1001 Albums Summary

What an album to start this journey with! The lyrics are fairly impenetrable for me, but I love their feeling. The music is genre defining -melodic indie with folk and rock. It feels li-fi, but is so well produced and comped it is on another level. Wonderful 5⭐

4 stars

5 ⭐

Top 10 favourite. 2001, 21 years old at University. It was like this album was made for me - angular guitar underwritten with classic 60s pop sensibilities. I can remember where I was when I 1st heard Last Nite, and that is what your Favourites are all about.

The songs that aren't covers have 1 musical idea, repeated to the point of medium. The covers are ok, but hardly greatest album material. I don't appreciate it lyrically, and I feel that it is where it's got to hit you, as the songs are so repetitive.

The aim of doing this is to 1. find great albums I'd never listened to and 2. reasses albums I had once dismissed. This is one I am glad I have reassessed. After OK Computer, Radiohead dropped off a cliff for me. Kid A etc left me absolutely cold. This album had a cursory listen at the time, but the purchasing process was odd and I considered it less of a proper release because of it. I know I did prefer it to their post-OK releases at the time, but I never listened to it again until it appeared here. What I like about it is that there are songs with melodies and bass lines that groove a bit. And rhythm. Overall, it feels like these songs are allowed to breathe - all the intensity is dialled back a bit to let the tunes rise to the surface. Glad I listened again. The first time it was almost a 5, but a 4 is probably closer - it's not that great, but very, very good.l and one I will listen to again.

After slogging through 11mins long track 1, I was dreading the rest of the album, but I found I quite enjoyed the rest! It was weird, but inventive.

I had a friend who said "Why would I go and watch **** live? I can listen to all their songs perfectly on CD." For me, this album is the reason. Songs shouldn't exist in one perfect form - they are living, evolving things. And on this album, with Keith Jarrett improvising them from the musical either, that is demonstrated to perfection. He shows music isn't about the best piano, the best rehearsed, the best produced. It is also about the immediacy of the moment. My only problem with this album is that it sometimes reminds me of the theme tunes to those 80s US law dramas! They really spoilt melodic jazz for me.

Inoffensive and pleasent, but hardly exciting. Obviously not up with the real big hitters of the period and lacks the standout tracks that elevate bands from the crowd

This was going to be a 4, but caught me on the wrong day where the angular and spiky songs hit wrong and annoyed me. Ultimately the instruments and vocals sounded so distinct from each other, rather than helping into a coherent sound.

Music with no soul. I can hear the midi instruments as they beep and click. It's redeeming feature is that it is largely inoffensive and recedes to the background.

7/10

5/10

9/10

It's nice! I enjoy listening to it. But it is hardly exciting, and I'm not sure I MUST listen to it before I die? The orchestration seems a bit lame really, perhaps signposting the garbage heading out way from the Arctic Monkeys. But here, the tunes remain and Alex isn't wholly up himself. 6/10

9/10

2/10 Got very bored after the first couple of tracks. Had to skip Da Bitches, with it's terrible, dated lyrics. Also was about to skip Mental Stamina with it's atonal, arythmic phone beep thing. Not good.

Hmm, incredibly inoffensive and safe - although I appreciate the background of the album. Kind of music that is like a warm bath or good to recover from major surgery from. It ain't going to get you too ruled up. However, I can't deny that these are some of my favourites versions of the behemoth songs. I'm just not that much of a fan of the songs. 5/10

9/10 Traditional British folk is an odd genre - I listened to this on my way to a beer festival in the West Country (UK), and I couldn't think of anything more fitting! I love it because the band, and the guitar especially, lifts above the trad folk. And Sandy Denny's vocals are genre defining. Thoroughly enjoyable, much better than I expected

7/10 Angry, frantic, but also tuneful. Aged very well compared to other music from the early 90s.

9/10 Maybe a bit generous - sometimes the noodling is a bit, sometimes the tracks are too long - but Born on the Bayou and Proud Mary are excellent and I love the general feel of the album. Go on, have 5 stars.

6/10 1st up, I hate sax. 2nd, the songs are so earnest, so pained, so overwrought. It's exhausting. At times they are like they are from a musical, where everything has to accommodate the lyrics, and be damned the tune and the song structure. But it is obviously still a great album, with some brilliant songs.

2/10 Little to redeem this. It is everything I dislike about 80s pop - it's music with the soul removed.

6/10 4 good pop singles sat amongst some fairly bland tracks. Lyrically, a relentless breakup album, which gets tiresome after a while

8/10 Great guitar. Very angry

7/10

7/10 Definitely an extra star for its influence. At times it's excellent, at others it just sounds a bit rubbish! One of the many double albums that would have been a solid 5 ⭐ single album.

4/10 Music I can't relate to, so it's hard to give it a decent score. It's just so syrupy-thick. Maybe if I were to hold a dinner party and invite some mid 20th century intellectuals, this could play low in the background, smothered by the smoke from our cigars. I find it hard to grasp how raw emotion can be conveyed by such bland music, but what do I know. I was glad when it finished.

4/10 Painfully average. The 3 singles I remember are still decent slices of jangle pop, but this album is one of those that is sorely out of place on any list of greatest albums. Even 1001 of them.

4/10 Another album that doesn't need to be on this list. I counted 18 yawns during my listening. I can't put my finger on particularly frustrating tracks, it's just as a whole piece it is massively underwhelming.

10/10 The best 1st song/last song combo I can think of, and what's in between is great too. All the better for not being a rock opera - these are just brilliant songs with no agenda other than to be awesome. Potentially a top 10 all-time favourite. And probably the only Who album that'll get 5stars as they always seem to let themselves down with a few dodgy tracks. But none of that here.

8/10 Well, well, well. My heart sank when this came up. I didnt know it and I was all set to be granting it 2 stars. But I was wonderfully wrong! It's funky, funny and clever. It's superbly varied. It has SONGS that evolve and are coherent. It has some guitar!! The point of doing this is to challenge oneself to listen to things I wouldn't normally in the hope of finding things that are fresh. Hooray

4/10 I wouldn't have guessed this was a Bee Gees' album, although there is the odd moment where the future distinctive vocal can be discerned from the largely forgettable late 60s pop on offer. Sounds so much like the Beatles at times, it is almost comical, as are most of their lyrics. I have no doubt that in is time it would have been a decent listen, but today, with the wealth of other music around, it felt irrelevant.

10/10 It's wild! A great live album gives you an inkling if what it was like to be in the audience, and none does it better than this one.

8/10 Well, ok then. Never knowingly heard Spirit before, but I thought this was rather awesome. They sound like they're having fun and have a sense of humour. They know how to rock and how to write a song. Thank you 1001 STHBYD

4/10 It sits in the background and rumbles along in its inoffensive way. It's well produced, but an hour? Oof, it was a bit of a slog. I don't begrudge this album being on the list, assuming it represents a high mark in Euro-electronic reinterpretations of Tango music. I would question how they have managed to take the soul out of something meant to be so raw. It does nothing for me - most of it feels like it could be on a Brittany Ferries infomercial

5/10

5/10 Love the bass, appreciate the instrumentation and arrangements. But I get a bit bored and I don't get grabbed by the songs. Glad I heard it, but I'm unlikely to revisit.

3/10 It's harsh, but I just don't like this type of music. It was absolutely vital though: the antithesis that rock and roll needed to become the phenomenon it did. You got to have something to rebel against and these perfectly orchestrated, perfectly sung, perfectly bland songs were that.

5/10 A bit too rough round the edges, but solid psychedelic rock. And it made me think of the Simpsons.

7/10 Money for Nothing is epic, 10/10. So Far Away and Walk of Life are great. But it does lag and drift for long stretches - you just want to give it a boot up the butt in the 2nd half.

6/10

4/10 So I thought I was going to hate this album but, while I didn't actually like it, I definitely enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

5/10 I feel I should like this more than I do. It's so flippin noisy though. And discordant.i can appreciate it.

6/10 Could have been 4 stars - the best bits are great, although the 1st track has my least favourite elements of meandering.

3/10 Out of context, there is little going for this album. Mercifully short. Ridiculously short, in fact.

6/10 At times I think it's great - I find his lyrics funny and interesting, and musically it can be melodic and solid indie folk. But this does not need to be 72 mins long. An album should be 42mins, 12 songs. It can be longer, but you need a good reason. Like books over 306 pages, or movies over 1hr 44mins. It's doable, gee, most of the top albums ARE. But this album does not make its case. Easy to find 4 songs to cut and 20mins. Now that would have been an excellent album...

6/10 It's cool - the musicality is top drawer and I like the feel to the album. However, there are no stand out tracks I'd say I love and it gets a little too jazz for me. But obviously great and worthy of it's place on this list

6/10 Enjoyed more than I thought I would. It stays the right side of dirge on all but the title track, which, on an album of only 8 songs, resulted in it losing a mark and this a star. Bad luck, The Cure.

7/10 Funky, obviously. The musicianship is top notch, and the song writings great - whether it is theirs or finely picked other people's.

9/10 A great punk album. Tunes, energy, funny lyrics. Even the Devil Horn saxophone doesn't spoil the tracks it appears on.

6/10 I was firmly of the opinion that Prince is overrated. For the first half of this album, I had serious doubts about that belief. But then I listened to the second half and read the Spotify bio, and he definitely is. I enjoyed parts of this album much more than I thought I would and it was a very strong 4 star. However, the longer the album lasted, the further the score dropped ...

