294
Albums Rated
3.37
Average Rating
27%
Complete
795 albums remaining
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1960
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38
5-Star Albums
4
1-Star Albums
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By Genre
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By Decade
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Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Rip It Up
Orange Juice
|
5 | 2.9 | +2.1 |
|
The Who Sell Out
The Who
|
5 | 3 | +2 |
|
The Notorious Byrd Brothers
The Byrds
|
5 | 3.04 | +1.96 |
|
The Modern Lovers
The Modern Lovers
|
5 | 3.05 | +1.95 |
|
No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (Live)
Motörhead
|
5 | 3.07 | +1.93 |
|
Dig Me Out
Sleater-Kinney
|
5 | 3.08 | +1.92 |
|
You're Living All Over Me
Dinosaur Jr.
|
5 | 3.08 | +1.92 |
|
Liege And Lief
Fairport Convention
|
5 | 3.1 | +1.9 |
|
No Other
Gene Clark
|
5 | 3.18 | +1.82 |
|
Vivid
Living Colour
|
5 | 3.2 | +1.8 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Kind Of Blue
Miles Davis
|
2 | 4.05 | -2.05 |
|
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
|
1 | 3.03 | -2.03 |
|
Appetite For Destruction
Guns N' Roses
|
2 | 3.73 | -1.73 |
|
Grace
Jeff Buckley
|
2 | 3.73 | -1.73 |
|
Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers
|
2 | 3.7 | -1.7 |
|
Tea for the Tillerman
Cat Stevens
|
2 | 3.68 | -1.68 |
|
Let's Get Killed
David Holmes
|
1 | 2.67 | -1.67 |
|
Follow The Leader
Korn
|
1 | 2.66 | -1.66 |
|
Heroes
David Bowie
|
2 | 3.61 | -1.61 |
|
Lust For Life
Iggy Pop
|
2 | 3.6 | -1.6 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Simon & Garfunkel | 2 | 5 |
| Black Sabbath | 3 | 4.33 |
5-Star Albums (38)
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Popular Reviews
The Doors · 3 likes
4/5
I've been doing some thinking, and I've got some ideas to improve the album.
One: Ray Manzarek needs to be louder, angrier and have access to a time machine.
Two: Whenever Ray Manzarek's not playing, all the other members should be asking, "Where's Ray Manzarek?"
The Byrds · 1 likes
5/5
One of the easiest 5s I'll ever give on this website, I've loved the Byrds ever since I got into music, and this is certainly their most ambitious album. It's got this amazing blend of psychedelic rock and country that no one else can do quite like them, like every time I hear a steel guitar and phasing at the same time I fall in love all over again.
Unfortunately, it's a Byrds album, which means it ends with a bunch of nonsense. Space Odyssey is the clearly weakest song on here, even as it's probably one of their better closing tracks. Doesn't hurt that it maybe has Gene coming back to do backing vocals on it (that might be him you're hearing in your left ear! I go back and forth on this myself).
Rod Stewart · 1 likes
3/5
I'll be honest, I can never remember the difference between Rod Stewart and James Taylor. They're basically the same type of guy to me, even though they don't really sound the same. I guess actually Rod Stewart is significantly better, but he's still not anything that feels like I've been missing out on over the 28 years I've been around.
Sleater-Kinney · 1 likes
5/5
There's this indie karaoke bar I go to sometimes, and all the other women there are always so cool that I'm too intimidated to even consider talking to them. But one time, I sang "One More Hour" at the bar, and one of those really cool women came over to tell me how cool she thought I was. If that's not 5-star worthy, I don't know what is!
Elvis Costello & The Attractions · 1 likes
3/5
This one is supposed to be the one where Costello grows up and proves that he can be a Serious Writer. Back in high school, I really liked it for that, and Emerick's production actually made me appreciate the Beatles more (in particular, this album sounds kinda reminiscent of Happiness is a Warm Gun). But lately, these songs feel a bit lifeless, and I'd take any of his first five albums over it in a heartbeat.
1-Star Albums (4)
All Ratings
Beastie Boys
2/5
It's pretty cool how they were going for a blend of hard rock/metal and hip-hop on about half of this album, but for the most part, it feels a bit underwhelming? They'd go on to better things over the next few albums, but "Fight for Your Right" aside, this one just doesn't have it.
Adele
3/5
Like most people, I know about half these songs from constant radio play back when I was in high school ("Someone Like You" was always my favorite). Unfortunately, the non-singles don't really add anything new for me. Still, it's always nice to revisit a few great songs I haven't thought all that much about in years.
Black Sabbath
5/5
No matter your age, race, gender, or even whether or not you like metal, we can all come together to say "hell yeah, I got Paranoid today," and I think that's beautiful.
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
Every song on this album sounds like it could have been a hit, and most of them were!
Green Day
4/5
Like many of my age, American Idiot was my first exposure to punk. The singles from this were *everywhere* for the next year or so, which is an eternity when you're 7 years old! Off the top of my head, I can't think of another time that a punk band has had that level of cultural dominance. It's aged better than I'd have expected it to, too.
R.E.M.
4/5
The late 80s always seemed to be the weakest stretch of R.E.M.'s discography to me, honestly. More straightforward than their earlier work, but without all the stylistic experimentation of the 90s. This one's probably the best of that stretch, though; the darker tone of the music works really well with the more overtly political bent many of the songs take. And let's be honest, even the worst R.E.M. album (with Bill Berry, of course) is still better than most bands' best albums.
John Lennon
2/5
First, you think "the lyrics of Imagine are actually so true", then you think "wait a second, it's actually really hypocritical of John Lennon to write those lyrics". But in the end, who really cares? Arguing about "Imagine" has got to be one of the least productive things you could be doing more than 50 years later.
The real problem with this album is that just one year without Paul's granny music left John completely unable to write a decent hook!
The Magnetic Fields
3/5
Always thought this was a bit too gimmicky for its own good, though there's still a lot to like here. My favorites tend to be when they dip into country (e.g., "All My Little Words" or "The One You Really Love"), or the more Brill Building-ish songs (such as "Sweet Lovin' Man" or "When My Boy Walks Down the Street"). Luckily for me, both those types of songwriting get their own full albums, which I end up listening to a whole lot more. 3 hours is just too much! Listen to The Wayward Bus or Charm of the Highway Strip or something, don't listen to this one unless you're *really* dedicated.
The The
4/5
All these songs start out like they're going to be on some dark post-punk album (sometimes even borderline industrial), but then after about 30 seconds they become a much lighter post-punk album. This one's gotta be the first (of hopefully many) great discoveries I make through the list!
Willie Nelson
4/5
The red-headed stranger: I'm going to kill my cheating wife!
The red-headed stranger, 5 minutes later: I'm going to kill you for touching the horse that belonged to my wife, who I loved!
Tommy Lee Jones: I don't care!
Sugar
3/5
It's a perfectly serviceable alt rock album that probably wouldn't get quite as much good press if it weren't by Bob Mould. Not really much to say about it.
Lenny Kravitz
3/5
His voice kinda reminds me of Elvis Costello in places? It's all pretty well done funk-rock; I wouldn't turn it off if it came on the radio, but I probably wouldn't proactively decide to listen to him in the future, either.
Björk
4/5
It's extremely frontloaded, but how can you not love an album that gives you "Human Behaviour" and "Venus as a Boy"? Björk is an artist I've always respected more than liked; it's really impressive how she keeps reinventing herself and manages to sound unique the entire time. I don't really get her just yet, but every time I listen to Debut it feels like I get closer to being a huge fan of hers. I really hope it happens!
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
Despite the fact that so many bands I enjoy take at least a bit of influence from it, I've been pretty much entirely ignorant of reggae, aside from whatever Bob Marley songs come up on the radio or on TV/movies/etc. This album is doing a lot to convince me that that needs to be changed.
Drive Like Jehu
3/5
I always have high hopes any time I check out a new noise rock album. Like, I'm no stranger to guitar noise, and I'm always looking for more of it! But the problem is that most noise rock doesn't want to do noise in the way I want to hear noise. Like, there's distortion obviously, but instead of a whole lot of screechy feedback blanketing everything, they tend to want to play fast and loud and pummel the listener with sound in a different way. Plus, half the time they end up being an angular post-hardcore band, which is something I've never really learned to like so far. As you can imagine from me talking about that here, Yank Crime ends up being one of those fast, loud, angular post-hardcore albums that just leave me dissatisfied.
Mott The Hoople
2/5
You're making me listen to an entire Mott the Hoople album? And it doesn't even have the one Mott the Hoople song that people actually *want* to hear?
("All the Way from Memphis" was kinda cool though, actually.)
Depeche Mode
4/5
Of course, I love "Personal Jesus" and "Enjoy the Silence" as much as anyone else, and the rest of the album isn't really a slouch either. But I still can't help but miss the less polished feeling of their earlier work like Some Great Reward. This one's not quite an all-time classic for me, but I feel like there's for to be something in their discography that is.
Burning Spear
4/5
If I had a nickel for every time in the past week that the generator gave me a reggae album that got remixed to avoid scaring white people, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
The Chemical Brothers
2/5
5 minutes in: These beats aren't so big.
10 minutes in: Is it just going to be like this for an hour? I'm over it.
20 minutes in: I am the beat, the beat is me.
45 minutes in: No, I'm over it again.
Cream
3/5
1001 Albums to Listen to with Buffy's Mom
Green Day
4/5
Never really realized until just now just how great the bass sounds on this album. Brings it from good to great!
Common
3/5
One of the worst trends in music in the late 90s/early 00s was all the artists who decided they had to fill out the *entire* length of the CD because it was there. This album is way too long for me, and I had an unfortunate tendency to start tuning it out when it felt like an album should be ending. The beats sound good though, and I like his voice, just I wish it had been about 45 minutes instead!
Between 2 and 3 on this; I rounded down for Licensed to Ill and ever since this site has been convinced that hip-hop is the one and only genre I don't like, I don't think that's necessarily the case! So hopefully rounding up here will fix that.
Throbbing Gristle
1/5
Mostly, it's a bunch of spoken word over noises, sort of reminds me of some of the artsier moments of Huggy Bear's Taking the Rough with the Smooch. Except there, you're listening to stuff like "Pro No From Now" and "Prayer" because you know you've got "Herjazz" coming up. Here, the payoff is some rudimentary beats with more noise over the top of them. Now, I'm not disparaging rudimentary beats with more noise; the same description is true for Psychocandy, and that's one of my all time favorite albums! The problem here is that they're just not very good at it.
This album falls somewhere between a 1 and a 2, giving it the 1 because everything I've read about them in Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again makes them sound like unbearable edgelords.
Queen
4/5
Killer Queen is probably my favorite of their songs, as someone who only ever really listened to Queen on the radio. Always assumed this album was just going to be Killer Queen and friends, but it turns out that might not even be the best song on here!
The White Stripes
3/5
I don't really think about the White Stripes that much, other than maybe as that band whose song gets played at every sporting event I've ever been to. But every time I listen to them, they're a lot better than I expected! Not sure I see them as all-time greats, but certainly in the "if I had to listen to the modern rock station, I would be so relieved to get this instead of yet another post-grunge band" tier.
Parliament
5/5
It's only 8 am, but I'm grooving in my seat right now. Kind of a shame I got this one on a work day, you know?
Skepta
3/5
This cover looks like a forgotten late-90s screamo album that your friend is inexplicably obsessed with.
Johnny Cash
5/5
Thanks to the magic of modern recording technology, you no longer need to commit crimes to hear Johnny Cash in concert!
Red Hot Chili Peppers
2/5
Surprisingly good for about 15 minutes! Unfortunately, there's still 40 minutes after that...
Tracy Chapman
4/5
Being someone who doesn't always pay the most attention to lyrics makes it a bit difficult to really fall in love with a lot of folk albums, for which the lyrics are a big deal. Of course, even *I* know a perfect song when I hear one, and this album starts out with two of them.
Van Halen
3/5
Every time I hear "Panama", I think it's "Everybody Wants Some", which of course means that I'll be spending the day thinking of John Cusack and his anthropomorphic hamburger friend.
Dexys Midnight Runners
3/5
Always thought these guys were Irish for some reason, so mostly this album is just making me think of the Commitments. It's fine, but why wouldn't I just listen to classic soul instead?
