1001 Albums Summary

American Girl and Fooled Again favourites! Really cool straight-up American rock music.

Cry Baby is an obvious classic and this has my favourite JJ track on it, Me and Bobby Mc-Gee!

Some really beautiful songs on here, and Murder Mystery is just so ahead of its time!

Ball and Chain is excellent and everything about this is great!

One of the best album's I've ever heard in terms of pure song-writing. Faves are Father & Son, and Wild World, because I'm basic as fuck :)

Definitely got a bit samey but the harmonies were great and the songs were fun!

I hadn't listened to much later era Cohen and the way his voice matured and gained grit was just fantastic! Not a million miles away from Tom Waits/Iggy's radio voice

Insane that Meg’s drumming catches so much flack when this album is mixed the way it is and has Jack White all over it

I loved this more than I could have imagined! Very specific highlight was that crazily panned drum fill on Se a Cabó

A couple of harmonic choices which felt a little too jazzy for the context, but so many amazing songs on here! Highlights: Boogie On Reggae Woman and that weird noise in Bird of Beauty

This has every different kind of rock on it! Punk, psych, & roll, blues! Great fun.

I have no frame of reference for this music!

I first heard this on a slate video and now it’s one of my favourite jazz records

If the sax solo in Jungleland could be another 45 minutes please that would be great!

I'm maybe not enough of a lyrics guy to appreciate this, but the songs are well written and the harmonies are nice :)

The second half of this might be my favourite thing of Bowie's I've ever heard?

Loved this, reminds me of the folksy bits of Pink Floyd

Feeling like an angry teenage fuelled my journey to work

This is a protest rating, the album is fine but I would like Frank Ocean to be able to put Nostalgia ULTRA on streaming services and for the HHGTTG vinyl to be able to use the actual theme song not that shite Tomita-sounding (in a bad way) midi version

Forgettable, over produced, I will never think about this record again as long as I live

Still yet to be convinced of a double album’s length, but if this was edited down a fair bit it would be great!

Incredible to know that his voice could manage a whole set like that with no loss of tone! Favourite - Bring It On Home To Me

I guess I like country music now! Johnny Cash is so funny, charming and charismatic here in both song and talk, what a delight. Favourites - title track, Orange Blossom Special, and Give My Love To Rose

i think i just don't like REM

Karma Chameleon: The Album feat. A Bunch of Worse Songs

I love Britpop, I love Robbie, I will watch the monkey film

This isn't really my thing and I'll probably never listen to the album all the way through but there's something here I can't quite put my finger on that's really good? Like I don't know if the acoustic approach is what puts me off and I'd love these songs played by The Adolescents or something? A 3, but a weak one.

This guy’s really in love and pretty sad about it

A lot of potential and I'm glad, given the band's origins, to find out they're still going, although this very much has a first album feel

Worth it if only for Freebird

Perfectly okay first album with little hints at the variety they'd come to write later on, but more interesting as a time capsule/prequel type situation that as the sort of essential Strokes contempories the music pressed seemed to position the band as at this time. 2.5*.

Yo, what if hiphop was, like, fun?? Is that anything??

If this was the only album they released that year it would still have been an achievement

lounge country isn’t a genre I know for sure exists, but I like it if it does!

I really hate the new wave vocal style but the sounds and melodies had some cool moments here

This one's really hard. So many of these are stone cold bangers but every track on here INCLUDING those are mired in some of the most dated production and vocal delivery I've heard in a long time. If you're into that, fine, and this is a decent historical document, but I won't be coming back to most of this unless someone puts it on at a party in which case I will go absolutely crazy. 3*

This is the first 'proper' Elvis album I've listened to and it's the closest I feel like I've come to getting it. If I'm right in my understanding this represented a change of approach for him, and it definitely works - having his vocals (excellent) atop these cool soulful instrumentals is a really refreshing take on what I view as the classic Elvis sound and it was a great listen!

Lol I wrote an essay about this in uni It's so crass and gross but pulls it off?

Frustrating amounts of variety here and there but too often he resorts to what sounds like a sampled drum loops over lazy guitar and it's only fun so many times

Lots of fun, silly, catchy tunes, but the style can get a bit grating after a while

This album absolutely fucken rips

I like a couple of the singles but otherwise this is just not my cup of tea

I like a few of the talking heads songs but this doesn't have any of those on it

The more racist Rod Stewart is revealed to be, the less surprising it is that his music is trying this desperately hard to be american

The Weatherman is great fun, and I'm a sucker for some lap steel

the sax on this album absolutely FUCKS Bowie is doing everything he can and I'm loving it ++ little surprise beatles cover

Sometimes an album just needs to be fun!