1/10 Oh god. The devil horn. In stereo, playing different random notes while a drummer violently disagrees with them both on anything that might be construed as a cohesive sound. It's relentless, although on a couple of occasions a tune tries to break out, only to be brutally assaulted around the head with a barrage of sax notes blasted at the full limit of the infernal instrument's gasping worst. I ran out of time and inclination to make it to the end, but unless there is some kind of musical epiphany halfway through, I don't think anything was going to happen to change my mind.

2/10 I don't like Bjorn. I recognise the need for unique voices, and I salute her for having one. It's just I really dislike it. The staccato, broken delivery does my nut in. Maybe slightly harsh on this album, but it took a big effort to make it through

7/10 Am I giving this an extra star cos I feel that I'm obliged to? Maybe. Sir Duke, I Wish and As are superb songs. But I don't like a lot of the album, and there is a lot of it. I never liked Isn't She Lovely's sickly pop, and to have 6+ mins of it is bordering on torture. If it's your thing then 1hr45mins is probably heaven, but for the casual fan it is far too much.

4/10 It's a soundtrack. It sounds like a soundtrack. It has one song and then lots of sound tracks. They sound ok in places, but rarely hint a cohesive album in the way I think this list understands it to be.

2/10 I want a survivors T-shirt for this album. It's comical really, banging and drilling and shouting. Being in German, the lyrics are obviously pointless to me as a non-speaker, so there is nothing to gain from it there. Why not 1/10? Well, there is some rhythm to it and it is certainly challenging. Kind of made me think about what is the point of music - is it to only be beautiful or meaningful? How wide is that bracket, and isn't it boring if nothing else is worthy? I don't think I know, but ultimately this didn't bring me any joy or touch me in any way other than the satisfaction of making it through.

7/10 I enjoyed it. Totally passed me by when it came out, but that was when my attention was elsewhere. Hard to justify it being in this list, but 1001 is a lot of albums and this is probably in the top 1000 LPs. It's just hard to think of it as something exceptional, something for all time. Maybe this list is too long.

10/10 Wow - what an album. Guitar rock, redefined and the bar set for everyone else. The one thing Jimi had that so few other guitarists do is the FEEL of the instrument. He's technically awesome, obviously, but that what his playing is about. Every song is great. For me, the drums and bass are much better on this than Electric aladypand, where they were trying too hard to keep up with the virtuosity. They didn't need to.

5/10 Full-on country. It couldn't be more country. It can be twee and overwrought but the harmonies are great and they three superstars sound nothing like they look on the cover. Which is a good thing, as I was fearing an 80s C&W album with synths and the like. Maybe that isn't a thing. Whenever C&W comes up, it reminds me of my grandad, so that is a good thing.

7/10 Really solid punk album. Much more interesting than some of their peers who get more plaudits.

6/10 It's a good album and Billy Joel is a Good Songwriter. But I don't particularly like it. Is it too polished? Is it the constant threat of the devil horn? Too many jazzy chords? I think so, but it is so Radio 2 l, it hurts l. Bet Ken Bruce loves it.

8/10 So painfully cool, to my way of thinking. Always been in my peripheral, but missed them in the 90s and never revisited. Really liked this - noisy but tuneful and interesting. Super slacker indie

5/10 Pedestrian - kinda weak sounding for a hard rock album. Sweet Emotion is great, but the rest is fairly average fodder. Yes, even Walk This Way, which has an obviously excellent riff, but was strangely flat

5/10 Fine. If it wasn't Bowie, it wouldn't be here as it is at best average. Nothing stands out for me - no real tunes or catchy hooks.

9/10

4/10 While on the one hand I can see how the Angry lyrics could connect, and musically it isn't terrible - although punky, it has definite skill to it - on the other hand I'll happily never hear it again. You can hear how this would go into to be honest and polished into the influences of later US punk bands and deserves it's place on this list. I just don't happen to like it.

8/10 A great pop album. The man was obsessed, and that is to it's detriment, but I guess it was one of his defining qualities, so what are you gonna do. Musically it is funky and upbeat. I don't love any of the tracks but equally I like all of it. Just please get him a cold shower.

7/10 Enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Very 80s, but in a good way. It drifts at times, but the songs are good and it holds a lot of strong nostalgia for me

10/10 This is NOT the greatest album ever. Maybe it wouldn't make some people's top 1001 - I wouldn't hold it against them. It's not a 10 if I could be ston-cold objective about it. But I can't. It hits me hard in whatever it is we call a soul. It captures a time and takes me back there. It fills me with the emotions of that time, of being that age. It reminds me of my friends and my future wife who I'd just met. It reminds me of the hope I held at that time and the abandon of enjoying myself with life stretching out in front of me. And yes, Opus 40 might make me cry a little bit because for 4mins, it almost becomes too much. "I'm alive" she cried, "But I don't know what it means". That lyric defines it all So what I'm saying is that I hope YOU have an album like this, that holds memory and emotion, love and joy, nostalgia and hope. It almost certainly won't be this specific album, but that is not the point. There will be an album out there that does it for you and I hope you know what it is. I think that might be what they call Art... P.s.Even the Devil Horn on Hudson Line is almost acceptable.

7/10 Slightly generous, maybe, but it is solid, chunky rock.

10/10 I knew I already loved this album, but maybe underestimated how much.

7/10 British folk - pretty much one man and his guitar. No polish here, just the quality of the playing and the songs. Sometimes it's excellent, others it is a bit too folksy. Maybe music I prefer to play than listen to.

10/10 The album that started it all for me? 14-years old and it blew me away. Ive not listened to any album as much again, and although there are many I now consider better, I know I won't hear anything that will consume me so wholly as this album did. For such an album that was The One for me back in the day, I'm glad it still holds up as an excellent piece of guitar rock. The lyrics are really poor, but everything else is sublime. Still love it. They never matched it again, and I moved on, but this will always be a top 10 album.

6/10 Enjoyable in parts, but it has the issue I have with a lot of the Doors stuff, which is I'm not sure they are very good. It's the kind of music I kind of like, but it lacks any Oomph. They don't seem too bothered and it's hard to generate any enthusiasm when the band sound bored.

2/10 Really bad. The guitar riffs almost boosted it to 2 stars, but lyrically it is just awful. And then the Outro track had to be skipped, which is an automatic point deduction.

6/10 Nice tight album. Maybe missing some big tracks that really grabbed me, but I loved the second half of really solid Motown. Not the biggest fan of their cover of Heard it through the Grapevine. And not happy about the track with a baby crying. Don't do it! It's horrible. Lost a mark for that.

8/10 Well, what a coincidence that this album comes up today, the day Brian Wilson passed away. The Beach Boys are a core pillar of pop music and when the songs on this album are good, they are very, very good. The music and harmonies are immaculate - you can feel it defining what pop is and what it can do. At times, it is a bit weak and a bit wet, they feel like they are so desperate for girlfriends that they are a bit pathetic. And it is so short - the last track is nonsense, so it is 11 songs long at about 25mins! But it didn't need to be any longer. Hats off to Brian Wilson, a true legend.

6/10 3 good songs, the rest are just ok and largely forgettable. Disappointing, really, as I was expecting some solid 80s nostalgia and then a realisation how much better Tears for Fears are than I gave them credit for. This happened with Simple Minds. But here, the musical landscape between the hits felt great. Couple of chords, lots of synth. Bloody devils horn grating on my ears.

9/10 A healthy smattering of classic tracks, and the roots of so muchusic I now love. There are some duff lyrics (rhyming nose with toes not once, but twice!), but maybe that's the point.

10/10 I'm a big Dylan fan and I've listened to this album a lot. Don't Think Twice is one of my top songs ever. Hard Rain, Masters of War, Blowing in the Wind are excellent. The songs are sparse - Bob, a guitar and a harmonica. For me, they are like exquisite pencil sketches - the songs are so good that Dylan achieves with a few strokes of his genius that which very few manage with all the production, songwriting team and instrumentation money can buy.

9/10 Ooh, finally a Beatles album. I'm interested how i feel about these. This is a classic example of my issue. Loads of it is so, so good Drive My Car, Norwegian Wood, In My Life - it is a 5 star album. But it also has at least one garbage track: here it is Michelle. And the horrible gasp bit on Girl. And lyrically, I'm sorry, but most of the time I feel they were so far behind not only Dylan and Cohen, but also Ray Davies, Jagger/Richards and the other members of the British Invasion. But then they were leading the Art of the Pop Song, so I can forgive them that. I often think I'm hyper-critical of the Beatles cos they are placed on such a high pedestal - there's some truth in that. They still get 5 stars, so they can't complain too much.

9/10 What an awesome album! Really surprised... Black Sabbath, or at least Ozzy Osbourne, we're a joke really for all the time I've been into music. Stupid reality show, Sharon, biting heads off bats etc. But that did them a massive disservice, because this is a great album with Rick solid riffs wrapped up in great songs. Maybe only an 8, but my Mum was a fan in the early 70s, so they get a nostalgia point.

8/10 A little too disjointed as an album - half a Folsom prison, two San Quentin, a whole lot of talking. But the songs here are good, especially A Boy Called Sue

4/10 The bullet in the back of Britpop's head - after this, guitar, jangle indie was deeply uncool. Oasis were never the same again. Death of an era. It's guitar pop and mostly dull, perfectly crafted pop songs with no soul. Hated Angels and Entertain You back then, but I didn't skip em.

