257
Albums Rated
3.72
Average Rating
24%
Complete
832 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1970s
Favorite Decade
Jazz
Favorite Genre
UK
Top Origin
Cheerleader
Rater Style ?
40
5-Star Albums
3
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Freak Out!
The Mothers Of Invention
|
5 | 2.83 | +2.17 |
|
Dog Man Star
Suede
|
5 | 3 | +2 |
|
Larks' Tongues In Aspic
King Crimson
|
5 | 3 | +2 |
|
Skylarking
XTC
|
5 | 3.03 | +1.97 |
|
Smile
Brian Wilson
|
5 | 3.06 | +1.94 |
|
Ambient 1/Music For Airports
Brian Eno
|
5 | 3.07 | +1.93 |
|
Tubular Bells
Mike Oldfield
|
5 | 3.1 | +1.9 |
|
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
The Incredible String Band
|
4 | 2.15 | +1.85 |
|
Deloused in the Comatorium
The Mars Volta
|
5 | 3.2 | +1.8 |
|
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
John Lennon
|
5 | 3.24 | +1.76 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers
|
1 | 3.7 | -2.7 |
|
Slipknot
Slipknot
|
1 | 2.68 | -1.68 |
|
A Grand Don't Come For Free
The Streets
|
1 | 2.67 | -1.67 |
|
This Is Fats Domino
Fats Domino
|
2 | 3.38 | -1.38 |
|
Aftermath
The Rolling Stones
|
2 | 3.38 | -1.38 |
|
Hysteria
Def Leppard
|
2 | 3.21 | -1.21 |
|
The La's
The La's
|
2 | 3.15 | -1.15 |
|
New York Dolls
New York Dolls
|
2 | 3.12 | -1.12 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| David Bowie | 5 | 4.6 |
| Beatles | 4 | 4.75 |
| Miles Davis | 2 | 5 |
| Radiohead | 2 | 5 |
| Steely Dan | 3 | 4.33 |
| Black Sabbath | 3 | 4.33 |
| Talking Heads | 3 | 4.33 |
5-Star Albums (40)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
XTC
5/5
XTC's best album in my humble opinion, and from an illustrious discography too. Shedding the new wave of their earlier days, this album dives fully into psychedelic pop delights, in a send-up to the various styles of The Beatles and The Beach Boys. The songwriting, the production, and the album flow are all on point - a delight all around.
1 likes
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
What a tour de force! Q-Tip, Phife, and the other members of ATCQ lay down some intense bars over one of the finest collections of jazzy beats I've yet heard - well deserving of the album name.
1 likes
The Incredible String Band
4/5
It saddens me that this album is bottom 10 on this website, because to me this is delightful! One of the earliest examples of a style that was retroactively labeled "wyrd folk" by music journos and aficionados of the style, it nicely combines pastoral folk with strange psychedelic ramblings and just a touch of that witchy sort of feeling for October. So many of the folk artists I love were inspired by this strain of weird, or "wyrd" I suppose, folk music - just gorgeous.
1 likes
Arctic Monkeys
3/5
Maybe I just wasn't listening to enough of this in my prime teenage angst years, but I don't really get bands that sound like this. Some solid songs for sure, but nothing that really grips me all that much.
Also, British
1 likes
Cee Lo Green
4/5
To be completely honest, I didn't expect to like this much, but I ended up really loving it! Despite being a bit overlong, at an hour and 5 minutes that felt closer to an hour and 35, I found myself vibing the whole way through. The soul-tinged beats & vocals, the killer production, CeeLo's quite honestly incredible flow, and reminders of artists as varied as (the minuscule good parts of) The Streets and Saul Williams all made this a worthy first Southern hip hop entry for this list. Easy 8/10.
1 likes
1-Star Albums (3)
All Ratings
Louis Prima
4/5
:theWildest:
Songhoy Blues
3/5
Solid stuff! I love hearing music from across the world, and Songhai/Malian music isn't one I'd touched on before now.
Björk
4/5
Didn't enjoy it as much as her later, weirder albums that I've heard, but still some solid leftfield pop/house tunes. I'm afraid I do not stand with my compatriots on this one :pensive:
Steely Dan
5/5
Sheer slick jazz-rock perfection. Undeniably cool and breezy listen for any time of year.
Ella Fitzgerald
3/5
Great voice, but way too little variety for over 3 hours of music.
Thelonious Monk
3/5
Great album, love this kind of sound, it's just not the absolute best I've heard in this style. I like some of Thelonious' later work more.
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
Great relisten! Noisy shoegaze in the "my vacuum cleaner is malfunctioning" style is getting up there for me. What really brings it out is getting absorbed enough into the noisy, all-consuming atmosphere that you can start to pick out the really pretty melodies buried underneath.
Cornershop
3/5
Interesting album with a neat vibe and some good songs, unfortunately some of them didn't quite land for me.
Soundgarden
4/5
Enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to! 70 minutes of grunge/hard rock seemed like it would get old fast, but the songwriting on here kept me going the whole way through - and of course, "Black Hole Sun" is an all-time great.
4/5
Delightful! I love this band but had never heard this particular album before, and I really loved its chamber-y, spring-like whimsy. There were a few songs with goofy lyrics, but overall a very pleasant listen. Easy 9/10
Fever Ray
3/5
Pleasant vibe, but not really much keeping me anchored through the whole album.
N.W.A.
4/5
Incredibly angry and politically charged, a fine introduction to the heyday of gangsta rap. Fuck the police indeed.
Santana
5/5
Scorching psychedelic Latin jams. Exactly the kind of music that's up my alley! The B-side just needs to sink in a bit before I rate it higher, but already it's a 9/10.
EDIT: Yup it got there. 10/10
Arctic Monkeys
3/5
Maybe I just wasn't listening to enough of this in my prime teenage angst years, but I don't really get bands that sound like this. Some solid songs for sure, but nothing that really grips me all that much.
Also, British
Suede
5/5
Easy 9/10. Incredibly lush, layered production mixed with biting songwriting and a veritable cauldron of musical influences combine to create one of the best listening experiences so far.
EDIT: I haven't been able to stop listening to this, 10/10 it is
Fats Domino
2/5
Sorry, Fats and New Orleans :pensive: This one just wasn't hitting for me. My real rating is closer to 5/10, for what it's worth.
New York Dolls
2/5
I can absolutely see how this went on to influence punk rock and glam punk in the years to follow, but in the cold light of the present day, it just doesn't do much for me. Highlights were the opening track Personality Crisis, and Pills with its Beatles-esque harmonica.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
4/5
Some more extremely tasty swing. That double bassist was putting in work! :theWildest:
The Who
4/5
I dunno, I wasn't feeling it at first but then the title track hit and I was locked the fuck in for the rest of it. Good good stuff here
Red Hot Chili Peppers
1/5
God I fucking hate Anthony Kiedis.
This album suffers from so many problems - incredibly brick-walled mastering that makes it sound like it's playing out of a cereal box toy, weirdly sexed-up lyrics, a frontman whose voice and general personality/actions are offputting and disgusting in every way, and generally just being uninteresting. The verses of the title track and the closer are the only parts I can really say I enjoyed. Flea and Frusciante deserved better - they should've dumped Kiedis into a sewage canal and shacked up with The Mars Volta full-time instead.
Did I mention I hate Anthony Kiedis?
Soul II Soul
4/5
Some absolutely jammin' club tunes.
4/5
Regardless of influence, I enjoyed this one! Raucous, sloppy, and brimming with energy - exactly what a hard rock live record should be.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Enjoyable! The whiplash from Sympathy for the Devil into No Expectations was certainly something - I still don't understand why that song was chosen to open this album - but otherwise it was some solid roots rock stuff.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
3/5
I wasn't especially impressed by the A-side, but starting at the 6-minute track and on, I found more to enjoy than not. Definitely a very ramshackle record.
