Before listening to this my only exposure to the Charlatans was their single 'The Only One I Know' which is a banger that I pretty much never skip if it comes on shuffle. With No Shoes is a solid opening but unfortunately all I can think of is how they probably found Rob Collins, booze cruiser, With No Shoes when he died in a car crash after being more than double the BAC limit flung out of his sunroof. North Country Boy is groovy and shows that the album has a cohesive direction in its sound. A bit forgettable mainly because I was still laughing about how Rob Collins managed to get ejected from his car while drink driving and then still stand up before passing away in an ambulance on Monday 22 July 1996. Tellin' Stories is fantastic, I have no idea what this guy is saying but I can only assume he's tellin' cautionary tales about the dangers of driving a BMW 520i on the B4233 after having a big day at the pub with your producer in the car who would survive with minor injuries. One to Another is where I realised that this band has more to offer than just 'The Only One I Know', the vocals here work well with the guitar work and the keyboard riffs are fantastic. The song is supposedly about a guy trying to keep his relationship together but I like to think the title is a nod to how Rob Collins went from being a getaway driver for his mate to being involved in a fatal single vehicle collision that left his wife widowed and his daughter without a father. You're A Big Girl Now is a song about how Rob Collins' daughter will have to learn to live without her late pisswreck father (who is not present on this track). How Can You Leave Us was initially written by Burgess about a girl, some lyrics were changed after Rob Collins' death (not a joke i copy-pasted this straight from wikipedia) Area 51 is a great instrumental piece which really highlights the talent of Rob Collins as a keyboardist. This song is like a nice intermission between the two halves of the album. Rob Collins demonstrates here that he is very good with his hands, even if he can't put on a seatbelt to save his life. How High is the question the British public were asking when it was revealed that Rob Collins was ejected from the sunroof of his BMW. Only Teethin', much like a lot of Cool Britannia and Britpop, is clearly very inspired by 60s rock and roll; a time when the Beatles were big, Britain was a somewhat serious country, and a time before the 1962 Road Traffic Act which criminalised drink driving and before seatbelts were made mandatory in 1983. Get On It sounds like someone put on some Bob Dylan before a jam session and now they have to get the annoying vocals and harmonica out of their system. It's songs like this that make me understand why the producer, Ric Peet, would get into the car with a drunken convicted armed robber, ironically named Rob Collins. Rob's Theme is an instrumental that was included after the passing away of the keyboardist of The Charlatans, Rob Collins. In all honesty, this is a sweet tune and it warms my heart to see a loving tribute to Rob on here (even though his brother/the label decided to leave him off the album cover?). This song slaps, but as there are no lyrics I am going to find it difficult to make another joke about drink driving and crashing your car. Almost as hard as I find it to believe that Rob Collins was able to get only four months in prison and charges dropped for assisting his mate in robbing a store. But seriously, this song is great and is 100% getting added to some of my playlists. Neil Young (who has 9 albums in this book, God help me) once said it's better to burn out than fade away. Rest in power Rob Collins, may you join your brothers in arms in Alcohalla, the afterlife for all brave booze cruisers. 7 DUIs out of 10

I.B.M. lets you experience life inside one of those room-sized computers they had in the 1970s. Hit by a Rock opens with someone being tortured just outside that same room? United came and went, didn't notice it Valley of the Shadow of the Death is clearly just a result of a Dictaphone being left in a council housing flat somewhere. I'm convinced this whole track is raw audio. Dead on Arrival, this shit is ass Weeping Hamburger Lady is more of the same random noise, which is good because it signals to me that the album does not have a change of heart in its second half to be something at least entertaining. Who gives a shit about the rest of the songs? Not the guys 'performing' it, that's for sure. I feel about these 42 minutes of noise as I imagine a lot of people do about modern/post-modern art. It's bullshit, and I don't know what level of degeneration of your frontal cortex/serotonin imbalance you have to have for this to be enjoyable. This shit sucks, anything higher than a 1 is a Christ-like level of charity and generosity. Music critics should be rounded up and forced to break rocks in that labour camp from the start of Rambo 2.

Not super familiar with post-hardcore as a genre but this shit rocks. As an album this is my jam. Reading about the band, big fan of their ethos of not selling out even though these guys could have made an absolute killing exploiting the same target audience as Nirvana or something. No skips on here, a joy to listen to.

A foundational album in the genre of Sex Offender Metal

Really strong opener with Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'. Thriller, Beat It and Billie Jean easily cement this as a fantastic album and a single listen to this album would make any rational person an MJ truther. Didn't gel much with The Girl Is Mine and The Lady in My Life, the rest of the songs were good.

Very few albums have an opener as strong as Do It Again not only in terms of its qualities as a standalone tune but also as an introduction into the mood and themes of Can't Buy A Thrill (and Steely Dan's broader work as a whole). As a side note this might be one of the worst songs to pick on karaoke night as you have to just stand there for 3 minutes while Jeff Baxter and Don Fagen fuck up the guitar and piano in one of the best instrumental bridges of all time (speaking from personal experience). Dirty Work is a beautiful tune about being an absolute scumbag, a musical niche that Steely Dan will come to perfect if they haven't already with this song. Kings is probably the weakest song on Side A but basically every song on this album is phenomenal. Excellent piano work, a catchy chorus and more beautiful guitar work from Baxter. Midnite Cruiser is an anthem for deadbeats and burnouts, this is one to put on driving three times over the limit. The musical manifestation of a mid-life crisis, later to be dethroned by Hey Nineteen on the Gaucho album. Only a Fool Would Say That is a solid end to Side A and a song I find myself returning to way more than I should. Reelin' In The Years opens with a killer guitar track and does not let up throughout the entire song. Fagen and Becker's bitter lyrics persist on what is probably the most mean spirited song on this album seeing as it's basically a big 'fuck you' to an ex-girlfriend. Fire In The Hole is a janky, off-kilter song and I absolutely love it, every time I hear it I want to go on marketplace and buy a piano and learn to play. Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me) is probably my favourite song on this album. Instrumentally, the slide guitar after the chorus just does it for me and the vocals are just perfect. The line 'a piece of island cooling in the sea' is the peak of this album that I look forward to each time I listen to it. Change of the Guard is the weakest song on the whole album in my opinion but it's still an absolute banger by any metric. Turn That Heartbeat Over Again Palmer, Fagen and Becker come together for the last song on the album and it's a sweet-sounding song about sticking up a liquor store. A perfect ending to one of my favourite albums of all time. On a side note, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen would later write that their fifth album, The Royal Scam, had "the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can't Buy a Thrill)."

An absolute joy to listen to this whole album finally. I have heard Big Iron and El Paso more times than I've had hot dinners and they still never get old. Highlights from this album besides those two are definitely Cool Water, Master's Call, They're Hanging Me Tonight and Saddle Tramp. Back to back songs both about valleys (at least on spotify which seems to be the CD version of the listing). My favourite song on this album is still El Paso.

I have heard two songs off this album before I sat down and listened to it. Message in a Bottle and Walking on the Moon. Instrumentally I can't say anything bad about this album, Walking on the Moon is kind of boring if you take away the lyrics. But ironically enough that's the only instance where that rule would apply. Probably every song on this album would be better without vocals and lyrics. How did this make the Police a big band? Did they really just coast off the success of songs like Roxanne and shit? I'm giving this a 2 because each individual member of this band is a great musician but together Regatta de Blanc is fucking boring. On second thought this album should be a 1. It just fucking sucks, one and a half good singles from an album does not salvage it. IN FACT this album does a disservice to the actual musical skills as a band. Andy Summers is a great guitarist, each member of this band INDIVIDUALLY is talented. This album is like getting a bunch of classically trained painters to try and fingerpaint a recreation of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the same is true for getting three quirked up white boys to sit around and play reggae. So how the fuck do you end up with a song like "The Bed's Too Big Without You"??? I wrote the majority of this review right after I finished a session at the gym where dogshit like "Deathwish" was my soundtrack to pumping out one of the saddest sets of overhead presses anyone has ever done in their life. Why on earth did the USMC decide to used Panama by Van Halen as part of psychological warfare when this album exists? 'White Reggae' does to the human brain what VX gas does to lungs. Go listen to Sons of Beaches by Australian Crawl instead.

The first time I listened to this album was when I was 14. I probably listened to it like ten times in one day to try and impress a girl I had a crush on. It turns out not only did she think I was a gross retard but the album she was actually talking about was some bullshit by Interpol so I have memory holed this album completely. UNTIL NOW I have never been a big fan of a vocalist with a very prominent British accent it sounds kind of lame and put-on but it definitely works for this style of music. It’s the kind of music I associate with annoying male baristas who would go on to glaze artists like Tyler the Creator and MF Doom. I’m saying this because I’m a petty person whose ability to enjoy media is hampered by thinking about the fact that somebody who irritates me likes the same thing. However the album is good, my feet are tapping to some songs even though they all kind of sound the same. Nothing here is crazy good and to be honest I couldn’t really name anything from here that’s memorable. Overall, if I had a bunch of people over at my house for beers that I didn’t know who were my age or a bit older I would probably put this on as background noise and it’d work.

Before Deftones and the Smiths, male boomers had to listen to this to fuck weird chicks. Leonard Cohen has famously said he doesn’t like making music and only does it so he can make money to support his weird artist lifestyle. This album, as well as Songs of Love and Hate, are best seen as Cohens poems put to simple instrumentals. It’s definitely not for everyone and it definitely lacks musical variety. Overall, it’s a good album the highlights for me are Suzanne, So Long Marianne and Teachers. I do prefer his later albums as a whole but the highlights on here are just as good as anything he made on I’m Your Man.

I have always heard about the Allman Brothers band, mainly I knew that Free Bird was written about Duane Allman but I never really bothered to listen to any of their songs except one time when Midnight Rider was recommended to me on spotify. Which is a massive error on my part. If there's two things on this planet I love it's long guitar parts and soulful semi-literate white boys performing songs written by black dudes. Every song on this album is great, it's the kind of thing you can put on and sit on your balcony, demolish a pack of darts and drink 10-20 beers to. No real complaints about this album other than the fact I think Zappa did a better and tighter cover of Whipping Post but that's just me being a dickrider for music's biggest wanker. Since this album is mostly instrumental work I thought I would bring attention to the brains behind the band, Greg Allman. This dude was married SEVEN times, including once to Cher. It would have been six but looks like he got one in right before the buzzer in 2017 when he married his seventh wife after an engagement of 5 years which is ironically longer than 5 of his 6 previous marriages. Totally understandable as this dude was a boneyarder who testified against his security staff and got him locked up for 75 years (served 18 months) and that's what got his bandmates to stop talking to him for like three years.

There is the cringe/based horseshoe theory. Someone can be so based that they end up being cringe (Sam Hyde). The opposite is true of Jon Bon Jovi. A pioneer in the genre of cocaine pop-rock, Bon Jovi makes corny music that is so true to itself (cringe) that it comes around the horseshoe and becomes certifiably BASED in the truest sense of the word (being true to oneself and beliefs). I first became aware of this album's existence in Bill and Ted when they make a joke about this being Beethoven's favourite album. I first decided to listen to it when I was 14 and I heard 'Raise Your Hands' in Spaceballs in the scene where they introduce Lonestar and Barf in the Space Winnebago. 13 years later I have developed a disdain for Bon Jovi for being a corny hair-pop-rock band, and then later got over myself and learned to embrace his music for what it is. Let It Rock is a solid opener and a good representation of exactly what you're gonna get for the rest of the album. You Give Love A Bad Name was ruined for a long time for me by How I Met Your Mother (Gen Y brainslop garbage television for dickheads) but this song fucks. What really is there to say about Livin' On A Prayer? You can't say anything bad about this song? "Wah wah it shit talks unions" grow up, this isn't On The Waterfront, nobody can even understand the lyrics outside the chorus. Social Disease has great production and decent instrumentals but it drags on and the lyrics aren't really that special. Wanted Dead Or Alive AKA the song that plays at the funeral of a young man who died in a quadbike accident. This song is the musical manifestation of the cringe/based horseshoe theory. The lyrics are lame, the instrumentals make me think of a TapOut singlet and oakleys, but goddamn this song is so fucking good man. 'Loaded six string on my back'? Tom Waits wishes he could write shit like this. Raise Your Hands, because of my memory associating it with Spaceballs, is probably my favourite song on this album and is what plays in my head when I slam Fireball against the advice of my friends who care for me (fuck you). This album is frontloaded, the rest of the songs on the album are not bad. They are all technically competent songs, well-produced with decent instrumentals. The songs vary from pop-rock (Without Love) to ballad (Never Say Goodbye), it's just a bit forgettable. The album mainly suffers from a lack of consistency, not in quality but in theme. I don't think a song like Wild In The Streets should be on the same album as Livin' On A Prayer. Actually I looked up the producer of this album, Bruce Fairbairn, to see if he worked with Bryan Adams because this song (especially the guitar solo with the sliding piano) sounds like some shit he would do. Is this album commercial as fuck and creatively bankrupt? Yes. Is it enjoyed by people whose hairspray use is responsible for a hole in the ozone layer? Yes. But goddamn this album is a lot of fun. Also the album cover is a personal favourite and I am glad they didn't go with the original one (it's just a chick with massive tits).

I can’t say I was looking forward to listening to this. I have heard Come On Eileen (a million times) and Geno and while I like those songs I had a gut feeling that the rest of the bands work would be a bit shit. In a running theme for English artists, I am not a fan of the vocals on here. It’s fun as a little novelty on songs like Come On Eileen but a whole album of this? Sheesh No shock that the first song that I really enjoyed on this album is The Teams That Meet In The Caffs, banging instrumentals that are free of the nervous pitch shifting vocals from the first two songs. Geno is a great song, won’t skip it if it comes on shuffle, it’s a bop I Couldn’t Help It If I Tried is where the vocals finally clicked for me, this song fucking rocks and makes me wonder why I haven’t heard it before but I’ve heard Come On Eileen an annoying number of times Arctic Monkeys should pay royalties to Dexys for continuing the time honoured English tradition of overly long song names. I’m not typing this one out, it’s the one where he’s high pitched. Eh. It’s got its moments, but most of this song sounds like a Wiggles track on speed. Dexys Midnight Runners should make a supergroup with the Police and call it wasted talent because the instrumentals on here are really something else but my lord if this was the kind of music that was getting around the UK in the 80s you better believe I would vote Thatcher everyday and twice on Sunday 5.7m Spotify listeners? Yeah I bet, mate. Some of these songs don’t even have the lyrics synced up on the Spotify app. Overall it’s not bad, but I don’t know if I would give this whole album a spin again.

Good opening track, I have only heard a few Beck songs before and I wasn’t particularly keen on them but this is groovy. Track 2 feels kinda racist but is undeniably groovy. The production and sound mixing is pretty competent and this song is pretty fun. Track 3 is a bit repetitive, perfectly cromulent song but not my bag. Tracks 4, 5 and 6 made me realise I probably should have put this album on in the lounge room and had a coffee instead of listening to this on a stroll. The music here is fine I’m just having a tough time really meshing with it. Track 7 more of the same, good production value but realising that Beck maybe isn’t for me. Track 8 a welcome surprise, I enjoyed this song. Gave up on tracking and doing a song by song for this album. Beck sounds as bored performing this music as I was listening to it. I’m sure there’s an audience for this but it’s not me.

The fact that Eric Clapton played guitar on this album and is still racist is proof that God has a sense of humour. Rolling Stone has listed Aretha Franklin as the greatest singer of all time on multiple occasions and they are 100% right. 'Despite' the fact that she was an alcoholic and a chain smoker she had a voice of solid gold just leading to proof that partyphobic movements like anti-smoking and anti-drinking laws are stifling an entire generation of future soul singers. No two ways about it, this album is perfect. Back to back hits, no song misses in any department at all. There's nothing negative I can say about this album at all except that it is a crime that in my 27 years I had not heard 'Ain't No Way' before.

Narcolepsy rock for the silent generstion and boomers. The first track is good but the Damned do a MUCH better cover so please go and listen to that. Great as a sleeping aid/if you need to pacify a geriatric.

I usually skip Sonic Youth songs when they come on Spotify radio due to the same four songs constantly being recommended to me by Spotify. It’s always a good sign when I’m not checking the track list to see how long I have to go on an album. I will begrudgingly admit I enjoyed this album a lot! I really had low expectations going in. Some of the vocals can miss and not every song is fantastic here but the album as a whole is good, the variety of sound here means that it’s a pretty entertaining time. The sound itself is pretty unique and I'm surprised that this album was from 1987, feels like it was pretty ahead of its time. The album definitely meanders towards the end, the last couple of tracks kind of feel like filler and that the band sort of ran out of ideas. This is evidenced by Master-Dik being a lot of word salad and noises from Thurston Moore. This song is the musical equivalent of trying to meet the word limit in an assignment. Still not a bad song. Overall this album is a great introduction for me personally to Sonic Youth and I have no doubt that I’ll listen to the rest of their work and be disappointed inevitably!

