Perfect length. Started listening at 22.45 on headphones. It worked really well. I knew maybe 2/3rd of it and the songs I didn't know, I enjoyed. Great start to this project. 5/5.
I like cool jazz, it turns out. Do I like it enough to listen to an entire Miles Davis album? Possibly not. It got quite repetitive but okay for background. I did not like the last track which has singing on it. That felt old.
Absolutely not listening to this guy.
This was certainly an album with a lot of instrumental solos. Sure, it is a landmark album but I feel like it's more a historical curiosity than an actually good album. It gets very muddy in places, it's repetitive despite the short length, and perhaps one or two solos could have been omitted. I'm glad I listened. It's okay in places and I can see why it's so influential. This album just doesn't wow me.
This was a great album for a sunny Sunday afternoon. Good Aussie rock.
This was a joy. The first half is the commercial one: the hits, the camp synthpop and a slightly overwhelming production. The album really settles into its own on the second half (what I suspect would be the Side B on a vinyl): playful New Wave pop with nods to B-52s and Split Enz. Cyndi's vocals are great throughout and there is an arch playfulness to her that none of her contemporaries (Madonna, Sheena Easton) never managed. This will go on repeat.
This was a surprisingly great listen. So great that I listened to it three times in a row. While I'm not the biggest fan of Young's vocals, there is a vulnerability to them that works really well here. A tough album to grade because I think he's best within the CSNY combination and also this isn't his best solo work - but there is undeniably something special here.
This is peak 1993 American grunge/lo-fi. You can tell where subsequent acts like Snail Mail, boygenius, and Courtney Barnett got their inspiration. Courtney Love pilfered a lot as did more slick acts like Alanis Morrisette and even Sheryl Crow. But that doesn't mean that I liked this album. It's of its time and place, and that makes it an interesting and groundbreaking album. It's a historical curiosity. Glad I listened but never again.
Lloyd's "Love Story" album is one of my favourite 1990s albums, so when this one turned up as my album, I whooped because I've never listened to his work with the Commotions. And unsurprisingly I bopped along to this album very happily. The jangly indie pop is the sound of where I live (quick check: yes, this band was formed in Glasgow) and I adore Lloyd Cole's signature vocals. Listened a few times while getting ready for work and added more than a handful of songs to my playlist. An album to slot in between Aztec Camera, Belle & Sebastian, and The Go-Betweens. Good stuff.
Even on their early just-finding-my-feet days, this band was something else. The album starts with It Won't Be Long at full throttle and, while there are some slower songs, never really lets go. I'm not going to bother with "oh but they got better.." because obviously this isn't The White Album. This is great: short, snappy, intensely energetic, and fully committed.
Someone whose name was familiar but I hadn't heard the music. Joan's voice was great and her guitar skills excellent. The music was good. The production (for 1976) was insanely good. It's just not my sort of thing. Still, you can hear the line from this album straight through to Tracy Chapman, Tanita Tikaram and even Amy Winehouse and Raye. So even if it's not my sort of thing, mad respect.
Title track is a stone cold classic. And then the album dipped into background music. Don't get me wrong: this is smooth as heck, but the smoothness also blends together. Would I play this album on Sunday mornings? Sure would. But it doesn't go any deeper than that for me.
This is so dull. 80s jazz-easy listening that plods along with umpteenth sax solos and sterile production. Legit the first album where I felt like giving up after the first three songs.
This is so Springsteen-coded that it hurts. Springsteen for my tiny hometown. It's not bad but it's not exceptional either. The lyrics are hackneyed.
Back in 1994 my friends played this a lot and I remember liking it, though I never bought the album. Fast-forward 30 years and wow time has changed either me or the album. There's a lot of filler. There's a lot of unbearable grunge grind which has not aged well. And yes, there are some real killer tracks as well and Cornell's voice is incredible. But this is not nearly as good as I remembered.
I didn't know this band but they are completely up my street. Going into heavy rotation, though missing out on full marks by a whisker.
Spiky nerdy pop. Delicious.
Apparently I like hip-hop? Minus one star for that Anthrax track which was unnecessary.
