For some reason, I believed Steely Dan was tacky 80s rock played at backyard Fourth of July parties. This was more than that. Colors of red, orange and bright green. Made me feel joyful and quickly found myself singing along. Favorite song: Kings

High octane, racy, feels like car-racing game music, but not in a bad way. Breathe will forever have one of the coolest bass lines of all time. The album is altogether kind of bad-ass and a bit scary. I'd enjoy this on the freeway. I imagine this would have been amazing to catch in clubs in the late nineties. I only really new Invaders Must Die, which isn't as a raw as this album, but it feels nice to explore an earlier side of this band. Favorite song: Firestarter

Near perfect album for me. I like the front half 2x as much as the back-half, where the sound started to blend a little bit. The chords feel honest. This album evokes a real honesty and vulnerability. Lots of Beatle elements and even dark-side of the moon in some later tracks. Favorite tracks: In the Lost and Found, Junk Bond Trader, Everything Means Nothing to Me, Can't Make A Sound

1964. This isn't for me. At least, right here, right now. It was good to read about the come-up of B.B. King, who got his name from Beale Boy, then Blues Boy, then just B.B., but I'd be lying if I said this is an album I'd casually listen to. His presence is palpable. His voice is hearty. His playing is crisp and expressive. At the end of the day, I just think - this is jazz. This is 60s jazz. What makes it so special? I think I'd only understand why if I was there, then. Favorite track: It's My Own Fault

I know this one! I know this one well. Arcade Fire was one of those bands I listened to at a time when I was ripe. So malleable. I even remember watching the music video for 'The Suburbs' and not fully understanding what was capturing me, but it was. What was it? Aimlessness. Wasted time, but of course, when you're a kid, it's not wasted at all. Freedom. Alienation. Neighborhood. They did 100% well about 50% of the album. I thought, coming back to this album, probably over a decade after it first took me, I'd discover 3-4 new tracks that resonated. But, it was the same 3-4 (suburbs, deep blue, half light) that resonated. "Wasted Days" stands the only new track I really took to. The minor landscape with these solemn, but intense guitar riffs just perfectly capture life for a lot of kids growing up in middle class suburbs. The album has some edge that is perfect for 13-14 year olds, but similar to my review of Figure 8, a lot of the other tracks just blend together in a generic sort of indie-pop way that didn't resonate. This album will always mean so much to me. Favorite track: The Suburbs (obv)

Didn’t know anything about her beforehand. 1964. This album slaps! Yes, it has some sing-songy girl loves boy tracks, but the production on some is unique and beautiful. There is the harrowing strings on “You Don’t Own Me” and then the absolutely awesome harmonies on “lovelight”. And even the kitschy chorus on “wishin and hopin” made me chuckle and sing along instantly. Feels great to hear this music 60 years later and get to appreciate it. Stuff I’d incorporate into a party playlist. Fav track: When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes

2000. Great listen. First thought was it had a lot of drive to it, and the lyrics sounded like proclamations. Not necessarily bad, but I didn’t strike me as unique. But, then a few tracks hit me hard. A place called home, horses, we float. I wonder if those last few songs, which are more melodic and uplifting are the stories from the sea. Really nice bass lines underneath droning guitars. Her voice is edgy and resolute. But still has that round divine sound of like angel olsen. I like the melodic bits more than the darker more rote sounding tracks. Thom Yorke’s features just didn’t work for me. Lot of soul in this album. Fav track: Horses in My Dreams

A lot of different sounds on this album, but the one that unites it is not one I particularly like: 4 on the floor, 1-4-5 rock sounds with what sounds like budget david bowie at the mic. That being said, the album has some pleasant surprises that I found unique and divergent from overly generic. Cool organs. Anthemic riffs. Trippy violins. It does have a sort of bob dylan cynicism that almost sounds like a precursor to parquet courts at times. But still, it’s got lots of different moods, which I appreciated. It wasn’t til the last few songs that I had the impulse to exit the album. I read they never hit in mainstream. This album feels inspired, though, forever destined to sit under the wire. Not a hidden gem, but a hidden cool stone? Fav track: Violence (love the anthem) 1973

