Listening statistics & highlights
Tap a bar to see the albums behind it
Tap a bar to see the albums behind it
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Broken English
Marianne Faithfull
|
5 | 2.9 | +2.1 |
|
Rapture
Anita Baker
|
5 | 2.94 | +2.06 |
|
Eli And The Thirteenth Confession
Laura Nyro
|
5 | 2.95 | +2.05 |
|
Steve McQueen
Prefab Sprout
|
5 | 3 | +2 |
|
The Nightfly
Donald Fagen
|
5 | 3.02 | +1.98 |
|
Hearts And Bones
Paul Simon
|
5 | 3.02 | +1.98 |
|
Vento De Maio
Elis Regina
|
5 | 3.03 | +1.97 |
|
Honky Tonk Heroes
Waylon Jennings
|
5 | 3.14 | +1.86 |
|
John Barleycorn Must Die
Traffic
|
5 | 3.16 | +1.84 |
|
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
|
5 | 3.16 | +1.84 |
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Rage Against The Machine
Rage Against The Machine
|
1 | 3.97 | -2.97 |
|
In Rainbows
Radiohead
|
1 | 3.87 | -2.87 |
|
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Arctic Monkeys
|
1 | 3.72 | -2.72 |
|
The Joshua Tree
U2
|
1 | 3.66 | -2.66 |
|
The Number Of The Beast
Iron Maiden
|
1 | 3.57 | -2.57 |
|
Licensed To Ill
Beastie Boys
|
1 | 3.53 | -2.53 |
|
Dirt
Alice In Chains
|
1 | 3.47 | -2.47 |
|
...And Justice For All
Metallica
|
1 | 3.41 | -2.41 |
|
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens Of The Stone Age
|
1 | 3.3 | -2.3 |
|
Achtung Baby
U2
|
1 | 3.29 | -2.29 |
Tap an artist to see their albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Beatles | 5 | 4.6 |
| Stevie Wonder | 3 | 5 |
| Paul Simon | 3 | 5 |
| Yes | 3 | 5 |
| Miles Davis | 3 | 4.67 |
| Michael Jackson | 3 | 4.67 |
| Steely Dan | 2 | 5 |
| Dire Straits | 2 | 5 |
| Stan Getz | 2 | 5 |
| Joni Mitchell | 2 | 5 |
| Aretha Franklin | 2 | 5 |
| Pink Floyd | 2 | 5 |
| Nick Drake | 2 | 5 |
| Fleetwood Mac | 2 | 5 |
| Led Zeppelin | 5 | 4.2 |
| The Beach Boys | 3 | 4.33 |
Tap an artist to see their albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| M.I.A. | 2 | 1 |
| Sonic Youth | 2 | 1 |
| Mudhoney | 2 | 1 |
| Slipknot | 2 | 1 |
| U2 | 3 | 1.67 |
| Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | 3 | 1.67 |
| Morrissey | 2 | 1.5 |
| Manic Street Preachers | 2 | 1.5 |
| Radiohead | 5 | 2.2 |
| Beastie Boys | 3 | 2 |
There's talent behind it somewhere, but the end result comes off as uninspired, pseudo-intellectual, and instantly forgettable. Pyramid Song is one of the more listenable tracks, but even then the stair stepping major chords are simple and repetitive while the unusual rhythm just feels contrived.
Pretty solid example of how pop music has become increasingly overproduced and electronic to the point of sterilization. The only trace of human emotion lies in the vocals, and credit where it's due, "Melodrama" is indeed a fitting title.
This was a welcome reminder that when I say "I hate country music," what I actually mean is that I despise what commercialism did to country music. Starts strong and never drags. This kind of experience is why I'm here; perhaps the list could lose just a small portion of the Morrissey and middle of the road Brit nostalgia in favor of more varied influential albums?
There's talent behind it somewhere, but the end result comes off as uninspired, pseudo-intellectual, and instantly forgettable. Pyramid Song is one of the more listenable tracks, but even then the stair stepping major chords are simple and repetitive while the unusual rhythm just feels contrived.
Did Jim Morrison come back to life for a day just to channel a bootleg Smiths premonition in his garage? I found neither joy nor pleasures on this ruthlessly depressing album.
Solid tracks throughout, but this one would be worth it just for the full minute version of Papa Was a Rollin' Stone with all that crunchy Wurlitzer that was cut out of the single edit.
Listened to the whole thing straight through. 75 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Sure, some of the tracks are less terrible than others, but I completely fail to understand what it's doing on this list.
