Journey in Progress
Discovering music one album at a time
558
Albums Rated
2.34
Avg Rating
4
5-Star Albums
51%
Complete
531 albums remaining
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5.3
Per Week
734
Days Active
Reviews
554
Written
99%
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vs Global
-0.92
Avg Diff
2.34
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1950s
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Favorite Genre
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Top Origin
Harsh
Rater Style
73
1-Star Albums
Taste Analysis
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Rating Style
You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liege And Lief | 5 | 3.09 | +1.91 |
| The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn | 5 | 3.11 | +1.89 |
| Opus Dei | 4 | 2.38 | +1.62 |
| Locust Abortion Technician | 4 | 2.39 | +1.61 |
| Paul's Boutique | 5 | 3.47 | +1.53 |
| Merriweather Post Pavilion | 4 | 2.9 | +1.1 |
| S.F. Sorrow | 4 | 3 | +1 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Wall | 1 | 4.15 | -3.15 |
| The Stranger | 1 | 3.86 | -2.86 |
| Talking Book | 1 | 3.72 | -2.72 |
| Moondance | 1 | 3.71 | -2.71 |
| Kid A | 1 | 3.71 | -2.71 |
| Getz/Gilberto | 1 | 3.65 | -2.65 |
| Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme | 1 | 3.62 | -2.62 |
| 1999 | 1 | 3.6 | -2.6 |
| So | 1 | 3.55 | -2.55 |
| Paul Simon | 1 | 3.51 | -2.51 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums and high weighted score
| Artist | Albums | Avg | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beatles | 5 | 4 | 3.63 |
Least Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums and low weighted score
| Artist | Albums | Avg | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radiohead | 6 | 1.67 | 2.11 |
| The Fall | 3 | 1.33 | 2.17 |
| Robert Wyatt | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| John Martyn | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| Genesis | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| Ryan Adams | 2 | 1 | 2.2 |
| David Bowie | 7 | 2 | 2.3 |
| Yes | 3 | 1.67 | 2.33 |
| The Smiths | 3 | 1.67 | 2.33 |
| Metallica | 3 | 1.67 | 2.33 |
| Elvis Costello | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Kings of Leon | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Paul Simon | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Sonic Youth | 2 | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Frank Sinatra | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| Prince | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| Stevie Wonder | 3 | 2 | 2.5 |
| The Rolling Stones | 4 | 2.25 | 2.57 |
5-Star Albums (4)
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Popular Reviews
Franz Ferdinand
2/5
Blazed a trail for landfill indie. Utterly forgettable except for "Take Me Out", which wasn't actually good.
2 likes
The Hives
2/5
Absolutely fine garage rock, but this is definitely one of the albums which could be dropped from the list in favour of something else. An album I MUST listen to? I don't feel this enriched me or broadened my horizons. Also the pomposity of the band's stage names contrasts laughably with the tone and quality of their music.
2 likes
Sebadoh
1/5
Worst album so far. Amateurish and sloppy. Worst of Hudson Bell and Home.
1 likes
Van Morrison
1/5
I just really don't like this sound, and I hate Morrison's voice. A trial to listen to.
1 likes
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
Absolutely fine slice of Americana which didn't make much impact on me.
1 likes
1-Star Albums (73)
All Ratings
Johnny Cash
3/5
Van Halen
2/5
The White Stripes
4/5
Led Zeppelin
2/5
A couple of good songs, but overall (remastered) album is too long with too many overlong tracks.
Rush
1/5
Eagles
2/5
Hotel California is OK. All the other songs terrible.
Sebadoh
1/5
Worst album so far. Amateurish and sloppy. Worst of Hudson Bell and Home.
Bill Callahan
2/5
Inoffensive.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2/5
"Maps" was pretty good.
Otis Redding
3/5
Great music for a film's soundtrack.
The Divine Comedy
3/5
Pretty good.
Deep Purple
2/5
Technically very good, overlong, Spinal-Tap-esque solos.
Wilco
2/5
Very dull.
Iron Maiden
2/5
Better than expected, but I was not expecting much.
Fats Domino
3/5
Good.
Robbie Williams
1/5
Let Me Entertain You is actually hilariously bad.
Dr. Dre
2/5
Obviously influential, but I didn't enjoy it.
PJ Harvey
3/5
Fine. Noisy 90s.
The White Stripes
3/5
Get Behind Me Satan was better.
The War On Drugs
2/5
Inoffensive but very boring.
Joni Mitchell
2/5
Fine.
The Darkness
2/5
At its best the songs sound like lost 80s classics, but mostly they sound like they are from the forgotten 80s bargain bin.
Sabu
3/5
Different, which was nice.
Louis Prima
3/5
Different, quite fun.
Various Artists
1/5
I don't like most modern Christmas songs.
The Doors
2/5
Nothing stood out.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Standard and expected Sinatra crooning.
Morrissey
1/5
An entire album of the Morrissey sound.
Peter Gabriel
1/5
Typical synthy 80s pop.
Harry Nilsson
2/5
Apart from "Jump Into the Fire", I didn't care for any of these songs.
Nick Drake
3/5
Yes, good.
The Fall
1/5
Atonal, sloppy and shouty. High punk, low enjoyment.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
4/5
Beautiful and interesting acapella, harmonious and simple.
Lauryn Hill
2/5
The sound I associate with late 90s - early 00s rap and R&B. I don't like the music, so the lyrics are hard to listen to.
Van Morrison
1/5
I just really don't like this sound, and I hate Morrison's voice. A trial to listen to.
Heaven 17
2/5
Very synthy and 80s. Not very interesting to me.
Janet Jackson
1/5
Drum machines, sappy lyrics about love, at least 2 songs about don't do drugs, and the songs are much too long, "Alright" is obnoxiously long.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
2/5
Fun title track, but other tracks dull and forgettable.
Yes
2/5
Typical prog. Don't care for the sound or the lyrics. I'm astonished to see people commenting "this is music from heaven" or similar.
Radiohead
3/5
Not my thing, but I admit it's good. Very depressing and whiny, though.
Lorde
3/5
Overly passionately-sung, breathy vocals, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the album at times, some heartfelt lyrics and great instrumentation.
Billy Bragg
3/5
Some good songs here, especially protest and union songs. Not just Unisex Chip Shop.
Magazine
3/5
Bridge between and or a mish mash of krautrock, 70s punk, some 80s rock, feels like it came at a turning point. Didn't enjoy it much, but interesting to hear.
Joni Mitchell
2/5
Sweet voice and simple backing piano, pleasant to listen to.
Radiohead
1/5
This would not pass the old grey whistle test. Miserable.
Ray Charles
4/5
Enjoyed this a lot, country songs reworked as big-band and choral arrangements, amusing but well done and done with affection and interest in the material.
The Smiths
2/5
Much less whiny than Your Arsenal, but this album mostly is better because it is short.
Randy Newman
3/5
Songs of hope, "Burn On" nicely satirical, a pretty good album.
OutKast
3/5
Enjoyed the second half more than the first, probably needs a closer listen to really appreciate.
Elvis Costello
2/5
Fine.
Prefab Sprout
2/5
Sounds like very clean, pure, refined, 80's pop.
Santana
3/5
Sounds like Latin prog. Fine, quite pleasant to listen to.
Gorillaz
4/5
I know and like this album a lot.
Franz Ferdinand
2/5
Blazed a trail for landfill indie. Utterly forgettable except for "Take Me Out", which wasn't actually good.
Black Sabbath
3/5
Enjoyed this a lot more than I expected. Quite a lot of the Black Sabbath sound, but some very different, unexpected tracks.
Primal Scream
3/5
Even I can understand the influence of this album. Songs are pretty good.
The Gun Club
3/5
Sounds like the Ramones, but I can believe they did it first.
Eagles
3/5
Yeah, fine.
Stan Getz
4/5
Very nice, laid back bossa nova.
Parliament
3/5
Pure funk, not heard anything quite like this before.
Beastie Boys
5/5
Pretty great, I have listened several times.
G. Love & Special Sauce
1/5
Awful, grating. Nice drums, everything else painful.
Baaba Maal
3/5
Nice to listen to. I heard English folk in the guitars, and 90's synth stuff. Unusual to hear this in a different musical context.
Billy Joel
1/5
Hated this.
Muddy Waters
3/5
I liked this fine.
Hanoi Rocks
2/5
Prototypical 80s hair metal.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
2/5
Reminds me of The Smiths, but less grating.
2/5
I was prepared to hate this, instead I merely didn't care much for it.
De La Soul
3/5
I feel I should have liked this more than I did. Pleasantly surprised to hear the Jungle Brothers on one track.
GZA
2/5
Flat-sounding Wu-Tang spin-off rap, uninteresting backing track. Not my thing.
John Grant
2/5
Probably too clever for its own good; post-pop pseudo-70s/80s art stuff. No thanks.
The Smiths
1/5
Morrissey drone on some more, I really hope there's not much more of him or the Smiths on this list.
The Smiths
2/5
Much better than other albums from the Smiths and Morrissey on this list, outright musical at times. Two stars!
Prince
3/5
Bombastic and elaborate, never a dull moment. Have to give an extra star for presentation.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Sinatra crooning over bossa backing.
Miles Davis
3/5
Yeah, it's experimental avant-garde jazz. Not unpleasant in the background, but difficult for me to appreciate when concentrating on it. I hear a lot of different things in here, but my closest touchstone is honestly Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Fela Kuti
4/5
Fun and enjoyable, especially Ginger Bakers drumming on Ye Ye De Smell
Jefferson Airplane
3/5
Yes, good. I don't think this album will ever mean as much to me as it does for others. White Rabbit is a trippy masterpiece, of course.
Buena Vista Social Club
2/5
Fine as background music, but didn't do anything for me.
Arrested Development
2/5
Nauseating positive black pride, black identity stuff, or at least that's what I took from it. OK, but I don't want to listen to a whole album of it, especailly one with tedious backing tracks, slow delivery of lyrics, and musical motifs I associate with 90s R&B, which I hate.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Laid-back and kind of cool, but Spinal Tap's satire has made parts of this hard to take seriously now.
Dirty Projectors
1/5
Didn't have any expectations coming into this and I was unpleasantly surprised. Clashing, crashing drums and instrumentals, falsetto singing, arrhythmic and rhymeless lyrics. Not much idea why this an album I should listen to before I die. Maybe it's typical of the era?
Crosby, Stills & Nash
2/5
Fine.
Ray Charles
3/5
Schmaltzy big band love and romance songs, fine if you like that sort of thing.
Jane's Addiction
2/5
More hair metal, punk, and even ska than I expected. A couple of nicer, slower tracks with the grungy, meditative sounds I was expecting.
Missy Elliott
2/5
Another 90s R&B / rap album I don't like, with dull backing tracks and a ridiculous number of guest artists.
Nine Inch Nails
3/5
I liked this more now than I would have a few years ago, having heard Trent Reznor's solo work I can hear the musicality in these tracks more easily than I used to.
Oasis
2/5
The Oasis sound. Beatles influence is very clear as everyone says. Very 90s, progenitor of a lot of other Britpop. Up In The Sky was a bit of a gem but everything else very samey. (And was Up In The Sky just a worse version of Rain by the Beatles?)
Jurassic 5
4/5
A slow start, but this album was pretty great. Nice contributions from all, great sampling from the DJs. Favourite tracks: A day at the races, Remember his name, DDT, and Acetate Prophets.
John Prine
4/5
Pretty great. Donald and Lydia a very sweet song, the rest of the songs deserve a second listen.
Fairport Convention
4/5
I'm very familiar with half the songs on this album, the others I have not heard much and are much more country or poppy than I expected, and less interesting to me. Percy's Song was a nice newish discovery. Still, the good songs carry the album.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
3/5
Pleasant, archetypal jazz. "Take Five" familiar from millions of adverts, so I found it a bit worn, but all the other tracks very nice.
Supergrass
3/5
I hear parts from Beatles, Pink Floyd (Hammond organ and guitar), Buddy Holly, and more in here. Interesting to see how it distills down. Fine to listen to, a few tracks stand out: Alright, Not Supposed To, Sofa
Meat Loaf
3/5
Ridiculous and the songs are too long, but lots of energy and enjoyable.
Holger Czukay
2/5
I would consider parts of this as almost unlistenable - most of the appeal lies in the techniques which I'm sure were innovative. Learning that Holger is one quarter or one fifth of Can puts a new light on this. Also in Persian Love I think I can hear where Takeshi's Cashew have taken their whole stuff from.
Dolly Parton
3/5
Country, which can be fun. Enjoyed some tracks. A bit too gee-whillickers homespun wisdom at times.
Cornershop
3/5
Some good tracks, some stuff that sounds more like filler. Tracks are certainly varied in genre, some nice surprises in here, I liked \"We're in Your Corner\" especially.
Air
3/5
Very strong opening track, whole album sounds mostly very 90s, but cover design and influence suggest influence from 80s and impact on 2000s. Quite interesting.
Miles Davis
2/5
OK. To me sounds tuneless and meandering. Too hard for me to get into, not accessible.
Beck
2/5
I thought it was fine. Some nice sounds, but nothing grabbed me.
The Velvet Underground
2/5
Ostentiously hip. I liked Venus in Furs more than the rest of this album, but the whole thing was almost aggressively laid-back.
Jungle Brothers
4/5
A lot to like here. Not much to say that the professional critics have not. Great tracks throughout the album, fast, smart and funky. Edge of a 5 star rating.
Sade
2/5
Bland, easy listening pop. Sounds a lot like The Most Wanted Music to me.
Nirvana
2/5
Influential, important, historic. I still don't like Nirvana at all and I find Cobain's voice annoying. Borderline 1 or 2 stars for me.
Pentangle
3/5
Very nice. Not heard of Pentangle before but they remind me a lot of Fairport Convention.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
2/5
Fine. Siouxse and the Banshees have never been my thing, and listening to an entire album of theirs has confirmed this to my satisfaction.
2/5
Overly grandiose and over-produced. I don't like the singer's voice. Most of the big hits are very overbearing, and the album sags in the middle. Also the anti-government, anti-surveillance messages are in retrospect charming after things got much much worse since the release of the album.
Talking Heads
2/5
Sounds more modern than it is, I would not have put this as a 1977 release. Music is fine, doesn't do much for me. Favourite track: No Compassion.
Steely Dan
2/5
Didn't like this. Bland, easy-listening. Maybe a 1, but not quite that painful.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Very bland, almost totally unmemorable even as soon as I finished.
Robert Wyatt
1/5
Almost unlistenable. Parts of this (large parts) are barely music to my ears. It feels deliberately unapproachable.
Daft Punk
3/5
Pretty good. Enjoyed the tracks Rollin' and Scratchin' and Rock'n Roll. Older album than I thought, from 1997. Chemical Brothers and Powell come to mind at some points.
The Verve
3/5
Better than I was expecting, but my expectations were pretty low. The Aphrodite's Child influences were interesting.
Kendrick Lamar
3/5
Yeah, good, but I didn't personally enjoy it that much. Very dense, a lot going on lyrically and verbally, music not outstanding.
Emmylou Harris
2/5
Was thinking about rating this 3 stars, but for me it is inoffensive country. Queen of the Silver Dollar was more lively and the cover of For No One was interesting.
The Dandy Warhols
4/5
Late-90's indie rock, a bit grunge and laid-back, pretty cool. I knew and liked a few of the tracks on this before listening as part of the project, but most of the other tracks hold up as well. A couple of duds, but the intro and outro instrumental tracks, Be-In and The Creep Out are very listenable. One of the best albums so far.
2/5
Proto-punk, worth a listen for historical value, but not amazing music, in my opinion. Sounds like 60s rock, but much fuzzier. No one track stood out.
Pixies
2/5
Sounds a lot like Nirvana to me. Quite noisy and shrill at points. Lots of punk sounds too. Just OK for me.
John Coltrane
2/5
Avant garde jazz, yes. Reading about this album is very interesting, but I can't honestly say that I picked up on any of it on my listen. Did I not understand? Or is it impenetrable to the layman?
Radiohead
1/5
Deeply, deliberately, unfriendly to listen to. Accordingly I didn't like it, although apparently a lot of people do. No thanks.
Kings of Leon
2/5
Landfill indie rock, totally uninteresting.
Suede
3/5
A couple of interesting songs here: Introducing the Band, Still Life, Stay Together. All the rest drifted past my indifferent ears.
Nirvana
2/5
I hadn't heard Breed before and I quite liked it, but all the rest of this is noisy, whiny grunge rock, which is redundant when describing Nirvana. I prefer early Butthole Surfers, honestly.
Elvis Presley
2/5
It's fine. I mean, it's Elvis. I quite liked In The Ghetto. Still. Still some die hard fans out there.
Stan Getz
1/5
More 60s crooning from this list, this time in Portuguese. Bland, yet irritating. I think, with the 2 versions on this album, I have heard The Girl from Ipanema five times now, and it is really starting to grate.
B.B. King
3/5
Passionate but not my thing. Hesitating between 2 and 3 stars for my enjoyment of this.
Moby
3/5
Run On, Honey, and Porcelain are very familiar to me, with their near-constant use as backing music in the early 2000's, but I still like them, and the basic idea of remixed blues and gospel tracks is very cool. Still, a lot of the tracks here go on too long and the lesser-known tracks are lesser-known for a reason, I would say. I definitely understand this album's inclusion on the list, it captures music of the period and it was influential, or influenced, but I don't know when I would listen to most tracks for enjoyment.
Jeff Buckley
2/5
Fine. The cover of Leonard Cohen's hallelujah which is almost mandatory on albums about love and emotions is one of the better versions I've heard, and I enjoyed the impressionistic Arthurian imagery and folky sounds of Corpus Christi.
Carole King
2/5
A lot of people are clearly getting more or of this album then I am. High Americana, lots of classic soulful songs about love, does nothing for me. Smackwater Jack was interesting, the ear-catching line "the people were quite pleased, because the outlaw had been seized" especially. Still, my favourite song on the album, as it was the least like the others.
Scissor Sisters
2/5
This was fine, exactly as expected: very camp and glamorous, even overbearingly so. I am surprised the Scissor Sisters made the list, even more surprised that this album was chosen, not Ta Dah, with their two biggest hits on it. Still, this album had some nicely produced tracks, sounding a bit 70s or even 60s. Best track for me was the bonus Get It Get It, almost chiptune-like.
Coldcut
3/5
This was not good, but I enjoyed it. I really don't understand why this album was on the list. Very 80s / 90s sampling and mixing, also lyrically with "work together, sort the world out" stuff.
Pink Floyd
5/5
One of my favourite albums, maybe my favourite album. A lot of nostalgia and history here for me, but I think I would always have liked its whimsy and fantasy, evocative lyrics and meandering, trippy sound. Deeply English and rooted in the culture of the time, but also I've not heard anything else quite like it, apart from some Saucerful of Secrets, but already that was leaning away from their origins.
