So I have never really explored the Mekons, but a band I loved in high school - Too Much Joy - had a song called "If I Was a Mekon" and it made me curious about them. What little I had heard before today didn't do much for me so I didn't go any farther. This will be a good opportunity for me to give them a proper chance. Listening now, and on paper this sounds like something I SHOULD really like - it has rock, country(ish), and punk(ish) elements, which is what features in a lot of the new music I like today. But I think it's the vocals that bother me. And the production sounds very 1985/flat/muted to me. I've read that this band was great live and I bet they were, but this particular studio work doesn't do it for me. I got all the way to track 9 ("Last Dance") before I thought, "OK, I like this one."

Pre-listening: This album prompts an interesting question: what do you think is the single song you have heard the most in your life without ever hearing another track from its album? Because I think this one would be in the running for me (at least until today.) Listening: I would probably like Bittersweet Symphony more if it weren't played repeatedly at UT football games. It's obviously a catchy tune though. And I am reading the lyrics while listening and laughing that despite nearly 30 years of repeated listening I had NO IDEA some of these verses/words were in this song. Now for the rest of the album: This second song almost sounds like Tom Petty. Third song: sounds like Oasis. Losing interest... This fourth song sounds like something somebody would sing at a Scott Weiland tribute concert. Meh... OK, I'm starting to understand why I never heard another track off this album. I ABSOLUTELY did not need to hear this before I die.

Desert island disc for me.

I give this one three stars (out of five) and one of those stars is for Sunshine of Your Love being used so well by Scorcese. Never been a big Cream fan.

One of my all-time favorites, easy 5 stars. There was a considerable period of time when this was my favorite Hendrix album. I wore this thing out from about 1995 through 1998ish. It may just be my computer speakers but the production sounds worse than I remember it being.

10/10, no notes.

I suspect there will be several albums like this that I really don't need to listen because I already know it by heart, but I am listening anyway. So, so good. This may force me to adjust my ratings from this point forward. I of course loved Get Behind Me Satan but it seems silly to give it the same rating as Highway 61. I may need to save my 5-stars for the true classics.

This is fine. I think that I am going to give a 3 to all albums that don't really do much for me but are clearly from a genre that I am just not into. It did grow on me though. And I enjoyed reading the Wikipedia page about Jarrett and learning what an important figure he is. (He's still alive! He sued Steely Dan! He was referenced by Steve Buscemi's character in a Sopranos episode!) The album having 45 seconds of clapping at the end seemed unnecessary.

I've never heard this album other than the obvious hit. I had no idea she was English. I'm giving this the same 3/5 I gave the Keith Jarrett album yesterday (not my cup of tea but I won't penalize it just because I'm not into the genre.)

Of all the Stones albums from their peak years, I think this is my least favorite. It's a great album, obviously, but I am partial to Let It Bleed, Exile, and Sticky Fingers. So I'll give this one a 4 because those are all 5s IMO. I think the best songs on this album are as great as any Stones album but the other songs don't hold up for me personally like the non-hits on those other albums. (Also, I missed listening to this yesterday, so I listened AFTER listening to the Mekons album, and this one makes the Mekons album seem even worse by comparison - THIS is what Brits singing country music should sound like.)

So I have never really explored the Mekons, but a band I loved in high school - Too Much Joy - had a song called "If I Was a Mekon" and it made me curious about them. What little I had heard before today didn't do much for me so I didn't go any farther. This will be a good opportunity for me to give them a proper chance. Listening now, and on paper this sounds like something I SHOULD really like - it has rock, country(ish), and punk(ish) elements, which is what features in a lot of the new music I like today. But I think it's the vocals that bother me. And the production sounds very 1985/flat/muted to me. I've read that this band was great live and I bet they were, but this particular studio work doesn't do it for me. I got all the way to track 9 ("Last Dance") before I thought, "OK, I like this one."

Yeah, not my cup o' tea. Did not need to hear this before I die and DEFINITELY did not need to hear "Sweet Love" again. Because of this assignment, I did however get to learn that there is a German record label called Ariola, so that's pretty funny.

Never checked this band out before and happily surprised to see such a recent album included in this project. Listening now, this sounds NOTHING like what I expected - for some reason in my head I had them lumped in with all those early-2000s bands from New York and they are definitely not that. I don't know that this was an album I needed to listen to before I die, but I like this. It's a little more electronic than I am into, but good album, glad I listened.

