1001 Albums Summary

Dreadful. I get it, they're challenging the norms on what could be considered music. That's why there are only like four tracks on here that have any sort of rhythm or melody, and all of them suck. I find it hard to believe that anyone, including the "artists", could possibly enjoy this, so the 1-star review must be what they've been going for anyway. ... That was the review I had prepared after making it through the album. And yet, a day later, there is more to be said. Most albums so far didn't captivate me for much longer than their runtime. This one was different. I did thorough research on the band's background. I found a concerningly active subreddit and was shocked to realize at least several people spent actual money on their physical records. I regrettably listened to "20 Jazz Funk Greats", which is still terrible, but at least undoubtedly music for the most part. I really tried to understand why this is a thing. I still don't. I spent the rest of the day listening to Igorrr and Mr.Bungle and had a great time. Long story short, this is still obviously a 1/5, but it might be the most fascinating one out there.

I listened to it twice because I didn't really like it the first time at all. I am still puzzled by how overrated Bowie is. Sure there are a few great ideas in this album, but pretty much every song has something I hate. The vocals are either too quiet or too loud, melodies are dissonant to the point of his singing sounding out of tune, and most of the choruses are frankly just annoying, including Changes which might be one of my least favorite tracks on here. Maybe I need to get to a few different Bowie records to really get it, but what I'm hearing here is mostly just barely enjoyable. I'm sure I'm missing something here as the whole universe seems to disagree and this guy evidently influenced some of my favorite artists, and I will come back to this record sometime in the far future. Life on Mars and Song for Bob Dylan are actually pretty great.

This album was exactly what I was hoping to find in this project: Excellent music I would never have considered thoroughly listening to otherwise. I spend the last day discovering the Soul genre and countless fantastic artists I had heard of, but never actually listened to. Is this particular album one of the greatest of all time? I have no idea, but it certainly is pretty great, and I'll give it five stars just for getting me interested in this huge part of music history that I had'nt been too invested in before.

I just recently really got into Sam Cookes music, so that's a nice coincidence. I've avoided this album so far because I usually don't like live albums at all. This one however is outstanding. The crowd interaction is part of the performance as much as the music, rather than getting in the way, and everything works together flawlessly to create an incredible experience that really captures what a great time it must've been to be at the venue back then. I expect to come back to this album many times, and I'll give more live albums in general a chance as well.

Bohemian Rhapsody might be the single greatest song of all time, but the album? There are a few songs I'd rather skip every time, and most of the rest aren't particularly outstanding (that might be due to my high expectations in anticipation of the penultimate track though).

I have been holding off on this review for a few days. I love a good coincidence, and getting this album on Jan 7th, the day before the anniversary of its fateful release, led me to the decision to really take the time to dig deep into Bowie's discography for the next three days and give him a proper chance. Now, in the past I have not been a fan of Bowie at all. Something about most of his songs I inevitably came across irritated me. It's hard to pin down what exactly the issue was, but I had always been bewildered by his immense success and legacy. After listening to the Blackstar album the first time, I was tempted to leave it at a 2-star rating. Like much of his stuff it is full of dissonance and rhythmic incoherence, and frankly was a slog to get through. Clearly I am not into jazz. But I wouldn't leave it at that. I can respect a swan song, and after spending a full day familiarizing myself with Bowies progression throughout his many studio albums, while listening to the title track again, staring up into a black winter night sky, it started to click. You can't have that sort of versatility without a bit of weirdness. His music is pretty much hit or miss for me, but I've been focusing on the frustration of the misses so much that I overlooked the greatness of the hits. Now, how to rate this album in particular? I can't think of many occasions in which the title track would be enjoyable, but for what it is it is brilliant and I wouldn't want it any other way. Lazarus and Dollar Days are fantastic, as is the drumming throughout the entire album, and the closing track is pretty good albeit a bit long. The issue is that I honestly still can't stand the remaining three songs. Now, normally I'd never consider a 4-star rating for an album with 3/7 somewhat unbearable songs. But if I have been unreasonably harsh to Hunky Dory, which I learned to thoroughly appreciate over the past three days, I can be generous here. I found some fantastic music because while this album might be irritating, it is above all interesting. Maybe Bowie will be my gateway into jazz, who knows. If you read this far, thank you for your time. This turned out longer than I anticipated. I'm not sure if this text is going to be helpful for others, I mostly wrote this for myself to look back upon years later. If I had to give some advice, I guess if you're on the fence about this album, consider giving it another listen. So far I've found something new to appreciate everytime I did. Today is January 10th, and I'm excited about where my musical journey will lead me next. I'm sure there's a lot more to discover. Rest in peace, Starman.