Arcade Fire
4/5
This is maybe a bit art-indie for me, it's very grandiose and trying a bit too hard, but actually it pulls off without being too self-important thanks to some great tracks, in fact, mostly great tracks. Black Mirror, Windowsill, and of course My Body is a Cage all stand-outs. One of the most unexpectedly enjoyable albums I have heard so far.
Songhoy Blues
3/5
Nice Malian guitars, very reminiscent of Tinariwen. Enjoyable.
Butthole Surfers
4/5
Really good album, I have been listening to a few tracks on it for years, but coming back to it with more understanding of the Surfers' work means I appreciate all the tracks on this, but still some more than others. Dirty, noisy, chaotic, punk, irreverent, fun, energetic, with the tracks like Kuntz and 22 Going On 23 showing that the band are capable of beauty, empathy and nuance, but choose to express themselves otherwise. Edge of a five star rating for me, really enjoyed this.
Aerosmith
2/5
My previous album was Butthole Surfers' Locust Abortion Technician, and this album is the opposite in many ways. Safe, conventional dad-rock, a baseline for American rock music of the 70s, just not very exciting to me, and not classic enough either. Still, I understand why it is part of this list.
Suicide
2/5
Unusual, but not especially interesting to me. Frankie Teardrop painful to listen to - boring, overlong, preachy, and topped off with some obnoxious shrieks, and it is one-third of the 32 minutes of this album. Perhaps Suicide did kick off a new genre of synth, but I think I would prefer to hear a more developed sound.
The Who
3/5
It's amazing to think that this album's sound could once have been edgy and rebellious. Listening to it now it is outright quaint, especially My Generation, which sounds amateurish and full of teenage angst. I'm A Man is a kind of embarrassing take on American blues. I enjoyed the simple The Good's Gone and It's Not True, but the absolute best track is the astounding final instrumental The Ox, great drums and great sound, which has single-handedly earned the album an extra star.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Fine. Lots of energy.
Iggy Pop
2/5
This was fine. A lot of people talking about Bowie's influence on this album, but my main takeaway is that Iggy Pop has a very cool voice.
The Kinks
3/5
This is probably what The Piper at the Gates of Dawn sounds like to people who don't like it. This album was fine, fun at times, gentle. I hear sounds of early Pink Floyd and even Beatles in this. Also I enjoyed hearing a Hammond organ, I always do.
Iron Maiden
2/5
I mean, this is exactly what I thought it would be. Unsophisticated, loud, somewhere between earnest and pretentious lyrically. More than a bit Spinal Tap.
Kraftwerk
2/5
I understand this, I appreciate why it's important, but I don't really like the minimalist songs, I don't find them listenable. I prefer the smoother, more harmonious sound that this led to with later Krautrock.
Nina Simone
2/5
The singing is skillful, but I don't like the songs. I found this boring to listen to.
New Order
3/5
Fine to good. Although pretty simple, I liked Love Vigilantes, and Elegia is wonderful wordless piece which I will always associate with the short film MORE by Mark Osborne.
Pixies
2/5
Listened to this twice, not because it was great, but because it made so little impreession I couldn't remember it. Sort of a punkier, less tonal Dandy Warhols, to my ears.
Fred Neil
2/5
Very bland, very American. Singer thinks he has a lot to say, but I don't care about any of it. Nice raga as the final track.
Michael Jackson
2/5
Very disco, very Michael Jackson. What I expected from a King of Pop in his early solo career.
Public Enemy
3/5
Black power and rage against the man is a big theme here. Lyrics all good, social justice, etc. I don't like the backing, too tinny or lacking musicality for me, not fun to listen to. Also the high-pitched electronic whirr noise that I associate with Cypress Hill is here, which I find really annoying.
R.E.M.
2/5
This is one of those albums which you have to see as a cultural artifact, because it's bizarre to think at one time this was one of the most popular bands in the world.
John Martyn
1/5
Mumbly, droning, dull singing-songwriting. This is the sound of one of the forgettable background musicians in Inside Llewyn Davis, except for the excellent reverberting live version of I'd Rather Be The Devil at the end of the album. Apart from that, I couldn't wait for this album to be over.
The Pretty Things
4/5
I dig the psychadelic sounds here. Sounds the most like early Pink Floyd of any band I have listened to, although a bit more grounded, less fantastic and trippy. But some great experimental noises. One of my favourite albums so far.
ZZ Top
3/5
This was fine. Almost the whole album sounds like Sharp Dressed Man, the song I'm most familiar with, it's all quite unadventurous, but pleasant enough to listen to.
Green Day
2/5
American Idiot aged better than expected. I thought it would be hopelessly naive, but actually it was unfortunately prescient. The rest of the album I can take or leave, so I will leave it.
The Who
2/5
This is exactly what I would expect a concept rock opera album from early Who to sound like. Very elaborate, grandiose, a bit pompous. Fine.
Ms. Dynamite
1/5
I feel a bit bad about giving this just 1 star, but it's a big step down from the 2 star albums for me. Honestly, though, this was uninspired and uninspiring, dull, flat, tuneless, a wait for it to be over. Others have commented that its inclusion on this list is baffling and I agree. Both bad and unimpactful.
Fairport Convention
5/5
Nearly a whole album of my favourite Fairport Convention tracks. Crazy Man Michael the only dud for me.
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
Enjoyed this a lot. Funky and a bit silly with the comical sound of the Hammond organ. Certainly a refreshing change compared to many albums on this list.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
Absolutely fine slice of Americana which didn't make much impact on me.
Brian Wilson
2/5
Irritating songs with some interesting musical effects.
The Killers
2/5
The sound of the mainstream in some of my formative years. Giving this 2 stars as it was less objectionable than I expected and Mr Brightside was better than I realised, but the bar was very low for both.
Sinead O'Connor
4/5
Made an impression, mostly very positive. Although genuine, at times it was a bit mawkish, but great singing, heartfelt lyrics, lovely simple instrumentation. A few tracks felt a bit Christmas carol-y, but I like that.
Duke Ellington
3/5
Lively and celebratory jazz, very enjoyable and fun to hear.
Neil Young
3/5
A lot better than Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, which came up a few albums ago, this is full of personal, small songs, with a lot of Dylan-esque imagery and delivery and reminiscent to me of Hudson Bell. I liked this and will come back for another listen.
Frank Black
2/5
Initially I wasn't sure what to think of this, but reading about Frank Black, this is probably a complex take on garage band punk which is too elaborate for me to appreciate or care much about. Also I found myself waiting for the album to be over, never a good sign.
The Roots
3/5
Strong starting and closing tracks, but the middle was a letdown. Overproduced and overcomplicated, it felt like they were trying to demonstrate everything they could do instead of just creating good, straightforward tracks. "Water" almost unlistenable - why was it 10 minutes long? Still an interesting album, at least.
Abdullah Ibrahim
1/5
This is just a step above elevator muzak for me. This grating album has that weird late-80's / early-90's vibe which reminds me of bad taste and plasticky ugliness in a way I can't really define. This is the music that gets piped into a dead mall. Who would listen to this for pleasure?
Linkin Park
2/5
Juvenile and samey. Harsh sound. 2 stars instead of 1 because I at least knew what to expect.
Arctic Monkeys
2/5
Feels wrong to award this the same as Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory, but I've never really liked Arctic Monkeys and listening to an entire albums just confirmed this for me.
M.I.A.
3/5
Kind of bland and a bit annoying at times, but some of the later tracks were fun.
Tim Buckley
2/5
One of those albums which might as well be white noise for all the impression it left.
The Hives
2/5
Absolutely fine garage rock, but this is definitely one of the albums which could be dropped from the list in favour of something else. An album I MUST listen to? I don't feel this enriched me or broadened my horizons. Also the pomposity of the band's stage names contrasts laughably with the tone and quality of their music.
Radiohead
2/5
I think this is the third Radiohead album I have heard on this list and I can definitively say now that I don't like them. This is probably my favourite (so far?), some tracks having tunes and rhythm, but overall the meandering whine-rock doesn't do anything for me.
Stereo MC's
2/5
Super nineties-sounding, bland, crisp electronic drum tracks backing tedious neo-hippie "we're all the same, man" lyrics. Has that strange sound that music from this era has where it was probably recorded and mixed digitally but the effects and technology weren't quite there, so it all sounds a bit rudimentary.
Frank Ocean
3/5
Pretty great. I am not keen on the backing tracks but the lyrics are great poetry, very personal. Needs a re-listen.
Hugh Masekela
2/5
Fine jazz. Quite good as background music and had its moments of interest for me, but mostly I think that jazz will probably never be my thing.
Shack
3/5
On the one hand, this is some fairly generic Britpop, and I've seen a lot of reviews about the author of the book being biased towards Britpop. Maybe, but also US bands are definitely overrepresented on this list (compared to all music worldwide), and the list will never please everyone. If I curated the list, I know that there are plenty of albums I would include on this list out of personal passion, and I hope this album was chosen for similar reasons. Looking at comments on YouTube, a lot of people love this album. (Although I have found that there are lovers of almost every album and artist on this list.)
Anyway. This album slowly won me over, and once I heard Streets of Kenny I understood why it had been chosen, but that is easily the most recognisable song on the album. So are Shack a one hit wonder or an underappreciated gem? For me, this album sounded at worst like Colon, from Fast Show's Indie Club, at middling like a transitional track from Teachers, and at best like late-era Beatles or Pink Floyd - Since I Met You and Beautiful with their big celebratory sounds.
The Notorious B.I.G.
3/5
Skilled, at times fun and funny gangster rap.
Laura Nyro
2/5
Another forgettable singer-songwriter from the late 60's - early 70's. Just listening to this it's hard to know why it is included on the list. I found myself actively waiting for it to end, which is a sure sign that this is not for me.
Deep Purple
3/5
A bit Spinal Tap at times, but I mostly had fun listening to this.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
"Bad Moon Rising" clearly the standout track here, the rest was all fine folky rock, very American.
Marty Robbins
3/5
About half these songs have the same rhythm as each other, but it's nice to have something like this on the list.
Jean-Michel Jarre
4/5
Enjoyable for sure. Parts of it were familiar to me already, especially Part 4, but also some of the more ambient parts as backing music in Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy. Part 6 as well sounds very modern, with sounds I associate with contempory artists.
Paul Simon
2/5
The African guest artists are interesting to me, Paul Simon absolutely is not. This album also sounds very dated for 1986.
Bob Dylan
3/5
It's good, but I don't like it. Dylan mumbles away in his imitable style and toots on his harmonica in a way I find annoying. The album kind of starts and finishes without ceremony, although there are a couple of highlights in there, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall and Blowin' in the Wind.
Pulp
4/5
Absolutely great kitchen sink pop songs which feel informed by personal experiences. The album title is its own review and summary of the themes, a different class of Britpop.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
I liked this 90's noisy whine-rock more than I thought I would.
The 13th Floor Elevators
2/5
This was fine but got very repetitive very quickly. I guess I have always lived in a post-13th Floor Elevators world so I can't appreciate how (or if) influential they were, but it sounds very generic American 60s hippie trip-rock. I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to this again.
Youssou N'Dour
2/5
Absolutely fine but no impact on me.
Metallica
2/5
Enter Sandman is a great track and they knew what they were doing by making it the opener. All the rest of this album feels like filler.
Aretha Franklin
3/5
Enjoyed this quite a lot, very listenable soul.
Bob Dylan
2/5
People rave about this, but to me it's incomprehensible. I Want You is probably the most typical Dylan song for me, i.e. stuffed with imagery that makes no sense, huffed out in his unique but imitable style. Although I would like to be wrong, I really think the emperor has no clothes.
Elvis Presley
3/5
I hadn't heard of any of these tracks before playing this album, so it was a chance to hear fresh Elvis with fresh ears, and I quite liked it.
Yes
2/5
Some fairly standard prog noodling. When the highlight is just a nice acoustic solo guitar track, I am left wondering about the albums which weren't included on this list instead.
Rage Against The Machine
2/5
Angry rock-metal. I might have liked this more if it was 1999 and I had just seen The Matrix for the first time at the age of 13, but it's good that an anti-capitalist (although unusefully general) message still has a mass appeal. I approve the message, the music not so much.
Miles Davis
3/5
This jazz sounds like nice jazz to me.
Björk
2/5
Lives up to her reputation as eccentric and avant-garde. Musically this is to me unusual but uninteresting. But it feels uncomprimised, art made for art's sake, there is nothing manufactured here. Definitely a good inclusion on this list, something that is worth exposing people to, myself included.
Sam Cooke
3/5
Sounds like a party I'll always be sad to have missed.
Norah Jones
2/5
Possibly the blandest album on the list so far. Smooth, easy-listening jazz and a smooth voice.
David Bowie
2/5
Maximalist, but sounds kind of amateur to me, songs without much structure (or too much), they wander around and do not sound harmonious. This might a jazz-type thing of knowing the rules and breaking them, but I didn't get much out of this album.
Dire Straits
2/5
Very bland. All the positive opinions seem to praise its simplicity, but to me it's boring.
Q-Tip
3/5
The sounds of my least favourite GTA V radio station. There's probably a lot lyrically here that I'm missing but I find it dull musically.
Johnny Cash
4/5
Ups and downs on this album. The Man Comes Around is an incredibly strong owner and Hurt is famously the now definitive version better than the original, but there's a lull in the middle of the album and I don't like some of the covers. The theme of the album, of a man facing the end of his life but with hope for an afterlife, is clear and gives a big and more importantly a genuine emotional impact. Hesitating between 3 and 4 stars for this, but I think this lack of pretension has to clinch the 4.
Drive-By Truckers
2/5
Sounds like Lynyrd Skynyrd, clearly designed to do so, with fake-out introductions to some of the songs. Extremely self-indulgent / uncompromising, at more than 90 minutes these guys clearly had something to say and didn't care much if anyone wanted to listen. Aside from the length, it was unobjectionable but there is no way I am listening to any of this ever again.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
2/5
The middle section of Ramble Tamble was pretty good. Otherwise nothing interested me. The weird effect on the vocals makes it sound like the singer is shouting at the microphone from a few feet away.
Kate Bush
2/5
One of those artists who I think will never be my thing. Side 2 was more interesting and Jig of Life was my favourite track, but I find her voice a bit weird and off-putting. A unique sound, though, which counts for something on my book.
Dinosaur Jr.
2/5
Better than Sebadoh, but too much noise and not enough music here for me, although I liked its loudness and rawness.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
2/5
Pretty bad, but not actually offensive. Just sounded like the band banging and crashing away for 45 minutes.
Thundercat
1/5
Disliked this. It sounds like the first efforts of a 14-year-old who has been given a keyboard for their birthday. The songs all meander and change, no structure, seem to be about banal observations and nostalgia.
Deep Purple
2/5
This list does not need three (and counting) Deep Purple albums, but this is the best of them. It's got Smoke on the Water on it and the rest of the tracks are quite varied and sound good. I would scrap the other two albums and make room for someone else, seriously.
Janis Joplin
2/5
I actually enjoyed Mercedes-Benz most of all. I can't believe Mercedes had the gall to use this in their advertising. Other than that Joplin's scratchy emphatic voice didn't do anything for me.
Red Snapper
2/5
Sounds very typical of early 2000s electronic music. Mostly beat and samples, little musicality. Would be more interesting to me at a doubled BPM. A bit like Jamiroquai, but more Avant Garde. Last track sounds a bit like Radiohead. First half of the album is quite hard to listen to but the tracks from Bussing onwards are a lot more chilled out and enjoyable.
The Cardigans
3/5
Lovefool and Been It are the standout tracks here, but this is some great laid-back pop tinged with regret and sadness. Very nice and easy to listen to.
Janelle Monáe
4/5
Great album. I am mostly struck by how far reaching across genres it is. Opening with classical overture, then moving to 80s and 90s pop and rap, and Sir Greendown is a 1950s enchanting soft hula sound, club sounds for Cold War, the almost cartoon sound of Oh Maker. 57821 is 1960s soft gentle psych pop. The whole thing is extremely ambitious and expansive, and importantly succeeds. For sure this album deserves its place on the list; it's not like anything else I've heard. And there's so much to hear, not just in terms of the length. And although it's very long, crucially it's interesting enough that I was never ever bored.
Steely Dan
2/5
Another bland album from Steely Dan. Very clean, too much so for me.
Lou Reed
3/5
Perfect Day and Walk On the Wild Side are justly the two hits from this album, the rest are fine, except Hangin' Round which was fun. Fine.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Personal, small-scale, stripped-down, and dull.
Femi Kuti
1/5
Long, but seemed endless, every song going on and on repetitively with upbeat jazzy rhythms that drove me insane.
Brian Eno
3/5
Pleasant to hear, as expected, but not actually engaging.
Miles Davis
3/5
I think, given how universally lauded this album is, and given that I just thought it was pleasant to hear, I can definitely say that I don't really like or appreciate jazz.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
Halloween and Monitor are both pretty good, but I still don't care for her voice. "Anxious" is a good word to describe the backing music. It's fine, but another artist who isn't for me.
Pavement
2/5
A garage rock indie band who I would not give a second thought to if I heard them playing in a local bar.
Vocals especially are lazy and toneless, songs don't seem to have any structure. This would definitely fail the Old Grey Whistle Test.
I considered giving this 1 star, but I think I have to reserve that for albums I actively dislike. This irritated me but I was mostly apathetic.
The title of the album is pretty good.
Metallica
1/5
I laughed when I saw this come up and I feel like I am piling in with the other negative reviews, but come on! This is a grandiose and overblown novelty album, but at TWO AND A QUARTER HOURS it is overstaying its welcome. I felt like I had heard everything it had going for it three-and-a-bit tracks in; more precisely, three minutes into a NINE MINUTE version of Master of Puppets. And actually, now that I think of it, the first track was just Ecstasy of Gold by the orchestra alone. The rest of the metal / orchestra mix is less than the sum of its parts, it feels like both are trying to play loud enough to be heard over the other.
I think this is the first album which I have heard that is so-bad-it's-good. Still bad though, one star.
4/5
Hovering between 3 and 4 stars for this one. Very English and quaint, a gentle rock opera. Has the quiet desperation of middle class English life down to a tee, but it's not mean-spirited, but very sympathetic. Musically sounds a bit like early Pink Floyd, with later Pink Floyd sounds from The Wall in there too.
4 stars, but only just.
Dusty Springfield
2/5
A good singing voice, but she didn't write any of these songs. I appreciate that she was popular, but I can't find much to praise here, although Will You Love Me Tomorrow and Wishing and Hoping are iconic.
Paul McCartney and Wings
2/5
I found this pretty dull, McCartney doing tedious little songs.
New Order
2/5
The plasticky sound of synths and repetitive loops really got to me by the end of this album, eliciting the same dreariness I get from listening to The Smiths and dragging it down to a low 2.
The Sonics
3/5
Pleasingly brief and punchy songs. They all kind of sound the same and none are especially adventurous. Strange to think that just 4 years after this album the psychadelic revolution would be in full swing. But a bunch of nice 2-minute rock and roll songs, nothing wrong here.
Suede
2/5
Proto-Britpop with strangled-sounding vocals, long fuzzy guitar chords, sloppy crashing percussion.
