295
Albums Rated
3.89
Average Rating
27%
Complete
794 albums remaining
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Rating Timeline
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When do you listen?
Taste Profile
1970s
Favorite Decade
Hard-rock
Favorite Genre
UK
Top Origin
Enthusiast
Rater Style ?
136
5-Star Albums
19
1-Star Albums
Taste Analysis
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Ratings by genre
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Ratings by country
Rating Style
You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle | 5 | 1.88 | +3.12 |
| Kollaps | 5 | 1.9 | +3.1 |
| Oar | 5 | 2.46 | +2.54 |
| American Gothic | 5 | 2.49 | +2.51 |
| Boy In Da Corner | 5 | 2.57 | +2.43 |
| Tragic Songs of Life | 5 | 2.58 | +2.42 |
| Chelsea Girl | 5 | 2.63 | +2.37 |
| Casanova | 5 | 2.67 | +2.33 |
| Space Ritual | 5 | 2.68 | +2.32 |
| Dr. Octagonecologyst | 5 | 2.69 | +2.31 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Songs From The Big Chair | 1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
| Brothers In Arms | 1 | 3.74 | -2.74 |
| The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill | 1 | 3.63 | -2.63 |
| Play | 1 | 3.47 | -2.47 |
| Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea | 1 | 3.38 | -2.38 |
| Dry | 1 | 3.24 | -2.24 |
| Le Tigre | 1 | 3.13 | -2.13 |
| Life's Too Good | 1 | 3.07 | -2.07 |
| Floodland | 1 | 3.04 | -2.04 |
| Microshift | 1 | 3.03 | -2.03 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Miles Davis | 3 | 5 |
| David Bowie | 3 | 5 |
| The Who | 3 | 5 |
| Dolly Parton | 2 | 5 |
| Kraftwerk | 2 | 5 |
| Pink Floyd | 2 | 5 |
| Sly & The Family Stone | 2 | 5 |
| Nirvana | 2 | 5 |
| Beastie Boys | 2 | 5 |
| The Rolling Stones | 2 | 5 |
| Black Sabbath | 2 | 5 |
| Beatles | 2 | 5 |
| Public Enemy | 2 | 5 |
| Kate Bush | 2 | 5 |
| Deep Purple | 2 | 5 |
| The Smiths | 2 | 5 |
| Nick Drake | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| PJ Harvey | 3 | 1.33 |
| Björk | 2 | 1.5 |
| Randy Newman | 2 | 1.5 |
5-Star Albums (136)
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Popular Reviews
Richard Thompson
5/5
To discover 'I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight' before you die is one of the advantages of being alive.
4 likes
David Ackles
5/5
Sometimes extremely talented people don't find an audience. David Ackles is one of those people.
Even signed to a major label (Elektra for the first 3 albums and Columbia for his fourth and final album) and having his first three albums well promoted (Five & Dime his fourth and final album was not promoted well if at all) he only managed to chart one album when American Gothic charted at 167 on the Billboard 200.
Listening to American Gothic repeatedly today it's easy to see why he didn't. This is a strange album. Brilliant. Sad. Self-indulgent. Intense. Gloomy. Beautiful and feels more like found art in the sense that it feels like it was never recorded, one day it just existed.
What does it sound like? Singer songwriter stuff with Americana in the case of American Gothic. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits & Elvis Costello all sound influenced (sometimes deeply so) by Ackles' voice and/or writing style.
The ONLY influence I can hear on American Gothic is Kurt Weill and the like.
It's a great album and so far, the absolute best discovery I have made because of the 1001 list-for the record
Fifty plus years after his first release David Ackles has yet to find much of an audience. How two major labels didn't see that there simply wasn't an audience for this strange one-of-a-kind music (and that there never would be one) is mind boggling and a wonderful unintended gift for anyone with a profound love for rich, sad, forever timeless impenetrable music. Thanx you deaf devils!
File Under: What were they thinking.
2 likes
Oasis
5/5
One of the great debuts of all time right up there with all the great debuts from the likes of The Velvet Underground & Nico, Big Star, The Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, Elvis Presley, you get the idea and one of the best albums of the 20th Century or any century for that matter.
In all ways masterful.
... and to think they would only get better on the next album!
2 likes
Einstürzende Neubauten
5/5
The best industrial band after Throbbing Gristle.
Kollaps is unremittingly harsh, with vocals shouted and screamed above a din of banging and scraping metal percussion.
E.N. uses found sounds and often use homemade instruments made of scrap metal & God knows what else in their sonic attack.
Many would consider their sound to be little more than noise & I get that. This isn't 'Pet Sounds' a record that anyone with working ears should/would love.
The 23 songs on Kollaps are all different but to many they will all sound the same & I get that too.
I would not casually recommend this album to anyone unless I knew them well & knew their music tastes even better.
I really like it and it works for me on all levels but that means nothing with this kind of music/noise.
There is a good chance you will despise this album, and I'm surprised that I don't and a small chance that you will like it maybe even love it but don't count on it.
Stream it first before spending money on a costly import.
2 likes
1-Star Albums (19)
All Ratings
Foo Fighters
3/5
Pretty good, pretty good.
I don't like it enough to own a hard copy of it but it's more interesting than I remember.
Best solo album by a drummer since Ringo's 'Beaucoups of Blues'.
Björk
2/5
This is what I was afraid of- that I would get albums by artists that I really dislike. Bjork's debut was a difficult listen for me her annoying voice gave me a bit of a headache and it seemed to last hours. I listened to it all because well that's the purpose of the generator, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't consider just flat out quitting
I gave it ⭐️⭐️ because it's well produced and when she's not screaming/singing the music can be pretty.
Pixies
3/5
"O samba, a prontidão e outras bossas são nossas coisas, são coisas nossas."
Black Orpheus I mean Black Francis discovers Bossanova on the third Pixies album but outside of the use of unconventional chords in some songs with complex progressions and ambiguous harmonies it doesn't much sound like Bossanova to me.
I liked the first couple albums better, but Bossanova is a great listen just don't go expecting Joao Gilberto.
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
5/5
The Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band of Hip Hop. If you have any interest at all in Hip Hop this is an essential album. Clan in da Front!
Miles Davis
5/5
A great compilation album of tunes recorded in 1949 & 1950 that would go on to define cool jazz.
The Temptations
5/5
So far, my favorite album from the 1001generator. Five Stars! Makes me dance like a 1960s Go Go girl!
The Undertones
5/5
Fun Buzzcocky punky power pop music.
Eurythmics
3/5
Fun synth pop new wave from the early 1980. Some very good songs (Jennifer, title track, Love is a Stranger, etc.) but some filler too that likely sounds better on the dance floor after a couple drinks.
For this kind of music, I like The Human League, Tubeaway Army, early Depeche Mode, OMD, Soft Cell, etc. better.
Not my absolute favorite genre of music but I do like it from time to time, it never bored me & went well with my Sunday morning coffee.
The Police
3/5
It was OK kinda dancey some fun beats but nothing great.
JAY Z
4/5
The Blueprint to shaking your ass like a fool in the living room while your cat & dog look at you like you are crazy! AKA "Dad, I'm only dancing."
Manu Chao
2/5
One or two clever ideas stretched too thin.
Richard Thompson
5/5
To discover 'I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight' before you die is one of the advantages of being alive.
Joy Division
5/5
To discover this album before you die is one of the advantages of being alive.
The Mamas & The Papas
5/5
Wonderful album!
Guns N' Roses
5/5
This album makes me want to become a stripper. One of the greatest debut albums of all time. Turn it up & shake your moneymaker!
Dolly Parton
5/5
As essential to any country music library as Sgt Peppers is to any rock music library. Her voice is just perfect. Essential.
The Divine Comedy
5/5
Welcome to the Stomach Room! Oh, look it's Scott Walker & Burt Bacharach. Hello, Burt, hello Scott! What's playing? Sounds like chamber pop mixed in (or is it up?) with a bit of Brit pop & Frank Sinatra, old blue eyes himself! Sounds so strange, yet so very familiar. Did Noel Coward show? Of course! Go say hi!
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
On paper I should like this album better, but it remains...
One of those albums that to me it's history or rather the history of events that occurred during the album's cycle (Rickey Edwards goes missing for one) is more interesting than the music not that the music isn't pretty good (it is) it just doesn't grab me all that strongly and not something I'm likely to ever play again.
That's about it.
I listened to it twice this morning & had heard it a few times during high school and my opinion of the album is exactly the same - good album by a talented band that for whatever reason fails to resonate with me on any level.
Rickey Edwards (band lyricist, backing vocals & I guess some guitar) went missing on the first of February 1995 & was legally presumed dead in 2008. It's widely believed that he committed suicide. A body was never found/recovered.
4REAL.
Mott The Hoople
5/5
Mott 4 Ever.
Tracy Chapman
5/5
Several songs are as good as Fast Car. I usually only like folk music from before 1980 but this is a very solid album and wildly mature and intense for such a young girl (late teens/early 20s) I felt lucky that my life has been so sheltered (and yes charmed) as I'm about the age she was when this album came out and I have thankfully never felt many of the things she experienced /felt & turned into powerful, generation defining songs.
I will buy this album maybe on RST next month and I know it will sit nicely next to my Bob Dylan & Joni Mitchell albums. It's that good.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
4/5
A perfect album.
The California sound long before The Eagles, Jackson Browne, etc. claimed it as their own (or at least Rolling Stone magazine did) & years before Mick Fleetwood discovered a young Stevie Nicks & her moody boyfriend, started selling millions of albums & every lifeform under 30 fell in love with Stevie Nicks.
Some absolutely perfect songs (the first 3 songs on the album are nearly as perfect a trio as any 3-song album opener has ever been) but the harmonies got on my nerves- I don't know why as I adore The Beach Boys and harmonies in general but by the end of side two, I was feeling a tad violent.
Is there such a thing as too perfect?
I don't know. Maybe but likely there isn't, 'Pet Sounds' is absolutely perfect and almost as good as The Beatles at their very best but I digress.
I want to give it five stars, I get how massively important this album (came out in the summer of 1969) was/is in shaping the music of the 1970s (at least in North America) but likely due to my own short comings I can't.
I rated Tracy Chapman's debut album five stars yesterday & frankly this album is way better but IMO a 5-star album shouldn't get on your nerves, and it certainly shouldn't make you feel violent.
I feel like an asshole or like that Robert Christgau fellow.
Same difference- I guess.
808 State
3/5
Reminded me of music aliens would play at dance parties. Simple, repetitive music that would likely drive me insane hearing it all night, but an album's worth was pretty good. Not sure I would ever buy it or even want to hear it again, but I enjoyed it a bit this morning with my coffee.
Sounds a bit like hi energy exercise music - I don't know I'll likely forget all about it before lunch.
Elton John
3/5
Queen
5/5
Lots of fine albums came out in 1975 (best year in Rock after '66?) & this one is near the top (Physical Graffiti being at the very top) in that magical year of living prog rock as Punk lurked about prepping for a takeover of the status quo that would fizzle out with a dull thump much as the summer of love had done a decade earlier.
The Roots
2/5
Too long. Too boring. A couple good songs. Too little. Too bad.
Sepultura
5/5
Este disco es bestial en todos sus aspectos, sonido , producción , composición , potencia , años dorados de los autenticos Sepultura.
En mi opinión este disco tiene más elementos de Death Metal que de Thrash, una banda con un estilo unico.
Brasil, obrigado!
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
A fun album that would sound great at the beach, a Tiki bar or even better a Tiki bar at the beach!
Not something I would play all the time but at the right time I can see this being a great soundtrack to summer activities.
Makes me wish I was at Black's Beach skinny dipping in July!
Deerhunter
3/5
A couple songs I really liked that had a dreampop feel to them but the rest of the album while not bad at all was just OK kinda boring indie rock vocals. I'll likely never listen to this band again.
PJ Harvey
1/5
I give DRY a one-and-a-half-out-of-five-star rating. I get that I'm supposed to like this album, but I don't - sue me.
LCD Soundsystem
2/5
Some of the music sounds fun to dance to but a lot is ruined by boring vocals & dumb lyrics. More than awful this album is just disposable.
XTC
5/5
Perfection.
The Cult
5/5
In late 1986 The Cult put all their influences in a big black cauldron and called Rick Rubin.
Something about a cauldron, a bunch of songs that were on the verge of getting it on, the need to break America and English pussy...
Rubin listened to the message again & called the boys back, within days Rubin started digging in that rusty beast and found hard psychedelic rock, Highway to Hell era AC DC, The Whiskey au Go Go via The 100 Club, some Led Zeppelin magic, a little Rolling Stones swagger, some T Rex, some goth rock, some T&A and started sorting it all out in his lab.
The Cult rerecorded every song they had ready for the next album under the watchful eye of Rubin and renamed the album Electric to better reflect the newly recorded music.
It rocked.
Not long after the fruits of their labor was released in America & beyond to great success. Electric was hailed from schoolyards to the New York Times as hard rock perfection.
Rubin took off his glasses and fell asleep on his shabby couch (his beard full of peanut shells) peacefully knowing that he gave The Cult his best.
The boys hit the road for months of sold-out dates and they rocked electric for Electric rocked.
Bad Brains
5/5
Seminal Washington D.C. hardcore punk that would go on to influence everyone from Pantera to Living Color, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine & endless others.
Essential in all ways.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
5/5
Ronnie Van Zant sounds like a veteran bluesman but with his own unique style, a style that often sounds broken beyond repair & gloriously hopeful often in the same song. Just brilliant stuff.
One of the best albums from the early 1970s (1973 to be exact) and maybe the best debut album of 1973 certainly greater than the debuts by such powerhouses as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Bryan Ferry and even Queen.
No rock N roll library can be called complete without it at least not with a straight face.
This is America reminding the world that we invented rock N roll and more importantly reminding ourselves that no one rocks harder and truer than a southern man raised on boiled peanuts, king cake, country music & old 78 rpm blues records.
To call it essential seems like some grand underestimate of all the fire n skill that one finds on an album that is just over 43 minutes long.
Tears For Fears
1/5
Outside of a couple decent songs (Shout, Everybody Wants to Rule the World) that we all know & tolerate this album is pretty dull, had a hard time getting through it but I did.
I don't need to hear this band ever again.
k.d. lang
4/5
The Nashville sound of the mid 1950s to early 1960s (before The Beatles came along and changed the entire landscape) was brought back from the dead by K.D. Lang in the late 1980s on an excellent album called 'Shadowland' produced by Owen Bradley who produced Patsy Cline at one time which makes sense as this album has Patsy Cline all over it, from the production to the vocals and general aesthetic.
A really strong country music debut that goes down as smoothly as grits and a Martini after a day in the studio with the Nashville A Team laying it all down.
Kraftwerk
5/5
When the robots take over our world, they will throw a big party & allow us to join in the celebration. There will be a huge area (a sign will read Humans Allowed) with colored lights, beverages, pizza & the music on this album will be playing as the robots encourage us to dance as humans dancing greatly amuses them.
I suggest you dance I know I will.
Paul Weller
5/5
Paul Weller's third act begin with the previous year's self-titled album and while it found The Jam's ex frontman in fine form it wasn't until Wildwood that Weller's rebirth was complete, an album that stands next to anything The Jam ever released and far better than The Jam's final effort (The Gift) it's that good.
Blows away anything by The Style Council for the record.
A rustic masterpiece that deeply inspired bands like Oasis & Blur and let the world know that The Modfather was back and back for good.
An essential British rock album.
Mudhoney
5/5
Grunge (REAL grunge not whiny pretty boy BS) like God intended. Filthy, hard, starved, raw, wet, buzzed and stooged up.
The Cure
5/5
One of the greatest albums from the 1980s or any decade for that matter. This is prime CURE and The Cure at their best was (and still is in 2025) among the greatest bands of all time up there with The Beatles, The Who, The Jam, The Rolling Stones and The Small Faces.
Pink Floyd
5/5
It's Pink Floyd. It's one of their best albums. You are reading this. Do the math.
The Killers
3/5
A few really good songs. A few boring ones. Overall average.
Sonic Youth
4/5
Fantastic noise pop about a great Sci FI writer named Phillip K. Dick AKA 'Master-Dik' hints of the greatness they would unleash on their next album (Daydream Nation) are all the place on 'Sister' an annoying cover of Crime's 'Hot Wire My Heart' keeps it from being 5/5.
Jimmy Smith
5/5
Great music for an all nighter!
Dexys Midnight Runners
5/5
Mind blown to smithereens!
I knew 'Come on Eileen' & a couple other songs by Dexys and liked them fine but never enough to seek out a full album... I've been missing out big time! How have I not heard this work of art in 23 years of being alive?
I've heard it three times already & will play it at least three more times today, ordering the vinyl record & CD after I click 'Comment' and submit to you my scattered thoughts.
This at once has become one of my favorite albums of all time!
I'm obsessed!
No music has hit me this hard since I discovered (and by "discovered" I mean my dad saying, "hear this." as he hands me an album, this time The Queen is Dead) The Smiths when I was 14.
Moments like this are a big reason why music is, has been and always will always be a huge part of my life.
What an eargasm!
Hawkwind
5/5
Ever wondered what it feels like to be on some mind-bending cosmic drugs but don't do drugs?
Fear not.
Play this amazing live album by the end of it, you'll know.
The flashbacks never end.
Heaven 17
2/5
A synthpop group from Sheffield (once home to a number of historically important nightclubs in the early dance music scene of the 1980s) that takes their name from a fictional pop band mentioned in Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange.
What about the music (?) you ask. OK, OK, don't rush me!
Well, the music heard on 'Penthouse and Pavement' no doubt sounded like the future in 1981 to a bunch of forward thinking creatively hungry young people looking with excitement to the lives that lay ahead for them as they swayed to the new wave that was them as much as it was the music that was playing at nightclubs all over the west end & beyond.
It's icy and unconventionally slick, it's hot & it's cold it probably sounded like it would age well when it first came out and while it's not timeless in any regard, it's still fun and makes me want to reread 1984- God knows why.
So, to recap interesting electronic music not as good as The Human League but better than Alphaville which I suppose is faint praise.
To me in 2025 this music ultimately doesn't do much. It's not bad and I get the appeal as I tap my foot to the nervous stop and go beat of 'The Height of the Fighting' but I can't really imagine playing it again nor do I find myself curious about their other albums that I'm assuming sound pretty much like this one.
The cover art is likely an ironic poke at their own left leaning politics and looks like what the music would look like if the music within had a look - which sorta does to me - if that makes any sense.
So, in conclusion this music (interesting as it is at times) is just not for me, but I don't hate it & no doubt will get and keep people moving all summer at various Hollywood retro nightclubs.
Hot August nights, anyone?
The Stooges
5/5
Raw power will surely come
Running to you...
De La Soul
5/5
I played it so loud that I went def.
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
If you don't feel the need to get up & dance to this album, you got cement in your shoes, baby.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
4/5
All but impossible to rate this album less than ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ without coming off like a total idiot but here goes nothing.
Why less than a perfect score for this great album?
In short there are better ways to be introduced to Buddy Holly's music in 2025. The best way is to buy or stream a copy of 20 Golden Greats (also known as Buddy Holly Lives) that came out 20 years after his untimely death in 1958.
It was my introduction to Buddy Holly as a child (I was 8 or 9- I think) and it has his absolute best work & really the only Buddy Holly album you will ever need unless he becomes your favorite recording artist (and there are many that consider him to be the best that ever was in Rock N Roll) then get your hands on 'The "Chirping" Crickets and his three studio albums - it's all great stuff.