Pink Floyd
5/5
Perfect album I literally do not care
The Rolling Stones
4/5
Very solid! This album, to me, encompasses more of what The Rolling Stones' strengths are than Beggars Banquet - I'm not sure they pull off the roots-y sound on there as well (though those songs were ofc enjoyable), but the grimy blues rock jamming on this one are their bread and butter.
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
GROOVY as fuck album. A couple of the more soul-oriented tracks toward the middle I didn't vibe as much with, but the sheer FUNK on display toward the start and end were enough to make this an easy 9/10.
Iron Butterfly
3/5
The A-side was some pretty decent if forgettable psychedelic rock songs, all serving as anticipation to the legendary sidelong title track. Thank you for this hymn, I. Ron Butterfly.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
Solid effort, though definitely a bit backloaded.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Really just not that great. This was clearly before most rock songwriters actually got good at rock songwriting. The 11-minute track is the only thing dragging this above a 4/10 for me.
Ramones
3/5
Solid outing, a nice blistering 29 minutes of punk rock energy. "Three chords and the truth" indeed.
The Hives
4/5
Unexpectedly fun! Pure, raw headbanging energy to turn your brain off to for a half hour or so.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
Absolute fucking fire heat all the way through. There's a good goddamn reason he's remembered as one of the greats.
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
Grooooovy. I love post-punk like this, there's just such an energy to it.
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
Very pleasant listen! Easy to throw on as background music but also sounded nice whenever I actively tuned in.
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
Solid beats, solid rhymes, overall solid experience!
Miles Davis
5/5
Absolutely sublime, one of the finest jazz fusion albums of all time. Miles and his band lay down rock-solid grooves and absolutely tasty jazz jams all throughout. Excellent nocturnal listen, and one I'll be spinning fairly regularly any time.
John Martyn
4/5
Sublime! Very breezy listen, with a great mixture of jazzy and folky vibes mixed in with some great rock songwriting.
4/5
Funky fresh. Great funky, jazzy, soul-tinged vibes for a late night.
Fatboy Slim
4/5
Extremely fun! Great, catchy, funky breakbeat goodness made for nothing more than getting stuck in your head and getting your booty in gear on the club floor.
Madonna
3/5
Unexpected sound for Madonna, but an enjoyable one! It did start blending together about halfway through, and didn't need to be an hour and change long, but still pleasant.
Cowboy Junkies
4/5
Loved it! The group used their intimate recording circumstances well, and created a record replete with excellent use of space and really nice Americana-tinged soundscapes. For sure a great one for our first country album of the run!
Big Star
3/5
Very confusing listen... the first couple of tracks were kind of boring me to tears, but then once the moodier, slower strains of Holocaust hit, I think the album really found its stride. From then on I enjoyed everything, aside from a couple of the bonus tracks which strayed back to the earlier sound. If only the whole album had followed that wistful sound - it presaged so much of the alt rock, shoegaze, slowcore, and other such sounds of the 90s.
The Cure
5/5
What an experience! I should've listened to this album ages ago. Nothing but hitters upon hitters for 72 straight minutes - absolutely deserving of the title of one of the greatest albums ever.
Meat Puppets
3/5
Consistently fun listen, but nothing especially special to me, and not something I can see myself returning to much. The track Plateau was a highlight, though.
The Who
3/5
Wasn't really feeling this one as much as My Generation, despite having heard this one before. I think the songwriting got a bit lost in the skits, even though everything helped to serve the concept.
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
Excellent stuff! It keeps to its vibe extremely well, and moves effortlessly through sounds and moods - chamber pop, energetic indie rock, strings and horns and guitars galore, and even a Steve Reich-esque minimalist piece to close it out! I'm gonna have to settle in to Sufjan's discography more.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
Pretty solid bit of 80s pop rock with a 60s sheen on it, though nothing especially special.
Method Man
3/5
Another pretty decent East Coast boom bap album, though it didn't really do much to stand out from the others we've heard so far.
The Triffids
3/5
A few solid songs on here, but overall this felt like the most 6/10 album imaginable. Can't imagine getting much out of active listening on this.
David Bowie
3/5
A hell of a return to form for Bowie after a string of decent-to-middling albums and a 10-year break from the studio! It's juuuust shy of a 4/5 for me, owing to its 53-minute length being a touch too long, but it stands as a very strong 3.5/5 regardless (sadly rounded down to 3 for the rules of this challenge).
David Bowie
5/5
INCREDIBLE ALBUM. Both the song-oriented A-side, full of bangers and slappers, and the ambient-oriented B-side, with its gorgeous lush soundscapes, are utterly perfect, and together they make one hell of an album experience. A must-listen.
Drive Like Jehu
4/5
What a choice for this list! Heavy, raw, angry, NOISY music to pummel shit to. I already know some of my associates in this group will not care for this album, but to me, this is what post-hardcore is all about.
Garbage
4/5
Pretty neat example of some of 90s alternative's more eclectic leanings.
The Everly Brothers
2/5
I can hear how this might've been popular and even influential back in the early 60s, but unfortunately, this did little to dispel my notion that early 60s music was mostly just waiting out the gap between the Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll and Beatlemania. Nothing particularly caught my ear about it, and at just 27 minutes it still sounded like it was wearing out its welcome.
Sorry Everly Brothers, I think we should just be friends.
Peter Gabriel
4/5
An extremely good debut solo showing from the former Genesis frontman! It retains some of the quirkiness and Britishness of Gabriel's former band, while also branching out into newer directions that would get firmly established on some of his later albums, like Melt, Security, and So. Here Comes the Flood is particularly great.
Brian Wilson
5/5
Delightful album - Brian Wilson's creative vision finally, after a fashion, realized, 37 years later. While it has some key differences from the 2011 Beach Boys version of Smile with which I was already familiar, I find that the differences help set this one apart as its own thing. Perhaps I should get into all the fan reconstructions of Smile as well.
RIP Brian Wilson.
Black Sabbath
4/5
Gloriously doomy and heavy metal from the early 70s. These guys were the absolute kings of this sound - nothing ever misses.
The Lemonheads
3/5
Like The Triffids, this is another slice of pure 6/10 music. Nothing really stood out to me at all here.
Dirty Projectors
2/5
Thoroughly uninteresting album. I don't think a single song or even moment on this album hooked me aside from the pretty decent Useful Chamber, but also nothing was offensively bad enough to be memorable. Arguably, the worst kind of album.
Frank Ocean
3/5
Some very smooth neo-soul/alt R&B vibes to make love to.
Sugar
3/5
Decent slice of 90s alternative. Nothing particularly stood out to me, but this general type of sound is nostalgic enough for me to keep it afloat. I definitely liked it better than The Lemonheads, a few days ago.
Baaba Maal
4/5
A delightful slice of West African folk traditions mixed with some slight Western pop sensibilities.
Neil Young
4/5
A blistering and yet haunting look into Neil Young's psyche at the time of recording. Filled with bitterness, loathing, and misery, this album is a cathartic release of everything Neil had pent up over the years, via tender folk-rock ballads, searing electric blues, and plenty of guitar and organ workouts. A must-listen for sure!
Kraftwerk
4/5
Love these early experiments in popular electronic music. This band's work and Yellow Magic Orchestra are the strange, strange foundation on which rests most 80s synthpop, and we have to thank them for that.
Mudhoney
4/5
Great little slicy of raucous proto-grunge from the late 80s. Noisy, biting, everything you expect from that sound. Dunno why there's a 23-minute EP on this list of albums, but that's hardly the music's fault.
The Pharcyde
3/5
The beats on this were stellar, probably the best hip hop production I've heard yet on this list. But I have to drop a full star on this one for the violently transphobic lyrics in Oh Shit, which is a damn shame because the album is pretty fire otherwise.
