This album is all over the place. There are syrupy 60s pop songs that I find boring and annoying. Tons of folk. In the Morning is a cool bluesy song that I surprised myself by liking a lot. I don't know what category Plastic Fantastic Lover belongs in but I like it. White Rabbit is so good. It makes me want to believe that they were tinkering with a bunch of different sounds and stumbled on that one. I love to think of them discovering psych rock by accident. I used to have this album on CD. I'd listen to it in my honda civic in high school. Pretty sure it was just White Rabbit and Somebody to Love though.

I don't think any band should be as rich and famous as the Rolling Stones. There are so many musicians out there and a lot of them are really good and a lot of them you'll never hear and a lot of them no one will ever hear. It's just easier for some people to make a whole lot of money by ignoring everyone else and getting us all to tune in to the Rolling Stones. Works the same way for Taylor Swift. Putting that aside, damn this album is good. I mean, it's really, really good. And I guess as the end of the day I'm just a basic bitch, because I like every song on this album. I stopped what I was doing at work on most of them to just listen. Sympathy for the Devil - never really listened to the words before. Sort of makes you think selling your soul to the devil is worth it so you can become Mick Jagger Jigsaw Puzzle - i love all the contradiction in the song. Factory Girl - I too want a factory girl

This one was a chore to get through. I had some visceral hate reactions to some of the songs when they came on. Workout Plan. I think the other was Graduation Day. I thought Gold Digger was on this album but I guess not. When I was in college I worked with this girl who would put this album on every time we worked together. I must have listened to it 50 times. I remember thinking it was kind of funny because she had dropped out of college. One time she invited me over for dinner. She was a big woman. After we ate dinner we sat on her couch and she took her shoe off and stretched it out across the couch towards me. I don't remember how I got out of that situation, but I remember the way she looked at me, with hunger in her eyes.

Led Zeppelin is kind of ambient. It's just sort of always there. I like it. But it was always hard for me to be really intentional about liking it since it was just sort of always there playing on classic rock radio or at my uncle's house or something like that. I know there are people who are big fans. I had to listen to this album a couple of times because it was really hard for me to pay attention to it. That's not anything against the album. It's just how I show up to Led Zeppelin. On one of the listens the song Tangerine finally broke through. Sweet little song rhymes dream with tangerine and then… is that a steel guitar? I love the country sound that sneaks in. I don't know that I've ever heard that song before but I'm going to listen to it again! Immigrant song obviously great and I’ve always loved that’s the way. Love me some forlorn Led Zeppelin songs. One of the things I appreciate about this project is forcing an active listen of an album like this. Ok so how to rate it. I have no idea how this stacks up against other Zeppelin albums. Is this their best one? Are we going to listen to II 500 albums later? Feel like I’ve got to reserve my 5s since I don’t know what else is out there so strong 4

bob dylan. pretty good. got some hits. others i don't know. will need to listen again.

very excited to see this one come up green day certainly took an awful turn. there was a point when you could not escape "lonely road." But that doesn't exist right now. This album is a moment of eternal summer. Adolescent pre-rebellion. Aggravated annoyance. The whole essence of being bored in your house while your parents are at work and all the things that go climbing through your head. my very first experience with this album was through a friend of mine. Instead of doing anything at school he would fill up notebooks with song lyrics. Sometimes he would give them to me. My parents found the scrawl of Longview in my backpack and I got in trouble. i listened to so much punk rock in high school. In the purity of that subculture i didn't allow myself to enjoy the simple pleasure of green day. they were too commercial and the music wasn't hard enough. I reformed my ways and came around to this album later in high school. damn i feel happy listening to this music. It's a little bit of pop and a little bit of punk but no so much of that combination that it becomes cloying. it's just really easy to listen to. I want to Karaoke Basket Case right now. i'm giving this album a 4. i just like the way it makes me feel.

Cool that I knew nothing about this. Missing enough basic context to even begin to find my way into this, let alone enjoy it.

