682
Albums Rated
3.43
Average Rating
63%
Complete
407 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1950s
Favorite Decade
Post-punk
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
145
5-Star Albums
27
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle | 5 | 1.88 | +3.12 |
| Scum | 5 | 2.07 | +2.93 |
| Trout Mask Replica | 5 | 2.28 | +2.72 |
| Sulk | 5 | 2.36 | +2.64 |
| Metal Box | 5 | 2.41 | +2.59 |
| Suicide | 5 | 2.46 | +2.54 |
| Shleep | 5 | 2.5 | +2.5 |
| Playing With Fire | 5 | 2.54 | +2.46 |
| Tragic Songs of Life | 5 | 2.58 | +2.42 |
| Live At The Witch Trials | 5 | 2.64 | +2.36 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bad | 1 | 3.8 | -2.8 |
| Graceland | 1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
| Dire Straits | 1 | 3.72 | -2.72 |
| Californication | 1 | 3.7 | -2.7 |
| 21 | 1 | 3.69 | -2.69 |
| Blood Sugar Sex Magik | 1 | 3.5 | -2.5 |
| Tidal | 1 | 3.45 | -2.45 |
| Hail To the Thief | 1 | 3.44 | -2.44 |
| Ready To Die | 1 | 3.37 | -2.37 |
| The Downward Spiral | 1 | 3.35 | -2.35 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Bob Dylan | 6 | 5 |
| David Bowie | 6 | 4.83 |
| Leonard Cohen | 4 | 5 |
| R.E.M. | 4 | 4.75 |
| Miles Davis | 4 | 4.75 |
| The Cure | 3 | 5 |
| Roxy Music | 3 | 5 |
| The Fall | 3 | 5 |
| Neil Young | 3 | 5 |
| Kate Bush | 3 | 5 |
| Black Sabbath | 3 | 5 |
| Beatles | 6 | 4.33 |
| Sonic Youth | 5 | 4.4 |
| Neil Young & Crazy Horse | 3 | 4.67 |
| Stevie Wonder | 3 | 4.67 |
| Nirvana | 2 | 5 |
| Johnny Cash | 2 | 5 |
| The Stooges | 2 | 5 |
| Public Enemy | 2 | 5 |
| Isaac Hayes | 2 | 5 |
| Jimi Hendrix | 2 | 5 |
| Marvin Gaye | 2 | 5 |
| The Undertones | 2 | 5 |
| Aretha Franklin | 2 | 5 |
| The Velvet Underground | 2 | 5 |
| The Band | 2 | 5 |
| Echo And The Bunnymen | 3 | 4.33 |
| Kraftwerk | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Paul Simon | 2 | 1 |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers | 2 | 1 |
| The Verve | 2 | 1 |
| Michael Jackson | 3 | 1.67 |
| Metallica | 3 | 1.67 |
| Megadeth | 2 | 1.5 |
| Radiohead | 4 | 2 |
| Morrissey | 4 | 2 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Fiona Apple | 1, 4 |
| Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | 5, 4, 2 |
5-Star Albums (145)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Fiona Apple
1/5
Through this site I find I'm enjoying experiencing how different people's reactions can be to the same music. A lot of people seem to love this and that's cool and you certainly don't need my blessing to enjoy it. I on the other hand wanted to shove pencils in my ears by about half way through.
18 likes
SZA
5/5
I get excited when there is a relatively recent album I like. Still down with the kids! Haha.
Reading the other reviews it's weird seeing so many people moralising or squeamish about SZA singing about sex. I wonder how many of them nod along while Mick Jagger sings about raping slaves?
17 likes
Motörhead
5/5
I have been listening to this album since I was 11. It was definitely my favourite back then. I want to explain all the exciting nuances to the reviewers who think it's all just the same song. E.g. Lemmy's bass solo on Stay Clean! And to ask them to try jumping around their bedrooms with a tennis raquet while listening, so they can access its thrills.
13 likes
The Fall
5/5
Living in my small home town, I recorded a few tracks off this from Peel. It was like having fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dark, mysterious and difficult to comprehend. Then I moved to the big city and felt like Indiana Jones when I found a copy in a second hand shop. Ah, callow youth.
4 likes
The Associates
5/5
I feel a bit sad how much of a rough time this album is getting on here. For me it represents more than anything an early 80s post punk optimism that music could be reinvented with new sounds and shapes and still be pop.
4 likes
4-Star Albums (174)
1-Star Albums (27)
All Ratings
Ramones
5/5
1234
Bob Dylan
5/5
Sonic Youth
4/5
The Cure
5/5
Better than I used to give it credit for
Radiohead
1/5
Stodgy homework
Nine Inch Nails
1/5
Prefer Atari Teenage Riot
Aerosmith
2/5
Couple of decent riffs but not much more
Pink Floyd
3/5
Inventive, cleverly engineered. Roger ruins it with his dreary drawl.
Paul Simon
1/5
2Pac
3/5
Incredible Bongo Band
2/5
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
Queens of the Stone Age
1/5
Iron Butterfly
3/5
Giant Sand
2/5
I wanted to like this. Gave it a good few listens. Alt country removes the brassiness and directness of country but for me if you don't go the whole hog and end up at bleak, weird or desperate you get this sort of amiable gentility that is probably good for a Gen X dinner party but makes for a boring solo listen. I didn't dislike it as much as a 2 really but could not give it a 3.
Fatboy Slim
1/5
If I couldn't get with its coke addled vibes then I'm not going to get with them in my decrepitude.
Beatles
3/5
Elvis Costello
4/5
Beatles
4/5
Roxy Music
5/5
The Fall
5/5
Neil Young
5/5
Fiona Apple
1/5
Through this site I find I'm enjoying experiencing how different people's reactions can be to the same music. A lot of people seem to love this and that's cool and you certainly don't need my blessing to enjoy it. I on the other hand wanted to shove pencils in my ears by about half way through.
Can
4/5
Traffic
3/5
Jimmy Smith
3/5
A fun listen. I'm looking forward to more skronk on future jazz picks.
Culture Club
3/5
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Mekons
4/5
The Strokes
2/5
When I was a teenager listening to The Jesus and Marychain and The Primitives my mum used to shake her head at me and say, "that just sounds like the 60s. Why do young people want to listen to that? Why not listen to something original". But they were my 60s sounding stuff. I didn't want to just listen to old stuff.
When this album came out I realised I was now just a little bit more like my mum. But if you're 10+ years younger than me maybe this was/is exciting.
Van Halen
4/5
Tasty bubblegum
James Brown
4/5
Bill Evans Trio
3/5
Dirty Projectors
2/5
Nice to be reminded of how great Stillness is the Move is. The rest is more clever than loveable.
Megadeth
1/5
Found my mind wandering, wishing I was listening to Slayer or Exodus. I prefer my thrash delivered with a barely hidden sense of glee. This sounds like it hasn't drunk enough fluids or done a poo for days.
Flamin' Groovies
3/5
Like a missing link between the Rolling Stones and Dr Feelgood.
Beach House
2/5
Nice not crucial
Big Star
4/5
Curse you This Mortal Coil. I've been going round for years thinking this was Holocaust, Kanga Roo and a load of filler. Thank you album generator for making me reappraise. Kanga Roo is still one of my absolute favourite recordings though. Down with regular meter, up with perfectly judged feedback.
UB40
2/5
Ali Campbell's voice is real nails on a blackboard stuff for me. That aside, I struggle to believe that Lee Scratch Perry didn't record 1001 reggae albums more deserving of a slot on this.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
4/5
Carole King
5/5
Young me would have dismissed this as MOR cheese but what did I know?
Sheryl Crow
1/5
So boring it burns.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
Nearly a 4. There are Elvis Costello albums with better non single tracks.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Depeche Mode
3/5
Steely Dan
2/5
Do these smartypants only come in beige?
Iron Maiden
5/5
Urban punk Eddie was so much scarier to a junior metal kid than later fantasy Eddie.
The Style Council
2/5
MC Solaar
4/5
Iron Maiden
4/5
My least favourite of the first six Iron Maiden albums. Side 2 is what makes it.
Bob Dylan
5/5
Nice to see in the 1 star reviews how much Bobby D can still get up people's noses nearly 60 years on.
Hawkwind
5/5
I love that thing Stephen Morris of Joy Division and New Order said about how punk in UK took off all over the country because Hawkwind had toured so extensively all over the place in the years before and that they had seeded a few weirdos in every normally ignored town.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
1/5
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Joy Division
5/5
I have never listened to this a lot because it is really too much.
Astor Piazzolla
5/5
I had no knowledge of or context for this. As an old fart muso it was great to be surprised and delighted by something on this. I strongly suspect the 1 star reviewer who described this as elevator music didn't go past the first track or they've been on some fairly frantic elevators. Ach they've made me do an unintended Mick Hucknall reference. Told you I'm an old fart muso.
Fugees
4/5
The handful of hiphop choices are doing their best to drag up my 90s average score. Surprised at how much Wu Tang I could hear in parts of this.
GZA
5/5
Sonic Youth
5/5
Ghostface Killah
4/5
Portishead
3/5
Nirvana
5/5
There's something about the production on this that means by the time you get to Lounge Act you feel a bit like you've binged on a big bag of sweets all the same flavour. Still, take any track on its own and it's fantastic.
Streaming kind of ruins the effect of Endless, Nameless. Could they not have added a stretch of silence between it and Something in the Way like on the CD?
Harry Nilsson
3/5
The War On Drugs
2/5
What's that Lassie? A Don Henley soundalike me lacking Don's way with a hook has fallen down a well? Shall we just leave him there?
Other choices they could have from 2014 to name just a few: Sharon Van Etten (broadly similar but can write a tune), Sleaford Mods, Run the Jewels, Scott Walker & Sunn O))), etc
Van Halen
4/5
Van Halen are weird for me. I love their records but I unreservedly hate almost everything they inspired. Maybe they were just so much smarter in their dumbness than all the dummies that tried to copy them.
Brian Eno
3/5
I think I prefer Eno as a collaborator. I wanted to hear Roxy Music do I'll Come Running while listening to this. The Arena theme tune is still great, if a little short.
Living Colour
1/5
I like to think of myself as open minded and that there isn't a genre I can't get with but I'm wondering if 80s/90s funk metal might contradict that. Not quite as heinous as Red Hot Chilli Peppers but still not something I can enjoy.
Kate Bush
5/5
One of that either makes me feel like I've been over scoring some of my 5s or that the scale isn't big enough. Unique and incredible.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Elastica
3/5
System Of A Down
3/5
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
Led Zeppelin
4/5
I found this difficult to score cos for me there is definitely some filler and a couple of stinkers on here. Also I don't love love Led Zeppelin when they go into coldly efficient stompy blues mode. But that run from Kashmir to Ten Years Gone is extraordinary.
The Coral
3/5
R.E.M.
4/5
The Rolling Stones
3/5
I dislike Jagger so much but then Wild Horses...
Johnny Cash
5/5
Lucinda Williams
3/5
Creedence Clearwater Revival
2/5
Creedence albums are almost a cautionary tale about not releasing five albums in just over two years. I saw Up Around The Bend was on this and thought "oh this will be really good". There are other good tunes but there are also a lot of 12 bar chuggers.
Skunk Anansie
2/5
Popular 90s rock music, the edges are too clean and sharp. I started thinking this might challenge my expectations but by half way through I tired.
The Who
3/5
This must be sacrilege to Who fans but I prefer the film soundtrack version, Oliver Reed's flat warble and all.
The Prodigy
2/5
I thought they seemed mysterious and cool when they made Music for a Jilted Generation. This iteration fits too well with 90s lads mag culture. Breathe is good.
The Last Shadow Puppets
3/5
Sounds like two young guys found their grandads' old Swinging London gear. Enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to.
Michael Jackson
2/5
Neil Young
5/5
Beatles
4/5
Emmylou Harris
3/5
I found myself curious about a any demos that might have been made for this album. Sometimes the floaty reverb thing gets a bit much.
Green Day
2/5
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
4/5
Aw man cool jazz for squares daddio. But irresistible none the less even if they do sometimes sound like they are going for their Tricky Time Signatures scouting badge.
The Stooges
5/5
I like how this thing makes me listen to albums I love but have taken for granted for a while.
Gil Scott-Heron
3/5
I would have enjoyed more tracks like H2Ogate Blues
Thelonious Monk
5/5
The Isley Brothers
5/5
Beck
2/5
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
3/5
Nice trip down memory lane but an early example of that 90s thing of the CD tempting artists to make their albums a bit too long. There are two or three tracks in the second half that could have been cut.
B.B. King
5/5
50 Cent
2/5
Sade
3/5
Soft Machine
4/5
Good stuff that I should probably know better than I do given me tastes. I prefer Henry Cow.
Muddy Waters
3/5
Dwight Yoakam
2/5
I'm not sure why you'd pick this out of his first three albums?
Slipknot
3/5
R.E.M.
5/5
Sonic Youth
3/5
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
David Bowie
5/5
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
3/5
Crosby Stills and Nash have always felt like a 'you had to be there at the time' kind of band. Neil Young's Helpless is fantastic though.
