Journey in Progress
Discovering music one album at a time
290
Albums Rated
3.47
Avg Rating
49
5-Star Albums
27%
Complete
799 albums remaining
Rating Speed
5
Per Week
402
Days Active
Reviews
272
Written
94%
Review Rate
vs Global
0.15
Avg Diff
3.47
Avg Rating
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How you rate albums
Rating Timeline
Average rating over time
Ratings by Decade
Which era do you prefer?
Activity by Day
When do you listen?
Taste Profile
2010s
Favorite Decade
Post-punk
Favorite Genre
UK
Top Origin
Balanced
Rater Style
20
1-Star Albums
5-Star Albums (49)
View Album Wall
Taste Analysis
Genre Preferences
Ratings by genre
Origin Preferences
Ratings by country
Rating Style
You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metal Box | 5 | 2.41 | +2.59 |
| Teenager Of The Year | 5 | 2.99 | +2.01 |
| Suzanne Vega | 5 | 3.02 | +1.98 |
| The Good, The Bad & The Queen | 5 | 3.03 | +1.97 |
| Skylarking | 5 | 3.03 | +1.97 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superunknown | 1 | 3.66 | -2.66 |
| To Pimp A Butterfly | 1 | 3.61 | -2.61 |
| The Gershwin Songbook | 1 | 3.54 | -2.54 |
| Blue | 1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
| Hot Rats | 1 | 3.36 | -2.36 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums and high weighted score
| Artist | Albums | Avg | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beatles | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Van Morrison | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Kanye West | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Bob Dylan | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Neil Young | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| The Smiths | 2 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Bruce Springsteen | 5 | 4.2 | 3.75 |
| The Rolling Stones | 5 | 4 | 3.63 |
| David Bowie | 5 | 4 | 3.63 |
Popular Reviews
Kid Rock
1/5
The worst tropes of rap music, without any of the self-awareness. This is an influential album and it belongs on this list because it reminds us why America sucks so much shit.
2 likes
Kendrick Lamar
1/5
I don't know if I've ever heard so much hype for an album. Listening was a stressful task, and I often felt as if I must be missing some crucial context.
The samples draw influence from jazz/funk/soul music, as many other pieces of music have. Other albums have tackled themes of racism and black urban poverty. Other albums have been introspective, have been introspective regarding fame and the music industry.
Maybe I'm jealous of how he can mask his insecurities with machismo. Jealous of how he can use depression to deflect from the angry young man persona. I've never felt like a white person, nor comfortably non-white, and maybe I'm envious of the confidence with which he wields his background and his identity.
This album is not for me. (They not like me.) I probably would have given this a 2 or a 3 but the importance attached to this album makes me feel like garbage. If art is subjective, I hated the experience of listening to this. If art is objective, I still hated the experience of listening to this. Even the cover art makes me feel miserable. I'm sorry I don't get it and I'm sorry if I'm too dumb to explain why.
1 likes
The Who
2/5
Obviously very talented musicians. The drums are a real treat. Storytelling is belabored but often unmemorable. When I’m in the middle of listening to a song I don’t mind it, but if I remember that it’s supposed to be a large cohesive work I feel like I’m suffocating.
1 likes
Pink Floyd
3/5
Not as long and drawn out as I feared it would be. Would be a four but I really hate the laughter they inserted into Brain Damage, which would’ve been the best song on here. Money is a silly song.
1 likes
1-Star Albums (20)
All Ratings
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
This album has such a great message but it's still just pure fun to listen to. I put it on after Sly Stone passed away the other day (June 2025) and I couldn't help but dance. Thank you so much for making this, man.
Beatles
5/5
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Still good, really enjoyed the second half this time. Run For Your Life is kinda funny tbh.
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
A lot of it feels lightweight. I was surprised by how goofy it felt at times. Like the Monkees with more Davy. 'The Boxer' is still incredible. And I liked the Salesman one hearing it for the first time. But a lot of the lyrics aren’t as good as I feel their reputations would have indicated.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
4/5
Haven't heard this all the way through before. Quick, easy to listen to, solid throughout. Great crafting of songs. I feel like it’s a strong four, four and a half, but being rooted in classic rock and roll, and not being really, well, weird, it might have a hard time standing out in my memory.
Van Morrison
5/5
Bright, easy music. I’m not a big fan of jazzy, bluesy music, but I think he handles himself well lyrically and vocally. There are moments where the horns have an schmaltzy, almost variety show sort of quality. But it's also an interesting blend of old and modern music.
Metallica
3/5
The best parts for me: the energy, the stompy chanty parts, and the medieval or classical-sounding lead guitar. 'Orion' stood out too me.
However, this album feels LONG, and a lot of the songs sound the same, and the lyrics aren’t always memorable. The grunted, strained lead vocals also wear thin.
The Who
2/5
Obviously very talented musicians. The drums are a real treat. Storytelling is belabored but often unmemorable. When I’m in the middle of listening to a song I don’t mind it, but if I remember that it’s supposed to be a large cohesive work I feel like I’m suffocating.
M.I.A.
1/5
A lot of this album sounds like it was made by a child. Occasionally some cool use of samples. '20 Dollar' was catchy. 'Paper Planes' was catchy. I hope I gave it a fair shot; I’m not sure I did. But even the catchy songs are self-important, image-obsessed, and arduously humorlessly political.
This album came out a year after Kevin Federline’s similarly funk carioca influenced ‘PopoZão’.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
5/5
I’ve been having some bad days lately but this was much needed. Life can be terrifying and miserable, but it’s so much cooler than being dead. ‘There She Goes’ is the standout from the first half. ‘Breathless’ was good on the second part.
David Holmes
3/5
I listened to it while doing a semi-tedious task at work and it was pleasant. Liked ‘Slashers Revenge’ (the dub one) the most.
The spoken bits are pretty prominent. Important for the artistic context, and sets it apart from trip hop stuff like Portishead, but kinda dates it.
Jeff Buckley
4/5
Good vocals. Lilac Wine was good, did not realize it was a much older song.
I’ve heard so much about this album; I was surprised to find it rocked pretty hard. It sounds like the blueprint for a lot of other 90s and 2000s music.
Prince
4/5
There's a lot of sass and swagger in this album. Not normally my thing. 80s R&B is not normally my thing. But Prince makes it unique and original.
‘Starfish And Coffee’ was a good but strange track: it sounds like a novelty alternative hit from the late 90s. 'I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man' was an instant favorite, and sounds like everything I like in Prince's music, like a counterpoint to 'When You Were Mine'. ‘Forever In My Life’ and ‘The Cross’ were good too, heavy and dark.
Songs like ‘Slow Love' and 'Gonna Be A Beautiful Night' simply aren’t the sort of music I like. But the best parts of the album are among the best songs of a truly gifted musician.
Roxy Music
5/5
Amazing. Energetic, chaotic, creative. How have I not heard this before.
The Mothers Of Invention
4/5
All over the place. The best part is probably the diversity of instruments and arrangements. Sometimes the joke bits feel a bit strained. Sometimes ('Somebody Else's Shoulder') they work. 'Wowie Zowie' and 'You're Probably Wondering' were pretty good too.
I’m rating this a 4 because I like stupid things. I do want to make it clear that this is stupid and not genius.
Aretha Franklin
3/5
Yeah it’s good, she sounds great, and the record is quick and pleasant to listen to.
However I’ve been feeling really depressed lately. (I am writing this on November 7 2024.) Maybe this was a bad time to listen to this. But hearing ‘Respect’ and ‘Change Is Gonna Come’ kinda hurt right now.
R.E.M.
4/5
Hadn’t heard this one before! Except for Stand and Orange Crush. Man, what a good band. Maybe my familiarity with some of their other work affects this. If I’m looking at just REM albums this might be a 3/5; if I’m considering all albums everywhere ever, probably a 5/5. For this project, I’m kinda feeing a 4.
Guns N' Roses
3/5
Despite the band’s clarification that I was in the jungle, I’m not sure where I stand with this one. Rating it a three feels like a bit of a cop-out, since there were some truly delightful parts and some truly idiotic parts, and I want to settle on a two or a four. Ultimately, I must ask ‘where do we go now?’ and then screech a bunch.
Gillian Welch
4/5
Really enjoyed the messy instruments at the end of the first song. Sometimes this album doesn’t stand out since there’s so much good folk music out there. But the really long final song was my favorite. It felt weird and ambitious and over-dramatic and haunting!
Joni Mitchell
1/5
I hadn’t heard any of these songs before, even the well-known ones. I don’t think I like this. It’s like a soap opera for hippies. ‘My Old Man’ and ‘California’ I particularly didn’t like. I think there’s something about her style of singing too. I guess I kinda liked ‘River’ but lyrically it still felt cloying.
The Beau Brummels
4/5
The album starts off a bit weak, and doesn't really pick up til 'Keeper of Time', but from that point I liked all of it. I have no idea why the Wiki article or the reviews here compare the vocals to Dylan.
I like when folk music combines the ordinary with something timeless, something mythical or historical. The best parts of the album accomplish that. 'Wolf of Velvet Fortune' managed to feel relatively large and epic, even though it's under five minutes and the entire album is about a half hour.
