783
Albums Rated
2.86
Average Rating
72%
Complete
306 albums remaining
Featured Review
Ramones
Ramones • 5/5
Turning up Blitzkrieg Bop as I embark on a day of Halloween errands: 10/10 Sheepishly leaving a second time because I forgot my wallet, quietly playing Beat on the Brat: 4/10 I'm once again not going to act like I have an informed critique. This fucks
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33
5-Star Albums
62
1-Star Albums
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You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kenza | 5 | 2.58 | +2.42 |
| Penthouse And Pavement | 5 | 2.62 | +2.38 |
| Strange Cargo III | 5 | 2.77 | +2.23 |
| I Am a Bird Now | 5 | 2.84 | +2.16 |
| Second Toughest In The Infants | 5 | 2.86 | +2.14 |
| Kollaps | 4 | 1.9 | +2.1 |
| I Against I | 5 | 2.93 | +2.07 |
| Don't Come Home A Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind) | 5 | 2.97 | +2.03 |
| I See A Darkness | 5 | 2.97 | +2.03 |
| Devil Without A Cause | 4 | 2.06 | +1.94 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electric Ladyland | 1 | 3.95 | -2.95 |
| In Rainbows | 1 | 3.84 | -2.84 |
| Axis: Bold As Love | 1 | 3.79 | -2.79 |
| Birth Of The Cool | 1 | 3.65 | -2.65 |
| Exile On Main Street | 1 | 3.61 | -2.61 |
| Illinois | 1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
| Aja | 1 | 3.46 | -2.46 |
| 3 Feet High and Rising | 1 | 3.46 | -2.46 |
| Odelay | 1 | 3.46 | -2.46 |
| Imagine | 1 | 3.45 | -2.45 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Johnny Cash | 2 | 5 |
| Depeche Mode | 2 | 5 |
| Hole | 2 | 5 |
| Leonard Cohen | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Miles Davis | 4 | 1.5 |
| TV On The Radio | 2 | 1 |
| Beck | 3 | 1.67 |
| Elvis Presley | 3 | 1.67 |
| Jimi Hendrix | 3 | 1.67 |
| Led Zeppelin | 5 | 2 |
| LCD Soundsystem | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Divine Comedy | 2 | 1.5 |
| Emerson, Lake & Palmer | 2 | 1.5 |
| Ryan Adams | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Mothers Of Invention | 2 | 1.5 |
| Genesis | 2 | 1.5 |
| Neil Young | 4 | 2 |
| The Rolling Stones | 5 | 2.2 |
| Tim Buckley | 3 | 2 |
| Blur | 3 | 2 |
| Steely Dan | 4 | 2.25 |
Controversial Artists
Artists you rate inconsistently
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Kraftwerk | 5, 2 |
| Radiohead | 4, 1, 3 |
| Deep Purple | 1, 4, 2 |
| PJ Harvey | 4, 2, 1 |
5-Star Albums (33)
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Popular Reviews
LCD Soundsystem
1/5
mom: no, we're not stopping, we have Talking Heads at home
Talking Heads at home:
7 likes
2Pac
3/5
Honestly opening an album with news reports (or faked ones) about your own 1) shooting and 2) having to leave the hospital after said shooting to go somewhere else with more protection from a possible second shooting - possibly the hardest opening you can come up with
The rest of this was highs and lows for me
5 likes
Neil Young
2/5
Somehow it feels like I've listened to this album a dozen times for various foolish little projects, which doesn't make sense because besides this project the only music one I've done is to listen to Rolling Stone's top 100 albums off their 500-album list. Harvest is on there, but I think the problem is that so are 2-3 other albums, and there are at least 2-3 other albums on here too, and I just don't care for Neil Young that much. This album contains some of his most Kermit Thee Frog vocals along with songs that just don't strike me as endearing. Of course you want a maid. Just pick up your fucking socks, Neil
4 likes
Christina Aguilera
1/5
The intro song is so corny I'm sorry. I think I didn't really like any of the self-referential songs (Still Dirrty) because they were very plainly written and just not very interesting. The \"Thank You\" interlude was also weird to me? The sampled fan voicemail selections were... interesting. The second half opens... interestingly... with Nasty Naughty Boy, which was. A song. It's incredible how sexual some of these tracks are while also being decidedly not sexy.
4 likes
1-Star Albums (62)
All Ratings
Marvin Gaye
4/5
IS there a more iconic album/song opening.
I thought this might be the Rolling Stone #1 album, but that was What's Going On - which I agree is good, but I think I enjoy Let's Get It On more, especially for casually listening.
Bias: love a 45-min-or-less album
Isaac Hayes
3/5
I was initially wary because I'm not a big fan of long songs, but I enjoyed the opener a lot. The second was fine, I liked the third, and then the fourth felt like a man invited me to his home and put on a record I "had to listen to" and talked over it, for the first eight minutes. The back half was better but can't redeem the front half.
2.5 rounded up
Kraftwerk
5/5
synthesizers go brrrrrrrr
my internet glitching out while streaming really added to this experience
how can you dislike something that opens with rolling the r in rrrrrobot
anyway I don't think I've ever sat and listened to an entire Kraftwerk album, and don't think they benefit from that approach, which is fine
4.5
AC/DC
3/5
AC/DC should never be purchased on vinyl, because they should never be listened to as an entire album
R.E.M.
2/5
the worst Radiohead album, kicked off by the worst Pink Floyd song, thankfully punctuated by Ignoreland and Man On the Moon
Björk
3/5
I don't think today was a good day to listen to this album. I do keep meaning to listen to more Bjork and I think a song or two at a time was nice, I liked the opening track, but. I will have to reserve any real judgment on the album because it was not an "errands day" vibe.
4/5
I found a lot to like about this. The title track especially felt like the thing I imagine when I'm listening to The Beatles and think "I like this, but I'd really like it if it were more uptempo and like 20% More"
Would prefer Starship lose the last three minutes but maybe that was because it was a live show recording?
3.5 rounded up
Cream
2/5
Ah yes, the other side of the 1960s rock coin, now that I just defended Kick Out the Jams. I like Sunshine of Your Love well enough, but overall this is a 33-minute album that I had to take at least four breaks from listening to because it feels like interminable jam band music to me. I did also enjoy Strange Brew. I'd like to unhear Mother's Lament and SWLABR.
King Crimson
2/5
The problem with prog rock is that I sometimes like a three minute long cohesive clip of sound that would, in other circumstances, be a song, but in prog rock circumstances is actually a small portion of a twelve-minute morass that seems to be trying to depict an entire hero's journey. Then I am left, like someone playing cassette tapes, skimming through a bunch of squibbles to play the part I liked.
The Cars
4/5
I barely needed to relisten to this album. My Best Friend's Girl is, in my opinion, the standout track even though Just What I Needed had more/longer-standing commercial success. This album (and band) get coded as early new wave 80's pop a lot but there's some very twangy and Motown inspired sounds in here under the Casio synth lines that I think are interesting too.
I can feel you asking "fmst if you're so effusive about it and love new wave, why is this four stars" and the answer is mostly because I have 1001 albums to get through so I realized I want to really hold the fives in reserve. I also think some of the tracks (Let the Good Times Roll) drag more than they needed to and in just nine tracks some of them feel start to feel samey (You're All I've Got).
Pearl Jam
2/5
holy GOD just strike me down
it's not even like the music is unlistenable but a man whose name I can't even remember, who is every grungy rock man born in the early or mid 80s, would NOT shut UP about this RECORD
AND I LISTENED TO IT TO TRY TO HAVE SOMETHING TO TALK TO HIM ABOUT
PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY
New Order
4/5
Love Vigilantes: slaps
This Time of Night: cardinal sin of "witchoo"
Sunrise: slaps
Elegia: fine but feels like watching The Cure jam instrumentally at their show as I wait desperately for something I can recognize
The Band
1/5
"Listening to The Band is like contemplating old sepia pictures of America:" yeah I wouldn't choose to spend my day off doing that, either
I'm not going to act like I have a critique of it on any merits it's fine I just don't like it
The War On Drugs
2/5
of course these men also did a podcast about themselves
it just sounds to me like a lot of other music that I'm like "yeah this is fine" and then I find out the group has a rabid following in their local tristate area and all of their fans think they're revolutionizing the rock scene rather than saying "yeah the guitar is fun and the vibes are chill, it's nice to drink a beer to." the venue probably sells PBR tallboys for like six dollars. it is walking distance from an inexplicably fancy bowling alley and four establishments selling very bad wings
I actually did enjoy some of some of the tracks as a "doing stuff with music on" vibe. Burning was fun, for example. low points were when it seemed like the vocalist was trying to sound like Bob Dylan or Don Henley
Ramones
5/5
Turning up Blitzkrieg Bop as I embark on a day of Halloween errands: 10/10
Sheepishly leaving a second time because I forgot my wallet, quietly playing Beat on the Brat: 4/10
I'm once again not going to act like I have an informed critique. This fucks
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
I'm going to guess that I liked this more than most of the rest of the group, but even I have to admit it's not particularly...listenable. I'd give it a 3.5 but not in good conscience a 4 so rounding down. A lot of it sounds familiar in difficult-to-pin-down ways which makes me think this is one of those "musicians liked it and no one else listened to it" albums?
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
well they CALL me BAby DRIver
Listening to this on the record player was a nice experience.
Fairport Convention
2/5
The opening song does this album a disservice. Not that I particularly like the rest of the album, but I really hated the opening song.
The Temptations
4/5
The beat was fresh and the vibe was funky!
Kings of Leon
2/5
A lot of reviews for this album call it an update for "southern rock" but I would like to put forth that this is the groundwork for emo music. Notably: whiny lyrics about being skinny and effeminate, and a lot of disdain for women. And tapered jeans. I remember when Four Kicks got really big on the music video channels and I thought it was annoying then too. 1.5
Moby
3/5
I don't love this but I have to admit I don't hate it enough to roast it. I don't think I'm ever like "hmm let me put on an entire Moby LP" but some of these were decent zone-out music and I regrettably enjoy Bodyrock.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
you're listening to Dad Radio, on 99.9fm
Public Enemy
4/5
Accidentally listened to five bonus tracks/versions off the deluxe version because they're all good. I could do with fewer Flavor Flav shouts/ad-libs on a lot of the songs though.
Sisters Of Mercy
4/5
1959 is for the romantic, Victorian typa goths which is not me
no other notes
looking forward to seeing what everyone else in the group thinks
Robbie Williams
1/5
"your conversation's boring as hell" well how would you describe this song Robbie
A lot of this album kind of makes me think of how when Ryan Adams covered 1989 and Calum Scott covered "Dancing On My Own"* they seemed to inexplicably (or explicably) get a lot of critical acclaim. Probably because I saw that this album doesn't actually contain his first (hit) single which was a cover of "Freedom" by George Michael that strips out all of the character found in the original, and imo this album has a similar lack of experimentation and personal style.
I was gonna give it a 2 until I got to the secret spoken word poem.
*I'm honestly still not over how one of my closest "nearly got run over as a pedestrian" incidents was a young man in a minivan, in a parking lot, absolutely zooming through the path where I was clearly visible, with this song version blasting out loud through the entirely-fully-down windows. The Gen Z twinks don't know who Robyn is and it's leading to the downfall of Western society
Beck
3/5
I remember the singles off this album but I don't think I ever listened to the whole thing. I liked Girl back then and I like it now. There was another song I liked and a couple I disliked, but I was listening while driving so don't recall. It's fine.
The Sonics
2/5
Their label seems to be trying really hard to make The Sonics happen, because it seems like there are multiple similar albums like "introducing The Sonics! here they are, The Sonics! come meet The Sonics!" so honestly, has there ever been a time without industry plants?
It's amazing how, uh, boring and white they made Roll Over Beethoven. Some of this has the vibes of a wedding band being held at gunpoint to play an extra hour for the father of the groom who really likes Little Richard. I kind of liked The Witch but I assume that if I google it, it'll actually be another cover where the original is funkier and more fun. One of the descriptions I found for the band says they were "howling" pioneers of a garage rock scene but I absolutely cannot hear it here except for some occasional guitar and vocal tones.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
really solid front half but the back half kind of drags
Beastie Boys
4/5
These guys really like White Castle huh
Jokes aside, this one was really interesting. I started out excited because I knew that I enjoyed a lot of songs from it, but partway through The New Style I think my brain snapped into listening to the lyrics and I wondered: what on earth must this sound like to people listening for the first time in the 2000s? When they're rapping (repeatedly, across many songs) about pulling out a jammy, it's honestly laughable. And in some ways I'm sure it's supposed to be, but in others I'm skeptical. I think it's full of bangers I've known forever, but I also think that at this point it might read as dorky and opaque new listeners.
Gang Of Four
2/5
I came here ready to show up for my genres and I just couldn't. There wasn't a little catchy sparkle in there.
Richard Hawley
2/5
1) I think I wasn't depressed enough to listen to this today
2) It's very interesting (negative/derogatory) to me that this album from 2005 is on this list when its praise seems to be for being a bluesy, countryish, retro sounding record because so far (admittedly only 31 albums in) I would think a blues or country album from the 60s would be better featured
The Fall
3/5
Et's a cyuhse-uh, that I like this music but that some of the songs are a slow drag through what I assume is a vocal affectation done on purpose.
Past Gone Mad slaps
Supergrass
3/5
sure why not
Soft Machine
1/5
no, thank you
Skepta
2/5
I think I might like grime as a genre but I found this particular artist/album repetitive and sometimes sounding like Drake (derogatory). I did like Man and Shutdown.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
I wish My Old Man and Little Green weren't on the same album as River and A Case of You, because the former songs are a case of lyrics really taking me out of a song and vibe.
Beastie Boys
2/5
I guess I'm not convinced this was super groundbreaking, and Sabotage stands so far above the other songs on this album imo
Christina Aguilera
1/5
The intro song is so corny I'm sorry. I think I didn't really like any of the self-referential songs (Still Dirrty) because they were very plainly written and just not very interesting. The \"Thank You\" interlude was also weird to me? The sampled fan voicemail selections were... interesting. The second half opens... interestingly... with Nasty Naughty Boy, which was. A song. It's incredible how sexual some of these tracks are while also being decidedly not sexy.
Crowded House
1/5
I don't think I would have liked this regardless but I super didn't like it while exercising or walking
Pixies
3/5
yeah, sure. here comes your man
Radiohead
4/5
perfect for disassociating at the mall because I accidentally needed to buy pants on Thanksgiving weekend, thanks
The Kinks
2/5
I thought I liked The Kinks but I didn't particularly like this album. It made me want to listen to The Violent Femmes?
Beatles
3/5
Yeah, sure. Not my favorite Beatles album but I can appreciate a fun thirty minute record.
Talking Heads
2/5
I thought this was really interminable, but I actually just accidentally listened to it twice. I still thought it was just Okay.
Dire Straits
2/5
1-3: bangers
4-on: ??? slow. no bangering at all.
X-Ray Spex
3/5
I love Poly Styrene but I also love not listening to her entire albums at one sitting. Sorry! Love u!
Daft Punk
3/5
1) not sure if I got brain poisoned by reading about them being French or if this album actually sounds very French
2) about six songs too long
3) heavily front loaded, back half faltered between Around the World and the final track
2.5
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Could you be a little more of a fucking bummer, dude?
Sorry, every time I listen to Frank Sinatra and the song isn't "Witchcraft" I just want to listen to "Witchcraft" instead.
Fred Neil
3/5
U2
4/5
I went in with low expectations but this was pretty enjoyable. I knew a lot of the first half already and it didn't overstay its welcome.
3/5
Sure! Okay! Vibes! Kinda weird though.
Calexico
1/5
like ordering Mexican food in Portland
John Prine
4/5
Pretty good! Not bad! Can't complain!
Led Zeppelin
2/5
Two stars for Kashmir and none for anything else on this album goodbye
Joan Armatrading
5/5
I'm really glad I discovered this. I'm pretty sure I recognize Down to Zero and maybe Love and Affection but didn't know who they were. I'm gonna give it a five just because (in addition to being good) it's the first album I was unfamiliar with at all and am glad I found. I actually listened to it twice then the album To the Limit
Keith Jarrett
3/5
Hey, this wasn't that bad. I think my issue with improv jazz is that I start liking one part and then one of the 27 jam session members starts doing something else and it all gets weird for three minutes. Less of an issue with one guy on a piano.
Muddy Waters
5/5
Frank Black
2/5
Soundgarden
2/5
Germs
3/5
I wish I could understand a single lyric that was said at any point in any song, but yeah otherwise I liked it. The guitar and bass had some good stuff goin on.
Nina Simone
3/5
I think today was not a great day for me to love this, but it's still good.
Roxy Music
2/5
I liked a lot of the music of this but the...lyrics and vocals...took me out of it a lot.
Bad Brains
5/5
I'm really surprised I hadn't already heard of this album or group. I'm further surprised that, for once, I hear "oh so and so must have been inspired by this" in the album but do not conclude "and did it better...maybe this was better in its time" - this album is still good IMO. Re-Ignition and Hired Gun are highlights with the intro and Let Me Help as lowlights but still decent. 4.5
Bob Dylan
3/5
Tangled Up in Blue slays and I personally think it's unfortunate this is the album it's on.
Arctic Monkeys
3/5
I've never sat down and listened to this album, but I *did* have a livejournal and then a tumblr so I think I've heard all of it before. It's fine? I never got into Arctic Monkeys when my cooler friends did. I do like Teddypicker, which is not on this album.
The Police
2/5
2.5 rounded down. Why am I being yelled at? What was with the dinosaur song leading into a song about kind of dating his mother? No really, what was with choosing a partner that reminds you of your mother? Hello?
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
I keep trying to like Neil Young but never pull it off
The Kinks
3/5
2.5 stars, rounded up for Phenomenal Cat
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
I forgot I had Zero on my running playlist for forever. I could really take or leave the rest aside from Heads Will Roll as a Halloween song.
ETA: my first edited rating! I hope to keep these very rare. A little while after posting this, I felt bad about how harsh I was. I don't really dislike this enough to rate it a 2 - it's a 2.5/3.
Deep Purple
1/5
One thing I really like about this album is that we got punk music as a response to all of the meandering guitar solo jams of the era. I guess another thing I like is the memetic nature of Smoke on the Water. And it has an end, which is nice.
Various Artists
4/5
Yeah! Ok! I think a lot of Christmas music doesn't sound like fully produced music and this was consistently fun, well done, and had good soulful vocals.
Richard Thompson
2/5
uhh 2.5? I was able to fully ignore this while working on something else, which is better than Made in Japan.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
3/5
I expected to like this more than I did. Overall I did like the instrumentals, except for when it got really beepy in The Sound of People You Love... or whatever that one was.
David Bowie
3/5
Embarrassing reveal that I have emotions: I haven't listened to a lot of David Bowie's work since he died, because I used to listen to Ziggy Stardust, Low, and Hunky Dory a *lot* and he was the first/only celebrity death that really upset me. That said: Aladdin Sane doesn't make it onto my replay list a lot aside from The Jean Genie. To me it's obviously very iconic in its cover and imagery (the strange mullet adjacent haircut got immensely popular and we all probably recognize the lightning bolt) but not a big stand-out musically. I find a lot of the tinkling piano unpleasantly jarring and the rest is Fine. I'm trying to remain unspoiled as to the albums on the list, but I have to assume David Bowie has at least five and I'm not sure why this is one of them.
Steely Dan
1/5
My dad must have turned on the Weather Channel and then walked away again, leaving me to listen to the Doppler radar music.
