I know Rush isn't many (most?) people's favorites, but if we're talking about a band's great albums, it's hard to ignore 2112, or at least Side A. I first listened to this somewhere around 6th-8th grade, and it never occurred to me that this was corny or might be somewhat painful to listen to decades later (besides, I was and am a big sci-fi fan). And as much as the other side of this record has pretty much *nothing* to do with the 2112 story, I've always enjoyed those songs too. Music-wise, I think I'd rank "Permanent Waves" and "Moving Pictures" as my favorite Rush albums, but it's fun to re-listen to Rush's more prog-rock-oriented stuff too (and cringe at some of those photos from that era). A solid 4! (And for those who can't really enjoy (too) much of Rush, just remember Dave Grohl's great homage to Neil Peart after his untimely death: "I still vividly remember my first listen of 2112 when I was young. It was the first time I really listened to a drummer. And since that day, music has never been the same. His power, precision, and composition was incomparable. He was called ‘The Professor’ for a reason: We all learned from him.")

I know we should give this project a pass on Christmas Day for whatever pops up, but this is pretty painful, and not just because Phil Spector was a creep and creepy guy and doesn't deserve any sort of accolades (especially given how dated his "wall of sound" seems these days). Moreover, I've really appreciated how strongly this collection has avoided "various artists"/"best of"/compilation albums, and this clearly violates that rule. I get it that it was a popular album back in the day, and I'm sure it was an interesting take on various Christmas songs, but it doesn't mean we have to like it. :)

What a strange selection for this collection. I've never heard of Dion, and am staggered to find out this was his 14th solo studio album, but having listened to it I'm not particularly surprised that it didn't make much of an impression when it was released. And very sad to find out (from Wikipedia) that Dion himself disowned the album due to Phil Spector's mangled production--Dion's description of the album as sounding like "funeral music" is spot on. (It also makes me wonder why any album that's been dismissed by its own artist was included in the project...) I *did* enjoy the bleak-but-hopeful "Your own back yard" and the simply-bleak "New York City song", perhaps because they were the two non-Spector-produced songs on the album. If nothing else, it's quite a contrast to his "Runaround Sue" jukebox days; in that sense it's a bit reminiscent to Dennis Wilson's solo album, albeit in a sort of reverse sense in terms of sobriety. The album also sounds like it should be played at a higher rpm or something, as if we're hearing it in slow-motion (or underwater). At least it's a pretty brief, unremarkable album. (2)

I'm embarrassed to admit that while I've heard many songs from this album, this is the first time I've listened to the album outright. So, *now* I can say I'm experienced, I suppose. And what a great experience! Not every song can be as contagious or definitive as "Purple Haze" or "Foxey Lady", but even today it's not all that hard to understand how revolutionary the whole album was (or why it was so immediately popular). The Wikipedia entry for the album is a great read too (even if it's a little too long in the tooth at times). And now I know why Jimi Hendrix's sound is so distinctive on the album, given that he was literally blasting everyone out in the studio (and even causing computers above one of the studios to mess up). I'm really glad to know that Chas Chandler played a significant role in helping Jimi Hendrix bring his genius to the world. Finally listening to this album in its entirety only makes me even more baffled that the high school in Seattle I went to, and where he (briefly) attended much earlier than I did, had only a small, unlabeled bronze bust of Hendrix buried deep in the high school library, and nothing else to celebrate a brilliant musical artist.

I haven't listened to much of Radiohead, so I'm not sure whether this album is typical or not for them (or at least typical for them in the mid-90s), but it's an interesting combination of very familiar-sounding mid-90s indie/alt-rock sort of stuff, yet without being at all distinctive beyond a song or two that might have made some air-time (like "High and Dry" or "My Iron Lung", I think, but then again it might just be very similar to some *other* mid-90s indie/alt-rock tune). I *was* a bit surprised that some of the songs were a little harder-edged (and a teensy bit less falsetto) than I expected of Radiohead. It kind of feels like this isn't really a great Radiohead album to include in the 1001 album collection, frankly, but maybe it was more influential than I appreciate, and certainly the "Influence" and "Legacy" sections of the Wikipedia article suggest I'm just ignorant of this album's majesty. Either way, entertaining enough, in a somewhat disappointingly generic way.

A classic, of course! It was interesting to get additional songs on the remastered (reissued?) album version that I eventually found via YouTube (the YouTube Music album link was broken), but I'm not sure whether the extra songs should count in this project (but nice to hear them nonetheless).

Doesn't seem like their best work, I'm afraid, although a few good songs here and there. I would hope that there's another White Stripes album in this collection, but I suspect there isn't, and that's a shame, as this isn't the album I'd choose to represent them. A bit too nasally (even for Jack White) and monochromatic to earn more than 3 stars, sadly.

Very reminiscent of De La Soul to me, even though they had pretty different sounds in some ways. I enjoyed this album, but was hoping for a bit more variety tune/rhythm-wise (it got a bit more varied in the later tracks, though). Once again, I kind of wonder if this is the best album to showcase Tribe.... (I never listened to them back in the days, aside from whatever might have been on the radio.) A solid 4, I'd say.

Quite the jam album! I'm not as familiar with the Allman Brothers Band as I'd like to be, but I imagine that was a great show. I kind of expected more lyrics/singing, but then, what do I know?

I'm impressed some of us have now gotten *two* Roxy Music albums! It's hard not compare this self-titled album to "For Your Pleasure", and I feel like the comparison leaves their earlier album a bit wanting (in part because the production quality is a bit uneven, but mainly because it feels like they were just starting to get a feel for their style/sound). But, still, Brian Eno is everywhere!

Listening to this album makes me think of when I was interning with the Minnesota Historical Society (probably summer 1999?) while the exhibits team was developing an exhibit "Sounds Good to Me: Music in Minnesota", and while Fiona Apple has nothing to do with Minnesota (as far as I know), one of my projects was to create a sort of mix tape that would play constantly in a high school-style locker with headphones for visitors to listen in on. I'm nearly certain that one of the songs was "Criminal", and I enjoyed hearing it as I worked on the tape (which was DAT, naturally), which also had songs by other Lillith Fair luminaries, plus I'm sure some other equally forgettable pop/alt music. That said, I enjoyed listening to this album, and I'd probably listen to another Fiona Apple album some day (the current favs seem to be "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" (2020) or "When the Pawn..." (1999)). Once again, though, since none of the fans out there consider this her best album, I wonder why this project seems to favor debut albums so much? (But maybe I should stop wondering this and just accept it...)

A nice collection of mainly familiar early Beatles songs, and a surprisingly quick listen. It makes me a bit interested in finding out more about the movie. A solid 3, given that the Beatles have much better albums.

I've never been able to really get into any band's prog-rock phase (and some bands never had any other phase, I know), so it's hard for me to enjoy this album as much as I should/could. That said, I enjoy Yes' prog-rock sound about as much as (maybe more than?) Genesis or ELP. This album is kind of a weird one, though, with the way it only had half of the songs as true band collaborations, so it's hard to call it much of a complete album (I did like the story behind "5 percent of nothing", though). I'm not sure it's fair to rank it a 2, but my 3-star rating seems a bit generous, I'll admit.

I know Rush isn't many (most?) people's favorites, but if we're talking about a band's great albums, it's hard to ignore 2112, or at least Side A. I first listened to this somewhere around 6th-8th grade, and it never occurred to me that this was corny or might be somewhat painful to listen to decades later (besides, I was and am a big sci-fi fan). And as much as the other side of this record has pretty much *nothing* to do with the 2112 story, I've always enjoyed those songs too. Music-wise, I think I'd rank "Permanent Waves" and "Moving Pictures" as my favorite Rush albums, but it's fun to re-listen to Rush's more prog-rock-oriented stuff too (and cringe at some of those photos from that era). A solid 4! (And for those who can't really enjoy (too) much of Rush, just remember Dave Grohl's great homage to Neil Peart after his untimely death: "I still vividly remember my first listen of 2112 when I was young. It was the first time I really listened to a drummer. And since that day, music has never been the same. His power, precision, and composition was incomparable. He was called ‘The Professor’ for a reason: We all learned from him.")

Hm...I'll admit that I have perhaps never knowingly heard Slade before this. The first few tracks makes me wonder if they were influential on later bands, as there's a sort of AC/DC vibe to something like "How D'You Ride?" and a general southern rock vibe to some of their songs, plus plenty of echoes from later mediocre glam bands like Quiet Riot and Twisted Slayer. But I guess it doesn't seem all that distinctive or memorable, and the quality of the lyrics *really* leaves something to be desired (along with the embarrassing song titles); it probably says more about the "Classic Rock" magazine/site than the band that it considers this album an "essential classic." It also didn't sound horrible, thankfully, and I won't hold it against them that the YouTube Music link provided extra (painful) songs that weren't on the original release. (Hence the wishy-washy 3 stars.) I *did* think it was funny that the album cover screamed to me that this was a British (English) band, despite almost none of them showing their teeth. And one guess which of them is the drummer, right?

I haven't heard that many songs from Amy Winehouse (and I don't think any of them featured on this album), so this is a nice expansion in my Winehouse-literacy. I like her sound, and I can only hope that when she was recording and performing all of the other issues in her life took a back seat, because she seems like she was a great performer and artist. A solid 4!

I haven't (actively) listened to Waylon Jennings all that much, so I'm not sure how this compares to other albums by him, but the backstory of how most of the songs were written by Billy Joe Shaver is pretty interesting. I'll also freely admit that I had no idea what the "outlaw sub-genre in country music" was or what it sounds like (until I let Wikipedia educate me), but it's fascinating that getting to choose your producers and musicians made you an outlaw at one point. This seems like a nice enough album, albeit without a whole lot of memorable/distinctive songs (I think my favorite was probably "Black Rose"). The start of "Honky Tonk Heroes" (the song) reminded me a lot of Jerry Jeff Walker's "Wheel", and other songs had elements of Johnny Cash and even Elvis to them. A solid 3 (largely because I'm ignorant of its context).

A nice change of pace from what we've been getting recently! Some of the songs I've definitely heard before, but others are new to me, which is always nice; some of the songs, though, didn't do much for me (looking at you, "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"). I don't really think of the Temptations as being particularly political (which may be more ignorance on my part than reality), but "Run, Charlie, Run" was a great contradiction to that impression--made me think of something like Parliament's "Chocolate City". And nice to have a pure Temptations album! Could have been a 3 for somewhat uneven song choices, but I enjoy their sound more than a 3....

Well, based on the album cover alone, I can safely say this is nothing like Slade or MIA or Amy Winehouse (or the Temptations, for that matter). A bit more like Yes, I guess, but not really my kind of thing overall. I like the album title, but I'm not sure exactly how the songs relate to the title, and I certainly can't say I have any impression of who Dr. Sardonicus might be...except he must be some crazy nature-loving, zoo-hating, skin-fetishistic space child who sometimes touches the worm!

I was really excited to hear this album given all the big names as guest artists, but I found it hard to get past Anohni's voice and style, I think, sadly. Even though it sounds quite a bit different, I was reminded of that Moby album that incorporated vintage recordings, which was an interesting idea but ended up flattening out everything. I can see why this album got dropped in later editions of the 1001 Albums project.

Although I didn't really know what Jimmy Smith sounded like, or what this album might be like, I really enjoyed it (despite not even knowing that there was a term for a jazz organist). I *had* expected some lyrics and singing, but it's a fun instrumental album, and I'm sure the lack of a song structure allowed them to have those nice long tracks, with every musician getting a chance to show their chops. I'm also shocked at how many albums The Incredible Jimmy Smith churned out in his career, but will have to just trust the book's authors/editors that this is his greatest accomplishment.

I think I've heard of Simply Red before, and certainly have heard their big hits, "Holding Back the Years" and the cover of "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)", but I doubt I knew those were by Simply Red, and I also seriously doubt I've ever heard the rest of the album. I also really enjoyed the experience of listening to and watching the album through the CD+G Museum's decoding of the enhanced CD, in all its 4-bit glory (and lots of trivia and factoids alongside great pixellated photos and not-so-great pixellated graphics). I'm sort of surprised to find out this won the Grammy for best new artist, as it wasn't a particularly compelling album to me. But certainly enjoyable, and I would never have guessed they were British, which speaks to their tight sound and a well-produced soul-inspired album.

I haven't listened to all that much of Nina Simone's music beyond the few staples, and all of the sampled music that relies heavily on her voice and style, so it's really nice to get a full album of hers that shows more range than I've previously heard. It *is* weird that this album appears to have been cobbled together from session recordings for other albums, but since the album seems to have gotten a lot of traction both at the time and later on as one her finest, I'm glad to have this as the selection for her music. Her voice is so distinctive that it's often hard for me to hear several songs by her without them all blending together, but "Four Women" stood out for me (partly because of it's semi-censored status), as did "Break Down and Let it all Out". I was also happy to discover that the really spare style of songs like "Lilac Wine" and this album's version of the iconic "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" isn't her only style (although it's clearly a preferred one).

Well, this was *not* what I was expecting when I saw that the selection was ELP (which I confusedly thought was yet another Yes album, since Bruford/Wakeman/Howe is more less the same words as Emerson/Lake/Palmer in my mind). I'm guessing there will be more ELP in our future, as this sort of gimmicky album can't possibly be their only album to make the list, right? I'm sure this is a very creative take on Modest Mussorgsky's composition, but it's fallen on deaf ears, sadly. Kudos to them, though, for adding a few new "pictures" all of their own to the exhibition ("The Sage," "Blues Variation" and "The Curse of Baba Yaga," I think, plus of course the excruciating "Nutrocker" encore), and for Emerson dragging a Hammond organ across the stage to get feedback. The whole thing reminded me a bit of the more noodly aspects of Jethro Tull's music, plus (oddly) some sort of bastardized prog-rock version of Sting's truly impossible-to-enjoy "Songs of the Labyrinth" (which came out much much later, I know). I wish I could say I enjoyed this, or even appreciated it beyond a very abstract respect for a full album-length adaptation of a classical suite, but this didn't really resonate with me (beyond the Promenade theme becoming an annoying ear-worm). A rare 2-ranking for me. :(

I'm guessing this is likely to be our only Steely Dan album, which is great, although I do wish we'd gotten whatever album has Boddhisatva on it (but I appreciated the few radio songs that were on this album too). I've always enjoyed listening to Steely Dan, but I also feel like one album is more than enough to give us a sense of the style and flavor; his music is largely interchangeable, so getting another selection later on would be a bit disappointing. I'm glad we got this though!

Since I hadn't first listened to this album until fairly recently, it's hard to imagine how this was a bit of a flop, both critically and commercially, given how influential the band and this album became. (The Brian Eno quote in the Wikipedia entry is hilarious, and probably not as exaggerated as it seems.) (Brian Eno is everywhere!) I suspect we'll get other Velvet Underground albums eventually in the 1001-albums collection, since this one doesn't have too many radio-friendly tunes, but I'm glad to have this as the first Velvet Underground/Lou Reed selection. I'll admit, though, that I find this a weird album to listen to, as it's all over the place and seems uneven song- and music-wise, especially with Nico's singing/style often seeming to clash with the Velvet Undergound's sound and style. And that's probably one of the points, I'm sure. I can only imagine how weird and jarring Warhol's "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" tour must have been...

I imagine this was a fun album for 'Til Tuesday fans when it came out, and it seems like a solid album, although I don't have any real familiarity with 'Til Tuesday or Aimee Mann. It's kind of like a completely different version of Bob Mould going solo after Husker Du, I guess? It's a tight and poppy album, I suppose, but nothing very exciting to me, since I didn't have any history with her.

Listening to this album finally helped me realize that I'm not really that much of a fan of punk--I mean, if I can't love *this* album, then there's not much hope for me, sadly. (Further irony is that this is a much more produced and mastered album than most punk albums (and I guess their only studio album), and yet they also did a fantastic job sounding like these were near-live one-take cuts.) Reading the Wikipedia entry for this album is a fun experience; I'm sure there are even longer and more minutely detailed entries on the site, but I feel like the "Bollocks" entry is what Wikipedia was made for. I particularly liked the anecdotes about Sid Vicious' and Johnny Rotten's interactions with Queen in the studio, and I was (perhaps foolishly) surprised to learn that Sid Vicious was an atrocious bass player. Regardless of my own personal reaction to it, it's pretty undeniable that this album was an instant and massive touchstone for music fans and bands alike.

I actually own a different (and much later) Bjork album, and I'm impressed at how distinctive and consistent her style and sound has been, as well as those *wild* outfits. I always feel like she took The Sugarcubes to her logical conclusion, and then just started an infinite number of variations of that theme. For me, her sound has always been a bit more background music than I'm sure she'd prefer, but I *will* say that the few videos I've seen of some of her more recent songs are amazing productions in themselves. With this album, though, there weren't too many songs that really hooked me, and a few that I found pretty grating ("Like Someone in Love" an exemplar).

It almost felt like cheating to listen to this album (for what must be the umpteenth time). Despite my undying fandom, I've never read any liner notes or anything about this album, so I was surprised to read that Roy Harper was responsible for the lead vocals on "Have a Cigar" (although since I never quite could reconcile Roger Waters' voice to that song, I guess I just implicitly assumed it was another band member singing it?). I think what's always stuck with me most with this album is David Gilmour's distinctive guitar style, which feels as perfected on this album as it could probably be. I'm sorry that contemporary critics didn't feel all that enthusiastic about this album, but I have the feeling that the (to me, at least) unique sound and composition of the album must have seemed out of left field, even for Pink Floyd. When I was a kid, I would play my favorite records continuously while reading books. As a result, It's almost impossible for me to separate "Wish you were here" from a couple of fantasy book series, mainly "The Once and Future King" series (T.H. White), and I think also the "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" series (Stephen Donaldson). Probably not what Waters and crew had in mind, I know....

I find it hard to get past Nico's voice, unfortunately, so it's hard to appreciate and/or enjoy this as much as I probably should. That aside, this seems a lot more saccharine than the Velvet Underground/Nico collaboration (despite a bunch of Velvet Underground participation in the album), so maybe it's not just her voice that's putting me off this album. The songs *do* get better as the album goes along, particularly those with more Velvet Underground participation and songwriting (I think I enjoyed "It Was a Pleasure Then" the most), but it's still a pretty challenging album to listen to. To be fair to her, the Wikipedia entry makes it pretty clear the flute/string additions were not only *not* her choice, but ruined it for her too (along with the absence of drums or bass). Sorry, Nico--you got robbed! And us too. It seems a shame to include this in the greatest albums collection, given how she was treated and how different this was from what she'd hoped for. A testament to how dictatorial producers and studios were back then. :(

A fun album, and the recording captures their live performance really well (which is always impressive, but particularly for a 1963 recording). I really like the energy of Sam Cooke and the band, but I'll admit there's not as much variety among the songs as I'd like, despite different lyrics and sensibilities among the songs. Maybe that's a casualty of the live recording? What a shame that RCA prevented this from being distributed for nearly 20 years!

I'd always meant to listen to this album, given how wide-ranging David Bowie has been over his music career, so I'm glad to have an excuse to listen to it. It's interesting enough, I suppose, but I wonder if this is really even one of his better albums? (It appears that music critics would beg to differ with me on that point, so I guess I'll just have to accept its greatness.) It *is* interesting to (literally) see how much music videos are an integral part of a few of the songs on this album, and "Blackstar" (the song) seems like a weird compendium of his style and sound over the decades (sort of). I think I enjoyed "Lazarus" the most. But overall it didn't really engage me. And sad knowing this was his last album, as he clearly had plenty more to contribute into the 21st century.

What an interesting choice and a fun change of pace. (I also love it that YouTube Music decided to play all of its (many many) ads in Spanish--I'm curious to see if this language preference sticks to the next listen, since I'm not logged in...) I'm not at all a connoisseur of Cuban music, so I can't comment on whether they've done a good job of reviving trova and filin, but I enjoyed listening to the album. I think my favorite song was "El Carretero". (I suspect it's just me (and a very gringo me), but "El Cuarto de Tuya" totally reminded me of Los Lobos' version of "I wanna be like you (Monkey Song)", although "El Cuarto" has *much* more adult lyrics (apparently).) My only quibble with this selection is that this is clearly a superband/all-star/semi-one-off band/album, which I thought were generally not included in the 1001 albums project? (Maybe it's only soundtracks and compilation albums, though?)

Ah, a classic among the many Dylan albums in this collection! (And a double album no less.) I'm not very fluent in Dylanology, but even I can recognize this album captured his post-folk/electric/rock period really nicely, and it has a nice balance of more popular songs and very philosophical ones. And I see why "Visions of Johanna" and "Just Like a Woman" are considered some of his greatest creations. (I'll also admit that "I want you" is one of the harder songs for me to align with what I (probably unfairly) associate with Dylan's seeming lifelong asexuality....)

I don't know that I've heard much from Pretty Things, but I kind of enjoyed the album, despite a certain Beatlesesque-ness to their style and songs (at least on the first half or so of this album). ("Bracelets of Fingers" was probably the most egregious example of this, I'd say, but a lot of the better parts of the album is sadly reminiscent of Sgt. Peppers and seems pretty derivative. Other parts are just a bit painful to listen to.) I think my favorite song was "The Loneliest Person", and not just because it was one of the shorter and more cohesive songs on the album. :) If I hadn't read the Wikipedia entry, I'm not sure I would have ever realized that this was a rock opera, nor do I have any real sense for poor Sebastian and his life's journey. I find it also bizarre that most of the contemporary and later critics focused on similarities to Pink Floyd, The Who's "Tommy" and blues styles, so maybe I just missed the boat entirely on any Beatles imitation. It's pretty awesome that the band couldn't really perform this album live (and not just because they took LSD before a 1969 TV "performance" of the album).

I feel like I should know Arcade Fire a lot more than I do, but the nice part of that confusion is that I'm pretty sure this is my first listen to an entire Arcade Fire album. I enjoyed it, but didn't fall in love with them or their sound, and wonder whether this is their best album to include (without bothering to follow through on whether there are multiple Arcade Fire selections or to figure out which of their albums is considered their all-time best)? I'm impressed at the band's longevity so far, though not so impressed by recent (and likely justified) "sexual misconduct" allegations that sound a lot like Ryan Adams (but without as much fallout so far). Overall, a strangely forgettable album, especially for one that won a Grammy and has been ranked as the 2nd best album of the 2000s....

I have always made the unfortunate (and obviously grossly) mistaken mashup in my mind with the Everly and Smothers Brothers, so I wasn't sure what to expect with this album. Not really my style or sensibility (although I've always enjoyed the various covers for "Love Hurts"), but a fine album for a sound that's not only *not* like the Smothers Brothers, but also a different era. Given that the Wikipedia entry for this album notes that "It's Everly Time" is a superior album, I wonder why we got this instead? (Presumably more Everly Brothers in our future, I guess)

I suppose it was inevitable that one of these selections might be something like Offspring, so I have to acknowledge that they could have chosen far worse examples. I guess this was Offspring's equivalent to Nirvana's "Nevermind", although I really don't understand how this could be labeled punk rock in any way ("pop punk rock" seems so lame and offensive to both pop *and* punk rock). That said, I definitely enjoyed hearing "Come Out and Play" on the radio, and maybe somewhat the same for "Self Esteem" (despite its super-derivative-Nirvana sound), and it definitely struck me that these songs seemed fairly edgy for radio rock (but again, I would have laughed if someone had told me that this was some form of punk rock). I also like it that it was produced on an independent label, and did so well commercially. I didn't really enjoy most of the other songs on the album, even as background music, and the super-annoying voiceover/narrator occasionally interjecting almost makes me want to rank this a 2-star album. But that's not fair to the few genuine hits on the album.

Well, I wondered when Smashing Pumpkins would appear, although it's a bit disappointing to get them right after another 1990s phenom (Offspring), as they share some of the same general wall-of-sound 90s thing. (To be fair to Offspring, though, their lyrics are *much* easier to distinguish than Smashing Pumpkins. And to be fair to Smashing Pumpkins, they're so much less annoying/offensive than Offspring.) I own this album (apparently one of 6 million others), and at one point enjoyed listening to them more than I do now. Listening to this album again makes me think more of a time and place (1990s, DC) than it does of whether this is a "greatest" album or not. And I think even when I bought the CD I felt like they kind of had one song in them that they found several variations of to put together a full-length album. (I suspect if I ever took the time to decipher the lyrics, or ever watch their videos, I might be slightly disabused of this monochromatic image. And hits "Cherub Rock" and "Today" *are* somewhat different, I'll admit. "Rocket" not so much, and "Disarm" maybe the most distinctive, but I never really liked that hit.) Fine, but nothing special (despite the Wikipedia entry describing the album as "widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 1990s and of all time"), and a nice blast from the past. That said, I wish I knew then about what went into making this album (thanks, Wikipedia people), as it would have made the context of the album a lot more interesting. Talk about stressful and harrowing! And shades of the film "Whiplash" with the suicidal lead singer making the junkie drummer perform "Cherub Rock" until his hands bled....

I've never heard of him/them before, but I enjoyed the whole French-narrated chill-rock-style. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much if I understood the lyrics/narration storyline, as the Wikipedia plot summary makes it sound a bit creepy (at least for listening in the 21st century), and a little bizarre/pretentious, but thankfully my spoken-French comprehension is pretty abysmal. I didn't really want to hunt down "Melody, the musical", but I *did* listen to this album via YouTube Music, which very bizarrely showed a completely wrong-seeming video while playing "Ballade de Melody" (something involving some white guy trying to save a non-white kid (male) in what appeared to be riots/protests/terrorist attacks). A bit more surreal than I suspect even Serge Gainsbourg was hoping for.... (A little more digging on this video reveals that it was made in 2021 by Christopher Honore as a tribute to Gainsbourg but "updated to reflect the times", whatever that means; most of the comments seem to find it an inappropriate appropriation. You can see it here: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o165uRDuYU>) (And I found a YouTube playlist with the various original videos collated together: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AznHU0cWvz0&list=PLEB4AA81A5D349F09>) I loved seeing (on Wikipedia) all the artists and bands that have been influenced by this album, and I can totally see this influence now that I've heard this album. For that alone, I'd give it 5 stars (especially since I enjoyed listening to the album), except I still think this is all a bit creepy.

Ah, a classic from my high school years! I actually still really like a few songs from this album--mainly "The Prisoner", "Number of the Beast" (naturally), and perhaps most of all "Run to the Hills"--which kind of surprises me, because I knew even at the time that this was never a particularly complex band. But they nailed the whole metal power chord thing well, I liked Bruce Dickinson's story, and as an aspiring rhythm guitar guy in high school, I was always challenged by the interesting pairing of Adrian Smith's and Paul Murray's guitar licks. I never realized until now (after reading the Wikipedia entry) that this was the only album containing both Bruce Dickinson and Clive Burr; it almost makes me want to listen to pre-Bruce Iron Maiden (almost). And the (likely apocryphal) story about the producer's accident with a bus of nuns and a repair bill of £666 is hilarious.

It's always a good day if you get to listen to Miles Davis, even if you're (like me) not all that well-versed in his huge arsenal of songs and albums. It's a little weird that we got a compilation album (mainly because I thought that wasn't part of the criteria for including in the 1001 Greatest Albums collection), but I'm not complaining at getting to hear a variety of tunes from a shifting band composition, and apparently getting to listen to the birth of a new style of jazz (or as the critic Sargent apparently described it, "not really jazz"). Not bad at all!

Well, you can't argue with "the best selling salsa album in the history of salsa music and Latin music", I guess! Not really my usual genre to listen to, so I can't say much about whether this deserves the title, but a fine album, I suppose. I did find "Buscando Güayaba" a weird and somewhat jarring song, and while I kind of liked the seamless transition between tracks (interrupted only by YouTube's annoying ads), it made it really hard to follow much of anything, in large part because my sung-Spanish comprehension is as abysmal as my sung-French comprehension. And while the reference completely went over my head, it's interesting to know that "Pedro Navaja" is an homage to Bertolt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera." "I like to live in America!" (3)

It's nice to hear this album in its entirety, as I think I've only heard a few of the more radio-friendly hits. It's hard to imagine how this must have sounded when it first sold, but it's still an impressively unique and distinct mostly-concept album. (It's funny how almost all concept albums seem to have a few odd-man-out tunes; in this case the cover of "It Ain't Easy" is the most obvious.) This is a *much* better selection for the 1001 albums project than "Blackstar"!

I can't say I've listened to all that much of Thelonious Monk's repertoire, so it's both fun to get an album by him and at the same time hard to know if this is outstanding or typical for him. Either way, I enjoyed listening to it. It's a bit of a bummer to read (the Wikpedia entry) about how challenging this album was to make, and how it ended up being more of a compilation album thanks to the complete dysfunction involved in recording the title track, especially given how each track *sounds* as if it's a bunch of friends having a good time riffing off each other. (But also pretty funny to find out that in one of the apparently 25 takes of "Brilliant Corners," the bassist was pantomiming playing in protest (or maybe just annoyance).) Tensions and egos aside, this is a fun album of clearly talented musicians.

Although I'm a bit surprised to get another Steely Dan album, I guess it makes sense, since I was surprised the other album didn't have "Boddhisattva", and here it is! I always enjoy listening to Steely Dan, so this was a nice listen, but I'm still a bit puzzled why there are (at least) two Steely Dan albums in this collection, as they're not all that different from each other. In some ways I liked more of this album's songs than on "Aja", and I *do* like this album's cover more, and it's kind of fun to hear a less polished version and a little more rocking version of the band (plus an album that could actually be played live). I also enjoyed a few songs I'd never heard from them, like "The Boston Rag".

Since first hearing them in "Do the Right Thing", I've enjoyed most of what I've heard from Public Enemy (although it's mainly been Chuck D's voice and lyrics, and I've never really enjoyed Flavor Flav nearly as much). Since this album *isn't* "Fear of a Black Planet", I'm happy to think that there are likely two PE albums in the 1001 collection, or at least I hope so, since this is a good album but not as good or classic as "Fear of a Black Planet" (or "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" for that matter). That said, I enjoyed a fair number of songs on this album, and was surprised I'd heard several of them before (long ago). And of course it had that (to me) instant classic mash-up "Bring tha Noize (with Anthrax)", which blew my mind when I first heard it (apparently a few years before this album, although my conviction that I'd heard it on a school bus in high school must have been the original and not the co-Anthrax version). A lot of good stuff on this album, and fun to hear a familiar-sounding band playing tunes I haven't heard. And impressive to know that they cranked out this album after losing all their tracks/"data" from the past 5 years.

A fun listen, although I have no idea if this is one of their greats, or just another solid album? It's certainly quite a progression from their days of "Shout" or even "Testify", and I particularly enjoyed this album's version of "Listen to the Music", as well as the great opening bass (and track) on "Sunshine". And nice that they added a few more brothers to the Isley clan with this album!

I actually own a Le Tigre album (not this one, rather "This Island"), somewhat accidentally when I found it left on the street--I'm not sure I even listened to it for months, and had no idea what the band was like. I'm impressed to discover that this debut album shares a lot of similarities with their 3rd and last album (but not in a repetitive way), and I enjoyed this album as much as "The Island". Not exactly my favorite music style, but they have good lyrics and a well-produced sound (for what they're trying to achieve). "Deceptacon" reminds me (perhaps oddly) of a later version of the classic Ministry "Jesus Built My Hotrod", perhaps simply because they both have references to "ding a ding a dang a dong dong ding dong " (more or less). And it's pretty funny to see/hear how "My my metrocard" is strangely re-relevant with its critique of good old Giuliani. My favorite song on the album, though, is probably "Slideshow at Free University," which reminds me of the exhibit/film "Manifesto" (probably because the song is also an excerpt of a manifesto), as well as the band "LCD Soundsystem".

It's hard not to hear this as a Steely Dan album, given how distinctive Fagen's voice is, and the music is fairly similar too. A sly way to get more Steely Dan into the 1001 albums project! That said, I'm sorry he decided to go solo in the early 1980s, as this was *not* a very fertile time for distinctive sounding tunes amongst all the backup choruses, poppy synth sounds and the ubiquitous sax solos and drum-machine-sounding beats (even when they're actually drums). I'm kind of reminded of Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" (although I enjoy that album a lot more). It's kind of hard to agree with the critic who called this "one of pop music's sneakiest masterpieces," as I wish it was more distinctive and interesting.

Ugh. I figured we would get this since we also got Offspring, but still...just not very interesting or entertaining, I'm afraid (and somewhat surprisingly, not as interesting as The Offspring) .

I feel like I have two very opposite impressions of Paul Simon, and this plays out with this album. On the one hand, I often enjoy his sound and style (perhaps not as much as his work with Garfunkel), especially on his earlier solo stuff, but I also find his whole world music thing kind of annoying and pretentious (more so than, say, Peter Gabriel or David Byrne's (obviously much later) world music explorations). Thankfully, this album has less of the global sound (except of course his ubiquitous pan pipes), and while I miss the Garfunkel/Simon harmonies, most of the songs are pretty solid, although not particularly distinctive. I also enjoyed how much this album reminded me of some of Leo Kottke's stuff.

A classic, I know, but I don't think I've actually listened to the whole album before, or really heard most of the non-radio-hits. It's impressive how much the vocoder makes this sound a bit like time travel music-wise, with synthesizer-like sounds showing up in an analog context (the live string and horn sections contrast nicely with the sci-fi vocoder, or whatever synthesizer process gives the synth sounds and vocal manipulation). A fun listen, although not really my favorite sound, and it's sometimes hard for me to distinguish ELP, ELO, and Yes. And of course a few great radio hits like "Sweet Talkin' Woman" and "Mr. Blue Sky" make it a better experience (that helps you forget some of the weaker songs on the somewhat tediously long double-album).

I'm initially impressed by two things with this album: (1) it's a 21st-century selection, which seems to be a rarity for this project; and (2) Wikipedia has almost nothing on this album or the band, making it hard to get a feel for why this might have been included in the 1001-album collection (unless it was because a few songs were featured in ads and video games?). My initial impression is of a not-particularly distinctive sound or band, with not very interesting lyrics or beats, but playable enough as background music. Some tracks minded me of a mashup of Blue Man Group, Beta Band and Meat Puppets (especially "Default" and "Firewater"), and the "WOR" video definitely caught the can't-look-away effect of the wall-of-death attraction. I enjoyed listening to the album, but have a hard time understanding why this made the cut instead of one of their other albums, or some other band altogether...

I actually own two different Air albums ("Talkie-Walkie" and "Pocket Symphony"), so it's hard for me *not* to enjoy listening to their debut album (although it makes me wonder all over again why debut albums get so much attention in this collection, since they're rarely the best for each band/artist). I'll admit that what appeals to me about Air's style is that it's great background music, which I'm sure makes any artist cringe, and certainly isn't fair to them (or anyone). But I still enjoy listening to them in all sorts of environments, and I enjoyed this album too, knowing that I was missing out on whatever the lyrics meant, at least when they were in French. I also thought this album was actually more in the foreground than the other two are, which is an interesting aspect. (A little annoying that the YouTube Music version of the album had a few substitutions on the versions of some songs, but that's not Air's fault.) A solid album, although nothing exciting in the context of this 1001 albums project.

