Franz Ferdinand
Franz FerdinandBlazed a trail for landfill indie. Utterly forgettable except for "Take Me Out", which wasn't actually good.
Blazed a trail for landfill indie. Utterly forgettable except for "Take Me Out", which wasn't actually good.
Worst album so far. Amateurish and sloppy. Worst of Hudson Bell and Home.
I just really don't like this sound, and I hate Morrison's voice. A trial to listen to.
Absolutely fine slice of Americana which didn't make much impact on me.
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.
A couple of good songs, but overall (remastered) album is too long with too many overlong tracks.
Hotel California is OK. All the other songs terrible.
Worst album so far. Amateurish and sloppy. Worst of Hudson Bell and Home.
Inoffensive.
"Maps" was pretty good.
Great music for a film's soundtrack.
Pretty good.
Technically very good, overlong, Spinal-Tap-esque solos.
Very dull.
Better than expected, but I was not expecting much.
Good.
Let Me Entertain You is actually hilariously bad.
Obviously influential, but I didn't enjoy it.
Fine. Noisy 90s.
Get Behind Me Satan was better.
Inoffensive but very boring.
Fine.
At its best the songs sound like lost 80s classics, but mostly they sound like they are from the forgotten 80s bargain bin.
Different, which was nice.
Different, quite fun.
I don't like most modern Christmas songs.
Nothing stood out.
Standard and expected Sinatra crooning.
An entire album of the Morrissey sound.
Typical synthy 80s pop.
Apart from "Jump Into the Fire", I didn't care for any of these songs.
Yes, good.
Atonal, sloppy and shouty. High punk, low enjoyment.
Beautiful and interesting acapella, harmonious and simple.
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.
I just really don't like this sound, and I hate Morrison's voice. A trial to listen to.
Very synthy and 80s. Not very interesting to me.
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 title track, but other tracks dull and forgettable.
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.
Not my thing, but I admit it's good. Very depressing and whiny, though.
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.
Some good songs here, especially protest and union songs. Not just Unisex Chip Shop.
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.
Sweet voice and simple backing piano, pleasant to listen to.
This would not pass the old grey whistle test. Miserable.
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.
Much less whiny than Your Arsenal, but this album mostly is better because it is short.
Songs of hope, "Burn On" nicely satirical, a pretty good album.
Enjoyed the second half more than the first, probably needs a closer listen to really appreciate.
Fine.
Sounds like very clean, pure, refined, 80's pop.
Sounds like Latin prog. Fine, quite pleasant to listen to.
I know and like this album a lot.
Blazed a trail for landfill indie. Utterly forgettable except for "Take Me Out", which wasn't actually good.
Enjoyed this a lot more than I expected. Quite a lot of the Black Sabbath sound, but some very different, unexpected tracks.
Even I can understand the influence of this album. Songs are pretty good.
Sounds like the Ramones, but I can believe they did it first.
Yeah, fine.
Very nice, laid back bossa nova.
Pure funk, not heard anything quite like this before.
Pretty great, I have listened several times.
Awful, grating. Nice drums, everything else painful.
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.
Hated this.
I liked this fine.
Prototypical 80s hair metal.
Reminds me of The Smiths, but less grating.
I was prepared to hate this, instead I merely didn't care much for it.
I feel I should have liked this more than I did. Pleasantly surprised to hear the Jungle Brothers on one track.
Flat-sounding Wu-Tang spin-off rap, uninteresting backing track. Not my thing.
Probably too clever for its own good; post-pop pseudo-70s/80s art stuff. No thanks.
Morrissey drone on some more, I really hope there's not much more of him or the Smiths on this list.
Much better than other albums from the Smiths and Morrissey on this list, outright musical at times. Two stars!
Bombastic and elaborate, never a dull moment. Have to give an extra star for presentation.
Sinatra crooning over bossa backing.
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.
Fun and enjoyable, especially Ginger Bakers drumming on Ye Ye De Smell
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.
Fine as background music, but didn't do anything for me.
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.
Laid-back and kind of cool, but Spinal Tap's satire has made parts of this hard to take seriously now.
