My 1001 Albums Journey

Album	You	Global	Diff
Live At The Witch Trials The Fall	5	2.64	+2.36
Scott 2 Scott Walker	5	2.64	+2.36
Histoire De Melody Nelson Serge Gainsbourg	5	2.75	+2.25
Third/Sister Lovers Big Star	5	2.79	+2.21
Tago Mago Can	5	2.79	+2.21
Scott 4 Scott Walker	5	2.8	+2.2
Da Capo Love	5	2.82	+2.18
This Nation’s Saving Grace The Fall	5	2.88	+2.12
Merriweather Post Pavilion Animal Collective	5	2.9	+2.1
Kollaps Einstürzende Neubauten	4	1.9	+2.1

Album	You	Global	Diff
Vulgar Display Of Power Pantera	1	2.97	-1.97
The Stranger Billy Joel	2	3.85	-1.85
Tarkus Emerson, Lake & Palmer	1	2.79	-1.79
Graceland Paul Simon	2	3.74	-1.74
Boston Boston	2	3.71	-1.71
Sheer Heart Attack Queen	2	3.65	-1.65
Trafalgar Bee Gees	1	2.63	-1.63
1999 Prince	2	3.6	-1.6
Black Holes and Revelations Muse	2	3.59	-1.59
Paul Simon Paul Simon	2	3.51	-1.51

Artist	Albums	Average
Bob Dylan	5	5
David Bowie	5	4.6
Radiohead	4	4.75
Pixies	3	5
Beatles	3	5
The Rolling Stones	4	4.5
Led Zeppelin	3	4.67
R.E.M.	3	4.67
Neil Young	3	4.67
Stevie Wonder	3	4.67
The Velvet Underground	2	5
The Pogues	2	5
The Beach Boys	2	5
Jimi Hendrix	2	5
Pink Floyd	2	5
PJ Harvey	2	5
Miles Davis	2	5
Big Star	2	5
Johnny Cash	2	5
The Fall	2	5
Sonic Youth	2	5
Elvis Costello & The Attractions	2	5
Stan Getz	2	5
Scott Walker	2	5
Joni Mitchell	2	5
The Who	3	4.33

Stand!

Sly & The Family Stone

4/5

Reggatta De Blanc

The Police

3/5

Morrison Hotel

The Doors

3/5

Paul Simon

2/5

I just don't like Paul Simon.

The Marshall Mathers LP

Eminem

5/5

Pretzel Logic

Steely Dan

4/5

Rikki>Night By Night>Any Major Dude is an amazing opening run of songs, it drops off slightly but it's still great.

Time (The Revelator)

Gillian Welch

3/5

This is the first artist I've been assigned that I haven't listened to at all before. I quite like artists like Lucinda Williams and Tracy Chapman, or Adrianne Lenker, whose harmonies with Buck Meek sound a lot like Gillian Welch and David Rawlings here. I also love prolonged retellings of events like the Titanic sinking or the JFK assassination, interspersed with 20th century American musical history, i.e. Bob Dylan's "Tempest" and "Murder Most Foul". However, I found this album a little uninspired and plodding. I'm not American nor particularly steeped in country music, but my impression is that sonically and in terms of its clichéd references to Americana, it's not too distinct from a lot of mass produced country dross. Seven minutes into the final song, "I Dream A Highway", I'm beginning to doubt what I just wrote. I'll give credit for giving this song room to breathe, it's a great closer. Maybe the album would have flowed better for me with a few more energetic songs, bookended by the lovely languid "I Dream A Highway".

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective

5/5

Millennials really cooked with this one.

Led Zeppelin IV

Led Zeppelin

5/5

Boomers really cooked with this one.

There's A Riot Goin' On

Sly & The Family Stone

5/5

Fear Of A Black Planet

Public Enemy

5/5

Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

The Kinks

4/5

First Band On The Moon

The Cardigans

4/5

Those Swedes sure know how to make good pop songs.

Illmatic

Nas

5/5

Tellin’ Stories

The Charlatans

2/5

What's Going On

Marvin Gaye

5/5

The Band

5/5

Tarkus

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

1/5

The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Velvet Underground

5/5

Ctrl

SZA

3/5

Junkyard

The Birthday Party

3/5

I've never really listened to Nick Cave, I don't love this but it does make me want to listen to more of his output. He has a compelling personality and attitude.

La Revancha Del Tango

Gotan Project

2/5

The Suburbs

Arcade Fire

4/5

Rum Sodomy & The Lash

The Pogues

5/5

Fromohio

fIREHOSE

2/5

Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys

5/5

Masterpiece.

Stripped

Christina Aguilera

2/5

Pump

Aerosmith

2/5

American Gothic

David Ackles

3/5

1984

Van Halen

4/5

Emperor Tomato Ketchup

Stereolab

4/5

O.G. Original Gangster

Ice T

3/5

Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division

5/5

Doolittle

Pixies

5/5

Perfect, the first album I got on here that I had been listening to on repeat right before generating it. It also inspired me to watch Un chien andalou, which was pretty cool, so check that out.

Trafalgar

Bee Gees

1/5

Dreadful.

Want Two

Rufus Wainwright

2/5

Tres Hombres

ZZ Top

3/5

Phaedra

Tangerine Dream

4/5

Honky Tonk Masquerade

Joe Ely

3/5

The Score

Fugees

4/5

3 Feet High and Rising

De La Soul

4/5

Jack Takes the Floor

Ramblin' Jack Elliott

4/5

Blood, Sweat & Tears

3/5

Darkness on the Edge of Town

Bruce Springsteen

4/5

Moss Side Story

Barry Adamson

3/5

Cool concept, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

The Bends

Radiohead

5/5

If not the best Radiohead album, the one I reach for the most.

Trio

Dolly Parton

3/5

Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

Spiritualized

5/5

Come Find Yourself

Fun Lovin' Criminals

2/5

Queen II

Queen

3/5

Arrival

ABBA

5/5

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo

Devo

4/5

Franz Ferdinand

3/5

Take Me Out and The Dark Of The Matinée are bangers, but the rest is pretty forgettable.

Devil Without A Cause

Kid Rock

1/5

Fuck Off

Guero

Beck

3/5

First time listening to Beck other than the song Loser, me gusta.

Lady In Satin

Billie Holiday

4/5

Ill Communication

Beastie Boys

4/5

Machine Gun Etiquette

The Damned

4/5

Music in Exile

Songhoy Blues

5/5

Very cool, the kind of thing I wouldn't have come across without this list.

Are You Experienced

Jimi Hendrix

5/5

Soul Mining

The The

4/5

Not at all what I was expecting, having never listened The The but having vaguely categorised them as "post-punk" in my mind. I suppose that speaks to how amorphous that term is. The piano on Uncertain Smile and the percussion (and chanting) on Giant are the standouts.

Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul

Otis Redding

3/5

xx

The xx

2/5

Intro is great, don't care for the rest. I hate the breathy late 2000s/early 2010s vocals.

21

Adele

3/5

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

5/5

The greatest, and perfect for this time of year.

Dog Man Star

Suede

4/5

Songs For Swingin' Lovers!

Frank Sinatra

3/5

Justified

Justin Timberlake

2/5

The Sun Rises In The East

Jeru The Damaja

3/5

The Wall

Pink Floyd

5/5

Master Of Puppets

Metallica

3/5

Rust In Peace

Megadeth

2/5

Gasoline Alley

Rod Stewart

2/5

Station To Station

David Bowie

5/5

Disraeli Gears

Cream

5/5

What's That Noise?

