World needs more Morrissey, less Billy Bragg.

If music is meant to comfort, Kollaps shatters that notion with a sledgehammer wrapped in steel wool and rebar. Einstürzende Neubauten’s debut is not just an album — it’s an act of sonic revolution, a declaration that sound doesn’t need melody to be musical, or harmony to be holy. Released in 1981, Kollaps is an apocalyptic birth cry from the ruins of post-war Berlin, fusing scrap metal, broken glass, power tools, and anguished vocals into a symphony of collapse. From the first strike of percussion that sounds more like a demolition site than a drum kit, you're not listening — you're immersed. Blixa Bargeld doesn’t sing so much as prophesy, his voice echoing like a mad preacher inside an abandoned factory. Tracks like “Tanz Debil” and the title track “Kollaps” reject structure, reject polish, reject anything resembling musical civility — and in doing so, find something deeply human beneath the wreckage. Each piece feels like a confrontation: with society, with conformity, with sound itself. This is not industrial music in the Nine Inch Nails sense — it’s industry itself turned into music. Yet for all its abrasion, there’s a strange beauty in Kollaps. It’s the beauty of entropy, of cities falling and being reborn, of the aesthetic potential of destruction. Neubauten takes the broken pieces of civilization and holds them up like artifacts, sacred and terrible. Essential listening for anyone interested in the outermost limits of what music can be. This is the soundtrack to a world unraveling — and maybe rebuilding, too. Then again, I'm giving this album 5 stars just to be contrary.

Bland. I skipped through this album trying to find one, ONE, song that I liked. Nothing. Its the soundtrack playing over the closing credits of many an 80s movie. Why is this album listed here? Why is it relevant?

5 bloody stars and I won't hear any different.

Forgettable

So grumpy. One or two memorable songs but otherwise it's too dour. Only for die hard Radiohead fans.

Pretty funky and groovy, I guess. Superstition is the stand out track, but overall I don't know if this genre/style is my cup of tea so outside of one or two songs there's no point in repeated listens.

Yeesh. I can see why people either love or hate progressive rock. It's long and boring and over the top. To be honest, apart from the title song I had never in my life heard any other Jethro Tull work until I listened to this album, while high of course. The flute is distracting. Instead of summoning Hobbits I felt like I wanted to join the Nazgûl and burn the Shire to the ground. On the plus side, Jethro Tull walked ... so that Spinal Tap, especially "Stonehenge" could run.

Old fashioned rock and roll. Drive around your shitty small town with no specific destination. Drink beer. Pick up chicks. Get rejected by chicks. Fight. Drive. Nostalgia. 🤘

Jazzy. Ok I guess I don't know, jazz all sounds the same to me

Solid. By coincidence this album was recommended on North American eclipse day 2024. Excellent soundtrack for an eclipse.

Like it, not love it. I think I was a little too old, too Gen X, when this album came out to fully appreciate it. All the bangers we know and love - "Mr Brightside", "All These Things I've Done" - interspersed with much forgettable filler. Throw a couple of these songs into a Spotify playlist and enjoy once in a while, but the album as a whole? Not so much.

Very forgettable.

Yeah it's okay

Yeah it's okay

Yeah it's alright.

Cheese.

I don't get Swift haters. The songs on this album are impeccably produced, catchy as fuck, and on top of that Taylor is hot. This album is a banger and a hell of a lot better than some of the classic rock shit on this list.

Boring

Listenable

Okay. One or two catchy songs that jumped out at me. Otherwise just gimme the Pixies.

Mercy Street is ok. Same with that song from that John Cusack movie. Otherwise boring and forgettable Baby Boomer music.

It's hard to rate and rank rap/hip-hop albums because they all kind of sound the same.

Not even going to listen to this shit, but I will still give it the lowest rating possible.

Two starts but only for nostalgia for my high school years.

Reeks of hippy

Pretty good

I ended up finding this on YouTube and it's pretty rad. Spooky cabaret.

So boring I didn't even finish

Oof

Rockin' and rollin.

Maybe somewhere out there is a prog rock album that isn't utterly stupidly ridiculous. However, "The Yes Album" ain't it.