5/5, no notes. Story time: When I had first started dating Elizabeth she came to my dad's for Sunday night dinner (Maryellen was there) and we were sitting around the table post-meal talking, which was kind of a Tipton tradition passed down from my grandparents. Dad was telling us that he had seen a VH-1 thing about the greatest rock n' roll bands of all time and he was going through the list from memory. When he got to #3, he told us - to our shock - that it was Def Leppard. It turned into a big Tipton-style argument, as I am sure you can imagine, with Maryellen and me absolutely incredulous and refusing to believe that what he said was true. Elizabeth was probably simultaneously entertained and looking for a way to politely leave. After at least ten minutes of this - and depending on who is telling the story it was closer to half an hour - Dad somewhat sheepishly said "Oh wait, I think it was actually Led Zeppelin." This story still gets referenced any time anyone in the family says the names Def Leppard or Led Zeppelin.

I am notoriously (at least among my music-discussing friends) not a big REM fan, though I definitely respect what they did for alternative music/culture, and there are some REM songs I do love. If you care about why I think I don't love REM as much as some others my age, ask me about my Older Sibling Theory. All of that being said, the hits on this album are among the first REM songs I remember being exposed to on MTV (after the tracks off Document that got a lot of airplay) and I generally like them. I like this album now but it annoyed me back then. I also like most of what REM did before this album more than I like what they did after it, so this was kind of an inflection point.

Ha, I have actually never listened to this (that I can recall.) I just realized for the first time ever that "Hello There" - which I only know as the intro song for Rock Band 2 on the Nintendo Wii - is Cheap Trick. What a fantastic song to open a show (or video game.) I was never a big Cheap Trick fan. I feel like they were a much bigger deal to people about a half-generation ahead of us (basically the kids in Dazed & Confused.) I've never really liked "I Want You to Want Me" but this version is pretty great. And holy shit, I don't think I ever knew that the opening to Check Your Head was sampled from the beginning of "Surrender" off this album. This was a fun listen. (P.S. - Another live album with 40 seconds of crowd noise at the end? This HAS to have something to do with pressing vinyl back then.)

Have heard a lot ABOUT Can (particularly in the context of their inspiring a lot of the Nels Cline-era Wilco stuff,) but had never made an effort to listen. Glad I did, this is cool and I can totally hear how this inspired Tweedy et al.

Ah, yes... So many memories of this album, so much to say... What an amazing debut album and what a bizarre career arc this band had (and continues to have!) I don't remember Pow R. Toc H. being this long, but it's possible I wasn't sober the last time I listened to it all the way through, lol. (Also, I could have sworn that Pow R. Toc H. was the song with "Tock! Tock! Tock!" over and over in it but that's actually the next track.) As much as I love this album and it brings back so many memories, I have to give it just 4 stars. I just don't find it as good as their best stuff.

Oh wow, really love this album. Choosing between 4 and 5 will be tough.

I liked that one song that was everywhere off this album ("Rockefeller Skank") but never had any desire to explore further, just not a genre I am into. Of course I've heard that "Right Here, Right Now" song about a billion times in commercials and at sporting events but I never knew that was Fatboy Slim. I did know "Praise You" was them. This album had some bangers, as the kids say. In the middle I got tired of it though - "Build It Up - Tear It Down," "Kalifornia," and "Soul Surfing" just annoyed me and the repetitive crap is why I don't like this genre. Ben used to listen to it constantly and I just didn't get it. But I'm sure it was great in the clubs, where I wouldn't be caught dead.

I've listened to this album before but never closely. This was a good excuse to pay attention. I didn't realize it was basically a break-up album about her split from Wyclef. And it's crazy that the guy she is singing to in the love songs led the 1993 Miami Hurricanes in tackles. I really enjoyed the game I saw him play in that year. I think this album is great but it doesn't blow me away like it seems to everyone else.

Pre-listening: This album prompts an interesting question: what do you think is the single song you have heard the most in your life without ever hearing another track from its album? Because I think this one would be in the running for me (at least until today.) Listening: I would probably like Bittersweet Symphony more if it weren't played repeatedly at UT football games. It's obviously a catchy tune though. And I am reading the lyrics while listening and laughing that despite nearly 30 years of repeated listening I had NO IDEA some of these verses/words were in this song. Now for the rest of the album: This second song almost sounds like Tom Petty. Third song: sounds like Oasis. Losing interest... This fourth song sounds like something somebody would sing at a Scott Weiland tribute concert. Meh... OK, I'm starting to understand why I never heard another track off this album. I ABSOLUTELY did not need to hear this before I die.