Van Halen
4/5
Gritty 70s cock rock in its prime. Has the massive, anthemic sound of 80s arena rock but still with all the grit of 70s hard rock - the best of both worlds. Plus, obviously Eddie Van Halen was a prodigious talent on guitar. The album is definitely frontloaded, with the weirdly country-inflected "Ice Cream Man" starting off a bit of a lowlight, but this is still an incredibly solid debut record.
The Zutons
4/5
An unexpected treat! Most of the albums in the "random indie band" genre that we've gotten so far haven't enticed too too much, but this one is just eclectic enough to really catch my ear, with tight songwriting across its whole length sealing the deal. A delightful surprise, 9/10.
The Fall
3/5
Great instrumentals, but the album overall was quite ramshackle and didn't really stick with me. This'll need several more listens to live up to the hype for me, I'm afraid.
The Specials
4/5
Super fun listen! These guys were the OG 2 tone band, mixing ska with new wave, and they show their chops on here with some delightful proto-reggae romps, saxophone and trumpet workouts, and generally quirky and energetic songs.
Charles Mingus
4/5
Oh my god. I get it.
I've heard this album twice before and never really enjoyed it as much as some of Mingus' other works, but something about it just... really clicked in this time. The sheer scale of the work, and its legitimate comparisons to classical works, unlocked its full depth for me. I'm excited to give this one more listens soon.
Kraftwerk
4/5
The Man-Machine from a few days ago was great, but this was delightful! Exactly what I want out of my 70s electronic music - a great precursor to all the forms of electronic to come.
Iron Maiden
3/5
Strong songwriting, especially for a debut, but the vocals were mixed a little low for my liking, and the songs did blend together a bit throughout the album, which prevents me from giving this a full 4.
DJ Shadow
5/5
Absolutely stunning. Every moment hits, and the vibes are immaculate throughout - all the more impressive for how this album is almost completely built on samples of older music! No garden variety of samples either - DJ Shadow is an expert crate-digger and it shows.
"Midnight in a Perfect World" alone contains:
0:03: Organized Konfusion - "Releasing Hypnotical Gases" (boom bap, New York, 1991)
0:09: Pekka Pohjola - "Sekoilu Seestyy" (jazz-rock, Finland, 1974; also appears in "Transmission 2")
0:21: Meredith Monk - "Dolmen Music (Part 1)" (post-minimalism, New York, 1981)
0:33: Marlena Shaw - "California Soul" (soul, New York, 1969)
0:34 (and throughout): Rotary Connection - "Life Could" (psychedelic soul, Chicago, 1968)
0:48: Baraka - "Sower of Seeds" (psychedelic folk, Los Angeles, 1976; this wasn't even found until over a decade after Endtroducing came out and even now it's an incredibly obscure album, seriously how the fuck did he even find this to sample it)
1:10 (and throughout): Meredith Monk - "Biography" (post-minimalism, New York, 1981)
1:37: David Axelrod - "The Human Abstract" (baroque pop, Los Angeles, 1969; also appears in "Transmission 2")
2:30: Akinyele - "Outta State" (boom bap, New York, 1993)
And all of these disparate elements - from the cellos and voices of an experimental post-minimalist composer to an e-piano riff from a Finnish jazz-rock band to drum parts cribbed from 60s soul to midnight-themed lines from East Coast hip hop collectives of the day, even to indistinct murmurings from an extremely obscure folk album that it took people 15 years to identify - cohere into an excellent song that perfectly captures a nocturnal atmosphere and all runs together like clockwork. Genuinely how does he do it? 5 stars, easily. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't like this, because this album puts paid to the idea that sampling means you're not a real artist for good.
The Byrds
4/5
Music got so much better when everyone started dropping acid
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
Great great album - bluesy, dirty, down-in-the-bayou rock music from, unexpectedly enough, a bunch of California boys. A discount Ringo Starr somehow singing like he's been gargling swamp water for 50 years. It all comes together beautifully. I will choogle to this any day!
Wild Beasts
2/5
Not really much to this album for me. I enjoyed the twin title tracks and one or two songs after them, but otherwise nothing really caught my ear - it sounded like it was being quirky for quirky's sake.
Elvis Presley
3/5
Solid collection of tunes, but definitely not as incendiary as it would've been in 1956, when Elvis could quirk his hips and every pair of panties the nation over would fly off.
5/5
What a triumph. One of the first concept albums, and a damn fine one to start the format off with. Delightful psychedelic sounds all throughout, culminating in one of the best songs of the 60s (and indeed of any decade).
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
4/5
Really great stuff. Political hip hop of the most based form, underscored by jazzy & lightly industrial beats? Sign me the fuck up. The sort of speak-rap style they go for only accentuates it for me.
Beck
4/5
Enjoyed this one a lot more than I imagined I would. It being produced by Nigel Godrich, who most notably works with Radiohead, probably helped with that.
Muddy Waters
4/5
Fiery electric blues that put nearly everything from the following decade to shame. (Looking at you, Aftermath.)
Queen
3/5
I think Queen are probably a band that can just never live up to the hype. I heard this album in full seven years ago and it didn't stick with me outside the hits, and I expect the same thing here. Not to mention Bohemian Rhapsody is like, the most overplayed song in existence. Still a great record with great songs, mind you! Solid 7/10. Just not something I ever really feel the need to put on.
Oh, God, my transition into a music snob is complete...
The Flaming Lips
4/5
I feel like the 90s were when a lot of things clicked for weird neo-psychedelic bands like this, and this album delivers on that in spades.
Alice In Chains
4/5
Haters be hatin. This is a great example of what grunge can be, with its mixture of sludgey heavy songs and more emotional ballads.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
THE album that started it all for me. I fell off on it for a while, but recently-ish I rediscovered just how great this band, and by proxy this album, are. Pure hard rock perfection. The big hits are all great of course, but even the lesser-known songs like The Battle of Evermore and Going to California are amazing.
The Modern Lovers
4/5
Really great stuff! Tight songwriting, killer instrumentation, and a surprisingly punk-ish sound for something recorded in the early 70s (albeit not released until '76).
Miles Davis
5/5
The essence of COOL. Miles Davis made the switch from chord-based jazz to modal jazz seemingly effortlessly, maintaining an effective cool atmosphere the whole way, resulting in one of the finest jazz albums out there. Another win from Miles!
The Cure
4/5
Another great offering from The Cure! Not quite AS immaculate as Disintegration to my ear, but definitely a different tack, with its raw, angry energy. This band has been circling my periphery for years before this challenge - I should've given them a shot ages ago.
Elis Regina
3/5
Solid collection of tunes, and great to have some MPB on the list! However, the confusion on which version I was actually meant to listen to (and also this being a compilation?? it's 1001 ALBUMS come on it can't be that hard to pick 1001 ALBUMS) led me to the 1998 version, which at 48 minutes for sure outstayed its welcome a bit too long.
Joy Division
4/5
The album is undeniably a classic, though it took its time getting going for me. The B-side, however, was some absolutely rock-solid post-punk, perfectly exemplifying the cold and anxious sound that made Joy Division stand the test of time. RIP Ian Curtis
Pretenders
4/5
Great stuff! It's nothing earth-shattering, but what it does do is everything I'd want out of a good, solid new wave record. Easy 9/10.
Gene Clark
3/5
Solid country rock/folk stuff from a member of The Byrds. Nothing particularly memorable, but pleasant to the ear while it was on!
The Beta Band
3/5
I vibed with it while it was on, but don't actually remember anything from it anymore.
Johnny Cash
4/5
A goddamn stone-cold country classic. We need more country with this energy today - Morgan Wallen would just say a racial slur if you asked his stupid ass to play in a prison.
Slade
2/5
I'm sorry, but this just didn't do it for me. The hard rock bits sounded like worse versions of any 70s hard rock I like, and the glam rock bits sounded like worse Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie.
