765
Albums Rated
3.04
Average Rating
70%
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324 albums remaining
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1980s
Favorite Decade
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28
5-Star Albums
28
1-Star Albums
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You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atomizer | 5 | 2.72 | +2.28 |
| Rejoicing In The Hands | 5 | 2.82 | +2.18 |
| Kollaps | 4 | 1.9 | +2.1 |
| Psychocandy | 5 | 2.94 | +2.06 |
| Fever Ray | 5 | 2.99 | +2.01 |
| Floodland | 5 | 3.04 | +1.96 |
| Tank Battles | 4 | 2.12 | +1.88 |
| Vespertine | 5 | 3.16 | +1.84 |
| Tigermilk | 5 | 3.22 | +1.78 |
| Yankee Hotel Foxtrot | 5 | 3.3 | +1.7 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Made In Japan | 1 | 3.29 | -2.29 |
| It's Too Late to Stop Now | 1 | 3.25 | -2.25 |
| Revolver | 2 | 4.25 | -2.25 |
| Chicago Transit Authority | 1 | 3.2 | -2.2 |
| The White Album | 2 | 4.18 | -2.18 |
| Solid Air | 1 | 3.16 | -2.16 |
| Ragged Glory | 1 | 3.15 | -2.15 |
| Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space | 1 | 3.15 | -2.15 |
| The Wall | 2 | 4.14 | -2.14 |
| Rubber Soul | 2 | 4.13 | -2.13 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Talking Heads | 4 | 4.25 |
| Björk | 3 | 4.33 |
| Kate Bush | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| John Martyn | 2 | 1 |
| The Divine Comedy | 2 | 1 |
| Emerson, Lake & Palmer | 2 | 1 |
| Todd Rundgren | 2 | 1.5 |
| Van Morrison | 2 | 1.5 |
| Spiritualized | 2 | 1.5 |
| Robert Wyatt | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Rolling Stones | 5 | 2.2 |
| Neil Young & Crazy Horse | 3 | 2 |
| Aerosmith | 3 | 2 |
| Tim Buckley | 3 | 2 |
Controversial Artists
Artists you rate inconsistently
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Radiohead | 5, 2, 5 |
| The Beach Boys | 5, 2, 2 |
| Kings of Leon | 4, 2, 1 |
5-Star Albums (28)
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Popular Reviews
Van Morrison
1/5
There is no version of "my life" that *MUST* include this double live album.
8 likes
Malcolm McLaren
3/5
I don't trust Malcolm McLaren and ... this felt like if you invited a really great set of friends over for a potluck and then posted photos of it captioned "look at this great dinner i made." The potluck was good, the attribution, not so much.
But now I get yet another Eminem reference i guess
3 likes
Dire Straits
2/5
I recognized two songs from the radio, only one of which i knew was by Dire Straits.
the rest of the album was slow and felt disjointed, and even though it's fairly short, i kept hoping each song would be the last.
definitely didn't seem like it would be THE first record to sell one million CDs. But the power of wanting MTV is great, i guess.
2 likes
Chicago
1/5
Maybe unfair to judge an album that I started listening to while waiting to board a red eye flight, and then finished while on said red eye flight, but I really hated this. The noodling and riffing were unbearable, the tracks were sooo long, and I just didn't like anything about the way it sounded.
1 likes
The Monkees
2/5
I was rooting for these guys, trying to become a real band, but this album was not great. I think the track with the vocal warmups was honestly my favorite. Overall not sure why this needed to be on the list.
1 likes
1-Star Albums (28)
All Ratings
Marvin Gaye
4/5
go on marvin, write a whole album about sex.
in seriousness, this was just a solid, well-paced album. vocals are wonderful, instrumentation was great.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
i was all aboard until the spoken word piece. the good vibes were sort of canceled out by the lengths of some tracks and the bummer that was the spoken word components of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"
Kraftwerk
4/5
Really like "Spacelab" and "The Model." Sounds great, trailblazing. I was excited to listen to this one.
AC/DC
2/5
Sure was some AC/DC.
R.E.M.
4/5
Björk
5/5
I love this album from start to finish.
3/5
Surprisingly good live album. I kind of lost interest about 2/3 of the way, but had a decent time listening to it.
Cream
3/5
When i started the album my first thought was "oh this is some Clapton shit, isnt it." Didn't hate it as much as i thought I would, all things considered. One of those considered things is Eric Clapton though, and the other is repetitive blues riffing, two big "nopes" for me.
King Crimson
4/5
really loved this. i wasn't expecting it to be nearly fully instrumental, but that's often a real positive for me and this album was no different.
"Larks Tongues In Aspic (Part II)" was the standout track for me. Re-listening to appreciate the build and textures.
The Cars
5/5
Love it. No notes.
Pearl Jam
2/5
Classic but not my Jam.
It feels very repetitive in such a high dose, and the album was almost too easy to ignore.
New Order
4/5
I thought I was going to have a hard time listening to this album critically because I generally like New Order a lot. I've heard most of this album as individual songs. But I have never heard the full album, and \"Face Up\" was new to me with good reason ... such poor vocals. Kind of ruined an album I was enjoying a lot up to that track.
\"Sunrise\" is probably my favorite song from this album. But I also must admit I've always thought it was a Cure track.
One general nitpick: the rhymey-rhymey lyrics all over the album were grating on me a little since I was paying attention ... but I can't argue with the vibes so it gets a 4.
The Band
2/5
In terms of music production, vocals, etc, it sounds good. Varied instrumentation, good harmonies.
But it draaaaags. The second half of the album was slow and boring and I couldn't wait for it to end.
I was tempted to listen to the album at 1.5x speed.
The War On Drugs
2/5
The instrumental start to the first track was promising, but then the singing started. The singer is somehow managing to mimic Bob Dylan and Springsteen at the same time and oooof, that does not work for me.
Can't tell exactly why I hated this album so much. Went back and forth for me between "inoffensive" and "want to turn this off" but the vocals ultimately killed it for me. And the length. And the samey-sameness of the songs. I love some fuzzed-out non-structured albums, perhaps it was just really wrong vibes for a rainy Sunday morning? IDK.
Tempted to give it 1 star, only giving it 2 for the song "Burning" which stood out from the morass.
Ramones
4/5
14 tracks, 29:04 ... buckle up
i think the Ramones exist best as a 2 minute interlude of distortion, affectation, and worst/best lyrics to enliven your evening, your soundtrack, your bar karaoke, your dance night. it didn't seem like even they had the attention span to finish the album.
will continue to enjoy songs from this album individually, will probably never listen to the album in its entirety again. 4 stars nonetheless for "Judy is a Punk" and "Blitzkrieg Bop".
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
Liked the sound and vibes, but got frustrated with the long unstructured songs. This was hugely influential to a lot of music I love, but I didn't enjoy listening to this album.
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
Some of my favorite S&G songs, some of my least favorite S&G songs...
Hard to rate.
Fairport Convention
2/5
This was a really hard one for me to get through. Really strongly disliked the vocals, the lyrics, and the instrumentation. I was surprised how electrified the sound was versus the overall Ren Faire vibes. Hard to parse. Very hard to parse.
The Temptations
3/5
Kings of Leon
4/5
I'm having a difficult time rating this. Musically it's very very good, very much up my alley.
Vocally ... baffling. But by a few songs in, I kind of settled into the singing voice and stopped hating it so much, and I ended up really liking the album.
Kind of blowing my mind that I never tried to listen to this band back in the mid 00s but here we are.
Moby
3/5
The goodwill built up by the first three tracks on this album was erased by South Side, a track so cringey I wanted to turn it off. Most of the rest of the album was fine, but any time that Moby was using his own vocals, the track suffered. There's a reason that he succeeded by using samples extensively.
I never again need to hear his attempt at sexy pillow talk.
"Porcelain" and "Natural Blues" are the standout tracks. Highs are canceled out by lows, it gets a 3.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
it's always interesting to hear songs you've been listening to your whole life situated within an album. the six (!) singles on this album have structure and polish that the rest of the album did not. i'm not a huge fan of their musical style so the rest of the album didn't add much to my appreciation of their songs but "Looking Out My Back Door" and "Who'll Stop the Rain" are both classic.
What is up with John Fogerty's pronunciation of words that rhyme with "burn"? I always assumed "Big wheel keep on toinin' / Proud Mary keep on boinin'" was specific to that song but he does it a bunch in this album too ...
Public Enemy
4/5
this album has such relentless pace and energy, with a few quieter interludes, and saves two of the best songs for the last few tracks. the middle of the album dragged for me a bit in terms of the repetition in the production but that's typical of this era, and the lyrics are a treatise and need the time.
these songs have been sampled so widely that even though i haven't listened to this album through before, it felt familiar. i love the interplay between chuck d's intensity and flavor flav's hype. great album, glad to have heard it at last.
Sisters Of Mercy
5/5
Love it.
Robbie Williams
1/5
Did not enjoy this. I don't like his voice, and the whole album sounded like knockoffs of songs I might enjoy (or might roll my eyes at) rewritten with painfully rhymey lyrics.
Beck
3/5
I don't mind Beck when he's carving out his own mumbly piece of the "spoken word rock" corner. The sound collage usually works for me, he's good at textures and rhythms.
The closer he steps toward hip hop, the less I like it and the less convincing it is. "Hell Yes" was the worst track on the album for me.
Didn't hate it overall but wouldn't seek it out.
The Sonics
3/5
classic, nothing fancy garage rock. most of the songs are covers, but i liked a few of their originals ("The Witch" and "Strychnine"). i generally love the vibe of these lo-fi recordings, and the singer has a great scream. i can see the influence on future artists. not much more to it. giving it a 3.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
i love this album.
i don't know how to rate it because i want to be critical for the degree to which it emulates its source material, but it's so committed to the bit that it WORKS. it sounds great 17 years after it arrived. i think the lyrics in particular work so well and lift it into the 21st century.
as much as i love the singles, i love the less well-known tracks on this album. works together as an album, works broken out into singles.
rip amy winehouse
Beastie Boys
4/5
enjoyed this album sonically more than i thought i would given how abrasive their combined vocal style is. but i really liked the way it sounded, i liked the way they used samples, and i appreciated the dynamics that were worked into it.
i like an album that saves the singles until the back half.
Gang Of Four
4/5
Enjoyable! A little repetitive but I enjoyed the subtlety.
Kind of surprised this music is not more prevalent within pop culture considering how many bands were clearly listening to them.
Richard Hawley
1/5
Why am I being made to listen to this? So non-descript, no edge, no personality.
The Fall
3/5
I'm generally on board with this type of music but it didn't stand out to me - maybe 1001 albums has been serving me too much post-punk lately.
it took one or two tracks to get over the vocalists bizarre affect but once i did, i got into it. no songs really stood out over the others and it was good music to work to but it was not keeping my attention. 3.5 but rounded down.
Supergrass
4/5
Poppy goodness!
Pretty fun to hear "Alright" in the context of an album not a single scene in a film.
Ultimately not my favorite style of music but this was a solid album.
Soft Machine
1/5
squonky squonky jazz sax and brass, oooooof. i barely made it through the first 10 minutes which were nails-on-chalkboard bad to hear.
the album gradually became less bad to listen to, but more boring. i kept wanting to walk away from the second and third tracks to do chores. i kept checking the timestamp. i just didn't want to hear more.
then the final track came on and i was into it! i really loved the layering and tones in that track ... and then the jazz horns started again and i was back to disliking it.
this album seems to represent a transition moment for this band, unfortunately for me, it's between one genre i am indifferent to and another genre i dislike. i feel unfair giving this album such a low rating since i'm sure the musicianship was very high, but it's just very much something i never want to listen to again.
Skepta
4/5
Can I get a pic for the gram?
Great album. I liked the background music, energy, wished I had been listening on something that had a little more bass.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
I wish I could deal with her vocal style, but it's not for me. I was charmed by a lot of the very 1971 lyrical choices, and the music sounded good, but I was ultimately waiting for the album to end.
Beastie Boys
4/5
I expected to be bored by nearly an hour of Beastie Boys but there was a lot of variety in the backup music. I particularly enjoyed the songs with hardcore percussion and structure. And all the flutes.
Impossible for me to separate Sabotage from the Spike Jonze video for it, and in fact I watched the video immediately after I finished the album.
Christina Aguilera
2/5
The vibes between the two albums in this double album set were so different. I didn't connect with the first album at all. The second album was a wild tone shift and while I found it more interesting than the first, I was repulsed by the many food metaphors for sex, the Candyman song, and to wrap it up with a ballad about marriage ... it lost me hard.
Crowded House
1/5
Not my favorite. The music sounds fiiiiiine I guess, but contained nothing to make me pay attention other than the ridiculous lyrics. I kept thinking I was listening to the song with the most ridiculous lyrics, only for two songs later to be stranger. Nothing makes me pay attention like "But there goes God/ In his sexy pants and his sausage dog/ And he can't stand Beelzebub/ 'Cause he looks so good in black, in black."
Pixies
5/5
Listened to this for the thousandth time just to be sure it would get a 5 and yes it gets a 5. This is a top 10 album for me. So concise, dynamic, funny. Love the lyrics, the vocals, the percussion.
Radiohead
5/5
An old favorite for me, sang it nearly word for word. Impossible to judge, I've spent so much time with it, so it gets a 5.
The Kinks
3/5
Not sure what I was expecting with this, knowing the Kinks only by their early big singles ... I didn't dislike it but it was kind of all over the place. Some songs seemed Beatles-y, some were Dylan-y, and some were these quirky very English songs that I understand they moved toward later in their career. Decent soundtrack for cooking dinner on a Sunday evening.
Beatles
3/5
I feel like I can't rate the Beatles bc I'm not qualified or something. This album was very Beatlesy, and while it was novel to hear new-to-me Beatles songs, it was all what I was expecting. Giving it a 3.
Talking Heads
4/5
A bit boring, but I like it. One of those albums where the singles stand out from the rest of the tracks. "Animals" was my favorite track that I hadn't heard before.
"Life During Wartime" is such a great song and Pittsburgh shoutout so my civic pride rounds this album from 3.5 up to 4.
Dire Straits
2/5
I recognized two songs from the radio, only one of which i knew was by Dire Straits.
the rest of the album was slow and felt disjointed, and even though it's fairly short, i kept hoping each song would be the last.
definitely didn't seem like it would be THE first record to sell one million CDs. But the power of wanting MTV is great, i guess.
X-Ray Spex
4/5
Loved it, but the saxophone kept throwing me off. Sometimes i liked it, sometimes i did not! But the energy & lyrics kept me listening.
Daft Punk
3/5
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Another album I don't know how to rate. Music by technically competent people who everyone likes, but is boring as hell? Giving it a 2.
Fred Neil
3/5
I could hear so much of this singer's influence in future artists who clearly were listening to him. He's got a great voice, and I liked the album lyrically. It's just not really my type of music.
U2
3/5
this album contains my two favorite U2 songs, and started out so strong. but i went from "oh this is my U2 era" to "oh i'm really done with Bono wailing at me" to "ok kind of like it" back to "shut up Bono" by the end.
2/5
Not my favorite. I kept waiting for it to be something i recognized but halfway through i realized i was just waiting for it to be the Pet Shop Boys instead. Very boring and I didn't like the lead vocalist's voice. Might go listen to the Pet Shop Boys now.
Calexico
3/5
i listened to this album a lot in the late 00s, and while the band's whole *thing* has not grown well with me, musically i still like the album a lot. i really love the instrumental tracks especially. rounding a 3.5 down to 3.
John Prine
3/5
Not quite sure how to rate this one. In terms of song structure and lyrics, great. In terms of vocals, instrumentation and overall feel of the album, not my style, and I found myself wanting it to be over.
Led Zeppelin
2/5
This was a lot of Led Zeppelin. Maybe at some point in time, someone needed an hour and twenty minutes of this, but not me, not now.
Joan Armatrading
4/5
great album. i loved the ebb and flow and pacing of it. her voice is fantastic. glad to have learned of this one.
Keith Jarrett
3/5
Good, I'm sure. Not my thing ... or at least not in this high of a quantity.
Muddy Waters
3/5
Not really my type of music but it sounded great, especially for a live album
Frank Black
4/5
Great listen. I haven't explored much of Frank Black's solo career but I felt this was a very cohesive album that was so listenable.
Soundgarden
5/5
Fantastic album start to finish. I had never heard this album in full, but there are so many singles from it that I love that the whole thing felt deeply familiar. They walk the line between having a distinctive sound and including a lot of variety within their songs. The album was paced well, nothing felt like an afterthought. Very glad I listened.
Germs
3/5
I appreciated the tracks that felt more proto-hardcore and was more indifferent towards the rest. Music that was once groundbreaking but no longer feels so is always hard to rate. Hmm. 2.5 rounded up to 3?
