I appreciate their anti-establishment positioning but I do not like the music of Rage Against the Machine. I just find it obnoxious and seek to turn it off whenever I hear it.

TIL The Youngbloods wrote "Darkness, Darkness," which is an excellent song (though truth be told, there are cover versions of it that I prefer to the original). But after that leadoff track, I quickly grew bored, and I am picking up a serious "OK Boomer" stench to this entire exercise.

A wonderful and seamless blend of funk, swing and African styles. I really need to check out more HM.

This album was and continues to be massively influential in defining the sound of post-punk.

Prog is just not my thing, and I could only make it a few tracks in before losing interest. This album sounds like a not-fully-formed version of the band. Weird choice.

I've been an admirer of Dolly Parton since my boys were very young and unsolicited children's books started arriving each month in the mail, courtesy of her and the United Way. She is a saint, yet I've never really delved into her music. Also, and I'm not an expert on country music by any stretch, but I always felt like Dolly Parton was considered more of a novelty and overlooked in favor of a mostly male cohort (Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Jones, etc.) but also Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline. Coat of Many Colors is a wonderful listen front to back, fully of life and heartache. Early Morning Breeze lilts on a pretty melody, the harmonizing on My Blue Tears is lovely and the storytelling on songs like Traveling Man and She Never Met a Man (She Didn't Like) embody what makes this era of country music so great. Also, the musicianship and production on this album are first rate.

TIL The Youngbloods wrote "Darkness, Darkness," which is an excellent song (though truth be told, there are cover versions of it that I prefer to the original). But after that leadoff track, I quickly grew bored, and I am picking up a serious "OK Boomer" stench to this entire exercise.

A classic. The Stones at the height of their powers.

Hip hop was definitely in a golden era in the early '90s, yet I've always preferred the East Coast style, from the claustrophobic paranoia of Wu Tang to the fearless creativity of De La, the jazzy cool of A Tribe Called Quest and the clear-eyed storytelling of Nas. On one hand, this is a fun listen, bouncy, funky as hell and full of colorful samples, if sometimes cartoonish. Yet like a lot of the Death Row stuff from this era, it's hard to get past the caustic misogyny and violence. I remain, at age 54, uninterested in how many bitches Snoop will be bangin' in 94.

I appreciate their anti-establishment positioning but I do not like the music of Rage Against the Machine. I just find it obnoxious and seek to turn it off whenever I hear it.

Gotta love Texas psychedelia.

It's albums like this that make me so confused about what Britpop means. To me, it's post-punk, with echoes of bands that came before (Adam and the Ants, T-Rex, The Smiths, Bowie) and after (The Horrors). Nice diverse set of songs.

This album is slammin.

A milestone of my adolescence, this album overlaps my skateboarding years and my first-ever job at a Domino's Pizza store, making for some colorful interaction with the latter's corporate sensibilities. Anyway, while it was fun to hear a few of these songs again, I sold my vinyl copy of this album long ago and hadn't listened to this album in decades until now. I found that Raising Hell by Run-DMC, which mines similar sonic territory, feels more relevant to me today than Licensed to Ill. I also found the Beastie Boys inescapably annoying through the '90s FWIW.

I probably prefer their debut LP Lost Souls, but this is good and I'm glad Doves are represented on this list.

I will acknowledge that "Shout" is a great song, but outside of that, the album lacks bite. While the songwriting is generally good, this album sounds very much like an artifact of its era. Just not my cup of tea.

Grateful for the prompt to listen to Sade, which is never a bad idea. She's a class act, so effortlessly sexy and sophisticated, capturing an 80s version of glamour that manages to sound timeless.

Absolutely love this, and had never heard it before — though I am familiar with MDou Moctar, whose style is similar. They call it desert blues, and I definitely hear the influence of Delta blues in their guitar stylings. Hell of a backstory, too. Really happy to discover this.

Holy fuck, I can't believe I am just now discovering this slinky loveliness. Reminds me a little of the English Beat. Going into my regular rotation.

Her talent as a songwriter — remember, she began working in the Brill Building writing famous songs like "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" as a teenager — is undeniable. This is obviously a major touchstone of the 70s singer-songwriter genre, and it helped define the sound of that decade. Also, I'll take her version of "You've Got a Friend" any day over James Taylor, who makes me cringe.

This is a fantastic album, pretty unrecognizable from the stuff the band had done before this and often credited as the first country-rock album. "The Christian Life" is a great song, and I can't help but think about how it was received by their fans in 1968. Other highlights are "One Hundred Years From Now," one of just three songs written by new band member Gram Parsons, and Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd." For a bunch of country novices, the playing on this is first-rate.