I don't think I've ever listened to a whole album featuring Justin Timberlake (either solo or in a band), so there's a bit of novelty here. I do wish this 1001 albums project didn't have such a fixation on debut albums, because there's no way this is his best album (or at least I certainly hope not). But that's not Justin Timberlake's fault, I suppose. This isn't really my cup of tea, so I'm not sure how to rate it. I feel like he's got a style going on here, and it seems like a pretty well produced album, with an impressive number of collaborators and guest artists and the Neptunes' involvement, but I can't really say I enjoyed listening to it, and it doesn't sound all that distinctive. It's pretty funny that this seems to have been widely considered as Michael Jackson's album to take or leave (or he apparently left it). I'm also bummed that we didn't get songs like "All These Things That I've Done" which he lip-synched in the "Southland Tales" movie (and Justin did a solid job as a bit character in that movie too, I would say); but since that's actually by The Killers, and not by Justin, and is in no way R&B, I guess that would have been asking too much.... (2)

I'm not familiar with The Youngbloods, so this seemed like a good introduction to them. It also seemed like an interesting mix of other late 1960s bands and their own style, although I didn't find it all that distinctive. I was disappointed to read that the instrumental "On Sir Francis Drake" was not in fact some sort of historical reference, but much more mundanely about a road near where they moved to California. I guess that was expecting a bit too much from the Youngbloods, but I still enjoyed listening to their album (mostly).

Hm. Not exactly my first choice for something to listen to, but it's nice to know that the band drew a regular crowd in Birmingham's The Mermaid, so that European punk/hardcore bands could play there too (not so cool that the Mermaid owner never paid Napalm Death for their appearances). And it's always inspiring to read about how one of the band members (and apparently the only one to play on both sides of this album) had a driving goal as a musician, although "extremely fast drumming" seems a bit limited as far as goals go...but I think he largely achieved that goal, at least on this album. It's hard to imagine listening to the CD reissue of this album, as it apparently contained *54* songs on it, few of which were as blissfully short as that "Silicon Valley"-featured song "You Suffer", but still, 54 is about 50 songs too many. However, I'll give credit to the concept that "Scum" was "the conclusion of a ten-year competition for the fastest and hardest sound, marking the point from which neither speed nor intensity could increase" (from the Wikipedia article). We can only hope that this means no more of this kind of album in the 1001 Greatest Albums collection....

Although I never sought out an album by her, I never minded when her many songs made it onto the radio (many from this album, too). However, it never felt like there was much there beyond her weird voice/intonation, even though the songs were more catchy than I'd have guessed. I was also a bit mystified by the incredibly negative reaction she seemed to create in some people. I remember hanging out with some people not long after this album came out, and this one guy started arguing with *everyone* about how horrible she was and untalented and psychotic and disgusting, etc., and then just started screaming the lyrics from "You Oughta Know" (or maybe "Ironic") in this truly freaky falsetto that actually made Alanis Morisette sound like an opera singer by comparison. Apparently he was more drunk than usual, and the next day apologized to everyone, but I'll never forget the depths of hatred he was spewing. I haven't heard any of the songs on this album beyond the radio hits, so it was interesting to hear a little more variety from Alanis Morisette, although I find it hard to heard beyond her voice/style, so the non-radio songs weren't all that distinctive to me. ("Perfect" is a great example this, a very 90s Lilith Fair-style emo song that just sounds a bit off thanks to her voice/style.) It's pretty cool to read that all of the vocals on this album were recorded in 1-2 demo takes, and also cool to know that Dave Navarro and Flea were involved in "You Oughta Know" (especially given how young she was when she was making the album); it's be interesting to hear how the original version of that song was like. It's also hilarious that there's been a whole thread on whether "Ironic" actually contains any ironic situations (which seems like the real irony, I suppose?).

For all that I've seen her name in the news and on the screen, I had no idea what her music was like, or for that mater even heard any of her songs (at least knowingly). Based on the Wikipedia article, this seems like a good selection for Christina Aguilera (somewhat surprisingly for this project), but I can't say it really stood out in any particular way, except (unfortunately) for how *long* the double-CD album is. Aside from Aguilera ("Baby Jane"?) fans, there's really no need for so many songs, and while the two discs are somewhat distinct from each other, there just aren't that many good songs in this album. I enjoyed at least parts of a few of the first disc's songs, likes "Makes me Wanna Pray" and "Ain't no Other Man", and "Candyman" is pretty catchy, so there's that. And I appreciated it that she was so involved in the production and songwriting and styling.

Although I've never been a huge fan of hers, I was sorry to read (in the Wikipedia entry) that this album has been sliding down in Rolling Stone's best 500 albums (and likely is gone by now), as it's a solid album for its time and was--and to some degree still is--enormously popular. I had no idea about all the struggles she endured before this album came out, and I'm glad it rescued her career, as she seems like a great artist and person. And she and Lyle Lovett put on a great show at the 2002 MN State Fair, so it's hard not to hear some of these songs and think about that performance.

I haven't listened to much of Radiohead, so I'm not sure whether this album is typical or not for them (or at least typical for them in the mid-90s), but it's an interesting combination of very familiar-sounding mid-90s indie/alt-rock sort of stuff, yet without being at all distinctive beyond a song or two that might have made some air-time (like "High and Dry" or "My Iron Lung", I think, but then again it might just be very similar to some *other* mid-90s indie/alt-rock tune). I *was* a bit surprised that some of the songs were a little harder-edged (and a teensy bit less falsetto) than I expected of Radiohead. It kind of feels like this isn't really a great Radiohead album to include in the 1001 album collection, frankly, but maybe it was more influential than I appreciate, and certainly the "Influence" and "Legacy" sections of the Wikipedia article suggest I'm just ignorant of this album's majesty. Either way, entertaining enough, in a somewhat disappointingly generic way.

It wouldn't feel right to have *no* Def Leppard in this collection, I suppose, but this seems like a completely arbitrary choice for an album, especially since it's not what I think of as their defining album, "Pyromania". Most of this album seems like lighter-rock variations on that previous album's songs, although "Pour Some Sugar on Me" is one of their singles that seemed more like vintage Def Leppard. Overall, though, this album seems so much more anodyne than "Pyromania", and much more of a trend towards Journey-style rock than what they were playing before, which I guess was the point (according to the Wikipedia article) but still disappointing. And such a *long* album too, for what you get. Maybe it was the sympathy vote for the poor drummer? I've always been impressed that they didn't ditch him after the gruesome accident (and that he didn't decide to bow out), and although he definitely had to adopt a different drumming style afterwards, it's more or less worked for all of them (although it would have been nice if he had been able to stick with physical drums, as the drum pads just don't have the same sound).

I actually got this album previously, but it got lost in the shuffle as I transitioned over to the group listening arrangement, so it's here again (but would have been anyway, I suppose). As I noted the last time around, it feels like a somewhat forgettable collection of semi-lush semi-trip-rock-like songs (with a little light-industrial thrown in). It's also likely an album that was probably a lot more enjoyable when it came out than listening to it over 25 years later, but I do sort of wonder why this particular Primal Scream album made it into the collection, as they were more of a distinctive new sound in the early 90s (with their second album "Screamadelica"), but since I always ding this collection for so many early/debut albums, maybe I shouldn't complain. I'll say this, though: it kind of makes me want to find and watch the 1971 "Vanishing Point", and I also imagine that this album makes for a better soundtrack to that movie than the original. (But "Kowalski" has got to be one of the worst music videos I've seen, so maybe not....)

Well, I'm not a huge connoisseur or particular fan of Joni Mitchell, so my response isn't all that informed. OK album, I guess, but (at least based on what I read in Wikipedia) it seems like "Court and Spark" might have been a better choice for this period of Joni Mitchell's career? It's interesting that she was experimenting with Moog and ARP synthesizers, and it's conceptually intriguing that "The Jungle Line" features one of the first musical samples, but I found so many songs (and especially "The Jungle Line") kind of cringe-worthy, especially the more world-music oriented songs (in much the same way I find Paul Simon's world music approach kind of painful). I guess I empathize more with the early reviews of the album than the later ones that seem to feel it's both timeless and a masterpiece.

The only song I've heard from them before is their great "Bang a Gong/Get it On", so I wasn't sure what to expect (and very glad that that was on this album, their sixth(!)). Although they don't have much else that stands out on this album, it's an interesting album overall, with a lot more variety (and interesting experimentation) on the B side. It's also funny how out of place "Get it On" seems, as it's so familiar and the rest of the album doesn't seem all that similar style-wise (except the near-copycat "The Motivator"). There's something kind of haunting (and memorable) about "Cosmic Dancer", too, and I enjoyed "Planet Queen". I know many of the associations I made with some of the songs aren't really related to "glam rock", but for me there were a lot of echoes of bands both before and after in this album--David Bowie, Beatles, Iggy Pop, Velvet Underground, and so on. Or so it seems to me. :) I'm just really glad we didn't have to listen to their earlier fairy-tale folk music, as that sounds really annoying.

Hm. It's always fun to get a band and album that I've never heard of, but I'm not sure there's a lot to this one, at least for me. The band sounds a lot like a whole lot of other alt/indie bands from the later 1990s, and while there's nothing wrong with that, it's a bit hard to know why this album (and band) made the cut to be in this project. (I also made the mistake of trying to watch the video of the first song, "Writing to Reach You," and was both baffled at whatever storyline the video was trying to tell, and which didn't seem to relate to the lyrics. Kind of annoying. "Turn" and "Why does it always rain on me" weren't much better.) I almost wonder if we should have gotten their debut album instead (ironic given the project's tendency to over-favor debut albums)? I feel a bit badly giving this only 2 stars, but it just feels like such a bland and forgettable album, with almost no sort of backstory or drama to make it more interesting.

It's a shame that there's no Wikipedia entry for this album, only a profile of Baaba Maal, as it's hard to know why this particular album was selected from his apparently extensive discography. And his story is fascinating, with a lot of interesting connections to Western artists (Brian Eno is everywhere!) and his work on soundtracks (like "Black Panther") or collaborations with other big names like Taj Mahal (for a Fela Kuti tribute album). But this album doesn't have any of that, and I don't really even feel like I can appreciate whether his music on this album is more traditional or more innovative in Pulaar/Fula culture (although the non-lyrics music seems largely modern, and sadly in a horrible 80s/90s synth- and drum-track mire). I guess it's fine? I liked "Yela" and "Daniibe", more from the sound than whatever the lyrics meant; everything else is kind of lost on me. I was often reminded of Babatunde Alotunji's "Drums of Passion", even though they're different generations and cultures and countries, of course. Looking at the entry for this album from the 2005 edition of "1001 albums you must hear before you die", it appears that the draw for this album was the collaboration between Simon Booth and Baaba Maal (and the editor particularly (perhaps solely?) liked the track "Daande Lenol", which ironically is named after Maal's band, but mixes in all the usual world-music suspects), and how this was a sort of launchpad for Simon Booth to explore world music and later form Afro Celt Sound System (without Maal involved at all). So I guess this album was included more for Simon Booth than Maal, although the editor notes that "Maal continued his pop fusion with varying degrees of success"?

"Just like Cream! But worse" (Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone) What a perfect, and fairly accurate, description of a great classic album. To be honest, I would have liked to have had "Paranoid" instead of their debut album, but it's fun to listen to the roots of both Black Sabbath's style and heavy metal more generally, and the Wikipedia article is a good read. (I had no idea that Tony Iommi had lost his right-hand fingertips in a sheet metal factory accident, or that Geezer Butler was originally a guitarist, and how much both of those facts made the band both distinctive, and worse than Cream with all the power chords and simplified bass.) Definitely not their best album, and I'm impressed at how much less "heavy" this album was than later ones, but I loved finding out that they recorded it essentially live, in one day, and before closing time at the pub. And for that alone, it's really impressive.

I'm not really a Kanye West aficionado (or particularly a fan), so this is probably my first time hearing a whole album by him (and perhaps the only time, depending on whether there are other Kanye West albums in this project). It's hard to believe that his debut album is the best of (pre-unstable) Kanye West, but regardless there's not a lot of particularly memorable stuff on a surprisingly long album, and it's hard to believe that most of what he produced on this album was all that ground-breaking either (aside perhaps from avoiding the gangster-rap mode), although apparently a lot of critics would beg to differ. The songs with featured artists are probably the high points on the album (for me, at least), but even these aren't really to my taste, I'm afraid; I guess "chipmunk soul" is an acquired taste. I did enjoy "Jesus Walks (Version 2)", though, and also somewhat for "Two Words" and "Never let me down", and the backstory of "Through the wire" and West's horrible car accident is kind of (morbidly) fascinating. But it's hard to ignore the hot mess he became over the years, which means he has a higher bar to meet for being both entertaining and interesting even in his earlier work. I was really tempted to give this only 2 stars (mainly for how long and indulgent the whole thing felt), but that didn't seem fair given that he produced and wrote the whole album.

Much like Steely Dan, I generally enjoy listening to Elvis Costello, and have one or two of his albums, so it's always nice to get him in the collection's rotation. But this particular album is a bit of a mystery, as there's nothing particularly distinctive about it; the Wikipedia entry for the album is remarkably scanty (and provides no context for why this might have been included); and, more damning, the Wikipedia entry notes that there are six(!) Elvis-Costello-related albums in the 1001 Albums project, which seems about 4 (or 5?) too many. But who knows? Maybe some of the other ones are truly distinctive or totally different genres. "Brutal Youth", though, seems pretty classic Elvis Costello, and while that's perfectly fine, it's also neither super exciting (at least to me) nor does it have any classics or radio hits.

*Another* Smashing Pumpkins album?!!! I'm not sure why they'd really warrant two (or more?) entries in the 1001 album collection, and it always seems like a perverse form of torture to inflict a double album on any but true fans anyway. (Worse, the YouTube music link went to some 5-hour version of the album with 92 songs, which was fortunately so long that I knew it wasn't the version I should have gotten.) I've always wanted to like them more than I do. And this album didn't help, with it's annoying Belle-Epoque-style cover and title (although in some ways they occasionally *do* have a Hugo-like aesthetic, so maybe it's fitting?). However, at least there's more range on this album than on "Siamese Dream"...

I'm really surprised there are (at least) two Van Halen albums in this collection, but I always enjoy vintage Van Halen (pre-Hagar), so no complaints here. This definitely isn't as good as their debut album, or some earlier ones, but I'm pretty sure this is the first truly commercially successful album (or at least the only album with a #1 single), so it makes sense to have it here. Even when this came out I was a bit surprised at how synth-heavy some of the songs were, and that hasn't aged all that well (in my opinion); it's a bit like how we got "Hysteria" instead of "Paranoia" for Def Leppard. (I didn't know until reading the Wikipedia entry that the synth/keyboard was Eddie's brainchild; a still mystifying preference given his guitar virtuoso/diva side.) But I've always loved "Panama" (and never could play it very well in my brief-lived guitar years), and "Hot for Teacher" is also definitely in the classic Van Halen vein (as is "Top Jimmy" and "Drop Dead Legs"). It's too bad that David and Eddie struggled to share the spotlight, as they had a great sound.

I feel like I've heard of Kings of Leon for a long time now, but have no idea what they sound like or even what genre they fit into. So it's nice to have an excuse to listen to an album by them (even if it is their debut album and likely *not* their best). I wasn't expecting a sort of retro-infused punk-lite/southern rock style (with a few other styles thrown in), but it's not bad, and certainly different than a lot of what was getting produced back then. It's amazing how *young* they were when this album got released, and how utterly homegrown their band and early albums were. It's also intriguing how much more popular the band has been outside the US (at least sales- and chart-wise ). Although the overall sound is generally not like him or his band, the lead singer's voice occasionally strongly reminds me of Jonathan Richman, which probably isn't the Kings of Leon's intention, I suspect....

Despite having heard the song "American Pie" a zillion times, I'm not sure I've ever heard the rest of the album, so this is great. It's of course hard *not* to think of Don McLean as a one-hit wonder, given the well-deserved immortality of "American Pie", but his other hits on this album don't really compare, at least to me. But then again, I've never really warmed to most of the folk/ballad-style/easy-listening hits that seem to permeate 70s albums. (I did enjoy the sort of Dylanesque "Everybody loves me, baby," though, and I also enjoyed "The Grave".) It's fun to read a little bit about the recording of "American Pie" (the song), and it makes me appreciate the backing band style and execution. And very cool that he (likely) got Pete Seeger, James Taylor, Carly Simon and others for the backup refrain towards the end of the song. It's hard to know the best rating for this album. It's so much like "Alice's Restaurant", where there's just one (great) song that's stood the test of time, and the rest of the album kind of drags that song down in some ways. (Although "American Pie" is *so* much better than "Alice's Restaurant," I know.) So I'll settle for a wishy-washy 3 rating.

A great selection for this project! Given how long the tracks are on this album, I doubt I've ever heard any of these songs before, at least in their original format, so it's really nice to hear an early release of an iconic artist. (Sadly, the YouTube Music link for this album includes the much shorter single/radio-friendly version of "Walk on By". The 12-minute version is so much more interesting, I'd say.) It's fascinating to read that if not for Atlantic splitting with Stax, he probably wouldn't have even made this album, which would have been a shame for everyone. And not just Henry Rollins. :)

I'm a long-time Nick Cave fan, so a nice selection for today. And this is a solid album for him, thankfully, so a double-bonus! (Although probably not one of his best, oddly, so I'm not sure why this one was chosen.) A bummer, though, that making this album was such a painful and unhappy process; thankfully the conflicts with the producer don't show too badly (although I guess I'll have to listen to "Live Seeds" to get many of these songs the way Nick Cave was envisioning). It's kind of hard to imagine that Nick Cave sang a variant of "Papa won't leave you, Henry" to his young son (and then admitted that it's a "kind of a nasty fucked-up lullaby").... "Brother, my cup is empty" is a great classic-Cave-sounding song (to me, at least).

I listened to this album so many times when it first came out, and loved it every time. I can't really tell if it's aged well or not, but it's very fun to listen to it again. It's probably easier to list the songs that weren't my favorites--"Freddie's Dead", "Deep Inside", and "Change"--as the rest all competed for favorite song (although the political/racial aspect of "Slow Bus Movin'" and "One Day" might rank them just a bit higher than the others). It's kind of a bummer that their subsequent albums, at least the ones I bought, weren't as compelling (with the exception of "The Reality of My Surroundings"), but that's maybe to be expected, since I probably wanted them to just churn out more albums just like "Truth and Soul", and to their credit they clearly wanted to experiment with other styles and sounds. And the show I saw them at in LA--Primus and Fishbone--was a lot of fun, even with their newer material. I don't think I've ever seen so much energy from a surprisingly large band. (And what a bizarre combination of bands, although I loved them both. And I think it was at the Hollywood Palladium, an odd venue too.)

While I'd heard some of this album's songs (thanks to "Chronicles"), I haven't heard this album as an album before, and it sounds like it's really meant to be a whole album/concept experience. I'll admit that without reading the Wikipedia entry for this album, I would never have realized this was either a musical or that there's a whole storyline involved (although knowing it now makes the whole Shangri-La/Australia thing a lot more understandable). It's odd that it got a fairly tepid reception in the UK, but a glowing one in the US, and in some ways probably doesn't belong as one of their best albums (despite favorable comparisons to "Tommy" at the time). But a fun listen nonetheless.

Now *this* is the White Stripes album that should be in this collection--so much better than "White Blood Cells", and so much better than a lot of albums out there, frankly. I own this album, and I enjoy it every time I hear it, even if Jack White's voice can sometimes be a bit grating. I feel like they achieved a really nice balance in this album, and nearly every song is both fun and (fairly) distinctive. I'm not sure it deserves a full five stars, but they're getting it nonetheless. :)

I'm embarrassed to admit that while I've heard many songs from this album, this is the first time I've listened to the album outright. So, *now* I can say I'm experienced, I suppose. And what a great experience! Not every song can be as contagious or definitive as "Purple Haze" or "Foxey Lady", but even today it's not all that hard to understand how revolutionary the whole album was (or why it was so immediately popular). The Wikipedia entry for the album is a great read too (even if it's a little too long in the tooth at times). And now I know why Jimi Hendrix's sound is so distinctive on the album, given that he was literally blasting everyone out in the studio (and even causing computers above one of the studios to mess up). I'm really glad to know that Chas Chandler played a significant role in helping Jimi Hendrix bring his genius to the world. Finally listening to this album in its entirety only makes me even more baffled that the high school in Seattle I went to, and where he (briefly) attended much earlier than I did, had only a small, unlabeled bronze bust of Hendrix buried deep in the high school library, and nothing else to celebrate a brilliant musical artist.

Well, I guess the string of great albums in this collection had to come to an end, and Pet Shop Boys seems like an appropriate way to move from great to meh-ness. And I would challenge their first track assertion that they were never being boring, as this is kind of a snooze-fest of an album, even for them. (Speaking of that, why Pet Shop Boys at all, and not Depeche Mode or Tears for Fears?) As with so many albums in this collection, it's a bit of a mystery why this particular Pet Shop Boys album made the cut, as this doesn't seem like their best stuff, nor a particularly notable new direction for them. Ah well; it doesn't really suck, so I give it the wishy-washy award of three stars, although it's hard not to downgrade to two stars simply because I (irrationally) *really* don't like this band.

I've never heard of them before, but it's really nice to hear a band in this collection that's (a) not from North America or Europe and (b) doesn't sound like a sort of genericized world-music band (at least for much of the album). And they've got a great (and also tough) backstory both for the title of the album and their journey from the Timbuktu region to the capital of Mali (and beyond). (A bit of a bummer that so many Malians (and apparently many West Africans) have the same last name Touré, as it's hard to know what sort of connections the band members had to each other, although interesting to know that Garba Touré is "the son of Ali Farka Touré's long-time percussionist".) I'm not sure I've ever heard "[Sahara] desert blues" before, but I like their version of it, and most of the songs have great guitar and rhythm work to them; it's also amazing to read that Malian blues long (long long) predates American blues. Admittedly, I have no idea what the song titles or lyrics mean, so I can't really judge whether their songs are more formulaic or story-driven, but I like the energy and sound nonetheless.

It's always seemed like too many 1980s albums and bands suffered from...something...maybe a sort of musical malaise? Too many songs and albums just seem to blend together into a sort of synthy, poppy, sax-heavy generic-sounding music-light. And this is a perfect example of this. I'm not sure if they're all just missing some sort of soul, or distinctiveness, or message, or what, but it's painfully insipid and watery, certainly listening to it in 2024 (but I wasn't much of a fan of much of this kind of music even when it first came out). However, it's not poorly produced or anything, and they definitely tried to be a little more funky than some others, so it seems like a 3-star rating is fair.

It's nice to see Echo & The Bunnymen in this collection, but then I cheated and looked to see just how many albums we'd be getting, and was disappointed that there are three (3!) Echo & The Bunnymen albums, which seems like one (or maybe two?) too many. And while "Crocodiles" is a fun debut album for a band, with a decent range of styles on it, it's definitely not their best, so kind of a bummer that this is the selection of the day. Although I suspect true fans of either band would be annoyed to hear me compare them, but I've always felt that Echo & The Bunnymen and The Cure (and somewhat The Smiths, and by extension Morrissey's solo work) are kindred spirit bands in many ways. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a Cure fan (nor much of a fan of The Smiths and particularly Morrissey), so that's not the biggest compliment, but it's an in interesting overlap to me.

I've never heard of the band, or this album, or even the lone single from the album ("The State I Am In"), so that's always a nice surprise. And it's a fine album, with a much stronger/together band-sound than apparently they were when they recorded nearly all the album in three days. The album also has the great backstory of getting created as part of a music business course (and getting noticed by John Peel and Mark Radcliffe). I enjoyed listening to it, but as much as I always have a soft spot for Scottish bands, it wasn't particularly distinctive or engaging (for me).

I *still* want to like Radiohead more than I do, sadly. This is probably one of their better if not their best album, I know, but I still have a hard time enjoying the songs, even though they're well done and have interesting arrangements and odd lyrics in a good way. I'm not sure why they don't do it for me (although I think part of it is Thom Yorke's voice/style, sadly), but I likely won't listen to this album again. Sorry Radiohead! I *will* say that the music video for "Paranoid Android" is truly bizarre, and I couldn't stop watching the entire 6+ minute video (although I'll admit that I probably wouldn't have done so if they'd left it at the original 14-minute runtime). And I also have *zero* idea what I just saw, or what the song is about (and I don't think the animation really had anything to do with the song, oddly (correction: apparently the animator based the video on how the song felt, and wasn't provided the lyrics ahead of time)), but I love it that the song's title is inspired by "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". And a few other things that I liked from the Wikipedia article on the album: Brian Eno is once again everywhere; apparently they took a break from this album by touring and opening for Alanis Morisette (not the most logical pairing, I would think); and I can definitely see why Yorke credits Philip K. Dick's VALIS as an influence (although I now realize I was thinking of Dick's "Ubik" when I read "VALIS").

I'm not sure if I be embarrassed to admit it, but I have three Basement Jaxx albums (including this one), and I'm always impressed with how fun and positive (optimistic?) their music is, sort of a guilty pleasure I guess? I'm not sure I'd rank this as their best album, but for a debut album I can see how it took the music (dance) scene by storm, and it has a number of very solid songs on it. I've never seen their music videos before, and all of the videos for their singles on this album are fun to watch, and uniformly odd. (Most of the videos remind me of a much more recent Brazilian movie, "Bacarau") I also love it that they did the soundtrack to the best pothead aliens movie you'll likely see, "Attack the Block", and while I didn't know it at the time, it totally makes sense.

Ugh. Too bad this isn't Michael Cera's George Michael (Bluth, that is)... :) It's hard to not just pass by this album, having heard too many of the songs on the radio back in the day, but I guess even this album is worth listening to, and hearing songs that didn't make it on the radio. (I guess.) I hadn't realized until now that he actually wrote and produced nearly all of the album, nor that he actually *did* play multiple instruments on most of the songs (although his guitar "work" in the "Faith" video is supremely annoying, as he's not even trying to pretend that he's strumming anything like what the music is playing). That said, the music is so...blah...and was even then (to me), and some of the songs are just painful to listen to ("I want your sex" is a prime example, as it always seemed like he tried so hard to be manly in a very hetero way). But given its massive popularity, then and even now, that's a very minority opinion. I feel a little guilty giving this a 2-star rating, as it's not really fair to George Michael's legacy, but I really didn't enjoy listening to this album. And I really enjoyed reading somewhat recently that he and Andrew Ridgeley were avid Scrabble players, but it still doesn't make this album easier to listen to. Sorry, George Michael!

I'll admit that I've never really found my groove with Neil Young, so it's harder to embrace an album like this, which seems pretty obscure even for Neil Young fans. (As for my ambivalence, I think Robert Christgau's quote (in the Wikipedia page for this album) puts it far better than I ever could: "Something in [Young's] obsessive self-examination is easy to dislike and something in his whiny thinness hard to enjoy.") As with every Neil Young album (and song), though, there's some interesting stuff going on, and it's funny that the "primitive" production/recording of this album seems to be a theme he keeps revisiting (I think one of his most recent albums he recorded solo at Jack White's house in an ancient disc-recording booth). And the stories behind "Revolution Blues" (and Charles Manson) and "Ambulance Blues" make them far more intriguing to listen to than I initially gave them credit for. I'm also incredibly impressed that they were able to produce anything after subsisting on the "Honey Slides" concoction, a truly foul-sounding substance.

I'm not sure you could get more synthy-pop than this album, to be honest. But I'm also not sure you'd want to. I enjoyed the video for "Take me on" a lot more than the song, and am really impressed at the pseudo-animation style given when the video was made. (And I now discovered through the Wikipedia entry for this album that the animation was done by a couple who also worked on "Altered States", which makes total sense.) I never really listened to a-ha beyond whatever the radio imposed, but I'll admit I'm totally baffled to learn that this was a Norwegian band--I would have bet anything they were British (and English to be specific). Shows how much I know. Still doesn't do it for me, though, but it's hard to give it lower than three stars given it's legacy and influence.

I didn't think I'd heard The Verve before, but then as soon as "Bitter Sweet Symphony" started playing, I realized I *had* heard them (at least that song, many many many times), and I always enjoyed hearing it on the radio. The video is weirdly misanthropic, though, and makes me like the song less, sadly. (Likewise, the Wikipedia article for this album only seems to reinforce that Richard Ashcroft is a selfish, arrogant jerk, sadly.) I'm pretty sure I haven't ever heard most of the rest of the album, and for all of the hook to "Bitter Sweet Symphony", the rest of the album doesn't really deliver on that promise. The album seems just sort of average overall. Nothing great, nothing horrible (except maybe that video...). It's a bit shocking that "Urban Hymns" is #19 on the list of best-selling albums in UK chart history, as I feel like I could list a lot more than 19 UK albums that are much better than this (and yes, I know that's not the same thing). I'm also *super* bummed that the track "Velvet Morning" wasn't a cover or adaptation of that bizarre Lee Hazlewood/Nancy Sinatra song.

Despite Van Morrison's personal failings, this is still one of my favorite albums. It seems like nearly every song on this album got and to some degree still gets airtime, and it's always a pleasure to listen to the album in its entirety. I can't say that about too many albums that *aren't* a greatest hits album or a compilation. I do wish it was easy (or even possible) to respect the artist as much as the album, but we take what we can get.

There's something to be said for an album with under a half-hour running time, especially one as non-stop as this. I've never really listened much to the original decade of rock-n-roll, but it's hard to deny that Little Richard is up in the pantheon, and this actually seems like a good album of his to include (despite being more of a greatest hits/compilation album of his singles than a true "debut album"). Curiously, "Oh Why?" sounds more like a woman singing than Little Richard...

I feel like this album is what this collection is all about: an artist I've never heard of (or knowingly listened to before), with an album that sounds totally different from what I would have guessed, and contains a healthy number of really fun songs to listen to. (The B-side's initial set of love songs doesn't really do it for me, but that may also simple be because the other songs are so much more interesting, including the album's amazing finale, "Small Hours".) Although I don't think you'd ever need to read the Wikipedia entry for this album to appreciate it, it has a lot of fascinating detail on both John Martyn, the huge range of musicians that participated in the album, and also how the album was produced on an English farm (and at least some of it recorded in a courtyard with speakers playing in the middle of a pond). I can totally see why John Martyn, and this album in particular, is credited with being the ancestor of trip-hop, in all the best ways. I would have given this album a full 5 stars, if only there'd been fewer of those forgettable love songs .

In the long line of debut albums that are featured in this collection, it's a good one. But whether it's from listening to this album more than 30 years after it debuted, or just from personal taste, I didn't find it a particularly compelling or even distinctive sound or album, but also not annoying or bad or anything. I'm very glad, though, that this wasn't the first *and* last album she made (as she apparently somewhat feared at the time), as she's clearly a gifted musician and artist, and it's impressive that every album she's done sounds very different from previous ones (or so Wikipedia tells me). (As a long aside, when I saw this album in the daily rotation, I thought I had a different album by PJ Harvey, so was curious why this one made it into the collection. And then discovered I was thinking of the band Harvey Danger (and the album was "St James Version"), which has zero connection to PJ Harvey aside from somewhat contemporaneous debut years.)

I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never really listened to a whole Bob Marley album (with or without the Wailers), but this makes listening to this album a great treat for this unwashed member of the masses. I get it why the even-higher rated "Legend" isn't included in this collection, but it's nice to get such a complete album like this, with only a few songs not quite as strong as the others, and to have Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer involved in its creation.

After getting a string of somewhat forgettable albums, it seems like the music gods have smiled and delivered yet another great--and classic--album with "Talking Book". I've never been a big Stevie Wonder listener, so I can't speak to whether there are other, better albums by him for this collection, but this certainly seems like a strong contender (and the Wikipedia article seems to confirm this). I'm also really impressed to find out that he not only composed everything but also played most of the instruments for the album (with some great guests on some of the songs). It's kind of shocking to read that this was Stevie Wonder's *15th* studio album, yet it's also considered just the beginning of his "classic" period (which seems to coincide with the 1970s). Popular, prolific and a nice guy--quite a feat!

Although it almost feels like cheating to have a live album that largely consists of an artist's range of singles, it's still a great album and showcase for B. B. King. ("Cheating" only in the sense from what I can tell of the collection's "rules" for inclusion, although I'm guessing that the fact that most of B. B. King's discography consists of singles gives him a bit of a pass anyway.) I'm also really impressed at the quality of the recording, as you really get a feel for the audience and the instruments, which must have been a tough accomplishment in the mid-1960s. It sounds like a fun concert, and I'm guessing the band enjoyed it almost as much as the appreciative audience. A fun tribute to an iconic musician and artist.

Hmm...*another* Pet Shop Boys album??? This seems a bit unfair to all the worthy bands that didn't make it into this collection, which makes it a bit hard to rate this album entirely fairly. It does sound a bit different than the other album (so far) we've been subjected to ("Behavior")--more bouncy, less drab--but I remain decidedly not a big fan of their music. (But I do appreciate that their lyrics are more interesting than many pop bands'.) It's interesting to see the videos of their singles from this album ("Can you forgive her?", "Liberation", and "Go West"), and see how much they were a product of when this album was released. All 3D-modeling and poor CGI animations, although the mixed-live-action aspects of "Can you forgive her?" and "Go West" are a bit more interesting and mesmerizing, in a very throwback sort of way. And it's always fun to have a decent (but not great) cover song in an album ("Go West"). I also feel like Chumbawumba totally based a large amount of their sound off the Pet Shop Boys' "Yesterday when I was mad", so a nice tribute to them.

Aside from the title track, I'm pretty sure I haven't heard the rest of this album's songs, and it's an interesting journey. I'm not sure I enjoyed the B-side as much as, say, the parts of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" where the songs blended into each other, but it's still fun to hear the Bowie/Eno/Fripp collaboration across the entire album. (Brian Eno is everywhere, btw.) I also found it really helpful to read the Wikipedia entry for this album and how it was created, as I would never have guessed that the vocals and lyrics were almost tacked on at the end (except apparently with "Sons of the Silent Age"), and that everything was largely recorded in the first take. It's really impressive, given how layered and seemingly cohesive the songs, and most of the album, are. I'm also glad to have read that this album came after extensive collaboration between Bowie and Iggy Pop, as we (or really I) left David Bowie's timeline with "Ziggy Stardust"'s Iggy Pop fascination and emulation. Also very cool to read about the legacy and influence of the album, especially the later Philip Glass adaptations of "Low" and "Heroes" into symphonies. I'm almost tempted to give this 4 stars, but it feels like it's not quite *that* good of an album, at least for me.

