ok as background noise I guess
oh right, the Son of a Preacher Man lady
Both the album cover & title alone should be familiar to anyone, even if only by name. The Bowie + Mike Garson combo is unlike anything else. If you're one of the few who've only heard about this album & never actually heard it, you're one of today's lucky 10,000.
noise noise noise. sometimes you're in the mood for that. today I wasn't.
grow out your hair & sideburns, put on some bellbottoms, belt out a long "AAAAH" as high as you possibly can, & keep on truckin'.
C'mon, it's JIMI! Maybe not all of his greatest hits, but the Watchtower/Voodoo Child (Slight Return) combo is a helluva way to close an album
Another one of those famous albums that a lot of people talk about being groundbreaking / "their best work" / etc, but not everyone has listened to all the way through. Several of these songs are "oldies" radio staples I've heard hundreds of times, most I'd never heard before. Overall? I mean, it's the Beach Boys, so... cool I guess?
A pretty decent David Bowie album. China Girl sounds weird on this one, though. XD
OK so the album opens w/ a song called "Kinky Afro" and then you look up at the player & there's an actual music video for it, in which you see.... a bunch of awkward white guys bopping along as they play to a bunch of expressionless white women awkwardly swaying back & forth. The rest of the album was a mix of horribly annoying & constantly-sliding-off-tune half-spoken half-sung wails, and just plain generic. Maybe this album has some special meaning to Brits for some reason, but I won't be listening to them again.
Maybe I'd have liked this album if I was still 12, when I thought NWA & 2 Live Crew were hilarious & had no idea how misogynist & homophobic a lot of the Beastie Boys lyrics were. And those were tame compared to this. Another self-important rapper glorifying drugs & graphic violence against women. Shock for shock's sake. I can't even finish this shite.
Another 70s album. OK, but not as interesting as Bowie or Deep Purple.
Oh wow, a 2000s American album trying really hard to sound like a 1970s British album. Considering the huge number of 70s albums in this mix I probably wouldn't have even noticed if I didn't check.
generic 60s/70s rock. plenty of better options.
what's that, Rod Stewart is the singer? umm.... my previous statement still stands.
great electronic band you may remember from that one song from Trainspotting (not included here, but it does have the "crazy crazy" song, Pearl's Girl). nice low-on-vox album for background/concentrating at work
Yes (pun intended), it's that anime cliffhanger ending meme song right off the bat. Pretty good album, even if I'm more partial to their 80s work ("Owner of a Lonely Heart"). The short songs are a bit odd but there's some great gems, like "South Side of the Sky." Be sure to listen w/ headphones as there are tons of tiny stereo effects to discover.
It's hard to review a Radiohead album as a Smashing Pumpkins fan, considering how many times the former has gotten gushing, rave reviews for being "pioneers" for doing something the latter had already done (and gotten mostly scorn), but damned if this isn't a great album.
Somehow my brain farted & I thought I'd be listening to Jeff Buckley. lol, bit of a difference. Never got into Beck, although I've heard his name frequently in the usual lists of all-time greatest guitarists (and in Coach Beard's press conference squabble in an episode of Ted Lasso XD). Some familiar tunes in here, whether traditional, blues, or "oh hey, Megadeth covered this one, too." Enough variety that it's not all just 12-bar blues straight through (although the "Blues Deluxe" does drag on a bit), and enough nice guitar work to be interesting. Oh, Rod Stewart's on this one, too? Certainly a better listen than the Faces album. :P"
Maybe it's cuz I got this one right after Jeff Beck, but it seemed pretty generic. Did get me a nice nap, though.
One of those "classic" 90s grunge albums, we all know at least a few of the songs, if not all the words ("weeba wedda wodda beeda beddaaah made o' concrete! UHHH yeah"?). Wild to think that Jeremy was written in a time when a kid bringing a gun to school was absolutely unheard of. Cool for nostalgia, but as 90s bands go I'd still rather listen to Nirvana or the Smashing Pumpkins. At least they had the balls to go after Ticketmaster.
Never had this album even back when I did listen to The Smiths regularly (and before Morrissey became (even more of?) an absolutely intolerable cunt). Marr's guitar work is clean & amazing as always, and the vocals are smooth & dreamy enough to almost forget how absolutely insufferable he's become. Still, it's no "The Queen Is Dead".