Coldcut

2/5

Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Wu-Tang Clan

5/5

Grace

Jeff Buckley

5/5

Physical Graffiti

Led Zeppelin

5/5

Hounds Of Love

Kate Bush

4/5

One World

John Martyn

4/5

Little Earthquakes

Tori Amos

4/5

Tank Battles

Dagmar Krause

2/5

Elvis Presley

3/5

461 Ocean Boulevard

Eric Clapton

4/5

Welcome To The Pleasuredome

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

3/5

There's No Place Like America Today

Curtis Mayfield

4/5

Kings Of The Wild Frontier

Adam & The Ants

3/5

Younger Than Yesterday

The Byrds

4/5

Vol. 4

Black Sabbath

4/5

Foo Fighters

3/5

A Walk Across The Rooftops

The Blue Nile

4/5

Who's Next

The Who

5/5

Disintegration

The Cure

5/5

Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

4/5

The generator gave me Disintegration by The Cure yesterday and Nick Cave today, feeling very goth in the lead up to Halloween.

Rings Around The World

Super Furry Animals

4/5

One Nation Under A Groove

Funkadelic

5/5

Heaven Or Las Vegas

Cocteau Twins

5/5

Pink Flag

Wire

5/5

Mannequin = catchiest song ever?

2112

Rush

3/5

The College Dropout

Kanye West

4/5

Reign In Blood

Slayer

3/5

Tragic Songs of Life

The Louvin Brothers

2/5

Rock Bottom

Robert Wyatt

3/5

Hot Buttered Soul

Isaac Hayes

4/5

Electric Prunes

The Electric Prunes

2/5

I had too much to dream last night is a good song title, but there's not much more to the album.

Space Ritual

Hawkwind

3/5

Enjoyed it more than I thought I would, it chugs along nicely.

...And Justice For All

Metallica

4/5

Tracy Chapman

5/5

Songs From The Big Chair

Tears For Fears

5/5

Peak 80s

Truth

Jeff Beck

3/5

The Doors

4/5

All Mod Cons

The Jam

4/5

Great bass from Bruce Foxton, and I like the Kinksian social commentary.

Gris Gris

Dr. John

4/5

Time Out

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

4/5

Dummy

Portishead

5/5

Stephen Stills

3/5

It's no After the Gold Rush, but it's alright. The guitar on some of the songs stood out on first listen, I looked up the personnel and found out that Hendrix and Clapton played on this. That'll do it.

Let It Bleed

The Rolling Stones

5/5

Architecture And Morality

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

3/5

The ArchAndroid

Janelle Monáe

4/5

The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

Charles Mingus

5/5

Clandestino

Manu Chao

3/5

A pleasant listen, a charming time capsule of a 90s vision of globalisation, world music and polyglot vibes-based social commentary. The album flows well from track to track. Spanish textbook, Erasmus-core.

São Paulo Confessions

Suba

2/5

Tedious.

Fun House

The Stooges

4/5

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

PJ Harvey

5/5

In Our Heads

Hot Chip

4/5

Skylarking

XTC

4/5

Blonde On Blonde

Bob Dylan

5/5

If you "don't like Bob Dylan's voice" you are weak.

Debut

Björk

4/5

In A Silent Way

Miles Davis

5/5

Crime Of The Century

Supertramp

2/5

Shit Pink Floyd. I like the outro to the last song, but it's a real slog.

All Things Must Pass

George Harrison

5/5

George gets to be as indulgent as he wants, it's fine.

The Scream

Siouxsie And The Banshees

4/5

Hot Shots II

The Beta Band

2/5

Blunderbuss

Jack White

3/5

Night Life

Ray Price

3/5

Music

Madonna

3/5

Nothing's Shocking

Jane's Addiction

3/5

You've Come a Long Way Baby

Fatboy Slim

4/5

Sheer Heart Attack

Queen

2/5

I don't get all the adulation for Queen. I think the maximalist, theatrical delivery rubs me the wrong way -- I can't connect with it emotionally at all. I think the cliché that Queen is the quintessential Greatest Hits band is right, no Queen song that I haven't heard ambiently a million times sticks in my head.

Jagged Little Pill

Alanis Morissette

4/5

Pearl

Janis Joplin

4/5

Ingenue

k.d. lang

3/5

Smooth.

Fear and Whiskey

Mekons

4/5

#1 Record

Big Star

5/5

Rock and roll is here to stay.

Music for the Masses

Depeche Mode

3/5

The Who Sell Out

The Who

3/5

Red Headed Stranger

Willie Nelson

4/5

British Steel

Judas Priest

4/5

Sincere

Mj Cole

1/5

Godawful.

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Various Artists

5/5

Play

Moby

3/5

Mothership Connection

Parliament

5/5

Natty Dread

Bob Marley & The Wailers

5/5

Kollaps

Einstürzende Neubauten

4/5

schlag schneller, schrei lauter schlag schneller, leb schneller bis zum Kollaps, nicht viel Zeit This had me tapping my foot the whole way through, I loved it and didn't mind the abrasive elements at all. I do speak German, which perhaps removes one mental barrier a lot of people have where they dismiss anything in a language they don't understand, but I also just found it a really compelling clusterfuck of noise. I knew the name Einstürzende Neubauten from the meme list of experimental musicians: "Merzbow, Boredoms, Gerogerigegege, Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, Nurse with Wound, Einstürzende Neubauten..." but this was my first time actually listening to them. I will definitely come back to this and explore more of their discography.

Deep Purple In Rock

Deep Purple

3/5

Metal Box

Public Image Ltd.

4/5

Welcome to the Afterfuture

Mike Ladd

4/5

Shleep

Robert Wyatt

3/5

Robert Wyatt and John Martyn kind of blended into one in my memory, I've had albums from both come up and I've not returned to either. This was pleasant, with some nice jazzy moments, but forgettable. I did appreciate the Dylan pastiche, and also love the reference to Roger Casement in that song. I'm tempted to bump the album up to 4 from 3 on the back of that, but I don't think I'll realistically come back to it much.

Bossanova

Pixies

5/5

Perhaps not as good as Doolittle, but it's a brilliant and cohesive album in its own right. I think I also generally like rock songs about aliens/scifi stuff -- Bowie, Radiohead etc. The "demented surf rock" also chimes with Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon which I just read and loved (not seen the film adaptation).

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

John Lennon

4/5

COOKIE!

Heartbreaker

Ryan Adams

2/5

Irrespective of whatever bad things he did, this is pretty bloodless 2000s Americana, no bueno. I'd much rather listen to Summer of '69.

A Hard Day's Night

Beatles

5/5

Rising Above Bedlam

Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart

3/5

Virgin Suicides

Air

3/5

Konnichiwa

Skepta

3/5

Pretty good overall, with some classic songs that really bring me back to the 10s like Shutdown and That's Not Me. It drags a bit in the middle - I wasn't a fan of It Ain't Safe or Numbers. God I hate Pharrell Williams, mainly for the crime that was Happy, though I didn't mind his production on this album too much. Apparently this beat Blackstar for the 2016 Mercury Prize. That's criminal. I enjoyed reading all the upset Yanks complaining about the "Bri'ish" in their reviews. Vine, Charlie Sheen Winning, Usain Bolt, X Factor. RETVRN.

Surfer Rosa

Pixies

5/5

Live Through This

Hole

4/5

Nebraska

Bruce Springsteen

4/5

It's a very strong folk album, and Atlantic City is the standout for me. I think Springsteen works best at his most bombastic and cheesy though, so I'd give this a 4 rather than the 5 of Born to Run.

The Wildest!

Louis Prima

4/5

Swinging.