Anyways, if I was rating this before 1978 this album would get 5/5 but Buddy Holly is too important to BS around with and IMO suggesting you get this album over 20 Golden Greats is some elitist crap as I'm not pointing to his greatest work contained on one album.
Now I know Rockers whose interest in Rock N Roll ends with Holly's death (certainly by the end of the decade) in which case get this one (Chirping Crickets) first but anyone reading this that is in the Rockabilly scene knows this so maybe I should get to the point & hit COMMENT.
That was not easy & I had to force the words out of my head but the above are my honest thoughts just not expressed as well as I wish I could.
Dire Straits
1/5
I don't like this album.
In some ways I hate this album despite the fact that everyone in the band is talented some insanely so and the music on this album is entirely listenable.
So, what gives?
I don't know TBH everything about 'Brothers in Arms' works well on paper but when I listen to it - it's just really boring to me sometimes obscenely so.
So, what gives? I don't know really outside of 'Money for Nothing' the entire album just blends together and while it would be misleading to call it bad in any way I honestly enjoy 'Brothers in Arms' the best when it's not playing & I can just look at the photo of the pretty silver guitar that serves as the albums cover.
P.S.
We have all met people that seem to be indifferent to music. All music. People that when asked who their favorite bands are resort to saying things like, "I just listen to whatever is on the radio." I never understood those people because to me music is a huge chunk of my life hell to me music is life and frankly, I always looked down on them a little but what if to them all music sounds like 'Brother in Arms' does to me?
How does it sound to me?
Well-constructed background noise at best something to hear when conversations come to a standstill. That would be awful to say the least, but I wouldn't know what I was missing out on as music would have all the appeal of watching a game of chess on TV- so maybe I was wrong to look down on such people - I mean I would never date them but 'Brothers in Arms' made me understand them yo-yos after all these years and come to the conclusion that they ain't dumb - that's just the way they do it.
You know?
Einstürzende Neubauten
5/5
The best industrial band after Throbbing Gristle.
Kollaps is unremittingly harsh, with vocals shouted and screamed above a din of banging and scraping metal percussion.
E.N. uses found sounds and often use homemade instruments made of scrap metal & God knows what else in their sonic attack.
Many would consider their sound to be little more than noise & I get that. This isn't 'Pet Sounds' a record that anyone with working ears should/would love.
The 23 songs on Kollaps are all different but to many they will all sound the same & I get that too.
I would not casually recommend this album to anyone unless I knew them well & knew their music tastes even better.
I really like it and it works for me on all levels but that means nothing with this kind of music/noise.
There is a good chance you will despise this album, and I'm surprised that I don't and a small chance that you will like it maybe even love it but don't count on it.
Stream it first before spending money on a costly import.
R.E.M.
3/5
...should we talk abaaat tha govaaarnmeeent!!!??
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
Some filler mostly all killer.
Grant Lee Buffalo
2/5
Not as awful as THE XX (what is really?) but still not great. I liked a couple songs (The Shining Hour and Grace- a song that sounded a bit like The Dream Syndicate) a bit and nothing on the album made me wish I was deaf like THE XX did, but I heard nothing that would ever make me want to play this album again.
Two stars for not outright sucking like THE XX.
CONS: As mediocre as it gets.
PROS: They are not THE XX.
Adam & The Ants
4/5
Essential (and more importantly FUN) new wave music by the great Adam Ants & his ants.
Play loud. Dance naked. Ant people are GO!
The White Stripes
3/5
I like Meg White.
The Pogues
3/5
I've been hearing The Pogues since I was a little girl thanx to my dad and I like all their albums with Shane MacGowan (The Pogues released 5 albums with Shane MacGowan on lead vocals, 2 with Spider Stacy on lead vocals & a live album with Joe Strummer who took over vocals after Shane MacGowan was fired for excessive drinking in 1991) super fun stuff but it all starts to sound pretty same-y to me which is why I'm giving this album a very SOLID 3/5 it's very good just not essential IMO
If you love Irish music this is likely a 4/5 for you or maybe even a 5/5. I don't know.
Miriam Makeba
3/5
Fun AfroPop/ World Music type stuff, lovely voice not something I would play all the time but once in a while it really hits the spot.
Janet Jackson
4/5
When I got this album today, I screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" but much to my surprise I liked it & made me feel like dancing- anything that makes me feel like dancing is AT LEAST ⭐️⭐️⭐️ in my book!
Nirvana
5/5
I like BLEACH better, but this is still a flat-out masterpiece and after Oasis as good as Rock N Roll got in the 1990s.
Iron Maiden
5/5
The definitive heavy metal album (or is that Painkiller?) by the definitive heavy metal band (or is that Judas Priest?) ...
The Mothers Of Invention
1/5
An incredibly creative album in spite of it being a leering, boring, profoundly uncomfortable listen.
Songs are too short, chomped up, groped, too cutesy and self-aware, a relic that likely sounded like a revolution in 1968 to the too cool to be cool counterculture strays but in 2025 to my ears anyways sounds like Frank Zappa jerking off for shock value & to let everyone know how different & wacky he is.
Mourning wood. Get it?
Idiot lyrics, cartoony vocals, silly inside jokes, loony sounds that scream OMG what a character Zappa is (!) so dada (!) type of poop.
This isn't the sound of a generation (in decline or otherwise) at best it's a collection of sound bites that collectively play like what one would hear in the waiting room of some fever dream purgatory as the rug is pulled out from under you as your name is called in speaking tongues.
"Mr. Shithole the DR will see you now."
No doubt this was a great album at one time before Zappa decided to goof on his own work for street cred or whatever.
Burnt Weeny Sandwiches for all the lord has risen!
There are traces of absolute brilliance on WOIIFTM which is a testament to Zappa's restless untamed genius for better or worse.
Jeff Buckley
2/5
A talented singer songwriter who I simply can't get into (I tried several times) nothing wrong with Grace but nothing right either at least not for me.
The Beta Band
2/5
It's not bad at all but I doubt I'll ever listen to them again & I likely won't even remember what they sound like by the end of the day or ever think of them again.
Nico
5/5
I love it! I will marry this album!
Slint
4/5
Pretty interesting. Reminds me a little of King Crimson circa 'Red' and Sonic Youth. Hearing this album 3 times in a row made me want to replace my long-lost copy of this post hardcore gem & by golly I think I will!
Fatboy Slim
5/5
Music for fucking (and being fucked) in heaven.
Track 3 is called, 'Fucking in Heaven' and I think we can all agree that if there is no sex in heaven they need to be sued for false advertising.
Imagine you somehow end up in heaven, you are mad horny (dying will do that sometimes) and as you seek some carnal satisfaction (we still have bodies, right?) you see a big sign that reads NO FUCKING IN HEAVEN - YOU ARE ABOVE THAT NOW - LOVE GOD XOXO ...
but there must be- there simply better be!
Fun body music! Dance! Fuck! Fight! Keep moving!
You've Come a Long Way Baby by Fat Boy Slim makes me want to dance naked under the stars and in my book, you simply can't ask for much more from an album.
Beastie Boys
5/5
Essential Hip Hop classic. Don't ask why just buy!
Portishead
4/5
Pleasant enough trip hop likely sounds a lot better at a club slow dancing with someone you fancy.
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
Album started as a 5/5 (first couple songs) but ended as a 4/5 because as great as they are a lot of the songs sound pretty much the same. Maybe because I'm not all that familiar with this kind of music (rock samba?) so keep that in mind.
The Sugarcubes
1/5
'Life's Too Crap' w/ Bjork's shit sandwich of a voice. 0/5
The Rolling Stones
5/5
One of the greatest albums by one of the greatest bands in world history, easiest 5/5 ever.
I got to see The Rolling Stones live in Las Vegas last May (2024) & seeing them do 'Sympathy for the Devil' (from this album) up close (Row 5, Center) was one of the best experiences of my life thus far Mick Jagger was scary good at 80 & moved well like Jagger, the band was as tight as it gets, everything was spot on & I swear Mick smiled at me. *swoons*
I feel a little sadness for those that will live an entire life never having heard this work of art - don't make me sad.
Louis Prima
3/5
Pretty fun zany jump jazz rock crazy house music! It's a good time & more likely a 4/5 but I'm pretty burned out on Louis Prima as my dad played his stuff all the time growing up and I was always more amused by it than right out loving it- it's akin to Weird Al novelty music to my ears FUN in small dosages.
I have a greatest hits CD on Rhino Records (I think) in my collection that I might play someday again but I probably won't.
R.E.M.
4/5
Pick your review, you have 2 choices:
1.) Better than Frank Ocean but not as good as The Beatles or even The Monkees.
2.) Reminds me of William Faulkner.
Paul McCartney
5/5
Sir Paul McCartney's first solo album recorded during a very difficult & depressing time in McCartney's life - as The Beatles were breaking up - a time that found him isolated in his farm in Scotland with wife Linda, lots of booze, profound depression and a bunch of instruments.
McCartney is a lo-fi masterpiece in which Sir Paul plays all the instruments. The uncertainty of it all is palpable in these songs, a baker's dozen but so too is the sheer joy of being as free as he would ever be musically. No deadlines (album was recorded in secrecy) no bandmates, no expectations at all not even from himself and as such it sounds like nothing he had recorded before or would ever record again.
Probably the first indie rock album, definitively essential listening.
Caetano Veloso
5/5
This is Caetano Veloso debut album from 1968.
It spearheaded the Tropicália movement (an art movement he helped create/popularize characterized by the amalgamation of Brazilian genres—notably the union of the popular and the avant-garde, as well as the melding of Brazilian tradition and foreign traditions and styles) it was not well received by the higher ups in his native country which led to his arrest, imprisonment (talk about tough critics!) and he was even kicked out of the country!
I hope they let him back in at some point.
I personally would have given him the keys to the country- it's a great album of dreamy & interesting sounds lots of different sounds all mixed together - this would be a great album to play during a pool party!
The songs to my ears tend to sound alike but it's such a great sound that I don't mind at all & maybe after a few more plays the songs will start to stand out on their own- regardless- I love it & so far, it's my favorite discovery from the 1001 Album generator project (hear an album a day) by far.
I will be adding this album to my collection & look forward to hearing it playing loudly as I skinny dip all summer sipping tropical cocktails with cute little pink umberellas.
Pretenders
5/5
Not much to say this morning. American girl makes good in the UK & helps usher in punk.
One of the greatest female fronted albums to ever come out of the 20th Century this doesn't rock hard for a girl it just ROCKS HARD AF.
Punky new wave rock at its finest.
NO COLLECTION IS COMPLETE WITHOUT IT.
Donald Fagen
2/5
The Nightfly sounds a bit (A LOT in places!) like an ultra-slick jazzier version of Steely Dan minus one member not to imply it's anywhere as good as any of Steeley Dan's 9 studio albums but it very much has that vibe.
Nothing really grabbed me about the album (the electric piano playing is a highlight) but nothing made want to stop listening (even if I hate smooth jazz shit) in fact at times it seemed to just become one with the background, faceless & just always there.
It's an exceptionally well recorded album too bad the material is as MOR as it gets.
Painfully inoffensive, bachelor pad/party music for yuppies circa early 1980s.
Listen to it or don't you decide- I don't care -neither decision will have much impact on anything.
Who wants a line?
_______________________________________
Don't like my grade? Fair enough. You grade it.
5/5
If you subscribed to The Wall Street Journal in 1983 and "The Dan" was your favorite band in college.
4/5
If you're from Passaic, New Jersey.
3/5
Only because it's so annoyingly well recorded.
2/5
If really well recorded records don't mean all that much too you.
1/5
If you were really hoping to get a Pantera album but the generator has a warped sense of humor.
Björk
1/5
I've never been fucked sideways with a lunchbox and it's not difficult to imagine how very painful that must be, but I flat out can't imagine it being more painful than this HOUR-LONG fever dreaming bastard of an album.
Ice Cube
5/5
"You're the type of girl that I can't pass over
Give me one chance, and I'll bend your ass over
Just call me the plumber at the end of the night
'Cause a nigga like me'll lay plenty of pipe"
When I saw I got Amerikkka's Most Wanted a few hours ago I knew today's review was going to be very very long or very short.
I went short.
I don't feel like writing a novella this morning. Too much to say about this album & most (if not all) has been said before & better than I ever could.
If you like rap music, you NEED this album. That's unarguable- just so we are clear. Need not want.
It's miles above 98% of all rap music ever released in fact top of my head I can't think of a better one (Eazy-Duz-It is way up there but Amerikkka's Most Wanted still beats it- I think) even if I like the back catalog of other rappers (Run DMC for one) much better than Ice Cube's back catalog - Amerikkka's Most Wanted is in a class of one.
On paper no way should 'Amerikka's Most Wanted' appeal so strongly to a privileged 16-year-old white girl (the age I was when I first heard it) whose favorite band is The Beatles, but it does & I think it's because great art is timeless and make no mistake this is great art.
A game changer when many thought that the games was over.
- Chelsea M.
So that's it. If you want to read about the history of rap, I can't praise the late great Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree comic book (now collected in one volume) highly enough.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
God's favorite band.
ABBA
4/5
Absolutely sublime music. Everyone should own at least one ABBA album- I suggest Greatest Hits. So good!
Pulp
5/5
Wrote a long review for this album, took over an hour to write once done I reread it & it was absolute garbage, fuck.
Now I have a stress headache and I'm not having fun which defeats the entire purpose of why I'm doing this "project" as many of you like to call it.
I need to calm done, accept that the awful truth that I'm not great at putting into words how I feel and stop treating everything like it's a matter of life and death.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
OK, here are my hopefully not too jumbled thoughts on Different Class.
A deep dive into everything that matters more than sex (HINT not much) in first world countries circa late 20th century which is entirely appliable to circa now AKA 2025.
In Pulp's world people (all people) belong in one of two groups (1) those that have sex & (2) those that don't have sex. Different classes if you will.
12 songs about how sex controls everything. Some subtle, some less so all first rate.
The music is flawless and works remarkably well with the clever lyrics like scary good.
I love this album it's almost as good as sex.
David Bowie
5/5
Coked up and influenced by German bands and his friendship with Iggy Pop Bowie changes directions once again and gives the world The Thin White Duke the MC of all tomorrow's parties.
Low is a spacey, electronic epic poem that is often too beautiful for words hence all the instrumentals. It's superior to anything Kraftwerk and Neu! would ever release the two bands who most influenced Low and that's not taking a dig at either band both are essential bands with ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ albums of their own that I absolutely adore but such was Bowies at his prime, surpassing his influences became the order of the day.
Low would go on to influence every post punk band worth a second listen as well as the rest of the 20th century - everything from art to music to fashion to you name it.
In conclusion, I liked it and think that you will too.
Funkadelic
5/5
What if Jimi Hendrix hadn't died in 1970?
What if in 1978 he wanted to record a new album but couldn't decide between a heavy funk album and a progressive rock album?
What if he decided to record ideas from both the funk album & ideas from the progressive rock album and booked United Sound in Detroit to lay it all down?
I'll tell you there is a good chance that the music would sound something like One Nation Under a Groove.
My Bloody Valentine
5/5
No, Loveless is not better than Pet Sounds but it's a great, perfect album just like Pet Sounds is but don't go in thinking this can top the greatest album to ever come out of North America-it can't.
Death to Pitchfork.
Loveless is a dreamy sounding album influenced by Neil Young, Phil Spector and all the noises & distortions of unrequited love.
It's one of the very best albums on the 1001 list easily blowing away a good 90% of said list.
Listen to Loveless when you can give it 100% of your attention. Stop checking your idiot phone. Close your eyes. No double tasking while hearing this one. Bathe in its enigmatic beauty.
Seriously, no doom scrolling while listening to Loveless.
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
Richard Butler has a fantastic voice- he could sing the back of a cereal box & sound sexy & all Velvet Underground cool.
The music works well with Richard Butler's hella sexy voice it's crushing at times bleak dark pop/rock music that you can dance to, meditate to, drive to, whatever really - it would also make fantastic background music while having a cocktail or a cuppa coffee or tea as you talk, talk, talk, LOL (sorry)
Black Sabbath
5/5
One of the reasons why I'm such a music fanatic - beyond that, really- music is one of the great joys in life for me up there with kinky sex & pizza. Cute kittens (they are all cute) and puppies too.
It will always blow my mind how four humans created something so magnificent & humbling.
This goes well beyond being a beast of a record (it is that) but a life changer, released during the very early days of my favorite genre of music HEAVY METAL one of my earliest concerts back in 2013 (I was 11 & already lost to the cause) was Black Sabbath's farewell tour with my dad who got us very near the front of the stage tickets- I was in heaven- Tony Iommi was mesmerizing to watch that late summer night -he stood there like a shadow, a Rock God mere feet away from me EVERYTHING after that concert was BBS (Before Black Sabbath) and ABS (After Black Sabbath) the fire had been lit.
You NEED this album if you love Rock music to any degree but careful there as there might be no coming back.
Beastie Boys
5/5
The greatest rap album of all time, the funnest album of the 1980s and one of the best debut albums ever, as I write down my thoughts on Licensed To Ill only The Velvet Underground's debut album tops it no doubt there are a few others (Nirvana? The Stone Roses? The Who? Oasis? Big Star?) but nothing comes to mind that at once stands out as better except for the Velvet's 1967 debut, as stated.
Maybe The Sex Pistols, The Jesus and Mary Chain or The Clash- maybe not?
I think I'm going to shut up (for now) and play Licensed to Ill again.
The Soft Boys
4/5
A big influence on bands like R.E.M., The Replacements & The Stone Roses and really the entire college/indie rock of the 1980s & beyond.
A psychedelic near masterpiece that sounds like it was inspired by The Beatles, The Byrds, Pink Floyd's Syd Barett while having their own very unique one-of-a-kind style.
Nothing sounded quite like it when it came out in 1980 and nothing has since.
When the band broke up in 1981 lead singer Robyn Hitchcock went on to have a well-respected career first with The Egyptians & then as a solo artist while guitarist Kimberley Rew joined Katrina & the Waves and wrote 'Walking on Sunshine' for them a truly awful song that made many people pray for deafness or even worse.
Elvis Presley
5/5
“Before Elvis there was nothing” - John Lennon
The King of Rock N Roll. His debut album. The start of it all. Second to none son.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
One of my favorite reggae albums (take that with a grain of salt as my expertise doesn't lie with reggae) it puts me in a good mood even when the subject matter is depressing on some songs.
I tend to prefer earlier reggae like on the Trojan Records reissues, but this album is a keeper & I plan on adding it to my collection in the near future.
I think Amazon has a reissue on red vinyl for $25.
So, yeah this is solid stuff, kinky reggae!
Nirvana
5/5
Unplugged in New York is the only album I have ever heard that has made me question if I even have any business listening to it.
I wasn't expecting that.
The music is great, let's get that out of the way. No surprise there. It's Nirvana at their very best which is essentially as good as music got in the 1990s. I personally like Oasis better, but Nirvana is the far better band - Nirvana is just a lot less fun to listen to especially this album and this might change as I get older and experience more of life and more of the world but as a 23-year-old girl who is somewhat privileged & somewhat sheltered - I don't often play Nirvana and Unplugged in New York reminds me as to why.
It's just too much.
It's ugly and beautiful, it's as pure as any record that I have ever heard, it's harsh & soft as rain, it makes you happy to be human, but it also reveals just how fucking dangerous it is & how much you have to dumb everything down to fully enjoy the experience at least in my opinion.
It makes me feel and think too much.
It floors me and lifts me at the same time.
Kurt Cobain died at 27 just four years older than I'm right now but his voice sounds as old as sin and if you didn't know better you would think that he somehow lived several lifetimes in those 27 years.
