Fairly bland, 90s singer-songwriter fare - pretty forgettable. I’m not sure what qualifies this album for the list given how many almost identical records there are out there. I kept expecting to hear one I recognised that would whisk me back to some memorable time and place but it didn’t happen. It was perfectly nice to listen to but it probably won’t occur to me to listen again.
I get how influential they are but to my ears, this stuff just hasn’t survived the test of time. It sounds tired and cliched. All it inspires me to do is to switch it off. In fact, listening to it now, it strikes me they well be partly to blame for Ocean Colour Scene, which is reason enough to wish this record out of existence.
A justifiable classic, Dylan at his best. Tangled up in Blue never gets old but I also love the bluesy Meet me in the Morning and the wonderfully bitter Idiot Wind - “As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped, What's good is bad, what's bad is good, You'll find out when you reach the top, You're on the bottom” Peak Dylan, but I’ve knocked one star off because off because of the wretched Christmas song he wrote decades later.
I don’t think this one’s aged well, it’s pretty stodgy rock music - more proggy in places than I remembered, especially tracks like Strange World. But it paved the way for what was to come - it’s a paving slab of a record. Phantom the Opera is the obvious standout for me.
Just… not for me.
It’s always a pleasure to spend time in the company of this one. For this listen, I dug out the posh headphones, gave it the Dolby Atmos treatment and soaked up every second. It’s the same age as me but has worn considerably better. Timeless really. A wonderful record.
This record sounds very dated to me. De La Soul inject their own magic into the proceedings but it’s just not a genre I’ve ever managed to really connect with - I can hear the record’s influence though.
I love this record - highly deserving of its classic status. As moving and catchy as the day it was released. I could listen to it every single day. In fact, I think I will.
Because of the radio my mum listened to when I was growing up, this kind of thing will always be ‘Sunday Roast Music’ to me. This is no bad thing. I really enjoyed the big band sound - I’d never knowingly heard the album before but it was all cosily familiar. I’ll definitely listen again. Probably on Sunday.
I’d never listened to this album before - it sounds like a parody. I can see why Layla is the famous one - the first half of the song bursts out of the album as if it’s trying to escape, only then to be dragged back in by the second half, an interminable lump of nothing nailed on seemingly to remind the listener just how excruciating the album actually is..
Fairly bland, 90s singer-songwriter fare - pretty forgettable. I’m not sure what qualifies this album for the list given how many almost identical records there are out there. I kept expecting to hear one I recognised that would whisk me back to some memorable time and place but it didn’t happen. It was perfectly nice to listen to but it probably won’t occur to me to listen again.
I know he’s one of the Godfathers of Rock n Roll, but I only really know Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino. It’s a great song and I can see why it endures but listening to this, I wonder why I’m not more familiar with the rest of his work. I know plenty of his songs but mainly as covered by others. I liked this. It felt good. I’ll dig deeper.
I’ve always found New Order albums confusing affairs - is it an album? Is it a compilation? I always thought of them as a singles band, then they released that God-awful football song and I took to disliking them, in spite of everything. I like this though and it surprises me that I’ve never listened to it properly before now.
Not even forgettable as I barely noticed it was playing in the first place.
I don’t think I’ve ever listened to this album during the day before, and certainly never just with tea and biscuits to imbibe. I still really enjoyed it though. So that’s good.
It’s probably sacrilege to say this but I always found Billy McKenzie’s vocals a bit much - he seems to be frantically over-singing everything, to my ears at least. Perhaps that was the point. I like the music though - extraordinary as his voice was, it’s the music on this album that stands out for me. Aside from Party Fears Two of course, where the two come together brilliantly.
It’s hard to listen to Arcade Fire these days with the unresolved allegations around Win Butler still circulating but I soldiered in and quite enjoyed it. The well known songs were the least interesting, probably because I’ve over-heard them, but tracks like Ocean of Noise stood out and reminded me a bit of Calexico, who I love. Epic, cinematic, US indie rock - enjoyable enough, but I much preferred their earlier album, Funeral.
