Makes me feel exactly how I feel every time I grossly overpay for a watery vodka soda from a Russian bartender wearing too much Hai Karate in a lightly peopled lounge in the meatpacking district in the late afternoon of a sunny late fall day with sticky floors and a slight Lysol smell that make me nervous about availing myself of the enormous black velvet chaise longue in 1997.

I'm not saying that Norah Jones is personally responsible for the existence of the $5 cup of coffee but this album has a lot to answer for when you think about how many overpriced lattes have been served in countless mediocre cafes while it has been gently lilting in the background. My favorite aspect of this album is the opportunity it gave me to look up the definition of anodyne to ensure I would be using it properly to describe it.

When you're on death row and they let you play one last Stones album as I assume is your basic human right in every nation, the album you select is very revealing: 12x5 - sad that you're still trying to prove something Goats Head Soup - only child? Some Girls - high on your own supply Tattoo You - starfucker Exile On Main St - a bit obvious Beggars Banquet - almost Let It Bleed - retrial warranted

Not my bag, but I respect the players' chops. Also: 1. Google a recent photo of guitarist Steve Howe and tell me he should have been cast as Elrond in LOTR. 2. I've been working on a joke review involving the word "incel" but couldn't get there. Still, I couldn't leave this review without using that word.

Whenever I hear these guys I think about their incredibly unlikely and greatly inspiring journey from the tragic suicide of their singer and creative visionary when they were the super dark proto goth band Joy Division to the absolutely massive club hit "Blue Monday" - still the biggest selling 12" single of all time - only 2 years later. Even just that part of their 40 year story would make for a great biopic; until then, we can get glimpses of it through a handful of scenes in "24 Hour Party People." Very 80's sound, but they kinda originated it so perhaps that's why it sounds better than most. I couldn't explain why I like this but dislike Depeche Mode. Maybe the Joy Division connection confers a certain credibility? Ultimately, this YouTube's user comment on the (awesome, J Demme directed, 10 minute long) "Perfect Kiss" video says it all: Its impressive that New Order has a singer that don't sing, a bassist that thinks he is the guitarist, a drummer that don't know more than one way to play and a synth player that plays a frog solo mid song and still is one of the most amazing bands of all time. Finally, if you were a teenage musician in the 1980s and weren't in a punk or metal band, it's highly likely that your band aspired to sound like a cross between New Order and The Cure (whether you knew it or not, as in the case with the our band that was exactly as good as you might imagine when I tell you our name was "Lesbian Sinecure"). For the fifteen year old rocker, the main difference between the two bands is whether the guitar player uses chorus and flange pedals (The Cure) or the bass player does (New Order).

These musicians always thought they were a little more special than they actually are

I love punk but never got X. The sound of the two voices together makes me hate music.

Great sounds and a cultural artifact of a proto-psychedelic album.

It grew in me. Would rate it higher if I weren't on antidepressants.

Wow! Everyone says Dusty in Memphis is the record to own but damn this set jumped out of my speakers!

The hits are great but the sound gets boring after a while.

Masterpiece

Masters of their craft at the peak of their powers, but ultimately I find this kind of music more fun to play than to listen to. I love this story about Duane I only learned recently: http://www.voicesofeastanglia.com/2012/08/wilson-pickett-and-duane-allman-birth-of-southern-rock.html

I think possibly every woman I have ever dated owned Avalon and that's how I got to know Roxy Music. So it was a bit of a shock the first time I heard this album, which to me sounded more like Pere Ubu than than the Roxy Music I was familiar with. It's uneven but a lot of fun and I will always appreciate the role they played inspiring the punks.

Not a fan, sorry! Never heard anything more than the singles in here before today. About halfway through the album she sings in a higher register and I received it like sweet relief from her normal singing voice, which to me sounds flat, both in terms of tone and intonation. She also sings with a "tough guy" attitude on some songs that feels unnatural to me. I like all the vibes and marimbas throughout the record. The music is otherwise not all that interesting to me and some of her lyrics sound awkward. I guess you can tell I never understood her appeal.

I mean, c'mon. If you can't find the delight and musicianship of early Beatles totally infectious than you are probably having a bad day. But the idea of rating the Beatles is weird to me, like rating Da Vinci. I don't think this is their best - a little uneven tune selection toward the end - but I have a hard time objectively comparing it to Roxy Music or Fiona Apple. Lately, I've been getting more into their covers, particularly of Motown tunes like "Please Mister Postman," in which John's vocal is more emotionally tortured than anything Detroit produced.

Not my bag, but I respect the players' chops. Also: 1. Google a recent photo of guitarist Steve Howe and tell me he should have been cast as Elrond in LOTR. 2. I've been working on a joke review involving the word "incel" but couldn't get there. Still, I couldn't leave this review without using that word.

Out of the incel frying pan and into the fire! There are Rush songs I like but none of them are on here. The best thing I can say about this album is, like my favorite dental procedures, it's over before you know it!

A delightful surprise! Never actually heard this band before - mainly just know them for Quiet Riot's cover of their "Cum On Feel The Noise" - I had a lot of fun with it. A few reflections, Larry King style: Makes me want to drink 75 pints of bitters and get punched in the nose...this is what's playing in the background when Ray and Dave Davies are getting into one of their legendary drunken fist fights...they must've inspired AC/DC...the Joplin cover is aces!

Another one where I appreciate the artist being on the list but not this album. To my ears, neither the material nor the production are worthy of Amy.

I enjoyed it. Listened to it twice yesterday . I get the feeling like this album would grow in me but I'm not sure it's memorable enough for me to pick it up again. This album helped me finally realize that until now Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard were fused into the same entity in my mind. Now, they are separate (notwithstanding the fact that I had to check which one this album was when I was typing their names just now).

Disappointed. On paper, this is an amazing album, but while Papa Was a Rolling Stone is an awesome tune and well situated within this lineup, the rest of this doesn't hold up. This was made after Motown moved to LA and to me it's an example of what people mean when say that they lost something in the move.

One thing I love about this project is that it forces me to give things a fuller listen than I ordinarily would, like this. I went through a HUGE Hendrix phase when I worked at the record store and Spirit's guitar player is sort of Jimi's preeminent disciple so my boss Pete Liberante and I tried to get into this album a couple of times and never could. Now I get the chance to hear side two and realize I was missing more than I knew. Do yourself a favor and read all of Randy California's Wikipedia entry. It is very entertaining and after you give a listen to Taurus I want to know if you agree that this was SCOTUS's worst decision (to not take the case) since Bush v Gore - even more egregious than Dobbs, in my view.

I had the most intense experience listening to this album that an album has put me through in a long time. At the beginning I was struggling to find something to latch on to, but by the time it ended I was so into it I immediately played it again, like the kid who survives the roller coaster and after disembarking sprints to get in line to ride again. However, as amazing as it was, I have a funny feeling I may never listen to this album again.

Jimmy Smith is one of the all-time jazz greats and this album cover is all-world tier one. How can you not like this album? But love it? I say this as a person who owns this album and has played it in my home many times, but I notice it often ends up turning into background music for me. If I were making this list I would have selected two other albums of his (The Sermon and Root Down, if you're curious) but in the end I'm just happy he's on the list.

Better than I expected. Lis is the only Simply Red fan I have ever met, and I always chalked it up to ginger solidarity, but this is the rare 80s record that manages to transcend the incredibly shitty production aesthetic that prevailed at that time. I don't like it THAT much, though, and he lost points a few hours ago when I learned Money's Too Tight To Mention is a cover and that the original Valentine Brothers version is far superior.

I really wanted to like this but couldn't get into it, despite how much I love David Bowie's version of the title track. I generally prefer her small band work, especially live, and her original material, of which there seems to be very little on this album. I read later that it's a compilation of previously unreleased material and I wonder if that is why it felt a little meandering to me.

Sometimes this album reminds of what it sounds like inside a music store. Sometimes relatively quiet, sometimes a lot of sounds, in your face drums next to what sometimes sounds like someone testing each of the many settings on the synthesizer. Occasional strains of familiar melodies. When the musicians are playing together, abrupt stops and starts and stylistic changes on a dime. The only throughline here is that the every musician uses every moment to beseech you to appreciate their chops. In fairness to them, I can hear the desperate psychology behind this music because I have been more generous than most in dedicating my youth to a similar cause. Another take: the difference between ELP and the Allman Brothers explains the difference between UK and USA. Thirdly: Where is the ELO-ELP supergroup? Finally: I'm razzing them, but any band that has an album titled Brain Salad Surgery deserves some respect.

Huge Steely Dan fan and I always found it odd that this is their "go to" album for many people, as I find the songwriting to be inconsistent and this is probably my least favorite of their various albums. Deacon Blues, Black Cow and Peg are great tunes, but some of the others are completely forgettable (I Got The News, Home At Last) and the title track sounds like a long and boring mistake.

And what will she do with Thursday's rags When Monday comes around? She'll turn once more to Sunday's clown And cry behind the door.

Albums like this make this whole exercise 100% worth it. "Voices Carry" was always a not so guilty pleasure at the karaoke bar, and I've read a lot of critical praise since about her lengthy solo career, and of course her long term personal relationship with Michael Penn makes them sort of latter-day saints of Laurel Canyon, but none of it got me off the dime to actually check out her work. Masterful in every way. Immediately from the jump, just the basic sounds of it are interesting and well-considered in a way that betrays deep craftsmanship, care and, frankly, budget. But she knows how to spend that budget in a way few do. Compare the production to the flat monotony of Fiona Apple's album, for example. Or that of most albums on this list, for that matter. Over the course of its tunes, the same depth of manicured mastery is revealed in the songwriting, both musically and lyrically. This kind of well-rounded depth of talent is extra rare but as Charles De Gaulle once said, sort of, the cemetery is full of masterful albums made by talented people. And in the immortal words of Van Hagar, only time will tell if this we, this album and me, will stand the test of time. All I can say today is that any album that can be this genuinely interesting the very first time you hear it deserves the highest praise.

(1) The pinnacle of my rock n roll career was closing our set at the EO Smith High School 1986 Battle of the Bands with "Pretty Vacant." We (my first band, The Jalapeno Tabernacle Choir, featuring Kevin Crockett on guitar) were unofficially disqualified because we were just about the only band to not perform "Crazy Train" that afternoon, which was heretical. But anyone who was there knows who got the crowd on their feet and dancing and rocked that cafeteria the hardest. By the way, one of the other non-winning bands that day was led by future Bud Collins Trio guitarist and my eventual brother in law although at this time we were not on speaking terms Pat Guiney ("The Funny Hit Parade"). Another band had a rock star of tomorrow you know reverently playing "Panama." (2) A couple of years ago, my son was getting into heavy metal and I felt compelled to pull him aside. I explained that there are two kinds of people in this world, metal heads and punk rockers, and that our family was a punk rock family. I felt like I was communicating effectively because I could tell that he could tell from the tone of my voice that he should take this conversation very seriously. So this morning I told him that we got assigned Never Mind The Bollocks. He shook his head and with a judgemental tone cried something about the Pistols being "the first corporate plants" because they were sellouts from the beginning. Ha - I'm kvelling!

I was sorry to learn that I like the idea of Bjork more than the reality, at least of this album.

My favorite of the later Pink Floyd albums. The cover is amazing, and to me the tunes feel more personal and emotionally compelling than most of their other work. Beautifully recorded, understated performances from the band at the top of their game. Also, 500 points to Ravenclaw for David Gilmour's elegantly expressive guitar throughout. Highly recommend listening with headphones if you can!

Good example of the influence your mood has on a listen. Heard this record for the first time a few weeks ago and hated it. Today I listened to it again and liked it a lot more. Still, probably unlikely to get a ton of airtime at my house going forward, and I'm not sure this would be on my list of top 1001, though it has some archaeological significance.

Great, great show but after you listen to the patter and other improvisations you start to understand why he might have been shot to death by a woman. I wish I could find out the backing band here - this ensemble is pretty damn good! Bought this went it first came out and would listen to it back-to-back with my Otis Redding+Jimi Hendrix at Monterey record. Brings back a lot of great memories listening and fantasizing about what these shows must have been like. 😍

WTF is this doing here? Provocative choice for this list but it needs another decade of maceration before it can be fairly evaluated. This is Bowie's last album, made when he was terminally ill, though as I understand it he didn't disclose that to the backing band, which happens to be the one that jazz saxophonist and fellow Berklee alum Donny McCaslin was leading at that time when Bowie saw them play at a club and invited them into the studio. Every time I listen to this record it sucks me in deeper, but putting stars on this feels weird. My 1 star is for the editors of this list.

If everyone I ever dated owned a CD of Roxy Music's "Avalon" then I would also say the same about this album for everyone I dated since it came out.