Gorillaz
2/5
Doodles
David Crosby
4/5
Liked this more than I was expecting to. It caught me on the right Sunday morning.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
LTJ Bukem
3/5
Dr. John
4/5
Screaming Trees
2/5
2 feels a bit mean but 3 would feel too generous. A shame because at first I was pleased it wasn't what I expected, a grunting underbite grunge album. Surprisingly Beatleish in places but a bit bland
The White Stripes
5/5
Eric Clapton
1/5
Bland technique. The dullest idiot to come out of the British Blues Boom. It's funny how marketing can work. He was labelled God by the nice clueless middle class London types who made up the core of the audience of the BBB and somehow it has stuck.
Only a true idiot would make an appalling racist rant in public while playing blues and then say they thought it was "quite funny" when later attempting to express some sort of regret.
The Darkness
2/5
Arcade Fire
2/5
I read the five star reviews for this and think I must be hearing a parallel universe version. I don't think it's terrible but it does feel like an awful lot of not very much.
Elbow
3/5
I've always thought of them as a sort of mid point between Coldplay and Radiohead which ought to be anathema to me but I have to admit I thought this was alright.
Antony and the Johnsons
5/5
Nice to have at least one truly great album from the 00s.
Koffi Olomide
3/5
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
None more 70s
The Who
2/5
If this was 1001 tracks My Generation would be a 5 (as would The Kids Are Alright). The album mostly sounds like young men trying on too many jackets that don't fit.
Björk
3/5
It is a shame that I find myself admiring later Björk albums more than I love them.
Talking Heads
3/5
Bonnie Raitt
3/5
Kate Bush
5/5
Some fives are better than other fives. I read one guy who worked with Kate Bush who felt that this album was over cluttered with too many sounds but I think that's what makes it so great. Every time you come back you hear new things. Also some of her best lyrics and use of different styles of singing in the one song, line even.
Echo And The Bunnymen
5/5
Nick Drake
4/5
The Young Gods
4/5
Been meaning to listen to these for 40 years. I wish I hadn't waited. I would have loved them even more in my teens.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
The Rolling Stones weren't really built for that 1960s six month album cycle thing were they? Two moments of real inspiration, a bunch of competent stuff with some interesting moments and one awful blues cover they grubbily passed off as their own. It could be a 3 on another day but you have to factor in the Jagger tax.
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
The reviewer who says he made all his jeans into jorts really made me smile because there is a lyric by The Fall that fans of James Murphy "show their bollocks when they eat".
Anyway, decent enough indie dance but I've never really got the fuss. If it came out ten years earlier when I was working in pubs I'd have all kinds of good and bad memories attached to it I'm sure.
Jane Weaver
3/5
Like a less austere Stereolab.
Fred Neil
4/5
Had me with that first phased guitar chord.
Kanye West
2/5
He goes on a bit doesn't he?
Moby
2/5
The soundtrack to too many late 90s bar shifts.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
5/5
Great album but I never listen to it as it was way too apt at the time it came out. My obsession with it probably wasn't helpful and now it almost provokes a Pavlovian response. Gee thanks album generator for bumming me out for an hour.
The Police
4/5
Well oil me up and strap on my winged briefs, it's Feyd Rautha's finest turn.
Gang Starr
4/5
Makes me almost wistful. I wish I had heard it when it came out. I would have loved it in a different way.
Dinosaur Jr.
4/5
Buena Vista Social Club
3/5
Paul Weller
1/5
Mid 90s, Sunday afternoon, disappointing pub lunch.
Ray Charles
3/5
Metallica
2/5
Cee Lo Green
2/5
Oasis
3/5
The book and this website are a celebration of the album as music's finest vehicle of expression. But I find myself thinking most albums are too long. If you knocked 10 to 20 minutes off this it would almost be as good as people say it is.
Morrissey
2/5
Pretenders
5/5
You think you know an album. Yeah yeah great hits, great opener, etc. But wait. Tattoo Love Boys! The guitar on Private Life! Great closer!
At school a girlfriend tried to get me into this but in 1987 I thought of them as old hat. The folly of youth.
Butthole Surfers
4/5
America's freakiest freaks come from the south.
Minor Threat
3/5
Sort of weird that I've never heard Minor Threat until now. I would have probably loved this once upon a time.
AC/DC
3/5
Some great tunes but I struggle with Brian Johnson's screechy squawk over a full album.
Public Enemy
5/5
2/5
I think I need a much smaller dose accompanied by video of them in their funny wee hats to get enjoyment.
Tim Buckley
3/5
Miles Davis
4/5
Youssou N'Dour
3/5
Big Star
3/5
Pink Floyd
4/5
Too long, self indulgent, self pitying but the tunes and production carry it and I was indoctrinated to it at 10 years old. What the fuck did I make of it all at 10?
Elliott Smith
2/5
I find his songs heard in isolation are pretty good but a whole album of them devolves into a bit of a mush. Either a strong 2 or a weak 3.
Kate Bush
5/5
One of the small number of people for me who need their own scale.
Motörhead
5/5
I have been listening to this album since I was 11. It was definitely my favourite back then. I want to explain all the exciting nuances to the reviewers who think it's all just the same song. E.g. Lemmy's bass solo on Stay Clean! And to ask them to try jumping around their bedrooms with a tennis raquet while listening, so they can access its thrills.
Solomon Burke
3/5
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
2/5
King Crimson
4/5
Peter Gabriel
3/5
Lambchop
3/5
None more mild
Dizzee Rascal
4/5
21 years how did thay happen? I don't hear the repetitiveness others complain of. It's full of invention and ideas. I like how a lot of the tracks consist of only a few elements but seem fuller than that. A shame he curdled into a partner bashing middle aged man.
The Verve
1/5
First four songs I'm thinking this is alright, better than I remember, probably 3 stars. But then it just keeps going and going, all one pace, one song blending into another with the same vocal ticks on display again and again until you are lost in the mush.
When I worked in a pub in the late 90s we would put this on Sunday afternoons as it seemed something we could handle while working through our murderous hangovers. It rarely lasted its full length before someone pressed eject and reached for Moon Safari by Air instead.
Adele
1/5
I like some pretty noisy discordant stuff, more horrible than the stuff with the lowest average scores on here. However, when Adele hits those notes where she really forces it, gets close to bellowing the note, albeit tunefully, I find it really painful to listen to. I feel like I can hear her vocal chords ready to snap. It's most obvious on Someone Like You. If it wasn't for that this would be a 2.
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
Hole
3/5
Arcade Fire
3/5
We're sorry. Crossing U2 with Neutral Milk Hotel with a soupcon of the cast of Les Mis seemed like a good idea at the time but then it all got out of hand.
Talking Heads
4/5
It's their best one
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
2/5
Isaac Hayes
5/5
During my big Isaac Hayes phase I somehow never got to this. What a daftie.
The Police
2/5
I loved this when I was nine. Sadly one that nostalgia doesn't work for. Some good moments but Sting's reggae voice has to be one of the most embarrassing things ever committed to tape.
Erykah Badu
3/5
The Pharcyde
3/5
Daft Punk
3/5
A lot of 90s dance music albums don't really fit this process. Not for me anyway. You need to be doing something while listening to this (preferably dancing) and even then you probably don't need the whole 74 minutes. Sitting on your couch eating your muesli in your 50s does not fit this soundtrack. At least it isn't Fatboy Slim.
Circle Jerks
3/5
More US Hardcore on here than I was expecting which is fine I suppose.
David Bowie
5/5
It's weird to me that people were disappointed in this after Ziggy. The piano takes it somewhere just slightly different but it is still full of songs that grab you immediately. Even the filler of doing a Stones cover is elevated by that ending.
Steely Dan
2/5
But no really, do these smartypants only come in beige?
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
My brother came back from a summer working in America with this on cassette. It was like he had come back from the future.
Pixies
3/5
First half of this is great but then it runs out of steam. The sound of a band writing songs in the studio and dusting down a couple of early cast offs. I'm surprised it is on her when there are no Breeders albums.
The Louvin Brothers
5/5
Great selection of songs. Great simple arrangements. Extraordinary voices.
Deep Purple
3/5
Some 70s acts would have benefited so much from the modern 3 year album cycle. Some killer, plenty filler.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
The fun less chin stroking side of the British Blues Boom. I'm thankful that neither Brian Jones or Keith Richards are hung up on being guitar virtuosos (see Clapton). They went on to write great stuff after this as well as a lot of mediocre stuff but at least they weren't yet able to be so in love with their own myth at the start.
The Doors
2/5
And so a million ropey bluesy bar bands came into existence. Waiting for the Sun is great though.
Ian Dury
4/5
Surprisingly sad in places like My Old Man. If I Was With A Woman is sad and terrifying. It reminds me of that Margaret Atwood quote "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."
It's also funny and funky and angry. It's got range.
Taylor Swift
3/5
Like a lot of pop albums it is a bit unrelentingly samey but I liked the feeling I was in a remake of a John Hughes film.
Brian Eno
3/5
New Wave's very own Dark Side of the Moon. Blokes would nod sagely and tell you to listen to this on a set of really good headphones.
Rod Stewart
3/5
I don't think they did a dance for it but for some reason I can see Pan's People swivelling their arms about to Maggie Mae.
The Black Keys
2/5
21st Century vanilla flavoured blues and soul simulacrum. If The White Stripes are too Bohemian and Two Gallants too junior murder ballad. There's nothing really wrong with it but there's nothing really right either. Or maybe I'm just too old for these younger white guy's version of old music.
Beyoncé
4/5
Brian Wilson
3/5
A 2004 release of a reworked 60s album is symbolic of the old fartyness of this list.
Even though an old fart myself I've never felt able to fully access the cult of Brian Wilson. I can tell he is uniquely talented and has a vision unlike anyone else. There some brilliant tunes and arrangements on here but sometimes it's all a bit cutesy for my taste. The one I didn't know but really liked was Mrs O'Leary's Cow.
Sisters Of Mercy
5/5
Grandiose and pretty silly at times but I love its simple sense of melodrama.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
The Experience were the perfect trio. Hendrix and Mitchell matched each other for fancyness and Redding kept it simple and anchored it.
The Youngbloods
3/5
A day isn't really long enough to work out how much you like some albums. Maybe I would give it more given a week or maybe I'd still be thinking you could give its 'obscure US 60s' slot to The Fugs or Pearls Before Swine.
Missy Elliott
5/5
Streets ahead of all those dick swinging Gansta bores from around the same time.
Little Richard
5/5
One man cultural revolution. Androgyny, black pride, teenage rebellion, sexual freedom, etc. All here in a handful of singles plus extras more minimal than punk, much wilder than Elvis. Little Richard was the King AND Queen of Rock and Roll.
Silver Jews
3/5
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
Femi Kuti
2/5
Marvin Gaye
5/5
Carpenters
4/5
Great singer, great drummer. A shame she couldn't display the latter as much. Sometimes I like syrup.
Raekwon
4/5
ZZ Top
4/5
They reinvented themselves for the 80s with Eliminator but they always had little innovative moments like with Master of Sparks on this and the way the first two tracks segue right into one another.
Wilco
2/5
Maybe if I had more than a day to digest a double album chock full of strumminess I would like it more but I have my doubts. Ultimate Mojo magazine music.
Cat Stevens
3/5
Electric Light Orchestra
2/5
I feel llke must have heard this album a lot when I was a kid because my older brother had a copy and I heard all his listening choices by proxy. So, I was expecting at least a fun nostalgia hit but to be honest I only remembered the three big singles and the rest was a cheesy bland mush.
Dire Straits
1/5
Sultans of Swing was the 80s wedding band guitarist's moment to shine. It was ubiquitous when I was growing up that its genuinely difficult to have a perspective on it. It's got the best hooks on it and you can hear why it was the single.
But this album is simultaneously the most polite and the most overbearingly convinced of its own marvellousness neutered attempt at rock and roll.
The Associates
5/5
I feel a bit sad how much of a rough time this album is getting on here. For me it represents more than anything an early 80s post punk optimism that music could be reinvented with new sounds and shapes and still be pop.
Beatles
5/5
It's sort of a mess in terms of everyone starting to pull in their own direction, but a beautifully made mess. The production is like a one gun salute for the end of the 60s and a starting pistol for the 70s.
Dolly Parton
4/5
The Icarus Line
2/5
Suicide
5/5
Hear me out. This album is the centre of all modern popular music. With only two ingredients, the 50s slapback reverb vocals look back to the start and the metronome keyboards look forward to the electronic future.
Either that or it is just the coolest.
The White Stripes
4/5
Kendrick Lamar
4/5
Pantera
2/5
I liked some of the guitars and the energy of it but in the end Grievance Metal isn't my favourite genre.
Ride
3/5
It was obvious that I had listened to a lot of the same records as Ride in the 80s. So, I always felt like I was supposed to like them as much as the music papers did but they have never fully clicked for me and still don't. I like their sound ok but the songs and the vocals not so much. Dreams Burn Down is good.
