140
Albums Rated
3.1
Average Rating
13%
Complete
949 albums remaining
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1960
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Latin
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other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
17
5-Star Albums
12
1-Star Albums
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By Genre
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Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Live At The Star Club, Hamburg
Jerry Lee Lewis
|
5 | 3.28 | +1.72 |
|
The Specials
The Specials
|
5 | 3.3 | +1.7 |
|
The Man Machine
Kraftwerk
|
5 | 3.31 | +1.69 |
|
Coat Of Many Colors
Dolly Parton
|
5 | 3.42 | +1.58 |
|
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
|
5 | 3.49 | +1.51 |
|
Jazz Samba
Stan Getz
|
5 | 3.56 | +1.44 |
|
Pink Moon
Nick Drake
|
5 | 3.65 | +1.35 |
|
Live At The Regal
B.B. King
|
5 | 3.67 | +1.33 |
|
Space Ritual
Hawkwind
|
4 | 2.69 | +1.31 |
|
Raw Like Sushi
Neneh Cherry
|
4 | 2.7 | +1.3 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
American Idiot
Green Day
|
1 | 3.76 | -2.76 |
|
Rust Never Sleeps
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
|
1 | 3.52 | -2.52 |
|
It's Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
|
1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
|
Play
Moby
|
1 | 3.46 | -2.46 |
|
This Year's Model
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
|
1 | 3.32 | -2.32 |
|
It's A Shame About Ray
The Lemonheads
|
1 | 3.13 | -2.13 |
|
White Ladder
David Gray
|
1 | 3.07 | -2.07 |
|
Walking Wounded
Everything But The Girl
|
1 | 2.97 | -1.97 |
|
Very
Pet Shop Boys
|
1 | 2.94 | -1.94 |
|
Disintegration
The Cure
|
2 | 3.85 | -1.85 |
5-Star Albums (17)
View Album Wall
1-Star Albums (12)
All Ratings
Metallica
4/5
I hadn’t heard this whole album before. There were a lot of good album tracks that I’d missed. Particularly into the sound of hetfield’s voice at this time.
Sarah Vaughan
3/5
Nice but fairly unremarkable live jazz album. I enjoyed the improvised lyrics on the last track though!
Funkadelic
4/5
Can’t believe I’d never listened to this one. The opener was a big surprise, more like listening to pink Floyd. Love the chaotic energy, very listenable but always sounds like it’s about to fall apart.
The Velvet Underground
3/5
Only gave it one listen. A few alright songs in there but can't imagine it challenging my preferred Velvet Underground albums (the debut w/ Nico, and loaded).
Johnny Cash
2/5
The chat was good and i liked wreck of 97 and boy named sue but other than that I didn't really enjoy it. It felt more like a historical artifact than an album i'd want to listen to on the regular. I think i'm just not really a fan of the man in black.
David Bowie
3/5
Enjoyed this one. Not totally my bag, as I've never been a huge fan of his vocal tone and melodies, but there are some great lyrics and solid songwriting. Enjoyed how this album is more pianocentric too.
Pixies
4/5
Finally an album I’m familiar with! This was so nearly a 5 for me. The production, mix of tones, use of harmony and simplicity is amazing. Great to come back to this banger.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
1/5
Didn’t do much for me. There’s none of the raw edge they had in the best parts of their early work. The first one that really felt like it didn’t belong in the top 1001 albums, regardless of personal taste.
Miles Davis
3/5
I enjoyed this album. I wouldn’t normally listen to jazz by such a big ensemble but I do like a bit of cool jazz this was really nice.
Dolly Parton
5/5
Omg i loved this album so much. Some crazy dark stories on this album (particularly struck by the lyrics in If I Lose My Mind). So much good bass playing on this album, and I love how high it is in the mix. Early Morning Breeze wouldn't be out of place on Folk is a Four Letter Word. Great harmonies on my blue tears. Love the bass breakdown at the climax of Travelling Man. I will be listening to this album for a long time!
The La's
3/5
This feels like such an important album: you can hear its influence in so much 90s and early 00s British music especially bands like the Coral, Big Differents and Yeboah. It also feels like a real exercise in pure songwriting. However, I just didn’t find it that interesting. Maybe I wasn’t in the moo, but I can’t imagine listening to it much in the future.
Sade
2/5
Clearly an influential album and an incredibly successful band, but not really my thing. I struggled to get through it tbh.
4/5
A good album that I think warrants further listening. I particularly like the jittery style in the more staccato numbers, with plenty of space in the composition between the instruments. That’s where the funk lives.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Mention a rubbish job, lust for a "little girl", a train/bus (each an American synonym for poverty) and jail and you've got yourself a Springsteen track.
He often sounds like Vic Reeves singing in the style of a club singer, however he did exceeded my expectations. The album is listenable. I could listen again. I just won't.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
1/5
EC always struck me as likely an insufferable wanker in the same vein as Bono. I find his voice incredibly annoying and put on, which is hard to look past: he sounds like he's trying so hard, which gives an insincere, inauthentic impression. I did enjoy the music on the more angular punky tracks and felt i was able to look past his vocal on some: particularly the Beat. Tracks like Hand in Hand and Little Triggers are everything I find annoying about him.
