313
Albums Rated
3.02
Average Rating
29%
Complete
776 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1960s
Favorite Decade
Singer-songwriter
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
33
5-Star Albums
24
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Duck Stab/Buster & Glen
The Residents
|
5 | 2.03 | +2.97 |
|
Heartattack And Vine
Tom Waits
|
5 | 3.07 | +1.93 |
|
Songs From A Room
Leonard Cohen
|
5 | 3.16 | +1.84 |
|
Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Fiona Apple
|
5 | 3.19 | +1.81 |
|
Bitches Brew
Miles Davis
|
5 | 3.3 | +1.7 |
|
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
The Pogues
|
5 | 3.34 | +1.66 |
|
Red Headed Stranger
Willie Nelson
|
5 | 3.35 | +1.65 |
|
Hot Rats
Frank Zappa
|
5 | 3.36 | +1.64 |
|
Music From Big Pink
The Band
|
5 | 3.36 | +1.64 |
|
Ágætis Byrjun
Sigur Rós
|
5 | 3.37 | +1.63 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Disintegration
The Cure
|
1 | 3.85 | -2.85 |
|
Violator
Depeche Mode
|
1 | 3.7 | -2.7 |
|
Low
David Bowie
|
1 | 3.55 | -2.55 |
|
Bossanova
Pixies
|
1 | 3.38 | -2.38 |
|
Seventeen Seconds
The Cure
|
1 | 3.38 | -2.38 |
|
Juju
Siouxsie And The Banshees
|
1 | 3.33 | -2.33 |
|
Pornography
The Cure
|
1 | 3.31 | -2.31 |
|
The Idiot
Iggy Pop
|
1 | 3.21 | -2.21 |
|
Close To You
Carpenters
|
1 | 3.11 | -2.11 |
|
The Last Broadcast
Doves
|
1 | 3.05 | -2.05 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Leonard Cohen | 3 | 4.67 |
| Bob Dylan | 2 | 5 |
| Led Zeppelin | 4 | 4.25 |
| Miles Davis | 4 | 4.25 |
| Neil Young | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| The Cure | 3 | 1 |
| Pixies | 2 | 1.5 |
| Depeche Mode | 2 | 1.5 |
5-Star Albums (33)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Miles Davis
5/5
Man, what a change from “Kind of Blue”! This is fantastic piece of work (though I’m not sure all my supper guests on the night of my (shared) listen through would wholeheartedly agree) - lots of perplexed looks around the table at points. Only geniuses can swerve so fast and still stay so high
3 likes
The Smiths
2/5
God, make it stop! Morriseys maudlin lyrics and droning voice over the pedestrian backing music was too much…I couldn’t make it through…Morrisey is musical murder.
1 likes
Astrud Gilberto
2/5
Pedestrian jazz interpretation from the era of jazz transitioning to pop. Middling at best.
1 likes
The Go-Betweens
1/5
This shall be the first album on my new list “1001 Albums to listen to after you die”
1 likes
1-Star Albums (24)
All Ratings
Tracy Chapman
2/5
I remember this album from when it dropped. I listened to it religiously for a short time, after which it slowly receded to the back of my CD collection, where it would remain if I hadn’t traded it in for Dungeon and Dragons supplies at our local second hand everything store. After another listen, I have no regrets.
CHIC
3/5
The groundwork for so much of what was to come, from samples of ‘Le Freak’, to Donovan frankenreiter and the “Happy Feet” soundtrack from ‘Happy Man’, to just about every pop song that we love to hate on but secretly love at some level.
David Bowie
1/5
Aptly named. This album is boring on first listen…and on all subsequent listens, I’m sure. Could be the soundtrack to a movie made by third graders, starring their cats, doing nothing. If this is Bowie drug-free, we are now better informed as to why musicians eat pills until they explode.
Frank Zappa
5/5
This is a revelation! The musicianship is incredible; the arrangements wonderfully complex; and the shifting styles disorienting like a carnival ride - it all left me a bit breathless and joyous in a bit of a new way. I could do without the masturbatory 70s guitar solos (he was always ahead of his time!) from the first two songs, but overall an ever-shifting landscape of challenging musical joymanship! Not all at what I expected from the fella who in my childhood memory would’ve otherwise forever have been the “don’t eat yellow snow” guy….
Frank Ocean
4/5
Wow! Frank Ocean seems to fill that beauty-fusion space in between didactic, rhyme driven rap and melody driven pop/rock that so few have been able to populate. Lest I say his name, he’s like a Kayne with something to say.
Lyrics like “Nah, I’m lying…down” from “Thinkin’ About You” (with such impeccable timing) and the entirety of “Crack Rock” and “Sweet Life” are art, allowing an inside view and understanding of another subjective reality.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Man, they don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Really, people literally do not make albums like this now. Storytelling soul is gone.indeed, I think soul music is gone, atomized into R&B, HipHop, Funk, even Singer-Songwriter, molecules-to-the-universe-gone-but-not-forgotten gone. I don’t necessarily love the music, but I long for the time and the sociocultural context that welcomed this music. When I complete my Time Machine, it’s the 70s or bust…
OutKast
4/5
Wow, OutKast is more than “Hey Ya”?!
‘Stankonia’ is pretty okay, but it led me down the OutKast rabbit hole, music and videos, and I popped back out with a new group of songs to take along on my journey. The songs are wonderfully variable musically, and thematically and the videos are clearly done by a manic synesthete on acid, and they take the experience that is OutKast to a newer, even better place.
OutKast is a beast that ate Robert Johnson and Grandmaster Flash and the Everly Brothers and nibbled on Isaac Hayes and Spike Jones and (weirdly) Flight of the Conchords (or more likely they nibbled on OutKast).
Willie Nelson
5/5
Soundgarden
2/5
Led Zeppelin
3/5
It’s crazy that this album, Willie’s “Red Headed Stranger”, Zappa’s “Hot Rats”, and Hayes “Hot Buttered Soul” came from the same era - a testament that this is a wonderful world! Mostly knowing Zeppelin from their hits as singles, this album sounds to me like an album Led Zeppelin took inspiration from to make the real Led Zeppelin albums.
Tangerine Dream
3/5
Interstitial style, apparently from the origin. “I could make that” stuff that you really couldn’t.
Grant Lee Buffalo
2/5
I couldn’t get through this album. This used to be my wheelhouse, but I found this, honestly, lyrically, musically and spiritually, empty. I like to believe that I’m always looking forward and waiting for new things to amaze me - this helps me to see that I’ve moved on past vapid, navel gazing, Yawn Rock.
Talvin Singh
3/5
Conceptually interesting tapestry of musical styles, with some great drumming, but it left me flat overall. I think I just had the experience my kids have when I have them listen to a piece of seminal music that has been taken further over the intervening time. If they can appreciate the pedigree, it’s usually still a review of “Meh”. Did anyone else have sense that they were listening to the soundtrack album for the Bollywood remake of “Blade Runner”?
Iron Maiden
3/5
I have a confession to make : despite growing up in a hick town in the 1980s, I have NEVER listened to Iron Maiden! I was too busy with Phil Collins and Bryan Adams and Friday Night videos and didn’t turn my attention to them, as I thought they were heavy metal and I didn’t do heavy metal (that was those guys in the 3/4 sleeve rock T-shirts with that creepy Eddie splashed on the front). Object lesson in staying in your lane and ‘finding’ only those cultural bits that look familiar. Too bad for me - they’re pretty okay, with lots of Van Halen and even Chili Peppers guitar riffs and lyrics and stage antics tame by subsequent standards. I probably won’t seek them out too often, but I won’t turn away from them so quickly next time either.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
Lush and heavy (some of the guitar work is ‘heavier’ in its way than the guitar on the recent Iron Maiden album, again showing the shifting landscape of style and also likely pointing out some of Corgans influences). I came to The Pumpkins with the next album, so this one has no emotional resonance for me. It’s good musically but not really my thing. But it did lead me back to Fugazi and some other “if you like this, then you’ll like this” bands that Henry then walked in on and we had a 90s awakening for him, so once again every melancholy cloud has a silver Offspring/Fugazi/ Everclear lining.
Van Morrison
3/5
Ahhh, the master of blue-eyed soul.
I do love me some Van the Man, that love child of James Brown and James Taylor.
I was on a mountain biking trip in the summer of 1989 in Alberta with my uncle and a couple of family friends. We had covered a lot of altitude and miles before making camp for the night in the middle of nowhere under the big western sky, like four Spandex cowboys. The campfire was on the go when the fellas realized that they’d lost their hash somewhere along the way! Off they went, eventually finding it against the odds. They were in a celebratory mood (and high as f#&k) and put on some music to play one-legged “Pick up the Bag”, leading me to ask “Who’s this?”. They were aghast that I’d never heard - of course - Van Morrison. They were actually mad at my father for never having showed me the Way of the Van. And he’s been along for my ride ever since, in and out, on and off, but always there somewhere. Not sure I dig his live stuff as much as his studio work, but pulling out a Van album off the shelf now and then is always welcome.
Amy Winehouse
3/5
Big Star
2/5
Never heard of them. Sounds like 1970s guitar rock without a lot to distinguish it.
The Velvet Underground
2/5
Apparently a classic, but I found this a hard listen. While I did appreciate the spirit of experimentation that Cage and Reed brought to the songs, they often fell flat beyond that. “Heroin” did portray what I would imagine doing horse in the 60s felt like, which is an artistic triumph. And “Sunday Morning” is a straight up 60s classic. But Nico’s vocals are nothing but jarring and the music is often flat as is the mood it brings. I give it two bananas
Sufjan Stevens
5/5
Fantastic! Musically and lyrically and atmospherically a revelation, again. Yet another album from an artist who I’ve heard of but haven’t listened to previously and now will make my way through their oeuvre. Listenable yet affecting from start to finish, Stephens manages to do that thing that true artists do, making the whole more than the seeming sum of the parts.
Justin Timberlake
1/5
This album met all of my expectations. Enough said.
Oh…and my imagination was wandering around (perhaps trying to escape?!) whilst sort of listening to JT (he asked me to call him that somewhere in there) and I thought: Art. Really. Hopefully there’s a reason why we make this sort of music. Maybe we’ll one day see the ships filling the skies over our cities and our nukes will be useless and we’ll face annihilation from our alien overlords. Failing force, we attempt to soothe them with our humanity, in efforts to have them spare us at least that.
Beethoven. Makes their ears bleed. Picasso. Screaming for hours after. Fellini. Anger after befuddlement (even them).
Shakespeare. Intrigued, but let down after discovering he ghost wrote.
