Yeah, this is awful, but you didn't need me to tell you that. But whatever you do, do not let that fact discourage you from listening to this - this is without a doubt an album you SHOULD listen to before you die. It's not just awful; it's uniquely, bewilderingly, even gloriously awful. You just can't convince anyone under the age of 25 that this was actually the real deal back in the early 00's. It's so bafflingly absurd that I cannot help but to respect it. And what better way to respect an album as raunchy and brash as this one than to give it the one star it's daring you to give it? As mr. Durst would put it: "fuck you and your fucking mum!"

A certified freaky album. And by that I mean 70% 𝕱𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖐𝖞, and 30% 𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂.

If you look up the word 'Fun' in the dictionary, you'll be shown a picture of this album cover.

All the magic you believed in as a child is real, and this music is the proof.

Music so sweet to the ears that it will instantly convert any smooth soul skeptic into a believer.

The perfect distillation of hedonistic fun, and a non-stop party that somehow doesn't let up even once for 70 whole minutes.

I can definitely see why people would like this a lot, but the sludgy, grungy sound permeating through the entire album really isn't for me.

I could really have done without all the covers, but the highlights go *just* hard enough for this to edge or to three stars.

If by "groovy" they meant "bland, unobtrusive and utterly inoffensive", they were spot on.

Surprisingly tame for the way it presents itself. Dr John often ends up sounding more like an off-beat but ultimately gentle character from a cartoon rather than an actual voodoo doctor. The music's pretty chill though.

A collection of funky and well-crafted beats; it's just a shame that most of the songs don't really change or evolve all that much and often run on for a minute or two too long. It's still pretty neat background music though.

If I had been a teenager seeing them live in 1990, this might well have been completely groundbreaking. Listening to this in my bedroom in 2024, however, I cannot help but to wish I was listening to a bunch of other bands instead, all of which did a similar thing but better.

POV: Your uncle, who considers himself 'the funny guy', wakes up one lazy sunday morning and decides to whip out some silly, McCartney-esque songs. The result is tolerable, occasionally even pretty good, but most of all just kind of pointless.

All the magic you believed in as a child is real, and this music is the proof.

Guys will hear a record full of energetic and sloppily played acoustic punk songs full of frustration and just think "hell yeah"

Just as an experiment, I listened to all these songs followed directly by the originals being covered. My findings: not only do these versions add nothing whatsoever to the source material, every single one of them is also inferior in terms of sound, arrangement and personality. Really, you could listen to a compilation album of the original tracks and be much better of. How this got to occupy one of the precious 1001 places in this list is completely beyond me.

It's Chic being Chic except it isn't Chic except it secretly really is just Chic. Pretty funky.

They do the shouty flute thing over pseudo-medieval folk tunes and I clap my hands and say 'more! more!'

Wherein Ray Davies decides to show the world he's the master of writing incredibly catchy yet intricate pop vignettes 15 times in a row. Seriously, this thing just does not miss; it's one of the most consistently fun 40 minutes you can possibly have.

Recommended for: - old hippies who get sentimental when someone says "we just to need to, like, unite humankind, you know" - hip hop fans anxiously pondering what to show to their grandma who just asked to be shown some of their music - people who REALLY like Sly and the Family Stone samples

I'm all for some good ol' Dumb Fun Rock now and then, but this just isn't even remotely Fun, leaving the Dumb part to stick out like a very sore thumb.

Sure, the whole album is just Little Richard doing his one thing, but he does that one thing with enough power and conviction to earn himself a solid three stars.

Jeru isn't fooling me. He's not a gangster, he's just a big ol' goofball. He may be rapping about his unparalleled skills, breaking backs, blowing up the World Trade Centre and most definitely not being a misogynist, but deep down he's really just a goofball.

A certified freaky album. And by that I mean 70% 𝕱𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖐𝖞, and 30% 𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂.

Reggea might well be the ultimate 'easy to love, easier to ignore' genre out there. Bob Marley proves both of these statements here: the former on the first half, the latter on the second half.