Although "Nothing Compares 2 U" was absolutely massive at the time, I didn't hear much else from/about her, other than the whole SNL Pope photo-tearing scandal. I barely remember one other song from the album, which is kinda sad- she was a great singer that was blacklisted long before "cancel culture" was even a thing, for standing up & speaking the truth that most wouldn't even acknowledge, much less accept, until decades later. RIP (1966-2023).
Another classic- "Black Magic Woman" & "Oye Como Va" are staples (which is funny as they're both covers), the former being far more associated w/ Santana than the original Fleetwood Mac version (which I don't think I'd ever even heard until looking it up to check). If your boomer parents (or grandparents) leaned even slightly hippy (or if you have any Latin heritage), you've heard these songs, if not the whole album.
Britpunk. OK, but not sure why this is here over something by The Clash or Sex Pistols. Bristled at the title \"Arbeit Macht Frei\" & had to look up the lyrics as they were completely unintelligible -- at least it wasn't a pro-N@zi song.
First 3 tracks are absolute classics & pretty much started the "gangsta rap" genre (I didn't recognize "Gangsta Gangsta" by title but the "built to last" refrain is unforgettable). The rest kinda blur together, but are a neat time capsule of 808 beats & 70s/80s samples (including way more Beastie Boys clips than I'd have expected?). Can't really hang w/ the overall misogyny & glorification of violence/guns anymore, but at least it was a lot more... believable? authentic? coming from NWA in the 80s than from a certain white rapper over a decade later.
Also: Fuck tha Police.
not a big R&B fan. that said, dude can sing, and at least this is musically interesting in its unconventionality. Pyramids in particular has some pretty cool sounds/sections in it, and I was surprised to see it clocks in at nearly 10m while most of the other tracks were <4 (& some even <=1m).
Hm, the usual gangster stuff: violence, fighting, wait- talking about the Muslim faith & uniting as a people, references to "40 acres" & Malcolm X, at a time the US was sending troops to Iraq & Kuwait? OK, gotta respect that.
Horrible. Even worse that YT Music has the censored version, which makes the entire first actual track sound like a stuttering mess as literally every 3rd word is cut out. The vocals are whiny & annoying, trying desperately to sound cool by pulling lyrics from much better bands like NIN, GnR & The Who (and that's just in the first 2 songs (minus "Intro" which barely even counts)). And all packaged into an album named after a slang term for "butthole" and a meat-flavored drink "joke" that was already done by Primus 7 years earlier w/ Pork Soda. Nope. If I want to listen to white-boy rap rock I'll put on Linkin Park, at least they have some decent songs & their vocals don't make me want to tear my ears off. Gave up on track 7. "Listed in the book for 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, but later removed in recent editions of the book" -- yeah, I can see why.
One legit laugh out of the whole album (before I rage quit, at least) for the "My Way" chorus, which I recognized from Weird Al's "Angry White Boy Polka" medley. And here I'd thought Weird Al was exaggerating the ridiculousness of the delivery. Nope.
7 songs under a minute, w/ the longest song under 3m. If you distorted the hell out of it & increased the BPM by about 200 this could be a grindcore album. "Lo-fi" definitely covers it, as it sounds like it was recorded with a walkman. 90s/American was also a shock, since many of the songs sound like rough, discarded Beatles demos dug out from Ringo's trash. Overall, I don't really get it -- and I've listened to The Frogs, but maybe it's because they didn't seem to be taking themselves too seriously. Wait, is that SNORING I hear in the background? wtf. At least it was relatively short.
OK, I like Stevie Wonder. I'm familiar w/ a lot of his big songs. I grew up hearing him on the radio, & seeing him on Sesame Street and even as a special guest on The Cosby Show (yeah yeah, we didn't know back then). \"Isn't She Lovely?\", \"Sir Duke\", and \"As\" -- I've heard all those before. But my jaw hit the table when \"Pastime Paradise\" came on. Wait- this is... COOLIO? WHAT? It's like growing up with MC Hammer & then hearing Superfreak for the first time.