I haven't really found the time to write full reviews lately, but this one pisses me off so much that I just have to vent. My expectations were low, but man, what a fucking disappointment that was. Like a huge monument to mediocrity, and a bad attempt even at that. The last time I heard vocals so disconnected from any sort of musicality was at a middle school slam poetry event, and that guy still did better than whatever this album is supposed to be. The only redeeming factor is that it is just 35 minutes long, although it sure does feel way longer than that. From now on I'll stay far away from bands describing themselves as "a beautiful mess" of three of my least favorite genres.

Now, a 3-star rating looks pretty boring. And usually, the albums I end up giving this rating to are boring indeed. Easy and decently pleasant to listen to, but ultimately rather uneventful and forgettable. This one however is the exact opposite of that, so I feel obliged to add some further context. For the longest time I'd have claimed that I despised a capella music. This genre that refused to make use of the vast variety of beautiful instruments at our disposal, to instead vocalize a caricature of what could have been a plethora of more melodious, more beautiful sounds. I still didn't really like it here, and most of these songs would be more enjoyable if they had richer instrumentals. But it certainly was one of the most interesting and memorable albums I've encountered on this list so far, and it expanded my understanding of what can be done with basically just vocals alone. That being said, most of these songs were fairly egregious to listen to, and I won't revisit those again; however, some of them were actually really nice. I can't rate this much higher because I probably wouldn't want to listen to this album again, but I won't rate it any lower because I sure am glad that I listened to it once.

I have nothing to add that hasn't been said already. Subjectively, this might very well be the greatest album ever made, and it deserves all the praise it gets.

No.

This was surprisingly enjoyable despite me generally not being into Hip Hop at all. Definitely worth keeping this one in mind.

This is the first album on this list that I haven't fully listened to before giving my rating, and I don't intend to catch up later. 20 Songs in it is pretty clear what this is going to be: An excruciatingly long collection of fairly bad drafts. Not nice.

Absolutely fantastic. If pop was consistently this good I'd actually listen to the radio from time to time.

Yeah, the lyrics suck, but I'm not gonna pretend like I'd usually care a lot about lyrics. This is some fantastic guitar work.

That was surprisingly fun!

Just when I thought I was completely done with Jazz for good, this record comes along and gives me hope again. It's pretty great for what it is. I'd still prefer to listen to almost any other genre, but I didn't have a bad time with this at all.

I might've rated this a lot higher without the pointless, repetitive spoken word vocals

I think this was noticeably better than Kid A

Not sure if I just have a good day, if I'm finally warming up to Bowie or if this one really just works much better for me than the albums I've heard so far, but this is genuinely great.

As someone who doesn't care a lot about hip-hop pretty much all I know about this guy is that he either is an actual fucking nazi, or thinks it's cool to adopt a nazi image for shock value, but also makes the best music in the genre by miles and people generally hate to love him. After listening to this album, I sort of get it? This is fantastically produced and sure might be as good as hip-hop gets, and if I enjoyed this sort of thing more it'd have to be an easy 5. But alas, it still just isn't my cup of tea, so I don't even have to worry about separating the art from the artist when I give this idiot a low score.

This guy is clearly an incredibly talented pianist, however, if I had attended that concert, I certainly would've fallen asleep.

Another album in the category "kinda cool and memorable, but also kinda shit, so it gets a boring-looking 3-star rating even though it's actually really interesting"

This is some fantastic background music. Unfortunately background music is not what I'm looking for here.

This might be the most metal hip hop album, as far as that makes sense, and much of Eminems work is a worthwile and interesting experience even for me, someone who generally isn't into that genre at all. But yeah, all the misogyny and homophobia didn't just not age well, but was pretty off-putting from the start. Still, I gotta respect the legacy of this album.

Rest in peace, Ozzy. I've been holding off on this review for a while. This particular album was not among my very favorite Black Sabbath records. Still, I have come to rediscover and appreciate Changes and Supernaut in particular, but really this whole album over the last week while celebrating the life of Ozzy and reminiscing about his legacy, with countless bands honoring him during their performances around the world and across a multitude of genres. In the words of Tobias Forge: For being the Prince of Darkness, he sure gave us a lot of light.

I didn't care for most of this at all, but the Broken Hands solo is a fantastic discovery, so I can be generous with the score.

Very interesting and cool discovery

How do I just now find out about this guy? This is fantastic stuff!

Turns out instrumental soul is a bit like cheeseless pizza. Tasty enough, sure, but it's a shame the best ingredient is missing.