The production aesthetic of this doesn't use sounds I like and I'm not a lyrics listener unless I love a record, so while I'm sure this is good it isn't really for me.

I like metal and listen to plenty of it so it’s not a genre thing, this is just so boring

Me: (not being able to under stand a single lyrics) Hell yeah, brother

I'll confess that Fairytale of New York was all I had previously heard but consider this my minting as a new Pogues fan!

Overrated but not like "bad". Just keep doing the freak outs, not trying to force those parts and actual songs together?

Nice mix of garage styles, remains cohesive and varied in a way few producer-led albums manage to by bringing in consistent guest vocalists

Great singles and great cover art, 3.5*

Wow! Britpop Ween! What an absolute treat! 4.5*!

Not a patch on Electric Ladyland, but still fine- Hendrix is remembered as one of the best guitarists of all time for a reason!

This is viewed as one of jazz's all-time greats for a reason!

How was this their first album? Such a complete sound, so many bangers, what a treat.

often i think double albums could be markedly improved by cutting out the rubbish tracks to just leave the really good stuff, but this album is just all kind of okay

I think I only like old depressed Cohen

What's Golden is an all-timer, and the bars and beats on the rest of this are good fun

There's a lot of "cool" on this album that doesn't entirely make up for some of the clashes in sound, or the fact that a lot of this sounds like one track played through over and over

This just feels like a very typical example of the sort of rock music that the US was making at the time. Good, but as is often the case I just don't see why it's on this list as one of the greats. 3.5*

I'm really not sure when some of the entries here were considered, because while I can imagine this could have sounded pretty vital in 1993 I just don't get that listening for the first time 32 years later.

I want to trip to this

This album needs to exist to leapfrog Bowie from his latter-era floundering to the jewel in the crown that is Blackstar, and for that I am glad it exists, but I'll probably not listen to it again

Cool funk bits, nice psychey sections, and a thirteen minute jam? What's not to like?

Funkier, more alt-rock sounding Minutemen? I mean, yeah, it's not Double Nickels On The Dime, but this is more than worth a listen! Strong 3.5*

I just love the vibe of a Willie Nelson album

A few good songs and quite a few less good ones, all totally dominated by horrible 80's drum mixes. Purple Rain is a brilliant song, but that doesn't save this.

I've tried so hard to "get" this album, I even made a video essay about it, but even though I know each and every point in this thing's favour, something about it doesn't ever quite click for me, a defeated 3*

This is hard bop... that bops!

Horrid vocals, repetitive songs, just bad.

We need to stop pretending and just admit this is a psychedelic rock album

This was absolutely not what I was expecting but what a nice surprise! I was expecting very much 00's NY scene indie rock but TVOTR must have been some of the most inventive to come out of that whole time

Like most of the Stones' output, this is pretty good, yeah, 3.5*

When Queen are good they're great, and when they're bad they're total shit, 2.5*

A lot of this is good, but a chunk of it is just kinda 'fine', 3*5

One of my favourite discoveries of this process so far, almost like prog Refused? The two long songs are my favourite and I'll definitely be returning to this one! 4.5*

Everyone has heard and enjoyed songs from this album. The new sounds created for it are still in use today!

Good but I'm not seeing the same thing that people who label this a classic are, low 3.5*

Stairway is great and everyone needs to accept that, despite that some of this album is meandering and directionless, 3.5*

This is so much cooler than I was expecting! New wave without having that dreadful plastic sound which so came to represent the genre. 4*

Elton John's career has maybe now been long enough that his discography is seen a a monolith - not something where people speak about albums, but just "what he's done", generally, or individual songs. Well, Mr John, I had underestimated you, this album is great and so much more that the handful of signal for which I know Elton John, especially for what is actually one of the more justified double albums I've heard!

This is waaaaay too front heavy but even with that being the case, the a-side is fantastic and the second side is competent... 3*

I never realised how much S and the B's have been getting ripped off these days!

I feel like this rewards deep and background listening. Really well written, played, and recorded music, that is also great just for vibes.

More albums where the first half is songs and the second half is ambient, please!

The slightly heavier, more angular sounding tunes on here are great - 4st 7lb through to The Intense Humming of Evil, mainly - but they make me wish the rest of the record had the same grit. 3.5*

Billy Corgan's voice only suits the heavy stuff on this and those are the songs I like least. The songs I like most are ruined by his totally out of place vocals. Hey, I found something to say about this beyond the fact that it's too long, nice!

