269
Albums Rated
3.39
Average Rating
25%
Complete
820 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1970s
Favorite Decade
Metal
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
21
5-Star Albums
8
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Phaedra
Tangerine Dream
|
5 | 2.73 | +2.27 |
|
Black Monk Time
The Monks
|
5 | 2.94 | +2.06 |
|
Swordfishtrombones
Tom Waits
|
5 | 2.95 | +2.05 |
|
No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (Live)
Motörhead
|
5 | 3.06 | +1.94 |
|
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
|
5 | 3.17 | +1.83 |
|
The Real Thing
Faith No More
|
5 | 3.2 | +1.8 |
|
The Idiot
Iggy Pop
|
5 | 3.21 | +1.79 |
|
Opus Dei
Laibach
|
4 | 2.39 | +1.61 |
|
Metal Box
Public Image Ltd.
|
4 | 2.41 | +1.59 |
|
Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
|
5 | 3.46 | +1.54 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Parachutes
Coldplay
|
1 | 3.46 | -2.46 |
|
Mermaid Avenue
Billy Bragg
|
1 | 3.17 | -2.17 |
|
Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams
|
1 | 3.03 | -2.03 |
|
Deserter's Songs
Mercury Rev
|
1 | 3.02 | -2.02 |
|
Gold
Ryan Adams
|
1 | 2.84 | -1.84 |
|
Beyond Skin
Nitin Sawhney
|
1 | 2.77 | -1.77 |
|
21
Adele
|
2 | 3.69 | -1.69 |
|
Band On The Run
Paul McCartney and Wings
|
2 | 3.67 | -1.67 |
|
...Baby One More Time
Britney Spears
|
1 | 2.67 | -1.67 |
|
With The Beatles
Beatles
|
2 | 3.66 | -1.66 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| David Bowie | 3 | 4.67 |
| Black Sabbath | 2 | 5 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Ryan Adams | 2 | 1 |
5-Star Albums (21)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
David Bowie
5/5
If you turned your life into art, then why not do the same with your death?
5 likes
Herbie Hancock
3/5
Time to get freaky - this is the antidote to all the nerdy, stuffy, boring, pointless, clean wankery played by white guys and called fusion. Herbie and the Headhunters are blasting off somewhere, and you are very much so taken along for the ride - even if the journey does lose direction here and there.
Great tones and production, massive hooks and a tight rhythm section delivering an incredible groove throughout - this is an album where rhythm doesn't play a supporting role, but gives the whole thing life. The solos and harmonic explorations aren't memorable but also never detract from the mood.
Favourite tracks: the riff in Chameleon, the middle of Watermelon Man, the groove in Sly
2 likes
Brian Wilson
2/5
He got there in the end, but was it worth the wait. Complex harmonies, counterpoints all over the place, tight vocal performances throughout.
Gets way too nursery-rhymey through the middle and the crisp production never lets any of the Casio samples hide. Songs aren't at all memorable.
1 likes
David Bowie
4/5
The tipping point, where Davy Jones completely disappeared into David Bowie. Inconsistently brilliant, relentlessly creative and idiomatic beyond belief. The best was yet to come, but the high points here are top-tier Bowie.
Favourite tracks: Changes, Pretty Things, Life On Mars (!!!!!!!), Queen Bitch
1 likes
Dusty Springfield
2/5
Pretty far out of my usual wheelhouse, but this album explodes right out of the traps with energy and melody. The "wall of sound" is spacier and darker than you'd expect from contemporary pop, and suits the woody/grounded vibe to Dusty's voice. What is exactly as expected is the eclectic mix of styles (although a definite lean towards country-infused doowop) and moods - it feels more like a collection of singles than a cohesive album. An absolute time capsule, but only a couple of songs really stuck with me.
Favourite tracks: You Don't Own Me, When The Love Light Starts Shining Thru His Eyes, Nothing
1 likes
1-Star Albums (8)
All Ratings
The White Stripes
4/5
Great distortion, lots of energy. Production is really my kind of thing - guitars are wide and airy, drums are big and warm with such a characterful vocal over the top. Feels pretty alive, this stripped down and fuzzed out americana!
Favourite tracks: Dead Leaves, Hotel Yorba (great opening combo!), Offend In Every Way, I Can't Wait
Björk
4/5
First time listening to a Björk album end to end! Crystal clear voice and real depth to the arrangements and production come together to create something alien but warm. Great pacing to the tracks, they swell not just in dynamics but (even more so) texture. Love the variety of synth/instrument tones.
Listened to this album as the sun went down, perfect match.
Favourite tracks: It's Not Up To You, Pagan Poetry, An Echo A Stain, Heirloom, Harm Of Will
Stevie Wonder
3/5
Interesting harmonic (and harmonies!) stuff from the start, super strong turnarounds. Lots of soul, but I do wish the clean production was a bit grittier/warmer because it can get pretty heavy here and there. Rhythm section (all Stevie?) is superb. Wish there was more cohesion and a more consistent feeling to the album because it meanders a bit much for me.
Favourite tracks: Maybe Your Baby, You've Got It Bad Girl, Superstition (why not lel), Blame it on the Sun
Elliott Smith
4/5
Really intriguing sound - feels simultaneously like it was recorded by many people, but also one entirely by themselves. Great desert vibes, or maybe more like the badlands in a sort of Stroszek way. Sad, but not mawkish, when it gets emotional - Nick Drake, filtered through Kyuss and gas stop cigarettes.
Favourite tracks: Ballad of Big Nothing, No Name No.5, Punch and Judy, Cupids Trick, 2:45am
Dusty Springfield
2/5
Pretty far out of my usual wheelhouse, but this album explodes right out of the traps with energy and melody. The "wall of sound" is spacier and darker than you'd expect from contemporary pop, and suits the woody/grounded vibe to Dusty's voice. What is exactly as expected is the eclectic mix of styles (although a definite lean towards country-infused doowop) and moods - it feels more like a collection of singles than a cohesive album. An absolute time capsule, but only a couple of songs really stuck with me.
Favourite tracks: You Don't Own Me, When The Love Light Starts Shining Thru His Eyes, Nothing
Ramones
4/5
Been a few years, but time to jump back into this beauty - forget about punk, this is pure rock and roll: redefined, reenergised and reoriented for the next generation. They were far from the first band to be loud, fast and brattish but they coalesced all of that into a sound and look which endured.
The album itself - raw production, old fashioned surf pop sensibilities and hooks all over the place. Part of me wants to complain about the lack of variety, but a much bigger part of me loves the single-minded approach.
Favourite tracks: Blitzkrieg Bop, Beat on the Brat, I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend, Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue, Let's Dance, I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You, Today Your Love - basically the whole 29 minutes are great!
Talking Heads
4/5
This is a band I've respected but never loved, and in all honesty have never really explored so the material here was enjoyably unfamiliar.
It's a heady mix of hypnotic rhythms, cop-show theme tune arrangements and Krautrock synths with some snappy songwriting, angular production and Byrne's idiomatic voice/lyrics - a very neat perversion of pop which gets darker and weirder as the album goes along.
After an eclectic start it really grew in strength up to an amazing second side. I don't just respect this album, I quite like it in general and loved a good few songs. Also:
Tina Weymouth!!!
Favourite tracks: Paper, Cities, Life During Wartime, Memories Can't Wait (great run of tracks across the middle of the record!), Heaven, Drugs
X-Ray Spex
3/5
Nothing but boundless energy here, it fizzes and crackles where other punks might crash and bang - the saxophone is a very welcome addition!
Favourite tracks: Art-I-Ficial, Warrior in Woolworths, Let's Submerge
Wire
3/5
Wire are great. This is abrasive, articulate and engaging - pretty ambitious within its short run-time!
Favourite tracks: Reuters, Lowdown, Strange, 12XU
The Strokes
5/5
This is indeed it - the sound of people who I don't like but wish to be, doing things which I don't approve of but wish I was getting up to.
Favourite tracks: Is This It, The Modern Age, Someday, Last Nite, New York City Cops - it's all good!
Korn
2/5
Even if I don't really like what Korn do, I do like that they've always gone about it in their own way. There's energy, creativity and humour all over their music so they did well to stand out from the mass of Nu Metal dross that was poured into our ears at the time - this album really represents a certain culture at a certain time. Was the world a better place when our biggest cultural concern was that mum wouldn't accept this isn't just phase it's who I really am?
Musically, it's a clever album - the bass and drums are tight and always deliver some sort of sinister groove, the guitars weave against each other in dissonant melody/harmony patterns and the vocals are brimming with character. Some fun songs, but I got bored of the whole album easily enough - still not my thing, but mostly well executed apart from all the unfunny homophobia on All In The Family....
Favourite tracks: Freak on a Leash, Got The Life, Pretty
The Stone Roses
3/5
The rehearsal room meets the rave - great vibes and huge sounds. Praise Mani!
Gets a bit repetitive....
Favourite tracks: Waterfall, She Bangs The Drums, I Am The Resurrection
John Coltrane
4/5
A gorgeous album, diving deep into the spiritual psyche of a musical genius. I definitely prefer my Coltrane to be freakier, but this is a landmark achievement in connecting technical prowess and complex musical ideas with sublime emotion. The gnostic theism expressed here is totally opposite to my own beliefs, but the way in which it is expressed is profound and touching as the music flows between modes, rhythms and textures with ethereal ease. The quartet is in fantastic form, with Tyner and Jones particularly effective in regulating the dynamics and mood of this suite across the record. The massive bass chords all over the album (especially at the end of Pursuance) then bring a real darkness into the sound.
I miss the revolutionary energy of Giant Steps and the frenetic edge of Ascension, but this album is a different beast and testament to the breadth of Coltrane's brilliance.
Favourite tracks: the whole thing, end-to-end
Blur
4/5
Kind of like a space-age Kinks, it's a celebration of the pseudo-intellectual side of the 90s lad demographic - the sort of guy who joins the Socialist Society at uni in hope of better odds than the Young Tories.
Great variety of guitar effects, charismatic vocals, but the rhythm section is far and away my favourite element. Love the way that other instruments like organ and brass intervene!
Favourite songs: End of a Century, Parklife (why not)!, Badhead, To The End, This is a Low
Deep Purple
4/5
Explosive, that's the word for this standard-setting live album. Every amplifier is pushed to its limit, with the PA set to have "everything louder than everything else" - thankfully, the ferocity of the band's playing matches the intensity of their sound as Deep Purple smash down, blow up and rip through some of their most classic material.
I've loved this album for years, it still sounds as fresh and exciting as ever!
Favourite tracks: Speed King, Lazy, Child in Time, Strange Kind of Woman, Black Night, Smoke on the Water, Child in Time again because it's just that fkn good
JAY Z
3/5
Hip-hop's "bling era" passed me by as a caricature to hate on, being the contemporary counterpart to Nu Metal, so I'm coming into this pretty fresh.
Fun production, great bass lines, clever lines delivered with confidence. Gotta mention the bass again! Enjoyed this way more than expected, he's a good storyteller and the album is full of tasty music.