9/10 Absolute stonker of an album. Near perfection of the heartfelt, good ol' boy American rock. After having Born to Run earlier this month, I didn't have high expectations, but where that album is almost musical theatre, this is proper songs keeping to the right side of overwrought, heart bursting emotion. Every song is good, a few are great. Well done Bruce.

3/10 Nope. The blasting if the trumpets is like the painful pangs of a migraine. The sickly strings are waves of nausea. I need to listen to it with my head between my knees to try and make it go away. I could probably tolerate it as background music, but then what's the point?

7/10 I thought I didn't like Nick Cave, but turns out I was wrong!

9/10

5/10 Perfectly servicable 60s jangle pop. Probably more of an impact in its day, but with everything else that has happened since, it is hard to get excited about it

3/10 Like an alcohol free version of Hendrix/Prince/Beatles - none of the depth of flavour, no edge and it won't make you want to dance. Lame songwriting. Teenage poetry lyrics, uninspiring music. This album had added nothing to the world and does not need to be listened to. "Does anybody out there even care?" asks Kravitz. 'Fraid not, mate.

8/10

6/10 At times it's almost beautiful, raw and tuneful. At others it is the sound of a coma, dragging you down into a long, endless sleep. I like the guitar and some of the songwriting, but I think it is the sense of energy actively draining from my body as songs lull past that means I can't fully fall into it

4/10 The best jazz album I've heard so far, which ain't to say a lot. If perhaps we could remove the BLAST of the brass, I could tolerate it more, but there it is. Mostly reminds me of Police Squad and the intro music to all those 60s comedies on when I was a kid, so not all bad.

10/10 One of my all time favourites. Interesting, experimental, funny, funky. No bad songs.

6/10 Pretty good, actually. But 15mins too long - why is it so hard for artists to know when to stop? Enjoyed the lofi-ness of it all, although feels a little dated now. Lyrically, pfft, don't know - I can't really relate.

10/10 Top ten album, for sure. It's massive for a reason - near perfect

10/10 Monster album - it kind of felt Radiohead completed alternative rock and said everything they wanted to say. They never produced an album as good again, and nor did anyone else - at least, not in this "genre". Superb. Meant a lot to me as it was The Album of my A-Levels. Listening to it now, I can picture my teenage bedroom, my desk, my cd player.

7/10 I enjoyed it well enough - some good tracks, albeit with nothing amazing

8/10 Love America, although the low sax is detrimental to it. Also Mrs Robinson is obviously excellent. Just a bit too much is meh to lift it to 5 stars, but it is very good.

8/10 Two of the best 60s songs in Somebody to Love and White Rabbit earns it 4 stars. The rest is good, but mainly forgettable.

7/10 Enjoyable, and was a solid 4star, but outstayed it's welcome and got a bit dull. Ah, but I did enjoy it. Go on, have 4 and count yourself lucky

3/10 Music is about connections - between the notes and rythms, harmonies and voicings, about how individual elements fit to make something bigger than the parts. Jazz fights this. Each instrument is on its own journey - they often seem to wilfully ignore each other. So where is the magic and the beauty? I can't find it in the jumbled mess of a jazz track. I don't want to hear the tip tap of a hi-hat, the tedious meandering of a double bass, the incessant stabbing of a discordant piano. And most of all, I don't want to hear the rasp of a reedy clarinet searching through every note to see what fits. So no, I don't like jazz. I don't get it, and that's ok. You don't have to get everything. I could say I wish I did see it, but I don't need to. I'll leave it, thanks.

8/10 Totally new to me. Excellent album.

3/10 Jeez, what a slog. There is nothing here for me. No tunes, no bass lines of bot. Rythms are about as tedious as they can get. Stupid answer phone messages. And lyrics? That's all it's got and I don't care for them. At all It did lift me at the end cos I thought it was 1hr18, but the last two tracks were bonus repeats, so I didn't need to listen to those. The nobber out a 12mins track in near the end, but that couldn't deter my glee at knowing I was going to make it to the end! Never will I need to listen to this album again. Hoorah!

9/10 So it isn't all great, but Gimme Shelter and YCAGWYW are another level and I love Let it Bleed too

7/10 Some great sounds, although at times it is a bit weak and I'm not a fan of those Beatles style strings that really date the music. But the general feels is sooo cool. Just a shame about the subject matter...

4/10 I must be as soft as lily white marshmallow, ready to melt in the salty rain of my liberal tears, but the lyrics are horrendous! It's porn, not art. What on earth do they say that is of any value? I mean, not everything has to be Dylan, but hell, this stuff is just filthy. Musically I was pleasantly surprised. Ok, so it is kind of 1 idea, tweak it once and that'll be another song done, but it was alright. But jeez, those lyrics are disgusting.

5/10 So incredibly "Meh". The songs have so little soul. What band sounds like when they know how to play and write, but have zero spark.

8/10 I like this more than most Doors I know. The additional guitar and bass really lift it and Peace Frog, especially, is great

5/10 It's... Fine? Jingle, jangle pop guitar. Very much of its time.

4/10 A load of relentless Meh, punctuated by the awesome Under the Bridge. Rest of it is too long and boring

7/10 A really enjoyable metal album, especially when the songwriting comes through on the less heavy tracks.

3/10 I experienced some weird glitch listening to this album. I could have sworn I'd listened to an hour. I would have put a lot of money on it. But when I checked, I wasn't half way through! How was it possible?? Either I fell into some kind of time warp, or the bland, mono-pace of this music caused the audio illusion of time slowing to a snails pace. Please make it stop.

8/10 A huge album for me when it came out. But it's always been one tainted slightly with disappointment. Wonderwall, Don't Look Back, and especially Some Might Say are obviously great, but equally Roll With It, Hey Now and What's the Story are all a bit rubbish. And ultimately it was the last hurrah for Oasis, after only 1.5 good albums, before the rot set in.

6/10 The tunes are alright - gets a bit much at times.

8/10

7/10 It's all about the guitar, which is always excellent. The songs are good, but the lyrics peurile. That doesn't bother me much though

9/10 A passion and feeling that is all too rare in a lot of albums. Musicianship is top notch and the songs are angry, informed and funny. Loved it. Fairytale of New York got skipped as it is a baking hot day in July and I ain't listening to a Xmas tune, no matter how great it is.

8/10 Obviously a great album. The lyrics are poetry. Imagery like few others have ever created in the world of Rock music. And some real energy and performance. But maybe, just maybe, the slower songs are too slow.

5/10

6/10 I like parts, but it's all a bit sincere and overwrought. Pretty sure I used the same word in my review of Born To Run. Thing is, I feel like I should like Bruce more, but there is some many songs you need about breaking free from a crappy town, right?

8/10 Rock opera at its best - the title track is awesome. The rest has its moments too, obviously, although it often feels like the sum of its parts. My wife hates Meatloaf, so let's keep my admiration for this between ourselves, shall we?

3/10

4/10 Pop, just pop. Not much more. Except there was more - much, much more. Too much. 1 hour 20 mins. Tough going.

8/10 Great songs, beautiful instrumentation. Just a couple of bit where it's a little too slow, meandering.

4/10 It came, it went. I couldn't tell you a song, but at least they are kindly separated by some interludes, as otherwise I'd struggle to know where one ends and the next comes along. It's just a meandering dullness I tolerated - how someone can be excited by it is a mystery to me, but hey, it's cool, I ain't going to like everything

6/10 Solid 00s indie rock. Some nice tunes, but there is only so much KoL I need.

3/10 Man I hate gangsta rap. Jeez, it's so aggressive and vile and nasty. It means nothing to me so it is painful. I can't give it 1 star because occasionally I enjoy something musically about it, but come on...

8/10 Hmm, a reassessment. I dismissed this album 30 odd years ago (I might not have ever listened to it all...), but I wasn't a fan of Lucky Man was simplistic, Bittersweet was massively overplayed and Drugs and Sonnet were a bit... naff? But listening to them now, along with the rest of the album, I can see that The Verve were much better than I gave them credit for. Love the guit especially, which lifts the manc-rock to the next level.

4/10 Crikey, I dislike this kind of music. The widdly, jazzy electric piano (setting 03 on my old Casio) plinking incessantly. Backing vocals meandering like a slow moving brook of milky tea, trying to give the impression they know where they're going. Strings and synth that layer everything to ensure there are no edges that might pique interest. I try to concentrate on the bass, which is the one thing I can at least get something from. But then Mr D'Angelo drifts into my attention with his inanities about what he wants to do to his long suffering girlfriends. Sounds like Flight of the Concords parody. Give em a break and take a shower. It gained a mark (but not a star) cos it kind of got a bit of rhythm and funk going on in the second half.

7/10 Great album, with a couple of absolute Monster tracks that showed why Pixies were so good. Some of it is a bit too rough round the edges for me to truly love, but their attitude was something else and when the tunes fought their way to the surface, there is not many I like better

4/10 Hated this in the 90s, nothing's changed. Saccharine music with no rythmn, blues or soul.

6/10 Ahem, I find it a bit... boring? And "You Sure Love to Ball" is comical to my ear. But there is so much quality here and I ain't denying that, I just find it hard to get invested in an album so rooted in rooting. Wonderfully short, mind.

5/10 I'll concentrate on the bits that didn't grate terrible boy and we're politically charged so that I can give 3 stars. But some of it was god awful Jazz and the bloody stereo whizzing from side to side was making me feel sea sick.