Black Sabbath
3/5
Heavier sound than expected, strange to think that this was just after the psychedelic 60s. Unlike some albums on this list it's really easy to see how new and revolutionary this sound was. I still hear sound like this in modern metal.
It's all pretty good and enjoyable for me as well, although Ozzy Osbourne does sound like he's just shouting the vocals from the back of the studio.
Beatles
3/5
I hadn't heard a lot of the songs on this before, which I think is very telling. In fact I'd only heard Hard Day's Night and Can't Buy Me Love.
The singing sounds very flat to me (easy to hear what The Rutles were parodying here). A lot of filler love songs which you me are just lesser versions of I Want to Hold Your Hand.
David Bowie
2/5
The first couple of tracks are pretty good, "Heroes" is great, of course, but then the album descends into weird avant-garde, self-indulgent filler noodling for the next seven tracks. Heroes adds one star by itself.
Massive Attack
2/5
Had a couple of nicer tracks, but overall dull. Representative of its era, so historical value there, but really hard to see who would listen to this for pleasure. All the songs seem to have been created to be used as bedding tracks for montages in 90s home-improvement and reality shows where the camera cuts at medium pace through shots of houses with square furniture with too much chrome and fake leather.
Traffic
2/5
This sounds like a mash-up of every late-60s / early-70s band I have heard. A bit psychadelic, a bit pop, a bit prog rock. It just washed over me without leaving much impression. Most notable thing to me was that for a very American-sounding band, they are actually from Birmingham, UK.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Another Frank Sinatra album. Exactly as expected, but lacks any of his really big hits. I think this is the third Sinatra album so far? Definitely one of those artists who is overrepresented. Make room for some weirder albums, make me listen to stuff I have never heard of! Don't give me the same pablum reheated again and again!
The Black Crowes
2/5
The first comment I saw about this was something like "This band would have been really successful in the 70s". Yes, maybe. They do have a good throwback sound and great musicianship and the songs are enjoyable to listen to. It's easy to imagine hearing them at a smoky concert, contemporaries of Dire Straits, Led Zeppelin and Status Quo. But this album isn't innovative or different or particularly exciting to me, and it's not a classic either. I suppose at least it is new, in the sense I had never heard of the band.
When I get a band I have never heard of, I get a little bit excited, but this is unwrapping a Christmas present to find a version of a gift you have already got.
Adele
3/5
Almost none of these songs are small. The production in amongst all of them is huge - I would actually be very interested in some versions with just voice and guitar, looks the penultimate Hiding My Heart. Grandiose as it is, it does still feel personal and real. Adele does have an amazing voice for sure, and this album was impactful and popular enough to include in this list.
LL Cool J
2/5
Fine. Nothing stood out, mostly punchy lyrics over tuneless beats.
The Associates
1/5
Synthy, falsetto art rock, disco, glam, minimalism which I hated.
The Police
2/5
Walking in Your Footsteps is almost a joke or children's song, so slight and insubstantial it's hard to imagine why they bothered recording it.
Otherwise plenty of soft synths and very crisp drumming. Super sharp, clear sound, but apart from that appreciation of the technical side, I don't actually like any of the songs on this album.
Pink Floyd
2/5
I actually like Barrett-era Floyd quite a lot, but 12 minutes into this album, listening to some self-indulgent tinny 70s brass parping, I realised I was giving this unwarranted interest. If this band wasn't called Pink Floyd I wouldn't give this a second thought. Self-important, self-indulgent, self-regarding. Impressions of an art student's final project with the sound effects and collages. Also I hate the whiny synths and sustained electric guitar notes.
The Lemonheads
2/5
Standard early 90s American indie garage band rock which the creators of Daria would not stoop to including in scene transitions.
Lucinda Williams
2/5
I listened to this two or three times, not because I loved it, but because I was sure there was something worthwhile there that I was missing. After multiple listens I am pretty sure that my first impressions were correct: this is a fairly standard country music singer-songwriter. It's absolutely fine but undistinguished. I suppose it's not really the sort of thing I usually listen to, but I'm not sure if just being a representative of basic country music qualifies this as being an album I have to listen to before I die. I think I could have died happy without hearing this.
Drunken Angel is the best track, feels like it's real, and the jarring juxtaposition of the two title words is a good summary of the whole song.
The Prodigy
3/5
Enjoyed the banging drums and dark thumping rhythms.
Funkadelic
2/5
Pretty funky but long meandering songs. I preferred Mothership Connection.
T. Rex
4/5
Funky, liked this a lot. Cool and surprisingly modern sound, first few tracks sound like 2000s indie.
Prince
1/5
I found this very irritating.
The Doors
4/5
I enjoyed this. All (?) their big hits collected, worthy of occupying its space on the list with trippy songs that take their time. Not every album should be like this but encapsulates a time and a feeling very well.
Grant Lee Buffalo
2/5
Very bland, soft rock, with bland singing. In some ways it's nice to have these unpopular choices on the list, it makes me think that the curator(s) of the list put them on out of personal love and passion for the album instead of because of their cultural significance. I didn't like this, though.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
Very long, so it had a lot of opportunities to impress, and there are a couple of great tracks on here: Isn't She Lovely was a stand out, Black Man and Village Ghetto Land too. Very interesting to hear Pastime Paradise as well. Certainly one of the most intriguing and influential albums from this list, but overall a bit too easy-listening for me.
David Bowie
2/5
In my opinion, this is gleefully wallowing in self-indulgence and pretentiousness, and I especially had a hard time with the piano on this. I really just think Bowie is not for me.
Foo Fighters
3/5
Enjoyable American garage grunge punk rock. Not mind-blowing but very listenable, and I feel it's not taking itself too seriously, which I appreciate after dozens of self-important albums.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Is Elvis Costello the most overrepresented artist on this list? He's in with a shot, for sure.
Anyway, yes, this was fine. Pop / glam / rock songs about politics, juxtaposition of presentation and theme. I still didn't like it, but it was the least objectionable album so far by Elvis Costello I have listened to. I like the cover art as well, even though it looks like a poster on the wall of a twelve-year-old who wants to grow up to be a zookeeper.
Sonic Youth
1/5
I guess this is kind of experimental, but most of the tracks just don't sound good. I liked the mostly spoken-word Shadow of a Doubt and Bubblegum, the rest were hard to listen to and vaguely unpleasant, which I am sure was intentional.
Coldplay
2/5
So unmemorable, I got confused and thought I was listening to a less avant-garde Radiohead album. Less objectionable to me than Radiohead though, 2 stars.
Beatles
4/5
Absolutely full of amazing songs, lots of which were unfamiliar to me to a greater or lesser extent.
Norwegian Wood has a fairly repugnant meaning but instrumentally it's amazing, soft and gentle, beautiful.
What Goes On sounds more like early Beatles, where they were trying to sound more American and hadn't developed their own style so much.
Wait, really like the descending notes on this.
If I Needed Someone also great, nice and simple but really clean.
One reoccuring theme seems to be genuine bitterness and failed relationships - probably self-inflicted, in my opinion, at this stage in their careers and lives.
Caetano Veloso
2/5
Inoffensive but slightly irritating mambo and Latin rhythms.
Mudhoney
3/5
Varies between unlistenable art-noise-rock and high-energy punk, like a less bizarre and more complex Butthole Surfers. Consequently my enjoyment of this album also varied a lot between tracks.
It sounds like the band had fun making it. I just wish I enjoyed the listening as much as they did the playing.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
I had no expectatioons going into this, but I enjoyed the cool synths and relaxed vocals, I found myself nodding along, which is honestly rare on this list. It's a sound I associate more with early 1980's so I am surprised this was released as late as 1987.
Queen
3/5
This album is a lot of fun, but honestly it's pretty goofy, even entering outright comedy at times. If I had never heard of Queen I would say based on this that they were a glam version of the Bonzo Dog Band. '39 and Good Company are my favourite tracks, I think. Bohemian Rhapsody is too overloaded with associations for me to have any clear assessment on.
Queen
3/5
Worse than a Night at the Opera, but still enjoyable.
Megadeth
2/5
Trash, but I didn't hate it. Sounds like Metallica and Iron Maiden, as I would expect.
Billy Bragg
2/5
Very boring.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Born in the USA and I'm On Fire both standouts here. A very strong and enjoyable album. Anyone who thinks this is a pro-USA album needs to listen more closely.
Tears For Fears
2/5
Everybody Wants to Rule the World is one of "those" songs, that I have always heard and never known / bothered to learn the origin of. I am sure this album was impactful, but I don't like it much. Another very 80s album.
Portishead
2/5
Irritating acid house trip hop. Reading about the production of this album was more interesting than actually listening to it. I see the Wikipedia article about this says that this album was popular as background music in cafes and as bedding tracks on TV and radio, a nightmarish time which brought back memories.
Beatles
4/5
Lots of variation in this album, mostly tonally. Saw someone saying it's hard to imagine how the Beatles split up so soon after this, but to me it's not so surprising. This feels like each member had grown up and beyond the band and wanted to do their own thing, but were shackled to the others. Each member's contributions all feel different but there's something to enjoy about all of them, and there's also enjoyment in the hilarious juxtaposition of e.g. Octopus's Garden with She's So Heavy.
The Kinks
4/5
Nostalgic and English, gentle, good.
Soft Cell
2/5
Tainted Love is an indestructible song, but of course it's a cover. "Sex Dwarf" is much too Spinal Tap for me lyrically.
Elton John
3/5
Candle in the Wind and Roy Rogers are the stand out tracks for me on this album. Overall, fairly pleasant to listen to, but not really my thing.
Beastie Boys
4/5
Was looking forward to this. This is good, but not as good as Paul's Boutique, in my opinion. Still very good.
The Electric Prunes
3/5
Quite a varied album; trippy, psychadelic, fairytale at times. Enjoyable for sure.
Beth Orton
2/5
Fine and rather tedious late-90s singer-songwriter stuff. Insantly forgettable, I sort of feel sorry for anyone who has made this a part of their personality as it has none of its own.
The Psychedelic Furs
2/5
Proto-Britpop sung in an annoying flat tone.
Jorge Ben Jor
3/5
Enjoyable mambo and jazz.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Interesting idea for a concept album, but didn't grab my attention enough for another listen at this time. Going on the pile to re-listen once this project is over.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
2/5
Pretty varied sounds on this album. Unfortunately all of them are noisy objectionable glam rock.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
More Irish-pub tinged than I was expecting, which I now hear in Come On Eileen, the only memorable song on the album and the only one I had heard of.
Radiohead
1/5
This is maybe the fourth Radiohead album I have heard from this list, and I think two at most would have been totally sufficient. Thom Yorke's breathy whine is hidden under more vague and vaguely uncomfortable instrumentation mumbling about doors or something and I could not care less. Not a single hummable or enjoyable tune on the album, although Hunting Bears, just an instrumental guitar track, was the least objectionable.
Common
2/5
Apart from some interesting rhymes in the first couple of tracks, this didn't do anything for me, and the final track, It's Your World, I just found mawkish.
LCD Soundsystem
4/5
Easy 4 star rating here. All my friends familiar to me already, fantastic song, and Someone Great and Sound of Silver are new discoveries. The rest of the tracks are all good but some veer into what is for me irritating hipster stuff. Whole album is about nostalgia for what is lost, very melancholic.
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
Usual soft singing and romantic lyrics from the Pet Shop Boys, none of which interested me except for the fun Yesterday When I Was Mad and campy Go West.
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
A fair bit of variation between tracks on this album, but I think the reason that I really only thought I liked We Only Come Out At Night, for example, was because so many of the other tracks were such a slog. Also a double album is never the easiest thing to listen to, at more than 2 hours this is definitely at least twice as much Smashing Pumpkins than I needed to hear.
A few very 90s-sounding tracks in here. I'm sure a lot of this was on the Daria soundtrack, if I could be bothered to look it up.
Napalm Death
2/5
Almost charming with how (I guess) it is trying to provoke. Reminds me a bit of a 14 year old painting his bedroom black and wearing a lot of studs. Bless you Napalm Death, you keep showing us what big boys you are. Perhaps I would be more impressed if I could understand literally a single word the vocalist was grunting into the microphone. If you listen to just one of these songs, you've basically heard them all.
Second album I've heard on the list that's so bad it's good after S&M by Metallica. However, I'm very glad this is on the list, this is the sort of album participants should be being made to listen to, such an outlier from the mainstream, and I have to say this was a much easier listen and less of an endurance test than most of the more mainstream albums on the list.
Honestly torn on how to rate this. On one hand, it is almost objectively garbage. On the other, I certainly enjoyed listening to it.
The Who
3/5
Baba O' Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again the standouts here, rest of the tracks all fine.
The Flaming Lips
2/5
The praise this album gets is just baffling to me. For me, it's a big load of nothing, none of the songs doing anything at all for me, the audio equivalent of eating a boiled potato. Even after learning a bit about the background of this album, it still leaves me cold.
Genesis
1/5
Might be the biggest load of pretentious nonsense I've heard so far. From the absurd plot (as described on Wikipedia) which appears, incredibly, to be being taken seriously, to the self-indulgent tunes and length, this whole album is insufferable and self-satisfied. The single enjoyable track in it for me was Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats, a simple instrumental. Otherwise, yuck.
Kanye West
3/5
Another elaborate hip hop album, deftly produced, complex and clever lyrics, which probably deserves a second listen, but which I think I may appreciate and admire, but which I don't think I'll ever really love or connect to emotionally, although the run of tracks from New Workout Plan onwards are fun and I like them, but the final Last Call is just way too long and I can't imagine listening to Kanye's rambling memories for fun again.
Muddy Waters
3/5
Very bluesy blues, but all the songs sound the same to me.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2/5
Middle-of-the-road white rock'n'roll for middle-class white people.
Sonic Youth
2/5
Punky noise rock, OK at times, but not an easy listen. Much better than the previous Sonic Youth album I heard from this list, E.V.O.L.
Sparks
4/5
I've really come round to Sparks in the last couple of years, and it's nice to finally visit the album which This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us came out on. Big sounds here, pretty maximalist. Glam is the word people use, but this doesn't feel like the kitsch of glam rock, it feels to me more like deliberate art. Nice.
David Bowie
2/5
With each additional David Bowie album this list makes me listen to, the more confident I become in saying I don't really care about his music. Sorry to all the sensitive students out there who want to be as nonconformist yet popular as him, you can't do that just by listening to his music.
The Clash
2/5
For the track What's My Name, a YouTube comment says "I like to imagine taking out the hymnals and singing this song in church. Makes me laugh."
This kind of puerile, knee-jerk anti-authoritarianism attitude is what I was expecting from this album and it's what I got. Simplistic, but the world needs this kind of thing, and I like the cut of their jib, if not their music. They do sound very amateur, like your schoolfriend's first band practicing in his garage.
The Residents
3/5
Say what you like about this, at least everyone has something to say, no-one has to rack their brain for an opinion, unlike the fourth or fifth Elvis album from the list. And honestly, given how low-rated this is, so I can say to other raters is: grow up a bit and be more open. Do you think this list should be all Britney Spears, Beatles and Nirvana? Safe and uncontroversial? Did you think you were going to get through this project unchallenged!? I've had to suffer through four Smiths albums, you can harden up and get through less than an hour of The Residents.
Anyway, what is there to say about this? For sure it's not an easy-listening album, but it definitely isn't meant to be. Others have mentioned Primus and I hear the influence too. I also hear a lot of early Butthole Surfers. Like Primus this is sinister, uncomfortable, but also humorous and I don't think it's taking itself too seriously. I did like the run of tracks from Hello Skinny onwards, and the bonus tracks I preferred to those on the main album.
I originally was going to say that I didn't enjoy the music much on its own merits, but actually the later tracks were pretty great. It certainly it made me smile at times, and it made me feel something other than that I just had to wait for it to be over as I have with so many dull mainstream albums. Call me a contrairian, but I actually really enjoyed the experience of this album. More of this kind of thing should be on the list, make listeners open their minds and horizons!
The Boo Radleys
1/5
Oh boy, this was an endurance test. Started off as bland Britpop, but then the experimental genre-mashup songs began, each more irritating than the last. I do hear different genres and artists in here, but unfortunately I hate them all. This was riding the edge of a 2-star rating, but as I was actively waiting for this to be over it has to be 1 star. A real shame, I keep hoping that one of the albums which I have never heard of will be the hidden gem that makes it all worthwhile. Until then, there's Giant Steps.
Dizzee Rascal
3/5
Pretty good, I liked the first half more than the second. Kind of odd to see this in the list, I wouldn't have rated it as that good / significant. I suspect it might be cut in future editions of the book, we'll see. Still, I had fund listening to it.
2/5
Very bland and forgettable singer-songwriter rock. The second PJ Harvey album on the list (so far), and cuttable, in my opinion. The most memorable moment was when my computer unpaused this and Belly's Super-Connected at the same time and I thought I was listening to an extended sample, but the fact I didn't notice for a minute or particularly question it shows how little attention I was paying to the album as a whole.
The Beach Boys
2/5
I've never really liked the Beach Boys and I've listened to Pet Sounds before. On a re-listen, I have a greater appreciation for the lyrics, which are basically classic love poetry. But I find the dreamy instrumentation saccharine, Brian Wilson's voice too doo-wop, especially in combination with the harmonizing backing vocals. Other people are clearly getting a LOT out of this album and I can understand that it revolutionised recording, but I still don't really like it, sorry.
Ryan Adams
1/5
Another baffling inclusion on this list. I'm coming at this completely blind, I am pretty sure I've never heard of this guy, but the pre-9/11 release and the album art predispose me too dislike this.
Anyway, this guy sounds like he's ripping off other artists and genres indiscriminately, it sounds very commercial, like he's aiming for maximum appeal by offering a little bit of everything which is tedious and popular, a bit like the musical equivalent of a chain restaurant.
Some observations on tracks as I listened to them:
New York New York's instrumentation really flat-sounding.
Firecracker also really flat, vocals especially. Juxtaposition between title and the content.
Everything is bland bland bland.
La Cienega Just Smiled sounds like some inauthentic country or a Bruce Springsteen rip-off.
The Rescue Blues - cheap gospel backing choir.
Nobody Girl and another track which I forget - sounds like he's going for a sort of Bob Dylan vibe, then giving up on it. And why is this nearly ten minutes long!?
This is one of those albums which is aggressively safe and dull. I would rather have a thousand weird avant garde or experimental metal albums on this list than anything this suffocatingly boring. I was considering a 2 for this, but when I write this much as a review, the album must have provoked some strong reaction, and it ain't a 5. 1 star.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
2/5
Absolutely fine reggae. Sounds about like what I expected but nothing grabbed me.
Garbage
2/5
Absolutely fine pop rock. I quite liked a couple of the songs, such as As Heaven is Wide, but overall this was just OK and very of its era.
Vow is about the most teenaged song I've ever heard. Absolutely some teenager was listening to this and singing along.
Beck
2/5
It could just be that I was tired and irritated while listening to this but I found it tiresome and irritating. A shame, because I have heard and liked a few of Beck's songs before and I liked them - Loser and Time Bomb, for example.
