1001 Albums Summary

Combining the worst of jazz and rock we aren't off to a good start with a prog album... Overall says nothing that Pink Floyd hadn't in the preceding decade. Bloody Well Right has moments of groove ruined by tenor sax noodling. Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson's love of the keyboard. Hide Your Shell is years behind Bowie, who was already looking past glam with Diamond Dogs. Listening to this you can literally hear John Lydon straining to rip it up and start again. Asylum is an over orchestrated ballad mitigated only by some wild vocals by Davies at the end. The album single Dreamer is the standout, with a catchy hook leaning into their London accents. Nonetheless the structure of the track betrays it, the lack of verses means it cannot claim its place as a successful straight pop song. Rudy has some great classic rock moments but ultimately repeats the mistakes of Bloody Well Right, occasionally sounding like Kenny G had wandered into the wrong studio before quickly exiting. If Everyone Was Listening and the Title track are pointless prog ballads. Like all prog most of the tracks are needlessly over 5 minutes with over-complicated structures and are in desperate need of a producer with a razor blade.

Worthy successors of Ali Farka Toure's legacy building the link between West Africa and the US Songhoy Blues blend blues rythyms with more sophisticated Malian techniques on Music in Exile. Soubour combines Malian lead with blues rhythm sections. Al Hassidi Terei goes one step further by incorporating time signature changes and polymeters(?). Sekou Oumarou finds the synthesis with a stripped back 2/4 call and response. Nick sounds like something straight out of the Chess back catalogue with a strong electric 12-bar blues. Al Tchere Bele takes us furthest away from the blues paradigm featuring complex rythyms and anxious guitar melodies and vocals. Kaira Arby provides beautiful backing vocals to Wayei, another track closer to Malian traditional music. Petit Metier starts with a familiar yet distinctive vocal intro before introducing almost gospel choir call and response. Jolie begins with a syncopated ballad before slowly building up to something reminiscent of Rokia Kone's Bamanan (2022). Desert Melodies and Mali round out the album with simple traditional sounding techniques on guitar and vocal. While many of the tracks feature virtuoso Malian, blues and R&B guitar they are mixed bass forward, recognising the importance of the rhythm section in all the styles they incorporate.

By 1975 classic rock was already being eclipsed in the charts by Elton John and a plethora of excellent funk acts. In this environment Springsteen entered the scene sounding like he has lung cancer every time he tries to belt out a verse. Columbia was paying attention to trends though and the album is saved by a magpie approach to production, with the E Street Band stretching across multiple genres and styles while staying faithful to their rock aspirations. Thunder Road is a Twangy country rock that probably sounded a lot fresher 50 years ago. Tenth Avenue Freeze Out is a competent motown tribute. Night is a bit more interesting as an up tempo love song about knocking off work. Backstreets is an unintended gay masterpiece about making out with a non binary person. The title track has a legitimately spine tingling chorus although by this point we're rehashing lyrical themes. She's The One takes some sixties pop riffs in an interesting direction. Meeting Across the River is the best track from a structural and vocal standpoint, starting with a great little sax solo and prefacing a tragic meeting. Jungleland ends the album with a pretty epic sax solo. While there's a lot of competent music on here the phill spector style of throwing pianos and strings at everything doesn't really work with the lyrics and I wonder what this album would have sounded like if they'd taken the 'less is more' approach more common in the second half of the decade.

Very pure punk album from before the Clash started experimenting with other genres and styles. Some very satisfying tracks, stripping back all of the pointlessness of prog and studio rock in the 1970s and criticising the state of Britain. White Riot and London Burning are now classics, but sitting here at the end of 2024 Police and Thieves is the standout, already looking past punk, which was always going to be a self terminating movement. The moments of dub are artfully executed given the otherwise handsoff studio production. Garageland is a great reflection on what was going on with punk (and maybe a shot across the bow of Malcolm McLaren?) Structurally there's a lot more going on than Never Mind the Bollocks or Ramones, it's not surprising that The Clash pushed boundaries for a longer time than either of the other two although ultimately it limits the impact of this album compared to the statement made by Never Mind the Bollocks or the sheer energy of Ramones.

A seminal album which sets the foundation for all the good rock and roll in the 70s. I had actually convinced myself that this was a post 1969 album and was surprised to see so much cynicism and sleaziness in a rock album from 1967. I was also surprised to see how much bands like Sonic Youth had taken from the solos and production styles of the album. Sunday Morning is a lullaby for clubbers with blissed out strings and slightly paranoid lyrics. Waiting For The Man set the tone for the late sixties and seventies and shows Bowie the way forward. Nico presages Kim Gordon on Femme Fatale with a production style that wouldn't have been out of place on a Sonic Youth album in the early 90s. Venus in Furs is the sleaziest piece of psych ever created and Lou Reed's. Run Run Run is a blues standard mutated by screeching guitar solos. All Tomorrow's Parties could only have been sung by a Berliner (and a seamstress no less), stoically meditating on the inevitability of partying. Heroin is fairly boring as far as melody but structurally foreshadows the quiet /loud style of grunge even if the link to the lyrical heroin rush is a bit trite. There She Goes Again subverts expectations by using a 60s pop vehicle to talk about hustling and violence against women. I'll Be Your Mirror is the low point of the album, the lyrics' optimism clashes with the rest of the album and the song itself does nothing. The Black Angel's Death Song gets the album back on track by force-feeding Woodie Guthrie LSD and manipulating him into joining a violent sex cult. John Cale's viola performance is truly unhinged. European Son closes out the album in a cacophony of guitars phasing between styles (is there some surf rock in there?) The themes and lyrics are refreshingly upfront and don't hide behind the need to sanitise allusions for commercial appeal (which this album never had). This album deserves a 5 just for how futuristic it is (even if that future is a tired and filthy and poorly recorded one).

Obvious references are Radiohead and Flaming Lips but YHF leans less heavily on studio tricks than either of those bands. Compared to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots it has clearer provenance and compared to Kid A it is a lot more accessible. The trade-off is that it's more boring than either of those records. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart begins with a pleasant musique concrete hum which continues in one form or another throughout the album. There's a nice contrast between the warm and fuzzy guitar tone and hum and the story of regret. Kamera is an indie rock song and it would be fine if I turned on the radio with friends in the car to find it playing. Radio Cure starts with quite a nice tense acoustic guitar strum but occasionally swells into a twee pop thing at odds with the message about a long distance relationship. The single War on War is a fun and upbeat number with a climax that pays tribute to Sonic Youth. Jesus Etc. starts a bit more interesting with a lounge number with surrealist lyrics and a fiddle. Ashes of the American Flag is indie sludge that shows you everything that was wrong with music in the 2000s. The other single Heavy Metal Drummer has the best studio work, with breaks and a heavy synthetic bass line in the chorus making it the rare Indies song that you could dance to. I'm the Man Who Loves You keeps the energy going with a country tinged song with simple yet effective lyrics and some great brass. Pot Kettle Black is a pretty standard indie pop number which does nothing for the album. Mellotrons are nice I suppose. Poor Places again channels Sonic Youth with lyrics that could have come straight out of Thurston Moore mouth before a pop resolution which morphs into a kind of cool instrumental vamp and then back to noise. Reservations is a ponderous and overwrought love song which is entirely skippable. The final three minutes of slow piano chords and the ubiquitous radio noises are fine but won't win any awards for sound design. As an unrepentant jungle and IDM freak I was surprised by how often the overdubs and abstract stuff in the album felt like it took away from the story telling. I know the album is full of radio themes but why? There are flashes of brilliance and a few songs which I'd put on a mixtape for my girlfriend but ultimately this isn't earth shattering. On the one hand what they did to secure the master and self release on the internet was super cool, but I think if a label had a bit more control and cut the length by 15-20 minutes this could have been a 4.

CCR and this album in particular hold a special place in my heart - this tape (along with the Big Chill soundtrack) were practically stuck in the tape deck on family road trips. Because of this I had to put it on while I went for a long drive. The album holds up well on a revisit. Despite their rep as a singles band the filler tracks show the highs and lows. Ramble Tamble starts with a surprisingly funky groove before indulging in some credible psych rock. All the singles are gold with the exception of As Long as I Can See the Light which is a nice ballad but a bit ponderous. Only thing stopping this from getting a 5 is that it isn't trying to accomplish anything new. It feels more like a Swan song for rock and a reminder of where it came from which maybe is important as a beacon for the dark days of the early 70s.

Pete Tosh comes out from the shadow of the Wailer's with a great reggae and rocksteady album which, while masterfully produced is let down by fairly generic vocals. The album starts with the title track, the questionable medical advice in the lyrics play a back seat to dub mixing and psychedelic phaser effects on the backing vocals. I never realised the links between dub, Burial and General Levy revealed in the second track. Watcha Gonna Do feels a bit lame with the corny organ drowning out some good guitar skank. Wailer's classic No Sympathy gets back on track with a heavy hook and lyrics. Why Must I Cry opens with a soul break and heartbreak, again the synths feel a bit out of place but at least sit in the back of the mix this time. The proselytising on Igziabeher falls flat but there are some great piano vamps at the end. Ketchy Shuby is a nice little rocksteady number but isn't going to blow minds. Till Your Well Runs Dry constantly shifts between a ballad about an on again off again relationship and a reggae skank chorus. Brand New Second Hand closes out the album with more dub mixing. The return of the synths in this song doesn't grate as much as the others. Beautifully arranged with a complex roster of studio musicians, the album demonstrates Tosh's natural musicality. The mixing is bass forward as it should be. Sets the scene for Tosh's brilliant solo career.

Forgettable, indulgent, sub-Bowie glam. A cynical cash in. Occasionally good hooks (Whizz Kids, Violence) ruined by over-production and those annoying talking/singing vocals. Drivin' Sister is about as good as it gets thanks to a simpler structure, much more restrained arrangement (although not immune from studio tricks) and a few proto-punk guitar riffs. I'm a Cadillac has some okay psych noodling. It's telling that the best two tracks are not in the style of the rest of the album. Really struggled to devote much headspace to this, looking at Allmusic it's supposed to be a wry commentary on rock and roll? Maybe some other glam rockers can transcend that self-reflexive pop thing but not these guys.

The Rolling Stones play competent blues covers on their debut album. The Stones are at their best when they put the rock and roll elements in front. I Just Want to Make Love to You ramps up the energy of the Muddy Waters original. Carol rocks hard. Slower bluesier tracks like Honest I Do and I'm a King Bee don't really feel sincere coming out of Mick Jagger's lips. The poppier Tell Me is actually a lot more exciting than a lot of the other tracks and makes you wonder what would have happened if the Stones took as varied a path as the Beatles did. While everyone knows the Beatles vs Stones rivalry I think a more fruitful comparison is with the Sonics who shared a similar stylistic focus to the Stones. When you put this up against The Sonics' singles from the same time it's really clear how much less rock and roll the Stones were. Compared to the Sonics heaving version, the Stones' version of Walking the Dog right at the end lacks rhythm and leaves the album feeling fairly derivative. The Stones are one of the greatest bands of the 20th century and its well deserved for their live act and subsequent albums, if it weren't for the fact that this is the start of something amazing it would probably have scored lower.