Favourite tracks: The Rulers Back, Takeover, U Don't Know, Song Cry, Renegade, Girls x3
Herbie Hancock
3/5
Time to get freaky - this is the antidote to all the nerdy, stuffy, boring, pointless, clean wankery played by white guys and called fusion. Herbie and the Headhunters are blasting off somewhere, and you are very much so taken along for the ride - even if the journey does lose direction here and there.
Great tones and production, massive hooks and a tight rhythm section delivering an incredible groove throughout - this is an album where rhythm doesn't play a supporting role, but gives the whole thing life. The solos and harmonic explorations aren't memorable but also never detract from the mood.
Favourite tracks: the riff in Chameleon, the middle of Watermelon Man, the groove in Sly
Teenage Fanclub
2/5
Noisy guitar-pop with a real lean into the harmonic side of rock. Plenty of dreamy guitars washing over melodic bass lines, and lyrics that could only come from one wonderfully sweary place.
It was once interrupted by a burst of punk riffage, and I got my hopes up that this album was about to take off - alas.
Maybe the best pub rock album I've heard?
Favourite tracks: December, Star Sign, Is This Music?, The Wildhearts and Dinosaur Jr
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
4/5
Praise Jah.
The lanky bass genius takes us on a lush dub journey which holds true to the title.
Favourite tracks: Visions of You, Bomba, Evurline, Soledad, Wonderful World
Mercury Rev
1/5
Retro-vibed pop rock, totally mid tempo and relying on lush arrangements to develop the texture instead of pushing the dynamics, having a hook (goddess on a highway chorus aside) or anything fun like that.
Dreamy and dull. The singer's voice annoys me. What if Bruce Springsteen made an album of fairy-tale lullabies? Bass is far and away the best thing about this album and probably all that saves it from one star. Bored.
Favourite tracks: Goddess on a Highway, pick up if you're there
Guns N' Roses
5/5
You wanted the best, but they didn't fucking make it. So here's what you get. From Hollywood. Guns and fucking Roses!
What an album. Pure rock and roll. Filth, danger, sex, swagger, groove, drugs, melody, hooks, sex, riffs, humour, drugs, sex, drugs, sex, sex, drugs, defiance, joy, sex, drugs and beauty all wrapped up in one iconic package.
GnR grew to become a by-word for the sort of boring rock excess that they were sent to destroy, but this album is a record of them living in garages, squabbling with the law and screwing each others' women (resulting the album's best track) whilst loaded like a freight train and flying like an aeroplane.
Favourite debut album ever.
Favourite tracks: Rocket Queen, Out Ta Get Me, Night Train, Paradise City, Think About You, Sweet Child O Mine, Anything Goes, It's So Easy, Mr Brownstone, Welcome to the Jungle, My Michelle, You're Crazy
Leonard Cohen
3/5
Not what I expected! Great lyrics but dated production - afraid it didn't grab me as much as his earlier and later work does.
Favourite tracks: Everybody Knows, I'm Your Man
Paul McCartney and Wings
2/5
This is the band that The Beatles could have been. Apparently.
The album opens up with a massive classic, as Macca makes his bid for stadium supremacy, and is generally successful from there on out. Although I get tired of the knowingly-vaudellian twists and turns between genres, it is indeed the very well executed sound of a band on the run.
What if Alex Harvey wasn't deranged?
Favourite tracks: Band on the Run, Mrs Vandebilt, 1900&85
Nick Drake
4/5
An achingly beautiful album, tinged with regret but full of warmth and life. Drake's intricately melodic guitar is well accompanied by the best rhythm section in folk and the full band sound (especially the string/wind arrangements) really elevates this record. Expansive songwriting, poignant lyrics, spot-on production: the only thing keeping it from my very top tier of albums is the obligatory "funny" track which snaps me right out of the dark mood!
This album really speaks to me - it is fundamentally morose without ever veering into self-pity and conveys a real yearning for positivity from a voice that feels compelled to wallow in negativity.
"Leave the ways that are making you be,
What you really don't want to be.
Leave the ways that are making you love,
What you really don't want to love"
Favourite tracks: all of them except Man in a Shed
Fairport Convention
3/5
Fairport Convention are another of those bands where I respect their place and influence, but have never connected with at all - despite loving Sandy Denny and (in particular) Richard Thompson's solo work.
The vocal work really stands out, and the group harmonies are strong and clear with some enjoyable interplay against/with the fiddle. The songs themselves are a mix of traditional arrangements and originals, and you'd be hard pressed to tell which is which - Fairport Convention did well to put their own cohesive voice on a heavily saturated style! There's definitely a lot of prog crossover too, as a few instrumental sections (especially across Matty Groves) feature tight riffs and breaks leading into expressive solos.
After a bright start, the album takes a few darker and more drawn-out turns which I did not expect - the strongest moments on this record are when it goes more The Wicker Man than The Railway Children!
I like this album more than expected, but would still love it to explore the darker/weirder/pagan/occult elements of the countryside.
Favourite tracks: Reynardine, Matty Groves, The Deserter, Tam Lin
The Avalanches
3/5
For a band called The Avalanches, this sounds an awful lot like beach music!
It begins by drawing strongly on the late 60s and early 70s with soulful samples and a detailed wall of sound which ebbs and flows throughout each track. The album then gradually shifts to more distorted production, more break beats, more electronica and a bit more of a paranoid mood as those retro samples and vibes become increasingly ironic and subversive.
Love the low end.
Favourite tracks: Stay Another Season, Radio, Close To You, Electricity, Frontier Psychiatrist, Etoh, Extra Kings
Nina Simone
4/5
After an upbeat electric misdirection to open with, something grand unfolds here.
There's fire and darkness, wisdom and poetry throughout this sauntry album where no song outstays its welcome, and I felt myself hanging on wave after wave of swell-and-release for 38 minutes - sensual and powerful.
Favourite tracks: Four Women, Lilac Wine, Wild Is The Wind, Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair, If I Should Lose You (amazing three song run)
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
This beats the absolute crap out of that Best Of Bob Marley album that everyone has - way groovier, cleverer, weirder and more expressive than I ever knew this band to be! It's a classic example of reggae and the socially-themed lyrics make it a great document of a culture, all presented through a tight collection of great pop songs.
Musically, Barrett's basslines really stand out, effortlessly linking those signature rhythms with the gorgeous vocal harmonies.
A very good example of something that doesn't usually turn me on!
Favourite tracks: Concrete Jungle, Stop That Train, Stir it Up (major breakthrough for me as a young bassist!), Kinky Reggae
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
Hypnotic and neurotic, this is space age dub! Great bass tone, guitar interventions and cavernous drums form the backbone of the engaging production and propel this eerily beautiful album from gothy banger to gothy banger.
Favourite tracks: Into The Light, Halloween, Monitor (fk yeah), Night Shift, Head Cut
Traffic
3/5
Very clever stuff, happy to rock along with plenty of soul but also sometimes veering into prog territory - before prog had a name!
Earthy and folky, but not too twee thanks to consistently strong arrangements and songwriting - I just feel like it misses a wider range of moods to make the most of what this group had to work with. That said, the title track sees them stretch out beyond other song here.
It feels like the missing link between Genesis and The Rolling Stones!
Favourite tracks: Glad, Freedom Rider, John Barleycorn,
Common
3/5
It opens with some bass riffing, it's got me. Great lyrics, superb flow, inventive beats, this album matches the clever defiance of old "conscious" hip hop with the brash thrust and musical vocab of anything that's come since - timeless? I miss old Kanye.
Favourite tracks: The Corner, Testify, Love Is..., The Food
B.B. King
4/5
Regal is exactly the word for this album, as The King and his unbelievably hot band deliver a master class in electric blues. The way part of the setlist goes together as one piece, well connected by BB's compere narrations, really takes you along for the ride through just over half an hour of perfect horn stabs, sharp turnarounds, soulful vocals and that beautiful singing guitar. Love the explosions of noise from the crowd, there's some serious energy in that room!
Favourite tracks: Sweet Little Angel, It's My Own Fault, Worry Worry, You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now
Jamiroquai
2/5
As a crap tribute to Jay Kay, I'm listening to this while playing Gran Turismo - perfect match. Groovy, spacey, good fun and covered in tasty playing.
That said - it's a whole lot of the same thing, and it's a bit of a laugh to hear the man who'd go on to be one of the world's foremast supercar collectors calling for a revolution.
Favourite tracks: When You Gonna Learn, Music Of The Mind, Emergency On Planet Earth
Brian Eno
4/5
It's glam rock Jim, but not as we know it. This is Eno at a fascinating crossover point, applying deliberate avant-garde challenges to a musical language that begins familiarly enough but soon unravels and takes off elsewhere.
There's a playful edge to the invention, so the whole experiment manages not to come across as stiff and po-faced - it's as fun as it is weird and clever. It's also much darker and heavier than o expected!
Pre-post-punk?
Favourite tracks: The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch, Baby's On Fire, Driving Backwards, On Some Faraway Beach, Blank Frank, Here Come the Warm Jets
Elton John
3/5
I love some of Elton's songs, hate others and don't care about the vast majority of them - so my first end-to-end with him (oo-er) could be a fun ride!
Favourite tracks:
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
2/5
Massive pop classic, amazing energy! Front-loaded with hits but interesting throughout with engaging production and a great band - bit long, though... Does it need to have so many covers and transition tracks?
Favourite tracks: Welcome to the Pleasuredome, Relax, Two Tribes,
Beatles
3/5
This is the tipping point, after which The Beatles (and rock/pop music) wouldn't ever be the same. Tight, folksy, clever and all the instruments sound great - though the hard pans grate a bit, as do the country/rockarolla/doowop departures.
John is still my favourite.
Favourite tracks: Drive My Car, Nowhere Man, I'm Looking Through You, In My Life, If I Needed Someone
Blondie
3/5
Cool is hardly the word for this snappy collection of sexy hits, which goes genre-hopping with unusual confidence
Favourite tracks: Hanging On The Telephone, One Way Or Another, Fade Away And Radiate, 11:59, Heart of Glass
Nitin Sawhney
1/5
This downtempo triphop with smatterings of world music and glistening production is as late 90s/early 00s as it gets! Ambitious, exotic and well executed but not engaging - is it really an album about humanity's difficult relationship with nuclear weapons and the experience of Indian migrants in the UK (pretty diffuse thematic manifesto....), or does it just have some newsreel samples over the transitions between fairly boring tracks?
Favourite tracks: Broken Skin, Nadia, whatever it was I listened to next...
Tori Amos
4/5
Very cool voice and some weird soundscapes, this is not the usual singer-songwriter mush I had expected - much more like a transatlantic PJ Harvey. Definitely of its time!
There's a quiet power here, it's a clever and thematically strong album which makes an appealing noise.
Favourite tracks: Girl, Precious Things, Leather, Mother, Little Earthquakes
The Boo Radleys
2/5
A total unknown, aside from a passing familiarity with the name!
Screaming guitars, swinging drums, big vocals, tasty bass and plenty of twists between genres/vibes.
Started out very promisingly, got boring by the middle and kept on bloody going - would have been way cooler around 45mins. Does the list have any Wildhearts?