4/5
A strong contender for the most frontloaded album of all time. We've all heard those first three songs a billion times before, but every time I listen to them again, it's like the first time. I've come to realize that they're actually pretty mindblowing, and can't imagine what they must have sounded like at the time. The rest of the album is fine, not really anything special, so overall it falls short of being an all-time great, but you can't beat that beginning.
Isaac Hayes
4/5
Never really thought his version of "Walk On By" beat Dionne Warwick's until literally this listen, but yeah that's an all-time great. Unfortunately, I don't really care for the cover of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", which sucks because it's almost half the album.
Al Green
3/5
I mostly only knew of Al Green for the Talking Heads cover of "Take Me to the River" and the Orange Juice cover of "L.O.V.E. Love", honestly. As it turns out, I'm not a huge fan of him. There's nothing *wrong* with this per se, it's just that the songs don't stick with me at all.
George Harrison
3/5
Why do I keep getting triple albums on the days I've got the least time to actually listen to them? Anyway, George Harrison looks like a gnome on this, which makes it disappointing that it's really not all that whimsical.
Plus, Nina Simone makes the versions of "My Sweet Lord" and "Isn't It a Pity" on this completely and totally obsolete with her unsung classic Emergency Ward! Probably like a 2.5, but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt because the aforementioned Nina Simone album is so good it justifies all this excess.
Dr. John
4/5
This one pretty much blew my mind hearing it for the first time many years ago, and for a while it was one of my all-time favorites. Revisiting it for this, I'm noticing just how much it relies on a great opener and great closer. Other than maybe "Mama Roux", everything in between that is more or less forgettable. But that first song and last song are totally perfect, the way that the backing vocals feel like they're ghosts rising out of the swamp is *still* eerie!
5/5
I mean, *duh*! You've got Paul's granny music at its absolute peak, you've got John doing freaky circus music, you've got Ringo being his endearing self, and George is there too (sorry George, your album was Revolver!) What else could you possibly want?
Bee Gees
3/5
We have the Kinks at home
Deep Purple
2/5
I always tend to underestimate how good "Smoke on the Water" is, and it's almost enough to make this album worth it. But that and the amazing line "could we have everything louder than everything else" are sort of immediately undercut by a drum solo that goes on way too long. I've never particularly cared for Deep Purple, and this doesn't really get me to reconsider.
Spiritualized
4/5
That was actually better than I expected, as someone who didn't like the other Spiritualized album she heard! I don't remember any of it immediately after listening, but it was really pretty and went by way faster than I would have expected for an hour-long album.
Van Morrison
3/5
I've always thought this album cover is inexplicably hilarious. Unfortunately, nothing after "And It Stoned Me" really catches me at all. It feels sort of like he's trying to combine soul with folk, which I appreciate the effort at, but he doesn't really do a very good job with it.
Fairport Convention
4/5
It's the weakest Fairport Convention album of 1969, but I'm never going to say no to listening to Sandy Denny. I've never really understood why people think of "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" one of her best songs, though "Percy's Song" is a highlight of the band's discography. I also like the party atmospheres of "Si Tu Dois Partir" and "Million Dollar Bash" a lot, though I think most people don't!
Anyway, if you're reading this, make sure not to miss out on What We Did On Our Holidays. It's their first album with Sandy, back when the band still sounded like the British Jefferson Airplane, and it's definitely my favorite of theirs. Too bad it didn't make the cut here!
Black Sabbath
4/5
This might be the best Iommi's guitar has ever sounded, but they don't quite have the songs to match. I think it's an improvement over the overrated Master of Reality, but not really as good as the first two. Still pretty good though!
Common
3/5
I hate handing it to Kanye for obvious reasons, but the production on this is a fairly big improvement over Like Water For Chocolate, and I thought the production on that one was already pretty good! Unfortunately, the songs still don't really stick with me, which prevents this from being as good as it could be.
a-ha
3/5
I only knew about Take On Me coming in, but I really wanted to like this. Unfortunately, no matter how much I really want to like synthpop in general, it never really works for me.
The Byrds
5/5
One of the easiest 5s I'll ever give on this website, I've loved the Byrds ever since I got into music, and this is certainly their most ambitious album. It's got this amazing blend of psychedelic rock and country that no one else can do quite like them, like every time I hear a steel guitar and phasing at the same time I fall in love all over again.
Unfortunately, it's a Byrds album, which means it ends with a bunch of nonsense. Space Odyssey is the clearly weakest song on here, even as it's probably one of their better closing tracks. Doesn't hurt that it maybe has Gene coming back to do backing vocals on it (that might be him you're hearing in your left ear! I go back and forth on this myself).
Doves
2/5
I gotta be honest, this one just blew right by me. Usually, even if I'm listening while I work, *something* is going to stick, good or bad, but that didn't happen here. As wallpaper music, it's fine, I guess?
The Velvet Underground
4/5
Very familiar with this one, so I decided to change things up today by listening to the Closet Mix for once. I don't think the difference is quite as drastic as some people make it out to be (with the obvious exception of "Some Kinda Love"), but it's nice to have a change of pace every once in a while.
The more intimate songs are my favorites by a long shot, the rockers just don't work quite as well with this new, meeker sound, though I still do quite like "Beginning to See the Light". I guess it's the two songs between that and "Murder Mystery" that really hurt the overall strength of this album. Those are just too slight and wouldn't work on any album.
Sleater-Kinney
5/5
There's this indie karaoke bar I go to sometimes, and all the other women there are always so cool that I'm too intimidated to even consider talking to them. But one time, I sang "One More Hour" at the bar, and one of those really cool women came over to tell me how cool she thought I was. If that's not 5-star worthy, I don't know what is!
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
We all start out by being disappointed when we think we're going to hear "Walk on the Wild Side" and instead it's "Can I Kick It". But then we grow up, and we learn that the proper order of things is to hope for "Can I Kick It" and be disappointed by "Walk on the Wild Side".
The Kinks
5/5
Yeah, this one's the best Kinks album. Listen to it when you're in a nostalgic mood (college graduation, first big move, significant birthday, etc.), and it'll blow you away. One of the fun things about it is that it's both genuine and ironic at the same time, much like how we make jokes about our own anxieties regarding the passing of time.
Janis Joplin
3/5
I know for sure that one of the first albums I bought when getting into music was Cheap Thrills, which makes it a bit weird that I don't think i've really thought about Janis Joplin in several years. Even "Me and Bobby Mcgee" here feels unfamiliar, despite having heard it a billion times. In all, I guess this album just made me want to listen to Kris Kristofferson, honestly. It's not all that psychedelic either, not sure what that genre is doing here.
UB40
4/5
I never have anything worthwhile to say about reggae, but I always think it sounds pretty cool. It was also pretty neat to read about how this album was mostly recorded in a bedroom, that kind of no-fi origin is the kind of thing I love to hear about!
Britney Spears
3/5
I was probably the last person on Earth to have never heard the title song before, but that's all over now. I like the pounded-out piano riff on the chorus a lot!
The rest of the album is done well enough, if a bit unmemorable. Probably not something I'll be coming back to, but yeah, I definitely had no excuse for not having heard the hits off it before, so I'm glad I did finally.
Talking Heads
5/5
One of the first cool albums I ever fell in love with when getting into music, even if I ended up preferring Fear of Music for a long time. I've always loved songs with overlapping vocals, and I'm sure this is a big contributor to that.
Also love how their "let's try to sound like Joy Division, who we have never heard" song is approximately a thousand times better than Joy Division.
OutKast
3/5
Two albums in one day? Feels like cheating, but okay...
I've heard OutKast's other albums, but I never got around to this one because I didn't quite like them enough to want to listen to two hours of them. So basically, I only knew "Hey Ya" off this album, which led me to assume that The Love Below was the main draw of this album. As it turns out, I was wrong; Speakerboxxx is actually great! Production sounds so cool, and I fall more in love every time I hear those horns. Also, it turns out that I've almost certainly also heard "I Love the Way You Move" and just never realized it (are we *sure* the hook there isn't sampled from somewhere? It feels like it should have always existed!) It's maybe a bit long, but still an easy 4.
As for The Love Below: It's fine, I guess? Everything sounds fairly nice, but the songs lack memorability outside of the aforementioned "Hey Ya". I was feeling like it was starting to drag well before it even finished. Honestly, it's probably a 2? So that averages out to a 3 for the whole album, obviously.
Marvin Gaye
2/5
I really love soul music, and literally everyone likes Marvin Gaye, so you'd think I'd be a big fan of his, right? Unfortunately, for whatever reason, his music has never really connected with me; it's typically good, but not great. Even more unfortunately, this album is 75 minutes of divorce songs (including one about having to pay alimony) that just aren't very good.
Beatles
4/5
Some great songs on here obviously, but everyone except Ringo ("Yellow Submarine" is a good song, I don't care what everyone says!) also kinda has a dud too. Sorry, but you can't convince me that "Good Day Sunshine" and "Doctor Robert" aren't phoned in to pad the track list a bit!
I go back and forth on if I like "Love You To" or not; right now the answer is no, but sometimes I actually really enjoy it! In any case, even in situations where I think it's a bit of a bust, this is still George's breakout album, with "Taxman" and "I Want to Tell You" both being highlights for me.
And then there's "Tomorrow Never Knows", which everyone except me seems to think is an all-time classic. I've always hated it; it's tuneless experimentation for the sake of experimentation. I'm not totally opposed to experimentation for its own sake, but the underlying song has to be good first!
But obviously, I can't rate the album with "Eleanor Rigby", "I'm Only Sleeping", "Here, There and Everywhere", and "She Said She Said" in addition to the aforementioned songs i really like anything less than a 4. I'm just contrarian, I'm not stupid!
James Taylor
2/5
When he tries to step out of soft rock (whether it be blues like "Steamroller" or folk like "Oh Susannah), the results are pretty dire. As long as he's sticking to soft rock, it's fine enough, but mostly it makes me wish I had gotten Tapestry today instead. Oh well, at least this has "Fire and Rain", and Carole King playing piano.
Cowboy Junkies
4/5
I tend to think of this one as a solid, if unspectacular, alt-country album. But for some reason, it's really working for me this morning. I never realized just how good a song "Misguided Angel" is! The album also sounds so so desolate, which dovetails nicely with my current mood of "it's been weeks since the last time I saw my friends". The only issue is that I've never liked their version of "Sweet Jane" nearly as much as everyone else does, and also their cover of "Walking After Midnight" isn't quite Patsy-level.
The Beach Boys
2/5
Sorry, but I've never really gotten the appeal of the title song here, which works much better on Brian's version of Smile as a culmination of a movement than as a standalone song. The attempts at writing political songs tend to fall flat too, either being way too corny like "Don't Go Near the Water" or actively reactionary like "Student Demonstration Time", which seems to be blaming the students at Jackson State for the police shooting at them. I do like "Disney Girls", though; Bruce is a pretty underrated singer for the band. But overall, this has got to be the weakest of the albums that get a good bit of critical acclaim, despite maybe having their best cover art.
Ella Fitzgerald
3/5
I've never really been able to get into vocal jazz in general, unfortunately, and nearly 3 and a half hours of it is too much. I listened to this as I worked, and a lot of it gets tuned out, but every time my attention gets drawn to it, it's pretty nice. Plus it doesn't actually feel like 3 and a half hours, somehow!
Almost certainly never listening too this again, but I will be listening to one of Ella Fitzgerald's shorter albums soon. Maybe she'll be the one to finally get me into jazz?
Bad Brains
3/5
Kinda crazy that their debut isn't the pick here, honestly. But I won't complain, because I don't actually care for their debut, and this one's new to me! Anyway, on to my thoughts about I Against I:
I didn't expect it to be metal! I kinda like the bass here, but the guitar feels too clean. The vocals are pretty good and not what I'd usually expect for metal, but the songs don't really leave an impression on me. In all, it's one of those albums that I don't really care for, but getting to hear a whole new side of Bad Brains is something I really appreciate.
PJ Harvey
4/5
Not quite pinched enough to be part of the Possessed Doll Voice pantheon (Cranes, Lisa Germano, Stina Nordenstam), but closer than I expected from PJ Harvey! The arrangements sound cool too, can't really put my finger on what they sound like to me though. Maybe a less agoraphobic Lisa Germano? None of that really helps anyone who doesn't already know Lisa's whole deal, but it's not like anyone is going to read this anyway, so whatever.