Third/Sister Lovers

Big Star

5/5

Dr. Octagonecologyst

Dr. Octagon

2/5

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

The Flaming Lips

3/5

This album/band has been a blind spot for me, but I have to say I'm underwhelmed on first listen. It's mostly pleasant, though I'm not a big fan of some of the squelching synths. I think if I had grown up with it, it might be more emotionally resonant with me, but the sentiment of e.g. Do You Realize?? comes across as platitudinous. It is a decent song, but not mind-blowing. My first listen was sober on speakers, my second listen drunk on headphones after winning £100 at a pub quiz raffle and being devastated by the loss of David Lynch, and the album still doesn't really do it for me, sorry.

The Dark Side Of The Moon

Pink Floyd

5/5

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

The New Tango

Astor Piazzolla

3/5

Black Holes and Revelations

Muse

2/5

This a competent but overly polished and uninteresting stadium-ready Radiohead rip off, as many have already noted. Definitely not something you need to hear before you die.

If I Should Fall From Grace With God

The Pogues

5/5

RIP Shane

Murmur

R.E.M.

5/5

The second greatest American band, only behind the Beach Boys, and one of the strongest ever debut albums from anyone.

Blackstar

David Bowie

5/5

I remember my French teacher in secondary school playing Life on Mars in our lesson just after Bowie died, and I wasn't massively familiar with him. I had probably heard the hits, and knew his look on Aladdin Sane, but I wasn't a massive muso yet. I did listen to a few of his songs on repeat on Youtube (when I was 15 in early 2016) (this was before I listened to full albums on streaming services or physical media) -- I think Starman, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes and Lazarus from this album. I couldn't quite appreciate the decades of music leading up to this final swan song like people who had spent decades listening to him, but I loved the songs. It wasn't until years later that I "got into" Bowie along with many other Rock icons, listening to discographies, reading and watching documentaries etc. This made Blackstar hit much harder than before, and I remember early January last year (2024) being totally immersed in Bowie between his birthday and the day he died, something I repeated this year. The context does make this album more powerful, but it is also a brilliant jazzy art rock album. However you want to label it, it sounds great. I'm writing this review a few days after David Lynch died, an artist I became much more familiar with in the last couple of years before his passing, and whose death really hit me. We need to cherish our weird Davids, we've lost Bowie, Berman and now Lynch, now we've just got Byrne and Cronenberg (sorry if I'm forgetting, or not aware of any other cool weird dudes named David). I've had a run of albums I already know and love in the past few days, it would be cool to discover another great new artist through this generator soon (Stereolab is the totally new to me band I discovered through here and listened to most so far). The second I saw this album come up, I knew my score would be 5 (black) stars. Like David Bowie, I want to stay up to date with and open-minded about new music until the end, and maybe have an album I've never heard of win me over to 5 stars. The next album I get will probably be shit, though.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Beatles

5/5

The Yes Album

Yes

3/5

Maybe.

Faith

George Michael

4/5

SEX!

Let It Be

The Replacements

5/5

Fever To Tell

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

3/5

It's okay, but it's "heavy but flat", like the Foo Fighters or some White Stripes. I don't love it. I do like Maps and Y Control.

Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite

Maxwell

2/5

Pleasant and inoffensive enough, but I didn't need an hour of it. It certainly isn't an album you need to hear before you die, though it is representative of a lot of shit that fills up airtime on smooth radio stations and pumps noise into shops, cafés and bars. Whatever. It was clearly meticulously and skilfully recorded and produced, so I won't give it 1 star. I'm going to listen to Einstürzende Neubauten to counteract all this bouba with some kiki. The review "Bang bang Maxwell's Urban Hangsuite" from 6 Nov 2024 made me laugh.

The Slim Shady LP

Eminem

4/5

Fear Of Music

Talking Heads

4/5

I haven't done a deep dive into the Talking Heads, I'm mostly only familiar with their hits like Psycho Killer and Once In A Lifetime. I quite liked most of this album, although a lot of the things I liked also strongly reminded me of other artists (David Bowie, Devo, Joy Division). I think it fizzles out towards the end, but it's still pretty good overall. I'm going to rate this 4 rather than 3 because I suspect it will grow on me. I'm also going to watch Stop Making Sense, that's apparently a good jumping off point for the Talking Heads. (I watched Stop Making Sense and it was great)

Off The Wall

Michael Jackson

4/5

Amnesiac

Radiohead

4/5

This album never clicked for me like The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A and In Rainbows -- those four Radiohead albums are clear 5s to me, and I've listened to those far more than this one or the others. Giving it another shot now: I still don't love it front to back, it's a little too subdued/sedated. Still very good though.

Led Zeppelin III

Led Zeppelin

4/5

Hot Fuss

The Killers

4/5

It felt wrong listening to Mr Brightside on a Monday morning and not in a sweaty student nightclub or some other place with a lot of alcohol involved. It's quite front-loaded, but the hits really hit. I just looked at the top review after writing the above. Judging from the use of "uni", I'm guessing they're British. Despite Brandon Flowers being American, I refuse to believe Yanks can vibe with Mr Brightside on the wavelength all British people seem to. It unlocks something in us. I finally figured out the line in Somebody ToldnMe is "I never thought I'd lead a rumour ruin the moonlight". I hadn't consciously thought about it, as most of the times I'd hear that song I could hardly be described as conscious, but in the back of my mind I would think "what the hell is a roomaroo in the moonlight".

Aladdin Sane

David Bowie

4/5

I've had a few albums from groups I love recently, like Amnesiac by Radiohead and Led Zeppelin III, which I like, but not quite as much as other albums of theirs. Like those albums, this has some great songs, but also some strange choices which don't quite work for me. Nevertheless, I feel inclined to be generous because of who the artist is. Oh well, that might not be fair, but I think there is value in listening to everything you can by an artist, even the not-quite-heights. This is far from the most obscure or poorly conceived Bowie album though, it's still a great listen even if it's a step down from Ziggy Stardust.

Too Rye Ay

Dexys Midnight Runners

2/5

Microshift

Hookworms

3/5

Decent. I hear a lot of Stereolab and Animal Collective, two bands I got deeply into in 2024. I might come back to this, but I'll probably rather reach for the above bands or MGMT, LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip etc. instead. The allegations against the singer do dampen my enjoyment of the album, particularly for some of the self-pitying lyrics contrasted with his alleged behaviour. I might track down some of the other band members more recent projects though.

Stankonia

OutKast

5/5

A lot of hip hop albums suffer from the increased runtime allowed by CDs, and I often can't be arsed, or simply don't have the time, to listen to 1 hour+ albums twice in a day, which I try to do for every album I rate. This is not one of those albums. It's a real tour de force, incorporating so many different elements so masterfully. I was levitating from start to finish. POWER MUSIC, ELECTRIC REVIVAL

Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan

5/5

Greatest album of all time by the greatest artist of all time - at least for me today. On other days it's The Times They Are A-Changin', Bringing It All Back Home or Blood on the Tracks.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West

5/5

"He made Graduation, he made MBDTF..." It's sad and pathetic what he's become, but the album is unimpeachable. Kanye's sexual and emotional pathologies are on display here, and in hindsight it's clear he was doomed. "21st Century Schizoid Man" is perfectly apt, Kanye is finely attuned to the spirit of the age, sadly we live in degraded and stupid times. Great craftsmanship endures, idiots like Trump and Musk will die. His regrettable later output and antics don't matter, this album rocks.