The songs I know are good, the versions of others are often terrible, and the less well known stuff is a waste of time

Tricky. I don't want to say all these songs sound the same, because they don't. What the DO sound like is a lot of songs played by the same people in a genre with some pretty distinct sonic traits, by which I mean that any saminess might well have been alleviated if there wasn't just so much of this album. With that being said, 3*

Forgettable until that awful closing track

Turns out I actually did listen to this and forgot to log it on here! RYM tells me I gave it 4*!

This is brilliant only in how forgettable and inoffensive it manages to be. If you want some music that sounds like it's in the background of a schmaltzy scene in a 90's romcom this is for you but otherwise I learnt Everybody Hurts in guitar around '09 and if my relationship with this album had ended there I don't know that I would mind. 2.5*

I actually liked this a lot more than I was expecting! At it's best when there's minimal distortion and melodies can come to the fore, but with some really nice big-sounding production too! Strong 3.5*

There are flashes of real brilliance here but they don't quite make up for the rest of the runtime which veers wildly between uninspired and borderline offensive. A light 2.5*

This was absolutely excellent! I'd never heard the full version of 'Rolling Stone from these guys before!

The worst aspects of Talking Heads, Primal Scream, and the very 80's as-yet unrealised potential of the synthesiser.

Having listened to, I think, synchronicity (not sure on spelling or if that's just a song) and having found said listening experience a bit whack, this was a nice surprise! Lots of good songs! Strong 3.5*!

Good, but I'm not really getting the hype as one of the best live albums of all time?

Any band who rhymes Picasso with asshole is alright by me, but I can't help feel the producer on this album who isn't John Cale should have wasted less time trying to emulate him.

Okay so I'm pretty sure I "got" it and while I'm not under the illusion that this is all amazing, there's souch here that I'll definitely be coming back to this one!

Very nice surprise! Turns out when they stop banging on about the beach and lean into arrangement techniques beyond vocal harmonies that the Beach Boys have go some serious chops! High 4.5

Yeah it’s probably nostalgia but I love this album. The only really overlong anniversary reissue where I don’t mind the extra fluff

People who don’t like Moby just aren’t comfortable with sincerity

There are a couple of moments in the back half of this, but even those (Sad Song, I'm looking at you) go on waaaaay too long. Two stars and Lou can thank me for them.

The track sequencing lets this down a bit, and some variation would have been nice rather than all the fast songs then the slightly less fast ones, but this is so propulsive, frenetic, and original that it doesn't entirely matter. Slightly reduction in score because of the drum mix.

High highs and low, forgettable lows. 2.5*

I read a bunch of reviews that said the long sections that lead into the actual structured bits of the songs are annoying when those are obviously the best bit

we have Tommy at home!

This is one of those albums that calls the whole list in to question not for being bad, but for being just ok-ish

Fine but very samey

"Other Assorted Love Songs" really makes the other 13 tracks on here sounds as identical and unnecessary as they are - thanks for the head's up, Eric! 2.5*

Common’s lyrics are great but I think this album is really made by Kanye’s (and occasionally Dilla’s) production. Incredible tunes back to back, 4.5*

I think this loses 1.5 stars because of the back half because after satellite of love this just doesn't do anything for me

I am still yet to hear a double album that wouldn't be improved by being a single disc. 4*

Tight enough in its lyrics focus that this ALMOST feels like an early concept album? I liked a lot of these, and although it can get a bit one-note you've got to remember the time it was made! strong 3.5*

so this is good but it went on forever (writing this not including the japanese bonus track) and doesn't feel quite as focussed and vital as the earlier work. Light 3.5*

This album has a lot of totally fine songs but that's all most of them are. Yeah, there are a couple of greats on there, but it just isn't consistent enough for me to think it's a classic to the extent many people seem to. 3*

The back half suffers a little from three Meat Puppets songs in a row, but beyond that this is complete and utterly fantastic. (I want to say Dumb isn't great, but plenty of people love it so?) 4* but like, almost a 4.5*?

There's a really nice four track run in the middle of this (The Walk - This Is The House) and I like the last one. There's some cool sound selection here too but it still comes to an even 3*

Remember after Blond dropped when everyone was trying to be Frank Ocean?

An early career, undeveloped Miles Davis + bad recording + a collection of singles retrofitted into an album = an interesting curio and document of this period of his career, but ultimately barely a footnote. 2.5*

Annoying 2*, here, because there are little flashes of cool here. Reservations, and that american flag on were pretty cool, but that's the only replayability here, for me.