1001 Rolling Stone albums you must listen to before you can die. It takes several generations before you learn that the gift is a curse. You see a succession of dark ages followed by golden ages followed dark ages. Empires rise and fall. The meaning of Ecclesiastes becomes unambiguous. Man is capricious. Nothing changes. The sheer tedium of it all brings you near to madness. And then you remember. That promise from long ago. It began with Beggar’s Banquet. Then Sticky Fingers. Very soon Let it Bleed. Then on to their weird shit from the 80’s. All the live albums. You seek out the BBC tapes like a fiend. Do interviews count? Previously unreleased recordings? Session demos? You consume it all with a thirst that seems unquenchable. “Are you some kind of aficionado,” they ask. No, you reply. I am just a bored god, seeking his own demise. After living through your own eternity there is only one memory that comes near to bringing you happiness. The store room of that infamous rug seller of lower Anatolia. The smell of sweet spices and animal dung wafts in from the bazaar of Ali Abu Baktar. The detritus of civilization all around you. A place for seekers of arcana and esoterica. Everything that is forbidden. There, as ever, you sought out that rare, final record whose sound would be your final resting peace. That is when you saw him. You will always recognize your own. With practiced indifference you look away. He does too. But you cling on each other’s every word. He speaks to the purveyor of forbidden things. There, you overhear it. Something that will make eternity ever so slightly bearable. You know that your fate is not the worst. You know because this lost soul is on a quest that can never end. A curse worse than yours. To listen to every last Beatles recording before he dies.

I love this album. There's the strangeness of I Zimbra where I always start this album wondering if David Byrne is going to go Paul Simon on us, but he's exploring the huge diversity of musical styles, which I think has always been a strength of the Talking Heads. Mind is good. I don't know or care if there are any other words in the song. It's good talking heads. This was the first Talking Heads album I every owned. It was my point of entry past "Burning Down the House." Recommended by the dude in the record store where I went to college. This whole album makes me think of driving around Texas listening to music. Paper opens like a conventional song... until Byrne starts singing. Then we're back on familiar/unfamiliar ground. I met an Argentine music journalist who complained about David Byrne. Apparently he got really into bicycling and traveled around the world riding his bike and he wrote a book about it. His entry on Buenos Aires was really critical, which she said wasn't fair because it's a country that doesn't have a tradition of bicycling. So no matter what I always have a picture in my head of David Byrne as an angry bicyclist. Air I always think I'm not going to like because it begins with so much Talking Heads strange energy but then it resolves itself into a really nice song. I don't know what he's talking about but I find it very relatable. Heaven is maybe my favorite song on this album. I catch myself humming it. William Blake has this idea of a kind of heaven that he calls Beulah, and it's the conventional idea of heaven where everything is at peace and is tranquil, but to him that's a false kind of heaven because it's static, nothing happens, and it robs us of our dynamic human potential. I don't know the most about Blake or really about the Talking Heads, but that's what this song always makes me think about. I saw the talking heads perform one time and it was bizarre. They had these choreographed dancers doing a routine with office chairs. End of the day, not my favorite Talking Heads album. I'll hold that out for Speaking in Tongues (and the excellent movie). But this is a super solid album that delivers on what I love the Talking Heads for which is their strangeness and unexpectedness.

this album was kind of boring to me. not a fan of the high pitched elfin drugged out 60's singing in the first part of the album. Sunshine is the only song i went into this knowing. it's the only one that i wanted to listen to. i listened to it while i was driving and that made it slightly better. I kept hearing songs that I thought I was going to like that ended up annoying me. Tales of Brave Ulysses was ok. I mean, I'll take anything Homeric. SWLABR started out sounding cool and psychadelic but the words ended up bothering me We're going wrong was the best album on the track IMO. It was cool and minimalist and ominous but didn't quite seem to get there. Take it back - Clapton can't do blues like the stones or zepplin Mothers lament sounded like a monte python skit.

The idea of listening to this album all the way through is kind of funny to me. Cindy Lauper isn't the type of artist I've ever really considered that a possibility. I don't really know anything about Cindy Lauper other than the songs that you can't avoid, but I'm optimistic. I'm open to being surprised. Cover art - how many times did they have to take that picture? how posed was that. "She's So Unusual" is a really annoying album name. First song - kind of ordinary. I'm not paying much attention to the words. Cool harmonica. Is this song a flex? Is Cindy bragging about how rich she is? Or is it about people abandoning you when you're broke? Girls just wanna have fun - i don't feel like i need to listen to this again when you were mine - cool synth intro. I like the synth in this song. Cindy's vocals aren't sticking with me. am i annoyed by them? am i tuning them out? People hated Joanna Newsom for that reason but I eventually came around to her. Quick check of the lyrics. She's talking about money again! Is Cindy Lauper just an agent of capitalism dressed in funny clothes to throw us off? yes. time after time - lol i didn't even know this was her song. I donno. It's a pretty good song. I like it more than Girls. I mean, I didn't reflexively skip it. She bop - awesome synth again. I feel like I'm playing Battle Toads. I just want to listen to the synth player's solo album. This song is about oral sex, right? all through the night - i like this song. it reminds me of another, better, song, but I can't figure out what it is. Maybe time after time? witness - ska song. gimme more horns. I'll kiss you - more boss music! The synth player owns this album. I think this is a very horny song. I think the video game synth is the signal. He's so unusual - is Betty Boop Cindy Lauper's inspiration? Yeah Yeah - thank god it's the last song. Sounds kind of like the other ones. Synth isn't out front here, which is a disappointment. I think the idea of seriously listening to Cindy Lauper is funny. I also think its funny that I'm giving her more stars than Cream. Please don't kick me out of the cool record club guys!