Nina Simone
3/5
sounded great but just got a type of music i enjoy listening to. two or three songs really stood out but the rest sort of blended together into one melancholy, lovely song. 2.5, but rounding up to 3 for her lovely voice and vocal style.
Roxy Music
3/5
I never know what to make of Roxy Music. This is maybe the first time I've listened to Country Life but I've heard other albums and I never know how to process it. It's not bad, and I don't even really dislike it. But I'm always scratching my head at why it has a reputation for being so influential to so many different types of musicians. I wasn't there, but I'd like to understand it.
Country Life did not answer my questions. Fine music, the album was nicely paced and hung together very well. It's a 3.
Bad Brains
3/5
Not a bad listen.
Bob Dylan
2/5
Not enough of a Bob Dylan fan to enjoy anything beyond the "best of" collections. The album was fine. Nothing interesting or exciting.
Arctic Monkeys
4/5
Loved it. Very familiar territory for me but a band I've slept on for a long time.
The Police
4/5
This album is jam-packed with interesting and varying music, my favorite Police song in "Synchronicity II" and some songs I hated too. Short and sweet, fun, a little disturbing.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
1/5
Did not like this album at all. I like some Neil Young, but not this. The rhymey-rhyming was really, really, really bothering me. His voice felt off, just such a bummer of an album.
The Kinks
2/5
Reading about The Kinks trajectory of being blackmailed from touring in the US in the early part of the British Invasion and subsequently leaning into being more specifically English because they had lost their international audience was kind of an interesting story. But this album is the outcome of that and I did not like it.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
I love the way this album sounds. There are so many songs I love. My only criticism is about the structure of the album, I felt that the pacing was not great and the energetic start left the last few songs, which were each beautiful on their own, feeling like a let down.
Deep Purple
1/5
there was an organ solo around 1:04 that i liked quite a bit, but that was one of the few high points on this album. the version of "Smoke on the Water" somehow eliminated all the parts of that song that i like. the drum solos, guitar solos, wailing vocal solos ... the vocals in general ... just added up to an unlistenable, rambling listening experience. i don't think the obvious musicianship outscores my dislike of listening to this album. i'm giving it a 1.5 and rounding it down to a 1.
Various Artists
2/5
shout out to the horses whinnying at the beginning of "Sleigh Ride"
i'm a fan of this style of musical production, but not a fan of christmas music, so i'm having a hard time figuring out how to rate this. it's all quite familiar, in a way that makes me feel like i'm in a mall in december, and its odd hearing such talented vocalists singing such dirt-simple songs as "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer." but in terms of christmas music, it could be much, much worse.
i'm rating this before the album is finished and i'm not going to make myself listen to the rest.
Richard Thompson
2/5
Really disliked. Stylistically and lyrically it was a bummer. This is not one I will revisit.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
4/5
Loved this album but wish it had pushed its experimental nature a bit further
David Bowie
2/5
Not sure if I was just not in the mood, or I just didn't like this album, but it did nothing for me. Never really caught my attention.
Steely Dan
3/5
A little jazzier (re: too much sax) than I'm usually up for, but I was baking cookies in my kitchen on a rainy Saturday and it was nice to listen to. If I was doing embarrassing mom-dances while mixing up batter, no one needs to know.
Yes
3/5
I enjoyed this! Much more than I expected to. I'm giving it a 3.5 but rounding down to 3 for that cover of America which baaaaarely even qualifies as one.
Tom Waits
3/5
i'm surprised how much i actually liked this one. i was imagining that all the tracks would be either like track 1 or track 2, but he actually has more "range" (if you can call it that in this case) than i was giving him credit for. lyrically the themes and topics were about what i was expecting, but the album was pretty listenable.
Pink Floyd
2/5
i was hoping to be pleasantly surprised but this, but i was not. i don't feel that this needed or benefitted from being a double album. "comfortably numb" is the high point.
Judas Priest
4/5
This album is a 4, minus a full point for that Red White and Blue song, but that was a bonus track maybe? So back up to 3.5. And rounding up bc BREAKING THE LAW BREAKING THE LAW
Alanis Morissette
4/5
i liked the album quite a bit but no songs beyong the six (6!) singles and the bonus track really stood out to me. loved the lyrics and her vocals. "All I Really Want" has always been my favorite song of hers and it opens the album so strong. I cannot decide between 4 and 5 stars.
Björk
4/5
I loved the tone of this albums, instrumentation, and her voice. Beautiful album.
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
I love an instrumental, and I'm a fan of the tone that they set out in the first track, Green Onions, but 6 or 7 songs in, the album started to get repetitive.
UB40
4/5
I liked this, but I was also charmed by reading the backstory of the recording of this album, which probably adds at least a point. Good lyrics and tone, and I thought it sounded great for an album that wasn't even recorded in a studio.
Eagles
2/5
the album didn't feel stronger than its title track. i wish i had more to say, but it fell flat in a way i was not expecting, and i found myself ignoring it.
The Beach Boys
5/5
Love this album. I love the harmonies, the melancholy, the weird sound collages, the Sloop John B, the pace. So many ideas packed so neatly into 35 minutes.
Billy Bragg
4/5
Good listening, nicely structured songs, great lyrics.
Scott Walker
1/5
I'm glad it was short because it was not for me. I really disliked his voice which was not helped by the song writing. 1.5 rounded down.
The Pogues
4/5
I enjoyed this quite a bit right up to (but not including) the last track. something about the instrumentation and vocals seems to be a reference point for a lot of newer music that i like, so it felt comfortable and familiar, even though it was new.
Elvis Presley
3/5
Fine. Elvisy. I enjoyed the first half of the album more than the second, which was a little more love-songy than I prefer.
Talking Heads
4/5
I generally like Talking Heads so I generally liked this. I didn't find much that stood out and made me sit up and go "this!" but on the other hand I enjoyed the entire album. This is a 3.5 rounded up to a 4.
Deerhunter
4/5
I feel pre-disposed to like this band's sound. Cryptograms is one of my go-tos, and while I don't think the band covers much new ground, what they create keeps me listening. This album felt in this vein -- comfortable, listenable and varied enough to keep me interested until the end.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
I've never really understood the appeal of Springsteen. Always sounds to me like he's doing drunken karaoke of the actual songs. Specifically on the song Born to Run, there's a quality to the song where it feels like the music is going too fast and the vocals are struggling to keep up. The production of so many of these songs is over the top, fuzzed out and full of wild little instrumental solos that just baffle me. I don't get it.
That said ... special shout out to the glockenspiel player who hangs on for the whole song Born To Run, it's my favorite part.
Album is a 2.5 rounded down.
Lou Reed
3/5
Happy Mondays
2/5
Disliked this one quite a bit. Maybe I was in a bad mood, but it was hitting one note, and I didn't want to hear that note. The main vocalist had a stylistic tick that reminded me of Bob Dylan, in a bad way. The highlight was Holiday. I never want to hear Bob's Yer Uncle again.
The Roots
4/5
Had a great time listening to this. This is an album that came out the year I left for college and was extremely widely played, so it felt very familiar even if I had never listened to it from front to back. Really like the textures and tone shifts.
3/5
I want to love this album more than I do. That said, I do like it a lot. I just want to be as thrilled with Bowie as everyone else. Maybe someday it will click. Until then, it's a 3.
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
This was fine. Surprised I didn't recognize any of this, honestly. It seems like music Pandora would have added into my stations based on how clearly influenced they are by the types of 80s goth rock and synthetic rock I love. But it didn't give me much new, just kind of made me want to go listen to Joy Division instead. 3.5 but rounded down to 3.
The xx
3/5
I thought I had never heard this. Turns out I've just never stopped to learn the name of the artist behind 3 or 4 very ubiquitous songs of the past 15 years. I'm not sure where I stand on this one. I liked it, but I was bored by it. I think it's maybe a 3.
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
This was a great listen
Johnny Cash
5/5
I tried to find the 1969 recording but ended up listening to the 2000 CD release version instead, with 8 extra songs. Didn't regret it at all. Loved the between-song banter. This is my favorite live album I've listened to for this 1001 albums project. I would probably give it a 4 for just the music, but for the concept behind the recording it gets a 5.
Gil Scott-Heron
4/5
Pretty enjoyable, but ultimately not something I'd listen to without prompting. I enjoyed the "H2Ogate Blues" track which was full of charisma. Also liked "The Bottle". Feeling a 3.5, rounded up to 4.
The Killers
2/5
This album has some really catchy songs, which is its best attribute. It has a sort of overthetop wall of production value that doesn't stop whacking you over the head. I needed less of something (less of the vocals, please) and the band just kept coming back to bring me more. Maybe I missed the moment for this one, or maybe I wouldn't have liked it in 2004 either.
JAY Z
3/5
pretty enjoyable, surprisingly musical, especially tracks that sampled orchestral pieces pretty heavily. i find his style to be fairly repetitive though, which negates a lot of what i like about it. 3.5 rounded down to 3.
Television
3/5
a difficult one to rate. this was more musical than i was expecting, and when it worked it worked well. but other songs were a little shakier and i found the album dragged at different points. but the influence this album has had on so much music i love was obvious. i'll give this a 3.5 rounded down to 3.
Stan Getz
4/5
Just loved it. No notes.
The Avalanches
4/5
I wrote up a whole review but it didn't save.
Long story short, i was surprised that *this* was the album that contains "Frontier Psychiatrist," a song that's been bouncing around in the periphery of my music knowledge for almost 25 years. I didn't recognize anything else off the album, and i was very surprised when it started and the horror movie chorus kicked in.
I enjoyed it. It was intricately made of a million samples and moved through so many different vibes. Maybe too much of a good thing on one album? The ghostly chorus gives it a 4.
CHVRCHES
2/5
You ever listen to some YouTube video that plays a song you love but in a major key and it sounds really wrong? I kept having that feeling while listening to this album.
Take synth arrangements I love, recast them in an upbeat, happy key, overlay them with saccharine-sweet vocals. This is just really really not working for me.
Feeling generous giving it a 2.
Def Leppard
4/5
What's not to like? I especially like the drums in "Photograph."
All four of the songs I recognize from rock radio I now know are Def Leppard songs. Prior to today, those songs were in the "Unsorted Rock, 1980s" pile. Thanks, 1001 Albums Generator, for forcing me to ID a handful of that very big pile of generic rock music. 3.5 rounded up to 4.
The Who
2/5
Started out with a strong "not hating this" which I started to doubt very much about 25 minutes in ... and then there were 2.5 more sides of albums left to go.
I was stunned to learn that this is an album about the protagonist of the "sure plays a mean pinball" song. i wasn't paying enough attention to the lyrics to get much more out of it.
This one was not for me. 1.5 rounded up to 2.
Jurassic 5
4/5
Really really liked this. This 1001 albums project is developing my love of flute hip hop, who knew. Their flow, the change-offs from vocalist to vocalist, the little interludes of samples, etc kept it varied but consistent. In fact, once it was done, it kept autoplaying Jurassic 5 and it took me about a half hour to realize, and I wasn't mad about it.
Todd Rundgren
2/5
I was fairly certain I would hate this. And I'm not saying that I didn't *end up* hating it. But the first half of the album ... I kind of liked. Some parts of it I like a lot. Weird instrumentation, harshness, odd cuts, tonal shifts. It was fun.
But I hated the medley of soul covers and all the songs that followed it, except maybe "Just One Victory".
A three would be generous here. I'll give it a two.
Common
3/5
Long album bug didn't drag. I perked up at the song Cold Blooded and then went back and forth in my engagement throughout the rest. The Questions and Thelonius were my other two favorites. 3.5, rounding to 3.
Rage Against The Machine
4/5
I wasn't paying attention and accidentally listened to a YouTube rip of the album plus the four extra songs on a bonus disc from the 1995 australian cd re-release. So i was prepared to come here and talk about how much i liked "Year of the Boomerang" but oh well.
really like a lot of the guitar and bass work, tempo changes.
it felt long, but i had four extra songs. would have been ok with 00:52, but 01:15 was a lot. 3.5 rounded up to 4.
Talk Talk
2/5
i can read about the influence this band has had on later music that i love, but removed from its context, i was struggling to hear what made this album a standout. i liked the music but found the singer's tone of voice to the grating, and the album just made me wish i was listening to Duran Duran instead. The last track "Time It's Time" was my favorite, with the Ambrosian Singers overwhelming the vocalist.
The B-52's
4/5
this feels like a classic debut album. starts so strong with four great songs in a row, then the back half drags.
"Rock Lobster" on its own earns this album at least a 3. Their weirdness, the vocals, and the guitars push it up for me; the unevenness of the songs, and the samey-sameness of the back half drag it back down.
Nitin Sawhney
3/5
The wikipedia page for this album promised me drum and bass. I did not get any drum and bass. It's not the album's fault that someone somewhere mislabeled it. But.
I don't go to electronic music for vocal performances and I wish that this album had about 50% of the *words* as it did.
It was a good downtempo album to listen to, and the concept was strong.
Lou Reed
4/5
i'm squarely between 3 and 4 on the rating for this one. the 3 reflects how much i actually like listening to it. 4 reflects what i think about the album's legacy on music i like. I'll round up this time.
Travis
3/5
This was fine but so generic as to have me wondering how much I've heard before.
Tricky
4/5
This has been on my list for a little while now, and I loved it. Generally a good genre, a good sonic palette for me. I especially loved the Black Steel cover, which ended the album with so much energy (and im a sucker for breakbeats). Is this the first song from 1001 albums that made me want to dance? Certainly no, but in that moment it really felt like it.
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
I love "California Dreaming" so so so much but I never want to hear "Rose in Spanish Harlem" again, so it's a tough one to rate.
The singing is great. 3.5 rounded down to 3.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
"So Hard" was probably my favorite track.
I wanted more of *something* to make this album more interesting. The album does really work as one monolithic whole. Well crafted, just a little tooooo well crafted.
The Zombies
3/5
I knew that there was a band called the Zombies. And I knew a few of these songs. But I absolutely never knew that the Zombies recorded them. The album sounded good and I didn't lose interest, but this is a style of music that I'm just not that into.
Gang Starr
2/5
This one was not for me. I enjoyed it musically and some of the songs were better lyrically than others. But most of the songs were filled by the rhymiest of rhymes. And rhymey rhymes are my pet peeve.
Snoop Dogg
4/5
G-funk from a 19-year-old Snoop? Filthy, but classic.
Traffic
2/5
I hoped I would like this better but I could not.
The joy I experienced in this album is looking it up on Google which gave me "People also ask: Who is John Barleycorn and why must he die?"
Brian Eno
4/5
Liked this one a lot. It was weird at parts but it flew by.
Elliott Smith
3/5
Liked this quite a bit more than I thought I would. Maybe bc I started out listening to a poorly compiled YouTube including a bunch of low-fi live tracks and a techno remix (????) that when I found the real thing, it was coherent, well balanced, and pretty listenable. Elliott Smith's voice has never been my thing so I'm giving it a 3.5 rounded down since I'll likely not revisit it.
Michael Kiwanuka
5/5
This album sounded great. Really enjoyed his voice. The songs were well structured and the album held together well as a piece. This one will be one I come back to.
Nirvana
3/5
Feel like at a 3.5 for this one. Cannot decide if I should round up for how much I love the acoustic versions of the three songs from this album on the Unplugged album, or I should round down because I only love them for their acoustic versions on the Unplugged album. You know? Can't decide.
Youssou N'Dour
4/5
Enjoyed it a lot!
Led Zeppelin
5/5
This album is packed. It sounded great. "Going to California" is probably my favorite on this one, but there are so many iconic tracks. I feel like I'm somewhere south of a 5, maybe closer to 4, but I think I'm bumping it up for its concision.
Destiny's Child
3/5
This was a weird one. Some incredibly ubiquitous songs. Really inconsistent and sometimes kinda upsetting lyrics. Amazing vocals. Odd choices in the backing music.
Bad Company
3/5
Yet another album I'll hem and haw about rating until I give it a 3. Not bad, but generic. It's good. It's fun. It's fine.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
2/5
"Proud Mary" is fun. The rest of the album is not. I did not enjoy this one.
Koffi Olomide
3/5
sounded great. the song length was consistently longer than i would have liked, but that allowed for the songs to develop their grooves.
Solange
4/5
I realllly enjoyed this, lyrically and musically. Nicely varied, well structured, well concepted. Sounded great.
Duke Ellington
4/5
It took a bit to gather momentum but I loved the last few tracks. Saxes and clarinets aren't my *thing* so that's saying a lot.
Beatles
2/5
A long album that I listened to in parts between a day of meetings and other stuff I'd rather be listening to. Some of my favorite Beatles songs, some terrible Beatles songs, some inconceivable Beatles songs.
Eclectic is maybe the word for it, but it really felt like four Beatles in a trenchcoat trying to sneak into a party for "bands only" .... just break up, buddies.
