Such a great pop record that still sounds remarkably fresh. I love all the tales surrounding its creation too - the stories of McCartney's retreat after the Beatles fell to pieces; recording a couple of albums by himself in an isolated Scottish farmhouse; forming a band, jumping in a van and turning up unannounced at university union bars asking to play... After two or three low-key, poorly received (at the time) albums, he wanted to go for a big production pop record and jetted off to Nigeria to record it where he was mugged at knifepoint and robbed of the demo tapes... You could write a book about his first three post-Beatles years alone, never mind the rest of them. It's probably fair to say Band on the Run is the record that properly launched his solo career, and it still sounds great (even though I can't listen to Jet without picturing Alan Partridge dancing in his hotel room...)

Finally, after a run of absolute drivel, a record thoroughly deserving of a place in this list. What an extraordinary record - there’s enough here for three great albums. It’s clearly a masterpiece and I’m never going to be able to write anything that comes close to capturing its greatness, so I’ll say this instead: 46 seconds into Sir Duke, I’m pretty sure he sings ‘Mick and Phylis are lovers…”

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.

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.

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.

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.

I love The Cure and consider this their first great album; it’s their first consistently Cure-ish album, and it set the tone for the next forty-plus years. Play For Today, M, and the title track Seventeen Seconds are probably among my favourite Cure tracks but the whole record hangs together brilliantly.

We had Born to Run recently, and there’s something about the songwriting, production, and the majestic-sounding band, especially the keys and brass, that really make it stand out as a great record. This one just doesn’t work the same magic - in fact it sounds like a compilation of b-sides to my ears. It’s pretty plodding in places and he often doesn’t sound like he has the energy to get through a whole song (e.g. Something in the Night and Racing in the Street). I’m not convinced it belongs in the list - I’m either really missing something or it’s an admin error.

I don’t like live albums at the best of times so a live album by Deep Purple… well, I feel like I’ve just done a 12 hour shift in a factory. In fact, I honestly think I should now be paid. An hour or so ago, I didn’t know this album existed. Great times.

What an absolute pile of dog shit.

For some reason, I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed this. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this. It’s definitely one I need to listen to again to really get under its skin - there seems to be a lot here to unpack. There’s a curious, awkward, inventiveness lurking under its surface - it really feels like it’s holding something back. This is an album I’d like to get to know.

It’s hard to listen to Nick Drake objectively - he’s overly revered and his sound has drifted into cliche land over the years. I find it hard to shake off those sunny evening campfire vibes and just listen to the songs. All perfectly charming, just a teensy bit boring. Fun fact: Nick Drake’s second cousin, once removed, is William D Drake of Cardiacs, who happen to be the best band ever. What a world.

I love all the ‘American’ records - what a way to book-end a career. That raw, emotional production is perfect; there can’t be many artists with such a long career behind them that manage to produce some of their best work in their final few years. There’s lots to love on this record but the cover of NiN’s Hurt is the one that, reasonably enough, gets the most attention. Truly sublime.

Such a great pop record that still sounds remarkably fresh. I love all the tales surrounding its creation too - the stories of McCartney's retreat after the Beatles fell to pieces; recording a couple of albums by himself in an isolated Scottish farmhouse; forming a band, jumping in a van and turning up unannounced at university union bars asking to play... After two or three low-key, poorly received (at the time) albums, he wanted to go for a big production pop record and jetted off to Nigeria to record it where he was mugged at knifepoint and robbed of the demo tapes... You could write a book about his first three post-Beatles years alone, never mind the rest of them. It's probably fair to say Band on the Run is the record that properly launched his solo career, and it still sounds great (even though I can't listen to Jet without picturing Alan Partridge dancing in his hotel room...)

I like Joni Mitchell a lot and I know how highly regarded this record is, but I struggle with it - there's some great songwriting but it just doesn't grab my attention. It seems quite rambling and there are no melodies I can engage with - maybe that's the jazz influence, and I just need to keep at it and let it click into place. I probably won't though - I'll put Court and Spark on instead.

I’ve never really listened to Circle Jerks before, and now I have. That’s about as much as I can say, to be honest. None of it really stood out for me. Dead Kennedys and Husker Du remain my go-to for this kind of racket. Group Sex? I’ll stay on my own, thanks.