I finally know what music is playing at those neighbourhood gatherings where people sit around bonfires and whittle spoons.
It is pretty groovin' so it does what it says on the tin. It's also uneven with some early 1960s sounding tracks, easy listening, soul, and psychedelic pop. Pleasant enough but the first time I've asked: why is this included in the list? The Zombies, the Easybeats, and, heck, The Monkees all did this better.
When it's good, it's very very good. When it's bad, we'll throw in a guitar solo. The 80s production lets it down badly in places. It is singular, it is Prince in all his glory, and it's flawed. Hallelujah.
Am I a Velvet Underground fan without even realising it? Second 5/5 album by them. This is incredibly good. It starts with the lyrics "Candy says I've come to hate my body / And all that it requires in this world" - what an extraordinary, fierce opening - and it never lets up. Fragile, angry, beautiful, quiet, intelligent, determined, vulnerable, and singular.
Jesus, Jack Antonoff is a one-trick pony. Lana's voice is distinct enough, but the production is the same whether Taylor Swift or LDR. This is dull.
Folks. This isn't Britpop. You cannot call everything that's British and has a slight pop feel "Britpop". Britpop was a brief music thing in the mid-90s. Now back to this album. I'd heard of The Teardrop Explodes but never heard any of their music. This is a lot of fun, actually. You can immediately hear who they've influenced: Bloc Party, Maximo Park, The Young Knives and even Franz Ferdinand. The jagged edges of the rhythm section and the detached vocals. Fun! Personally I would have loved some snarly guitars instead of the synths and the horns, but you can't get everything. Treason is probably the most radio-friendly track and one you could sneak onto a playlist, but I like the more meandering tracks better. All told, a very high 3. I was tempted to throw it a 4 but I'm stingy like that.
A couple of good songs (notably Dirty Work) cannot rescue this album from being easy listening rock sludge.
It was okay? Holiday sounded like an American version of Blur. The hits were good. The rest went on and on. I wouldn't revisit and didn't save any tracks. Low 3/high 2, but settled on a 2.
Never knew there was such a thing as South African jazz but I like this. I also suspect there are a lot of things I don't know about this artist and why this album was made. Calling your first track on your 1985 album "Mandela"? Yeah, there's a lot to unpack and I can't find much info.
This was a surprise - and an excellent one too. Early 1970s baroque pop with echoes of Moody Blues, Beatles, CSNY, and country. Not everything works ("Remembering" and "How Do I" border on easy listening radio pap) but overall this is an album I'm really happy to have found. "Walking Back to Waterloo" is immense.
This was tedious and self-indulgent. The sort of music a certain type of guy finds "important".
Something about this project does not sit right with me. Did Wilson genuinely want to do this project or was he manipulated into making BWPS? I've read quite a bit about this project and I'm really not sure. Musically, it lies somewhere between 1960s Beach Boys and a Gershwin-esque exploration of pop music. It is both pop and classical music. At the same time it sounds like a pastiche rather than authentic. I cannot put my finger on it, but it sounds sterile. An oddity.
Going into this completely unaware of anything, but what a record. It hits like Shearwater meets St Vincent but in a Northern England way. I'd definitely go and check Weaver out live because this is great stuff.
This album sounds like The Jayhawks mixed with Pavement. Lo-fi alternative country, in other words. It is a bit too "oh I'm edgy!" in some places but the ideas are good. I think if it had been edited a bit more and had a clearer sense of identity, this would have resulted something great. Standout track: Transylvania Blues. I'm going to spin Jayhawks's Hollywood Town Hall after this finishes.
A delightful surprise: the missing link between Lauryn Hill and Amy Winehouse.
