384
Albums Rated
3.31
Average Rating
35%
Complete
705 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1950
Favorite Decade
Funk
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
70
5-Star Albums
31
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
Top Styles
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman
John Zorn
|
5 | 2.23 | +2.77 |
|
Arise
Sepultura
|
5 | 2.73 | +2.27 |
|
Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
|
5 | 2.87 | +2.13 |
|
Brown Sugar
D'Angelo
|
5 | 2.92 | +2.08 |
|
Rapture
Anita Baker
|
5 | 2.94 | +2.06 |
|
Larks' Tongues In Aspic
King Crimson
|
5 | 2.99 | +2.01 |
|
Rhythm Nation 1814
Janet Jackson
|
5 | 2.99 | +2.01 |
|
Liege And Lief
Fairport Convention
|
5 | 3.1 | +1.9 |
|
Talking Timbuktu
Ali Farka Touré
|
5 | 3.13 | +1.87 |
|
Marcus Garvey
Burning Spear
|
5 | 3.19 | +1.81 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Nevermind
Nirvana
|
1 | 4.37 | -3.37 |
|
MTV Unplugged In New York
Nirvana
|
1 | 4.2 | -3.2 |
|
Violator
Depeche Mode
|
1 | 3.7 | -2.7 |
|
Transformer
Lou Reed
|
1 | 3.67 | -2.67 |
|
The Queen Is Dead
The Smiths
|
1 | 3.66 | -2.66 |
|
Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan
|
1 | 3.64 | -2.64 |
|
The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground
|
1 | 3.61 | -2.61 |
|
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
|
1 | 3.53 | -2.53 |
|
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
|
1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
|
Strangeways, Here We Come
The Smiths
|
1 | 3.44 | -2.44 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Beatles | 4 | 4.5 |
| Miles Davis | 3 | 4.67 |
| Kendrick Lamar | 2 | 5 |
| Marvin Gaye | 2 | 5 |
| Metallica | 2 | 5 |
| Deep Purple | 2 | 5 |
| Ray Charles | 2 | 5 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| The Smiths | 3 | 1 |
| Nirvana | 2 | 1 |
| The Jesus And Mary Chain | 2 | 1 |
| Randy Newman | 2 | 1 |
| The Velvet Underground | 2 | 1 |
| The Undertones | 2 | 1 |
| R.E.M. | 4 | 2 |
| Pixies | 3 | 2 |
| Bob Dylan | 3 | 2 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Nick Drake | 5, 2 |
| Def Leppard | 4, 1 |
5-Star Albums (70)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy · 3 likes
5/5
Wow. This album is incredible. The beats and samples are amazing. The lyrics are important, deep, and dark, and angry. This is the spiritual ancestor to Rage Against The Machine. The worst thing about this album is that it is still relevant 32 years after its initial release. 5 stars.
Fela Kuti · 2 likes
5/5
If this album doesn't get you moving, you're probably dead. Protest music with bite from a time and place where that put your life at risk. Powerful lyrics and infectious grooves. a deadly combination for the authoritarian regime. 5 stars.
Pavement · 1 likes
1/5
The vocals are lazy and out of tune. The guitars are out of tune. The arrangements are uninteresting. 1 star.
Pere Ubu · 1 likes
2/5
The vocals are like David Byrne at his most manic and constantly at the top of his range. The rest of the band is doing some interesting, if noisy, stuff. Too bad the vocals make this so painful to listen to. I'll go 2 stars because the band is doing interesting stuff.
The Slits · 1 likes
4/5
The grooves are all reggae-influenced. I suppose this might be pre-horns ska? It's actually a fun listen because of the grooves.
I can't say I loved this album enough to give it 4 stars outright, but it was definitely the most listenable of the punk albums we've had so far. I could go 3.5 stars and round up to 4 for the site.
1-Star Albums (31)
All Ratings
David Bowie
3/5
2/5
i can see why people love this album, but i'm definitely not one of those people.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
i have to be in the right mood for reggae, but this is pretty good.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
modern hip-hop is not my jam. i can't pretend to relate to the lyrical content here, but then i tend not to actually pay attention to lyrics in any genre, listening to vocals mostly as just another instrument with melody and rhythm.
the vocal rhythms are amazing on this album. the vocal timbres are flexible, giving the impression of different "voices" telling their part of the story, while not being so extreme as to be almost-comical like Nicki Minaj's alter-ego voice she busts out.
the beats and samples and other instruments in the rhythm section are cool as hell. the counterpoint between the vocal rhythms and the underlying beats elevates the whole.
arrangements are strong throughout.
not an album i'll likely come back to often, but there's no denying this is a 5-star
Nirvana
1/5
never been a fan of Nirvana. never bothered listening to the whole album until today. the ambivalence i've had toward Nirvana and the existence of this album is slowly turning to active hatred with each song. the only redeeming quality of the majority of these songs is that they are short.
would give 0 stars if i could.
Foo Fighters
2/5
this album is meh. I want to like the Foo Fighters, but they don't do much for me outside a handful of songs, none of which are on this album.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
This album is much more interesting than i expected. Billy Corrigan's voice has always bothered me, but he isn't leaning as heavily into the super-focused whine on this one. There are hints of it throughout, but it's not persistent. As long as I listen to the instruments, I find plenty to keep me interested. 3.5/5 stars for the band, -1 star for his voice, so 2.5 stars that i'll round up to 3.
Incubus
4/5
feels a bit like Massive Attack/Portishead/Jamiroquai with heavier guitars at the ready. I really like was the drummer was doing throughout. Best of the 90s albums this site has thrown at me so far. 4-star experience.
The Kinks
2/5
Strong opening few tracks, but starts to lose steam quickly. Seems like a spiritual predecessor of Thick As A Brick, but from a group that was not ready or able to take that kind of leap. In the end, they seem to be attempting psychedelia, but can't quite pull it off.
Muddy Waters
4/5
It's always interesting going back and listening to the originators of various styles. You hear all the cliches from that style and you might think it's pretty hackneyed. But then you remember that they're cliches because everyone since has been learning them from the originator.
This isn't necessarily prime Muddy Waters, but even mid-tier Muddy Waters is 4-star worthy.
Talking Heads
3/5
There's some really good music on Fear Of Music, but the odder tracks didn't always land for me. Overall, it's a 2 star album that gets an added star for the proto-Discipline-era King Crimson opening track (I Zimbra).
Billy Joel
4/5
Having grown tired of hearing Billy Joel on classic rock radio for years and years, I was kind of dreading this one. This is the first time I've ever listened to an entire Billy Joel album start to finish. Damn if this isn't an excellent album. Starts strong with "Movin' Out" and remains strong throughout. The weakest track is the closer, "Everybody Has a Dream." My favorite track was one I'd never heard before: "Get It Right the First Time." 4.25 stars.
Lou Reed
1/5
Can't stand the vocals. The only songs I could stand to listen to were Perfect Day and Take a Walk on the Wild Side. TaWotWS is only listenable if I can block out the vocals. Love the groove and the sax solo. The rest of the album was painful to listen to. 1 star, bumped up from 0 stars because: 1) This site won't let you give 0 stars, and 2) those
Richard Hawley
3/5
Vocally, it's a 180º shift from yesterday's Lou Reed. This guy's got a really good, rich, baritone.
While not entirely "different styles filtered through a jazz crooner ballad vibe," this album does feel like a studio version of a laid-back, ballad-heavy Las Vegas residency.
So, I can't say i love this album, but it's more listenable than yesterday's (Lou Reed, Transformer) by a long shot.
Listening to it as a musician, there's a ton of stylistic authenticity of the parts that are carrying the underlying style. I suppose a more specific comp for this might be if Elvis did an album of ballads with a mix of his regular style and Vegas crooning.
There are no sharp edges on this album. There's a lot of really, really, really great playing and arranging and quite good singing...but it's all just way too safe.
"The Ocean" is utterly gorgeous, but is emblematic of the all that is good and bad about this album.
5 stars for the phenomenal playing and arranging and good singing, but 2 stars taken off for the utter lack of tension/drama throughout the album.
The Who
4/5
Interesting concept album. The album really showcases their fantastic harmony vocals. The three-song run of Our Love Was, I Can See For Miles, and I Can't Reach You is the highlight of the album from a purely musical standpoint, outside the overall concept. 4 stars.
Santana
5/5
The Beach Boys
5/5
Thin Lizzy
3/5
Not a huge Thin Lizzy fan. Best thing about TL is their harmony guitar parts. Can't stand Jailbreak and I have to be in just the right mood for "The Boys Are Back In Town". Assuming this is actually live and not a mix of live and studio overdubs like Kiss Alive, they were quite solid live. If I was more into TL, I'd probably love this album. As it is, it's just an average album for me.
Donovan
2/5
Title track and Season of the Witch are the highlights. Most of the rest is a snooze-fest.
Manic Street Preachers
2/5
Air
3/5
it was alright. chill. would prefer it slow way down and be ambient. good sounds, though. 3 stars
Hugh Masekela
5/5
This was a fantastic listening experience. There's a looseness to the grooves that is very refreshing. Not very adventurous from a harmonic standpoint, but it doesn't need to be. There's some questionable tuning between the trumpet and the sax making some of the harmonized lines (and even some of the unison lines) extra spicy. That would normally knock a couple stars off for me, but within the context of this vibe, it works. 5 stars.
Steve Winwood
3/5
solid opener. good choice for the only single from the album. competency is unquestioned, but it's not terribly interesting. just above average at 3 stars.
Dusty Springfield
4/5
Beautiful voice paired with The Memphis Boys in the rhythm section. What's not to love? Even when the string arrangements get a bit drippy and syrupy, The Memphis Boys keep it grounded.
Fishbone
4/5
Crazy mix of Ska, Punk, Metal, and Funk. At times, I was reminded of Living Colour. 4 stars
The Flaming Lips
4/5
The first of the 1001 dailies that I'd heard all the way through previously. When I'm in the right mood for it, I love this album. Luckily, I was in the mood for it when it came up here. 4 stars.
Green Day
2/5
The Replacements
2/5
It might be nostalgia, but the sound of 80s punk/indie still doesn't work for me. I remember there being a few songs here and there that would catch my attention, but for the most part I really did not enjoy the sound. After all this time, I apparently still don't. I'm sure it largely has to do with my listening to predominantly classical, jazz, and rock/metal that required (sometimes extreme) musical competence back then (and now, for that matter).
I'm not sure what to make of the fact that the first song on the album that I kinda liked was a cover of a band that I range from apathetic toward to actively disliking ("Black Diamond" by Kiss). That's a weird experience.
2 stars.
Beautiful Day and Stuck In a Moment are fantastic. The rest of the album doesn't come close to those two. Average album at best. 2.5 stars.
Dinosaur Jr.
2/5
Did not enjoy this album. Really don't like the vocals. Overall, I heard a sort of proto-Nirvana on this album. For me, this is 1 star. If I objectively listen to the guitar work, however, it bumps it up to 2 stars.
R.E.M.