Black Sabbath
4/5
Great stuff! These guys were heavier than just about anyone at that time - if the entire album were as heavy as the title track, this easily could've been a 5.
Depeche Mode
4/5
Sleek, sexy dark synthpop goodness. Music both to appreciate listening to at home, and to bump what your momma gave you to in the club!!
The Police
4/5
Great stuff! Punchy new wave with an abundance of great basslines. Exactly what I expect from early 80s stuff.
Björk
4/5
I already know the haters are crowding in, so let it be said: Fuck the haters. This is masterful stuff - cold, glitchy, sensual art pop from one of the most unique voices in music. My personal favourite of her albums that I've heard thus far is Homogenic, but this one is nearly there.
Slipknot
1/5
Really not for me. There's plenty of relentless, scream-y, and even outright edgy music I love, but something about this just really set my teeth on edge. I enjoyed some of the riffs and other moments, but the album at just 50-ish minutes of music felt like it was about 3 hours long, so I had to deduct a star for that alone.
U2
3/5
Very solid collection of tunes! Nothing especially groundbreaking to my ear, just good good songwriting the whole way through.
Fiona Apple
4/5
Really great stuff. Mechanical, anxious, and raw as a frayed nerve, but still wrapped up in exquisite jazzy arrangements and production, it perfectly gets across Fiona's painful experiences. Well deserving of the accolades it got when it first came out.
Nightmares On Wax
3/5
Excellent vibes - I love this sort of dub-inflected downtempo music. However, an hour and fifteen minutes of it was a bit much for me. Probably would've fared better as background music with a fat doob - as is, my sober mind was satisfied much earlier.
Goldie
3/5
Extremely nice atmospheric drum and bass; really captures the urban spirit of the scene. I wouldn't listen to all 105 minutes of it at once most of the time, but at least a disc or even a few tracks would be solid.
Wu-Tang Clan
3/5
Another 90s hip hop classic with memorable beats and great flow.
Pavement
4/5
Fun stuff, a nice slab of gritty slacker rock in a fairly compact package (a rarity for the 90s!)
Hole
4/5
Carrying on from yesterday, this time instead of slacker rock we have a great package of 90s alt/grunge, fronted by Courtney Love. Great stuff and killer vocals!
Black Sabbath
5/5
No notes! Just pure riff-filled heavy goodness the whole way through. Fantastic atmosphere, fantastic songwriting, pure banger energy.
Skepta
4/5
I see the vision. Listening to it for the beats first and lyrics second, per this album's grime lineage, definitely helped me appreciate it more - and the lyrics, despite the occasional clunker and the overall British, were solid! Now if only the skits were separated out on the tracklist...
Common
3/5
Another rap album with great production and sublime jazzy beats, but dragged down by period-typical homophobia and other nonsense in the lyrics. Especially glaring this time since this is a "conscious" hip hop album.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
The Boss, the king of the heartland, pares down to just himself, an acoustic guitar and a harmonica - and it works wonders! A thoroughly depressing and beaten-down album with a sound to match. Yet more proof, as if it was needed, that Springsteen is one of the greats. Easy 9/10.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
A solid collection of 2000s alternative tunes - nothing especially special to my ear, but a good collection of bangers nonetheless.
Patti Smith
4/5
Wild stuff. At turns gorgeous with that piano and rowdy with its intense guitar, and anchored throughout by Patti's stunningly abrasive voice. A true classic of proto-punk - sorry, New York Dolls, this is the real deal.
The Band
3/5
Another solid roots-y album from the late 60s/early 70s.
Keith Jarrett
5/5
Absolutely stunning! Keith Jarrett is one of the pioneers of the "ECM style" of jazz, and on this performance he demonstrates it perfectly. 66 minutes of improvised goodness, reportedly on the wrong piano while Keith was suffering back problems, expertly toeing that murky space between jazz and classical music. Nothing but bliss the whole way through.
Brian Eno
5/5
One of the first ambient albums, and certainly the one to codify the sound - and still one of the finest. Brian Eno manages to create captivating pieces that are interesting enough to latch on to for active listening while also fading perfectly into the background. It's not often that someone invents a genre and almost immediately gets it right, but Eno is built different.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
4/5
One of the first albums in the noise pop genre, fusing catchy guitar pop gems with layers of feedback and noise. Personally, as a lover of noisy bullshit and also a lover of catchy bullshit, this worked wonders for me.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Great great stuff from an all-time great songwriter. Joni manages to pack a variety of sounds in here and pull them all off excellently, with a voice that never wavers.
Van Morrison
3/5
A jazzy folk-rock album that started off quite promising, and had quite a few really nice songs (particularly that title track!), but by the end it was starting to blend.
The 13th Floor Elevators
4/5
Nah fuck it, it works for me. The drumming was interesting, the songwriting tight enough, and the guitar effects fuzzy enough to keep me interested the whole way through.
Jane Weaver
3/5
Pleasant-sounding album - I especially enjoyed some of the spacier, krautier textures in there - but at just 43 minutes it was blending a bit too much for my tastes.
Talking Heads
4/5
Nothing but bangers. David Byrne had the sauce, what else can I say
Nanci Griffith
3/5
Overall solid, but didn't really do anything to grip me. Solid 6/10.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
4/5
Some absolutely CLASSIC salsa vibes, spiced up with jazz, disco, and funk influences throughout. Great stuff!
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
Easy 9/10, could climb to 10/10 with repeated listens - RateYourMusic has the right idea rating this #1 of all time. Everyone on this godforsaken website who keeps shitting on it just because it's rap is doing the music and themselves the grandest disservice. This thing is 80 solid minutes of pure storytelling genius. Everything, and I mean everything, is crafted to enhance and deliver the stories.
Kendrick's wild flows and varied deliveries, the tasty jazz samples & instrumentation, all the guest features, and that poem that keeps recurring throughout in snippets, culminating in a spoken-word segment pantomiming Kendrick talking to his late idol Tupac Shakur - masterful. The album is incisive, biting, and even outright depressing, but also contains kernels of hope and the possibility of change. Truly a generational album.
EDIT: 10/10 achieved. All it took was one more listen to let the scope of the album sink in!
Eminem
3/5
Sorry Slim, this ain't quite it, not after coming out of Kendrick Lamar. The songs were absolutely catchy, great production, and the bars and flow were absolutely on point in parts. I gotta admit though, regardless of what the intent may have been, Eminem's almost comically over-the-top approach to violence rubbed me wrong enough to dock a couple points here.
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
3/5
Perfectly cromulent music. Nothing much more to say past that.
American Music Club
3/5
Another album of perfectly cromulent music - a lot of it faded into the background or undershot my expectations based on the genre tags, though there were some standouts like Highway 5.
Michael Jackson
4/5
Really get-on-the-floor great stuff! There's a reason Michael Jackson is one of the all-time greats of pop.
David Bowie
5/5
Bowie's cocaine anthems album, stacked wall to wall with bangers and slappers. He does it again!!
Marvin Gaye
4/5
SOUL. Another all-time soul classic from one of the goats, this time bringing us essential babymaking jams.
The Mothers Of Invention
5/5
I knew going into this I liked it, but I wasn't expecting to give it a 5! The debut album of Zappa and the Mothers is full of really great psychedelic blues-garage rock and some really nice experimental tape stuff as well, and it's all tied together by the super dry and sarcastic lyrics about American society and the San Francisco freak scene. This is the kind of stuff that really shows how generational of an artist Frank Zappa was.
Blondie
4/5
Really, really great new wave, sitting right at the crossover point between the manic energy of punk and the catchy pop hooks of later new wave/synthpop. A classic for a reason!
Stan Getz
4/5
Smooth, soulful bossa nova music to unwind to. How can you hate it?