I have seen this album plenty of times on /mu/ and other music discussion pages and formed an opinion without having listened to it. I thought it would be music for wankers (please see my review of arctic monkeys for my inability to enjoy things). In The Flowers is a great opening track, really hooked me in on a first listen and remained fresh on a repeat listen. This track set very expectations for the rest of the album. My Girls is great on an instrumental level, but the lyrics can make the song pretty repetitive, it's a fine track but it can get a little grating, specifically the 'social standing' line. Skipped on a repeat listen when I realised what song I was on. Also Frightened is also a repetitive song but I enjoyed this one more, it's a groovy track, just as good on a second listen. Summertime Clothes is a banger. Sounds like a marching band forcing you to have a good time. On a repeat listen I went back to listen to this a few more times, it's a very fun track. Daily Routine is probably my favourite song on this album. One of those songs that totally changes what its doing halfway through. I have gone out of my way outside of album listens to put this song on. I really enjoy the long, drawn-out soundscape of the second half of this song that really shows off Animal Collective's skill as producers. Bluish is a fun track but a little forgettable, on a repeat listen I forgot that I had heard this song before. Guys Eyes was a not my cup of tea on a first listen with its multiple vocal tracks playing over eachother, but I enjoyed it a lot more on a repeat listen. Taste is another that I tuned out of on my first listen but appreciated much more on a repeat listen. Lion In A Coma I remember well from my first listen for its annoying fucking jaw harp at the opening leading into mumble-mouthed vocals. Honestly the first minute or so of this song is annoying as shit and feels overproduced. Around 40-45 seconds in there's this annoying vocal effect which sounds like those "erm what the glorp" alien cat memes on twitter. Unfortunately the annoying production continues. This No More Runnin is a very welcome slower track after Lion In A Coma. This song is to Merriweather Post Pavilion what Caroline, No is to Pet Sounds for me. On a repeat listen this felt very cathartic especially after resisting the urge to skip the previous song. Something about Brother Sport rubs me the wrong way. Both on my first listen and on repeat listens, this song sounds like it laid the groundwork for the boom-clap, feel-good, advertiser friendly musical scourge of the 2010s (Mumford and Sons etc.). Credit to Animal Collective for what is a funky track with interesting production and arrangement but this song feels to me like a sign of the evil that is to come. Reading about this album and this band inbetween listens the inspiration of Brian Wilson and albums like Pet Sounds and Smile is very clear in the tone and production style of Merriweather Post Pavilion. Despite how harsh I was on a few songs on this album, they are still listenable and enjoyable (except Lion In A Coma). I am a big fan of this album and I'm hoping the rest of Animal Collective's catalogue is as adventurous.

A fantastic listen from start to finish, The Queen Is Dead gives an opportunity for every member of the band to stand out. The lyrics hit me right, the vocals are next level, Matt’s guitar work is only matched on Strangeways. The Smiths made four albums and they’re all solid gold. The songs that I find are weaker (Frankly Mr Shankly and Vicar In A Tutu) are still supremely listenable. Giving this 5 because it would be a pisstake for me to try and dig this down to a 4 for the sake of ‘critique’, I can listen to any of these songs ten times in a row and not get sick of them. I really don’t have a whole lot to say other than I love this album. Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others is one of my favourite songs ever, an anthem for tit guys.

Absolutely wild to me that there was a 5 year album gap between this and Thriller with NO drop in quality whatsoever from the King of Pop. Bad is a classic, lots of memories of watching this on MTV while my parents could still afford to pay for Austar. The Way You Make Me Feel opens with a few well-deserved 'hehe's and is just as funky now on my 100th+ listen as it was the first time I heard this at a blue light disco. Speed Demon has some absolutely wild synth/bass work so whoever led the production on this song between MJ and Quincy Jones deserves a medal. I'm also a huge fan of putting car noises into songs. This song goes really fuckin hard. This whole album is full of extremely well-produced, well-written, and masterfully performed music. When your albums hits include songs like 'Bad' and 'Man In The Mirror' and your "filler" is songs like 'Just Good Friends' and 'SPEED DEMON' you know this is an undeniable 5/5. I prefer side 1 to side 2, but it's hard to say that when side 2 ends with the musical atomic bomb that is Smooth Criminal. It was said about Thriller when we reviewed it a couple of weeks ago, but I totally understand MJ Truthers after listening to this whole album. The video footage of people passing out at an MJ concert is no longer ridiculous to me.

Super tight 45. Production and mixing is great, lyricism is hit or miss but overall a good album. How I Could Just Kill A Man and Hand On The Pump are classic and those songs bring back memories of sitting with my mate's older brother in his room, PC wallpaper is either a hot chick or a skyline and the place smells like shit. Not a whole lot to say about this album, it's not really my kind of music and I don't see myself giving this a spin out of the blue.

A really solid blues album. All of the collaborations here have enough of John Lee Hooker to make them distinct solo songs and enough from the guest artists to make them unique. Enjoyed the whole album apart from Rocking Chair, which I felt dragged on a little. The standouts here are definitely the title track, Cuttin' Out, My Dream and No Substitute. Listened to this three times in a row when I put it on after work and this will definitely be getting more spins. Before this I had never heard of John Lee Hooker but noticing the featuring artists I knew this would be something good. Listening to his other works after a few listens of this made me realise that his earlier work certainly has more energy and sounds less like it was made to be the ambient music in a piece of southern gothic media. I very reluctantly give this a 3, it would be a 4 if it had a bit more energy and didn't drag heavily on certain songs. I really enjoyed this album but I can't give it a higher rating out of good faith. Having said that, this album is making me realise that I need to broaden my horizon with blues music beyond artists with the last name King.

Painfully mediocre. This shit probably went crazy at the milk bar in 1960 but it’s just shallow, competently performed music. Very glad this was only 27 minutes long. Love Hurts is the standout and Nazareths cover is way better than this. If this album came out today and I had to hear it all the time I would pray to be drafted into Vietnam. I would much rather have listened to anything by the Beach Boys than an album that was clearly put on here because one of its songs became bigger when covered by another band. Not entirely unlistenable but extremely boring.

As a fan of Frank Zappa's wackier comedy albums and stupid songs I feel like I should have enjoyed this album a lot more than I did. I had very limited exposure to Beastie Boys before this, I could only really say I have listened to Intergalactic and Sabotage which are fun novelty songs that I usually won't skip if they come on shuffle. But a whole album of that kind of music just doesn't work for me. This album has good production with the Dust Brothers who also did the production for Hanson (music to sacrifice children to) and Guero by Beck. Songs like 3-Minute Rule have some okay lines and fun lyricism but overall this album wasn't able to hold my attention primarily because I just really don't gel with the vocals here at all. As I said before, fun for a single track, grating when you have to listen to 57 minutes of it. The vocals especially on songs like Hey Ladies really had me checking how long the album had left. I imagine this is what Woody Allen would sound like if he decided to make rap music instead of raping his step daughter. The most enjoyment I got out of this album was recognising the Mississippi Queen sample on Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun, which is also one of the only songs I wholeheartedly enjoyed. I gave this album a couple of goes and unfortunately my feelings on it didn't change. Also these guys did a concert for Tibetan 'freedom' lmao

I have only listened to The Bends and OK Computer before listening to this album, I have heard a few post-OK Computer songs when they come up on spotify shuffle so I had somewhat of an idea of what to expect here. Everything In Its Right Place as an opener didn't grab me but the song is fine. Halfway through the title track I totally clicked with the vibe of what this album is trying to do and was able to successfully separate the radiohead I had listened to previously in my head from what I am listening to now. The National Anthem was a bit much for me especially towards the end, didn't care much for this track. But it has a great bassline How To Disappear Completely and Treefingers are good back-to-back songs, I liked Treefingers a lot as a track but How To kind of made me want to listen to Sea Power instead The last 20 seconds of Optimistic are funky but this song for me is just okay. Yorke's vocals are sometimes hit and miss for me and this is a miss. Great transition into In Limbo, this song is great Jarring transition into Idioteque, a bit heavy on the electronica for my taste and maybe the sound system I am listening on isn't tuned well but the bass is mixed weirdly and can overpower the lyrics, also the drum machine in this song is kind of annoying, did Lars Ulrich get the idea for St Anger from this? Also realised I have only heard this song in memes before from the 'ice age coming' line Morning Bell is kind of boring, not a lot to say about this Motion Picture Soundtrack is a simple and well-produced song, Yorke's vocals work well here and the second half of this sound reminds me of the flowers blooming scene from Master Gardener, I wish more of the album was like this Untitled is more of a musical flourish than a song, nothing else to say about it Album as a whole is a 7 from me it's not my usual type of music but it's something I can appreciate. Maybe repeat listens will condition me to become a massive musical afficionado (wanker) and I'll grow a deep appreciation for this and have a more refined opinion (parroting what critics and /mu/ says). Probably won't listen to any of these songs on their own but this album seems like something I would like to have on in the background at home after work, but in that circumstance I would rather listen to anything by Eno What is most striking to me about this album is the critical response both at its release and years after. The album looks like it received lukewarm reviews in 2000 and was later re-appraised seemingly because it became trendy and cool to like Radiohead and the band itself has become a signifier that you're smart or whatever. This, however, is only a problem if you take the profession of music criticism seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsFzHpBlugs

History Song: If this intro is representative of the rest of the album then boy is the crowd gonna go mild for this one 80's Life: Interesting things going on with staccato strings here, this song definitely picked up a lot at the minute and a quarter mark as the backing and lead vocals worked well together. This song is arranged really well, mixing is great and it's a joy to listen to! Northern Whale: A bit of a drone, this song sort of blends into itself and didn't particularly grab me Kingdom of Doom: This song was good but in this song I became aware of what was irking me about this album so far. The mid 2000s bouncing piano line that was so popular at this time in music triggers a pavlovian response in me and reminds of how much I hated living in the 2000s. Looking past that, I am big fan of the return of the sweeping, distorted guitar work that was also on 80's Life. Cool song name, cool song! Herculean: Personally not what I would have picked as a single from this album. Arranged well, tasteful use of choiral vocals at the three quarter mark. I can see this song being played in Act 3 of a Danny Boyle movie about a rough-around-the-edges hero from council housing or some shit. Behind the Sun: A nice comedown from the last track (not that I disliked that), I think if I say I like the arrangement again on this track I'll sound like a broken record but these guys really know what they're doing. The Bunting Song: Not as fun as the other songs so far but not bad, bit of a drone. Nature Springs: You love to see it when you're enjoying what a song is doing and then it totally changes its vibe towards the end, the last minute of this song is a fantastic instrumental that just clicks for me. A Soldier's Tale: Good, short song. Three Changes: Opens like some circus music played by a shoegaze band, settles into a funky groove with british vocals that are NEARLY annoying. This song reminds me of getting drunk on only lager. Green Fields: I bet this song would have hit a lot harder in 2007 when the Iraq War was still going on and the boxing day tsunami was a fresh memory but this song kind of feels a bit kitschy now. Rega The Good, The Bad, The Queen: This song feels like a proper end track, totally ties the whole thing together. Nothing but good things to say about it. Had low expectations for this one and was pleasantly surprised!

This album is like a comedy album for people who don't find things funny anymore. I could put this on in my flat and it would transform it entirely, this album is oozing with atmosphere but it is not an album to actively listen to and consume like I normally would. It is difficult to rate this album. Love the atmosphere, but I find it repetitive. Love the vocals, find the lyricism irritating. The instrumentals are sparse and barebones, and I find it difficult to even classify this as music. Regardless, I am going to give it a 3/5 as this is great background /noise/ rather than a musical album per se.

Not much to say, enjoyed a few of the songs on here and from what I’ve read this album was pretty inspirational to British music in the 90s but apart from there she goes again (which sounds totally different from the rest of the album) the songs here are groovy but neither remarkable nor memorable. Competently made background music. Good for pacifying Gen X Brits.

The only song I heard from this album before listening was Pusherman which I heard at a house party of a rich guy I met who studied fine art at QCA (the biggest dickhead you can imagine). I don't have a lot to say about this album other than I really enjoyed it. It was sort of difficult for me to divorce this album from my mental image of Black Dynamite. Listening to this album after having watched this movie is like when you first watch the Shining after having already grown up with the Shinning episode from Simpsons Treehouse of Horror. I am sure overtime as I listen to this album more I will enjoy it a lot more but at the moment I just cannot stop laughing when listening to a song like 'Freddie's Dead' because it makes me think of Black Dynamite's RP-accented brother getting killed by whitey. My closing thoughts will therefore be written in jive. Man, this jam is slick! My brother Mayfield got the vocals swinging. These instrumentals here got dat funky 70s vibe. It’s got just enough kitsch to be more tastefully corny than a can of cream corn. (This review is brought to you by Ron Don Volante's Playpen, home of the 2 dollar lapdance) https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ2lqro2NR1MxxKs3W5pr3vQSnrDTxveYEPcQ&s

Highway Star slaps, but somehow this is not my favourite version of it. They did a cover of this in The Expanse series with the vocals sung in Belter Creole and it's a fuckin JAM. Maybe I'm A Leo feels sort of like a demo of a song that should be more complete, especially compared to Highway Star, this song feels like a step down musically. Maybe I am just jarred by the sudden shift in tone, this song is good for what it is but it shouldn't come after something as high-energy as Highway Star. Pictures Of Home is a song I'm surprised I've not heard before. Galloping bassline, rising vocals and solid guitar work; I would not at all be surprised if I found out this was young Steve Harris' favourite song, it really does feel like a prototype for Iron Maiden. Also the bass solo in this song goes really fucking hard. Never Before feels like it could have done a lot more, the song was okay and became great when the keyboard solo kicked in. Unfortunately this is at the very end of the song. Smoke On The Water is about a better band than Deep Purple. It's a classic, and no matter how many times I've heard it (on stream or some dickhead finger picking it), I don't think I'll ever get sick of it. Lazy is a decent jam, it has a good intro but I think this song meanders a bit and doesn't have as much of a direction as the other songs on this album. Space Truckin' gets bonus points for being about travelling through space in a truck. I'm including When a Blind Man Cries because it seems like it's included on the track listing for every release except the very original. This song should have been on the original, to end the album on Space Truckin' would have been a mistake to the flow of this album. This track perfectly carries out the album and ends on a high note. The guitar work here is excellent, the organ totally carries this song on its shoulders. Vocals are better here than on any other point of the album. Listening to this album feels more like riding an antique bike. Deep Purple was the inspiration for a lot of bands that would go on to do technically much more intricate and complex musical work. Having said that, this antique bike was a lot of fun to ride.

Before listening to this my only exposure to the Charlatans was their single 'The Only One I Know' which is a banger that I pretty much never skip if it comes on shuffle. With No Shoes is a solid opening but unfortunately all I can think of is how they probably found Rob Collins, booze cruiser, With No Shoes when he died in a car crash after being more than double the BAC limit flung out of his sunroof. North Country Boy is groovy and shows that the album has a cohesive direction in its sound. A bit forgettable mainly because I was still laughing about how Rob Collins managed to get ejected from his car while drink driving and then still stand up before passing away in an ambulance on Monday 22 July 1996. Tellin' Stories is fantastic, I have no idea what this guy is saying but I can only assume he's tellin' cautionary tales about the dangers of driving a BMW 520i on the B4233 after having a big day at the pub with your producer in the car who would survive with minor injuries. One to Another is where I realised that this band has more to offer than just 'The Only One I Know', the vocals here work well with the guitar work and the keyboard riffs are fantastic. The song is supposedly about a guy trying to keep his relationship together but I like to think the title is a nod to how Rob Collins went from being a getaway driver for his mate to being involved in a fatal single vehicle collision that left his wife widowed and his daughter without a father. You're A Big Girl Now is a song about how Rob Collins' daughter will have to learn to live without her late pisswreck father (who is not present on this track). How Can You Leave Us was initially written by Burgess about a girl, some lyrics were changed after Rob Collins' death (not a joke i copy-pasted this straight from wikipedia) Area 51 is a great instrumental piece which really highlights the talent of Rob Collins as a keyboardist. This song is like a nice intermission between the two halves of the album. Rob Collins demonstrates here that he is very good with his hands, even if he can't put on a seatbelt to save his life. How High is the question the British public were asking when it was revealed that Rob Collins was ejected from the sunroof of his BMW. Only Teethin', much like a lot of Cool Britannia and Britpop, is clearly very inspired by 60s rock and roll; a time when the Beatles were big, Britain was a somewhat serious country, and a time before the 1962 Road Traffic Act which criminalised drink driving and before seatbelts were made mandatory in 1983. Get On It sounds like someone put on some Bob Dylan before a jam session and now they have to get the annoying vocals and harmonica out of their system. It's songs like this that make me understand why the producer, Ric Peet, would get into the car with a drunken convicted armed robber, ironically named Rob Collins. Rob's Theme is an instrumental that was included after the passing away of the keyboardist of The Charlatans, Rob Collins. In all honesty, this is a sweet tune and it warms my heart to see a loving tribute to Rob on here (even though his brother/the label decided to leave him off the album cover?). This song slaps, but as there are no lyrics I am going to find it difficult to make another joke about drink driving and crashing your car. Almost as hard as I find it to believe that Rob Collins was able to get only four months in prison and charges dropped for assisting his mate in robbing a store. But seriously, this song is great and is 100% getting added to some of my playlists. Neil Young (who has 9 albums in this book, God help me) once said it's better to burn out than fade away. Rest in power Rob Collins, may you join your brothers in arms in Alcohalla, the afterlife for all brave booze cruisers. 7 DUIs out of 10

A minute into the first track I really thought to myself “fuck me dead, an hour and a half of this shit”. To preface, I like Bob Dylan. The first song on my giant playlist is The Man In Me, I think a lot of his songs are great. However he usually performs the worst version of the songs he writes. Anyway fuck my life the harmonica really hits badly on this first track and i was glad to see the mix in Fourth Time Around was a lot more forgiving on the ears. Thankfully so was the rest of this song: light and airy guitar work, great lyricism from one of the best to ever do it, so-so lyrics and unfortunately an annoying fucking harmonica. I don’t know what level of heavy metal poisoning you need to have to enjoy Bob Dylan fuckin annihilating your ears but I’m sure the dickheads clapping at the end of this track can let me know what the appropriate level of mercury PPM in your bloodstream allows you to enjoy it. Visions of Johanna, absolute classic. But that harmonica sneaks in and forces me to quickly hit the volume down button. It’s quickly becoming clear to me it’s going to be hard to give an album that has this and Like A Rolling Stone a 3 because of this annoying fucking harmonica. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue is a song I first heard covered by Marianne Faithful and then The Animals and then Graham Bonnett. All of these artists did it better than Bob Dylan. Desolation Row was alright, the mixing here is a bit shit but whatever it’s a bootleg. My thoughts about Just Like A Woman are the same as many of Dylan’s songs: “great lyrics, so-so vocals and instrumentals”. Mr Tambourine Man is where I really started to lose it with this album. These songs are long, Bob Dylan sounds like he is parodying himself and it honestly is disappointing given how great of a writer he is. Wow the second half of this shit really picks up. I’ll summarise my thoughts instead of wasting mine and everyone else’s time by trying to pad out my review. There is a special place in hell for those who said Bob Dylan sold out by going electric. At a concert someone called him a sellout and he called that audience member a Judas and told his band to crank up the volume. And thank fuckin god cause this shit is WAY better. This half would be a 4 or a 5 if it was its own thing and not burdened by side one which sounds like it was made by the USAF psyop guys who were too privileged to get sent to Vietnam. Closing thoughts on this half is that this version of Ballad Of A Thin Man rivals Kula Shaker’s cover which has always been my favourite. Like A Rolling Stone is a very special song to me and always makes me think of my father, if side one had not pissed me off so much it would have been enough to give this a 5.