Run DMC's third album goes hard and Rick Rubin knows how to get the white boys into rap. This album and its four singles represent rap finally being recognised in the charts. Peter Piper is pretty standard 80s rap riffing on nursery rhymes over a stripped back mardis gras beat. Rubin and Jam Master Jay's pop genius is on display with It's Tricky sampling My Sharona. My Adidas continues to demonstrate Jay's chops on the deck with a series of complicated scratch routines over a clever homage to Adidas. The Walk this Way cover achieves the seemingly impossible task of making 80s hard rock funky (although points off for paving the way for rap rock I suppose). Is it Live struggles to squeeze some groove out of an 808 and while the boasting is fun it hasn't aged well. Perfection keeps things stripped back with a (live?) drum track and more lyrical boasting. Hit it Run brings back the turntablism and amps up the vocals with Run and DMC aggressively spitting bars. You can see where the LA rappers got their ideas from. The title track brings the guitar locks back but the vocals don't maintain the energy. You be Illin has some great storytelling in the style of the Biz. Dumb Girl has a great 808 and feels like a bit of inspo for Memphis. Proud to be Black closes the album with an important message for the bigger audience the album attracted. 1986 is a huge year for rap (Licensed to I'll, Eric B is President, The Source, Kool Moe Dee, 2 Live Crew). Not sure what else we're going to see from this year in the list but Raising Hell earns it's place for figuring out how to give rap commercial appeal. Anyone who got rich rapping in subsequent decades owes this album a lot.

Not feeling confident after seeing the MS Paint cover. I could have gotten Nevermind or Loveless or Screamadelica or Low End Theory but noooo, the RNG had to give me this gen x sludge. The Concept opens the album with a by the numbers indie rock number with some truly atrocious lyrics although some nice harmonisation in the chorus. They add insult to injury with a few minutes of prog guitar noodling at the end. Last 20 seconds of Satan rocks but only increases my concern that the rest of the album is going to be ponderous and frustrating. December confirms my suspicions. What You Do to Me recovers a bit with an acceptable glam number (although the lyrics remain vapid). I Don't Know occasionally has some My Bloody Valentine style dissonance but otherwise remains in the comfortably mediocre depths. Star Sign continues the primary school level rhyming (why do they sing with American accents?). Metal Baby has some nice jangly moments but is let down by a forgettable chorus and would have had more impact at half the length. Pet Rock as a title and as a track perfectly encapsulates what this album is. Tenor sax in a rock song tells you all you need to know about their sensibilities. By the time we get to Sidewinder I'm ready to hit the eject button. The final track Is This Music is actually pretty alright, the fact that it's an instrumental should clue you in to what's wrong with the album. The drums sound like they were recorded inside a sofa. There are occasional noisy bits at the start and end of all their songs. They would have had much better effect stringing those together and releasing it as a single than wasting my time with this nonsense.

Fetch the Boltcutters is a great little piece of anxious pop. Complicated percussion tumbles over sometimes beautiful and sometimes dissonant piano and vocals. I Want You to Love Me opens with some wonky percussion before revealing a wonderful piano line and Apple singing about love. The addition of a double bass in the second half makes it even more powerful. Shameika amps up the energy with the same piano motifs combined with improvised percussion creating a tumultuous song about not fitting in. The title track continues the themes of Shameika but at a slower pace. Under the Table borrows blues and gospel structure, maybe a little too much. The rap style vocals don't necessarily hit the mark but there is some redemption in the bridge. Relay status with an anxious chant about evil before returning to the less enjoyable rapping. Again the song is saved by a fun improvised bridge. Rack of His tells a story infatuation with an anxious string line. Newspaper opens with a desolate percussion track before lyrics about what's shared between women who've had a relationship (and not necessarily a good one) with the same man. Ladies continues this theme with a more conventional pop structure. Heavy Balloon starts with a stripped back percussion and bass track which slowly grows in frustration. Cosmonauts starts with dubby percussion before morphing into a fun pop track about devotion. For Her is a hyperactive song speculating about other people. Something that could only be written from neurodivergence or trauma and not necessarily as fun as it sounds at first. As the name suggests Drumset has one of the better percussion tracks in an album that should be pleasing to anyone who enjoys good rythyms. On I Go is what I imagine Mike Patton would write if he was a woman. The track closes without resolution and leaves you feeling confused about what you just went through - the perfect conclusion. Formally the album is a treat. Arrangements quickly change pace and climaxes quickly melt into delicate and vulnerable solos. Choruses and overdubs come and go seemingly without reason. The improvised percussion and disjointed production style owes a lot to Matmos. The lyrical theme of the complex relationships that women have is worthy of Apple's treatment. I can definitely see how this album would be divisive, and I can already think of quite a few subsequent female singer-songwriter albums that sound like copies of this. The rapping isn't really called for and sometimes the chants and repeated phrases start to grate (noting that this is what I think she's going for) Suspect it won't age well if the copycats continue but this is nonetheless a great album.

Very credible album from the Doors. I'm mostly surprised by how funky some of the tracks can get. Roadhouse Blues is a fairly traditional 12 bar blues song but with occasional psych vocal flourishes from Morrison. Waiting for the Sun has an organ line that presages Suicides synthetic punk. The song lurches from a quite pretty intro into an intense and anxious middle section. You Make Me Real has some great 8:4 drumming in the chorus, adding some interest to an otherwise traditional 50s rock number. Peace Frog is a nice little piece of funk. Bue Sunday slows things down with swirling organs and Morrison crooning about love. Land Ho! is a regrettable bluesy number which shouldn't have made the cut. The Spy is stripped back paranoid blues. Queen of the Highway is another funk number, constantly shifting from psych rock to blues and back. Indian Summer is a very slow and beautiful piece of psych. The album ends with another dirty blues song with Maggie M'Gill. Bruce Botnick's engineering is impeccable. The mixing positions instruments sensibly and captures the dynamic song structures perfectly. The album integrates a lot of diverse ideas in seemingly simple tracks.

Fine blues rock. Sort of bridges the gap between Muddy Waters and Sabbath. Waiting for the Bus has some proper chugging bits. Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers is practically hair metal with a few 'virtuouso' solos over the most boring bass line you can imagine. Master of Sparks hints at something more interesting in the intro before reverting to type. Precious and Grace is the highlight, essentially a Sabbath song, with a stripped back bassline cascading guitar fills and Dusty Hill reaching for Ozzy Osborne lyrics. La Grange rocks hard with the John Lee Hooker groove but also reveals that unlike Sabbath, at the core this is just white boy blues and isn't trying to accomplish anything new. Sheik is a funky number with stabbing guitar licks, it's fun coming off like a Stevie Wonder/Hendrix/Average White Band tribute. I suppose this album is fine but I'm sitting here in the 2020s with the music industry in shambles and every song ever written at my fingertips. If I want to listen to blues I'll listen to the originals.

What a lovely surprise! A wonderful piece of soul from an artist I'd never heard of. The album weaves jazz, soul and motown arrangements with psychedelic lyrics and Nyro's impressive vocal range. While the album is full of high energy songs Nyro's vocals and piano excel in the quiet bits. The songs all take full advantage of this, with regular tempo changes and unaccompanied solos. This is used to excellent effect in Poverty Train, where they accentuate the psychedelic peaks created by Jope Farrell's flute. The album is dense with ideas and the songs don't really conform to traditional pop structures, but the seams don't really show and you are left with the impression of cohesive songs and themes across the album. The back half of the album is the highlight with the strong rythym section in Woman's Blues accentuating its sophisticated songwriting.

1978 was a great year for synthesizers, with Kraftwerk in full swing, Human League's first single and Gary Numan's first solo album right around the corner. The Cars is much more accessible for the rock and roll heads. Interestingly the band members met in Cleveland in the 60s. The album released the same year as Devo's first one and the parallels are easy to hear. Something in the water I guess... When this opened with anxious guitar and keening vocals in Let the Good Times Roll I had to double check that this wasn't a Gary Numan project. I had to check again when the synths come in. I had to check a third time when the bass arpeggio starts. My Best Friend's Girl is a little more trad rock with some decent fake banjo solos over lyrics about stealing girlfriends. Its not amazing and its let down by a corny refrain at the end. In 2025 this doesn't sound like it should have been a single. Just What I Needed is a classic, the complicated phrasing changes in the beat is something I hadn't noticed before and adds to the subtle motoric influences without going full Kraftwerk. I'm in Touch with Your World goes nods towards Cleveland with angular guitars and synth flourishes. Don't Cha Stop continues the Devo love and actually sounds a lot more like some of Devo's later work. Bye Bye Love weave the synth and guitar lines perfectly in wailing solos, interspersed with crooning from Ocasek. Moving in Stereo goes back to the goth/hard rock from earlier in the album and creates a great sense of desolation while still rocking out. All Mixed Up almost makes the same mistakes as Best Friend's Girl but has some redeeming harmonies from the chorus. It makes the fatal mistake of closing out with a tenor sax. Occasional proggy moments never get out of hand. Some critics are noting that the lyrics are sarcastic and ironic but I think in the context of the year they are a lot more sincere than Hutter or Mothersbaugh or Oakey. I'm not sure if that's what's making me shy away from giving this a 5 - the lyrics are not as sly as other post punk acts from the era and the classic love song motifs don't gel with the futuristic sounds. Also tenor sax right at the end leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Folk taking full advantage of state of the art recording techniques. Its fun to hear Williamson go wild on different instruments in the arrangements but the whole thing is let down by hippy dippy psych lyrics... like.... its cool and all, and there's some mind-bending stereo tricks and all but you can tell these guys really _believed it_ The album is the best when its restrained. The Very Cellular Song demonstrates this when it changes tack halfway from polyphonic nonsense from the first half of the album to a limited set of voices and some beautiful melancholy harmonies. Unfortunately its 13 minutes long (!) and the first half really says nothing (literally and metaphorically) that hasn't already been said in the first 15 minutes of the album. Three is a Green Crown is the highlight and almost elevates the album to something great with that kind of pulsating tension that makes Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit such a hit. The exotic instruments are out in full and my face is melting by the seventh minute. Swift is the Wind serves as a lovely coda to the song. Unfortunately most of the rest of the album is tonally at odds with it. Any album of essentially two players and this much instrumentation is a technical achievement, but their virtuosity lacks the discipline and erudition of the Mothers. There's a good single here but you have to wade through a lot of self-indulgence to get to the gem.

Recorded in New York, this tribute to Illinois achieves the dubious feat of being naand boring at the same time While all the elements (and there are a lot) are beautifully arranged, they are thoroughly predictable and the songs all blur into one. Its hard to really pick out anything as special. Whether its a happy song or a sad song it still kind of all feels the same. I suppose you could argue that this is the intention of a good album, that it takes you 'on a journey', but in this case the journey is very long (its only a day's drive to Chicago!) The Blues inflected Jacksonville is the highlight with cascading banjo and countered by string. Do I need a song to learn about the town of Jacksonville, Illinois (pop. 17,616)? No. Poppier moments like Chicago feel trite and over-done nowadays, and I don't think would have actually been that exciting back in 2005 either. My last album was Incredible String Band which I think suffered from the same problem in terms of baroque virtuosity and self-indulgence. I singled it out for having nonsense lyrics but now I realise that the alternative is even worse, the didactic stories about Chicago make it clear just how far away from the ground Stevens is here. In 20 years Stevens has managed two states from his 50 States series. I'm not going to reward failure.

