My 1001 Albums Journey

203

Albums Rated

3.49

Average Rating

19%

Complete

886 albums remaining

Rating Distribution

Rating Timeline

Taste Profile

1960s

Favorite Decade

Soul

Favorite Genre

other

Top Origin

Wordsmith

Rater Style ?

5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

Breakdown

By Genre

By Decade

By Origin

Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Blood And Chocolate Elvis Costello & The Attractions	5	2.92	+2.08
Copper Blue Sugar	5	2.97	+2.03
Fuzzy Grant Lee Buffalo	5	3.01	+1.99
The Modern Lovers The Modern Lovers	5	3.05	+1.95
Underwater Moonlight The Soft Boys	5	3.06	+1.94
You're Living All Over Me Dinosaur Jr.	5	3.08	+1.92
I'm Your Man Leonard Cohen	5	3.1	+1.9
Sound Affects The Jam	5	3.26	+1.74
The Specials The Specials	5	3.3	+1.7
Channel Orange Frank Ocean	5	3.32	+1.68

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
Teen Dream Beach House	1	3.27	-2.27
Deloused in the Comatorium The Mars Volta	1	3.2	-2.2
Ambient 1/Music For Airports Brian Eno	1	3.07	-2.07
Veckatimest Grizzly Bear	1	3.05	-2.05
Siamese Dream The Smashing Pumpkins	2	3.83	-1.83
Tarkus Emerson, Lake & Palmer	1	2.79	-1.79
All Hope Is Gone Slipknot	1	2.7	-1.7
In The Court Of The Crimson King King Crimson	2	3.6	-1.6
Moving Pictures Rush	2	3.58	-1.58
Bookends Simon & Garfunkel	2	3.56	-1.56

Artists

Favorites

Artist	Albums	Average
David Bowie	4	5
Beatles	4	4.75
Fleetwood Mac	2	5
R.E.M.	2	5
Michael Jackson	2	5
Leonard Cohen	2	5
The Who	4	4.25

Controversial

Artist	Ratings
Bob Dylan	5, 2

5-Star Albums (52)

View Album Wall

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Popular Reviews

What's That Noise?

Coldcut

3/5

The kind of thing you'd probably like if you like that kind of thing.

1 likes

1-Star Albums (10)

D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle

All Ratings

Arise

Sepultura

2/5

Mothership Connection

Parliament

5/5

Home Is Where The Music Is

Hugh Masekela

5/5

Lady Soul

Aretha Franklin

5/5

The Healer

John Lee Hooker

2/5

Tea for the Tillerman

Cat Stevens

4/5

Tarkus

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

1/5

Prog nonsense.

Medúlla

Björk

3/5

Technically, impressive and worth listening to, but at least on first listening I was not actually moved.

It's Blitz!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

4/5

Well that was a lot of fun.

Siamese Dream

The Smashing Pumpkins

2/5

I don't understand what they mean, and I could really give a f*ck.

Hunting High And Low

a-ha

3/5

I will be singing Take On Me until the day I day. But I didn't need the album.

What's That Noise?

Coldcut

3/5

The kind of thing you'd probably like if you like that kind of thing.

Physical Graffiti

Led Zeppelin

3/5

I don't know if it's possible for me to "listen" to this again. I mean, I can play it, but (like Murmur or Rumours) it's already so loud in my head.

The New Tango

Astor Piazzolla

3/5

Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts

The Adverts

2/5

There was a time I would have tried to love this. But there's too much sawing and just not enough joy or enough anarchy.

Heaven Or Las Vegas

Cocteau Twins

5/5

Rumours

Fleetwood Mac

5/5

Come on. The only way it could be better is if it were tusk.

Moby Grape

3/5

Some really evocative moments - esp. 8:05 - but the whole time I kept thinking I was listening to a really adept pastiche/re-creation of that moment. A totally unfair perspective, I realize. I bet their shows were fantastic.

C'est Chic

CHIC

5/5

All the middle-school feels.

Truth And Soul

Fishbone

3/5

Love the horns, and the technical level is high throughout. But this kind of funk-rock has never really moved me, even if Spotify claims it is the lineal descendant of the ska that I once did love.