I.B.M. lets you experience life inside one of those room-sized computers they had in the 1970s. Hit by a Rock opens with someone being tortured just outside that same room? United came and went, didn't notice it Valley of the Shadow of the Death is clearly just a result of a Dictaphone being left in a council housing flat somewhere. I'm convinced this whole track is raw audio. Dead on Arrival, this shit is ass Weeping Hamburger Lady is more of the same random noise, which is good because it signals to me that the album does not have a change of heart in its second half to be something at least entertaining. Who gives a shit about the rest of the songs? Not the guys 'performing' it, that's for sure. I feel about these 42 minutes of noise as I imagine a lot of people do about modern/post-modern art. It's bullshit, and I don't know what level of degeneration of your frontal cortex/serotonin imbalance you have to have for this to be enjoyable. This shit sucks, anything higher than a 1 is a Christ-like level of charity and generosity. Music critics should be rounded up and forced to break rocks in that labour camp from the start of Rambo 2.

Another Britpop album. 1001 albums that some poms think I should listen to, as much as I like British music this shit is getting to be cultural imperialism. I'd Like To Know is a solid, frenetic track but ultimately forgettable with nothing lyrics and okay vocals. Good opener, if it's indicative of the rest of the album then it'll at least be a /fun/ listen. Caught by the Fuzz is supposed to be a song about getting caught with hash but let's be real, these guys are british so it's probably about fucking underaged girls. Mansize Rooster is more of the same: fast-paced, energetic and boppy stuff. All these songs probably were necessary for dealing with the hell of living with John Major as your PM in Nonce Island. Alright is the most successful single from this album, peaking at number 2 which is pretty huge considering 1995 had stiff competition (all britpop slop) really the only interesting to say about this song. The rest of this album I really just glazed over, I can’t interface with this I think I might have britpop fatigue. The songs are competent and listenable but utterly forgettable. Lose It is my favourite song from this album and it’s a merciful 2m36s and it’s fine. 5/10 God save us and deliver us from Britpop

MASHALLAH Finally an escape from Samsara/the Eighth Circle of Hell (Britpop) and into something else, anything else. Seeing as I don't speak Portuguese and I couldn't understand most of the lyrics, the best way I can summarise this album is like sitting in a homeware store in heaven. I can see how it might sound a bit elevator music-y at times to some people but this album is charming as hell. There is no real way to deride this album, it's masterfully crafted music that's fantastic to actively listen to or to set as background music to set a mood. No complaints. Phenomenal.

Psalm 25:6-7 "Remember, Lord, your compassion and mercy which you showed long ago. Do not recall the sins and failings of my youth. In your mercy remember me, lord, because of your goodness." We have returned to the Paedoph Isles to hear some more LOVELY Britpop. Going to keep this short, this is a concept album. The concept being 'music for car commercials'. Competently made, inoffensive sound. Comedy was probably my favourite song on this album. This album is fine, but I will not be listening to it again.

This album is a 5 and it's no question. I'll admit personal bias because my father and I bonded a lot over Johnny Cash and other country artists, I won't ever be able to hear Cash's music without thinking about Old Tetris Joe. This album is electric, the audience itself basically acts as an instrument on here. This is exactly what a live album should be, the music is fantastic, the banter between song is top. I really can't put into words how much I love this album.

This album was enjoyable enough, but it feels like it was pretty inaccessible. Lots of call and response which can get a bit grating. Rhapsodia del Maravilloso was the standout on this album mainly for being a departure from the heavy drum work into guitar work which is splendid. I can't see myself going out of my way to listen to this again, it's pretty repetitive and I found that after Rhapsodia that the album kind of flew by me. On a repeat listen it didn't stick in my head any more than it did the first time. This album for me is a 5/10, wouldn't be upset if I heard it in the background but would probably skip it if I was in charge of the music.

The production on this album is unreal, pretty frontloaded though. The music is dynamic throughout, switching styles and the second half of this is less memorable and slows down quite a bit. The interludes on the album vary from funny to kind of annoying. Overall this album fucks and the slow down in the second half is not necessarily a bad thing, I think if it maintained the energy at the peak of Bombs Over Baghdad this would have honestly been a bit too full on. The hits here are phenomenal (with the exception of So Fresh, So Clean, I have never liked that song and I can't explain why) and the rest of the album is competently made and entertaining. Favourite tracks from this were Gasoline Dreams and Bombs Over Baghdad. Also watching the music videos from this album on MTV a lot probably did a lot of things to my developing 6 year old brain.

The candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long. In Amy's case the candle burned 0.3335 times as long as the life expectancy for women in the UK in 2011. I was going to do a song by song analysis of this album but I think it does well as a whole. I love soul music and nothing has changed. This album is tight, well-produced and great to listen to. Amy Winehouse has a fantastic voice, as for the lyrics? Who cares. Phenomenal album, will be listening to this plenty more.

How have I not heard this before? It feels like the Sonny and Cher cover was literally made for me. The lyrics are clever and pretty funny, the band clearly had a great time playing these songs. Master Race Rock really feels like it came from the Frank Zappa school of 'write the dumbest thing you can think of and make it funky'. One thing I wish that future punk music would have taken from this album also is great sound mixing! But I suppose it's easier to play like shit when nobody can tell what's going on. Side 1 is fantastic, the only weakish song on here is Back to Africa. First track on side 2 was good, but when California Sun started playing and that bassline kicked in I was hooked properly. If I were a music journalist in the 1970s and I heard this, then I too would have become a massive dickrider for punk music. This album totally explains (but doesn't excuse) the mass hysteria that music journos experienced at the time. 5/5 would get fucked up to this album

Absolutely funky, cannot believe this album is from 1989 feels extremely ahead of its time. Hard to put into words exactly how I feel about this album but it’s like the music equivalent of patchwork rug that smells like incense. Both sides as good as eachother, this album is absolutely going to be getting a lot of spins from me and it’s a crime that this isn’t on Spotify, copyright be damned. Favourite tracks here are People Hold On, Which Doctor, No Connection.

Insane opening track, genuinely difficult to move on to the next few tracks. This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us really set too high of a standard. The album picks up again on Thank God It's Not Christmas and stays good until it gets to Equator which is one of the most grating songs I have ever heard in my miserable life. Honestly the end of this album is just these two assholes padding for time as seen in Barbecutie, Lost and Found is just whatever. Honestly this album would be a 2 if it wasn't for the opening track, but my lord it really wore my patience thin on some songs. The rest of the album after the opener is mid to bad. I can see how a music journo would put this on here cause Morrissey said he likes this album so I guess that makes it 'influential' and 'foundational'. Whatever, one absolute fucking ripper of a track, a handful of mid ones and a couple DOGSHIT ones equates to a 3. The spotify bio for this band (usually written by the band's PR person if I'm not mistaken) wanks on about how influential the band is so I guess they really bought into the bullshit framed around them.

Hip Hop isn't really my thing but I perked up during All Falls Down and when Jesus Walks came on I had a 'I finally get it' moment. It goes without saying the production value here is incredible, but the album does feel extremely early 2000s for my taste (derogatory). The lyricism is fantastic especially on basically every track on this album. The album has an extremely strong opening string of tracks, the middle of it fall off a bit after Jesus Walks up and really picks up again on Two Words. The end of the album more than makes up for a slump in the middle. Great album, a super solid 4/5 for me. Looking forward to seeing more Kanye in the future. Favourite line: "The doctor said I have blood clots but I ain't Jamaican"

Whenever I hear The Band, specifically The Weight, I think of the scene in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes when they turn on the hydro dam and the gas station starts working again. From wikipedia: "Bob Dylan offered to sing on the album, but ultimately realized it was important for the Band to make their own statement. Instead, Dylan signified his presence by contributing a cover painting." AND THANK FUCKING GOD. The worst thing that this album does is make you wait till the end of side one to hear The Weight, arguably the most well known song that this group recorded. Side one itself is great, Tears of Rage is a wonderful opener and the variety in vocal performances from different members works really well here. The quality of each of these members of Bob Dylan's touring band really makes you considering how much more talented Dylan's contemporary BAND MEMBERS were as musicians than him. Side two fucks just as hard as side one and has probably the best song on this album, Chest Fever. We Can Talk and Long Black Veil are standouts here too. If The Weight wasn't on side one I would say side two is better bit honestly both halves of this album are as good as eachother. Easy 5/5 from me, will be getting this on LP.

This album is pretty ahead of its time, you could have told me this was made in the early to mid 80s and I would have believed you. Opens strong with Good Times Roll, Best Friend's Girl (the best song on side one) and Just What I Needed. The latter has definitely been overplayed for me but it doesn't stop it from being a great song. I'm in Touch with Your World is a change of pace that I really don't like and I found myself skipping this one as soon as it plays on repeat listens. Don't Cha Stop is a nice return to form and closes out the side neatly. Side two is stacked, there is only one hit from here but the quality of the album here is just better. There is no point talking about the individual tracks here (they're all great) because all I am going to focus on is Moving In Stereo. The fun production of fucking with the L/R channels is cool (and hasn't lost its novelty after 1000+ listens), the lyrics are succinct, the instrumentation rocks. This song is the reason this is a great album. All in all, a really good debut album from a band whose sound would become influential to pop music that came after it. Even I'm in Touch with Your World isn't a bad song, just one that I feel doesn't fit the flow of the album. Each song here is crafted with care, a lot of albums seem to be a vehicle for a hit song and the filler that is packed in is unimaginative drivel. I am genuinely impressed with the artistic effort that went into making this album so varied and adventurous. In the year of 1978 when the top 100 was dominated by Bee Gees, the fucking Grease soundtrack and the kiddy-diddlers at Sweet, The Cars deserves kudos for doing something genuinely innovative. Big ups to Roy Thomas Baker on the production here.

"The album was also noted for its fusion of ordinary rock instruments, electronic beats, and synthesizers. Its large, layered, symphonic sound has also earned it a reputation as the Pet Sounds of the 1990s from a few critics." Perhaps these same music critics were too busy doing whippets and sucking each other off to remember one of the pillars of the Beach Boys' sound was the vocal harmonies between the band members. Straight up, this album was a fucking slog to listen to. The Spiderbite Song genuinely made me physically uncomfortable the first time the singer first said the word 'spiderbite'.' The instrumentals here are phenomenal, the arrangement is great EXCEPT FOR THE DRUM TRACK. Good fucking god, you're telling me this is their ninth album and they let the drums come out this shit? I guess the critics are right, Pet Sounds was known for innovating by using unorthodox methods of making music like using hairpins to pluck piano wire. I suppose drums that sounds like shit is basically the same thing right? In all seriousness, the instrumentation here is amazing if you can get past the drums here. I am not going to talk about the vocals. This album doesn't have the luxury of being released at a time where it would have been considered innovative. The fact that this has a 100 on AllMusic is fucking crazy to me. The Observer is a song that demonstrates how great this album is without vocals. The more I listen to albums from this book (especially 90s-onwards) the more I realise that Joe's Garage is not on here because it shit talks music journalists. 5/10

Inoffensive paint-by-numbers music. This is probably some Gen X consultant's favourite band. The music here is very well-played, the arrangement and production is good and the vocals are good. That's all I can really say about this album is that it's good. Highlights here for me are Turn and Slide Show. 7/10 don't think I would go out of my way to listen to this. (Also not sure if I would recognise a track from this if you played it to me in a week)

Gonna keep this one short. My first proper introduction to Neil Young. The southern man may not need him around but I certainly do. Highlights were Revolution Blues, On The Beach, Walk On

Pretty inconsistent quality, this album feels like it was made to fill airtime on a “classic rock” radio station. It slaps when it’s good and it’s just forgettable most of the time. Wouldn’t put this album on as a whole any time soon but I never skip Black Hole Sun when it comes on. Highlights: Fell On Black Days, Head Down, Black Hole Sun

Listened to the Iggy Mix instead of the Bowie mix because that’s my preferred version of Gimme Danger which is my favourite song on this album. The mixing here isn’t great due to a very short post production schedule but I think it adds to the charm of this album. The album sort of loses its charm when you read about Iggy Pops nonce bullshit as well as Bowies involvement. Mixing and transatlantic kiddy diddling aside, this album rocks. The tone is consistent, the scumbag theme is prevalent throughout and Iggy Pops vocals are pretty varied and pretty much knock it out of the park on each track. If this album was 7 shit songs and Gimme Danger it would be a 3, I absolutely adore that song. Fortunately it’s 7 good songs and Gimme Danger so it’s an easy 4 from me.

More like the Slee Pees An overly-long, sleeping aid of an album. Symphony of the Seven Seas was a good instrumental but overall this album kind of blows. I can remember one track from this distinctively and it doesn’t even have vocals.

An album probably best known for the music video for Sledgehammer, this was an absolute joy to review. Each track is masterfully produced, the sheer amount of artists that Gabriel collaborated shows that he really cares about the craft of making music. Pulling influences from around the world, this lost out to a similarly innovative album for the grammy in the form of Graceland by Paul Simon. And fair enough, I would be hard pressed to decide which of these albums is better. Every song on this album rips, Peter Gabriel manages to turn every track into a groovy soundscape. Big shoutout to the bassline in Big Time, probably the high point of the album for me besides the entirety of Sledgehammer. No negative comments whatsoever, perfect album.

Like the Smiths but not embarrassing to say you enjoy it. The album is very consistent in tone and quality, I don’t care that much for the vocals but the instrumentation is simple and works very well. My only exposure to Elliott Smith before this was Good Will Hunting. Was going to give this a 3 but decided that since I listened to it multiple times and it didn’t have any skips at all that it deserves a 4. Highlights for me are Son of Sam, LA, Colorbars, Happiness, Pretty Mary Kay.

Before Steve Harris wrote songs about movies he liked, warriors and other cool shit he mainly wrote songs about murdering women. Iron Maiden's debut LP has no skips at all. While I prefer Dickinson's vocals, Di'Anno's style here suits the tone better. This album wastes absolutely no time, every song is as long as it needs to be. There are definitely bands that have pushed the boundaries of heavy metal further than Iron Maiden, but this album stills fucks today and it is truly timeless. While I enjoy the Dickinson era more and I wouldn't even put this in the top 5 Maiden albums I can't give this anything but a 5 in terms of not only importance to the genre but also musical quality. I'm very glad that Steve Harris gave up on playing for West Ham to become possibly the best heavy metal songwriter going.

I enjoyed this album when it stuck to it its less poppy side. But honestly I was just waiting for this one to end. My idea of purgatory is being stuck in an infinite Uber ride and this is what is playing in the background. This can never hope to achieve anything higher than a 2/5 because of the Imagine cover. Highlight for me was Ya Aachkou, I would definitely try my best to hold my vomit in if this came on in an uber.

Not super familiar with post-hardcore as a genre but this shit rocks. As an album this is my jam. Reading about the band, big fan of their ethos of not selling out even though these guys could have made an absolute killing exploiting the same target audience as Nirvana or something. No skips on here, a joy to listen to.

One way that God likes to tell musicians that he really likes their music is to have them die in a plane crash. No skips at all, the vocal performance here is insane. I got goosebumps when My Girl came on, how can I give this anything except a 5?

I'm going to rock up to the Bob Dylan biopic in a fucking suicide vest I swear to god. 1001 albums you need to listen to in order to see how far music has come since the days of skinny losers and grifters. There is no way that a group of people listened to It's All Over Now Baby Blue and thought 'yeah mate, this is the best version of this song we could have done, nobody is ever gonna top this'. I think baby boomers only remember songs like Blowin' In The Wind, Hurricane and Like A Rolling Stone when it comes to Bob Dylan. Maybe this was just the only thing going in a musical landscape but upon checking the Billboard charts for the year this came out the same year as Help! and Out Of Our Heads that's obviously not true. Bob Dylan is a fine songwriter but as I have said before, I cannot take a whole fuckin album of this guy. Two and a half listens of this and I just can't shake the feeling that Dylan's music sounds like a homeless guy ranting set to music. Gates Of Eden onwards is a fucking slog on here good lord. Songs I enjoyed (didn't hold my head in my hands while listening) were Subterranean Homesick Blues, Outlaw Blues, Mr Tambourine Man.