I've always envied the kind of guys who were able to really get into Wu Tang. I've tried. I've enjoyed it when I tried. They're great. There's so much there. But at some point I always move on to something else and nothing really sticks. Tical by Method Man was a fun listen. There were some really funny rhymes and lines that stuck out to me. All I need was the toughest love song I've ever heard. I tried to listen to it a second time to write this review but kept getting distracted. I'm glad to know this album exists. Will listen again.

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Fun album. Reminds me of high school. I played a lot of GTA listening to this.

Creedence. You know them. Am I going to be able to listen to this album new? We will see. That's a great way to start an album. What the heck, these guys aren't from Louisiana? They're from the Bay Area? What is Chooglin'? I'm sure this has been asked, and answered before. Fun album. Great band. Stands the test of time.

sonofabitch. I really wanted to review that Richard/Linda Thompson album. Missed it on album day then Matt showed me how to put in the review retroactively and I hit five stars without realizing that would lock it in... So I'm going to do it here. Holy moly. That was new to me. I didn't know the name Richard Thompson. Listened through and it turns out I know Bright Lights - my wife has been playing that song a lot. There's one other song from his post-divorce solo stuff from the 90s that I play for one of my kids. But other than that this was a fresh listen. It was great. 1001 Generator I thank you for bringing this to me because I'll be listening to it for a long time. It belongs in the permanent rotation now. I agree with everything you guys already said - first half stronger than the second, but the second is still really good and worth listening to and maybe even good in its own different more subdued way. Nothing's stopping me from listening to it all the way through. It's crazy how modern the sound is. Bright Lights is so catchy and Spotify is already trying to ruin it for me by playing it every time my queue runs out. I listened to the whole album 4 times yesterday. I'm at risk of ruining myself for it immediately. I dug in. I listened to some of his stuff from Fairport Convention. Also good. British folk. I know nothing about British Folk. I know that it was influential on American rock. Or maybe country. Dylan. I don't know if they're typical of the stuff or innovating in some way. I love stories. Liege And Lief is a bunch of folk tales set to music. I know it wasn’t on the generator but you should really go out and listen to it. I'm sure they're harking back to the tradition of traveling minstrels, which in itself is a thousands of years old tradition. I love that. Pop music in its original incarnation. Bringing news. Entertainment. People together. It's what Homer was doing and the whole tradition before and after him. They had a drum called a timbrel and they'd play it while they sang. There was this guy around the turn of the century who was a musicologist or ethnologist or anthropologist or something like that and he went to at the time it was Yugoslavia into the mountains where there was still a living bardic tradition and he found one of these guys who made his living this way. So he told the guy the story of the Iliad and then that night the guy repeated it word for word in his own song. The next night he did it again except that he added or changed over a thousand lines of the poem because this tradition is about the retelling and these bards get their reputation by making the story their own. (Incidentally that anthropologist died a few years when he accidentally shot himself in the heart.) So obviously recording changes that but I think that's some of what's going on here. Except they're singing about ordinary people and the shitty things that kings or lords do to them because they're rich and can get away with it. So it was cool that Richard Thompson was part of this and I listened to that album a couple of times. On to the beach boys What a weird album. I didn’t even get a good look at the cover until now. Checks out. Beach boys occupy a weird place for me. They were essentially a kids band when I was growing up. At some point in college their image was rehabilitated and someone convinced me that Pet Sounds was worth a re-listen, and there are some good songs on that album, but I've always thought they could have been a better band. Case in point is Good Vibrations. I'm not saying anything new, but the way that song opens is incredible, and I want that to be the whole song, or a whole album or band with that sound. I thought Grizzly Bear got close to doing that, and they were ok but I think their sound tired out pretty quickly like a lot of bands from that era (TV on the Radio the other clear example). This album was not something i'd ever heard. The opening song was bizarre and it accurately set the tone for the rest of the album. It's not that I didn't enjoy it. I like weird stuff. Don't go near the water does have a good sound. What they do at the 1:00 mark. It's a cool song. I like it. I just can't tell if the lyrics are supposed to be ironic or if it's a hamfisted attempt at raising social awareness. The other one like this - Student Demonstration Time. A jaunty tune about riots and Kent State? Was this some kind of CIA sponsored project to get students to think protesting was really not cool? This song is insane. Then Take a Load off your Feet. "when you sit in a chair think about what got you there... you better take care of your feet." What? Is this a joke? Maybe the joke's on me because I can't figure out if they're taking this seriously or not. Feel flows is great. They figured out on that one. The classic Beach Boys vocals (is it harmonies that they're so good at?) mixed with the spooky sound that I think is their real enduring gift to music. Lookin' at tomorrow also good. based on the name I'm thinking maybe it's part of whatever social awareness thing they're getting at? But I can't really hear the words as well as the other songs so I'm just listening to ghost music. This whole album is insane. It doesn't have a lot of the saccharine 50's beach pop sound that made me not take them seriously for most of my teenage years. I actually like the sound on a lot of the songs. It's cool and it's different and it's weird. Weirdness is good for a lot of bands. It keeps them from being too cool, which isn't super interesting in rock music. But I'm not sure if they got the mix right here because it keeps throwing me off. I'm glad I listened to this. Who knows if I ever will again. I do like it.