Frank

Amy Winehouse

3/5

What's not to love about her voice? But I feel about this just as I feel about an album of jazz covers by Rickie Lee Jones - very nice, but not what I'm here for.

Copper Blue

Sugar

5/5

Frampton Comes Alive

Peter Frampton

4/5

Murmur

R.E.M.

5/5

Play

Moby

4/5

All Hope Is Gone

Slipknot

1/5

No thank you.

Untitled (Black Is)

SAULT

3/5

My son tried to get me into this a while ago, and I had the same reaction this time. It's fine.

Paul's Boutique

Beastie Boys

5/5

In The Court Of The Crimson King

King Crimson

2/5

Blood On The Tracks

Bob Dylan

5/5

Some of the classics of my youth that have popped up here - Rumours, Murmur - have instantly evoked nostalgia, amusement, or wistfulness. This one still gets me in a place that feels present, live, and meaningful. From the first chord on the album, I am engaged.

Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Aphex Twin

2/5

Not for me.

Rattlesnakes

Lloyd Cole And The Commotions

2/5

Chicago Transit Authority

Chicago

4/5

I had never listened to Chicago before in the context of an album - and the it's a good deal weirder and more interesting than I expected.

S.F. Sorrow

The Pretty Things

3/5

Hard to believe I once loved this kind of thing, though never this exact thing.

Station To Station

David Bowie

5/5

This album is a freight train. Heavy, not always so pretty (especially compared to the half-dozen records that preceded it), but jesus once it gets going I really remember why I loved it so much. I'm sitting here bopping to TVC15 like it's 1982.

My Aim Is True

Elvis Costello

5/5

Bert Jansch

3/5

Live At The Harlem Square Club

Sam Cooke

5/5

You're Living All Over Me

Dinosaur Jr.

5/5

Revolver

Beatles

5/5

This has been my favorite Beatles record for a long time. This time through did not change that.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Beatles

5/5

5 stars? No stars? I don't know. Ask me to rate "Dayenu." My parents played this in the living room. My siblings and I listened to it a thousand times before we were teenagers. This has been burned so deeply in my brain that it falls into another category entirely.

In Utero

Nirvana

3/5

Channel Orange

Frank Ocean

5/5

LP1

FKA twigs

4/5

I can't say I loved it, but as it played in the background I found myself responding to it with small smiles.

Street Life

The Crusaders

4/5

Nicholson Baker somewhere describes listening to a late-70s jam fade out at the end of an album track and thinking that the producer wanted you to have the sense that they were just going to keep playing all night. This is like that.

Blur

3/5

OK Computer

Radiohead

4/5

Renee's review nails it.

Os Mutantes

3/5

I think if I had discovered this during one of the late-adolescent periods when I was listening to After Bathing at Baxter's, I would have thought I had found the grail. Now it just doesn't have enough structure to keep my attention for very long, though I really liked some passages (and later tracks that Spotify pulled up after the album was done).

Low

David Bowie

5/5

This one and Station to Station (which I think came up last month) were part of the second tier of Bowie for me - not the superheavy rotation of Ziggy, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Hunky Dory, Heroes, but just below that. Trying to listen with fresh ears, what I mostly hear is the machine-like insistence of Bowie's band, repeating almost loops, and here Eno's pop weirdness (some of which I also really loved during the same era - there's a lot of stuff that sounds like "Before and After Science" in the background here). It's great.

A Girl Called Dusty

Dusty Springfield

5/5

This is just one banger after another. Even the ones that don't grab me immediately remind me of what I love about Burt Bachrach. (Update: it turns out that this is because they were actually written by Burt Bachrach.)

Ambient 1/Music For Airports

Brian Eno

1/5

I have come back to this a dozen times since 1985, trying to like it. Still no luck.

Moon Safari

Air

3/5

As background music goes, so much more satisfying than the Eno.

Underwater Moonlight

The Soft Boys

5/5

Love this so much, forty years later. So much weirdness, so much pop. Such great guitars.

Lost In The Dream

The War On Drugs

2/5

There are moments when the record threatens to take off. But then it just sits down.