Someday Nirvana will be the soundtrack to my life and that scares the shit out of me and excites me in endless ways, some good, some bad.
Some day.
Stereolab
3/5
I like how some beats/sounds just repeat themselves in this album it feels comforting but by the end of the album I was getting a bit burned out, but I liked the album overall.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
The Jimi Hendrix Experience's second five-star album of 1967 (talk about being on fire!) is a psychedelic masterpiece that should be in the library of anyone who has even a passing interest in having a well-rounded collection that properly represents the music of 20th century.
Every bit as good as The Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album (Are You Experienced?) that was released earlier in 1967.
Has anybody ever released two stone cold classics in the same year besides Hendrix?
Honest question.
Soundgarden
3/5
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”
~ Hunter S. Thompson
For my money Soundgarden had recorded all of their best work by the fall of 1991 that said they never released a bad album(even their tepid reunion album from 2012 had its moments) & Superunknown (1994) is a good album even a very good one but it's not a great one like the first two albums are and it could have been better, it should have been better.
What happened?
I think most everything from 1992 on was too polished, sometimes overproduced and the pressure for radio play from their label really neutered that glorious Stooges meets Led Zeppelin sound they had on the first two albums but hey they still rocked with some degree of greatness until the bitter end.
It's hard to see a band that sold millions of albums as a kind of cautionary tale and I don't, but Soundgarden never lived up to the enormous promise they showed in the late 1980s until about the fall of 1991 and that sucks.
N.E.R.D
3/5
This one started strong the first song had a Hendrix/Prince feel to it & had me excitedly wanting to move my butt to it at one, next couple songs HELLA HOT but then things slowed down and got too samey. I still liked the album, and I might even add it to my collection as prior to today I had never heard of this rock band not even in passing.
Had every song been as strong as the first one this would be a 5-star album but by the end of it there was a lot of filler decent filler but filler non the less. Too bad!
Almost gave it four stars but the drop in quality was way too strong from the first song to the last one, so it gets a strong solid 3 stars- fun 1001Generator discovery for me after way too many albums I had already heard.
Frank Zappa
5/5
Much better than 'We're Only in it for the Money' while Hot Rats at times feels like the joke's on you it never feels like one big joke as 'We're Only in it for the Money' did however well played and bursting with creativity that joke on wax was.
Hot Rats is well edited and sometimes I think that's the big factor in evaluating if a Zappa album is great or a done in one listen. 'We're Only in it for the Money' felt like Zappa just pressed record & went batshit crazy.
This jazzy cosmic rock of an album is largely instrumental (Captain Beefheart does vocals on Willie the Pimp) and benefits greatly from not having Zappa's at times idiotic vocals crapping all over the music.
Sometimes less Zappa is more.
T. Rex
5/5
An album that sounds like sex. The vocals are among the sexiest ever recorded and the beat of the music is pure sex at its naughtiest, at its most joyful, it seduces your ears & then rest of you all the way to your toes.
Electric Warrior was pivotal in popularizing glam rock. It would go on to influence in one way or another any music that mattered for the next decade plus. No punk band in 1975/76 (at least in the UK) not have a copy of this album in their practice room.
A huge hit in the UK in 1971 & a moderate one in the US the same year.
Go on & get it on but first get this album your partner will thank you!
Peter Gabriel
3/5
Pretty good.
I like Genesis (pre 1975 Genesis) way more, but this is a good innovative album with great drumming from old band mate Phil Collins and even The Jam's Paul Weller playing lead guitar on a song called **Through the Wire (**Gabriel is a big fan of The Jam) Games Without Frontier is a great song.
...none of the songs are bad a few just get a bit boring pretty quickly but what can you do?
Mj Cole
1/5
Absolute shit, sincerely.
Booker T. & The MG's
2/5
Pleasant enough background music but not much more to it. I have heard some great tracks by Booker T. but none are on this album.
Curtis Mayfield
5/5
"Ain't I clean? Bad machine Super cool, super mean Dealin' good, for The Man Superfly, here I stand Secret stash, heavy bread Baddest bitches in the bed."
Right on, baby! My favorite soul singer of all time.
Hugh Masekela
3/5
It was a different world when I started playing this album but so much time had passed by the time the last track reached its end that how could it not be?
It's already June 2025 as I write my thoughts down. How crazy is that? Seems like it was just Christmas eve.
If I play 'Home Is Where the Music Is' two more times it will be 2026.
Pretty great jazz music not as good as it gets but what is these days?
Otis Redding
5/5
The definitive southern soul record.
Otis Redding had and continues to have in 2025 very few equals and even less that can better him, arguably the singers that can top him can be counted on one hand with a few fingers missing.
What a voice. The man could convey every emotion known to men sometimes the bulk of them in one song.
As essential in a soul lover's record collection as pasta is in the kitchen of an Italian.
Buono!
Buono, Mr. Redding!
Ride
5/5
One of the greatest albums of the entire Dreampop/Shoegaze scene second only to My Bloody Valentine's first two full lengths.
A beautiful marriage of melody & distortion near the top of all releases from the 1990s.
The Saints
5/5
Fantastic sneering punk rock from Australia. I had only heard a 7" by this band before (I forget the title & I don't feel like going into my music run to dig out my copy) and liked it just fine but never heard anything besides that one single.
I'm happy that changed today. I really liked it in fact I liked it so much I heard it four times already!
Enough talking I'm going to go hear it again & see what a vinyl copy goes for on eBay & likely order it this morning.
Long Live The Saints!
Suicide
4/5
Electronic proto punk music. The singer sounds a bit like sweet Gene Vincent on downers on some songs & on others he doesn't, the music I like as it has a lot of repetition and it's a sound I take comfort in.
One song that was a difficult listen was Frankie Teardrop it just has an unsettling feel to it and as if that wasn't enough the screams got old fast.
If it wasn't for Frankie Teardrop this album would be a 5/5 for me and I would play it a lot more (I do own a copy) but that song makes me not want to hear it all that often.
A near masterpiece and one can hear the influence Suicide has had and continues to have on endless bands from Devo to the The Birthday Party to NIN to Radiohead & the list goes on & on.
I guess I could always just edit Frankie Teardrop out which BTW is not a bad song at all it just makes me feel on edge.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
The second of three splendid albums released in 1969 (!) you read that right CCR released 3 albums (all splendid & shit) in 1969, two of which are on this 10001 list!
Even though CCR never knocked my knee-high sox off I have long admired what a tight and to the point band they were (not a wasted note to be found) and forever are the undisputed kings of swamp rock.
Yup. Three albums. One year. 1969.
Yes
5/5
YES, at its best which means progressive rock at its finest which means music from the 20th century at its best which means buy, borrow or steal this album ASAP you need to hear it sometime before you leave the planet.
Headphones are not required but strongly encouraged!
The Beau Brummels
3/5
Triangle - The Beau Brummels
⭐⭐⭐
Psychedelic countryish pop with some baroque pop thrown in to the already heady mix and it somehow all works better than it ever does on paper.
Not the most exciting album you will ever hear (I hope!) but it's very good and certainly sets a mood.
While I'm only giving this album three stars I easily could have given it four stars (the quality is there) but since I don't see myself ever playing this interesting very much of its time record, I'm going to go with three stars and call it a day.
Sigur Rós
3/5
I've been meaning to hear this album for a long time and now thanx to the 1001Generator I have & I'm simply not hearing what a lot of others have heard and that's greatness.
To me this is not a great album. It's a good, interesting album, the last two tracks being my favorites. A lot of it just sounds like soundtrack music, most of it has a sadness about it that reminds of Big Star and no of course I'm not saying they sound a thing like Big Star I'm saying both this album & the bulk of Big Star's back catalog have a similar kind of sadness to them.
It's interesting enough & has a massive enough reputation that I will do something that I rarely do when an album is just average to me and that's replay it.
I will hear it a few more times during the week & see if anything changes if it does, I'll update my rating, of course.
I didn't dislike anything about it but outside of the last two tracks it just seemed like variations of the same soundtracky song played over & over.
Maybe I just don't get it or maybe it's just not for me - I'll see if I come to any conclusion by week's end.
Dr. Octagon
5/5
Dr. Octagonecologyst - Dr Octagon
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐ (if you are not into butt stuff)
DR Octagon is about a homicidal time traveling gynecologist that writes little weird raps about his misadventures on earth. He sounds like he takes LSD 24/7 and has anal & oral sex on his mind almost nonstop. He even dreams about it & is obsessed with girls with nice butts for obvious reasons.
It's one of the interesting albums from the 1990s.
The music is psychedelic trip hoppy rap. Very surreal. The scratching is fantastic in all ways, the lyrics are inventive & very sexual and strongly focus on mostly unconventional anal sex acts that might be popular on his planet but are all but unheard of on planet earth.
I had a great time listening to it again as it's been close to a year since I last played my triple vinyl copy of this deranged out of this world (literally!) masterpiece!
Justin Timberlake
3/5
Justified - Justin Timberlake
⭐️⭐️⭐️
I bet I would look pretty good on the dance floor shaking my butt to this music!
JT has a great voice and a tight band. It's a fun album with a couple great songs on it but the whole album is more in that good maybe very good category rather than great.
Not a thing really wrong with it. Would sound great at a club or wherever but it's not some masterpiece or anything like that.
Not much to add really, it's just dance-y pop music & sometimes nothing sounds better at a club when you are wearing a cute/sexy new outfit nursing a cocktail and dancing/flirting the night away.
As Thom Yorke says, 'Everything in Its Right Place' ... to the dancefloor!
The Beach Boys
5/5
The last great Beach Boys album before Brain's mental health started nose diving already bad since before Pet Sounds, in the first half of the 1970s things came to a head.
There would be great songs on uneven albums after Surf's Up both with The Beach Boys and as a solo artists & near great albums The Beach Boys Love You (1977) is an odd, gorgeous album that just misses being a five-star album and certainly some would strongly disagree with me & call 'Love You' the last truly great Beach Boys album but so it goes.
A melancholy optimism is all over Surf's Up at times beautifully comforting and on occasion unnerving.
In many ways Surf's Up can be seen as a goodbye letter to the brilliant at times overwhelming waves of youth.
Yes
4/5
With new guitarist Steve Howe YES nails their sound, avoids getting dropped by their label, release a solid album with stellar songs like Yours Is No Disgrace, Starship Trooper & I´ve Seen All Good People ,1971 was a good year for the band.
Fragile & Close to the Edge were just around the corner.
The Yes Album is YES right before world domination it's not perfect (that would come later that year with Fragile) but it's bloody good.
The first essential Yes album.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
1/5
If your asshole hipster uncle yes, the one that hugs you just a little too long, insists on massaging your feet and has never visited without his hand somehow always ending up on your butt by the end of his visit had a band it would sound exactly like Captain Beefheart.
There he is trying to be the center of attention by goofing on whatever song is playing by singing along with an exaggerated cartoon voice that got on everyone's nerves a half dozen Thanksgivings ago.
Uncle Beefheart who always seems drunk out of his mind without consuming a drop of alcohol, drunk on his own bullshit, beating his own band members whenever he feels like it playing or not, stopping the band to address his audience captive or otherwise with some story of his black face wearing college days told in the voice of some old black man on LSD.
This stuff is exhausting, seriously no album has ever made me feel this beat up, no album has ever sounded like an eternity, this album is one long self-sucking inside joke, that quite possibly no one gets except for dear Beefheart & Frank Zappa.
I don't care if I'm about to grade an album unfairly for the first time ever and by that, I mean yes there is absolutely no doubt this tormentor is wildly talented as is his long-suffering band, but he uses his talents to try to drive you insane or at the very least pressing STOP and screwing up your entire 1001 albums project because you swore to yourself that the moment you don't finish an album you would bow out and darn it all I so wanted to end my torture.
I somehow heard it to the bitter end & if I was a professional, I would give it two maybe even three stars because it's as creative as any album from the last 50 years is but I'm not, so I won't besides this feels personal.
Easily the most annoying, unpleasant album listening experience of my life, if there is a hell this album will be playing on loop 24/7.
I look at the running time because this music keeps playing for days and it shows that I still have 20:28 to go HOW SERIOUSLY HOW has it not ended yet?
I might as well keep writing documenting my descent into madness as I become the fool that asks, "How can anyone actually like this crap? Are they all pretending to like it to appear to be in on the joke? This is a joke, right?"
Absolutely abrasive noise that makes the truest black metal band sound as soothing as Mozart and about as evil as Hello Kitty with corpse paint, kawaii!
That's I'm too pooped to continue writing.
I'm just going to close my eyes and let the album finish then if that holy moment ever comes, I'm going to give it ONE STAR because I can't go any lower GODDAMMIT and take a bit of twisted comfort in knowing that if you haven't heard Trout Fish Replica already you will soon enough and I have never been happier to not be you.
I'm still here.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
5/5
The Scream is raw and visceral. Haunting and soothing. Alien & oddly familiar. More punk than post punk even if it sounds nothing like what was happening in the punk scene just a couple years back in fact is sounds like nothing that had been released in the 20th century up to late 1978 when The Scream was released.
It's loud, messy, frightening, beautiful, chaotic one minute & heavenly the next it ends way too fast and leaves your head spinning not certain of exactly what you heard but endlessly happy that you did.
One of the most important debut albums of all time. It would influence almost as many bands as the Velvet Underground inspired a decade or so earlier.
Scream for me Steve Lillywhite?
Arcade Fire
2/5
This band was huge in the 2010s they had 3 number 1 albums in a row and a couple top tens before the 2010s then Covid happened...
and someone accused the lead singer of some type of sexual abuse (I don't think he was ever charged or even if anything came from those allegations) and their latest album (2025's Pink Elephant) did not even chart in the Billboard 200, and I mean AT ALL whoever the accuser is/was did a lot of damage.
Was the damage earned? I have no idea.
To me the above is the most interesting thing about Arcade Fire.
Neon Bible isn't a bad album but to me it's a very boring one. Inoffensive as warm milk. It plays and then it ends and makes no impact, good or bad on me.
Boring indie rock that exists for seemingly no real reason like mildew or Mayim Bialik.
Leonard Cohen
5/5
The world feels different while listening to Leonard Cohen.
Everything makes more sense and less sense at the same time. Everything is bigger and smaller. That voice, those lyrics, the music, all so very needful, all so very hypnotic.
I'm at some bar in Manhattan nursing a Gibson Girl when Leonard Cohen walks in, he looks at me and half smiles, nods and walks out of the bar, I put my cocktail down and follow him to the end of the world or his flat, whichever comes first.
When was the last time a song made love to you?
The Crusaders
4/5
Never heard of this band until today. Too bad! The title track is GREAT sounds like Michael Jackson doing the vocals and so catchy- I'll be hearing it in my head for the rest of the week! Fine by me!
The rest of the album isn't nearly as good, but the title song alone makes this album 100% worth getting anyways!
It's not bad I just don't much care for jazz fusion except for maybe half a dozen albums.
Morrissey
5/5
Viva Hate - Morrissey
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Another great album about Morrissey's favorite topic on earth, himself, his wonderful self, bitch!
Awash in glam and rockabilly (did I hear some surf guitars just now?) our charming man sounds as good as he ever did in The Smiths.
The most English, snippy, dry, brilliant, delusional, joyful, sad work of art about one's love affair with oneself since Noel Coward's 'Private Lives' with its evasion of moral judgement, and the blur of paradox and witticism.
Morrissey's third solo album includes Johnny Marr's favorite Moz song, 'We Hate it When Our Ex-Band Mates Become Successful' seasick, yet still docked, indeed!
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Another perfectly listenable reggae album. I'm not the biggest reggae fan but so far, every reggae album on the 1001 list has been worth a listen or two. Natty Dread doesn't change that one bit.
If you like reggae, you'll love Natty Dread and if you don't you likely still enjoy it.
I had a lot of fun with it and I'm considering buying a greatest hits album by Bob Marley, Wal Mart has one on Rastafarian colors vinyl for about twenty bucks, it's really pretty.
Motörhead
5/5
"We only thought of ourselves as a good time rock 'n' roll band, really... But we weren't trying to get a message across, apart from have a good time, you know: get pissed, get stoned, and fuck a chick. And that'll do." - "Fast" Eddie Clarke
Ace of Spades is the title of the fourth Motorhead album that came out in 1980. Motorhead is a Rock 'n' Roll band, they played Rock 'n' Roll and nothing but.
They played monstrously loud and appealed to both punk & heavy metal fans. They never aligned with either genre and repeatedly insisted that they played Rock 'n' Roll.
This 3-piece band helmed by ex- Hawkwind member Lemmy out punked the punks & out metaled the metal heads. They were as good as it got. They were as filthy as it got and you're going to love them like a reptile.
This weekend get some head... some Motorhead!
The Verve
4/5
Urban Hymns is either that last great Brit Pop album or the first Post Brit Pop album. I'm certain of that. Which one? Not too sure but whatever it's a great listen if a tad too long.
Clocking in at just over 75 minutes and only slowing down towards the end, Urban Hymns is very much worth your time, but had it been edited down by half an hour or even 20 minutes this would be a Five - Star album in my book as it stands it's a solid Four-Star Album.
A very strong orchestral psychedelic album both poppy & bright and dark & foreboding.
It's a shame that The Verve broke up after Urban Hymns as it sold well over a million copies in the US alone but if ever there was an album that sounded like it would break America while seemingly breaking up the band internally it's very much this one.
A hell of a way to go.
Prince
5/5
While no doubt Purple Rain was produced in the 1980s and as such would keep lesser albums from getting a perfect score the music is so gorgeous, so perfect that it not only overcomes the nightmare that is often 1980s production values, but Prince (with his cracker jack band, The Revolution) works it to his/their full advantage making Purple Rain a definitive work of sonic art & then some.
The music is everywhere from pop to heavy metal to psychedelia to funk to rock to just "Prince Music" which at one time meant some of the most innovative sounds to ever land at the very top of the Billboard's charts.
Purple Rain is a panty dropper, a religious experience, a journey into the heart & soul of a man at his creative & spiritual peak.
It's church music if your body was the religion & Prince, was its God.
Purple Rain is without a single misstep with some of the absolute greatest songs of the 20th century.
You need it.
Come my fanatics.
Burning Spear
4/5
This morning the mighty generator gifted me with yet another very good reggae album, more or less, this one is a little more rock steady (a successor of Ska) which I tend to prefer than the more laid back let's smoke ganja stuff that gained popularity in the states (UK too but they were more into it already by the time us yanks embraced reggae SHOCKING I know...) in the mid 1970s or there abouts.
Marcus Garvey might be the best reggae album on the list so far. To my ears reggae (Ska & Rocksteady) tend to sound the same but there is something different here what that is I can't pinpoint but I like it!
The production is flawless BTW by a gent named Lawrence Lindo THIS is how to produce an album, seriously flawless.
OK I guess I'll stop writing now. I need more coffee and both my huge goldfish & chihuahua are giving me the 'I'm hungry!' eyes.
Of Note:
The album is named after the Jamaican National Hero and Rastafari movement prophet Marcus Garvey.
Hookworms
1/5
The sounds of an octopus f**king a bagpipe.
Soulless guitar driven dance music that will keep you off the dance floor, off your tits or not.
Microshift?
More like microshit grande.
Living Colour
4/5
If every song was as strong as the opening track,' Cult of Personality' this would be a 5/5 album and one of the best hard rock/heavy metal albums of all time, unfortunately, 'Cult of Personality' is by far the best song on the album, fortunately the other 10 tracks are all good and often very good.