Overall? Some good songs, some filler. It's looong (nearly 1.5h, longer if you include the \"bonus\" 7\" EP tracks), and some of the synth sounds are definitely dated. If you dig that 70s sound, go for it. If you're just getting into Stevie, maybe go for more of his 80s (or later) stuff.
Did not recognize the name of this band, although the cover art style was familiar (underground cartoonist R. Crumb), if a bit problematic (that Black woman caricature on "Summertime"? oof). But when the vocals kicked in it was immediately apparent- this was Janis Joplin's band. "Piece of My Heart" is an absolute classic. Damn shame about the 27 Club.
I know Joni Mitchell is supposed to be super important & influential but maybe she was just a bit too before my time. Can't even say I recognize any of these tracks from the years I spent growing up listening to "Oldies" radio (which, back in my day, was strictly 50s-70s). Yeah her voice sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't have any particular attachment to her music. Not bad- she's got a great voice, but not for me.
not a big R&B fan, and especially not a fan of graphic discussions of genitals (from either side), but I suppose I have to give some points for women taking charge of their own bodies & pointing out that "in actuality, the pu$$y is ours," or the raw, honest discussions of how cheating hurts people. points lost for all the talk of essentially trading sex for money/favors, though, which, again, is gross from either side (at least the nuance is acknowledged).
Interesting beats, fairly positive lyrics, not bad.
Only really knew a couple of Muse songs, but they're pretty cool. Maybe a bit over-the-top w/ the overproduced Queen-like vocal layerings & the frantic arpeggio patterns run through multiple different effects, yet still not so much that it's off-putting.
Ah, Coldplay. Their reputation as accessible & inoffensive yet totally bland is accurate. Not a fan, but maybe they don't deserve to be as widely hated as they are? Maybe? Eh, idk. Still sounds like a boring, watered-down version of Radiohead. Great for insomnia, maybe.
OK, so this is supposed to be "the first ever rock opera album"? Sorry, but I don't have the attention span to listen closely enough to the entire album to follow the story, if there is one. That aside, it sounds like a late-stage experimental Beatles album (perhaps not surprising since it was recorded at Abbey Road at the same time as the White Album & produced by the Beatles' old engineer), so... not bad?
Not a big country fan, and I already see Willie Nelson coming up in my backlog. Also, the fact that this is her 19th album, but I couldn't name a single song by her (or even recognize one of her "hits" by title) despite being raised in a country music bar in rural WI in the late 70s/early 80s. If I *have* to listen to country, give me Johnny Cash or Dolly Parton, or even the *really* old stuff they put on the radio stations in Fallout. That said, at least it's at least it's fairly inoffensive for country.
Great voice, not a big fan of the country-ish style, but gotta give a girl props for coming out in the early 90s, esp. in that genre.
Interesting early (first?) trip-hop album. Was surprised to hear the title track, which was sampled for another song on David Lynch's "Lost Highway" soundtrack. Still prefer Portishead, though.
OK, was not expecting this. I can't stand most country music (esp. since the "achy breaky" & beer-bro era), but Willie Nelson (along w/ Johnny Cash) is one of the few I can listen to. So why, on this list, do we get an absolute legend in the world of country music doing... an entire album of pop standard covers? IDGI.
3* I guess cuz he still has an unmistakable voice, but I'm utterly baffled why this album is on the list.
side note: hearing Willie Nelson sing Unchained Melody is about as weird as hearing The Pet Shop Boys singing You Were Always On My Mind.
Usually not one for folky solo acoustic stuff but this has some pretty interesting chords in it. Also notable for being the final album by a depressed recluse who OD'd at 26, and having influenced The Cure, REM, & others.
Decent U2 album, although like the (few) other ones I've heard, I remember about 3 of the songs & forget the rest.
And you might ask yourself,
Why am I here?
And you might ask yourself,
Why am I listening to so many albums?
And you might find yourself
Listening to this 1980 classic
And you might tell yourself,
Maybe this site isn't so bad after all
3 of these songs are absolutely iconic. The rest... not so much -- "Raise Your Hands" in particular feels like a cheap response to Mötley Crüe's "Raise Your Hands to Rock," which came out a year earlier, and BOTH of the last 2 tracks have some cringey references to car sex. Certainly on the more accessible/radio-friendly side of arena rock than other hair/glam metal bands of the time, but I guess "100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong."
