1001 Albums Summary

Not enough misogyny to be good

This is a solid pop album. Obsessed with the diegetic break in the middle of There's More To Life Than This

But my first email address was a pun on a song off Village Green

I liked this album but probably will never listen to it again.

not for me!

This white man has so many hits for me to literally not know his name.

This automatically gets a five as the blueprint for my college aesthetic and early gender fuckery murmurings.

Despite having the best song about a big black penis that was featured in iPhone commercial, I maintain the normie position that Doolittle is a more consistently good album. But also Surfer Rosa has the Albini production / inspired Nirvana cred so idk. Update: I re-listened to Doolittle and I think the adult me prefers Surfer Rosa now shrug

Do not listen if sleep deprived. This is snoozy. Classic but sleepy. I have listened to this album too many times to feel anything. But that could also be the sleep deprivation.

This is the epitome of music I know is good but I associate it so much with stuff my parents listened to that sounded lame as a kid.

I haven’t listened to this one before. A lot more Beatles vibes to me compared to his first two albums. Not a lot of hits and I had to replay “20% Amnesia” like five times to confirm he didn’t just drop the n-word (apparently Costello says “naked” like a slur).

Not to “Boss Baby” this album but getting lesbian Kate Bush vibes for this. I def get the lineage from Tori Amos to like the current sad alt pop girlies.

I’m glad that this exists but simply not for me

Continuing my reductive comparison of artists I feel like this has a slight Serge Gainsbourg influence (or maybe the other way around), mainly with the cuckoo (?) noise. Another good Sunday chores album.

“Dead Bodies” is sick but then I immediately had to listen to a plot synopsis of The Virgin Suicides.

This would have been a 3 but the realization that the “Big Mouth” theme song is a cover of “Changes” made me puke. I really did try to keep an open mind listening to this bc I do like “War Pigs” but nope I don’t like it sorry. Update: The realization that System of the Down did a cover of “Snowblind” that I like infinitely more is adding to how lame I think this album is. Update 2: Reductive comparison: This is just metal The Eagles.

I cannot be objective about this album. My father would (poorly) sing You Are The Sunshine Of My Life to me as a kid. My great-grandmother would play Superstition on car trips to mandatory Sunday service. As a teen, I would replay the ending credits to High Fidelity so I could listen to the almost five minutes of I Believe (When I Fall In Love it Will Be Forever) again and again. (In retrospect, it was weird that I did this because I am pretty sure I had an iPod and was shamelessly pirating music at this time.) Luckily, I do not have to be objective about this album because, hearing it as an adult, Stevie's control of his many instruments - his voice and his synths and his keys and his drums - is so fucking masterful, that the album's brilliance shines through any hazy nostalgia. Just like there are so many fucking layers. And he is practically doing all of them. He is doing all of the layers. Like I am just sitting here, eyes closed, picking out the complexity of all of these little sounds and then I refocus on the whole and everything sounds so natural and unadorned. Wtf. Side note: I was curious as to why I have never heard people talk about how Big Brother is this like beautifully folksy acerbic take-down of white moderates and the answer seems to his critics tend to be white moderates! Like my dude is out here basically saying "the CIA killed MLK" and reviewers imagine an individualize critique of some hypothetical politician (or a literal Orwellian reference!) instead.

I feel like ppl who hate glam rock think all glam rock sounds like this. This would probably work for me if the lyrics didn’t suck and there was less “honky tonk”. Like T.Rex and New York Dolls both do a better version of this vibe.

Tbh Jesus Etc. is probs the only song on this album I have actively listened to before. But also I have played/sung it many many times. I associate Wilco (and Bright Eyes) with the vulnerable sad sack dad music (not a criticism, they need music too) that some music critics used as an example of the fall (or the evolution) of rock music because men were having feelings. On one of their live albums, Jeff Tweedy has this bit where he keeps on referring to their music as snoozy in like this extremely resentful way. Like some critic said this once and he has forever held a grudge about it. Anyway, I like this album.

This is showtunes

This entire album feels predictable in its melodies and lazy in its lyrics. Like not in a guilty pleasure bumblegum pop way. In a guy doesn’t realize he isn’t all that deep way. In a guy doesn’t realize he has written a parody song of a type of guy way. You can’t just lean on the subject of your confessional folk pop album and not follow it up with any talent. I was willing to give this a 2 bc at least some of it sounds pretty but then he just said a bunch of slurs for no real reason.

Auto 5 for nostalgia/gender fuckery/yearning reasons.

Having arbitrarily disliked Bob Dylan for so long, I never realized how much Lou Reed is clearly inspired him. I recognize this album is good but also I am arbitrarily giving it a 3.

Why do they think they are black?