The 11 songs on Livid are all over the place genre wise from funk, hard rock, hardcore, avant-jazz, metal and whatever else I'm missing with strong performances linking them all and forming a definitive style all in living colour!
Mick Jagger (yes THAT Mick Jagger) plays harmonica on track 8 and does backing vocals on track 9.
A walloping feral debut.
ACE!
Solomon Burke
3/5
Great voice but the music as perfectly serviceable as it is - feels restrained to me and lacks much excitement.
I imagine the hit singles (all 7!) sounded pretty good in 1964 coming out of the car radio and all sound good in 2025 but never great.
A one-off listen as I'm having a difficult time finding anything bad to say about this album but also a difficult time finding anything great to say other than he has a thundering voice too bad the music never matches that voice.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
3/5
The first track (Penguin Cafe Single) is fantastic! The next 10 tracks range from 'about as exciting as watching paint dry' to very good but none come close to equaling track one.
Too bad.
This is the only album I have by this band. I never play it but I can never sell it. Listening to the album this morning reminded me why.
Just like it did when I first listened to this album a few years ago the first track made me want to buy their entire back catalog but by track 11 that no longer seemed like a good idea at all.
Oh, well.
From the ashes of the great Small Faces came the Faces led by Rod the Mod with Ronnie Lane, Kenny Jones, Ian McLagan & Ronnie Wood.
'A Nod's as Good as a Wink... to a Blind Horse' is a blues rock powerhouse of an album second only to The Rolling Stones (Ronnie Wood would go on to join The Rolling Stones when the Faces broke up for the usual reasons) a blistering set of 9 songs that would go on to influence many punk bands with its no BS straight up Rock N Roll assault (Glen Matlock of The Sex Pistols would go on to join the Faces in one of their reunions) a short, sweet, sharp album and among the very best of 1971.
Buy, borrow or steal your copy today!
Beatles
5/5
Nice try 1001 Generator, nice try. I'm foolish but not foolish enough to think I have anything to add to the endless number of words already said about this utterly flawless album.
It's one of the best albums by the best band that ever was or ever will be. 5/5? Nah. This one gets my highest ratings- tits out, ladies and gents, tits out.
Spiritualized
4/5
A really good psychedelic rock album not as great as the third album (Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space) but well worth owning if you dig this sort of thing.
1/5
The music is pretty good, but the vocals just ruin it for me. Vocals that are screamy, whiny, unhinged, one dimensional and at times almost forced.
They just don't work for me. At all.
I hate them truth be told. A lot.
Only Courtney Love in the first few Hole releases can get away (and make them work brilliantly in the first couple Hole albums both 5/5 1990s masterpieces) with these broken, angry, psycho wronged mama, PTSD drenched, exorcism type of vocals.
I think I'll play some Hole right now & get the taste of the city & the sea out of my mouth they taste like piss to me.
Tom Waits
4/5
Tom Waits has an unusual voice and uses instruments in unconventional, avant- garde ways but makes them work wonderfully for him at least in this album. At least to my ears.
Close your eyes and you are in Berlin in the 1920s.
Some singers like Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Geddy Lee, etc. have voices that are so polarizing that many people will hear them singing once, nod no & will never willingly bother hearing them again & I get that, I don't ever try pushing Tom Waits & co. on anyone who I know dislikes difficult singing voices because it pointless and I get that.
It all boils down to the voice.
So, while I like this album by no means am I suggesting that you will like it but you might then again you might really hate it, so don't blame me.
Everyone is someone's Captain Beefheart.
You'll know pretty quickly!
David Bowie
5/5
Leaving glam behind (as much as Bowie can leave glam behind) Bowie embraces soul music with stunning results.
The album has such faces as John Lennon, Carlos Alomar, Earl Slick, David Sanborn as well as a then unknown Luthor Vandross.
It's a stomper and if not the best album of 1975 certainly the most unexpected.
Viva Bowie!
The Beta Band
2/5
Mostly just boring I would never play it again but since I didn't hate it with a passion, I won't give it one star but what a painfully dull album.
Baaba Maal
4/5
Djam Leelii - Baaba Maal & Mansour Seck
Sounds like music from the Middle East a part of the world that I have no interest in ever visiting except via albums like this one.
I liked the music, peaceful, interesting, enigmatic yet familiar.
This album seemed to last forever but it did not bore me, however I did find myself drifting to never never land a couple times and towards the end the music just became part of the background.
It's closer to a 4 than a 3 so I'll give it a 4.
I would buy this album if given a chance as I would like to play it at bedtime and just drift into the music.
I bet I would have pretty interesting dreams.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
Frank named after Frank Sinatra and the frankness of her lyrics is a jazz album heavily influenced by jazz vocalist like Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and countless other jazz singers from the 1940s & 1950s.
It's a solid album, her vocals are spot on, the lyrics are often witty and charming, everything works but I often found myself with that 'heard it all before' feeling and that's because it's so indebted to past singers and the past in general to the point where I found myself wondering why I wasn't just listening Billie Holiday instead or whoever.
I imagine it will introduced a lot of people to some of the greats of the past as The Stray Cats had done a couple decades earlier with early rock n roll music and that's great, I'm a fan of Winehouse and The Stray Cats, I love retro sounds, but I could just throw on a number of albums and as good as she was, as good as The Stray Cats are neither is better than their influences, neither brings much new to the table and neither are essential listening though I will say that I like The Stray Cats more and that's likely because I like stuff like Gene Vincint and Eddie Cochran more than the classic torch singers of the 1940s and 1950s.
I do realize that to many listeners Frank will be the only jazz vocal album they will ever own just like Rant n Rave with The Stray Cats will be the only rockabilly album they will ever own and that's fine both are great albums & who knows maybe some will go on to explore and dig deeper and if they don't well at least they are hearing some solid music & having fun.
Musical cosplaying on vinyl for extra authenticity, I suppose.
Simple Minds
1/5
New Gold Dream - Simple Minds
⭐️
One of those albums that makes absolutely no sense as to why it's included on the 1001 list, no sense at all.
I hated Trout Mask Replica a lot more but at least I get why it's on the list but New Gold Dream?
No clue. None.
OK, so you like synth pop then why not listen to Yazoo or Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark? At least both bands have some kind of personality, some kind of life to them.
New Gold Dream is just another crappy 1980s album and hardly the only dreck on the 1001 it's just a little (OK a lot) more soul numbingly boring than most albums I have ever heard not the worst not even close, they play their instruments well enough, the singer has a decent enough voice but FUCK ME I couldn't wait for it to end.
I listen to every album I generate from start to finish and if you don't why are you even reading this? I fully expect some one-star albums, but this one just confuses me- why is it on here? Who honestly thinks that anyone has to listen to New Gold Dream before you die? Sadistic much? Anyone? Seriously what a messed-up thing to wish other people's lives.
If I get a few more albums like this in a row- I'm out NOT finishing this project. I have close to 1000 vinyl albums & just over 2,000 albums on CD so what am I doing hearing stuff that makes me wonder why I even like music?
Downvote that, bitch.
Soul II Soul
1/5
Club Classics Vol. One - Soul II Soul
⭐️
This would likely be a three maybe a four at a happening nightclub after a few cocktails but just as a regular listen it's pretty dull.
I just finished listening to it & I already forgot it almost entirely.
OK, I have to go now.
Belle & Sebastian
2/5
Tigermilk - Belle and Sebastian
The opening track was good not great but interesting enough to get my full attention so was the second track and all the rest of the tracks because they basically sounded like the same song over and over again.
I got another album by this band that I liked better on here a few months- sorry I can't recall the title.
The vocals are a bit annoying and difficult to tell if it's a guy or girl singing.
I don't know I can't imagine ever listening to this album ever again, but it wasn't horrible, so I guess two stars.
I wish I had gotten a Dinosaur Jr. album.
Lou Reed
5/5
One of the greatest albums ever released in the 1970s which means one of the greatest albums of all time.
The thing is perfect, and it very much is a thing- not quite human and completely out of place in the musical landscape of 1972 as it feels completely out of place in 2025 and I imagine as it will sound to listeners in 2125.
Some of the music from the past still feels like the future to me.
Did we learn anything besides gooning and being offended by everything outside of a very narrow world view?
I wish my generation had our own Lou Reed (we don't I checked) instead we get Billie Ellish.
Our parents and grandparents are not supposed to have cooler music than us- WTF?
Faith No More
2/5
The Real Thing - Faith No More
⭐️⭐️
I don't much like this band, but I'll give them TWO STARS because Brujeria's Billy Gould is a member, and I like wearing my Matando Güeros t shirt even though I'm blonde PLUS Taco truck workers call me "Güerita" and give me extra guacamole.
"¡Viva La Raza!"
Matando Güeros - Brujeria
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Que Puta super banda es Brujeria, escuchandolos desde niña, saludos desde El Napa Valley, que desmadre!
Bebel Gilberto
4/5
Tanto Tempo - Bebel Gilberto
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I like her voice very sensual and just pretty. The music is Bossa Nova with some electronic elements that work better than I expected.
So Nice (Summer Samba) puts me in a happy mood and makes me feel like I'm at my favorite nude beach (Black's Beach in San Diego) skinny dipping on a perfect summer day.
I bet this would sound awesome at the beach!
Dusty Springfield
5/5
The greatest blue eyed soul album ever recorded. Absolutely flawless in all ways and probably the best album of 1969 if you don't count The Beatles' Abbey Road.
Majestic stuff.
Depeche Mode
3/5
I much prefer the really early stuff (1981 - 1984) but this one is OK with Little 15 being the highlight of the album.
Would dance to it at a nightclub but I doubt I would play it again much less hunt down my own copy.
The last song on the album Pimpf has a great beat/feel to it so I would buy it & add it to a playlist.
Stephen Stills
5/5
Stephen Stills - Stephen Stills
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recorded between Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tours in 1970 Stephen Stills self-titled debut is a funky delight. Featuring a slew of famous friends like Jimi Hendrix, his CSN&Y band mates doing backing vocals, John Sebastian, Mama Cass, Rita Coolidge, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr fresh of playing drums for Howlin' Wolf and plenty of other top faces of the music scene.
Whew! That's a lot of talent.
An extremely likable loose album that mixes all sorts of styles to create if not the best album of 1970 certainly one of the most joyful.
The Rolling Stones
5/5
Aftermath - The Rolling Stones
One of the Big Four of rock music (the other 3 would be The Beatles, The Who and Elvis Presley) with one of their very best albums...
add it up.
Chances are you like The Rolling Stones and on the off chance you don't then you're a lost cause and nothing I say is going to change that so you're on your own.
As essential as any album to have ever been released.
Eminem
5/5
The Marshall Mathers LP - Eminem
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Probably the angriest, most offensive, relentless beast of an album to ever debut at number one with sales of well over 25 million copies before the dust settled.
It's an exceptionally well-done album all around, the flows are head-spinningly brilliant, the wordplay is astounding, the beats vicious, rapid fire and clever his jokes (if they are jokes) are homophobic, misogynistic and more often than not hilarious with absolutely no concession just raw stark talent.
The Marshall Mathers LP might very well leave you offended but it will also leave you impressed... like it not.
U2
4/5
I guess many years before I was born U2 used to release really strong albums like Boy, October and War. Who knew!
War U2's third album is a solid Rock N Roll album with exceptional production. Not a boring track to be found. Don't bother looking there are none.
Truly one of those albums that I believe would appeal to just about all Rock fans. There's nothing not to like and heaps to love.
Astrud Gilberto
3/5
Why the wise men of 1001 Albums you Must Hear Before you Die picked Beach Samba over the superior The Astrud Gilberto Album is a real mystery and adds to the theory that some albums included on1001 Albums you Must Hear Before you Die were picked with all the care one employees when playing a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey after nursing cocktails all afternoon.
That said...
Beach Samba is a fun album that would sound great at a Tiki Bar with that special someone as you tease and flirt with each other long past happy hour.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
An album I have heard endless times since childhood in fact I remember in grade school (5th or 6th grade) writing a review for the school paper (Silverwing Elementary School) once!
Now here I'm all grown up writing another review.
This is a Top 100 album for me and quite possibly the greatest soul album ever released (with the only real contender to the throne being Curtis by Curtis Mayfied from a year earlier,1970) it's flawless, powerful and beautiful, the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band of soul music.
Some people marvel at how relevant 'What's Going On' is in 2025. I don't. I think as long as humans roam the earth (for better or worse) this work of art will be relevant.
Lord have mercy!
Supertramp
5/5
Not much to say about this one. It's art pop/rock that works exceptionally well.
Supertramp has a strange back catalog that varies from competent but dull to brilliant Crime of the Century is brilliant.
Lend an ear it would be criminal not to!
Black Sabbath
5/5
Recorded in one day back on the 16th of October 1969 Black Sabbath's S/T debut album was unarguably the birth of Heavy Metal and as such one of the most important albums ever recorded.
I want to say so much more but I know there is absolutely nothing that I can say that hasn't been seen better endless times.
So, I'll ramble on a little and then finish getting ready for Comic Con in San Diego.
The album cover art to Black Sabbath's debut album used to scare me silly as a kid. That yellow witch just standing there made me turn me head anytime I saw her in my dad's record room. I still find it very unsettling at 23. I think I always will. Few album covers have ever fit the music within so perfectly.
I got to see Black Sabbath twice with my dad in 2013 and 2016 both times they were great & played 3 or 4 songs from the debut album.
Yes, I have the best dad in the world.
Out of well over 100 concerts/shows that I have attended (a big chunk of them with my dad) I enjoyed Black Sabbath as much as The Who (my favorite band after The Beatles) and almost as much as The Rolling Stones just last year in Las Vegas who were on absolute fire.
What a great album on a great label (Vertigo Records) if you have any interest whatsoever in hard rock/heavy metal you need this album. You should also check out other bands on Vertigo Records.
There are better Heavy Metal albums (by Black Sabbath themselves and a few others) but none are more important than the one with the scary yellow witch on the cover.
Incredible Bongo Band
5/5
This album makes me wish I was a stripper in the 1960s or 1970s looking hella cute dancing nude in a cage among a far-out light show!
Some of the music sounds super sexual to me or maybe I'm just horny.
OK I hit the stage in 5!
Oh Là La!
The Cars
4/5
Super fun New Wave/Power Pop from Boston's The Cars on their stylish one foot in the past, one foot in the future debut album chockful of so many hits it might as well be a greatest hits package.
Sounds absolutely fresh in 2025 not dated in any way, shape or form.
Perfect pop forever.
Django Django
4/5
Django Django - Django Django
⭐️⭐️⭐️ or ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I like & don't like this album.
This very rarely happens to me. The music is better than the vocals that can be very annoying in a white boy trying to sound funky way, but the music can be very good and has that 1980's King Crimson vibe, here and there.
I can't decide between a 3 and a 4. I guess if I saw it for sale cheap, I would buy it but not sure I would buy it at regular price.
I'm confused!
If you like 1980s King Crimson, Phish and white boys trying to sound funky this might be the album for you.
Coldplay
3/5
Clocks is such a great song that if the whole album was as good as Clocks this album would be an easy⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ but sadly it's not. There are no bad songs on A Rush of Blood to the Head but nothing is anywhere as great as Clocks.
I think Coldplay is a great singles band, but I never liked an album enough to own & this is no exception. It's a fun listen but pretty forgettable when it's all been said & done.
I would buy a greatest hits collection (I'm assuming they have one) for a tenner.
Fugees
2/5
This one was very boring. I didn't hate it, but I would never play it again. The talent is there I just don't like what they did do with it.
UB40
3/5
Songs sound very similar to each other but it's a good sound, so I give it 3/5!
Tom Waits
4/5
Tom Wait's 11th studio album is a difficult listen, hard listening time. The songs blend together like puke in a vomitorium the music sounds like the soundtrack to the world having one big ugly nightmare.
It's relentless.
It doesn't let up even on the relatively less doom & gloom songs there is no sense of hope at all.
It feels like the end of the world as our souls wait in our bone machines (our bodies) for what we know is coming any day or maybe (we dare think) that day came already and this is the music of the aftermath of the end of everything.
I can't imagine wanting to hear Bone Machine again anytime soon but who knows maybe in a few decades it will all make more sense to me because right now it's the most unrelatable album on the 1001 list and I'm very thankful for that.
This is the toughest album I have ever rated. Did I enjoy? Not really. Is it an important work? Absolutely. I could give it ⭐️star & it would be a very honest rating, but I could also give it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️and it would also be a very honest rating.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ is out of the question as Bone Machine might be a million things but average it is not.
⭐️⭐️ is too close to a negative review & I don't feel negative about Bone Machine at all, so that's not going to fly.
I guess I'll go with ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ because I can't award an album that I didn't enjoy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ even if I do recognize it as a brilliant work of art and ultimately post-art.
The Prodigy
5/5
Electronica with the swagger of Rock N Roll & the sneer of punk.
All 10 songs on The Fat of the Land are absolute bangers, one of the songs Smack My Bitch Up created a good deal of controversy as a result some radio stations refused to play it, some shops refused to stock it some shows refused to have The Prodigy on as guests and even had a then newly neutered , creatively dry group of Beasties Boys request for Smack My Bitch Up to not be played during The Prodigy's set at the1998 Reading festival where both bands headlined that year.
Ironic coming from a band that wanted to title their debut album, 'Don't Be a Faggot!'
BTW
I love The Beastie Boys & I'm just having a jab at their late 1990's "enlightened" selves.
The Fat of the Land is one of the finest albums ever released to dance to, make sweet love to or even to have a threesome that you might later regret.
That's solid 5 stars territory for me!
The Who
5/5
The definitive Rock album bar none and one of the finest works of art of the last couple hundred years.
There are a handful of albums that are better (Sgt Peppers, Pet Sounds, Led Zeppelin IV, Elvis' S/T debut) but none that encompass everything that is Rock N Roll with more fire n skill than Who's Next.
Even after playing this album at least 100 times in my life this album intimidates and humbles me and as such I have an extremely difficult time writing about it.
Having this album in my life has been one of my richest experiences on planet Earth. It really has been.
Thank you, Pete, Roger, John & Moon the Loon!
BTW
It pairs nicely with 'Live at Leeds' an album that captures The Who at the height of their powers which easily makes it the greatest live album ever recorded (get the reissue with all 33 songs that were performed on the fateful Valentine's Day) a seminal live masterpiece if there ever was one.
FYI
The original album has 9 tracks. There is also a super deluxe edition that has 109 tracks that takes a couple days to soak it all in.
Tori Amos
5/5
Maybe the best memoir written in the last 50 years about everything wonderful & awful about being a girl.
Culture Club
2/5
Pop music by numbers more like. A few fun songs but mostly all around forgettable not a bad album by any means but far from something you must hear before you die.
Talking Heads
5/5
The problem has always been David Byrne. I don't like him. That's my problem.
Let's focus on the music. Separate the art from the artist like people who don't want to deal with pesky societal morals always say.
Like I always say.
Like you say sometimes.
The music? Oh, right! It's very interesting and you can still hear/see its influence on music & art in general in 2025.
Just like you will (or they will) in 2125.
This is new wave on naked lunch speed.
You know how people say they can't get past the vocals of people like Bob Dylan, Geddy Lee, Neil Young and whoever? Add David Bryne to that list.
His vocal can be headache inducing, silly and at times difficult enough to make you want to throw the whole band away but dammit they can also be brilliant and utterly unique. Timeless in every sense of the word.
Timeless as love. Timeless as hate.
Honest as a line of coke on Grade A ass. Dishonest as indifference.
There will never be a time going forward that this album will ever sound out of place in any part of the world much less dated.