The bluesy Go It Alone stood out but I am not sure if I actually like it, or if I just like them more than the surrounding tracks. However it is the beginning of an uptick in insteresting songs, the cowboyish Farewell Ride and the Rental Car which I liked musically.
There were moments I liked, but overall underwhelming.
Simon & Garfunkel
1/5
Sappy, soft singing and ultra-gentle instrumentation, tedious lyrics. I cannot see the appeal.
The only tracks which stood out were A Simple Desultory Phillippic, a simple and out-of-place Dylan parody, almost a comedy song; A Poem on the Underground Wall; and the final 7 o'clock News/ Silent Night, which was a bit like a teenage art student's first "deep" song. I agree with the idea, didn't like the presentation.
One star. A bit harsh but I honestly don't want to listen to any more Simon and Garfunkel after this.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
3/5
High-energy, bombastic, fun. I was going to say that all their big hits (Relax, Two Tribes, The Power of Love) are all on this album, but actually they never really had another. Still, a creative tour de force.
Welcome To The Pleasuredome - really enjoyed this, even listening to the full 13-minute version, lots going on and variation over the whole length.
Love the spoken word samples on War.
Depeche Mode
2/5
Fine. I find these songs kind of tuneless and flat. No strong opinion here. Blue Dress and Enjoy the Silence both have long and unnecessary outros which seem to have been tracked on.
Genesis
1/5
Irritating bordering on intolerable and a contender for the whitest album on the list.
I used the term self-indulgent about Genesis' previous album but this really is. I guess they're doing this for themselves, which is good because it's definitely not doing anything for me. The puns in the song titles and lyrics are eye-rolling, not a tenth as clever as they think they are.
Although this is a personal thing, this music reminds me of the feeling of life around the early 90s, when everything was kind of plasticky and crap and cheap and this type of music was inflicted on society because we just didn't have the same range of choices and availability of culture we do today.
I thought The Battle of Epping Forest was going to be some historical thing, then it turns out to be this overlong noodling fantasy, with the character voices just the final straw after the parping synths, arrhythmic drumming and pompous wordplay lyrics. Until this track I was finding this album better than The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, but it's nearly as bad.
Pere Ubu
2/5
I've heard the opening Non-Alignment Pact before and I quite liked it. Starting on this high I enjoyed the next couple of tracks as art-rock before the whole thing went modern art avant-guard with weird sounds, smashing bottles, mumbled vocals, etc. and completely lost me. Not worth a second listen.
Two stars overall and Non-Alignment Pact is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for that rating. I do like the fact that I was made to listen to this instead of another band of four once-popular English guys from the 70s, though.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
I have heard a few of Nick Cave's moody, fantastic ballads before so I was looking forward to more of the same, but this is much more mainstream and safe than I was expecting, basic love songs with some Christian elements (? - I wasn't listening that closely).
Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere is the first track which sounds anything like what I expected from Nick Cave, dark lyrics and deep voice, bit Tom Waits-lite.
West Country Girl - now this is more like it.
However, overall a very dull listen. As soon as the album finished Spotify auto-played Let Love In, also by Nick Cage, and instantly I was back with his deep growly voice and bitter love. Just a weird, bad choice for inclusion on this list to represent Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
Charles Mingus
2/5
When someone says "experimental jazz", this is the sound I imagine. I had a headache while listening to this and the music did not improve it.
Fatboy Slim
2/5
This music sucks. It's flat and tuneless, made of almost 100% sampled beats, it's impossible to listen to for pleasure, it was made to be bedding tracks for slightly-cool documentaries about insufferable London media types. Still, it was omnipresent in this niche during its time and so probably deserves its place on the list as a historical document. First Down was the only track with some interest for me, as it sampled swing and jazz, but I will not be returning to this album.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
I'm still not sold on Neil Young. He's fine, I liked this fine. I preferred the sound of the heavier, rockier last 3 songs on the album: Welfare Mothers, Sedan Delivery, and Hey Hey, My My (I also liked how this mirrored the opening My My, Hey Hey, a neat touch). I liked the lyrics of Pocahontas also. But no strong opinions from me here.
ABBA
3/5
It's Abba, it's exactly what I was expecting. You'd have to be pretty cold-hearted not to enjoy at least some of this, although honestly I would perhaps have just had one Abba album on the list.
Scott Walker
2/5
This all sounds like old-fashioned pop crooning with soft big band / orchestra backing, musically it all sounds like the theme tune to some forgotten off-brand James Bond film from the 60s. It's impossible to take seriously as art for me. However, "Next" is perhaps the wildest juxtaposition of message and presentation I have ever heard. It's absolutely psychadelic and totally arresting, at least for me. I was so stunned listening to the story and experiences (not in a good way) that this album kind of justifies its inclusion on that basis alone apart from any historical value. "The Girls and The Dogs" I guess is supposed to be an amusing song, but I am basing that on the musical backing and final "punchline" as opposed to the bitterly misogynistic lyrics.
N.W.A.
3/5
One of the densest albums I've heard. A lot of hip hop albums are, but this especially. I guess I have the benefit of hindsight, but for something which was deliberately courting controversy and aiming to provoke, this doesn't seem so offensive these days. Honestly Fuck The Police sounds like a forerunner of the anger at Defund the Police, etc. However like a lot of punk stuff, when trying to be offensive it often comes across as childish. These guys are working so hard to establish their street cred and now Ice Cube is starring in Ride Along 2 with Kevin Hart. There must be a lesson in that.
Anyway, this album said what it wanted to say, hugely influential, etc., and I quite enjoyed hearing it. However as the archetypal gangster rap album I felt like I'd heard a lot of it before in the form of parodies, homages and remixes. The middle tracks were fresher to me, and Express Yourself I think I enjoyed the most just for the choice of backing.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Sounds like a pale imitation of the American music which inspired it, washed-out and flavourless. The tracks all sound pretty similar. Makes me appreciate the Beatles of this era more.
Beatles
4/5
Extremely varied and long. Tonally and musically all over the place, you have no idea what the next track is going to sound like, but I like that about it, bursting with ideas and creativity.
Lightning Bolt
2/5
From the opening guitar feedback and warming up on drums, I didn't have high hopes.
Fun at times, but the inaudible lyrics and noisy production turned me off by the third track. Had its moments of head-nodding, foot-tapping rhythms, but these went on for way too long without any variation, inducing a headache.
Unlike a lot of 2-star ratings, this is not because of boredom but an average of the 3 stars when I was enjoying various moments and 1 star when I was gritting my teeth while enduring the sounds.
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
Good stuff. Like a lot of the hop albums on the list I find the lyrics hard to absorb and analyse on one listen. The title track was the first one I really paid attention to, simple parable narrative but I liked it.
A few tracks remind me of Del Tha Funky Homosapien / Deltron's style, good.
This album goes into the "needs another listen" pile.
Pink Floyd
3/5
I had an earlier period in my life where I reflexively hated post-Barrett Pink Floyd. More recently I've mellowed so I was looking forward to listening to this afresh to reappraise it.
That said I still think most of this is a load of pretentious old nonsense. I don't care for the music and the lyrics are mostly makes-you-think shallow tritenesses. Time does get me, to be honest, and I like Brain Damage, Eclipse and the quotes from interviews which have been worked into the intros and outros here and there, i.e. the parts which Pink Floyd didn't write. (Although the skill of sampling is using the old to say or reinforce the new.)
Anyway, three tracks that I enjoyed but overall still doesn't do much for me.
KISS
2/5
It's trash, and Great Expectations is about the slimiest song I can remember hearing. Even Spinal Tap wouldn't stoop to some of the lows on this album.
Two stars as it wasn't actually painful to listen to. I've got to save one star reviews for the worst of the worst.
Jimi Hendrix
2/5
Sounds pretty much like what I expected, with a couple of more psychadelic touches such as reverse echo here and there. I have never been very interested in Hendrix and this album did not change my mind.
Iggy Pop
2/5
Iggy has a very cool voice, and Lust of Life and The Passenger are cool songs, but otherwise this album isn't very interesting to me.
Led Zeppelin
2/5
Fine. I liked Good Times Bad Times.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Having heard their other album on this list, I would say that this album is MUCH more Nick Cave-y than that. These dark, moody, bitter songs are what I expect from him. Anyway, a whole album of songs about murders and murderers, good stuff. The instrumentation is pretty sparse and the vocals are flat at times but overall I enjoyed this a lot, even the Dylan cover Death is Not the End, which I had never heard or heard of before, and the second half of the album was even better than the first.
Kanye West
3/5
A lot going on with this album to the extent that it's exhausting to listen to. The over- production is the point here, and it's a tour de force, a calculated assault on the senses. Still not as enjoyable as it might be for me, but interesting for sure, there's so much to hear in this album.
Fleetwood Mac
2/5
Having just finished this album, I look back on it to find I can't remember a single song apart from the foot-tapping but uninteresting Ledge. Some nice simple drumming on some tracks as a comment pointed out, but this is already fading from my memory.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
I see from its extensive Wikipedia entry that a variety of unusual instruments were used while recording this album, but if you had told me that the sounds were achieved on guitars with some minor adaptations and effects, I would have believed that. Otherwise another forgettable and boring album which sounds dated to me and just makes me appreciate the Beatles more.
Stevie Wonder
1/5
Apart from Superstition, I found these songs intolerable, the honky-tonk synths grating unbelievably badly, and on top of this, all the songs were much too long. Hated this.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
2/5
Ticking off the Southern Country / Folk box for this list with an extremely extensive double album. I don't care for this kind of thing much. It's not bad, just doesn't do anything for me, really. However, I did like the run of instrumental tracks which began Disc 2, which makes me think maybe it's the vocals which I don't like. Also as pointed out by another review, there is way too much "candid", behind-the-scenes recordings. As well as the intros and outros of each track, there are 3 tracks of nothing but studio dialogue. I can only imagine how annoying that would be if you wanted to listen to the music from this album for pleasure on its own.
Not quite worth 3 stars, which is my bar for a re-listen, but not far off.
The Band
2/5
I don't especially like Bob Dylan, the Band have even less impact on me. Dull.
The Beau Brummels
2/5
I enjoyed Painter of Women, but otherwise this is the sound of one of the background artists from Inside Llewyn Davis.
Marilyn Manson
1/5
You don't understand, Mom, this is who I really am!
It's the late 1990s. You hang out with the misfits at school, buy some pants that are mostly rips and pockets, go home, have a shouting argument with your parents, go to your room, slam the door, and play this album way too loud.
It's twenty years later. One of these songs comes up on your shuffle and you cringe.
I think the word I was looking for while listening to this album was "edgy". Goshdarnit but this guy is really trying his best to provoke us, but it's all style and very little substance, Marilyn trying hard to emulate the performance personas of David Bowie, but it's all pretension and surface level. Grow up, man.
Final thought: halfway through this album it did the worst thing that a shock rock album could do: it bored me. I had to give up and listen to a podcast before I could come back and finish.
Actively waiting for an album to be over is a bad sign. One star.
Alanis Morissette
3/5
Enjoyed the first few tracks here, especially All I Really Want and Hand in My Pocket, but then Ironic came up, which I have been overexposed to and disliked it from the first. Another very 90's-sounding album. "Confessional" was a work I used to describe her songwriting style, and I would agree, and I would add "simple", to the point of obviousness - her metaphors are overly clear and often she just states how she is feeling about something. That clarity and straightforwardness can be worthwhile to get to the core of emotions, but it's not very interesting.
Three stars, but only just.
The Go-Betweens
1/5
Another album and band I have never heard of and another chance to be surprised and pleased. Unfortunately from the opening 30 seconds this sounds like forgettable, forgotten Britpop. Later I realised this band are actually Australian, and the track Love is a Sign had flat, rhymeless singing that is an unwelcome reminder of The Smiths - proof that it's not always god to be proved wrong on this list. An album I gritted my teeth to get through.
John Cale
2/5
I'd heard and liked the title track a few years ago so I was moderately looking forward to this, but actually I found it pretty dull, too soft, no bite. The second-best track on this is Graham Greene, but two decent tracks do not make a must-listen album.
Mudhoney
2/5
Another album to be endured, droning grunge rock, all the tracks sound the same. I did not have a good time listening to this, but I didn't *hate* it.
The Cars
2/5
Forgettable 80's-sounding synthy pop-rock.
Ramones
3/5
All these songs sound the same, but I like the way they sound. An entire album is a bit much, though, needs some variety.
Burning Spear
2/5
Sounds like reggae to me. A couple of more interesting songs after the mid-way point, but overall this was just an OK listening experience.
Jimmy Smith
3/5
Laid-back jazz with prominent Hammond organ, pleasant.
Willie Nelson
2/5
Not the country music I was expecting from Willie Nelson, but this was pleasant enough easy-listening gentle crooning, although it is hard to imagine putting this on and actively listening to it.
Dion
1/5
An hour-and-twenty-minute endurance test of terrible saccharine 70s singing, sappy instrumentation. Hated this from the first song (Born to Be with You, a totally unnecessary seven minutes long) and each track was worse than the last. Painful, awful. I have said to myself that I am going to listen to every album on this list fully, but when I saw that one of the top-rated reviews for this album said that only the first 8 tracks were actually on Born To Be With You I grabbed it with both hands. Thank you, that reviewer.
Neil Young
3/5
My favourite Neil Young on this list so far. A bigger sound, not just a band, sounds orchestral. I still find his whiny voice to be the worst part of his music. Still a good listen. Favourite track: A Man Needs a Maid.
The Prodigy
3/5
It might be just that I was listening to this after a Dion album, but I quite enjoyed this, nodding along to a few of the tunes. It has a bit of that plasticky feel of 90s music, but it's fine, moderately enjoyable. The last 2 tracks, Skylined and Claustrophobic Sting, have more of the sound that I think of as Prodigy.
R.E.M.
2/5
This is so boring I can barely form an opinion on it. If I was a film editor, I would lazily use literally any of these tracks as 30-second clip to ease transitions of a travel montage showing a protagonist driving to a new city in a low-budget romcom or buddy comedy movie.
The Verve
2/5
I thought this album had been going on longer than I expected, and I looked just to find that I was listening to the start of the second track. The average length of track on this is about five and a half minutes, just way too long for a bunch of songs that all sound the same, this album does not deserve to take up more than an hour of my time.
The Verve are already on this list with Urban Hymns, which included Bittersweet Symphony, the only song I have ever heard from them otherwise. Are they really a band that was so good or influentual that they needed two entries? I know the editors of this list have an impossible task to please everyone, but this is one of the albums where you really wonder what the hell they were thinking.
Dusty Springfield
2/5
Another album for the "Did this artist deserve to be on this list twice?" pile. Anyway, the music is fine, about what I was expecting, and basically the same as A Girl Called Dusty.
The Byrds
4/5
This sounds like a band trying to be the Beatles, early Pink Floyd, the Beach Boys, the Monkees, and the Rolling Stones all at once, like a garage band who had heard all these bands and were trying to copy them with less equipment. Some love ballads, some trippy psychadelic stuff, some weird sound effect mixing. Initially none of it was especially good to my ear, but the soft and gentle nature of it got to me, it grew on me more and more. I guess not every band is going to be big, but this was nice to hear, a hidden gem for me. Moog Raga I loved.
The Monkees
2/5
This album does not deserve to be on the list. Zilch was the only track that provided a moment of interest, then rest sound like what they are: Forgotten tracks from the Monkees' back catalogue. One for the bargain bin.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
2/5
Interesting story behind the production of this, but otherwise this sounds like what it is, the transition from the Woodstock era to the rock of the 70s. It's all fine but not special for me, although looking at various comments it clearly means a lot to some people and it's one of those albums that encapsulates an era.
Country Girl is the stand-out tune for me, it builds up and goes somewhere while most of the rest of the tracks stay pretty level musically.
Destiny's Child
1/5
I guess this is on the list as representative of the era and for being Beyoncé's origin, but it's manufactured pop and boring. The end of Sexy Daddy had some orchestral instruments, which caught my attention, and the same for Independent Woman Part 2 which had cartoon sound effects and instruments, which were fun and interesting. However, although this was a bit of a nostalgia trip for me, there was a reason I haven't heard or sought out these songs for 20 years or more. I didn't like this music at the time and I don't like it now. "Gospel Medley" arrived like a wrecking ball, dropping hardcore Christian praise songs in an otherwise pretty secular album, cementing the fact that this was an American group. Mad. Then the final Outro dropped it another star, hated it.
The The
2/5
Apart from knowing that they were notoriously difficult to Google, I knew nothing about The The before hearing this. I thought they were a 2000s indie band, but actually I hear 80s-sounding drum machines, very crisp and clear. Vocals sound like other 80s bands, reliance on synthesizers, even the real (?) piano sounded bland and plasticky. Still I found some moments and lyrics here to enjoy, but it's not a winner for me.
David Bowie
2/5
Another Bowie album, I think this is the fourth I have heard so far. I understand that a lot of people love him and his work, but I'm starting to resent being presented with album after album from him. Are they really all that different, that influential, that representative of their eras? I see that this is his twenty-fifth album (!), so I suppose I am being spared some of them, but I still think he is overrepresented.
The Next Day is a strong opener, a fun tune and evocative lyrics, very Nick Cave.
If You Can See Me was the next track to catch my attention, but for the wrong reasons, sadly - all the percussion sounded really dissonant, and the vocals don't seem to match the time signature, and the (deliberate I'm sure) effects on the vocals are unpleasant to hear. A tough listen.
All the rest of the tracks sound pretty much like I expect from latter-day Bowie. They are fine, but they just washed over me.
Also, I rarely comment on album art, but this might be the worst so far, it's certainly the laziest. It literally looks like something I would knock up in 60 seconds in Microsoft Paint.
Bobby Womack
2/5
Soul and funk, overwrought vocals. Not unpleasant but not memorable.
Dire Straits
2/5
The opening of Money For Nothing is cool, and Walk of Life is jazzy, but I don't like this, and all the tracks are much too long, they could all be tightened up by losing half their lengths.
I was going to give this two stars, but it really wore me down. Awful.
Beastie Boys
3/5
I tried hard to like this, I really did. Paul's Boutique is my absolute favourite new discovery from this list, and Licensed to Ill is a great album. I gave this several listens and liked it less each time. It's just not as fun as the other albums to me, with a weird mish-mash of styles. It sounds like they are trying too hard to experiment at the cost of enjoyment and listenabilty. There are a lot of jazz and funk samples in this and it sounds like they are trying to copy the style of De La Soul, Jurassic 5, etc., and failing. There are too many instrumental tracks. Even one is too much, I cannot get behind putting more than that on a rap album. Tough Guy is clearly a punk song - was this them getting back to their roots? Overall, for me it's too noisy and unclear, too many vocal effects, I don't like the backing tracks... It's just not for me,
Sabotage is still great though. Three stars because I still liked parts of it, but in comparison to Paul's Boutique that's all I can offer.