Muddy Waters
4/5
I'd already heard too much bad blues rock before listening to Muddy Waters for the first time, so he comes off as more rock to me than is probably historically accurate. The songs are pretty good, but as someone whose ear isn't really attuned to blues nuances, they all sound more or less the same to me. But I'm sure others would say that about some of my favorites.
Between a 3 and a 4 on this one at the time of writing, though I suspect I'll give it the 4 because otherwise I'd feel bad about implying that Disraeli Gears is on the same level.
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
Like any sane person, I really do love "September" but unfortunately, that's not on this album. These songs never really rose above the level of "fine" to me; nothing really stood out or gave me any reason to think about returning to this album later. Sorry guys, but maybe I'll check out one of the other albums sometime!
Johnny Cash
4/5
The atmosphere of this one's not nearly as much of an asset as At Folsom Prison, I guess because maybe it had to be cleaned up more for television than for just an album? But on the bright side, it gave us "A Boy Named Sue", and honestly might have a better song selection if not for playing "San Quentin" twice back to back?
The Soft Boys
2/5
The Soft Boys are basically all my favorite bands' favorite band, so why do they do so little for me? I guess part of the problem is something like "I Got the Hots" sounds like one of the throwaway tracks Guided By Voices would do for 30 seconds, but it's nearly 5 minutes long! The quality control here isn't very good, and even the good songs feel directly ripped from the 60s (for example, the verses of "I Wanna Destroy You" are basically just the Who's "Much to Much").
As a contrast to the Soft Boys, I'm gonna leave you with a band that proclaims themselves to be the "genuine original hard guys": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cGKaoL_kws
Depeche Mode
3/5
Doesn't have the atmosphere of Some Great Reward or the songs of Violator, and so it doesn't do much for me. It's fine, but not much more than that.
Orbital
2/5
Sorry, I just don't get this kind of electronica. It doesn't really go anywhere or do anything interesting; I find it really hard to figure out what I'm supposed to be listening for in it. Probably I'd like it more if I were the type of girl to go to raves, but instead I'm the type of girl to sit in her room and listen to homework assigned by the 1001 Albums Generator.
The Libertines
2/5
Landfill indie that manages to do the impossible and make me wish I was listening to the Strokes instead
Nas
5/5
When I was getting into music, the popular wisdom was that this was *the* all-time best hip hop album. It's really hard to argue with that!
Most of the time hip hop hooks don't really work for me, which leaves me thinking "these beats are kinda fun" and then having nothing else to do on, which means I tend to respect the genre more than I enjoy it. But this whole album works for me! Like yeah, maybe it is the greatest album of all time? I'm not quite there yet, but it's certainly up there.
The Electric Prunes
3/5
This is just here because the author wanted Nuggets, but was prevented by his own rules, right?
The Zombies
5/5
Other than "She's Not There" and *maybe* "Tell Her No", nothing the Zombies did before this album is really worth your time. And then they broke up before this one came out, so there's only a couple lackluster partial reunion singles to compare it to. But then, this is one of the all-time great psych pop albums; it comes off favorably against the best work of anyone you'd think to compare it to, even the Beatles. Not sure how they managed it, but this might be the greatest flash-in-the-pan album of all time.
Pere Ubu
4/5
This is like if one of those annoying skronky bands from C86 (MacKenzies, bIG fLAME, the Shrubs) was actually good!
All the hate this gets on here is mostly because of his voice, right? It's not even that bad, and there's not really anything else on here that feels too hateable.
Radiohead
2/5
I really enjoy The Bends and OK Computer, and I'm slowly starting to get the appeal of Kid A, but this one leaves me cold. I guess they're trying to show that they can still be a rock band, but unfortunately all the best songs they had must have already been used for Kid A, because nothing here is particularly memorable.
Apparently I've still got 5 Radiohead albums ahead of me? Not looking forward to all that tbh.
Tim Buckley
3/5
I feel like I remember hearing many years ago about Buckley's Starsailor as being one of the weirdest things ever to be released by a major label. So I guess I was expecting something more experimental than this, though maybe it took him a bit to get all the way out there? Still pretty comprehensible as a folk artist, though there's bits of jazz coming in there at times. Luckily for Buckley, folk is one of the few genres where I've got patience for *multiple* 10+ minute songs. It's pretty enough, but it's probably not something I'm ever going to listen to very much after this.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
Really wanted to like this one, since the idea of adapting classical music to rock like this is a neat one (albeit I'm admittedly a philistine who doesn't have the patience for most classical music). Unfortunately, it kinda ended up sounding like a generic prog jam? And as someone who's jam-averse, that obviously doesn't work for me!
Leonard Cohen
5/5
Everyone talks about this album as if it's mostly lyrics (and don't get me wrong, the lyrics really are *that* good!), but I love Cohen because he writes such good songs in every other aspect too, and that's something people rarely talk about! In particular, I think the arrangements on this album are so pretty and just so perfect for his voice. This album (and especially her backing vocals on "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye") even made me go out and look for Nancy Priddy's solo album many years ago! (It's not really worth it, unfortunately.)
Plus, "So Long, Marianne" is great accompaniment for dancing around the kitchen!
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
3/5
A bit more repetitive than I usually like, but the harmonium always sounds pretty cool. Towards the end I started getting more hooked in, and the repetition started to get hypnotic.
The Doors
4/5
I've been doing some thinking, and I've got some ideas to improve the album.
One: Ray Manzarek needs to be louder, angrier and have access to a time machine.
Two: Whenever Ray Manzarek's not playing, all the other members should be asking, "Where's Ray Manzarek?"
The Band
3/5
I had a friend in college who was really into these guys and Bob Dylan, so I'm pretty familiar with this album. But I never loved it the same way he did; I've always been more of Neil Young and the Byrds, when it comes to folk rock of that era. They're like totally serviceable and everything, but the Band doesn't really do anything that stands out from the pack for me.
"Up on Cripple Creek" is my pick for a song from this album, but even then I mostly remember it from seeing a live video of Bobbie Gentry singing it once! Now *that's* someone you ought to hear before you die.
Iron Maiden
3/5
Thanks to having a taste in music that runs far noisier than most, my main reaction to most of the canonized metal albums is "was *that* it?" Like, the riffs are fast, and I guess they came off as loud and dangerous to the average listener back then, but I'm not the average listener. Unfortunately, Iron Maiden is a victim of that same dynamic; I'm sitting around listening for it to get scary and it just... never does? I know it's not even just that I'm unfairly judging it according to the standards of noise rock, because Motorhead managed to do it right around this same timeframe! That being said, I'm convinced by Bruce Dickinson as a really good vocalist for the band, so maybe listening to more will get me there someday. Just not today, and not with this album.
Simply Red
3/5
Sometimes the production sounds a bit more artificial than I'd like to hear from soul, but I guess that's because it's a new wave soul combination? I guess the songs don't really stick with me too much, but it's a totally pleasant listen (though that's the case with like 95% of sophisti-pop for me).
Rod Stewart
3/5
I'll be honest, I can never remember the difference between Rod Stewart and James Taylor. They're basically the same type of guy to me, even though they don't really sound the same. I guess actually Rod Stewart is significantly better, but he's still not anything that feels like I've been missing out on over the 28 years I've been around.
Willie Nelson
4/5
Normally I don't care for standards, and I've always thought Willie was a bit overrated as an album artist, so it's a pleasant surprise to have really enjoyed this!
David Bowie
3/5
I always hear about how great David Bowie is, and how he's constantly reinventing himself. The latter is pretty apparent, but I don't think he's necessarily all *that* good at it. For a while, I thought this was the album of his that I liked best, but eventually it turned out that I just liked "Changes" (and also, to a lesser extent, "Kooks"). Somehow, "Life on Mars" is always in contention among Bowie fans to be one of his best songs, but it never felt like anything spectacular to me. Maybe the problem is I just don't like glam rock enough, but this album really never gets above fine.
Metallica
3/5
The acoustic parts kinda feel like they're trying to be Led Zeppelin IV for the 90s, which I didn't like the first iteration of it anyway! I guess it kind of falls halfway between thrash metal and classic rock, which makes sense for its reputation. The album sounds pretty cool, but not cool enough to totally justify a 1 hour run time.
Oh and also! I was always under the impression that Metallica fans saw Lars Ulrich as a bit of a joke, so I was really pleasantly surprised to hear just how great the drums sounded here?
Fatboy Slim
2/5
At least once a week, every week, I log on to see that a 90s British electronica album has been generated for me. They're all an hour-long, they're all filled with vocal loops consisting of like five words, and they're always the absolute lowpoint of my week. Please, I beg you, no more!
Beck
4/5
I've listened to a few Beck albums before but, "Loser" aside, I never really liked them all that much. The reinvention on this one is this sorely welcomed by me! Indie folk has a very fine line between "heartbreakingly beautiful" and "most boring thing I've ever heard", and Beck manages to stay on the right side of the line here.
Michael Kiwanuka
5/5
YES! This is exactly the kind of thing I want from the 1001 Albums Generator! I had never heard of Michael Kiwanuka before this, and it's love at first listen. I think generally I like the idea of psychedelic soul more than I actually like listening to it, but I really do enjoy this one a lot, and especially any time something gets fuzzy. It's probably a bit of an overreaction, but considering I *never* would have come across it if not for this site, I'm feeling excited enough about the discovery to give it a bump up to a 5. Can't wait to check out more from Kiwanuka on my own time!
Muddy Waters
4/5
I'll be honest, my reaction to seeing this one come up was "not *another* Muddy Waters album!" It's not even that I disliked the last one or anything, I just thought I wasn't in the mood for blues today. But before Mannish Boy was over, I had it properly proven to me that there's probably not really such a thing as not in the mood for Muddy Waters. The title's totally not a lie, this album really *does* go harder than most rockers can even imagine!
Beck
4/5
Friday: Listen to Sea Change
Saturday and Sunday: Listen to other artists
Monday: Listen to Guero
Well, Beck to work I guess. This is more what I expected from Beck, and though I was prepared to be disappointed, I thought it was probably about as good as Sea Change. Not someone who'll ever likely be a favorite, but he's alright for 45 minutes at a time.
Silver Jews
4/5
My introduction to David Berman was actually Purple Mountains, which had been one of my favorite albums of 2019. Then after his death, I never listened to it again. And I never really got around to Silver Jews after that, either. I don't know why I never did, because I'm a sucker for alt-country like this! Love that steel guitar, honestly.
Stereo MC's
3/5
As I said six days ago: "At least once a week, every week, I log on to see that a 90s British electronica album has been generated for me. They're all an hour-long, they're all filled with vocal loops consisting of like five words, and they're always the absolute lowpoint of my week. Please, I beg you, no more!"
To be fair, this one's really more hip hop than electronica, and there's not a vocal loop in sight. It's too long and nothing really stands out, but it's pleasant enough. Things certainly could have been worse than this!
Iggy Pop
2/5
Title song here is really the only one that's worth your time. I know people like this one and that it's spiritually part of Bowie's Berlin Trilogy and whatever but who cares! I don't like any of that either!
The proper way to listen to this album is to listen to the title song, let the bassline remind you it's been too long since you heard "You Can't Hurry Love", and then go put on a Supremes greatest hits compilation.
Elliott Smith
4/5
The second best thing to come out on the day I was born
CHIC
4/5
The singles are absolutely great, the non-singles are just there. But that's still 8 minutes of "Good Times", which is 8 more than I normally think to have, so it's got that going for it!
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
4/5
Really like the call and response, and the harmonies are great, but it all tends to blend together and feel way longer than the 36 minutes it is. On the other hand, I had to listen to all the songs on Youtube and got ads between most of them which probably didn't help, so I'll give them an extra star and benefit of the doubt on that.
Kanye West
3/5
I'm pretty sure I actually liked this a lot when I first heard it, but I'm not going to bother listening to it again to see if that's still the case. Rating it as close to my hip hop average as possible so the fact that Kanye is an actual Nazi doesn't hurt the entire genre too much in my ratings.