Disco and prog inflected funk from some of the best players of the 70s should be an instant five but unfortunately this album melts too far into the background for a band full of big, iconoclastic personalities. As promised the title track unites nations under a very groovy and fully fleshed out rythym section. Worrell's synthesizer flourishes add an edge to what is otherwise a very laid back track. Groovallegience invented calypso funk. Not necessarily surprised it didn't go any further than this song but the Belafonte indulgences are redeemed by some excellent bass and drum breaks. Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock? rocks with the confidence of the only bandleader ready to inherit Hendrix's legacy. The Doo Doo song would be a great interlude in a live performance but definitely drags a bit on the album. The album starts to drag after the highs of One Nation. Into You improves things by combining classic blues with some highly technical bass grooves from Collins and a wonderful baritone from Clinton. Cholly reprises the disco themes of One Nation Under a Groove and is a great little low-key tracks. One of my favourite things in a Funkedelic track are the murmurs and chattering that are woven through the backing vocals, they give every recording a wonderful 'playing in the backyard' feel and are in full effect in this song. Lunchmeatophobia goes hard and almost extends into Sabbath territory. P.E Squad (a reprise of the Doo Doo song) and the live version of Maggot Brain weren't really necessary. As you would expect there is lots of brilliant weirdness and crazy ideas that threaten to fall off the brink. The prog-influences are apparent with some of the breaks getting a bit noodly and song-lengths that will have you muttering 'feet don't fail me now'. If they'd taken a razor to the songs and maybe chosen some shorter cuts this would be an instant five.

Proto-glam love ballads. Some of which have a widescreen glamour but generally lacking in energy. The single Trafalgar is moribund with the boys struggling to get the chorus out despite clear intent for it to be a belter. Some of the songs (Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself, How Can you Mend a Broken Heart) display the occasional flashes of a rythym section and what lies in the future in terms of hit singles, but these are just flashes of brilliance trying to keep its head above an ocean of boring. This feels like what mum and dad would have been listening to in 1971 while the kids were losing their minds to LA Woman and Sticky Fingers.

What kind of vegetable do you need to put in your mouth to sound like this? But seriously there is some beautiful songwriting and production on this album. With thoughtful, wry and timeless lyrics about social issues Prine's limited experience is overcome by some subtle production and arrangements. Nonetheless this is more poetry than music and it only really shines if you push the hard-working studio musicians into the background to focus on the meaning of the words.

Was dreading this when I saw it show up. A prog supergroup? 1971? 20 minute long, 7-part cycle about a battle between an armadillo tank and a manticore? This can't end well. But then the drums start and you realise you're about to hear the 70's equivalent of Venetian Snares. Tarkus brings a massive amount of energy to a genre badly in need of it. By putting the drums out in front rather than the noodly guitar work ELP show what was so frustrating about the rest of the prog groups in the 70s. That's not to say it isn't prog and doesn't sometimes succumb to its excesses. ii. Stones of Years is a kind of lame sci-fi/psych thing with boring organ solos. Thankfully its quickly replaced iii. Iconoclast which ratchets up the tension and energy. iv. Mass starts noodly but relies on fairly traditional blues scales to avoid getting too naff. The track ends with some fancy studio effects and stero images in vii. Aquatarkus. The second side is weaker and doesn't get off to a great start with Jeremy's Bender. Bitches Crystal is great for maintaining the energy and has some wild piano but is a bit too chromatic for my tastes. The Only Way combines Beatles crooning about Hitler with pipe organs and baroque piano. It goes about as well as you'd expect. A Time and Place is a pretty fun Led Zep tribute and closing out with a straight rock number is a welcome relief from the high concepts. This is the best prog rock album I've heard. That's why it gets a three.

All killer no filler. Hits harder than a lot of later funk albums but also brings a sense of euphoria and bliss that won't be seen again until rave in the 90s. Stand! opens the album with a call to action and breaks down into a dj-ready funky coda which was sampled multiple times in the 90s. Don't Call me Nigger, Whitey continues the socially conscious lyrics with p-funk style noodling punctuated by intense build-ups powered by lung popping horn scales. I Want to Take You Higher is quintessential '69 with punchy blues inspired guitars and organs, euphoric vocals and a great harmonica solo. Somebody's Watching You is a nice piece of soul with a great message but its let down by weird mixing (why do they have the backing vocals running through a drivethru speaker?) Sing a Simple Song recovers the otherwise excellent production with hard hitting drums and horn stabs and a highly differentiated stereo image. I can't do justice to Everyday People in words. Sex Machine is a blues instrumental number which gradually picks up pace with double-time high hats being joined by increasingly intense solos, culminating in a highly processed guitar solo at the end (at times sounding like a neurofunk bassline!) You Can Make it If You Try ends the album with a positive message and an infectious (and rythmically clever) hooks. Bonus points for being the defining sample for the Jungle Brother's album. This album is the whole package - it carries a strong message about unity that's lived by the band itself. It's driven by the rythym section. The performances are tight and the mixing (with the exception above) finds a place for every part. Not a single second of its 41 minute run time is wasted.

A thoroughly weird album. I would not want to listen to this on LSD. It kind of falls into this uncanny valley between pop sensibility and avant garde inaccessibility Our Prayer/Gee starts with a pleasant chant before leading into a classic Beach Boys a capella and immediately into Heroes and Villains, which is kind of like Zappa and Oingo Boingo had a baroque/doo-wop/barbershop wedding with tempo changes, caesura and disjointed organ phrases. The a capella continues with Roll Plymouth Rock except now with what sounds like tongue twisters. Barnyard evokes late period Residents replete with sheep and chicken noises. Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine is a wilted Kenny G rendition of the classic. Cabin Essence brings out a bazouki to imitate a banjo as far as I can tell. Wonderful goes back to Zappa weirdness in the vocals and scale and chord changes. Song for Children plagiarises Good Vibrations but without any of its catchiness. Child is Father of the Man - all you need to know is in the title. A sort of cool string and piano outro I guess. Surf's Up is probably the closest thing to a pop song but Park Van Dyke's vocals have this jowly Flinstones thing going on. I'm in Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop is just hiding the fact that Wilson had some sketches lying around that he couldn't figure out how to finish. Vega-Tables is about vegetables but nowhere near as funny as Zappa on the same subject. On a Holiday is only surprising in that it took this long for the album to break out the slide whistles and sea shanties. "Though its hard/I try not to look at my wind chimes" - genius. Mrs. O'Leary's Cow provides some welcome relief with an actual guitar riff and anxious moaning from the ersatz beach boy choir. What I do like about the album is it leans into the vaguely sinister aspect of all Wilson's songwriting and this song is where the curtain comes down and you discover the monster. That monster is quickly shuffled away in Blue Hawaii and then as if Wilson is in terror that you'll ask more questions he punches out a rendition of Good Vibrations. Heroes and Villains (instrumental) was not necessary. Without the vocals the unfinished aspect of this is really clear. Its unfinished and it sounds like its been realised on Soundblaster general MIDI. I have no problem with Brian Wilson getting some love in the list but I'm not convinced this should be here. Nonetheless this is so bizarre its charming.

Avant-glam. I was familiar with Roxy Music and ambient, I hadn't heard Eno's solo work. Its a pretty cool stepping stone on his career from synth operator to eminence grise by the end of the century. Needles in the Camel's Eye cold-opens the album with a shoegaze queasiness. The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch demonstrates a really virtuosic talent for studio work with multiple guitar voices fading in and out, subject to some beautiful effect treatments. A synth line with a fine understanding of key velocity punctuates it. Baby's on Fire starts as a classic glam track although loses some punch when it descends into prog-noodling in the middle. Cindy Tells Me almost goes back to early Bowie in format before a phasing guitar washes over the top of the song. Driving Me Backwards includes disconcerting changes to phrasing and (I think) some reverse reverb and cool guitar squelches. On Some Faraway Beach is mixed really weird with Andy Mackay's keyboard work out in front despite not being very good. On the one hand Eno is kind of beating My Bloody Valentine to the punch by 20 years but it doesn't quite hit with the clear melody on the keys sitting on top. Blank Frank is a sleeper hit with a psychedelic take on Sabbath with blues bassline, soaring guitars, synths and studio in full effect. Eno can be really hit and miss but when he hits he knocks it out of the park. Dead Finks Don't Talk is fine I guess. Its a plodding number with a 60s pop structure (albeit with screaming in the background of the chorus!?). The last 20 seconds is ace and may be the inspiration for Kouhei Matsunaga. Some of Them are Old is a pleasant exploration of tape effects punctuated by Brian Wilson style acapellas. Its interesting that Smile had been my last album as there are a lot of similarities in what they are doing trying to marry pop sensibilities with boundary pushing. Eno did significantly better thanks to his technical skills and his better mental health. Here Come the Warm Jets closes the album with another proto-shoegaze album. I want to like this more as I love Eno and the influences this album had on later musicians which I love. There's part of me that would have preferred this to be just the experimental parts as the glam/pop stuff is a bit generic. I suppose it adds a nice contrast though.

I feel like I'm being railroaded here. I question whether a live album is appropriate for the list (even for the greatest live performer on earth) and I feel like I'm doing Mr. Dynamite a dirty by not giving this a five. Anything from Brown's JB's era is an easy five, as are some of the later Famous Flames albums (love The Popcorn) and while this is an amazing performance it doesn't actually translate to that great an album. The album starts with an intro to the set by Fats Gonder, promising some high energy R+B before dropping into Try Me - a fairly low energy doo wop number. Things pick up with Think, great horn cadenzas but it has nothing on the Lyn Collins number. I Don't Mind then goes back into a low energy soul number about not loving too hard. Lost Someone stays low energy and plods along for over 10 minutes. The players are fine but you really feel Brown carrying the tracks with his unique vocal style. There are full minutes of essentially the same phrase. Please Please Please is a great soul number and the crescendo at the end of I Found Someone is a terrific counterpoint to Lost Someone. Night Train finally closes us out with three and a half minutes of proper R+B to get you grooving but the payoff takes way too long. The saving grace of the album are the little vamps and hyping by the MC. You can visualise Brown sweating out each of the songs but you mostly just feel jealous that you weren't there on what must have been an iconic night - Brown basically staked his faltering career on this performance. Its an absolute travesty that this is the only James Brown album on the list. Surely one of the interminable prog bands could have made some more room for his later work.

Its interesting to critically listen to a ten year old pop album. There's just enough separation from its tropes that you can place it in a particular era without it just forming part of the FM slime permeating shops and your friends' car stereos. This holds up pretty well. Green Light combines Sia-esque melancholy vocals with heater production, building up tension without ever providing a satisfying resolution. Sober draws on the soca trend (which was a cool time I suppose, people drawing on wider Caribbean influences than just reggae and dancehall was the start of a more internationalist dance music scene.) Homemade Dynamite is the second single and along with The Louvre has this really satisfying crunchy percussion treatment. Liability strips back the instrumentation to highlight Lorde's heartfelt musings on fame and heartbreak. Hard Feelings continues to highlight Lorde's vocals by keeping the production backgrounded. It also continues the heartbreak themes. The production is great when it is restrained, giving you a sense that the whole studio is struggling to hold back heavy teenaged feelings. Loveless has a cutesy almost hyperpop style tonally at odds with Hard Feelings, hard to understand why these are mastered as a medley (although shout outs to the Kane West tribute FM congas and Phil Collins sample). The back end of the album starts to drag a bit with a lot of tracks just reprises from the first half. Supercut is an alright bit of electropop but doesn't wow as much as Green Light. Glad I heard this all the way through but given this kind of music is still pretty ubiquitous I might just settle for keeping an ear out for it in the supermarket.

A band explicitly identified as paying homage to another era better be fucking good to be on this list. Otherwise why not just take an album from the era worth homage? There are some kind of proto hypnagogic pop but these are buried under contemporary pop sensibilities and don't result in any good hauntological vibes. Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far) starts with a kind of Beatlesy pop number with uninspired lyrics. Big Sur continues the Calinfornia themin' and banjo parts as well as generic lyrics. There's a kind of fun doo-wop link between verses but that's all they have. Don't Steal Our Sun has a nice steel guitar bit against a kind of Franz Ferdinand rythym track. Probably one of the better tracks. Deckchairs and Cigarettes is a lament rendered meaningless by all-too-smooth vocals. One Horse Town is again a surf-country number with a fun rythym let down by boring lyrics. There really isn't much more to say about the album, it continues down the line of mediocre slow songs and fun up-beat songs let down by tepid songwriting. The only song worth calling out is Say It Ain't So for being a favourite of George W. Bush. The only redeeming quality of this album is the beautiful production, mixing and arrangement which give the album the feeling of a Beach Boys HD remaster. If the authors were really intent on something 60s inspired for this decade they could have chosen an Ariel Pink's Huanted Graffiti album, at least then there would have been some good lyrics.