This album is awesome. It might have something to do with the fact that I am off work today. Weather is great, driving around with the windows rolled down. I’m not gonna let the fact that I’m white dude in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood take anything away from this for me. Not super keen on the first song. 2 and three great. Has anyone seen superfly? Not me. I think I saw Shaft. Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Al Green - especially Al Green - these guys have been in my rotation for a while. Not sure how I missed Curtis Mayfield but thank you 1001 for rectifying that. The album grooves. It’s a good listen.

this is one of those reviews i'm mostly doing so i can reveal the next album. punk, new wave, those things are in the background but also really radio friendly pop. I'm hearing the Cars. Lots of it. Album cover is funny. Fade Away and Radiate caught my attention. Pretty Baby is not my Debbie Harry fantasy. Maybe. We're at a diner. It's the 50's. She gets in a fight with her boyfriend. Throws her milkshake all over him. He gets aggressive. I step up. Hey now mister. He turns around. Doesn't even give me the dignity of a fist to the face. Just backhands my glasses off. In my frantic search to find them I accidentally deck the guy. He's out cold on the floor. The sweat drops down my brow. Turns my hair into a perfect greaser curl. We're on the back of his hog. Debbie and me. Wind whipping through that white dress. Drive down to the lake... WHOA. Got a little distracted. This is a public review. This album just made me want to listen to the Cars.

WHAT. Gangster's Paradise is a Stevie Wonder song? Otherwise solid. Long. Cool that he named a song As. Really picked up from there. Three only because it’s daunting and hard to think about picking it back up again.