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
People have said they find this album dated, and it's true that the world it depicts has slowly been disappearing. To me, living in the Midwest, a lot of this still feels powerful and relevant. The most dated parts are silly but charming, like looking at a picture of your parents with their 1980s haircuts.
This is the Album With All The Hits, and the spaces in between the hits don’t hold back either. It’s a good pop album, good rock album, good saxophone solo album. As a political piece it doesn't feel too heavy or didactic, nor does it feel fluffy and jingoistic.
Favorites were Downbound Train, No Surrender, I'm Goin' Down, and the title track.
Supergrass
4/5
Fun, listened to it a couple times at work today and it helped me get through a busy day. I’ll definitely go back to it. Mansize Rooster and Strange Ones were really good. This is way more frenzied and off-the-wall than other Britpop stuff, and a good bridge between 70s punk and 2000s UK indie.
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
The ska/soul/rock influences are there, but it still manages to sound like nothing else before it. His singing is really messy and expressive, pathetic and theatrical, and I think it works well at times. I prefer this version of 'Seven Days Too Long' to Chuck Wood's.
That style does start to wear thin by the end of the album. And there were more slow songs than I would have expected. But it was good. The more lively stuff felt outrageous.
Screaming Trees
4/5
Hadn't heard anything by these guys before. It's a well-produced album and I'm surprised that it came out in 1996. It's instrumentally more diverse and mellow than the grunge music my parents liked, and sounds a lot like what I was listening to in the 2000s.
Really liked that little baroque bit in 'Sworn and Broken' and then how that song moves onto something harder with 'Witness'. Good vocals.
Kendrick Lamar
1/5
I don't know if I've ever heard so much hype for an album. Listening was a stressful task, and I often felt as if I must be missing some crucial context.
The samples draw influence from jazz/funk/soul music, as many other pieces of music have. Other albums have tackled themes of racism and black urban poverty. Other albums have been introspective, have been introspective regarding fame and the music industry.
Maybe I'm jealous of how he can mask his insecurities with machismo. Jealous of how he can use depression to deflect from the angry young man persona. I've never felt like a white person, nor comfortably non-white, and maybe I'm envious of the confidence with which he wields his background and his identity.
This album is not for me. (They not like me.) I probably would have given this a 2 or a 3 but the importance attached to this album makes me feel like garbage. If art is subjective, I hated the experience of listening to this. If art is objective, I still hated the experience of listening to this. Even the cover art makes me feel miserable. I'm sorry I don't get it and I'm sorry if I'm too dumb to explain why.
B.B. King
4/5
I am listening to this 60 years and one day after it was recorded! This is older than any live concert I’ve listened to, and I don’t always enjoy live albums (I feel a bit left out) but I liked this. It has a warmth to it, and it allowed me to connect more to music and the people involved in it.
I think modern blues music has a reputation of being boring, technical, and overwrought, but this doesn’t feel that way. It’s working musicians playing for working people. The singing is clear and powerful, not strained or affected. The solos are talented but not gratuitous. There’s a good energy and this was a delight to listen to.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Had no idea this existed, the concept seems kinda unhinged at first glance. Initial favorites are Blue Skies and Sunny Side. Unchained Melody seemed like a misstep to me but I’m not really a fan of that song to begin with. And Moonlight In Vermont was like doing a shot of perfume.
This is really good (in the sense that it’s like sincere, or benevolent.) Like, it’s Lawful Good. Also the only really unusual thing about this album is that someone thought of this idea and executed it in the first place. But I mean overall if you truly hated this you’d have to have a heart of ice.
Mercury Rev
4/5
I like this album, but always thought it was a bit older; it seems dated for 1998. But that's kind of fitting, since it also feels anachronistic, retrofuturistic, electromechanical. An album from an alternate timeline where rock bands have instruments like a saw.
Aesthetically I think it fits in with the Elephant 6 bands, or with slower Smashing Pumpkins songs like 'Tonight, Tonight' and 'Thirty-Three'. It feels cold and distant; I think the album artwork fits it perfectly, if that makes sense. I got drunk and high and fell asleep while listening to it a second time, which I suppose is an endorsement, but not necessarily a full-throated one.
Frank Sinatra
4/5
The Young Rascals
4/5
First song and title track were standouts. It’s not quite as good as the Beatles or Monkees, but it’s still the sort of music I listened to a lot as a kid and still like. It also does feel rather varied, a bit soulful, a bit psychedelic, and this made for a light breezy listen.
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
Cool album cover. Makes it look like this is a punk or new wave album and I guess for Fleetwood Mac it is. Nice drums on this one.
Thin Lizzy
3/5
Favorites: Jailbreak, Emerald, Massacre, Cowboy Song
Thin Lizzy is a legendary band, and a lot of these songs are great. But I don’t think this is a great album. I understand this was pulled from a number of concerts, and overdubbed in parts. So a lot of it sounds fairly good but it doesn’t have a consistent mood or audience relationship. And some songs drag, especially since this is a double album. I think it's unfortunate that this was the one Thin Lizzy album they put on here.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Sympathy For The Devil might be the highlight? Also really liked the fifth track, Jigsaw Puzzle. Sounds a lot like Dylan or the Beatles. I think The Rolling Stones are at their best when they’re not pretending to be American bluesmen.
Cheap Trick
4/5
Rockford’s finest, halfway around the world. Humbling yet unpretentious. I found the crowd’s energy to be genuinely moving, and I’m really happy that Tokyo embraced a band from good old Illinois.
Cat Stevens
3/5
I have fond childhood memories of his greatest hits CD. Didn't have high expectations for this album but ended up enjoying it. Lyrically kind of lightweight but the vocals are excellent and some of the songs ('Father and Son' specifically) have a real emotional punch.
'Sad Lisa' sounds like a Eurovision song. Not necessarily a bad thing. It just does.
Radiohead
3/5
More accessible than I thought it would be, but kind of heavy-handed and grim, even for Radiohead. Nothing really stood out.
Soundgarden
1/5
Musically, it’s like a hypermasculine, hyperaggressive version of some 90s jam band. Lyrically, it’s like
… idk, Christian rock for edgelord video gamers. The vocals are turgid.
I particularly disliked ‘Spoonman’.
David Gray
4/5
‘We’re Not Right’ and ‘This Year’s Love’ stood out initially. And ‘Sail Away’.
Oh, and a lovely Soft Cell cover that I listened to like four times in a row. Great closer.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
I had heard about this album for a while but never listened to it; I always wrote it off as the Bruce Springsteen 9/11 album. It is pretty long and the energy flagged toward the end; there were a couple of pretty cheesy songs too. But there were a lot of good ideas and a consistent theme unifying them.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
4/5
Aretha Franklin
2/5
She’s a talented vocalist but I don’t know if that’s what I really look for in music. This is the second Aretha album I got on this site and I liked the first one a bit more. In this one, there were a couple songs (Groovin’ and People Get Ready) that didn’t move me as much as the originals.
Also I just don’t like the song (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.
Queen
4/5
‘The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stoke’, is a painting by Richard Dadd, a Victorian artist institutionalized for schizophrenia and murder. Like Dadd’s work, Queen II is strange, whimsical, cluttered with detail, and highly technically proficient.
Anyways I have a soft spot for whacked-out heavy metal concept albums, as long as they’re short and efficient like this one.
The Strokes
5/5
I always liked ‘Trying Your Luck’ back when I was a lonely callow inchoate loser. Now I’m pudgy and bloated but so is Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas.
My roommates’ band used to cover Someday and Hard To Explain. This isn’t even my favorite Strokes album but it’s one where every song is like oh shit yeah I love this one.
White Denim
3/5
‘Street Joy’ was good. The flute bit on ‘River to Consider’ felt kinda contrived. Not into extended jams. But this was fun.
Oasis
3/5
Hadn’t listened to this before but I thought I’d like this a lot since Supersonic is my favorite Oasis song. The rest of the album didn’t stick with me as much though.
ZZ Top
2/5
Loud and repetitive. Apathetic lyrics and vocals.
Dire Straits
3/5
Good stuff, kinda forgot I was listening to it a few times, however. I liked the opening and closing tracks the most, and Walk Of Life because that’s a great song. 3.5 out of 5.
Saint Etienne
3/5
Various Artists
4/5
Fwiw Phil Spector was a visionary, and I think the Wall Of Sound treatment works well on these Christmas songs. But the real star is Darlene Love, who I don’t know anything about except for this album.
Merry Christmas, Darlene, and Merry Christmas everyone but Phil.
Public Image Ltd.
4/5
I listened to this the day after Christmas and found it refreshing. A nice vitriolic attack on hypocrisy and consumerism.
The bass and drums sound good and I like the metallic guitar squalls over it.
Adele
4/5
The best songs on this are really well arranged; they sound powerful and ominous. The other songs are, I don’t know, kind of Ed-Sheeran-y? But hey, I like that too.
4/5
I have a love/hate relationship with Britain (particularly England) which I think is mirrored in the content of this album. I really liked this and wish I’d had the chance to listen to it a few more times. I feel like calling it a concept album is kinda facile. Like, is really a concept album about the human condition, right?
2/5
This made me laugh out loud quite a few times. And I enjoyed the Method/Red/DMX version of Rollin'. So I suppose I can't rate this a one.