I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a Joan Armatrading album before - I really enjoyed this. I’m familiar with Love and Affection but it really struck me while listening just what an odd song it is - a really unusual arrangement. Wonderful stuff, I enjoyed the whole album - Tall in the Saddle also really stood out. I’m going to dig out more by her.

Much as I love Lennon’s solo work, and famous as the title track is, this is probably one of my least favourite of his records - Walls and Bridges, and Mind Games are my own faves and this one just doesn’t come close to them. He was in a pretty bitter and angry place when he recorded it and it shows in its disjointedness - it just doesn’t hang together as well as many of his other records. I find him and his life story endlessly fascinating though, so I know it’s a record I’ll always come back to.

Back in 91, my appreciation of grunge stretched as far as Mudhoney and Nirvana - 30+ years later, my I appreciation of grunge stretches as far as Nirvana, as I now know Mudhoney are essentially a garage rock band who continue to be way better than anything the grunge scene churned out. Pearl Jam always sounded like bad pub rock played by dads. Those wretched guitar solos that leap out of nowhere and just make you want to cry; that pained, phlegmy voice... And the songs just don't seem to end! I wondered if the years might have been kind to them - my tastes have certainly changed, so I was keen to give this record a fair go, but no. It's awful. I hope never to hear it again.

It’s adventurous, challenging and groundbreaking but also a bit jokey - more Bonzo’s than Beefheart. Maybe that’s a good thing, but I’m not sure it’s intended. When in the mood, I can enjoy the music but Zappa’s vocals can grate a bit. Not something I ever really need to put on, but I’m glad it exists.

Sweet Christ alive. What a turgid, stodgy, wedge of execrable dross. How did it get on the list? How did it even get made? Can I be put in charge of this list please? No one should ever have to listen to this rubbish.

Is it me? There’s always been a real buzz about this band, and this album in particular, but it completely washes over me - it doesn’t seem to have any defining characteristics at all. Maybe that’s the appeal - you can’t really compare it to anything or work out what their influences are, but those things alone don’t make it good. Unidentifiable and completely forgettable.

Finally, after a run of absolute drivel, a record thoroughly deserving of a place in this list. What an extraordinary record - there’s enough here for three great albums. It’s clearly a masterpiece and I’m never going to be able to write anything that comes close to capturing its greatness, so I’ll say this instead: 46 seconds into Sir Duke, I’m pretty sure he sings ‘Mick and Phylis are lovers…”

I really have to be in the right mood to listen to blues, and even then, I can only tolerate short bursts. This is a comparatively late-era Muddy Waters record and the sound hasn’t evolved at all. The early blues records can be interesting in a historical sense, but this is just re-treading a formula . I can’t see what makes it stand out. I confess I didn’t actually make it through the whole album but I don’t think I really need to in order to know it sounds largely the same as every other blues record.

Travis? Really?? If you’re looking for an example of a desperately uninteresting, ‘vanilla’, background record, look no further. Utterly nondescript songs by a band whose only vague contribution to popular culture is a haircut. Up there with Dido in terms of lowest common denominator, coffee shop, blandness. It’s hard to listen to Travis without thinking that maybe pop is dead after all. If not dead, certainly pale, sickly and very, very tired.

After some of the records this list has been churning out, it was a very pleasant surprise to see this one pop up. Safe to say, I can listen to pretty much anything by Smog/Bill Callaghan and fall immediately under its spell. This is a particularly good one - that rich orchestration and his sublime voice creating a rich, dream-like sound. A fabulous record.

I think it’s pretty much been agreed that Gimme Shelter has the greatest intro of all time - in fact, there’s a strong case for it being one of the greatest singles of all time. Jagger is obviously outstanding but Keith Richards and ‘backing’ (co-lead, more like) vocalist Merry Clayton steal the show. Any album with this track on it gets an immediate 5 stars, but the rest is pretty great too. Love in Vain, Monkey Man, Midnight Rambler, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Country Honk… wait, not that one… I think that one was included by mistake. But what an album.