Three random notes on what is probably my favorite Dylan album: 1. Fourth Time Around. Is this a musical middle finger to John Lennon's supposedly Dylan-inspired Norwegian Wood? Was Dylan singing to John when he sang "And I, I never took much, I never asked for your crutch Now don't ask for mine?" Here's what Lennon had to say about it in 1968: "I was very paranoid about that. I remember he played it to me when he was in London. He said, what do you think? I said, I don't like it. I didn't like it. I was very paranoid. I just didn't like what I felt I was feeling – I thought it was an out and out skit, you know, but it wasn't. It was great. I mean he wasn't playing any tricks on me. I was just going through the bit." 2. Visions of Johanna. Maybe the worst performance of this amazing tune. Shambolic, meandering and boring. I have read they had a hard time recording this tune over multiple sessions and they must've just been so sick of it so they just shipped this shitty version and washed their hands. The band barely knows the chord changes, bass player blatantly screws up multiple times...compare it to this version, which sends a chill up my spine every single time: https://youtu.be/awlrMmr9eNc?si=TtOJe4G_7nkx5m3A My daughter is a big Swiftie and she agrees with my theory that Taylor was channeling "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" with the full-length "All Too Well" --- can you hear it? https://youtu.be/sRxrwjOtIag?si=UX-5UzsRlek7595K

This record triggers a Pavlovian response to turn on, tune in and drop out. All-World Tier One psychedelic rock opera. When I discovered this record, 30 years after its initial release, it made the world feel a little bit bigger in a very exciting way that something this awesome could escape my attention for that long. The Pretty Things are perhaps the best 60s British band that never really made it in America. Maybe the very first concept album, and it's a bummer of a concept, which is impressive in its own way and may be why it never reached broader acclaim. I will take it over The Who's Tommy seven days a week. So many great tunes on here I don't know where to begin, except at the beginning and playing through to the end. SF Sorrow is Born!

Not as good as I hoped. I bet it could grow on me, as I like the newer stuff you hear on the radio, but not grabbing me by the lapels on first listen.

Really fun! If you were to reduce the Beatles sound to a formula, it might be something like: Crickets rhythm section + Chuck Berry guitar + Everly Bros vox

Not in my personal 1,001. Jay walked in the door as I was cranking this last night and as our resident historian told me that Offspring was the first "incelcore" band. 🤣🤣🤣 Didn't know that genre existed but I believe him!

Instant classic! First time hearing it but it immediately feels like discovering a key piece to a jigsaw puzzle covering late 80s/Early 90s music, from daisy age rap in the US to trip hop in the UK. I'm retroactively embarrassed to not have already been intimately familiar with it. I also feel really stupid for not knowing about his work with Jane Birkin. I was fortunate enough to listen to it on headphones and was richly rewarded - strong backing band, beautifully recorded. Great dynamic range, too, that pretty much doesn't exist anymore in this era of highly compressed tracks produced to sound good out of a speakerphone. I have no idea what they are talking and singing about but I strongly suspect that he would be cancelled if this came out now and I might not even be able to listen to this if I understood it. Funny how some things unexpectedly stay with you. I immediately recognized 'En Melody' from this minor De La Soul skit from back in the day: https://youtu.be/FTMOTsL1YIE?si=VFusrpdIM8e-QyKN

Better than I expected. Respect!

If you rank musical artists by the number of albums you know/own of theirs and the amount of time you spend listening to them then Miles Davis would be my #1 by a mile. Not to sound like a jazz prick but Miles easily has 20 or 30 albums I would put ahead of this and I regret that the album title and cover art are so interesting it ends up being an intro to jazz record for a lot of people and unfortunately it doesn't work well for that. This is still very early in his career - I think possibly these are his first sessions after quitting Charlie Parker's band when he was 22? - and he didn't really become a great band leader until he got his act together and kicked heroin 5-6 years later. He is still finding his style as a soloist and the arrangements feel cumbersome to me. I also prefer my jazz combos - and most ensembles in any genre, actually - on the smaller side for more intimate interplay among the musicians. But this is a nine piece band, and once you get beyond about five musicians in a band, the improv tends to take a back seat to composition and orchestration. Afficianados call this record "important," which it took me decades to have the self-confidence to realize is usually code for "I know I am supposed to like this but I don't." Unfortunately, this perpetuates the problem, as another generation gets lured into jazz from this record and leaves bored and disappointed or possibly even feeling inadequate themselves. It's not your fault - the critics are cowards! Speaking of great Miles Davis album titles, have you seen this hilarious memo to record company execs from Miles's longtime producer, Teo Macero - first ballot Hall of Fame usage of "Please advise": https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/this-is-my-favorite-memo-ever

Pleasant but unremarkable 70s salsa, to my ears at least.

Just like how there are some albums that shouldn't be on anyone's list, Ziggy should be on everyone's list. I knew I married the right person when once we got into a huge fight over who was the bigger Bowie fan (to be precise, this was only one of the times we've had this argument - even just telling her I was telling you this story prompted another debate) and she made her case with a perfect off the cuff acapella rendition of Moonage Daydream.

Typical Monk: killer tunes superbly performed. I don't want to write any more because it would be 3000 words, minimum.

One of my favorite Steely Dan albums. Razor Boy>Boston Rag>Your Gold Teeth>Show Biz Kids is a helluva run of great memories tunes you'll never hear on the radio sandwiched between a couple of classic rock radio mainstays you may be tired of. Then you get Pearl of the Quarter and King of the World, the latter of which makes me want to wager that Dan has more songs about doomerism than possibly any other band to sell a million records. About their lyrics. Today I noticed that all of the locations mentioned in the Boston Rag are in NYC, not Boston. Par for the course with these tricksters. Also, I love it when lyricists give priority to the sound of their words over a direct literal meaning. The Rolling Stones and REM are two bands that are good at this. On Show Biz Kids, I think the backup singers are repeating something about "life's wages" but it also sounds like "Las Vegas" and in putting both ideas into your head at the same time, it adds a whole new dimension to the lead singer's words about a decadent LA culture, while better fusing the words and the music together. This album was made when they still had a regular band and I think it benefits from the continuity. Denny Dias is a criminally underrated guitar player whose career never seemed to recover from Becker and Fagen's decision to stop touring and use more studio musicians. He gets more room on here than other albums and really makes the most of it. Worth listening to the entire record one time through just focusing on the guitars (Skunk Baxter is the other guitar player, and the two make a great team). It's stunning what's going on over there.

I tuned out PE after their second album and realize now I was missing out. Doesn't cover much new ground musically but Chuck D and Flavor are on point and their messages are still relevant today, unfortunately.

I love the Isley Bros - they are great players and I bet they put on a helluva show back in the day - but the songwriting is a bit inconsistent on here.

I like Le Tigre but I'm reminded that it hasn't occurred to me to put a Le Tigre album on in nearly 20 years. I guess that's a problem with being so topical?

Solid late period Steely Dan minus Becker. Some people get turned off by the slick production of Donald Fagen's work, both solo and Steely Dan, and I did at first. But if abandon your preconceptions you will be richly rewarded with mostly excellent songs on this album that feel more personal than Fagen's work w Walter Becker as Steely Dan. Almost sounds like an autobiographical fantasy of a kid growing up in 50s NJ. The production is immaculate - the instruments sound lush richly detailed. I have probably heard this record hundreds of times and I still find it captivating.

I laugh every time I see this album cover because it's so funny to imagine a contemporary top 40 singer appearing like this. Actually, maybe under certain circumstances a hip hopper could have a parka like this. Wonderful songwriter, guitar player and singer kicking off a staggering run. Some accuse him of cultural appropriation, for example with the reggae of "Mother and Child Reunion" on here. I find the entire concept silly.

I like that Mister Blue Sky song a lot, but generally ELO sounds to me like they were inspired by the wrong parts of the Beatles and Beach Boys. Also, it occurred to me as I was wading through this that there is something Meat Loaf-ish about this (and that is not a good thing).

Delighted to be surprised with something I had never even heard of until now. Listened to it without any context and enjoyed it. In fact, as soon as it ended, I played it again - a rarity around here Reminds me a little bit of 1990s-2000s psych like Olivia Tremor Control - I think they use the same sound effect during one of the breaks between tunes, which I like to imagine was a conscious tribute.

Most 90s electronica sounds dated to me but this still sounds fresh. Never heard of this band before but thoroughly enjoyed the laid back vibes.

Soundtrack to a wardrobe malfunction? I like a lot of the JT you hear in the radio and his SNL and Tonight show skits are great, so had high hopes. Unfortunately, they were not met. The strangest thing happened to me with this album. Twice I put it on, was digging the opening sounds of Señorita, and then later on noticed that I had completely ignored the album like as if it wasn't on. It completely deflects my attention every time I try to to listen. I wanted to like this more but when I could force myself to pay attention it was pretty terrible. Whoever wrote the lyrics to the last song, Never Again, should heed its title.

I wish this website would show the curator's rationale for including a given selection. I found this album unremarkable. Maybe it's historically important - just a guess, because otherwise I don't get its appearance here. Not a bad record by any means, but not remotely as interesting as other country/folk-psych bands like The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service or even The Byrds.

Great for what it is but in hindsight doesn't sound nearly as scary and intense as it did 30 years ago. Probably more historically important than great on its own.

God only knows how many copies of this I sold when I was working at the record store, and I scorned every buyer, as is the record store clerk's wont, if not their duty. I hated the sound of it then and it hasn't grown on me. I do appreciate Alanis's humor elsewhere. For example: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/weird-al-yankovic-tells-alanis-morissette-stay-in-lane-after-singer-tweets-pun-iconic-90s-hit

It's telling that she has to tell us who inspired this album, rather than let our ears tell us. Also, an easy way to make this record twice as good would be to cut half the songs. I wonder how many people who bought this in CD actually played the second disc more than once.

Her success is well deserved but I am not sufficiently evolved as a human to disassociate this with the Boomer nostalgia soundtrack that I resent for degrading popular music in the 1980s.

There must be at least 10 or 20 great debut albums for each great SECOND album. For me, The Bends transformed Radiohead from near-novelty one hit wonders ("Creep") into A Band To Be Taken Very Seriously. This album still sounds powerful but at the same time there are a couple of odd songwriting choices that don't work as well for me, and a couple of borrowed cliches, too. So while this album showed huge growth, their best was yet to come. Come to think of it, it's staggering to follow the growth of this band's artistry across their first three albums (or 5-6 albums if you're so inclined). I've seen them play a couple of times and the first time they were in their prime and I remember thinking "if I was a teenager I would be weeping with awe right now and possibly for the next few days." Pre-girlfriend teenager, if I'm honest. Are they an incel band? If so, they are one of the very best.

Very popular album when it came out but not interesting to me in any way other than as a cultural artifact. I thought this list was more interesting than a popularity contest?

Kinda boring? They had a big album about 5-7 years before this...I assume that's on this list somewhere. Otherwise, I don't get it.

I ♥️ Joni. One of my favorite singer-songwriters of an era chock full of 'em, but never heard this one before. She may be the ultimate "musician's musician" - her music can be polarizing, and from what I can tell the fans tend to be musicians. I'm not allowed to listen to her music when my wife is home. Not being familiar with it, I read a little about this album after listening to it fresh. What a strange time 1975 was that a record like this would reach the Top 40! Great album title and cover art. I didn't recognize a single song on here except maybe the first one. The songwriting gets uneven after the first few. However, the deep, rich tones throughout are aural catnip to my ears - begging to be heard loud on a 1970s tube stereo with gigantic speakers that make you feel like you're sitting on the bass player's amp. The hissing (and crackling) of Summer Lawns on vinyl FTW!

I feel like the idea of T Rex is better than the reality.

I liked it alright but I don't see myself remembering this a month from now. Woulda missed the last tune if I wasn't lazy.

The opening notes had me thinking Lion King, but (thankfully) it turned into something else. Still, not my bag. It's like it borrows the wrong parts of American pop music and injects it with the wrong parts of African jams.

This record wastes no time. The opening notes and the entire first song is based on the nastiest musical interval, the tritone, which has been (appropriately) known as the "Devil's interval" since the Middle Ages because it sounds so ungodly. Perfect. The power of this music cannot be denied. Their goal may have been somewhat juvenile - basically a treatise on raising hell in all its forms - but they nail it so completely you have to respect the accomplishment. No work will be getting done by me for the next half hour and it's taking everything I have to not put on a jean jacket and skip school to have a bad trip down by the river. See you in hell!🤘

Exceptional rhymes and great beats but I can't listen to this without thinking about how much I hate this guy.

Elvis has easily a dozen albums that are more interesting than this one. I bought it when it came out and probably haven't played it in over twenty years. The CD booklet did not contain any lyrics but one random line. My friends and I debated why only this one line and decided it was because he and his handlers were afraid his "anger" sounded like the n-word, a word Elvis has a disappointing history of using.

Where to begin? When the video for Jump made it's debut it was a shock to the system. Eddie playing keyboard?!? But where egregious keys had taken down other rock bands of the era, Eddie was so talented and revered that he emerged victorious. Hot For Teacher ("I don't feel tardy") - smokin'est guitar and drums you'll ever hear Panama - every high school metal band formed between 1984-1990 played this song I'll Wait - the closest we'll ever get to hearing an introspective Diamond Dave and a soulful Eddie. These are songs I'll pull over for. As albums go, it's on the shorter side and the songwriting peters out toward the end, but the first 20-25 minutes are peak 80s. Not my favorite Van Halen album, but the one that should be in the Smithsonian for sure.

Very pleasant surprise. Love the swagger! I had avoided these guys for years under the mistaken belief they were a southern rock jam band. Pretty psyched to be wrong, and a good lesson about what you might miss with mental shortcuts.

https://youtu.be/8V_hCqO6UQs?si=ZDhCgwdJU3Nb2S_c

The beat on the opening track - an epic, almost cinematic reinvention of the Bacharach/David classic "Walk On By" - has been sampled so much it is nearly singlehandedly responsible for the entire Trip Hop genre. Four stars just for that tune. The songwriting on the rest of the album isn't as interesting to me, which is surprising considering how many classics Isaac Hayes wrote.

