Can be a difficult listen at times, but always loved the way the guitar and especially bass sound - very unique - Jah Wobbles dub sound and Lydon's force of personality makes this stand out amongt the post-punk pile for me.
The last Bjork album that I really engaged with - beautiful instrumentation, this is almost chamber music - and feels a little like Music to Hibernate To. Amazed the earlier Homogenic didn't appear make the cut though - that is one of the albums of the 90s for me.
Won me over
A bona fide Classic, and even better than I remember. I'm still rating it slightly below the funkier 1999 and Sign Of The Times, despite their slight double album gloat, but together with Parade and Around the World in a Day makes a 5 album Run '82-87 hasn't been bettered since in my opinion -combining artistic impression, technical merit, commercial appeal .
Big beefy production
Extra star for the 3 McCabe/Mrs Miller songs. They work great in that film, but less so for general listening.
Ouch, that production, those covers..
Zombie on Halloween!!!
Maverick genius
One of my fav breakup albums AND one my fav girl-pop albums
This album slaps in a great way
First and foremost, great tits on the cover. Was a little too heavy for me as an 18 year old, but not now. Definitely one of my fav album productions, the drum sound is incredible.
Very MTV era vibes
Surprised this one made the Cut - but I like it. Not quite Blackstar levels - that one can hang with the best of his 70s albums while this one falls a little short -but together they definitely form a late career Renaissance.
Really not into the 1970s California sound and production - and this Band is probably the epitome of that era...
80s hip hop is a bit like rock n roll 55-64ish - neccessary, but dated
Love this. Musically very strong, lyrically brilliant in places (Missing Pieces, Blunderbuss, On and On and On)..
Musically very good, thematically ahead of it's time. However I never did and still can't connect with Yorke's vocals/singing style which is why I think I never quite connected with this band. Gave it a few listens, and it get's stronger towards the end for me, last 3 songs are very good.
Love Kim's backing vocals on this one, and all the Spanglish..
Fantastic production. Dre is definately a better producer than rapper, but Snoog more than makes up for it on this one!
Having really enjoyed the earlier Deep Purple selectiom, was Wondering if I was really a closet heavy Metal fan. However, I engaged with this one much less...
Edges a 4 as this hits many of my reference points, but it isn't anything LCD weren't doing bigger better and bolder at the same time.
Incredible album, given the context - and one that can hang with his 70s works. I think this is the only album that's made me cry.
I don't *quite* hold this in the same gilded esteem as 25 years ago - it's a little over produced and some of the sentiment is a little cloying..however it still has enough quality for 5 stars as a bona fide Classic of its genre..
1st half I thought the arrangements were terrible..all those horns going to 11..ouch my ears. 2nd half was..slightly..better
Enjoyable! Their later stuff sounds even better but this eases to a 4
Surprised this was imcluded, think they have a big drop off after 1st 2 albums. I did attend a listening Party for this though, back in the day. A couple of bangers, but overall a little too mid, too plodding..
Not a huge fan of Glam Rock - but more than enough quality here to transcend the genre and ease to 5*
Nice mini diversion into Blaxploitation by Curtis. Used to play Pusherman on repeat back in the day. Crisp, clear production throughout. May be my favorite original soundtrack album, but will ponder this one further...
Liked this one much more than I was expecting. I thought it's surprising more exotic influences were it's strong points. Good to get a festive song in there also - there probably aren't *too* many albums in this list with Xmas songs on..
Bjorks work post Vespertine has been largely off my radar. Gave this a couple of listens. Musically I am rating this a 3 but an extra star for the raw emotion on display here....
Blistering debut. Caught a moment in time. A Certain Romance one of the all time great closers.
I remember running home with the CD with excitement when this came out but being left underwhelmed by it. Really I should be loving this - Moog-y and Space-y - but I still feel the same about it - I don't think the Autotune-y treatment of the Vocals helps...
Wasn't into the earlier (later) album from LV but I thought this was top drawer
Top-tier production, really works with these songs
Love how this sounds
Amazing 4 song Run from North American Scum through Us vs. Them (that bassline!) with All My Friends the highlight - although the rest of the album is also more than strong enough to ease this to a 5...
Something of a tough listen but grew on me a little towards the end...even liked one of the songs (Ubu dance party) in "almost* it's entirety..
Was expecting something a little different, and maybe a little more. Sounds surprisingly Soundgarden-esque stoner rock with only flashes of the Desert Rock sound I was really looking for...
Can be a difficult listen at times, but always loved the way the guitar and especially bass sound - very unique - Jah Wobbles dub sound and Lydon's force of personality makes this stand out amongt the post-punk pile for me.