Some classics but that's all very much confined to the first half, after which point this loses steam a bit. 3.5*

this one's complicated, i've got a big mix of nosalgia, sustained love for trent reznor's production, dislike of camp, and a bit of cringe at my former self who would have loved these bad, bad, BAD lyrics. still, the singles are great and a couple of the album tracks surprised me! 3*

I've heard Back to Black and I think I expected more from this on that basis? Nice production, but definitely something produced a little while before her peak. 3*

You Shook Me has been my favourite blues-adjacent number for years now, an easy 4*

Listened to this a while back and it's a good document but the recording is a bit naff, and I just don't really "get" the whole TL thing. 2.5*

This is very good fun indeed!

Lazy sounding vocals, weak production, dull songwriting, this album has it all! 1.5*

RIP OZZY! Really impressive album where the band, now well established, got an opportunity to show off that there was more to Black Sabbath than doom

There's more than a bit of Moon Safari hiding in this production, and with some excellent vocals on top this was just what I needed! 4*

This sounds in all ways like a parody record of what is wrong with this sort of music. Too long, horrible sounding synths, painful vocals. The one redeeming feature of Prince as an artist is his guitar playing and that's almost totally missing here. A touch listen. 1.5*

Especially now it's easy to forget that Green Day used to be a punk band, but it sure was fun when they were!

oh, this actually is it?

paul was clearly the pop songwriter in the beatles 4*

I'm gonna have the refrain from both title tracks stuck in my head forever and that's no bad thing! 4.5*

The skits on this need more appreciation they're fucking hilarious 4*

When are we going to admin that Gimme Shelter is just ok?

My head was nodding this entire time! Lots of fun samples to recognise, nice beats, and cool scratching! 4*

The post rock I like and the post hardcore I like both have much more in the way of production than this. It's like sitting in a room with a bunch of boring miserable men having a moan while a just-ok band practices next door. 2*

If you've ever thought, "gosh, I wish I could listen to Mr. Blue Sky 17 times but on 16 out of those 17 times it was a bit less good," then boy have I got an album for you! I think there's definitely an element of the one single being so typical of this group, and being so fucking great that it ruins the rest of the record, because there's good stuff here but ELO just very much have a certain style.

HELL YEAH! I grew up with some of these tunes and I'm biased but fuck you I don't care, FOUR STARS!

Sometimes there's an obvious reason why they chose the singles to be singles. Two truly iconic tunes on here with another ten less successful attempts. 3*

Okay, so obviously this doesn't measure up to the titan of Demon Days that was to follow but still, for this to come from nowhere was incredible back in the day. Maybe a biased score, but this gets a STRONG 4*, kept at that level just because Demon Days is perfect and my ratings need somewhere to go.

I've got to be honest and say that I thought of The Verve as a poundshop Oasis but I was pleasantly surprised!

This is my first full Bjork album, and it definitely won't be my last!

Maybe I was just too disconnected when this came out, but it obviously doesn't measure up to 21.

A perfectly fine album crushed under the weight of overrating. 3.5*

This is the most surprising album I've so far heard on this list! It's not what I thought The Roots were about, and even when I thought I'd got my head around what to expect they kept flipping on me! Great record, strong 4.5*

I once listened to Narayan while I was tripping on a train and didn't realise it had been looping for half an hour.

My relationship with SOAD is odd because whenever I listen to them I fucking love it but I never think to put them on? Either way, this is so much fun and so heavy and so weird, big ol' 4.5*

"Mum, can we listen to Nirvana?" "We have Nirvana at home." Decent three star record, this!

I feel like I only ever hear people saying they fucking love this album or it's complete ass where in actuality it's pretty good 3.5*

i wish this site gave me the ability to rate things zero.

Brian I'm so so sorry I love you and Thursday Afternoon, DM, and Airports are some of my favourite albums but I just don't get this.

This is fine and all but the campiness hasn't aged amazing. Also Bolan singing with an American drawl then pronouncing a long soft 'a' in words like "dance" just takes me out of it.

An absolutely titanic pop album! Haters will still point out that it's pop and lacks a bit in the low end, but there's still an art to make music that you can tap your foot to that nobody's going to exactly hate. 3.5*

Dreampop isn't a genre I've paid much attention to, and when I've had I haven't always liked it. Hardly surprising, though, that the best album the genre has produced is actually quite good!

There's definitely something here, it's a lot of great Bri'ish guitar music all put in a big pot and stirred up! 3.5*

Yeah, 1001 is loads, but there are also fucking LOADS of albums and I just don't think this is one that feels necessary to listen to. Just very okay. 2.5*

You call a mf Thelonious and he's gonna make great jazz, you know this to be true. 3.5* (aware that's a little low but trade jazz like this doesn't necessarily move me although it's technically impressive)

I thought at least two songs on this were 'Losing My Religion', there's a TV show or something that uses the opening couple of seconds of 'Stand' as a recurring bit, and there are too many R.E.M. albums on this list. 2* out of spite.