Wasn't that familiar w Nick Cave before so excited to check this out. Strong start, kinda theatrical sounding. Is this a rock opera? Got less interesting over time but still enjoyable enough. However, immediately after it ended I was compelled to put on some Tom Waits, sort of to set the record straight or else the universe would be out of balance.

Fun artifact of the 80s. One of the worst shows I ever saw.

Any album the begins with a tune as great as "Victoria" deserves five stars almost no matter what comes after. In this case, a damn fine Kinks album all the way to the end, and a great redemption of the frequently cringe-y rock opera format.

A monster of an album. Whatever happened to Meg White?

When my big sister brought this record home, the fish eye photo scared the hell outta me. I was pretty sure that if I played this record when I was home alone, bad things would happen. I was terrified to become experienced. It's not my favorite Hendrix - it's more of a singles collection plus extras than the albums he made when he had more experience, control and budget and could explore his vision in greater depth. But this record does capture a 25 year old bursting with a creative explosion off a virtuosity and intimacy with his guitar unknown before or since. Charlie Parker and Jaco Pastorius are the only other musicians I am familiar with who may be in this category. He once described his tune "Manic Depression" as being about a guy who would rather make love to his guitar than to his nominal lover. He didn't describe it as autobiographical but I believe it was. Speaking of lyrics, I noticed listening today how this record has some of my favorite rock lyrics - Wind Cries Mary ("the traffic lights turn blue tomorrow" absolutely shredded my tiny mind the first time I heard it), I Don't Live Today, and from the largely instrumental Third Stone From The Sun, the final spoken verse: Although your world wonders me With your majestic and superior cackling hen Your people I do not understand So to you I shall put an end And you'll never hear surf music again.

Never heard this record before or any of its tunes but always had a soft spot for these fellas. Good songwriting and and I love this singer's voice - these mostly overcome late 80s / early 90s pop production style that I really hate, particularly the drum sounds. Particularly liked the first tune. Used to think of them as a singles band, but this has me wanting to check out the albums with tunes I know, like West End Girls and Domino Dancing.

WTF is it about guitar players from Mali named Touré? Ok, I couldn't resist and looked it up about four tracks in. I didn't even realize that was a thing until just now. A lot of blues influence here. I wonder how the cultural appropriation police would feel about this? I like the playing and the sounds but the tunes aren't that interesting to me.

Let's clear the air: anyone old enough to visit a record store in the early-mid 1980s has made fun of this band. Myself included. I even had a band with a song that mocked them. However, it turns out these guys can play their asses off. We are only discovering this now because it takes forty years to reverse an opinion. Unfortunately, the songwriting isn't there. I kept thinking that the world missed an opportunity for a great band if only they could have been the backing band for a creative visionary who needed help. I can't give you any examples because the visionaries I am referring to never made it. However, many can be found at the end of the bar or other similar locale.

I like Echo And The Bunnymen but never heard this one. Sounds more raw and rockin' than the albums I was familiar with. Didn't really stand out on first listen, though.

Never heard this before. Only some of their later songs. This was pleasant enough but not as interesting, unfortunately. The cover kinda puts me off, too.

I remember exactly where I was when I first heard "Karma Police" and if I had sixty seconds to compile top 10 songs of the 90s, it might be #1. The whole album shakes me to the core in a way that few do. It made me feel less alone in my head, which is about the highest praise I can give something, now that I think about it.

Someone likes jams like this but not me. My favorite part was that it used some unexpected samples, like The Specials.

Never noticed the symbols at the bottom before. The cross, a bass clef, British Pounds, star of David, and a heart with an arrow through it. I guess these are the things George has faith in? I ended up listening to this on headphones and it sounded great. Somehow avoided the horrible production style of the 80s. Was seriously impressed to learn George produced this himself. Super talented musician. The title track gives The Cure's "Close To You" a serious run for the money in the Best Bo Diddley Beat of the 80s category. He's a great singer but most of the rest of the songs are not very interesting to me. Some make me cringe a little. I picked up my Mom in my car with this playing and I felt compelled to turn down "I Want Your Sex." In all fairness, there is a jazz ballad at the end that floored me.

Wow. Pleased to see this deep cut from Neil on the list. This almost makes up for Fiona Apple . A+ album cover. Raw performances of some seriously dark and unsparingly depressing songs. The sound of a hippy waking up and realizing they failed to stop a war or any violence, really, their friends od'd, and the world went to shit. For some reason, these kinds of songs make me feel good. I guess misery really does love company. The second guitar solo on the title track literally took my breath away. Neil is a unique guitar stylist: quasi-competent, cliche-free, crushingly honest, if I can say that, and this album has some of my favorite playing of his.

I was expecting my review to be along the lines of "better than I expected" but I was wrong. I gave a second star as a gesture if respect for the Take On Me video. Otherwise, I was *shocked* to learn later they made multiple albums.

Bittersweet Symphony is an instant classic I will crank 100% of the time it comes on the radio and I have no idea what they are singing about. 100 point demerit to Rolling Stones for being jerks about copyright. Never heard rest of album before and it was good, but not sure it's interesting enough for me to remember to seek it out again. We'll see!

It's a classic, filled with quality tunes and sounds great, but something about Van always rubs me a little bit the wrong way.

Very fun classics. The variety sound like a compilation of singles recorded over 1-2 years. Some tunes sound like possibly from when he was still developing aspects of his vocal style.

Defies the star rating system but I give it one for titling a song Big Muff, which may mean many things but happens to be the name of an obscure guitar effects pedal worshipped by guitar geeks. I like to think the title came to John from the guitar player he paid to play on this with a pile of cocaine so massive that the studio lobby coffee table resembled a diorama of Mount Fuji. They say you have to listen to these albums, but not necessarily why. Sounds like it was made by a wealthy bon vivant raised on an obscure Mediterranean island where he learned English from pop music radio. Listening to this I wonder if the word vapid can take a modifier, like as in \"incredibly vapid.\" Because I was slightly incredulous that I could spend this much time inside the head of another human and yet find nothing there. Was this made by AI, perhaps with a prompt of \"soundtrack for when it's 8 am and you've finished all the coke an hour ago and everyone left and you can't decide if you should make a sandwich or use the toilet?\" Actually, we know it's not because AI would have come up with better lyrics.

As opposed to many albums on this list, it only takes a few seconds to realize that this band is actually trying to express something. If I heard this when it came out I would have been a fan and probably would have gotten into their second album more than I did. I will definitely listen to this some more but not sure it suits my current lifestyle.

A lot to say about this classic, but I will focus on the rhythm section: Aston "Family Man" Barrett and his brother Carlton on drums. Their minimalist grooves are unreal. I would be mesmerized by this record even if Bob Marley and Peter Tosh had nothing to do with it. Suggest focusing on the bass and drums next time this music comes on. It might sound simple, but actually leaving a lot of space in the music like they do is incredibly hard and requires an amazing sense of time. My only complaint is that the Spotify uses the censored version of the album cover. Kinda off brand for rebel music like this!

So much to love about this album! An explosion of creativity that rewards headphones. Stevie's convo with Jeff Beck's guitar on Lookin For A Brand New Love is really something. Stevie playing all of the instruments on Superstition is nuts. To be clear on the rating. It's 8 stars for the music, minus 1 star for occasionally goofy lyrics and minus 2 stars for an album cover photo of a blind man playing in the dirt that could be considered a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Never really checked him out before and I was delighted to hear a small but real influence he must have had on Hendrix 's guitar playing. I generally prefer my blues raw and raucous but this is solid for what it is.

I like this band but this one couldn't hold my attention. Not in my top 1001

Harrowing. A bare knuckle downdraft into some seriously dark nooks. Not for tourists. I listened to this record a lot during what I hope will be the worst part of my life and it wasn't comforting, but it was the only thing that made sense. Both the cover art and the side two leadoff tune "V-2 Schneider" are tributes to Kraftwerk.

The singles from this album and particularly The Rockafeller Skank and Praise You were absolutely huge in the very late nineties in a way that was really fun. The video for Praise You has to be one of the all-time greats.

Never listened to these guys before but I really enjoyed it. Probably depends on my mood - not the kind of thing I listen to every day but when I wanna get weird in a hippy jazz sort of way, I am glad to now know these folks can deliver.

I like the sounds on this - super clean, with zero reverb on everything but vocals. Can only imagine how much cocaine it took to produce. To me, the songwriting peters out about 1/3 of the way through. Also, it is very, very hard for me to pretend to listen to this fresh, as if the singles off this haven't been played to death already, but that's to the artists' credit, I suppose.

It was a chore to make it all the way through this, like being trapped in a hospital elevator with a malignant narcissist on her way to get her deviated septum fixed. Seriously, please blow your nose. She sounds congested. I also wish she had taken some singing lessons - some people can get away with singing out of tune, but she is not one of them. I also wish she sang with some vulnerability - I feel like she is trying to prove how cool she is, but that's not interesting for very long. And does every single lyric begin with "I" ? I know they were a big band at one point but I still don't see the appeal. I worked at a record store when this record came out and every time someone brought it to the counter I wanted to surreptitiously swap it out for Bikini Kill. Live through this? I'm dyin' ovah heah!

Interesting to hear these sounds that I associate with other artists. Helps me understand his contributions to their records more specifically. Sky Saw could be on Side Two of David Bowie's Low or Heroes. Somber Reptiles could be on Side Two of Talking Heads Remain In Light. So it's neat in that respect but ultimately this is not very interesting to me. Maybe he's better at improving other people's music than making his own?

What can I say - Loretta Lynn! Truly legendary. As a ten year old, watching Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner's Daughter when in the theater was a life-altering experience. I enjoyed it, although I'm not a huge fan of the Owen Bradley sound, which is a weird thing for a guy with Nashville bona fides to say, and I make no apologies for that, and I think her songwriting and selection got better later on.

I love Cisco Kid and War's overall sound and vibe but most of the songs here are pretty forgettable. Like, I'm pretty sure I own a copy of this on vinyl but don't care enough to confirm.

Never heard this before but it immediately registers as the absolute epitome of what we in the 1980s US knew as College Rock, which later came to be known as Alternative Rock, subsequently shortened to Alt-Rock and then abandoned for Indie Rock after the rise of the Alt-Right fascist political movement. Anyway, I enjoyed this very much, like laying the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I had ALL of the surrounding pieces: Robyn Hitchcock, REM, Talk Talk, The Smiths, XTC, Graham Parker And The Rumour...Very satisfying in that respect.

Had no idea people were still making these kinds o lf records in the 1990s. You can't say you've ever heard something exactly like this before. On the other hand, I can't say I really want to hear anything like this. I loved the playful spirit in which this record was obviously made, but ultimately the music doesn't move me and eventually got boring.

Zombie is a great, great tune. All-time classic. The rest of the record is very good but not as compelling. Recommend looking for video of a live performance of this era - tunes like Zombie make more sense when you can see what's going on.

This does not sound like music made by someone who has something to say. It's fine and well made but it's not emotionally compelling to me. I almost feel like I am missing something but it is a bit formulaic to me. I might like it if a tune randomly came in top 40 radio, or maybe not.

It's hard for me to get in the proper mood to listen to this as it was intended. For example, I haven't seen a Camero in ages, and the drug companies stopped making quaaludes even before that. I understand the mastermind behind Boston is an MIT grad, and it was only after many years of studying quantum mechanics that I could appreciate this album properly and understood it's rating: it is not a 5 and it is not a 1, it is both a 5 and a 1.

Am I laughing with them or at them? I think the former.

I love discovering an album of a legendary artist in her prime with 0 tunes I recognize. Fine album, and recorded at a time when country tried to sound modern by turning up the bass, which I always enjoy!

If you love Talking Heads then this is a lot of fun. Otherwise, it might get boring. Either way, Buster Jones' double tracked bass on "Regiment" is funky as hell and worth listening to with headphones on. That's one of those tunes I have to play twice before I can proceed.

Strange choice. Good soundtrack but not sure what makes it so special?

One of my favorites. If 6 Were 9, Castles Made of Sand, Bold As Love, Spanish Castle Magic, Little Wing...are you kidding me with this songwriting?!?!? The Experience's second album, but the first where Jimi was given a budget and allowed to play around a little. I think this might have been one of the first "stereo first" rock albums. Beatles and Beach Boys were all mono first and then mixed to stereo later, often by others. Anyway, Jimi finally has the budget where he gets to overdub himself on this record so among other things you don't lose his rhythm guitar when he goes to olay lead guitar, and it sounds amazing. Rewards headphones.

Not bad but didn't grab me. Made me feel like this daily list has limitations, because some records you need to sit with for awhile before they deliver their payload. Also, I thought this was going to be related to Animal Collective but I guess not?

A classic that I never really got into, but has some strong material and the band had a unique sound.

A gem of an album. Exquisite craftsmanship that reveals a depth of artistry the world didn't know Willie Nelson had (or Booker T Jones, for that matter). If this wasn't the album that enabled Willie to get stoned at the White House, it should have been.

Uneven songwriting. Tiny Dancer and the title track were the only tunes I liked.

My first impression is if Queen grew up listening to Radiohead.