Holiday in Cambodia is catchy but the rest of the album just gives me a headache.

Not for me

How do you say "smooth" in Portuguese?

Nope.

So boring.

Smooth.

Live albums are pointless.

Meh. Fine songwriting here and there but such a long album.

Smooth

Garbage Boomer nonsense. How can a group of technically talented musicians make something so boring

Of all the boring bands Wilco is one of the boringest

Bored Californians make too much noise. American punk scene is and always was trash. Noise.

Pretty good for a disco album. I recognize some of the songs remixed in more modern pop songs e.g. he's the greatest dancer in Will Smith's "gettin jiggy with it", plus the influence on Daft Punk is unmistakeable. An album to get up and boogie to, not to listen while lounging in your favorite chair.

Live albums are pointless.

Forgettable

Meh

Mid

Boomers who _still_ don't like electric Dylan can go touch grass.

Seems like it doesn't belong in this list. Not because it's not good (or bad), but because it's an album of Tango music.

Awesome album. Forget all the "derp fUcK MorrISEy chuds.". More Morriseys, fewer Billy Braggs.

eww, no

Dude could bang out some rockers, sure. But live albums are pointless

Surprised. Never heard of this until now. I dig the Phil Spector sound. Solid vocals. Awesome.

Good songwriting, catchy with great vocals. Talent here, but ultimately kind of forgettable as it's sounds like so many other 90s rock bands.

You know that guy from your shitty home town? The one who everyone thought was cool because he banged chicks, knew where to get the best weed, an always bought beer for the kids? The one who grew up to amount to nothing? The guy who stills lives in the shitty home town, drinks copiously and complains about how today's music sucks? That same guy who's now 54 years old - and while everyone else grew up, started careers, made families, travelled, helped build society - he's on the dole, on his 20th girlfriend in as many years, probably has kids he never sees nor pays for? Rush is his favorite band and this is his favorite album. Zero stars out of five if possible.

I'm glad 1001 albums recommended this, otherwise this would have never been on my radar. Never heard of this band or album until now but it is great. Experimental noise rock, driving beats, some catchy songs in there. Refreshing after having to hear so much Boomer crap. You can only take so much Eagles, Bad Company, Aerosmith tripe. "They Were Wrong, So we Drowned" is a fucking fresh breath of air.

All the excess of 70s rock packed into a double album. Prog rock song that's 8 minutes to long? Check. Stompy call and response sing-a-longs? Check. Mostly forgettable filler songs? Check. Candle in the Wind? One of the most vapid pop songs ever recorded? Check. Fuck this album and everything about it.

Starts off with a catchy banger. Followed by more than an hour of forgettable pop twaddle.

I remember the 90s fondly. I don't remember the 90s being this BORRRRING

Jazzy.

Trash.

Magnificent. Sophisticated pop music that stands head and shoulders above a lot of the drivel that was released in the 1980s. Highly recommended.

Yikes, who actually listens to this? Are all the stupid stereotypes of soul patched fedora-wearing nerds skankin' on the dance floor true? Shit's unlistenable. Musically, there's nothing special about the Specials. They sound like countless high school bands around the world.

Meh. Not the worst thing to listen to.

Ok I guess. 🤔

Crappy disco album. Just because it's Michael Jackson doesn't mean it's good.

Bland. I skipped through this album trying to find one, ONE, song that I liked. Nothing. Its the soundtrack playing over the closing credits of many an 80s movie. Why is this album listed here? Why is it relevant?

Boring blues rock album

Sweet Emotion is okay but this is a bland album from one of rock's most mid bands. Its a perfectly average rock album which somehow makes it worse than merely being a "bad" album.

It's alright.

Not the best Sabbath album, but still pretty good .

Too fucking loud, but okay I guess. Would probably have loved this in high school, but it wasn't on my radar back then.

Odd selection for the list. Twee African music. Why not include Polka or some other regional ethnic shit as well. This album's lame.

Kate Bush with an American accent? I dunno, I'm a middle aged bloke so maybe it's not meant for me and it's not clicking. Might listen to it again later but right now it's mid.

5 bloody stars and I won't hear any different.