Was expecting a rap album but despite Pharrel William's pedigree as a producer this is straight pop-rock without a rhyme to be seen. Hendrix and George Michael influences permeate. Its fascinating to see how identifiable the Neptunes production is despite the change of genre. Don't Worry About It is blues number with a monotone bassline, stripped back percussion with occasional organs and psych rock guitars orbiting. The middle section smooths out with the addition of a chorus before going back to the stripped out style at the end. Fly or Die is basically pop-rock with some vaguely soulful elements. Jump continues the pop themes with a syncopated and anxious drum track. Backseat Love brings back the Hendrix influences with bluesy guitars, bass and hammonds. She Wants to Move is like an anxious Faith, combining acoustic guitars with rolling toms. Breakout is an indie pop number with almost pop-punk lyrics. Wonderful Place lounges into a crescendo in the chorus with a synth line to imitate the horns. The album takes a sampler's approach to influences. Drill Sergeant almost sounds like a Beatles track. Preservation has brief moments of Faith No More. Thrasher is one of the few tracks with a hip hop beat, combining honky-tonk piano with raw electric guitar playing the same chord. The Way She Dances is the standout with some nice diminished chord breakdowns. The back half of the album starts to recycle themes and ideas and its not exactly boundary pushing in the first place. That being said the production achieves a lot with a limited palette and the fact that they learned their instruments for the album speaks a lot to their raw talent.

Wonderful piece of laid back modal jazz, the trio work in complete balance, everyone shining. Gloria's Step puts La Faro's bass melodies out front with a number of great solos. Solar has great interplay between Evans and La Faro with each seemingly egging each other to go higher before tumbling back down. Faro's technical ability is on show in Alice in Wonderland's solo before Evans matches it with an elegant legato. It would be easy to dismiss this album as background music, but La Faro's playing is so innovative that it demands recognition.

A tale as old as time. Spend $64m on drugs, rock as hard as fuck and record it on an album to cockblock Slash.

Wildly inconsistent album. Some amazing experiments in combining genres but also some undercooked sketches and indie snore-fests. Sunken Waltz is like a more southern inflected Pogues. But also its like a more shit Pogues. I hate the Pogues. Calexico, I'll do you a deal, everytime your album reminds me of the Pogues it loses a star. Quattro gets a bit more interesting with the occasional horn blast and reverb drenched guitar floating over the top. Black Heart is the only thing I'd listen to again. A country-inflected noir number reminiscent of Glory Box by Portishead. A lot of the songs either feel like sketches (Pepita, The Book and the Canal, Dub Latina) Soemtimes the attempts to blend styles fail, Not Even Stevie Nicks can't really escape from the 2000s indie mire. Close Behind is one of the better tracks, with spaghetti western accordion and steel guitar and a 6:4 time signature. Woven Birds and Across the Wire are just re-hashes of Sunken Waltz. The better tracks are the ones that give the horns a bit of a spin. Attack! El Robot! Attack! is rescued from the indie mire by its sultry sax lines. Guero Canelo is a fun norteno tribute to a fast food restaurant in Tucson, with Burns rapping into a drive-through delivery box. Alone Again stays fun by leaning into the norteno side of things. Almost ready to forgive one of the Pogues songs. Crumble is a great tribute to Lalo Schifrin. No Doze is far more boring than a trip across the desert. The album is saved in the second half for sure, but I've already soured on it by then. Could have used a few more months in the oven.

AROUND THE WORLD AROUND THE WORLD

Bowie at his best, riding the waves of everything everything good about rock in the 70s and injecting it with widescreen glamour. Beauty and the Beast is a kind of punk-funk that almost veers into Funkadelic territory with Fripp's processed guitar (?) imitating Bernie Worrel. Joe the Lion is more traditional glam but could easily have been on The Cars with Fripp's guitars again sounding more like a synth. The title track is of course one of the most epic songs ever written. Custom built to be the last karaoke song before your night becomes a drunken mess. Sons of the Silence opens sounding like John Lydon doing a Vegas tour before fleshing out the links between 60s pop and glam. Blackout goes back to proto-post punk with jangly guitars and queasy breakdowns. V-2 Schneider is probably the low point (barely). A nice instrumental number not really adding much. The second half of the album starts with a cycle of ambient tracks largely written by Eno. Sense of Doubt opens with doom laden pianos and synths that could have made the cut for the Blade Runner soundtrack. Moss Garden is absolutely sublime and features Bowie on Koto. Neukoln goes a bit heavier on sounds and you can hear the Warm Jets creeping into it. Tenor sax is weirdly great and keeps the Blade Runner feel going. I wonder what an alternate soundtrack (or a collab?) between Eno and Vangelis (and Bowie and Fripp?) on that sountrack would have been like? The Secret Life of Arabia is practically a Talking Heads song and also hints at Bowie's turn to disco in the 80s. Abdulmajid closes the album with a Marinetti drum machine rythym that would have had the Spaniards frothing. I mean, you have Bowie, Fripp, Eno and Tony Visconti in Berlin. What ever did you think would happen but the creation of some of the best music possible?

25 minutes of molasses. Given the Melvins aren't on the list I guess this is as good as its going to get for sludge. Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More is starts us off with woozy guitar drowned in fuzz. Chain that Door speeds us up a bit, sounding like a lo-fi (if that is even possible) Sonic Youth. Mudride is back to slowed down punk chuggers. A little more bluesy and a little less fuzzy but still heavy as. Sabbath inflections in the vocals. Side B opens with No One Has, Irish twins with Cross the Breeze, driving guitars and a motoric beat but maybe a little too close to Sonic Youth. If I Think I Think Of You shows where the quiet-loud-quiet thing that Seattle people loved so much comes from. A bit boring but the loud bits rock hard I guess. In 'N' Out Of Grace closes out the album in fine form, sounding slower than it actually is thanks to the fuzz and sludge. Maybe its just because I'm coming to it later than their influences but I feel a bit like Mudhoney isn't bringing anything new to the table? Every track I'm just kind of drawing similarities to other bands. They kind of bridge the gap between the Melvins/Sonic Youth proto-grunge and Nirvana's more refined stuff. At least it doesn't sound like Pearl Jam I guess. Definitely my thing though. Glad I listened. PS I started with the Deluxe Edition (always a mistake) and it was full of punk tracks. Useful to calibrate where these guys were coming from but lots of filler. Stick to the original.

Listening to this after a nap was a bad idea. The hit singles are quickly forgotten as the album descends into ponderous, interminable 80s soft rock. Few tracks are shorter than six minutes for absolutely no good reason. The fucking FM panpipes in Ride Across the River...

I was dreading this one. It has a personal connection with someone I loved and lost early in my life. Also its prog and I'm racist against prog. The album opens beautifully, Breathe (In the Air) lagubriously drowns its steel guitar in reverb and leaves you feeling like you're floating on the air. On the Run beats Juan Atkins to the punch by 8 years and I reckon would still make a great 3am interlude at Berghain. Nonetheless it is prog and some of the beautiful engineering and production are overshadowed by boring self-indulgent solos (Breathe, Great Gig in the Sky). I've already commented on the self-indulgence of Mott the Hoople singing about the pressures of fame, and while it feels a bit more believable in the eighth album of one of the biggest bands in history the lyrical themes are still a bit meh. Money's angular 7:4 rythym is smoothed over by a tenor sax solo. The seamless transition to a 4:4 blues rock-out bit is pretty cool though. Us and Them is overwrought and forgettable. Any Colour You Like would have been better without the guitars as another proto-Detroit techno number. I'm convinced Pink Floyd did a number on people by bracketing some good but not great prog with two beautiful tracks at the start and two at the end. Brain Damage evokes a frisson with each verse and Eclipse resolves the album with an almost Beatles like capo. This will probably be the last time I voluntarily listen to this album. I'm glad I did but it's still really painful.

There has to be a really good reason for a rock album post 2000 to get on this list. This album is not it.

I can't forgive them for what they did to Albini on this album. This could have been something great if they didn't wuss out. Cobain was right to call it quits after this. Serve the Servant opens with clanging guitars and noise. Cobain's lyrics are fine but serve the template for decades of boring alt rock all the way up to Silverchair. Dave Grohl's drumming is about as soulless and uninspiring as you can get. They should have just used a drum machine. Scentless Apprentice has a bit of a Mudhoney-esque chug to it, but also some Daydream Nation aesthetic tension, kind of fun. Dave Grohl is still boring. Heart Shaped Box starts to get more fun, classic quiet-loud-quiet-loud mumbly grunge. Dave Grohl is slightly less boring. Dave gets a little more frisky in the song Rape Me, even busting out a triplet occasionally. Dumb is good for the quiet-sort of quiet-quiet bit an innovative counterpoint to Heart Shaped Box. Dave Grohl is still boring. Very Ape has a woozy combo of REM vocals and and quasi metal riffs. Dave Grohl sounds boring on this song. Milk It goes full Melvins and is probably the highlight. Dave Grohl actually manages to sound like he cares. Pennyroyal Tea sees Dave revert to form. The penultimate tracks redeem the album. Radio Friendly Unit Shifter is what I would have hoped for in the album and good on them for it even if Dave Grohl is boring on it. Cobain has a much more punk edge to his vocals and actually sounds way better when he avoids trying to sound like an American Jon Gill. On the other hand he sounds primo strangling the guitar. Tourettes rocks hard and has a catchy little surf-rock hook. Dave Grohl sounds boring. Honestly All Apologies isn't bad. Dave Grohl occasionally hits the drums well. The strings are a nice touch. It deserved its place as a single. The dirge at the end is a great way to end the album. Its a portrait of a band struggling to break out of the shackles of mainstream success. They do alright but you can't escape the majors that easily.

Who knew Neil Young was the father of grunge? He definitely has the 'father' right and struggles to escape the dad-rock tag in this album. In his interview with Rolling Stone Neil Young calls it 'a MIDI'. Country Home as the name suggest opens with a pretty generic twangy guitar thing with Young singing about yearning for his country home. This is described by Rolling Stone as the 36th greatest grunge album of all time forever demonstrating the lack of relevance that magazine has had for music in the last half century. White Line is more half-arsed country nonsense. Fucking Up finally gets a bit grunge-y but also struggles to elevate itself to any proper intensity, instead sounding like a tired ZZ Top. Six minute long songs are not grunge. Over and Over sinks back into dad rock. Love to Burn is better and does again approach grunge, but its let down by its length and the croony bits (seriously how can anyone call this a garage rock album with a straight face when its got two 10 minute songs on it?) Farmer John gets the balance between country and grunge right (and is a reasonable length). Mansion on the Hill is a bit shit, if you told me the Eagles wrote it I wouldn't have been surprised. Days that Used to Be is the kind of classic Young ballad that inspires people to reminisce about their dead friends in Youtube comments. The next ten minute track Love and Only Love doesn't really pretend anymore and just goes balls to the wall classic rock with prog vocals. Mother Earth is an interesting experiment but is again at odds with the garage rock thing. Young had this weird period in the late 80s and early 90s where he was fostering all this great talent so he gets a point for that. Maybe his guidance is what led to the immense beauty of Daydream Nation? Maybe if Kurt had just had a beer with the old man he would have stopped hanging out with bad influences like Albini and Nirvana would have stayed credible? Maybe if they'd just hung out a bit more Devo would have stopped using their MIDI and been normal for a gosh darned second?

