1001 Albums Summary

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.

Better than Remain in Light!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Good, but very samey.

Hole are good.

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

In one ear and out the other.

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.

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.

Our psych record has precisely on psych song

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

This record made me feel sorry for it.

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.

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

oof.

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.

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.

You’re right Lenny, music is just style.

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.

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

I rate this record several ghost emojis

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.

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

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?

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

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

One of the best records.

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"

Removed

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

Way too samey for a 60 minute set.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Removed

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.

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

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.

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

Removed

Removed

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Removed

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

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.

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

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.

Removed

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.

Removed

Much less bad than Limbus Kit

Didn't like the black album much. Liked And Justice some. This one is super solid.

Like the cover art, this is a legible, sincere passion project, far more skilled than I could ever be, and yet, for the real world, not actually good. Great respect for their dedication to doing their (not very good) thing, from the relentless SOUTHern pedantry, to the crowd-sourcing, to the completely stupid 90'+4' length. Chase your dreams, ignore the haters.

This record is a C- which makes it one of the all-time pinnacles of prog. (I actually listened to it about a week ago as part of my program to make this whole dumb project go faster.) As a know-nothing adolescent I listened to this a lot, knew it backwards and forwards. But I'm sure I haven't heard it at all since sometime between 1986 and 1989, almost 40 years. Reading wikipedia before listening, I barely recognized the titles, and knowing the titles couldn't recall any fragment of tune or lyric. This makes for an interesting experiment that's very tricky to set up deliberately. Of course, when I listened to it, I "recognized" it. What I found fascinating was that having played it exactly once, over the next few days I could get multiple songs from it stuck in my head in full detail, as if I Iistened to it often/never shelved it. One spin was enough to make contact with a high-fidelity memory of it, a memory I wouldn't say I had, and couldn't access by thinking about it. Now I'm annoyed these so-so prog tracks are ear-worming me, but that will pass. The mind and memories are strange things.

Seems like a good record for country music listeners.

Bitches Brew with a tiny bit of Swans in it

Cool record that doesn’t matter in the slightest. Love you, Neil. With only 9 NY albums on the list, if NY/CR made another one, it would have to be included, I assume; maybe kick out the one Wire or Replacements or Husker. #evenwhenthemusicisgoodtheCuratorstillsucks

I remembered this one being better, I think being a 2x LP doesn’t help it. Arrangements are samey (organ, got it) and several tracks could lose a verse.

Removed

Very uptight and try-hardy, no chill. Eric Clapton is a minor artist. Between his cringiness and his mediocrity, he will not be on any list in 10-20 years.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Removed

I did not have a strong view of pre-solo-Gabriel Genesis, but I'm shocked to learn that only ELP is keeping them off the very bottom of the prog stack. Obnoxious and bad in the finest prog tradition.

Well crafted, but too pretty and doesn’t go anywhere I’m interested in

Such bad. Very loudness. Many dumb. Wow. This album has the lyric phase "hometown city" and the song title "Unmade Love". Like with all the Leonard Cohen reviews, I am assured that the writing is brilliant. The book contains the text, "Lyrically, his poetry (for it surely is)...". Like that, with the adverb, and the parentheses. Please, more critics from the music world and fewer from the writing world. I bailed around the same time I bailed on Ute Lemper. I wish I couldn't tell how bad this is.

Most disappointing genre record by a band with a misleadingly fun name since The Zombies

Well done, Leonard, this one didn’t make me mad! We have the premonition of future awfulness in the backup singers, but as a guy with some songs and a guitar he’s tolerable at this point, if a little dull.

Where is MF DOOM?!

Light My Fire is good. The End, while cringe, is a unique classic with some cool moments. Robby Krieger is a player. Band still meh overall.