70s German synthpop, laying the groundwork for 80s new wave & techno.
First thought when this popped up was "Who?" but turns out I recognized a couple of the songs. More likely to be found in your hippy mother-in-law's record collection than on the oldies radio station (save for a couple tracks)
Nope. Can't do it. I tried. I scrubbed thru the songs, thinking maybe my tolerance has expanded since my old college dormmate played this album incessantly 30 years ago, but no. Still cannot stand his whiny, nasal, wobbly falsetto. Neil Young has got to be one of the most overrated musicians with SO many people gushing over his songwriting & whatever else (re-branding FLAC as his own hi-res lossless format? wtf), but good lord this whole album is just the most bland country-folk crap I've ever heard. Ooooh a song about heroin, soo edgy. "Old Man, take a look at my life" ummm shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't the old man be giving YOU advice, you pretentious little 26yo twat? Hard pass.
Stevie is an absolute legend, & even an album supposedly devoid of "hits" like this one is miles above some of the crap on this collection. And a full third of the album is Stevie doing every instrument & track (as well as much of the production) *by himself* (for the kiddies who don't already know: Stevie Wonder is also BLIND). Higher Ground is a fun listen for people who heard RHCP's cover first. And "Livin' in the City" is a harsh reminder that we still haven't fixed America's racial inequality problems over 50 years later. So like... let's get on that, people. -_-
ok, I guess. bit weird to hear some random silly German lines at the end of one of the tracks. and ok, I'd heard "Take Me Out" before (possibly from Rocksmith?) but nothing terribly stand-out.
HELL YES. Metal plates, drills & other power tools, giant water bubbles, tape recorders played on fast-forward, plastic barrels, huge springs used as bass strings, guitar noises that you can barely tell are guitar, and Blixa Bargeld's demonic screams. This is not top-40 radio-friendly pop music, this is industrial in its purest form: raw, brutal, and jarring. The lyrics speak for themselves: "Hear with pain, hear with pain, hear my wounds, hear with pain."
The first 6 tracks all appear on Strategies Against Architecture '80-'83 (albeit in a slightly different order) but there were a few I hadn't heard before (including the "remixes" taken from Stahldubversions, since current playlists are using the 2002 re-release that includes those). As the first proper album from EN, though, this definitely deserves its spot on the "must hear" list. If you're one of those "ugh, can't listen, 1 star!" people- congratulations, you didn't get it. And if you're one of the subset of those reviewers who could literally only come up with the name of 1 famous German to compare Bargeld's voice to? Shame on you. Get out of your tiny English-only cave, expand your horizons, & go listen to some Falco or Kraftwerk, or maybe that Rhabarberbarbara rap that's been trending lately.
Groundbreaking, I suppose, for being the first really big "rock opera" but in reality it's a bunch of mostly-forgettable short pieces broken up by 1 or 2 songs that are actually listenable outside the context of an entire 75-minute narrative arc. Cool if you're a die-hard Who fan, a music theater nerd, or really into rock operas, I guess. Doesn't really work as background music, though.
Some nice nostalgic 80s synth rock tunes on here, and Eddie Van Halen was hands down one of the greatest guitarists of all time (RIP). Some decent stuff among the non-radio hits, too. A lot of objectification (particularly the video for Hot For Teacher) that wouldn't really fly today, though.
This is the 3rd Stevie Wonder album I've gotten from this site, and I am getting SO TIRED of.... having to come up w/ new & interesting ways to talk about how awesome Stevie Wonder is. XD I mean, to start off with, this is his 15th album. At age 22. His first album was recorded at age 12, which makes 15 albums in 10 years. How many people have managed that at ANY age?
I'd only heard the first tracks on each side of the LP, but every track is great. Superstition is an absolute banger, timeless, & I still find it hard to believe that's not a guitar (it's a clavinet)- the actual guitar solo by Jeff Beck (in \"Lookin' for Another Pure Love\") is another nice touch. But anyway, yeah- Stevie rules.
It was the 80s. Thriller was the best selling album of all time (and it STILL is, 40y later!), selling 32 million copies in its first full year (it's >70M now). Everyone wanted that red jacket. Every kid was practicing the moonwalk & trading Michael Jackson stickers. MTV was playing the title video twice an hour to keep up with demand.