7/10 Layla is huge - it blows everything else on this album away. But that's fine, it blows most rock music away. There's some very good other tracks, but it suffers from the affliction if most Blues guitarists - they dont

10/10 Love the imagery and the music.

5/10 I think it is incredible that anyone could think that there is enough interesting material to fill a 90mins double album. As an artist, you should be challenging yourself as to what NEEDS to be included. For example, Nobody Girl in absolutely No Way requires to be 10mins long. It doesn't have a message. It doesn't have a musical statement. At 3mins, its fine. Deeply forgettable, but pleasant. But 10mins??? What on earth are you thinking? The music is weak, the lyrics are bland. It kind of makes me very angry, but equally, I can listen to it. Makes me wonder how I am rating these albums relative to each other.

6/10 Ok, so dance wasn't my thing. I get a bit bored by the repetition. Or really bored, actually. However, this album has something that lifts it above most of the rest. It just is so synthetic I can't connect to it.

9/10 As I've listened to this list, one thing that has struck me is how some albums (a lot from the 90s) seem to lack a fundamental intertwining of their various instruments. Everything seems to exist as a track the is forced to coexist with a load of other beeps and clicks. I can SEE the midi and audio tracks on the old CRT monitor as they scroll by. This album is the antithesis of that. The tracks live together. They support and compliment each other. It is an organic thing and, for me, that is a central column of good music. It is what links it to our hearts and souls - without it, it's just noise. If you record music, even if you don't like this album specifically, you should really listen to it to understand How Music Works.

5/10 I don't like big band, ok? Bit o love Ray Charles's voice and when it breaks free of the horrible shackles of saccharine strings and BLAH BLAH trumpets (only ever for a moment), you get an insight into what music was about to become.

7/10 Surprisingly good, although I'm not sure why I'm surprised as I like the Smiths and the handful of Morrissey singles I know. I just never listened to his solo albums.

7/10 One thing that has struck me listening to all these albums is how poor a lot of artists are at knowing when to STOP. When those 18 tracks should have been 12 or that 6mins35 track shoulda been a punchy 3mins 20. Elvis gets this and that's what makes him a great songwriter. There is no flab here, no guff or padding. Ok, so the songs lack the impact they may have originally, but he gets a lot of credit for being a master of the trade.

8/10 Lacking the obvious highs of Odelay, but also doesn't have the frustrating tracks of that album too. Really solid

8/10 Eek, a concept album. Except the songs come first, so it's fine. Really fine. Victoria is one of my favourite Links songs.

5/10 Is this all at the same tempo? Certainly feels like it. Not a crime in itself, but this is a POP album and needs to DO more. It needs to be memorable and toe tapping. Highlights the issue with my scoring. 5/10 means YAWN.

10/10 So here it is - one of the three albums I think of when I consider my top records of all time. Immaculate song writing and epic songs. Bye Bye Love is odd and I'm sure in hindsight they would have dropped it, but the rest is so good I ain't going to complain.

7/10 American Pie is an immense sprawling masterpiece - everything else on the album wilts in it's shadow, apart from Vincent. Still great though.

9/10 Man I love Hotel California, the song. Best chord progression in a rock song? Almost certainly. Guitars everywhere, thuddy bass, great harmonies. Yummy. A load of other great tracks, but are there too many ballads? Is the Last Resort too forced? It feels like it compared to the easy awesomeness of the title track. Does the nostalgia of it making me think of my parents raise it a point? Am I overthinking this? Yes and Yes. Now, can you please stop writing your reviews as a series of questions??? Aaaarrrrgghh!!!

5/10 Fine to middling. But what the hell were the British music press on about? If you think that this in anyway represented a new Nirvana, you don't get music as an art form. It's not something like Lego where you can follow some instructions and build your nice little rock album and expect it to have a soul. Jeez. The NME was bloomin desperate back then (anyone remember Terris!?) and anyone who wrote for it then andgot on the hype wagon for The Vines should be ashamed. Also, sorry peeps, but anyone claiming there were great other Australian rock bands at the time is also wrong. They all sucked. Problem was not many proper bands toured there, so they had some amazing tribute groups. But a tribute ain't the same and something gets lost that results in soulless band ls like athe Vines. All that said, it is guitar rock and I have some indie-club nostalgia for it. But it ain't a great album and no-one needs to hear it.

4/10 How do I grade this? It means nothing to me and doesn't move me, but it isn't bad either. It's just not in my spectrum of music that I have reference for. I find it largely repetitive and unremarkable, but I expect that is because I'm a philistine when it comes to this type of music. I wonder what Tito Puente would grade the Strokes?

9/10 Sublime guitar folk. Nothing but the songs and the man and his guitar. The recording of the guitar is wonderful - it plucks and chimes directly in your ear as if nick were sat in front of you.

9/10 The abundant bad reviews surprised me, but then music has a contextual component and I can see that, if you weren't 16 when it came out, then it probably doesn't mean much to you. For me, putting aside the huge nostalgia I have for it, it is full of humour and melodies, fuzzy guitars and energy. Obviously people don't love that as much as I do. Every song takes me back to a great time to fall in love with music. I can link locations and memories with every song - Something 4 the Weekend was a trading estate in Launceston; Hometown Unicorn was the first song I heard on my new triple deck hifi system. And it was so cool. Here was a guy singing full throttle in his Welsh accent, sticking two fingers up to The Man. And having a bloody good laugh while he did it.

7/10 Short, sharp and sweet country. Does exactly what you'd expect

7/10 Musically, I don't particularly like this. In fact, I decidedly don't like it. Jazz is odd - it always sounds dated to me, a relic of another era with little for me to connect to. However, as this album progressed I got dragged in by the performance and the reaction of the crowd. It is infectious, hearing the Cool Cats in the audience lose their heads and The Duke whipping them further into a frenzy and trying to control them. The top review for this record ATM says it is less good for not being recorded in a studio?! If it was, it would get a 2 star review, like the 1000s of other jazz recordings. This is special exactly because it is live (or at least based on live recordings thelat we're supplemented).

9/10 Classic of Bristol, and hence my teenage years. 5 huge tunes from that era, and the rest are pretty great too. At times it gets a bit much with Jarvis's heavy breathing and wet dream lyrics, but overall it is nothing but a solid classic

4/10 So this is where the horrible sanitised music if Garth Brookes. Lame and disappointing

6/10 Contains the worst elements of prog (daft, childish lyrics, aimless widdling) that now makes it sound self-parodying. However, at times you can hear the weight of invention that was to have so much influence on rock music

8/10 What a voice - exquisite. As a body of music, it is a bit too smooth, maybe, to lift it to the very top for me. Something about the churning machine of Tinpan alley songwriters seems to take a bit of the heart out of the endeavour - but you cannot doubt how great this album is.

6/10 The Stones got a lot better by the end of the 60s. This album has some fairly weak songwriting - "Stupid Girl" and "Under My Thumb" are nasty little songs and "Going Home" is a pointless 12mins ramble that would have nothing going for it if it was 3mins long. Why would you do that? Much of the recording is dated and sounds like it was done on rubbish handheld tape cassette recorders. Maybe I'm harsher on this because I have high expectations of such a big band, but it really isn't all that good

5/10 Vanilla rock. Wholly inoffensive, largely forgettable

8/10 A great album. Thinking of when it came out, it feels so far ahead of what else was going on - it has dated much less, or at least in a different way. Could be 5 stars, mlbut it drags a tiny bit in the middle and it would be nice to hear the lyrics

4/10 It's so depressing to think you're near the end of an album, only to look and see you're less than halfway through. How is this possible!? Musically, it's alright. Dense and (relatively) inventive, but it's still vulgar and nasty. If this is your Dylan, ok, but we're gonna have to agree to disagree. I did quite like "I" though - a bit of bounce to that one until it goes into a diatribe for 2mins. Ho hum. And of course the last track is over 12mins long. Screw you, Kendrick

6/10 The bass is great, in that"Guns of Brixton" way and I like the atmosphere generated by the songs, but the songs don't really go anywhere. The seem more like a sketch for a verse rather than a completed thing.

4/10 Music through committee. You can hear the meetings and the flip charts that this derived from. You can't put your finger on what music loses when you run it through the machine repeatedly, but Beyonce captures it. It has some moments, but this is meant to the preeminent pop of the last 15 years.

9/10 Proper blues, delivered perfectly. I love the noise of the crowd as they lose their minds over what must have been a defining experience. And the wind blowing on the mics, the spontaneity of it all - I'm beginning to love me a live album.

8/10 Creates an excellent atmosphere and feeling. Can hear these songs in so much of the music that followed it

7/10 I liked it. There are some great sounds and some really interesting ideas. There are also dull stretches where it is hard to understand what they were trying to achieve, but overall, I enjoyed it

9/10 Hmm, see, I owned this back in 2004 and, while I like it well enough, I certainly didn't love it. Maybe I was still hungover from the Strokes and it was a bit dark for me. Listening to it today was a revelation. The first disk is stonking, with Nick Cave coaxing his gospel rock through a rip-roaring set. I love how he manifests the unhinged band leader, barely controlling the music as it surges and crashes around him. He's like Prospero conjuring his storm - the guitars howl, the drums and bass throb while the choir build and moan, with those beautiful snatches of blue sky that give you some light to hang on to. Excellent.

8/10 Some of the best harmonies in rock - so effortless. The songs are gentle, maybe as a result, but so solid.