2000s sports game menu music. Vocals are good, instrumentation is alright, performance is competent but overall a forgettable album I won't be listening to again anytime soon. A true 5/10. Favourite song from this was Pin.

Perfect album

Writing music about a tragedy can weigh it with baggage for me. It could make the whole thing very funny (Tears in Heaven) or quite poignant (The Final Cut). While there are definitely songs that lean heavily into the 9/11 stuff (Title track, Empty Sky, etc.) to me, this album feels like a re-treading of the same themes in The River and Born in the USA which isn't a bad thing at all. Springsteen's lyricism and writing is the best part of this album, his vocals are just as strong as they were on albums like The River and Tunnel Of Love. However the arrangement and production on some songs veers a little too far into the patriotic 2000s Country and Western style of music that was popular in the bloodthirsty warmongering culture of Bush Jr America (Waiting On A Sunny Day). The Homeric length of 72 minutes makes this a difficult listen at times but it's still Springsteen so there are some great tunes on here that make it worth multiple listens. The album falls off after Further On (Up the Road) and doesn't really pick up again until the title track. Highlights here are Lonesome Day, Nothing Man, Countin' On A Miracle, Further On (Up the Road), Paradise. I love the Boss but this album makes me think he needs to be put on a performance improvement plan.

The fact that we live in the timeline where this album got rave reviews on release and the Brighton Hotel bombing was not successful shows how awful this world really is. Albatross has a line that sums up my thoughts on this album and Public Image Ltd in general: 'You are unbearable'. Following the intense dickriding of punk music, John Lydon decides to form a new band and lead the wave of post-punk which would be met with more intense dickriding from music critics whose minds have become so drained of whatever brain chemical allows you to actually enjoy music that they decide THIS dogshit is good music. Once you place this album in the context of late 70s England a lot of things begin to make sense, life was fucking dogshit and this clearly seeps into some of the music of the time. They could have fixed their economy however by manufacturing and selling hatchets to the general public with which they could hack music critics and journalists into tiny pieces which could be processed into biofuels and fertiliser, thereby making the UK a leader in the field of alternative fuels and agriculture. Therefore Thatcher would not have been elected and Neoliberalism wouldn't have taken off. In short, if this album was not released it would have definitely prevented the Falkands War, and maybe at least one of the Iraq Wars.

Bob Dylan is a musician with a very wide range. The range being the quality of his songs. This album opens with Like A Rolling Stone, one of TWO Bob Dylan songs where his version is the best one and arguably the best Bob Dylan song (the other one being The Man In Me). I can't put into words how much I genuinely like this song, I get the feeling from listening to this song the same feeling I imagine boy lovers/lover boys in Ancient Greece would have felt listening to Homer prattle on about the Iliad inbetween slathering himself in olive oil and chasing after some Aegean bussy. This is followed up by Tombstone Blues, which is classic Dylan rambling. This song is ass. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry and it takes a the supposed greatest songwriter of all time to come up with the worst title for a song I've ever seen, this song is alright but suffers from BAD harmonica. From a Buick 6 is a tight song with GOOD harmonica, and I quite liked this one probably because I just tuned out whatever bullshit Dylan was saying and enjoyed myself. I have previously said that Ballad of a Thin Man was best performed by Kula Shaker and I still maintain that but Dylan's studio version here is great. The instrumentation and the lyricism here is peak Dylan for me, this is one of his best. Queen Jane Approximately is alright, the thing that stands out here is a very groovy and understated electric guitar track. BAD harmonica present on this track. The title track opens with a really fuckin goofy slide whistle which tells you this song is gonna be dogshit. FORTUNATELY this song is actually pretty good! Dylan does some of his usual bullshit where he just rips biblical shit into this lyrics and boomers swoon over it. Despite this, I actually quite like everything about this song except for the stupid fucking slide whistle. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues is a fine song, more homeless man-esque rambling lyrics and GOOD harmonica features on this track. The instrumentation here really carries it but overall this song is fairly mid. Desolation Row is a song that if you described to me, I would hate it. I would describe it as the musical equivalent of being tired drunk at a party and some guy is just yapping your ear off talking about bullshit for 11 minutes. But I love it, this song fuckin rocks, and I can't explain why. The wikipedia page for this album has more glaze on it than a krispy kreme donut. On the standards of general music, this is a good album, on the standards of Bob Dylan albums this is a freaky fucked-up listenable aberration which makes it basically a masterpiece. A lot of the praise for this album is Dylan's lyricism and I feel like there is some big in-joke I am missing out on. Which is what makes my love for this album all the more confusing. To summarise my thoughts on this album, I will use the words of Werner Herzog: "But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment."

Anti-shoutout to Robert Christgau for giving this album a poor review because he doubted how legit the country roots of the Eagles were. Kris Kristofferson (Rest in peace) is one of the most acclaimed country artists of all time and that guy was a Rhodes scholar, hardly a hard knock country battler. He certainly didn't let the 'authenticity' of music influence his judgement of artists like 2pac who went to fucking Juilliard. Evil scummy music critics aside, this album absolutely slaps. I listened to Hotel California and was a bit bummed that it was very frontloaded. Mainly it was buyer's remorse because I bought the thing on vinyl because I liked the title track and New Kid In Town so much. This is not true for this album. Every song on this album is listenable and there are some real deep cuts that I'm surprised I haven't heard them before. Specifically a huge shoutout to Most of Us Are Sad and Train Leaves Here This Morning. The harmonies here are great, the instrumentation is great, this is peak easy listening music. This isn't some bullshit that sophists can get together and glaze, and it really shows in this albums critical reception both historically and on this website. The negative reviews on here generally are crybabies who are mad the music here isn't Bob Dylan butchering bible verses and putting a leaf blower into a harmonica or it's not some factory produced Britpop from the 90s (the music that plays in the eighth circle of hell). The band have a reputation for being a bunch of scumbags (Don Henley is a paedo), but fuck man if this was my debut album I think I would have earned the right to be a piece of shit too. Fun fact, the bassist Randy Meisner's grandparents are all Volga Germans. Joe Exotic is also descended from Volga Germans. Also the later drummer's sister-in-law has been a missing person since 1996.

Inoffensive, competently-produced music. Multiple listens did not leave an impression on me, unfortunately in this case the album cover was the most memorable thing here. It's fine as background noise but overall I think this is just mid.

The Stones Roses are to Britpop what Oppenheimer was to nuclear warfare. In terms of both musical merit and legacy, this album is a 5. Every song here is a banger, no skips whatsoever. The producer for this album was the same one as on Pink Floyd's Meddle which probably explains why I have such a love for this album. Such an energetic and varied album, it's a blast from start to finish. Just the fact that Don't Stop was a silly studio experiment with backwards sound that doesn't just sound like a dumb gimmick track is testament to the quality of this album. Also another anti-shoutout to Robert Christgau who called this band overhyped. Personal highlights for me are Made of Stone, (Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister, and I Am The Resurrection. I listened to the UK LP which doesn't include Fool's Gold (if it did this album would be a 6/5). Fun fact: the leader singer was diddled by his teacher and he's also an ant-vaxx covid cooker.

I have heard Smells Like Teen Spirit far too many times in my life and honestly it’s a perfectly fine song but I have never been able to get past the word salad lyrics. Nirvana is a lot more than just that song though and there are some great songs on here which show the talent that this band had. Growing up listening to groups like EKV and Haustor it’s fun to see how Yugo rock influenced this album through Krist Novoselic. Some of the songs here like Polly and Lithium I don’t care for that much but I would never skip them on a listen of this album. In terms of musical merit it’s nowhere near the most technically good album of the 90s, not even in the grunge scene but the group understand what makes music entertaining and gripping. Highlights: Come As You Are, Drain You, On A Plain, Something In The Way

Truly something I would not have listened to if not for this list. Looked at the length at first and rolled my eyes at another album that goes for over an hour. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this. Multiple listens, no skips here at all. As someone who is not familiar with the genre at all, I don't know how monumental this album is in its production and style. From the little reading I did, it seems this album's was very influential in music. For me, this album feels like the precursor to the endless waves of lo-fi slop study music on youtube (not a bad thing at all!). Not many albums have piqued my interest this much to go and explore more of the genre, so for that and how much I enjoyed it I can't give it anything lower than a 5. Highlights: Changeling, Stem/Long Stem, Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain

Pretty front loaded album, Running Up That Hill has been thoroughly ruined by becoming a huge trend online, but is still a great song nonetheless. The production is good and Kate Bush is a great songwriter but this album didn't particularly gel with me, a lot of the songs feel like they are a minute or so longer than they should be and the album itself feels quite long-winded (this feeling definitely peaked for me in Jig of Life). Overall, I did enjoy the album but it's not something I see myself returning to as a whole despite enjoying the major hits from the album. Highlights: Running Up That Hill, Cloudbusting, The Morning Fog

God rest the eternal martyred soul of 2pac. The standout tracks on this are great, the lyricism is top notch but a lot of this album went by me on repeat listens and I just found myself listening to the highlights again. Not my preferred 2pac album. I'm definitely not the target demographic for this, nor was I when I first was exposed to it as a child. Ummed and ahhed about giving this either a 3 or a 4 but if I'm going to come back to it (albeit with skips), it's gonna be a 4. Highlights: If I Die 2Nite, Me Against The World, Dear Mama, Fuck The World

"Lord it's the same old tune, fiddle and guitar; Where do we take it from here?" A bit goofier than the country music that I normally enjoy. There's a good mix of sad ballads and upbeat songs. The cover of Streets of Laredo was enjoyable. Don Rich's slide guitar throughout was a joy, Buck Owens vocals aren't exactly my cup of tea and on a few songs they wore out their welcome for me personally. Highlights: Let The Sad Times Roll On, The Band Keeps Playin' On, Streets of Laredo

Pretty competently made music, has all the parts there to be something great but it just didn’t go the extra mile for me. Still enjoyed it and would probably throw a couple of these songs into a garage/grunge mix to avoid putting in Pearl Jam filler. The highs here were very high but a lot of this felt same and despite its length it did drag. Special shoutout to If I Think, best song on this album. I was going to give this a 3 but I think I listened to the entire deluxe version of this on Spotify and then went back and listened to just the EP a few times so on second thought this is a 4 for me. Last song on this album shares a sample with Loaded by Primal Scream, that song rocks too. Highlights: Touch Me I’m Sick, Mudride, If I Think

The instrumentals and the lyrics work fine on their own, but together they just didn't gel with me. Gave this album a few goes and just wasn't able to get into a groove with it. Highlights: Metropolis, Sketches of Spain

Possibly the most front loaded album of all time? Hotel California, New Kid In Town (one of my favourite songs of all time), Life In The Fast Lane really sweep you off your feet on this album until they totally change gears with Wasted Time. After this, all the songs work together cohesively as an album but individually don't hold a candle to the opening 3 tracks. When I first listened to this album in its entirety last year, I was a bit let down with how the B side slows down compared to the first but with repeat listens I have greatly grown to appreciate it. Special mention to Pretty Maids All In A Row, Walsh kills it on vocals and lyrics. The instrumentation and vocals here are much better developed than the Eagles' debut album, each band member is allowed their time in the spotlight. I will never stop glazing New Kid In Town, Frey's vocals, the instrumentation, the lyrics, everything works together and fits the theme of the album. Though I'll never be able to relate to the feeling of being yesterday's big thing/hasbeen in the music industry, the feeling that's cultivated in this song of being over the hill and past your prime is something that really moves me. I don't think I need to say anything at all about the title track. Every song is a highlight. I've had a great day and I love the fuckin' Eagles, man.

Well-performed light pop. Really enjoyed a listen of this but on repeats it didn’t stick with me much apart from Lovefool which is probably going to get way more plays now that I can finally put a name to a song I’ve heard on and off since I was a kid. Highlights: Never Recover, Step On Me, Lovefool, Great Divide

The Doors were the first band I really got properly into when I 'got into music'. Blah blah blah it's a psyop whatever yeah Jim Morrison's dad was responsible for the Gulf of Tonkin and started American involvement in the Vietnam war. Well his son died a fat bloated overdosed corpse in Paris so I think that's pretty decent karmic balance. This album rips open with The Changeling and Love Her Madly, songs I have probably heard more than my own name and I cannot get sick of them. Manzarek's on the keyboard really shines on both of these songs, but the same is true for basically every single Doors song where his keyboard work is the best part of it (sure as shit isn't the lyricism). Been Down So Long and Cars Hiss by My Window are a lull, not a whole lot to say about these songs. L.A. Woman, really probably the best song the Doors ever did, really a culmination of Morrison's vocals/nonsense lyrics working perfectly with the instrumentation from the band. If this album is a bookend with their debut, this is like if you took The End and made it a good song. L'America/la snoozefest. Hyacinth House is a deep cut I've always been a fan of, it's a shame this song doesn't get talked about but bullshit like Soul Kitchen gets glazed to no end. Crawling King Snake, The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) AKA 'I am waiting for the end of this side so I can listen to Riders on the Storm'. What else is there to say about Riders on the Storm other than this song fucking slaps six ways to Sunday? Most of the time I listened to this song on shitty cheap ipod headphones so it was a whole new experience to listen to it on a decent hi-fi system and really be able to soak it in.

Nick Cave has two good songs, and neither of them are on this album. Only a single listen for this one, and it was an absolute slog. Some songs were half-way tolerable like Straight to You. When I First Came to Town is great because the harmonica signals that the song is over and it's got good harmonica a la Neil Young not BAD harmonica like Bob Dylan. That's followed by John Finn's Wife, more rambly shitty lyrics with good production value at a duration that is long enough to be considered legitimate torture much like the next (AND THANKFULLY LAST) two songs on this album. Loom of the Land is probably the best song on this album especially because it's juxtaposed by Jack the Ripper which is a fuckin stinker. The musical assembly here just doesn't click for me. Cave's vocals are grating, the lyrics are rambly and it helps to just tune it out and honestly this bloke's whole spooky edgy aesthetic just rubs me the wrong way. When people say they are Nick Cave fans I am convinced they have only listened to either Into My Arms or Do You Love Me? and then decided "yeah the vibe is good". The only other explanation is that you barrack for him cause you are Australian. And for the latter reason I am giving it a 2/5 instead of the 1 is deserves. How I felt for the majority of this album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQjj1uPL1Ds

The hits band to end all other hits band. One that is mostly remembered in the public consciousness for songs that are used in stadiums and car commercials. And also having obnoxious orchestral covers in trailers for dogshit movies, It's a shame too because Queen albums are fantastic and have a lot more going for them than just upbeat advertiser-friendly music that costs an arm and a leg to get licensed. Sheer Heart Attack is a reminder that their best work does not merely extend to the songs that you have heard a million times. Mercury's vocals are fantastic, May's guitar is always recognisable and is played to a tasteful amount. There are some filler songs in here that don't hold up that well on multiple listens but the album as a whole works very well. Highlights: Brighton Rock, Killer Queen, Flick Of The Wrist, In The Lap Of The Gods (both versions), She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)

The arrangement and production on this album is the definition of 'just right'. There are so many moving pieces on here and they all work together, nothing feels superfluous or awkwardly shoved in. Prince has an amazing voice with great range and knows when to kick it into a higher gear for good effect (best seen on the second half of both The Beautiful Ones and Purple Rain). This album is a joyride from start to finish, every track is phenomenal. I have heard the title track a million times and I'll admit personal bias, I was never going to give this a bad score because it's the song my dad sang the most when I would drive in the car with him as a kid. Most people probably only know When Doves Cry and Purple Rain but this album is chock full of bangers admittedly I prefer side 1 to side 2 but it's really like comparing a 9 to a 9.5 I am struggling to think of any criticism of this album but apparently the movie isn't fantastic. The album art is kinda goofy, it never quite gelled with me. Highlights: every track

As someone who doesn’t know a lot about hip hop I would hazard a guess that the production and musical style here would have been extremely influential. From the little hip hop that this list has given me this one by far has the “worst” production value but it definitely enhances the vibe of the album. The lyricism and flow here are fantastic, and even though I’m normally not a fan of skits and intermissions in music generally the ones here are a welcome break and segue well between songs especially with the clips from Shaw Brothers movies. Having said all of that It’s not something that I can see going in my usual rotation of music, but it’s definitely an enjoyable listen. Highlights: Can It Be All So Simple, C.R.E.A.M., Protect Ya Neck, Tearz

Part of the musical bridge between the 60s and 70s sound, I think this band is included not because they are particularly influential but for the same reason as an artist like Nick Drake. It seems these guys were overshadowed by the bigger acts of the time and the authors of the book wanted to bring attention to them. In terms of an album, it works well as a whole piece. It's understated and very well-performed. There are no bad tracks on here but also no tracks that blow your hair back. Tracks like Ride the Wind overstay their welcome but whatever it's the last track on the album that doesn't count. Overall, a fun little album that is pretty frontloaded and would be perfect to give a spin on a lazy Sunday afternoon but not something I'm dying to return to. Biggest critique here is the goofy fuckin slide whistle in Don't Let The Rain Bring You Down Highlights: Darkness, Darkness, On Sir Francis Drake

Camping Next to Water was is a little microcosm of how I feel about this album, a thoroughly boring song throughout except for the two parts where a guitar comes in way louder than the rest of the instrumental tracks and for those two parts the song comes to life. But unlike the album itself, that song goes on for as long as it needs to. Tonally it's a weird one, sometimes it feels like a 2000s attempt to catch lightning in a bottle a la Pet Sounds, other times it feels like you're standing in the red bathroom at the Overlook Hotel with Delbert Grady. At least nobody says the n word. Highlights: Everybody's Stalking, Fall in a River