I like Simon and Garfunkel in a surface level way. Whatever has been offered I’ve liked. One time I karaoke’d me and Julio at rays happy birthday bar in Philly and it’s the best I’ve ever karaoke’d anything ever. At 29 minutes I can afford to give this the recommended 2-3 listens. First listen through I only heard the songs I knew. America. Ms. Robinson. Good stuff. Next listen I’m only doing the ones I don’t know. Opening of child is rad. Thought it might be something different. Is Paul Simon a theatre guy? Musicals? I like it alright. Kind of interesting now that I’m paying attention. No idea what he’s singing about and the orchestration is all over the place. 4th listen and it’s really growing on me. It’s a reallly dark song with some haunting stuff in the background but a catchy chorus. Never noticed that humming at the beginning of America. Skipped because the point is to hear the other ones. Overs - what a snooze of a song. I’m struck by the utter lack of sympathy this song inspires in me. I’m just an irritated friend tired of his complaining. Fucking break up already. old people talking. Sets up old friends. That orchestration again. Strings. So sentimental. It’s hard to listen to. Am I going to find out this was a soundtrack? Or maybe there’s some conflict in the songwriting I’ll learn about later? Paul Simon wanted to write pop songs and Arbuckle Garfunkel wanted to make music from the previous decade? Bookends reprise was cool but not really a song. What is the concept that I’m missing on this album. Fakin it is good. I’ll listen to this again. Pinky’s dilemma makes me think of The Beach Boys. Intentional? Hazy shade of winter sounds like the Zombies. I like it Zoo makes me realize that Paul Simon s musical gift is writing what sounds like narratively driven songs that don’t have a clear narrative structure when you listen to them too closely. I think zoo might grow on me. It’s so weird. Going back to Punky again to see if there’s something there too. Some good songs. A couple new ones I liked. Some snoozers. I don’t know that I would tell anyone this was an album that they had to listen to before they die. Just read the wiki. It is a concept album and I’m just dense. Not sure that it rehabilitates the snoozers. I don’t understand what made this such a breakthrough album. Wonder what else I’m missing. This one is really hard to rate. I think 4 because every song grew on me the more I listened to it. Even overs.

What a funny album. My first reaction was that it was a little too chipper. There are some bad songs on here and there are some astoundingly bad songs on here. Super girl is so bad I can’t even bring myself to skip it. It’s like a train wreck. It’s a work of art to create something that corny and intolerable. It was the first song that grabbed my attention in the initial play though and formed my first impression. Then there's that last song that is relentless in condemning god and the whole religious right for kidding themselves when there's awful shit happening in the world all the time. Couple of listens later I realize there's a lot of dark stuff in this album. It’s one of the things that I think is interesting and makes this worthy of paying a little more attention. There’s a heavy gloss of commercial pop with a lot of trouble going on under the surface: Summer's Cauldron - Don't try and rescue me, I'm just going to lay here in this lava flow Earn Enough for Us - We're broke and now you're pregnant? Dying - they wrote a song called 'dying.' Dear god - when I asked my wife if this was the band that plays "don't change" she told me no they wrote this song. True, a lot of this is pretty cliche, but it is present and that's worth something. Songs I liked: -The meeting place. -Ballet for a rainy day (reminds me of One Tin Soldier by Mad Parade) -Season Cycle -Earn enough for us What I think each of these songs do is temper some of the more obnoxious aspects of songs like Supergirl and the Man Who Sailed Around His Soul. All of these have a characteristic sound. Bright, cheery pop music. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like music you would put into an ad for furniture or play at the mall. It's a very 80's sound. Vocals somewhere between Depeche Mode and Echo and the Bunnymen. Sunday church music. I donno. It's working for me. Songs I really liked: -Another Satellite is my favorite song on the album. It’s almost a really good song. Reminds me of Invisible Sun by the Police. Another standout song on an album I can't entirely get behind. -Sacrificial Bonfire. I've thought a lot about ritual sacrifice. There's nothing about that that's part of my culture so it's entirely exotic. I've read about contemporary accounts that are less religious and more communal, but still with some ritualistic aspects. I worked with a lady whose relatives in Mexico would slaughter goats. Read about a family slaughtering a bull in Syria. In either case the whole community gets involved. Neighbors, friends, everybody. Grab your slice. Build a fire. We're feasting. It sounds great. In ancient contexts, I'm sure that was certainly an element. But then supercharge that with the presence of the divine. Greek temples are bone white today, but imagine them back then - brightly painted, the sounds of prayer and chanting, the smell of smoke and blood, the electric feeling of animal fear and death. There's also the fact that the religious feeling that would have been the most powerful element of that experience is utterly incomprehensible to us. The gulf is too great. Time has obliterated it. All we can do is imagine. So is that what this song is engaged in? Maybe. I have no idea. But this song is good. I think the piano and vocals go really well together. It conjures a really clear image. I think I'm giving this a three. If you make a playlist of only the good songs on this album, it's pretty listenable. Do they rehabilitate the truly bad stuff that's all over this album? Probably not. But I do think there's something unique and listenable about the good stuff that makes this worthy of a listen.

Great album. A lot more mellow songs than I remembered

Didn’t really give this the listens it deserved. Making dinner kids talking over each other at me at etc. my impressions are that it starts strong and then loses my interest. I think maybe with more attention there may be something there.Also, I think it’s probably better than bookends. I have always thought it was weird. How prominent that Parka was on the cover.