1001 Albums Summary

Liked it, didn’t love it. Appreciate Bowie and Eno, to be sure, but I haven’t dug deep into the catalog of either. This album was no doubt influential in and representative of its time, but most of the music sounded … familiar at this point. A-side was recognizable as Bowie, for better and worse. B-side, though pleasant, had me ready to move on before it was over. Very glad to have kicked off my 1001 Album Generator journey with this work. I had never heard most of this music before and haven’t listened to an album all the way through in along time. Good stuff. This is going to be fun.

Love this collection of early recordings from one of my favorite bands of all time. So many hints of great things yet to come from the group and its individual powerhouse musicians. Makes me smile, end to end.

Tough to separate early 90s nostalgia from the music, but this has held up well, both as an end-to-end album and on the strength of its individual tracks. Seminal stuff. Makes me want to pay more attention to all the subsequent Pearl Jam albums I neglected over the years.

Undeniable talent and some really good music, but I isn’t really connect with this one. Good listen, but perhaps a bit too retro without enough innovation to really capture my interest and imagination?

I’m a sucker for live albums, and this is a wonderful historical artifact. Interesting to connect some of the sounds and rhythms here to early Who from a couple of days ago on my Albums Before You Die journey. Good stuff. Short and sweet, from back when a full length release could clock in at just over 30 minutes haha.

Deep Purple is a much deeper band than I knew based on prior, limited exposure. (“Smoke on the Water”? Meh.) Generally appreciated the extended jams and prog elements more than some of the riff rock, but it’s hard to complain. ‘Cause there’s a DRUM SOLO haha. And copious rock organ. And — surprise! — vocal wailing that foreshadows the best and worst of “hard rock” yet to come. Good stuff. A nice surprise.

Important artist and no doubt an important album. But I liked it, didn’t live it. Probably ought to revisit some other time, when I’m more in the mood for this sort of thing and can give it my whole-hearted attention. Not the right music for me, right now., on the day it happened to come my way.

Well, I’m not sorry that I gave this a listen. It’s lovely, pleasant stuff. But I don’t know enough about this style of music to understand what might differentiate this album from others of the genre or era. I also want really in the mood for this, I think. I might pick a track for an interlude as part of a radio show. Would be great background or soundtrack music for a party or film going after a certain vibe. Perhaps just wasn’t the right soundtrack for me on the day I gave it a listen.

Good stuff. Love the more bombastic, sweeping, cinematic tracks BUT I found myself wishing, more often than not, that I could leave this behind and go listen to some Arctic Monkeys haha. But that’s not really in the spirit of the thing, is it? So the good news is I appreciated this more on the second listen than the first, and I imagine I’ll revisit this again soon after I scratch that Arctic Monkeys itch.

I didn’t think much of the Pretenders back in the day, and I have never explored beyond FM radio staples, That seems okay after hearing this debut album. It’s a solid 1001 ABYD inclusion, though. Some obvious but not too obvious influences of the time. A few new twists that had lasting impact on artists yet to come. Appreciate Chrissie Hynde’s talent, influence, and longevity as an artist. Have to admit, though, that only about half of these songs connected with me, and my faves were generally not the radio hits.

I wish I could articulate exactly why I hate Steely Dan as much as I do. Surely a band with multiple albums on this list do not deserve such contempt. Still, I can’t bring myself to 1-star this. It’s not WTF bad like the Nico album. The music is objectively good, meticulously so, and perhaps that’s the problem. There are high standards at work here, and cleverness, and some irony. But gimme danger. Rough edges. Please.

Well, Kate Bush officially joins the ABYD 5-star Club. Criteria seems to be an artist or album I’m not already very familiar ++ significant repeat value in that I feel like I could listen to it, intentionally, forever and don’t want to move on. I don’t want to move on after 2-3 listens. These rating are all relative, of course, so this one could have been influenced by the fact that its predecessor was Sade — meh — but The Dreaming is now in good company with Talking Heads Remain in Light and a near 5-star Eiensturzende Neubaten debut. Something about the production techniques and sensibilities of the time period seems to really be resonating with me, as both a music fan and hobbyist music maker. Hmmm…