Slint
4/5
When I first listened to this one, I didn't know what to make of it. Then I listened to it more, and I started to like it, until suddenly I decided I didn't. I didn't listen to it for a while after that, until one day I suddenly got the urge to revisit it, and I like it again! At least for now...
I think I've always liked the quieter bits, with the guitar sounding like walking around a deserted city, but haven't always been convinced by the parts where they get loud, which don't really fit in with what I always think of the album as doing. Of course, I'm wrong, because if it didn't fit in with what they were going for, then they wouldn't do it quite so much! Generally, I still think the distorted guitar sounds a bit weak and disappointing, and still love how glassy the cleaner guitar sounds.
Black Sabbath
4/5
Metal with a harmonica feels so wrong, but sounds so right
Skunk Anansie
3/5
This one had a *really* promising start! But alas, it kinda lost steam after that for me. I remember liking the other Skunk Anansie album I've heard, and probably I could get really into them if I listened a bit more? Time will tell, I suppose...
Bob Dylan
4/5
I typically don't like Bob Dylan for Bob Dylan; usually it's something else about the albums that will get me to listen (e.g., Al Kooper for Highway 61 Revisited, The Band for Blonde on Blonde or John Wesley Harding, etc). That being said, Bob Dylan's at his best on this one, I think! Or at least, on the rare occasions I feel like listening to Dylan, this is the one I tend to reach for. Can't give it a 5 because I don't like him enough, but it's a solid 4 for sure.
Cypress Hill
4/5
Wait this production is actually crazy? How have I never heard of these guys before!
Sucks how they open it with repeated use of homophobic slurs, though.
Hole
3/5
The singles are, of course, all-time greats, but outside of those, Jennifer's Body, and Olympia, this one never really did much for me. I guess it's too raw to fit in with the alt rock, but too polished to really fit in with the riot grrrl albums that Love didn't really want to fit in with anyway.
David Bowie
2/5
David Bowie's like the most 2.5/5 artist I've ever heard; he's constantly reinventing himself but he's never even all that good at any of his new guises. Still got seven more albums to go, ugh...
Ash
4/5
The third best Teenage Fanclub album
Robert Wyatt
3/5
Pink Floyd if they didn't kick Syd out
Rush
2/5
Tom Sawyer and 6 more songs that you won't care about
Lynyrd Skynyrd
4/5
Impossible not to compare to Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera once you've heard them both. This one has the better songs, but that one says George Wallace is in hell for using racism to get ahead, so that probably about evens out.
Love
5/5
Somehow, this one's gotten intertwined in my head with Odessey and Oracle, which is weird because they're not all that similar as far as psychedelic rock albums go? This one's a lot folkier than most, and certainly one of the prettiest psych albums you'll ever hear, in spite of the infamous "the snot has caked against my pants" line. I'm a sucker for any rock that has strings and horns and all that good stuff, so it's one of my personal favorites!
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
1/5
Even more than all those boring electronica albums, which I can at least imagine having been influential to a scene which doesn't include me, this feels like a total waste of a spot on the list. I can't help but believe that it's only here because British people can't help themselves when they see Damon Albarn? Musically, it's probably a 2, but I just feel like my time is being totally wasted by getting this one today, so it's getting a 1.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
No one is as surprised as me to find out this is actually pretty cool? Unfortunately, it's also way too long, which prevents me from saying it's good
The Mothers Of Invention
3/5
The doo-wop ones always remind me of Tom Lehrer, but I don't have much use for the psychedelic ones outside of maybe Hungry Freaks, Daddy.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
I gotta be honest, I didn't realize people cared about any of the albums that don't have "Maps". And I don't even like that song, so it's an even bigger shock that I really enjoyed this one!
The Allman Brothers Band
2/5
There's *multiple* songs on this that are 20-minute, mostly-instrumental jam sessions? What are you doing to me here?
Thelonious Monk
3/5
I never know what to listen for in instrumental music, so most jazz ends up being a fairly pleasant 45 minutes that leaves me with nothing to say. Unfortunately, this one is no exception, though maybe it's slightly better than the overall output of the Brilliant Corners, an 80s indiepop band who got their name from it?
The Who
3/5
I only had 40 minutes this morning, so I listened to the original version. Probably a mistake, because it meant cutting most of the songs I already cared about! Anyway, their performance is really good, especially if you love distortion in your music. I've never considered them an essential band, personally, but this one is still a fun listen in the right mood.
James Brown
5/5
Just yesterday, I was complaining about how Live at Leeds didn't have any songs I cared about on it, and then this one comes in to remind me that I don't actually need to know any of the songs to have a blast with a live album. I just need a singer with the energy of James Brown!
Ray Charles
3/5
A bit too crooner-y for my tastes, personally. It's alright, but I like him a lot better on Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music.
Mylo
3/5
Actually way less of a chore to listen to than any of the other purely electronica albums this site has given me to date! I don't think I love it, or that I'll ever listen to it again, but I do feel a bit silly for putting it off.
Radiohead
3/5
I'll never understand what people hear in 2000s Radiohead, I guess. I know people who think this is the greatest album ever, and to me it's just like fine? Nothing awful, but nothing particularly standing out.
The Roots
4/5
"Rock On" didn't make a very good first impression and "Water" felt way too long, but overall this one was a pleasant surprise! I hadn't cared for Things Fall Apart, and this one was over an hour long, but there's just so much variety to it that it doesn't feel its runtime at all!
The Police
3/5
Pretty big disappointment outside of the singles, honestly! Nothing bad here, but nothing that makes me think I've really been badly neglecting the Police.
Elton John
4/5
When I was about 10 or 11 or so, my mom upgraded from the 1974 Greatest Hits compilation that soundtracked every vacation of my life to a more recently-released two-disc one. With this upgrade, I was introduced to far more Elton John than I had previously been aware existed, including songs like Tiny Dancer and Levon, the latter of which ended up quickly supplanting Honky Cat as my favorite of his songs.
Somehow, I never got around to checking out Elton John's discography when I started getting into music as a teenager, but honestly, I can't imagine that I could ever love him as much as I did in those days, when Tiny Dancer was the soundtrack to pulling into another hotel parking lot late at night, with the knowledge that tomorrow we'd be at the beach.
Tricky
4/5
Not on the same level as Massive Attack at their best, but far better than the badly overrated Portishead. I think I'd put this on par with Protection, both of which run out of steam before they run out of songs. But while it's good, it's great!
The Clash
4/5
London Calling is their best, obviously, but this one's probably the best album that the first wave of punk in the UK produced. Love the energy here, and appreciate how there's no shortage of songs to shout along to (in particular, "Career Opportunities" is always a crowd pleaser at the punk karaoke night).
John Cale
4/5
This was actually really good and pretty and all, but it really could have been *great* with some more machines that NEATLY PUMP AIR
Gene Clark
5/5
With the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons tried for a "Cosmic American Music" that blended all the elements of American popular music to date, though it didn't quite work out for him, unfortunately. With No Other, Gene Clark succeeds in completing that vision.
3/5
Is that Quark on the cover? Never would have thought that he had the lobes for this type of music. Anyway, it's kind of impossible to guess what the next song is going to be like, but I'm not sure they're really excelling at any of these styles? Points for trying, of course, but I'm not going to listen to these guys again
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
I usually don't care for noodly guitar jams, but the ones on Down by the River and Cowgirl in the Sand go crazy. That guitar feedback is absolutely insane for a popular album from 1969! Easily Neil's best studio album (though I'd maybe put Weld ahead overall), and an absolute essential for fans of country rock and the noisier side of things alike.
The Specials
3/5
I was listening to this in the car, so not as much attention as it probably deserves. I liked the poppier ones but not the dubby ones quite as much! I guess I'm just not ready to be a ska fan yet
Bob Dylan
3/5
I really tried to convince myself I liked this when I was going through the Rolling Stone top 500 in high school! But now, a decade later, I don't really care for half these songs, and the harmonica isn't nearly as charming as I remembered. "Blowing in the Wind" and "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" are both still great, but mostly, I only have time for electric Dylan.
Santana
4/5
Only came into this knowing Black Magic Woman, honestly. I usually don't have an easy time getting into things that are jazzy or jammy, and this is both, but somehow it works for me! Maybe because it's never extended out too far, and it's just normal length songs in a normal length album?
Pearl Jam
3/5
Every time I listen to this album, the absolutely perfect first half makes me wonder why I'm not listening to Pearl Jam all the time. Unfortunately, the second half is pretty forgettable, and loses a lot of the good will that the first half builds up, so that by the end, I'm not thinking about how much I should keep listening to Pearl Jam.
Super Furry Animals
3/5
Decent glammy Britpop, but not much more than that.
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
Once upon a time, this would have been an easy 5 for me. It's not quite on that level for me these days (I've never really cared for "No More Sorry" or "All I Need", but it's still probably my favorite of MBV's albums. Like yeah, I love my noisy guitars and I love my 80s alt rock, so what's not to like? That being said, it's a shame that they finally make a total break from the twee-er side of their sound here; no "Drive it All Over Me" equivalent here!
The Rolling Stones
3/5
The only Stones era I've ever really cared about was when they were trying to be the Beatles in the mid-60s. Most these albums that get held up as their best are just two good-to-great songs with a bunch of bluesy country rock filler.
Korn
1/5
Been putting this one off for like a month because I expected it to suck, and honestly it does? It's more interesting than like post-grunge or whatever, but "I guess I'd prefer this to Creed" isn't enough to avoid the 1, I'm afraid.
Alice In Chains
4/5
Really want to like this, because I always want to like metal, and it's got harmonies! Unfortunately, the harmonies sorta feel the same all the time, but I do appreciate the heaviness (especially from the drummer)! That being said, it's still probably my favorite grunge album not from Nirvana.
Steely Dan
2/5
Rikki Don't Lose That Number and 10 more songs you totally won't care about
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
This one is supposed to be the one where Costello grows up and proves that he can be a Serious Writer. Back in high school, I really liked it for that, and Emerick's production actually made me appreciate the Beatles more (in particular, this album sounds kinda reminiscent of Happiness is a Warm Gun). But lately, these songs feel a bit lifeless, and I'd take any of his first five albums over it in a heartbeat.
Goldfrapp
4/5
This is what I always expected Portishead would sound like based on reading reviews of Dummy! Where the latter ends up sounding a bit conventional, if cold, this one's exactly the kind of retrofuturist album I really wanted to hear.
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
Wait, in places this actually sounds remarkably like what the Cure would be doing 5 years later on Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me? I wasn't expecting to give high marks to Dexys Midnight Runners (why do they have three albums here anyway), but if it's really that forward-looking, that's worth a 4 at least!
N.W.A.
3/5
Sure to send all the "everything except rap and country" people in your life into absolute conniptions, but a bit uneven. The first half has great production and a whole lot of memorable moments, but it all starts to feel really corny after Express Yourself.
Hawkwind
3/5
I knew that it was basically a fun little piece of trivia that Lemmy was in a prog rock band before joining Motorhead, but i never actually stopped to find out what Hawkwind sounded like. To be honest, I assumed something lighter-sounding for maximum irony!
Anyway, this has a really cool sound, but it's way too long for me to ever listen to it again, especially without a standout song.
Fairport Convention
5/5
Like I said in my review of Unhalfbricking, I still prefer the more psychedelic incarnation of Fairport Convention seen on What We Did On Our Holidays. But after relistening to this one, I think it might actually have Sandy Denny's best vocal performance in "Farewell, Farewell"!
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
Basically only knew that Run-D.M.C. were best known for their collaboration with Aerosmith (though it turns out I never actually heard their version of Walk This Way before!)
It's a bit more minimalist than I typically like in hip hop, but I really enjoyed it here. The rockier ones in particular kind of succeed at doing what the Beastie Boys couldn't quite reach with Licensed to Ill.
3/5
From what I remember, she really mellows out in this one (or did that first happen earlier?) It's decent, but I'd rather listen to most of my favorite more straightforwardly indiepop albums than hear PJ Harvey approximate the same thing.
Kanye West
3/5
Hate how much I was liking this! Not letting myself go above a 3 for any Kanye album because I'm not giving good scores to any self-proclaimed admirer of Hitler, but I totally see why people loved this one so much.