A bona fide, stone cold classic. Every track transports back me to when I first heard it in ‘92 when it flung the doors open for me to a world of US alternative rock I’d previously paid little to no attention too (Fugazi, Husker Du, Superchunk, et al) Every track is a joy but I’ll always have a special place for Conduit for Sale! I can almost taste the warm cider…
I know this is damming with faint praise but it’s nice to have on in the background. I like Miles Davis and especially enjoy it when he’s pushing the boundaries but this one just doesn’t have enough grit to hold my attention.
A fun album with no duff tracks - I haven’t listened in years so it was nice to revisit. It wears its post-punk/ new wave influences on its sleeve but that’s no bad thing. Good as it is, it probably wouldn’t be on my own list of 1001 essential albums, if I made one. Which I won’t.
Having spent the last 30 years putting Cut Your Hair and Range Life on just about every mix tape and playlist I’ve made, it was nice to hear these songs in their natural habitat again. Slanted and Enchanted cropped up on this list the other day - both albums have served to remind me just how much I like Pavement.
I’ve never really familiarised myself with this album before and only really knew Golden Years and Wild is the Wind. I enjoyed it a lot and listened through twice - I love the production and the bass sounds great. I’ll definitely be digging deeper.
Obviously, and quite famously a masterpiece - listening to it now it’s hard to believe it’s almost 60 years old. All these years later, it’s easy to take these song structures and production techniques for granted but this one album changed the pop record format forever. It’s hard sometimes to listen to a record of this stature and hear it objectively but really, everything else aside, these are all great songs. What an incredible album.
When I was growing up in the 80s, I assumed being an adult meant wearing pastel coloured suits with the sleeves rolled up, driving a Ford Capri, drinking cocktails in wine bars and listening to Sade. Mercifully, most of these things never came to pass - I do like a bit of Sade though. In my mind this music is inescapably ’wine bar’, but the soulful, understated vocals and smooth, jazz-lite music have a pleasing effect. I enjoyed listening to it.
One of those bands where I find myself listening more to the bands they’ve influenced. I know I like Cocteau Twins, and if it wasn’t for them, most of the bands I adored in the 90s probably wouldn’t have existed, I just rarely listen to them. A wrong I will right on the back of immersing myself in this gem. Some of the tracks, in particular the title track, have somehow been engrained in the psyche over the years, but it was a real treat to hear them again in the context of the album. If you need me, I’ll be down a Cocteau Twins rabbit hole.
Bloody hell, I had to grit my teeth for this one. In fairness, the chap can sing. The tunes have a mildly infectious quality. And I’m glad to live in a country where anyone can adorn themselves in the headgear of their choosing. But every time a new song started, I just wanted it to be over. I don’t know why, and I’m not going to spend any more time pondering it. And this lark is playing havoc with my algorithms.
I tend to recoil from that Hammond organ sound as it just reminds me of bad 70s quiz shows. This is a shame as it was probably the height of music tech when this was recorded, but for me the album takes off when the sax kicks in. Nice to listen to though.
A fine dose of proto-punk, and another one of those bands where I’m far more familiar with the groups they inspired. Much as I enjoyed the more energetic tracks, it’s songs like ‘Untitled’ that made me appreciate how far ahead of their time they were. That acoustic sound is great - something punk bands just didn’t do at the time but now is obligatory. And the brassy sound in ‘Know Your Product’ was great. Often compared to the Ramones apparently but way more interesting as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t think I’ve ever listened to this album before - I’ve been missing out. It sounds like nothing else from that time - it’s testament to their influence that it sounds more like a 90s low-fi indie record. The Murder Mystery was a real standout track for me. I’m going to be returning to this album again
I get how influential they are but to my ears, this stuff just hasn’t survived the test of time. It sounds tired and cliched. All it inspires me to do is to switch it off. In fact, listening to it now, it strikes me they well be partly to blame for Ocean Colour Scene, which is reason enough to wish this record out of existence.
I can see why he called it Low. Listening to this is a bit like doing maths homework - I know it’s important, and making the effort now might lead to greater things, but, ugh, do I have to? At times, it clicks into place and makes glorious sense, and I can hear how it influenced those post-punk, synth-pop records that I love, but for the most part, it just gave me a headache. Can I have a snack?
