
| Marvin Gaye | 5, 2 |
5-Star Albums (42)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Britney Spears
1/5
This is a cultural moment to be aware of, not an album to listen to.
If teenagers made this music themselves for other teenagers it'd be unlistenable but fine. For grown adults to decide it's fine to send a teenager through the grinder to sell records and soft drinks is chilling.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
7 likes
The Divine Comedy
2/5
chamber pop more like chamber pot
if I were a horse I'd still give this a bad review
3 likes
Can
5/5
Oversimplifying a lot, there's a couple categories of very indulgent art, the "look at me. look at me!" kind and the "hey check it out, what do you think?" kind. It's like how multimedia events - you know, you go somewhere to see music, and there's projectors on all the walls, or mannequins in the audience, etc. - are either awesome fun times or the most uncomfortable bullshit. Can is the good kind. Listening to Can makes me think of talking with somebody who just did something incredible, excited to share what they tried & see if you might want to do anything with it.
I'm not going to intentionally put on the long experimental tracks in the middle again, but they weren't unpleasant and I think they did pull off the transition back to a jam & the most accessible song at the end.
& when Can gets into a jam they grab on to something vital & shake the living daylights out of it.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
2 likes
Sonic Youth
4/5
I don't think this is as good as either of the two previous Sonic Youth albums. Sister and Daydream Nation have more memorable songs.
Sonic Youth has an offputting element of cool kids gatekeeping that seems to come across more on Goo. If they weren't masters of making this kind of guitar music it'd be a dealbreaker.
but they are, so.
music: stole its sister's boyfriend, killed its parents and hit the road within a week. (⌐■_■)
2 likes
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
a few catchy grooves. probably would sound better as a recording of a single electric guitar or two actually human beings playing instead of 100 Billy Corgans smushed together
sounds absolutely like a cynical cash in. there's a My Bloody Valentine shimmer thing briefly that seems like a wink & nudge, but a completely uncharming one
it's funny that one of the most overwrought groups sounds amateurish, not in execution but in style choices. it sounds like a bedroom album by somebody that hasn't learned to cut out tacky impulses yet. the shred solos are silly and don't always work.
I like pieces of the music but won't make any excuses for this band
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
2 likes
1-Star Albums (81)
All Ratings
2/5
Public Enemy
4/5
Very cool. Hadn't heard all of this before, incredibly ambitious in the variety of samples.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Cyndi Lauper
2/5
the sound texture of this is montage music, the sort of thing that's good when you're driving around town or getting ready for a fun event
Listening at home, it makes me unhappy and right away I want to turn it off. 'Time After Time' is a classic hook but one I've never liked
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Go-Go's
3/5
After listening to this I don't think I can remember the melody from any songs, but I liked listening to every one. This band has a nice style and all the instruments sound good.
Letting all the instruments sound like themselves (esp. the prominent bass guitar) makes this good, where it'd probably be dull if that stuff was mushed together like other pop rock.
I didn't know much of this band and my day is a little better for having listened to this.
music: appreciated. (⌐o_0)
Beastie Boys
2/5
I love hip hop. At its best the MCing and instrumentation are so clever and full of heart. It's a worldview-changing way of looking at musical art as a pile of interrelated pieces you can collect like a magpie, rearrange, reimagine & recontextualize with respect or irreverence or both at once. The very best of hip hop is like Ulysses was to modern literature, both a 'fuck you' and 'I love you' to all the music and poetry that came before.
I did not like this at all.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Last Shadow Puppets
2/5
a supergroup with a guy from the fucking Arctic Monkeys is supposed to be one of 1001 albums I hear before I die?
It has an image of a woman in stockings on the cover, and there are no women in the band. In 2008. That might be all you need to know about how bland this is.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Funkadelic
3/5
I bet there's more to this than I'm hearing right now, tired after picking up an extra shift. It was ok but I didn't really react to it. I found the sillier pieces a little annoying.
music: not given the attention it deserves. ( -_-)
Kraftwerk
3/5
This was ok. It's not fair to judge this from my 2023 point of view but that's what I'm doing. It's not as pleasant as pop oriented electronic, doesn't seem as purposeful as more confrontational experimental electronic. When they edge towards either I start thinking about something I'd rather be listening to.
music: bleep bloop. (⌐■_■)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
Some interesting pieces in the playing here overwhelmed by too much schtick. Nick Cave is very hit or miss for me and I don't find this one interesting.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Stooges
4/5
will will have a real cool time.
music: appreciated. (⌐■ ̮ ■)
Little Simz
3/5
I thought I might like this. It's ok. There's something here, but it's a little too smoothed over. One of those things a little too in between other stuff that I think about what else I could have on.
Not fair, but haters gotta make hate while the sun shines, so
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Stereo MC's
2/5
this is not good. It is not as bad as hands guy on the cover suggests it might be - at least the title track, anyway, because I'm not bothering with more than that. This doesn't quite get a 1 because it doesn't enrage me, wouldn't cross the room just to turn it off.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
King Crimson
3/5
21st Century Schizoid Man has a nice few minutes and a bunch of showing off. The rest is a little English prog-y but not as silly as you might expect with Greg Lake in the band. It's listenable. It probably fits as a soundtrack to something.
music: acknowledged. (╹⌓╹)
Joni Mitchell
4/5
really good guitar playing that's allowed to shine through. I've known for a long time that I would especially like Blue but my parents didn't have this one and I never got around to it.
If I had heard this as a teenager I bet it would be a solid 5 and a record I always think of. Hearing it later it's not as striking as it would have been, and the California hippie stuff is more grating than it would have been.
Something that is still very very good when you think you've heard it all before
Metallica
2/5
I don't want to LISTEN TO THIS ANYMOaoRE-a-uh!
thruggadugchugdugdug thuggadugchug
its place in historeeeea-uh is unmisTAKEable YEAH
but I don't want to HEAR IT A-UH-GAIIIINNNNN! YEAH!
meedley meawuuuuh bree a wreauh mreeeeuuwwww
thruggaduggachuggachugchgchgchg
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Frank Zappa
2/5
I keep forgetting about the connection between Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. This album reminded me - it sounds like some of Beefheart but with everything smoothed over, all the weirdness and discomfort replaced with technical musicianship.
It's fine but I can't think of any reason to listen to it. Uncharitably rounding down to 2.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
LCD Soundsystem
2/5
I don't have a lot of affection for LCD Soundsystem. The first three songs are obnoxious with North American Scum particularly bad, then there's two alright songs in the middle, then back to bland soulless repetition.
Besides 'Someone Great' this is the sound of being afraid to care too much, and it reminds me of the worst parts of the era when it was current.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Def Leppard
2/5
Started out with songs you could imagine a band with better taste playing well, then got worse. Did not finish listening. Maybe a great metaphor for the miserable day I just had.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
This is good and very interesting. I haven't heard much of this before at all and it's surprising how much I wouldn't recognize as Hendrix. If I was listening in the 70s and more aspects of the style or stereo production were novel it might be a 5. If I was listening in a different period of my life it might be a 5. I don't have immediate plans to revisit but I'm open to the idea that I might really love this at some later time.
Sorry you didn't make it to your mermaid years Jimi.
music: appreciated. (⌐■ ̮ ■)
Jeff Beck
2/5
even skipping this until weeks later it's impossible to not compare to Hendrix. There's parts where the rhythm section is very good. There's interesting bits of guitar sound are only in passing. Never gets near the rumbling earthquake of Hendrix & band.
Might be a little more sympathetic if this was earlier in history. Not at all sympathetic to taking the interesting moments of music that already happened and paving them over into blues rock. Old Man River and Greensleeves very tacky.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Clash
3/5
I've tried to give this one more time based on reputation. After ~2.5 listens I don't think anything is going to seem more appealing than it did. The title track is very good and there's a few others that are pretty good.
Overall I don't care that much for London Calling. If I was in the mood for a song with similar vibes it wouldn't be anything from this album.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The National
2/5
bland. Could say it's the songwriting, which is dull. There's something else squashed about it. They sometimes try interesting stuff in the backing & yet it never makes the song sound any different.
I remember friends being excited about this album. It only made me like their earlier stuff a lot less which was a real bummer at a time when I didn't have too many avenues to find music I liked.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Fats Domino
3/5
This is indeed Fats Domino.
music: appreciated. (⌐▣ ̮ ▣)
Johnny Cash
4/5
One of the funniest things I've ever seen is a friend trying to recall Hurt:
"I have an ear worm for a really sad country/rock song. I swear it's a cover of The End by The Doors, but I might be transplanting those lyrics into my memory of this song. It's some old gravely dude and I swear he's crooning about his only friend and it's all about good byes or whatever. I know this is useless but does anyone have suggestions as to what song it might be??????"
That song was so unavoidable for a while that I could do without ever hearing it again, and I could really do without Nick Cave's verse on I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, but I'm still gonna round up to 4.
music: appreciated. (⌐o_0)
Tracy Chapman
3/5
Fast Car has a great hook, a lot of heart in the sadly timeless theme of deadbeat dads. I'm tired of it, but just because I'm tired of it doesn't mean it's not good.
The rest I find a little same-y and inoffensive. I've had this forever and never listen to any of it. Still, I'm going to round up to 3.
FKA twigs
2/5
I think I've heard everything this has to offer before and found it unremarkable the first time. Maybe in 2014 it was new to break into the mainstream with breathy soprano over whatever sub-subgenre of electronic this'd be called.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Sisters Of Mercy
3/5
This is ok. For me it suffers from being too much like Joy Division/New Order but trying to be cool & standoffish. I can see some appeal but I'd rather listen to the thing that's full of life.
music: (⌐■_■).
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
This started very strong, got kinda dull with the slower vocal-oriented songs. The falsetto doesn't work for me here, & I think I've heard the same chord progression underneath somebody talking about LIFE too many times.
music: appreciated. (⌐▣_▣)
Ute Lemper
2/5
track 2 review: what if we took some of Nick Cave's worst impulses (bloated overwrought murder ballads) as a template for an orchestral music singer showpiece? what. if.
guessing it's basically the same for the rest of the authors. will I regret not listening to each to see if this deserves a 1 instead of a 2?
no.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
5/5
I listened to the actual Royal Albert Hall recording, not the Bootleg series from Manchester, because it showed up first. I have no idea if that's actually right or if it's the same thing.
Really good. I'm not certain whether to review this in the context of Bob Dylan overall - could quibble that the folk songs, esp. longer like Desolation Row, really benefit from the better timekeeping on the albums, and these ones don't benefit as much from Dylan's great rhythm acoustic playing. It's still very very good compared to everything on the list so far, and I think I like the band's sound on the electric section better than any album versions.
A great piece of mythmaking from popular music's most prolific self-mythologizer.
music: appreciated. (⌐▢ ̮ ▢)
Eagles
1/5
fuck the eagles
The The
2/5
a little bit of something here, but not enough and I hate most of the vocals.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Mars Volta
2/5
oh good, I get to learn what prog would sound like if it came after indie rock, and even more so, emo.
by good I mean wretched.
some of the more basic guitar parts would be ok in a different context. the Zappa of its generation, collecting fragments of what's around for a monument to ego. very unlikeable.
Queen
3/5
seems like even Queen's less notable stuff is still pleasant. Heavier Queen probably never as good as a good Zeppelin song, never as bad as a bad Zeppelin song. I listened to this doing something else and didn't notice it was about elves & whatever. when Zeppelin does it, you know.
The Who
2/5
A rock opera turns out to be a terrible idea. I'll give the Who a little bit of an excuse for having to be the ones to find that out.
Like a lot of terrible ideas it doesn't seem so bad until it gets going and you're stuck doing something dumb. I bet in the end it didn't feel great to write & perform a bunch of this compared to a regular album. Fiddle Around a real lowlight, bad and repulsive.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Darkness
2/5
like Queen, but with all the genuine fun taken out
very 2003 in a bad way. it's classic rock but he says motherfucker! ha! ha! imagine if Freddy Mercury said hands off my woman motherfucker. ha.
I Believe In a Thing Called Love is a funny song to hear people do karaoke to.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Lucinda Williams
3/5
I've spent more time on what I think about this than any other album on the list so far.
It's a surface level nostalgia trip through small town North America - probably not anywhere near as phony as Uncle Tupelo, but also way less interesting.
The most analogous experience I can think of is reading a book of short stories from an accomplished writer way past the time in their career where they wanted to innovate. It's all fine, hits sentimental notes often enough, doesn't fall into traps of gratuitous style or complete detachment. Somehow it still has writerly tells that make you hyperaware of the craft, in not just the thing but uncomfortably so for the whole format of storytelling.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
4/5
Victoria is from this one hey? never knew that.
Works much better than Tommy, all the songs here are pretty good. Not totally fair since writing a rock opera about a middle class English family suits the Kinks more than anyone.
Cool messy guitar in the left speaker of the last song.
I think for me as a listener 'concept album' type stuff is nearly always going to be worse. I'd like songs like Nothing to Say more if they didn't fit in a narrative sequence. Linear lyrical structure isn't what I come to music for.
Rounding up to 4 for Victoria. It is kinda funny that the best song on a nostalgia story is the first track.
music: appreciated. (⌐◯_◯)
Randy Newman
4/5
Familiar with most of the songs, never listened to as an album before. Nice stuff. The single version of Last Night I Had a Dream is a killer.
music: appreciated. (⌐□ ̮ □)
Hookworms
1/5
without merit.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Stan Getz
3/5
Nice. I was going to give this a 4 guessing what I'd think about it if I heard it as a more jazz-sympathetic teen. I cannot give an album with a track called "Samba Dees Days" more than 3.
music: appreciated. (⌐□_□)
Jeff Buckley
4/5
Don't feel the need to listen to Grace much anymore, but just because some of it got oversaturated doesn't mean it wasn't special. Pop/rock with dissonant clean guitar chords instead of distortion, & advanced playing that wasn't a technical showoff was a big deal when I first found it.
The songs are kinda overdramatic in a way that sounds dated, like being in the grunge era did something weird to them.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Gram Parsons
4/5
Once I was at a party/bluegrass jam where someone sang Hickory Wind with the melody just a little different at that "it makes me feel better" chord change. It was one of the best things I've ever heard and I'll never hear it again.
This album also rules.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
Pretty good. Is Run DMC's Walk This Way the best thing Aerosmith was ever part of? Probably.
Might not have as much variety in the beats as Paul's Boutique but the vocal delivery is so much better.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Iggy Pop
4/5
continuing to have a real cool time.
music: appreciated. (⌐■ ̮ ■)
Badly Drawn Boy
2/5
I always like the plunk kinda sound the acoustic guitar bass notes have on the first song.
One of the later ones had a cool horn & guitar sound in it.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Joni Mitchell
3/5
This is one of two Joni Mitchell albums I've known since I was a teenager. I like it ok but it doesn't move me much.
It sounds very Los Angeles.
music: appreciated. (⌐♡_♡)
Emmylou Harris
2/5
A weird thing to be in this list. Suffers from the choice to make everything sound big & full & atmospheric. Emmylou Harris's singing and guitar playing are better than everything else on this but they're kinda smothered.
a duet with Dave Matthews dropped this down to a 2.
music: music. (⌐▢_▢)
Bill Callahan
3/5
Sounds like it wants to be calm & resolute but doesn't have the confidence to sit still. Too many frills in the backing makes it all less memorable.
Last song sounds like Silver Jews but doesn't really get there.
music: appreciated. (⌐o_0)
Garbage
2/5
Basically pop songs with alternative rock styling. But the alt rock styling is actually trying unlike 2000s-2010s era stuff I remember, so not the worst thing to be.
Some nice parts (I like the chorus on Vow), suffers from this edgy-but-not-actually-edgy nihilist Nine Inch Nails thing in most verses. The thing about pop is that you need more than a good chorus to have a decent pop song.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Bonnie Raitt
2/5
Despite a bunch of things I usually dislike (the very 80s sound of the first track) or boring (blues rock), this was ok.
but I'm giving a max of 2 for any album with zero songs I'll listen to again on purpose, so 2 it is
King Crimson
3/5
Never heard this before. I think this might be better than the Court of the Crimson King? 'what collection of sounds can we make a groove out of' is a way better idea to start from than 'how complicated can I make this riff/solo', anyway. Album name very gross.
I wonder how similar all the acoustic guitar arpeggio w/ flute ballads from these British rockers are - could you superimpose them with mild speed alteration and still have a song?
Billie Holiday
3/5
Starting to feel more and more absurd about ratings with this one.
I like every song on this. I don't think I'd ever listen to more than a couple of them in a row by choice. I would put the full album on at a big hall dinner where I want people to actively seek out old friends & say hello, but be contemplative & not rowdy.
Billie Holiday's voice has such a strong centre of gravity that the frilliest of the wind section parts don't detract from the songs. All-timer musical artist for sure and yet I'm only going to give this a 3
music: appreciated. (⌐□ ̮ □)
Michael Jackson
1/5
bad.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Otis Redding
4/5
Had only heard one or two of these songs before. Very good, will be listening again & might think that 4 is too low later.
music: appreciated. (⌐■ ̮ ■)
Sinead O'Connor
3/5
The style isn't for me, but there's a bravery to this absent from most other pop music on the list, a willingness to be clear, specific & uncomfortable.
music: acknowledged. (⌐■_■)
Elliott Smith
4/5
Was a big fan of Elliott Smith as a teenager, then the lyrics/whininess started to bother me, and I think it was this album the most for that. Maybe because it's later, or because it's more produced, I had a harder time tuning it out. Now it doesn't bother me as much, but I never put on a full album anymore and this is a nice chance to revisit. I still think it's my least favourite as a whole album, even with a few tracks I love.
The rock songs on here are really good. I can't think of any other examples of artists wearing the Beatles influence on the sleeve so much while still sounding contemporary, the other stuff that tried tended to sound like retro schtick.
Really dig the drum drop on Everything Means Nothing To Me. I don't like the melody otherwise here but really dig it sped up on that one RJD2 song, go figure.
The quieter/folkier songs aren't among the better Elliott Smith songs, except for Happiness which is beautiful. The other records have this cool shuffle thing going on with the acoustic guitar bass note rhythm especially when there's drums, and that's absent on this one.
I might only give this a 3 if I expected some of the others to be on here. With 500 Bowie and Bowie-related albums to get through I doubt it, so rounding up to 4.
The Byrds
3/5
I think the vocals drag this down. It sounds like it's going for some kind of mild Kingston Trio folk album thing. It's a good way to make Bob Dylan lyrics sound dumb.
The band is pretty good but it's smothered by bland harmonies, and I think the best parts are weakened by having to play fast enough to give the bland folky harmonies some momentum. You can hear some of the cooler little guitar arpeggio stuff show up in post punk and it does make me wonder how much influence carried through.
music: hated. (⌐❀_❀)
Motörhead
3/5
I have always disliked the guitar part on Ace of Spades. Take all the guitar out and I think it's a decent song. I think Lemmy's vocal on it is cool, the way it raises at the end. Like the opposite of James 'Metallica' Hetfield's 'a-uH!' at the end of a phrase, up vs. down and kinda neat vs. very dumb.
overall pretty listenable - I've dug through tracks a bunch of times to see if I like Motorhead, and I don't really, but I wouldn't ask somebody to turn this off. Motorhead understands that hard rock is best as party music.
music: acknowledged. (⌐♠_♠)
Johnny Cash
5/5
I watched the TV special for this and then listened to the album.
