My 1001 Albums Journey

Album	You	Global	Diff
The Infotainment Scan The Fall	5	2.72	+2.28
Alien Lanes Guided By Voices	5	2.75	+2.25
This Nation’s Saving Grace The Fall	5	2.88	+2.12
Psychocandy The Jesus And Mary Chain	5	2.94	+2.06
Sister Sonic Youth	5	3.02	+1.98
evermore Taylor Swift	5	3.03	+1.97
Slanted And Enchanted Pavement	5	3.03	+1.97
Maxinquaye Tricky	5	3.04	+1.96
Treasure Cocteau Twins	5	3.07	+1.93
Dig Me Out Sleater-Kinney	5	3.08	+1.92

Album	You	Global	Diff
Black Holes and Revelations Muse	1	3.59	-2.59
Deloused in the Comatorium The Mars Volta	1	3.2	-2.2
Songs From A Room Leonard Cohen	1	3.16	-2.16
Woodface Crowded House	1	3.1	-2.1
I'm Your Man Leonard Cohen	1	3.1	-2.1
Highly Evolved The Vines	1	3.03	-2.03
Electric The Cult	1	3.02	-2.02
The Man Who Travis	1	3.01	-2.01
Arc Of A Diver Steve Winwood	1	2.88	-1.88
Electric Music For The Mind And Body Country Joe & The Fish	1	2.85	-1.85

Artist	Albums	Average
Public Enemy	2	5
Cocteau Twins	2	5
Sonic Youth	2	5
The Fall	2	5
Pink Floyd	2	5
The Rolling Stones	4	4.25
Beatles	3	4.33
Radiohead	3	4.33
Stevie Wonder	3	4.33

Artist	Albums	Average
Leonard Cohen	2	1

Artist	Ratings
David Bowie	2, 5, 4, 5

Live At The Harlem Square Club

Sam Cooke

4/5

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Beatles

4/5

1984

Van Halen

2/5

Good band. Dumb songs. Great guitarist. The singer is a ham (good). The synths are tacked on, you can hear the bargaining between Eddie and the rest of the group.

Blur

4/5

Songs From The Big Chair

Tears For Fears

4/5

This Is Fats Domino

Fats Domino

3/5

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

Public Enemy

5/5

Freak Out!

The Mothers Of Invention

3/5

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

John Lennon

3/5

Live At Leeds

The Who

5/5

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

A Tribe Called Quest

4/5

Fear Of Music

Talking Heads

5/5

Better than Remain in Light!

The Clash

4/5

S.F. Sorrow

The Pretty Things

2/5

The album makes one confront the annoyingness of this list project's title: "Must hear" and "die" are hyperbole, and you do not in fact need to hear this album. It sounds like 1968 psychedelic rock. It has some moments. There is no standout track. For a better look at the genre/period, I suggest playing this album with the sound down, then turning it up when Apple Music goes on to Autoplay Similar Music. Pete Townshend's legacy is not threatened by this little thing. Saying someone was born in track #1 does not an opera make.

Run-D.M.C.

4/5

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Mudhoney

3/5

Buena Vista Social Club

2/5

Songs From A Room

Leonard Cohen

1/5

I just don't like Leonard Cohen. Whatever it is, he doesn't have it. At least this one isn't over-produced, over-arranged lounge music, but for an allegedly simple and austere record, there's an awful lot of dumb arrangement ideas. As for the writing, I can tell he thinks it's good.

Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys

4/5

Play

Moby

4/5

I winced a bit when this popped up but it's solid. Well-made, various, the Lomax thread holds it together (great sample choices), accessible and entertaining. I remember the scene grumbling and the licensing everywhere; he should be credited with killing the idea of Selling Out. WikiTIL: His family gave him the nickname, and while his middle name is Melville, he's not related to that Melville.

Young Americans

David Bowie

2/5

Bowie has secret normie chops but I prefer him a little weirder.

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns

Joni Mitchell

4/5

New to me. I like a folkie who gets a band working.

American Idiot

Green Day

3/5

My first selection from the aughts. I think of them as on the better end of radio alternative in the 90s. They are a minor artist. I appreciate them putting in this effort, it's pretty good. (Theme: I appreciate effort.) Another where Must Hear is not quite true. Top marks for the cover art.