You're sure of it.
Milton Nascimento
4/5
A unique fusion of about a dozen musical styles! It's all over the place but held together admirably well by an out of this world groove that is present in some form or another throughout the entire album.
Ever wonder what it would sound like if Chopin joined The Beatles & they decided to play nothing but reworked songs from Pet Sounds with a baroque-ish Bossa nova beat?
Wonder no more!
This might be a 5-star album but after just one listen I don't feel strongly enough about it to give it 5 stars but that could change with a few more listens or not.
Regardless an album of note.
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
In spite of the very blues looking album cover and the proclamation, beneath Ali Farka’s name, that he’s “The King of the desert blues singers,” this album doesn't sound like any kind of blues that I've ever heard.
To my ears it's more blues influenced, I can hear a little John Lee Hooker but Chess Records blues this is not.
What I hear is traditional West African music, you know the sounds of the Ngoni (a plucked lute), the Njarka (single-string fiddle) and the Gurkel (single-string guitar), and Toure's Western blues inspired majestic six-stringed excursions that often has an audio mirage-like effect on the listener. Did I just hear that?
It's all very hypnotic, easy to be lost in trance inducing sounds.
Never having heard desert blues before the songs tend to sound pretty similar to each other but it's a beautiful sound and more than a worthwhile listen.
Oasis
5/5
One of the great debuts of all time right up there with all the great debuts from the likes of The Velvet Underground & Nico, Big Star, The Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, Elvis Presley, you get the idea and one of the best albums of the 20th Century or any century for that matter.
In all ways masterful.
... and to think they would only get better on the next album!
Michael Jackson
5/5
An insanely great pop album. Pop music as pop art.
Sisters Of Mercy
1/5
Synthesizers heavy goth pop/rock album that is OK some of it even good if you can get through the in-your-face constant one-dimensional ONE TWO pow pow beat of the bloody synthesizer as it's almost center stage in every single song to the point it all starts sounding the same ONE TWO pow ONE TWO pow ONE TWO pow ONE TWO pow...
Ministry
5/5
The world is ending! All world leaders have agreed to one final dance/orgy before we are all nuclear bombed to smithereens.
Hurry! We need a record to play on loop!
I hand the last DJ my copy of Psalm 69 (69, hehe...) and do a few more lines of cocaine off Charlotte's bomb ass before I get up & dance my life away.
Subtle enough for you?
David Bowie
5/5
Bowie's second album in his magnum opus that is The Berlin Trilogy is absolute perfection.
Next time someone tells you that nothing is perfect play them this album and if they still believe in that old cliche after hearing "Heroes" give them the boot.
Might want to change the locks too. Just saying!
Stevie Wonder
4/5
It's prime era Stevie Wonder so of course it's great essential stuff. Why? Go listen to it- I can't compete with that.
Music > Words
The Human League
5/5
Everybody needs love and adventure
Everybody needs cash to spend
Everybody needs love and affection
Everybody needs 2 or 3 friends" - Oakley/Wright
The second British invasion started here back in 1982 (Dare! Was released in 1981 in the UK and 1982 in the US) and it's easy to hear why so many yanks surrendered to the icy beats & smart lyrics made by cute boys with rebel without a cause haircuts.
Dare! must have sounded insane in 1982 as it sounds ahead of it time in 2025 while other records from the same year by the likes of John Cogar and Foreigner sound extraordinarily limp and dated.
Dare! is actually an album you must hear before your Dutch date with that cheap bastard known as the grim reaper.
Go on then!
Speaking of death, it's long been rumored that THE curmudgeon taste maker Lester Bangs died of an accidental drug overdose while listening to Dare!
It's too bad as I think he would have had a real hard on for Hüsker Dü.
The Louvin Brothers
5/5
Songs about murder, lost loves, and hell's eternal fire
all set to a simple, traditional bluegrass sound.
Tragic Songs of Life is powerful stuff with some of the finest harmonies ever recorded if you are only familiar the Louvin Brothers songs through Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton etc. you are long due for a proper introduction to the fine work of Ira and Charlie Louvin and you will get it with Tragic Songs of Life.
Public Enemy
5/5
An absolutely essential album from The Golden Age of Rap (1987-1992) as important to Rap as Sgt Peppers is to Rock & Mozart is to Classical music.
Rufus Wainwright
1/5
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be special just like there is nothing wrong with wanting to be cute, unique or cool for that matter. Rufus Wainwright wants to be all three and the kitchen sink in some trendy bar in Soho that reminds you the returning world traveler of that spot in Berlin back at the turn of the century. You know the one.
He wants it bad.
For the first 15 minutes or so he has enough bells and whistles in his cannon that you do in fact start thinking that you are listening to something special or at the very least to an album by someone who knows his shit.
You're not and he doesn't.
What you are actually hearing is an album by someone who is so hellbent on appearing precious that he borrows from endless genres that he heard in his room at The Chelsea Hotel on endless albums that he borrowed from his father to hopefully get inspiration during his six-month meth bender.
When you realize this, you will feel like an ass for being artistically fleeced so easily by yet another pretender with delusions of splendor.
Don't feel too bad if there is anything masterful about Want One it's Wainwright's ability to keep the listener so drowned and spent with so much kitsch that one can't help but think that one is hearing greatness when in fact what you are hearing is an hour of schmaltzy pretentious misfires.
This album of 14 dreary songs each one more desperate & less amusing than the last will leave you with a deep need to go home a need so strong that you start packing & when as you finally hear the click of the suitcase closing you realize that you are at home and that your whole fucking life (all of it) has been a long drunk piss of lies.
Beatles
5/5
Another masterpiece from the Beatles! The Beatles get moody on the non-smiling album cover art of their second album, but you will be all smiles as you listen to yet another five star album from the lads!
Nick Drake
4/5
Nick Drake's second album Bryter Layter has a dreamy quality about it.
I'm dreaming of being a fashion model in a TV commercial for a greatest hits album by Burt Bacharach wearing a mod dress with perfect bangs. I'm dreaming of me. I'm dreaming of you without me.
It makes me feel sad & happy, sometimes in the same song.
Bryter Layter is very much an album of its time but also timeless.
John Cale of The Velvet Undergrounds plays on Bryter Layter.
You know how sometimes you open a window & there is a scent that reminds you of a time & place in your life? Maybe how the playground smelled in fourth grade? That's the how the production on Bryter Layter feels like to me.
I will play this album again.
Joan Armatrading
2/5
The lady has a great voice, thought provoking lyrics & clearly talented but her album leaves me cold.
I didn't dislike the album at all but unless I focused, I would just forget it was even playing. Not one track stood out for me in a good or bad way.
I'll give it two stars because of the very obvious talent (you gotta be deaf not to hear it) that Joan Armatrading has but I would never play her album again that said...
if it (a song from her album) was playing on the jukebox at the pub no doubt, I would like it well enough but would none the less ask my date for money to load the juke box with an hour's worth of music that actually excites me.
Kate Bush
5/5
Hounds of Love is one of the reasons why the female voice is my absolute favorite instrument in music.
Such a gorgeous voice, angel I have heard you on high, cloudbusting, wow...
A perfect album that sounds like no one else and the greatest pop/rock voice after Karen Carpentar.
Madonna
4/5
Like A Prayer - Madonna
First thing I noticed about Madonna's third album Like a Prayer is that the production is not dated at all like a ton of albums released in the 1980s - in fact it could have come out yesterday or next month so kudos on that- so many 1980s albums are ruined to my ears by garbage production but Like a Prayer is wonderfully produced.
The songs are fun, dance pop music that had me moving a great deal more than I usually do on an early Thursday morning on a day that I'm working overtime.
Shockingly (to me anyways) I enjoyed Like a Prayer enough that I would add it to my collection as prior to listening to it I just knew Madonna from her singles, and I will explore her back catalog as summer turns to fall.
The Doors
4/5
I much prefer the earlier albums by The Doors, but this is a solid album of heavy blues & RnB. Pretty good!
Le Tigre
1/5
Le Tigre - Le Tigre
You know those albums that you listen to and just sit there dumbfounded that it wasn't a massive hit? Le Tigre's self-titled debut is not one of those albums.
This one hurt. A lot. I mean it literally felt like my ear canals got violated by hundreds of tiny knives. They felt raw and stuffed like when you go swimming, you know that stuffed up ears need to pop feel? Like that.
If I was paranoid, I swear I would half believe that they recorded this album two/three years before I was born for the sole purpose of fucking with me. With anyone that has an aversion to the musical equivalent of utter shit.
This band hates you.
It's like they know that they are a bunch of talentless one trick ponies' and they want you to hurt for all the bad things that you will say/write about them, and this album is just them being proactive.
Look at their photo on the album cover and tell me they didn't read 1001 bad reviews before this junk was unleashed like a virus on an unsuspecting world.
They knew. I can't explain how, but they knew.
This is payback. Tiger beats fish. Dead horse remains dead.
Fuck Le Tigre.
Primal Scream
5/5
Vanishing Point is a mesmerizing album.
A trippy, druggy, dancey rocked up affair shoegazed in psychedelic grooves (some hard, some soft) ridden soundtrack to the greatest lost 42nd street grindhouse sewer cinema of all time. Or at least of 1971.
When the screamadelica come downs come down hard and you need to get lost in a loop put on The Vanishing Point on and close your eyes.
Jurassic 5
2/5
Some decent enough beats but overall, just boring.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
5/5
It's dark, it's harrowing, it's fucked up, it's beautiful, it's a Nick Cave album and if you have been following his career for a while it contains no surprises, I mean how many ways can one describe wounds & demons both visual and unseen?
Sometimes I think Nick Cave could write this stuff in his sleep at this point, the songs must just pour out of him, the quality is consistently high not just on this album but on decades and decades of recordings.
I saw Nick Cave & his Bad Seeds live this past May in San Francisco where he performed a couple songs off Henry's Dream with fire n skill. What Nick does he does very well, long may he do it, someone has to kick against the pricks and remind you to turn off the lights.
Doves
2/5
Doves - The Last Broadcast
Started off really strong but by the last track it got pretty boring. Reminded me a bit of a more psychedelic Radiohead at first but by the end it was pretty faceless indie rock.
Clearly a talented band it all just got old fast.
Randy Newman
1/5
Far from the worst album on here but certainly one of the most boring.
Zero idea why anyone would think I or anyone "must" hear this before I die but whatever, I guess.
I have discovered some great albums doing this 1001 project, but I sure pay with all the crap that I never would have listened to if it wasn't for this list.
Maybe I'll break even when it all ends. I guess that's a pretty sweet deal these days.
Norah Jones
2/5
Thanx. I'm good.
Ryan Adams
4/5
"I won't say Adams is the best North American singer songwriter since Neil Young... but I won't say he isn't either"- Stephen King
When I saw that 'Heartbreaker' was my 'album of the day' I let out a loud "NO!" prior to this album I knew Ryan Adams from his old band the No Depression favorites Whiskeytown as I had heard the odd song here and there by them. I liked them well enough, I guess but never enough to buy an album by them.
I also knew a few songs by Ryan Adams and truth be told I just found the few songs I had heard to be a bit boring- my expectations were low for 'Heartbreaker' I thought it would suck in a sucky singer songwriter way a genre I have a love/hate relationship with. I was worried, I guess.
I needn't have worried.
Heartbreaker is a pretty solid album. It's a little too long and sometimes the songs sounded too similar but that's OK because they are all good songs.
I'm not about to take a deep dive into his back catalog (30 studio albums & 11 EPs!) but I'll happily listen to a few more before I die not because I have to but rather because I want to.
Ryan Adams recently turned 50 years old. I imagine that he will release another 30 albums before he leaves this mortal coil and if that makes Stephen King smile who am I to not smile too.
Kanye West
5/5
A punk rap opus? An industrial rap opus? No less than greatest rap album of all time?
Yes, yes & yes.
Yeezus was originally titled 'Thank God for Drugs' with a running time of nearly four hours. Weeks before release day he got Rick Rubin to streamline the whole thing famously stating that Rubin is not a producer but a reducer.
Yeezus was cut down to a lean 10 track noisy, abrasive beast of an album with a running time of 40:01. More a protest against music than a celebration of it. The vocals on three tracks were recorded days before release date. Lyrics were written and rewritten as fast as they came to West's mind, new beats were added then erased. It was an active weekend at Casa West of collapsing and rebuilding the numerous buildings that made up the great architect's grand estate more a Jodorowsky-ish like maze more than the Frank Lloyd Wright organic Japanophile built a woodblock at a time that he once had envisioned for his 6th album.
Yeezus was influenced by a dizzying array of sounds and sights from Krautrock and Suicide to minimalist design and architecture to rough angry sex, soul kisses, Romanticism paintings and ultimately the absolute need to fill a blank canvas that when finished would become West's greatest work and sadly his last masterpiece.
The Kanye West of 2012/13 used his demons to his full advantage safely playing with madness as only a man on top of the world can, peeking into the abyss simply because he got off on the adrenaline.
The Kanye West of 2024/25 is lost among his demons, more to the point the Kanye West of present day IS the demon and a stark reminder that there is sometimes a great price to pay for the ability to create great art.
Yeezus sounds as fresh today as the day it was released just like it will in 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years- for eternity.
Was it worth it, Mr. West?
Fleet Foxes
2/5
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Brooding indie rock from Seattle, Washington that sounds exactly how you think it sounds. A bit of a challenge getting through the last few songs but overall, a fairly inoffensive album of little importance.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
Another great album by Elvis Costello! How does he do it? Album after album the quality is sky high. One of the greatest back catalogs- 33 (!!!) albums in he's still producing great work as his most recent album (A Boy Named If) will attest!
Go see him in concert if you get the chance at 71 years old, he remains an essential live act delivering set after set of pure fire and skill.
Starting today I will start a new mini project - I will hear all 33 EC albums in chronicle order .
I'm pumped it, now!
Dolly Parton
5/5
This is pretty music.
Somewhere between traditional country and new country (as new as it got in 1986 when this album was recorded) with gorgeous harmonies and all three ladies in top form TRIO is an absolute delight if you like any kind of country, you will love this album.
The remake of Phil Spector's 1958 hit by the Teddy Bears, "To Know Him Is to Love Him" is almost as good as the original and that blows my mind as "To Know Him Is To Love Him" is my absolute favorite single of all time and again this cover is very close to being as great.
Nothing remotely negative to say about this one it's absolutely perfect as is.
95% (maybe higher) of the garbage you hear on country radio these days is not even country THIS is real country and more than that it's real good country music and when country music is this good it's among the best music in the world.
Oh, Lord, I need a cowboy in a bad way this morning to lasso me up out of my white country girl boots!
Stan Getz
5/5
Behind the gorgeous cover art is an album of Bossa Nova delights! Over 30 minutes of this flirty, breezy, foreign yet instantly familiar exciting music that would soon captivate America not long before The Beatles took over America and we yanks never let go.
Unlike say a Miles Davis album Jazz Samba sounds dated but wonderfully so! Imagine to how many hip cocktail/dinner parties this music provided the songtrack to while the guests delighted in the missus' wild new avocado appetizers?
I can't even!
Run-D.M.C.
5/5
From the golden age of Hip Hop (1984 -1994) Raising Hell is THE essential Hip Hop album. The genre's Sgt Peppers, Exile on Main Street, Dark Side of the Moon, London Calling all rolled into one groundbreaking album that was the unofficial start of Hip Hop's album era as before Raising Hell the genre was seen as a singles game (12" or otherwise) much like Rock N Roll was three decades earlier.
No filler on this lean slab of wax. Every second of Raising Hell is perfectly executed and in all ways needed. No serious Hip Hop library can be considered anywhere near complete without it.
Think you know Hip Hop without knowing Raising Hell?
You Be Illin'!
Slipknot
3/5
I was super excited this morning when I saw I got Slipknot as I was craving something hard, but it wasn't long before I was rudely reminded why I'm not a big fan of this talented band.
All Hope Is Gone was what I needed except for the clean singing HATED the clean singing & the Godawful ballad (WHY?) I wish Slipknot would release the clean singing junk somewhere else and just focus on the heavy (which they do exceptionally well) insane bone crushers.
I need to make a playlist on YouTube & just add the tracks I like from all Slipknot albums because when they are good, they are a lot of fun and hit all the spots that need hitting.
Oh, well, still good enough for 3 stars but as always, the clean singing keeps me from being much more than a casual fan.
Incubus
2/5
Make Yourself is a perfectly serviceable alternative rock album with touches of Nu Metal and Rap. It's played well by talented passionate musicians but for all its tightness and skill Make Yourself is also pretty boring affair that while easy to listen to (nothing here makes me scream for the album to hurry up and end) I found it vastly forgettable.
It's the kind of album that someone will ask me sometime if I have ever heard it and I will say that I have and when asked how it was, I will reply that I honestly don't remember that I don't recall hating it but also don't recall loving it.
I'll smile and say, "Well I better get going, it was good seeing you" I'll get in my car & break in the new speakers in with some Motorhead.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
5/5
Well, THIS was a BIG surprise and EXACTLY why I joined the 1001 project.
I have of course heard of the RHCP seeing how I don't live under a rock but outside of some of the hit singles I have not heard anything else by them. I liked the songs just fine, they were fun, and I always thought the lead singer was hella hot (I still do) but I was never motivated to but a full album by them or even to listen to one- I have no idea as to why, toss it up to one of those things, I suppose.
Today, this morning (a few minutes before 6:00 AM) to be exact that all changed.
When I saw that today's album was by the RHCP I wasn't too excited truth be told I let out a resigned, 'OK, then.' and pushed play with little excitement not because I hate them but because I just thought I knew what to expect.
I was dead wrong!
Blood Sugar Sex Magik is an exceptional album and 200+ albums in easily my favorite discovery (sorry Dexys Midnight Runners you have lost the top spot) of the 1001 project.
OMG it's so good!
How did it take me 23 years to hear this album?
After Oasis' first two albums this is my favorite album from the 1990's, easily OK maybe I like Nirvana better.
A delicious album about a lot of the best things in life, you know stuff like sex, love, magik and more sex.
Brian Eno
2/5
Starts off interesting enough but quickly outstays it's welcome just like that distant cousin who seems quirky, so you invite him over for lunch & it turns out he's just batshit crazy not quirky.
Roni Size
4/5
I'm pooped!
This one got me dancing up a storm & it's nearly 17 hours long.
Great dance music some of the vocals got on my nerves a little but I kept dancing.
I need a nap!
Suzanne Vega
1/5
Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega
Pretty. Fucking. Boring.
Kendrick Lamar
4/5
So NOT in the mood to listen to Kendrick Lamar this morning much less review one of his albums but here we are.
It's a very good album of west coast hip hop if you know anything about west coast hip hop you likely have a pretty good idea what it sounds like. It's very good with little that makes it stand out from the pack.
Not sure if I will ever hear it again much less add it to my library but no doubt about it- it's an exceptionally well produced album & Lamar has talent coming out of his ears. The man is good.
Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe is a great track. A Five Star instant classic. OK maybe I will add the album to my collection.
OK that's all I have. I like Run DMC better than any modern rap except Kanye West up to 2013.
Big Black
5/5
Big Black makes bands like Nine Inch Nails & Ministry sound about as dangerous as the latest volume of Kidz Bop.
The most brutal album on the 1001 list? For me, so far, yes, by far.
Part of me hates that this is so good because I can't stand Steve Albini (mastermind behind Big Black) but no denying his genius. The 10 songs that make up Atomizer are among the most vicious, bleak and misanthropic ever recorded. Songs about pedophilia, racism, drug addiction, self-immolation and every other disturbing subject you can think of & that's just side A.