The Stranger

Billy Joel

2/5

I think Billy Joel rubs me the wrong way for the same reasons Paul Simon does, their American kitchen sink realism lyrics and how they position themselves. I don't know how exactly to explain it, this posture of being a wise observer chronicling scenes from Italian restaurants or wherever else. The instrumentation doesn't work for me either, it's too Elton John. This kind of thing needs either someone with some edge (Harry Nilsson) or an absolute musical genius (Paul McCartney).

Green River

Creedence Clearwater Revival

4/5

Graceland

Paul Simon

2/5

This generator isn't going to change my mind on Paul Simon or Billy Joel, sorry.

american dream

LCD Soundsystem

3/5

Back In Black

AC/DC

3/5

The music rocks, but I can't take Australians seriously in general, and definitely not when they're singing like this.

Surrealistic Pillow

Jefferson Airplane

4/5

Another group I was only familiar with by name, and I was pleasantly surprised that this was a 4 rather than my expectation of 3. The guitar tones are great, it sounds Beatlesque at times without being a rip-off, and at other times it's its own, cool, thing.

C'est Chic

CHIC

4/5

c'est chic

The Atomic Mr Basie

Count Basie & His Orchestra

5/5

Boom.

Street Signs

Ozomatli

2/5

Not available on UK Spotify, I listened to some of it on YouTube. I get the idea.

I Am a Bird Now

Antony and the Johnsons

4/5

Fly Or Die

N.E.R.D

2/5

Smash

The Offspring

3/5

The top review (at time of writing) calls this the Taco Bell of punk. That's a pretty good comparison, but I'd give it a 3 for that reason. Like Taco Bell, it tastes pretty good/gets you pumped up while eating/listening to it, but when shitting/thinking about the music afterwards, you realise it wasn't that great.

I See A Darkness

Bonnie "Prince" Billy

4/5

This is an artist whose name I've only seen, and I had no idea what to expect sonically. I loved it, understated but cohesive, unlike some lo-fi, pared back folk. Reading more about Will Oldham, I guess he was and is super involved with artists I love (and their legacies) like David Berman and Jason Molina (RIP both), so I probably should have listened to this earlier. They all have a shared sensibility I deeply relate to. The fact that people are rating this harshly because it's not available on Spotify... come on. Get real.

Immigrés

Youssou N'Dour

4/5

Horses

Patti Smith

4/5

The Slider

T. Rex

4/5

Fuzzy

Grant Lee Buffalo

3/5

It's a solid album, combining alternative rock dynamics with an Americana twinge. I don't see it as the best album of 1993 though, sorry Michael Stipe. It feels too low-key and subdued to me, even when it rocks out. Nothing really sticks in my head after listening, although it is a pleasant listen. This might be a grower, and I might listen to Grant Lee Buffalo's other albums, but at the moment Fuzzy doesn't particularly stand out to me.

The Dreaming

Kate Bush

3/5

At Folsom Prison

Johnny Cash

5/5

Bob Dylan described Johnny Cash as having a "voice from the middle of the earth". That's true, his voice is elemental. The prison setting is pretty unique, and it makes this record an incredible document. B.B. King, Big Mama Thornton and the Sex Pistols apparently did live albums in prisons too, but this might have been the first? 5 stars.

Le Tigre

3/5

I miss when cool young people in New York were woke and not fascist weirdos for some reason. Unlike the often execrable genre "pop-punk", this album mixes pop and punk successfully.

Permission to Land

The Darkness

3/5

I'd only heard I Believe in a Thing Called Love before. I didn't realise how similar Justin Hawkins' non-falsetto voice was to Robert Smith's. That was particularly clear and slightly unsettling on Friday Night. The album as a whole is pretty good if a bit one note, the guitar pyrotechnics do bring a smile to my face.

It's Blitz!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

3/5

Tago Mago

Can

5/5

Coincidentally I listened to this album in full yesterday before being assigned it, and again today. I have listened to Ege Bamyasi and Future Days front-to-back a lot more than this one, owing partly to it being a double album, and partly to Aumgn and Peking O being a little too far out for me. I have played Halleluhwah on its own many times though. I thought at times that I had "got" those songs listening to them just now, but they still elude me, I think. I'll still give it five stars though.

Trans Europe Express

Kraftwerk

4/5

Apocalypse Dudes

Turbonegro

3/5

Aftermath

The Rolling Stones

4/5

I mostly listen to the 68-72 run of Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. from the Stones. I'm not as familiar with either the US or UK versions of Aftermath, and I'm not entirely sure which version I should be rating. I do know Paint It Black, and that is a clear standout of all the tracks on both albums. Having spent more time with this music, the rest of it is better than I remember the last time I listened to Aftermath in full. The misogynist lyrics are more of a problem for me on Stupid Girl than Under My Thumb, the latter being catchy enough to ignore the lyrics, the former being pretty uninteresting musically. I appreciate the 11 minute song Going Home, but I think it works best at the end of the album as on the US version rather than the end of side a - though I am listening on streaming rather than on vinyl. I Am Waiting and Out of Time are some more stand-outs. Compared to other canonical 1966 albums, i.e. Revolver, Pet Sounds and Blonde on Blonde, this is the weakest of the bunch. Nonetheless, it's a very strong album.

Beauty And The Beat

The Go-Go's

3/5

Very fun listen. It complemented the warmest day of the year so far very nicely.

Green Onions

Booker T. & The MG's

3/5

I quite like the Hammond organ in mid 60s Dylan, but here I don't love it. I don't necessarily dislike this album, but the concept of recording instrumental versions of other people's songs does make me feel like something is missing. Songs like Green Onions work well in film soundtracks, but I don't listen to many film soundtracks on their own, except a few by jazz greats. I suppose wind instruments can replace the human voice, but I find instrumental albums with only guitar/piano etc. to be lacking something like a human voice if I'm actively listening.

OK Computer

Radiohead

5/5

I wasn't necessarily in the mood for OK Computer today, but it's a certified 5 star album. I listen to sad sack bands like Radiohead or the Smiths less than I did when I was a depressed teenager, though this album still knocks the wind out of me.

Van Halen

3/5

Garbage

3/5

The mix of genres doesn't work on every song, but I loved As Heaven is Wide and Fix Me Now, and already knew and loved Only Happy When It Rains. The

Like A Prayer

Madonna

3/5

Moon Safari

Air

5/5

Hypnotised

The Undertones

4/5

I do like University Challenge though.

Heroes to Zeros

The Beta Band

2/5

I resent all the Yanks saying there's too much British bullshit on the list. We get so much more of your shit. However, I don't care for this album, it's extremely forgettable. It's been a couple of hours and I can't remember a single song from this.

At San Quentin

Johnny Cash

5/5

I got the first Johnny Cash prison album, At Folsom Prison, not too long ago. This is shorter and tighter, but another masterpiece.

The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators

The 13th Floor Elevators

4/5

I liked this much more than the last 60s psychadelic rock album I got, The Electric Prunes. This has much more energy to it, psychadelic, garage and surf greatness. The songs may be a bit samey, but it's only 34 minutes, and sounds great.

A Short Album About Love

The Divine Comedy

3/5

A similar concept to 69 Love Songs in miniature, though this was released 2 years earlier. Semi-sincere and semi-ironic love songs, more interested in interrogating the form and conventions of the love song than true feeling. I don't mind the cheesy orchestral arrangements, they remind me of early Scott Walker. I like Neil Hannon, his voice and his posture, though he's no Scott Walker. This also points forward to Father John Misty, and makes me want to go listen to him. Also Father Ted, which uses a Divine Comedy song in the intro. I should give that a rewatch. I just watched The Quiet Man and The Departed for Saint Patrick's Day, so I'm all Irished out at the moment. Maybe next year.

