My 1001 Albums Journey

Album	You	Global	Diff
Duck Stab/Buster & Glen The Residents	5	2.04	+2.96
Rock Bottom Robert Wyatt	5	2.39	+2.61
Shleep Robert Wyatt	5	2.51	+2.49
Shalimar Rahul Dev Burman	5	2.64	+2.36
Pictures At An Exhibition Emerson, Lake & Palmer	5	2.64	+2.36
Arise Sepultura	5	2.73	+2.27
Medúlla Björk	5	2.74	+2.26
Scream, Dracula, Scream Rocket From The Crypt	5	2.76	+2.24
Roots Sepultura	5	2.78	+2.22
Vulnicura Björk	5	2.79	+2.21

Album	You	Global	Diff
Bad Michael Jackson	1	3.81	-2.81
Off The Wall Michael Jackson	1	3.8	-2.8
Graceland Paul Simon	1	3.72	-2.72
Californication Red Hot Chili Peppers	1	3.68	-2.68
Getz/Gilberto Stan Getz	1	3.67	-2.67
good kid, m.A.A.d city Kendrick Lamar	1	3.65	-2.65
To Pimp A Butterfly Kendrick Lamar	1	3.64	-2.64
Maggot Brain Funkadelic	1	3.6	-2.6
Songs For Swingin' Lovers! Frank Sinatra	1	3.52	-2.52
Bryter Layter Nick Drake	1	3.52	-2.52

Artist	Albums	Average
Beatles	6	5
Radiohead	5	5
Led Zeppelin	5	5
Neil Young	4	5
Pink Floyd	4	4.75
Pixies	3	5
Björk	3	5
The Who	3	5
Creedence Clearwater Revival	3	5
Kraftwerk	3	5
Beastie Boys	3	5
Nirvana	3	5
Tom Waits	3	5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds	3	5
Queen	3	5
Yes	3	5
Black Sabbath	3	5
Kate Bush	3	5
PJ Harvey	4	4.5
Jimi Hendrix	3	4.67
Deep Purple	3	4.67
Genesis	2	5
Robert Wyatt	2	5
Oasis	2	5
Supergrass	2	5
The Clash	2	5
The Doors	2	5
King Crimson	2	5
Rush	2	5
Air	2	5
The Prodigy	2	5
Sepultura	2	5
R.E.M.	4	4.25
Blur	3	4.33
Peter Gabriel	3	4.33
Prince	3	4.33

Artist	Albums	Average
Kanye West	3	1
Tim Buckley	3	1
Elvis Presley	3	1.33
Morrissey	3	1.33
Red Hot Chili Peppers	2	1
Cocteau Twins	2	1
Rufus Wainwright	2	1
Frank Sinatra	2	1
Kendrick Lamar	2	1
Ryan Adams	2	1
Kings of Leon	2	1
Taylor Swift	2	1
Michael Jackson	3	1.67
Paul Simon	3	1.67
Stan Getz	2	1.5
M.I.A.	2	1.5
Goldfrapp	2	1.5
Nick Drake	2	1.5
Ice Cube	2	1.5
The Verve	2	1.5
Dexys Midnight Runners	2	1.5
Everything But The Girl	2	1.5
Primal Scream	2	1.5
Happy Mondays	2	1.5
Barry Adamson	2	1.5
Adele	2	1.5
Joni Mitchell	4	2
The Byrds	5	2.2
The Fall	3	2
Steely Dan	3	2
The Smiths	3	2
My Bloody Valentine	3	2
Arcade Fire	3	2
Roxy Music	3	2
Van Morrison	3	2

Artist	Ratings
Elliott Smith	4, 1
Isaac Hayes	5, 2
Metallica	2, 5, 5
Beck	5, 4, 2
Marvin Gaye	5, 2, 3

Such a powerful, fun and obviously very influential record! I could do without "Sex machine", which hasn't aged that well, but other than that it is a tight and beautiful record with surprisingly many fragments you know already if you like Hip Hop and Electronic records.

This is a hit record despite being noisy and strange, because at the same time it has great melodies and power. It almost invented 90s Grunge and Alternative Rock, neither Nirvana nor Radiohead would have sounded like they did without this. But most importantly it is just an awesome listen.

Nice and pretty easy listening versions of some classics. Good for relaxing or as a smooth background for some light conversation. This is hardly real country music, I believe, but Willie's voice is familiar and comfortable. I find it a bit baffling, that this is one of his most successful records and considered a classic.

What a great record, all killer, no filler! It invented Southern Rock the way we know it today, but is definitely one of the best Rock albums ever, Southern or not. Free Bird, Simple Man and Tuesdays Gone alone are classics, but the rest is complete up to par.

Plain and simple: One of the great classics of Rock History - and you can hear why. Everyone should now "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Mercedes Benz", but the rest is just as great. Sweaty, heartfelt blues rock with one of the best and most legendary singers ever.

Interesting stuff, doesn't really fit any genre I knew until then. Strange at first, but it grows with every Listen.

Some of the music is really good, but lyrics from a sexist, horny preteen inside a grownups body are so damn cringy and on top of that is Kiedis just a really mediocre singer, so this has definitely not aged well.

Not just boring music, but almost painful because of the singer's voice and pronounciation. Not my cup of tea, obviously, but this time I have a really hard time getting how anyone else could stand this let alone consider it a classic.

Masterpiece and classic. Prototype rock opera, amazing musicianship, great songs, gripping story. What more could you want?