Favourite tracks: Upon 9th and Fairchild, Wish I Was Skinny, Lazarus
AC/DC
5/5
If you want blood, you've fucking well got it. Far and away AC/DC's best album, this is a band at the top of their rock and roll game. Dripping with sweat, swaggering all over the place, charming and violent, this album has character by the can-full.
I love everything about it - Malcolm's riffs, Angus' solos, the hard-hitting rhythm section and Bon Scott just being Bon fucking Scott.
Bloody hell does this album give me energy!
Favourite Tracks: the whole bloody album, as loud as possible. But especially Highway To Hell, Night Prowler and If You Want Blood
The Jam
4/5
All hail Rickenbackers and suits!
Snappy, sharp, sensible and striking, it blends dub rhythms with punk velocity and the clarity of a new wave. The thanking man's alternative/complement to The Stranglers?
Epic bass.
Favourite tracks: Pretty Green, Monday, Set The House Ablaze, That's Entertainment, Music For The Last Couple, Scrape Away
Ute Lemper
2/5
Das ist schon etwas.
Had no idea going in, still not sure I do.
The Smiths
3/5
Jumpy - driven by melodic bass lines and a great guitar jangle playing off against the neurotic, and sometimes soaring, vocals.
Can see why it's as loved by those who love it, but I'm not totally grabbed as it bounced around - at its best when stretched out and slow.
Favourite tracks: What She Said, That Joke's Not Funny Any More, Meat Is Murder
3/5
A great noise, showcasing a vital band at their best. The album is strongest when it follows the actual flow of a gig in the second half, as it builds to a feedback-fuelled freak-out of a finale!
Favourite tracks: Ramblin Rose, Kick Out The Jams, Motor City Is Burning
The Monks
5/5
Probably the best thing any US soldiers did in the 60s.
This album, which I'd never heard of, is a total shot in the arm - aggressive production, demented dada vocals, smashing rhythms and jagged arrangements make this one of the most refreshing and transgressive sounds of the time. Occasionally, a great little pop song breaks out.
Favourite tracks: Monk Time, I Hate You, Oh How To Do Now (that bass!!!!), We Do Wie Du, Love Came Tumblin' Down
Alanis Morissette
3/5
Oh hi, it's the 90s. I grew up knowing her as Alanis Marmoset, thanks to a joke from my Mum. She really owns her own voice and confidently delivers vivid lyrics, with a tasty (but slightly overplaying) band behind her - way better than I expected!
Favourite tracks: You Oughtta Know, Perfect, One Hand In my Pocket (unexpected nostalgia from 25+ years back), Head Over Feet, Wake Up
4/5
This is why U2 are/were as big as they are/were. Great album, but not their best. Superb songs. Astonishingly good production.
True story: I was walking along the river in Dublin one evening, and a grey Maserati pulled up to park alongside me. The passenger door opened and I nearly knocked right into the guy stepping out, said "oops shit, sorry mate" and carried on my way. Looked back and thought "he looks like The Edge". Carried on but looked back again, realising "ah yeah it is The Edge". And then Bono got out the driver's side.
Favourite tracks: Where The Streets Have No Name, Bullet The Blue Sky, Running To Stand Still, Exit, Mothers Of The Disappeared
The Rolling Stones
5/5
The Rolling Stones at their very best with their ya-yas well and truly out, and swinging all over the place. It's loose, beautiful and swaggering - you can hear the heroin dripping out of every note.
Favourite tracks: Sway, Wild Horses, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Bitch, Sister Morphine, Moonlight Mile
The Band
3/5
Country-fried rock with plenty of soul and gorgeous vocals. Pleasant but not very arresting until things pick up to over the second half!
Favourite Tracks: In A Station, The Weight, Chest Fever, The Wheel's On Fire (sweetie darling)
Depeche Mode
4/5
Jagged sequencers, pulsing bass, impeccably cold production and soaring songs - this sounds like the score to a Bond film where he doesn't win.
Favourite tracks: Sweetest Perfection, Personal Jesus (stone cold classic na klar), Waiting For The Night, Enjoy The Silence, Clean
Fiona Apple
3/5
More alt-girl cool rock. Or cool girl alt-rock. I can dig it, but don't love how inconsistent the style and mood are across the album. This record is best when it gets dark and quiet - when it lands, it lands really well!
Favourite tracks: Shadowboxer, Slow Like Honey, Pale September
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
The Boss' first album with The E Street Band for a long time (just when they thought they were out...) and his first since the WTC attacks.
A big, bold and often tender record, the signature Springsteen longing is mature and assured here. Lacks edge but not heart. Or length.
Probably a great road album!
Favourite tracks: Into The Fire, Nothing Man, Empty Sky, Worlds Apart, The Fuse, Paradise
Adele
2/5
Classic sound, great (if breathy) voice, but overall boring. Some decent songs, some really bad ones and a couple of huge ones.
Nick Drake
4/5
Maybe the saddest and weirdest of Nick Drake's albums, this swansong resonates with a nuanced sensitivity and weariness which sits at beautiful odds with how well executed the record is.
Gorgeous fingerstyle guitar playing, creative arrangements and idiomatic vocals. The lyrics explore a chemical ennui which connects the art with its artist. Beautiful, but Five Leaves Left remains my favourite of his.
Favourite tracks: Place To Be, Which Will, Things Behind The Sun, Parasite, From The Morning
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Funky and clever from the start. Soulful and visionary (duh) with plenty of emotional range. Impeccable production.
Favourite tracks: Visions, Living For The City, Higher Ground, He's Missta Know It All
Nico
2/5
Downbeat and rueful chansons with New York folk twist - I'd love to hear it without the additional strings/wings that were added by the producer, they rob the album of some much-needed darkness.
Monotonous but sadly not in a fun droney way, most of the time.
Favourite tracks: It Was A Pleasure Then (good drone!), Chelsea Girls, Eulogy to Lenny Bruce
Fleetwood Mac
3/5
The P-51 Mustang combined a British engine with an American aeroplane. I do not like the Mustang as much as when you've got the same engine in a Spitfire, Hurricane, Mosquito, Lancaster or Barracuda.
Half of this album is worth the hype, half has just always been schmalzy soft rock to my ears. I love the bits I love and can't stand the rest of it - but can at least respect how well they pulled it off/the fact that they pulled it off at all.
Favourite tracks: Dreams, The Chain, Go Your Own Way, Gold Dust Woman. Honourable mention to the final chorus of Silver Springs, a song which it seems no discussion of this album can escape without!
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
Perfect title - this album is indeed very everything. Poppy and dancey to the max with massive production! There's also plenty of feeling and emotional depth here, balanced out by some top notch piss-taking and intelligently upbeat compositions.
Favourite tracks: I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing, Dreaming of the Queen, Yesterday When I Was Mad, To Speak Is A Sin, Young Offender, Go West (massive upgrade to the original)
Metallica
4/5
Cold, oppressive, intelligent and tight as all fuk - this is when Metallica were old enough to be world weary but still young enough to be furious.
It's a great album, seeing Metallica at their most expansive and proggiest with the overly clean production (debated to death!) underlining the deliberately technical music - a definite contrast to the wilder and more organic edge to the previous albums (which are also terribly mixed for bass!) and that distinct vibe means it ends up as a lot of people's favourite Metallica album. For me, I miss the wildness and variety of the Cliff records (always loved Jason though!) as this one has too many songs which sound similar and it drags on a bit too long.
Favourite tracks: Blackened, One, Eye of the Beholder, To Live is to Die, Dyers Eve
Raekwon
3/5
Cinematic is the word that seems to come up the most in relation to this album, and I totally get it. Love the bass. Great lyrics. Fantastic edge and energy. Very long.
Favourite tracks: Knowledge God, Incarcerated Scarfaces, Ice Water, Verbal Intercourse, Spot Rusherz, Heaven and Hell
Soundgarden
4/5
Big, groovy, fuzzy, catchy and hard hitting. Loads of soul. Filthy guitars. What a voice.
Favourite tracks: Let Me Drown, Fell On Black Days, Mailman, Black Hole Sun (of course), Spoonman, Kickstand, 4th of July
Cheap Trick
4/5
Ok, I think I finally get Cheap Trick.
A big, bright rock and roll party which veers from hook to hook via bursts of melody, riffage, pounding drums and joyous harmonies (vocals and guitar!). Great crowd!
Mega bass, that 12-string does a great job of filling the sound right out.
Rocks harder than I expected.
Favourite tracks: Lookout, Need Your Love (bass!), Surrender
John Lennon
3/5
The Beatles are dead, long live John Lennon - this album opens with a death knell for what was, before setting out his vision of what should be.
It's not a happy album, the thick/dark production (piano, scratchy guitars and rasping drums dominate to great effect) matching the morose lyrics.
Favourite tracks: I Found Out, Working Class Hero, Isolation, Love, Well Well Well, God
R.E.M.
4/5
The birth of alternative/indie music (as we know it)? Either way, this landmark debut was at the vanguard of a new wave in a wholly American fashion - bright but indecipherable, vibrant but insecure and rooted in the great Southern Gothic tradition.
They'd get bigger (and better) than this, but it's a fantastic starting point.
Favourite tracks: Radio Free Europe, Pilgrimage, Perfect Circle, 9-9, West of the Fields
The Undertones
3/5
An energetic slice of life, hitting right at the youthful disaffection and nocturnal ambitions which bubbled along under the surface of The Troubles. Never quite had the fury of Stiff Little Fingers, but it definitely feels they were heading out in a poppier direction - there's a direct link from here to Dookie!
Favourite tracks: Male Model, Teenage Kicks (of course), Get Over You, True Confessions
T. Rex
3/5
Sexy and groovy, stomping along with charisma and lush production. It's much heavier and rocks way harder than the "all mouth and no trousers" Electric Warrior that came before!
Favourite tracks: Metal Guru, The Slider, Spaceball Ricochet, Buick McKane, Rabbit Fighter, Ballrooms of Mars
Tito Puente
2/5
Good fun and impossibly tight. I got the idea after a song or two though - great music for dancing and enjoying yourself, but not massively engaging as an album to experience.
Is this the best example of a mambo/Latin dance album?
Favourite tracks: Llego Mijan, other songs here and there - they're all the fkn same...
Metallica
5/5
Metallica's best album, and one of the greatest records in heavy metal. Ambitious, clever, energetic, powerful, diverse, characterful and explosive. For as heavy and hard-hitting as this album is, it is still covered in hooks - extreme enough to satisfy, accessible enough to enjoy.
The production is easily the album's weakest point, with Cliff's magnificent bass muffled as per the Lars/James mixing handbook. The album's highest point (of many peaks) is when Cliff takes over - heavy metal bass was never quite so transcendental as in the middle of Orion.
Favourite tracks: all of them - with Disposable Heroes, The Thing That Should Not Be and Orion above everything else. Orion. Did I mention that I love Orion?
Q-Tip
4/5
Whether with Tribe Called Quest, Native Tongues, great features like with Beastie Boys, and in his own right here - Q-Tip can put a tune together.