Steve Winwood
2/5
For some reason I was expecting jazz from the album name and cover art, but the gentle, electronic synth, like an orchestral Kraftwerk or something which opened this album was a lovely surprise, transitioning into a fun, upbeat head-nodding tune, was great. Then, one minute into the album, the vocals began and I lost all enjoyment. I will be forever grateful that this style of singing has dropped out of fashion.
Rufus Wainwright
1/5
Very strong opening with Agnus Dei, reminded me of Popol Vuh.
However the second track The One You Love went downhill immediately. His singing strongly reminds me of Thom Yorke, sounding like some kind of acoustic Radiohead, with his weird mumbly vocals, and the vocals on The Art Teacher I especially ssssssfffff hated because of the ssssssffff way he would suck in ssssssffffff breaths between his sssssssffffff teeth throughout.
In a word, pretentious. In two words, pretentious and insufferable. In three words, pretentious, insufferable and overlong.
Björk
2/5
First 2 tracks are mostly a capella, Björk alone singing in her slightly strange way. Third track starts the same way before we get her brand of weird backing music.
I like that Vokuro and other tracks are in Icelandic.
This wasn't good, but it was different and unusual, which are things I appreciate a lot from albums on this list.
James Brown
2/5
I enjoyed this fine, but not a tenth as much as the audience apparently did. It's James Brown, I got what I expected.
Throbbing Gristle
1/5
I came into this really prepared to like it as I often have with the worst-rated albums from the list, but yeah, nah, this sucks. With the name of the band, I was expecting something offensive and harsh, but this is just plain boring.
In a quite literal sense, the first few tracks are not music. The tracks are just a bunch of noises and recordings. No rhythm, no tone, no vocals created for the track.
The title track is ok, even enjoyable, like an industrial-lite Krautrock?
Weeping was mumbled, spoken word vocals over droning backing and intermittent strumming. Not bad, but not fun to hear.
Hamburger lady much the same, but in some of the harsher noises I hear something like a much less fun Butthole Surfers.
The outro We Hate You Little Girls is all that is wrong with this album - not music, not beautiful, trying very hard to provoke but eliciting only a sense of profound boredom. It has the sensibility of a university student performance art piece and about as much style, skill and meaning. The experience of listening to the whole album is like being trapped at a show you hate but can't leave until it's over.
The majority is right in this case, it's a very bad album, although it was more interesting than another Dire Straits entry. A valuable though unenjoyable listen.
Just out of curiosity, I listened to another Throbbing Gristle album immediately after, 20 Jazz Funk Greats. It's much more listenable and enjoyable while still retaining the same sound.
Beach House
2/5
Dream pop is right, I felt myself dozing off while listening to this. It's not bad, just quite disposable and very like a hundred other similar bands. Although I like the return to simple production in bands we are seeing now, this particular one didn't do much for me.
Michael Jackson
2/5
Cheesy pop. Another album that I don't really like although I also don't mind it, and another of those albums which is so popular and ubiquitous that listening to it in one sitting is almost a formality, my opinion was already mostly formed before I pressed play.
Leonard Cohen
1/5
This is basically spoken-work poetry set to Cohen strumming his guitar, so musically it is not very interesting at all. So how are the words? I have always found Cohen's lyrics to be so stacked with obscure references and metaphors to the point of incomprehensibility. I was looking up the lyrics of The Stranger Song as a good example of this, but I stumbled across a website which presented the lyrics as paragraphs, and it really reinforced that they are basically fables and parables covered by layers and layers imagery presented as songs. Some people might like that, but I don't, I am left with having to analyse the words against my own will. I think there is a strong element of the emperor having no clothes here, or maybe these lyrics are so hard to understand they are acting as a kind of Rorschach test and people are projecting their own meanings and feelings onto them.
One star feels a bit mean for this but honestly I didn't like the lyrics at all and the music is such a nothing that there's nothing else left to like. And this album's goodbye was the deliberately bad "arrghh-lah-larrhh" singing (?) - what a strange and unfortunate choice to leave me with a bad taste in my ears.
Meat Puppets
3/5
Sloppy but fun songs and tunes, I dug it. Really refreshing after all these big, self-important albums to have something so small-scale and garage band-y, but still sounding great.
Tim Buckley
2/5
Slightly psychadelic lounge singing, but at times a bit too much in the club style a la Vic Reeves. Don't have much to say about this one.
Jethro Tull
2/5
Self-indulgent prog garbage, although the second half is better than the first. The version of this album I listened to had a clearer recording of Wind Up at the end, which I appreciated because it let me confirm that I hadn't missed much from my half-hearted listen of the first version.
Kanye West
3/5
I put off listening to this because I thought it was going to be incredibly dense, and I was right. Lyrics, instrumentation, production, spoken word, interludes, samples, remixes, there's a hell of a lot to digest and I don't think I have. This needs a really active listen to get your head around it. It's certainly a masterpiece, although it is also misogynistic at times and has some fairly unpleasant thoughts expressed in it. (A lot of others are reviewing Kanye more than this album, but here I mean only the content of the songs.) It also has a lot of sounds and tunes in it that I find very fresh and exciting.
So I think this is very good, but low on the enjoyment scale for that. Needs a re-listen or two or three.
The Slits
2/5
Much less punk and more ska than I was expecting. I know the genres are related, but even so.
I find the vocalist's style annoying, most so in Ping Pong Affair, where the backing music sounds deliberately arrhythmic, even a bit like The Shaggs. I note that even their Spotify biography says that they began with "little, if any, musical ability". Hmm. Maybe we could have picked a later album from their discography to enjoy? But maybe this debut was the more significant. As ever, editing this list is an impossible and thankless task.
I had heard their cover of I Heard It Through the Grapevine before, and I didn't really like it, the original is so good. But on a re-listen, it's actually the vocals I dislike, the opening arrangement with a 80's / 90's dance-sounding drum line, and some very nice deep humming replacing the brass backing. But again, the irritating vocals get to me.
Massive Attack
2/5
Not a fan of trip-hop. Very of its era, and now sounds really dated to me.
One Love had interesting Chinese (?) zither on it, and an exciting synth-tuba in the background, but it wasn't developed at all, it's a great sound and it's like they didn't have any idea what to do with it. It sounds like Anna Meredith heard that and then built the whole of Nautilus on top of it. After those few interesting moments, it's straight back to boring percussion loops with synth jazz keyboards and hushed-voice tapping.
Five Man Army has a cool, insistent, steady rap from the first rapper, then Tricky comes in, sounding like an American doing an impression of a Cockney rapping, somehow his voice sounds like he's doing a fake accent. Another track with an interesting sound which never makes it out of the background, a sonorous, reverberating twang which realises it's not welcome on this toneless album and quickly excuses itself.
a-ha
2/5
Nice to hear Take On Me in good clarity, I have never listened to it with headphones, and it's much nicer and cleaner than I had ever appreciated.
Take On Me I had heard a hundred times, though. So how about the rest of these songs?
Hunting High and Low has a totally unexpected orchestral climax, like some terrible symphonic metal album. As cheesy here as it is there.
I liked the loud and overblown The Sun Always Shines on TV.
All the rest were the cheesy, synthy 80's pop I was expecting.
Not a bad album, but not one for the re-listen pile.
The Crusaders
1/5
I cannot believe that Street Life, whose refrain I have heard before, is more than 11 minutes long. That's a quarter of the whole album, and I think it could have done all it needed to in 3 minutes. However, the rest of the album is so bad that it feels like they had no other choice. They knew this was the one good (or better) track, and the rest feels like filler, honest-to-goodness filler, wasting time to hit the minimum length to release an album.
Each smooth-jazz track toddles about for a bit, then goes away. It's very, very bland to the extent that I was gritting my teeth to get through this. Other listeners comparisons to phone queue on-hold or elevator muzak are very apt. Who listens to this for pleasure in their own time?
Mott The Hoople
3/5
From the band's name I was expecting some kind of terrible stoner rock (I kind of always do when I read their name, for some reason), but this was some pretty nice classic rock, some tinges of glam rock there, like T-Rex.
Maybe 3 stars is a little generous for this, but I have just listened to a Crusaders album and this is a real breath of fresh air.
A Tribe Called Quest
3/5
Chill beats, laid-back rhymes. A bit pretentious for my liking (why does Description of a Fool have half its runtime as the outro?) and like most hip-hop on this list, too dense to really get a handle on on first listen. Some great samples, though.
Dagmar Krause
2/5
Mmm, yes, yes, yes! An art album of songs by the composer of the East German national anthem, translated into English and sung by a close collaborator of Berthold Brecht!? Yes please, THIS is the kind of album I signed up to listen to, not some forgotten English 70s prog rockers or Coldplay.
Anyway, how's the album? Very much like the experience of a Brecht play, something you sit down and observe more than enjoy, portentously sung and darkly scored, with echoing bass and clanking percussion. It feels like edifying fare, for young Communists or Free German Youths to be taken to see as a special treat on Republic Day or May Day.
Or like I heard once, German literature is like German bread: it's heavy and difficult to digest but good for you.
Absolutely mental, left-field choice and I love it for that even though I didn't love the music itself.
Merle Haggard
3/5
Classic archetypal foot-tapping hummable American country, enjoyed this a lot.
Cream
4/5
Absolutely classic psychadelic rock. Tempting to give this 3 stars as I hate Mother's Lament, but this is otherwise superb, and I always like to see a band not taking themselves too seriously, especially when they know they are good.
The Fall
1/5
Another album I have never heard of, and a band I have only ever heard the name of, I think. Surprised that this is from 1985, I thought they were a 2000's or later band. On listening, I see I have already heard Live at the Witch Trials, which I did not like. For this, I found it unobjectionable until Paintwork, at which point something snapped and the repetitive tunes went from being just boring to hard to tolerate, dropping it to one star. Mumbly, muted, tedious. Too many songs, most of them too long.
Kendrick Lamar
2/5
God, this album is hard work. It's very dense and obviously has a lot to say, and doesn't care how long it takes to say it. It's an hour and 20 minutes long. That's too long. That's two albums long. The "interludes" on this are longer than other artists' regular tracks. And look, here's something I pulled off Wikipedia about These Walls: "pondering sex and existence in equal measure; it's a yoni metaphor about the power of peace, with sugar walls being escape and real walls being obstacles." OK, cool, but that's a pretty heavy metaphor, right?
What I'm saying is, I am sure this album is good, even great, I can hear that it's a tour de force. But also I did not enjoy it on an emotional level at all.
Killing Joke
2/5
Noisy, slightly punky. Fine, I let it wash over me although the riff of the opening Requiem was a strong start. Not going to re-listen to this, though.
Method Man
3/5
I initially thought this was just a Wu-Tang spin-off, fine and as expected. Not my style of rap or hip hop, but I liked and appreciated the number and variety of references in the lyrics: The Shadow, poetry, other songs. All nice, clever, there was more going on than first met my ears.
Television
3/5
I had listened to this once before as it was mentioned as an important album, and I remember being thoroughly unimpressed, even disliking it (when it came up, I realised this was for the track Marquee Moon itself). On this relisten for this project it doesn't seem nearly so bad, which I think is a reflection of how I don't really enjoy most things I hear. (And I liked Marquee Moon more than previously, the guitar sounding very Fairport Convention in the second half of the track.) This sounds fine, even pretty good. A bit punky, a bit rock and roll, even a bit Britpop, remarkable for a band from New York who released this in 1977. I do find the singer's voice quite annoying, but the instrumentation is great. A mixed bag, but I'm glad I gave it another go.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
1/5
I was going to call this unlistenable garbage, but apparently it's very complex musically? It's just plain unlistenable, then. I signed up to this project to broaden my horizons and they ain't getting much broader than this, but I still didn't enjoy it. I understand and appreciate that this wasn't released to be enjoyed per se, but this is definitely not for me although it deserves its place on the list.
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
Another album of cool, laid-back, effortless rhyming from Quest, enjoyed it a lot.
Love the bass backing in Buggin' Out, loved What? generally.
Shout out to the reviewer who gave a 2 star review and said "it is impossible to follow the lyrics unless you pay attention all the time" for having just the worst possible take on hip hop, congratulations.
Tricky
2/5
I have never heard of this artist or album. From the album art and track titles, I expect some kind of grunge or metal, maybe something like an off-brand Smashing Pumpkins.
Oh no, it's some kind of breathy trip-hop. Ugh. Also reading other reviews I twigged that I had heard of Tricky before, as part of Massive Attack on Blue Lines, which I also didn't like, and that I had heard Black Steel before.
I liked another reviewer who said: "The question is: Is trip-hop chilled or actually just boring?" Quite so. Nothing happens in any of these tracks.
Sounds like it would be perfect to listen to in a sweaty basement club in the mid-90s while high, but for me this is one for the dustbin, and one for the "never listen again" pile also.
Two stars, and that's a generous two stars.
Sister Sledge
3/5
Basically perfect disco. Upbeat and clean. Nice.
Madonna
3/5
The title track is one of those that I have heard all my life without knowing what it was or who it was by, an it and other tracks sound a lot clubbier than I was expecting. However, I'm not really sure what I was expecting. For all her fame, I don't think I could name more than one or two Madonna songs.
Don't Tell Me is some typical but high-quality early 2000s pop.
I kind of hate to admit it, but there's a lot of enjoyable tunes on this album and some interesting, unusual and even brave sounds and lyrics.
Laibach
4/5
Probably quite hard to like if you're too much of a philistine to handle lyrics in a language you don't speak. There is no way that this is otherwise as challenging as Locust Abortion Technician by Butthole Surfers, which shares the same ranking. There's some arty stuff, but generally it's all very listenable, which I guess is deliberate if they're trying to evoke nationalist military music. Geburt Einer Nation is simply incredible, I love the transformation of Queen's camp celebration into a fascist rally anthem. After listening to the opening track I didn't expect to be crying with laughter by the end, but this album is a huge joke, and it's very very funny if you get it.
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
I always found their vocals limp and weak, something that really stood out when listening to their cover of Bye Bye Love, which I thought was really insipid. But this is a good album, I think I can finally hear some of what makes them so appealing and beloved by so many. There is stuff in here that reminds me of The Beatles, and some foot-tappers like Cecilia and Baby Driver, and then the sentimental The Boxer and The Only Living Boy in New York.
The Specials
3/5
The sine qua non of ska. Very catchy, annoyingly so.
Earth, Wind & Fire
2/5
Pretty funky but didn't do too much for me. Long songs, too.
Orbital
3/5
From the opening tracks, I was prepared to hate this. I have said to myself that I am going to listen to all of every track on every album from this list, but this was one of the albums where I found my muscle memory frequently trying to skip a track once I was halfway through it for the first few. I am glad I persevered, though, because Philosphy By Numbers and Kein Trink Wasser, I liked, and then Are We Here was also decent, I enjoy when electronic artists splice up and recontextualise existing voice recordings. Finally, the album ends with the strong and calming Attached.
I hate the album title, though.
Elton John
2/5
A real slog. Listened to one or two tracks at a time. I don't have anything to say apart from that this doesn't do it for me, and I don't feel particularly sad about that.
Antony and the Johnsons
2/5
I rolled my eyes as soon as I recognised the opening of the first track Hope There's Someone, a mawkish and sentimental dirge which has been far too overexposed, although that's hardly the fault of the artist. Overall I found the string instumentation and warbling singing unengaging, but not actually bad. Also, at a merciful 35 minutes, this did not outstay its welcome.
The Zutons
2/5
I will be honest, I came to this ready to slate it. And I was right to.
I have just come off listening to Elton John's Madman Across the Water and the Zutons are comparatively a baffling inclusion on this list. I remember this album being released and being certain that they would sink without trace. Certainly they deserve to. As it is, they are not quite the indie soft rock I was expecting, a couple of interesting instruments, like the mouth harp and saxophone, and You Will You Won't was a bit of an earworm. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this, but overall it's the very example of forgettable and a dud choice for the list, although I will concede that it's a very good example of the landfill indie which was so popular in the early 2000s.
Arcade Fire
3/5
Another Arcade Fire album? Don't get me wrong, I think they're a good band, but definitely overrepresented on this list and these songs are reaching the point where they're all beginning to sound the same. Case in point is Empty Room: it sounds good but it just reminds me of other, earlier Arcade Fire songs. Giving this three stars although I'm a bit bored of Arcade Fire now, because I know if I had got this earlier in the list I would have been more interested.
Peter Frampton
2/5
I don't really like the music itself, and the record is way too long, but the atmosphere on this live album is great, the audience is clearly loving it. This album is a portal back to the good old days that everyone talks about and the halcyon days of youth. I wasn't even alive then sand and it makes me feel nostalgic.
At the very worst, you could call the musicianship here competent, but it's usually excellent jamming. He absolutely murders Jumpin Jack Flash, though.
Madness
2/5
The opening title track's lyrics are undercut by the jolly ska instrumentation, which is a general direction of the album. Didn't love it, didn't hate it.
Lupe Fiasco
2/5
I held off on listening to this for a long time because I thought it was going to require concentration like a lot of hip hop with dense lyrics, but to me this all seems pretty basic.
The Instrumental is some real teenage makes-you-think drudgery with some especially straightforward beats. He Say She Say all seems to be surface level. I really didn't like Daydreamin' to begin with, the lazy sampling of an old track gave it the feeling of trip hop, but the verses pulled it back. The Cool reminds me of a musical interlude from a scare-them-straight, stay-in-school educational video schools make you watch in your early teens.
I think my issue with this and other "socially-conscious" rap is that the identity and aim of the music is negative, an overt attempt to reject and be the opposite of mainstream rap, instead of just being different by being free and making its own path, which would lead to more possibilities in the music. By trying to oppose mainstream rap, this is still tied to it.
Fela Kuti
2/5
I had heard Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense before. This is a bit different, more jazz. I don't really like jazz, though. It had its moments, but it's not for me.
Cypress Hill
3/5
I've never been very interested in Cypress Hill before, I associated them with the whine-ting backing track sound that I hate, but these tracks are pretty varied in sound, mixed out of older tracks. (40s and 50s? Interesting.) Lyrics are also good, clear, good rhymes, everything in looking for. Enjoyed this.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
Just the biggest load of nothing I can remember hearing. Fuzzy recordings of what sounds like a garage band, inaudible lyrics, no tunes or sometimes even rhythms to speak of. There's nothing to get a grip on, it's like trying to grab fog. At times maybe it's noise rock, but it mostly sounds like literally nothing is happening, but loudly - typical shoegaze.
Would have been one star as this was defying my attention totally, but the last couple of tracks actually had some beat and tune to them, adding an extra star.
Barry Adamson
3/5
I kind of liked this. A concept album with an interesting concept (a soundtrack for a film that does not exist), but I don't think I would ever listen to it again for pleasure and it's hard to imagine who would.
Coldplay
2/5
A whole album of tedious songs about how the singer longs for the object of his affection, half-pronouncing every word while strumming his guitar. This is the kind of guy I would hate to have at any party I hosted, and this music literally put me almost to sleep, although the final (non-hidden) track Everything's Not Lost was a bit livelier and had some structure and build to it, just tipping this over to two stars.