Metal? Proto industrial? Strange French-language cabaret / circus music? I have to give it three stars because I can't decide if I hate it, or haven't yet appreciated how brilliant this might be. Needs more listens for sure.

Don't get the big deal with the White Stripes. Mid level rock that any high school garage band plays. Meh.

Relax is a fun song but the rest of the album is ass. Synthpop twaddle, not in a good way.

Without a doubt one of the best albums of the 1990s in any genre.

Just awful

Rough old voice (in a good way). Haunting, enjoyable, but nowhere near Leonard Cohen's best work.

Big hit single when it came out, great for its time, but now sounds boring almost a decade later. Others do Asian influenced pop better (Talvin Singh, Asian Dub Foundation etc). This is mid.

I dunno. Generic angry rock, with a voice that sounds like a pig in heat.

Just awful. Has the potential to be a fantastic and compelling trip hop album. Instead it's a cheesy soundtrack to a 90s British Airways commercial. At best, dentist office music.

Pretty cool

Forgettable 80s pap. Not worth a first listen let alone a second one.

Pleasant surprise. good rock songs Never heard this album before , nor Incubus generally, but I like it. Very much a product of its late 90s nu metal times, but this is head and shoulders above some of the other players in that genre.

Low quality "punk" for middle schoolers.

World needs more Morrissey, less Billy Bragg.

80s twaddle

Boring as shit. Could not tell when one song ended and another began.

How can an album be compelling and also really boring at the same time? 🤔

Hell yeah

Just a cringe, twangy country album. There's nothing special nor interesting about this at all.

Fine. Nothing remarkable.

Eh, It's just a soul album

Can't put my fingers on it but there's something very unpleasant sounding in this album.

.

Sounds very dated decades later. No good at all.

Uninteresting

One star because I couldn't find this album anywhere

The hell is this? Hip hop? Pop? New Jack Swing? Cross-over? Whatever it tried to be, it failed. This is, without hyberbole, one of the WORST albums I've been served on this 1001 list. Ive at least finished listening to all the 1 star albums - here I just found myself skipping every song. SH*T

Its okay

It's okay. Bloc Party does this style better though.

One of the best of the era, if not all time

It's okay

Holy heck, prog rock is such a shitty genre

Nirvana sucks. Stop mythologizing this overrated high school garage band.

Throbbing jungle ethnic music Not in a good way. This album is stupid, its lobby music while you're checking into a mid 3 star Cuban resort you grabbed through an Expedia Black Friday sale. If you're going to include shit like this on this list why not also include Polka or Yodelling albums, or some swarthy Med playing bouzouki.

Ghetto trash.

Garbage music from the most overrated musician in the history of pop and rock. Yes, you read that correctly. Weird little midget gets a few hits here and there but otherwise his output sucks. Fight me, IDGAF.

Boring hippy crap

Hippy crap, possibly one of the worst albums on this lost. The 60s were a shrill and pointless decade. Should have sent a lot more of these spoiled boomers off to die in Vietnam.

No fooling, this is one of the great of the 1990s of not all time. Love it to bits and not just because I'm a proud card carrying Gen x.

Not as good as Loveless by MBV, but still great.

This album is so ridiculous it's fantastic.

Without this album there'd be no Giorgio Moroder, no Daft Punk, and no countless other musical acts than make us get up and dance. Well done.

This is one of the worst things to come out of the 90s. Every song on this is terrible and they all sound the same. Soundtrack to sloppy looking middle aged men mowing their lawn every Saturday. RATM is Limp Bizkit with a Che Guevara flag hanging in the dorm room. All you Rage fans got swindled, hard.

King of the dad records.

I don't see what the big deal is. It's just an R and B record, nothing special.

Sounds like Europe in the 90s. Amazing.

Paul Simon and the other guy are good songwriters, there's no argument there. Unfortunately this album ain't it. The "feeling groovy" song is okay. Rest of it is like the Byrds on heavy sedatives. Pass.

Strong opening track, followed by repetition. Electropop is the disco of the 21st century, take that for what it's worth.

I do not like this. Surely Dad Rock can do better than this?

Not even the best Led Zed album

Oy bruv, bit dull, innit?