Then, jogs by a 40 something New Yorker who doesn’t give a fuck that the aliens have come for us, she needs to get her run in, as she has for everyday since 2002. Intrigued, one of the ships beams her up to probe just what’s up with her, self-betterment in the face of certain death and all. And what’s on her Walkman but her favorite album, JTs “Justified”. They are soothed. The album perfectly syncs with their harmonic centres, releasing waves of endocannibinoids and dopamine, easing them into a state a bliss they’ve never before known. All thoughts of domination and war evaporate in this “Timberlake state”. Prime directives rewired, they now heed only one thought: find this Tim-ber-lake. Once they figure out Facebook, it’s not a problem and soon they’re whisking JT away beyond the edge of the known universe. Who knew that inside every alien is a latent teenage girl, silently screaming for constant hits of misogynist-lite boy band confection. In the end, we all win.
Elis Regina
3/5
Thanks to Jon’s generous text analysis of two weeks ago, I didn’t just discount this album right away - I considered why, then discounted it. At the risk of sounding xenophobic, I believe that I have different expectations of non-English artists. I press ‘play’ on albums from non-Western climes and of different languages with an excited expectation of discovery of a new-to-me ‘otherness’. I’m looking for expansion, even just a little. This album was 70s soft pop with lyrics, while sonorous in a Romance language, I couldn’t appreciate beyond feeling like Captain & Tennille had learned Spanish in a futile attempt to seem less bland.
The Shamen
3/5
Unexpectedly cool proto electronica from what would’ve likely been another Simple Minds or Big Country if one of their dads didn’t own a TV repair shop or the like. 8-bit drum machines and an easy hand on the rest of it and somehow it’s transporting like Trainspotting. Huh
Amy Winehouse
3/5
I think I’m a prude. I don’t really admire Winehouse’s bad person (woke man that I am) style (and substance). The musicianship is top-rate, as per her last album, and she’s undeniably one of the finest of her generation, but her message is medium-rate (even though it’s true, hence me being a prude and not wanting to look straight at the burning sun of her talent and addiction and self-destruction). This music reflecting self stuff is a hard business!
The Cure
1/5
I can’t…I just can’t…anything but The Cure.
Jerry Lee Lewis
4/5
Proto-rock’n’roll by an alcoholic pedophile and yet one of the best live albums of all! Talk about separating then artist from the art. Crazy world.
The rawness and energy and the German crowd unironically chanting “Jerry” is dizzying, even 60 years later. With every nuance examined and every commodity, including music, overanalyzed and pre-judged upon its presentation to us, can we still have experiences like this? I hope so.
MGMT
3/5
Some highlights and bright bits musically but overall I found this tepid. Cognitively I can see this may be important in the transition through the 90s-today, but it leaves my soul asking me to get back to music with feeling, please (my soul has good manners). I’ll post this in my conversational brain under “music to pull out so that my decade(s) younger friends think I’m still relevant”. And how the fu k do these guys have 80x more listeners than Ozomatli?! If there was a “2.5” rating, but 3 it is
Ozomatli
4/5
(Dancing Face Emoji) Where did they come from?! And why have I never heard them before now?! And how did they mash up those musics and those messages and make it work?! And what have they done to my need to categorize musical styles?! And how can I see them live?! And am I the first person to ever have their mind blown by Ozomatli while making bread and butter pickles?! They’ve raised so many questions…
Pixies
1/5
I also thought I liked the Pixies, but I really felt this album was best left to my 90s self. My 2020s self has moved on from what now seems like noise music gone to hell in the hands of musician wannabes.
Thelonious Monk
4/5
Brilliant. Now this challenged my listening in the right ways : modal style, rhythmic inconsistency, un-landing melodies, not a lyric in sight but saying a lot, unpredictable interplay of instruments. I could only aspire to get to the point of playing that you can throw away the rules and make up your own as you go! I suppose this is the music that Jerry Lee Lewis was saying “fu k that shit” to, but I’ve made a place for them both…I’ll just make sure they don’t get seated side by side or they might get into it….
The Rolling Stones
4/5
Once again proving that albums are a creature apart from our current culture of songs as singles, not part of a whole (maybe this reflects the general trend towards individuality that we presently live with?). I do love me some Stones, and ‘Sweet Virginia’ marries up my country leanings with crunchy blues guitar as well as any song out there, but it was the ‘other songs’ that grabbed me here, especially “Shine a Light” and “I Just Want to See His Face”. Maybe Mick and Keef felt they needed some saving - and they were probably right.
Weather Report
3/5
This endeavour keeps pushing me beyond my listening history. Weather Report is to Miles Davis what Any Winehouse is to Aretha Franklin : solid music without the same emotional depth. This did grow on me through the listen, but I’m sticking with my first impression : maybe jazz doesn’t need that 80s synth sound.
Eurythmics
3/5
I was there for this music at the start, but, despite Annie Lennox’s luscious vocal tone, I’m not sure I’m there for it now.
Aretha Franklin
4/5
Classic, rock solid foundational soul from THAT VOICE! This is ‘comfort music’ (even though I have no particular personal emotional history with it).
Fiona Apple
4/5
Green eggs and ham.
I do like Fiona Apple, Sam I am.
Always took her for the cut rate Alanis, but what a voice, great musicians and strong songwriting and performance. Damn.
The Stooges
2/5
I guess now we know the answer to that age old question : “If you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of electric guitars, what do they make?” A Stooges album.
The Byrds
2/5
Interesting, as I’d never listened to this band other than incidentally. I read that they were meant to be as influential on subsequent music, particularly Alt Country, as another band of their era, the Beatles. I just didn’t hear it here. I think some of the issue was production, as the mix often sound wrong to my ears. But mostly I just don’t connect with their style nor with their songwriting. ‘My Back Pages’ is nice and my favorite (at least before it devolved into a meander on the sitar), wasn’t even on the main album, ‘Old John Robertson’.
Talking Heads
2/5
I’ve never listened to an entire Talking Heads album up to now. The music was more intriguing than I expected, but David Byrne sounds like Max Headroom after a few too many rum and Cokes for most of the album. I think I’ll never listen to another entire Talking Heads album again.
Neil Young
4/5
I’m always surprised when I listen to an Al um by an artist whose oeuvre I think I know top to bottom, only to realize that I really just know their big songs and an album or two that I’ve put the time into. Not surprisingly, I felt that with “On the Beach”. “For the Turnstiles” and “Walk On” are great songs all day, every day, but I was pleased to ‘discover’ “See the Sky About to Rain”, which is been completely without prior.
Aside - did anyone else notice that Wikipedia lists Neil as a “Canadian-American” musician. You know you’ve made it to the top when America lies to call you their own! I’d say 3.5, but gave 4 so Neil remembers where he’s from…
Deep Purple
2/5
Deep Purple remain a mystery to me, from the name, to the fandom, to why the music should impress, to asking whether they would maintain relevance at all were it not for “the riff” (amazing how one piece of one song can ‘make’ a music career…)
Tom Waits
3/5
Man, as much as I love Tom Waits, he can be challenging. Bone Machine seems to be (literally) shouting “wake up!!” to the collective pop music imbibing masses. This entire exercise for me has been about getting outside known musical lanes, even with artists I think I ‘know’. Bone Machine has no lane, as it careens through the aural wilderness, daring us to hang on as long as we can. I probably won’t go back to it often, but I know it’s there when I need a musical slap in the face.
50 Cent
2/5
Reminds me so much that I’m in my mid-50s. And that I’m not gangster (yes, I said ‘gangst-ER’, because my spellcheck won’t let me write ‘gangsta’, because even my phone knows that i can’t like 50 Cent, even if I give it the old college (see!) try).
Sigur Rós
5/5
Fucking awesome. I thought these guys were just Bjorkers-on for that other Icelandic music sensation, but they’re expansively talented, wide ranging musical silkworms, ingesting other musical forms and spinning them out into something…better. I love the ambient soundscapes, the haunting vocals and the journey of the album as a map to their musical interworld. Consider Sigur Ros ‘found’ by this guy.
Miles Davis
4/5
I’m sure, as he tooted his tooter, Miles Davis was self-actualizing (his mind leaving his body behind to do its thing) himself as a craftsman, turning simple ingredients into so much more than the sum of their parts, ‘cause Miles Davis is a near-perfect woodworking soundtrack.
Björk
4/5
Bjork defies words, so just - Fantastic!
Ms. Dynamite
4/5
Going into this listen with low expectations, I was blown away. What a powerful, take-no-bullshit approach to musical protest and empowerment.
Why have I never heard this? Why haven’t we progressed much at all, keeping her women-forward message still oh so relevant, 20+ years later? What do I do every day to help evolve our society to make it unneeded? Do I like reggaeton? Tune in next week for more existential angst brought on by powerful music…
Sheryl Crow
2/5
To quote my favorite Mel Brooks movie :
“Piss boy, bring the bucket!”.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2/5
Meh Meh Meh. I was excited at the last song I heard, but then I realized it was Beck, spun off the end of the album by the Spotify algorithm.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
Ahhh, comfortable rock’n’roll of my youth. This is as stereotypical of the 70s Springsteen/Jackson Browne/Tom Petty trifecta as it gets. “American Girl” is my standout here, and I must admit not much else other than the driving-down-the-highway vibe stays with me after the first listen. But I know how much good stuff is on the way from TP, so I’ll give him a 3 for his out-the-gate effort…
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
Man, is this a gospel album or what? If anyone else, even Dylan, mentioned the Creator as often as Marley does here, I’d be tuning out in no time. But…somehow he mixes the reggae guitar chunk that I don’t really like; religious overtones that I don’t really share; and lyrics that I can’t always understand…and he makes it awesome! And how many albums finish so strong on the back half? Marley could write cereal jingles and they’d be profound hits, I expect.
Madonna
2/5
I don’t know. Seems Madonna’s for dancing, not for listening. I don’t dance anymore. So, for me, the time of Madonna has passed.
AC/DC
2/5
There was a time when I would drive around in my buddy’s 5.0 mustang with AC/DC shouting to the world out the windows for us. I had a 3/4 sleeve Tshirt and knew the words to more of the songs than I took the time to hear the words of. Fuck, these guys are assholes! What a pack of misogynist jerks I see them as now. I’m embarrassed that I suggested my kids listen to them, though I guess they are now an object lesson in how not to be, the “before” in a cultural shitt that has caused a chasm that their music would do well to disappear deepen into (sorry, Jon, ended that sentence with a preposition). Ahh, but to have put that guitar playing to work for good not for evil…
Sade
3/5
Man, I really want to love Sade, but all I can muster is to like Sade. Her sultry voice, her jazz-tinged arrangements, her solid musicians, her good songwriting is impressive, it just doesn’t speak to my musical soul.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
This is a nice album, I especially enjoyed “High tide or low tide”, which was new to me (i think because it doesn’t have the staccato reggae guitar that I just can’t learn to love), but it’s not one that I’d head back to anytime soon.
4/5
Didn’t even have to listen to this one to say that it’s seminal in my understanding of music and the feeling that it brings. It was sort of my “British Invasion”. Not a big fan anymore either, but this album stands shoulders above most from any era.