Technically impressive, but just too extreme to be enjoyable

First of all, I love Metallica ever since I was a teenager. This was actually the second Metallica release I bought on the first day, after I had discovered to them through "ReLoad" (of all their records, I know) and quickly inhaled the back catalog. I did not like it then and I still cannot bear it now. I do appreciate the experiment and of course there are some really beautiful moments, "Ecstasy of Gold" being played live is one of them. But most of the time it is just too much for me. There is not much "room" left in Metallica's sound, but the orchestra just keeps pushing its way into the songs partly smothering the band. The worst thing for me is that it kills pretty much all of the quieter parts by filling them in instead of letting the songs breathe. This takes away most of the dynamic especially songs like "Master of Puppets" and "Thing that should not be" are supposed to have. I would have liked to see this live, but under my headphones I will always prefer just about any other Metallica live record.

I get that the bad recording quality and unfinished songs are the artistic concept and they are probably done well in that regard. It just doesn't do much for me.

This sounds all perfect and very tasteful, the musicians are obviously the cream of the crop. Even the songs themselves seem very well-written. And yet the only way this makes me feel is bored and underwhelmed. There is just no passion, no human element and (to me) most important: No real dynamics in terms of speed, loudness and yes, emotion. I never thought that 40 minutes could feel this long... I couldn't help but think of Steven Wilson, who definitely learned from Fagen and Becker's production perfection, but luckily he also learned from Pink Floyd and others how wo write interesting songs and those are mostly missing here.

Nice and completely boring

Just epic, one of the best debuts ever. This has everything Maiden's career has been built one maybe aside from Dickinson's air raid siren voice. DiAnno is completely different, but maybe even better. This mixture of a rough, punky sound and proggy epics is unlike anything else and the fact that many of the songs are bona fide classics speaks for itself.

Simple, loud and fun.

I find it hard to see how this record or even artist should be exceptional in any way. She sounds pleasant enough, but also exactly like a thousand other singers in this genre. Lyrics are okay and seem honest, but it also doesn't seem like she has anything important to say. Guitar work sounds good, but doesn't stand out in any way. This is okay background music, but how anyone could sit down and enjoy this as a favorite record beats me.

Common sure is a really good rapper. But his preachy religious lyrics and Kanyes pompous production with lots of R&B just aren't for me.

Peak Neil Young, plain and simple

What an incredible amount of hits you know from the radio, parties, disco or whatever. The sound is almost too big and perfect. Lyrics are mostly stupid and cheesy, but here nobody cares. The record is way too long and the songs are hard to keep apart, so it all blurs into an overproduced mess of sweet pop trying to sound like hard rock. One or two songs are really fun, but the album as a whole is just too much to be enjoyable.

Absolute classic and I agree that this should be on here. Doesn't mean it's a great record in my book. Aside from the title track and maybe "Life in the fast lane" there is a lot of boring filler tracks and while the musicianship is impressive it is definitely missing some sort of edge to make it interesting instead of just smooth and bland.

Generic and kind of awkward

Albums like this is what I come here for. Never heard of the artist or the album and at first I found it simply strange, but intriguing. And with every run this keeps getting better and more clear and beautiful. I love music like this, because it can grow on me and I will definitely revisit this.

Not just a classic, but a true masterpiece. I've known and loved this record ever since I was fascinated with the "Paranoid Android" music video as a teenager when it came out. I keep coming back over the years and with pretty much every run I feel like I am discovering more aspects, sinking in deeper and understanding it more. Great art.

Pompous and boring

Beautifully weird masterpiece

I'm usually not a Reggae person, but this one annoyed me even more than Bob Marley.

One of my favorite Nick Cave albums, and I love all of them.

This could be a real fun speed rock album, and the title track is bona fide classic. Sadly, the utterly disgusting "Jailbait" ruins it. Different times, sure, but I'm really glad those are over...

This is the first Led Zeppelin album with some filler and quite a few tracks that could have been better by keeping them shorter, but it's still a great record that sounds awesome and inspiring even today.

Radiohead manages again and again to not only be experimental and progressive, but to produce real beauty that reaches the listener on a deeply emotional level. This is one of their best efforts.

An early masterpiece. Queen have not completely evolved yet, but with the BoRap prototype "March of the Black Queen", the glorious "White Queen" and the kind of crazy "Fairy Feller's Master Stroke", which is the soundtrack to a painting, it's all there and with "Seven Seas of Rhye" there's even a first little hit single. One of my favorite records since my childhood!

One of the classics of the "Nu metal" era. This has a lot of pop appeal which probably is most obvious in the classics "Crawling" and "In the end", but there's a whole lot more and a really consistent album here, that has aged really well. Especially the lyrics seem pretty ahead of their time, back then it was not very cool and normal to talk about your psyche like this. But I guess that is one of the reasons why this record is still so relevant and revered even today. RIP Chester!

The title track is fantastic, of course. The rest of the Bowie tracks is okay, but doesn't really stand out very much. Most of side B is a kind of interesting Eno/Fripp ambient project, not at all what you would expect from a Bowie record. Really strange decision to include this here, reminds me of George Martin's B side to the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine", that I don't ever listen to.

"Tales of brave Ulysses" is genius and there are some other classics here, but also some filler.

So many awesome classics here, such creativity and diversity. For me it's all a bit much, though, and two hours of this tend to get long. Could have been a perfect single album, this way it is still great.

One of the first concept albums and it's so much fun, it's creative and it simply rocks.

A perfect album with no bad songs and one of the great classics of the grunge era

Surprisingly good! I only knew "Drive", but this is different and much more up my alley. Will definitely revisit this!

Overlong, overblown and for the most part underwhelming

Not one of his best records and certainly not one that can't be missed. Some good stuff here, but it's too long and sometimes boring to be truly great.

Perfect album.

Promising debut, but not as great as "Damn the torpedoes" or "Wildflowers"

Really good album, but not up there with his classics, so not really one for this list.

Some good songs, even some great. But also some really mediocre and many that are just too long without keeping it interesting lyrically or musically. Like so many double albums this would have benefited from someone who isn't afraid to tell the artist to focus and make an awesome single album instead of keeping everything.