So how do you top Thriller? Well, it turns out you don't. But it still sold 25M copies in under 5 years, which is no mean feat (and still in the top 5 for all-time sales). And there are plenty of songs that still hold up today. Sure, "Bad" seems a bit cheesy now, and some of the synth sounds are quite dated (particularly the synth guitar 16th notes on Speed Demon) -- not to mention the "hey, let's cat-call & follow this woman walking alone through a 'sketchy' neighborhood at night" music video for "The Way You Make Me Feel." But Michael Jackson's 2nd best is still WAY better than most bands could ever even dream of achieving.
Funny, I just had Michael Jackson for my last review, & it's very clear where he got his high-pitched hoos & hee-hees from- Little Richard! Tutti Frutti, Long Tall Sally, and Rip it Up are absolute classics. Sure, a lot of them follow the same progression & format, but there are enough differences that it doesn't get old (even though the album itself is now almost 70!). Truly one of the great influences in modern rock & roll.
Had heard her name before, but never really listened. OK for modern bluesy jazz, but a bit too straightforward/poppy for my taste. Surprised to learn she's the daughter of Ravi Shankar. Still prefer the early 20th century greats- Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday. Can't beat those (and it seems even Norah was a fan of BH).
Finally some "proper" jazz to challenge my limited intake. I'd always meant to listen to more jazz (esp being a Pumpkins fan who's always hearing Jimmy Chamberlin talk about the great jazz drummers, not to mention growing up watching Mr Rogers with its live jazz trio playing the intro/outro songs differently every single time) but never really got seriously into it.
The title track is sufficiently difficult as to be almost hard to follow & figure out (apparently so much so that it took 25 takes to record & still had to be pieced together from those, as none were complete). 2nd track somehow reminds me of the Cruella De Vil song (although that came out a few years later). Pannonica is a nice slow piece- unfortunately the youtube music version had some horrible skipping in the last minute. After that is a nice solo piano piece (very interesting to find that he was a fan of Rachmaninoff) before the final swing.
Cool album- now off to listen to more jazz!
Most of this album sounds like it's trying really hard to be 50s-70s blues, the rest is slightly more modern indie. Overall an ok listen, but I wouldn't call it amazing. Kudos for the somewhat novel approach of alternating between all-male & all-female backing bands, though.
Ah right, the Baba O'Riley album. Everyone's heard that frantic opening synth loop, it's shown up everywhere from Miami Vice to Family Guy. The "best I ever had" chorus from Bargain was also mildly familiar. Can't say I knew the rest, though, until the phased keys kicked in on the last track. At least it was more accessible than Tommy (which this site gave me only 8 albums ago) in that I didn't have to try to keep track of some kind of overarching narrative while I work. "Getting in Tune" is amusingly meta, & probably influenced many later lines like "Why do I find it hard to write the next line?" from Spandeau Ballet's "True". Anyway, decent album (he says, no doubt angering many boomer Who fans). XD
OK, The Doors are cool & all, but why THIS album? None of the big hits that everyone knows & associates w/ the band. Very little of the psychedelic rock they're famous for- instead we get a straight-up blues album. Well guess what? There are probably thousands of blues albums from actual blues artists that were passed over, for what? To give the Doors a 3rd spot on this list? C'mon.
I'm looking forward to the other 2 (assuming they'll be the first 2, or maybe first & last), as those will be far more representative of The Doors. As for this one? Pass. The Doors are cool. This album doesn't need to be here, though.
Ambient, dark, haunting, influential, & a ballsy departure from his previous sound (so much so that the label, RCA, initially rejected it & then postponed its release). Maybe not what you think of when you think of David Bowie, but there's a reason he's got the most albums (9) on this list as a solo artist (the other 3 -- John Lennon, Paul McCartney, & Neil Young, are split between solo & band/group releases).
