Thought I'd scan through the reviews as I listened to this. You really get a sense of the overwhelming lack of empathy from what I assume is mostly younger folks. Might not be younger folks. But the crowd that uses "I hate country" and "this is cheesy" and "I'm not a cowboy so I can't relate" and so on as their justification for dismissing this album are curiously bereft of any ability to connect with anything or anyone outside of their narrow range of interest. Even the video game crowd can sort of only connect with the one song that was in that video game they play. Isn't the point of going on this "1001 records" journey to be exposed to records from different genres, different cultures, different time periods? It seems as though many are seeing it as an opportunity to talk about all the ways they managed to be offended by a record. And then there's those who want to compare this to gangsta rap thanks to the subject matter. Some of the songs on Robbins' album are old traditional songs written back in a time when the west really hadn't been settled yet, and the world was an entirely different place than, say, '90s Compton. And recognizing the huge cultural impact this and subsequent albums, tv shows and movies had... the "western" was ubiquitous back in the day. This record absolutely deserves to be on this list for any number of reasons. For me, ultimately, I see his perfectly clean suit and shoes on the cover, and hear the beautifully sung music with no rough edges other than the words themselves, and it feels like a museum piece... unlike the feeling I get when I hear Hank Williams Sr. "El Paso" I've known since I was a kid, I don't remember where I first heard it, it's lilting melody belies the dark story... "Big Iron" is great and "Cool Water" I know from Sons of the Pioneers. I can do about 4 songs on this before the production start sounding samey. Beautiful, but samey. I just encourage people to see the beauty in the world, see the beauty in the records you are unfamiliar with, learn about the artist or circumstances around the recording the album or its cultural impact... practice finding something positive to say.

Bowie was one of a kind. This is one of his finest, but it's even more extraordinary how far he came from the David Jones of 1967 to this in 1972. Mainline Glam Rock.

The first 45 seconds of vamping groove (edited out of the single version) changes the context of the familiar and absolute classic "Chain of Fools" and sets an ominous tone for the song that starts this 1968 soul gem. Despite this and other classic songs/performances ("Natural Woman"), this doesn't feel like a cohesive album. Aretha never sounds anything less than amazing, but, for instance, going from the emotional beauty of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" into the goofball "Niki Hoeky" is just odd. "Groovin'" is here too for some reason, and doesn't really improve the original. The last song is what I don't like about when r&b singers "go too far". Regardless, this album is worth having for the two incredible singles alone.

If there's one thing this album is, it is completely ITSELF. George Clinton was not afraid to make the album that HE wanted, not what he thought would sell the best or be the easiest to listen to. He was lashing out, in his own unique way. A 10-minute electric guitar solo to start the album, and a 10-minute chaotic jam to end it, with five slabs of funk perfection sandwiched in between, is not everyone's cup of tea. Although Eddie Hazel's (mostly) unaccompanied guitar heroics in the opening track are stellar, it's not the kind of track you want to put on repeat. Those middle 5 songs, though... damn!

She's writing modern pop music that's on such a higher level than the pop music that gets played on the radio. A radio edit of "Tightrope" should have been a big hit, regardless. I'd never heard this album before. Such a wealth of ideas. Sometimes too many elements are packed into a single song that it's overwhelming. From a purely sonic/visceral standpoint this album is sung, played, recorded and produced beautifully and goes all over the map stylistically. There's another layer, lyrically, that relates to a time-travel narrative... it's a complex work of dystopian sci-fi told in lyrics. Not something anyone can digest in one listening, but holy cow! ...a little like walking in on friend's "hobby" where they had told you they "like trains", but their entire garage is transformed into a miniature city and countryside with a working network of trains/tracks, miniature homes and buildings with lights inside, farm animals... details everywhere that you can't take in on one visit and you're amazed but worry a little about your friend's sanity. If anyone actually reads this before listening to this album, check this out: "The ArchAndroid is a concept album that continues the story conceived in her debut EP. Partially based off of Fritz Lang’s 1927 magnum opus film Metropolis, it loosely tells the tale of an android named Cindi Mayweather as she struggles with both her role as a messianic figure to free other androids, and with her forbidden romance with human Anthony Greendown. Watching Metropolis or fully studying the narrative will only strengthen your listening experience, though it isn’t necessary." [Medium]