Some really great classics here, but also a lot of filler. Many songs and the whole album could have been shorter and tighter to make it less tedious and more enjoyable. That's always been a problem with GNR for me.

A one hit wonder with a completely generic album? Not an essential listen in any way.

Great voice, nice songs. But definitely not essential.

Some great stuff, but overall to repetitive and sometimes really boring.

The music seems interesting for a few minutes, but then gets boring and repetitive pretty soon. Lyrics are just awful.

Never heard of this, but it's right up my alley. Very creative, sometimes even kind of progressive and one of those records that keeps getting better with every run. Love it!

Some good stuff here, but it all sounds the same and gets pretty boring. Also, WAY too many Byrds albums on this list!

A handful of good songs (one great) and some apparently unfinished ideas padded with some filler ambience do not make a great album in my book.

Not even my favorite FNM album, but still a masterpiece with Patton's budding genius and one of 90s alternative rock's best rhythm sections.

Even separating art and artist - they both suck.

A rather curious debut album considering what Pink Floyd would become in later years. Some great stuff here, but also a few duds. All in all it's a decent psychedelic record, but not up there with the greats like the Zombies' "Odyssey and Oracle", the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" or the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper".

Singles are okay, the rest is boring middle of the road folk pop and sounds like everything else from the valley, which this list has way too much of.

The first metal album, and still one of the best. A perfect masterpiece. RIP Ozzy!

Not sure if this is really essential. But it's a lot of fun! Strange choice, of course, including a compilation instead of e.g. "Veni, Vedi, Vicious"

Strange one. Some really great dance tracks and some really lame and repetitive pop songs. Has been done much better, especially around its time.

Absolute masterpiece

Boring songs, awful sound. Beats me how this could ever be a hit or considered an essential classic.

Perfectly fine, but I fail to see how this would be essential in any way or why I should listen to this again instead of something really interesting

Solid Atlantic soul record with all the usual strengths and flaws like uneven songwriting and lyrics full of cliché. It's a fun listen, even if it doesn't surpass its peers in my book.

Coldplay's last good album with at least some edge and diversity and a few really great tracks. It is also too long and gets tedious pretty soon. All in all a seriously overrated band.

The title track is great, but most of the rest falls short and is pretty generic, even though the musicianship and voices are top notch.

Title track is pretty good, the rest is very uneven. Not all bad, but surely not a classic.

This is a special record, of course, with some really great covers that improve on the originals. It's also too long and monotonous with very little variation, so I was kind of glad when it was over.

What a borefest. Self indulgent and overlong with hardly any real song ideas. I'm not a big fan of Rumours, but this is just way worse. I can see why the band kind of needed this record, of course. Why the public and especially us should have to endure it, I have no idea.

Great sound and a few real classics. I'm sure it works really well on the dance floor. As an album it gets tedious being very repetitive and pretty much every song is much too long.

Moderately interesting music, awful singer

Painfully inoffensive. This can only be on this list as an example of the worst aspects of the brit pop hype.

Good sounds, but very repetitive and very little dynamics. Feels tedious to me.

The raps and lyrics are okay, I guess. But the lightweight production and the Will Smith Choruses are really not my style, I don't get the hype.

Surprisingly diverse. Not everything is great, but I appreciate what they're trying to do and all in all it turned out really entertaining. Next year's Billion Dollar Babies got even better, but this is lots of fun.

Pleasant enough, but very much of its time and hardly very original. Also sounds a lot like the collection of sketches it is rather than a cohesive album.

She has a good voice and the production seems competently done, but it's still full of Country cliché, lyrically and musically. Not my cup of tea at all.

Perfect album, one of my all time favourites. Jazzy, experimental and yet full of hits.

Interesting sound, but it gets old pretty fast and the positive mood doesn't convince me. Too plastic fake for this list.

Avantgarde stuff that gets more enjoyable with every spin, but it really demands attention. I'm glad to have heard it, but I'm not sure how often I'll return to it.

Their first perfect album with several more to come.

Just awful. Boasting lyrics delivered with that monotonous voice over pompous pop beats - no thank you.

Really good stuff between Kraftwerk and Punk with powerful drum grooves that sometimes remind me of Can. Never heard this before, but I will definitely return to it!

What an absolute joy to listen to this! Experimental pop that never loses sight of the song and ends up sounding like some sort of happy Radiohead. I will definitely return to this and maybe dive deeper into their discography.

Listenable, but completely unoriginal

Who would have thought that Beck could be this conventional and boring?

Impressive amount of hits, but also a lot of filler. All in all this is a fun little lightweight pop record, but I fail to see how this would be essential in any way being a very mediocre example of a mostly mediocre era of British pop.

Generic, repetitive and boring. More British mediocrity.

The only justification for having this in the list is a reminder that empty and generic casting bands aren't such a recent invention.

Not bad, actually. But the noise gets old after a while. I've had two of their albums and kind of liked them, but it's starting to get old. And five albums on this list are way too much. I get that they're Important, but so many other classics are missing...

These guys seem to be a lot more fun than they promise on the cover. In the end they just seem to be an okay, but pretty amateurish cover band with very few songs of their own, though.

The sound may be influential and new for the time. The songs are mostly boring, though. Not one of the better examples of brit pop.

Some really great stuff like the title track, the Boxer and Song for the Asking. But it's a bit uneven with "stinkers" like Bye Bye Love and the truly awful El Condor Pasa. This remains a duo I'd rather listen to on compilations than their albums.

Am interesting historical document, sure. Doesn't make it a very enjoyable listen. The sound quality varies, the music is monotonous, even in the band section.

Very enjoyable and of course very much of its time. I like the tongue in cheek darkness, the beautiful melodies and the heavy beats. This Corrosion is an epic classic, I hadn't heard that in far too long.