2nd of her albums that I've had, & I have to say the other left a better impression- while her version of "Son of a Preacher Man" (from the other album) is unbeatable, the covers on this album don't really stand out. "Mama Said" and "Will You [Still] Love Me Tomorrow" were both done better by The Shirelles. "You Don't Own Me" was done better by Lesley Gore (at age 17!) -- and later by Klaus Nomi (who put his own unique spin on it, & notably keeping the line "with other... BOYS!"). The rest of the tracks are unfamiliar & unremarkable, even as someone who grew up listening to "oldies" radio (when "oldies" still meant 1950s-1970s). Ironically, the only song I associate primarily w/ Dusty's version, "I Only Wanna Be With You," is only the extended reissue (I'd even meant to skip the "bonus" tracks but this was the first one). Welp.
No. No, no, no. HELL no. I'm not even gonna listen to this Nazi apologist. I'd give zero stars if it was possible. I'm sure as hell not giving him any clicks.
ACAB, but The Police (capital T, the band, not the legalized thugs in uniform) are awesome. That said, I don't think this is their best album. I've got a particular soft spot for Synchronicity, and aside from the opening track "Message in a Bottle" and "Walking on the Moon", the rest of this one just isn't as good as some of their other work.
Decent S&G hits, particularly the first 3 tracks + The Boxer, w/ an extra bonus live cover of "Bye Bye Love". I assume they'll show up here again sooner or later w/ Sounds of Silence.
OK, this was unexpected. A German music theater kid who did the localized singing dubs for Disney's Little Mermaid & Hunchback, doing avant-garde orchestral pop numbers with an operatic voice, including lines like "If sex were an Olympic sport, we'd have won the gold." The last track in particular is nearly 11m of what sounds like a literal train wreck w/ an off-key ambulance siren blaring over a dissonant orchestra (sounds like when my kid opens up the digital piano, sets it to "strings," and then leans on as many keys as possible at the same time.), interspersed with haunting piano tri-tones that would fit right into the Severance soundtrack.
Probably not something I'd choose to listen to, but kudos for actually pushing musical boundaries on this list & not just shoving another 900 Neil Young & other generic classic rock albums down our throats.
OK so this is a "more straightforward" album after their first 2? Then don't include it in this list, since the other 2 are also in here. Sure, "The Murder Mystery" is 9m of experimental nonsense w/ overlapping spoken word & literal banging on a piano, and the last track is a quirky introvert's ditty (complete w/ a silly Wes Anderson-esque video), but other than that this album doesn't particularly stand out in any way.
weird semi-experimental 70s pop w/ farty-sounding synths over beds of guitar harmonics & out-of-tune pianos. maybe notable for a "let's see how many different sounds we can coax out of guitars & synths" but I'll take Eno's work w/ Bowie over his solo stuff. Particularly the annoyingly grating "Oh no"s on Dead Finks. Ugh.
Have heard of Rush but never really listened to them, so I guess this is a good intro- a 20m sprawling prog sci-fi concept song followed by a few shorter (<=4m) ones. Bit of cringe w/ the "Oriental Riff" on "A Passage to Bangkok," and I can certainly hear why they were compared to Zeppelin (mostly the vocals). Overall ok, although it didn't have any of the songs I'd heard of before. Will have to check those out separately I guess.
70s folk album w/ off-rhythmed vocals, flute & strings. OK, nothing to write home about.
Half the album is a single 25m-long jam with bloated noodly solos over 2 chords. If you're not a superfan of 60s psychedelic bands (or high) this gets old pretty quick. The rest of the songs are mostly equally uninteresting jams (save for a short metal-esque bit in Maiden (appropriate)), ending with a weird cowboy tv show theme w/ bad vocals. Pass.
Wow, an album not in English, French, German or Spanish! And with a couple of songs not in 4/4! This is the kind of thing I hoped to find in this list- not just the same tired folk/rock/blues formulas over & over. Even the more "standard(ish) blues" numbers are refreshing for their use of congas, bongos & calabash (gourd) -- and for not being in English. Unfortunately most sites aren't even interested in listing which languages are used here, many only noting that he "sings in 11 languages, none of which are English" which is a funny claim for a 10-song album. Way to go, eurocentrism. Eventually found the list on discogs, so for those curious, the languages used are Bambara, Peul, Songhai, and Tamasheck. Look 'em up. And while you're at it, look up where Timbuktu is on a map. Learn more about the world. Expand your horizons.
I knew a few of Kravitz's 90s singles, so this was an easy listen. Didn't know he played almost every instrument, though. Nice.