Champagne music with a tasty intellectual edge. Funky.
Favourite tunes: Gettin Up, Official, ManWomanBoogie, Life Is Better
Coldplay
1/5
Disclaimer: I have been anti-Coldplay since the early 2000s. They were inescapable in the UK, leading to many jokes and conversations about how stuff like Yellow was a joyless dirge. This seed of distaste blossomed throughout their even more insufferable Viva La Vida era, and I generally hold the view that they are the nadir of a kind of soft rock which offends me on an elemental level.
That said, in the spirit of this project I want to approach this album with an open mind - I genuinely hope that an end-to-end listen will challenge my views!
-------
We were right to mock them. It sounds like the backing band from Ricky Gervais' fairly-funny "Life On The Road". Boring and smugly sentimental.
Favourite tracks: Spies had some decent bass? Meh...
AC/DC
4/5
The first of AC/DC's really really big albums, and the last of their really really great ones. Polished, tightened, nailed down and blasted out - a superb ambassador for rock.
Compared to the last couple of Bon Scott albums, there's a bit more meat to these songs with beefier production and Brian Johnson's more muscular vocals evolving from the fizz and crackle on earlier records. Angus is on top top form, distilling the wildness of his solos up til now into his most musical and composed work - memorable, singable guitar solos with hooks that elevate their songs.
This is one of the albums that really got me into rock, so I can only ever love it. Was considering giving this a 5, but it misses some of the magic from Highway To Hell - the best tracks are on that level, but a couple of them fall short. Still great, though.
Favourite tracks: Hells Bells, Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution, Shoot To Thrill, Back In Black, You Shook Me All Night Long, What Do You Do For Money
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
It's Creedence. It's a party. Great fun.
Favourite tracks: Ramble Tamble, Run Through The Jungle, Heard It Through The Grapevine
Emmylou Harris
2/5
Is this really her best album? An hour of Jesus-talk set to world music and (nearly) trip-hop soundscapes.
I was on the fence about giving it three stars up until the line "everybody do like a monkey, if you want to be funky"
Favourite tracks: Red Dirt Girl, J'ai Fait Tout,
Erykah Badu
2/5
Sexy and fun, with a lot of soul and big grooves.
Sometimes a bit too smooth for it's own good. Definitely too long.
Favourite tracks: Penitentiary Philosophy, Booty, Orange Moon, Bag Lady, Green Eyes
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
Californication is one of those albums which really defined my childhood and early relationship with music. It was blasting from the CD palyer of our Land Rover in the '90s, all over music TV in the 00's and I had another look later in the '10s.
This is my first listen since then, and it's an album which is both very much of its time and holding up well. The first half is full of bangers and huge songs, great enough music to overcome the annoying production (it peaks!!) but the second half drags on.
Favourite tracks: Around the World, Parallel Universe, Scar Tissue, Californication, Easily, Savior, Road Trippin
Minor Threat
3/5
This rips - manic energy with a little bit of sophistication and clever songwriting.
Favourite tracks: Betray, Think Again, No Reason, Little Friend
Billy Bragg
1/5
Apparently, California Stars became a big deal. Not sure why. Hoped for much more from a Guthrie/Bragg work. Bored. Very bored.
Favourite tracks: Birds And Ships, gave up
The Cure
4/5
What beautiful melancholy. Slow, cold, crushing, haunting, masterfully arranged and impeccably produced - shimmering highs collide with booming lows.
Favourite songs: Plainsong, Love Song, Last Dance, Disintegration
Ryan Adams
1/5
I had written actual thoughts about the album, but can easily sum it up with one word:
Boring.
Then I did a little background research and found out that Adams is a pretty serious sex pest.
Dull music, made by a horrible person.
Favourite tracks: none of the ones I heard, made it halfway or so through...
Lorde
4/5
"Lorde Lorde Lorde, ya ya ya" is about the sum of my experience with her up until now, so this is going to be a fascinating listen - does her reputedly dark and clever style grab me and hold on for a full album?
----
It's very cool. Great collision of sounds, with massive synths and sequences up against intimate, soulful vocals.
The compositions are nice and non-linear, flowing between disparate moods and dynamics with awkward confidence. It's an album which feels like it constantly fights and overcomes its own insecurity - great emotional nuance to the breakup concept!
Sounds like it was recorded in a cathedral.
Favourite tracks: Green Light, Homemade Dynamite, Liability, Writer In the Dark, Supercut, Perfect Places
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
4/5
Never heard of this one, no clue what to expect - especially given there's a song called Fuck Shit Up on a "blues" (will it really be blues?) album and they did a video with Weird Al.
This should be fun.
---
Yeah, it is fun. Dirty, fuzzy, nasty, rough, raw, loud and weird. Very garagey. Until the electronic bits come in. And then the rockabilly. And the stompy southern stuff. And the psychedelic rock.
This album feels like a twisted carnival ride through the underside of the USA. Very Captain Spaulding with a bit of Captain Beefheart.
Me gusta.
Favourite tracks: Wail, 2Kindsa Love, Love All Of Me, Get Over Here
Amy Winehouse
4/5
This album makes me long for a very different time.
A bittersweet romp through a variety of musical inspirations, but one distinct voice - Amy packs a lot into 34 twistedly sensual minutes.
Favourite tracks: You Know I'm No Good, Back To Black, Wake Up Alone
Tom Waits
5/5
This album holds a dirty twisted mirror up to the dark underbelly of civilisation and kinda likes what it sees.
One of the best ever recorded and my favourite Tom Waits album.
Favourite tracks: Town Without Cheer, 16 Shells From A 30.6, Rainbirds, Frank's Wild Years, basically all of it
Kate Bush
3/5
Definitely of its time - sexy and worldly in a Ladbroke Grove dinner party sorta way.
Would fit well to a Dalton Bond. Manages to be both quiet and intense.
Favourite tracks: Sensual World, Heads We're Dancing, Deeper Understanding, Cloudbusting
The Clash
4/5
This isn't a punk album, it's just music. All kinds of music, and loads of it!
Favourite tracks: London Calling, Guns Of Brixton (taught me a lot about bass), Spanish Bombs, The Card Cheat, Train In Vain, Lost In The Supermarket
Turbonegro
2/5
I've seen the Turbojugend patches/jackets all over concerts in Europe for the past eternity, guess I should finally check the music out. I'm expecting something very continental, just hope it's better than Volbeat...
----
Pretty fun, this is totally beer music. Probably way better live than on record here - energetic but samey. I'm not quite drunk, German and easily impressed enough right now. Trying too hard?
Favourite tracks: Selfdestructo Bust, Rock Against Ass, Prince of the Rodeo, all blended into each other after that...
Tangerine Dream
5/5
Pioneering synth work results in cosmic music. Grossartig, visionary, scary and beautiful.
Nas
4/5
Funky, clever, great production, concise and energetic.
Amazing grooves between bass, drums and piano.
Favourite tracks: NY State of Mind, Life's a Bitch, Memory Lane, One Time 4 Your Mind,
Arctic Monkeys
5/5
Do believe the hype. Arctic Monkeys' debut record is a landmark album, perfectly capturing a time, place and mood as the 21st Century took over Britain.
This album tastes like cans.
Every song is a banger, every hook is huge and it sticks every emotional landing with a knowing earnest.
They're a band who have grown and matured, which makes this focused slice of hormones, heartbreaks and nights out all the more poignant.
I miss waking up on unfamiliar sofas.
Favourite tracks: A Certain Romance, Dancefloor, Mardy Bum, Still Take You Home, essentially all of it
The Allman Brothers Band
4/5
This is a good kind of fusion, taking a jazz-jam sensibility to great blues energy. Fantastic!
Favourite tracks: Done Somebody Wrong, Hot 'Lanta, In Memory Of Elisabeth Reed, Whipping Post
The Fall
4/5
Nice and dark, it's the sound of a group of people who probably don't like themselves very much. They dislike other people even more so.
Spiky bass, snappy drums, demented keys, ringing guitars and drawling vocals make for some compelling sounds. Swirling and manic, the noisy production underlines the hypnotic compositions.
Favourite tracks: Rebellious Jukebox, No Xmas For John Quays, Two Steps Back, Music Scene
Miles Davis
3/5
This is probably my most controversial Miles album. It is beautiful, intelligent, emotional, stunningly orchestrated and represented another milestone (hehe) in jazz evolution. Such an important album, just a shame that I hate most of the fusion wank which it spawned!
But I don't love it the way I love Bitches Brew or Sketches Of Spain, it never quite lights a fire in me.
Circle Jerks
4/5
High energy irreverence with great drumming. Shorter than many songs I listen to. Fucking great.
TV On The Radio
3/5
Dissonant, scratchy, obtuse and awkward - but still somehow enjoyable!
Bad Brains
3/5
Tight, slick, agile and direct. Bass does some great work and the vocals have massive character. Way more varied an album than I expected.
Foo Fighters
3/5
Where it all began again.
Dave Grohl delivers a catchy and scratchy solo debut, picking up where his last band left off but adding even more big radio sensibilities. Tight bangers abound.
Favourite tracks: This Is a Call, Big Me, Alone + Easy Target, Good Grief
Pearl Jam
4/5
Classic rock sounds for Gen X.
Another album that's deeply engrained in my formative musical memories - each song stands out, yet the album manages to be a cohesive whole.
Vedder's social and personal observations are set off against lush layers of guitars, fretless/12-string bass and crisp drums. It's a saturated, old fashioned sound with massive character which begs to be turned up.
Favourite songs: Once, Alive, Black, Jeremy, Garden
Rush
4/5
Caress of Steel fans are to Rush fans, what Rush fans are to normal people. Caress of Steel is my favourite Rush album, but this one is definitely in their top 50%.
Following on from Permanent Waves, these songs are more concise than their '70s work - effortlessy blending prog complications with pop hooks and arena rock riffs.
Great production and tones, great performances, great lyrics - great album, but not my favourite from Rush!
Favourite tracks: Red Barchetta, The Camera Eye, Limelight, Witch Hunt
Neil Young
4/5
Neil Young at his darkest, lowest and most strung out point?
The band, wrecked beyond belief, staggers between fury and despair with a bass and drums-forward mix - the guitars, keys and vocals scratch and scream in and out. Until the beautiful acoustics come in.
I've used the word "and" far too often, but it is necessary for this dichotomous album which lives in the spaces created by division - personally, politically, socially, emotionally, musically...
Amazing lyrics.
"The world is turning, I hope it don't turn away"
Favourite tracks: See The Sky About To Rain, Revolution Blues, For The Turnstiles, On The Beach, Ambulance Blues
Throwing Muses
4/5
Folky post-punk about blowjobs. Hilariously inventive.
Favourite tracks: Call Me, Hate My Way, Fear, Delicate Cutters, Reel
Curtis Mayfield
3/5
Yes. Yes, it is
Can get a bit too smooth, though.
Favourite tracks: Little Child Running Wild, Freddie's Dead, Eddie You Should Know Better, Superfly
Brian Wilson
2/5
He got there in the end, but was it worth the wait. Complex harmonies, counterpoints all over the place, tight vocal performances throughout.
