I think we've listened to two other Fall albums on 1001 albums. My other half and her cool mates are into the Fall. As a result, I've heard a few of her favourite songs (one of which "Glam Racket" is on this album) and I saw them live at least twice before Mark E. Smith died. I think this is the first time I've really enjoyed them. I can really see where both Pavement and LCD Soundsystem, "took inspiration" from The Fall on this one. I'm going to do a slightly risky thing given I've only heard it once and give it five stars. This is partly due to marking inflation, but mainly because I liked every song and I think I'll come back to this album again!

I listened to the whole thing for the first time. I would say it was alllllllright. Like, fine. Okay. I really liked the couple of singles I mentioned and there were a couple of tunes in the middle I quite liked too but overall seemed like background / coffee shop music. It was tolerable but didn’t make me want to listen again apart from Clint Eastwood and the other one.

This is a fantastic album for the first eight tracks! But I don't really care for the last six tracks apart from "Movin On". Some Killer, some filler, then! Full disclosure: I've listened to this plenty before so just skimmed through the tracks. The best Blur album, if anyone is interested, is "Modern Life is Rubbish" which is ALL killer and, if you include "Pop Scene" on the extended version, some extra killer too.

Thoughts whilst listening: Released in 1976! It's got Hotel California on it! You know, from Guitar Hero. This has got that sleazy, polished, string-section-y, feel of what I remember was on the radio in the seventies. Makes me think of the era of that Convoy song and Song for Guy by Elton John and I'm Not in Love by 10cc. That sort of stuff. And that stuff doesn't really chime for me unless I'm in a very specific mood. Maybe if it was on the soundtrack of a Paul Thomas Anderson film I'd get into it in an ironic hipster way. Did anyone see Licorice Pizza? I really got into Let Me Roll It by Wings off of that soundtrack. What a tune! Would it be wrong to say this way Country and Western Beatles with a bit of Disco? I dunno. I'm sort of getting into it and the seventies vibe as it goes along and I think back to the time. It's undeniably rich with musicality, key changes, guitar solos, all that. But I don't think I'll listen to it again. It's just a cultural thing. I'm more likely to listen to Saturday Night by Whigfield, not because it's BETTER, but just because it has more cultural meaning to me, personally. I dunno. I'm sort of vibing with it* as we get toward the end. Try And Love Again has a kind of Neil Young feeling to it. And you have to remember that the Eagles brought about the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy theme tune. Okay, I'm really looking forward to The Last Resort ending now so I can play Let Me Roll It. And then by Saturday Night by Whigfield and Convoy by C.W. McCall. UPDATE: I really know nothing about The Eagles so was checking out there other albums afterwards and I think I'm going to be the "I prefer their earlier stuff" guy. "Take It Easy"? "Desperado"? "Journey of the Sorcerer" That's more like it! *As the young people say.

I've never heard of this album before, never heard the title, or seen the cover, so I was really excited to listen to something new-to-me... I liked it! Having listened to it once I couldn't really tell you any of the songs on it off the top of my head so I think this is going to be one to come back to. But this is more the sort of thing I was hoping to hear from doing this 1001 albums thing.

I don’t remember owning this album but I know all the songs and have heard it a decent amount somehow. Clever lyrics, great riffs… this album should be further up my street than it is. I like it but I wouldn’t choose to stick it on. I think this is another example of what I’m going to call “The Whigfield Effect”. I was 30 when this came out and felt old already. So, whilst I was happy that “the kids” had some decent music, it didn’t feel like my music. On the other hand, I love the Strokes and We Are Scientists’ first albums which came out around the same time, so I don’t know, I guess that doesn’t make sense. The upshot is, I’m giving this a good score even though I wouldn’t listen to it myself! By the way, my favourite Artic Monkeys’ song is “Brian Storm” because it is approaching metal intensity.

They had an album?! "Groove is in the Heart" is a totally awesome tune, but I would never have thought to listen to more of their stuff than that, let alone thought that their album is in the top 1001 to listen to. Is Gina G in the top 1001? Betty Boo? (Betty Boo should be, to be fair.) Anyway, as the first track started and I thought, "Hey this is really good!" I wondered if it might be a whole album of "Groove is in the Heart"s. And then my other half walked in and said "This is a great album!" and sang the Deee-lite Theme that had just finished. It was looking good for Deee-Lite. It is, of course, not all "Groove is in the Heart"s. It sounds a bit dated and their are some skippable tracks, but it's probably my favourite thing I've listened to as part of this 1001 albums thing so far! Also I recognised a sample in the first track as Tom Jones's "She's a Lady" which made me feel rather smug. So, a bonus point for that!

This is very stereotypical and boring of me but: I don't really listen to rap. I quite like the Beastie Boys and I can still remember all the words to some Cypress Hill tracks (Tip for white people: "Neighbour" is a perfectly good substitute for the n-word. As in "I got to roll with the self control / in the green tank when the shit unfolds / hold up. I got it sewn up / me and my [NEIGHBOURS] are about to blow up") So, anyway, I like some of the music and samples here, the strings especially. I like some of the sci-fi Blade Runner references. I think I probably like the political angle of the lyrics but it's hard to tell because I'm not sure what the lyrics are and, although this album is in the 1001 to listen to, there aren't lyrics on Spotify or any of the lyric transcribing websites. So, I dunno. I would have to spend time working them out to really gauge if I was into it or not. It's not really my sort of thing but it's good to be made to listen to something different.

Love it. Every song is good - which is what I ideally want from an album - and there's a couple of classics. I only heard this for the first time a few years ago (I remember listening to it on chilled out long runs) and was like, "Where has this been all my life?" I don't have a lot to say about it, just: Great! Brilliant! Fandabbiedozie!

Musically, I don't mind this. I like hearing some of the singles. It makes me think of watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I can imagine Alanis playing at The Bronze whilst Angel and Buffy are having a heart to heart about something angst-y. In fact, that probably happened. However, I don't really like her voice. There's a bit too much of the "yelping" that makes me allergic to The Cranberries. Also, I don't really like her turn of phrase. Millions of hack comedians have done routines about they events depicted in "Ironic" not actually being ironic.* But I also find the phrase "falling head over feet" particularly irksome. I know it's done deliberately but I hate it. On the other hand, I found some of the meaning of her lyrics quite interesting, especially as I know she went on to have an advice column in The Guardian! On the whole it was quite nice to hear the hits again but there were a few songs such as "Forgiven" and "Mary Jane" that were hard to sit through. I was quite pleased that I had the self control to stop myself hitting the skip button! Not something I'd revisit but I've heard it now. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- *This is an exaggeration on my part. It wasn't millions and they weren't all hacks. But still... it was too many!

Nice. Soothing. I was already sleepy when listening to this and it was nice and relaxing. I'd give it a higher score but I don't think it's the sort of thing I'd listen to for my own enjoyment. But I'm glad I did it for this.

LISTEN 1 2 tracks in - I like the vibe so far. I love Neil Young's famous albums - "Harvest" and "After The Gold Rush" buy have never got through his whole discography, let alone the family tree of bands like Crosby Stills Nash and Young and Buffalo Springfield. I think I've listened to both bands a little but not really got into it. 4 tracks in - I've started to lose interest a bit - background music. 21 tracks in - I've reached the end! It's a very long album to take in, being a double album. There were a couple of songs with a spacey electonic bass under the country and western twang which gave an interesting feeling / juxtaposition. Overall, it seemed a nice enough album but nothing leapt out at me. LISTEN 2 I skipped about a bit trying to find songs I particularly liked and I couldn't find any. Some were better than others, some worse. But generally I felt a bit "Meh" about it all. I don't particularly like his voice. It sounds like the sort of band you might hear in a pub - except of course, they would probably sound amazing in a pub with all the harmonies and all. I guess a better comparison is - They sound like the sort of band I would hear in the soundtrack of an old film or detective show that I've never heard of and doesn't stand out. It's of it's time. It's alright. But it doesn't strike me as particularly interesting or move me in particular. It's FINE.

Screamadelica is an awesome album and still gets played in our house, at least once a year, I'd say. I love that album, and I feel like I should know more about Primal Scream than I do. To that end, I've tried getting into Vanishing Point before. When it came up as today's album I thought "oh, yeah, that's a good one!" But then, when I start listening to it, I'm not so sure. Things I like: I love the track "Kowalski". I remember hearing it on late night Radio 1 when it first came out and being blown away. I like the sampling of Miles Davis's "On The Corner" and the early Pink Floyd type riff in the first song. I thought "Star" would be too sappy for me, but I like it. I love "Trainspotting" but then I love the Trainspotting soundtrack album. Things I don't like: The overall "vibe" of the album. It feels like Screamadelica's evil twin. Similarly to that album there's a few rock / pop songs in a sea of psychedelic dance tracks. But this album feels unsettling and dark somehow. That's an admirable quality in music if it's what you're after. But I prefer the blissed out feel of the "good" twin. Another way of putting it: It's just not as good! But I could possibly reduce the album down to 4 or 5 tracks and have an E.P. that I really loved, or half of a great album. In fact, here it is: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4D9jH61ldeGTxQBatmEhRj?si=9782f37d01004adc UPDATE: Mark mentioned "Echo Dek" is a dub remix of this album. Having listened to it, I vastly prefer that. Five stars to Echo Dek!

I think this is good. It's chill and melancholy but because I heard Morning Phase first, this just seems like a precursor or rough draft of that.

Prince is one of those artists (or "The Artist...") who I've always felt I *should* like. Back in the day, I liked the singles when I heard them around but not felt compelled to buy an album. A couple of years ago I tried the "Sign of the Times" album and just liked the singles but wasn't that fussed about the rest of it. So, going into this I expect to like "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" and not be bothered about the rest. Let's see... ...Yeah. That's kind of how I feel about this. I like some of the more jam band sounding stuff. I like it musically. It just sounds a bit "light" or "airy" or something. I feel like it doesn't have any low end or grit. Maybe I need to turn the bass up on my speaker! But that's how I felt the last time I tried Prince too. Also it doesn't help that he's all about partying and having a good time and I don't like either of those things.

I have had a couple of goes at listening to this and not managed it. But I figured I need to stop listening to only the albums on this list I already like, so here we go. My problem with it is the same problem I have with most music I dislike immediately: I don't like the sound of the singer's voice. ANOHNI has a strange honking / quavering sound which reminds me of some of the worst excesses of Marc Bolan or Devandra Barnhart and I do not like it. But, having got through the first half of the first song on the album, I found there is a bit in the second half where the piano is playing these rising chords and the voices seemed to be singing without to much warbling and I thought "this is alright. It could be from the soundtrack to an arthouse movie or something..." so I am persevering. It's not really my cup of tea but I do love the sound of the piano, the lush strings and the musicianship. Track 5 - Is that Boy George? It is! See, I find his a much more pleasant voice to listen to in this setting. And checking this on Wikipedia has revealed a whole lot of guest appearances... "The album features guest appearances by Rufus Wainwright, Devendra Banhart, Joan Wasser, and by lead singer Anohni's childhood heroes Boy George and Lou Reed.[4]" Track 6 - Rufus Wainwright has a great voice for this. How funny to see Barnhart is also on this thing. I'm not looking forward to that - Double warbling!!! Track 7 - Lou Reed on this one? I think he just does the intro. This has got a nice bar room blues shuffle feel to it. This is my favourite so far. Track 8 - Oh no. Here he is. Barnhart. Like Marc Bolan singing on a vibration plate in an earthquake. It's a warble-off. Oh, he's just doing the intro too. This is easily my least favourite song so far. Track 9 - We're nearly through this thing. It's only a short album at 35 minutes. Who's doing the intro on this one? It sound like the guy off of Dark Side of the Moon "There is no dark side of the moon, really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark!" Track 10 - It's the end! You know, I'm glad I've listened to it. There's a lot of good here. It feels very sultry and moody. It has the feeling, if not the sound, of a Tom Waits album or something. Totally different voices, but drama and smoke, stage and theatre, hard times and sadness... I don't know if that makes any sense or if I am just doing word association. I'm never going to really love this voice, and the number of guest appearances might indicate an attempt to water it down a bit, to give the listener the time to acquire the taste for it? But I can't see and hear why it was considered such a big / important / award-winning album. There is something very moving and touching and open about it. I'm glad I persevered with it. But I'm not sure I will return to it.

I feel like every album ought to have an introduction like this "Hello, we're Rage Against The Machine. We sure hope you liked our last album. We filled it full of a lot of polemic and riffage for you and we're hoping to keep you folks entertained with some more of the same on this one. Here are some Bulls... on Parade..." Anyway, I loved the pedal steel guitar and the very country lyrics. I was worried it would be too old-fashioned for me at first. But I kind of got into it!

Holy moly! Smoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooth. Probably too smooth for me. Is this smooth jazz? Cocktail jazz? Yacht rock? It's not something I would choose to listen to. But at least I know where this sort of music resides should I want to listen to it ironically. About half way though now, on "New Frontier," and it sort of reminds me of some of the 80s Frank Zappa stuff. Is this what he was taking the piss out of?!

I never liked the Smiths. I was a Cure fan, and in my rather partisan view of things, you could only chose one "side". As it turns out, I was right. Morrisey has increasingly shown himself to be a bit of a prick, whilst Robert Smith is still a cool dude. Back in the day though, the Smiths seemed to be on the side of the underdog. They make me think of young men in cardigans like Sean Hughes, or our friend Rich. I thoroughly enjoyed the recent Rick Astley and Blossoms tribute band to the Smiths shown on the BBC Glastonbury coverage, and there's always been a few songs I've liked, especially, How Soon Is Now, but other than that, I've stayed clear of them. So when it finally came to listening to a full Smiths album, I was rather annoyed to find that I liked it. I shan't be listening to it again though, for ideological reasons.