I think you can hear quite a lot of the pop punk that was around in our youth in this record. It's a genre that similarly suffers from try-hard whining vocalists.
The Youngbloods
3/5
Fairly unremarkable album with some nice toe-tapping numbers. Just doesn’t feel spectacular or significant.
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
Nice album! Even slightly weak tracks like O Plebeu have plenty going on in the background to keep you interesting. I particularly enjoyed the back end around A Historia de Jorge and Cavaleiro do cavalo imaculado.
Elvis Costello
2/5
This album was a lot less annoying than This Year's Model and I enjoyed some of the tracks. Still not really my thing though, mainly due to his vocals.
De La Soul
4/5
I had completely forgotten how much I listened to this album when I was younger and how ingrained it was in my mind. Absolutely banging production and lyrics with very distinctive themes running through the production, skits and rhymes. Flow can be a bit clunky/basic but I was loving listening to this again and will definitely be putting it back on regular rotation.
The The
2/5
This palette of sounds just automatically turns me off. Sometimes i worry that this means that good albums pass me by, however i'm not too concerned in this case. The lyrics fell short of the cutting social commentary they intended i think: "This is the place where pensioners are raped; And their hearts are being cut from the welfare state" particularly stood out.
Metallica
3/5
I'd never heard it and was pretty impressed. I like the soundtrack vibes from the orchestral arrangement. I thought it would be a gimick but it adds a lot. Hetfield's voice really stands up in the bigger fuller sound of the orchestra, which i was impressed by. However, sometimes the precision of the orchestra does make the musicianship in Metallica sound not so tight.
Steve Earle
2/5
I enjoyed a couple of tracks (guitar town was a good start) but not much after that. It’s a style that just doesn’t do anything for me.
Depeche Mode
2/5
I got quite excited that this would be a gothy moody album taking me back to my days in the Cookie Club in my first year of uni, however i was disappointed. The quality in the tracks just wasn't there.
The Specials
5/5
I instantly thought i'd be giving this 5, and a listen yesterday confirmed it. Brimming with absolute bangers, so much variety. Some is genius, some is dumb fun, so many different moods and energies captured, such iconic production (like the weird different mic sounds on do the dog). Every little skit adds to the overall product. Truly a legendary album. Should have been in my top 5 of all time.
Prince
2/5
It's taken me so many attempts to listen through this album, but I've finally attempted it while I'm in the right mood to at least get through it. There's a really broad variety of stuff on there, and I quite enjoyed some of the funkier ones (Housequake) and the last few, including the rocky one, but I still think Prince just isn't for me. I found the poppier tracks left me completely cold.
Marty Robbins
3/5
Good stuff. Some nice tracks on there with some great stories in them, some of which I'd heard before. El Paso was not good enough to appear twice on the album though!
Pet Shop Boys
1/5
This was the first album I ever bought, because I liked their cover of "Go West". I remember finding their use of the word "naked" quite scandalous. I'm not sure how much I enjoyed listening to it then, but I find very little to like in it now. It is tolerable when it borrows sounds from acid techno (different point of view) but otherwise I can't see the value.
Public Enemy
3/5
Took me a while to get through this one. It's very dense and you can't really listen to it in the background while doing other things! I really enjoyed it, which I haven't had with a Public Enemy album before. Harsh but intricate and distinctive production. Would listen again when I have the space to devote my attention to it properly.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
1/5
Not a fan of this one at all. Not sure if it's because I've recently noticed that Neil Young sounds like a muppet, which may colour all future listening. More likely, none of this album touches the greatness of his best work.
The Isley Brothers
3/5
A nice soul album, with some dips for less soulful, more soft rock elements. When the tracks continue the vibe of who's that lady then it's really working for me.
Steely Dan
2/5
Steely Dan caught my attention recently when i realised what a banging track "dirty work" is. I can't say this album thrilled me as much of that. Maybe I should have paid more attention but it seemed pretty unremarkable.
Radiohead
5/5
Didn't think i'd be giving this a 5 as it just doesn't have the dramatic moments of the albums that followed it, but it got so many spins when i was a youth and didn't disappoint on relistening now. Particularly the opening and second half, but it's such a coherent and complete album with an incredible palette of sounds and outstanding vocal performance.
Iron Maiden
3/5
I enjoyed this one a lot more than I was expecting. Quite diverse styles across the record. Particularly enjoyed the closing track.
Paul Simon
3/5
Interesting stories behind this album. PS had had a couple of bad albums before it, and was supposed to produce an album for a singer songwriter called Heidi Berg. She gave him a tape of South African music that she wanted her album to sound a bit like. PS then took the tape and made an album based on it himself with SA musicians, breaking the cultural boycott against apartheid in the process. Obviously a hugely significant album and there are some really nice tracks on it, but it ends up sounding a little middle of the road to me and also has this vibe of something fairly insipid and white leaning heavily on the contribution coming from another culture for all the innovation. Net positive tho, it's a good album.