This album landed on American shores as a very welcome antidote to the "Negative Creep" grunge vibe that was dominating American rock n roll at the time. I wore it out then, as well as their previous album "A Catholic Education" Unfortunately it was made at a time and scene where making the record sound shitty helps prove it's artistic authenticity. I'm glad we've moved in from that!

Instant classic. Can't believe I never heard this before today. The band starts out a little tentative and quiet but they get their mojo working soon enough and you can practically hear the Newport crowd's minds melt.

Iconic for what it is but not really of interest to me. I prefer smaller groups of musicians with more room to express themselves than this kind of minutely arranged, large ensemble gloss. I'd rather listen to Frank's detours w jazz musicians such as his stuff w Count Basie Big Band than his mainstream pop music like this.

Great example of how the mood you're bringing to the album totally determines how you hear it. I put this on earlier today while I was working and got interrupted by a phone call and didn't even think to come back to it, that's how little of an impression it made in me then. But put it on again later, in the eve after walking my dog, and it sounds awesome! Soft spot for contemporary psych bands, and these guys have a unique sound, using more recent tones than classic psychedelic rawk dictates, like REM/Smiths chiming guitar riffs and cheesy keyboard but not in a retro or ironic way. Just part of their vocabulary. The sublime stemwinder of a jam at the end of "Desire Lines" sums it all up and I could rock it all day every day and twice on Sundays. Bravo!

For the first time in my life, I put on a Bangles album today. I needed to hear their cover of Hazy Shade of Winter because it is so much better than the version on Bookends (those tiny trumpets!). This album cover is a classic I would love to parody sometime. The material here is a bit uneven and gets pretty random after a bit and the production feels haphazard and dated in many respects. The highs are quite high (America) and the lows are low (whatever the name of the second tune is).

Not my style, and I'm over MJ.

Never heard it before but I always knew I would love it and I was right. Stupid I never checked it out before. Delighted by the very deep and direct musical connections it makes with American country music. A great punk rock record in the truest and best sense of the term.

I like it but I like Doolittle better. I think that makes me a poseur?

Good start, amazing hits in the middle w "Electric Feel" and "Kids" back-to-back, and then a little boring toward the end but still a strong debut from the best band from Connecticut ever, which is saying something coming from someone who has put in more effort than most trying to create the best band from Connecticut ever. Recipe to cure a lonely night: 1. Listen to "Kids" 3 times in a row. 2. Listen to "Broken" by Lovely The Band 3 times in a row. 3. Go back and listen to "Kids" again, noting how Lovely The Band so thoroughly borrowed "Kids" main keyboard riff as the backbone of their (excellent hit) song. 4. Play "Broken" one more time, but as loud as you can and scream along with the lyrics.

Not my bag. Kinda sounds like a soundtrack to a musical I've never seen.

Really enjoy the old school sounds deployed on modern stylings. Also, knew "Hero" from the radio but never understood who did it until now, so that's nice.

Not very interesting to me, sorry!

Wow. Hadn't heard this one before. Rock solid, classic Atlantic session packed with hits!

Solid Bowie. Not my favorite but got a few classics and it catapulted Luther Vandross's career, so that's nice. Also, the groove on "Fame" is the only groove I have ever heard James Brown shamelessly rip off, so respect!

Desert island selection.

Love it! Outlandos D'Amour is the appetizer and this is the entree! What's always been most interesting to me about this album is that the instrumentation and production is very similar to Outlandos, but the tunes and tones are fairly different. To me, it feels like the band hadn't been around very long when Outlandos was made, and Regatta shows a band that has been playing together quite a bit.

Better than I expected based on their 90s hit.

Always loved Common People when it came on, surprised in hindsight I never checked these guys out more closely...90s Britpop really was a thing!

Absolutely love her voice with the tunes are not very interesting to me beyond the hits

Document of a musician in transition. Starts as strong as a record can, meanders for a bit, and then ends as strong as a record can.

It was only a few years ago that I learned about the "a lad insane" wordplay. Sounds a little like a Ziggy Stardust fan club release. A big step down from that record in terms of songwriting ambition, but that's a bit like mocking a mountain for not being as high as Everest. Mt Whitney is a better analogy. Highest peak in the lower 48 but not even close globally. So, not a top tier Bowie album in my view, but still very satisfying for those of us who felt Ziggy left too soon but absolutely wore out that album.

Love this album! Great intro to Doc Watson, Carter family, Merle Travis, Earl Scruggs and other old school country luminaries.

I like em ok but surprised to see this on the top 1000 list.

Better than I expected but didn't do it for me.

One of the things I always appreciated about this band is that they had their own sound and unusual vibe during a time when most bands were jumping on the punk bandwagon. Their cover of Helter Skelter is one of the better Beatle covers you'll hear.

Love/hate relationship with this band and particularly this album since the day it came out. I remember exactly where I was, day drinking at the record store where one of my best friends and guitar player in my band worked, and I recall being blown away by the huge step forward the record immediately represented with its bigger and more mature sounds and (sometimes, marginally) more mature songs. The first and only full realization of their artistic "vision" and by far Rick Rubin's best work as a producer - more than anything he did up until this point, this is the album that cemented his reputation. He found their core essence and celebrated it in a way that only a great producer can, and this is why despite his ridiculous, Papa Smurf meets Freedom Rock look, he was eventually able to do the same thing for Johnny Cash and revitalize his career, hang with Paul McCartney, publish a mediocre book on Buddhism and art. This lineup of the band was also their best, w guitar player John Frusciante at the height of his powers and Flea's playing serving the songs more so than on previous records. While the lyrics are unfortunately mostly consistent with the juvenile themes of their previous records - if I were filming a collegiate date rape scene it would absolutely have this album playing in the background - Keidis also gets emotionally vulnerable once or twice, which was shocking in its own way at the time. I own some of their records but rarely if ever play them. I saw them headline a masterful performance touring for this album but only because the tickets were free. It's hard for me to put into words the great passions providing counterweights on either side of my delicately balanced ambivalence about this band and album. As much as I admire them, to me their music (though, importantly, not necessary the musicians) carries the unshakeable whiff of toxic masculinity, preceding the term itself.

Probably Mayfield's best album, which is odd to say about a soundtrack but there you go.

Fantastic. Great rapper with some good collaborators here. Thirty years later it still sounds good but more n bombs than I like was always my problem with Nas and hip hop of this era generally. Hearing this again reminds how I never made the t-shirt for our hood: illimantic

Western MA's finest! Freak Scene is possibly my favorite indie rock tune of the late 80's and the rest of the record is pretty good, too. I always appreciated how they were one of the first bands of hardcore kids to take a step in a new direction. They were definitely not a hardcore band but they always had that credibility.

Maybe you won't agree if someone says this is their best album - that's you're right - but you definitely won't disagree. Whatever you like better than this, you concur it's on par. Feels weird for it to share a list with some of the other stuff on here...That this record was made basically live in the studio in between dates on their first US tour is absolutely insane. That approach doesn't tend to work all that well but they're the hard exception here. My theory is they were enjoying a massive creative explosion as a band so that every second the tape could be rolling the odds were good something amazing would happen. They sing about some of the stupidest shit - that's how hard they rock, that they can make you cosign their ridiculous if unique lyrical mix of classic blues grifts, jr high double entendres, and even more Lord Of The Rings than you expected, often at the same time. In the 80s I was a teenager babysitting for neighbors who had this on 8-track, which is the weirdest format ever and an awesome thing to discover when you're fifteen. 8 track sounded great, deep melting butter bass tones, but it has four sides instead of vinyl's two and these songs are so long it would randomly break in the middle of Heartbreaker, for example, and flip to Ramble On. Around the same time I picked up the electric bass and some of the first songs I learned to play with my buddies are on this record (Whole Lotta Love, Heartbreaker, Living Loving Maid), and there are other songs on here I still can't play right this many years later (Lemon Song, Ramble On).🤘🤘🤘

I wrote an imaginary doctoral thesis on this album that hinges on a contrarian take regarding this moment in Neil's psychological and creative development, and in particular the Jungian archetypes inhabited by the album's various instruments, and specifically the recurring pedal steel guitar (voice of man) and orchestral strings (voice of god).

Not hard to pick out the singles but they are great!

Enjoyed it, but kinda sounded like something I might make with a long weekend and a new bong.

Desert island pick. Unless you're a jazz head, you have probably never heard this record before. I defy you to give it a fair listen and not be moved. Sublime. Bill Evans had this incredibly intimate intensity as a player and the interplay among these three musicians is nearly pornographic, they are so far inside of each other. The audience sounds like the Vanguard is only half full, which in one respect doesn't match the quality of this music but then again with this particular music it does seem more appropriate than if we were hearing it echoing off Carnegie Hall's walls. I think this was this band's final performance, too, as the (25 year old virtuoso) bass player Scott LaFaro tragically died in a car crash a week or two later. What might have been! Finally, word to the wise: any jazz record titled "Live at the Village Vanguard" (and there are many) is pretty much guaranteed to be excellent and should be consumed without delay. Actually, same goes for "Live at the Lighthouse," too.

A classic album I love, but admittedly easier to appreciate its nuances while enjoying a cocktail in a mid century modern sunken living room. Corcovado is a personal favorite.

Clueless as to why this album is on this list.

Great sounds and solid rocker when you're in the mood, but the songs weren't that interesting to me.

It was a chore to get through this but you gotta love the story behind Smoke On The Water, and respect that it's the first riff almost every rocker figures out how to play.

Some nice sounds and beats but I didn't really connect with this. I bet it's the sort of thing where you had to be there.

Don't know anything about this band before today but I like that song Maps, which I have heard on the radio over the years but never knew who did it or what it was called. On it, the singer reminds me of Chrissy Hynde a little. Otherwise, the band sounds like a fun live show but otherwise I will be surprised if this album really sticks with me.

Not bad!

Not my bag at all but Solsbury Hill is a classic.

I love the Happy Mondays but prior to their album Pills n Thrills n Bellyaches their best material was not on albums because it was other people's remixes of their singles. This is a very interesting album to a potential academic studying the "Manchester" scene but I don't think it shows the Mondays at their studio best. It does make me wish I was tripping balls at the Hacienda, though.

Many classic rock radio staples on here but I never heard the entire record until now. Not a fan - these tunes were part of what to me as an 80s teen felt like boomer nostalgia crowding out and overwhelming our youth culture - but respect the work and its influence. My favorite song was Pre-road Downs, largely because of the eminently humorous contrast of the lyrics with Stills' solo hit less than a year later, Love the one you're with. Both rely on gloves to make their points, too: - Felt forsaken, you'll awaken To the joys of livin' hand in glove And then I will lend you my will And your days will be filled with love Pre-road Downs was then convincing their "old ladies" to remain celibate while the band is out in the road for a year, and Love the one you're with is the tale from the road - and possibly very same tour - where the band is like fuck it, I can't wait that long: -Well there's a rose in the fisted glove And the eagle flies with the dove And if you can't be with the one you love honey Love the one you're with But back to CSN, and their very practical advice, which proved valuable to so many 70s kids: Don't run, the time approaches Hotels and midnight coaches Be sure to hide the roaches

Fun!

A+ album cover and title. Fun and bizarre album from a crazy bass player.

High highs and medium-low lows. I wish I had seen these guys in their prime. My favorite song of theirs, Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, is not on here but some other really good ones are, like All My Friends and North American Scum.

First time I heard Iron Man, over at Brad Johnson's house when his older brother Seth put it on after their parents left, I was so scared I had to leave the room.

Delightful session. The title track is one of my favorites.

Never was it truer that you have to be in the right mood but it's spectacular.

The beats are sweet and have withstood the test of time, unlike a lot of other 90s beats. Missy's voice has nice tone and excellent flow. Loved the rhyme "cheaper reefer" (cheepa reefa, technically), and "Izzy Izzy Ahh" seems to cleverly nod to ODB's "Shimmy Shimmy Ya," but too much gratuitous cursing, N bombs and vapid rhymes overall for 5 stars.

A Perfect Album. Truth be told I own a copy and probably haven't listened to it in 20 years but this weekend listened to it about five times and am enchanted in a way I wasn't before. Every element of this all-time masterpiece is superlative, the composition, performance, production and even the packaging is all absolutely 10/10 wouldn't change a thing. One technical aspect that might not be obvious to the casual listener is the use of reverb. reverb is an artificial effect that creates an echoing sound that makes it feel like the musician is in a large room and maybe on the other side of the room from you. on this album they use a lot of it. the vocals are fairly dry so the effect is it feels like Dr John is whispering in your ear while the rest of the band is on the other side of some voodoo shack out on the bayou.

Some classics on here. Dennis singing Do You Wanna Dance, Brian singing Please Let Me Wonder. Beach Boys are in hindsight a very weird band - intricately orchestrated music behind almost creepily adolescent lyrics sung by angels .

I was first introduced to this record when I was 8 or 9 and my big sister got it for Hanukkah. The cover looked wild and I was shocked, *shocked*, that my parents would condone something with the word "Hell" in the title. Jews don't have hell, but it still seemed wrong, especially for the holiday. A year or two before that I was first introduced to Meat Loaf as a celebrity in a Cracked magazine centerfold he shared with Leif Garret ("Meet Leif! Meat Loaf!"). Then again a few years after that Hanukkah, watching Rocky Horror at the late night picture show. None of any of these encounters prepared me for this record. I don't love piano-driven rock generally (sorry, Little Richard!) and these tunes and arrangements are schlocky but I bet would be great fun to sing along to at a dueling piano bar. I can also imagine this album is a teenage touchstone for many. But what's most interesting to me here is Ellen Foley, making her debut here as Meat's singing partner on Paradise By The Dashboard Light. She did a lot more singing and some acting and eventually went on to have a recurring role on Night Court, but the most improbable but verifiably true bit another is that Mick Jones of the Clash wrote Should I Stay Or Should I Go? about her.