An absolutely wonderful fusion of heavy metal and psychedelic rock! 4*

Psycho Killer justifies this album's existence, and it's impressive how fully formed TH's sound is from the word go, but I also don't like Talking Heads that much. 3*

I know a lot has been said of the vocals, here, but the guitar recording is just so crisp! Wonderful stuff :) 4*

This comes out at a 3.5* because each point I would like to add for making music that's horny without being creepy (a lost art) is just a little bit undercut by how god damn long all these neo-soul albums are

Groovy and obviously cool organ playing but there's nothing really exceptional here

I kinda just wish the double bass thing had been carried through a little harder? Bars go crazy though. 4*

This almost sounds like an album of stuff that wasn't quite good enough to make it on to Graceland, except made before Graceland? 2.5*

Bruce Petty and the Dylans

My brother fairly pointed out that it would be much easier to be in the mood for some of this if they just split the songs into separate tracks. I know that might upset some purists but when you consider that a lot of them are just cobbled together from bits the members had individually written anyway it's really not too much of a reach from the final product. With that being said, I'm bang into prog and this is towards the better end of it so 4*

This is better than I thought but another album where once you've heard the big singles you might as well not bother

The first half of this and Champagne Supernova are mostly good, well done to Liam and The Oases!

There are some great moments on here but the vocals just feel hampered by ability rather than chosen with intent. Sea Breezes is great and there are some crazy advanced ideas for the time but I don't know if I'll ever listen to this again. 3.5*

The sampling on this record is absolutely insane. 4*

Willie makes some big calls when choosing what to cover, here, but honestly these all now sound like Willie Nelson songs which, when you consider how huge some of the songs this album are, says a lot!

I wish there were more songs on here when Brian Johnson sung a bit lower - his voice is way better when he does! Otherwise yeah, this is kind of a blueprint type album, hard to overstate the important of. 3.5*

Billy, no! This album starts of so strong but the second half is marred by a lot of forgettable material. Strong 3.5*

There's plenty to like here but there's also kinda too much in terms of both length and the fact that the vocals are at 100% almost the entire time- I'm tired! 3*

I'm not a fan of a band's later work being used too judge their early stuff but favourite worst nightmare is the album following this and just outclasses it in every way. That being said this is still really cool indie that I'm kinda nostalgic over. 3*

I've never listened to a Morrissey solo effort before, but finally having given this a spin I can conclude that what little appeal The Smiths hold was actually in spite of his involvement 1.5* for the work put in by whoever wrote most of this music

I think I understand why this is so popular with depressed people

More classic funk feeling moments that some of the broader Clinton oeuvre, but in no world am I gonna listen to this when Maggot Brain exists, and has a better version of that very same track on it! Strong 3.5*

we need to stop labelling punk albums as post-punk just because they have like three melodic choruses

This is what it sounds like when a few guys are just starting to get with the idea that they're not just a rock band

Feeling like I 'had to be there' for this one but in the sense that I would have absolutely loved being 'there' and especially hearing 'this'

A lot of good stuff here but I don't know if I'm quite seeing the genius through all the 'creativity'. Probably a grower but this is like a 3.5* right now.

Oh Baby (Peter Frampton), I Love Your Way

I don't know enough about this style of music to meaningfully comment, but fair play on making it to 89 years old when you're whole deal is that you're fat

Genuinely one of the longest feeling back halves of an album I've heard, to the point that it actively detracts from the tunes on here that are deservedly viewed as classics. 2.5*

Every song on here that I like was because it sounds like Rumors, and everything else is pointless. 2*

This album was delayed so many times and then it came out and sounded like a collection of beats you could have made in a couple of hours. With that being said the vocals, lyrics, and features are all great, Skepta deserves his flowers for being such a long-term fixture of the scene, and both Shutdown and That's Not Me are all-timers. 3.5*

I'm worried by the idea of an 'essential' album that came out after 2000 but this really should be more popular! Really unique blend of sounds and well produced, and a nice surprise when the cover looks like a whack 00's indie rock album.

Good country background music, but I struggle to see what makes this unique, or why they opted to just slap a live track right in the middle? Good, but not exceptional. 3*

This is such a okay album. Totally washed over me and inoffensive in quite an offensive way.