Yes
1/5
The best thing about this album is that one of the songs was under a minute long. There are a lot of albums I've drawn from this list that I personally disliked but that I could understand why other people like them, but this album is not one of them. I'm especially unclear why there seems to have been a push to remaster this album and make it available in very high quality. Maybe it's because I'm listening in 2023, but even in the ~70 previous albums I'm sure I've heard funkier jam band jams. Aja felt like the Weather Channel forecast music but at least was fairly cohesive in its "5am rain projection" vibe. Deep Purple was noodley but at least high energy. I just know that tomorrow I'm going to look at the global reviews are going to be full of high marks and I still won't understand why. I'm relieved this site doesn't have any commenting function I've identified because I just know this is the sort of album several die hard fans would pour out of a van painted with a (to be fair, very sick) wizard to tell me I'm wrong for hating. It is true misfortune that I actually liked the first 3:47 (a normal song length) of Heart of the Sunrise but that the track is 11:26.
Tom Waits
3/5
I enjoyed the first track then got worried because I disliked 2-4, buy enjoyed 16 Shells and Town with No Cheer. I think I don't like the talky songs. I full-on skipped Frank's Wild Years. I liked Down, Down, Down as well. After that was meh.
Pink Floyd
3/5
Ok look. I didn't finish this album today. I've heard this album so many times. It's fine. I like a lot of it. It's also extremely long and has some intercuts that make me feel I'm having auditory hallucinations (negative). 2.5 rounded up
Judas Priest
4/5
no notes except that patriotic song was weird
Alanis Morissette
5/5
no notes! best cassette I probably ever bought!
Björk
3/5
I think I have the capacity for approximately 40min of enjoying Bjork and unfortunately this album exceeds that limitation.
Booker T. & The MG's
4/5
This obviously slaps, however: the thing that I assume is an electric organ sounds very churchy and is very irritating on the high notes.
UB40
3/5
Near the end, I thought, "yeah this is about as expected - I like reggae influences and a little reggae but a whole album is too much for me." Unfortunately, this was actually about halfway into the album and I still had thirty more minutes left.
Eagles
3/5
Life in the Fast Lane slaps and I am fine with never hearing the rest again. It slaps enough to give this a 3 I guess.
The Beach Boys
3/5
Billy Bragg
4/5
i say union, u say power
Scott Walker
1/5
not for me, thanks
The Pogues
4/5
I was really pissed off today and this went well with it. Mild Pogues fan to begin with, this album definitely affirms it.
Elvis Presley
2/5
Suspicious Minds: 🕺
Don't Cry Daddy: 🤢
Talking Heads
4/5
Why do I get the feeling that this album is complained about by die hard Talking Heads fans for being too approachable to the common pleb (like me)?
3.5 rounded up
Deerhunter
2/5
this isn't bad, but it *is* the exact flavor of boring indie rock that plagued me for about 2007-2011 because every guy who would hit on me in certain settings would tell me I needed to listen to it, they're very literary (use wordsrlike halcyon) and that it really captured their innermost feelings and then I listen and it's just, like, "isn't it sad that time passes and the last time you see a friend might be the last time you ever talk again? deep moody thoughts in here"
yes?? life's a bitch and then you die that's like the whole point
the xerox flyer promotion scheme described in the wiki page just sounds like "street teams" of the warped tour era but for kids with a printer in the family room ok ok I'll stop now
musically it had some bits that approached fun
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
It's not my favorite Springsteen album but I like it well enough and I think Thunder Road counterbalances how tired I am of the title track (it's played at.... possibly every road race startup corral area ever)
Lou Reed
4/5
Man Lou Reed is tough because if you like his music you have to be like "yeah so there's this great album about just all the worst things that can happen to you"
Happy Mondays
2/5
2.5 rounded down. It's not so much that this was bad and is more that I got bored of it quickly. I listened in the morning and by dinnertime I couldn't remember what the album was today. I think I'm starting to struggle to listen to these independently and instead keep wondering why some of them are on this list.
The Roots
4/5
5/5
absolutely no notes
LCD Soundsystem
1/5
mom: no, we're not stopping, we have Talking Heads at home
Talking Heads at home:
The xx
1/5
I had "intro" on my running playlist for forever and have heard it an infinite number of times, but was like, "did I ever listen to the rest of this record?" when I saw it. I have to assume the answer was "once, to realize I hated it, and then never again" until today.
A Tribe Called Quest
3/5
This was fine? I liked noting all of the samples but some of the songs felt long. I really liked Ham N' Eggs though lol
Johnny Cash
5/5
Super glad I happened to be off work for this, because I thought I was doing fine avoiding my emotions by skipping the Carter Family songs but then Daddy Sang Bass walloped me. I always get that tune/tempo of "Will the Circle be Unbroken" in my head and can never find a version that matches it but I guess this is where I heard it growing up. This is a real "my dad put on something while puttering around and I'm off to the side entertaining myself where he can keep an eye on me" sort of music for me. My grandma who passed recently, she and her sisters would sing Carter Cash or Patsy Cline stuff and her house was always where family members would sit and play guitars and mandolin and sing and it's just really nice.
Gil Scott-Heron
3/5
I'm very convinced I listened to this, but apparently I never rated it, so I'm going to give it a 2.5 rounded up. It clearly did not leave a strong impression.
The Killers
5/5
This album was sent to me today to let me know it's okay that I spent a lot of money on going to see them play this album in August. I cannot say anything bad about this record! It was my entire personality for years! It led me to The Smiths, New Order, and so many other bands I love!
JAY Z
2/5
I'd feel bad giving this a 2 so I guess 2.5 is rounded up today. I remember a lot of this from the first time and like, I can acknowledge this was very influential but I don't really care for it. Actually, no, I'm giving I a 2 because this isn't about being an arbiter of taste. Also this man cheated on Beyoncé.
Television
3/5
Inoffensive and enjoyable, but not compelling to me personally
Stan Getz
2/5
This would have been bland but fine background listening except that saxophone really needed to dial it back
The Avalanches
1/5
Apparently I'm the only person in the group who's never even encountered the singles off this album and frankly that was a blessing. I've dabbled in sample-based songmaking before and can respect how difficult it must have been to create this album, but I just don't understand why you would. No track seemed to reach a sustained melody that wasn't the one being sampled, and mostly it reminded me of the Pogo imitations of the late 00s where The Bit was that people were using wacky or nostalgic sample sources. Sample heavy hip-hop builds a new topline or a pocket for rapping over, and something like Front 242 tends to build a club beat while occasionally having a narrative. This album, by comparison, felt like an exercise in understanding what it's like to have ADHD, punctuated by the most piercing tsew-tsew-tsew sounds available. I'd be willing to believe that the music was the runoff effect of someone's hobby of filing tedious sample-clearing paperwork with record agencies, like how my yarn collecting sometimes results in a crochet project. Highlights, while still dim, were portions of songs like ETOH and Summer Crane where a sample was actually looped long enough to create a rhythm. Little Journey even approaches the feeling of a hazy summer afternoon but then heralds a tempo and style change with something jarring that sounds like a guitarist squealing up the neck. I've often thought I might be impervious to resistance-breaking via music because I would simply Enjoy listening to portions of Enter Sandman repeatedly, but the CIA would just have to play the first 3-5 songs off this album and I'd falsely confess to whatever they wanted to hear.
CHVRCHES
4/5
Hm I tried multiple ways of saying I love Lauren Mayberry but they all read back in a creepy way. I don't really care for their slower songs on this album or the male vocals (sorry, gentlemen) but the hits are HITS. Also, tumblr nostalgia. l
Def Leppard
2/5
I think that the way many people felt about the AC/DC album is how I feel about this album. Every song was the same song except a little different. All of them were what would be playing if you went to your friend's house in high school and their dad came in from the garage, no shirt and acid washed jeans on, music still blasting on the boombox, and got a beer and then offered you one and laughed his head off when you looked panicked. Somehow after every single verse I expected "f-f-f-foolin'" to be sung except I also didn't even notice when Foolin DID play.
The Who
2/5
"This developmentally disabled boy is so stupid he doesn't even know who Jesus is so I guess his soul is eternally doomed: the song" was really weird and also surprising to hear anywhere outside of, you know, maybe Mass or The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Jurassic 5
2/5
I feel so certain that if I could understand lyrics I would enjoy this album
Todd Rundgren
2/5
I didn't dislike this as much as I expected to and a couple of tracks were fairly likeable.
Common
2/5
I.... could not get through this. An album I can tell is well done but that is not for me.
Rage Against The Machine
3/5
I enjoyed this until about track 8 when I suddenly realized a lot of the guitar and drum bits are very repetitive throughout the album. I think RATM goes with AC/DC in the stack of "don't listen to a whole album front to back" artists for me.
Talk Talk
3/5
Sure wish this album had "It's My Life" on it. I enjoy it but confess I'm not sure why it's on here?
The B-52's
4/5
Yeah sure! A couple of songs get draggy or the vocals get to be too much. It's The B-52s idk what to tell ya
Nitin Sawhney
3/5
I don't think I had enough attention to devote to this today. It sounds fresher and more futuristic than 1999.
Lou Reed
4/5
I'm gonna make my group mad and just say it: this album could use like three more songs!!!!
Travis
2/5
Incredible how much this 1999 album sounds like 2006. Maybe people were using "Writing to Reach You" in their AMVs.
Immoral therapists are playing this album in their waiting rooms to retain depressed patients.
The secret song was actually pretty compelling.
Tricky
3/5
I think this might have been a 4 on a different day, I just didn't have a lot of attention for it today. I was intrigued to see the artist was in Massive Attack, who I generally enjoy.
The Mamas & The Papas
4/5
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
This is like the easy listening of synthpop. Enjoyable, light, chill.
The Zombies
3/5
Hmm. It's fine
Gang Starr
3/5
This wasn't what I expected, in a positive direction. I'm not sure how to describe the qualities of 90's hip-hop that I enjoy except maybe that it's a little loose and goofy, with loops? This has quite a bit of that. Once again: would love to be able to understand words the first time I hear a song.
Snoop Dogg
4/5
I can usually do without skits but found the radio station ones entertaining. I know a lot of these songs, mostly the front half, pretty well and enjoyed this listen.
Traffic
1/5
Checked to see how close I was to the end and I was on song 2
Is this album really important? Really?
Brian Eno
4/5
As compared to other sample-derived albums we've had, this one has a lot more of the things I like. There's almost always one unifying riff or melody per track, the tracks have different tempos and tones, some of them are danceable, and the samples are from a wide variety of media and origins. I liked The Jezebel Spirit and The Carrier the most off of the standard album, and liked a few of the tracks from the remaster as well.
Elliott Smith
1/5
If the best song I'll ever hear is in the back half of this album and I never hear it because I refused to keep listening, that's fine with me. Plonky piano music seemingly designed to be put on the mix CD a high school boy who got dumped will slip into the locker of the girl who said she never wanted to hear from him again.
Michael Kiwanuka
2/5
I was hoping from the opener that this would be pretty funky but a lot of the tracks gave me [dude band from 90s-early 00s that you probably hear on rock radio or something] vibes which I find less interesting.
Nirvana
3/5
On one hand, this is an album I've listened to before and generally enjoy. On the other, I do feel like a lot of the narrative about this album is a little overly rosy dur to Kurt Cobain's death and the way we tend to look back at things.
Youssou N'Dour
4/5
I really enjoyed this and it was fun to have something very out of the norm from the albums I've pulled so far.
Led Zeppelin
2/5
i skipped most of Stairway and i WILL NOT apologize
I actually really like Black Dog
Destiny's Child
2/5
The evolution from Nasty Girl to Partition is proof that human beings are capable of change.
I'm a little surprised, but I'm gonna have to give this one a dislike!! (2) The first three songs are killer, defined a generation, etc etc but after that it's a reminder of the profound girl-on-girl misogyny of the early 00s and I assume the label also really preferred a Black, female, group to keep such a conservative base to their lyrics in order to balance out how risky they might have seemed for sales.
Bad Company
2/5
behhhhhh
the two songs I like on this album, I think I heard covers of first and liked those and it rubs off onto the originals
more power! more thrashing!
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Uhh I liked this more than Bad Company yesterday. I enjoy some CCR but I think I'm more of a "greatest hits" person with them
Koffi Olomide
3/5
Hmmm I didn't dislike this but it's definitely exposing me as not knowing a lot to compare it to in order to help myself contextualize the songs. I really enjoyed Obrigado and saved that one.
Solange
3/5
I'm pretty sure I've listened to this a couple of times before. I like it well enough!
Duke Ellington
2/5
First two songs felt really interminable but the rest was better
Update: except the squealing at the end
Beatles
4/5
Sure, 90 minutes of Beatles is a lot. But the front half is full of bangers. The Revolution variants are weird. The rest is fine.
Eagles
2/5
too much
Dead Kennedys
3/5
sorry for the lack of review i was too busy skanking
Radiohead
1/5
sorry to radiohead, but this album is irreversibly linked to the ex of mine who had a big poster for it and also literally never washed his bed linens but would complain if I febrezed anything because he had "a very sensitive sense of smell"
Carpenters
1/5
ugghhh I'm sorry to Karen Carpenter but I find this nearly unlistenable. this hits a lot of critiques of pop music for me - maybe if I could parse lyrics I'd find them full of meaning but it feels samey and bland.
Waylon Jennings
4/5
Everybody always says yee haw but nobody ever asks haw yee 😔
Another instance of an album I know led to many more albums that I enjoy, but I don't necessarily love the album itself. "Black Rose" is a highlight.
Parliament
4/5
Ok listen I did not fully replay this album today, but I've played it before and Parliament is (as far as I've ever encountered) always at least three stars for me. Funky, still fresh sounding somehow in 2024, and silly. However: four long tracks for sittin' at home is not my favorite form factor.
Linkin Park
2/5
This album dropped and then run-out music for boys' junior high and high school sports teams was never the same again.
Listening to this made me have to confront some warring feelings in myself, because on one hand I think this album gave a lot of boys an outlet for big feelings in a world that doesn't give them many besides anger. On the other hand, even before I read the summary of "the album's lyrical themes deal with problems lead vocalist Chester Bennington experienced during his adolescence, including drug abuse and the constant fighting and divorce of his parents".... yeah. A big part of me wants to be like "can you please shut up and stop making white boy rap and nu metal about the world not being fair because your parents had a fight?? did you punch holes in all the drywall so this is all that's left??"
3/5
hmm yeah it's devo! idk devo is enjoyable enough to me, I understand they have a real formative role in music I like, but I didn't vibe spectacularly with this album
Joe Ely
3/5
This is definitely more "Texas honky-tonk" than the country music I usually listen to - it's honestly a fully different subgenre from the folk/americana/gospel, mountains area kind of stuff. I still liked it well enough, but I'm not sure I'd put it on again and it got overwhelming.
Beatles
3/5
oh hey it's the Across the Universe soundtrack but by all dudes playing with stereo sound
look, it's fine, some songs are fun, but it's almost tiresome to listen to The Beatles for this. I know most of their music and they're on every music list ever
Siouxsie And The Banshees
5/5
no notes. a pinnacle of the genre. where my clove cigs at
Paul Simon
5/5
Great stuff. There's a variety of song styles here, but they all feel united by the production and sound somehow. I love the title track, I love Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, and of course I love You Can Call Me Al. I've seen Paul Simon live and he starts on time, sounds great, and takes time to credit all of his musicians.
Elvis Presley
1/5
I don't have a coherent review, I just don't really get it
Jethro Tull
2/5
The second star is for not being as bad as I was afraid it would be, but overall I still disliked it.
Garbage
5/5
Shirley Manson pls notice me
ABBA
5/5
whoo can look me in the eye and say this album doesn't kill? hmm?? no weapon formed against ABBA shall prosper
GZA
3/5
I guess this is how other people felt listening to Berlin by Lou Reed. A lot of the music was really enjoyable and I liked a lot of the songs but sometimes I'd suddenly realize the content of the lyrics and be bummed out and uncomfortable. It also just seemed like a lot for one sitting.
Manu Chao
4/5
[a series of salsa girl emoji]
Yeah, this is enjoyable all the way through. I like it as background music while I do things. bongo bongo bong
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
1/5
I don't enjoy this faux gritty music production and sound and I don't care about whatever this man is sad about
Fatboy Slim
2/5
This didn't really grab me until Give the Po' Man a Break which is unfortunately at least halfway through the album, depending on which version you're listening to. Mine had Michael Jackson (the song) on it, which I also enjoyed, and I liked Punk to Funk. Maybe it's an issue of having or not having a vocal sample to catch my attention vs it feeling more like a soup of electronic music.
Iron Maiden
3/5
yeah sure. dad rock that mom says not to wear the t-shirt for out in public.
Funkadelic
3/5
Dr. John
2/5
Of all the albums that could be selected to reflect the rich tapestry of New Orleans rock/blues/zydeco and other music, this is not what I would have picked. For the most frequent review descriptors to be "psychedelic" and "spooky" does not help its case for me. I like swamp rock and zydeco! This was a meandering and interminable experience made worse by looking back from 2024 to see the supposed first exposure for mainstream media of NOLA music be Some Guy from there make a concept album about being a Senegalese Haitian folk healer.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
On one hand, this album made me realize how much of what I like about Back to Black is the production. On the other, Frank made me realize why Amy's voice and vocal styling was such a big deal. Unfortunately I remember the media cycles around her, her struggles with substance abuse, and her weight and appearance so well from that time and it makes it all feel so heavy and sad.
Paul McCartney and Wings
2/5
I'd say "meh this was fine" but I was finding it annoying by the end. It felt very samey and I didn't find any of it particularly interesting.
Green Day
4/5
Hmm I'm gonna be bold and say there's some fillery stuff in here BUT the hits are HITS!!
Wilco
1/5
Beefing with your label so hard you leave and stream the album for free on your website is extremely punk rock but unfortunately the sound is just boring. It further suffers from Jeff Tweedy possibly being the name of my junior high friend (redacted)'s shithead stepdad who would tell her she "didn't deserve to be a Tweedy" when she misbehaved, like there was any social cachet involved whatsoever. I always thought this would be a much more compelling threat if it was Tweety, because at the time Looney Tunes were still fairly relevant in teen and adult popular culture.
Louis Prima
4/5
I enjoyed this.
The White Stripes
2/5
Tough one, because I remember this the first time and the singles being all over MTV. I think "My Doorbell" is slightly less annoying now that it's not over saturated. The album overall was mostly ignorable.
Dagmar Krause
2/5
I feel bad for disliking this one because it gives me that feeling where I do think this is probably innovative and possessing of some critically acclaimed qualities...but I intimately disliked it. Possible that I'd like other work from the artist or listening to this not on youtube.
Sigur Rós
2/5
Forgettable background music except for the parts where the vocals got grating and distracting
Buzzcocks
2/5
I feel like I've tried listening to the Buzzcocks before (maybe in this challenge??) and didn't like it then either. It's not horrible but I also just don't like it. There's something that's too grating, even when I'm expecting punk/post-punk music.
Goldfrapp
2/5
I'm really starting to wonder if I'm just having a cranky week and being unfair to these albums lately. However:
1. I don't know why you would pick this album out of all of Goldfrapp's work
2. I don't know why you would pick Goldfrapp to represent airy pop singer-songwriter/electro-folk/whatever
and 3. I don't know why you'd pick this to represent music in 2008.
So I'm really not sure why it's here. And I didn't particularly enjoy listening to it.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Blondie
3/5
3.5, but rounding down. There were some fun songs on here I was unfamiliar with, but it started rubbing me the wrong way by the end.