Close To You

Carpenters

4/5

Help!

Shake Your Money Maker

The Black Crowes

3/5

This Isn't Spinal Tap. Nor is it Otis Redding. There are some great moments, but I'm instantly hungry again.

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns

Joni Mitchell

2/5

There's a lot of Joni I love, and a lot of Joni I don't, and this is closer to the don't.

Nevermind

Nirvana

3/5

I'm never listening to this again.

Let Love Rule

Lenny Kravitz

3/5

American Beauty

Grateful Dead

3/5

To explain my response to this record I'd first need to summarize Andrew Hickey's 3+ hour podcast on the place of the Dead (in his "History of Rock Music in 500 songs"). And after that I'd be too tired to listen to "Friend of the Devil."

To Pimp A Butterfly

Kendrick Lamar

5/5

Dare!

The Human League

2/5

I thought I would enjoy the nostalgia much more than I did.

Veckatimest

Grizzly Bear

1/5

What was that? It made literally no impression on me beyond mild irritation.

Doolittle

Pixies

5/5

Still so good.

Thriller

Michael Jackson

5/5

Wanted to have a more critical reaction, but this still sounds amazing.

The Band

4/5

It's fine. It's not Big Pink, which is great.

Actually

Pet Shop Boys

2/5

This made no impression on me in 1987 and has exactly the same effect today. I'm sure I'm missing something important, but I suspect it's all affective context.

Deloused in the Comatorium

The Mars Volta

1/5

Wow, I just cannot get past minute 10.

Fuzzy

Grant Lee Buffalo

5/5

This is so much my kind of thing that I am surprised I don't know it. This record led me to the second, Mighty Joe Moon, which I might like even better.

Hot Buttered Soul

Isaac Hayes

5/5

Definitely in my top 50 albums of all time, on the strength of the two incredible covers.

Myths Of The Near Future

Klaxons

3/5

On paper should really like this.

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

PJ Harvey

5/5

I think this is still my favorite of hers. Somehow both a perfect time capsule (Thom Yorke!) and really moving.

The Rolling Stones

3/5

I like the British invasion stuff a lot better after they start writing their own stuff.

Public Image: First Issue

Public Image Ltd.

3/5

Back At The Chicken Shack

Jimmy Smith

4/5

I've listened to this a dozen times over the years - it never makes a huge impression on me, but it's always delightful in the moment.

Tuesday Night Music Club

Sheryl Crow

4/5

Abbey Road

Beatles

5/5

Hysteria

Def Leppard

3/5

Surf's Up

The Beach Boys

3/5

There was some great work here, but also a fair bit of the not-so-focused noodling (especially lyrical) that has kept me from being a solid fan.

What's Going On

Marvin Gaye

4/5

The top end of this is as good as anything in his catalogue. Like, "Trouble Man" good. But I forgot how much preachy meandering he stuffs in between the beauty.

Bubble And Scrape

Sebadoh

2/5

I liked the first track all right but it got me singing the Roches’ “Married Men,” which has the same chord changes. otherwise unmoved..

American Idiot

Green Day

4/5

Surprised how vibrant and tight this feels.

Sister

Sonic Youth

3/5

There are great moments but it washes over me exactly the way it did in the 80s.

1999

Prince

5/5

Aja

Steely Dan

2/5

I actually love some of their albums from earlier in the decade, but I never liked this one.

Are You Experienced

Jimi Hendrix

4/5

Rio

Duran Duran

3/5

They do one thing very well but a whole album of it is too much.

There's No Place Like America Today

Curtis Mayfield

4/5

Not my favorite Curtis album but still so great.

Bone Machine

Tom Waits

4/5

Some really wonderful stuff, and some of the stuff that kept me from loving him during a lot of that decade. I prefer rain, dogs, but I love some of this too.

Little Earthquakes

Tori Amos

3/5

I guess I forgot how fresh this sounded when it came out. I mean, what sounded like this? Kate Bush? It’s too much. I don’t like a lot of it. But that first track -what a way to introduce yourself to the world.