The Stooges
2/5
I’m still a ‘no’, maybe even a ‘no,no,no’ to the Stooges. It might be a bridge across musical eras, it might be the start of something beautiful to some, it might be lightning in a jar, but not to my ears. Sorry Iggy (but I suspect you’re a nihilist, so surely you don’t care either way…)
Gene Clark
2/5
Hmmm. This alt-country stuff is supposed to be my wheelhouse, but I find this pretty ‘blah’. Maybe the roots of the music I still love is in there, and thanks to gene clark for that, but I’m going to keep looking ahead and not behind on this one.
John Lennon
2/5
After the title track, which is an undeniable classic, I found this album a weird mashup of non-Beatles songs. Maybe that was the point, but Lennon doesn’t so barrelhouse or blues or anything else so well. Interest g to watch icons find (lose?) their way after jumping off their pinnacles.
Talking Heads
4/5
I didn’t much by like our last TH album but this one had something better about it. The musicianship is so stellar, David Byrnes singing is less rigid and willfully staccato, and the songs are interesting.
OutKast
4/5
More love for OutKast. This album is a crazy mess of talent, momentum and vanity, but its highlights (for me, mostly in the middle of the second half) are high enough that I’ll keep going back, albeit for curated listens. I’d do 3.5 but momentum takes them to a 4
Tom Waits
5/5
I can only imagine that this album was shockingly unlike anything else that dropped in 1980, so much so that it didn’t register the way it ought’ve. I always say, and this album only serves to put bricks in this wall, that Tom waits is the musical auter of his era and that his is the music that will escape the orbit of the current, spinning off to be what reps his time. I mean… “There’s no such thing as the Devil, that’s just God when he’s drunk”, “I shot the morning in the back with my Red Wings on, told the sun it better go back down”…From the first notes this album is gritty America of any age. Fucking fantastic!
Brian Eno
3/5
I also thought Brian Eno was on my no-fly list, but his was pretty okay. His melodic sense is sound and he certainly got rhythm and his boundary-pushing is near-constant and interesting. Breaking down preconceptions, I give you…Eno.
The Strokes
3/5
Hard to beat “Last Night” and “Someday” as classics in the jangle punk genre. When I think ‘I do like the Strokes’, I now believe myself to be saying hat I like those songs. The rest of the album, to quote Osama, let me drift off, disinterested. But in the rock world, 2 out of 11 will get you 3 out of 5
Stevie Wonder
5/5
I agree. Stevie is the man! I love Stevie and would put him at the pinnacle of my musical heroes, so I’m biased, but this is a solid album in all ways, even more impressive as the start of his ‘genius period’ after his start as child prodigy (which so many never successfully escape from). I must say I prefer Funky Stevie to maudlin Stevie, but Funky Stevie carries so much weight that maudlin Stevie can get a pass.
Destiny's Child
2/5
Hmmm. How do you say anything bad about Beyoncé? And her crew? Catchy stuff, no doubt, but empty of anything interesting for my ears.
The Thrills
2/5
Never heard of the guys before, despite their ‘Beach Boys-meet-Wilco’ sound and vibe. I love the lead singers voice and tone, but everything else is pretty pedestrian. The Thrills is gone for me.
Kraftwerk
2/5
First listen : interesting and quirky.
Second listen (with Henry, who has some experience listening to them): what the hell?! I’ve heard these guys described as the forerunners of all electronic music, as the ‘next Beatles’ (really!), compared to the Beach Boys, as the cutting edge of the future of pop. To me, they sound like the AV squad at a 1970s high school got their hands on a Vic 20 and programmed the soundtrack to the drama club production of “I Love my Calculator!” while everyone else was drinking before the Friday night school dance.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
4/5
I love these old raw recordings! You can hear all the growls and flaws and it’s somehow better for that. I was really hoping to find a new favourite, but I guess the best stuff does pass through the filter of time for a reason. I’m going to do the classic Price is Right move on Osama and bid 1 higher : 4
Nirvana
3/5
I sort of lost track of Nirvana between ‘Nevermind’ and the Unplugged album, so ‘In Utero’ isn’t in my nostalgia wheelhouse. And, apparently I’m an old fuddy-dud who just likes the hits, because, to me last night in my kitchen making supper, a lot of this album sounded like people yelling in their garage. Lots of good songs here, but I think I like them more as they’ve been covered over the years or as nirvana did them on the Unplugged album, which is where I know the ones I know.
The Smiths
2/5
God, make it stop! Morriseys maudlin lyrics and droning voice over the pedestrian backing music was too much…I couldn’t make it through…Morrisey is musical murder.
Beck
4/5
I started out waving my hand at in front of my eyes whilst saying “This is not the Beck you’re looking for”.
“Where’s the upbeat, funky Beck I know and love?’l shouted to myself.
Then I bade myself to “Slow down, listen, don’t be hasty, lay your expectations aside, be open, stop eating chocolate chips from the bag”.
And I slowed down, settled into a ‘Morning Phase’ state of mind and got along with it all.
And now, a sure sign of positive personal growth and resilience, I like both Becks
Bill Evans Trio
3/5
Solid background music, but not sure I’d take it on a road trip or to the gym or to the bedroom or to the wood shop or most anywhere else with much intention. Great musicianship with nothing to really pull me in.
Paul Simon
4/5
Throw in the hits and stuff some solid songwriting around them and you have yourself a Paul Simon album. I really do like ‘Duncan’ and enjoyed the demo version of ‘Paranoid Blues’. Nicely heard.
Elliott Smith
2/5
Right. I’ve heard that everyone is supposed to revere Elliott Smith and that he’s a musical genius, but this all just sounds like a bunch of emo shit to me. He has an interesting voice and some nicely elegiac arrangements, but I mean, Jesus, would it…wait…what’s that grandma…”if you can’t say something nice, just say they have nice teeth?”…Elliott Smith has nice teeth.
XTC
2/5
Yeah…no.
Black Sabbath
3/5
This was kind of a…nice Sabbath album (?!). I quite liked ‘Supernaut’ and ‘Under the Sun/…’ (the original “Killing in the Name”) as classic BS songs, while the others variously sounded classical to, dare I say, tinged with the alt-country vibe of a lot of the rock’n’roll of the time (I’m trying to incite Jon into reviewing just to rebut me). An oddly anomalous (yet enjoyable) collection of songs for a band better known for pooping onstage than for these sorts of stylings.
Van Morrison
5/5
There are those few albums that are masterworks, full of solid songs start to finish, albums that only seem to get better as they move along with us through time. This isn’t a trick, where I now say “…but this isn’t one of those albums”, because this IS one of those albums, at least for me.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
4/5
I wasn’t into this album when it came out and I’m not sure I’ve ever identified as a RHCP fan, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this album. Sure it’s derivative and sometimes immature sexual overtness can distract, but it’s mostly a funky, riff heavy, bass-and-drum driven masterclass in West Coast rock!
The Replacements
4/5
Shinola!
2/5
Shite!
John Coltrane
5/5
My first time hearing this album. Words fail me. This album is one a select few that I can say has ever moved me. It evokes emotion without any overt attempt to do so, without the words we usually need to tell us how to feel. I agree with Osama, this is a fully realized piece of true art that I’ve been sending to everyone I know in an effort to have more people to talk to about this music.
Beck
5/5
I remember my friend Peter bringing “Loser” around in our medical school study area (maybe there was subtext?), and it blowing up everyone’s well-coifed Pet Shop Boys-like heads. How do you follow up being so original? Then this messy, groundbreaking, nonsensical masterpiece arrived and cemented him forever as the best poet of slide guitar. And he’s still doing it oh so well. Foundational for him and for all of us listening.
Willie Nelson
4/5
Okay. We all know I have a Willie bias, but, c’mon, this album is great! Willie got a bum rap for his singing, but he acquits himself nicely and throws in some solid guitar playing to accompany. He really can do most anything he wants musically. Just because it’s not all original material…
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
I listened to the first two songs and thought, “I do like New Wave, Wham I Am”, but then the rest of the album came along, my teen years faded back to where they belong and I realized that maybe my Overton Window for synth rock had moved ever so slightly towards “It’s okay…”
Astrud Gilberto
2/5
Pedestrian jazz interpretation from the era of jazz transitioning to pop. Middling at best.
Kendrick Lamar
4/5
Henry has had me appreciating Kendrick for a few years. Though this album lacks any ‘hits’ for me, it’s solid and sets him up for his imminent genius period.
Eminem
2/5
Rhymes fast, rise fast, fade fast. Never been a fan, even though my he can run it faster than anyone else. Gotta say I lean towards HipHop for the melody and remixes, while this style of rap leaves me wanting some joy
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
I remember this when it came out. Ty coder had done his Cuban album, then shifted to Northern Africa for this collab. I do like the playing here, but it gets repetitive quickly. I like later, more orchestrated AfroPop that integrates elements of this guitar style into a bigger soundscape.
Jeff Buckley
3/5
I’m having hard time to trust myself on this album, since everyone loves it so much. I hear the raw emotion, the elegiac vocals, the earnest songwriting, the wide variety of styles he gathered together/ set in motion, the all-time great cover, the solid musicianship, the great production. I mean, this guy was the real thing. But I just don’t enjoy listening to it. I think it’s the lack of joy that turns me away. Maybe I need a therapist, but I’m not sure I can steer into material without joy.
B.B. King
3/5
BBKing had legendary status in my house growing up…but it seems like a time capsule now. Certainly my time for this sort of blues has passed (I think when I was 15 or so). Interestingly this is the basis for most of our modern guitar sound and so homage to BB, but it’s not my jam for listening.
The Temptations
4/5
This was a funk-soul surprise for me. I really had no preconceived notions but this far exceeded my original passing thought of ‘Meh, I’ve heard these guys’. This lead me down a funk/R&B rabbit hole that now stretches from the 60s up to yesterday and is my current go-to playlist.
Stan Getz
3/5
I’ve said it before, I’m not a big ga bid the sax. Having said that, Getz is the sax virtuoso we’ve always been looking for and have had all along. Having said that,
this some bland stuff. If it was fruit, this album would be a banana - a perfectly ripe banana, tuned perfection, but a banana. 2.5 slides to 3 for “The Girl from Ipanema” solo into the higher octaves - that was breathtaking.
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
Dear Mr 1001,
Let’s be honest, homeopathic doses of the Pet Shop Boys are all anyone should be asked to take in. This is too much PSB; surely they only rank 1 in 1000 all time. And this isn’t even their best.
Yours truly
Synthed out
Aphex Twin
3/5
I’ve heard of Aphex twin, but never listened. I expect this was revolutionary in 1992, but I had my heard buried in textbooks and my musical eye on Ben Harper, Wilco, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and the like. Even as a dedicated dancer, I don’t think this album needs to be listened to in this future, other than having infiltrated and being present in nearly everything we listen to. Interesting for its inheritance more than its ambiance. 2.5 -> 3 for having been so influential.
Gorillaz
4/5
I do remember this album when it came out. I dismissed it as gimmicky and never really listened. Maybe it’s years later and now that it’s influenced pretty nearly everything that’s come since (pop, lo-fi, folk, HipHop (is that too far?) I can see Aug I’ve missed. My kids embraced this without bias and turned me around. Damon Albarn as visionary.