This album made me really appreciate silence.

I really wanted this one to be a five star album. Turns out I only really love the better half of it, and the worst tracks are irritatingly bad. I have no idea why they thought any of these stupid lyrics could've improved those fantastic instrumentals. If this one doesn't do it, there might not be a single five-star electronic album on this list for me. It is what it is.

Are you all insane? This is barely music.

Started out really fun, but became a bit stale during the second half.

I'm generally not really into rap, but this is some great stuff.

I'm generally not really into rap, but this is some great stuff.

This is pretty tolerable if you don't pay attention to the lyrics. Unfortunately the lyrics generally are all hip hop music has going for it, so here we are.

Stopped listening at Backseat Freestyle. Hope I'm done with all the fucking rap shit on this list soon.

I have absolutely no idea what about this works so well for me, but anything other than a 5 star rating feels wrong.

Never would've thought I'd start to appreciate disco R&B via this project.

I love this album and wanted it to deserve 5 stars, but Moonchild being 12 minutes of nothingness is rough, and I cannot grant an album 5 stars if I prefer to skip almost 30% of it, can I?

I got this back to back with Physical Graffiti and I imagined it might not live up to it, but it did, and while III isn't my favorite Zeppelin album, I can still confidently grant it 5 stars. What a great weekend!

At first I thought I might finally warm up to the Beatles, but then the second half was pretty irritiating.

What a bummer for this to be my album #300. I guess Jazz just doesn't work for me. And that's okay. I endured 30 minutes of this and won't force myself through the rest of it.

This had a couple pleasant tunes, but also many really lame ones.

I gotta admit this was fairly tolerable for a Radiohead album.

I never would've imagined I'd like this half as much as I did. This is what this project is for!

This was nice to listen to, but not quite memorable enough to be considered above average.

This was a lot more tolerable than I expected and actually interesting at some moments, though my expectations were low at this point. It might indeed be their best album.

Unexpectedly enjoyable. Another reviewer likened these vocals to a guitar solo, and that might be part of why this appeals to me. Glad to have discovered this today.

This wasn't completely terrible, but I have to deduct a full rating point for what they did to Comfortably Numb.

This is my album #365, so I'll take a moment to think back on my experience with this project over the past year. Feel free to skip this review if you're reading this because of this album specifically. It's alright, but I have nothing interesting to say about it. I don't need to write about the greatness of the iconic albums I already knew and loved, like the ones of Hendrix or Pink Floyd, or about the mediocrity of the seemingly countless irrelevant indie rock or britpop bands on this list. Instead, I'd like to focus on a couple unexpectedly great discoveries. I had no idea I'd end up enjoying soul music as much as I am now, but getting the fantastic Otis Blue and Sam Cooke Live at Harlem Square almost back to back certainly shaped a particular fascination with the genre. Five-star discoveries I somehow had no idea existed despite being familiar with the genre include Peter Frampton, Muddy Waters and The Mars Volta. I did however find some gems even in genres I would've expected not to care about, like Willie Nelson in Country or Adele and Alanis Morissette in Pop. Of course I knew about the latter ones through their hits, but I had no idea how consistently good 21 and Jagged Little Pill were. I was also delighted to be introduced to some fantastic non-western music through Miriam Makeba, Fela Kuti and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. As unterrepresented as these styles might be on this list, as exquisite are the specific choices that did make the cut. Two artists worth mentioning in particular are David Bowie and Radiohead, because both are artists I didn't care much about based on my limited prior knowledge, and of which I got to rate five albums each already. While my issues with Radioheads vocals remain, I have to concede that there are some inspiring ideas in their instrumentals, though not enough for me to regularly listen to them again. Bowie however has really grown on me, and while the wide array of rating options I marked his albums with sure is a testament to his often praised versatility, I think I've been too harsh at the start, or more precisely, perhaps I didn't quite "get it" back then. All things considered, this was well worth sitting through hours of forgettable indie-pop and half-cooked electronica, and I can't wait to see what I'll discover in the year to come.

I have avoided Coldplay all my life because I've been told they are like a worse Radiohead. While I see the comparison here I am consistently enjoying their songs. It's nothing groundbreaking, sure, but I'll happily return to this if I need some non-distracting background music.

Man in the Mirror and Smooth Criminal may have that nostalgia factor, but other than that the album was, while not literally bad, at least uneventful.

unexpectedly blues-y

This was all over the place and thus necessarily hit-and-miss. I do respect the boldness of exploring so many ideas instead of settling for one clear concept, though.