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?
Fine.
Schmaltzy big band love and romance songs, fine if you like that sort of thing.
More hair metal, punk, and even ska than I expected. A couple of nicer, slower tracks with the grungy, meditative sounds I was expecting.
Another 90s R&B / rap album I don't like, with dull backing tracks and a ridiculous number of guest artists.
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.
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?)
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.
Pretty great. Donald and Lydia a very sweet song, the rest of the songs deserve a second listen.
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.
Pleasant, archetypal jazz. "Take Five" familiar from millions of adverts, so I found it a bit worn, but all the other tracks very nice.
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
Ridiculous and the songs are too long, but lots of energy and enjoyable.
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.
Country, which can be fun. Enjoyed some tracks. A bit too gee-whillickers homespun wisdom at times.
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.
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.
OK. To me sounds tuneless and meandering. Too hard for me to get into, not accessible.
I thought it was fine. Some nice sounds, but nothing grabbed me.
Ostentiously hip. I liked Venus in Furs more than the rest of this album, but the whole thing was almost aggressively laid-back.
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.
Bland, easy listening pop. Sounds a lot like The Most Wanted Music to me.
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.
Very nice. Not heard of Pentangle before but they remind me a lot of Fairport Convention.
Fine. Siouxse and the Banshees have never been my thing, and listening to an entire album of theirs has confirmed this to my satisfaction.
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.
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.
Didn't like this. Bland, easy-listening. Maybe a 1, but not quite that painful.
Very bland, almost totally unmemorable even as soon as I finished.
Almost unlistenable. Parts of this (large parts) are barely music to my ears. It feels deliberately unapproachable.
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.
Better than I was expecting, but my expectations were pretty low. The Aphrodite's Child influences were interesting.
Yeah, good, but I didn't personally enjoy it that much. Very dense, a lot going on lyrically and verbally, music not outstanding.
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.
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.
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.
Sounds a lot like Nirvana to me. Quite noisy and shrill at points. Lots of punk sounds too. Just OK for me.
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?
Deeply, deliberately, unfriendly to listen to. Accordingly I didn't like it, although apparently a lot of people do. No thanks.
Landfill indie rock, totally uninteresting.
A couple of interesting songs here: Introducing the Band, Still Life, Stay Together. All the rest drifted past my indifferent ears.
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.
It's fine. I mean, it's Elvis. I quite liked In The Ghetto. Still. Still some die hard fans out there.
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.
Passionate but not my thing. Hesitating between 2 and 3 stars for my enjoyment of this.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nice Malian guitars, very reminiscent of Tinariwen. Enjoyable.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Fine. Lots of energy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The singing is skillful, but I don't like the songs. I found this boring to listen to.
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.
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.
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.
Very disco, very Michael Jackson. What I expected from a King of Pop in his early solo career.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nearly a whole album of my favourite Fairport Convention tracks. Crazy Man Michael the only dud for me.
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.
Absolutely fine slice of Americana which didn't make much impact on me.
Irritating songs with some interesting musical effects.
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.
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.
Lively and celebratory jazz, very enjoyable and fun to hear.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Juvenile and samey. Harsh sound. 2 stars instead of 1 because I at least knew what to expect.
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.
Kind of bland and a bit annoying at times, but some of the later tracks were fun.
One of those albums which might as well be white noise for all the impression it left.
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.
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.
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.
Pretty great. I am not keen on the backing tracks but the lyrics are great poetry, very personal. Needs a re-listen.
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.
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.
Skilled, at times fun and funny gangster rap.
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.
A bit Spinal Tap at times, but I mostly had fun listening to this.
"Bad Moon Rising" clearly the standout track here, the rest was all fine folky rock, very American.
About half these songs have the same rhythm as each other, but it's nice to have something like this on the list.
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.
The African guest artists are interesting to me, Paul Simon absolutely is not. This album also sounds very dated for 1986.
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.
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.
I liked this 90's noisy whine-rock more than I thought I would.
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.
Absolutely fine but no impact on me.
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.
Enjoyed this quite a lot, very listenable soul.
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.
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.
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.