Even a jaded country skeptic like myself will readily admit that Dolly Parton has an incredible voice full of personality. But is that enough to justify a mix of alright upbeat tracks and totally uninspired country waltzes? Kind of, actually.

I was fully expecting an alright album by a one-hit wonder. Instead, I got an album full of surprisingly personal, varied and especially powerful songs. A great surprise all around.

I'm convinced that Robert Dimery has listened to only 10 albums since 2017, and every single one automatically gained a spot on this list. I mean, this is a perfectly alright record with some interesting and even pretty accomplished production, albeit with a definite lack of distinct personality and purpose. It's kind of cool as an underappreciated project, but how that got it its spot on the list as opposed to all those other great, missing albums from the same year is nothing short of perplexing.

Discount David and the Bowies is still more fun than most other bands

It has taken me quite a few listens to get what's going on here. At first, it kind of seemed to float in the middle of nothing, but once it clicked I finally realised just what a peculiar, creative and charming little album this is. It doesn't jump out at you; instead, it forces you give your own meaning to it.

Bittersweet whimsy may be a pretty niche style of music, but the Flaming Lips are the undisputed kings of it. I'll always see The Soft Bulletin as their real masterpiece, but even the somewhat more streamlined songs of Yoshimi manage to simultaneously bring a tear to your eye and a smile to your face.

So blatantly, right-in-your-face manly and stupid that it's actually kind of funny. Makes me think of a caveman repeatedly hitting himself in the face with a club. Then, during the ballad at the end, he stares up at the sun and goes "maybe... Grok no have to hit self...". Alas, he goes right back to whacking shit right after. Anyway, I really didn't care for the majority of this album, but they're so committed to the bit, plus their riffs are just solid enough that I just can't get myself to give these poor troglodytes only one star.

Who would have thought that a Beatles-related project could be called underappreciated, or least not talked about enough? This is fantastic stuff, and shows George to be a great songwriter and magnanimous, deep soul. Match that with the endless cast of guest musicians and Spector's warm, full production and you've got yourself an absolute classic. There's so many great tracks, that with every listen a new favourite stands out to me. Had this been trimmed down some 20-30%, (mostly the third disc) this would have been a five star album for me; being as it is, it will receive four stars and an honourary position in my Autumn Albums collection.

Man, what an unfair place this world is. Take this album for example. Not only does Sufjan show prove himself to be an incredibly skilled songwriter of delicate melodies; not only is he a masterful and creative arranger; not only does he have the voice of an angel; not only can he pull off a grand-to-the-point-of-seeming-absurd concept seamlessly; but he also infuses every last track with such a wide range of emotion that each song here could make you cry for an entirely different reason. Leave some for the rest of us, Big Soof.

Me after two songs: oh boy does this slap, I am never going to get tired of this sound Me after five songs: okay maybe I am getting a little tired of this sound

Where Elton John does what he does best: writing piano rock odysseys and being utterly inconsistent. I mean, you've got some absolute gold in tracks like Bennie And The Jets and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, but then you've got tracks like Jamaica Jerk-Off and Dirty Little Girl which feel like mildly amusing b-sides at best.

Who would have thought that everyone's favourite clean boys could be funky like that? On all three tracks of the A-side they give the biggest names like Sly and Funkadelic a real run for their money. The B-side is unfortunately, as most people will agree, a bit of letdown after the exhilarating first side. But hey, they're still some very solid, above average soul tracks, so I'll take it.

A strange record for sure. Nico has a rather unique and - as many a reviewer has been eager to point out - not very traditionally pleasant voice. This makes all the ballads feel especially odd; they're very pretty, especially These Days, but not because of Nico. But you know which song DOES work because of Nico? It Was A Pleasure Then, arguably the best song on this album. This is where Nico really shines, she whispers and wails like a banshee and it's all so eerie and evocative. This is also just a taste of what's to come on her next few records, which in my opinion do a much better job at highlighting Nico's qualities.

