1001 Albums Summary

Talking strictly about Bowie's songs without everything else his persona/career encompassed is a bit reductive, but here we are. This just reinforces my view of him as a "greatest hits" kind of artist. Album opens and closes with a couple bangers, does OK with a Beatles cover and then shuffles through whitesy funk a lot with a bunch of songs I've already mostly forgot about. I think it's the "I'll forget about this" that makes this seem so flat as an album.

Nope.

I was surprised this album was included on this list, but then again, there's probably not a record that epitomizes the execrable early '00s hard-rock era like this one. After hearing many of these song a bazillion times on the radio during that era, it's hard to separate it from one of the most mookish spans of music. I hadn't listened to this end to end since I reviewed it on original release. I remember then thinking that it was a successor to PWEI, and, man I sure was optimistic (stupid?) in that regard. These days, it comes off just like a slightly less idiotic Limp Bizkit, and most of non-stupidity comes from the fact that Bennington seems unable to sing about anything other than his feelings - no context for them, no situations, nothing but emo, emo emo. Yeah, someone else has probably already pulled on that rather uninteresting thread since his suicide. There are dozens of other albums from his epoch that are probably worse if you're going to go back and listen, but why would you? Millennial tough-guy-with-feelings hard rock is something we just need to let go. Forever.

This is one of those albums that have been reviewed 99 million times in more than 50 years. Yay for listening notes. As an album it's good - just not my thing unless I'm in a very precise mood. It's good, but not quite sure why this is heralded as one of rock's pinnacle achievements.

Getting this the day after "Exile on Main Street" was weird. Hearing this right after that one, it really struck home how when the Stones weren't trying so hard to be the kind of band Alan Lomax recorded, they had some good songs. These were, invariably, the least American blues/roots influenced - "Gimme Shelter," "Monkey Man" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" - that really makes me wonder why they spent so much time chasing the blues and not working toward their strengths.

So seemingly primitive on its surface, this is one of those albums that just haven't been replicated since it was recorded. I'm sure having Bowie at the decks helps, but this is raw atmosphere. A classic.

This will always be the sound of the dorms to me.

Awful taste, good execution. I have no idea if I'd ever heard any of these songs before in my life. If I hear them again, I don't know if I'll remember them when it happens.

The song that epitomizes this album is "Music for the Last Couple." It's musically interesting and took a lot of skill to put together. Also, it's just not all that fun to listen to, nor is it particularly immersive. I'm a decently big fan of The Jam - have all the albums on CD and pretty regularly listen - but "Sound Affects" is a weird one for me. On one hand, it has some of the band's best tracks - "Start" and "That's Entertainment," the latter being arguably their best song ever, at least lyrically. It also has songs that probably didn't need to see the light of day ("Pretty Green" and maybe "Set the House Ablaze"). This album was where The Jam hit the point of diminishing returns: All the albums before this were better, and "The Gift" is even less interesting. (Or maybe "Setting Sons," the album prior to "Sound Affects," is better seen as the band's artistic zenith?) It's a shame, as the band's mix of Northern Soul and Motown into its London (Woking, actually) could produce some of its best, most interesting songs, it came with a tradeoff of more clunkers.

Even though I never really listened to Deep Purple before, I always figured that if I gave them a chance I would hate them. I was right! Unbearable '70s hard rock at its douchey-est.

With more than 20 years of perspective, this really does seem to capture the Pitchfork bro vibe of the early '00s. It's sad and melancholic and easy to listen to. Its use of strings screams sophistication, if you're the kind of person to confuse a large studio budget for sophistication. It was also a transformational record - something those hipsters really got on board with - as Hansen seemed to stop fucking around with the party sound and get down to serious biz. It captured the timber of the self-important early aughts, but, man, it's just another folk-thing chronicling the unbearable pain of being white and boring. These songs are fine enough, but are they worth making room in your life for? Not really.

An immediate and unfiltered look at teenage loneliness and lust. Punk’s promise is shaped into a different form on a record that still seems amazingly modern.

NPR world-beat wankery.

This really seems like the kind of album I would like. '77-era punk. NYC art-school nonsense. The playing is just so stupid, and even at this early stage David Byrne is insufferable.

I know, I know that jazz is the foundation of all rock music and the bedrock of human culture and all that other crap that old white guys on NPR say. But, damn, it's also the wellspring of basically I hate in rock: outwardly flashy showmanship for the sake of showmanship, structure that's all over the place, "music for musicians," and all the other chin-scratching concerns of ponderous quasi-intellectual music praise.

I was surprised that I didn't hate this.

Bob Dylan is the Boomers' ultimate scourge on all later generations. Had his name (and Daniel Lanois) not be attached to this, this is just some dork-assed, coffee-shop dad playing blues that nobody wants to hear.