I don't know what I think about the album musically. I do know what I think about a big country star understanding that prisoners are still human beings and getting serious about reform in the 1960s. I gave a Bob Dylan & the Band live album a 5 for just fucking around, so this one can't be any less than that.
music: respect. (⌐■_■)
Rush
2/5
don't like. music and lyrics all very silly.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Elvis Costello
3/5
something here. not for me.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Air
2/5
Definitely sounds like 1998.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Band with a great basic rock sound that they insist on ruining with dun duh deeaauuh doodly doo guitar and wooahh wooahhh ohhhh womannnnn vocal solos.
ex. the first part of the guitar solo on Black Dog rules and then it does the thing.
I like the two silly folk songs with mandolin.
I'd probably give this a 4 if it didn't have Stairway to Heaven. I did listen again as part of this exercise just to check I still don't like it.
music: ...appreciated. (⌐-_-)
The Roots
3/5
I was liking this but got tired of it. I think I would like most of these songs a lot if they had more dynamic range. 70 minutes is too long for how much of this sounds the same.
This list seems to be picking these albums, where the artist got ambitious in songwriting/production/scope & yet the end result sounds more generic than what they'd done before.
The Vines
2/5
Not as bad as the worst grunge bandwagon jumpers, not as good as anyone who actually tried.
When this was current I disliked so many "The" bands that seem to answer the question "what if garage rock happened in expensive recording studios with all the instruments in isolation booths?". Come up with half a hook & then throw some chromatic chord shift instead of finishing it so you don't have to commit.
It made music seem so stuck that when Canadian 'indie' hit the scene it seemed like everyone had been given permission to try again. It seemed as though rigid compartmentalizations had been broken through & you could try to synthesize your experiences into something you just thought was good. ha ha.
The Vines try one song with a verse aping the Clash and a chorus aping Nirvana. ha ha.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Queens of the Stone Age
3/5
there's something a little interesting about this band. I think they have some decent melody hooks over the stoner rock groove sound. Not enough to make a reason to listen to it and the way it sounds makes my ears tired.
Will give them a 3 because I think this is at least somewhat unique.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Beatles
4/5
There's a weird Youtube trend of uploading classic albums made entirely of covers. There's one for this that claims to be the unreleased version of the 2009 remaster.
Hearing a little of that put into context how good the Beatles sounded before they wrote any notable songs. The guitars always sound great. Lennon and Harrison have an edge to their voices that sets them apart from other good bands. After only hearing Plastic Ono Band for the first time this year I've been slowly convinced that Lennon was one of rock's very best singers.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
David Ackles
2/5
The Worst of Harry Chapin.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Paul Simon
1/5
music for vampires.
hated. (⌐■_■)
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
probably very good. probably very fun to play this music. I get tired of it quickly.
besides not being big on Bob Marley this music is for me impossible to separate from the unknowingly conservative faux hippies that like it. I bet the political side is interesting if you can do that. I can't concentrate on it long enough to think about its context in its own era.
music: hated. (⌐▨_▨)
Blondie
2/5
Lots to suggest Deb Harry is a great singer. Have heard the mythology about this group's connection to underground music. Mostly I do not hear that on the record - I hear some of the pieces ground up into a paste to pour in the 80s radio rock mold.
hated. (⌐■_■)
Kanye West
2/5
did not like the pop stuff earlier on the album at all. Indie rockers got into Kanye and I kept hearing that he was a production genius and then something that sounded like it could be Justin Timberlake would play. A bunch in the middle is ok. Nothing exciting for me, won't listen to it again.
hated. (⌐▤_▤)
The xx
2/5
music for YouTube ads. release date of 2017 surprising for something that'd be generic indie pop long before then.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Velvet Underground
5/5
love this.
Distills the appeal of country & rock n roll down to some basic elements, finds some essential quality that hadn't been heard by itself before. Has the guts to do just what's needed & leave a ton of sonic space. Full of heart.
I've neglected The Murder Mystery thinking that it's The Gift, and I'm glad to have been reminded about it again.
Makes a lot of other music sound ineffectual and silly.
music: adored. 10 out of 5. (⌐★_★)
Gang Starr
3/5
I think Gang Starr's albums that came after are a stronger showing. Musically I think only Just To Get A Rep is a strong showing of the style they made. Still, there's some interesting stuff here and Guru & Premier always sound good.
I have a feeling that I'm underrating the impact given that it's from 1991.
music: appreciated. (⌐⬤ ̮ ⬤)
Emmylou Harris
3/5
Nice to have a good Emmylou Harris album after the disappointment of Red Dirt Girl. A voice that works best in harmonies, a style that works best with a bigger band. Originality isn't the most important thing.
is the change in country-folk style in the 2000s (3-4 instruments recorded in isolation with overdubbed vocals, as on Red Dirt Girl) a metaphor for the hyper-hyper-individualism & isolation of the modern era? perhaps! perhaps.
music: appreciated. (⌐❀_❀)
Various Artists
1/5
Leonard Cohen
3/5
More interesting than the other late Leonard Cohen albums I've heard. Goes for a fatalistic & sarcastic Coheny mix of religious/interpersonal often, seems to have less range that way than other albums. Some neat turns of phrase, steeped in nihilism in a way that bothers me more than it used to.
There's a song where he sings just a little & it sounds very good. I do wish that older Leonard Cohen had sung a bit more often.
music: ok. (⌐⬤_⬤)
Gotan Project
2/5
Soundtrack music & maybe even intended that way from the beginning. For 2001, this might have been somewhat original? I won't judge the group for the excitement this might have had losing its context.
I will judge the list for including it. Even with the earliest edition of the book in 2005, this was not an album you need to listen to.
music: fell asleep with the TV on. (⌐-_-)
The Zombies
2/5
A full album of 60s Brit rock filler songs, throwing in purposeless chord changes & flute, and then Time of the Season, which might not be Good but is Interesting.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Green Day
2/5
wake me up when this record ends
The Divine Comedy
2/5
chamber pop more like chamber pot
if I were a horse I'd still give this a bad review
Hüsker Dü
4/5
Doesn't have the excitement of something like Zen Arcade. Only very good & not great.
Keeps a consistent style across a long album, still has a good deal of variety. Didn't feel like as long a listen as shorter albums on this list have been.
Always a great guitar sound, whether it's abrasive or disorienting or whatever, holding it together. Probably will not listen through the whole thing in one sitting ever again but will be revisiting tracks.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
The famous guitar jams are good. When you hear a full on Neil Young guitar solo for the first time it's a nice experience. I wonder what that would have been like when this was released. Current era, the title track is the standout for me.
music: appreciated. (⌐■ ̮ ■)
Jamiroquai
1/5
some fuckin narcissistic Brit starts a funk band with a name from jam + Iroquois, prances around in hats trying to sing like a Black man from the 1970s
is stuff like this on here to make cultural appropriation by groups like the Stones seem more reasonable? this is the worst headdress-at-music-festival sort of stuff.
except for the appalling vocals + lyrics, the band is very middle of the road
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Beatles
5/5
Probably my favourite Beatles as an entire album, because it's the only one I put on routinely with the intent to play the whole thing. Lots of fairly straightforward songs that show off just how good they are as a band/recording artists at this point.
At a basic level disregarding the songs I just love how the instruments sound on most of these tracks.
The hard L/R pan with drums in one speaker vocals in the other is very cool. Love it on What Goes On (which I love everything else about also).
music: appreciated. (⌐❂ ̮ ❂)
fIREHOSE
3/5
I swear Some Things sounds just like a Replacements song. It'll come to me eventually.
This is pretty good, covers a lot of ground in half an hour. I gave it two listens to see whether anything would jump out. The vocals pull it to a 70s rock kind of sound, and it shies away from embracing some of its best moments. It's hard not to notice the lack of edge compared to the Minutemen.
I bet this band does have a full album worth of songs that I'd give a 5. This one's a 3.5 & I'm rounding down.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Sarah Vaughan
3/5
the parts when she's improvising lyrics about how she doesn't know the words to the song are very charming
It's all good, dunno if there's any other standouts. May not revist to see but will think about it.
music: appreciated. (⌐□_□)
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
a few catchy grooves. probably would sound better as a recording of a single electric guitar or two actually human beings playing instead of 100 Billy Corgans smushed together
sounds absolutely like a cynical cash in. there's a My Bloody Valentine shimmer thing briefly that seems like a wink & nudge, but a completely uncharming one
it's funny that one of the most overwrought groups sounds amateurish, not in execution but in style choices. it sounds like a bedroom album by somebody that hasn't learned to cut out tacky impulses yet. the shred solos are silly and don't always work.
I like pieces of the music but won't make any excuses for this band
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Robert Wyatt
3/5
Didn't know Robert Wyatt before this year and recently heard a really lovely song. I have a bit more patience for this as a result, would probably lump it in with prog meandering if I hadn't heard that other one.
Interesting but doesn't grab me. It's got to be a personal triumph to complete an album a year after a life-changing accident, but I'm only giving out stars for music (and perhaps activism? unclear.)
I bet there's a different Robert Wyatt album that's more essential listening than this one, though I suppose I could see this as essential if you like post-rock more than I do.
Eminem
1/5
both dull and repellent
I tried to listen to this for real to know if there's anything to this - there isn't. can't believe anyone's tried to tell me than Eminem is special. whole world of hip hop out there, absolutely no reason to put this on.
music: hated. ( -_-)
Janelle Monáe
2/5
seems like it's trying to sound like the future but doesn't have anything but cut ups of the past to fashion that together. sounds like a whole lifetime of secondhand experiences. makes me sad in a bad way.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Britney Spears
1/5
This is a cultural moment to be aware of, not an album to listen to.
If teenagers made this music themselves for other teenagers it'd be unlistenable but fine. For grown adults to decide it's fine to send a teenager through the grinder to sell records and soft drinks is chilling.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
White Denim
3/5
this list has combed through cultural moments of the last 7 decades and then picked all the albums where the band incorporated flute
I heard a catchy indie pop rock song (Heart From Us All) and a garage rock thing (Let's Talk About It) way back in 2008 and thought somewhere in between was the deal with this band. I had no idea that they were this much of a jam band.
It looks like the song I liked is the anomaly. Good moments, only amounts to ok, as jam bands tend to. I think their first album is way more interesting.
music: ... (⌐■_■)
The Stone Roses
3/5
Not what I expected it to be & pretty good. Sound is just a little too 80s pop. There's some I think I would like quite a bit if the second guitar was louder, if the rhythm guitar didn't have chorus or whatever it is, and the drums were less whatever it is they are. Those are big changes so I'm basically saying this isn't quite for me.
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
good, different from much of this list. if you are a guitarist the stuff that sounds like it would be simple to play is a wonderful learning experience. you will embarrass yourself and possibly learn something nice about the instrument
music: appreciated. (⌐□_□)
SZA
2/5
Some of my students went to see SZA last year and one came to class having lost her voice completely from shouting, and that was very funny.
The album cover is cool.
I won't listen to this again but I can see the appeal for Gen Z, and I'm quite happy to see the Kids These Days excited about pop that isn't a complete rehash of the late 90s/early 2000s. On the flipside I think this is going to sound extremely dated in 5-10 years the way the 2000s stuff does.
music: I'm old. (⌐■_■)
Willie Nelson
4/5
some things going for this that keep the 'concept album' thing from being annoying:
1) it's short
2) it piece a narrative between existing popular songs
3) the story doesn't really go that much of anywhere
Makes me wonder how many murder ballads are contained in this list. what a category to have. guy sings a song about somebody murdering their wife like "hey you know how sometimes you just kill your whole family", and instead of being "uuhhhhh... no??" we're all "riveting story. best not to take it literally. four stars."
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
I always forget CCR is from California. They try hard to sound like they're from the southeast. That's kinda sleazy, CCR, and more so when you used to call yourselves the Golliwogs.
I guess there's a reason you only hear CCR's greatest hits because the hits are much much better than the other songs. Not that the other ones are bad, they're fine, just not special.
music: appropriated. (⌐■_■)
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
Beats are kinda rudimentary in that 80s hip hop way, not as strong as the sparse beats that would be popular later. But it's 1984. And the MCing is very good. They're using a particular flow that's dated but not using it rigidly and it sounds more like good MCing from any era than, say, Beastie Boys.
I might like this better than Raising Hell, maybe? but I haven't listened to that again, and I might just be in a better mood on this day.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Pink Floyd
3/5
it's fine. the Dark Side of Oz is kinda cool to watch I guess. I like the verse in Time. When I was a teen I quite liked the wailing vocal in Great Gig in the Sky.
there's lots of better stuff out there.
popular culture: hated. (⌐■_■)
Marvin Gaye
5/5
Great singing, great song flow. The bass playing is wild, just wild, a masterpiece in how much weird chromatic stuff you can do without distracting from the rest of the song.
This is a rarity for me, an album I think is top tier without songs that have a huge draw individually. I suspect this is the strings & stuff smoothing over the dynamic changes I want to hear - which are there, all over - and I'd like individual songs a lot if it was more sparse. I found the Detroit Mix and that's still not quite it, I want even less stuff. I want to hear the bit of drum rattle & room reverberation at every little stop, ex. Marion Black's "Who Knows". I will admit this is perhaps absurd.
music: appreciated. (⌐o_o)
The Cramps
2/5
Rhythm guitar sound is cool when it's doing simple chord stabs.
Hard not to think of worse bands that used the template when listening to this, both direct style and uninspiring 'punk as theatrical performance' stuff. Before psychobilly was an obnoxious genre it might have been fun to see the early days of the Cramps. B-movie schtick isn't for me, just didn't enjoy this and didn't make it through.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
ABBA
2/5
at long last a chance to seriously listen to ABBA and see whether I find anything to enjoy in this beloved pop band
I do not
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Foo Fighters
2/5
it's impressive that this was a studio project by one person and sounds like an actual (boring) grunge band
I've heard enough Foo Fighters for a lifetime just by being anywhere near a radio in the 00s, so I skimmed through. I think this is a little better than the radio hits
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Ice Cube
3/5
I like classic hip hop and this sounds good. Did not pay much attention to the lyrics. What I did catch wasn't great, Ice Cube really leaning into the misogyny. It was Interesting to have a track with Yo-Yo taking it slightly to task but I self-aware misogyny isn't much to write home about.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Soul II Soul
2/5
not the worst, surprisingly similar to dance that was popular 15ish years later, really drags in the middle
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
Have known Sly & the Family Stone were gigantic influences but not heard much of them, glad to have changed that.
Could do without the long jam on side two. Love the guitar playing on the tracks that are more soul than funk.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Joy Division
5/5
I don't know why they chose to record an all time great bass line on Disorder with an amp that flubs out on the low notes. There's some live versions that have a better bass sound. There's bass tracks on this very album with a sound that'd work great. Still, great great song. Absolutely love the guitar sound.
Not many bands can have a completely different on-record & live sound and have both be very cool. The cold & distant studio production sounds great, so does the frantic mess of live Joy Division.
I think every time I hear I Remember Nothing I'll think of the 'Ian Curtis rides a rollercoaster' video. wheeeeeeeeeee.
It's hard to overstate how important this one is for its "You have permission to take yourself seriously." vibe, historically important but also just embedded in the sound. Of course some groups tried to use sonic aspects directly, but it's more a vision statement: look around, find which of your own experiences speak to you, warts & all, and the result might be amazing. Maybe it'll be offputting - just go with it. Love it.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
3/5
what is orchustic supposed to mean. how do you think orchestras make sound buddy
& you ain't Paul McCartney. frig off
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Who
4/5
Besides reviewing Tommy for this list (bad), I've never seriously listened to the Who, don't care for their hits much.
It's funny that if you try to imagine exactly halfway between the Beatles and the 1960s Rolling Stones, you wouldn't be far off My Generation.
I dunno if there are great songs here but there are some great sounds
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Duran Duran
2/5
not as bad as I thought it'd be
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Jacques Brel
2/5
if one of my half-hearted attempts to learn French ever took I might understand why this is on the list
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Miles Davis
4/5
music: cool. (⌐■_■)
Nirvana
4/5
The last time I listened to this was on cassette in an Econoline van. I thought it'd be good driving music but I was underwhelmed.
It's not underwhelming on headphones. It's very good, and very interesting as a historical document. It makes the country & blues influence on Nirvana's songwriting more obvious. It was not obvious to me until listening to a lot of Nirvana that Kurt Cobain was an incredible singer, or that the songwriting uses a lot of neat harmonic substitutions/tonal ambiguity.
Buncha cool things going on with the song choices, the decision to pick keys that are hard to sing on purpose, doing it all in one take.
This is only a 4 & not a 5 because Nirvana is a band where I think 'this is good' and then I notice more & more of the things that make it good. It doesn't have the immediate impact of the stuff I'd give 5 stars but it does get stuck in my head as often.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Alice In Chains
2/5
it's funny to get this right after Nirvana. it's so silly in comparison that I'm not going to spend time reviewing music I don't enjoy
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Minor Threat
4/5
When I was a teen Minor Threat were a band I'd read about on the internet and had some mystique to them. I listened to some terrible quality mp3s with terrible headphones on the school computers. I was more into melody and harmony then and through a couple layers of quality reduction they didn't sound far off from the contemporary straightahead punk bands I thought were boring.
I gave them another go years later, but they're still not really a 'songs' band so not much to latch onto.
Now I like to hear groups that take advantage of distinct rhythms, and Minor Threat's vision seems coherent more than it does limited. This was cool. The guitars are great, like an American response to Wire. Lyrically and 'songs'-y, it's a bit slight, but style is worth a lot.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Dusty Springfield
4/5
pretty good, will probably listen again. between a 3 & 4, rounding up
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Black Sabbath
4/5
Never heard this album in full before.
often silly lyrics. one of very few bands that can have a silly song about wizards that's not a low point
Black Sabbath knew how to make an awesome groove right out of the gate. The guitar and bass playing similar lines weaving in and out of time with each other is so cool. My biggest gripe is that this would be even better if it dropped some of the guitar solos.
very impressive for something recorded in one day
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Frank Sinatra
3/5
yeah it's ok. it's fine. I was grumpy and didn't even finish listening.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Sufjan Stevens
2/5
it can be hard to know where to draw the line on dark subjects in art. I feel comfortable saying that using John Wayne Gacy's sexual assaults & murders for a sad boy folk song is completely tasteless. there's ways to show empathy for the grotesque and this ain't it.
this album condenses down a lot of things I hated about being part of my generation at college age.
in Ulysses there's a bit where the young Joyce stand-in viciously rips on his younger self for having an idea as dumb and pretentious as writing books with letters for titles. it's a perfect little summary of the youthful arrogance of imaging the praise you'll get for completed works for which you have no content, & one of the great things about art is that you can experience this vicariously without having to be such a twit.
hearing that this stuff was 'genius' was right about when I stopped believing my generation was going to be any emotionally stunted than the boomers/Gen Xers we were supposedly learning from the mistakes of. it's the sound of ironic moustaches becoming an unironic(?) norm. it's feminism getting cool but relationship norms staying the same, men with ironic(?) moustaches expecting their girlfriends to take care of them, imagining praise for work that got halfway through coming up with titles.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Steve Earle
3/5
It's not Steve Earle's fault that you can hear Nickelback and modern country coming. But you can.
Never liked his songs as much as I feel like I'm supposed to. There's a tacky Bruce Springsteen thing going on trying to emphasize vocals with phrases that don't have much hook.
Having never looked at release dates before it's striking to me that Steve Earle's appearance in Heartworn Highways is so long before his first album. I like the Heartworn Highways stuff more than any releases I know.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Sometimes playing guitar makes you appreciate music more and sometimes it makes you appreciate music less - Bron-Y-Aur Stomp is probably good, but it sounds like what you play fucking around in a new blues alternate tuning for the first time.