Eagles
4/5
This is what I was looking for from the Eagles, more so than Hotel California which I previously rated here. Liked Nightingale and Earlybird quite a bit. Strong 3.5 rounding up to 4.
Dead Kennedys
3/5
Great album. Probably could argue myself up to a 4 but I think I'm going to stick to a 3.
Radiohead
2/5
So. It's on me that I accidentally listened to the "Live from the Basement" version of this album first and then had to go back and listen to the actual album. That's not their fault.
I didn't like this album though. I'd rather be listening to other Radiohead.
Carpenters
2/5
I was going to give it a 1.5 and round it down to 1, but that last minute of the last track really picked it up to a 2. what is wrong with me.
Waylon Jennings
3/5
not my kind of music, and i can't tell if the balladness of it helped or hurt. i think it helped. joe ely got a 2, i'm giving his one a 3. there was some very beautiful guitar work on this one.
Parliament
4/5
Always a joy
Linkin Park
2/5
this seemed to be a well made record from an era and in a style that i can't enjoy. good momentum but toward the end of the album i kept checking to see how much was left and being disappointed. this is a 2.5 for me but i'm rounding down to 2.
3/5
Q: Did I not enjoy this album? A: In some parts!
Love "Gut Feeling", that was the highlight. Strong cringes at the lyrics of most songs.
Joe Ely
2/5
I'm not a honky tonker, sorry.
Beatles
3/5
It's... Beatles. Other people love this, I know this, but I don't understand the hold they have.
A nitpick: this album seemed to be from the dawn of the stereo era and they're really EMPHASIZING it with wild unnecessary panning on all tracks. Almost stopped to find a mono version.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
5/5
Spellbound is such a great opening track.
Love her voice, the performances, the tone. Album was well structured and well paced and consistently intense.
Paul Simon
5/5
i cannot fairly rate this album -- it's a comfort listen to me. so it's getting 5 stars.
Elvis Presley
3/5
Kinda enjoyed this, much more than other Elvis I've had to listen to. I'm going to be generous with my 3
Jethro Tull
2/5
Hmmm. I thought maybe I wouldn't dislike this bc I've been surprising myself with how into weird flute prog I can get, but this album didn't do anything for me. That bent of British traditional music with the harpsichords just isn't my thing.
Garbage
4/5
Wish I'd listened to this full album sooner. Stupid Girl is one of my favorites from that era, and the rest of the album sounded great.
ABBA
4/5
Dancing Queen is iconic. The rest of the album was poppy pleasantness. Not usually my style, but fun away.
GZA
3/5
Saturday Afternoon Classic Hip Hop Listening Party second entry of the day after Run D.M.C. I can't say I was paying a huge amount of attention to the lyrics, as I was puttering around doing chores, but I enjoyed the production, pacing, and consistency. It has a dark, mellow sound palette that I was not expecting.
Manu Chao
4/5
I love this album. It's so much fun. This time I found the middle part to drag a tiny bit, but then I listened to the whole thing again as soon as I was done.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
2/5
I kind of generally like Damon Albarn's sensibilities and there were moments on this one where it sort of cleared up and i could appreciate the song writing, but generally it seemed really cluttered. hard to listen to, i ended up needing to split it up over a few days because it would not hold my attention. it's intricate, but it lacks contrast.
Fatboy Slim
2/5
Disliked the first half of the record but starting with track 7 it turned around for me. I ended up liking the songs that were not attempting to be overly lyrical and were closer to the more straightforward rhythm-forward electronic styles I prefer. 2.5 rounded down to 2.
Iron Maiden
3/5
3, mostly for Number of the Beast and Run to the Hills.
Maybe if had memories of the time when this music represented the darkest of evils, I'd have more appreciation.
Funkadelic
2/5
Started off strong. And I generally like Funkadelic ... but one of my least endearing traits is how much I hate toilet humor and so the fourth track was rough and the album never regained ground with me after that.
Dr. John
2/5
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Amy Winehouse
3/5
Sounded great. Not as produced as Back To Black but sometimes that's OK. The lyrics, the themes though .... difficult.
I don't think I'll be returning to this one.
Paul McCartney and Wings
2/5
Fiiiiiiine. It's fine.
It's worse than fine, actually. It's more Paul McCartney than I ever want.
Green Day
4/5
Have never listened to this whole album, but I'm glad I did!
Very very solid album that drives the whole way through. "Basket Case" really jumps out at me as feeling *different* than the rest of the tracks.
Wilco
5/5
this is an album i've heard 1000 times in 100 different contexts. tonight when i listened to it, it felt slow. i feel that a lot with music i liked in my 20s -- i appreciated a 6 minute song then in a way i no longer can. is it my attention span? my exposure to more frenetically-paced music? i'm not sure, but it was noticeable on this album.
so i feel like i need to take at least a half a point off for that. will i round up or round down?
Louis Prima
4/5
Medium-wild, but very fun! Not my favorite genre of music but seemed well executed and well paced. Huge points for originating Jump, Jive and Wail which would briefly take over radio 40 years later.
The White Stripes
2/5
I don't know why this, of all White Stripes albums, is on this list.
Dagmar Krause
4/5
I don't know quite how to rate this. I think it's well executed and her voice is so perfect for this style of song. But the album is very long. I am not sure if I was supposed to listen to songs sung in both English and German, but I couldn't find a version that only included English .... hence, most of the songs twice.
That said, I enjoyed this. It's such a particular style from a particular time, and quite specifically a product of the dire political environment of Weimar era Germany.
Sigur Rós
4/5
i loved the first 45 minutes. absolutely beautiful.
the last 25 minutes felt so much weaker and i was getting bored by the end of it, which was a bummer. so its a 5 and a 3, averaged to a 4.
Buzzcocks
4/5
Liked it! Snarly, whiny garage rock. Particularly into Sixteen. The album breezed by.
Goldfrapp
2/5
Very chill. Too chill. Sounded pretty, buy I want more than that.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
Not really my top genre but the second half of the album is packed with familiar hits.
Blondie
4/5
started strong, ended strong. the middle was fine! it was good! i was bopping along to it at my desk.
The Crusaders
3/5
I want to collect all the one-off disco songs on otherwise non-disco albums from like 1979-1983 on the 1001 albums list (looking at you, Blondie) onto one comp.
The first track was nice, but it got kinda boring afterwards. I think I'm learning that I like weirder jazz than this. Which is weird bc I don't like weird jazz? I don't know. It was a 3.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
The Dandy Warhols
3/5
Fine, good, liked it. I feel like 4 is too generous, but 3 feels too stingy. It's a solid 3.5
Khaled
3/5
Reading about this style of music, it apparently has a bit more political bent to it than I was expecting. Not knowing the language, I hear yearning and nostalgia and assume it's romantic, but that may only be in parts. Good listen either way!
Neil Young
2/5
Not my Neil Young. The warbly falsetto was getting to me after a while. Would not pick this one up again.
Jack White
3/5
2.5, solid but forgettable. Rounding up for listenability
Pere Ubu
4/5
Vascillating wildly between really liking it and really hating it. The hatred was of the squonky woodwinds. I don't need anyone to explore the full range of sounds a soprano sax can make. But, when they put that aside, I was getting into it. This is clearly an inspiration to a lot of music I like. Just abrasive as all hell.
Pink Floyd
3/5
This was fine. The titular song is the highlight, the rest seems fillery at parts but goes down smoothly.
Beastie Boys
3/5
Musically liked this. The backing tracks were great. The Beastie Boys' *whole thing* doesn't need more than 35 minutes, however. Took a break around that point. Went back to it begrudgingly, but ended up liking the back half.
John Martyn
1/5
i did NOT like this. i can't quite put my finger on why but the vocals are probably it. somehow boring and deeply uncomfortable.
The Young Rascals
4/5
it was pretty good! i really disliked "How Can I Be Sure" but "Groovin'" was nice.
feel like i want to knock them for the horrible abuse of stereo panning on "Find Somebody" but i knew going in that when a 1960s album proclaims "STEREO" on the front, there's going to be some panning shenanigans and yet i listened to the stereo version.
I feel like most of the record sounded like music that was lower down on the list of songs considered for GOTG: Vol. 1, for if they couldn't clear the rights for the songs they got, but i like that vibe.
OutKast
5/5
very glad I listened to this album through! aside from the singles, there are little hidden gems all over this album. the music production sounds great, varied rhythms brought the excitement level up and back down ...
who am i kidding, i would give this album a 5 for B.O.B. alone.
Fugazi
4/5
i really like this album, and it's foundational to so much music that i ended up loving through the late 90s and early 00s (and beyond). simple and to the point, great interplay between the instruments.
The Cure
4/5
A really love the half of this album that starts with \"A Forest\". Which is maybe bc one of my favorite mixed CDs given to us by a friend kicks off with that track? There's a minute long instrumental that kicks off side B so it's not technically the first song on that side, but I still think it counts.
The first half though? I was down for the sound palette but I didn't feel like any of the songs reached out and grabbed me.
3.5, rounded up to 4.
Fats Domino
3/5
This was a fun listen. I get lost in conversations about the micro-genres of music of this era, and i have to *imagine* that this was really exciting at the time.
Aerosmith
1/5
I really expected to like some of this but it just hit me wrong from start to finish. It was boring and sounded bad. This might be my least favorite rock album I've listened to as part of 1001. 1.5 rounded down.
Holger Czukay
3/5
Weird album that combined being very difficult to listen to with being very very good to do work while listening to.
The Allman Brothers Band
2/5
This was not a fun listen for me. Bluesy rock is never my favorite, and live jamming of blues rock even less so. Took me forever to even finish listening to the album bc I just didn't want to hear more of it. I'm sure the musicianship is good and for that I'm rounding my 1.5 up to a 2.
Beck
2/5
this album sounded good but was so slow and lethargic that i was struggling to pay attention to it. the slurred vocals made me feel like i had accidentally hit "0.5x playback" on my app. Sunday Sun was the highlight for me.
R.E.M.
3/5
This album was new to me even if some songs were not. Birds and snakes and aeroplanes, etc. I really love Michael Stipe's voice and the band's instrumentation and the general vibe on this album. Left of west and coming with in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck. Some of these songs live rent-free in my brain slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Locking in, uniforming, book burning, bloodletting. In general I liked the album, maybe except the two final songs. Light a candle, light a votive. Mountains sit in a line. Leonard Bernstein. It's a 3.5, rounded down to 3. Birthday party cheesecake jelly bean boom
Gillian Welch
4/5
Great voice! I would say this was mostly music that I would listen to ... and then there was the Elvis song and some other songs that were not by cup of tea. The last track was beautiful.
Joy Division
5/5
I've listened to this album a whole lot of times and I love it. In terms of precursors to music I love, I think it holds up well on its own. I may quibble with the length and pace of some of the tracks, but that drops it to a 4.5 which just gets rounded back up.
PJ Harvey
4/5
Loved this. Beyond the vocal performance, I really enjoyed the guitar parts, thought they cohered really well as a *band* despite the act being named for the lead singer.
Sure glad I got over my dislike of female vocals at some point in my late 20s (*glances suspiciously at the uniformly male rock singers I was raised on*)
Aretha Franklin
4/5
Lovely and filled with classics.
Brian Eno
4/5
Uncanny pop nightmare-scape, but not in a bad way. In a really, really good way.
Miles Davis
3/5
Good. I liked the style though I found it too slow and not weird enough.
The Divine Comedy
1/5
Really, really disliked this. Aesthetically, sonically, lyrically. Oof.
The Jam
4/5
This was a joy to listen to. I love the rhythm section particularly the bouncy basslines.
Jimi Hendrix
3/5
i liked this generally, the guitar just sounds so great ... but i found myself wishing for a bit tighter editing to cut it down from more than an hour
Girls Against Boys
2/5
I thought I would like this from the first few minutes. The percussion and rumbly bass were promising, but the sameness of the growling vocals and the song structures really started to make it drag. By the halfway point I started checking at the end of every song to see how many were left.
So maybe hearing one of these songs loud in a bar would work for me, but hearing a dozen of them while sitting at my desk was not a good time.
Tim Buckley
2/5
This whole album hit me wrong. I'm just not a fan of this style of folk - the turns into carnival music and bard-like high fantasy in particular.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
Enjoyed it. The disco-esque intro really threw me off but it quickly resolved into what i was expecting.
Adele
3/5
going in to listening to this album, i had only heard the four singles. i didn't know if we were going to get more songs along the lines of "Rumour Has It" / "Rolling In The Deep" or "Set Fire to the Rain" / "Someone Like You" and that was going to weigh my opinion one way or the other. almost every other song on the album was in the latter category of boring love ballads, unfortunately. I really, really dislike "Set Fire to the Rain" in particular, so it was quite slog.
this kind of soaring love balladry is so intensely boring. The album was a 2.5, but I'm feeling *generous* when I round it up to a 3 for the first two tracks.
Beach House
3/5
Very nice and very boring. I know I've heard music by this band before.
Jeff Buckley
3/5
The variety of song structures and singing styles was a positive and a negative for him. Some hit, many missed. Listening to this again did not give me insight into why all my college friends were into this album, but did clarify for me what I didn't like about it then. 3 is generous.
T. Rex
5/5
I love this one. This album is an old comfort listen for me. Hearing it makes me think of being on an airplane, being on a train, going somewhere.
Jeff Beck
3/5
This was good in parts, a bit boring in parts. An enjoyable listen over all.
Guided By Voices
3/5
I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't this. Not that it was bad -- I feel like I could name 5 albums it reminded me of, all of which were probably taking influence from this, rather than the other way around.
The album's own lack of attention span was probably not a great accompaniment to a work day where I was struggling to pay attention ... throw in some random slurs and I have no idea how to rate this.
Cocteau Twins
4/5
Great soundtrack to solo highway driving. Surprised I've never heard any of this but will add it to the roster for future travel. Loved singing along 🤣
Jimi Hendrix
3/5
Enjoyable, nicely paced.
Rush
4/5
I enjoyed this while driving across Pennsylvania on the Turnpike. Especially liked the first (saga-length) track and the last track
The Beach Boys
2/5
My Beach Boys listening has been primarily confined to Pet Sounds and one best-of comp. Help Me Rhonda is on that comp. I think that's actually all I needed to hear of this album. The songs are so *verbose* in such a boring way. Not what I wanted to hear.
Kanye West
4/5
I accidentally split this album over two days and I think that benefitted my appreciation bc this album is long, but the last half is so charming and personal that im glad i had a fresh attention span for it. Through the Wire is great.
Currently listening to the runout of "Last Call" 20 years later. Well. It's a good album at least. It was a 3 yesterday, but it's a 4 today.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
4/5
Given the backstory of this album, which seems to hinge on an "ends justify means" 70s-era lack of regard for human suffering if good art is produced ....
I liked this quite a bit. Probably not enough to revisit but it was interesting and I loved the way it sounded.
Lenny Kravitz
2/5
There were a lot of songs with very rhymey rhymes which is a pet peeve of mine, and overall it just felt like boring pastiche. A decent listen while at work but I think it could have been shorter and more to the point.
Ray Charles
3/5
This was a good listen. Not really my thing but it certainly sounded great.
Electric Light Orchestra
4/5
how to rate this!?! it had everything! all the instruments! all the vocals! all the melodies! all three songs i recognized! the tremendous length!
i go back and forth on whether i find it engaging and thrilling or silly as hell and i think that's the line they're trying to ride too. kinda wish it was a more condensed single album without as much filler but that might be a lethal concentration of pop. better not find out.
The Who
3/5
This was ffffffffff fine.
Stylistically it felt all over the place and a lot of it I did not enjoy.
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
Saturday Afternoon Classic Hip Hop Listening Party is a hit. Enjoyed this one, good production. Like a lot of music that was groundbreaking 40 years ago, the hardness has been eroded by the changing context, and I can't access that past.
Solomon Burke
4/5
This was a great listen. I always feel unqualified to judge music this old, but it had a lot of personality. 3.5 rounded up.
Ian Dury
1/5
Did not enjoy any part of this one. 1.5 rounded down for that first song, yikes.
Suicide
3/5
This was a rough listen. I really loved what they were doing with electronic music. The vocals got me down. I can't quite figure out how to rate it, like both a 4 and a 1. It gets a 3 but with an asterisk that it probably should be a 2.
Pavement
4/5
Another album I cannot rate with any degree of objectivity, as it was a very frequent listen for very many years. I love how it works as an album.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
Liked it at first but it wore on me.
Pretenders
3/5
I didn't really enjoy this as an album very much. "Brass In Pocket" is a song where I guess I've just never heard the title or the artist and I was shocked to find it on this album.
The Verve
3/5
Started off kinda strong then started dragging, but it kept pulling me back in. the last instrumental track was my favorite of the album and I can figure out whether that deserves a whole extra star. There is a strong 4 star record in there but for the filler, so it gets a 3.
