if i could go back in time, i wouldn't stop any world wars or invest in bitcoin or meet my baby grandparents. i would eradicate everything that led to this album existing.

i don’t like songs about american patriotism, and i don’t like songs about god. fortunately for me, this album had both!

difficult listen as someone who hates murder and hates ballads

beautiful album! otis redding’s butter-smooth voice had me hanging on to every word.

my favourite talking heads album <3 mind is a masterpiece

it feels like i’m ignorant of some of the sins this record commits because i’m not well-versed in the beatles. it’s a decent pop record with a few catchy standouts.

i was so ready to love this album but the second half of it dragged on and got samey

you could get any information you wanted out of me by using this album. i’d probably fold during the first track.

i was not expecting tom waits to sound like cookie monster

feels pretty apt to be reviewing this the day before the u.s. election….There’s No Place Like America Tomorrow

edited april 17, 2025 to change the rating to five stars!! this is one of my favourite albums that this project has introduced to me. the tracklist is full of gritty, anthemic bangers. nicotine really goes to my head!!

this album came out a week after my seventeenth birthday, so it’s total nostalgia-bait for me. it soundtracked some of the best nights of my life, driving home at dawn to perfect places, and some of the worst ones too, pining in my bedroom to liability. easiest five stars i could ever give.

men’s humour be like “rape 🤣🤣🤣”: The Album

dr. dre is in the house, yeeeah a hell of a debut album - probably closer to a 4.5 for me. some of the tracks are a bit too repetitive to justify their lengths, and musique should definitely be on here, but otherwise, homework ticks all of my boxes. fun, catchy, and makes me wanna move. i think it’s really tragic that daft punk’s true masterpiece (imo), discovery, didn’t make the cut for this list. daft punk is dead. long live daft punk.

ella fitzgerald has a gorgeous voice, but it’s not enough to justify the sheer length of this thing. 6 whole discs??

love this one! i do prefer talking heads’ later albums, where their production choices get funkier, but the songs on here are so damn earnest that it’s impossible for me not to like.

i don’t really get it, but i wish i did, and that must be worth something

2 scott 2 furious

fucking awesome. warszawa is oddly captivating to me - it sounds like it wouldn’t be out of place on a dune soundtrack.

what the hell sure

i think that part of the reason i enjoyed this album is because bob looks like fran lebowitz on the cover

help! i’m being held hostage by a jam band!

taking some time out of my christmas to review my least favourite LCD soundsystem album. it’s what james murphy would have wanted. this album really suffers from the lore surrounding it, i think. LCD soundsystem breaks up, films a documentary about their final show, and returns seven years later with an album that re-hashes the sound that made them blow up. i spent all 7 minutes of other voices thinking “this really sounds like pow pow…doesn’t it?” fortunately (for me, at least), i will eat anything this band does up, and they can pose as old dogs re-learning old tricks forever and ever. i don’t care. i’ll be in the audience.

happy/embarrassed to report that wouldn’t it be nice still makes me teary

pop perfection! i can’t believe there’s an of montreal feature on this thing.

i was expecting to go easier on this than most because kings of leon was big when i first started really listening to music….but i just can’t! the singers’ voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me - pretty much an early iteration of the indie voice, with heavy emphasis on stretching the vowel O as far as possible. get it away from me!!! 2 stars for the mainstream bangers and i want you, which is a song i loved as a moody teenager.

i have nothing nice to say about eric clapton. rip ray liotta.

i was so excited to hear the lead singer say “goodnight”…..and then it just kept going. i’m starting to think that live albums do not belong on this list. if you’re not a fan of the band they’re like being in purgatory.

it’s good and i’m sorry

fabulous album if you like the way that elmo sounds

in the past couple of weeks, two notable things have happened to me: 1. i had a leak in my apartment that lasted for 10 days 2. i had 2 public image ltd. albums generated for me the public image ltd albums were worse! if there’s another one of these on the list i WILL [redacted].

i would’ve much rather talked with the poet man about taxes. probably would’ve made for a better album. extra star for the song about being a cuck.

knew nothing about the band going in, so the brit reveal towards the end of the album was a jumpscare

i’m surprised at how much i liked the non-single songs on this album! i don’t think ballads will ever quite be My Thing, but adele’s voice is beautiful and i cannot believe she was twenty one when she released this.

really, really enjoyed this. i gotta listen to more jazz!

what are you? some kind of lad insane?

i'm not a country gal, but we need songs like "your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore" instead of the country-pop slop that this genre is currently forcing down our throats

more like Seven by Pearl Jam. let me rate things with half stars!!!