Atomizer is an exhausting listen and one of very few albums that keeps playing days after the needle lifts after side two comes to an abrupt end like a nightmare does when you feel that familiar hand on your tummy at the exact time you did the night before.
Skepta
3/5
Just some Grime. Nothing I'm dying to hear again but parts were fun, and parts didn't know how to read the room & just end.
A bizarre pick for the list again it's not awful or anything but I don't think there is a single person in the universe that needs to hear this album before they die.
I imagine by the end of the day likely by lunch I won't remember a single thing about today's album.
Nick Drake
5/5
A sad strange album about God knows what since the lyrics were more akin to observations than poetry but that somehow worked even better since it was pretty much just Nick Drake & his guitar on the album (some piano) certainly his best album (not that the other two are not great too- they very much are) I have long been a fan & I believe I own everything he ever recorded yes even 'the final four' on vinyl AND CD & this is the album I have heard the most (like 100 times NOT remotely kidding) it's a thing of great and rare beauty.
You should listen to Pink Moon.
Or don't as Pink Moon much like all his other works seems to have been created with a total disinterest in finding an audience.
Coldplay
3/5
I don't like Coldplay much as an albums band but if they only released singles, I would call them near great. Not a bad album by any means but jarring as you have a couple great songs & 8 or whatever OK songs.
I get why they are a huge band but other than a Greatest Hits collection I don't need much more from Coldplay.
I Am Curious (yellow)
Tina Turner
4/5
One of the greatest voices EVER manages to overcome frankly annoying dated (not in a good way) production. I never knew that she covered HELP by The Beatles as I had only heard the American edition of Private Dancer- it's a great five-star cover- I love it.
A fun listen in spite of the production.
The Young Gods
3/5
I hate the first song. Sounds like some crazed French man (are there any other kind?) screaming-singing about something he is passionate about that likely means nothing unless you are French. The vocals are backed with circus music and Ben Hur soundtrack music played at the wrong speed. It sucks.
Thankfully the album gets much better after the lousy opener & continues without any more stinkers.
I liked it overall & exploring a little of their back catalog they seem to get better down the road.
Vive la différence or something. I guess.
Arcade Fire
3/5
Some arena ready indie rock with some pretty orchestral instrumentation, some serviceable singing with no doubt some life affirming lyrics had I bothered to listen closely to what was being sang but for better or worse the voices just became another instrument pretty quickly into Funeral.
Talent abounds of that you can be certain and if you like this sort of thing no doubt you'll fall in love with funeral. I'm just not a big fan of indie rock and probably only like around a dozen bands (Pavement, Guided By Voices, Yo La Tengo, Dinosaur Jr, etc.) if that.
So, there you have it.
Funeral is not the kind of album that many people are likely to hate, and I don't even dislike it much less hate it, but I know I will likely never hear Funeral again but give it a chance it might be a defining moment of your fast fading youth.
Nas
5/5
One of the greatest hip hop debuts of all time... 'nuff said!
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
Twee chamber pop that starts strong and ends strong with 'Judy and the Dream Horses' with some tasty Burt Bacharach-ish horns but between the first and last song is a lot of songs that vary very little in overall feel and quality which is quite high but much too similar to each other.
Belle And Sebastian are a band that I could never fully dismiss nor embrace & this album is exactly why- song after song, album after album it all just melts together, blends together and as pretty as the music on this album is (and pretty much every album because they don't change a great deal from album to album) it just old.
If this was a one-off side project by some unknown group of musicians, I would rate it a 4/5 maybe even a 5/5 if I was feeling sinister but this band has some 12 albums out. That's close to THREE DECADES of the same precious shit and I'm so very tired.
A sincere fuck off/you to the always frustrating 1001 list for including TWO ALBUMS by Belle and Sebastian. Assholes the lot of you.
Jack White
4/5
A concept album about women or rather about the differences between men and women it both celebrates those differences, gets lost in those differences and ultimately rises like a phoenix because of those differences not in spite of.
Blunderbuss is overall as strong as the bulk of his previous band's recorded work. A couple albums by The White Stripes (his previous band) are better than Blunderbuss and one isn't as good as Blunderbuss, but the bulk of Blunderbuss is as steady on its feet as anything The White Stripes ever did.
Regardless of the common theme in most of the songs (women) Blunderbuss feels more like a collection of singles than an album which works (surprisingly) to his favor in making it a more interesting album with it wildly inconsistent production styles- no two songs sound like they were recorded in the same studio much less the same session something that would weaken albums by a whole bunch of recording acts but does nothing but serve White's vision/studio wizardry beautifully.
A solid debut solo album that betters anything by two of his bands (The Raconteurs, Dead Weather) and is only bettered by two albums by his first band (The White Stripes) White sounds excited for the future and that excitement is palpable in all 13 tracks found on Blunderbuss.
Jacques Brel
5/5
Dès que j'entends Brel, j'ai les larmes aux yeux, larmes de rubis, rouges comme le sang, qu'il fait battre à tout rompre dans mes veines, larmes de cristal comme la pureté à l'état brut que me provoquent chacun de ses mots , larmes de pluie comme la nostalgie qu'il me communique.
Il ne chante pas, il habite chez ses chansons.
Ses chansons qui me font tourner la tête, qui me font danser qui me font voler.
Tristes, gaies ou désabusées ,dès qu'il ouvre la bouche, je vois des perles, des diamants s'échapper de ses lèvres.
Qu'il évoque la vie ordinaire et elle devient sacrée, les grands sentiments chantés par lui se parent d'atours précieux qui seuls vivent dans un univers onirique, dans de fastueuses chimères.
La banalité des vies qu'il dépeint devient au contact de sa voix, une fresque... Cet homme est le seul à nous offrir des tableaux dignes d'un grand maître.
Amsterdam, ses bas fonds, ses marins qui dégueulent ,grâce à son phrasé brut et élégant à sa véracité, à son mystère,toute laideur est effacée et laisse place à un grand spectacle émouvant, qui nous secoue les tripes, nous fait trembler de bonheur.
" Ces gens là" du haut de leurs belle assurance frappent à ma porte, je les entends, je les vois, rigides et menaçants.
Brel chante et sa voix bouleverse toutes mes certitudes.
"ne me quitte pas " "quand on n'a que l'amour " comment ne pas être submergés d'émotions si intenses, extrasensorielles, qu'elles font mal! et comblent d' euphorie à la fois, nos sens à fleur de peau.
On peut les écouter les réécouter à l'infini grâce à cet alchimiste, on revisite chacune d'entres elles comme à la première fois. Brel n'est pas mort,
Il habite toujours dans la rue de ses chansons... Les jours d'été quand les persiennes s'entrouvrent, au détour d'une ruelle, d'un jardin, la voix du grand Jacques s'élève pour ceux qui l'ont tant aimé...
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
Ocean Rain sounds like it was released last Friday or next year, which is to say it sounds as modern as modern gets.
Flawless production. Tasty guitar playing by Will Sargeant, passionate vocals by Ian McCulloch, solid drumming by Pete de Freitas and distinctive bass by Les Pattinson.
The music really sounds like the iconic cover art.
Ocean Rain belongs in every post punk fan's collection as does everything else they released in the 1980s including Ian McCulloch's solo debut from 1989.
Marianne Faithfull
4/5
When Marianne Faithful released her first single in 1964 a song called 'As Tears Go By' written by Mick Jaggar (her soon to be lover) she was an ethereal looking 17-year-old golden-haired, fresh-faced schoolgirl.
By 1970 Mick & her were separated both her music & movie career were at a standstill. She would record a handful of singles, act in a handful of movies and get lost in the dark blur that is heavy drug use, homelessness & mental issue.
In 1980 she released Broken English looking/sounding completely different than she did just a decade earlier her voice a hoarse mess due to endless cigarettes, whiskey and health issues. It was a shocking reinvention that somehow worked.
Broken English with it's at times gritty confessional lyrics backed with loungey/new wave/punk-ish music put her back on the map where she stayed until her death earlier this year. So long, Marianne.
I much prefer her 1960s work in fact the first time I heard this album few years ago I HATED IT I wanted the pretty songbird that I could relate to not this messed up looking lady looking like death warmed over & singing about nodding off while giving head.
Years later (today) I heard Broken English again & I liked it a great deal more- it made sense.
N.W.A.
5/5
The most important American work on race relations since John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me from 1961. One of very few albums (the only one?) on the 1001 list that will be required listening in all places of higher learning hundreds of years after everyone reading these words is long gone.
Besides being a definitive work on race relations it's a striking work of protest art that goes toe to toe with Bob Dylan's very best work (who BTW is a big fan of the album since its initial release) angry as all fuck, soul sobering and sadly more relevant today than when it first came out in 1989.
Sure, it's often ugly, misogynistic, explosive and disjointed but given the subject matter how could it not be?
David Ackles
5/5
Sometimes extremely talented people don't find an audience. David Ackles is one of those people.
Even signed to a major label (Elektra for the first 3 albums and Columbia for his fourth and final album) and having his first three albums well promoted (Five & Dime his fourth and final album was not promoted well if at all) he only managed to chart one album when American Gothic charted at 167 on the Billboard 200.
Listening to American Gothic repeatedly today it's easy to see why he didn't. This is a strange album. Brilliant. Sad. Self-indulgent. Intense. Gloomy. Beautiful and feels more like found art in the sense that it feels like it was never recorded, one day it just existed.
What does it sound like? Singer songwriter stuff with Americana in the case of American Gothic. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits & Elvis Costello all sound influenced (sometimes deeply so) by Ackles' voice and/or writing style.
The ONLY influence I can hear on American Gothic is Kurt Weill and the like.
It's a great album and so far, the absolute best discovery I have made because of the 1001 list-for the record
Fifty plus years after his first release David Ackles has yet to find much of an audience. How two major labels didn't see that there simply wasn't an audience for this strange one-of-a-kind music (and that there never would be one) is mind boggling and a wonderful unintended gift for anyone with a profound love for rich, sad, forever timeless impenetrable music. Thanx you deaf devils!
File Under: What were they thinking.
Underworld
4/5
A fun electronica album. Some songs make me want to dance & some make me want to lay back & get lost in the pretty.
This is very likely the genre I knew the least about on the 1001 list when I first started this project and so far, I like it more than I thought I would while still not knowing much about it.
I'm looking forward to more electronic music and wondering if there are any 5/5 albums in the genre.
Pink Floyd
5/5
Roger Water's The Wall featuring Pink Floyd. Would have been a more accurate certainly a more honest title for this double album released under the Pink Floyd moniker but for obvious reasons it's not.
Regardless it's the best work ever released by Pink Floyd, Roger Waters or any member of Pink Floyd which of course means it's one of the greatest Rock albums in the history of the genre.
It very much feels like a swan song and for Roger Waters who left after the next album (The Final Cut) a sort of prequel/epilogue to The Wall that was largely written by Roger Waters and Roger Waters alone during (for the most part) The Wall sessions The Final Cut is made up of songs that were not deemed good enough for The Wall by everyone except Roger Waters who had to bite the bullet as there simply wasn't any room to include any more songs on The Wall. Thank God!
So off goes Roger Waters on at best a mediocre album (The Final Cut) instead of exiting the band after the tour for The Wall and saving face but I digress.
The Wall is a crushingly brilliant cinematic album that often feels much like a Shakespearean tragedy.
It's about a rock star (Waters, a bit of Barret) who wants to build a wall between himself and his audience, an audience he's grown to despise - things would come to a boiling point on a tour date during the 1977 'In the Flesh' tour when Roger Waters spit on the face of a fan in the front row for essentially having too much fun.
Roger Waters begin writing The Wall immediately after the spatting incident - that very night by some accounts.
The Wall is also about the cost of war a steep price that would include the loss of his father during the second world war. It's about how some loses are forever. It's by far Pink Floyd's heaviest album and lacks the escapism of Dark Side of the Moon which isn't to say that the Dark Side of the Moon was easy listening by any means, but it absolutely had moments of sheer escapism which The Wall was entirely devoid of.
The Wall is not the most enjoyable Pink Floyd album. It can be relentless and overwhelming- it's a deep dive into Roger Water's state of mind during the late 1970s- its Roger Water's ego show on full display, sometimes fragile and resigned other times controlling and angry, some songs full of piss and vinegar other songs almost dirge like in mood- the clearly spent ramblings of a mentally broken man.
Pink Floyd would never top The Wall they would arguably never even release another good much less great album after The Wall.
Whatever creativity was left (and you had to look long and hard for any) Roger Waters took with him after gathering the leftovers from The Wall sessions adding a couple newish songs & embarrassedly releasing it as an official Pink Floyd album when those songs SOME OF THOSE SONGS should have been saved for extras on a future box set- more curiosities for the obsessive superfan than material for a proper new album by a band who once held themselves to such high standards during the first 15 or so years of the band's career/existence.
Everything worth a fuck about Pink Floyd ended with The Wall, make no mistake there but for whatever reason(s) in one way or another all (save Roger Waters) the members of this once great band were too stupid, too greedy, too scared, too fat, too human to know when to pack it in once & for all.
Dead band walking.
Kate Bush
5/5
The Dreaming - Kate Bush
Another perfect album by the ever-ethereal Kate Bush. So dreamy, pretty & trippy. *swoons*
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
Probably Elvis Costello's best album.
It contains one of the greatest singles ever released (Pump it Up), the production work by Nick Lowe (who should be on this bloody 1001 list) is flawless resulting in an album that will forever sound in all ways relevant with one foot in the past and one in the future- to busy observing to bother with the present.
This Year's Model is one of those albums that you play again as soon as it ends because you are left in a state of disbelief at just how one album can be this life changing great.
One of those albums that gets better with each listen- a mind-blowing thing considering that it sounded absolutely essential from first listen.
OF NOTE:
This review is for the UK edition of 'This Year's Model' ALL other versions are inferior and should be destroyed.
50 Cent
2/5
You know the drill. Some clever rhymes, lots of filler, some great beats mixed in with a lot of pedestrian ones, yup.
It's a big early 2000s event album. It outstays its welcome well before the midway point. There is nothing all that bad about Get Rich or Die Tryin' and absolutely nothing worth a second listen.
It sounds like how 50 Cent looks on the album cover. Big, dumb, shiny, dated, hard and hard up.
Ultimately a pointless way to start my day.
Arctic Monkeys
5/5
Four young lads on an endless number of uppers, Carlings, pie, mash & liquor are released in the studio and record an infectious rock album about clubbing culture in the northern part of England.
The album with the long title contains 13 catchy songs of earworm sonic brilliance hot sharp shit buzzcocked by who & what not.
It's met with great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. You know the rest.
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not feels both essential and at once forgettable much like life does when you're young.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
5/5
Sex, Dope and Cheap Thrills was to be the original title, but Columbia records took issue with the album title & it was shortened to Cheap Thrills.
The cover art one of the most iconic in rock history was done by underground comix living legend, Mr. Robert Crumb. Rarely has an album cover captured the music within so perfectly.
And what of the album? Hard blues acid rock with big bombastic cooking vocals by Janis Joplin (who joined Big Brother the previous year) backed by Big Brother and the Holding Company at their ever loving prime. Essential stuff!
Get it before it gets you!
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
3/5
3 stars if I'm just listening at home. It's interesting, fun & a little too long.
4 stars if I'm dancing after a couple martinis.
Location, location, location.
The Strokes
4/5
Dumb they made them switch (at least for the American market) the gorgeous cover above for the absolute crap one they had to use- it's so bad!
Is This It is a very good album with endless obvious influences (a Where's Waldo game to be had here... did they nick that from Television or V.U. ?) a super east coast band/sound it could not have been made/raised anywhere else but New York.
I usually check out some other records for bands I review 4/5 or higher but as good as Is This It is I'm already tired of The Strokes TBH so I doubt I'll ever hear anything else by them- few records have a stronger 'I Heard it all before' vibe than this album.
Kraftwerk
5/5
People in 2125 will LOVE this album! Maybe as much as I love it circa now!
Deep Purple
5/5
Deep Purple's 'In Rock' came out in 1970 by all accounts a very heavy year.
Black Sabbath (who released their S/T album AND Paranoid!), Uriah Heep, Led Zeppelin & Bloodrock all landing or taking off in 1970 sometimes simultaneously - heavy metal was here.
All the above-mentioned bands (plus others not mentioned) would get louder and louder as the 1970s went on but 1970 was the birth of heavy metal and Deep Purple was one of the originators of this new genre that barely had a name- In Rock is proof of their importance to Heavy Metal and much more importantly to my ears - it rocked and it rolled over everything and everyone not holding on tight.
One of the greatest bands of all time in any genre.
U2
4/5
U2 reinvent themselves after breaking/discovering America. They are now the house band in the Blade Runner universe, it's raining- it's always raining in this fucking town, isn't?
Cats, dogs, piss, tears, spit, water-based lube it's coming down in buckets. No men. It's not raining men. Fuck me. I pout. I take one last drag before the rain finishes it off.
I throw my half-finished cigarette in a puddle of shit brown water.
Some young man comes out of some club with a corny name like 'On the Edge of Forever' I hear; 'She Moves in Mysterious Ways' playing for a second. I walk towards the club. I pull on the heavy door- it pulls back.
Once in I get lost forever at least that's what I want them to think.
The Who
5/5
The greatest live album ever recorded. The End. Review kept short so you can stop reading about great music & go listen to some. One million words would fail to describe how essential this album is.
Primal Scream
4/5
Throbbing Gristle
5/5
One of the best albums on the list. It's also an album that is extremely easy to understand why it's so widely disliked- I have a very difficult time understanding why I do like it so much other than when I listen to it, I feel like I'm in the presence of great art.
It also makes me feel a certain way that is exclusive to when I listen to this album.
Such a strange perfect album.
To me it's impossible to know who would like this album so I never recommend it to anyone.
I have never heard something that is so disturbing (at least in parts) yet so beautiful (at least in parts) and I doubt I ever will.
From the creepy album cover (why is that little girl posed like that on a bed?) through the end of Blood on the Floor (the closing track) this album seems to have been made for no one but the band members.
At least hear 'Hamburger Lady' a standout track in all regards.
Well, that's it. My half ass review and I'm not at all pleased with it but if this album is difficult to listen to its 23 hundred times harder to write about.
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle -Throbbing Gristle
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle -Throbbing Gristle
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle -Throbbing Gristle
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle -Throbbing Gristle
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle -Throbbing Gristle
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle -Throbbing Gristle
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle -Throbbing Gristle
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle -Throbbing Gristle
Moby
1/5
A droll, daft and deft album by the second most hated bald artist of the 1990s.
Weather Report
2/5
Heavy Weather is overflowing with talent sometimes great talent as in the case of Jaco Pastorrius. It's an exceptionally well played boring jazz fusion album released in 1977 a couple years past the era (late 1960s to the mid 1970s) that the few jazz fusion albums (by the likes of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, etc.) that I enjoy, sometimes greatly, were released.
This album feels like arriving late to a great party that is winding down. There is enough there to tell that it was a night to remember but the snores of the passed-out people just makes you want to leave so you stick around for just over 30 minutes, you make small talk, you nurse some cocktail that you really don't need and you leave.
Come Monday morning you won't even remember being there.
Roxy Music
4/5
The two girls on the cover are the sister (white bikini) and girlfriend (black bikini) of Can's Michael Karoli.
It captures the mood and style of 'Country Life' as perfectly as any cover ever has- it's almost a certainty that the way you feel about the album cover you will feel about the music on the album.