Not a huge Elvis guy but Suspicious Minds, c'mon. Nice backing band on this one, too, and they do a great version of John Hartford's "Gentle On My Mind," but not good enough to make up for the ridiculousness of "In The Ghetto."

Not as interesting as the previous Pulp album on this list. Maybe it grows on you?

The first song is killer diller, and I would credit it for single handedly reviving David Byrne's career (after he put it as the lead-off track on a Brazilian music compilation he put together that got a lot more attention than his solo records had up until then). The rest of it is very good, too, but that first track - apparently about a soccer player? - is kick ass. Note also the melody of Taj Mahal - Rod Stewart must be a fan! 😅

Literally the invention of outlaw country taking place in real time. I assume in some corner of some Smithsonian museum there is an interactive exhibit that recreates the electric scene at this show. When he makes the guard get him a glass of water, I like to think he wasn't actually thirsty as much as he wanted to juice the prisoners. Truth be told, my favorite Cash jailhouse rock is his version of Shel Silverstein's Boy Named Sue on the San Quentin record but in any case this is a fantastic performance featuring a fabulous duet with June on Jackson, among other highlights. An essential American artifact. Fun fact: Luther is Carl Perkins' brother.

Two drummers, no waiting.

Never was a fan but respected them more than most of the other grunge bands. Not sure why, honestly. Not bad but a bit monotonous. I feel like my garden would have more variety.

Classic

Star-crossed relationship with this band ever since their EP w/ Iron+Wine slid behind my built in record cabinet, sending it to the depths of Mordor before I even got to listen to it five times. They do a really good job of evoking the American southwest, from their name to the instrumentation to the lonesome sounds that remind me of epic drives across a desert landscape. I prefer their instrumentals to the vocal tunes as to me this is essentially mood music and the words get in the way, as Gloria Estefan once sang.

If you are a white person from a reasonably affluent family in the US born after 1940, this is the first jazz record you fell in love with. But don't knock it just because of its privileged fans. It's not Dave's fault. This is a fantastic creation, made at a time when jazz still had new frontiers to explore. Paul Desmond's airy alto sax is delightful. It's best to listen to on vinyl if you can, because it will help you better appreciate the tour de force that is side one. I bet during the vinyl era side one got 10x the plays of side two.

This guy was at the beginning of a creative explosion to where for many years he was practically farting out absolutely devastating tunes all day long. They are pretty much all very negative, desperate and cynical. Pissed at the world, pissed at himself, pissed at his ex (current and future), often all at the same time and all told incredibly cleverly, like a modern Cole Porter. I think this is the first album with The Attractions, Elvis's amazing backing band for an incredible run of perhaps half a dozen albums over the next 6-7 years, all produced by Nick Lowe, a legend in his own right. This run of records stands out as one of the truly great musical accomplishments of the twentieth century, in my opinion. I mean that seriously. Maybe I am forgetting someone but I would say maybe only the Beatles and Miles Davis had such a consistently fertile and productive period. Sounds like very few if any overdubs on this. Very straightforward production and arrangements. Just a basic capture of a sick band playing kick ass tunes like their lives depended on it. You can hear their youth in how far on top of the beat every song feels. I bet if they re-recorded this today every song would be 10 beats a minute slower. Lipstick Vogue is a young player's tune, for example. You don't hear midlife people writing or performing such fast, high energy and emotionally desperate songs. I think this is EC's second album? His songwriting has really tightened up here. He sounds like you don't want to piss him off or else you will be permanently eviscerated on wax in a cleverly biting way. But no one hates themselves as much as Elvis hates himself. He's the GOAT of cynical self-loathing. I dont want to kiss you I don't want to touch. And while we're at it, I don't wanna go to Chelsea, either! This record could have been named (almost Seussically) All The Things I Don't Want To Do. And I'm here for all of it. All the buttons of my overcoat They have fallen off one by one You wouldn't even like me if you'd never had a drink You wouldn't even like me if you never stopped to think Standing in the shadow, turning wives to widows Don't you know, big tears mean nothing You can count them as they fall Big tears mean nothing When you're lying in your coffin Tell me who's been taken in Tell me, who's been taken in Tell me, who, me or yous been taken in Tell me, tell me, tell me

Crazy selection for 1001 albums. The Huskers deserve to be here but it should have been Zen Arcade and it's not even close. This might be the most egregious error yet on this list and I'm afraid that to the extent this list is influential, it may unjustly damage Husker's legacy. Most fans would tell you Warehouse is not a bad album, some would, actually, but it's widely understood to be their worst and a terrible introduction. It's their last album when they weren't really getting along anymore and it's too long and self-indulgent and despite the major label budget it still has that incredibly thin, low budget sound. They may be the only band in history who's recordings got worse sound quality-wise as they matured and got bigger recording budgets. I never understood that. So Husker Du was an awesome band but you wouldn't know it chucking this on the turntable. The best way to be introduced to Husker Du takes a little work, but it's totally worth it: what you have to do is take a bad acid trip alone wearing an Army surplus trench coat in a desolate junk yard on the outskirts of Minneapolis on a freezing overcast winter afternoon that's getting dark weirdly early during Reagan's first term, eventually crawling home to be inexplicably greeted by "Diane" from Huskers' Metal Circus. On behalf of Husker Du fans everywhere, please accept my apology for this terrible mistake and try to put this entire day out of your mind. Thank you!

Never heard this before today. Lotsa radio hits on side one, but side two struggled to hold my attention, not unlike an unsuccessful mindfulness meditation session. Never been a fan of their sound or hits but grudgingly respect the tune Hotel California. There is a small lyrical fight going on in it that amuses me - "They stab it with their steely knives" was apparently a reference to Steely Dan, to get back at them for their "Turn down the Eagles, the neighbors are listening..." I would love to learn the story of how Joe Walsh joined this band for this album. When I listen to the James Gang I do not hear anything that suggests he would be a good fit for this outfit.

See you on the dark side of the moon!

My neighbor has a truly delightful lawn sign this election season: "Presidents Come and Go, but Wu-Tang is Forever!" I prefer GZA's Liquid Swords but this is pretty good, too. Not always in the mood for this many N bombs, but then again not sure if grey haired suburban dads isn't Raekwon's core audience, or maybe just on weekends?!? 😅

Classic album cover, lionized by The Clash's London Calling. This was made before albums were really a "thing" yet, and this was definitely not recorded as an album. More likely a combination of all the tapes they could find to capitalize on Elvis's early success. I never liked his warbling vibrato and by my time all of the original versions of tunes he made famous were readily available and generally preferable. There's nothing about listening to this now that is changing my perspective. My favorite aspect of this album is its brevity. And some of the guitar playing (Some. If that's Scotty Moore on Blue Suede Shoes, it's his worst work I've heard. Can't seem to keep up with the tempo!). I think you had to be there. I grew up mainly after he died and I and my friends knew Elvis mainly as the image of celebrity excess and a cautionary tale told by a huge velvet painting of a late period bloated Elvis stuffed into an Evil Knievel wannabe jumpsuit with a tear streaking down his cheek hanging over our favorite booth at Mama's Pizza. There was a kid in my 1980s high school who would wear a t-shirt with the cover of that "50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong" album on it and whenever I would walk by him in the hallway I would obnoxiously yell at him "yes, they can!" In retrospect I am surprised no '80s hardcore band swapped Hitler into that image. Missed opportunity.

If I see another bullshit selection on this list I am quitting.

One of my very favorite albums by one of my very favorite artists. I misheard "Changes" when I was a young child and thought he was singing "Don't let them grow up in Olivette." Olivette is a suburb of St Louis, Missouri and I was amazed that this British bloke would get so specific. Like he was singing just to me. Bowie has somehow managed to maintain that intensely personal intimacy with my soul, even when he is singing about Mars, a place where I've spent much less time than St Louis.

Missed opportunity to title it Mellow Gloom. I like "Lost Cause" every time I hear it on the radio but an entire album like this is a bit much for me most days. I liked the subtly unconventional songwriting and his voice has more technique and range than I expected, but I'm still not fully recovered from overplaying "Loser" at the record store where I worked when it came out almost 30 years ago (yeesh!).

I love this album but would almost never recommend it to someone interested in learning more about Neil. While it has a coupl of his very best tunes (Powderfinger is a personal favorite and I cannot play this record with out listening to that tune at least twice), it also has some very odd and not great tunes as well that are mainly of interest only to academics (did I tell you that I chair the Neil Young Studies program at UC Santa Cruz?). If this list is supposed to be about unusually interesting records, then it's a great add, but I would not consider this in Neil's top 5 or possibly even 10 records so I probably wouldn't be adding it to a list of top 1001 records. My understanding is that this album was a reflection of how seriously and challenging Neil took the punk rock movement. Hey Hey My My observes a changing of the guard, with Elvis dying and Johnny Rotten rising. I love both versions of that tune but even more interesting to me are the lyrics to the overlooked (understandably, the music is not very good) Thrasher, where I feel like he is making fun of his musically stagnating hippie friends like Crosby, Stills and Nash ("they were lost in rock formations"). Overall, I think punk woke him up in a way and sent him on a strange path of making some pretty weird records for the next 10 years. RUST NEVER SLEEPS!

Most illingest B-boy, I got that feeling I am most ill and I'm rhymin' and stealin'! This album was kind of a shot heard 'round the world for suburban teenagers in the mid 80s. They were ridiculously obnoxious and would probably describe themselves even as stupid, but they were OURS! And they could rap surprisingly well and their rhymes were often hilarious with a variety of cultural references that hinted at a depth that said they were not your typical Adidas and Kangol bboys, nor your typical teenage idiots even. I still have my Volkswagen hood ornament medallion and would not hesitate to drop everything and bust it out if I saw the bat signal go up. The first time I heard "Girls" was at an unofficial cast party for our high school production of "Grease" and a girl put it on and when I saw all the girls dancing to "Girls" I intuited that the adult complaints about Beastie misogyny just didn't get it. That was also probably the first time in my life that I chose to dance. My only complaint is that it's a pain in the ass to be confronted with this on a Monday morning, as happened to me with this project, because now I have to blow off work and shotgun a six-pack of Bud tallboys and chase it with some of that funky monkey! NO SLEEP TIL BROOKLYN!

Wow. Now THIS is a great justification for this list. A band I heard of but never heard. Instantly the best glam metal band I have ever heard and the only one I have ever liked. Their story is somewhat intertwined with Motley Crüe's, and I mistakenly lumped them into the same bucket so very pleased to be corrected now. Much more creative and interesting than Crüe, to me at least. I am looking forward to checking these guys out further.

Disappointing. Small Faces were one of those bands I should love in theory but it hasn't jelled. This sounds like people playing at being psychedelic without actually being psychedelic.

Good but not particularly memorable

Saw them on this tour, playing in Jersey City's Liberty State Park w Beta Band ("Dry The Rain") opening and Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan as a backdrop. Beautiful late summer night and truly a magical show, and as it happens, just a couple of weeks before 9/11. My mind has rearranged events, to where this show was the night before that absolutely gorgeous late summer Tuesday morning I was walking to work across downtown Jersey City and turned the corner onto Montgomery St, giving me a direct view of World Trade what must have been moments after the first plane hit, staring at the fireball atop the World Trade Center just across the Hudson river and rationalizing that it must be some kind of extreme window cleaning before noticing that everyone was stopped in their tracks, staring at it in bewilderment, too. Post 9/11 NYC was a weird place to be and this album made it feel more normal because it preceded the tragedy but still had a lot of emotional relevance. In its own way it helped me believe that what we were going through was not unprecedented and therefore survivable and surmountable. To be sure, I was superimposing my own trauma on it but it worked. Definitely better on headphones, where it feels like a very personal soundtrack through a surreal, isolated landscape. Listening to "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" on a subway crowded with other quietly traumatized commuters. "You And Whose Army?" with the sound off on a TV showcasing our "commander in thief" (to borrow from the title of the next album Radiohead made after this) making a tragically obsessive, nonsensical case for invading a country that had nothing to do with our situation and would solve no problems. The dreamy anxiety sleep sequence of "Knives Out" immediately followed by "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" immediately followed by "Dollars and Cents" and so on, eventually ending with a bizarre jazz funeral of "Glass Houses" - felt like the perfect soundtrack to my and the entire region's (nation's?) sleepless shuffle through the following spring. So no, I can't listen to this and review it with any pretense of objectivity. I gave this record a lot more meaning than probably even Radiohead did. In fact, I think I read somewhere the lyrics were somewhat randomly generated. But sometimes only nonsense makes sense. That is the genius of surrealism and dadaism in my view, and so it's no surprise that it was a an artistic movement birthed by war. Twenty years later, I was making small talk at a conference cocktail party with a woman from Iowa who unprompted told me a long story about her 9/11 trauma as she raced across Des Moines to get her kids from a daycare center located near the interchange of two nationally significant interstate highways, I-35 and I-80, convinced that intersection would be the next place the terrorists would hit. As I was listening to her I realized that here are no tiers of trauma. And I found myself laughing, I think mainly at myself, and it was very long overdue.