Iggy Pop
5/5
The Jam
4/5
I sort of like the honesty and the bare faced cheek of very faithfully covering David Watts, The Kinks song that The Jam so obviously cop their signature sound from. "We are very good at being The Kinks with the anger nearer the surface.'
There is more to them than that on this album. I'm a sucker for backwards guitar as on In The Crowd. A star off for Weller recently being so rude about Robert Smith.
Hole
3/5
I like how each of the three original Hole albums are very different, like they had a clear idea of what they wanted to do with each one. This one might be a little too good at sounding like 90s grown up straight down the middle rock. It's fun but could be a couple of tracks shorter for me.
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
Vocals and lyrics are a bit Judgy Bowie.
Sigur Rós
3/5
Post rock is tricky. Everything stretched out and spacified and smothered in reverb. There's a fine line between epic and dull. I think this album just crosses the wrong side a little as it plows on through its 70+ minutes but the early part has some great sections.
Rahul Dev Burman
4/5
Mike Oldfield
3/5
That opening theme is fantastic and there are other good moments but it also meanders a fair bit. I know people love Vivian Stanshall but he sort of ruins the end of side one.
Listened to on my mum and dad's old copy which is handily filed need their Carl Orff for ease of access to 70s horror vibes.
The Go-Go's
3/5
The two singles are great. I suspect they didn't break through in the UK only because of a lack of marketing power.
Gene Clark
3/5
The Undertones
5/5
It's funny that thing people do where they believe that the order they have discovered music is the order that it was released and that because they've heard two thing with some similarities they believe one is automatically ripping off the other.
Look at a couple of the other reviews. The idea that Feargal Sharkey was in any way influenced by Jello Biafra. Hahaha. Listen to the lyrics, read some Wikipedia, ask yourself if Dead Kennedy's records were available in Derry a year earlier than anywhere else in the world, if at all.
Amy Winehouse
2/5
She was a good song writer but as other reviewers have said the plasticy faux 60s production really grates. Also I don't mind her voice but she can't help but remind me of her million copycats.
3/5
Surprised myself how much I enjoyed this. I still think the production is horrible and Liam sounds like a foghorn especially on the supposedly tender Wonderwall. But I like how it is music that is designed to be sung along to. I think that's one of the things people love about them. In our post religion atomised society they offer a rare opportunity for communal singing. A shame how much they've just shamelessly profiteered off that but it's still there despite what a pair of arseholes they are.
Blondie
5/5
It's ironic that a fair amount of BRITpop was a pale imitation of the contents of this album.
Brian Eno
4/5
Gets the extra star for Robert Wyatt on the piano
Soundgarden
2/5
I dont think I like Grunge. It's like the mid 90s American mirror of Britpop. Rock retreating to small c conservatism. By my definition Nirvana aren't Grunge. They don't sound like they have anything to do with these groups.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
2/5
Nas
3/5
Burning Spear
4/5
May become a 5 in time
The Clash
3/5
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
I love this album. I don't think there's a weak moment on it and I love the swampy live in the studio sound despite how much the bass player moans about it.
Side one encapsulates so well the self pitying horror of the spurned man. Side two is a great collection of stories that crept up on me over time.
SZA
5/5
I get excited when there is a relatively recent album I like. Still down with the kids! Haha.
Reading the other reviews it's weird seeing so many people moralising or squeamish about SZA singing about sex. I wonder how many of them nod along while Mick Jagger sings about raping slaves?
Arcade Fire
3/5
I never noticed before but I get heavy shades of Deacon Blue. A bit less cast of Les Mis on this.
Gram Parsons
4/5
A back loaded album. The first part is good but from the live medley on it is just fantastic. He gets to retain a sort of cool factor because he played in the Byrds and hung out with the Rolling Stones but I wonder if he would have had more success in his lifetime if he had aligned himself with country musicians more. It's not like his sound is that different.
Everything But The Girl
2/5
I really like Tracey Thorn's voice and some of EBTG's songwriting over the years but late 90s/early 00s polite electronica is so dull. Let's give it some Aphex acid you...
Malcolm McLaren
1/5
You can tell the bits they stole because they are the good bits and not Horn and Dudley doodling in the studio. I've never liked Malcolm McLaren but I never had much of an opinion on Trevor Horn until this month when I have learned he was party to this act of larceny and just how badly he ripped off Frankie Goes to Hollywood on their deal with ZTT.
The idea that this introduced the UK to hiphop sounds like McLarenesque self aggrandising bullshit. The Message was a hit the year before and White Lines the same year. Even Blondie's Rapture was a big hit in 1980. But no it was the intrepid English white explorer charting the dangerous realms of New York city. Your arse!
Jerry Lee Lewis
5/5
Tamest bit of trivia about Jerry Lee Lewis is that he had Chas Hodges of Chas n Dave on bass in a pick up group for him a few years after this. Chas watching him every night on the piano inspired him to switch to piano and go on to team up with Dave. Chas also played bass for Jo Meek's in-house band alongside Ritchie Blackmore. I could rabbit on and on.
Anyway, phew rock n roll.
MGMT
3/5
You can hear Dave Fridman's production. It's like a synthy poppy junior Flaming Lips.
Small Faces
5/5
I like to think there are some old mods out there who agree with me that the Small Faces were well ahead of The Who at this point. Not as flashy or gimmicky visually. No smashed instruments, no flailing arms or swinging microphones but a much better singer and much better songs. Even their English psyche whimsy is better. Such a shame they didn't last.
The Pogues
4/5
Sort of uneven album. Has some of their best songs but also has some stuff that is merely good. I prefer the first two. Maybe it's the extra musicians, maybe it's Steve Lillywhite's slightly more commercial production. Still great though. I also like that The Pogues and Steeleye Span are only a twig from each other on their respective rock family trees.
The The
4/5
One of those albums it is hard to be objective about because it was one of the relatively few I owned in my teens.
Back then as a callow youth it always felt like it was more grown up and sophisticated than me. Now I can here the clumsiness. For a proper trip down memory lane I decided to do the video album experience on YouTube (you have to search a bit cos the playlist version includes a fan made video). Having a video album in the 80s (!) fitted with how grandiose it all seemed with the massive 80s production. Feel those gated drums! Matt Johnson's ego was massive too. I hope he now cringes a bit at the contradiction of writing passionately angry songs about American imperialism while imperially using South American people in his videos as backdrop or to communicate a sense of threat or arcane ritual.
All that said I'm giving it 4 for old time's sake and because despite its flaws it has ambition and tunes. Also he was rare in being tuned into where western influence in the middle east might lead fifteen years later.
5/5
I sometimes forget that Dylan can be a bit of an acquired taste for some. Surprised to see how low the average score is. I suppose faced with a 90 minute bootleg live album it might be hard to acquire the taste but I have faith that some of the low scorers would get there given mote time.
One weird thing though. I see some reviewers saying they didn't hear any heckling. I suspect they didn't get to the second disc. Or maybe they listened to the Real Albert Hall boot somehow.
Anyway, my considered opinion is that Dylan were not a bastard.
Tom Waits
4/5
I think this is a little bit of an odd choice for a Tom Waits pick in this list. It is a transitional album. You can tell he is trying to break away from his 70s sound but he hasn't found his way yet. The bluesy ones have more overdriven guitar than normal but the string arrangements on the ballads are if anything even more syrupy than before but that might be a hangover from One From The Heart. I suppose maybe the presence of Jersey Girl made famous by Bruce Springsteen swings it for a lot of people.
I love it but he has better albums representative of where he was at at any particular point in his life.
Paul McCartney and Wings
3/5
Why do people need to carp on about which Beatle is better than the other like they require placing like four teams in a World Cup group stage?
This is OK. First two songs are really good.
American Music Club
3/5
Deep Purple
3/5
Rush
4/5
Over the top and silly in lots of ways but also irresistible. A point off for youthful interest in Ayn Rand.
Jane's Addiction
4/5
I think the power in this record is that it sounds like a band at its peak relationship with the songs. They know what they want to achieve but they aren't stale yet. And that has been captured live in the studio for the most part. I also like how odd Perry Farrell's voice is and how it has been processed.
I like how it sounds like they've taken lots of different rock music as reference points and not so much blended them as hit the pulse button a couple of times.
Lyrically it's more of a mixed bag. A classic 'girl' giving a 'MAN' a great idea is a bit of a clanger. But the one that always makes me chuckle is him being so chuffed at having a threesome he declares himself 'Erotic Jesus'.
Coldplay
2/5
The most Coldplay Coldplay of all the Coldplays. Every on the beat chord stab like a padded baton to the head. I don't full on hate it but I'm flummoxed why so many people love it.
Sister Sledge
5/5
I should listen to more disco. Lost in Music is the theme tune of this exercise.
Nirvana
5/5
I used to find this such a grim if compelling listen. Still sort of do but I can also just tap into how elemental and paradoxically life affirming it is the older I get.
Portishead
3/5
Q-Tip
3/5
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Better than Cosmo's Factory. I'm always surprised that Bad Moon Rising isn't about werewolves.
Def Leppard
2/5
I sort of wanted to like this more and having Photograph second almost did the trick. But it's just too cheesy for me and I'm not a fan of Joe Elliott's voice. He sounds both loud and slightly strangulated at the same time somehow. Rock music is filled with bad fake American accents but something about his is particularly unconvincing. Makes me wonder how Americans took to this band so much. As a Scot it feels like it would be like being really into a group fronted by Groundskeeper Willie.
Keith Jarrett
4/5
For some reason I thought I didn't like Keith Jarrett but this was really good. The wrong piano does dictate limitations in what he doing and some sections can feel a bit background in their simplicity but overall it is an engaging trip.
Nitin Sawhney
3/5
OutKast
3/5
Always felt a bit daunted by this album's length. A day isn't long enough to cracking that.
U2
3/5
Was ever a band more overrated and over hated? Bono is sort of ridiculous. I think his ego gives him an over inflated opinion of his smartness. Ooh post modern so what? But there are a few very good songs on here - One, Until the End of the World. However, it's at least a couple of songs too long.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
4/5
5/5
It's a shame about The Beatles that so many of the bands who are obviously influenced by them lack even a speck of their inventiveness or curiosity.
Spiritualized
3/5
JAY Z
3/5
Cypress Hill
3/5
Queen
3/5
4/5
Nice to have something with a bit of free jazz about it. I hope there are some of the 60s touchstone stuff for that genre.
Lightning Bolt
4/5
Eagles
3/5
Another band where I don't understand the extremity of the reactions to them. It's OK. Maybe if I'd had to hear everywhere all the time growing up I'd feel different.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Blur
3/5
I like a fair bit of this but they are so annoying and I recently saw a video where they horribly bullied some guy trying to interview them so it loses a point.
The Cure
5/5
When I was given this for Christmas at 15 I'd heard the Boys Don't Cry comp, The Top and The Head on the Door. None of which prepared me for this black pit of a record. At first I recoiled like from a first ever nibble of a brussel sprout. But I persevered because it felt like the grown up thing to do and my body was telling me I needed some greens as well as chocolate... um I mean my moody teenage self felt the draw of Pornography's gloomy black heart and it soon became a favourite. Ho! Ho! Ho!
Sarah Vaughan
3/5
Great voice obviously and some great song choices e.g. Just A Gigolo. But the arrangements get a bit samey.
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
2/5
I wanted to like this because he was so good in Pil and Sinead O'connor is on it but it's quite boring.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
This might be my favourite Led Zeppelin album because I like how much it sonically remains rooted in the 60s in the choruses to Good Times, Bad Times and Your Time Is Gonna Come, something they lost as 70 rock behemoths. Also I wish Jimmy Page had done more Bert Jansch/Davey Graham rip offs.
Beastie Boys
2/5
Sorry to be a party pooper. Other than the two big hits it's pretty annoying. Also here in the UK it is hard not to think of Morris and the Minors.
The xx
2/5
Another more recent album that just makes me feel like an old fart. It sounds incredibly dull to me and has one of the current variants of singing style I find really unappealing. It also sounds to me like a lot of acts are more or less singing the same unmemorable melodies. You wouldn't be able to tell from my scores but I do like plenty recent music.
Scissor Sisters
3/5
Spoke to the innate cheesy 70sness of the UK
Roxy Music
5/5
I was always so focused on the first three albums I never got to this one properly but it turns out it is great.
R.E.M.
5/5
I saw them on the tour for this. It was so good I lost my shoes.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
The Flaming Lips
4/5
I've noticed it's kind of become a thing to say you never really liked these records that much really anyway because of various reasons not least the awful way they treated Erykah Baduh. But I can't deny this record still sounds great.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
Almost everything that sounds obviously influenced by this doesn't live up to its inventiveness and variety. Sure plenty have copped the proto indie sounds of I'll Be Your Mirror or There She Goes Again but not many can match the other worldliness of Venus In Furs or All Tomorrow's Parties.
I can still hear new things despite a gazillion previous listens. E.g. I hadn't noticed before how much of a Dylan pastiche Black Angel Death Song is if you remove John Cale's viola.