The lead vocals are absolutely perfect; Bryan Ferry sounds effortlessly sophisticated and both ahead and behind his time. The music predicts both punk and new wave and frankly sounds positively alien.
I remember first seeing this album when I was around 11/12 and being fascinated by the two girls on the cover and asking my dad if I was going to look like them someday. "We'll see." he said SPOILER I did not grow up to have a positively perfect body but also my face looks nothing like Michael Karoli's girlfriend's (girl with the black bikini bottom) face and for that I'm grateful as I always found her face (★★⯪) a tiny bit off.
On first listen Country Life sounds flawless but after a few spins it clearly isn't a perfect album but it's awfully close.
PJ Harvey
2/5
The music isn't bad, but I really disliked her vocals. I cringed & recoiled when I heard the title track. I love how my living room sounded after the 12th and final track ended. Silence can be a beautiful thing that should be broken sometimes - but not for stuff like this.
Simply put the state of the room was better before 'Let England Shake' started playing at which time the room became loud and unwelcoming, suddenly smaller - after 'Let England Shake' ended the state of the room was better than ever as I took in little sounds that I had paid no attention to in far too long.
Enjoy the silence or in my case Taylor Swift's brilliant new album.
Kendrick Lamar
2/5
An interesting experimental hip hop jazz/soul-ish album that I found hard to relate to & a little too long at almost 80 minutes. It certainly outstays it's welcome. Trimmed to 40 minutes this album would have gotten a higher grade at least from me.
Nothing all that bad to say about this album and some of the music is incredible but a lot more is just really boring.
It likely deserves more than the two stars I'm giving it but seeing how I'm unlikely to ever hear it again that's as high as I can go.
Duran Duran
4/5
What else did Rio do besides dance on the sand? To find out we sat down with the It Girl of 1981.
Rio is no longer the 19-year-old wunderkind she once was- she walked her last catwalk long before most of you watching today's show were even born but she's still a bird of paradise and that cherry ice cream smile is still able to start and end wars.
"Ladies and germs let's give Rio a warm welcome!"
*crowd roars*
"Welcome Rio! Look at you shine!"
Thank you so much it's wonderful being here! *waves at crowd*
"Let's get right into it, Rio!"
Lets! *crowd roars once again, Rio waves once again*
'My Own Way' was it written by Simon Le Bon about the end of his relationship with you?
It was. Very much so. Simon didn't talk about how he felt in those days, so he wrote songs for better or worse- this one was about the two of us when we stopped being us.
"How about I name a few songs in rapid succession, and you tell us what comes to mind after all these decades?"
Wonderful. Fire away, chica! *crowd roars*
Clears throat, "Lonely in your Nightmare"
Being your worst enemy and the isolation that comes with one too many bad choices.
"Hungry Like the Wolf"
Feeding time with the fab five.
"Hold Back the Rain"
A little saying Nick Rhodes had when he thought I was about to cry.
"New Religion"
It was a new decade, and sex was the new religion. We all went to church often in those days. More often than not altogether.
"Last Chance on the Stairway"
No comment.
"Save a Prayer"
Grace under pressure. Too much cocaine. Making amends via blowjobs and anal sex. God, of course.
"The Chauffer"
The code/nick name for the solve all solution in the early 1980s.
"Thank you, Rio for spending part of your morning with us!
Thank you for having me chica!
"Doesn't she still shine brighter than a thousand suns? *crowd roars* well you heard it here first as always! See you tomorrow! Kisses, kisses!"
Crowd roars. Credits roll. Rio leaves the building.
Rio was originally released on the 10th of May 1982.
The Jam
5/5
Start!
Working class anger hadn't sounded this good since Woody Guthrie which isn't to say Sound Affects is only about class struggle (youth culture was always at the forefront with Paul Weller & Co.) and the like but some of it most certainly is.
Maybe The Jam's magnum opus or maybe just another brilliant album something the lads were masters at pumping out- album after album, single after single (the occasional EP too!) in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
The Jam were one of the essential trios in music history. As good as any and for my money better than all others. No small feat considering how many great trios there are and have been, Rush & the Jimi Hendrix Experience being near the top as well as Cream and a little band called Nirvana not to mention Run DMC and those Beastie young men.
And don't forget UFO all lights out and full-on heavy petting obsession.
The almost comforting smell of burning oil from 100 Vespas while this album played over and over at some scooter rally will always remind me of being 15 sitting pretty on the back of a Primavera sipping a much too strong expresso because Purple Hearts scared me more than college boys (who should have known better but what a buzz that they didn't) ever did.
That's entertainment.
Nick Drake
4/5
I said all I wanted to say about Nick Drake last time THAT said this album features one of his best loved songs 'River Man' and a personal favorite of mine called 'Way to Blue' OK I'm all draked out, LOL
P.S.
I read a great biography on Nick Drake since the last album, Nick Drake: The Life by Richard Morton Jack. It covers everything (it's a long one!) and has endless photos of the handsome Nick Drake.
Richard Hawley
4/5
It was exciting getting an album today that I had not heard of even in passing. I had no idea who Richard Hawley was or is. I was half expecting an album of Cole Porter covers which after hearing Coles Corner it would have worked beautifully with Hawley's vocals, vocals that sound like last call at some dive bar around the holidays- resigned, hopeful, weathered and golden.
It's nice to be reminded once in a while why I'm even doing this project- it's for the Richard Hawleys of the world folks with great talent that needs to be heard by more people not so much for their sakes but for us- such talent is good for the world. It enhances the human experience and reminds you with all the bollocks in it - it's still a beautiful place to spend a few decades at.
See you at all Coles Corner- first round is on me.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
About as original as a stroke but a fun, dancey, punky, wirey album that is almost instantly forgettable as to almost inspire a whole new genre in its stubborn irrelevance.
Pavement
5/5
Probably the best American band of the 1990s just don't ask The Fall's Mark E. Smith who considered them a "rip off" of his band's mid 1980s work and was once quoted as saying "They haven’t got an original idea in their heads." while no doubt they were influenced by The Fall they certainly are not a 'Fall Worship Band' and have their own sound- so there, Mr. Smith!
Definitely THE indie rock band of the 20th Century. There are few bands that can tell you everything there is to know about a genre with one album. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is such an album.
Pavement is indie rock, indie rock is pavement. Yeah.
Perfect soundz forever.
Radiohead
4/5
Bon Jovi
4/5
Bon Joni packs nearly every cliche you can think of into one album that runs under 45 minutes. It's sound is big, dumb and a lot of fun. It rocks.
If you were born in North America and are of a certain age, it's likely you were conceived to this album in the back of a Chevy or Ford sometime between the summer of 1986 & the summer of 1988.
If you born in the UK or Australia between the second part of 1987 to the end of the decade same goes for you minus the Chevy or Ford.
He said he would die for you - you smiled and said nothing as you pulled down your Victoria's Secret panties, and he turned up went the music.
Later that night you fed each other French fries, laughing at anything and everything & making big dumb promises to each other. It fucking rocked.
Killing Joke
4/5
This must have sounded insane in 1980. It doesn't remotely sound like anything else that I have ever heard from that year. It still sounds insane in 2025.
It will still sound insane one hundred years from now.
It's a piece of red velvet cake to hear how many bands they influenced. It's easy to understand why so many bands I like cite them as an enormous. influence.
While I did not fall head over heels in love with Killing Joke's debut album (they had released an E.P. the previous year) it's very good and a worthy addition to any collection - I will add a copy to mine next month (November) and will take a deep dive into their back catalog.
As with almost everything in life Dave Grohl has a connection with Killing Joke. From being a huge fan to joining the band & releasing a well-received album with them some 20 years ago.
I DESPISE that idiot saying "living the dream" but Dave Grohl really seems to be living his Rock N Roll fantasy!
How big of a Dave Grohl fan are you BTW?
Earth, Wind & Fire
5/5
THIS hits the spot this Monday morning! It makes me just want to have sex and dance all day! SUPER FUN! I had only heard a couple songs by this band before today and knew the name of course but I had never heard a whole album, and MY GOD was I missing out!
Funk. Check! Soul. Check! Rock. Check! Africano. Check! Groovy. Check, baby, CHECK!
I just ordered a copy of That's the Way of the World on blue vinyl and will take a deep dive all week into their back catalog.
I guess there is also a movie that uses this album as a soundtrack that I have never heard of but will look into today.
Albums like this make all the bumps on the road of The 1001 Albums Journey worthwhile as it's highly unlikely I would have ever discovered this gem on my own.
Bring on the day!
Scritti Politti
2/5
Synth new wave art pop with a singer that sound like a Temu version of Michael Jackson & music that occasionally amuses but mostly just bores.
Some interesting stuff going on here but not enough to raise it above a 2/5.
One of the most dated albums on the 1001 list.
Calexico
3/5
I heard this album a bunch of times before!
When I was in high school, I dated this man who would play this album in his car all the time and I mean all the time!
The song 'Not Even Stevie Nicks...' would sound good on the radio between something by Gram Parson & Grandaddy.
I pretty much feel about this album the same I feel about that man who seemed to only own one CD. Pretty good, some nice ways to kill time, not without gifts and nothing bad to say but a bit samey all around so I would sooner or later trade it in at the record shop in Berkeley & get a boyfriend with a bigger album collection.
We never got together again, and I never heard Feast of Wine again until this morning.
Willie Nelson
5/5
Where does one even begin with what is almost certainly the greatest country album ever made?
Not here. Whatever I say, however eloquently I say it- it will not do this work of art justice. A critic once called it the SGT PEPPERS of Country music & it very much is.
If you have ANY love for country music IF you have any love for America (John Ford's America or otherwise) IF you like I think that love and hate are a lot more similar than we would like to believe HEAR THIS ALBUM it goes toe to toe with the greatest of American literature- Steinback, Hemingway, Faulkner, the whole lot.
This is the kind of art that hurts. It makes you feel as alive as any work of art ever will- warts and all. It might not be the prettiest of paper but my God it hurts so good to see things so starkly, so bullshit free.
Ray Charles
2/5
Bombastic and schmaltzy The Genius of Ray Charles is short on genius and long on undistinguished often way too loud big band/swing arrangements that say little but says it loud AF seemingly as a sort of disguise for how second rate the messy production is.
So, what's good?
Not much. When Charles just plays his piano and sings things are good sometimes very good, but the bloody production always rears its big loud ugly head and every time the production is confused on how best to handle a powerhouse like Charles it simply gets LOUD convinced that LOUD equals powerful & impactful when in this case it never does and nothing on The Genius of Ray Charles rarely goes above serviceable even the string of ballads that end the album are victims of too many cooks in the kitchen each one more inept than the other.
Ray Charles has a great voice & is a skilled soulful piano player but if this is your introduction to Mr. Charles- well good luck hearing either among the schlock production.
I would like to take a moment to thank the assholes at Atlantic Records for the booming headache I now have.
To Robert Dimery. You could have thrown us a crumb and included the vastly superior Ray Charles album 'Live at Newport' a record that easily rates 5/5.
The Lemonheads
5/5
An album of catchy jangle rocky pop music a little punkish at times & a little countryish at other times or however you word it.
Every song is the absolute perfect length & never goes even a few seconds over what it needs to be. The whole album is under 30 minutes long which of course means you can hear twice in one hour which is what I did.
It's a Shame About Ray has a sunny sadness about it in just about every track it reminds me of the feeling I got when I first heard Pet Sounds which is not to say it's even half as good as Pet Sounds even if it's a 5/5 album which is probably a pretty unfair to even bring up Pet Sounds as let's face it most albums in sound second rate compared to Pet Sounds even great ones & make no mistake It's a Shame about Ray is a great album in all ways.
So, yeah, even when the music is all happy and pretty there is always a sense that it's a fragile kind of happiness and that things might not be this good for all that long in that sense it reminds me of Neutral Milk Hotel's Aeroplane Over the Sea & Lou Reed's Berlin.
I have listened to this album probably 100 times in the decade since I first discovered it and I still find myself thinking out loud, "this is really great stuff." it perfectly captures that magic time in your life that will make you smile on your death bed and maybe softly mumble "rosebud" as the lights go out.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
I'm not Lester Bangs.
This is a powerhouse of an album. It's absolutely essential in all ways. Saying it's a 5/5 album (which it is) is not good enough and I'm simply not erudite enough of a writer to do it justice. I tried and it's vastly frustrating how short I came up in my first two reviews (yup this is my third attempt) this is why we need critics with an astonishing depth of knowledge and the kind of articulate phrasing that the average layman (that would be you & me) simply doesn't have.
My dumbass is simply not well enough educated to be able to express myself properly & it sucks and frustrates the ever-loving poop out of me.
So, I'll just list some Fun Facts about this masterpiece and accept that I simply don't have the words to express how great art (and make no mistake this is great art) can be so spiritually healing, how this album feels like a warm hug that you didn't even know needed but by God it feels so good.
Four Fun Facts!
A Five Album Run of Sheer Greatness.
1.) Songs in the Key of Life has been regarded by music journalists as the culmination of Wonder's "classic period" of recording which began in 1972 with Music of My Mind followed by Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale. That's a 5-album run of sheer greatness that only a handful of recording artists have ever equaled and even fewer have surpassed- The Beatles are the only ones that come to mind at once.
Even Pantera's front man is a fan.
2.) Its importance has also been recognized musicians in genres with singer Phil Anselmo describing a live performance of Songs in the Key of Life as "a living, breathing miracle" and Kanye West has stated in so many words that his ultimate artistic dream is to top Songs in the Key of Life.
The Waiting Game before the Internet.
3) There was huge anticipation for Songs in the Key of Life, which was initially scheduled for release around October 1975. It was delayed on short notice for just over a year when Wonder (ever the perfectionist) felt that further remixing was essential. According to him, Motown's marketing campaign decided to take advantage of the delay by producing "We're almost finished" T-shirts.
Almost out Macs Fleetwood Mac.
4.) Songs in the Key of Life is almost as good as Rumours (an album that was released around the same time as Songs in the Key of Life) IMO and by almost, I mean just about neck and neck with Rumours coming out on top by a nose- if that.
Aftermath:
OK, that's all I got. I will say that I have never taken so long writing a review before and with Fall falling forward by an hour today I feel like I've been at it since very early this morning.
One of the few albums that lives up to the 1001 project's namesake so listen to it, give it your full attention and know that as perfect as a first listen as it is this album somehow somewhat uncannily just gets better with each listen- this is an album I have been hearing half my life and I can honestly say it has never sounded better than today.
The Pogues
5/5
"Will the Real Leopold Bloom Please Stand Up?" Feminist women love James Joyce "Chicka-chicka-chicka, Leopold Bloom, I'm sick of him Look at him, walkin' around, grabbin' his you-know-what Flippin' the you-know-who", "Yeah, but he's so cute though" Yeah, I probably got a couple of screws up...
Ireland sober is Ireland stiff. - James Joyce
The Pogues are one of my favorite things to come out of Ireland since James Joyce & Thin Lizzy.
I really wanted to write this review in the style of Ulysses but that would have taken AT LEAST 2 hours MAYBE 3 & I just don't have that sort of time today, but I will likely go back & edit this review of sorts in the near future & get all straight out of Eccles Street on all you wanna be Leopold Blooms.
Well seeing how there is still only 24 hours in a day I will end this brief collection of notes to myself with one of my favorite quotes that I long ago memorized in my soul and sometime later in my mind.
You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman. - James Joyce
Pere Ubu
2/5
So, this is the band that Dave Thomas formed after his former band Rocket from the Tombs broke up. I had no idea. What a mind fuck since I have been a pretty big Rocket from the Tombs fan for the past decade. Anyways...
How much you will like, or dislike Dub Housing will largely depend on how much you like or how well you can tolerate the late great Dave Thomas' (he passed in 2025) vocals. They are pretty different they were in Rocket from the Tombs and are often little more than intrusive with their main character vibe and a self-awareness that borders on dadaism.
While the music is often brilliant none of the tracks with vocals can overcome the sheer annoyance that the vocals bring to mix. I wish this was an instrumental album. I would play it a lot and rate it a 4/5 maybe even a 5/5 but all things considered Dub Housing is never higher than a 2/5 and it's only because the music is so very good (most of the time) that I can even muster a less than enthusiastic 2/5.
Buffalo Springfield
5/5
Even while falling apart and often being a band in name only Buffalo Springfield managed to release an essential psychedelic album. One of the best released during the 20th century's most creative decade.
Get or get!
Dizzee Rascal
5/5
One of the UK's greatest contributions to the arts in the last quarter century.
Neil Young
5/5
Scene: It's the summer of 1974. Richard Nixon is not having a good year. The 1960s are finally starting to feel like a memory and punk is around the corner.
The parties at Laurel Canyon are ending earlier and earlier each night- some nights the ladies no longer come. Some nights still feel like a revolution but mostly they don't.
This album feels like a hangover. This is the sound of Neil Young paying in blood for his recently found success. This is the sound of how acceptance feels like to someone who has long been on a first name basis with alienation.
It's a mellow, druggy, fucked up, resigned valentine that is saying goodbye to a disintegrating relationship and in many ways to the Neil Young of old.
It's a birth. It's a death. It's a phoenix on honey slides*
If not Neil Young's best album it's certainly his most vulnerable- never would the mask be off for this long again nor would Young be this emotionally raw, nihilistic & artistically speaking - on such solid ground.
* a homemade concoction dubbed "honey slides", a goop of sauteed marijuana and honey that "felt like heroin" according to Neil Young & company.
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
The most expensive album ever made (well over 6 million dollars in 2025 money) over a million dollars - that's A LOT of cocaine!
Nope. It's not as good as Rumours. It's not even half as good but it's still a 5/5 album perfectly imperfect. During its best moments it's as good (and frankly better) than just about anything that came out in 1979 and during its stumbles it's the sound of a band doing it all for the art. Rumours Pt 2 this is not.
Tusk marks the end of Fleetwood Mac as a creative force to be reckoned with -after one of the greatest three album runs in history Fleetwood Mac was racing towards total artistic irrelevance that they would reach with Behind the Mask after a decade of album after album of serviceable shit with a few gems thrown in out of Buckingham's need to let you know that HIS (Fleetwood Mac, my ass) band could still deliver the gold when he wanted them to as easily as he could have them deliver the rusted half-assed, half-finished songs found on stuff like Tango in the Night
By the time they returned in 1982 with 'Mirage' they would be in a creative slump that would last for the rest of their recording career but in 1979 they would blow all their post punk influences out of the water with only a handful of their contemporaries (Pink Floyd, AD DC, etc.) providing any real creative competition and with only The Wall by Pink Floyd bettering it by a bit- just a little bit.
It must fuck with your head to realize that just a decade later you would be releasing utter dreck like Behind the Mask that would be devoid of even a single song worthy of being played more than once.
Poor Stevie! How tusked up!
Miles Davis
5/5
I'm sick of this album.
I have heard it hundreds of times since I was 10 or 11 (or about that age) I was a strange child & would play it all the time even if I had thousands of other albums I could hear (my dad's collection is MASSIVE) at any given time- last time I played this album is last year when my dad gifted me a copy on blue vinyl.
Anyways, it's GREAT as good as everyone says maybe better, if you only own one jazz album let it be this one. It will do things to your heart, soul and mind (even body) that only the absolute greatest art can do NO ONE should die before hearing this music that honestly feels at times not even of this world.
OK that's all I got this morning. Drank too much coffee & I feel a bit hyper.
I think I'll play it again when I turn 30.
Mark the date! ;)
The Smiths
5/5
Steven Patrick Morrissey fixes his considerable ire against modern society and the broader human condition in the morbidly accurate, delightfully witty Meat is Murder, an abstract road trip to nowhere fast in Thatcher's England that finds the enfant terrible in peak form.