If I didn't know about all the blues musicians Brits of the 60s & 70s ripped off I'd probably find this stuff amazing. Don't think I like any of the rockers on here as much as the other albums.
That's The Way is on my Shuffle Zeppelin road trip playlist, and I maintain that Shuffle Zeppelin driving down some coastal highway is the best Led Zeppelin 'album'.
Led Zeppelin III is very III.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
3/5
Some of the songs I'll never listen to again, but they're all interesting. The only one I disliked was Scorpio. Started out really strong on the first track, lots of dynamics that early influential hip hop doesn't always have.
The title track used to sound really really dated to me, both in the backing and in the lyrical flow, and now it doesn't so much. I don't know what that means.
This one's a big deal for 1982 and I have some qualms about not rounding up to 4.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Frank Ocean
2/5
Good bit of variety, still coherent. If the region in your brain that enjoys pop music works I bet this is nice.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Pretenders
3/5
A little on the wrong side of the 80s radio rock/postpunk line for me. Grooves along too much where there should be a little more dynamic range, has too much flanger where there should be none. Something neat in most of the songs. Probably won't listen to the album again, probably will listen through a track if it comes up.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Simon & Garfunkel
2/5
I do not like this.
Tori Amos
3/5
aspires to be B-grade Kate Bush
which on this list is hitting above average
3 stars.
Julian Cope
3/5
There's some things I like or find interesting in this, lots that I don't. I'm rounding up to a 3 because I haven't heard of Julian Cope before, and most of the Brits I haven't heard of on this list so far have been really dull.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Band
5/5
yeah it's ok
The Rolling Stones
2/5
When the Beatles are being kinda awful you don't think about it as much because the songs are good and there's some charm. I'm Looking Through You is very mean, and also very good.
Take away the charm and song quality, triple down on misogyny, and you've got Aftermath by the Rolling Stones.
Sure, lots of it has nice sounding 60s rock backing. Musically, Under My Thumb is better than I want to give it credit for. I have never liked Paint It Black, which isn't on the version of the album I just listened to anyway.
I suppose this is an album to listen to in order to understand who the Rolling Stones were (real assholes), and how low the bar was set to call their stuff a masterpiece compared to more interesting contemporaries.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
there's really 6 Elvis Costello albums on here, hey?
same thoughts as the other one, somehow the more that goes into this the more generic it sounds. not surprising that I don't like Elvis Costello trying to make his most commercially successful record
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Radiohead
3/5
There's something inescapably adolescent about Radiohead and this album is the most undisguised about it.
There's a few songs that are about as good as you can do for their thing, turning college rock into highly polished hits. Just about everything on High and Dry sounds great, the atmospheric guitar accents in the verse, the rumbly power chords underneath that come in. The ascending melody hook in the chorus is instantly memorable in the way of timeless classics. But there's something a little hollow about it, and it isn't gonna be a timeless classic - too structured? Whatever it is, it's not a "oh yeah, that one!", it's a "ok sure, but enough of it already" or a "yeah it's cringey but I love it".
Conflicted about how to rate this. I think it's very good at being what it was, mass market music for moody teenagers. If you look at it only in the context of the mainstream where 90s rock was dominated by grunge and Britpop, it's refreshing. When you get more into the rest of what was going on in the 80s/90s it's kinda unremarkable. When you learn how to deal with your emotions in a way that's not moping you don't need this music so much anymore.
I think there should be good music for moody teenagers going through an especially moody phase, but I feel weird about it being made by adults. If you still feel the mood of these songs throughout your 20s, you are stuck in a way that's concerning.
but then also adults have to be the ones make this because teenagers don't know fuck all about making anything yet.
a predicament.
5 stars minus one star for every 10 years you are past 16.
The White Stripes
3/5
wasn't into their kind of retro rock thing when they were current. it was obviously more blues influenced and I liked that it was stripped down, but it didn't stand out enough from all the The <...> bands
We're Going to Be Friends is very nice. It could've ended up too twee and cutesy but it didn't. Evocative, impressive to make a G C D song that's instantly recognizable. I have seen the music video exactly once, the first time I heard the song, and I still remember that, is how good a simple tune this is.
I don't like that much else on here. I think the blues garage sound is kinda dull with the distortion cranked all the time. kinda obnoxious. The guitar on De Stijl sounds way better.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Television
5/5
Here's a dumb thing I did: thinking that this album held the secrets of how to play electric guitar (the smart part of this idea), I put the entire thing with bonus tracks on my mp3 player to absorb it as much as possible.
I only listen to music on shuffle walking around, which is Correct - but this shitty old mp3 player had a shuffle that didn't really shuffle, and it'd only have 2-3 different sequences. Most of the tracks on Marquee Moon ended up in an ill-suited sequence.
Unlike the unskippable title track, they're not for every mood - they're kinda trebly and in your face, right? So instead of listening to these songs when I wanted they came up randomly when I'd be grumpy with a headache. My association with the songs is 'ehh not right now, skip' instead of how good they are.
If I were a wise person I'd have taken them off the non-shuffle shuffle. Instead I used that same thing for 10 years. Now I listen on a thing that actually shuffles and try not to skip.
The song Marquee Moon alone makes the album deserve a spot on a lifetime listening list. That moment where the guitar solo shatters into birds chirping is unbeatable, and then Television understood that it would be awesome to repeat the first verse. If you asked me how long it is without looking it up I'd have guessed 4 minutes. Never the slightest bit dull.
music: adored. (⌐★_★)
Nirvana
4/5
I've never listened to most of the songs on this album before.
I first heard Heart-Shaped Box outside at a party in junior high, thinking that I found Nirvana kinda ehhh, and I still remember hearing the chorus come in.
It's funny that there's so much mystique about alternate mixes of this album.
It sounds like a band making an admirable effort to do their thing under tremendous pressure.
music: respected. (⌐■_■)
Gil Scott-Heron
4/5
There was a little bit where I was like 'hmm maybe Gil Scott-Heron has a consistent vibe and you only need to hear the best few', and then I changed my mind shortly after. I think I didn't fully grasp this but I'll be coming back to it.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Rufus Wainwright
2/5
don't think this one stood the test of time
Taylor Swift
1/5
hello everyone
you can ask for more out of life
please do
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
have never listened to a Bruce Springsteen album.
only Springsteen song I've listened to on purpose, as a much younger fella, is Devils & Dust for the cool shortened-phrase move in the chorus.
Born to Run seems really mediocre???
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Herbie Hancock
3/5
Cool, groovy, wild.
Drive-By Truckers
2/5
of course everything is phony, but some things are too phony
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
X-Ray Spex
4/5
This rocks.
but other punk bands, please don't go listening to this & thinking you should add saxophone or other horns. You're not X-Ray Spex, ok? You have to be able to drive & groove at the same time. don't do it, ok? ok. glad we got that sorted out in 1978 before anything bad could happen.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Metallica
1/5
you know how the theme to Mission Impossible II has the power chord guitars, and it sounds like the year 2000 in the dumbest way possible
this is like that
another thing 2 hours longer than it ought to be
Dion
2/5
This is ok I think. I am rounding down to 2 because:
- lyrics usually don't matter that much, but when you sing like this they do, and these lyrics about make a woman love me suck.
- murderer Phil Spector sucks and his influence on music sucked
New Order
4/5
I think early New Order has one of the coolest guitar sounds ever. It gets increasingly buried under louder synths and drums, so this album is as far as I got in their discography. I don't like it as much as the first two.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Radiohead
4/5
The reception of this as a weirdo album is so funny to me. Sure it's got lots more electronic stuff, but it doesn't sound thaaat much different from OK Computer. It's full of songs, not experimental tracks. I bet it was very hard for the band to figure out how to make music differently but they still sound like the same group.
I think the title track is a beautiful tune. It's so catchy that even John Mayer sounds alright doing it.
Have always loved the Idioteque chords, and that Paul Lansky sample (from an 18 minute track that doesn't repeat anything) is inspired.
On this one I have more use for the role of a megasuccess like Radiohead, distilling cultural moments to something with broader appeal. When they do it with college rock it's not that far off, you may as well explore their inspirations instead. When I first heard Kid A (2004?), my brother was big into electronic dance music, I was really really not, and it was something of a gateway to appreciating the parts I could appreciate. There were other people filtering those influences but none so easy an entry point.
This kind of melancholy mood music is useful into your early twenties, or at least the best of it is. Asymptotically trending down to 3.5 over time.
Dinosaur Jr.
5/5
Only heard a handful of the tracks off this one before.
It has the energy of going to see a local band you've heard about or know somebody in, and you're maybe a little apprehensive, but then the show rules, just absolutely rules. Later Dinosaur Jr. is catchier, this has more wild spirit.
Rating is relative to this list and for being from 1987. Would probably not be a 5 on the list of underground albums to hear before you die, but it is here.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Wilco
3/5
Sunken Treasure of course very good.
I like Wilco trying to rip off Big Star's Kangaroo quite a bit. Strum some melancholy chords, let a rumble of electric guitar threaten to take over, great formula. I don't like Wilco jamming on rockin' tunes, or on country/blues, for the most part. It's probably a Good Time if you're a dad looking for good time music.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Sonic Youth
4/5
I don't think this is as good as either of the two previous Sonic Youth albums. Sister and Daydream Nation have more memorable songs.
Sonic Youth has an offputting element of cool kids gatekeeping that seems to come across more on Goo. If they weren't masters of making this kind of guitar music it'd be a dealbreaker.
but they are, so.
music: stole its sister's boyfriend, killed its parents and hit the road within a week. (⌐■_■)
AC/DC
2/5
The riff on Back In Black sounds massive. It's the only thing worth listening to on this album.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
John Martyn
3/5
expected not to like this, it was fine.
however I do not have any use for a song called Big Muff that isn't referencing/about the fuzz pedal. I probably don't have use for one that is, either, but I definitely don't have use for one that isn't.
ZZ Top
2/5
take the groove out of ZZ Top and put a steady 80s beat underneath, with predictably mediocre results. energy without heart.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Muddy Waters
4/5
In university I took a popular music class that was early in the morning, and one day before class some version of Hoochie Coochie Man was playing. It sounded sparse and gigantic. I've never heard a version that sounded like that did, but maybe it was just from being played loud in a big auditorium.
or maybe it was actually a version of Mannish Boy?? does my search begin anew??
no. it was Hoochie Coochie Man. ok.
I have trouble figuring out where to place this for 1977. Is it an essential blues album? Is it even an essential Muddy Waters album? Was it a big deal in 1977 to get a nicely recorded traditional Muddy Waters album? I am not sure, but I will go up to 4 because there's too many mediocre British blues imitators on this list.
Johnny Winter on 'miscellaneous screams' is a great credit.
baffling choice for an album title.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
rules. love the first track. great name in response to What's Going On. great weirdo yodelling. will be listening again.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Donovan
2/5
started ok.
then trying to share an insider's view on the 60s pop scene by... singing about medieval times. buddy. get it together.
parts of this without harpsichord sound are quite good, all driven by the bass. nearly all of it also has something obnoxious. the lyrics and vocal phrasing on Season of the Witch are bad, and bad enough to detract from a song about nothing.
just when you think Donovan might have got the renaissance fair out of his system & moved on, "Guinevere of the royal court of Arthurrrr". buddy. fuck off.
there could have been a 60s pop album by Donovan that was alright. it's not this one.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Nine Inch Nails
2/5
both the music and the edginess are boring. a Hollywoodized version of what was happening in industrial music, depoliticizing & taking out any depth from the connection to transgressive art, complete with changing the creation narrative from collaborative projects to lone genius in a mansion.
perfect soundtrack for a movie where somebody goes to a vampire nightclub. the vampires are torturing and eating humans right in plain sight!! doesn't the evil decadence have so much to say about the decay of the modern world?
no. it's a fuckin vampire movie. do some kinda meta analysis of edgelord culture if you want but this itself has got nothing to say.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Peter Tosh
3/5
lots going on in the band here, very together. probably alright, if this music is for you.
it is not for me. I fall asleep with the TV on. I eat spaghetti for breakfast.
plus I have too much experience with chill vibes reggae being a major warning sign. not all the white hippies who love reggae are narcissists. but.
music: hated. (⌐🌿_🌿)
The Jam
4/5
Had only heard That's Entertainment before. This is cool. A bit too poppy for me when it doesn't have something striking in the guitar or bass. Only one song is missing that edge, and perhaps a song for dreaming about Monday shouldn't have anything exciting.
music: appreciated. (⌐⬤_⬤)
Leonard Cohen
4/5
When I was 18 I'd have given this 5 stars easy. It's nice but melancholy doesn't seem to have as much range or depth now that I'm getting old.
I've always liked the Stranger Song. In retrospect it seems like one of few times Lenny tries to do a human woman's perspective, not some mythologized muse thing - best he can do is a song about either being used as a mythologized muse or a reprieve from chasing muses though. "he'll say one day you caused his will to weaken with your love, and warmth, and shelter", because of course he will, this dude who thought "I told you when I came I was a stranger" passes for emotional awareness. very evocative of relationship dynamics everybody knows in some fashion
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Keith Jarrett
3/5
this is ok, & that's all I've got for it.
Arctic Monkeys
2/5
I don't have any use for the ten thousand bands that sounded like this
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
4/5
This is disappointing compared to the other PJ Harvey I've heard. Too much about New York. I bet in 2000 it seemed like a good idea to have Thom Yorke on your record, now it seems comically bizarre to have the guy from Radiohead sing when you could have PJ Harvey.
All the same I don't want to downgrade it for being disappointing, and PJ Harvey singing over rumbly guitars is better than most of the stuff on this list.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Soundgarden
2/5
Soundgarden is not a good band
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Birthday Party
4/5
There's something fucked up about Australia & this band built that into a guitar sound template.
I think knowing about Nick Cave's career of many silly & bland murder ballads holds me back from appreciating his contributions more here. When I want to hear this vibe I go for the Drones or Rowland S Howard solo instead.
They do the rumble & screech thing real good and I am grateful for this sound template.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Slits
5/5
This has to be the best music ever made by a white person who grew dreads. (are there even any other contenders...?)
Clear vision, inventive, invigorating. What more can you ask for?
They sound a fair bit like the Raincoats tilted more aggressive, upbeat & silly, and I think I will mostly continue to go listen to the Raincoats instead.
but like the Raincoats this is as cool as it gets. There's plenty of art of all kinds that takes itself too seriously, plenty that's irreverent & not much else. Every once in a while there's something that takes both itself and its audience the exact right amount of seriously to be fun, a little challenging, moving.
music: rules. (⌐■_■)
Os Mutantes
4/5
This is cool and I'd never heard anything about it before. The Brazilian missing link between Sgt. Pepper and the Velvet Underground & Nico, and I wish I enjoyed it at an immediate level a bit more. If I were more fun I think it'd be a favourite.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Gang Of Four
5/5
rules, absolutely rules. there are legends of guitar playing who have never done anything half as cool as the line on Ether.
what else is there to say?
music: I smile, I think music is my friend. (⌐■_■)
Simple Minds
2/5
if you took a Worst of New Order compilation and then removed the spark that implies the band must have some cool stuff around, it'd sound like this
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Pink Floyd
2/5
Have to admit that I'm jealous of people who enjoy this. There's a bunch of musical phrases here and there I halfway like. Some bits that are a little like Richard Thompson but without any punch. I find this album so dull and the countless things that try to sound like it so so dull. My brother once said about a terrible novel recommended to him that it gave him the unsettling feeling that he didn't enjoy fiction anymore, but it turned out to be the book. That's what I feel like here. I bet I would be happier if this sound did anything for me at all.
we are who we are I s'pose.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Pixies
4/5
very cool sound, love all the dynamic range & separation, lots of fun. like River Euphrates, seems to show off all the best aspects of the Pixies with the least amount of 'song'.
something holds me back from fully enjoying the Pixies, and I think it's Frank Black's reputation as an asshole. does Frank Black have a reputation as an asshole, do I even remember that right? whatever it is, there's some kinds of music that don't hit right if you think the author is a jerk, and this is one.
until today I've never been sure where Surfer Rosa ends and Come On Pilgrim begins. both are very good.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
they've got their sound together more than on Siamese Dream, in that most of the guitar solos figure out how to make the shred thing more of a noise collage (like all the other grunge bandwagon jumpers had already figured out how to do).
there's still at least one extra tacky solo, on the track called "Fuck You (An Ode to No One)" which is a perfect title for what that song is (terrible).
they show off a little more range with varied instruments (sounds like a big recording budget more than musicality) and styles. you can hear more that doesn't sound like a thousand layers of the same guitar smashed into paste, but it's heavy on compression & noise gate that makes it fatiguing to listen to. "Bodies" and "Tales of a Scorched Earth" are very nu-metal titles for very nu-metal songs that sound like they wanted to be a little more groovy & cool like sludgey grunge metal.
I feel a little bad accusing these Pumpkins of copying the grunge wave so often, because I don't think that's what they were going for on the whole. it's just the rest of their vision isn't interesting enough to comment on. "The Wall for Generation X" sounds exactly right for how much this sucks.
I like 1979 a lot.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Talk Talk
3/5
Before this the only thing I knew about Talk Talk is that Laughing Stock is supposed to be great, one of few albums that went into ridiculous production hell and came out good.
Colour of Spring didn't do that much for me so I took this as a reminder to go hear Laughing Stock, and then Spirit of Eden. I think either of the other two are things you hear you should hear before you die, and Colour of Spring is not, but it's the only one on the list.
Colour of Spring: 2.5/5
some cool stuff but the sounds are too sterile, the consistent electronic beat doesn't help this music and smothers the best moments.
Laughing Stock: 3/5
I don't see yet what makes this so amazing but it was interesting and I'm open to the idea that it'll grow on me.
Spirit of Eden: 4/5
this one was real cool. excellent guitar sounds. Desire very Velvet Underground-y, does a cool transition from that right into something very different that I can't recall anyone else pulling off.
I swear that somewhere in this I heard the same song twice, something with the same vocal phrase followed by a harmonica interlude, but I will probably not be jumping back to Colour of Spring to check.
talk: talked. (⌐■_■)
Little Richard
4/5
Great singing. Could use more variety in the songs but there's just enough start-stop for me.
Here's Little Richard. (⌐■_■)
Weather Report
1/5
congratulations on the Weather Report for being incredibly committed to the bit, music suitable for a weather report intro scene when you want the vibe in your movie to be extremely 1980s.
sounds exactly like the album cover, quite a feat there too.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Pere Ubu
4/5
They're having a lot of fun and creating a joyous racket. Will listen again and may regret not giving 5 stars.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
3/5
alot worse than the sum of its parts, a sad thing to be
I dig the frantic scratchy kind of guitar solos Young/Stills did in this group. There's some other cool sounds. mostly they get buried.
Even when I was younger and hadn't soured so much on hippie bullshit, this album is a part of the Neil Young discography I only listened to once through and didn't feel like revisiting. Helpless of course is an all timer, the rest of the songs are weak. "it's never too late to give up on your dreams" in song form, without any of the humour.
Neil Young sings a lot about the lost potential of the hippie years in his later albums and though he did get involved in bunch of either cool or understandably misguided stuff I can't help but cringe. Neil, you & your buds weren't gonna change the world, you got comfortable and quit before you started.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Sex Pistols
3/5
In my teens I didn't understand the appeal of this band at all, they sounded so unremarkable
then I really liked Public Image Ltd. somewhere in my 20s, and heard so many bands that said they started up after a Sex Pistols show, and also came to appreciate rhythm guitar a lot. I think a bunch of these songs are filler, but the guitar is always good, and on the best it's amazing & works perfectly with the snotty irreverent vocals.