4/10 Hate the saxophone, the whispery vocal and the time signatures with Radioheady beeps and clicks. Another Bowie album not for me...

5/10 So this is a good 20mins too long. There is no way they couldn't have found 5 tracks to drop. Of what there is, it is fine, mostly jangly not-as-good-as-they-think-they-are guitar pop. A smidge before my time, but in the lullbefore the Britpop storm this probably sounded better.

5/10 It's ok - it mainly sits in the background. It is so hard to see this as groundbreaking as it is really mellow. But I think fundamentally I don't get it, it doesn't sit within my field of vision, so I can only judge it against the music I do like.

3/10 Just awful - repetitive, robotic junk. I was kind of into this when I was 10, but then I grew up. Is that patronising? I hope so.

5/10 Painfully twee, albeit with some "classic" singles. The sound of early 80s o music, no doubt

7/10 I like ELO, but this is too long and there is a fair amount of meandering. Why not finish sh on Mr Blue Sky?

8/10 Another post-OK Computer album that I find myself reassessing. Much better than I remember - I was still looking for tunes and "proper" song structure when it was released, but in retrospect this is dense and interesting.

5/10 Solid three star album. Fine, inoffensive and slightly nostalgic but totally non-essential

5/10 Slightly generous scoring, probably. It's all so dated and the songwriting doesn't hit any magic.

6/10 I don't like Bjork, ok. However, I can admit when something is good - as this is

5/10 If the faux strings and brass were removed then there would be a half decent album here. Sounds really early 90s

6/10 Needs a few more actual tunes rather than just bashing the guitar. But sometimes I just want someone bashing a guitar

6/10 Such a great voice, just the songs are not up there with it.

4/10 I strongly disliked the start of this album - it's ugly music. Brtlutal drums that crash through the samples, laying waste to any musicalitym but I like the Organ Donor song

7/10 Decent

5/10 When a song breaks out, it's ok, but there are large expanses of noise that it is difficult to convince myself I enjoyed

7/10 The three big singles are epic, the rest not so much.

4/10 I just don't like jazz. It sounds dated and of a different era. I might as well be rating Beethoven and Mozart.

5/10 Everyone knows I strongly dislike hip hop, right? However, while this does have the excessive profanities and the vulgar misogyny, violence and comically sexual lyrics it has to be recognised that, musically, at times, it had some creativity to it! Hoorah! There were chords and progressions! Not everything was beep, thump n click. Well done Mike! I mean, I didn't like it much, but you get a point for giving me something to hang on to

5/10 The first 3 songs are modern pop classics, no doubt. The rest is forgettable filler of varying degrees of banality. The Thank You song is so cringe inducing I had to pull over from driving as my curled toes made it dangerous to operate the pedals

9/10 Just feels important. Even without reading the history and aftermath, you KNOW this funked some shizzle up and rattled some cages. Musically not in my normal wheelhouse, but it's funky and inventive and, unlike a lot of jazz (to mine ear, obvs), it has a point. Hoorah!

2/10 Genuinely gave me a headache. Was probably sat on a low 2-star rating, but Frankie Teardrop was so long and so bad, it pushed the album to the depths. Just cos you do something 1st isn't always enough. This was terrible.

9/10 The combo of great tunes with noise is almost always great and rarely grates. Bonus star for being one of the 5 semibal albums of my uni years.

8/10 Some very, very good songs, but George Harrison seems almost embarrassed by them, unable to really deliver them fully in the way a true front man would. His vocal is often low in the mix, with a voice that is shy and timid. With lesser production, this would have been fine, but with Spector's wall of sound it just comes across as a bit weak. However, as I said l, the songs themselves are great. A bit of a slog to cut out the subsequent additions that bring nothing to the album (I'm including Apple Jams in this), but very glad I heard this

5/10 Chugga-chugga rock for the late 90s. Didn't do anything for me back then, doesn't age any better

6/10 Some people don't like jazz, but score it 3 stars cos they recognise that it must be good somehow. And they want to look like they "get it", they just don't "Get It".

3/10 I strongly dislike this album - I am of the opinion that Mr Gaye is one of the most overrated artists ever. The songs meander with no point. And then the sax turns up.

9/10 Some top drawer songs and a genre defining album. Some times music is about having a bloody good time, and this album captures that

9/10 I'm on holiday from today and my good mood puts this up a star. Well done

4/10 Large swathes of this album are just horrible: amateurish guitar, terrible vocals, bloody sitar twanging for 7mins. There are odd glimpses of a tune, but mainly just No.

5/10 Oof- I bought this on CD 20 years ago based on it's reputation. Didn't get it then, still don't get it. Just fiddly meandering, with songs that are instantly forgettable to mine ears. Marvin Gaye is one of my top three most overrated artists. At least it was better than Here, My Dear...

6/10 Brightened up a wet commute in SW England. Repetitive, but cool

5/10 I never realised some of these songs were so long! What were they thinking - a very low ratio of musical ideas

6/10 Well the best gangsta rap album I've heard so far. The lyrics are still, by and large, offensive and insane, but the rythmn and bass are great and there is songwriting here.

9/10 I find it hard to believe this came out in 1969 - it's sound feels so much more modern than a lot of the other music from that time. One of the big influences on all things indie, so I got to love it

7/10 I knew and liked Reward from an old indie club I went to that always played it, but I never explored TDE anymore than that. I didn't realise they were early 80s for a start. I really enjoyed it - it sounds like a decent mix between the crappy synth sounds of 80s pop with an actual edge.

10/10 A great album - such a high level of quality throughout.

6/10 Unfortunate for Rush they were the day after the Masters, Led Zeppelin. Whereas Led Zeps genius seems to be so easy, Rush feel like they have to force everything a little bit too much. It is all a bit too clever and you can really see their workings at times. Still, enjoyable rock music for sure

9/10 Excellent

6/10 Pleasant enough and on a relisten it improved. Just sounds like a lot of those 90s/00s country singer revival albums.

9/10 Punchy and fun - classic indie guitar pop rock from the 00s

6/10 I just don't like a jazzy ballad

3/10 Horrible. Like, really horrible. For all the experimentation and innovation, it's just a painful experience. I will never listen to again and I can now, after three Bjork albums, have confidence in my assertion that I Don't Like her music. Couldn't bring myself to give it one star as it is ART.

6/10 Please to listen to, but didn't rock my world.

6/10 You know, it's alright. Pop, but moves along nicely. Lyrically I found it as tedious as any other pop album, and as a musical piece of work it sounds like it was done on a computer, but there are tunes here.

9/10

4/10 Sounds so lame. For Weller to produce this is one of the most baffling turnarounds in rock. The jazz is horrible and almost all the songs suck

7/10 Better than I expected - don't understand the other reviews. The main thing being people calling this Britpop - what the actual? I'm giving it an extra star for that

7/10 Intelligent, interesting hip hop. Proper lyrics about proper things with no F/N bombs falling all over the place. Misogyny rates low too.

7/10 Solid smooth rock. A bit too polished - could do with a few rough edges.

5/10 Very hard to rate - I don't particularly care for it, but maybe it is an awesome exponent of its genre. Playing it safe with a 3

7/10 I enjoyed. Kinda Kinks-esque, very Beatles orchestration. Lyrics are opaque, which lifts it. Not what I expected from Cale, but why should an artist ever do anything that is expected of them?

6/10 I mean obviously it is too Country and Western, but I can't get away from the quality of her voice and the heavy nostalgia that it brings with memories of my grandad.

7/10 Gentle and fiery. Very odd lyrics - too odd, if I'm honest - but I love the guitar sound.

9/10 Iconic album. Becomes a bit of a chore as the cello screeching kicks in, but this album feels like it defined something that still shapes great music to this day.

6/10 It's very reggae, which is fine.

4/10 Deeply unenjoyable. I strongly dislike Joni's penchant for rambling, jazzy songs. Every so often an actual song threatens to break out, but then it is swamped again by meandering.

9/10 Straight up rock. 10 great tracks, 40mins, done.

6/10 It's fun, until it's not. Really a novelty album, just with a handful of great tunes. Justin Hawkins' vocal pushes it into comedy too often, but when it all clicks, it's rather good

4/10 Recipe: get 2 musical ideas and a drum beat. Every 16 bars change their combination. Rotate volume nob, put through a filter. Maybe chuck a vocal sample in every so often. I had this in the 90s, due to the song Going Out of My Head, but I didn't realise it was the Who song I Can't Explain that I actually wanted (source of the 4 chord riff). Sounds awfully dated and not a lot of fun.

8/10 A very fine debut, with some great tunes. It's all a bit too polished, maybe - makes me think of Keen Bruce and Radio 2, but a lot to enjoy

8/10 ZZ Top are one of those bands I didn't take seriously - their image, to me in the 90s, was one of embarrassing old men getting all her up over impossibly long legged blondes. Now I know they were much better than that. Grizzled, hard rocking, hard riffing blues rock. Excellent.

8/10 The first half of this album is awesome - beautiful, interlinking lines of guitar, bass and sonics. It was looking stellar. Somewhere around 35mins my energy wanted and it got a bit tiresome, which is a real shame as I love Spiritualised for reasons tangible (melodic, guitar, experiments with packaging) and intangible (a feeling, a sense, despite its simplicity). Still, very good and I reckon they'll have a 5 star at some point in this list

4/10 It's kind of odd, but this largely feels like novelty to me. And that is weird because they were obviously talented musicians, but performing classical music on synthetic and electric guitar is just naff. Don't know if this is partly because I'm looking back, but I don't think so. Mad to hear the crowd going so crazy for it!