Joy Division
2/5
The name ‘Joy Division’ has rolled around for years and I never listened. I agree, especially the last song has a Downie/Hip sound. It’s amazing to me that these guys have 3m monthly Spotifiers and The Hip only 1m, when the Hip are so much more interesting and melodic. I do like the album cover, as it reminds me of another band I’d should take more time to listen to instead, Vulfpeck.
George Harrison
5/5
From the cover in, this album is a delight. It’s as though a genius was oppressed by two other geniuses, abetted by a fool, and, with the other geniuses flaming out, that oppressed genius ran straight to the front with a collection of wonder that the others had somehow held back, presenting the best of all of them to the rest of us.
The Only Ones
2/5
Middling at best. Seemingly uncertain whether they are punk, pop, rock or emo (which hadn’t been invented yet), the sum of their uncertainty is blandness.
Peter Gabriel
3/5
At the risk of offending Eduardo, I just can’t get into Gabriel, beyond the cool stop motion, food-based video for ‘Sledgehammer’ when I was 16 and video was king.
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
This exceeded my expectations. I thought the harmonies were often beautiful and the melodies solid. I won’t seek it out, but new respect to them M&Ps
Ella Fitzgerald
2/5
I listened to 3 or 4 of the 6 albums and I’m not sure there’s one song that I remember or found myself humming after listening. In fact, I turned it off multiple times as it was difficult to listen to, not for any reason other than its sameness. In fact, though these two are American musical titans, this is probably the most bland collection of songs I’ve ever subjected myself to.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
3/5
Better than I expected. ‘Helpless’ and ‘Woodstock’ are great songs, “Teach your children” a classic. It’s interesting how the Neil songs are instantly recognizable as his and on the others,
where tight harmonies rule, he’s nowhere to be found. Curious a supergroup as there ever was. 3.5
Depeche Mode
2/5
No thank you, dark night of the musical
soul.
Various Artists
4/5
Like Christmas music, only better. It’s almost like these songs were written for drum and bass driven 3-part harmonies, it’s just that they were stuck in the organ and 33-part chorus world or in the keyboard and 23-elementary student concert world or the orchestra and 23-biggest pop stars in the world for all
Time before and after this album. My only regret is not listening tomorrows before this Christmas season, ‘cause as good as it is, it’s only gone two weeks of the year.
Thin Lizzy
2/5
Now, maybe it’s just that I got my fill of this type of screeching guitar-driven, anthemic, stadium rock (like I got my fill of shooting guns and drinking in gravel pits) in my youthful years. Maybe I’m not the nostalgic type. Maybe I’m not a fan of guitar played mostly above the 7th fret by people who ply the guitar like everyone else. Maybe Kiss is enough of all this for me. Meh Rock…
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Interesting album in the way of charting the evolution of the Stones. Proto-stuff, with one foot playing beginner blues and the future-Stones, breaking through into their own with Mothers Little Helper and Under my Thumb.
U2
3/5
On the short list of bands with consistently great and innovative guitar riffs (These guys, Muse, the Stones, Hendrix (of course)…other thoughts?). The Edge earns his name and, I think, totally floats this band and makes them something more than the other(wise) straight-ahead rock bands of the last 40 years. Put me in as a middling member of the U2 movement.
Taylor Swift
4/5
Admission- I’m okay with Taylor Swift. I expect it’s an ouroboros kind of thing, where she’s gone so far around the love-hater cycle that we’re back to (something less than, but something like) love. It’s confection, but I like me sweets, so ‘why not’ is my play here. 3.5 turns to 4
The Icarus Line
3/5
Never heard of these guys. I actually likes this, not a lot, but liked it. It led me back to Muse, who are superior in every way
D'Angelo
2/5
Caught in the middle between original R&B and all of its titans and future trap and HipHop/rap, to me DAngelo is neither and the worse for it. Pretty bland stuff here.
Miles Davis
3/5
This album left me feeling that listening to it would be a great way to spend an afternoon in an elevator with Miles Davis
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
I hear this album came out of a tight studio band who were messing around before their recording session with Jerry Lee Lewis (who was late for reasons we won’t discuss here) when someone sat on the soundboard, inadvertently recording the prolonged warm up set. Again, seminal stuff, but kinda boring. I really can’t think of where/when I would listen to this - except that it’s DNA is in everything since.
David Bowie
2/5
Hadn’t heard this (didn’t know it existed). His voice has changed into something deeply smoky and even more beautiful than before - I could see his age as I listened. Having said that, his songwriting doesn’t seem inspired, a far cry from his ‘cant miss’ 60-70s genius period. If it wasn’t Bowie, I expect this is an album no one would listen to.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Man, this is so familiar, like (insert worn simile here). It’s so easy and well worn and…predictable and…kinda boring. Other than Clemmon’s sax playing, this could be anyone from 1970-2025. Maybe Springsteen been so influential that there’s too much of his progeny between here and there but the effect of his success is also his downfall - we’ve all heard all of this too many times to find it anything more than nostalgia. And, while I love me a good sniff around the 70s, I’m looking onwards and upwards for new sounds so…it’s out to the dark edge of town with 70s Bruce.
Adele
3/5
I was going to deride this as joyless, but, in this exercises ongoing efforts to make me a better person, I’m only going to say that I don’t find my joy in Adele’s music.
I think my dislike is mostly for this sort of voice-forward anthemic style of ballideering that seems empty if one isn’t in for wallowing or wants some instrumental joy stimulus beyond ‘very competent’. Big voice, but I don’t feel it. While that’s maybe on me, it’s a three
Rush
3/5
I was really hoping that Rush was going to ‘Wow!’ me. In the search for ‘new’ music, my prog rock blind spot held hope for an undiscovered vein of old gold. But…I agree that, while technically pretty great, their music doesn’t get all the way from my ears to my soul.
Boston
3/5
Classic classic rock. I wouldn't change the station if it came on the radio but I don’t see pulling it off the shelf either. Comfy sweater, out of fashion.
David Bowie
3/5
Classic Bowie in all the right ways, though I guess there’s a reason why it’s not an album I know - it doesn’t quite hit the Bowie heights of the era, when he could do no wrong. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not the e Bowie album I’d reach for or be a ‘must have’ on my album shelf.
X-Ray Spex
4/5
This is pretty great. It’s raw and honest and unpretentious and out of tune and out of time and in the pocket and (almost) on the nose and not-quite-what-you’d expect and just-what-I-needed and fresh as fuck even 30 odd years later. Thanks 1001
White Denim
2/5
I usually rate these albums as soon as I listen to them, so as to capture how they make me feel. It’s been a few days since listening to this one. I recall feeling…
Radiohead
4/5
Like so many of the bands on this journey, Radiohead's isn’t what I thought Radiohead was. I really got into the deep electronica groove, then the (more subtle than usual?) overlaid guitar, drifting along on the slipstream they laid down, then…bam!…Thom Yorke sang! His vocals are more instrument than melody, I figure, an odd, dissonant instrument that sometimes soothes, sometimes jars, sometimes makes me think “Really?!”. It’s more Portished and less Coldplay, and I like it all the more for that.
Spiritualized
3/5
A pleasant surprise. Cool electronic rock from a band I’d never heard of. Not so different from all the Radiohead-ed bands of the era, but something about his beep-boops pulled me in. 3.5
The Smiths
2/5
Like bad teeth and vinegar on your fries, probably it’ve been better for us all if this album had just stayed home in jolly old.
Nirvana
5/5
I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that this is one of the great albums. It’s like “Love Supreme” with fuzz and yelling; it’s like “Songs in the Key of Life” with punk drumming and long hair; it’s like “Blue” with bad attitude and dirty fingernails (I’d imagine Kurt had messy cuticles); it’s like “Revolver”…yeah, it’s like “Revolver”. Burnout > fade away…
Pretenders
4/5
Surprising. I liked their punkness and the guitar playing a lot, more than I expected to. And Chrissy Hynes sings like Lou Reed dressed in drag - wait, Lou Reed sings like Lou Reed dressed in drag…you know what I’m trying to say.
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
Curtis Mayfield is one of those names synonymous with soul music. I’m
sure he and Stevie spent nights backstage planning to make the world a better place - and, in the end, they probably had a role to play in doing just that. I’m not sure I like his voice on these songs and the playing seems workmanlike. His vibe is not as joyous as on his other albums and I think that’s what gets me here. I appreciate him, but this is a one-and-done album listening experience for me.
Prefab Sprout
2/5
Huh. Interesting music for the times. It sounds far more modern than 1985. Cool mix of British guitar rock, jazz, showtune and new wave-y styles and vibes. Having said that, I don’t think I’d go back to it, mostly because I don’t really like his voice, his lyrics or ultimately his playing.
Kelela
1/5
I will admit to not being an R&B guy at heart, but this is not my music. And this is not the best of R&B, Mr1001. It’s full on dragging and down tempo in the worst way. It’s boring. It’s boring like Gershwin wrote songs about my cat, eating yogurt
The xx
4/5
Never heard of them, but I quite liked this album. Interesting how one band can go moody guitar rock that catches you, where ten others didn’t. They have the magic sauce.
Talking Heads
4/5
This is a great album! I wasn’t crazy about the last TH album we reviewed, but something about this one caught with me. I think mostly it’s that this is a less avant garde album, but still with great musicianship and more melody. “Psycho killer” and “Love->Building on Fire” stood out, as did, capturing the zeitgeist decades later, “Don’t worry about the government”
Leonard Cohen
5/5
I know the songs, but, man, this whole album is pretty great! Hard to believe this was his first effort, it’s so mature and emotionally and melodically intelligent and unapologetically sex-informed. This has me going back through his cannon and putting together my Cohen playlist - now I’d only I could go back to 3rd year university armed with that…
Count Basie & His Orchestra
2/5
Wait…just a second…pardon me…let me just…okay - got my white socks on, rolled up the legs of my blue jeans, white t shirt sleeves once turned, hair just so, slipped in to my black loafers…but…I think this foo bird has flown, something feels splanky about this music in this time.
Tim Buckley
1/5
Sad. Definitely sad.
Coldcut
3/5
I couldn’t get this album on Spotify, so listened to some of their other work. Pleasant surprise - books and covers, I thought this would be Linkin Park-adjacent meathead rock, so didn’t expect to like it so much. Nice grooves and interesting collaborations.