Good stuff and seminal title track. Although after almost 10 years across two Bands I think the P-Funk sound was starting to Run out of a little bit of steam by this point.
Relentless, but also monotonous.
Very Zeit-geistys (Thatcher's London). At the time of this release I think the PSBs were my favs. Still holds up well with 3 or 4 absolute bangers.
Really enjoyed this, against all the odds this just works for me - another surprisingly effective combination of punk and dub...
Great listen, and a huge surprise given my infamous antipathy towards 70s West Coast sound. But the production, especially the handling of the backing vocals is top drawer here, and the psychedelic tinges and even gospel vibes means this one soars for me.
Beautiful arrangements and creamy vocals. However mainly covers and short Run length means this falls a little short of 5*...
Pretty good stuff, although I do find it a little over produced and sheened - definately prefer his slightly rawer, jazzier albums such as Like Water for Chocolate..
Ahhh Joni...I always thought Emma Thompson was so ungrateful in Love Actually when your husband bought you one of your CDs for Christmas and your husband's secretary only ended up with just a meagre necklace.
Love how this sounds...both raw and raucous
Re-listened to Forever Changes before this - that's good, albeit maybe slightly overrated. But this..much less so. Was heading for 1* but somehow, someway, I connected a little with the side-long last song that I had been dreading..
Not sure I had ever heard a White Stripes song other than Seven Nation before! Huge fan of solo Blunderbuss though, and off the back off that was maybe expecting to like this perhaps a little more - but seems a little more Lep-Zep-y-derivative. Still pretty strong, but doesn't have me plunging and plundering the rest of their catalogue like I half expected it would..
Slightly better than expected for a double album rock opera. Riff-tastic in parts.
I liked the cover. Thought the music was OK. 30 albums in 25 years! Prolific if nothing else.
Enjoyed this quite a bit more than the previous Cohen selection - Leonard must be growing on me..
Liked this, hearing the Monk influence. Am I giving an extra star because I discovered he is Jean Grae's dad, and he raised her at the NY Chelsea Hotel? Probably...
Enjoyed this a little more than expected, found my head bobbing along at times. Defy anyone to not sing along with the More Than a Feeling chorus when more than two beers deep...
Enjoyed this more than the earlier Black Sabbath which probably to be expected since I think this is their most well known? Loved the title track but I prefer Cardigans cover of IronMan to the original.
Almost the very definition of mid. Not sure about including 4 SD albums on this list although the snippets I heard from other albums suggests something a little better May lie ahead. Expecting more from a Band named after a Dildo in a Burroughs book, though...
1st time listener! Would have bet my house this was Albini produced but apparantly not.. Not my genre but obviously extremely strong, with a Behemoth side 1 Was also a huge cultural juggernaut..think I went back to Uni for my 2nd year about a week or two after this, or at least Teen Spirit had been released, and it felt like a different World, and not one I entirely recognized...
Loved their 1st album - that had an almost goofiness that I loved that this lacks - and their 3rd is very good too. I don't this one quite hits those heights - despite having a couple of their bigger hits - but like some of the reference points - especially the Secret Machines esque drumming. Not one I am likely to return to, but did get me returning to their 1st/discovering their 3rd so I think worthy of 4*...
Surprisingly charming in parts, maybe reflecting the one man nature of this album, and the circumstances in which he made it.
Album I owned, but rarely played and even less so all the way through. Listening now though, it holds up pretty well. Took a belated deep dive into the 'Head after OKC was an earlier choice here. Following that, I find myself avoiding the whole Bends/OKC vs. KidA/Amnesia debate by zeroing in on what I consider the later, superior, In Rainbows/Moon Shaped Pool. This is good though - but I consider Talk Show Host the best of their 90s work which probably points heavily to their later stuff.
Great surprise! I was expecting a crawl through sludge similar to Metallica/Megadeath but I found this much more sonically varied and lyrically interesting. Highpoint was the Santana-Jingo riff giving way to Lydon era PiL crooning in Know. Artsakh Armenia!
Grew on me somewhat, but still way to muso-noodly for my tastes. Not even *that* much of a fan of Layla tbh..except the piano segment, which apparently was at least part Rita Coolidge anyway...
The last of Beck's top tier albums for me -although instead of swinging wildly and succesfully between genres until this point, it comes across as Odelay's more mature older brother. Love the Mexican/Baja California feel and sound of this, also some of the songs reminds me a little of Cooder's Chicken Skin Music.