I am listening to this album for 1001 albums even though it is one of my favourite albums and I know it like the back of my hand. I know it so well, in fact, that I am particularly looking forward to the "album tracks" rather than the "hits". I was thinking about this - saying you like the album tracks - it seems like a bit of a pose, or hipster move, but I think it's just when you are so familiar with certain albums that you move beyond what attracted you in the first place and start appreciating the smaller things. Anyway, the tracks I really look forward to on this album are "Let Down" which manages to be beautiful and feels upbeat and optimistic as well as down and depressing at the same time - it's fascinating, I don't know how it does it - and "Lucky" / "The Tourist" which sort of feels like one closing song to me. I remember putting "Let Down" on at a gathering once and Tom saying "What? This isn't party music!" Retrospectively, I would argue that the happiness/miserableness of the song means it *is* party music and simultaneously *isn't* party music at the same time. It's Schrodinger's Party Music - you don't know what mood sets until it's out of the box. I don't think any of this was on my mind at the time though! As well as the album tracks being great, the B-sides from the singles are great too. Radiohead are well known for having excellent unused songs and B-sides. If you liked this I recommend the deluxe reissue "OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017" for "Palo Alto" (which I first heard in the background of a Radiohead Tour Documentary and had to track down.) and "Polyethylene Parts 1and 2"which I remember Jo Wiley playing on Radio One and her describing the voice saying "go!" at the start as "sounding like Frank Sidebottom". Is this their greatest album? It was the one that introduced me to the band and I subsequently came to love all this stuff. So, I guess it was the most popular and the sort of the point where they reached the greatest *musically-accessible* version of what they are, before going off into less popular experimentation with Kid A etc. Is this my favourite Radiohead album? Well, I think Kid A might be my favourite due to the aforementioned experimental sounds, and "In Rainbows", and their latest "Moon Shaped Pool" also have a shot at it. I also love the previous albums. "The Bends" is great (though I specifically like a B-side remix. "Planet Telex - Hexidecimal Mix. I just love the bassline) and I like "Pablo Honey" purely *because* it's so immature. I don't think the band like it themselves. OK Computer has a couple of tracks that are a bit too teenage-angst-y. even for me, like "Climbing Up the Walls" and "Exit Music (for a film)" - although even this song has it's merits if only because it made for a great scene in Father Ted. "Replace them with the two I like from the B-sides," would have been my advice. But this is a minor complaint. It is definitely a classic album.

This is outside my normal music listening and much too modern for me! But I loved the music - particularly the basslines. I seemed to recognise a couple of tracks which I must have absorbed via osmosis from radio or TV. I've certainly hear of Little Simz a lot from the Mercury Prize win and You Tube music reviews. I only dimly know what the lyrics are about on first listening. But I hope I'll return to it again! I'm giving this a higher rating than my initial reaction of 3/5 because I reckon I'll like it even more once I've had a chance to listen to it more than once.

START OF ALBUM: I love Motorhead as a "thing", an ideal, a mythical representation of what rock 'n' roll should be, but I don't really listen to them enough. I remember listening to an album of theirs whilst walking along on a hot summers day a few years ago and being surprised at (1) how good / catchy it all was, and, (2) that they are more blues / rock than heavy metal. Okay, that might be a little bit of stretch. But for all the image of being the loudest band in the world and so heavy metal, "everything louder than everything else," etc, you couldn't really classify the music as thrash or death metal or anything. I think it sits nicely alongside bands like Deep Purple and Thin Lizzy. Anyway, a live album is sort of an excuse to have a "best of" compilation isn't it? So this must be all their best songs at the time, I imagine... END OF ALBUM: ...Okay, I've finished listening now and liked 9 songs out of 18, which is exactly half. The others seemed a bit samey. I was thinking back to my teenage years of getting into music and guitar and theorising that this album would be best listened to in the summer sun whilst smoking a cigarette (which I don't smoke anymore). It reminded me of what rock was about, simpler times, etc etc. And then the song "jailbait" came on and made me feel very uncomfortable. But still, ugh.

I thought I was familiar with this album already but I think I had the ‘best if’ with the white dove on the cover that had about half the tracks from Abraxas. Was nice to hear this again. I quite like Santana. His guitar solos just seem like noodling rather than having a melody or structure though.

Very Christmas-y!

I started out thinking this would be an easy four stars - clearly really good but I’d take a star off for not being my sort of thing or only wanting to play it occasionally. But as it went on I got bored. I think it’s the strings. I have this problem with a lot of the jazz I WANT to like. Wes Montgomery records are a good example. I’m excited to hear the guitar playing and the band but the whole thing is smothered in a schmutz of saccharine strings. I like it (or can bear it) for a song or two but a whole album of it is too much. It strikes me as the sort of thing where you could take a few songs and mix them up in a compilation of other music and I would appreciate each song on it’s own. But strings all the time is too many strings. I prefer having a bit space to hear the voice and the band. For example I recently bought a Wes Montgomery LIVE album so I could be reasonably sure there’s no strings on it. Anyway. I think I’ve made my point. Too many strings! Give us a song or few without strings as a break, or at least a less sickly sweet arrangement and I might have liked the album a lot more.

I'm not looking forward to this. Track 1 - It sounds like ZOO-era U2 with a shitty singer from a The Commitments tribute band. When will it end? There's still 60 seconds to go. Aargh. Track 2 - What was that album where I said it would sound amazing if you've never heard any other music before? That's what this is, again. The music is very simple, but not in a good way and the singer sucks. The guy from Terrorvision or Ugly Kid Joe were better and doing this sort of thing. I am reminded of U2 again by this track. God, it's boring. 40 seconds to go. They need to make all their songs 1 minute shorter is what I've learnt so far. Track 3 - "Yoo-ooh-ooh, my ass is on fire." Oh, no, I'm confusing it with something else. Again, it's amazing how simple these songs are. When did this come out? Do you remember the phrase "Landfill Indie"? I am suddenly reminded of that. Track 4 - Oh god, I forgot this one. "USE somebody". Again, so simple with weirdly unconvincing over-emoting vocals. Right. I don't know if I can do this whole album with out skipping. 1 minute 22 seconds to go. Oh god, this is so desperate to be arena rock. Ooh! A key change! It's over. Track 5 - skipping Track 6 - This sounds like modern country and western which is just simple rock with lyrical references to tractors and things. I suppose you want to make sure you get that Southern demographic. "Drinking Smoking." "Kerosene" Some slide guitar. But so simple still. Track 7 "She's only 17" Really? Is rock still doing that? (In 2008) Yeesh. skip skip skip. Yeah this is corporate bullshit. I can imagine tolerating it if it came on in a pub and you were a bit pissed. It's not as bad as Travis (but then what is?) so I am grudgingly giving it two stars. Or am I? Nah fuck it. GET FUCKED KINGS OF LEON!

I listened to half of this. I’m not sure what to make of it. Musically it’s okay, I guess. The fact that it announces itself as a “rock opera” or concept album made me think I should pay attention to the lyrics which are all about Neil Young and Lynrd Skynard. I don’t know. It seems more of an oddity than a classic album?

Alright. This is my third attempt to get through this album. Why? It kicks off with "Victoria" which is a total banger. So what's my problem? Well, I think it's that it's a real steep drop off after that. I want to like the Kinks. They're clearly a very important band and, unlike The Kings of Leon, which I just had to grit my teeth through, they have bags of character and personality. This is a concept album, though, apparently, and I think it suffers the problem of some concept albums and musicals have of having the music being less important than the message or story or whatever-the-fuck it's meant to be about. So after "Victoria" you get eleven songs that have a lot to say for them in term of tone, and lyrical content and musicality... but don't quite have any hooks or riffs that you can get hold off. They just meander along quite nicely with a sense of good old British cynicism. I must say, and this isn't the album I expected to say it about but, it's mixed really well! There's a lot of instrumentation and the drums and backing vocals and horns and everything all sound really clear and distinct! So basically, I want to like it more than I do. I'll try some other Kinks stuff, but I have a feeling they might be a "singles band" for me. Interestingly, I just read the two songs I liked ("Brainwashed" was a distant second) were chosen for the A-side and B-side for the American single off of this album. Brainwashed reminds me of "Modern Life is Rubbish" era Blur - so I guess when they were trying to "sound British" they just wanted to sound like The Kinks!

Loved it! Lots of croony classic songs - of the sort that get stuck in your head or you might sing whilst wandering round the house - sung by the lovely raspy reedy voice of Willie Nelson. Removing a star as, after the initial half a dozen or so, some songs weren’t as classic as others.

Ah! It's "Barrel's o' fun" from Doom II. But is this album barrels o' fun? Well, kind of. This is actually the first time I've listened to this album, despite it being from "my era" and being into grunge music. I've always liked "Them Bones" and as a started listening to it I was kind of pleased that the rest of the album had the same sound. But maybe it was too samey? Alice in Chains never really chimed with me the way Nirvana or, later, Soundgarden did. They just sounded too depressing... which is a weird thing to say given the other bands I like. I dunno. When I got to the last track, "Would?" I remembered it was another single that I liked, but overall I didn't feel that I'd fallen in love with album. I can't say I'd listen to again. But maybe I will and it will grown on me.

Street Life, the song, is a classic. The rest of the album was sort-of seventies background music. It made me think of The Towering Inferno, for some reason. This music could be playing whisky you were hanging out in a bar with Roddy McDowell wearing flares and sipping a cocktail before the tower got infernoed. I don’t know if I’d listen to it again.

I wasn’t massively into this at the time. It’s okay, nice enough, a bit samey and a bit dated sounding. I don’t really think it should be on this list though. The Stereo MCs were sort of a one or two hit wonder, weren’t they? It makes me wonder if you could knock a few albums off this list and cover the essential songs by including a “NOW that’s what I call nineties hits!” album. And of course that would also have “Saturday Night” by Whigfield on it. (I’m assuming Whigfield’s album didn’t make the list!?) One star seems a bit harsh. It’s not that I hate it. It’s just I don’t plan to listen to it again. I got bored about four songs in.

I didn’t have time to listen so skipped through the tracks. I never properly got into the Stones *except* for this album which I loved. I think they generally seem to be a singles band rather than an album band, from my little listening of them. Whereas this seems consistent as an album *and* has some great hits on it. I may be marking too high as I didn’t listen again but it’s a great album.

This one wasn’t for me. I quite like the instrumental track. I quite like that the bass makes it sound like The Cure sometimes. But otherwise, I was just waiting for it to end.

Boring.

I listened to half of this. The song I got to, “flutes” seemed to have a good groove, but overall it was bland - musical wallpaper or background noise. I was surprised, again, that 1001 albums is suggesting an album by an artist but without that artists most popular song/s on it. Is this supposed to be the hipster“deep cut” that’s better than the obvious choice? Because it just seemed boring.

At last! An album from the Beatmaster Beatles on this list! (I am assuming there are a few.) And I was glad it was an early one as I am only really very familiar with stuff from Rubber Soul onward. I did make an attempt to listen through all the early stuff once, just so I’d done it and didn’t find a lot that would draw me back as it was another time and another sound. I found on Spotify I’d just marked 2 or 3 songs as ‘liked’. This time around it went up to 8 with only 6 I thought were skippable. Someone once said to me it was worth listening to early Beatles to see what they’d developed from. But rather than just being an intellectual exercise, this time I found myself imagining I was a teenager at the time this album came out and how different it must have sounded to anything else. You can tell the song writing is already showing signs of genius. It’s an odd one to score as it’s important in music, but not something I’d listen to a lot… though this time round I enjoyed it a lot more! So…

I guess “Natural Woman” is the most well-known song here. I only know “Chain of fools” because of the kid with the amazing voice who sings it in Scool of Rock. And “People Get Ready” from a Rod Stewart / Jeff Beck cover version. Anyway, I loved this album! It seemed like a great weekend morning funky chill soul album to listen to with a cup of coffee. I only had time for one listen but I look forward to returning to it.

I know this album pretty well as my other half plays it a lot! I think it's a bit of a modern classic. I'm not really a big fan of "Rehab" as I feel it sounds a bit gimmicky - almost like a novelty single. But overall the old school sound and the modern lyrics work well against each other and I like most of the songs.

Loved it! I should like / listen to Thin Lizzy more than I do. I love the harmonised guitar solos, I like Phil Lynott's voice, they have some great tunes, etc etc. As I said with the Motorhead live album, it seems that live albums provide a way of giving a "greatest hits" record. I liked the vibe of the live sound but I read on wikipedia that there were studio overdubs on the live recordings! Shock horror! I don't really care though, as long as it sounds good. Another album that I've earmarked to return to...

I know the Black Sunday album incredibly well from back in the day. But I never investigated anything by Cypress Hill outside of it. Again, 1001 Albums seems to be suggesting an album by a band without their best stuff on it!? This, their first album, seemed like a tough first draft of Black Sunday to me. I was amazed how many of the same phrases and motifs and sounds were used again. If you liked Black Sunday, this is more of the same but without the hits. I guess that’s why I never explored further - that one album had covered all they were about. If, however, you didn’t like Black Sunday or were put off by the lyrics of violence, homophobia etc, this is also not for you.

So… this is why I don’t really get The Stones. “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man” are fantastic but the rest of the album is… fine. It’s like a blues cover band or something. This is why I think they are a singles band. Their greatest songs are REALLY great but the rest just seems like filler. #TeamBeatles

I listened to this twice and still don’t know that I feel anything about it. It seems like the sort of thing I should like but I don’t. I’m going to have to give it one star - not because I hate it. I just have no intention of listening to it again.