Neu!
3/5
Mostly nice, meditative Krautrock. Liked Neu anyway, liked this album. Very clean drumming. Leb' Wohl reminded me a bit of Popol Vuh, but Heroes was sloppy post-punk, a real departure from the type of music I know them for. E Musik brought it back for me, especially the drumming again. Finally After Eight was again disappointing. Overall good, but not my favourite from Neu.
Curtis Mayfield
2/5
Pretty funky, enjoyed it fine, but the only moment I really paid attention was when I recognised the opening of Superfly as the sample used in Egg Man by the Beastie Boys.
Primal Scream
2/5
Another big load of nothing album. I can't remember a single tune. I think at one point I recognised a sample from early Pink Floyd, but I could have just been imagining it. I have no idea what this was and I have no interest in finding out. My main impression was that it was much too long.
The Mothers Of Invention
1/5
Frank Zappa the early years. Pretty much what I would expect from this, but some moments of fun like the parodical Go Cry On Someone Else's Shoulder and the tracks that followed it. On the other hand, I mostly found the tracks ugly and annoying, It Can't Happen Here most of all.
Some have accused them of trying to hard to provoke, which maybe they are. Taking a kinder view, they might genuinely have wanted to make the weirdest sounds that they could, but for whatever reason that they made them, I don't want to listen. Did not enjoy this.
Country Joe & The Fish
2/5
First track Bass Strings was uninteresting Doors-esque psychedelia, the whispered "LSD..." at the end was almost comedic. Yeah, I got that was what the track was about already, thanks.
Second track Sad and Lonely Times was a jaunty country pop song, strange tonal shift.
Then the third track is back to nursery rhyme psychedelia.
Fourth track Grace is maybe very slightly heavy metal, with its chanted, heavy lyrics.
So is this varied or unfocused? It's all over the place, to be honest. What does this band want to be? I suppose they can do whatever they want, but it's a bit of a jarring listening experience.
Some of the albums on this list are forgotten, some are forgettable, this is both. When I hear albums like this I think that it's interesting to hear something from this time and genre, but as for personal enjoyment, it's not all that.
System Of A Down
1/5
Exactly as puerile and unsophisticated as the title of the opening track Suite Pee suggests. One of the few albums that's so devoid of merit and variation that I considered giving up on it only 2 tracks in.
Gillian Welch
2/5
This is one of those albums which reminds me just how US- and UK-biased this list is. It's really hard to imagine a non-American caring about this album and its tedious country stylings at all. If this album had not been part of this project, I would have instantly skipped it, and lyrics like "when the Great Emanicpator took a bullet in the back" and "I want to shake my Saviour's hand" are just so ultra-American.
I might have heard My First Lover before, it sounds familiar, and I can also recognise / appreciate the folk influence on the lyrics and the country influence on the banjo. On the other hand, what business does the final track I Dream A Highway have being nearly FIFTEEN minutes long?!
Maxwell
1/5
I hated the singing the moment I first heard the vocals on Welcome, sappy, breathy and soft. Things went from bad to worse with the sickening third track Sumthin' Sumthin', and the groove of the bass guitar did not thrill me, but this was the first track where I could hear the soul influences, so that was nice, letting me see a bridge between soul and more modern R&B, but I don't think I'm ever going to like the modern genre.
Someof the other user reviews for this album are gold. I agree that this is a smooth album, so smooth it's basically featureless.
Cyndi Lauper
2/5
Manufactured 80's pop, doesn't feel like it really has any soul to it. Great cover, though.
The Byrds
2/5
I Like The Christian Life is way too Christian for me and overall the whole album is just too regressive, it feels like being trapped at a hoedown in a barn where you're worried the locals will lynch you if you leave. I've seen a few people suggest that this album is tongue in cheek or ironic, but it's still too easy to interpret straight. No thanks.
Nick Drake
4/5
Deeply intimate, personal, shy, small-scale. Really liked this, as I thought I would based on my previous experience with Nick Drake. I just like the guitar tunes, simple as they are. This is almost the opposite of Pink Floyd's The Wall, which is next on my list, both thematically, musically and in presentation and production, and I know which I prefer.
The Everly Brothers
2/5
Gee, Betty, I sure hope you'll be my date to the sock hop on Saturday!
Hearing this it's suddenly clear why rock and roll and the Beatles were such a revelation. It's hard to believe this was recorded as late as 1960.
Peter Tosh
2/5
I didn't really enjoy this, reggae isn't for me, but I didn't dislike it, and it's very refreshing to hear something like this from the list, certainly it's better than another album from a bunch of white men from the USA or the UK.
Pink Floyd
1/5
It might be heartfelt and coming from genuine emotions, but still this really is a load of overproduced, pretentious wank, and I continue to find Gilmour's voice reedy and annoying.
Some songs, like Vera and Bring the Boys Back Home are impressionistic, rather than explicit songs. Without the "plot" section on Wikipedia to explain their presence, I would find them even more confusing to understand than I do. What is also interesting is seeing how many people Gilmour "fell out with" during the production of this album according to Wikipedia. It makes me think that he might be the common factor after all.
The instrumental closing on Comfortably Numb is the first part of the album I enjoyed even a bit, and then Run Like Hell suddenly had a really 80's poppy sound, not expecting that at all.
Bring back Barrett.
1/5
Before even listening, this might have the ugliest cover art and least professional lettering of any album so far. The album title (and artist name) are both also disgusting, but if this has a sense of fun and not taking itself seriously I might forgive it.
Having listened, no it doesn't. Mostly this comes across as whiny and complaining, trying to ape Rage Against The Machine and not really understanding it.
Intro sounds frankly unfinished, like every part of it is a placeholder.
Hot Dog, the chorus is kind of fun, but then the Nine Inch Nails references are just bizarre?
The rest of this just kind of washed over me, but I couldn't find anything of merit in it. I hope Method Man is embarrassed by his involvement.
I still think this deserves its place on the list to provide context and background for other albums, although it is almost worthless as art in itself.
Looking at this on Wikipedia, The Daily Telegraph gave this five stars. What!?
Barry Adamson
2/5
Something Wicked This Way Comes was instantly recognisable as a bedding track used constantly in the late 90's, one of those tracks which comes on and you think "this is the reason this album was included on the list". But I've just realised that this is the second album by Barry Adamson on this list after Moss Side Story! Is this man really so influential or great to deserve this honour? As I see from Wikipedia that this album was also conceived as "as a soundtrack to an imaginary film" like Moss Side Story, could the choice really not have been narrowed down?
Overall, I slightly prefer Moss Side Story over this. The best track I heard was actually Mr. Eddy's Theme from Lost Highway which autoplayed after this before I realised.
Dolly Parton
3/5
I enjoyed Dolly's wholesome, sweet songs, especially Wildflowers. The other singers I did not care for.
Eric Clapton
3/5
Loved the guitar of the opening Motherless Children, the rest was kind of bland for me. Instrumentation much better than the singing, as expected.
Weather Report
1/5
Upbeat, synthy, cheesy music that deserves nothing better than being used as background tracks to 1980s corporate training videos. Sickening, for me this was genuinely one of the hardest albums to get through.
Shivkumar Sharma
3/5
Very pleasant, but it never really transcends the level of pleasant. I'm reminded a lot of the sound of balalaikas and so Eastern European music, an unexpected connection.
I am very grateful for this entry on the list, I think it might be the first Indian entry I have heard in 426 albums which is truly shocking, proof that this list is way too focused on US and UK artists. And this does feel like a quota entry, "Ah, shit, we really should include one Indian album". I also feel that The Beatles and The Byrds being influenced by this album was probably what got it on the list, instead of the authors being impressed by its intrinsic merits.
Cat Stevens
2/5
Another album I have no expectations for. From the cover art, maybe something about childhood?
Oh, it's another crusty singer-songwriter from the 70s. As I read in another review, I look forward to the older generation of editors to die so we can reappraise a lot of these albums as simply boring and not very good.
Father and Son was pretty good, I can understand why people like it.
AC/DC
3/5
It's absolute trash, but I'm ashamed to say I quite enjoyed it, it's easy to listen to, although all the songs sound more or less identical. There's also more than a bit of Spinal Tap in this (or vice-versa), but I do actually like the music of Spinal Tap as well.
Nick Drake
3/5
This is the third Nick Drake album on this list (I hope) after Bryter Later and Pink Moon, and for me the least good. I like Nick Drake, I like him a lot, but with the best will in the world he doesn't need to be on this list three times. All these albums are, basically, the same, even if individually the songs are all very good, which they are. Make some room, editors, jeez.
Happy Mondays
1/5
I know, I know that curating any list of albums that are the best, most significant, or popular is always going to be an impossible task. But seriously, THIS album? How can its inclusion be justified? It's not that popular, or good, or influential, is it? The band has a separate maraca player, for God's sake. This is perhaps the most glaring example of the curators' Britpop-philia so far. And to top it off, I didn't enjoy this at all. Flat, tuneless, lyrics that are nearly meaningless.
Mike Ladd
2/5
Expectation: Electronica or trip-hop.
Reality: Hip-hop-electronic-jazz fusion. Too weird and experimental for me. Maybe I'm getting old, but this seems like music is evolving past its definition, experimentation becoming the mainstream, being pushed further and further until it's totally incomprehensible, complication for its own sake. All that to say, the main thing I felt when listening to this was extreme irritation. The final track, Feb 4 99, basically a spoken word poem was the best and simplest thing on the album and added an extra star by itself.
Simply Red
1/5
A band I have always heard of, but never (?) heard. The refrain "I'll keep holding on" from Holding Back the Years was the only part I recognised, and I have never liked it. I don't think I've been missing anything much else based on this album. Soft synthy love songs, trite and VERY uninteresting, my least favourite.
Ryan Adams
1/5
Tedious country rock pop ballads which grew less and less interesting the longer it went on. Ryan Adams has come up on this list before, but the only thing that I remembered about him was that he once threw an audience member out of one of his concerts for shouting to him to play Summer of 69 by Bryan Adams. Does this guy really need to be in this list twice? No.
Animal Collective
4/5
Not an entirely original observation, but this does remind me of a much trippier, more evolved Beach Boys. The close, barbershop harmonies especially. Initially, I only liked it, without really loving it, but the album weas just off to a slow start. Then the tracks that I liked a lot; the amazing Summertime Clothes, the boioioioing of Lion in a Coma, and how Brother Sport snuck up on me.
Honestly everyone describing this as noise, or repetitive, or confused, just get a grip. (Also the repetition? I mean, that's a key element in music, especially electronic and classical music.) This list isn't going to be all guitars and choruses in 4:4 time, jeez. I mean, I hated Throbbing Gristle, but I appreciated it being on the list. I hated Limp Bizkit, but they were representative of an era. Waahh, waahh, it's not some dad rock from the 70s. Suck it up and expand your horizons when you're listening to this list.
Kraftwerk
4/5
Yes, good. A couple of dud tracks or moments (Kometenmelodie Part 1) but a lot of really great stuff in here. The title track is a tour de force, and the closing Morgenspaziergang is great peaceful Krautrock and scratches my Popol Vuh itch. Wonderful stuff.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
3/5
I feel like I have to give this three stars as although I didn't love it, there were moments that got my attention: the military drumming in Maid of Orleans, the whole of Joan of Arc, the Kraftwerk-y Sacred Heart. This raises it above its later synthpop imitators for me, none of which I have enjoyed at all, I think. Overall though I still generally find synth-based music is anodyne and lacks emotion, so I can't really connect to it or through it.
George Michael
1/5
Schmaltzy, synthy, 80s pop ballads, the kind of thing I hate. Although it doesn't come across to me in the presentation at all, apparently these songs are all heartfelt and personal, and not the musical Barnum statements which they seem to be.
Johnny Cash
3/5
The very first album I started this project with was Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison. Before even beginning At San Quentin I have this to say: I know that some artists are more influential than others. Better than others. I know that some artists have careers which span styles and decades. But also there are a limited number of entries on this list. With this in mind, do we REALLY need two albums of live Johnny Cash concerts recorded at prisons in the last 2 years of the 1960s? Are these albums SO different, SO influential, SO good that their inclusion is absolutely necessary? I think from my tone you can probably tell what my opinion before starting to listen is, but to give it a fair shout I am going to listen to both, back-to-back. I only gave At Folsom Prison a rating, no written review, so here is my second chance.
Right, so, San Quentin is the better album, in my opinion, with more of Cash's famous songs and a better sound. Folsom Prison came earlier so I guess they made improvements. But these albums are very, very similar, I can't believe that both are must-haves. Cut Folsom Prison, guys, put in another Cash album if you have to, but we don't need both.
A few observations about San Quentin: Did we need the song San Quentin twice? I get why he did it twice live, but for inclusion on this list it does seem like a waste of precious listening time getting your audience to hear it again in case they missed something the first time. Also Wanted Man was a genuinely interesting choice, a Dylan / Cash collaboration I never knew existed, and it was a fun song too, liked it a lot.
Better than At Folsom Prison, but I can't find it in my heart to give it a whole extra star.
Kate Bush
2/5
Frankly bizarre. I've never been much of a fan of Kate Bush, although I know some people love her. But I really don't understand why this album was included as well as Hounds of Love. Some of the choices on here are just weird. The mockney There Goes a Tenner, the pseudo-Australian The Dreaming, some of the "singing" in Houdini. Suspended in Gaffa had moments of familiarity, although whether it's because I've heard it before or because it just sounds like Hounds of Love I can't be bothered to find out.
I suppose I owe this more than a star because I've praised other albums which stretch boundaries and this is certainly not like many other albums on the list, so an extra star for originality.
Joan Armatrading
2/5
I'd only recently heard of Joan Armatrading through her song I'm Lucky, which I liked a lot, so I'm a little disappointed by this album which is absolutely fine but nothing for me to write home about. Out of interest I listened to Walk Under Ladders (featuring I'm Lucky) and I did prefer it to this, so I might explore more Joan Armatrading in future.
Paul Simon
1/5
Another bland Paul Simon offering. None of these tracks have a single memorable tune or beat. Looking back I can vaguely remember individual parts, like the pan pipes in Duncan, but overall it's a big boring wash, except for Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, which just sounds like 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. Simon and Garfunkel can both jog on as far as I'm concerned, but I fear that as I'm only halfway through this list more of their tedious work is lying in wait for me along the way.
I was going to give this two stars as it wasn't actually offending me or making me reach for the fast forward button too often. But then I found the songs from Papa Hobo onwards so painfully boring I had to take a break from the album and it didn't improve once I came back to finish it. One star.
Os Mutantes
3/5
Another band I have never heard of, another chance to be surprised and delighted.
I recognise A Minha Menina.
Overall, yeah, this is fine, but in its favour is the fact that I like being made to listen to experimental 1960s Brazilian psychedelia much much more than I like having to listen to another Paul Simon solo album.
Bob Dylan
2/5
If I were only going to include one Dylan album on this list (and if I were writing it, I would be greatly tempted to), it would probably be this one. A few of his best-known songs, and a bunch of others which all sound the same: guitars, harmonica, and obscure lyrics. Some people love Dylan, I am not one of them.
Public Enemy
2/5
This is OK, but I find the backing too tuneless and repetitive and the lyrics toneless and more shouted than sung, lacking the cleverness that I enjoy. It's not my favourite kind of rap / hip-hop. Like a lot of albums, I find it kind of charming that this was ever considered especially controversial or offensive music.
Christina Aguilera
1/5
Holy hell, a 1h 20 min pop album? Well, it's a bold statement, how does it hold up?
Well, having listened, it did not need to be this long. I would have been happy with a standard-length album. Also, I am sure her singing is technically impressive, but all I hear is mmmmhhhmmmm, wooooaarrgghhwooooaaoooahhhh. And the title. Back to Basics? This is very overproduced.
The songs are dull pop, but credit to her for apparently writing them all herself, although they're not much good to my ears.
Back in the Day is really on the nose, it's literally just "here's some old musicians, they were good, weren't they?" The instrumentation in no way supports the meaning of the song, not that it could, but invoking their names for an insubstantial pop song is really strange and unwise.
Oh Mother as well is a weirdly literal song. No subtext, all text about an abusive relationship, a strange subject for a pop song.
Thank You is a nice idea, saying thank you to her fans, but it's more than a bit self-aggrandising including so many clips of her fans telling her how great she is. Some of the things they say, like, "you are a true artist", "you are able to stand on your feet no matter what", "your music inspired me to keep living": Have these people heard, I don't know, other music? It just goes to show that people have different tastes and can get a lot out of an artist and art which I think, frankly, is disposable trash.
I won't deny her deserving her place on the list, but this is an album which earns it based on popularity and ubiquity as opposed to musical talent.
Another endurance test album, which the absurd runtime did no favours for.
Spacemen 3
3/5
The kind of psychadelic space rock I like. I had heard Lord Can You Hear Me before and liked it a lot. I like the rest of this album less, but I still like it. Long instrumental tracks, a bit psych, a bit Krautrock, a bit space rock. Good stuff, and amazing it's from 1989 and not 2000-something. A band for me to listen to more.
David Bowie
2/5
Oh, it's THIS David Bowie album.
Sound And Vision is the first track I recognise, good tune (first on the album), like it.
Everything else is ok at best. The second half of this album seems dominated by the Brian Eno / Krautrock sound, but I like both of those things more than I like this take on them.
Wikipedia has a very long article on this and then every individual track on it bar one. I think that's too much attention.
The Undertones
4/5
American-sounding Irish punk. Strongly reminded of the Ramones. Some of the softer tracks sound like 50s rock and roll. Teenage Kicks particularly, it's real Buddy Holly stuff.
Family Entertainment - I have heard this many times without realising.
I really like the fact that most of these songs are just 2 minutes. The songs are as long as they need to be, no longer.
Whole album is a lot of fun, except Mars Bar, parroting a corporate slogan, very un-punk.
Get Over You my favourite track? Single version of True Confessions I also like a lot.
The Doors
2/5
Much blander than I expected after the album The Doors. More like Morrison Hotel. Cars Hiss by My Window was some really dull jazz/ blues.
Adam & The Ants
3/5
Although I enjoyed this well enough, the fact that neither of their big hits, Stand and Deliver nor Prince Charming are on this album makes me worry that the editors have made another bad call and included Adam and the Ants on this list twice.
Overall nice, good to hear more from this band that's not the overplayed big hits.
Tom Tom Club
1/5
Looking at the cover art and track titles, my immediate feeling is that I'm going to hate this. "Wordy Rappinghood"?
Well, I actually enjoyed Wordy Rappinghood, the opening track, but I did get steadily more irate as the album went on. Booming and Zooming was basically intolerable, with the fake radio chatter and every element of the backingmusic extremely annoying. The songs are much too long, most could be cut in half, and as I am listening to the deluxe version, I am skipping the remixes and alternative cuts which make up the back half of each disc, and if I hadn't committed to listening to the whole of every album on this list, I would be skipping almost all these tracks after about a minute each.
Thinking back on this album, my overwhelming impression is of extreme irritation verging on actual anger. Hated it.