Not a huge fan of the Band, but this album has a great feel that can't be denied. I'm struck it came out as early as it did - ahead of its time 3-4 years in terms of its sound. I also love it when rock n roll bands start an album with a ballad. It's perverse and I love it. Can also hear how other bands I love were influenced by this - for example, play Steely Dan's "Pearl of the Quarter" immediately after "In a Station" and you'll know what I mean. Also, this album kicked off the whole concept of a "band house," a musical collaboration and production style these guys pioneered, as well as a slacker lifestyle that served many quite well.

Feels a little silly writing a review of this, so all I'll say is that in case you weren't aware, "When the Levee Breaks" is one of the most sampled beats of all time, for example on fellow 1001 album lister Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill (Rhymin' and Stealin'). It's one of the hugest, heaviest grooves you'll ever hear, mainly because John Bonham is has a devastating sense of time that makes him one of the funkiest drummers ever and people will continue to borrow his beats for many years to come. Go listen to it again right now if you can, focusing on the drums. Magnificent. Listen to Black Dog, for example. The guitar and bass are playing these ridiculously complicated riffs and Bonham cuts through it all like Alexander The Great slicing through the Gordian knot, with an incredibly simple beat that takes great maturity and musical instinct to conceive, and immaculate sense of time to execute so effectively, and provides a powerful contrast to the busy strings. People tend to get distracted with the fiery guitar and Lord of the Rings references and blues thievery but for me at least, Bonham is the most interesting and probably most influential musician in this band and this album is a tremendous showcase for his talents.

One of the first albums I bought with my own money because my big sister had Talking Heads 77 and I really got into that but it felt silly even to a 10-year-old to buy another copy of a record we already had under our roof. Absolutely adore this album and it completely blew my mind it was profoundly influential for me as a musician. So I was a little surprised not all that long ago as I was really getting into African pop music of the 70s to notice that a lot of the ideas and sounds here are directly lifted from those tunes. I mean directly. I don't mean that as any sort of criticism because every musician is inspired by the sounds around them, and it certainly something Talking Heads have discussed openly. The lyrics are of course sui generis, like all Talking Heads. I particularly love the lyrics to "Seen and Not Seen." As a tween I used to ponder them endlessly and wonder if that's what lay ahead for me. For many years I regarded it as fantasy but now I've reached a point where I see it's more true than not. There's not enough talk in this world about the musicianship of this band. Tina Weymouth on bass particularly stands out as one of the most interesting and, at least to this bassist, influential electric bass players. I heard David Byrne was a total dick to her and constantly wanted to replace her which is really unfortunate and misguided if you consider that her playing and singing on Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" (side project made a little after Remain in Light) might be the most sampled and ripped off bass line in the history of music. I'm kind of at the point where I can't listen to this record anymore I played it so many times so instead what I like to do is go on YouTube and search out this one particular show they played in Rome in 1980 promoting this album. it's about an hour long will absolutely shred your mind. What an incredible band!

Enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to, having spent a considerable portion of the 1980s making fun of their "hit" song "Bela Lugosi Is Dead" and goth in general. Now that I'm old and crusty, I have developed a soft spot for goth and am looking forward to checking out Bauhaus and giving them an honest listen.

I liked it as a novelty but it didn't really hit me.

When I was a little laddie, the Hawkins brothers up the block had a Kiss record. I think it was the double live "Alive II." This was 77-78. Everyone picked their favorite guy and since I went last I had to take drummer Peter Kriss (the one with the decidedly un-macho feline face), whose big tune is the exceptionally shitty ballad, "Beth," the original studio recording of which is on here. It was pretty hard for me to find a way into that tune as an eight year old, and I am very sorry to report that the many intervening years have not made it any easier. Two stars only because the badass song title "Detroit Rock City." Otherwise, I would prefer to listen to Spinal Tap.

Great tunes made even better by David Bowie and Mick Ronson. A great way to appreciate their contributions is to listen to the version of Satellite of Love available on the expanded version of VU's Loaded, where it was originally recorded but not released. Night and day.

I wrote an imaginary doctoral thesis on music production technology's influence on popular culture and this album was at the center of it. It's hard to translate the energy transmission that occurs at a great musical performance but a technical accident necessitated overdubbing a sax solo that had originally riled the audience to new heights and to drown out the sound of the original sax solo, the producer cranked up the audience track, making an excited audience sounds downright riotous. The show helped revive Duke's career among the cognoscenti at the show, but the album with the frenzied audience elevated his standing in the broader culture to new heights. I don't like big band music too much, but when I do it's either Duke Ellington or Count Basie, and this album gives you a little of both, in that I understand that Papa Joe Jones (drummer for Basie's best band but look him up; possibly the most influential drummer ever) was on the edge of the stage, beating time with a rolled up newspaper and I understand was one of the voices shouting encouragement and celebration. That's damn cool. For more information, I refer you to this delightful article I cited in my dissertation: https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/0923/upres.html

Deeply disappointed, to where I started getting angry on behalf of all the talented people who never got any support from a record company while these guys apparently floundered for half a dozen albums. As far as I can tell, their only great work was whatever Bowie and Ronson had left in the tank after Ziggy Stardust and Lou Reed.

I like this ok but not in my top 5 Mingus records. Since you asked, they are (in no particular order): - Mingus ah um - Tijuana Moods - Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus - Blues & Roots - The Great Concert

A great rocker w 'tude for when you're in the mood.

Huge Caetano Veloso fan but never could get into this record. Sorry!

Great sounds and singles but overall a step down from the record before it, Innervisions, and to me the songwriting is inconsistent. This was like his 15th or 17th album in less than 10 years as a recording artist, a pace few artists could keep without possibly running low on things to say, and I think he would have benefitted from a little more time off to recharge the batteries before he made this one.

I like the Pretenders as a singles band a lot, but their albums tend to get boring for me.

I was working at a record store when this came out and I scoffed at it - Rage Against The Machine, brought to you by Epic/Columbia/Sony. The machine is profiting off you raging at it. So I guess actually the revolution will be televised after all? Although ironically (tragically?), Gil Scott Heron's record label was eventually acquired by...wait for it...Sony. I have enjoyed a handful of experiences that made me consider making a movie because they would make a great scene. One was at about 3am on a weeknight in Miles's basement apartment in Willimantic. We were cranking tunes, as you do, so loud we could barely hear the cops pounding on the door, to where they were pretty irritated by the time we finally opened up. The front door opened into the kitchen and the tunes were cranking from the adjacent living room. The music happened to get quiet just as they were lecturing us. I figured Miles or Mike or Lori had turned it down while the rest went to the door. We were completely acquiescent and apologetic and they bought it. You could tell they didn't want to be there and didn't see enough worthwhile in busting us idiots. Maybe that's white privilege, I dunno. I was looking the lead cop right in the eye as we were saying our final apologies when all of a sudden there is this voice screaming from the next room "NOW YOU DO WHAT THEY TOLD YA!!!" repeating louder and louder, over an increasingly intense beat somewhat reminiscent of Red Hot Chili Peppers' BloodSugarSexMagic (which came out the year before). My eyes were still locked with the cop's but at the same time I felt like I was having an out of body experience that could have lasted a second or a week, or both, like Interstellar when they go into the black hole. Suddenly, everything snapped together and I found myself a step or two behind my friends sprinting for the volume knob. p.s. I read somewhere that former GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan likes to crank RATM when he's working out.

Led Zeppelin is to Aerosmith as Nirvana is to Pearl Jam. You can like both but if you even for a second think they are in the same league, you're outta your mind. I'm impressed that I recognize so many of these songs, especially since prior to today I think I've only heard enough of them to recognize it and change the station...not my bag, sorry!

Somewhat uneven album but a game-changer for everyone suffering through the underground rock n roll scene of the late 80's, when college rock was played out and we were all waiting for the next big thing. With all respect to my friends and loved ones from the Pacific Northwest, there is no doubt in my mind that the world would be a better place if Manchester had defeated Seattle for epicenter of new rock n roll in late 80's-early 90's. Put differently, a culture dominated by people high on ecstasy is better than one built on heroin. For me, this album was also the soundtrack of another cinematically perfect encounter with the cops: Miles was doing a study abroad program in London and I picked him up at JFK when he came back for winter break. It was late at night in December 1989, and this album had made big waves in the UK but wasn't on my radar at all. Miles popped the tape into my car stereo and pulled a couple of beers out of his duffel bag. The beers were hysterical because they were branded with a generic "BEER" a la Repo Man. I lit a joint I had brought for the occasion and we got on the highway back to Connecticut, cranking The Stone Roses and fighting about if it was the most important record ever made. Being a contrarian, I was trying hard to hate it but actually I was digging it, so relieved to discover that the Next Big Thing was more melodic than heavy, expansive instead of intense, even if at one point they seemed to be doing a weird riff on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Traffic was moving pretty well on I-95 until very suddenly we were at a standstill. The cops had set up an impromptu checkpoint for some kind of a manhunt but we hadn't realized what was going on until I belatedly noticed a state trooper so close to our car his wide brimmed hat was practically touching my window as he was screaming at me to roll down my window. Based on how angry he was, I think he must have been shouting for a fair bit of time before I noticed him. Shocked, having gone in a moment from doing perhaps 70 miles an hour down the interstate to a screaming cop in my face, I immediately turned down the music and rolled down my window, which had the unfortunate effect of enveloping the trooper in a massive cloud of weed smoke. "What the fuck is your problem?!?" etc etc - Lots of anger radiating from this guy. You sensed he wanted to beat us with his flashlight but had bigger fish to fry so instead he shined it in my face while screaming nonsensically and then all three of us, the cop, me and Miles, followed the flashlight's beam as it traced the trail of joint ash that led down the front of my parka to a can strategically positioned between my thighs. "What the fuck is that?!?!?" I obediently lifted the can but inadvertently in a way that exposed the word "BEER" directly at him, almost in his face, in a way that was so comically perfect I managed to push out an involuntary chuckle even though I felt only partially in control of my bowels for being possibly moments away from getting beaten to death with a flashlight on the side of the highway. "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?" Filled with a rage like I have only seen a couple of times in my life, he grabbed the beer out of my hand and threw it over his shoulder, where it miraculously hit the front wheel of a fast moving car on the other side of the highway and shot off into the night, spraying that car and everything else around it with beer. It was miraculous because it managed to catch the attention of our friend's superior officer, who yelled at him something to the effect of stop fucking around with these dickheads from Connecticut while there's a manhunt going on. The trooper looked me dead in the eye with a seriousness reserved for such occasions and told me that I was the luckiest person in the world and to get the fuck out of here right now if I knew what was good for me. I wordlessly concurred, rolled up the window and hit the gas, while Miles cranked the tunes back up and fished a replacement beer out of his duffel bag for me.

Its understandable if you take this triple-LP's title and cover photo together to suggest a meditation on constipation played out in real time, and it's certainly understandable if George approached this project feeling a bit backed up, having spent the previous decade being allowed only as many songs on those records as Ringo, which as much as I love Ringo is kind of insulting. Less than 5 minutes in he kinda fucks himself by accidentally ripping off the melody of The Chiffons' He's So Fine for My Sweet Lord. I blame Phil Spector, the album's producer (a man whose morals seemed to be caught in an ever-escalating duel with his hairdo, until he eventually died in prison for murdering his date), for not speaking up about it more than I blame George, actually. There is a certain thing that happens sometimes to musicians where it feels more like an act of discovery than invention, if that makes sense, and that can be magical but it it's like tuning in a radio station and sometimes you dial in the wrong signal. You can be assured this would NOT pass if it were a Beatles album. Still, this is a beautiful-sounding album, if a little boring at times. But it creates a sweet vibe, and certainly a long enough one that it could be the soundtrack to half a pretty good day.

Beck's a baller but I never really liked Rod Stewart's singing voice, and that's Truth.

There should be a special sixth star because there's a lot of albums I gave five stars to that don't sit anywhere near this album. Should be on every short list, and I wouldn't quibble if this was going to be the one rock and roll record you were going to put in a time capsule. Jigsaw Puzzle is one of my very favorite Stones tunes.

Fantastic album title and some great, great tunes here and there but long but then again I could listen to his drumming all day long. I think Innervisions was his peak for what I like about Stevie.

There is something about Van Morrison that rubs me the wrong way. Something about the image of his roly poly body frolicking in the green grass behind the stadium with a young coed that permanently puts me off. Plus, not sure why but he just seems like a dick. However, this is a lovely album, especially good when played on a sunny summer afternoon lawn.

Why wasn't this ever released in US? We got a different album with same singles but different album tracks. This is better than that one, too. Madness is probably my #3 second wave ska band, behind Specials and English Beat. I bet they put on a helluva live show, but their albums don't have a lot of depth to them.

Amazing mindfuck of an album title and cover art. The music is actually pretty good ("actually" because it came out a good 30-40 years after the next oldest Bowie record I own and most pop musicians seem to run out of ideas long before then) but you have to be a lot more patient than most attention spans permit.Emotionally, I would say it traces similar ground as previous Bowie, with a paranoid tension overlaid across the top. I love the video for The Stars Are Out Tonight and who can't relate to I'd Rather Be High?!?