Funky! Nice! I quite liked it. The Cisco Kid and The World Is A Ghetto were highlights. I quite liked Beetles In The Bog too. The other couple of track seemed a bit meandering. This is one I would return to and listen to some more. Though, again, it doesn't have the groups famous tunes on it and I am a bit confused why this is on the list and can only assume the one with "Low Rider" is on it too?

The title track is one of those pop songs that I don't actually mind listening to if it comes on the radio or whatever - even if it does sound a bit like S Club 7. "Parp Parp! ...Parp!" Great! I don't need a whole album of it though. That's not to say it's all exactly the same. It's quite a tuneful album. But it's got that weird, slightly-dated, half-electronic 2000s sound. And by the time it got to the awful cover of "American Pie" I was literally counting down the seconds for it to end. I'm giving this two stars because it has one song on it that I sort-of don't mind.

I really WANT to like folk music more than I do. Things I like already 1. Bert Jancsh (who is in Pentangle) (and is one of the many people Led Zeppelin ripped off) - I saw him do a gig at the Komedia in the 2000s and it's up there with the best gigs I've ever been too. There was a real sense of magic in the air. 2. "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" by Pentangle. It was off the soundtrack to a recent film version of "Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier. It has a sinister Wicker-Man-esque feel to it. It's that sense of sinister magic that I want from folk music. My problem is it often seems to "nice". I want that feeling of ancient pagan / celtic mysticism. But often it seems a bit twee. A bit Tom and Barbara from The Good Life. A bit 70s sit com, rather than 70s folk horror. And that's what I feel about this. I've tried getting into Pentangle before and I think I'm only every going to be a dabbler rather than a full convert. Hey! This has sitar on it! It's a weird combination of instruments - guitar seems folky, banjo seems like a American bluegrass input and sitar! for Indian mysticism and, er, The Beatles influence. This is also another opportunity for mean to moan about expanded editions of albums. I wish there was a clear line of seperation between the end of the track list which made the original album revered and the extra crap - out-takes, live versions etc - that they bump on the end. To be fair there's some albums where the extra tracks are my favourite (Brighten the Corners by Pavement being a prime example. It is only after me and Mark went to see them that I realised that all my favourite songs are B-side on the expanded edition of the album... because I am hipster than hip.) In this case, I think it might be both. I don't want the two extra versions of "Sally Go Round the Roses" but the two extra songs after that might be my favourites. They're just a bit groovier and swing a bit more than the ones on the original album. Anyway, I need to listen to this again. And probably explore folk generally a bit more.

I’m not a natural Bowie fan. My other half had helped me get into him but there’s something about him I’ve found off-putting. Something about the constant ch-ch-changes in persona. Or something about slightly off Centre about his music? Anyway, I remember buying this CD and being surprised it was so Bowie-esque. It made sense in retrospect, when I learnt about their collaboration, of course. I got it because it has two of the best songs of all time on it: Lust for Life and The Passenger. But I didn’t like the rest of it. This time round I found I liked a few ofher songs - some of the more rockier stuff. But I still feel they don’t live up to the main two. If it were just Lust for Life and The Passenger I’d give it five stars. But as it is, it’s more of a three or three and a half.

There was a time when I really got into The Eels - not when they released this album but a few years later, early 2000s, so I know this album very well. To be slightly hipster again, although this has the most famous songs on it, their second album "Electo-Shock Blues" is amazing, though very sad and all about death and loss. I like their third album too. After that, I decided I'd gotten all the Eels I needed and just tend to vaguely keep an ear out for their new stuff. But I like every song on this album and, though I guess you have to be in a certain mood, I love it.

Haven't talked about The Eels yesterday and how you need to be in a certain (miserable) mood for it but I love it, it seems odd that I wouldn't like this. I am aware of Joy Division of course and they've always been around in references and, I don't know, "the ether" for want of a better phrase but they've never felt like "my music". It's stark and cold and that's good in it's place and I understand how they sound distinctive and can even appreciate the sound, but it's not an album I would choose to stick on. I think it's just the "Whigfield effect" where music I grew up with is more important to me than that I didn't. On the other hand, they've always sounded "real" to me, unlike some of the other stuff on this list which doesn't move me it all. Anyway, I've listened to it now. I kind of got into it more toward the end and I think if I put the effort in, I could probably grow to like it. Not sure I will though. 3 1/2 stars, for now. Might revisit.

This is the easiest five stars for me so far. I love it. I love Eddie's guitar riffs and solos. I love the way David Lee Roth can leap in the air and yelp. I love how Alex Van Halen can whack a drum. I love the way Michael Anthony can play a bass in the shape of a bottle of Jack Daniels. And after listening to Joy Division, this was mood altering in the best way. 1984 is a positive recipient of the Whigfield Effect, in that it IS music I grew up with, or at least loved as a teenager. Also it has a song about how great someone called "Jimmy" is, which is a huge bonus point from me. Can you give an album 6/5? "Jump" is the famous track of this album (and also the cheesiest). "Hot for teacher" is pretty famous. But "Panama" is my favourite, and also the first song I heard / video I saw from them, with the band mucking about on stage, partying and having a good time, Eddie Van Halen blowing smoke rings whilst playing piano and so on. It just seemed like a positive vibe, in the same way that Bill and Ted are just sort of gormless upbeatness. They seemed to be cheeky rather than sleazy. Also, whilst Eddie is known for his crazy guitar solos, he writes great songs and riffs. He's not a Satriani or a Vai putting out entirely instrumental noodle fests. Love it.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. I'm not a big fan of the sound of his voice. Is it folk? Is it funk? Pop? It makes me feel a bit uneasy.

I am familiar with The Fall sort of by osmosis from my other half who is a huge fan of them. I've even been to see them live a couple of times before Mark E. Smith passed away. There are a couple of tracks I like but I've never listened to a whole album, so it was interesting to listen to this one. It's sort of as I thought: There are a couple of tracks I like, a lot I tolerate. I like the "vibe" but it's not something I'd necessarily put on myself. But I appreciate their commitment to being outsiders so I liked it more than an average amount. Basically, what I'm saying is: I'm giving it four stars even though I might not listen to it again!

After pressing play on this album, I thought that it was going to be an easy five or four stars. I have a soft spot for Deep Purple, even though I don't play them a lot. They have some good songs and, as this was a live album, it seemed like you would get the hits. BUT as it went on, I got a bit irritated by the excessive noodling. This is probably a weird complaint from someone that likes Led Zeppelin's live noodlings (which this reminded me of) and jazz and weird prog electronica nonsense, but I wasn't into it. Some of the noodling was great, but all of it seemed like too much.

There's a section of three great songs here and the rest are okay to ignorable. I like the Stranglers but I think they are another band where I am happy to pick and choose the best songs without devoting myself to listening to whole albums. three and a half stars

I listened to the first three Air albums again recently. So I know this is pretty good! Is this the first soundtrack we've had? It's weird because really there is only one great song and then tracks of background music weaving in the theme from the great song. And yet I'm going to score it higher than the Stranglers album which had *three* great songs on it, because I can listen to all of this and enjoy it, even though it is "lighter" listening, rather than the Stranglers where I wanted to skip stuff. I hope that makes sense!

This is one I already know well and love. Not really into any of their other albums or other shoegaze albums generally, just this album specifically. It feels to me like a very specific sound from that genre, from that time, from the UK. Also, it's a funny one for bonus tracks. I got it on CD and so the proper end to me feels like it should be the song "Nowhere" whereas the bonus tracks after that feel extraneous. I don't think we should have to listen to them! They sort of dilute the album too much.

Okay. I know this album well. But the fact that it is here got me thinking about Radiohead generally because, I don't know how many of their albums are on the list, but I would say this was a "Bronze medal" album for them. I did a quick ranking: GOLD The Bends OK Computer Kid A In Rainbows A Moon Shaped Pool SILVER Pablo Honey BRONZE Amnesiac Hail to the Thief The King of Limbs All of these albums are great but I feel like Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief and the King of Limbs are just "Radiohead being Radiohead". They are sort of plateau-ing at whatever point they are at. Pablo Honey is a special case because it's their first album and rather looked down on now as juvenile or immature but that's why I like it. Youthful exuberance! And then the top, "gold," albums all felt like they were a step forward from what had come before. The Bends was a huge advance on Pablo Honey, OK Computer was a huge advance on that, and Kid A was a huge advance on that, going full jazz / electronica. I suppose you could argue that In Rainbows and A Moon Shaped Pool are just "Radiohead being Radiohead" but they are just better albums. They have better songs... I suppose the best way I can put it is: those albums made me pay attention and go "what's that?" Whereas the bronze albums sounded like the same old same old. And that's what this album is. It's fine! I will say it "I Will" is one of my favourite songs of their whole catalogue though.

I only listened to it once - sort of as background music - and it seemed nice. "Girl From Ipanema" is a famous song, of course. I don't have a lot to say about this. I might return to it again at some point.

I liked this more than I thought I would! I’ve always been aware of the B52s… Love Shack, Rock Lobster, etc… but this is the first time I’ve listened to a whole album. I thought it would be too quirky for me …but I liked it!

Iggy and The Stooges are very cool. I'm feeling a bit of Rolling Stones situation where some songs are incredible and others don't move me much. But with the Stooges even the songs I don't like so much have a sound, an energy that feels like I *should* like it. I can imagine being in a dingy basement club having these songs blasting and dancing around and it being the best thing ever. A bit like listening to early Beatles, if I could be back in that time and place it would be amazing, but sitting here at a desk I'm yet to quite grasp it. And yet I feel the fault is not with me and not with the music! In short, I need to listen to this more than once to know what I feel about it. I was going to give it a three, but then the last song has come on and I'm a sucker for a chunky repetitive riff or bassline so I'm giving it an extra star for that. And I've "liked" just over half the songs on the album which is pretty good going.

I was really into this for the first song, and then my interest dwindled a bit. Also there was a line about hitting women which really took me out of it. That was humour in the old days! There are two film links for me - The Jungle Book which Louis Prima sang on, and Back to the Future as there is a version of Night Train, as sung by Marvin Berry and the Starlighters at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance. So that was the sort of vibe I was trying to get into. I found it got better toward the end but I didn't quite enjoy it in the kitsch way I was hoping. Nice to hear something different though! And from the 50s for a change!

My favourite Doors album when I was younger was "The Best of The Doors" so I fear we might be on similar Rolling Stones territory here, where I only really like the singles or hits. For some reason, I got into a habit a few years ago, of always putting on The Doors on whilst manning the barbeque and drinking several beers. I don't know why, but it works. I recommend it. Anyway, as a result of that, my other half has bought me a Doors album on vinyl every once in a while for birthdays, Christmas, etc. As a result I'm finding that the Doors album tracks, whilst obviously not as good as the hits, have a charm to them. UPDATE: Since this was the album over the weekend, I ended up going on a bit of a Doors "deep dive" and listened to all their studio albums recorded whilst Jim Morrison was alive. (I still have the two recorded without him as a three piece and An American Prayer to go.) My conclusions? Morrison Hotel isn't the best Doors album but it's not the worst either. (The worst, for me, is The Soft Parade. It came before Morrison Hotel and has strings and brass all over it, not in a Beatles-y way, but in a Las-Vegas-pop-cover-of-a-alternative-song way. Thus, Morrison Hotel is seen as a return to form.) I think that Best of The Doors album did get all the best songs on it (I think it was a 90 minute cassette actually!?) but I've found enough in the original records to make me want to get to know them better.

After listening to The Doors and jumping straight to the Rolling Stones I realised something: I don't really like Mick Jagger's voice. The start of Mother's Little Helper was so screechy and jagged and I thought "Oh no, I've got to get through a whole album of this? Lady Jane reminded me of the Spinal Tap song about Flower People. Under My Thumb is a hit! It has a very weird and troubling sentiment but a great tune! Going Home went on forever and felt a bit goofy. A lot of these songs of white bands in the 60s doing blues seem goofy now to me. Did a quick bit of Wikipedia reading to see why this album is important: "Aftermath is considered by music scholars to be an artistic breakthrough for the Rolling Stones. It is their first album to consist entirely of original compositions, all of which were credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The band's original leader Brian Jones reemerged as a key contributor and experimented with instruments not usually associated with popular music, including the sitar, Appalachian dulcimer, Japanese koto and marimbas" Also, "An inaugural release of the album era and a rival to the contemporaneous impact of the Beatles' Rubber Soul (1965)" Well, it's no Rubber Soul! I quite like "It's not easy" I'm quite looking forward to this being over. It's weird. I can imagine if any of these songs came on in a café I was in, I wouldn't mind and would quite like them, and some of the sounds I like, but a whole album kind of creeps me out.

I’m confused as to why this album is on the list. I love the Specials. Their first album is amazing. This one has one or two good tracks on it. The rest is rather forgettable.

I loved this! It's funny I always liked the early kitsch little songs by Pink Floyd like "Bike" and "The Gnome" from Piper at the Gates of Dawn and knew they were Syd Barrett but never thought to follow up his solo stuff. It all got overshadowed by the more "serious" stuff like Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. And also, this is when I was first getting into music and if I wanted to hear Syd Barrett I would have had to have sought out the vinyl at a second hand record shop. No Spotify then! Whereas all the Pink Floyd albums were in my Mum and Dad's record collection or swapped between friends. Anyway, I really "dig" this. It's got a very naïve sound and that sort of outside aesthetic, like Ivor Cutler or someone. Giving it five stars is probably too much but I'm going to because this has actually opened up a new little musical avenue for me.

Gosh! I am rather enjoying the bits that sound like a less whiny, more shouty Megadeth, but disliking the bits that sound like a more whiny, less shouty Disney princess. What I mean is, the nu-metal emo bits sound over produced and like they are from a broadway musical to me. For example, "Snuff" is the most listened to song on this album according to the Spotify numbers and it sucks. Horrible nu-metal whiny emo nonsense. Out of interest, I listened to some of their first album afterward and it was a bit more full of youthful energy, vim and disgusting lyrics. I don't know. I rather enjoyed listening to the album but I doubt I'll go back to it.