Car Wheels On A Gravel Road

Lucinda Williams

4/5

I am incredibly attracted to Lucinda Williams on this album, but I think that's a legitimate reason to rate it highly. She's an immensely seductive MILF country artist. That's all I have to say.

Parachutes

Coldplay

2/5

The instrumentals are okay but boring, and Chris Martin's vocals and lyrics are so wishy washy. I can't abide him. I was on a train journey that was about the length of the album, and it felt like the longest journey of my life.

Coles Corner

Richard Hawley

4/5

I got A Short Album About Love by The Divine Comedy recently, another 90s/2000s neo-crooner album from this side of the Atlantic. I was unfamiliar with Richard Hawley as a solo artist, while I knew some Divine Comedy stuff. The full-on sincerity of this album compared to the tongue-in-cheek quality of that album works much better for me. Hawley's voice is great, Sinatra crossed with Johnny Cash as others have said. The country elements also fit in nicely, and I love an ambient final song (some of my favourite albums, like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Manning Fireworks end similarly, and both are somewhat country tinged...) This is a great discovery for me, and although I don't think it is one of the 1001 essential albums in music history, it's a great album.

Bongo Rock

Incredible Bongo Band

2/5

Live And Dangerous

Thin Lizzy

4/5

This Nation’s Saving Grace

The Fall

5/5

I pretend I'm blind you see, put on some Armani clothes and act like ET

Vincebus Eruptum

Blue Cheer

3/5

Decent late 60s hard rock/proto heavy metal, charmingly shaggy.

Fishscale

Ghostface Killah

3/5

Be

Common

4/5

Lady Soul

Aretha Franklin

5/5

Smile

Brian Wilson

5/5

Odessey And Oracle

The Zombies

5/5

Lost Souls

Doves

3/5

Crocodiles

Echo And The Bunnymen

4/5

The Gershwin Songbook

Ella Fitzgerald

5/5

A Rush Of Blood To The Head

Coldplay

2/5

Smokers Delight

Nightmares On Wax

4/5

Rio

Duran Duran

4/5

Siamese Dream

The Smashing Pumpkins

4/5

Siembra

Willie Colón & Rubén Blades

5/5

Muy bien.

Third

Portishead

4/5

Inspiration Information

Shuggie Otis

3/5

This album starts off strong with some of the vocal songs, but peters out into some unremarkable instrumentals.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

David Bowie

5/5

Five stars What a surprise

Winter In America

Gil Scott-Heron

4/5

I'm sorry, the government you have elected is not operative.

Songs Of Love And Hate

Leonard Cohen

4/5

They'll never reach the moon, at least not the one we're after.

Hot Rats

Frank Zappa

5/5

Oh no, I actually liked this. Zappa feels like a big can of worms to open, but now I may as well. I listened to Live-Evil by Miles Davis yesterday, so I was primed for some jazz-rock fusion. I remember a couple years ago, when I mostly just listened to alternative rock and singer-songwriters, thinking that I wasn't bald enough to "get into" jazz, prog etc. Now my hairline has receded some more, I suppose I'm ready. The day I get a Grateful Dead album and decide to go down that rabbit hole, all my other large discography artists/bands will go out the window.

Urban Hymns

The Verve

2/5

I've always hated Bittersweet Symphony. The rest of the album isn't as irritating, I liked some of the psychadelic/shoegaze elements, Neon Wilderness is a good little song. It just drags on though.

Dirty

Sonic Youth

5/5

"The President sucks, he's a war pig fuck" - a perennial truth. Maybe one day there'll be a female President of the US and she'll be a war pig fuck too. My favourite SY album varies from day to day, but Dirty is a five star album any day. "Accesible" is a word that comes up in a lot of reviews, and this album does tamp down slightly (but not entirely) on the amount of extended noise breakdowns, but the expert balance of noise and melody still shines through in more compact, linear songs. The drums are more prominent than on other SY albums, and Steve Shelley kills it.

Come Away With Me

Norah Jones

2/5

It's much of a muchness with whatever soft, smooth, frictionless music people who don't care about music listen to. The instrumentation is quite good, but the vocals and lyrics really piss me off with how bland, mannered and impersonal they are.

This Year's Model

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

5/5

I'm a nerdy guy with those same glasses, what can I say, I love it.

Heroes

David Bowie

4/5

Elephant Mountain

The Youngbloods

3/5

Juju

Siouxsie And The Banshees

3/5

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

The Incredible String Band

3/5

Lam Toro

Baaba Maal

2/5

All Directions

The Temptations

4/5

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face stopped me in my tracks in a way a new to me song hasn't in a while.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Elton John

3/5

On The Beach

Neil Young

5/5

Though my problems are meaningless That don't make them go away

The Genius Of Ray Charles

Ray Charles

4/5

Melodrama

Lorde

3/5

Decent but kind of underwhelming

Wild Is The Wind

Nina Simone

5/5

Don't you know you're life itself?

Floodland

Sisters Of Mercy

3/5

Live At Leeds

The Who

5/5

Why shouldn't live albums be on the list? This one certainly deserves its place. I was already going to give this a 5 having listened to it sober, but I relistened to it drunk and want to give it 6 stars.

Dire Straits

5/5

I'd only heard Sultans of Swing before. Great album, every song sounds the same in the best way. Funnily enough, most of my exposure to Mark Knopfler has been listening to Dylan's Slow Train Coming.

Broken English

Marianne Faithfull

4/5

Run-D.M.C.

3/5

Nilsson Schmilsson

Harry Nilsson

5/5

Vulnicura

Björk

3/5

The Real Thing

Faith No More

3/5

Great instrumentals, the goblin vocals aren't my thing and from what I understand inspired a whole bunch of dogshit American music, but they are distinctive and were novel at the time, apparently.

Diamond Life

Sade

4/5

Brothers

The Black Keys

3/5

"I hate that soulful affectation white girls put on / why don't you move to the Delta?" At least 60s/70s white guys who ripped off the blues would go wild with their vocals, this Millenial/late Gen X commercial rock for the radio, FIFA soundtracks and car adverts is totally sanded down despite its gestures to blues rock. The instrumentation is pretty good, dragging the whole thing up to being pleasantly mediocre.

Teen Dream

Beach House

3/5

Untitled (Black Is)

SAULT

3/5

I'm glad there are some newer albums in the later editions, I've been in a rut of listening to the same few artists recently. This isn't something I would normally find and listen to, but I quite liked it. There is some cringy early 2020s "self-care" messaging in it, but the main message of Black people not wanting to be killed by the police is evergreen.

Getz/Gilberto

Stan Getz

5/5

Oedipus Schmoedipus

Barry Adamson

2/5

Some good points, like Something Wicked This Way Comes and Miles, but this list does not need two "soundtracks for films that don't exist" by Barry Adamson. "Vermillion Kisses" is one of the most irritating interludes I've ever heard, even worse than skits in rap/hip hop albums that are just sex noises. Speaking of sex noises, Jarvis Cocker's moaning sets a tone which is immediately abandoned, as each song takes a left turn from the previous one. You could say the album is varied, but really it's all over the place.

Brothers In Arms

Dire Straits

4/5

(Pronounced 'Leh-'Nérd 'Skin-'Nérd)

Lynyrd Skynyrd

3/5

I'm a Lynyrd Skynyrd hater, I think Neil Young shouldn't have backed doon, but doubled doon, on Southern Man, and I love Play It All Night Long by Warren Zevon. I've been hating from a place of ignorance mostly, I know Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird, but I don't think I've ever listened to a full album. This album hasn't changed my mind, though the music is orthogonal to why I dislike this band. The music's pretty good, but not great, at no point did I want to turn it off, but I doubt I'll go back and listen to it in full again. This album doesn't have Sweet Home Alabama, so I can't knock points for that. It's pretty generic Southern USian rock, which holds no particular cultural resonance for me as an English person. It's fine.