4/5
Yeah, it’s Bowie, it’s great. There’s not much that hasn’t been said about this, but I will note that I particularly liked his vocals, and that it felt surprisingly short.
G. Love & Special Sauce
1/5
I’m really not a fan of jam bands, and the guy’s singing makes it seem like he doesn’t want to be here. But the lyrics are the low point, profoundly dumb themes addressed in profoundly artless ways.
I will say that they come across as reasonably fun, laid back people. I don’t think any of the other bands I’ve rated a 1 give the impression of having a sense of humor.
Yes
3/5
Pleasant sounding, not particularly bombastic. I liked it but don’t know how often I’d return.
Kanye West
5/5
I don't think it's possible to defend Kanye or his behavior. However, this album would be less interesting if it was a defense, or an apology. I'm sure it's frustrating that he's so arrogant and misogynistic and crazy but that's what makes him a captivating and (not sure how else to describe this) well-written character.
Musically this is a delight. I like the over-the-top noise on some tracks, and the haunting minimalist piano on others. He makes good use of samples and guest musicians.
Even if Kanye himself hasn't aged well, I think the album has, with its bravado and undertone of mental illness. Or maybe the past fifteen years have just been the rest of the world crashing down to his level.
Beastie Boys
4/5
The best possible use for Led Zeppelin’s music.
Hot Chip
4/5
Excellent 2010s hipster pop. Nothing that stands out quite like some of their earlier singles, but every song is fun - i.e. good background music for a party.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Good guitar playing and a really good cover of “Good Golly Miss Molly”. However there are some longer songs that dragged, and the lyrics here are half-baked. Their next couple of albums are a lot more sophisticated than this, especially the lyrics/writing.
(Also, when I need directions to get to the bayou, I use Choogle Maps.)
Michael Jackson
3/5
I find this album cover terrifying and I’m not even a child.
Pixies
5/5
I love the instrumental that opens it. A nice thesis statement of sorts. I might like their first couple of albums more, but this is still some quality stuff from one of my favorite bands. Good loud music, good lyrics, good frenzied apocalyptic mindset.
John Prine
1/5
I was excited when I saw this was today's album. A chance to finally sit down with an old beloved gem (apparently endorsed by no less than Bob Dylan) that I hadn't heard before. Basically, the sort of stuff that makes me look forward to this 1001 albums project.
I hated this so much. 'Illegal Smile' is a bunch of the most banal, obvious imagery, contorted into awkward rhyme and meter. Some songs are petulant and myopic, like someone complaining about how the TV news is nothing but sad stories. Other songs like 'Sam Stone' are an over-the-top tidal wave of misery and tragedy. There’s a dissonant mix throughout of praise for the simple rural folk, and contempt for their values. Also 'Pretty Good' has a bit about someone being sexually assaulted by a dog but I'm going to assume that's a reference or metaphor that I failed to understand.
This album made me wonder if I hate folk music. I understand this is partly a product of The War, and post-1968 US politics, but that doesn't decode it, doesn't make it click for me. The funny parts aren't funny, and the sad parts are as depressing as you can get without being inadvertently funny. (I didn't like my first Joni Mitchell album either. Is there something about the early 1970s that I don't get?)
I feel bad seeing him there on his little hay bale. I don't blame him; it’s not his fault. I hope he found some peace.
Dizzee Rascal
3/5
Delightfully jarring and glitchy and unpretentious, like an old Grand Theft Auto game. Didn’t care for it at first but liked it by the end. I haven't heard anything quite like it before, but if you asked me to imagine rap music of the future, even today, I might have imagined a less cohesive version of this. I can't believe it came out in 2003, but I was an American kid listening to indie rock so this wasn’t really on my radar.
Jus' A Rascal and Brand New Day are great.
Mudhoney
3/5
There's a frustrating number of different versions and track listings, I did Deluxe Edition (the one shown here) that had 14 songs? Anyways it generally sounded good, like a more punk version of Nirvana. Fav track: 'Need'.
Tears For Fears
4/5
‘Shout’ is a very good opener. A nice listen for a Sunday morning; it’s chill, but there’s a lot of power behind it, even on the more pop-oriented songs.
Cream
3/5
This is a hard one to rate. I initially thought I wouldn't have a lot to say. The guitar/production on ‘Strange Brew’ sounds like ass, and Clapton and Baker both have irritating singing voices. But I quite liked the songs that, per Wikipedia, were written and sung by Jack Bruce. Liked the goofy music hall kinda song at the end too. It would be sensible to separate this album from the shadow of Eric Clapton.
The Who
3/5
‘Armenia’ and ‘I Can See For Miles’ and 'I Can't Reach You' are good songs. I don't get the whole commercial thing but overall the album's tighter than ‘Tommy’.
I want to mark it down points for the fugly artwork, and because each silly little skit reminds me of the fugly artwork. But man, 'I Can See For Miles' is an absolute classic.
Madonna
2/5
American Music Club
4/5
Muddy Waters
4/5
I don’t know enough about the blues to say a lot about this, but it was loud heavy stuff, where you could hear how rock and eventually heavy metal might evolve from the blues.
Fleet Foxes
5/5
2008 was the year my wife and I started dating, and a year before I graduated college. I probably heard these songs on Daytrotter's website before I heard the album. It's the sound of a lot of bands I would listen to in my 20s. I really miss that whole scene.
The Incredible String Band
3/5
Not as bad as I feared from the low rating on this site. I liked the outdated vaudeville of 'The Minotaur's Song'. Also 'Three Is A Green Crown', brooding and strange, good use of sitar.
I try to listen to these things a second time before rating them. This time I just skipped around the songs I like. Or in the case of 'A Very Cellular Song', just the first three minutes. I mostly kept coming back to 'Swift As The Wind', maybe the best thing on here, messianic and apocalyptic.
'Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' is weird and excessive and yes probably drugs. I don't see it as a 1 or a 5, and sometimes this stuff just averages out. It's an inconsistent 3, not a forgettable 3.
Brian Eno
3/5
It sounds a bit like Roxy Music, which is nice. A moderately pleasant listen, made slightly uneven because it’s a pop album with experimental elements jammed in. ‘Baby’s On Fire’ is good, and the title track at the end.
2/5
Kinda spaced out listening to it, nothing stood out. Wasn’t as good as the album title made me hope. ‘Animal Zoo’ and ‘Morning Will Come’ were ok.
Pink Floyd
3/5
Not as long and drawn out as I feared it would be. Would be a four but I really hate the laughter they inserted into Brain Damage, which would’ve been the best song on here. Money is a silly song.
Bob Dylan
5/5
I don't know what exactly to say about this one because it's meant a lot of different things to me throughout my life. As a study of human relationships it's necessarily enigmatic, vague, and complex.
Sorry, I guess that's kind of a cop out. But I don't get the general impulse to dissect and mythologize Dylan. (Or to, you know, make a movie about his life.) Anyways, as I listen at the beginning of February 2025, this album is almost exactly fifty years old. However, I don't feel for a moment like it belongs to a single time or place.
a-ha
3/5
Pleasant well-crafted pop music that feels a bit powerless as we travel deeper into hell. These guys are kinda like the Eloi from 'The Time Machine', you know?
Hüsker Dü
4/5
For the most part, Bob Mould is the better songwriter on this one. Very long but pretty good throughout. I like Hüsker Dü but I hadn't even heard of this album before it came up yesterday. Weird one to put on this list.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
Welp, I guess I like Bruce Springsteen? Mildly surprised.
Favorites: Promised Land, Streets Of Fire, Prove It All Night.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
A breath of fresh aid after all the prog rock and self-indulgent folk music on the list. I imagine people in the 70s welcomed it too.
'Tumbling Dice' is a good song. I liked 'Torn and Frayed' too.
The Allman Brothers Band
3/5
Long but pleasant. But long. Good background vibes.
Marty Robbins
3/5
Very linear, over-explanatory storytelling. Also has a strange fixation with geography. Idk, this was a weird one. Like if Lawrence Welk was doing Johnny Cash.
Emmylou Harris
4/5
Quite liked 'Bottle Let Me Down' and 'Queen of the Silver Dollar'. Guess I like drinkin’ songs.
Depeche Mode
4/5
I generally like this style of music.
Santana
4/5
Yayyy Mexican music.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
I don't want to like this one, but I admit I enjoyed most of it.
‘Misty Mountain Hop' is a fun track. ‘When The Levee Breaks' is maybe their best blues cover, they really bring a lot to it.
'Going to California' is a song that I really dislike.
Manu Chao
4/5
On one hand, the mishmash of languages and musical styles feels a bit like that yellow/sepia filter you see on American movies set in the Global South. On the other hand, I really like this, not because I'm some fucking hippie backpacker, but because this is a synthesis of a lot of the music I grew up listening to. Every song feels like a lullaby.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
2/5
Blues cosplay from the Brits. The musicians are proficient, the vocals are weak. Last track (Bernard Jenkins) was probably my favorite.
Don’t know why I’d ever listen to this instead of Muddy Waters. Guessing this is like music for musicians or something.