I'm a bit puzzled what to write about this. I *want* to like R.E.M. I didn't really like them at the time but Pavement were influenced by them and... I like mandolins and they seem to have some good tunes. I really like "stand" on this album. But I find Michael Stipe's voice a bit annoying and all the songs are a bit maudlin. I don't know. I just can't gel with them and I don't know why.

Not quite the hit count of her follow up "Back in Black" but still pleasant to listen to. Jazzy pop songs. Not really my sort of thing but it could be!

Groovy! I know the song “The Message” and “White Lines” of course but it never occurred to me to listen to a whole album of Grandmaster Flash before. Great stuff!

I've never paid much attention to U2 because, well obviously, they suck. This is the second time I've tried to get through this album and what I remember from the first time is this: The first three songs are their three most well known songs (right?) and they all sound the same. I never noticed this before as I'd only hear them individually on the radio or whatever. But if you have to hear them one after the other, then it's more obvious. I like The Edge's guitar playing. He brought a whole new sound and that's admirable. I think Bono is intrinsically annoying though, like Morrisey, and his over-emoting bugs me. So it's the perennial problem of not liking the singer's voice putting me off a band. Also it's all a bit corporate rock MOR bullshit isn't it? Boring. As I said for the Kings of Leon, if I heard it in a pub and I was a bit pissed, I probably wouldn't mind it. But I wouldn't choose to listen to it sober. And to be honest, it would still get tedious. Again, like KoL these songs outstay their welcome and I find any goodwill I can muster for them ebbing away with a minute or two of the song to go. You know who never did that? Elastica! All their songs were short and brilliant and, as Justine Frischmann said, "If you wanted to hear more you could just rewind the tape and play it again." Are Elastica on this list? They better bloody be. I've just looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently their first album (and the only one you need) is on the list. So that's something to look forward to. Whilst I'm having to sit through U2 I was distracting myself with more Elastica facts from Wikipedia: Art In 2005, Frischmann moved to Boulder, Colorado, to enroll in a masters program in visual arts at Naropa University, a small, Buddhist-inspired liberal arts college,[8] and "become a nobody". In 2012 her work was shortlisted for the UK's Marmite Prize for painting, and she has been included in The Amsterdam List of 1000 Living Painters.[9] In a 2016 interview regarding her art career, Frischmann stated, "I don't really have any desire to make music, to be honest."[10] Frischmann has said, "The themes and ideas I am working with are in direct relation to an ongoing personal narrative; the big questions are reflected in the choices I make in my art ... [including] my ever-evolving relationship with my spiritual faith. I think my approach and aesthetics reveal internal struggles and speak to my family origins and history."[11] .... So there you go. Have U2 won a Marmite prize? I bet they bloody haven't. I'm still only on track 4 of Joshua Tree. All this pandering to America is a bit sickening isn't it? I suppose that's where the dollars are. ... I'm on Track 7. I'm not sure I'm going to make it all the way through. ... I've had a little break and taken a painkiller and I'm back to try and listen to some more. Last time I only got to track 4 so this is now, as I start track 8, twice as far... This track sounds like a moderately good pub band... one who have left the pubs and can fill a corn exchange and you don't know why. I keep thinking of NO VACANCY from School of Rock, you know, the sell outs. Three tracks to go. Fuck. But they'll all going to drag. They add up to a quarter of an hour playing time. I was going to give this 2, I thought that would be fair, but given that I'm finding it so painful to listen to that doesn't make much sense. I've had to fast forward to the end.

Pretty. I like the guitar work. But, and this is probably sacrilegious, I didn't take to his singing voice which is a bit weedy for me. It's that English Folk sound. However, I like Bert Jansch and I WANT to like folk music more so maybe I just need to be in the right mood or maybe it will grow on me

Good times!

I've not really listened to any solo-Beatle stuff, weirdly. So this is a good prompt to start that. This is heartfelt stuff. It made me think of modern indie singer/songwriters - though of course the influence is the other way around. I've only listened once but will try and revisit.

The only thing I knew about fIREHOSE was that they were mentioned in a Red Hot Chilli Peppers song... I've just looked it up it's "Good Time Boys" off of "Mother's Milk" and they are mentioned alongside Fishbone and Thelonious Monster, so I was expecting something in the 80s funk rock vein. But this is more folky, more... local-band-who-are-kind-of-interesting. I then read their bio on Spotify and saw the bassist and drummer are the remnants of the Minutemen, who, again, I don't really know much about but I think I listened to one of their albums because I fell in love with one of their songs for a day and a half. (It's called "This ain't no picnic".) But the Minutemen were also a big deal apparently so I wonder if the kudos for fIREHOSE comes from that. Some of this album sounds melodramatic in a Pearl Jam sort of way. But it's not really for me.

I can't say I've had much interest in Bob Dylan before. To me he was always "that guy who plays open chords with a whiny voice". But I really liked this album. To quote Bill Hicks: "G Chord, C Chord... What sort of genius is this? But then I found out there were lyrics... some of them quite profound!" Having said that, it sounds a bit same-y as I get toward the latter half of the album and some of the lyrics sound like silly hipster jokes. I was going to give this a four but it's going to have to be a 3 1/2 because I got bored as it went on.

This is probably sacrilegious, but there's an awful lot of Stevie Wonder songs I don't care for. I mean, obviously, I love "Sir Duke" and "Superstitious" and a bunch of his songs. I'm not a monster. But, it's like... When he hits, he REALLY hits, but a lot of it I find is either too saccharine for me, or too "smooth" for want of a better term. So, like, on this album... the first half of "Heaven is a Zillion Light Years Away" felt too "smooth" but then it got a groove on and I got into it. "Boogie On Reggae Woman" I seem to have previously pressed the like button on, although I don't think I've listened to the album before. But it also grooves! Creepin' I like because it sounds kind of ominous and weird. I can imagine being in the seventies and wearing a lot of beige and flares to it. Better harmonica playing than Bob Dylan too. The next songs are okay. "They won't go when I go" gave me chills. Why do I feel like I know it so well? "Bird of Beauty" I find genuinely annoying. The last track is kind of grating too. I'm sorry, I think we're looking at me giving this a 2, just because there's only a couple of songs I would choose to listen to again. But I'm going to try and listen to more Stevie Wonder to see if there's more I can get into or if I am really just a musical ignoramus. UPDATE: I like all of Innervisions. FURTHER UPDATE: And I love at least half of Songs In The Key Of Life. I feel less of a philistine now.

Very Metal.

Very pleasant.

Very hard.

I guess this is fine. The singles are quite catchy. I don't hate it. It seems much of it's time. You know, sure, whatever.

I liked this more than I thought I would.

Er. I’m not sure. I liked the songs I already knew. I don’t think I realised it was a concept album and the continuous nature of it made it feel like one song that made me a bit woozy. I know it’s important. But I think I might have to come back to this one. Too early to tell on one listen.

I was sort of intrigued to listen to this. The "Fargo Rock City" book I read recently was the story of a fan of "heavy metal" which translated as "hair metal" - it was all Def Leppard and Motley Crue which I always considered weak and lame and not really metal. Well, I'm ashamed to say I actually enjoyed the fast half of this record with the thinnest layer of irony. It felt like being in a Top Gun movie or something. But about half way through the irony wore off and I got sick of it. I guess I can now see the appeal. I like Ghost after all who are like a cross between proper metal and Abba.

I enjoyed this. It was sort of background music to me, but good in that Warp Ninja Tune way.

This is sort of boring. It reminds me of the rock music from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. "Walk This Way" is a great song but the version with Run DMC is better. The Aerosmith parts seem more energetic. Here it seems rather lethargic by comparison. Generally this seemed rather pedestrian, rather average, rock music to me. I do like Aeros though and respect any maker or smith of them.

I know this album really really well, even though I've probably only listened to it once or twice in my life. And that's because of watching the film "A Hard Day's Night" so much. So I've grown to love nearly all the songs here, even though they have that "early Beatles" jangly pop sound that I don't gravitate to so much. Great stuff.

A classic of it's time. This reminds me of university days. Not every album track is perfect and, like a lot of "Big Beat" stuff, sometimes it seems a bit bombastic and a bit too much. But the hits are fantastic and I'll always love the last two songs that make up the trippy outro.

I quite liked this. I feel like #1001Albuns is conspiring to get me into Bob Dylan.

File under: Chill, Cool, Funky, Boring and Irritating. This is one of those things that I *want* to like more than I do. I think I've listened to this album before. There are a few really great stand out tracks (Particularly "Nights Introlude," which I know Mr. Wax has done other versions of with lusher strings etc) but a lot of it washes over me and some of the sounds actively irritate me for some reason. I think what bugs me is that if you hear the best tracks, you might expect a lot more from the album but there is a lot of it that is just "meh". Having said all that, I'm going to listen to Car Boot Soul and see if that fares better...

I liked Green Day back in the day. I remember listening to Dookie at university. I was a bit suspicious of them because they *weren't* Nirvana, but I grew to accept them as a less intense pop-punk band. I even had a few of the following CDs. By the time American Idiot came out, I'd lost interest, but this album made a bit of a splash and I got it. It's okay. I think the marriage of pop-punk and concept album is a bit weird and I came to realise they have this "image" of rebellion, but without really saying anything specific about politics which seems a bit of a cop out. It was fun to revisit, but I generally go back to a few specific songs by Green Day now rather than albums. Dookie is a classic though. I want to give this 3 1/2 stars as I have a history with it and it's better than average, but 4 seems to much so I'll settle on three.

This is really an album of two songs. Two of the best songs ever, mind you, but two songs nonetheless. The rest is okay but a bit dated.

This is really weird. Usually when I say that, I mean it as a positive. But in this case it’s just… odd. I only know the BeeGees as the Saturday Night Fever guys so was taken aback by the country-and-western-influenced 70s-pop-sounding historical concept album thing. Songs about shipwrecks and Edison. An instrumental “international anthem”!? Wtf. A sound like the Monkees crossed with Willie Nelson trying to make Sergeant Peppers… This album was released in 1969 and I’m feeling the effects of the concept album era here - but without the psychedelic atmosphere, just the grandiosity. I don’t know what to make of it. Sometimes I was resisting the urge to shut it off (it’s taken me several attempts to listen to it), sometimes it was… alright. Anyway, I’ve listened to it but I won’t be coming back.

Very okay. Maybe even "pleasant" or "reasonable". I've no idea why it's on this list though. It sounds like your mate's band, or perhaps a band that had one hit and an album of filler to go with it, or maybe the band of a character from a late 80s / early 90s film where young GenXers hang out and have relationship drama and floppy hair. You know? Musically I like it. I think the singer sounds very average. It's fine. But nothing that really stands out. A bit boring. 2.5 stars

unsettling

Great!

All killer, no filler.

Ah. “Frampton Comes Alive” - omnipresent in parent’s record collections, charity shops and second hand record stores when I was young. I went into this expecting to not like it or not get it. But actually I quite enjoyed it! I’m not sure if I should be embarrassed about that! It makes me nostalgic for the Simpsons episodes when young Homer meets Marge in the seventies - a time I never really experienced myself! It makes me think of the Frank Zappa live stuff, but without the irony, or of Led Zeppelin’s live concert video - but a much much much less heavy and mystical version. “Light Zeppelin” if you will - lighter in music, tone, lyrics everything. Frampton seems very “nice” and I can see why this would be in the pop charts at the time. This is like, a 3.5 for me. I enjoyed it more than a 3 star album I would forget about. But it’s not really a 4 that’s almost but not quite a classic. I’m going to give it 4 though. Just because I think it’s better than 3 and I really like the guitar playing.

I've never really liked Elvis Costello. I think I could but listening to this album hasn't changed my opinion much. I am slightly suspicious that it has been chosen for the 1001 albums list and has not one of his famous songs on it, nor any of the ones that are less well known but that my other half likes. Is this another "deep cut" or non-obvious not-actually-the-best album by this artist, like a few others that we've had to listen to? Anyway, this features a number of songs that sit somewhere between crooning, punk and pop and don't really feel very satisfying in any of these directions. I just don't get Elvis Costello, really. It sort of reminds me of The Boomtown Rats, in that it's a bit... shit. Sorry, I can't quite find a word for the feeling it gives me. Annoying? Suspicious? Fake? Smug? Something.

No. No, thank you. Not for me. Nope.

I can imagine this is the sort of music that sounds amaaaazing if you've not heard much music before. By which I mean, it's bluesy, yes. It has grooves and keeps it simple, cool. It's a bit like other things but not as good, yeah? Cream, come to mind. As do Hendrix, old blues guys, etc. But also, less salubrious counterparts like Wolfmother or... Well, alright, just Wolfmother. It's a bit light a low-octane Wolfmother. Maybe with the occasional touch of later, crooning, Artic Monkeys. Or that guy with the hat. What was he called? ...Hozier! It all seems kinda bullshit to me. Like people pretending to do "proper" music but dumbing it down a bit to make it popular. It's alright. But so what?

I’ve never really been a fan of reggae. It’s not my thing. It all sounds very same-y to me. I kind of like the more slower dub stuff or faster ska stuff, but even then I’m not massively into it. And I wasn’t completely swayed by this album. There were a few songs I liked and some I was bored by. So overall, it’s just not my cup of tea but I can see how I could like it under the right circumstances!