Court And Spark

Joni Mitchell

4/5

Supa Dupa Fly

Missy Elliott

3/5

New Wave

The Auteurs

3/5

Doggystyle

Snoop Dogg

3/5

Something Else By The Kinks

The Kinks

3/5

Compared to other 60s UK canon bands, the Kinks sound so English it almost seems like a bit.

Synchronicity

The Police

4/5

Fever To Tell

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

4/5

OK Computer

Radiohead

5/5

Jagged Little Pill

Alanis Morissette

2/5

Shalimar

Rahul Dev Burman

3/5

Moondance

Van Morrison

4/5

Psychocandy

The Jesus And Mary Chain

5/5

One of the rare debuts where one wonders how they Did That on the first try. Fewer songs than one thinks have the table saw guitar. So trebly. Such songs.

Electric Music For The Mind And Body

Country Joe & The Fish

1/5

Do you think the Doors would have been halfway decent if only they got rid of Jim Morrison? Not that simple. Some work can't withstand being removed from its scene slash context.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill

3/5

High highs. Good singer. Too long, in the 90s CD way. The skits almost ruin it.

Boston

3/5

It's weird to hear these songs without the occasional commercial break for a car dealership. Cheerful, bright, no pretense at all, even with the Wakeman/ELP keyboards. Ain't-broke-don't-fix-it hooks. One semi-ballad in the whole set. The weakness (not a knock) of the singer is disarming compared to their arena rock cohort. Add the double tracked backing vocal and it makes everybody want to sing along. I estimate it is over 40 years since I have listened to this straight through. Maybe go again in another 40. WikiTIL: Mostly made by one guy, in his basement, while misleading the record company about recording as band in LA.

Highly Evolved

The Vines

1/5

"Must hear" LOL 40 days in, first record I haven't finished. I was losing brain cells with every track.

The Marshall Mathers LP

Eminem

3/5

Em is vexing. He's very good, and very bad, and I think he thinks the bad elevates the good, and I don't agree.

You've Come a Long Way Baby

Fatboy Slim

4/5

I listened to this a couple hundred times BITD and never knew the wall of LPs wasn't the proper cover art

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

The Incredible String Band

2/5

Hypnotised

The Undertones

3/5

I'd like Madness please. Sure, do you want Gang of Four in it? Uhhh, OK, a little?

Band On The Run

Paul McCartney and Wings

4/5

The Queen Is Dead

The Smiths

5/5

The Rolling Stones

4/5

This is great. WikiTIL: Led Zeppelin could learn from their songwriting credit ethic

Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

Dexys Midnight Runners

3/5

Joan Armatrading

3/5

Sticky Fingers

The Rolling Stones

5/5

As an Exile devotee I'm ashamed of sleeping on this one

Live Through This

Hole

4/5

Brown Sugar

D'Angelo

3/5

Good, but very samey.

Off The Wall

Michael Jackson

4/5

The Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks

3/5

Celebrity Skin

Hole

4/5

Hole are good.

Rage Against The Machine

4/5

One of those awesome custom cars, every detail idiosyncratic, lights in surprising places, fetish lug nuts, stainless steel 'mufflers' that actually increase volume, BUT ALSO they don't know when to stop applying the wordy lefty bumper stickers.

Smokers Delight

Nightmares On Wax

2/5

First track is on a compilation I used to listen to, which is as it should be. I don't know if comps are allowed on this list, but The Album isn't always the best view of an artist or genre. If you want to spend 75' on trip-hop that isn't Tricky, there are better ways.

Done By The Forces Of Nature

Jungle Brothers

4/5

Woodface

Crowded House

1/5

I was forgetting every track as it played. Completely disposable and unserious. It's not hard to picture someone liking this. It's definitely a band, who wrote some songs, and played them, which is a thing people do, and then people might listen to it. What is impossible to picture is the person who likes this being remotely interested in an exploration project like this list. It's music for people who aren't that into music. I think the band isn't that into music!

Bayou Country

Creedence Clearwater Revival

4/5

I have a weakness for CCR. Best bar band ever. That said, only need Green River on here.

Fetch The Bolt Cutters

Fiona Apple

5/5

Street Signs

Ozomatli

3/5

What the heck is this? Well it's pretty good.

Elephant

The White Stripes

5/5

Gris Gris

Dr. John

2/5

Someday soon this guy will be Dr John. Better than a lot of the '68 psych miscellany on this list.