Sam Cooke
4/5
There's a good sized contingent that just don't like live albums then. Who knew? Feels like your missing out on that feeling of eavesdropping on a unique moment in time when a piece of magic is worked between performer(s) and crowd. This is a very good example.
Nina Simone
5/5
She's my favourite interpreter of songs by I also wish she had written more like Four Women.
Drive Like Jehu
5/5
This was the one post hard-core album I really got into at the time. I always meant to properly explore more but never got round to it. Maybe nothing else would live up to it.
Neil Young
5/5
This was the first Neil Young album I bought. I have my ups and downs with him but I've stayed tuned in all this time and this is still a favourite. Better than its successor Harvest.
Jungle Brothers
3/5
Killing Joke
4/5
Metallica
2/5
Metallica's huge popularity baffles me. I feel like they suck all the thrill and the joy out of metal.
Jurassic 5
4/5
My Bloody Valentine
5/5
It is a great listen but sometimes I wish they'd put out a live album so you can hear what Colm and especially Debbie are doing. When I saw them when they toured mbv it was a revelation on the Loveless tracks.
Wire
3/5
It is influential so it deserves its spot but I don't rate the shouty punk bits that much. I think they sound like they are cosplaying that stuff. The slinkier more interesting stuff like Three Girl Rhumba points towards where they were headed and is much better.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
I like the two long slightly weirdly metronomic ones.
Kraftwerk
4/5
The Band
5/5
I had a Creedence album the other day. Levon Helm excepted pretending you were from the south of USA was quite the thing for other North Americans for a moment there. What was that all about? Anyway I think The Band's version was far richer and engaging.
Plenty is said quite correctly about the great songwriting and them having three great lead singers but I think a major ingredient in what makes them stand out is the interplay between two keyboard players. It gives them a fluid sound with more colours than the more typical of the time two overdriven guitars approximating the blues.
Janelle Monáe
4/5
I came to Janelle Monáe late but I really love her last two albums. Very pleased this thing got me to finally go back and listen to her first. I don't think it is quite as good as the ones I know but that could just be that it's hard to take in a 70+ minute concept album in one day.
Mudhoney
3/5
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
4/5
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
4/5
There's a trip down memory lane, although I knew the albums either side a bit better. Sort of midway between The Cramps and The White Stripes. Nice to see from the reviews that they still upset a few people but you've lead a sheltered life if you think this is white noise.
Arctic Monkeys
3/5
The album that triggered a deluge of landfill. That whole era has that weird contradiction of sounding energetically youthful while wearing the musical clothing of an older generation. I like that he has a lot to say and how he paints a vivid picture of being out on the town. But why is he so angry with all the women he wants to shag? It's self loathing isn't it? Someone ought to write a thought piece in the Observer about how Alex Turner was the harbinger of the modern crisis in masculinity or something.
Devendra Banhart
3/5
The commercial arm of the New Weird America. Quite liked it.
A Tribe Called Quest
3/5
Red Hot Chili Peppers
1/5
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
30 years on I still hear new things in every listen
Paul Simon
1/5
So many other albums they could have picked from 1983 instead of this dreary load of old cobblers. Clearest case of boomer bias so far.
The Beta Band
3/5
Wilco
2/5
I've never understood the hype around Wilco. I feel like I ought to like them given their reference points but the songs sound uninspiring and the 'experimental' bits sound tacked on to me.
John Lennon
4/5
Phil Spector's production abilities curdled in the 70s in an interesting way to me. Like Leonard Cohen's Death of a Ladies Man everything sounds woozy rather than the dreaminess of his 60s heyday. But I like it.
Lyrically the song Imagine is the ultimate in hippiness which it isn't difficult to be cynical about. But it is good to be the ultimate in something and it is pretty if overplayed. I prefer the blasted sad and apparent self pity of the original of Jealous Guy over the more than a little preening of Bryan Ferry's version. How Do You Sleep? is mean but it is also pretty funny and fun in a school playground gossipy way to consider alongside Macca's Too Many People. Also don't think for a moment Lennon wasn't aware of how it contrasts with the title track.
Todd Rundgren
4/5
I've always wondered where were the US prog acts. This is it. Chopping up and complicating American music forms. I want to know more.
U2
3/5
I have a soft spot for Sunday Bloody Sunday because my brother showed me how to play the riff and it was the first time I realised you could arpeggiate chords to make a riff. I also like New Year's Day for its obvious Bunnymen influence. But overall it's all a bit earnest and simplistic.
Simply Red
2/5
I tried to keep an open mind but the over cooked blue eyed soul vocals and the selection of the worst 80s keyboard sounds closed it again. A shame because I have always like the comparatively understated Holding Back The Years. Also the one before their version of Heaven sounds like a better Talking Heads cover.
Franz Ferdinand
2/5
Oasis for art school dropouts
The B-52's
4/5
One of those albums I thought I knew, turns out it was only Rock Lobster. I like it more than I expected. I think there is a tendency in the UK to view them as purely a novelty act. So wrong.
Beatles
5/5
It's funny how you can love an album even though a couple of the songs sometimes rip your knitting. This is probably John Lennon's strongest Beatles album. His songs most sound like the group playing together and as such give a spine to the thing while Paul swings about all over the place giving the thing breadth. I like his granny music. We also get a George song so good even Clapton sounds great on it. Ringo's tune is great too.
Revolution 9 is not among the knitting rippers.
Isaac Hayes
5/5
What's so important in your lives busy brains that you can't spare 7 or 8 minutes for Isaac to talk about love and the song he's going to lay on you. For shame.
I can't be the only one who finds it hard not to hear Ghostface's urgent pleas at the start of Walk On By.
Thin Lizzy
5/5
I love a 70s double live album. Much better than a Greatest Hits because the songs get a unified sound and as a kid who grew up far from any large venues they were like a promise of something incredible.
This was the second album I bought for myself with a Christmas record token. It also introduced me to the joy of second hand records. I couldn't believe I was buying a double album (a new concept in itself to me) for the same price I'd just paid for Ace of Spades. It was a loud New Year. The tennis racquet found its true calling.
Beck
2/5
Given this is his heartbreak album I feel a bit mean saying I found it really dull. It has that naughties onwards super tasteful production sound that's unobtrusive enough to soundtrack a million dinner parties. His singing style in this doesn't help either. It is so blank. It is difficult to know if that's an aesthetic choice or meds but it tops up the blandness to the brim.
The Lemonheads
3/5
Various Artists
4/5
I like to think that with that weirdly threatening ending in the arrangement on Santa Clause Is Coming To Town, Phil Spector was trying to tell us about his true nature.
Paul McCartney
3/5
Tears For Fears
3/5
I suspect if I had listened to this a bunch of times it would have got on my nerves and my score would have gone down, but as a I've off it was a fun blast of nostalgia.
Caetano Veloso
3/5
The 13th Floor Elevators
5/5
When you really like something it is easy to forget that its lofi recording and use of a jug might really get up some people's noses.
Johnny Cash
5/5
Maybe not quite as good as the Folsom one but still...
Astrud Gilberto
3/5
Manu Chao
3/5
The KLF
4/5
This probably doesn't sound all that exciting divorced from its time and without the videos or Top of the Pops performances or Tammy Wynette. But having memories of all that along with memories of dancing like an idiot to it with my friends makes my heart warm and fuzzy.
Lauryn Hill
4/5
The first half of this so good. Meanders a bit around two thirds in but still very good.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
Alice Cooper
2/5
I find his shock rock thing a bit embarrassing. Title track is good of course.
Joy Division
4/5
Radiohead
2/5
The consensus is that their first album Pablo Honey is the outlier and everything from The Bends onwards is the true Radiohead. But I think that's the wrong way round. The middling indie rock with one big tune of Pablo Honey was the true essence of Radiohead but they weren't satisfied with being that. And ever since they've been trying to get away from themselves. Trying to hard to my ears. From Thom Yorke's strangled choir boy vocals to the 'is this cool?' guitars.
This is the one that is the absolute midpoint between U2 and Coldplay.
The Electric Prunes
3/5
Bebel Gilberto
3/5
Not on Tidal sadly and I could only find two thirds on YouTube but I enjoyed what I heard.
3/5
If you were in a covers band with your schoolmates at the time this album was tantalising, especially if you had a half decent drummer. The bass lines were so easy to work out and play, the smattering of keyboards were mostly straightforward and you didn't absolutely have to be a great singer to fake Bono's over earnestness. But nobody could afford The Edge's rack delay unit and even if you could you'd probably struggle with the settings. Didn't stop us trying and coming up with laughably weird spiky and plinky plonky versions.
Gets an extra star for the nostalgia factor.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
Not one I know as well as some.of his others. I think Spike and King of America are better, neither of which make the list. Maybe it's a slow burner and a couple of listens aren't enough.
Finley Quaye
2/5
From the 90s onwards it seems like the book relies a lot more on sales figures in either the US or UK ( or both) to determine its picks. This album was middle of the road enough to reach double platinum in its day but it isn't exactly earth shattering.
I had to take a star off because it played on a loop in a pub I worked in on moribund weekday shifts.
4/5
I'm going to have a proper Kinks phase one of these days I tells you.
Aimee Mann
2/5
You can hear why there is mutual appreciation with Elvis Costello. Supposedly the lyrics are great but the production was too off puttingly bland to make me want to listen again yesterday.
David Bowie
5/5
The start of a perfect run to Scary Monsters.
Fleet Foxes
3/5
The Beach Boys head for the mountains but forget to bring their hooks. White Winter Hymnal is good.
Elvis Presley
3/5
I found myself wanting to here the TCB band playing some of this stuff live, except In The Ghetto of course.
Don McLean
2/5
Peter Gabriel
4/5
This and 4 are his peak. So much so that the live album just after is my favourite Peter Gabriel record even if it does miss all the signature production sounds.
Fela Kuti
4/5
Bauhaus
4/5
Alanis Morissette
3/5
I liked this more than I expected to. I just have memories of laughing at how terrible Ironic is and flinching at how nasal her voice is. But I ended up liking how she uses her voice and she doesn't seem to have other lyrics as bad as Ironic.
N.W.A.
3/5
The start is incredible but as a whole album I can see where Dr Dre is coming from. It always felt like the poor cousin to Public Enemy to me.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
I always felt they were one of the indie bands from that generation that had a bit more about them. I had forgotten just how much they were indebted to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on that first record.
Morrissey
2/5
Jefferson Airplane
3/5
Siouxsie And The Banshees
5/5
I was once criticised for playing bass like a lobotomised Peter Hook. This was inaccurate. I was playing bass like a lobotomised Steve Severin. I think he is so underrated.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
Bill Callahan
3/5
I want to like Bill Callahan more than I do because I think his lyrics are interesting. However, there are a few stumbling blocks. His voice is just too blank for me and when he combines it with such tastefully dull alt country arrangements as he does on this album it compounds the problem. Finally, his melodies are mostly only passable to my ears.
Marianne Faithfull
5/5
A grim coincidence. I was listening to this on the day she died. It was getting five stars anyway. If you like this and don't know her later stuff I recommend Give My Love To London.
The one star boors griping about this album only being here because of context make me laugh. As if context isn't relevant to all creative endeavours. The Rolling Stones were fairly talented young men who had the context of a social revolution to raise them up and The Beatles to light
a fire under them. Since they ran out of interesting context and ideas some point in the 70s they've been serving up drivel album after album, give or take a Start Me Up or an Undercover of the Night. Marianne on the other hand made consistently interesting records with a range of collaborators since this one.
And yeah she may have been related to European aristocracy a few generations back but she grew up in a terraced house in Reading.
Some folk can't stand a woman that survives heroin or Mick Jagger. Or maybe it's the in your face naked rage of Why D'Ya Do It they struggle with.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
The Waterboys
4/5
The musical expression of many Scots' not so secret wish that they were Irish.
Buck Owens
3/5
A fun listen and fun to read about the Bakersfield Sound and its influence. Also I'm a sucker for song genealogies vis The Unfortunate Rake/Streets of Laredo/When I Was On Horseback
5/5
I had a great day letting this album weave its way through everything I did. I have a friend who loves this group. Now I know what I was missing.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
4/5
I think Alex Harvey was one of the great rock and roll voices. He sings with such abandon. They are a weird group with the range that they cover. I don't hear much glam in this. Old rock and roll, touch of prog and a heap of theatricality. Gang Bang is deeply unpleasant if delivered with brio. That pulsating synthetic at the start of The Faith Healer is at least a decade early.
The title track is my favourite Brel English cover. I wish he'd done an album of Brel tunes. He has an earthy grasp of the humour, tragedy and desperation unequalled by Scott Walker, David Bowie or Marc Almond. Even the original translator Mort Schumann.
Prefab Sprout
3/5
Emmylou Harris
3/5
The Band
5/5
Milton Nascimento
4/5
The range of styles in this is great. I think that's mostly how a double album should be rather than just a really long single album focusing on one or two styles.
Fiona Apple
4/5
I like this a lot more than I did her first album. I like the percussion, sounds a bit like Tune-Yards in places. Overall I find the music a lot more appealing and that draws me into the undeniably excellent lyrics which cover a lot of emotions and mental states.
