It’s weird because it’s not what I’d call country now. Has much more of a big band jazz feel. It's nice, and Ray Charles is a great performer, but it's not really up my alley taste wise.

Oooh I love Van Halen. Listened to the first two a lot so it would be nice to delve into newer material. Some big hits here like Jump, Panama and Hot For Teacher. I don't know if it's my headphones but I'd expect it to sound "bigger". Also, Jump is such a perfect song. Eddie is awesome here, instead of shredding like he can, he gives us tasteful licks that really add to the songs that's driven by keyboards. Solo is shreddy yet short, and it ends like something out of Camel's The Snow Goose. Dynamics on Panama are to die for. Just great. It's different from their early stuff. Not as heavy probably. Still incredible. Drop Dead Legs is not as good. Similar formula. Nice muted riffs. Still very nice dynamics to keep the song interesting. Hot For Teacher is exciting. The start is kind of a homage to Eruption in a sense, in that it shows off Eddie's skills. Then it kinda morphs to a more bluesy ordeal and then picks up energy again. Gotta hand it to Van Halen for always keeping interesting dynamics in their songs. I feel like after Hot For Teacher the album kinda fizzes out. The famous singles are great but the album tracks not as much. I'll wait is nice, but it doesn't have that VH oomph. Girl Gone Bad is slightly better, still I feel like after Hot For Teacher the energy is gone. I like the vocal melody on House of Pain, but the mix is kinda bad making the vocals sit in the background instead of the forefront. The Keyboards are so 80s. All in all, a great addition to the catalog but uneven, not on par with VH and VHII IMHO. I'd call this three stars. Note that I'm rating the 1001 best albums ever here so three stars is a lot, it means par for the course. This inspired me to listen to other later VH albums. 5150 is so much better.

wow, went in really not knowing what to expect. This is quite a journey. I was surprised at the emotional landscapes it got me to. It started airy and light but at some point in the first track I felt claustrophobic and my chest started feeling under tremendous weight. This is really something. Not sure if I'll listen to it again of my free will, but it's something. Also, I read that this is jazz improv, but it didn't sound like jazz improv, more like... classical improv? Anyway this is truly something I'm better for having known. Easy five starts.

I only knew the bands hits. This album is much more bluesy than I thought it would be. Also pretty dull. Feels very samey throughout. Looking out my back door is not as bad. Energy come ups for a second for running through the jungle but then it disappears and things get dull again. It’s genuinely hard to just get through this album.

I never listened to this period Fleetwood Mac. I know Rumors obviously, and recently got into the Peter Green years which are great. This is post Rumors so I never got to listen to it. Sara is a great song. Also Storms. Stevie’s vocal performance here is just amazing. Gritty and honest. The album is much sparser than Rumors, took me a while to get used to that but I think it’s great in its own way. On "that’s all for everyone we get" an interesting vocal performance by Lindsay with a very compelling arrangement. This is very cool. Sisters of the moon another great song. WOW. Love the guitar on this one. Brown Eyes is another great song. Wikipedia tells me Peter Green did guitars here. This album is every bit as good as Rumors if not better, even though it’s much less accessible. I decided since this list is supposed to have all great albums I need to grade on a curve. So three start means "I get why it's on the list", five stars should be reserved to the best of the best, stuff that's a no brainer for a top 50 or top 100 list. One star is stuff that doesn't belong on the 1001 list. So according to that I'd put this as four stars. It's a great album, don't know if it's in my personal top 50-100 but it's really great.

I have a serious soft spot for psych pop/rock with a British accept. Frolicking drums and Beatlesque vocal harmonies, what more could you ever wish for? Thing is, while I do enjoy the soundscapes, I can't say any song in particular sticks in my memory. Even immediately after listening, it's all very forgettable. Feels like it has the superficial form of music I enjoy, but the songwriting is lacking. I can’t remember a single thing about a song after having listened to it.