Rubber Soul

Beatles

4/5

Thriller

Michael Jackson

4/5

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols

5/5

Songs In The Key Of Life

Stevie Wonder

5/5

Near perfect most of the way, with multiple songs that might go on humanity's all time mix tape. Adding the B-sides EP to the normal LP pushes it over into Too Long, but so what.

Teenage Head

Flamin' Groovies

4/5

❤️2️⃣ find a record I have never heard of where the band cares not about anything but playing great

Ramones

4/5

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

Genesis

2/5

Noped out at about a hour. The Venn intersection of Slightly Less Cringe Than ELP and Way Less Cool Than MTV Peter Gabriel isn't enough to support 94 minutes. I don't care about cover art but wow that's dumb.

Country Life

Roxy Music

4/5

A Girl Called Dusty

Dusty Springfield

3/5

Get Behind Me Satan

The White Stripes

3/5

The aughts picks on the list get really lazy. I know, everybody wants to create, nobody wants to maintain. If you need three White titles, which you don't, as we lack... So Many Aughts Records, De Stijl is better.

All Hail the Queen

Queen Latifah

4/5

Palo Congo

Sabu

3/5

Rust Never Sleeps

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

5/5

Treasure

Cocteau Twins

5/5

Truth

Jeff Beck

3/5

Ellington at Newport

Duke Ellington

3/5

On The Beach

Neil Young

3/5

Unhalfbricking

Fairport Convention

3/5

The Stone Roses

4/5

Dummy

Portishead

5/5

Olympia 64

Jacques Brel

2/5

In one ear and out the other.

Kilimanjaro

The Teardrop Explodes

3/5

Rising Above Bedlam

Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart

3/5

Talking Book

Stevie Wonder

4/5

Music For The Jilted Generation

The Prodigy

3/5

Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Wu-Tang Clan

5/5

Either Or

Elliott Smith

3/5

War

U2

5/5

Actually

Pet Shop Boys

3/5

Public Image: First Issue

Public Image Ltd.

3/5

Fear Of A Black Planet

Public Enemy

5/5

Black Holes and Revelations

Muse

1/5

If all your ideas suck, it doesn’t matter how hard you practice. Radiohead: No more rock music. Muse: *makes this* Everyone: Right, no more rock music.

Floodland

Sisters Of Mercy

3/5

Come Away With Me

Norah Jones

2/5

No offense to Norah, who seems nice and has a good voice, but I had to bail on this before it started to annoy me. Insert brunch wisecrack. Sometimes a record punches thru extreme accessibility into mass delusion. Sorry, that wasn't nice. WikiTIL: Ravi Shankar's daughter, yet was legit non-nepo discovered.

Murder Ballads

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

4/5

Fulfillingness' First Finale

Stevie Wonder

4/5

I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail

Buck Owens

3/5

Crosby, Stills & Nash

3/5

Being There

Wilco

4/5

Cloud Nine

The Temptations

3/5

Our psych record has precisely on psych song

Figure 8

Elliott Smith

3/5

Let It Bleed

The Rolling Stones

3/5

This album has, as they say, a couple songs. The rest is surprisingly undercooked, almost unserious.

Odessa

Bee Gees

1/5

This record made me feel sorry for it.

Surf's Up

The Beach Boys

3/5

Born In The U.S.A.

Bruce Springsteen

4/5

Led Zeppelin

4/5

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

The Flaming Lips

4/5

Iron Maiden

3/5

Back At The Chicken Shack

Jimmy Smith

3/5

Elvis Is Back

Elvis Presley

3/5

Melody A.M.

Röyksopp

4/5

A Night At The Opera

Queen

4/5

Dig Me Out

Sleater-Kinney

5/5

Crime Of The Century

Supertramp

2/5

Downcast. Theatrical. Sincere. Prog is the lowest genre, it smothers music in musicianship. This is near the top of prog, for what it's worth. "The nicest of the damned", in the words of a band not on this list. The songs with the good melodies are also from the ridiculous singer.

Funeral

Arcade Fire

5/5

The Healer

John Lee Hooker

4/5

Welcome to the Afterfuture

Mike Ladd

3/5

A Hard Day's Night

Beatles

5/5

Ill Communication

Beastie Boys

4/5

Meat Is Murder

The Smiths

4/5

Bryter Layter

Nick Drake

4/5

Thought, More Too Much UK, but it's great.