Stevie rarely fails to impress, but the '72-'76 albums are on another level. This one starts incredibly strong and the songs flow beautifully to the end. Those deriding the non-Superstition tracks as self-indulgent or too fluffy are clearly not musically inclined; there's richness and depth in texture, instrumentation, chord structure, and harmony throughout. Easy 5 all day long.
I get it, this is the one that really made them popular. It's significant, sure. I won't ever play it through again though; the recording quality and crowd noise make it a real disappointment overall. There are some reality good songs on here, and I'll gladly revisit them on the studio albums. It's a real shame this is the Cheap Trick album that made the list.
Skill involved? Of course. Are these sounds made by musical instruments? Sure. Is it music? Debatable. Next time I want to be screamed at in an echo chamber of constant cacophony, I'll just take my kids to the next indoor amusement park birthday party. Easily could've died without hearing this one.
I've never understood the hype for U2, so I hoped maybe listening to this all the way through would be educational at least. It's actually kind of impressive that they managed to make music this bland and soulless. There are albums on this list I actively hated more, sure, but I've rarely felt boredom so intense as in waiting for this one to finally be over.
Sweet, a whole album of 90s racing game menu BGM. Hard to appreciate the few creative musical thoughts buried in the techno drone of the absurdly long, relentlessly repetitive electronic loop tracks.
Pretty solid example of how pop music has become increasingly overproduced and electronic to the point of sterilization. The only trace of human emotion lies in the vocals, and credit where it's due, "Melodrama" is indeed a fitting title.
Held off on reviewing this one because, while I've heard all the songs individually, I didn't have a copy, this album is not on Spotify, and I haven't made the switch to Tidal (yet). I pretty well knew how I'd end up rating it, but I wanted to hear it all the way through first, as intended. Finally stumbled across a copy at a local record store, and it did not disappoint. Baker's voice is somewhat analogous to Michael McDonald's in my mind; like the opposite of a helium balloon, the richness and depth make it sound almost lower in pitch than it actually is. Couple her fantastic pipes with very solid songwriting and quietly funky arrangements, and you end up with a really solid record front to back. Sure, some of the instrumentation feels dated this many decades on, but to me at least, the writing and the execution rise above it. It's never in your face, but if you let yourself sink in and really listen, there's a lot of groove here to love.
I have great respect for Bob Dylan, and especially appreciate his lyrical prowess; there is no question that this album belongs on this list. That said, a huge swath of what's here is musically pretty uninspired and repetitive. While admittedly the simplistic structure fits with his lyrical delivery, I honestly think I'd rather just read these separately as poems. A singular perspective can of course be enlightening in music and art, but the utter lack of musical conversation, particularly in the latter half, makes this album increasingly tiresome as it progresses. I'm ultimately grateful that Bob has shared his musings with the world, but at the end of the day, I much prefer listening to other artists interpret, expand upon, and add color to them.
Bombtrack initially had me thinking I might actually enjoy this more than I did decades ago. Wow, was I wrong. Every other song in the same key (assuming there's enough chord structure here to even call them keys), minor variations on the same handful of riffs, monotonous scream-talking...I have no issue with the message, but could you at least put a modicum of thought into the music as opposed to subjecting us to an hour of the same grungy noodling? Listened before I died; won't be coming back.
This was a welcome reminder that when I say "I hate country music," what I actually mean is that I despise what commercialism did to country music. Starts strong and never drags. This kind of experience is why I'm here; perhaps the list could lose just a small portion of the Morrissey and middle of the road Brit nostalgia in favor of more varied influential albums?
Bought this album in high school—based on Take On Me alone, it's probably worth a listen, right? Ended up hiding it under the floor of the trunk to keep a good friend from playing it, without fail, every single time he got into my car for months on end. Re-listening decades later and well after the burnout has worn off, it's not bad. Maybe I'll dig it out of the trunk again in a few years.
Couldn't wait for this to be over, which usually begets a 1. Since the unwarranted length was admittedly a big part of that, while the music here is more just typical dull pseudo-intellectual white dude drivel than actively grating 1-star fare, I suppose it can have a 2. Barely.
Johnny Cash deserves his legend status, there were certainly some moments worth preserving, and I'm of course glad this album exists for posterity, but overall I really just don't understand the acclaim. The over-simplified version of Bridge over Troubled Water stood out as exemplifying the broader issues; it stripped a lot of what makes the original so compelling, and didn't offer anything particularly noteworthy in its place. I typically love and actively seek out inspired covers that expand upon and/or transform their respective originals, but for the most part that's just not what was recorded here. The whole album felt like being back in the audience at Brian Wilson's later concerts—could we maybe have just let this brilliant, talented man take a load off after so many years?
is the magic number.