The White Stripes
4/5
The white stripes did their northern Canadian tour in 2005, stopping in Whitehorse and doing an afternoon show downtown under blue skies. It made me realize the amount of organized noise two people can make if they really try. They grow on me a little more every time I hear them. I do like their later stuff more, but I do like the rawness of these tracks. 3.5
The Police
4/5
This was a pillar of that mid-80s golden age of albums, one of the truly great collections of genius songwriting. Somehow they walked the line that so many 80s British bands couldn’t - big hair, slashing style, feigned blitheness, New Wave-y style, tangential lyrics - and made it work. In the wasteland of Duran Duran, Big Country, New Order, the Smiths, the Cure, the Police remain. Long live the Police - Jesus, sounds like America of 2025, not MuchMusic of 1984…
Mott The Hoople
2/5
3rd rate proggishness with all the self-importance and little of the talent to back it up. Couldn’t make it through the entire album before my dog started howling, my cat left thextomm and my wife made me turn it off (“either the music goes or I do!”)
Genesis
2/5
Curious stuff, this. Some of the first album was actually pretty good, sounding fairly modern in style and vocal effects. But crazy imagery and allusion that didn’t hold together for me. Then the second album just came undone in most respects - again, wife vs music.
Sebadoh
1/5
Jesus, these guys have 9 albums!
I couldn’t get all the way through 3 songs before tapping out - aural arm bar for the submission. The pain…
Led Zeppelin
5/5
It’d be hard to argue that this isn’t one of the most rock’n’roll Rock’n’ Roll albums of all (and it’s not even their best!). 1/2/3 were really just building up to LZ4, but man, what a best supporting album candidate
The Who
4/5
I really quite enjoyed this. Heard about it so many times, but this was listen #1. Unexpectedly orchestral and cohesive. The Who seem to have been lost to the mainstream of oldies, but they had something gear for awhile and ‘Tommy’ was in their pocket.
The Dandy Warhols
2/5
These guys actually seem talented and modestly original inside whatever genre Spotify says this fits into. I liked a few songs, but it’s all a beige blur a couple of days on…
Coldplay
3/5
I read they started out as ‘Samey Same and the Same Things”, then Gwenyth said “I’m cold, play that song you play so well” and they did, over and over again and again…
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
Some cool songs (“Thankfully not living in Yorkshire”, “Sevrn Days”), but mostly it sounds like a high school marching band got stranded in the auditorium with a junior high punk band and they put on their own version of The Breakfast Club to pass the time until the salty old janitor found the keys to let them out…
Dusty Springfield
2/5
Sure, “Son of a preacher man” is a classic, but without that this is the music elevator repair men listen to on the way to repair elevators.
Norah Jones
4/5
I remember this fondly when she debuted with it. Sultry voice, jazz-country piano, solid backup band, cool dad, beautiful. And it holds up - nothing groundbreaking, but worth a listen now and then. 3.5 -> 4.
Bob Dylan
5/5
Out of the way at the start : 5/5.
Incredible songwriting.
Stellar musicianship (though sometimes I wish someone would slap that harmonica out of his mouth!).
This was truly a golden age for music (Pet Sounds, something or more by the Beatles, A Love Supreme (!), even Garibaldi’s “Charlie Brown Christmas” all also coming out in 1965 and either setting bars or presaging even greater things to come in the next few years.
To me, this is THE Dylan album
Britney Spears
1/5
Oh man, I wanted to like this, for her as the ‘underog’, but this was bad, bad like the ice cream dropping of your cone, bad
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
I want to like these guys, I really do, because C’mon Eileen as the 80s…but I guess ‘One Hit Wonder’ is a category for a reason.
The Velvet Underground
4/5
Crazy - this album is pretty great. Not sure what happened between 1967 and 1969, but VU made me…happy…with this album. Clever, melodic songwriting without the avant garde focus of the banana album.
Jimmy Smith
4/5
Never heard of Jimmy Smith, but he’s tight. Great musicianship (I initially thought he must be the sax player, as the sax is the shit on most of these songs!). Laser-like rhythm section, cool organ, nice arrangements. Nothing groundbreaking, but in great listen when you just need to listen.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
I do like some of his other work, but this album left me flat - some good songwriting, but mostly fumbling to find his rhythm without the obvious vocal or musical talent to make up for anything but fantastic songwriting…
The Cardigans
2/5
Meh.
Orbital
2/5
The Fall of Snivilisation…1.5
Iron Maiden
3/5
Crazy what time does. This music is the stuff I spent my teenage years trying not to listen to even though there were more 3/4 sleeve Eddie T-shirts per capita in my rural hometown than anywhere else on the planet. I expect I secretly sang Bryan Adam’s lyrics to myself as this played in a van in the way to a hockey game or at a camp party, as some sort of mantra to calm myself and assure myself that the world was still okay). Turns out it s just hair metal, but better. And that it’s generally better than Dexys Midnight Runners or whatever tripe I was putting in my ears instead of this. Turns out this has way more staying power and is pretty okay. Check out Tanya Taqak’s cover of “Run for the Hills”…
James Brown
4/5
Before there was Eddie Murphy singing James Brown, there was James Brown. Before there was that James brown, there was this James Brown - early rock’n’roll with screaming girls in the appreciative crowd, singing songs so ahead of their time they could be released today. I’m loving these early live albums, with their honest recordings and fantastic energy - I don’t think this exists anymore and it’s a shame.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
This was a pretty great rediscovery. I’d put Crazy Horse in a different pocket of his music, forgetting about this seminal contributor to “Decade”, the album on which I first heard Neil young’s music and the one that stays with me to this day, often to exclusion of his other works. Solid ‘hits’ here, but the other songs are strong and beautifully round out the album.
Blur
2/5
I just don’t know. I want to like Blur, even if just to have them win against their foil, Oasis. But I found this album inconsistent and even forgettable for the lost part. Not exactly the stuff with which to battle for the title of “the next Beatles”. I do like some of their stiff, maybe just not this stuff.
The Cure
1/5
Once again…nope.
A Tribe Called Quest
3/5
Seminal stuff. Although there’s a bit too much business rap on here, I suppose it was vital to speak up at the time this was made. The last two songs saved it for me, like they were building towards the best they offered on this album.
Television
2/5
Lots of reviews here about the excellence of this album, but I didn’t hear it. Some of the guitar work was pretty cool, but in the way that Moon Mist ice cream is so different but it’s also not ge me. There’s lots of 70s NYC rock that lights me up far more than this.
The Who
4/5
This is crazy! You actually chart the evolution of one of the greatest bands of all time through the tracks on this album.
For a first album to be so diverse is wild:
Crooners, almost lounge-y (‘Anytime you want me’), to blues (‘l’m a Man’), to barrelhouse rock (‘Shout and Shimmy’), to the punk influenced rockers they would become (‘My Geneeation’). There are even in between stages, like fish with little feet (punk-swing ‘Leaving Here’ and lounge-rock ‘Instant Party Mixture’). The title even hints at the Darwinian nature of what’s within.
Roni Size
2/5
To be fair, I expect the proper way to listen to this album would be to be dressed in a full on teddy bear furry outfit, pockets full of mDMA, soother firmly in place in a warehouse full of writhing bodies. Given that I listened at the gym, pockets of my shorts full of nothing, sweating for altogether different reasons, I suppose it doesn’t have the desired effect.
Beastie Boys
5/5
There’s never was before and never will be another band quite the the Beasties! We don’t get many true originals anymore, but these guys were the real deal. I love HipHop with actual instruments and lush samples and…fun!
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
Beautiful album. I haven’t albums so
much with simon and Garfunkel, I’ve more songed with Simon with these in the mix. Fantastic album with such a feeling of the time and place and evolving style and harmonies (if that was Garfunkel doing harmonies on the last bit of ‘America’ I can more fully understand why Simon kept him around for as long as he did). People, including me, often refer to duos as the ‘current/next S&G’ (presently I’ve used that for the Milk Carton Kids’) but there Will never be another S&G.
Yes
2/5
I remember when “Owners of a Lonely Heart” came out and it was huge!! I went back to find out where it had come from and found a prog rock mess that hasn’t changed since then. Some interesting instrumentation but…
Tears For Fears
3/5
I had the hair, the sweaters, the music video habit to feed, and this was a big thing in the time of The Police, Michael, Born in the USA, and all the great music of the mid decade in the 80s. I recalled slow dancing to “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, but it seems to have a different connotation 40 years on.
The Residents
5/5
Really?!
I’d ask “Where have ‘The Residents’ been all my life?” but I think I know the answer - they’ve been travelling the metaverse, aided by a series of psychedelics (starting with pot, through mushrooms, MDMA, GHB and back to mushrooms), experiencing life differently than the rest of us, chronicling it through their soundscapes, which make lost people say either “What the hell are you listening to!?” Or “Jesus, turn that noise off?!” but which i can’t wait to play at my next sit down dinner as the background music, to see just who’s who around the table.
Dolly Parton
4/5
I do love me some Dolly. I expect she gets her ass-kicked by feminists for her “please don’t take my man/please your man” oeuvre, but she does mountain country more beautifully than anyone ever has or ever will. What it must’ve been like to hear her early on, that voice filling little churches and halls.
Sonic Youth
2/5
Crazy that they came out of the late 70s New York scene along with The Pretenders, The Talking Heads, Lou Reed, and the like. And kept going through grunge, which it seems they did first. Unfortunately, they did it first but they don’t do music very well, so I just can’t listen with a historical ear enough to like them.
Michael Jackson
4/5
Great album! “Man in the Mirror’ is, I think, my favorite Michael song; “Smooth Criminal” is genius (and maybe confessional?); “Bad” is…well, bad. This was huge when it landed and is still pretty great.
AC/DC
2/5
If I was to be spread supine on a boulder while birds endlessly picked away my flesh, this would be the soundtrack.
Adele
2/5
I dont eat at McDonalds and I don’t listen to Adele
Marvin Gaye
2/5
Marvin is the man, but even the man’s miss sometimes. Sure it’s smooth, sure it’s well-played, but it’s sure forgettable.
The Kinks
4/5
So good. If the worst thing you can say about a band is that, while they tried mightily, they never quite got to be as good as the Beatles, well, that’s high praise indeed. I like the Kinks more every time I hear them.
Supergrass
4/5
I kind of missed these guys in the 90s - everyone was talking Oasis and Blur when I think they ought’ve been talking Supergrass. Imaginative, energetic, clever, harkening back to the 60s British vibe yet running along with Nirvana and the like. Thanks Mr 1001
Crosby, Stills & Nash
2/5
No Young, no edge to CSN. This is the music I think of when I think of 60s music that I’d rather not have to think of again.
Carpenters
1/5
Jesus, what the actual fuck was that! I really only enjoyed the last song, and because it tried to be something more than the tepid gravy rock on the rest of the album.
Robert Wyatt
4/5
I love finding these marginal musical figures who never had and never would’ve come into ears but for the oddly catholic-like guilt I seem to owe to these daily listens. Wyatt is melancholy beauty and fiercely purposeful difference that I really enjoyed and that contains multitudes more than most pap pop or billion listen new country. Give me more…
Love
2/5
Never heard of these guys, so my lack of expectations were completely fulfilled by this listen.