Pixies
5/5
I listened to this album so much at the time I almost sickened myself. Also with age and familiarity the lyrics seem a little silly. But I sat and gave it a proper listen for the first time in years and it is an amazing piece of work. From a UK perspective it felt revelatory at the time ushering loud guitars back to a level of popularity after years of jingle jangle.
Some simple four piece bands just have a special magic when they meet and Pixies had that on the first few records. They were also great live.
This is also the record that cemented Steve Albini as a celebrity recording engineer. It still sounds extraordinary and arguably neither PJ Harvey or Nirvana were able to fully repeat the trick when they asked him to record their Surfer Rosas later.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
3/5
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
All this time I didn't know the UK release was missong two tracks. I feel short changed. The list is missing the best one out the first three in Heaven Up Here.
Massive Attack
4/5
I might start playing a game with myself predicting how many reviews down before the first grumpy American rock bro complaining about too many UK entries on the list. I think they're nicely balanced against the two or three Red Hot Chilli Peppers entries.
The Smiths
2/5
A Tribe Called Quest
3/5
Blur
2/5
They can be quite infuriating, Blur. There is a handful of great moments on this but as with most of their albums it's topped up with Blur by numbers irritations.
Jethro Tull
4/5
David Holmes
3/5
Late 90s dance music like this is quite hard to explain if you didn't live through it so I can understand younger people hearing this and being a bit non-plussed. It mostly isn't suited to a process like this where you sit on your own and intently listen. This music soundtracked getting ready to go out with your friends or being out in the pub with your friends before you went to a club or after you all went to someone's flat or possibly even nursing a hangover/coming down with friends the next day. It was communal and incidental and you probably had to be wearing a pair of cheap combats. Like a lot of music that felt so now at the time it does feel a bit stranded in its time.
Btw I prefer the albums either side of this one.
Jeff Buckley
2/5
Not as overblown as I remember but still quite boring to me.
Fairport Convention
5/5
I think every moment of this album is perfect, jigs included.
I also think of all the casualties of the era Sandy Denny is one of the saddest because I think during her time the UK music industry didn't really know what to make of her. If she'd been born a little later into the punk era her creativity might have had a better chance of taking centre stage and she could have presented herself more often on her own terms
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
John Lennon
5/5
The Fall
5/5
Funkadelic
4/5
I prefer the slightly more minimal earlier albums but it's Funkadelic!
Haircut 100
3/5
In the 80s there was a particular strain of preppily dressed music critic who were convinced Nick Heyward was a genius. Turns out they still walk among us.
Sonic Youth
5/5
Sandwiched as it is between two other great Sonic Youth albums I forget how good this is, how clearly it captures what a phenomenal band they were, quadruple threat.
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
All the way through disc one I'm always thinking this is such a great record because I forget how much it falls away on disc two which mostly feels like lesser versions of the songs on disc one, the title track aside. I could have gone a much longer version of Tusk, it always feels like they fade it to soon because they're a bit bashful of having something so odd on the album.
A bit like with Rhiannon I wish they they could capture their live sound a bit more on Sisters of the Moon. It's still fantastic but just has a bit of its snarl smoothed over.
Disc one still makes the whole thing.
The Chemical Brothers
2/5
Another album that doesn't really work with sitting on your sofa in your pyjamas eating your muesli in your mid 50s. There are a couple of standout tracks but its Big Beat tricks do get tiresome pretty quickly if paid close attention. A bit better than Fatboy Slim.
Merle Haggard
3/5
Leonard Cohen
5/5
I think the reportedly deserved punch in the face from Nico was worth it all things considered for One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong. It's one of the most mordantly hilarious things ever written. Listen in close to Len, he is one of the funniest songwriters ever.
The Cure
5/5
Glacial innit?
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
Blood, Sweat & Tears
2/5
I fell asleep twice.
Eminem
3/5
Yes
4/5
The most proggy of all the proggy progginess to be had just in terms of sheer showy offyness. I used to hate Yes but they've been a fun rediscovery lately.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
4/5
Is there a parallel universe where Bill Drummond realised wee Holly playing bass next to him in Big In Japan was such a talent and masterminded his rise rather than Echo & the Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes?
The four singles carry this but I also love their cover of Born To Turn. There is a touch more joy in their desperation than Bruce.
A couple of things I am learning from this process.
1. People are a bit loose with their genre terms. Synth pop, really? This sounds like Soft Cell and The Human League to you?
2. I dutifully read all the Wikipedia entries and have developed a healthy enmity for Robert Christgau and his joyless, nebby and in this case nonsensically homophobic views on music. Who is deciding every Wikipedia album entry needs this twerp's input?
David Bowie
5/5
I still get surprised by how good this is. I enjoyed The Next Day but felt it did have that feel of "oh well this is as much as you can expect". Very good not great. Blackstar meanwhile really is up there with his best.
The Hives
2/5
At the grand old age of 31 I felt I was too old for this garage rock retread even if I could see why the young uns might fall for it. If we're having compilations we'd be better off with Nuggets - way more influential and something you genuinely need to hear.
Elton John
2/5
I think there's a problem when your lead instrument is a piano played how Elton John plays it. There isn't a lot of expression. So, everything kind of blends into a clangy mush. Despite that I recommend seeking out his John Peel radio session where he played pub piano, no singing.
I do accept that it is wrong that I prefer The Scissor Sisters.
Stan Getz
4/5
I'm getting old. I really enjoyed the depth of inoffensiveness of this. I also enjoyed the back story of how this smooth thing was created with a lot of friction.
Queen
3/5
Three Queeh albums on this, all from the 70s. A very Rock Critic choice.
The Afghan Whigs
3/5
Sebadoh
4/5
I was a little underwhelmed by the popular follow up to this, Bakesale, and it was the only Sebadoh I heard at the time. I missed out.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2/5
Sorry Tom I've been too lenient recently and rounding up too many 2.5s to 3s and then making 3s into 4s. You're inoffensive and slightly bland offering has to be rounded down.
k.d. lang
4/5
Like floating in a giant sized bubble bath.
Supergrass
2/5
This process is making me listen to far too many mediocre Britpop albums. In my lenient phase I might have given this a 3 for Caught By The Fuzz and the video for Alright but really I would have been ignoring the blandness of the rest of it.
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
They had everything. Innovative but commercial, joyful and angry, the best short pop tunes and blasted stretched out improvs.
Sonic Youth
5/5
I saw them on the tour for this. Completely rocked my world. The South Bank Show documentary from around the same time is worth seeking out. It has some great live to camera performances including a wild half abandoned broken string Silver Rocket.
Bert Jansch
4/5
And some people think Lulu was the only thing coming out of Scotland in the 60s.
A lot of jangly indie guitarists in the 80s only had Roger McGuinn to fall back on. Johnny Marr also had Bert Jansch.
Bobby Womack
4/5
Poised just on the cusp of all those great 70s soul sounds being sanitised out by 80s production values.
Billy Bragg
3/5
Shivkumar Sharma
3/5
Ella Fitzgerald
4/5
This is not a compilation despite what some reviews are saying. It is a pretty great artistic statement done at scale.
I recommend not trying to listen in one sitting. The 'Did not listen' button is super handy for an entry like this. I listened over three sittings but I could just as easily imagine sprinkling it throughout a full week's worth of listening. In fact I probably didn't do some of these perfectly sung and arranged witty songs justice even at that pace.
The Allman Brothers Band
2/5
I've got the opposite problem to some. I wish this was more 'self indulgent' and they did more of the jazzy noodly stuff. When they play that bog standard blues rock stuff I have the same feeling I always do. I'm sat there thinking to myself wondering why aren't I just listening to Howlin' Wolf rather than this tribute act.
Kacey Musgraves
2/5
Too smooth for me. The lyrics to Space Cowboy were funny.
Michael Kiwanuka
3/5
Badly Drawn Boy
3/5
I liked this a bit more than I expected. I never really liked the jazz pop hit but the album overall has a woozy messiness I can appreciate.
However, I still think his greatest contribution to music is the time Mark E Smith from The Fall decided he was a taxi driver and forced him to drive him home. The next morning BDB found Mark's dentures on his back seat and dutifully returned them. You know people were already saying MES was unintelligible but can you imagine....
The Notorious B.I.G.
1/5
I'm just not a fan of Gangsta Rap. It felt like a regressive step after the big hiphop acts of the 80s/early 90s. You can hear he is incredibly smart with words but the subject matter gets old quickly. I don't think the production is up to much either.
SAULT
5/5
I suppose this album is doing its job if it is upsetting people who think "nobody was talking about race 15 years ago".
I also see people complaining of a lack of passion or anger. I dunno, not everything needs to be histrionic and besides this is as much as celebration as a protest. I like its cool modern approach to soul.
Spiritualized
3/5
R.E.M.
5/5
Sparks
4/5
It's sort of like a full album of Virginia Plain which sounds like a lot of fun but can be a bit exhausting to my ears. However, when I focused in on the lyrics rather than the slightly strained falsetto it did become a lot more fun.
George Michael
4/5
Super Furry Animals
2/5
Roxy Music
5/5
The Beach Boys
2/5
Billy Bragg
4/5
I would have thought Life's a Riot would be the one you had to hear but this is pretty great too. Help Save The Youth of America is more relevant now than then even if it remains a little condescending.
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
I really like Neil Tennant's almost no effort singing style. I can get why it annoys some people but I like that he leans into his limitations and uses it to fit with the mood they create in their music.
I have a slightly crackly old copy of this on vinyl. It always makes me think I need to go back and explore the rest of their career. I liked the albums before and after this one too.
The Pretty Things
5/5
The Who
3/5
The Residents
3/5
For a band and an album with such an experimental reputation I'm surprised at how similar all the tracks sound. A wee bit too on the wacky side of things for me but a fun listen.
Talking Heads
3/5
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
4/5
Wikipedia says there is an alternative version without the slightly too sweet Jordanaire style backing vocals. I would love to hear that but couldn't find it anywhere.
The Who
3/5
The first two and the last two are doing a lot of heavy lifting for all those 5 scores. The Who are the ultimate 'just get a Greatest Hits' band for me. Won't Get Fooled Again is irresistible but it is definitely the grand finale at the centrist Dad disco.
The Fall
5/5
Living in my small home town, I recorded a few tracks off this from Peel. It was like having fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dark, mysterious and difficult to comprehend. Then I moved to the big city and felt like Indiana Jones when I found a copy in a second hand shop. Ah, callow youth.
Belle & Sebastian
4/5
The Temptations
4/5
Amazing the impact Sly and the Family Stone had on music at the time.
White Denim
2/5
I like my psyche less polite and polished than this.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
Bad Company
2/5
I like my 70s classic rock to be doomier and weirder than this. Also never been a fan of Paul Rodgers' voice.
George Michael
3/5
Tom Waits
5/5
Like a second debut. I hadn't listened to it in a while. It's just incredible and might be my favourite of his 80s Island Records trilogy, although maybe if I'd just listened to either of the other two I'd pick one of those.
I enjoyed reading some of the musicians bios off the Wikipedia page. I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised how accomplished a group of session musicians it is but it almost seems at odds with how otherworldly the music often is. You've got the bass player from Canned Heat and a guitarist from Little Feat here!
It's easy to forget how just a little bit of grit or discordancy upsets people. These 1 star reviews read like slugs doused in salt.
Django Django
1/5
Bland and preppy music for junior executives. Music for adverts right enough. I really wasn't in the mood for this.
The Zutons
3/5
I like this more than I expected. There's nothing innovative in it but it has a real charm in how it's done.
Television
5/5
A foundational text, a monolith, influential but never equalled.
Norah Jones
2/5
Aggressively nice
Kings of Leon
2/5
Morrissey
2/5
CHIC
4/5
Beck
4/5
90s Saturday bar shift about 4pm. The effects of Friday's lockin hangover have receded but tiredness is kicking in. The place it still heaving, how are people ordering lunch at 4pm? How many times have I polished the entire complement of cutlery in the place? The Celtic supporting staff and the Rangers supporting regulars are shaping up to be either joyful or raging, neither option is quiet. Looks will make every effort to kill. The Tennents barrel needs changed again. I think I've sweated through my deodorant. Oh fuck the new start has been fooled by the alcoholic with psychotic tendencies who lives in the hotel over the road into serving up a half and a hawf. That's all it takes for chaos to ensue. Who's asking him to leave this time before he starts howling at the random sat next to him minding his own business?
Someone sticks this on. It bounces just enough to keep you moving, has enough of a fug not to exacerbate your head, melodic enough not to offend anyone too much. Two more hours. I wonder if tips have been enough for a post shift sesh?
A situational four stars. I actually find Beck a bit uninvolving in laboratory conditions.
The The
3/5
Aphex Twin
4/5
Radiohead
2/5
It gets a two because I quite like Karma Police and No Surprises but overall I prefer the 70s long haired flare wearing variant of posho prog types. Thom Yorke's voice thoroughly rips my knitting.