The Undertones
3/5
Gotta admit, I'm kind of tired of Teenage Kicks these days. As it turns out, I've never heard any other song of theirs before. None of these are as good as Teenage Kicks, but they are fresher to my ears, at least. I wouldn't take them over the Buzzcocks or Ramones, but might take them over Stiff Little Fingers.
Nine Inch Nails
2/5
I don't hate myself enough or in the right way to really get it.
I really do like noisy music, I swear! And descriptions of this album from fans make it sound like it should sound really cool, but it ends up sounding kind of formless and smashed together, and overall I'd probably rather listen to Pretty Hate Machine.
George Michael
3/5
Title song is super strong, but nothing else connects quite like that. I did notice the lyrics of "Hand to Mouth" as pretty good too, but as someone who is not interested in sex with George Michael, I am not the intended audience here.
Cocteau Twins
4/5
The album where they finally get good at song melodies, and the one that sounds the coolest. I've always thought that Cocteau Twins were overall overrated, but this is the one that comes closest to meeting the hype.
The Flaming Lips
3/5
I only ever really heard the album with "She Don't Use Jelly" on it, so it was a pretty big shock to find out this one's kind of electronic and kind of pretty! Unfortunately, it was really only the title song and "Do You Realize" that left all that much of an impression.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
3/5
I don't know jazz at all, but I can definitely tell that this is a different form of it than on like Kind of Blue. Mostly it reminds me of Tom and Jerry soundtracks, which is cool.
3/5
I only knew of Zorn through his appearance on Violent Femmes' second album, Hallowed Ground, on which his whole deal comes off sounding pretty cool. It still sort of does here too! Unfortunately, here it's 40 minutes instead of the ~30 seconds he gets on Hallowed Ground, and thus way harder to take. I think maybe I enjoy it more than more traditionally well-respected jazz, though? (Of course, I don't care for jazz in general, so that's not saying much)
Violent Femmes
4/5
At one point in high school, I realized that all these songs sounded like they were being sung by a massive loser, and as someone who was trying to stave off loserdom, it really hurt my enjoyment of it! Of course, now with more age and wisdom, I can recognize that this is one of the coolest sounding albums out there, and that overrides everything else.
Not quite a 5 though, because "Confessions" is not a very good song, and it's way too long.
Foo Fighters
3/5
Feels way less campy and/or abrasive than you'd expect for an album with what looks like Marvin the Martian's gun on the cover. Every time I listen to Foo Fighters, I think that I could easily get into them, but then I never actually keep it up. Sorry Dave, but Nirvana's the only one keeping my attention!
Ray Price
4/5
Love how this starts out with a corny spoken word intro about how Ray hopes we have a good time listening to his new album, when we all know that this album is meant for being the most heartbroken loser in the bar. Coincidentally, my dad and I were talking about the title song (albeit Willie Nelson's version) earlier today! He prefers Willie's, but I think this one's pretty good too.
Jefferson Airplane
5/5
Everyone thinks the Grace Slick songs are the only ones that matter at first, but once you've listened to this album enough times, they're still standouts, but not by nearly as much as you used to think. If I could only have one psych album again for the rest of my life, it would probably be this one.
Cat Stevens
2/5
Really cute cover that I could easily see belonging to a twee pop album, but the music itself doesn't do much for me. Folkiness is always nice, but there's bits where his voice gets more forceful and they really don't work imo.
Slayer
3/5
So, thrash metal is basically the hardcore punk of metal, right? Like kinda lo-fi, very aggressive, and the guitars chug along real fast and sound pretty cool? Reign in Blood especially feels pretty close to hardcore punk, in that it lasts less than half an hour, and also doesn't really have any of the songs separate themselves from the pack.
Underworld
3/5
Obviously, I was dreading this one! It's 75 minutes long, British electronica, and starts with two songs longer than 15 minutes! But actually, I ended up sort of enjoying it somehow! Still too long for me, but it did way more in that time than I expected it to.
Devendra Banhart
2/5
His name had me wanting to listen to Vashti Bunyan, and suddenly, there she is! Unfortunately, that just makes me want to quit listening to this and start listening to Just Another Diamond Day instead.
Probably he was one of the first with this indie folk sound, but it still sounds like cliche college radio filler, I'm afraid.
Eagles
2/5
I hate the Big Lebowski, man. But this drops off *hard* after the title track.
The Prodigy
3/5
These beats were actually pretty great, and not just because I recognized the Nirvana sample! I still wish they had been doing a bit more with them (especially for an album that's nearly an hour and a half long), but this one kept me interested a lot better than any of the electronica albums to date. Maybe I'm finally starting to get it!
John Lennon
2/5
John Lennon's solo work is just so underwhelming, especially considering that he's the writer of some of my favorite Beatles songs. The only part of this that I really remember is the start of "Working Class Hero" is the intro, and that only because REM stole it for "Swan Swan H".
Blur
2/5
I know everyone, including Ray Davies himself, are willing to give Blur credit for being the Kinks of the 90s, but you can leave me out of it! I've always hated how you can hear the sneering at people unlike them in songs like "Girls & Boys", "Tracy Jacks", or the title song. It's not even that they're so nasty about it (like, the Kinks come off homophobic in songs like "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" and "A Well Respected Man"), it's that they're not even funny about it. Like, "Girls & Boys"' much-parodied chorus sounds like nothing more than it does some right wing talk radio guy trying to make fun of liberals and their 27 genders. The only good thing I have to say about this album is that at least it's not Oasis, you know?
Radiohead
2/5
Another indistinguishable Radiohead album, notable only for being way too long
Bad Company
2/5
If I never have to hear another bluesy hard rock supergroup, it will be too soon
Lauryn Hill
3/5
The first time I heard this, it didn't really do too much for me. The second time I heard it, I liked it better, but still nothing really stood out. I actually really enjoyed the classroom interludes though!
The Specials
4/5
I never think of myself as particularly being a big fan of the Specials, but this is really hitting for me today! It's a ton of fun, and it's something I really need to be listening to more!
R.E.M.
5/5
Yeah, this one's been my favorite for over a decade now, with no signs of anything replacing it any time soon. Hearing "Radio Free Europe" for the first time was just one of those moments, you know? The ones where your conceptions of what music can be are forever altered? Add in that one time I listened to it like 20 times over the weekend in high school while being totally anxious about a crush I never had a chance with, and it's not only been the album that singlehandedly had the most impact on how I listen to music, but also the one that I've read myself into the most.
Like, yeah, the lyrics are hard to make out, and even when you know what they are, it's hard to know what they mean. But that's not really the point; the real thing is that the snatches you pick up here and there end up leaving you feeling like you're at a party, and the person you *really* want to talk to is having a conversation across the room, and you're only just barely picking up a phrase here and there while you try to work up the nerve to go over there.
3/5
"Victoria" is a fun little proto-CCR song, but overall this one sort of falls flat. The big clunker in their otherwise flawless late-60s (plus Lola) run, no matter how many times people try to tell me it has important things to say about British imperialism.
The Killers
3/5
Somehow I never realized that the Killers were post-punk revival? Anyway, common wisdom on this one is right, it drops off *hard* after "All These Things I've Done" (a song I can't think of without thinking of the time I found myself in Notasulga and couldn't stop being like "We've got soul, we're Notasulga")
David Ackles
2/5
For the most part, Ackles ends up sounding like a worse version of Scott Walker. But sometimes, if we're very lucky, he'll actually sound more like a better version of Van Dyke Parks.
Brian Eno
3/5
"Needles in the Camel's Eye" felt all futuristic and forward-thinking when I first heard it, and that had me briefly thinking this was a great album. Unfortunately, it doesn't hold up on relistens. Good enough that I got a copy when I saw a reasonably-priced original pressing in the record store, not good enough that I'm going to go around shouting Eno's praises.
Grant Lee Buffalo
4/5
Thought I remembered this one being really boring, but as it often turns out, Michael Stipe is right and I am wrong. Actually, it's pretty good alt-country!
Television
2/5
I know Television came before Talking Heads, but I still can't listen to this without thinking that it's a less interesting version of Talking Heads 77. Never got the appeal outside of "See No Evil", and I doubt I ever will.
Eurythmics
2/5
Usually, I'll revisit an album if I've only heard it a handful of times, but I think I'm going to have to make an exception here. Sure I like the title song just like everyone else does, but there was absolutely nothing else of note on here, and I'm not spending 45 minutes reconfirming that.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
This site picked a great time to give me this album, because I've been really getting back into it the past few weeks! In the past, I've preferred Sounds of Silence and Bookends, but now I'm ready to come to the same conclusion as everyone else on this. They do slow and pretty very well obviously, but even the attempts at uptempo rockers work out and feel worth your time!
Arcade Fire
2/5
Much like living in the suburbs, when you're listening to The Suburbs it takes you an hour to get anywhere
Wilco
3/5
Of the Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt triumvirate, Wilco is actually by far my least favorite. So of course, they're the only one represented on the list, and they've got three different albums on here. I actually liked this one fine, though! It's at least closer to the alt-country I wanted than YHF ever gets. Still got a problem with it being 80 minutes long though...
The Stone Roses
4/5
Pretty fun little jangle pop album, though it can get unbearable on songs like "I Am the Resurrection" when they start buying into their own mythos. Basically, everything up until that is great though; it's the bridge between C86 and Britpop, and mostly it has the good qualities of both and misses out on their bad qualities.
Harry Nilsson
3/5
He's kind of giving Brian Wilson on the cover, but as we all know, he's the American Beatle, endorsed by Lennon and McCartney personally. Unfortunately, Coconut is one of his biggest hits and very annoying, with the rest being pleasant enough but never coming off all that special (I much prefer Badfinger's original version of "Without You"). When it comes to American Beatles, give me Emitt Rhodes any day.
Between a 2 and a 3, but as a Natasha Lyonne fan, I'll be nice because of "Gotta Get Up"
Metallica
4/5
Expected this one to wear on me by virtue of being an hour long and famously bass-less, but it's probably my favorite Metallica album on first listen? Nothing really intelligent to say about it, just I like the way the guitar chugs along on it better than on their previous albums.
Pixies
4/5
This one was pretty big for me when I was first getting into indie music, but as of late it doesn't really hold up in the second half, honestly. That being said, it's the only Pixies album I ever feel any sort of urge to listen to these days, and you really can't argue with that first half anyway.
Tom Waits
4/5
It's a bit Out There for sure, but this really isn't worlds apart from someone like Dr. John, honestly! I really enjoyed this one; Tom Waits is one of those guys I've only listened to a handful of times, but each time it's like "wow! I really like this!", and then I totally forget he exists for a couple years.
Pulp
4/5
I've always thought of this as the Britpop album for people who think they're too good for Britpop. And as someone who thinks she's too good for Britpop, well, you know how it is...
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
In the past, this has been my favorite S&G album. I still think the A-side is the strongest stretch of their discography (yeah, I even appreciate "Voices of Old People", got a problem with that?), but it's started bothering me more how thrown-together the B-side is. But when you're throwing together "Fakin' It", "Mrs. Robinson", and "Hazy Shade of Winter", it's not like it's bad or anything! Maybe not quite on the same level as Bridge Over Troubled Water, but it's still an absolute essential to anyone who cares about the music of the 60s.
Waylon Jennings
3/5
Always kinda liked Nashville Sound more than any of the outlaws, and Waylon's not giving me any real standouts here, unfortunately. Pleasant, I wouldn't turn off the country station if this came on, but not much more than that.
The Fall
2/5
When Jens thought she talked about the season, sure, I totally understand why you might hear it that way. But when Jens thought she talked about the most overrated post-punk band of all time, it's like, no? Why would you *ever* think that's what I meant?
The Rolling Stones
4/5
This sounds all scuzzy and awful, and that's why it's the only Stones album that actually lives up to their reputation
Dirty Projectors
4/5
Always associated this band with Animal Collective, who I don't like, and I see a lot of reviews here comparing the album to Captain Beefheart, who I also can't really get into. But I like this one, actually! It's pretty, I like the singers' voices, kinda reminds me a bit of like Linda Perhacs maybe?
Baaba Maal
4/5
This guitar sounds so pretty! It actually kinda reminds me of the acoustic side of Rust Never Sleeps? Plus there's a lot of call and response vocals, which I always love. Would never have come across this one without this site, thanks!