Props to this list for containing some more obscure names outside the cast of usual suspects, but this one was just a bit of a nothing burger for me. The atmosphere just stays pretty neutral and non-descript the whole time, the melodies aren't particularly catchy or interesting and the vocals are pretty lacking in personality. Overall it's just so safe and unremarkable, that I'm sure I'll have entirely forgotten about this album's existence in a few months time.

There is truly is nothing quite like Animal Collective. This album may seem experimental, artsy, dense and complex - and I mean, yeah, it kind of is all that - but in its core, it's just a raw expression of childlike energy and imagination. You either love it or hate it; and personally, I could get lost in the swirly, layered synths of these songs every single day of my life and die a happy man.

Alright, I've got to admit, I was wrong. I have a pretty large bias against Dire Straits, probably because they just seem the ultimate band for middle-aged, middle-class men living dull lives and whose greatest hobby it is to say "they don't make 'em like they used to anymore". But you know what - this one's actually pretty good. I'm sorry for ever doubting you, mr. Knopfler. You're not just a gifted guitarist making the most milquetoast rock music on earth; you've proven here that you're actually capable of crafting songs which are not only accessible to everyone ever, but also pretty good. And even if that music may not be exactly to my tastes, it is still a feat to be respected.

Imagine post-punk. Now imagine "icy, anxious, slightly psychedelic post-punk". Now make it ten songs. Good job, you just imagined exactly what this album sounds like. The atmosphere, the voice, the guitar sounds, it's all there - but it's all just a bit run-of-the-mill, y'know?

Music so sweet to the ears that it will instantly convert any smooth soul skeptic into a believer.

The vocals, the production, the songwriting, the relatability, it's all there; you're not getting your classic pop any better than this.

Just a bunch of silly guys doing silly stuff, even if they would have liked you to believe otherwise. I didn't have much fun with it at all, but clearly they did, so that counts for something.

I certainly did not expect Alice Cooper to be so glammy and quirky - at multiple parts in this album, it even reminded me of bands like Mott the Hoople. Kind of makes me wish he had fully gone for the glam route, instead of the campy hard rock route that he takes just as often.

Yeah, this is awful, but you didn't need me to tell you that. But whatever you do, do not let that fact discourage you from listening to this - this is without a doubt an album you SHOULD listen to before you die. It's not just awful; it's uniquely, bewilderingly, even gloriously awful. You just can't convince anyone under the age of 25 that this was actually the real deal back in the early 00's. It's so bafflingly absurd that I cannot help but to respect it. And what better way to respect an album as raunchy and brash as this one than to give it the one star it's daring you to give it? As mr. Durst would put it: "fuck you and your fucking mum!"

What a snoozefest. It's almost impressive how they managed to make an entire album where absolutely nothing happens.

Man, this one was I don't know how close to being five stars. Well actually, I do know pretty much how close: about 25 minutes away. The atmosphere and emotion in all these tracks is second to none, but it just keeps and keeps going. If this had been the best 50 minutes instead of the entire 75 minutes (that's 33%!!!), it would have been near perfect. As it is, it will have to do with an honorary four stars.

It is a rule of nature that nobody likes guitar noodling, apart from the noodlers themselves. But you know what, I actually kind of dug this. That can only mean that it was in fact me who recorded this album; all despite never having touched an electric guitar in my life. For that feat alone, this album deserves three stars in my book.

This one's going straight to my 'people pleasing' playlist. It's kind of catchy, but not too catchy; it's kind of interesting, but not too interesting; it's kind of sonically present, but not too sonically present. The kind of music anyone can appreciate, but few will actually love.

Honestly, I think that if Janis Joplin had been replaced by some random guy off the streets, the band would have held up well enough for this to still a pretty good record. Now imagine how good this is WITH the inclusion of Joplin's powerhouse vocals.

Not an easy one for sure. The songs are slow, trudging and wistful, all with a dark and dissonant undertone and heavy traditional stylings. There is an undeniable, melancholic beauty buried underneath the scratched surface of these songs, but you really have to work for it. And honestly, I'm not sure if I'm built for that; especially when it comes to the 15-minute closing track.