Rhythm Nation starts off with a bang with the title track and keeps it up through the first few songs, especially "State of the World." I mostly ignored this release when it came out, mostly because I (unfairly) associated Janet Jackson with her older and more-famous brother, who by that point was thoroughly creeping me out and putting me off with super high-gloss pop music and his increasingly questionable antics. By the time RN gets to the bubbly "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" and the ballad "Livin' In a World (They Didn't Make)" I'm losing interest, fast. But then it hits its stride again with "Alright" and closes out strong with "Someday is Tonight." Overall, this is a strong example of late-80s sequenced pop-funk with some genuine bangers but some songs weighed down by dated production.

To peruse his back catalog, with its interpretations of Shakespearean sonnets and even opera (Prima Donna, 2009), Rufus Wainwright seems like a man born in the wrong era. I had that sense while listening to Want Two, that he should really focus his energies on writing musicals (which is what sent me looking through his discography). Listening to him makes me wish that my mom, a classically trained soprano who was never short of opinions about contemporary vocalists, were still alive, because I find his voice to be my primary sticking point. While he's clearly not shy about belting it out, to me it's not quite up to the primary billing he gives it in his music. That said, Wainwright is clearly capable of creating lush stirring music — check out "April Fool's" from an earlier release, one of my favorite songs from the early aughts, or Prima Donna (he merely composed the music but doesn't sing). These are strong compositions with good arrangements. "Gay Messiah" is a great song.

Huge amount of respect to this band, but this album feels stuffed with filler and non-essentials aside some very good instrumental pieces.

Bowie albums are always a group effort, as he was a highly selective and demanding band leader and composer who surrounded himself with top talent (Mick Ronson, Carlos Alomar, Robert Fripp, Donny McCaslin, etc.). Here, he enlists Brian Eno to explore krautrock and ambient, with other sonic and aesthetic contributions from longtime producer Tony Visconti, to brilliant effect. Bowie by this point in the '70s was on another level artistically, coming off the effortless-sounding (and cocaine-fueled) art pop of Station to Station to produce what always sounds to me like the future. Low reminds me of a science fiction movie soundtrack, only with fully realized songs and compositions. Brilliant and still ahead of its time.

Ick. What's next, R. Kelly? Puff Daddy?

This album is a banger that never fails to put a smile on my face. In a turbulent era, Sly managed to make protest music that made you feel good: Affirmative, funky as hell, and a band comprised of Black, white and female musicians. It's a joyous revolution.

I remember my initial impressions of the Pixies when I first heard them in 1989, how their songs carried this incredible catchiness balanced by so much weirdness. There’s Kim Deal’s bouncy bass and sexy breathy vocals, Joey Santiago’s ferocious guitar lines and then this lead singer named Black Francis who sounds crazy as fuck, with childlike yelps and growls and lyrics that mask something terrifying. Songs like “I Bleed” legitimately frightened me, while “Here Comes Your Man,” “Mr. Grieves” and “Dead” evoked in me skewed cinematic western vibes. While “Doolittle” had nowhere near the (immediate) cultural impact of Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” it felt like a satisfying way to slam the lid shut on hair metal and all the other tired ‘80s music trends of the day and usher in an exciting new musical decade.

It's fun to imagine how this album must've landed in its time — 1971, my birth year. It was kind of a stylistic shift from Tyrannosaurus Rex's early hippy stuff, yet the mystical flourishes to Marc Bolan's songs may have appealed to the more adventurous-minded members of that waning scene. Plus, rock and roll was evolving into new forms. And it's *just* tough enough to appeal to fans of Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and other hard rock and heavy metal acts of that era (though his wearing of makeup and high heels probably made a lot of those burnouts reluctant to admit it). Fun fact: Longtime Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti produced this album, which I did not previously know but definitely tracks.

Since we're all critics here, I would have nominated Catch a Fire as the best Bob Marley and the Wailers album, and listening to this, it's clear why. This was the first BMW album without Peter Tosh or Bunny Livingston, and they are missed (especially the former, who lent the band a toughness and a second skilled songwriter and singer). But this is still a fine release. "Rebel Music" is one of Marley's best anthems, "Revolution" locks into a stirring vibe and the addition of the I-Threes as backing vocals is wonderful. Sadly, I think the song "No Woman, No Cry" is in danger of joining my list of songs I never need to hear again, thanks to the cassette version of Legend that played every day in drawing class during my senior year in high school.