If you don't like this album, you don't like Van Morrison. Which is fine, he's not for everybody. But this is his most consistent, best-sung, best-arranged, most accessible album, with four classic songs -- And It Stoned Me, Into the Mystic, Caravan, and of course Moondance. Moondance, the song, is overplayed and parodied, but the magic of it is that any ELSE that tries to play it sound like a parody. Sometimes Van's melodic sense gets repetitive, starting lines on high notes and winding down to the tonic far too often, but at least on this album he makes it work. "Astral Weeks", the album that came before this one, is quite a bit more spacey and folky and less soul-inflected... but if you like "Moondance" and want more, you can't go wrong with the 3 albums that came after. "His Band and the Street Choir" and "Tupelo Honey" especially, and "St. Dominic's Preview" as well (however, the two 10+ minute tracks on St. Dominic's, especially "Listen to the Lion", are not for me). Heartfelt, passionate pop-rock without equal in 1970.

Although I'm no stranger to '70s AOR, I only know a couple of Supertramp songs, 'Take The Long Way Home', 'Logical Song' and 'Give A Little Bit.'... none of which are here, but 'Bloody Well Right' sounds familiar too... can you imagine a pop song today going for 1:38 before the first vocal comes in? A Sabrina Carpenter song would be almost over by then... BWR got to 35 on the charts, anyway. That continual plodding sixteenth-note electric piano sure shows up a lot, doesn't it? You have to be patient with this record, and buy the aesthetic... it doesn't work for me, unfortunately. The 'go for what you want but the world is controlled by evil people' vibe throughout feels pedestrian 50 years later. "If Everyone Was Listening" is a nice '70s ballad I'd never heard. "Bloody Well Right" is the standout track for a reason.

Underappreciated 1974 classic that languished in obscurity until David Byrne re-released it in 2001 (w bonus tracks) and brought it much-deserved acclaim. This is when I heard it. Knowing Shuggie played most of the instruments himself (not horns/strings) and employed an early example of a drum machine on some songs is cool but not necessary to enjoy this experimental soulful record. It could have used a couple more straight-up songs like the title track, which promises more than the rest of the album delivers. It's a classic, though.

The one-two punch of "War Pigs" and "Paranoid" is hard to beat in this era for hard rock power and mastery. Suddenly, though, with track 3 we are a bunch of hippies ("The Earth, a purple blaze / Of sapphire haze ... While down below the trees / Bathed in cool breeze / Silver starlight breaks down the night") before "Iron Man" melts our face again. Side two tells us "Dying world of radiation / Victims of man's frustration / Burning globe of obscene fire / Like electric funeral pyre"... now THAT'S the Sabbath we know and love. Ozzy tells us how doomed we all are then in "Hand of Doom" tells us how ridiculous we are for doing drugs to escape the pain of our destruction. We end with "Fairies Wear Boots" and our singer hallucinating, not heeding his own advice... it's a chaotic mess in the Sabbath brain, but the simplistic sludge riffs are epic and have been copied for 50+ years now.

I've gone through seven or eight of these albums before looking at other reviews, and decided to look at them for this album. Wow. What a mixture of 5-star "I've loved this album since I was 16" and 1-star "U2 is the worstest or blandest thing ever". To the 1-star people, all I can think is "man, grow up." There's a difference between something being awful and it just not being your thing. Sometimes the albums on this list are good to hear because they have artistic merit and have had a cultural impact, and some of the ignoramuses who think that these songs have no melody or that Bono can't sing or that the band wasn't doing anything new in their field just don't know enough to criticize. That's fine, I guess. I guess if you think the singer from the Meat Puppets can out-sing Bono, then good for you. Regardless: this was never my favorite U2 album and relistening to it today hasn't earned it any new points. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" ends up being the standout track to me and maybe the only song I don't mind hearing again when it pops up somewhere. "Even Better Than the Real Thing" succeeds for me by percolating along in a Madchester kind of way without getting bombastic. I could care less about One or Mysterious Ways. As a musician who has spent a ton of time in the recording studio, I can empathize a little bit with what these guys were going through trying to make this album. Trying to not repeat past successes has doomed bands to obscurity, but it worked for U2, even if to our ears it still just sounds like U2. Play this album back to back with "Boy", though, for instance, and they're definitely pushing their own envelope.