Coat Of Many Colors

Dolly Parton

4/5

Exile In Guyville

Liz Phair

5/5

Wow, a new-to-me first listen five star. The balance between the angry lyrics and disaffected delivery is perfect.

Basket of Light

Pentangle

3/5

Bat Out Of Hell

Meat Loaf

5/5

Meat Loaf is an American thing that I've only ever heard as a punchline and not listened to. This rocked. The baseball commentary sex joke cinched the 5 stars for me.

Definitely Maybe

Oasis

5/5

My dad was my age (24) when this came out and was a big fan, and despite the natural inclination to rebel against your parents' taste, this album is undeniable. I've heard Oasis songs a billion times growing up in England, but I don't think I've put on an Oasis album on myself and listened to it front to back before. It's background radiation here, though being from the South and not Manchester it's not so much part of my identity, and I've never felt the need to "get into" them. It's humbling and slightly mortifying to slowly turn into your father (Old man look at my life, I'm a lot like you were...), apparently he listened to the Smiths a lot as a mopey teenager in the 80s as I did in the 2010s. His parents were older when they had him, being born in the early 1930s they were too old for the Baby Boomer youth culture of the 60s (don't trust anyone over 30), all I can remember my Grandpa listening to is classical music, potentially some crooners, potentially jazz, but nothing too out there, fusion or avant-garde. My music taste is in some ways broader than my dad's, thanks to growing up with streaming, though very americanised. I listen mostly to 60s/70s singer-songwriters and 80s/90s/2000s Alternative/College/Indie rock, probably very little that he hasn't heard or at least heard of (read about in music magazines at the time). I'll often walk by him listening to Oasis, but also many much smaller, more obscure English bands of the 80s/90s that didn't make it as big, probably didn't make it to America at all and I would be unlikely to find out about, finding music largely through the internet. I haven't talked about the music at all because it's hard to say much about it. "It's just Rock 'n' Roll" (complimentary).

Scott 4

Scott Walker

5/5

Suzanne Vega

3/5

Hejira lite, pretty good but I'm not bowled over by it on my first 2 listens.

Power In Numbers

Jurassic 5

4/5

1999

Prince

2/5

Maybe I'm a prude, but I don't care for all the moaning etc. The shock value of singing about fucking is gone in 2025, though I imagine it was more transgressive to be a horny little freak in the 80s. Now it's just irritating. Musically it has its moments, but they're few and far between. Every time I saw the next track was 7, 8, 9 minutes long, I thought "oh for fuck's sake".

In Rainbows

Radiohead

5/5

They're Zionist dogs so fuck them, but this album is still a masterpiece.

Here's Little Richard

Little Richard

5/5

Sheet Music

10cc

4/5

Born To Be With You

Dion

3/5

Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus

Spirit

4/5

Pink Moon

Nick Drake

5/5

Da Capo

Love

5/5

A Girl Called Dusty

Dusty Springfield

4/5

Buena Vista Social Club

5/5

Bad Company

4/5

The Nightfly

Donald Fagen

5/5

A just machine to make big decisions Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision We'll be clean when their work is done We'll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young I love the cheesy early digital sound and the lyrics, it's like an East Coast Pet Sounds in how it looks back at teenage delusions. I gave Pretzel Logic a 4 a while ago, I'd give it a 5 now as I've become more Danpilled since then.

Movies

Holger Czukay

3/5

I love the Damo Suzuki Can albums, but I've struggled to get into other Can albums than those and Monster Movie/Soon Over Babluma. I feel like the stars all aligned for them to make incredible, kosmische music for a few years. I wasn't aware of this album, and although I enjoyed it well enough, I don't think I'll be returning to it.

Harvest

Neil Young

4/5

It's funny, I had the harmonica part of Heart of Gold stuck in my head yesterday. Mostly great album, though A Man Needs a Maid does drag it down slightly.

Endtroducing.....

DJ Shadow

5/5

A Wizard, A True Star

Todd Rundgren

3/5

I appreciate it, but I don't quite "get" it.

Electric Ladyland

Jimi Hendrix

5/5

Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

Moby Grape

4/5

New Wave

The Auteurs

2/5

Not at all notable or essential, not terrible either, it's not really anything at all.

The Beach Boys Today!

The Beach Boys

5/5

RIP Brian Wilson. As soon as I heard the news, I put on Pet Sounds, then Surf's Up, then Sunflower, then Love You, then my 100ish song "Best of the Beach Boys" playlist: Do You Wanna Dance, When I Grow Up (To Be a Man), Help Me Rhonda, Please Let Me Wonder and In the Back of My Mind from this album are on it. A lot of people discount pre-Pet Sounds Beach Boys music as juvenile and underdeveloped, but there are already so many great songs with both the incredible arrangements and harmonies, and the lyrics which elevate being a teenager in mid 20th century America into universal truths about love, life and death which everyone loves about Pet Sounds. I got the Phil Spector Christmas album on Christmas and a Beach Boys album the day after Brian Wilson died, I wonder if the site owner manipulates the generator or if those are both coincidences. Anyway, I already got Pet Sounds a while ago, I obviously gave it 5 stars, with a one word review: "Masterpiece". The BB albums I mentioned above deserve 5 stars (despite Student Demonstration Time), this album isn't one I listen to front to back that often, mostly just the songs I mentioned. I am quite generous with my ratings, and I like this album a lot more than some of the albums I've given 4 stars. Fuck it, I'll give it a 5, the Beach Boys made so much great music that this isn't even my favourite pre-Pet Sounds album (that's All Summer Long), but it's still a 5 star album.

Beggars Banquet

The Rolling Stones

4/5

I am a partisan of the next 3 Stones albums, but this is obviously very good. You should watch Jean-Luc Godard's Sympathy for the Devil to see the genesis of that song (along with some other Godard shit). Jigsaw Puzzle is very underrated, I think. Stray Cat Blues goes hard, but those lyrics, yeesh. I guess it's honest at least, all those classic rock guys were having sex with underage "groupies".

Myths Of The Near Future

Klaxons

4/5

I love Thomas Pynchon, although I did give up about 150 pages into Gravity's Rainbow a couple years ago and haven't gone back to it yet. I read The Crying of Lot 49 in 2022, then earlier in 2025 I read Inherent Vice and Mason & Dixon. I also watched Hangmen Also Die! (1943) in 2020 I am mainly familiar with Klaxons from this passage in a 2022 interview with Bob Dylan: Later in the interview, Dylan discussed some of the artists he had seen perform live. “Some I’ve seen live,” he said. “The Oasis Brothers, I like them both, Julian Casablanca, the Klaxons, Grace Potter. I’ve seen Metallica twice. I’ve made special efforts to see Jack White and Alex Turner. Zac Deputy, I’ve discovered him lately. He’s a one-man show like Ed Sheeran, but he sits down when he plays.” https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/bob-dylan-favourite-modern-musicians/ Which is funny because of how incongruous Bob Dylan and "landfill" indie are. Since I was 7 and much too young for Club 18-30 in 2007, I haven't consciously listened to Klaxons, but I wasn't too surprised by the sound -- "Franz Ferdinand" is one of the tags, which checks out. I haven't read Burroughs or Gibson, but I love Sister by Sonic Youth which I believe takes some of the technobabble from Neuromancer. The music is decent, and charmingly 2007. I'm now wondering if I have heard Gravity's Rainbow "Come with me, come with me, we'll travel to infinity" before, or just something similar. I like it in any case.

Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo

MC Solaar

4/5

« La musique est bonne. »

Sticky Fingers

The Rolling Stones

5/5

As I said in my review of Beggars Banquet just a few days ago, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. are the greatest Stones albums. I think this one is my favourite of them all. Townes Van Zandt is great, but I also prefer the original Dead Flowers.

Marcus Garvey

Burning Spear

5/5

Back To Black

Amy Winehouse

5/5

I remember, a week before my 11th birthday, laying in bed at night in my maternal grandparents' house when my (then 76) nanna came into the spare room to tell my (then 41) mum that Amy Winehouse died. This meant nothing to me then, like when somebody on my primary school playground told me Michael Jackson died when I was 8, nearly 9. My earliest musical memories are of mid-2000s rock like Mr Brightside by the Killers, American Idiot by Green Day and Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs. While my grandad's music taste was quite eclectic before he lost his hearing and the ability to get out of his chair unassisted, I think my nanna was mainly interested in Amy Winehouse's death because she read the Daily Mail every day and Winehouse was a tabloid phenomenon. I have too many both positive and negative associations with this music before ever voluntarily listening to an Amy Winehouse album to rate it objectively. I'm going to give it 5 stars. I think I always did like it, and loved listening to it today.

Histoire De Melody Nelson

Serge Gainsbourg

5/5

Head Hunters

Herbie Hancock

5/5

Elastica

2/5

The Notorious Byrd Brothers

The Byrds

3/5

Rock 'N Soul

Solomon Burke

3/5

The White Room

The KLF

2/5

Country Life

Roxy Music

4/5

Odelay

Beck

4/5

Strange Cargo III

William Orbit

2/5

Life Thru A Lens

Robbie Williams

3/5

I've never listened to a Robbie Williams (or Take That) album, though I've heard his hits a billion times (like Oasis). The Better Man movie with monkey Robbie Williams was great, although that didn't inspire me to actually purposefully listen to his stuff in the months since I watched it at the cinema. This is alright, Angels is an undeniable banger. Robbie's aura farming hard on the cover, it's a great photo. I can't believe most Yanks don't know who Robbie Williams is, even ones in their 40s/50s. We know all your bullshit.

Stardust

Willie Nelson

5/5

Seventh Tree

Goldfrapp

2/5

.

Bummed

Happy Mondays

3/5

The mixture of swirling psych/garage rock and house music creates a cool atmosphere, though there are a few baffling 80s pop moments sprinkled in. Yet again it's a British artist I'm aware of -- through my parents, "Bez from the Happy Mondays" meaning someone who stands around and doesn't contribute anything essential, Shaun Ryder being on Gogglebox etc -- but I've never listened to. Shaun's voice is a little buried in the mix, without reading the lyrics as I listen it's hard to tell what he's speak-singing. It reminds me of Mark E. Smith, except his vocals and lyrics stand out more. Maybe it's the combination of drugs: MES's speed and lager make for a more anxious, angrier and more perfectionist/tyrannical presence, while Shaun Ryder doesn't give a fuck because he feels great on ecstasy, heroin or whatever else.

Here Are the Sonics

The Sonics

4/5

WAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH

Live At The Harlem Square Club

Sam Cooke

5/5

The Sensual World

Kate Bush

3/5

Hms Fable

Shack

3/5

Aja

Steely Dan

5/5

25

Adele

2/5

Boring, anodyne shite. I'm turning 25 this month and I sympathise with the sentiments of feeling older though. If that makes you feel ancient, good. Fuck you, old cunts.

Machine Head

Deep Purple

3/5

Infected

The The

3/5

Kick Out The Jams (Live)

MC5

5/5

Buffalo Springfield Again

Buffalo Springfield

3/5

A little disjointed, I mostly liked the NY songs

L.A. Woman

The Doors

3/5

Bert Jansch

4/5

Pretty good folk album which I feel will grow on me. I think I'll come back to this when the weather starts to get colder.

Court And Spark

Joni Mitchell

5/5

Damaged

Black Flag

3/5

The Sounds Of India

Ravi Shankar

4/5

Abbey Road

Beatles

5/5

5, duh.

Blood On The Tracks

Bob Dylan

5/5

Innervisions

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Playing With Fire

Spacemen 3

3/5

Spacemen 3 stars

We Are Family

Sister Sledge

4/5

Fulfillingness' First Finale

Stevie Wonder

4/5

The Trinity Session

Cowboy Junkies

3/5

Cool concept, but a little too wispy and insubstantial for me.

This Is Fats Domino

Fats Domino

4/5

Guitar Town

Steve Earle

2/5

Not totally awful, but a bit insipid

Blue Lines

Massive Attack

4/5

Zombie

Fela Kuti

4/5

White Light

Gene Clark

3/5

Not essential, but pleasant enough.

Live!

Fela Kuti

4/5

Casanova

The Divine Comedy

4/5

More like a 3, but my warm feelings from the Father Ted intro bump it up to a 4. Neil Hannon's shtick and schmaltzy instrumentation isn't something I want to listen to every day, but I can appreciate it from time to time.

Songs In The Key Of Life

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Live At The Witch Trials

The Fall

5/5

You Want It Darker

Leonard Cohen

4/5

I'm angry and I'm tired all the time

Live / Dead

Grateful Dead

2/5

I don't really get it. Maybe one day, but not today.

Go Girl Crazy

The Dictators

4/5

The Man Machine

Kraftwerk

5/5

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Eurythmics

2/5

The title track is a "guilty pleasure" of mine, but the rest of this album is pretty poor.

Marquee Moon

Television

5/5

She's So Unusual

Cyndi Lauper

3/5

Fun.

Legalize It

Peter Tosh

4/5

dude weed lmao I was pleasantly surprised by the songs other than the title track which I'd heard before. They're pretty good, I especially liked Till Your Well Runs Dry.

Fuzzy Logic

Super Furry Animals

4/5

Palo Congo

Sabu

2/5

Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

Ray Charles

4/5

Paranoid

Black Sabbath

5/5

RIP Ozzy

After The Gold Rush

Neil Young

5/5

Lost In The Dream

The War On Drugs

4/5

A recent review called this "Bob Dylan covered by The Killers" as if that were a bad thing.

Duck Rock

Malcolm McLaren

2/5

Strangeways, Here We Come

The Smiths

4/5

In Utero

Nirvana

3/5

Lazer Guided Melodies

Spiritualized

4/5

Risque

CHIC

3/5

If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears

The Mamas & The Papas

3/5

The title track is a great song which I have actually been playing a lot in the last couple days as the leaves begin to turn. I'd never listened to the rest, and it was quite forgettable. I did kind of like their Do You Wanna Dance too, though it's no Beach Boys.

Brutal Youth

Elvis Costello

4/5

Heaux Tales

Jazmine Sullivan

2/5

Shaka Zulu

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

2/5

.

Exit Planet Dust

The Chemical Brothers

3/5

Peter Gabriel 3

Peter Gabriel

4/5

Remain In Light

Talking Heads

5/5

Ace of Spades

Motörhead

4/5

Vanishing Point

Primal Scream

4/5

Jazz Samba

Stan Getz

5/5

Frampton Comes Alive

Peter Frampton

3/5

Serviceable classic rock. I don't get the kneejerk hate for live albums, though I prefer those by artists I already know and love. There are some moments of cheesy greatness, and none of the songs are bad (except the Jumping Jack Flash cover) but I don't think I'll become a Frampton head after this.