Beautiful poetry, quiet music, classic Cohen. Maybe not as perfect as other albums of that period, still very enjoyable.

Great energy, great and very varied music for such a punk adjacent band. I knew of them, but hadn't actually heard their music and I like it a lot!

This is only mildly interesting, because it was supposed to be another album with Garfunkel. You can see why he left the project, if not for personal reasons. The songs are uninspired and boring, Simon's lyrics are awkward and sometimes even ridiculously bad. Inoffensive background music, hardly good enough so anyone should have heard it.

Good voice, well produced music and you can tell how influential this was, not just for Tracy Chapman. Doesn't really compell me to listen again, though.

Just awful. Every track sounds the same and goes on way too long. This might work on the dancefloor or as background music in some kind of party or lounge context. As an album it just doesn't capture interest or provides any kind of development.

Apache is great, of course, and the overall sound is good fun. Some cool grooves, many of which you recognize from hip hop and break beat classics.

Musically an interesting mix of punk rock, funk and jazz, that's nice. Lyrics are good, but the vocal delivery is very tiring to me. Also this sounds like a bunch of very short demo snippets rather than finished songs.

I'm not a fan of musicals in general, but this one sucks even more than most.

Pretty middle of the road power pop folk rock whatever with a really weak singer and songs that often sound unfinished.

Beautiful melodies and a pretty organic sound for synths. A bit monotonous, though, and not really for me.

Probably the perfect blues rock album and definitely a career highlight for the three beards.

This makes me kind of philosophical. At what point do you call random noises "music"? I don't have the answer, but I suspect this doesn't always reach that point. It may have been influential, but I'm not sure I want to hear the results.

Boring and repetitive, even if it does have some interesting sounds, that probably were innovative at the time.

Never heard of this band, but it's a lot of fun! The wild mix of styles feels organic and never forced and the songs are catchy without feeling cheap. I will probably return to this.

Typical 70s rock with a little sexism and racism that seems to have been necessary for a real guy in those years. Musically inoffensive, if you can stand his raspy voice over a whole album.

"Groove is in the Heart" is truly awesome and nothing on this record comes close to it, sadly. There is a lot of good stuff, though. Much of it sounds pretty dated, but some still hold up.

More perfect boredom. Ridiculous to have four albums by these guys on here...

Musically these guys are competent, if not very original. The lyrics are juvenile, but sometimes fun.

Masterpiece including the greatest song in the world

I'm happy for Brian that he got to finish his Magnum Opus. It isn't the next Pet Sounds or maybe even better, though. A handful of songs show that it might have been, but all in all there are too many sketches instead of polished songs and the whole thing just flows by impressing the listener more with its lavish production than with songs for eternity. Happy to have heard this, but I will stick with the singles in the band version.

Great album full of very diverse songs, that can be funny, angry, loving, aggressive or sad. Not one song seems unnecessary and although the production is pretty dated in part I still like the album as much as when I heard it first as a teen. Maybe even more, because now I get most of the lyrics.

Interesting album because of the African elements, of course. Miriam has a great voice and certainly charisma. Most songs seem to be tailored to a Western, especially American taste, though. The "naughty little flea" reminds me of the similarly silly "how much is that doggy in the window" for example. All in all it's not for me, although I certainly appreciate the opportunity to have listened to it.

I like the sound of this electronic jam rock, especially the drums. There are some really good melodies and grooves, but most of the songs kind of flow by without leaving much of an impression.

Just as great as Hounds of Love, feels maybe a bit more human to me.

Very smooth, very perfect, very catchy - and a bit boring

A real modern rock opera going far beyond the boundaries of their earlier punk rock stuff. Masterfully composed and played with lots of sixties pop influences it is also great fun to listen to. Their Magnum Opus in my opinion.

Really good album, but sandwiched in between Blue Lines and Mezzanine (which should be on this list instead) it's very obvious that in comparison this has far weaker songs and often drags on a bit.

Great classic combining technical excellency with a relaxed and positive mood that's just a joy to listen to

Title track is good and I know it from Pulp Fiction. The band seems competent enough, but the singing seems kind of whiny to me and the monothematic lyrics actually made me angrier with every song. May have just been that day, but I have no desire to listen to this again.

The comparison with Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party is not totally off. The difference is that those bands are able to write absolutely compelling songs while they experiment with futuristic sounds. This record sure has its moments, but it often feels like they are trying too hard to be enjoyable.

He sounds very enthusiastic and the music seems pretty good for the chanson era. I don't understand a word, though, and it's just not for me, I guess.

Another average overhyped brit rock band. Has a few good moments that show what AM would do later and much better, but other than that it is very forgettable.

Great rapper, no doubt. The lyrical content is explicit and usually violent and sexist and you might excuse that with the genre and a realistic image of the times and the scene he describes. What I really can't abide is "Just playing (Dreams)". That's absolutely disgusting misogyny and in no way excusable as being just a joke or whatever. F* this toxic sh*!

Yeah, it's a classic. Simple, repetitive music and cliché lyrics about god, america and women, that's country music for ya. It's probably a great representative of its genre, but pretty boring to me.

Sounds like NYC 1977, alright. Reminds me a lot of Patti Smith without the lyrical urgency. Good guitar and drum work, really enjoyable.

I only knew them for "Deadlock holiday" and never really liked that. This is completely different and more like a Dad joke rock musical. Too many interesting ideas crammed into the songs for any of them to catch me. I felt like on a roller-coaster, and not in a good way. I love good prog rock and also Queen and the Sparks, so I don't mind funny lyrics, a certain pomp or complex song structures. This just seems to want too much and in the end achieve hardly anything.

Even after several plays I mainly like the singles and find the rest pretty forgettable, and I am not a mainstream radio guy. The music is alright and so are the lyrics, but it all seems a bit cold and sterile lacking the emotional depth of Depeche Mode, for example.