Faith No More
3/5
Beastie Boys
3/5
William Orbit
1/5
I think this list is pretty clueless on electronic music. This is dreary.
Megadeth
2/5
He doesn't sound constipated on this one so it gets an extra star.
The Human League
4/5
Great start, great end and pretty good in the middle. I totally missed that there was a Rezillo on this.
Bob Dylan
5/5
The Blue Nile
4/5
Madonna
4/5
Black Sabbath
5/5
My least favourite of their first six albums but that opener and NIB. The Wizard and Evil Woman are fun too. The Wizard especially probably deserved to stay in their set longer.
Deep Purple
3/5
Most Deep Purple songs are just a half regurgitated blues riff extended in a not very exciting way. Child In Time is great in all its ridiculous operatic glory. And I could easily have gone a lot more of Ritchie doing his Hendrix in noise mode impersonation as per the intro to Speed King.
It's a weird thing that Ozzy is regarded so much higher than Ian Gillan (correctly in my mind) but Gillan is way more influential within Hard Rock and Metal. Gillan leads to Rob Halford and Dio, leads to Bruce Dickinson and the like. Even the guttural deep vocals of more extreme metal is simply an extension of the arms race between singers and guitarists in Metal that has its roots in Gillan/Blackmore. I can't think of anyone who really mimics what Ozzy does.
New York Dolls
4/5
Gillian Welch
5/5
The United States Of America
4/5
So, my wife said this sounds like the music that plays when a clown comes round to murder you and we were both like "Rock on, baby!".
Spacemen 3
5/5
I saw them around the time this came. They were amazing. I hadn't listened to this in a long time and I like it even more now if anything. I hear the usual Suicide and Stooges reference points routinely attached to them but surprising to me I hear Cluster even more.
Madonna
3/5
Blue Cheer
5/5
Bonus point for making me think about The Walkingseeds track Blue Cheer from their debut album Skulkfuck
Jazmine Sullivan
4/5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
One of my favourite things about this album is the image of the producer David Briggs trying to 'vibe up' Blixa Bargeld by playing air guitar next to him during recording. Pure culture clash.
I loved this album so much in my 20s. It has an almost childish glee for horrific imagery which makes me think of gangsta rap. I accept that he had to move on from the Nick Cave character he was then but he has never been as entertaining to me later on. Having said that one or tunes do feel a bit Bad Seeds by numbers - especially the two singles. Also ridiculous that this is the earliest Bad Seeds record on the list.
Janis Joplin
4/5
Julian Cope
5/5
This album was huge for me at 20 when it came out. One of those ones I dont need to listen to any more because I know it inside out. I'm loving how many of the reviews are hooked first time listeners. I'm also amused by the number of people who think they have to listen to the 2.5 hour Deluxe Edition cos the website has linked to that version.
Country Joe & The Fish
3/5
Throbbing Gristle
5/5
I find it fascinating how violent some of the reactions to this are. Apparently you are a fraud if you like this or possibly just simply hated. Pretty funny. It's just sound and some creepy words, not even TG's most disturbing.
I think it's exciting not really knowing what's coming next, sensing that the people making the record didn't know either a lot of the time.
I saw them the last time they reformed and if anything they were even more impressive than their early albums would have suggested. They weren't just a tribute to themselves and incorporated current tech into what they do/did.
I kind of wish the follow up album 20 Jazz Funk Greats with its sneakily grim Blue Peter annual artwork had featured instead. The reviews for that would have been even more fun as expectations raised by the title were not met.
Trivia corner for classic rock fans: The cover for UFO's album Force It was designed by TG's Sleazy and features TG's Genesis P. Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti as the couple.
Ray Charles
3/5
Dennis Wilson
3/5
It's got that lush 70s production style but I always want the songs to be more impressive.
The Roots
3/5
The Offspring
2/5
To my ears they were and still are Nirvana Lite.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
4/5
You've got to love random timing. I'm currently reading Limmy's autobiography. Look up "Limmy Lloyd Cole" on YouTube for a wee rage filled treat and to discover what a miserable snob old Lloyd is. The video is Limmy reacting to Lloyd's review of his book on BBC Radio 4. My opinion of Lloyd is even lower having now read most of Limmy's brutally honest, sad and funny book.
Anyway I loved this album as a teenager and I'm not changing my mind about it now. The lyrics can be incredibly pretentious but that's part of its youthful charm. Neil Clark's guitar playing is up there with early Johnny Marr. But the arrangements are more mainstream 80s pop than The Smiths.
Kraftwerk
4/5
It doesn't quite have the beauty and mystery of Trans Europe Express. It feels more functional which may well have been the intention. Still great though. Their technical innovation is important and all that but they also knew how to write a great tune.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Sinatra's voice sounds too loud in the mix and the fairly uninspiring arrangements lurk in the background.
Heaven 17
3/5
Yes
4/5
For many years I would have recoiled at this and all its noodlyness but a few things have changed over the years. I just decided to try and give up on my learned prejudices from my teens and 20s. I really fell in love with Steve Howe's previous group Tomorrow and Bill Bruford's subsequent spell in King Crimson. Then finally I sought out this specific album after hearing Starship Trooper on the TV drama Divorce. It wasn't like the song resonated because of the scene of a middle aged man rediscovering his independence in a dweeby way, I just really liked the track. Maybe I'm a dweeb. Anyway, and the next thing you know, because of Sarah Jessica Parker, I'm getting into Yes .
Cowboy Junkies
3/5
When I was 19 this seemed the height of sophisticated dark atmosphere. Maybe they've been copied too many times since then but it doesn't quite have the same allure to me now.
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
Just cos you can write them doesn't mean they need to be on the album. There's some ok mid 90s 'alt rock' tunes swimming alongside the mediocre ones. It's just all a bit too much Billy Corgan in one sitting for my ears. once I laughed at those lyrics for Zero it was quite hard to take the rest of it seriously.
Ananda Shankar
3/5
I wish the whole thing was like the last three tracks. They are fantastic. The version of Light My Fire almost ruins it.
The Cramps
4/5
Kings of Leon
2/5
America's chief contribution to the new millennium's indie landfill.
The Shamen
3/5
It's tough for 90s dance music albums in this thing. I don't think they were ever meant to be listened to with the chin stroking intensity invited by most of the other inclusions. You were meant to dance to them or even just individual tracks as part of a DJ set, or maybe have them on in the background at a party or a bar. Also they are very much of their time which I see is something plenty people cannot forgive. I guess nothing dates so much as old visions of the future.
I think 90s dance music deserves a spot on the list even if i disagree with some of the choices. I think this one has way more invention, dynamics and melody than the more popular Big Beat albums that cluttered up the other end of the 90s.
The Beach Boys
4/5
Such a cool thing the developer of this site did.
I like this album a lot but I don't worship it as some do even though I can understand why people do. I feel like the sheer weight of ideas bursting out of its creaking bounced upon bounced upon 4 tracks communicates Brian Wilson's anxiety too well. I almost find it an uncomfortable listen. When Syd Barrett communicates his mental health through his music it feels like an invitation to a trip with some dark wells of melancholy along the way. With poor Brian I feel like I'm stuck on a fairground ride with someone suppressing a terrified scream.
Bob Dylan
5/5
I don't know that sadness, pain and regret have been so seductively packaged too many times.
John Coltrane
5/5
A suitably weighty choice for album number 500.
The Magnetic Fields
3/5
It feels a bit like an academic exercise.
The Stone Roses
3/5
I half agree with Neil Kulkarni. The first three tracks are the best things on this. Made of Stone and I Am The Resurrection are good as well but a lot of the other tracks are pretty forgettable except This Is The One which is irritatingly catchy.
The Chemical Brothers
2/5
First few tracks are ok then it starts getting boring. They seemed to only have a few ideas.
Randy Newman
3/5
I admire Randy Newman more than love him. The songs are interesting. Gently shocking and sometimes grimly funny but the music doesn't excite me much.
Shack
3/5
There's a certain kind of UK music journalist who can't let go of the idea of Michael Head as a lost genius. The songs on this album are nice enough pastiches of all the 60s tropes you know so well. It's like a gentler Oasis or maybe Cast. It's not really genius. He's put out more than a dozen albums in different guises. So, he's not really lost either. Just there if you like this sort of thing. I think it's OK.
Metallica
1/5
I'm not much of a fan of Metallica anyway but I was surprised at how bad this sounds. The bland orchestration fight it out with the guitars for the mids and they wind up weakening each other. A huge case of more is less.
Weather Report
3/5
The Smiths
3/5
Hanoi Rocks
3/5
Them and Van Halen were responsible for inspiring some of the worst rock music ever made in the 80s but we shouldn't hold that against them.
Mercury Rev
4/5
David Fridmann was on fire that year. With this and The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin. I prefer this for its more wistful blasted tone.
The Specials
4/5
The slowed down Too Much Too Young always sounds weird to me given how much the high speed live version that topped the charts featured in the local community centre kids' discos I went to back then. But I can sort of understand what they were trying to do listening to it today, making the lyrics easier to hear.
David Bowie
5/5
I want a lot of these songs to go on longer.
T. Rex
4/5
The Everly Brothers
3/5
They deserve their place for how influential they were. The British Invasion didn't just re-serve the US the blues and rock and roll it also re-served the Everly Brothers. Having said that I think The Beatles improved the further they got from the Everly Brothers influence.
The Monkees
2/5
I dont really understand the determination to critically rehabilitate The Monkees, especially the supposedly more worthy stuff they played on themselves. Just let them be what they were - a fun corporate cash in on Beatlemania. Mike Nesmith would go on to write A Different Drum but there's nothing on here that get even remotely close.
Elis Regina
2/5
Holger Czukay
3/5
Marilyn Manson
1/5
Ozomatli
2/5
I couldn't get access to the album properly so I listened to a few of their top tracks on Tidal. A bit too unrelentingly cheery for me. I'm discovering I don't like most funk rock.
Digital Underground
3/5
Queen Latifah
4/5
The reviews complaining about Queen Latifah referring to herself and her greatness are a bit of shame. That style of rapping comes from hiphop's origins and the mic battles that developed the idea of MCs. It's like complaining that old blues and rock and roll records use the same 12 bar chord progression too much. Maybe I'm showing my age by how much I like the production but again why dismiss old hip-hop/electronic music? Sixties rock and pop doesn't get the same treatment.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
Duran Duran
3/5
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
2/5
The Charlatans
3/5
Pentangle
4/5
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
I prefer Heaven Up Here which I think overall has better songs and production. However, you can hear on this one that they are developing towards their masterpiece Ocean Rain. I'm always surprised when O read reviews saying they are melancholic or even whiny. I hear them as much too spaced out for that.
The Cult
2/5
This album was a lesson in the shifting sands of 80s youth tribalism in the UK for me. At the start of the decade all the cool kids were mods, New Romantics and casuals while I was a preteen metal kid provoking ridicule by insisting on headbanging to AC/DC at the swimming club disco. By the time this came out I had moved on and thought it was seriously naff and backwards looking but all the cool kids thought it was the greatest. *Insert 'baffled' meme of choice*
Listening now I still think it is a more than slightly ridiculous 3rd generation photocopy of AC/DC, etc. It's fine for about three tracks but it really only has one idea. I also think Love or their first, Dreamtime, and/or an earlier AC/DC album should be in the book rather than this.
The Undertones
5/5
When I bought my cheap copy of this on the Fame label in 1985 I thought I was acquiring an ancient relic. The album was six years old. A blink of an eye to me now.
In more age related pondering I don't understand why armed with this, The Ramones and Buzzcocks you would ever want to listen to stagnant genre bound 90s/00s pop punk. People ten to twenty years younger may disagree.
Pro tip: search out the punk version of True Confessions live on The Old Grey Whistle Test to fully access their youthful exuberance.
2/5
Labcoaty.
The Slits
5/5
All these allegations of amateurishness are pure amateur hour. Listen in to how the bass, drums and guitar bounce off one another creating something unfamiliar. Sure you can lazily allege white reggae but when Dennis Bovell is producing you know this stuff is serious.
Lana Del Rey
3/5
Melodically it feels like she has written all these songs before. I thought Norman Fucking Rockwell! was her best?
Talk Talk
3/5
The editors get it wrong again. They should have had their next two albums on the list as the ones you need to hear. There is nothing else like them even though Radiohead have been failing to emulate them for the last 25 years.
This one is pretty good and hints at what is to come on their next album Spirit of Eden, especially on the quieter moments.
I have one problem with this album. When Life's What You Make It was a hit I heard it on Radio 1 and Gary Davies proclaimed over the end of it in that weird unplaceable accent of his "Too right mate!". Since then I've always thought of it as a yuppie/80s Tory anthem. It is a bit of a bland platitude to be fair.
Tricky
4/5
I was obsessed with this when it came out. I can acknowledge now that it drags a bit in the second half. But those opening six tracks are still fantastic.
To go further out check out the two utterly blasted tracks from The Hell ep featuring the RZA, Frukwan and Poetic then all of The Gravediggaz.
