There are some absolute bangers in this album (“We Are Family” and “He’s The Greatest Dancer” to name a couple)! Although it didn’t wow me I’ll probably keep it on rotation and dig more into their discography. Disco doesn’t get much love these days but the genre has some forgotten gems worth exploring.

Fast Car is without question an American classic but the whole album also deserves to be on this list. Songs like Behind the Wall, Across the Lines and Talkin’ Bout a Revolution could have been written today and still be relevant, but I also really enjoyed the more romantic, bittersweet edge of Baby Can I Hold You and If Not Now. I’m so happy to see that decades later she’s still getting recognition for her work.

Can’t give this one less than ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, and I’m not even that into electronic music. They’re the blueprint for so much that came after but more than that, the album rocks. Give me more robot German sounds every o day.

As a non-American, I had an entirely different idea of what Born In The U.S.A. would be like; actually I expected Springsteen to be one of those singers moaning about the good-old days and the glorious American dream. This… is not that! The stories in this album got surprisingly dark and are unfortunately all too relevant in these days of broken hopes, inequality and failed dreams. While I personally prefer Tracy Chapman’s more intimate delivery of these themes, Springsteen will be my go-to for some solid rock n roll sessions about failed glory days.

I can 100% see why this was revolutionary at the time and I enjoyed it for the most part, but if I had to pick a Massive Attack album to be on this list it would’ve been Mezzanine (an instant classic). Blue Lines has bits that feel too dated, especially the vocals. Can’t give less than ⭐️⭐️⭐️ to the first Trip Hop album, but I don’t think it’s gonna go on my rotation.

Fantastic live album, reminded me to finally give Johnny Cash’s discography a proper listen. I know a couple of the crowd’s cheers were added during production (inmates were afraid of possible retaliation from prison guards if they cheered too loudly at the parts talking about jail life) but that didn’t diminish the listening experience or the quality of Cash’s performance.

Not to be one of those ppl who think old music is always better but… crap, they don’t make ‘em like they used to! Barely any skips and guaranteed to out me in a good mood. Brown Sugar and Can’t You Hear me Knocking are going to my playlist for sure.

Let It Bleed starts and ends strongly but I dunno, fizzles in the middle. Still an enjoyable experience, there are just one to many meh songs to make this truly memorable.

I was ready to dismiss this album as soon as I got it and give it a polite ⭐️⭐️ , but much to my surprise this is a banger???? or maybe I can’t be impartial, so many of the songs in SWW were part of my teenage years watching VH1 like they had the keys to heaven. Maybe Bon Jovi will push me over the edge and this year I’ll finally get a perm and rock the pink spandex pants of my dreams.

This is why I wanted to embark on this music challenge! Loved discovering Donovan’s music, especially gems like Season of the Witch and Sunshine Superman. I’m not usually a folk music fan, but Sunshine Superman has enough psychedelic rock elements to create a very interesting album and some killer songs.

Not a funk fan but this is some good stuff. The In A Gadda Da Vida and Satisfaction covers caught me by surprise (in a good way) and Apache is one of those songs I’ve heard before but could never place! The mix included at the end is fantastic.

Disco deserves a proper comeback! Most of the songs went a little too long for me, but if I had been in a club getting my groove on I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Le Freak and Savoir Faire are still classics, and CHIC is the ultimate Disco band.

I don’t know how to feel about this one. Love classic Bowie, but never really paid much attention to his post-2000 work for some reason? I suspect this album is gonna grow on me as I continue to listen, but after just one day I’m not fully convinced it deserves a place on this list as opposed to other artist that got left out.

The people who recommended to push past the first two songs were 100% right! I was not feeling Rock Bottom at all but by the end of the album I was in love with Robert Wyatt. It has a very… Pink Floyd/Radiohead/Prog Rock vibe; I can’t believe his work is not more well known. I’m excited to dig into Wyatt’s backlog and check out his collabs with Brian Eno and the rest of his albums :)

I think the album’s hurt a bit by starting with The Verbe’s most memorable song (Bittersweet Symphony) rather than building up to it, but overall I found it a pretty enjoyable experience. Besides the obvious favorites I really liked “The Drugs Don’t Work” and “Velvet Morning”.

Love this album. No notes, full ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My favorite Blur album, and one of my favorite British albums of all time. Beetlebum lived in my brain for a whole summer, and overall the whole album is guaranteed to put me in a good mood so…… 5 wholly deserved stars.

I can’t say that I love everything REM puts out, (and my gateway to the band was Out of Time instead of Green) but… it’s very hard not to like this album if you are a 90’s kid. It’s a solid, approachable rock album that influenced so much of what I later came to listen and love; in this one particular case the list got it right.

Underworld can do no wrong, loved the album.

I can’t believe this was only 28 minutes and yet it felt like a complex listening experience. Love the simplicity of the arrangement, the lyricism and Drake’s voice.

I think it’s gonna take me more than a day and an album to get into Morrisey’s solo work. It wasn’t a bad listening experience at all but neither the melodies nor the lyrics blew me away.

Another band I’m surprised I’d never heard of before! Not quite my style but might grow on me as I go deeper into their discography.

Discovering Garbage (and Shirley Manson) as a teen was a revelation. Love this album, love Garbage, 90’s rock doesn’t get better than this.

Michael Jackson (and Bad in particular) take me back to road trips with my parents, belting out Man in the Mirror and The Way You Make Me Feel. He’s the king of pop for a reason! But beyond his impact (the good and the bad), the album holds up.

Can’t find this album in any version of the book, but I figured I’d give it a shot anyway. Unfortunately “I See You” failed to grab me the way their debut did; at times I even felt that the music was hindered by the vocals, and when I paid attention to the lyrics there was also not much there. It was an overall forgettable experience.

Wanted to like this one a lot more than I did, but it wasn’t a bad experience at all!!! It feels like the kind of album that I would love to hear at a house party rather than something for dedicated listening. The music and the sampling are fantastic, and I know the lyrics are meant to be nonsense but… I’m past the point where I go out of my way to seek teenage shouting about made up gangster encounters and wild nights out. Put this stuff at a party though and you’ve got me hooked.

This turned out to be a very pleasant combination of r&b and gospel; I like the minimalist instrumentals. The lyrics let me down a bit but not because of the topic, rather they felt a bit too… on the nose? Then again, sometimes too much poetry runs the risk of diluting what turned out to be a powerful, enjoyable record.