Dr. Dre
2/5
Ehhh. If HipHop can’t be traced back to those dudes dancing in their high-waisted pants in the video for “Apache” then it’s not for me. I didn’t enjoy this (I know it’s not meant to be enjoyed, but…) and gotta say I just can’t find it in me to listen to this gangster rap stuff
Public Enemy
4/5
Fantastic. If any HipHop can be traced back to those dudes dancing in their high-waisted pants in the video for “Apache” then I can dig it. I enjoyed this from start to finish. Great samples, groovy grooves and strong songwriting.
Manu Chao
3/5
“Bongo Bong” makes me say ‘Sure, I know Manu Chao’ but I don’t, I see now. Not being a fan of the syncopated rhythm of reggae style guitar work, I found most of the rest of this album repetitive and hard to like.
Heaven 17
2/5
Ahhh, there’s something about the deep throated singing of British 80sNew Wave that irritates me on a deep level. There’s something neat mixing of disco and synth here and some nice bass work on the second last track, but overall an effort that leaves me asking : “Someone took up precious studio time for that?!”
CHVRCHES
2/5
Walter Mitty (the actual one, not the Hollywood Walter) puts on a beige suit and drives his Corolla to the Olive Garden whilst listening to CHVRCHeS on AM radio.
The Offspring
2/5
This one has an emotional attachment for me, as I bought it when it first came out and felt rather the rebel with my punk album in hand. Turns out this is West Coast wannabe punk that sounds a lot like my past self had a significant Dunning-Kruger gap in my punk knowledge (and probably still do, bit less so with my ongoing 1001 self-knowledge thru music course.
Pixies
2/5
Better than the last Pixies, but I think the key to me not liking them is there lack of joy and general ‘downness’
Cee Lo Green
2/5
Not my soul
Roxy Music
3/5
Funny, I’ve always flipped past Roxy Music albums in used vinyl shoppes, thinking them too available to be any good (like chuck Mangione or the Carpenters or Peter Frampton)…but they’re pretty alright. Just on this side of Brit Rock, just on that side of New Wave, just a step from C&W, like/not like NYC punk stuff - they cooked it all up into a stew I could eat now and then. 3.5
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
3/5
Out the gate : I have a soft spot for Jon Spencer BE as I bought ‘Orange’ on what I consider the best day of my music FfS discovery life : back in the early 90s, when you had to make an actual cash transaction with money you could t really afford to spend, I was at Sam the Record Man on Barrington and picked up ‘Orange’, Ben Harper’s “Fight for your Mind” and Don Volt’s “Trace”! No disappointments in the lot.
Now, JSBE is still pretty great - one foot in the old blues, one foot in NYC punk, one for in pop music, one foot in performance art (not sure how he plays guitar with all four feet on the ground…). While the music can veer from grooving’ blues to noise (like a man yelling and banging on your garbage can lids, making you late for work because you’re a little bit scared to go outside with him there…), overall I’m in for the ride.
ZZ Top
2/5
I know this album so well from my teenage years that I can rate it without listening to it again (which I sort of swore I’d never do) : redneck misogyny wrapped up in a tight swamp guitar groove and largely offensive or non-sensical lyrics. Great for driving to a US military base for an air show while your dad drinks beer (while driving) in your 70s inspired Econoline van, kids sitting in the back on bench rows, not a seatbelt in sight. You can’t make this shit up.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
John Fogerty apparently thought CCR could be the next Beatles when those four imploded. And I never had a girlfriend who’s dads name is John.
Good music for driving and karaoke.
Beatles
4/5
Truly awesome. This must’ve been mind blowing at the time. I do prefer the later, fuzzier Beatles, but I can appreciate this as an integral step to n getting there.
Beatles
3/5
Even further from the fuzz.
George Jones
2/5
Man, when we lived in the Arctic, the older Inuit folks lived and died for George Jones (listening to the Inuit CBC shows it was just a lot of words that couldn’t understand and then fairly reliably “….George Jones…” and the man was in your ears! I do love country, especially old country, but never really loved GJ. He’s too clever by half and too much just like his songs. This old country ‘love’ song trope is well past its best before date. Too bad he didn’t have an updated later phase to his career like Johnny Cash and Willie, ‘cause now he’s just that misogynist drunkard for eternity
Moby Grape
2/5
Never heard of these guys and likely never will again. Nondescript 60s psychedelic rock. Yawn.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
2/5
One Janis Joplin song at a time, please. Too much pretend blues here for me.
Blur
3/5
Blur lives up to its name and all their songs kind of run together in my mind. They’re more a sound than a collection of hits. I’m glad that DA used this to go on to make the great Gorillaz albums, and I’d look for a Blur greatest hits album, but record by record they’re not pulling me in
Bill Callahan
3/5
Curious songs about enigmatic things sung in a surprising voice by a languid man and his friends. The musical equivalent of Marmite - good once in a while, fills a hole you didn’t know you had, checks the ‘try new things box’ nicely
Leonard Cohen
5/5
Ahhh, thank you 1001. Leonard Cohen has become a musical anchor for me over the past year and is conjecture that this is his most consistent album start to finish. Gotta love listening to and war and loss and the live version of ‘tonight will be fine’.
Slayer
1/5
A guess a guy screaming details about the devil and his (her) fellows whilst his buddies talentlessly assault their instruments in the background isn’t my thing. Go figure
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
I really liked this album. I remember my dad bringing it home with such anticipation, after declaring “Rumours” the best album of all time. I still recall the look of disappointment on his face as the album unspooled, very non-Rumours like. Despite that, I’ve always thought’ Tusk’ to be one of their best songs and I liked it more this listen than ever before.
The Kinks
4/5
This struck me as having influenced Jon Croce and John Prine, with its character driven story songs. I commented to Henry that the title song reminded me of “Hot Fuzz”, after which he reminded me that it was essentially rhe movies theme song.
Mudhoney
1/5
Every good boy deserves to not have to listen to this pile of shit!
Bert Jansch
2/5
Another obscure ‘60s musical soul who I’d like to like (“Angie” was pretty well-played), but who, in the end, seems like a middling guitar player with little singing acumen who would be more at home in a local coffeehouse (which I expect was his selling point in 1965) than in my ears in 2025.
Neil Young
4/5
One of Neil’s albums that I don’t own on vinyl and never really listened to as an album before. Gotta say, as much as I like Neil, this is a trainwreck of an album - it’s all over the place, even one barrelhouse piano track (?!). Another testament to the power of greatest hits albums (though I guess they call those playlists now…)
Miles Davis
5/5
Man, what a change from “Kind of Blue”! This is fantastic piece of work (though I’m not sure all my supper guests on the night of my (shared) listen through would wholeheartedly agree) - lots of perplexed looks around the table at points. Only geniuses can swerve so fast and still stay so high
The Band
5/5
Give me the Band on a desert island - live - and I’d never want to leave. I was skeptical after the first three songs, but after the turnaround at ‘The Weight’ it was all aces! A couple of new faves for me (“Chest Fever” and “We Can Talk”) and a bunch of comfy old standbys plus what may be the best folk song ever (I don’t think I need to name it).
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
Im not sure what Garfunkel brought or didn’t bring to the mix, but it’s hard to deny that this is front-to-back one of the most consistently solid albums of all time. Crazy stylistic swings, but somehow they’re masters of them all.
Jefferson Airplane
3/5
Solidly ‘Meh’
Gang Of Four
4/5
Such great musicianship, interesting and confident, varied and accomplished, sparse but complete (see the melodious in “It’s Her Factory”). Winner of the 1979 Grammy for “Best New York punk band not a punk band from New York”.
The Beach Boys
4/5
RIP Brian Wilson. It’s amazing that he only had a hand in a few of these songs and you can hear it instantly, lush harmonies and layered orchestration clearly outdoing the other tracks. He truly was a genius and it’s clear that his influence made the rest of the band better for having him nearby, if not hands on.
The Cure
1/5
Why, oh why do you keep sending us ‘The Cure’ Mr 1001? Dante would have something to say about it, I’m certain of that - 3rd circle to date. How many more albums do these guys have?!
The White Stripes
3/5
‘Seven Nation Army’ I mean, of course, but overall I find the Stripes to get samey fast. Stellar guitar squonk, solid drumming, good vocal work, but I won’t go back often.
Elton John
3/5
Intersting that he mixes sooo many styles, throwing stuff at the wall. Not much of it sticks anymore, but some true keepers (though I didn’t find that elusive ‘song I didn’t know before’ on here, disappointingly)
Eagles
4/5
Man, it must be hard when your biggest, best, most-loved song is a one-off that you forever are chasing down, trying on out lightning into a new bottle. ‘Hotel California’ is a masterpiece and, while the Eagles have lots of other great songs, hangs over every one of their songs that come after it. Solid alt country with a monster to start….
The Stranglers
2/5
Cut rate late 70s punk, done better by so many others. I couldn’t finish my Rattus…
Cream
4/5
Wow, that’s not what I expected. From psychedelic rock, to near-modern blues rock to Monty Python-adjacent, this was a (good) surprise. I especially liked that there was no effort to hide their strong accents and their playful approach.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
The is album made me appreciate rap. Enough said from a country boy.
Funkadelic
4/5
Great…song?! Maybe Spotify is writing my reviews now and just gave me the best of this album, but I only got one, albeit pretty groovy, song from the link. My supper table dancing got a “1” from the fam, but I give this song a “4” for making me try (and making them laugh)
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
4/5
Oooh, I love this guy! He’s so far off, he’s fresh. It’s like Tom Waits had a stroke - and since Tom Waits, come to think of it, is like Leonard Cohen and Billy Joel had a baby and the baby had a stroke, this guys like Leonard Cohen’s piano baby had two strokes!
Snoop Dogg
2/5
I. S any disagree that he does what he does well or that his sampling isn’t first-rate, but booze and misogyny just can’t hold together for me. I was cringing listening to his lyrics. Sorry O, can’t do it
A Tribe Called Quest
2/5
I’m not a fan. I watched the first Pink Panther movie recently and was put off by the obvious set pieces in about of the gags - Peter sellers would get to his mark and then wait for the gag to happen. This album feels like that to me - the diction is too clear, the rhythm unchanging, even the whole French references too repetitive; it feels too set, without the (I know it’s artifice, but good rap feels too set me like it was just spirit and captured raw) apparent spontaneity.
U2
4/5
Oh man, I remember hearing that guitar riff that opens “Mysterious Ways” from an adjacent room and running over to see where that awesome, previously-unthinkable sound was coming from. Nothing I’d put on the turntable, but revolutionary nonetheless.
Minor Threat
2/5
Emmm, proto-Fugazi (which I, crazy as it sounds, used to think were inaccessible hardcore), but, and I don’t think I’m making the same mistake here, listenable only as history.
Hookworms
2/5
Started off with some promisingly interesting soundscapes, then…New Wave. Oh well.
The Beach Boys
3/5
I do love me the Beach Boys, but this album, other than ‘Help me Rhonda’ and “…Grow up to be a man’, is a bit listless. I’m always listening for what will become ‘Pet Sounds’, but there’s little of that here.