Straight ahead no nonsense balls to the walk rock music. Whats not to like?

Oy bruv, it's no Morning Glory, innit?

Kind of a meme at this point

So boring

This album just goes on and on with no reward.

Has aged very poorly. The kind of album some suburban Gen X mom would play at top volume on wine night with her girlfriends.

Ive tried to get into Prince, I really have. I dont understand the appeal and the value he brought to pop music.

In my youth I absolutely loved Radiohead. Looked forward to every new release, hung on their every word, saw them live. Now in my middle aged I'm re-evaluating their work and I can't help feeling I got swindled by the mopy neo-prog rock.

James Brown is fine, I just dislike live albums. They're pointless.

So angry. Unlistenable. I hated it in the 90s when I was a teenager and I still hate it today. "A Warm Place" is the only thing approaching a "good song". That includes Closer and Hurt. Dated worse than disco.

Sinatra had a great voice, but bossa Nova generally has aged poorly. Suitable for background music in a department store.

Absolute Eurotrash bangers. This, and not Nirvana or Nine Inch Nails, is what the 90s were all about.

This album doesn't hold up decades later. I think we were all swindled, I mean what on earth were the North American youth so angry about in the early 90s? We need to seriously rethink this album's spot in the Canon.

It's a dumb album.

It's like a Radiohead album but better, more accessible, more likeable, less grumpy , more listenable, and with fewer dick head fans.

A soundtrack to walk through the heather and dance around the Maypole at the Shropston-upon-Cringlecrumpet Cabbage festival. It's the scene in Mary Poppins where they jump into the chalk drawing but with sitars and distorted electric guitars. Fab

A soundtrack to doing lines of coke with Ryan O'Neal and David Carradine in a boat off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1979.

Pass. This, like most modern R&B, all sounds the same.

Best of its era, one of the best of all time. I stream it constantly plus have vinyl and CD versions of this album.

So boring.

Boomer blues and roots rock. Not unpleasant, but nothing special either.

Holy shit, no, what the fuck even is this?

At its best, it's an album from a band riding a creative high point. (A Day in the Life, Getting Better, When I'm 64) At its worst, over the top shitty hippy music with all the worst stereotypes of hippy music -- distortion, sitars, cheesy circus music. 3 stars because it's either the best Beatles album or the absolute worst. It can't be both. As for psychedelic music, others did it first AND did it better (Pet Sounds, 13th Floor Elevators, Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Saucerful of Secrets, pretty much anything by the Byrds)

As others have mentioned, it's not a very important, essential, or good album if you can't find it anywhere. 👎

Nick Cave is one of my all time faves , but this isn't it. Also it's really hard to find this album through streaming services.

I love her debut "A Girl Called Dusty , had it pop up on this list a few days ago, but this album is boring in comparison.

The music grooves, great beats - could dance to the at a club as much today as in 1990. On the other hand, this album has some of the most asinine lyrics ever recorded. "Human energy overcome the enemy". Yikes. If this were an instrumental record I'd easily give it 5 starts.

This is fine example of "if you've heard one Soul album you've heard them all". 'Shining Star' is okay. 'Happy Feelin' is okay. The rest of the album likely won't get a second listen from me.

Some guitar. Some quiet/LOUD dynamics. Some screaming. Of its time, and influential I suppose just not for me.

I'm always in the mood for drunk-in-the-gutter Tom Waits. Maybe I should finally see a therapist.

Great melodies, fab production. Also this album got me through a transitional period in my life and will always be a sentimental favorite. 10/10 would recommend.

I don't know what to make of this. 2 stars.

First time hearing this. It's alright. Catchy. Nothing new or groundbreaking or breathtaking. 3 stars.

This album's awesome. Imagine 1950s small town America with ice cream shops and drive in movies and "Enchantment Under the Sea" high school dances except everyone is a zombie or vampire or werewolf

It's an album on this list, I guess. 2 stars

This IS it. Not too much, just some nepo babies who put together a bar band, used their connections to flash onto a scene that was a little boring at the time. Here we are.

5 minutes of the famous Exorcist bit followed by prog rock silliness. Ruined my Saturday morning coffee and newspaper reading. Pass.