Kid Rock
4/5
I was listening to the opening track (Bawitdaba) when I realized I was hearing something that couldn't be in the song. Unfortunately this turned out to be the rapid dripping of water coming out of my ceiling, a place I typically do not expect water to be pouring out of. After a brief interlude to call someone about this development, I attempted to return to my yogurt while listening to Cowboy and googling the lyrics, thinking about all the times my friends sang these two songs in parking lots and bedrooms and wondering how this was my life, then and now. By the title track I was holding my head in my hands, reading the wikipedia pages for Joe C and this album, wondering what I had ever done to deserve this.
Then, sometime during Roving Gangster (Rollin'), something started to come over me. I found myself actually enjoying Wasting Time as I piled wet towels for the laundry. Welcome 2 the Party was a pretty good time as I vacuumed out the cat's bathroom (which will now be our bathroom for at least a few days) of stray litter. Isn't this what Kid Rock is made for? People contemplating bathing using a bowl of water heated in the microwave because the plumbing is shot? Is it not a great afternoon at the trailer park to grill out while your mama's sister sets up the karaoke machine so you can scream "you get what you put in and people get what they deserve"? Maybe this album belongs here after all. A lot of these are cringe, but they are bangers that cringe. My fuse is short and I am short too!!
Then the adrenaline started wearing off around Where U at Rock and listening to Black Chick, White Guy as I dragged a laundry sack as big as myself out the front door made me remember all of the times "slipping mickeys" got dropped in this album.
A guilty 4.
The Crusaders
3/5
I was concerned when this said 'jazz' but it definitely has disco vibes. It sounds like The Weather Channel, but in a (positive) way not in a (derogatory) way.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
3.5. it might have been a 4 if it hadn't auto replayed itself leading to me wondering just how mamy times they could do callbacks to other songs
The Dandy Warhols
2/5
Hmm. The final track was interesting. 1 additional star for that.
Khaled
5/5
I'm not actually sure I loved this album five stars much, but it's at least a 4 and I'm excited to discover this genre of music! I didn't love the ballads but found it interesting how close to salsa some of them were. Interesting instrumentation and really fun.
Neil Young
2/5
I'm sorry I just don't like this guy's voice
Jack White
1/5
the worst crime: boring
Pere Ubu
3/5
The first time I tried to listen to this, I immediately shut it off at the high-pitched blelelelelelululu sound. The second time I actually kind of enjoyed it, although it's got a lot of that high squealy clarinetty stuff happening. Cleveland weirdo representation!
Eminem
2/5
I didn't love this when it came out and I think I like it less now. Content aside, there's like two fun tracks, a lot of skits, and a lot of repetition.
Pink Floyd
3/5
If this were an album consisting only of the title track, the song "Wish You Were Here", I would give it five stars. I've been shouting "TWO LOST SOULS SWIMMING IN A FISH BOWL" since I was a child. Unfortunately, this album contains four other songs that are, to me, profoundly uninteresting.
Beastie Boys
2/5
I guess this was a departure from License to Ill in that I didn't find any of these songs particularly fun. Without as much entertainment value, this means it feels more fratty and less compelling to me, although it seems critics disagree.
John Martyn
3/5
I enjoy a raspy vocal. I didn't really find the instrumentation all that interesting, but I could imagine putting this on while I do something.
The Young Rascals
2/5
I mean. It's fine, I guess. It fits perfectly into like "60's pop that I expect to hear on in the background somewhere because it's completely inoffensive" and I guess really it's a 2.5 but I'm rounding down. Sounds like I made a good choice in listening to the mono version.
OutKast
4/5
one year in Atlanta, a music festival evacuated all of us (to just outside their boundaries) because of lightning (and their lack of interest in insuring us probably) - can you imagine the sheer number of facebook posts of photos of the gates captioned "you can play a pretty picnic but you can't predict the weather" we uploaded
this is a quintessential "grillin out" album but it does run a little long, for me.
Fugazi
4/5
This was a little much for the kind of day I was having today, but it's not bad!
The Cure
3/5
Hmm yes my least favorite parts of their live show
Fats Domino
3/5
Wish I didn't have to listen to this on youtube! Fun stuff.
Aerosmith
3/5
Fine! My parents liked Aerosmith. It's enjoyable enough. Not sure why it's a necessary album.
Holger Czukay
2/5
I enjoyed the Brian Eno album I listened to after this! I wish I could put my finger on why I didn't really like this. I think maybe I'll listen to other work by this artist because it's close to things I like but this one just wasn't the vibe.
The Allman Brothers Band
2/5
I thought I was done with this album at least four times but actually I'd paused it for a break and forgotten about it.
Beck
1/5
I would actually swap this for Guero
R.E.M.
3/5
yeah sure
Gillian Welch
3/5
Really great vocals and guitar but unfortunately really like....blendy without any noticeable tempo changes and I really wish the last song was not like fourteen minutes long.
Joy Division
5/5
If I don't give this five stars a goth in Demonia platform boots will show up at my house and take all of my black clothes and I will have to wear the joggers I accidentally dyed Pink instead of vampire wine red and my lime green novelty UFO Museum t-shirt
PJ Harvey
4/5
This is an album that I appreciate a lot, but that I don't necessarily enjoy. Overall I don't pick up a lot of PJ Harvey but I do, I guess, conceptually really like her. Putting this on while trying to work at work was not my smartest choice and it went over a little better while at the gym. Yet another time I wish I could uhhh understand lyrics and process audio.
Aretha Franklin
4/5
I always wish there were like three more songs on this album
Brian Eno
4/5
I enjoyed a lot of this! The songs that I did not enjoy, I found myself thinking "this sounds like The Beatles" and/or "this sounds like The Beatles being played backwards or something".
Miles Davis
1/5
Sorry Miles Davis I cannot stand this
The Divine Comedy
1/5
I would ask why and how this album got on this list, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the repeat references to Scott Walker I found in reviews.
The Jam
3/5
I knew a couple of these songs already and enjoyed the overall experience.
Jimi Hendrix
1/5
I don't recall enjoying this when I had to listen to it for the Rolling Stone top 100 and I didn't enjoy it this time around.
Girls Against Boys
4/5
Enjoyable, although it got pretty blendy. This is a band I've heard of before but never sat and listened to. It borders on a little too whiny for me at times but I'm going to still give it a bonus star for being a fun discovery.
Tim Buckley
2/5
This was a little too far into the "renn faire" side of the folk music map for me
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
4/5
💃💃💃💃
Adele
3/5
Enjoyed it when it came out, enjoyed it again
Beach House
3/5
Pleasant to listen to while doing errands.
Jeff Buckley
2/5
Hmm. There were a couple of tracks on here that I enjoyed, but overall I found it kind of plodding. It might not have helped that I had a bunch of cleaning and gardening type work to do today. Not one of my favorite iterations of Hallelujah either.
T. Rex
3/5
This was enjoyable enough but I think if Get It On wasn't such a bop it would be a little bleh.
Jeff Beck
2/5
I have already shunted all of this out of my brain
Guided By Voices
2/5
Another long 40 minute proggy listen brought to me by 1001albumsgenerator.com
Cocteau Twins
3/5
Overall enjoyable, but I kept waiting for a real banger like Heaven or Las Vegas or Alice and one never came.
Jimi Hendrix
1/5
I'm tired of this, grandpa
Rush
2/5
I think I would have liked "Something For Nothing" if it wasn't after everything else.
The Beach Boys
3/5
Help Me Rhonda really carries this
Kanye West
4/5
There's an incredibly tight 55min album in here. I still remember being transfixed by the Through the Wire video and it might have been one of the first rap songs I had fully memorized. It's a bummer to know what Kanye is like now, but this album still feels fresh and interesting to listen to.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
2/5
I found some interesting tidbits in here but don't imagine myself listening again, so 2.5
Lenny Kravitz
3/5
There was a lot more Prince here than I expected, as someone who knows later Lenny Kravitz but had never listened to his early work. I don't think I'll return to it although I didn't dislike it.
Ray Charles
2/5
I wanted to like this more than I did. At some point I noticed how the songs mostly ended with the same (sounding) harmonization of the last phrase by the choir of ladies and then it drove me nuts the whole rest of the time.
Electric Light Orchestra
4/5
Every time a song ended I thought (hoped) we were being led into Mr. Blue Sky so it loses a star for all the times that wasn't true.
The Who
2/5
I saw a summary/review of this album that called it something like "the hardest mod pop" anyone had done yet at the time, which made me smile a bit because I feel like I've met a few older men who consider The Who to be, like, the peak of what rock has to offer and I think they'd dislike hearing it called mod pop.
I didn't actively dislike this but I didn't particularly like it either, and for some reason I was reminded that the Duff sisters, Hilary and Hailey I believe, covered "My Generation" but because it was a Disney venture they said "hope I don't die before I get old" which caused a mild kerfuffle with probably the same older gentlemen. I have no idea how I came to know this information, if it's even true. They don't really detail a lot of what people are saying about their generation, though, do they? Just that they're talking because this generation likes to hang around? They would have hated Twitter (I mean so do I but)
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
Solomon Burke
3/5
Another album I expected to like more than I did. I think I have a hard time with the country-choir harmony backing vocals.
Ian Dury
3/5
I like your funny words, magic man
I have absolutely no clue what's going on here but it was strange and I had a mostly nice time
Suicide
2/5
2.5
Pavement
3/5
2.5. It's fine. It's not as good as every dude in a tshirt over a longsleeve insisted it was.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
Yeah this sounds like Smashing Pumpkins
Pretenders
4/5
I've definitely listened to songs by The Pretenders before, but hadn't ever sat and listened to an album. I enjoyed it!
The Verve
2/5
After also getting Pavement and Smashing Pumpkins this week, I'm afraid I can no longer care about this
Talking Heads
3/5
I think I'm in a slump
Stereo MC's
4/5
one star off for the song that starts with a killer coming at me or whatever. the rest slaps
Steve Winwood
4/5
off the bat, I love a kazoo otomatone type vibe so I was in
not as much of a fan of the slower later songs as I was the openers
Goldie
4/5
I liked the drummy jungle/dnb parts and the airy female vocals more than I did the cymbal-y parts and the breathing sounds
Cyndi Lauper
4/5
Tracy Chapman
5/5
The Who
2/5
I could swear I already listened to and rated this album but maybe it was one of the many other albums by The Who that have been served to me. This one, like the others, felt interminable even after I found the regular version in amongst the multiple editions and remasters. It only gets a second star because I love "I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles" - the rest feels like yet more nearly indistinguishable Rock Music With Guitars
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
You know, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Maybe because it's only 40 minutes. 2.5
Tom Waits
3/5
I didn't like this much as the other, weirder Tom Waits I've gotten from this project before.
The Monkees
2/5
"how bad can this one be it's only 31 minutes"
[31m of rhymey-wimey 60's pop ensues]
Steve Earle
4/5
Talking Heads
4/5
The Talking Heads album I am most familiar with, which is probably related to it being the one I enjoyed the most to date. Slightly Unsettling Pop Jams for Slightly Unsettling Pop Girlies
Lupe Fiasco
3/5
The Boo Radleys
4/5
I liked this more than I expected. I think if this was a 30-45 minute album it would be a solid 4, but the last few tracks feel like a drag. It can have a 3.5.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
PUMP IT UP
honestly the rest of it is Fine but that song slaps
Basement Jaxx
3/5
Hmm not an everyday driver for me personally but I do absolutely believe I've heard some of these at The Gay Bar at some point and they do have catchy vibes. I particularly enjoyed Bingo Bango and had "I hate it but I love it" feelings about Same Old Show. 2.5
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
Me loading up this album: "man I wonder if this one has Come On Eileen what a fun song that makes me think about roller rinks"
The album synopsis in my player: "this album was loathed by critics and other people of poor taste because everyone wanted another Come On Eileen hit because they were stupid, but this album came out instead and was better in every way, "
I thought the second song was three different songs, one of which I liked, except it was actually one twelve minute song.
Cornershop
4/5
Another one that I think is totally new to me that I'm glad I found through the project. I will have to try to remember to listen to some of their other work, these didn't all hit for me and it was maybe more of a 3.5 but it can have the extra half-star for being a nice little treat dug up by the generator.
Miles Davis
2/5
I liked this a little more than Bitches Brew but I still didn't like it
Os Mutantes
2/5
2.5 - there are a lot of "freaky weirdo" qualities here that I should like but some of the actual sound and instrumentation put my teeth on edge
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
3/5
Another album of music I am glad to learn exists, although I didn't enjoy it as much as Cheb Khaled. It seems female vocalists are rare in Sufi devotional music but I'll be curious to check into that more.
Tears For Fears
4/5
The hits are hits but w
3/5
This might have been a 4 if I was more ready for it on a different day. I'm convinced though that I can tell LA-area punk bands from other punk bands of similar timespans and they sound slightly surfer-y, which isn't my favorite.
Randy Newman
4/5
Weird lyrics my man but really truly enjoyed the song structures and the flow. Played "Short People" after to complete the experience.
Serge Gainsbourg
1/5
This is another one where I wonder if I had the book, would it explain to me why this album is here? But more importantly, would that make it make sense? Would I find it believable? Feels like no.
Steely Dan
3/5
I'm a little surprised I've never listened to this album, because I do enjoy "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" and usually wind up at least trying out an album if I know a track well.
These were all pretty similar to that, I enjoyed it. I'm torn between a 3 and a 4 because Steely Dan to me is never like "man I want to run home and pop them on and listen to them" but I do enjoy them if they're on. 3.5
The Black Crowes
3/5
Oh hey I know a couple of these songs. Another "it was fine" album from this generator, I guess. I appreciated knowing who this had been the whole time I heard their songs on the radio but I don't think I'll be like "ooh yeah let me listen to some more of The Black Crowes" later.
Jane's Addiction
3/5
In my opinion, truly nothing is shocking about this if you're looking back at it and are someone who's been involved at all in an 'alternative' subculture. It made me think about how Jane's Addiction played at a music festival I attended and most of their press coverage after the fact was about how they'd had people perform a suspension act (so like, hooks pierced into their flesh and lifted up on a wire) which is certainly A Thing To Do but just didn't strike me as the most boundary-pushing concept to do in the 2010s. Maybe I'm missing the context. It's fine!
Massive Attack
2/5
Why wasn't this Mezzanine instead? I acknowledge I'm biased because Mezzanine was the first Massive Attack album I listened to, on the recommendation of probably some LiveJournal internet friends who didn't actually read my blog I was just fascinated with them because they were people who lived in cities and were older than me, but I really didn't think that this album was as varied and as interesting overall as Mezzanine. Another history lesson that I would know about if I had the book? A mystery for the ages.
N.W.A.
4/5
I'm fully unequipped to evaluate this on its relevance or merit but what I can say is that it's full of bangers with beats and instrumental stings that still feel like they could be released new today.
Metallica
4/5
Me and my friends: idk why the other kids act so weird to us
Also my friends: requested Enter Sandman from the homecoming DJ
Venom
4/5
It was really entertaining to happen to get this the day after Metallica's black album. The opening song did not fill me with a lot of hope, but I wound up enjoying it overall.
The Stone Roses
3/5
Hmmmm I liked most of it but not enough to go back to, I don't think.
Van Morrison
2/5
From the band that brought you "that one song they play at every wedding reception that's so long you can go smoke not one but two cigarettes" it's a double-length live album that went on to have multiple other volumes. Why are you playing for so long. Who is this for. I don't even hate it I just don't understand. This feels like music made to be played in the background of people doing something.
fIREHOSE
1/5
I'm glad I looked into this album a little bit before writing anything, because I almost made a fool of myself by calling this 2000s midwest emo (the album erroneously showed as 2006 in my player). I stand by what I commented to my partner, though, which is that I think it's wrong for any genre but punk to seemingly portray an inability to sing as a positive, because I refuse to try to get past "I never attempted to learn breath control" in order to try to listen to an album. The lineage here with Minutemen is worth a couple of points, I guess, but I did not find this an enjoyable experience.
Neil Young
2/5
Somehow it feels like I've listened to this album a dozen times for various foolish little projects, which doesn't make sense because besides this project the only music one I've done is to listen to Rolling Stone's top 100 albums off their 500-album list. Harvest is on there, but I think the problem is that so are 2-3 other albums, and there are at least 2-3 other albums on here too, and I just don't care for Neil Young that much. This album contains some of his most Kermit Thee Frog vocals along with songs that just don't strike me as endearing. Of course you want a maid. Just pick up your fucking socks, Neil
Happy Mondays
3/5
Oops! I forgot everything about this album twelve hours after listening to it. I did add a song to a playlist and I clearly didn't have any major complaints.
The Smiths
4/5
Amazingly, for all the time I spent listening to The Smiths, I think I spent it listening to the other albums and not this one. I was vaguely familiar with "Girlfriend in a Coma" but not much else. I assume this one just wasn't around the stores I went to in high school and then I moved on. Enjoyable. Not my favorite of theirs.
William Orbit
5/5
(Voiceover) Imagine a world where time drifts slowly. A world where music carries you away. Experience Pure Moods, the perfect soundtrack for your way of life. Direct from Europe, this multi-platinum collection has won the hearts of millions. Set adrift with the timeless pleasures of Water From a Vine Leaf. Or take a trip into the unknown with Deus Ex Machina. No other collection gives you the feeling of Pure Moods.
(Lyrics) Hey yaiiiiy hiiiiiiii ohhhhhAAIIIIII HWAIIIAAY YA
Frank Sinatra
4/5
banger after banger
this album has a lot of my favorite Sinatra songs, which I guess is just saying I prefer his versions of a lot of common pop songs around the time, but truly I don't think there's a faceplant on here besides Makin' Whoopee, which I guess was of its time but I struggle to imagine what life was like when we were saying that regularly. the band arrangements and performance are great, the songs are fun, I want to go to a social dance where they just play through this album
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
I can sense a general aura of critical acclaim and big thoughts about this album, but honestly, it's another "this was fine" from me. I assume it's one more instance of "if I could understand lyrics I bet thsi would be really interesting and perhaps very thoughtful".
Burning Spear
3/5
The overview for this album says that the record company really watered down the sound to make it more "palatable" to the listening audience, which makes me really want to hear what the original versions sounded like. Although I did enjoy this so maybe I'm the watered-down listening audience.
Nirvana
4/5
broadly: I like this one better than In Utero
Björk
3/5
Apparently I gave our previous two Björk albums 3's also, which is a real shock to me. I thought I liked this one more than the previous ones and was planning on giving it a 2.5-3, but I guess I just have to do 3 and then this message. The danciest of the tracks were fun. It's still a lot of Björk.
Sebadoh
2/5
indie rock boys take even a single vocal lesson challenge, I promise you can continue to sing with grit and you can choose to be off key if you want to but you can do it without all of those warbles and unplanned cracks baby!!!!!!!
the instrument/music part was good
Quicksilver Messenger Service
1/5
can't wait to never hear this again
James Brown
2/5
Fully support everyone listening to James Brown, but why are we listening to this James Brown album. This crowd does not have enough energy. I guess at least it happened before the explanation could possibly be that everyone was on their phones recording instead.
Leftfield
3/5
This was fine, and approaching enjoyable, except that it made me feel like I was in like the mid 90s not getting invited to warehouse raves and instead listening to the closest thing I could find to EDM that came on CD at Best Buy. Which is probably a little influenced by reading the album blurb before listening, but what can you do. It was a little too down-tempo for me maybe and I liked the songs/parts with vocals most because then at least some more stuff was going on.
White Denim
2/5
Why are there so many albums on this list described as 'psychedelic'? Is it because men don't crowd together into one bed at a sleepover and discuss thoughts and ideas about the universe, so it's not until they drop acid at age 25 that they discover the idea of sonder? That all seven billion people on this planet have their own unique thoughts and feelings influenced by the things they experience throughout their lives? Does the reverb added to an overly-long guitar riff remind a person who lives like this of the concept that they are not alone in the universe and are, in fact, but a small speck in the massive ocean of life? Is that why?