If I Should Fall From Grace With God

The Pogues

5/5

Dub Housing

Pere Ubu

2/5

Not great but fascinating: a band I never literally listened to, flipped past a million times in the bins, and now can put in late-70s-ish context. Reminds me of the acts I did listen to that were fusing noise and melody - Mission of Burma, for one, though I don't like this nearly as much. Can't say I will listen to it again, but there were moments when I shifted it out of the background to find out what I was listening to (like the "chorus" in Caligari's Mirror). Kind of wild to listen to it right after the Velvets, who, at their least formal, seem like a direct ancestor.

Every Picture Tells A Story

Rod Stewart

2/5

How does a record that starts with such a (yes, cringey) banger go off the rails so hard?

Innervisions

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Not my absolute favorite from the stunning run of albums in the 70s - that’s maybe Talking Book - but I love this.

Vol. 4

Black Sabbath

3/5

I found this surprisingly listenable. But I will probably never do it again.

Seventeen Seconds

The Cure

4/5

I may never have listened to this all the way through before. I like it. Clearly lanuched a thousand ships.

Achtung Baby

3/5

A couple of great singles. It’s hard to actually hear it as an album but that may be an accident of which U2 records I paid attention to back then.

Rhythm Nation 1814

Janet Jackson

4/5

I don't think I'd ever considered a Janet Jackson album before. A lot of sameness, relentless, but also infectious.

Here's Little Richard

Little Richard

4/5

Goddam that's good. I listened to LR a little bit after listening to the first 30-40 episodes of "A history of rock music in 500 songs" but I don't think I appreciated just how good this is, or how revolutionary it must have seemed in the late 50s. I keep thinking about John Prine's lyric, "At the beach in Indiana, I was nine years old… I heard Little Richard singing tutti-frutti from the top of a telephone pole." Imagine being that kid.

With The Beatles

Beatles

4/5

Club Classics Vol. One

Soul II Soul

4/5

I was surprised how much I liked some of this. Definitely a period piece but when it all comes together (especially when the lead vocals are on the money) it's pretty great.

The Chronic

Dr. Dre

2/5

Technically adept, and must have sounded great in 1992. But now as then I find the performance of hypermasculinity boring and depressing.

Billion Dollar Babies

Alice Cooper

4/5

Didn't get through all of it, but was surprised how straigh-ahead-rock-album it was. Not bad!

Devil Without A Cause

Kid Rock

1/5

Interminable. Insufferable.

Strangeways, Here We Come

The Smiths

3/5

Better than I remember, but was he always so pitchy?

Toys In The Attic

Aerosmith

2/5

I wanted to like this as much as I love Walk This Way. I don't.

Electric Prunes

The Electric Prunes

3/5

Love the big hit. Mostly interested in the rest as a tour of the songwriting team's versatility.

Common

2/5

Maybe I don’t get it. It I found this pretty dull.

m b v

My Bloody Valentine

2/5

Bossanova

Pixies

4/5

Live At The Regal

B.B. King

4/5

It's great if electric blues is your thing, which it isn't really for me.

The Who Sell Out

The Who

4/5

What a weird old cool thing this album is.

John Barleycorn Must Die

Traffic

4/5

My hippie seventeen year old self loved this to pieces.

Blood And Chocolate

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

5/5

Sound Affects

The Jam

5/5

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

David Bowie

5/5

Impossible to bring objectivity to this one, but subjectively speaking it is objectively incredible.

Protection

Massive Attack

4/5

Pleasant, groovy, didn't totally hold my attention.

Live 1966 (The Royal Albert Hall Concert)

Bob Dylan

2/5

There are probably a half dozen Dylan albums in my personal top 100, but I don’t think there’s a live album in the top 1000.

Brilliant Corners

Thelonious Monk

4/5

Talk Talk Talk

The Psychedelic Furs

3/5

Pretty much everything that’s great on this record is recycled from one of the other of the hits, especially the masterpiece. Who can blame them? Three stars because Pretty in Pink.

The Beach Boys Today!

The Beach Boys

3/5

Blue Lines

Massive Attack

2/5

A couple of tracks had my head bobbing. But this felt old and unnecessary.