Fred Neil
2/5
I guess this sounded ahead of its time for 1966. Probably paved the way for a lot of the lame singer-songwriter stuff from the early 70s. There's also some meandering artsy tunes.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
4/5
Simply a slice of pure joy.
Gorillaz
4/5
FINALLY SOMEONE LET ME OUT OF MY CAGE TIME FOR ME IS NOTHIN CUS IM COUNTIN NO AGE NOW I COULDNT BE THERE NOW YOU SHOULDNT BE SCARED &c &c
Eric Clapton
1/5
Dumb California Album was recorded in 1974, two years before Clapton's Enoch Powell moment. It features a Bob Marley cover that never fails to infuriate me when I hear it in the wild. I was unfamiliar with the other songs before and after listening to them. They are cheap and disposable like the paper napkin and salt packet that come prepackaged with a set of plastic cutlery.
I don't buy the notion that this record helped popularize Jamaican music. This was after The Harder They Come. It was after Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da for goodness sake. And a music as brilliant and vital as reggae certainly would have found a global audience without his 'help'. One time Eric Clapton's son fell out of a window. I can't believe someone was willing to bear Eric Clapton's child.
Dolly Parton
2/5
I liked Dolly Parton's voice, of course. Didn't always care for the harmonies or the parts that sounded like Christian Contemporary pop. Not a bad album but it came at a bad time and I’m not here for it.
Eurythmics
3/5
Very 80s, but still very modern. Sounds like a lot of your vibes-based 21st century indie pop. Tracks 1, 6 and 7 are quite good. The energy lags at other times. It’s really cool, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart are super cool, and this is a decent album but not great.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
Good, but long. Ends with two of the best songs ever but it takes a while to get there.
U2
4/5
It's good, but not as good as I think U2 can be… more dance beats than guitar riffs. 'Mysterious Ways', which we already know and love, is the standout. 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses' may be the low point.
Spiritualized
3/5
First two tracks started off great. Then I kinda forgot I was listening to it. Pleasant though.
Van Morrison
5/5
He seems like a jerk IRL and also I imagine listening to this would suck if you didn't like his voice. I enjoy this; it's sublime, abstract, and repetitive. The random jazz song in the middle keeps you from falling in too deep. I listened to this like four times today.
Nas
3/5
Good beats, good flow, kind of grim and self-important. This did not cut through the haze of my depression.
Moby
4/5
The xx
4/5
I remember hearing a lot about this one at the time, but never checked it out. (For one thing, I thought their band name was kind of dumb.) I like music like this and if I'd heard this when it came out it would probably be like a 5 for me. But as a latecomer I can't help but compare it to a lot of other stuff from that era that sounds similar, so there was less impact.
Kid Rock
1/5
The worst tropes of rap music, without any of the self-awareness. This is an influential album and it belongs on this list because it reminds us why America sucks so much shit.
The Slits
4/5
Favorite tracks were... honestly most of it. The individual songs stand out, maybe because they’re shouted in your face. I quite liked 'FM' and 'Love Und Romance'. Good cover of 'Heard It Through The Grapevine' too. However, the album cover creeps me out.
The Stooges
4/5
Nick Drake
3/5
Expected this to be really grim and depressing, but it actually felt pretty warm and comfy.
Dr. Dre
3/5
Not as clever as NWA or Ice Cube, but this still aged surprisingly well. It helps that Snoop Dogg is such a charismatic personality. It was a nice bit of dumb fun and I needed some cheering up today.
Miriam Makeba
4/5
A weird experience! African folk music mixed with jazz, pop, and even calypso. Might not work for everyone, but I liked that it was all over the place.
Beastie Boys
3/5
There’s some funny samples but none of the big hits like Licensed To Ill. Everything kinda blurred together.
Funkadelic
3/5
Rush
3/5
Was complaining about YYZ and then I heard the opening riff from Limelight and I was like oh cool. Also good album cover pun.
Herbie Hancock
3/5
“That song doesn't usually last three hours, but we got into a serious thing.”
I don't listen to much jazz or funk music but this seemed pretty exemplary. Some serious musical talent at work here. The first track was probably my favorite. Kinda drifted off after that.
Buck Owens
3/5
Rough recording and sound quality. But I liked the writing; this felt like a collection of pop songs. The covers towards the end were goofy and unnecessary.
Minutemen
3/5
I liked quite a few parts, the sound, the playing, the vocals, but it didn't add up to the expected sum of its parts. Just didn't do it for me today. A long album, but the individual tracks went by too quickly; more sloganeering than songwriting.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
5/5
This to me sounds like an alternate route the Clash could have taken after Sandinista, an anachronistic mix of dub and folk. It’s a distinct and cohesive piece throughout, loose but complex. It aged well, perhaps because we still don’t have anything else that sounds like this, perhaps because it manages to add a beauty to a dreary malaise. (I love the production, which gives an almost tactile feeling to the instruments.) Favorite tracks were ‘History Song’ and ‘Three Changes’.
Joy Division
5/5
The Rolling Stones
4/5
The UK version of Aftermath leads off with 'Mother's Little Helper' and the US gets 'Paint It Black' instead. Idk why they wouldn't wanna include both, but 'Paint It Black' is a truly transcendent song and one of the best things they ever wrote, so I’m happy to have the US version here.
I like 'Under My Thumb' too - I see it as a parody of masculinity coming from self-aware songwriters, like the Beatles with 'Run For Your Life', and so I’m not terribly bothered by it. Also enjoyed 'I Am Waiting' which I don't remember ever hearing before.
I don't give the Rolling Stones a lot of love. It took them until 1966 to write a full album of their own songs. And even after listening to and enjoying Aftermath, I'm still going to probably put on a compilation like Hot Rocks if I want to hear these songs. But this was an impressive leap forward for them, and one of those moments where they came close to being as good as the Beatles.
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
This is an aesthetically cohesive album from a really lurid and inventive group. It's very stylized (the movie clips, the samples, the weird production) but still authentic. It's often absurd and messy and full of obscure references, like real life, and I think that's helped it age better than your more didactic political hip hop from the same era. Favorite tracks were 'Tearz' and 'Protect Ya Neck'.
Coldcut
2/5
I like the album cover and the dumb earworm from 'Stop This Crazy Thing'. Didn't like the vacuous peace/love chatter. I can't remember much else about it now; I listened to this for like an hour, but it didn't stick with me.
Nitin Sawhney
2/5
Another one I've never heard of before now. I enjoyed the South Asian elements. ‘Tides’ was good. ‘Homelands’ was good. The rap and r&b bits weren’t. This is a big-brain concept album with a pretty long runtime and that's not usually what I go for. As with the other instrumental/electronic albums on here, I’m sure there’s a lot for musicians to enjoy, but it’s not something that sticks with me as much.
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
Hadn’t listened to this whole album before. I liked Chicago, but had a strong adverse reaction to the Gacy song. Overall, liked the rock/pop stuff.
Beatles
5/5
More whimsical and fantastic than earlier Beatles albums. A lot of the songs feel like interesting, impressionist character sketches, but Revolver as a whole doesn't feel contrived or strained like a concept album might. This is a good combination of artsy and accessible, and all four of the Beatles really get a chance to shine. My only caveat might be to point out that the Taxman seems like an alright dude, and that I support a progressive income tax on the rich.
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
Nebraska is a slow and depressing album that I don't put on too often. Every time I do hear it I'm a bit older, and as I grow older the little details hit harder. I got the CD years ago because I liked 'Open All Night'. Listening to it a couple times through today, there wasn't a track I wanted to skip, and 'Reason To Believe' brought the whole thing together at the end.
Orbital
3/5
That was fun. Pleasant background music for the workday, bookended by two looped vocal tracks. Felt video gamey so I think I connected more than I did with the other electronic albums I’ve hard on here recently. Shoutout to my man Worf.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
My favorites going into this were ‘Farmer John’ and ‘Mansion On The Hill’. I don’t come back to the rest of the songs very often and was surprised to see it on the 1001 list today, but they’re all solid, the sort of music I enjoy. Never really thought of it as a masterpiece. Just Neil Young doing what he does best.
Lauryn Hill
3/5
Not really into 90s r&b, or her voice, or her lyrics. But I was in a pretty good mood when I listened to it, on a nice sunny afternoon, so it was alright.
Prince
3/5
The first two tracks were the best. 'Automatic' overstayed its welcome.
James Brown
4/5
The Rolling Stones
5/5
‘Let It Bleed’ and ‘You Got The Silver’ are strong tracks, and ‘Gimme Shelter’ is one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs. ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ is on another level; it sounds like nothing else in the world, and it feels quick and effortless even at seven minutes.
A high 4.something, but going with a 5 because this is way ahead of its time for 1969. The album title and cover are also great.
Sam Cooke
3/5
I love these songs, but I don’t know if a live record is the way to showcase them. Seems like his voice is a bit rougher than in the studio?
Nirvana
4/5
It’s got some good songs but not quite as many as Nevermind.
Dolly Parton
2/5
I mean this just really isn't my kind of music. But I hope you like it.
Sparks
4/5
This is a weird one! It’s shrill and artsy, but it’s also fundamentally pop music. Gonna rate this a 4 because these dudes are just plain fun, and because this is pretty far out for 1974. Also ‘Amateur Hour’ is a great song.