8/10 Very good - such an incredible voice. If a couple of the cover choices were stronger then this would be a solid 5 stars

9/10 The beginning of Britpop? I'd say yes. Bernard Butler with his jangly riffing jostling with Brett Anderson's vocals across an album of melodic indie rock. Was massive for me and so very cool.

2/10 Just horrible. I reckon there are, at most, 3 songs here and they are nasty, ugly and barely deserve the title. T'was short, mind

5/10 Speakerboxx is that rare thing for me, engaging, listenable hip-hop! Who'd have thunk it. It has music and isn't all about the typical hip-hop tropes. Well done Big Boi. I can only guess Andre 3000 played Big Boi "Hey Ya" and had BB worried. But then once he'd had to play the rest of the crap on The Love Below, Big Boi would have been working out how he could detach himself from the Outlast moniker. Not a double album - they have no relation to each other apart that they two artists were once collaborators. Score averaged to 3 stars and less one for being too long. Man it was such a slog

5/10 Er, it's ok? It's a mediocre pop album - I guess it's inclusion will be an interesting curio in 20 years when people will think, "Hmm, so this was what it took to be the biggest star in the world - how odd".

6/10 Enjoyed the 1st half, but the talking bits, mimicking Clockwork Orange's Nadsat dialogue, with it's weird mix of cockney and classic British turns of phrase. Increasingly frustrating, the album dropped from a solid 4 to a 3. Shame really

9/10 A load of great songs - 5 classics, at least.

8/10 Very good. Lyrically, it's Dylan-esque, with a slightly human edge. Musically, it's country - maybe a bit too much at times to make this a Great album

4/10 I see "Intelligent DnB" dotted over LTJ's recordings and references. Thing is, if you have to tell people something is intelligent to discern from everything else in the genre then it is pretty damning. It is dull, repetitive, boring, uninspiring and soulless. It sits in the background, mainly minding it's own business. Barely music

5/10 I do not want crying children on any track ever.

7/10 Great lyrically. So Patti Smith at times, but that's no bad thing

5/10 The singles are alright

6/10 It's all a bit too thumpy blues, but it sounded pretty wild

6/10 Some good songs amist quite a lot of meh

7/10 Surprised me - never heard of them and wasn't what I expected. A little bit too crunch crunch squeal guitars for my day to day taste, but it was fun. Extra star cos it's nearly Christmas

8/10 Very nearly a 5. Very indie-funk. Fun, stoned, sludgy. Awesome

8/10 Defined a whole genre of Christmas

7/10 It's good - at times great - but some of the songs are just a bit weak and bland, so much so that not even the King can save them. But still, very enjoyablem

7/10 Top slacker rock, apart from Don't, which I didn't enjoy

7/10 It's different. I enjoyed it lied in the light of the winter sun as I relaxed on New Years Day after a very late night. Ambient and rambling, but with lots of ideas, some of which work better than others

7/10 Good. I like my rock to have a bit riffing - this isnt massively varied in it's sound of verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo, but that's cool

7/10 Obviously a cohesive piece of work, very fitting for the time of year and pay hired nicely with the book in reading (the awesome North Woods by Daniel Mason). The songs are a bit too relentless in their bleakness (as I expected) and I could have done without the 15 mins of O'Mallhaleys Bar, but generally pretty good

7/10 A bit of a disappointment, but I did have high hopes. Don't You Want Me is an all time classic, and the rest is pale in its light. Some of those songs are decent enough, but there are bits where it all just drags a bit.

6/10 I quite like it, but it is so mono-paced (or at least has a top speed of about 41mph) that I find it a struggle to fully engage with it. I have to check every so often to see if we've reached the end - it is too long - but it provided a reasonable background to my first day back to work in the new year

6/10 Pleasent gentle songs. The best éléments are those that sound like Nick Drake. It is interesting that the songs are so long. It gives a chance for Tim to explore the theme, but it does not lend itself to a structure that engages me - I regularly drift off and have to remind myself to listen.

6/10 Title track is great, obviously. The rest is just instrumental background music

8/10 There's no doubting how good this is and how influential, but I don't love it. Something about Bowie - does it all feel a little too performative perhaps? - which just holds it back for me. But I enjoyed it.

7/10 This album did my head in during the 90s - it was everywhere. But I've mellowed on it and enjoyed it well enough today. I still don't get how people do loved the repetitiveness of it all, but it does in the mid-background very nicely.

4/10 I dislike this with a very deep emotion, one that is incomprehensible of how this can be enjoyed. But I guess there is a Kendal of something here in the bad or the odd melody, the occasional trip of rhythm. But now I'm listening to Travis - the true opposite in music to the overly sexualised, tedious lyrics, the phat smugness and Those BLOODY SKITS! They suck so bad, it causes me physical pain. Bloody Travis. See what you've done, Outkast? Bellends.

6/10 Bohemian Rhapsody is a behemoth. But the rest is tedious, with a couple of exceptions. Outside their singles, Queen have to be one of the most overrated bands.

6/10 It's all a bit minor key for me - the tracks merge into one. But I like it more than I used to though

6/10 Quite enjoyable, although it is going to struggle with my philistine Western tastes. Naff synths

4/10 How long is this album? I am sure I've been listening to it for 2.5 hours and I've still got 4 tracks of mysoginy, violence and profanity remaining. There is an element I enjoy - that being the music that is sampled. Should I give credit to this artist for that? If anything, it makes the originals considerably worse

8/10 Along with Electric Warrior, this is such an influential album, not just in terms of it's sound, but in its attitude. It is FUN and doesn't take its self too seriously - a central pillar of great British rock.

7/10 30 years ago I felt this was no Definitely Maybe, and today I fully agree. Girls and Boys was great, but there is too much novelty here that just annoys me. Too long and a bit flabby.

9/10 Album reassessment time! I had always felt the Smashing Pumpkins were too heavy for me, but this has a subtly and intelligence under the riffing guitars that I never gave them credit for. Awesome

10/10 Near perfect. Superb set of songs that are both gentle but have a lyrical edge.

7/10 A whole lot of fun, but not a lot of soul. It rocks, but is lyrically shallow and it gets a little tiresome, but overall it's a fine slice of American rock

5/10 Wow, about as French as a thing could be. Culturally I can't hook onto this, so I can only judge it musically, which is fairly forgettable light jazz, delivered very passionately

7/10 Feels like a night out I used to have. Starts strong, but as it wears on everything feels a bit forced and everyone's a bit tired. You get the occasional reminder why your doing it, but looking back on it you wonder if it was as good as you thought it was. I like looseness, but this has a bit too much of it - that'll be the large Clash influence hanging over it, I guess.

6/10 Definitely enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I was going to. It's late 80s, a time I'm nostalgic for and the songs on here took me back to that time. The songwriting is surprisingly good, I nearly forgot this was still pop music

9/10 Superb - the closest someone has ever come to putting poetry to music and it working. Lyrically it is so rich, it is almost embarrassing and might even be too much. Musically I think it is the only way to deliver these songs - spare, but never dull.

8/10 Top drawer indie.

4/10 Country and Western can sound so lame. This sounds lame

4/10 Was not in the mood for this. Too long, monotonous. Chugga-Chug-Chug-Chugga-Chug-Chugga. GAH! Make it stop. Takes itself far to seriously. "To Live is to Die" - Sweet Jesus

6/10 There were bits I liked - the tunefulness of some of the tracks, all with a rough edge. Some of it was trying, mostly the spoken word tracks. Started listening a second time, but found I was skipping large chunks, so knocked it back to a 3.

6/10 I enjoyed it the more it went on. Very sludgy and raw, with little of the skill and finesse of the real big hitters of the time, but has something about it's heavy blues riffing

5/10 Very lucky it didn't get a 2 - that final 12mins track is just so tedious. I don't understand how you could think it is worthy of either recording or releasing. The most bored I've been on this journey for a long while However, it is saved by the rest of the album which is quite cool and funky, if not quite ever very engaging.

5/10 First half had me thinking "Why am I so harsh on David - he can rock, he writes great songs - why do I doubt him? WHY???" Second half had me thinking "David is so overrated, I cannot contemplate his popularity. Surely those who love him can not defend this absolute gumph. I knew I was right to doubt him " And so I give it (7/10 + 3/10) / 2 = 5/10. Feels about right

6/10 What an oddly frustrating album. I don't understand the mentality of filling this with average covers and filler tacks. As a 42mins single album, with Relax, 2 Tribes & Power of Love the impact would have been huge, but it's all diluted and looses it's punch from Ferry across the bloody Mersey.

7/10 Musically can be quite meh at times, but lyrically i find him always interesting

9/10 It only has one sound, but what a sound that is.

9/10 Wow, ok. I was wrong about this then.

9/10 I didn't care for this when it came, and I can hear why. It is grown-up and very dark. The death of a party, and the death of Britpop. I was young and still wanting to enjoy myself . Hearing it now, there are a load of great songs and more depth than even Different Class.

6/10 Hard riffing, but there are songs here too. Not as bad as o feared it would be

5/10 A slog. I appreciate there is some serious skills here, but it is gets a relentless bludgeoning of the ear.