1963. On first listen, I thought “Great, it’s like Sandlot music.” Undoubtedly talented, but I still huffed and puffed at the generic “60s” do-op sound. Then, I got to the backend of the album and the track “Lost Someone” just hit me. And it carried on and on. And the following tracks ran with that soulful energy and kept me close. This is another time and place album, which would have been a blast to see live, although I don’t think I’d ever sing along. Still, the horns and bass on those final tracks give this album a bit more shine than I originally would have scored it. So this is James Brown. Favorite track: Lost Someone

Listened to this while lying on my bed eating an apple. I finished the apple before the album. You’ve got to really go for the ride to appreciate this, because it is piano composition. And boy is it something. I’ll have to come back to this many more times, and glad to say I can due to the nuance and depth, but on first listen it feels like Jarrett is unpacking keys, turning them over and watching all the guts spill out, only to come to these soft, repetitive and melancholy endings in each part. It’s like chaos and aftermath. It’s both solemn and uplifiting. It’s life. Amazing sound. Rating it feels juvenile because I would gather something new every listen. Something about this takes me back to my college days sneaking into the music hall to play piano by myself. Favorite track: Pt II B

I didn’t care much for this album. It was 1971, and I wonder what he was responding to? Nixon? Segregation? The first Starbucks? The Manson murders? Or the Vietnam War? The album is moody and moany. There are two gems: Mercy and Inner City Blues are groovy and tighter. I expected to like this album, but I just didn’t. For most of the album, I found myself bored and I didn’t find his calls for peace and love to be all that powerful. Maybe because that is almost trite now, and it was novel (and urgent, i.e Vietnam) then? Two stars for the two hits.

Dreamy. Proggy. Jammy. Synthy. Groovy. Edgy. Pokemony. MF-Doomy. This is just straight up cool. Spotify says 2015, but this was released in 1976, post-Can. Led me to Kraut-Rock, and I wonder which Kraut album will feature on this list. This album is fucking awesome. Made my body move in its own way. Felt like a slinky trapped in a hamster ball floating down a lazy river of rainbow water. A little tiny gem for sure. Fav track: Hollywood Symphony

There were two tracks I really liked, probably because they strayed away from the 3 chord punk rock, Nirvana-esque sounds of the rest of the album: "Happy and Bleeding" and "Plants and Rags". I love the dissonance, whining strings and big bellowing drums behind it all. There's some really cool cascades with the guitars, too. Outside of those two, the rest of the album was listenable, but its sound had a low ceiling for me. IT was 1992, I think her debut album? If so, you can hear it bursting with energy and cynicism. So much less mature than her later city/sea stories album, but definitely raucous fun. A shiny two stars. Fav track: Plants and Rags

Rockin! So, this album came out in 1969, their debut album, with the Hindenburg disaster as the cover art. The first track Good Times Bad Times might be one of the coolest opening bars I've heard in this 1001 album journey so far. It reminded me of opening of the "Bellbottoms" track, which came much later in 1994. Granted, I've never been a hard rock guy, so there is a limit to how much I can love this album, but I'm glad I took the time. I guess it makes sense that my favorite track would be the soft, lamenting "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You". The verb "ripping" comes to mind. A lot of these tracks have this drilled bassline and guitar riffs; they're so energetic, which is why I guess I often hear them in film soundtracks - very "Oceans 11". Last thing I'll say is how much Blues I heard in this album. It is like someone took Blues and amped it up. A few times you hear classic blues riffs and blues moans and groans, but with these sky-high distorted guitar riffs. I can imagine it was a different sound for the time. Excited to hear more! Fav track: Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