London Calling

The Clash

5/5

Arc Of A Diver

Steve Winwood

1/5

oof.

John Barleycorn Must Die

Traffic

3/5

The Cars

3/5

Hunky Dory

David Bowie

5/5

Winter In America

Gil Scott-Heron

3/5

Live At The Star Club, Hamburg

Jerry Lee Lewis

4/5

Violent Femmes

5/5

L.A. Woman

The Doors

2/5

Somehow the Doors are worse every time I hear them. I can barely get to two stars for Riders' genuine vibe. Jim Morrison is a jackass, and tho I rate Robby Krieger the band is replacement level. This is probably their best record.

The Pleasure Principle

Gary Numan

4/5

Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water

Limp Bizkit

1/5

Too many parts. Some of the parts are ok, specifically the metal choruses. Top marks for derivativeness. Cut every song's time in half. Pretty tired of poor widdle soooo angry boys.

Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs

Marty Robbins

3/5

Let Love Rule

Lenny Kravitz

2/5

You’re right Lenny, music is just style.

Dirty

Sonic Youth

5/5

The Man Machine

Kraftwerk

5/5

Logical Progression

LTJ Bukem

3/5

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo

Devo

4/5

Alien Lanes

Guided By Voices

5/5

Deja Vu

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

4/5

Electric Ladyland

Jimi Hendrix

5/5

Sincere

Mj Cole

2/5

Aja

Steely Dan

4/5

This makes me think of the difference between this-is-good and I-like-this. In terms of skillful execution it's a 10, easily. Meanwhile it's for-me at only around 6. So it gets an 8. But seriously, if it is for you, it's a masterpiece.

This Nation’s Saving Grace

The Fall

5/5

Vol. 4

Black Sabbath

4/5

Dance Mania

Tito Puente

3/5

Rock 'N Soul

Solomon Burke

3/5

Maxinquaye

Tricky

5/5

Hot Buttered Soul

Isaac Hayes

3/5

A Rush Of Blood To The Head

Coldplay

3/5

Honky Tonk Masquerade

Joe Ely

3/5

I don't process country music well. This seems pretty good.

1977

Ash

4/5

Billion Dollar Babies

Alice Cooper

4/5

I rate this record several ghost emojis

Kid A

Radiohead

5/5

Bone Machine

Tom Waits

4/5

Rocks

Aerosmith

4/5

Natty Dread

Bob Marley & The Wailers

3/5

Untitled (Black Is)

SAULT

3/5

Foxbase Alpha

Saint Etienne

4/5

The Band

3/5

Lady Soul

Aretha Franklin

4/5

Black Monk Time

The Monks

4/5

Is This It

The Strokes

5/5

Pink Moon

Nick Drake

4/5

Bitches Brew

Miles Davis

4/5

Sister

Sonic Youth

5/5

Aha Shake Heartbreak

Kings of Leon

2/5

If one of the most interesting things about your record, such that it makes the first para of the wikipedia page, is that it uniquely has a parental advisory sticker, it may be that your record is not very interesting. There should be a setting to skip the dropped-in-later-editions items.

Station To Station

David Bowie

4/5

Darkness on the Edge of Town

Bruce Springsteen

4/5

In The Court Of The Crimson King

King Crimson

4/5

Hounds Of Love

Kate Bush

3/5

Leftism

Leftfield

4/5

Welcome To The Pleasuredome

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

3/5

Talking Timbuktu

Ali Farka Touré

2/5

It’s nice that Ry Cooder is doing this and it’s nice that our curator is doing this for Ry Cooder

Low

David Bowie

5/5

Roxy Music

3/5

The Infotainment Scan

The Fall

5/5

The Fall's catalog is intimidatingly huge, and I had never heard this one, alas. 😭 Weird to say but a great one to start with?

Odessey And Oracle

The Zombies

2/5

Not bad. Near bad though. I expected more from a band with that name; nope, replacement level 1968.

Ananda Shankar

2/5

Point: 1001 is a lot, you see. Counterpoint: You are missing So Many.

Street Life

The Crusaders

3/5

Toys In The Attic

Aerosmith

3/5

Heaven Or Las Vegas

Cocteau Twins

5/5

One of the best records.