2/5
Not a fan of R.E.M. at their best. The only thing that saves this album from being a 1 star for me is Peter Buck's guitar work. He does some pretty interesting stuff with material that would otherwise be completely bland. 2 stars, just for Peter Buck, otherwise it would 1 star.
R.E.M.
2/5
outside of Peter Buck's guitar work, I just really don't like REM's sound. I really don't like Stipe's vocals. so again, 1 star that gets a 1 star boost because of Peter Buck's guitar work.
Steely Dan
4/5
I have to be in the right mood for Steely Dan. I'm not necessarily in that mood right now, but focusing in on the individual performances, is at least giving me something to hang onto. Jeff "Skunk" Baxter is in top form here. The vocal harmonies on "The Boston Rag" are more in the vein of CSNY than i'm used to hearing from SD.
"Bodhisattva" hit harder than I remember it. the second track "Razor Boy" is pretty much everything that irritates me about Steely Dan. "The Boston Rag" is a slow jam that's actually pretty damn good. It's really like CSNY with a lead guitarist.
I do absolutely hate the tone of the overdriven lead guitars, though. Dear God that tone is awful. There are plenty of examples of great overdriven/distorted lead tones from 1973, so it's not like it wasn't possible.
Rick Derringer guests with a hell of a slide solo on "Show Biz Kids"
"My Old School" annoys me. except the instrumental breaks.
Overall, this album is more blues-driven than what i'm used to from them. Lots of one- or two-measure vamps, and only a couple instances of their "How many jazz chords can we squeeze into a verse?" tendencies.
Stephen Stills
4/5
Before starting, I assumed this would be a 2 or maybe 3 (at best) star album. The opener, which I already knew, is great. The rest of the album, however, exceeded expectations. This has a more aggressive rock drive to it than I remember hearing coming out of CSNY. I'd listen to this again. 4 stars.
Sarah Vaughan
5/5
Sarah Vaughan's voice. Ridiculous rhythm section. Live Jazz. As if to make sure everyone knows it's live, in "Willow Weep for Me" something falls close to a mic, some people close to the mics laugh, her lyric sheet runs out of lyrics before the rhythm section is done, so she improvises some lyrics about how she messed up the song. And then jokes, "that's probably the one they'll use." Sarah Vaughan is relaxed and in terrific voice.
Given the musicians, the floor started at 4 stars for this one. It's an enthusiastic 5 stars.
Black Sabbath
4/5
The opening of this album is like an entire genre (Heavy Metal) kicking in the door and announcing it's birth to the world. The harmonica in The Wizard serves as a reminder that Black Sabbath was, at its core, a heavy blues band.
This is an easy 4 for me. It would be a 5, but it loses steam with the final suite/medley (A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning).
Stevie Wonder
4/5
I don't think I recognize any of the songs on this album by title. The opener starts off sounding a lot like elevator Muzak, but there are suddenly some harmonic moves that are unexpected. The arrangement/orchestration is fairly complex.
In the context of Stevie Wonder albums, this is middle-of-the-road. In the context of the 1001 albums? I'd say it's 4 stars, even if there aren't any recognizable songs on it.
Pixies
2/5
The only song I found interesting was Silver. Couldn't get into the rest of it at all.
Cee Lo Green
3/5
The loops/rhythm section/beats are fantastic. His voice is not one I can listen to a lot of in a single sitting. Average for me. 2.5 stars. will round up to 3
Isaac Hayes
4/5
Can ya dig it? Yes. Yes I can. The voice. The groove. The rhythm section. Enthusiastic 5 stars.
Jethro Tull
5/5
Easy 5. I have this album memorized. Everything about this album is great, from the classic-rock station staples (Aqualung, Locomotive Breath, Cross-Eyed Mary), through the "deep tracks" (My God, Up To Me, Mother Goose, Hymn 43), to the short interludes (Wond'ring Aloud, Cheap Day Return, Slipstream).
Van Halen
5/5
As debut albums go, it's hard to top this one. While EVH didn't invent tapping, he certainly popularized it. For fans of virtuosic lead guitar, this album set a new standard and influenced just about every rock guitarist to come after. The vocal harmonies should not be overlooked, either. They are tight as hell, even as they are sometimes ridiculous (e.g., doo wop break in I'm the One). DLR may not be the best rock _singer_, but he was a hell of a front man, and his vocals fit the material perfectly. The rhythm section is tight. MA's bass playing isn't very busy, but it absolutely doesn't need to be. And he's locked in with AVH's drum playing, which is also really creative but in a way that serves the songs. EVH's rhythm playing is probably my favorite aspect of his playing.
This is a near-perfect album. 5 stars
50 Cent
3/5
Good beats, good flow, good guests. Overall, not a fan, but it's a solid album.
Gorillaz
4/5
Really good, chill listen. "Clint Eastwood" is the well-known standout track. 4 stars.
Circle Jerks
2/5
I am not a hardcore punk fan at all. For people who gravitate toward this style, this is no doubt a 4 or 5 star album. For me? 2 stars. The only thing that really did anything for me was the sheer speed and inertia of it.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
Did not enjoy this album at all. The musicians are doing damn fine work, which is the only reason this didn't get 1 star. Cohen's vocals on the album absolutely kill the experience for me. It's like the worst, most boring version of the worst, least-interesting Tom Waits material.
Jack White
3/5
I liked the opener, but otherwise there wasn't anything spectacular about this album.
Dion
3/5
Dion has a great voice. Not thrilled with the production here. Way over done. I think these songs would be better stripped down to a rock-n-roll combo. None of the songs are faster than mid-tempo, so with the production it feels a bit like a slog. 3 stars.
Primal Scream
4/5
Not a lot to say about individual tracks, but this was actually an enjoyable listen. Harder-edged trip-hop sound. 4 stars. In the right mood, I'd listen to this again.
Gotan Project
4/5
Like yesterday's Primal Scream album, this was a great listen. The tango + electronica combination really works. I will definitely listen to this one again. 4 stars.
Sex Pistols
2/5
Not a fan of Punk, whether it's British or American (or any other nationality, for that matter). I think having heard "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the Queen" a number of times in movies or TV shows has made me not mind them so much. The rest of it was a hard list. 2 stars.
Solomon Burke
5/5
This is a near-perfect album of early 60s soul. I don't know why I've never heard of Solomon Burke before. It's kinda criminal. That guy's voice was amazing. 5 stars.
Julian Cope
2/5
This is like a less-interesting, less-dark Nick Cave. 2 stars.
Alice In Chains
3/5
Cool riffs. Singer's voice is exhausting to listen to. Highlights for me: Them Bones, Sickman, Hate to Feel (HtF is uneven, but when it's on it's fantastic). Overall, 3 stars.
Funkadelic
5/5
It's too bad this album is nearly impossible to find streaming anywhere. Still, was able to listen to it by piecing it together from YT uploads. Anyway, I loved this album when I first heard it almost 30 years ago, and it still holds up.
The title track and "Who Says..." are really accessible for casual listeners. "Promental..." is a fantastic slow jam. Its lyrical content, and its overall sound remind me of some of Frank Zappa's humor-laden, socio-political satire slow-jams. "Cholly..." has one of the funkiest bass lines I've ever heard.
Enthusiastic 5 stars.
The Who
4/5
This album rocks with a harder edge than most everything else from 1965. It's their first album, so they're still rough around the edges, but there are glimpses into their great harmony vocals. Sometimes, they sound like they're doing a Beatles tribute ("The Kids are Alright"), sometimes like a hella good blues band (covers of "Please, Please, Please" and "I'm a Man"). "The Ox" is a helluva feature for Moon and Entwistle, despite it basically being a 4 minute guitar solo for Townshend.
4 stars.
Radiohead
3/5
Radiohead is a band that, on paper, is the perfect band for me but in actuality, I've never been able to get into them. Mostly because I'm really not a fan of Thom Yorke's vocals.
"In Rainbows" was surprisingly listenable. At times, Thom Yorke sounded a bit like Bono and at other times he sounded a bit like Jeff Buckley. Both were vast improvements over what he usually sounds like. There was much less sad-sack going on than usual, too. I'll give it 3 stars. i didn't enjoy it enough to recommend to non-fans, but i was surprised how much i did enjoy it.
Skunk Anansie
3/5
Opening track is actually pretty cool. pretty heavy at times. Quite good female lead vocals.
This is a strange album. The first track is pretty straightforward, clean verses, heavy choruses. The second track is bizarre, part rap, part alt-rock, part metal, part electronica. The third track is back to pretty straight forward hard rock.
Apple music says Garbage is a similar artist to Skunk Anansie. I get a bit of Paramore.
I'd give this one 3.5 stars. Not sure I can actually round it up to 4 for the limited whole-star grading on the site, but it was a pleasant surprise.
Cypress Hill
3/5
Some interesting beats/loops. Just not my vibe.
5/5
I can't compete with the humor of other reviews. If you know Ornette Coleman's music and if you know John Zorn's music, you'll have a pretty good idea what you're getting into with this album. The only real difference between what you'd expect and the actuality is that Zorn's usual Carl Stalling-like jump cutting isn't present. Otherwise, it's exactly as you'd expect. It is aggressively chaotic. As one other reviewer said, this is either a 1 or 5. I'd say it depends on my mood. Today, it's a 5.
Dire Straits
3/5
Money for Nothing is still a classic. It's a bit of an outlier, though, in that it's the most energetic song on the album. The whole thing is competent, but most of the album is pretty boring. Mark Knopfler is a great guitarist and he does some interesting stuff, but it's not enough to make me want to listen to this album again. Musicianship: 5, interest: 1.5. Overall: 3 stars.
B.B. King
5/5
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I was aware of B.B. King from his appearances on Carson and in commercials for Burger King and McDonalds. He was Blues Grandpa. The elder statesman of The Blues. By the time I saw him play live in the 90s, he did everything seated in a chair and the audience was polite—quietly listening and clapping the "appropriate" amount between songs—as would befit a trip to the Blues Museum.
What's really interesting about this album is hearing a 40 year-old BB King absolutely killing it and hearing an audience that was as raucous and fervent as teenagers at the height of Beatlemania. This is BB King at the height of his powers. This album is a document of the reason he became the legend he was.
5 stars
Germs
1/5
This has all the awfulness of the Circle Jerks album that came up a few weeks ago, but without the virtue of brevity. 1 star.
Patti Smith
2/5
Reminded me a lot of Lou Reed. Her voice was generally more pleasant to listen to than Lou Reed, but the album was still an unpleasant listen. I'll give it 2 stars since it's better than Lou Reed's "Transformer" that came up a while ago.
The Pharcyde
4/5
That was fun
The Police
5/5
This was the first cassette tape I bought with my own money. I don't think I'd heard anything on it. I was only 10 years old and I think I picked it because of the display at Musicland and the cool cover.
It's an album I have practically memorized. As I got older and more accomplished as a musician, I found more and more to love about this album and found new ways in for the songs that I wasn't really drawn to as a kid. This is one of my all-time favorite albums.