6/10 Putting Beatle style orchestration ona song don't make you a Beatle. Surely that's obvious. Writing an ending to your songs would help. Makes sense Badfinger (ultimate weak Beatles pastiche band) wrote the big hit here It's fine, just a bit novelty and weak. And Mariah Carey RUINED Without You, and it has taken 30 years for me to be able to listen to this version.

5/10 Some half decent songs, but some garbage too. Largely forgettable to my ear

7/10 Weirdly mixed? I'm no expert, but the edge of the guitars seems to be pushed back, whereas I'd like them to be folront and central. But some good songs

8/10 So we have established that before the Ozzy Osbourne comic book character of the 90s, there was an awesome band. I love the riffs, and I love how this had a subtlety and nuance that got lost in much of the genre that Heavy Metal became. Wonderful

4/10 Waaaay too long - shows a real level of delusion to think you have so much to say it'll take 80 minutes. Cos Common really doesn't have anything new (to my ears) to say. A rap album elevated slightly by some decent backing music, but lyrically it is tiresome

7/10 It definitely bounces along nicely. Has to work hard not to be a novelty, but lyrically it is funny and interesting, albeit a little suspect to the modern liberal European ear on occasionm

4/10 Top three of my most-overrated artists. I hated this and found myself shouting "ShutUpShutUpSHUUTTTTUPPPPP" as he squealed his disturbing attempts at seduction. The music isn't actually that good - Flight of the Concords have parodied this so well, it is hard not to hear it all as a big joke. I'm sure they do it from a place of love for Prince, but I can't stand it. I've often allowed for music I dislike but can see the skill and musicianship that it holds, giving an odd bonus s star, but I can't be bothered to do that here. It sucks.

2/10 I now realise, 300 albums in, I have been too generous with some of my ratings. This has some bits that are listenable, and that would have got it two stars. But it doesn't deserve them. It is awful - lyrically terrible, musically excruciating. Horrible

5/10 Too long, but there is some decent parts of this when it isn't being too aggressively dissonant.

10/10 The full stop to any debate on the greatest rock band ever. None else comes close to this (and the albums that preceded it). Is it too long? Probably, but actually no. There is so much here, the cup runneth over. Most of the "weaker" later tracks would have been celebrated if they came from any other band and the first couple of sides are another level. Contains my go to reply to "What are the best three tracks in a row on any?" - Houses of the Holy, Trampled Under Foot and Kashmir". Imperial, stomping rock at it's absolute best. Love it

10/10 The best Rolling Stones album, I reckon. It feels loose and super bluesy, but underpinned by some solid songs and musicianship. Has a depth to it that was not apparent when I first heard it in my teens, so I kind of dismissed it for a few years, but now it is one of my all time favourites

8/10 I like the idea of the Clash more than the actuality. I love that this was recorded for a fiver - it's raw and immediatem I just think, as I dig into their music, the songs are just not as strong as some of their contemporaries...

8/10 Band reassessment - Sparks are actually pretty great. Yes, weird, but never boring and always underpinned with some great tunes and a touch of rock sensibility

6/10 Too long, too thumpy. Stand out tracks stand out

6/10 Not terrible, but there's something so public school about the band that really puts me off. And Mother is a travesty of a song. Every Breath You Take still a great tune though

5/10 Can sit in the background doing it's things, but doesn't warrant too much attention as it never really changes. The tracks with singers on are by far the best

8/10 Not a bad song on the album, and probably a 5-star on a different day. Just misses the spark to make it truly exceptional

9/10 Lust for Life and The Passenger are two of my favourite songs ever, so this is a top tier album. Feels very cool, with a strong swagger.

5/10 This lasted the exact length of my commute - not worth anything, but at least it was the right length. However, it is dull. Dull, dull, DULL. Has a band ever sound more bored by their own sound? Its a greyscale canvas of some pebbles from Dunelm. A stroll along Exmouth seafront in February. Mild cheese on a Jacobs cracker. An average commute into an IT job in Exeter. A dreamless sleep. Coma

8/10 Loved this on the first listen through. Very much of its time, but it's got good songs that are angry and urgent, and still pertinent 40+ years later. Made me nostalgic, but not for the Britain we had (which was as grim as the songs describe), but for the music that was produced in reaction to it.

6/10 Accomplished and clever, but hard to love. All a bit too cover for its own good, it is still interesting and a fine listen.

7/10 Really good songs, perfectly delivered. Impossible for me to dislike this, although there is the nagging feeling it is a bit of a novelty.

5/10 It's not for me. It's relentless and heavy, although better than most thrash. At times it is so virtuosic that it makes me listen closer, but it don't make me care much

8/10 Great album and great songwriting. Picture Book, VGPS and Last of the Steam Powered Trains were faves. Thier weakness is the lapses into a weaker British vaudeville nonsense, sometimes giving a tinge of novelty and end-of-pier naffness. But by and large, it's excellent

6/10 Classic 80s album. Reminds me of being about 8years old and being intensely bored by this kind of grown up album. There was the one great song (Sledgehammer), the track I didn't get at the time, but appreciate Noe (Don't Give Up) and the 35mins of amorphous, forgettable music.

6/10 Not a massive fan of your man's voice, but the music is good enough. At its best when they don't hit it too hard and let the songs breathe a bit.

4/10 Bass and drums are good (although let's not carried away). The guitar and vocals are excruciating.

7/10 Decent. A little too mono-paced and single-sounding, but it has a rawness to it that aches with a pain

5/10 Largely forgettable. Funky in its way, but lacks anything I could hook into

6/10 A disjoint between the vocals and everything else - understandable, of course.

6/10 Definitely my favourite hip hop which, while not saying a lot, is saying something. Like the sound, the music and the rap. I find it exhausting to try and follow the lyrical deluge, but I get the impression it isn't as mysoginistic, violent or pornographic as the worst of the genre. Still too long, by a good 10mins

10/10 The more I hear of this album (and I first encountered it at uni, 30years ago), the more I love it. Funny, exciting, clever, musical, funky. Everything I need.

5/10 I thought Heaven 17 were electropop, with emphasis in the Pop. But I was confusing them with Haircut 100... Makes sense now. This is a sparser and more mechanical take on synth music. Lacks much soul (or tunes). Easy to see how this would have been much more impactful in its day, when this sounded modern. Today, it sounds very dated and uninspired

7/10 Another Girl, Another Planet is a favourite of mine, and the rest is pretty good

7/10 California Dreamin is massive - one of the greats. Monday Monday is also top drawer. Everything else ranges from really good to not bad. But always with those harmonies, it's such a strong album

4/10 I just really dislike this. It's so smooth it is causes a kind of nausea on me. And so much bloody sax - yuck.

6/10 Solid three stars. Sometimes it's grating, too jazzy, too aimless. At others it has a great rhythm and a humour. Would enjoy more on a hot summer's day.

8/10 A standout album of the 90s. Inventive and interesting. I just don't quite love it - a bit too dark for me with

4/10 The GREATEST artists ever struggled to make good double albums, so whatever possessed DBT to take it on was clearly a particularly mischievous imp. They don't have the songs or musical inspiration to fill a short single album, let alone 90 flippin minutes. And I like chugging Dad rock! Embarrassing.

9/10 A seminal album for me, central to my musical relationship. I was 15 when it came out and it just rocked my world as part of the "Britpop" panthéon from that period. The energy, rawness, tunefulness and musical ethos of these bands clicked so tightly with me as a teenager looking for something to hook into. I don't expect (nor care) whether someone who wasn't there in the UK in 1995 doesn't get it - there is no art that is universal and transcends cultural context (prove me wrong) - this all goes two ways (hello gangsta rap) and I am happy with that

3/10 Jazz for me is like movie horror, abstract art or a strong spice. A sprinkling of it within another style is fine - in fact, it can enhance flavour and make you take notice. But when it is the whole thing, it makes me sick

6/10 Surprisingly weak album, all things considered. All My Living stands out, but the covers are uninspired and the rest of the self&written material sounds kinda lame. It is still the Beatles, so has a kind of weight and I don't regret hearing this, but it barely indicates where they went in the next 7years.

8/10 Great album, a coherent and solid body of songs. It gets a little thumpy and overwrought - while I loved AF back in the day, this was always their biggest flaw Still, very nearly a 5

9/10 Well I used to strongly dislike B&S. I hated that this album was selling for £600. It was a big club that I wasn't part of. I didn't listen to John Peel. I'm not sure I was even aware of him. I was in my Oasis t-shirt and these guys were laughing at me, smoking their french cigarettes with their existential novels, knowing philosophical nods and I was stuck in Devon with losers interested in tractors. Then I went to uni and I pretended that this wasn't actually that good. I sat in a huff at the side of the indie disco. But slowly, yet surely, I came around. I hung out with (slightly) cooler people and I started to enjoy finding out I could be wrong about things. And I was very Wrong about B&S. Hey have excellent lyrics over a style that, to me, is the natural extension of Paul Simon. If Paul was from a Scottish art school. Wonderful.

8/10 A great laugh ve album that captures some of the excitement and sheer joy of what must have been an awesome show. The best of Sam Cooke is amongst the very best, but a couple of the songs don't quite hit for me.