1/5
You know you're listening to some self-indulgent prog when it opens with a track that is nearly 20 minutes long and that itself opens with awful, tuneless, rhythmless, toneless guitar squeaking and flat vocals. Annoying from the very first minute, almost calculatedly so. This is Spinal Tap's Prog Odyssey.
That said, I do agree with the points made by the top-rated review (at time of writing): A - This deserves its place on the list as some very distilled, representative prog; B - It's a stepping stone to punk, as a stripped-down, simplified reaction to this absurd, overelaborate, overproduced music.
Small Faces
2/5
I have to agree with the other reviewers who say that this is an annoying album. The spoken-word fairytale of the second half and the psychadelic imagery of the story and also the later lyrics remind me of Gong, who I hate. This kind of inspired-while-high music is often incoherent and impossible to follow. If it wernty toldlio in this annoy-noy stylee it would-o be much much more more bettererer. If you have to be high to get much out of it, then it's probably not worth listening to. I would rather be listening to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band or early Pink Floyd than this again.
Three stars for the A-side, zero stars for the B-side.
Suzanne Vega
2/5
I've previously listened to Suzanne Vega's 99.9F of my own volition and enjoyed it quite a lot. This, not so much. It was OK, but the whole thing washed over me barely making an impression. The overly long songs with belaboured allegorical meanings did nothing for me, not that I could be bothered to pay attention to the lyrics given the dull instrumentation.
PJ Harvey
3/5
I feel that a lot of these lyrics are very direct and on-the-nose. (The Glorious Land and The Words that Maketh Murder.) I don't disagree with them, but this lacks cleverness for me, these songs are bald statements, adolescent and underdeveloped.
Hanging In the Wire got some special praise from other reviewers, but to me again seems very straightforward - have these people not heard a song with subtext or imagery or metaphor before?
The Big Guns Called Me Back Again: looking this up, it's cribbed from Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful and just seems like a wise and less clear version set to music.
Overall a nice concept, but disappointing lyrics and instrumentation: I just don't enjoy the presentation. Giving this three stars because it's definitely a cut above the bland, idea-less albums and artists which populate the two-star strata of my ratings, but given its source material it should be better than it is.
Jimi Hendrix
3/5
The instrumental parts on Voodoo Chile are good, as are parts of other songs. Otherwise it sounds like what I expect from Jimi Hendrix. Good stuff.
Stevie Wonder
2/5
I didn't really get much out of this. Worst Stevie Wonder album on the list so far for me.
Michael Jackson
3/5
"The doggone girl is mine"?
Other than that very weird lyric, this is Michael Jackson at his peak. Every other song is a well-known classic. Thriller is my favourite track here and the whole album is easy to listen to although it's generally not for me. Three stars for moderate enjoyment.
Kid Rock
2/5
You say "fusion genre", I say "a mess of styles". Almost all the songs feature some combination of rap lyrics, heavy rock riffs, and then country and western sounds. It's very noisy and hard to listen to, hard to get a handle on. It's very hard to tell how much or if this guy is taking his bragging seriously. I found some moments of amusement in the lyrics, but I'm not sure if I'm laughing with him or at him. I think he is probably for real, which is a little tragic, but the final verse of Welcome 2 the Party is so hilariously crass that I can't help but smile:
"Kid Rock and I'm the same old fool
I'll tell ya to drop your boyfriend then drop outta high school
I got a whirlpool, don't even ask
Lickin' pussy underwater shootin' bubbles up your ass
I'm so crass that I'm the last of my kind
...
I don't steal from the rich and give to the poor
I take from my bitches and give it to my whores"
Only God Knows Why is one of the most manufactured, over-produced things I have heard, with obnoxious autotune and embarassingly faux-authentic lyrics, he's really trying to make us think he believes in what he's saying, but I don't buy it for a second.
But overall, I have hated albums much more than this. Is it worth 2 stars? I don't know. I think I was really laughing at this more than I was enjoying it. But I did enjoy it, at least a little bit.
The Soft Boys
3/5
This begins a run of albums from the list I have never heard of, looking forward to this.
Really liked the opening track I Wanna Destroy You. Punk and rock, but pretty clean sound, reminiscent of 1950s rock to me, but very punk lyrics, although they are recorded clearly. The album did get less punk and more psychedelic as it went on.
Hearing Insanely Jealous (of you) I realise I was wrong about the above, I have heard this before and I thought it was pretty good. That goes for the whole album, good, at the edge of a 4 star rating for me.
Giant Sand
1/5
30 tracks. 2 hours. The Overture is whiny and harsh. Oh boy. Luckily I saw that the last half of the playlist was bonus tracks, which by my rules I don't have to listen to. Good job too, because this whole album was really irritating. Musically nothing much going on, lyrically and vocally too. A big waste of time where I was waiting for it to be over. Awful, but not in an interesting way.
Jacques Brel
2/5
Aggressively French. This is just very, very stereotypically French. I mean, it's so French. It's fine, but I don't know when I would ever listen to it apart from trying to set an atmosphere over a candlelit dinner.
3/5
Never heard of this before listening to it. What have we got here? First impressions are some female-led punk, with country overtones.
After listening on full, this is overall some nice punky stuff. I'm most strongly reminded of the Ramones. Enjoyed this.
Ian Dury
3/5
I've never liked Ian Dury's voice, so I am slightly dreading this experience. Indeed, I think his flat tones and the pedestrian backing really undercut the nice simple sexiness if Wake Up and Make Love - it would be really interesting to hear a cover of this from a sexy artist, anyone with a frisson of the erotic to them. However, if you want working-class, kitchen-sink songs, a bit ska, a bit cockney, a bit music hall, you can't do much better. I really think that a lot of the negative reviews from this are coming from young Americans who just don't, maybe can't, get the context and culture here. You know, just for that, I'm glad that this is on the list, making non-Brits listen to this is worth it.
Les Rythmes Digitales
2/5
Another album I have almost no opinion on, and with a two-sentence summary on this site, it looks like I am not the only one. When Jacques Your Body came on I immediately recognised it, it's another of those tracks which was so widely used as a bedding track when it came out. But overall I had no reaction other than that. Also the album art looks like an early 2000s secondary school IT textbook.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Some nice African desert blues here. Smaller-scale than Tinariwen or Mdou Moctar, this still has some of the same style and reminds me of them, although I'm not kniowledgeable enough about music to say what they're doing the same exactly. I did feel I had heard everything I needed to about 3 tracks in, although the final track was my favourite.
Still, good stuff, and very nice not to have another US or UK band.
Talking Heads
2/5
I mean, this is fine. It's fine. None of the songs caused any reaction from me, though, they might as well have been white noise. I have heard enough Talking Heads from this list and the singhh-errrss!! Ooopp!! -- thensuddenlyveryquiet yelping vocals are starting to grate.
The Replacements
2/5
I kind of like Androgynous, pretty forward-thinking for 1984. Otherwise some fairly standard punk and post-punk songs.
Teenage Fanclub
2/5
Began noisily, tunelessly, flat. Like Britpop if it was a garage punk band who couldn't play. Became more like noise rock as it went on, and then Metal Baby is really 1950's American rock, then I was reminded of the Longpigs with Alcoholiday. Either an influentual or a generic band. Either way I don't have a strong opinion on the music. Didn't love it, didn't hate it.
The Vines
2/5
This is about the most basic early-2000's rock I have ever heard, a real dud choice for this list. However, as a reprieve from the endless US and UK bands, these guys are actually Australian, although you can't tell. Another album I could have gone to my grave without hearing while still feeling like my life had been as rich as it could be.
Two stars, and that's generous as they didn't actually offend me.
Machito
4/5
I think this is my favourite jazz album from this list so far, and I'm halfway through. I think it's the slightly Tiki rhythms and presentation I am enjoying. This album flew by.
Paul Weller
2/5
This is really exceptionally boring. I would be very hard pushed to elaborate on that.
The Isley Brothers
2/5
The opening That Lady was pretty funky, with the sounds I associate with Blaxploitation films of the 70s, which is what I expected from the cover. However, the rest was all kind of bland.
Fiona Apple
3/5
Where have I seen this before? I still can't place it, maybe I saw it in some other list.
Anyway, this is fine, verging on pretty good. It feels very homemade, because it was. Unusually for me, the lyrics are the standout for me here, perhaps because the mix emphasises them so much. Certainly the amateur instrumentation doesn't deserve the lead, but I like its rough edges.
Newspaper is a standout, great, personal, and angry song. I liked Under the Table a lot as well.
There were moments that this bored and annoyed me, but there were also moments of genuine enjoyment, which is rare enough for me on this list.
Thelonious Monk
2/5
Another seminal jazz album which I am totally unable to appreciate due to my ignorance. I'm sure it's great if you know anything about making music. I don't, so all I can say is that this sounds pretty good at times but unless I change quite a lot I'm good not to listen to this again.
The Fall
2/5
Spotify has repeatedly tried to play me stuff by The Fall before and I have never liked it, and this is just more of the same. Fuzzy Britpop rock while the lead vocalist (I wouldn't go so far as to say lead singer) declares statments over the top. All the songs sound the same and none of them interest me, although the punchy drumming of Glam-Racket I enjoyed.
The Last Shadow Puppets
2/5
Sounds like what it is, an Arctic Monkeys side project. I don't know how essential the Artic Monkeys are, this project even less so.
The White Stripes
4/5
This is the third White Stripes album I've encountered on this list. I like the White Stripes quite a lot but you have to say that this is too much. Their albums are neither individually that influential nor that different from each other. The list really needs more breadth.
Anyway, none of that is a review of this album, and in itself I enjoyed it. I would say that this particular album is worthy of its place.
Fell In Love With A Girl I knew before, I liked it a lot.
Little Room was not worth committing to vinyl.
Union Forever is musically cool, dark psych-metal, and the repurposed lyrics from Citizen Kane are interesting until the wholesale theft of the birthday song.
We're Going To Be Friends was a very nice, sweet, simple song.
A cut above the albums I give three stars. This also sounds like an album which the creators enjoyed making, which is not always the case.
Flamin' Groovies
2/5
This is all fine. A lot of this sounds very modern, I could believe some of these tracks were recorded in the last couple of years. A lot of the tracks sound like other artists, too. Beatles, T Rex, Rolling Stones, loads of garage bands. But it's somehow less than its parts, I was just bored listening, a gut reaction.
Sugar
2/5
If someone said, "Hey, do you want to come hear my friend's band, they're playing at a free festival this weekend," I would go along, hear this band, and not be mad. But I would never ever think that I had to hear them again through headphones. A nasally singer, fuzzy, noisy, mushy-sounding garage rock-punk. Not actually bad but definitely nothing to write home about. I enjoyed the last two tracks, Slick and Man on the Moon, the best of all of them.
The Triffids
1/5
This feels like it's come out of a machine which dispenses generic factory-made soft-rock albums from the mid-80s. It's very, very boring, so unremarkable in every way that I can't really give more of an opinion than this, although one song that stood out was baby Can I Walk You Home, which was bordering on hysterical. Did no-one involved in its production say, "Hey, man, this is a little much, and the central theme is too weak to support it?"
Paul Revere & The Raiders
3/5
Pretty good, fun tracks.
The tone and earnest melodramatic voiceover on Melody for an Unknown girl, and the harpsicord and distant insane laughter on Shake It Up are very like something the Bonzo Dog Band would play. This, or something like it, has to be an inspriation for them, right? And SS 396 was so like Fun, Fun, Fun from the Beach Boys it's almost a rip-off, but still a fun time.
Still, I enjoyed this album quite a lot.
The Clash
3/5
For these touchstone albums, I never really know how to approach them. Like everything else, with my honest opinion, I suppose. So I liked this fine, but I didn't love it.
I know ska and punk are related, but Wrong 'Em Boyo is pure ska. The track that grabbed my attention was The Card Cheat, my favourite, adds another star by itself.
The reviewer who called this "British shouting" is wrong.
Everything But The Girl
1/5
Hated this from the opening track. Slightly trip-hop backing, very dull singing. All of it sounds like a track that a DJ would put on at 3AM in a club in 1994 to signal to people that it was time to go home. And this was released in 1996, so it doesn't even have innovation on its side. Like a more boring Portishead, if such a thing is conceivable. Knowing that there is apparently another Everything But The Girl album on this list is giving me anxiety.
Prince
2/5
Very excessive, especially the title track's runtime.
I found this album middling between his Sign O' the Times and 1999. Therefore a middling score.
Pavement
2/5
I never really liked Pavement, from the first time I listened to them on some "most essential" list, and I still don't like them. This sounds like Hudson Bell to be, or in fact vice versa, but without the cool, drawn-out fuzzy guitar riffs, instead replacing them with bits from Spinal Tap's Jazz Odyssey or boring garage band music.
John Lennon
2/5
This was OK. Much more self-serious than anything involving McCartney, in the same way McCartney was probably too frivolous. Sounded a bit like Lennon just working his way through some things, I am not sure he really needed an audience for these thoughts - a journal would have been fine. God was distilled, almost parody, Lennon.
All a bit on the nose for me.
Mylo
3/5
I got moderate enjoyment out of this. For something to hear while doing computer work, which are the conditions I usually listen in, it's pretty good, but it's not mind-blowing or something I would actively listen to, except maybe the fun title track, making the most of its sample.
John Lee Hooker
2/5
I hated when the soft synths kicked in in the first track, but the later tracks were much better, classic blues played in a contemporary style.
Belle & Sebastian
2/5
Softly-sung tunes about quiet desperation. It was fine, but also undeniably I was waiting for this to end.
Christine and the Queens
1/5
Maybe there's more to this album if I listened more closely to the lyrics, but musically this is a mashup between 2020s dance and 1980s new wave that I found very boring, could hardly wait for this to be over.
The Pogues
3/5
Yeah, great tunes. Edge of a 4 star rating here for me.
Nightmares On Wax
1/5
I hate 80s synth, but I don't think I'll ever hate a sound as much as 90s synth and drum machines. Vaguely new age, sounds like muzak I would hear piped in in a shop where they sell a lot of incense, crystals with healing powers, and "herb grinders". Awful, a true test of endurance to listen to this for an hour and a quarter. Like the music of the band Gong, this album is one of the strongest arguments against marijuana I can imagine.
MGMT
3/5
Do I like this album, or is it just that the hits are recognisable to me? I think the opening Time To Pretend is great, and there are moments I enjoy in a lot of the other tracks. I don't think I actually like Kids, I just know it. Weekend Wars sounds a bit T-Rex or Bolan at times, and I like the vocal effect where it sounds like they're singing in a large, echoey room they use sometimes.
Overall pretty good, I engaged with it more than with the albums I give 2 stars to
The Beach Boys
2/5
A bunch of sappy teenage love songs that all sound the same. The sound is kind of nice, but I've never understood the love for the Beach Boys.
Ice Cube
3/5
It's fine, it's deliberately trying to be offensive and shocking. With albums like this, like Marilyn Manson, for example, I usually find them more charming than anything else, they try so hard. Even when they have a point, like this does (at times), the swearing and shouting usually detracts from the message. I enjoyed this at times, but it was a bit too harsh and shouty for me overall.
Taylor Swift
4/5
The other reviews seem to be split between love and hate, which is odd, because for almost any album I have seen on this list there is a spectrum of opinions. Obviously Taylor is the biggest music star in the world at the moment so everyone's got an opinion and more than a few want to take her down a peg. But come on, even if you don't like her, this is some top-tier pop music. Great production without being overproduced, clear vocals (effects used sparingly, with her voice standing on its own) with clear messages, a lot of fun to listen to and it made me smile, which the prospect of ANOTHER David Bowie album does not. Music can and should cover all emotions and feelings, and simple fun is one of those. Not every album has to be a pretentious thinkpiece.
David Bowie
2/5
David Bowie being a bit funky. A very boring album for me.
Donald Fagen
2/5
I recognise the cover art here. What have I heard before? It's been on my "to listen" list for years, but I hadn't got very far because I didn't like this. So thanks again to this project for getting me to take action and listen all the way through. Unfortauntely I still think this sucks. Overly clean, artificial synthesised tunes that don't really go anywhere. The title track is the best of a bad bunch by quite some margin, and it's not even good.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1/5
I see a review that says "There is a thoroughgoing prejudice against prog in the critical community, probably because it forces critics to engage with the music". I'm not sure that "People don't like this music when they have to listen to it" is really the argument you want to make. I am indeed critical of prog whenever I have to engage with it, but it's not me, prog, it's you, you suck. I appreciate your role in the evolution of popular music but please don't overstay your welcome.
Prog rock, I hate it, especially the organ parping and twiddling away with the drums noodle-doodling. It might be hard to play, but my God it's harder to listen to. And the less said about the pseudo-deep nonsense lyrics the better. They do show some family resemblance when compared to The Wall, though. Some bizarre choices on this album, like Are You Ready, Eddy, completely out of place on this album, although it was undoubtedly the track I liked most.
I also get these guys confused with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, so I had to mentally readjust my expectations quite a long way.
Faust
3/5
Before even looking at the reviews I can tell people will hate this. But for me I actually love some of these sounds. The opening track is Krautrock noise rock, and when the drums kick in it really goes to another level, and the other Krautrock style tracks I also really like. But then the second track Sad Skinhead is weird reggae? And Jennifer is pretty dull. A mixed bag of enjoyment here for me, probably as intended but the band, given how the pretty standard It's a Bit of a Pain has harsh feedback, Swedish (?) and electronic bleeps inserted into a simple melody, but all this makes it a much more interesting album than most.
The Coral
3/5
A lot of influences and genres mashed together here, mostly successfully, which is remarkable. I didn't love this music but it's a very interesting wander, there's something new to hear every few bars each song. It's kind of like walking through an exhibition or something, taking in each display, then moving on. Good, but ephemeral, I don't think this will be one I'll revisit.
Metallica
2/5
I was having a good time listening to this, but then it started to get very samey and grating. I checked the playtime and I was less than halfway through. Conclusion: good in small doses.
The Chemical Brothers
3/5
Super turn-of-the-millennium-sounding album, the kind of thing I would listen to on my way to go see an anniversary screening of The Matrix.
This is the first Chemical Brothers album I've heard on this list and I hope there's more, this is missing almost all of the tracks which I would call their big hits. I was prepared to like this a lot more than I did based on what I have heard from them previously, but I did really like The Private Psychedelic Reel (which I have heard before) and It Doesn't Matter (which I hadn't).
Motörhead
2/5
I don't think I had ever heard another Motörhead song apart from Ace of Spades. After listening to this album, I don't think I really needed to. I would describe the rest of these songs as like Ace of Spades but not as good. This album is some fine and probably influential metal, but it's not really for me.
Elliott Smith
1/5
This album came and went with no reaction from me except mild irriation at the singer's breathy voice. Music for 14-year olds.
808 State
2/5
Metallic and pointy-sounding electronic music suitable as bedding tracks in documentaries about 90s raving and clubbing. Not objectionable but not something I would choose to listen to in my free time.