Everything But The Girl
1/5
I was pretty keen at the start with the pallet of sounds borrowed from drum and bass and jungle, but there's no getting around that this album is boring and samey. I don't have a problem with weak voices if they come with interest, variety or emotion, but this vocal performance has none of those.
Milton Nascimento
3/5
Starts super strong but i got a bit lost in the later tracks. Decent though.
The Lemonheads
1/5
Meh. Such an unremarkable and dull album. It’s the most vanilla rock that doesn’t generate any emotion in me whatsoever.
The Cure
2/5
No too bad for the Cure, there are some good tracks at the start and i've always liked lullaby. Just not my vibe generally though.
Stan Getz
5/5
I'd been listening to a bit of Bossa Nova lately, so this was good timing for me to listen. Charlie Byrd is absolutely amazing on this album.
I really loved Samba Dees Days for the upbeat fun. But the lowkey numbers like Samba Triste and Bahia are amazing too. I listened to this one twice straight off the bat and it'll get plenty more listens.
Frank Black
4/5
You can hear how significant he is in the writing and overall style of the pixies. I liked the album a lot and there's plenty of variety. Two reelers has Sam McK vibes. I don't like the synth sounds much; they sound cheap. Deserves further listens. Weird cover art, which I like.
Raekwon
2/5
I wanted to like it but I found it pretty impenetrable, like so much of RZA produced stuff from these earlier years. Ice cream and Wu-gambinos (particularly the RZA verse) stood out, and the skit about how to dye your clarks wallabees was pretty funny.
The Offspring
4/5
Very nearly a 5 star album but there are a couple of low points for me (often the tracks i enjoyed the most as a youth, like Come Out And Play). Nothing else they did touched the heights of this album. Alongside dookie this album represents the best of a certain wave of american punk that inspired a lot of rubbish (including further offerings from offspring and greenday).
Elvis Presley
4/5
I really loved this one. You actually get some idea of why people love this guy from this album; his vocals are incredible and the sound of the band is so energetic, fresh and iconic. The one thing that stopped this troubling the five starts is the really annoying echo/reverb on the vocal on some of the tracks (e.g. I've got a woman, I'll never let you go). It sounds so much better when you get a dry vocal (e.g. one-sided love affair) and you can really hear how he uses his voice as an incredibly versatile instrument that still sounds unusual even after all these decades of his influence on others.
Adele
2/5
Rolling in the deep is a definite banger that utilise her impressive voice well, but it feels overplayed even though I don't think I've heard it a ridiculous amount. The basic percussion doesn't help, and I find a lot of the percussion across the album sounds oddly dated. There's a lot of cheesy filling across the album that is not nutritious. I won't be listening to this one again.
"He won't go" was decent, sounds like a poor man's Winehouse, and it picks up for a couple of tracks from there.
Someone like you: again showcases her banging voice but it still lacks complexity that undermines its value for repeat listens. It just doesn't feel like there are many ideas in there. I do like the close harmony though.
David Bowie
3/5
Certainly seems to deserve further listens; it definitely hooked me more than the other Bowie album, but I think it can only be a grower. I don't feel like i have it cracked.
Throwing Muses
3/5
I hadn't heard of this band at all. I didn't find the album particularly remarkable except that it seems to be quite ahead of its time: it sounds like a fairly average album from the 90s rather than from 1986.
Neneh Cherry
4/5
Typically this kind of sound palette would put me off but I loved this album. Totally took me by surprise. She's a great MC as well as powerful singer and spans genres between pop and early hip hop with her vocal style, which is mirrored by the production moving between synth pop and hip hop collage of beats and samples. Then the lyrics are a total surprise, particularly the track about The Next Generation, talking about the uniting trials facing parents and the importance of their work. Plus it had a real sense of humour; the end of the original album (My Bitch) left me laughing as it faded out, with its ironic acknowledgement of how weird it is for a swede and a brit to be adopting these American accents.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
This album has the dubious honour of being home to the fuckboy national anthem that is "Free Bird", but the tracks are all decent jams that make for a pleasant listening experience that has failed to make a major impression on me.
Elton John
3/5
So wild that tiny dancer is the first track! I would have expected it to be the finale on an album or something. There are some other decent tracks on this one. I'm not a big Elton John fan but sometimes one of his tracks will hook you; tiny dancer had definitely done that, and i think some of the others on this album have the potential to. I particularly enjoyed Levon.
Pixies
4/5
Another great Pixies album. I really regret not giving Surfer Rosa 5*, to distinguish that it is better. But, this is still a banger with quite a distinct cohesive sound rather than particular stand-out anthems. Velouria was the first pixies song that I downloaded on Napster, so holds a special place in my heart.
Queen
3/5
Reminds me of how much Brighton Rock stands out as a weird track on the otherwise seamless and varied soundtrack of Baby Driver. It's a good track, but just sounded so bizarre over the final sequence of that film. Queen really seem like such a unique band. They are massively popular and everyone knows of them but I really can't think of any bands that truly sound influenced by them. Anyway, it was an alright album. Didn't blow me away but maybe needed more concentrated listening, with some real bangers.