I always laugh when I see this album's cover, which I know isn't nice. (I'm also quite shocked that the internet has yet to identify this person from the 1983 Fat Peoples Festival in Danville, Virginia...) And I always enjoy listening to songs from this album when they show up on my playlist, as they're (to me at least) uniformly fun and driving. (I'm not at all surprised, though, that the US version of the album had a different cover, which is my personal copy's version, sadly...) I had never seen the videos for the singles on this album until now, and they're about what I expected, although I didn't expect to see the cover guy at the end of "Right Here, Right Now", and I thought the Spike-Jonze-directed/-featuring "Praise You" was truly mesmerizing. This album also evokes a very specific time and place for me, as I think the first time I heard Norman Cook's music was when I came across this wild Webbie-Award-winning site in the early 2000s which featured Fatboy Slim's and other artists' music in this weird dress-a-dancer interactive game-like thing, called "Dancing Paul". (It got created by an out-of-work web developer who wanted to teach himself how to use Flash, and amazingly it's still there and largely functional in a post-Flash-world at <https://www.dancingpaul.com/>) I know this isn't really a "great" album per se, and I'm not sure exactly whether it's fair to describe Fatboy Slim as a musician either (although Norman Cook is clearly a musical artist), but I really like this album nonetheless.

Wow. Quite a contrast to the previous album (Fatboy Slim), and the first song/composition was pretty much different from almost anything else I've heard in this collection so far, although there are definitely echoes of Frank Zappa at times, of ELP's "Fanfare for the Common Man" concert album (although possibly that's vice versa in both of these cases), and I can definitely see the earlier Pink Floyd connection too as they played in the underground scene. I'm having a harder time imagining them winning over Jimi Hendrix fans during their 1968 tours with The Jimi Hendrix Experience... I'm not sure I can say I enjoyed this album, and I definitely wish there was a way they could have distilled the double album into a single (vinyl) disc, as it seems a bit much for non-hardcore fans, but it's definitely an experience, and at times an interesting one. I also wish the Wikipedia entry for this album was better, as it's hard to get a feel for either the band (at least in its composition on this album) or the album's purpose or genesis. I am not at all surprised that (a) they were never particularly commercially successful, or (b) that the band name came from William S. Burroughs.

I doubt we'll get too many albums in this collection like this, as I think I've heard more songs from this album on the radio than any other album (and I don't think I've ever listened to the album itself, at least as an album); the only ones I wasn't familiar with was "Songbirds", "I Don't Want to Know", and "Oh Daddy". It's almost like a best-of album, except it's clearly not, and it works as an album. I know there's a lot of arguments on both sides for which incarnation of Fleetwood Mac is the best, but it's hard to ignore at the longevity and success of this album's version of the band, and even if the music isn't particularly novel or ambitious, I can totally see why this sits towards the top of best-album-of-all-time rankings. I'm actually kind of glad that I still remain ignorant of most of the drama and intrigue and at-times despicable behavior of some of the band members, although I'm guessing that we couldn't have had Spinal Tap and so many other epic band fails without their legacy. Regardless, I *am* intrigued to listen to the band's early years, given all the references to their "Peter Green" years.

It's a bit hard to hear Hole and not be influenced by Courtney Love's sad and often incredibly abrasive life and personality. Overall, while this might have been considered a "softer" version of Hole, I'd say it's pretty representative of what I remember of Hole, and sadly not all that distinctive from the other grunge/alternative acts that existed in the massive hole and shadow of Nirvana. (It's funny how there are so few bands that seemed to resent Nirvana's rocket-to-fame the way so many West Coast bands resented Green Day (and maybe Weezer too?).) Honestly, I'm really surprised at all of the best-album accolades that are listed in the Wikipedia entry for this album. It's fine, I guess, but neither musically nor lyrically all that interesting to me, sadly.

Brian Eno is everywhere! But strangely, I think this is the first time I've heard an album by him. I largely enjoyed it, as I suspected I might, but I wish we'd gotten an earlier album, as this one makes me feel like he's better collaborating and/or inspiring with others, and I'm pretty sure some of his solo work is great as-is. Just maybe not this one. It felt too much like music for an art museum exhibition, and not for active listening. I think the main issue for me is just that there's just too few tracks with singing and/or lyrics, which would have made the album a lot more interesting (I think), and less easy to kind of tune it out as ambient music (as interesting as it is for that); basically, I was hoping for more tracks like "Everything Merges with the Night", but probably harder-edged too. I *will* say that, as ambient music goes, especially from the mid-1970s, this is quite impressive, as it feels like it anticipates music from *much* later; there's even hints of Radiohead, Air, and Chemical Brothers in some of the better ambient songs, and the album as a whole makes me think of some of Ween's albums (at least to me, and I know none of those bands are technically ambient anyway).

Fine, I suppose, but nothing special to this album, and the Wikipedia entry for this album, spartan as it is, reinforces my question about why this album for Loretta Lynn? Listening to this album, though, made me think again about what it must be like to be the backing (studio?) band for someone like Loretta Lynn, where the focus is almost exclusively on her, her voice and the lyrics. There's some variety in the songs' music, but not all that much, and nothing that sounds to me like it would excite a band player. Hopefully it paid the bills, though!

I enjoyed listening to this album, but (a) never having listened to a War album before, and (b) with a pretty meager Wikipedia entry as a guide, I'm not really sure if this is among their best, and (c) it appears that this is the only War album in this collection, so I'm left feeling like I would have liked an even better War album than this one (maybe "Why Can't We Be Friends?"). "City, Country, City" was both intriguing and maddening, as it has a lot of great segments, but seems way too long and meandering for what I think they were trying to accomplish. I think I enjoyed "The Cisco Kid" the most, and a close second the radio-version title track (and foolishly heard "The Four-Cornered Room" as "the porcelain room," which gave a decidedly different take on the song...).

There's a strange affinity in this collection to presumably underrated (or at least little known) Scottish bands, and this seems like a pretty good example of that. Enjoyable, but not particularly memorable. I know Lloyd Cole apparently cited Bob Dylan as a major influence on the album (at least in the Wikipedia article for the album), but many of the songs, and "Perfect Skin" in particular, reminded me much more like a more pop-oriented version of Lou Reed somehow mashed up with a little Cure and REM. It's kind of endearing, too, to read that "Charlotte Street" was meant to be a boy-meets-girl song set in a library, but Lloyd Cole didn't even realize until a year later (or more) that he'd never mentioned in the song that it all took place in a library. And kudos to them for the Citroën reference in "2cv". And I like the (Wikipedia) description of this album's style as "jangle pop"--a good description, and an apt way to characterize this album.

At first, I thought this was another album by John Martyn, which seemed surprising, but then realized that it wasn't. And it took me well into the 2nd song/track of the album to realize that this album was from 1997, not 1979, despite that it seems much better suited to the 70s than the 90s. Either way, I'm not sure it suits me all that well. I'm guessing that the often-atonal noises and instrument choices are intentional, as is the not-really-singing vocals, but the end-result for me is an unpleasant and sometimes cacophonous, sometimes sleep-inducing album that's far too long. It's a bit shocking that this is Robert Wyatt's 7th studio album; I'm guessing (hopeful?) that this album marked a new direction for him, as it's hard to imagine any studio seeing a wide enough audience for six previous albums like this. That said, I did enjoy "Blues in Bob Minor" and its "Subterranean Homesick Blues" cover/adaptation. I *will* say that this album wins the briefest-Wikipedia-entry award (at least so far in this collection), which is a shame as there might have been something redeeming about this album's background or production that would have made it more interesting. Also, Brian Eno truly *is* everywhere! (He's listed in the "Personnel" section of the Wikipedia entry, and you can definitely hear his playing in places on the album.) (And then I cheated and looked to Google for any reviews of this album, and came across this panegyric, where the reviewer claims "Shleep" is the best entrypoint for Wyatt and one of his two masterpieces (the other being "Rock Bottom"): <https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/780/>. Other online reviews also revealed that he was a cofounder of Soft Machine, which makes total sense, now that I've heard both Soft Machine and Robert Wyatt in this collection. And this Pitchfork review of the Shleep reissue (among other Wyatt materials) has good context too: <https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14895-shleep-eps-cuckooland-theatre-royal-drury-lane/>)

I suspect this is one of the more truly political albums we'll get in this collection, and it's really weird to read about the context (as well as the lyrics) from nearly 50 years ago, in a very different place and time. If I hadn't read the Wikipedia entry for the album, I doubt I would have guessed at *any* of the lyrics or their intent, and probably would have simply enjoyed the tracks for the music alone. And I also wouldn't have ever realized that the title track not only caused riots in Ghana, but the album effectively killed Fela Kuti's mother and destroyed his home and his community. It's also sad that this album marked the end of his band Africa 70, apparently because he chose to fund his presidential campaign instead of paying them after the Berlin concert in 1978. Given that there have been nearly 45 albums by Fela Kuti between 1970 and 1990, I kind of wonder whether this was a good choice to showcase him and his music? "Zombie" (the song) is a fun listen, at least musically, but some of the others aren't particularly distinctive, and kind of drag along at times, both before and during the lyrics parts. (And I only belatedly realized that the original LP only had "Zombie" and "Mr. Follow Follow", but I still feel that way even with the LP's second track/side.) But with all the context of the album and its aftermath, it's hard to give it fewer than 3 stars, given how much he sacrificed (and sacrificed of others) for his music (and I feel a bit guilty for only 3 stars).

I'd probably feel badly for whatever album came after Fela Kuti's "Zombie", because it's hard to imagine there are all that many albums that can match "Zombie", its messages, and the extremely disturbing political/military/physical violence that surrounds it. Sadly, this album ("Life Through a Lens") is *definitely* not one of those albums, which makes it a bit harder not to hear the typical sort of singer-songwriter music as a bit...trite. Which isn't Robbie Williams' fault at all, I know. That said, this seems like a decent debut album, and a decent sound, with plenty of nods to UK music from a decade earlier, and far too much similarity to Oasis at times, but still having some distinctiveness. I'm guessing, though, that he had better albums than this one, but prioritizing debut albums is just part of the deal with this collection. And I'm also guessing that this album was chosen because it's a distinctive departure from his previous band Take That? Regardless, he's definitely stronger on the harder-edged songs; songs like "Angels" aren't very interesting (to me, at least, as it sounds like this was got him attention). And I can definitely see why "Let Me Entertain You" became his opener song for all his (many many many many) subsequent concerts, a nice homage to The Who and many others.

So.Many.Mustaches! And why does the drummer look like a bear-cum-caveman in the "More than a Feeling" video??? Regardless, much like "Rumours", this is another album filled almost entirely with songs that played on the radio over the years. And much like "Rumours", while it's not my favorite music, it's hard to deny that this is a very solid (and popular) album and band. Musically and lyrically, it's definitely not as interesting as "Rumours", but it's certainly a bit more rockin', and this album's influence on American rock is undeniable. I do wish the band wasn't as cringe-worthy to look at (and I wish they didn't all look like extras for "Spinal Tap"), but I'm confident they looked great to all their fans at the time. The Wikipedia entry for this album is definitely worth reading, and at least partly explains why (nearly) all the songs became radio-hits, as they had been written and shopped for many years before the album was signed and produced. It's also both impressive and I imagine very grating how the guitarist Tom Scholz was effectively a one-man band and producer for the album, and how he basically worked almost exclusively from his basement. (Also pretty funny that he kept his full-time job at Polaroid until the album went gold after its release.) I'm not sure if Scholz ever felt he'd achieved the "perfect band" or the "perfect song", but it's an impressive attempt.

Well, this album certainly comes out of the gates roaring! Totally reminds me of Rammstein's music, albeit from long before Rammstein came on the scene. I actually had no idea there was this kind of industrial music in the 1980s, frankly, so I'm very impressed, and enjoyed most of the songs as a result, even without understanding *any* of the German lyrics (much like Rammstein). And I also like it that a Ministry band member says this album is in his top ten essential industrial albums. Reading more about the album and the band made me enjoy the album and their music even more, if "enjoy" is really the appropriate term. They did an amazing job transforming Queen's "One Vision" into "Geburt einer Nation" (Birth of a Nation), and made it *way* more sinister and depressing along the way; and the same for their adaptation of Opus' "Live is Life" as both songs album, "Opus Dei" and "Leben heißt Leben". It totally makes me want to listen to their Beatles and Rolling Stones cover albums. I'll admit that, as much as I enjoyed/appreciated this album and the discovery of this band, I can't imagine spending time with the band members, especially if they really don't break "character" often, as that's just way too much...fraughtness (and guilt). And the Wikpedia entry for the band has what seems like a very insightful quote about them by a Slovenian philosopher that ends with a pretty good summary: "You will not learn a lot from Laibach about North Korea. You will learn a lot about our own anxieties and hypocrisies."

It's hard to turn down a Dolly Parton album, even one with a truly creepy cover like this one. (And now that I find out that it's a painting based on a school photo taken the day she wore the titular coat of many colors, I feel badly feeling creeped out by the album cover. Even worse, it sounds like she was treated much worse by her schoolmates than in the song: "the other children stripped the coat off of her and locked her, half naked and screaming, in a dark coat closet. She says this is why she always sleeps with a light on now." Yikes.) I've never been a huge fan of this kind of classic country music, but it's hard to deny that this has a lot of really strong songs, most of them written by Dolly Parton, and great lyrical stories. (And an interesting crossover-sounding song in "Here I Am".) Thanks, Dolly!

Brian Eno *is* everywhere! I really enjoyed this album, especially considering when it was made and the technology of the time. You can hear aspects of this album in David Bryne's later solo work, as well as other bands, and I feel like the sampling is more sophisticated and true to the sources than a lot of later stuff by other bands and musicians. And I'm glad that while Eno described the album as a "vision of a psychedelic Africa," to me most of the songs didn't actually have that world-music vibe that I worried it might. I can totally understand how edgy this album felt in 1981, as it sounds a lot more modern (and interesting) than a lot of stuff coming out at the same time. And while I couldn't find an online copy of the short film/video "America is Waiting" by Bruce Conner, the short/video for "Mea Cullpa" is easier to find and worth watching for an added visual experience to that song. ("Mea Culpa"'s animation made me think of the end credits experimental films in the "Babylon Berlin" TV series, although I'm pretty sure those were from the 1920s and 1930s.)

For some (perhaps justified?) reason, I thought this collection avoided soundtracks, so this is a double-surprise, and not in a good way (one for being a soundtrack, the other for seeming out of left field music- and album-wise). In fact, I'm not at all sure I listened to the "official" album for today, as nearly every YouTube/YouTubeMusic entry seems to have different "songs" and titles, and in different orders, which is a lot more annoying thank intriguing, especially since there's not really any sort of explanation or translation of the lyrics. I guess this would be a lot more interesting if I'd seen (or bothered to see) "Raiders of the Sacred Stone", I guess. Or was at all familiar with "the legendary music composer R. D. Burman" and his trajectory in Hindi music films. My two-star rating is more for how baffling this entry was in the collection than for the music itself (which seems both fine and definitely not to my taste).

I was a little surprised that the second Jim Hendrix album was also his/their 2nd studio album, but now I realize that this collection contains *all* of Jimi Hendrix/Experience's studio albums, so not so surprising I suppose. A fun album, with more of a distinctive sound than just the great guitar playing on his/their first album, and it's fun to hear songs that got a fair amount of radio play-time in the years since. I do wish that songs like "Little Wing" were longer, though, as they seem *too* short to really develop as song. And I'm not sure I've ever heard "If 6 was 9" before, but I like it (and it's definitely long enough). A shame that we're already 2/3s through his music in this collection--he really did have a unique sound and style.

I think the most interesting thing to me about this album is the name of the album and the connection to the island near Cape Cod, which sounds really cool. Not that there's anything wrong with the album, but it doesn't really speak to me. In some ways, it's a bit surprising that it debuted in 2009, as it feels like it could easily have been released 10 or even 20 years earlier. I *do * like it that songs from the album appeared in a couple of films, one of which I've seen and would say the music fits the film nicely ("Blue Valentine"). I also like how layered some of the songs are, a bit like both Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins (in different ways).

Although I never really listened to them outside of radio plays, this is such a classic album, and I'm impressed at how many of the songs I already knew, and enjoyed. And while I get it that they grew tired of being compared to Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, it's pretty hard to avoid the comparison. I'm also really impressed to find out that all the songs were written by Gordon Gano when he was a high school senior (and even more impressive that only a few seem like they were written by a teenager). I also had the chance to hear them play in 1994, and while the venue wasn't a great one for music (RFK Stadium in DC, part of a massive lineup called "HFSFest"), they put on a great show, and at one point a bunch of people were dancing to their songs in a weird conga line in a nosebleed section of the stadium. I'm pretty sure their setlist included mainly the songs from this album, which was fun.

Well, this definitely *wasn't* what I thought I'd listen to when I saw it was a Willie Nelson album. I like the concept, sort of, in principle, and Willie Nelson *does* do a good job giving the hoary classics his own touch, but the whole time I felt like I was listening to James Taylor (or maybe Jimmy Buffett) doing a Christmas album. I'm not as well-versed with Willie Nelson's music as I should be, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a great entree to his music, so hopefully there will be other albums of his in this collection...

An interesting choice for Elton John albums, given that it was neither a best seller nor seemingly all that popular when it was released (and didn't really seem to have a lasting legacy either). The first two songs I'd definitely heard before, and are great songs (to me at least), but I'm not familiar with the rest of the album, which seems to me to be variations on the first two songs. (Although I might have heard the title track before; I can't quite tell, but it's definitely more interesting than many of the other songs.) It seems like a fine album, but it doesn't really stick for me. Sorry, Elton John!

I'm pretty sure I haven't heard any of Muse's music before except "Supermassive Black Hole", so this was a nice treat of a largely new (to me) band. And I enjoyed the album as an album, also a nice treat. (It also made me think of a long-ago independent comic-book/graphic-novel series, Grendel.) With many of the songs, I was convinced that the lead singer must have had some connection to Radiohead, but then discovered that Matt Bellamy is not Thom Yorke (and not in any way related); they just seem to have a very similar tone and singing style. Fortunately, Muse as a whole doesn't really sound like Radiohead, which is nice. Also, I hadn't seen the video for "Supermassive Black Hole" before--what a trip! I don't know if their other albums are like this one, but I enjoyed this more than I guessed I would.

Although I know Teenage Fanclub isn't quite as obscure as some of the other Scottish bands featured in this collection, it's kind of funny how many Scottish bands seem to show up in the rotation, and often without too much to distinguish them aside from their Scots-y-ness. An OK album, but not all that distinctive, and a little hard to tell exactly what sound they're trying to achieve (although at times I was reminded of Dinosaur Jr).

What a great live album and recording! I know it's kind of a greatest hits album in some ways, but it's still a fun listen, and I'm really impressed at the quality of the live recording. (And thankful that his set even happened, given that the concert was more or less cancelled due to the previous day's violence and police response.)

This kind of feels like the album that set the standard for generations of younger troubadours like Harry Connick Jr and Michael Buble. I've never been a huge Sinatra afficionado, and not really a huge fan of this kind of swing-style music, but it's hard to criticize the artist or album too much. A solid collection of pop standards.

What a creepy/weird album cover! Combined with unusual album title and the fact that I don't think I've ever heard anything by Deerhunter, I had no idea what to expect. Many of the songs sort of remind me of a weird mashup of Ween, Air, The Cure and a few other atmospheric bands, but with their own distinctive take, and I really enjoyed how the album has a kind of continuity among the songs that seems pretty rare in 21st-century albums. It's always fun to get something out of left field from this collection, and even better to have enjoyed it rather than just being perplexed. I'd definitely be interested in hearing more from them. (4)

Listening to this album makes me realize the only Simon & Garfunkel I've ever really listened to has been their hits (and everything from "Sounds of Silence" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water"), so it's really nice to hear something new (to me) and (occasionally) different from a great vocal duo. And a concept album to boot! (Well, side A, at least; "Voices of Old People" is a hoot) I'm not sure how much new ground they covered in this album, musically or lyrically, but I enjoyed it. And now I know where the full-length version of "Mrs. Robinson" first appeared! (And to be honest, this album would have been a 3-star rating without "Mrs. Robinson")

Sadly, I've never been much of a Michael Jackson fan, so I fear this album is largely wasted on me. But it's hard to deny the reign of the undisputed King of Pop, and it's also hard to imagine that there are many of his albums other than Thriller as classic and complete as this one. I just wish he hadn't spent so much of his amazing career trying to sound and act like a manly man (on stage and in front of the camera, at least). But what an amazing performer and dancer!

Oof. A pretty outrageous entry in this collection, given that it's asking for 3 hours of your life on what's likely an unknown quantity for most listeners (and while I've actually heard parts of this album before, I had the added disadvantage of feeling pressed for time trying to catch up with missed albums from traveling, but I really did listen to it all (really!)). Regardless, while there's a pretty understandable oversaturation trying to listen to this album in a single stretch, I'm still really impressed at the range of styles and love-song-themes in this album, and enjoyed most of them more than I expected. I'm kind of glad, though, that Stephin Merritt never pursued his original concept of staging the album as a theatrical revue, and find it a bit hard to imagine being one of the few people who attended their two-night performances of all 69 love songs. I feel like this album is best appreciated in small bites, maybe as part of a massive shuffle-play of many albums. And I'm also really impressed that this was created in 1999, as it anticipated the sort of album that would be perfect to be made and listened to during COVID.... The ones I liked more than others (in album order): "All my little words", "Reno Dakota", "Come back from San Francisco", "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side", "Let's Pretend we're bunny rabbits", "The Book of Love" (especially for its Peter Gabriel connection), "Nothing matters when we're dancing", "Love is like Jazz" (not perfect, but I liked the variety there), "No One will ever love you", "Promises of Eternity", "Long-Forgotten Fairytale", "Papa was a Rodeo", "I Shatter" (a very Philip-Glass/Kraftwerk-inspired love song), "I'm sorry I love you", "Acoustic Guitar", "Love is Like a Bottle of Gin", "Zebra"

I've always enjoyed the rare appearance of a Pogues song in my life (radio, movie, maybe streaming channel), so it's fun to get a whole album by them. And it's pretty much what I imagined; not the sort of thing that I'd probably have on repeat, but a pretty distinctive style that holds up well over the years (at least when you're in the mood for "folk punk", which seems like as a genre has exactly one member...). Oddly (or perhaps not), this album brings to mind Billy Bragg, in a good way. That and suddenly wanting a pint or two of a half & half (as in Guinness and Harp, not the dairy drink). I love it that Elvis Costello produced the album. And the album cover is a great doctored version of a classic (albeit ugly) painting, and I strongly suspect provided inspiration for the later Crash Test Dummies album "God Shuffled His Feet". And I think it says so much of so many things that the Pogues' version of "Dirty Old Town" is the walk-on music for the Salford City Football Club in England.

I've owned this album for a long time, and always enjoyed listening to it, so it's a bit hard to listen to the songs without associating them with various times and places. Regardless, I always feel like this could have easily been the soundtrack to "Repo Man" (the movie) and not skipped a beat, and I mean that as a high compliment. :) I think my favorite song is "Where is my mind?" although there's only a few that aren't up there as good-to-great songs. It's very cool to read how this album was an inspiration for Kurt Cobain for "Nevermind", and other artists too. A huge bummer, though, that the producer (Steve Albini) totally bad-mouthed the band after helping make a great album ....

Although I didn't recognize the band's name, I realized as soon as I heard "Time to Pretend" that I'd heard (and enjoyed) them before, but not much more than their three hits ("Time to Pretend", "Electric Feel" and "Kids"). Sadly, the video for "Time to Pretend" is really painful and awkward, and almost makes me like the song less, until I read about how the inspiration for the song and video was from watching baby praying mantises crawl up this model ship in their dorm room while The Clash was playing.... Thankfully, the other two videos aren't as cringe-worthy, although what's with their lost-world-style gang of young white jungle people? "Kids" is by far the best song on the album, and almost gives them a 4-star rating by itself. Otherwise, though, a good/entertaining album, although not as distinctive as I'd hoped after hearing songs other than their hits. I *am* impressed that the album was created by just two guys, kind of like a 21st-century version of Pet Shop Boys (kind of).

Hm. Not really my cup of tea, but also not terrible either. I kind of regret it that I watched the videos for some of their songs (courtesy of YouTube Music), as the sardonic tone of their songs goes into really annoying territory with the chic-ironic style of the videos (although fun to see Venice in the video for "Something for the Weekend"). I'm sure there are plenty of Divine Comedy fans, but I'm not one of them, sadly. I guess the best way to put it is that at their best (probably with "Through a Long & Sleepless Night"), they sound a bit like a Franz-Ferdinand-inspired band, but not as interesting, although to Divine Comedy's credit they *were* earlier than Franz Ferdinand.

Try as I might, I've never really found a way to be a true Prince fan, although he/they has had my respect for a long time. I can see why this is considered one of his best albums, and it certainly has a pretty wide-ranging selection of his distinctive styling. Perhaps almost *too* wide-ranging, as it sounds like this was kind of weird grab-bag of Revolution-involved compositions and some weird "Camille" alter-ego concept album. But still a good Prince sampling. That said, I'm a bit disappointed that the 1001-albums project included a double-album, as this seems like a bit of an imposition, but I can at least thank Warner Bros for resisting Prince's desire to make it a triple album. And it seems fair to give Prince 3 slots in the collection (although I'm sure some would want even more).

I'm pretty sure I haven't heard anything from this album, or from Michael Kiwanuka for that matter, so as far I know this is all new to me. And I really enjoyed the songs and the album, a very pleasant surprise. There are shades of Ollabelle and maybe also Ben Harper, but with a much more groove-focused style, and it's really fun that he arranged a concept-style album in 2019. I always find it a fun challenge to try to guess which side of the pond some English-language singers are from, and I'll admit I didn't do a very good job with Michael Kiwanuka. His style and voice seemed more American to me, and the video for "Hero" certainly seemed to be very American-oriented), but the video for "You Ain't the Problem" (one of my favorite songs on the album, along with "Hero") seemed much more British than American, and I eventually had to cheat and read in Wikipedia that he's English. Not that there's anything wrong with that. :) And very cool to find out he appeared (as himself) in the film "Yesterday"!

I enjoyed this album, but more like a musical tourist than from any informed perspective, which is always a bit disappointing. This is more of my own limitation, I know, but it's a problem I experience with so many of the non-English-language music styles in this collection, and this is no exception. But it *did* make his version of "Imagine" an interesting experience. Sadly, the Wikipedia entry had very little to offer as background, but the entry for the album in the 2005 edition of the book was more helpful in establishing *some* context for the "Rai" style and Khaled's pedigree. In the end, though, I still felt more like I was listening to some sort of weird mashup of a James Bond/Jason Bourne/The Passenger (1975) soundtrack than appreciating an old and adapting musical genre.

Quite a classic album, and a refreshing change of pace from recent selections from the collection. Given how ubiquitous many of the song on this album have become, I find it hard to imagine what an album like this must have felt like when it first came out. But gauging by its chart performance, I'm guessing it was an instant classic. And rightly so, as she sings her own as well as other people's songs with a lot of style and soul. It's a shame that the songs are so short, as you just get started with them when they end soon afterwards; I'm guessing that was probably a consideration for the radio, sadly. It was nice with the CD reissue, though, that they released an unedited version of "Chain of Fools"; I wish there were more unedited versions, honestly.

Nice to get a classic David Bowie album (especially right after a classic Aretha Franklin album)! I'm really impressed at how solid the collection of songs is, both the ones I've heard before and the ones new to me. Very entertaining, great band members, and a lot going on in each song (and fun to have the John Lennon collaboration with the "Across the Universe" version). I know it's not really fair to try to cast David Bowie's ever-evolving style and sound over the decades, but this album sounds very much like the classic sound that I associate with David Bowie (apparently self-described at one point as "plastic soul"). And now having read the Wikipedia entry for this album, I realize my impression is more a statement on my unfamiliarity with Bowie's body of work than an accurate description of Bowie's "classic" sound. But I still enjoyed the album quite a bit, even if it's more of a tangent to David Bowie's career.

What a trip, eh? :) I'll admit I've never heard of The 13th Floor Elevators, and I'm pretty sure I've never heard anything from this album before, but that doesn't stop it from being a fun album to listen to. Not too many of the songs really stood out for me, but I enjoyed "Reverbation (Doubt)" and "Through the Rhythm" a bit more than the others. I'm not sure I ever figured out what their "electric jug" instrument sounds like in their music, sadly (unless it was that weird reverb-kazoo-like sound), but I'm guessing that Tommy Hall's insistence on using LSD to gain a higher consciousness was more trend-setting than his jug....

I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit that I've been a big Police fan since about middle-school age, and this is one of my favorite albums, probably in part because it never seemed to get as much recognition as the later albums like "Ghost in the Machine" and "Synchronicity", although it certainly produced a couple of very popular singles. I pretty much enjoy listening to all of the songs (except maybe not quite as much "Deathwish" and "No Time this time"), and one of my favorite songs on this album is "Does Everyone Stare". I was always a bit disappointed that they moved away from the more new-wave-reggae-rock sound on this album towards a more straightforward new-wave-and-rock sound, but still enjoy their later albums too. And it wasn't until I saw the video for "Message in a Bottle" just now that I realize how much a younger Sting looks a *lot* like a youngish Ewan McGregor...

I know I've heard of the Cardigans before, but never really knew what they sounded like, or who they sounded like, kind of vaguely assuming they were like the Happy Mondays or something like that. I guess not! (And now I know who did that earworm "LoveFool".) But they're also not really doing much for me, despite the props I give them for doing a cover of "Iron Man" (I wanted to like their bizarre pseudo-jazzy take, but couldn't quite). Several of the songs started off sounding interesting, but then seemed to dissolve into some sort of anodyne alt-rock-ish sound (in large part due to Nina Persson's sort of baby-tone voice). I kept wanting them to be more like Portishead, but that's not really their thing. I know it's not really fair to the Cardigans, but it kind of feels unfair that the 1001 albums project has *this* Swedish band in the collection, but doesn't have Robyn, who seems a lot more interesting and distinctive.

I'm not sure I've ever really heard Pulp before, and wasn't quite sure what to make of the opening song (and its video that has an incredible roadkill-fascinating quality), but the album definitely grew on me as listened more. I'm not sure I really know what Britpop sounds like, but I'm glad this doesn't really remind me of Oasis or Blur all that much. This may have been a one-off-greatness by them, but I'm glad to have heard the album, and watched those fascinating videos (mainly "Mis-Shapes" and "Common People"). I also appreciated reading the Wikipedia entry, largely to find out the backstory for the album title and also the album cover (or at least the wedding photo cover, as I guess early issues had multiple CD covers to choose from). I also feel like this is what The Divine Comedy was shooting for with their album "Casanova".

What a strong album. It's nice to see her evolve since this time in terms of style and themes, but it's not hard to see why this remains the top-selling album of the 21st century. I feel like I've heard many of the songs on this album before, but don't mind at all hearing them again, and I enjoyed the songs I wasn't familiar with either. I do wish for her sake, though, that she didn't continue to experience so much heartbreak in her life, even if she has a gift of transforming the pain into soulful music. I think my favorites are "Set fire to the rain", "Someone like you" and "Rolling in the deep" (especially the latter's video, which is mesmerizing), which perhaps not coincidentally seem to be *everyone's* favorites. I also like her version of the Cure's "Lovesong". I also cheated and now see that we'll also get her album "25"--it's nice to know that this isn't the only Adele we'll get in this collection.

I'm not all that familiar with Dylan's albums, so I initially wondered if somehow a greatest hits album got thrown into this collection, but it's clearly not, so I guess this is more of a testament to how strong this album was relatively early in Bob Dylan's career. (I also didn't realize until I read about the album that this was the album that heralded his turn from protest folk songs to electric sounds and what I think of as classic Dylan lyrics, and apparently the birth of folk rock.) It's impressive how solid so much of the album is; the only song that seemed out of place was "Outlaw Blues". I really enjoyed "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream", "Gates of Eden" and "It's alright Ma", in part because I'd never heard them before. I'm also struck with how many of his great songs are (to me at least) even better when they're covered by other bands (and in the case of "Maggie's Farm" the song acquired a new and even more pointed meaning post-Thatcher). But they all point back to what a songwriting prodigy Bob Dylan was and is. And I'm glad I finally took the time to learn more about the pre-music-video "promotional film clip" for "Subterranean Homesick Blues", as I'd always wondered where that was filmed (in the alley of the Savoy Hotel in London), and who those people were slightly off-camera (Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth, who apparently helped write the cards in the video along with Donovan and Bob Dylan).

More David Bowie! This one isn't quite as chockful of radio-hits as some of his other albums, but it's still very Bowie (and the Spiders, of course). I don't think I'd have even realized that this is a semi-concept album (with Aladdin Sane as Ziggy in America) without reading the Wikipedia entry for the album, and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not (to be unaware of the subtext of sorts). This album wasn't as interesting to me as I'd imagined it would be, sadly, but I did enjoy hearing "The Jean Genie" again, as well as "Time" and I also enjoyed his cover "Let's Spend the Night Together" (although it definitely doesn't rank up there with great cover songs). I *did* like the idea, though, that David Bowie seems to have found touring America a bit like watching roadkill ("appalled and fixated" simultaneously), and this found its way into the album, plus what I imagine was a pretty stressful tension between being a star and a grueling tour (and recording) schedule. There are times in the songs that I'm reminded of Steely Dan, oddly, although David Bowie's voice is pretty distinctive, and it's pretty clear that the Rolling Stones were a strong influence on this album.

(This is a repeat listening of this album for me, as I got this album early on out of the collection hat before I joined a group on this site, and I'll admit that it's not my first choice to listen to again (in part just because it's so damned long).) Caveats aside, this very rightfully belongs in the collection as a great selection and album, but at the same time I'm only sometimes in the right mood/frame of mind to really appreciate the old-time country style on this (incredibly long) album set, and almost never in a frame of mind to listen to it *again*, so it's a bit hard to list out my favorites. Nonetheless, it's hard to imagine what an experience this must have been, getting so many incredibly talented musicians to play and sing with them. And an unexpected treat to get a Joni Mitchell song/instrumental at the end. I'm a bit disappointed, though, that this is the only album in the collection by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, as I'm pretty sure it's not really representative of their not-olde-timey style. C'est la vie, I suppose.

I know I've heard their name before, but I'm not sure I've ever heard the Dandy Warhols' music before. "Be-In" started off almost like the Chemical Brothers, which I thought was a good start, but then kind of veered into that (later) 90s muddled and flat wall of sound/noise with equally muffled lyrics (or the fuzzy brooding sound, like on "Orange"). Not that there's anything wrong that, of course, but they're not as distinctive as I want them to be. (What they need, of course, is an electric jug to go with the tambourine. :) I *did* enjoy their single "Every day should be a holiday", and the final track "The Creep Out". I *will* say, though, that whoever created and edited the album's Wikipedia entry didn't do them any favors; it's one of the more disappointing album descriptions that I've come across with this collection. Too bad, as I wanted to find something to up their intriguing-factor and my rating....