Was a 3* album from the opening bars, and held it throughout. Which isn't meant as a compliment. Inoffensive, instantly forgettable.
Not heard most of this before. Wow, really beautiful throughout. Usurps Bjork as my fav MTV Unplugged.
I thought this was pretty ambitious and experimental sonically. Thought about a 3 but I tend to reserve that Rating for albums I am indifferent about, which this definately wasn't. So, 2 or 4..given this had me checking out her later (superior imho) albums it has to be the latter. Also, I am no identity-politiker but after a ridiculous Run of 10+ albums by I think exclusively white rockers, this was a refreshing change...
Still holds up really well, unlike many of my 90s favs at the.time. Love Topley-Bird's vocals throughout, the the beats and production are great. Good to get a Cheltenham/Bristol double header the last two days...
Sublime keyboards and synths. Comes across as a very LA album, all shine and surface sheen. RnB isnt my genre but this transcends the boundaries.
Iconic title track but the rest is far from essential
This was quite the beguiling slice of neo-Tropicalia which despite my love for the genre had previously passed my radar. Also love some of the references, nods to de Andrade's Manifesto Antropófago in particular....
Nice trip down memory lane..this is the 1st album I can remember liking due to my older brothers *then* good taste in music. Still holds up pretty well.
Pretty tough listen! If Vulva from Spaced recorded an album I'd imagine it sounding a little like this .. That said, there were one or two more ambient, Krautrock-y songs around the middle I actually enjoyed, in particular AB/7A which sounds like it may have been an influence on Manuel Gottsching's E2:E4.
Scintillating stuff, one of my fav albums from the last 15(!) years and probably my no.1 concept double album...Metropolis meets Afrofuturism with nice nods to Philip K. Dick throughout .
Dylan's Blonde on Blonde was my 1st album here and it did spark a major re-appraisal of him by myself. I don't think this is *quite* top tier throughout but there are more than enough glimpses - Girl from the North Country is a fav even though I prefer the Secret Machines version of it...! It's pretty great for a 21 year old - as far as the 60s song writing goes I think he pretty much catapulted himself to the top of the pile with this and would stay there for another 2-3 years. Iconic cover, too...
Musically probably only a 3 for me - but hard to overstate its cultural impact as the figureheard of punk - so probably a 5 from that angkè. So splittimg the difference with a 4 here..
Prog rock not really my genre, particularly when as uninspiring as from Messrs. Gabriel, Collins, Rutherford. I did like *some* moments. That said, why stop at a 90 minute double? I felt that with just a few longer/additional songs there was a potential triple album lurking here....;)
No comment
I didn't listen to the 3hr 15mins Ella sings the Gershwin songbook. Instead I listened to the earlier, 25 minute Ella sings Gershwin. Love the way Ella sings a song, but less keen on the Gershwin songs (more of a Cole Porter man) so settling on 3 stars here..
3rd REM album but I am still not really buying what they are throwing down. I actually like a couple of their apparantly post peak albums - Monster and Up - but just not engaging with this earlier folky Rock sound..
The last Bjork album that I really engaged with - beautiful instrumentation, this is almost chamber music - and feels a little like Music to Hibernate To. Amazed the earlier Homogenic didn't appear make the cut though - that is one of the albums of the 90s for me.
Was this the Dylan goes electric moment of our Generation :) I actually like parts of this album, it hits some of my reference points, although compared to much other electronica (yesterdays Bjork album for example, or Radiohead own later Moon Shaped Pool) this sounds a little cold, austere, glacial for my tastes. Although glancing at the cover, I do understand this was probably intentional ;)
5 Byrds albums on this list apparently which seems a little...de trop. Probably too many covers on this one, and naming your album after someone else's song does seem to be taking liberties..great version though! The rest is OK I s'pose but giving an extra star or two here as out of all 1,001 albums this is probably the only one to name-drop my home town.
Love the way Frank sings a song.
Love the atmosphere on this one - big, heavy, almost Industrial slabs of synth - but other great little moments too - the strings midway through Sweetest Perfection, the Meddle-esque bass on Clean - and don't get me started on Personal Jesus..
I'd like to say heavily dated, but surely this was never good? Doesn't even have the banger that is Temptation to salvage a second star from this shipwreck of an album...
Love an album with a great opening riff and Rock n Roll Star more than delivers. Overall, enjoyed it more than their debut. I boosted that one to 4 stars because of the song about Merthyr - this one gets there without any artificial stimulus.
Classic, straight down yer pipe, Southern Rock. Which, I am finding, I enjoy more than its West Coast California equivalent.