Leonard Cohen
5/5
Leonard will always get a five from me. Deceptively simple lyrics that set you pondering endlessly if you want to be caught in their spell.
George Harrison
3/5
I think music journalists like saying this is the best Beatles solo album because they aren't really journalists in most cases, they are writers, and they like a story. The story of George, the poor put upon Beatle finally getting to shine is a good one and not wholly false. However, I think this album has its flaws much as it has its moments of genius. The production has the two problems of Spector being on the wane and George being too influenced by him and inexperienced as a producer, especially on his own stuff which is sometimes harder than working one someone else's stuff. I usually love big mushy reverberant productions but it gets a bit wearing here. I like the idea of a bonus instrumental album a lot but always get disappointed by most of it being Clapton infected blues snoozefests.
Having said all that most of the tracks up to and including Apple Scruffs are good to great with Isn't A Pity being the real standout and worthy of its double appearance.
Goldfrapp
3/5
Barry Adamson
3/5
Another 90s album that felt like it was pushing into the future at the time but now sounds utterly 90s. The beats are the main culprit. I don't mind that really but it isn't quite as good as I remember it. Also I retrospectively find Nick Cave a bit annoying sometimes. I think he gets aways with nonsense lyrics sometimes to the point of people proclaiming him a great poet because of how he delivers them in such sonorous way. How's getting brutally chucked The Sweetest Embrace, Nick? Explain it, c'mon.
Black Sabbath
5/5
I've been listening to this album for 45 years and I still hear new things in it. Along with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath it is probably less immediate than the other four in that incredible initial six album run but it has layers to unpick and tempo changes to catch you off guard.
Teenage Fanclub
3/5
As an early 90s indie kid in Glasgow it was almost compulsory to love this album. If you told someone you thought it was just alright their faces would fall and they'd look at you askance.
It's got its moments but I guess I'll never love it. Just past the halfway mark the relentless mid pace drags me down, a bit like an Oasis album.
FKA twigs
5/5
Wow 11 years. Definitely for headphones or good speakers cos of all the great we details she packs into the production. I agree with the reviewer saying Magdalene is a better album but this is still great. Also surprised at its low score. Too pop for the 'real music' brigade, a little too off kilter for the pop kids? They're all missing out regardless.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
5/5
This is how you use your Howlin' Wolf influence not that blood drained stuff 70s blues rock bands bored us all with. The intro to Pena is one of my favourite things ever. It is highly suspect that during this period Beefheart never looked bulkier than when his band were starving. I've just realised I've been singing the wordless tune at the start of When Big Joan Sets Up in my head quite a bit for the last few years. Beefheart deserves more credit for inspiring an entire genre of weird 80s spiky UK independent music - it wasn't all jangly Byrds chords and floppy fringes. It wasn't just Tom Waits ripping off this album at that point.
I'm super happy in my 'naive', 'fake', 'pretentious' enjoyment of this. Some of you carry on being weirdly grumpy and aggressive towards people who like something you don't.
Wild Beasts
3/5
Who's going to tell all those one star reviews freaked out by the voice about Sparks? How will they cope?
Anyway, I quite liked this even if it struggled to stick.
Randy Newman
4/5
This probably isn't any better than Good Old Boys but I enjoyed it a lot more on the day I listened. This process really brings home how unreliable critical thought is.
David Bowie
4/5
De La Soul
5/5
Still one of the greatest after all these years. The high point for sampling based production and an innovation in rapping.
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
Neil Young steals the show so much.
10cc
2/5
Turns out XTC had a very clear antecedent. I had no idea. All a bit clever clever for me while also having some of the dumbest lyrics imaginable. All a bit arch and postmodern for me.
Khaled
4/5
I suspect there are experts in North African music who roll their eyes at the inclusion of this album on the list because it is quite poppy and has an entirely unnecessary cover of Imagine, but I'm a total novice and it sounds great to me just for the melodies as much as anything. Maybe it is the rhythms too because I don't particularly like the slow ones.
Slayer
4/5
Take that Metallica and Megadeth this is the thrash metal I was looking for.
XTC
2/5
Jean-Michel Jarre
4/5
Ice Cube
3/5
Miles Davis
5/5
Like a lot of people, I imagine, this album was my way in to jazz. It's melodic and approachable enough to not scare you off but it also has enough exploratory sections to at least hint at the wilder directions you can take backwards into bebop and much wilder onwards into free jazz and Miles' kick start of fusion.
Meat Puppets
4/5
I should have taken note of what Kurt was trying to say more. Loose but clever and mysterious.
T. Rex
4/5
Stephen Stills
3/5
Miles Davis
5/5
I had this on cassette years ago. It was perfect personal stereo headphones on staring into a rain lashed train window on a long journey by night music. Then I had it on CD and lay in bed hungover on Sunday with it on. Now I have a vinyl copy and look out at the foliage of all the back gardens and the abandoned caravan park I can see out of my window typing this.
Fela Kuti
4/5
Napalm Death
5/5
Tangerine Dream
5/5
Morrissey
2/5
Miles Davis
5/5
My last Miles Davis from the list. It was cool to get them in release order. We've come a long way from Birth of the Cool. One thing I didn't know about this album was just how many musicians were involved in each session. It is incredible how they complement one another and don't trip over each other, especially the multiple bass players, piano players and drummers.
Liz Phair
4/5
I read plenty about this at the time and wanted to check it ou but funds were short and I didn't know anyone to tape it off. Then time moves on and the moment passes. A shame because I would have really loved it. I like it plenty now. I don't understand the one star reviewer justifying their review with the statement: "It's like a teenage girl singing her inner monologue."
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Such effortless blending of all the available genres of the day while pointing to the future.
The Birthday Party
4/5
Green Day
2/5
At the ripe old age of 24 Green Day were my first experience of feeling old as a music fan. I just couldn't relate to kids and teens' love of these safe punk not punk retreads. I felt people my own age should have known better.
I also suspect they were America's perfectly justifiable revenge for years of UK bands singing in bad American accents.
Bob Dylan
5/5
Robert Wyatt
4/5
Fishbone
3/5
Sugar
4/5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2/5
For me when a white rock star reaches for a gospel choir, creatively speaking, the jig is almost up. It has its moments but this is the start of the break up for me and Nick.
Neneh Cherry
5/5
I love this album like a sister.
Bad Brains
3/5
Kind of amazing how much of the next 40 years of mostly American rock music you can hear in this 1986 album. I don't necessarily like everything they inspired but there's a rawness in their blend of sounds that appeals. Originals are usually the best.
N.E.R.D
3/5
Dinosaur Jr.
4/5
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Lou Reed
5/5
Another day, another Wikipedia entry, another opportunity to reflect on the shitty opinions of Robert Christgau.
This is Lou showing the rest of the 70s how to do a concept album and look cool doing it.
Tom Tom Club
3/5
The Divine Comedy
4/5
Goldfrapp
3/5
Gotan Project
1/5
Wow their choices of electronica on this list are 99% the lamest and most boring imagineable. Dreadful wallpaper.
Method Man
4/5
Ice T
4/5
He loves that riff from the song Black Sabbath - sampled two albums in a row. Taste.
I always liked how Ice-T connected to the funk.
Red Snapper
3/5
Beth Orton
3/5
Is this the only album to feature both Dr. Robert and Dr. John? What other pop culture doctor could have made it a hat-trick? I'm voting for Dr. Miriam Margolis gently intoning advice on thrush for all those come down clubbers that loved this record back in the day.
Scott Walker
3/5
Everything But The Girl
3/5
It's better than I remember it but I think this is easily the least of their four 80s albums. Each album has its own distinct sound but this one is the most tentative as Ben Watt begins to noodle with synths and drum machines. The Wikipedia entry even includes a section from Tracey Thorn's memoir that accepts that many of these songs don't really have choruses. Which can be cool if your arrangements are more interesting or your lyrics are more captivating. There's better tunes, better arrangements and way more affecting lyrics on each of their previous three. Skip this and listen to one of those instead.
The Byrds
4/5
Kraftwerk
5/5
I'm not in the least bit ashamed that this once soundtracked a journey across central Europe for me and some friends. A bit clichéd but it was better than being stuck on the M6 outside Birmingham with Radio 1 for company.
Peter Gabriel
4/5
I've never listened to his first two albums properly. I always focus on the songs that are on his Plays Live album which is my favourite thing by him. I'm really enjoying how much of a mess this is. Like he wanted to try on as many hats as possible after leaving Genesis. He's still prog, he's pop, he's a self deprecatingly horny Springsteen, he's a music hall entertainer - and that's just the first four tracks.
I wonder if Howard Jones is nervous of Gabriel selling his song rights and some corporate IP lawyer in the future following up on the similarity between his New Song and Solsbury Hill?
Kanye West
2/5
Michael Jackson
2/5
Frank Ocean
5/5
Dusty Springfield
4/5
I've only ever listened to Dusty In Memphis. That was a mistake. This is a half hour of brilliant 60s pop.
Sleater-Kinney
4/5
How lucky was that other reviewer who had an angsty 14 year old sister with a band who could rock this hard? I never had a sister. That would have been cool. I could have carried gear for them or something.
ABBA
4/5
Eurythmics
3/5
Animal Collective
2/5
The National
2/5
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
3/5
80s dinner party music for pseuds but better than that sounds.
James Taylor
2/5
Hookworms
3/5
The Flaming Lips
4/5
The Adverts
3/5
Dagmar Krause
4/5
I love Dagmar Krause's voice and this style of Weimar songwriting. I'm not sure the songs are supposed to be packed in like sardines into one collection like this. If I get access to it other than on YouTube I'd pick away at it piecemeal. My only real quibble is I'd like a Dagmar era Henry Cow album on the list. In Praise Of Learning probably.
Nick Drake
4/5
Radiohead
3/5
Wow a Radiohead album I don't hate. It made me realise it's that singing style he does where he sounds in pain and smug at the same time that rips my knitting. There was less of that on here.
Elton John
2/5
New Order
4/5
It has always felt to me that they sort of over perfected their sound on this record or maybe it was that they got access to new toys or something. The Ibiza/dance influence gets overstated. Fine Time aside it is very much identifiably an 80s New Order album. I still really like it but I'd have Brotherhood on the list or break the no compilations rule and have Substance. Run is pretty great.
Hüsker Dü
3/5
I see there are a few Husker Du fans already asking in their reviews why this album was picked for the list. I agree. I feel it is their worst by a fair bit. The album title is appropriate. The songs are workman liked compared to their best, like the stuff they kept in reserve and now that the writing was on the wall for the group they stuck them out together in a closing down sale. If the editors want to represent their melodic era any of the three previous albums are a better choice but I also think they match any of the hardcore punk album on the list on their early stuff.
Throwing Muses
5/5
I love this album. It sort of scared and confused me at 16 but I kept coming back to it. I highly recommend Kristin Hersh's memoir Rat Girl from around the time the band was formed and this was recorded. The story of how being hit by her car led to the auditory hallucinations that inform her songwriting (music and lyrics) is extraordinary.
Robert Wyatt
5/5
Nightmares On Wax
3/5
Magazine
4/5
Santana
4/5
Miriam Makeba
3/5
KISS
3/5
I like how the mix of God of Thunder tries to suggest something more interesting than the song is going on, which is kind of Kiss in a nutshell. I quite like them for that.
When I was a kid I was aware of them and like a lot of kids thought their costumes were really exciting. But I never actually heard them. Over time while listening to my brother's much heavier record collection I built up Kiss in my mind. Man I was so disappointed when I finally heard them as an adult. But now as I advance to old age I'm more forgiving and can indulge in a false nostalgia for how much I would have liked them as a kid.
Kind of mind boggling that guy's so fixated on selling that they didn't put out Do You Love Me? as a single.
Public Image Ltd.
5/5
I bought my copy of this in my teens off a Great Rock and Roll Swindle punk in my class. He hated it and let me have it for 50p. Whichever punk had it before him had thrown away the metal cannister and put it in plain paper inner sleeves in a plastic outer sleeve. Shame.
I had no idea it was three 12" singles and listened to the whole thing at 33 and a third a few times thinking hmm this is a bit of a challenge. Best thing all involved ever did.
The Thrills
2/5
Leonard Cohen
5/5
An absolute all time favourite. There aren't too many other albums that have so demanded my attention to every word.
I smiled at the Wikipedia article's claim that this represents a more modern sound. In 1988 these arrangements already sounded dated based as they were off of Len's own arrangements on his trusty cheap child's synth. But that's one of the things I love about the album. The sound is Leonard Cohen's bloody minded artistry and commitment to the record he wanted to make. I think it fits the songs, the lyrics and his voice at this time perfectly. I've heard covers of most of these songs and none better the original.
Everybody Knows feels ominously more appropriate with every passing social media post.
Madonna
4/5
I find it best to treat the song American Pie as optional in all circumstances. In this case it was marked as a bonus track, so I feel fully justified.