Took a look at some of the other reviews, some of which cite "Suspicious Minds" as their favorite track from this album. Unfortunately, "Suspicious Minds" isn't on this album. It was a non-album single. The only real hit song here is "In The Ghetto". Elvis does Memphis, circa 1969, post-"comeback special". "I'm Movin' On" is emblematic of what was going on in country in those days. Wall of sound background vocals, funky back beats, saccharine pads of sound... these things sold, but they really sound dated today... while somehow the early Elvis (and early rockabilly and '50s country like Hank Williams Sr.) don't. "Power of Love" I'd never heard, is slightly bad-a**, and I actually wouldn't mind hearing again. "Gentle On My Mind" is owned by Glen Campbell, sorry Elvis. I disagree with other reviewers that say Elvis is phoning it in here... it's really the opposite. He was phoning it in throughout a lot of the '60s and is fully, 100% committed here. Releasing "In the Ghetto" as a single is about as far away as you could get from playing it safe and phoning it in. It's just a matter of whether you connect with it or not. I appreciate this album, I just prefer the early Elvis.

Once you get to the early 70s, you have to be all in on Dylan to be able to tolerate his voice most of the time. It's really an acquired taste. Lyrically this record is a gem, with no two songs alike. I can't do repeated listenings of 70s Dylan, sonically it's just not for me. But I can't deny the genius.

A perennial Christmas favorite, despise the despicable producer Phil Spector's later history. Sleigh Ride, White Xmas and others done in a unique way, oddball entries like Marshmallow World and the Bells of St Mary's that still work, and a short run time. Solid.

Got this in a thrift store in the '90s. It's a great little undiscovered gem for those who are into classic rock. Certainly it's not for everybody... But, I've listened to a TON of '60s music and I can say this: the majority of bands were trying to be like somebody else more successful than them... and Spirit was just being themselves. It meanders a bit, but even the less strong songs here are clearly labors of love, with care given to the production flourishes. and it's such an LP in the true sense... Side 1 ending with the jammy fadeout of "Mr. Skin", Side 2 fading in with the weird lounge of "Space Child"... interstitial music or fx used to join tracks together so that each side is its own listening experience. "Nature's Way" is a lost classic track of the period. Headphone stoners should appreciate "When I Touch You".

This album's rating, and pretty much anything from the '90s and '00s, is going to being dramatically influenced by preconceived feelings people have based on personal experience with the record. I'm finding that the most interesting listening experiences in this survey have been with records I've never heard of, or at least never listened to. How can you be objective when a record pops up on your list and you immediately think "those guys suck"? All I know about the Verve is the hit single. I must have heard samples of some of the other songs and been put off at the relentless mid-tempo safeness of it. Plus, this album came out the same year as "OK Computer", which made everything else in the alt/indie-rock world that came out that year and for a couple years afterward sound limp and uninspired. In listening to the majority of this record today, it just sounds to me like what well-off suburban kids would listen to as they experiment with downers and ruin the immense privilege they've been given. "Come On" sounds like the strongest song, but unfortunately it happens after an hour of ennui, and also sounds like a medium-good Oasis song. And the hit lead single has that whole "we borrowed the entire groove, key, mood, and much of the string parts from The Rolling Stones" thing going for it (if you've haven't heard it, check out The Last Time by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra). This is my first 1-star review on this list. Ack!

I've got hundreds of records from all around the world, either downloads or physical copies... and of course one of the amazing things about this part of the 21st century is that you can think of a country and be streaming music from that country within seconds. It's absolutely amazing and not something anyone should take for granted. An Algerian, but I think he lives in France, Khaled (once Cheb Khaled) is the kind of international pop superstar that most of America will not have heard of. ("You mean DJ Khaled?") Recording since at least the '80s, he is one of the preeminent Arab Rai singers in the world. I don't dig a lot of modern 'world' pop music, and I don't really dig this album. I can't deny its broad appeal, beautifully sung in multiple languages, with heavy 4/4 beats throughout, with a slick production. I can get behind the groove and vintage singing style in "Melha" and "Raba Raba" and a couple of others (the Bollywood-style duet of "El Harba Wine" would have been cool if the drum part didn't sound exactly like Fleetwood Mac's "Second Hand News"), but other tracks come off sounding like airport lounge music thanks mostly to the dated '90s western elements. And I don't need another version of "Imagine", thank you, I don't care WHO sings it.