Lead-based paint was federally banned for residential use in 1978 in the United States. While some states banned it earlier than that, the health effects would linger for years to come. In the 1983 Rolling Stone readers' poll, Synchronicity was voted "Album of the Year". There are two songs on this album that are not written by Sting, and they are far and away the worst songs on this album. In fact, the best way to enjoy this album is to completely skip everything until Synchronicity II. I have never had Spotify recommend me Synchronicity I, probably because its algorithm recognises that not a single person on God's grey earth would ever listen to this album from back to back more than once. Reading on wikipedia, the insane amount of cope around Mother is unreal. Stephen Holden from Rolling Stone noted that "corrosively funny 'Mother' inverts John Lennon's romantic maternal attachment into a grim dadaist joke." Yeah, get fucked mate it's just a shitty song that was shoved onto here so this would have enough material for an LP instead of an EP. Calling something Dadaist is the wanker's equivalent of pissing yourself on a night out and then saying you did it on purpose to protest poor bathroom quality/laws that criminalise public urination. Seriously, this song is so fucking ass and the justification is that Andy Summers had an overbearing mum. The duality of Br*tish people on full force here, Roger Waters' mummy issues gave us The Wall and Andy Summers' ones gave me a cluster headache. This album well and truly deserves a 1. How the fuck was this band considered the biggest in the world? I am convinced that Sting has dirt on music journos, this goes far beyond favouritism and nepotism. There must be something sinister going on here. This album got rave reviews and consistently appears in lists for best album of the year but Feline by The Stranglers gets nothing more than lukewarm reviews because Jet Black didn't have photos of the editor of Rolling Stone sucking off boys at Bohemian Grove. Also True by Spandau Ballet came out this same year and if you think that this is a better album than the one that has GOLD on it I will be more than willing to die to defend my opinion. I'm giving this shit a 2 for the three good songs on here. We may never again see such an album again but there is always hope. As of 2018, there are an estimated 37 million homes and apartments with lead paint in the United States. Highlights: Every Breath You Take, King of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger

After multiple listens to this album my thoughts stray from "this is some well-performed crybaby bullshit" and "this is some well-performed crybaby gold". Buckley's vocals are next-level but it feels in every song that he must demonstrate his full vocal range and go over the top, which can become a bit tiresome on repeat listens (if you're a sicko who doesn't take breaks between repeat listens). Buckley isn't just a great singer but he knows how to write lyrics and instrumentation that works perfectly well with his voice. Having said that, it does feel cathartic to just having this soulful white boy just belt out in every single track and give it his all. Very few songs here are a miss and the variety in musical style here makes this an interesting listen. The songs on here work super well to put into a "i am going to feel upset on purpose" playlist and together as an album. I was going to give this a 4, but then I realised I had listened to this about eight times in the day that it was assigned to me. That and Jeff Buckley died the same time I was born so I really only have one option. Highlights: Grace, Last Goodbye, So Real, Hallelujah, Lover, You Should Have Come Over, Dream Brother

Rocks Off is a lively introduction to the album, you would hope so after seeing this is a double LP, so you better hope this album can be this engaging for all 70 minutes. A solid opener. Rip This Joint is a fun rockabilly track, not a particularly memorable one and not quite my taste. Shake Your Hips made me think something is up with this album production-wise, and yes it turns out that this album was recorded over a number of years in different studios because it really shows as you go from song to song. The production value/musical style seems to vary quite a bit on this album and I suppose that's an artistic choice but not necessarily one that I know if I like. A serviceable song, nothing much else to say about it. Casino Boogie has some great horns on it, but is definitely one of those songs where I think "is Mick Jagger racist for basically doing blackface with his voice?" Tumbling Dice is one of two songs from this album I knew beforehand and it's fantastic. Classic weird ass Jagger vocals that I can barely understand the lyrics through, backing vocals hitting at the right time, I can picture Keith Richards laying down the guitar track while nodding off. Banger. Sweet Virginia is a return to the more downbeat, lo-fi parts of this album. It was at this point I decided to look up when the Stones kicked their drug habit (at least Jagger) and discovered that the recording of this album was basically a sideshow to the drug cyclone of which Keith Richards was the eye. It definitely shows! Torn And Frayed is a fine song, there really isn't much to say. The honky tonk/keyboard track as well as the backing vocals really makes me think the stones were quite fond of Songs From The Big Pink. Sweet Black Angel has a sweet percussion track, GOOD harmonica unlike a certain folk artist who is a contemporary of the Stones. It was somewhere the start of this track and the end of the next one where this album really clicked for me. Loving Cup closes out the second side of the first disk well, this song brings it all together and its good to see that though I had my doubts about the pastiche of production value and styles here that it came together quite well. Happy is sung by Keith Richards and he gets to show off that just because his body is a garbage disposal for schedule 2 drugs, does not mean that his voice has gone to shit (yet)! You have an album with this many songs on it, you're eventually going to have a name for a song as stupid as Turd On The Run. This song is fine, it sounds much like a few of the more forgettable songs on the first disk. Ventilator Blues feels like a rusty hand-cranked hurdy gurdy, its probably the grimiest and most lowdown track on either disk here and definitely a high point. I Just Want To See His Face has some really great keyboard work that goes well with the scatting lead vocals (going to assume it's scatting cause I can't understand anything he's saying) and backing vocals here. The smooth fading intro from the last song here works really well, and the drum track provides nice bookends. I am never going to be able to listen to Let It Loose without thinking of Jack Nicholson beating the shit out of Leonardo DiCaprio while he yells "I'm naht a fahkin cawp". This song fuckin rocks especially cause it makes me think of Jack Nicholson's way over the top performance in The Departed. Especially that one line in his opening monologue. You know the one. The last side of this album is alright, a lot less remarkable than the other sides with the exception of Shine A Light which stands out as probably my second favourite song on this album behind Let It Loose. Soul Survivor is a good closer but I will say after a few listens, each time I did feel kind of blues'ed-out by a full listen of this whole thing. This album is good, I certainly don't think that it deserves the EXTREMELY high praise that it has received. I think maybe the fact that this was recorded in such a tumultuous period, the return to a more 'basic' sound versus their previous albums, and the mythology surrounding the culture of the band and all the guests that visited them in this period probably contributed more to the band's favourable reception than the actual musical merit here. The Rolling Stones are the embodiment of the old saying "Good artists copy, great artists steal", this album is a bunch of university educated Br*tish toffs stealing tunes from starving black American artists. But at least they're honest about it unlike Led Zeppelin. Highlights: Sweet Black Angel, Ventilator Blues, I Just Want To See His Face, Ventilator Blues, Let It Loose, Shine A Light https://youtu.be/u5AuLTra3t8?si=whBm8Ha_L1MddB7i&t=53

It is genuinely impressive that the writing credits for this album are so evenly spread between the four members of the supergroup and that the musical style maintains consistency so well. You can clearly tell who is writing what song, and it's not that any of the writers here are better than the others (although I have a soft spot for Crosby), but that their musical styles are different. Even though they all shine on their own, when these guys come together their harmonies are phenomenal. Not just in the sense that their voices work well together, musically these guys blend into something that is more than the sum of its parts. This album gets better and better with each listen and I can't say there are any weak tracks. Highlights: Almost Cut My Hair, Deja Vu, Our House, 4+20, Country Girl

A mixed bag if there ever was one. I like Brian Eno and I like Bryan Ferry, I don’t think I like them together. There’s some good stuff on here but honestly it’s such a confused album that it just gets muddled. I would say that this album is entirely forgettable except that In Every Dream Home A Heartache is by far one of the most annoying songs I’ve ever heard except for the very end where it’s good all of a sudden? Not something I would voluntarily listen to again, maybe only to be reminded how much I like later Roxy Music?

Took me three attempts to listen to this at home without falling asleep. This shit is ass. Sitting through this was like the ludo vico sequence. I guess the drumming is okay

Tied with OK Computer for my favourite Radiohead album, while it doesn’t have the same level of complexity as OK Computer, this album has a good balance of the meat and potatoes alt rock where the band started and a taste of where it would end up musically. A tad front loaded but an enjoyable listen and something I’m happy to return to after many years seeing as this was probably my most listened to album in my second year of uni. Highlights: The Bends, High and Dry, Fake Plastic Trees, Black Star, Street Spirit (Fade Out)

An enjoyable album with some fun arrangements and very competent production. Apart from that I don’t see myself seeking this out again voluntarily. Not exactly sure why this 2012 electronic album is in this book instead of something by Tame Impala? Highlights: How Do You Do?, Night And Day, Flutes

Would be FAR better without the vocals. Highlights: Cheree

This album looks like a novelty album whose owners would enthusiastically show off to visitors either ironically or with an eye-watering level of sincerity. I generally tend to thing a lot of reggae sounds the same, and it tracks here considering this guy was a founding member of the Wailers. This album is enjoyable though, the title track drags on forever but is fun enough. This is not something I can see myself listening to routinely but it is an album I can totally see myself putting on during a long road trip and microsleeping into a tree at 120kmph. Highlights: Burial, Why Must I Cry, Till Your Well Runs Dry

Maybe not as good as the Queen Is Dead but this has my favourite smiths song on it (That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore). The instrumentals here are as strong as Queen Is Dead, Morrissey definitely leans a lot more into his mopey shit and it works for me. The weak songs here (Rusholme Ruffians, What She Said, Meat Is Murder) aren’t always a skip and the strong ones here always have me rewinding to listen again. This album isn’t going to make me a vegetarian but goddamn if it isn’t good enough to make me forget what a colossal jackass Morrissey is (mainly thanks to Johnny Marr).

Is this only on here because of La Grange? Because that’s what it feels like. A serviceable album but there is a reason people only know La Grange and Sharp Dressed Man (and I guess Sleeping Bag too if you’re a REAL ZZ Too diehard). It’s a garage beers album, not something I’m going to go out of my way to listen to but not something I’ll complain about if someone gives it a spin. Highlights: Hot, Blue and Righteous, La Grange

Cisco hold music but the guy who did it was on pingers.

An almost sickly sweet album. Beach Boys just before Brian Wilson lost his mind/peaked artistically. When we got the Everly Brothers I complained about the short length at first and then was happy when it ended early. I was not happy when this ended and I needed to give it another spin (or three). No artist ever did harmonies like these guys. Highlights: Do You Wanna Dance?, Good To My Baby, Help Me, Rhonda, Im So Young, She Knows Me Too Well, In The Back Of My Mind

Not their best album and not one that I would include in this book. Wild to me this was picked in place of Speaking In Tongues? Probably because this album was produced by Eno and Speaking In Tongues was not (Music journalist moment). Regardless, I love Talking Heads and this album is not an exception. This album definitely doesn't have as many hits as other albums of theirs and the songs that I like the most on here are not as good as the live performances in Stop Making Sense. Still a fantastic album and a wonderful collaboration between the band and Eno. Highlights: Thank You For Sending Me an Angel, Found a Job, I'm Not in Love, Take Me To The River, The Big Country

Produced by Daniel Lanois and Eno? This album should be good!

I was originally going to write some derisive review about how this album represents Metallica selling out, Lars Ulrich being a shitty person and a worse drummer, the band themselves being a bunch of belligerent alcoholics, this being their last good album, or make a bunch of juvenile puns based on “Metallica if they were gay” videos (exit wife, enter guys) And while a lot of that may be true, this album is still great. It’s definitely not Master of Puppets or Ride the Lightning but this is still fantastic if a little front loaded. It’s also probably the most accessible metal album out there and its influence in the genre and in music in general can’t be understated. The hits here were commercially successful on release and are still just as good more than thirty years later. While the filler here is serviceable, it’s just not quite memorable in the same way that the non hit songs were on the earlier albums. I don’t really see something like Struggle Within being as relistenable as Disposable Heroes or Harvester of Sorrow. But the main reason this album is good is because unlike the album that Harvester of Sorrow is on, they didn’t kill the bass in the mix here (Justice for Jason Newsted) Highlights: Enter Sandman, The Unforgiven, Wherever I May Roam, Through The Never, Nothing Else Matters, The God That Failed, the second half of My Friend Of Misery

I understand that some of the intention of this book and its authors is to bring attention to lesser-known artists like Nick Drake or whatever bullshit they found in the 'world music' (shitty ass term) section of their local record shop in whatever fancy gentrified part of London these parasites (music journalists) live in. This album charted well in the UK, Ireland and Australia and at the time of writing the book was not forgotten. Nor was it particularly innovative or groundbreaking apart from sycophants at NME and other musicians saying 'yea man this is what walking home at 4am sounds like aye' Well we have a whole genre of that music now and it's called putting 'slowed+reverb' into youtube and enabling autoplay. I like this album a lot but it sure as shit doesn't deserve to edge out much more deserving artists and albums from being on here. This project is fun but the source material suffers massively from having a Western-Centric, specifically Engl*sh-Centric perspective. There are only a handful of non english language music albums here on this album and they aren't anything memorable. Would it have been so difficult to liaise with the overseas offices of Rolling Stone (of which the main author of this book is a founding editor) to get one or two albums from other countries? There are more Morrissey solo albums on here than Smiths albums and instead we could have had something like Kino whose music was not only basically the anthem of youth dissatisfaction with late 80s USSR, but is fondly remembered still today as one of the best musical acts to ever come out of Russia/The Soviet Union and was massively important to the native rock scene in Russia. That's not even to mention all of the odd genres that this album could have touched on from across the rest of the world. Tuareg blues, YuMex, Schlager, J-Pop, etc. There are so many unique and interesting musical movements that No, you can have fuckin' Shack and The La's. Maybe I'm missing the point of this book, but I think it should be renamed '1001 albums that a bunch of pommy hacks recommend to bring you up to speed to the tastes of a very specific group of music journalists so that on the 0.0001% chance you get invited to some bullshit industry party in a renovated warehouse in Shoreditch you can nod along when someone says how much of groundbreaking album Kid A is while you resist the urge to break a glass over this cunt's head' In terms of the actual album, this would have been good to be assigned as a weekend album, but instead I got Joshua Tree by U2. Luckily the weather here has been overcast and grim, so I am able to slip into the mood for listening to this album. It was pretty good. Highlights: Firesuite, Sea Song, Rise

Was a bit skeptical when I saw we had been given Dandy Warhols, seeing as my only real exposure to them was the theme song to Veronica Mars. Really great opening track, harmonies working super well with the instrumental work here. Next few songs are forgettable/mid, special anti-shoutout to I Love You. Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth is a good song, the lyrics sort of remind me of a modern Pacific Northwest version of Dancin' Fool by Frank Zappa. The speed and vibe of the album slows down after this, and I enjoyed it a lot more than if they had continued with the same high-energy "90s era 60s nostalgia" bullshit. The energy picks up again, and the last couple songs on the album are instrumental tracks which are a lot more musically adventurous than you would expect given how this album starts. The real reason this was included in this book is its very obvious attempt to ape the Britpop sound. The band's later sound would develop into something more unique (evidenced by the fact that the two songs people actually remember them for came from their 3rd and 4th albums, but probably only because one of them was used as in a Vodafone and as mentioned earlier the other was the theme for Veronica Mars). The real question is, were the band's intentions noble? I can't blame them for appealing to the tastes of the people who will tell the public if their album is good or not. Actually, this inspired me to go and listen to their next album, Tales From Urban Bohemia, mainly because it has the badge of honour of a negative review from King Hack Robert Christgau. All up, an album that should really be 20-30 minutes shorter. A mix of different types of songs normally would normally mean variety but in this case it feels like a confused attempt to pad for time. Pete International Airport belongs on an ambient album, not on the same thing as a song like Boys Better. Overall, this is very much a mixed bag of an album. Not like trail mix, more like "I have a bag of peaches and some of them are starting to go off". Highlights: Be-In, Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth, Good Morning, Whipping Tree, The Creep Out

A very fun album, and one you have only heard two songs from. Reading about this album, it marked a huge shift in ZZ Top's sound and also their appeal. Moving from their blues-y sound like on Tres Hombres, into the coveted space of "songs that play on the PA of fishing/camping/auto stores". I don't think that the band here were trying to create anything groundbreaking, I think they wanted to have fun playing music and wanted their audience to have fun as well. And that's exactly what this album is. The two hits here are good, I have probably heard them both one too many times and on repeat listens of this album I found myself skipping Gimme All Your Lovin' as I am mentally transported to being 12 years old at TimeZone, returning to the skeeball machine because I did not get enough tickets to buy a sticky hand. The line 'Clean shirt, new shoes' will never not be funny to me as the defining features of a Sharp Dressed Man. This album is frontloaded as fuck, not saying the second half is bad per se but certainly not as memorable. Before listening I had a suspicion that I would walk away from this only having enjoyed the hits, but I was pleasantly surprised with Thug which has an absolutely killer bassline and I found myself replaying it more than a few times. If/when I open a hobby store that caters to middle aged men, I know what I will be putting on the shop radio. Highlights: Sharp Dressed Man, I Need You Tonight, Legs, Thug

I find it extremely ironic for an album's theme to criticise the Iraq War and the regime of Bush Jr while at the same time Thom Yorke will play concerts in an apartheid state and ignore calls from his fellow artists to boycott Israel. A thoroughly same-y, forgettable album. A great sleeping aid. It took me multiple attempts to get through this album and I do not see myself returning to this. Highlights: Punch Up at a Wedding, Myxomatosis

An album that is foot-tappable at best, outright annoying at worst. Some of these transitions sucked ass, the songs were well-produced and it seemed like the artists had fun creating this but I did not have a lot of fun listening to this. Highlight: Me Myself and I