Talking Heads
5/5
I mean .... this is just a work of art. I love it, I listened to it to confirm it gets a 5. I've been singing The Great Curve since and I'm happy about it.
Stereo MC's
2/5
This is silly and fun. But very samey-samey, with the rhymiest of rhymes, and it does NOT need to be 56 minutes long. A solid 2.5 but it's getting rounded down bc I will certainly never listen to this again.
Steve Winwood
3/5
Was just...not my jam. I can't quite pinpoint it.
Goldie
4/5
This was a weird listen, drum and bass in broad daylight while sitting at my desk in my office. It was good, and it's music I genuinely love. Couldn't contain the head bopping when the beats kicked in. But the length and the long ambient interludes weren't really working for me. 3.5, rounded up for breakbeats.
Cyndi Lauper
4/5
This was great for the singles. Did not know that Cyndi sang "Time After Time" so that was a delightful realization. The rest of the tracks beyond the singles weren't as strong .... 4.5 stars
Tracy Chapman
3/5
Can I recognize this as being a lovely, classic and beloved album while also being not my thing?
The Who
2/5
I put this off for a long time bc I'm repulsed by the cover art.
I wasn't wrong. I really disliked this.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
I don't mind this version of Neil Young compared to some of the other albums of his we've been served by the randomizer. The songs were ranging between nicely rambly and a little *too* rambly. it's a rare 40 minute album where i'll complain about the length, but the jamming on the last track had me wishing it would wrap up. almost a 3 but not one i'll come back to.
Tom Waits
2/5
Not really my preferred Tom Waits mode.
The Monkees
2/5
I was rooting for these guys, trying to become a real band, but this album was not great. I think the track with the vocal warmups was honestly my favorite. Overall not sure why this needed to be on the list.
Steve Earle
2/5
Very very not for me. 1.5
Talking Heads
4/5
I did drunken group karaoke to "Psycho Killer" once, which is ill advised, because you cannot replicate David Byrne's vocal tone, but more importantly everyone had forgotten that there's a whole verse in French. Except me. I sang the French verse by myself. Don't do group karaoke to "Psycho Killer." Your group does not know how the song goes. They just don't.
Generally speaking, I love a debut studio album and this one has a lot of the energy and rough edges I'm looking for.
Lupe Fiasco
3/5
At first I was impressed by the production and energy, but by the 40 minute mark I felt like the consistency of the production and energy was wearing on me. Still an impressive record. Listened to every minute of that Outtro track too and went on a roller coaster of "this is cute" -> "this is going on a bit long" -> "omg wtf this is neverending" -> "...I kinda love this"
The Boo Radleys
4/5
A good album! Liked the singer's vocal manner. Could have been shorter but liked it overall.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
I liked this more than I remembered liking it when I was in college. Pump It Up is a great song, but unfortunately Elvis Costello's vocal delivery style puts me off. 3.5
Basement Jaxx
3/5
Electronic albums on this list have been an odd bag. The culture seems to exist outside of the "album era" to the point where they don't know how to structure an album. Which is to say: this album was overly long and poorly structured to me even if I didn't dislike any of the songs per se. It's the risk of doing an album project like this.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
What an odd album. I kept waiting for one of the tracks to resolve into Werewolves in London but it never did. Not an enjoyable listen for me.
Cornershop
4/5
Put me in a good mood. I was humming "Brimful of Asha" for a long time afterwards.
Miles Davis
4/5
What a great listen. Maybe my favorite jazz album so far? Felt much more contemporary to me.
Os Mutantes
3/5
Quite liked it. Very varied, so the weirder moment never lingered.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
3/5
I had a productive afternoon of drafting plans while listening to this which is *not* its intended purpose. Sounded great and I enjoyed it despite the language/culture barrier.
Tears For Fears
4/5
What to say about this one. Listened to the full thing on a flight and then listened to each of the singles a bunch more times to round out the flight time.
The singles are standouts on the album. I liked the whole back half better than the front half. A very solid 4.
3/5
I didn't hate it but it got very repetitive for a 38 minute album. I did enjoy the dual singer arrangement.
Randy Newman
2/5
How to average "3" and "yikes"...
It's not music I'm going to like by itself, and while I *know* that it's in parts satirical, it's still *uncomfortable*
Serge Gainsbourg
1/5
Incredibly uncomfortable listen. Not bad musically per se, but not to my taste, before we even get to the narrative that defines this concept album.
Steely Dan
3/5
It was fine! Didn't like it as much as Aja (words I cannot believe I just typed) but I appreciated the concision.
The Black Crowes
3/5
Pastiche that goes down smooth is kinda an art form, I guess. Very familiar, maybe in too big a dose.
Jane's Addiction
3/5
Was going back and forth between enjoying the variety and thinking they had *range*, and enjoying the variety and thinking they were just throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what would stick. It's a lot of music packed into one album. The rare album where I liked the back half better than the front.
Cannot believe they manahed to ride this and their follow up album to relevance into the 2000s.
Massive Attack
3/5
Another solid but kinda boring album with one or two super memorable songs.
N.W.A.
4/5
Filled with hits, beats, samples, hooks. Some songs toward the back half of the album were a little samey, and I feel like there's maybe a much more concise 40 minute album in here (though I wouldn't drop the two tracks that were included on the CD but not the vinyl album, I liked those). Really great listen though.
Metallica
3/5
The singles are super familiar to me from rock radio, but I had never heard this entire album. The album is extremely consistent, but personally I don't need such a large dose of those riffs and that singing. I can hear in it some qualities that later music I really liked would pick up and play off. Lyrically .... laughably obvious rhymes and clunky constructions abound. If I gave it a 4 it would be for Enter Sandman ... I think I'm giving it a 3 though.
Venom
4/5
Foundational to much more meaner music that would come, but in 2024 it made a nice listen on a vacation day morning while drinking coffee and lazing around. That's the march of time, I suppose. The album sounded great.
The Stone Roses
4/5
Liked this more than I was expecting. I'd heard them before in playlists of bands with harsher, noisier or just weirder sounds and the Stone Roses always stuck out as too normal in that context. But by itself it was a really nice album. 3.5.
Van Morrison
1/5
There is no version of "my life" that *MUST* include this double live album.
fIREHOSE
4/5
Having never heard of this band (yet somehow knowing Mike Watt?), I didn't know what to expect, but I generally liked it a lot. The parts with the more typically rock, less funk bass worked better for me, but the album clipped along and the singer sounded great.
Neil Young
3/5
My preferred Neil Young continues to be in another castle, but this is definitely closer to what I'm looking for in his work.
Happy Mondays
2/5
This list has been teaching me a lot about Madchester ... I did not care for this album but it was interesting to learn about the place this non-electronic band had within the history of electronic music. Weird album though.
The Smiths
4/5
Four great songs balanced out with the rest of the album, which felt fairly nondescript. I think "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" is my favorite on this album.
William Orbit
3/5
Liked it! Kind of nondescript to the extent that I didn't realize it was over when my app started playing some other mellow electronic instrumentals.
Frank Sinatra
3/5
Pleasant, poppy, but not my thing.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Liked this much more than I had guessed I would.
Burning Spear
4/5
Super solid album. 3.5
Nirvana
4/5
How do I rate this. Shamefully, I don't think I had ever listened to this whole album. Very little of it was unfamiliar, however, between the radio hits and the Unplugged set. Hard to fairly rate, but it was a good listen and I liked the parts I didn't know.
Björk
4/5
Not my absolute favorite Björk but still pretty great. At the free jazzier interludes I kept thinking my music player had started a new album, but no. Human Behavior is so good I can't give it less than 4 but it's a 3.5.
Sebadoh
4/5
Liked this a lot!
Garagey, kinda messy, very much my thing.
3.5
Quicksilver Messenger Service
2/5
I ate some delicious spicy ramen noodles for dinner tonight so I was actually good on noodles ... unfortunately this album delivered almost nothing but noodles. noodles in this style, noodles in that style. unending noodles. a strega nonna pasta pot of noodles.
🍜
James Brown
3/5
The recording sounded OK but I didn't feel like the live format really helped this album. I had a good time listening though, how mad can I be?
Leftfield
4/5
Enjoyable. This list has been my main exposure to English electronic artists of the 90s who primarily put out singles but then eventually thought, why not do a full length? This is probably the most successful one of these so far in terms of structure and scope.
White Denim
4/5
Loved this! Tempted to give it a 5. So intricate and interesting and packed a lot into a short run. That last track was a little twangy for my taste, so I'll give it a strong 4.5
The Doors
4/5
Hey! It's The Doors! I don't have much to add about this record. No real nostalgia power for me, but I do like their cover of the Alabama Song.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1/5
There's odd stuff that I like, and then there's odd stuff like this album. The first track was maybe closet to the first category, but that was absolutely eroded by the back half of the album.
Frank Zappa
2/5
sometimes it's good to be challenged by an album. sometimes you spend your drive home quietly muttering "what the fuck frank zappa" over and over.
Jane's Addiction
4/5
I really loved this. The album felt connected to a lot of the post-rock from 10 years later in a way I was not expecting. The song "Three Days" could have been its own EP, not in a bad way. Unexpected 4.5
Leonard Cohen
3/5
Liked some of it. I feel like this might be an album more than any other album we've heard here, where it really benefits from hearing the artist's earlier work to get the context of this. I'm glad I procrastinated on this and waited for "Songs of Leonard Cohen" to be randomized at me.
Chicago
1/5
Maybe unfair to judge an album that I started listening to while waiting to board a red eye flight, and then finished while on said red eye flight, but I really hated this. The noodling and riffing were unbearable, the tracks were sooo long, and I just didn't like anything about the way it sounded.
The Stooges
3/5
Listened to this on a plane and could barely distinguish the lo-fi fuzzed out sound from the background engine noise. Listened again on a highway in a rainstorm and it was clearer. I like the Stooges, but I don't think this is one I'll be adding to my playlist.
Jorge Ben Jor
3/5
Another airplane listen which held its own against the noise and discomfort of modern air travel. Varied and interesting.
The Lemonheads
3/5
This was kinda a fine listen, light and jangly but with dark lyrics. I kept waiting for something familiar but nothing ever jumped out until their cover of Mrs. Robinson.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
Not sure how to rate a double album with a couple of great songs -- enduring classics -- and a lot of songs I wouldn't want to hear again. I don't think it does a good job as an *album* if that's what we're rating. 2.5
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Highlight of this album came when I was listening to the last few tracks while driving two angry cats to the vet, and my partner turns around and says "Oh, are you the wailers?"
Otherwise a fine album but indistinguishable from their other two albums on the list.
Coldplay
3/5
Unclear how they toured on this album for a year and a half and became such a massive band. It's ok. It strikes me as occupying an uncanny position between the music of the 90s and the music of the 00s. Coldplay will become the 00s ... but just not quite yet.
Mike Ladd
3/5
Some of this was pretty great especially To the Moon's Contractor and Red Eye to Jupiter, which stood out as compellingly weird. The album got more interesting as it went along.
The Undertones
3/5
Honestly thought this was older than it was. I'm generally here for garage-y rock and the album really flew by, but I'm not sure I'd be able to pick any of these songs out of a lineup.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
I don't think I like Tom Petty enough for this dose of him. I do like American Girl enough to be surprised when it was the last track on this otherwise pretty boring album. 3 mostly for American Girl.
Afrika Bambaataa
4/5
Super classic, sounded great.
Sepultura
4/5
I liked this a lot, especially the more experimental parts. I was trying to forgive the more nu-metally parts but then I learned Jonathan Davis guests on this album so 🤷 3.5
Ananda Shankar
4/5
Loved the originals, kinda meh on the covers. Particularly the last four tracks. 3.5
David Bowie
2/5
This is an uneven album. I love Golden Years but that's not quite enough to get it up to a 3 for me. The crooner-y stuff is not my style.
k.d. lang
4/5
Phenomenal. Her voice made me like this style of music. 4.5, loved it.
The Temptations
3/5
Made for a fine afternoon of driving around and not paying all that much attention to this music. 2.5
The Police
3/5
Liked the first half a lot better than the second half. 2.5
Green Day
2/5
Ehhh, this was a lot of Green Day for me. The singles from this album are some of my least favorite Green Day singles, and the rest of the album didn't do much to redeem it.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Liked this less than the other Ali Farka Touré album on the list but it was still enjoyable.
The 13th Floor Elevators
3/5
Well crafted, and I can see that it definitely set the pattern for psych rock from the 60s.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Pretty good. Very CCR.
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
To extensively paraphrase The Dismemberment Plan's song "Ice of Boston":
Turned on the car at 9am, with the radio on,
This Derek & the Dominos album on about how Eric Clapton would rather form a fake band in order to write love songs about Patti Boyd than be normal about it and at least not directly involve George Harrison in that whole mess,
And I sat there, head spinning, staring at a stop light,
And I thought to myself "Oh, Clapton, dude, I hate you but, oh! Get a life!"
The Cult
3/5
I realized during this album how little time I spend listening to uncaveated rock music. This is like, rock music. No prefixes, nothing. Vocal wailing, guitar neck slides, lots of the same tempo. Overall well crafted i guess, just extremely generic.
Norah Jones
3/5
This was fine. It was nice and light and unobjectionable.
I was obsessed with my mp3 of "Don't Know Why" in the early Kazaa years, but I ... don't.... know ..... why ..... I didn't download the whole thing.
The Incredible String Band
1/5
If this were instrumental I may have like it more but the singing killed it for me. When I started to listen to it the first time, I reacted negatively and turned it off. I came back to it and stuck it out, but only barely. Really unlistenable for me.
Living Colour
3/5
I was mean and called this "unflavored rock music" when I was talking about it while listening. There's much more to it lyrically than I gave it credit for, but the nature of the music is .... rock .... and a whole album of it was too much of the same thing. 2.5
Cheap Trick
3/5
Actually had fun listening to this live album and my jaw dropped when I realized this is where the canonical version of I Want You To Want Me.
Peter Gabriel
4/5
Listened on a stressful day and enjoyed it. I love In Your Eyes, can't be less than 4 bc it has In Your Eyes on it
Blur
3/5
it was fine. i don't really get the whole *Blur* thing or why this band/album would have been in a tabloid insult war with other mid-90s british bands, but i'm not british so, ...
Aimee Mann
2/5
I don't like her voice or the vibe of the album, not for me. Made me feel like I was stuck in a 90s rom-com montage. 1.5
The Offspring
3/5
"Come Out And Play" was on constant rock radio rotation when my little brother and sister were 4 and 7 and at each others throats *alllll thhhe tiimmmeee* and all i picture is my mom singing this song driving down the highway with them fighting in the back seat.
other than the singles, this felt very samey-samey and long. dude loves that narrow vocal range and makes the most of it, i guess.
3.5
Led Zeppelin
3/5
*puts album on* ... "hmm, I'm beginning to think he's not actually talking about love"
*gets to 'lemon song'* ... "😐"
I liked it more than Physical Graffiti but less than Led Zeppelin IV
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
One of those albums where it's all one song but I kinda like the song so 🤷
Pretty In Pink is just the much more highly produced version of the song that appears 8-10 other times on the album.
Tom Waits
3/5
After enough Tom Waits albums I feel like I could make Tom Waits Song Character Generator, where you put in your intials and birth month and it gives you an anachronistic profession, a characteristic (a personality flaw, perhaps a disfigurement?), and a place of origin that only sounds sketchy because it's being mentioned in the context of a Tom Waits song.
The Velvet Underground
4/5
I like this album but on this re-listen I was getting frustrated with it for some reason. I can't put my finger on it but I think I was expecting more of a flow, more of an *album*, that wasn't quite there. 3.5
LL Cool J
3/5
Can I forgive the back half of this album based on the merits of the front half? It was long, an hour long, but the hour felt like an hour and a half. It starts at a 4 but those last two tracks drag it down to 3.
Cowboy Junkies
3/5
Pretty good but not my style. I love the sound of the recording.
David Bowie
4/5
This was beautiful and chaotic and discordant.
Lucinda Williams
3/5
Lucinda ... I don't know how to rate this. Was I more charmed by your accent than the music? Probably. It was pretty repetitive, but I enjoyed the music. 2.5
G. Love & Special Sauce
2/5
Sounds both quite disheveled and also quite precise. This album has dirtbag line cook energy. I did not hate it but i did not need that great a quantity of it, either. 2.5
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
I think I liked this a bit more than the previous album by this artist on this list. Sounded great, and not knowing much about the music except that it was probably not intendes for this purpose, it made an excellent companion for errands and commuting.
The White Stripes
3/5
I never followed up on this album when it was released, after having spent quite a lot of time with their previous album. Seven Nation Army is such a standout track on this one, nothing else matching the energy.