The Police
4/5
This is not a perfect album. They're not quite at their final-form, but they're still writing interesting songs, and they're playing tight as hell. It's a mostly a 3-star album, with two ridiculously strong songs in Message In A Bottle and Walking on the Moon. Bumps it up to 3.5, and I'll go ahead and round up to 4.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
1/5
Take a shoegaze rhythm section and run the whole thing through a fuzz pedal. Then have the lethargic singer half-ass his vocals over the top of it. That's what's going on here. Nothing grabbed me as a listener. 1 star.
Nirvana
1/5
I can't stand Nirvana. This album does nothing to change that. Kurt's guitar is out of tune. Somebody's guitar gets run through overdrive, completely defying the spirit of "unplugged." I'm sure it was all about "they can't tell us what to do!" which completely missed the point of the unplugged exercise, which is to set up a limitation that requires creativity to get around. The best song on here is the Bowie cover, and even that is hard to listen to because of the vocals. 1 star.
Moby Grape
2/5
Hard to find the whole album. Had to use a YouTube playlist of questionable sources. Anyway, it's exactly what you'd expect to hear out of 1967 San Francisco. Some of the guitar work was pretty good, but by and large the album wasn't very interesting. 2 stars.
Elvis Presley
3/5
It's an alright album. I've never been a fan of Elvis. This didn't turn me around. Universally, all of the cover songs on this album are worse than the original versions by the original artists. And this is the problem I have across the board with Elvis' discography: his most popular songs in the early part of his career are mediocre covers of largely black artists.
David Bowie
3/5
It opens with the title track, which is good, but not my favorite of his. the rest of the album is strongly competent music that isn't particularly interesting or memorable. Until the closing track: Fame. That song is one of my favorite Bowie tunes. The cover of Across The Universe is bizarre; not a fan. I love the original. This turns it into a mid-tempo snoozer. 3 stars, just because of Young Americans and Fame.
Röyksopp
4/5
This was mostly a quite enjoyable listen. Some really cool sounds (for the time) and lots of great, chill grooves. The only problem I had with this album is that sometimes I thought I was listening to the Weather Channel's "Weather on the 8s". My son rates it 5 stars. I can't go that high, but I'll give it 4 stars.
D'Angelo
5/5
This is top-tier panty-dropper R&B/Soul. The vocals are amazing, the grooves are filthy and the bass playing elicited a number of stank-face reactions throughout the album. 5 stars.
Elton John
4/5
The album opens with two of his greatest his, and when they're not being overplayed by classic rock radio, I can appreciate how excellent they are. "Razor Face" is mostly dumb, and every time he sings the title it brings to mind the character in Guardians of the Galaxy named Taser Face. The song is almost completely redeemed, however, but they absolute kill accordion solo in the outro. The title track is my all-time favorite Elton John song. The rest of the album is borderline progressive rock. He never gives over fully to it, but he's definitely tapping into the more adventurous prog rock that was in the air at the time. Even if the rest of the album isn't as memorable as Tiny Dancer, Levon, and Madman Across The Water, it's really solid and there's a lot of interesting stuff going on. It's 4 stars for me.
Curtis Mayfield
5/5
So so so so so so good. The sound and feel of this album is both of its time and timeless. 5 stars.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
Structurally interesting, good playing, but the production was ear-fatiguing. If I'm in the right mood, I can see enjoying this album more than I did on this listen, so I'll settle on 3 stars.
The Teardrop Explodes
3/5
Better than I expected, but still not terribly interesting. 3 stars.
Johnny Cash
3/5
I'm generally not a fan of Johnny Cash's music. This isn't necessarily a huge departure on that front. "Hurt" is the standout. Most of the rest of the covers are just OK. 3 stars.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
The gold standard for the 60s Folk Revival. The arrangements are brilliant. The vocal harmonies are incredible. And a surprising amount of diversity throughout the album. The closing track, with its juxtaposition of a beautiful arrangement of Silent Night and a newscaster reading increasingly horrific headlines (hard-panned left and right, respectively) probably got them an FBI file. 5 stars.
Cat Stevens
3/5
Cat Stevens doesn't do much for me, but it is very competent. 3 stars.
T. Rex
2/5
Not bad, but not great. Bang a Gong (Get It On) is definitely the highlight of the album, the rest of it is not terribly interesting. 2.25 stars. I'll round down to 2.
Love
4/5
Opening track has a dark Spanish, Flamenco-like chord progression (without the aggression of Flamenco) that's pretty cool.
3rd track wasn't great, but 4th track is back to being interesting
Strong cognitive dissonance between the music and the lyrics of "Live and Let Live". Red Telephone was an odd one with the weird voice-over stuff. The end of "Good Humor..." is a trip. Can't tell if it's artifacts from a messed-up digitization or if it originally ended with the splice-edit loops like that. "Bummer In the Summer" has some really interesting things going on in the rhythm section
I can see why these guys didn't hit it as big as The Byrds or The Doors, but this is actually a damn cool album for the most part. This is like a hippie album made by disillusioned hippies--darker.
The occasional strings and trumpet arrangements are probably the least interesting aspect of this album. they really anchor it to the standard fare for the time, while so much of the rest of it is a darker take on the genre. And yet, here comes Mantovani to bring up the lights and make everything a little sunnier.
Not sure how often I'll ever listen to this one in the future, but it was a surprisingly interesting album. 4 stars.
Randy Newman
1/5
The only listenable Randy Newman is Will Sasso's parody of Randy Newman. Would give 0 stars if I could. 1 star.
Nas
4/5
Not my thing, but the beats are great and Nas' flow is great. By the time this album was released, I was no longer a hip hop head and I was pretty detached from popular music. I mention that to make clear that I have no sense of how this album fits in the progression of hip hop. Regardless, the groove is deep enough throughout this album that it kept my head bobbing through the whole listen. I'll go 4 stars on it.
Radiohead
3/5
As with most Radiohead music, I like pretty much everything except the vocals. 3 stars (4 stars, minus one for the vocals)
Moby
3/5
Better than I expected. The samples of old blues records helps, and generally the arrangements are strong. Biggest complaint I had was that the samples of the old blues songs only took one phrase and there wasn’t any harmonic motion (stayed on I, never going to the IV or V) which can be a tough pill swallow when hearing old blues.
Traffic
3/5
Pretty standard fare for British Blues Rock in 1968. “Feeling Alright” is great. The rest of the album ranges from OK to good. 3 stars.
The Avalanches
3/5
Bizarre, but in a fun way.
Miles Davis
4/5
Just Miles inventing a subgenre of Jazz. Not my favorite Miles, it’s still great. 4 stars.
The Killers
3/5
Better than expected. Better than average. A good solid 3 star album.
Eminem
4/5
Eminem's flow is great. Really interesting rhythmic stuff going on against static (albeit pretty cool) beats. Not one that I'll go back to often, but it's really good. 4 stars.
Sonic Youth
3/5
Some really interesting sounds, but the vocals take me out of it. 3 stars.
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
5/5
Wow. This album is incredible. The beats and samples are amazing. The lyrics are important, deep, and dark, and angry. This is the spiritual ancestor to Rage Against The Machine. The worst thing about this album is that it is still relevant 32 years after its initial release. 5 stars.
Willie Nelson
3/5
I get why people love Willie Nelson. It's certainly a better listen than modern bro country, but still not my thing. 3 stars.
The Velvet Underground
1/5
Not a fan. Nothing here for me. I disliked it less than the Lou Reed solo album that was served up to me a while back, but that's just because he doesn't sing every song on this album. 1 star.
The Go-Go's
4/5
This album is a fun listen. Elements of West Coast Punk, but pop-ier. Belinda Carlisle sounds great, even when she's doing the punk "lazy vocals" thing. Lots of interesting stuff going on with the instrumental parts, too. Much better than I anticipated.
Fairport Convention
5/5
This album is awesome. Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson are British Folk/Folk-Rock legends for a reason. My Celtic Folk band used to perform Matty Groves. It's great to hear a more rock-oriented version (with a guitar solo!) that uses the darker version of the lyrics. The rockin' Irish fiddle tune set in the middle of the album is fantastic. 5 stars.
New Order
2/5
Competent, but doesn't do anything for me. 2 stars.
Pavement
1/5
The vocals are lazy and out of tune. The guitars are out of tune. The arrangements are uninteresting. 1 star.
Joan Armatrading
5/5
First time encountering her. What a great voice! Love hearing an alto instead of the usual sopranos. The album starts very strong, like solid 4 stars territory. And then track 4 hits (Love and Affection) and from that point on, everything is 4.5-5 stars. Overall, this album is so damn good that it's an enthusiastic 5 stars. There are some sick, filthy grooves on this album. A lot of the acoustic guitar work is out of this world great. I'm going to come back to this album frequently.
Queen
4/5
Side A (Side White) is pretty uneven. Definitely over-the-top with the vocal and guitar overdubs. The sword-and-sorcery prog lyrics don't help matters. Strangely, the highlight of that side is the one song where Freddy doesn't sing lead, "The Loser In The End." That song actually sounds more like something you'd hear from The Who than Queen.
Side B (Side Black) is where the album really solidifies things. Everything that rocks, rocks heavier. Everything that is supposed to be more lyrical and sweet, is more skillfully lyrical and delicate.
The biggest knock on this album, beyond the unevenness of Side White is the ridiculous dorkiness of the lyrics. But, thinking about this album in context of their overall output, the lyrics are no worse than what we get on the Flash Gordon soundtrack. The Flash Gordon soundtrack has the benefit of the ridiculously campy movie to take the heat for the lyrical content of the songs.
Side White is probably 3 stars. Side Black is 4.5 stars. That averages out to 3.75, which I'll round up to 4 stars.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
5/5
Another album I've listened to dozens upon dozens of times. The two tracks pretty much everyone knows are absolutely stellar, of course (Take Five and Blue Rondo A La Turk). But even the lesser known tunes on here are great. Strange Meadowlark has a great rubato piano intro; Three To Get Ready plays more with time (alternating between 6/8 and 4/4); Kathy's Waltz spends the first quarter of its run time in 4/4 and doesn't actually get to actually being a waltz in 3/4 until the first solo. I love the hell out of every second of this album. 5 stars.
Leftfield
3/5
Some interesting sounds and the arrangements are varied and interesting, but there is too much 4-on-the-floor and "boots-n-pants-boots-n-pants" beats. 3 stars.
Syd Barrett
1/5
This was a rough listen. Nothing here that I'd want to hear again. 1 star.
Run-D.M.C.
5/5
I wore out this cassette back in the day. I was a huge Run-DMC fan through this album. The year after this album came out, I began my love affair with hard rock and metal, but I have no doubt that Run-DMC was at least partially responsible for my ears to be ready for the harder sounds. I never lost my love for Run-DMC.
Revisiting this album after all these years was pure joy. The back and forth rapping, with their trademark punctuations they each provide to the other's lines. The beats/DJ-ing by Jammaster Jay.
5 stars.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Michael Kiwanuka
4/5
This was a pleasant surprise. I'd never heard of this guy and this album was fantastic.
Various Artists
3/5
I'm not a fan of Christmas music or Christmas albums. There are some classics on here, so it moves itself up from the 1 star I would normally give most Christmas albums. 3 stars.