This is not my favorite album of theirs, though it obviously has some of their best work, making it tough to rate. I could take or leave Nico, but I think they were better with Cale. "The Murder Mystery" is unlistenable drek. It would be three stars for me without that song.

Wings! I hated this band for so long without even knowing anything by them except the title track off this album. When we were about to see McCartney live a couple of years ago and I looked to see what setlists he was playing, I finally decided to listen to some Wings and was kind of amazed at how good they were. Which is of course ridiculous, but I was young and dumb and too under the "John was better than Paul" spell. This album is a classic and has some amazing songs on it. "Let Me Roll It" was one of the highlights of the show for me. Glad I finally grew up a little bit. P.S. - This album also has a really interesting backstory if you haven't read about it.

To my undiscerning ear, this sounds like another Miles Davis album, a little heavier on keyboards than what I would expect. But reading about the context is interesting. My buddy Walker, who is a big jazz fan/player, got me into Weather Report (something along the lines of "You're such a big Primus fan, you should check out Jaco Pastorius,") and I've listened to their album Heavy Weather a lot. Miles's band around the time of this album included the guys that would go on to co-found Weather Report. Knowing that and listening to this, I can hear it. It's like Weather Report with a trumpet.

lol

Are we getting a second Hole because it's Masters week? I actually like this album. And it seems even better by comparison to yesterday.

Pre-listening: I own one Big Black album (Songs About Fucking) and it didn't do much for me so I never bothered to explore further. Maybe I will like this one more... Quite a week of personalities, going from two Courtney Love albums to a Steve Albini one. Listening: Yeah, this pretty much sounds like the other album I have. There may have been a time in my life when I would have liked this, but that time was well before 50 years old. This music just gives me a headache now. And I have always found Albini's lyrics pretty repulsive.

TWO Kurt Cobain albums in one week?!? ;-) Every time I listen to this album I am amazed by how SLOW it is - I've gotten used to the live versions of all these songs and they played them MUCH faster live. "In Bloom" almost sounds like a parody of itself. It's simultaneously cool and depressing that "Something In the Way" now reminds me of a Batman movie.

Immaculate. There was a stretch in my junior year at FSU where I listened to this album on repeat for weeks.

Ashamed to admit I have never sat and listened to a full CCR album start to finish. They would be high on a list of bands that I love what I have heard but have not really explored.

A pleasant surprise! This album (and group) are exactly what I was hoping for when I started this project - I had heard the name but couldn't have even told you what genre these guys were. Judging by the year I would have guessed some kind of electronic/dance/house thing. But this is a straight-up hip-hop group and they are great.

Love Nick Drake. Pink Moon will get 5 stars from me. This gets 4.

Desert island disc for me.

I remember these guys being on 120 Minutes occasionally. I kind of like the title track but this isn't really my cup of tea.

I had never sat down and listened to anything by John Cale other than Velvet Underground. Not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. A few songs (especially "The Endless Plain of Fortune") reminded me of a Welsh Warren Zevon. This is OK. I like "Half Past France." John Cale is obviously an important figure in the history of rock/popular music, but I am unable to see/hear why this was an album I needed to listen to before I died.

Well, this is a curveball! I was wondering when/if we were going to get something from before the advent of rock 'n' roll. LOT of local connections to these guys. And Dylan was heavily influenced by them so I have heard some of their music in documentaries about him and heard a lot of covers of their music. And of course I've known the brutal "Knoxville Girl" for years. (There's a marker across the street from my office recognizing that song and the Louvin Brothers that is part of the "Cradle of Country Music Tour" trail downtown.) It is frequently covered by local artists of all genres.

John Lydon's step-daughter fronted this group so I have read a lot more about them than I have heard from them. This album sounds kind of crude, almost like demos, but it has some interesting rhythms. Definitely hear the reggae influence, a lot more reggae-ish than punk-sounding to me. Some of it would probably be called appropriation today. At any rate, this album seems to have more historical significance than musical appeal, IMO. The Marvin Gaye cover is a novelty but Jack Black did it better.