Isaac Hayes
4/5
Some solid FUNK from the goat Isaac Hayes. It is dragged down slightly, in my opinion, by very obviously being a movie score, with some of the tunes not hitting as hard outside of their initial context. HOWEVER, that's all made up for by the mammoth 19-and-a-half-minute funk jam Do Your Thing. Tour de force doesn't even begin to cover that tune.
Radiohead
5/5
Only one of the greatest 90s alternative albums ever. Unlike Radiohead's later fare, this one isn't especially experimental or eclectic - it's just really, really solidly written and played the whole way through.
Aretha Franklin
4/5
Pure SOUL. On a bed of tasty horns, lush strings, and other such well-arranged goodies, Aretha absolutely belts out these songs. She's the Queen of Soul for a reason, people!
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Another really great outing from Joni! This one's more jazz-inflected than Court and Spark, especially Centerpiece. Goes wonderfully with her voice.
Moby
3/5
And the streak of 4s and 5s ends...
This was a cool sound for a bit, but it went on for WAAYYYY too long to really hold my attention, unfortunately. Solid 6/10.
ZZ Top
3/5
Another album where the overall sound is nice, but it's too one-note to effectively stretch across an entire album.
The Isley Brothers
4/5
Good good psychedelic soul with just a touch of funk. I'm loving the preponderance of soul and funk that the generator is giving us lately
U2
3/5
Another solid album from U2, though less expansive than War and more focused on just poppy songwriting.
Prince
4/5
FUCK YEAH. We get some of the smoothest, sexiest soul & funk to ever hit the market, courtesy of Prince. Every song is just thrumming with energy and verve - a compelling listen for all 80 minutes.
Bee Gees
2/5
Not especially interesting or stand-out - I could easily walk into a thrift store and come out with ten albums sounding exactly like this. Sorry Bee Gees, you got more interesting after your midlife crisis.
Beatles
5/5
Another classic from the Beatles - the first of their psychedelic/studio-based era, and one hell of an intro to it. Featuring straightforward guitar pop bangers, orchestral accompaniments, music using Indian instruments and modes, and the most ambitious studio experiment in popular music to that point, the album really has it all, and once again demonstrates how the Fab Four were just in a league of their own.
The Streets
1/5
I'm sorry, but this one is not at all for me. Both the main rapper's flow and the amateurish-sounding beats, especially combined, are like nails being driven into my brain, to the point I genuinely couldn't focus on any narrative beats. I had to keep my volume low just to not get a headache, which is REALLY rare for me.
Jefferson Airplane
4/5
Another really nice example of 60s psychedelia. On this one the guitar was a particular highlight, as were Grace Slick's vocals, when she got to show them off at least - it's a shame she didn't get more lead vocal spots on here.
Eels
3/5
A solid alt-rock outing from the 90s, with some nice use of guitar fuzz, generally moody and downcast lyrics, and a couple of well-placed trip hop elements, but ultimately nothing really all that special.
Air
5/5
Now THIS is what downtempo is all about. A little jazzy, a little folky, a little electronic, but ALL breezy, calm, and easy to enjoy no matter the setting. Perfect chillout music.
Steely Dan
4/5
Another great album from Steely Dan! We got Aja early on in this challenge, and while I don't like this as much as that one, it has been steadily rising my Dan rankings for a while now, so it entered this challenge at the perfect time. Much more grounded in earlier forms of rock than Aja, and much less influenced by jazz fusion, it still captures that breezy, self-loathing spirit of the Dan's best.
The La's
2/5
There was something here at least, I can see why someone who likes this kind of music would be all over this. However, it really just didn't do anything special for my ears, even There She Goes.
Adele
3/5
Mostly blended together outside of the hits, and the lesser hit "Rumour Has It" actively annoys me in the chorus. The three big hits, though, are huge for a damn good reason.
Wire
4/5
A pleasant surprise! At some point on this album the tracks started really digging into my ear, and that enjoyment kept itself up throughout. This is what punk rock is all about!
Cyndi Lauper
4/5
Another pleasant surprise! The three most popular songs on here I already knew of course, but the album was full of really nice, really catchy songs, anchored of course by Cyndi's unique vocal delivery.
King Crimson
5/5
FUCK YES. Robert Fripp got tired of sounding jazzy, so he rebuilt King Crimson entirely, listened to a ton of free improvisation, and came out with the absolute heaviest album of 1973. Tangly, experimental, and full of delicious textures and build-up, all while going HARD AS FUCK. Easy 10/10.
The The
4/5
Peak new wave. It maintains everything that's cool about the genre while also accentuating it with rich, layered instrumentation. The accordion & violin harmonies on This Is the Day and piano solo in Uncertain Smile were particularly choice.
Rush
5/5
An all-time classic - the album that really saw Rush coming into their own, and defining their sound for years to come. Opening with a 20-minute sci-fi epic about the oppressive Priests of the Temples of Syrinx, this is pure hard rock goodness.
Heaven 17
3/5
White boys gettin funky. The A-side is pretty solid, but unfortunately this album is extremely frontloaded. The schtick was already worn off by the time the B-side started and it didn't get any better across the rest of the album.
Taylor Swift
3/5
I'm never quite sure what to make of Taylor Swift's music. I think ultimately, I'm just outside of her target demographic. None of her lyrics resonate with me, so they just come off as pedestrian at best and outright hokey at worst. The music on this album was pleasant, a nice folk-pop backing with occasional country and Americana touches, but also nothing particularly special to my ear.
The Pogues
5/5
As a Newfie who enjoys Newfie music, the allure of Irish music is obvious. In that sense, The Pogues were already an ideal band for me. However, combining in all the different influences they do on this album - rock, punk, snippets of music from other cultures, and even the most iconic Christmas song of the last century - make for a truly spellbinding experience. This is one of music's peak forms to me.
The Stooges
4/5
Nahh this cooks. This is exactly as disgusting and sloppy as any proto-punk rager of an album ought to be - raw, barely-produced, and nothing but shouts of rage and instrumentals seething with malice. I'm excited to check out the Iggy mix as well.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
3/5
A really good example of 50s rock and roll, with some standouts including the exceptional "Not Fade Away" which has been covered by bands from Rush to Grateful Dead. It's early on enough in the history of the album as a music format, though, that I don't think they quite grasped how to structure one yet. Even at less than 30 minutes, the album was fairly front-loaded and didn't really have enough variety to keep me hooked the whole time.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
I was juju'ing on that beat for sure. Great example of super dark-sounding gothic rock straight from its heyday - not quite to the level of The Cure, but approaching it.
Beatles
4/5
Yet another showcase of the Fab Four's songwriting genius! This one's from before they really started experimenting, just transitioning out of their earlier Merseybeat works into their weirder sound, and the result is a collection of some great great songs, even without any hits.
The Cars
4/5
Another solid new wave offering from the list. This one I probably would've rated 3.5 (rounding down to 3) on songwriting alone, but the fucking about with synths that they did was cool enough to bump it to a 4 for me.
Jungle Brothers
3/5
Really cool stuff! Good beats, good flow, just all-around a good example of East Coast hip hop.
Ozomatli
4/5
What a fun album! Pure party music, but it goes hard throughout, with funk, jazz, and hip hop all inflected through a Latin flair to great effect.
Dusty Springfield
4/5
A wonderful example of the "blue-eyed soul" style often sung by white singers in the late 60s and early 70s. More restrained in sound, but no less so in emotional delivery, Dusty Springfield delivers a great album in 33 tight minutes.
Dennis Wilson
4/5
A delightful collection of soulful and melancholic tunes from one of the finest songwriters in The Beach Boys.
Jane's Addiction
3/5
This is realllly close to a 4 - it's delightfully eclectic and tightly songwritten, I just tuned out a bit too much during it to really bump it all the way up there.