This album gets 6 stars from me for originality and inventiveness. Brian Wilson finally realized his vision for the follow up to "Pet Sounds" and it's quite amazing. Bands like the High Llamas and others owe their careers to the atmospheres created by the likes of the various versions of "Smile" that have circulated across the decades. For me, though, this album is "Good Vibrations", an absolute '60s masterpiece of production, performance and songwriting, and "Vega-tables" and "Heroes & Villains" and a bunch of other tracks that I don't have the patience for. I don't know why I imprinted on "Vega-tables" in it's "Smiley Smile" incarnation back in the day, but I still like that version better than the cacophony of this "Smile"'s version. I get why people call this a masterpiece, but if someone told me I had to listen to a Beach Boys album I would almost always pick "Pet Sounds".

Thought I'd scan through the reviews as I listened to this. You really get a sense of the overwhelming lack of empathy from what I assume is mostly younger folks. Might not be younger folks. But the crowd that uses "I hate country" and "this is cheesy" and "I'm not a cowboy so I can't relate" and so on as their justification for dismissing this album are curiously bereft of any ability to connect with anything or anyone outside of their narrow range of interest. Even the video game crowd can sort of only connect with the one song that was in that video game they play. Isn't the point of going on this "1001 records" journey to be exposed to records from different genres, different cultures, different time periods? It seems as though many are seeing it as an opportunity to talk about all the ways they managed to be offended by a record. And then there's those who want to compare this to gangsta rap thanks to the subject matter. Some of the songs on Robbins' album are old traditional songs written back in a time when the west really hadn't been settled yet, and the world was an entirely different place than, say, '90s Compton. And recognizing the huge cultural impact this and subsequent albums, tv shows and movies had... the "western" was ubiquitous back in the day. This record absolutely deserves to be on this list for any number of reasons. For me, ultimately, I see his perfectly clean suit and shoes on the cover, and hear the beautifully sung music with no rough edges other than the words themselves, and it feels like a museum piece... unlike the feeling I get when I hear Hank Williams Sr. "El Paso" I've known since I was a kid, I don't remember where I first heard it, it's lilting melody belies the dark story... "Big Iron" is great and "Cool Water" I know from Sons of the Pioneers. I can do about 4 songs on this before the production start sounding samey. Beautiful, but samey. I just encourage people to see the beauty in the world, see the beauty in the records you are unfamiliar with, learn about the artist or circumstances around the recording the album or its cultural impact... practice finding something positive to say.

It is insane to consider the vast musical terrain that Radiohead traversed from "Pablo Honey" to this, their 4th album. "Kid A" doesn't sound like the same band. There's the voice of Thom Yorke that shows up from time to time here sounding like he did in the past, and only in stretches of "Optimistic" does the powerful 'old' Radiohead's personality make an appearance. "Kid A" divided fans, and made you wonder why you liked this band. If you liked the big guitar riffs and soaring melodies like you got on "The Bends", well, those are ALL GONE NOW. It's sort of... not the same band any more. Frankly, I appreciate this record more than I connect with it. The more esoteric and less direct they got, the less interested I became. I can say this if you have never heard Radiohead except for this, don't give up on them. "The Bends" is a rock gem and "OK Computer" is incredible.

This record is exhausting. It doesn't really matter what genre you're working in... if you manage to spew out a song like "Ace of Spades" that becomes emblematic of the genre, that becomes an undisputed classic in the field, you've accomplished a rare thing. It doesn't matter if the rest of the record sounds like varying attempts to capture that same lightning in the bottle again ("Fire Fire" comes sorta close). 3 stars exclusively for producing a genre all-time classic song. Hey, prudes: act as uptight as you want about "Jailbait", but the sentiment is nothing new through popular music history. Everything from "I still remember when you used be nine years old" ("Shout!") to "She was just 17 and you know what I mean" (what DO you mean? is she 16?); there's "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" (Sonny Boy Williamson etc), "My Sharona" and so on. Even Bruno Mars ("I'm addicted... you young wild girls I'll always come back to you"). Rock music coexists with the male libido. Oh, and go look up the video of Lemmy backing Kirsty MacColl on this German tv spot she did in the '80s, it's great. So incongruous and wtf. He was a larger-than-life personality in the world of hard rock.