The mythology around the Sex Pistols' influence is kind of a cool story, some undeniable influences and some just storytelling. As people and public figures they're a mix of interesting, baffling, completely dumb, surprisingly thoughtful & progressive or surprisingly stuck & conservative at random.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Incubus
1/5
ah yes, this era, with the computer graphics of what could be some kind of insect dragon
and the innovative nu-alt-rock stylings that bring together a wide range of influences, from the obnoxious sounds of bad vocal pop to the obnoxious sounds of edgy macho nu-metal dudes.
it of course features a song called Battlestar Scralatchtica.
it fuckin sucks.
Drive was on the radio all the time, and it was probably one of the better things on the radio. it's not good either. it's a funny song for Incubus to have done, and anybody who bought an album off the radio hit must have been surprised.
this period for mainstream radio rock music was terrible. it made me feel like I would never enjoy an entire rock song. vocally there's a lot in common with the pop emo that would come a little later, and that was another era that sucked.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Pentangle
2/5
I was surprised by this. I like Bert Jansch a lot, I know I've heard Pentangle that I quite like, and hadn't heard much of Pentangle that I don't like. There's a lot of Pentangle I don't like here.
Nearly every time Jacqui McShee sings on this record it brings in a renaissance faire thing that I can't stand. Usually there's another instrument contributing to that too, but not enough to ruin it on its own. Hunting Song sounds passable when Jansch is singing, terrible when McShee is on. When it gets to the blues of Sally Go Round the Roses she sounds fine, like a normal person singing. Then on the two more traditional tunes that could go either way it just has to go ren fair.
The jazz-inflected folk thing has been done to death since, music for half-interested folk festival crowds and for musicians to feel like they can put their degree to use. I can see not having time for any of it. I think when Pentangle is good they're way better than what they influenced.
I bet Pentangle has an album worth of stuff I'd like. As a result of this one I'm far less likely to try finding it.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Ramones
4/5
never been huge on the Ramones, and similar to the Sex Pistols from a few days ago the mythology seems more impactful than the band. unlike the Sex Pistols I never disliked the Ramones, they're just not my favourite (I'm not fun enough) and if I want the short tight song vibe I'll put on Wire instead.
also like the Sex Pistols, what makes them good is rhythmic. It's easy to play a power chord song but it's hard to make it sound awesome. Here that rhythmic aspect is more from the vocal & everything else than the guitar, which just steadily grinds away.
(⌐■_■)
Jungle Brothers
3/5
Cool stuff, had never heard of this one before. Wouldn't call the MCing amazing and there isn't a ton of variety in the flow, but then every time I thought the album was starting to stagnate the production would do something neat.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
AC/DC
2/5
I think the rhythm guitar sounds better on this one than in Back in Black, & the Bon Scott era is better overall. but Highway to Hell doesn't have the Back in Black chord riff.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Red Hot Chili Peppers
1/5
a band that I know is terrible, and is somehow always worse than I imagine them to be.
in the few fractions of a moment where they're not trying to play stunted adolescent funk there's a tiny bit of the cooler melodic parts of John Frusciante's lead guitar. most of what he can do well ended up instead of Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt, which I don't know anymore if is Good but is Cool For Guitarists.
the world is a worse place for having this album in it.
music: despised. (⌐■_■)
Radiohead
3/5
It's another Radiohead album, and I'm more or less out of things to say.
I have always liked There There quite a bit, I very much like the chord it's anchored around, nice melody. The band goes for some different smooth sounding thing on tracks like Sail to the Moon, and as a teen I thought this was very cool but now it doesn't do much for me.
Devendra Banhart
1/5
A bunch of songs that would be forgettable but fine interludes on an album where the artist had done something worth listening to otherwise. If you got Michael Gira to sing on these they could be throwaways on an Angels of Light record.
the vocals are awful and give the impression that Devendra Banhart is an unpleasant person to be around. the emotionally manipulative creep vibes are so strong that I am giving this the rating that this whole archetype of guy deserves.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
CHIC
3/5
It's not for me but I respect it
Janis Joplin
3/5
it features a blues rock singer wailing wommannnn and yet it's still fine. good job Janis.
The Pogues
3/5
Shane MacGowan was a great singer for this band and it's too bad that everyone has had to listen to a thousand distorted power chord Celtic punk bands with singers from North America trying to sound like Shane MacGowan
and it's too bad that everyone has had to listen to a thousand uninspired zero-dynamics revivalist/traditionalist groups, maybe with rock drums added to make the rhythm extra dull
I like the Pogues ok for a few songs and I wish I liked them more.
music: regarded. (⌐☘_☘)
Ozomatli
2/5
at least it's not another bland rock pantheon thing
we're in the Rage Against the Machine category where the group's political convictions are worth taking more seriously than their music
music: respectfully hated. (⌐■_■)
Bert Jansch
5/5
stuck deciding between 4 and 5 on this one for a while. After seeing what's up next I've decided not to be so precious about 5s.
Fantastic rhythmic sense, both in phrasing choices when keeping the meter straight, and knowing when to cut a bar short. Not done as much on this album, but Jansch's thing of bending a note in a chord to match the tension that belongs in a melody (ex. the Old Triangle) is so cool. He can stumble & slur & scramble like living poetry is supposed to. One of very few people I want to hear do arrangements of traditional songs. Except not in Pentangle, I guess.
Needle Of Death is great, & generated another great song in Ambulance Blues. The double tracked vocal (maybe?) at the chorus is incredible.
music: appreciated. (⌐☸_☸)
Beastie Boys
2/5
I forgot to REVIEW THIS
and what do you KNOW
here these BOYS
have slightly altered their FLOW
but it's not ENOUGH
to make me CARE
wanted 3 stars? you're still NOT THERE
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Leftfield
1/5
Lenny Kravitz
1/5
The Avalanches
3/5
Never heard anything by the Avalanches except the silly hit Frontier Psychiatrist. It was some kind of novelty passed around as an mp3 in junior high, and I'd assumed for a long time that the Avalanches were either a one off or a novelty group.
The best moments of this album are really good. It's got sections that are too much repetitive dance music for me & that holds it back.
(⌐♼_♼)
Elvis Presley
3/5
I've never listened to an Elvis album before. I don't really think much of him either way as a vocalist.
If you told me the phrase 'pales in comparison' came about describing the role of Elvis in popular music, I'd believe you.
Still, I'm a sucker for the kind of guitar Scotty Moore plays on this. My favourite George Harrison guitar parts are him copying this stuff.
music: failed to hate. (⌐♚_♚)
The Mamas & The Papas
1/5
best thing about this is the part on Do You Want To Dance sampled on Jens Lekman's Maple Leaves.
the stuff that isn't terrible is recorded in a way that sound cool, in that way that bass guitar etc. sounds reliably cool on 60s records.
this was supposed to be counterculture. how bout that.
downgrading from a 2 for reprehensible behaviour.
music: hated. (⌐☮_☮)
Lauryn Hill
3/5
We've had some unremarkable albums citing this one as a major influence, & it's cool to hear the real deal now. It's good!
There's a couple things holding this back from being something I'll really listen to again:
missing the pop music centres in the brain means the smoother R&B gets the less it registers
& the 'reggae-loving white hippies will love this' sensation is just too strong. it's like they're in the room with me wearing bandanas, plugging their piezo-pickup-through-DI guitars right into my headphones and groovin' along. digging that it's 'so real' and speaks to their experiences growing up as wealthy suburbanites who sold a bit of weed. Sorry Lauryn, it's not your fault.
culture: regretted. (⌐♻_♻)
Germs
3/5
solid, should probably like this more than I do. leans a little more toward hard rock/heavy metal songwriting than I enjoy in hardcore punk.
there's moments where it sounds like the Minutemen, moments where it sounds like the Stooges, doesn't seem to have whatever vital quality makes those others great.
music: acknowledged. (⌐☣_☣)
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
2/5
Not unpleasant but so little to it you can hardly tell it's on.
music: barely registered. (⌐-_-)
David Bowie
3/5
Once I was working at a bike shop with a couple other people with some recent non-Bowie thing, kinda groovy slightly pop leaning indie rock with subtle electronics, and one asked "is this the latest David Bowie album?". It was in earnest but it occurred to me that this is a very funny damning-with-faint-praise kind of thing to say.
My friend who had whatever band on replied "I hear what you're saying, and I don't like it."
After listening I find it even funnier.
music: acknowledged. (⌐★_★)
Public Enemy
3/5
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Country Joe & The Fish
2/5
wow can you believe that a guy whispered L S D on one of these songs
music: hated. (⌐☯_☮)
B.B. King
3/5
Electric blues tends to be a lot better with horns
and when you've got B.B. King on it instead of a sad imitator
could do without ever hearing Sweet Little Angel again though.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Notorious B.I.G.
3/5
Biggie was a great rapper and I don't think this album took enough advantage of what he could do. I think the slower groovier tracks make use of contrast. Diana King on Respect livens that one up a lot. The first single Party and Bullshit is miles beyond anything on this album.
The skits are really obnoxious, though the last one track sort of gets the skit backing to work with the song.
production: hated. (⌐⬛_⬛)
Tricky
2/5
Nas
5/5
It's Illmatic, nothing to say about it that hasn't been said a thousand times. Together with Gang Starr this was my introduction to hip hop. The beat producers & Nas did a fantastic job playing to their strengths, basically every song has some little hell yeah that's cool rhythmic moment. Lyrically it doesn't need you to think any particular way except that human experiences have value. Life's richer for it.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Portishead
3/5
It's been about two weeks since I listened to this and I can't remember anything about it except thinking that it didn't have much variety and was dead on 2.5/5.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Joanna Newsom
2/5
like a satire of the Millennial folk movement: instead of the gentle guitar arpeggios, bring out a giant harp. ramble along in an affected voice begging to have the lyrics described as 'literate'.
I'd say it sounds exactly like the album cover, but it isn't Pentangle.
not as bad as it could be.
the chord progression and melody in a section of Emily are the same as some other song that'll be half-stuck in my head trying to remember.
albums: hated. (⌐■_■)
Ella Fitzgerald
3/5
one of the many funny artifacts of trying to fit popular music history into an album-loyalist box.
This isn't an album to listen to. It's an archive. Listen to a few at a time on shuffle. Have your high school big band check out the Ella Fitzgerald version when you're working on an arrangement.
each song individually: probably 3 stars.
album all in a row: negative 3 stars.
albums: hated. (⌐■_■)
Aimee Mann
2/5
very Songwriter-y, very Professional Musician-y
I don't much enjoy being able to hear the pencil scribble on the page or the questioning 'did I pass the audition?' look.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Fleetwood Mac
3/5
I think that I like Fleetwood Mac, and then I'll have to listen to a whole Fleetwood Mac album at once and start to doubt.
I think this album suffered from listening to it at streaming quality in a way others don't so much. It also suffered from too much radio pop. Nothing anywhere near Dreams or the Chain but nothing as annoying as Don't Stop either.
I might find some songs I quite like listening individually later. There's lots of nice melody/countermelody bits even in the songs that aren't much.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
solid. does not reach the heights of the postpunk greats, for me, but a very pleasant listen.
let it be said here that I regret giving the Go-Go's only a 3 back at the start of this project. I didn't realize then that I would look at 'pretty good, no particular song highlights' as a welcome reprieve from the overall 1001 albums taste. & I think that is harder to do as an upbeat band than a moody one like this Echo & the Bunnymen album. sorry Go-Go's.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Chemical Brothers
1/5
hey what do you think are the brothers' favourite kind of chemicals
ionic compounds? intermetallic? I think they appreciate a good crystalline lattice
Lou Reed
3/5
Always hear about this one as a Lou Reed highlight, has never grabbed me. There's always something cool
about a Lou Reed project, reaching its potential less and less as he works with Professional Session Musician types.
A standout of VU/the best Lou Reed is that there's no blues guitar solos etc., & some of these post-VU albums have moments that sound like Musical Theatre Presents: The Songs of Lou Reed.
Musically, Caroline Says pt. II is very nice and I would probably like it quite a bit if there wasn't Stephanie Says already. Lyrically/vocally I don't think Lou Reed pulls off the sensitivity for this domestic violence story.
Prince
1/5
The music that plays in hell, round 1.
hated. (⌐♀_♂)
MGMT
1/5
even the big hit has only a hook going for it. never listened to the lyrics before, and now regret it.
'everybody get sad and DANCE!' is one of my favourite silly little tropes & I set a low bar to clear for that kind of song. this doesn't have enough feeling to even sad dance.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Blue Nile
3/5
hey this is a pretty cool little walk across rooftops here. bit of unsettling heights-make-me-nervous energy up this way. towards the end I have maybe had enough rooftops. but I appreciate you showing me the rooftops.
Ryan Adams
3/5
I loved this one in my late teens, as a bumpkin who grew up resenting country music & Americana slowly getting over it. I'd seen him play a total disaster show at a festival where it was clear he sang effortlessly, mostly otherwise bad except a deranged version of To Be Young stuck with me.
To Be Young and Come Pick Me Up definitely don't hit the way they did now, but I think very nice music for an immature teen figuring out the world in the timeframe they came out.
That first festival listen ends up as a good summary, a lot of talent, a lot more terrible trainwreck decisions and bad taste.
I have a mean opinion about Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, which is that they haven't done anything better than on Heartbreaker. One day I may change my mind on that.
music industry creeps: hated. (⌐■_■)
Deep Purple
2/5
I find it charming that a bunch of hard rock guys (Lemmy, Deep Purple apparently) just adored Little Richard.
Mt Rushmore is one of the dumbest things ever. 5 guys on a rock Mt Rushmore on a first album is very funny.
A bit too much like a Led Zeppelin with more keyboards.
hated. (⌐■_■)
Bob Dylan
4/5
Bob enters his complaining about women he dated constantly phase, or critics who spurned him. You could call it a metaphor, or intentionally vague, which doesn't make him look any better.
I've heard musicians I admire talk about Visions of Johanna as a masterpiece. Never pulled me in much. Maybe I'll understand one day.
I hate Just Like a Woman.
I really liked the live album we got on here a long while back, thought I might like this more this time when it came around.
I guess I gotta give it 4 stars anyway, though it would not be if I liked more of this albums project. Part of me thinks I'm missing out, the other part is quite glad to keep some distance from being a real Bob Dylan fan.
music: appreciated. (⌐o_0)
Billy Bragg
3/5
I wouldn't think that Wilco adding Billy Bragg would be a positive
and it isn't
but this album is ok. really brings out the 'yeah it's fine I suppose' in Wilco.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Can
5/5
Oversimplifying a lot, there's a couple categories of very indulgent art, the "look at me. look at me!" kind and the "hey check it out, what do you think?" kind. It's like how multimedia events - you know, you go somewhere to see music, and there's projectors on all the walls, or mannequins in the audience, etc. - are either awesome fun times or the most uncomfortable bullshit. Can is the good kind. Listening to Can makes me think of talking with somebody who just did something incredible, excited to share what they tried & see if you might want to do anything with it.
I'm not going to intentionally put on the long experimental tracks in the middle again, but they weren't unpleasant and I think they did pull off the transition back to a jam & the most accessible song at the end.
& when Can gets into a jam they grab on to something vital & shake the living daylights out of it.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Residents
2/5
Some neat weirdo grooves. Also deliberately annoying and I just don't have time for that in music.
hated. (⌐■_■)
The Hives
2/5
the title would be funny if the band was provocative in any way. "The decision to release such a compilation was made with the intention of achieving mainstream success in the UK and other territories." and it sure sounds like that, from 2001.
as mentioned in the Vines review, I hated this era of uninspired 'The' band radio rock, and it's aged badly. I can't believe I still have to hear Franz Ferdinand out in the world.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Alanis Morissette
4/5
I find it impossible to separate this from the age I was when it was everywhere. I didn't understand a good chunk of it but it made the world seem very big, like everyone was living their fullest lives.
Some of the vocals are kinda conventional annoying oversinging, but still always with an undercurrent of completely feral thing that makes her iconic.
This is a weird one to rate. I do like that other people completely enjoy it. I won't ever listen to it on purpose, and I find it funny rather than enjoyable, & what's awesome about it serves to make it more funny.
music: oughta know it. (⌐■_■)
Roxy Music
3/5
This is cool, lots of interesting stuff trying to explode some popular song forms.
Just a little distant for me, I guess? It isn't quite parody or pastiche or whatever, but much of it has that feeling of being afraid to put your heart in it. It's still good enough that I'll listen instead of just think 'come on you cowards', and that's a rare thing.
music: appreciated. (⌐o_0)
Sonic Youth
5/5
On the negative side, the lyrics are usually dumb, and listening to a thousand bands try to do segments of this but not get there cheapens the experience a bit. Sonic Youth doesn't sound that great in the moments where they try to a more conventional punk thing.
On the positive side, lyrics don't matter and it's obvious why a thousand bands would try to steal this sound because it rules.
On this one they never stick to the worse segments long enough to ruin a song. There's a ton of satisfying dynamic shifts, in mostly short songs. It's like looking at the list of experiences you want in a pop/rock song & then trying to assemble the thing out of entirely different stuff. Love it.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Coldplay
2/5
Album cover computer art hilariously of its time.
A very competently executed very bland Radiohead.
I forgot how many of these I got completely sick of hearing on the radio. I think I don't mind some of the songs from the previous album, but I do hate these ones.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Police
2/5
Until today I wasn't sure exactly how to describe what aspect of the Police completely sucks. Then they put it in album title for me. "Reggatta De Blanc".
police: fuck em. (⌐■_■)
Abdullah Ibrahim
3/5
Compared to other later jazz recordings, I like that this lets the instruments get loud & unbalanced. I haven't been big on jazz for about 15 years and I'm not going to start a separate rating scale for it, so 3 stars it is.
Method Man
4/5
Wu-Tang Clan is something you'd want to have a friend around, if you were thinking of fucking with.
Halfway through I was going to go 3 stars and say "I like it but want more variety in 50 minutes". I didn't have it turned up loud enough.
Frank Sinatra
3/5
Love the bass & drums, don't love the strings. It's fine.
The B-52's
5/5
Dance This Mess Around is killer. Great title for a song, awesome guitar, outrageously good vocal.
They do all sixteen dances. 5 stars.
Gene Clark
3/5
Neil Young's 60s/early 70s albums get pretty hokey, and the enduring question is why that doesn't seem to matter for NY. This album is the answer to 'what if that balance tipped?'.
Strength of Strings is Words (Between the Lines of Age) made bland.
The psychedelic rock melded in has the effect of smoothing things out, the last thing you want when there's already a ton of sounds going nowhere.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Tom Waits
1/5
When I was a teen and had more patience for musical theatre I thought Tom Waits was interesting. I had heard of Swordfishtrombones multiple places as THE weirdo breakthrough album.
When I first heard Captain Beefheart, I saw this for what it is, a sad and cynical marketing exercise. Dude saw something and was like "I could make that more mainstream", switched from piano balladeering, and has rode the same wave for 40 years. I suppose that's the history of popular music in a way. Beefheart is a white fella doing the blues. This one feels particularly egregious.
I suppose it's also a matter of taste to say this adds nothing that you can't hear on a Beefheart album. It isn't exactly the same. Tom Waits adds more carnival barking & maudlin sentiments. Even if there was originality here it would wear out its welcome. I was going to go 2 stars, but thinking about it there isn't a single song on this I want to hear.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Michael Jackson
1/5
just hate it. hate it. I find it so overrated. showing how boring pop is this time. rating it higher would be a crime. just hate it.
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
Some good stuff here. Also seems like a bunch of filler. Interesting that this sounds like a link between early 80s postpunk and the Arctic Monkeys. Unfortunately that isn't a good kind of interesting.