Suzanne Vega
5/5
It’s an odd singing voice but not an unpleasant one. I think I appreciated the unique delivery here. I also got drawn into the lyrics a lot more than I usually do. For something I was completely unfamiliar with before today, this really grabbed my attention.
ZZ Top
3/5
Liked this a lot more than the other ZZ Top album we got, 1983's 'Eliminator'. Fewer hits, but a better overall sound. Good production, I guess, but it also feels more earnest and emotional?
Enjoyed 'Master of Sparks', which has a nice spooky sound.
The Rolling Stones
5/5
Overall I liked it as much as Let It Bleed, so it feels like another 5. The back half doesn't have any big radio hits but it feels varied and interesting. 'Sister Morphine and 'Dead Flowers' have a more gloomy, artsy Velvet Underground sort of feel.
I know 'Brown Sugar' hasn't aged well but there's a lot of other music in the world that's way worse politically. 'Brown Sugar' seems rather innocuous or sophomoric and you can't take it too seriously. Also 'Wild Horses' just kind of says some things that I don't think any other song has said as well.
The Kinks
5/5
Super Furry Animals
4/5
Enjoyed this start to finish. Reminded me of something I would’ve been into back in 2000. Very fun and shouty.
The Verve
3/5
Was gonna be a four and then it kept on going. I like this heavy kind of sound, but I wish the songs were just a bit tighter and more varied.
Public Enemy
4/5
This was fun. Expected it to be overly grim and preachy, but they're too energetic to let that happen. 'She Watch Channel Zero' is a great piece of rap rock.
Johnny Cash
3/5
Not quite sure how to say this, but it’s a bit dissonant to hear in 2025 when the US government is disappearing people into overseas prisons. Everyone loves Johnny Cash, but that’s a problem because it means a lot of assholes also love Johnny Cash. Kinda brings the machismo, misogyny, and evangelical Christianity of these lyrics into sharper focus. Outlaw country, I guess.
Nick Drake
3/5
Chill vibes, not unpleasant, wispy and delicate. Reminds me of a not-as-good Belle And Sebastian tbh.
David Bowie
4/5
A lot like Ziggy Stardust. Solid throughout, but particularly liked the first and last tracks. Really nice cabaret sort of piano.
Drive-By Truckers
1/5
Some thought-provoking questions, but not really fun or enjoyable. It's like an awkward apology for 'Sweet Home Alabama', which is itself an awkward apology.
These guys seem like talented writers - maybe not talented songwriters, but talented... idk, polemicists I guess. So, why bother with this verbose, plodding double album? Why are Southerners so determined to defend the South?
In theory this is good, and I think the 4 and 5 star reviews on this site make some fair points. But I think a Ronnie Van Zandt concept album just isn’t for me.
Black Sabbath
3/5
I love hearing all the bluesy parts in early metal. ‘The Wizard’ is a fantastic song. I do think some of the longer jams lost my interest. But really looking forward to more Sabbath in this list!
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Really good first half, faded in the stretch. Still, a fun experience with a lot of attitude.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
I really like some of the songs on here, especially “Whole Lotta Love” and “Ramble On”, but they’re still just dumb songs about sex and Tolkien, yeah? If you’d have asked younger me, I would’ve said this was my favorite Zep album. But scrawny white guy blues didn’t age as well as their more artsy stuff.
Def Leppard
2/5
Has some pretty good songs. Has some pretty dumb songs. Not a big fan of 'Rock of Ages'. Not even the gleeben globen part at the beginning.
Barry Adamson
4/5
This was a difficult listen at first; the spoken word stuff makes it hard to get into. But I’m a fan of anachronistic film noir jazz, and as the album goes on the different weird experimental tracks interact and integrate with the central theme.
Highlights for me were the seven minute long dub piece ('Dirty Barry') and tracks 9 through 12. Especially Nick Cave’s voice.
Michael Kiwanuka
3/5
The song 'Hero' stood out to me. Nothing else really did unfortunately. Sounds nice though.
Frank Ocean
3/5
Long, slow, and pleasant sounding. I don't really like modern r&b but I liked his voice and his beats. This was a good album for a Sunday morning.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
Finally got an Elvis Costello album! I don't even think this is his best work but man it's still pretty much perfect. The rhythm section sounds good, the organ sounds good, and the lyrics/singing convey a sense of contempt and frustration that I don't think you usually get in pop music. He's good at capturing unpleasant conflicted emotions (and at suggesting connections between personal relationships and larger societal malaise) whereas most pop music still thinks that 'authentic' means ham-fisted and unsubtle.
(I think he gets an underserved reputation as an angry young man, or as the epitome of 70s/80s Britain, but these tunes are universal. There’s a great 2021 reworking of this album, Spanish Model, with Latin American artists, many of them women. It still works great. We’re all messy like this.)
Creedence Clearwater Revival
5/5
I love the kaleidoscopic lyrics and the driving beat. Just pure joy. This is children's music, and it happens to be the children's music I grew up with. I still get giddy whenever I hear the beginning of 'Lookin' Out My Back Door'.
Listening on my headphones, then moving onto some other favorites by them… I think 'Willy And The Poor Boys' might be the smarter CCR album but the sound isn't quite as rich. And 'Pendulum' feels a bit muffled and mushy. Idk, this might be their best sound.
Radiohead
3/5
Nice depressing guitar music. Not as pretentious or inaccessible as the fans/critics say, but it still feels very calculated. Not vulnerable. Like… like U2 for X-ennials?
I hadn’t heard ‘Let Down’ before but it stood out. ‘No Surprises’ is always good.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
1/5
Whiny "Folk" BS.
Dusty Springfield
4/5
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
Kinda mixed bag and I’m not a big fan of ‘Cinnamon Girl’ but that ten minute song at the end is pretty epic.
The Cult
2/5
I read the Wikipedia article and I was expecting like a Sisters of Mercy album, so I guess that’s kinda on me. Listened to some of their other songs after finishing this album, and the earlier stuff is definitely better.
Fiona Apple
4/5
I guess I like a gal with a deep voice and a piano. ‘Criminal’ is probably one of the weaker songs on here tbh.
Johnny Cash
3/5
The other Johnny Cash prison album on this list; we got At Folsom Prison (1968) earlier this month. He deserves a lot of credit for shining a light into America's prisons, and he has just a perfect grasp of what it means to be a prisoner as well as a performer. It's good music and he handles his band and the inmates so well.
(I’m uncomfortable with the outlaw folk hero archetype. At this point it’s been appropriated too often by vigilantes, mafiosi, and corrupt politicians.)
The film crew that caught Cash's ire (that middle finger picture) was from Granada Television, which made working class content for the industrial north of England. They were just trying their best, man.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
Well, I liked all of these songs, even (especially?) the weird thing at the beginning. Brilliant songwriter. Good enough to open for the Monkees.
The Cure
4/5
I really like the lyrics and the bass/drum sound.
Napalm Death
1/5
I can’t tell if the whole thing is a joke or not, and the people who like this kinda music scare me, so I’m not gonna ask them.
3/5
Good but with a few parts that dragged. Looking forward to more Blur!
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Leonard Cohen's body of work seems intimidating but I really enjoyed the lyrics. Highlights were 'Partisan' and 'Old Revolution'.
Eminem
3/5
An important document of the rage of young working class men, and I think that’s an important thing to look at. I was gonna rate this a 4 but I think that’s nostalgia talking, and the knowledge of what his career would evolve into. But this album is still pretty tryhard and ridiculous.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
Going into this, didn't know any songs on this except for the title track. Had a reasonably intact vinyl record that I got from idk where, listened while drinking a rum and coke and reading the liner notes. Comfy.
A couple of the tracks (6, 7) lose some steam. ‘Night’ was great. ‘Born To Run’ still feels like a jolt of electricity even though it’s the thousandth time I’ve heard it.
Slipknot
2/5
Technically proficient with 2000s era production and verbose but predictable lyrics. Loses a point because it reminded me of high school. Gains a point because I listened to this at my dumb dead end job in dumb dead end Iowa.
David Crosby
2/5
I like the Byrds, CSNY, and David Crosby as a person, but I don't understand why this particular item was on the list. It feels unambitious and unintentional.
The Beach Boys
1/5
The Beach Boys get political? Only it's several years too late, and has all the bite of a corporate training video. The songs are disjointed. The performances are goofy and amateurish like a school musical.
Björk
3/5
Pulp
4/5
'Common People' and 'Disco 2000' are tragic, beautiful, perfect songs. ‘Underwear’ was my favorite of the songs I hadn’t heard before.
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
3/5
Heavy, stressful lyrics, a bit of a chore to get through, but he seems well-meaning. The music was sometimes repetitive with some nice jazzy bits. Idk, feels like a 2.5, but rounding up because the politics he’s discussing are still relevant.
Arcade Fire
5/5
Welp, this album from 15 years ago feels pretty astute. The suburbs were an accessible version of the American dream, affordable because they were shoddy and mass-produced, brand new but already falling apart. And as the album anticipates, we're being sold an even cheaper fake dream online as the physical suburbs become unsustainable.