Konnichiwa

Skepta

3/5

Shaft

Isaac Hayes

4/5

Zombie

Fela Kuti

4/5

At Fillmore East

The Allman Brothers Band

4/5

Bubble And Scrape

Sebadoh

3/5

Fishscale

Ghostface Killah

4/5

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

4/5

Bert Jansch

3/5

Clube Da Esquina

Milton Nascimento

3/5

Back In Black

AC/DC

2/5

OMG Spinal Tap totally ripped these guys off! We almost got to 3stars during "You Shook Me" and "Shake a Leg" but 2stars was sealed by "Let Me Put My Spinal Tap Into You" and "Spinal Tap Ain't Noise Pollution"

Truth And Soul

Fishbone

4/5

A Love Supreme

John Coltrane

5/5

Music

Madonna

2/5

Removed

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

The Smashing Pumpkins

3/5

Out Of The Blue

Electric Light Orchestra

3/5

It's a cool idea to discofy Beatles harmonies. I remember how this sounded when I was 9. Somehow more dated than disco itself.

The Stooges

4/5

Music for the Masses

Depeche Mode

4/5

Lost In The Dream

The War On Drugs

2/5

Way too samey for a 60 minute set.

Debut

Björk

4/5

Vauxhall And I

Morrissey

3/5

Music From Big Pink

The Band

3/5

Fred Neil

3/5

School's Out

Alice Cooper

2/5

Curator, you can have one AC record, it's Billion Dollar Babies, smh

Power In Numbers

Jurassic 5

2/5

Started OK. Didn’t get better. Got worse. Kept getting worse. Bloodless pastiche.

Myths Of The Near Future

Klaxons

2/5

Removed. Removed from the list means I don't listen to it if I don't feel like it, or if it has multiple indications that it might sound like Muse. To wit: Dog meat cover art, pretentious title, cringe English-major tracklist names. Removed records get 2stars. I think there's a lotta USAs on this journey who are frustrated with the UK slant of the list, and I feel it. Our curator is who he is, and someone else would be different but he's not someone else. It would be interesting to see the compare/contrast with a similarly USA-slanted list. What should happen is I get a lot of good UK records that are new to me, but what is happening instead is I have a reinforced impression of the UK music press being faddish and cynical, what with the national prize winners being thrown out of the canon a few years later.

The La's

4/5

This is the hazily-remembered UK thing I want to hear. See also Stone Roses

The Man Who

Travis

1/5

In this period there was an insatiable demand for Radiohead, and there just wasn’t enough Radiohead. The market responds by producing ersatz Radiohead to fill the gap. This is fine, it’s how fads work, time passes and the ersatz is forgotten. Except by our curator! Who apparently thinks the ersatz Radiohead era was significant actually. 200 records in I’m starting to suspect we’re not in good hands.

Tapestry

Carole King

5/5

Protection

Massive Attack

4/5

Diamond Life

Sade

3/5

Moon Safari

Air

5/5

Pacific Ocean Blue

Dennis Wilson

3/5

Mostly fine-minus, a few moments of fine-plus. There's a musician in there, with a low ceiling set by circumstance and what seems like a lot of personal trouble. Obviously nothing remotely Must about it.

Tragic Songs of Life

The Louvin Brothers

3/5

Reign In Blood

Slayer

4/5

Maggot Brain

Funkadelic

4/5

Graceland

Paul Simon

4/5

In The Wee Small Hours

Frank Sinatra

3/5

If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears

The Mamas & The Papas

2/5

...Baby One More Time

Britney Spears

2/5

Removed

Electric Prunes

The Electric Prunes

3/5

Porcupine

Echo And The Bunnymen

4/5

I'm developing new policies around this list, so today I listened to all three list Echo records. We don't need three Echo records, but I like Echo, and this is the best of the three, by just a bit. Less artful than the Cure, less dark than Joy Div, less pure than Mary Chain; good band.

Live At The Regal

B.B. King

3/5

If I Should Fall From Grace With God

The Pogues

4/5

Seventh Tree

Goldfrapp

2/5

Moving Pictures

Rush

2/5

I thought this might be one where it was better than I remembered, but it was not :(

Punishing Kiss

Ute Lemper

1/5

Elevator pitch: Easy listening, but really hard instead. I listened to the whole first song, then half the second, and a quarter of the third. This is called tapering, and it's critical for challenges of this extremity.