The bias that you might assume comes with being a NIN fan just isn't doing anything here - I never really got this album and was far more into With Teeth through Ghosts I - IV - but for some reason, this time, I get it. Fantastic stuff. 5*

The first track's too long, then they find their groove, and then lose it again about three tracks from the end? There's really cool stuff on here, but the inconsistency and vocals (which I'd find goofy in English, too) 2.5*

The bangers here are nicely distributed, the singles are great, Foreplay/Long Time is an amazing new discovery for me, and Smoking is a fantastic tune that reminds me of ayong GTA Sam Andreas as a kid (definitely over 18, of course!) Strong 4*

Musical simplicity does not mean a lack of reliance on complex theory, and a mastery of one's instrument, and that is demonstrated here better than almost anywhere else. This album is as harmonically rich as it is stripped back an minimal. Absolutely sublime 5*.

I imagine this is very popular with people think that the faster you can play guitar, the better a guitarist you are. 2*

There's a lot of good stuff here, and maybe I'm biased for having come up around this time, but this is a particular type of indie that will always feel forgettable to me. Play Valerie from the second album if you must and move on, 2.5*

Hate to give this three stars, but it feel just a little flat compared to some of what Bob Marley achieved. There's not much in the way of valuable material here that wasn't superseded with a superior live version the following year.

There was a point during this album when I started to think that maybe George was the best Beatle? As ever, though, a double album doesn't need to be as long as it is. 3.5*

I once roadied for Spiritualized at a festival and they were nothing but polite and gave me and some of the other crew who stuck around for load out a load of beers BUT they also had me and this other guy carry a really heavy gong up a big ramp and then they only used it once so for that reason I must give this three stars.

This is one of those albums that was so popular around a certain period of my life that, despite having never put it on, I assume I've heard some of this before. Well, either I've totally forgotten hearing this before (not a big swing considering how generic a lot of this is) or I've never heard any of it until today, and don't think I've missed out. Three stars on the basis that it's competent and some of the guitar noodling is quite nice.

I don't know if I just like the wrong LCD Soundsystem tunes, but the issue with a band having a very consistent sound is that it makes otherwise good albums like this into collections of songs that sound like others I like more

The vocals aren't actually that much more annoying than any other similar band. 3.5*

There's a lot of really cool stuff here and if I just heard this if probably think I liked Iron Maiden more than I like the band into which they eventually crystallised.

I am beginning to think I fundamentally disagree with the author of the 1001 book about what constitutes essential. Like, yeah, this is fine, but I just don't know what it does that a lot of other albums don't do just as well if not better? 3*

There's just something about how old thrash sounds that I really struggle with sometimes. The drums are all mixed for speed instead of impact and nothing else provides that. Dawn Patrol was interesting but then the snare comes in and sounds like a coughing baby, oh well.

Expected this to be full of songs where you go, "oh THEY did this song!" but that didn't even happen once. This is all fine but I'm not a post-punk girly anyway (which is a term I use for all 80's rock music with chorus on the guitar).

Wonderfully modern sounding production of some fantastic blues. 4*

I think I can probably stick to the singles when it comes to Elton John. He's an amazing performer and the songwriting team with Taupin is undeniable great, but what he does strung out and watered down over a whole album is a bit lost on me. 3*

A cursory glance over some other thoughts on this album are getting me worried that I'm the only person who likes the Iron Man cover?

There's something I'm clearly just not getting, here. Everything's competent, well performed and written, but impossible to take seriously, leading to song after song that just has me feeling nothing. At least he was right- it was short! 2*

Some of these were legit a bit fast for me, I'm after slower more repetitive stoner rock but this has cool jams!

In which the Rolling Stones bulk ordered records from america in order to produce a perfectly alright collection of songs for around an hour

A far more interesting album to read about than it is to listen to. There's something really cool here and I know a lot of music I like now might not be here if not for stuff like this, but I doubt this is going to get replayed any time soon, 3*

56 minutes feels like a lot of listening just to hear Waterfalls.

An album like this not making it to the UK isn't surprising (we tend to balk at the more egregious elements of country music, such that only the canonical works make it into our experience), but when the album is this good, it's definitely a shame!

A lot of the time the line from how punk used to sound to how it sounds now is somewhat obscured - speed and bad singing aren't a genre unto themselves - but this album really feels foundational to me in how clear its influence still is on modern punk. That's not to say it's an essential listen, and The Clash come into their own a lot more when they start experimenting, but it bears remembering that an otherwise unremarkable, if solid, album like this can still cast a long shadow.

Mother's Lament is a horrible closer because if you didn't enjoy the album (beyond the first two tunes because they're objectively great) they highlight all the reasons why you're right not to. If you did enjoy the album they give you a powerful lens through which to focus subsequent listens, revealing a mostly dull album high on borrowed Americana. If you were on the fence like me it makes you realise that, just maybe, those doubts you had in the middle of the album were right...