I bloody hated the Stone Roses at the time and I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever listened to this album. It must say something about them though that I knew all the songs, and it probably says something about me that I still think they’re rubbish. I just can’t get past the fact that Ian Brown absolutely cannot sing. Some front people get away with that pretty spectacularly (Mark E Smith for example) but check YouTube for ANY live Ian Brown performance and his vocals are so unlistenable, it’s hilarious. They struck a chord with the kidz at the time though, and there’s no denying their influence, I’m just relieved I don’t have to listen to them.

I’ve never listened to this before - I liked it. It doesn’t remotely sound like something from 1974 - his sound seems to have become timeless. This one doesn’t have quite the same feel about it as some of his other stuff, but a good listen nonetheless.

I just don’t think I’m built for hip hop - there are exceptions but for the most part, I just can’t connect with it. It’s just not for me. In the opening track, he just sounds bored! I didn’t think I’d make it any further but I enjoyed the music of the next one, Around the Way Girl - it has a more soul-like feel that I liked. It gave me hope for the rest of the album but, nope, it was an isolated incident. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Another Springsteen album? There must be literally millions of great albums out there and this is a list of just 1,001 of them - it feels like 500 are going to be by Springsteen. I like him, but not for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s a perfectly good album, all very Springsteeny, but of the millions of albums in existence, is it among the greatest? Probably not, but I’d definitely put it in my top 500,000.

I like the music and general feel of the production (especially the souly female vocals in tracks like Lodi Dodi) but the genre is just not for me. It was fun to hear the original version of Gin and Juice as I’m only familiar with the cover by The Gourds although, great a cover version as it is, I can’t decide how sincere it is. And I think that’s part of my problem with records like this Snoop Dogg one. I can’t work out how much he means it and how much he’s playing a character, and I feel completely unqualified to enter a discussion about it, but the language and tone just doesn’t resonate with me, in fact, it puts me right off. It doesn’t offend me - if they made a movie out of one of these tracks, I’d probably love it but as it is, I just feel a complete disconnect. My problem, not Mr Dogg’s.

Short and very sweet but, to my ears at least, it’s lacking the punchier, more robust production of records like Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water. It has a very, thin, whimsical quality to it. A nice listen nonetheless.

I’m not a giant Bowie fan - I do really enjoy much of his work but I’m no obsessive and my patience has its limits. Yet, every track here is seemingly engrained into my psyche - each song is so ridiculously familiar it’s like they’ve always been there. And the really odd thing about it, is I can listen to them again and again without (much) complaint. It was a pleasure listening to this - I didn’t skip a second and when it finished, I could have listened again. I didn’t though.

When it comes to ‘proper’ jazz, I think Charles Mingus is probably one of my favourites - he’s certainly the one I reach for the most when the mood takes me. The thing is, I have no idea how to express what I think about it - I just know I really enjoy losing myself in it. The genre can often be tricky to make sense of but although Mingus’ records always feel like the real deal in terms of the gritty technicalities, they often feel very accessible to an untrained ear. This isn’t my favourite Mingus record but it’s a mightily immersive album that will sweep you away if you let it.

I haven’t listened to this all the way through since it came out when I was a student in the 90s and this kind of thing was de rigueur, especially in the wee small hours. It was never really my kind of thing - I’d have been more likely to reach for the Orb or Future Sound of London to scratch whatever itch it is this scratches, but I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed it this time round. While some of it drifted past without me really noticing (Melt, for example), other tracks really drew me in, especially the Afro influenced ones. Open Up is the obvious biggy - I’ve seen John Lydon perform it live with PiL and it still sounds great - and Original was nice to hear again even if it now sounds like something from a TV ad. The album as a whole sounds very much of its time though. It was fun to hear it again, I almost felt nostalgic for a period of my life I don’t miss at all, but it’s still not something I’ll find myself reaching for.

Much as I love REM’s stratospheric years that followed the album after this one, it’s the records up to and including Green that stay with me the most. This one is the first of their albums I bought on release so I’ve always felt a special attachment to it. Although songs like Stand, Orange Crush and Pop Song 89 lean towards the stadium-friendly pop end of the spectrum they ended up embracing, they still sound wonderful and somehow unique. And World Leader Pretend and You Are The Everything remain among my favourite REM moments to this day.