The music perfectly captures the feeling of summer in the Midwest. The layers of instruments feel humid and stultifying. A bit cloying even (e.g. the title track or 'Rococo') but with something dissonant lurking underneath.
I think the beauty is in how it tackles its subject matter as incisively as any punk band might, but there's still a gentleness and compassion for the people who grew up here. Children, basically, who can't escape.
Anyways yeah, it resonates me a lot. I can confirm that 'Sprawl II' has occasionally caused me to cry.
Supertramp
3/5
Looking through the track list on Wikipedia, I think I preferred the songs with 'Davies' on vocals over the 'Hodgson' songs. I liked the piano bit on the first track, some of the heavier riffs, and the long drawn-out ominous jam at the end of the album. The lyrics were weak and the whole thing had a West End musical kinda vibe.
Sex Pistols
5/5
Definitely a 5 for the historical value of the work. But honestly I really vibe with the nihilistic rage, and it’s quite catchy too.
David Bowie
3/5
This is fun and cool. Not orthodox funk/rnb but it’s neat hearing a very Bowie take on it. First and last tracks are the big hits; the middle feels less memorable.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
1/5
Was pleasantly drifting along, half-listening to the mediocre rock music, when he started talking about gonorrhea.
If you're going to to be edgy and confrontational, at least have the courage to commit to it, instead of couching it in adolescent humor.
The Velvet Underground
5/5
Rahul Dev Burman
3/5
One time I saw a Bollywood movie with some kids from Nepal and they just forwarded through the entire plot to get to the musical numbers. It was pretty cool. Then we watched Cannonball Run 2.
Iggy Pop
4/5
‘Passenger’ is really good obviously. I hadn’t listened to the whole album before but it’s pretty solid throughout. Good vocals and production. ‘Neighborhood Threat’ was a highlight too.
Nine Inch Nails
3/5
I can’t believe this came out in 1994! I strongly associate this with my high school years although I’m not sure why.
Tbh this is kind of a gross-feeling album, both lyrics and production, but he commits to it and has a clear artistic vision. To put it another way, he really Nine Inch Nailed the assignment.
Pere Ubu
4/5
Can’t quite articulate why, but the album has a real SpongeBob SquarePants kind of energy. Fav tracks: On The Surface, Caligari’s Mirror, and Ubu Dance Party. I like this, a lot, but while it does interesting things with structure and sound and language, it doesn't really grab me on an emotional level. I am really glad that punk as an artistic movement liberated a lot of people to start making experimental music.
Pere Ubu singer Dave Thomas, passed away in April of this year so I had been listening to this album and Modern Dance recently. If we had to sit through Brian Wilson's "genius" when he died, we should have got more Dave Thomas too. I really did consider a 5 for this one.
Simply Red
2/5
Bob Dylan
5/5
This does everything Highway 61 does, but with more warmth and humor; the gradual transition from rock album to the longer folk songs at the end works so well. I think I could listen to this every day and not get bored of it.
"Money doesn't talk, it swears" is a killer line. Like, this album basically invented lyrics.
Jack White
4/5
I like the White Stripes, and getting into Jack’s solo stuff, I think it’s just as good, and distinct. He’s a divisive and eccentric guy and I think his music’s rather aloof but that’s also helped it age better than the glut of blues-punk stuff that we heard on the radio back in the 2010s.
Like, remember that shitty Black Keys song (also 2012) that was in every commercial and TV show? (Remember Rob Schneider’s daughter’s music?) Jack White is kinda weird and pretentious but I’ll take that any day over some beardy millennial wannabe lumberjack.
Sade
3/5
I'm really not into that smooth jazzy style of music, and I didn't expect this to be good, but it is. Feels pretty fresh even today and I think it has a lot more going on than the last 80s British soul album we got on the list (Simply Red).
Don't know how often I'd sit through the whole thing (again, not my style) but there's a time and place for this. I think I liked 'Hang On To Your Love' most.
2/5
I guess this list is making me realize I harbor a degree of mistrust towards country music. People say the older stuff is supposed to be more real and authentic etc… but I’m just hearing self-pity and melodrama.
Public Image Ltd.
5/5
The bass and drum parts are so tight. I like dub music already but the added dissonance from the guitars/vocals makes everything more tense. I appreciated something that felt like my own anxiety and frustration. I suppose it's here because it's experimental and innovative, but I personally found it to be a gratifying experience.
I like Lydon’s voice and lyrics; he’s really expressive. He showed his catchy rock side with the Sex Pistols so I think it should be evident that there’s both an underlying musicianship here and an underlying anguish and alienation that led to this music. I also think it’s a clear step forward from the first PiL album.
Badly Drawn Boy
4/5
The tunes are pleasant and varied, an early 2000s record with nice elements of older pop music incorporated throughout. Goes well with the languid quality of his voice.
Favorite tracks: Shining, Stone On The Water, Disillusion, Say It Again.
CHIC
3/5
It’s good. Kinda repetitive but nice music if you’re dancing or working or cooking.
Nirvana
5/5
The Stranglers
4/5
So the drummer was almost 39 when this came out! That's kind of inspiring. Excellent new wave, seems Iggy or Roxy Music influenced.
The album cover looks like a Vampire: The Masquerade splatbook.
Marianne Faithfull
2/5
Oh wow I realllly don't like her voice, her delivery. The lyrics are intense, the arrangements good, but I can't get past the singing. The album cover is cool, she seems cool, I want to like this, I don't.
k.d. lang
4/5
My parents had her other album ‘All You Can Eat’ and about halfway through this I felt a rush of nostalgia from hearing her voice.
Good 90s alternative pop. The kids love chill vibes kinda music right? I feel like she should be a bigger household name to this day.
R.E.M.
5/5
Love the music, love the lyrics. Maybe their best album. Even ‘Everybody Hurts’ works here.
Nick Drake
3/5
This was our third Nick Drake album, maybe my favorite. Still, after listening through twice, none of the individual songs stuck with me. Like a 3.5.
Buffalo Springfield
4/5
The tracks cover a lot of different styles and voices. To me it sounds a lot like the Monkees, and yes I mean that as a compliment.
Favorite tracks: Mr. Soul, Expecting to Fly, Bluebird, Good Time Boy, Broken Arrow.
Black Sabbath
4/5
This is surprisingly catchy, it doesn’t feel edgy or tryhard, but more like pop/blues/folk music meandering down a dark alley, into a weird headspace. I found it easy to get into; good vocals and drums.
RIP Ozzy. I’m glad we could all take part in this together.
Bee Gees
3/5
Mixed album, not as bad as the reviews on this site indicate. 'Israel' is uh... it didn't age great. 'Lion In Winter' is quite good, maybe as good as 'To Love Somebody' or 'Gotta Get a Message to You' from their earlier albums.
I also like the album art. Very Monty Python energy.
Leonard Cohen
3/5
A rough listen, it’s difficult to hear his voice at this stage in his life, but there are some haunting moments in this album.
Pearl Jam
4/5
This is a big. epic sounding album. I wouldn’t have guessed it was their debut, let alone it came out before Nevermind!
I really vibed with ‘Why Go’, ‘Black’ and ‘Porch’ this time around.
Bon Jovi
3/5
shot through the heart
and you're to blame
my name is
my band's name
-bon jovi, probably
You gotta give it to them for writing a couple of classic rock anthems and then the very next track is a piece of hot garbage called 'Social Disease'.
If I had to pick, I would give a slight edge to 'You Give Love A Bad Name', which sounds like an Alice Cooper song. Lyrically, 'Living On A Prayer' tries to be Springsteen but ends up more like Billy Joel.
Dagmar Krause
4/5
I’m dismayed by how much this site seems to hate this album. It’s clear, interesting music, well-performed and well-produced. It was intended for popular consumption. I don’t think it’s objectionable. I believe everyone has an obligation to understand and engage with the past.
This is good art, it's clearly better than Kid Rock, it's clearly not a one, and I'm sorry if you need everything spoon-fed to you by the algorithmic hand of the Culture-Industrial Complex.
Spotify is an exploitative business with no regard for art. Its owner is a war profiteer. You can find this album on YouTube, or elsewhere with just a bit of effort.
Supergrass
4/5
We got the first Supergrass album already, so I feel like I would have checked this one out at some point anyways? There's also a lot of this sort of stuff on The List? Still a solid album. Feels creative in its choice of instruments and sound effects, dreamlike at times. Might prefer it to their first one actually!
I expected a lot worse based on the album cover.
Foo Fighters
4/5
Sounds like the Foo Fighters. Fav tracks were ‘Big Me’ and ‘For All The Cows’. An aggressive sound, but still a lot of warmth in it.
Thought this would be a three at first, maybe rating this higher for nostalgia and context, and because I like Dave Grohl. Great band name, great album cover.
Joan Armatrading
4/5
Joan Armatrading is one of those really cool British people I wish I knew more about! My parents had a compilation CD (Track Record) but it's nice to hear a full album of earlier stuff.
She's cited Astral Weeks as an influence and I can hear that on stuff like 'Love And Affection' and 'Somebody Who Loves You'. (I think it's reductive to only compare her to female singer/songwriters.)
The highlight for me was the last song, 'Tall In The Saddle', which was a good synthesis of the different folk and rock sounds on the album.