CHIC
4/5
Classic grooves. Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards absolutely kill.
DJ Shadow
4/5
Interesting stuff. Fun to listen to.
Jerry Lee Lewis
4/5
Jerry Lee Lewis was a garbage human being. That said, this is a helluva live album. The biggest knock against it is that he keeps getting ahead of his band and that a good chunk of the album is made up of covers.
Randy Newman
1/5
I can’t stand Randy Newman. 1 star
The Residents
1/5
I can't get into this at all. I like weird music, but this kind of weirdness doesn't work for me. 1 star.
Coldcut
3/5
This was another pleasant surprise. Especially when listened to immediately after The Residents (yesterday's album). I can't go all the way to 4 stars on it, but it's a 3-and-change star album.
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
This is a really good album. Highlights are Scenario and Ron Carter's guesting on Verses from the Abstract. 4 stars.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
Better than I expected. Never been a huge fan of CCR, but this is pretty solid throughout. Didn't care much for the covers, especially Ooby Dooby. Who'll Stop the Rain is a fantastic song. The opener levels up when the tempo slows. Overall, it's probably 3.5 or maybe 3.75 stars. I'll round up to 4.
The Undertones
1/5
This did nothing to change my opinion of late-70s British punk. Not a fan. Nothing here for me. 1 star.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
This album is phenomenal. The music, the flow. Lyrically, it doesn't resonate with me, but I'm not the target audience. While I don't listen to hip-hop very often, this is definitely one I would reach for again. 5 stars.
Gene Clark
1/5
This is competent but bland and boring. Which would have gotten it 2 stars, until the absolutely horrible cover of Stand By Me. That took it down to 1 star.
Iron Maiden
4/5
Easily one of the best debut albums I've ever heard. The songs are really damn good. I first heard Iron Maiden when Bruce Dickinson was their singer and I can't help but hear where Bruce would have been better on pretty much all of these songs. That being said, Paul Di'Anno was good enough to make this a great record. The only real let down on the album is the ballad Strange World. His voice doesn't carry the ballad very well.
4 stars
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
4/5
When it comes to CSN (and sometimes Y), the vocal harmonies are the draw. This album doesn't disappoint on that front. The classic rock radio hits are almost all here. The deep-cut highlights are "Helpless", "Déjà vu", and "Country Girl". I'm not a big fan of Neil Young's voice, so I would have preferred Helpless and Country Girl had different lead singers, but even still, they're great songs.
4 stars
The Boo Radleys
3/5
This album is all over the place. Highlight for me was Thinking of Ways. 3 stars.
Bob Dylan
3/5
This album is frustrating. The opening track, the music is cool as hell and then Bob Dylan starts "singing" with a Tom Waits on helium gravel. This
repeats throughout the album. Bob Dylan's voice ruins it for me. The strength of the songs and the performance of the band puts this at 4 stars. Bob Dylan's voice is 1 star. 2.5 stars.
Django Django
4/5
This album got better as it went on. The mix of Beach Boys-like melodies and harmonies combined with the electro-pop rhythm section hit me just right on this listen. It strikes me as something that I wouldn't be able to pick up on any given day, but it's really well-crafted. 4 stars.
The Temptations
5/5
Fantastic album. Funk/soul grooves that prepare the way for Papa Was A Rolling Stone a few years later. They still have one foot (each, so 5 feet) in their Motown sound as well, so some of the songs are a blend of the Motown pop over their new funk/soul rhythm section sound. I think I have to go 5 stars on this one.
Guns N' Roses
3/5
Even back when this album came out, I wasn't a fan. The hits are far more fun to play than to listen to, and the deep cuts don't do much for me.
Spiritualized
4/5
I can't say why, but this album hit me just right. There aren't really any memorable melodies that stuck out, but it was an excellent laid-back listen. I'd listen to this again. 3.5 stars.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
I'm not sure what it says about me that I love this album as much as I do. I've owned this album for years and occasionally dig it out (or up on a streaming service). This album is so very dark. It's pitch black. His treatments of the traditional murder ballads are cool as hell, and most of the originals work well alongside the traditionals. The optimistic cover of the Dylan tune at the end is a fun coda to the album, given the subect matter of the rest of the album. Can't give it 5 stars because O'Malley's Bar is too damn long. 4 stars.
Pere Ubu
2/5
The vocals are like David Byrne at his most manic and constantly at the top of his range. The rest of the band is doing some interesting, if noisy, stuff. Too bad the vocals make this so painful to listen to. I'll go 2 stars because the band is doing interesting stuff.
Coldplay
3/5
It's fine, but nothing really grabbed my attention—good or bad.
Steely Dan
2/5
A couple good songs, but not even close to their best stuff.
The Streets
4/5
Interesting beats/loops. Actual rap seems very conversational and free. Interesting stuff. 4 stars for the creativity, even though I probably won't come back to this one.
JAY Z
2/5
Some interesting beats/loops, but this album doesn't do much for me. 2 stars.
Sonic Youth
2/5
While I enjoy the chaotic sounds they wring out of the guitars, the chaos is practically unceasing. The lack of contrast makes it an exhausting listen. The vocals are terrible. An exhausting listen can be rewarding, but this isn't. 2 stars
Queen
4/5
This album is pretty campy. Lazing On a Sunday Afternoon is like Queen doing one of Paul McCartney's throwback vaudeville songs with over-the-top harmonies and Freddy doing a carnival barker voice (or maybe early radio show voice). And it leads directly into the song that spawned a questionable French movie ~45 years later: I'm In Love With My Car.
'39 is a pretty cool, folky tune. Seaside Rendezvous is another tune on here that is quasi ragtime/vaudeville that's been Queened-up. It's pretty damn ridiculous, but I'm a sucker for all the vocal harmonies and all of the harmonized guitar lines. I mean, it's like "Bicyle Race" is a ridiculous and silly and stupid song, but there's so much cool guitar and vocal harmony stuff going on, that it's possible to overlook even the stupid bicycle bell thing before the guitar solo. But I digress. It's not a song I'd listen to often, but really paying attention to what's going on, it's very impressive and cool as hell, but it's all couched in a campy vaudeville/cabaret act.
I don't think this is intended as a "concept album", but the collection of songs really runs the gamut of theatricality, and within that context, the few vaudeville/cabaret songs work.
Even if all of the songs on here that aren't "Bohemian Rhapsody" absolutely sucked ass (they don't), this album would still get no lower than 3 stars. I can't go 5 stars on it, but as a whole, it's good enough for 4 stars.
The Cure
2/5
I didn’t hate it like I did back when it came out, but I still didn’t enjoy it. 2 stars.
Al Green
4/5
The OG panty-dropper artist. This is damn sexy soul music. 4 stars.
Slipknot
3/5
Better than expected. Good grooves and riffs. 3 stars.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
The performances and arrangements are top-notch. His voice is not my favorite and the style doesn't do much for me. I'll go 3 stars because that band is really, really good.
Common
4/5
This is a fantastic album. The production by Kanye and J Dilla is amazing. Common's flow is less fluid and more metric than someone like Kendrick Lamar, but still freer than the sometimes sing-song-y feel of old-school rap.
It's definitely smoother and less aggressive or angry than KL, which may be too "Starbucks Presents...Now This is Hip Hop!" for some. But it feels to me more a matter of maturity. The grown man doesn't (shouldn't) have the same problems and perspectives as the 19 yr old angry young man. I get it. I feel the same way about bands like Metallica who lost their edge as they matured. Sometimes it's better to come across the more mature version of the artist before the young and hungry versions. anyway...
There's a depth to his lyrics that would reward repeat listens. Helluva storyteller. Testify might be one of my favorite tracks on the album, though the twist in the final verse is a bit too abrupt.
I can't go 5 stars because it's not perfect, but this is an easy 4 stars for me.
Supertramp
3/5
Progressive, but in their own way. I want to like this more than I actually do. Bloody Well Right is simultaneously really great and somewhat annoying. Dreamer is just plain annoying. 3 stars.
Hüsker Dü
2/5
Highlight of this album for me was "She Floated Away," which sounded a bit like an Irish folk tune. Still, there are far better celtic-punk bands to listen to for that sort of thing (The Pogues, Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly). The production is fatiguing for the ears. The guitars are so top-heavy that they mask a lot of the vocals as well as cymbals.
The melodies are more pop-oriented than I expected, like a spritual precursor to the pop-punk of Green Day.
Overall, I did not enjoy this album, though it wasn't horrible. 2 stars.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
As I sit listening to this album, we're getting blanketed with the first significant snowfall of the winter and air temperatures have dropped to single digits (F). This album is the perfect antidote. Beyond just transporting the listener to somewhere much warmer, the rhythm section here is sick. This is peak Bob Marley. "No Woman, No Cry" is the song everyone knows from this album, and rightly so--it's a beautiful song, but this whole album is the epitome of reggae. 5 enthusiastic stars.
Wire
2/5
Still not a fan of punk. This doesn't do anything for me. The biggest virtue of these songs is their brevity. I can imagine someone who enjoys punk would really like this album, but that someone isn't me. 2 stars.
5/5
Going into this album, I knew only 4 songs by War. The opening track here was one of them. And it's a song that has often annoyed me. But giving it a closer listen today, I heard so much more than I ever had before. It was still my least favorite track on the album, but I gained a far greater appreciation for it. As for the rest of the album, it's downright phenomenal. The slow jams, the lead vocals here and there, the harmony vocals, the rhythm section, the latin-infused funk grooves. The album just kept getting better and better. Easy 5 stars.
Pixies
2/5
Very much not my thing. Can definitely hear how it could have influenced Nirvana's Nevermind, though.
The Divine Comedy
3/5
There's a lot to like about this album. The overall sound is refreshing. Like progressive crooner. This might have have been 4 stars if so many of the lyrics weren't so ridiculous. 3 stars.
Teenage Fanclub
3/5
It was fine. Not my thing.
Burning Spear
5/5
Everything you want out of Reggae and more. I'd really only ever heard the Marleys' Reggae before this. This album is much more direct in it political messages than Bob Marley's. It's a lot harder to gloss over the political messaging when it's not couched in the somewhat thinly-veiled metaphors Bob Marley tended to use. Listeners who don't want any politics in their music would be best served to stay away. Which would be a shame, because musically and lyrically, this album is brilliant. Maybe listening to this in Iowa during a week-long bout of sub-zero temperatures colors my opinion a bit, but I loved this album. 5 stars.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
3/5
I liked this album better than I expected, since I'm not a huge fan of theirs in general. Their vocal harmonies are the highlight. 3 stars.
Booker T. & The MG's
5/5
The very definition of the Stax sound. The laid-back R&B/Soul grooves. Everyone knows the title track. Loved this album.
The Byrds
3/5
I've always liked their vocal harmonies and it's interesting to hear so much 12-string guitar everywhere. The psychedelic elements are pretty cool for their time, even if they do sound quaint by today's standards. Their cover of Dylan's "My Back Pages" is yet another example of a cover that's better than the original. This is probably a 3.5 star album. It's not a 4 star album, so I'll have to round down to 3 stars.