It's always nice to get a new-to-me band and a new-to-me album, and this album not only ticks off both boxes, but was a pleasant surprise. I'd never have guessed they were Welsh, but that only adds to the pleasant surprise (mainly because I'm not aware of listening to too many Welsh bands). I wish the mixing was a bit better for hearing the lyrics and vocals, but I definitely like their sound and edge and the lyrics that I could make out are fittingly caustic and interesting. There are times where they're almost a rock/post-punk version of Ministry (in a good way), and other times where I'm also reminded of Jane's Addiction, but not in a imitative way. I love the title of the track "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" (and enjoyed the song), but am bitterly disappointed that they used "it's" instead of "its" -- I foolishly assumed that Americans had the lock on that mistake.... Reading about the album and the band on Wikipedia adds quite a bit, I'll admit, as I would never have guessed that their main lyricist (Richey Edwards) was basically spiralling out of control during the album's creation, and sadly disappeared not long afterwards. (In retrospect, though, I might have guessed some aspects of his condition with the track "4st 7lb", except that my stone-to-pounds conversion powers are very limited.) Very sad.

I know it's a bit random which albums you get each day, but it doesn't seem fair to the artist/band to get one of their albums fairly close to another, and this seems to be the case for me with "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", sadly. It's a good contrast to "Bringing It All Back Home", thankfully, but still. It's really impressive that most of the lyrics on this album are his own, given how iconic they've become--for him and many, many others--and how his previous album was more of a collection of traditional songs. I hadn't heard many of these songs before, and really enjoyed the lyrics (although I've never really enjoyed his voice/timbre); highlights for me among the previously-unheard are "Masters of War" and "Bob Dylan's Dream" (the latter in part from the 19th-century source tune "Lady Franklin's Lament"). And I think this is the first time I heard his original version of "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"; very powerful. Sadly, too many of his protest-oriented tunes remain incredibly relevant, a testament to the lasting strength of his songwriting talent.

I've always felt like I should like Siouxsie And The Banshees more than I do, in part from the great band name, and because they have an interesting style, and one that apparently had a deep and widespread impact. But something about them prevents me from getting into their sound; it may just be Siouxsie's voice and style, which doesn't seem to fit as well as it might with the Banshees' sound (but maybe that's the point). I *did* enjoy a number of the songs on this album, though--"Overground", "Helter Skelter", and "Metal Postcard" in particular--and the album as a whole is an interesting experience, especially the interplay of the guitar and drums, especially in the first half of the album. It's also quite a contrast to their later work--I had no idea that they'd made an album like this early in their career. (And what an incredible contrast to something like "Peek-a-Boo" or their cover of "Dear Prudence"....) I'll also admit that I had no idea they'd appeared on the scene in the late 1970s; it's impressive how long they played (although they definitely followed a different direction than this album's byt he time I became aware of them). And I give them 4 stars largely for how seminal this album was for the music scene and music critics. It's worth reading the Wikipedia article on this album just for all the homages from bands after them, like The Cure, Joy Division, Sonic Youth, Jesus and Mary Chain, even Tracey Thorn.

I own this album, so this isn't new to me. And it was the last album of theirs I bought, as it signaled (to me) their turn away from a distinctive and fun style to a more mainstream sound that just didn't do much for me. I don't know if Hillel Slovak was the magic glue that made them so great--I wasn't a big fan of "Mother's Milk" either--but this album has so much filler and few good songs, and too much similarity among the better songs/hits like "If you have to ask", "Suck my kiss", "Give it away" or even "Sir psycho sexy". "Under the bridge" is a great song, though, and the video for "Breaking the girl" is mesmerizing, although the song itself isn't at all compelling. Their descent into a kind of uninteresting blandness is a shame, too, given that they had John Frusciante on this album (and the previous album), and he's done some interesting stuff in his solo work, and also ironic that this album was released at the same time as Nirvana's "Nevermind"--a similarly breakthrough moment for two bands with very different trajectories (and weird too that Nirvana and Pearl Jam opened for the Chili Peppers for part of this album's tour). It just kind of feels like the Chili Peppers terminated at a type of boring frat rock with a lot of bass at this point, and worse yet the album had the effect (and still does) of making me feel less enthusiastic with their earlier albums. Even worse, I just discovered that the only other Red Hot Chili Peppers album in this collection is the much later "Californication"; what a shame that we're not getting their better stuff like "Uplift mofo party plan" or "Freaky styley"....

It's kind of a weird experience listening to an album in this collection that's also a movie soundtrack, but a soundtrack theme *does* enforce a certain kind of continuity across the songs, I guess. It's also a great vehicle for some classic Curtis Mayfield songs, deep down in funk land. I hadn't heard most of the songs on this album, aside from "Superfly" itself (a great song), although I know "Freddie's Dead" a lot better than I should, thanks to Fishbone's great cover of what turns out to be an equally good original. "Pusherman" is a great track, too, and I really enjoyed the instrumental "Junkie's chase" as well as "No thing on me (cocaine song)". As good as the music is, it's also a pretty sobering album, sadly.

I feel like I've heard of Nas for a long time, and this album too, but never really had a sense for what the fuss and attention was about, and also never bothered to seek it out. So thank you, 1001-albums project! Overall, I enjoyed listening to it, and particularly liked "Life's a Bitch", "Memory Lane", "One Love", "Represent" and the video for "The world is yours" (not as much the song, though), as well as his impressive lyricism throughout. I particularly appreciate it that the themes of many of the songs are thoughtful and not glamorizing tropes of gangs, drugs, women and violence (but clearly based on a lot of experience among all of that). I do feel like one of the unwashed masses listening to this album, though, knowing (after reading the extremely extensive Wikipedia article about the album) that this was a seminal moment/album in East Coast hip-hop. Kudos to Nas for breaking ground 30 years ago!

Thanks largely to a friend in college who *really* liked Dinosaur Jr (and Mudhoney and pre-Nevermind Nirvana and others), I've tried many times to get into Dinosaur Jr's garage/wall-of-noise sound, and never really succeeded. Like so many bands of this era, there seems to be more sloppiness than anything else (mixing, singing, instruments), although I'm pretty sure that they played each song more or less the same way each time they performed. I think what bothers me the most (or perhaps is just a sign of my laziness) is that it's nearly impossible to understand the lyrics most of the time, which makes the album a somewhat uninterrupted stream of distortion, barely discernible bass and drums, and muffled singing (I think that's why I enjoyed "Pond Song" a bit more than the others, and *really*, intensely disliked "Don't"). A shame, since this seems to be generally considered their best album (or at least most referenced). But I can definitely see how influential the band was on later alt-rock bands. What always baffles me about my reaction to Dinosaur Jr is that I really enjoy listening to most of what the Meat Puppets have produced, and I'm sure you could make a similar argument about them (except perhaps the wall of noise part). Sorry Dino Jr!

I'm surprised it's taken nearly 175 albums for my first Led Zeppelin album in this collection, but I'm glad it's a classic of theirs. I've never really tracked which albums their ever-plentiful radio-played songs came from (and I'll admit I've never owned any Led Zeppelin albums), so I'm really impressed at how much of this album I've heard before; I think this is my first listen to just "The Lemon Song" (and maybe "Moby Dick" too, although I feel like I've heard Bonham's solo before...). I find it very odd that they never released any singles in the UK while they were active (according to the Wikipedia article for the album), and also odd to find out that the only single from this album (released only outside the UK) was "Whole Lotta Love"; just based on their radio plays in the US, I'd have guessed that several others were singles too (especially "Heartbreaker", "Living Loving Maid" and "Ramble On"). And very cool to find out that Jimmy Page had a huge role in the recording/producing process across the the various studios they recorded this album in while touring. Regardless, this album has a very classic Zeppelin sound, which has never been my first choice to listen to, but it's hard to deny either the strength of the album or their heavy influence (pun intended) on later bands!

I had a friend in college who absolutely worshiped Neil Young, and I never really understood why, but many years later when I finally listened to this album from start to finish, I can see why he felt that way. I'm not a huge Neil Young fan, but even I know this is probably his finest complete album, and it's an amazing, and sad/poignant journey. It could be because my friend was from Utah, or maybe because of some of his album titles and the name of his frequent backing band, but I also always associate Neil Young with the American West (even though I know he's Canadian and didn't really spend a lot of time in the American or Canadian West, unless you want to count his ranch in Redwood City). Admittedly, part of that impression could be from his collaboration on Jim Jarmusch's excellent anti-Western film "Dead Man". I really like how many artists are on this album, and it's pretty cool that he was able to get the London Symphony Orchestra as well, although I do feel like "A man needs a maid" is probably one of the weaker songs on this album despite the Orchestra's participation (and possibly as a result of their contribution, as both it and "There's a world" sound more like a part of a musical or concept album than the other songs). And I had no idea that part of the reason "Harvest" is more mellow and largely acoustic was because of a horrible back injury that literally laid him low. I really like the quote on the Wikipedia entry for this album that Young wrote later: "[Harvest] put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there."

I don't think I've ever heard any of this album beyond their two singles, which of course I and everybody else in the (western) world has heard ad infinitum. A fun album, and impressively cohesive, and definitely harder-edged than I'd have guessed based on their singles. I remain perplexed about how exactly this album got pigeonholed as a "cornerstone New Wave" album (but no more than having them described as pop-punk either, although I can see the surf-rock label a bit more), but that doesn't make this any less fun to listen to. And an incredibly impressive performance as a debut album. I also like it that "Fading Fast" seems like an alternate universe version of Nancy Sinatra's "These boots are made for walking", and I really enjoyed "Automatic". I was torn between a three- or four-star rating, but it feels like they deserve 4 stars for some of their unexpectedly catchy tunes, and also for how much they inspired a lot of women by being the most successful all-women band of all time. Also, what a crazy origin story (if the Wikipedia article for this album is to be believed): after seeing the Sex Pistols' final performance in 1978, Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin, and Margot Olavarria decided to form a band, and "although none of them actually knew how to play instruments, they quickly learned..." Talk about paying it forward--if only the Monkees could have also gotten into that! Also hilarious that they supposedly returned the towels used in the front cover photo shoot to Macy's the next day.

Hm. An odd entry in this collection, although I was a bit disappointed that the tantalizing Daft-Punk-like opening riff to the album settled into a less interesting song (although I like the use of the term "negative space"). Overall, this seems fine as an album, but not particularly distinctive, and it feels like this album's release was probably a lot more impactful to Hookworms fans than everybody else. I did enjoy "Ullswater" and "Opener" from start to finish, and with nice transitions between their surroudning tracks. But overall I guess I'm not all that drawn to their mix of emo-rock and electronica, if that's a fair description of their style. Wikipedia wasn't much help in figuring out why this album (or band) was included, with one of the shortest album entries I've seen so far. I *did* like reading a largely indecipherable summary by a music critic (referring to their 2011 EP release): "an epic 26 minutes of sub-Zabriskie Point ambient road-movie heat haze-on-the-road sonic wipeout of the post-Loop variety." I'm not sure whether this album continues that vibe or not, as I'm not even sure about most of the quote's references, but it sounds kind of cool. I couldn't find an online copy of the "1001 albums" book to figure out why Robert Dimery wanted to include the album, but most of the Metacritic-sourced critics' reviews suggest that this album was a transformative leap for the band, but from where and to where is a mystery (to me). Also a bummer to read that the band abruptly disbanded not long after this album was released, largely based on a social media storm surrounding accusations of sexual assault by the lead singer. Not the way anyone wants to go, but also not the way anyone wants to be treated.

I really enjoyed listening to this album, despite having little to no perspective on what makes for great jazz, or a great jazz album for that matter. It's an impressive live recording, especially for the time, as you can hear people talking and glasses clinking at times (usually during the bass solos), which only adds to the ambience and the live feeling. They had a rich sound for only three people, too; I particularly enjoyed "Gloria's Step", "Solar" and "Alice in Wonderland". A bummer to read that this album/recording marked the end of this particular trio, when Scott LaFaro (the clearly very talented bassist) died a few days later in a car accident. Given the great chemistry among the three of them (or at least it certainly seems that way listening to the album), I can see why Bill Evans struggled for a while to even play, but glad that he continued to make music in his post-LaFaro years, at least until his own untimely early death. And it was also interesting to read up on the storied history of the Village Vanguard and the many careers launched there (or at least greatly assisted).

Even though listening to something like bossa nova is still music tourism for me, it feels a bit more familiar than, say, Saharan desert blues (Songhoy Blues) or Rai-style music (Khaled) largely due to this album (and probably more specifically the rendition of "Garota de Ipanema"). It's not my first choice of an album to listen to, and at times the songs kind of blend into each other, particularly notable with "Para Machucar Meu Coração" followed by "Desafinado", but that's seems inevitable given the minimalist sound and my inability to translate Portuguese. And the interplay between Stan Getz's sax and João Gilberto's guitar and voice is fantastic, not to mention the backing band members' skills. My favorites on this album are the two songs with some English, "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Corcovado", as well as " "Só Danço Samba"; the timelessness of Ipanema alone earns it four stars in my book.

Although I'm sure they're more important and notable than Duran Duran, for some reason I always think of Duran Duran when I hear the band name Simple Minds. And neither are really my first choice for music (or second or third, on down the line). But this is definitely my first listen to this album (and curiously, that includes the singles from this album, which I'm pretty sure I've also never heard), and good to see that we've got yet another Scottish band from this collection. Although I can't say I particularly enjoyed the album, it was really nice to read that the band members seemed to genuinely enjoy making the album, and at least some of them reported feeling like everything just worked out, which definitely seems to be the exception for most albums and bands.

Thanks in part to Portlandia (and also growing up in Seattle, albeit before their rise to fame), I knew of the band as well as the near-Olympia interstate exit that their name came from, but I'd never really listened to them before this. I enjoyed the album more than I expected to, which was nice, especially "Dig me out", "One more hour", "Heart Factory", and "Little Babies". I also appreciated how compact a lot of the songs were, but I guess I question why this album seems to be labeled punk, given when they emerged. They kind of remind me of a different version of Mary's Danish (but more distortion and a more muddy mix and a little less variety in the lyrics). It didn't occur to me until reading the Wikipedia entry for the album that they didn't (don't?) have a bass player in their songs. I like it that it made for an interesting production puzzle, and that it him/them make the guitars even bigger-sounding, but for me it also explains why the album sounds a bit flat, dimensionally, or maybe just more tinny than I'd prefer (although that's also a function of the type of distortion they used).

I'm not sure I've ever heard this album before, or perhaps even many of the songs, despite how "Smoke on the water" was probably one of the first "heavy" songs I've ever heard (or practiced playing). And for good or bad, it's about what I would have expected, and it kind of confirms that I'm not a particularly big Deep Purple fan. But still a solid album, and I don't feel badly for giving a four-star rating simply for "Smoke on the water" (with nods to "Highway star" and "Space truckin'" too). Ironically, I think I'd always heard that the song was inspired by a fire on the banks of the Thames in London, but apparently the fire was in Switzerland, caused by an over-zealous Frank Zappa fan in the venue that Deep Purple intended to record this album. Even more ironic is that the lyrics tell exactly this story; I guess I never listened to the words aside from the chorus.... It's an impressive story of how they ended up in an abandoned hotel on the edge of Montreaux in the dead of winter, and equally impressive that they produced a decent-sounding album when they'd largely abandoned listening to the recordings because it was so cold and inconvenient to do so.

An interesting direction/choice for this project, I must say. I'd never heard of Red Snapper before, and they're definitely a huge contrast to many of the other albums and bands in the collection. Just given the nature of their style(s), it's a little hard not to treat the album as good/fun background music, but even so I enjoyed the experience. Kind of a distinctive mashup of bands like Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers, and others. I particularly enjoyed Karime Kendra's contributions in "Shellback" and "The rough and the quick"; I feel like the band-only/instrumental-only songs weren't able to hold my attention as much (except the last track, "They're hanging me tonight", suitably creepy and atmospheric). It's a shame that there's so little information on the band or this album in both Wikipedia and even the entry in the "1001 albums" book (at least the 2005 edition). I don't know if that's intentional, or simply reflects that their fans aren't all that interested in providing a presence in those venues.

A fun--and surprisingly rocking--album! I feel like I've heard of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs before, but had no idea what to expect, and really enjoyed listening to this album. I know the Wikipedia entry mentions similarities to Siouxsie and the Banshees and Led Zeppelin, but I heard more White Stripes and Sonic Youth, but with their own style and sound. Either way, they did a great job with this album, and I can understand why they were a popular live band--lots of energy, even if Karen O's in-your-face style is a bit wearing at times. I particularly liked the opening track "Rich", and the video for "Pin" was somewhat hypnotizing (although I'm not sure I understand the song any better having watched the video), while "Maps" is an intriguing change of pace. The album doesn't end quite as strongly as it starts, but it's still an impressive album.

Like many Beatles albums, this one has lots of short-and-sweet songs, and I was pleasantly surprised how many of them are new to me (which means they weren't radio hits, as I'm not a Beatles connoisseur). Much more of a sampler style than a concept or thematic album, which is perfectly fine, of course, but a little surprising for the 1001-albums project/collection. And now that I've read the (laboriously extensive) Wikipedia entry, I see the eclectic nature of this album was its reason for inclusion.... I admire them for being willing to branch out into studio-only recordings and techniques, as they didn't plan to have any more live performances, and I'm impressed that so many people felt that the album fundamentally changed studio recording techniques. There's always been something about "Eleanor Rigby" that feels nearly perfect as one of these short-and-sweet Beatles capsules (and a great re-creation of the lyrics in the movie "Yesterday"). And I always thought that "Yellow Submarine" was created for the animated movie, not the other way around (and still a favorite song of mine from childhood). "Good day sunshine"--and to some degree "Paperback writer" (which wasn't part of this album but was part of the recording sessions)--sound almost like throwback songs from an earlier Beatles era compared to the rest of the album. I really enjoyed "For no one"; probably my favorite previous-unheard track on this album. And "Tomorrow never knows" is kind of mind-blowing in how it anticipates so many electronica/psychedelic music styles for the coming decades. It's hard to know how to rank this, as it's both clearly revolutionary in many ways, but to me not the most interesting album as an album (to my under-educated ear). But I have to give credit to the huge variety and experimentation in the album, both musically and technically, and to its enduring legacy.

I'm not too embarrassed to admit that I'm a big Peter Gabriel fan, so it's fun to get his work in this collection, and also fun to get an early album, which I'm a lot less familiar with. And what an odd selection for the "1001 Albums" project, as this is definitely *not* one of his better albums. There are a few classic songs on this album--well, really just "Solsbury Hill" (with a fantastically odd but beautiful video, although I suspect that was done later than the album)--and some other really solid songs (mainly "Humdrum" and "Here comes the flood", although the latter is better in his later live stripped-down versions). The rest is a kind of weird grab-bag of experiments from all over the place, likely a product of having left Genesis fairly recently. Perhaps because of Robert Fripp's involvement in the album, several songs reminded me of David Bowie (especially the concept-album-style "Moribund the Burgermeister" as well as "Modern Love" (with a pretty wild video) and "Down the Dolce Vita"), and others just seemed better left on their own ("Excuse Me" a particularly good example of that, but also "Slowburn" and much of the album's side B). As much as "Solsbury Hill" is one of Peter Gabriel's truly great songs, this album doesn't really rank higher than three stars when you balance the rest of the album against it, sadly.

The only song by the Happy Mondays I know I've heard before is "24 hour party people", from their earlier debut album, so it's nice to get a different slice of this band. A middling-to-OK album overall, I'd say, but either poorly mixed or just intentionally very muddy; I'm honestly not sure why this album was included in the collection *as well as* their subsequent album. There's not a lot of variety, at least to me, which is a bit disappointing, but I suppose a bit predictable. I didn't realize until I read the Wikipedia entry that the album was inspired by both ecstasy (the drug, that is) and a 1970 film "Performance", although that latter fact explains all the obscure and random voice samples throughout many of the songs. It feels like the sort of album that only works for some people, and I'm not one of them. But to their credit, as I listened to the album I was frequently reminded of the books "Vurt" and "Nymphomation", which I enjoyed, and perhaps not coincidentally are set in Manchester (and I now just discovered there are two other books in the Vurt universe...). I was really tempted to give this a rare 2-star rating, but felt badly for them. :)

When this opened with "Judy blue eyes" right out of the gate, I kind of figured this was *the* big album for them, especially since it also has other radio-classics like "Helplessly hoping" and "Long time gone" (and to some degree "Wooden ships"). I was disappointed that the album had a lot of forgettable tunes, though; I guess "Marrakesh express" was a single from this album, but I'd never heard it before, and didn't really enjoy it, and the same could be said for at least half of the album (for me), although I did enjoy "You don't have to cry" and "Pre-road downs" for the first time. (The latter made me think of the Eagles, though.) I've always felt like they were kind of limited style-wise, even with adding Neil Young, in part because their harmonies are so distinctive and ever-present (certainly on this album). When I hear them on the radio, I always feel like you're about to come across a Renaissance festival of some sort. But regardless, they've made their mark on American music, and this album is a big part of that.

I'm not sure I've ever knowingly heard Marty Robbins' music before, so a fun new band/artist for me. "Big Iron" is a great opening track, and I really enjoyed some of the other songs on the album, mainly "The master's call" and "El Paso". The rest sound exactly how I imagine classic "cowboy" country music would sound like (complete with the harmonies in the choruses, and whispers of Gene Autry everywhere), which I enjoy in possibly smaller quantities than this album. But still a solid album for what it is; I just wish there were more original songs by him, as those seemed the strongest of the lot.

Well, this is a new one for me (band/person and album). It's hard to imagine that this is the third album by Thundercat (why would there be two other albums like this?), but also a bit confusing about why this album and/or Thundercat got included in the 1001 album collection? Many of the songs feel like some sort of pseudo-jazz inside joke among a close group of friends, of which we aren't part, although I guess there's a bit of a heavily ironic social-commentary aspect to some of them (like on "Bus in the streets"), or else kind of vanilla soul-like songs with a lot of 80s-sounding instrumentation. There's also some impressive, and impressively fast, ensemble playing in some of the songs (like "Uh uh"), and I'm impressed at how he got so many well-known names to contribute to the album (and I enjoyed "Show you the way" as well as "Drink Dat"), but I'm left wondering why? That said, "Tokyo" is a fun song all in its own right, but overall it's not all that interesting, at least to me. Sadly, the Wikipedia entry for the album is bizarrely vapid (and a bit confusing, especially with the references to discs 1-4). However, the entry on Thundercat himself is a bit more revealing, and I have to say I'm blown away to know that he was a member of Suicidal Tendencies, as this is about as far as you get from Suicidal Tendencies, so kudos to him. (Sadly, he wasn't part of Suicidal Tendencies' side project Infectious Grooves.) Mainly, though, I just can't imagine listening to this again.

I own this album, and really enjoy their sound, so although this particular selection didn't introduce me to a new band, it's a great excuse to re-listen to a band/artist I enjoy. I don't feel like it's as strong as their debut album (certainly not as light-hearted), but "All my friends" and "Time to get away" are definitely among the band's better songs, and songs like "North American Scum" and "Us v them" help balance things out on the lighter end. And pretty cool that the "someone" of "Someone great" is a tribute to Dr. George Kamen (of group therapy fame) . I know it's purely coincidence, but it's a weird experience listening to this album right after Thundercat's "Drunk" album. They both feel like very personal experiments in a kind of odd music space (even though I know "Drunk" was ten years later).

It's hard to go wrong with such a classic album and three epic hits! (It also makes me wonder why we also had their debut album in this collection, as this album so clearly exceeds "Black Sabbath" in most aspects, except perhaps how quickly their first album was recorded). I don't think I've heard most of this album before, ironically, and some songs are surprisingly mellow--well, really only "Planet Caravan", I suppose, especially sandwiched between two foundational metal songs ("Paranoid" and "Iron man"). I'm also really impressed at how political/topical many of the songs' lyrics are; a far cry from the average metal band's sophomoric topics. I also enjoyed reading about the background to some of their songs, like how "Paranoid" was literally last-minute filler for the album (and then became their only top 10 hit), and how "War pigs" was originally titled "Walpurgis" after some loosely-satanic-connection to a Saint-day, but the record label felt it went too far on the Satanic spectrum. Also hilarious that the album was renamed from "War Pigs" to "Paranoid", but the album cover remained the same (odd) photo. I'm very torn about how to rate this album, I'll admit. It seems like only a 4-star album, but the heavy metal legacy of the band and this album in particular seem more 5-star.

I've always enjoyed Sinatra's (movie) acting more than I expected to, but I've always hard a hard time enjoying his singing and music as much as I know I should (in part because so many of his songs sound like they're part of a movie musical/soundtrack). I'm sure this is a good Sinatra album--in fact, both Wikipedia and the "1001 Albums" book can't overemphasize what a great album this is, how it's the first "concept" album, and even how it's the first (12" LP) album ever--but sadly too much of Sinatra's more-mature and more-emotional style are lost on me, although I did appreciate how brief and succinct the songs are. Sorry, Frank!

Hm. I feel like I'm pretty tolerant of industrial/experimental music, and really enjoyed being introduced to Laibach through this collection, but this is pretty hard to enjoy and/or appreciate. I'm not sure if it's the thin/tinny sound of the mixing/production, or the fact that everything's in a foreign language, but much of the album felt like a lot of grating noise rather than songs per se. I'll give them credit, though, for creating most of the sounds and instruments themselves, and for the range of their noise-making. Most of the time I was listening to the album I felt like I had the soundtrack to an experimental stop-motion animated movie ("Mad God" comes to mind). (And to be fair, I only listened to the original album's 13 songs; I didn't have the patience or fortitude to continue on with the additional cd reissue tracks.) It's hard to know whether to rate this as two or three stars, honestly. I didn't enjoy it enough (or really at all) to feel like it's three-stars-worthy, but it feels wrong to give an album two stars when it's clear that they knew what they were doing and had a concept going, however annoying this is to me. Kudos to them for succeeding in their avowed goal of creating "the most unlistenable album ever" (according to the 1001-albums book)!

Well, not really my thing, but it seems well produced and has both attitude and humor. The video for "Sock it 2 me" is pretty impressively weird and funny, and somewhat the same for "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)". It's interesting to see how much critics and reviewers talk about how pioneering this album was (for both Missy Elliott and Timbaland), and particularly how "futuristic" it sounded back in 1997. I guess it's a testament to how influential this must have been that in 2024 it doesn't sound as unusual or revelatory as it did then. I *do* wish the album was about half as long, to be honest, but I *do* appreciate it that this project exposed me to this album.

This is probably my favorite Peter Gabriel album (or at least the most consistent and solid for his style and sound), so I'm really glad it's included in the collection. I also feel like somehow he and Phil Collins both got caught up in the same weird Genesis-inspired let's-go-solo-and-write-very-listenable-and-almost-mainstream-music-but-include-very-repetitive-lyrics-that-don't-really-make-sense-no-matter-how-closely-you-listen-to-it. But despite that, there's just something about nearly every song on this album that I really enjoy and am perfectly happy to listen to repeatedly. I guess it's just a guilty pleasure, as I know so many people that can't stand Peter Gabriel's music; I'm glad not to have caught that particular bug. I really appreciate the range of the songs in this album, and some of them have strong storylines despite being fairly sappy in some ways. "Don't give up", as syrupy as it is, especially with Kate Bush's duet, seems like a very personal song that Peter Gabriel was willing to share, and "Mercy Street" seems like a worthy descendant of "Solsbury Hill", while "We do what we're told" always feels like an anthem of outsiders and the dispossessed. I also appreciate it that his world music infusions aren't as dominating on this album as some others, although I feel like both he and David Bryne managed to incorporate world music in a more successful and less-cringeworthy way than most artists; in that context, what a bummer that "So" lost out to "Graceland" for the album of the year Grammy, as I feel like Paul Simon's take on world music is pretty painful. And what a treat to discover that Daniel Lanois participated in this album, as I've really enjoyed his (later) solo work.

Quite a contrast between this and most of what I've been listening to in this collection. I've never heard of Dr. John (the night tripper), nor Mac Rebennack, nor anything from this album, so it's all new to me, which is always a hopeful positive. And I enjoyed more of it than I ever would have guessed--my least favorite tracks were "Mama roux" and "Jump Sturdy" (mainly because they didn't fit well with the rest of the album), and my favorite is probably "Danse fambeaux". I'm kind of reminded of some of Tom Waits' material--mainly the gritty voice, the atmospheric experimental sound, and the occasional spoken-word presentation--but I'm not sure there's all that much connection between Dr. John and much else, for good and bad. But I definitely enjoyed the almost immersive experience of the album (even down to the bizarre liner notes, detailed in the Wikpedia entry), even if I'm also quite happy not to live anywhere near whatever inspired Dr. John and his New Orleans entourage.

I have to admit that I've never been able to become a Beach Boys fan, so this is a tough one for me to enjoy for its own sake. And while I guess I can (sort of) see how this album is a departure for the Beach Boys from surf and car music, it doesn't really sound all that different from all of the other Beach Boys songs I've heard. Well, except for all the somewhat insipid ballads on the b-side. And of course the bizarre ending track... (3)

Despite knowing about him for decades (and knowing that he was in the Rocky Horror Picture Show), I don't think I've really listened all that much to Meat Loaf, and certainly not to a full album. It's impressive how few of the songs on this album are radio-friendly (due to length), given how this is clearly his most popular album. I feel like this is what you'd get as a mashup of Jack Black and Billy Joel, and it's fun to listen to (although I also can see the comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, especially since that's a lot more contemporary than Jack Black, and several E-Street Band members played on the album). It's interesting that the Brits, Aussies and Canadians embraced Meat Loaf and this album long before the US did; maybe it was just too puzzlingly campy and unserious for US music executives, I guess? I also really like it that the album was based on some songs from a Peter Pan-inspired musical written by Jim Steinman, and then years later a musical came out of the Bat-from-hell series of records--the circle is complete!

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I've never really enjoyed listening to Elvis Presley, nor really understood why he was such a sensation. But I know this is *my* problem, and so I'm glad to get another chance to correct my Elvis deficiency, and this seems like a pretty good album with which to work on. Well, sort of, because as much as I get it that this is a more mature and experienced Elvis with a more soulful sound, it's still very odd and unsettling to have an album from 1969 sound so much like a modified version of his 1950s style, as if he had basically found a way to time warp and ignore all the music innovations and other massive cultural changes all around him. (For comparison, I just got done listening to this collection's Dr. John / "Gris-Gris" from 1968, and it's nearly impossible to reconcile that album and "From Elvis in Memphis".) Although I *did* enjoy "Power of my love" and "In the ghetto", I guess I need to keep on trying to find a way to enjoy Elvis....

What a curious choice for this collection. When I got "Tidal" much earlier, I noted that most Fiona Apple fans seemed to think "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" and "When the Pawn..." were her best albums, so I guess I imagined that this album would be like "Tidal" but more polished and catchy. Or something. That is *not* what this album is, clearly. I really enjoyed "Shameika" (in part because of the entrancing video), as well as "Relay" (the first half reminded me of a song set to those guys outside subway stations playing 5-gallon buckets as drums) and "Heavy Balloons", but overall it feels like the sort of album that *really* appeals to Fiona Apple fans, but leaves everyone else on the outside looking in. (But given the acclaim over this album, I don't think this is an opinion shared by many...) Full props to her that she not only composed all of the songs, but also recorded pretty much every sound on the album in her home. I do wish she'd had a little more restraint in either the number and/or length of the songs (or maybe became more proficient with GarageBand before recording tracks), as an hour is a bit much for a non-fan to listen to her largely successful musical experiments.

It's fun to get another album in this collection by a band I'd never heard (or heard of) before, especially since I really enjoyed "Different Class". Of course, this album doesn't sound as unexpected as the first album I heard did, but it's still a really solid album, and impressively darker and bleaker than "Different Class", while still entertaining. (This album reminds me of some of Blue October's music, albeit with a totally different sound.) I was also really impressed at how much the videos added to the experience. Although even "Party hard" can't quite compete with "Common People" for sheer morbid fascination, they're all really compelling videos. The video for "This is hardcore" in particular is a stroke of genius, and adds a completely new dimension to an already intriguing song (and how impressive that Jarvis Cocker anticipated how the internet would embrace porn, and saw that in this song, yet never really address it directly). I also liked the combination of videos/songs "Help the aged" and "A little soul", as both tackle similar themes in completely different ways. I do wish it had been a substantially shorter album, though, as a number of the later songs weren't all that memorable; and that goes double for "The day after the revolution" (at least on the original release, as a 15-minute song just doesn't really fit the album or band). A shame, too, that the original release didn't include "Cocaine socialism" or "Like a friend", both b-sides to some of their singles from this album, and much better than some of the second half of this album.

I haven't heard anything by him before, and I'm completely hamstrung by not understanding Portuguese, but I can see how this became an instant classic. A fun combination of sounds, and catchy tunes. I was so intrigued by the opening track ("Umbabarauma") and the description that it was a soccer/football anthem music that I found a translation, and also listened to a great metal cover of the song by Soulfly from many years later. (The VH-1 video version isn't all that interesting, unfortunately.) Like many of the non-English albums in this collections, I find it challenging to rate this album fairly.

What a great album. And probably one of the greatest live albums I've listened to; they did a great job capturing the feel of the performance and the crowd (including the reception announcements), and it seems like a perfect touch to end the (original) album with the inmate-penned "Greystone chapel". (And what a sad story for Glen Sherley, unfortunately.) I also enjoyed listening to the unreleased "The legend of John Henry's hammer" from the prison concert. As a comeback album of sorts, I'm also really impressed how much better this is than the Elvis comeback album I listened to recently in this collection ("From Elvis in Memphis"). A fascinating turn in Cash's career.

I'm not sure I've actually heard all that much by Al Green, but this album is solid from start to finish, and definitely full of soul. The title track is a great song, sung really well, and the cover of "How can you mend a broken heart" is definitely up there with the likes of Gary Jules' version of "Mad world" as a cover that transcends an unmemorable (and maudlin) original. It's also interesting that Al Green's career seems a bit like Cat Stevens, although I'm glad they both eventually came back to (secular) music.

A freebie for today, as I own this album and love it. It's too long by about 30 minutes--some of the songs really don't do all that much--but such a great sound overall and several fantastic songs ("Fell on black days", "Mailman", "Black hole sun", "Spoonman", "The day I tried to live", "Just like suicide", to name just a few). To me, the album brings me back to my days in Seattle and a pretty powerful period in its music history. The only sad part is that it makes me think of Chris Cornell and his untimely death many years later...

I know his name and (to some degree) his legacy, but I haven't previously listened to an album by him, so this was a nice introduction to the former Wailer. A mellow listen, but with something to say on a number of the songs (including the title track, despite also being one of the weaker songs on the album). "Burial", "Ketchy Shuby" and "Igzabieher" are probably my favorites of the lot, the lattermost mainly because it's pretty cool to get a religious prayer set to reggae.