The opening track is one of my favorite songs by any artist from the 2000s. THAT BEING SAID... Back when the Strokes-era NYC scene was exploding, these guys were critical darlings and I didn't really get it. I thought they were fine, but didn't see what all the fuss was about. I figured there must be something about seeing them live. I had the opportunity to do that at one of the Bonnaroos I went to and... I guess I sort of got it? Karen O definitely had stage presence. And she is certainly attractive but I never understood the whole "sex goddess" image the music press seemed to bestow on her. Oh well, I like these guys OK and this was pretty a good album. I just never understood what the big deal was. I guess like a lot of the albums in this project, you had to be there. ("There" being NYC at that particular time, not just being alive in 2003-2009.) P.S. - I listened to the "Deluxe Edition" on Apple Music and it included 4 extra acoustic version tracks and I liked those better than what ended up on the album. Good songs that I liked more without all the synthesizer crap.

Hell yeah! I was just reading about this album (and Outkast) yesterday, in two separate places for two separate reasons, one of which was the announcement they will be inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame this year.

Random Blondie thoughts: I don't have a lot of vivid memories from my early childhood - probably because of a combination of trauma repression, general old age, and alcohol killing brain cells - but one of them is of lying in my parents' bed and watching Blondie sing "The Tide is High" on Solid Gold. That song is not on this album, of course, but it's usually the first thing I think of when this group is mentioned. The second is the hip-hop "pioneering" they did in "Rapture." And the third is that Maggie and I used to have fun doing "One Way or Another" on Rock Band 2 on the Wii. I had never listened to this album start to finish. Now I can die. (lol)

I can feel my hipster bona fides strengthening with every track! lol I didn't know much about these guys before this morning, but it's kind of amazing to me that (at least according to Wikipedia) four of the five of them are still alive. The story of recording this album is interesting and sad (tl;dr: they broke up before it was released, and then "Time of the Season" became a hit after they weren't a band anymore.) Based on this album's reputation, I expected more of these songs to sound familiar to me. Like from TV shows and movies maybe?

This album is amazing. 14 songs in 29 minutes. "Blitzkrieg Bop" is on the short list of greatest opening songs on debut albums of all time. I vividly remember the first time I heard it (or at least a piece of it): I was in 4th grade (spring/summer of 1984) at a friend's birthday slumber party and his parents let us rent National Lampoon's Vacation. When the kids put on their headphones in the car on the interstate, the beginning of "Blitzkrieg Bop" plays. From that point forward I forever associated the song with coolness. I was 9. In middle school I was an Anglophile, so I always leaned Pistols over Ramones. But I was young and foolish then. I'm no longer young, still foolish, but I can admit now that THIS was and is the real shit. Sadly, the only time these guys came to Knoxville (1991,) I was out of town.

Lolla '93 may have changed my life more than any other single show/festival I attended. This album is sublime. These guys were at the top of their game (and would remain so through Jar of Flies.)

It was tough choosing between 4 and 5 stars for this one. I ultimately went with 4, because although the entire album is strong, none of the songs other than "New York State of Mind" really grab me. Nas is an amazing MC but I need more melodic hooks in my music these days. This whole album is great, even without the melodies I crave.

PRE-LISTEN: Is this our first repeat artist? I gave the previous album 3 stars - I liked it but it didn't have enough songs that I consider "CCR classics" on it. Looking at the titles on this one, I expect to feel about the same but we shall see... POST-LISTEN: So I looked through our albums so far and this is NOT our first repeat artist - I had mercifully forgotten that we had two days in a row of Hole, lol. Also, I like this album more than the last one we had. So 4 stars it is.

PRE-LISTEN: I did not know anything by Simple Minds beyond the MTV stuff (the obvious Breakfast Club hit, but I know there was another video in heavy rotation that still gets shown on MTV Classic and I can't remember what it was,) so this was an interesting selection to me. According to Wikipedia, Herbie Hancock guested on this album (solo on "Hunter and the Hunted.") POST-LISTEN: I did not recognize any of the songs but they still sounded so familiar, like soundtracks to '80s movies I've forgotten I watched. Especially the instrumental track - it really seemed like something you would hear while Andrew McCarthy brooded over some girl. An odd but cool sensation. If I were ten years older I bet I would have liked these guys a lot growing up.