David Bowie
5/5
Ziggy does America, and boy does he ever do it! On this album, Bowie extends the sounds of his preceding glam rock opus into a whirlwind tour of America, through the lens of hard rock, blues, and just a wee touch of jazz, courtesy of Mike Garson's beautiful and yet atonal piano playing. Another delightful collection of songs from one of the greats!
Stephen Stills
3/5
A solid collection of folk-rock and country-rock tunes, loosely arranged into chapters by vinyl side, but I'm not sure this really merited being a double album.
Doves
4/5
Really, really, incredibly solid dream pop/neo-psych stuff from the early oughts. The piano, the vocals, the spacey guitar, and the overall songwriting - everything works!
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
A fantastic example of what synthpop could be all about! Lush, ethereal, with deeply personal and melancholy lyrics contrasting with innately danceable and boppable music. This is everything you could hope to happen and more when gay men get their hands on a synthesizer.
Dire Straits
3/5
Solid playing, solid songwriting, but this album didn't do all that much to really stand out to me from other blues-inspired 70s rock.
The Jam
3/5
Solid mod revival/new wave stuff, though I was tiring of it a bit by the end it remained pleasant throughout. Just not as much a knock out of the park as some other new wave we've gotten in this challenge.
The Incredible String Band
4/5
It saddens me that this album is bottom 10 on this website, because to me this is delightful! One of the earliest examples of a style that was retroactively labeled "wyrd folk" by music journos and aficionados of the style, it nicely combines pastoral folk with strange psychedelic ramblings and just a touch of that witchy sort of feeling for October. So many of the folk artists I love were inspired by this strain of weird, or "wyrd" I suppose, folk music - just gorgeous.
The Stone Roses
4/5
Really, really great stuff - I'm genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this! The baggy, or "Madchester", scene isn't something that had been on my radar before today but that might have to change. So much of the neo-psychedelic and, yes, "chill indie" music of the last three decades owes so much to this kind of sound. Great songwriting, killer instrumentation, and plenty of curveballs throughout - this album's got it all. Easy 9/10 on first listen, could rise to 10 soon!
Lightning Bolt
3/5
Ahhhh I love a good ear shredding every now and again
Cee Lo Green
4/5
To be completely honest, I didn't expect to like this much, but I ended up really loving it! Despite being a bit overlong, at an hour and 5 minutes that felt closer to an hour and 35, I found myself vibing the whole way through. The soul-tinged beats & vocals, the killer production, CeeLo's quite honestly incredible flow, and reminders of artists as varied as (the minuscule good parts of) The Streets and Saul Williams all made this a worthy first Southern hip hop entry for this list. Easy 8/10.
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
Another solid 60s folk rock effort - this, however, is a bit before Neil Young and his fellows really came into their own, I think. There are definitely some highlights on here though, like Mr. Soul and Expecting to Fly.
Duran Duran
4/5
Another example of really great 80s new wave! Love this kind of sound - it does poppy stuff (Rio, Hungry Like the Wolf) and weirder stuff (The Chauffeur) both real well.
Arcade Fire
3/5
I'm really not sure what it is about certain 2000s indie (e.g. Sufjan Stevens) that really hits for me and what it is about others that doesn't, but something about this one just refused to fully click in for me. It is solid though!
Neil Young
4/5
Neil Young does it again! Another album proving his songwriting prowess through incredibly depressing and burnt-out songs, this time lamenting his drug abuse but also the then-recent death of one of his bandmates. Achingly raw and full of emotion, this album can't help but entice me.
Talking Heads
5/5
FUCK YES. This shit is what it's all about - boppable, funky, and weird all in equal measure, to glorious effect. David Byrne my autistic king.
Talking Heads
4/5
Another banger from Talking Heads! Not one I've revisited as much as Remain in Light, but I'm gonna have to change that - this one's just as chock-full of bangers.
R.E.M.
3/5
A solid album from the late 80s "college rock" circuit, by one of its foundational bands. These guys are classics for a reason - unfortunately, I found this album fairly frontloaded, with the quality dropping off fairly steeply after Orange Crush.
Sepultura
3/5
Certainly not my favourite metal ever, but a damn sight better than Slipknot. Helps that this is more on the thrash side than the nu-metal side; the latter genre just has this stench about it for me that makes me not like it, whereas thrash metal I can headbang along to. Very solidly played stuff here!
Crosby, Stills & Nash
4/5
Another very solid folk rock album from the CSNY guys (though minus the Y this time)!
Jeff Beck
4/5
Hard rock perfection! The vocals aren't really anything special (though they do fit the music well), but Jeff Beck's guitar playing is absolutely where it's at. This basically set the bar for all bluesy hard rock going forward.
The Band
3/5
Another solid roots rock outing from The Band, although it did start blending a bit by the end of the album. They're giving us a whole lot of folk rock lately.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
An incredible surprise. This brisk 29-minute folk rock album is packed to the brim with both catchy melodies and heartfelt lyrics, and the whole package is down-to-earth and humble. The track "Voices of Old People" even captures arguably the spirit of folk in its purest form; just snippets of real conversations from the elderly. All in all, this is the real deal. Tender, heartfelt, and just the right length to get lost in - a complete experience.
System Of A Down
4/5
FUUUUCKK YEAHHHH now THIS is what alt-metal is all about. This shit got me headbanging AND contemplating the overarching societal effects of the Armenian genocide and the veil of complicity that allows atrocities to be perpetuated on the marginalized - heavy as FUCK and also still all too relevant today. Good shit all around.
Haircut 100
4/5
A surprisingly good time for an album I knew nothing about going in! Funky fresh sophisti-pop jams to vibe out to.
Radiohead
5/5
Really really good - one of Radiohead's best, in fact. Lush textures and sounds fill this album from front to back, which when combined with the ever-excellent songwriting, makes for an immersive listening experience unlike any other.
The Specials
3/5
Not as much a fan of this as More Specials, which we got a while ago - this one's a lot more rooted in more straightforward rocksteady/reggae stuff, and doesn't do much interesting with it. It's still an enjoyable listen though!
Fun Lovin' Criminals
3/5
A solid slice of 90s rap rock. Nothing special for the most part, following along with the general funky & chilled-out sound of that genre. A highlight, though, is the guitar solo on I Can't Get With That - what a gnarly tour de force!
Primal Scream
4/5
A really fun album that mixes alternative sounds with neo-psych and some influences from dub and trip hop. Overall, a really neat package, and one that makes me all the more excited to finally get to Screamadelica!
Nine Inch Nails
5/5
A masterpiece in every right. Lyrically, this is bleak and uncompromising, painting a portrait of a soul wracked with addiction and despair ultimately giving in to suicide. Some may call it edgy, but there is more than enough genuine experience, emotion, and thought put into these lyrics to make it not hit that mark for me. The music also complements the story perfectly, with its use of harsh industrial beats to symbolize rage and despair, ambient passages marking emotional turning points (see "A Warm Place" for the best example of this), and overall layered and intricate sound design that I'm constantly hearing new details in. A generational master work in musical storytelling and in industrial sound design alike, this easily earns its 5 stars. God bless you, Trent Reznor.
Elbow
3/5
A really nice indie rock album from the late 2000s, exemplifying a lot of good traits from that era of music. Comparisons can be made to Lost Souls by Doves, which we got earlier in this challenge - unfortunately, I do think this one's a bit underserved by its length, and doesn't quite stack up to the unexpected highs of that album.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
After taking a turn into dour, dusty singer-songwriter stuff on Nebraska, Bruce returns to his heartland rock sound in full force with this album. However, it's no less competently songwritten or politically incisive for it! Bangers and biting commentary abound once more from The Boss.