Fever Ray
4/5
I've had some songs from this on my computer from some music blog since 2009. Didn't know the connection to the Knife before now. Just very slightly disappointed that this is semi-bigshot producer stuff coming down the pipe and not the weirdo eastern Canada basement thing I thought it might be based on where I found it.
Feels very of its late-00s time. A rare case where that's not a bad thing. A solid 3.5, rounding up for uniqueness on the list.
(⌐■_■): (⌐■_■).
The Isley Brothers
3/5
Solid, too smooth for me to really get into it.
"Featuring That Lady" on the cover is so funny. To me this was perhaps the worst song, & repeated again at the end. But this is such a good little subtitle. It'd be perfect for some record with a heavy hitter. Janis Joplin guests. "Featuring that lady".
that lady: featured. (⌐■_■)
Neil Young
1/5
I know it’s back on Spotify, but the damage has been done.
Did not listen.
Parliament
3/5
Maybe it's that everything is on fire all the time, maybe it's more bad experiences with west coast hippies (funk concept album about outer space? white guy is it for me meme), maybe it's that I'm not fun, couldn't get that into this one. I tried turning it up louder. It sounds like it should be a lot of fun if you're receptive to it.
★ ★ ★
Here's my review of Harvest from yesterday, which was SABOTAGED. I can't imagine what I ever could have done to provoke such an act.
It's Harvest. The folk rock band is the best folk rock band sound you'll ever hear. Then they do a couple rock songs with one of the best rock band sounds you'll ever hear. (For some reason there's also A Man Needs a Maid. There's A World at least fits in with the album alright.) The album cover is beautiful.
Neil does the Neil Young thing with some pretty dumb lyrics that just float on by, and then all of a sudden there's something quite moving. "Did she wake you up to tell you that it's only a change of plans" over pedal steel is incredible, enough to make you ignore "dream up dream up let me fill your cup with the promise of a man" right after.
The downside to hearing Harvest early in life is thinking other 70s folk rock might be near this good, big setup for disappointment there.
Spotify sucks. Quit giving your money to vampires for a little bit of convenience.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Goldie
2/5
This Is a Bad
Sister Sledge
3/5
I'm not fun & it's a bit too smooth for me. Curiously seems to be right on the line where if you left it more sparse, ditching the synth & making the piano part more minimal I would like it a lot, and if you went the other way & smoothed it over more I would hate it a lot.
I don't know if the title track has been ruined by overuse in advertising, or if it always sounded like a song destined for ads, an unpleasant earworm. Worst song on the album, only one I disliked listening to.
JAY Z
2/5
Too much no impact stuff going on. All the best moments are barely there - if the production goes from being A Lot to doing something cool, boring flow comes over it right away. Jay Z's obviously very skilled but somehow sounds clumsy & forced most of the time. Has always seemed very unlikeable as a dude.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
3/5
Very impressive, has this big time gospel thing of seeming very Professional that lessens the impact for me - I think maybe it's the sound of many restrained singers all with the microphone very close?
Is it fair to lay the blame for why this doesn't register entirely on Paul Simon and the Disney Corporation? Yes it is.
vampires: hated. (⌐■_■)
music: failed to appreciate. ( -_-)
James Brown
5/5
I like that you have to specify which year of pivotal James Brown Live at the Apollo album you mean.
Lost Someone rules. Must be the most interesting audience noise I've heard on an album. The bit where he wanders away from the microphone is awesome. Have to figure this is as close as it gets to capturing the wild magic of live music, where the performer intuits exactly where to find the equivalent of a resonance frequency for a gathering of people & messes around nearby.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Beth Orton
3/5
Very paint inside the lines music. I haven't heard it before and it feels like I have, in a way that makes me sad for all the others that sounded like this. There's interesting elements steamrollered into the 90s alt pop singer sound. Why did they put so much effort into making all these songwriters sound identical?
Makes the whole music thing seem like an exercise in picking out a permutation from a small collection of elements - and sure, ok, it is just like fiction is picking out an arrangement of words. verbs, adjectives, nouns. 4.5 seconds of lead guitar. But when it's good you don't think about that. When you listen to Central Reservation it's all there is to think about.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Gene Clark
3/5
No standouts but very pleasant. Gene Clark does simple better.
I won't argue that it doesn't deserve to get ripped on by a bunch of the reviews on here though.
Couple things stop this from being a solid 4:
- I thought I would kinda like the Byrds before I started this exercise. Now I see a Byrds thing and I'm like 'oh christ, the Byrds, what mediocre bullshit is this going to be now'.
- Multiple songs sound like they're trying hard to be different from something huge. Half the thing wants to sound like You Ain't Goin' Nowhere wants to pull it in, and a song's guitar line sounds like Only Love Can Break Your Heart.
But I think I have a soft spot for this country folk sound, so I will listen to it again.
music: appreciated. (⌐._.)
The Cure
3/5
The style of this one just washes over me. A template for 'thing that was kinda cool from the 80s but doesn't do much for you'.
The chorus effects etc. on everything sounds like hedging bets, though I know that sound is a very intentional choice. I think the Cure's reputation as the cool alternative band of the 80s put me off of discovering the music I really like in my teens. Thought there was something in the air that produced that 80s pop sound.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Van Halen
2/5
In describing the Cure as too 80s I have invoked the curse. These synths were just lying in wait.
I suppose there's some credit due for the innovation in making wild guitar noises. The most musical sportsguitar is still sportsguitar.
I've heard some isolated David Lee Roth vocals that are completely unhinged, and that is Interesting. You can't tell in the actual songs though.
Got no time for this stuff. It's silly & not in an entertaining way.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Napalm Death
2/5
I am 16 years old, politely waiting through six bands that sound like this to see one I like.
music: hated, but not all that much. (⌐■_■)
Buena Vista Social Club
3/5
Listening to Cuban musicians is a great way to remind yourself you are not very good.
Felt like this stated off cool, but got too mellow for me as it went. Rounding down to 3.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Beck
2/5
I felt as apathetic listening as Beck did making this.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Minutemen
5/5
Singular, exhilarating, undeniable. Piles of laundry on the floor that actually are a system. I've met musicians that playing everything from mellow folk on who pointed to Double Nickels as their inspiration to do music. There are probably too many bassists who think they can do something like Mike Watt and have it work though.
As a shuffle listener this is only my second or third time hearing the album in full. Normally an unapologetic shuffler, this might be the only sprawling chaotic double album that has me regret any of my listening style.
XTC
2/5
Don't need to listen to this one. Definitely enough 60s music with chord changes going nowhere to cover all the bases already on the list.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
2/5
Does not rise above bedlam.
1001 Projects To Make You Feel Weird About People In Bands You Liked
hated. (⌐■_■)
Willie Nelson
3/5
Expected to find this one more remarkable than I did. If you didn't think Willie Nelson could do crooner pop music, maybe you were in for a surprise? Perhaps if I knew these songs by worse versions I'd appreciate the restraint? Very pleasant but I won't be thinking "I should put on Willie Nelson's Stardust!" when I want to hear Willie Nelson or when I want to hear pop songs.
Nick Drake
5/5
The drinking tea in a country garden counterpart to Bert Jansch's stumbling out hungover into a city street. Not a criticism, even though I can see not having much time for the mannered aspect to this. Both guys had such an incredible sense of rhythm, how to inhabit every little fragment of time fully.
It's funny that the album cover began this whole controversy over whether Nick Drake ever played the Guild M20 pictured. (probably not??)
Bad news fellas: there is no special guitar to buy to get you to sound any closer to Nick Drake. Try out some of his tunings though, they are fun and will make you happier.
The arrangements are a little much but also mostly fine, said as a pretty anti-'arrangement' listener in general. If he put out three acoustic albums we'd be wondering what this guy might've sounded like with a band.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Marvin Gaye
2/5
Cover art is hilarious. Whole project is kinda unhinged.
Sad to say that I did not enjoy this at all. Gets into the smooth pop sound I really don't like. Doesn't feel right to lump a Marvin Gaye album in with the other stuff I've given a 2, but here we are.
hated. (⌐■_■)
Nick Drake
5/5
Looks like it's Nick Drake week. Is it a sign that fall will come early this year?
My comparison to Bert Jansch in the last one fits more here than there, with some more traditional guitar songs. Would guess Man In A Shed had some Jansch influence.
Arrangements again sometimes a little distracting, but less so than on Bryter Layter, they're still fine, and some of them work really well with the guitar. I don't think some of these songs would hold up that well solo anyway. Wild to think about being so young making this, very cool to bring a fellow student friend to do the arrangements when the established guys embellished too much.
The list is messing with me, saying "here's another Nick Drake album, don't you wish there was more variety on them, don't you wish there was less flute, surely you could rate this one 4 stars?" so it can hit me with another fucking Elvis Costello album and have me regret it.
Fuck off list. 5 stars.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
New Order
3/5
Don't like the first track at all and was worried I'd hate an album by a band I like a lot. The rest is ok, saved from the bog of 80s dance pop by the band's great sense for simple melody and some cool guitar sounds.
first song: hated. (⌐■_■)
Beyoncé
2/5
I don't like pop music, and the best I can say about this one is that I wouldn't notice much if it's on. Don't think there's any new ground here for 2013. Beyonce is surprisingly awkward on this, lot of moments where the phrasing sounds so forced.
Jay Z really said "I'm Ike Turner", huh? Sounds like a really bad move, especially when you're a guy who seems so unlikeable.
I was just saying how I'm happy with having no idea what Drake sounds like, so I started skipping around before that one came on.
I know a bunch of queer women who find something to latch onto in Beyonce - weird for something that seems so straight pride parade, right? But good for them, I'm not going to knock it unless I have to review it on this list.
I'm going to try to review other albums I haven't heard when something boring comes up. Today is SNFU's Better Than A Stick In The Eye (1988):
It's not a different world from lots of straightahead punk, but has some things going for it: Chi Pig was a great singer, and the band pulled off some big rhythmic shifts without losing momentum, very cool. The lyrics are silly in a way that's good, and they're more than just funny - sort of like sarcastic Kids in the Hall thing, alienated and making fun of the world but not falling into ineffectual nihilism.
The Cat Stevens cover at the end is outrageous. 'punk cover of Wild World' sounds like it should be so bad. This one rules.
★ ★ ★ ★
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
yawning on the album cover: funny and kinda cool
album cover picturing the correct reaction to every song: not cool
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Doors
2/5
Instructions were to steal a car, drive west playing the tape at full blast, then get out and get into a fight. Arriving back in town this was advertised as 'the most prestigious hotel of all time'.
Sheets weren't clean. Excessive noise all night. Unpleasant smell. WiFi password didn't work. Air conditioning very noisy but not functional. Bathroom faucet leaking. Felt like there might have been bedbugs.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
2/5
If this was your protopunk I guess that's how you end up sounding like Nick Cave or Robert Smith. Glad others had Iggy Pop instead.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3/5
Ok stuff, good singer. Rides that Bob Dylan line of vocal affectation that isn't quite faking an accent. I don't understand why this one's on the list, what's the place in history? The writeup sure doesn't say much. I'd downgrade it if I didn't like folk singer stuff more than I ought to.
Supertramp
3/5
Would I have time for this if I didn't love Supertramp as a kid? Probably not. Then again, if I didn't know about boring prog rock would I doubt that Supertramp is at least decently good? Also probably not.
There's more going for it than other pop-oriented prog. The songwriting might not be that special but the vocals are usually good, the sounds are more Beatles-y pleasant than they are Pink Floyd 'atmospheric', more 'oh you know what there is saxophone' than 'why is there saxophone'.
music: appreciated. (⌐o_0)
Le Tigre
3/5
Some of the upvoted 1 star reviews tell you a good chunk of what you need to know about why Bikini Kill and Le Tigre are cool.
It would be cool to have listened in 1999. Sadly for me this record's been mined for pretty much all it's got by low effort dance punk bands & self-deprecating twee acts, and though it's way better it's not all that distinct. That half this doesn't take itself seriously would have been fun when it was more novel and when it was more current. There's something a lot more compelling about levity from people who can be serious, something cool and brave about it when you were just in a band that faced throwing-stuff-at-you-on-stage level antagonism.
music: failed to appreciate adequately. ( -_-)
Fairport Convention
3/5
Mostly like it, some mixed sentiment.
Come All Ye is a perfect intro for what this is going to be: the guitar thumps in a more rockin' way than you'd figure (and actually cool, not cheesy 'check it out!!! electric guitars!! on traditional music!!!'). Then some violin comes in and it's still pretty cool. Then the vocal comes in and it doesn't ruin it but it IS come all ye minstrels, and if there's anything to run from it's modern musicians that think they're minstrels.
But then they also keep something of a distance from the lyrics, there's no yearning for olde thymes in merry Englande - as the album goes on it's a little more like the 'hey these trad folk themes are all kinda fucked aren't they?' that you'd see now.
It does lose me at the fiddle medley and doesn't recover.
There's a good chunk of most songs that legitimately sounds like it could be Television if you muted everything but guitar and drums, so if you're a person that likes trad more I could see this band being an all timer.
music: appreciated. (⌐o_0)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
yeah whatever
Talking Heads
3/5
I have never before listened to a Talking Heads album in full.
It was fine. I am a little disappointed that I only think it was fine.
Bad Brains
3/5
A solid one, maybe the most heavy metal punk can get where I'll like it. Parts not worlds away from Megadeth, but also never far from a cool Stooges kinda thing.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Adele
1/5
Nothing to it. On something like Rolling In The Deep there's a cool hook under the sheen. I too felt like I'd closed all the doors by the time I was 25 but this soundtrack for Hallmark movies doesn't help anybody.
Might be a 2 but being the blue-eyed soul version of nothing music drops it another.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
DJ Shadow
4/5
I got this one when I was in university first getting into hip hop, hearing about it from the note on Wikipedia that said it was the first to be made up exclusively of samples. Listened to it a ton, still have Mutual Slump on my mp3 player.
I don't think I have much to say that I didn't in review #2 on the Beastie Boys (except that I like this one a lot and the Beastie Boys sucked).
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
Hell of a debut. Rad frog sample.
Can I Kick It? obviously an all timer. If you're gonna sample something iconic that kicks ass like Walk On The Wild Side, you'd better come out swinging and they do. One of those samples that makes you appreciate the original more too. Sudden beat shifts extremely cool. Did not think that song would be on a first album, you could spend a career trying to make something that gets all those dynamics right. Would be the very best of 4s without this one, a clear 5 with it.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Ash
2/5
first track: can you imagine hearing Nirvana and Sonic Youth in the 90s and thinking 'what this needs is some wah solos in the big choruses'
the rest: Some that's got more in common with the shitty Coldplay era than its own alternative rock era, some that's grinding through uninspired alt rock. Sounds like it doesn't believe in itself and needs to lean on pop hit tropes. Sounds like it would be a lot less fun to make than something with less desire for success, and then it doesn't even get there, and that's very sad.
★ ★
alternate album review in place of mush:
Red Red Meat - Bunny Gets Paid (1995)
Turns out it's real cool to slow power chords way down and use acoustic guitar just for more thunk. Solid enough formula to make satisfying music again and again, a couple bands worth for Tim Rutili at least. An album might be more than you need to hear at any one time, but it's nice to have that many variations - listen to shuffled playlists, like the good lord intended.
Gauze might be the least Calfone-like in instrumentation and the highlight for me.
★ ★ ★ ★
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2/5
Thought I didn't know what the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sounded like, but I hated Heads Will Roll when it was on the radio.
The rest, if I heard it, I couldn't tell apart from Metric. That doesn't speak well of either band. I might have thought Heads Will Roll was Metric. I thought this stuff had a I'm-cooler-than-you-please-look-at-me thing to it that indie rock absolutely did not need trying to disguise itself as fun.
More of an uncaring reaction than an I hate it reaction now that I'm old, except that because of this list when I hear this much vocal fry I'm going to think of Britney Spears pop. So that's another way I'm sadder about cultural history. Thanks list.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Crosby, Stills & Nash
2/5
hey 60s folk guys nobody cares about your take on Guinnevere.
This sucks, and I don't want to think about it. Should it be 1 star? Maybe. I don't want to think about it.
music: hated. ( -_-)
Sepultura
2/5
do not like, generously rounding up to a 'not for me' 2.
music: hated. (⌐⛧_⛧)
Iron Maiden
2/5
Not as annoying as later Iron Maiden with Bruce Dickinson, his operatic singing style sure doesn't help.
I did actually get through this one. It's a bit like if Thin Lizzy had no groove, and sucked.
music: hated. (⌐💀_💀)
Beach House
2/5
hey you know what I hated in 2010? a bunch of 'beach' bands showing up out of nowhere, with sounds ranging from lazy disaffected surfy guitar to lazy disaffected keyboards. The children of the CSN give-up-before-you-start generation giving up before they even thought about starting.
music: forgotten. (⌐ _ )
Rod Stewart
3/5
"Buffalo died in the frozen fields you know
Through the coldest winter in almost fourteen years"
buddy you are severely underestimating buffalo. The coldest winter you can remember is nothing to buffalo. If buffalo are dying of cold you are fucked.
Egregious lyrics aside, this was ok. I think it isn't Good, and it has some B-grade versions of music by other artists like the floaty pedal steel jam that could be Led Zeppelin. But as with a bunch of other 60s/70s recordings, at a basic level the instruments just sound nice regardless of what they're playing, and it's a pleasant listen.
buffalo: respected. (⌐🦬_🦬)
Incredible Bongo Band
2/5
album cover with "Bongo Rock" in quotes is very funny
record company executive recruiting musicians for a bongo project is funny, in that pathological businessman way of 'funny'. did Michael Viner play anything on this?
being part of a sample library for early hip hop is very cool.
'this slaps' is a hilarious review. unfortunately I do not think this 'slaps' in a way that is not literal.
I think I am going 2, because being a source for a drum beat used by good artists isn't enough to call it good. HOWEVER I do think prolific samples deserve a spot on an essential listening list.
bongos: slapped. (⌐■_■)
Kate Bush
4/5
One of those artists that I know is cool but I haven't explored at all. I think I was right that I wouldn't really get it when I first had friends really into Kate Bush, and am sort of glad to have accidentally waited until I'm more receptive.
Really knows how to find the feeling in a song. Makes the very 80s trappings work when they appear. Terrific singer. If pop was like this all the time I'd be down for it.
Willing to get wild, leads with the heart, I dig it. Will be listening again.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Offspring
1/5
naw.
Al Green
4/5
It's not full on like my favourite stuff but it's like 80% of the way there: I just love the way guitar/bass/drums sound on a bunch of soul records. It's so cool. There's so much space. All three accent different parts in a bar just differently enough that it sounds like the band knows some wild secret about the universe. It's so cool.
this Al Green fella's a pretty good singer too I spose
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Peter Gabriel
2/5
today I do not want to bother listening to this long enough to see whether it's a 3 rounding up or a 2. life is so short
life: lived. ( -_-)
Mariah Carey
1/5
Adult contemporary and alikes make me so unhappy. This stuff was everywhere when I was growing up. It made me think I didn't like music. It seemed like you were supposed to relate your feelings to this stuff, and like there were hardly alternatives, and that was such a lonely feeling.
I think this is covertly spirit-draining and not life-affirming to the people that find something in it too. It's bad enough to listen to people oversinging national anthems, you don't need that stuff on records. NO STARS.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Genesis
2/5
I bet Rush really dug this.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Neu!
3/5
The flow of this is very cool. It's neat that this is mellow for a whole half before getting into it, going against the idea of frontloading. Then it does a micro version of the same with the long track trailing off before picking it up in a punk thing. Pretty cool!