Heaven 17
4/5
My life is full of technically competent nerds with synthesizers and with no pop sensibilities. This album is what happens when you let them try to make a pop album. Charming and quirky. I kind of can't believe "Let's All Make A Bomb" hasn't been discovered as a low-cost needle drop for an Atomic Blonde type film.
Astrud Gilberto
4/5
Loved it! Could have done without the duet with her kid, but the parade song grew on me.
Little Richard
3/5
That sure is Little Richard!
Tortoise
4/5
This suffered from the syndrome where music that I like, which came later, was clearly influenced by this band/album, but it makes the album seem derivative rather than inventive.
Fortunately this is the kind of music I generally enjoy and I'll take an instrumental album any day of the week. 3.5
Manic Street Preachers
4/5
Sounded so much newer than 1994. I was really imagining a lot of this fitting in with radio rock of the late 90s and wondering why I had never heard it. So engaging and well-produced and loved the bass.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Really good. This one grew on me and won me over by the end of the album. So stripped back and free of embellishment. If I imagined adding high flying harmony or additional textured background music, it morphs and shifts into other folk and folk-adjacent music I've enjoyed.
Sister Sledge
3/5
"We Are Family" is obviously a classic, but the rest of the album was boring and full of love ballads. 3.5 for the disco parts, 2 for the ballads.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
"Superstition" is great, unfortunately canceled out by "Maybe Your Baby."
High highs and low lows aside, I didn't love it.
The Modern Lovers
1/5
This had ingredients I'm familiar with but an end result that took me from curiosity to indifference to outright hatred. Tempted to give it a 1.
Bill Evans Trio
4/5
Really liked this one. The recording sounded great.
Massive Attack
3/5
This was fine. I like the genre so I'll forgive some of the cheesier tracks.
Nightmares On Wax
3/5
I don't know how to rate this one. It was much more .... subtle .... than I was expecting from an album with this title and cover art by a band with this name. Cannot judge this by any of those attributes. It was a nice dream. A little boring. Very long.
Elvis Presley
3/5
2/10 worst Elvis impersonator. it's like this guy has never even heard Elvis.
---
it was at least kinda interesting to listen to an album recorded before he figured out what Elvis sounded like. And who can argue with 28 minutes?
The Who
4/5
Lots of hits and recognizable songs packed into a tight album length. In terms of classics, it's hard for me to argue against this one.
Flamin' Groovies
2/5
Wasn't expecting to hate this, but the singer's *affect* really grated on me. Otherwise unremarkable 60s rock. Not for me.
John Lee Hooker
4/5
I liked this quite a bit. Melancholy but kinda comforting on a pretty bleak day.
Metallica
4/5
I don't like their style of metal enough to give this fully 5 stars but it's a strong 4.5. Even though this is a lot less familiar to me than the big radio hits in the 90s, I prefer this sound, I prefer Hetfield's voice on this one, and it has an instrumental track which I always appreciate.
Ryan Adams
2/5
i like this a lot less than i like other circa-2000 indie alt-country.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
I can't decide where to place this one. Musically fine, lyrically both fine in that I thought the lyrics sounded well-written, but then you actually understand the content and think about what he's saying ... and then his vocal tone just grates on me the entire time. 2.5
Dwight Yoakam
2/5
This was not going to be my thing. Lyrically it's very not my thing. Musically whatever. The few rock-ier tracks have a thing I've heard in a few 80s/90s country albums on this list: very synthesized-sounding casio-ass backing music. Immediately sounds not like *country* music but like *80s* music (derogatory).
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
How to rate Mellon Collie & The Infinite Double Album?
There are some real standout tracks that I love. Then there are 18 to 20 more tracks that are fine at best. Lows don't quite fully outweigh the highs? But I'm not going to ever reach for this full album.
Baaba Maal
3/5
I liked this a lot. Don't know much about the music but sounded good. 3.5
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
3/5
I don't for a minute believe that this guy uses sex to avoid talking about things.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
I don't really like this album so I'm going to be petty and subtract 1/2 a point for each song with either "little girl" or "in the wink of a young girl's eye" in the lyrics. Which leaves 3 points for Dancing in the Dark. Perfect math.
Brian Eno
4/5
It would be great to live in a world where the music was the problem to be solved with regard to air travel.
I feel like I understand this album more in relation to *contemporary relational art* than to album-based music. Both in regard to the clear thesis and also the tendency of artists to conveniently find solutions that can fit their own immaculate sense of aesthetics.
In other words, I'd love to come across this in a museum with an indecipherable text on the wall and a small listening booth. I would be utterly baffled to come across this in the wild.
Justice
3/5
Maybe the car was the wrong venue for this, I don't know. More boring than other comparable electronic music I like. Nothing stood out.
The Chemical Brothers
4/5
This has been my favorite of the Big Beat albums we've listened to so far. I felt like it really hit a stride toward the middle of the album, with a combination of breakbeats and basslines that I enjoyed enough to forgive a cameo from a Gallagher brother. Very enjoyable overall.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Surprised how much I liked this. To me it sounded like it hewed a little more closely to what I would consider folk than country. Vocals sounded great and it had a lot of variety packed into 33 minutes. 3.5, rounded down for all the murderousness.
AC/DC
2/5
Sure was some AC/DC.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
A couple of classics I love anchor the back half of this album. I didnt find the front half to be as engaging, maybe too harshly mixed? Solid album though. 3.5
Jimmy Smith
3/5
Music that made me feel like I was overhearing the soundtrack to the movie of whatever activity I was doing (driving my 25 minute commute, is what I was doing). Enough horns and variations to perk me up from time to time but otherwise pretty tame, innocuous and *jazzy*
The Smiths
5/5
Ive done most of my Smiths listening via a comp downloaded from Kazaa in 2004, but it really says something when a comp includes 9 of 10 album tracks. This album would get a 4 for "There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out" by itself, but i knew going in that it would be a 5.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
I thought I would get bogged down in the length of this double album (1001 albums is at least 1100 albums if you count all the doubles, its cheating). Pleasantly surprised that it flew by and I enjoyed it. The choral backup singers do a lot of heavy lifting. Varied enough to be interesting and well arranged. "O Children" kinda makes me cry. 3.5 for the whole endeavour.
Dennis Wilson
2/5
I kind of had some high hopes based on the intro to the first song but it settled into an album I found grating to listen to. Not sure if it was his vocals or just the blend of 70s rock stylistic element . Or both. 2.5.
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
Finally, a song by this band that I recognized. Some of it is nice, a lot of it makes me want to listen to other music I like better. The last song made me want to turn it off. 2.5
Terence Trent D'Arby
3/5
Enjoyable! I had a colleague in my car en route to a site visit ... she's maybe 10 years older than me ... and my music app kept trying to start playing this album even though I kept pausing it, so I eventually explained to her the 1001 project and she was like "oh let it play, i liked this way back when!" 3.5
Suzanne Vega
2/5
I was dreading this I was correct. Sometimes I can forgive a singer songwriter's voice and lyrics if I like the music, but not this one. Just very much not my style. 1.5
Violent Femmes
4/5
This has been on my list to listen for a long time and I wish I had not snoozed on it. Really enjoyed it. 4.5
Bill Callahan
3/5
I had a wild weird time listening to this. There's something about the mix that makes his voice sit uncomfortably on top of the music and it's probably *supposed* to be that way. To my shock, I have heard "My Friends" before somewhere, maybe my music app has figured out I'm in the 1001 algorithm, I don't. Feels like an album I may have listened to a lot in my twenties when I had a lot of room for sadboy folk-adjacent music. I'm giving this a 3 but I want to be clear that it's not a three, it's both a 2 and a 4.
3/5
4 for her voice, 2 for the repetitive nature of the songs. 1 for all the men mentioned.
Motörhead
3/5
🎵The only song I need is the Ace of Spades, the Ace of Spades.🎵
But of course there were 11 more songs. Not too bad for a live album.
Depeche Mode
3/5
Not my absolute favorite Depche Mode but I still like it a lot more than some other albums on this list I've given more than 3 stars to.
Kendrick Lamar
4/5
I'd give a four for the first half of the album, for the interplay between the vocals and the music, the flow and pacing, but the parts I was drawn to didn't really carry through the back half of the album. A 35 to 40 minute version would be stellar. 3.5
Bebel Gilberto
4/5
Lovely! I'm given to like bossa nova and adjacent music so this was a good time for me.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Every time a new side came on I had a glimmer of hope that it was my music player auto-playing a *different* Stones album but alas, it was still this one. I really disliked this.
The Velvet Underground
3/5
Not enjoyable necessarily but I'm here for this level of distortion.
John Lennon
2/5
I expected to like this more and yet I was waiting for it to end.
Soft Cell
2/5
I did not enjoy this. Tainted Love is a classic and I hoped this would be good, but it is not. 2.5, rounded down.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
One of my favorite Rolling Stones songs (Gimme Shelter) and then the rest of the album just really fell flat for me. 2.5
Missy Elliott
4/5
.tI kroW dna skloF pissoG rof 4 ot pu gnidnuor ,5.3
Harry Nilsson
2/5
Felt more like a collection of songs than an album. Some good, some about putting limes in coconuts. 2.5
Muddy Waters
3/5
Snappy album, and quite enjoyable for a genre I don't particularly like.
Radiohead
5/5
I had forgotten how much I like this album. I must have spent half of college listening to this because I remembered every part of every song. Somehow in hindsight it's become "the one that 'There, There'" is on, but there is really great stuff throughout. It felt a little long listening to it now but it's an hour that's packed with ideas. 4.5
XTC
2/5
Really didn't care for this one
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
2/5
This was quite sad and discordant as expected. One of my old colleagues loved this band and nothing goes better with sitting in a windowless basement office on an otherwise lovely summer day than Bonnie "Prince" Billy. If you're into that kind of thing.
Van Halen
4/5
That was exactly what I expected! Pretty good!
Antony and the Johnsons
3/5
Ive never been more unsure how to rate an album. I don't generally like this style of music or singing. But it made me feel unbelievably melancholy while driving home after a nice evening out and then ... as Spiraling was on, drove by a deer that had been hit by a car and its breath was illuminated by the headlight, and I'm now *wrecked* on my couch ... this album was lovely but I never want to hear it again
CHIC
3/5
You can do much worse than having your hit song be about being denied entrance to Studio 54 bc Grace Jones forgot to put you on the door list.
The Flaming Lips
4/5
Kind of an old comfort listen from college days. I haven't gone back to it and I had forgotten most of the tracks, but it really feels like such a cohesive album. 3.5
Neil Young
2/5
Oh Neil, when am going to get to listen to music you wrote that I actually like? I know it's on this list somewhere, and I know it's not your fault that some guy put *so, so many of your albums on this list*, but oof. Another miss for me.
The Teardrop Explodes
4/5
I could be flippant and say that listening to this sounded like listening to a comp of lost early tracks by U2, The Police, The Smiths, Tears for Fears and, maybe, the Banshees minus Siouxsie?
-or-
I could be earnest and talk about how this was a really interesting listen that lies at the intersection and the origin point for a lot of music I really enjoy (and some which I don't), with 70s-holdover organ and little post punk influences and a singer who can somehow do Sting, Bono and Morrissey.
Either way this is a strong 3.5. Listened twice to most of the tracks on the album.
Spiritualized
1/5
I can't wrap my head around why I hated this so much. On the surface, sounds similar to a lot of other music I like, but I wanted nothing more than to turn it off during almost all of it. It took 5 attempts to get through it, so it was not even an issue of mindset, or venue, or time of day. I have nothing insightful to add, sadly. 1.5
The Doors
2/5
This is exactly what I think of when I think of both the movie "Road House" and the band "The Doors"
Definitely not my favorite, got me down. 2.5
Thelonious Monk
4/5
Good album for Saturday afternoon listening. A little heavy on the saxes for me but overall enjoyable. 3.5
Neil Young
3/5
in terms of Neil Young albums we've heard, this one was better than some. not bad for a long drive.
Carole King
3/5
Good way to spend an afternoon at my desk doing administrative work. Tapestry was my least favorite song but the rest was pleasant and familiar. 3.5
Hole
4/5
A great album to scream along to.
N.E.R.D
3/5
Fine, funny in parts, but overall pretty boring.
Elton John
3/5
More Elton John than should be consumed in one sitting but it was alright for Saturday afternoon listening. A bit sloggy at parts. 3.5
Big Star
3/5
While it was fun to learn the origin story of the That 70s Show theme song, this album was otherwise fine and okay and decent to listen to.
Dire Straits
3/5
This felt kind of like listening to one really long version of "Sultans of Swing" and I'm not necessarily complaining about that. Decent enough soundtrack to Sunday evening cooking. Singer's voice sounds so much like Bob Dylan to me. 3.5
Minor Threat
4/5
Feeling the urgency of this music more acutely as a 41 year old in 2024 than I ever did when I was first encountering it as a young, sheltered rural kid with no context.
Justin Timberlake
2/5
I put this off for a long time because I suspected the back half was going to be full of mushy love songs and I was not wrong. Working with the Neptunes really brings the album the personality it has, but I'm happy I never have to hear Never Again again. 2.5
Kate Bush
5/5
Me: "Why has no one told me this is this good?????"
Ron Howard narration: "They had."
Better late than never. This was excellent from start to finish.
Orbital
3/5
I'm not sure that listening to album-length works while sitting at my desk writing emails is the optimal means of enjoying 90s techno, but this was pretty enjoyable given the circumstances. Album flowed nicely. 3.5
Kanye West
3/5
You do not, in fact, gotta have a toast for the assholes.
Dolly Parton
3/5
A style of music I don't connect to. Sounded good enough.
Hugh Masekela
2/5
The first half of this album was solid, listenable, a little boring, but fine. The back half was disjointed and at times seemed musically bad. 3 for the first half, 1 for the second half.
Beatles
2/5
Such an odd, uneven album. Has probably my favorite beatles song on it but then also Taxman. 2.5
Michael Jackson
3/5
jam packed pop album. Of the two albums I've listened to by Michael Jackson for this project (Bad and Off The Wall), this one had more schmoopy, wholly unbelievable ballads.
David Gray
2/5
an odd tour of the fallow music landscape of 1998. 1.5
Milton Nascimento
3/5
Nice listen. 3.5
Sex Pistols
3/5
I liked this a lot more than I thought I would! Classic.
3.5
The Last Shadow Puppets
3/5
I really wish this were a vanity project by a singer I wanted to listen to more. Liked the arts that sounded like James Bond soundtracks, but then the rest sounded like Arctic Monkey. Which is cool, fine, I don't mind the Arctic Monkey, but just seems like a waste of the London Philharmonic.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
Third Elvis Costello album on the list, more than 400 albums in ... this one kind of felt like the first I connected to, driving around on a stressful day like "yep, that is music". If I started to pay too much attention to it, I liked it less. What is the aural equivalent of unfocusing your eyes to see the tiger in the magic eye poster? That's what I was doing with this album. Neither good nor bad, but definitely music.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
This entire album only served to get "Suburbia" stuck in my head.
3.5
The United States Of America
2/5
This felt like if you were making a movie about the music of the 60s but somehow couldn't get the rights to any of the big songs you wanted so you pulled together a group to make song *similar to* the obvious choices. Some Beatles, some Simon and Garfunkel, a dash of Doors, some Jefferson Airplane?
But sounding kind of bad?
Truly not for me.
Digital Underground
3/5
silly as hell, joyously so.
3.5
The Verve
3/5
are we *sure* that Catching the Rainbow is not by Radiohead?
The 60 Songs episode about Bittersweet Symphony really gave me a primer on the history of this band which was, as far as i had previously known, a one-hit wonder. Glad to have listened to the whole album though, I liked it quite a bit. 3.5
Dinosaur Jr.
3/5
Thought I would like this more. I enjoyed the first half but the second half started grating on me. Solidly in my wheelhouse but not going to become a relisten in the genre.
Paul McCartney
2/5
This album felt like some compilation of outtakes and rarities enjoyed only by people who already love the artist, to the point that i was relieved when "Baby I'm Amazed" crashed in out of nowhere, making me more confident that I had not put on the wrong album by accident. 1.5 stars
The Kinks
3/5
1966 was a good year for writing songs about taxes huh.
Most of the 60s music that is nostalgic for other folks my age because their parents are core era boomers is lost to me. "Sunny Afternoon" has ended up in my nostalgia wheelhouse bc Jimmy Buffett covered it on his 1994 album "Fruitcakes" which was one of the first CDs my dad bought.
Aerosmith
2/5
Happy to stick to the singles, thanks. I do genuinely like Sweet Emotion. Not much more to say about it. 2.5
Hookworms
3/5
What would you call the british The Postal Service? Unfortunately I thought this would be a funny joke but now i'm on the wikipedia page for Post Office Act 1969 ....
Pretty enjoyable, good soundtrack for an afternoon at work.