Overproduced and boring, his voice doesn't do anything for me.

Awful, it's the same whiny song over and over again. Couldn't stand to finish this.

As much as I appreciate the offer of some music with a less western background this is way too poppy and shallow for my taste. Also way too long.

Cultural exploitation - the album. Didn't even like it, too confusing for my taste. And the way this guy just puts his name on other people's work is disgusting.

When this came out I thought Radiohead was over, because I didn't get it. They were actually just beginning! Absolute masterpiece.

Fascinating album, especially considering it's from 1966. This is funny, original, intelligent and pretty ahead of its time - but also pretty demanding at times.

Fun little pop album, that doesn't excite me very much

She's a legend, but I can't stand her voice. Also, I have heard way too much folk from the Laurel Canyon on this list and it's just not for me.

Great sound, a major influence on many of my favorite bands. A bit lacking in substantial songs, though.

Remarkably unremarkable.

Very tight band, great rhythm section, awesome brass and good vocals. Many hits, sometimes a little over indulgent.

I was skeptical, but it really is that good

That awful glossy production drowns any hint of an interesting sound or song regardless of how good her voice or any of the musicians are. At least I learned about the quiet storm, but I will stay far away from it.

Really nice, didn't know any of this, but I really enjoyed it. Chilled and groovy, Wall of Sound really had a lot of great stuff back in the day.

Classic REM with a lot of good songs, maybe a little bit repetitive. The mandoline is a nice touch and gives a very folky feeling to their sound.

The constant mumbling seems completely uninterested and doesn't catch me in any way. I don't get its significance, but maybe it's just not for me.

I'm not a country guy, but this is especially awful. Whiny heartbreak stuff and everything sounds the same. At least it's not long...

Music for people with no interest in music. Yes, her voice is impressive, but I find it very intense and lacking variation. The songs touch a lot of genres musically, but always stay kind of vague and never demand too much of the listener. And the lyrics? Wow, finally someone does an album about heartbreak, that's what the world was waiting for! I recommend Amy Winehouse or Lola Young if you want something in a similar vein, but WAY better and more interesting.

Fun album with a surprisingly elaborated sound for a debut. A little lacking in variety, maybe.

Very high energy big band album, that swings well enough to make me tap my feet or sometimes even dance a little.

I like the way she explores and blends several genres of music, but her voice gets annoying over the long running time and the songs don't really click with me.

Great voice and rap style, mostly mellow and petty organic beats and no autotune party anthems, but she really has something to say. This is modern rap I can get into!

Ry Cooder is the master of pretty boredom. As nice as it is to have some African elements here, this just makes me feel sleepy. Too much repetition, too little dynamics, it just lulls you in and...

A handful of great singles (Afterglow, Lazy Sunday, Rolling over) with some filler and a pretty much failed attempt at turning this into a concept album. I like the fact that they use humor and don't seem to take themselves too seriously.

A constructed "perfect pop record" that sounds completely dead, cold and hollow to me. Lyrics may be based on personal experience, but they still sound generic and repetitive to me. The music is pseudo retro 80s, which sure fits the title. It still feels cheap, generic, and simplistic without any kind of edge that could make it interesting. Just awful.

I know this is well executed for what it tries to be, but I can't stand this kind of whiny, bombastic pop that wants to be so heartfelt and emotional, but feels as deep as a puddle to me while sounding like the calculated chart success it logically had to become.

Why make generic 80s synthpop without any interesting new twist in the modern age? Why listen to it? Why include it in a list of essential albums? So many questions...

One of the great classics of the punk rock era with a surprising variability and musicality. All killer, no filler.

Most of the record feels like swaying bubble gum pop with fuzz guitars instead of real rock. Not actually bad, but not very exciting either.

Two hours of bad covers and studio improvisation? It almost doesn't matter that this is country which I'm not a big fan of, it's just not a great album, it's debatable if you should even call it an album.

On another day this might have been a three, but today all the dissonance just rubbed me the wrong way. Too much mumbling and shrieking, too little good songs.

William Orbit's production was innovative and still sounds pretty fresh today. Like many albums of the time it is too long as a whole and also most songs go on too long. "Frozen" is great and probably one of Madonna's all time greats, but other than that the songs are pretty boring and forgettable.

The few songs with vocals are really good, the rest meanders between elevator music and decent instrumental soul or jazz. It's probably good as a soundtrack, but as an album on its own it's too long and uninteresting.

Great raps and lyrics like usual, but PE's sonic assault is just too much for me

Unoriginal, uninteresting dancefloor background music that doesn't work as an album.

This is really fun, a good example of synth use to enhance the rock game that's already going strong. Good set of songs and weird lyrics.

I actually never heard this classic in full. The first time it all seems kind of random, but with every other run structures and complex melodies appear out of the mist, I really like it! Not sure I like what he is saying about Richard Branson in that Klingon section on Part two.

I'm sure they could've been fun as a live band in your neighborhood pub. But how anyone can get excited about this mediocre stuff on an album beats me.

Pretty relaxed and positive hip hop, I like that in general. I actually knew "People everyday" before Sly Stone's original and found it great. It's much too long, though, and the lyrics are too preachy and religious for my taste. Still like it way better than anything by Kanye, Biggie or all the other mysoginist guys.

It sure has its moments, but doesn't manage to really interest me

A really energetic live performance. The songs seem overplayed, but they are the originals that too many people have covered, often way worse. It doesn't excite me very much, but I appreciate its importance.

A perfect pop punk record, all killer, no filler.

Very lightweight disco pop, that's not trying to be anything else. Perfectly done without a doubt it still gets tedious after a while, for me at least. I like the darker "Visitors" better where I feel that they have something to say.

There's way too much mediocre folk from Laurel Canyon on this list, but Neil Young's contribution makes this one of the better examples. It has "Helpless" and "Woodstock", which are great, but also stinkers like "Our house". Well...