Nirvana
5/5
Rock done right. Lots of variety, amazing vocal performance, exciting and interesting bass lines, lyrical genius that captures angst without sounding immature; it can't be anything other than 5 stars.
The Temptations
3/5
I think this must be in here because Papa Was A Rolling Stone is such a stone cold soul anthem. I found the rest of the album pretty unremarkable. "Do your thing" was pretty cool. The one that was ripping off The Flamingos' version of I've only got eyes for you just made me pine for that track instead. Still, listening to the full version of Papa was a joy as always.
Cyndi Lauper
2/5
Some good tracks and at times a great vocal performance, but there's a fair bit of filler on here and some of the tracks are a real mess (yeah yeah).
Bad Brains
4/5
I'd only ever really listened to the self titled album. This album benefits from much better production and starts really strong. The title track and re-ignition are standout tracks. There are a few bits of filler in there, but generally a good album from an iconic band with an important place in the history of east coast hardcore and black punk generally, often name-checked by the Beastie Boys.
Ride
4/5
I'd never heard of this one at all but was immediately struck by the incredible album cover! What an awesome shot. Vocals in Seagul struck me as a cross between AltJ and stone roses. The full shoegazy instrumentation is well-anchored by clean driving energetic drums. Really enjoyed this great album.
Simply Red
2/5
A pretty average album, but it was better than I was expecting it would be. The lyrics are shocking in places: "everybody is trying to get to the bar; the name of the bar? the bar is called.... HEAVEN"
Gorillaz
3/5
Quite reminiscent of Beck at times. When the tracks get filler-y they are pretty annoying. Damon's falsetto vocals do my nut, and when he puts on a Jamaican accent it makes me cringe. Definitely better when it's more hip-hop than pseudo-reggae. There are some total bangers on here, and Del puts in some banging verses on Clint Eastwood and Rock the House. I also love Damon's rubbishy flute playing on rock the house.
The Zombies
4/5
Great pop songwriting performed excellently with the production/instrumentation/sound pallet of psychedelia. Some really familiar bangers on this one, but it's all pretty solid. I will definitely be listening again.
Green Day
1/5
I had no idea that Green Day had sold so many of this album, nor that they'd sold nearly twice as many of Dookie. They are both way up there in the best selling albums of all time. In some ways it's not surprising with this one: it's such middle of the road inoffensive pop rock. Personally, I struggled to get through it. There was a bit of Homecoming that I enjoyed, but that was about it.
I struggle to understand how I can find this so uninspiring, but Dookie can be one of my favourite albums of all time. It's either (1) I heard Dookie at a formative time and listened to it so much that it became a part of me, and every subsequent listen reminds me of how i felt and who i was when i first discovered it but actually if I heard it for the first time now I wouldn't think it had value; or (2) Dookie and American Idiot are on two sides of a change in the band that involved them adapting their sound to fill stadiums with modern audiences, rather like what happened to Kings of Leon after Aha Shake Heartbreak, and I don't like music produced after a band makes that change. If it is (1) then I feel the difference would be so intrinsically a part of my personality that objectively assessing it would be like trying to look at the back of my own head. However, I'm pretty sure it's (2), that Dookie is actually great and this is actually shit. I mean: at times it actually sounds like someone is taking the piss out of bad quality W-era protest songs. It belongs in the same bin as NOFX's War on Errorism, when just saying President=Moron was something insightful, amusing, rebellious.
But then again, I think Dookie is firmly "pop punk", and is there any pop punk album I would listen to for the first time now and enjoy? Perhaps not.
But I listened to Warning around the same time as Dookie and I'm pretty sure I would consider that shit even though I liked it at the time.
Maybe I should just stop trying to look for any objectivity in valuing these albums and embrace that two albums that probably have similar musical value can be at opposite ends of the scale for me. Dookie IS a 5 star album, this definitely a 1.
Beatles
5/5
This was the first Beatles album I ever tried to get into. It left me not liking them for years but i think i just wasn't ready to appreciate it. It's completely all over the place but has so many wonderful tracks of all sorts of different genres. The incoherence does take away from it slightly, but not enough to dislodge it from its 5 stars.
The Verve
2/5
I remembered some of these tracks fondly, so I was a bit disappointed at how limp and middle-of-the-road this album was. Definitely a sound of the times but I'm not going to come back to it out of choice.
Black Sabbath
4/5
I love the doom metal opening on this album; one of the main types of metal that I still listen to so sick to hear such an early example of it. Then the wizard was always my favourite Sabbath track as a youth. There's a great fresh natural nearly-live sound on this album (apparently it was recorded in one day) that makes it so easy to listen to and enjoy. I really like Warning as the ending track, it stands out as a little different to what came before, with more blues rock than the rest and the great extended jam.
Blondie
4/5
It's a testament to Debbie Harry's enduring relevance and continuing development that I think of her first as an older woman despite her most famous work taking place during her early 30s with Blondie. I always associated her work with Blondie with the cool detachment of heart of glass, but on this album she shows a broad emotional palette as a vocalist and applies it freely: switching in a second between pouting doll; cold robot; disarming friend; wailing poseur; cool fashionista; commanding dominatrix; growling raw animalistic ugliness.