The Police
4/5
It's honestly so cool how something as weird as this was able to be one of the biggest albums of the year. *Seventeen* weeks at number one, can you imagine that? The Police have always been a singles band for me, with this one being the only album that I really have a need for as an entire album. Just a really cool-sounding album, even if the start of it makes me think of Encarta Encyclopedia (remember that?) for some reason.
Garbage
4/5
So, this is basically shoegaze's commercial peak, right? Like, not full-on shoegaze, obviously, but it's not worlds away from someone like Curve. I tend to like it more than most of the "real" shoegaze bands, actually, and better than pretty much any shoegaze album to come out in the past decade.
Traffic
3/5
At its best, it sounds a bit like one of those Fairport Convention songs where someone who isn't Sandy Denny insists on singing. It's better than I expected, but it still feels very standard for the time period.
The Teardrop Explodes
4/5
I'd heard of Julian Cope mostly as one of those guys who like writes introductory essays for compilations of forgotten/underground rock, but I never put much thought into what his own music would sound like. Turns out, it's pretty cool!
Elvis Costello
5/5
Elvis Costello, and particularly his first two albums, was the artist that got me into music in general, so I've obviously gotta give this one full marks. That being said, this one's charms have worn off on me to an extent. The classic songs are all still obviously classics, no way I could ever get sick of songs like "Welcome to the Working Week", "Alison", or "Red Shoes", but especially in the second half these songs start to feel a bit insubstantial. Hiring a dedicated backing band instead of relying on the News was easily the best move Costello could make for his next album. (Side note: this is the closest we get to Huey Lewis on the list, right?)
Dagmar Krause
2/5
It doesn't surprise me that there's a Brecht-written album on the list, but it *does* surprise me that it's not that Lotte Lenya/Kurt Weill one! I'd never heard of Eisler or Krause before, and I'm still not really sure what the list compiler heard in this one. I'm just not the right person to be listening to art lieder, I suppose.
2Pac
3/5
The title led me to expect something way more defiant, but he actually sounds pretty resigned to the fact that he's not going to beat the world. So many of these songs are about how he'll probably die early! I'm not super impressed by it, but that approach is pretty interesting.
Elliott Smith
3/5
Elliott Smith has been so influential that listening to his albums now, they just come off as conventional folky indie. Knowing that, I feel like I should give some extra credit for being the originator, but honestly I've heard enough music that sounds just like this and don't really need more in my life.
Love
4/5
Love's debut was garage rock, and Forever Changes is obviously very pretty folk/psychedelic rock, so I expected that Da Capo would be a bit of a mess in transitioning between the two. It sort of is? But also in the first half of the album they're more focused on the pretty folk psych stuff, with the exception of "7 and 7 Is", which does make its appearance a bit jarring and not entirely welcome, even as an acknowledged garage rock classic. Revelation is a lot more of a mess, and I really don't need 20 minutes of blues in my life, but it's not all that far removed from the Seeds' Up in Her Room, so it's actually kinda fine? Overall not nearly as good as Forever Changes, but still surprisingly worth your time!
M.I.A.
4/5
I don't love everything here, but it's absolutely insane that this is from *2007*! Some of this would still sound brand new if it were released today! Can't help but be impressed by how forward-thinking this album really is, plus who doesn't love "Paper Planes"?
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
Really did not expect the follow-up to Rumours to be this lo-fi honestly, even after reading about how it was like the Smiley Smile to Rumours' Pet Sounds. When I saw that this was here and their self-titled wasn't, I was a bit disappointed, but I think getting to see a version of Fleetwood Mac I didn't really know existed more than makes up for that.
U2
3/5
I tend to love it when a band reinvents themselves, but this one's never done much for me. I suppose part of the problem is that U2's reinvention involves becoming more danceable, whereas I'm someone who stays firmly planted in her seat. Intellectually, I can recognize that this is just as daring as any of R.E.M.'s wild stylistic shifts in the 90s, but emotionally, I just don't really need it in my life.
Django Django
2/5
Let me get this straight, there's one neo-psych album from 2012 on this list and it's *not* Lonerism? It's just a bunch of British guys? Come on now, I don't even *like* Tame Impala that much, but they're clearly the most important indie band of the 2010s, if not the entire 21st century! On the other hand, this is totally bland indie-by-numbers, with the cover being the most interesting thing about it.
Heaven 17
3/5
To me, this feels more post-punk than new wave (I can't quite put my finger on what the difference is, but it's there to me). Usually, post-punk bands have to choose between emphasizing the ability to dance to them or being dour, but Heaven 17 here are attempting to do both at once. I don't think it quite works, but it does lead to a post-punk album that doesn't quite feel like any of the countless others I've heard. I do really like the cover; gotta love these ironic representations of corporate life!
Pixies
3/5
It's a favorite of many because of the Albini production, but the songs just aren't as good as they'd get on Doolittle. Plus I've never actually liked the way Albini-produced albums sound all that much, so in terms of rawness I'd rather have Come On Pilgrim.
Hüsker Dü
3/5
Everyone always talks about how Spot's production really hurts Zen Arcade and (especially) New Day Rising, but those albums both sound *so* much better than this one. At least the thinness there serves to make those guitars sound so much sharper, whereas here they feel way more distant. Maybe that's their attempt to broaden out their sound for the major label, but it really hurts the album. And they don't even have the decency to give us another "Don't Want to Know if You Are Lonely" on here, either! Honestly, this one is probably the Hüsker Dü album that you *least* need to hear before you die!
Suicide
2/5
Back in the early 2010s when I was getting into music, it was not cool to like Springsteen if you were a nerd about music. The exception was always Nebraska, which doesn't sound much like the songs he's best known for, and was overtly influenced by this album (just compare it to songs like "Johnny 99" and "State Trooper"). I guess I should thank Vega and Rev for being part of the gateway that got all the nerds to realize Springsteen is good, but I just don't enjoy them that much. Synth punk rockabilly sounds like a great idea, and for a song or two it is! But they don't really have the ability to keep it interesting for the length of an entire album. Go listen to like Silver Apples or Colossal Youth instead.
The Who
4/5
I think I'd only ever heard the American version of this one before? It's the better one though, it drops a pedestrian cover of "I'm a Man", a song you've already heard better from multiple bands, for "Instant Party (Circles)", which is a highlight.
This album is mostly a bunch of lightweight disposable pop songs like "Much Too Much" or "La La Lies" that wouldn't be out of place on like a Herman's Hermits album, but the cool thing about them is that everything here is covered over with this lo-fi humming quality that makes everything feel heavier than nearly anything else of the period. They're not quite the gold standard for heavy rock way earlier than you'd expect (give me the Sonics or those early Kinks singles any day), but they're pretty close!
Meat Loaf
4/5
Have you ever thought "that Springsteen guy is pretty good, but he's a bit too lowkey for my tastes"? Well, then have I got an album for you!
Steinman's maximalist production isn't too dissimilar from Phil Spector, really. The main difference is Spector is totally serious about his lushly orchestrated silly love songs, while Steinman is fully aware that it's ridiculous to take it *that* seriously. So, he gives us the grandiosity that the sound deserves, which only draws our attention to how ridiculous it is to treat teenage love that way.
Slade
3/5
I basically knew Slade was a glam rock band whose popularity didn't really translate outside of the UK, so I was not expecting to enjoy this at all. To my shock, it's actually one of the better glam rock albums I've heard! It's not quite on par with Transformer or Ziggy Stardust, but it's easily better than Electric Warrior, and maybe even a bit better than Hunky Dory. Guitars are all good and crunchy, I like the singer's voice, really no complaints here. It's nothing world-changing or anything, but I guess I'm actually kinda glad I heard it?
Van Morrison
3/5
Hello, and welcome to Morri-fone! If you know the name of the song you would like to perform, press 1.
*beep*
Using your touch-tone keypad, please enter the first three letters of the song you would like to perform.
*beep* *beep* *beep*
You have selected... "Brown Eyed Girl"? If this is correct, press 1.
Why don't you just tell me the name of the song you would like to perform?
Guns N' Roses
2/5
Turns out I can't stand Axle Rose's voice when I have to listen to this much of it! Guitars sound fine, but nothing special, I guess I could see how this would be mind-blowing to a burgeoning metalhead the way "Radio Free Europe" was for my development as an indie nerd?
Also sort-of shoutout to "Mr. Brownstone" for, at least in part, inspiring the lyrics to Mary Lou Lord's classic "Some Jingle-Jangle Morning (When I'm Straight)"
Jorge Ben Jor
5/5
Wow, why have I never heard this before! I'd heard of Jorge Ben Jor, but somehow never got around to checking him out. Great Brazilian funk here, it's got me feeling like I *need* to listen to more from him and just more from Brazil in general. Probably my favorite first listen I've gotten from this site so far.
Alanis Morissette
4/5
Gotta love the singles off this one; "All I Really Want" is almost sort of shoegazey, "You Oughta Know" is obviously an absolute classic, "Head Over Feet" invented the term "friend with benefits" (no seriously, look it up!), and "Ironic" is a fun one to shout along too if you get over yourself and avoid doing the whole "but that's not what irony is" routine.
As someone who likes a lot of 90s indie but was not around for it, I can go read old discussions of the time and see that the tastemakers *hated* Jagged Little Pill. But from where I'm standing, it honestly doesn't sound that far off from those indie-approved bands? Honestly, I think it's really cool that this album is one of the biggest ever.
N.E.R.D
2/5
I knew Pharrell had had a career before becoming inescapable with "Happy", but I hadn't had a clue what it sounded like. It sounds alright, but there's nothing here that's got me interested in coming back to it. RateYourMusic tells me that there's a different N.E.R.D. album that's considered *a lot* better than this one, maybe I'll have to check that out to see this group at their best?
Paul Simon
4/5
At their best, the songs on this album stand up with the best of Simon and Garfunkel's work, but at their worst they don't even approach Simon and Garfunkel's filler. Not sure what's the deal with that, since Garfunkel didn't even write the songs? I guess maybe Simon needed a quality control guy?
AC/DC
3/5
When I had a show on my college radio station, obviously one of the requirements the station had was that I keep my show clean. Sometimes, when making my show playlists, I would find myself looking at a song and asking "is this too sexually explicit for the radio?" In these situations, I had a simple system:
1. Listen to "You Shook Me All Night Long"
2. Realize that my song was nowhere near that explicit
3. Put it on the playlist
Jeff Buckley
2/5
This album cover has always sort of reminded me of the scene in Back to the Future where Marty decides to introduce the 50s to rock and roll (and later, metal). Unlike Marty's performance, there's nothing about Grace that would have Buckley telling his audience "guess you guys weren't ready for that yet". Some of these songs sort of feel like melodies Thom Yorke would have written (Thom! Thom! It's your cousin, *Marvin* Yorke!), but performed by a better singer, but instrumentally the backing band really doesn't do anything interesting here, and Buckley's songs themselves aren't quite good enough to stand up entirely on their own like that.
Jimmy Smith
3/5
Every time I get a jazz album, I keep hoping that this is the one that suddenly unlocks the genre for me. For a minute or two, I had hopes that that watery organ was going to do it for me, but alas... Yet another "it's not you, it's me" 3/5 ranking, just like all the other jazz albums.
Talking Heads
4/5
This one's always felt extremely similar to Marquee Moon for me, albeit less ambitious. I don't really think the ambition in Marquee Moon works for me though, so I've gotta go with this one, especially considering it's got more pop appeal. It sounds a lot more skeletal than the songs they'd be best known for, but I really love this version of Talking Heads with these intentionally anodyne lyrics about favorite laws and all that. While it's admittedly done better on the first disc of The Name of This Band is Talking Heads, I'm never going to say no to this one.
Talk Talk
4/5
This one had the deck stacked against it: not only is it a transitional album between their disposable pop era and the well-regarded post-rock period that I don't particularly like, but I also had heard it before and didn't remember liking it all that much. But I'm pleased to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this relisten! It's got some pretty orchestration going on, and most importantly, it actually does have melodies! I'm still not totally sold on Mark Hollis's voice, and I'm shocked that the band got any amount of commercial success with it, but it's not a huge dealbreaker. Could totally see myself going on to reevaluate the post-rock stuff now that I'm enjoying this one, maybe?