Gets way too nursery-rhymey through the middle and the crisp production never lets any of the Casio samples hide. Songs aren't at all memorable.
T. Rex
3/5
Great cover, lovely tunes, good vibes. A bit lightweight.
Favourite tracks: Monolith, Planet Queen, Jeepster
Cypress Hill
3/5
Good fun, bouncy beats and great old schools production.
Fun lyrics - I can easily believe they like weed this much, but has B-Real really killed so many guys?
Pink Floyd
5/5
As good as it fucking gets, but not their best album.
This is when prog became music. Introspective, scathing, all-encompassing and intensely relatable.
Songhoy Blues
4/5
I love any form of desert music, so am bloody looking forwards to discovering this band and album - especially given their backstory of displacement through civil war.
----
Very cool album, dropping into bassy rhythms and big grooves as easily as it breaks out into a powerful stomp. Always danceable.
Spaces out nicely in the second half, great pacing.
Favourite tracks: Sekou Oumaru, Al Tchere Bele, Wayei
David Bowie
4/5
The tipping point, where Davy Jones completely disappeared into David Bowie. Inconsistently brilliant, relentlessly creative and idiomatic beyond belief. The best was yet to come, but the high points here are top-tier Bowie.
Favourite tracks: Changes, Pretty Things, Life On Mars (!!!!!!!), Queen Bitch
Tom Tom Club
3/5
Hello synths! Not being super versed in dance music, it feels like the fingerprints from this record are all over the party sounds of the 80s and 90s - it combines disco beats with New Wave irony and exotic instrumentation. What if Talking Heads went out on a Friday night?
Massive groovy bass work, definitely a highlight.
-----
Ok, I just saw who this band consists of and who played on the record. It all makes sense!
Favourite tracks: Genius of Love, L'elephant, As Above So Below
The Rolling Stones
4/5
What a fucking album, dripping with danger and darkness. Amazing songs, epic sounds and such a loose feeling. Nearly as good as Sticky Fingers!
Favourite tracks: Gimme Shelter, You Got The Silver, Love in Vain, Midnight Rambler, Can't Always Get What You Want
Count Basie & His Orchestra
3/5
Big band, big horns, big licks, big energy - big fun. Basie and his tight band are on fire here, ripping through originals and setting standards.
Favourite tracks: Duet, Double-O, Fantail
Frank Zappa
4/5
I was born to a Zappa track: The Torture Never Stops
Hot Rats is a much more accessible but even more satisfying collection of sounds - vivid and cinematic. The studio isn't so much an instrument as another musician.
Tasty and tasteful playing all over the place!
Favourite tracks: Willie the Pimp, The Gumbo Variations
Bob Dylan
4/5
The start of The Sixties? Frenetic, direct, pretty loud and raucous. Not every single word or line of lyrics need to land for it to still paint a vivid set of pictures - insistent and idiomatic. Brimming with an energy which sets the stage for garage, punk and all kinds of rock!
Favourite tracks: Tombstone Blues, Ballad of a Thin Man, Desolation Row
Beatles
2/5
Tight and bouncy, this is a collection of great little pop songs but little else. Although there are hints of the interesting chords and turnarounds which would pepper (heh) their most accomplished work, this is a naively straightforward album where one song blends into another. I'm glad they grew beyond this sound!
Favourite tracks: All My Loving, Don't Bother Me, Money
Adam & The Ants
2/5
Chorus - the album. Every instrument is drenched in effects, as a glam hangover throws up all over the new wave.
Quite like how much it leans on rhythm! That said, if this is what the Kings of the "wild" frontier sound like I can only imagine what the tame frontier is like... Decent fun, but trying too hard sometimes.
Favourite tracks: Ant Invasion, Don't Be Square, Press Darlings (a bonus track, and the best of the lot!)
Black Sabbath
5/5
Black Sabbath's best known work, and for good reason. Each song is a banger, made up of nothing but massive riffs and swinging grooves, set off against lyrics which provided a counter to the counter culture. Peace and love are dead, this is the world we live in - welcome to heavy metal.
Just for the record, I prefer Master of Reality, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Vol. 4. They go into a new sonic dimension, but couldn't exist without the foundations laid by the debut and Paranoid.
Favourite tracks: everything, especially War Pigs - my most played bassline and the greatest opening track of any album ever.
Buck Owens
3/5
I get the feeling that some no-good broad done gone done Buck wrong.
An absolute time capsule, grabbing the sound of middle America in the "cowboys and Indians" era of new media and old stories. Great vocals, playing off against the slide guitar and backed by some textbook honky tonk. Love guitar and drums in general!
Favourite tracks: Let The Sad Times Roll, Fallin' For You, Streets of Laredo, Memphis
Patti Smith
4/5
Rising above the squalor of mid-70s New York, this album is a gleaming and brilliant piece of pure expression.
Noisy, clever, uncompromising, insightful and a unique artistic voice. At its best when moving the furthest possible distance away from convention and descending into a flow of noise off-the-cuff!
Favourite tracks: Gloria, Birdland, Free Money, Land
Ryan Adams
1/5
Horrible person, boring music. The world would be a better place without either this sex pest or his creations.
Fuck off with that Born In The USA ripoff cover, this cunt isn't fit to lick Springsteen's boots.
Goldfrapp
3/5
Sexy music - this sounds like the future which Barbarella promised us.
This album takes its time to reach a crescendo, but that high point is a satisfying surge which brings the album's diverse moods and gorgeous production to a unifying high point, before dissolving and ebbing away in an alluring denouement.
Cinematic and sumptuous.
Favourite tracks: Lovely Head, Pilots, Deer Stop, Utopia
Aretha Franklin
4/5
This album is so sexy that I can overlook the hard-panned production.
Favourite tracks: Chain of Fools, Niki Hoeky, Groovin', Natural Woman (mono)
Leonard Cohen
3/5
Tender, dark and beautiful. Then it gets weird.
Favourite tracks: Master Song, Teachers, One of Us Can't Be Wrong
Faith No More
5/5
Kind of like the Weimar Republic, Faith No More is often discussed in the context of what followed on from them, and it's a total disservice to pigeonhole them as Mike Patton's funk metal band which gave us nu metal.
This album draws from a lot of different musical and creative sources, vomiting them back up in a cascade of idiomatic and intelligent degeneracy - aggression, melody, groove, riffs, solos, synths, proggy shit, thrashy shit, backed up/propelled/lead by by one of the all time great bass sounds.
Favourite tracks: Woodpecker From Mars, Zombie Eaters, From Out Of Nowhere, War Pigs
Gram Parsons
3/5
Country is the USA's folk music - a little more strident, a little more industrialised and a little more melodramatic. This album does a great job of straddling that line and grounding the potential excesses of country with folky sensibilities, occasionally allowing Parsons' psychedelia to add another dimension in what is an enjoyably diverse record which always returns to its roots.
Favourite tracks: Hearts on Fire, Brass Buttons
Aretha Franklin
4/5
Massive amounts of soul power. Great band, even better vocals. Respect? Love!
Favourite tracks: Respect, Soul Serenade, Dr Feelgood
Mike Ladd
4/5
Never heard of the artist or album, no idea what to expect!
-----
Pretty clever hip-hop, with some fuzzed out electro sounds and odd rhythms which I was not at all ready for. Gets weird, rocks hard.
Great range of styles and musical flavours!
Where's my Mars colony?
Favourite tracks: Bladerunners, No.1 St., Red Eye To Jupiter
Emmylou Harris
4/5
If you're going to make a country album, this is the country album to make - outlaw stuff aside. Gorgeous voice, tender lyrics and varied compositions put this head and shoulders above anything else I've heard from this area of the genre!
Favourite tracks: Boulder to Birmingham, Before Believing, For No One
Arcade Fire
3/5
Not totally sure what to expect - never checked out Arcade Fire "in the day" due to being put off by the critical/media love-in surrounding them. Time to challenge my 14 year-old self!
---
Challenge was a good word to pick earlier, this album plays out like a bit of a puzzle made up of some really disparate elements. There are moments of coldness, warmth, rolling folkiness and stabs of electric outbursts. Sort of an Appalachian Radiohead sort of direction?
Swirling and swelling motions, fascinating stuff. Can see why Bowie was a fan.
Favourite tracks: Black Mirror, Keep the Car Running, Ocean of Noise, Windowsill
The Dandy Warhols
3/5
Another album which was an ever-present when I was growing up. The last time I heard more than a song or two from this album was probably in the car 20 years ago - let's see how it stands up!
---
Ok, I forgot to have a listen so here's the review based on historical understanding. The Dandys deliver a groovy slice of fried (baked) goodness, with fun riffs and goofy lyrics layered over lush sounds. It's good, but doesn't have a highpoint like 16 Minutes.
Favourite tracks: Last Junkie, Minnesoter, Boys Better
Primal Scream
4/5
This is so mid-90s it's unbelievable - a time when it was encouraged to put roots rock guitars over dub bass and dance drums. As it goes on, Primal Scream embrace the industrial darkness that would define their next few records, but Vanishing Point very much remains their "space rock" album.
Favourite tracks: Kowalski, Motorhead (of course), Trainspotting
The Beach Boys
3/5
Yep, it's The Beach Boys. Very much so The Beach Boys.
One of the most important bands who I don't really a give a shit about.
This is definitely The Beach Boys, and it's pretty bloody good pop. Fair play Brian, over and out.
Favourite tracks: Don't Hurt My Little Sister, Please Let Me Wonder, I'm So Young
Al Green
3/5
It's got soul, and rocks pretty well. Superb band.
Favourite tracks: Let's Stay Together, So You're Leaving, I've Never Found A Girl
Afrika Bambaataa
3/5
Right back to the roots. The very roots.
Bad person, decent music.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
A lot happens, with little effect. At least this album doesn't have THAT song on it...
Sometimes feels like a joke that I don't get.
Billy Joel
4/5
A fair few of these songs were in heavy rotation on *Big 105.9 Miami's Classic Rock Station* and so formed a cornerstone of how I viewed America as a fleeting English émigré.
Wistful and tuneful, big and tender, cynical and earnest. The white Stevie Wonder?
Fucking nice fretless playing.
Favourite tracks: Movin Out, Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, Only the Good Die Young
The Who
4/5
A line in the sand, which set the scene for every manner of hard and clever music which would follow. There are no matching outfits, neat haircuts or saccharine "ooh baby you're so fine ooh baby I'm so happy you're mine" here - although they are perfectly capable of settling into a gorgeous three-part harmony when needed!
Monumental drums, stabbing guitar, frenetic vocals delivering insecure lyrics and THAT FUCKING BASS.
Nobody else made the same noise as The Who did in 1965 - this is far from their best album, but already shows all the elements which elevated them above their contemporaries.
Hail Entwistle.
Favourite tracks: I Don't Mind, The Kids Are Alright, My Generation (of course), The Ox (Paul and Ringo are grand, but which other rhythm section made that noise in 1965? Or since?)
4/5
Expansive soul rock - this is car chase music, but going through the bad side of town.