Sister Sledge
3/5
Listening to this album, I am reminded that there is some truth in "Disco sucks". The big tracks on this album are obviously bangers and it's a good album, but somehow disco just seems to lack the purity and genuine emotion of funk or soul. Like house, disco can be great in the club when you are in the mood to dance and are willing to get lost in a groove, but there's something mechanical, manufactured and sterile about it.
Various Artists
4/5
A great xmas record. I already liked "Christmas (Baby please come home)" so it was great to hear it in context with the other tracks. This will be coming out next year amongst the other xmas nonsense.
Gang Of Four
2/5
I think this might be one of those albums that was probably quite significant at the time, but sounds pretty unremarkable to me listening now. I'm not a massive fan of post-punk and this really didn't catch my ear or inspire me much. I just wanted to be listening to Love Bites by the Buzzcocks instead.
Steely Dan
4/5
This is more what i was expecting from Pretzel Logic. Such amazing pop music on this album. I'll definitely be listening to this again. I fell in love with "Dirty Work" a little while ago and this is just an album packed from start to finish with similar great works.
Billy Joel
3/5
Some really great songwriting on this, most of which I wasn't familiar with. Let down when it gets too schmaltzy (e.g Just the way you are).
Mike Oldfield
2/5
Reminds me that i need to watch the exorcist.
Although I enjoyed parts of it (particularly the section of part II with vocals), there are a lot of ideas in here, many of which are pretty disparate and some of which are not very developed. It feels like a bunch of ideas that aren't of sufficient quality to carry a song have been combined in a linear way as if the value of the music is just the sum of its parts. There's not much complexity or quality of musicianship and I don't really feel like there are the thematic links or continuity to justify being two long tracks. Tone/production is not awesome either. My dad loves this album so i'm kind of surprised that i was so underwhelmed but I just didn't see much value there. Sounds like a 19 year old has dicked around with a lot of instruments and this is what's come out.
Talking Heads
3/5
The back end of this album gets a bit lost up its own arsehole (listening wind and the overload), but still a lot of bangers, with that super iconic choppy talking heads sound you couldn't mistake for anyone else. It's a good album but nowhere near their best.
Portishead
5/5
All the elements come together so perfectly: the haunting vocals, the minimal guitar work and the turntablism/samples/production all so deftly done so that none of them dominate. Even the name of the album and the cover art fit perfectly!
Omg I love this album so much. It's a vibe to get lost in and for me it is the definition of trip hop that all other records get compared to. Probably one of my most listened to albums of recent years. Absolutely unhesitatingly five out of five.
Big Star
2/5
I hadn't heard of Big Star at all.
Slightly raw and chaotic, with slightly ramshackle vocals and weird experimental recording techniques just poking through. But even before the Femme Fatale cover I was thinking: this does sound a lot like velvet underground with less songs about heroin, and it just gets stronger as the album goes on. Not bad, but I'd rather be listening to the real thing.
B.B. King
5/5
I'd never really clicked with BB King before, because i found his style was a well-trodden path that made it not that stimulating, but this album is amazing. Blistering playing, great chat between the songs. I feel like you can hear a lot of this influence in the guitar playing and lyrics on one of my favourite albums of all time: Fleetwood Mac by Peter Green's fleetwood mac.
Outstanding. Will definitely listen a lot more.
The Stooges
4/5
Good stuff. I've rinsed Raw power but never really tried this one. It's banging though: pouting, posing, dirty, slimy, bloody Iggy at his best.
Particularly enjoyed the extended vibes on Dirt. TV Eye is one of my favourite Stooges tracks, and would definitely be my ring-walk music if i ever fought competitively (likely).
Moby
1/5
Seems mad that this album was so popular in its day. Some really insipid rubbish on here. It doesn't help that the few ok jams are completely played out. Plus Moby is such an unlikeable Celebrity I find it hard to admit there's any value in anything he touches. The typical expression on his face belongs on an old man in the local paper complaining about dog poo on the pavement outside his house. Didn't he rip off some old black lady?
King Crimson
4/5
Think i'd tried to listen in the past and not got on with it, but this time i thoroughly enjoyed this. You can hear some Dark Side of the Moon in this but they definitely sound distinctively different. Great album, will listen again.
The Stooges
4/5
Back when i was in sixth form i worked weekends in Millets and there was another guy who worked there (i think his name was Paul) who was super into garage music, Detroit, and anything related to either. Once he heard that I liked the MC5 he started making me mix cassettes of stuff he thought I had to listen to and some key albums: the Dirtbombs, the Sonics, early Alice Cooper and a tape of Raw Power. It got a fair amount of listening and I still have a lot of love the album and the Stooges.
Nick Drake
5/5
Along with albums like Tapestry and Astral Weeks, this album is powerfully evocative of my childhood when I used to fall asleep on the stairs listening to the talk and music coming from my parents' dinner parties. Still makes me feel so much indescribable emotion.