The lyrics of the second track don't seem to match the title at all - was that intentional? Anyway, aside from the opener I wasn't familiar with any of these songs. I am sure What's Goin' On will be in this list at some point, and I like that album better than this one.

Good memories. I really love this album but I feel like it has enough filler to dock it a star. And I would not put it on quite the same level as Siamese Dream and Gish. So it's a victim of the band's own greatness - I think Billy would appreciate that, lol.

Sly has been a blind spot for me aside from "Everyday People", and I have been meaning to explore his music for a while, so I am eager to listen to this. LISTENING: Holy shit. The opening track was featured in a Sly Stone tribute in the HBO Pee Wee Herman special in 1981 that Maryellen and I watched when we were way too young. I never knew what the song was or where it came from. Mystery solved, 44 years later. (And it's apparently a Sly Stone hit that I just never encountered outside of that childhood memory.) I had heard of Track 2 because of its eye/ear-catching title but never listened to the song. And so on and so on and scooby-dooby-dooby. This album is fantastic.

One of my favorite videos/songs in the early days of MTV was Slade's "Run Runaway." Weird coincidence that I also loved Quiet Riot back then and had no idea until years later that a few of their biggest hits were Slade covers. These guys had a sense of humor that resonated with me - they seemed Monty Python-ish. And I always liked the name Noddy Holder.

Huh, never noticed Kanye's name on the cover of this album before... My Bowie experience has been pretty strange but probably not all that uncommon for someone my age. For the first 30-ish years of my life I basically knew no Bowie that wasn't on MTV in my childhood and my impression of him was some combination of the "China Girl" video and the ludicrous "Dancin' in the Street" video with Mick Jagger. When I started reading more about rock history and the influences on artists I loved, Bowie always came up and I didn't really get it. Fast-forward to the last ten years or so and I read a biography of him that made me want to explore the music more and I've been blown away. (I am sure this was at least in part encouraged by the public Bowie renaissance sparked by his death and brilliant final album.)

Not a genre I have any interest in, beyond historical importance/influence. I have been listening off-and-on to Andrew Hickey's "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs" podcast (I am only up to Screamin' Jay Hawkins, which is a full 53 episodes in!) and I remember a lot of the early episodes discussed Basie, Ellington, etc., pretty heavily. We are so lucky we grew up in a time with rock music. LOL, imagine getting excited by this.

Like everyone, I know the Folsom Prison album. I don't think I had heard this one other than this version of "Sue," which I think is the most famous version. Lot of crowd interaction on this one. That had to be a surreal environment for a show. It was anticlimactic to have a clipped version of "Folsom" as a closer. I think this is important as a historical document but doesn't work that great as an album start-to-finish.

First track was sampled in B-Boy Bouillabaisse! And track 5 is a good Doobies cover. And holy shit, Summer Breeze? This may be my new favorite version of this song. I have never listened to a full album by these guys and I am glad this project made me finally do so. Classic funk.

I had first heard "There She Goes" on the soundtrack for So I Married an Axe Murderer, which is excellent, and then I bought this album when Pearl Jam started playing "Timeless Melody" on their 2000 tour (when I was obsessed with PJ and buying/trading/downloading/burning every PJ bootleg I could get my hands on.) This is a good album but its novelty has kind of worn off for me. It has some classic tunes though.

I mentioned in the Count Basie comments that I had been listening to Andrew Hickey's "The History of Rock Music in 500 Songs" podcast, and obviously the early episodes have a lot of Little Richard discussion. I found this excerpt (copied from his website) interesting and had never heard it before: "He was becoming a huge star, and that meant he had to *break* a lot of contracts. He’d got concert bookings for several months ahead, but those bookings were in second-rate clubs, and he had to be in Hollywood to promote his new record and build a new career. But he also didn’t want to get a reputation for missing gigs. There was only one thing to do — hire an impostor to be Little Richard at these low-class gigs. So while Richard went off to promote his record, another young singer from Georgia with a pompadour and a gospel feel was being introduced with the phrase 'Ladies and gentlemen—the hardest-working man in showbusiness today—Little Richard!' When James Brown went back to performing under his own name, he kept that introduction… " And now you know... the rest of the story. Good day!

