"All apologies" is a classic. The rest is good.

This is the first one that has popped up that I don't actually own--nor have ever heard before. Weird how a seemingly popular album like that just can be completely missed out on. As for my thoughts...I dunno. It's interesting. But not terribly so. It's...fine? I'm honestly not sure why this is on the list other than it seems England was particularly enamored with this one. Glad I heard it. But I doubt I'll bother ever giving it another listen. It's not bad. Just not all that memorable to me. 2 stars. It's not BAD. But for being one of the 1001, this is just pretty boring.

"All apologies" is a classic. The rest is good.

What's not to like? It's Blondie. At their best.

This is forcing to do a bit more digging than I typically do. TIL that this is Isaac backed by the Bar-Kays. WhoSampled.com has 'Walk On By' listed 129 times. The one that immediately comes to mind is Hooverphonic's use of it. The number of other albums improved by the very existence of this one is immense. Track 2 is 10 minutes long, but feels like 20, in the best way possible. I don't have much to say about track 3. It's...fine? And finally, the almost 20 minute finale is mostly just Isaac doing a spoken word preamble. But it works. 4 tracks of Issac doing his own thing. RIP, Chef.

I haven't listened to this full album in probably 40 years. I wore it out as a kid, though. I don't think it holds up for me. But that could just be due to it being so very very 80s and that was a period as a kid where my music world was rather narrow and what was in it got played to death. But 'I'm On Fire' and 'Dancing In The Dark' are still great.

Forever intertwined with the appearance of the magnificent Jaguar shark. And that's OK.

This is the first one that has popped up that I don't actually own--nor have ever heard before. Weird how a seemingly popular album like that just can be completely missed out on. As for my thoughts...I dunno. It's interesting. But not terribly so. It's...fine? I'm honestly not sure why this is on the list other than it seems England was particularly enamored with this one. Glad I heard it. But I doubt I'll bother ever giving it another listen. It's not bad. Just not all that memorable to me. 2 stars. It's not BAD. But for being one of the 1001, this is just pretty boring.

One of the best opening tracks ever? Paired with one of the best closing tracks ever? A regret I have in life is not really getting deep into Sabbath until much later in life. So many wasted years!

If I were to grade this one solely on the cover art...it's 2 stars. The music brings it up to 3, though. Good stuff. Not great stuff. But very good stuff. The opening track's guitar is a highlight for me. I think I still prefer Making Movies as being their best (both in terms of music and album art).

I love me some trip-hop. This one is fine. But not anywhere near my top ten trip hop albums. I appreciate the production on this, though. I think Nightmare's 'Carboot Soul' ends up being a more enjoyable listen.

Hmmm...I guess these guys were big in Britain? I've always known of them. Can't say I ever sat down to listen to a full album. Confession: I still haven't. I couldn't make it all the way through this one. It's alright. But...nothing really hit me as being special. Maybe you had to be there.

One of the best elephant-themed album covers ever. And yea, it's a good album.

I feel this album is more important than it is timeless. Definitely a good album and a milestone of the hard bop era but...just a good jazz album in 2025. Might have meant a lot more back then.

This album was unescapable for a period of time and yet, somehow, I never sat down and listened to the whole thing. It's definitely it's own thing and deserves a spot on the list because of that. For me, though, it sits on the fence between "overly precious" and "catchy". It's good. Really good. But maybe a bit too much. It feels like the audio equivalent of eating a 3rd piece of birthday cake...when you know you really should have stopped at one.

More Sabbath? Already? Yay! Hard to deny the impact of this album. The dawn of heavy metal. Even more amazing is the fact that this entire album was recorded live in 12 hours.

I feel this 5th album is *the* Simple Minds album if you are on the East side of the Atlantic. While those on the other side know them more for their 7th album. Which means, I think I prefer their later 7th album over this one. It's fine. Very 80s. Definitely a predictor of what was to come.

Always knew this hit off of this one (The Weight -- which is a great song) But didn't really know the album as a whole until much more recently. At which point I became completely obsessed over 'Chest Fever'. I can't get enough of that organ riff. Also, TIL the cover was painted by Dylan, and the album jacket was designed by Milton Glaser.