Feel like pure shit, wish I was listening to [any album from the Rock in Opposition movement, including but not limited to Henry Cow, Slapp Happy and Art Bears] instead.

This album is not only christmas music, it IS christmas. It's warm and cozy, and after two days you're pretty much done with it, until you're having a blast with it once again the next year.

I imagine this album was recorded in a hazy room filled to the brim with damp smoke, people lounging back in their lazy chairs - all posed exactly as instructed by Missy Elliott on the album cover - with just a hint of ennui in the air. The evening is fiercely laid-back, stories are being flung around hinting at deeper, undisclosed feelings but you find yourself just nodding along since your brain is bobbing like a balloon anyway. When the night eventually ends, you find yourself outside in the cold again. You're filled with a fuzzy sense of contentment, but you can't shake the feeling that time has just stood still for the past - you don't even know how many - hours and it starts to creep up on you just how little you have been doing the entire day.

There's nothing particularly bad about this I can point towards, but all of it is just so safe and mild, that it ends up feeling a bit spineless.

If you look up the word 'Fun' in the dictionary, you'll be shown a picture of this album cover.

Two for the price of one: not only do you get a wildly original, weird pop album, but also a great atmospheric suite that somehow fits in perfectly with the other half. By the time one side is over, you'll want to go right back to the other side, until you realise you've played the album five times in a row.

Before listening I expected this to be the hip hop equivalent of Smash Mouth, and I wasn't entirely wrong. I kind of wish they would have done away with the faux gangster thing entirely and just leaned in on the fun, laid-back vibes, which is where this album excels. It has its moments and is entirely harmless, but it doesn't feel very 1001-worthy at all.

If you listen closely, you can hear that beneath the cold, metallic bleeps and bloops of these tracks, there is a very human heart pumping very human blood.

So who was going to tell me that this is secretly one of the best soul/funk albums of the 70s, if not ever? Well, this list I guess. Robert Dimery, you have been absolved of your sins for now.

Who would have thought that using a celesta on a raw and powerful album titled Raw Power would actually work like a charm?

I bet 8-year old me would have loved to skip all the slow tracks and run around the house to the fast tracks. Current me, however, is mostly just interested in checking out the rest of their discography, seeing as their later albums seem to be held in higher esteem. And indeed, this album most of all sounds like a promise of what's to come.

Early Led Zeppelin can simply do no wrong. On this one, they deliver all the punches from their first two albums, but now with more folk and less blues rock - a great win for me, someone who really quite likes folk and really quite dislikes blues rock.

Recommended for British geezers, self-aware perverts or - preferably - both.

A campy, glammy party that's really quite fun until you realise they really only have a single trick up their sleeves, and they will be performing it 11 times in a row.

I'm pretty sure that if you typed in "classic country ballad" in a music generation AI, you'd get something indistinguishable from 80% of these songs. I'm afraid George's voice is really the only saving grace on this album for me.

You know, I can really see how this would be some kind of holy bible for fans of jammy blues rock. But man, that person most certainly is not me. Everything just ended up blending together into an 80-minute, homogenous mush. Definitely not unpleasant, but not something I ever see myself returning to.

I've got to admit, I used to be a certified blues hater. But John Lee Hooker's got exactly what I miss in most blues rock: some incredible, undeniable soul. The features are admittedly a bit all over the place, but that soul just keeps shining through. Mr. Hooker, you have managed to convert a certified blues hater into a certified blues agnostic.

One star for each hombre, except minus one star because this is largely a boring-ass, generic blues rock album.

The perfect album for a quiet yet comfortable autumn afternoon. As most people would agree, this may not quite be Drake at his peak, but regardless these are still some warm, lush folk songs with great songwriting inviting you to daydream along.

A pretty great folk rock album and a pretty mediocre rock 'n roll album. I don't I would have minded if this entire album had been just the acoustic instruments.

A wildly original album. In essence, it's just a blues rock album of course, but with every song Beck manages to throw in something new and unexpected into the mix, be it the odd guitar sounds, implementation of feedback or seasonings of Indian music. It sounds weird and unique for any time period, let alone for 1966.