I had only heard Sledgehammer from this album before going in, but I was familiar with Gabriel's reputation as a formidable musician. However, nothing prepared me for this stonking great album. I was listening on a pretty crap set of headphones and it sounded killer. Switched to the proper set-up and So sounded even better. How is this possible? Great! And that's before you get me started on the songs. Intelligent pop music with hooks to spare and interesting little books everywhere. I realised I had heard "Don't Give Up" with Kate Bush before - on that track I really fell in love with Gabriel's tone of voice. I was so in the zone with this album that I was shocked when it ended after just 46 sublime minutes. Sidenote: I found it interesting that this album was released about a month after Tim Finn's Big Canoe album. Two 1970s art school kids in a weird band going big 80s pop with wider cultural commentary. But oh wow, Gabriel's album just drowns out what Tim Finn achieved with Big Canoe. So does everything Big Canoe did but just better and stronger. Must've felt pretty devastating to release the album you thought would be your big commercial breakthrough and just a month later Gabriel's album lands. Ooft.
"Rock and roll band, everybody's waitin' / Getting' crazy, anticipatin' / Love and music, play, play, play, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" And that's the lyrical depth you get with this album. I did not enjoy this. 37 minutes of tedious 70s American rock with beer breath and unwashed jeans. Utterly charmless and I'm not sure why this was included on this list of essential albums.
It was cool (so cool!) but funk is not my thing. Others will LOVE this.
This album did not need to be 72 minutes long.
What a pleasure to spend my Sunday morning with Uncle David. Obviously not my first spin of this album and my listening to it is filtered through memories of people and places. Art Decade is incredibly moving. Always Crashing In The Same Car gives me shivers.
This was gorgeous and textured. A very high 3 as I will not go back and listen again, but what a beautiful album.
Sandy Denny's voice is gorgeous but sadly also the timbre I find genuinely annoying after a short time. I love her voice but I need to hear other types of vocals in-between songs. No, it doesn't make sense to me either. Anyway. This album is the sort that I associate with drifting into one of the further-away stages during festival season. You come close to the crowd: everybody looks like they run an organic farm and has a dog named Fred. And you just don't know enough about carrot-growing to fit in - even if the guitarist on stage sounds great.
Took the advice of a fellow reviewer and started the album on the fourth song, then ended by listening to the first three songs. Great decision. This is a mellow folk-pop album languishing in the shadow of the inescapable title song and 'Vincent'. I loved 'Winterwood' and 'Empty Chairs' but other songs felt like filler. However, minus one star because McLean is (allegedly!) a POS.
This is the hip-hop version of South Park.
I've never been a fan of Ian Dury but there's no denying his massive influence. Listened to the album. Onwards.
I didn't mind this .. until I read the lyrics which are problematic to say the least. So, I'm deducting marks for that utter nonsense. The album is post-punk with rockabilly and Americana influences. It isn't super-special but I can see how later bands were influenced by it. I'm in the midst of a stream of mediocre-to-bad albums and I'm hoping for some decent stuff soon. Please.
In 1994 I lived in London and this album blasted through my headphones as I worked a terrible job. I still know all the words and that's really where this album shines. The songs have small observations scattered throughout them that Albarn never bettered. It's not the romanticised seediness of Suede's concrete estates in small towns, but rather middle-class mundanity: cheap holidays abroad where you shag whatever; going through the motions while dating; compulsory family get-togethers; traffic radio because you are stuck on the motorway; the routine of everyday life in an England where the dreams of Swinging Sixties are peeling away. Parklife is an era-defining album. Its ordinary Englishness set to music deeply indebted to Beatles and Kinks resonated with a generation growing up under the austerity of Thatcherism. The album also led to some utterly terrible copy cats (notably Blur themselves on their awful follow-up The Great Escape - the less said about that album the better). Parklife's actually not my favourite Blur album (and Blur isn't even one of my favourite 90s acts) and it's a high 4 album for me. (Don't miss This Is A Low - possibly the most beautiful song ever about the Shipping Forecast.)
Nice but not for me.
This is interesting as heck. I recently had both Fairport Convention and Don McLean, and although this album can superficially be described as "folky ren-fair singer-songwriter" somewhere between them, the contrast is wild. The rhythm section does really cool stuff in the background, the song structures are more experimental, and his voice is never straightforward. When this album gets good, it really transcends it's late-1960s origins and it's easy to imagine some of the songs being released anytime between 1965 and 2025 (with production tweaks, ofc). However, this album is also frustrating. For every Pleasant Street or Once I Was, there is a Goodbye and Hello or Knight-Errant. I'm glad I listened. Buckley is like the wild, frustrating American cousin of Van Morrison (Northern Ireland) and Nick Drake (England).