John Coltrane
5/5
A goddamn masterpiece. Spiritual, incredibly composed, immaculately played by all involved (shoutout especially to Elvin Jones' drum solo in Part 3: Pursuance), and all in a tight 33-minute package, A Love Supreme absolutely deserves its accolades as one of the finest jazz experiences ever.
Nas
4/5
One of the finest examples of East Coast boom bap that we've yet gotten, and quite possibly one of the finest of this challenge! Every beat and every lyric hits.
The Magnetic Fields
2/5
Waaaayyyyyy too long, way too unvaried, and what variances there were were annoying or just unprofessional-sounding. If an album is going to present itself as a three-hour opus, it had better damn well earn it.
The Undertones
3/5
A solid effort in punk rock like many we've gotten before, with a burst of poppy energy across 16 brief tracks. However, I am actually dropping half a point from this for the (admittedly petty) reason that this album, which has Casbah Rock on it, made it onto the 1001 Albums list, while Combat Rock by The Clash, which has Rock the Casbah on it, isn't! Who made THAT decision??
Still a 6/10 even with the point reduction, though, which means 3 stars either way on this site's scale.
Elliott Smith
4/5
An excellent example of singer-songwriter music, with Elliott conveying his pain and desperation effectively through various different sounds and styles. Really great stuff. RIP Elliott.
TV On The Radio
4/5
Very cool album with a surprisingly unique sound. The jazz elements and the incredibly growly bass tone were highlights of the sound! The a cappella doo-wop type stuff was cool for one song, but its reoccurrence midway through the next song was superfluous, and unfortunately that was enough to throw the rating off from 9/10 to just 8 for me. Still 4 stars, though!
The Psychedelic Furs
4/5
Really solid post-punk effort, with a few psychedelic leanings thrown in. The saxophone on a couple of tracks was an extra nice touch!
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
Another win from The Boss! This one, being from the mid-seventies, relies more on horns and strings to craft its expansive heartland rock sound than the synths and booming drums of Born in the U.S.A., but it sounds just as full of (and larger than) life. Bruce is once again a master storyteller, weaving narratives of desperation and escape. There truly, truly is a reason he's one of the greats.
Also, he looked really hot in the photo shoots for this album
R.E.M.
3/5
Another solid offering from R.E.M. - I don't think the highs on this one quite reached the highs of Green for me, but this album was much more consistent throughout.
Donald Fagen
4/5
Just like Steely Dan, of which Donald Fagen was a part before this album, this album effortlessly radiates COOL. It's missing many of the sardonic lyrical touches that Walter Becker brought to the mix, but it's still got that smoky, late-night jazz pop sound that makes the best of the best Steely Dan work. Another 9/10 from the Steely Dan sphere!
TLC
3/5
Fun album, demonstrating one of the best examples of the "hip hop soul" style that took over R&B in the 90s. As is typical for hip hop of this era, the skits were the weakest, with Sexy in particular coming across as unnecessary. Creep and Waterfalls were easy highlights, though, and some of the finest that 90s R&B has to offer.
Rage Against The Machine
5/5
RAW. Nothing but a fury-tinged political manifesto against the capitalist nightmare, those who profit from it, and the police and other institutions who prop it up through force and hatred. While there's much to be said about Rage feeding into the machine through merch sales, tours, and general affiliation with major labels, the fact remains that this is an abrasive and sharp-tongued record that's as relevant today as it was over 30 years ago, potentially even more so.
Def Leppard
2/5
This sound is just really dull to me. I considered giving it a 3 because I was enjoying some of the riffs and everything, but it all just went on too monotonously for too long for me to award it more than a 2.
Iggy Pop
4/5
Another showing of Raw Power from Iggy Pop, this album is a tour de force of sloppy garage- and glam-inflected punk riffs amped up to maximum. Of particular note are the title track and The Passenger!
Yes
5/5
Awesome album - one of the finest examples of early prog rock, just as it was finding its legs, and well before it ascended to "dinosaur" status. Everything is tight and laser-focused, while still allowing space to really jam out on songs like Yours Is No Disgrace and Starship Trooper.
Elliott Smith
4/5
Another really great effort from Elliott Smith - though unlike the previous album we got, which was more "upbeat" rock-tinged stuff, this one was very dour folky singer-songwriter material. Regardless, his songwriting talents are on full display.
XTC
5/5
XTC's best album in my humble opinion, and from an illustrious discography too. Shedding the new wave of their earlier days, this album dives fully into psychedelic pop delights, in a send-up to the various styles of The Beatles and The Beach Boys. The songwriting, the production, and the album flow are all on point - a delight all around.
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
What a tour de force! Q-Tip, Phife, and the other members of ATCQ lay down some intense bars over one of the finest collections of jazzy beats I've yet heard - well deserving of the album name.
Judas Priest
4/5
Real solid chunk of heavy metal from one of the greatest bands to ever do it. These guys were rocking this sound way before most of their peers, and doing a better job of it too.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Another album of really nice, ethereal folk songs with some mild chamber music touches. Leonard Cohen delivers each story with gravitas while still sounding nearly ghostly in his delivery. Very nice stuff!
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
Quite the surprise for me - I only knew this group by Come On Eileen, but what I got here was a really neat prog-pop album filled with vague hints of Celtic influence and some great instrumentation! The vocalist sounded kinda stuffed up, but I got used to that as the album went on too.
Doves
4/5
Doves' second album didn't grip me as much as their first, from earlier in this challenge, did, but it was still some solid dream pop stuff. A myriad of touches such as the occasional shoegaze element or comparisons to the sound of Coldplay definitely helped it along to a solid 8/10.
Portishead
5/5
Just a stunning album. I like my trip hop moody, and this delivers in spades. Beth Gibbons' haunting voice sings of loneliness and heartbreak over ethereal keyboards and lonely-sounding beats, and the overall package is of wandering some urban city late at night, with nobody else around, just taking in the loneliness. Fantastic stuff.
Neneh Cherry
3/5
Buffalo Stance started this album off strong, but unfortunately outside of a few more standout moments like the piano in Inna City Mamma, there really wasn't much to this one, I'm afraid. A solid 6/10, mostly on the merit of Buffalo Stance alone.
Carpenters
3/5
A pretty good collection of easy-listening baroque pop songs. Nothing especially groundbreaking, but it's really carried by Karen Carpenter's gorgeous vocals.
Carole King
4/5
Lovely album. Carole King's voice effortlessly serves these well-written songs, resulting in some all-time classics like the title track, I Feel the Earth Move, and You've Got a Friend.
Arcade Fire
3/5
As an album I appreciated this more than The Suburbs, which we got not too long ago in this challenge - the instrumentation was rich and varied and the songs kept me engaged throughout. However, as far as truly getting into Arcade Fire goes, I think I missed the last train.
Rod Stewart
3/5
Rod Stewart's vocals are... interesting, to say the least. Very throaty and scratchy, which worked fine for his guest appearance on Jeff Beck's Truth, but doesn't really serve this rootsier music as well. The instrumentation is pretty good though, so I'm giving this one a 7/10.
Metallica
4/5
What an album. This is where Metallica's days of pure thrash ended, and what a swan song for that era of the band. The album famously lacks bass, with Lars Ulrich demanding that new bassist Jason Newsted's parts be mixed very low, but honestly the album works perfectly well for me in spite of the resultant dryness of its sound (and in some places, because of).
The Beach Boys
5/5
I have a hard time quantifying this release. It doesn't seem like an immediate, slam-dunk 5-star, and in fact the first few times I heard it, I didn't think of it as much special. However, it's the kind of album that, without you even realizing it, on repeat listens, just sinks its way into your heart, bit by bit. Eventually, it'll feel like it was always meant to be there. How can I give an album like that any less than a 5?
Steely Dan
4/5
Another slam dunk from the Dan. This one's a bit more rooted purely in 70s guitar pop than the more 30s-jazz-inspired sound of Pretzel Logic or the exquisite fusion arrangements of Aja, but no less awesome for it. Bodhisattva, The Boston Rag, Your Gold Teeth, and more are all-time bops!