Unfortunately Solange's best performance, a live set in an elevator on 12 May 2014 featuring her brother-in-law Jay Z, was not what I had to review today. Competent vocals, competent production, competent instrumentals, etc. etc. This is a paint-by-numbers album that only exists because of nepotism. The album is repetitive, the interludes are whatever. Some of the instrumental parts here caught my ear but only for a fleeting moment. It's not a bad album, it's just boring. 1001 albums you must listen to cure your insomnia

Double LPs can be a chore to sit through, I'm pretty sure the band knew this when they made the very smart decision to have a different musical theme for each side. Each side as well has enough variety within it to keep things fresh. Side 1 starts off slow but really picks up on the last couple tracks, really kicking into a higher gear with Anyway. Side 2 starts off strong, carrying over from the end of side 1 and has a very distinct country and western influence, both to its benefit and detriment as it kinda meanders and sounds samey towards the end. None of the songs here are bad, I like them a lot but they're not memorable. Sides 3 and 4 musically are pretty similar and really carry this album through all the way. Very glad to have finally listened to some Stills and I’m happy that I can say now it’s more than just a name I see along side the other guys in CSNY in my recommended songs. This isn’t a masterpiece or whatever but it’s easy listening and musically very well done. Thank you to Rita Coolidge for cheating on Stephen Stills, thereby breaking up CSNY and inspiring him to make this album. Highlights: Anyway, Both of Us (Bound to Lose), Jesus Gave Love Away for Free, It Doesn't Matter, Bound to Fall, The Treasure - Take One

An album that knows the vocals are the most important instrument here. Some of the songs here are a bit repetitive at times and the extreme performance of the vocals coupled with the at times goofy production can pull me out of the experience. But the songs here that I enjoyed, I enjoyed quite a bit even if I can't see myself coming back to them super often unless I feel VERY much in the mood for some 80s sound. Also this guy said that this is the most important album since Sgt Peppers lmao. Highlights: I'll Never Turn My Back On You, Dance Little Sister, Who's Loving You

Led Zeppelin, Arthur C Clarke, Gary Glitter, Harry Dean Stanton, Roman Polanski. All famous paedophiles and sex criminals whose art, despite my better judgement, I enjoy a great deal. And by god, just like Lori Maddox was kidnapped by Jimmy Page for years, I too was enthralled as soon as Whole Lotta Love came on. None of the “women” that these songs are about could possibly be over the age of 15. I know that the guys in the band weren’t particularly good friends and would not see eachother outside of touring or recording these albums and bro I don’t blame them if I were John Paul Jones (a relatively normal person by 20th century musician standards) and I had to see Robert Plant scream baby and make sex noises into the microphone while Jimmy Page did the same thing but to a child that he had held against her will, I wouldn’t wanna see those cunts for six months at a time either. The best song on here is either Thank You cause I can see some burnt out boomers having their first dance at their wedding to it or Ramble On because of all of the songs on here this one sounds like it’s the least about being a paedophile (yes, I am including moby dick) I really do love this album and Led Zeppelin in general but I can’t get over the fact that these guys aren’t JUST plagiarists AND paedophiles AND heroin addicts but they’re also English and that’s fucking disgusting I enjoy this album like I enjoy watching car crashes online: too much. Highlights: Everything except Living loving maid that song is mid

Jazz to me has always been like tea. I like it, but I’ve always preferred coffee. This album isn’t something I could listen to anytime but, like tea, it’s nice to sit down and really take it in when you have the precious time to do so. The live performance aspect of this doesn’t add as much as something like Live At San Quentin but it gets you in the mood to listen. The vocals are amazing, the instrumentation is good and if you have a rainy lazy Sunday I couldn’t think of anything more suitable to listen to. Highlights: Be Anything But Darling Be Mine, Thou Swell, Just A Gigolo

I am not the biggest Radiohead fan but this album worked really well for me. Interesting production and instrumentation, the vocals complement the music and aren’t overbearing and overdone like on other albums I’ve listened to. No huge songs here for me but there were a few ones that stood out, nothing that I would go out of my way to listen to outside of a relisten to this album. Which I am very happy to say I would listen to it again, I’m glad to have actually properly enjoyed a post-OK Computer album! Highlights: Nude, Weird Fishes / Apreggi, Jigsaw Falling Into Place

It’s the most tolerable Christmas album I’ve ever heard. Great version of frosty the snowman. Listenable 1/365 days of the year.

Good production, decent lyrics, great vocals. This album was a pleasant surprise. I'm not a big fan of hip hop as I've established in previous reviews and I haven't been particularly impressed with early hip hop, thinking that it generally doesn't hold up some thirty years later. I don't think the same is true here, Guru's production, mixing and sampling here sounds old school but has a unique flair that makes it very fun to listen to especially on Just To Get A Rep (probably the best example of what I'm talking about, and as a microcosm is a good example of what makes this a great album). Some filler on here and album bloat holds this back from being truly great but this is a very pleasant surprise for me! Highlights: Step In The Arena, Beyond Comprehension, Street Ministry, Just To Get A Rep

RHCP is an interesting vehicle. Each of the band members are pretty talented, Flea is a good bassist, Frusciante is a competent guitarist. Unfortunately this is art in capitalism so talent is not the reason that these guys were able to achieve huge success. Anthony Kiedis' father is a failed actor and a failed father. At age 12, Anthony Kiedis moved to Hollywood because his father wanted to be an actor. Giving up after only 2 years, his father turned to dealing heroin to actors and ruined his son's life. The silver lining here is that Anthony Kiedis would have plenty of connections later in life to make his band really popular even though it sounds like shit!!!! The fact that this is one of the best selling bands of all time, along with the Police, proves that capitalism is a disgusting system that needs to be ripped down by violent revolution. Overly-long, dogshit album full of nonsensical lyrics with 2 "good" singles out of the FIVE on this album. This shit is ass. Frusciante left the band after the release of this album/subsequent tour and the reason cited is he was uncomfortable with the group's success which is probably a euphemism for he was sick of seeing Anthony Kiedis have sex with children. I envision that the storming of Warner Bros. records HQ will be as beautiful as when the workers sacked the Winter Palace in the October Revolution. 2/5 Highlights: Under the Bridge

This album is responsible for post-punk, so without them I wouldn't have New Order or Talking Heads. I praise this album in the same way that I praise factory owners for inspiring Marx to write Capital. Faux angsty talentless thrashing and whiny vocals delivering kiddie pool-depth lyrics. Why this inspired a MOVEMENT and enthralled a generation of the musical commentariat escapes me. Perhaps the answer can be found in whatever was in England's waterways or whatever fucked up narcotics passed as prescription medicine back in the late 70s. Much like slavery, genocide, exploitation, class war and systemic racism; punk was born in England and perfect in the USA. Highlights: the silence before I hit play

Talk about a band that knows its strengths. Sometimes opens with arguably the one thing that sets the Stranglers apart from other bands of the time, Dave Greenfield's magical keyboard work. I have seen these guys live, unfortunately Jean-Jacques Burnel was the only remaining original member on the tour but the spirit, humour and musical talent of the band were still present. I have TRIED to certain bald, retarded, impotent and gay members of this group but have been met with a lukewarm response. Which is understandable, the band isn't necessarily for everyone. Odd to call this a 'punk' band, though they have the aesthetics of punk with makeup and leather, the musical style here has more in common with the Doors than it does with the Sex Pistols, which makes sense considering they're cited as a direct influence. Their sound would drift into goth rock/pop in the 80s and 90s and they would prove to be just as competent in writing songs for those genres as well. These guys are an absolute joy to have included in this project. Some songs on here are ones that I had to grow to love over time (Peaches, London Lady) and some here that hooked me straight away like Hanging Around and (Get A) Grip [on Yourself]. While some bands have stories about meeting at school, uni or being childhood friends, The Stranglers was founded because the drummer Jet Black RIP was a successful ice cream van and liquor store operator who thought it would be cool to be in a rock band. Overall, this is a stellar debut effort from a band that would go on to transform their sound overtime with mostly good results. I'm not even going to try to hide my bias here, I love the Stranglers. Highlights: Sometimes, London Lady, Hanging Around, Peaches, (Get A) Grip [on Yourself], Ugly, Down in the Sewer (Medley)

Great opening track, wouldn’t exactly call this shoegaze based on what I normally listen to. Later in the album I realise what they mean by shoegaze is “in a lot of these songs the producer/band decide to spill beer on the pedals and recording equipment”. Shockingly, this worked really well for me. The vocals here aren’t exactly what I expect from a shoegaze/dream pop band, not necessarily a bad thing but not exactly my bag. It works well for the albums sound despite apprehension early on in my first listen. At times it seems they want to dip into slow baroque pop (which they do really well on Thinking Of Ways) and other times they go whole hog 90s shoegaze. The musical whiplash between really makes this album feel like the first time I tried black coffee. Initially I thought “who on gods grey earth likes this shit?” but that’s quickly followed by “fuck that’s not bad actually”. I really wanted to deride this album for the absolute dogshit track names here but the variety of sounds, styles and songs here really gives this album a charm as a colourful mosaic of sound (some of which is a little bit shit/an acquired taste!!!) Slightly front and middle loaded, albums slightly falls off around Run My Way Runway where the band discovered washing machine modulation. In short, expected to shit on it, loved it. Highlights: I Hang Suspended, Wish I Was Skinny, Leaves and Sand, Rodney King - Song For Lenny Bruce (begrudgingly adding this, great song with such a stupid fucking name), Barney (…and Me), Take the Time Around, Lazarus

An important band to lie about having listened to before listening to death grips to impress fellow wankers. In all seriousness, before sitting down for this I had heard Up The Beach and Stop! in high school and thought they were pretty groovy, would later become more familiar with them as previously mentioned. To be honest, I thought there would be a good reason that I had only ever heard 2 songs by Jane’s Addiction. Turns out the reason is I’m actually really fucking stupid. I had a big stupid grin on my face listening to this. I fell off this project a little bit and had to drag myself through listening to the sex pistols and their talentless bullshit, and it was SO refreshing to listen to listen to something played with grit and talent. All the moving parts here are in sync. The album is a full-on assault from Up The Beach to Standing in the Shower…Thinking. It knows when to slow down and give you time to recuperate. The second half of the album doesn’t have the same high energy as the first half but it shows that the band isn’t just noise and aggression. Also the choice of instruments gets interesting along the way, huge shoutout to the horns on Idiots Rule and the STEEL DRUM on Jane Says. In the best possible way, this albums reminds me of what it felt like to play Postal 2 when I was 16. This album is fun as fuck. Highlights: the whole thing

Getting this out of the way first. Once you have actually put time into listening to real blues music, the theft on display here is absolutely shocking. You Shook Me is the worst example and the organ track on that is ESPECIALLY egregious. These mfs should pay fucking reparations. Yadda yadda they’re also paedophiles, you get it. I’ve said it before I’ll say it again, I honestly could not picture myself getting into a studio with my mate and he starts moaning and stroking his shit like Robert Plant, I would never be able to look that man in the eye again now that I’ve seen the depths of his depravity. In reality however, this inspired the band to shove a mudshark into a woman’s vagina and (possibly related) Jimmy Page to kidnap a 14 year old girl to keep as a sex slave. Disgusting shit aside, it’s Led Zeppelin, man. The album is good, the songs are overly long and go all over the place. This shit was designed for white boomers to listen to while they get high and try to fuck their missus (consent optional). Some songs here are punchy, exciting and well done and others drag to an eye-rolling degree. They’re not even that long but man sitting on a plane with this as your only source of stimulation beside the lady next to you watching Derry Girls or the guy on your left watching Challengers while you’re listening to I Can’t Quit You Baby makes you wish for Carlos the Jackal to hijack your plane “You hear me moaning and groaning, baby” yes Robert mate, for nearly a fucking hour. Highlights: Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, Dazed and Confused, Black Mountain Side, Communication Breakdown

Crazy ratio of worst album cover to best music right here. Unfortunately this is also crazy front loaded. War Pigs/Paranoid/Planet Caravan is an absolutely god tier hat trick of great songs to kick off an album with. Iron Man is a pretty good song but I’ve always found it a bit corny. People talk a lot about Tommy Iommi’s guitar work here but the drums are absolutely the heart and soul of this album for me. The last few songs are okay, none of them are bad (except for Electric Funeral) but nothing that has the same energy and magic as the first half. Highlights: War Pigs/Luke’s Wall, Paranoid, Planet Caravan

A very energetic and vibrant album, shame to the record label for delaying its release 22 years after the fact. Having said that, I cannot help but look at the more romantic 'I need you' type of songs without thinking about how Sam Cooke got plugged by a hotel receptionist while he was wearing only a sports coat and one shoe in search of some groupie he *totally* was gonna be friendly with. Overall, a thoroughly good album with no misses but on repeat listens I found it hard to distinguish one part of the album from another and it became a little repetitivey. 8 out of 9mm Highlights: Chain Gang Medley: Yadda Yadda Nothing Can Change This Love

Early in my listen of this album, I became bored and checked the wikipedia page to see that this has received the mark of the Antichrist himself: Robert Christgau. How he gave this a A and gave Raw Power a B+ is totally beyond me. Probably because Iggy wasn't a NYC/Village rat. This album is a fun novelty of the early days of punk and you can see the influence here, probably. The lyrics are nonsense, the vocals are okay at times, the instrumentation and production are serviceable. There's one good song on here and the rest I hope to never have to hear again except maybe in a Gitmo 'advanced interrogation room' Highlights: Jet Boy

Though you can no longer smoke inside of a commercial office building (unless you are really brave), gender relations and equality have marched forward and nobody wears a full suit to work anymore; listening to this album while staring at spreadsheets and answering emails at your office drone job will make you feel like you are back in the sixties. You will imagine your eyes watering from the smokey office, you will imagine the clacking of typewriters, the smell of really shitty bourbon and if you are a Queensland Public Servant you will imagine for a moment you are wearing business shorts and long socks. I don't want to listen to this album outside of work for fear that it will ruin the little time machine that this is to me. Also the personnel section of this album on the wikipedia page is longer than War and Peace. Highlights: All

When I saw this album had Mr Brightside, I was immediately visited by the ghosts of Budd Dwyer and Ronnie McNutt. 'I just can't look, it's killing me' indeed! I think I may just have associated the hits from this album with some of the lowest points in my life and I am unable to divorce my trauma and provide an accurate assessment of the 'highs' of this album. The rest of the album outside of the Mormon black speech of the singles here are good, but much like LDS ideology this album feels like a simulacrum of something else. It's commercial friendly bops that you can put on in a shopping centre or at a hip barber shop where they give you a beer while you get a short back and sides. I don't hate this album, it is technically good and objectively competent and well-performed music but I am unable to critique this without thinking of some of the lowlights of my miserable life playing out to Mr Brightside. Highlights: Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine, Everything Will Be Alright

Maybe it's major depressive disorder, but I find the second side of this album goes a lot harder than the objectively more upbeat and lively first side. While the first side isn't bad by any means, it just does feel to me like a very talented artist (and supporting musicians!) going through the motions. Charles' voice shines in the slower songs, the lyrics hit hard with his vocal style, the instrumentation has more of a dreamlike atmosphere that gels a lot better with me than the bombastic-ness of the first side. Very pleasant to also have an artist know when to cut a song and how to tightly pack an album. This is a lean album with a lot of personality on both sides, a joy to listen to. Highlights: When Your Lover Has Gone, Just For A Thrill, You Won't Let Me Go, Am I Blue, Come Rain or Come Shine

Peak dadrock. Knopfler and co really bring it home here and find their solid pop rock sound after darting between genres and feels on previous albums. I think that the first side is definitely stronger, not to say that the second half is bad but the strength of the title track can make it feel like you're sitting through the opening act before your favourite band when you listen to the second side. The album slows down as it goes on and it works perfectly for me. But there are no skips on this album, the production flirts with being corny 80s English music but manages to walk the line well. What is there to say about the instrumentation other than Mark Knopfler is probably one of the greatest guitarists to ever live? This album probably also has the single hardest single and music video in the form of MONEY FOR NOTHING. I cannot in good conscience give this album less than a 5. Highlights: So Far Away, Money For Nothing, Walk Of Life, Your Latest Trick, Why Worry, One World, Brothers In Arms

'Rundgren became uncomfortable when these descriptions also came to include "the male Carole King"' and decided to take a fuckload of drugs and say 'yes I like Zappa do you guys think I could be like him?' Yes, Zappa was 'werid', but I don't think he was ever as offensive as whatever the fuck Dogfight Giggle was. There are some parts here that shine but there are some real low points here especially the transition from Zen Archer to Just Another Onionhead / Da Da Dali which really doused the enjoyment that I was beginning to develop. The album is overly long, some of the decisions here in terms of instrumentation, mood, transition are outright weird and jarring. This is a fun novelty but I don't see myself returning to this. I have to pay respect to the album for being influential to artists I really like (Tame Impala and Ariel Pink) but I cannot lie, those guys did the whole 'write, perform and produce' thing a lot better. I can't deny Rundgren's talent as a producer, writer and a musician. He's worked on albums that I love and his pop music is top notch but this album feels like his version of Wish You Were Here 'I was acclaimed so now I'm lashing out' but this is certainly not WYWH. Highlights: You Need Your Head, Zen Archer, Sometimes I Don't Know What to Feel, Just One Victory

1001 albums to put on the PA in your money laundering front disguised as a mattress shop. Not sure exactly why this album was included in here, but it was a mostly enjoyable listen. Very competently written and performed pop music but ultimately forgettable. It is weighed down by Watt's production which ultimately makes the album feel extremely dated. I thought I found similarities with this and some of Sade's work and was not surprised to see he had worked with her as a producer. The album drags on quite a bit and I don't see myself clamouring to listen to this again. Highlights: Love Is Here Where I Live, Goodbye Sunday