A one star rating, for me, means that I actively could not wait for the album to be over, and I'm honestly surprised an album this boring and seemingly harmless can even rise to that level. This one exists in the same uncanny valley as would a bad AI attempt to create a song out of the worst, most quintessentially 90's qualities of Radiohead, U2, Coldplay, Oasis, and the like; the elements are there, but without even a modicum of human creativity. Instead of fading into the background, the beigeness of it all somehow managed to make me increasingly anxious and irritated as it dragged on. We get it already—the author listened to a lot of albums in Britain in the 90s/2000s, and apparently enjoyed the experience.
"When Liam Howlett arrived at the cutting room for the final stage of the album's production, he realised that all the tracks he had planned would not fit onto a CD." -Wikipedia Never have I been more appreciative of the size limitations of CDs.
This was a 3 until I cranked the volume and it started making a little more sense. I get why this is the one that made the list, but still, if I'm going to listen to Frampton, I'm going to choose the studio recordings every time.
I no longer have to wonder what Beaker would sound like as a musical instrument. Could easily have garnered a higher rating if they'd chosen to use the jug judiciously instead of just mindlessly boop-a-wooping through every single song.
Bollocks, innit?
I was considering giving this a 2 for the creative effort and curiosity factor, despite not doing much for me musically. That was before the metallic drone in Bad Baby made me think my A/C compressor was dying in the middle of a heat wave.
Easily my favorite Smiths album. I've been rolling my eyes at Morrissey's self-pitying, melodramatic, narcissistic whinging for decades now, but the rest of the band managed to put together a compelling collection here despite him. Starts off strong with the energy and interesting changes in "The Headmaster Ritual," and the driven calm of "Well I Wonder" transitioning into the punchy "Barbarism Begins at Home" is quite pleasant toward the end. Didn't really need the title track that followed, but Morrissey's gonna Morrissey, I suppose.
I sort of want to like this, but find much of it grating at the same time. It's just too clean, too much current pop influece, not enough of the good bits of 80s pop, and just generally not interesting enough. Girlfriend/Damn, dis-moi is admittedly catchy, though. Chris!
When this came out, my roommates at the time fancied themselves DJs, and this album featured quite heavily in their sets. DVNO even managed to blow the woofers out of my roommate's Sony towers and take out my cheap 80s Marantz receiver at a house party one particularly loud night. Because of all that, I personally don't really feel the need to ever hear this album again, but I gave it a listen anyhow. If I try hard enough to rekindle that original spark, I recall that a lot of these tracks did hit hard at the time. Electronica is not usually my thing, but even then I could recognize that this was pretty artfully put together, and there's a lot more musical depth to it than feels typical for the genre. Several of these tracks were solid bangers; respect where it's due, I suppose I should be generous with my rating here.
I get why this is the one that went on the list, even if it's not my personal favorite. That honor goes to From Langley Park to Memphis (though I tend to skip the first track). "Knock on Wood" came on one of my internet radio stations, and I was immediately taken by how the typical 80s synths had been put to such good use creating intricate harmonies and rhythms not typically associated with 80s pop. When "Nightingales" followed a few tracks later, I knew instantly that I needed to dig in deeper and give their albums a listen. I only wish they'd found their way to me decades earlier. Steve McQueen is a bit more rock-inspired especially in its use of guitars, but the jazz influence is clearly there as well. I don't know that I could pick a favorite song if I wanted to; some days it's "When Love Breaks Down," others I'm taken by the haunting emptiness of "Desire As." Next thing I know, "Appetite" is stuck in my head, or "Moving the River." The whole album just flows smoothly from start to finish. If this isn't your cup of tea, you're forgiven. It makes sense enough that "King of Rock and Roll," which Paddy McAloon clearly wrote to make a statement, ended up being Prefab Sprout's biggest commercial hit. Paddy's writing and these arrangements fall deep within the "musician's musician" category, and I see how this just isn't for everyone. There's no shortage here of instrumentation and technique that, to a casual listener, or in any other context, would likely now sound very dated. For me personally, though, this particular execution is a bit of a tour de force that borders on the timeless, especially as pop music circles back around to celebrate this era.
I was sort of looking forward to revisiting this, but I clearly remembered it way more fondly than the reality of it. Feels like a total slog after all these years, and even the tracks that had been ear worms do nothing for me now. Their later efforts were quite a bit more compelling and less boring and repetitive, or at least I think they were? Now I'm not so sure anymore...huh.
Average rating is 0.26 points below global average.
Album origins are grouped into three buckets: US, UK, and everything else. “Other” means the artists you rate highest are from outside the US and UK.