Awful cliché country pop music with awful cliché lyrics.

Timeless salsa music that puts me in a good mood, like a younger, fresh version of Buena Vista Social Club. Love the bass and brass. I will return to this!

More a product than actual music. And that goes for Beyoncé herself, too, because her image, her "art" and her private life are so perfectly staged that I can't even believe the "personal" lyrics with their feminism and empowerment. This is supposed to be modern soul music, but to me it feels completely soulless and dead.

Curious album that sounds out of its time, but then again fits the late sixties very well. Good vocals, good playing, but it all gets old pretty soon.

Interesting Jazz slash proto rap, that sometimes feels more like a spoken word record with an improvising backing bad. The socially conscious lyrics are very interesting and surprisingly relevant today, but as a music album it doesn't do very much for me.

Really diverse and fun and pretty timeless. Might even get back to this.

Perfect thrash metal record, just as great as "Master of Puppets" or "Reign in Blood".

Another perfectly produced Nile Rodgers record that sounds completely sterile and dead. There are a few good melodies, of course, but pretty much every song drags on WAY too long for the amount of ideas it contains, they just go on and on and on...

Not a great fan of the vocals, but the funk rock music is really good

Aside from "American Idiot" Green Day has always been a singles band for me - like most pop groups. It's the same here, there's a lot of very forgettable filler in between "Longview", "Basket case" and "When I come around". It's still a good album, but far from essential and far from being punk, of course.

I'm really surprised about the clean sound and pretty melodies of something VU-adjacent, it's closer to Mccartney than to Reed. I Really like it!

Typical Kinks with pretty melodies and witty lyrics. Always a pleasure.

Pretty generic and forgettable new wave record. Doesn't hurt, but also doesn't have a lot to distinguish itself from the pack.

Janis' voice is special, no doubt, but not very versatile. The band is playing a decent white psychedelic blues, no more, no less.

Monothematic, repetitive, bland. Awful.

Pretty good concept album about the simple village life, good old times and quirky people. Reminds me of Nick Cave's "God is in the house", which I love. Of course it has the usual baroque melodies and satirical lyrics the Kinks are famous for.

Just awful. Overlong, uninteresting hippie jams and remixes that go on and on and don't go anywhere. Had to force myself to even finish it once.

Another English folk album. Has a few moments, but ultimately bores me...

Not really sure how this qualifies as an essential listen, but I like it! Rather calm and beautiful and the guests fit right in without standing out very much.

Typical Wu Tang album with a high production value, movie samples and skillful raps. It's all a bit too serious for me, but certainly not bad.

George contributed some of the brightest highlights of the later Beatles albums and that genius is here, too. Sadly, so is a lot of filler, jams and alternate versions. Focused on a single disc this could have been the masterpiece that many consider it anyway, but this way it's all too much for me to take.

Finally another glimpse into non western music! But... There has to be something better than this monotonous, repetitive, thin sounding borefest?! Makes me fall asleep, nothing else. Such a shame...

So we have this guy with a really amazing voice and an obvious talent to write good lyrics and melodies, who can produce real bangers like Faith and Freedom and even has an affinity to a little experimentation incorporating different genres like jazz, soul and some more exotic styles. And what does he do with that? 90% are the same slow ballads about relationship and breakup, just like everyone else on the radio. A real shame, because I feel this could have been much better.

Decent raps and a handful of decent songs, the title track is really good. Very repetitive and too long and way too much filler R&B stuff for my taste, though.

It's not even their best, but still absolutely great

Surprisingly slow and melodic, but it's good!

Not even my favorite Slayer album, but an undisputed and awesome metal classic!

Surprisingly good and diverse songs for such a short record. It was really fun and I will probably get back to it.

This isn't a bad album by any means. It's just another mediocre one played by mediocre white dudes and I'm sick of those taking up space in the music world and on this list that other people deserve far more. In no way is this an essential listen and I couldn't get myself to finish it, because I'm so tired of Rod Stewart and overlong albums from the sixties and seventies that should have been condensed into something better.

Way too much lightweight folk pop by Paul Simon on this list, be it with or without Garfunkel. He may be a very sweet guy and all, but his true talent is making music sound the same kind of bland despite being played by different musicians, containing diverse "world music" influences and having totally different topics and moods.

Totally weird and totally fun, great stuff! Also feels pretty ahead of its time in the synth department, these guys have been following Kraftwerks development, I think.

As if cliché ridden country pop wasn't bad enough this guy tops it off with that awful pseudo rock production which has all the edges filed off the guitars and drums so they don't get too exciting. If this is essential in any way, it has to be as a bad example.

Sampling masterclass that produced some great songs. "Frontier psychiatrist" and the title song are pure genius. It does go on a little long being a little too repetitive and not every track is a hit, though.

Absolutely awesome psychedelic rock record. I think I had heard the name before, but didn't know a single note. And boy, is this just as good as the classics, probably better than some. After six runs in a day I'm determined to get to know it better and find out. Very creative, experimental and weird while at the time fun and catchy. One of the best discoveries from this project for me after more than 800 entries.

One star each for Gimme Shelter and You Can't Always Get What You Want. The rest is the very definition of filler. The Stones as an album band remain totally overrated in my book and this is no exception.

Very much of its time and I'm not sure how essential it is. Musically it pretty much lives between Grunge and Nu Metal, but also tries to be pop succeeding mainly on the singles, "Drive" has even become some radio classic while being the odd one out in this album. Lyrics aren't completely dumb like Limp Bizkit and other contemporaries, but also a bit shallow like your teenage diaries. It's okay, but I have no great desire to revisit.