I’d heard peole talk about Thundercat, but never heard him before this. I didn’t know what to expect, but not this. This is goofy, wacky stuff that seems exactly like what that band on Cartoon Network’s “Adventure Time” would play (another thing I’ve never heard before). Or maybe Meat Wad would be part of it? I don’t know. It’s just so silly and goofy, it’s impossible to hate. It’s also impossible to take very seriously, too. I guess it’d be your jam if you want to hang out with sentient food products who make music or kick out the jams with a magical princess and a talking dog or whatever the fuck that show is supposed to be about.

This wasn't a mid-'00s emo album, but it sure benefitted from its proximity to it. Instead of using punk-inspired theatrics for the the overwrought drama and bludgeoning sense of self-importance, Muse taps into a weird mix of glam rock, pseudo-prog and other pretense. It's never particularly good at any of it, and even almost 20 years later, seems just like a bunch of nerds trying to come off as something more meaningful than they are.

This is one of those albums I vaguely remember from college house parties. Before listening to this, all I could tell you about Tribe was Q-Tip was in it, and they had a lot more mellow tunes than the tough-guy guns'n'bitches bullshit of early hip-hop. I dig the chill vibe and the stronger basis in jazz, but still think Q-Tip's voice is the main reason to come back. Like most hip-hop, not my thing, but it's chill.

There was so much press surrounding Pete Doherty and his rocky relationship with the rest of the band before this, opening this with "Can't Stand Me Now" was a stroke of genius of its own right. Arguably one of the coolest opening tracks when taken into context of the dialogue at the time. Anyway, just when punk was getting all stuck up on tween-ready bubblegum and tough-guy posturing in the States, the Libertines came through and showed just how much life was still in the old style. Sure, it doesn't sound like The Ramones or Sex Pistols or Black Flag, but neither did "London Calling." (The Clash's Mick Jones produced this, in case you forgot.) So unless you're stuck on skate- or pop-punk formula as the only available flavor for the genre, just embrace that this is a direction that punk went in the early '00s. It's crazy all the contortions listeners and punk-averse critics were about that realization. This isn't indie rock, and was never shooting to be it. I get that it spawned a lot of godawful shamble-rock (remember The Fratellis?), but this is a pretty singular take on British punk - and really punk worldwide - that still stands up a couple decades after it hit shelves.

As much as I've been told this is a work of staggering genius and the most influential piece of music since the Magna Carta, I just can't bring myself to enjoy it. "God Only Knows" and "Caroline, No" are pretty OK. The rest is white-white-white bread.

When this hits, it hits hard. When it doesn't, I understand why Prince supposedly has like 328,356 unreleased songs in his vault when he died.

I've had a physical copy of this for probably 25 years, and have only listened to it maybe 10 times. The Stones are weird: They had some truly iconic rock songs on here - "Sympathy for the Devil," "Street Fighting Man" and, to a lesser extent, "Stray Cat Blues"- but all they really wanted to be was a blues band. They're not a great blues band. There's probably a lot of "you can't always get what you want" in there. The hits save this from disaster, but it's not a fun record to listen to.

I was pretty familiar with more than half of these songs, which is testament to their popularity in 1989 and 1990. I'm not sure if I've heard any of them since 1995, which is testament to their staying power. Cheese metal perfected.

This isn't something I'd return to frequently, and is outside my usual stomping grounds, but it's really captivating. I've never really heard anything else that sounds like this and is engaging to listen to, which seems all you can want from a concept piece like this one.

I've always wondered why Big Black wasn't more popular with the punks.

This is the most overrated band in the world.

It's wild that this type of music was still being made the same year that Abbey Road, Led Zeppelin, Tommy and The Stooges were released. This album is so whitebread and lame.

I guess I can see why this got popular at the time. I can also see why it's been totally forgotten outside of the title track. Early '90s Gen X styled "end of music history" stuff that was probably destined to become an evolutionary dead end.

Depeche Mode is one of those really, really rare electronic acts whose older songs don't sound outdated or cheesy, even decades after the fact. I know Violator gets a lot of (deserved) love, but this is also a hell of a record.

Meh. It's like a bunch of dudes who wanted to be The Clash as well as be commercially smash popular got together, and came up with this. It's fine, but opened the door to a lot of late-career bullshit from U2.

Obviously great.

She's obviously a tremendous singer. Are these tremendous songs? Hoo boy, no.

This is neither an important nor interesting representation of grunge.

The '00s revival of '70s hard rock was one of the worst, most needless things to happen in that decade. Even setting aside the unnecessary portion of this, Kings of Leon were among the most bland and uninteresting of that crew.