The first album I've heard from this list that should like it was written to accompany something, rather than as actual music to pay attention to. It's like a sound bath. Expecting song structure and meaning is a mistake. It's all atmosphere for your drug trip (I guess), although unless your psilocybin is providing the variety, not an adventurous one. Only "Shine A Light" tries to go anywhere and would be the only track I wouldn't mind hearing again. But this is mostly a major-key, knuckle-dragging thoughtless hour-long slog bent on robbing you of IQ. Its single-mindedness of purpose is worth a star, I suppose. I'm not very far into this journey and there's already been three 90s euro rock bands, and zero Beethoven or classical of ANY kind. Hell I'd take "Water Music" over more Britpop! And before you get all weird on me, I was IN a rock band in the 90s....

Much hay is certainly made about poor good George having been repressed by the evil John and Paul, and needing this album to break out of his Beatles-imposed prison. We sure do like to choose sides, don’t we? But why did “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun” become massive timeless hits, and “Isn’t It A Pity” and “Wah-Wah” and “What Is Life” did not? The simple answer is they’re just better songs. And this album is full of songs that aren’t as "good" as what George published with the Beatles. Music is entirely subjective, and while these songs might not generally be perceived to rise to that level, they seem to be regarded by passionate Georgites as all-time rock classics, fumbling over themselves to praise everything from the lyrics to the chord structure to the individual players to the PICTURE ON THE COVER. Sycophants! My view is what this album needed more than anything else on "All Things Must Pass" was EDITING. “Isn’t it A Pity” is lovely, but at 7:10 it's far too long. If there’s one thing the Beatles understood, it was economy: when to get out of a song and “leave ‘em wanting more”. Or when to use length to subvert expectations, like how “She’s So Heavy” keeps building and building and you can’t believe it’s getting even uglier until suddenly “Here Comes the Sun” starts. It’s perfect. Here we get “Wah Wah”, “Pity” and others just meandering on too long; even the snappy “What Is Life” could be nearly a minute shorter. There’s no need for a cover tune, George. Especially when the original is better. “Behind that Locked Door” is nice but feels like pastiche, “Let it Down” tries to make up for being unfinished by being extra extra loud half the time. “Run of the Mill” is a hidden gem. 100% George, odd meter, catchy, not belabored. “Apple Scruffs” is good clean fun, a throwaway treat. “Frankie Crisp”? Unnecessary. “Awaiting”? Can barely hear it under the production. God the production sucks in a lot of places and on "Awaiting" it's the worst. There's probably a cheesy song hiding under the murk, predicting “Got My Mind Set on You”. “All Things”, the song, just never fully gelled. It’s so close. “I Dig Love” is a cool, goofy 2-minute lark dragged out to 5 minutes. Now I’M droning on almost as long as this record does, and I haven’t even mentioned the extra “blues jam” tracks. In the end, this is still absolutely worth hearing, it’s worth winnowing down to its best tracks, it’s worth a Steven Wilson remix to undo some of the damage Phil Spector did to muddy up the mix. Despite it’s flaws it’s nearly worth 5 stars.

I have a hard time getting through an entire song sung by the singer of this band. If you played in a rock band in the '90s, it was hard to get away from them in 1994/5 thanks to "Self Esteem", "Keep Em Separated" and "Gotta Get Away". This version of punk became mainstream and similarly-minded bands were everywhere. Listening to this now, I could enjoy "Genocide", which is a weird thing to say considering what it's about, but just the fact that it has more of a gang vocal approach saves it for me. Something about the tone of the dude's voice just makes me want to claw my ears off. The band is tight as hell and some of the songs are good high octane hard rock. I prefer Bad Religion when I want to be sonically bludgeoned by a band like this, but I can't deny the popularity these guys had.