Paul Simon is just as overrepresented on this list as the Byrds or Elvis Costello. All of them made pretty okay music, but none of them at that essential. So, I really don't want to rate this 1 out of spite, but with every new entry (this is my 6th Paul Simon record) my readiness to listen sympathetically declines. So, this has some good songs and some stinkers and way too little dynamics for my taste. And Holy Night? Wow, even worse than El Condor Pasa.

One of Dylan's best and a milestone in his early career with a lot of classics. Like always his own interpretations aren't always the best, but the songs are mostly great.

This has got to be one of the worst examples of electronic pop even for its time in Britain.

Not their best record, but still pretty great

I just don't get this genre, sounds all the same to me and I don't like it

More generic English post punk, great.

Make Oasis more boring than the Verve with a completely nondescript singer and you get this.

Garage rock? More like psychedelic rock, and of the pretty good variety, too!

One of the better albums of the Nu Metal era and the one that kind of got me on a track to real Metal. Maybe a bit too long, but a lot of great tracks. Even though I really don't like Limp Bizkit, I always liked the self ironic "All in the family" with Fred Durst and the opener and first single "Got the Life" led me to buy this record in the first place.

So, more dark post punk. Not bad by any measure, but also not especially exciting.

Pretty diverse for Ska, still not really my thing

Easy listening Jazz with an electric organ, reminiscent of Booker T. Not bad, but really not my jam.

May have been influential and even original at the time, but it just sounds like the Byrds, Eagles or whatever else American folk rock this list already has too much of. Pretty forgettable in my book.

This album isn't fun, but obviously good art. Her voice is really impressive and versatile, the music is absolutely on point and the lyrics are full of intent and meaning and seem more relevant today than when this was recorded. An interesting listen.

Starts off really good, but gets tedious towards the end. Not my favorite of his works, but I will return to it.

Absolutely not my genre, but it came out in my youth and I liked Creep and Waterfalls back then and it's kind of nice hearing them again. The rest does hold up and it's definitely very sexy and cool.

I'd call this country dream pop mixing two genres I don't really like or get. One song of this would be fine pleasantly reminding me of Twin Peaks. But the while album just gets tedious...

Repetitive and boring. May have been influential for its use of synths, but the songs wouldn't be better even with guitars instead.

Really good, never heard of it. Sixties pop with good dashes of folk, psychedelic and mod rock and Americana. Good songs that stay in your head. Nice discovery, I will return to it!

Neither good songs nor interesting improvisation, plain awful. Must be one of the most overrated bands and albums of all time.

Impressive feat, recording this massive project basically on his own. Then again it suffers from overindulgence like most double albums without a producer to streamline it. Might have been a decent 40 minute record, but this doesn't capture my attention. Might be, because this rather soft pop rock isn't my favorite anyway.

Not my genre, but her voice is hauntingly beautiful and she has really deep and powerful lyrics. It really is a shame that the world has hardly changed in almost 40 years which makes those songs still relevant today.

I might be totally ignorant about this kind of thing, but this sort of religious ecstasy doesn't really qualify as music in my book. Probably very well done for what it's supposed to be considering all the praise it gets, but I can't stand it.

She has an amazing voice and I really like some of her feminist and self empowering lyrics. On the other hand this record is far too long and the music is absolutely not my style, at best it reminds me of club nights of my youth.

Good Jazz Album, pretty chill. I don't get the hype, though.

I get the whole tongue in cheek musical theater thing and it's not to be taken seriously. It does have some good moments, but the songs are just too long and repetitive for their amount of original ideas. Might get back to this some day, but not regularly.

A pretty little pop album without any sort of edge and lyrics with the depth of a high school poetry album. I get its appeal, but it makes me feel nothing.

A pretty consistent record with personal lyrics and diverse musical styles. You can hear Prince's hand in this and that's not a bad thing. Sometimes I am even reminded of Phil Collins's middle 80s work.

Really fun jazz jam rock. This guy has something to say and combines it with music that really rocks the party. This album sweetened my work day and it definitely will do so again.

Sounds like a female Lou Reed alright. This is by no means an album I'd like to hear more often, but it's still interesting and not half as bad as a lot of people here make it out to be.

Awful dude appropriating black music in general and Michael Jackson in particular. What's worse, he doesn't succeed despite all the massive help he has. Awful record.

Je is supposed to be witty and funny, but seems only juvenile and creepy to me, even if that's am intended effect. The band is competent, but the vocals are enervating. Not for me.

I was looking forward to this expecting daring lyrics in the vein of "Strange fruit". Instead every single song deals with love and heartbreak, as if the music world didn't have more than enough of that already. The uniform orchestra production does nothing to make it more interesting and her singing is strangely affected.

Another very mediocre British pop album. The experimental sound is reminiscent of the Super Furry Animals, but these guys seem unable to write any compelling songs to match it.

I'm really sick of folk rock from Laurel Canyon, WAY too much of that on this list. This sounds like all the rest and must of the songs sound pretty much the same. Pleasant enough, but boring and generic. No, thanks.

Unnerving stuff, very British. He raps largely without flow or rhyme, it feels like he's telling a story unaware of the background music. The story isn't very interesting or funny and the music is very monotonous. The hooks are repeated over and over and over and really get on my nerves. This is pretty original, I have to give him that, but I can't stand it at all.

Just a fun album. Some tracks may overstay their welcome a little, but all in all I'll gladly get back to it.

A perfect classic

Always great to hear something on this list, that's not from England of even from the western music world. This is nice, blues influenced rock which is rally fun. Could use a little more edge and variation, though, and drums are pretty boring, I sometimes thought I was hearing a drum machine.

There's a lot of good stuff here like "Rocks off" and "Tumbling dice", but also loads of filler. As a single disc this might have been the one and only perfect Stones record, but this just drags on far too long.

Influential as it may be, all I can use it for is background music or I will fall asleep.