Unfortunately for a 2024 listener it's not all that novel so I start thinking of Can or whatever and get distracted. sorry Neu!
the most rounded down to 3 something can get. just barely misses reaching that 'yeah I'll definitely listen again soon' mark.
Yes
2/5
The No Thanks Album
Morrissey
2/5
I don't like the Smiths but at least they picked something to stick to. Ineffectual rock is worse.
There's that clip of Morrissey and George Michael talking about Joy Division where Morrissey goes on about Joy Division's pretentious use of fascist imagery and how their conception of the world was completely false. Very funny considering how Morrissey gets attention.
Rating for the music only, which doesn't inspire enough reaction to get 1 star.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Nirvana
4/5
Sounds gigantic. It's a funny exercise to think about being a conservative parent just prior to the grunge era - I think metal and a lot of punk have a goofiness that seems easier to call a phase. This is a fully formed thing blasting in to tell you the world's gonna be different. It'd be terrifying.
I think Drain You is still my favourite. It's almost as catchy as Smells Like Teen Spirit but more of itself, doesn't need that big chorus that's both awesome and slightly tongue-in-cheek.
The rest is era-defining and deserved to be - of course everyone was gonna chase it, and of course it's too hard so the results are mostly bad/tasteless (Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins,...).
Lots of weird tense melodies, fantastic sense for bringing that blues/country interchangeable major/minor 3rd thing to rock hooks. I think I mentioned in the In Utero review I spend more time thinking about Nirvana's songs than any band that I'm not very into.
Very good but not beloved by me, current contender for the most almost-5 something can get.
oh well, whatever: neverminded. (⌐■_■)
Norah Jones
2/5
sorry Norah I'm staying here where there might be... friction? conflict? tension? I don't know. whatever this is missing. I'm not going, ok.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Led Zeppelin
2/5
hey Robert Plant can you please stop talking about 'love'.
'woman as a car' is a song category I thought was too dumb for even Led Zeppelin but it's my fault I'm surprised.
I don't think Kashmir is anything close to Led Zeppelin's good songs.
Whole thing sounds a lot more dated than their earlier albums. Less woaah ohhhh womann vocal solos but it sounds a bit like they're trying to do Queen songs.
Led Zeppelin has 2-3 good songs per album, which you are to find and put on a shuffle playlist. In releasing an album this long (possibly with no good songs? I can't tell after this much Zeppelin) they have committed a crime against the listener.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Drive Like Jehu
5/5
This rocks. hell yeah. extremely cool. The Constantines in their noisier segments sound a lot like this.
Heard about this band a ton but never listened, had no idea they sounded like this or that it was so short-lived. Total breath of fresh air in the 1001 albums list. On my personal list, I might say that I prefer the bigger range the Constantines/Fugazi/etc. have and that sticking to tense nervous energy doesn't get the full potential of this kind of sound. On this list, easy 5.
crime: yanked. (⌐■_■)
Eagles
1/5
fuck the eagles
The War On Drugs
1/5
fuck the eagles
The Beach Boys
3/5
I don't get it and I don't think I'll ever get it. I hear all the time this was a turning point in popular music. I can see there's something to it. For me it ranges from just ok to annoying. Can't imagine hearing this after Rubber Soul and thinking 'wow Brian Wilson made a pop/rock album to match the Beatles!'.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Cowboy Junkies
3/5
The moody songs work alright. They aren't essential listening but give the impression it would be cool to see the band play them.
The blues stuff doesn't work. Letting the guy sing doesn't work. You should not ruin the weirdo vibe by playing bar band songs. It's so tasteless it's surprising anything else came out alright.
I rate Establishing A Vibe a little higher than I ought to and am rounding up to 3, with a nagging feeling that I'll regret it the more I hear of the Cowboy Junkies.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Jethro Tull
2/5
It's not good. It's not bad. It's just a thing. There's some stuff where they rock like a proto-stoner rock thing, just for a tiny bit.
I was going to say that of all the flute-incorporating projects on this list, this was the one that managed to actually blend the sound. But then there was one near the end that was pretty bad.
Almost went up to 3, but remembered my max 2 for no songs I'll listen to on purpose principle & decided I should get meaner.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
4/5
I have never listened to a Devo album, somehow.
It's cool. It's entertaining. The cover of a terrible Stones song and the Jonee B. Good riffing are irreverent in a neat way.
I want more heart though. The B-52s can do all this and keep something full of life at the centre.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Scott Walker
2/5
thought this might be when I first hear Scott Walker for real, but it's a boring early album. listen to a couple minutes of it to have context for the later stuff - which we may not hear on this list, with all the Elvis Costello there is to see yet.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Queen
2/5
max 2 for any guy singing about loving a car
or for singing about a woman as though she is a car
should be max 1. what the hell you guys.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Led Zeppelin maintains their steady 3 star rating by deepening the contrast between rhythmic rockers (cool, half plagiarized) and the dumbest overwrought oohh baby vocals you've ever heard. Opening the album with the worst of that is a very Zeppelin choice to make.
The Heartbreaker guitar soloing is silly, except that the end going back into the rhythm part (and only for a few seconds before soloing takes off again) is one of the coolest things Zeppelin ever did.
Heartbreaker and Ramble On are highlights of Shuffle Zeppelin, the correct way to listen to this band. You can drive down the coast of California or through Idaho and Shuffle Zeppelin has got the rocker part of your playlist covered.
music: ...appreciated. (⌐-_-)
Sebadoh
5/5
Know a bit of Sebadoh but had never heard this one. This is rad. The bass-driven songs especially rock. That move of having guitar only come in parallel to the bass on the chorus in Homemade is so cool.
am I going to bump a sprawling inconsistent album up to 5 for the change of pace from unremarkable 70s sludge? of course I am.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Big Brother & The Holding Company
3/5
Until you start doing an exercise like this & realize how much of the music completely sucked, this might be how you imagine 60s rock: bit rough around the edges, guitar solos partly standard blues lines and a rumbling thunder of psychedelia. obvious blues influence on everything, vocals dripping with it in a range from 'cool, electric blues takes it to the limit' to 'hmmm uhh this might be kinda uh blackface??'. you know. 60s stuff. if it were all interesting, and not as often like the worst of Byrds/CSN.
Nightmares On Wax
2/5
list really overestimating how much British trip hop a person needs to hear before they die.
I don't care enough to figure out if this is a 1 or 2. I am saving the 1s for stuff I have listened to and find truly awful. you, the reader, can decide if I was mistaken here.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
When I've been referring to overwrought murder ballads as Nick Cave's worst impulse in previous reviews, I was forgetting that he had an album flat out called Murder Ballads. The idea that O'Malley's Bar wouldn't fit on the other records and needed a whole album of murder ballads around it is a funny idea.
Which Bad Seeds record did you think wouldn't fit a murder ballad, Nick? Henry's Dream? Really?
anyway some of the instrumentation is cool at times. There's a little bit of interest in the idea of noting murder ballads as a fucked thing and deciding to take it to the extreme.
But it totally misunderstands what's weird and fucked about murder ballads. It isn't grisly content. It's that we carry them around like they're just normal songs about timeless stuff. You hear a lovely rendition & wonder what the lyrics might be about - oh. well. kinda weird to sing that so nice isn't it.
The stuff on this that isn't bathing in gore doesn't even get at the haunting part of traditional songs, only a fear of strangers. I think in the end Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger is a more disturbing piece of work. This one is like retreating from the world into comic books.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
David Holmes
1/5
how could anyone think Brit DJ music was important enough for this many albums? feels like a prank. get killed, list.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Starts off strong, Zeppelin as a rhythm section thundering along. Some of the rare Jimmy Page that stick to the burst of chaos & skip the tacky move of trailing off into high energy blooz. I thought this first outing might be the Zeppelin to get four stars.
Funny to go right from that last verse of Good Times, Bad Times right into Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, still not a bad song if you can put up with Robert Plant. They had to ruin it pretty quick with You Shook Me, and after that it seems like about the same awesome/garbage mix as the other three albums.
Black Mountain Side is a nice arrangement of Black Waterside. Would be nicer if Page hadn't said he wrote it.
Led Zeppelin had an interesting run of four albums from 1969 to 1971, a steady three stars for their mix of excellent rock, unethical conduct and terrible taste, before they disappeared completely off the face of the earth. An intriguing tale.
music: ...appreciated. (⌐-_-)
Killing Joke
3/5
It's been 12 years since I heard any Killing Joke. They were playing in town and I wondered if they were any good, found some cool music history, but I did not go to see them play.
I think I'm at about the same place now. This is neat! It's a little too goth or something for me to really dig the whole album. The songs built around unsettling guitar lines (vs. power chord riffs) are the best of it, and if they sounded like that most of the time I would have gone to see them play.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
Absolutely rules. Some of my very favourite guitar sounds, love the rhythm section, love the feedback, love Lou Reed's vocals.
I overplayed it on the same mp3 player I overplayed Television, and now listen to it a lot less than the later albums. You might think the screechier ones get tiring quickest, but it's the ones with Nico on them that I skip these days. I will concede to the perverse albums-in-sequence-all-the-time listeners that the Nico songs are much better in sequence.
You could make many musical careers by picking one song from this album as your inspiration, and people did. Could try to say what a lightning bolt this was historically but it's all been said better.
It's the four line poem you stumble across that just wrecks your world & you drop everything you were doing. My heart beats to this.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Eminem
1/5
this sucked in 2000, it sucks even more now. it sucks that a belittling phrase ('stan') has entered the lexicon from this. world's dumber for having this in it.
something I can say for 2024 is that even preteen boys would be embarrassed to they like Eminem now. or I hope so anyway.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Now I've Got A Witness on side 1, and Can I Get A Witness on side 2? What is this? Do you have a witness or don't you? If you did have a witness I guess that pathetic effort on side 2 would be cause to leave.
Again historically 'interesting' in how much lower the bar was for the Rolling Stones. Best thing on here just a Bo Diddley song sung worse, neither the writing or performance show all that much promise.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Pink Floyd
2/5
if you're gonna be a drug band you should at least be unhinged. that's the problem with later Pink Floyd.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Saints
3/5
new hypothesis: the more straight time you play, the worse horns will sound.
Bunch of songs with generic rock backing & snotty sounding vocals, a lot more like Green Day or Elvis Costello than cool 70s punk.
No, Your Product is cool and then it picks up for a while again.
rounding up for 70s punk outside the UK/US.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
R.E.M.
3/5
I don't approve of REM switching to major key pop songs, but none of these are bad. I like Orange Crush.
Peter Frampton
2/5
I was listening and thought a short 2 star review would be a bit mean. Side two cleared any doubts.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Van Morrison
3/5
I regret to inform me that a bunch of this was alright.
Songs nothing special, Richard Davis on bass quite good, acoustic guitar sounds alright in that 1960s way, vocals not great but usually not distracting.
Harry Nilsson
4/5
Sings like it was nothing (Without You might have been in one take? jesus christ). Wrote songs effortlessly in both the good and bad sense, like 'wow that dude can really write a song out of nowhere' and also now and again 'how about some effort, please, Mr. Nilsson'.
Without You followed by Coconut is about the most Nilsson choice you can make. I hate Coconut but hate it a little less now. Have to admire the commitment to stupid ideas. Makes me think of how You're Breakin' My Heart could be a radio hit if it weren't unairable (except it is Cool and Coconut is Dumb).
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Brian Eno
2/5
I like pioneering use of samplers & all but don't think this one is special. Closer to a Brit trip hop guy's "vision of a psychedelic Africa" than I want to listen to.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Ice T
3/5
It's a 2.5, didn't love it and will probably not listen to anything on it again, but there's passion in it. It's too long for me listening but I like the variety & sprawling ambition for a rap album in 1991.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Dandy Warhols
2/5
I have a bias here because when I was a teen this band was described to me like they were special and smart and sophisticated, & then their music sounded like a whole lot of lazy nothing. Like yeah ok there's these big dumb grunge bands but have you heard the Dandy Warhols they're so underappreciated.
guy steadily strums a guitar and something forgettable plays behind it. then the guy sings something forgettable. wow! bet Nirvana wished they could write songs like that!
The soundtrack to pseudointellectual pontification. Almost 1 star. not quite.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Louis Prima
3/5
This was cool, joyous energy, some awesome group vocals in there. The Wildest! is a very cool album title for 1956.
wildness: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Miles Davis
4/5
The last Miles Davis we got was Birth of the Cool. Here he is 20 years later showing he's can take the two chord jams of psych rock into a new kind of cool.
appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Maxwell
1/5
The Birth of the Uncool
hated. (⌐■_■)
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
bored of the USA
too bored to run
etc.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
I heard of this band and this album as a teen, and have somehow not heard a note of the Manic Street Preachers music.
Not what I expected! At the start it sounds oddly like the bits of 90s Japanese rock I've heard, everything including the vocal cadence. Then later it starts to sound like something like Muse, or I'm kinda sick of the sound or something, and I don't dig it.
HOWEVER, I find it touching that the band continues to split a quarter of their earnings and set up a microphone each time for a guy who disappeared in 1995, and that is worth the upgrade to 3 stars.
The Prodigy
1/5
ENOUGH
Deerhunter
3/5
A surprise from the list, something from the 2010s that I missed and has merit. I might have even dismissed this as slight if I heard it when it was new.
But it is not slight, there's more to this than reverb + delay sad indie pop of the 2010s. Earlier this year I heard a little bit that seemed even more warped & unsettling, so Deerhoof will be on my radar now.
Common
2/5
I'm not surprised I'm not big on the Kanye West produced tracks, never got into his chipmunk soul thing. I am surprised that the Dilla tracks don't stand out. Maybe kinda shocked even? the natural response to J Dilla beats is supposed to be 'oh hell yeah'.
I'd maybe think harder about whether it should be a 3, but if you've got both John Mayer and Kanye West on your album you have to really justify anything above a 2.
Kraftwerk
3/5
So far seems lik the least compelling Kraftwerk-related project we've had on the list.
That this is from 1978 makes the bland 90s-00s electronic on here more inexcusable. We probably have one of those up next again.
like a solid 2.5, upped to 3 stars for originality. star debt will be paid by the post-1978 bleep bloop albums.
Jane's Addiction
2/5
you can hear that there are at least two guys in this band not wearing shirts
Wilco
4/5
My favourite not-quite-mean thing to say about Wilco is they've made a career out of aping Big Star's Kangaroo. You can do a lot worse than trying to make Kangaroo.
I like Radio Cure quite a lot, the thumping acoustic guitar, the shy stuttery electric part that comes in, the transitions between parts, it's a very well crafted thing.
I'm mostly neutral to negative on Jeff Tweedy's singing but very much like how he phrases "there is something wrong with me" to sound like a little slice of life. As though somebody's asking calmly for a ride to the hospital for some not-quite-emergency.
It's hilarious that they got paid twice by the same company for this album. Imagine being record company guys in 2001 thinking this wouldn't sell, totally clueless about the rising plaid tide.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Aerosmith
2/5
does not rock.
Portishead
3/5
This was more notable than the other Portishead, so I guess that should have been 2 and this should be rounded up to 3.
It at least strives to be something kinda creepy & weird. Rest of the trip hop we're getting on here strikes out not even swinging.
bleep bloop star debt: increased. (⌐■_■)
Laura Nyro
3/5
Wasn't sure what to think of this one. Pop showtunes thing not for me. I would give the most not-for-me Joni Mitchell 3 stars and this is about there.
Cream
2/5
This was solid for a while. Clapton playing only rhythm guitar and never speaking would be alright.
The last three songs sucked. A goofy 'fun' song at the end isn't a good idea when the guys in the band do not seem fun to be around.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Temptations
4/5
This is great, hadn't heard any of it. Sounds like the group wasn't all that keen on the psychedelic soul direction at the time but I hope they were eventually proud of this.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Queen Latifah
4/5
I don't know what I thought Queen Latifah sounded like but it wasn't this. This is cool.
It's like a 3.5, more something pleasant to have on than something I'll come back to.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Songhoy Blues
4/5
sick.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
Hey this is alright. The horns work. Perhaps a little too ska on the last track. From reading the other reviews I did not expect the horns to work.
I didn't know this band from the hit Come On Eileen and would have been more suspicious if I had. I am turning off Come On Eileen as we speak so that I don't round down to 2.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2/5
not making a strong case for being meaningfully distinguishable from Metric here
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
4/5
Have heard about this one, never got around to listening to it. This is what you want out of a weird solo album branching from 60s psychedelic. Last bit starts to drag, but I don't care that much. This is rad.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Kate Bush
4/5
More theatrical than the last Kate Bush if I remember right. Not entiiiiirely my vibe
& also theatrical in the way of being dragged to a play and you're like "maaaannnn I don't like plays". There's a dance number and you're like c'mmooonnn half-rolling your eyes. at some point it is strikingly moving. the play rocks. you're like wtf. wow. art.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Buck Owens
4/5
I hadn't listened to a Buck Owens album before yesterday and now I've listened to three.
No particular song jumps out. Doesn't need to. It's fun and I like Bakersfield sound stuff.
My teenage self would be shocked and disgusted to see me living (temporarily) in my rural hometown, driving a pickup truck to work (temporarily!), delighted when an old country song comes on the radio.
music: appreciated. (⌐□_□)
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
5/5
When I first heard this album I listened through it once and was like "huh. well. ok." It seemed meticulously prepared and completely chaotic. I thought maybe listening once to appreciate the deranged conviction would be enough. I was 22 and thought I 'got' some weird experimental stuff but this was an alien world.
Then without having listened again, weeks or months later I got pieces of it stuck in my head and had to come back to them. My Human Gets Me Blues was the first and is still my favourite. Incredible guitar on this whole thing.
I don't think I've had anything else in my adult life start by sounding near unlistenable and then seem incredibly catchy. I would guess that it's that I hadn't heard that wide a range of music yet, except that Trout Mask Replica is described exactly that way by so many people.
I don't think anything is worth starting a cult over, but it's easier to compartmentalize this one as A Long Time Ago. It's not like you can't hear the cult dynamic on the album either - it's uncomfortable. But like Don Van Vliet is dead already and - well - A Long Time Ago.. right? so you don't have to think about it. not like those guys in Led Zeppelin who deserve to have stars removed or whatever. right. glad we've got a completely consistent & reasonable worldview here.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
CHVRCHES
1/5
I'd guess there's a few scenes in direct-to-streaming movies where one of these songs hits just right.
A pop album that makes no attempt to differentiate itself, barely any attempt to make the listener feel anything. Musically it might be about a 2. As a cultural marker it's something like sitting on the couch watching nostalgic Netflix, reminiscing, "remember when we used to think about pretending to try?". 1 star.
hated. (⌐■_■)
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Nobody else has ever sounded like they can conjure an earthquake at a whim like Hendrix does.
David Gray
2/5
It's outrageous that this is the all time best selling album in Ireland. I am outraged. I'd be like yeah ok whatever if it was U2. David Gray never even lived in Ireland. What the hell you guys
It makes sense that Babylon was a hit, and I can see Please Forgive Me as a hit in that era of pop too. I think both are basically ok (though I once hated Babylon), and both suffer from being mixed for that era of radio pop.
After the first two tracks it's forgettable. I thought my review was going to be that you only need to listen to one version of Damien Rice, and he's nothing to put on an essentials list either. This doesn't match up with that in a way that's neutral (more electro pop influence), and a way that's terrible (doesn't even try to be gripping).