2Pac
3/5
I've just had a conversation about whether this was good or world-historically good ... this was good and very *consistent*, but i think 3 is right here
Super Furry Animals
3/5
This kind of dragged toward the end but I enjoyed the beginning. Not quite a 3, it's a 2.5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
I liked this a lot less than the first album we've listened to by Nick Cave, and probably a lot less than any of the other albums yet to come.
The second half of the album with a few duets carried my attention much more but I think that murder ballads are just not my thing. 1.5
The Charlatans
2/5
Pretty OK listening on a rainy December day. I don't really need or want more Oasis in my life but I didn't hate it. 2.5
Billie Holiday
3/5
Lovely.
It's not Billie Holiday's fault that driving around doing normal holiday-season city activities while listening to this album made me feel like I was hearing the soundtrack to my very own Rob Reiner holiday romcom. 3.5
Marty Robbins
3/5
the formula of singing 8 songs about murder and then 1 or 2 about jesus never fails to crack me up.
this music sounded great and he has a really good voice.
Van Morrison
2/5
Just not a fan of this one. I think I need there to be more song structure if there's going to be this much singing.
Dion
2/5
This was not enjoyable. 1.5
Miles Davis
3/5
Probably picked the wrong venue (beginning of a long highway drive) to listen to this one, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
This album was incredibly heavy and an unsettling soundtrack to an unnecessarily long drive in pursuit of name-brand pyrex measuring cups my little sister asked for for christmas. An absurd mismatch, but I'm glad i was alone and not destracted because it's really beautiful.
Like with many double albums on this list, I don't know why it needed to be so long. It felt at times more like soundtrack than songs.
a-ha
3/5
good unobjectionable synth pop to kick off a long car ride, but none of the songs could compete with Take On Me.
My grandma really liked Rod Stewart while I was growing up and in her Western PA accent it sounded like she was talking about "Rawn Stored." An acedote irrelevant to this album, which was fine.
SAULT
4/5
I was in absolutely the right mood for this, alone in the office as it was getting dark. My only complaint is that a few of the songs really made me wish i was hearing them in a dark club and that was not where I was at the moment, but that's my problem not theirs. Loved the stunning sounds they were using, appreciated the messages.
Fishbone
3/5
Pretty fun, flew by. Horns!
🎺 🎷
George Harrison
2/5
I get that trying to share the spotlight with the McCartney/Lennon duo was probably difficult as a songwriter but the way to work through that cannot possibly be a triple LP of boring Beatles songs
Incubus
2/5
It's absolutely wild little I can enjoy this album now, when it formed such a crucial piece of my life circa 2000. There is no nostalgia. *i listened to this album probably twice a day for a year.* it arguably got me into music, it got me into the internet and internet culture. Incubus was the first band i saw in concert. And yet today ... nothing.
Shout out to the incredibly active Incubus message board of the year 2000.
The Jam
2/5
Nondescript didn't love it didn't hate it couldn't describe it.
DJ Shadow
4/5
Loved this. Excellent driving music. I knew that two or three songs from this album were heavily used in NPR radio production and I was happy to hear them as part of this larger work.
Pulp
4/5
I used to listen to this album a lot while walking to/from school and work. Those walks were generally about 30 minutes long so I would miss out on the back half of the album. Re-listening today confirmed that I didnt miss much.
Common People is such a juggernaut that this album can't get less than a 4. Upstage 80s Night 4 Eva, iykyk, doesn't matter that this song came out a decade late for the format
The Replacements
3/5
I have been sleeping on The Replacements for a really long time. Maybe this was not the best album to start on (? I don't know, gotta go ask for fans) but it was pretty enjoyable. Sounds so ahead of its time for the early/mid 80s but occasionally slips into sounding characteristic of that, which is strangely endearing.
Don McLean
3/5
One song I'm extremely familiar with and then 9 more which I kept wishing would resolve into Simon & Garfunkel songs. Nice enough.
KISS
2/5
Best when they were doing KISS songs and much less good when they were trying for range. 2.5
CHIC
4/5
i wish it was more consistently dancy, but this was a pretty fun time.
Robert Wyatt
1/5
Challenging! Not for me! All the parts of weird music that I dislike stirred up into one stew, with none of the parts of weird music that I *do* like to provide relief.
Queen
4/5
Fun! TIL that "You're My Best Friend" is by Queen and I have no idea how I didn't know that. Silly lyrics, vocal harmonies, wild stylistic swings. Bohemian Rhapsody in its natural context as the second to last track on the album?! Looking forward to more Queen on this list.
Santana
3/5
Classic, a bit boring in spots. 3.5
The KLF
3/5
I enjoyed this! I have to admit that i listened to the 2021 "director's cut" and then separately "What Time is Love" ... but I am told this LP lives in my house so I will probably relisten to it this weekend.
1001 albums really likes digging around in early 90s british rave culture and I appreciate this end of it so much more than the Madchester stuff
Animal Collective
4/5
I liked this mess. Three or four of the songs on this album were frequent inclusions in the Pandora station I liked back in the 2010s, but I had not listened to the whole album. I was happy that they kept up the sonic intensity from start to finish, it felt cohesive and I love the palette of sounds they worked with.
Air
4/5
Like a lot of music I liked in the early 00s, when I listen now, I want all the songs to be 2/3 as long. That's really my only complaint with this. 3.5
Deep Purple
3/5
Fine but a little boring. I like the crunchy guitar sounds.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
2/5
Some of this was fine and most of it I disliked. I don't know what it means but I was listening to this in the car over two commutes and I found myself singing other songs over top of this. Not to the music or anything, just independently. I think it was not holding my attention. 2.5
Slint
4/5
Felt very familiar and comforting for an album I'm not sure I have heard in full. This is clearly a big influence on a lot of music i like. 3.5
Nine Inch Nails
3/5
the music, including the very welcome instrumentals and interludes, is a 4. the vocals and lyrics are a 2.
ABBA
4/5
I'm not sure why this sounded soooo much like I was listening to the soundtrack to a musical, but then by the end i was regretting how much it sounded like the soundtrack to a musical. I kind of hate-loved this, I thought it was great but I also probably will never want to listen to it again.
Jerry Lee Lewis
3/5
Not sure i needed this, but it was certainly a wild time.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3/5
I *think* i listened to this a few weeks back and I *think* I gave it a 2.5 because it was Fine and I *hope* I'm not misremembering because that will make me a dirty liar who has only listened to 1000* album, but I'm also not going to go back and check.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
4/5
Really lovely and virtuosic, comforting, sounds great.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
2/5
With so many covers on this album, I assumed The Power of Love would also be a cover and was confounded when it wasnt. Odd album for inclusion on this list, I feel like there's better synth pop out there.
Barry Adamson
2/5
This had easily the most viscerally uncomfortable track for me of any album we've had so far. I heard about half this album and then didn't drive my car for a few days, and when I got back in the car and it came back on, my first thought was "oh this fuckin guy". I liked some tracks but for the most part no thank you.
Coldplay
3/5
I liked this a lot more than the other Coldplay album we've heard here, and i clearly spent a lot of time with some of these songs in the early 2000s. The back half of the album dragged like crazy.
Weather Report
2/5
gave me strong Children's Television Workshop // NPR production vibes for something out of the late 90s, especially the first few tracks. fine but definitely not for me. Too many saxes. Just too many saxes.
The Byrds
2/5
This was fine, but boring, and the 15 minute closing track felt like the narration to an art film in a dusty corner of a contemporary art museum in a way that i really disliked.
Silver Jews
2/5
Really had a hard time getting through this one with this singer's particular vocal and lyrical style. I don't like alt country enough to rescue it.
Metallica
2/5
This was so intensely silly and boring at the same time. I needed WAY less Hetfield and WAY more symphony orchestra. At least the first few songs had long stretches where it was clear Kirk Hammett was having fun, and that helped to redeem it a little. 1.5
Sonic Youth
3/5
Liked it. It's what I was expecting even though I had not heard this album. 3.5
Taylor Swift
3/5
This was the fourth album in a row that I thought was fiiine. It was fine! There's a lot more folk music that I like a lot better than this, and I don't particularly love her voice, so it's not really bringing me much.
SZA
3/5
Sounded great! 3.5
R.E.M.
3/5
Oscillating between cheesy and REM (which is to say: kinda cheesy) but that's what I'm looking for when I go to REM.
Jamiroquai
3/5
i had a college friend whose favorite artist was Jamiroquai and who was always insisting we check out his back catalog. I never did until now, but this was exactly as expected.
Jazmine Sullivan
3/5
Charming, sounded great, made me blush just a little. We've done a lot of albums with little skits and interludes but I enjoyed how they structured the album.
Can
4/5
I liked this much more than I thought I would have. Somehow worked perfectly with my weird mood. First track was my favorite but the third track was also nice.
Brian Wilson
2/5
Frustratingly boring, a hard listen. 1.5
Grant Lee Buffalo
2/5
Aggressively mediocre
David Bowie
4/5
What a delight. One of the few albums that I immediately played again from the start.
New York Dolls
3/5
Personality Crisis was the highlight, it kinda dragged on from there.
Madonna
3/5
Looked at the track list before it started and recognized none of the songs ... turns out that "Hey Mr. DJ" song is actually the title track. Recognized a lot more of this music than I had thought, but none of it has ever really been what I want to hear. 2.5
Faust
4/5
Fell sonically into the "kinda mostly really liked" category. In fact I listened to all the bonus tracks on the deluxe version of the album they had on my streaming platform.
The phone call picking up literally jump-scared me.
Merle Haggard
2/5
Is this style of country music too subtle for me, or is it boring and repetitive?
Either way, Merle Haggard is a top tier name.
Method Man
3/5
not quite as much personality i'm looking for in a Wu Tang Extended Universe production but a good album generally.
The Black Keys
3/5
People absolutely love this I think, and I've never really understood why. It sounds pretty good though I do feel like the album loses momentum. It's so heavily stylized but not a style I really enjoy. Fine album.
Tim Buckley
3/5
Nice album, sounded great.
Killing Joke
4/5
Listened to this in the wild recently. Excellent track for a rainy roadtrip. I thought this sounded great and I'm not sure why it had not been on my radar before.
Nick Drake
5/5
This is an absolute 5. One of my favorite albums ever. A little jewel box of an album. 28 minutes! Twenty-eight minutes!! So much warmth and depth. I just love it.
Beatles
2/5
I was ready to give this a good score for once, thinking maybe I had found my Beatles album. I like so many of these songs! I willingly downloaded Michelle in the past!
Then the song "Run For Your Life" comes on as one of the purest lyrical distillations of a song we hear *all the time* on this list ... I'm done with hearing this song. I'm done with men recording songs about killing women out of jealousy. Grow up.
Yes
4/5
Really liked this. I'm apparently a prog fan, who knew. 3.5
Prince
3/5
Prince isn't really my thing but I didn't mind the length of this one.
Mercury Rev
3/5
I enjoyed this, and I'm pretty sure I would have picked up that they are somehow associated with the Flaming Lips even if I hadn't read it before listening. Good daytime work music.
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
Some classics and great funk production. Minor gripe that I just don't really love that high falsetto singing, but uhh I was singing along so I'll overlook it.
Mekons
4/5
I went back and forth between really loving it and disliking parts (spoken word interludes). Still, apparently groundbreaking and presaged a lot of music i would come to like.
Britney Spears
2/5
+1 for the e-mail song which a beautiful time capsule.
Honestly learning about Max Martin and his relationship to the English language makes some of these songs make a liiiiitle more sense.
But as always with pop albums, can i please skip the middle 8 tracks of boring love ballads.
Missy Elliott
3/5
Started out so strong but petered out a bit over the course. The Rain is just about perfect. 3.5
Kanye West
2/5
Sometimes I worry about rating foreign language albums very highly on here without having done the work to find lyric translations and look up bibliographical details of artists I've never really heard of and their political histories and cultual contexts that I haven't been experiencing first-hand. Because I could really like the way something *sounds* and unwittingly give Yeezus by Kanye West a really high grade, you know?
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Paint It Black is probably my favorite song by the Rolling Stones but this album was a 2 overall.
Femi Kuti
3/5
I always feel bad reviewing music thats very personal and political (and especially from a different culture) as "good driving music" but that was the context in which I enjoyed this, and appreciated the sincerity. 3.5
Tim Buckley
1/5
This was one of the longest 40 minute albums so far. I've liked Tim Buckley's other albums on this list so far, but I can't do *whatever this was.* 1.5
Ministry
3/5
Unsure how to rate this. There were parts I liked a lot, and some that made me think I was listening to music that would show up a half-decade later. I was driving while listening to most of it and I kept wondering ... is there actually a psalm 69 ... and I'm glad they answered that for me.
Dr. Octagon
2/5
sometimes we can just leave things in their era
The Human League
3/5
this was fine, enjoyable. i don't really love "Don't You Want Me" in terms of 80s night classics, and the middle-end of the album otherwise dragged a bit.
The Pharcyde
3/5
Fun and classic, of its era. I really like Passin' Me By which almost pushes it to 4.
This is the second album we've heard (afaict) to quote/riff on the line "I got a letter from the government the other day", which we also had the original for, so that must be one of the top quotes of the 1001 albums.
Nick Drake
4/5
I really love a few of the songs on this one. It's not as precious to me as Pink Moon but still very good.
Suede
3/5
A prototype for a ton of music to come through the 90s, pretty enjoyable
Pulp
2/5
This just didn't feel like it needed to be on this list. 2.5
Fiona Apple
4/5
I spent a lot of time with this album in the early 2000s and still like it a lot. I never found Fiona Apple to be particularly relatable but her voice is so good and the album has a good amount of variety of production to keep it moving. Listening now, there is maybe a tighter 40 minute album within this. 3.5 rounded up.
Miriam Makeba
4/5
Enjoyed the variety of sounds and song structures and the joyfulness.
Public Enemy
4/5
Good listen for some contemplative drive time. The energy of this album was much different than It Takes a Nation.
The Beau Brummels
3/5
A nice album, nothing special. Short and sweet. Qobuz started playing Simon and Garfunkel after it, which is what I wanted to hear.
Christina Aguilera
3/5
I liked this A WHOLE LOT MORE than I thought I would. The ballads were not too ballady, the pop songs were pretty poppy. The early-00s were absolutely nightmarish to female stars and she had *been through it*, so i don't need to remember the specifics to understand why she was mad.
The Pogues
3/5
This was a LOT of The Pogues for me to have in one sitting. Living in the drinkingest neighborhood in a city with a rowdy St. Patricks Day parade & celebration has really ruined me for The Pogues, which is truly not fair to them. But hey, it's March 12 and this Saturday is the parade so I'm already bracing myself.
Frank Ocean
4/5
I have a pretty basic car with a pretty basic stereo. The only thing my car has going for it, sound wise, is that the engine and frame are quieter than my old car. I listen to a lot of this music in the car. So a lot of this music sounds ... muddy, muffled ... in my car. It's not the music's fault that it wasn't EQed to sound good in my car.
So I shouldn't give this album extra points because it somehow just sounded *really good* in my car, but it did. Optimized for basic soundsystem? I guess? In any case I really enjoyed this album.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
This is perhaps the most listenable Neil Young we've had so far, but the bar is set pretty low. I never thought that 1001 albums would fuel a dislike of Neil Young, an artist I always had sorta liked, but here we are. The back half of this still dragged, but overall, a 3.
Love
2/5
This was rough! I started off kinda indifferent but by the end, I wanted to turn it off and the last track was nails on chalkboard.
Songhoy Blues
4/5
This was a great listen. Loved their take on blues and other folk music.
TV On The Radio
2/5
I've always wondered if I just missed the TV On The Radio moment or I don't like their sound. There may be more of their albums on this list. But so far I'm coming around to the latter.
Malcolm McLaren
3/5
I don't trust Malcolm McLaren and ... this felt like if you invited a really great set of friends over for a potluck and then posted photos of it captioned "look at this great dinner i made." The potluck was good, the attribution, not so much.
But now I get yet another Eminem reference i guess
The Band
2/5
Hated it, thankfully it was short.
Queen Latifah
3/5
A good listen but it didn't hold my attention enough to really pay attention to. Very of its style/era.
MGMT
3/5
Can't wait for the Kids needledrop in a post-college movie set in 2007
2.5
Pavement
4/5
I love this album, it's been a go-to for me for a long time. 4.5
Death In Vegas
3/5
This was nice, reminded me of some other turn-of-the-century rock I loved. 3.5
Michael Jackson
3/5
This was a great listen, and I appreciated the of-the-moment disco inflection
Caetano Veloso
4/5
I really like this album and style of music. Tropicália is poignant to me as it relates to the art of Helio Oiticica, who coined the term. If the music seems relaxed, it's because to be relaxed was one of their forms of protest.