It’s funny, Cat Stevens is one of these places whose name I obviously know, and I know a lot of people appreciate, but honestly I couldn’t name a single song by them. This would be interesting. OK I obviously know some of this stuff. From now on if I’ll try to name a Cat Stevens song I can go for Wild World. Oh, Father and Son, that also. I have to say of all things this reminds me of Peter Gabriel era Genesis. Probably a poppier version but still. It’s not just the singing which is very much reminiscent of Gabriel, it’s also the general composition and production. After some Googling it turns out I was right, but in the wrong direction. It was actually Peter Gabriel who was a huge fan of Cat Stevens and actually tried to imitate his singing style. This started good and got even better. Really grew on me. Not sure if this is something I’ll listen to again of my own accord, since I usually like my singer songwriters to be a bit grittier, but it’s really all top tier. I just put it on for another listen. This makes me want to listen to the rest of the catalog. This is easily four stars. Sad Lisa is my favorite song on here.

I knew this for its hits obviously. Would never have considered listening to the album. Many hits on this album, Rehab, Love is a Losing Game, You Know I’m No Good, Back To Black. I think the album tracks are as good. I can see why it would be considered a good album of soulful hip hoppy pop. I just don’t really like the music. Not saying it’s objectively bad because that’s definitely not the case, I just don’t like it.

This one’s a real treat. Again a pop album where I knew the hit singles (Monday Monday and California Dreaming), but was surprised by the strength of the album tracks. This is beatlesque/beach boysesque psych pop at its finest. Beautiful vocal harmonies, tasty guitar and keyboard licks. Very memorable melodies and great songwriting. My favorite is probably Got a Feelin’. I wanted to say that this album got very strong Rubber Soul influences, but I see it got released just a couple of months after Rubber Soul, so maybe it’s more of a parallel development kind of thing.

This is not what I expected. I used to have a lot of family in Brazil (all moved away in the last decade), and we used to listen to a lot of Brazilian music at home. I think I heard the name Milton Nascimento but I don’t remember any music and either way it wasn’t as prominent as say Caeteno Veloso or Gilberto Gil. I guess my biggest surprise here is how non Brazilian this sounds. I mean, it’s in Brazilian Portuguese and there are some Brazilian influences, but it’s not Bossa Nova or Samba. If I have to peg this to a genre I’d say this is prog rock more than anything. Some mix of Camel, Genesis and Pink Floyd, but on the mellower side of things. An extremely varied album. Great vocals and interesting arrangements.

This is funny. Of course I know the title track. One of the most famous rock songs ever. Couldn’t name a single Eagles song outside of that. Let’s see. It’s interesting that the album opens with the title track and its most famous song. It then goes into “New Kid in Town” which is also quite a hit in its own right. I have to say it drops off pretty quickly then. I mean, the songs are still fine, and the playing is great and everything, but it’s not like there are ten hidden Hotel California’s here. There isn’t even one. The title track alone is enough to merit inclusion on this list, but I wish the album tracks were stronger.

I… don’t like this. I’m not a big fan of jazz in general, and this type of jazz in particular. I just don’t get anything here, it doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m sure these are very talented musicians who are all time greats but I would never choose to listen to this again.

Oooh wow. This is one of my all time favorites. Beautiful and intricate eighties pop. Some of the greatest songs ever - Head Over Heels, The Working Hour, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Shout, Mothers Talk. This is just a perfect collection of perfect songs. I’m sure this sounded fresh in the eighties (I was born the year the album was released) and it sound just as fresh today. A great range of emotions and instrumentation. Powerful music that tugs at your heart strings but can also make you dance and even meditate. It even has great guitar solos! What more could you want. I listened to these songs so many times and it feels like there's still more beauty to discover in them. I just love everything here, the synths, the drum machine, the guitar, obviously the vocals. The songs dynamics are great, the lyrical topics are varied and introspective. It's just so good.

I mean, I like the aesthetics of this. The screamed vocals, overdriven guitars and rhythms we will later call punk. It’s just that the songs aren’t all that good, I mean it’s either pretty bad covers of Chuck Berry or pretty bad original songs. I’m sure it inspired a lot of bands I like, but I don’t like the album as is. This only belongs on such a list for historical significance I guess. Right after this one Spotify gave me The Chocolate Watchband, this really drove the one star home. The Chocolate Watchband were an amazing example of how good garage rock can be, and The Sonics are not such an example.