This album has four types of tracks: Big Banger Singles, dance tunes that could have been singles, tracks where ol' Norm isn't trying to make dance music, and boring dance tunes. That the fourth one is the smallest collection is all you need to know when sticking this one, because it's mostly great!

Beyond the sample in that first track this was all new to me! What a unique record, with so many influences! :)

This is like a whole album of when you get stuck talking to someone at a party

I'm a big Quadrophenia guy, but this sits nicely in the Who's discography as a moment of them just being a rock band in between the two big Rock Operas they did.

It feels weird that this is considered a return to form for The Doors. While it clearly signals that their time as a creative force wasn't at an end, in retrospect it feels more like a warm up for the far superior LA Woman. 3*

Long, weird, repetitive. What's not to like? 4*

Oh hell yeah! Blues by a bunch of white British guys!

Noise rock is never noisy enough for people who like actual noises. I like actual noise, and think most double albums are too long, so 2.5 stars here is quite generous.

This is foundation but that can leave it feeling a little basic by modern standards. Really nice sampling and flow though. 3.5*

There's just something about these guys that leaves me cold. Better than the phenomenal lack of editing that is Mellon Collie but I dunno if comparative brevit can save this.

There's a good voice for The Fall's music, and there's good music for Mark E. Smiths voice, but I can't help but feel they belong on two separate records.

Now THIS is how you do a 70 minute rock record! A nice ten minute ambient outro, good variation in the tracks, and differing but consistent production approaches? See you later! Now, maybe I just went in with low expectations as I'm not a huge Pulp enjoyer but yeah, really pleasantly surprised, here!

Half of this album is people introducing themselves

I was at the Wembley show where they recorded HAARP, and that among other things (the music, too, I suppose) is probably why I think this album is all but perfect. That it came out at a very formative time for me as a music enjoyer can't've hurt its chances, either.

Between the clunky lyrics, the vaguely racist inclusion of perfunctory nods towards "world" music (why does this open with a white man's reggae song?), and the blandness with which this now hits the ear - whether due to its influence or simply because it is actually just Quite Dull - makes this into yet another entry in my journal of thinking Paul Simon albums are pretty much fine. 2* to a fresh 2026 ear.

I listened to this one before but it never hit like this. Amazing stuff, so many jams, great samples, and yeah it's long but if you cut these things down you'd just lose these groove sections.

Please could The Genius Of Ray Charles please lay off the big band and allow the genius of Ray Charles to comes through a little more?

I don't feel I know enough about samba to say anything meaningful here, but this was groovy + fun + i like it :)

Is Eminem ground zero for white boys doing the 'wikki-wikki' DJ sound? He must be held accountable for his crimes. Still fun though.

I've had the second to last song in my head for weeks because some dumbshit advert is using it at the moment, and I think listening to the whole album has exorcised it from my mind - wonderful!

This is a really good foundation of the white stripes' sound, and while later albums filled it out a bit more (up to the peak of their experimentation and sound selection, icky thump) this is cool as a super-stripped back bit of rock!

I got this album on CD when I was about 16 but it was during a bit of a CD gold rush in my life, so I really only listened to the songs I thought I liked the best. This was a wonderful chance to revisit it and discover that actually all the songs are really really good! RIP SYD.

Cool moments butt heads here with some utterly forgettable indie.

Hard to say the extent to which I was actually enjoying this vs. just me being surprised by how modern it sounded! Big influence from this one, and not what I expected, but I don't know if I'll listen to it again.

It's hard to have anything to say about this. It's okay, and the songwriting is solid but it sounds quite dated. I like Springsteen's other work from around this time, but this didn't really do it for me.

The first and last tracks are almost good enough to make you forget that this is a concept album the sympathetically portrays a pedophile! :) 2.5* because also the rest of the music is just not that good...

I only liked Machine Gun when I was young, but this whole album is excellent. Bristol is the world's greatest city for music.

Unqualified to speak on this is a lot of ways. I know nothing about reggae or the experience of those who made it, and my knowledge of Marcus Garvey extends no further than name recognition. Still, great reggae album! I know this is a reductive take on the genre, but there was sun shining in through my window while this played and something about that just works.

This isn't me hating on this album, because it's pretty good, but why do a band like the Kinks have 4 albums on this list??

Having only really listened to PJ before (and at the time being a teenager who wanted everyone to know how much better I thought the Marilyn Manson version was), what a treat this album turned out to be! Enjoyed every song :)

This is actually much better than the label of mind-90's hardcore hiphop would suggest - clever lyricism and great delivery over some really inventive and complimentary beats!

I read the track titles before listening, and yet I was still somehow surprised by just how much this band wants to be American.

The slow ones were actually nice surprises! There's a lot more to Chic that I thought, it turns out.