This really seems like something I should like: atmospheric and minimal production, cold instrumentation, male/female vocals, programming. It's fine, but ultimately kind of mundane.

This was so omnipresent in the late '90s, but then disappeared. I hadn't heard these songs in ages. Artist's voice is weird and interesting. The backing tracks are generally nothing, studio musician doing alt-rock ish stuff. I'd never really paid much attention, but most of her lyrics are crapola. Still a fun enough listen for old time's sake.

Yawn. Still.

I don't know if this would have had the same impact if it wasn't from a longtime artist released right on his deathbed. Like Bowie's "Blackstar," it's hard to separate an artist exploring mortality around the same time they're dying. I guess he gets as pass for his decayed voice because of that. That said, this is decent enough Cohen, separate from rock'n'roll but highly influencing rock'n'roll. It's fine. I don't think I particularly need to revisit it.

This was my first "discovery" on this list, although I was vaguely aware of this band. This brings a lot of theater kid rock that came in its wake into clarity. It also shows just why we needed punk rock. You can probably guess my rating based on that last sentence. Somehow, I already knew I hated Bryan Ferry though.

This is one of those rare '50s releases that doesn't sound cheesy and totally viewing rock'n'roll as a teen fad. These songs hold up well. So much that I'll forgive all the stupid saxophone solos.

This holds up remarkably well.

This is the shitty relaxation music they play when you're getting a massage on top of the shitty late-'90s electronica they play when you're watching whoever opened for the Prodigy in 1998. This is fucking horrendous and gimmicky.

This is pretty mediocre, even as far as prog-rock goes. I think if it wasn't for At the Drive In, Jeremy Ward's OD right before the album and Flea's absolutely bizarro appearance on this, it would have just skated under the radar.

I feel like liking Queen is an anachronistic fragment left around from days when people didn't know better, like smoking and casual racism.

I liked them better during their pop phase, as uncool as that is. Classic performances, but also the classic criticism of relying on too many covers.

This is the background music for a weird and boring dinner party I hope I'm never invited to.

I hoped I'd never have to hear this guy again. Big Beat was crap in the '90s, and this aged very poorly.

I was really familiar with three of the songs on here, and relatively familiar with another, but I'd never listened end-to-end to a Sabbath album before. These songs work out a lot better in album format than when crammed between "Midnight Rambler" and "Master of Puppets" on some dumb-ass hard rock radio station. I was impressed with the amount of groove on most of these songs. Ozzy's lyrics are obviously stupid and written to impress eighth-grade boys, and there are some really bad moments (i.e. the Moby Dick-esque drum solo on Electric Funeral), but this was better than I thought it would be.

I know appreciating Jack White/The White Stripes is shorthand for "I appreciate rock history," but, dang, this is just boring. It's been more than 20 years with Jack White's music, and aside from those big White Stripes singles - "Fell in Love with a Girl" and "Seven Nation Army" - pretty much everything Jack White does is just forgettable. It can't even muster a position to be unlikable. It's just boring.

This is like if Pink Floyd and Queen had a kid, and then one of those bands turned into a psycho stage mom and forced that kid to become somehow even more ridiculous than its parentage would indicate. I think I'd only known that "Bruce" song and "Mr. Blue Sky" from ELO, and deliberately avoided them because of that. Good move, me! I know there's a big ideological divide about this and that generation of three-chord wonders, and it's obvious which side of the fence I'm on. This is overwrought, sterile and overproduced. On the plus side, this reaffirms my belief that I will almost certainly hate any album that has an airbrushed spaceship on its cover.

This was pretty cool, especially considering the year it was recorded. There's a lot going on in this ambient stuff, which is really interesting and more engaging than some of the drone-based stuff.

I still don't like hip hop. Sorry.

I like Sonic Youth, but I wouldn't call this essential listening.

Man, this is boring stuff.

This was pretty OK. Do I ever want to hear it again? Not particularly.

Was this put on here just because it was a Mercury Prize winner? It's fine, but doesn't seem like something I HAD to listen to before I died.

This was the first cassette I ever owned when I was seven, based, I guess on the success of "Karma Chameleon," or whatever the heck got a second-grader to buy music in 1983. I got rid of it as I grew older, probably before I started junior high. I don't regret that. I still could sing along to most of the choruses if I wanted to. This is scratched into my brain. That said, I had no idea how vocal-forward this was until now, and how straight-ahead pop/blue-eyed soul it was. Like, if this wasn't sung by a white guy in drag, essentially pretending to be a Black woman, there'd be no reason to even lump this in with new wave. Clearly positioned to crush early MTV, this was just pop. I'm confident that outside the Hot 100, this wasn't culturally significant or musically relevant. No hip young gunslingers are calling Culture Club an influence, and they never have.

Yep. This is what Prince sounds like.