The Doors
3/5
The singles really carry this, in my opinion. 2.5.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh
idk what that was, dude
Frank Zappa
2/5
You know what, 2.5. When placed in context with everything else the generator has given me this week, this has: very few vocals, it had some good rhythm, it's called Hot Rats. I'm still rounding down because some of the saxophone(?) squealing got really really grating and the song with vocals was not great and also nine minutes long.
Jane's Addiction
3/5
Who let this vocalist into the band?
Leonard Cohen
5/5
After a week of weird little guys (derogatory) finally we are gifted a weird little guy (complimentary)
This might be a 4 if I didn't get to play it on the radio (torturing the tri-county area) and hear it in the station. I'm not actually sure the mixer's speakers are that great but it has string lights.
Chicago
3/5
the first cool day we've had as a break from summer heat + quintessential dad music
I'm honestly glad I was raking and trimming branches and stuff today because otherwise....I guess there just isn't a lot that's super interesting here aside from 1) the guitar-noodling song that I skipped and 2) me thinking at the introduction "yeah sure, 'sit down and let me groove on you' sure sounds like something I heard the last time I was at Union Station, is that managed by the Chicago Transit Authority, maybe, I should write that in my review"
The Stooges
3/5
I'm pretty sure I listened to this to catch up the other day but I did in fact forget anything outstanding about it. I wasn't counting down for it to end so that's good.
Jorge Ben Jor
2/5
This lacked a lot of the fun surprises that I've found in some of our other world music (is there a less condescending term for that?) from the list, unfortunately. I was really looking forward to enjoying it and it just felt samey after about halfway through.
The Lemonheads
5/5
I'm not sure if I'm familiar with this cover of Mrs. Robinson or just some other punk style cover of it. I enjoyed this album even though I don't really have any commentary on it. I hope to remember to go check out their other work, it's just really solidly in my "put on and go do stuff" wheelhouse.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
I wish this was a single album. +1 extra star for Sir Duke
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
I guess I like this one compared to the others
Coldplay
2/5
grow up
Mike Ladd
4/5
At times this reminded me of Stankonia, which I am chalking up to both being experimental hip-hop records from 2000.
Really enjoyed 'To the Moon's Contractor'
The Undertones
4/5
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
american girl is not the only good song on here ok breakdown is also good
Afrika Bambaataa
4/5
Sepultura
3/5
Hey, I forgot Sepultura exists. I had to save this until later to be ready to listen to it because it was not my 9am vibe today, and Canyon Jam was simply unnecessary. Otherwise kind of enjoyable. Not a high-ranking vocal style for me though which is the real drawback.
Ananda Shankar
3/5
This is it, it's the only psychedelic prog album I would keep on the list, it's weird, good job
David Bowie
2/5
maybe if david had laid off the coke even a little bit we'd have gotten more "Golden Years" and less "everything else on this album"
when we got Aladdin Sane I was already a little curious why that album made the "1001 albums from the whole world in all its history you have to hear" list and this one is lower than that one for me
I think this is a situation where anything this guy put out at this time was going to be massively influential on music and fashion, and not really about the album itself being influential or particularly innovative. in the next few years we get some of my favorite tracks and performances but here I just think "hmm yes the time he was storing urine in his fridge because he was in some sort of drug psychosis imagining witches stealing his bodily functions"
k.d. lang
3/5
Every time I think about k.d. lang I actually picture the music of Melissa Etheridge, which I assume is my brain just accidentally merging two late 80s / early 90s women who made me ask some questions about myself. At any rate, this isn't super for me (surprisingly) but it's impossible to deny the vocal quality here.
The Temptations
2/5
I was excited for this but then it didn't really grab me the way I expected.
The Police
2/5
do you know how hard it is for me right now to try to review my thoughts on this without just making a dirty joke about how the first track is excellent and the rest sounds tired? can you begin to imagine?
Green Day
4/5
a Hastings employee sold this to me underage and it made me feel extremely cool
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
This was really enjoyable today - the energy level was working with what I was doing, and it was really excellent for putting on and kind of half-listening to. A fun discovery
The 13th Floor Elevators
2/5
why is there so much psychedelic rock in here
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
*does the groovy grim reaper dance from The Haunted House (1929) to "Bad Moon Rising"*
Derek & The Dominos
3/5
This was good but then it just kept going. When I thought it was almost done there were still five songs before Layla.
The Cult
4/5
if they trimmed down the songs at/over four minutes and maybe killed the steppenwolf cover this would be perfect "in the garage" music
Norah Jones
4/5
Ah yes the music that made me think "maybe I'd like jazz" because I liked the four ripped songs I had and did not yet know the wide scope of what people call "jazz"
Don't really like jazz, do kinda like this album. Have listened to it before and will again. 3.5
The Incredible String Band
2/5
one album. two questions.
1) why are so many "folk/americana" albums on this list from non-US musicians? this is a constraint of my music streaming app's set genres, sure, but it's curious
2) why are so many "folk/americana" albums on this list "trippy renn faire" folk and so few "phil ochs, barter economy, workers rights"
Living Colour
3/5
good and I enjoy it but I wish it was More
Cheap Trick
3/5
Peter Gabriel
4/5
how is Peter Gabriel not on the Time/Life Ultimate Love Songs Collection, a two CD set yours for only 26.99 but if you pay by credit card you'll save ten dollars
Blur
3/5
I liked that the first song was pretty gay
Aimee Mann
4/5
I think I know someone who was named after Aimee Mann, which made this a fraught listen, because what if I didn't like it and had to be like "Aimee your namesake is overrated" next time we ran into each other? Luckily this will be a non-issue, glad I wound up with this one in the project.
The Offspring
4/5
La la la-la-la, la la la-la-la
Led Zeppelin
2/5
I mean.....fine. I didn't hate every track. But I don't understand why I dislike this so much when I do like some similar artists and songs. Maybe it's too much and for too long.
The Psychedelic Furs
4/5
I'm really glad that Andie and Duckie are friends throughout the whole movie and it doesn't force a romance narrative, but I also think Blane sucked, so I don't like the movie's ending but I also disagree with most other people about what it should have been.
Tom Waits
4/5
everyone else in my album listening club: MORE tom WAITS how many can there BE why must we be TORTURED like this
me in the background, wearing a silly little outfit with perhaps a silly hat that trails behind me, carrying a bongo drum and doing a little conga line dance as Cemetery Polka plays: uncle VIOLET / was a PILOT [shimmy shimmy *bop bop* shimmy shimmy *bop*]
I did not really care for the instrumental though
The Velvet Underground
3/5
Since this album allegedly influenced every sort of music I like, I've listened to it several times. The problem is, I don't like it as an album. I like some of the songs a lot but don't care for most of them, and I don't think it flows well. Even the songs I do like just make me want to listen to different Lou Reed songs. I'm sure there's something here that I just don't get, but I don't get it even though I've tried.
LL Cool J
4/5
It's amazing to me how different the title track sounds from everything else on this album. A lot of the rest is still enjoyable, but a lot of it is just much lower energy.
Cowboy Junkies
4/5
OK look I saw "Canadian country group" and then "recorded in one night at a church" and braced myself but this was very good!
David Bowie
4/5
meme photo: lie down - try not to cry - cry a lot
this album project has easily led to the most David Bowie I've listened to since his death, because that was the first celebrity/public figure death that really deeply upset me and I didn't like to be reminded about it. I had to take a couple of breaks during Blackstar and it reminded me of all the conversations I had with friends where we went from just talking about the album and videos to talking about how it was a secret farewell message. Life is hard! Death is hard! It feels trite to say that so much of this album is haunting, but it is - the vocals and the machinelike-but-human drumming especially. I do think the title and closing tracks are stronger than the rest, except for maybe Lazarus.
Lucinda Williams
2/5
2.5
G. Love & Special Sauce
1/5
I found nothing to like about this
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
This was fun, I wish I was able to pay a little more attention to it but was slammed RIP
The White Stripes
2/5
mehhhhhhHHHH
Heaven 17
5/5
Yes, perfect. The ideal rate and ratio of beeps and boops. Just enough Ronald Reagan libel/slander (that's a lie, I could go for a little more).
Astrud Gilberto
2/5
This was mostly pleasant but I don't know about the Parade song and the song with the child. I enjoyed listening to the artist's profile on streaming more, so it's kind of weird that this is the album selected?
Little Richard
4/5
Fun! Short! The only issue is that I was slammed at work so I found this much energy infuriating but that's not Little Richard's fault
Tortoise
3/5
I accidentally autoplayed twenty minutes of another Tortoise album so I'd say it felt samey
Manic Street Preachers
4/5
Hey, this sounds kind of like Against Me! I've heard a couple tracks by these guys but never an album, and I will have to give this another listen. Another loss for Bitches Who Can't Understand Lyrics the First Seven Times They Hear them!!! I bet there's some good critique in here.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Some of these get just too far into singsongy folk for a 5 but it's a high 4 love my weird little guys
Sister Sledge
3/5
This was enjoyable, and I feel really sure it's important in music history, but for me today it is a "yeah I liked that"
Stevie Wonder
3/5
This is nice but it's so many love ballads
The Modern Lovers
2/5
Yeah you know how sometimes when you like a genre of thing except for a couple of fairly notable examples? It's not like anyone has ever said "oh like The Modern Lovers?" when I'm describing my music taste, but it would be reasonable if they did, and I really hated this album. I don't think it's a one but it's a 1.5 hanging on to a 2 by the skin of its teeth. The production is so sparse that I actually noticed words, and the words were like "ugh I miss the 1950s" and "Pablo Picasso got all the chicks because women can't say no to hot men with hot cars" and if they weren't cringe they were rhymey.
Bill Evans Trio
3/5
uhhhh this was pretty okay but it was probably helped that I had to do a bunch of repetitive tasks
Massive Attack
4/5
Rob: Massive Attack, No Protection, the song is: Radiation Ruling the Nation.
Barry: Oh, kind of a new record. Very - very nice Rob. A sly declaration of new classic status slipping into a list of old, safe ones.
Truth be told, I'm not sure why our record store owner chose No Protection instead of the original Protection, but that's just me. I like Protection a lot, Karmacoma was one of the songs I first downloaded when people I admired on the internet talked about liking Massive Attack (along with Teardrop, obviously). There are some things I might choose to leave off (ok, that final live cover) but it's really solid for popping on and letting run.
Nightmares On Wax
3/5
muzak for slightly edgy people
Elvis Presley
2/5
I'm so sick of this man!! I have a long familial problem with Elvis Presley! My aunt and mother warred over buying his records or other records as a child and it poisoned us all!
That weird Blue Moon version gets 1 additional star for being weird (positive)
The Who
4/5
All the hits you know and one of them you never know the name of, with like three other songs in there for fun I guess IDK I'm not in The Who
Flamin' Groovies
1/5
why are there so many albums like this on this list
John Lee Hooker
4/5
This fizzles a little over the course of the album after a strong start, but it's all really grooving and chill so who cares, could have listened to 2-4 more tracks.
Metallica
4/5
Fun! Wish I understood any words.
Ryan Adams
1/5
Did I dislike this album, or am I poisoned by my knowledge of Ryan Adams as human being? At any rate, I really didn't enjoy this listen. It felt like I heard the same song three times. Reading a critique to try and gain some insight just led me to conclude that some people think anyone singing with a bit of a Southern accent is making introspective country music.
sadboy pitchfork fodder (derogatory)
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
Enjoyable, inoffensive, probably not going to pull it up again later.
Dwight Yoakam
4/5
hell yea dude we're honkin AND we're tonkin
I don't love this guy's voice if I'm honest but I do like his inflection and the tunes
is there anything like listening to country jams with the windows down at night in the summer when it's starting to cool off
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
this was one decent album worth of music followed by 1.5 more albums. one additional star for Tonight Tonight
Baaba Maal
3/5
I wish more of the album was like "Olel"
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
3/5
It can be really hard to listen to this style of hip-hop because of the sound perspective of how not-dense the music and rhythm is compared to newer music, and the years in between can make it feel really corny when maybe it wasn't at the time. All that said, I find it hard not to like music that's just like "the FDA doesn't give a shit about us" and "modern entertainment is build on minstrelsy" at least a little bit, because it's nice sometimes, to hear someone roast the shit out of our power structures. I think it over-reaches at points, and I think "hiphoprisy" is clever a few times until you overdo it.
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
THIS SLAPS and I won't be hearing anything else, thank you. I understand and agree that in any other situation "hey little girl is your daddy home" is deRANGED and CREEPY but it works here and I don't intend to entertain any opposing viewpoints. You can have them it's a free country or whatever but I'll be here with Dancing in the Dark, a song my wife Lucy Dacus and I both enjoy.
Brian Eno
4/5
sure, beam me up dude
Justice
3/5
I have enjoyed this album in the past but today I think it was too much stimulation so my point in time assessment must be a 3
The Chemical Brothers
3/5
For some reason, The Chemical Brothers were a group that cool people I liked on LiveJournal all seemed to like but I couldn't get into. They would also talk about them like they were this really weird underground unpopular band, but then Block Rockin' Beats was all over the place. I'm sure at least part of this is just how life is, but when I was younger and trying to Find Myself and ideally do so by finding unique and cooler music than everyone else, this group just didn't do it for me. Today was better, although I think a full album of it is a bit much (or maybe the last two tracks dragged more than the others).
Willie Nelson
3/5
This mostly just made me want to listen to other Willie Nelson
AC/DC
3/5
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
Not my favorite album of theirs but pretty suitable for some Halloween crafting action
Jimmy Smith
3/5
The Smiths
4/5
Kind of drags on the front half but I can't deny the back half has some bangers even though I do not believe for one (1) second that Steven Patrick Morrissey has ever actually known how Joan of Arc felt
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
When I lived in Ohio, I got to be friends with a guy who worked at the Jimmy John's up the road from my office. I was always either a 6 or a 6 on wheat, and it was my lunch any time I didn't pack one or couldn't deal with my packed lunch, so I guess I became easy to spot. He turned out to be pretty cool, he did a bunch of community theater and I started going to his shows and helping him pick things to go out for. He was also extremely weird (so am I) so on one trip we saw a play that involved, IIRC, someone hanging by their entrails with all of the lines in an Irish accent and rhyming cadence. The point of this story is that he was the biggest Nick Cave fan I've ever met, and he is absolutely precisely the sort of person I had envisioned Nick Cave fans being. A lot of this is a little bit too, like, depressed-in-a-dark-cave-by-the-ocean for me, but I did like this album more than some others I've heard. 3.5
Dennis Wilson
2/5
This is very not what I expected, and kind of reminded me of yesterday's Nick Cave. Except, like, slower and more 70's in sound and instrumentation.
LCD Soundsystem
2/5
Mostly I just feel like I don't get it
Terence Trent D'Arby
4/5
Glad I found this! A solid album ended with a really fun version of Who's Lovin' You. Something seemed odd with the sound mixing at times, not sure if that's intentional, original, or an artifact of the various processing/versions, but it was a little annoying.
Suzanne Vega
4/5
I have listened to a decent amount of Suzanne Vega, but not this album. I enjoyed it and was happy to give it a listen. There's some almost Sinead O'Connor type bits that I particularly liked toward the end.
Violent Femmes
4/5
There was one song in here that I found really annoying but it was for a petty annoying sonic reason that just didn't agree with me, which happens. Fun. Short.
Bill Callahan
4/5
I was initially pretty hyped by the fingerpicking guitar but then we did kind of slide into more shoegazey stuff. I still liked this overall and sent it to a couple people, but I'd like the version that's more like the first song more.
5/5
No notes Loretta Lynn is a boss
Motörhead
3/5
Kind of a lot don't you think, just with the crowd and the live and the lack of variation
Depeche Mode
5/5
RNG giving me Siouxsie and the Banshees and Depeche Mode in October is a very polite gift
Kendrick Lamar
3/5
The vocal style used on "u" got pretty grating, and there were a few other points where songs felt dense/overly long/like some phrases were being repeated. This is a classic case of an album where I recognize it gets critical acclaim for many good reasons, and there's a lot of lyrical interest, but to sit and listen to it front to back is too much for me personally.
Bebel Gilberto
4/5
this was fun and nice to both listen to and also idly hear in the background
The Rolling Stones
1/5
I don't get it and there's so much of it
The Velvet Underground
2/5
I kind of hated this, but I enjoyed hating it
John Lennon
1/5
cringe
Soft Cell
4/5
very sexual lyrics for something I only had time to listen to while working, gentlemen
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Two great singles and then some other songs in between them
Missy Elliott
3/5
I'm starting to think all of these songs are Missy Elliott exclusives
Harry Nilsson
3/5
I really enjoyed a few tracks on this...but then it also had the coconut song and some really predictable lyrics on others
Muddy Waters
4/5
Radiohead
3/5
angering every indie music boy I ever knew by calling this one "fine?"
XTC
2/5
I guess at least I finally learned who does the annoying child singing "dear God, " song
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
5/5
I did not know what to expect from this, which I see now is an egregious oversight because I do get down with a lot of folk punk, finger-picking, dark themes, kind of music. The opening track was my favorite and I was sad when the album was over. Maybe truly a 4.5 but, rounding up
Van Halen
4/5
all the best of dad rock
and a little filler but not a lot so it's fine
Antony and the Johnsons
5/5
The first time I watched Midsommar, I for some reason decided to do it after taking an edible. I realized I needed to stop and put myself to bed around the (spoilers for a 2019 movie) scene where the elderly citizens were being killed, because I realized that I was sitting up against the headboard with my knees to my chest, drooling ever so slightly onto my chin because my jaw had fallen open minutes ago and I had just been watching, unblinking, mesmerized and stunned by what was unfolding before me.
I'm not saying this was *exactly* like that, but I put it on while I was sitting with a bunch of candles burning, one of which was making my nose get stuffy so I was breathing deeply and heavily, and I worked my way through a backlog of emails. Past worlds unfurled before me - appointment reminders for my now-deceased cat, scheduling volunteer meetings and attached documents, car and plane tickets for a funeral trip, countless confirmations of N95 mask orders, notifications that benefits and programs were being rolled back and canceled, receipts for abortion fund donations. "For Today I Am A Boy" and "You Are My Sister" crescendoed and other tracks rolled along. Everything felt a little fuzzy around the edges. Maybe most of this feeling isn't about the album, but I think a lot of it is.
CHIC
3/5
The Flaming Lips
3/5
This gets kermity and grating by the end but the title track does go very hard I fear
Neil Young
1/5
"remember Bill"
oh let me guess, from the hill
"from up on the hill"
just put me down
The Teardrop Explodes
2/5
Uhhhhh yeah sure this was some music by some dudes I guess
Spiritualized
2/5
I apparently had to get so far away from this and so quickly that I never rated this. I was feeling like I'd nearly escaped it unscathed and had one track left and that track was seventeen minutes long. why
The Doors
3/5
for some reason I listened to The Spy a lot on my ipod nano, I think I was trying to get into The Doors for some "trying to be moody and have rock cred" reason that now escapes me. anyway....sounds like The Doors yeah
Thelonious Monk
2/5
?????
Neil Young
3/5
compared to a lot of the other Neil Young in this project, this wasn't bad
Carole King
3/5
The title track is one of my least favorites - it gets really into the folky singsongy territory we've had a fair amount of in this project. I am 99% sure this is also in the Rolling Stone list I listened to a couple of years ago and I think I still have about the same reaction. "Kind of fun" and "oh that's where that's from" and "oh that's who did that first" plus "oh the Gilmore Girls theme.....the rest of this is kinda....hmm"
Pantera
3/5
apparently everyone around me absolutely hates pantera
walk was cringey
the rest was like, fine
Hole
5/5
my only issue with this album is that Celebrity Skin is on a different one
N.E.R.D
2/5
I didn't hate this but I also didn't particularly enjoy any of it
Elton John
4/5
Hits hits hits, I can't say every one of them because it's not every one of them, but it's enough of them!!
