I remember there being a lot of critical discourse in the late 2010s that genre was dead. The existence of this album proves that such discourse was at least several years too late.

I can recognize that this is good music. However, if this is the best from Depeche Mode, I can also recognize that they might not be for me.

Not my favorite classic rock album, but there are definitely a few good songs on it (especially Houses of the Holy).

Willie Nelson was formative in my development of an appreciation of country and folk music, turning me into the closeted country lover that I am today. Growing up, my exposure was mostly through compilation albums promising "The Very Best of" that my parents would play on road trips. I don't think I realized just how many came from this single album.

A perfectly solid album with several upbeat, high-energy bangers.

Grunge was a particular time in the American music scene. It should stay that way.

Did I enjoy the return to a bygone era of early aughts rock? Yes. Will I forget that this album exists in the next few days? Also yes. Favorite song of the album: Joe's Head

This was a gem of an album. It was just fun to listen to and it might find its way into my regular rotation. I would give it 4 1/2 stars if that was an option. Favorite Song: City, Country, City

With the exception of the title track, what a surprisingly forgettable album. It all just kind of blends together.

I'm sure this album is for someone. Just not for me.

This isn't necessarily an album I'd listen to with my full attention. But it is something that would be nice to have on in the background while I'm doing something else.

I had not understood the hype for Oasis before this (after all, Wonderwall is an overplayed meh of a song). But now I think I get it.

A very solid album. This was the perfect funky blend to get me through the Friday afternoon of a very long week.

This album is the embodiment of the phrase, "so bland as to be inoffensive". The only reason I'm not giving it 2 stars is that Wake Up is the one exception to that phrase.

There is some interesting stuff going on in this album, but much of what makes it interesting is the consistent sound and sonic callbacks to his work in The Beatles.

This was surprisingly good. I think it does some interesting things to blend other sounds into traditional late 60s early 70s folk - but not enough to justify giving this album five stars.

This is a solid album to have on in the background as ambient music, but is not one you can do a deep listen to without being driven out of your mind by its repetition.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Admittedly, I had definitely judged an album by its name (and the name of the band that produced it), but 4/5 would listen to it again.

This album is like a bad sandwich where the bread is the best part - the first and last songs are classics, but what comes in the middle is best forgotten.

Look, this album is hitting two of my sweet spots: 1960s, Beatles-esque Britpop and rock opera concept albums. I would give this 4.5 stars if that was an option. But since it is not an option, I'm rounding up. Loneliest Person is an emotional standout. Baron Saturday is just fantastic.

There are few live albums I actually enjoy. In my experience, they generally have poor audio quality and a bunch of audience clapping. But this album avoids that problem and captures the performer's energy - not the audience's. And in that way, it is a good example of what live albums should be.

I remember being obsessed with this album in the mid-00s as a touchstone of indie rock. It still holds up twenty years later as an exemplar of that sound.

Cut to Skinner Meme - Panel 1: "Am I out of touch?" Panel 2: "No, it's the classic rock who are wrong" I just don't think I get classic rock. I get why people CAN like it, I just don't.

The first half of this album has some problematic songs (Stupid Girl) that just aren't great. The back half though has some decent songs that show off the transition from the Britpop of The Beatles to a more rock sound. These songs are certainly better than Let It Bleed, so 3 stars.

This album is a vibe. And baby, I'm vibing.

I always forget how technically competent Metal musicians, including singers, have to be. And then a song like Gehenna comes along to remind me.

Is this technically interesting rap? Yes, I guess. Does that make it good? No.

This album is what I wanted to be listening to while we're getting 3.5" of snow. It's a fun album that captures the vibes of being somewhere warmer and is able to transport the listener there.

Listening to this, it was very clearly the progenitor for a bunch of mid-2000s sad-boy indie.

A throw back to my teen years of the early '00s. It holds up better than the work of some of her peers of the time.

This was a fine album, some might even say a good album. But then came along "Coconut" and I was forced to relive the inescapable mid-00s meme of a Coca-Cola commercial.

Taken individually these are really interesting songs that show how much fun rap can be, both for the audience and its creators. But it does drag a bit by the end of the album (although possibly that's just the bloat of some of the remixes at the end for the 25th Anniversary Edition).

A solidly meh album. There are one or two good songs that are classics for a reason, but I'm not sure they're enough to justify going back to listening to the album again.

Like the notes and the skips, there are no comments necessary about this masterpiece.

