NERD’s first album, In Search Of…, deserves to be on this list, it’s excellent. At a push, The Neptunes’ album Clones could make it on the list too, if only because it signifies a time when their productions dominated pop and rap music. This album, on the other hand, is woefully bad. I actually get irritated listening to it - my first one star.

I loved this album when it came out, and I saw Radiohead play it at Victoria Park. It’s interesting that this has become the preferred Radiohead record for Gen Z (Austin Butler referred to it as his old faithful - cringe) as when it came out it was considered their most accessible and therefore un-Radiohead album yet. My tastes have shifted away from Radiohead in the intervening years but this album still brings back happy memories of a great band coming back with a great record.

Coldplay just headlined Glastonbury for a record fifth time, with one reviewer saying that it would be churlish not to enjoy their performance. Well, I’m that cold-hearted churl. I hate Coldplay. I hate their mind-numbing, faux-earnest, emotionally-manipulative songs. I hate that they normalised eschewing innovation and making unchallenging edge-free pop rock for the 21st Century. These days, they’ve realised that bands are no longer the moneymakers so they’ve switched to making “EDM” with emojis for song titles, which seems like the logical conclusion to their race to the bottom. Fuck Coldplay.

Hits a tricky sweet spot between almost ambient synth atmospherics, and singalong anthems.

It’s not a good thing when the best songs on an album are the covers.

I saw Franz Ferdinand live in Paris, 2005, and met the band afterwards. The bassist’s parents took a photo of me with their son, so I’m in their family photo album somewhere!

Big band isn’t my favourite style of Jazz, but the way Mingus subverts the genre on this record to create an atmospheric and nightmarish soundscape, with interpolations of blues and flamenco, is astonishing.

It’s fine, I guess, but can’t say I’m looking forward to listening to the 5 other Elvis Costello records on this list.

You can really visualise the London they depict in these songs!

Spooky, groovy post-punk. The hand of Bowie evident on every track but overall the vibe is more gothic than on his own records.

My initiation into spiritual jazz as a teenager, never looked back since.

I’m not sure this record has aged well, it’s gratingly twee. Everybody’s Stalking and Once Around the Block are great tunes but Pissing in the Wind is so irritating I’m docking a star for that track alone.

Almost offensively inoffensive, slick, safe and edge-free throughout, but there are some undeniable hits.

This album has the peculiar handicap of containing one of the greatest songs of all time, so the others tracks tend to fade into the background. Still, a great, if uneven, record.

The concept of a “live” recording in an imaginary dive is clever, but couldn’t listen to it regularly without tiring of this conceit.

Definitely a record of two halves, the first side is pretty good, not least the title track, which was new to me. Flip the record for some hot garbage.

Is it weird that I found this easier to listen to than the Elton John record I had yesterday?

Laidback, spacious grooves, with plenty of improvisation. Good album, but maybe not in my pantheon of funk and soul.

Nice soundtrack, but I’m aggrieved that this is on the list but there’s no Morricone.

I loved this album when it came out, and I saw Radiohead play it at Victoria Park. It’s interesting that this has become the preferred Radiohead record for Gen Z (Austin Butler referred to it as his old faithful - cringe) as when it came out it was considered their most accessible and therefore un-Radiohead album yet. My tastes have shifted away from Radiohead in the intervening years but this album still brings back happy memories of a great band coming back with a great record.

Eminem was writing songs about beating his wife for an audience of twelve year old boys.

One continuous anthemic blast, not much variation but does what it does well.

One of albums on this list that will make you say “Really? One of the best albums of all time?!”

Total classic. I’m seeing shoegaze getting lots of hate on this site, just let it wash over you… 🌊

Fantastic concept album and semi-ironic paean to an England that only exists in nostalgic fantasies.

The title track is a classic of course, but Ingle’s quavering vocal style doesn’t do it for me.

NERD’s first album, In Search Of…, deserves to be on this list, it’s excellent. At a push, The Neptunes’ album Clones could make it on the list too, if only because it signifies a time when their productions dominated pop and rap music. This album, on the other hand, is woefully bad. I actually get irritated listening to it - my first one star.

Interminable, ponderous prog rock operas are not my jam.

Chrissie Hynde is a badass and incredible singer. This is their more punk record, before they went pop, though songs like Brass in my Pocket give a taste of things to come.

Sounds like every other electro-pop Robyn-lite hotel lobby-friendly record released in the 2010s.

One of the few proper punk bands still going strong. Sleater-Kinney are cool as fuck, I feel I need to be cooler to listen to them. I struggle a bit with the vibrato-style vocals, but that’s just my personal taste.

I’ve never purposefully listened to Green Day in my life.

I’m rating this higher than The Wall, take that haters!

The record that spawned a hundred indie landfill imitations. This band is pretty iconic if you’re a British millennial, though more for legal misadventures and tabloid fodder than quality music. The US had the effortless cool of The Strokes, and we were lumbered with The Liabilities, sorry, Libertines. Still, they were marginally better than the deluge of dross that followed.

1994: A vintage year for Hip Hop, and this is arguably the best Hip Hop record of that (or any) year. Also one of the greatest NYC records, from the opening sample of the subway, you’re transported to Queensbridge. Masterpiece.

The debut LP from my favourite facemelters. The perfect balance between experimentation and headnodding catchiness, what’s not to love?

Lyrically unsurpassed.

Iconic record but I cant listen to it in the same way now. There’s separating the art from the artist, and then there’s child sex trafficking allegations…

An album of covers by the great Johnny Cash, some fantastic, some a little corny.