I had always assumed that this was Nick Drake's first album as it bears all the hallmarks of being a first album peak, starting with something simple and beautiful that then gets corrupted with additional instrumentation and unnecessary complexity. I love that he actually worked the other way and strived to achieve this stripped down perfection.
Gary Numan
4/5
Banging album. He has such fantastic style and a well-defined character; just look at that awesome cover art! I particularly liked M.E.; there are some weird combination of real strings and synths on here, but in M.E. it really lands in such a great way. Will definitely listen to this some more.
Coldcut
2/5
It's an alright album but a bit up and down. Lisa Stanfield's vocals are pretty rubbish. The Mark E Smith track (it is him right?) and theme from reportage were good. Better when it's more hiphop than dance in my view. Some good extra tracks on the extended version (like that great mix of paid in full) but i didn't count them as they weren't part of the original release.
Alice In Chains
2/5
Blaaaaaah. Like Soundgarden I just never got why people would go so crazy for this band. Everything I hear is merely ok, unremarkable rock.
The Rolling Stones
4/5
Some real bangers on this one. I was obviously familiar with Brown Sugar and Wild Horses which are amazing, but didn't know Can't you hear me knocking so well. I love the riff and hook, which pays off well after the long meandering section in the middle too. Bitch has a great use of brass which surprised me a bit but worked well.
3/5
This project has made me realise I'm not really a big fan of new wave, but this was ok. It's got enough weirdness in it to appeal while falling short of the more funk and world music inspired Talking Heads.
The Dandy Warhols
4/5
I'd totally forgotten that I used to listen to this a lot. It remains a pleasure (an only slightly guilty one). I know this album is pretty lightweight but there's something about the shoegazy rock that I really like and find very soothing. I used to listen to it a lot before exams at uni to help stay calm (along with BRMC). Plus I find the lyrics so cool: Taylor-Taylor must have been so proud of himself when he thought of the phrase "I never thought you'd be a junky because heroin is so passé". Who wouldn't want a girl as cool as Kim Deal? And there's a part of me that would still rather be cool than smart or loved.
I also really like "every day should be a holiday", it's one of those sentiments that dares to throw away all accepted wisdom and just say maybe we can live for pleasure and forget about pain and the protestant work ethic, reminds me of "do they owe us a living?" (of course they fucking do) by Crass and when Guy Debord painted "ne travaille jamais" on a wall in Paris.
Can
3/5
Hmm a standard Can experience: some of the good stuff revealed itself on first listen, but it really felt like it needed another 20 or so listens before it could really be unlocked. Moonshake is the most accessible track imho.
Patti Smith
3/5
Wow I thought I used to love this album so much but I don't recognise a lot of the tracks in the middle. I think I must have just hammered Gloria and Redondo beach, which really are standout tracks for me. The long buildup on Gloria makes the surge forward in speed at the drop so electric. But some of the tracks miss the mark: Kimberly was a real lull for me.
The Go-Go's
3/5
Pretty good, if a bit samey. Just a bit of punkiness in there.
Pink Floyd
4/5
This album's a real pleasure. I was particularly struck by the mix of synths and analogue instruments on Welcome to the Machine, still managing to sound quite contemporary to me, despite being 50 years old! Amazing foresight, continuing influence, or mere coincidence of the neverending roundabout of musical fashion: you decide!
Goldfrapp
2/5
Never really listened to it before. It's alright with some decent tracks but nothing to write home about. You can definitely hear the influence of Beth Gibbons of Portishead in her voice.
Throbbing Gristle
3/5
It's wild that this is from the 70s, sounds much more modern. Not easy listening that's for sure, but I did enjoy it, an interesting insight into some art music from a group I've heard of but not explored.
Pixies
4/5
Another great album. Probably my least favourite of the ones we've had (preferred surfa rosa and come on pilgrim) as this one probably ventures into the slightly twee more often, but i'm being picky.
Jerry Lee Lewis
5/5
What an absolute barnstormer of an album. Imagine being at this gig! The band sounds so punk and you can hear the sweat dripping off everyone. I love this one and will definitely be giving it plenty of listens in future.
Astor Piazzolla
4/5
Hadn't heard of these guys at all, but this is a banger. Seems like the live albums are finding a lot of success with me atm!
Vibraphonissimo particularly good vibes and la muerta del angel.
I've been partial to a bit of tango for a while, since discovering Francisco Canaro, but this is a more cerebral variety of tango. I've never got on with more poppy tango or more modern instrumentations, but this is a different variety of cerebral jazzy tango that I can definitely get on board with.
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
The more straight rocky stuff on this is ok (like Layla), but when they do blues rock it really rubs me up the wrong way with its soulless pub-rock cover-band energy. Clapton needs to apologise for all the rubbish that he inspired with tracks like that (as well as for being a horrible little racist who is rich thanks to black music). That kind of stuff reminds me of the band Blueshammer in Ghost World. The vocals on "It's too late" honestly sound like they're taking the piss.
Black Sabbath
4/5
Good sabbath album. Can't decide if i love or hate "Changes"! Supernaut is so dope, love the percussion breakdown.
