1001 Albums Summary

I’m not exaggerating. This might be the worst album I’ve ever heard. I never want to experience it again. And I will never watch the movie. I actually think all copies of it should be burned. And the google data centre floating in the middle of the ocean that holds the digital version of this abomination should be allowed to sink to the bottom of the sea as a mercy killing. I can't fucking believe this album is on the list of 1001 albums you need to listen to before you die. The only possible reason I can think of is that it’s the last album in the book and it’s accompanied by the following disclaimer: Save this album for the day of your demise. Once you have finished listening, you will no longer fear death. In comparison to the 74 minutes of Tommy (AKA the 7 circles of hell), death will be a breeze. You will look forward to it, because it will mean no longer living on the same plain of existence as this abhorrent piece of “music.” You’re welcome. It goes without saying that this is a strong 0 out 5 for me. I don’t think this system allows you to give a 0. I believe a 1 is the lowest you can give, which is total bullshit. Before this album, if someone asked me if I was a fan of The Who, I’d have said “sure, I like the big songs.” And now my answer is hell fucking no. I can’t support any artist willing to put their fanbase through an atrocity like this (and make a movie of it). It’s boring, self indulgent, offensive, never-ending, gaudy, unmemorable, pathetic, pretentious and more. I’m torn between continuing to rant about what I hate about this thing or just ending the review now because it doesn’t deserve another millisecond of my time. I think I could write a thesis on how awful this thing is. This album deserves to be the star on the Christmas tree of reasons why we shouldn’t worship 20 year old boys like they’re gods just for making a few catchy songs. 20 year old boys who are treated like gods may start to believe they are in fact gods. And when people believe they are gods, they start to think that every stupid little idea that pops into their under-developed brains is brilliant and worth being invested in financially and shared with the world. Or in the case of Tommy unleashed on this world like a plague that has humanity questioning whether or not we should allow humans to make art at all if there’s a chance of something like this being created. Things I hate about it: 
I was driving while listening to it. It made the idea of sitting in silence for 2 hours in stand still traffic on the 401 seem alluring, heavenly even. “Tommy can you hear me” in Christmas made me laugh out loud in a bad way. So fucking stupid. Underture being 10 minutes long??? At first I was like, “o, without the lyrics, maybe this album is tolerable.” And then it went on and on and on and on. Holy shit. I thought it would never end. I felt physical relief when it was over. Cheesy/shit songs: It’s a boy, 1921, Cousin Kevin, The Acid Queen, Sally Simpson, Tommy’s Holiday Camp. The rest are either disturbing or dull or some combination of the two. The theatrical delivery of some of the lyrics on this album was goofy and awful. I want to un-hear it. So many short, unsatisfying songs that probably make more sense when accompanied by the film but also… fuck that. The sequence of Do you think it’s alright?, Fiddle about and Pinball Wizard might be the worst 3 song run in the history of music. The first 2 are about Tommy being molested by his Uncle Ernie and then it’s a hard cut to a song about how great Tommy is at Pinball. I guess they cut the song where Tommy deals with the trauma of this very upsetting experience. Probably for the best. I don’t think I could have endured a 25th track. I used to think Pinball Wizard was “fine.” Of the big Who songs, it was not my favourite, but it was inoffensive to me. Now hearing it in the context of the album, it’s horrific. I think that radio stations should have to play the other two songs first before playing Pinball Wizard to give the audience the true Tommy experience. I don’t think it’d be the classic rock radio staple it is today and that would be a gift to society. I can’t unhear this now. I will dodge Pinball Wizard like the plague from now on. Using the phrase “deaf, dumb and blind kid” as a refrain throughout the album just feels offensive the more I hear it. Just because Tommy is the first rock opera, doesn’t automatically make it good. Lots of things that were “first” were bad. Would you want to use the first cell phone or computer? Watch the first movie? I doubt it. I’d even argue rock operas in general aren’t great. There are definitely more bad ones than good ones. 74 minutes is long for any album. For Tommy, it felt more like 5 hours. Musical purgatory if you will. The final song on this album brings back lyrics and musical elements from several songs in the tracklist as if this is a stage musical. But on Tommy it feels a bit like someone vomited, ate the vomit and then threw it up again. What specifically bothered me was a refrain that references the molestation sequence on the record. The refrain was: We foresake you, gonna rape you. I will not explain why I was bothered by this. I think the quote speaks for itself. I don’t think they wrote lyrics for this album. Instead they just wrote a long rambling story and put it to music. They didn’t tweak that story so it fit that music or feel like song lyrics, they just left it as is, first draft. I kept waiting for a song on this album to be good. It has 24 tracks. They can’t all be bad right? It’s statistically unlikely. And yet… they did it. It’s an accomplishment really. The closest thing to a “good” track was probably Pinball Wizard but again due to sequencing it is now unforgivable. There is not a single track on this album that stuck with me in a good way. Normally when I encounter a double album, I come up with a single album track list that cuts the filler, but that’s not really possible here. I guess my cutdown would just be Overture. It’s an instrumental, so none of the nonsense bullshit, cheesy lyrics. And since it’s the first song on the album, you aren’t yet bored or disturbed by the musical motifs being introduced. Things I like about it:

It’s over and I never have to experience it again 
I guess John Entwistle’s bass playing was solid. That’s all I got.

I really hated this. It's so fucking long and repetitive and boring. All you really need to listen to is straight outta compton and express yourself. Those are the best songs on this album. The former is a classic, that opening verse is iconic. The later has a great sample that carries the whole track. It's fun. The rest of the tracks are too long and have boring instrumentals, monotonous flows and lyrics that don't age well. Fuck the police is wayyy too long. For the first verse, chorus and post-chorus, i'm into it. But then it goes on for another 3 minutes... so i'm out. Across the board, the beats are made up of very generic, stock sounds. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, but they just don't do much with those sounds, except on that goofy instrumental-ish outro track, that one was fun i guess. The rest were nothing special... but i assume they were groundbreaking at the time. The lyrics are a lot. They're anger is warranted. Talking so directly about racism and police brutality and gang life was groundbreaking in the 80s. I understand how important these messages are, i just didn't enjoy their version of it. A lot of rappers have tackled racism and police brutality since and handled it better in my opinion. The lyrics on a lot of tracks were tough to get through in 2025. If only the instrumentals were exciting, so i could ignore the lyrics and just focus on the music. But again the instrumentals are pretty bare so the lyrics are the star of the show. It's a 1.5 from me and i'm gonna round down.

I think the hipster assholes picking albums for this list don't understand ABBA. Knowing the music journalism industry, they're probably crotchety old white guys who hated disco and lit records on fire in the late 70s. Guys who stand in the corner at a wedding judging people for losing their mind to Dancing Queen. Guys who grimace when someone picks gimme gimme at karaoke and leave the room to grab a drink. But also guys who now have to begrudgingly accept ABBA as significant because people have kept their music alive for so long. But do these old bastards like the fun disco hits of ABBA? No... of course not. They think the most important ABBA album is the group's final record. An album where the disco stylings of their hits have been abandoned for a more serious glitzy baroque pop vibe. It's not quite 80s sounding, but it has hints of whats to come (i do kinda wish this came out 4 years later and was full on an 80s synth pop album, i think that would be way more interesting). It's more a 70s singer songwriter album with very expensive production and future-ish synths. This pick just reeks of hipster bullshit and an inability to give recognition to the group's iconic disco material. Do you like Dancing queen? Gimme gimme? Mamma mia? Money, money, money? Fernando? (i could go on)... well too fuckin' bad because none of their enduring hits are on this album. The closest thing to a hit on this album is One of Us. It's solid... but they have basically 10 other massive songs better than that one. Taking a quick peak through their discography, there are several albums full of hits. It's hard not to imagine one of those albums is better than this album. Now this album isn't necessarily bad... it's just not giving me what I want from an ABBA album. It's not catchy enough and it doesn't make me want to dance... so it has failed. It's a fine pop record. One of us is good. Under Attack is catchy. Soldiers was good... i think? I listened to this album twice and no hook is really sticking with me which is a bad sign for an ABBA record. *screams into the void*