There's merit in these sort of albums - they're pretty inoffensive, the songwriting is solid, and they portray a certain vibe which is fine for the background, but... I am beginning to think I've had it with this whole list! Another day another middle of the road rock album of approximate CD length from a bunch of white dudes. I know a few of these albums are good for balance, but yet again I'm struggling for what makes this essential beyond a couple of radio singles? One star for how it made me feel about this list, but actually it's about 2.5*

The weird trying-too-hard-to-be-deep vocals annoy me, the instrumental parts are generic, and the production is repetitive, but I'm sure the lyrics are good and the one song in the middle about that woman that doesn't sound like any of the others isn't bad!

I dunno, this is just more led zepplin. I think their middle era stuff is better but there's some cool bluesy rock here too and everyone in the band is just so fucking sick at that

It's easy to see why Sultans of Swing is the song on this that really did something, but it's probably not the strongest one here. There's a nice groove to a few of these tunes, but the more Mark and the Straits actually let the drummer relax and all just reeeaaaaaally take it easy the better they sound! Solid 4*

While I can't say for sure whether Norah Jones was doing something remarkable or otherwise for the time, I am sure that this is a lovely collection of vocal jazz songs with really delicate arrangements. On the rare occasion that this crosses into what one might describe as the "upbeat" this becomes almost groovy, but that does nothing to disturb the carefully put together vibe, here! I'm sure there's a lot of other albums just like this one, but I'm just as sure that number would be much much lower had the people who made those other records not heard this. 4*

I'm historically a bit of a Byrne skeptic, Talking Heads do nothing for me beyond maybe four or five songs (and don't worry, I've tried all of them!), and the rest of his musical output feels a bit, let's say, 'colonial'. This record also features Brian Eno, the ambient work of whom I'm a tremendous fan, but who's other output often leaves me a little cold. How, then, do you imagine I found this generally well-regarded album from a pair of music giants? It's okay. There's a few good tracks up front and the last couple are interesting, but the middle just devolves into a morass of world music slop. Sorry Dave, sorry Bri, this just ain't doing it for me. 2*

I came to this album later in my life than I did a lot of rock music from this era, and I think I was less open to it that I should have been. There's so many bona-fide classics on here and the tracks you don't know are bloody good as well. Great album!

I fuckin' love CCR. Keep on chooglin', babeyyyy!

I'm no great lover of The Cure, but I'm not a hater either! I think they're fine and write perfectly good songs, but the production just leans a little too into the 80's sound that I would never choose to stick on. Still, good time!

Good stuff here on an album that is overall longer than it needs to be. Mother Earth is amazing, though.

Oh wow, what a mind-blowingly just-okay album! This one gives me the impression that they were just looking for some, any, reggae to balance the book a bit. Hard to see how this is where they ended up...

I liked this more than I was expecting! I think the guitars were a bit trebbley for me and they were the only thing that was so it really stuck out. Amazed what Mr Rotten's vocals can actually do - he's better than I thought!

Having grown up at a time that meant my experience was limited to Speakerboxx/The Love Below, Outkast have never been an artist I want to shit on, but not one I ever really felt like I 'got', either. That changes as of this album - the variety in styles across this album is amazing and it feels like a concept album. Great bloody stuff!

Does it maybe take a nation of millions to make an album that's not the same ad-libs, the same drum loops, and what ultimately feels like the same track over and over again?

I know Kanye is, and will be, remembered for his opulence. The huge, hour-plus slabs of music like Dark Fantasy or Life of Pablo, but this is probably his most interesting album. Yeah, you can say it's Death Grips lite, but there's a lot more to this album than that. The modular sounding distorted synths, the influences from everything from Marilyn Manson to dancehall, everything here combines with Kanye at his most combatively megalomaniacal to produce an album that could only have been made by this man at this point in his career. Maybe this came out at the right time for me, sandwiched between my two favourite of his records, but maybe this is actually the Kanye album that people will one day acknowledge for the classic it is.

This is somehow my first Zappa? All the humour, insane changes, and weird sounds are here just like everyone said they would be! What a brilliant discography to have suddenly just discover I like!

The very definition of front-loading. I don't know if the three openers we acknowledged to exceed the level of the rest of this album at the time of finalising the tracklist, or if it's simply a matter of all the songs being the same and the first three being what you get through before you tired of the edge's pedalboard, but the 70%-ish of the album that follows is entirely redundant.

While it's not always my favourite, this is still the best album ever made.

I once had to carry a gong up a big ramp for Spiritualized and then they only used it once! I resent them for this and have marked this unfairly as a result. (It's actually decent)