I listened to this but it didn't leave much impression on me. It sounded like a local band from Portsmouth. It sounded like it should be on the soundtrack of Pretty in Pink or Sixteen Candles or some other John Hughes film. It didn't seem like it had any great tunes. I listened to their top five tracks on Spotify too and had no reaction. I dunno. I suppose if I were young at the time I could have been into it? I think this is basically saying "I guess you had to be there?" which is a variation of "The Whigfield Effect" but for things which aren't as demonstrably crap.

"Why does it always rain on me?" "Because you live in bloody Scotland, mate!" That was my joke about Travis back in the nineties that no one really thought was funny. And it wasn't really that funny. But it should be, shouldn't it? Like, someone Scottish is singing about it always raining on them as a metaphor for... depression? bad luck? Self-sabotage? And they are opening it up to the notion that it's because they are guilt ridden, "is it because I lied when I was seventeen?" and inviting the listener to imagine the potential scenario in their heads, which is all very poetic... But! There is a much more cutting and practical answer which is that they are manifestly Scottish and it always rains in Scotland, which is where they are. My subsequent visits to Edinburgh have proven this joke to be rooted in fact. I still don't think the joke is that funny though, even though the mechanics of it make sense. Maybe it is too mean? Maybe it's the delivery? Maybe it's because I lied when I was seventeen? Anyway, this album is pish. I thought I might have grown fond of it through old age, nostalgia and sentimentality. But, no, it's still incredibly boring, bland, middle of the road, tedious fucking nonsense - The Lighthouse family for people that are feeling a bit maudlin. What "classic" album is next? The Stereophonics? Shed Seven? Mr Blobby? Jesus wept. UPDATE: I think this has been the worst experience of 1001 albums yet. It’s surprising. They seem so inoffensive. But by the end of listening to this album I felt like liquid boredom had seeped into my bones. I felt like a hyperactive child who had been dragged round a stuffy old museum for six hours. I had to make a playlist of the fastest tracks that came to mind to try and get rid of the feeling of ick.

The drums are the best bit. Nah, only kidding. And yet... that might be the best way of summing up my review. We spoke in the group chat last week about how we don't listen to The White Stripes that much which seemed like an odd omission. Well, I think I've figured out why (at least for me.) There's something about Jack White that's a bit like fingernails down a chalkboard. His guitar tone is very screechy. His voice is a bit whiny. But his music is really good. So it's a bit of a quandary. But it's that quality that makes me listen to other things instead. It's a sort of annoying smug hipsterism. Well, I say the music is really good, but having listened to a whole album, I'm wondering if it's just the "hits" that are good. Apart from "Blue Orchid" and "My Doorbell," I like the marimba on "The Nurse" and I quite like "Take, Take, Take" and the guitar on "As Ugly as I Seem" (maybe because it's acoustic and can't be made to screech.) Two classic songs though so 2/5 - a star for each song.

I enjoyed this, though it's not the sort of thing I would usually listening. The first song was like an Arabic keening that morphed into stage musical crooning. His voice sounds exactly like OK Computer Thom Yorke! Not the falsetto stuff but that mid-range. Like a lounge Radiohead then? I'm interested to explore more of his stuff.

This was one of the first albums I owned, weirdly. I don't know how or why. Maybe I was looking for things that were a bit like The Cure? I remember the vinyl cover was a pleasingly thick, matte-feeling, cardboard. Anyway, it was a bit of a cul-de-sac of musical exploration, in that, I quite liked it but not enough to become a fan. And I still feel the same way, like, I quite enjoy listening to it because I have to for 1001 albums, but I can't really see myself returning to it again. Nonetheless, it's a unique sound and I'm going to give it a 4 because I can. So there.

Elvis Presley by Elvis Presley is exactly what it says on the tin... It's Elvis Presley. Of course I know who he is. Though I can't say I've ever listened to an album before. This seems to be divided into "songs you know" and "boring songs". I guess it's good because it's early stuff? But then "suspicious minds" from his Vegas years is great. I guess if I was interested in Elvis, I'd have to do a compilation of his best songs - or the ones I liked best. But otherwise it's just part of the background noise of culture. I sort of know about it but don't need to listen to it by choice. You just here Elvis songs around. I much prefer the Jimi Hendrix version of Blue Suede Shoes. Is "Tutti Frutti" an Elvis original? I thought it was Little Richard or someone like that? ...Yeah if you search for it, it's the Little Richard version that comes up. I like that all the songs are short. They don't hang around. Isn't Blue Moon more famously done by someone else? I'm going to give this a three as "average" but it's probably more like 2 and a half. I don't hate it. It's not unpleasant to listen to. But I will probably never choose to listen to it again! I liked "Blue Suede Shoes" "I Got a Woman" and "Money Honey". I also liked "Tutti Frutti" and "Blue Moon" but I don't think they are the definitive versions and are done better by someone else.

I love this album. I don't really need to listen to it again to give it 5 stars but I will. Arguably, this is more for sentimental reasons rather than musical. But it's also an interesting mix of pop, dance and experimental music. Some of the electronic sounds are rather dated now, but I'd argue that just means they are "tied to an era" rather than "bad". I love the bit in "There's more to life than this" where Bjork leaves the club for a moment! I love the horn section on "Aeroplane" "Violently Happy" is a bit of a "banger," as they say. I also love the horn section on "The Anchor Song". Some of my favourite moments are the least played songs! Typical! Yeah, maybe this album should be 4 stars but I don't care...

I don't really listen to the Pixies much because they felt a bit "just before my time" but they influenced all the bands I did listen to like Nirvana and so on. I have a passing acquaintance with their stuff and have definitely listened to Surfer Rosa and a couple of other of their albums before, but it's not stuff I return to on a regular basis. But I probably should be because it's totally awesome!

I'm torn between the phrases "annoyingly twee," and "annoyingly fey." I've actually seen Devendra Banhart live, I've just remembered. A friend from work got me to go - probably around the time this album came out! I wasn't really into it. I get a Russel-Brand-vibe off of him. I wouldn't be surprised if he released an album called "My album-y walbum". So I'm a bit prejudiced against this album from the get go. Listening to it... Oh yeah, he's got a voice like Marc Bolan. And the songs sort of noodle along... This is a bit like "Passenger" or those chart-topping singer songwriters. All husky voices and meaningful-sounding but meaningless. Suitable for an indie film where a young man with a beard stands on a beach looking wistful. Okay. I'm five songs in and I get it. It's possible I'm just not in the mood for this. But I'm going to have to take a break from it at least.

I didn't mind this at all. Which is a weird, because I've just come back to this album after skipping it, and I'm sure the first time I started to listen to it I gave up because I wasn't into it. I suppose it shows how much mood and situation can play in how you respond to an album. At the moment, I am listening to this rather than today's album which is Robbie Williams. I suppose anything would sound awesome rather than that. Anyway, this is firmly from the fuzz guitar, glam rock, era of T.Rex, rather than the early acoustic hippy-dippy stuff and I rather enjoyed it. I'd say it's better than average, so I don't want to give it a three star review, but at the same time giving it 4 seems to put it in the company of much better albums. It's probably a 3.5, or maybe a 4.1 but whatever this isn't an exact science is it?

Is this post-punk? I thought the music had some interesting ideas in it. Wasn't so keen on the singing voice/s. Might return to it later. Might not. 3 and a half stars.

This has got to be a 5/5 hasn't it? Reasons: My favourite song on here, because I am a contrary hipster, is probably "When the Levee Breaks". That drum sound! I can play "Black Dog" on the guitar, although I wish I'd learnt a different song because I never know when to come in after the sing-y bits. Without this album and "Stairway to Heaven," we would never have had the "No Stairway? Denied!" bit from Wayne's World. The other songs I haven't mentioned are either nice folky ones or nice groovy ones and I love them. Thought Led Zeppelin probably nicked them off of someone else. FIVE STARS!

"Nice!" as the presenter of Jazz Club used to say. But, I would add, a bit meandering and annoying? I don't know. It's fine. It makes me think I am sat in a coffee shop. It's like it has all the components of music I like and then it just slides off me. I dunno. I don't get it. Maybe I'll return to it when I'm in a more receptive mood.

I know this album well and like it a lot. It’s a classic but I’m lopping a star off because some tracks don’t feel that essential.

I assumed this was a super deluxe rerelease from the number of tracks, then saw no sign of that on the cover image and assumed it was a double album when it came out for the first time in the 80s, and then "celtic soul brothers" came on for a second time and I was relieved I could turn it off as the rest was clearly remix and live bumph. Not that I thought it was a bad album. It's the sort of thing I would only listen to due to this 1001 albums challenge, so I was glad of that. And, on listening, I thought, "I love a horn section so I should like this." But I find Kevin Rowland's voice to yelpy. It seems to gimmicky. Too of it's time, maybe? But alright!

Very classic.

The previous Muddy Waters album that came up on this list was "Hard Again" - which was a comparatively modern blues album with a thick sounding, rock band approach. This, being a bit earlier and recorded live, sounds more "authentic" and natural. I do like the previous album , but this more what I think of when I think of the blues. It's got some songs that are standards... yeah, everything's all good here. Does what it says on the tin.

Disappointing. I really liked listening to Surfer Rosa, and was hoping for a similar experience from this. Unfortunately Bossanova seems to be "all filler, no killer" apart from "Velouria" which is a great song. I quite liked "The Happening" for some reason. But overall this is a nonessential album. Not sure why it's on the list. I like the album cover? 1 1/2 stars.

"Oh, no, it sounds alright, mate, but it sounds a bit like Goldie." This quote says it all really. But let me add... I was surprised how repetitive this was. And so long! 1hour 53 minutes!? I know quite a few tracks without having listened to the album before. I guess it was everywhere at the time. It's okay as background music, I guess, but it's a bit boring. I'm marking it down from a 3 to a 2 just because I can't really see myself listening to it again.

It must have been very exciting to be there. I know Flea says one of the major influences on him musically was seeing The Germs. Also, I had no idea Pat Smear was in the Germs before Nirvana or the Foo Fighters! I feel I understand his presence in that scene a bit better now. Anyway, I'm not sure it makes much of a listening experience all these years later. It's okay but the punkishness is very samey and it just makes the album sound like a bit of a mush, I feel like there are other punk bands with more melody / riffs / tunes. Though I don't think these are the worst I've ever heard. I dunno. I could maybe pick out some songs with interesting bits that I might like if I gave it repeated listening. By the end of the long guitar strangling song at the end of the album I feel like I sort of liked it!

I started off thinking "This is fun!" It's got that very eighties sound. It reminded me of Huey Lewis and the News and that type of thing. It has a couple of classic songs that Tina Turner is best known for, like "I can't stand the rain," "What's love got to do with it," and "Private dancer". And Tina, obviously has a great voice. But... are these all covers? When it gets to the ones I know best from the originals like "Let's Stay Together" or "Help!" they just sound very very silly with the 80s MOR Rock treatment. On Spotify, this seems to be another secret expanded edition. The original U.S. version had 9 songs and the International one has 10. This version has 14 and then another 3 Extended 12" remixes of the hits. Unusually, it seems to have been reordered too, so it's hard to tell if the shorter version of the album would have not outstayed it's welcome. Having said that, I'm now getting toward the end and there's some better tracks so who knows. ...Oh! I've just noticed it says "20th anniversary edition" in tiny writing on the cover. Also I wondered why the guitar was so good and I've just read Jeff Beck plays on the album, so that explains that. I'll give it 3 stars but you have to be in the right mood and / or skip some tracks.

This is the third Prince album I've listened to and every time I think "This is when I will finally get into Prince," but, I'm afraid, it's another Rolling Stones situation for me: The hits are amazing classic tracks, but the album tracks I can live without. And this is the same thing here. There are 3 or 4 amazing songs and the others are okay. I think this album is the one I've enjoyed most so far, so perhaps, I am getting there and the day will still come when I am a Price convert!

Wow! I had completely forgotten about this album. It's fantastic. It takes me back to the early 2000s. It was after this that "mature" music performers starting Rick Rubin to do "stripped back" albums where they tried to remember what made them good in the first place! My response to the Willie Nelson album was favourable, so it might just be that I have a soft spot for cover albums by old country geezers, but this is in a different league. The cover of "Hurt", ( and the associated music video which with the contrast of Cash and his wife in their last days against all the video footage of his life, is a piece of art in itself) makes this album worth listening to alone. But there are a few other high points like, "The Man Comes Around" and "I Hung My Head" and there's not an actual duff track on here. (Alright, some are a bit too schmaltzy or corny for me. "Danny Boy" and "Desperado" aren't songs I would chose to listen to, no matter who is covering them. Great tunes, of course, but I can't take them seriously.) I want to give it 5 stars, but realistically, it's a 4. Hang on. How many stars did I give Willie Nelson? ...I gave it a 4. Okay, so this gets 4.5 from me!

My feelings about Talking Heads are a little difficult to fathom even for myself. About ten or fifteen years ago I got a free DVD with a newspaper of "Stop Making Sense". I fell in love with that performance and think it is one of the best live concert films ever (which isn't a very controversial opinion). But I felt no need to get their albums. And in this age, where you can listen to any album you want via streaming, I have gone through their back catalogue and... I like it but I don't go back to listen to it. Like, I never think, "I'm in the mood for some Talking Heads!" I don't know. I like the quirkiness. I like the surprising underlying funk to it all. But somehow I don't gel with it. Even the many songs I like on this album, I can't help feel I'd rather be listening to the live versions. It's like when you feel you "support" someone in doing what they are doing what they are doing, even though it's not your cup of tea. I'm going to give this a 4 because I know I like more than I feel it. But "Stop Making Sense" would get 5.