Screaming Trees
4/5
I'd only been familiar with the EP they did with Beat Happening, and was kinda disappointed that they didn't really sound like that most of the time. To make matters worse, I was tired and driving to Thanksgiving and looking forward to some grunge to blast me awake, except Screaming Trees are just so mellow! Lanegan sounds a bit like Bono, even! But as I slowly woke up naturally, I started to get into it more. The songs didn't really have any standouts, but I did think it was pretty cool how psychedelic it sounds! That's not something I've ever seen in grunge before, and I like it.
Fleet Foxes
4/5
Does it feel a little "indie-folk-by-numbers" sometimes? Sure, but that's because they were the originator of a lot of that! Even if these songs aren't always the most memorable, they've got harmonies that are almost on par with those of the Beach Boys! Easily one of the prettiest indie albums there is.
The Doors
2/5
I remember hearing "Roadhouse Blues" on the radio once and begging my dad to tell me who that was. The Doors have never sounded better to me than that first time, and in particular this album doesn't really stack up to all of that. Manzarek's organ is still the star, but it just doesn't do much here to interest me.
Pavement
4/5
Thanks to "Cut Your Hair", this was my official album of "I just got my hair done" all through my college years, up until I decided I was over the whole "I'm just a boy" thing. I've never found Pavement to be as much of a revelation as everyone else seems to, but their first two albums have always struck me as pretty solid, and this one does a pretty good job of polishing their sound slightly and coming up with better songs (even if I prefer Slanted and Enchanted overall).
Actually, on this relisten, I'm kind of realizing how much Versus (one of my favorite indie rock groups of the 90s) sort of sounds like Pavement, and clearly was taking the sound from them, but it really doesn't change how I feel about the two relative to each other. This part's just here because hopefully I can convince someone to listen to The Stars Are Insane!
Lou Reed
4/5
Probably my favorite glam rock album, though admittedly that's not saying much. Better than WL/WH or Loaded, but worse than the two self-titled Velvet Underground albums. For the most part it works as a fun rock album, but I've got no real need for "Walk on the Wild Side". If I want poorly-aged trans songs, I'll listen to "Lola", and if I want that bassline, I'll listen to "Can I Kick It".
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Bonus point for getting Sandy Denny, I guess? This one's never wowed me like it has everyone else, though I'm more amenable to the pretty moments than I used to be. I was even enjoying the intro to Stairway this time! But this one's still just an album of moments for me, rather than the songs as a whole ever doing much.
Cyndi Lauper
4/5
One of the best pop albums of the 80s until it runs out of singles. Everything after "All Through the Night" isn't nearly as good, but most albums can't have six great singles in them, so it's just a problem of sequencing. I didn't used to like "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", but it was really working for me this time!
The Who
5/5
For me, this one's easily the best Who album. I love every goofy moment, from Heinz Baked Beans to the lines about regretting tattoos to the fake radio jingles. It helps that they're totally credible at every style they try here; they can pull off the folkiness of "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hands" just as well as the hard rock of "I Can See for Miles" just as well as the psych of "Armenia City in the Sky" just as well as... well, you get the point. Not a perfect album, but certainly one of the most fun albums of the 60s, which is already filled with a bunch of fun little goofy psych albums.
Michael Jackson
4/5
Probably a bit unfair that I'm comparing this in my mind to Thriller, which really changed the game with regards to "every song could be (and was) a massive hit", but it's inescapable. This one ends up as merely a very good disco album (which makes me realize I need to listen to more disco), with "only" two absolute classic songs (as if that's not more than most pop albums manage).
Living Colour
5/5
You can keep your Appetite for Destruction and your Metallica black album for yourself, *this* is the great pop metal album for me. The songs are great ("Cult of Personality" is an all-time great and not even the best on here!), that echoey booming production on the drums just hits so hard for me, and of course you've got Vernon Reid on guitar. Maybe it's just the Talking Heads cover influencing my thoughts here, but sometimes his solos sound like a better version of what Adrian Belew was doing on Remain in Light. Great stylistic diversity on the album too, there aren't really any songs where I think "well they already did that sound better last song" or anything like that.
I really need to get around to checking out their other albums, I'll bet they're more or less on part with this.
Aerosmith
2/5
All these hard rock bands that classic rock stations have a love affair for are honestly so boring. The songs aren't memorable, the guitars don't even sound that great, there's just a whole lot of nothing to anything that wasn't released as a single ("Sweet Emotion" is alright though). You're telling me I'm going to have to listen to *three* of these? And this one's the only one that has any songs anybody has ever heard of? Come on, man, seriously?
Miles Davis
2/5
I know, I know, this one is *the* jazz album that even people who don't get jazz are supposed to like. I've listened to it a couple times a year for a while now, hoping eventually it's something I'll come to get, but it never happens. I tend to give jazz albums an "it's not you, it's me" rating, but I'm not going to do that here. Like, yes, it's me, but it's also that I just like this album a lot less than any of those other random jazz albums that the generator has assigned me over the past year.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Probably it doesn't really hold up as an album without a film, but I was listening to it at work and it was pretty good for that purpose. And you know what? I think I'm going to try to find the time to watch Shaft this weekend.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
4/5
You listen to something like this and you think England must have been the gayest place on Earth, until you look at what was actually going on in England at the time. I actually really enjoyed the covers section of the album! Not perfect, but I can kinda see why people were so hyped for this album when it came out. Still can't understand why *straight* people were excited for it though...
Jean-Michel Jarre
4/5
I wasn't expecting great things from an instrumental electronic album, but I actually really liked this! Especially toward the end, there's a lot of cool sounds going on here, even if it's not something that is going to have any like particularly memorable moments?
Pretenders
3/5
Had been under the impression that the Pretenders were kind of like Blondie, except British? Turns out they're way more on the punk side of the pop-punk spectrum! Actually, aside from "Stop Your Sobbing" and "Kid", I didn't hear too many pop hooks at all? Coming into this, I knew "Brass in Pocket" was the big hit off this album, and I knew I'd heard it a hundred times before, but try as I might I could never actually remember how it goes. Turns out that's because they've got a great pre-chorus with the "gonna make you, make you", and then the chorus totally falls flat on its face! What a disappointment that one is! At least they ended strong with "Mystery Achievement", now that one's a great song.
Sisters Of Mercy
3/5
It's objectively insane for a goth band to listen to "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and think "now *that's* the guy I want producing my album," and yet it actually kinda works? Too bad he only produced two songs, though...
2/5
The songs are better than the ones on Parklife, but it's definitely not good enough for me to ever want to listen to an hour of it? Literally just pick and Kinks album and listen to that instead, honestly!
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
5/5
My defining memory of this album is listening to it on the way home after the first time I asked a girl out (and got turned down). With that in mind and an extra decade of thinking about the lyrics, I gotta say this album doesn't really beat the misogyny allegations?
But as a woman, I'll still always love this album anyway for at least three things: 1) Being my introduction to less straight-forward rock music, 2) Steve Nieve's amazing keyboard playing, 3) Giving a name to an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Suede
3/5
Starts out with an absolute bang with the one-two punch of "So Young" and "Animal Nitrate", and at about this point you realize that the only thing Britpop ever really needed to be great was to sound ten times gayer. Unfortunately, it drops off *hard* after that, and with the exception of "The Drowners", there's not much else here to like too much. But it's crazy how the combination of glam (which I tend to dislike) and Britpop (which I also tend to dislike) ended up creating some songs I actually really love.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
4/5
Nothing revolutionary, but it was fun! This is the album people always try to say Licensed to Ill is, honestly.
2/5
Unbearable herky-jerky post-punk for the "Idiocracy was a documentary" crowd
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Didn't really like this one as much as Catch a Fire, honestly? I don't like "No Woman, No Cry" all that much and everything else was just fine. I did really like the backing vocals on the last song though!
AC/DC
3/5
I like Bon Scott as a singer better than Brian Johnson, but Back in Black had a slightly better set of songs (or at least more songs that I already knew). We'll call this one a draw. (Really it's a slight edge to Highway to Hell, but not enough to bump it from a 3 to a 4.)
Coldcut
4/5
Actually liked this a lot more than I tend to like the British electronica albums! It's not life-changing or anything, but it does hew closer to something like replacement-level Golden Age hip-hop, which means we get some solid beats and actual hooks. There are moments where it pushes at those borders in a direction that I don't care for, but I can recognize that, for example, "Theme from "Reportage"" is good at what they're trying to do with it.
The Cure
4/5
This has a really cool, really oppressive atmosphere going on for it that would probably be really great accompaniment for when I'm Going Through It mentally, if I ever thought to listen to them in those times. Otherwise, it's still a pretty cool atmosphere but I always listen to it with a bit of emotional distance. My impression is that it's the coolest Cure album to have as a favorite, but also it's easily the one that you least want to tell people all about your love for (like when you're on a first date and connecting about music, do you really want to be saying "Yeah, I really love Pornography"?)
Paul Weller
3/5
I never really thought the Jam were anything special, honestly? So I'm obviously not the target audience for a Paul Weller solo album. I can tell he's more ambitious on this one than he was on those Jam albums, but I'm not sure it ever becomes more than just a fairly pleasant folky rock album.
Talking Heads
3/5
This one's always been my least favorite of their first six, honestly? It loses the minimalism that makes 77 so special, but it's not yet reaching the heights of Fear of Music or especially Remain in Light songwriting-wise. To make matters worse, pretty much all these songs are done better on their live albums! Of course, "Take Me to the River" is great in any form, but even still, listening to it on Stop Making Sense or especially the second disc of The Name of This Band is Talking Heads is going to ruin the studio version for you forever. Not bad, just nothing special.
Various Artists
4/5
Part of me feels like the Ronettes' album would have been a better choice, but right now I'm filled with Christmas cheer and glad for the others that they get to be included. Some of the intros here are a bit syrupy, but if there's a time for being overly sentimental, it's now of course.
The main thing holding this back, of course, is when there's a man. Bob B. Soxx is a perfectly serviceable singer, but he's certainly no Ronnie Spector or Darlene Love, or even a LaLa Brooks. Even worse is Phil Spector's rendition of Silent Night, which is just too much. It's even worse knowing what we know now, that *this* man is doing the song about sleeping in heavenly peace.
Peter Gabriel
3/5
I knew basically two things coming into this one: that Peter Gabriel, like Phil Collins, was once in Genesis, and that "In Your Eyes" appears in the boombox scene of Say Anything. The combination of those two facts led me to expect some forgettable 80s cheese here. It's a bit more memorable than I was expecting ("Red Rain", "Sledgehammer", and of course "In Your Eyes" are all good!), and cameo appearances from Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson are pretty cool, but it's still just 80s cheese.
Dinosaur Jr.
5/5
Dinosaur Jr. answers the age-old question of "would my favorite wimpy indie rock albums *really* be improved by the guitarist shredding?" with an emphatic "YES!!!"
Megadeth
3/5
I guess this is just me realizing what thrash metal's whole deal is, but Dave Mustaine and his lyrics really sound a lot like if you dropped a hardcore punk singer into a metal band!
Thin Lizzy
4/5
The first half had too many slow songs to really feel dangerous, but the title is totally appropriate when we get to the second half! I like the harmonized guitars in theory, but I'm not sure how well I actually like their sound, but at least the songs on here are all pretty good.
Lana Del Rey
2/5
There's four or five different Lana Del Rey albums that I could name off the top of my head, even as someone who's totally unfamiliar with her work. This is not one of them, and I don't think I've even heard any fans of her mentioning its name before! I guess I just don't understand why this one's here and not Born to Die or Ultraviolence, which I associate with the indie-er girls I went to high school with, and which I think were fairly important in the direction 2010s music took?
Anyway, this is fine but kind of boring. It's got me feeling like I need to check out Born to Die and Ultraviolence, so it's not a total loss of a day, I guess?
Jerry Lee Lewis
5/5
There might as well not even be a backing band on this, the way Jerry Lee's bashing away you can't even hear anyone else but the drummer most of the time. But you don't really miss them though; Jerry Lee might be a reprehensible egomaniac, but he sure knows how to make it sound like hell is coming out of his piano.
All those 50s/60s rock and roll standards can kind of sound tame when you listen with modern ears, like you listen to "Money" or "Hound Dog" and it's hard to understand how *this* was once considered a societal problem. Along with the Sonics' debut album, this gives you all the danger, all the delinquency, all the *racket*. Coming into this, I didn't think it would live up to what I had built it up to being when I was in high school, but honestly it sort of does?