Early Queen - more heavy, less pop. Not a record I’d choose to put on. The Loser in the End took me by surprise, Zeppelinesque vocals and breaks!

Perhaps harsh to give this 3* but it isn’t in my pantheon of the (many) great Stevie records. Still a great listen.

Prefer Stevens’ later, more mature work. This can be a bit twee and repetitive.

Surely one of the most iconic albums of the 90s. Not a record I would listen to much myself but you can’t ignore how jampacked it is with hits. It’s amazing that Morissette was pretty much unknown before this album came out. That said, I’m still bitter about how she single-handedly obfuscated the meaning of irony for generations. 2.5, but I’ll round it up.

I listened to this album so much when it came out. I love how their music conjures this mythical quasi-medieval Americana, melding English folk and chamber music, Beach Boys style vocal harmonies, and classic country music depictions of the US landscape.

Touchstone record of the 2010s, made a big splash on release and brought Solange out from her sister’s shadow. Understated, minimalist soul, reminds me of Badu’s Worldwide Underground or Goapele’s Even Closer.

Apparently this was as heavy as it got in 1965. Makes me want to don a duffel coat, ride a Vespa and fight some rockers.

Country supergroup isn’t the sum of their individual powers.

Can appreciate this as Reagan era rage bait but it’s pretty insubstantial and lyrically cringe, even if it is meant to be tongue in cheek.

Undoubtedly foundational but I wouldn’t listen to it ordinarily.

Listen up, Pod People!

Inventive for its time, but not so exciting to listen to today.

A cinematic, expansive epic of narrative Hip Hop. I prefer Wu Tang’s Shaolin side (Liquid Swords) to its Mafiosi side (OB4CL) but the influence of this record is undeniable. An undisputed classic.

Would never intentionally listen to this, but don’t hate it when I hear Sweet Child O Mine at a bar.

Another record that I can see has great historical significance, pioneering a proto-Grunge sound, but which I personally think is terrible.

Psych-era-Beatles meets Country played by Dylan-fanboys.

A formative album from my teenage years that I’ve not listened to much recently. River man is an eternal favourite of mine.

Potentially my favourite Cure record, lush and indulgent misery music.

My first electronic record from the generator. “Big Beat” acts like Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, and to a lesser extent, Chemical Bros, were the unsubtle maximalists of the 90s. Hugely exciting to my teenage ears but much less so when listening to them now. With that said, I still remember the thrill of seeing Poison and Firestarter on Top of the Pops!

Overrated! The Kinks nailed the Little England concept album a year later, with The Village Green Preservation Society. With that said, A Day in the Life is one of the greatest songs ever written, and must have sounded like a bolt from the blue in ‘67.

Perhaps the biggest band I couldn’t give a flying fig about. Maybe the generator will change my mind… not on the basis of this album.

This is fine but A Certain Ratio are the Brit Funk/ Post Punk crossover band that should feature on this list.

These are some of the prettiest songs about murdering people I’ve ever heard.

No need to separate the art from the artist here, they both suck!

Beyond Sultans of Swing, there are surprisingly few hooks. The songs on this album are basically platforms for Knopfler’s guitar noodling. Dull listening.

Half-baked.

Kings of Leon before they sold out and went stadium rock. Good ratio of catchy tunes here.

Insipid and twee folk-lite.

A hodgepodge of unvarnished tracks but some great stuff.

I used to think Supergrass were one of the better Britpop bands, but this album has aged poorly, not least the song “she’s so loose” which reeks of 90’s lad culture.

The worst part of this album is Malcolm McLaren.

This list only scratches the surface of the brilliance of Brazilian music, but it’s great to see Jorge Ben featured here. One of the greatest songwriters of all time!

But I’d rather be listening to Dionne Warwick.

Seems even more radical now to release a series of live albums recorded in prisons.

Coldplay just headlined Glastonbury for a record fifth time, with one reviewer saying that it would be churlish not to enjoy their performance. Well, I’m that cold-hearted churl. I hate Coldplay. I hate their mind-numbing, faux-earnest, emotionally-manipulative songs. I hate that they normalised eschewing innovation and making unchallenging edge-free pop rock for the 21st Century. These days, they’ve realised that bands are no longer the moneymakers so they’ve switched to making “EDM” with emojis for song titles, which seems like the logical conclusion to their race to the bottom. Fuck Coldplay.

Yellow Submarine is a banger.

Wow, what a discovery. I’d never heard of this band or album before. It’s so good, like the Beatles’ psych era but rougher and darker.

Steely fucking Dan.

Iconic album from my youth. Still feel pretty much the same as I did then: Speakerboxxx is a 3* - solid pop rap record, dating quickly as southern rap turned crunk (though album closer Last Call is in that vein.) The Love Below is a 5* - probably one of the greatest avant pop records ever made. Still sounds incredible and fresh, and paved the way for the alt soul of Frank Ocean, Steve Lacy, etc. Andre 3000’s sophisticated, poetic, and witty lyrics on love and sex were kind of revolutionary to this teenager! 4* overall, and a great nostalgia trip.

I was once Beck-obsessed, now I hardly ever listen to him. I potentially overplayed this record as a teenager, because it’s lost some of its freshness but still a great headnodder, with Beck’s surrealistic lyrics and the dust brothers at the height of their powers.

I was a teenager in clubs when this came out and I thought it was a bit immature and cheesy even then.

We don’t need this fascist groove thang.

I love Dr John, I got see him live a few years before he died and he was still on great form. Like the Mingus album on this list, the album is better enjoyed as an atmospheric experience rather than a collection of songs.

Kendrick turned the rap game on its head with this record, no exaggeration.