This is great, but I must say these guys always sound like they’re singing odes to dead animals. It’s beautiful and kind of funny. Just a real wholesome, sitting on a bale of hay in a rickety barn kind of album. It’s full of soul and storytelling. What I also really enjoy are these little prescient moments that almost sound formative to post-rock, especially on Rag Mama Rag and later (I can’t remember the track), I thought I heard BCNR. Interesting this debuted in 1969 - the same year as Led Zepellin’s debut. Different, but I think overall I enjoyed it the same, maybe slightly more for the folky / americana sounds. I couldn’t help but smile and think of a pastoral moment with some good friends and apple cider. Heartwarming. For that, I have to give it a four. Fav track: Dixie is the obvious winner, but Rag Mama Rag is my sleeper and Jemima Surrender is a lot of fun

First time listening to Lana Del Rey. Music made for cinematic moments. Music made for music videos. Gatsby. High school. A long drive alone smoking a cigarette. As much as I hate this niche, the production is so great and her voice is so perfect I can’t help but vibe out to some of these tracks. I get her now. Soaring vocals way up there with a mix of fuzzy Americana and buttery synths below. This is the shit I ate up in high school, and although I’m 10 years removed from high school, I liked getting sent back to it by this album. A nostalgia for a such a ripe time, when you’re doing so much for the first time, and smoking weed which makes everything feel the first time! At times the writing on this album is so trite and crummy I want to skip, but it’s held together by excellent, production that made me feel closer to heaven. Fav track: tulsa jesus freak

2009. This band is one I know, but never loved. Listening to this album confirmed that feeling. I can't deny it's brilliance, technically and experimentally. But, it does not fall well on my ears. I think there is disharmony between the frontman's vocals and the other sounds that just do not sound pleasant. BUT, I will say, on a few tracks, what feels like being trapped in this cacophony will sometimes settle, and your left with a beautiful moment. And that I love. For me, there like a hyperish, jagged Vampire Weekend or entranced, shinier Vulfpeck. Obviously, you hear a lot of Animal Collective, too. The work is deft, but the tracks, aside from 2-3, don't resonate. Fav track: The Bride

2004. I was seven. Too young to "think" about this album, but I do remember, somewhere around that age, hearing Boulevard of Broken Dreams and doing this slow, cool walk in time with the opening fade-in. I remember other kids head-banging to American Idiot, and I think, I found it too aggressive. I was seven. To me, what stands out is not the sound, but the message. Disillusionment. Stuck in suburbia (a la Arcade Fire), hopelessness, angst. It's almost like this cynicism has always existed, but just manifested differently over the years. You had "slackers" in the early 90s, then was it power-pop-punk fusion for the next 20, and then I think hip-hop took became the language of the young and jaded. So, at the time, I can understand how this was anthemic. Now, falling on my ears, which have heard so many more sounds, lots of digital sounds, it's not so great. Upon this listen I was pleasantly surprised by extraordinary girl/letterbomb, which I wouldn't have been able to name hitherto, and the hits still hit: boulevard, holiday, idiot, wake me up. Armstrong's voice is 100% generation-defining and full of conviction. Fav track: Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Sound like The Beatles. Sometimes I hear Bob Dylan, too. Their sound is a bit fuzzier than The Beatles, and I was surprised by the psych-elements. This must have been so innovative at the time. C.T.A, for example, sounds like an early Beach Boys song at first, and then devolves into this wild, Pet Sounds in a void type sound. 1967. I'm coming to understand more where a lot of new music stemmed from. Psych-rock can be traced back to bands like The Byrds. At the end of the day, I wasn't all too impressed with the instrumentation. Production is mint, granted, but I wasn't blown away by the rest of it all. Favorite Track: Thoughts & Words

2006. This album fucks! I was never into the Arctic Monkeys at the time, but glad I listened to this now. It's like The Strokes, but harder. Kind of the like The Hives, too. I think the appeal is just the tightness all-around. Alex Turner's blasé, punkish style reels you in for this ride. Sometimes it just sounds like he's riffing about not getting his way in public - it's cool. Fav Song: From the Ritz to the Rubble