Her voice is so haunting in the best way. I just wish the songs were stronger and the production better. I pivoted straight to her "Wrecking Ball" album after this one.
Genuinely one of Bowie's most moving albums. Extraordinary.
I don't think I've listened to this band in 25 years, but I have a lot of time for Courtney Love. "Celebrity Skin" is a fantastic song and I really rate "Use Once and Destroy". But grunge gets really samey for me after a few songs and this album is no different. Still, leaps and bounds better than Liz Phair and far more inventive than Soundgarden. Courtney, it's not you. It's me. A three.
A stone-cold classic.
If you look in the dictionary for a definition of "uneven" this album cover pops up. Half the songs are good, bordering on great (and my god Soundgarden lifted a lot from Led Zep). The other half are truly terrible and cringey. "Tangerine" felt like the obvious inspiration for Spinal Tap, for instance. I'm not sure this album needed to be on this list.
I love Lisa Stansfield's voice. Love it. So that gets one star. The rest is not for me. Repetitive and patchy.
If you grew up in the US, this album is probably deeply ingrained in you. You probably heard it at BBQs, heard cover bands do CCR songs at the local country fair, and tapped your foot whenever the songs came on the radio. But I'm not from the US and this album doesn't resonate with me at all. And, if I'm being honest, it feels weird to listen to four white guys playing blues-rock.
Let me make this clear: Jim Morrison was a terrible lyricist. Having said that, this was a cracking album to get on a sweltering Saturday. If you can ignore the terrible lyrics, The Doors is a tight and inventive 1960s rock band. Ray Manzarek is a stand-out but the dynamic between the band members is great. They must have been extraordinary live. The obvious big-hitters are here - Light My Fire and Break On Through - but the Brecht/Weil cover (Alabama Song) and the whimsical The Crystal Ship shine brightly. On the other hand, their cover of Backdoor Man sees Morrison posturing and pouting in the worst possible way. An album that's undeniably great but not perfect.
Your favourite band's favourite band. I cannot believe this was recorded and released in the 1970s. It sounds more like late 1990s to me: Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley and Flaming Lips obviously loved Big Star to name just a handful. But this is a desperately sad album which is clearly cobbled together from outtakes and it's history makes it clear that this is the sound of depression. A difficult listen, in other words, and one that feels voyeuristic at times. Knocking off a star because while this album is really up my street, I felt uncomfortable listening to it.
Oh this was a tremendous discovery. Dark, moody and synth - this slots in next to albums like Bowie's Low and Reed's Transformer in my head. I'll have this on repeat for the rest of the day. A very high 4 - on another day it might be a 5.
The title track is incredible. I was so stoked to discover a whole album full of songs like that, but sadly no other songs came near. Maybe because the song was written by Willie Nelson who is a certified legend. The rest of the album is a good piece of classic country like the songs my grandmother used to play, but Night Life is something else. Let me put it like this: it's no surprised Price later recorded music for David Lynch. A strong 3 despite me not being a country fan.
This album hits differently when you're a European of a certain age. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the Eastern European block, Glasnost, the siege of the Kremlin with Yeltsin climbing tanks. Achtung Baby captured that zeitgeist - and I don't think anyone expected U2 to be the band to do that. An absolute classic.
I'm not cool enough for this.
Fairly underwhelming. A 2.5 if there ever was one. This should be up my street, but it never goes beyond a meh.
Eric Clapton is a POS.
Personally I would have chosen Ella's Cole Porter Songbook (I prefer Porter to the Gershwins), but this is still stellar work. There's no mistaking Nelson Riddle's work on this but this is all about that stunning voice. Highlights (if you don't want the entire 3+ hour experience): But Not For Me Let's Call This Whole Thing Off Nice Work If You Can Get It Someone To Watch Over Me Love Is Here To Stay They Can't Take That Away From Me Fascinating Rhythm. I Got Rhythm (But really her Cole Porter Songbook is the one to scope out)