AITA because I kept expecting the music to break into The Beatles' Within You Without You? I appreciated Shankar's explanations and his musicianship is amazing but ultimately I don't see myself playing this record very often.

I almost refused to listen to this when it popped up as my daily album and that would have been a mistake. I really like the first song a lot - heard it before on the radio but never gave it any thought. The rest wasn't that interesting to me but a lot better than Rod's 80's work led me to expect.

Great Rorschach test of a record: if you hate it, there's something wrong with you. Hopefully it's a temporary condition. I'm not much of a "cock rock" fan but this is a great record that transcends genre. It also lays out the blueprint VH would perfect with albums like Diver Down and 1984. They perfected it, but not necessarily improved it, if I may say that. By "blueprint" I mean that this album truly hits all the key points you want from a most satisfying VH record (in no order): Skull-crushing guitar solo (Eruption) Diamond Dave (Ice Cream Man) Pensive Dave (Little Dreamer) Mean Mistreater (Jamie's Cryin') Mister Mischief (Runnin' With The Devil) Kinks Kover (You Really Got Me) Hot for ___ (I'm The One) They throw off a really unusual mix of talents and vibes but that's what made them better than KISS and everyone else on the scene before and after. Maybe AC/DC is the only other cock rock band in the same league. What makes this particular album stand out from the rest of their work is that it sounds like they are playing live in the studio with maybe only some vocal overdubs. There are maybe two songs I don't like that much but otherwise this is lights out.

This is one of those records where I only have the vinyl; the jacket was lost to the four winds long ago. It's also beat to hell, having been the soundtrack for many, many after hours shenanigans. "I don't listen to Marquee Moon often but when I do, so do my neighbors." Great guitar and fantastic lyrics: "I fell right into the arms of Venus De Milo" My band used to play at a bar in NYC that was run by Tom, an old punk who most nights would drink a case of Rolling Rock and regale us with stories about the good old days. My favorite was the time at CBGB's he finally got up the nerve to approach Patti Smith to sign the book of her poetry he always carried with him and Tom Verlaine was sitting in her lap.

Did not do it for me. I suspect you had to be there...

For the record, Holdin On is one of the worst songs I have heard in a long time. Terrible lyrics poorly delivered. Also, this record suffers from the shitty drum sounds that pervaded (perverted?) early 90s dance records. It didn't have to be this way but it was. Hip hop, acid house, freestyle all had much better drum sounds then. This 1001 list must have been made by a British person, because Soul II Soul wasn't so big over here...and there is nothing about revisiting this today that is making me regret ignoring it when it first came out.

Haven't seen this album cover in a long time and for the first time I'm wondering are they pissing on Stanley Kubrick? I can't really listen to this, for much the same reason I can't drink rum anymore. In fact I think it's very possible I picked up both allergies around the same time, now that I think about it. Can I recuse myself? Is there a mercy rule I can invoke? Like an infield fly rule, but for tunes? Giving it a two, as the average of 5 and 0, rounded down.

Clever but not particularly interesting to me. Not a huge fan of programatic music. Also not a huge fan of the correct spelling of programmatic, apparently.

Never heard it before today but found it unremarkable. Sounds a little bit on the wrong side of history when it comes to sixties counterculture, alongside The Mamas And The Papas perhaps.

This was a big record if you worked in an indie record store in early 1990's. I was immediately interested because of her connections to one of my favorite bands at the time, Urge Overkill. Specifically, the album title is a mash-up of a great Stones album (Exile on Main St) and a great Urge Overkill song (Goodbye to Guyville). Phair also hung around the same Chicago indie rock scene as UO and I think maybe they helped her get her start. She used to tell people the album is a song-by-song response to Exile on Main St, but I think that was a red herring intended to get more people to talk about and listen to it. Also, for many years I harbored a conspiracy theory that Liz Phair is the little sister of UO's Nash Kato (look them up - they look a lot alike, no?). I have spent an irrational amount of time unsuccessfully researching this and still feel unsatisfied that I haven't been able to prove it....yet. This record was a big part of the early 1990's wave of women indie rockers and in that respect she was a bit of a pioneer. Unfortunately, the songs aren't very interesting and her singing is unappealing to me - always feels like she is singing in too low of a register and that she has about a 3 note range. Is this like the Elizabeth Holmes thing where a trailblazing woman believes she needs to artificially lower the pitch of her voice in order to be taken more seriously? Also, there is an emotional distance in her voice that reminds me a little of how when you're a teenager sometimes it's cool to be apathetic. The weirdly low tones and too cool to care attitude remind me a little of Courtney Love, and not in a good way. The record was also a big part of the early 1990's wave of lo-fi indie rocker movement - essentially, people who make records that sound like they were recorded in their apartment while their roommate was sleeping - but at the same time unfortunately the sounds aren't all that interesting, to my ears at least. I think there are people who will tell you this record was greatly influential on them, but it was a 'you had to be there' kind of thing in my opinion. Although she still makes records, I doubt she has acquired a new fan since 1995, and once these people die this record will be forgotten. Ozymandias of indie rock?!?

US=REM UK=The Smiths

Never heard this before. The guitars sound fantastic! This record demands volume. To play this at a normal volume feels like driving a race car under the speed limit. I bet she's a powerful live performer. I feel like there's this tradition of New York albums, and this is definitely one of them. Harvey is a decent singer but the songs themselves are not particularly catchy and I don't know if the awesome guitar sounds are enough to get me to invest the time to learn to love them despite the lack of hooks. Ask me in a year.

Fairly steep drop-off from their first three albums. They sound bereft of ideas and the album is too well produced to still have an edge.

♥️ Arctic Monkeys but never heard their earlier records...is this their debut? This rocks a lot harder than the stuff of theirs I do know. Amazing how much they've evolved. Go listen to the opening track on their most recent album - There'd Better Be A Mirrorball - also great, but in a very very different way but one that feels like they come by it honestly as reflective artists twenty years older than before. This album gives a feel like a young band with a huge chip on their collective shoulder made up of talented players who know each other well and are playing the sh*t out of these tunes. This album sounds like the band left it all on the field, as they say in sports about players who give it their all. I should know the singer's name but one thing I like about him is the Bowie influence. I also love the unselfconsciously unfancy British accent - goes well with his attitude and as opposed to most of the records we've been getting lately, Artic Monkeys sound like they actually have something to say. Something that needs to get out. And I'm very glad it did. One of my favorite bands of the millennium!

I like the idea of Devo more than the reality but Uncontrollable Urge is pretty great.

I tried but it didn't take five seconds to be reminded why I hate Genesis. To give them credit, they find new ways to be irritating with every album.

This selection is one of the ones I find revealing about whoever made this list. If the only hip hop you listen to is what ends up on pop radio then maybe this sounds like a record you need to hear before you die. I don't think there are many serious hip hop fans who would second that view. This record isn't terrible, but the sounds and rhymes are unoriginal to my ears, sorta sounds like if Public Enemy made a De La Soul tribute album. Meanwhile, this list is missing desert island essential LPs like Boogie Down Productions' Criminal Minded. Disappointing. Hip hop's a weird genre for this list because it's mainly a singles game so not many essential albums but still I don't see this one as being important or even interesting and the fact that some super important albums are missing suggested the editors of this list don't know much about hip hop.

Not a big Zappa guy but I think this is one of his better ones. I love his collaborations with Captain Beefheart, like Willie The Pimp. I don't know many - or any, actually - Zappa fans who are not males musicians. It's weird because when people say, for example, that Rakim of Eric B and Rakim is your favorite rapper's favorite rapper, that makes you want to check out Rakim. But when they call Zappa a "musician's musician" it has a negative tinge. It's explaining why you might not like it, where I guess the thing about Rakim is explaining why you need to check him out more.

Amazing lineup of musicians but I found it boring until the last tune, which I liked a lot. Should have been a single instead of an album.

I tried really hard to not like this album but failed miserably. Not my style and not terribly original but very well done and fun.

Pleasant 80s indie guitar jangle with nonsense lyrics. What's not to like?

Waaaay better than I remembered. Goes to show how hard it can be for me to listen to something with an open mind.

No can do i

1966 seems fairly early for a record this far out. Impressive!

I was a late arrival to REM because when they first hit my girlfriend hated them. She said they were unattractive and even worse, they mumbled their lyrics. Years later I worked at a record store where my boss Pete once shared a nightclub urinal with guitarist Peter Buck and took the opportunity to tell him "I can play everything you ever wrote!" to which Buck replied, as he was (likely hurriedly and possibly prematurely) zipping his pants, "I'm sure you can." Once I did listen with open ears I fell hard. I would say from their debut EP Chronic Town to this, their first album and the next two albums are golden. There are many great live bootlegs of them around this time now available on YouTube. Pretty much any show you can find from 1982-1985 is going to be lightning in a bottle. Things start to get hit or miss after that, in my view. Peter Buck is a criminally underappreciated guitar player. His chiming riffs are to me the essence of what makes REM great and basically formed the backbone of what 80s jangly college radio sounded like. Pete my boss taught me the guitar parts to many of the songs on the early REM records and I learned a lot about the guitar and songwriting both from that experience. If lyrics are important to you, you will probably find REM a frustrating listen. I have no idea what Michael Stipe is singing, and I'm not convinced he is, either. I think he's more into the sounds of the lyrics than their meaning, like as if Mick Jagger sang lead for The Cocteau Twins. Some of my respected songwriter friends feel this is a copout, to make songs with nonsensical lyrics. Hence my girlfriend's "mumbler" complaint. And she was right about their looks, too. One more thing that's important. In high school in uptight mid 80s Connecticut, the first step toward coming out of the closet was wearing either an REM or a Smiths t-shirt to school. But one friend of a friend was a fan of both bands and it felt like a bridge too far and I think maybe he screwed himself by doing that because all I can say is that I've never once seen him with a love interest in the forty years I've known him since. Poor guy!

I always thought of DM as more of a singles band than an album band but this one has Policy of Truth and Personal Jesus, so immediately makes it one of their more appealing records to me.

I'm slightly surprised I've never heard this album before today. Certainly heard many of these songs and I have to say this is already the best CSN(Y) I've heard. But I still find their singing irritating and for that reason have a hard time getting into it.

I'm not saying I wouldn't be married to my wife if not for this record, but I'm also not not saying that. When we were dating we had the best time seeing The Roots on this tour at the Roseland Ballroom. One of the best shows I've been to, and I've been to many. To me, this record is head and shoulders above their others, not the least because of their borrowing of Cody Chestnutt and his instant classic "The Seed."

One of those all-time classic albums. Wouldn't change a note.

Every middle school dance ended with either Freebird or Stairway to Heaven. Respect! But really I don't like their music very much - it's very good for what it is, but I'm not a huge redneck rock head and if I had to, I'd rather listen to Charlie Daniels or Allmans or ZZ Top. I understand their name was borrowed from their high school gym teacher, which is pretty great. I also liked the way they responded to Neil Young's Southern Man and Alabama. And I realized this is the first time I've heard one of their albums - everything I know is from either classic rock radio or middle school dances. Funnily worded sentence in the Wikipedia article on this album: "As of March 2023, all the band members pictured are now deceased." As of? Like maybe if we periodically check in again we might find some are no longer deceased?

This was a really, really big album when it came out but in retrospect after the third tune it falls off a steep cliff. Also, the production is peak 80s and not in a good way - fake reverb on the drums, shitty keyboard tones, etc. But ultimately have to respect Money For Nothing and you have to respect Knopfler's guitar. You have to!

I can't imagine what this music sounds like to normal, non bass playing, people. Do you like it?

A highlight of the 1990s that holds up very well. I would love to see an unauthorized Lauryn Hill biopic - seems like a real character.

I like The Byrds and I like Graham Parsons but this combo is kinda boring to me. I think this album sorta invented the Country Rock genre and in that respect it's "Important" historically but that doesn't mean we have to listen to it. p.s. I think The Byrds covered Dylan more than anyone but Dylan himself. Kinda weird.

Better than I expected.

I don't know how many Gillian Welch albums are on this list but I would have guessed 1, and that it would have been her debut. She and Dave Rawlings have enjoyed one of the great musical partnerships of the past several decades and this is a fine example of it.

A gem of an album. Infectious attitude and hooks over a cool late 70's American poppy new wave sound. Comes out of the gate strong with Hanging on the Telephone followed by One Way or Another, and then later on side two you get another 1-2 punch with Sunday Girl and Heart of Glass. This band must have been so much fun to see live!

Shocked that there would be a Suzanne Vega album on here that didn't include the song "Luka." Does that mean we're in for multiple Suzanne Vega albums, because if so that seems odd?

For starters, points for an album cover that directly influenced Spinal Tap. That's why this gets two stars. Beyond that, there is little of interest to me here and I have no idea why this made the list.

Enjoyed it! This is the second or third Beck album I have heard from this list and they make me feel like I should listen to him more.

Aerosmith has a role in top 1001 LPs but this is an insulting selection. Rocks is legitimately a classic of American rock and roll. Bootleg, Toys In The Attic, self-titled debut and even Night In The Ruts (aka Right In The Nuts) are all leagues beyond this piece of shit. I have a feeling I would not get along well with whatever twat made this list.

One of my all-time favorite records. From the opening line "Good evening. Do not attempt to adjust your radio" to the grand fadeout of baby talk on Night of the Thumpasaurus Peoples and everything in between, this is a great example of an album that is greater than the sum of its songs. Once upon a time called now!