this album IS 3.5 hours long, but it’s 3.5 hours of drum and bass, which works for me. if you aren’t into drum and bass, this is probably torture.

love madge but some of the choices on this album…including and especially the american pie cover (as the closer!!!!)...phew

1001 Albums Generator aka I Learn What Nirvana Songs Are Actually Called

perfect album to me!! andre 3000 is corny in a way that makes me want to get naked, which might push his side of the album above big boi’s. it’s an impressive feat.

listening to this album felt like stepping into an alternate universe where i got perma-fried by a bad trip and could only listen to gentrified sitar music for the rest of my life

this album was huge when it came out, so i was expecting a little more from it, but i’m not a country fan to begin with. regardless, it’s a fun album and kacey’s personality really shines through! need to queen out with her.

i was 4 years old when funeral was released, and my canadian gen-x parents are responsible for the fact that some of my earliest memories include this album. wake up used to scare me to the point of tears, because it included the lyric “turn the summer into dust”, and my birthday is in the summertime...kids say the darndest things. it’s the first album i ever cried to (and maybe the only one i’ve ever cried to out of fear). funeral has followed me around ever since - into adolescence and adulthood and bedrooms and hallways and first-love passenger seats. Can’t Be Normal About It/5.

one unexpected perk of being a zoomer is that i only know about marilyn manson from self-sucking rib removal rumours and sex pest allegations. i’m happy to report, after listening to this album, that i don’t seem to have missed out on anything of value. also….hard r is crazy.

after nearly 200 albums of digging, i finally hit a beatle. i’m shocked that it took me this long. sucks that it had to be this one. or....does it suck? i liked the non-title tracks on this album a lot more than i thought i would. how do you sleep is shady boots, obviously, and i think oh yoko is a sweet, catchy tune. the cancellation of long-dead artists is so intriguing to me. i used to care a lot more than i do now, and i think i’ve settled on “maybe we should pay attention to the shitty people that are actually alive/the 26th most listened to artist on spotify is a self proclaimed nazi”. three stars!

it insists upon itself

the 1001 albums generator giveth, and the 1001 albums generator taketh away. getting both outkast albums in the span of a month felt pretty generous.

honestly? hot

reminds me of my little brother, who has this album cover as his instagram profile picture for some reason. maybe we should start a band.

bob sounds a lot like donald trump on i want you and it ruined the rest of the album for me

1 star for the music and 1 star for the sheer audacity of putting this album on a list of 1001 albums to listen to before you die

if i could go back in time, i wouldn't stop any world wars or invest in bitcoin or meet my baby grandparents. i would eradicate everything that led to this album existing.

i have yank fatigue

yeah (yeah!) yeah (yeah!) yeah (yeah!)

releasing a compilation album called Your New Favourite Band seems like a death knell

i had a prince phase at around this time last year (prompted by this album’s 40th birthday), which means that i watched all of his movies, too. i can’t believe that purple rain was introduced to the world as a fkn montage track. more shitty movies as vehicles for monumental albums PLEASE!!!!

i’m so biased in favour of women that rock (literally and figuratively). this was my first time listening to a PJ harvey album and i can’t wait to dig in to the rest!

the last track on this album is a self-fulfilling prophecy. ac/dc is probably the first band i’d think of when i think of air pollution rock n roll.

hello from north ontario :)

i don’t like songs about american patriotism, and i don’t like songs about god. fortunately for me, this album had both!

an album called urban hymns with a white guy in a bucket hat on the front cover….WHEW. bittersweet symphony really props up the rest of this thing. it feels like every single song, except for the one (1) that is under three minutes, overstays its welcome.

my nostalgia goggles have led me to believe that this album is way better than it actually is. it’s cohesive to a fault AKA most tracks sound the same. that being said, they could never make me hate you red eyes!!

not enough pinball :/

more like dire straights! #happypride

difficult listen as someone who hates murder and hates ballads

karen o i love you always forever!!!

happy belated father’s day 50 cent!