This is one of the very few Beck albums that I LIKE (don't love.) Most of his stuff I am either crazy about or not interested in at all. I remember I found it a little disappointing when it was released, but looking back that was at least partly just because he was coming off such an amazing streak of albums. Listening to this today, it's a little better than I remembered. I always liked the stronger/catchier tracks ("E-Pro", "Girl", "Hell Yes",) but never really got into the rest 20 years ago. (Also, I can't believe this album is 20 years old.) After a strong opening 3 tracks, tracks 4 and 6 still do nothing for me though. Kind of brings the album to a screeching halt for me, after a several-album stretch where I would play Beck albums start to finish without losing interest (Mellow Gold, Odelay, Mutations, Midnite Vultures, Sea Change.) I am also convinced nobody is reading these things I write on here, so I feel free to ignore that One Foot in the Grave was in the middle of that stretch and I own it but am not sure I have ever listened to it all the way through, lol. Looking at his discography chronologically, this is the album where I lost interest in Beck. I bought the next one but may have only listened to it once. Didn't get anymore after that. If I could give this 2.5 stars, I would. But I can't, so my love for the stronger tracks earns it a 3.

Hell yes. I really enjoy the anticipation of reloading this screen every day when I turn on my computer and seeing what we get. Some days it's something I've never even heard of, some days it's something I've heard of but never checked out before, some days it pisses me off (in other words, some days it's Hole,) and some days it's an album I already love and am excited to hear again. This album falls in that last category. Perfect Friday before a holiday weekend music. I think my conversion to latter-day Stones fan is well-chronicled, so I won't go into it again here. But this album was basically the skeleton key for that.

Respect to everyone involved but this does nothing for me. I'll give it two stars because it's not BAD, just not something I have any interest in.

Never heard of this or him. Not really my genre, but it is hard to describe how refreshing this sounds after 3 hours and 14 minutes of Ella Fitzgerald singing the Gershwin song book. That wore off fairly quickly, though.

PRE-LISTEN: Heard her name quite a bit - she and Dave Rawlings play here pretty often - but have never explored her catalog. Let's see how it goes. I predict I will like it. WHILE LISTENING: My prediction was correct! I went to her Wikipedia page because her accent made me curious where she was from. I was caught quite off-guard by the "Early Life" section.

My knowledge of this band until about ten years ago consisted solely of "Smoke on the Water" and I just imagined all of their music sounded like that, so I didn't explore any further. Then one year at the neighborhood Christmas party I was talking to a guy who is a big classic rock freak and he was extolling the virtues of these guys and he loaned me The Very Best of Deep Purple. It had two of the tracks from this album ("Speed King" and "Child in Time.") I think this band is essential for an understanding of rock music, but I don't think I agree that this particular album is one you need to hear before you die. A greatest hits collection like my neighbor loaned me would definitely suffice IMO. (Although "Flight of the Rat" and "Into the Fire" were not on that collection and I think I liked those songs the most from this album.) There are times when I'm listening to this band that I feel like what they were playing was so ridiculous that Spinal Tap HAD to have been at least partially inspired by them.

PRE-LISTEN: Ooh, problematic! I have never "gotten" the whole Kanye thing. Granted, I have not really tried to "get" it, but the music of his that I have heard has not made me even slightly curious to check out any more. And everyone just accepts it as FACT that he is a "genius." I was intending for a while to try to give his alleged classics a serious listen to see if I could figure it out and then he went full Nazi and I basically forgot about it. I guess this project is as good an excuse as there will be, so let's see... LISTENING: Hey, I recognize "POWER"! Never paid attention to the lyrics before. Holy shit at all the guests on "All of the Lights." And then "Monster" too. OK, I see why this album was such a big deal. I kind of like "Runaway." OK, I think I get it. This album is really good. But what a weirdo.

I used to love this album so much. It still brings back some pleasant nostalgia, but the combination of what this band has become and reading Kiedis's autobiography have complicated my feelings about this one. It is possible that there is not an album I listened to more than this one between 1991 and 1993. I doubt that's actually the case but it is on the short list with PJ, Nirvana, the Metallica black album, Achtung Baby, and the GnR Illusion albums.

Zappa is another artist I have been meaning to check out, really haven't listened to much of his stuff before this. I was kind of surprised to see this album came out in 1966, but listening to it you can tell. This seems like something important more for what it laid the foundation for, not something that was that great on its own. Most of this sounds like psychedelia for psychedelia's sake. I'm sure it terrified our grandparents.