The opening track on this album has a writing credit to Gary Glitter. It is also probably the only song on this album where the lyrics are not just word salad. This VERY beloved album is very much a reflection of the UK at the time, a lot of good vibes and boisterousness obscuring a whole lot of nothing (Oasis predicted Tony Blair). No song on this album means anything apart from the title track which is just about doing cocaine in the morning - the closest the album comes to a single coherent thought which is impressive as I am convinced that Liam Gallagher has not fired a single synapse in his life. I am fortunate to have avoided consciously listening to Oasis until a few years ago so I do not have a great nostalgia for this album as many people do. When I first listened to Oasis I made a concerted effort to listen to all their albums and watch the doco Supersonic to see what all the fuss was about. Listening to this again, I realise that I only remember a handful of songs here mainly because those same songs are so ubiquitous in public probably as part of some Malthusian government scheme to export English depression around the world to convince people to commit suicide en masse. The Brothers Gallagher are often noted for their reverence of the Beatles and specifically John Lennon. This is reflected in their music because they have guitars and drums and stuff and Liam wears round sunglasses. The only thing that these bands have in common is a working class background and their 'rivalry' with a band with a more refined/university educated/wanker background (who are arguably better) in the form of The Rolling Stones/Blur. To quote Marx, “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce." The album is okay, I would listen to the highlights again but the filler here is awful and I cannot say this about many songs, but I genuinely hate Wonderwall and if there is a god, Noel and Liam Gallagher will replace Judas and Brutus in the mouth of satan in the 9th circle of hell for betraying humanity. Everytime some LOVELY PERSON plays Wonderwall at a house party, this is the mental image that helps me cope with being subjected to what could honestly be considered a musical hate crime. Just as LSD and pot were integral in the creative boom of music in the 60s and 70s; methamphetamine was responsible saving the world and totally ruining Oasis' American tour, thereby saving our universe from a dark future where these cunts were popular all over the world and not just Austerity Island. 'Where were you while we were getting high?' fortunate enough to not have been born for the cultural mass hysteria that was Oasis' peak fame. Highlights: Don't Look Back In Anger, Morning Glory, Champagne Supernova

Our first Bowie album is the one in between my two favourite ones! Peak Bowie and peak Eno working together to create an album with two distinct halves. The first side is great pop with some real highlights, not just for the album but for Bowie's whole career (Sound and Vision is easily in my top 5 all time Bowie songs). The end of the first side gives you a preview of what's to come. The first time I heard this album and listened to the second half it felt like the musical equivalent of when they land on LV-426 in the first Alien movie. Really my first introduction to ambient music as a teenager and it still holds up just as well a decade later for me. Highlights: Speed of Life, Sound and Vision, Always Crashing in the Same Car, Warszawa, Weeping Wall, Subterraneans

I can’t explain it but this feels like the musical equivalent of the fake video games that actors play in movies. Highlights: Dance

Some albums have a verbose wikipedia page bloviating about their influence on music/the world. Some albums have a short page where the only sentence in "Reception" or "Legacy" is that it was included in this book. This album does not have a wikipedia page. Usually my favourite part of listening to albums in this project is reading the background of the album, the history of the artist up to that point and how it all came together. From what I can gather, Toro collaborated with Eno and has enjoyed success working as a musician in the English music scene, I don't imagine that this would have ever been included here if he had not worked with Eno. Regardless of why this album was chosen, it was a novel listen. I think that African artists in general are very underrepresented in musical discourse (shoutout Afous d'Afous, cool as fuck Touareg blues/rock group from the Algerian Sahara). The production here interferes a bit with what I think the artist's vision was as I think some of the synth heavy production on songs like Gidelam and Olel are a bit oil and water with the vocals and some of the instrumentation. Overall, a fun listen but I don't see myself coming back to this. This album to me sounds like songs you would hear on the PA at Nandos but in this case I would try to shazam the music rather than continue to demolish a half chicken (mild because I am weak) and chips. Highlights: Daande Lenol, Hamady Boiro, Sy Sawande

This album has the feel of the fake Kraftwerk knockoff band that the nihilists are in from the Big Lebowski. As far as I can tell, this band did NOT have a whole album in them. I have a feeling that this was included in the book to contrast to bands like Depeche Mode to show both the highs and lows of New Wave music. Fuck man, even to show how quality can vary on one LP. How this has a special edition which is half an hour long on spotify is beyond me. Bam De La Bap really just sounds like the musical equivalent of a guy who didn't prepare anything for his school presentation and he's up in front of the class winging it. And then you have songs like Gloomy Sunday and Party Fears Two which is what would happen if you gave that same bloke 90mg of lysdexamfetamine? Props to the vocalist for trying different styles, doing some nearly Sisters of Mercy type of shit on Skipping. I am a tragic for new wave, post-punk and synth shit but I'm not drinking the kool aid (or Irn Bru in this case) on this one. I knew Party Fears Two before going into this, and coming out this tomorrow I am only going to remember Party Fears Two and its killer keyboard track that my coworkers is going to be forced to listen to me whistle. Highlights: Arrogance Gave Him Up, Gloomy Sunday, Skipping, Party Fears Two

TWO AND A QUARTER HOURS? I enjoyed Stankonia more than I thought I would but I thought it was overly long Liked the first few songs and perked up when I heard The Way You Move. As the album continued I enjoy myself but I got to thinking, a lot of albums deal with one or two major themes and have a line they stick to. This album feels very much like a big melting pot or mosaic of ideas, themes and styles. The interludes are fun and creative, but after a while this just became a bit full on for me. There are songs here I would return to without a doubt (it's got Hey Ya! and Roses for fuck's sake) but as an album it's a bit much. Probably great to put on at a party or hangout, but who is putting on a whole album at a party instead of a collaborative playlist/jam where the vibe is 'improved' by some really funny, original and tolerable person who puts on Ram Ranch? Also just to reiterate, this album is really fuckin long Highlights: The Way You Move, Bust, War, Tomb of the Boom, The Love Below, Love Hater, Hey Ya!, Roses, My Favorite Things

With many albums on this list where you know one or two hits from the band, they're usually at the front and as the album goes on it becomes an unfocused mess of filler and deep cuts of varying quality. With Electric Ladyland, the album becomes more focused as the album goes on with the two big hits being on the last side of the album. It was an absolute joy to listen to this. From the extended blues jams, songs without Hendrix on vocals, the hits and the deep cuts. The production here rocks and while it seems that there was a risk of a 'too many cooks' situation during the recording of this album, the mammoth collaborative effort here between the who's who of the 60's rock scene paid off. This album also contains one of my favourite songs of all time, 1983....(A Merman I Should Turn to Be), and it took me longer than usual to write this review as I kept going back to listen to Side C just so I could play it again and again. Of course this album also contains arguably the greatest cover song ever performed in All Along the Watchtower. You constantly hear about how Hendrix is the most important guitarist of all time, and if you had not suffered through some of the dogshit made prior to this and milquetoast (by modern standards) rock and roll that was coming out prior to him exploding on the scene you would think "yeah man, whatever" but this album underscores just how important his style and talent in both musicality and production was to musical history. This is the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, giving this anything less than a 5 feels wrong. Highlights: Crosstown Traffic, Voodoo Chile, Gypsy Eyes, Burning of the Midnight Lamp, 1983....(A Merman I Should Turn to Be), House Burning Down, All Along the Watchtower, Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

The mark of the Antichrist, Robert Christgau, is on this album rating it an A. Two albums in a row that have great covers! First Electric Ladyland and now this. As much as I love Badfinger, I have to admit this is the best version of Without You. A fun album, as the title and album cover indicate that's exactly what the artist was going for here. Not every song is great (Coconut) but overall it's a tight 35 minutes with enough variety in mood and style to make it a fulfilling listen. It pains me to enjoy an album that Antichristgau rated highly, but this is too charming to not love. Highlights: The Moonbeam Song, Without You, Jump Into The Fire, I'll Never Leave You

The Beach Boys sans latent schizophrenia? Whoever mixed Find Somebody should be shot against a post. Anyway, the rest of this album was pretty forgettable. Considering the short length, I gave this a few spins and while it's a fun listen and very easy-going background music I could not look you in the eye and honestly say I remember a single song off this album.

My first time listening to Tangerine Dream was like the musical version of taking random research chemicals. I did not know what to expect but I was blown away. Coming into this album, I knew what to expect. I wouldn't call their albums 'albums' per se but a soundscape to a really funky daydream you're about to have. It makes sense that these guys do soundtracks because they know how to set the stage for a story with their music. Phaedra is no different, to me this is like sitting down and watching a sci-fi movie in my head, I absolutely love it. Tangerine Dream composed and performed probably my favourite movie soundtracks of all time for (probably my favourite movie) Michael Mann's 1981 debut feature film Thief. It was nominated a razzie for worst movie soundtrack. The group were maligned at the time and reading the global reviews here are still maligned. I can understand not enjoying this type of music, but for me this is my jam. Highlights: All

A very solid debut with a SEAL OF APPROVAL from Robert Antichristgau who gave this a score of a dud. Maybe it's because I like soul music and perhaps part of it is my nostalgia for the news about Amy Winehouse's dumpster fire of a life in the public eye as a kid that gives me a soft spot for this album but even so I don't think you could call this a dud even if you're not a big fan. The album itself is interestingly produced with the instrumentation and production varying in tone from song to song, with the album itself as a result sounding like a mosaic with the common themes of debauchery and being a trainwreck. Not as good as Back To Black but a killer debut, I can see how thrilled her record company would have been to nab her early and can't imagine the shitshow that would have been that office when she bit the big one. Highlights: Fuck Me Pumps, I Heard Love Is Blind, (There Is) No Greater Love, Take The Box, Help Yourself

If you placed a gun to my head before I listened to this album and asked me to say where Dusty Springfield was from I would have looked at you and my last spoken words on this earth would have been "USA. The south.", prior to this I had heard a handful of Dusty's songs (all post Memphis clearly). Listening to this album is a rollercoaster ride, some song slow up and others give you whiplash in the best way possible. The upbeat songs feel triumphant and fills a room with positive energy. Dusty's voice is unique and commands joy, people say that you can't listen to Mr Blue Sky without cracking a smile and the same is definitely true for songs like Nothing. Banger after banger, this is a short and sweet album that takes you on a ride. Highlights: Mama Said, You Don't Own Me, My Coloring Book, Nothing, Will You Love Me Tomorrow, Wishin' And Hopin'

Revising a book and creating new editions is serious business! So you want to make sure to really add albums to this that live up to “albums you MUST listen to before you die”. 2010 produced a lot better than this, and though this has more accolades than a North Korean general, this book also has the gift of hindsight to look past that and see it in full context. Instead of choosing a great album that stands the test of time like Diamond Eyes or a very influential and groovy one like Innerspeaker we get the most middle of the road album possible. It’s well performed but my god this shit is BORING Highlights: Half Light I, Deep Blue, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

Not a terribly huge fan of the first few tracks of Side A, I found them to be pretty forgettable until The Long Honeymoon when the side slows down. Until listening to this album, I only knew three Elvis Costello songs and my favourite of the, I Want You, feels the most like the songs I enjoyed most on this side. The combination of Costello's lyricism and the production/instrumentation on this album makes it feel like a English/funhouse mirror of Leonard Cohen. Sarcastic, poetic and talented. Not everything lands, songs like ...And In Every Home feel like I would come to enjoy them after repeat listens and time has warmed me up to them. The lyrics on that song are great but the production felt a bit TOO baroque pop for my taste but whatever it's the last song on the side. My enjoyment of side B was the same as side A, the first few songs flew by me but the peak of this album was Pidgin English, the song opened and clicked with me and everything fell into place with the acoustic guitar instrumental bit. You Little Fool and Town Cryer stick the landing for the rest of this side. So how do you rate an album where you only really like half the songs but you feel the rest could grow on you later? I am in a good mood (mainly because I am happy to discover Elvis Costello is not shit), so I will give this an optimistically high score in anticipation of enjoying the rest of this more in the future. This bloke has a lot of albums in this book so I am hoping it's for the same reason as Bowie (cause he's actually good) and not for the same reason as Nick Cave (no comment). Highlights: The Long Honeymoon, Man Out Of Time, Almost Blue, Pidgin English, You Little Fool, Town Cryer

As I have mentioned previously, I would think the authors of this book would have a little more consideration as to what they include in this list. It appears to me the only impact this album has had is having a song on the radio station nobody listened to in GTA5, Worldwide FM. This was okay, nothing to say but it's competently performed and enjoyable enough. The Honda Accord of albums. Vinewood Boulevard Radio for life. Highlights: Default, Storm (probably others but it was pretty forgettable I am sorry)

Music that would play in the background of party with the most annoying people you have met, the worst tapas you have ever tasted, the shittest alcohol you have ever drank in the simultaneously lamest and most expensive apartment you have ever set foot in. I imagine the music critics/ghouls who wrote this book often attend parties like this. Regardless, this was a fun samba album with some funky overt African influences. Enjoyed side B more than Side A but in the end, there are better samba albums that stuck with me a lot more than this one. Highlights: O Plebeu, A História de Jorge, África Brasil (Zumbi)

This album has two themes going on here, one is spelled out in the title and the other illustrated in the album art. The two themes being: 'General longing/missing someone' and 'we fucking hate the music industry'. Pink Floyd were not a band that was on the track to stadium-packing, merch-peddling stardom. In fact, in the mini-doco attached the Live At Pompeii, during the recording of Dark Side of the Moon the interviewer lays out the mood that rock is dying and Pink Floyd with it. And then DSOTM came out and made these guys a household name. With fame came way bigger demands from their studio and the creative pressure to top their last album. This got them thinking about their old bandmate, Syd, who lost his mind as they began to achieve success and they just decided to not pick him up for rehearsal one day. It is often interpreted that Shine On You Crazy Diamond is a personal tribute to Syd, but rather it is a song about people who have withdrawn entirely being unable to cope with modern life. Having said that, after the famous visit to the studio that Syd made where Roger Waters was moved to tears, Richard Wright added in the keyboard riff from See Emily Play to part 9 of SYCD as a small personal tribute to Syd. Syd thought the song sounded old and did not like it, it would be the last time any band member interacted with him until his death in 2006. Welcome to the Machine is an angrier song (a sign of things to come as Waters became the leading creative force in the band), and was my favourite song growing up as a child and the first Pink Floyd song I had ever heard at the age of 10. The message seems cliche and trivial now but when I was a kid and it clicked that this song was taking aim at industry coopting youthful rebellion and exploiting artists transformed this song into a lot more than 'a Floyd deep cut I adored as a kid'. This album, Waters' lyricism and this song specifically; when I really listened to the lyrics is what really got me into music made me look at music in a different way. Side B opens with Have a Cigar which is a delightfully sleazy song. The opening riff and keyboard makes you think of an overly-carpeted 70s conference room where it smells like cigarettes and music industry ghouls with fat ties and kitschy glasses. Getting Roy Harper to sing while Waters was unwell was a happy little accident and adds to the bite of the song as a critique of the music industry. What can be said about the title track? The production here is unreal, the little effects, the radio intro and Gilmour's cough over a faded version of probably one of the most iconic rock riffs of all time. As with SYCD, a lot of people have said this song is about Syd but what makes this song brilliant and beautiful is that it's not. Waters' lyricism, Gilmour's guitar, Mason's drumming and Wright on the keys all come together to make this pretty vague song about distance, loneliness, alienation and missing something personal for so many people. It really is the peak of Floyd as it's one of the last times that Gilmour and Waters would really collaborate so wholly on a track (the next time would probably be Dogs and Comfortably Numb which are also two of the best songs that the band ever made). The song fades into a return into parts 6-9 of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, closing out an album that is incredibly near and dear to my heart. Even without knowing the context and story behind the band and the album and being a kid who did not have the best grasp of the English language, I loved this album. I am extremely passionate for my love for this album, it never gets old for me. I could listen to this entire album in my head from memory, it's the reason I don't have an internal monologue. To me, this is the best album ever made. Highlights: What do you think?