KIWANUKA

Michael Kiwanuka

4/5

Really grew on me - listened several times during the day. Lovely retro sound and appealing character.

If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears

The Mamas & The Papas

4/5

Delightful - a very different sixties than Revolver, but passionate and charming and tight without being mannered.

The Modern Lovers

5/5

Arc Of A Diver

Steve Winwood

4/5

What the what is going on here? Some prog, some blue-eyed soul, some fantastic beats, some filler. A couple of tracks that just don't cohere. A couple of tracks that, however dated, still really really work. Sometimes I felt I was stuck in '70s Leo Sayer groover and at other times I was listening to the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack. 3.5 stars for the successes, where Winwood's talent really shines through.

At Mister Kelly's

Sarah Vaughan

3/5

Illinois

Sufjan Stevens

4/5

Some lovely bits - the stepmother song has never left me, all these years later. Too clever, too, and the Gacy song freaks me out.

Rip It Up

Orange Juice

4/5

What a funny ride. Enjoyed it more and more, but the tonal shifts were a little hard to take. Kind of reminded me of discovering "Ultravox!" in a bin, except I think I'd give that one 5 stars. 3.5?

I'm Your Man

Leonard Cohen

5/5

Songs Of Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

5/5

Honky Tonk Masquerade

Joe Ely

3/5

I've liked some Ely in the past, but nothing really stood out here.

Arrival

ABBA

3/5

"Name of the Game" was the first song I recorded from the radio onto my cassette recorder, and if that song were on this album it would get 5 stars.

The Infotainment Scan

The Fall

2/5

Maybe my mood and the record just weren't in the same place, but I found this really tiresome.

Talking Heads 77

Talking Heads

5/5

I saw Byrne's big-band show (festival set version) a few years ago, and loved the faux-martial joyfulness of it. I guess I hadn't listened to this record for a long time, because here's that sound, right there at the start.

Nighthawks At The Diner

Tom Waits

4/5

Ocean Rain

Echo And The Bunnymen

3/5

Every so often someone puts "the cutter" on a playlist and I think, wow, I really underestimated this band. Then I listen to this, and yep, a track or two that really moves me, but the rest feels flat and distant. 2.5 stars.

Disraeli Gears

Cream

4/5

Nostalgia and craft get it to 4.

Electric Warrior

T. Rex

5/5

Talk about a guy finding his groove.

The Specials

5/5

Daydream Nation

Sonic Youth

4/5

Top end of this is great. But by the end I remembered why I hardly ever listened to them back in the day.

Live!

Fela Kuti

4/5

That was fun.

Being There

Wilco

3/5

On paper, meaning in a review, this is just the kind of thing I like. In reality, not so much. I loved the freshness of Uncle Tupelo and the drone of Son Volt but Wilco has rarely moved me.

Tusk

Fleetwood Mac

5/5

I listened to this every day, practically, in about 1981. A couple of years ago while I was trying to finish a book, I discovered that Spotify had the seven disc version of this. I listened to it on repeat for so long that at the end of the year I was in the top 1/10 of one percent of Fleetwood Mac listeners. Some albums are just burnt so deep that it’s impossible to have anything, but I got reaction to them, and my gut reaction to this one is five stars.

Graceland

Paul Simon

4/5

Still charming and playful after all these years. Makes me nostalgic for the 1980s and also somehow nostalgic about the nostalgic feelings for Simon & Garfunkel that this produced back then. It's a little hard to listen now without also thinking about Simon's reactionary politics about the South African liberation movement, and his breaking of the cultural boycott. A solid 4.5.

Close To The Edge

Yes

2/5

Worse than I remember, and I didn't like it then. By turns dull and exhausting.

Suede

3/5

Some really good tracks, and an already-retro early 80s sound that really crunches. But my attention really wandered.

I Should Coco

Supergrass

2/5

A Walk Across The Rooftops

The Blue Nile

2/5

At its best, it made me want to listen to Peter Gabriel. The rest of the time, it made me hate Peter Gabriel.

Third

Soft Machine

1/5

This was never and will never be my kind of thing.