Favourite tracks: Cisco Kid, Four Cornered Room, The World is a Ghetto
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
My second Marley/Wailers record confirms that the albums are better than the hits. Massive bass is the star of the rich production.
Favourite tracks: Natural Mystic, Exodus, Waiting in Vain
Slint
4/5
Weird and scratchy, great stuff!
Jean-Michel Jarre
3/5
For me, Soccer AM has forever ruined this pioneering landmark in synth music. If you know....
Great cover art. Amazing craft to create those dense sounds. Thank goodness I'm not sober!
Radiohead
4/5
The darkest I've heard from Radiohead - abrasive and full of menace.
Favourite tracks: 2+2=5, Go To Sleep, Where You End And I Begin, There There, Myxomatosis (FIFA '04)
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
4/5
Oh fuck yes! I bloody love this album - it's comic book rock, blending twisted vaudeville lunacy with a hard hitting rhythm section and incendiary guitar work. There is impressive music on display here - agile, adept and clever. The lunacy would not work without such tight songwriting and playing!
At times dark and weird (how on earth was The Faith Healer such a hit??), other times jolly and rocking - Alex and his band run a wide gamut of bathetic emotions, introducing a menagery of characters who all behave appallingly.
What a character, what a band - Next is their best work.
Sensational.
Favourite tracks: Gang Bang, Next, Vambo, Last Of The Teenage Idols (one of my very favourite songs in all of music)
Steve Earle
3/5
I've mostly known Steve Earle as the guy from Bubbles' rehab sessions. Nice guy, but he went through some heavy stuff - this isn't his heaviest work, though.
Last time I heard his music was in the most old-fashioned coffee shop in Amsterdam, so this folk rocker of an album hits a happy spot.
Favourite tracks: Goodbye's All We've Got Left, Someday, Down the Road
Jimmy Smith
2/5
More Hammond than a Top Gear marathon!
Upbeat jazz, bluesy and swinging but samey.
Black Flag
4/5
Fuzzy, fast, fierce. Fuck yeah.
Jungle Brothers
2/5
Drugs, no. Misogyny, yes.
Unique production, got bored of the lyrics.
The Last Shadow Puppets
4/5
Ah yes - Mr Turner and Mr Kane are here and they've bought the '60s with them. This album is the soundtrack to a film which both never existed but also always has.
Stylish, vibrant and melancholic with bursts of manic energy.
Favourite tracks: The Meeting Place, Age Of The Understatement, Standing Next To Me
Hanoi Rocks
3/5
Glam's not dead! The sound of 1973 for 1983 - way more fun than the hair metal stuck-ups who followed on from these guys. Doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it goes along at a great lick with tight riffs, big choruses and loads of character.
There's a lot more interesting music going on here than I had expected!
Favourite tracks: Mental Beat, Until I Get You, Lick Summer Love
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
4/5
I'm ready for some magic - I know a few Beefheart songs, but never sat down with a whole album and so the debut should be a perfect starting point.
-----
Weird and heartfelt. Fuzzy and clever. Shambling and grooving all over the place.
Favourite tracks: Dropout Boogie, I'm Glad, Electricity, Autumn's Child
Little Richard
4/5
To 1957, this must have been like a fabulous meteorite crashing into Earth. Absolutely flew by!
Favourite tracks: Can't Believe You Wanna Leave, Oh Why?, Rip It Up
The Youngbloods
3/5
Yes, this is folk-rock. Good vibes, decent jams, great bass - enjoyable but not remarkable.
Public Image Ltd.
4/5
An absolute monster of an album - dark, weird, abrasive, pointedly clever and relentlessly creative. It's an album which recognises and makes the most of its limitations with drawling vocals, cryptic lyrics, spikey guitar, distant production and unconventional arrangements which could drag and meander if it weren't so deranged!
Favourite tracks: Albatross, Swan Lake, Socialist
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Physical Graffiti sees Led Zeppelin at the peak of their infamy, proving their capability and creativity across two albums' worth of bangers. Mostly bangers - if it were the length of the previous two albums, then it'd be an easy 5!
Favourite songs: The Rover, Houses of the Holy, Kashmir, Ten Years Gone, Night Flight
Rod Stewart
3/5
Rollocking roots rock, with a load of soul. Amazing Grace sounded like it belonged in the Ken Burns Civil War documentary.
That said, we can't overlook all the lyrics about "a slit eyed lady"....
Favourite tracks: That's All Right (still had no Elvis in this project...), Tomorrow is a Long Time, Maggie May and the other mandolin bits, I'm Losing You
Queen Latifah
3/5
Groovy as all hell, superb flow and character - fun samples! Another time capsule.
Favourite tracks: Come Into My House, The Pros, Ladies First
Machito
3/5
I expected a Tito Puente dance party, but I got actual jazz - superb fun!
N.W.A.
3/5
A foul-mouthed watershed, characterful and direct. Great flow, classic rhymes. Sounds great, love the funk. It's a fucking funny album, provided they meant half the shit they say as tounge-in-cheek! Goes on a bit...
Favourite tracks: Straight Outta Compton, Fuck Tha Police, Parental Discretion, Express Yourself, 8 Ball
Queen
4/5
Queen cast their musical net further and wider than ever before, pulling off an ambitious vision where expertly layered production allows the complex songs to add even more bombast to the brawn of their previous (and best) albums.
I prefer II and Sheer Heart Attack, but this is still a step above anything they made afterwards. A little too cabaret for me compared to the previous two!
Favourite tracks: Death on Two Legs, '39, The Prophet's Song (epic), Bo Rhap
Duke Ellington
4/5
Big band's last hurrah? As Miles and all those other cool kids started to define the shape of jazz to come, Duke beautifully captures what it was.
If you're going to spend so much time in the studio editing and re-recording, then would you not cut down some of the stage chat and MCing? At least I know what Father O'Connor thinks of the weather...
Music is great - crazy tight playing, loads of energy!
That solo....
Paul Weller
2/5
Retro, relaxed. A bit boring.
Britney Spears
1/5
Oh my god, it's my childhood. The first couple of tracks were inescapable around TV/shops/radio/school/football matches/literally everywhere for what seemed like an eternity to a 6/7 year old who has just been allowed to start watching Kerrang!
I can see why the title track was so universal - tightly produced and precision engineered to send primary school discos into a pre-hormonal frenzy, a pop classic.
The whole album is a lot of the same shit, every song sounds like the closing credits music to a different Disney summer blockbuster - this is the sound of America at its zenith, right before before the new millennium downfall. Don't like it. Don't like the industry which created and grew fat from it. I don't like how much I don't like all this!
If all those guitar squeals and mini-solos aren't on a PRS, I'll be amazed. Bass slides everywhere.
Didn't want to come into this and just give it 1 star by default - but the longer I listen, the more repulsive it gets. Manages to be both boring and annoying, can't live up to the first track.
Sorry, Britney.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
(UK version)
Full of hits, and showing that these guys had something more up their sleeves than Chuck Berry covers. There are flashes of soul, pop and psychedelia which do a great job of bringing up Carnaby St./Minis/flower dresses/all the other cliches.
Gets samey and drawn out through the middle though - must have been one of 1966's longest records!
Gnarly tones and cool sounds, though!
Favourite tracks: Mothers Little Helper, Under My Thumb, Out of Time
Ray Price
3/5
I have never heard an album begin with a message from the artist to their audience, directly thanking them for the last album's performance and explaining the upcoming album - unexpected but charming and earnest!
It's some damn fine country, wistful and soulful. Surprisingly bluesy.
Favourite tracks: Night Life, Sittin and Thinkin, If She Could See Me Now
Laibach
4/5
Dada meets Tito and a load of huge synths. Quite dated, but still refreshingly loco. Love the the abstract disintegration across the final third of the record.
Dobar skroz!
Air
3/5
Like a good tarte tatin, this album is all about the layers. Shimmering synths, deep pads, sizzling keys and velvet bass drape themselves over pristine beats. Ready for something else after a few tracks, though!
Alors, c'est cinematique!
The Rolling Stones
4/5
Some great old filthy Stones - a slinky album, exploring new sounds for the band alongside some ripping rock and melodic masterpieces.
Favourite tracks: Sympathy, Jigsaw Puzzle, Factory Girl, Stray Cat Blues
Black Sabbath
5/5
What is this that stands before me? Why, it's nothing less than the birth of heavy metal!
The Beatles had yet to release their last album, Britain still used non-decimal currency, women couldn't vote in Switzerland and Black Sabbath went and did this.
Obviously the whole album is necessary (although a bit formless and noodly, coming directly from their jam-heavy shows), but really everything I say here revolves around one song in particular - that opener. That tritone. That riff. That other riff.
There are two periods in music - before Black Sabbath was released, and after.
Favourite tracks: Black Sabbath, NIB, The Wizard
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
When I was younger, I thought that I liked prog. As time went by, it turns out that I just love Rush, Pink Floyd, Collegium Musica and some Genesis/Tull - everything else falls into what I felt and found to be interminable wank.
ELP are one of the major kings of that wank. You know all the cliches, so I won't babble on about how they're technically superb but emotionally absent or whatever.
Well executed but soulless. Live energy is more acceptable than the studio stuff, but also invites some wanking.
Thank goodness that Mussorgsky wrote the music for this one - probably my favourite thing I've heard from ELP!
Still fundamentally bored, though.
Favourite tracks: the theme from The New Statesman
Norah Jones
2/5
Good voice, well played, dull.
Sugar
3/5
Noisy from the start, and definitely of its time. Pretty decent "loser rock" with interesting vibes and a thick fuzzy texture but doesn't inspire much. Falls into "REM worship" territory a bit too easily (I know Bob is a pioneer!) as the album goes on, but ends stronger than it started!
Favourite tracks: Changes, The Slim, Slick
Femi Kuti
4/5
Tight, bouncy, slick - most enjoyable!
Favourite tracks: Nawa, Stubbor Problems, No Shame
Prince
2/5
My first Prince album - not a huge fan of the songs I heard beforehand over time, and feel that that "GREATEST SOLO EVER OMG OMG" from the Hall of Fame show is a load of overblown wank.
Hoping that a full album can give me a proper understanding of why he's so revered and influential!
--------
Sounds like it was made to be pumped directly into a club. Which could be the best explanation for why everything is so long and repetitive - although there's some great funk moments in there!
Sounds best when the songs move their furthest away from pop and into electronic soundscapes.
All that genius production and it still comes out so lightweight... I'm still not really won over.
Favourite tracks: Pretend That We're Married, Something in the Water, half of Lady Cab Driver
The The
4/5
Synthy post punk, veering into pop territory here and there with nervy energy - fits well with the neurotic and disillusioned vocals!
Great lyrics, felt way too relatable....
Really bloody good album - absolutely of its time but not cliched!
Favourite tracks: I've Been Waiting For Tomorrow, The Sinking Feeling, The Twilight Hour, Giant
fIREHOSE
4/5
Totally new to me, very cool album - folky, grungy, proggy and noisy. Great playing and unique vocals bridge retro country rock and cutting edge alt.