Another very unique album. It reminds me of a few things - The Cardiacs, Roxy Music... It sounds a bit punky and yet also a bit like the Beatles... but ultimately it sounds like Sparks. I can't say I'm a huge fan - I've never listened to an album of theirs before - but I've watched the Edgar Wright documentary about them, and of course I'm familiar with "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us" which is their best song and is on this record! It's a quirky style of music and sometimes I don't "feel" it and other times it seems like genius and I totally get the vibe. I don't think I can give it a five on first listening but I think it's a grower. 4.5 stars

This is a very unique-sounding album. It's really just an organ with the bontempi beats going and a man singing BUT the soft fuzzy distortion of the organ sound and the beats and the reverb and delay on the voice give this really unusual, spacey, SPOOKY but electric sound. Definitely one I'll come back to.

There are no bad songs on this album and so really, by my own rules, I should give it 5 stars. But I'm deducting a star because it makes me feel so middle of the road for liking it.

I have never wanted to listen to Yes, It was too "Prog Rock" for me. Even though a lot of the music I like could be said to be "Prog". A case in point: I was excited to hear about recent announcement about the Beat band who are playing the music of 80s King Crimson, made up of half of that band at the time. They were asked to define the difference between "Prog" and "Jazz Fusion" and I think they said that Prog still has written parts whereas Fusion is still more improvisation led. So maybe I am just more of a Jazz Fusion guy. I quite enjoyed this album until the singing started. I can't stand Mr. Yes's voice. It's thin and weedy and horrible. So I can't see myself getting into Yes in the near future. 2 stars

I would like The Smiths a lot more if Morrisey wasn't so irritating. Last time we were made to listen to a The Smiths album, I think I reluctantly enjoyed it and was saying it was a shame Mr M. turned out to be such a prick. This time I was reminded I also find his voice and the whole twirling-a-bunch-of-flowers-whilst-wearing-a-diaphanous-shirt thing annoying. I actually like the music. Having said that, this album has more filler than hits. But some classic songs. The Smiths fall into the "Love the hits, the rest is shit" category for me. 3 stars

Of it's time. Kind of nice. a couple of tracks stand out.

I know the name of "The XX" but that's literally it. Is it techno? Is it R&B? I don't know. It's modern stuff. Track 1: Oh it's THIS. I know this. Track 2: I read it's R&B influenced indie. This sounds like 80s post punk with breathy female vocals. Oh, the male vocals have come in. I don't like that. It's that posh cockney sound of young people. Hmm. So far seems a bit forgettable. Track 3: This is the one with the most listens (apart from the first track which is instrumental advert fodder) and a single, I read. So it must be the best one? The guitar parts remind me of early Cure. All very simple and pared down which I like. But I am having a real problem trying to enjoy the singing. It makes me feel tense! This doesn't seem the catchiest song to me. but it has lots of "woh-oh-oh-oh-oh" which must be the key to it's popularity. Track four: I think this is a generation gap thing. I would like it if I were a young person... or would I? I think it's too pop for me. It's too "on in the background of hip bars / cafes / clubs" It doesn't have much grit to it. Very smooth. Very cool. Track whatever: Right I get it now. This is not for me. Even though lots of elements are thing I recognise. These handclaps are very "close to me" by the way. I feel like this is not the music of the underdog, somehow. It's a feeling I got from a lot of new popular music, that it is for the overdog. It is for the cool young people and not the actual disaffected rebel young people. But I may be wrong. It's probably just because I am an old fogey. Or not in the state of hormonal turmoil that needs this sort of stuff. I feel like it has DRAMA written all over it. Does any of this make sense? Like it's very cool but also they could be X Factor winners for all I know. Is that why they are called the XX?! They won the X factor twice? Anyway, I gave it a go.

This is my first time listening to Bruce Springsteen... I mean consciously choosing to listen to Bruce rather than hearing it through cultural osmosis. I never realised he was leaning on another person on the cover! Who's elbow and bum is that?! I recognise "Thunder Road" as a title. Was it in that Nick Hornby book? ...Yes, I've just checked. It was the second chapter in "31 Songs," a book about... 31 songs, that I read when I was much younger. Apart from that, I recognise "Born To Run" of course. But that's it. Okay, let's press play! ...Oh. It sounds like Meatloaf.

(Sigh) I don't know. It's fine I guess. The fact that "Born to be Wild" is on here tells you all you need to know. I sort of expected The Cult to be more goth but it's ROCK with a capital "R". And also a capital "OCK". "Love Removal Machine" is, according to the Spotify listening figures, the most listened to (and therefore best?) song on here and it sounds EXACTLY like "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones. They sort of remind me of a bad Guns N Roses. The lead singers voice is distinctive, and I sort of appreciate that, but also don't like it? I wonder if the 1001 list is again being a bit obtuse by not picking Sonic Temple. At least I recognise the cover of that one. There can't be TWO The Cult albums on this list, surely? Yeah. Fine. Whatever.

What the Rolling Stones were trying to be! I haven't really thought about The Black Crowes for a long time. They were one of the more reputable bands you might see on "Raw Power" later called, "Noisy Mothers" - the late night rock and metal show in the nineties. I quite enjoyed this album! I don't know when I'd want to go out of my way to listen to it, but it was fun to listen to when I did.

I know the name, and this is as I thought it might be. It sounds like the music in the background of some sixties road trip movie. There is a genre of sixties American white beardy groups that I don't care about. It's not that I think they are bad, but they just don't do it for me and this is very much that. It's absolutely fine. I quite like "Bad Moon Rising" which is their classic song, I guess. And I'm sure I could delve about in their back catalogue and get something out of it, but I don't feel obliged too. It's hard to describe why I feel this way. It's like it doesn't have the depth or soul or grit or something that I am looking for. Anyway, it's FINE.

I don't think I could ever really take Rod Stewart seriously. You say "Rod Stewart" and I immediately think of Kenny Everett in skin-tight leopard-skin spandex trousers with an every expanding inflatable bottom. Rod Stewart is that caricature rocker with the series of identical blonde wives. A rock n' roll footballer. He fits into a genre I think of as "Lorry driver's music" along with Phil Collins. Strange then, to think he and Jeff Beck probably once thought of themselves as rivals of Led Zeppelin. Musically, it's good. There's some lovely guitar work here. I see Ronnie Wood on the personnel and it does sound a bit like the Rolling Stones - it's just leaning toward the pub blues band sound rather than the mystical heights of Led Zep. I must admit though, the musical accompaniment is very pretty and I'm having my assumptions challenged a bit. It sounds like a lazy summer's day in a pub garden. It was interesting to be made to listen to this album. I think if you got Robert Plant to redub the singing, I would love it. But I still finds Rod's husky voice, and the image associated with it, a bit ridiculous and that's ever present in my mind when I'm listening to this. So it's just three stars from me. Sorry, Rod.

Haha! I listened to this just the other day anyway! It's probably my favourite Prodigy album and "Poison" is my favourite Prodigy song. It captures their sound having developed from a sort of tinny sound of the early rave scene like "Charlie says" and "Going to outer space, find another race" and all that, but before they got that bombastic metal/dance sound of "Firestarter" and the annoyingly antagonistic "Smack my Bitch Up" and so on. This was a time when the rave scene felt like it was actually revolutionary and allied to all sorts of counter-culture stuff. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't but after this it went into the mainstream.

I enjoyed this a lot. Somehow A Tribe Called Quest passed me by at the time though I was into De La Soul and similar groups. This is one I will return to.

I enjoyed this a lot. I am learning from this 1001 albums thing that I quite like wistful / melancholy 60s folky stuff: this, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen have all been pleasantly surprising! Or surprisingly pleasant. Or both.

Great! Things like this sound old but not old, if you know what I mean. Like, there is something so fundamental about this music that applies to everything that came after it that it still… rocks? Or swings? Like the old blues guys or Motown. It’s VERY classic.

Where the samples come from! I can’t say I listened *too* closely but it seemed like fun.

Is this a three star or a four? I’m not sure. Musically, I really liked it - cool guitar riffs and piano lines. I’ve always felt Janis Joplin belted it out too much for me. And it didn’t help I had a headache. But I enjoyed this still.

This is very obviously a classic album and getting five stars. It was nice to have the excuse to listen to it again. It's probably not my favourite album by the Beatles. In fact, it's "classic" status puts me off from listening to it! I feel like there should be a version of this that has the album as one disc and then Strawberry Fields... and Penny Lane as disc 2. And nothing else. So you don't need to muck about searching among various takes and rehearsals to find the songs of the single.

5 stars. Easy. I was thinking when listening to Sgt Peppers the other day that my favourite Beatles album is either Revolver, or Rubber Soul, or The White Album - the latter being a double album so eclectic in songs and styles. So is this Led Zep's White album? Maybe. Anyway it's got Black Country Woman on it which is one of my favourite songs with the "Shall we roll it Jimmy?" / plane going overhead intro.

Very pleasant. This passed me by at the time. Would play again.

Nice but maybe… too nice? A bit too cheesy pie for me.

I enjoyed this a lot. Not to keen on the singing or the wacky skinhead song but I liked the noise.

The first song’s vocal line reminded me of an LCD Soundsystem song! I guess that’s where LCD they got the inspiration from. I sort of saw the rest of the album through this lens - like a 70s LCD. I wasn’t so keen on the vocals though. It sounded like when a sideman takes over vocal duties from an actual singer and really should stick to their instrument. But then a lot of prog rock singers sound like that to me. Overall, I enjoyed it though. I haven’t listened to a Brian Eno album before despite being aware of his influence. And I look forward to listening to more.

"Ahaaa!" as Alan Partridge would say, "Knowing you, Abba - Arrival, knowing me, Alan Partridge. It was odd going into this because, although I've never listened to an ABBA album, I knew what I was going to get - some classic pop songs and a bunch of filler. I wasn't expecting it to start with a slightly suspect song about kissing a teacher, but given the era, perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. But when it gets to the hits - "Dancing Queen", "Knowing Me, Knowing You," "Money, Money, Money," you can't help but feel a sort of cheesy joy. I want to give it 4 for the excellent song writing, but the filler is dragging it down. Three and a half?

Sometimes 1001 albums gets me to listen to an artist I've never really liked, and if the album doesn't win me around, I can at least spend the time trying to work our why. I've never really cared for Van Morrison and this album has only confirmed my feeling. At first I theorised it was because it was too middle-of-the-road: a sort of Travis of it's time (though if you know me, you'll know that's a very savage appraisal. So, maybe a Stereophonics of it's time.) But I quite like it musically, and indeed, I active enjoyed Moondance, the song. It was a fun jazzy swinging time. I just wished it was someone else singing it. And that's when I figured out why I don't like Van Morrison. I don't like his voice. Which is kind of important for a singer. It feels like he is bellowing at me. He is a sort of aggressive or macho crooner. Whilst it's meant to be soothing, it actually puts me on edge! I feel like I've personally done something to upset him. It sort of sits with Springsteen, Janis Joplin, and Joe Cocker in that way (though the latter I like). Hmm. Is it a white people thing? Are they confusing soul with shouting? Maybe. And now I've identified the reason, I'm finding his voice even more grating! Only two songs to go. I very much look forward to this album being over. One song to go. Do you think we could use AI to remove Van Morrison from this Van Morrison album? Then we could just hear the nice backing singers. It's over. I'm putting on Harvest by Neil Young as a palette cleanser.

What a great album. I can't believe I've never listened to it until now. I don't really know Public Enemy well, even though I've seen them live... twice! I feel like I've been prompted to catch up with something I should have been listening to for years! 4.5 stars

And so this is Garage / And what have you done? / Another album listened to / I suppose it was fun? I'm in a Christmas-y mood. I put this on. It was alright. I could largely ignore it. It was like listening to the radio. I didn't mind it but I will never listen to it again.

Like a shittier, camper version of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Not for me.

I am in a bit of a quandary about this one. At first it seems inoffensive. And I don't mean "inoffensive" in the way that Travis is inoffensive, that is: teeth-gnashingly, mind-meltingly boring and bland. No, I mean... it's fine. It's okay. I don't mind it. I don't hate it. I don't love it. It's just there. But the quandary is this: It's clearly slightly lame dad-rock, but the guitar playing is really really good. So I might secretly have a bit more of a dabble with Dire Straits. But don't tell anyone. It would ruin my jazz-metal-weridness street cred.

The last time Stevie Wonder came up on this list, I didn’t particularly like the album and I worried this meant I was an ignoramus. Innervisions was one of the other albums I listened to at the time to check if I was at fault. I was relived to find I loved it. Pretty much every song on this album is a corker. Many of them are stone-cold classics. There’s two or three that are a bit too saccharine for me so, if I could, I think I would give it 4.7 stars. So let’s round it up to 5!

This is already one of my favourites. A surprisingly consistent album, perhaps, given the “one hit wonder” vibe of “Alright”. Quirky… cheeky… full of youthful energy… brilliant… five stars!

Look, I appreciate the attempt at funk or whatever, but, I dunno, it comes across as really smarmy. It's got that "Baker Street" style saxophone over everything. I was going to give it three stars until the cover of "Across the Universe" came on. Yuk! "Fame" is an absolute corker though, and I want to reinstate the three stars for that, but it would give the impression that I might listen to this album again, which I don't really intend to. Fame, yes. Album, no.

I quite enjoyed this. I was shocked to discover that Everybody’s Talkin’ wasn’t a Harry Neillson original but was by this guy. I still prefer that version but you have to give credit to Fred Neil and the rest of the album was okay. It’s described as “folk” but I guess it’s an American folk. He has a country-singer type voice but the accompaniment is less twangy than country. I liked the instrumental at the end too.