This album is cornier than an American diet. It's pretty entertaining but it's also pretty frontloaded. If you asked me to tell you which of these songs comprised the seven singles from this album I could honestly only guess two of them. I've said this about ZZ Top as well, this album isn't trying to say anything or be any deeper than "hey let's have a good time" and it does that really well. To be honest this would have been a 4 if it were just shorter and a little more focused, as the album goes on it falls off for me. But I'm not gonna sit here and try to pretend like I didn't enjoy it. Highlights - Women, Love Bites, Pour Some Sugar On Me

"Genre: Punk Rock", now I'm inspired to put Simon and Garfunkel in the hair metal section of the record store. This statement isn't false just because he yells a bit on three songs towards the end with some electric guitar, this is taking the absolute piss. This is probably how it feels to my mates when I play Serbian music and I'm like "ah this might sound silly but boy oh boy this Balasevic fella paints a story!". This was hard to sit through. Sometimes I complain about albums being too broad and unfocused in style, this is FAR too uniform. This was like Ludovico at points but instead of making me ill when I see violence I now walk around the city and gag when I hear a British expat Highlights: when he shuts the fuck up

Mi first time a lisn tu Bob Marley outside a di greatest hits an mi did pleasantly surprised fi find out seh him actually good! Afta mi seh dat, mi a nuh no massive fan a reggae as di non-hits dem pan yah can really sound samey an drag on. But it did enjoyable enough but mi really nuh see nobody a put dis whole album on fi a spin sober. Di laas two song dem a evergreens though, absolute classics. Highlights: So Much Things To Say, Exodus, Three Little Birds, One Love/People Get Ready

Good job to Mr Mojo Risin and co for making 37 minutes feel like forever. I am a sucker for The Doors but not this album. Roadhouse Blues feels disjointed on this album, especially compared to the subdued tones in songs like Blue Sunday and Indian Summer. That and Peace Frog are supposed to be the standout hits on this album, maybe I've heard them too many times but they are honestly just corny as fuck. Not their best work, by a long shot. Highlights: Waiting for the Sun, Blue Sunday, Indian Summer

Bittersweet Symphony, the pinnacle of nightmare commercial music. 1.2 billion listens on spotify, more than 6 times their next song on their spotify top 5. The Wikipedia article for this album rivals that of Jesus Christ and Napoleon. And for what? The cultural impact that this album has had on the world is creating the anthem for consumerism. The first song on this album is the same fucking riff over and over again with this annoying vocalist droning on and ON. Rhyming "it" and "sonnet" is so fucking lazy man. 75 minutes of music and you have already run out of gas lyrically? Good to see that they weren't saving themselves and taking it easy with the first song, they're just shit. This is their third album, I shudder to think what the first two were like. The real influence that Oasis had on the music scene is illustrating to other artists that it actually doesn't matter what the lyrics are in your music, nobody actually gives a shit. You can just slur into the microphone and brain-damaged Gen X/Y English people (who the fuck else is listening to this shit) will nod along and go 'yeah this is it bruv'. Just as you can track a massive drop in crime in the USA to 18 years after the signing of Roe v Wade, the effects of neoliberalism and Thatcher are on display here. You really would have to be the victim of a grand plan of the erosion of public health, education and administration to be stupid and tasteless enough to love this album. "Urban Hymns received widespread critical praise upon its release" according to wikipedia. But there are always voices of reason and those who will speak out against genocide and atrocities. Following in the footsteps of people like John Brown, Emily Tartanella of Magnet wrote that the release was "one of the most bloated, boring and overpraised albums of the '90s." Highlights: when you find out the light at the end of the tunnel is a train

Destiny's Child spoke and thus, so began twenty plus years of hearing their music remixed in night clubs. Survivor and Bootylicious are bangers, evergreens that have entered the canon of nightlife music. Nasty Girl is fucking WILD to listen to. It is insane to have songs about female independence and empowerment and then have basically slut-shaming/internalised misogyny: the song FOLLOWING Bootylicious which was a hit back against the insane anorexic culture of the early 2000s after Beyonce had been attacked in the media for weight gain. Not to mention the story of SA that inspired The Story of Beauty, this album isn't just inconsistent in its theming, it's practically schizophrenic. Normally for this kind of album I would say "ah whatever, it's just trying to have a good time" a la my reviews for ZZ Top and Def Leppard but this is different. To have songs named Independent Women and Survivor which are so obviously about female empowerment makes this feel kinda gross. All that aside, I have always loathed production in early 2000s music, much like the period itself it is bawdy, bloated and tasteless. It's my own personal bias which I'll freely admit but prevents me from enjoying this album outside of the nostalgia factor of a select few songs on here. Outside of the big hits, I did not enjoy this. Highlight: Survivor, Bootylicious

Getting The Rising as my first and only Springsteen album before this is proof that whoever runs this website has a great sense of humour. Whereas The Rising was a concept album about how 9/11 happened and the CIA Culture Club division instructed Springsteen to go the way of Country and Western Jingoism, Darkness on the Edge of Town is an album where the concept is being poor and desperate, summarised best by a line in the first song on the album: 'You spend your life waiting for a moment that just don't come'. Despite the overt tones of how grim life can be, the album has a strong message of perseverance. The Boss has a way with words and the E Street Band are top class outfit. Not a whole lot to say about this album that he doesn't say himself in the lyrics. Side A is a little better than Side B but this is peak Springsteen. Very much looking forward to getting more. Highlight: The whole thing

"The marriage between Marvin and Anna was reportedly turbulent, including two public spats. In order to bring some stability to their home life, Anna and Marvin adopted a boy" proving time and again that if your relationship is going south that having a kid will fix everything. Anyway this album is about Gaye's divorce and from the length of the album he was clearly working some thing out on this. And unlike a lot of divorced men, the product is groovy as fuck. However, after reading the personal life article (yes, there is an entirely separate page for this) on Wikipedia, clearly there was A LOT that Mr Gaye desperately needed to speak to a therapist about. This album did not perform well commercially which is probably best explained by the scenario of some guy who has been fuckin to Marvin Gaye goes and buys this album, puts it on when he's putting the moves on some (un)lucky lady and gets distracted when listening to Is That Enough and hearing all the lyrics about alimony and getting distracted. Just a thought. The album is thematically consistent, but at times the bitterness in the album can be a bit grating. I have mixed feelings about the length, I think it definitely meanders in places but comes back together on Side D. Overall, a good album but not the first thing I would want to pull out of a Marvin Gaye mystery box. Highlight: When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You, Is That Enough, Anna's Song, You Can Leave, But It's Going To Cost You, Falling in Love Again

I found it difficult to rate this album since it contains two of my top five favourite Talking Heads songs, it also contains some deep cuts that are enjoyable enough but aren't particularly memorable. Except Mind, that one is memorable but not in a particularly good way. Another issue with this album is that the songs I do like on here are better performed on Stop Making Sense. Having said all of that, the songs on here that I consider to be GREAT are lumped in with songs that I would call GOOD. It is better to interpret Talking Heads as the musical output of an art collective rather than a band. And unlike CERTAIN art collectives who make 'albums' (Throbbing Gristle), this shit actually rocks. I was umming and ahhing over whether to score this a 4 or a 5, but then Drugs came on and I remembered my favourite video of my cat Charlie (the queen of my world) has her thousand yard staring the camera to this song. So for personal reasons I am giving this a 5. Special shoutout to Animals for sounding exactly what I think it must sound like in the head of the guy who yells at me on the bus sometimes. Also the guy who played congas on I Zimbra is named Gene Wilder. Not the same person as the actor. Highlights: I Zimbra, Cities, Life During Wartime, Heaven, Drugs

Groovy music for when you have coworkers over at your place who you don't know super well but you don't want them to know that the music you listen to mostly is your spotify 'On Repeat' playlist. It's jazz, I'm not crazy about it but it's groovy. Highlights: Minor Chant (esp. the keyboard)

I have never been a huge hip hop fan, but I'm not going to pretend like the album that has That's Not Me on it is a bad album. Unfortunately, outside of that and Crime Riddim I don't see any reason to come back to this and as an album itself the skits do nothing for me. There are a few good tracks here, two standout ones but as a whole it's not something I would give a spin again. Highlights: Crime Riddim, That's Not Me,

A few strange production choices on the first two tracks kept me from really engaging with the album (the chorus of the first track and the weird ass moog on the second track that belonged in a Tangerine Dream song). However the production here seems to have been a watershed moment for western musicians, taking inspiration and sampling artists from Africa would become a lot more commonplace so I guess we have Joni Mitchell to thank for that. Once Edith and the Kingpin hits, the rest of the album the lyrics, vocals and instrumentals really worked well together for me. There is a good variety of sound and dabbling of different genres. But the album did lose my interest towards the end. Definitely an album that warrants multiple listens to mull on the lyrics here. This album also receives bonus points for receiving a lukewarm review from Robert Antichristgau (fuck you). Highlights: Edith and the Kingpin, Shades of Scarlett Conquering, The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Sweet Bird

We return yet again to the later years of this album where the authors had the same problem as my masters dissertation, recency bias and a need to just fill out the end with whatever the fuck will make it look like I put effort in. This album sounds like it would be used in the background of a 90s David Fincher movie cause he owes someone a favour from his days as a music video director. A Wikipedia article shorter than a bisected horse jockey, what the fuck is this shit man it's not even bad but why. I was honestly shocked to see these guys are American, thinking surely this is another case of English bias but to my surprise the reason this seems to have been included is even hackier. They did a cover of She's Lost Control and their songs appeared in Clerks and Mallrats. My feelings on this are the same as the movie Natural Born Killers, probably cool if you were exposed to it when you were 14 and/or were alive and conscious when it was released. Highlights: Go Be Delighted

Yeah look mate, I've also done some really stupid shit when I've been toey. Written a whole double LP cause I wanted to fuck my mate's missus? No. After listening to this I went and googled Pattie Boyd and while she is a looker I don't know if she's hot enough for a whole double LP. It wasn't enough for Clapton to steal songs from 5 black dudes here (Jimmy Hendrix, Charlie Segar, Willie Broonzy, Billy Myles x2) but this bloke went back in TIME and ripped off a Persian poet from medieval times for 2 of the songs (I Am Yours, Layla). When I watched the movie Vice I had to take my hat off to the sheer unabashed evil of Dick Cheney, I admired him like you would Darth Vader. I feel the same way about Eric Clapton. If you wrote a character in fiction who was a plagiarist, racist, cheater, homewrecker, junkie, anti-vaxxer and English your publisher would look at you and say "Mate, really?". And despite all of this, this album fuckin' rocks. Yes, it definitely drags on Side C if you aren't a huge fan of blues or if you are suffering from blues fatigue. Or maybe it drags because you know the big hit is right at the end of the album. RIP Duane Allman, credit to you for writing one of the guitar riffs that belongs on the Mount Olympus of music. Step aside Trojan War, this song represents possibly the horniest a man has ever been in human history. The second half of the song is one hell of a tune to listen to while you whack all your accomplices from an airport heist. Good artists copy, great artists steal (their mate's missus). Highlights: Bell Bottom Blues, Keep On Growing, I Am Yours, Key To The Highway, Little Wing, Layla, Thorn Tree In The Garden

An enjoyable album but far too long for what it is, I can't be in a good mood for this long. The arrangements and production here is great, with some deep cuts that I wish I had heard before diving into this. The hits here are great, and unfortunately this also means that listening to this can sort of feel like you're just waiting for Mr Blue Sky to come on. Luckily the album really picks up on sides C and D! I couldn't see myself eating a tub of cotton candy, nor could I see myself regularly listening to a whole double LP of ELO. Highlights: Turn to Stone, Starlight, Big Wheels, Summer and Lightning, Mr Blue Sky, The Whale

I am once again voicing my anger that this was chosen over Lonerism by Tame Impala, or even Random Access Memories by Daft Punk got looked over for this. A perfectly cromulent album, with only the last track really impressing me. However I am now going to express my gratitude to the authors of this book for choosing this for the revision instead of the following albums from 2013: - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Push The Sky Away - Beck - Song Reader - Avicii - True - J. Cole - Born Sinner - Pearl Jam - Lightning Bolt - Keith Urban - Fuse - Miley Cyrus - Bangerz - Drake - Nothing Was The Same - Jake Bugg - Jake Bugg - Arcade Fire - Reflektor Highlights: Tether, Lies, Science/Visions, You Caught The Light

Coming in at a merciful length of 39:51, Document No 5 is like the evil mirror universe rival of Hotel California. The most frontloaded album of all time meets the most backloaded. Yeah, the first side of the album has its moments like the lap bass at the end of Finest Worksong that only lasted for a blip? Why? Did the producer do this as some kind of 38-year long prank to fuck with me for enjoying slap bass? The saxophone on Fireplace was an another groovy production choice, in fact I quite enjoyed the variety in production and musical style on this album. And despite the variety in style here, the album still feels cohesive and you can put it on at any point (even during the cover of the Wire Song) and still think 'yes, this is REM'. This is an album I struggled to interface with when I was a teenager, though I absolutely adored Automatic For The People and Green, but coming back to it now after a decade I appreciate it much more. Though it does always pain me when I realise how much I enjoy the same music as irritating Gen X coworkers I've had before. Time for some quiet reflection and 100 Hail Marys. Highlights: Finest Worksong, It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), The One I Love, Fireplace, Oddfellows Local 151

Literally the second I heard the vocals on this album my first thought was 'This guy 100% died from substance abuse'. Rushing to the 'Death' subheading on his Wikipedia page immediately confirmed my suspicion. On the song Smiling Stranger, Martyn's vocals remind me of Steven Seagal. Not Seagal's REALLY GOOD reggae/blues album he did, just his speaking voice in general. Like in the later part of his career when he pretends to be black. According to 'By the 1970s he had begun incorporating jazz and rock into his sound' yeah and Zappa had been doing that as well as mixing his own live performances together for his albums. Unfortunately for the only guy to ever pull off a soul patch, he wasn't born in the UK. No album in Martyn's discography has charted anywhere outside the UK, even then fewer than half of his albums even charted there. It's a good album, and parts of side A are funky but overall it's a forgettable pastiche of reggae-jazz-blues-rock? Some artists on this list deserve to have their names dragged out of obscurity like Nick Drake, I'm not sure that John Martyn does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2717AbGPoMw Highlights: Dealer, Big Muff (just for the song name though), Small Hours

A very pleasant listen. Reminds me of driving unfathomably long distances to do stupid shit while I was in university. Not much else to say about this album, it is a barebones affair with an unforgettable opening/title track. Highlights: Green Onions, most of the rest of it too I suppose?

Unlike most 'born in the wrong generation' wankers, I am not a well-versed Beatles historian so I quite enjoyed reading about the significance of Rubber Soul as a watershed moment between Beatlemania-Beatles and the more sophisticated pop/rock band that they would later become. This is also the first album where the band had full creative control which, for better or worse, is why the sitar is on this album. Cultural and musical significance aside, even if you have no/very little idea about the history of the Beatles and where this sits in their discography, the influence from bands like the Byrds is obvious here and the level of experimentation with different instruments and styles is evident. Some songs are a bit kitschy but I find them endearing and it is impossible to listen to this without thinking that this is a truly foundational album that has influenced every artist that comes after it. In terms of who is the better songwriter? I'm gonna go with the wifebeater. I was gonna give this a 4 to be a hater but considering the majority of this album is in my highlights that would really be taking the piss. Also it has Nowhere Man and In My Life, of course it's a 5. Also the global reviews page for this album on here is a hoot. Highlights: Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), You Won't See Me, Nowhere Man, The Word, Michelle, Girl, I'm Looking Through You, In My Life, If I Needed Someone, Run For Your Life

Stephen King is historically a fan of Adams, stating in 2007, "I won't say Adams is the best North American singer songwriter since Neil Young... but I won't say he isn't either" LMFAO Robert Christgau of The Village Voice selected "To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)" as a "choice cut",[15] indicating a "good song on an album that isn't worth your time or money." Imagine living in the day and age where you would have to pay for the privilege to listen to shit like this Highlights: To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)

Always a pleasure to see the Robert Antichristgau seal of approval in the form of a negative review before listening to an album, always raises my expectations. Side A was good, always a pleasure to hear a talented artist perform their own rendition of Walk On By Side B is a mixed bag, One Woman is alright and the SECOND HALF of By The Time I Get To Phoenix is fantastic but sitting through the intro is a real chore. Overall, it was alright. The novelty of listening to an album by Chef from South Park wore off after the first track and I really don't see myself coming back to this. Though the first and (half of) the last tracks were good, there are other versions of both songs that are better (or more accessible in the case of the former). Still, there is no doubt that this is the album I'd put on to fight Xenu with my fellow Operating Thetans. Highlights: Walk On By, By The Time I Get To Phoenix (from approx. 8:45 onwards)

I find it ironic that Metallica walks out to The Ecstasy of Gold at concerts in the same way I found that Pink Floyd's The Wall inspired a group of real-life Neo-Nazis. A bunch of greedy pieces of shit walking out to a song about a greedy scumbag? Do you think the old timers in the SFSO felt shame? Why is this album on here? It's like someone made a 'foods you must eat before you die' list and included gum and nuts from the Simpsons. It's the musical equivalent of when Homer designs a car, who the fuck is this for? If you wanted symphonic metal, go listen to another band. Very few songs on here are improved by the presence of an orchestra. The second half of the first disc is bloated with dogshit from Load and Reload, sprinkled in with No Leaf Clover which is an original composition for this album (and is good). The second disc of the album is what you came here for, the reason you sat through (or skipped) everything after Master of Puppets on the first disc. I have such conflicting feelings about this album after listening to the GOOD parts of this album. Metallica songs don't work well in a symphonic metal style, they are a thrash band with a thrash vocalist, a shitty drummer, a guitarist addicted to pedals and a bassist who gets 'lost in the mix' (fucked over by the former 3 pieces of shit). I absolutely dreaded listening to this, I feel a great sense of personal shame that my existing love for Metallica has tided me over here. This dogshit half-baked idea unfortunately still has good Metallica songs on it Hetfield's voice is ass, the orchestra still doesn't fit in with the sound, Ulrich is a shit drummer, this idea was totally fucking half-baked and whatever I still liked it. If this were just disc 2 it would be a 3 or a 4, but it's both discs; it's overly-long and full of post-Black Album shit. This album is entirely carried by the songs I put in the highlights section, and I feel a deep sense of personal shame that I enjoyed this dogshit. I think the band itself had a deep sense of shame, 'oh our dead bassist that we love, unlike our new shity bassist, LOVED classical music and ummm uhhh he would probably think this is cool?' They couldn't just admit the truth? Lars Ulrich probably saw the ticket price for an orchestral performance and had his eyes roll up dollar signs. Probably the same reason that tickets for the Australian leg of their 2025 tour start at $500 AUD. Despite the songs I enjoyed on here, I won't be listening to this Tuxedo T-shirt of an album anytime soon. Highlights: Call of Ktulu, No Leaf Clover, Nothing Else Matters, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Wherever I May Roam, One, Enter Sandman, Battery