Sonic Youth
4/5
Dirty is the right word. This thing is filthy, with songs lumbered down with groaning, bassy noise throughout - however, the noise never detracts from the melodies or catchiness of the songs, only adds to them. This is what noise rock is all about!
George Harrison
4/5
This album absolutely proves that George Harrison was the Beatles' secret weapon. At over 100 minutes long you'd expect it to drag, but it keeps pace the whole way through in my humble opinion. Even the "Apple Jam" which takes up the entire third LP is some fun instrumental rock jamming to end the album on. Combine that with absolute gems of songs from the first two LPs like My Sweet Lord, Let It Down, All Things Must Pass, and Hear Me Lord, and you've got a triple album for the ages.
Sisters Of Mercy
3/5
Another very cool gothic rock album, unfortunately at 50 minutes this one was overstaying its welcome a bit. Sorry, Sisters, you can't quite carry a long album quite like Robert Smith can.
Khaled
3/5
This is my first time hearing any Algerian raï music, and it was a fun listen! I was expecting it to drag on me across its nearly hour and 20 minutes of runtime, but I found myself bopping along to it throughout. Definitely a worthwhile stop on this list!
Richard Thompson
4/5
A delightfully melancholic British folk rock album, pairing delicate acoustic guitars with gorgeous vocal harmonies and the generally dour tone of most good folk music. Easy 9/10.
T. Rex
3/5
David Bowie must've set an impossible expectation for me with regards to glam rock. While this album by T. Rex is solid, and has its moments of brilliance, I find it, and many other glam acts from the 70s, live in the shadow of albums such as Hunky Dory or The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, whose bombast and larger-than-life sounds tend to drown out anything else that dabbled in this genre.
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
OH YEAH BABEY. WE FUNKIN IT UP
David Bowie
5/5
Absolutely no notes. Glam perfection. Nobody ever did it quite like Bowie did.
Coldplay
4/5
There's a very good reason that Coldplay basically took over the world in the early to mid 2000s. Even though this album is derided by some as just diet Radiohead, I find that Coldplay bring their own touch to these songs, infusing them with a warmth that even the best Radiohead tunes lack (and I say this as a massive Radiohead fan, mind you). The songwriting was there, the atmosphere was there - what's not to love?
Big Star
3/5
I'm afraid I simply don't really get the Big Star hype. It's a decent lil slice of 70s guitar pop, a solid 6/10 for me, but I don't quite understand how they're one of the most acclaimed power pop bands ever. Oh well
John Lennon
5/5
Just a monumental piece of work. All the Beatles expressed how the breakup of the band affected them differently in their initial solo works, but John's is just an absolute scream of pain and rage. Childhood trauma, social issues, and his feelings on the breakup of the band are all mixed up into this great soup of angry singer-songwriter stuff, and easily one of the best post-Beatles works by any of them.
Röyksopp
4/5
Some real nice, solid downtempo to chill out to. Eple and Poor Leno were particular highlights for me.
The Smiths
3/5
There's no criticism of music that I hate more than "overrated", because it's such an easy word to throw at any release that's even mildly popular among any demographic, and it's so often completely devoid of meaning or substance.
That said... sometimes a shoe fits.
Unfortunately, I really, truly do not get the hype for this one. Instrumentally, it's fine - Johnny Marr's guitar playing is a highlight throughout the album. I found Morrissey's voice annoying at first, though I did get used to it by the end of the album. But something about it just doesn't really come together for me, certainly not enough for me to see why it's so universally acclaimed, or rated #40 of all time on RateYourMusic, or the like. I also despise Morrissey and have nothing but bad to say about him, but that doesn't even factor in here. Just a really puzzling conundrum for me.
Jerry Lee Lewis
3/5
Solid bit of energetic rock & roll from a guy who, by all his deeds, seems to have been Satan himself given mortal form.
Rocket From The Crypt
3/5
Wasn't especially enchanted by this one - it's easily outdone by other albums in any genre it could reasonably claim to be, which is kind of wild considering the vocalist & guitarist is John Reis from Drive Like Jehu, a band I absolutely love. We'll call this one a low 6/10, brought out of the 5/10 range by the admittedly still quite cool guitar work in parts.
Marvin Gaye
4/5
SOUL. There's no genre quite like it, and Marvin Gaye delivers on its promise in spades.
The Louvin Brothers
3/5
As far as 1950s country goes, I liked this more than the Everly Brothers album we got a while back. Something about the songs just hits more for me. The brothers' excellent high-low close harmonies don't hurt either!
The Mars Volta
5/5
A lot of modern prog rock falls into the unfortunate pattern of just being mindless Genesis worship or the like, with no understanding of the craft that went into those older prog rock songs, often just using wacky time signatures or playing 20-minute suites because that's what you do in prog.
The Mars Volta do not have that problem.
Defiantly original, The Mars Volta formed from the ashes of post-hardcore darlings At the Drive-In. Vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López wanted to explore their Latin roots, as well as incorporate influence from their years in punk bands, and the searing prog rock and fiery jazz fusion they enjoyed. The result was a stunning tour de force of a band. Hypnotic Latin grooves, cryptic yet still emotional storytelling and lyricism focusing around the grief they felt for friends lost, and sheer unadulterated musical chaos are their calling cards on this album, and they deliver on all these promises and more. An astounding debut album that they still somehow managed to top with their sophomore effort, Frances the Mute, just two years later.
Various Artists
4/5
If we ignore the Phil Spector appearance at the very end, this is a delightful collection of Christmas tunes by some of the greatest girl groups to ever do it. And, unfortunately, Spector's trademark Wall of Sound production does shine through excellently on here.
Bob Dylan
4/5
Our first Bob Dylan album of the challenge (nearly 1/4 of the way through!) and it's a great one. I hadn't heard this one before besides the opener, Subterranean Homesick Blues, but as Dylan's first electric album it absolutely shows off his songwriting chops even with this evolved sound. Songs like Outlaw Blues, Mr. Tambourine Man, It's All Over Now Baby Blue, and especially the 7-minute It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) are yet more entries into the pantheon of my favourite Bob Dylan tunes.
Beatles
5/5
My favourite Beatles album, in an illustrious discography of great works. Discounting Let It Be, which was recorded before this but came out after, this is one hell of a last hurrah for a band that was coming unglued at the time of recording. You've got all-time classics like Come Together and Something, heavy songs like Oh! Darling or the psychedelic rager I Want You (She's So Heavy), lighter fare like Octopus's Garden and Here Comes the Sun, and even an over 15-minute medley of songs taking up most of the second side of the record, culminating in the absolute tour de force that is The End, where in just two minutes the Fab Four trade off solos and deliver one hell of, well, an end to the whole shebang. Not just the album, but their recorded output as a group. (Oh, and Her Majesty is there too.)
No notes. This deserves its spot near the very top of the rankings on this website.
Mike Oldfield
5/5
The first album from Mike Oldfield, and what a beginning! While it isn't as well-defined as his future album-length suites, mostly lacking many if any recurring motifs and sort of just moving from musical idea to musical idea throughout its length, it's still an all-time classic of progressive rock. The piano section at the start that got used in The Exorcist, the instrument callouts by Viv Stanshall at the end of Pt. 1 ending with the titular bells ringing out proud, and the delightful Sailor's Hornpipe rendition to end Pt. 2 are highlights for me.
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
Fleetwood Mac's obligatory double album. This one doesn't quite hit as hard as Rumours or the (second) self-titled for me, being more of a White Album-esque grab bag of sounds than a unified whole. That said, it has enough highlights (Sara, Sisters of the Moon, Beautiful Child, and Tusk chiefest among them) for me to still rate it an easy 8/10.