Impressive voice for sure and not much of a German accent. The wannabe James Bond production is strange and gets old pretty soon, though, and the songs feel dead and empty to me. And not in a good way.

I won't become a country guy, this much I have learned from this generator. Here is an extra awful example, though. Appalling lyrics over clichéd music that's already hard to bear.

Pretty sure this will get even better with every listen, but I liked it a lot so far.

Chill background music, but not interesting enough to actively enjoy it as an album.

Interesting sound, probably quite a bit ahead of its time. Reminds me of Billy Idol, sometimes Tom Waits (that would be the singing, of course) and at times the guitars seem to be sampled from Queen. Not very homogenous, but after two runs I suspect it might benefit from more repeat listens.

Such a bold, creative album without losing sight of great songs with a message and musical innovation! Kate still manages to make it a joy to listen, even if it might take a few runs. Just as wonderful, if maybe not a polished, as the following "Hounds of love".

Typical Mutt Lange sound somewhere between AC/DC and Bryan Adams. It's a strange thing about that whole Hair "Metal" era, that they use these wild aesthetics while basically playing smooth pop with a pseudo rough production. Def Leopard rally takes the cake in that department with absolutely ridiculous lyrics with no trace of substance and music without the slightest rough edge, passion or even innovation. Deeply commercial and superficial the entrance of even a second album in this list is as ridiculous as their music, even though their guitar pop is kind of okay on the radio and doesn't stick out in between, say, Journey or the Eagles.

More interesting than their later albums, but still rather pretentious and I just don't like Ferry's singing.

Solid album with a few standout tracks. With R.E.M. you know what you're getting into.

More nondescript Brit pop, that's not exactly bad, it just sounds a lot like most other bands and records. Maybe they were among the forerunners at the time, but this hardly innovative in any way, rather indebted to early Bowie and the usual suspects from the sixties and seventies - without reaching a similar quality, of course. The whiny vocals get rally annoying.

Repetitive and tiring.

Surprisingly rooted in Post Punk and very much driven by the rhythm section with a lot of echo on the hypnotic drums and a prominent bass. Lyrics and vocal performance are even more bleak than I expected from the Cure. Not bad, but also not my favorite of their albums in this list.

Possibly the best 90s Brit Pop album. Its diversity and creativity are simply stunning, especially compared to e.g. Oasis' straightforward pub rock.

Pretty music, pretty voice, pretty boring.

I knew and liked the singles, but this is a really good album, too. Typically 80s, of course, and poetry radio friendly. But also quite diverse and experimental, so multiple listens are very rewarding.

More mediocre indie pop from Britain. Not exactly awful, but awfully generic and definitely not an essential listen.

Every song is about twice as long as it needs to be, so everything is repeated ad nauseam. This is reggae, so it's not very original in the first place and lyrics are simplistic and repetitive. Awful.

Beautiful guitar play and a nice voice, the songs all kind of flow by in the same chill vibe... Reminds me of JJ Cale, who I also appreciate as a song writer and artist, but this kind of music doesn't really catch me, I could never be enthusiastic about it. Extra point for non Western music in this list, though!

Middle of the road country rock with just a tiny whiff of psychedelic. If this is all the wild experimentation you can come up with on drugs, maybe your creativity isn't all you thought it was. And of this has been very influential in future American music, not in a good way in my book. Just compare it to what the Zombies out the Beatles were doing at the time.

I'm sure this is competently done for the gangsta rap it is, but all the cursing and screaming over not too different beats gets old pretty soon.

Very much early 90s low fi rock and I know it's probably influential and all, but it feels like a movie cut from mostly bloopers. I liked some dissonance to spice things up, but this just seems amatourish.

Didn't catch me at all, even though Common is a good rapper and the beats sound competent. The songs don't seem to go anywhere and most of them are just too long, like the whole album. You don't have to fill the CD if you don't have enough ideas for it! One extra point for the 6th sense, that sticks out with a great beat by Primo.

They try, they try, they try, they try... And they still can't really cash my interest. Probably would have liked it better at the time, but today it sound generic and weak to me. Standard indie rock, even if they kind of invented it.

I like the songs, but the (intentionally) bad production isn't my cup of tea. Especially the vocals are abrasive and I keep asking myself his you can sound so bored while constantly screaming? The bass guitar is really nice, though.

Probably the best Depeche Mode album and definitely one of the best pop albums ever. All killer, no filler!

He doesn't talk about bitches all the time, that's on the pro side. Aside from that I hate that pompous Kanye production and like so many hip hop albums this is way too long.

It's supposed to be fun, but I don't fell it. Sounds like a mix of Elton John and Pet Shop Boys and I don't see much originality. Was a bit surprised to learn they're not British, but that really doesn't make it more interesting.

This one sounds as if some idiot record company executive tried to make him a pop star. Lyrics and vocals are mostly good, if a little repetitive, but the production is really appalling at times with cheap synths and that awful background choir. I kind of liked the finale, that bumped the rating up one point. All in all it's definitely not one of his best records and of course it's not an essential listen by any standard.

The only thing that's a over-represented and boring as mediocre British pop on this list is folk from the Laurel Canyon. Of course Joni's lyrics, composition and her feminist approach have been influential and deserve respect. I still cannot stand her annoying style of singing and the music.

Interesting, atmospheric sound that is reminiscent of Björk sometimes, but also made me think of the Beloved's "Sweet Harmony" that I quite liked back in the days. The songs don't seem to go anywhere and become pretty repetitive, though.

Musically it does have its moments, although I'm not a fan of the saxophone here. Still don't like Ferry's singing either.

Really good. Not one of his best yet, but it shows where the journey might lead already containing three classics.

Absolute classic and basically a perfect progressive metal album

Like most double albums it lacks focus and has some unnecessary filler and aimless jams alongside immortal classics. Really good album, but for my taste not as great as his others.

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