Everything But The Will To Finish Listening To This Album

a hidden gem of the GCMU (george clinton music universe). might have to tussle with spotify’s shitty local files mechanism so that this album can be accessible to me all of the time.

ed DROSTE 💜 and i wish i could end it there! unfortunately, this journey has done a number on my nostalgia goggles. grizzly bear is peak entry level indie for me - i remember sitting on the school bus with my temple pressed against the glass window, listening to two weeks and envisioning my future hipster endeavours. this album meanders a LOT. long, winding, same-y tracks. not necessarily bad, but not super engaging as a listener. i did the dishes while listening to this album. it felt apt.

the first boy i ever kissed played me come on! feel the illinoise! the first time i found myself in the passenger seat of his beat up old car. i was totally enamoured (with both him and the music). horns! pianos! the softest voice you’ve ever heard! the full album feels both cohesive (in its instrumentation) and diverse (in its subject matter). instrumentals paint sweeping landscapes, and the tracks with vocals delve into feelings of joy and fear and wanting and sometimes murder. it’s a beautiful journey to go on. it’s a total coincidence that this album was generated a few days after illinois turned twenty, but i have to bring it up, because i've been spinning it pretty often in the past week to celebrate. i’m predisposed to give this album five stars. the amazement and awe of first loves and first sufjan albums creeps up and makes my chest ache every time i listen. only 48 states to go!

Country Music Is A Plague On This Earth

i didn’t come into this project as a bjork fan, but she’s the first artist so far that has two albums on my five star list. i tried to resist it, but i failed to consider big time sensuality. something about her music just really connects with me. i lack the vocab to describe it, but i feel it! idk! IT TAKES COURAGE 🕺🕺🕺 TO ENJOY IT 💃💃💃

i’m totally thrilled for myself and the five other people they put this album on the list for!

invented ambient music…literally

😐

at certain points of this album, i really did believe i could go to sleep and wake up and be back in 2016. beautiful, and probably more of a time capsule to me than it deserves to be.

accurate sonic depiction of coming of age in ontario. fuck yeah, alanis.

let me set the scene: it’s 7am at the airport, and i have a webpage open with the text “Let’s Get Killed” on my phone. hope nobody’s looking over my shoulder! anyway, this was fine. music to zone out and do tasks to. as i work through this project and look at the reviews i realize that the general sentiment surrounding electronic music is not nearly as positive as it is in my own head.

i already waxed poetic about AF’s nostalgia factor (win butler notwithstanding) when funeral showed up on the list, so i can save it this time around. this album is pretty great. the band shoots high, and mostly succeeds. sometimes you have to squint and let the pretentiousness edge out of your peripherals (mtv what have you done to me???), but it’s worth the ride, for me, at least. there are so many hard-hitting tracks on neon bible. i was going to go ahead and list them, but realized i’d be writing out the titles of half of the album. hearing the organ at the beginning of intervention made my stomach drop, like i’d reached the top of a rollercoaster and was mentally preparing for 4 minutes and 19 seconds of free fall. my body is a cage is explosive, cathartic, and a powerful closer. i’m glad that will butler will be raking in the residuals for that track for the rest of his life. however, i don’t know if i will ever be able to form a solid opinion on a regine-centric track other than sprawl ii. they’re….fine? but never the ones i come back to. final tangent: this album makes me think of the church in baz luhrmann’s romeo & juliet.

i’m 25 right now and my album would be about going to the dispensary and spending too much money on cat toys

adding to the live album pile on!! enough!!

this album sounds like the creators of the it’s a small world theme song dropped some acid and just fucking ran with it

title track made me wish i was listening to losing my edge instead

being a u2 apologist is so difficult. trying to defend their post-2000 output is even more difficult. all that you can’t leave behind’s singles are pretty strong, it’s a shame that most of the album’s deeper cuts can’t hold them up.

i’m an oscars junkie, on top of all of this music stuff, which means that i did watch the robbie-williams-as-a-chimp movie, better man, earlier this year. i remember thinking, the whole time, all of this for some run-of-the-mill britpop? better man brought in $22.5 million worldwide against a budget of $110 million. it’s one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. that stat alone encapsulates how well robbie williams plays out in the year of our lord and saviour 2025.

you know what else involves 2 grown ass men named brian occasionally making baby voices in my ear? the bald and the beautiful podcast.

my name is pink and i’m really glad to meet you

the lead singer’s voice is genuinely infuriating. i was busy starting kindergarten in 2004. what the hell was going on. “i can’t get off, soOoO sawwwft”

i guess i have penguin-related prejudices that i need to get over, because i was not expecting to like music from the penguin cafe nearly as much as i did. i wish i could physically swaddle myself in the beautiful, folky instrumentals on this album.

want two (stars)

sounded so much like of montreal at certain points that it could have brought a happy tear to my eye

a neutered version of arctic monkeys, which is a tough sell if you share the opinion that arctic monkeys are pretty neutered to begin with.

i’m too young to have witnessed aerosmith in real time so i mostly associate these songs with my lanky seven year old self getting thrown around at the aerosmith themed roller coaster at disney world