Depeche Mode
1/5
New Wave has had its day, but that day is gone. Deep voiced electronic nonsense.
De La Soul
2/5
Whatever - how do all the 1990s rap bands manage to sound the same?!
Don McLean
4/5
This is a great collection of songs! First time through and I’ve gotta say it’s way more than I thought - which was ‘“American Pie” plus filler’. Solid songwriting, lovely voice.
Fiona Apple
5/5
Absolutely agree. This is a powerhouse album, raw and honest and sparely (the hardest way) tuneful. Confessional, warning, empowering, educating. Man, listen!
The Vines
2/5
A lesser version of VU, pretending to be a lesser version of Nirvana, presaging being a lesser version of the White Stripes. Don’t see how this is anyone’s essential listening
Beastie Boys
4/5
This is as punk as it gets - say what’s on your mind (or between your legs) and don’t try to be more than you are. I think these are their best samples and some of their best music. “Fight for your Right” was the breakout song here, but it’s certainly not the best nor the one with the most staying power. I really enjoyed this musically and rhythmically, if not always lyrically.
Songhoy Blues
4/5
This was pretty great. A wild ride of styles and mashing of guitar rock with Kuti- style (but not) rhythms and tones.
Nanci Griffith
1/5
And I thought I kinda liked her. Total shite!
Black Sabbath
4/5
Fu king awesome! Confession - I’d never listened to black sabbath until meeting Jon S! Honest. They’re great, particularly Tony Iommi. Being enlightened enough to move past the Satan foolishness as theatre and just listen to the music, this is the best of 80s hair rock done a decade earlier
Iggy Pop
1/5
Jesus, what happened to Iggy?! It’s like a proto version of Gergen records trying to turn artists like Neil young and John Hilary into electrified rockers - Iggy Pop as New Wave star (down to the hairdo!). Didn’t work
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
That there’s about as smooth and chill as R&B ever was. Gotta give him credit for his ability to make even the elevator song cool!
Sex Pistols
4/5
Never Mind the Sex Pistols
Doves
1/5
Sometimes I wonder if artists would look at these reviews, like a ‘Rate myMD’ sort of self-flagellation exercise. If so, I think, is it nice to say something clever but scathing here? Probably not, so I’ll say nothing at all
The Police
3/5
Solid album by a solid trio, I just find Police’s message in a bottle, so to speak, has gotten a bit soggy in the intervening decades.
Everything But The Girl
1/5
What…did you say something?!
Buena Vista Social Club
4/5
Oh I remember when this dropped. Big deal! It holds up as an easy way into appreciation of world music.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
6/5
Dirty Projectors
3/5
I think this is what “WtF?!” was made for…but in a good way…I think…mostly.
Perhaps I’m the twee hipster who falls for this particular type of shit, but I liked this in that way that you like it when a stranger (perhaps a person living with dementia) tells you you’re good looking or that they like your shirt, it looks good on you, that way that makes you go “Huh, weird” , but that pushes a dopamine button on your chemical control panel, and so imprinting a positive feeling memory in your hippocampus.
Lorde
2/5
If pop music were ‘The Simpsons’,
Taylor Swift would be the Plow King, clearing the way for all of her facsimiles, like Lorde. But unlike ‘The Simpsons’, there’s nothing for me here
R.E.M.
2/5
Lots of water under the REM bridge by now and, acknowledging that this one opened the gates, it reminds me of the first Tragically Hip album - significant to real fans but not much for the other 98% of us.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
This is one hell of an album. Osama, it’s interesting to watch the progression of your favorite album choice, from 2Live Crew, to Debbie Gibson, to Nickleback and back to the more classic choice of Jimi. You always land on your musical feet!
Boards of Canada
2/5
I couldn’t settle into anything pleasing g listening to this album. It seemed maybe always on the cusp of having something to say sonically, then didn’t get the words out.
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
1/5
Wow! This stuff is so startling bad that I went to find out how it ever got made. Turns out, in the early 90s, the devil came back to the crossroads, just when Jah Wobble and Kurt Condon came along.
Cobain played a few songs and the devil bowed his head and wished he had long hair to toss around to the rhythm.
Jah wobble then presented his mess of sounds. The devil was much pleased by the ‘forgot to read the instructions’ drum machine groove; the downcycled and appropriated instrumentation, so poorly played and utilized below its potential; the child-like rhythms; the “Jesus I could do better than that” vocals. The devil rejoiced…but decreed that it was TOO evil to send this music forward to the people, and so he chose Cobain. Though the devil continues to spin him some Jah Wobble whenever he feels like a little flagellation of the soul for himself
Country Joe & The Fish
2/5
One of the albums of all time
Nico
1/5
After enduring Nicos warbling dragging down the first Velvet Underground album, I didn’t expect to be subjected to her again.
Second circle, very Dante Mr 1001…
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
4/5
Somehow, through the miasma of my teens, I recall FGTH fondly, and it holds up! They seem to have caught the magic on this album, that inscrutable sauce that makes the plain more than its sums.
Ray Charles
4/5
As a lover of Ray Charles (but who isn’t) and old C&W (but…), this album is a slam dunk from the title onward. I wish my phone had ‘overdone strings’ and ‘maudlin background singer’ filters, ‘cause without them this would be pretty much a perfect album.
Joni Mitchell
5/5
Words cannot….
(I’m just surprised in the reviews how many people comment poorly on “River”, maybe my favorite song on this album (for reasons I won’t go into here…)
The Auteurs
2/5
Another album fronted by a fake band for those nefarious ghost singers ‘Samey Same and the Samers’.
The Yardbirds
4/5
Once again, it’s very cool to see where our music came from. Proto-rock that I wouldn’t necessarily listen to for its own sake, when the output it lead to is so much better. The seems of LED Zepplin are here, right down to the mystical song titles (“Hothouse of Omagaradhid”, anyone) - and I always presumed ROBERT plant was the source of all that.
Musical distant cousin : “What do you want?” and George Thoroughgoods “Who do you love?”
Morrissey
2/5
New Wave by any other name is just as disagreeable. The first song is prescient and I admire his forthright lyrics, but it’s no fun to listen to.
The Verve
2/5
I love their song. And maybe that other song. 2.5 rounded down
Carole King
5/5
Not sure I’ve listened to this album in its entirety, though I’ve heard (almost) all of the songs. It’s on every record shelf for a reason, just pst the bra when women artists for the leftovers and/or sang backup to the fellas. A groundbreaker for the woman dominated pop world of today.
Madness
2/5
This is crazy stuff. ‘Our Town’ keeps them on the map, but the rest of it was, albeit playful and enthusiastic and well put together, novelty (unless I missed something?)
The Pogues
5/5
Holy hell, what an album! Is it perfect? No. Is it Irish? Oh yeah. Is Irish music meant to be perfect? No. Is Irish music the original punk music? I’d say so, and also that the Pogues do Irish music a punk as anyone before or since. They said ‘Fuck the British’ instead of ‘Fuck the Establishment’ or ‘Fuck Mom&Dad’ or ‘Fuck…’ whatever modern punk rails against. But, make no mistake, this is punk music. Through and through his album also surprised me when every song goes the extra mile - when most bands would finish up, these guys play around a few more bars of instrumental melody and give that little extra. I guess that epitomizes Shane MacGowan, who sounds like he always said “around once more”, whether he was singing or drinking. So, in a way, he sacrificed himself on the altar of ‘too much’ to leave a legacy of Irish punk music like no one else.
Fugees
4/5
This is smooth hip-hop with a lot to say.
I never cottoned onto the idea that “Fugees” is short for “Refugees” (?). Music that speaks up for its roots whilst speaking to everyone so beautifully that it can’t not be heard.
Harry Nilsson
3/5
I like Harry Nilsson in theory, but I’m not sure I like him so much in practice. All respect to the Beatles, I can’t quite see where he was the best songwriter of the era. I truly wanted to like this more than I was able to like this.
Middling Schmiddling
David Bowie
4/5
My dad has this album, though it was completely against type (it would’ve been slipped in between Eagles and Willie Nelson albums on his record shelf). Somehow it endears this album to me, just thinking that my one-music-lane father might’ve even been willing to try the alternative world of Bowie (even though I can’t recall hearing it played in my house growing up). And…it’s a great spin. 3.5 up to 4 for the accompanying nostalgic halo.
Joanna Newsom
4/5
“Am I hearing noise from the hull,
Seven days out to sea”. I mean, c’mon, how can you not love that. This music is crazy and wonderful and annoying and transporting and challenging and refreshing (and other stuff too, I’m sure).
Not sure if it’s the harp or the lyrics or the heavy consonants emphatically enunciated at the end of most of the rhymes or the imagery it conjures or her ‘not-at-all-perfect-but-good-enough-because-you’re-all-we-have-left-after-the-plague-ripped-through-town’ voice or the harp (it’s the harp!) but I feel like a dirty peasant, piling muck and ignoring my flea bites, rueing the coming day because the tax collector is going to be in town and I blew all my coins on mead last night and I can’t pile this muck fast enough to get enough coins before tomorrow so I may have to go off into the woods to hide for a few days but there’s been a wolf around so that’s not great and my wife has been eyeing up the stable boy and I’m getting old and sports cars haven’t been invented yet, so a mid-life (I’m 25!) crisis looks more like mead and tears in my (hay) pillow after everyone else is asleep and that’s not getting rid of this existential feeling of dread that I’m meant for lore than this ‘muck-and-mead’ life I’m living - that’s how this music feels to me. So, yeah, 4/5
The Chemical Brothers
3/5
Don’t worry, that was the music, not me, coming through in that last review. Honestly. I’m fine.
Chemical Brothers, no comparison.
2.5/5, rounded up because I like some of their other stuff
The Beach Boys
5/5
Possibly the best album of all time. I’ve listened dozens of times, read the history and reviews, watched the movie (if you like the Beach Boys, or if you’re a fan of love more generally, and haven’t seen “Love and Mercy”, you have to see it - a wonderful love story masquerading as a music biopic) and drank the Kool-Aid. This is where the music I love started.
The Doors
3/5
This was put out a few months before I was. I think I’ve aged a bit better than this album has. Granted, there are a couple of undeniable classics here and I somehow was taken by “Land Ho” (while recognizing that it’s the cheesiest song on here). Bit mostly these songs are like coleslaw - expired shortly after production. 2 classics gets you a 3
Pulp
2/5
Brit pop is getting a bit overdone, Mr1001. Maybe something from south of the equator, if your reach extends that far. This is, at least for me, about searching for new music, not about confirming what I like. Sure, I like Brit pop- next!!
Coldplay
3/5
I do like the last song, which was a good plan on their part. Otherwise if feel that most everything is, if not lost, then at least wouldn’t be missed. It’s a bit of a cut-rate U2 sitch (or I just might be a “things-were-better-in-my-day” fuddydud…), because they’re clearly a talented bunch but the songwriting leaves me full of breath.