I was expecting to like this more than I did. Although the influence of this record on that skinny-jeaned NYC new wave indie sound is very obvious, I found the whole album a bit of a tuneless slog. They’re very much a singles band to my mind, the famous tracks being the only real standouts for me. And it might just the version I was listening to (2006 remaster) but Chrissie Hynde’s vocals seemed way too upfront, it was distracting just how much they seemed to dominate the record. I think I’ll stick to their Best of…

Every once in a while, a record crops up on this list that makes me think, ‘God, this is going to be awful, I can’t do it.’ But I pull myself together, park my preconceptions and dive in with an open mind only to be rewarded by something surprising and oddly enjoyable, even if it’s something I wouldn’t normally give the time of day. Sadly, this wasn’t one of those records and I feel like every last drop of enthusiasm I may have had for life on earth has been sucked out of me. So yeah, thanks for that.

I’d been vaguely aware of Lana Del Rey for a good few years before this album came out but had never really paid her much attention, assuming her work just wasn’t aimed at me. A friend sent me a link saying, ‘Heard this? It’s quite good’. And that was all it took - from the opening few seconds I was utterly transfixed. This is an extraordinarily good record - the mood, that strained, intimate vocal delivery, the cinematic feel it conjures… It’s one of a handful of albums I’ll never tire of. An actual masterpiece.

The title track is an undeniably great pop song and stands head and shoulders above everything else here. Jennifer caught my attention too in fairness - it left me wondering what a Sisters of Mercy cover of it would be like. Everything else washed over me really. It’s a perfectly good album but not much more than that…

“So I broke into the Palace With a sponge and a rusty spanner She said: "I know and you cannot sing!" I said: "That's nothing, you should hear me play piano!" I spent years quoting these lines to anyone and everyone who complained to me that The Smiths were depressing. Yes, there's some morbidity littered about Morrissey's lyrics, but they were never depressing - there's a sharp sense of humour present in so much of what they did and it rings throughout this album, especially in tracks like Frankly, Mr Shankly, Cemetry Gates, Bigmouth..., and of course, There is a Light... I was 12 in 1984 when I first heard The Smiths - the perfect age. I overheard What Difference Does it Make on the radio at a friends house and my life was immediately redirected down an alternative-music-loving path that I still travel all these years later. For me, The Smiths came along at just the right time; I still love everything they did and play them often. Mercifully, I am these days able to separate the Morrissey of then from the Morrissey of now, although it pains me to think that the stubborn, joyless racist he appears to have become might always have been the real him, bubbling underneath the outward character that wrote and performed these magnificent songs. I still love this album, but I'm giving it four stars as, for me, Meat is Murder is their finest studio album, and Hatful of Hollow the best collection of their songs.

Hard to believe this is their first album as they sound so fully formed - hard also to believe it came out in 1983. It sounds so unlike anything before or since. I’ve always thought Radio Free Europe is the odd one out here - it was released a couple of years earlier on the Chronic Town EP where it sounded far more at home. It sounds weirdly clunky and out of place here; it’s an odd choice for the opening track given the strengths of the others. We Walk is another oddity - much as I like it, it does sound like a B-side, albeit a great one. As for the rest of the tracks, it’s hard to pick a favourite. I’ve always thought of Murmur as a kind of blueprint that they stuck with until 1989’s Green when they took a slightly more adventurous turn. Much as I love Green, and the records that followed, the IRS years is the REM I fell in love with, and this record still sounds great.

Not a band I know anything about, only really being familiar with the big hit, Low Rider which I’m not a fan of due to over hearing it in the Marmite ad in the 90s. However, I really enjoyed listening to this - I’ll need to go back to it to get under its skin and I’m looking forward to doing so.

I have a strong suspicion there are hidden depths to this record that have passed me by completely - I’d be willing to give it another go at some point to see if it clicks. It may well do but right now, it’s just… a bit boring .

Lust for Life and Passenger are the big hits on this album for good reason - they’re great tracks, and way better than everything else on the record. I hoped something else might grab my attention in the same way - Some Weird Sin came close, but the rest just passed me by.