Third quote-unquote 'grunge' album in a row. There are a couple of amazing tracks in here but you have to sift through a lot of average stuff. Could have used an edit. Big Exit opens with a tense guitar shimmers and Kim Gordon esque vocals echoing down the street. Good Fortune is a bit grating to be honest, Harvey wants to make her sound more beautiful but can't quite get there all the time. A Place Called Home does it better with jangly guitars, piano and dulcet overdubs in the chorus. One Line elevates things further with a slow 7:4 crescendo. The album finally hits the mark with Beautiful Feeling with a percussion-less dirge reminiscent of Swans when they were doing beautiful stuff. The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore feels like it falls off a bit, again trying to have it both ways with beauty and power. The studio tricks at the end are pretty cool but the chorus leans way too heavily on wordplay for the effect she was aiming for. Thom Yorke adds little to This Mess We're In and I have a lot less respect for the other people doing the project after seeing so many of you say that you think this is the highlight of the album. You Said Something is pretty average sub-Pogues alt-folk, tonally at odds with the rest of the album. Kamikaze is fun with jungle breaks and PJ hitting the whistle register. This is Love is perfectly fine grunge tribute to hard rock, something which has been done by every group since Sonic Youth multiple times. Horses in My Dreams is a beautiful cinematic ballad, again in the vein of late 80s Swans. We Float is cool in that it actually feels kind of future-focused, blissful pianos and synths and a (unfortunately quite boring) eurobeat break combined with a soaring chorus. Like a lot of the later stuff in the list it suffers from being out-of-joint with the times. I want to hear what the early 2000s sound like (even if it doesn't hit the mark), not well made tributes to 10+ years earlier. I'm looking forward to listening to some of Harvey's earlier works eventually.

What went wrong with that elephant on the right? Accidents Will Happen is a forgettable new wave/glam crossover. Senior Service picks up a little with some dub influences and a tense little synth arpeggio. Oliver's Army goes back to boring glam. And there it stays until Party Girl, which instead sounds like like Faith No More doing soft rock. The second half gets a bit better. You can hear whispers of the Clash through the album, it gets a bit stronger with Goon Squad. Busy Bodies has moments of angular breakdowns and Devo style synths popping up but also pretty boring rock bits. Sunday's Best marks a shift in the album stripping back the instrumentation and employing a disconcerting circus waltz rythym while Costello channels Mike Patton. Moods for Moderns maintains the nervous energy although its always just a bit too smooth for its own good. Any gains are lost with Chemistry Class, which is pure dad-rock. Two Little Hitlers is more ahead of its time 90's pop-rock (this isn't a compliment - I know now where Barenaked Ladies got their schtick). As someone else pointed out the engineering is fucked. Imagine if Billy Joel had gone to Berlin but instead of hooking up with Visconti and Eno he met Brian Wilson and Phil Spector.

T.Rex figured out quicker than anyone that prog was not the answer to the death of the American dream. As the pioneer of glam this feels like Bolan is finding his feet and when it peaks it peaks. Mambo Sun opens with a slinky proto-funk number with some ahead of their time delay and reverb tricks. Cosmic Dancer probably goes a bit too Beatles with over-orchestrated crooning. More studio tricks. More glam. Jeepster gets a good balance of bluegrass and glam-sheen, Bolan makes it real clear what it was about the Beatles that made them so great, that merging of pop sensibilities with good 12 tone. Monolith opens like a Kendrick Lamar track but loses steam with boring low-energy noodling. Lean Woman Blues slows things down even more but is mercifully a straight blue number with a short run time and no pretensions. Bolan finally picks up the energy on the second side with Get it On, the original and best glam track, one of the greatest songs ever written. I remember it being a bit faster and having a bit more of a crescendo, in reality its still quite slinky and filthy which I think is better. Owes a lot to Velvet Underground I think. Planet Queen reverts to psych rock tropes but at least has a good beat and the second half gets a bit funky. Girl is a bit ponderous, the brass sections are a good idea but it doesn't really go anywhere. The Motivator keys back in to what makes Get it On such a good track with sly lyrics and bass leaning against the sultry rhythm and some great counterpoint. Life's a Gas goes back to low energy noodling. Rip Off ends the album with a great proto-post-punk number, I just wish the whole album could have been stuff like this and Get it On! I agree with a few other people that its a real struggle to decide if this is a 3 or a 4. Bolan is a genius and one of precious few heroes in early 70s UK (see what I did there?). Visconti is also a genius and he deserves credit for such a well put together album. This was a great reminder that T.Rex have some great songs but unfortunately I just couldn't see myself sitting down to listen to this all the way through again.

Pulp's magpie approach to britpop is brilliant. I keep feeling like there's a single band from the UK in the 60s or 70s which they are drawing from but I can't quite put my finger on it. The reality is its a whirling pastiche of pop and post-punk. Are they ripping off Beatles pop appeal? Are they going for Pink Floyd electronic wizardry? Cynical Bowie subversion? Cocker deserves to be up there with Zappa and Patton for his cut and paste skills. Mis-shapes sounds a lot like an anxious Beatles cover. Pencil Skirt starts like an early Bowie Baroque Pop track before morphing into a synth pop number and back again. Common People is like if the Buggles took speed before appearing on MTV. I Spy is a bizarre mash of Sicilian drama, BBC futurism and New Order disco. Disco 2000 is mwah. The next three songs are a bit of a downer after the highs of the first half. Sorted for E's and Wizz is probably the highlight of the three for its woozy rendition of rave comedowns. Cocker's refrains at the end are hilarious. F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E goes full Numan with entirely electronic instrumentation and anxious minor keys. Underwear elevates this even further before an icy take on Sheffield art-goth. Underwear takes them on a trip to Madchester. Monday Morning pulls us out of the warehouse channeling Clash with ska influences and dub sirens. Bar Italia goes full circle, ending the album with Bowie glam. All the songs sneak tremendous amounts of tension and anxiety behind glimmering synths and sly lyrics. Simon Reynolds got it right by framing Pulp as the art-school intellectual alternative to the Oasis/Blur dichotomy. Pulp work with a much higher density of ideas, maxing out the studio gear to get their effect. Unlike so many other albums that are just tributes to a previous era this really an attempt to make something new out of the ashes of the past.

Queen makes the links between prog, glam and hard rock explicit in this album. Not sure if that's a good thing. Brighton Rock is hair metal and while I know its hardly fair to criticise Queen of all bands for self-indulgence the three minute guitar solo is full of pointless arpeggios. Killer Queen isn't glam enough. Tenement Funster doesn't rock hard enough. A lot of studio tricks are fun but also sound a bit old (nothing Hendrix wasn't accomplishing on stage). Flick of the Wrist is a preview of Don't Stop Me Now which is cool I suppose. Lily of the Valley is a Freddie Mercury lament without the bracketing high energy bits that you get in Bohemian Rhapsody. Now I'm Here is way more fun with some hard rocking guitar riffs and the rarest of rare achievements - making a 70s rock piano line not sound dorky as fuck. In the Lap of the Gods has some sick stereo panning and is less annoying than a lot of the glam ballad stuff typical of the era. Stone Cold Crazy rocks proper heavy. Misfire is an almost George Michael sounding acoustic number which is cool but helped me realise the Brian Wilson style a capellas are maybe one of the things that turns me off Queen. Bring Back That Leroy Brown is a bit of a weird sort of dixie pop number. Its not bad and Queen is definitely at their best when their tongue is in their cheek. She Makes Me is a disjointed folk dirge and skippable. In the Lap of the Gods is fine. Put it in the 'tracks that you know are Queen songs within the first five seconds' column I guess. Interesting in that it paints Queen's transition from hard rock to glam. There's a couple of good hard rock tracks and a few fun and innovative glam tracks Queen is a really important band but overall I don't really feel like this album adds anything to the annals of music.

Ahah can't think of a better follow up to a Queen album. The Clash might have been better musicians and the Ramones might have played harder but neither of them could match the anarchy of the Pistols. In a little over a year Johnny and Sid trashed everything and walked out before anybody had known what happened. Even veterans like McClaren and Branson couldn't control it. Precisely the vandals the 70s needed. Greatest album ever made. One Star.

I remember my dad warning me that Leonard Cohen was 'pretty dark'. I was big into Joy Division at the time so whatever. Anyway this album is just the same sad folk song over and over again. There isn't a lot going on musically until Sisters of Mercy halfway through when you get some accordion and bells. So Long, Marianne is has a mandolin and fiddle and backing singers. None of it is any better than the tracks that are just sparse guitar strumming. Stories of the Street is the highlight employing some more interesting scales and feeling a bit more full bodied without actually adding any extraneous instrumentation. Cohen's lyrics are effective but this is 1001 albums not 1001 poems.

Any album that opens with Wildstyle samples is an instant 5. A who's who of New York producers in arguably one of the last great albums of the golden age. NY State of Mind is a classic DJ Premier sinister jazz beat. Life's a Bitch features some virtuosic rapping over an iconic chorus which leads the way for 2000s rap. The World is Yours replicates the formula and adds in more classic piano samples from Pete Rock. Halftime continues Nas's connection to baseball fans Main Source by bringing in Large Professor as a ringer and a really well constructed bassline. The album keeps bringing on the classics with One Love, featuring a spooky xylophone. More iconic bars in the laid bacl One Time for Your Mind. Premier's third track Represent captures the melancholy reality of life in the Bridge. Every track is peak boom bap and Nas raps with authority about life in Queensbridge. The album cover is iconic and the call for authenticity in this album is what makes it such a great reference for Kendrick Lamar in the 2010s.

Oh cool its temu Bjork.

Great R&B. Fats' baritone is pure sex over the top of a great band. The only criticism I have is that some of the tracks are a bit too 'trad'. That's more than made up for by rockers like Honey Chile. Tracks where he's banging the keys like La La are definitely the best. Its no surprise he caused riots when you hear the banjo on Trust in Me. The letdown is the recording quality which is what it is I suppose. Makes you wish you could have been there live. Highly recommend watching him play Blueberry Hill on the Ed Sullivan Show to get the charisma of the man.

With almost 40 years behind it you can start to appreciate the 80s production for how futuristic it is. We're only just now starting to see this kind of futurism coming back into mainstream pop. I suppose this is the argument for Asian pop movements in the past 20 years (conspicuously absent from the list). Anyway, Red Rain has that 'neon in the rain' sheen. Sledgehammer is great maximalist funk. The Fairlight's sample rate struggles against every track. Don't Give Up is beautiful until the piano comes in and Kate Bush is given free rein. The bass solo at the end redeems it. The glassy anxious synths in That Voice Again match the paranoid lyrics perfectly. Mercy Street employs some wonderful overdubs. I feel like one thing that lets the album down is its insistence on resolving melodies, the latent anxiety is what prevents this kind of thing from being trite. Big Time is another digital funk number in the vein of Sledgehammer. The bridge fucking slaps. The first half of We Do What We're Told could be a Mira Calix track, with beautiful 16 bit drums and processed synth samples. More avant garde with some awesome polyrythms in This is the Picture. Its a testament that Vaporwave essentially created a whole genre in tribute to this album.

Having a shit day and generator has my back. Thanks generator.