Guided By Voices
1/5
Guided by voices are one of those bands that people seem to be really into but produce quite vague and generic rock, leaving me surprised that it can generate strong feelings in either direction in anyone. I really liked their track "Everywhere by helicopter" for ages, but it's not on this album.
This album is pretty horrible. It was more lowfi sounding and experimental than i was expecting, but when it drifts that way it generally comes across as quite self indulgent. So the tracks either sound unremarkable or quite irritating. The 2 part harmonies seem to be heavily influenced by the Beatles.
The KLF
3/5
Very much a product of its time. It's a good mix of pop and various forms of dance music with some good rap over it also. Not a bad listen but I doubt I'll go back to it much.
a-ha
2/5
Take on me is a ridiculously good earworm, but i found the rest of the album quite hard to get through.
Jeff Buckley
3/5
Pretty great, nice and varied and he has a beautiful voice. Sounds slightly dated now.
The Undertones
3/5
It's a decent fun album. Love the sound of the vocals and distinctive style. Great lyrical themes, particularly love hard luck, my perfect cousin, boys will be boys and There goes norman.
The Avalanches
3/5
This album is very much of a time along with other white boy hip hop/sound collage stuff i listened to like Mr Scruff, the Books, Scratch Perverts, DJ Shadow. It's a lot more messy and arty than I was expecting from their singles. The inclusion of various scene setting samples gives it a real narrative / concept album feel. Despite being of its time it rarely sounds dated, due to the timelessness of the samples used.
Bob Dylan
5/5
A really strong Dylan album. amazing start and finish from Like a rolling stone to Desolation row, and some great examples of his lyricism on here like Tom Thumb.
The Pharcyde
2/5
Having only ever heard Passing Me By and Running Away before, I was a bit surprised by Fatlip's horror rap on 4 Better 4 Worse! The fact that Soulflower stands out for its production leaves me thinking that the original tracks lack quality. Too much time spent on skits although they often have better beats than the tracks themselves. Some of their flow is pretty annoying too, with a lot of nonsense. Generally pretty average album in my view when viewed as a whole.
Louis Prima
3/5
Interesting and solid album with some good songs. Didn't realise I was listening to King Louis at first. He's got a great voice but I'm not sure the music stood out enough to warrant a lot of further listening for me.
Fairport Convention
3/5
It's ok but not outstanding. It doesn't really capture the same amazing lyrical tone as liege and lief, which leaves it all feeling a bit unremarkable.
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
This album has to be up there for best first syllable of all time. Before QTip gets toe the "k" of "back" you already know the album's going to be a banger.
Flawless production (which I just found out was mostly by QTip!) based around jazz samples, and two MCs with beautiful complementary voices. That's before you even get to the lyrics which are imaginative and playful. I particularly love the themes of growing up and the music industry.
This is the kind of hip hop that wouldn't sound weird at a dinner party and if you sit and listen closely the carefully crafted lyrics only reveal more and more.
As soon as I saw the album cover come up I thought it would be 5 stars and I never doubted it at any point while listening.
Kelela
1/5
The production on Blue Light was pretty cool, but otherwise I found this a pretty unremarkable RnB / pop album and I don't think it really belongs in the 1001.
Spacemen 3
1/5
Hadn't heard of this band. Probably won't listen to this again. Pretty average example of a certain strand of music from the time in a kind of stone roses vibe, but not enough concrete ideas really for me. It just feels quite directionless.
Buena Vista Social Club
4/5
Wonderful album that is a pleasure to listen to. Excellent piano playing which i hadn't noticed before. I particularly like the version of Dos Gardenias. I do wonder whether this album is remarkable or only got the traction it did because it was initiated by a famous American. I was interested to hear that Ry Cooder was fined $25k for violating the trade embargo imposed by the US by working on this album.
R.E.M.
2/5
There are certain bands that you can only describe as "rock" which were destined to be middle of the road from the start. REM is one of those for me (U2 another). I was surprised that a couple of tracks on this I found quite moving but I would never put it on. I find the opaque lyrics quite irritating and tracks like nightswimming feel overly-sentimental; reaching for the nostalgia levers to try to cheaply elicit an emotional response.
David Gray
1/5
It's a big ol' meh album. He's got a lovely voice but he doesn't do anything interesting with it. It doesn't help that I remember the singles being rinsed to death on UK radio.
Waylon Jennings
3/5
I'm instantly struck by the crisp clean production on this album. The bass is nice and high in the mix and the instrumentation is kept sparse, with solo instruments dropping out completely for large sections of the songs. It's not really my thing, but it's an excellent album and warrants some further listening.
Björk
2/5
She's got an amazing voice and I love her character but Bjork's music has never really pulled me in and this album is no exception. it's amazing that she was so incredibly popular off the back of this when this music is really out there. The lyrics are amazing though with clear themes and ideas (the lack of clear themes is probably what i find so difficult wiht the music itself). I was particularly taken by the words of human behaviour, there is more to life than this, and violently happy.