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Tangerine Dream
3/5
I think the most haunting and human electronic on this list so far.
bleep bloop star debt: increased. (⌐💻_💻)
Elliott Smith
4/5
I love the drums on this album. I think about the drums on Speed Trials all the time. I think about the shuffle in the drums and guitar part on Alameda all the time.
Rose Parade makes me think of events in little towns where most everyone knows each other and I like that a lot.
It rocks when the bass part comes in on the very whiny 2:45AM.
I don't like Between the Bars (guitar part sounds nice though) or Say Yes and always skip them.
When I was a teen I found a ton of Elliott Smith demos, live recordings, and guitar tabs on the internet from Either/Or as I was learning to play. Being able to grab a different version to try to figure out a part was very cool. Thank you Elliott Smith for doing a bunch of cool guitar stuff that was captivating for a teen. Thank you obsessive fans for an excellent learning experience.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
William Orbit
1/5
no. stop it.
George Jones
4/5
Another country classic, another 4 stars.
Paul Weller
2/5
Not bad, very inessential. Doubt I'll listen again and can't think of a good reason to put this on the list. The Jam was a lot better.
John Coltrane
4/5
a love: supreme. (⌐■_■)
Beastie Boys
2/5
well these beastie BOYYYYZZZZ
show more dynamic RANGE
on their first AL-BUM
isn't that STRANGE
I still don't ENJOY IT
the way that they YELL
so another TWO STARS
and I'll see you in HELL
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
2/5
it's ok. like a solid 2.5.
a little bit weird and I'm tempted to round up for that.
I've rounded down more significant albums. This one seems like fun for a bit, for a short time when people thought maybe blues played punk-like loud and fast was a way forward, then no longer notable.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Christina Aguilera
1/5
Pop with bombastic horns is a fair bit better, when it doesn't become circus jazz. I was worried I'd have to give this two stars. Saved by:
- it's too long for its few ideas
- "Y'all remember back in the day, you dig Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald" with this album cover. really.
- thanks Christina I'd be nothing without my parasocial relationship to a pop star
- Enter the Circus
- "blue-eyed soul"
not even DJ Premier can save it. ton of talent run through a blender to make mush.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Big Star
4/5
Big Star - #1 Record as your band's first album totally rules. Album art rules. It's all so funny and so awesome.
The opening to Feel rocks, & could easily be the open to an indie rock guitar album two decades later.
Thirteen is a good song when Big Star does it and an atrocious song when people cover it. Nighttime from the last Big Star album is like that too.
Overall I think I underappreciate this one a bit because the best had been absorbed into other bands I'd heard first. Very cool rhythm throughout, all the walking lines in the guitars are very rockin. I want more of how they started Feel or the dissonance they'd bring in on Third.
I think about these songs enough that I'm still rounding up.
record: #1. (⌐■_■)
Soft Machine
2/5
When you get an album called Third right after a Big Star record, and that album is not Big Star's Third, it's going to be a disappointment.
This was kinda cool when it was a bit of an abrasive sounds jam near the beginning. The more there were 'songs' and the more the synth played melody lines the worse it got. They do a bunch of work to make sure you're sick of this by the time anything good comes in again.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Roxy Music
3/5
I think on this one, I'm a lot more like 'come on you cowards put your heart in it' than the other Roxy Music we had.
In Every Dream Home a Heartache is a perfect example. It's not funny enough to be funny, the juvenile joke doesn't contrast enough with the music enough. It isn't about enough of anything to be transgressive or moving or even cynically judgmental. It doesn't rock enough to rock, the fade out and in on the guitar solo underscoring the point.
There's moments on this album where it almost really rocks. You can feel it step up to the mic and shrug.
cowardice: hated. (⌐■_■)
Giant Sand
2/5
This is a cool album cover. Kinda cool album title.
This is boring music.
Sometime last year Center of the Universe was mentioned somewhere as an essential, and I listened to a tiny bit of Giant Sand before deciding it wasn't for me. If not for that my review would be saying this is forgettable music that has no business on the list, but apparently there's something enduring about it.
Has a bit of a "buddy don't you know you're not Bob Dylan yet?" vibe to me.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Justin Timberlake
1/5
Was awful in 2002. Every bit more I learn about the history of popular music makes it seem worse.
I gave Michael Jackson 1 star. I wish there was a lower rating for derivative Michael Jackson.
A cultural moment to be aware of for sure.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Violent Femmes
3/5
Spirited. That's worth something. There's a reason Blister in the Sun is a perennial hit, and a reason it's the first association with an acoustic bass guitar.
I don't ever listen to the rest (and hear Blister in the Sun out in the world enough that I don't put it on) and don't like most of it that much. But it's a sound. It captures a kind of awkward crazed teenager vibe. It's worth a go.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
I don't love it, but straight away it's kinda weird. Frontloading the least steady song was a good idea. I get the appeal of this more than the wall of guitar on Loveless.
It's very possible that I've never turned MBV up loud enough to get it.
At any volume it does sound like a band that means the whole world to that band, and I'm tempted to go up to 4 stars just for that.
Tom Tom Club
2/5
When someone thinks you might be kinda cool, thoughtful, quiet, & mysterious
then you go and blather on trying to impress them with comments & jokes that aren't that clever
as an album
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Go-Betweens
3/5
Sounds kinda like basic pop rock, nothing too notable on a first pass. Cattle and Cane came on after, I think I might like this band's other output better. 2.5? Rounding up to 3 based on how few women instrumentalists are on this list. Let it be said again that the Go-Go's deserved at least a four near when I started this.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Mike Ladd
2/5
not enough life to it.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
U2
2/5
I wish I could give this 1 star but parts of it are ok. The guitar on Sunday Bloody Sunday is pretty cool. The guitar overall is alright. Bono is insufferable.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Baaba Maal
4/5
This is cool.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
4/5
reminds me of the best parts of being in the high school jazz band.
music: appreciated. (⌐⚛_⚛)
Justice
2/5
My brother definitely had this on in the car for a whole term when we were on the way to university.
It's not the worst. There's something here, if you've got the emotional range for dance music, which I don't. I've heard D.A.N.C.E. more times than I need to.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Barry Adamson
1/5
why doesn't the 'concept' ever seem to be "songs that are any good"
it'd have to be a hell of a resume for a job application be on a list of great literature. this is not that.
hated. (⌐■_■)
John Lennon
4/5
Somehow never heard most of this album. Highlights aren't as good as Plastic Ono Band, strings tend to weaken it where they appear.
If this wasn't a John Lennon album, and I hadn't heard Imagine used in tacky ways a thousand times, and it came up on the list I'd be like "WOW, what is this??? five stars!!!"
four stars.
Christina Aguilera
1/5
cool stuff:
- it's alright that Beautiful became a queer anthem, even if it's not a very good song. being unambiguously queer positive for a pop megastar wasn't nothing in 2002.
not cool:
- "you can have a little bit of a say in how we sell your body, just so long as you don't say no to the stuff that makes a lot of money. that's feminism, right?"
- the music.
hated. (⌐■_■)
Coldcut
1/5
maybe this would have been 2 stars as the only forgettable Brit DJ album on the list
now that we've heard 20 others we'll never know. they've got Mark E. Smith on a track and it's still getting 1 star.
bleep bloop: hated. (⌐■_■)
Nico
3/5
"I still cannot listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! ... They added strings and – I didn't like them, but I could live with them. But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute."
What if the Velvet Underground was more like Fairport Convention? is a question nobody asked but here's the answer.
The guitar is cool, both the fingerstyle stuff from Jackson Browne and the weirder stuff Lou Reed/Sterling Morrison have going.
It mostly does not sound like the final take you'd leave on an album, not in a bad way. The tension between the raw guitar tracks and the very produced everything else is interesting.
I imagine I'd cry if I'd put a bunch of work into an album and then heard that flute on Winter Song.
I like It Was A Pleasure Then, and also think it's the perfect thing to imagine from a pretentious folk band trying to go experimental while their audience stares in disgust. Fairport Convention's Jazz Odyssey.
I'd like to hear the album Nico wanted. It might not have been all that good either but I'd still like to hear it.
Paul Simon
1/5
music for vampires.
hated. (⌐■_■)
Steely Dan
1/5
some of the vampires who listen to yesterday's album
hated. (⌐■_■)
Merle Haggard
4/5
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The White Stripes
3/5
I like that there's some parts on Ball & Biscuit that go for the weird disorienting rumbly thing of a Lightnin Hopkins song.
There are a bunch of songs on here I dislike.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Soft Cell
2/5
I expected it to be bad but it was mostly ok. Kinda unhinged.
A bit like if you added the cynicism of Roxy Music to the B-52s, kept a good chunk of the wildness but took away most of the heart. That gets you about 2 stars in my books.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Suzanne Vega
3/5
Some bits that are interesting, some bits that sound like 90s adult alternative.
In terms of American pop history, there should probably be an Ani DiFranco album on the list. Since there isn't I'm rounding this one up for vague similarity.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
stuff that's not great:
- sounding a lot like early Radiohead
- also sounding a bit like Muse or whatever that band I don't like is
stuff that's cool:
- some of the guitar parts
- managing to use lyrics written by a disappeared band member (known to be almost certainly dead already at this point) and sound not like a tribute, or exploitation, or gloomy memorial
- continuing to split band money equally with said disappeared guy indefinitely
and it's the last couple that have me round up to 3.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Leonard Cohen
4/5
When I was young I'd have rated this an easy 5 stars.
Now I find a bunch Cool but not Moving, and that is somewhat sad. When I was... 18?.. I was so fascinated by the guitar in Famous Blue Raincoat, and Avalanche.
There's more songs that are kinda unhinged than I remembered. They're fun.
I think there's something juvenile about Cohen's lyrics and music, not in a bad way, and in a way that takes more effort to write about than I feel like in today's review. Unlike a lot of other usefully juvenile music it's not embarrassing to hear later in life.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
R.E.M.
4/5
Catapult and 9-9 kinda rock.
I expected early REM to sound more different.
Kicking it up a point for being their debut album. If Chronic Town covers just as much ground, consider Murmur kicked back down a point.
Murmur is an REM album: it's pretty good and at least one of the songs rocks.
REM: REM. (⌐■_■)
Prince
1/5
The music that plays in hell, round 2.
hated. (⌐☍_☈)
Pavement
5/5
Easy 5 stars. The extras on the expanded edition are a 5 star album.
rocks. (⌐■_■)
Van Morrison
2/5
actually buddy you could stop anytime now.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Byrds
4/5
This might be the best Byrds, and and the one that misleads a person into thinking the early Byrds must be alright too.
Lots of things about this rock. Lloyd Green's steel parts are rad. "Pack up your money and pick up your tent" rocks. This particular country rock sound rocks.
The most Byrds thing about this is that there are two Dylan covers, and the one that it opens with is the best song on the album.
Would be 5 stars if they were the ones who wrote You Ain't Goin' Nowhere.
music: appreciated. (⌐□_□)
3/5
When I saw this come up my first thought was why on earth would you put an album of Ornette Coleman covers instead of an Ornette Coleman album?
Then it comes in swinging so ok. Now I just wonder why there isn't an Ornette Coleman album, not so much why this. I think this would be incredible to see live.
Would have liked this more if there were more slow and spacious pieces in between. Will probably come to regret not rating it higher.
music: appreciated. (⌐□_■)
Donald Fagen
1/5
music for vampires to bore other vampires with.
despised. (⌐■_■)
Fatboy Slim
1/5
Might have been a 2 star but I can't stand Praise You, the song my brother's played constantly that I hate the most.
Making up some star debt from other UK DJs.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Black Flag
4/5
What I thought was going to happen: a kinda wild hardcore album of satirical Dead Kennedys-ish songs with chaotic guitar solos playing a rhythm role
What did happen: an album that gets increasingly insane and starts to sound like early Swans by the end??
so that was cool.
Ryan Adams
1/5
Back when I thought Ryan Adams was a guy with a lot of talent prone to taking artistic missteps I still only listened to Gold once through.
Heartbreaker is the only one in the catalogue to hear to track popular music trends in the 00s. I don't think there are any notable hooks in the 21 songs on Gold.
In 2025 it seems like a very sad attempt at a pop breakthrough. The scattered attempts at sounding soulful are not good.
In 2025 the other thing Ryan Adams playing pop reminds you of is him being gross and coercive to young women who wanted music careers.
music industry creeps: hated. (⌐■_■)
John Lee Hooker
3/5
First track sort of comically misleading.
Overall the collaborators do a pretty good job of not ruining John Lee Hooker's blues, but it does pick up a lot when the guests go away. Worth a listen just for these last three tracks.
2 stars for the first track, 3 stars for the middle, 4 stars for the last three.
Gary Numan
3/5
"wheeeeere's your head aaaaaatt at at at" - Gary Anthony James Webb
The Everly Brothers
2/5
Sounds like a band trying really hard to make the best of constraints put on it: terrible vocals stuck in an extremely square sense of time.
The thing it reminds me of most is the AI slop you see on YouTube, "X in the style of Y". It doesn't have the human touch. There's something not quite right about it. (the thing that's not quite right is that it sucks)
Worse backing band and this would be a 1 star
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
Was going to make another comment about Zappa as adjacent to Captain Beefheart with no heart (Captain Beef?). After having just listened to the Everly Brothers, you know what snark away buddy.
I think this one is more sincerely trying to do something than Hot Rats was, even if some of the ideas are straight up dumb. C for effort.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Thundercat
2/5
I don't like pop music enough to like any of this album, and while listening I got a distinct feeling of lostness. It wants to be fun but isn't fun. Tries to fill the gaps with memes. Doomscrolling: the album?
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Everything But The Girl
2/5
some good examples of doing less with more here
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Steely Dan
1/5
vampires who feed off vampires who feed off vampires who feed off vampires. haven't seen real human blood for millennia.
hated. (⌐■_■)
Slade
2/5
Album cover and title so dumb that it's kinda funny. Song titles trying to be dumb-funny but don't make it.
Starts off sounding like you'd described AC/DC to a bunch of Brits who'd never heard AC/DC and thought maybe it was kinda like Aftermath by the Rolling Stones.
Then starts to sound like Led Zeppelin said "we should keep all our dumbest stuff, but also try to sound more like AC/DC".
Then a little bit of if Bowie was more dumb and less fun.
Somewhere in there is some weird rumbly stuff that's kinda cool.
It's actually kinda alright. The perfect thing for you if you need a song to play in a movie scene that sounds kinda familiar, but the audience has definitely not heard. And also won't remember or ever think about again.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Fela Kuti
4/5
rocks.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
G. Love & Special Sauce
1/5
Imagine a Red Hot Chili Peppers of blues. Then make it a bit worse.
G. Hate.
(⌐◉︵◉)
The Rolling Stones
3/5
It's... fine?
There are no songs I care much about on here, but this is substantially better than the two Stones albums I gave a 2. Between how bad G. Love was yesterday and the improvement over the other albums I'll round this 2.5 up to 3.
The title is kinda cool in a means nothing so sorta actually kinda dumb way. The album is unimpressive.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Byrds
2/5
Byrds guitar starting to sound way better on this one, held back by corny pop song structures and harmonies.
They only do one Dylan cover! But OF COURSE the title is taken from the Dylan cover.
The Byrds needed to go more country to get good.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Killers
1/5
I knew going in that I completely hate Mr. Brightside and Somebody Told Me. I can't believe you still hear Mr. Brightside out in public in 2025.
This coming up on the list has reminded me that I also completely hate All These Things That I've Done. Three of my most hated radio singles is impressive in a first album.
Britpop goes to Vegas to get glitzed up. A nightmare.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Near when we started this project I listened to a playlist called Electric Ladyland, and thought "wow none of this singing sounds like Hendrix, and the recordings sound very modern". I gave an album of Jimi Hendrix covers 4 stars and thought there were enough interesting & weird songs that I might revisit and call it a 5. That's hilarious.
I haven't heard very much of this one before and it was real cool.
Album cover is outrageous and cool, like the sort of brag that would look pathetic from anybody not at mythological status. Jimi could have straight up said "I am clearly a deity from outer space", and you'd have to go "well.. he's got a point there."
The Auteurs
2/5
what if Bowie started out in the 90s and wasn't that good
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Undertones
3/5
I don't know if I would expect something to be good if you said "it's like the Sex Pistols playing pop punk mixed with AC/DC". But that's what this is like and it's pretty good.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Lemonheads
2/5
Well above average in the reality of 90s alternative radio. Indistinct in the field of stuff worth remembering about 90s alternative.
You're not gonna get rounded up to 3 stars if you've got a Simon & Garfunkel cover.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Holger Czukay
4/5
Kinda bonkers in a cool way.
Bumping it up one pioneer point for early sampling and radio-as-instrument use.
Probably still gonna go to Can when I want something bonkers in this particular way, but glad to have listened.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Bees
1/5
sunshine did not hit me.
I am imagining a bunch of pasty Brits making the music of Angryman, and it makes me angry, man. so they have some limited success? Then they cover Os Mutantes so the song could be used in a car commercial!
"well come on what ISN'T cultural appropriation??" - The Bees, after playing the reggae song their latest ayahuasca experience inspired
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Jimmy Smith
3/5
Cool, would probably find myself going 'hell yeah' when used as a radio interlude. Not quite main attraction enough for me on a whole album. Find myself thinking that this could lose some solos and be a killer backing band.
Fatboy Slim
1/5
two Fatboy Slim albums in the 1001 you should listen to before you die, huh? really. really.
hated. (⌐■_■)
Destiny's Child
1/5
The La's
2/5
hey what's that band who did There She Goes Again sound like on a full album
is a question I've never asked
and will forget the answer to immediately
but it wasn't that bad.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Orbital
1/5
list used up all my patience for bleep bloop Brits so now it's 1 star unless it's immediately interesting
Coldplay
2/5
I like Yellow in the way that you kind of like things you hate, or kind of hate things you like.
I've heard it said that it's a pretty direct ripoff of Pavement's Here. I don't see it so directly but would not be at all surprised if they knowingly wanted to use it for a radio hit.
Some bits of pretty decent guitar. Lots of bits of forgettable instrumental. Some of the songs I don't remember hearing are pretty bad. Could learn a lot about pop music accompaniment here, if you want to make a palatable frictionless kind of thing.
But this is 1001 albums to listen to before you die. It is not 1001 commercially successful albums to predict the next selling trends. I can't quite bear to rate this lower than A Rush Of Blood To The Head but they ought to both get 1 star.
We've listened to so many "they were influential, I swear" early Britpop and early dance music albums - where's all the underground rock Coldplay processed into their bland hits?
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Guided By Voices
4/5
considering my comment in yesterday's review: oh. this is where. ok.
Very funny coincidence - not only is this influential underground rock, it's made of fragments that were in many cases used by other bands to build songs.
Easy to imagine hearing these on college radio and going hell yeah!!! & gettin real excited. Lots of great hooks to steal if you're writing a song in need of a hook.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Public Image Ltd.
5/5
Deranged, confrontational, awesome.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Kate Bush
4/5
Kate Bush is very cool.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Public Enemy
4/5
appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Cee Lo Green
1/5
outrageous to say this guy is any kind of soul machine, but THE soul machine? get real.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
3/5
A bit slight still but has everything going for it that the Everly Brothers lacked, a bit of country twang, a bit of rock n roll. Hard to believe that Everly Brothers album was closer chronologically to rock than this.
The backing vocals are good & would be great if the main thing had more drive.
I haven't listened to enough Buddy Holly to guess whether the songs falling a bit flat is an aesthetic or showing the pressure/limitations of trying to make rock n roll recordings in 1957.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Blur
3/5
I liked this one a good bit when I was a teen. Now I think I'd rather listen to the influences that set Blur in this direction, but I do appreciate hearing a band try to stretch themselves a little. I think I appreciate the lead guitar more than I did as a teen, when I would have just thought "guitar fill, ok sure".