Some fun boom bap rap in here. If that's all it was, I'd probably just give it 3.5 and round down. But "Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '96" is the shortest piece of musical (and comedic) genius I have heard in awhile. So I'm rounding up to 4.

Based on this, I can only assume folk music in the early-00s and mid-00s was a dark, dark time. I don't think I realized how much the *stomp, clap, "Hey!"* resuscitated the genre.

When it leans into fusing hip-hop with other genres, it does something interesting. But when it doesn't, my goodness does this just sound like generic and forgettable mid-90s rap.

I kept shouting "Play Free Bird" for 34 minutes. 34 minutes in purgatory. 34 minutes listening to Lynyrd Synyrd. 34 minutes listening to Southern Rock. I don't think that was 34 minutes well spent.

Nothing really jumped out at me in this. Like it wasn't terrible, but it also wasn't great. Maybe it's just the things that made The Doors innovative is no longer that sonically different from what others have been up since this first came out.

Look, I can't explain what it is about it, but this gets four stars from me. It's good and there are some songs that I will go back and listen to after this round, and that's really my definition of a 4 star album for me.

As someone who's really only heard Deceptacon, I was pleasantly surprised with this. The DIY-ness of the sound is fascinating and is what makes this so much fun to listen to. In reality, it's 4.5 stars and I struggled with whether to round up or down on this. Ultimately I decided if I can't figure it out, it probably means I should round down to 4.

This has been on my to listen to list for about a decade, because of the critical praise it received when it was released. I can see why it got the praise it did when it was released, as it is sonically beautiful. But I also think it was an album of its time, and the time when it was relevant may have passed.

There was a moment when listening to this when I almost DNFed. But then I convinced myself that if I could make it through Nirvana, I could make it through the most dad of the dad early 1970s rock.

Not the best Beatles album IMHO, but still a pretty damn solid one that pushes recording arts forward (e.g., first use of recorded audio played backwards - check).

There's some fun elements to this album that Big Star introduced to the musical landscape that make this a good album. But ultimately, this is a "X had to walk, so Y could run" situation, because while the building blocks are all there, Big Star doesn't really do enough with them. 3.5 stars rounding up to 4 because of that.

There are a few songs here that I get and understand why they get broader play. But there's a good number (dare I say most) that are forgettable. However, I chalk it up to the fact that this is part of a larger cultural project that I am not part of and am not the target audience for. So with that in mind, I'll give this the benefit of the doubt and round my 3.5 up to a 4.

If there weren’t the skits in it (some of which are just problematic), this would be a great, 5-star rap album. But alas, the album before us has the skits in it, so I am downgrading it to a 4.

Rock Band introduced me to the hits from this album. 1001 Albums introduced me to the fact that all the songs on this album are hits. 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.

There are a couple good songs that bump this up from the 2/5 to 3/5 that I want to give it, but overall this just seemed like generic Beatles knock-offs

New rule I’m identifying from past votes (c.f. Nirvana) and this one. Any album by straight people that involves casually dropping the f-slur for no real reason gets a 1 star vote.

A 37-year old man drives across the state to the hospital where his wife has been airlifted to prematurely give birth to his first child. As he speeds down the highway, he listens to his favorite band - The Band - on cassette. Perhaps it is a recording of their first album, Music From Big Pink, and the first song on the album hits him extra hard as it discusses a daughter and father after all he is convinced his first child will be a girl. When the baby is born and he is shocked to find it a boy, he must scramble to find a name for the child. Thinking of the music that kept him company on the drive, the man names his new son Daniel, after the song "Daniel and the Sacred Harp". The man, driving his family on their vacations now that his children are grown enough to appreciate travel, still listens to The Band - no longer on cassette, but on CD. He ignores the protest of his children and continues to play only The Band on these trips, especially that of his eldest who is named after one of their songs, and as a teenager, is the one most prone to complain. Now the man's son is fully grown, and a man of 37 himself. He finds himself in an activity with friends in which he listens to 1001 of the Best Albums out there. The system recommends him "Music From Big Pink", and he listens with apprehension - aware of the scars his dad's music choices listens. But as he listens to it now, he realizes that the album is ... just fine and 3 out of 5 stars.

Pink flag? More like beige flag. Amirite?

What a haunting series of meditations on death and the scars we leave behind. There were several times while listening, where I was not emotionally prepared for the lyrics and Cash's sound in ways that will, in their own way, leave a scar behind.

For something so aggressive, it is a shock that this is so aggressively mediocre.