This really is one of those records that will always crop up on any 'greatest album ever' list - I get why, it is great, but I'm sure it's included out of habit these days. It's been bettered since it came out. I love the guitar sound but those slightly frantic-sounding vocals have always rankled a little and each track tends to ramble a bit. The influence it had on all that followed is clear for all to see, but it's time to move on, I reckon.

God, I wondered when this would crop up. The ongoing appeal of Oasis' stodgy, turgid, plod-rock is mystifying. Some of the tunes can snare you but this just distracts from the fact that none of the lyrics make any sense at all. This is tedious, lowest-common-denominator sludge for piss-hurling thugs. Liam Gallagher bought me a pint once but I've never spent a single penny on Oasis. This puts me up on the deal, and that's the only good thing I can say about them.

I like this record - it’s good. I like her voice, I like her evocative lyrics, the music is good. I like the cover art. I bought it when it came out - I thought it was good then and I think it’s good now. Is it among the greatest 1,001 albums ever? No. But it’s good.

I liked the song School’s Out for a brief period in the 80s when I was at school - it’s definitely a song you grow out of but I can still just about appreciate its charm. It’s never really occurred to me to listen to anything else by Alice Cooper though - in fact, I’d never listened to anything else by him until today when I heard a whole album. A whole album! Who knew such a thing existed? Anyway, it was all pretty awful so I can see why he only has one famous song. There were moments when I quite liked some of the music but they were few and far between. He sounds like he needs a Strepsil.

It's hard to consider this album without thinking about the Morrissey then and the Morrissey now. The 90s Morrissey apologist I was wouldn't forgive me for giving this any fewer than five stars. It's his first great solo album - his previous record, Kill Uncle, was dreadful but with this record, Morrissey really bounced back into life. The opening track, You're Gonna Need Someone... sounds like it's straight off the follow up to Strangeways, that never was - as do many of the songs here, but... But... BUT... then there's The National Front Disco, a song about a family losing their boy to the extreme right wing, elsewhere there are lyrics like, "We are the last truly British people you will ever know", "England for the English", etc... "But he's singing from the character in the song's point of view", we whimpered, in his defence... Well, he fooled us all, but there's no denying this is a really good record and I sang my head off (almost) all the way through. In terms of his solo stuff, it was bettered only by Vauxhall and I a couple of years later. He's dead to me now though.

The first time I heard Gorillaz, someone played Tomorrow Comes Today on the radio saying they were a new band and Damon Albarn had contributed guest vocals to the track. It piqued my interest and it was a while until I realised it was actually Albarn's new project so it's funny, listening again now for the first time in years, how much of it sounds like a lost Blur album. It felt like such a departure for him at the time. This is a really adventurous, fun, creative and intriguing album that's really standing the test of time.

The charts when this came out were full of schmaltzy crooners and saccharine orchestras - this record must’ve been a wake up call for the kids of the day. Yes there was Elvis, and all the other nascent rock n rollers starting to make waves but they all pale next to the energy of this record. Even all these years later you can appreciate the sheer joy and exuberance these songs must’ve generated. Little Richard just pounds each song out, even the slow ones, and they still sound great today. The influence he had on all that followed is incalculable. This was great fun to listen too.

There’s just something about Jack White’s voice that puts me right off everything he does - Hotel Yorba by the White Stripes is about the only song of his I can get all the way through, even then I’m grateful it’s only two minutes long. I quite like the music on this record - each time a new track started, I thought, Oh, this might be okay… then he’d sing and spoil it. I think, apart from anything else, I always have that wretched doorbell song in the back of my mind and I can never forgive him for it.

I like Hot Chip - I like their tunes, I like the vocals and listening to them tends to put a spring in my step. This is a really good record, I really enjoyed listening to it, I just wouldn’t put it on a list of 1001 albums to hear before you die - if I’d died while listening to it for the first time, not getting to the end of it would be way down the list of things that would’ve bothered me.