I am a huuuge Cure fan and I know this album well, but it's not often the one I turn to as it's so intense. Funnily enough, the album that got me into them and the first album I ever bought was the Best of / Remix album they released after this, "Mixed Up". My favourite Cure album is "Head On The Door" and I would recommend that as a starting point for anyone new to the Cure. "Disintegration" is so intense and sad and cold sounding... and yet it has some great pop songs, and some of their greatest hits nestled in there: "Pictures of You," "Lovesong," and "Lullaby," are great songs, and possibly this is the height of what they are known for since the punkier early days or the self-consciously happy "Friday I'm in love" off the next proper album, "Wish." But those get a little lost in the rather bombastic tunes like "Plainsong," "Closedown," and "The Same Deep Water as You." Having said all that if you are a moody teenager in the early 1990s, perhaps that is exactly what you want. And for that reason I'll never have anything but respect and love for this album, it's just not so often that I'm feeling like I need to drown in sadness these days, thankfully. I've always thought that if I won a significant award I'd dedicate it to Robert Smith for meaning so much to teenage me. Unfortunately I've never won anything significant. That makes me sad. I'd better stick Disintegration on again.

This is probably a 4.5 star album but because everything better than average gets lumped into 4, I’m going to have to give this 5 to differentiate it. Call it rating inflation. Also I really like The Doors and I’m assuming “The Best of the Doors” isn’t on this list so they should get the five stars somewhere. This has got a good number of classic songs and the album tracks are pretty good too. It’s funny only getting to know the individual albums at this later stage in my life, but there you go.

Very pleasant. ...I'm not sure "very pleasant" covers it all as there are clearly interludes where people talk about racism and issues of race, so I'm sure there's more serious contents in the lyrics but I didn't really take that all in on the first listen. The fact is, I am trying to catch up on two weeks of 1001 albums and I couldn't get through the industrial military-band Queen-covers of Laibach, nor the the pop crooning of Adele, so this was something of a balm and I enjoyed the whole album.

I’ve listened to Amnesiac a lot over the years, but I can’t remember if I like it! HAHAHA. Sorry. This album came out within a year of the release of Kid A. The way it was presented was that Kid A was the “weird one” where they went all Aphex Twin and Amnesiac was a way of “making it up to fans” with a “proper rock album” …though I don’t know if that’s what the band thought. Kid A is probably my favourite Radiohead album so I was always a bit dismissive of Amnesiac due to the above narrative. But actually it’s very good, as you would expect from Radio and the Heads (Are all their albums on this list? I forget.) and, crucially, it’s in no way M.O.R. Maybe it’s best to think of them as one double album, as they seem to have done as shown in their “Kid A Mnesia” 20th anniversary rerelease (which I have on red vinyl, I have you know) Genuinely, though, I couldn’t remember how much I liked Amnesiac itself. I think I did a previous rant about how the first four Radiohead albums progressively develop and become more experimental and interesting and then after that they plateau for a bit - what I call “Radiohead being Radiohead”. Well listening to this album again, you can almost hear exactly when it happens. The first four songs are all great. - “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” in particular gets me reaching to turn the volume up - but after that it’s all… fine. It’s not bad, it’s not even average, it’s good but it’s Radiohead being Radiohead. (Though I do have a soft spot for the “Hunting Bears” instrumental and “Life in Glasshouse” with Humphrey Littleton’s jazz band.) So, ultimately, I DO like this album. But it’s not as good as Kid A.

Okay. I went into this feeling very curious. This album is one of heard *of* for years and years - decades - but never *heard* as I grew up in the era where you had to buy music to hear it rather than stream it. I know nothing of the group apart from the singer was important or something. I seem to remember this is a very influential album? Like, one cited by other musicians a lot and I’ve seen the cover image on t-shirts and posters many times. It’s “iconic.” Very hip. Very underground. I had no idea what the music might sound like. I imagined it might be funk? Or Santana-style mystical rock? Or maybe even a precursor to punk? So when it started I was disappointed. It sounded like “general Ironside hippy music” which is another of my terms - it’s from watching an episode of Ironside where they go into a hippy bar - though obviously it’s a flimsy set with actors and extras with relatively short hair but wearing clothes of primary colours and big necklaces - and in the background there’s what studio execs think is “freak out” music. It’s sort of like pop music of the time with some similar sounds but weaker and washed out. So that’s what the album sounded like to me to start with. But the second song had a Santana tone guitar with a simple punky riff in the middle of it and I perked up a bit. And as it went on there’s something to the chord sequences and sound that is a little unusual and interesting. There’s something more to it… It was probably ground breaking *for the time.* There’s a positive version of “generic Ironside hippy music” for me. It has the same sound but is good. And that’s “sounds like it could have been on the soundtrack of Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas”. For me I think this falls somewhere between the two at the moment. Although, I did keep finding myself thinking “When is this going to end so I can put on something else?” …which isn’t a good sign! Might have to come back to it. Seems like possible morning coffee chill out music?

Very cool. Like the precursor to Orbital and Fat Boy Slim and all the electronic music of my era. Though the song it reminded me of most was "It doesn't matter" by the Chemical Brothers because of the way the sampled voice is repeated and stuttered.

I liked this a lot. I can totally see how it is so influential - punk 15 years before punk! Great stuff

It’s seems I’ve listened to this album before as I’ve liked the first four tracks already on Spotify. I have to agree with my former self that these are the best tracks. After that it gets a bit samey but I like this early hip hop sound and thoroughly enjoyed the album.

I’ve heard of Keith Jarrett but never listened to his music so I’m glad to have been prompted to do so. It seemed to sound like a blend of jazz and classical to me - a bit more strait-laced than the jazz I am used to. It was amazing that this whole concert was improvised! Like an improvised classical piece! I liked it a lot but there was a lot of music to take in so I might return to it.

Nina Simone is amazing. I’m not sure this is my favourite album but it was a great listen.

I enjoyed this. It was quirky and felt like "Outsider art" to me. A feeling confirmed by Ivor Cutler turning up at the end. I will return to this.

Probably my favourite Radiohead album

My score has wavered from a generous 4 to a more realistic 3 to a, perhaps, even more realistic 2. Blue Cheer have got that sixties Cream / Hendrix sound but unfortunately they don't have the musicality. Some of the guitar solos made me wince. And I don't like the singers voice, which is always the nail in the coffin for me liking one of these albums. So, overall I like the tone but not the music and probably won't listen to this again.

I was looking forward to this one. I feel like soul and r’n’b is “proper” music that I don’t know enough about. But I was left a bit confused as to what was original songs (the original “Respect” is on here) and what is covers (everything else?) and not the “classic” version. And a few songs didn’t grab me at all. Having said all that, it has the song that is sampled on “I squeeze gats” (shake) so that’s pretty good. I dunno 3.5stars?

This has a similar vibe to the last Kinks album that popped up on the list (“Arthur…”) and is similarly very conceptual and very English but I think the tunes are better. It’s a lot more catchy whereas Arthur was bland. It probably helps that I know a couple of tracks from the Hot Fuzz soundtrack. And it seems one of my favourite Green Day songs (“Warning”) is just a rip off of “Picture Book” too. There’s a bit of filler. But yeah. Pretty good. I could get into it.

I enjoyed the first song but the rest of it seemed a bit of a let down.

This packs a huge additional emotional punch as it is still, to me, Bowie's "Death Album" and brings back memories of that time and the national, if not global mourning, and my partner, who was a massive fan of him, being hit by it. I am not a huge fan. I don't really know his albums very well, but I know they were good to start with and he hit a bit of a shit patch from the 80s onward. This and "The Next Day" seem different though. Somehow the weird melodies and embrace of modern electronic sounds and jazz saxophones add up to something rather beautiful and an emotional goodbye.

Dreadful. Albums like this make me question if it's worth doing 1001 albums. I've never been drawn to ELO because I figured I knew what they sounded like (sort of 70s Disco Beatles wannabes) and now I've listened to a whole double album and just had my forebodings confirmed. Some of it is bearable in small doses and semi-ironically. But listening to a whole double album of this MOR bullshit made me want to become a goth or something. No wonder young people were desperate for punk music to come along and save them from this crap.

I never really got into Pearl Jam at the time. I fear it might be a bit too late for me now. I recognised a fair few songs - the singles I guess - but wasn’t too into the album tracks. I’m not hugely into Eddie Vedder’s voice. Musically there’s some good stuff to enjoy. I dunno. It’s alright!

I think I like this. And I’m sort of surprised. I’ve never really investigated Steely Dan. The name just suggested MOR rock bullshit to me. But actually listening to it, there’s lots here I like - the electric piano to start with brought me on board. I saw it described as “Jazz Rock” on Wikipedia and that sounds like exactly the sort of thing I would like. It’s musically interesting without being disgustingly cheesy a la ELO. It seems to have a bit of side to it. I listened to it twice and will come back for more!

I’ve never really gotten into Joni Mitchell though I felt like I SHOULD. She’s arty and jazzy and I like things in those categories. But her voice never really gelled with me. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this. I’m not sure I could hum you a tune from it afterwards but it passed the time pleasantly. After my surprise enjoyment of Steely Dan yesterday, I wonder if 1001 is expanding my musical taste. Maybe there will be room for Joni eventually, or rather, there’ll be a better understanding on my part. Or maybe I can form new “moods” where I can spend some time liking types of music I didn’t before. Whilst I’m musing on that, I think I see why you get certain similar albums in sequence on #1001 now. It must be to get you into certain moods and more receptive to certain types of music. This obviously favours the subsequent albums but I suppose it helps. E.g. We seem to be in Jazz Rock mode at the moment.

If I were to sum this album up in one word it would be “woozy”. I had a Goldfrapp CD back in the day. I just looked it up and it was “Black Cherry”. It wasn’t exactly my sort of thing but it overlapped enough. I think “Black Cherry” was more electronic / dance / stomp. Whereas this is dreamy, discombobulating, woozy… not that that’s a bad thing. But it’s a very specific mood. Alison Goldfrapp has a rather brassy voice. Whilst listening I figured out she reminds me of Shirley Bassey doing that song with the Propellerheads. I’m not sure what to give this. I think it’s a 3.5. I like it but won’t be reaching to put it on a lot.

Hillbilly energy.

Interesting! This is only The Cure’s second album and already they’ve moved on from their early punky sound, introducing electronic drums and getting almost ambient on some tracks (“Three” has always been one of my favourites). As a Cure fan it’s not really an album I think about a lot but it gets five stars because it’s got “A Forest” on it. Call me biased!

Too many bangers to give this album less than five. Will come back to next time I need to hear some Aretha.

Awesome album. I’ve always loved the three Meat Puppets covers on here and was disappointed the Meat Puppets themselves weren’t as good as the cover versions. In fact it’s all the cover versions that are the best stuff on this album - making up half of the songs on it. And then supporting that you’ve got all these great Nirvana songs. “In the pines” is incredible… just great.

I live this album. In fact I’m learning the guitar parts from it, rather slowly. I only properly got into Blur in the last decade or so - long after their peak which I was there for - and concluded this is their best album. For me there’s not a bad song in it (well, maybe one or two skippable ones) and it feels like it does what indie rock should. I think that’s the best way I can put it

Love a bit of Dolly. There were some good songs here. Not the greatest though?

This is the second Steely Dan album we've had in a couple of weeks and I continue to quite like it. There's a mixture of cynicism and prog rock musical theatrics that appeals to me. It sort of reminds me of late era "Bobby Brown Goes Down" Frank Zappa (which isn't my favourite Zappa era, to be fair.) Though unfavourably you could say it was "Yacht Rock" perhaps? I'd definitely have to be in the right mood for it. This album starts very strong with the first couple of songs, comes back with a couple more strong ones and then simmers down again. So about half great, half passable. I still can't find it strange that I like this... but I do!

I like this a lot. I can't in good conscience, give it five stars because it's new to me and I'd have to see if I return to it some more. But I'm digging it. It's more 60s proto-punk like The Sonics. It reminded me of all sorts of things from The Cardiacs to the Fall (who covered some of the songs) to early Frank Zappa and the Mothers. Oh, and Clinic. It has this great abrasive sound - distorted guitars and the clean organ droning away. I love some of the "guitar solos" which are just noises. And the singing itself, which, somehow, sounds very 60s despite just being a voice. It's a sound that feels weird for being made up of 60s pop and modern gritty punk. Like a kind of Evil Monkees. Great stuff! If I was still doing compilation tapes I would be earmarking some tracks here to be thrown in between something similar-but-different. Interesting. Fascinating. Great!

It's an odd one for me, this. I feel like I should give it five stars because it has a whole load of classic songs on it and it's such a unique sound. But whilst I've enjoyed hearing Portishead on the radio or around, it's never been something I would choose to put on myself. I think it's Beth Gibbons voice. It's just too tremulous for me. *shrug emoji* As a side note, and this has no effect on my score either way, I never knew the songs had such daft names. Like, I know "Roads" really well, but had no idea it was called "Roads". The same with "Biscuit." Is that keening song really about the love of a McVities Digestive? "Fully fed, yet I still feel hunger" etc.

Ooh, so eighties! I enjoyed the first track in particular, after that it all kind of washed over me. It seemed nice enough and a bit nostalgic.

This is the second? Third? ...Talking Heads album so far on 1001 Albums. My opinion remains the same: I like them... but not as much as I should probably. It seems like my sort of thing but, as well as liking them, I simultaneously find them a little bit annoying. Generally I think "Stop Making Sense," which I love, has all my Talking Heads needs covered. I enjoyed listening to this album though, especially the songs I already knew from "Stop Making Sense."

I’m a big can of LCD Soundsystem. This album and their debut self-titled one are classics. 100% good. lCD Soundsystem are playing at my house!