Dion
1/5
The production is weak and the songs are weak, and it seems like no one wanted this released. The experience was made more frustrating because I have such fondness for Dion's oldies hits.
Also I don’t like songs about New York.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
5/5
This would sound fresh and original if it came out ten years from now. The first track starts off strong, and everything feels unique but still perfectly placed and integral to the flow of the album.
The xx
3/5
We got their 2009 album earlier in this project, and I wondered if this one just doesn’t hit as hard because I’ve already heard them. But I do think their style has changed here. Couldn't get into the first part of the album but I like 'Replica' and especially 'Brave For You' from the second half.
George Harrison
5/5
Feels like a masterpiece, I think the length and scope of the album works in its favor. Like if you had one George Harrison album to sum up his identity, one album take with you and listen to again and again. Indeed, if you had one post-Beatle solo album, what else could it be?
Beck
4/5
What a good mellow batch of tunes. I think I’ve listened to this a lot, probably in college, and was kind of surprised just how comfy and familiar it felt. ‘Broken Drum’ has some pleasant half-baked vibes.
George Michael
3/5
Lewd with a lot of edgy religious references. ‘I Want Your Sex’ is pretty dumb.
There’s the title track, and then there are some other decent tracks towards the end. He’s a surprisingly talented musician.
Peter Gabriel
4/5
Kate Bush singing ‘jeux sans frontières’ is so good. Some of the songs are a bit long.
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
First time hearing this. Haunting, a bit slow at times. A good sound with good guitar work. Nice music for sitting in a dark room on a hot humid day.
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
Fun and lively!
Frank Zappa
1/5
I was hoping for something interesting. This is useless and repetitive. Sometimes this album sounds like a middle school orchestra playing tv show themes. Sometimes it comes across as a soulless humorless parody of funk music. Thanks for wasting my time, Frank.
After this I re-listened to a previous assignment ('Freak Out!' from 1966) and I definitely like it more.
Leftfield
3/5
This feels isolating, even alienating, but it also kind of shuts your brain down, in a not-unpleasant way. I expected to dislike this, but it made me think more about electronic music and overall it could have been worse.
Janet Jackson
2/5
Vocals on point. Lyrics not. Production not. Felt abrasive at times; probably shouldn’t have listened to this one on headphones. I liked ‘Escapade’, but not the heavy stuff.
Laibach
1/5
Turgid and macho, and they're dressed like doofuses, so it's probably a joke.
It’s 2025 though and the joke hits different now. If ever there was a time for Laibach to take the masks off… Those are masks, right?
Really weird album, but too tired to think on it much more. Yeah, I know that I gave a five to an actual Nazi (Kanye).
Beastie Boys
3/5
This one feels long and not always memorable. Probably a step ahead in terms of composition and arrangement. But I prefer the dumb samples of ‘Licensed To Ill’ even though that’s probably the worse album.
Fav tracks here were the first one and ‘Sabotage’. Wanted to give this 4 stars after watching the music video for Sabotage but I understand that’s not how this works.
Simon & Garfunkel
2/5
Earnest and sincere. Precocious in a middle class sorta way. I think I’m too edgy and jaded and insecure for this. Or to put it another way, the last song (Silent Night) made me laugh, but not as much as ‘Eve of Destruction’.
Cypress Hill
1/5
This was dumb.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Really liked the lyrics and haunting arrangements in ‘Village Ghetto Land’ and ‘Pastime Paradise’. Album as a whole is very long, but clearly a work of love and genius.
Syd Barrett
4/5
Very British, often rough, sometimes pleasant and bouncy. Feels like it's here on this list because of who he is, and the story of his mental issues. But taken on its own, it’s got a charm to it. I’d listen again.
Cocteau Twins
4/5
Pleasant. Oddly familiar. Comfy.
The Cure
5/5
Maybe it's enough to say it's very idiosyncratic, and he's a very strange dude, and somehow because of that it all fits together so well.
Gotan Project
4/5
Liked this more than I anticipated. Lively yet measured, good vibes. Didn’t feel like the sound bites and speech clips add much; it works best when there’s instrumental solos or conventional singing built over the repetitive parts. Fav tracks: ‘La Del Ruso’ and ‘Vuelvo Al Sur’.
Depeche Mode
5/5
Such a good 80s album. Such a good 90s album. I have roughly 800 albums left on this list and it's a shame none of them are going to be Violator by Depeche Mode.
Can
3/5
This feels incredibly modern for 1973! A good soundtrack for work this morning. It wanders at times, but the beats feel more solid and substantive than your average 70s rock band.
Eminem
3/5
Man he’s such an asshole but I really relate to how much he hates people. It's a troubling and intense ride. I can't really rate it higher but I do think it's an important and exemplary piece of art.
Coldplay
4/5
Oh yeah, Coldplay used to not suck! This is honestly just some nice pop music that doesn't try too hard. Still enormously influential. I couldn't ever see myself giving it a 1 or a 5, but rounding up for nostalgia.
Kanye West
5/5
Look, at this point he’s so crazy, so completely detached from reality, that it was honestly pretty easy for me to separate him from this absolute beast of an album.
Germs
4/5
Well, I like music that sounds like this, and this is a pretty generic half hour of it! The instruments sound better than I would have thought.
Tom Waits
4/5
Might be a 3 on another day but it hit today. Pretty intense stuff. Not for everyday consumption.
The Killers
5/5
"I'm so much older than I can take."
This came out when I was a senior in high school. I’m learning that I have a strong inclination towards nostalgia. I don’t think I would have regarded it so highly even then, but grandiose sentimentality ages well.
Neil Young
5/5
This is a perfect album. 'Harvest' is one of the most beautiful songs ever.
The Flaming Lips
3/5
Happy sounding music. The lyrics are dumb and a lot of the songs sound the same, but there are some pleasant musical flourishes. The two songs that were apparently released as singles were decent.
Fishbone
4/5
It’s like these guys wanted to make every style of music before the 90s bands could get to it. Still feels like a tight, efficient album. Rounding up my rating because this does something difficult and it does it well.
Neil Young
5/5
Kinda funny, we just Harvest (1972) three days ago, and so I'd been looking forward to this one.
After The Gold Rush feels like a more easy, solid listen throughout, even though I don't think any individual songs are as compelling as 'Harvest' or 'Heart of Gold'.
The social commentary songs on here are a bit more idiosyncratic, while the relationship songs are more straightforward…the reverse is probably true on Harvest.
Tracy Chapman
3/5
Got this over the weekend, grew on me with a second listen. I don’t think I like ‘Fast Car’, especially with the new life it’s taken on today. But I liked her voice and the calm atmosphere. Particularly on the first track and the last three.
The Smiths
5/5
Many years ago I was at a Cubs game and there were four or five hipsters sitting in the row of seats behind me. Before the game started I was eavesdropping on their conversation; they were complaining about a friend of theirs who was not present. I guess this friend would sing 'Girlfriend in a Coma' at karaoke on a weekly basis, and only ever that song, and it seemed like they were getting fed up. I think about this occasionally; I wonder if all those folks still hang out!
Anyways. Before this I've only ever listened to Smiths singles/compilations, but this album is really good.
N.W.A.
5/5
"Ah, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?"
Critics have accused them of macho posturing, but it's like yeah that's kind of the point. This is an angry album, and a funny album; there are plenty of individual lines and fragments that can make me laugh out loud just because of how they're delivered.
ICE: Let's run a train.
EASY: Man, I wouldn't touch that bitch.
ICE: ME NEITHER.
And if you're saying hey, anger and humor are defense mechanisms, yes you are correct. This album is self-aware and self-effacing. They switch between verse and prose like characters in Shakespeare. The rappers constantly address the producers, the act of recording, the fact that this is at its core a construct. (See: Dre on the ironic and metafictional ‘Express Yourself’.)
It’s a loud, dumb violent album, but it’s an act, a set of charismatic characters in a shared universe, *but* the act came from a place of genuine frustration and alienation. It's good stuff.
Mylo
2/5
Never heard of him. A bit videogamey. Tracks 6, 10, 11 were ok.
Grizzly Bear
3/5
There's a lot of music from 2009 that sounds like this, and if I'd heard it at the time I might've been really into it.
Willie Nelson
4/5
Solid country album. Nice use of older musical elements within.
Jefferson Airplane
5/5
More than just the big hits! Really liked ‘Today’!
Edit: went back the next day and upgraded this to 5 stars. Didn't feel like there were any particular weak spots in this album. (As a caveat, I didn't listen to the six bonus tracks in the reissue.)
The Divine Comedy
4/5
Reminds me of Jens Lekman and also Alan Partridge. I mostly know this guy as the writer of 'My Lovely Horse' so it was nice to hear him return to the equine motif. I like that he's the dude who writes horse songs. Someone’s gotta do it.
It’s the sort of album I'd grab a song from if I was making a mix CD for my wife and needed some levity amidst the more severe stuff. It’s cute in its absurdity, love songs that would only be sung as a little inside joke.
Ella Fitzgerald
1/5
Grating experience, not just because it’s long. It’s seriously really uneven and some songs are good but some are straight up dogshit, it doesn’t matter how good a singer she is.