I've never heard of Calexico, and I don't think I've ever heard anything by them, which is always a fun/uncertain aspect of this collection. It's definitely on the fun side, and I was really impressed with the band and album's range of sounds and the atmosphere of the album. (And very bummed that I couldn't figure out how to access/play the pregap instrumental before "Sunken Waltz".) I liked nearly all of their songs, but if I had to pick favorites, I particularly enjoyed "Quattro (World Drifts In)", "Pepita", "Woven birds" (plus its companion "The book and the canal"), and "Guero Canelo"; I'd also request perhaps two or three fewer instrumentals. They have their own distinctive sound, of course, but I was reminded of a curious combination of Daniel Lanois and Alejandro Escovedo, with a touch of Los Lobos. I'm disappointed that this is our only sampling of the band in this collection, as it sounds (from Wikipedia at least) like they continued to evolve and develop in interesting ways after this breakthrough album. Not that it should stop me from seeking them out, as I'd definitely be willing to hear more from them, and I'm curious to see what their former band Giant Sand has in store in this collection.

A great album cover, and a great-sounding jazz album inside too (at least to someone who's definitely *not* a jazz afficionado). I feel like I've heard at least parts of "Blue rondo a la turk" everywhere, but never realized it was from Dave Brubeck, so it's nice to finally place a name to a tune; the same with "Take Five". "Kathy's/Cathy's waltz" is also kind of trippy for the way the percussion eventually has a different time than the rest of the instruments. And I'm really intrigued that the inspiration for this album and its pieces came from a (US) State Department-sponsored trip through Eurasia; I guess it was musical diplomacy? (Ah I now see courtesy of Wikipedia that he was one of the US' jazz ambassadors--well done!) Either way, if this is indeed "cool jazz", I think I enjoyed this more than Miles Davis' "Birth of the cool" from earlier in the collection (in my rotation).

Although I know there are far too many Elvis Costello albums in this collection, I'd definitely vote for this one to remain in a more-reasonable 1001 albums collection, and would be perfectly fine if this were the only one, honestly. There's a lot of great energy and variety in the tracks, and I enjoyed the songs I'd never heard before as much as the hits on this album. (And what great (early) videos/promo films for "Pump it up", "(I don't want to) go to Chelsea", and "Radio radio", although I feared for Elvis' poor ankles throughout.) I also enjoyed reading that Costello managed to piss off Lorne Michaels of SNL by playing "Radio radio" instead of what they agreed to, and got banned for 10 years from SNL. And while the Wikpedia entry for this album is at least twice as long as it should be, I appreciated how it captured how the album was received when it first appeared, as it's often hard to get a feel for what a nearly 50-year-old album sounded like when it was just born. And I completely agree that the Attractions really don't get their due as one of the great backing bands. It makes me curious to listen to the recent version of this album, "Spanish Model", with all lyrics sung by Spanish-speaking singers (but the Attractions remain).

I first heard Bob Mould's music with one of his early solo albums, and knew about Hüsker Dü but never really listened to them (then or now), so it's nice to get another piece in the Bob Mould music puzzle (not that Hüsker Dü is only a Bob Mould vehicle, of course). I was a bit disappointed to see that the album went over an hour, as I suspected (correctly, as it turns out) Hüsker Dü couldn't hold my interest for that long, but that's always the roll of the dice with these albums. I largely enjoyed the album overall, mainly as a time capsule for a certain brand of music in the later 80s, but none of the songs really stood out to me, and I was struck by how similarly muddy-sounding this album is to the Bob Mould solo album I listened to fairly regularly way back when ("Workbook"). I guess the muddiness/flatness of the mix is intentional, but it makes most of their tracks all sound both similar and not-very-memorable. And the whole Mould-hates-Hart-and-vice-versa drama is not only uninteresting (to me), but equally invisible on the album (although very sad that this rivalry resulted in their manager committing suicide not long before this album). That said, I did enjoy "Standing in the rain", "Bed of nails" and "You can live at home" the most of the lot, and I liked the Pogues-like "She floated away" too.

I'm not as familiar with the Eagles' discography as I probably should be, but I'd be surprised if this wasn't their best album, possibly by a long shot (and what a shame it had to compete with "Rumours" for album of the year). Their radio hits are *still* fun to listen to all these many years later, and while the title track is immortal (and spawned more than a few great covers), "Life in the fast lane" and "Victim of love" are also solid songs in their own right. Overall, I've never gravitated towards the Eagles, I'll admit, but I didn't mind listening to this at all, even the less-memorable stuff. Not exactly the highest praise, I know, but hey, they get 4 stars from me on the strength of the title track and "Life in the fast lane" alone. :)

What a great album, in every sense. I think I like "Wish you were here" just a teensy bit more than this one, but that takes nothing away from this masterpiece. It's impossible for me to untangle the songs from memories of reading books while listening to the album, or of watching Laser Floyd to various tunes from this album (although I was always disappointed that the laser show part never seemed all that magical), but regardless I love it that the album is so seamless, and yet there are also several truly great songs on their own. "Time" is probably my favorite, but "Us and Them", "Money" and "Brain Damage" are also up there too, plus all the non-lyric tracks. I think what sets this album apart, more than any other I've heard before or since, is how unique it sounds. I'm sure it's been classified this way and that, genre-wise, but to me it's a complete experience that doesn't really sound enough like anything else to be easily categorized. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Wikipedia entry is enormous and comprehensive, but also worth reading (at least to me). I particularly enjoyed reading about how they got Clare Torry's wordless singing on "The great gig in the sky", as well as where all of those quirky and candid fragments came from (flashcard interviews, although kind of the opposite of Brian Eno's famous flashcards, as it turns out). And I love it that Alan Parsons was involved in the recording, and I love it even more that the album's very large proceeds helped Pink Floyd fund "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

I'll admit I never really got into (or even really listened to) the whole Wu-Tang phenomenon, so this is all new territory to me. I can see why this got a lot of critical acclaim, and the whole mafioso theme makes for good cohesion on the album, but I didn't really connect to the songs or the album, unfortunately, and it felt like a bit much to slog through. I can see why this was considered influential, as it sounds like a lot of other music that presumably came after it; sadly, I feel like whatever freshness and uniqueness this album had is largely lost to me, listening to this album so long after it came out. But kudos to RZA for an impressive job producing this and many other Wu-Tang solo albums, and also kudos to the extensively-documented Wikipedia article on the album for giving me every chance to learn so much more about the album and the players.

This is certainly a lot more interesting and lively than the other Elvis album I've heard in this collection ("From Elvis in Memphis"), so that's a nice plus. I'm not an Elvis (Presley) fan, though, so it's still hard to get excited about this album. It *is* interesting, though, to hear the contrast between the leftover Sun songs and the RCA Victor-commissioned songs, making for quite a strange mix of country and rock-n-roll. I know it's not really fair to who Elvis was, or to any of the singers across the years who weren't also songwriters, but I wish we could hear at least one song written by him, even if it's atrocious. It's kind of a bummer to only hear him covering somebody's else material, and really, his versions of songs like "Tutti frutti", "Blue suede shoes", "Money honey" and "I got a woman" are all so pale compared to the originals (pun intended).

Ah, nu-metal...I think we're *all* glad that wasn't a long-lived phenomenon. I'm a little surprised that we got this album from Limp Bizkit instead of their debut, since there isn't really all that much to this overly long and fairly repetitive collection of rants, and it doesn't have the freshness of being a debut album. But it's also not a horrible album, and certainly its sales record attests to their (always a bit baffling) commercial success. And while this could have been half as long and been much stronger for it, there are several solid rockin' tunes ("My generation", "Rollin'" (both versions), "Take a look around", "Boiler"), and the videos are pretty entertaining too. I'm not at all surprised, though, that the album didn't survive in later editions of the "1001 Albums" book, nor that it was generally panned by review critics. I'm not sure "Kerrang!" awards for worst album and band of the year is entirely warranted, but Fred Durst probably *did* deserve the "Arse of the Year" award....

Yet another fine album by David Bowie (but not entirely distinctive, to me). I feel like there's a few artists and bands--and David Bowie is one of them--that really strain the guidelines of this project, as it often feels like we get more albums by some artists than feels fair, largely because we won't ever get a greatest hits album even when it could open us up to more albums by other artists. Greatest hits, of course, aren't really in the spirit of this project, but I feel like we could have enjoyed "Changes", "Oh! You pretty things", "Life on Mars", and "Quicksand" from this album, and called it a day (OK, maybe "Andy Warhol" too). Nothing wrong with the rest of them, but this isn't really a concept album, and it feels like David Bowie's still settling into finding his (ever-adapting) voice on the rest of the songs. (And yes, I recognize that I'm likely way off with this impression, given how highly ranked the album is by so many people and publications.)

An interesting choice of albums to represent Beck, but certainly not the one I'd have probably chosen for him ("Odelay" would be the most obvious, although I also really enjoyed his much later "Morning phase"). I always enjoy listening to Beck, and this album has the distinction of being surprisingly cohesive, style- and soundwise, and also being pretty somber. There are a few really nice tracks--"Golden age", "Lost cause" (with a hypnotic video), and "It's all in your mind" (in part because it predates his melancholy turn)--but I'll admit it's hard to distinguish most of them from each other, and I doubt I'd listen to this album again. Even the review/summary of the album in the 2005 "1001 Albums" book seems to be at best lukewarm to Beck's "left turn" to emo-ballads...

A fine selection of Neil Young. A few radio classics, many others new to me, but only a few that really appealed to me--"My my, hey hey" (both versions) and "Powderfinger". I do like the concept of the album's title, and how it inspired him to stay fresh and performing on the road. I also liked how many of the tracks were recorded live, as this seems like his strongest mode. Although his style has never really appealed to me, I can imagine it was fun to hear these played on tour. (And I laughed when it came to the chorus of "Ride my llama", as he pronounced "llama" (lamb-a) a lot like the way an Australian acquaintance of mine pronounced "tacos" (take-ohs). An odd song, in any case.) Pretty cool, too, to hear the second side of this album as an inspiration for grunge (or at least for Pearl Jam, and ignoring the sad connection to Kurt Cobain).

As I listened to this album, I realized that while I'd heard a number of their songs, I'd clearly never listened to the album start to finish. What a strange debut! They definitely refined and matured their style and sound over the years since, but I'm really impressed at how distinctive and wide-ranging they were on this album. I'm also impressed how few duds there are; the back-to-back tracks "The new style" and "She's crafty" aren't all that impressive, to me at least, but everything else has a great mix of bombastic energy. And pretty cool that they got Slayer's lead guitarist to play on "Fight for your right" and "No sleep till Brooklyn" (and apparently appear in the videos too). I think my favorite of the previously-unheard songs is "Hold it now, hit it" (and the video too).

I know I've heard *of* Hanoi Rocks, but I'm not sure I've ever heard them, or at least anything from this album. A fine album overall, I'd say, but not particularly distinctive or memorable, except perhaps that they're Finnish instead of British or American? There is a somewhat appealing whiplash-effect, though, to the various flavors of glam- and hard- and faux-punk-rock tracks (at various times shades of The Clash or Motley Crue or even Kiss). And no noodling overlong tracks on this album! Compounding the mystery of why this was included: the Wikipedia article is truly atrocious and uninformative; and the "1001 Albums" entry seems to fixate on how outrageous they looked and performed on stage, with not much to say about the music itself. Apparently you had to be there...

What a curious--and almost bipolar--album. I don't think I've ever heard a "Small Faces" album before (and really not much of them at all), and while this is likely *not* a very representative album by them, it's a fascinating mix of styles and songs, at times reminding me of the Kinks in that regard ("Rene" and "Lazy Sunday" in particular made me think of them). I enjoyed the title track, "Afterglow" and "Song of a baker". I'm not sure I can say the same for the Happiness Stan suite on the B-side, but I'd give them an A for effort, taking what sounds like an incredibly offhand comment by a stoned-out band member and making it into an entire side of a vinyl disc.... Also, a helpful hint to anyone who hasn't yet listened to the album: the stereo version of this album is a *far* better way to appreciate the songs; I quickly realized this when it seemed really flat and muddy with the first couple of mono songs. And the Wikipedia entry really helps fill in some of the blanks, especially about the Happiness Stan suite's intention (which I'm not convinced succeeds, at least for me).

I feel like I should know of the Vines already, and they sound so quasi-familiar I kind of wonder if I *have* heard them before and have just forgotten it? Ah yes, the latter, as "Get Free" got a *lot* of airplay back in the day; I just didn't realize it was them... Either way, it's a decent album, and I enjoyed listening to them, but also felt like they struggle to sound all that distinct from bands before them. There's a strong Nirvana vibe ("Nevermind" era) to a number of the songs, so much so that I kind of felt like this was a sort of Black Keys/White Stripes thing, except that this album is way too late for that kind of emulation/envy, I suppose. (And now that I read the Wikipedia entry, I see that I'm not the only one making this comparison.) But to their credit, they *do* have their own take on the Nirvana style of music--and even a little variety outside Nirvana, like with the Beatles' inspired "Homesick" or "Factory"--and hey, they're Aussies, so that counts for something, right? I'll also say that while the videos didn't add much to the music experience, they're a bit revealing about the lead singer's neurodivergency and somewhat alarming posture and behavior. A little digging on Wikipedia reveals that sadly, while he's later acknowledged that he's on the spectrum (and apparently cut back on fast food and cannabis to help control it), his behavior was too violent for the original co-founder to stay in the band (and he also later assaulted his parents and destroyed equipment on sets). Given all that, I'm not at all surprised that the band was dropped silently from the "1001 Albums" book a few years after they debuted; a bit sad, considering the gushing review in the 2005 edition, but mental health issues aside I suspect their longevity was doomed from the start, as they appeared on the facing page from the truly-cringeworthy Justin Timberlake album "Justified"....

More Radiohead from this collection--not surprising, but it definitely feels like 6 albums by *any* band is about 3-4 too many (to me). Not a bad Radiohead album, but also not all *that* different from others in this collection, and I'm not a big fan of their sound, so it's hard to get too excited. Although I did enjoy the more Chemical-Brothers-style turn on some tracks in this album, and I particularly enjoyed the opening track with its very reasonable refrain ("Packt like sardines in a crushd tin box"), and "Pulk/Pull revolving doors". I was kind of disappointed (unreasonably so, I suspect) that the videos on this album weren't nearly as interesting as "Paranoid Android" from "OK Computer", although I'll make an exception for "Knives out", which while not all that great a song has a video that is both unsettling and impossible to look away from. The video for "Pyramid song" is kind of entertaining in a weird early 3D/VR way, and I'm not sure what to say about the experimental animation video for "Push pulk/spinning plates", other than that I understand why MTV wouldn't touch the video with a 10-foot pole; it's not every day that you get to see some weird centrifuge-like contraption with twin babies getting horribly disfigured.... Overall, I'd say they made the right choice not lumping these songs in with the "Kid A" album, but I'm also not sure this particular album belongs in this collection.

I actually got this album a long time ago, before being part of a listening group, and gave it 4 stars, so it's nice to get a good album again, even if I'm kicking myself for not leaving any notes to myself on that first listen. "The weight" seems to get the most attention on this album, and well-deserved, but what I liked the most about the album has how consistent and solid the band is on the entire album; I can definitely see how this album sounded incredibly fresh and different in the midst of acid/psychedelic rock. In addition to "The weight", I particularly enjoyed "Caledonia mission", "We can talk", and "Chest fever". And pretty wild that they had to convince Levon Helm to come off oil rigs to come to Woodstock to sing and play with them.

This collection has just a few other albums like this, where it feels like nearly every song has played on the radio and also withstood the test of time, and yet isn't a greatest hits or compilation album. And of course this particular album has the song I worshiped as a budding (and truly mediocre) guitarist--it still amazes me that "Stairway to heaven" ever got radio time given how long it is, but it's hard to imagine growing up *not* hearing this song frequently. I think the only songs I hadn't heard before were the somewhat painful/unmemorable "The battle of Evermore" (Sandy Denny didn't help this song at all, sadly) and "Four sticks" (which is a bit frustrating for being so much more muddy-sounding than the other tracks). This album is what I associate with Led Zeppelin more than anything else, and while I'm not a huge Zeppelin fan, I can definitely see myself revisiting this album; I just wish the lyrics at times didn't make me think of Spinal Tap's "Stonehenge" so much.... To be perfectly honest, too, this could easily be the only Led Zeppelin album in this collection (instead of the other 4 albums also present), and it would hit all the highlights of what makes them worthy of inclusion. Although then we wouldn't have had all the classics from Zeppelin II, or "Immigrant song" for that matter, but that's a price I'd be willing to pay, especially if it meant not having to wade through Zeppelin III, not to mention getting some other album that didn't make the cut due to space constraints....

Just the other day I was wondering why I hadn't gotten any Talking Heads yet, so thankfully that question is now answered. I don't know their discography very well, so it's hard to say whether this is one of their better albums or not, but it *definitely* sounds like the Talking Heads I'm familiar with, and I really enjoyed listening to it, despite the relative paucity of radio hits (although "Once in a lifetime" more than makes up for that lack--what a great song). My favorite previously-unheard songs are probably "The great curve" and "Houses in motion". (And though it wasn't one of my favorites, "Listening wind" makes me wonder if it was inspiration for the Peter Gabriel/Laurie Anderson 1984 collaboration "This is the picture (excellent birds)".) And although I'm sure my memory is quite garbled at this point, I feel like a surprising number of songs on this album was played in that great concert film "Stop Making Sense". I also like the backstory of how the album came to be, a strange blend of reactions to Byrne's controlling nature, Fela Kuti influences, Haitian Voudou, the insights from hip-hop's growing ascendance, and Brian Eno's semi-reluctant return as producer, all apparently reviving the band's energy and a more collaborative spirit. (And, of course, reinforcing that Brian Eno is everywhere.) It kind of feels like this is more of a meta-album for this collection, given how conveniently and easily it meshes with so many other themes in the "1001 Albums" collection. A bummer, though, that the creative process for making this album strained the band members even more than they were already. Same as it ever was....

I'm pretty sure I'd heard of the band before, but I doubt I ever heard anything by them (at least knowingly) prior to listening to this album. The album is OK, I suppose, but a bit hard to listen to it with an ear to what this might have been like in 1981 (instead of 2024), so I don't really know how ground-breaking or earth-shattering this might have been for fans and neophytes alike. I kind of enjoyed the spoken-word "Of lilies and remains", and "Dancing" was a bit more hard-edged than many of the others, but overall not much really spoke to me (although I didn't mind listening to it, and found the student-film-esque video for "Mask" more interesting than the song itself). Sadly, the Wikipedia entry was brief and completely unhelpful, and the book entry not much better. It's like everything conspired to keep Bauhaus from being intriguing or compelling....

Hm, another musical tourism album (for me). I remember hearing water drums at some point as a teenager and loving how exotic they sounded, but I'll admit I never really delved into South Asian music much. So, I enjoyed hearing the water drums. :) Other than that, it's pretty hard to gauge what makes this album and artist particularly noteworthy, although Wikipedia helpfully tells me that he was one of the greatest Qawwali singers of all time; I'm not an aficionado of Sufi devotional music, but I'll take their word on it. And I learned from the project's 2005 book edition that this album was his biggest (Peter Gabriel owned) Real World label release, and after getting showcased at a 1983 WOMAD concert. And after reading a bit about the Sufi devotional music tradition, I realized why I was vaguely reminded of this incredible whirling dervish museum in Konya, Turkey (Mevlana Museum), as the museum had Sufi devotional music playing in ceiling speakers throughout the museum's exhibits, and while the museum's music selection sounded quite different than this album's music, the ecstatic purpose was similar.

Phew! Although I do hope this is the only Kiss album we get in this collection, it would have been a shame if we didn't get some Kiss in this project. I was never a big fan of them growing up, but even then I recognized that they had clearly paved the way for all the hair metal bands that followed, and for that they earned my respect (and likely the groans and hatred of many others). Listening to this album now, I also realize that part of my reluctance to embrace them was that they simply didn't rock as hard as I wanted them to--I often feel like they were *pretending* to be a hard rock/heavy metal band, but really they wanted to be either a stadium-rock band with makeup and platform boots (a hard-rockin' Boston), or maybe more of a Meatloaf-style act ("Great expectations" and "Do you love me?" great examples). Plus it doesn't help that they didn't have a lot of range either musically or lyrics-wise. But what outfits! Out of the songs on this album, "Detroit rock city" is of course a lasting classic, and "Flaming youth" was also a fun (and a little cringey) listen; the rest were pretty nondescript (sorry, "Beth"). But I'm still glad they were included, and it's kind of satisfying reading that the producer of this album put them through a musical boot camp, as apparently they needed the kick in the pants.

A classic Lou Reed album; I'm glad we got this one (and I had no idea it was released so long ago). I'd heard so many of these songs in other contexts (I'm guessing quite a number from "Trainspotting", I'm a bit embarrassed to admit), and I'm impressed that so many came from this album. And while it may say more about me than anything else, I doubt I'll ever get tired of listening to "Walk on the wild side" (although I definitely don't binge on it). "Vicious" is a great way to start the album, "Satellite of Love" an iconic classic, and I'm not sure why "Perfect day" works for me so well, but it does. And despite some remarkably campy songs interspersed throughout, I also enjoyed several of the songs I wasn't familiar with, particularly "Andy's chest" (apparently a different version of a Velvet Underground tune, and also apparently a tribute to Andy Warhol and his near death shooting), "Goodnight Ladies" (mainly because of the reference to TS Eliot's Wasteland), and parts of "Wagon Wheel". Interesting that a veritable constellation of luminaries assisted in the production and conception--David Bowie, Mick Ronson, Andy Warhol. And funny that the man on the back album photo packed a banana in his pants for the shot.

Although I'm definitely not well-versed in classic jazz performances, I enjoyed both the album and the somewhat bizarre backstory of the concert and album. I'm also really glad to read that this performance single-handedly revived Duke Ellington's career and future as a musician; I had no idea he was ever on the brink of having to fold up shop. I found the Wikipedia entry really helpful in understanding the significance of this album, as well as the somewhat deceptive nature of the album and recording (bummer that only 40% of the 1956 album was from the actual Newport performance). I wasn't *so* intrigued to go and listen to the entire 1999 remastered Voice of America / Columbia live recordings, but I'm guessing that would be even more amazing, especially the Gonsalves solo (edit: I relented and found and listened to the remastered version of "Diminuendo In Blue And Crescendo In Blue", and now I'm sorry I didn't seek out the entire album's songs in their remastered version). I'm also not sure how to rank this, given its seminal place in jazz history, and yet personally I found it simply entertaining. I guess a wishy-washy 4 stars?

I don't really know anything about Mott the Hoople, but from start to finish this sounds *exactly* like a musical soundtrack album. I have no idea what the plot of the musical is, but the band is really into it, and it seems to be filled with a lot of campy, knowing irony. If nothing else, it feels like Meatloaf and Pulp traveled back in time and had this as a baby. An ugly, awkward but very musical screaming baby, with David Bowie perhaps looking on as godfather. Fun, but weird. (A shame that the Wikipedia entry has literally *nothing* useful about this album, although it *does* note that Bowie did indeed have a connection to them, having offered them two songs, "Suffragette city" (declined) and "All the young dudes" (fully embraced).) Edit: somewhat hilariously, I got about halfway through what I thought was this album (having followed the YouTubeMusic link from the project page), when I discovered that I'd been listening to "Hoople" (1974). Amazingly, when I found the correct album, I discovered my review so far remained largely the same, although I'd say that "Hoople" is if anything a bit more glam and musical-sounding, while "Mott" is a bit more Bowie-reverent.

Although I don't regularly listen to any form of jazz, I always appreciate the chance to get exposed to a jazz album and/or artist. It's nice to get a distinctively different style from previous jazz albums in this collection, and I enjoyed the album and the ebb and flow of each track, although as with most instrumental-focused music (especially long tracks) I find it's sometimes hard to stay focused and actively appreciative, but not as much as I expected with this album. I could even sort of visualize the various dances over the course of the album, which even I'm surprised by (and would likely make my mother proud, as she tried so hard with my brothers and me to instill some sort of ability to appreciate classical music and the themes and storylines; in that sense, this album (vaguely) reminds me of an infinitely more interesting, mature and wild version of story-based classical pieces like "Peter and the Wolf" or "The Nutcracker Suite"). I think my favorite movement/track was "Track B - Duet solo dancers" (subtitled "Hearts' Beat and Shades in Physical Embraces"); but I also really liked the unexpected Spanish/flamenco guitar in "Mode D - Trio and Group Dancers" ("Stop! Look! And Sing Songs of Revolutions!"). I also just *really* enjoyed a completely unexpected experience listening to this "jazz" album. I liked it that the Wikipedia entry included the subtitles to each movement; I was bummed that the entry overall was remarkably sparse on details or even narrative flow, given how highly rated this album has been for so many people. I also appreciated the "1001 Albums" entry for this album, not just for highlighting how masterful the drummer is on this album at keeping everything moving in the right direction, but also for the broader context of this almost genre-defying album.

They instantly got a guaranteed 3-star rating for keeping a 2001 album to a tidy 28 minutes runtime (after all, how bad could it be if they're only taking up a half-hour of your life?). And while I hate to break it to them that they're *not* my new favourite band, I also found them fine. I was struck by how similar in some ways they were to The Vines sound-wise (especially their retro garage/punk vibe), but without the disturbing out-of-control-lead-singer. I'm not really sure their early-Beatles-in-tennis-shoes look is the best fit for them (maybe ironic?), but to each their own. It's a little hard to distinguish many of their songs from each other, but I enjoyed "I hate to say I told you so" and "Untutored youth" (which I could only hear as ah-till-yoh) more than the others. The Wikipedia entry is absurdly brief, but it does note that this is actually a compilation from earlier albums and EPs and singles, which seems like a party foul by the "1001 Albums" project (at the very least). I *will* say that if I hadn't read up on them, I would *never* have guessed they were Swedish, although I'm not sure that's a useful bit of trivia or not. And both Wikipedia and the "1001 Albums" entry note that their real appeal is/was in their live shows, which might help excuse the somewhat less-than-awesome album?

It's not every day you sit down to listen to Brazilian 60s music, and for that I'm quite thankful. I think the combination of not understanding a word he's singing, and a Euro/Latin pop musical style I've never really enjoyed (which seems also always fated to mysteriously *atrocious* recording quality, even in the remastered version of this album), and that horrid turtleneck on the album cover, all conspired to make this a somewhat tedious listening experience, with a partial exception to the brief but kind of catchy "Superbacana", as well as the oddly Spanish-titled "Soy loco por ti, America". And although it's probably not fair to either Caetano Veloso or his album, I'm dinging a half-star each for (1) the fact that Veloso himself said that this album was "amateurish and confused", and (2) the Wikipedia entry used the term "artistic cannibalism" as a seemingly distinctive trait of Tropicália music, when it just seems to be describing eclectic influences. Even the "1001 albums" book entry doesn't have much to recommend about the album itself, sadly (although I did enjoy reading that artists like Beck and David Byrne really enjoy Veloso's music).

Another Stevie Wonder "classic" in this collection! A great title and album cover, and very mellow hits, all a great combination for Stevie Wonder fans (which I don't really count myself in, although I'll admit I simply haven't listened to him much). "Smile please" is a great start to the album, "Boogie on reggae woman" has a nice mellow funk to it, "You haven't done nothin'" is easily the best song on the album (and strangely relevant to today despite being about Nixon), and I like it that George Michael did a cover of the somber "They won't go when I go" . I'm not sure, though, this is as strong as the other Wonder album I've heard in this collection, "Talking Book", but I did like the occasional combination of country styling and heavy (and early) synth sounds.

Aside from the radio hits, I don't think I've ever really listened to the Pretenders, so it's nice to get a full album of their music. It's not really my thing, and wasn't at the time either (or at least a few years after the release, when I had at least a hope of musical preference if not taste), but I like it that Chrissie Hynde wrote most of the (non-cover) songs, and the A-side has a bit more edge than later new wave music (including their later stuff); the B-side definitely has a strange Police vibe to it. I think the most interesting songs to me were "Precious", "Brass in Pocket", and "Mystery achievement" (so mainly the radio hits). Kind of a bummer that their main single on the album is a Kinks cover ("Stop your sobbing"), as I want them to have made a splash on their own craftwork (but it's a decent cover, and pretty cool that it ended up getting Ray Davies and Chrissie Hynde together, and even a little sobbing baby to boot). And what a bummer about the short-lived lives of half of the band not that long after this album came out...

I'd kind of wondered if we'd get Rage Against the Machine in this collection, and I'm glad we did. I really enjoyed this album when it first came out, and have listened to it quite a bit over the years, without *too* much embarrassment. I think what's always intrigued me about the band and the songs is how much tension there is between the very white-mosh-pit-college-crowd vibe of the music and the unsettling antiestablishmentarianism of most of the songs. It's very weird, even now, to see the video for "Killing in the name of" (a really powerful song, in my opinion) and all the mosh pit action by people and fans that very likely are or will become the target of the song's eviscerating social commentary; I'm also very ambivalent about the subtitled commentary in the video for "Bombtrack" (about the violent repression of Peru's also-violent Shining Path movement), one that I suspect few of the typical Rage fans pay much attention. (The "Freedom" video, on the other hand, tells a truly compelling story about Leonard Peltier, yet I wonder how much most people who love Rage have ever paid attention to that story.) All that aside, some of my favorites from this album (in addition to "Killing in the name of"): "Settle for nothing", "Know your enemy", and "Wake up". Too bad that "Bulls on Parade" isn't on this album too. I've always felt like Rage Against the Machine is what the Red Hot Chili Peppers could have been if (a) they chose a more political stance, and (b) stuck with more interesting music and lyrics. (On a side note but somewhat related to this comparison, I'm bummed to find out I missed seeing Rage Against the Machine at Lollapalooza by one year, and instead got the (very very very late) Red Hot Chili Peppers in addition to a number of great acts before them.) I'm also constantly surprised that, as far as I know, no presidential campaign has foolishly and unwittingly adopted any of Rage's anthemic songs for its campaign (I'm thinking particularly of a recent former president). Perhaps their use of the upside-down American flag kind of dissuades the more perceptive ones....

I know I'm horribly biased, having grown up in Seattle in the midst of the explosion of Nirvana, Soundgarten, Pearl Jam and others, but I can't help but revere this album and all the memories associated with it. (One of the odder memories is becoming the owner of this CD when I borrowed it in college to listen to, but somehow left it on the dinner tray in the dining hall, and while I eventually recovered it, the disc insert was hopelessly soiled and warped, and so had to buy another copy of it for my friend. The CD still played just fine, though, and has been played many many times.) I'd be hard pressed to identify any songs I didn't like on this album, although "Oceans" isn't one of my favorites, and the album kind of loses its edge a bit towards the end. They put on a great show at Lollapalooza the year I saw them (1992, the same year as the album), and I've always been impressed by the whole band's dedication to playing great shows and to their fans. (I've also admired how they did their best as long as they could to avoid the Ticketmaster stadium price-gouging.) I've never seen any of the videos from this album until now, and I loved seeing that the video to "Even Flow" was filmed in a great historic theater in Seattle, Moore Theater; although I never saw them play in Seattle, I remember going to the Moore Theater as a teenager to be a crowd extra for a Queensryche music video. And not having seen the videos, I also was unaware of the bizarre story of the "Jeremy" video having had the gun suicide edited out when it first appeared, and only *un*censored a few years ago. I'm disappointed, but all that surprised, to see that this is the only Pearl Jam album we'll get in this collection. They deserve more ears than just one album, frankly.

Ah, the Stone Roses. I knew several people in high school/college that were absolutely fanatical about The Stones Roses, but I couldn't really ever get into them despite their popularity and success. I think it's mainly how nearly *everything* sounds like it's been put through some sort of flange/reverb effect, which (to me) doesn't add depth but instead makes it all sound the same (and perhaps is also the cause of the poorly-mixed-and-thus-nearly-incomprehensible lyrics?); I'm very reminded of the Happy Mondays album "Bummed" in this collection, which I felt was equally meh. My favorites/preferred songs are probably "Bye bye bad man", "Sugar spun sister", and "I am the resurrection". (I had high hopes for "Elephant Stone", since it strangely wasn't included in the YouTubeMusic playlist for this album, but aside from more interesting drum/rhythm sections, it wasn't much different.) It's kind of amazing that at least one person ranked this album as #11 all time (Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums, according to the Wikipedia info). But they certainly had a loyal and widespread following, and I'm intrigued that the Flaming Lips reworked the entire album in 2013 with their "The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down… What a Sound" (admittedly, not so intrigued to listen to that other album now). And I'm really impressed to find out that the album cover is by their guitarist, and inspired by both Jackson Pollack (which is pretty evident) and the May 1968 Paris riots (not so evident), plus a tie-in to their song on the album "Bye bye bad man".

George Harrison has always struck me as the too-quiet and more-interesting-than-he-gets-credit Beatle, so it's nice to get one of his solo albums. Not so nice that it's a double album (I guess even a triple album?), I'll admit, but at least we get a wide sample of what he wanted to play and sing. (A little frustrating that the YouTubeMusic version of the album seems to be based on various remasters/reissues with tons of extra songs and outtakes, clocking in at nearly 3 hours if you chose to listen to it all...) My favorites on the album are mostly the ones I've heard before, like "My sweet Lord" and "What is life", although there were a few that I hadn't heard before that were fun ("Wah-wah" one of these, and not just because it's named after a guitar effect; also "Let it down", "Beware of darkness" and the Beatles-esque "Art of dying"). I also enjoyed the occasional forays into slide-guitar he incorporated into the album; they made me think of a very different version of Leo Kottke. It's also incredibly impressive to read the names of all the contributing musicians on this album; quite a who's-who of late 60s rock, and what a strange and fraught connection with Eric Clapton. Overall, it's not really my kind of album, but I'm glad we got a chance to hear George Harrison's voice and sound without McCartney and Lennon drowning him out.

I always enjoy listening to Jeff Beck, and even have the classic "Blow by Blow" as well a couple of his later albums, so this was nice to get a different side of Jeff Beck. I'm not sure if all of his later work were solely instrumentals, but the three albums I own are definitely in that vein, so it was a bit of a surprise to get very lyrics-based songs/tracks on this album (and even more surprising to hear Rod Stewart belting them out). This is definitely a lot less funky and experimental than what I was expecting (and not nearly as interesting as "Blow by Blow"), but it's still an enjoyable set of tracks, with a few great moments of guitar-licks and overall a great relaxed vibe (and "Ol' man river" is truly inspired). I'm not sure this really ranks as a great Jeff Beck album, but it's probably Rod Stewart's finest moment. :) And while I would give the book's editors negative-100 stars for making this the only Jeff Beck album in this collection, I'm not going to take this out on poor Jeffrey Rod.

