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.
Absolutely fine slice of Americana which didn't make much impact on me.
I just really don't like this sound, and I hate Morrison's voice. A trial to listen to.
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.
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.
This jazz sounds like nice jazz to me.
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.
Sounds like a party I'll always be sad to have missed.
Possibly the blandest album on the list so far. Smooth, easy-listening jazz and a smooth voice.
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.
Very bland. All the positive opinions seem to praise its simplicity, but to me it's boring.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Better than Sebadoh, but too much noise and not enough music here for me, although I liked its loudness and rawness.
Pretty bad, but not actually offensive. Just sounded like the band banging and crashing away for 45 minutes.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Another bland album from Steely Dan. Very clean, too much so for me.
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.
Personal, small-scale, stripped-down, and dull.
Long, but seemed endless, every song going on and on repetitively with upbeat jazzy rhythms that drove me insane.
Pleasant to hear, as expected, but not actually engaging.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I found this pretty dull, McCartney doing tedious little songs.
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.
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.
Proto-Britpop with strangled-sounding vocals, long fuzzy guitar chords, sloppy crashing percussion.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Fine. Nothing stood out, mostly punchy lyrics over tuneless beats.
Synthy, falsetto art rock, disco, glam, minimalism which I hated.
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.
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.
Standard early 90s American indie garage band rock which the creators of Daria would not stoop to including in scene transitions.
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.
Enjoyed the banging drums and dark thumping rhythms.
Pretty funky but long meandering songs. I preferred Mothership Connection.
Funky, liked this a lot. Cool and surprisingly modern sound, first few tracks sound like 2000s indie.
I found this very irritating.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Inoffensive but slightly irritating mambo and Latin rhythms.
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.
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.
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.
Worse than a Night at the Opera, but still enjoyable.
Trash, but I didn't hate it. Sounds like Metallica and Iron Maiden, as I would expect.
Very boring.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nostalgic and English, gentle, good.
Tainted Love is an indestructible song, but of course it's a cover. "Sex Dwarf" is much too Spinal Tap for me lyrically.
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.