Favourite tracks: Vastopol, Some Things, Understanding
David Bowie
5/5
Bowie at his best. Music at its best. Art at its best.
A critical but hopeful expression of the human condition, delivered through genius arrangements and masterful production.
Anthemic, abstract, articulate and astounding.
-------
By the way, the "Berlin Trilogy" is a retroactive marketing term coined after Lodger. Low only had final touches in Berlin (but was directly inspired by the city) and Lodger was all done in France and the USA - I prefer to think of a four-piece "Berlin Suite" made up of Low, The Idiot, Heroes and Lust For Life. What a fucking run!
Röyksopp
4/5
This album came out the day before my 8th birthday, and the world as we knew it had hardly a week left. Great stuff.
Sonic Youth
3/5
Spikey, loud and jangly - makes great use of the band's different singers, helps create an album where you're never sure what to expect next.
Favourite tracks: Starpower, Green Light, Madonna Sean and Me
Pixies
3/5
Samey first half full of hits, great second half - loud and weird!
Pavement
3/5
Decent slacker rock - as '90s as it gets! Creative and influential.
Björk
4/5
Mad, great.
The White Stripes
4/5
Has any piece of music from the 21st Century existed universally in the way that Seven Nation Army has? That riff is a global language.
And then the album only gets better from there - raucous and full of character!
Favourite songs: Black Maths, Don't Know What To Do With Myself, You've Got Her In Your Pocket, Hardest Button To Button, Girl You Have No Faith in Medicine
Lou Reed
4/5
Lou hadn't had a very nice time of things, and channeled his experiences into a unique body of music. Drugs are bad, m'kay?
Beautifully bleak.
Favourite tracks: Men Of Good Fortune, How Do You Think It Feels, The Kids, The Bed
Frank Sinatra
2/5
This is Sinatra's bossa nova album, what do you think it sounds like?
Lovely stuff, if a bit dull - summons up scenes from a jet set life that I only have a distant view of.
Queen
4/5
Used to be my favourite Queen album, until I properly listened to Sheer Heart Attack - a record with all the focus and cohesion which II is missing. But the good side of that deficiency is a smorgasboard of music, utterly unafraid to take yet another new turn in sound, rhythm, mood or style.
Some great heavy moments, and Ogre Battle is probably still my favourite Queen song!
----
I wrote all that earlier in the day, before listening the album all the way through for the first time in years. Either it isn't as scattergun and harebrained as I had remembered, or I'm much more accepting of that sort of thing in music now, but it's a solid pop-prog rock record. Probably back to being my favourite of theirs!
Favourite tracks: Father to Son, March of the Black Queen, Ogre Battle, Seven Seas of Rhye, Ogre Battle
Tom Waits
3/5
A bit of the knowingly charming-but-twisted showman starts to creep into Tom's work here, perhaps the most playful of his early work and my favourite from before all the really good stuff.
Tortoise
3/5
Sparse and sumptuous. I lost track of time, in a decent way.
Sebadoh
3/5
Dunno how I feel about this one. There's a lot going on and it's clearly the sound of a tight band enjoying their music together, but it all blends into a dizzying mush of inconsistent alt kookiness.
David Bowie
5/5
If you turned your life into art, then why not do the same with your death?
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Clear as an alpine lake, and near as beautiful.
Favourite songs: Little Green, Blue, The Last Time I Saw Richard
Animal Collective
2/5
This album is all about the production - dense, expansive, pulsing and dizzying. This isn't a straightforward record, and I appreciate the craft and invention on display but have trouble getting into the songs. For all the variety of noises on the album, every song sounds the same....
Cool sounds, but not for me - Beach Boys in space.
Hole
4/5
Ok, this is great - I first knew Courtney Love as a punchline, but the sort of industry and social forces which made her one are on full display in the lyrics to this great rock album.
Not a million miles off of Manic Street Preachers...
Favourite tracks: Violet, Asking For It, Jennifer's Body, Doll Parts, I Think That I Would Die
The KLF
3/5
Not sure how qualified I am to talk about this one - sends up just about every kind of contemporary dance music, and pumps out a few bangers
Tears For Fears
3/5
New wave with a bit of bite - at first
Favourite songs: The Working Hour, Everybody Wants To Rule The World
PJ Harvey
4/5
I'd run away with PJ Harvey to live by some fields, and my fiancée agrees. A folky, witchy and beguiling take-down of Little England - kaleidoscopic and distortedly bucolic!
Favourite tracks: Let England Shake, All And Everyone, Written on the Forehead
Pixies
4/5
A lot of impact from not a lot of music - scratchy, weird, obtuse, big. Always respected bands who are this wilfully difficult to engage with!
Favourite tracks: Bone Machine, Break My Body, Oh My Golly
John Martyn
4/5
Knew the name, if not the music. It's pretty bloody good, blurring the lines between folk, jazz and psychedelia with deft acuity and plenty of emotional depth.
Superb sounding album which I am far too sober for!
Ray Charles
3/5
Smooth as all goodness
Beastie Boys
5/5
There's nothing like it, despite it spawning generations of music. It's the sound of a bunch of clever, irreverent and maturing guys making exactly the music they wanted to and a monumental testament to the Beasties' creativity. For a couple of years, this and Ill Communication (slightly superior) were my go-to walking around albums - it's the sound of a city.
Radiohead
4/5
Switches from despairing to oppressive at the instant flick of a transistor. Surprisingly heavy.
Favourite tracks: Paranoid Android, Airbag, National Anthem, Electioneering
Pentangle
4/5
I've heard the musicians of Pentangle in various other projects, but this will be my first time with their own work - I understand that it's part of the peak of British folk.
-----
Deft and tuneful! Worth the hype, and perfect for autumn listening. Great production - bass sounds big and clear!
Favourite tracks: Light Flight, Lyke-Wake Dirge, Hunting Song, House Carpenter (love it in any version, this one is superb)
Beatles
4/5
The Beatles swing and rock way harder here than on previous albums, smashing out a pretty raucous half hour of rock/pop/RnB/etc.etc.etc.
Intuitive songwriting, tight hooks, varied moods and a great sound.
Favourite tracks: Hard Day's Night, I Should Have Known Better, Tell Me Why
Blood, Sweat & Tears
5/5
Wow - orchestral soul, jamming out like a motherfucker!
The Beach Boys
3/5
Groundbreaking and inventive to the max, this is when pop grows up - but I don't love all the songs
George Jones
3/5
Some grand ol' country. And western? Lush vocals, big arrangements, plenty of heartache.
Talk Talk
3/5
Grandiose pop with an offbeat, expressive, heart. Very big, very clever.
Van Morrison
3/5
Folk gets big and poppy with plenty of influence from the jazz and rock scenes going round at the time! Love the layers of wind and brass over the band, the record (much like the artist!) has a distinct voice. Lovely, but samey.
Favourite tracks: Caravan, Moondance, Brand New Day
James Brown
4/5
This is why he's Mr Dynamite - it's a life affirming half an hour of impossibly tight energy
The Jam
3/5
On their their album The Jam are still sharp, still railing against the state of the world with pristine pop melodies at break-neck speed.
Favourite tracks: To Be Someone, In The Crowd, Fly, Down In The Tube Station At Midnight
Mudhoney
3/5
Full on, high energy, garage rock to the max. Great fuzz.
Favourite tracks: Thorn, Broken Hands, Move Out, Pokin' Around
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
Tasty
The Sabres Of Paradise
2/5
I like abrasive music.
I like wilfully obtuse music.
I like ambient music.
This is dull - well engineered, but never takes off into anything really engaging. After starting off boring but distinctive, it then becomes boring and derivative (big beats sorta stuff) for a while before going back to the ambience of the early tracks.
The beginning and end are a listless representation of an interesting sound, brought down by an unremarkable run across the middle of the album - the weirdest bits are the best!
Nanci Griffith
4/5
Sweet and sharp country, serving up vignettes of small town heartbreak with just the right amount of cooing sentimentality.
Favourite tracks: Love at the Five & Dime, Banks of the Pontchartrain
Funkadelic
3/5
I'm not high enough for this, and I'm pretty high. Galactic grooves, loads of cheese, not their best work but has some tasty peaks!
Big Star
3/5
Feels like the unknowing collision between glam and country, wrapped up in some clever rock
Steely Dan
3/5
Alright, this is going to be a fun challenge - afraid that I agree with the turbo-paedo Steve Albini about Steely Dan being dull studio wank, so actually listening to a whole album could hopefully be a voyage of discovery!
----
It's very clean. It really can't shake that "manufactured" feeling, and the end result is an impeccably-produced splodge of tightly white jazz/funk rock.
It's all the self-knowing Yankee bollocks that I don't like from Zappa, but with little of his balls to redeem it - there are a few decent tunes, and they're the most "natural" sounding!
Better than I feared, worse than I hoped.
Favourite tracks: Night By Night, Barrytown, With A Gun
Ice Cube
2/5
Bomb Squad > Dre
The production is star here, providing enough creative charisma to outshine Ice Cube and all his energy. Great sound, great lines - but it very much so stays in its sonic lane.
The lyrics themselves range from witty insights into the ground-level view on oppression, to violent misogyny - what lands is great, what doesn't is very off-putting....
Naturally, the best verse is Chuck D.
Favourite tracks: Once Upon A Time In The Projects, Turn Off The Radio
The Doors
4/5
Loose and loud, with a vibrant artistic voice.
George Harrison
4/5
Gorgeous music, earnest and emotional but not mawkish. Layers upon layers of touching vocals, airy guitars and a dynamic rhythm section make for an effective and varies musical bed for Harrison's revealing lyrics - the whole thing is confident but vulnerable.
Favourite tracks: It's A Pity, If Not For You, Let It Down
Led Zeppelin
4/5
The most varied of Zeppelin's early work, with an ambitious breadth not matched until Physical Graffiti. Careens noisily around for a side, then settles and chills out up by slate mine in Gwynedd for the other side.
Best bass tone on a Zeppelin album?
Favourite tracks: Immigrant Song, Since I've Been Loving You, Gallow's Pole, Tangerine,
Supergrass
4/5
Here come Supergrass with another album full of zippy bangers about being a weirdo - like The Kinks after a few cans of Special Brew.
I miss the version of the 90s that this record brilliantly evokes! Great fuzz.
Favourite tracks: In It For The Money, Richard III, Sun Hits The Sky, It's Not Me
Neil Young
4/5
The middle of the road at its softest, the fierce Southern Man aside. A tender entry in Young's discography, but not as satisfyingly ragged as where he's about to go!
Favourite tracks: After The Gold Rush, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Southern Man, Birds
The Louvin Brothers
3/5
Music from another time and place - pioneering harmonies!
Motörhead
5/5
This album can best be summed up by how they introduce We Are The Road Crew.
"And now, the loudest voice of any road crew - G R!"
"Come on then Newcastle, let's hear it for the road crew! UUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Loud, dirty, funny, self aware and confident, this stone-cold classic live album goes swinging, riffing and smashing its way through a set's worth of one of rock and roll's greatest bands at their absolute peak.