This strained my patience right off the bat and granted, it's hard to commit to a Big Dumb Rock record like this in the middle of a work day. I warmed to it slightly as it went on. Wonderin Y is a legit good song and Look at Last Nite and I Won't Let it 'Appen Agen both managed to pique some interest, despite the tiresome, deliberately misspelled song titles. I don't love the singer at all. Mostly I hear in this the roots of many lamentable things: AC/DC, Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, etc. I could have easily died without listening to this, turns out.

Once upon a time I was a fan of the Beasties. I went hard for Licensed to Ill when it came out, and I stuck with them through Check Your Head. And then suddenly ... I was done. Chalk it up to the nasal delivery and overuse of vocal effects, the lingering echoes of their past juvenilia, and especially their commercial and cultural ubiquity as the '90s wore on. It felt like you couldn't get away from these guys for a while there. As for Ill Communication, I like the instrumentals, their sampling and mixing reflect skill, and it's always cool to hear Q-Tip and Biz Markee guest rap. I think I just really don't like them as rappers. IIRC we've so far had just three (?) hip hop releases on this list, and the Beastie Boys are worthy of two slots?

This is nice. I read that this performance was 100% improvised, which is impressive. I'm also guessing from the crowd noise that the Part II c/the fourth movement/whatever you want to call it was an encore.

I listened to this album on a channel called Classic Rock. The top comment is from a guy who talks about the custom hi-fi setup in his 1965 Pontiac GTO. “Cars were blaring along with meatloaf, Styx, Edgar Winter Group, Warren Zevon, Kansas…” and so forth. So that pretty well grounds this recording in time, place and cultural zeitgeist. Like a lot of music of its ilk, I feel no need to revisit some of these megahits, which are probably playing right now on your local Boomer FM album-oriented rock stations. But past the first few tracks, I hear a tension within the band between the vaguely retro bubblegum pop hits of “Good Times Roll” and “My Best Friend’s Girlfriend” that made this band famous and more adventurous fare like “Moving in Stereo” and “Don’t Cha Stop.” Suspecting there may have been multiple songwriters, I checked, and they’re all credited to Ric Ocasek. Which I supposed figures: In addition to marrying Paulina Porizkova, he went on to become a sought-after producer, with credits on albums from the likes of Bad Brains, Weezer and Guided by Voices.

Enjoyed this one more than I expected to, and it turns out I already knew most of the songs. Dave Grohl clearly picked up a lot of songwriting cues from Kurt Cobain — "Alone + Easy Target" sounds like a Nirvana B-side. His talent at marrying loud, distorted guitars with catchy melodies recalls his former band, Husker Du and Weezer's Green Album. And the riffing on "Weenie Beanie" (what is it with these song titles tho) foreshadows his later collaboration with Queens of the Stone Age. But as the song titles suggest, it's probably best not to focus on the lyrical content.

The history of popular music is vast enough that there are few acts deserving of multiple entries in a list of 1,001 albums to listen to before you die. So it goes for the Beastie Boys, and so it goes with this album by the Pixies. Hadn't listened to this one in many years. It's a fine album, but it lacks some of the spontaneity and playfulness of previous albums like Doolittle or Surfer Rosa. And perhaps most importantly, it lacks Kim Deal, who was a key ingredient in this band.

This is one of those hyper-evocative albums for me: It brings me right back to my college dorm, where I first heard it and listened to this album most often. To me, this album would be worth it for the reprise of the lovely “Waterfall” into “Don’t Stop” alone. It’s sonic magic, with its trippy tape loops and hypnotic rhythm. “Elizabeth My Dear” clearly cops its melody from Simon & Garfunkel. “Shoot You Down” is effortless cool and "Fool's Gold" feels like being on drugs at a rave. Too bad they fizzled out after a mediocre sophomore release, but at least they gifted us with this brilliance.

Alongside other artifacts of humanity, this is one of the albums I'd pick to place inside a probe that gets launched deep into space in the hopes it's one day discovered by an alien civilization — and not just because of the cover or extraterrestrial theme (though maybe that helps). It's just strange and funky, it might make the aliens shake it, and it makes humanity sound queer and fun. More terrestrially, it's the sound of peak '70s Me Decade drug-induced hedonism freak flaggery, an album that would echo through so much hip hop decades later.

TIL the song "Dirty Work" was performed by Steely Dan, and I think it says something that I was never curious to learn more about it despite being fed a steady diet from FM rock radio while growing up. "Do It Again" evokes some nostalgia for whittling away hours in video game arcades. The rest of this album is just an occasionally depressing document of the soft middle of the '70s: The hippie idealism of the '60s has been dead and buried, everyone's numbed on quaaludes and TV dinners, and punk rock can't arrive soon enough.