What an album.
File it with the great second albums in history- no sophomore slump here. Nine perfect songs- that's NINE masterpieces in a row which makes for a dizzying experience that might leave you asking, 'how is this so absolutely magnificent?' as you push play for the fourth time on this fine day & make no mistake if you are able to just lay back, close your eyes & get lost (and found & lost again) in this grand work it very much is a fine day.
Dangerously good.
Patti Smith
3/5
She does an absolutely brilliant cover of The Who's My Generation (on the Legacy Edition CD, it was originally a B side on the 7" of Gloria) that had me replaying the second it ended-loved it!
The album proper is pretty good but not sure how likely I'm to ever hear it again nothing wrong with it, but I found it a little boring.
Some say it's the first punk album, but it doesn't sound punk to me when I think of punk I think of Ramones, Sex Pistols, UK Subs, Black Flag, etc. this to me sounds like singer/song writer stuff just a bit angrier.
I get why it's such a highly regarded album, but I prefer listening to Cradle of Filth's cover of Allison Hell off a fairly recent COF album that is a complete return to form & is up there with all the early albums- if you ever liked COF check out stuff like Cryptoriana to this year's The Screaming of Valkyries- what a late career (mid career? Isn't Dani like 50?) delight!
John Cale (of The Velvet Underground) produced Horses I guess he & Patti Smith butted heads a lot and a member of her group almost got in a fist fight with.
Also, one man from Blue Oyster Cult (Lanier) and one man from Television (Verlaine) appear on the album.
Suede
2/5
I like the first Suede album (this is their second LP) quite a bit and while this the follow up album is decent enough it's also pretty boring to my ears. Fine as background music and some interesting things going on in a few songs but not something I will ever revisit again.
Machito
4/5
FUN!
Lauryn Hill
1/5
Long & tedious. I struggled to finish this one, but I will certainly not struggle to completely forget that it even exists by supper time.
I want peach cobbler for dessert.
Massive Attack
3/5
A lot of Protection sounds like the soundtrack to some future film that will be released in 2040. None of it sounds of its time- this album could be released next Friday and be hailed as the future sound of London.
Each track sounds like a little story. Some more interesting than the others but none are forgettable.
Ending the album with a cover of The Doors 'Light My Fire' does the album no favors but it's easy to just skip it.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
5/5
Alexandre Spence was recording the follow up to Moby Grape's debut album with his band mates when he started threatening to kill them with a fire axe, so he got committed to an insane asylum where her wrote something like 30 songs in the six months that he was a patient.
Once released he recorded the 12 songs on the album in a week using a 3-track recorder (!!!) he played all the instruments.
About those 12 songs.
Lo Fi psychedelia mixed with folk, sometimes folk rock & the kitchen sink. Often the lyrics/singing are hard to understand and when you do, they are often nonsensical and at least partly mumbled when sang.
It's a weird album.
Oar could be the soundtrack to every mental illness in the book. In some songs you call feel his sanity just leaking away, it's sad and can be a very difficult listen it's also brilliant and entirely unique.
I have owned a copy of Oar for around 7 years and have heard it around ten times (11 today) as it always leaves me feeling some kind of way.
That Columbia Records choose to release Oar is passing strange to me NO ONE could have thought this was going to be embraced by any large audience & of course it wasn't - it became Columbia Records poorest selling album in its history to the surprise of nobody but maybe Alexander Spence.
Who knows.
Easily one of the best albums on the 1001 list but be warned it's not an easy listen, its often unsettling going from pretty & introspective one minute to sheer full blown chaos the next.
The various special editions of Oar released over the years more than double the albums length and are every bit as good as what made the final cut.
Radiohead
4/5
Dystopian art rock done right. Leaps better than their previous album (Pablo Honey) Radiohead would keep the musical innovation going with their next album (OK Computer) not letting up until 2011's slightly disappointing affair The King of Limbs.
I hate the cover art even more than the cover art for Pablo Honey at least with Pablo Honey it was just a stupid baby's face in the middle of a cupcake flower (or whatever that dumb thing was) The Bends shows a yellow man having an orgasm or enjoying his morning poop a little too much (no kink shaming) and it's just an all-around big old "ewwwwww..." to my eyes.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Bob Dylan is said to have fallen asleep when Joni Mitchell played him her latest album Court and Spark. She was understandingly not pleased but in Dylan's defense the music on Court and Spark did put me in a peaceful state of mind where I could have fallen asleep had I been even a little bit tired, but I had a good sleep last night & I'm well rested.
My eyes are bright, my tail bushy.
This is Mitchell's first album after falling hard for jazz music. She doesn't sound as confident as in her past few albums and I get it as new ground will sometimes have that effect on a girl.
It's a solid album. I do prefer pre-jazz Joni, but this is a solid entry in her catalog and it's easy to see some listeners loving it, but I like it more than I love it and I think this is where I get off as Jazz Joni doesn't work all that great for me but it very well might work beautifully for you and if it does- I completely get even if - even if I don't.
Pixies
5/5
It's weird to me that there are people past a certain age that have not heard Doolittle, but some people are over 30 some are even over 40 and have never had sex or read James Joyce so who's to say anything (?) well me...
It's a flawless inspirational album blah blah blah...
you heard it all before or will, so I have nothing to add but...
1.) Get a hard copy (LP, CD or Tape) play it on a decent sound system (or on a shot shit boombox) it doesn't matter a great deal, really even stream it or play it with a potato.
2.) Lay back close your eyes and listen - do nothing else just listen. Can you do that for 38:38 minutes? This is a pretty girl seating across you. This is Michel Foucault waxing and waning. This is fine art- it demands your full attention.
3.) Get a tattoo on your tit, it should read number 13.
Elvis Presley's self-titled debut. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sex Pistols lone album. Surfer Rosa. Nirvana. Kanye West's Graduation. Black Star. Hear these too while you are at it.
Can
5/5
Tago Mago is the greatest krautrock album ever recorded.
It's Can's "magik record" as Aleister Crowley was an influence on the double album likely a bigger influence than anyone else.
It's a heady mix of psychedelic rock, experimental rock, funk, musique concrète, electronic music and God knows what else but it works beautifully - Tago Mago is not only brilliant but absolutely sounds like nothing else ever recorded and released on a major label.
I could go on and on with all the names of all the artists Tago Mago has influenced but I don't feel like writing out endless names and then still not be complete.
If you have an even passing interest in avant garde music, you need to hear Tago Mago preferably on headphones with no distractions.
The Who
5/5
Even among all the great albums that came out in 1969 The Who's Tommy stands out. The Beatles are my favorite band but in 1969 The Who managed to release a better album than The Beatles THAT is how on fire The Who were in 1969. Insanely good.
I have had few more pleasurable experiences in life than blasting Tommy and/or hearing Tommy through headphones. Try it NOW!
What an amazing journey!
Big Star
5/5
An exceptional album of perfect songs sometimes hauntings, sometimes as comforting as graham crackers and orange slices as a mid-day snack when you were little and the world made some kind of sense, sometimes disarmingly sad...
WAIT...
I'm not going to write anything (nor is anyone else for that matter) that will do #1 Record justice. How does one even begin to put into words (mere words!) what art that so deeply touched your heart and soul means to you much less the world circa 2025?
I love rock criticism- been reading it since I had to ask my dad what half the words meant- just like film criticism it can be an art form in itself but sometimes words don't cut it. At all. Nada.
Works like #1 Record imo are essential parts of the human experience or should be. They humble me as tears run down my face. Everyone should encounter works that you feel to your very core. Works that help you understand how the world can be so very ugly yet so very much worth the effort to carry on and see another day.
Big Star's music fucks me up.
It always has and it always will. When I saw that #1 Record was today's album, I thought to myself ' Big Star! I wonder why I haven't heard this one in so long?' within a few songs I knew the answer-
by God, it just fucks me up in ways that will take me a lifetime to comprehend to any measurable degree, and I very much look forward to every second of this crazy beautiful fuck up we call life.
Hey Chris Bell, I'm the cosmos, too.
Sly & The Family Stone
5/5
“We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us.” — Malcolm X
In the early spring of 1971 Marven Gaye asked, 'What's Going On?' in late 1971 Sly Stone replied with, 'There's A Riot Goin' On.' a dark album informed by drugs, paranoia, pessimism and the harsh reality that the counterculture of the 1960s had failed to make any real changes, that hope was scarce and that things were about to get worse.
'There's A Riot Goin' on' is a great record but it's often not a fun listen - anyone expecting the sunshine funk of 'Everyday People' and/or 'I Want to Take You Higher' were sure to be disappointed and either had to adjust to the New Sly or return the album & stick with past works. Some albums simply don't float. It's all or nothing. Sink or swim.
Sink? What do you mean sink? Swim to where?
I mean c'mon man the summer of love was a troll move by college bros to sleep with underaged girls- get on board or get off not that the Sly Stone of 'Riot' likely cared even a little bit about what you did or didn't do. People were too quick to betray you, and his drugs made better, more loyal company than any family ever did.
The clear-cut stuff from the son of the banker is the most honest motherfucker. You know?
The few songs that lack the pessimism that is all over 'Riot' feel almost forced and performative done to appease Clive Davis and not as a shout of uncontainable joy, love and happiness.
Regardless 'Riot' was and continues to be an essential album of dark psychedelic soul/rock music and the more tense sober funk has little interest in moving your ass, Stand! Pt 2 this is not-it doesn't exist because of people but rather in spite of people.
Maybe the unrest is all in your head? The riot that is going on is not going on in the streets? People talk shit and the Molotov cocktail ignites and after midnight who can even tell the difference, anyways, right?
While nowhere as embraceable as Stand! (1969) or even Life (from 1968) Riot is essential listening for anyone interested in black music, the political climate in black neighborhoods or the citizens that felt a little more fleeced, a little more knocked about than they had just a few short years before.
Against all odds There's A Riot Goin' On is Sly Stone's magnum opus quite the feat considering that it was almost never made.
For better or for worse this is no family affair.
Marty Robbins
5/5
Sometimes the best music is little more than a hoot and Gunfighter Ballads is a hoot and a half.
Even when the subject matter is more serious Gunfighter Ballads is a feel-good album that leaves you in high spirits with a smile on your face - sometimes art has no higher purpose than to keep you company on a cold Monday morning as you drink your first cup of coffee and feel all but certain that it would be a good week because no bad week has ever started with the reassuring music of Marty Robbins.
Happy trails young buck happy trails and lots of luck.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
4/5
'Now I Got Worry' sounds like a live album capturing an intense blood pumping performance by three wild men hellbent on making you dance till you drop or just drop.
That a couple of cheap guitars and a drumkit can make such a loud blast of controlled chaos is nothing short of impressive.
The sweet sixteen songs on 'Now I Got Worry' at times sound a bit too alike (how could they not?) but they never overstay their welcome in fact after 45 minutes when the album ends it leaves your aching for more.
If Alfred E. Newman had a band it would sound exactly like The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion- warts & questionable decision-making skills included.
What me worry?
Deep Purple
5/5
I greatly enjoyed every minute of this 19-hour behemoth by the mighty Deep Purple at the height of their considerable powers!
I wish it had been longer- truth be told!
Perfection made purple.
The Sabres Of Paradise
4/5
An insanely long album but I liked it. It made me dance and I felt happy & thankful for everything in my life.
A pretty good way to start Thanksgiving.
Miles Davis
5/5
Steeley Dan's Donald Fagan called Bitches Brew "unfocused garbage" Radiohead's Thom Yorke has cited Bitches Brew as "a major influence on OK Computer" - when Bitches Brew came out in early 1970 it really divided jazz fans- think Bob Dylan going electric at The Newport Festival in 1965.
Jazz had its own Judas. Bitche's Brew would continue to inspire and alienate people in near equal parts for all of the 1970s and beyond.
To many of the jazz elite Bitches Brew was the start of Miles Davis slow creative death and unlike Jesus Christ there would be no resurrection.
So, what of the 93 minutes of music found on this landmark album?
I have loved Bitches Brew since I first heard it a decade or so ago and have played it at least 30 times.
Is it Miles greatest work? Not to me, it is not. Is it in all ways essential listening for anyone with even a passing interest in the music of the 20th century? It absolutely is. Is it as good as the best jazz albums of the 1950s? Not to me frankly as it's simply not on the level of the best works (which would of course include his own output) from the 1950s.
By the end of the Me Decade jazz was a crippled if not flat out spent tamed beast but without Miles forward-thinking far-out at times angry album Jazz would not have prospered as well as it did for most of the decade (1970s) ironically many of the ideas/playing found on Bitches Brew (jazz fusion for one) inspired a lot of junk (a big chunk of jazz fusion albums released after 1974/75) during The Me Decade by 1980 a lot of Jazz fans looked to the past for great albums not the future and certainly not the present and we all know what happens to any artform when it's audience by and large stop looking forward.
Of Note:
I know very little about jazz music from 1980 to present (and I'm far from being an expert on Jazz music before 1980) I have no doubt that there have been some great albums (that whole Acid Jazz scene produced some masterpieces) released but since jazz is not my favorite genre, I do not keep up with new release to any degree whatsoever.
Further Listening:
Listed here are a few jazz albums released during the 1970s that I enjoyed, you'll find lots of jazz fusion which am not a big fan of by and large, but these albums are IMO essential listening, fusion or not.
They are present in no order other than the order in which they popped up in my head.
Charles Mingus - Let My Children Hear Music
Herbie Hancock - Headhunters
Pharoah Sanders - Black Unity
Miles Davis - On the Corner
Alice Coltrane - Ptah, the El Daoud
Ornette Coleman - Science Fiction
Billy Harper - Black Saint
Eddie Henderson - Realization
Herbie Hancock - Thrust
Bill Evans - Symbiosis
Some good songs but also some songs that are sort of just there. Painfully inoffensive at times with some of the old U2 fire present at other times.
Brain Eno produced 'All That You Can't Leave Behind' and it sounds exactly like how you imagine it sounding.
Yawn.
If I never hear this album again- that's fine & if I do - that's fine too.
If this album was a pizza, it would be pizza from Costco.
Fancy a slice of Bono?
Frank Black
4/5
i eat dissonance for breakfast
Teenager of the Year is better than the last two Pixies album (before the break-up) and better than any Pixies album (since the reunion) while not as good as the first two Pixies albums Teenager of the Year stands with Pixies best work.
Public Enemy
5/5
One of scant albums on the list that everyone really should hear before they die. An education in a Molotov cocktail being thrown at a wall of noise as Chuck D. word slams you like no one has since Bob Dylan.
A perfect hip hop album with only a few equals and even fewer albums that better it (in sound both Licensed to Ill & Yeezus are more enjoyable albums but not better albums) but untouchable when it comes to sheer impact & importance.
It very much is the Sgt. Pepper of Rap music in the sense that a better album in its genre will likely never be released.
The Youngbloods
3/5
With Elephant Mountain it was easy to see why The Youngbloods didn't enjoy greater success but equally easy to see why many thought they would be the next big thing.
They would go on to enjoy limited success. Their one hit (Get Together) was not a hit until a couple years after its release (1967) in 1969.
It's a fun album. Jesse Colin Young is in top form with solid if not earth-shattering vocals. The whole band are tight (and wonderfully loose often in the same song) with the crazed calm of a jug band.
A few members of The Youngbloods would go on to form the dreadful mess of a group named Pablo Cruise (soft, MOR crap that makes The Eagles sound like punk rock) try to not their lameness keep you from a fun album whose charms might be limited but fully present.
No, the hit single 'Get Together' is not on this album. It's on their self-titled largely enjoyable debut album.
Paul Simon
3/5
Who is the imbecile that choose to include Heart and Bones instead of There Goes Rhymin' Simon on this list?
No, it's not a terrible album in fact it has a few great songs, but it also has some junk that makes you swear Paul Simon wrote in his sleep after a midnight snack of a meatball hoagie the size of toddler's arm.
Car are Cars? Really, Paul? I love you man. I grew up with your music, and I will grow old with it but subjecting your loyal audience to that is an asshole move.
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die can be a frustrating book. Sometimes I swear that some albums were picked with absolutely no thought behind the selection.
Why is this album on here? I find it doubtful that listening to a Paul Simon album recorded during a notoriously difficult dry spell is something anyone on earth needs to do before they die.
Randy Newman
2/5
Not as bad as the auricular torture found in his endless soundtracks for Disney/Pixar (I hope I die before I hear 'You Got a Friend in Me' again) movies but still a ways away from being anything but sometimes cutesy novelty songs that sound very similar to each other.
I'm giving 'Sail Away' two stars (out of five) because when I saw that it was today's album I felt slightly nauseated at the thought of a full album of 'You Got a Friend in Me' stuff and was really happy that it wasn't.
Also, I enjoyed Ry Cooder's slide guitar on a couple of numbers and the song 'It's Lonely at the Top' a song originally written for Frank Sinatra but never recorded by the chairman of the board was not without its Hoagy Carmichael-esq charms.
The Smiths
5/5
One of the greatest bands from the UK or anywhere else in the world. Ever. In the same league as The Beatles (The Beatles are still way better!) The Jam, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Bowie, The Small Faces, Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Fall and The Cure.
No one writes lyrics like Morrissey at times as good as Bob Dylan & on occasion (however rare) better - they read like great literature- you know the Penguin stuff, orange spines, eternal (?) yeah, like the Cambridge/Oxford 700-page bangers but in just a few minutes- like 3:47.
This is as close as the world will ever get to having Oscar Wilde front an indie pop/rock band.
Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce are all on fire- just like the hairdresser.
This is why God gave you ears, a heart and a soul.
The Only Ones
5/5
This beloved album highly regarded as a highlight of the first wave of UK punk doesn't much sound like punk at all to my ears but if you study the landscape of the time The Only Ones fit right in with its smart lyrics and their Johnny Thunders-esq mouth full of marbles (or something) unaffected vocals.
Think of The Only Ones as punks weird Uncle who had seen some shit and was into obscure garage punk singles & Philip Dick novels when everyone else was into Yes double albums and Magaret Atwood novels.
No doubt Kurt Cobain loved this band or would have if he got to hear them. The influence on Nirvana is absolutely obvious if not direct which is to say if they were not influenced by The Only Ones, they very much were influenced by bands that were.
At about half an hour The Only Ones sing about kick out the jams with more passion than a big chunk of bands managed in hours and hours of bloated discographies that would have benefited if they hadn't pressed record on at least 50% of their studio time or at least had the decency to not release it.
Had Motley Crue broken up after Dr. Feelgood they would be regarded today with the same kind of esteem that The New York Dolls and The Velvet Underground are.
Today's lesson? Fuck off before you become total cunts.
Badly Drawn Boy
4/5
That first hour was as beautiful as the first unlikely and then messianic encounter of an umbrella and a sewing machine on a surgeon's table.
Nick Drake passed away (1974) 6 years before Stanley Kubrick's film The Shinning was released (1980) based on Stephen King's novel of the same name which was released (1977) just three years after Nick Drake's death.
It's about the descent into insanity of a recovering alcoholic and aspiring novelist who takes a job as winter caretaker for a mountain resort hotel with his wife and clairvoyant son.
What kind of fool tries to murder ghosts?
Did daddy dislocate your shoulder, boy? Daddy is a bad man, oh boy.
No other conclusion can be drawn.
Why is everyone so loud? New Year's Eve again? So, we should all scream like assholes to welcome in a new year?
Tears and laughter, a lowly pence ...
You broke my train of thought nothing to say hence!
One of my hobbies will be silence when I retire.