Decent but Dionne sings the Bacharach songs better
To misquote Godard, it turns out "All you need to make an album is a quiff and a quill" - and now realizing I enjoy Moz's music much more without the accompaniment of Marr's jingle jangles...
Some good piano ballads, unsurprisingly, but didn't really grab or move me beyond the first song or two..
Blistering new-wave post-punk rock-pop-disco
A 70s Prog Rock album inspired by Ayn Rand sci-fi..what could go wrong? I suppose it was somewhat interesting to hear the influence of Zeb and Deep Purple from their albums I had heard earlier in the list - although I wasn't really into where they went with them.
Pretty good in parts, definately leant more into the parts of 70s Prog I find more palatable, particularly Floyd.
Good stuff - but I have definately gone volte-face on the Mondays over the years and of their first 3 albums this is the one I return to by far the least - preferring the almost post-funk of their earlier work. Something about the Oakie production is a little too well polished and clean for me. A great run on songs at the start of both "sides" however even though the Kongos Step On version remains superior.
Apparantly this was released a week before I left the UK. There exists a parallel universe where I hear this album the day before my flight, fall in love with it's Ballard n Burroughs reference points and instead decide to stay and become the No.1 fan of their self-monikored "New Rave" scene, having it large at the NME New Rave Revolution Tour with the Klaxons, SHITDISCO and Datarock. Except..it's terrible....this feels and sounds like the last stand for Indie Rock Bands, a mix of all the worst parts of all those that went before - how the f*ck it won the Mercury that year (vs. Back to Black amongst others!) will remains a mystery, they must have had serious Kompromat on the judges!!
This page has been handing out alot of positive Band names this week...Yes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, even the Happy Mondays. I'm still not really buying what these mid-late-00ies Indie Bands are throwing down, though...
Still sounds good, likely harder in parts than almost anything else around at the time. Good production, the drums in particular sound fantastic.
I really liked the title track on re-listening - I think it's greater length vs. The other songs gave it an almost Fela-like groove. The rest didn't really move me in the same way, but was above average so handing out 4* here..
The Reverse of the Marley album - failed to engage with the two longer tracks but loved the shorter ones - Can You Get To That is an absolute beast of a song..
This shimmers and soars. 1st half or so in particular is amazing. A couple of things that listening to all these albums has cemented - psychedelic soul may be my favo(u)rite (sub?) genre - and I am somewhat belatedly reappraising the 2010s as a monster of a music decade...
Pretty interesting, sample heavy...obviously.... Absolutely loved What Does Your Soul Look Like, 4. Much of the rest was cinematic, atmospheric. Been a bit of a vintage week in 1001 World. I suspect this one will have me diving into the 90 SF/Bay Area underground hip hop albums/scene this weekend, instead of playing the next up Neil Young..
More enjoyable than I was anticipating..obvious and interesting influence on Grunge in some songs, despite that not happening much later, plus some other things like Flaming Lips. Still somewhat on the fence re 3 or 4 stars but the incredible retrofuturist ont for "Neil Young and Crazy Horse" on the cover pushed me over the edge for the latter...
Some nice little dittys but not that interesting overall. Mad that there was only 2 years between this and Rubber Soul. The cover of a Money is good but the Secret Machines version is better (sponsored post). Overall, and unlike almost all their other 33s, lacks a big single or two.
I used to think this the weakest of Spacemen 3s 3 latter albums but completely changes my mind - although Perfect Prescription may be conceptually more interesting I think the mix here of melodic, almost tender songs and a couple of longer heavier ones gives this the edge. Always had a preference for Sonic Booms songs over Jasons and I think that still holds true for me.
Definately a little over blown, produced and wrought.. More than a little reminiscent of Diamond Dogs (starting instead of ending on a chant...) but lacking the songs. Undeniably has some moments though..
Completely bizarre album! Part post punk avant garde but then mixed together with a huge country influence. End result isn't really something I am into although I thought it did pick up towards the end..
Pretty formulaic, but a pretty good formula. Good drums throughout, liked the album intro via the Baba keys. Prefer the slightly less bombastic Quadrophenia overall but I think this still stands up as a good straightforward 70s Rock Record.
Interesting album overall - some clear Eno-ish "World Music" and Bowie-esque Art Rock influences although I thought they were a little muted underneath the 80s production. Sledgehammer full length here is amazing - probably one of the most defining songs of the 80s.. Suspect I will appreciate his earlier solo stuff even more, but probably not *quite* intrigued enough to check them out and will wait their arrival in this list in due course...