1001 Albums Summary

1234

Better than I used to give it credit for

Stodgy homework

Prefer Atari Teenage Riot

Couple of decent riffs but not much more

Inventive, cleverly engineered. Roger ruins it with his dreary drawl.

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.

If I couldn't get with its coke addled vibes then I'm not going to get with them in my decrepitude.

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.

A fun listen. I'm looking forward to more skronk on future jazz picks.

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.

Tasty bubblegum

Nice to be reminded of how great Stillness is the Move is. The rest is more clever than loveable.

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.

Like a missing link between the Rolling Stones and Dr Feelgood.

Nice not crucial

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.

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.

Young me would have dismissed this as MOR cheese but what did I know?

So boring it burns.

Nearly a 4. There are Elvis Costello albums with better non single tracks.

Do these smartypants only come in beige?

Urban punk Eddie was so much scarier to a junior metal kid than later fantasy Eddie.

My least favourite of the first six Iron Maiden albums. Side 2 is what makes it.

Nice to see in the 1 star reviews how much Bobby D can still get up people's noses nearly 60 years on.

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.

I have never listened to this a lot because it is really too much.

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I dislike Jagger so much but then Wild Horses...

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.

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.

This must be sacrilege to Who fans but I prefer the film soundtrack version, Oliver Reed's flat warble and all.

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.

Sounds like two young guys found their grandads' old Swinging London gear. Enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to.

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.

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.

I like how this thing makes me listen to albums I love but have taken for granted for a while.

I would have enjoyed more tracks like H2Ogate Blues

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.

Good stuff that I should probably know better than I do given me tastes. I prefer Henry Cow.

I'm not sure why you'd pick this out of his first three albums?

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.

Doodles

Liked this more than I was expecting to. It caught me on the right Sunday morning.

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

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.

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.

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.

Nice to have at least one truly great album from the 00s.

None more 70s

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.

It is a shame that I find myself admiring later Björk albums more than I love them.

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.

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 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.

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.

Like a less austere Stereolab.

Had me with that first phased guitar chord.

He goes on a bit doesn't he?

The soundtrack to too many late 90s bar shifts.

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.

Well oil me up and strap on my winged briefs, it's Feyd Rautha's finest turn.

Makes me almost wistful. I wish I had heard it when it came out. I would have loved it in a different way.

Mid 90s, Sunday afternoon, disappointing pub lunch.

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.

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.

America's freakiest freaks come from the south.

Sort of weird that I've never heard Minor Threat until now. I would have probably loved this once upon a time.

Some great tunes but I struggle with Brian Johnson's screechy squawk over a full album.

I think I need a much smaller dose accompanied by video of them in their funny wee hats to get enjoyment.

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?

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.

One of the small number of people for me who need their own scale.

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.

None more mild

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's their best one

During my big Isaac Hayes phase I somehow never got to this. What a daftie.

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.

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.

More US Hardcore on here than I was expecting which is fine I suppose.

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.

But no really, do these smartypants only come in beige?

My brother came back from a summer working in America with this on cassette. It was like he had come back from the future.

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.

Great selection of songs. Great simple arrangements. Extraordinary voices.

Some 70s acts would have benefited so much from the modern 3 year album cycle. Some killer, plenty filler.

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.

And so a million ropey bluesy bar bands came into existence. Waiting for the Sun is great though.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Grandiose and pretty silly at times but I love its simple sense of melodrama.

The Experience were the perfect trio. Hendrix and Mitchell matched each other for fancyness and Redding kept it simple and anchored it.

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.

Streets ahead of all those dick swinging Gansta bores from around the same time.

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.

Great singer, great drummer. A shame she couldn't display the latter as much. Sometimes I like syrup.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I liked some of the guitars and the energy of it but in the end Grievance Metal isn't my favourite genre.

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.

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.

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.

Vocals and lyrics are a bit Judgy Bowie.

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.

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 two singles are great. I suspect they didn't break through in the UK only because of a lack of marketing power.

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.

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.

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.

It's ironic that a fair amount of BRITpop was a pale imitation of the contents of this album.

Gets the extra star for Robert Wyatt on the piano

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.

May become a 5 in time

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.

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?

I never noticed before but I get heavy shades of Deacon Blue. A bit less cast of Les Mis on this.

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.

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...

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!

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.

You can hear Dave Fridman's production. It's like a synthy poppy junior Flaming Lips.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Over the top and silly in lots of ways but also irresistible. A point off for youthful interest in Ayn Rand.

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'.

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.

I should listen to more disco. Lost in Music is the theme tune of this exercise.

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.

Better than Cosmo's Factory. I'm always surprised that Bad Moon Rising isn't about werewolves.

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.

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.

Always felt a bit daunted by this album's length. A day isn't long enough to cracking that.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Great voice obviously and some great song choices e.g. Just A Gigolo. But the arrangements get a bit samey.

I wanted to like this because he was so good in Pil and Sinead O'connor is on it but it's quite boring.

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.

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.

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.

Spoke to the innate cheesy 70sness of the UK

I was always so focused on the first three albums I never got to this one properly but it turns out it is great.

I saw them on the tour for this. It was so good I lost my shoes.

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.

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.

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.

She's my favourite interpreter of songs by I also wish she had written more like Four Women.

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.

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.

Metallica's huge popularity baffles me. I feel like they suck all the thrill and the joy out of metal.

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.

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.

I like the two long slightly weirdly metronomic ones.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The commercial arm of the New Weird America. Quite liked it.

30 years on I still hear new things in every listen

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Oasis for art school dropouts

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Maybe not quite as good as the Folsom one but still...

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.

The first half of this so good. Meanders a bit around two thirds in but still very good.

I find his shock rock thing a bit embarrassing. Title track is good of course.

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.

Not on Tidal sadly and I could only find two thirds on YouTube but I enjoyed what I heard.

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.

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.