Mr. Dimery gets 5 points taken off his Sin List for introducing me to this superb music, which I most likely would never have encountered anywhere else. However, he gets 2 Sin Points right back for including a random-ass compilation album instead of one of the many beloved, real studio albums by Elis Regina. You were so very close, Robert.

Whatever you could wish from reggae music, this album has it all: a deep soulful sound, great vocals, powerful lyrics and - perhaps most importantly - some absolute banger flute parts.

The lyrics are pretty dumb and the songs a bit repetitive, but they basically invented the boyband so you've gotta respect the hustle at least a bit.

After a real knock-out of an opening track, the band reveal themselves to be a troop of jolly gnomes with a real affinity for psychedelics, folk tales and the Kinks. The unabashed whimsy that follows has the potential to kindle even the most jaded of hearts.

In most contexts, 41 minutes isn't a very long time at all, albums included. But within that little, precious amount of time, Guided By Voices sketch up an entire little universe. Like in a kaleidoscope, each vignette offers a glimpse into a different place and time, each with its own ideas, emotions and moods. Still, the album never sounds disjointed or unfocused, the whole thing being held together by its meticulously executed DIY ethos.

Solomon sure has some pipes, but man, with the exception of Cry To Me, these songs are just so mind-numbingly predictable and dull. Solomon gets three stars for his performance; the songwriters get 1 star.

If Loveless is the sound of a destination reached, then Isn't Anything is the sound of wandering around looking for said destination. Normally I'd say it's a minor sin to be considering albums only as a "precursor" to what's to come, but here I'm tempted to give in, since the experimentation IS the point. Of course, I can't really blame anyone for wanting to skip the road and go straight for the finish line, but then again... where is your childlike sense of discovery? Plus, this is some pretty great guitar freakery regardless of any destination.

At its best, these songs are like the fluid inside a lava lamp, a concoction simply bubbling with energy and always on the brink of exploding into a vibrant, chromatic burst. If the whole thing had been as consistent as the highlights, this would have been possibly the best psychedelic rock album of the entire 60's. But as it is, "album from which multiple of the best psychedelic rock songs ever stem" certainly isn't too shabby a title either.

I'll always cherish this album for allowing me to listen to some prime Kanye beats without having to listen to Kanye. Well, most of the time, at least.

I find it intriguing how metal is, much more than any other genre of music, an island of its own. A lot of metal is exclusively listened to by metalheads, and reversely, a lot of metalheads exclusively listen to metal. Now I am most definitely not a metalhead, and as such, this music all sounds like the following to me: fast but unoriginal guitar riff - juvenile lyrics about death and/or christianity - formulaic guitar solo that sounds the exact same as all the ones that preceded it - back to singing - end. Clearly these guys really know their ways around their instruments, but the songs all sound tiringly homogenous and devoid of any authentic emotion to me, poor non-metalhead. I guess the world's simply divided into two groups of people: those who can identify with the phrase - as the top review so eloquently puts it - "FUCKING SLAYERRRR", and those who can't.

U2? You mean the U2 so well-versed in producing spineless, reverb-laden guitar sounds that fit right into a Shell promotion?? Making some real gritty, passionate music with some actual - excuse me, I have to go there - Edge??? Colour me impressed.

The sound effects and production sure have aged like unrefrigerated milk, but in a way that sort of gives this album a weird charm. Nobody makes 'em like this anymore - and even if that's just because nobody *wants* to make records sound like this anymore, it doesn't take away from the fact that this is a unique sounding record. Sophisticated and smooth one moment, cheesy and saccharine the next, but most of all, listening to this album is an act of musical archaeology.

Lucinda straddles a very fine line between the personal, alt-country full of character and generic country-rock made for camper commercials. On the one hand, her voice is very distinct; on the other hand, the guitars and drums sound like they come right out of the cookie-cutter box; on the other other hand, the accordeon adds some unique flavour... etc.