If there was a fight between Strangeways, Here we Come and Meat is Murder, I think this one would win, and be crowned my favourite studio album by the Smiths. Their eponymous debut was a disappointment after those early singles - that stodgy production pulled the life out of some great songs, and The Queen is Dead, while obviously a great record, has a couple of tracks that I really need to be in the mood for. Meat is Murder sparkled production-wise - this is peak Smiths: the humour, the melodies, those guitars and THAT bass - I swear Andy Rourke is the unsung hero in the Smiths... Anyway, yes, five stars - a belter.

I think there might be something wrong with me - i just can’t make sense of records like this. It might be amazing, I just can’t tell. It’s like I can’t hear it. The problem is all mine. Give me three chords, a middle eight and some shouting and I’m all over it. Sorry Common, I bet you’re great, you’re just not what I’m looking for.

I remember buying this on cassette when it came out and playing it endlessly for months - it's one of those albums that's just part of my DNA now. Lifelong friendships were formed around a love of this record. Each track is extraordinary. It's peak-Pixies, and a record I don't think they've ever bettered.

My heart sank a little when this one popped up. I know how influential this stuff is, and the history of blues music is something we should all be aware of and never forget, but I have to be in the mood to listen to it. And I really wasn't. At least I didn't think I was. The moment he started singing, I completely switched on to it. I had actual goosebumps at one point, and when the record finished playing, I played it all over again. I'm probably more familiar with the his later material when he was older and gruffer and I think that's what I was expecting, but this was just wonderful. His vocal performance really caught my attention and the music was a total joy. A great record that I'm glad to have finally found.

Although it's a record that would most certainly appear in my own list of 1,001 greatest albums, it's not a record I expected to see here for some reason. Although they had some of the spotlight in the late 80s and early 90s when they were saddled with the grunge tag, they've always seemed to operate just beneath the surface. It's a shame they're not better known - their brand of raw, garage rock (not grunge - leave that to bloody Pearl bloody Jam) has always cut right to the quick. Mark Arm's distinctive vocals, belting out over those jagged guitars are immediately identifiable. This whole package is great - the title, the artwork, the tunes. And it's got Broken Hands on it - an alt anthem everyone should know, but sadly very few do.

In places, it sounds like two or three completely different records playing at the same time. That drum 'n' bass sound was probably great at 3am on a Sunday morning in the late 90s while you were waiting for the drugs to ease off so you could go to your mum's for lunch, but in 2025 it sounds like someone in the studio made a mistake. I like some elements, like the string sounds and the Asian influences but for the most part, it sounds like the kind of record that gets played slightly too loudly in the kinds of bars I don't want to be in.

What can possibly be said about this album? Every song is an utter joy, and notably it’s their first record with no cover versions - they were really hitting their stride here. Yep, good, this.

Remarkably, this is the first time I’ve listened to a Rush album and quite enjoyed it - maybe the wind was blowing in the right direction, or perhaps I pressed play at the very moment the meds kicked in. I’ve tried to like Rush on many occasions and failed miserably - I often like the music, but that voice! I just can’t get to grips with it. Mercifully, it seemed quite toned down on this record - he sounds less like a Muppet on helium which helped me to enjoy things a little more. Growing up, I always had Rush down as a metal band, but musically, this sounds like a lot of contemporary prog bands. As a Porcupine Tree fan, I can really hear their influence. I’ve long since written Rush off as a band I might like, but this record might yet prove to be a way in…

it's all perfectly charming, but it just feels weirdly cliched these days. There’s something ’middle-class-coffee-table-book’ about the whole thing - for a while in the late 90s this stuff was everywhere which, although initially interesting, ended up rendering it all a bit boring. Harmless background music, at best.

Much as I like The Byrds, it's the Gene Clark/David Crosby era that really grabs my attention, especially when they were doing Dylan’s songs better than Dylan did them. With Gram Parsons, it all went a bit too 'Dukes of Hazard' for my liking, with the vocal harmonies and that signature chiming 12-string seeming to take a back seat. 'One Hundred Years from Now', stands out, harking back a little to their earlier sound, but for the most part, this one loses me a bit.

I really enjoy digging deep into ‘global’ music, or whatever the most appropriate term is. There’s so much incredible music out there, it seems a shame to restrict yourself to what are essentially variations if the same thing. Not this though. Definitely not this.