The Go-Betweens
1/5
This shall be the first album on my new list “1001 Albums to listen to after you die”
Neil Young
5/5
Up front : 5/5.
I’m not sure what guys with guitars would do without Neil Young, and without this album in particular. I mean, who puts “Old Man” and “Heart of Gold” and “Harvest” on the same album?! Crazy! And a couple of new favorites “Out on the Weekend” and (upon further, more mature (if I do say so…) listening) “A Man needs a Maid”, thrown in. Albums don’t come much better than this! And even, on an inspired further listen to their colab “Zuma” another extra “Lookin for a Love”.
ZZ Top
4/5
The bearded boys surprised me here. I actually quite enjoyed this listen. Simone but groovy and not yet masochistic and misogynist. “La Grange” is an all-timer. And some other good swampy blues songs along for the ride.
Slipknot
1/5
N/A (couldn’t do it - it’s the clowns…)
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Ah, Leonard for the win! When many would be past their prime of 20 years earlier, Leonard puts out some of his best work, even though it has a few 80s synth taints on it. “Take this Waltz” may be his best song and “Everybody Knows”, “Tower of Song” and “I’m your man” are a strong middle of the lineup. Always funky (in a sex way, not a groove way), Leonard stretched his golden period with this album.
Massive Attack
2/5
I understand this to be seminal and really liked parts of it, but being the progenitor of reggaeton doesn’t endear it to me at all and it wore out for me early on.
Bob Dylan
5/5
Are you fucking kidding me?! 1963?! (Essentially) his debut album?! It’s nearly unbelievable that this happened that early and that this was his first full length album of original songs. As tribute to genius, this could be top 10 on the “1001 best debut albums to listen to”. Would be interesting to go back to these near-perfect debut efforts to see if they tend to portend genius songwriting going forward….
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Oh my! I’ve never listened to this album all through - it’s incredible! And mind blowing even today (he was scratching on one song!!). It’s like aliens came down and he promised his soul at the cosmic crossroads for the gift of moving music ahead by decades all in one leap. Speaking of 1001 debit albums, this could be #1.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Not my favorite Les Zeppelin album, but that’s like saying strawberry isn’t my favorite ice cream - there are no bad Zeppelin albums. I do love “Bron-Y-Aur stomp”, “Tangerine” and “Immigrant song” (am I wrong or that song sampled everywhere?), and groove to the rest even if they’re not as melodically captivating.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Pretty funky stuff, to be sure, but beyond the theme song, which is iconic, the his was forgettable, like “funk comes to the mall”.
Lupe Fiasco
2/5
Not my thing, though some of the sampling is cool.
Johnny Cash
4/5
Man, I love these live albums. I also love old country (though if I was forced to choose Johnny Cash music for the time capsule, I’d have to say I prefer Cash’s American recordings to his old stuff). And I think him heading into the prison system was pretty great of him. So, all that plus the feeling is the crowd and the joy of being asked to sing the freshly written “San Quentin” again and then the roar of cheers transitioning into jeers after they pulled the power is untouchable by anything they could’ve planned. It left me wondering what might’ve transpired thereafter, both between Cash and the warden and also between the inmates and the guards. Outlaw country indeed.
R.E.M.
3/5
Sure they were huge and sure I know a bunch of their songs, but this album doesn’t pull at my memories nor at my musicality. Hard, I’ll say it again, to understand what we were all thinking when they were pretty much the biggest band in the world?! 2.5 to 3
Jethro Tull
3/5
Locomotive Breath is genius - it has spawned many imitators, many of them seemingly on this album.
Brian Eno
4/5
Eno for the surprise win! I’ve an aversion to Eno historically, but this way-ahead-of-it’s-time album charmed me unexpectedly, as did the story that he mashed together collaborating artists who he felt would clash, just to see what he could get from the conflict. Sadistic staffing and clear-eyed production, a la BM Smith, with a formidable debut album (if a fella from Roxy Musoc can really be said to be debuting when he goes it alone).
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
This one’s easy! 5:5. I always mistake this for an early career ‘greatest hits’ album, it’s got so many standards on it. And his live versions are perfect! I learned to play guitar with these songs and (to paraphrase) ‘once they’re your songs, you’ll never give them back’. Neil young just provided me with a thanksgiving parenting affirmation when one of my kids told me that he and his roommate were dressing up in Halloween with the roommate being Neil Young and my son as “a crazy horse”!
The Monkees
3/5
Another exceeding of expectations! These guys are not just a novelty! Interesting melodies and instrumentation were ahead of their time. And ‘Zilch’ (really?!) as the sample for Del the Funky Homosapiens “Mistadobalina”. Crazy. 3.5
10cc
2/5
I dunno. The voice and all that, but this is middling stuff, I give it 2cc’s
Siouxsie And The Banshees
1/5
This album gives me hope for the future - I don’t think even AI would make this music and think it should go out to the world.
Miles Davis
5/5
Man, Miles Davis. He made me envision a world where jazz rules. It’s the late 50s and Jazz manages to stave off rock’n’roll as the dominant genre of music, with Davis and Coltrane and Mingus and Evans et al percolating into the popular psyche to dominate in place of the Beatles and Stones and Queen and Eagles et al. Not just musical styles but fashion and attitudes and ways of interacting are informed by Jazz from then until now. No Rolling Stone magazine, but instead Flowing Stream magazine; no punk, instead modal jazz; no singer songwriters, but ensembles and group improvisation; suits and ties, not mohawks and shredded denim. Im not saying it’s have been better, just different in the multiverse way of being different. But I can say that Miles Davis would’ve been the patron saint of that potential future.
G. Love & Special Sauce
2/5
Missed these guys in the 90s. They’re Beastie Boys meets Jon Spencer Blues Explosion meets Smashmouth meets a couple of guys in their garage with new amps and guitars. Production too thin, lyrics too thin, musicality too thin.
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
National pride aside, I quite liked this album. Nice production on an opera-adjacent piano pop album prescient of Jeremy Dutcher, whom I also love listening to. Sinner music with character that’s not stuck in any lane. 3.5
Ghostface Killah
2/5
Wu wu!! Great samples and rhythms with misogynist, dick-centric lyrics. Man, why do you go and do that?! This could be listenable/shareable/even likeable music, but instead it’s a tasty cake covered in soap flake icing (like on my 6th birthday, but that’s another story…)
Fats Domino
2/5
I wonder what current music will be so much of its time that it cannot possibly make it out of its own era…
4/5
Man, Bowie had the magic sauce. Somehow everything he touches turns to rock’n’roll gold! And in the time of studio control and attempts at homogenization he was wholly original on and off the vinyl.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Gotta love ‘peace love and understanding’ but I find this Elvis tough to love most of the time. He sure has the sensibility and the songwriting chops, but he just can’t get to the groove of it all enough to bring me on board. 2.5 rounds to 2 for all that came before and after
Underworld
1/5
Clever totle
The Who
4/5
It doesn’t seem that ‘The Who’ get their due anymore. They were easily one of the most consistently Fantasyic guitar rock bands of the 60-70s, yet you rarely hear of them anymore. Some filler here, but mostly strong stuff.
Ray Charles
3/5
Ray Charles is a musical genius - Eddie Murphy could’ve just as easily chosen Charles as Steveie Wonder for that old SNL chestnut. This man can play the shit out of a piano and, man can he sing! But he’s just not the consistent songwriter that Stevie is. There’s a lot of middlin’ (do I say ‘mid’ now?) songs here, which can’t do his talents justice. So, let’s twist it around a bit : ‘love the artist, ‘meh’ the art
Elton John
3/5
Early in the chronology, middling in the oeuvre, low on the Elton totem pole for me. 2.5 gets to 3 for all that came before and after.
Jane's Addiction
2/5
Take me back to the heyday of 90s rock…no, actually, on second thought, leave me where I am…
Lou Reed
5/5
I love this album. Lou Reed has the opposite arrangement to that I saw on the recent Ray Charles album : can’t sing, can’t play, but damn he can write a song tailored to his own narrow band of talent. ‘Perfect Day’ is one of my favorite all time songs and
Japan
2/5
Proof (more proof) that 1001 is just too many…
David Bowie
3/5
It must’ve seemed like a baby switched at birth or like biting into a mouthful of turnip thinking it was potatoes or like sitting down to the newest bill murray movie only to end up sitting through “The Razors Edge” to have bought this album in 1975. Undeniably ‘Fame’ ‘Young American’ are classics and I quite liked the last track too, but this whole thing pales (see what I did there!?) compared to guitar/glam rock Bowie. I consider this a shark jump for him…
Johnny Cash
4/5
Oh man, I’m conflicted. I do love me some Johnny cash and have more and more respect for him as I hear and read about more of his prison stewardship work. And I remember these American albums fondly and n real time, which kind of make them ‘my’ Johnny Cash albums, earning their ‘second golden age’ tag. I think ‘when the man comes around’ is my favorite song from this era, ‘Hurt’ is an all-time great song, ‘Sam Hall’ epitomizes Johnny cash’s ‘thing’ and his emotion on the vocals is awesome. However, a lot of the other songs have the feel of ‘let’s try this’ that just doesn’t hit the mark - ‘Personal Jesus’, ‘Danny Boy’ and even ‘Desperado’, which you might expect him to elevate, suffer at his vocal hand with bland arrangements (curious given JC’s and RR’s abilities in this regard), all are less than pedestrian, maybe not living up to expectations, maybe just being badly done. I expect they threw a lot at the wall for these sessions and subsequent albums, and understand the idea of making as many albums as possible form the accumulated tracks, but maybe they could’ve reduced yes the number and increased the quality of the albums.
Stereo MC's
2/5
Not sure what they were doing here, but they weren’t doing it for me, apparently .
Peter Gabriel
2/5
I like the cover of Peter Gabriel 2 better…
Steely Dan
3/5
Henry loves these guys. I’ve heard a lot of their songs via his playlist and do like some of them. Nick asked me specifically to look for this album as his one choice when I asked him what I could look for for him while album hunting. I hear the yacht rock perfection here, but I’m not sure ‘yacht rock’ and ‘perfection’ belong in the same sentence. I just don’t get it, I guess, but, like a fading Kegel squeeze, these songs just can’t hold me for long
4/5
That was pretty okay. Some real standouts (‘Victoria’, ‘Australia’, ‘Arthur’) and some Beatles influence (that hat song) and some doors influence (‘Mr Churchill’) and some middlin’ in-between songs, too. Ray Davies was the real deal and this was a great album that has (mostly) aged well. 3.5
Goldfrapp
3/5
Not bad. Cut rate Bjork with some beeps and boops. It’s be okay for background for a dinner with the in-laws. 2.5, up to 3 for Bjork
The Fall
4/5
I had low expectations but o actually really likes this! Somehow they put all their choas into a pot and stir it around and something pretty good comes out.
Muddy Waters
3/5
It’s good, but doesn’t have the ‘lightning in a bottle’ energy of the other live albums we’ve reviewed. And so repetitive…