Van Halen
2/5
I have already heard an album by Van Halen, 1984. A second album from them on this list is redundtant. This might be slightly better than 1984. Certainly it was less outdated. 1984 came out the same year as This is Spinal Tap, which was, or should have been, the death knell for so many of these bands.
Depeche Mode
2/5
I have already heard Violator from Depeche Mode on this list which includes Enjoy the Silence, which is as close to an essential song from them as it gets. This album does not do anything differently or better enough to justify its inclusion on this list, in my opinion. It's all flat and dull. No thanks.
Bebel Gilberto
1/5
This album is quite hard to find on Spotify and YouTube for some reason, but I managed. By my rules I have to listen to every track on an album, and a handful were missing, which I had to hunt down elsewhere. Honestly I wish I hadn't bothered. I hate this. The softness of samba over trip-hop backing, things I detest. I know that I (and listeners in general) compain that there is too much Britpop, for example, on this list, but I really think there is too much Brazilian samba also. I was sick of this halfway through the first track. I see that tracks from this and the elder Gilberto are used on the soundtrack of Eat Pray Love, which is the saccharine spiritual home they deserve. Vomit-inducing, made me want to rip my ears off.
Roxy Music
2/5
For a band that are such a household name, I don't think I have ever heard a song from Roxy Music, or that I would even have been able to name a song by them. Now, having heard this album, I am unimpressed. I would not have said that Brian Eno was in this band, but once I was told I can hear him. Overall, nothing special for me.
The Velvet Underground
2/5
Not much reaction to this until The Murder Mystery came on, which I found excessively irritating. I understand it's experimental, but I hated having to hear it. I don't think the Velvet Underground are for me.
The Sabres Of Paradise
3/5
In isolation, I probably wouldn't think this was that good, but my general level of enjoyment on this list is so tepid that something like this, moderately biting electronica with moments of interest and invention, raises my pulse above resting, so one star above my average to show I liked this album more than most.
Bad Brains
2/5
The Spotify overview says that these guys mixed punk with reggae. I don't hear that at all. I hear grunge, which is surprising as this came out in 1986. So pioneering, maybe, but I don't really like listening to it.
Moby Grape
3/5
I enjoyed this 1960s California mild psych-rock a fair bit. Pleasant but not gripping.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
2/5
I coincidentally got this back-to-back with Moby Grape, so it's nice to be able to do a direct comparison, but on listening, I'm not really sure it's a useful comparison. This is much more lo fi and subdued. "One of the most harrowing documents of pain and confusion ever made" - I can't say that I picked up on this, to be honest I found it all pretty boring. Exceptions were Books of Moses with its booming thunderous sound effects, and Grey/Afro, which sounds like a much worse version of early Pink Floyd/ Syd Barrett long-form tracks. (It's really nothing like Krautrock at all.) The bonus tracks are not worth listening to.
Violent Femmes
3/5
My only exposure to the Violent Femmes before this was Blister In the Sun, of course. Hearing more from them the vocals strike me as especially flat and proto-emo. Despite this, I liked parts. Add It Up was pretty great.
Eels
2/5
I have known a few songs by Eels before this, including Novocaine For The Soul, so I was moderately looking forward to this album. However, overall it didn't do much for me. I guess I have been listening to the greatest hits. Of the new-to-me-songs on this, Susan's House was the best.
I would love to give this more, but only two stars.
Robert Wyatt
1/5
I am a strong believer that people should make art for the sake of doing it, to express themselves, so I can't begrudge Robert Wyatt for doing this. However, I do begrudge being made to listen to it. I would have been happy to die without hearing this. In fact, I would have been happier to die without hearing it. Also, this guy can't sing. Sometimes that's OK, but this guy's reach exceeds his grasp.
I recognised the artist profile picture in Spotify and I spent some time trying to work out where from. I think he must come up in my recommended lists now and then, because the only song I remember hearing from him is Pigs... (In There), which is great, but very minimalist.
OH WAIT! I have found it, there was actually another (!) Robert Wyatt album on this list, Rock Bottom, which I heard 400 albums ago and called "barely music". It's nice to see my opinion is consistent. But still, what terrible judgement and taste from the list curators to include two Robert Wyatt albums.
The Offspring
3/5
I listened to this nearly twice as I didn't finish the first time, too busy, and I didn't mind listening again. I'm glad I did, because I enjoyed it more the second time around. All these songs basically sound the same, but I like the sound. Nitro, It'll Be A Long Time and Genocide are a couple I especially enjoyed. It's all a bit immature, unambitious and simplistic, but enjoyable still.
I also like the narrator, he adds some fun to it, and I guess he returned on Ixnay On The Hombre.
I can't quite bring myself to give this four stars, but it's a very strong three.
Sheryl Crow
2/5
I was expecting something country-ish, but I got a lot of music that seems tailor-made to be played to underscore emotional moments in mid-budget 2000s romcoms or CW shows where the heroine is sad or whatever. The Na-Na Song was a bit more interesting, clearly influenced by Subterranean Homesick Blues.
Also, was I the only Brit who thought "Cheryl Cole? What's she doing on this list?" Honestly, after listening, Cheryl has about as much right to be on it.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Hello Bruce, my old friend. This is your third appearance on my list and I don't think I'm going to get anything further out of the experience of listening to you. Adam Raised a Cain was pretty intolerable, otherwise I mostly found this boring.
Black Flag
3/5
Shouty American punk. I can hear how this influenced many other bands. It's pretty good but I don't think it was really worth imitating to that extent. It's probably so widely imitated because it's easy to play and not very musically complex - crude is maybe the word I'm looking for. Anyway, I enjoyed it all the same, especially TV Party, where it sounds like they're having a lot of fun.
Screaming Trees
2/5
I've never heard of this band or album. After listening, I can say that it's fine but it's still not the unexpected and delightful masterpiece I am waiting for from this project. Anyway, yes this is fine. It has some cool riffs but then it veers into sounding very Britpop - so it fits right in on this list. I recognised Sworn and Broken when it came on, and I went "Oh, right, this song is the reason the album is on the list". It's not a very compelling reason, though, in my opinion.
Radiohead
2/5
MORE Radiohead?! This is the SIXTH Radiohead album I have had on this list. THIS IS TOO MUCH RADIOHEAD. I HATE RADIOHEAD. STOP MAKING ME LISTEN TO FUCKING RADIOHEAD. If was going to get anything out of a band or not, three albums of theirs would be more than sufficient for anyone to know if they had heard enough of them. More than that would be pushing any band, even someone like The Beatles I think you could have heard enough to form an opinion after two or three albums. SO WHAT ARE RADIOHEAD DOING WITH SIX ALBUMS?! Oh my God, I am so sick of this shit. Take a moment to think of three or four other albums you would like, personally, to put on this list, and then think that The Bends, Amnesiac, In Rainbows, Kid A, Hail To The Thief, and OK Computer are taking up six fucking places. Forget Elvis Costello, Radiohead are for my money the most overrepresented artist on this list.
Anyway, after all that, my opinion of this album is actually pretty mellow: This is a lot more rocky and mainstream than anything else I have listened to from them. I still didn't especially like it, but it didn't grate on me in the same way as the rest of the albums above, and Thom Yorke is actually singing instead of doing the weird falsetto moans he usually does. Maybe if I listened to the albums in release order I would hear the progression to the more avant-garde and for me unlistenable style. But I'm not putting myself through that, no way. The last few tracks on this album (from Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was) seem to be going in the direction of the now-classic Radiohead sound anyway.
Please, please, please... no more Radiohead.
Gene Clark
2/5
So dull that I had no opinion on it, and so middle-of-the-road I had no vocabulary to describe it. Singer-songwriter with high production, maybe? Washed over me without leaving a mark.
The Zombies
3/5
I know the Zombies by reputation as one of the great bands who never really were, and the story of the 2 fake The Zombies (see top review) is mad, but after listening to this I am underwhelmed. There's some nice stuff in here, and an odd preoccupation with death (maybe appropriate given their name), but the presentation, with the soft vocals and kitsch organ backing, doesn't really do it for me.
It was the last song on the album but I recognised Time Of The Season and nothing else. (A bit sad not to hear their best song, She's Not There, but if it's not on this album, it's not on this album).
George Jones
2/5
So far, this is the album which I have best judged by its cover, which promises some super-American country singer, and it certainly delivers. George Jones, who I had never heard of because I am not a US-Midwesterner living in the 1970s, warbles and croons away on some utterly expected songs accompanied by his twangy guitar about life, love, and miseries, but doesn't really say a whole lot. I liked the ironic framing of "The Grand Tour" of his empty house after his wife had left, but I kept waiting for a reveal, or another layer to it - why did this woman leave? She had her reasons, right? Nope, not that we hear, she just walked right out with his child and heart, because women are evil, I guess. Go and have a drink at the bar with your buddies, that's what you need.
I wrote that last sentence before looking at Wikipedia, which I see has a whole section on "Alcoholism" for George, and before listening to the final track Our Private Life, where the moral is almost literally "Hey, look, fans, if I want to have affairs and get blind drunk, I will, because I deserve it". Is it any surprise that the rest of these songs are all about people cheating on each other and generally being miserable?
Elvis Costello
1/5
Elvis Costello, the bête noire of this list. For God's sake, get rid of some of his albums. Four tracks in This Is Hell came on and never was a song more apposite. I am indeed in a hell of my own making, listening to another interminable Elvis Costello album from 1994 which is to me indistinguishable and no further developed than My Aim Is True from 1977. I am rating these albums based on my personal enjoyment and so this, the fourth Elvis Costello album I have had to listen to, never had a chance. One star, take it, get out of here, don't let the door hit you on the way out, and don't come back.
The Stooges
2/5
An interesting blend of late 60s psych and proto punk. Definitely a long way ahead of its time for 1970, but I didn't love the sound in itself.
Amy Winehouse
3/5
I enjoyed this more than I was expecting to, I found it capturing my attention, which is not a given when listening to albums from this list. As everyone says, she has a great voice and it's paired perfectly with the neo-soul and Motown sounds of the band. Good stuff, and I enjoyed the bonus tracks more than the main tracks, they seemed more fun, Cupid and Monkey Man standing out, as well as the various reggae- and ska-flavoured tracks.
k.d. lang
2/5
Reading about her on Wikipedia, k. d. lang doesn't seem the type of person to have produced an album of such basic country songs as this. I guess it just goes to show that you can't judge a book by its cover. Anyway, this is pretty dull fare, although I enjoyed Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes.
Madonna
2/5
This sounds weirdly glossy and plastic. The pumping synthetic beats and mild electronica makes this sound like background music in a late 90s sci-fi TV series about a group of women hackers or something. It sounds like a product made to fill time as opposed to being actual heartfelt art. Also all these tracks are way too long. If they were the classic 3-minute pop song I could understand, or maybe if they were extended, developed tracks I could understand, but as it is they all pootle around for twice as long as necessary and overstay their welcomes. Shanti / Ashtangi was by far the most interesting track.
Joy Division
2/5
Tedium Division.
UB40
2/5
Is this good? Is it really an album I had to hear before I died? Although not unpleasant, I felt like I had heard everything most of these tracks had to offer less than halfway through each of their runtimes, for Burden of Shame, Adella and Madam Medusa. The tracks are almost all too muzak and easy-listening for me, they need more bite. Boring.
Beatles
5/5
Wildly varied, and every song is outstanding. Eleanor Rigby, For No One, Yellow Submarine, Love You To, Tomorrow Never Knows, all on the same album. Listening to these as an album instead of individual tracks had given me a new appreciation. Some of these are truly arresting songs, and the confidence in this album is matched by the quality. A tour de force.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
A good album, but only good; pleasant, not mind-blowing. Did Ali Farka Touré need to be in this list twice? It might have been nice to hear from some more desert blues artists instead of the same one twice. Another strange choice from the editors.
Stereolab
4/5
A band I had heard of but I wasn't aware of any of their music, although I had heard the opening Metronomic Underground before.
This turned out to be a very pleasant surprise, just some tunes that are really nice to listen to. I would compare it to Lemon Jelly. The hour flew by. I especially liked the clear female voices providing the vocals.
Super Furry Animals
3/5
I didn't love it, but I definitely liked it. It's indie Britpop goes experimental.
Rings Around the World is a song for children.
No Sympathy started ok, but then went all weird in an interesting and good-sounding way.
I think I like the people in this band more than I like their music.
The Temptations
2/5
To quote Mitch Hedburg, "I have no problem not listening to The Temptations, which is weird." I was mildly looking forward to this, but it was too easy-listening for me, too soft. Not unpleasant but dull.
2/5
Halfway through Vocé Gusta I wondered when this album was released. I guess mid-90s and I was pleased to find I was dead on: 1995. The naff, plasticky effects laid over this, like a teenager who has just got access to a cheap digital DJ app, really date it and make it much, much worse, and it wasn't really any good to begin with. I guess it's contemporary samba / electronica, but I don't like that at the best of times. There are a couple of interesting tracks, but overall this is another baffling inclusion on the list. Why did I have to hear this before I die? I don't think it's especially good, and it's not opened my eyes (or ears) to new vistas and genres I would not otherwise have encountered. Thumbs down.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
The wailing, gulping style of singing annoys me.
I recognise Gino, but I would say this album is not as good as Too Rye Ay, also on this list.
Saint Etienne
2/5
I don't think I've ever heard of this band or album, so I have no expectations going in.
Wilson was a nicely trippy track, slightly Avalanches-esque, Girl VII reminded me of Ramblin' Man by Lemon Jelly. Every other track was pretty bad, tedious and overly electronica. Also very London-centric. No thanks.
Guided By Voices
3/5
I panicked when I saw 28 tracks, then calmed down when I saw 41 minutes. What's up with that? Well, it's sloppy lo-fi rock, which is right up my street. I was initially reminded of Home and Hudson Bell.
It sounds like this band was recording for fun, which I like a lot. I can't believe they were recording for commercial success or even with much reference to what their contemporaries were doing. This sounds like art in a very pure form, maybe even outsider art. But I think I like the idea behind this more than I like the actual songs. A nice experience, but I don't think I will listen to any of these on their own merits again. I also see a lot of people in the other reviews really hate this album and question its place on the list. But I say that is almost in itself a sign that this is a worthwhile inclusion. This list is about expanding your horizons. Get with it, you squares.
On a personal note, this marks the halfway point in reviews I have given. I feel this is a pretty worthy entry for review No. 545.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
4/5
I had heard of Count Basie and his orchestra from their guest appearance on The Intro And The Outro by The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, where they played the triangle. Let's hear what they can do with a full album.
Quite a lot, as it turns out. Some very nice big band jazz here. Call me a philistine, but this kind of easy-to-listen-to jazz is much more enjoyable to me than the stuff which is more about pushing possibilities and boundaries.
Def Leppard
3/5
I see that Wikipedia notes ominously that this hour-plus monster is the band's longest studio album... to date.
This is the kind of thing that Bill and Ted probably like. It's also not unlike Spinal Tap. I These songs sound so similar that I'm reminded of Angus Young of AC/DC as well - "I'm sick to death of people saying how we've made eleven albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out twelve albums that sound exactly the same."
I've just looked it up, and this came out 3 years AFTER This Is Spinal Tap! How did Def Leppard release this with a straight face? Maybe the answer is that they didn't, at least I hope not. It's still pretty likable, despite how incredibly uncool it is. It's some real dad rock, but also quite fun and well-intentioned, and a bit so-bad-it's-good.
Germs
1/5
Truly, these songs all sound the same: amateur punk with badly-recorded vocals. None of those things are bad in themselves, but the quadruple threat means I couldn't get a lot out of this album, and I got it out in the first three tracks. I saw I was on track 9 and I thought I must be nearly done, then I looked again to see I was just over halfway and said "Oh, fuck!" out loud. That's my review, really. The guitar and piano on the final 9-minute track seem to have no relation to anything else going on in the song, and lost the album another star.
Pantera
2/5
If you had told me this was Metallica with a guest singer, I would have believed you. Tedious heavy metal.
Big Star
2/5
This sounds like some forgotten 1970s indie dad rock. Why is it so highly rated? I listened to this years ago as part of some other "you need to hear these records" list, and I was similarly unimpressed. I don't get it. Baffling.
Ute Lemper
1/5
I didn't know what this was going in, and the tracklist and dozens of album artists didn't clarify things.
Sounds like a cabaret of a bunch of songs which were rejected as James Bond themes, which very quickly grew into a question of endurance. I would definitely have skipped a lot of these tracks if I allowed myself that as part of this project. That said, I didn't mind too much until the 11-minute final track, Scope J., which managed to reduce this to a one-star review almost by itself, the straw that broke my back.
Bee Gees
3/5
I didn't really know anything of the Bee Gees apart from Stayin' Alive, so this album was a surprise. Very ambitious, the first couple of tracks reminded me of Pink Floyd (pretentious concept album era) and Rasputina (ridiculous historical concept songs). Overall it's a very odd album, grandiose, rock-opera, but it doesn't really come together. Odd, but interesting.
The Pogues
4/5
Full of toe-tapping tunes. A strong pass of the Old grey Whistle Test.
Soul II Soul
2/5
After listening, I hardly have an opinion. Some moderately funky spoken word stuff. A bit trip-hop at times. But very boring.
David Holmes
1/5
Really boring electronica.
The Black Keys
2/5
A mash-up of dozens of popular genres and sounds from previous decades. It's a bit too self-conscious too be truly cool, it's trying too hard. Nothing here comes across as original, it feels more like a covers band, but they are covering their own songs.
The best thing that the Black Keys ever did was the first 17 seconds of Lonely Boy, and the second best thing was the rest of Lonely Boy, so I am sad that I didn't get to hear that song as part of this listen. I did get to hear basically the same song 18 times for the course of an hour, though.
John Martyn
1/5
Really boring electronica.
Cee Lo Green
1/5
I enjoyed Cee-Lo's rapping at times, but overall this was the kind of vapid music which I totally hate. A special dishonourable mention to Sometimes with all its little platitudes which are at best nonsensical but mostly harmful, even malicious.
Sepultura
2/5
Reading about the production of this album on Wikipedia was a much more interesting experience than actually listening to it. It sounds just like any other guttural death metal to me. Cool that these guys are Brazilian as opposed to another US or UK band, but the native music is overwhelmed by the metal sound as opposed to being well-interested, although the moments when the native sounds are at the forefront are the most interesting to me. I guess this is a metal album with some intriguing traditional sounds on it also, so two birds with one stone for this list. I preferred listening to this instead of a pure metal album, this had a bit more going for it, like the metal-less midalbum palate cleanser Itsari.
Kings of Leon
1/5
I can't believe that Kings of Leon have been judged worthy to appear on this list, but I am grateful this album is only a merciful 37 minutes of squeaky-voiced singing and pedestrian indie guitars and drums. Tedious, I really have nothing good to say about this. Not beautiful, not notable, not fun. I was going to say not surprising, but then I found out that although this perfectly replicates the UK landfill indie sound of the early 2000s, these guys are actually American. This moment of mild surprise was the only time during my listen when my brain registered anything other than mild irritation. Bravo, chaps!