3/5
This is pure, distilled 1980's synth pop. There are occasional, almost progressive moments that elevate it from just middle-of-the-road 2.5 stars to just over 3 stars.
King Crimson
5/5
One of my favorite King Crimson albums across all their various lineups. Both parts of the title track presage Prog Metal. When the band first bursts in, the riff is reminiscent of Black Sabbath, but it gives way to Robert Fripp's signature angular cross-picking moto perpetuo. This is an early incarnation of it, later perfected and further honed for the next 50(!) years.
Bill Bruford is fresh off leaving Yes after recording Close To The Edge. He was already one of the best drummers in the rock world (progressive or otherwise), and King Crimson afforded him the space and the push to somehow improve. His drumming throughout this album is unmatched.
John Wetton is a perfect vocalist and bassist for this KC era. There are similarities to Greg Lake's voice, so he bridges a bit of the past with the future of the band. His voice is strong with good depth. His bass playing is a wonderful complement to both Fripp's guitar work and Bruford's drumming.
David Cross adds interesting layers of violin, viola, and flute. His contributions really set this and the follow-up (Starless and Bible Black) apart from the rest of the King Crimson catalog.
Jamie Muir adds percussion chaos.
Book of Saturday and Exiles are beautiful, if dark, songs. Easy Money is playful (and dark). The Talking Drum is one long crescendo whose payoff is the crushing pt.2 of the title track.
For 1973, this album is insane. Some of the best progressive metal since could not exist without this album.
This album won't be for everyone. And I don't mean that in a snotty/snobby way. There's a good deal of improvisation, but not in the usual structured manner that most rock and jazz fans may be accustomed to, and that can turn some listeners off. Like most progressive rock from that era, solid arguments could be made for tightening up the arrangements and cutting run times, particularly if the improvisations aren't your thing, or the general repetition of riffs/vamps is tedious for you. Me? I love every bit of it. 5 stars.
5 stars.
Neil Young
4/5
This would be a 5 star album if it wasn't for Neil Young's cartoonish voice. It's hard to believe that's someone's real voice. Beyond that, the songwriting is great and the performances (with the exception of the aforementioned vocals) are fantastic. 4 stars
Jeff Buckley
5/5
This is an extraordinary album. I've never encountered another album that sounds anything like this. Jeff Buckley has such control over his voice that even when it sounds like he's going to completely lose control of it and it'll turn into a some sort of off-pitch screech, he sticks the landing perfectly. Everyone knows his cover of a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." That isn't even close to being the best song on the album. I'd probably put "So Real" or "Eternal Life" at the top of the heap. But then there's the really risky performance of Benjamin Britten's "Corpus Christi Carol." 5 stars. I would give more if I could.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
What a classic. Important lyrics that touched on real problems that are all too relevant even today. Beautiful grooves. James Jamerson's bass on this album is a masterclass. And Marvin Gaye's voice is amazing.
Paul Revere & The Raiders
4/5
This is actually pretty good. It definitely feels like the inspiration for Ming Tea's stuff in the Austin Powers movies. It's pretty loose and maybe borderline campy at times. It's a lot better than I expected. I'd give this a solid 3.5 stars, and I'm fine rounding up to 4 here.
Dire Straits
2/5
This album feels like an EP, but with a bunch of undercooked filler to make a full album. Which isn’t to say everything in the non-filler is good. They just sound finished.
Bad track sequencing, too. The track sequencing is completely flipped from where it should be. Everything from Southbound Again to the end should have been side A, and the rest of it on side B. Except keep Sultans Of Swing as the side B opener.
2 stars, and that's only because Sultans Of Swing is a well-done tune that I've come to appreciate when I'm not hearing it 5 times a day on classic-rock radio.
Nick Drake
5/5
I was in the absolute worst possible mood for this album to pop up. I'd heard of Nick Drake, but never (knowingly) listened to him. Turns out, I'd heard the title track in a VW commercial back in 1999.
Anyway, given my mood, and the blurb about the album in Apple Music, I was prepared to have an awful time of it. But dammit if this album didn't win me over. And keep winning me over for its entire 28 minutes.
5 stars.
Nick Drake
2/5
This is the second Nick Drake album in a row served up by the site. My experience listening to this was quite different from my experience with "Pink Moon."
This is over-produced; over-orchestrated; and largely cheesy arrangements. The intimacy of the sparse instrumentation was a major feature of Pink Moon. This is cluttered. I would really like to hear this album with just his guitar and voice; maybe occasional drums and bass.
2 stars
Neu!
2/5
This was an uninteresting listen. This album couldn't quite figure out what it wanted to be. There are some artists who can put together an album of disparate styles and make it work. Someone like David Torn can mix ambient music with harder, more aggressive styles and maintain cohesiveness both within single tracks as well as across an entire album. This album doesn't manage it. The ambient-ish tracks were boring. I love ambient music, but this stuff was bland. The dip into a sort of proto-punk was bad and very much out of place. 2 stars.
Dirty Projectors
4/5
This album is bonkers. On a different day I might hate this album, but today it's hitting me just right. It's avant-indie-prog-pop-rock. There's some cool acoustic guitar work, especially in the early parts of the album. There are times where the electric guitars sound like a musique concrete collage of Steve Howe guitar parts. There are crazy vocal harmonies all over the place that, along with the angularity of some of the melodies and grooves, bring to mind a recontextualized Gentle Giant. Overall, the album felt like a less spastic and more pop-y The Mars Volta. 4 stars.
Fairport Convention
3/5
There's some fantastic music on this album, but there's also a good deal that doesn't do much for me. I do wish it leaned more heavily on British traditional folk music as its source. I don't like this album nearly as much as Liege and Lief. 3 stars.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
I love the vibe of this album. I love her voice. The songs are great. 4 stars.
The Cars
4/5
The first 3 tracks are all classics. An incredibly strong opening for a band's debut. There's another run of 3 classics later in the album. 6 of the 9 tracks are certified Best Of material which is quite impressive given the career they ended up having. 4 stars.
The Slits
4/5
The grooves are all reggae-influenced. I suppose this might be pre-horns ska? It's actually a fun listen because of the grooves.
I can't say I loved this album enough to give it 4 stars outright, but it was definitely the most listenable of the punk albums we've had so far. I could go 3.5 stars and round up to 4 for the site.
Sade
4/5
Eric Clapton
3/5
Amy Winehouse
4/5
Great album. Doesn't have the influence of Mark Ronson yet, so it's more straight-forward. Definitely helped spark the surge in retro-Soul.
Bob Dylan
1/5
I just can't listen to Bob Dylan's voice. It drives me crazy. I can't get past it to listen to the content of the lyrics. I'm always grateful when someone else covers a Bob Dylan song so I can hear the quality of the song rather than the abomination that is his vocal delivery.
Metallica
5/5
The only flaw in this album is the production. Lars' drums sound like crap. The guitars have too much low-end and the bass is mixed so low as to be non-existent. Otherwise, musically and lyrically, it is a thrash masterpiece.
When it was released, it was my favorite Metallica album. Over the years, Master of Puppets has overtaken it. Still, this is an easy 5 stars for me.
Q-Tip
4/5
I really like the sound of this album. The collaborations are fantastic. The beats are next level. I've said before that I tend not to pay attention to lyrics, and that pretty much held here. The vocals had a cool flow, but beyond that I didn't notice much about them. 4 stars.
The Zombies
4/5
As 60s psychedelia goes, this is quite good. There's a classical, maybe even baroque, underpinning to a lot of the harmonic progressions. The vocals are strong and all the performances are solid. This might be a 3.5 star album, but it does have one of the greatest songs from that era on it: Time Of The Season. That song bumps it up to 4 stars.
Depeche Mode
3/5
This album was more enjoyable than I expected. The highlight for me was Plimpf (the closer). It was absolutely crazy in the best ways. I'd say this is a 3.5 star album, but I can't round up for the site. I can't go to 4 stars.
Peter Gabriel
5/5
This album has some of the best bass lines in all of popular music. Tony Levin is an absolute genius. The players on this album are numerous. Often supplementing his core band with someone who brings a special spice where it's needed. For example, the opening track "Red Rain" features Stewart Copeland just playing hi-hat.
2/3 of the album are Greatest Hits entries, and the remaining 3 tracks are great, even if they're too experimental for general consumption.
This is an easy 5 star album.
Louis Prima
4/5
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
Vocals are the weak link here. When he tries to do anything melodic, the melodies aren't interesting at all. The band is fire, but a whole album of it gets tiresome. 3 stars.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
I don't know how to review this album. The band is fantastic, especially the bass player. This 1950s Rock'n'Roll through a late-70s/early-80s filter largely works from the standpoint of the instruments. For the most part, I'm not a fan of the vocals. They sound more like he's putting on a character than just singing. "Pump It Up" is the highlight. 3 stars
ZZ Top
4/5
This is a near perfect album. Pre-MTV ZZ Top is amazing Texas Blues. 4 stars.
OutKast
3/5
A number of fantastic grooves on this album. Disc 1 was a better listen than disc 2. The album is way too long. 3 stars.
Antony and the Johnsons
3/5
The singer's rapid-fire vibrato is off-putting. Otherwise, this is a pretty good collection of stripped-down arrangements of darkly dramatic songs. 3 stars.
The Flaming Lips
2/5
Yoshimi (reviewed a while back) hits me in the right spot (as long as I'm in the mood for it. This album didn't do it for me. 2 stars.
Steve Earle
3/5
Country is one genre that I have a really hard time getting into. I can't really evaluate this album's import within the genre. The performances are all noteworthy, even if I don't like the style. I don't think I'll listen to this album again, but I can't deny that it's well-crafted and well-performed. 3 stars.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Never been a fan of The Rolling Stones. Paint It Black and Wild Horses are just about the only songs of theirs I can stand. There's no denying this is a classic album, but it's really not for me. 3 stars.
Dolly Parton
3/5
Country isn't a genre I enjoy. That being said, Dolly gets extra grace due to her legendary status and the amount of respect I have for her as a human.
Her voice is crystal clear. It's interesting to hear her turn on and off her vibrato which can seem a bit frantic at times. It's particularly interesting to hear the blend of her straight tone and vibrato when she overdubs harmony vocals.
By and large, the songs are good. As an early-70s album, it lacks many of the things that are grating about modern country. Even the cross-over songs here are more bearable because they sound like early-70s light rock.
It's a solid 3 stars for me.
Metallica
5/5
Possibly the greatest metal album of all time. Slightly edges out ..And Justice For All, if only because the production here is far-and-away better than the production of AJFA. Even with its EQ quirks here and there. This is Metallica at their peak strength. This is a perfect album. 5 stars.
Deep Purple
5/5
If you like Deep Purple, you'll love this album. This is Deep Purple at their peak and doing it live. The songs are classics and the performances are amazing. This really is a perfect live album.5 stars.
Ozomatli
4/5
This is a fun album. Good mix of Latin, Funk, Hip-Hop, and (to a lesser extent) Rock genres. 4 stars.