Armed Forces

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

4/5

At Newport 1960

Muddy Waters

4/5

Disintegration

The Cure

5/5

Rare case of I know a couple of the songs, think I'm familiar, and then the thing is unbelievable

The Lexicon Of Love

ABC

3/5

Paul Simon

3/5

The Wildest!

Louis Prima

3/5

Cross

Justice

3/5

Songs For Swingin' Lovers!

Frank Sinatra

3/5

The Dark Side Of The Moon

Pink Floyd

5/5

Axis: Bold As Love

Jimi Hendrix

4/5

Permission to Land

The Darkness

2/5

Removed

Guero

Beck

3/5

Removed

Violator

Depeche Mode

3/5

Music in Exile

Songhoy Blues

4/5

Beggars Banquet

The Rolling Stones

5/5

Fear and Whiskey

Mekons

4/5

Let's Get It On

Marvin Gaye

3/5

Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde

The Pharcyde

4/5

You Are The Quarry

Morrissey

3/5

Removed. Listened anyway. Moz is OK by me. That's, not a real machine-gun, gangster

21

Adele

4/5

Removed. (!!!) Hey, it's the best selling UK album of the century but Curator changed his mind, you can skip it #derp And while she's the also the best-selling UK artist of the century, Curator has none of her records on the list #derp I have admittedly snob tastes and I'm not putting this in heavy rotation, but one of the purposes of music is doing what this does for the, what, hundreds of millions? people that it works for. Dismissing this while holding on to your fifth Leonard Cohen record is the "sportsball" of music POVs.

Sound of Silver

LCD Soundsystem

5/5

A gift from Gen X to millennials. We love you.

Deloused in the Comatorium

The Mars Volta

1/5

I think they can play their instruments somewhat. They sound like the opposite of a proper jammy ensemble, where we get together and explore and try to find musical ideas to turn into music. These guys seem to proactively avoid discovering anything musical. 60 minutes of no melody; it's perverse. Every song has one or two extra endings in the middle. Sometimes you're kind of getting used to it, maybe not actually listening, some of the playing is OK, and then the godforsaken singer comes back and it's death. Lose the singer, and all the "words", including the titles, watch a few YouTube songwriting videos, listen to some Tortoise, then maybe? No, it's hopeless.

Call of the Valley

Shivkumar Sharma

4/5

Morrison Hotel

The Doors

2/5

evermore

Taylor Swift

5/5

Kenya

Machito

3/5

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

PJ Harvey

4/5

The Undertones

2/5

Sounds like a fun band to play in. I bet they're psyched to have twice as many records on here as Wire.

Endtroducing.....

DJ Shadow

4/5

Raw Power

The Stooges

4/5

There's No Place Like America Today

Curtis Mayfield

3/5

Very

Pet Shop Boys

4/5

Step In The Arena

Gang Starr

3/5

The Fat Of The Land

The Prodigy

4/5

Teenager Of The Year

Frank Black

3/5

Good Old Boys

Randy Newman

3/5

I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Sinead O'Connor

3/5

Birth Of The Cool

Miles Davis

4/5

Rum Sodomy & The Lash

The Pogues

4/5

I can’t believe they’re getting away with this but they are. Charmers.

Copper Blue

Sugar

4/5

Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

The Kinks

3/5

Wish You Were Here

Pink Floyd

5/5

Slanted And Enchanted

Pavement

5/5

Purple Rain

Prince

5/5

Wild Is The Wind

Nina Simone

3/5

Physical Graffiti

Led Zeppelin

5/5

Exit Planet Dust

The Chemical Brothers

4/5

Time Out

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

4/5

The Good, The Bad & The Queen

2/5

Removed

Queen II

Queen

3/5

Vanishing Point

Primal Scream

4/5

...And Justice For All

Metallica

3/5

Movies

Holger Czukay

4/5

Snivilisation

Orbital

4/5

Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

4/5

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West

4/5

Life's Too Good

The Sugarcubes

4/5

A Seat at the Table

Solange

3/5

Cosmo's Factory

Creedence Clearwater Revival

5/5

Maverick A Strike

Finley Quaye

2/5

Electric

The Cult

1/5

Rubin: Watch, imma impugn their masculinity till they turn into a fourth derivative hair metal outfit