This might be one of the worst albums I've ever heard. Never has an album so obsessed with sex been so unsexy. I know this is an early hip hop album, so they're still figuring it out, but holy shit this thing sucks. This group has often been called a one hit wonder and for good reason. There isn't anything redeeming on this album beyond The Humpty Dance. After hearing this album, it's hard to image them making anything good ever. And i wouldn't call the humpty dance a great one hit wonder either, especially not the never-ending 6 and half minute version on the damn album. I think the hit was the 4 minute radio edit and that's still 1 minute too long in my books. I guess the 4 minute version is... fine? One thing i can say is they do try a lot of things on this album... they "experiment"... so i guess that's a positive. Does any of it work? Fuck no. I kinda wish they had just ripped off Run DMC and called it a day. Honestly, the genre of hip hop is just lucky this wasn't the first hip hop record ever. I think society at large might have just thought "hmm maybe we don't need this genre after all".. and then hip hop wouldn't have caught on at all... or at least been delayed 5 years till someone could relaunch it with something good. After hearing that it was a concept album, i debated while listening what the concept was. My best guess was it was related to having safe sex? My assumption being that sex packets were condoms or birth control. There were some tracks in the back end that didn't fit with this idea, but i had no other guesses. And i was gonna put that down as a positive takeaway from the album: "hey, at least they are pro safe sex." But after doing a little bit of research, I found out that I wasn't even close. Apparently Sex packets are some made up/fake drug that allows people to simulate having sex with someone in their mind... i think? The internet isn't really clear on how it works. But this makes the Street Scene interlude make more sense. It seems like there's a different version of the pill based on what kind of person you want to simulate having sex with. So... ya... i guess it's a sci fi concept album about futuristic sex drugs. If that concepts sounds cool, i promise you they don't deliver on it. I guess it's sort of a precursor to VR porn? But that's being very charitable to this idea. It's a stupid concept and a stupid album. O... and so many of these songs are fucking long. They are bad songs stretched to the point they become torturous to the listener. The first 3 songs on the album are all over 6 minutes long. There's a 7 minute song and an almost 9 minute song. And for all of these tracks, i was over each one after 2 minutes max. It's pure torture. And for that reason and many more, this one is easy to rate. It's a 1... it's a 0. Some angry rants about specific songs: Humpty Dance - Too fuckin' long. give me the radio edit any day or maybe just include the chorus in a 90s dj set where you only get 30 seconds of the track and u get to go "o, ya i remember the humpty dance" and then it changes to another song and you don't at all feel sad about missing the other 6 minutes. The Way We Swing - I do not like the way they swing. The opening bars of this song are fucking horrible. the rap sounds like bad sesame street rap. They also make a joke about other people being shit at rapping, "you rhyme like a school teacher"... and that's exactly what they are doing. it's shocking. Also he seems very proud about how undefinable the Digital Underground is and how unique they are. I guess they are unique and undefinable in a croneberg flesh monster kind of way... and not a cool one (something from his worst movie). Underwater Rimes - i guess the underwater theme is ok? I did chuckle when he said the state trooper's wife looked like a grouper. That was probably the best line on this entire album. Gutfest '89 - This was a real low point for the album. I think I needed a shower after. Also starting off a song listing artists who are better than your band is a stupid move. Made me want to listen to anything other than this. I feel sad he even uttered the name "the clash"... he doesn't deserve to speak their name... especially on such a fuckin' horrible song. It's funny he referenced The Who, my other 1 start reviewed artist. I guess it's fate. This song is like if Baby Got Back was written by a narcissistic teenager with a head injury. Just brutal. Freaks of the Industry - Maybe the most unsexy song ever written. It wants to be a "sex jam", you can tell by the moaning that is part of the beat that goes for the full 5 minutes. It's not sexy before he even says a word. But then he really guarantees there's not an ounce of sex appeal in this track by telling the audience a multiple choice/choose your own adventure sex story. It's graphic and really unpleasant and goes on for almost 6 minutes. I hope i never hear this song again. Doowutchyalike - this is the almost 9 minute song. It's so cocky it's insane. It truly believes it deserves it's run time. To the point that around the 3 minute mark it gives the audience/dj a fade out for the radio version... but then the music fades back in and it proceeds to go on for another 6 minutes and give "You more of what you like"... which in this context feels like a god damn threat. It's exhausting. It's torture. Sex Packets - this one explains how the sex packets work. Again, i thought this was about condoms or birth control... but no it's about that imaginary sex drug. O and it's over 7 minutes long, so you get to hear the phrase "sex packets" a lotttt. This made me want to become a priest. I hate this album so much.