The slow songs are generally stronger. ‘I’ve Got A Crush On You’ is one of my fav Gershwin compositions.
I stopped listening early, and I’m going to stop complaining even though I have more to say, because unlike this album I value your time.
Little Richard
4/5
Well, that was a fun one. Both rhythmic and bluesy.
4/5
The White Stripes
5/5
Probably their strongest album, also one of the first CDs I ever bought. Meg White is the best and I love her. Jack White is also the best.
The Undertones
4/5
Fun, my favorite track was ‘Get Over You’.
Beach House
4/5
Liked 'Zebra' and 'Walk In The Park' and '10 Mile Stereo'. Glad I finally listened to this one. I had a tough day but it was pretty soothing.
Antony and the Johnsons
1/5
Sorry, but I hated this.
Amy Winehouse
3/5
This isn’t a style of music I usually seek out, but the singing is lively and fun.
The Police
2/5
I liked the first side more, particularly ‘Mother’ and ‘Synchronicity II’. Side 2 felt like a warning about where Sting's solo career would lead. Also something about the production and vocals here that I didn't care for. I don't think I'd listen to the full album again. Really disliked 'Tea in the Sahara'.
JAY Z
3/5
Good samples, good production, I like the parts where you can tell Kanye is behind the wheel. 'Izzo' is iconic. Lyrically the album is pretty self-aggrandizing. But hey, it was 2001.
Overall I’ve enjoyed the rap on the 1001 list more than I would’ve thought.
Weather Report
2/5
Idk much about jazz so in my mind this basically sounds like an album of really long 70s tv show themes.
Will I finish this? Sure. Would I make this again? Probably not. Alright, see you tomorrow.
David Bowie
4/5
Had a lousy start to the day, so it was nice getting something good and moody and evocative. I love his lyrics/vocals on this, and I wish the instrumentals took up less of the run time. It is pretty good ambient music even though that's not my thing.
Hard to rate, ultimately a strong four point something. This is a good era but it's sandwiched between Station To Station Bowie and Let's Dance Bowie, which are my two favorite Bowies.
The Who
2/5
It’s heartwarming to hear them play classics like ‘I’m a Boy’ or ‘Magic Bus’ but idk what’s added by this being a live album. Also in between songs I couldn’t hear them or the crowd. So I listened again on headphones and found out it’s just like generic uncharismatic muttering. I like the Who but this doesn’t have the overt human presence that I want from a live recording.
Fela Kuti
4/5
This is a genre I quite like overall. I thought the first and last tracks were strongest.
The Dandy Warhols
4/5
Professional and poppy, but still a nice garage rock tone to it. This is certainly The Sort Of Music I Like! Especially the faster songs and the ones with an organ. Nothing groundbreaking, I've heard a lot of music like this before, but it's fun and pleasant.
Dead Kennedys
5/5
The cover of 'Viva Las Vegas' at the end is brilliant. They really didn't change much and they didn’t need to, turns out it's just a nightmarish song. This whole album rocks, it was a good choice for a day where the government is shut down and they’re literally tearing down the White House.
Blue Cheer
3/5
Blues metal, huh? Decent but kinda samey. It makes sense to include this for its historical value. Their cover of Parchman Farm is spooky and ominous.
Talking Heads
4/5
Great album, forgot how wonderful the first song is. Some of the other tracks drag, especially the last one, but this is a strong 4 or weak 5. My parents didn’t have this on CD (at least as I recall) so this one has always been less familiar to me.
David Bowie
5/5
Highlights: Mars, Kooks, Chamges, Pretty Things, Queen Bitch. Just too many strong songs not to be a 5. I like this folky singer/songwriter era Bowie!
The Icarus Line
3/5
This wasn’t as bad as I feared. It definitely sounds of its era, and the lead singer has that bored rockstar drawl. There’s a lot of alt rock that sounds like a lame version of this (e.g. Black Keys, Cage The Elephant) and people love that stuff. At least this goes hard.
The Modern Lovers
5/5
The first four songs are impeccable and use cool words like ‘astral’ and ‘arcane’. I liked all the other songs too and I feel like they were pretty distinct. This is a high 4.5ish album that I look forward to hearing again soon. Also I like really shrill organ music, ymmv.
XTC
5/5
I was unfamiliar with this album going in! I liked Grass, 1000 Umbrellas, Sacrificial Bonfire, Dear God. Again, this is one where I know what I like and I find myself getting more with each listen. High 4 low 5.
The Smiths
5/5
Good tense Saturday evening album. Good gloomy Sunday morning album. The band sounds so tight on this one.
‘Bigmouth’ is my favorite Smiths song and one of my favorite songs ever. (I love Morrissey's self-aware juxtaposition of his own sturm und drang with Joan of Arc's.)
Arcade Fire
4/5
A classic. Reminds me of freshman year of college. Kind of forgot about a couple of the songs but it’s got some bangers. I think Suburbs is probably a more cohesive album lyrically? ‘Neighborhood #2’ always kinda makes me laugh for some reason, like who the hell is Alexander.
Portishead
4/5
This is a good sound. It feels like a perfect album, maybe not perfect for me, but just a perfect MOOD, you know? This is one I've listened to several times when I'm not sure what to put on, and it's always enjoyable. The first track and 'Wandering Star' are the standouts to me.
Talking Heads
4/5
Oh man so this was one of the first CDs I ever bought; my parents’ collection didn’t have it. It isn’t my favorite Talking Heads album but it’s one I’ve listened to a lot. I think the first half is distinctly weaker, but everything between “No Compassion” and “Psycho Killer” is 5/5.
“No Compassion” is a particular favorite. Talking Heads in punk band mode, a really incisive song about performative outrage and self-pity.
The list seems to have a bias towards debut albums, and it’s weird to me they didn’t include Little Creatures or Speaking In Tongues. Ah well, this is still great. And it’s a really cool look at their early sound.
The The
3/5
Dang, this band is so good. I wish their name wasn’t so dumb.
Some of the songs on here are pretty long, but I liked this as an album, and ‘Heartland’ in particular.
AC/DC
3/5
Very good at making very dumb music. I wouldn’t have led with the title track—everything afterwards pales in comparison. "If You Want Blood (You Got It)" was the only other one that really stood out. But it’s decent hard rock and it doesn’t drag too long.
Norah Jones
3/5
Pleasant, well-made music, it feels a bit distant, not really rooted to a particular time or person.
Disliked the faux-country of ‘Lonestar’. Liked the use of the phrase ‘bag of bones’ in ‘Don’t Know Why’.
Paul McCartney and Wings
4/5
‘Jet’ always makes me think of Alan Partridge jumping on a bed and injuring himself.
‘Mrs. Vanderbilt’ was good.
Taylor Swift
1/5
Childish writing, bad metaphors, and an irritatingly smug delivery. Or maybe I’m just reading into the music with her backstory in mind because she’s made a career out of insisting that we do so.
She usually has a couple of catchy tunes on each album. I liked 'Long Story Short'. Compared to other Tay-Tay albums, this is probably somewhere in the middle. Even at its worst, this isn’t as bad as Reputation or Showgirl. However, she's an idiot and I can't stand her. Probably two stars but rounding down to one.
Elliott Smith
4/5
Wow. Really only knew of him as a tragic figure, didn't expect this to be so catchy. The songs are lively and bouncy, but still a haunting quality to them.
The Clash
5/5
Listened to the UK version again and it’s still solid, but would likely be a 4. However, I grew up with the 1979 US edition, and that’s the record I own, and that’s what I’m rating. 5 out of 5, the Only Band That Matters.
Adele
4/5
I remembers how cool this was when it came out! It’s (in my opinion) her best, a pop album that really showed us what pop music could potentially be. It was such a breath of fresh air in 2011. The hits are good, of course, but the rest is solid too.
Raekwon
4/5
It sounds like a Wu-Tang album, it’s got those eerie beats and grim raps. A bit long.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Sides two and three were the best. There is some good stuff on here but there's also a lot of filler. Torn between 3 and 4. Probably a 3 because I’m not gonna listen to it again anytime soon in order to decide.
Rod Stewart
2/5
I’ve never enjoyed Rod’s voice or his lyrics, so this is just kinda like my marmite or kryptonite or whatever. Also I have a sister named Maggie and I really don’t like the song Maggie May because I’d really rather not think about Rod Stewart boning some old lady named Maggie.
It manages to feel both skeevy and schmaltzy. It reminds me at times of Van Morrison, but I just prefer Van's style and delivery. The band does sound quite good here. There's some nice bits of traditional folk music, and some good guitar and mandolin playing.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
The first/last song is great; 'Thrasher' and 'Sedan Delivery' are strong too. The middle sounds very Neil-Young-y. Like, almost a parody. There are other Neil albums I would have put on the 1001 list instead of this one, but man that last track is just a cold, haunting, brutal masterpiece.
He also made another version of ‘Hey Hey, My My’ together with Devo; gotta say I enjoyed that too.
Air
3/5
Big Black
4/5
Musically this sounds like it came out today. Lyrically, well, it captures the endless frustration of being alive today.
Favorite songs: Passing Complexion, Strange Thing, Kerosene.
Sabu
2/5
“Oops! All Congas!”
Frank Black
5/5
This is really good. I like everything he does.