Be

Common

4/5

I'm Your Man

Leonard Cohen

1/5

Somewhere on this website there’s a list of the lowest-rated albums. They are all weird and noisy. Some of them are good, but weird and noisy albums are sailing into the wind of broad acceptance, and I don’t think those artists would be too concerned about it. It might be part of their point. This week I listened to Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart. I can’t remember if TMR is on that low-rated list, but it’s a classic of the critical/popular taste split. It’s provocative and actively resists pleasant listenability, and it’s 80 minutes which makes it tiring, but it’s also interesting, humorous, sincere, and, importantly, made by a band of musicians. Yes, weird musicians. Should you fire your wedding’s string quartet and get these guys? Maybe not! Tons of weird artists on this list that aren’t for everyone, it’s no problem at all. Also this week I drew the extremely short straw of Electric by the Cult. Those poor mopes sold their souls for the chance to be booed off the stage opening for the band who opens for the band who opens for Ratt. But they are recognizably a band, with guitars and a singer and songs (which aren’t good, at all), and a producer you’ve heard of. There are lots of ways to be musicians. Leonard Cohen is not doing any of them. Leonard Cohen is not a musician. I’d bet LC thinks music is silly and probably a scam, so who cares. I suspect he has a disability which prevents him from seeing the difference between music and what he does. He makes records like someone who has heard of records, but hasn’t listened to any because it’s beneath him. Because, you see, he’s A Writer. I will grant that he writes, and will not spend many cycles trying to convince you he’s a bad writer, though he is. Because I am a *music listener*, appeals to purely literary merit are category errors. Not to say I don’t respect the word part, and I love some very wordy artists. And there’s nothing wrong with being words-first; Bob Dylan (a musician) e.g. But music needs to be music foremost. I don’t need the words to be good, or in my native language, or present. Every positive review of LC praises his poetry. Super. Put the poems in books and sell the books in a bookstore. Leave music alone. If you take LC out of these records and put in Shakespeare, nothing happens, it still sucks. (I’d wonder how someone so talented has such poor taste in other areas; this isn’t a problem here.) OK, I can’t resist. Did anyone get all the way through Jazz Police? 5star poetry admirers, which line is better? 1) Jazz police are looking through my folders; 2) Jazz police are talking to my niece. He can’t (won’t?) sing, there’s not a melody in the whole set, his Horniness Expert schtick is eww, the instruments are picked at random, the backup singers are a premonition of AI. He thinks he’s a mediocre poet who’s cannily slumming in music as a career, but music isn’t a slum, jerk.

American Beauty

Grateful Dead

3/5

I have never been able to get with this band, I think it's because they're so committed to being nice and chill and mellow and peace. Are you never aroused, angry, excited, anything? I love the cover I don't know why there's a Vote sticker on it

World Clique

Deee-Lite

3/5

Cheap Thrills

Big Brother & The Holding Company

4/5

Elastica

4/5

Tracy Chapman

4/5

White Blood Cells

The White Stripes

4/5

G. Love And Special Sauce

G. Love & Special Sauce

2/5

If we were doing Oblique Strategies instead of albums, at the end the User Strategy I would suggest is “Make it shorter”. If you are just some band with songs and a style, make your point and go. A lot of mid artists can breeze thru 40’ but are slogging by 50’. Leave ‘em wanting more. It's also customary for distinctive-style so-so bands to have a standout track/signature song, even if not technically a hit, but G doesn't seem concerned about that.

Every Picture Tells A Story

Rod Stewart

3/5

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Various Artists

3/5

Hail To the Thief

Radiohead

3/5

Removed

Tigermilk

Belle & Sebastian

4/5

Exodus

Bob Marley & The Wailers

4/5

I Should Coco

Supergrass

4/5

(Pronounced 'Leh-'Nérd 'Skin-'Nérd)

Lynyrd Skynyrd

4/5

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

4/5

New York Dolls

4/5

Paris 1919

John Cale

3/5

Metallica

2/5

The good song is good. Otherwise, kinda boring and more than a little dumb :( Skimmed the list of albums that have sold (citation needed) 30M and this is one of the... least good not by Celine Dion. I liked And Justice somewhat.

Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

Spiritualized

5/5

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