Christine and the Queens
3/5
The Incredible String Band
3/5
The Smiths
3/5
Crowded House
3/5
The Only Ones
4/5
Frank Black
4/5
What are you doing to me random album generator? In the past week I've had two records, this and Crowded House, that I used to argue about with a now deceased pal. I didn't like either, especially Crowded House, while he loved both, especially Crowded House. Melancholic listens both because I miss those arguments. Of course time and the context has dulled my ire and I've enjoyed both, especially Frank Black ;)
Dr. Octagon
4/5
Solid 90s weirdy hiphop. Sounds a bit Prince Paul by way of the Gravediggaz.
Aerosmith
2/5
Rufus Wainwright
3/5
New Order
5/5
It was a beautiful spring day when I trotted home aged 15 from the local Woolworths with my brand new copy of Low-Life by New Order. I was very excited to hear the music because I had loved their performance from Maida Vale Studios on BBC2 last year and watched my VHS copy of it many many times. I found the tracing paper adorned cover enticing and sophisticated. Overall it fitted well as part of my teenage self transformation from dweeby metal kid into eclectic cool kid with a grown-up genre free outlook on music and culture. I had changed my room recently mixing Motorhead posters with posters of The Cure and The Cramps. I had even taken responsibility for my first ever pot plant of my own perched on a bookshelf.
The sun burst through my upstairs window dappling the room in a warm Spring glow. I was taking my first listen while marvelling at the unique artwork while giving my new responsibility a much needed drink. A too enthusiastically given drink as it turned out because the saucer the plant pot sat in soon started to spill a waterfall from my bookshelf splatting straight down onto my treasured new record bobbling and ruining the lovely tracing paper. A useful lesson in how a certain amount of dweebyness will never leave us.
I'm listening to the same copy forty years later and tracing the bubbles on the tracing paper lightly with my fingers.
Prince
5/5
Prince has a grand measly total of 3 albums on this list. The exact same as fucking Aerosmith. Ridiculous.
The Mars Volta
2/5
I quite like the messier jazzier quiet bits. I would have taken a whole album of that instead of their need to blast in with workaday big riffs. Overall it feels like over polished post hardcore.
Gene Clark
5/5
Todd Rundgren
2/5
Cheese overdose
Love
4/5
Peter Tosh
4/5
The Stooges
5/5
Steve Winwood
1/5
An album with a song called Second Hand Woman turns out as bad as I imagined. A lot of those guys from the 60s/early 70s tried to update themselves in the 80s. They got new haircuts, fashionable clothes and spent a load of money on the latest gear and made some awful unlistenable records.
1980 - Prince, Bowie and Kate Bush all put out albums out that year that could be on the list instead, and that's just off the top of my head.
Pavement
4/5
There is some filler on this album but the heights more than make up for it. I like how it so utterly belongs in its time. It's a special group that can make ironic snark with hidden soul work so well.
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
I always feel like there is a superiority and low level cruelty to Zappa's satire that I can't get with.
Although I quite like the warm fug sound of the album I think despite his reputation as rock music's SERIOUS COMPOSER there are real limitations to his way with a top line. He seems to have two approaches. One is the doowop/oldie tune pastiche and the other is a psychedelic melody structure that sounds pretty similar each time he uses it. I got pretty bored with it by the end of the album.
Joni Mitchell
2/5
Turbonegro
2/5
Probably fun live if you're in the right mood but utterly redundant to me as an album experience. I kept wishing I was listening to the Ramones or Motorhead or one of their more innovative late 90s post-hardcore contemporaries.
Muddy Waters
4/5
Michael Jackson
1/5
In her line of work my wife has worked against a fair few awful people and she says Bad people can't help but tell you they are Bad. They find a way to tell you they are Bad.
I didn't like it back then either. Anodyne.
Fever Ray
4/5
Rufus Wainwright
3/5
The Prodigy
4/5
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
When I was a student a Zappa loving goth told me people are either Zappa people or Beefheart people. I'm definitely a Beefheart person by some margin. I quite like the sound of this one and there are some great tracks like I'm Not Satisfied and Trouble Every Day but its occasional Zappa patented arch tone can be a stone cold drag. Let's listen to The Fugs instead next time.
Linkin Park
3/5
The reviews for this are educational to someone like me who studiously ignored nu metal. These guys appear to be the uncool band on the scene to many. I still can't tell the difference. I don't feel the need to immerse myself in the genre to 'get it'. It is kind of bland and repetitive but not in a way that upsets me. Maybe if I cared about numetal it would.
Girls Against Boys
4/5
They definitely went on to make a couple of records better than this one but I still like it. It's more of an overall vibe than a collection of distinctly great songs.
Little Simz
4/5
The Temptations
4/5
The Modern Lovers
5/5
I'm sorting of amazed at the virulence of some of these 1 star reviews. I always assume that Roadrunner is just utterly irresistible and that Pablo Picasso is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. And overall the album is simple beautiful rock and roll with an admittedly unique and off kilter sensibility writing the songs.
Anyway my incredibly modest claim to fame is that I once performed Rhys Chatham's An Angel Moves To Fast To See alongside Ernie Brooks the bass player on this. There was me, him, a drummer and um... 99 other guitar players. Me and ol' Ern didn't get a chance to get close. The original recording of that guitar symphony (not featuring me) would put the cat amongst the pigeons on this thing.
The Jam
3/5
The US tracklisting looks better. Feels a bit uneven having the two monster singles crammed together at the end of side one.
G. Love & Special Sauce
2/5
Good grief they have a song called Shooting Hoops. Trying so hard to be cool and laid back I have my suspicions they throw a strop backstage if their cheese and ham sandwiches aren't cut into triangles.
Sex Pistols
5/5
Public Enemy
5/5
Pink Floyd
3/5
Scritti Politti
4/5
I have to admit I'm taking a perverse pleasure in how much the 80s choices on this list baffle so many of the reviewers. This album was really popular when it came out and defined that 80s pop sound as much as any other. It wasn't a follower. If you read the UK music press at the time you wouldn't be surprised to see this on the list. The book is very obviously the product of that UK music journo culture and that culture loved this album. It's archly intellectual while being pop enough for Radio 1. That was catnip for UK music journalists. Green was guaranteed to say a lot more in interviews than "we're only doing it for the music". The press loved his progression from post punk Avant spikiness to indie pop to New York produced chart pop. They felt like they'd smuggled one of their own into the mainstream.
The Gun Club
4/5
I can't believe I hadn't thought of their influence on Pixies until I read the reviews on here. It's really obvious.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
I'm a recent convert to Springsteen and had been holding off on this one because its 80s production and ubiquity at the time are a big reason for why I thought I couldn't stand him for the past several decades. Still never going to be a favourite but I like it fine. The synth on the chorus of Glory Day has no business while the sequenced bass on Dancing In The Dark has all the business. I think I'd like to hear Drive-by Truckers cover Glory Days instead. They've probably been my route to Springsteen because I can now hear just how much they've been influenced by him.
Working on the Highway is a surprisingly jaunty tune about a paed.
Tim Buckley
3/5
Air
3/5
A likeable listen. It's funny how something using retro sounds can be so closely dated to when it actually came out. I wonder why they chose to pitch shift the actor's voice at the end. I don't remember it like that in the film and it's a bit annoying.
Are there any other soundtrack albums on the list? Does this one get around some kind of moratorium because it is billed as a score and Air are a pop act rather than a composer. Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone, John Barry arguably all put out soundtrack scores at least as worthy of a spot. You'll have your own favourites I'm sure.
There don't seem to be any modern composers on the list either apart from John Zorn. No Philip Glass, no Steve Reich, no Gavin Bryars, no Terry Riley, no John Cage.
Tito Puente
3/5
Leonard Cohen
5/5
Len's always getting a five from me but I would have gone with Songs of Love and Hate instead for being further out there, or New Skin for the Old Ceremony for being a little more varied and melodic. But this is a minor grumble. Any album with Len's version of The Partisan is worthy of a spot.
I'm a big fan of both Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed. I enjoyed reading separate accounts of how they both felt when they encountered one another around the Factory scene in 60s New York. Leonard was a brief peripheral figure on that scene as he started up his music career while unsuccesfully pestering Nico.
They were very aware of one another in the room on at least one occasion but they were each too intimidated by the other to connect. Leonard felt like an imposter as a musician and looked on Lou as the real deal and someone already adept at what he was aiming for in terms of setting literary lyrics to music. Lou still had a nagging feeling that what he was doing was lesser compared to real poets and looked on Leonard as the real deal seeing as he had a novel and volumes of poetry published. It's a slightly sad story that they didn't find camaraderie as fellow "workers in song" but I like the humanity in their respective insecurity.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
ZZ Top
3/5
She's got legs AND she knows how to use them... for walking and running... hopping even.
Magic pimps Gandalf and Saruman and their little moustachioed hobbit friend outstay their welcome a bit on this.
Robbie Williams
3/5
There is a sort of muso orthodoxy that Guy Chambers carried Robbie Williams through this album but I think he is unfortunately often too pedestrian by half for the funny, soulful, honest thing Robbie Williams is reaching for. You can see why a lot of pop stars will employ dozens of songwriters instead of one.
George Jones
4/5
Richard Thompson
5/5
I sort of understand people reviewing with words like 'nice' on a single first listen but they clearly haven't tuned into the lyrics much. End of the Rainbow has to be the bleakest thing ever written and most of the rest aren't any sunnier. I love it I sought out the extended version. Treat yourself and look for a live version of Calvary Cross. Not on the extended version of this. The comp Guitar, Vocals might be on your streamer.
Black Sabbath
5/5
If you are interested in understanding popular music in all its genres from the last 70+ years then this album is genuinely one you need to hear before you die. Even more than the debut so much of Metal and loud rock music has its roots here. Weirdly, though the one thing almost nobody takes from it is the 'swing' that Bill's drums bring.
Required extra treat if you enjoyed this: The life in Paris 1970 version of War Pigs on YouTube. Bill's drumming on that is a thing to behold.
Violent Femmes
3/5
When it came out this album was just a year or two early for me to access its angsty, nerdy, horny charms. I now feel like it's a party that sounds fun if nervy in a flat two floors up that I would feel ridiculous trying to gate crash.
Cocteau Twins
5/5
I seem to enjoy reading the bad reviews of music I like more than the positive ones. It's funny, Cocteaus' records are so old now I forget that the lack of discernible lyrics can still irritate people so much.
There's Cocteau Twins records I prefer because it can feel on this one that they had almost perfected their sound too much just before Britpop came along and dulled all the colours for everyone. Still beautiful though. Still five stars.
Def Leppard
3/5
I like the plasticky production on this. That side of it feels like a step up from Pyromania but I'll never be convinced by Joe Elliott's vocals. They work best here when they are smothered with the enjoyably over produced harmonies.
Why is it so long?
Deee-Lite
3/5
Fair play to the editors for trying to recognise the invasion of 80s/early 90s club music into pop in the book. (See also Coldcut). But the album format is an uncomfortable way to way understand that phenomenon. Like all great pop music, singles were how it progressed, maybe 12" singles. So, you'd expect an album on the list to feature more than one monster hit from the UK or US chart. Admittedly it is one stonker of a monster hit but it is only one. I remember me and my pals who liked this stuff were a bit underwhelmed by the album given how high our expectations had risen off the back of Groove Is In The Heart.
Alongside another reviewer's shout for Betty Boo I'd suggest Original Soundtrack by S-Express or even the monumentally repetitive Pump Up The Jam album by Technotronic, maybe the Betty Boo launchpad Anywayawanna by The Beatmasters, as better more hit laden examples they could have gone with.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Almost 700 albums in the temptation is more to review the reviews that the actual album. I would suggest that the reviewer who claims 'The Boss' became a raging liberal after this album needs to really think about what they mean by "liberal" and then go back through Springsteen's albums very carefully, probably with a lyric website open :D
Anyway this has got some great songs, some less so and a bit of a bland production in places. Maybe it would grow on me with more time.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
I enjoyed listening to this again so much I put the Fillmore East 1970 set on straight after.
The Verve
1/5
Vibes of local band make overblown attempt at immortality. It's amusing how much the length and tone of the Wikipedia entry match how overblown this is. Their songs are all half an idea stretched clumsily over six minutes.
Laibach
4/5
So committed to their pofaced satire of totalitarianism that almost 30 years after this album they were invited to play songs from The Sound of Music in North Korea. That's a bigger achievement than getting to number one.
I've always had a soft spot for their ability to personify the latent fascism in popular music. Other great cover versions include Sympathy for the Devil, the whole of Let It Be (even Maggie Mae), You're In The Army Now and Final Countdown. Having lived through the original Life Is Life being a big hit the addition of the lyric "We gazed at the power, we gazed at the best and everyone lost everything and died with the rest" has always been hilarious to me from the first time I saw it on Channel 4's The Chart Show.
My only real concern over the years has been that irony isn't really a defence against totalitarianism but they probably know that and their career is secretly one big comfort rocking session.
Tom Waits
3/5
My least favourite of his 70s albums. Fine to go conceptual with the live in the studio as a jazz club thing capturing Waits' with an audience but he just didn't have the songs this time to pull it off. I can also understand why its uniqueness would be catnip to music writers. However, Small Change would be a much better choice.