The one song she's known for is right at the beginning, followed by 45 minutes of the most run of the mill R&B. Pass

Warbling folk songs. I don't care for her voice.

Yeah, it's an alright rock album. Will listen again in the future.

I just can't get into Reggae music. Caribbean Polka music is all it is.

Nope. Just some run of the mill soul / R&B record. Want a classic divorce album? Go for Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks"

One star because I'm bored by this. This is Carribean resort hotel lobby music. I also don't understand what makes some "ethnic music" cool and relevant but not others. This list has Cuban and other Carribean music, music from South America , and from Africa, and reggae. But no J-Rock? No Polka? No Mongolian throat singing?

Yeah I dunno it's a jazz album - this shit all sounds the same to me.

Run of the mill R &B album. Boring as a beige wall.

It wasn't that bad, actually

Screamy, but okay. Enjoyed listening to it in the afternoon at work, in a job that's been driving me crazy. Not bad, but it's served its purpose and I doubt I'll ever listen to this again.

Gorgeous. Just chilling out on a Sunday night. Book in hand, this album playing.

Nope not for me

If this website has shown me anything it's that "classic" country music is an amazing genre. This album is great.

Trash metal for bored suburban teens. Does not belong on this list in any way, shape , or form.

Millennials really got stuck with the most boring music, didn't they?

Brand new listening, never heard this before but it's a hip, satisfying pop album. 4/5

There's nothing special about this album.

Nothing special

Doesn't do anything for me. Just an hour of noodling around on the guitar.

Swift's 1989 is a 5 star banger of an album that makes me want to dance. This is a teenage girls diary set to whispy piano and guitar, should be tossed in the bin and best forgotten.

If music is meant to comfort, Kollaps shatters that notion with a sledgehammer wrapped in steel wool and rebar. Einstürzende Neubauten’s debut is not just an album — it’s an act of sonic revolution, a declaration that sound doesn’t need melody to be musical, or harmony to be holy. Released in 1981, Kollaps is an apocalyptic birth cry from the ruins of post-war Berlin, fusing scrap metal, broken glass, power tools, and anguished vocals into a symphony of collapse. From the first strike of percussion that sounds more like a demolition site than a drum kit, you're not listening — you're immersed. Blixa Bargeld doesn’t sing so much as prophesy, his voice echoing like a mad preacher inside an abandoned factory. Tracks like “Tanz Debil” and the title track “Kollaps” reject structure, reject polish, reject anything resembling musical civility — and in doing so, find something deeply human beneath the wreckage. Each piece feels like a confrontation: with society, with conformity, with sound itself. This is not industrial music in the Nine Inch Nails sense — it’s industry itself turned into music. Yet for all its abrasion, there’s a strange beauty in Kollaps. It’s the beauty of entropy, of cities falling and being reborn, of the aesthetic potential of destruction. Neubauten takes the broken pieces of civilization and holds them up like artifacts, sacred and terrible. Essential listening for anyone interested in the outermost limits of what music can be. This is the soundtrack to a world unraveling — and maybe rebuilding, too. Then again, I'm giving this album 5 stars just to be contrary.

3/5 run of the mill R and B

Both versions are boring. I hear this shit when I head down to the restaurant to pick up a chicken vindaloo. Hard pass.

Not bad, as far as ethnic albums go.

Hating on U2 is lame. Y'all dislike this album because it's cool to dislike this band. Tight playing, earnestness, soaring lyrics and themes. This is a fantastic album. And, dare I say it, to this is way better than Joshua Tree.

Pleasant, if a little sleepy. I doubt I'll ever listen to this album again.

Prog rock lite. It's okay I suppose but it lacks the inventiveness and theatricality of better prog rock bands. Hard to believe this and Pink Floyd's Animals are considered to be in the same genre.

Uninteresting

To be honest this is a pretty interesting sound collage. No different than you'd find on The Beatles Revolution 9 or Tom Waits Bone Machine or Radiohead's Kid A. People giving this album 1 star are just doing it to fit in. Give it an honest listen.

The 90s were peak popular culture and smooth, hypnotic drum & bass is proof of that. Fantastic collection.