50 Cent
3/5
Profoundly *not for me* though it hit exactly in my prime college party era. Suuuuuper 2003, so very 2003.
Still I was not expecting that much Eminem. Get outta here with that, I already have two Eminem albums from this list I'm procrastinating on, I don't need more.
Bert Jansch
2/5
I think I listened to this once but forgot to rate it right away. When I listened to a bit of it, I didn't recognize it, so it went back on the list.
Listened again yesterday, and at one point I was called away from my desk. I didn't note where I left off, and when I came back to it still playing, I went back to find where I left off and again, didn't recognize any of it.
So I think this gets a rating of 1.5: the number of times I heard it without it making an impression on me.
Prince
4/5
A joy, a breeze! I don't know why I was bracing myself for something more *meandering* but I didn't need to. 4.5
Portishead
4/5
The rare album that builds and builds. Machine Gun is an amazing song and a total standout. 4.5
Teenage Fanclub
4/5
Really enjoyed this, sat in a hybrid spot between a lot of other music of the era that i love.
Pentangle
2/5
Hard pass on this style of folk.
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
once again ... this 1001 albums list is forcing me to actually listen to the artists that i had been perfectly willing to accept as "important" and "influential" via received wisdom. i think it's important to have a frank zappa but maybe not important for *me* to listen to a frank zappa. nevertheless, i kinda hate-liked this album? like somehow very well crafted and catchy even though i don't really like what it was parodying. 3.5
T. Rex
3/5
I liked this but probably more because I like their sound than because any part of this stood out. Does not match Electric Warrior.
Neneh Cherry
2/5
Painfully of its era, I'd say. Cracked up at some lines, bewildered at others. Fine, but not my thing overall.
Buena Vista Social Club
3/5
This album was a Big Deal when I was first starting to think about music, and I hear it in the wild quite a bit. Maybe a tad overhyped at the time but classic. 3.5
Kraftwerk
4/5
Driving to dinner, car stereo starts playing "Trans-Europe Express":
Partner: "Oooooh, is this 1001?"
Me: "Yep."
Partner: "So you're going to give it a 5, obviously."
Me: "Well...."
Partner: *laughs* "No that's fine, I get it."
Me: "They just have to hold everything for 8 measures, you know? 8 measures for each new thing."
3.5
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
not my favorite but full of classics
Steely Dan
3/5
Second favorite of the Steely Dans we've heard so far. Yet they've all gotten a 3
🤔
Drive Like Jehu
3/5
This was hitting up against my screamy-shouty threshold which typically limits how much I can enjoy any hardcore or post-hardcore. This is always a shame to me because *musically* it's kind of everything I love. I appreciated the instrumentals a lot. 3.5
Mudhoney
3/5
Ehhhhh, glad I realized there was an EP from 1988 hiding inside the deluxe edition from 2008 available on my streaming app.
I get this is formative, and it had some moments, but I just did not click with it.
Paul Simon
3/5
Good Paul Simon but not as much personality as either the earlier S&G works or the later Graceland era. Me & Julio is such a classic though, I almost want to round this up to 4. 3.5
Pink Floyd
2/5
No thank you, not for me at all
Goldfrapp
3/5
Nice enough but kind of a let down by the end. Ended up listening to it three times in a row while traveling but that didn't improve it for me.
Japan
3/5
i vacillated between liking this a lot and having it grate on me. still an interesting album.
Morrissey
2/5
i really disliked this
Spiritualized
2/5
way too ambient for a long car drive. i did not hate this to the degree i hated the other Spiritualized album on this list, but it was not for me.
Ice Cube
2/5
This style of rap is not my favorite, with its specific tempo, plodding rhythms, and rhyme scheme. 2.5
LTJ Bukem
4/5
Really liked this. I wasn't able to find or listen to the full double cd which probably worked in its favor a bit, but I wouldn't have minded a second hour.
The Specials
3/5
I enjoyed this. Very catchy. 3.5
Otis Redding
3/5
It was fine. Vocally nice but musically a bit boring.
Prince
3/5
Learned that in some countries, there was a 12" version of this released, rather than the double 12" we heard. That would have probably made for a better listen. Some of the very long songs on this felt like dance remixes that would have been better off as singles. The hits were hits but the rest of the album dragged.
Not a fan of any of these singles, and then the rest of the album was very generic. One must like Bono's voice to like this music and that's an issue for me.
The Bees
3/5
Didn't connect with this one
Johnny Cash
3/5
This was fine but really not my cup of tea.
Le Tigre
4/5
Love this, so fun. One of my college friends brought me along to see Le Tigre on the first Friday night of my first semester in college, its likely the first show I saw in my city period. Started off with a bomp.
Ozomatli
4/5
Much more varied and interesting than I expected. All of the songs were well produced and the whole thing sounded great. I always assumed this band was a little more toward the RHCP end of the california fusion rock band spectrum, but it's doing its own thing
The Vines
3/5
Maybe if I had glommed onto this in the early 00s but I did not. I *have* had "Get Free" screaming in my head for a few days but that doesn't make an album.
Bon Jovi
3/5
"A loaded six-string on my back" is one of the corniest lines in the history of rock. This album didn't feel like much beyond the singles, but the singles are massive. 3.5
Fleet Foxes
4/5
This album must have thoroughly infected one of my ca. 2010 Pandora station and I recognized maybe 5 or 6 tracks. Yet I've never decided whether I like this music or not. Good, but not for me, but I'll listen to it. 3.5
Underworld
4/5
As with a lot of the classic electronic albums on this list, this felt overly long, which makes sense at a time when the main output for producers was 12" singles, not albums. The pop/rock constraints of fitting 12 songs on one 45 minute LP were irrelevant to an electronic act in the mid 90s. I'd love a version of this that was 35 minutes long.
That said, this was fun and it sounded great. The last few tracks brought in some variety.
Fever Ray
5/5
One of my favorites. Listening critically it is maybe a bit too long but I love it.
Bob Dylan
3/5
This is not my preferred era of Bob Dylan but it's certainly where he starts to get very Bob Dylan-y.
808 State
4/5
Great! I really enjoyed this one.
The Flaming Lips
4/5
Me: "I'll take 'Apparently Beloved Albums of the 00s You've Forgotten Entirely' for 400."
Alex: "Answer: This 1999 predecessor to their more well-known 'Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robot' was apparently so beloved by you that you still remember all of the lyrics to all of the songs 25 years later."
Me: [....]
Jeopardy sound effect: *bonk bonk bonk*
Alex: "That would be The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips."
Ride
3/5
I like this quite a bit.
Machito
3/5
Nice and varied. A style of music I'm not very familiar with but I liked this somewhat lo-fi recording.
Anita Baker
2/5
This was nice enough but not quite a style I gravitate toward. 2.5
Napalm Death
3/5
Perfect compliment to a long drive out to the suburbs. I did feel like there was a Daffy Duck voice coming and going out of the back half which was really cracking me up. The music was varied and I liked some songs much more than others.
Sparks
3/5
Pretty silly and fun, decent music for driving around.
Depeche Mode
5/5
As a gift to my partner for his 50th birthday, I'm giving this a 5.
It's a 4.5 for me, but it gets rounded up because the boy's first concert was the World Violation tour. This gets rounded up for the incredibly tattered Depeche Mode Violator concert t-shirt that lives in the back of the closet.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1/5
At first I thought "ugh another live album" and then quickly realized that the live-ness was not going to be the worst part for me. The worst part was everything else about it. 1.5
New Order
3/5
This definitely filled a chronological missing link in my understanding of New Order between the early stuff I've come to love and the very first New Order I ever heard, the 2001 song "Crystal" (you know, the one with the video with the fake band making fun of The Strokes and Interpol from which The Killers took their actual name???)
Cypress Hill
3/5
Verrrrrry Cypress Hill. They have a wheelhouse and they're sticking to it. 3.5
Roni Size
4/5
I liked this a lot but an hour and forty minutes ended up being several days of commuting and sitting in traffic is not my preferred venue for d&b.
Nevertheless, i love the jump up basslines. 3.5
Todd Rundgren
1/5
This went from OK to bad to very bad over the course of way too long. 1.5
The Afghan Whigs
4/5
Loved this! I hadn't heard this band's work before, but it was basically right in my wheelhouse.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
5/5
An old fave. I like Just Like Honey enough that when they reprise it, I get excited, even though I *know* it's not the same song again.
Aerosmith
3/5
I liked the unexpected instrumental interludes. The rest was Aerosmith. 3.5
Herbie Hancock
4/5
Pretty good! I liked the more saxophone-forward sections less, but what did i expect?
Dolly Parton
4/5
Fantastic whiplash between track 1 and 2.
Sounded great!
Arcade Fire
3/5
I missed the allure of this album back when it came out and I still do.
Les Rythmes Digitales
2/5
Not my style of dance music
Julian Cope
2/5
really, really did not enjoy this. almost a 1.
The Pretty Things
2/5
felt very, very familiar
🤔
Mudhoney
3/5
this album really felt like it filled in a gap in the spectrum between bands that were more like sonic youth and bands that would become the more straightforward grunge sound. i liked the former more than the latter, but all around it was enjoyable and i ended up re-listening to some of it.
Magazine
4/5
really liked this. some of it was familiar but i can't think of from where. in my wheelhouse for sure.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
of the Rolling Stones albums we've had so far, this was my favorite by far. i never expected this 1001 project to make me hate the Rolling Stones, but here we are. this album was pretty snappy, only dragged in the more countryish tracks.
Hot Chip
3/5
i like hot chip but this was too much hot chip for me.
Randy Newman
2/5
I put this off for so long and I regret nothing. 1.5
Fiona Apple
4/5
Kind of surprised by how much I enjoyed this, but I don't know why. Probably because its a FEAT to release an album 24 years after your debut that complements the aesthetic and intensity of that early album but also extends and reflects on it. Sounded great.
The Divine Comedy
1/5
1.5, ugh.
I try not to question why things are on this list but this one has me asking.
Laibach
3/5
I was prepared for the ***vibes*** but i was not prepared for the cheesy synth lines. 2.5
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
So strange to hear *other songs* that sound like a massive but singular hit. Like seeing your elementary school teacher at the grocery store. Huh, she wears jeans! Huh, this guy sings like this all the time! Weird, the instrumentation is actually the baseline level of complication on this album, not supplementary!
Cocteau Twins
4/5
This was great! Musically, exactly my wheelhouse, lyrically, stunning.
Sheryl Crow
3/5
I'm glad this album was less like "All I Want to Do" and more like "Strong Enough To Be My Man." I don't love her voice but the music is nice.
Love
3/5
I knew the first track but cannot think of from where. Thought it started out strong and got worse as it went on, but the first few tracks were kind of my wheelhouse for music of this era.
Lauryn Hill
4/5
If i said "i listened to this cassette tape all the time in my first car," you would think that was in 1999 not 2010
Boston
3/5
This album started out so strong and then petered out. 3.5
*clap* *clap* *clap* *clap*
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
So many favorite songs on here. I think I'm a little spoiled by having listened mostly to S&G best-of comps in the past, so I was pretty pleased by how much I liked the tracks on this album that weren't included on them. 4.5
Devendra Banhart
5/5
This album is an old favorite of mine. It's one of the albums that I know are on the list, so I've been waiting for it to appear. For 602 albums! Exactly what I want in a folk-adjacent album. 4.5
FKA twigs
3/5
Not sure why I thought this would be straightforward pop, but it was not. I did like what it *was* quite a bit. 3.5
Circle Jerks
3/5
Listened to this 1.25 times on my afternoon commute after finishing something else. Surprisingly varied for a such a narrow format.
Lambchop
2/5
Tedious.
Bob Dylan
3/5
For the most part fine but I don't really enjoy this version of Bob Dylan, with 4-5 verse songs and lots of instrumentation.
The first song has to win an award for Drunkest Sounding Band or something. Not like the people in the band were drunk, but the essence of that band in an abstract way was just really very drunk.
The Beach Boys
2/5
Weird, very uneven album, and not in a way I enjoyed.
Deee-Lite
3/5
One of those albums where the difference in production value between the Song You Know and the rest of the album was stark. Nice listen overall.
Rod Stewart
2/5
So. Boring.
Kings of Leon
2/5
Jump scared by Use Somebody, which I was absolutely not expecting. Who knew that was this band? (Apparently everyone alive in 2008, no idea what I was doing at the time)
Just really, really not my scene
Elbow
3/5
Fiiiiiine, but boring. Had I been given a copy of this in 2003 by a time traveler, I might have been fully on board, but in 2025, I've moved on. 2.5
Madonna
2/5
I did not like this album. There were some songs with production I liked better than others, but overall a drag.
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
I need a roadmap to the extended Stephen Stills universe. I didn't hate this, pretty unobjectionable.
2/5
I listened to part of this before having to drive somewhere with my partner who refuses to be tormented by this list. Came back to it today at approximately where I remember leaving off? I don't hate Blur and the album was pretty catchy.
Sepultura
3/5
This is a style of metal that I neither love nor hate, but I have a hard time paying attention to it. The constantcy maybe?
Bob Dylan
2/5
Disliked, did not feel like this was essential.
De La Soul
4/5
Loved it. Listened while driving around in the week it first turned summer here.
Stephen Stills
2/5
This fell off quite a bit from the first to last track. Tempted to rate it as a 2 but that feels mean.
Sam Cooke
3/5
While listening we were trying to puzzle through why *this* album was held for 22 years as the record company thought it was "too gritty and raw" to be released.
The Damned
3/5
Good! I knew exactly what it was going to sound like by looking at the album art, and that was fine! 3.5
Paul Weller
1/5
This might be my least favorite album I've had to listen to for this. Hated it. Excercised the rare "skip" halfway through the Stars on my Pyjamas song or whatever that was called. Nails on chalkboard.
Big Star
3/5
Classic sad boys. This inspired a lot of music that I really like but by itself it's not for me.
Robert Wyatt
2/5
Really liked some of it, fully hated some more of it. 3 feels too generous, 2 is unfair.
Portishead
5/5
Five
Erykah Badu
4/5
This was great. Strong 3.5
The Go-Go's
4/5
Good times to the max!
Sabu
3/5
Maybe a little intensely drum oriented to make good airplane listening but interesting nonetheless
TLC
4/5
Great album for driving around on a summer Sunday. This is about as early as my memory of contemporary pop music gets, kids singing Waterfalls on the playground.
David Bowie
3/5
This was alright Bowie. I lost interest to some extent in the middle part but Fame is great and picked it right back up. 3.5
Simply Red
3/5
Generally, I was surprised by how much I liked this.
The Everly Brothers
2/5
This era of music sounds so generic to me that the album had almost entirely replayed before I realized.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
I don't like this Bruce Springsteen flavor. Not for me, thanks.
Tom Tom Club
3/5
Genius of Love and other generally fun tracks outweighed by unforgiveable cover of Under The Boardwalk.
Ella Fitzgerald
3/5
I'm sorry to Ella and the Gershwins, and even to the guy who had the idea to record all this, but this should not be in the 1001 albums list. I don't feel that this was ever meant to be listened to from start to finish. The music is great but after 3 discs worth, it's all blurring together and I'm starting to hate it, and so I'm opting to throw in the towel. Music is great, inclusion on this list is terrible.
Def Leppard
4/5
Packed with radio hits. Not sure it deserves a 4 but I was talked into giving it a 4 by my partner who now has Animal stuck in his head.
Kate Bush
4/5
Liked this quiiiite a bit. Listened on an airplane and then turned around and listened again immediately.
Kings of Leon
1/5
Really, really disliked this.
R.E.M.
3/5
Really liked this messy album. To me, it seemed like there was a bit of a disconnect between the instrumentals and the vocals. Without the vocals, I loved this album. With the vocals, this was an REM album.
Common
3/5
Very of its era. I did not love it but it was a decent listen.
Blur
2/5
Nice to see Song #2 in its natural habitat but the rest of the album felt like a grabbag. 2.5
Brian Eno
4/5
I did not enjoy this as much as either the ambient album or Here Come The Warm Jets, but it was still a good listen. 3.5
Prefab Sprout
2/5
Liked the moments where it tied into New Wave a bit better but it was otherwise pretty dull.
Spacemen 3
3/5
I enjoyed this quite a bit, good plane music. 3 verging on 4.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
3/5
Her poor voice, from time to time it's just painful to listen to, and the little coughing fits. Hard to rate this one, it sounded really good but I just don't really love this era of music.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
3/5
A little too mellow, i like a little more chaos.
Black Sabbath
3/5
This was fine. I'm not a huge fan of Ozzy's voice (RIP) and it felt a bit samey same.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
I've rated other Led Zeppelins highly. This really fell apart after Immigrant's Song, which, to be fair, is such an epic knock out with such a long cultural shadow ...
2.5 or so
Screaming Trees
4/5
This was great!