Not as good as their previous records, with generally weaker songs and too much Morrissey and not enough Marr.

Simple Twist of Fate is one of my very favorite tunes to listen to and to play. Lots of other good material on here but I don't know this record as well as I should....yet.

I like it but this list needs only one PJ Harvey.

Whenever I hear these guys I think about their incredibly unlikely and greatly inspiring journey from the tragic suicide of their singer and creative visionary when they were the super dark proto goth band Joy Division to the absolutely massive club hit "Blue Monday" - still the biggest selling 12" single of all time - only 2 years later. Even just that part of their 40 year story would make for a great biopic; until then, we can get glimpses of it through a handful of scenes in "24 Hour Party People." Very 80's sound, but they kinda originated it so perhaps that's why it sounds better than most. I couldn't explain why I like this but dislike Depeche Mode. Maybe the Joy Division connection confers a certain credibility? Ultimately, this YouTube's user comment on the (awesome, J Demme directed, 10 minute long) "Perfect Kiss" video says it all: Its impressive that New Order has a singer that don't sing, a bassist that thinks he is the guitarist, a drummer that don't know more than one way to play and a synth player that plays a frog solo mid song and still is one of the most amazing bands of all time. Finally, if you were a teenage musician in the 1980s and weren't in a punk or metal band, it's highly likely that your band aspired to sound like a cross between New Order and The Cure (whether you knew it or not, as in the case with the our band that was exactly as good as you might imagine when I tell you our name was "Lesbian Sinecure"). For the fifteen year old rocker, the main difference between the two bands is whether the guitar player uses chorus and flange pedals (The Cure) or the bass player does (New Order).

It's hard to explain how monumental biggie smalls was in his day. His flow was just so unique and his rhymes so creative if gruesome and profane. Unfortunately it doesn't hold up very well. This may be a more recent thing but hearing Puff Daddy whispering stuff in the background puts off a different vibe than it did in 1993, and frankly the stuff he's wrapping about is kind of boring and juvenile. The back in the day I used to be a buyer for a record store that prided itself on an excellent hip hop selection the kids would travel from all around for it. The first time I heard of Biggie was when some of the hardcore hip hop heads started asking about him. None of our distributors knew the name, but within a few weeks he started showing up on some of the underground dj mix tapes we carried. Improbably, about 12 years later I inadvertently found myself gentrifying the very hood Biggie rapped about, Clinton Hill. It might have been the same place, but in name only. Still, it felt good to occasionally walk by the building he grew up in and fantasize about the childhood that developed this unique style we barely got to know before he was murdered. RIP.

Best Yardbirds album? A really fun listen. Any band that had Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page in it has to be taken extremely seriously, but ultimately they land on the wrong side of the demarcation that goes down the middle of 60s rock, alongside The Mamas and Papas and other paragons of 60s hip that didn't survive the summer of love (culturally, if not technically). Those individuals achieved escape velocity but they each had to jettison the band to do it.

These guys deserve more credit than they get but it's their own fault because of albums like this. I would vote for Eliminating this from their catalog. I am more of a Tres Hombres-Deguello type fan, when they would sing about how Jesus just left Chicago on his way to New Orleans, where on this album the timeless winking roadhouse weirdo vibe is replaced with more of a lecherous redneck with money feel that hasn't aged well. But somewhere in the difference between La Grange and Legs you can hear the difference between 70s and 80s culture.

As I am listening to this, I love imagining what it was like for 24 year old Brian Wilson to have all of these resources at his disposal to explore these sounds and ideas.

"I'm so horny the crack of dawn better be careful around me!" 🤣🤣🤣 I used to be dismissive of Tom Waits for being a faker but after about 50 or 60 years of sticking to his guns you have to wonder if maybe it's the rest of the world that's faking It.

Never really checked out these guys before and now I don't know why. No natural fanbase in US maybe? Anyway, fun stuff and I look forward to getting to know them better.

Four stars for being groundbreaking. Unfortunately the ground they broke wasn't that interesting and inspired a lot of rappers to drop a lot more n-bombs than the world probably needed.

EC has a long history of being a horrible person and I could barely listen to this for that reason. But I did listen to half of it before my rage took over and found it's not too bad - if you're into mellow 70s rock like Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles you might like this. The tunes themselves range from classic to terrible and sometimes manage to be both at the same time (Willie And The Hand Job). Still, I leave this with the same basic feeling I had going in: I won't mind if I never hear his music again.

Why is this on the list? I have no idea.

One of my favorite albums. Probably listened to hundreds of times. The tunes, the sounds, the pacing...all excellently conceived and executed out of the cultural cave that is Cleveland. Gets to places no other record does. Years after I got into this album I saw the 1973 Terrence Malik film "Badlands" (w/ Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen) and recognized that the dialogue must have inspired some of this album's lyrics, specifically "my baby says that when the devil comes, shoot him with a gun."

Never got the appeal of these guys. There's about a dozen Stones albums and half a dozen each of Allmans and Aerosmiths that should be on this list before this album.

Emmylou Harris is an amazing singer - an American treasure to my mind - but her material is rarely worthy of her and this collection is unfortunately no exception.

I'm not saying that Norah Jones is personally responsible for the existence of the $5 cup of coffee but this album has a lot to answer for when you think about how many overpriced lattes have been served in countless mediocre cafes while it has been gently lilting in the background. My favorite aspect of this album is the opportunity it gave me to look up the definition of anodyne to ensure I would be using it properly to describe it.

I wish I was Jah Wobble - great bass player on the scene at an amazing time, even better stage name - but this reminds me too much of those Bill Laswell albums from around the same era where the credits listed some of the most incredible musicians so you had to buy it but then you brought it home and played it once, possibly never even getting to side two. I liked this more than that, but by the end I was forgetting what I heard at the beginning - couldn't hold my attention. I liked hearing the underappreciated Sinead O'Connor stretching out, though. Extra star for that.

When you're on death row and they let you play one last Stones album as I assume is your basic human right in every nation, the album you select is very revealing: 12x5 - sad that you're still trying to prove something Goats Head Soup - only child? Some Girls - high on your own supply Tattoo You - starfucker Exile On Main St - a bit obvious Beggars Banquet - almost Let It Bleed - retrial warranted

The first record I bought. Fantastic in many ways, but a little inconsistent songwriting.

Pavement was the ultimate American indie rock bank of the 1990s, and this one has some classics, like Cut Your Hair, Gold Soundz and Range Life. Such a Gen X touchstone that I actually know two different people who titled their blogs "Range Life." Back in the day I was so enamored of the LP before this, Slanted and Enchanted, that I avoided listening to this one for several years for fear of being disappointed, which was not easy to do working in a record store. Once I could approach it with some emotional distance I grew to really love it. I have a feeling that they will get lost to history, but to a certain set of lonely nerds, they touched a nerve.

This is probably the best 4 star album on this list. 4 stars only because their vision wasn't fully realized when they made this debut album and it's fair if you're sick of Do It Again or Reelin' in the Years. But the filler here is quite filling. Perhaps the last couple of tunes aren't on the same level as everything else but Only A Fool Would Say That is my personal go to prescription for bad days. That song turns my frown upside down 100% of the time. 100% OF THE TIME. That song is undefeated against depression and its writers, performers and producers deserve the Nobel Prize for mental health Rx. Brooklyn, Midnite Cruiser, Dirty Work - these would be other bands' best songs. Denny Dias's and Skunk Baxter's guitars are unusual, virtuosic and intense.

It's weird how long musicians wanted to work with Phil Spector.

Really fun, if contrived.

A great singer who seems to have a hard time finding the right material. I think this is probably her finest outing (so far?). Constant craving really great tune top to bottom if I can't get over the idea of using it for some pharmaceutical commercial.

The best thing to ever come from Staten Island. A little more profanity than I care for but the sounds and rhymes are great.

Beautiful, if you're in the mood. Irritating if you aren't.

Some boring and irritating stuff in the middle but overall this is much much more interesting than most acid house albums (more of a singles format). Makes me feel remiss for never having checked these guys out more.

I used to be on Team Simon all the way but starting to feel myself switch sides to Team Garfunkel....or maybe even Team No Thanks! Also, I'm surprised the cover art doesn't consist of a basket of herbs.

Not good or interesting.

Makes me feel exactly how I feel every time I grossly overpay for a watery vodka soda from a Russian bartender wearing too much Hai Karate in a lightly peopled lounge in the meatpacking district in the late afternoon of a sunny late fall day with sticky floors and a slight Lysol smell that make me nervous about availing myself of the enormous black velvet chaise longue in 1997.

It is not hyperbole to say that this album offers what is possibly the most influential musical ensemble of the 20th century at the peak of their powers. The lyrics to "Run For Your Life" have sadly not aged well but damn the rest of this is lights out in every way. I can't pick a favorite Beatles album but would be a fine choice. It's funny this album should arrive today, because somewhat randomly I recently became obsessed with Paul McCartney's badass bass playing on "The Word." It used to be hip to give these guys shit for not being better players but eventually hipsters realized that there is more to life than wanking on your axe. Or at least eventually this hipster realized that. But the wanker in my heart still gets off on his aggressively groovy bassline here. Give it a listen, preferably at a suitably high volume. Finally, I always recommend the mono versions of early-mid 60s pop records like this. That's what these artists actually produced - the stereo version was done later by studio hacks who were waaay too enamored with the concept of stereo separation, which accidentally fucked my skull as an early 80s tween when I got the "red" Beatles compilation from the library and taped it by putting my sister's boom box next to one of the speakers, not understanding the implications of recording only one channel of a stereo mix. My parents had just gotten a beater of a Peugeot but it had a tape deck in it and I didn't often get to use my sister's boom box so that car was my main place to listen to a cassette and I will never forget how seriously it fucked with my head when I got my Dad to play my tape for me and all I could hear were like horns, snare drum and backing vocals. And then the next tune would be just like lead vocal, harmonica and bass. Every time we played it! For months! My Dad was not really in to music and never appeared to notice, which made it all the more surreal. I thought maybe something was wrong with the car, an unfortunately highly plausible explanation, given our family's history with cars. It really twisted my melon. It was only years later - probably more years than I should admit - that I figured out what was going on. 🤣

I ♥️ Fela, to where I would gladly listen to him suffer extreme intestinal distress so long as Tony Allen was backing him up on it. However, I don't know his discography well and yet would be surprised if a non Boomer, non British (ie, has no reason to give a shit about Ginger Baker) critic would cite this as a top pick of Fela's recordings. It sounds good enough but feels like a loose jam session more than an intentional musical statement we need to pay close attention to. It is also true that within five minutes it became my all time favorite thing Ginger Baker ever did. Hilariously, I looked at the credits and Ginger hadn't even yet appeared on the album when I rendered that judgement! 😅

Indie folk-rock that explores the intersection of pastoral and somnolent. Like a lot of things, how much I like it depends on my mood. I loved it today but could totally see myself smashing the OFF button with glee if I were a little more stressed or cynical. My son said it sounded like Lord of The Rings Holiday music. More specifically, like what you might hear at a Dwarven Castle Keep.

Enjoyable but irritating that my streaming service offers only the two disc collectors edition, virtually guaranteeing I will never play it again.

Is it possible to both acknowledge something as a classic and also not like it? The big production sound and overwrought singing are not for me. I generally I prefer my rock n roll with too much guitar and not enough piano but this LP is very much the other way around. And whoever is playing piano should have been asked to record all of their tracks with a closed fist. Their constant arpeggios are distracting and irritating. Feels like this record might have inspired Meatloaf's sound. Born to run into the bat out of Hell. Anyway, I would rather hear Patti Smith or even Manfred Mann do this material.

Loved "My Name Is" when it was on the radio (and funny twerpy video) but never heard the LP until today and unfortunately the rest of this is quite shitty. Juvenile rhymes over boring beats.

I love Otis Redding but 99% of the time I am listening to his live recordings, which tend to be higher energy and more emotionally urgent than this is. Still, this album has a fine array of tunes and as always his backing band is stellar, notwithstanding that the intonation on Steve Cropper's guitar sounds a little off in a couple of spots. But who cares about pitch when you got soul and this album gives you lotsa soul. I love hearing Otis cover Sam Cooke, too. Still, if you like this? Do yourself a favor and check out his Live in Europe and Monterey Pop Festival recordings - that's where the real heavy sh*t goes down!

Amazing in many parts but really two albums, not one. There is one five star album in here and two 3.75 albums.

My favorite Stevie Wonder and one of my favorite albums of the 1970s.

Credit for being unusual, but nothing really grabbed me.

Very different from their first album. Feels more experimental and improvised. Classic situation where a band has years to write material for the first album and a lot less time for the second? Either way, you are unlikely to hear another record that sounds like this, but then again it fits alongside contemporaries like PiL and Talking Heads. I'm also fascinated by the lack of articles about Pere Ubu. Not easy to friend writings about them, leaving it entirely to your instincts. Boy that sounds swell!

The fade-in on Natural Mystic is one of my very favorite album beginnings. Amazing band in top form playing some classics and near classics. Side one is in the streets and side two is between the sheets.

Not sure the world needs another rock n roll party animal album. Sounds good but not really standing out just being reminded of Pete Doherty's tragic inability to get off heroin despite all the resources stardom has provided him really bums me out and makes me fear that I will never get my own shit together. So this is a lot more depressing for me to hear than I think its creators intended.