James Brown
5/5
Damn. The only knock against this album is having to listen to the recording instead of actually being there. Oh, and maybe that it's not a triple album. Damn. Peak James Brown in his element -- live. The band is on fire. The rhythm section is tight except when a looseness is required, then they're as loose as they need to be and no more. 5 stars.
Beatles
5/5
If you go for a long stretch without listening to The Beatles, it's easy to forget just how brilliant they were. I mean, you don't really forget, but it's more a conceptual idea of their brilliance. Then when you listen to a whole album like Rubber Soul, the concrete reality of it slaps you in the face.
There's such a wide variety of music on this album. There's an overarching humor to a lot of the album. You can tell they're having fun while writing some of the best pop and rock-n-roll ever to be pressed to vinyl.
Even if this whole album wasn't a joy to listen to (it is), the bass playing is worthy of 5 stars all by itself. Overall: 5 stars.
Morrissey
2/5
Despite a strong start, it quickly regresses to where I expected it to be. 2 stars
Pink Floyd
5/5
I'm not a big fan of Pink Floyd. I often don't get the hype. This is, however, a stellar album from start to finish. 5 stars.
Dizzee Rascal
3/5
This seems like middle-of-the-road hip-hop. Some of the beats/loops are pretty interesting, but overall there was nothing that really did much for me. 2.5 stars.
R.E.M.
2/5
Again, the only thing keeping this from being 1 star for me is Peter Buck's guitar work. 2 stars.
5/5
Another album I have memorized. Brilliant. Quirky. Stylistically diverse. One of the most important albums in the history of popular music. Even the silly songs are great. 5 stars.
1/5
The only thing interesting about this album is the guitar playing. Outside of that, it's a steaming pile of the stuff that comes out of the titular "chocolate starfish." 1 star.
Fugees
4/5
Fantastic blend of RnB and HipHop. Lauren Hill's voice is magical. 4 stars.
Iron Butterfly
3/5
The Pogues
4/5
20+ years ago, I joined a Celtic Folk band that modeled itself more after The Pogues than The Clancy Brothers. Even though I'd never actually sat and listened to The Pogues before this (I've heard bits and pieces over the years), the sound was immediately recognizable and, in its way, comforting. The most well-known song on here is probably my least favorite, at least for the first half of the song (Fairytale of New York). 4 stars.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
Amazing album. Damn sexy throughout. The Funk Brothers absolutely kill it on this album. 5 stars.
Cheap Trick
3/5
It's a good live album. I run hot and cold with Cheap Trick. There are a few songs on here that I enjoy occasionally if I'm in the right mood (Surrender, I Want You To Want Me, Hello There/Goodnight) but the rest of the album is just alright. 3 stars.
KISS
2/5
The only songs on here that aren't terrible are the 3 songs that show up on a Kiss Greatest Hits: Detroit Rock City, Shout It Out Loud, and Beth. Detroit Rock City has a "night drive" vibe (even if you ignore the car noises). Despite being overplayed, it's actually a pretty cool song. Shout It Out Loud is better than average, as is Beth, though night is great. 2 stars.
Cowboy Junkies
4/5
This album surprised me. Opening the album with an acapella solo is a bold move. It sets the right tone, though. It pulled me in. The rest of the album is a great mix of laid-back blues, country or americana. I quite enjoyed it. 4 stars.
Talking Heads
2/5
The rhythm section is on fire and doing lots of really interesting things. The songs themselves are largely unmemorable. Really the only exception is Psycho Killer, which is the only song most everyone knows from this album. Going with 2 stars. Would be 1 star, but the rhythm section had some really cool things going, so I'm giving them an extra star.
Cocteau Twins
2/5
Sounded like happy 80s goth. Some of the sounds were interesting, but it mostly bored me. 2 stars.
John Prine
3/5
Not my thing, but the songwriting is definitely very strong. Songwriting is a 4, but the style is a 2, so I'll split the difference and go with 3 stars.
The Smiths
1/5
Nothing for me to hold onto for enjoyment here. 1 star.
Belle & Sebastian
2/5
Not feeling it at all. Somewhat updated 60s brit-pop. Singer is a bit too twee for my taste. 2 stars.
Iggy Pop
2/5
Not terrible, but I just can't get into it. 2 stars.
Jorge Ben Jor
5/5
This album is killer. Mix of Brazilian Samba and African Funk. The grooves are infectious. Loved every second of this album. Added bonus, hearing an actual cuíca (as opposed to the one or two samples we hear in modern music). 5 stars.
Tears For Fears
5/5
There's a progressive rock underpinning to this album. There are elements of early, solo Peter Gabriel, Discipline-era King Crimson even as they aren't in-your-face about it. The song "I Believe" really hints at the David Sylvian album "Secrets of the Beehive". The hits on this album are iconic. But they're also some of the most intricate pop songs of any era. There is much to discover with each listen. The deep tracks are fantastic as well.
I had this cassette back when it first came out as a pre-teen. Bought it for the hits and kept listening because everything on it was unlike pretty much anything else I'd heard at the time.
Beyond the nostalgia, though, this is amazing music. 5 stars.
Van Morrison
3/5
The band is killin', but the songs don't do much for me. It captures the energy of the live performance quite well. 3 stars to average out the quality of performance with the uninteresting songs.
The Go-Betweens
1/5
Late-80s indie/alt still does nothing for me. A lot of this reminded me of The Cure, but with occasional shitty harmonica. On the list of things I don't like about The Cure (and similar bands), lack of shitty harmonica does not appear. In fact, retroactively, the lack of shitty harmonica in The Cure's music levels it up a bit for me. I was at 2 stars until I remembered the shitty harmonica. That drags it down to 1 star for me.
The Verve
3/5
Opening track is definitely the highlight. Otherwise, it's pretty much middle-of-the-road rock that's been drenched in reverb. It's a solid 2.5 stars, so I guess rounded to 3 stars.
Jimmy Smith
5/5
Fantastic 60s organ jazz. Only complaint about this album is its brevity. 5 stars.
Parliament
5/5
The grooves. The fun. Absolute joy to listen to. 5 stars.
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
I love to hate Fleetwood Mac. But this album is really, really good. So many deserving hits, and deep cuts like "Oh Daddy" are even better than 90% of the hits. And even in my most Fleetwood Mac-hating moods, I love "The Chain." 4 stars.
Depeche Mode
1/5
Nothing for me here. 1 star.
The Clash
2/5
Still not a punk fan. There's a surprising diversity of styles on this album, though. 2 stars.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
John Martyn
4/5
Really enjoyed this. Funky. Bluesy. Fusion-y. Ambient. 4 stars.
The Kinks
3/5
Ambitious with hints of the quirky and cheeky side of The Beatles. Even still, they don't quite pull it off. 3 stars
Fever Ray
4/5
Interesting stuff. Reminds me a bit of Bjork, but much more laid back and ambient. There's enough going on, I think, to reward multiple listens. 4 stars.
The Doors
2/5
This album has its moments, but I've never been a fan of The Doors. 2 stars.
Keith Jarrett
5/5
Incredible document of an astounding talent in his element. 5 stars
2Pac
2/5
Decent grooves and beats, but nothing really kept me interested.
Beatles
3/5
This album is way too uneven. There are some absolutely brilliant songs on here, but there's a lot of trash as well, with some just-OK stuff peppered throughout. Take the best of these songs and you get a densely packed, 5-star, single album. Taken as it is, though, it's just a mess that averages out to 3 stars.
Brian Wilson
4/5
I wasn't in the right mood for this album when it came into the rotation. This is like what I imagine listening to Pet Sounds while on an LSD trip would sound like. There are a lot of really interesting sounds and moments on this album. I'm going with 4 stars because if I'd been in a better headspace for it, I would have absolutely loved this album.
Deep Purple
5/5
This album is the prototype of so much of the hard rock and heavy metal to come. For some, that is damning it to 1-star territory while for others that's an automatic 5-star rating. For yet others, the mere presence of Smoke On The Water is enough to damn it to 1-star territory.
So many budding guitarists learn the opening riff of Smoke On The Water without even knowing the song its from. And they usually learn the wrong way to play it. It is one of the earliest guitar-centric memes. If you can get past the ubiquity of that song and listen to it as if you haven't already heard it 3000 times, it really is a fantastic rock song.
To me, one of the most interesting aspects of this album, and indeed this era of Deep Purple, is that the heaviness comes more from Jon Lord's organ than from Richie Blackmore's guitar. Compared to the overdrive on the Hammond organ, Blackmore's guitar tone is practically clean.
This album's mix of classical/baroque, blues, and the burgeoning hard rock sound is damn near perfect. 5 stars.
Miles Davis
5/5
One of the greatest albums in the history of Jazz. This is a perfect album. Only someone who dislikes Jazz or who thinks Bebop is the only true Jazz could dislike this album. 5 stars.
Sigur Rós
4/5
Ambient post-rock. Some of the vocals veered toward Thom Yorke territory which kept this album from being rated higher.
The Soft Boys
2/5
Bizarre mix of Punk, New Wave, and 60s Psychedelia. Had its moments, but they were few and far between. 2 stars.
Big Star
4/5
Beatles
5/5
The hype was warranted. Within the style of the time, this is a collection of perfect and nearly-perfect gems. 5 stars
MGMT
3/5
Dagmar Krause
3/5
Wilco
3/5
Madness
4/5
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Highlights are Born On The Bayou and Proud Mary. The lead guitar is surprisingly good throughout. Still, it's overall less interesting than the other CCR album on the list (Cosmo's Factory).
The Last Shadow Puppets
4/5
It's an interesting album. Lots of retro elements. The opening track has a definite spaghetti-western feel and the next couple tracks have a 60's pop thing going on, complete with strings and occasional brass.
These songs would have felt at home in the 60s scenes in the movie "Last Night In Soho".
This is a pretty impressive modernization of the style. It doesn't sound like they're just doing interpolations of songs from back then. There's a surprising authenticity to it, while still being modern.
4 stars
Willie Nelson
4/5
Willie Nelson singing the Great American Songbook? No thanks. Or so I thought. This album is a surprise. Willie Nelson is in great voice here. He's not trying to be a crooner. He's not trying to sing bigger than he is able. The arrangements are great and allow him to give understated, yet effective, performances. 4 stars
Frank Zappa
5/5
My son called this album a "fever dream." He's not far off. This is a wild album. 5 stars.
The White Stripes
4/5
More varied and interesting than expected. The mallet percussion and piano all over the album really help. 4 stars
Mudhoney
1/5
Nothing for me here. I can hear where Nirvana came from more than any of the other of the grunge bands to follow in Mudhoney's footsteps.
Bauhaus
1/5
Vocals drove me nuts. It was a like a punkier version of Fred Schneider shouting over a bizarre mix of Sonic Youth, The Cure, and Depeche Mode. Some people might really enjoy that. Not me. 1 star.
David Bowie
4/5
Title track is a classic. The rest of the album isn't as memorable, but it's really strong proto-New Wave. I tend to run hot and cold with Bowie's music, but this was solid throughout. 4 stars.