5/10 I like guitar, but this is not my thing. Too long a song, drum solos - all a bit messy

3/10 Mostly horrible. There was a song that felt it warranted the term, but couldn't be bothered to work out which one it was. Feels like it only appeals to people who are bored with all other music and need something Different as they've tired of listening to everything that is Actual music. Maybe they review 10 albums a day and get to tell us what is worthy. Painful. Headache inducing. Nothing finishes, it just gets cut. No form. Nothing here to see stop stopstopstop s t o p

4/10 Yuck. Despite it not being relentless riffing, with at least something resembling a nod to song craft, this still sucks

4/10 Really not all that. Lyrically naive and tedious, musically deriverative and uninspired. Also 1. Don't have a song called Outro that gets my hopes up that we're done, only to put two more unnecessary tracks on the end. 2. Stop tacking crappy little half ideas for songs on to other tracks and giving it a name with a slash in the middle. The reason you were unable to drag that 1:05mins song out to a full song was because it wasn't very good! You should have killed it.

9/10 Big fan. There's an organic element to this music that you rarely hear in modern recorded music with it's click tracks and studio polish. Also demonstrates how Samsung Bob Dylan is.

6/10 Could be higher. But while I like the guitar and the rods, there is something missing. Maybe it's the songwriting, but lacks the heart that other bands bring to the blues

6/10 I prefer it when the drums aren't going at thrash-speed - it's exhausting. "Self-esteem" is still a great track. It might have been Nnirvana-lite for MTV peeps, but who cares? A great tune

7/10 It's a lot fun, but REEKS of Radio 2 - probably one of the defining artists of that whole kitchen disco, middle aged parents, Jo Whitley, sanitised festival vibe. Not a bad thing, and this was huge at the time. However, Elton John it is not.

8/10 Very New Order. No songs that I knew, but lots of sounds that I did

4/10 Far, far,FAR too long. It seemed to just keep going. There's some average songs in here, but the relentless fiddling and widdling is so tiresome. I don't think there is much talent in hitting pentatonic notes relentlessly for 10mins. Sure, you might enjoy doing it in a jam session, but don't inflict it on the rest and of us. Oh, and the cod dramatics is just lame

6/10 Kind of drifts along. I like Neil Young, but this didn't really capture my attention at all

4/10 It's hard to fathom how long this album felt. Time warped on itself and caught in spinning eddies where minutes turned to eons and an age grew out of a second. It felt like the desert - it's expanse stretched in all directions, with no end in sight. It drove me to despair when I looked and I was a meagre 4 tracks in. How was this possible? Dance music is like a desert in some ways l- nothing going for mile after mile. Occasionally it looks like there is an oasis, a spectre of creativity that conjures some excitement, but then it all disappears and you realise with a sinking feeling that it was nothing. The best you can hope for is the Bedouin to come along and rescue you

6/10 There's a good album somewhere here, but it is buried under a comical amount of vocal vibrato and outbreaks of violent piano thumping. An abject lesson in how you cannot force emotion.

8/10 So apparently I "love" the Pixies, but have never even heard this album. Wow, big fan. More polished and well realised than Doolittle, I guess it lacks some of the really inspired moments of that album. But still excellent and one I will revisit

6/10 There's a great album in here somewhere, but this isn't great in itself. Starts stronger, with some more realised songs, but it begins to drift and ramble the longer it goes on. Maybe with some proper production and healthy hacking away of the nonsense, it could have been a contender.

8/10 Ok, so I disliked LCD Soundsystem when it wasn't cool to. I found them snug, boring and soulless. However, a couple of years ago I reassessed and began to enjoy their music. Now, looking at the other reviews, it appears that I'm still wrong and none likes them anymore

7/10 Punky.

7/10 Full on rocking goodness. Think I preferred this to the QotSA albums that I know better, but maybe they are due a reassessment

6/10 A real mashup - some good, solid songs, some dress.

4/10 I strongly disliked large amounts of this. A lot of it feels aimless, weaving melodies with no destination. There are some periods of acceptable somgsmithery that are interesting enough, but there are equal amounts of infuriating warbling that make me want to scream SHUT UP. It also appears that Tim is lucky I'm not a lyrics guy as I was oblivious to the crap he was spewing out until I read the other reviews and I revisited them. Jeez....

6/10 Sounds very dated now, especially the slow stuff that just makes me think of my grandparents. His versions of Tutti Frutti,l and I Got A Woman sound strangely anaemic too. However, there's no denying this is a significant recording and, while I've tried to avoid judging things on that, it has to be worth something.

6/10 So you got Superstition, one of the greatest ever songs committed to recorded media. A funk deep in it's soul that excites the toes. Then there is the rest of this album which is the Stevie Wonder I don't like - lame, jazzy, insipid

8/10 Really good! Great songs, well delivered. Does it lack that little something to elevate to the plane of Led Zep, The Stones etc? Yes, it does - but it's not their fault they're not British

5/10 I can only think bands thought they were doing us a favour by making their albums so long - less time trapsing back and forth to the CD player, less analysis paralysis and decision fatigue. Of course, now I want my albums honed and toned, with not fat. This is a 41mins album with 30mins of padding. Get it on a strict diet and it would have been decent, maybe even good. But as it is, it lumbers around, needing regular sit downs.

9/10 Not sure how I've never really listened to this before? Oozes a class and an attitude that elevates it above the sum of it's parts. Dark and frantic, feeling like it is always on edge

8/10 Was not much of a fan of this, and then Bloody Boyzone came along and made "Baby Can I Hold You" unlistenable. It still makes me feel a little nauseous... Reassessed, this is a great album of singer-songwriting - there is a tangible vein of sadness that runs through it, as well as a controlled anger. Still struggle to listen to that song though

5/10 Overrated Bowie, isn't it? Naff, if we're honest.

10/10 So here it is, album 370, the Greatest album of all time. It's what I would have chosen when I started this journey, and it still is today. Will that change in the next 700? Seems unlikely, but if it does, I'm in for a treat. Lyrically, it is perfect. Musically it's spot-on. Every single song is top drawer.

3/10 Another horrible rap album. It was going to be a difficult day for anyone, following the Greatest album I've heard so far (Blood on the Tracks), but this is in a different universe. One of violence, bad language, ignorance, vile attitudes and sex. It's offensive to the ear, to the brain and to the heart.

8/10 A lot of it is excellent, and those songs really shine. Some of it is too theatrical for me - I'd rather have had a 5 star 45mins album rather than the musical hall, but it is one of the most enjoyable albums of this length that I've had so far.

6/10 Hmm, too rambling for me. In that musical way, where the chord progressions go on forever and everything seems forced to accommodate the lyric. And they are soooo posh, it makes it so much harder to like

5/10 Poor. I thought that Spotify was missing most of the album, but no, there are only 4 very long rambling tracks. There are bursts of interesting bits, but mainly it faded into the forgettable

5/10 Does any music really cross cultural boundaries? It is impossible for me to hear this without my western ear. It is exotic and interesting to an extent, but I can't feel it move me or connect with me in any way

8/10 Very good. Exceptional riffery and inventive songs.Perfect length. Textured and always interesting. On the cusp of a 5 star.

6/10 There's some decent songs here, and one excellent one. But the Who were always capable of producing some absolute garbage, and it's here again, not only in the naff faux-ads, but also some rubbish songs.

7/10 Noisy, but tuneful. No idea what any of the lyrics are

5/10 Perfectly inoffensive pop songs. Largely forgettable, with a definite missing element of drive and energy.

8/10 Well that was rather excellent. Never really listened to the Cocteau Twins, but by far the best of the shoegaze bands I've come across because they seem to be able to write really good tunes before swamping it with music Lose a point for inspiring the insipid XX who took their music, chemically removed all joy and interest from it before fooling people that it was good

5/10 I'm slightly disappointed that I didn't hate this more than I did. I'm such a Francophile. Repetitive junk, but it helped and booped along as I did my work

1/10 Garbage. It did make me question what is music, what is talent, why am I doing this? But it absolutely offended my musical sensibilities. And that doesn't matter, but it does mean you get 1 star. Horrible

6/10 I really like Seven Sea of Rye, but, to my ears, Queen are generally overrated. I don't care for their signature sounds (twin guitars, falsetto harmonies), but I like it when they just rock out.

8/10 We'll hello! What an awesome album - makes me question why the Damned are not more heralded? Beats any of the The Clash albums by a country mile. It's angry, frantic and loud, but it has quality songwriting in its soul, and that is all you can ask for. Could have been a 5 star.

5/10 It's fine, I guess. Wasn't a fan back in the day, and I stand by my opinions. What melodies there are are largely monotonous, with those layered vocals creating a distinctive, if uninteresting, sound. I'm not sure that they could really write a tune - they just seemed to hit it lucky with Golden Skans and their cover of a pretty crap dance song.

5/10 The wonderful thing about hip hop is that within 20seconds of a track starting, you can tell if you will like it or not cos NOTHING CHANGES . Likewise with the whole bloomin album - and you can be sure you are in for a long one as these artists do not seem to believe in the self-edit. So this is ok, definitely one of the better examLes of the genre. The skits infuriate me, as to the really dumb tracks like De La Orgee (who enjoys listening to that??). But the ly released a plethora of decent singles from this and they are alright.

8/10 Ah, Paul McCartney. Very listenable, with zdostinct flavours of Neil Young's guitar sound and Paul Simons songwriting, whilst being unmistakable. I always feel, like many, that Paul needed Lennon to reign in the crap vaudeville, musical hall stuff.

6/10 There really are some great songs here, but they are buried under 10,001 tons of 80s garbage. Still they fight to get out and sometimes they make it through, only to be dragged back down. Reminded me too much of Paula Abdul