I'm kind of shocked that this is my first Rolling Stones entry after listening to nearly 250 albums, especially given that there are 6 Stones albums in this collection. A fun selection, too, as this has some great classics/radio hits, and several I'd never heard before. I've never been a big Stones fan (or listener), but it's hard to feel too critical of them with songs like "Sympathy for the devil" or "Street fighting man". Woo woo! (And what a shame that "Jumpin' Jack Flash" wasn't included on the album.) Very sad to read about how this was the last real contribution from Brian Jones to the band he founded, and I'll say that his slide guitar in "No expectations" really makes this a surprisingly deep and enjoyable song. (And only makes the bizarre and painful falsetto in "Dear doctor" all the more mystifying.) Also very amusing that Paul McCartney basically tanked the album's release party by playing "Hey Jude" and upstaging the whole event.

I appreciate it that this collection is doing its best to give us all more exposure to Stevie Wonder, and so far the albums seem like good exemplars. But for whatever reason--age, experience, musical preferences--I'm just not that big of a fan. Still. Nonetheless, an interesting album by Mr. Wonder, with his penchant for early synth sounds on full display, and an intriguing balance between easy listening and insightful lyrics and some harder-edged music as well. And while this album is about twice as long as I'd have preferred, to his credit there's not too much filler. (I'll admit I wasn't quite tolerant enough to listen to the 4-song EP that accompanied this double album.) My favorites on this were probably "Have a talk with God", "Sir Duke" and "Pastime paradise" (mainly because of Coolio's adaptation, I know). (I really wanted to enjoy "Village ghetto land", but the synth strings/organ-sounds *really* didn't work for me. And I'm not sure I'd call it a favorite, but I appreciated "Contusion" mainly for the Jeff Beck "Blow by Blow" vibe. Lastly, I appreciated what he was doing with "Black man", but it just feels a bit too long to make more than honorable mention.) I feel badly giving the album only 4 stars, especially given how much acclaim it's received, as well as being so influential to so many different types of artists, but it just doesn't work for me the way I wish it would, so I'm compromising between my experience (3-star enjoyment) and great-album status (presumably 5-stars). Sorry Stevie!

I wasn't sure if we were going to get other Van Morrison albums than "Moondance", and I was also equally unsure whether that would be a good thing, as good as "Moondance" is. I really appreciate it that this is an earlier album, before Van Morrison's descent into sad and extremely unsettling ranting behavior. I haven't heard most of the songs on this album before (at least knowingly), but I enjoyed many of the songs all the same. My favorites are probably "Astral weeks", "Sweet thing", "Cyprus Avenue", and "Madame George" (and particularly didn't enjoy "Beside you"). It's hard not to compare this to "Moondance", and I'll admit that "Astral Weeks" pales in this comparison, sadly, despite the wider range of styles he explores on this album and a clearly more personal approach. Fine but not as satisfying compared to what you get with "Moondance", and I'm kind of bummed to discover we'll have yet another Van Morrison album before the collection is done. (I'll admit, though, I kind of enjoyed reading about the insane mob-related craziness Van Morrison and various other people had to deal with in the course of getting him out of the contractual obligations to a dead man...)

I enjoyed getting to listen to a band I've never really heard of before (although I definitely heard plenty of "Our House" on the radio), even if this isn't a particularly great or memorable album or band. Lots of effervescent pop sounds--I'm not sure why they're labeled ska, unless my understanding of "ska" is very flawed? ("Tiptoes" was the only track that seemed ska-like.) Outside of "Our house", I'm not sure there are many other tracks that were all that distinctive for me; maybe I'd call out "Tomorrow's (just another day)", "Mr Speaker gets the word", and the Talking-Heads-reminiscent "That face", plus the fun video for "Calling cards". (I really wanted to like "Blue skinned beast" given the political skewering of Thatcher, but the song got in the way of my enjoyment.) Although it's not nearly as cohesive or interesting, I can see why the "1001 Albums" editor likened this album to "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society", as there's a sort of snapshot element to many of the songs. And I *will* say this was substantially more interesting to listen to than, say "Simply Red" or "Pet Shop Boys" (who I feel like have some affinity to Madness).

Ah, yet another David Bowie album. I like it that this is from a different period than so many other Bowie albums in this collection, and it feels like an interesting direction for him. And so *many* videos! That's probably the highlight of this album, frankly, and so many odd videos too; "The next day" probably takes the cake with its harsh take on Catholic clergy and Gary Oldman fitting right in, but "The stars (are out tonight)" also has a bit of an oddness to it (and great to see David Bowie and Tilda Swinton side by side, almost like a Bowie version of "Only Lovers Left Alive"), while "Where are we now?" is really well done and completely mesmerizing (and the whole time you expect the female head of that weird conjoined doll thing to sing); "Valentine's Day" was the only fairly normal video, and a correspondingly less interesting song; and I'm not really sure whether the video for "I'd rather be high" is an actual Bowie video or not, but if it is, only sort-of interesting. I also felt like the album started to fade off about 2/3s of the way through, maybe from "Dancing out in space" onwards (excepting "(You will) set the world on fire"). I've never been a big David Bowie fan, and so always have a hard time evaluating whether any of them are one of his better/great albums. I enjoyed listening to it, and appreciated it that it wasn't just a rehash of his earlier music. I give it 4 stars simply on the fact that he's managed to continue to make music for so many decades and not sound completely repetitive.

I'm guessing this must have been a very popular album at some point (it seems due mainly to the Beatles and George Harrison), but it still feels like a weird selection in this collection, especially with the opening "Introduction". It's almost a meta-musical-tourism experience, as we're getting a clearly talented Indian musician's sampling of a specific musical form in a specific musical tradition in a huge, sprawling country with an enormous diversity of musical traditions, yet ambiguously labeled "Sounds of India". I appreciate it that Ravi Shankar is making an effort to educate Western audiences to a very old and established musical style (and apparently the liner notes are extremely extensive); I'm not as sure that this album necessarily belongs in "1001 Albums" (but given that it is, it's surprising that the book editors were off on the release date by a full decade). But that said, it's a fine experience, and I'm pretty sure I haven't heard any of these tracks before.

I've never been much of a Rod Stewart fan, and I'm still a bit resentful that our sole Jeff Beck album was the one that had Rod Stewart singing, so this is a hard album to judge fairly. It seems fine, with a few radio hits (mainly the title track and "Maggie May"), and the rest sounding largely similar but less popular, although the lyrics on the non-cover songs are a bit more interesting than many early 70s bands; I feel like the Dylan cover "Tomorrow is a long time" and the Temptations cover "(I know) I'm losing you" are better than most of the original (non-radio-hits) songs on the album, ironically. Nothing offensive, and the Faces backing band seem pretty solid, but also nothing particularly notable, and not as enjoyable as when he sang on Jeff Beck's album. Sorry, Rod!

A nice treat--this is one of my favorite Van Halen albums, and even though I know they're not to everyone's taste I always feel like this album is worth a listen (and not just for the greatest solo track of all time, although "Eruption" *is* a masterpiece). It's tough to pick out favorites from this mighty album, so I'll just note that my least favorite tracks are probably "Atomic punk" (it always makes me think of a couple of Police tracks on their earlier albums where they try to show their punk-like roots, and fail) and "Little dreamer", although "Ice cream man" probably should be there, but it seems like such a quintessential David Lee Roth (cover) song it's hard not to smile (and think of brown M&Ms). And I have to say their cover of the Kinks' "You really got me" is inspired genius. I think what I love about this album, and the band, at least in the David Lee Roth era, is that they did one thing, they didn't pretend to be more complex than they were, and they did it with style and confidence, and they were entertainers par excellence.

Ha! This is one of those albums I've already heard in this collection (from before listening as a group), so here's my initial review/impression (accompanied by 3 stars), which got me quite a bit of grief back on my first listen: "I got Television's 'Marquee Moon', which has me a bit...meh feeling. I'm probably exposing my general musical illiteracy, but I've never heard of them before this, and even looking at the Wikipedia intro that YouTube Music provides for the albums, I'm still not much more the wiser, except to know that 'Marquee Moon' was a big departure from their earlier punk album(s). I feel badly saying this...but there's literally nothing exceptional-sounding in 'Marquee Moon' (but maybe that's because they were so influential that everything after has been influenced by them?). I did learn that the band's vocalist/guitarist Tom Verlaine dated Patti Smith, though!" I will likely get more grief from my group, but I'm sticking with the 3 star rating and general impression, although I *did* find the title track more engaging the second time around, as well as the dueling guitar work throughout. (And "Elevation" is such a weird song, sounding in some ways like Pink Floyd and clearly being an inspiration for the Cardigans' "Lovefool".) Interesting how Tom Verlaine and Frank Black sound remarkably similar; also interesting that they rejected Brian Eno (who is everywhere) as a producer. Kudos to them for being so influential, but just not really my thing.

I didn't really expect another Manic Street Preachers album (beyond "The Holy Bible"), given that their lyricist committed suicide not long after that album was released, but here you go. Definitely less hard-edged than "The Holy Bible", and I guess more commercially successful, but kind of disappointing for being a bit more generic-sounding without Richey Edwards exploring down the spiral. My favorites on this album are probably "Kevin Carter" and "Interiors" (in part for how both of them get into tragic human conditions), but nothing really grabbed me, to be honest. Too bad, too, because some of the songs have some interesting titles and accompanying perspectives (and some inspired by or written by Edwards), but I couldn't go beyond comparing this album to "The Holy Bible", mainly unfavorably; I wish they hadn't jumped so hard on the Britpop train.

Although I kind of expected a different style of music based on the album title, it's still an interesting slice of late 80s musical styling, giant shoulder pads and all (at least in the video). It's always disconcerting to realize how much slower the beats, rhythm and rhymes were in the 80s/90s (and earlier), at least compared to the more manic and accelerated 21st century beats. I guess the songs on this album might have played in clubs in the late 80s, but many of them seem pretty mellow for the club scene. "Holdin' on" and "Dance", though, seemed like the 2nd cousins to many Faithless songs, while "Feeling free" had interesting De La Soul vibes (but so painfully s-l-o-w). And of course there's the quintessential "Back to life", which seems strangely different than much of the rest of the album, but a true classic (and very entertainingly vintage video). Although it wasn't painful to listen to by any means, I'll admit I'm a bit mystified why this album made the cut for this collection. Perhaps simply because it was a strong debut album? The book seems to suggest this album single-handedly created/revived British soul, so I guess that's a factor too...

I was wondering when we'd get a Who album in this collection, and now I know. And quite a classic album, although given that there are 5 more awaiting us, I'm not sure whether this is the pinnacle of their discography, or just a waypoint. I've certainly heard most of the songs on this album many many times, and enjoyed them all to varying degrees ("Baba O'Riley" and "Won't get fooled again" perhaps the most, as well as "Behind blue eyes" despite its relentless narcissism, and probably "Bargain" the least of the lot). Of the ones I hadn't heard before, I enjoyed "Love ain't for keeping". It's remarkable, though, how few of the songs were new to me. I don't know much of The Who's history, so it was helpful to me--and also bizarre--to read about how most of the songs on this album came from an abandoned "Lifehouse" interactive futuristic rock-opera concept that Townshend dreamt up involving government-controlled "experience suits" and having audience members help direct the music of the opera as it unfolded. Perhaps not surprisingly, the fans who attended a couple of test runs "simply wanted the Who to play 'My Generation' and smash a guitar", and things unraveled from there. I'm kind of glad there are only remnants of this concept in the album, mainly the use of synthesizers, as it sounded like a really painful experience for everyone involved.

What a strange choice to include in this collection. I guess since it's a soundtrack to a movie that was never produced, and maybe more importantly it's an original piece by an artist/band, it can be included despite the general avoidance of soundtracks in this collection? (Which makes me wonder if they considered including either Peter Gabriel's "Passion" soundtrack or the great John Lurie soundtrack to "Get Shorty"?) Regardless, although I found it hard to really focus on music that's largely intended to be background to a movie's foreground, I enjoyed "Under wraps" and "Sounds from the big house" more than the others. (I also kind of enjoyed "Auto destruction", mainly because it made me think of Mr. Bungle's eponymous album, which could easily have been a soundtrack too, albeit a very very disturbed one.) I also enjoyed that sort of ironic/knowing film-noir vibe throughout. I appreciated learning a bit about Barry Adamson and his connection to Nick Cave as well as Magazine, and I also like it that he was eventually able to score actual soundtracks (like "Lost Highway"). But I'm not entirely convinced that I needed to listen to this before I die, frankly.

I've never heard of them, and I don't think I've heard them either, so that's always an interesting prospect. Not the most distinctive band in the world, I'll admit, but a decent sound overall, and I particularly appreciate how brisk and short nearly all of the tracks are. I think "Mr. Blues", "Omaha" and "Changes" were the highlights on this album for me. I can see the connection (style wise) to the Grateful Dead, which might be part of why I didn't really connect to this album (in much the same way I've never particularly enjoyed the Dead). Bummer for them that all the hype and Columbia's poor marketing kind of torpedoed their fate.

I'd kind of wondered when we'd get Liz Phair--and am a bit shocked that we only got one album by her, although I am belatedly realizing that I've always conflated her name with the Lilith Fair phenomenon--but I've never really enjoyed her music, unfortunately. It's a fine album, but it doesn't really do it for me. I thought her hit "Never said", "Soap star Joe" and "Flower" were probably the highlights of the overly long album. I almost regret having read the Wikipedia entry for this album, as it actually made me like both the album and Liz Phair *less* in the end. I have no idea who was involved in writing that entry, but it's incredibly confusing, poorly written, and doesn't really paint a very positive or thoughtful portrait of her. And I agree with the critics who challenge her claim that this album is "a song-by-song reply to the Rolling Stones' 1972 album "Exile on Main St." It just isn't that focused or interesting, I'd say. Sorry, Liz Phair!

Wow--first it's Liz Phair, now The Smiths. What's next in the litany of not-my-favorite alt/emo rock? (I'm not sure I want to know the answer, honestly, especially since I can see we have 2 more Smiths albums in our future...) This is definitely *not* to my taste, regardless of whether Morrissey is a certified jerk, although that certainly doesn't help. But on the positive side, I don't think I've actually heard any of this album, so it's all new to me. I was surprised that the title track was so...lively...I'll admit (although not quite sure why YouTubeMusic served up a version of "The Queen is dead" as a "film" that was double the length of the actual song and seems to have just crammed in "There is a light that never goes out" and "Panic" at the end, the latter of which was only released as a single, I think, and was the only song I recognized). I'm actually hard-pressed to find many (any?) songs on this album that I found all that enjoyable, sadly, which is a shame given how many accolades the album has gotten. (I'll also say that I prefer Chumbawumba's "Big mouth strikes again" to the Smith's, even though it's not actually a cover and is about Lenny Bruce.)

Well, now I'm halfway through the PJ Harvey albums in this collection (previous was her debut "Dry"), so that feels a bit like an accomplishment. And this one seems a bit more lively and interesting than "Dry", thankfully. I'm not sure why, exactly, but I don't find myself getting sucked into her music as much as I'd like (it may just be that there's not a lot of variety within an album, likely due to not really working with a full band), but I did enjoy "Big Exit" and "You said something" more than the others. (Her video for "A place called home" made me think of a VR game, "The Under Presents", although without the puzzle-solving aspect of needing multiple incarnations to proceed.) And while I didn't particularly enjoy the collaborations with Thom Yorke, I liked it that they worked together for a few of her songs, with "This mess we're in" providing a bit of that elusive variety.

This is now the third (and it appears final) Black Sabbath album in this collection, which feels like two too many. In many ways, I wish our Black Sabbath exposure had started and ended with "Paranoid"; that album leaves you wanting more, while this album and their debut makes you (or at least me) question whether even "Paranoid" was all that great of an album. And it is/was. This is not. It's not horrible--and "Supernaut", "St. Vitus dance" and "Under the sun" are solid BS songs--but much like their debut album, it's just not all that distinctive or memorable, even with Ozzy's fantastically distinctive voice and Tony Iommi's distinctive guitar style, and the somewhat odd interludes interspersed throughout the album. And that doesn't even touch all the crazy substance abuse and demented behavior during recording. I'm just glad they survived the experience, honestly. I don't feel like I can ding Black Sabbath for this, but I just discovered that there are *no* Ozzy Osbourne albums in this collection. This is almost inexcusable; how can we have so many truly mediocre albums (and I'm on the fence whether this album should be included in that category), and we don't get the pleasure of (at least) "Blizzard of Ozz"???? Bizarre, and so very sad. I try to accept what we get in this collection, flaws and all, but this is the closest I've come to feeling like the "1001 albums" collection has jumped the shark. I mean, millions of sports fans can't be wrong about "Crazy train", after all. :) (Not to mention the tragedy of living your whole life without hearing "Mr. Crowley" even once.)

I feel like I've seen several references to the Arctic Monkeys in various Wikipedia entries for other albums in this collection, so it's nice to get one of their albums. They sound familiar, so I'm guessing I've heard a few of their radio hits over the years, but this album is largely (completely?) new to me. They may not have a huge range, style-wise, but they seem and sound like a solid band, with fun songs, and elements of the White Stripes and maybe a bit of Franz Ferdinand too. I particularly enjoyed "Fake tales of San Francisco", "Dancing shoes" and "Red light indicates doors are closed". And the video for "The view from the afternoon" was very reminiscent of the movie "Whiplash" (in a good way). This is really an impressive debut album, and a really solid album on its own; also pretty impressive how they became so popular outside the regular label/studio route. I enjoyed this from start to finish, and I also really appreciated it that this is the only Arctic Monkeys album in the collection, which bumps this up to (at least) 4 stars.

I'll admit that my main (and perhaps only) familiarity with Devo is with "Whip It", which I listened to, and played tennis-racket-style air guitar to, repeatedly when I was probably 10 years old or so. (I'm not sure that song really has much in the way of guitars or guitar licks, but I sure could make that racket sing....) So this album is all new to me, and not quite as interesting as I'd hoped for. It seems impressively early for new-wave style music, and I enjoyed the song and video for their cover of "(I can't get no) Satisfaction", but most of the songs seem kind of...gimmicky...more than anything else. "Jocko Homo" gets a bit closer to the "Whip It" aesthetic I was imagining, but not quite, while "Gut feeling" is probably the most interesting song on the album (more punk than the rest). I like it that Brian Eno (everywhere) helped produce the album, although I do wonder if he was part of the sort of flat sound to the album? It certainly sounds as if Devo didn't enjoy working with him as much as they might have wanted to, and I'm glad they were able to get David Bowie to remix the album.

After getting the likes of Yes, ELP, ELO and other prog rockers, I'm not at all surprised to see Peter-Gabriel-era Genesis appear in the daily feed (and I now see we have two (2!) Genesis albums, unfortunately). I'm quite sure the band members enjoyed the whole stream-of-consciousness music and lyrics that seems to constitute the entirety of the genre, but it doesn't do much for me (and the opening track seemed to have this in spades, along with "Firth of fifth" and "The cinema show"). I enjoyed "I know what I like (in your wardrobe)" and "More fool me" more than the others, although that may not be saying much, I know. It *is* weird to hear Peter Gabriel in a different context than his solo career and musical evolution. And while I didn't enjoy the song (at all), I like it that "The cinema show" lyrics were inspired by T.S Eliot's "The Wasteland". And Phil Collins' drumming is quite good on this album. Although I doubt I would have enjoyed listening to a full set by the band when they toured the album, I must admit I'd have paid good money to see Peter Gabriel in "full costume with a helmet and shield representing the Britannia character" for some songs, and with a stocking over his head for "The battle of Epping Forest". The photo in the Wikpedia entry for this album is hilarious, but probably doesn't do justice to the actual event.

I had no idea there was a band named "Arrested Development" (or that they would have come long before the TV series) (or that they sued Fox for the name overlap). It's a fun album, and while they sort of sound (to me) like some other groups (at times Public Enemy, other times De La Soul, sometimes Rise Robots Rise, and others), they've put together a great collection of songs and they sound like they had fun making the album. In addition to the iconic "Tennessee", I also really enjoyed "Man's final frontier", the semi-cover "People everyday", and "Give a man a fish". (I also found "Mr. Wendal" kind of disturbing, in a sort of patronizing and utopian/naive way, but apparently it was well received at the time, as well as being highlighted by the "1001 Albums" reviewer.) A shame that their debut was also their pinnacle, and followup albums weren't as strong or well-received. But nice to have this album in this collection, and I'm really torn about whether it deserves 3 or 4 stars; there's so many filler tunes that it probably earns 3 stars, but the good songs were really enjoyable, so....

I remember getting this album after buying a later one ("Jazz From Hell") and reading a review that said that "Hots Rats" was his best album (along with "Uncle Meat"). I can definitely see why the reviewer said this about "Hot Rats" (not so sure about "Uncle Meat", though), but after hearing this album years ago, I realized that I'm simply not much of a Frank Zappa fan, much as I want to be. So while it's interesting to listen to it again, I remain bemused and largely indifferent. "Willie the pimp" is probably the best of the mercifully short playlist, in part simply because it has lyrics (and sung by Captain Beefheart no less), but also a pretty great jam. Sorry, Frank--your genius is wasted on me.

I *feel* like I've not only heard of this band before, but also that I might even own this album, yet I'm not entirely sure that's the case. Regardless, I really enjoyed it, especially the Gorillaz vibe (courtesy of Damon Albarn's presence and primary role in the project, but also with at least a couple of the other Gorillaz members participating). I liked nearly all of the songs, but particularly "History song", "Northern whale", "Nature springs" and "Three changes". It doesn't quite have the variety of, say, Gorillaz' "Demon Days" or "Plastic Beach", but the semi-concept-album approach of London life is intriguing, although at times a bit monochromatic. I also liked discovering that the collection actually has a number of Damon-Albarn-involved albums, mainly with a number of "Blur" albums; he's a really interesting artist/musican (to me, at least), and it's a nice counter-balance to the overweighted number of more classic artists and bands (although I'm not sure about having 3 different Blur albums, frankly, and bummed that there's only the one Gorillaz (debut) album).

As far as I know I've never heard of Turbonegro, nor heard anything from this album, a nice exposure to a late 90s album. They've definitely got a serious retro rock vibe going (maybe a bit metal? apparently punk roots too), which is kind of fun, and they're a pretty tight band. I'm not sure there are any really notable songs in the album (even their bonus track "Suffragette city" cover is kind of nondescript), but it's kind of a fun throwback listen, especially if you're out on the open road (which I wasn't). And based on other albums like this in the 1001 albums, I rightly guessed that they aren't American (Norwegian, it turns out), but clearly want to revive that later 80s very American rockin' sound. And they do it pretty well, I'd say. I'm not sure it necessarily deserves inclusion in the 1001-albums collection, but then again that's probably true of a lot of the albums.

It's hard to really separate Kanye West's sad mental health journey (and public persona) from his music, but taking this album out of this context is probably the best one can do. It's definitely more interesting and expansive than "The College Dropout" (listened to previously), and it has a few entertaining highlights -- "Dark Fantasy", "POWER", and "Hell of a life" (in part from the "Iron man" riff). The video/singles are also well-produced and entertaining ("Runaway" especially (didn't watch the whole 30-minute film, though) and also "Lost in the world", although "All of the lights" not so much). Much like "The College Droupout", it's waaay too long, with a number of very forgettable songs (and the latter half of "Blame game" is just downright unpleasant and tedious and offensive), but still a very solid album, if you can separate the person from the music (which I personally find tough, given how toxic he's been). The Wikipedia entry for this album feels like it might have been written by a very devoted Kanye West fan, as it rarely makes a lot of sense. Many of the sentences seem to start with one thought and end in the midst of another, with very little coherent in between. ("He elaborated that a minimum of 80 percent was genuine, with the remainder 'fulfilling a perception' for the public. West also insisted that he was not criticizing My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and instead failed to reach satisfaction, then openly revealed his idea of the truth." Or whatever.) But reading between the non-linear lines, it sounds like the production process was fairly tortured and excessive and expensive, which sounds about right. Kanye West put an entire fridge's worth into a blender, and I'm impressed with the strange, rich stew emerged.

It's probably not a great idea to subject anyone to Kanye West and then Courtney Love (Hole) right after each other, given how much their toxic and destructive personalities color their music. And I'm also disappointed that the collection has more than one Hole album, given how interchangeable it feels like their songs and albums are. But "Celebrity Skin" *does* have a few more radio-friendly hits than the aptly-named "Live Through This" (mainly the title track, but also "Malibu" and "Awful"), and I guess it counts for something that they seemed to progress into alt-rock more than grunge-ish on this album. Overall, it's a fine if overly long album, especially if you enjoy Hole's sound and style, which I don't particularly, although I did enjoy "Use once & destroy". Much like my experience listening to "Live Through This", I'm really surprised how they're not all that distinctive-sounding. But kudos to Love for the T.S. Eliot/Wasteland inspiration for the album, and sad that they tried to get Brian Eno to produce the album, and then tried for Billy Corgan and then settled for a guy who effectively sabotaged their longtime drummer. What a strange swan song for a band. (3)

Given this project's fascination with semi-obscure Scottish and Welsh artists, I figured it was just a matter of time before we got the Cocteau Twins, although I'm a bit surprised there are two of their albums in this collection, given how..niche...their sound is. I had a musician friend in high school who was absolutely obsessed with the band, and he played their weirdly ethereal music *all* the time (he was also obsessed with Stanley Jordan's two-handed guitar tapping, in addition to the standard death metal lineup, so it wasn't really 24/7 Cocteau Twins, even though it often seemed like it). I think this was more of their "Treasure" era music than this album, but it always felt like they were what The Cure kind of wanted to be if they didn't care about being accessible or popular. And even with "Heaven or Las Vegas", this still seems to be true, although perhaps more Cranberries-like than Cure-like, and there are definitely hints of more mainstream tunes ("Pitch the baby" a great example, also "Heaven or Las Vegas"), if you could only understand or even make out the lyrics amongst the lush wall of sounds (I'm really impressed that watching her lips in the videos doesn't seem to help *at all* in understanding what she's singing). I always enjoyed small bits of the Cocteau Twins back in the 80s, and I think that still holds true today.

I like this not-really-Beach-Boys sound a lot more than the original band, I'll admit. I know this album came out later than most of the Beach Boys' albums, but it still feels like it has more of an edge and a more instrument-focused perspective, both of which improve the listening experience (a lot). "River song" helps the album come out of the gates charging, and I also particularly enjoyed "Friday night" (especially the Pink-Floyd-esque intro) and "Pacific Ocean blues". Thankfully, there are only a few tracks too ersatz Beach-Boys for my taste; mainly "What's wrong" and "You and I". (Only a fellow Beach Boy could have listened to this album and pronounced "Dennis, that's funky! That's funky!" But I suppose Brian was right, comparatively speaking....) I'll admit to not knowing much about any of the Beach Boys, but reading about Dennis Wilson's life and early death is incredibly tragic. What a bummer that his far more interesting-sounding voice and style on this album was the product of a lot of substance abuse, exposure to messed up stuff like the Manson family, and a lot of mental health issues.

I never really know how to rate Guns N' Roses. I despised them with a passion when I was a teenager, but more from envy than anything else, and even then I understood what my friend saw (and idolized) in how impressive Slash was. This is clearly their signature album, and really impressive for being a debut, and it has so many permanently-popular songs on it that it's nearly a greatest hits album on its own. Except that the other songs, of which there are *far* too many, are forgettable and interchangeable. But it's hard to ignore what a strange and far-reaching influence this band had on the glam/metal/rock scene. So as much as I *still* don't really enjoy listening to them, I can't help but give them a 4-star rating. Welcome to the jungle indeed.

Well, quite a contrast to Guns N' Roses, I must say. I know Love was pretty popular back in the day, but this album at least doesn't seem to have aged very well, perhaps because it's all over the map stylewise, waaay too much flute, and a strange choice to devote half the album to one song. "Seven and seven is" is a truly interesting proto-surfer-punk-ish song, and "Stephanie knows who" has some promise, but that's not enough to justify an album (even one as considerately brief as it is). And all the shenanigans of the band trying to get out of the Elektra contracts doesn't really add to the mystery or mystique, I must say (but they definitely benefited from getting the Doors producer on this album, especially with "Revelation"). Given that we're also getting what seems to be universally considered Love's (sole) masterpiece, "Forever Changes", I wonder why this album is even here?

Like a few other bands in this collection, I have a hard time being fair or objective to REM, largely because a guy I knew (and thoroughly despised) in college was such a fanboy of this whiny-sounding college-town band. But the upside of this is that I really haven't heard much of REM beyond what played on the radio way back when, so nearly all of this album is new to me (except "Radio free Europe", and also has the benefit of being a debut album, when they hadn't quite honed the somewhat smug and whiny sound that I (unfairly) associate with them. On the other hand, given that there are four REM albums in this collection, I'm not really sure why this album was included, except for perhaps the fact that this is the first album for the world to hear REM's fairly distinctive sound and style. It seems like a fine album overall, and I enjoyed "Moral Circle" and "9-9" in particular. And I know it's not fair to rate them down simply because the project's editors decided to inundate us with a band that I happen to have an irrational dislike for.

I've never been a big fan of Depeche Mode, I'll admit, even though they're (to me) probably one of the most complete and talented members of the 80s New Wave synth sound. That said, I can't say how often "Personal Jesus" runs through my head, and I'm very glad to see that this album has that song, as it's one of my favorites (for reasons I can't really explain). There are also quite a number of impressively interesting videos accompanying the tracks on this album (especially "Halo", but also "Enjoy the silence" and the Pink-Floyd-inspired "Clean"), although the video for "Personal Jesus" makes me think that perhaps it's not as insightful a song than I always imagined it to be.... Judging alone by how many tracks made the radio rounds, this is a very solid album, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

It's kind of curious that this collection has the first and second album by Crosby Stills & Nash, and nothing else, mainly because these two albums seem somewhat interchangeable. When I started playing this album, in fact, I actually wondered if somehow I'd gotten the same album I'd listened to before, but then realized it was just that there were another bunch of radio hits on this album too (as well as a thankfully much smaller number of largely forgettable harmony-driven tracks). I *do* like it that Neil Young's influence can be heard and felt on this album, as there's definitely more instrumentation to many of the songs (compared to their Young-less debut album). And the radio hits remain both familiar and fun to listen to once again; especially "Teach your children" and "Carry on", but also "Our house" and to some degree "Woodstock". I also enjoyed "Almost cut my hair" as a surprisingly not-CSN-sounding song, and Young's "Helpless" sounds almost better on this album than his own releases. Overall, though, there's not much cohesion to the album, a product it seems of the way each band member recorded and composed on their own.

I've known the group's name for years (decades, I suppose), but as far as I know I've never listened to any of their albums, and I doubt I've heard much of their work on the radio (or at least the radio stations I've listened to). It's an impressively wide-ranging album, and the album is tight and well-produced, albeit too long, and I'm not sure I can really agree with "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" highlight of "Water" as an amazing track. I was also impressed at how the early small intermission-like tracks have some of the more interesting range of styles in this album ("!!!!" has some Fishbone-inspired guitar licks/sounds, and I enjoyed the spoken word "WAOK (Ay) rollcall"). I particularly enjoyed the track/video "The seed (2.0)", definitely a highlight of the album; and also the semi-Public-Enemy-style "Thought @ work", and the pounding "Quill", and I largely enjoyed the jazz-poetry-experiment of "Something in the way of things (in town)". It's not really my taste musically, so I'm not sure I can really judge whether this was as ground-breaking as the Wikipedia entry seems to suggest, and it does seem weird that the project didn't have The Roots' previous album ("Things Fall Apart") given that album's breakthrough success (and more well-known status), but I *do* like the title and the album cover, dripping with irony.

I should probably be (and am) embarrassed to say that the only Carole King music I'm familiar with is the soundtrack she did for the Maurice Sendak animated "Really Rosie" series. This album is clearly not in that vein, and rightfully so. And I sense that this is probably one of her best albums, or I hope so since it's the only Carole King album in the collection. Unfortunately, it doesn't really do much for me, probably in part because I didn't grow up hearing her music, although I did enjoy "Smackwater Jack". Ironically, when I heard her two biggest hits on the album ("I feel the earth move" and "It's too late"), I immediately thought they were kind of weak, easy-listening covers of songs by other songwriters. I didn't really enjoy those songs on this album, but they're both good songs in other artists' hands, so I give her lots of credit for that. And that's true of many other songs on this album she wrote or co-wrote--especially "You've got a friend", "(You make me feel like) A natural woman" and "Will you love me tomorrow". I guess she's a singer's songwriter, as evidenced by all the stars participating on this album. Although there's nothing wrong with this album, it's just not to my taste, and I'm really glad it's been so incredibly successful over the years. It makes me wish my parents had this album around when I was a kid, as I'm sure I would have an infinitely greater appreciation for it now.

What an impressive debut album! I know there are other classics from their later albums, but this has a surprising number of hits that have withstood the test of time (regardless of their politics). My favorites on the album are also the ones I've heard many many times before: "Free bird", "Gimme three steps", "Simple man", and "Tuesday's gone" (ironic that the album producer nearly killed "Simple man" before it was even recorded). I don't think I've previously heard the remainder, but there are a few good ones in there too. The leading track "I ain't the one" was surprising how much it sounded like ZZ Top (as in, ZZ Top was clearly inspired by this song, not the other way around). Pro tip: although it's a better choice than some of the chain restaurants in the area, Skynyrd's in Kennesaw, Georgia, is a middling-at-best restaurant, even if the band *did* (maybe?) play there way back when....

I've often wondered how much better this album would have been if it had been made five years earlier, or ten years later, and avoided the growing pains of the 80s in the process (too much sax at times, too many keyboards, drum-machine-sounding beats, weird experiments with semi-easy-listening interludes, and those ubiquitous headbands). But despite that, this is still a really entertaining Dire Straits album, with a surprising number of radio hits on it. My favorites of the lot are the mainly the hits, especially the title track (whose video rivals some of the war imagery in Pink Floyd's "The Wall") as well as the iconic "Money for nothing" (whose video doesn't age as well but remains MTV's launchpad, and I never knew that was Sting singing "I want my MTV"!); the video for "Walk of life" is a great 80s sports nostalgia visit. "Your latest trick" seems like a strange coda for their earlier and far superior "Private investigations", and the "So far away" video is a bit puzzling, in that it's fun to see the band having a great time playing and recording a classic of theirs, but also very incongruous to have everyone smiling as they sing about the frustrations of a long-distance relationship... A few of the other songs on this album seem surprisingly disposable, given how strong the good ones are (looking at you especially, Buffett-like "Why worry"). But they're not frustrating enough to downgrade from 4 to 3 stars, and I really enjoyed "The man's too strong", even with the Paul-Simon-"Boxer" sounds. Mark Knopfler has a great and distinctive guitar style that I've always appreciated, and it shines in places on this album. I'm also glad to see there's another Dire Straits album in the collection, as it feels criminal to not get my all-time favorite Dire Straits song "Sultans of swing" (and one of my favorite songs period). And I'm really surprised how acidic the early reviews were for this album (especially UK critics); I mean, the 80s sound wasn't kind to anyone, but it's not *that* awful....