The Smashing Pumpkins
3/5
This is pretty good stuff. I feel like it's the kind of thing that could have ended up being quite important to me if i'd listened to it at 13. However, I'm not sure it justifies a double album.
Flamin' Groovies
2/5
It's not bad, but it did remind me of that Kurt Cobain interview where he took great pride in the fact that Nirvana had never jammed Louie Louie. It's kind of like the punk/garage version of pub rock or something? Sounds like they had a good time making it. Not one i'll be going back to.
Daft Punk
4/5
Never really listened to Daft Punk other than on MTV and the radio but man were they everywhere growing up. This is a solid album with some good bangers. The quality of the sound is exceptional.
John Lee Hooker
2/5
Starts badly with the very 80s The Healer with Santana. It's got some good bits, but John Lee Hooker must have better candidates for this list than this album!
Neil Young
5/5
Such a great album, with some of the most beautiful songs ever made on it. Unhesitating 5* rating.
XTC
4/5
Really surprised how much i enjoyed this one. I was only aware of "Making plans for Nigel", but clearly they are very thoughtful and talented songwriters. I would like to further explore their back catalogue.
Violent Femmes
5/5
Another unhesitatingly 5* album. Very formative album for me that arrived at just the right time in my musical development. Nothing sounds quite like this album.
The xx
4/5
Very iconic example of the time. I remember everyone going mad about the XX, but they didn't really seem to ever live up to this debut, like so many other bands of an era defined by a continuous search for hipster before-they-were-cool novelty.
Randy Newman
3/5
Solid album. Hadn't thought much about Randy Newman but he's so familiar to anyone who has to watch disney films regularly. His voice and songwriting style are so distinctive. I did have some reservations about the opening track, Rednecks. You can't help but feel that this mocking of the US South has contributed to the US being as divided as it is today. I also find it so weird that tracks with so many n-words in them don't get flagged as explicit by Spotify.
Bill Callahan
3/5
This was surprisingly good. I wasn't expecting much after seeing the cover. I particularly enjoyed Eid Ma Clack Shaw, and loved the reverence with which he sang the nonsense he had dreamed.
Ravi Shankar
2/5
I used to listen to more ragas, but found it pretty hard to sit through this one. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood. I did enjoy the parts where he talked about the music and how it's made and particularly suggested how the western listener should approach Indian music.
The Who
3/5
Quite disappointing. A few good tracks on there but a lot of Who tracks feel quite awkwardly put together to me and they never capture the energy and flow of Live at Leeds in any of their recorded material.
Muddy Waters
4/5
A really solid example of this type of blues. Really enjoyed it, great energy.
Mudhoney
3/5
Didn't initially grab me but actually I really liked it by the end. Particularly the use of the undistorted harmonica and undistorted (acoustic?) guitars amongst the fuzz, which worked really well.
Deee-Lite
3/5
It's a fun album and there are some good tracks on it, but Groove is in the Heart stands out so noticeably as the ultimate banger. Would potentially listen to the full thing again though.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Great album, what a great band. Listening to it in the context of the rest of this stuff really underlines how outstanding they were, and I was particularly struck by Robert Plant's vocals. Unbelievable.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Solid country album. I like a bit of Willie and it was interesting to look back a bit into his catalogue. Made me go back to his first album, which i also really enjoyed.
Radiohead
3/5
I was surprised how dated this albums sounded going back to it, something I don't experience as much with my go-to Radiohead album Kid A. The musicianship really shines through in the instrumentation on this album, and particularly the restraint on thinning out the instrumentation at points. The drumming still sounds outstanding. All in, slightly disappointing, I remembered it being better.
Hawkwind
4/5
Very cool insight into what seeing this band live might be like. Good generally, but some standout tracks like "Space is Deep" and some more accessible ones like "Orgone Accumulator". The chat between songs is priceless from the sci-fi nonsense of Sonic Attack to one bandmember asking if there are any Liverpool fans in tonight.
Jacques Brel
3/5
This was really fun to listen to, but I think I must be missing a lot by not understanding the lyrics. Would definitely explore more of Brel and this style.
Stevie Wonder
2/5
It's got some great tracks on it and it's clearly outstanding musicianship and writing, but there's something about the saccharine vibe on a lot of Stevie's stuff that just really puts me off. Absolutely loved Boogie on Reggae Woman though.
The Rolling Stones
5/5
Woo this has got some big ones on it. Gimme shelter ft Merry Clayton has to be one of the best songs of all time. I was blown away by love in vain as well and went straight to listen to the Robert Johnson version after i was done with this album. Love midnight rambler too, and of course the finish on can't always get what you want. What a banger.
The Beach Boys
3/5
John Cale
2/5
Generally pretty insipid i think. Considering he's supposed to be the more experimental one from the Velvet underground this is surprisingly boring. I did enjoy Graham Greene quite a lot, good drums and nice angular music, but the rest didn't really deliver.
Amy Winehouse
5/5
Kraftwerk
5/5
Absolute banger. You can really see how important they were on this one. Unlike some previous attempts to listen to Kraftwerk I really found this one a pleasure.