Yet another one of those artists where I like who they influenced more. I get why he’s influential, I just found this album a bit dry and… dull. Give me Gene Clark over this, any day. The Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers too. I just don’t get the appeal of this record…
I quite like Sleater Kinney - I like their frantic energy. Enjoyable as I find them, I’m not sure what marks this album out given they all sound essentially the same. I guess if you’re going to pick one, you may as well make it this one. I’d probably have suggested All Hands on the Bad One myself, but no one asked.
I bought this album years ago as it was so frequently cited as an influence by artists I loved as a teenager. It was an acknowledged classic when I came to it and more often than not, such records don’t have the impact on me I thought they would. Not this one though! It’s so unlike anything else and I can really appreciate how extraordinary it must have sounded when it first came out. I’ve never really enjoyed much else by Patti Smith, probably because I haven’t tried hard enough - maybe I’ll try harder having just listened to this again. What a great record.
It will never cease to be anything less than mind-blowing to me that just three or four years after recording songs like Til There Was You and Please Mister Postman, they were coming out with Tomorrow Never Knows and I Am the Walrus. Literally everything they did was groundbreaking and brimming with that magical, larger-than-life quality, yet I’ve had socks for longer than the Beatles were together. They were incredible. And so were the Beatles.
Much as I always liked Siouxsie, I never LOVED them in the same way I did The Cure or Sisters of Mercy. It was nice to listen to this after so many years though. I still have them down as a goth band but on this listening, I was far more aware of their choppy post-punk sound. I can definitely hear their lasting influence, might have to dig deeper…
This was a real eye-opener for me - these days, Dolly Parton is one of those celebs who’s synonymous with so many things you kind of forget just how great a singer-songwriter she is. The title track alone is up there with anything Johnny Cash did and She’d Never Met a Man… put me in mind of Willie Nelson. I’d always had her down more as a movie star/ pop singer (and philanthropist of course) but this is great songwriting, I enjoyed it a lot.
I really, really, dislike the Doors. The reverence heaped on Jim Morrison is baffling to me - to my ears, his lyrics are pure 6th Form. I tried to give this record a fair listen, and failed. Actually, I didn’t try very hard, and I’m fine with it.
Well that was remarkably unremarkable. The album just finished playing and I literally can’t remember ever listening to it. I gave it two stars because it didn’t have Free Fallin’ on it. If it did, I would have given it one star.
Probably my favourite Joni Mitchell album, certainly my most played. Car on a Hill is just perfection. A beautifully arranged, sumptuous-sounding record that I could (and do) listen to over and over.
It took me a while to warm to the National despite seeing them live a couple of times, including once in a comparatively small venue when they were touring their Boxer album. It wasn’t until The First Two Pages of Frankenstein album that the penny dropped and I fell under their moody, broody, almost Tindersticks-like spell. This isn’t my favourite National album but I really enjoyed listening to it - Anyone’s Ghost, the understated anthem Bloodbuzz Ohio and England probably being the standouts.
I like that this record exists, I just don’t really want to have to listen to it. I can enjoy stretches of it in the right mood, but it’s the kind of record I’d rather read about than actually listen too. Spaced Cowboy was a right shocker though - yodelling should be left to Focus, or better still, just left.
12 love songs would probably have done me. Long albums like this invariably end up including lots of tracks that should just have been b-sides, or left as demos to be released on coloured vinyl for Record Store Day years down the line. On the upside, I quite liked it! There’s some funny and moving songwriting here and if it was a 12-15 track album, I’d be all over it. That probably misses some kind of point, but I do think you can have too much of a good thing.
So, how does Bob Marley like his donuts? Wi jammin’. Ah, I’ll never tire of that. Nor will I tire of this record - it’s perfect. I think these songs are just part of the human DNA now, and we’re all the better for them.
I expected easy going ‘yacht rock’, so the proggy elements of Long Gone… were interesting, but overall, it didn’t do much for me. It kind of reminded me of Manic Street Preachers and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It probably sounds less dated today than it did twenty years ago - maybe I’ll listen again in twenty years’ time to see how it’s faring. Maybe I won’t.