I'll admit I've never been a 60s/70s jazz rock/fusion afficionado, or fan for that matter, so this album doesn't really do a lot for me. But I can see how "Birdland" became an instant classic (at least in certain circles), and I also enjoyed "Teen Town", both for brevity and the lead bass. It's also nice to get exposed to some Jaco Pastorius, as I've heard much more about him than anything *by* him, and I can see how much Weather Report benefited from his participation. And while I can see connections in this to music I've enjoyed listening to from decades ago (Jeff Beck, Al Dimeola, even some (later) Chick Korea and Herbie Hancock), I'm not sure I'd come back to this album, especially with all those awkward-sounding synth sections.

I was excited to see a Cream album pop up in this collection, and I also liked the somewhat-obscure-political-reference-sounding album title. But then came away feeling like I had *far* too outsized expectations for both the first-ever-superband and their album (and very disappointed to find out the "Disraeli" reference had nothing to do with the Right Honorable Mr. Benjamin). It's hard (maybe impossible) to find fault with "Sunshine of your love", of course, but that seems to be it on this album; the opening track starts you off on a bad foot, and then there's this weird alien insertion of "Sunshine" to blow your little mind, and then the remainder of the album is back to sad, occasionally-falsetto 60s generic rock, with a small exception for "Tales of brave Ulysses" and "SWLABR". How can the sum of several (well, three) incredibly talented musicians equal quasi-psychedelic-rock mush? Maybe it's because they had to record the album in a hurry due to expiring visas, or maybe just that veering away from their blues wheelhouse ran them on the rocks of mediocrity. A shame too that this is the only Cream album in the collection (although maybe it's a blessing?).

This one definitely comes straight out of left field--I've never heard of her/him or this album, and I'm quite confident I've never heard any of these songs before. The music in many of the tracks doesn't really do all that much for me--a bit too semi-retro-80s-pop for my taste--but the videos are absolutely hypnotizing, largely from her/his physical strength and presence and an incredible variety of settings to "Comme si", "Girlfriend" and "The Walker" (not as much with "5 dollars"). I actually preferred the music more on the non-video tracks, especially "Doesn't Matter" and "Damn (what must a woman do)" (I kept hearing "what must a puma do"...), but I also enjoyed the seamless Franglais throughout, although I'll admit I chose not to listen to many of the French version of the songs. And kudos to Chris/Rahim C Redcar for earning 4 Victoires de la Musique!

This is actually my second listen to this album in this project, as I got it before joining a group. Sadly, I didn't leave any notes from my first time, but did give it a 5, I think largely on the weight of its reputation. Regardless, it's a fun listen, and while it's far too long (and occasionally too winding), it's an incredibly solid debut album (and curiously her only solo album), with a great mix of Fugees sounds and her own style and distinctive voice. I particularly enjoyed "To Zion", "Doo wop" (and the awesome split-screen 60s/90s video) as well as the very Fugees-inspired "Forgive them Father" and the fun and creative video for "Everything is everything". I suspect if she had been more selective in the track list, I'd have probably given it 5 stars again, but I guess the second listen showed me some room for improvement on a very solid album....

Hm. This is the first of 5 Byrds albums in this collection, which sets a pretty high bar for each album. And I don't think this really cuts it, despite their wholehearted embrace of country in this semi-concept album. I didn't particularly enjoy most of the album, sadly, mainly because this isn't outstanding country music (even if it's far out of their wheelhouse, except for Gram Parsons, of course), but there's nothing wrong technically with their playing, and the highlights are probably "You ain't goin' nowhere" (Dylan cover, curiously), "You don't miss your water" and "You're still on my mind", with "One hundred years from now" and "Nothing is delivered" the only country-rock-sounding songs on the album (too bad, as a whole album of that might have been a lot more interesting). I can only hope that the next 4 Byrds albums are more interesting, and I feel for poor Gram Parsons, trying so hard to crusade for country rock, and burning out of the Byrds in the process. And the Wikipedia entry makes for a fascinating soap opera of anxiety and competing egos, and an eviscerating time in Nashville.

A curious choice for a Queen album for this collection, given how many radio hits Queen has had, and yet I don't think *any* of the songs on this album count as one of them. It definitely *sounds* like Queen--almost more princess than queen, as they struggle to emerge from a prog rock orientation--and that's always nice to hear. My favorites were "The loser in the end" (mainly because Taylor's compositions are so very un-Queen-like and yet still rocking) and the proto-Bohemian "The march of the black queen", but the rest is kind of forgettable, sadly, and poor Brian May's side ("White side") is actually painful, although fun to hear May sing lead vocals on "Some day one day". I also really wanted to like "The fairy feller's master-stroke", mainly for the backstory of this weird/sad/ornate painting, but the song wasn't for me. I'm not really sure this particular Queen album is must-hear-before-you-die-worthy, frankly, although I certainly wouldn't go as far as Christgau's eviscerating and hilarious summary of the album as "wimpoid royaloid heavyoid android void." (I also can't agree with Nikki Sixx's evaluation that "Queen II will knock your dick in the dirt every time"....)

I always appreciate it when this project throws up a name I've never heard of or heard, so this is much appreciated. And an interesting singer-songwriter album--she has a strong voice and she and David Rawlings have a great acoustic style. The title track and "I dream a highway" are particularly good, with a haunting style and nice guitar work (and amazing that "Revelator" was their mic test version); I also enjoyed finding out that "I want to sing that rock and roll" was recorded at Ryman Auditorium (to an appreciative audience). I do wish there was more variety across the album, more from a sound and style perspective than the range of lyrics, I suppose, and I definitely preferred the tracks without as much banjo-playing, as those tended to feel shoehorned into a more bluegrass style that isn't quite as interesting/unique to me. (Although I have several albums I've enjoyed that veer into that territory, I'll admit.) I'm not at all surprised to read that she worked extensively with T-Bone Burnett and also played a role in the music for "O Brother Where Art Thou", as this album fits well into those styles, but also somewhat different; I'm reminded in some ways of artists like Daniel Lanois or Lucinda Williams or even Ollabelle. If there were more tracks like "April the 14th part 1" and "Everything is free", and fewer like "My first love" or "Dear Someone", I'd have definitely upgraded her to 4 or 5 stars (I do wish I could give a half-star more in this case, though). But I don't think that's really her/their focus, I'll admit.

I enjoy listening to The Who on an occasional basis, and enjoyed the previous album I listened to in this collection ("Who's Next"), but this really didn't do much for me, despite all the accolades as it being one of the best live albums of all time. I also feel like there's simply too many Who albums in this project (5 total), and this definitely doesn't need to be there. I didn't listen to the whole Leeds/Hull playlist from later releases of this album, so maybe it gets better when you get the whole concert, but aside from hearing their enjoyable single "Substitute" I didn't really find much of the album distinctive or particularly interesting or even all that well-recorded, although "Shakin' all over" is probably the closest you get to getting a feel for how good their live shows were, and moments of the extended "My generation" are fun. I guess you really *did* have to be there, sadly.

It's kind of hard for the Eagles to top "Hotel California", and while this is a solid debut album, it's definitely not as consistently good or as interesting as their much later album (which I had the (mis)fortune of already hearing in this collection); I guess Joe Walsh helped them create a more distinctive sound? Either way, their radio hits on this album are all nice to revisit, although I'd kind of forgotten how subdued everything was from their early years (even "Witchy woman" is pretty mellow); it kind of reminds me of how different earlier Fleetwood Mac was than with "Rumours". And the new-to-me songs are fine but nothing spectacular; "Chug all night" is a particularly odd song, although a bit heavier than most of the other tracks, which is a nice change of pace, if only they could have chosen more interesting lyrics, and "Earlybird" is an interesting direction that they (perhaps wisely) didn't pursue long-term. I know this has been a popular album over the years, but I kind of wonder whether Gleen Fry really achieved his goal that "We just didn’t want to make another limp-wristed L.A. country-rock record"?

Aside from their radio hits--and really only "Call me", "One way or another", and "Heart of glass"--I don't know that I've ever really listened to *anything* by Blondie, and certainly not a full album. I can totally see how this album would represent for Blondie-devotees their best album, and I enjoyed discovering that there was more range in their arsenal than the first few songs on the album implied. "I know but I don't know" and to some degree "Will anything happen" even seem to display their NYC underground roots, a nice touch. (I also thought it was funny to have a few retro tracks like "Sunday girl" peppered throughout.) The two highlights for me on this album are the unsettling song (and video) "Picture this", and the Robert-Fripp-accompanied "Fade away and radiate". But I also found I couldn't really get into this album, although I *really* appreciated how snappy the song lengths were. And the Wikipedia entry is a fascinating slow-burn evisceration by the producer Mike Chapman of every aspect of the band, from talent to lyrics to work ethic. By the end you feel badly for the band, but it all rings true to some degree. Regardless, this is clearly the most complete album by the band and an interesting intersection of their past and future, even if it didn't really do a lot for me personally.

I feel like I've run across her name plenty of times over the years, yet never had a feel for what she sounds like, or even whatever genre (or two) she inhabited. And yet when I listened to this album, I realized that (a) I've heard a few of her tunes on the radio (yet none from this album, curiously, and really only "Luka" sticks with me), and (b) she remains somewhat muddled in my mind, mixed in with all these other somewhat anodyne 80s/90s folkish singer/songwriters. I think the latter problem is largely because she doesn't have a very powerful voice (at least on this album), and seems comfortable with keeping her perspective and involvement at a very long arm's length. And I know it's not really fair to criticize an aesthetic that permeates 80s music (especially singer/songwriter music), but I really wish she'd been able to avoid the awkward rhyming cadence that seems to permeate a lot of the album (worst of all on the opening track "Cracking" and the pseudo-edgy closing track "Neighborhood Girls", but rarely absent from much of the album). I guess she helped pave the way for later, and much more interesting singer/songwriters, but what a shame that this collection has this album yet nothing by Toni Childs, whose debut album "Union" (1988) wipes up "Suzanne Vega" with a vengeance.

Well, that's another Deep Purple album behind us now (only one more to go). :) I actually think this album is better in some ways than "Machine Head", at least in terms of consistency across the album, but it doesn't have anything to compare with "Smoke on the water", and it doesn't have the bizarre production storyline, and it has waaay too much noodling. But it's brief, I'll say that.

I really enjoy listening to Beck, so this was a nice treat. And while I was mystified by the presence of the previous Beck album I listened to ("Sea Change"), I'm not at all surprised to see this album. Even though I don't own this album, I feel like I've heard nearly all of the songs on it before, and enjoyed all of them (the only ones I didn't really recognize were "Earthquake weather", "Broken drum" and the last three songs). I particularly enjoyed listening *and* watching "E-Pro", "Girl", "Black tambourine" and "Hell yes", as he seems to have consistently creative and entertaining videos to songs that are already fun to listen to (the ASCII-art nature of "Black typewriter" was particularly cool, as were the MAD-inspired fold-ins in "Girl"; bummer that he had a spinal injury filming "E-Pro"). What a nice contrast to his previous album "Sea Change", and a great return to form. And a lot of really interesting contributors to various songs, including the funny selection of Christina Ricci on "Hell yes". And what a pleasure to listen to an album that was enjoyable from start to finish. (5)

It certainly seems inevitable that there'd be some Aerosmith lurking in this collection, and given the number of hit singles on this album, "Pump" seems pretty logical (although I wish I hadn't noticed that there are 3 Aerosmith albums in the project; that pretty much exceeds my Aerosmith saturation point by a factor of two). This is a solid album, especially for those who enjoy their style and Tyler and company's pretty distinctive style, and all those radio hits elevate this from 3 to 4 stars, I'd say. And despite some really dated and cringeworthy videos, it's also impressive how well Aerosmith pivoted from their classic hard rock sound to a more glam-rock focus. No awards for interesting music or lyrics, sadly--and I'm not even sure you can make an exception for "Janie's got a gun", although that's probably the closest we'll get to social commentary from them--but I'm not sure anyone really expects that from Aerosmith, especially on their 10th studio album....

If we're only getting one Parliament album in this collection (and it appears we are), then what a most excellent choice. (Technically we get more George Clinton with a couple of Funkadelic albums, but Parliament has its own magic, I'd say.) From start to finish, this album has a great, mostly mellow funk groove, and a fun listen especially with headphones. And the album cover is icing on the cake. It's a shame that this doesn't have my favorite Parliament song, "Chocolate city", nor my second favorite, "Get up for the down stroke", but you can't get everything, I suppose. And it was fun to hear a few new-to-me Parliament songs, although the endless farting in "Night of the Thumpasorus peoples" was a bit much.

Try as I might, I really don't enjoy The Smiths, and that's not even accounting for Morrissey's horribleness. Consequently, I'm more than a little annoyed to see that we somehow managed to get three of their four albums in this collection, and then four Morrissey albums as well. Good for diehard fans of Morrissey, excruciating for everyone else (or at least me). I guess this album belongs in this collection more than the previously heard "The queen is dead", given all the radio hits on this album, but I just can't get into *any* of the music, I'm afraid, and what wasn't a radio hit is eminently forgettable. Or I hope I can forget it...

I'm not very familiar with Dylan's impressively massive discography, so most of this album is new to me (with the exception of "Tangled up in blue" and "Shelter from the storm", and maybe "Simple twist of fate"). I like it that the songs seem more personal than much of what I associate with Dylan, although I'm not sure why he protested so much that the songs weren't "confessions" or about his experience. His strength as a songwriter is clearly on full display here, but the music itself isn't all that interesting or inspiring, and it's hard to disagree with Mike Bloomfield's assessment when Dylan toured him through the album: "They all began to sound the same to me; they were all in the same key; they were all long." I can tell this is a seminal album for Dylan, and a few of the songs on this album are really transcendent (mainly the ones I'd heard before), but the rest are frustrating to me as a non-Dylan-fan, as they could have been much more interesting if they hadn't been rushed through production (with the exception of "Meet me in the morning"). That said, I suspect giving this only four stars will land me in Dylan jail... :)

Too...much...PJ Harvey...in...this...collection. But at least there's only one more to go now, so that's nice. As with the other albums I've heard already ("Dry" and "Stories from the city, stories from the sea"), the tracks are just too flat and spare to do much for me, unfortunately, although this album is at least not nearly as dry as "Dry", likely thanks to Steve Albini's role as a producer. (I was also glad *not* to read any quotes from Albini about PJ Harvey or the album, given how Albini unfairly eviscerated the Pixies when he produced "Surfer Rosa". And it's interesting how there's a Pixies-like feel to this album, likely due to Albini's recording style.) I'm not sure any of the tracks really spoke to me, although both "50ft Queenie" and "Man-size" had a little more life than many of them (unfortunately the videos were both strangely *un*-entertaining). And it's always nice to hear a Bob Dylan cover, part of my quest to find the best Dylan covers out there (although her "Highway 61 revisited" doesn't quite make the cut, it's definitely a creative version). Neither of those things, though, offset the lengthy dirge quality of the remainder of the album.

It's funny how the opening chords to the lead track "Love vigilantes" sounds *so* much like The Smiths/Cure/Morrissey; I had to double-check I'd opened the right album for the selection of the day. Thankfully, Sumner's voice isn't quite like those bands, and the rest of the album is much more New-Order-y (for good and bad), although I was totally reminded of Yaz and then Dead or Alive ("You spin me round") in the opening chords of the last song on the album ("Face up"). Even though I feel like I've heard New Order a lot on the radio back in the 80s, I'm not actually sure I've ever heard any of the songs on this album. Their sound is somewhat distinctive (at least dating from their transition to the synth-heavy dance-pop that's on this album), but they've never been a favorite of mine, so this is only passably interesting as a blast from the past. (Personally, I'd likely (slightly) prefer Depeche Mode or OMD to these guys, but at least it's not Pet Shop Boys or Duran Duran, I suppose. And kudos to them for having real bass and guitar playing, at least.) Curious that the video and single versions of both "The perfect kiss" and "Sub-culture" are quite different sounding than the album version. I had high hopes for the video for the former, as it was directed by Jonathan Demme, but it's remarkably bland and uninteresting, sadly. I'm not entirely sure why we have two New Order albums in this collection, as it seems like they're kind of a one-trick pony, but trying to figure out the selection method is an exercise in futility.

It's funny how I've heard the name "Notorious B.I.G." so much over the years, but as far as I know I've never heard anything by him, and don't actually know Biggie Smalls' story at all (although I guess I might have known he got killed right before his second album was released). Not the most promising start to the album between the endless f-bombs on "Intro" and plenty of n-words throughout, but I suppose that's largely par for course for 90s rap/hip-hop, particularly East Coast hip-hop, as depressing as it is to hear and watch the glamorizing of drugs, violence and sexism, although I do appreciate it that occasionally you get the darker side of it all on this album, and you definitely get a sense that Biggie Smalls experienced a lot of what he sings about. Interesting story-telling on several of the tracks, especially "Gimme the loot", the title track "Ready to die", and "Respect". Overall, though, this is far too long for what you get, especially for a debut album. I'm glad to have finally heard it, but I doubt I'd revisit this, just based on my personal music tastes. (It reminds me of how I read this amazing review for E-40's "Charlie Hustle: Blueprint of a Self-Made Millionaire", went out and bought it, and then listened to it exactly once.)

This is all new to me (band and album), which I (usually) appreciate from this collection. And quite a contrast to the album from the day before ("Ready To Die" from The Notorious B.I.G.), despite coming out in the same year. From their opening track through most of the album, it feels like some sort of strange Elvis Costello/60s garage band/Pulp mashup with the occasional bit of grunge thrown in too. An odd combination, but it works surprisingly well, and most of their videos are weirdly manic and entertaining, especially their hit single "Alright" (also "Caught by the fuzz" and "Mansize rooster", less so for "Lose it", "Lenny" and "Time"). I also liked the energy of "Strange ones", and it certainly feels/looks like they enjoy playing together, channeling a sort of teen vibe in a surprisingly un-jaded way. I also loved the bassist's description of the people who lived/hung out on Cowley Road in Oxford and who inspired "I'd like to know" and "Strange ones": "There's a lot of people around Oxford who are real spliffheads and that, who go and lie down in Port Meadow, but I'm not really sure about them. I'm not really sure that they're individuals: they're part of a much larger thing."

Although I'm neither well-versed or particularly into a lot of 60s rock, I like it that (a) the album cover reminds me of a Ralph Steadman illustration, and (b) Jeff Beck participated heavily in this album, and (c) they went with a truly quirky album title (although I now discover that it's not really the official title of the album, sadly). An interesting(ish) mix of 60s blues/rock fare with the occasional foray into skiffle-sounding stuff and then (Beatles-inspired?) Eastern instruments and tunings. Not a lot of distinctive stuff here, but my favorite tracks are probably "Rack my mind", "Hot House of Omagararshid" (particularly the US version with a much more prominent Jeff Beck solo), and "He's always there". A shame we didn't get any Yardbirds music on this album with Jimmy Page *and* Jeff Beck playing together, although I kind of cheated and listened to the 1983 reissue of this album with a (mono) version of the dynamic duo's "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago", which wasn't quite as mind-blowing as I'd hoped....

I actually got this album a long time ago from this project (pre-group-enrollment), and while it's not my first (or 2nd or even 25th) choice for an album to listen to again within a year, I'm kind of glad I get a chance to actually review it (I only left a star rating, and an unfair 2 stars at that). For one, I'm a bit shocked this was already their 8th studio album by 1983, and even more shocked that they were only halfway through their studio album output. I'm also impressed at how many of the songs from this album stayed on the radio for a long time afterwards. And while they've never been on my list of great bands, this album is a pretty good example of how well they pivoted in the 80s to create a sound and shtick that kept them popular album after album for decades afterwards. The videos for their singles are all hilariously dated in so many ways, but with the exception of "TV dinners" they also have an impressive continuity between them (I now discover that the three videos were all produced by Tim Newman and have many of the same actors) and capture the very odd contrast of sounds and styles of the trio, and especially these days it's striking how apolitical they managed to be, especially since I'd guess they were more southern-fried than SoCal lefties. I'm pretty sure I'd never heard most of the other (non-single) tracks on the album, but some of them were pretty interesting; "I need you tonight" sounds a lot like an Eagles song, although there are bits of the distinctive ZZ Top sound interspersed in it, and "Thug" has an interesting bass-line and beat to it (not too many lyrics, though). It looks like we'll also get their album "Tres Hombres", and while I'm not sure we really need *two* ZZ Top albums in this collection (even if the earlier one likely has much more of their boogie blues roots), this one definitely captures the 80s ZZ Top sound surprisingly well. (And I love it that Mark Knopfler tried (pretty successfully) to reproduce Billy Gibbons' trademark guitar sound on Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" (and pretty successfully), but Gibbons never replied or helped him out, but acknowledged later that Knopfler more or less nailed it.)

Given how many references to this album are peppered through the other Wikipedia entries for other Beach Boys albums in this collection, I knew it was just a matter of time before we landed the apparently legendary "Pet Sounds". I was hoping it would be a revelation, or at least the album that would help me understand the widespread obsession with the band, but alas I remain ignorant and unworthy (and utterly floored by how voluminous the Wikipedia entry is--I suspect this may actually be the longest entry we'll get from all the albums in the collection). I hadn't heard most of the songs from this album, and I'd be hard-pressed to distinguish them from each other, although I do recognize that there's quite a bit less beach and cars on the album, but plenty of girls/women. I also found the sole more-familiar tune a bit...unsettling, I guess. Listening to "Wouldn't it be nice" this time around had me wondering exactly how old the band members were, as it sounded like they were kind of fantasizing about being early teenagers, or worse yet fantasizing about being *with* very under-aged teenager-ish girls. I'm very confident they didn't mean to insinuate that, but it feels like a *lot* of Beach Boys songs are trapped in a horrible mid-teens amber, never moving forward or branching out (and I know that generalization may not exactly apply as much to this album). I'd guess at least some of the Boys also felt similarly trapped, especially as the band disintegrated over the years and Brian Wilson floated in and out. I'll give them credit (or maybe mainly Brian Wilson, since he seems to have felt that this was a solo album) that this album had a lot of Beatles-inspired music arrangement, so there's a bit more variety in the songs than just harmonies and organ/keyboard surf sounds. Regardless, despite Brian Wilson's hope that this would be "the greatest rock album ever made", I just couldn't get into much of it at all. I'm sure it's blasphemy to give it only three stars, but I was close to just doling out two stars, but "Sloop John B" singlehandedly saved it from that fate. And now, only one more Beach Boys album to go ("Surf's Up")--yay!

I've enjoyed various Tom Waits albums and TV/movie appearances over the years, so it's nice to get him in this collection, even if what I've heard before is *much* more recent than this album. I'm not at all surprised that in many ways he sounded much the same in 1977 as he did in the 90s or 2000s (more gravelly as the years passed). Given that it appears there are five (5!) Tom Waits albums in this project, though, I do wish this wasn't quite as long as it is, but it's still an interesting experiment. If I hadn't read up on the album in Wikipedia, I wouldn't have realized that this was recorded in a studio, albeit one with a bar, tables, invited guests and an opening strip show to set the mood. (I love how the producer described the experience as "It was like Allen Ginsberg with a really, really good band.") I particularly enjoyed "Eggs and sausage" and "Warm beer and cold women". That said, I found it hard to appreciate either the music or Waits' semi-spoken-word lyrics. It sets an interesting mood, but I kept realizing that I was acting like those annoying customers at a jazz lounge who barely register the music as they try to have a conversation with a tablemate. Not at all fair to the band members or to Tom Waits, all of whom are talented musicians. This may be a good exemplar of Waits' early career, but it's too long and probably too much Waits for this collection (given that there are four more albums by him).

I've never heard of them nor heard them before, and while it's not earth-shattering it's entertaining and oddly eclectic. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say that this album was "perhaps the most widely adventurous album" of 1974, but then again I don't know 1974 music very well, and there's certainly more range on this album than the opening track would suggest (although I think "The Wall Street shuffle" is probably their best on this album, closely followed by the last song "Oh Effendi"). I liked the hints of Elton John (mainly in the "Worst band in the world"), Simon & Garfunkel or maybe just Simon (mainly with "Hotel"), maybe a bit of early Queen ("Silly love" and "Baron Samedi") and some bits of Yes/ELP/Genesis (especially with "Somewhere in Hollywood", although it's mainly just some weird prog cabaret nonsense (so maybe *exactly* Yes/ELP/Genesis), Billy Joel ("Oh Effendi") and others in various songs, but it often felt a bit like a novelty album as they ping-pong from genre to genre. I *am* surprised that we didn't get one of their albums with a major hit (like their instantly recognizable "I'm not in love"), but maybe this had the right kind of medley for the book's editors? Reading about how they created and funded their Strawberry Studios explains a lot about this album, though. Apparently they convinced a couple of bubblegum-pop producers to use their studio for three months straight and use them as session musicians, and they churned out dozens of apparently horrid songs with random titles and band names, and were able to upgrade the studio with the proceeds. It feels a bit like they never quite got out of that mode in making "Sheet Music".

Despite hearing and reading plenty about this album when it came out, I'm pretty sure I never actually heard any of this album, even the notorious "F*** da police". Speaking of which, it's fascinating how much controversy that song created in the police community and in the press back when this album got released (in Seattle at least), and how much talk there was of preventing album sales to protect police community relations, especially given the explosion of Crips- and Bloods-related gangs all along the West Coast and elsewhere. Looking back in 2024, there's something innocent about the controversy and reaction to this album, but also depressing how little has changed in so many ways. I think it's safe to say that this album didn't stir the pot as much as show a mirror. (I will say, though, that the reputation of this album made me more nervous than I probably needed to be about going to an NFL game in LA's Coliseum in the early 1990s, as I vaguely and erroneously thought the Coliseum was either in Watts or Compton.) I had higher hopes for this album than what I experienced, but it's not a bad album; it's also not all that varied or insightful (although "Express yourself" has a nice almost-De-La-Soul-like vibe), and some songs are just embarrassingly vapid ("Parental discretion iz advised" and "I ain't tha 1" come to mind). I wish that this album was less glamorous-West-Coast-gang-vibe and more aligned with the likes of Public Enemy's searing lyrics, but it is what it was. Several of their members--especially Dr. Dre and Ice Cube--have certainly followed a much longer arc from their roots in NWA, and became more interesting musically as they went solo or on to other groups. (Although I also feel sad seeing Ice Cube's trajectory as he spins further down the conspiracy spiral.)

Given the weird obsession in this project with multiple albums by various artists that probably don't deserve so many, I am utterly floored by the fact that this is the only solo Eric Clapton album. And while I feel like rewarding this possible oversight with 4 stars, in part because it's a solid album showcasing Eric Clapton's adopted sound, and of course his ever-popular cover of "I shot the sheriff", I now realize that we get other Eric Clapton solo efforts under Derek and the Dominoes ("Layla"), which really was all we needed and is really a stronger album than this one, which reminds me more of James Taylor than anything else. And too bad that "Let it grow" really *does* have a "Stairway to heaven" vibe (lite). So three it is!

Argh--I have *no* idea why this album is in this collection, except perhaps that she became famous as the voice on "The girl from Ipanema"? She doesn't seem like a very strong singer, she's not a songwriter (or at least for these songs), and the songs aren't really all that interesting, even with the samba/bossanova take. And seemingly confirming the weirdness of this selection, the Wikipedia entry and even the book's entry for this album doesn't provide more than lukewarm interest in the album. Even though it's not really a fair comparison, I feel like since we haven't had to listen to Mrs. Miller's take on other people's songs, why do we have to listen to Astrud Gilberto's? They both rose to fame on the same song, and arguably Mrs. (Elva) Miller sold more records (but I'm very thankful that we won't be getting any of her albums).

I'm not sure I can say I enjoyed this album, but I really appreciate it that this project tuned me into the weird world of Pere Ubu and its avant-garage. (I'd rate this album up there with Laibach, Deerhunter, and John Martyn as a band and music-style that was completely unexpected and deceptively original.) It's hard to say that any of the tracks are favorites of mine, although "Laughing" and"Real world" kind of stuck in my brain for a while, and nearly all of the song titles are intriguing, even when the song itself didn't live up to its potential (here's looking at you "Sentimental journey"). David Thomas' voice is pretty distinctive, and the Allen Ravenstine's keyboard/synthesizer effects are equally odd and memorable (definitely contributing to the "avant" part of their garage). If nothing else, this album seems waaay ahead of its time musically, although I'm not sure there are many other bands or albums that ever really sounded like this, past or present. Thanks, 1001 Albums! (And thanks too for a nice review of the album, as Wikipedia's entry is abysmally terse and unhelpful.)

I'm not sure if Chris Robinson's misophonia-inducing voice prevented me from ever noticing back in their heyday how much the Black Crowes sound remarkably similar to Aerosmith, mixed maybe with a bit of Rod Stewart. But listening to this album nearly 25 years later, and far removed from their ever-present rotation on the radio, the similarity seems pretty striking (to me, at least). And thankfully his voice isn't as grating as it once was. I'm not sure I can really go so far as to say it's a good album, and the videos to their singles are appallingly uninteresting, but it's also not a bad album overall. Could they use more interesting lyrics? Yes. More varied music on the album? Yes. A more talented video producer? Absolutely. But hey, it's their debut album, and getting so many singles with so much radio play is an impressive accomplishment for *any* album. I should probably give this four stars, but my ambivalence sadly runs too deeply for that (not to mention my visceral reaction to Chris Robinson's voice). If I could give a half-star extra, though, I would, simply for the fact that they got fired from their tour with ZZ Top because of a tirade against Miller beer.

I suspect we won't get too many artists or bands that have had 19 studio albums behind their name (especially by the year 2000), so that in itself is impressive. And this is an interesting album, at least for someone (like myself) who doesn't really know Emmylou Harris' prodigious output aside from knowing (vaguely and maybe incorrectly) that she's primarily a country singer. I liked how the opening track ("The pearl") had a very Daniel Lanois-sounding vibe to it, and I also like it that she wrote or co-wrote most of the album's songs. (And I appreciate it that the "1001 albums" entry notes her connection to Daniel Lanois, as his style and influence is strong throughout much of this album.) Her default folk/country sound isn't my favorite, but she does it well and there's a lot more variety throughout the album than I expected; I particularly enjoyed "I don't want to talk about it now", "Red dirt girl", and "J'ai fait tout". Thankfully it doesn't sound at all like she's just dialing it in after 30+ years of surviving the music circuit and a lot of ups and downs, plus an amazingly broad number of collaborations and shared music projects across the decades. (I'm now very interested in hearing her collaborations with Mark Knopfler as well as with Rodney Crowell--I'd guess those are great combinations.) The album is a bit long in the tooth at times, and some songs are just too we-are-the-world-invoking ("One big love" especially), but I enjoyed listening to it much more than I expected.

Although I'm not at all surprised to find this album in this collection, but I'll admit it's not at all a favorite of mine. There's nothing wrong with the album, the songs or Norah Jones' style, but every time I've heard this album (and I've heard it a few times, strangely), it just feels like there's nothing there. It seems like she assembled a good group of session musicians, and she clearly has musical talent, but there's little to no affect in her voice, even when she's singing about sadness or regret or even happiness or love. Too bad, since this is the only chance Norah Jones gets in this collection (unlike, say, Amy Winehouse, who was clearly still finding her way on "Frank" but then got into her groove with "Back to Black", and we get to give her a second chance).

What a strange album, and a strange life story for Jah Wobble (sadly quite violent at times). I'm glad it started off with "Visions of you", particularly because of Sinead O'Conner's appearance and distinctive voice, but also because it kind of eases you into a weird mixture of often generic-sounding bass/beat-driven world music tunes. I felt like this was more of a soundtrack to some world-hopping independent film than an album, although I'm not entirely sure it's a movie that I'd have chosen to watch. But I like it that at some point (post-PiL, post-substance-abuse) while working for the London Underground he supposedly pronounced over the PA system, "I used to be somebody. I repeat, I used to be somebody." Indeed.

Although there are simply too many Rolling Stones albums in this collection (and this is only #2 of 6 total, sadly), I'm appreciative that this is a strong Rolling Stones album at least. It's bookended by two great classics in "Gimme shelter" and "You can't always get what you want", while the remainder in between is largely new to me and pretty uneven, which is about what I expected. "Midnight rambler" and "Monkey man" are strong songs (and possibly part of their repertoire? They sound familiar, in any case). Thankfully, there aren't too many stinkers in the lot, although "Love in vain" is pretty painful (and also surprisingly Dylanesque, although I now discover that it's a cover of a Robert Johnson song from 1937), and I'm not really sure what to make of "Country honk", as it's clearly the same song as their classic "Honky tonk women" but this version is weirdly thin and not very Stonesy (I wish they'd dropped this version from the album and included "Honky tonk women" instead of releasing the latter as a standalone single, but I'm sure that was a money thing). Likewise for the title track, which starts off feeling like some weird saloon version of itself--is this really the version that got so much airplay for years afterward? I'm not sure why this Rolling Stones album in particular made me feel particularly aware of how much (blues) appropriation they profited from (it could have been all the reviews talking about how "authentic" they sound), but it does, and it's hard to unhear now that I've noticed it. It also makes it hard to know what to rate this album, but misgivings aside the number of classic songs means it's probably deserving of four stars.

I'm not a huge Doors fan (or afficionado), but I *am* impressed with how strong their debut album is. It's kind of like they exploded onto the music scene full-grown and fully-developed, although I suppose that could also imply that they didn't really evolve much as a band over their relatively short career. Regardless, there's not much filler on the album--"The crystal ship" is probably the only real dud (but perhaps not to the psychedelic crowd), and while iconic "The end" is far too long and a bit tedious (although it might have been fun to hear the version that got them fired from Whisky-A-Go-Go). And there's an impressive number of long-lasting radio hits to counter the less interesting stuff. And it's always a pleasure to hear Ray Manzarek's organ playing, as he made The Doors who they were more than even Jim Morrison's distinctive voice.

I wish I could say that I'd heard of Pavement or recognized some distinctive trait of them, but other than the somewhat later release year of this album, I'd be hard-pressed to distinguish them from a slew of 80s/90s indie bands like Dinosaur Jr, Meat Puppets, Wilco, etc., except perhaps a somewhat lighter edge and perhaps slightly-more-audible lyrics. But I'm also struck by how challenged I am to even remember the differences between most of the tracks on this album--"Stop breathin" and "Newark wilder" are a bit more acoustic-oriented than others, I guess? and "5-4=Unity" *does* have a somewhat more distinctive style/tone, in part as it's an instrumental. And although Wikipedia tells me that "Cut your hair" helped get them more attention, I certainly don't recall ever hearing it before, and aside from a somewhat quirky (and equally annoying) video, it didn't really make a big impression on me either. That said, I found "Range life" the most interesting song on the album, and its somewhat mesmerizing video centered on a Dutch music festival is worth watching (also hilarious that their mocking lyrics of Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots got them booted from their scheduled appearance at Lollapalooza in 1994). I believe Robert Christgau that in his eyes they're the "finest rockband of the '90s," but I just don't hear it, frankly. Although it looks like I'll get a second chance, as we're also going to get to hear their debut album in this collection ("Slanted And Enchanted"). I can't really capture in words how excited I am at this prospect....