Big Star
2/5
For while I was driving: 3/10
For while I was exercising: 1/10
Dire Straits
3/5
an extremely Dire Straits sounding Dire Straits album. 2.5 rounded up for Sultans of Swing
Minor Threat
4/5
nine tracks. twenty-one minutes. :chefkiss:
Justin Timberlake
1/5
At least 70% of what makes this album good is that the songs were mostly written for Michael Jackson, and a lot of the final 30% is The Neptunes and Timbaland, because absolutely none of it is Justin Timberlake deciding to do a call-and-response or beatbox in the middle of a single track. "Cry Me A River" is probably a favorite, but in retrospect this is now a song where he continued to shade Britney Spears after, at minimum, neglecting to care about her image for and treatment by the press and this all came shortly before he left Janet Jackson to bear the brunt of their Superbowl halftime show. Sonically I could imagine giving it a 2 because so much of the music/beat work is good, but I'm tired and annoyed and it's getting a one.
Kate Bush
4/5
OK I admit that when I got very excited to see this album, I had forgotten that the back half gets 1) a little more experimental than I like and 2) into having the male vocals that I could really leave on the cutting room floor. But it's still very very fun and I love Kate Bush
Orbital
2/5
I really did not need this today, but that's because I'm having a long and cloudy and annoying day and something that's up-tempo and skittering and electronic is not what I needed. It's not really their fault. I added "Quality Seconds" to a couple of playlists and might come back to this later.
Kanye West
3/5
I think there's some really innovative production stuff in here, and it's unfortunate that there's so much other stuff and the tall shadow of Kanye's behavior.
Dolly Parton
4/5
Hugh Masekela
2/5
I kind of liked the final track, which was the most 'fun' by far, but the rest was "tolerable in the background" until inevitably some squeaking and/or really rapid technically-adept but really grating horns
Beatles
4/5
If I'm ever hard pressed to name a favorite Beatles album, which isn't necessarily often but honestly it's weird that it happens at all, Revolver is usually my response. It doesn't feel like it's dragging or meandering or trying to take me on a psychedelic adventure, and it also doesn't sound like a record company handed four young men ten to twelve three-minute pop songs.
Michael Jackson
4/5
Liberian Girl should have just been recorded directly onto a cassette tape to be handed to the Liberian girl in question. That aside, it's incredible how many banger singles are on this album and they do a lot of work to hold up the little bit of filler.
David Gray
2/5
"This Year's Love" was a jumpscare of recognition for reasons I don't understand. The rest felt like daydreaming except my daydream was me working in a 90's grey cubicle with yellowing electronics and dim fluorescent lighting.
Marvin Gaye
2/5
Well the Lore for this album really is something
it was described as one of his final master works but I'm really not sure, I found it tolerable as background music except for every once in a while when I'd catch some really bitter lyricism
Milton Nascimento
3/5
fine enough but I don't think I'll be looking up more of it, 2.5
Sex Pistols
3/5
groundbreaking, important in music history, etc etc but I'd personally rather be listening to The Clash
The Last Shadow Puppets
2/5
This was confusing from a meta perspective because the short description was something like "builds on 60's and 70's airy pop" and the album has a photo from the 60's as a cover, so I started listening and thought "weird that this could be from the 2000s, it's not like it still feels fresh today but it does feel only like 20 years old, strange" and then "this really just sounds like the Arctic Monkeys, did anyone ever comment on that when the Arctic Monkeys got big that they sound like this band"
So imagine how stupid I felt when the album is from 2008 (nailed it) and one member is from the Arctic Monkeys (nailed it) and I had been trying to give them credit for being really pioneering at their time. I don't get the appeal here now that I'm no longer trying to give them that credit. It sounds pleasant enough it's just also not compelling to me.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Felt about this the same way I feel about all Elvis Costello, which is basically "why does this guy sing like this and then make the same song 20 times"
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
I'm not sure that this holds up as a situation where an artist has multiple albums. I enjoyed it well enough, and I really like Go West, but overall - if it has special historical significance to the genre, I'm unaware of it, and I prefer other albums from them more.
The United States Of America
1/5
my spirit cannot endure this
Digital Underground
4/5
Look, it's really hard to follow The Humpty Dance. It's also really hard to listen to this album while at work without becoming very paranoid that my earbuds leak sound. I really enjoyed the instrumentation and funk sound on this and I guess I have a lot of openness to really stupid cheesy horndog song material. 3.5
The Verve
2/5
Having lived through the popularity of "Bittersweet Symphony" I think I've heard it more than enough for one lifetime. The rest was fine enough, it's just not for me.
Dinosaur Jr.
2/5
why was there that one part that was a lot of wailing and thrashing and rending of garments
the rest was fine enough
Paul McCartney
3/5
It's a little impressive that "The Lovely Linda" and "Maybe I'm Amazed" co-exist on the same album. I liked this overall, and I was intrigued to read that the original response included a lot of rage about it being "unfinished" - first of all, not like I'm going to notice, and second of all, not like I don't already listen to a bunch of crappy DIY music that's sometimes crappy sounding *on purpose*
Rahul Dev Burman
2/5
I expected to like this more than I did but I think the dialogue inclusions and sometimes abrupt start/end threw me off
The Kinks
2/5
I played all of this and registered none of it
Aerosmith
3/5
A lot of filler on here huh
Hookworms
3/5
why is "Opener" track five
this was pleasant enough but did it need to be here?
2Pac
3/5
Honestly opening an album with news reports (or faked ones) about your own 1) shooting and 2) having to leave the hospital after said shooting to go somewhere else with more protection from a possible second shooting - possibly the hardest opening you can come up with
The rest of this was highs and lows for me
Super Furry Animals
3/5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
1: there's one nice thing about the amount of Neil Young I've been subjected to in this project, and it's that it gives me some language to explain why I don't like some Nick Cave. the feeling I get when I hear "they found [name] cuffed to the bed" and I go "oh let me guess she was shot in the head" is the exact same feeling as most Neil Young rhyming songs. the cadence even feels similar sometimes
2: with apologies to Nick Cave, because it's not really something he can control: the vast majority of Nick Cave fans I've met are men who approach me at clubs/bars/shows during downtime and ask me what music I listen to, then ask me if I like Nick Cave, and when I say oh I'm not super familiar they belt out at the top of their lungs a line like "She saw the barkeep, said, "O God, he can't be dead!"
Stag said, "Well, just count the holes in the motherfucker's head!"" and I wonder if they're going to get overly drunk and then ask me for a ride home later, because that would be on par with this style of interaction, then I usually try to Irish-exit the function early to avoid the whole thing. this is something weird to belt out to strangers you just met. I am not overly sensitive and I enjoy a murder ballad on occasion, but now is not the time and honestly it might never be the time.
3: with no apologies to Nick Cave, because this is directly in his control: I just think that albums and artists like this wind up getting a lot of renown for being "transgressive" and I don't get it. it doesn't feel transgressive for me to listen to a guy singing overly-aggressive versions of murder folk songs with an over the top orchestral accompaniment. if something is what every Phantom of the Opera obsessed subtype of theater kid would do, it may not be mainstream but it's also not remarkable to me
my own past as a Phantom of the Opera obsessed "might have been a theater kid if my school had a theater program" begrudgingly gives the second star
The Charlatans
2/5
two possibilities:
- I heard this album at some point because a bunch of people I thought were cool on livejournal were really into british bands that sound like this
- I have never heard this album but I've heard other british bands that sound like this
Billie Holiday
3/5
This really isn't Billie Holiday's fault at all but boy was this an inopportune listen for when I was wrapping gifts
Marty Robbins
4/5
Fallout: New Vegas OST
Van Morrison
2/5
this was fine but I don't really enjoy this much van morrison, I would like to get off the van morrison ride now, please,
Dion
2/5
I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this. Also, I think it's possible for music to be so inoffensive it loops around to offending me a little. 2.5
Miles Davis
2/5
another Miles Davis album, another time I feel like a classless and uninteresting person because I just don't get it
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
the best part about this is the album cover and the worst part about it is the rhymey-wimey lyrics. please stop making my brain go "oh oh hoh let me guess no shortage of fools" shortly before that line is delivered because the AABB rhyme scheme is so tortured. I'm not sure why this is on here when the list has other, more formative/influential Nick Cave except that recency bias was probably a huge factor. I get that this is a big departure from past sound but there's a lot of other synth-sweeping music that came before and some of it is already on this list
a-ha
4/5
Fun! 80's pop baybee
this was fine
SAULT
2/5
I was not in the mood for all of the spoken word today I am sorry
Fishbone
2/5
My relationship with ska is similar to my relationship with jazz, in that there are a lot of different types of ska and jazz and I like a single small subset of it but I don't really know how to describe it or find more of it. This was not really the ska I like
George Harrison
3/5
Sorry George, I thought at least two of these were just Beatles songs until now.
Incubus
3/5
This violently sent me back to an angsty version of myself living in my parents' house and I didn't appreciate it
The Jam
3/5
I feel like I've heard a handful of these tracks before, which would certainly be plausible. A lot of it was fine, some of it was annoying. I think I have reached a reduced tolerance for "random British 60s-70s music" as a result of doing this project for over 400 albums.
DJ Shadow
2/5
I found this mostly tedious, with just enough segments of interest to be disappointed when they lost it a minute later
Pulp
4/5
The Replacements
4/5
Somehow I looked up today's album, saw it, went about half of my day, typed it in, hit play, and made it three songs in before going "this really isn't what I thought The Pretenders sounded like"
That's because it's not The Pretenders. I don't know. My brain is shut off for the year.
Don McLean
4/5
I really thought I'd listened to this album before but if I did it must have been lost on a child version of me, because "Everybody Loves Me, Baby" was a delightful discovery. I'm going to subject everyone I know to this song and if I get a show slot for winter quarter I'll subject the listening public to it too. I can't believe people I know have been trying so hard to reclaim Fortunate Son and Born in the USA from people who don't get the point, but none of them ever shared this with me.
The Vincent Van Gogh song was kind of nice and the others were there but I'd give this five stars if it was just A Side American Pie B side Everybody Loves Me, Baby
KISS
3/5
The best KISS album is a greatest hits album but this one is still fun.
CHIC
3/5
I personally would not have done the slow love ballad on track two, but the rest was indeed good times!
Robert Wyatt
2/5
I started cleaning a little while after I put this on because I had a feeling it was going to be a struggle to get through. It mostly worked, because when I got tired of cleaning and sat down it all became instantly more difficult to tolerate.
Queen
3/5
Not my favorite Queen album but we love vocal layering and songs about best friends. 3.5 rounded down since I assume this one gets plenty of high rates.
Santana
4/5
Oye Como Va is an instant time travel moment to a lot of nights of salsa dancing in a sweaty basement with the funnest most respectful people. Whole album is an absolute banger too. Black Magic Woman, hello
The KLF
2/5
Fine. not for me though
Animal Collective
3/5
I don't know that this was for me, but it was doing some odd and strange stuff, which is cool of them. I think Animal Collective might be one of those bands I tried really hard to get into in the 00s because people I thought were cool really liked them, except I absolutely did not like any songs I tried, so that was a bust. Skimming their wikipedia page potentially reinforces this idea, just because they clearly have the highly-segmented and detailed wikipedia page of a band that obviously inspired a strong reaction of some sort among The People.
Air
3/5
Random album generator is really playing with me by giving me back-to-back, like, "dense sounds put together" music. I think I liked this more than Animal Collective because it's a little grittier, but it was still just a lot of sounds. This review is basically me impersonating my friend in my group who feels like some songs have "a lot of singing" in them, which is like a ??? concept to me, until now, because this has a lot of sounds in it ok
Deep Purple
4/5
Just give me a Bud Light and put me in the garage with one of those caged work lights hung over a rafter because I am a 40-something year old dad puttering around okay. This song has not one but TWO (2) great road trip songs on it along with Smoke on the Water which is, yes, very overplayed including the time a couple of kids did it at karaoke at the skating rink once, but it is still very fun.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
1/5
It is, as we all know, against the law to get up if a cat is sleeping on your lap. It is a further violation of international treaty to do this if the cat has its nose tucked into your hand. Luckily for us all, I am afraid of being sent to The Hague, so I actually finished sitting through this album today because I got entrapped in such a manner. I don't know who this artist is so I apologize if I'm deeply off the target here, but it sounded like it was trying so hard to be edgy. Every vocal felt like someone screaming "I'm really cool!!! I know a few jazz chords!!!" (sometimes literally screaming). It's amazing just how many components here are components of music I really like, and in this particular arrangement I found every single song difficult to get through.
Slint
4/5
Good thing no one told me about this when I was a teenager, because I would have played it out loud to be moody and insufferable and Deep. Honestly it's a bit self-serious, but it was also more interesting and less British than I expected (look, this project has psychologically wounded me, okay) - sometimes it did feel a bit like listening to Tenacious D for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. I don't really know where I'm going with this. Enjoyed, would listen to again maybe.
Nine Inch Nails
4/5
the only problem with this album is I always expect Wish to be on it for some reason, and then it's not, and I have to take a second to go listen to Wish
it does also run a bit long in my opinion, I get we're supposed to be getting this serious story of a descent but
ABBA
3/5
Where is my Fernando? Where is Waterloo? This was nice and it probably has some incredible significance that I'm too foolish to know, but it's not my favorite ABBA record.
Jerry Lee Lewis
2/5
"When Jerry Lee Lewis performed the concert that became this album in the spring of 1964, his career was at its lowest point. Following his scandalous marriage to his teenage cousin, he was virtually blacklisted in the U.S., " ???? GOOD!!!!! Sorry to be a 2020s-prude-ass take here, but it's weird to read this as the opening track titled "High School Confidential" plays that relationship should have been confidential!!!! The blurb on my player continued to call this the purest rock and roll ever put to vinyl and, while I really love the band's energy, I'm mostly left wondering today whether it really was just that simple in the 50s and 60s to capture America's hearts and minds. Listening to this or any of the Elvis records just makes me upset that I live in the timeline where the Black artists of the era couldn't play most of the clubs and didn't get preserved on records in the same way. How many of these albums have Little Richard covers on them trying to do the exact same styling. This album's greatest blessing is that he's ripping through all the tracks so fast it's a very short affair. I take that back, the sound quality on the piano and drums is pretty good for a live recording, the cymbals ringing is nice on Good Golly Miss Molly while Lewis trips himself up trying to plow through it while also carrying a tune. 1.5
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
4/5
I love a little country yodel moment
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
4/5
Pretty sure I've listened to this before since I listened to their most popular work after hearing Paul Simon's Graceland for the first time as an adult. I really like almost everything they put down.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
3/5
Not as much here as I was expecting based only on knowing "Relax" - which makes sense, I guess, given the time and the presumed intent to be club music - just wasn't enough there for me.
Barry Adamson
3/5
I was going to joke "I'm going to start telling Nick Cave fans my favorite song of his is The Sweetest Embrace" but that's actually his vocals, which is exactly the same problem I had when I watched Lost Highway later this day and thought I'd crack a joke about it being "the extended music video for The Perfect Drug" which was written for that movie and not just a visual coincidence with the highway lines. Taking a lot of L's today.
This was pretty weird. I do love a weird little guy.
Coldplay
2/5
I used to enjoy so many of these songs and now they just feel so tired.
Weather Report
2/5
I liked this more than I feared but still not a lot
The Byrds
3/5
This can have a third star STRICTLY because of the song about aliens and the narration I accidentally listened to that said they hope aliens hear it since they're probably listening to TV and radio waves.
Silver Jews
2/5
I messaged my friend who really likes this band "isn't life hard enough?" and received a response explaining that there's another, even more depressing and harder to listen to, album that's good but difficult. For me, life is already hard enough and the flat vocals are difficult in a different way.
Metallica
3/5
I like symphonic metal, and I like Metallica, but I'm not really sure why I didn't like this accordingly. It felt like it took me four hours to get through. I do think I'd enjoy seeing this live, but it was kind of like watching sports on TV - things I enjoy when the energy is there but not in my living room.
Sonic Youth
2/5
I definitely listened to this and already forgot my impressions of it, which lead me to think I didn't really like it. I have the odd situation of being more familiar with Kim Gordon's solo work than Sonic Youth's group work, so I do enjoy hearing her and it's fun to see some recurring themes across many years but that's about it.
Taylor Swift
3/5
Broadly speaking I like Taylor Swift's music, but I don't know if I would have picked evermore to go on here. Most lists like this also include Red, which I also wouldn't choose though, so I've accepted I don't understand "must-listen" list editors.
There was an interview where the people who worked on this album said something like they just kept writing songs in the world that was created on folklore, and to me evermore feels like that's true. They don't feel as innovative, some of them even feel a little repetitive; I do really enjoy "closure" and "long story short" and think "tis the damn season" and "dorothea" are nice together as going-back-home stories. I guess I think the best handful could have been a folklore: deluxe edition expansion.
SZA
3/5
I want to like SZA more than I do, but most of the time I'm like "yeah this is nice" and then forget about the album until some other time it's brought up
R.E.M.
2/5
Aren't there other R.E.M. albums on this list? Did we also need this one?
Eminem
2/5
Boy! This is hard to listen to now. Even at the time all of my friends would be like "it's just Eminem doing his thing" but trulyyyy was it ever good, overall, as an album. I have to admit some of the singles still really hit but this experience as a whole is not enjoyable.
Jamiroquai
2/5
Jazmine Sullivan
3/5
I have heard a little bit of Jazmine Sullivan before but not a whole album. This really slipped by smoothly. A little disappointed there wasn't a track about heaux tales, mo' tails, and holidays in
Can
3/5
kind of groovy
Brian Wilson
3/5
I read a little blurb about this before listening that talked about this concept of "feels" which were looped portions of sound to maybe be used in songs, and I really liked that. I don't know that this is something that feels like an album of songs for listening to, but it's a pool of nice sounding little bits of music and sound.
Grant Lee Buffalo
2/5
this was so much nothing to me
David Bowie
5/5
if you put Sound and Vision on at a party you better WATCH OUT because the Whitest Dance Moves On Earth (tm) are coming at you fast
more seriously, I think even the back half of this is really sonically interesting and it's very fun to listen to later work by Eno, et al, and hear (in my opinion) bits and pieces of this album. Music for Airports was shortly after and then we had "ambient music" all of a sudden. my local record store usually has some sort of special heavy-gram version of this album and I'm like "oh I love Low" but then it's $60 and I guess, despite everything I just said, I don't $60-special-release love this album but I do really love this album. The first time I heard "Sound and Vision" it really hit a spot for me that "Starman" did when a friend handed me a burned copy of my first David Bowie album, where I feel like I could leave it on repeat-one and let my mind drift forever. Heroes has "Heroes" and Lodger has "Boys Keep Swinging" which are both excellent, but as a full album this is the peak of the Berlin trilogy in my opinion. It's amazing what consuming more than peppers, milk, and cocaine can do to a body and mind.
New York Dolls
4/5
Another one for the catalog of "oh this upset people of the time? what was it? oh...."
Really enjoyable, look forward to listening to more.
Madonna
3/5
When this album came out, you couldn't go to any gathering of a bunch of white people without hearing it. Parties, dances, wedding receptions. They were playing "Music" and "Don't Tell Me" for sure and probably some others sprinkled in. Maybe even "Believe" by Cher in there too since it was kind of the kickoff for this pop girlie autotune electronica phase. Might have popped in "Ray of Light" too, why not. The y2k vibes and the economy were strong. The receptions were open bar. We had all kinds of "healthy" granola bars that were covered in chocolate. Life was so good. This album aged ooookay.