Imagine if you took the sex pistols and replaced Malcolm McClaren with with Brian Wilson. Imagine if Johnny tried singing his lyrics. Imagine if Wilson convinced the rest of the band to do little three piece harmonies just like the Beach Boys. Imagine if Sid Vicious sucked a little less but still couldn't really do much more than follow along with the melody but also was actually a really nice guy. He's thinking about starting an organic farm y'know? But more importantly imagine if the Sex Pistols weren't a smash and grab. Imagine if they were a long term hustle. These guys weren't just here to cash in, they were going to milk it for all its worth.

While its still got the intelligent emancipationist rapping from Chuck D the real contribution of this album is on rave. This album paved the way for darkcore and and is basically the only source other than 909s that Nasenbluten ever used. Its way more stripped back, much less funky and a lot more aggresive. Apparently their DATs were stolen halfway through production which makes it even more ghetto. Lost at Birth opens with skittering scratches moving across the whole stereo image and a metallic siren that could have come out of a Rufige Kru track. Nighttrain and Can't Truss It just pound home the same loops over and over again until they start to drill into your brain. By The Time I Get To Arizona is Amiga-ready having been reduced to the lowest bit rate you could imagine. 1 Million Bottlebags has rave stabs? Anthrax AND a funky drummer break? Suck on that Aerosmith. Its not Fear of a Black Planet or Nation of Millions but just look at that cover - Flav is literally the Terminator.

Perfectly acceptable psych-folk for the most part. I was expecting much worse. Are you Happy is like Lou Reed if he stayed off the smack. Only Dreaming Now is a bit more fleshed out with a string quartet and some pretty far out reverb. Painter of Women has some really epic peaks. The banjo in the Keeper Of Time is nice for being so understated. It Won't Get Better is back to clean living Lou Reed. Nine Pound Hammer is great for the way it builds pace and momentum while staying subdued. The single Magic Hollow is fucking trash though. The album kind of sours after that, its feels a lot more like 60s proto-prog hobbit nonsense than the first half. Old Kentucky Home is fine I suppose.

aha too many memories of sitting in various parents backyards smoking cones rushing back to me now. Was reflecting on why this doesn't feel as great as Apocalype '91 or Efil4zaggin. I think it has to do with the fact that those albums were late 80s rappers coming off their peak whereas this is the start of the new wave. Where the heavy looping and scratching style of production is at its peak in NWA or Public Enemy, its kind of being exposed for its limitations here. I think if one of their three later albums with more mid-90s techniques was in this place it would stand up better. A lot of the late golden era stuff can come off as a bit po faced (especially the new york stuff) whereas Cypress Hill is a bit more jokey, you can hear strains of the Biz or Eazy E or even LL Cool J or Slick Rick in their lyrics. At the start of the 90s Cypress would have seemed like upstarts, but in the mid-90s it feels more like they are carrying the torch.

I don't know how to explain it but this is the most Canadian album I've ever heard. Cinnamon Girl is really credible rock and you can hear the grunge elements clearer maybe than even Ragged Glory. Everybody Knows, Round & Round are boomer nonsense. Down by the River is really good guitar work and pretty funky the four minute long guitar solo is welcome relief from Young's lyrics. Side B opens with more ponderous country-rock with The Losing End. Running Dry turns the ponderousness up to 11 with a sad dirge. Cowgirl in the Sand is again pretty good because you just get to bliss out to some nice guitar solos and the vocals are a bit spaced out. While I'm not exactly charitable with Young I gotta admit hanging out at a jam session with him would be pretty good. I think the issue I have is with how predictable he is. Maybe that's due to the saturation of Neil Young (especially this era) in western culture and the iconic nature of '69 rock, but its like I know what the next chord is going to be every time. You can often map out two or three other more interesting chord changes that he *could* take, but you know 100% he won't take them. Even his more out there stuff like Trans is still really recognisable. I will say the 2009 remaster sounds really slick though and maybe another reason I'd hang out with him is to nerd out about sound quality.

I was like... oh actually this is alright. And then I realised its almost entirely covers. Everytime I hear it start to get interesting I go and check the credits and lo and behold its not a Clapton song. Its not bad. Its well produced. I don't feel like I needed to hear it before I died. Put it in the 'albums that you could take off the list without anyone noticing'. I suppose you could give it a three but he butchers the groove on I Shot the Sheriff which is unforgiveable.

I'm a sucker for this turn of the millenium acid jazz stuff. Its a shame there's no 4Hero or Jazzanova (not even Brand New Heavies!). I guess this and Jamiroquai will have to do. Samba Bencao is slow and sultry until the second half with these skittering beats that wouldn't be out of place on a Mille Plateaux release. The title track has a great cinematic feel, again just really subtle electronics and modern recording techniques make what would be pretty trad bossa nova into something really fresh. Alguem goes a little harder on the electronics. The production techniques do date it a bit (and not necessarily in a good way). Wouldn't be a Bossa album without So Nice. Gilberto almost raps in Bananeira. Close Your Eyes is a cheeky little closer. Its unique for sounding strong without ever really forcing itself on you.

Well I was just complaining about the lack of nu jazz and the generator comes out and reminds me that Stevie Wonder did all that stuff back in the 70s. This is the culmination of an amazing decade of albums. Have a Talk to God has some seriously wonky synths and sound effects. Village Ghetto Life combines a Wendy Carlos baroque synth with socially consciousness unmatched by anyone but Gil Scott Heron (maybe Chuck D?). Contusion is a dizzying fusion number which feels just like the kind of bewildering confusion that comes from a TBI that leads straight into Sir Duke, which starts out like a big band swing number before some of those iconic chord changes and about the funnest horn line in the world. I Wish is a rollicking funk number with a direct line to George Clinton. Pastime Paradise is of course a critical track for anyone who came of age in the 90s. Ronnie Foster and Wonder on Summer Soft soar with every verse. The second half is weaker with quite a few longer songs that probably could have used a razor. Highlights are Black Man for some more consciousness and some great solos, As for the gospel choruses and All Day Sucker for recognising fellow genius George Clinton. I do question the track ordering, it seems to go from social consciousness to big brassy fun to love ballad without any rhyme or reason. Two separate LPs might have been more effective. I know people find this frustrating because of its length and I see where they are coming from, but I feel like its just a demonstration of how deep and broad Wonder's talent went that after three of the best albums released in the 70s, when he's demoralised with tired and thinking about leaving music he could still put out another double LP reprising everything he achieved.

Not sure that this would have launched Robbie to the heights of pop royalty if he hadn't done time in Take That first. Lazy Days and Life Through A Lens sound halfway between brit pop and US pop-punk. Ego a Go-Go is more the kind of thing I can appreciate from Williams - a bit manic. Angel is the depressive flipside with a low budget Oasis rip off. Let Me Entertain You does its job admirably. Most of the other songs just kind of fade into the background as FM radio fodder.

The dated title feels quaint (remember when some light election fraud was the worst we could expect from our leaders?) I know this is supposed to be the band's return to guitars but every track seems to open with a dorky sped up rythym box. It was cool when Suicide did that literally 30 years before but if that's all this so called 'electro wizard' has I'm not buying. 2 + 2 = 5 has quite a complex structure while not really sounding any different from mid 2000s FM radio rock. Reminds me of Simon Reynolds on Photek 'compelling while you listen, but afterwards you can’t remember much about it'. Sit Down. Stand Up eventually builds up to a pretty boring jungle break (seriously rock heads complain about electronic music being repetitive and then they gush over something like this?) Sail to the Moon is what you get if you take the intensity out of Swans. Backdrifts opens with an interesting reversed pad before the Rhythm Ace comes out again. Go to Sleep is cool in a counterfactual, 'what if Pearl Jam didn't suck?' kind of way. The guitar stabs in the second half add some nice contrast. Where I End and You Begin, We Suck Young Blood, There There. I Will, A Punch Up at a Wedding, are pretty typical Thom Yorke wailers. The Gloaming has a compelling bassline for an intro and some actually credible beats. Myxomatosis is almost danceable but still morose. I think the most telling criticism is that I keep thinking 'man this sounds like that really popular band in the 2000s with the keening ballads'. Then I remember that the band I'm thinking of is Radiohead. I can't explain why the fact that Radiohead sounds like Radiohead is a bad thing but it just is.

Alright lets see how badly this has aged. Its all just kind of fade in and fade out various looping sequences, with the occasional bar for a breakdown. There's no timbral progression which is the opposite of what good electronic music should be. Hell even guitar dudes have had pedals for 50 years. The sample in Porcelain is clever I guess. Some of the melodies are evocative but some of them (I'm looking at you South Side) are naff. Hell they would have been naff if the Happy Mondays sung them 20 years earlier. In 1999 breakbeat hardcore AND jungle AND trip hop had run their course and this would fail to have impressed anyone who was across those scenes (I took a break halfway through the album to check out some of his early 90s work and it feels like exactly the same concept as this album except way more taught and credible). The last half are just half realised sketches and random bits he pulled off the DAT and chucked together. Last track is like some shitty video game OST? Is this actually just library music? That explains the car ads. The album is a three until it gets to the bit where he just starts putting all his half finished sketches on it which pisses me off so I'm giving it a two. But then I remember Moby is the Morrisey of electronic music so I'm giving it a one.

If this were a 60s album I'd probably say it was alright. If it was a 70s album I'd be like 'oooh, nice example of proto-glam.' If it was the 80s I'd be giving it a bit of side-eye. But no. This album is from 1993. Another case of the book's lack of imagination in the later decades.

This is the Beatles going supernova. A triple album of Harrison's work developed through the late 60s. Its got Clapton. Its got Spector and Dylan and its got a Who's Who of 60s session musicians (Ginger Baker hiding out a jam number even!). After this explosion there wasn't more than elemental gases dispersed throughout the galaxy to be sucked up by shitty 70s bands. I'd Have You Anytime starts quite fusiony before reverting to a bit more of a late Beatles structure. My Sweet Lord is a really moving moving chord progressions and lyrics which do a great job of maintaining western pop credibility despite being a krishna chant. Hearing Isn't it a Pity for the first time tells me that Pink Floyd have a lot of explaining to do about where their influences for Dark Side of the Moon came from. What is Life has an amazing northern soul drum track from Jim Gordon. If Not for You should have probably stayed in Dylan's hands, Spector's maximalist production doesn't do it justice. Harrison doing country in Behind that Locked Door is surprisingly good, there's some really satisfying slide guitar and more than enough pop sensibility to stop it from getting too boring. Let it Down is again proto-Dark Side and much less wanky (still kind of wanky). Its amazing how many of these tracks have quite complex time signatures, struggling to even count out Run of the Mill. At this point we are one third of the way through and my ears are getting a little fatigued. I don't think it helps that there are a lot of slow songs like Beware of Darkness, again a spacey Dark Side number. Apple Scruffs is Smiley Smiles level deranged which is cool I suppose. There's some fun mouth organ. The rest of the second disc is great. If I'd listened to it first I would have written a paragraph about it instead of the second disc but also I'm kind of struggling to say anything new. Its George Harrison releasing a huge backlog of stuff that was suppressed by Lennon and McCartney. Its really good but its Beatles cutting room floor and Pink Floyd inspo and that's what it sounds like and I'm not sure you need to say much more. There are occasionally some more interesting notes. Art of Dying would have made a great Bond film but also some almost Mr. Bungle esque pastiche with mexican horns. Last disc is blues jams. I love instrumentals and jam tracks and these are perfectly fine. As mentioned above this is like a great tribute to the session players that made the 60s possible. This is a great monument, but that's all it is. Its for visiting and paying respects, not for daily driving.