David Bowie
4/5
This is a pretty wild ride of an album. Despite all the guest musicians and collaborators, it does feel like a cohesive whole. For me, the best tracks are the ones with Tony Levin, David Torn, or both. 4 stars.
The Cure
3/5
The Jesus And Mary Chain
1/5
Beastie Boys
4/5
Supergrass
2/5
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
"Monday, Monday" is a classic and "California Dreamin'" has to be considered among the best rock songs ever written. Most of the album is skippable. Without those two song, this would be 2 stars. They can only bump it up to 3 stars.
Garbage
3/5
Uneven. Some really cool moments but the rest is middle-of-the-road at best.
Black Sabbath
5/5
One of the GOATs. It's not perfect, but it's close enough to get 5 stars.
The Louvin Brothers
4/5
This is hard to review. I'm very much not a fan of Country music, even the "classic" stuff like this. However, within the style this is exceedingly well done. Their vocal harmonies are incredibly tight and the guitar and mandolin playing is excellent. Occasionally, it would veer more toward Bluegrass and my interest would be piqued a bit more, but the Country outweighed it throughout. Would I listen to it again? Nope. Subjectively, this is a 2 stars from me. At best. But would someone who has any interest in Country music find something to like here? Yes. So I'll be objective and give it 4 stars.
The Isley Brothers
5/5
This album is fire from start to finish. The originals, starting with "That Lady" are fantastic and groovy as hell. The covers are absolutely, ridiculously sexy funky. I imagine there are a lot of babies born in 1974 that owe their existence to the cover of "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" on this album. 5 stars.
Fatboy Slim
3/5
Alice Cooper
4/5
The Saints
1/5
Opening track is alright, with the horns. Didn't care for the rest of the album. I just can't get into punk. 1 star.
The Auteurs
2/5
The Smiths
1/5
U2
3/5
I quite enjoyed Zoo Station, Even Better Than The Real Thing, and Mysterious Ways. I can't stand One. The rest of the album didn't do much for me, but didn't actively bother me. 3 stars.
Anita Baker
5/5
Wow. Incredible voice. Great songwriting. This is a flawless 80s Soul/RnB album. I can see it being too smooooooth (and slick, production-wise) for some, though. 5 stars.
Can
3/5
I've tried multiple times to get into Can and I just haven't been able to do it. I'm a huge fan of classic 70s prog, so they should be right up my alley. This album is probably the closest I've come to enjoying them, but the singer ruins it for me. He sounds to me like a low-energy Mick Jagger and Mick Jagger's energy is probably the one thing that doesn't bother me about his vocals.
Outside of the vocals, there's some really interesting stuff going on. More psychedelic than the bigger names in prog of the day, some seriously great rock grooves and the more avant garde soundscapes are quite interesting as well. 4 stars, knocked down 1 star because of the singer, so 3 stars overall.
Kings of Leon
2/5
Blur
2/5
Prince
3/5
This is a really uneven album. There is some amazing music on here, e.g., Sign O' The Times, parts of Play In The Sunshine, Housequake, Starfish and Coffee, U Got The Look, It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night. But then there's a lot of stuff that only ends up on an album when people are afraid to say "No" to you. 3 stars.
Tim Buckley
3/5
Folk rock with experimental elements. Not bad, but nothing earth-shattering. He's got a really good voice. 3 stars.
Ali Farka Touré
5/5
Tim Buckley
3/5
This is a more straight-ahead rock album with occasional strings and horns. In general, I liked this better than "Goodbye and Hello". I gave that one 3 stars, but it was at the low-end of 3 stars, more like 2.5 stars rounded up to 3. This album is more like 3.49 stars rounded down to 3 because I can't quite give it 4 stars. 3 stars.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Not a perfect album, even the non-hits were hitting me just right. There's some ridiculously good funk on that album. 4 stars.
Pink Floyd
4/5
First time hearing most of this album. Lots of great stuff on here, some absolutely brilliant, but also a decent amount of stuff that's hard to listen to. I know most will give it 5 stars because of its legendary status, but I can only go as high as 4 stars.
Miles Davis
5/5
What a ridiculously stacked band. I have loved this album since I first heard it about 20 years ago. It is definitely not going to be for everyone. Too static and rock/funk-ish for many bebop heads, and too weird, obscure, avant garde for many rockers. For me, it falls right into the perfect intersection of jazz, rock, funk, ambient. The two side-long tracks are like collective meditations. 5 stars
The Style Council
3/5
I got through the whole album before realizing this was recorded in 1984. For the time, the eclecticism on this album was pretty much unheard of. It's quite impressive. That being said, the collection of songs doesn't make sense as a whole. The quality of individual tracks is generally pretty high, but there's a decided lack of cohesion across the whole album. On the strength of the majority of the individual songs, it would be 4 stars, but the overall lack of cohesion and somewhat jarring sequencing of tracks would be 2 stars. I'd give this 3.45 stars overall, but rounding down to 3 for this site. 3 stars
Guided By Voices
1/5
Lots of talk about how prolific the songwriter is and how inexpensive it was to record this album. There doesn't seem to be any actual songcraft involved here. Every track is too (mercifully) short for any thematic development or any contrast or really anything. This is the musical equivalent of the guy who walks around with a handheld mini-cassette recorder so he can record all his "profound" thoughts. Comedic gold, especially when the character is as earnest as this album comes across. It's laughably bad.
Would that I could give it 0 stars. 1 star.
John Lennon
4/5
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
Adele
4/5
Not her best, but still a really solid album. The acoustic guitar-driven loop on "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" is really cool. And the chorus kills. "Hello" ended up being overplayed and parodied (see SNL's Thanksgiving sketch--hilarious), but when you get past all of that, it is actually a really good song. "I Miss You" kind of calls to mind Florence and The Machine. 4 stars
Björk
4/5
I love Björk. I love her weird stuff. I love her more accessible stuff. I'm not sure this is her best, but it's still very, very good. 4 stars.
The Vines
2/5
2 stars.
Madonna
4/5
I did not expect to enjoy this album much at all. I was pleasantly surprised. Lots of interesting EDM-style sounds and Madonna's voice over top. 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4.
Beck
3/5
Not in the mood for this today, but it started to win me over with its groove and overall atmosphere. I'll go with 3 stars.
Bob Dylan
2/5
That voice. That harmonica. Those are the two things I absolutely can't stand about Bob Dylan's music. Every cover I've heard of a Bob Dylan song is automatically 1000x better than the original just by virtue of not having Dylan's voice on it.
Everything else about this album is fantastic. The guitar playing. The songwriting. Phenomenal.
5 stars for the songwriting and guitar playing. -1 stars for the vocals and harmonica. Averages out to 2 stars.
Fatboy Slim
3/5
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
4/5
Not sure what the opening of the album is. Almost like they're trying to fake people out into thinking it's a disco album. Regardless, the rest of the album is solid salsa. 4 stars.
Boards of Canada
4/5
Like a less-glitchy Aphex Twin. Interesting sounds and mostly chill beats. 4 stars.
Soundgarden
4/5
Black Hole Sun and Spoonman are 5-star songs. The rest of the album is a solid 4 star hard rock album. 4 stars.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
I love Murder Ballads. In many ways, this is a less-morbidly-dark version of Murder Ballads. At least, stylistically, this album hits right for me. My biggest complaint is the length of the album. As much as I enjoy the style and sound, a double album is just too much. 4 stars.
The National
3/5
New York Dolls
2/5
If you like The Rolling Stones and you like The Ramones (or any other late 70s NYC Punk band), you'll find plenty to like here. I'm not a fan of either, so it didn't do much for me. 2 stars.
New Order
2/5
Not my thing at all. 1.5 stars. Will round to 2.
The Who
4/5
David Bowie
5/5
bizarre in all the right ways
Kanye West
2/5
fantastic beats. fantastic guest vocals. generally not a fan of his flow and his constant self-aggrandizement is exhausting. only made harder to listen to by his non-stop idiocy in real life. i do actually really like "Power", and not exclusively because of the King Crimson samples. 2 stars.
PJ Harvey
3/5
Man-Size Sextet is fantastic, but truth be told I would be more interested in listening to the strings by themselves.
There are a few bits and pieces beyond the sexted that I enjoyed, but by and large this wasn't for me. The final three tracks were much more enjoyable than all the rest of the album, save Man-Size Sextet. 3 stars
Femi Kuti
4/5
Fantastic. 4 stars
Dusty Springfield
4/5
A perfect time capsule for mid-60s brit-pop. Her voice is incredible. "Wishin' and Hopin'" is the definitive version of the song. There are a handful of others on the album that aren't the definitive versions, but they easily could be. Not for nothing, hearing this album got me wanting to watch Last Night In Soho again because it felt like it could have been hte soundtrack for the movie. I had actually forgotten that Wishin' and Hopin' was used in the first 15 minutes of the movie. 4 stars.
Ray Charles
5/5
Genius is right. This album opens perfectly with "Let The Good Times Roll" and just continues its perfection throughout. 5 stars
Television
4/5
This was a surprise. It's like prog-punk/proto-New Wave. There's a lot going on here. 4 stars.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
5/5
Big Band at its absolute best. 5 stars.
The Undertones
1/5
Opening track is better than the entirety of their first album. It goes downhill from there. 1 star
Fela Kuti
5/5
If this album doesn't get you moving, you're probably dead. Protest music with bite from a time and place where that put your life at risk. Powerful lyrics and infectious grooves. a deadly combination for the authoritarian regime. 5 stars.
ZZ Top
2/5
This album is such a disappointment. The only reason this isn't 1 star is because of nostalgia for the 3 hits (Gimme All Your Lovin', Sharp Dressed Man, and Legs). And those only because they were the first ZZ Top songs I'd ever heard back when I was all of 10 years old.
Rocket From The Crypt
1/5
10cc
2/5
This album sounds like 1000 musical ideas were thrown at a wall Jackson Pollok-style. And the random collection of what stuck was just divided up into songs with a handful of the random ideas in each one.
Sometimes it works. Often it doesn't. There is a humor underlying most of it which actually comes across as grating. "Hey, we're quirky and silly but we can really sing and play our instruments so it's cool, yeah?"
It's like an Abbey Road Medley of Abbey Road Medleys. And that is not a good thing.
"Hotel" and "Baron Samedi" have a sort of "Is this song racist?" ick factor, with their broken-english lyrics and use of odd Mexican(?)/vaguely-Jamaican/Caribbean accents.
2 stars
Public Enemy
5/5
Perfect album. Beats/Samples are killer. The lyrics are meaningful. I didn't appreciate Public Enemy back when this came out. I really missed out. 5 stars.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Never really been a fan of The Rolling Stones. Sympathy For The Devil has grown on me over the years, but if it comes up on the radio, I'm more likely to skip it than let it play. If you don't know if you like The Rolling Stones, listen to this album. By the end of the album, you'll know. For me, 2 stars.
Carole King
5/5
Funkadelic
4/5
CHVRCHES
3/5
808 State
3/5
Jurassic 5
4/5
The Who
4/5
Rush
5/5
The album that saved Rush.