Faust
3/5
I feel like I've rated almost everything a 3 lately but truly, a lot of music to me is: Fine! I like it well enough. I'd listen to it again but might not put it on. You know?
Merle Haggard
3/5
Less fun for the lack of "Mama Tried" on here but still good.
Method Man
3/5
The Black Keys
2/5
I didn't really get the hype back in tumblr days when this came out. I don't really get the hype now. The album does have a cohesive sound which is nice. 2.5 rounded down bc I'm cranky
Tim Buckley
2/5
I'm running out of takes to have about albums of sad men with guitars idk
Killing Joke
4/5
I thought maybe we had a Killing Joke album previously but it's apparently just that I personally have listened to Killing Joke historically, since I didn't find a past record from them in the project.
Nick Drake
4/5
This kept reminding me of something but I never put my finger on it. Maybe music that was inspired by this album that came later?
Beatles
3/5
"Nowhere Man" and "In My Life" are two of my favorite Beatles songs, but this album doesn't really hit as a whole for me.
Yes
3/5
Less proggy than I was bracing myself for....2.5
Prince
3/5
A serviceable Prince album. For a double album, not too draggy. A few weird ramblers but also a few really fun grooves. 2.5
Mercury Rev
2/5
"I hope you're hungry....for NOTHING" I feel like I forgot this album the moment it stopped playing
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
"Pusherman" should be sooo cringey but it slaps so hard. All of the instrumentation on this album is fun and groovy and interesting. It feels like listening to a layer cake of different sounds that go together great but are also good for picking apart and listening for little bits at a time. Sonically beautiful! In the list with Tarzan for "soundtracks where a guy really didn't have to go that hard at all but he did and it's excellent"
Mekons
3/5
I like some other work by Mekons but the front half of this one was a bit meh. The back half that sounded like Dropkick Murphys was more fun.
Britney Spears
4/5
Wow I can see in my mind the CD with the flower on it? Right? Anyway I have to admit, listening today, there's some skippable filler in here but the hits are HITS and it's fun to hear her before her baby voice was fully defined. we luv u britney
Missy Elliott
3/5
Getting an album with "Beep Me 911" right after an album with "E-Mail My Heart" is really enjoyable, as is getting Supa Dupa Fly a few days after Superfly. Anyway, random number generator aside, this album is a really fun and easy listen which is surprising since it has so much spoken word and is an hour long, which can feel like a real drag sometimes. Missy Elliott consistently just has so much artistic vision and the ability to deliver on what's in her head - it's really impressive.
Kanye West
2/5
I certainly risk overestimating my own prescience when I look back at this album's release with everything we know about West today (he recently tweeted that he has dominion over his wife and has repeatedly posted Nazi imagery). What I remember is really enjoying the sound and production of this album but really not being able to listen to it a lot because it all felt like it chafed and I was starting to lose belief in the idea that this was all critical genius, to do things like sample "Strange Fruit" and rap over it about consumption and cheating. (To borrow from wikipedia: Jody Rosen of Vulture stated that: "[West is] well aware how audacious to interpolate that sacred song into a monstrously self-pitying ... a melodrama about what a drag it is when your side-piece won't abort your love child.")
We'd already had MBDTF and it had some similar production tricks and similar lyrics, and 2013 for me personally had a lot of scales falling from my eyes about dudes who were like "no one can understand my dark and twisted psyche >:)) anyone who could see in my mind....ehhehe...well....they would go crazy >:]" and the idea that the reddit/4chan style of using slurs because free speech is important. The beat for Black Skinhead was incredible but listening to it at the gym I'd just think about how Genius annotations on it would be like "actually! West here says 'keep it 300, like the Romans' but 300 is a Spartan army reference as seen in the comic and movie!! however, this is lyrical genius to twist the reference to rhyme with '300 bitches, where's the Trojans' !!" and I just was getting sick of it.
A bunch of the "zingers" in here, whether critics loved them or not, feel to me like Hot Topic t-shirt slogans or Facebook statuses from the worst guy you know in your hometown. ("I'd rather be a dick than a swallower" .... "in a world of dicks and assholes I'd rather be a dick" you see where I'm going here?)
Daft Punk did incredible work on this and it's unfortunate that Kanye West is who he is. Jesus certainly wept.
The Rolling Stones
1/5
Wasn't it enough that Britain had to colonize the world in search of spices just so they could prepare the most unseasoned food? Did they also have to steal everyone's instruments to make this album?
Femi Kuti
4/5
This was really fun and exactly the kind of stuff I hoped to discover with this project. I have no context or experience with which to speak about it, it was just a nice time.
Tim Buckley
2/5
Some of the music was fun and I know this isn't a music-scientific sort of thing to say but he just seems like he'd be really annoying and come up to you in public and start talking and not stoooppppp
Ministry
4/5
This is not my favorite Ministry, but it's very formative for me and a lot of music I like. It's also enjoyable to read through the album and artist wikipedia pages because they're such a classic case of "the band was a mess, the label wanted something they could actually sell, the band stayed up on a bender and taped something nearly unlistenable, some of the band members left, all of them were angry, anyway somehow here's the album and then a song on it got nominated for a Grammy".
Dr. Octagon
1/5
listening to the intro like: ☹️
I felt a little redeemed on this one as I read the album blurb.
"Dr. Octagon is an incompetent, time-traveling, possibly extraterrestrial surgeon who pretends to be a female gynecologist and molests his patients and nurses. The concept makes for some undeniably juvenile (and, arguably, hilarious) moments..."
Well, juvenile, sure, let's keep reading -
"Keith has since lost his taste for the album, tiring of hearing it compared favorably to his subsequent work, and complaining that the only new audience he gained was white."
Honestly there's something very fitting about the idea that this album mostly brought underground hip-hop back to the attention of white people who had mostly moved on to different types of music after they stopped voyeuristically consuming the late 80's gangster rap (if this blurb is to be believed). It feels a lot like how popular Eminem got with his "my dark and twisted mind > : ]]] you can see it through my alter ego!!! it is HIM talking about doing these things" ....thing. Or maybe I'm just really boring and whiny and millenial for being mostly grossed out by this. Every time one song had a good groove and interesting enough lyrics it was like a guarantee the next one would be a creepy skit.
The Human League
4/5
I want to like this album more than I actually do, because I like The Human League and I really enjoy "Don't You Want Me" (obviously - I am a human being). There are a couple of meh songs though and since there are only ten songs at all that's not a great percentage. 3.5 rounded up
The Pharcyde
2/5
Well, it's something I wouldn't have encountered without this project. Some of the hooks and beats were fun. I liked the female rapper early in the album. 2.5
Nick Drake
3/5
Nice. Pleasant. Fine
Suede
2/5
I thought this was going to be a little more...progressive? aggressive? based on the blurb and the cover and a song being called "Animal Nitrate" but wound up feeling let down. There was less energy here than I expected and a lot of the tracks really bled together for me. Maybe if I were someone who could parse lyrics on a first listen there would be some good lyricism in here but I unfortunately am not one of those people so whatever it is, it's lost on me.
Pulp
3/5
With apologies to Pulp because I'm sure it's frustrating as an artist to always be compared to your most popular work: it's no Common People :(
I do like The Fear and a couple of other tracks but could leave most.
Fiona Apple
5/5
This mind this body and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways!!!!!
I've read my fair share or more of interviews with Fiona Apple and while she can be cringey/pretentious/annoying at times, I really think she scores highly on being intelligent and talented enough to far outweigh it. This could have been another album penned by a teenager that is followed by not-so-great work because they seemingly used up all their good ideas, but I think her work continued to be great, which makes this shine even more. "Pale September" feels like a little transportation capsule every time I listen to it and I'm sure I don't need to talk about "Criminal" here. However..........as an album, I think some of the tracks being so excellent means that tracks like "Sullen Girl" and "The First Taste" wind up feeling forgettable even though the listen-through experience is still good. 4.5 rounding up
Miriam Makeba
3/5
A bit of meta-commentary first: it feels like this album represents many of my issues with this list. This album, I think, "oh interesting, is this a well-known musician from Africa? What region?" and I find an accomplished singer-songwriter who worked with Harry Belafonte, put down some of the earliest recordings of popular Xhosa songs, got exiled from South Africa for protesting apartheid and then her visa cancelled by the USA because she married a Black Panther. I look up the artists behind forty different British guitar rock albums here and I find "guys who were born in Britain who were in a band".
Anyway.
I really liked some of this but disliked a lot too - it seems to me like the English-language songs feel sing-songy (negative) but the version here of "Mbube" is really great.
Public Enemy
4/5
The Beau Brummels
2/5
Kind of an interesting set of framing here, the band is apparently known for solidifying the "San Francisco rock sound" but at first everyone thought they were part of the British Invasion so of course 1001lbums has their "country" album on the list? At least it was short, I did like a couple of the tracks but it's kind of hard to make an un-fun version of "My Old Kentucky Home" [editor's note: the writer was reminded of the blackface cover in Mad Men, that version was very un-fun, sorry about that]
Christina Aguilera
3/5
Oops! I listened to this and forgot to rate it so now I don't remember if I had any specific references besides - another xtina album, another overly long album with some good singles and an incredible amount of filler!!! 2.5
The Pogues
4/5
I had drinks with dinner todaym. its the Pogues!! Fairytale of anew York!!
Frank Ocean
2/5
I do not get the hype for this album, personally, but I also do not really have a reason
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
I guess I liked this better than most of the other Neil Young. Have I gotten them all yet? Please? There have been at least five before this one
Love
2/5
Why have I gotten five Neil Young albums and at least ten albums that sound just like this while doing this project. 1001 albums for the whole globe????? I needed this one???? 1.5
Songhoy Blues
4/5
A lot of things I like in here! Bluesy country instrumentation, good vocals, cohesive sound
TV On The Radio
1/5
I fully thought this would be a band made of white hipster men until I looked them up. Sorry to all but one band member I guess.
Malcolm McLaren
3/5
Hm. A lot of interesting bits but also a lot that didn't land for me, not a big skit/interstitial fan
The Band
3/5
Fine??? I liked this more than I remember liking Big Pink
Queen Latifah
3/5
She can spell her name remarkably fast. I liked this, it's fun.
MGMT
2/5
I already lived through this once and I also thought it was hipstery and annoying that time
Pavement
3/5
"Can I listen to this and still enjoy it if I like the music but hate the lead singer's voice" final boss. 2.5
Death In Vegas
4/5
I enjoyed this but I'm also not sure why it's here
Michael Jackson
3/5
Kinda front-loaded....I just haven't really heard a ballad from this guy that I'm like "wow this was totally worth slowing down the vibe of the album so far to hear"
Caetano Veloso
3/5
I think if I was in a pepper mood I'd enjoy this more. Fun instrumentation but I kept getting a little annoyes by the vocal stylings.
50 Cent
1/5
why is this here
Bert Jansch
3/5
Really didn't know what to expect here. The cover feels jazzy, my app said pop, and at times it actually sounded like folk and blues. I enjoyed it, I hope to poke around into the artist's other work.
Prince
4/5
Portishead
4/5
Somehow I don't think I have listened to this album even though Dummy and their self titled have a lot of spins. At times this sounded surprisingly like Mitski? Obviously it came out first, but it was a little jarring here and there. I liked it though. 3.5
Teenage Fanclub
2/5
It's not so much that I disliked this, it's more that it felt like music you'd make as the studio band to put in a movie because they couldn't afford real songs people recognize, so you try to kind of knock off the sound of bands people do know? A long- and generic-feeling 42 minutes.
Pentangle
3/5
Some of this was a little more Rennaissance-faire-folk than I like but some of it was fun.
The Mothers Of Invention
1/5
A lot of the things I dislike about Sgt Pepper's without any of the things I like
T. Rex
1/5
This sounded like all the same song and it id also the same song that has been on this list several times
Neneh Cherry
3/5
Not to be a Puritan, but "You lose a guy, you move into the larder / You got no style, why don't you try a little harder / Chocolates, bananas, donuts and salami / Ain't gonna fit 'cause you're full of baloney" is both the funniest thing I've heard in weeks and a colder burn than a lot of more explicit diss lines I've heard lately. The rest of this album was like, "fine - fun 80s/90s stuff - a bit long" but that verse jumped out at me and I was cracking up laughing.
Buena Vista Social Club
3/5
Kraftwerk
2/5
Sorry Kraftwerk, I like some of your other werks but this one is so drawn out all the time
Lynyrd Skynyrd
4/5
Classic hangin with dad in the garage music
Steely Dan
2/5
well it certainly sounds like Steely Dan
Drive Like Jehu
2/5
A few standout tracks but overall a little too devoid of melody, I know I know it's punk rock and I like a lot of punk rock alright, and I know part of the deal early on was purposefully making noise but I don't have to enjoy all of it. 2.5
Mudhoney
3/5
Guy's like, really into mud, huh?
2.5 rounded up, at least it was kind of strange and interesting
Paul Simon
4/5
the mama [loc: rolling out of bed]: it's against the law
me and Julio [loc: down by the schoolyard]: 😱
Pink Floyd
2/5
None of the things about Pink Floyd I like and many things about hallucinogen-era Beatles that I dislike
Goldfrapp
2/5
This was good music for being tired on a plane to but I'm not sure why it was on here and I'm still wondering why the second Goldfrapp album we got previously is on here.
Japan
3/5
I started out really enjoying this (kind of a Kajagoogoo / Duran Duran joint) but the tempo drags and gets really monotonous toward the end.
Morrissey
4/5
A lot of snippets from "First of the Gang to Die" were staples of my time on LiveJournal. I still really like a lot of the ballad-y songs on here. It's not my favorite Morrissey album. Shame he's so annoying.
Spiritualized
2/5
Not sure why this was here, sounded a lot like U2, the other one we've gotten from this band I think was more unique?
Ice Cube
2/5
It Was a Good Day is really a standout here
LTJ Bukem
3/5
this was dampened by having to listen to a random YouTube upload but I still really enjoyed it. 3.5
The Specials
2/5
International Jet Set made me feel like I was high and paranoid. Other than that I enjoyed getting a different type of music on here for once (not British, not Neil Young, etc.) but for someone who played trumpet for...8? 10? years I don't really like ska or 2tone.
Otis Redding
3/5
his voice is just so great
Prince
3/5
Starts out super fun but peters out a bit in my opinion
I actually really enjoy Beautiful Day and enjoy Stuck in a Moment even more, but! the problem is the whole rest of the album. It is so boring, and any punctuation is rhymey wimey.
The Bees
4/5
This was pleasant without being boring. I sometimes find music that's described as "calming" to be grating because there's not much going on, so this I kind of had enough happening to actually feel kind of relaxed and vibey.
Johnny Cash
5/5
Le Tigre
3/5
It's not Bikini Kill but it's fun
Ozomatli
2/5
This album had two moods. One was "salsa covers of random songs like Matchbox 20 deep cuts that would play at salsa/bachata night" (positive) and the other was "2000s boyband doing an edgy hip-hop song" (derogatory)
The Vines
3/5
Bon Jovi
3/5
Didn't realize that almost all of the Bon Jovi songs I know were from the same album. Unfortunately it's still just not very good as an album. 2.5
Fleet Foxes
3/5
I thought this was fine. My other half asked me again what the criteria are for being included on this list, reminded me CSN&Y already exists, and called it "a bit derivative" - hard to argue.
Underworld
5/5
I never really know how to describe techno/electronic music I dislike vs what I like. I liked this a lot! Embarrassing to know Born Slippy and not ever find this album. Four stars for the album but a fifth for the deluxe version.
Fever Ray
4/5
This was fun, weird little guy (positive) vibes and I like the distorted vocals.
Bob Dylan
3/5
Enjoyable. I'm sure other people have written enough long reviews about this one.
808 State
2/5
In contrast to the Underworld record we got, where I said "I don't know how to describe what electronic music I like but I like this" - I dislike this. It sounds, I guess, too soundtrack/background music to me, like it's made strictly to be Dark Club Music for that episode of the X-Files where Mulder tries to go meet a vampire and maybe get eaten. 2.5?
The Flaming Lips
1/5
I checked to make sure I hadn't accidentally hit "Repeat All" because I thought maybe it was repeating the album but there were still three songs left. We had Pink Robots so idk why we have this one too.
Ride
4/5
This was pretty vibey, I don't always enjoy shoegaze but the up-tempo poppier tracks were fun and none of it felt too draggy.
Machito
3/5
The opening brass gave me really big HBCU marching/pep band vibes, which was fun. Overall I enjoyed this, I found the Latin dance elements to balance out the more wandering jazz into a direction I like.
Anita Baker
3/5
Napalm Death
3/5
Not my favorite vocal styling and the drums got a bit repetitive. I'm going to be contentious and round up my 2.5
Elis Regina
4/5
This was really enjoyable to listen to while doing things!
Sparks
3/5
I'm not sure why I was expecting the cover photo to be depicting the artists, maybe because we've had enough global music in this project to believe it. The music was Fine but it also kind of felt like.......I guess I could believe that a lot of the tracks were kind of songs pitched to 70s-80s glam/new wave type bands that they didn't wind up using? 2.5
Depeche Mode
5/5
Honestly as an album I'd say 4, 4.5 but Enjoy the Silence is such a banger!!!
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1/5
"the live album of distress and mild discomfort" was not a great accompaniment to dinner
New Order
3/5
Had a "fine time" listening but this lacked some sort of edge I typically enjoy about New Order
Cypress Hill
3/5
The production on this still feels really fresh and I like a lot of the beats, but taken as a whole album it's...so many songs about weed
Roni Size
2/5
I like dnb but this was way too much of it
Todd Rundgren
2/5
Mostly inoffensive but overall forgettable and a large amount of it.
The Afghan Whigs
2/5
Bits of this were giving kind of Trent Reznor depression vocals (positive) but most of it was wandering guitar and made me feel sleepy.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
4/5
Oldie but pretty goodie
Aerosmith
4/5
Unapologetic fave in the dad rock while garage workin genre
Herbie Hancock
3/5
I liked Watermelon Man and found the rest tolerable, which is real growth for me for greater-jazz listening.
Dolly Parton
2/5
There were three broad types of country music played in my house growing up. My dad's country music - Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, the outlaw/working man's stuff, the stuff we all mostly liked - Jo Dee Messina, Alan Jackson, the pop country stuff, and then my mom's country music - women singing songs about the most depressing and terrible things I'd ever heard of at the age of eight, which I'd sigh and slouch and complain about being subjected to and usually told to "LISTEN to it" and "listen to the words" and this was supposed to make me realize something. I don't mean to give my child self too much credit, but it usually just seemed like the words were supposed to be about loving someone who beat the hell out of you two songs ago and I didn't like it. I like Dolly Parton overall but this album has never been particularly enjoyable to me.
Arcade Fire
2/5
The coolest thing about this album was the HTML5 thing they made for "We Used to Wait" that would run a little character through the Google Map of your hometown. My hometown had not been google mapped unfortunately.
Les Rythmes Digitales
2/5
interminable
Julian Cope
2/5
Am I glad weird little dudes are making weird music? Yes. Did I like this? No. 2.5 rounded down because some of it was repetitive in a way I disliked and I didn't really like his voice. Yes it's subjective but I am subject to my personal view and interpretation of the world!!!
The Pretty Things
1/5
was every band just kinda The Beatles for several years?
Mudhoney
2/5
two albums by this band seems unnecessary
Magazine
3/5
Fine?? I think I've listened to this artist before
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Starts out on its highest note and drifts from there. 2.5 rounded up for being short.