I think what a lot of the dads on here won't get is how influential this album is on modern dance music. Quite a few of these tracks wouldn't struggle to find a place on a 'forward thinking' Ilian Tape/Livity Sound/Hakuna Kulala/SVBKVLT release from this year (hell even Hyperdub was only a few years old and Night Slugs wouldn't start for years after the release of Kala) and none of those labels will ever achieve the reach M.I.A did with this. Bamboo Banga opens with trademark aggression. Birdflu is all 3/4 polyrythms and angsty doo wop. Boyz applies voice in the rythym track behind an early example of hard drum. Jimmy offers some reprieve from the aggression with an oriental disco banger. Hussel is straight up post-grime with south african bars and everything. Mango Pickle Down River is a cute little rap that presages the explosion of Indigenous Australian rap acts in the 2020s. Second half does fade a bit until XR2 comes out with a fucking Baltimore club number. Class. Paper Planes is a proper hit. M.I.A is rides the grime wave with bombast that few other female vocalists could achieve. There's not much to love in the list between 2000 and 2010. This is the highlight of the decade.

Instantly transported to my first year of high school. Came out a year earlier than that fucking Moby album and has substantially more sophistication. This really takes the love for New York house that was at the root of all the UK Rave stuff and puts it on a pedestal. When you put it against that Moby album it really illustrates what a wasteland electronic music became the late 90s was in the US. The second single Rendez-Vu captures just a hint of the rising garage scene with some satisfying drum fills. Guitars and some catchy lyrics for the radio. Perfectly executed. Yo Yo is a weird wonky techno number. Jump N Shout is practically a UK Funky track! U Can't Stop Me is stripped back half-time continuing the kind of wooziness on Yo Yo. Red Alert continues the garage love with so much groove (also highly recommend the Steve Gurley remix if you like 2-step). Always Be There is a brukt tribute to Masters at Work. The bassline in the first movement feels a bit off but the second movement and the coda are gorgeous. Same Old Show is more wonkiness. Probably didn't need to be 6 minutes long. They again carry the US House torch on Bingo Bango and thank god they did. Stop 4 Love is wonky again but a little bit slower some lovely editing on the string samples. Don't Give Up starts with a very woozy synth which pans across the whole stereo image. Could have been a Bjork track. Being With You kinds of sounds like something you'd find hidden away on a Mille Plateaux or Rephlex record if that makes sense? It probably doesn't sound like what you'd think. Kind of forgettable tbh. This is a great sampler of the best of dance music in the 90s. A little bit backward looking with the US House, a little bit forward looking with the garage influences.

Like every other rock album of the 2000s it opens with a guitar going through a lo-fi pedal. Highlights are Wasted Time for some nice breakdowns, California Waiting for sounding a bit like Daydream Nation and Molly's Chamber for executing the thing they are trying to do well. Rest of the album is pretty forgettable. If I wanted to listen to garage rock I'd put on the Kinks. If I wanted to listen to garage revival I'd listen to the Strokes. Not sure what this adds.

A wonderful application of sampling and turntablism. I remembered this as being a lot more one-dimensional spy-film trip hop. There's definitely a lot of that stuff but the sampling is much more diverse than I remember. Mysterons opens with some turntablism before Beth Gibbons comes in sounding like Grace Slick when she's being sultry. Eerie theremins and and subtly impossible drum fills anchor the piece. Sour Times is pure Lalo Schiffrin. Makes me wonder how much of an influence this album was on east England's Photek et al in the later 90s rather than the Bristol crowd. Strangers has anxious dial tones anchoring 1920s jazz guitar and milquetoast hollywood numbers. Wandering Star keeps the dial tone concept going, this time with an anxious baseline. Its a Fire could be a modern pop song before the hammond organ comes in. I do have to admit that by the time I got to Numb the album had faded into the background a bit. Its cinematic quality is great but it doesn't necessarily grab you by the collar and force you to pay attention. The exception of course being the last single and the last track on the album, Glory Box, which slays. I think most of the band had been tangentially involved in music for a decade before they formed Portishead and they were in their late 30s. It feels really mature compared to most electronic music from that era. Doesn't feel like its trying to get into the future, but also isn't just retromania, really sounds like accomplished musicians creating something new.

So lets be clear. Just from the cover you can tell this is definitely going to be some Boomer 70s shit. I'm not going to be able to take that part of it seriously. Let's bracket it out and listen to what else is happenening - some really innovative jazz fusion. Coyote has this wonderful shimmering guitar that feels like its springing out of Mitchell's lyrics. Her lyrics kind of slide across the rythym without a lot of regard for bars. Similar thing with Amelia but this time with a cool vibraphone and steel guitar thing instead of the guitar. Furry Sings the Blues continues the complex meters. Neil Young's harmonica doesn't add much but hey I s'pose ya gotta help a feller out y'know? Hejira finall calls it with a tenor sax. This thing was begging for a tenor sax! Song for Sharon has some wonderful overdubs towards the end. The last three tracks end things strong. Black Crow is the highlight of the second half, shifting gears by adding some tense guitars and removing a lot of the soft focus reverb that characterises the first half. Blue Motel Room is almost a straight blues track and I think Mitchell's lyrics benefit from this approach, they're a bit more grounded with the simpler structure. I really want to like this more, its got amazing rythyms and the players are just so well put together, Mitchell sounds beautiful, Henry Lewy and Mitchell's collaboration in the studio is at its peak - but the lyrics are just super grating, music is for young people! I don't want to hear about your old bones. I want the kind of energy and hope and despair that only young people can feel. I realise this conflicts with my last review (Portishead - Dummy), but I think the difference is how personal Mitchell's work is compared to that. Refuge of the Roads feels like the inverse of Coyote, with Jaco's guitar being sucked back into the bassline.

Bomb squad production and that kind of half poem/half lyric style that Chuck D pulled from Gil Scott Heron. Also like Chuck D is the heavily didactic presentation of the subject matter. I think where it falls down is that Public Enemy could kind of spread it out among a few talents whereas here Franti has to do all the lecturing. The single, Television, The Drug of a Nation seems a bit quaint in 2025 as I'm bombarded by social media. The promised industrial bits start with The Winter of the Long Hot Summer - an eight minute long song without a lot going on. Franti struggles to stay on the beat. The production does get a bit better in the second half with some early 90s dub track in Socio-Genetic Experiment and INS Greencard A-19 191 500 being an interesting exploration of a government phone queue (!). Financial Leprosy has a great slinky dirty bassline. Despite this Its just Public Enemy with more steps. Franti doesn't have the same presence as Chuck D and while I don't think its a bad album I do think its a bit redundant for this list.

Cool post-ska I guess you'd call it? The first quarter is let down by too-slick production and leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Rise and Fall opens sounding more like a Beatles track before speeding up into the most deadpan ska I've ever heard. More like one tone than two tone (yuk yuk). It regularly goes into full horn section polyphony but also has a very 80s slickness to it. Tomorrow is a classic Madness music hall number and it goes fine but the 80s production kind of misses the point of it being a really bawdy angular genre (especially when Madness do it). Kind of vaguely interesting avalanches of percussion in Blue Skinned Beast but I'm already losing interest. Things turn with Primrose Hill another classic music hall, this time a lot more on point with everything lined up to the rythym track in full ska fashion. Mr Speaker is super fun with tonnes of horns and some clever rythyms and overdubs. Sunday Morning is full of surprising little meter changes, weird tenor sax bits and some absolutely deranged piano vamps. Our House does its bit for reconciliation by somehow combining disco verses with a britpop chorus. That Face finally hits the right balance between the 80s production and the jauntiness of ska, lots of random horn blares fading in and out and delays over the top of rubato. Very nearly a four, its just a little too clean. I feel like this approach was actually perfected by Mr. Bungle a decade later (criminally they don't have a spot on the list).

By all accounts I should love this. Electronics, shoegaze, rhythmic noise, iggy pop. But the reality is this is nowhere near as cool as it thinks it is. Dirge opens with a rhythm box and guitar chords that slowly crescendos into a noisy jam. Soul Auctioneer is trip hop a decade too late. Death Threat has some very lame synths that might have been impressive in the 70s but by 1999 the Richard D James album had been out for five years, Autechre had descended down the DSP wormhole and Esplendor Geometrico had been doing dark, industrial rhythms for literally a decade. The second half is just some ponderous sixties organ shit and grunge? Not noteworthy at all. Everything that's wrong with post-rock, not a hint of self-awareness. We need to clamp down on this shit hard.

Great set of live soul, rnb, doo wop and two versions of Feel It for some reason, call and responses, the twist, sprechtgesange interludes, a piano being beaten to within an inch of its life. I take back what I said about live albums on the James Brown live review. This is almost as good as the real thing.

Well I guess someone has to make the funeral music. The comment section for every song is filled with people lamenting their dead friends and relatives. The bluesey tracks are alright. I Don't Get It and Walking After Midnight are the highlights. Otherwise a bit bland.

Came into this knowing nothing about Donald Fagen or Steely Dan except for some pop culture references relating to a steam powered dildo. Not exactly sure what I was expecting. I.G.Y is very boppy. Love the castrato chorus and the keening synth in the second half. Green Flower Street is like Stevie Wonder at the disco. Ruby Baby is a bit lame and definitely not as challenging as the previous track. New Frontier is better with more kind of retrofuturist lyrics about makeout sessions in a fallout shelter. The Nightfly is cool for somehow being able to turn radio jingles into a song. The Goodbye Look has a super-fun little digital vibraphone intro and then some beautiful chords. Apparently this was written as instrumentals and I reckon it might have been a little more credible if it had stayed that way. It all sounds very futuristic which is cool. The digital recording process doesn't take too much of an edge off the music. Not something I'd listen to again but kind of interesting.

Very hostile to staying on the beat this one. I read the reviews and I thought it was gonna be something a lot more difficult than it is. Like Calexico if it was fronted by David Thomas. It upsets the dad rockers without actually being that weird. Magic Toy Missing has a good little deranged southern rock take on country. Middle of the album takes a great turn with some pleasant slow rock numbers on Plateau and Aurora Borealis. Kind of reminiscent of Don Caballero but without the time signature changes? We're Here stays slow but adds some vocals and some fun tinkling delay bits. New Gods goes back to a kind of post punk/hardcore thing. Fun clashing guitar wailing solos. Oh Me is basically grunge which is cool I suppose. Had never heard of Meat Puppets before but this feels like an Important Album. Not really my thing but definitely deserves a place on the list for bridging the gap between punk and grunge.

I see the chiffon and soft focus and then Running Up That Hill comes on and I know I'm about to go on a Journey and Discover a lot about myself. Running Up That Hill is an amazingly uplifting track taking full advantage of digital studio techniques. The bridge in the last corner with all the toms tumbling down before it all gets drowned in reverb is great, as are the delay effects at the end. Hounds of Love is a bit weird with the woof synth thing but who can resist mapping a dog to a Fairlight? The rhythm is almost dembow though which is intriguing. Big Sky just builds layer upon layer until there's no space left in the mix. The album starts to get increasingly experimental. Mother Stands for Comfort could have been an early Rephlex release. Cloudbusting is a bit of a let down for side one, fairly conventional and stripped back. The first half feels like the perfect counterpart to Peter Gabriel's So. It still has some of the maudlin/Celtic kind of thing that So has, but its much more in the background compared to the maximalist production and uplifting lyrics. Its got a Fairlight _and_ a Linndrum. Its got a VHS _and_ a laserdisc release, the launch party was a laser show at a planetarium. Everything there is to love about the 80s in this. The second half is less great. A prog inspired cycle about birth and rebirth replete with spoken word bits. Unlike the first half it puts the Celtic bits up front. Post-Michael Flatley its a bit lame. Still great production but not really saying anything Pink Floyd hadn't already said. In summary first half is a 4. Second half is a 2 and so I'll split the difference and give it a 3.