Fragile masculinity: the album. I would likely have preferred this album if I didn't speak English, as I could then have just listened to the funky beats instead of having to hear these lyrics with utterly on the nose rhymes and desperately boastful lyrics about crime, large dicks and hating Eazy-E. Most (white) people I know unfortunately write off all of hip hop as violent non-music; I fully blame this album for that reputation.

Pretty nifty when they're going for a more artsy, atmospheric sound, but it loses me a bit when they're doing that mellow, early-2000's post-britpop thing. If their melodic talents had matched their knacks for setting up these spacious, building songs, this might've been a real knock-out.

A ride through a metal-themed funhouse while being chased by clowns wielding electric guitars. Pretty good stuff. Ironically though, I do wish this album had been even weirder and more experimental, and less leaning on the metal spoofing.

Smooth as silk, sweet like honey, seductive like, eh... well, you get the point.

Imagine you're an overly ambitious band that's just released a collection of refined, well-crafted and surprisingly popular songs - in this case Siamese Dream. What's the next step from there? Why of course, a regular two-discer wouldn't cut it; the occasion called for a two-hour monolith, baby. But is it a monolith, though? Looking at the first six tracks, the album sets itself up to be non-stop punches, catchier than ever but without sacrificing that alternative core. Looking at the final five tracks, however, you see a completely different record: a White Album-esque sprawling hodgepodge of genre-hopping tracks. Now both types of double albums have the potential to be great, the non-stop hitters and the kaleidoscopic collections of eclecticism. Where on that scale does this album lie? Honestly... I'm not sure. Somewhere right in the middle of the album, it seems to take an unexpected turn from one end of the spectrum to the other, making sure that it's both and neither at the same time. It's a strange album. Its extensive runtime is both a core part of its identity and a major flaw. The songs are both varied and a bit too safe, really. But hey, it gave the world some of the best rock tracks of all time - even just for containing 1979, this thing deserves three stars.

I kept imagining a bunch of suburban mums teaching their two-year olds the stiff dance moves they learnt in zumba class the previous week. The word 'groovy' is used a lot. Kind of cute in that context, but in all other contexts this is just a discount Talking Heads with some predictable horn sections.

Morrissey, you charming bastard. Even without Johnny Marr's jangly, masterfully woven guitar lines, even when singing dumb lines like 'you're the one for me, fatty' and 'We're the last British people you will ever know', you're just so very damn charming. Not all the tracks are of equal quality, but time and time again Morrissey and his musing voice are a joy to listen to.

A group of Brits doing stripped-down, country-inspired punk with fiddles sounds like an absurd idea. And frankly, it is, but this album is all the more punk for it.

Elvis is of course a very easy target: a pretty boy with a decent voice doing slightly inferior covers of songs by black artists (illustrated no better than through Tutti Frutti here), what's not to hate? But you know, this album really does have a certain something. Be it the seductive echoing, be it the non-stop catchiness, be it Elvis' suave voice, you just can't help but to raise a faint smile and admit "alright, maybe this one isn't so bad".

Dusk is setting. You're sitting on a Malian porch, next to you is Ali in his laid-back rocking chair - in just the same position as on the cover. As the sun sets, he keeps plucking warm, mellow tones out of his guitar strings. On another day or on another whim, he might have been playing a functionally interchangeable set of songs and tones, but all you know is that it's been a good day, and this music serves a good ending to a good day.

The purest distillation of punk; the punk to not only begin, but also end all punks. But honestly, within that statement lies exactly the problem I have with this album: you cannot go anywhere with this style of punk. Once you've had the first few songs... that's kind of it. The point has been made, the politics have been spewed, the punk has been punked. Since there's nowhere left to go, the rest of the album feels a bit like an empty echo of the first half. Even John Lydon must have realised this, when only a year later he formed the much more musically ambitious Public Image Ltd. This truest of true punks could only exist for the duration of a flash. Or rather, for 3 minutes and 19 seconds, the exact duration of God Save the Queen.

This seems to be one for the real hardcore Dylan fans, but you know what? Really, this one's for the moderate Dylan fans too. When the band kicks in on the second half, it's like a moody cloud breaking open to let the sun through, and I'd say it's worth listening to if just for that revelation.