Hot Chip
2/5
I have this issue with Hot Chip where the first song I heard from them is their big hit single, and then I feel like the entire rest of their discography just doesn't really sound like that. Also, it's frustrating to me when I hear dance music for the first time where they used what I think are female vocals and I go to listen to the group and it was just that I was bamboozled and/or sometimes they used female vocal samples for one (1) song and the rest of their music doesn't.
Randy Newman
3/5
2.5 rounded up because I like this guy's voice but aside from the Cleveland and bad dream songs it felt samey and a bit bleh
Fiona Apple
4/5
I already liked this album but was additionally pleased to see the title is apparently from The Fall, and the reason Cara Delevigne is on this is because she sounds a bit like Gillian Anderson's character. 3.5 rounded up
The Divine Comedy
2/5
If I had a nickel for every album in this project where I thought "this could be really nice but the sweeping orchestral arrangements really overshadow this guy's not so dynamic singing voice" I think I'd have at least three nickels?
Laibach
4/5
I put this on a bit close to bedtime, which means that I was listening to it while sitting in the bedroom winding down. When my partner came in to the room I was halfway through Herz-Felde and was subjected to very rude questions like "what is that terrible noise?"
anyway industrial music go brrrr thunk thunk thunk brrrr
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
First track and last track were fun but the rest blended into a bit of a mess. I am more interested in the concept of the band apparently doing a lot of Irish music after this? Having recently watched Sinners I am obliged to imagine Remmick and company performing Come On Eileen
Cocteau Twins
5/5
I find this such a pleasant listen all the way through. I also really enjoy made up lyrics since I can never tell real ones. whenninevveneahlafivestars
Sheryl Crow
2/5
You used to hear a song on the radio, go to the store, and occasionally spend your hard earned 12.99-19.99 on a CD... and sometimes you did all that just to get home and realize the single is totally unlike everything else on the album so now you blew twenty dollars. All I Wanna Do is the only fun song on this album.
Love
2/5
I listened to this like five hours ago and have no recollection of it
Lauryn Hill
3/5
I always want to like this more than I do, but I just think there are a few too many songs and a few too many long outros/intros/etc. Her voice is obviously gorgeous I just struggle with the complete album.
Boston
4/5
Side A is a 5, Side B is like a 3.....split the diff
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
Yeah sure! Opening track and final track are both absolutely top-tier, some of the middle is too classic-folksy for me but it's all still really well put together.
Devendra Banhart
2/5
let me guess: Pitchfork really loved this, didn't they
FKA twigs
3/5
I remember really liking at this at the time, I still like a couple of tracks a lot.
Circle Jerks
3/5
I have to stan a fifteen minute album. Could have listened to another ten minutes for sure. 3.5?
Lambchop
2/5
I just know somewhere out there a ton of people love this band but I don't have any idea why. I further have no idea why some reviews called this the start of "alternative country" aside from they're from Nashville. Then again I hate the concept of "alternative country" since it usually means all the mainstays of country music for decades ANYWAY I found this samey and grating.
Bob Dylan
2/5
"I Want You" feels like Bob Dylan doing a Neil Young song. IDK, overall I'm a Dylan fan but this was a grind today aside from Memphis Blues Again.
The Beach Boys
3/5
Listening to "Student Demonstration Time" in 2025: 🫣
Deee-Lite
3/5
"Groove is in the Heart" was really lightning in a bottle. There is some weird (positive) stuff in here besides that too but none of it really has the same energy. Interestingly some of it reminded me of like Front 242? Sample heavy industrial type music?
Rod Stewart
2/5
I don't get it
Kings of Leon
3/5
this was whatever, and then also there were the two songs that took over Fuse for like a year
Elbow
2/5
Starting to see this list has two pools of boring general-rock music: 60s prog and 00s indie
Ray Price
4/5
Can't wait to ask my dad if he knows of this guy and probably find out he bought his albums 40 years ago and played them at home and I was just oblivious. Enjoyed his voice and some of the Prine-like humorousness?
Madonna
3/5
Hey, I remember a few of these. Genuinely fun electronic-pop.
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
More music that just kinda sounds to me like The Beatles? 2.5 some was fun so rounding up
1/5
I am quite certain I've listened to this twice now and retained none of it. I am unable to believe that in this list full of British general-rock-type bands we also needed this album.
Sepultura
2/5
Not a big fan of the vocals or the Standard Classic Metal Drumming, did enjoy the aggressively anti government track, 2.5 rounded down
Bob Dylan
2/5
It's like Bob Dylan is purposefully being a "this is how Bob Dylan sings myeh myeh myeh" caricature a bit?
De La Soul
1/5
After reading other people's reviews maybe I'm just having a really bad day or something because I couldn't find the fun or the banter in this and it just felt grating.
Stephen Stills
3/5
2.5 rounding up....this was pleasant and, like, a little forgettable but not in as bad of a way as other albums on the list. I found a lot of the instrumentation enjoyable to listen to.
Sam Cooke
3/5
This was fun! I liked the last track a lot and I appreciate that the crowd actually seemed to be having fun and engaging because if a live album is going to have a crowd they should at least be lively.
The Damned
4/5
We love a short punk or punk-adjacent album here
Paul Weller
3/5
This was fine? Enjoyable while doing something. A little gritty.
Big Star
2/5
I can really hear the pre-REM in this one. Unfortunately it's really interminable, I think if I heard a song or two I'd like them but this is too many together and they're too consistent.
Robert Wyatt
2/5
A lot of exploring the fringe capabilities of clarinets and whatever in here
Portishead
4/5
I wish this album had Glory Box on it three times but other than that it's really good
Erykah Badu
3/5
Pleasant. I fear this is yet another case of me not being able to process human language and probably missing out on a lot.
The Go-Go's
4/5
Fun! Short! Excellent qualities especially 600+ albums in!
Sabu
2/5
This is probably mostly about me, but something about a lot of the tracks really spiked my blood pressure. Not sure if it was the pace, the vocals, or what, but it made me feel on edge and I needed a few breaks.
Fela Kuti
2/5
A little too into the jazz improv space for me personally
TLC
4/5
Creep is obviously the standout but so much of this is good groovy sexy summer music
David Bowie
3/5
Fame absolutely kills but this contains my hands down least favorite version of Across the Universe
Simply Red
2/5
At times kind of reminiscent of Phil Collins? Not bad but also not compelling, 2.5
The Everly Brothers
1/5
Like The Beach Boys without anything appealing
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Am I losing my ability to have feelings about music after so many hundreds of albums? Or are a lot of albums just kind of fine? I like the first two tracks, the rest are...fine!
Tom Tom Club
2/5
Widely hailed by critics, loved by some of my friends, yes, but I find this all too soft and too quiet
Ella Fitzgerald
2/5
Wow, for a few days there I almost didn't give myself credit for making it through this. I already thought double albums were on thin ice and I can't imagine what makes five discs necessary for this list. There was no better representation of Ella Fitzgerald OR Gershwin? A slog only barely rescued by being decent background music most of the time.
Def Leppard
2/5
These songs all sounded like the same song and while Pour Some Sugar On Me is a karaoke classic it is not that great of a song
Kate Bush
3/5
Where is Cloudbusting? Where is Hounds of Love? Where is Wuthering Heights?? It's fine but it's not very fun compared to other works :(
Kings of Leon
2/5
I think I had Molly's Chambers on my ipod nano. I don't care about any of the other songs on here. Why are there like three Kings of Leon albums? We really find them that influential on the shape of the music industry or?
R.E.M.
3/5
that was most certainly an REM album
Common
2/5
When I got to the line about what if God was a she I got derailed thinking about all the tweets that are like "men will do psychedelics and say they had a spiritual journey then say stuff I talked about with friends at sleepovers at age 8" and I never got back on the rails
Blur
2/5
Song 2!!!!!!!
And then a bunch of generic rock
Brian Eno
2/5
I can't believe it but I actually prefer the totally instrumental ambient albums by far
Prefab Sprout
3/5
A bit boring but some occasional Depeche Mode vibey moments
Spacemen 3
2/5
it's like all of the boring parts of Revolver without the fun ones
Big Brother & The Holding Company
4/5
Piece of My Heart is a 5 but a lot of this album overall got too jammy for my taste
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
3/5
This was pleasant. Kind of like listening to the Peanuts music.
Black Sabbath
3/5
sounds like black sabbath alright
Led Zeppelin
2/5
Immigrant Song is fun and then this just keeps going
Screaming Trees
4/5
This isn't really anything amazing but it's pretty solid, like, grungy rock to put on and do stuff to which is a thing I like a lot. I enjoy the sound and I have lots of stuff to do, so, match made maybe not in heaven but at least a kind of broadly positive location.
Ms. Dynamite
1/5
Incredibly of its time. Every once in a while I'd get into the rhythm of a song and then a lyric like "crack is bad for you, why are we letting kids do crack" (okay, some slight liberties taken) would cross my ears.
Gary Numan
4/5
3 stars overall but an extra half star/round-up for Cars
Jane Weaver
3/5
Supertramp
2/5
No Logical Song :( Not a lot of fun and funky anything here, really.
The Flying Burrito Brothers
3/5
3.5 rounded down for making me hear the lyrics of Hot Burrito #1 at nine in the morning 😭
Butthole Surfers
1/5
Music for people who think they're really cool because they've watched Faces of Death multiple times and claim they find it soothing
Emmylou Harris
4/5
Every time you type in one of these song names to find out why it seems familiar it's a book. This person must be very well read. In any case, this took a little to warm up for me and I might be rounding up just because I enjoyed the sidebar to listen to a couple versions of The Streets of Laredo but it can have the round up anyway, 3.5
Alice Cooper
2/5
I was expecting a lot more than this based on how shocking Alice Cooper allegedly was to audiences like my mother.
Mariah Carey
2/5
I thought this was more up-tempo than it actually is. Listening to it on a warm afternoon at work was so dangerous. A 1 doesn't feel fair because it's not BAD but I want to give it a 1 so badly because I had to go grab a soda to make it through.
Pixies
3/5
Leonard Cohen
4/5
I remember not really enjoying this when I've listened to it in the past, but I enjoyed it today. I think his vocal style and sound might benefit from repeat exposure, and I was also feeling a little yelly today myself.
Fairport Convention
3/5
This wasn't as bad as I was afraid of another Fairport Convention album being, I don't necessarily know that I liked it. A true 2.5. Flipped a coin to round it.
The Velvet Underground
3/5
Not as difficult of a listen as some of their other albums even if I spent too much time listening to Pale Blue Eyes as a teenager and kind of got sick of it.
3/5
It almost gets bluesy but then it doesn't really? I felt like I was forgetting every song by the time I got done with the next one. 2.5
Beatles
4/5
I have to imagine I can't really add any useful insight on this one. Really enjoyable, lots of my favorites, kind of makes me want to watch Across the Universe.
Tito Puente
3/5
Big Black
4/5
This was a little more noisy than I really needed today but it was fun. I will give it the round up.
System Of A Down
3/5
This is fine. I think I've heard it too much to really hear and evaluate it.
Drive-By Truckers
2/5
I've always been frustrated with this image in my head of Drive-By Truckers being the kings of "alternative country" particularly among young men that I know, because to me all the songs I've heard of theirs sound like extremely standard Southern rock / country rock type music and I also simply resist the implication that "standard" country is country-pop. All that said, "Three Great Alabama Icons" gained them a few points in my book for being interesting, but I still don't like most of the lead singer's delivery and find a lot of the rest to be samey.
Brian Eno
3/5
As per usual, I liked the airy instrumental tracks the most here (like Spider and I until the vocals started). Fun but not my favorite.
Can
1/5
There were so many unpleasant noises in here, including but not limited to screechy violin. "Aumgn" was kind of spooky (positive). 1.5
Tangerine Dream
3/5
OK go off, spooky aliens
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Raised on Robbery seemed to kind of pop up out of nowhere compared to the others? I like that her voice is kind of deepening here compared to earlier albums.
4/5
This was fun! None of it jumped out at me, but as a whole it was a nice listen and it was enjoyable both while doing something else and while sitting and listening to it attentively.
Saint Etienne
3/5
This wasn't bad, but I really wish there was about 15% more of something there.
Ryan Adams
2/5
Most of this is better than I expected, but there's just so much of it, and most of it is so boring. I really thought "When the Stars Go Blue" was originally by someone else, but after listening to some covers, I can't figure out what I'm imagining in my head as the "original" version. I also enjoyed "Nobody Girl". 2.5?
Gene Clark
2/5
I......don't really get this. It was nice? 2.5
Bauhaus
3/5
it's not my favorite bauhaus but it'll do in a pinch
George Michael
3/5
Shocking number of memories jogged by this album.
First up: the numerous videos I've watched of Megan Thee Stallion dancing in slo-mo to "Father Figure"
Second: I used to work at a small company where the CEO would invite all of us to holiday parties and also his birthday parties at his large house (weird in retrospect) and at least once or twice he hired this cover band to play. I can't remember how much of these events are merged together, but 1) he said he wanted them to do "I Want Your Sex" and I wound up relaying this to the band who 2) eventually got us a noise complaint and then 3) when I took a photo of the CEO and the band with said noise complaint and texted it out to whoever wanted it, the guitarist told me if I wanted to I could text him at that number "about whatever". He had played with Warrant and I was 22. So that was weird. Anyway.
Really front-loaded album if you ask me. 2.5
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
1/5
Wanted to like these absolute weirdos. Unfortunately found the audio to be interminable yelling, squeaking, squawking, etc
The Stranglers
3/5
I have a feeling Friend Brocones is going to hate the organ happening all over this album, but I really enjoy it. I love listening to songs about being a little rat in the sewer that are apparently being played on the electric organ in a back room of Dracula's castle.
Manic Street Preachers
2/5
This is exactly the sort of like 00s pop rock (I know it says 1996) that really grates on me for reasons I can't explain. I think it's like, a mix of kind of yelly vocals and riffs that aren't very cool but there are a lot of them. It all seems to think it's really smart. It all feels like the music for the opening scene of a movie with characters walking around.
The Fall
3/5
I was prepared for this to be prog rock, so I found it to be pleasantly more punk inspired than I expected. Unfortunately it doesn't get the memo that punk albums are supposed to be, like, 33 minutes long - I felt like it went on for at least seven songs too many. What was there was fun enough.
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
After listening to Trout Mask Whatever yesterday I was really scared of More Frank Zappa but this was.....fine. 2.5
The Jesus And Mary Chain
3/5
This was fine but mostly made me want to go listen to Automatic
2/5
Wish I had the words to describe why this album felt grating and slow to me, because I think i enjoyed the other PJ Harvey album we've gotten during this project. Everything felt kind of quiet and plodding.
Motörhead
2/5
Samey.....but fun, in a kitschy sort of way. 2.5 and a coin flip for the rounding direction
Ash
3/5
For some reason listening to this the day after Motorhead was really funny to me. A lot of the music is fun and a bit grungy/heavy but then the vocals were like.....very Oasis but maybe...listen I wouldn't bet that the singer put a lot of money into lessons. It was Fine but also felt lackluster in the distinct sense of it sounding like Every 1990s Dude Band? Kind of curious about their earlier work more than this one based on the critic reviews/comparisons. 2.5
Joni Mitchell
3/5
fun. airy. fine.
Einstürzende Neubauten
4/5
Hey, this wasn't nearly as bad as its position on the global rankings suggested. It's currently below Trout Mask Replica, that Kid Rock album, and Locust Abortion Technician, for crying out loud. Everyone is lucky that I didn't find this back when I was a regular at a goth club where the Friday night DJ had a crush on me because we all would have been getting way industrial and dancing to jackhammer noises. All jokes aside, I found a handful of the tracks difficult to listen to, but the majority were bizarre (interesting, positive) and as far as I could tell, none of them involved pressing a clarinet, oboe, or saxophone to its absolute limits.
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
Mrs. Robinson is super duper fun, but I wasn't really sold on the Side A thing about age and life and whatever.
John Coltrane
3/5
Only occasionally set my teeth on edge. I shouldn't really be so flippant but I feel like there's enough love for this album out in the world that it can take me being a little flippant. This is jazz that I can respect and understand but it's still jazz and I'm still inexplicably a brass player who doesn't Get Jazz. 2.5
Elvis Costello
2/5
The editor of this list said, I believe, that he wanted to highlight excellent singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Elvis Costello. Which makes it feel like an extra double kick in the pants to find things like "Costello wrote "Sulky Girl" shortly after a one-day writing spree by Costello where he composed six of the songs that would appear on the Brutal Youth album." about this record, one of six - SIX!!!! - by Costello on this list.
I think I find my annoyance with Costello so frustrating because he should slot in well to the music that I like but I just can't get over it. He feels like the exact type of dude who would show up kinda late to a party and he'd be nice and all but he'd also be like "you know fun fact! ☝️ these corn chips are blue because the corn is blue, corn comes in all sorts of colors" and you're like riveting contribution Elvis, yes, we're all adults here who know about corn.
Laura Nyro
2/5
This was nice but it was so many songs that sounded pretty similar to my ears.
Bob Dylan
3/5
I could swear I reviewed this already. Maybe it just feels like it since I'm familiar with this album. Here's the thing, there's some obviously great songs (lead track) but I think everyone else has already said all the words about it that are available so I'm not bothering.
John Martyn
3/5
I braced myself for this one because it was described as British folk, but I found a lot of rock and almost bluesy stylings in here to enjoy. A pleasant surprise.
David Bowie
4/5
You Will Set the World on Fire is one of my all time favorite Bowie tracks so this one gets to be rounded up. I think overall it's a little dragging in parts but it's also quite dreamy and I really enjoy the jangly guitar.
The Byrds
2/5
I'm glad they enjoyed the Moog but this felt interminable. And weirdly horny.
2/5
Ughhhhhhhhhhhh okay
I listened to this in the car at first and I honest to god had to pause it and rub my hand over my face and ponder what I'm doing at my life because I was stopped at a red light and Fred Durst had just said the words "fucked up AIDS from fucked up sex" which, you know what, AIDS IS fucked up. He's not wrong!!!! But also this entire album is very wrong.
But then again, without Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle) would I have ever taken a body shot off a worker at Coyote Ugly (Austin) and gotten a bucket of water dumped on my head while a bar full of people cheered? I mean maybe they'd have just danced to a different song but that was still an excellent night out.
Extremely embarrassing 2.5 because holy cow so much of this album is absolute dogwater (a term that seems to not share any etymology with "hot dog flavored water" but to be a dodge for saying "dogshit" so that you don't get banned from Fortnite you know what just shoot me
I'm too ashamed of myself to even consider rounding up
Arcade Fire
2/5
Uhhhh I mean this is fine. I think it has some sins to answer for regarding being a precursor to the ho hey Obama era music that we're currently kind of hating on as a society (probably ensuring its resurgence around 2028) and just being like annoying Pitchfork darling fodder. I didn't particularly care for it.
2/5
I tried to sleep in today and at least succeeded in having a slow morning, so we had brunch today in a nice leisurely fashion. I thought by the cover and my best guess that this would be jazz but perhaps like a laid-back bossa nova type situation so I put the album on. What resulted is probably something that got registered with the Geneva Convention people and will result in me being tried at the Hague. My partner gamely participated in the first half and then politely cleared the dishes and suggested I listen to the second half on my headphones.
Now, what's very frightening is that I did a couple minor tasks and got my headphones and came back to this album then, I guess, fell prey to some sort of Stockholm Syndrome for the back half. "Feet Music" and "Broad Way Blues" could almost be described as catchy and perhaps even toe-tapping. This is my 701st album, the 700th I've rated as I need to catch up on one, and I am in a state of deep terror that I have done something negative and irreversible to my brain. I found myself browsing through other works by John Zorn before my evening shower and had to put my phone in the hallway. I'm not going to act like I liked the entire album but it can have a second star.