Def Leppard
4/5
The Cure
2/5
Textural guitar work is pretty interesting. Sad-sack vocals drive me up the wall. Still can't get into The Cure. 2 stars.
Thelonious Monk
5/5
So loose it's always on the verge of falling apart. Monk's piano playing is crazy. Amazing album.
Frank Sinatra
3/5
Objectively, every element of this album is fantastic. The big band accompaniment, Sinatra's voice, the arrangements. Subjectively, I'm almost never in the mood for Sinatra, though. Small doses in movie soundtracks? Sure. That's where I've heard half the tracks on this album. I'm almost never going to sit down and listen to a whole album of it.
Objectively: 5 stars for the quality of arrangements and performance
Subjectively: 2 stars for the overall enjoyment.
Will average the two to get 3.5 stars, but I'm rounding down to 3.
The Monkees
3/5
Pretty typical pop/rock(?) album for the time. It's pretty average. This album was released a week before Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It spent the first week at no. 1 and then fell to no. 2 behind Sgt Pepper. So for me, the most interesting aspect of this album is that it better contextualizes just how revolutionary Sgt Pepper was. This was the sound of the top of the charts and then Sgt Pepper happened.
3 stars
Madonna
4/5
The first two tracks are among her best ever. The duet with Prince is alright, but it's less than the sum of its parts. There's a solid run of tracks from Cherish through Keep It Together. In that stretch, Dear Jessie and Oh Father are almost prog-like and remind me of some of the pop-ier 2010s Steven Wilson stuff (Hand Cannot Erase-era). Act of Contrition is a pretty cool soundscape-y thing with what appears to be Prince doing an extended shred-fest of a guitar solo in the background. Overall, this is probably 4 stars.
R.E.M.
2/5
Like all the other REM albums, this one is saved from a 1 star rating by virtue of Peter Buck doing interesting things with the guitar (and other related instruments). 2 stars.
Side note: I really don't understand how REM has 4 albums in the 1001. Glad to have finally listened to all 4 so I don't need to listen to any more of their albums.
Nine Inch Nails
4/5
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
Alanis Morissette
4/5
The singles are bangers and some of the deep cuts are killer as well (especially "Forgiven"). 4 stars
Van Morrison
3/5
Beck
4/5
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
Elliott Smith
3/5
Sonic Youth
3/5
Herbie Hancock
5/5
Heaven 17
2/5
The xx
2/5
The White Stripes
2/5
Tangerine Dream
4/5
Ghostface Killah
4/5
Sisters Of Mercy
2/5
If the "Lost Boys" had a direct-to-VHS sequel or series of sequels, this would be the soundtrack for all the mopey scenes.
David Bowie
3/5
Scritti Politti
3/5
Grateful Dead
2/5
oof. I like a good jam. I like extended jams. I like really long songs. But a 23 minute jam with limited variation gets tedious. 23 minutes of Miles Davis or Coltrane? Sign me up. 23 minutes of this? No thanks.
"Turn On Your Love Light" is both a highlight and a primary example of what's wrong with these jams. The extended solos edge toward something you'd hear from The Allman Brothers. But The Allman Brothers extended jams from this period were far more interesting, I'd much rather listen to 15 minutes of the Allmans doing this song.
For the most part, this album didn't actively annoy me but didn't make a case for why I should give The Grateful Dead another chance. Toward the end of the album, however, it was really wearing out its welcome.
2 stars
Sepultura
5/5
Fantastic Thrash. Not a rehash or clone of the Big 4. Rhythm section is punishing and the lead guitar work is really creative. 5 stars.
Bill Evans Trio
5/5
Perfect live jazz album. This trio is on fire. Scott LaFaro plays the hell out of that bass. Paul Motian has amazing feel. Bill Evans is genius. 5 stars.
Iron Maiden
5/5
I know some people love the Paul Di'Anno Iron Maiden. For me, Maiden was/is best with Bruce Dickinson at the helm. This album starts one of the best 5-album streaks in metal, if not all of popular music. This is not a perfect album, but it's damn close. If everything else on the album was mediocre, the title track, Run to the Hills, and Hallowed Be Thy Name would still be enough to make this a 4 star album. And yet, the only real let down on this album is Gangland. This is 4.5-4.75 stars. Rounding up to 5.
Drive Like Jehu
3/5
Skepta
3/5
Cool grooves and cool flow. Skits do nothing for me. Overall, this album was fine. Not one I'll bother returning to.
The Smiths
1/5
Johnny Cash
3/5
Elvis Costello
2/5
this album ranges from meh to actively annoying.
props to the bassist though, especially on the closing track. 2 stars.
Linkin Park
2/5
Meat Puppets
1/5
Queens of the Stone Age
4/5
Buena Vista Social Club
5/5
Fantastic window into Cuban music. 5 stars
Queen
4/5
A mix of known "best of" songs, so hidden gems, and some real dogs. 4 stars.
The Pogues
4/5
This is essentially a Celtic Folk album (pub songs, not fiddle/dance tunes) with a punk attitude. And it works very well. 4 stars.
Def Leppard
1/5
They released the first 6 songs as singles. Women, Rocket, Animal, Love Bites, Pour Some Sugar On Me, and Armageddon It. And then the title track later in the album. 7 singles off this album, pretty much all of them huge hits. And all of them trash.
There's about 30 seconds of one of the deep cuts that's interesting. This is a terrible, no-good album. 1 star.
Beck
4/5
This is bizarre and quirky, but groovy as hell. I definitely remember hearing "The New Pollution" and "Where It's At" back in the day. Overall, this is the right kind of bizarre and groovy for me. Not perfect, but i really enjoyed it. 4 stars
The Velvet Underground
1/5
This album, and really anything involving Lou Reed, actively annoys me. There is only one version of Heroin worth listening to, and it isn't this one. It's an arrangement for Bang On A Can by composer David Lang. 1 star.
Yes
4/5
This album kicks off one of the best 3-album runs in rock history, Fragile and Close To The Edge to follow.
I love this album, though it's nowhere near perfect. Sandwiching the hilariously misnamed "The Clap" (what a difference "the" makes!) between "Yours Is No Disgrace" and "Starship Trooper" may have made more sense back then, but it really breaks up the potential momentum of having those two back-to-back. And "A Venture" and "Perpetual Change" have their moments, but they're not at the same level of the rest of the album.
Still, this is 4 stars for me.
3/5
This album has its moments, but there's something about it I just can't connect with. This is the case with pretty much anything I've heard from Muse. On paper, I should love this band but I just can't connect. 3 stars.
Cocteau Twins
3/5
The Roots
4/5
Pixies
2/5
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
This album was surprising. The inclusion of synthesizers caught me off guard. The songwriting is fantastic. The track that is literally just field recordings of old people talking is the low-point of the album, but it does at least fit with the "concept" going on for the first half of the album. Overall, this is a great album. 4 stars
Terence Trent D'Arby
4/5
Only flaw of this album is the 80s production. 4 stars
Blondie
4/5
Minutemen
3/5
If it wasn't for the vocals and it being such a ridiculously long album, I could see giving this something like 3.5-3.75 stars. Those complaints knock a star off, which will still get rounded to 3 stars.
Tina Turner
2/5
I guess I'm glad this album was such a huge hit for her because she deserved some good after putting up with Ike, but holy shit this is unlistenable. In addition to the ruinous cover of "I Can't Stand The Rain" (such a kick-ass song in its original form), there is a brutally-awful cover of "Let's Stay Together". The only redeeming quality of that one is there's a cool, jazz-soaked synth solo that could have been lifted right out of a Yellowjackets tune.
The highlight of the album is "Steel Claw". It's a lot closer to being a solid rock song, and it has a guitar solo that was bizarre in some cool ways. I looked it up and it turns out it was Jeff Beck, so that checks out.
Any interest in listening to this version of "Help!" is best compared to whatever might motivate someone to watch "The Human Centipede."
Tina Turner's vocals are fantastic. That's the only thing that saves this from being 1 star. It's probably 1.5 stars, that I'll round up to 2.
U2
4/5
The Sugarcubes
4/5
Such a bizarre mix of 80s styles. Got some B-52s-ish stuff, got some goth-alt like The Cure, got some New Wave. And all with Björk being Björk (which is glorious). This is a 5-star album that loses a point because Icelandic Fred Schneider couldn't/wouldn't shut up. 4 stars.
Iggy Pop
3/5
4-star album brought down by the vocals. 3 stars.
Michael Jackson
5/5
Neil Young
3/5
Tom Waits
4/5
This isn't my favorite of the weird/experimental Tom Waits album (Bone Machine is), but this is my favorite style of his. 4 stars
Portishead
5/5
This is my first time listening to Portishead. Everything about this album was great. Turns out I love trip-hop. I love the jazz-meets-hip-hop rhythm section and I love her voice. 5 stars.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
Pleasant enough, but didn't really do much for me. 3 stars.
The Who
3/5
Ray Charles
5/5
Solid songs. Fantastic arrangements. Probably not "modern" sounding even back when it was released, but this album is great.
I'm reminded of an old joke/non-sequitur from growing up in the 70s/80s: "God is Love. Love is Blind. Ray Charles is blind. Ray Charles is God?" This album certainly makes a better case. Maybe not "the" God, but "A" God, to be sure.
5 stars.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
I really don't understand how Neil Young has 7 albums on this list. 8 if you count the CSNY album.
The opening track, Cinnamon Girl, is quite good. So is track 3, Round & Round. The rest of the album was either uninteresting or actively annoying. There are two tracks on here that are over 9 minutes long. I love prog and jazz and symphonic music so I have no inherent bias against long songs. Neil Young does not do anything in his music that justifies 9+ minute songs.
1.5 stars rounded up to 2.
Violent Femmes
1/5
Knew 2 of the songs on here before listening to the album. I can tolerate "Blister In The Sun", but "Add It Up" still grates on me. The rest of the album was actively annoying. The only redeeming quality of this album is the acoustic bass guitar. Even though his vocabulary is somewhat limited and repetitive, his bass lines are interesting throughout. Still, not enough to save this album from getting 1 star.
Prefab Sprout
3/5
Fine for what it is. Nothing special but didn't annoy. No idea why this made the 1001 because it was just average. 3 stars.
The Beach Boys
3/5
What a bizarre album. There is some real dark beauty on this album. So much of this sounds like the darkest, weirdest late-Beatles material filtered through Beach Boys vocal harmonies. At first, I was pretty low on this album, but it's growing on me. I started off between 2-3 and now I'm thinking between 3-4. Going to go with 3 for now.
The Chemical Brothers
4/5
Just what I needed this morning. Not a flawless album, but it's great. It no doubt sounds dated by electronic music standards, but it still holds up. The vocal songs can be a bit iffy, though "Alive Alone" gets better as it goes along. 4 stars.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
Mid-level 80s blue-eyed-soul. Nothing special here. Not sure what was going on with the interpolation of "Werewolves of London". 2 stars.
Janet Jackson
5/5
This album is fantastic. The production is more aggressive and heavier than was the standard at the time. The songs are great, Janet's voice is fantastic. Even the ballads have some great harmonic stuff going on. 5 stars.