Look, it's not a decent album when you find yourself thinking, "You know, I think I prefer the Glee cover of this song to the original." several times while listening to it.

Look I generally don't have a problem with speak singing, so long as that's what the artist is saying interesting things and they have a halfway interesting voice. Unfortunately, after listen to this, I am more convinced than ever that Bob Dylan has neither.

I don't think I've ever heard a breakup album that is as horny as this one. It sounds nice (and I finally get the idea of baby-making music), but that's only so long as you don't actually listen to the lyrics and just enjoy the vibes.

It takes real skill to make covers as good as - if not better - than their originals. Covers that are so good that people forget that they are covers and that they become the staple version. This album is full of those types of songs - covers that outshine some of the originals.

You know, I would describe this as a good funk - in that it lifted my mood with the energy and playfulness that they brought to a bunch of their songs - but I would not describe it as great funk - in that it did not immediately make me want to start dancing.

This is a good album. It's fun rap. There are some great features (old school Kanye, *chef's kiss) and the lyrical play is nice. Lyrically, it's ... interesting ... in a couple places as Common seems to grapple with how he feels about women, often falling into the traps that have historically marred rap as anti-woman. The opening song talks about his feelings for his daughter and the hope that he has for her and wondering if she is the Messiah. There's a song in here grappling with how he would feel about his faith if God (and Jesus) were women. It ends with (what TBH sounds like a response and callback to Baz Lurhman's "Everybody's Free") a bunch of children, may of them talking about what they want to be when they grow up. But at the same time, there's songs about his sexual fantasy of a FFM threesome that devolves into the fetishization of lesbians. He has a song portraying a wife as a crime queenpin that's pinned the crime on her husband (and apparently doesn't know about the appeal process?!?!?!). There's a song about a tragic woman who can't seem to escape poverty, despite her hopes and some desperate measures. It's all complicated, and very much of its time. With all that, I can't give this album the five stars it probably deserves for the sound of it all and that I was so ready to give it based only on the first song. So, 4 stars it is.

This may be an exemplar and a critical album in the evolution of the hardcore punk sound, and for that I'm willing to give it four stars. But I just don't think that it's a fantastic sound when everything sounds so similar and is at the same intensity and emotional tenor.

This album does not have frills, but you don't need frills to leave a mark like "I See A Darkness" does.

Fortunately, unlike the Hotel California, you can leave the Hotel California album. There are two good songs on this album, the title track and Life in the Fast Lane, so this gets one star for each of those.

I do not feel the need to justify my five star review. It is self-evident upon listening to Head Hunters why it deserves it.

I was fully prepared to give this album two stars. But then I saw the lyrics to "A Skeleton In the Closet" and the part that said "<FUN PICKIN' PART>", and that was a good reminder that this is kind of fun.

If you put a gun to my head, I'm not sure I could remember anything about this album or any aspect of any song besides the fact that it can't have been so bad as to make me remember hating it.

*Gordon Ramsay voice* "Delicious. Finally some good fucking dad rock" (and by good, I mean four stars). The emergent-yacht rock sound of some of these songs is great. And I think its what I want from my 1970s rock, a group that doesn't take itself too seriously and is willing to have fun with their music.

Look, maybe I am primed to appreciate some quiet, soothing singer-songwriter right now. But I would like to think that even absent everything I have going on right now, I would appreciate Drake's calming vibe in Bryter Layter. I'd give this 4.5 stars if an option, but given how it's helped - rounding up to 5 stars.

Generally good 90's Brit Rock. I'd probably give this four stars. But then there's the song, "She's so Loose", and I'm not sure if it's slut shaming or not? So downgrading to 3 stars.

I have one rule for an automatic one star, use of the f-slur.

This album is a pretty convincing argument that not all punk needs to rock to be punk. It can be quieter and more acoustic and still be great. Fur and a half stars rounded down to four. (I also feel like I better understand the sonic lineage of Regina Spektor, one of my mid-00s faves, having listened to this)

Was this album offensive in any way? No. But that doesn't mean it's anything better than pretty generic 90s rock.

Everything sounds the same on this album and as a result this just drags on and on making it seem as if it will never end. As a result, this sounds like the soundtrack to Purgatory in that it is extremely boring and undergoes very little in the way of change.

It states its thesis early in the first song with a rejection of The Beatles and creating a new sound, and then it doubles down on it as it acts as a bridge between the 70s and 80s. Despite being historically important, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a great album though. 3.5/5 stars, rounding down.