1001 Albums Summary

Ranges from pretty cool to goofy nonsense. The production makes it sound badass even when the songs get incoherent.

A classic in my book. Brilliantly experimental, thought not all of the experiments work. Uneven but intermittently beautiful.

I think Blues Boy is really a jazz guy at heart. Great chill vibes. I’ll take a cold beer and this record all day.

I saw the album cover and heard the first 10 seconds and thought it was just some gen X bullshit. After hearing the whole album, I actually think it’s just some gen X bullshit. However, I did enjoy it despite its temporal disability. I guess this is the point of the project; I got to enjoy a superb example of a genre I would never explore on my own. Five stars for the project. One star for whatever the fuck this is.

Piero Manzoni famously canned his own shit and sold it as a work of art. Lightning Bolt couldn’t even be troubled to produce a solid bowel movement, selling us only fart sounds instead.

This one blew me away. A lot more to it than I expected from occasionally hearing the Cars on the radio. It’s pop, but a little dark and a little artsy, and it hits hard. It doesn’t sound like a first album at all. Seems like they had already figured out exactly the sound they wanted and executed on that vision. Great record throughout. “You’re all I’ve got tonight” is a favorite, and “moving in stereo” was a surprise treat for me. However, I did lose my boner during “I’m in touch with your world”

This sounds like someone’s freshman English project at swarthmore.

I didn’t expect to like this, but was pleasantly surprised. Production is okay for 1984. Sound is smooth as silk. Too smooth? Not sure I’d just sit and listen to it, but it was perfect to throw on while I was sanding some walls.

Acceptable garage rock. Gets a little pretentious. Jack is too dorky to take seriously. Too many bad memories to ever want to hear this again.

However low you might get, Janis always lets you know she’s right down there with you, like some sweet, drug-addled angel of mercy. I’m not sure any person ever used their voice to such great effect. She captures everything I love about blues in a way that’s all her own. The completely reimagined cover of “ball and chain” is my favorite vocal performance of all time. The great thing about this particular album is that the band does an admirable job of trying to keep up. Only thing I can fault it for is the odd choice to add fake audience noise. Album cover could use an update as well.

This album was pure magic when a friend lent it to me freshman year of high school. Back then, finding music that wasn’t on local radio stations was kind of like getting your ice cubes from the South Pole, and it was no small thing to know about a great record that no one else did. I was curious if the same magic would be there when I listened to it as a much less open-minded middle aged man with a mortgage and lower back pain. I gotta say, this gave me the same tingles that it did back then. I think it’s incredibly successful for something trying to be really original. Not sure if I’d be able to get into it if I heard it for the first time today, but the only surprise on this listen was how many great songs are crammed into one album.

I couldn’t take this seriously. I don’t think they could either.

The man knows how to bottle up a cool sound, but it’s all just a preview for a song that never materializes. Seems like he would’ve been better suited to producing for a real band. This is my complaint about every hip hop record as well, so paste this review for all of those. Normally I give one star for anything I won’t listen to again, but I’m bumping it up because of some obvious talent and willingness to show some pasty skin on the album cover. He knows what we’re here for.

How many stupid joke albums are on this fucking list?

I get a lot of heat for not giving hip hop a chance, so I gave this one two spins. The first time I listened really carefully. The second, I used it as background music while I rode a Peloton in our exercise room. I think that’s the listening experience Gang Starr had in mind when they made the album. Sadly, I got nothing from it. Just a guy talking between two-second clips of actual songs that are supposed to make this palatable, presumably to people who don’t know the real songs. Only upside is their sample of The Meters reminded me to toss them on next. After that my evening got real funky.