The Gershwin Songbook

Ella Fitzgerald

5/5

The highlights here are many and spectacular. One of the great voices.

Amnesiac

Radiohead

2/5

Lust For Life

Iggy Pop

5/5

Aladdin Sane

David Bowie

5/5

It's not my favorite from this era, but this era punches most of my buttons.

Tapestry

Carole King

5/5

Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1

George Michael

3/5

Maybe for what it is, it's great.

Bluesbreakers

John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers

2/5

I have never liked this stuff.

Moving Pictures

Rush

2/5

These were the Rush tunes on my high school radio station, and my verdict is pretty much the same now as it was then: some great moments, Geddy Lee's voice periodically shines through, but way too much self-important prog-ish noodling.

Mask

Bauhaus

2/5

Couldn't make it through the whole thing. Muddy and dull.

Run-D.M.C.

3/5

Peter Gabriel

3/5

Bi-modal reaction: the big booming hits are still great; the meditative songs have become unlistenable.

White Light / White Heat

The Velvet Underground

2/5

Fisherman's Blues

The Waterboys

3/5

This was a shocker. I loved it when it came out, played it all the time. Now a lot of it just seems screechy.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco

4/5

Who's Next

The Who

5/5

GREY Area

Little Simz

3/5

Now I Got Worry

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

1/5

I'd rather listen to a Red Hot Chili Peppers double album than sit through this again.

Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division

4/5

Walking Wounded

Everything But The Girl

2/5

I really do like some of their work a lot. This did nothing for me.

London Calling

The Clash

5/5

Cmon.

Queen Of Denmark

John Grant

3/5

Influential? Maybe - I hear Father John Misty and that Swedish guy too. Where it gets pop traction I really like it.

The Cars

5/5

Asymptotically close to perfect.

Off The Wall

Michael Jackson

5/5

D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle

Throbbing Gristle

1/5

No.

James Brown Live At The Apollo

James Brown

5/5

I only knew the later volume (1968). This is fantastic.

Honky Tonk Heroes

Waylon Jennings

4/5

Ágætis Byrjun

Sigur Rós

5/5

Moondance

Van Morrison

4/5

My least fave of this amazing run. 4.5

Teen Dream

Beach House

1/5

Snoooooooze.

Countdown To Ecstasy

Steely Dan

4/5

American IV: The Man Comes Around

Johnny Cash

4/5

Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

3/5

Tommy

The Who

5/5

Extraneous “opera” bits don’t diminish the ambition or the number of matchless bangers.

Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs

Derek & The Dominos

3/5

Queen II

Queen

3/5

A cool reminder that they were glam before they were huge. But I might not return to it.

Tellin’ Stories

The Charlatans

2/5

Transformer

Lou Reed

4/5

Automatic For The People

R.E.M.

5/5

No way to be objective about this one. It has carried me across the Atlantic so many times. Nightswimming is a top-10 cut for me.

The Stone Roses

3/5

Some of this is great. But the good songs all sound kind of the same, and so do the not-so-good ones.

Greetings From L.A.

Tim Buckley

2/5

Boston

4/5

Such a pleasure to hear this intentionally.

Meat Is Murder

The Smiths

2/5

I came to the Smiths late and eventually came to like a lot of The Queen is Dead. But listening to this (and the previous Smiths selection) reminds why I initially found them incredibly precious and tiresome.

Superfly

Curtis Mayfield

4/5

The Boatman's Call

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

4/5

Bookends

Simon & Garfunkel

2/5

I was not prepared to dislike this as much as I did. Tween me thought "America" was magnificent and profound. But this is clearly the weakest of their albums.

Winter In America

Gil Scott-Heron

4/5

Larks' Tongues In Aspic

King Crimson

3/5

I'm glad I stuck with this past the first track. I like it so much better than I expected, and "Exiles" reminded me why the Roches wanted to work with Fripp. 3.5

Live At Leeds

The Who

3/5

Brutal Youth

Elvis Costello

4/5

You've Come a Long Way Baby

Fatboy Slim

3/5

The Low End Theory

A Tribe Called Quest

3/5