Favourite tracks: Overkill, Iron Horse, Bomber, Road Crew, Metropolis
Franz Ferdinand
4/5
Nothing but clever bangers - THAT song transcended everything and makes a worthy entry into the rock/pop pantheon. There's genuinely something for everyone here, as the album energetically jumps between massive hooks and frenetic grooves.
How the fuck is this album more than 20 years old? Totally of its time, but still sharp as anything!
Favourite tracks: Jacqueline, Take Me Out, Dark of the Matinee, This Fire, Darts Of Pleasure - basically all of it!
Genesis
3/5
In my ELP review, I realised that I don't like prog - I like Rush and some albums from Genesis and Tull. This is one of those albums, because most of the pompous cleverness lands with a satisfyingly heavy crunch before spiralling into the next demented arrangement.
Mega playing, decent tunes - but nothing as good as Supper's Ready or Watcher In The Skies. Except for Firth Of Fifth, that fucker rips!
Favourite tracks: Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, Firth Of Fifth
Spacemen 3
1/5
Noisy psychedelic stuff - boring and goes nowhere, and I like noisy psychedelic ambient nonsense!
As it got to the end of the original album (no way I'd sit through another hour+ of extra...) I was actually kind of offended by how every single repetitive song stuck to only one dynamic/tempo/mood and there was no tension and release - then they had the gall to call for "revolution" and haughtily chat to god as if they've got something to say.
Hawkwind, it ain't....
The Kinks
4/5
I also naively miss a version of England which I didn't experience - Just William, Lord Snooty, paper bags full of bull's-eyes, Imperial Airways, roast goose and the occasional sighting of a Gresley Pacific. I think that both The Kinks and I realise how ridiculous that sounds, as there's a definite cynicism underlining the obvious nostalgia.
Massive bass, jangly guitars, characterful vocals and some wonderful tunes set the template for generations of unconventional rock to come!
Favourite tracks: Village Green Preservation Society, Days, Wicked Annabella, Starstruck
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
It's Creedence. It rocks/choogles. It's great.
Favourite tracks: Born on the Bayou, Bootleg, Penthouse Pauper
Deerhunter
2/5
Uninspiring electro/folk/psychedelic indie. Well executed but boring.
Favourite tracks: Desire Lines maybe?
The Temptations
3/5
Slick soul, tight and groovy - half funk jamming, and half motown crooning. Mega bass!
Le Tigre
4/5
Sharp and fuzzy! This album is frenetic, and why wouldn't it be when there's so much to say in so little time?
Lynyrd Skynyrd
4/5
I fucking love Skynyrd, and will always go to bat for them - this band was so much more than Sweet Home Alabama, and their debut is a rollocking rock classic.
Great playing, great tunes (including a cultural icon), great lyrics, great vibes.
Favourite tracks: Tuesday's Gone, Gimme Three Steps, Simple Man (amazing run of three tracks on side A!!), Free Bird (of course)
4/5
PJ Harvey ditches rivers and standing stones for the concrete wilderness, creating one of the sexiest albums ever put to record.
Favourite tracks: Big Exit, A Place Called Home, This Mess We're In, You Said Something
Madness
4/5
Picks up where The Kinks left off, via The Specials and The Stranglers. Very clever!
Rage Against The Machine
4/5
Aggressively articulate, this stunning debut combines contemporary explosiveness to old fashioned soul. The riffs are simple, the grooves are huge and the lyrics are unambiguous - this album is a vital and uncompromising statement, only slightly let down by a few songs repeating themselves too much.
Favourite tracks: Bombtrack, Bullet In The Head (one of my most played bass songs), Township Rebellion
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
Five good songs and two greats make up this first collaboration between Neil Young and Crazy Horse, hinting at the ragged magnificence they'd conjur up over the coming decades.
Totally of its time, this album adds some much needed dirt to that folksy consciousness.
Favourite tracks: Down By The River, Cowgirl In The Sand
Thundercat
3/5
Looney, nerdy bass nonsense of the smoothest kind. Gets way too knowingly kooky, though.
Beck
3/5
Fuzzy alt-nonsense, great mix of styles, cool grooves, (obligatory mention of the) mad lyrics.
Iggy Pop
5/5
"I'm a piece of shit, come and hear all about it!"
Jim and Dave kick their habits together, excoriating themselves with an album that is as mechanical as it is deeply and disturbingly human.
Favourite tracks: Funtime, China Girl, Tiny Girls
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Gorgeous first two thirds!
Favourite tracks: Court And Spark, Free Man In Paris, People's Parties, Down To You
Anthrax
4/5
Tight and fun - Anthrax doing what Anthrax does!
Elvis Costello
4/5
Zippy and sharp - Elvis is an angry nerd! This record (and his early music in general) nails a simultaneously very British and very American sound, bombastic but nervy.
Favourite tracks: Welcome To The Working Week, Alison, Less Than Zero
LL Cool J
3/5
Funky, fresh, fun and flowing. Totally of its time and place! Superb bass.
Favourite tracks: The Boomin' System, Murdergram, Mama Said Knock You Out, 6 Minutes of Pleasure
Solange
3/5
Clever, ambient, R&B. Nice and dark!
Favourite tracks: Cranes In The Sky, Mad
Sex Pistols
5/5
Strip away all the contextual nonsense and cultural legacy, and what you have here is a no-holds-barred romp through big riffs and catchy tunes. Never mind the bollocks, here's some rock and fucking roll!
Favourite tracks: Holiday In The Sun, Bodies, God Save The Queen, Anarchy, Pretty Vacant
The Pogues
4/5
Listening to this made me drunk and smelly, great work lads!
Jefferson Airplane
3/5
Heavy, fuzzy psych rock with soaring vocals - drifts from pop bangers to dark and brooding ballads! Great folky jangles, even better bass.
Favourite tracks: Somebody To Love, Comin' Back To Me, Embryonic Journey
Jimi Hendrix
3/5
Jimi and the Experience open up their softer, spacier, side on their second record. Patchy, but the high points are fantastic!
Favourite tracks: Spanish Castle Magic, Little Wing, Castles Made Of Sand, Bold As Love
Sade
2/5
Too smooth? Well played, though.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
This is music from a very certain time and place, and I won't repeat all the Springsteen cliches about powerfully expressing working class dreams and all that - there's energy, cynicism and heart in spades across this record. That said, it loses some punch as it carries on and Prove It All Night cannot hold a fucking candle to Because The Night!
Favourite tracks: Adam Raised A Cain, Racing In The Streets, Factory
Def Leppard
4/5
I sort of love Def Leppard, and this album is where the "sort of" comes in. It's an album showcasing a band who've grown inexorably, and moved beyond the hard rockin' brilliance of their debut via an increasingly astute pop sensibility across two perfectly balanced albums. After an extended hiatus (fair play, Rick!) and a laundry list of creative/production delays, Def Leppard put together an album which should have been too ambitious to work.
Huge production, huge costs and sales, huge shows - this album is the absolute peak of '80s polished rock. Thank fuck they just about released it before Appetite For Destruction got big!
Musically speaking, it's a cool album. Tight and snappy, with enough excursions into heaviness to keep me satisfied. Not every song is a banger though, and you can feel the studio excess really coming through when their production choices fall flat. It's dated - sometimes that's brilliant, sometimes it brings everything right down.
Favourite tracks: Rocket, Animal, Love Bites, Gods Of War (best Leppard song?), Hysteria
Otis Redding
4/5
I was recently on holiday to Virginia, and had a fun time explaining to a friend that I find "Americana" and a romantic view of the atomic-powered, space-faring peak of America to be really appealing.
Instead of that entire conversation, I should have just put this album on. Serious soul.
Favourite tracks: Ole Man Trouble, A Change Is Gonna Come, I've Been Loving You Too Long, My Girl (was the Father/Daughter dance at our wedding, great stuff), Satisfaction
The Fall
4/5
Accessible disaffection, propelled by huge bass
Favourite tracks: Glam-Racket, I'm Going To Spain, Paranoia Man in Cheap Shit Room
Solomon Burke
3/5
Heavier on the soul than the rock, lovely stuff!
Kraftwerk
4/5
Great music, crap lyrics. Vor allem geil.
Country Joe & The Fish
2/5
I think these guys may have been on drugs. Good vibes and fun sounds, but weak songs and crap lyrics.
The National
2/5
Oh god, it's the sound of 2010 - corporate indie hipsterism encapsulated in an album!
If you like this sort of thing, then this album is well executed with a production value that blends hifi depth and clarity with some great lofi distortion - but it's fucking boring. The songs never go anywhere. Ever.
Adele
2/5
I could just copy/paste my review for "21" here - boring!
Marty Robbins
4/5
One of those albums which just perfectly represents a time, place and culture.
Great stories, told with a strong voice.
Favourite tracks: Big Iron, They're Hanging Me Tonight, El Paso, The Hanging Tree
Shuggie Otis
3/5
Very clever, very smooth. Goes on a bit.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
3/5
The sound of America as I wish it would be. A bit too clean and perfect, though!
Favourite tracks: Cut My Hair, Helpless, Country Girl
Elvis Presley
4/5
It's impossible to approach this album without 70-odd years of context getting in the way, and that context might be the biggest thing about this record. It's a collection of high energy tracks (not just a collection of singles!!) which sent the willies right up the leftover '40s and turned them into the '50s, setting up the entire universe of pop and rock which would develop over the coming decades.
Great voice, great tunes, great band!
Favourite tracks: I Got A Woman, Just Because, I'll Never Let You Go, Money Honey
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Weird, touching. The arrangements are as stripped back and bare as Cohen's emotions - raw but restrained.
Favourite tracks: Story of Isaac, The Partisan, The Butcher, You Know Who I Am
Lou Reed
5/5
A landmark celebration of the nastiest bits of life. Reed's character and lyrics find a perfect match with Bowie's production and Ronson's everything.
Favourite tracks: Andy's Chest, Perfect Day, Take A Walk On The Wild Side (those last two songs have become so ubiquitous that I needed a reminder how fucking great they really are), Make Up, fuck it - everything is brilliant. Five fucking stars.
Metallica
3/5
When it's good, it's very good. But mostly it's boring - Metallica giving a relatively lifeless run through of a baffling setlist as the orchestra smashes and wallops through the least imaginative set of arrangements they must have had their hands on in a long time.
Great idea, really disappointing execution.
But the good songs stop it from being a total waste of space - these versions of The Outlaw Torn and Call Of Ktulu alone save it from 2 stars!
Favourite tracks: Ecstacy Of Gold, Call Of Ktulu, Outlaw Torn
The White Stripes
4/5
Jack and Meg get weird - how is their least cohesive album still this good?
Ian Dury
4/5
What a ripping album!! The Blockheads' rhythm section is a national treasure, as are Dury's sneeringly funny innuendos.
Favourite tracks: Wake Up And Make Love With Me, Im Partial To Your Abracadabra (one of the greatest titles/lyrics ever), Billericay Dickie, Blockheads, Plaistow Patricia, Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll
Carole King
3/5
Lovely stuff - can feel its echoes through generations of singer-songwriters