When I was 15 or 16 the instrumental after Essex Dogs (pretty cool track itself, always dug the shifting tempo) totally blew my mind. I'd never heard something sound so melodic and so obviously out of tune with the standard scale at the same time.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Pulp
2/5
Truly annoying Brit pervert vocals. Would be a 1 star except that I think Common People is almost good, a deserved rip on hedonist dilettantes. Music has a lot of 'people! they're so dull!', good to have a bit of 'people are exhausted all the time' counterpoint.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Franz Ferdinand
1/5
Take Me Out among my all time most hated radio singles and there are songs on here that are even worse. This Fire, truly awful.
I see a lot of reviews trying to connect a legacy from Gang of Four. I even see a mention of Television. It takes a lot of contortion to see post punk in this shitty 00s dance rock.
I think it shows how desperate this era of mainstream rock was for something a millionth as cool as punk. This band sucked then, thinking about them sucks now.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
3/5
New Order-y but all downtempo, the party taken out. Not a bad thing to be, missing the gift for hooks that New Order has. Hard not to think about Millennial synth pop at the worst bits. 2.5.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Slipknot
1/5
Imagine being a guy who listens to a Slipknot album from 2008 and is like "wow this album, by Slipknot, from 2008, is one of the 1001 albums a person should hear before they die".
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Red Snapper
1/5
"Listen, we're supposed to hang you tonight, but the rules say you can listen to any of the 1001 albums you didn't get to first if you want."
"What's next up?"
"Our Aim Is To Satisfy by Red Snapper."
"No, that's ok."
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
Lot more boring than the last one by this group. Did not need to hear.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Slint
4/5
Haven't been hugely drawn to Slint. Neat band, has a huge influence, just haven't been the moody weirdo band for me. If it was the early 90s and I was listening to a bunch of hardcore & this came along then maybe it would be a lightning bolt.
Still, it does feel like a bunch of weirdos drawn to their singular thing, and I like that and am glad to have listened. The extras on the remaster are worth a go through.
Good Morning, Captain is a jam, and it's cool to leave the most exciting bit for the very end of the record.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Stranglers
3/5
First of all, absolutely fuck rats. If you see evidence of rats, email rats@gov.ab.ca or call 310-FARM toll-free.
Second of all, this album was ok.
rats: hated. (⌐■_■)
Björk
4/5
Bjork rocks.
Boston
2/5
less than a feeling.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Roxy Music
2/5
fine. not inspiring.
Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic autoplayed after this and that's enough to downgrade a point.
4/5
I like this country sound a whole gosh darn lot. Some of the songs aren't all that good as songs, doesn't matter.
In my grandma's small town generation half the husbands pissed away the money at the bar with a working wife and bunch of kids at home.
I didn't need to have personally experienced the content of Illmatic, either, you know?
Hard not to think about the late-life politics. If you want that kind of love, well, you don't need none of mine.
..but four stars.
music: appreciated. (⌐□_□)
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
I think that I like Fleetwood Mac as much as anybody, and then I look at the track list for an album & think gosh maybe I don't like Fleetwood Mac very much.
I really dislike Don't Stop and Go Your Own Way.
This is a 2.5 star album with two 5 star songs. I think Dreams is the highlight. The Chain is incredible but never as incredible as the first time you hear it. I like Dreams more and more all the time.
Eric Clapton
1/5
It's convenient when jerks make terrible music. Oh racist white guys doing reggae, never change. (or maybe do change, completely & totally, forever.)
One of the funniest/dumbest things ever is how many truly great guitarists talked up Clapton like he was the king.
George Harrison keeps saying they need Clapton in Get Back to do the solos, and he describes a particular guitar skill well - building up a solo that's it's own little story, with a beginning, middle, and end. It's just that this is a skill George Harrison was a million times better at than Eric Clapton.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
Ok if you're a fan of 60s/70s folk rock - leagues better than CSN. Broken Arrow sort of interesting to the Neil Young completist as a studio experiment from somebody who would spend a long career insisting on live off the floor as much as possible. Otherwise kinda like if the first Neil Young record was half as good & had guest stars.
Pere Ubu
4/5
Should you do an audience hostile track smashing glass in the middle of an album if you're a band today? Probably not.
Is it hilarious when you do it in 1978 after rockin' for 30 minutes and just before rockin' again? Yes.
I think this is the kind of impression Roxy Music wanted to make but they didn't have the guts to rock so hard or be so confrontational.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Linkin Park
1/5
music to make Millennials cringe at their own youth culture. not a fan of these worst-of-the-decade inclusions in the list.
in the end, it's not even 1 star
2/5
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Talking Heads
4/5
Some Television-y guitars going on.
I listened to this at home on headphones and dug it. Listened to a bit at work on speakers and thought "eh it's just usual Talking Heads". I don't know what to say about that.
Does it mean that I just like the guitars? Does vaguely disco-ish beat sound like too many not as good bands when indistinct over speakers?
I dunno man!!!!
Prefab Sprout
2/5
Started off ok then had many bad songs. Sounds like a band that can actually rock making the terrible decision to play 80s pop.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Simon & Garfunkel
1/5
Paul Simon is a vampire
Antony and the Johnsons
4/5
I don't think I'd quite have got what this album was about in 2005. Slow learner.
Going in I expected it to be ok but the big vibrato & pop leanings to not be for me. Was expecting my review to be "music for people who like pop a lot but are still pretty cool". Think the vocals are working better here than in some scattered other songs I've heard. Really good when the harmonies are there.
Lots of simple songs with a ton contained in them. It makes sense that Lou Reed was big on Anonhi's talent.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Tears For Fears
2/5
One of the more successful mergings of 80s pop and 80s underground rock. Thought a bit about whether to go up or down. I do not like 80s pop at all so don't want to listen to this again & that'll be the decider there.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Kendrick Lamar
3/5
is it worse to pimp a butterfly or kill a mockingbird, do you think
Aerosmith
1/5
Aerosmith doesn't have two songs worth listening to. two albums? buddy. you're writing a BOOK. it's in PRINT that you think somebody should spend 90 minutes on Aerosmith. typical person has to go back to preteen years to find something that embarrassing.
Pixies
4/5
I think this was the first Pixies album I heard in full. At the time I thought it was only ok, I'd heard Dig for Fire and was hoping for more like that. I like the Pixies more now than I did then.
Madonna
1/5
I remember hating the single. I'm sure I still hate it.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Dire Straits
1/5
as though Eric Clapton and Bruce Springsteen formed a band when the 80s were in full swing
The Cardigans
3/5
Was ok. Interesting enough to balance out the pop leanings. 3.3 stars.
New York Dolls
3/5
Realizing that I have never knowingly heard the New York Dolls.
Solid, not amazing, kinda somewhere in between Stooges and Ramones that sounds closer to standard hard rock than either of those two. I like the irreverent use of pop/trad songs. 3.5 stars
Grateful Dead
1/5
It says something bad about the Grateful Dead that their meandering nothing jams are far more listenable than their song segments. A person can at least imagine being deep into a trip & seeing something in the jams.
It says something bad about how I've aged that I'm not as immediately repulsed by the aggressive limpness of this band.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1/5
one of those strained pop culture references in an academic paper, from a bunch of smarmy fuckin dorks: the album
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Hawkwind
3/5
Has a sense of fun messing around to it so that when it doesn't land it's still ok. Great contrast with the previous Emerson, Lake, & Palmer screaming "look at me! look at how sophisticated I am! *harsh Moog solo*". This one says "hey you can just rock out and play some wild noise stuff and it'll be pretty cool", and then other people did too & it was pretty cool.
Probably 4 stars if cut to the best stuff at half the length.
frickin around: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Aerosmith
1/5
guy thinks we should listen to THREE Aerosmith albums? get real buddy.
Charles Mingus
4/5
cool. (⌐■_■)
The Velvet Underground
5/5
The song White Light/White Heat gets stuck in my head all the time even though I don't hear it much.
I avoid listening to The Gift and thought I didn't like it, but you know what, it's fine.
Most nihilistic album from the Velvet Underground but they do rock real hard.
appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Siouxsie And The Banshees
5/5
if you're this cool you can dress as goth as you want and I won't make fun of you promise
Neil Young
5/5
"That's a hell of a question, isn't it? I don't understand it. It sounds like gibberish to me. I stopped singing that song because when I get to that line I go, what the fuck am I talking about? You know, I don't edit my songs. I knew something was happening at the time that I wrote it to make that right, but I can't remember what it is and it doesn't apply to what I'm doing now. "I Am a Child" is like that. What is the color when black is burnt? It's a charcoal kind of color, I guess, but what the fuck does that mean? I ask myself over and over, what the fuck am I talking about?"
Simon & Garfunkel
1/5
vampires
Jane's Addiction
2/5
might be able to hear an influence of Siouxsie and the Banshees filtered through the worst guys in Los Angeles?
Judas Priest
2/5
chanting breaking the law, breaking the law is funny
otherwise I've got no use for this
John Prine
5/5
As an eternal shuffler I hadn't thought about the track list on this album and thought 'oh cool John Prine's debut, solid 4 stars probably'.
Illegal Smile, Hello In There, Sam Stone, Pretty Good all songs that could individually push an album up to 5 star range.
An album with Angel From Montgomery is a 5 star album.
Lots that is both unflinching & nonjudgmental.
My only complaint about John Prine's first albums is that I like some of the solo recordings from a BBC broadcast from London in 1973 even more. I once thought there was way too much instrumentation on the albums - why take a force of nature performer and run it through the 1970s big budget folk album process? but they didn't ruin anything. It's 2025 now and we get to have all kinds of versions.
5 frickin stars.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Aretha Franklin
5/5
imagine being the kind of singer where you can go sing an Otis Redding song and then that's your song now.
Otis Redding. unbelievable
five stars
Shuggie Otis
3/5
I am not a kind of guy who can enjoy R&B veering into Prince/Michael Jackson territory.
other aspects sometimes kinda cool. something a bit hip hop instrumental about it. rounding up to 3.
Gorillaz
3/5
I like the guitar part in 5/4 a lot. Song overall kinda dull. Naming a song after the unusual time signature is a big time dweeb move. Similar dweeb move on Double Bass. The "all of which makes me anxious, at times unbearably so" interlude is funny and cool though.
When I was a teen I dug the throw-everything-at-the-wall style of this one. I don't rate versatility as highly these days so more of it falls flat.
Hard time with this one - how original was this at the time? Was what was original about it also good? I don't know man. three stars.
Moby
2/5
Adtroducing
Black Sabbath
4/5
War Pigs an all timer, lots of little sections that themselves could be the best part of a killer song. There are not words for how much I think War Pigs rocks.
The main riff in Iron Man sounds like it has to be ancient. I find it annoying! A rumbly rocker built around an obnoxious earworm.
Besides Paranoid I don't think the other tracks are familiar to me.
4 stars but it's a round down. I looked at my review of the first album - awesome grooves but think it could do with less guitar solos - and here it is. Could learn a lot about group dynamics listening to this over & over.
As a guy who's always thinking "Led Zeppelin would be so good if they could just be a rhythm section" it's odd that I don't listen to more Black Sabbath.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Paul McCartney and Wings
3/5
it's fine
Django Django
2/5
did anyone care about this
did the band even care about making it
if I needed to have something that sounds like nothing on this might be acceptable I guess
1/5
It's like the Franz Ferdinand or Killers albums where I think I'm not going to know the songs but I know and hate them from radio.
In 2006 I liked Radiohead a lot. Hearing this must have been one of the pushes to not like Radiohead so much.
This music is a strip mall full of chain stores in the burbs, the sort of stuff that convinces the young the whole world is dumber & less special than it is. 1 star you shameless cowards.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
American Music Club
4/5
cool bridge between earlier styles and the underground rock that got big in the 90s.
this is a good choice for an albums you might have missed list. seems like it was a big deal for a bunch of cool bands. it's uneven but the less interesting songs do something neat somewhere. lots of little moves I thought were original to later artists.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Rocket From The Crypt
3/5
is ok, doesn't make the impression that Drive Like Jehu did, more conventional rock. has a bit of the bouncy feel of 2000s ska when the horns come in and that is not a plus in my books
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Sleater-Kinney
5/5
I had this impression of Sleater-Kinney as a more mainstream-friendly rendition of bands I like a lot. They have that sound a bit later on, but I was wrong, this one rocks.
Off kilter rhythm on One More Hour totally incredible.
Very good choice for albums you must hear! You're right once in a while, list!
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
3/5
music for an art show where the art & background music are meant to be offputting
both the music and art show are offputting in a way that's cooler than you want to admit
music: regarded expressionlessly. (⌐■_■)
Fairport Convention
3/5
had too high of expectations for this one from hearing of it as a Richard Thompson highlight
some cool stuff. overall only just fine.
American folk music was a better basis for rock n roll because it had the dweebiness punched out of it already before the electric guitar arrived.
Bob Dylan
3/5
I think I once liked this one quite a lot. Couple very good songs. Now I think it's fine. I might like Dylan less the more comfortable he sounds.
Frank Black
3/5
pretty good! pretty good. rounding down because we already had the Pixies, and rounding up to 4 would make me further regret some of the others I rounded down
Black Sabbath
4/5
Black Sabbath is good.
music: appreciated. (⌐⛧_⛧)
Kid Rock
1/5
Bon Jovi
1/5
Steely Dan
1/5
vampires.
James Taylor
2/5
some of the acoustic parts played on the bass strings sound good. some nice steel guitar.
smug. bland.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Pantera
1/5
this band sucks.
The Flaming Lips
2/5
Wayne Coyne + constantly hearing that this band was great are almost enough to downgrade to 1 star. it doesn't deserve 1 star. it might be ok without Wayne Coyne singing.
this band sucks.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Silver Jews
5/5
you wouldn't think with a guy singing like this there'd be much potential of catchy songs. David Berman's hit rate was very high.
I remember when I first heard Strange Victory, Strange Defeat I thought only 'hm. ok.' Then I thought maybe I'd listen to it again a while later. now I think about that song often.
I'm glad that I now like these songs right away hearing them for the first time.
offers a lot in the way of processing the world. music that makes space to inhabit small things. thanks Silver Jews.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
The Young Gods
1/5
is to Swans as a French Tom Waits is to Captain Beefheart
Red Hot Chili Peppers
2/5
terrible but not quite terrible enough for 1 star. of historical note in that this terrible band was huge for a long time.
Californication was the first guitar solo I ever learned even though I was never a RHCP fan.
some nice moments of guitar accompaniment but nothing innovative
range and skill with horrendous taste
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Fred Neil
3/5
pleasant album. strange cover.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
3/5
is ok. was never crazy about Will Oldham. maybe a little bit the same territory as Silver Jews but doesn't work for me as much.
the title track has a bunch of versions and one of them is really good. the music video version maybe?
Happy Mondays
2/5
the movie 24 Hour Party People makes this band look bad. they're better than I would have thought
the funniest thing about this band is their cover of The Boys Are Back In Town. it's not on here. 2 stars.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
John Martyn
3/5
this was ok for a melancholy morning. if I listened again I might get a James Taylor-like sense of insufferable smugness. for now I am rounding up to 3.
The Louvin Brothers
4/5
maybe the Everly Brothers could have rocked if they too were Possessed by a Great Evil
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Hot Chip
1/5
below average on heart/substance in a peak moment of genre recycling that was incredibly low on heart/substance.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
1/5
Patti Smith
5/5
in between the Velvet Underground and Television, with a woman poet carving out space for the future
if you don't think that rocks I am sad for the things you have missed in life.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
only ok? has a bit of that awkward thing of messing up country & blues rhythm by latching it to rock drums.
Tuesday's Gone is a great hook, don't really dig the arrangement they did.
the verses of Free Bird are not good but the solo section is cool.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Rush
2/5
some of the dweebiest dweebs to ever do it
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Laibach
3/5
has the right mix of violent guitar to keep it weird & confrontational instead of only ridiculous
confrontation: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Taylor Swift
2/5
I think Shake It Off is a good song but it's never as good as imagine it to be
can't stand the rest of this that I skimmed through.
could be a 1 star if not for all the students I knew who used this music to de-stress.
haters gonna hate.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Dwight Yoakam
1/5
classic country as performed by a cheap karaoke machine
with I'm-so-sad-and-misunderstood-I-had-to-murder-my-wife to rival Eminem thrown in
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
The Byrds
3/5
there's some good stuff here, some inventive guitar that's trying to bridge country & psychedelic
it also sounds too much like Paul Simon trying to write George Harrison songs
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Fugazi
5/5
There's a video of when Fugazi played out front of the White House in a protest against the Gulf War. Besides the commitment involved in putting principles into action & the energy it takes to get a big event off the ground in uncertain weather.. they play Turnover and it looks like playing the coolest guitar line in the coolest band in the world.
If your favourite band of the 2000s was any good they were huge Fugazi fans.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Korn
1/5
The Flaming Lips
1/5
I hated hearing this album & hated being told this band was brilliant. the concept of this album is being insufferable.
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Beck
3/5
I think this album is fine. On the first listen many years ago I thought I'd come back to it often, but in the end I listened twice through and that was all.
I kinda get the inclusion of two Beck albums for historical reasons but it also makes me surly about the male-dominance of the list. The musician that made the transition from weirdo semi-outsider to lush mainstream pop, with albums still worth listening to 20 years later, is Cat Power. Beck is forgettable.
TV On The Radio
1/5
too desperate. too blood thirsty. probably Paul Simon fans (vampires).
Hole
3/5
pretty good! lots of very good hooks. a bit too smoothed over for me to like a lot.
Lorde
2/5
not 4 me
Screaming Trees
4/5
in high school I had some friends who were into grunge. most of the bands sucked. the Screaming Trees stood out as one of the best of them.
I don't think they stand out much in the alt rock landscape to me now. still gonna go up to 4.
The Divine Comedy
1/5
imagine thinking somebody should listen to this even once
of all the albums made in the 20th century
then writing it in a book
and that book is published.
what the fuck are we doing here.
dweeb theatre perverts: hated. (⌐■_■) 🚬
Steely Dan
1/5
vampire rats who have been feeding off other vampire rats for centuries with no fresh blood try instead to feed off vampire squirrels who have been doing the same. results no better than expected.
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
ok this one was good and I am glad to have listened. fine.
music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)
Paul McCartney
4/5
It's been years since I listened to this one & I wondered if I still liked it. There's a certain amount of McCartneyism somebody like me can take and once you're past that limit there's a suspicion of the whole schtick.
It's good! I still like that it's fragmented & sparse. Whatever the Beatles/McCartney did to record acoustic guitars & drums sounds great.
music: appreciated. (⌐☸_☸)
The Sabres Of Paradise
1/5
this list is making it harder to listen to electronic music without dismissing it at first glance
that is the haunting, of the dancehall in my heart
music: hated. (⌐■_■)
Johnny Cash
5/5
sometimes I like to imagine for a moment a world where country music stuck to good old country values, like prison abolition.
The Stooges
5/5
we are still having a real cool time, in the fun house. we are playing saxophones and we are stealing your heart away.
music: appreciated. (⌐■ ̮ ■)
Eels
3/5
I like some Eels ok. not enough to put an album. very 2.5 star.
The Triffids
2/5
did not mind listening much. 2 stars.
George Michael
2/5
the only thing I've really known about George Michael is from that interview where he, Tony Blackburn, and Morrissey talk about Joy Division. George Michael is the only Joy Division fan in the bunch.
so I did try to listen without my anti-pop prejudice. this music is not for me.