Probably I should feel a bit more conflicted about talking up this album as much as I am in light of what we know about him, but like, he's dead now so whatever.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
I'd have preferred Willy and the Poor Boys personally, but I can't really complain about the album that's got "Born on the Bayou" and "Proud Mary", now, can I? Plus it's got my favorite cover of theirs. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of long meandering songs, and here Fogerty's giving us *two* of them. Now that's just not necessary, dude.
Fats Domino
3/5
Previously, I'd only known "Ain't That a Shame" from a movie soundtrack, so I was excited to learn a bit more about Fats Domino. It turns out, he's pretty one-note, though that note's pretty good. Like, all these songs kind of sound like lesser versions of "Blueberry Hill", honestly? They've all got that casual pace and same thing with the horns, and they're kinda short on hooks. If this were an hour long, I'd absolutely hate it, but for less than half an hour it's fun enough. It's all very consistent, it's just not all that exciting to modern ears.
Manu Chao
4/5
I was a bit disappointed at first to find out that this album wasn't actually by someone from Mexico, but the music did win me over. I'm not at all familiar with the traditions he's pulling from, but it all sounded cool and a bit sound collage-y at times? Normally sound collage stuff doesn't do much for me but it did here.
Minor Threat
2/5
As someone from the area, I always hear about DC hardcore in these hushed reverent tones whenever I go to local shows. Unfortunately, recognizing its significance to the local scene does not make me any more interested in listening to hardcore. Ironically, this makes me *way* more out of step than Ian Mackaye!
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Doesn't really have any big songs on it that would make it stand out from the pack, but Stevie Wonder was just on another level in the mid-70s. This is his *weakest* album of the era, and yet it's such a mood-raiser, even on my first day back at work after the holiday!
The Modern Lovers
5/5
There's a picture of the Modern Lovers featuring four of them looking all punk: long, unkempt hair, clad in leather and denim and brooding. And then there's Jonathan, standing off to the side in a white cardigan and khakis, smiling sweetly and looking entirely out of place. That's pretty much the energy he brings to this album too.
He sings about what the punks sing about, whether it be romantic frustration or the generation gap or the government. But he's not angry about any of it; he kind of romanticizes his loneliness, he still loves the old world, he wants to go play music at the government center to cheer up the bureaucrats. Some of these are the cheeriest songs about feeling alone that you'll ever hear!
Motörhead
5/5
As someone who comes to metal with a noise pop background, I'm always expecting there to be *noise* to it. Unfortunately for me, extreme metal tends to prioritize speed and aggression and they'll have distorted guitars, but they're never really noisy like someone like the Jesus and Mary Chain or Medicine or what have you (maybe the black metal bands get there, but I don't have the time to do the research necessary to avoid listening to neo-Nazis, so that's out of the question). Fortunately for me, there's Motorhead. They've got the speed, they've got the aggression, *and* they're bringing the noise! They might not be quite the noise metal band of my dreams, but they're they closest that I've found yet, and they're just great overall!
Missy Elliott
3/5
I don't think I'd ever knowingly heard a Missy Elliott song before today, even though I'd totally heard of her before and the chorus of "Work It" is something I've seen referenced before. I really liked that one and the way she made those reversed vocals sound natural instead of off-kilter like in psychedelic rock! Also really liked "Nothing Out There For Me" and how she got those spoken vocals through a phone to fit in just perfectly. The rest was a nice enough listen (if a bit unmemorable for me), though the spoken interludes kinda broke it up a bit too much (even if I get what she was going for with them). I thought the occasional "this is a Missy Elliott exclusive" intros were fun though!
Miles Davis
3/5
I still don't get it, but I can tell it's less complex than Kind of Blue, which means there's a bit less for me not to get. Which if you think about it, means I almost sort of get it a bit more?
Happy Mondays
3/5
This production is so weird! I think these songs are probably straightforward rock songs, but I can't actually be sure about that because my brain keeps sliding off any attempt to figure anything about it out. Is it good? Is it bad? I literally cannot tell! One thing's for sure, it's not really like anything else I've ever heard.
The Shamen
2/5
Yesterday, I got an album where a rock band tried to appeal to dance fans. I came away from that one unsure of my feelings because they ended up sounding unlike anything else I'm familiar with. Today, I've got an album where a dance band tries to appeal to rock fans. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I'm hearing anything new on this. To make matters worse, this rock fan isn't feeling particularly appealed to here.
Aretha Franklin
5/5
For some reason, I've never listened to Aretha Franklin all that much? This one's been my default favorite anyway, because "Chain of Fools" is my favorite song of hers, but actually it's all great. I really love how the backing singers sound here, which sounds like a slight on Franklin herself, but it's not! It's just that everyone's in top form here! I really need to stop neglecting her other albums, don't I?
Youssou N'Dour
3/5
It's got a cool sound to it (absolutely love that guitar) and some good grooves, but it's just missing something for me, unfortunately?
Orbital
2/5
As someone who doesn't listen to techno, I fully recognize that this one is probably a me problem, but I just couldn't figure out what the point of all this was?
Donald Fagen
2/5
For some reason I had assumed from the cover that this was like Donald Fagen going post-punk or something? Unfortunately, it's literally just more Steely Dan, and that's not something I really need in my life.
Bob Dylan
5/5
The secret to making Blonde on Blonde into a perfect single album is to grab a spray bottle and squirt it at Dylan any time it sounds like he's starting to have fun.
That being said, I subscribe to the "new year, new me" philosophy, and besides I actually do like some of the fun ones, so in 2026 I can give this a 5.
Sex Pistols
2/5
Always thought this one sounded weirdly thin for its reputation and what it's trying to be. Also, it's weird they've got a New York Dolls diss track on here when this actually sounds a lot like them in places!
P.S. I cannot possibly talk about this album without sharing the incredibly incongruous cover that Blueboy (possibly the twee-est band on Earth) did of "Anarchy in the UK": https://youtu.be/OBVrmykG0_E?si=kme1Iw51-e-0_tJP
Missy Elliott
4/5
My second Missy Elliott album for this in the space of about a week! None of the songs on here are quite as good as "Work It", but the production here sounds great and overall I prefer this album. I looked a bit more into her career and found out she started out her career as a producer for people like Aaliyah, so I guess I shouldn't really be shocked her own album has great production.
Sufjan Stevens
3/5
Always thought of this album as sort of like being a Belle and Sebastian wannabe? But on this listen, I'm realizing that the arrangements here are much more complex than anything Belle and Sebastian ever did, even though at the same time most of the songs are weaker. That being said, if you tried to tell me that something like "Come On Feel the Illinoise", "Chicago", or "Casimir Pulaski Day" surpasses Belle and Sebastian, I wouldn't exactly agree but I couldn't really rush to tell you that you're obviously wrong, you know?
David Holmes
1/5
Typically, I hold off from giving the boring electronica a 1 because I'm able to see why someone who's a fan of the genre might find it important, but I'm not holding off here. These beats aren't even all that impressive that they even come close to standing on their own, and the street interview interludes just don't do anywhere near enough to save it.
Orange Juice
5/5
You Can't Hide Your Love Forever is well-canonized as an indiepop classic for the way it blends dorky vocals and hesitant, jangly guitars with just a tiny pinch of soul influence. Rip It Up, coming a few months later, tends to be remembered for the title track and for little else, but to me it's the better album by a nose.
Basically, I like the increased role that funk plays in this album, and especially I like the two songs contributed by new drummer Zeke Manyika. One could easily be forgiven for thinking that it's merely a rip-off of Speaking in Tongues, except for the fact that Orange Juice beat Talking Heads to it. The pop is still popping too, of course. Basically, this is a potential avenue that indiepop could have taken, and though the genre's practitioners ended up too funk-averse for that, we'll always have this glimpse at what might have been.
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
It's not my personal pick for greatest album of all time, but it's totally fitting for the top album on this list. Rumours basically unites everyone: the indie nerds, the top 40 listeners, even the people who don't really care for music. We all hear "Dreams" and we all think "this is one of the greatest things I've ever heard", and as long as people still listen to music, we're all going to keep thinking that.
Michael Jackson
5/5
For the second day in a row, I get an album that I've already heard a billion times over just from listening to the radio. And you know, that's okay with me. I don't normally consider myself to be like a huge Michael Jackson fan or anything, but then I listen to Thriller and it's like "hey, I like that one! Oh hey, I like this one too! Wow, you'll never believe about this third one!" I even like the one with Paul McCartney on it, and *nobody* ever admits to liking that one!
Björk
2/5
I just don't operate on Bjork's wavelength, I guess. I like Debut and Post decently well, but she loses me after that. It's cool that she did all this a cappella, but it just does nothing for me.
Sam Cooke
5/5
Yeah this one might be the greatest live album ever. The energy's just so good, I need to go to a Sam Cooke show! But alas...
I'm pretty sure somehow I'd missed out on hearing all the songs on here except Bring It On Home to Me, which you'd think would have made me slower to catch on, but nope! Instant favorite from day one.
Miles Davis
4/5
For whatever reason, this is the one canonical jazz album that's always worked for me! I guess it's because the keyboards sound really cool? I'm not smart enough to know what's going on here, otherwise?
The Pretty Things
2/5
Something weird about psych rock is that the first-rate bands are all really good all the time, and the third-rate bands all tend to have at least one really good song, but the second-rate bands just tend to be disappointing. Unfortunately, Pretty Things are one of the second-rate bands. They've got all the right elements going on here, but they just can't put it together!
Megadeth
4/5
Not enough of a metalhead to agree with that Onion article, but yeah this kinda ruled. Maybe I'll get into Megadeth one day?
Brian Eno
2/5
This title feels like it should be more experimental than Here Come the Warm Jets, but it doesn't really sound that way? Maybe it's something that got more adopted into later music, maybe it's just less ambitious. In any case, I think it sounds less interesting.
Dusty Springfield
5/5
As a trans woman, I never really got to have a typical girlhood, not like the ones you see on TV or in the movies or whatever. None of the gossiping about crushes, none of the slumber parties, et cetera. And though a lot of that vision of what "girlhood" should be is a media creation that isn't true to the experiences of many cis women either, it sometimes still feels a bit like I missed out, you know? Instead, in the privacy of my own room, I'd listen to a lot of girl groups and girl group-adjacent artists. I listened to Skeeter Davis, I listened to the Shangri-Las, and I listened (of course) to Dusty Springfield. And in singing along to their peppiest songs (with a hairbrush for a microphone, naturally), I could reach an approximation of the girlhood that the media was telling me I should be having.
I don't think there's really that many people out there that would have A Girl Named Dusty as her best work. Most would probably say Dusty in Memphis, and in all honesty, it *is* a better album than this one. If you were picking her best song, you might go with "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me", which again isn't on this album. Most of the songs on here were unmistakably done more definitively by other artists (we've got, for example, songs by Lesley Gore, the Supremes, Dionne Warwick, and the Shirelles). And yet, A Girl Named Dusty unmistakably has the greatest hairbrush factor of all her albums.
Strictly speaking, we're not supposed to consider "I Only Want to Be With You" one of the songs on here, but it's there as a bonus track and it's her best song of the era, so we'll count it anyway. Listen to that, and you'll know exactly what I mean by "hairbrush factor"; it's got this massive amount of momentum to it that keeps it rolling along and basically forces you to grab your hairbrush and dance around your room, singing (or lipsyncing, if you're shy) along. And pretty much every single song on the album has been picked specifically to produce that same effect in you. I mean, I guess not "Wishing and Hoping", but that's one where you can slow it down and think you look the part of a coquettish ingenue, but really you just look silly, and that's honestly just as important to the whole vibe?
Now, years later, I've settled into a fairly normal womanhood. Of course the fact of being trans continues to affect my life and my interactions with others, but I've got my friend groups, and most importantly, don't usually feel like a total outsider anymore when those friend groups are mostly women, cis or otherwise. It turns out there's no arbiter of womanhood who turns you away if you didn't have a girlhood! (Well there *is*, but we don't listen to people like that, now do we?) But then one of those old girl groups comes on shuffle, and I reminisce about the bits of girlhood I was able to give myself.