It’s ok I guess. I mean, “Just what I needed” is rightfully a hit. Some other good songs like All Mixed Up, but also a lot of filler. Nice pop rock, nothing seminal.

The moment I saw it’s hip hop from the eighties I had very low expectations… and after listening to the music I was vindicated. I mean, I’m no huge hip hop fan, but I can enjoy a lot of it, and really like some stuff like The Roots, Kanye or Dead Prez. Thing is about old school hip hop is that you usually get a very basic drum loop, a rapper that would be considered no good by modern standards, and maybe some basic loop sample. This is what we get here. It’s all very basic and dull. I can accept that it’s historically and culturally significant, and it could be a ton of fun to dance to in a party, but just as listening material it’s not enough.

This is a surprise, I would’ve expected to find either one of the first four albums which are the most critically acclaimed, or Out of Time which is the most successful one. This album is the follow up to Out of Time which was the band’s mainstreaming breakout album. I listened to both a lot in my childhood and teen years. Some very big hits on this album including Everybody Hurts with its iconic music video, nightswimming, Drive and Man on the Moon. I am pleasantly surprised. This album is somber but much more dynamic than I remember, many great album tracks like Try Not To Breath and The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight (Wikipedia claims the latter was a single, didn’t remember that). Monty Got a Raw Deal another great song, also Find The River. I haven’t listened to this album in over a decade, likely two, and I’m surprised at how good it is. I think this is four stars. REM has a very strong discography and this stands out as one of their best albums, even if it’s not my personal favorite (that would be Life’s Rich Pageant).

I love The Clash, though I think they reached their creative peak in later albums such as London Calling, Sandinista and Combat Rock, so I didn’t spend as much time with this one in the past. This is a good punk album. Rough and gritty yet melodic and catchy. Anthemic yet relatable. It got some very strong songs like What’s My Name and 48 Hours. On Police & Thieves we get hints of their future musical tendencies to involve ska into their sound. Thing is I don’t it stands up to the rest of their catalog, and if this album was the only thing The Clash ever released… then they wouldn’t be The Clash. I don’t think it belongs on this list and as much as it pains me I can’t give it more than two stars.

This is interesting. They start by singing “feels good, wanna move” but quickly after a couple of songs we get to “my only weapon is my pain”. Sly and the Family Stone is a name I’ve heard, but not anything I’ve ever listened to. To be honest, funk isn’t really my type of music and I didn’t know what I’d get and if I’d like it. Overall it’s been a good surprise. Interesting and varied arrangement, soulful singing and a funky rhythm throughout. What’s more interesting is the juxtaposition of the musical material and the lyrical themes which sound darker. Some discussing personal struggles, other talking about black liberation. Very cool.

This is one of my favorite albums, love seeing it here! I think their next album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, is even better. But this one’s great. The ultimate in slacker millennial vibes. Somehow both disaffected and emotional. That’s the nineties paradox, the coolest thing is not to care, so you try to project that image while deep down you’re in a turmoil. While being their debut, Slanted and Enchanted fully embodies the Pavement sound. Guitars are distorted but somehow not fully in your face. Orchestration is noisy but very spacious. Catchy melodies are sometimes obscured by this general sloppy feeling. This airy sloppy feeling is part of what keeps the songs fresh and varied. Pavement is unpolished and loose, and that makes it feel more honest and personal. They’re not giving you a polished rock star show, but a draft of their feelings. Sometimes it sounds downright silly or unprofessional, shouldn’t they have re-recorded this guitar part? Does the backing vocals really make sense (“shalalala”s on Trigger Cut)? It doesn’t matter, it’s all part of the package. Styling aside, this is also just a collection or very good songs. A lot of music in this genre tends to be overly introspective and sophisticated but Pavement are just fun. This is just fun to listen to. Four stars because I like Crooked Rain better.

I think I heard the name kd lang but up to this point I didn’t even know it was a woman, so I don’t know what to expect. This is kind of adult contemporary pop. I can’t say I’m a fan. It’s very dull. KD Lang is a strong vocalist and the arrangements do well to showcase her voice. It’s just that outside of that there’s nothing going on and the songs are pretty corny. I find it very hard to get through this thing.