Not super familiar with Hugh's larger body of work and have never heard this one before. Not sure how to describe it beyond it simply being "a lovely album". I think I need to find a copy to add to the collection.

I forgot how great of a catchy pop song 'Shake It Off' is. Taylor deserves her success. She's good.

Production is pretty amazing on this. Music is...fine? It's alright. Not entirely sure why this specific album is on this list though.

I've never sat and listened to this album until now. Turns out I knew WAY more songs from this than I realized. I probably didn't even realize they were Nilson songs. While not a perfect album, it's really pleasant overall. Nice Saturday afternoon type of listen. I'm still not sure if coconut is so dumb it's good, or if it's simply just good.

Perfect Day is a perfect song. The rest of the album is excellent. That said, it's a little disappointing to hear the start of Walk on the Wild Side and not hear the snare jump in with Q-tip, but I suppose that's just a testament as to how influential this album was.

[this is good]

Legendary. And STILL a really fun listen nearly 40 years later.

Disclaimer: I was a giant Queen fan as a kid. If I had to pick the Queen albums to be on the 1001 list, not sure II would have been one of them. But am glad to give a Queen album a spin. You do hear all the parts of "future queen" on this one...the multi-tracked voices, the ambitious range of genres and, of course, the pomposity of it all. This album is also quite a bit heavier than I remember. And I will never tire of Brian's guitar tone. (PS, if you are a Queen fan, Brian just remastered Queen I and it sounds pretty amazing...)

As Jack Black said "It's going to be ok..."

The Band, Dylan, The Band...all in a week? Seems we're stuck in a rut here of random selections. Not a BAD rut. But...hoping for a bit more variety next week. Anyways...this album...I like it better than Big Pink. Maybe just because more of the hits are on this one. But...that's enough The Band for now. Let's something new going on...

My favorite Bob Dylan Album...cover artwork. I just really like that photo.

This is what I was hoping to get out of this 1001 list...finding albums I either didn't know of, or knew of, but never really paid attention to. I found a copy of this on vinyl years and years ago back when you could still find interesting records for a dollar in a Goodwill bin. Probably played it once and forgot about it. So today it got a second spin. And...it's nice. I like it. Nothing profound or out of the ordinary, but a perfectly fine late 60s psych/rock/folk mashup. And even though everything seems to fit into that mashup of a genre, there's quite a bit of variety on here as well. Pleasantly surprised. They also seem to be having fun on here. Not taking these compositions all that seriously and allowing some silliness in. Also, TIL one of the band members was named "Banana" and played most of the instruments on this. All of that said, I'm not entirely sure why this is on the list. I had to track down a copy of the book and found that it's mainly because the author liked a few of the songs? I guess is the author's prerogative. I do agree with the author that the last track on this album is particularly good (I am also a sucker for the vibraphone). Also noticed while flipping through the actual book: holy crap there are a shit-ton of albums on this list from 1969! Anyways, that's my review. An OK album that somehow caused me to write the longest review yet. So there's that. PS: What is that supposed to be on the cover in the foreground? A pile of elephant dung?

Screamadelica is an all time favorite. But somehow I never listened to this other one by them. Very different. Very late-90s. Very good. A little bit trip-hop, a little bit industrial. I did recognize the one track that made it onto the Trainspotting album. "Star" is pretty great, too. But I still prefer Screamadelica.

This has "Tumbling Dice" on it...which I would argue is the best song the Stones ever wrote. And it also has 17 other songs that are all...alright, I guess. Is this the Stones album I put on when I have the rare urge to listen to a Stones album? No, it is not. But I will put on Tumbling Dice.

I'm a 50+ year old dad. Of course I have this album. I think we all get the Steely Dan discography when we turn 50. Sort of like getting your first AARPA invitation. I assume this is on the list mainly because the author was also a 50+ dad. 3 stars = 1 for being Steely Dan, 1 for being a passable album cover (something Steely Dan seems to have struggled with) and 1 for me being over 50.

This was an album I remember hearing constantly for a period in the Sophomore dorms at college. So there's some nostalgia there. Hard to deny Snoop's style and Dre's production. Incredibly dumb lyrics, though.