Dusty Springfield
2/5
This was a little too down-tempo for how sleepy I already was this afternoon, which isn't Dusty's fault, but this rating is still going to suffer for it.
The Stooges
4/5
I listened to all of the Iggy version and some of the Bowie version. What strikes me the most is how the Bowie version has some early goth/new wave sounds and production. The Iggy version is very straightforward punk with a garagey kind of sound, and I enjoy it, but found the Bowie version a little more intriguing. Both fun.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Hmm. I thought that "Brown Sugar" might be another one of those cases where people freaked out over music in the 70's and then it's just because the musicians have eyeliner on but that's really something. Mostly I spent this album hoping "Honky Tonk Women" would come on and I listened to it twice afterward, although I also really like "Wild Horses". I did really enjoy the, I think, Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair article I found about the creation of this artwork and how the original covers had real zippers on them!
Led Zeppelin
2/5
whatever
Hanoi Rocks
4/5
This was fun! I can't tell if some songs sounded familiar because I have maybe heard them or because this sounded a bit like The Clash. 3.5 rounding up
Jacques Brel
2/5
Well, he's definitely got a lot of passion. This wasn't bad at all but I don't think I'd relisten, so the 2.5 has to get rounded down.
Suede
2/5
An absolute slog that took me multiple days to get through. Not even that bad! Just forgettable, samey, draggy.
2/5
Wow the first three are just single after single, huh? The more powerful hits are really good but I can't get over how weird it is that they were like "we're going to do an America album" and the less-intense songs were a bit slow/forgettable to me. I find Bono a little either over the top or just flat and the over the top parts are at least fun, so without that, what are we doing here. 2.5
Gene Clark
3/5
This was a lot more country-sounding than I expected; while it was a little slow and vibey for my personal taste I did enjoy it. I could see it being the sort of album you put on and tinker around with stuff, no big surprises, just tunes.
Everything But The Girl
4/5
This band name sounded familiar but I really couldn't place it. I still haven't figured it out, but I was surprised that this sounded kind of like The Pretenders...I think I expected something more electronic and this almost has some hints of what I'd now call city pop. It made for easy and pleasant workday listening.
Belle & Sebastian
2/5
Ughhhhh I mean on the one hand, "they say you never go with boys and you are tight" was a lyric in a fanfic I read when I was like 12 and then I looked it up and found out it was by Belle & Sebastian and this was the kickoff of a core chunk of my pre-teen/teen personality, but on the other - this album overall is really slow for me as a whole and I don't enjoy it in one sitting. 2.5
Bee Gees
1/5
Should have stayed lost if you ask me, I don't see why this became so critically acclaimed it got reissued besides perhaps nostalgia or a bit of fun surprise finding it after their disco heyday. I look forward to the day I forget they had this era of incredibly sleep inducing ballads mixed with what seems to be classic 80s country songs. I most certainly did not need this knowledge before my death.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
Apparently for like fifteen years I've been conflating the name of this band with the music of Bullet for My Valentine. I can only assume that when I've heard their songs without attribution I've assumed they were The Jesus and Mary Chain songs. It seems like their earlier work would make more sense on this list and I forgot most of this shortly after listening to it, although it was not unenjoyable. 2.5
Blue Cheer
2/5
Every album released in the 60s that has heavy drums was apparently received as an indication of Satan's influence upon the youth, a harbinger of death, a sign that humanity is descending into chaos. It's so unbelievably stupid in retrospect that it really makes me reconsider a lot of things in my life, in a negative way. This opens with "Summertime Blues" for Christ's sake
B.B. King
3/5
Man, I hate a live album but I love a short album.
M.I.A.
4/5
I remember being really mesmerized by the Galang music video. There was absolutely nothing like it in my pop culture awareness, and I'm guessing not a lot generally at the time. MIA has, in my opinion, continued to be one of those people who if you tried to do whatever she's doing (like the Galang video) most people would look so profoundly stupid but she pulls it off every time. The hidden track here sneaks in pretty direct critique of US politics and consumerism that I would sometimes get from Green Day or System of a Down or my directly counterculture weirdo friends but definitely not in an album of party music. I actually don't think I ever listened to this full album because, if I'm guessing, I downloaded Galang and Bucky Done Gun from Limewire and on dial-up that was about all I had time for. Good stuff. 4.5 but unfortunately some of the skits and jokier songs didn't age as well as the bulk of it so I don't know that I can give it a straight up full-album-listen 5.
Air
4/5
This was nice, also kind of just sounded like most Air albums I know and surprised to see a movie soundtrack on this list??? But fine yeah sure I liked it
3/5
I really enjoy "Don't Look Back in Anger" but I really don't enjoy "Wonderwall" so they kind of cancel out and bring this to "fine, enjoyable"
Beyoncé
3/5
The "Yoncé" music video was very formative for me when it came out. It was a bit of a bummer when it was merged fully into "Partition" on the album. It's interesting, too, to think about how "***Flawless" was received by Buzzfeed etc. in 2013 because it has the quotes from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie interspersed...really the perfect time for a #feminist message and it took over my tumblr feed for probably a solid six months. All of that said, I spend at least a third of the time that I listen to this album wishing I was listening to Lemonade instead. The songs here are good but the album as a whole is just better on Lemonade, in my opinion.
Incredible Bongo Band
3/5
Amazing. It has all the hits you know and love, but performed with bongos.
Sly & The Family Stone
2/5
I was hoping for some more uptempo groovy songs and was left disappointed.
Miles Davis
1/5
Listen I know this makes me an uncultured heathen or whatever but I don't Get this album. I've listened to it multiple times in an attempt to understand and I find it so spiky and unenjoyable.
Tina Turner
4/5
Another fun discovery from the project. I had never listened to this and enjoyed the many covers, along with finding out the creation story of "Private Dancer". I did find myself wishing for at least one more uptempo song in here but I enjoyed her vocals and all the production quite a lot.
The Doors
3/5
I still prefer the Billy Idol cover of the title track but this one is good too, and overall as a "put it on and do stuff" album it's really solid. I have a lot of love for Riders on the Storm and no clue where it comes from?
Foo Fighters
4/5
I like the kind of rough cut sound of these, I like that it's short, and I like that so many of them have a pretty catchy hook.
Janis Joplin
3/5
I used to go to this terrible biker bar in my college town, mostly because they were really loose with the carding, but also because a pitcher of beer was five dollars and they had karaoke some nights. Every karaoke night there was a guy who would do that one Bloodhound Gang song and a woman who would do "Me and Bobby McGee" and she killed every time. That being followed up with Mercedes Benz was a really enjoyable set of tracks, but I have a hard time listening to a full Janis Joplin in one sitting for some reason, even though I like her sound a lot.
David Holmes
2/5
This started out really fun but then around the 007/Bond song I started to get bored. I'm not sure if I personally lost steam or the album lost steam but I just don't think it was fun enough to sit and listen to as a whole album.
Ice T
4/5
Apologies in advance, because I'm going to derail an Ice T album to talk about Taylor Swift for a minute.
Swift just release "The Life of a Showgirl" and has, for once, been facing a lot of critique even from longtime fans. I'm a longtime listener, and I do think she has shown a good ability to write about things in an evocative way, but there's also been a years-long commentary from fans that she's this generation's Shakespeare, a poet, a master lyricist...and for a while, here and there, I'd see comments encouraging these people to go listen to Leonard Cohen or Sufjan Stevens. As much as I enjoy Swift's work, the fans making those claims do usually consider "elogies" a "get your thesaurus and look it up" sort of word, and I think this response is fair. Recently more and more of those comments have cropped up and we've pushed beyond the Joni Mitchell comparisons into Kendrick Lamar (an easy one since he featured on "Bad Blood") into something very interesting....music fans encouraging Swift fans to look to rap music if they're interested in wordplay, songwriting, and academic approaches to writing lyrics.
I was unfamiliar with Ice T as a musician, so I was very intrigued to start listening this today and realize that I was being served a timely example for those comments. "Mind Over Matter" is where I really started to tune in, because it occurred to me that we're in such a valley of anti-intellectualism that it's hard to believe someone could release this track today and not just get clowned on. If anything, you might be able to take the "power of positive thinking" angle and flip it into an MLM or something, but there's more to the track than that portion and it follows up with "Ed" who had a short temper and ended up dead. "Straight Up N***a" does a lot more critical analysis of a term and the institutional politics of the world than I've heard in some leftist organizing meetings, and in a much shorter time frame, "Prepare to Die" continues this later.
And I guess now he's on Law & Order?
The Saints
3/5
I initially thought this was long and repetitive. I was listening to an extended edition :-(
I think it was fine enough besides that
TV On The Radio
1/5
this was engineered in a laboratory specifically to annoy me
Doves
1/5
sounds like kohl's wanted to add coldplay's discography to their radio play vault but it was too expensive so they commissioned a knockoff
Sonic Youth
3/5
another "yeah, fine" album
PJ Harvey
1/5
I don't like war stories, I didn't like these vocals, and I especially don't really care for or about England
The Coral
2/5
Remarkably forgettable sorry
Steely Dan
3/5
Quality dad music to cook, clean, and/or putter around to!
Elastica
4/5
We know by now I love a short, fun, melody filled album!!
Willie Nelson
3/5
The front half of this was fun, but the back half really started to feel like more of the same arrangement over and over while Willie Nelson continues to greatly reduce the vocal range and dynamics of a lot of fun songs.
Jungle Brothers
4/5
This was fun and flowes really well.
Haircut 100
3/5
This was fun but also completely left my brain almost immediately.
Django Django
2/5
I enjoyed "Skies Over Cairo" but that mostly made me think that I wish there was more ~Arab type music in this project. I'd trade this album for something cool and from that general region and history.
Mike Oldfield
3/5
Kind of a weird situation to listen to this one - I was driving for most of it and thus unable to be 100% positive that I actually did remove the extra tracks from the version I was listening to. I kept being positive I must have goofed up but every time I checked cautiously, it was still Tubular Bells pt. II.... I'm not sure if I gave myself Stockholm Syndrome but I did actually kind of enjoy it, especially the opening part used in The Exorcist and the part where the instruments all got introduced. Suffers, though, from the prog rock thing of being forever long and so I would typically like "a song" and instead I just liked a chunk of a really long and varied single track?
The Louvin Brothers
2/5
Well these were definitely tragic. I assume if I went looking, these would be the sorts of country songs that have Scottish folk song equivalents. Lot of killin and draggin and beatin people. A bit repetitive as an album. 2.5
Alice Cooper
2/5
I'd believe you if you told me half of this album was The Doors. boring
Sufjan Stevens
1/5
I spent a lot of my formative years in Illinois, and I made the mistake of spending a few of them dating a sadboy "indie music" (men playing acoustic guitar, usually distributed by major record companies and supported with world tours but also played on NPR) fan who went to the University of Illinois and thought that he was right about everything, including my own personal preferences, which means that I've heard countless defenses of this album and Sufjan Stevens as a whole, many of which will detail how much work went into it, how many references are in it, how he read books about history to write it, and none of which address the way that this album is so FUCKING boring and confuses "writing multiple references into a verse" with writing something that evokes an emotion. I'm willing to acknowledge that this album was a large project and required skill and thought, but I'm not willing to agree that just because a lot of work goes into something means that the something that came out of it is good. I am absolutely willing to bet on myself that if I could spent months sitting around reading and plucking at guitars that I, too, could make an hour-long album full of dense references. It's like putting an overly long comment on a reddit post soon after it's posted: a bunch of people who think More Words Mean Smart Writer upvote it and no one cares that your replies are all correcting you.
On that note, I think that if anyone else who wasn't This Fucking Guy claimed he was going to undertake a fifty state album theme and then abandoned it after two and said it was just a marketing gag, Pitchfork et al would write a hand-wringing critical piece about how sales forecasting and marketing gags are ruining the music industry, but Stevens is a Quirky Smart Guy who is beloved by dudes who will bum rides from you every day because they've gotta get to work and then turn around and spend all of their money on American Spirits and none of it paying you for gas and then get mad when you start telling them no*, so I guess we all just let him get away with it.
I recognize that a lot of this review isn't even about the album, and I'm a little sorry, but mostly that's because every song bleeds into another and they're all sung in the soft vocals that we, again, complain about female pop singers when they do it and accuse them of not actually being skilled at their work and, again, I guess it's cute here because he's writing about John Wayne Gacy so it's subversive UwU;; The punctuations of jingle bells and horns are insufficient to yank this out of being a one-hour Try Not to Sleep So It's Over Faster challenge. I've been to Chicago, I've been to Metropolis, and I've listened to actually countercultural music. I look forward to never having to listen to this again after the 74-minute disappointment of having to hear it for the first time in years today.
*Believe it or not, this is not an anecdote about the guy I dated and mentioned up top, just another Sufjan fan archetype. (That guy didn't need to bum a ride because he just wouldn't get a job for most of our relationship.)
Tori Amos
3/5
"oh it's hot and wet and slick, and it's makin' everybody sick, ooOOIIIiiil SPIIIIIILL"
ok sorry now that I have that out of my system, I'm really glad I didn't know about this during my really depressed teen years because holy cow I wouldn't have made it out of bed. Now I found some of it really grating but other parts very pretty, not sure I'd listen to it all again but would continue occasionally listening to a song.2.5
Beck
1/5
I would have considered giving this a 2 if it weren't the THIRD Beck album I've gotten on this list, this vaguely interesting sampling and talk singing is not that influential or good
Morrissey
2/5
Every Day is Like Sunday absolutely rips but as an album this is not good and I don't feel bad rating it a 2 because Mozzer is also not good
Shame he's such a formative and important bedrock/keystone/whatever in my music taste
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
This was enjoyable enough, but I mostly wanted to revisit a prior Ice T album or maybe a TLC album for a lot of it. Maybe it's a familiarity issue. 2.5
Kate Bush
3/5
This was pleasant but made me want to listen to Hounds of Love mostly
Jimi Hendrix
3/5
I can see this is like the best at what it is, the problem is I still don't really like what it is.
The Byrds
4/5
fun :)
The The
3/5
2.5, I enjoyed it then immediately forgot it....rounding up
Hole
5/5
One of those albums I put on and before I even really notice, it's over, because I enjoyed it and it all slid into each other really well.
Earth, Wind & Fire
4/5
You know I love a short album!!!! And a dancey dance moment!! We got a little jazzy on Africano, I got a little worried, but this was fun overall and a real breeze.
Rod Stewart
2/5
I enjoy Maggie May until I get to the part that's like "oh brother what a lover, you wore me out" because I get distracted wondering...if a past sexual partner described me like that in a song, would I be happy with that or no? Because it's pretty weird. It's not like "oh wow and it was great" it's more like "oh wow, a lot" and I just don't know
the rest of this....eh? fine? 2.5 rounding down
Pere Ubu
2/5
I feel like the last Pere Ubu album kind of grew on me but this one was just so incredibly incapable of finding a rhythm. God forbid, a melody. I get that having a hook is very not punk rock but perhaps a refrain for the needy??
Tom Waits
2/5
My man why are you coughing on the track. Even before (and continuing after) that this album felt a lot more yelly and a lot less fun than the other two (I think) we've had previously. Three albums feels like a lot for one artist and I didn't really think that they had such big differences that they were all necessary (as opposed to some of the Bowie albums and Beach Boys albums).
Queen
3/5
Killer Queen is an extremely fun song but unfortunately head and shoulders above the rest here
Deep Purple
2/5
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm this went on forever. None of it was bad but it was so much. So much guitar.
Buck Owens
2/5
and just like that I'm nine years old again and trapped in a grandparent's living room while my dad does yard work or something
my least favorite of the three? versions of Streets of Laredo I've heard in this project although I appreciate the deep voice
3/5
🤷
The Birthday Party
3/5
"Release the Bats" is a common goth club/Halloween playlist standby, but it's seemingly not from the original release of this album and was a single added to later pressings instead. It's also probably the most dynamic and interesting track I listened to, which is a shame, because I want to like this weirdo band more than I did. So many of the tracks just felt like a wall of noise that was hard to pick apart into instruments and vocals and about halfway through I was just like "yeah yeah okay okay I got it" - not an enjoyable album listen. I get that they wanted to sound trashy on purpose but I am not obligated to enjoy it. 2.5 rounded up
Liz Phair
2/5
I like a good chunk of the back half of this album; the problem is that the front half is so long and (to me) unenjoyable. There's so much music here and it becomes a drag. Starting at, like, track 10 gives for a nice experience.
Everything But The Girl
3/5
Yet another "fine" album from the 1001 albums list - enjoyable enough, easy to tune out though, and nothing really jumped out at me especially with this being their second album I've been assigned. This sounded more like....Eurythmics-y than I remember the last one being? And overall more poppy. I'm not really sure it's doing enough heavy lifting to be on here but maybe I'm just unaware.
The National
2/5
To me this album is in a class along with, like, The Antlers where I know a lot of people who are like "the songwriting is so good" and "there's so many layers to the sound" and maybe a smidge of "they went to Berkleeee" or "they met in Brooklynnnn" and I guess if I could engage enough with it there's probably a story, but the vocals are so mixed down and the music is so thick and the singers never seem to have considered, like, enunciating and I just get annoyed. Sorry I'll never be able to appreciate Hospice or High Violet. I'm happy for you tho. Or sad that happened. Whichever.
Joan Baez
2/5
I want to like Joan Baez a lot more than I actually enjoy listening to Joan Baez. Always in our hearts, rarely on our stereos, sorry ma'am
Elton John
3/5
Short, a bit front loaded but it's Tiny Dancer so it's unavoidable
Mylo
3/5
fine?
The Soft Boys
2/5
I probably would have kind of enjoyed this except I accidentally listened to a deluxe version while trying to shop at the mall and I wound up listening to an entire song about prawns.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
I think this is the third? Belle & Sebastian album that we've gotten on this list, and I feel like it's been too many. I enjoyed this one but as I approach 800 albums I think my big takeaway is that there's so much music out there that I wouldn't put on repeats from artists without really good reason and my enjoyment of "Seeing Other People" isn't enough for this one and Tigermilk and...oh maybe it's just two. I guess I'd take this one over Tigermilk.
Van Halen
4/5
The only bummer is "Hot for Teacher" isn't on here. Fun!!!!!
Boards of Canada
3/5
Fine. Not grating. Also not particularly memorable.
John Cale
3/5
Ended as it was starting to wear out its welcome, so that was nice
Fatboy Slim
4/5
I think "The Rockafeller Skank" is really stand-out compared to the rest, but the rest isn't bad either.
Orange Juice
4/5
Enjoyed the first two tracks, the rest were fine...3.5 rounded up
Genesis
1/5
I prefer to pretend the British prog rock era of Genesis doesn't exist
Pixies
4/5
Weird. Short. Pretty lady on the cover. Good stuff
Slipknot
3/5
I didn't dislike this, but I do find it to be both too dense sonically and too 2000's-angsty to casually listen to.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
All of the LiveJournal girlies were very into this album. I always liked the weird papercraft video for "Take Me Out" but I didn't get super into Franz Ferdinand overall because I was busy collecting Spin magazine editions with articles in them about The Killers. "This Fire" was fun to rediscover but overall this still, like, enjoyable music that feels like 2004-2006.
Q-Tip
3/5
enjoyable but nothing super stood out to me
Grizzly Bear
3/5
Fine? Kind of sparkly 2010s sounds especially at the beginning
Genesis
2/5
There was so much of this. A lot was, like, ignorable coffee shop kind of music but then a line would cut through into my consciousness and the line would be something weird as hell like EROGENOUS ZONES and I did not enjoy that. 1.5 rounding up