Ms. Dynamite
3/5
Suuuuuper 2002. I kept trying to not compare this to the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill but it was difficult. Musically some songs were more interesting than others, and there were some clever lyrics throughout, but a lot of it felt very didactic. 2.5
Gary Numan
3/5
It's the only way to live.
The album really kind of felt like Cars: the Ultra Extended Cut .... but I'm ok with that.
Jane Weaver
4/5
Who is Jane Weaver and how did she know exactly what I wanted to listen to this morning.
Almost a full 4
Supertramp
2/5
Kind of boring, it was fine.
The Flying Burrito Brothers
2/5
Not really my style. Not bad. 2.5
Butthole Surfers
3/5
I thought I would dislike this more than I did, but it was not bad. Caveat is that I was not paying a lick of attention to the lyrics.
Emmylou Harris
3/5
This felt very all-encompassing but I wonder if I would have liked it as much with a lighter touch on the vocal reverb.
Alice Cooper
2/5
Super generic, sorry Alice, I'm not being a nice guy today I guess.
Mariah Carey
3/5
Similar complaint about the boring back half of a lot of pop albums ... but the singles are nostalgic.
Pixies
3/5
Sure was a Pixies album. If I had been given this before Trompe Le Monde and Doolittle, I would probably like it more, but it really felt like "songs in the style of the Pixies"
Leonard Cohen
3/5
I was not sure what to make of this, whether i liked most of it and just hated parts, or hated most of it but liked parts. Leonard Cohen continues to baffle me.
Fairport Convention
3/5
I liked the beginning of this album more than I thought I would, but it wore out by the end. 2.5
The Velvet Underground
3/5
I clearly spent a lot of time listening to this in college if I was remembering the words to Murder Mystery. The first half felt like it was flirting with getting a 2 rating, but the end of the album really picked it up
2/5
I liked what I think this album was trying to do, I think, but I did not like this album at all.
Beatles
3/5
Imagine explaining why this album is *like this* to someone who doesn't already know the Beatles. The first two songs are such classics, the rest is a mess.
Tito Puente
3/5
Listened to this at work and it was a nice time.
Big Black
5/5
Absolutely love this. This album feels so much more contemporary than it is. Noisy but so controlled.
System Of A Down
4/5
Not my style per se, but such a well done debut album. They have such deftness in switching up style, vocals, tempo, etc.
Drive-By Truckers
1/5
Did you know they're from the South.
I may have given a single album a 2 but after an hour and a half, sorry guys.
Brian Eno
3/5
Less enjoyable than some of the other Eno on the list to me, but still a good listen.
Can
3/5
Part of this I really liked. The early tracks are what I look for in experimental music. But by the end, it got annoying. So, 4 and 2.
Tangerine Dream
4/5
Loved this, held my attention from the first minute
Joni Mitchell
2/5
I'm sorry to Joni Mitchell but this is now the third album I've listened to for 1001 and I just really, really dislike her voice and vocal style. It's hard to put together a critique beyond that, but not one I would reach for again.
3/5
Enjoyed the fusion elements of this more than I had even thought. 3.5
Saint Etienne
4/5
This album hit me perfectly. Of the early 90s UK-based techno albums we've hears here, this might be the most concise. 3.5
Ryan Adams
2/5
I hate this, a full range of dislike. 1 or 2.
Gene Clark
3/5
What if Bob Dylan was a more competant singer but a less competant songwriter?
Bauhaus
3/5
I enjoyed this but the back half of the album contained a lot of songs that were riding both sides of silly. "Almost silly" is fine, I like "almost silly." But, uhhh, "too silly" was there too.
George Michael
2/5
Faith is great, I Want Your Sex is fun, Father Figure can be cast into the sea, and the back half of the album is full of mushy ballads. 2.5
The Stranglers
3/5
Lyrically: scuzzy!
Sonically: stacks on stacks of organs!
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
Generally fine. I forgot to rate it immediately after listening and so it's gone from my mind, but I didn't hate it.
The Fall
2/5
The other album we've done by The Fall got a 3.5 rounded, this might get a 2.5 rounded up. I think this has influence far beyond whether I like it in 2025 or not, but it felt repetitive. There was maybe a casio keyboard in there throwing me off too ... hmm
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
Started off OK and got progressively less listenable, which is fine, that's what it was doing. Mission accomplished.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
3/5
This album really benefits from how much I like Psycho Candy because its just more Psycho Candy.
3/5
I think that this album is why I thought I didn't like PJ Harvey. A bit disappointing after how much I enjoyed Rid of Me
Motörhead
4/5
Ace of Spades is a singular song and an absolute favorite of this style of music. I love its dumb little spirit and the fact that it sounds like he was reading off the wikipedia "List of Poker Terms". I love that I got to watch my friend's little brother do karaoke to this while wearing an Arby's uniform and by the end of the song the biker bouncer at the metal bar was standing up and applauding.
Ace of spades (album) is less of a high water mark, but I almost want to give it a four for the title track. Win some, lose some, it's all a game to me.
Ash
3/5
I think that if i would have encountered this album in 2001 when I was 17, it would have checked all my boxes of distortion, guitars, and crash cymbals. As it was, it didn't hit as hard. Fine overall.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
I have never gotten into her voice or songwriting style. There were a few tracks toward the end that held me better than others, but I accidentally let this loop and I was 4 tracks into the relisten before I realized it.
Einstürzende Neubauten
4/5
Pretty much loved the last 6 tracks (all the dubs). There were one or two tracks that got a little screamy but not enough to justify this album having the worst rating of 1001+ albums on here. C'mon, everyone.
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
This is a hard one because I really like so much of the back half of the album, America and Hazy Shade of Winter are so good, and yet the first part of the album drags so much for me.
John Coltrane
3/5
This is clearly a phenomenal performance, but I think I may have been having some audio sensitivity on the day I listened and the brighter trumpet timbres and sustained notes were piercing to my ears.
Elvis Costello
2/5
Strong no thanks on this.
Laura Nyro
2/5
Really, really disliked her voice hitting those jazz notes. 1.5
Bob Dylan
3/5
Potentially my favorite Bob Dylan album, but Like A Rolling Stone feels so mean to me these days and I now have it blaring through my head. I don't know how to rate this.
John Martyn
1/5
Absolutely loathe this style of vocals and I accidentally did two albums of jazz vocalists in a row, woops. This was perhaps to the detriment of John Martyn's rating. 1.5
David Bowie
3/5
A great listen. 3.5
The Byrds
3/5
Psychoyeehaw? Surprised that I liked this as much as I did.
Arcade Fire
3/5
I have a CD-R of this with one of my best friend's handwriting on it, and I can remember her handing it to me excitedly ... somehow I singled "Neighborhood #3 (Power's Out)" as a favorite song. I can't listen just once. I've played it at least 5 times since I listened to this album. I'm probably going to go listen again after I finish writing this.
Still, I never spent much time with this as an album. I think of this type of music as engineered to deliver catharsis (derogatory) but sometimes that's what the 21 year old in me is seeking out. 3.5
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Beginning to think she wasn't talking about eating pancakes...
Supremely easy listening.
The Stooges
3/5
Enjoyably shaggy record. 3.5
The Rolling Stones
2/5
very Rolling Stones. i did not dislike it as much as i have other Rolling Stones albums on this list, but that's not saying all that much. 2.5
Led Zeppelin
2/5
If Led Zeppelin has two modes, one endless blues rock riffing with sexual innuendos and wailing, and the other tolkien epic battle narrative .... this album was all mode one and it dragggged for me.
Hanoi Rocks
3/5
Super standard rock music but pretty fun nonetheless
Jacques Brel
3/5
This feels like weird little guy territory knowing nothing except what i heard on this album. This very traditional style of singing and song writing does not hit for me but if someone was playing one of these songs on a boom box in a subway tunnel, I'd feel very french. 2.5
Suede
3/5
Quite a nice plane soundtrack. I think that I generally like this era and aesthetic, so I didn't need to pay too close attention in order to get what they were going for, which is good because I feel like this music is more about gesturing toward a vibe than anything.
3/5
Jam packed with hits on the first half, a lil sleepy on the back half. Where the Streets Have No Name is probably my second favorite U2 song, so the album is somewhat of a letdown after that.
Gene Clark
3/5
Best Neil Young album on the list.
Everything But The Girl
3/5
This was a bit bland, jazzy and inoffensive, but not something I'll come back to. 2.5
Belle & Sebastian
5/5
Impossible to rate neutrally. This is my second favorite Belle & Sebastian album in general but my favorite that has made the 1001 Albums list.
Bee Gees
2/5
A bit of a puzzler, but a dull one.
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
I'm a little surprised by the inclusion on this list. A lot of it felt extremely consistent with Loveless, but I enjoyed a few of the tracks in the back half of the album which felt a bit different. 3.5
Blue Cheer
2/5
This was partly kinda enjoyable, partly hard to listen to. I'm not a terribly huge fan of blues-rock riffing so the noisyness redeemed it for a while until it really tipped over the edge. 1 point for brevity and 1 point for influence.
B.B. King
3/5
This was nice, pretty snappy. I like how the blues is all about the blues. They're going to tell you about the blues, all the forms the blues can take.
M.I.A.
4/5
I hadn't heard this era of M.I.A. Super solid debut. 3.5
Air
3/5
I was not expecting the dose of prog that the latter part of this album brought.
4/5
I'm having a hard time talking myself into giving this less than a 4 for the sheer volume of hits. I like how the album was arranged, and while I'm not a huge Oasis fan on the whole, I'm left feeling like I do gotta hand it to them
Beyoncé
3/5
The production was excellent and I liked a lot of the songs, even beyond the singles. It went on a little long but never hit the "boring back half" that so many albums suffer from.
Incredible Bongo Band
3/5
Bongotastic
Sly & The Family Stone
3/5
A little more boring than I had expected but fine driving music.
Miles Davis
3/5
The squonkier trumpet parts cut into my enjoyment of this
Tina Turner
4/5
Enjoyable!
The Doors
3/5
Lot of blues rock riffing but a couple of good songs. 2.5
Foo Fighters
3/5
This is exactly what I thought it would be. My mom and my uncle and a bunch of other adults in my family really liked the Foo Fighters because they were kinda funny. The singles on this album were such staples of late 90s rock radio, but I don't really love any of them. 3.5 overall.
Janis Joplin
4/5
I liked this a lot. Felt eclectic but cohesive.
David Holmes
1/5
There really have to be better electronic albums from the UK un 1997 to include on this list. This was like a surface-level survey of all the popular music styles of the era without being deeply good at any of them. 1.5
Ice T
3/5
I liked the New Jack Swing of this, and I also felt that this was full of thesis statements, most of which I appreciated. I liked the track where he was talking about his creative process.
The Saints
3/5
Kept forgetting I was not listening to the Ramones, which is a reductive review for sure. 2.5
TV On The Radio
2/5
I knew and liked the song Staring At The Sun but I don't know how. The songs that had more straightforward vocals were fine, the ones with the ... experimental ... vocals were hard to listen to. 2.5
Doves
2/5
I kind of thought I'd recognize something on here but it was just moving between being Noldplay, Noasis and Nadiohead.
Sonic Youth
3/5
It's a real middling compliment to say i let this album play through a second time rather than put on an album from my backlog, but here we are. 3.5
PJ Harvey
4/5
Liked this weird album quite a bit. Like mashing up those England-focused Kinks concept albums I hate with, maybe, Joanna Newsom who I love?
The Coral
3/5
Fine but why
Steely Dan
4/5
Oh look, the Steely Dan songs I know!
Elastica
4/5
Tempted to give this a 4 because i had a ton of fun listening to this.
Willie Nelson
3/5
I wasn't really expecting an album of jazzy old standards but who am I to complain
Haircut 100
3/5
I spent the first half of this album thinking it was from 1992, because that was the date of the re-release, and being utterly baffled at how out of time it sounded. Then I read that it was actually released in 1982 and everything made sense.
Django Django
2/5
I had not previously considered if I could build a continuum between Animal Collective and Fleet Foxes, but this album would really set a midpoint.
Mike Oldfield
2/5
Weird. It had some moments but overall quite an odd listen.
The Louvin Brothers
2/5
Some of this felt like the Soggy Bottom Boys were about to bust into town and shake things up. A key entry into the category of country albums where the first 90% is about sinning and then the last 10% is about jesus. I will never get it.
Alice Cooper
2/5
Glad it was not more than 35 mins.
Sufjan Stevens
3/5
me, in 2005, looking at a copy of Illinois in a record store: "I'll get around to that someday."
me, in 2025, finally getting around to it: "Ohhh, so it's pronounced /ˈsuːfjɑːn/"
Tori Amos
2/5
I remember trying to give this a go as a college student and giving up. I didn't find it as difficult to listen to this time but it's still really not the kind of music I like. The last track was the best by far. 2.5
Beck
3/5
I can't remember the exact context or words used by Rob Harvilla in an episode of 60 Songs That Explain the '90s where he described Beck and his ilk as "mildly funky white guys" but I that's what I think about now when I hear his self-deprecating spoken word. I'd have been fine if only this album od Beck's ended up on this list, but there have been so many.
Morrissey
2/5
I'm fairly confident I have a crispy circa 2002 mp3 of Suedehead which was downloaded with the track title "I'm So Sorry" by the Smiths.
As a whole the album is not good. Two good songs, much more drivel. Fuck Morrissey. 2.5
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
It helped that I listened to this with someone who loves this guy's style and spent the drive picking out and repeating the lines he liked. 3 from me, 4 or 5 from him.
Kate Bush
4/5
Excellent. I think this was my second favorite Kate Bush album we've done.
Jimi Hendrix
3/5
Hard to dislike this. Some parts were pretty slow but it largely cohered. 3.5
The Byrds
3/5
I don't love this style of music but this was fairly unobjectionable. 2.5
The The
4/5
I really enjoyed this weirdness.
Hole
3/5
Quite listenable
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
This album started strong and hit so many styles within a short run time. Made up for in fun what it lacked in cohesion. Great driving music.
Rod Stewart
2/5
This was fine. It's funny when the big single comes so late into an album where it all *kind of sounds* like the single. When the single inevitably starts, I go "ohhhhhhhh. that's what I've been trying to think of." 2.5
Pere Ubu
2/5
Hard to overlook the vocals when the vocals are *doing that* but I can try, and the glimpse I get is listenable.
Here I confess that I listened to the end of this album while using the vacuum cleaner. 2.5
Tom Waits
2/5
Growly.
Queen
3/5
Killer Queen is fantastic. The rest of the album was a nice listen but nothing stood out. 3.5
Deep Purple
3/5
Proto metal is an odd world. I did really like Child In Time.
Buck Owens
2/5
I have no ear for this style and era of music. Short but felt endless.
Wire
4/5
Excellent
The Birthday Party
3/5
Surprisingly fun listen given how noisy it was. I love this style of bass playing, which helped.
Liz Phair
2/5
Hating Liz Phair makes me feel in league with the Guys of Guyville but ... I have given this album a lot of chances and I simply don't like it. 1.5
Everything But The Girl
3/5
Smooth, jazzy.
The National
3/5
I listened to part of this in its native habitat, the subway tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan. I liked some of it a lot more than other parts, which were generally where they veered off the rock path towards something more like ... I can't find the words to describe so let's say more like The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice. Is that a description? Not sure.
Joan Baez
2/5
I mean ...... it's nice to have Joan Baez but I'm probably not going back to this.
Elton John
3/5
Can't say I listened super closely while this was on during a road trip, but I think I got the gist. 6 for Tiny Dancer, 3 for the rest. Average 3.5
Mylo
2/5
There's more interesting people out there doing this more interestingly.
The Soft Boys
3/5
Uhh, this one joined the pool of "fine I guess, for its era" albums we've had here.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
I want to argue with this guy about why he included *this* album on the list when I have so many more favorites he could have chosen from.
Sonic Youth
4/5
This is not my favorite Sonic Youth album but I enjoy the back and forth between the styles of the vocals and the general noisyness of it. 3.5
Van Halen
4/5
"I can't remember if this album has any hits." - partner, as the opening notes of Running With the Devil came on.
It was in fact stacked with hits.
Boards of Canada
3/5
This was excellent driving music for a foggy drive through the mountains. I can't say I listened suuuuper carefully, but still quite nice. 3.5
Orange Juice
3/5
I wished I liked this more, but I did not. 2.5
Genesis
3/5
I went back and forth with whether this was catching my ear or just being kinda ... there.
Pixies
4/5
I mean. Full of hits. Love it. 4.5
Slipknot
2/5
Somewhere in a mid-sized city, a 42 year old woman spent the day driving around to her office job, grabbing a cute lunch at her favorite soup boutique, going to yoga, and doing some holiday shopping, all to the soundtrack of "All Hope Is Gone" by Slipknot.