I excitedly bought this album when it came out as it was his first with the Attractions for years, and I still listen to it often. 13 Steps Lead Down and You Tripped at Every Step are as good as anything they’ve ever done, as well as being among the best songs ever written about steps. My favourite here though is London’s Brilliant Parade - one of my favourite EC songs and one that was always playing in the back of my mind in the ten years I lived there. The old Hungerford foot bridge was replaced around 2000 but it’s a tiny piece of ‘my’ London captured perfectly and forever in this song.
When the mood takes me, I can really enjoy Daft Punk, especially their later stuff. Unfortunately, the mood left me pretty much where I was for this listening and I found it fairly plodding. I suppose it paved the way for what was to come but this one doesn’t really do it for me.
There’s so much praise and reverence heaped on The Band, it’s hardq to know where to begin. I decided long ago not to bother, I’ll just accept they’re legendary, quite probably for good reason. I’m sure if you were watching them in a field at a festival, stoned out of your mind, semi-naked and covered in mud, they’d be quite something. However, I’m at the kitchen table looking at a spreadsheet and their effect is a little lost on me. I don’t dislike it, it just sounds pretty ordinary.
I like The Kinks. They played a big part not just in shaping Heavy Metal and Britpop (whatever that might be), but also in pioneering the concept album — and they managed most of that within their first five years. I’m not entirely convinced that the so-called ‘quintessential Englishness’ they get labelled with ever actually existed, but that just shows how great their storytelling was, as well as their songwriting. This album nails their essence. Clever gits.
My introduction to this record, and to Springsteen generally, was Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s cover of the title track which I still think packs a lot of punch. I love the meandering tunes and the stories, characters and places on this record. It’s all very cinematic - an album you can lose yourself in, especially if you have the lyrics in front of you. And that full band sound is just perfect. Hard to believe this record is fifty years old, it certainly doesn’t sound it.
This is a big slab of proggy metal by a band that paved the way for so much of the music I grew up obsessing over, but even in my most metal-devouring years as a young teen, I never fully clicked with Black Sabbath. I ‘get’ them today but this isn’t an album I find myself turning to (I’ll take Sabbath Bloody Sabbath though, or Master of Reality). I find a lot of the stuff on here to be a bit stodgy for my tastes, and ‘Changes’ and ‘Laguna Sunrise’ sound like they’re on the wrong record. I love that Black Sabbath existed, but I can take or leave this one.
I quite enjoyed listening to this. I was an indie kid in the 80s with a stereotype to adhere to so I’ve never knowingly listened to a Madonna album before. I’ve quietly approved of some of her singles over the years (Borderline and Ray of Light for example) but I’ve never really considered myself to be in her demographic. Obviously, gospel singers can make anything sound good but this is neatly crafted pop and I was surprised at how many of these songs I knew. That said, I’m not sure how it qualifies for the list, it doesn’t stand out particularly, it’s just… quite good. If you like that sort of thing.
Walk This Way is the big one here. It really does represent the worst of two worlds that I have zero interest in. This album is completely lost on me. But what do I know?
I always think I quite like Bob Dylan until I start listening to him. I find his story pretty fascinating but I could do without listening to the records. I went to see him live in the early 2000s - what a long night that was. He got ten minutes into one song before I realised it was Blowing in the Wind. As with so many of the classic, hugely influential albums from the birth of the pop record, it sounds very much of its time today, but I’m glad it exists.
They sound like the Monkees but with the fun stripped out. It’s all reasonably enjoyable for what it is (other than Melody for an Unknown Girl which was unspeakably dire - I almost cringed myself inside out listening to that) but others clearly did it better and more memorably. They sound to me more like an interesting footnote than anything especially essential. Surprised I’ve never heard of them though.
I asked an AI thingy how many rock/pop albums had been released since 1958. Its conservative estimate was 3-5 million, its more inclusive estimate was 8-12 million. So quite what this dross is doing on a list of 1001 ‘must-hear’ records is beyond me.