I'm admittedly not that far into my 1,001 album journey, but there are already way too many 1990s alternative rock albums per capita. Maybe I didn't read the disclaimer when I entered the building, but I think I was hoping for a more diverse roster of records, and certainly more records that I haven't heard. I'm biased here, as I am already pre-disposed to be irritated by JSBE. The '90s were full of noisy rock bands of different stripes, and one of those stripes was the "blues/roots revivalist" stripe. Taking James Brown's "Make It Funky" lyric and groove and saying "Make it Fucked Up" instead and have everyone think it's cool and clever was enough to make me hate all music for a brief period. All I can say to the positive about this is that the cool kids got it out of their system and JSBE is kind of an afterthought nowadays. Whereas I can go back to Howlin' Wolf albums and they never get old, and I can also go back to Captain Beefheart, or someone like Tom Waits, inspired by Wolf and Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and THOSE albums never get old ("Rain Dogs" in particular), stuff like JSBE feels disposable... at least most of this record does. Tracks like "Rocketship" at least sound like they're trying to be their own thing. I like this quote from the SPIN review, though: "garage raunch beloved by white boys who still believe a sonic mess equals something real."

I stumbled onto White Denim a few years ago looking for modern stuff that was of a psychedelic bent. Most of what I was finding was pretty meh, but when I put this record on (and, soon after, another record of theirs, "Side Effects"), I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.... this song is COOL... probably the rest of the record blows, right? and the rest of the record DIDN'T blow. In fact, it was one of the best new albums I'd heard in a long time... elements of prog, psych, math rock, stoner rock, classic rock, Beatlesque bits... elaborate but focused. Tight but expansive. The "jam band" moniker some are using here doesn't fit. Do you know what a "jam band" is? One that thinks an 11-minute version of "Stella Blue" is a good idea. One that lets the guitarist noodle endlessly without purpose. THESE songs, however, are all around 3 or 4 minutes, and are COMPOSED. God forbid anyone dismissing this as patchouli-scented hackey-sack "Jam" music ever hears, say, King Crimson or early '70s Genesis. Anyway: there SHOULD be a penalty for use of flute in rock music (the 7/8-time-Santana-esque latin of "River to Consider"). When people say rock music is dead they don't realize people like White Denim are out there making it in the 21st century. I think that most rock bands just DGAF about writing hit singles so the charts ignore them. As long as the fans don't, we're all good here.

Another ‘90s record. What’s up with the preponderance of ‘90s albums on this list? Must I continue to be reminded of the years when I most frequently played in rock bands? Anyway. Reviewers here that say this record has “no passion” are just looking in a mirror. You don’t like it. That’s fine. Here’s hoping you hate everything on this list, and find no joy or passion in life at all. But, The Black Crowes are fully committed to an earnest throwback kind of rock and roll which, believe it or not, wasn’t in vogue in 1990. 100% committed to potentially looking foolish playing a kind of music that saw its heyday in, say, 1973. Which is why it’s a little weird to me that this record would be on a list of records you have to hear before you die. Fast forward 25 or 100 years, and the records you should hear that sound like this are, well, the “source material”… the rock bands from the early ‘70s (“Exile On Main Street” would do fine), and the R&B, soul, and blues cats that came before THAT. [Why do people keep mentioning Led Zep? None of these songs sound like Led Zeppelin, except, MAYBE, “Struttin’ Blues”. The Black Crowes aren’t the slightest bit adventurous sonically, songwriting-wise, lyrically, or anything else, like Zeppelin was. These guys wanted to be the Stones, or maybe the Faces.] This record, however, was a huge, huge hit, and especially for a debut album, that’s impressive, so I guess that’s why it’s here. And might have introduced some folks to Otis Redding, who didn’t know him before hearing “Hard To Handle”. Which is a good thing. And “She Talks To Angels” was an undeniable hit and tons of people connected to it. Say what you want about these guys being a “just another bar band”, but there are thousands and thousands of bar bands that never came close to a song that was meaningful to people like “She Talks To Angels” was/is to so many. Other than that song, this record to me is essentially top-quality pastiche… if I can’t get the originals, I’ll take this over 90% of the bar bands I played with in the 90s.