A Date With The Everly Brothers

The Everly Brothers

3/5

.

When I Was Born For The 7th Time

Cornershop

3/5

Oh, so this is where that song is from

Rapture

Anita Baker

2/5

No Other

Gene Clark

4/5

Automatic For The People

R.E.M.

5/5

Colour By Numbers

Culture Club

2/5

Done By The Forces Of Nature

Jungle Brothers

3/5

The Contino Sessions

Death In Vegas

3/5

Highway to Hell

AC/DC

3/5

Arise

Sepultura

2/5

Decent to good instrumentals, I particularly liked Altered State. I can't stand the lyrics and vocals though: whether it's Scandinavians or Brazilians, ESL metalheads idea of badass scary song lyrics in English just makes me cringe. To be fair, native English speakers' metal songs are generally embarrassing too.

The Grand Tour

George Jones

4/5

To Pimp A Butterfly

Kendrick Lamar

4/5

.

Let's Stay Together

Al Green

5/5

The Velvet Underground

5/5

Me Against The World

2Pac

5/5

A Love Supreme

John Coltrane

5/5

The Madcap Laughs

Syd Barrett

4/5

A bit more put together than I had assumed based on its reputation. It reminds me of the Guided By Voices Suitcase compilations of outtakes, lots of interesting snippets of melodies and incomprehensible but evocative lyrics.

Medúlla

Björk

3/5

Madman Across The Water

Elton John

4/5

Femi Kuti

4/5

Bringing It All Back Home

Bob Dylan

5/5

My GOAT.

The Only Ones

5/5

Wow. Another instant 5 stars for a new-to-me album. I'd heard effusive praise for Another Girl, Another Planet, but the whole album is fire.

A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse

Faces

3/5

Quite stupid, but I enjoyed it, especially the first two songs which were rollicking fun. The original Jacques Brel and the Scott Walker versions of "Next" are better though. On my second listen, I realised he reminds me of Geordie Greep on that song.

Fifth Dimension

The Byrds

3/5

Kind of replacement level psych rock, though they were early to the sound that defined the late 60s so they deserve credit for that. A very pleasant if slightly underwhelming listen.

The Cars

4/5

The Köln Concert

Keith Jarrett

5/5

Raw Power

The Stooges

4/5

Post Orgasmic Chill

Skunk Anansie

2/5

I listened to this post orgasm, I don't know if that affected my experience but I didn't care much for it.

Street Life

The Crusaders

4/5

I like Steely Dan, so sometimes I can appreciate a little soulless jazz. You could say it's too smooth or bland, but it tickles my ears in the right way.

Nevermind

Nirvana

4/5

Never really got into Nirvana, I think the ubiquity of their shirts pissed/pisses me off, especially when people younger than me, who was born 6 years after Kurt Cobain killed himself, wear them. It's pretty good.

Devotional Songs

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

3/5

He sounds like Paul McCartney shout-singing at some points.

The Specials

3/5

White Blood Cells

The White Stripes

3/5

Birth Of The Cool

Miles Davis

5/5

The United States Of America

4/5

Proto-Stereolab, pretty cool

Mermaid Avenue

Billy Bragg

5/5

Djam Leelii

Baaba Maal

4/5

Emergency On Planet Earth

Jamiroquai

2/5

Wasn't this guy at January 6th?

Green

R.E.M.

4/5

Fever Ray

3/5

This is the first album since they added the rating distributions that has a near-perfect bell curve. It's pretty middle-of-the-road, decent, understated electronic music. Björk Lite at points, not as abrasive but rather chilled out. I enjoyed it but doubt I'll go back to it.

Frank

Amy Winehouse

3/5

Scott 2

Scott Walker

5/5

Ritual De Lo Habitual

Jane's Addiction

3/5

16 Lovers Lane

The Go-Betweens

4/5

Rage Against The Machine

4/5

Now I Got Worry

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

3/5

Pretty good blues/garage rock. Not sure why so many people are so put off by it. It's just rock & roll.

Cosmo's Factory

Creedence Clearwater Revival

5/5

Black Metal

Venom

2/5

Black metal... black metal... black metal... black metal... black metal... black metal... The lyrics and delivery are just too goofy for me.

Club Classics Vol. One

Soul II Soul

3/5

Eli And The Thirteenth Confession

Laura Nyro

3/5

Apparently Todd Rundgren was influenced by Laura Nyro, that makes sense. Both have good moments, but mostly everything is too hectic and too much is going on at once to really latch onto anything.

Scream, Dracula, Scream

Rocket From The Crypt

2/5

Pretty unremarkable. I guess they're the same age as my parents from "Born in '69". Sorry olds.

Roger the Engineer

The Yardbirds

3/5

Brown Sugar

D'Angelo

3/5

Goo

Sonic Youth

5/5

Your New Favourite Band

The Hives

2/5

Let England Shake

PJ Harvey

5/5

Perfect November album

Straight Outta Compton

N.W.A.

4/5

An undeniable 1-2 punch in the first two songs, the rest is good but not quite as strong.

Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

Raekwon

4/5

Vulgar Display Of Power

Pantera

1/5

I almost always listen all the way through, but I turned this off after No Good (Attack the Radical). Maybe one of the last four songs is good. I'll never know, this was just so monotonous and boring.

The Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks

5/5

God Save the Kinks.

This Is Hardcore

Pulp

3/5

A tad too languorous for me.

Miriam Makeba

3/5

Slippery When Wet

Bon Jovi

3/5

A fun listen, but I'd rather just listen to Springsteen.

Moondance

Van Morrison

5/5

Van the Man. Watch The Last Waltz.

Happy Sad

Tim Buckley

2/5

Didn't grab me.

Moving Pictures

Rush

4/5

James Brown Live At The Apollo

James Brown

4/5

Closer

Joy Division

3/5

I liked Joy Division a lot as a teenager, but I found this a little dull listening in 2025. Maybe I'm just happier now?

Opus Dei

Laibach

4/5

People on this site hate industrial music for some reason. This is good!

Better Living Through Chemistry

Fatboy Slim

3/5

In "Give The Po' Man A Break" it sounds like "gay porn gay porn gay porn gay porn" at one point. Good electronic music, but not earth-shattering.

Oracular Spectacular

MGMT

4/5

Ooo girl!!! Shock me like an electric eal!!!

MTV Unplugged In New York

Nirvana

5/5

Imperial Bedroom

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

5/5

Idlewild

Everything But The Girl

2/5

Boston

2/5

Here Come The Warm Jets

Brian Eno

4/5

Penthouse And Pavement

Heaven 17

3/5

Django Django

3/5

Hejira

Joni Mitchell

5/5

Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black

Public Enemy

3/5

Orbital 2

Orbital

2/5

I'd rather have listened to Ride's Going Blank Again. "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day".

The Clash

3/5

BEYONCÉ

Beyoncé

2/5

Bland snd overlong.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

The Smashing Pumpkins

3/5

G. Love And Special Sauce

G. Love & Special Sauce

2/5

Reminds me of the White Stripes at some points, Beck at others. Not great, not terrible. Pretty woozy, someone described it as like waking up from anaesthesia which is apt. I have 604 albums left, there must be some more 5 star new-to-me albums, I'm dreading how many filler albums like this I have left.

Fire Of Love

The Gun Club

4/5

Cool album, I definitely hear them as a precursor to the Pixies especially in the vocals. I generally preferred the shorter, snappier songs, though Cool Drink of Water Blues, which most people seemed to dislike, I liked quite a lot.

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