I remember loving the singles from this when it came out. Wonder what the whole thing is like. Orchestral prelude. Interesting. It does slip into a loungey soul bit briefly. The album starts proper with a broken beat/salsa/rap kind of thing. The brukt rhythm track morphs into a quickstep for Faster. I stopped the album to watch lindy hoppers for a while after that. Locked On continues to borrow from british soul 4Hero/Gilles Peterson type stuff. Beat kind of lacks groove though. It kind of starts to get pretty psychedelic at this point, Sir Greendown could have been a Doors song. Cold War is a bit meh, a bit Disney? The single Tightrope recovers the groove. I paused again after Suite III Overture to go through Simon Reynolds' review of Love Island grime tracks. Make the Bus is fun for sounding like a really ADHD Prince track. The album kind of continues along on this trajectory, there's neo-rockabilly and neo-rnb and neo-soul and neo-funk, psych-funk, afrofuturism etc. ect. all very pop-centred. Its a testament to an amazing songwriting talent to have so much material. Unfortunately it suffers the same fate as a lot of prog albums that its kind of over-long and virtuosic. It would have been much more powerful with more focus. Like the Kate Bush album it does the spoken word samples littered throughout, the smoking gun of prog. This really should be my thing but its just hard to stay engaged for the full hour.

Kind of splits the difference between Siousie Sioux and Cabaret Voltaire? Highlights are Hanging Garden which really swells with anxious sounds, Siamese Twins for immediately whipping the album back to a minimalist dirge and Cold for almost not having any Robert Smith vocals. Its let down a bit by a lackluster mix and what feels like a bit of a failure to fully commit to the bit in a way that Joy Division (or Siousie for that matter) never would. For every tritone there's a new romantic flourish that kind of takes you out of it.

Its rare that someone makes an album that sounds like the future but here we have it. The most important album of the 20th century. Such a wonderful range between the relentlessness of Die Roboter, and the psychedelic whirl of Neonlicht and the incredible-for-1978 sound design in Die Mensch Maschine. Techno, pop, hip-hop. All 21st century music is built on the foundations of this album. It started a conversation across the Atlantic that continues today.

Woo got both Kraftwerk albums in a row! As Hutter says this is an "exciting experience that makes you run through a huge variety of feelings" The main thing to know about this is how hard the title track grooves. There's a common misconception that electronic music is really rigid and repetitive but the drum track in this slides over the beat in a really groovy way. My favourite story about Kraftwerk is that Moodymann thought they were black. That's how funky they are. Kometenmelodie 1 and 2 are a clear influence on Bowie. Number 2 could almost be a Suicide track. Morgernspierzang has some wonderful sound design with birds morphing into synthesizer chirps and back. Again a clear influence on Bowie and Eno's Moss Garden. While the links to Detroit are even more explicit in this than Man Machine and it does retain a bit more of the krautrock influence I think it doesn't quite hit the peak of what Kraftwerk were capable of.

Ahaha it hurts my brain. Little Fury Things opens with a brain melting noise thing before it kind of segues into a alt-rock thing. J Mascis sounds like a low rent Thurston Moore. Kracked is more of that. I can see why this influenced shoegaze. Its like a combo of shitty Sonic Youth instruments AND nobody knows how to play. Somehow it works. Sludgefeast is a kind of stoner-grunge-hard rock medley. The Lung is great because instead of doing the quiet/loud thing that grunge does its a melodic/noisy thing. Way more interesting. Raisans like the title is full of unexpected and slightly annoying pitch choices. Tarpit is a bit moany. In a Jar is a bit wistful. I was about to say Poledo was out of step with the rest of the album and then it blasted me with noise and radio scans. Good Stuff. Just Like Heaven is a great take on the Cure's original. This is really good. It messes with your expectations. It occasionally gets a little bit emo or hard rock but then it'll just throw in some really shit guitar pedal fuzz or a wrong note or the left channel will cut out.

Pop Song 89 opens with a much peppier guitar riff than I was expecting. Michael Stipe kind of sounds happy. Fun polyrythm at the end. It could have worked in the mid 90s even. Maybe I heard it on Friends? Get Up maintains the energy. I seriously came into this thinking REM were a sadsack band but this is like grunge Brian Wilson. Your Are the Everything is acceptable but maybe got mixed up with the John Prine album?? Stand is great. Achieves what Neil Young was aiming for with Crazy Horse... super catchy. Wait a minute... is Michael Stipe Canadian? Either way he reverts to form in World Leader Pretend with a blase vocal performance. The Wrong Child continues with some hippy dippy mandolin folk nonsense. The single Orange Crush is at least a bit more upbeat and has some familiarity to it. Makes me want to bop along, move my shoulders a bit. Hairshirt is just morose. Kind of lost patience with Turn You Inside Out and Untitled. I Remember California closes out with a killer bit of sadness song. Morrisey eat your heart out. As far as alt-rock goes its really well ornamented and quite complex compared to the grunge that came immediately after it. The 2013 remaster sounds great. Its not exactly my thing but there are quite a few really well done tracks on here. Half a good album?

To misquote Tom Wilson: "He played like the dumb guys, but then these words came out. " He doesn't even sing half the time! The folk songs are fine I suppose. The blues tracks are alright I guess. I just feel like I've sat around a fire with a dude with a guitar who is every bit as good as this about a million times in my life. You could say that they were all following in Dylan's footsteps but Dylan was just following in Woody Guthrie's footsteps. Maybe I'm being unfair but I feel like Dylan's success is a symptom of the zeitgeist rather than the man himself.

Its like Brecht meets Disney meets van Vliet. Its mad that he was touring with Zappa in the 70s and hadn't heard of Captain Beefheart until just before he wrote this. Starts very diverse, Waits has a lot of things going on in this. Underground is a messy marimba-laden stomping thing. Shore Leave is a blues-noir mandolin thing. Dave the Butcher is a The Residents thing. Johnsburg, Illinois is a Disney thing. 16 Shells From a Thiry-Ought Six is a Tom Waits thing. Town With No Cheer is a sombre bagpipe thing. In the Neighbourhood is a sad Disney thing? Just Another Sucker on the Vine is a sad circus sideshow Disney thing I guess. Frank's Wild Years is a psychopath lounge thing. Down Down Down is an upbeat R+B gospel soul thing. Wild organ performance. Gin Soaked Boy is a Howlin Wolf via Beefheart thing. Rainbirds is the last thing. Really struggling on whether this is a three or a four. The skid-row/cabaret thing hasn't aged well but its so well executed and there's so much great use of percussion. The other stuff is legitimately great. And its just so weird and unexpected and not really what I think anyone would have expected from Waits eight albums deep yet it still works. Nonetheless its a bit long. A few songs could have got this one onto my playlist but oh well...

The Kinks were really a singles band weren't they? None of those singles are on this album. I had to go almost half-way through the album to come to Brainwashed, a groovy garage number with a nice horn-line. Australia could have been alright if it was 2:50 instead of 6 interminable minutes and 46 seconds in change. It goes back to Jeeves and Wooster nonsense almost immediately after that (no shade on Jeeves and Wooster intended). Also the stereo image is a complete mess.

ahah so I've found the spacey noodlers of the Britpop era. A bit of a shame On Your Own was a single, its a bit trash with the failed counter-tenor. A Northern Soul is wonderful for its noisiness, but I have to admit I don't really understand the group's need to align with the UK soul movement so hard, its not soulful at all! Brainstorm Interlude is cool and actually could probably be shoe-horned into a soul if you took all the psych nonsense away. Way too long though. I stopped really paying attention after History.

Hot golden-era raps with an all-star cast of producers and rappers surrounding Mark the 45 King. Incredibly mature for a 19 year old. Dance For Me has that great unswerving rapping reminiscent of Kool Keith. Come Into My House feels a bit weak for a hip house track but it does go BEEEOOOW a lot which is important. The Pros has a great almost industrial dub riddim. The 45 King shows a surprising talent in his duet on A King and a Queen. Rest of the album is tight. Peak '89.

Stunning blend of soul jazz, blues and political consciousness. One of those albums that might not be that well known but has had a huge influence on music since. Covers everything from racial solidarity to alcohol addiction and the Watergate scandal and sounds incredibly cool while doing it. H2O Gate gets a special mention for being a proto-rap number.

Wildly ahead of its time. Along with The Shape of Jazz to Come and Kind Of Blue its post-bop but way more controlled than Coleman and way more unexpected than Davis this is the pinnacle of how far you can bend western song structures. Not sure how I feel about some of the solos in Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are. There's a style of bass playing that justifies a solo (see Scott LaFaro in the Live at the Village Vanguard album on this list) but while Pettiford is a great player just playing out the rhythm doesn't really do it for me. Roach is a bit better in the follow up but the song is dragging a bit by then. Bemsha Swing is the highlight. A slightly more conventional number that lets you really watch Roach and Monk go at it.

At least it rocks a bit harder than the Green Day album I suppose. It has some nice dissonant grungey bits but it also has some really listless vocals and uninspired solos. Kind of like Sonic Youth but with no commitment. If I didn't know better I'd accuse it of being AI slop - its got that blurry kind of thing where you can't really make out the words (just because I used an em dash there doesn't mean I'm using chatgpt for these reviews). Quality really falls off the cliff at If I Can't Change Your Mind, Sub-REM jangle pop without the jangle. Being the album most often compared to the Foo Fighters is not a compliment.

What would have been another mid 2010s pop album is elevated by some very impressive synth programming and arrangement. The obvious comparisons are to 80s electro funk and new jack but I think there's a more interesting comparison to be made to Scritti Politti, someone who is very interested in making DIY tracks with strong political statements but entirely aimed at the pop market. Girlfriend has an amazing Bernie Worrell synth right at the end which elevates the clever lyrics. I'm not sure how I feel about throwback kind of albums on here. On the other hand pop has been eating itself for decades so should you really be surprised that contemporary stuff is just updating stuff that's just outside the memories of its consumers? The Walker is a more straight up 2010s electro-ballad which rips off Sia and that Diplo style melancholy pretty hard. 5 Dollars goes back to the 80s with something straight from Peter Gabriel, but also keeps sounding like she's saying Phife Dog??? Goya Soda offers some interest by adding some more syncopated rhythms to the ballads. The bridge where the bassline gets detuned is genius. Damn (What must a woman do?) slowly builds in complexity, really showing off Chris's arrangements and queering James Brown. Feel So Good I think does the best at getting the electro-funk-ballad synthesis right, I think its the leaning on the bass to do a bit more rhythm work than was traditional in this kind of music that does it, it sounds a bit spacey and futurist while still having that hard syncopated edge that electro always needs. Definitely the highlight. Stranger is an interesting experiment but not quite at the same level as the former. He is clearly very talented but ultimately it kind of feels like Chris can't decide what he wants this album to be. Is it a fun Kendrick/Uptown Funk 80's tribute but with better sound design? Or is it a Gotye/Sia ballad 80's tribute thing but with slyer lyrics? If he'd picked one I think it would have been more powerful.

Have been a Fela fan for a long time but I don't think I've actually sat down and intentionally listened to Zombie before. He has this quality where you know from the first bar that its a Fela Kuti song and you just get into a particular headspace where you're like 'yep, time to lose my mind'. Aside from the funky madness that you're guaranteed with Fela the other thing I love is how he lets the band speak for itself. Five minute long instrumental intros really let you move your body before he hits you with some consciousness. All political activists should remember this - you aren't trying to win hearts and minds with your protest songs - you're trying to win feet.