I’ve never really got into any of the Post-Beatles Beatles’ albums. I thought I would have investigated John Lennon’s stuff, but no. The last time an album of his came up on 1001, I was pleasantly surprised. This time, it was more in line with my assumptions. “Imagine” the song, is great, of course. It’s just a little overplayed for me to totally enjoy. And there’s a couple of other tracks I like. But there’s something about the overall sound that doesn’t gel with me. I don’t know why the production of John Lennon’s voice was done this way after the Beatles but it meant I never liked it as much. And I lot of the songs structure seems more basic, less tuneful and more reliant on old 50s rock n roll cliches than in Beatles times. Anyway, the other couple of songs that stood out to me were “Jealous Guy” - a great song but I don’t like this version because of the sound. The strings also put me off - and “Oh Yoko!” Which seemed like a cute ditty. I should probably try and listen again or to more post-Beatles stuff to see if it grows on me.

This is okay. It's a bit weird feeling to me - just in that it seems like a weird mix of pop funk for a British act to pull off, especially with the crooning of Edwyn Collins

Some of it sounds pretty dated - particularly the singles which sound very much like 80s dance music - but the more intense the level of DJ mixing, the more it sounds "Frrresh!" I enjoyed it!

Perfect. This album reminds me of my youth and I've always loved it so I am biased. Such a unique sound. The Stone Roses are a bit like Led Zeppelin, in that each musician in the band is amazing but the guitarist steals focus. There are a lot of great singles and EPs from this era but it turned out that this album was a one off, never to be repeated. ("The Second Coming" has some good moments, but nothing like this consistent brilliance.) Maximum points!

I kind of loved this - or at least the opening track drew me in quick, then the album lost me a little. Some of the tracks seem a bit “filler”. I know and love the track “Cars” obviously but would never have thought of investigating Gary Numan further without 1001 prompting me to. And what I’ve found is that the danceable ones are very cool. The track “M.E.” Was VERY familiar to me as it was clearly sampled by Basement Jaxx. I’m not sure what to do with this new awareness of Gary Numan. I guess I might listen to more of his stuff. I feel like there’s some gold to be dug out here. I’d probably liked to hear his stuff mixed with more modern dance music tracks. Yeah, cool!

I love Elliot Smith. Weirdly, listened to this album a day or two before it appeared on this list because I had the song “Ballad of Big Nothing” stuck in my head. His albums start very simple and lo fi - just him and his guitar - and get more complex in instrumentation and better produced until the final album which feels like theirs too much in it to me. This is the beginning of the sweet spot. The next two albums rise through XO to Figure 8, my favourite. So I could give this a 4 to mark it out from those which are 5s. But I love this one too having listened to it some more. Wonderful.

Very 70s! There are three famous songs here - “It’s too late,” “You’ve got a friend,” and “(You make me feel like a) Natural Woman” which I’ve liked because they are classics but overall it’s TOO seventies for me. Unless you were having a seventies-themed costume party or something.

So this is an album of two halves - the first side is the Sly Stone inspired “psychedelic soul” side, and the second side is the temptations sticking to their more traditional “My Girl” sound. I was into the first song, “Cloud Nine,” and psychedelic soul seemed like a goer at this point, but then I wasn’t too keen on the version of “I heard it on the grapevine” in the new style. It seemed like two things that shouldn’t be together. Then the following song I wasn’t too fussed about until the instrumental where I got into the Sly Stone style grooviness. Side 2 is the “My Girl” sound - I guess they didn’t want to try too much new stuff to quickly - and it’s not really a sound I really feel moved by. It’s a bit too… is “cheesy” the right word? “Old fashioned”? “Inoffensive”? Yeah. I think that’s it. It’s a bit too eager to please and bland. Overall, I didn’t mind it though. 3 psychedelic stars.

What a corker! I had to relisten to this to make sure it is as good as I remember... and it is! I was surprised to find it came out in the mid-nineties. I thought it was older than that for some reason. Did DJ Shadow ever do anything as good as this? I tried to keep an ear out but nothing hit me to the same degree. Anyway... Five stars!

Yeah, cool. It seems to be about half Bowie pop songs and half instrumental weirdness which I don't mind at all.

I find it hard to believe this is Tom Waits' best album. I've never got into Tom Waits. The gravelly voice, down at heel, bourbon and blues thing always seemed like an act to me. But I've heard some great tracks here and there and I'm prepared to get into it. Unfortunately, this wasn't the album to win me over. It was alright. But if anything, it makes me think I should check out his other albums and find the good stuff.

Nice! I don't know whether to give this a 4 or a 5. My first thought was a 5 because... well, there's nothing wrong with it! I really liked the Jazz guitar. I'm not familiar with Charlie Byrd and I probably should be. If I were to give it a 4 I would be deducting a point because It's a bit too jolly? A bit cheesy? I don't know, but I dig it. Ideally it would get a 4.5, That's the accurate score. I want to give it a 5 to mark it out as an album to return to, though. And that's what I'm going to do. But really it's a 4.5. Okay?

I think this is alright but it’s uneven. I tried listening to it a little while ago and was put off by the fact the first two tracks are about a paedo tramp and then a prostitute school girl. Ick. Having got past that, it’s alright. There’s some average-sounding blues rock songs with some cool twiddly bits. I like Ian Anderson’s wacky voice and flute. I just don’t think I’ve heard a Jethro Tull album that’s completely won me over. I reckon I might be able to put together a “best of” I would like if I put in the effort. Now is this a three or a two?

I’m giving this a five because it passed me by at the time but if I’d have heard it when it came out I would have loved it. There’s a few tracks I recognise - at least a couple from Spaced - and the ones that don’t are funky or trippy or just generally cool. I might dare to suggest it’s a bit of its time, but I like it!

I love an 80's electronic cowbell.

Okay, this is an instant five. I know this album really well, of course. The last three songs on the album are one of my favourite experiences of music ever. Perfection!

We listened to the first Portishead album recently on 1001 albums, and I think I said that I knew the songs well from "around" but never owned a copy. I liked it but never thought of it as "my music" though it was of my time. I think the problem is I don't really enjoy listening to Beth Gibbons voice. And that is repeated here. This is a "comeback album" of sorts, after ten years and the band being put on hiatus. Or so I read on Wikipedia. I also read that this marked a move from the original trip hop style to more krautrock influences. All of which explains my initial reaction to the first song which was I was really enjoyed the groove until the singing started and then I wanted to skip it. And when the singing stopped I was really enjoying the groove again but then it stopped abruptly. After this, there were grooves I liked and didn't, times when the singing didn't annoy me too much, and stuff. It was okay. I don't think I'll come back to it though.

I think we've listened to two other Fall albums on 1001 albums. My other half and her cool mates are into the Fall. As a result, I've heard a few of her favourite songs (one of which "Glam Racket" is on this album) and I saw them live at least twice before Mark E. Smith died. I think this is the first time I've really enjoyed them. I can really see where both Pavement and LCD Soundsystem, "took inspiration" from The Fall on this one. I'm going to do a slightly risky thing given I've only heard it once and give it five stars. This is partly due to marking inflation, but mainly because I liked every song and I think I'll come back to this album again!

I enjoyed the impressive musicianship, particularly the guitar solos and drums, but also found it very annoying, especially the keyboard solos and vocals.

I always thought the meaning of the song "Bodies" was troublingly anti-abortion, and was surprised to hear the F word. But I suppose punk was not about being politically correct. I tried to explain it to my Dad once (who was around in the sixties and had some cool rock records but who really liked jazz big band music) that I appreciated it as an expression of the raw anger felt by youth in the late 70s and early 80s. Listening to it now, it amazing how much Steve Jones wrung out of those 50s rock riffs. It still sounds great, and if anything I appreciated some of the album tracks even more this time. Classic!

So good. Somewhere between the hit song / pop of “Are You Experience” and the far-outness of “Electric Ladyland”. I wish I could give it 10 out of 5!

A hugely important album to me. It came out when I was a teenager and showed that new music could be good, when I thought I'd missed all the good stuff that happened in the 60s etc. It still holds up today. Great music, great swagger.

Nice enough. There's (all of) the famous George Harrison songs on here and some album tracks that don't offend and are quite chill, then at the end a load of jam tracks that are also okay but don't feel essential. I think I have a lot of goodwill toward George Harrison, and so while this is probably more of a three star record, I'm happy to give it a four, because I'm happy to hear from him!

Like Gary Glitter, Michael Jackson was very good at making popular music. "Beat It" was one of the first singles I ever owned as a kid, and I still think that Eddie Van Halen's contribution to that track is one of the best guitar solos of all time. But, weirdly, I've never heard the whole album before. It is built like a pyramid, building up from some average songs at the start through the mid-tier (and slightly creepy) "The Girl is Mine" with Paul McCartney to a section of classics in the middle, "Thriller," "Beat it," "Billie Jean" and "Human Nature". Then there is "Pretty Young Thing" (How young?) which has a good groove, and finally "The Lady in my Life" which is forgettable. As I say, I've never listened to the whole album before, and I probably won't again. But the hits are a pleasant reminder of my 80s childhood like "Back to the Future," or Zoids. Can you separate the art from the artist? I guess it gets easier when they are dead.

Like the Peter Gabriel album this week, I gave this a couple of listens because I wasn't really getting it, but in this case, I still don't really get it. Mark says it's really good so I feel I must be missing something. It sounds... fine. A bit middle of the road. But there's some interesting instrumentation and the songs seem.. fine. It's fine. I don't know what I need from it to like it more. Maybe it's just the turnover of 1001 albums that means I don't have time to develop a relationship with the music. Maybe it's just a bit ballad-y for me. I don't hate it. Maybe I'll come back to it. I don't know. Oh, I have to point out that there's a chord change in "Mexico" that sounds just like a King Crimson song, "The Court of the Crimson King" from their first album in 1969.

I wasn't sure what to make of this and I gave it a couple of listens. I think it's not really for me. I like the prog / interesting elements. And it's got lots of cool musicians on it like Robert Fripp, Tony Levin and Kate Bush. I found it interesting reading on Wikipedia about how Peter Gabriel "banned cymbals" and they game up with the "gated room sound". But, and this is something I say often about albums I don't take to, I don't like his voice, unfortunately. And also, I know it's all meant to be prog and exciting, but I get this horrible 80s / Robert Palmer / Phil Collins vibe that just gives me the ick. Sorry. I like some of the marimba though.

This is the second Joni Mitchell album we've had. I can't say I'm naturally attracted to her quavering voice, but the songs are good and I'm sort of acclimatising to it. This had a lovely chill acoustic feel to it. I will try and revisit.

One of my favourite albums. It was my first introduction to Zappa, and I think it is for a lot of people. It is almost entirely instrumental, but also tuneful, jazzy and pleasant to listen to. If you only ever listen to one Zappa album, this is it.

Really very classic. It's hard to get any more classic than Led Zep I. I mean, it's not the album I reach for first if I'm thinking about Led Zeppelin. It's more likely I'll put on Led Zep II or Houses of the Holy or Physical Graffiti. Led Zep I has some cracking tunes on it but there's something about the sound of it that feels a bit old and tinny compared to the subsequent albums. It's a bit like Metallica's Kill Em All - great songs, but bad sound - but not to the same degree. Anyway, am I going to mark down Led Zep I a star because there are other Led Zep albums I prefer? No way! It's a classic!

I don't like Paul Weller. I find him irritating. However, many of the songs on this album are instrumental or feature guest vocalists, so I liked two of the short jazzy instrumental ones. Overall, though, it does what it says on the tin. It's background music for a café rather than something I would actually choose to listen to (aside from one very-dated sounding rap track... and some funk/soul songs that I found genuinely annoying). It's a bit like a forerunner to Nouvelle Vague.

I enjoyed this. It's got a lot of eclectic sounds on it but all from my era. I've not really listened to the Super Furry Animals before but would give it another go!

This is a sort of precursor to those albums, like the Johnny Cash ones, where Rick Rubin would remind old artists what they used to sound like by stripping them back to their essentials. Before that, there were a rash of "duets" type albums where older artists proved that they were important, actually, in the hope that younger people engage with their old classic catalogue. I have a very specific memory associated with this album. I remember being on a school trip, on a coach, and I had a Walkman but with these giant professional headphones I had borrowed off my Dad. They were like two round mini speakers you strapped to your head - they would have been very cool if I was a teenager, but as a kid the other children near me on the bus thought they were funny. And then, I guess I hadn't taken into account the extra power drain of these speaker-like headphones, because the Walkman ran out of battery almost immediately. The album I was trying to listen to was this one - or a tape copy on a cassette tape with a box I had covered in muted mustard floral paper which sort of reflected the border on the cover of this album. I haven't listened to this album for years, decades, if that was the last time of listening. And it's quite nice. It's old man John Lee Hooker, being joined by some famous friends in a sort of Jools-Holland-style memorial celebration. The duets are nice enough but I prefer the last few tracks when it is JLH on his own or with minimal accompaniment. So I learnt, listening to this in my pre-teens, was that I should delve back into his earlier catalogue, and so I guess this album did it's job.

Very Classic. To be honest, I didn't listen to it again because I know it so well. And it's hard to say much about it apart from it's very very good. The electric side vs the acoustic side is a neat idea. I mean... yeah! It's Led Zep 3! Maximum points. Five flaming zeppelins out of five.

I think this is the second XX album we've had on 1001 albums. I can't say I was pleased to see them again. I have a vague memory of their first album being extremely boring and over-produced and featuring people singing with that annoying "posh cockney" voice that young people manage to affect these days. I found this one marginally less annoying, maybe because I knew what I was getting into, maybe because it is their third album and they had figured out how to be 1% more interesting in the intervening time. Having said that, I was feeling a bit sleepy and checking to see how long it was after two songs (It's 39 minutes and 17 seconds.) and after three songs I was starting to resent the waste of my time. By the end, I thought it was a bit "meh," sort of okay, but I won't be rushing to listen to it again.