About 300 albums earlier I got my first Steely Dan album, and I'll stand by what I wrote then: "I've always enjoyed listening to Steely Dan, but I also feel like one album is more than enough to give us a sense of the style and flavor; his music is largely interchangeable, so getting another selection later on would be a bit disappointing." Little did I know that ahead of me there would be 3 more Steely Dan albums and a Donald Fagen thrown in as well. Thankfully, there's only one more Steely Dan for me after this ("Pretzel Logic"), so I will eventually return to simply enjoying it when I hear Steely Dan on the radio or on my shuffle playlist. I *do* appreciate it that this album has several of their radio hits, including two right out of the gate. (Ironically, I'm not sure I ever realized "Dirty work" was a Steely Dan single, as it always made me think it was likely an Eagles or CSNY song, or some group more in that vein with the harmonies.) It was also nice to revisit "Reelin' in the years", but the rest of the album doesn't quite seem as strong as some later albums; they seem to be feeling their way a bit on this debut album, perhaps in part from having David Palmer as lead vocals on several of the songs. I feel a bit badly only giving their debut album three stars, but I can't really justify giving every Steely Dan album four stars, and this one sacrifices quality for variety more than the others.

What a strange selection for this collection. I've never heard of Dion, and am staggered to find out this was his 14th solo studio album, but having listened to it I'm not particularly surprised that it didn't make much of an impression when it was released. And very sad to find out (from Wikipedia) that Dion himself disowned the album due to Phil Spector's mangled production--Dion's description of the album as sounding like "funeral music" is spot on. (It also makes me wonder why any album that's been dismissed by its own artist was included in the project...) I *did* enjoy the bleak-but-hopeful "Your own back yard" and the simply-bleak "New York City song", perhaps because they were the two non-Spector-produced songs on the album. If nothing else, it's quite a contrast to his "Runaround Sue" jukebox days; in that sense it's a bit reminiscent to Dennis Wilson's solo album, albeit in a sort of reverse sense in terms of sobriety. The album also sounds like it should be played at a higher rpm or something, as if we're hearing it in slow-motion (or underwater). At least it's a pretty brief, unremarkable album. (2)

Whenever I get a band I've never heard of before, I feel like this project serves up one of two possibilities: an eye-opening sample of a band or person that may not appeal to me, but seems very worthy of inclusion; or some incredibly bland or derivative or otherwise uninteresting 30-60 minutes. Today the book served up the former, for which I'm grateful. I'm not sure I'd necessarily listen to more of their music, but I really enjoyed Scissor Sisters' sound and attitude and music selection on their debut album. I'll admit I had very high hopes for their version of "Comfortably Numb", and wasn't exactly rewarded by my hopes, but I have to say it's easily the best disco version of Pink Floyd I'll probably ever hear. And I really enjoyed the energy throughout the album, with a lot of Elton John vibes at times (especially in "Laura" and "Mary"); the video for "Take your mama" is kind of dated-looking in a way but still has a fun energy to it (Jake Shears is quite a dancer). I particularly liked "Tits on the radio" and "Music is the Victim" (and also the somewhat jarringly downer "Return to Oz"). I also just liked how strangely eclectic this album is, and how they somehow managed to avoid seeming like a novelty act yet are clearly having fun hamming it up. I'm not sure it quite deserves 4 stars, but they get a bonus for just being unexpected.

I know she's a pretty iconic name among singer/songwriters, but I've never really managed to get into her style or music aside from the occasional single. So this wasn't quite the magical experience (or memory) for me that I think it is for others. It all seems so earnest and serious, but little joy or really much emotion at all; it kind of feels like a more modern version of the kind of tunes you'd hear in an old-fashioned Italian restaurant. (I'm not sure how or why she felt compelled to call this album a "postnuclear cabaret", a phrase that promises so much more than what she's delivered.) Since this album has her most well-known songs ("Constant Craving" and "Miss Chatelaine"), I'd kind of hoped that this would be the sole k.d. lang album in this collection. Sadly, no. But I *am* glad to find out that she did most of the soundtrack to the quirky movie "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", as I enjoyed the movie and music. That doesn't really boost her rating here, though.

It seems odd to me that this is the lone Wu-Tang Clan album in this collection, given their legendary reputation and status over the years. But apparently this is it, and I'll admit that I'm perfectly fine with just one album for a band (if only the book's editors could have followed this as a rule...). Listening to it in 2024, this album isn't all that compelling (even allowing for the endless f- and n-bombs), but I also suspect they set the foundation for East Coast rap/hip-hop for decades. I *did* enjoy the whole epic-rap-battle format of most of the tracks, with the various clan personalities taking turns trying to impress us all (and sometimes successfully); "Da mystery of chessboxin'" and "Protect ya neck" are probably the highlights of this style on the album (and a fun video for chessboxing). However, I just couldn't really get into the whole martial-arts rap-battle theme, but hey, wu wu wu!

I now realize that we get four (4!) Bjork albums in this collection (plus of course one Sugarcubes album), and I'm hard pressed to distinguish that many different Bjork-led albums, I'll admit. This album does sound a bit different from the previously-heard "Debut"--more of what I think of as her polished and refined sound--but it's still not *that* different, and I can only take so much of her strange girl-child-woman voice and the electronica style in one sitting. I *will* say, though, that she has consistently mesmerizing videos, and this album is no exception: "Hidden place" is uncomfortable to watch with all of the creepy alien-like liquids going through her eyes and mouth and nostrils, and left me feeling like I needed to blow my nose and wash my face (no idea what the song was about, but that's par for course with Bjork); and "Pagan poetry" is a little more explicit but still an interesting mix of animation and regular video. (YouTube Music didn't provide the video for "Cocoon", and I didn't bother to hunt it down.) The remainder is that weird mix of Bjork sound, occasionally pleasant, occasionally creepy or unsettling, always indecipherable. (Small exception for the more experimental "Frosti".) I think my preferred dosage of Bjork is a song or two on a shuffle mix, so this was just too much of the same lilting Lovecraftian music to properly appreciate.

Hm. Probably not a good combination to get Bjork on one day, and Orbital the next, but that's the way it goes somedays. I'd actually gotten the other Orbital album in this collection early on ("Orbital 2"), and I'd have to say I'm hard pressed to distinguish between the two albums. I enjoy their music overall, but more as background music than an active listening experience, and I find it hard to believe that this was intended to be rave/dance music, frankly, but then again I wasn't living in the UK during that time, or seeing the Orwellian impact of things like the Criminal Justice Act, which it seems Orbital was railing against. (That said, the US has had its own share of social decay and disintegration over the decades highlighted by misguided political strongarm tactics.) "Crash and carry" and "Quality seconds" were the only two tracks that I noticed, the former for being more dance-oriented and the latter for being almost Ministry-style. A few years after this album was released, I remember discovering an internet radio station labeled "Music to code by", and this fits that bill quite well both then and now. (I wish I could remember the site that provided access to these curated "stations"; I think it was something like Live365 but with a different name, and plagued by *lots* of buffering and outages, but regardless I remember that particular station had more Everything But the Girl and Portishead than Orbital, but still....) And while it's waaay too long, even for the ambience, the album has a creative/amusing cover.

I usually complain about getting multiple albums from most bands, but for whatever reason I don't mind at all getting three Simon & Garfunkel albums in this collection (and this is #2 for me, with "Bookends" preceding it, and apparently "Bridge Over Troubled Water" as #3 at some point). Probably because of the bare handful of albums my parents owned, I think they might have had two Simon & Garfunkel records (or possibly just a greatest hits album?). Although I'm not entirely sure whether I've ever heard this album in its entirety before, I definitely recognize many of the songs, and enjoyed the visit down memory lane. It's definitely doesn't pack as much punch as "Bridge Over Troubled Water", but their hits (mainly "Homeward bound" and "59th St. Bridge Song" (such a Dylanesque title, and far more effective than the poor-man's-Dylan "A simple desultory philippic" on this same album)), and even "Scarborough Fair" and a few others are enjoyable S&G standards. "The big bright green pleasure machine" is a very strange detour for them into a sort of Beatles-inspired and drug-insinuating rockin' tune (apparently meant to be satirical, but not very convincingly), while "The dangling conversation" sounds very much like a harmony-filled version of a Leonard Cohen song. I also really enjoyed the last three songs on the album, particularly "For Emily, wherever I may find her". And a tip of the hat to them for keeping the songs and album refreshingly brief.

I guess if we had to endure Justin Timberlake's debut album, then it probably makes sense that we'd have to suffer through Britney Spears' debut album. But I have no idea why either of these albums are in this collection, honestly, especially since both of them produced (arguably) better albums a bit later in their careers. It *is* shocking to see how young Britney Spears looks in the videos--could she possibly be any older than 16 or 17 in most of them? Although I had to confirm it by reading the Wikipedia entry for this album, everything about the music and videos made me think of people like Miley Cyrus or Ariana Grande or Christina Aguilera, trying to transcend (and largely succeeding) their child-actor status and make the big time as a singer. Much like fellow-Mousketeer Timberlake's debut album, it's hard to tell what if anything Spears contributed to this album, sadly; maybe the old-fashioned a-woman-is-always-there-for-you sentiment? I'm shocked that this is her best-selling album, as it seems so bland and syrupy (even down to the appallingly unoriginal cover to "The beat goes on"), although certainly more bouncy than poor Timberlake. It also seems like something that belongs to the 80s rather than the cusp of the 21st-century. But it certainly propelled her along a weird and often sad journey through the entertainment world, and likely made her and her custodians a ton of money.

I've never heard of Nightmares on Wax, and I don't think I've ever heard anything by them (him?) either, so that's always a potential plus for this project. It's a bit long in the tooth, playtime-wise, but that almost seems intentional given that it's more of a groove sound than anything else (another potential entry for that long-ago "Music to Code By" curated internet-radio/playlist I listened to in the later 90s/early 00s). Some tracks remind me of a more mellow (and somewhat more monotonous) version of RJD2 (of "Ghostwriter" fame), others are a bit reminiscent of MC 900 Ft Jesus (without any lyrics). But a shame we won't be getting the contemporaneous "Furious Angels" album by Rob Dougan, with the incomparable "Clubbed to death" track of Matrix (movie) fame. It's always a bit hard (for me, at least) to rate ambience-oriented music as anything but a 3, largely because there's not really any virtuoso elements or a story or theme running throughout the songs (that I know of). Sorry for the wishy-washy, DJ EASE....

I'll admit that I'm not a big Beatles fan, and as a result not particularly familiar with their discography or history, but even a great unwashed like myself know the album's name and its place in the pantheon of rock's history and trajectory. (Although I still found it hard to read through the excessive panegyric Wikipedia entry for this album; way too many superlatives and foundational statements.) This is one of the few albums in this collection where I really wish I could somehow listen to this album in the context of when and where it was released, so I could possibly better appreciate how earth-shattering it seemed to be to so many musicians as well as formative rock critics. There are only a few tracks that I haven't heard before (e.g. "What goes on" doesn't even sound like the Beatles to me, and not just because of Ringo Starr's rare vocal lead), and yet this is the first time I've heard the album in its entirety. I enjoyed it, and it was fascinating to hear a sort of transition from early- to later-Beatles taking place in this album.

An interesting album, and definitely more accessible/entertaining than the other Fela Kuti album in this collection (the depressing "Zombie"). Although I'm not sure that the name "Live!" is entirely accurate, since it's an in-studio performance (a la Tom Waits' "Nighthawks At The Diner"), it's still a fun performance and definitely has a live vibe to it, and also gets some Ginger Baker thrown in for good measure on the last two tracks (plus the "bonus" Berlin concert track). I really like it that it feels more like a jam session than some sort of "world music" inclusion.

Another nice mystery band and album from this project. At times they seem a little too earnest in some ways, but I like the kind of baroque take on folk music that sounds a bit like a 21st-century version of (European) medieval traditional songs. There's definitely more than a hint of bands like The Lumineers/Mumford & Sons/Of Monsters and Men, but not enough to seem like a Black Keys sort of homage band. I also enjoyed the somewhat odd claymation video for "White winter hymnal", despite that both it and the bizarre Jesus-and-some-of-his-disciples-in-a-manger-with-a-LOT-of-goats video for "He doesn't know why" made it actually harder to understand each song's intent (and quite the Godspell vibe with the latter video). Regardless, an impressive debut album from a bunch of hairy Seattle lads.

At first I wondered if I'd ever heard anything by The Waterboys, but then the opening track made me realize I'd definitely heard them (or at the very least I've heard a rendition of "Fisherman's blues" that sounds almost exactly like their version...). It's kind of all over the place musically, which is sort of intriguing, but also a bit scattered-sounding; I do like how there's a bit of The Pogues going on at times in this album, though, and they do a very nice cover of Van Morrison's "Sweet thing". I also like it that "And a bang on the ear" failed to chart in part because everyone from outside Ireland didn't know what that phrase meant (myself included until I read the Wikipedia entry). I'm not sure that Yeats would necessarily have enjoyed their rendition of "The stolen child", sadly. (I certainly didn't, and it made me think of more painful aspects of ELP or Spinal Tap.) Based on this album, it seems like The Waterboys would have fit right in at the 1986 Self-Aid charity concert, but sadly didn't. Overall it's not the most exciting collection of songs, and since we don't get any other Waterboys albums in this collection (not that I'm complaining), and I don't know their music well or at all, it's hard to get a sense of how radical a departure this album was from previous albums. OK but not great I'd say.

I wondered when we'd get this album, so the wait is over. I've never been a huge Springsteen fan (of his music, that is, as I really respect his career and perspectives), but it's hard to ignore how iconic this album has been for him. It's also remarkable how familiar so many songs on this album are--I think the only ones I didn't recognize were "Backstreets" and "Meeting across the river" (although the familiar-sounding-ness could also be because he doesn't have the biggest range). It's also interesting to read that Springsteen agonized over the production of this album, requiring many many (many) takes to get everything to sound just right, given that he's a notorious lyric mumbler and it appears *nobody* really knows whether Mary's dress sways or waves.... I kind of wish I didn't have 4 more Springsteen ahead of me in this collection, but it's hard to fault the inclusion of this one.

Kind of remarkable to think that earlier this year (July 2024, "The Death of Slim Shady") Eminem just released a coda to Slim Shady 25 years after this album came out. It's never been the most elevated concept, but you gotta hand it to Enimem for the longevity of this pathetic "alter-ego" figure. And even though it's a pretty uneven album, there's something about it that I've always enjoyed listening to, and in a weird way it's held up much better than some of the other rap/hip-hop albums in this collection. My favorites are probably "Guilty conscience", "If I had", the genuinely disturbing "97 Bonnie & Clyde" and "Rock bottom", but most of the tracks are fun to revisit. (I suspect that some of the tolerance I feel for this album is because it's not as focused on drugs, gangs and (realistic) violence as some others, although that guy has a serious mouth and Slim Shady certainly (and likely Eminem too) has some serious issues with women.) I know a lot of people find his voice's tone/timbre super annoying, but I'm thankful that I don't suffer from this.

It's kind of a bummer that this is the only Otis Redding album we get in this collection, but an excellent selection nonetheless. I've never listened to a full album by him, so it's nice to get a full half-hour of his distinctive sound and voice. It's also interesting to find out that most of the songs on this album are covers, and somewhat ironic that one of the few Redding-authored songs on the album, "Respect", became *much* more famous and well-known by Aretha Franklin's cover version. And in a truly bizarre moment of coincidence/synchronicity, I literally read a local newspaper article this morning (12/11/2024) about Sam Cooke's now-60-years-old song "Change gonna come" and how Cooke drafted the first version of the song during a visit to Durham, NC, just after meeting with NCCU students; I think I prefer Cooke's version of the song (the same with "Wonderful world"), but Redding's is good too. (And very sad that this album came out just months after Sam Cooke's murder.) A nice album to fill your soul cup, and amazing that it took him and the backing band only about 28 hours to record the whole album.

Well, much like "69 Love Songs" this "album" definitely pushes the boundaries of my tolerance and willingness to listen through without giving up. And a shame, too, given that this is really two very different albums, with "The Love Below" more interesting musically and "Speakerboxxx" *much* more interesting lyrically. But I'm sure there are going to be more of these outliers, so at least this one's behind me. I'm not really familiar with Outkast or their solo artists (although I've definitely heard both "The way you move" and "Hey ya!" a *lot* on the radio long ago), so I don't have a sense how different this is than their previous music (and interesting that it seems this was effectively their last album given all the accolades). "Speakerboxxx" is an intriguing album, largely because it becomes more interesting as you get further into it. It's well-produced, and an impressive range of topics that extend well beyond sex, drugs, violence and self-promotion. After hearing the whole "album", though, I'm not sure I could really identify a lot of specific tracks to call out. I did enjoy the FedUp-driver video for "GhettoMusick" (and kind of wondered just how boring that song would be without the video playing too), as well the Stevie-Wonder-esque "Church" and "Knowing". I can certainly see why some people describe "The Love Below" as a long-lost Prince album (although there are aspects of Parliament too). It's definitely a weird contrast to "Speakerboxxx", and entertaining in its own offbeat way, although I'm not sure it would have fared all that well as its own album. But then of course there's those somewhat few and far between hits on the album that seem almost out of place, like "Hey ya!" (and its incredible flamboyant video) and "Prototype" (although I'm not sure it made it far as a single), and a few other songs that are entertaining in a somewhat superficial way (like "Happy Valentine's Day" and "Behold a lady" and "Dracula's wedding" (with a great lyric video)). But you have to give him credit for putting it all out there. If this "album" was under an hour, I might have boosted its rating. But 2-1/4 hours is *way* too much for anyone but a rabid fan.

I've come to realize that I'm not all that much of a Stevie Wonder fan, despite wanting to be, and while that's kind of disappointing, I *do* appreciate that this project helped me realize this. There's certainly nothing wrong with this album, and despite that this came in the middle of his rapid-fire album releases, it's got a nice and somewhat distinctive groove to it (and I had no idea that he got in a serious car accident just after it got released, nor that this experience made him even more spiritual). But I'm not sure if it's simply from already listening to three other Stevie Wonder albums in this collection already, or the heavy (and impressively early) synthesizer layer, or just something...missing...from his almost-funk sound, or something that just makes the album kind of bland to me. My favorites were probably the classic "Higher ground" (I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I kind of prefer the Red Hot Chili Peppers' cover version to the original), and the surprisingly stark "Living for the city". I also enjoyed the opening to "Don't you worry 'bout a thing", and I can totally see how Barbra Streisand made "All in love is fair" into her standard (although I'm not a big fan of either version).

Well, I'll admit I've never heard of Lupe Fiasco, and have no idea if he's a big name or not in the hip-hop world (either in 2006 or in 2024). I'm not sure why nearly every hip-hop album we've gotten in this collection is an hour long or longer, but it's kind of a bummer as few artists of any genre are able to fill an hour or more with solid tracks and no filler. And this album is no exception, sadly, despite the "1001 Albums" book's description of it as "57 minutes of non-stop funtasia", and despite as well his interesting/unusual Muslim background, it's not particularly distinctive or original-sounding for the most part. I enjoyed a cluster of tracks relatively early on--the single "Kick, push" (and also the later "Kick, push II", even though both of them kind of reminded me of Kid Rock's "Black chick, white guy" for some reason), then "I gotcha" and "The instrumental"--but then it fizzled out again for me for much of the rest of the album, with a couple of exceptions for "Daydreamin'" (a remarkable Inception-style set of layered samples/covers of "Daydream" by The Wallace Collection/Gunter Kallmann Choir/I monster (with a nod to Beta Band too)) and the unexpected depth to "American terrorist". Some interesting samples throughout too. I'll admit I'm extremely unlikely to listen to this album again, nor other albums by him. And a bummer that the Wikipedia entry is so underwhelming and strangely plodding, as it could have made the album more interesting, honestly.

I really appreciated getting Pere Ubu's debut album earlier in this collection, in part because of the unique sound and out-there-ness. I was also perfectly happy to have that one album as my sole exposure to them; I wish we could have been given a choice as to whether we wanted *more* of their avant-garage weirdness, or some artist/band that *isn't* in this collection but should be (that list is sadly quite long), as I would have eagerly chosen the latter choice. But "Dub Housing" it is. Boo, 1001 albums! Much like their first album, it's an interesting experiment but I'm not sure any particular track really stood out. "On the surface" is kind of catchy (very mildly so), and there's something a bit compelling to the refrain in "Caligari's mirror". Even though the music is quite different stylistically, I was particularly reminded of the band Colonel Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit (maybe just the same sort of experimental noodling). I don't think there's any good reason to give them only two stars, except to balance out the four stars I gave them for their debut album, back when I didn't realize there was more Pere Ubu ahead of us. But that's not really fair to this album, I suppose, even if it doesn't really seem to add anything distinctive compared to their first album (although the "1001 Albums" review seems to suggest this album took a radically different turn, I must admit I didn't hear it).

I wondered if and when we might get this album, and here it is almost exactly a third of the way through. I own this album, and remember when you couldn't avoid hearing it everywhere and everywhen, yet listening to it now I kind of wonder why it made such a big splash (only now, after reading the Wikipedia entry, do I understand that the splash came more from Moby commercially licensing every track of the album than radio plays). I enjoyed listening to it again, and there's a kind of entirety to the album that I find really satisfying, but it's also not really earth-shattering or novel or anything, beyond perhaps using those Alan Lomax samples in a clever way. I feel about this album much like I feel about Faithless' "Sunday 8PM" album. I'd never seen the videos to any of the tracks, so that was an interesting experience. I'm not sure the videos added much of anything to the songs; "Honey" had a strange sort of multiple incarnation puzzle/mystery to it (but I don't understand how it was at all related to the song), "Find my baby" was neither clever nor interesting, "Porcelain" was kind of interesting with the eyeballs, "Why does my heart feel so bad?" reminded me a bit of Radiohead's "Paranoid android" animated video, "Natural blues" was not nearly as profound as I suspect he thought it was (and disappointingly one-dimensional in equating old age with decrepitude), and "Run on" has a cute sort of Memento-style unraveling mystery to it. My favorites on this album remain "Why does my heart feel so bad?", "South side", "Natural blues" (despite the video), "Run on", and "Everloving". I'm both impressed and a little disappointed that this is the only Moby album in this collection, as it would have been nice to have had his album "Animal Rights" as an interesting contrast. But I like the idea that we're getting just one album from an artist, and this is a good one, so a star boost for that (to help offset how it's clearly too long an album). And very cool that Moby is a direct descendant of Herman Melville!

I've only previously heard their radio hits, so I know it's not necessarily a representative sample of their sound, but from that exposure I haven't formed a very positive association of Coldplay. And now, after hearing this album (plus knowing that I have their debut album in store at some point down the road in this collection), I'm not sure my opinion has changed much. For good or bad (and in my case mainly bad), Chris Martin's warbling/keening style kind of dominates the experience of listening to a Coldplay song, and it seems like almost every single one of their songs is somehow THE MOST IMPORTANT EMOTION AND CONCEPT YOU WILL HEAR, even though I can't usually understand what he's singing over the wall of symphonic and urgently authentic music. It's likely my prejudice against them more than anything else that makes me cringe when I hear a Coldplay song, and feel like they're just trying *way* too hard to sound like they're the most emotionally attuned band on the planet. And the videos for their singles don't really add (or subtract) to this impression, sadly; well, except for the surprisingly dark video for "God put a smile on your face", which didn't seem to have anything to do with the song but had a great (dis)appearance by Paddy Considine.

I haven't listened much to Bob Marley's music beyond what plays on the radio, so I don't know his discography well, but this certainly seems like a great showcase for Marley's songs and stylings. There are of course the massively famous singles on this album--curiously, all on the B side where the focus is more on love and spirituality--but I really enjoyed a number of other songs, especially the more political A side ones; "Natural Mystic", "Guiltiness" and the slow burn of "Exodus" are all interesting songs. There's something about the A side of the album that makes me think of a fascinating but fairly obscure movie I saw quite a while back, "Burn!" (from 1966, and starring Marlon Brando during his more politically active period). What a strong album, and a fun listening experience.

Hm, not sure I've ever heard of The Libertines before, and I don't think I've heard anything from this album on the radio either. The opening track initially sounded a bit like they'd stolen U2's The Edge for their garage band, but then the opening lyrics made me panic that somehow this was a Morrissey/Cure/Smiths knockoff band. It doesn't appear that any of that is the case, but it does suggest that they struggle to distinguish themselves, at least in my ears (later on there's even shades of Pulp and maybe some Clash too). An OK album, I guess, but nothing particularly struck me as especially interesting, entertaining or distinctive (The retro "What Katie did" was probably the best of the lot). Honestly, I'm not even sure it warrants the 2005 BBC poll ranking of third most overrated album ever, although I guess my ignorance of them wasn't shared broadly then or now. I'm grateful, though, that this is the only album by them in this collection, and not at all surprised to discover that their lone entry in the book didn't last very long after the first edition.

This is my first Metallica album from this collection, but the last of the collection's four Metallica albums, which is kind of a shame, as it's usually more interesting to listen to a band's evolution rather than devolution. But I'm also bummed to find out there are four Metallica albums at all in this collection, especially since they're all within 7 years of each other, and frankly they're not really known for having a lot of range in their music. I had a friend in high school that was a *big* fan of them, especially James Hetfield's furious rhythm guitar and Kirk Hammett's blistering solos, but even he had kind of moved on from Metallica by "...And Justice for All" (three years earlier than this album), and I had never matched his interest or passion the whole time. I also developed a serious dislike of Metallica when they became the face of all the Napster-related lawsuits, even if they themselves didn't actually sue anyone. Regardless, this is certainly a very solid Metallica album, and possibly their finest. It certainly has a *lot* of their most enduring hits, and it still keeps enough elements of their earlier thrash style to avoid seeming like a transition to a more "friendly" style (although my friend undoubtedly would have vehemently disagreed, if he'd even cared by that point). I'd never seen the videos to their singles form this album, and a couple of them--"Enter Sandman" and "The Unforgiven"--are definitely worth watching, although I'm not sure they help clarify whatever it is that Hetfield and Ulrich were trying to convey. That kind of applies to all of their songs, not just on this album but in general: I don't think they're nearly as insightful or profound as they think they are (not to mention as intelligible as they might have thought they were). And a number of tracks on this album feel a bit recycled, sadly (e.g. "Don't tread on me" sounds a lot like their earlier "Master of puppets"). But this is still a great exemplar of Metallica; and it probably should have been the only Metallica album in this collection (although I would have been very bummed not to get to hear "Fade to black" again as part of this project).

It's so impressive how different this Funkadelic album is from the other one in this collection ("One Nation Under A Groove"), or from the lone Parliament album too. I can definitely see why people have raved about Eddie Hazel's epic solo in the title track; I don't think I've ever heard his work before, and this is quite showcase for his endless riff. There are shades of Hendrix and also Jeff Beck in "Maggot brain", but nothing derivative, and a pleasure to listen to (especially with headphones). The rest of the album is somewhat more traditionally George Clinton oriented, albeit a lot darker than a lot of other George Clinton albums have been, and more rock-oriented too than other albums (I don't think I would have known "Super stupid" was by Funkadelic if it came on the radio). Despite the shadows, though, it's largely entertaining (although disappointing that "Wars of armageddon" wasn't an adequate bookend to the title track), and fun too to get Hot Buttered Soul providing backing vocals on "Can you get to that".

Back in high school, I was always titillated by their name, but never really listened to them (outside of their brief appearance in the "Repo Man" soundtrack) and was pretty sure I wouldn't really enjoy an undistinguished SoCal punk band. (I didn't know until reading about the album that the frontman was formerly with Black Flag, but that doesn't really change much about my impressions or opinion, I'm afraid.) This album confirms all of that, but I'm also very thankful and appreciative that we only got an EP sampling of them on this album. Nothing particularly interesting on the album, but it's hard to be particularly annoyed when no song lasts more than 90 seconds, so that helps them make the 3-star grade (that and the fact that this is the only Circle Jerks we have to listen to).

I'm not sure exactly why I had become convinced that neither AC/DC nor this album specifically were present in the 1001-Albums project, but I'm very happy to discover that I was wrong. Even those among us who might not particularly enjoy AC/DC would likely have to acknowledge that this is definitely an album to hear before you die. I'm not really able to listen to this album with fresh ears, but I hope it sounds as distinctive and hard-hitting for those who've never heard this album before as it does to everyone else who couldn't possibly have avoided hearing many of their classics on the radio (or streaming for the younger fans). This album is jam-packed with so many of their classics, it's hard to believe that it's actually their 7th studio album. One of the things that always confused me in my teenage years was how similar-sounding Brian Johnson tried to be to the recently deceased Bon Scott. Johnson never quite achieved the same unbelievably distinctive growl as Scott, but it's an impressive transition nonetheless. I suspect this album would have earned a full five stars if Bon Scott had been lead vocals, but it's still a fun album. And I'm kind of glad I never watched any of their videos back in the day, because they are one *homely* group of Aussies (well, Limeys and Aussies). The various stage videos from this album showcase how strangely disproportionate Malcolm Young is, with a small guy playing a *huge* guitar, and his younger brother Angus is of course renowned for goofy outfits and equally goofy head, while Brian Johnson's absurd newsboy-cap kind of completes the awkward rebel-schoolboy look. But they certainly knew how to rock.

What a strange album--or I guess I should say unexpected, but in a good way. I'm not sure I've ever heard of Lambchop, let alone heard any of their songs. Kurt Wagner's style and voice is vaguely reminiscent of the Magnetic Fields, or maybe the mellower sounds of Pulp, but not in an imitative way. I didn't listen as carefully to the lyrics as I probably should have, but I can tell there's a lot going on in the songs, and I enjoyed the experience overall. The only tracks that stood out were "You masculine you" (not a fan of the falsetto, although it's much more tolerable on the somewhat more hard-hitting "What else could it be?"), the video for "Up with people" (pretty much the only direct reference to Richard Nixon, and a super creepy mouth-overlay making it seem like Nixon was singing the song during some (presumably disastrous) press conference), and the darker and more rock-oriented end to the album with "The petrified florist" and "The butcher boy". On the whole, I pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the album as much as I did, despite what would otherwise seem *way* too far along the easy-listening spectrum than I'd prefer. (In that sense it reminds me of Ween's "country" album.)

I know we should give this project a pass on Christmas Day for whatever pops up, but this is pretty painful, and not just because Phil Spector was a creep and creepy guy and doesn't deserve any sort of accolades (especially given how dated his "wall of sound" seems these days). Moreover, I've really appreciated how strongly this collection has avoided "various artists"/"best of"/compilation albums, and this clearly violates that rule. I get it that it was a popular album back in the day, and I'm sure it was an interesting take on various Christmas songs, but it doesn't mean we have to like it. :)

I guess I must have been under a rock when this album came out, and all the hype about Jeff Buckley accompanied it (apparently to disappointment among some, adulation among others). I'm pretty sure I haven't heard anything from this album before, aside from perhaps his cover of "Hallelujah" (and while it's a very nice version of the song, it seems a bit ironic that he did a cover of John Cale's cover, not knowing that Leonard Cohen was the original author). A fine album, I suppose, but I didn't find his crooning/wailing style all that...interesting? involving? not sure what exactly. I'm not sure if it's a production or mixing issue or his style, but it feels like the entire album is lacking depth or something similar to that: everything feels just kind of flat, coming at you from a long distance (ironic since he was such a small club player); the only real exceptions to that are "Hallelujah" and the weirdly almost-rocking "Eternal life", although even with a more full sound I still didn't really enjoy the latter.

I really enjoyed hearing their debut album a while back in this collection, and I guess I thought this album would be more of the same, in a good way. And I guess it is, sort of, and I can see that this is considered a seminal album both for The Band and for rock music in general, but I found it really hard to get into it the way I did with "Music From Big Pink". There's no denying it has a lot of classic and revered songs, and it's all but impossible to avoid enjoying tracks like "Up on Cripple Creek", or appreciating the panoramic "The night they drive old Dixie down", but in the end it just didn't really click for me. A bummer, as I really enjoy and appreciate a lot of what Robbie Robertson has penned and composed, and The Band had a great cast of characters. It's clearly me, not them, and thus I bow to the wisdom of decades of music critics and feel compelled to award four stars for its place in the pantheon.

Although I enjoy various forms of electronica, and this album is an occasionally interesting/enjoyable flavor, I'll admit that as a genre it's harder to succeed in the context of the "1001 Albums" project, largely because the albums tend to be much longer than in other genres, and there's a *lot* of iterative and repetitive music with each track. Some groups/artists in this collection have such a distinctive sound that their albums are easy to rate and compare to other albums in the collection -- Moby, Chemical Brothers, Air, Fatboy Slim, Bjork, to name a few. But this album (and I suspect Underworld in general) isn't one of those, and seems mired in a sort of rave/dancehall morass of beats and sampled/synth effects (and some very dated feeling drum-n-bass), which is great as background music in some situations, but kind of annoying as part of this collection. (When I read the Wikipedia entry for the album, I laughed at the apparently unironic statement in the "Mojo" appraisal of the album: "never has the introduction of a hi-hat seemed quite so exciting." Indeed.) The only tracks that stood out for me were "Confusion the waitress" and "Stagger", both reminiscent of Moby, but definitely more foregrounded than most of the album and with a story of sorts to tell. Both the Wikipedia and "1001 albums" entries for this album seem to suggest that this is a very cerebral and sophisticated form of experimental electronica. I remain unconvinced, I'll admit, and I'm sorry we didn't get their breakout "Trainspotting" (movie) single on this album ("Born slippy"), as that would have likely boosted their rating (for me); "Pearl's Girl" comes close, but sounds more derivative than complementary. But thankfully this is the only Underworld album in the collection, so that helps with a small rating boost of appreciation.

Our second Isaac Hayes album! And a classic, of course, although perhaps not nearly as interesting as "Hot Buttered Soul". I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never watched all of "Shaft", although I've heard some of the more popular songs on this album (well, make that the two radio-length songs), and been intrigued by Gordon Parks' foray into directing films during his long career in photography and activism. It seems perfectly fine as a soundtrack, but not all that exciting as an album, and kind of a bummer that most of the tracks are (understandably) instrumentals. As I listened to it I was reminded of listening to the Lohn Lurie soundtrack for "Get Shorty", and how I'd enjoyed that album but not as much as I'd hoped to (except of course in that case I'd seen the movie so the various themes were at least a little more obvious). Given that I also didn't overly enjoy the Barry Adamson fake soundtrack "Moss Side Story", I guess I'm just not a big soundtrack fan. A shame that this is Isaac Hayes most popular and commercially successful album, as it doesn't seem like the kind of showcase he deserved.