I recounted my latter-day conversion to Bowie in my Ziggy Stardust review and this album was part of it. The story of this album is fascinating and the title track is really cool. I have a No Man's Sky playlist that I listen to sometimes when I play and this is on it. Fits well with drifting through space and exploring strange worlds. (P.S. - NMS has a new update today. Woo hoo!) I would give the title track 4 or 5 stars but the rest is a 3, I think.

I could have sworn we had a Stevie Wonder album earlier but I just looked at the list and we apparently did not. I was not familiar with this album and the only track title I recognize is "Higher Ground."

Like Bowie, another staple of early MTV that I would have had a MUCH different perception of had I been older. I'm happy I came of age when I did (and certainly don't want to be older than I am,) but I would have been a MUCH bigger fan of these guys a lot earlier if I hadn't been a little kid when I saw their videos. I read for years about how amazing a film Stop Making Sense was and remember thinking "It's Talking Heads - how great can it be?" Then I watched it and holy shit. These guys were fantastic.

My favorite thing about this album was the scene in Flight of the Conchords: Murray: When you're in a band, you don't get with your bandmate's girlfriend - past or present. Jemaine: Yes, well thanks for that. Murray: You get a love triangle - you know? Fleetwood Mac situation. Murray: Well there there was four of them, so more of a love square. But you know, no one gets on. Jemaine: Okay, I see. Murray: Mind you, they did make some of their best music back then. Bret: Rumours. Murray: No, that's all true.

PRE-LISTENING: I am very vaguely familiar with the music of Supertramp but cannot imagine that this truly is an album I need to listen to before I die. I don't recognize any of the song titles but we shall see if any of it sounds familiar... LISTENING: The opening track ("School") does not sound even remotely familiar. Wikipedia says it was released as a single and was kind of a hit, which is wild to me. Wikipedia calls Track 2 ("Bloody Well Right") their "breakthrough hit" and again it doesn't sound remotely familiar. I have MAYBE heard "Dreamer" before? (Or more likely, it just sounds like generic Supertramp to me.) POST-LISTEN: Absolutely not an album anyone NEEDS to listen to.

PRE-LISTENING: This will be the second time I have listened to a Taylor Swift album. I listened to one of them a few years ago the day it came out (Google tells me it was called Midnights.) I have also heard at least some (maybe all) of Ryan Adams' version of this album. Here goes! LISTENING: Catchy, I get it, it's just not for me. My wallet and I are grateful that I basically missed this phenomenon with Maggie. Enjoyed it more than Supertramp though.

Very well done, 1001 Albums Generator! I wonder if everyone got a Beach Boys album today? I have been arguing with some music buddies since yesterday about my inability to get into the Beach Boys. Yes, I recognize Brian Wilson is a genius, yes I know I'm wrong about this, but I just couldn't ever separate them from their dumb surfing/girls/cars stuff from the early days despite several Pet Sounds listens. You can't control what you like. But I have seen some talk about this album being underrated, so I am interested to give it a listen. The only title I recognize is "Feel Flows," which was on the Almost Famous soundtrack (and which I kind of like.) LISTENING: LOL, this first song is absurd. I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance amid all this "Brian Wilson was a genius" hoopla. Looking now I see it is credited to Jardine and Love, but still, come on. Third song may be even more preposterous. I am really trying to keep an open mind but this is just so dumb. And this is one of the songs Brian co-wrote! "Student Demonstration Time" started out kind of cool musically but then the siren noise started and the idiotic lyrics. We are at the end of side one and four of the five songs so far have made me laugh out loud. I'm starting to feel like it is disrespectful to listen to this so soon after Wilson passed away. And now they're singing "Stay away when there's a riot goin' on" - now I'm laughing and disrespecting Sly Stone too? Imagine listening to something like "Kick Out the Jams" and then this song comes on, lol. This album is dreadful. On to side 2... "Feel the Flow" is still good. The music on side 2 is MUCH better so far, but then the lyrics of "A Day in the Life of a Tree" start and I'm laughing again. I just can't take this seriously. "'Til I Die" is decent. "Surf's Up" is decent. Strong finish! I am going to give this two stars based on the music on side 2 and the fact that I would feel bad giving it one star the day after Brian Wilson died. (Edit: Nope. I came back today and decided the grace period is over. I was laughing about this album all night.)